Latest / MIDDLE GROUND - Real Conversations on Faith, Identity & Becoming — Through Brynne's LDS Lens of Curiosity, Love and Doubt / Is God Fair? Rethinking Equality, Tithing, Scripture & Universal Spiritual Laws and Mormonism/LDS
Transcript
- Brynne Erickson (00:28) So I haven't done a solo episode in a while just because I haven't had anything that has felt needed to say. And I'm a very intuitive person. In fact, I will start talking about something and I will just kind of feel myself starting to ramble and I just know it's time to stop and it's not what I needed to actually say. And that topic isn't something that I'm ready to talk about yet, which is very interesting, but it has served me well. And I have had lots of awesome conversations in the past couple of weeks and some concepts and thoughts that I've been chewing on, journaling about, thinking about, and I'm ready to share with you. We're gonna be talking about fairness and equality, principles. specifically on tithing and the law of sharing and giving. And then some insights I have on a new version of the Bible I've discovered specifically for children that I am loving, not only for my kids, but for myself and some thoughts that I have about scripture. So let's dive into it. really excited. And a lot of these things have stemmed from personal experiences that got me thinking about them. So water bottles, that's where we're starting with sameness. My son grabbed a mug from our water bottle drawer. It is like a coffee mug, an insulated mug, there you go. And it had a lid on it where the little latch like slides forward and back for a sipping, you know, a hot drink. And he'd never seen this one before and he wanted to use it. But he asks me, mom, Why is this one the way that it is? My three year old, okay. And I looked at it and I said, well, it just serves a different purpose. And my crazy brain immediately starts thinking about people and how there are so many water bottles and they are all for drinking, but like in different ways and in different styles and for different types of drinks. There's some more conducive to soda and really cold drinks and others for hot drinks and some are better for smoothies like blender bottles. And I just started thinking about water bottles and like even a specific one, like it comes out of a factory as the exact same identical water bottle. And that one water bottle comes out and has one specific purpose. And I think for too long, we have thought of people like we come out of a factory. Like, you're human. Therefore, you have this purpose and you abide by these rules. And you have this function and you do it in this way. And I do think we're getting better at realizing that we are way more different. even though we are all human and we have a lot of the same functions and body parts like what makes us work our specific makeup and that is way more complex than we thought and bodies are so different and minds are so different and hearts are so different and desires on and on and on all the things that make us human are different even though they look similar and I think we have a lot more work to do on that. I remember teaching this to my students when we would make leveled math groups and assign leveled reading books, Brynne Erickson (04:29) And I would do this activity with my third and fourth graders at the beginning of the school year where I would give a card to everybody. On the card was an ailment that they were experiencing for pretend. And I was the doctor, I was sitting at the front of the room and I'd invite them up one by one, calling them up out like a patient and they could hammer it up all they wanted. It was really fun. And no matter what, the circumstance was they got a bandaid. Bloody nose bandaid, sprained wrist bandaid, hurt knee bandaid, tummy ache bandaid. They all got a bandaid except for about three of the kiddos. They would come up and I would treat their ailment more specifically. So sprained wrist, they get an ace bandage and an ice pack. Hurt knee, we'd prop it up on a chair, wrap it up, give them an ice pack. and it was just an awesome way for them to understand that getting the same thing isn't always the best. It isn't always necessarily fair or equal and that there are times when truly what we need specifically is best. And that's going to look different for everyone and can change and evolve. And that was just really helpful for them. to keep that in mind throughout the year and moving forward. And then as we would create groups and we'd separate for our math class or our reading groups, they were, I think, more appreciative to be getting what they actually needed rather than ⁓ thrown into a group that wouldn't be helpful for them. Brynne Erickson (06:16) And I actually looked up on Google, I asked it, me why equal isn't always fair. And it summarized its thoughts into something I really liked. it says... Equality is giving the same, what it means everyone receives the identical amount of resources or treatment. When it works in situations where everyone starts from the same place and has the same needs like a standard assembly line and why it fails, it doesn't account for different abilities, background, or specific circumstances. So fairness is giving what's needed. So what it means is providing individualized support. to ensure everyone has an equal chance to succeed. And when it works, it fosters inclusive environments and helps overcome existing disadvantages. And why it's necessary is to create a genuinely level playing field for individuals who may have different needs or have faced different challenges. And I don't think God intended. for us to come down here and be like, ⁓ you all make sure you join the right church because that's where you're gonna. make it back to me. That's where you're gonna have the best chance. ⁓ And I feel like that would be just a horrible guessing game. How would you actually know that you found the right thing? And there's so many people that don't, would never find it or have access to it. And I think there are beautiful visions, especially in my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where We send missionaries out into the world and they preach in hopes that it grows and may bring people to the truth. And I think that's a beautiful endeavor. But I'd like to believe now that it's more about uniting, coming together as humans in love and a common cause to help each other. to lift each other, to bring more light into this world, not bring each other into religion, but just bring each other into the fold of unity, of same like-minded heart and spirit. And that is such a worthwhile endeavor to me. I guess cheesy and cliche, but world peace, right? I think that that is something worth working toward. I don't know how, I don't have a solution at all. But if the solution is to find the right church, that doesn't resonate with me anymore. ⁓ But I do believe that God is bigger and better and ⁓ does love, created us as we are, not needing. to change, like we are meant to be beings of light and love and see what we're to become. Like I remember when I left the work field, it was really hard because I was now at home, but I also was trying, I was dabbling in entrepreneurship and I had lots of big ideas and I didn't know which one was the right one. and I was stuck and I was frustrated. And then I just realized, ⁓ I just get to choose. Like they're all great. I just get to choose which one I wanna work on right now, what I wanna focus on. And it doesn't make sense to me anymore that God would send us down here and be like, make sure you figure out who you're supposed to be. And if you don't get it right, I don't know. I, it makes me more excited to think that our only parents sent us here and they're like, okay, we're excited to see who you become. We know the potential that you have. We know what circumstances you're being sent to. You got this. Do your best. We're cheering you on. You're amazing. And to me, that's more like agency driven. Like we got to come here and choose. Maybe God knows our actual outcome. I don't know, again, I almost kind of like the idea of it's this create your own adventure and everyone on the other side is just as excited to see what your outcome is going to be as you are. And who actually knows, and I'm okay with either one. But again, I like this word fairness more than equality, getting equal or getting what you need. to help you have the best chances at success. It makes it more individualized and we're all humans with different purposes and desires and all the things, just like there's lots of different water bottles that are all for drinking, but some are better for other drinks and it's great, isn't it? ⁓ So that's what my three year old taught me these past couple of weeks got me thinking about. And tithing, the principle of tithing. Before we dive into that, I have been on this quest to just kind of peel back the layers of religion and really get to the essence of what the gospel is. I mean, really religion is built around principles. And that is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is, I believe. They're just basic ideas, basic rules, if you will, ⁓ to guide us in making decisions. And yet a lot of, so many of these principles have been layered in rules. and exactly how you're supposed to do it and what it's supposed to look like in order for you to achieve the outcome I think was the intent. But it's just been way more limiting. And again, it hasn't been, I think we meant for it to be fair, but it hasn't been. It has limited us because we are all different. and would like to do things in our own way. And one of these principles is tithing. So I believe in universal spiritual laws. So they're available to everyone, no matter what religion you participate in. And one of the examples of this would be what tithing is. So the spiritual universal law of giving, which is the universe thrives on circulation, give and receive. So we each need to participate in that, in what you give is what you put into this world is what you receive and what people give. to you, you need to receive in order for them to get back what they put in. Like it's this constant give and take and it's a beautiful thing. So if you are one that's resistant to receiving, I highly recommend working on that ⁓ because you're blocking the flow of abundance because you're not allowing this law of. giving and receiving. So I like you believing in universal laws because they're available to everyone. no matter what you believe or where you live or how you do it, how much you can give, what you give. It is all based on you and your heart. So my husband and I were going over our finances. for the week and we were gonna get caught up on tithing. And he asked me about paying tithing on your gross or your net income. So before or after taxes. And we got talking about that and I just shared, I have come to believe that the law of tithing is based upon this principle. This law, I don't know that God ever intended it to become a specific number. or with money. And I've actually been listening to, I listen to some LDS podcasts and I've been listening to, Saints Volume One. And it brings up like the history of why we actually started mandating tithing, which was really interesting, right? Like it was an optional thing. at first and then, I'm not gonna quote it because I will do it terribly, but at some point it became a mandatory thing. And then at some point it became a worthiness thing, like a have to do in order to go to the temple, It hasn't always been that way. And I just think it's more this law because God loves everybody and wants everyone to partake of as much joy. and peace and happiness in this life as we can. And so universal laws are great guides and available to everyone, no matter where you live, what your circumstances are. And I think tiding was meant to be that it's not about 10%. It's not about money. It's about contributing. It's about giving and helping to the cause of humanity. And I've never had a problem with tithing. Even with my new thought process, I still don't have a problem with tithing because it's contributing to the law, the universal law of give. And I believe in it. ⁓ Even when we were in med school and living off of my teaching salary, we were so grateful, And anytime, I've always been really generous, but my parents were always really generous. And I lived a very abundant life and saw the fruits of their labors and just had a testimony of the law of giving, not even just tithing, but giving. So when the Boy Scouts would come and knock on the door, I'd give them five or $10 if... They ask you to round up at the grocery store. do every time when it says give a tip. I always give out like one dollar Even I don't know what they actually did or didn't do I know people come up with reasons of why they don't give tips or they have like their formulas of how much work ethic people put in in order to The tip that received for their takeout whatnot. I always just do a dollar ⁓ just a little something. It's just an automatic now and we have always received so much and not just in money but in people's time, in people's things, meaning like meals or even a phone call or help. I've received help in beautiful ways in my life and you have to Look for those evidences too, because how often are you in the situation of we're doing the things, but we're not seeing the results? Well, you have to be looking for evidence of the results. If you're not, there's a quote that whatever you put your focus on, that's what you're gonna see in the world. Whatever you're looking for, you're gonna find it. So shift your focus to what you really wanna see. Evidence of... abundance of what you are being blessed with, the joy, the peace, the love. And I promise you'll find it. It may be small and it may seem insignificant, but the more you look for it and you fall into gratitude, it just becomes contagious. And you feel so full and happy that that's what you just look for. And that's when you really start finding that joy in that piece. So there you go. Principles and my take on universal law. And lastly, I'm really excited to share this version of the Bible with you. Before I do, I found myself stuck in scripture, meaning I didn't know what to think about it. A couple of years ago when I listened to this podcast on Faith Matters. And it was an interview with Dan McClellan. And I don't specifically know his background. He is a scholar. I'm sure he has a lot more credentials. But he was talking about the Bible. And I just remember him basically saying, like, yeah, we read the Bible and we make sense of it in a way that works for us. and some of the things we take literally and some things we don't. And like we cherry pick what works for us from the Bible. And I was like, what? I don't understand this, but it also made so much sense to me. Like it was new, it was a new concept, but I just didn't understand why we put so much emphasis on these books that were so old from people that. Couldn't even relate to like sure we can relate to like lessons that they learned like that's the cool thing about scripture right is you really can't apply it in your own life but I didn't understand why it dictated so much of what we think and what we do in religion and Yeah, just people from another place another time It's hard to understand And that podcast episode was super helpful. And I will link that in the show notes for you. And I've actually still been taking a break from scripture. In fact, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we spend a year on the different books of scripture, including the ones that we've adopted into our own doctrine. So we'll spend a year on New Testament and the next year on Old Testament. I'm probably doing these out of order. And then a year on the Book of Mormon. And then a year on the Doctrine and Covenants. Doctrine and Covenants is essentially a book of the revelations that the leadership of the church received during the organizing of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So that's the Doctrine and Covenants, and that's what we studied this year. And then the Book of Mormon, ⁓ I'll tell you the story, is a book of scripture that the prophet Joseph Smith was guided to a set of gold plates that were hidden in Palmyra, New York in the ground by a prophet long, long time ago. And he was given them. He translated them. I'm summarizing this. He translated them and he wrote them down. And that's how we have the Book of Mormon today. Feel free to dive into it more. Feel free to think about it what you like. That is the story in a nutshell. So in the LDS doctrine, we read the Book of Mormon and refer to it a lot. It's another book of scripture and it's not only for us, but it is for the world and I it's funny at the beginning of each year the past Three years. I'm like super gung-ho about the Book of Mormon and then I fizzle out throughout they're not even just like Disinterested but it just doesn't even connect to me and that happened with the Doctrine and Covenants this year. Like I was super pumped And then about May, I just like, I am struggling to connect with this. I'm just finding so much negativity and that's on me. evidently my mind is searching for like things that I don't like right now. So took a step back from that. I'm doing religious world studies right now and that has been beautiful and very helpful. But. I have wanted to start reading the scriptures more with my children. We have not done that at all. Our oldest is almost seven. And I just was really wanting to read scripture, but the traditional ones were not working for me. And thankfully my aunt recommended a Book of Mormon set to me that I bought. And it is called the Book of Mormon Storybook. and it is by Josh and Sarah Sabie. I'm probably saying that wrong. I'm sorry, you guys. And they just took the stories of the Book of Mormon and wrote them in kid-friendly language and they have beautiful artwork in them. And we are really loving these. And there's two volumes and their company is called Four Little Saints. And I will link that in the show notes as well. But my favorite one I'm loving right now, and actually Dan McClellan, the scholar that I mentioned, he took one of the stories of the Bible and wrote it in kid-friendly language, along with a bunch of other scholars. And this Bible is called God's Stories as Told by God's Children. It's an illustrated storybook Bible. I bought it on Amazon. and it's brought to you by the Bible for Normal People. And I'm gonna read you the introduction because I just love it so much and you're gonna hear why it resonated with me based upon what I told you my previous thoughts and current thoughts actually still are about the Bible. So here we go, the introduction of God's stories as told by God's children brought to you by the Bible for Normal People. Before you begin your adventure through these pages, before you meet the kings and queens, tricksters and tax collectors, prophets and poets that pepper its pages, there is something you should know. The Bible is weird. There, we said it, but maybe you already know this. Maybe you've heard the Garden of Eden story and thought, huh, snakes don't talk, weird. Or maybe you've heard about Noah and the flood and wondered how'd Noah get all of those animals on one boat, weird. Or maybe you've heard stories about Jesus and thought people can't walk on water. Weird. So we agree, the Bible is weird, but why is it so weird? That, you clever kid, is a very good question. The Bible is weird because the Bible is old. Not old like a grandpa, but really old, ancient even. Can you count to 100? How about 1000? Well, keep counting because the Bible was written thousands of years ago, back before books or cars or buttons or guns or phones or even underbands. had been invented because the Bible is old. There are going to be stories in here that seem scary or strange or harsh or silly or just plain weird. Some stories might leave you with more questions than answers. Old stories from ancient times didn't always follow the same storytelling rules that we have today. So if you are reading something and it sounds weird, remember things written thousands of years ago might sound weird to people today. And that's okay because the Bible is ancient and we are not. The Bible is weird because it has many storytellers. The Bible was written by lots of people. We can't tell you exactly how many because nobody knows for sure. But we do know that it was a lot. But what's really fun is that these people did not know they were writing the Bible because when the Bible was being written, the Bible hadn't been invented yet. What? Weird. Let us explain. The Bible is not one book. The Bible is made up of many books, and these many books are made up of many stories and laws and prophecies and songs and teachings and other kinds of ancient storytelling. The stories we find in our Bibles today were very special to ancient Jews and later Christians, especially when times were hard. Through them, they could see God at work in their worlds. So they gathered these many writings together and retold them in four Let's see, in and for their own times and places. But before that, before they were gathered together, these stories were special to the people who told them and heard them and the people who wrote them and copied them over and over. These storytellers were often very different from one another. They lived in different times and places. They believed different things. Sometimes they even disagreed with one another because the Bible stories are told by many storytellers. The books that make up the Bible can sound different from one another. God's stories, as told by God's children, also has many storytellers, just like a grown-up's Bible. As you read this book, you might think, this story sounds and feels different from the one before it. And you would be right. When the stories of the Bible were gathered together, the many different voices of the storytellers were kept. So the Bible and this book sound like many conversations. These are the conversations you are invited into today. So as you read this book, remember, your voice is important. Your questions are important. Your thoughts and your feelings as you read through these stories are important. conversations you have about these stories are important. because the Bible shows us that many voices are needed to tell God's stories, including yours. Man, that hits me every time. And I think it's because to me, scriptures represent real people. Real people! At least I believe they do. Not like maybe Noah wasn't a real person. And I don't even think Adam and Eve were real people these days. But they were real. to the person who wrote this story. and people who told this story over and over again, maybe they didn't even think Adam and Eve were real, but it represented something real. The principle, the concept, what God wanted them and us to know. And that feels real to me. We are all just humans trying to make sense and we have been since the beginning of time. And we do it in our own way based upon our own life experiences, our own biases, our opinions, our needs, our desires, our wants, our disappointments, our mistakes, all of this creates how we view the world. and how we view the world influences the stories that we tell. way that we explain things. And that's why I do think that scriptures are beautiful and I don't take them as literally anymore. I don't put as much emphasis in putting them into my life. I'm saying that wrong. don't I guess I just don't put as much weight. There we go. I don't put as much weight. on like how I do the things in the scriptures or even if I do it all. But I do think they give great advice and we really can connect with them and we really can take ⁓ lessons and things that we do want to apply into our own lives from them. That is the magic of the scriptures. It was never meant to be a tool to make us feel like we're doing things wrong or to be a power move. over certain groups of people. So, but it is a tool that we can use to learn from, but I learned from lots of other books too. I learned lessons from every book that I read. I learned lessons from every Disney movie that I watch. We are just making sense of what we take in. And I think that's why it is a big responsibility to be cognizant of what we are putting into our lives because it does affect us. But this book is amazing. I'm not that far in and I just love the little nuggets that the stories give you. I am as an adult and understanding these Bible stories better than I ever have in my life. And in fact, we just finished the story about Rebecca and when, what's his name? came to get her to take her to Isaac to be his wife and I love it. The camels came to the well carrying the gifts and obviously you can tell I don't know these Bible stories like super well, but the camels came bringing gifts and it says this was surprising not just because strangers didn't turn up at the well all that often, but because camels didn't help people in this way for at least another few hundred years. They were still pretty wild in Rebecca's time. So it's kind of wild that they are in this story. Nevertheless, Rebecca took the stranger and the camels in her stride. Like little nuggets like that. That was kind of like, ⁓ interesting. I wonder why that is. But we can show Grace. scriptures, maybe reframe them if that's something that you've been struggling with. Maybe this will help you a little bit. If you maybe need some different voices, some different perspectives, try these versions of the Bible and the Book of Mormon. And I wish you luck and I hope you find the joy and peace and love and happiness that you're searching for. Find evidence of it every single day. and you will have it. Make it a great one. I am cheering you on, you awesome human you.