Shifting Our Thinking: The Second Shift
By M. Catherine Thomas
Last time, we considered the First Shift in our thinking to help us come to Christ. We saw that one of the hardest things for conscientious people to accept is that all our unworthiness, failings, inadequacy, and all that we lament in ourselves, have already been paid for – in a way, they’re a given; taken for granted. The Lord’s Atonement makes it possible for Him to issue a very sweet invitation just to come to Him. We resist this gift, but it can open a new dimension and change everything.
We also saw how refusing the gift and indulging in negative self-evaluation can plunge us into powerlessness. But the Plan of Happiness is so designed that first we come to Him and then we work out things with Him. The spirit of this free gift is captured in a poem I want to share with you. Here we have a dialogue between Love, who represents the Lord Jesus Christ, and a Sinner, who represents any one of us. The setting seems to be an abundant feast:
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.1
This poem describes things-as-they-really-are: the right to come to Him is a free gift, no matter how much dust and sin.
Now, as to a second shift we could make in our thinking, we turn our minds to what has happened to us since we left that premortal world of Light and entered this narrower, darker world, reduced from our premortal capacities, and our memory veiled. We see that without the memory of who we really are, we begin to create something of an artificial self, a mortal overlay,2 where false perceptions and distortion layer over the brilliant, eternal, premortal spirit. As this artificial overlay accumulates with stuff, our fears, our personality distortions, our weaknesses, our pride, our blindness, our contraction of spirit, our controlling behaviors, our unlove, all these begin to lodge in the overlay, acting like mists and clouds over our brilliance and beauty, troubling our behavior and experience.
But the Savior lifts the veil for us when He tells us who we really are: “Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth” (D&C 93:23); and, “The day shall come [that you shall know] . . . that I am the true light that is in you, and that you are in me; otherwise ye could not abound. Because we are of the Spirit of Truth, and because Christ’s Light of Truth gives our soul life, there are many transcendent and divine qualities in us. We can’t help it – that’s just who we are.
Our problem lies in our identifying more with our artificial self than with our eternal self. But we can choose to stop identifying with this false self’s doubt and negativity, and awaken more to our eternal self which holds these transcendent qualities. These qualities include Reverence for All Life, Pure Love, Perfect Faith, and an innate ability to Commune with the Lord.
There’s one additional step we can consider here that helps us identify more with our transcendent qualities: the Lord invites us to use our mind in a deliberate way, in a meditative way, so as to open access in our soul to Him: “Pray always and I will pour out my Spirit upon you….” (D&C 19:38-41); “Look unto me in every thought, doubt not, fear not” (D&C 6:36); “If your eye [mind] be single to my glory, your whole bodies shall be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you…. Therefore, sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God.” (D&C 88:67); and “[They that] … always remember Him … may always have his Spirit to be with them” (Moroni 4:3).
The reason we don’t do this form of meditation (if we don’t) is that we think it won’t make any difference – but I testify that it does, because the way we use our mind either blocks or opens our spiritual experience. If we knew how much depended on using our mind the way the Lord has instructed, in quiet sitting time or as we go mindfully about our life, we’d make every effort to find creative ways to remind ourselves to do it, until like a pump that needs priming, Spirit flows to us.
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