Real Life Answers

Poised just at the brink of rock face that dropped sharply away below me, I stalled on my mountain bike, wondering how I was going to get up the courage to ride down it, and once I did, whether I would make it down without major spine or neck injuries, and if I didn’t, how I would explain to my wife  why it seemed like a good idea. The problem was, paused right there between going and not going was probably the worst point to be making the decision to go down or not. First, I wasn’t in the position I would have needed to be in to make the descent (rear end needs to be way off the back of the saddle). Second, starting the descent from a standstill, any little nervous twitch of the brakes could send me endoing face first off the drop.

So, I decided to rewind. I backed up a good 10 or 15 yards from the drop off, thought about it for a second, then took off for the edge. Just as I was approaching the brink, I wondered if it was a good idea, but I knew by then it was too late. I had committed already, and willy-nilly I was going down that rock.

What does it mean that I had committed? It means that I had previously decided to go through with it, but more than that, it means I had in essence tied my hands (by riding with some speed) to prevent myself from reneging on my decision if at some point it started to look less like a good idea.

Why would tying your own hands ever be a good idea? Why commit to something and thereby lose the freedom and flexibility to make a different choice down the road? Isn’t it always better to keep your options open? The answer, oddly enough, is no. Some economist friends of mine have thought a lot about this question, so I’m going to steal some of their ideas, and mingle them with another great thinker’s.

As far as I can tell, there are two basic situations where the answer to “should I commit?” is “yes,” or in other words, tying your hands is a good idea. The first is when for whatever reason you are much better suited to make the “right” decision now than you might be later on down the road. On my bike, I knew that at the brink I was likely to be overcome by an irrational fear of hurtling down a steep rock face, and therefore I was much more likely to make the “correct” decision of whether to go for it or not from the more removed vantage point of a few meters back.

The second basic situation is when you are making a plan with another person (or persons) that will make you both better off if you go through with it, but would leave one of you much worse off if the other reneged down the line. Like a classic prisoners’ dilemma, or, say, a marriage. Without the possibility of committing, two people thinking about such an arrangement would know that down the line one or the other is going to find jumping ship better than staying with it, leaving the other worse off than if they had never gotten into it in the first place. So by thinking they are “keeping their options open” in not committing, they are actually shutting down an possibility that would make both of them better off.

I believe that one reason God wants us to worship Him and live our faith as part of a religious community (as opposed to, say, on my own out on my mountain bike as I might do otherwise) is precisely because of the opportunity it gives us to commit to living our faith. By investing in relationships with others at church and publicly promising to live my life a certain way, I’ve committed, because now there’s an immediate and salient cost to straying off the path.

Sometimes it seems like commitment is more and more something that people try to avoid like the plague (exhibit A: rising age at first marriage). They shouldn’t, though. The most important things in life–for me, my family and my faith–would have no chance without it.

Marriage is supposed to be about one-ness. The Book of Genesis says man and wife “shall be one flesh.” At least for me and my wife, when we got married we replaced our separate bank accounts with a joint account, got rid of our separate college pads in favor of our own one-bedroom, and, most importantly, embarked from the safety of our respective parents’ families to begin our own new family. Sure, we still have our separate interests–I love mountain biking, she loves making awesome cakes, but in all the most important ways we are (or try to be) united.

So what about faith or religion? Shouldn’t a married couple at a minimum share this most personal, spiritual aspect of their lives? As difficult as marriage can be in the best of circumstances, do two people who differ on something as fundamental as the meaning and purpose of life and where we’re headed after it have any chance at a happy, enduring marriage? One of our readers, Sam, asked us for our take on this. He had fallen “head over heels” with a girl who was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a Mormon). After investigating the church for six months, he still had not gained a conviction that it was true. While he had no problems with her being a member, and even liked the part it played in her life, he anticipated that there might be problems down the line with how they would raise their children, and so he decided to end the relationship. But his question remained: ”do you think that a ‘non-member’ as you like to call them, could have a happy life with a member of the church, assuming that he never ends up joining the church?”

Here’s my take, Sam: yes, I think a ‘non-member’ could absolutely have a happy life with a member of the church, even if he never ends up joining the church. I think Mormons make excellent spouses–I married one myself! The values that we are taught to aspire to live by–honesty, fidelity, love, sacrifice, family–would tend to enrich any marriage, regardless of the religious persuasions of either spouse. But your happiness, Sam, is only one half of the matter. What about her happiness? Could she be happy even with no prospect that her husband would ever join her in her faith? I personally know several examples both ways: couples where one partner was a faithful member of the church and the other to the very end was not, yet their marriage was lasting and happy, and raised a great family. I also know examples where at first one partner was far from ever joining the Church, but eventually did–my wife’s grandparents are an example of just this scenario. And sadly I also know cases where the split-faith marriage did not last and ended unhappily, although you can never be sure it was because of the difference in faith. But the fact that there are examples of happy, lasting, split-faith marriages is proof that it can work.

I won’t pretend to be able to give sound marriage advice (my wife would laugh at the prospect) but two thoughts come to mind: the first based on common sense, the second on my Mormon perspective. The first thought is that a difference in faith is a significant difference, and a potential source of stress among many that any successful marriage will have to work through. A difference in faith just adds one more piece to the mix, but like other inevitable differences, it can certainly be worked through. My second thought touches on what I alluded to before: what about her happiness? If she is a devout Mormon, chances are she believes in and hopes for marriage and family relationships that will last beyond this life. One condition for forming an eternal marriage, however, is that both parties have to subscribe to it. It’s hard to imagine that all other things equal, she wouldn’t find more happiness in a marriage that she believed was going to last forever, rather than until death do us part. But of course “all other things” are never equal, and it is possible that you and her truly are a match made in heaven, despite your differences in faith. In that case, I would only encourage you to leave open the possibility that at some point in the future you could experience a change in heart, and come to truly believe in the faith that is such a big part of her life.

Possibly the only two clear days so far this year in Seattle happened to be on the weekend of my little brother’s wedding a week and a half ago.  Lucky guy. Even luckier that my new sister-in-law (who’s great) agreed to marry him. But luckiest of all that he was married by an authority and in a place where marriages do not have an expiration date at death, but can last forever. And any children that come into their family will likewise know them as father and mother forever.

The belief that family relationships can continue even after death sums up most of the fundamental doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (my friend Ashley also posted about this on this blog) First, it implies an afterlife. But not just any afterlife: an afterlife where it makes sense to even talk about things like husband and wife, parent and child. In other words, an afterlife that is essentially an extension of this one, where “that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy,” complete with a perfect physical resurrection of our flesh-and-bone bodies.

Our belief in forever families means we believe in a God who is our father in a very real sense, and on whose relationships with us we model our own family relationships. Our belief in forever families goes hand in hand with our belief that God authorizes his power (which we call the priesthood) to be used by men on earth, for these eternal marriages are still performed by men. Our belief in forever families also means  we believe God communicates with us today, because it is by relatively recent revelation to modern-day prophets that we even have this doctrine, and we certainly try to seek personal inspiration when deciding whom to marry (since the stakes are so high for us).

Finally, forming an eternal family involves making a covenant with God, or a solemn promise to live our lives according to his will, and the covenant we make at marriage just  happens to be the culminating one in a series of covenants that begin at baptism. We believe making and keeping these covenants is the key to living a happy and fulfilling life here on earth and to assuring we reach our potential in the life to come.

That about sums up what it is to be Mormon.

Witnessing my little brother forming his own family that will last forever, and spending time with my own brothers and sisters and parents (for the first time in way too long) while celebrating the occasion reinforced strongly how much I love them and value my relationship with them. Even more so, having flown back to Boston to rejoin my own wife and kids, I am grateful to know our family will endure beyond the grave.

So will I see my family after I die? I believe the answer is yes, but not only will I see them, but they will still be my family. That is pretty awesome.