Live with faith, work with faith, love with faith

True, lasting strength is born out of humility. Over and over this lesson is taught to us in scripture as well as literature (See Chariots of Fire, Gandi). I particularly like Nephi's prophecies concerning America. He says,

16 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them.

17 And I beheld that their mother Gentiles were gathered together upon the waters, and upon the land also, to battle against them.

18 And I beheld that the power of God was with them, and also that the wrath of God was upon all those that were gathered together against them to battle.

19 And I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations.
If I wish to gain true strength in God I have to become humble, rely on him, and have faith. All this is pretty straightforward but we need to pin faith down in this context. By having faith I mean that you must act, move forward, and live life fully trusting God even when you don't comprehend all things; its not just faith in every footstep but also faith in every goal we make, faith by the work we do, its faith for the dreams we strive to achieve, and the chances we take (live with faith, work with faith, love with faith). If we do all this, we are blessed immediately and we set ourselves on a path that leads to true greatness. It is this concept that helps me understand Spencer W. Kimball's statement, "man alone, of all creatures of earth, can change his thought pattern and become the architect of his destiny."
There have been times in my life when I've really been able to apply these principles and here's a few extra insights I have from my experience. First, you have to "patiently wait on the Lord." He'll fix everything but he's going to do it in his time frame, and he's going to work from his blueprint. You can't worry when you start these positive habits if things don't proceed as we think they should, sometimes we have in mind only slight touch up to our spiritual house while Lord intends to completely remodel (C.S. Lewis), you just gotta know its going to be good even if at times it's a little uncomfortable. Second as we are humble, rely on the Lord, and have faith, we will soon notice that things begin to change for us for the better, and when they do you have to rejoice in the Lord, because he is the true author of our success not us. "for my strength is made perfect in weakness... for when I am weak, then am I strong!" (2 Cor 12: 10,12)

Deep Question of the Soul

The saying goes, "you can't win em' all." However when we really think about our lives, our successes failures, disappointments etc… Don't we have a tendency to feel our disappointments much deeper than we appreciate our successes? Sadly I'm afraid this happens too often, I guess in a way it's a natural tendency, humans are funny creatures.

However if we really meditate deeply on this issue we would realize that life isn't about your ratio of success to failures. The point is our character, and in the end the supreme weight of who we have become far outweighs any accumulation of success or failure in life. Isn't this obvious though, in literature and film there is the constant motif of the man who is successful in everything and yet a sham because he lacks character, and his counterpart the man who has lived a hard life full of suffering, and self doubt, yet has through his difficulties in life gained a truly noble character (e.g. It's a Wonderful Life, The Bucket List, Tommy Boy, as unrelated as they are, they all have this motif).

One reason that we enjoy movies that have these types of characters is that we all long to believe that no matter what type of person we consider ourselves to be, there really is purpose in it all. We really do have to strive to be happy, it is an art, and one of the most important ways we perfect our ability to be happy is to seeing the beauty in everyday experience, celebrating our success (both large and small), and seeing the opportunities and purpose behind failure and disappointment.

"You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." (Desiderata)

Anybody want to help start a charity?

Ok so in case you didn’t hear the restaurant idea has been canned. It so happens that the city would require building modifications to the tune of $20,000 and since I don’t have a large inheritance from a far off uncle to spend frivolously I’m going to put that idea on the shelf for a while; and pick up another one.
I’ve been thinking abou this for a while and I’ll have a little free time next semester so I think I’m going to run with it. I’ve taken a few classes and read some books on economic development and poverty (See the article http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/64611 ). It turns out poverty is a very tough thing, there are no easy answers, and economic development is a young field of scholarship (really only since WWII), but it’s not like you can just give up. What I am interested in is charitable funding. The US donates about 2.2% of GDP per year to charity, a grand total of 295 Billion dollars (1). Just think if the US was committed to an idea like tithing; that would equal over 1.2 Trillion dollars per year, or about $166/yr for each of the 6 billion people on earth (not bad considering half of us live on less than $2 a day)2. So the question for me is how do you increase charitable giving in the US?
Individual donations account for 83% of the US charitable donations (Mega gifts like what Buffet and Gates give account for just more than 1%)3. The rest of the charity is divided among government, businesses, and corporations. What surprises me about this breakdown is that more than 50% of the world’s wealth is found in corporations (4). I’m still studying up on this so perhaps this conclusion is premature but it seems like businesses and corporations could and should give more. That’s what I want to address, so here’s the rough idea of what I have in mind:

1. The problem with many charities is that they depend too much on one time donations, that just doesn’t cut it, what you really need is a cash flow. Therefore we design a system in which businesses volunteer a percentage of their net revenue or profit, maybe one, two, or five percent, whatever they decide.
2. There needs to be some type of justification for businesses, otherwise this is only a tax which will be passed onto the consumer. The justification I’m thinking of depends on the implicit contract every business makes with any customer (you know, I give you money and you give me some kind of service or good). Why couldn’t you include in that contract the agreement that by keeping them in business they make the community better? It’s been done before (5), it’s called 'cause marketing,' and it has worked well the few times it’s been implemented. What we do is give the business stickers or something to put on their windows which say something like “Ask us about Business Giving Back,” and then a big fat number which is the percentage they give. Inside the business you have some type of pamphlet to give out which explains what exactly Business Giving Back is, and a small sheet of paper which lists the causes the business is supporting (now that’s good PR).
3. Another problem is that money gets put in the wrong places. Does it really matter how much money we throw at poverty if people still stay poor and disadvantaged? Therefore you need a group of people who can evaluate the charities and only allow the business to put money in charities which are approved. Now here in Provo you have about 50,000 budding young college students a great number of whom are studying economics, finance, marketing, international development, etc… We need a group of people who are qualified to create criteria and evaluate charities; we also need a group of people to market this to the public and companies. If we get these people together throw up a website we’d be in business (of sorts)!

Ok so this is still premature, I’m going to consult with some old professors, and I still have a lot of research to do. But what do you think? Am I off my rocker? Will this work? Is there already someone else out there doing this? I would love to have any input I can get!

New Post Coming....

Due to high public demand the blog is back! A weekly entry coming soon.