Desire

My Book of Mormon reading this week was Alma 13-16. Out of all the thoughts that occurred to me during the reading, I want to focus this post on Alma 13:27, where Alma says, “I wish from the inmost part of my heart, with great anxiety even to pain, that you would hearken to my words . . .”

From a previous reading, I had written in the margin next to this verse: “What do I most wish? What gives me pain?” That is, these words got me thinking about desire. Desire has been an important theme in my spiritual reflection over the past several years. I’ve come to believe that desire is a key dimension of the spiritual life. It’s by paying attention to our desires that we discern the guidance of the Spirit—what the Spirit is impelling us to do. It’s also how we discern our vocation, our mission on earth. Attaining our desires, or at least pursuing our desires, is how we achieve the joy God wills for us.

When I say “desire,” I’m not talking about spontaneous impulses. I’m talking about those desires that persist over years so that they become a driving force in your life. To paraphrase Alma: I’m talking about those desires that arise from what you apprehend to be the innermost core of your being; the longings, yearnings, aspirations, passions that won’t leave you alone, that keep coming back, that pursue you, that haunt you; the things that you can’t imagine living without, that you can’t imagine not doing; or alternatively, in the case of unattained desires, the things that you can’t bear to be without, that won’t let you rest.

Later in the Book of Mormon, the brother of Jared says that we have been commanded to pray to God “that we may receive according to our desires” (Ether 3:2). Nephi’s vision in 1 Nephi 11 begins with the Spirit asking him what he desires (1 Ne. 11:1). Twice during an appearance to the New World twelve, Jesus asks what they desire of him, or want they want him to give them (3 Ne. 27:2; 28:1). Some of the earliest revelations in the D&C include the promise, “Even as you desire of me so it shall be to you,” and, “According to your desires, even according to your faith, it shall be done to you” (D&C 6:8; 11:17). Also in these early revelations, we find an expansion of the Gospel of John, in which Jesus asks John, “My beloved, what do you desire? For if you ask what you will, it shall be granted to you” (D&C 7:1). These promises are a corollary to Jesus’ teaching that “whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that you shall receive, it shall be given to you” (3 Ne. 18:20).

Obviously, these statements can’t be read facilely. For one thing, human beings have a knack for wanting things that are bad for us. So the scriptures’ promises about desire should prompt us to be discerning about the consequences of our desires, for ourselves and for others. “Trifle not with these things; do not ask for that which you ought not” (D&C 8:10).

For another thing, God can’t override agency—our own or others—to guarantee that we get the things we desire, even if those desires are right. Alma wishes from the inmost part of his heart that the people of Ammonihah will repent; but in fact relatively few do, and many of those who do are soon horribly martyred. In short, Alma doesn’t get his heart’s desire, though presumably that isn’t because of any lack of faith on his part. Many, many, many people never attain their innermost desires—slaves who never gained their freedom, suffragists who didn’t live to see women get the vote, people who never escape poverty. I could multiply examples endlessly, of course.

But what I hear the scriptures telling me is that God wants to give us the desires of our hearts. And to the extent that God is able to make that happen, God’s will is accomplished, and the work and the glory roll forward. An important principle to emphasize here is that God wills to give each person what he or she desires, and the scriptures make clear that God doesn’t expect us all to desire the same things. In the story of the Three Nephites, and then again in the story of John the Beloved as told in D&C 7, Christ gives different vocations and blessings to different people based on what he knows will bring each person joy. “You shall both have according to your desires,” Jesus tells Peter, referring to John, “for you both joy in that which you have desired” (D&C 7:8). This, I take it, is the logic of an afterlife composed of diverse worlds and glories: because in the end everyone will want different things, and God is perfectly happy to give each of us what we want.

There are three major desires, I’d say, that have shaped my life over the course of the past several years. One is the nostalgia that after my LDS mission kept pulling me back to the Dominican Republic. I’ve made a number of return trips to the island since then, the most recent being a mission trip to Haiti in December 2007. At one point I even went looking for a teaching job in the DR and received an offer from an English institute; but by then I’d realized that I didn’t have the emotional stamina to live there on my own, which is to say that I couldn’t have what I desired. That was a saddening, frustrating realization, and I didn’t really come to terms with it until almost a year later, during the retreat at the Trappist monastery I mention in my profile. But my desire for the Dominican Republic, and for the mission experience I had there, has been very important for nurturing my faith in God, my involvement in service, and my commitments to social justice.

A second major desire that has shaped my life has been my passion for writing about Mormonism, meaning both my Mormon studies scholarship and my interest in articulating liberal understandings of Mormonism. I’ve been writing in those veins since during my mission; I’ve been able to do quite a bit of publishing (or at least public writing), ranging from academic articles, to books like the Easy-to-Read D&C, to LiberalMormon.net. This passion persisted even through the years when I told myself I was moving away from Mormonism, and, in fact, this passion is largely what kept me rooted in the Mormon tradition after I became inactive. I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful that this is a desire I’ve been able to achieve. It is a chief source of joy in my life.

Third, there’s sexual desire, which as I understand it is about much more than hormones and genitalia. Sexual desire is an impulse toward intimacy—the desire to become one with another human being in a uniquely intense way, so that the two of you become one life, one soul, one flesh. It took me years to make sense of my sexual desire: first, to decide that I was gay; second, to decide to live as a gay man; and finally, more concretely, to begin to figure out how to build a life partnership with a particular man. This desire, too, is one I’ve been blessed to realize and a chief source of joy for me. There are a lot of people, of course—a lot of my fellow Saints, especially—who are convinced that it is wrong for me to pursue this desire. In the face of that opposition, I draw conviction from the knowledge that I prayed to seek God’s guidance about entering the relationships I have. I’ve taken comfort over the years in the message of D&C 7: that Christ gives to those he loves whatever will bring them joy; and if what brings someone else joy is different from what brings you joy, “What is that to you?” (7:4). “You shall both have according to your desires, for you both joy in that which you have desired” (7:8). As we’ve been promised elsewhere: God gives to all, liberally.

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Desire of nations, Giver of all good gifts—

I give thanks for those wishes of my heart that I have seen, and am still seeing, fulfilled.

I give thanks for my experiences in the Dominican Republic and Haiti—for the relationships, for the physical environment, for the way that being in that place makes me come alive. I give thanks for how my experiences there nourished my faith and shaped my politics. I gave thanks for the service I have been able to render during my various visits, small though that has been.

I give thanks for my intellectual gifts and for the opportunities I’ve had to apply them to studying and expounding on the Mormon tradition. I don’t know how much service my writing has been to others. I pray that it will be of service—or at least, I consecrate it to you to do with what you will. But in any case, I give thanks for the joy that my study and my writing have brought to me.

I give thanks for being born in a time and place where I can live as an openly gay man. I give thanks for my partners—my first partner, with whom I first experienced the challenges of sharing my life with another person; and now my second partner, my current partner, the one I hope to be with for a lifetime and forever.

I pray for my parents, my siblings, and their families: may they have what they desire. We’ve all grown to have different desires, some of which are incompatible. I put that in your hands. I don’t know what else to do about it.

I pray for all the people I’ve known in the Dominican Republic and Haiti—those whose names or faces I still remember, and those I don’t. May they have the lives they desire.

This sudden thought seems strange to me, but I’ll say it anyway: I pray that you, O God, will have what you desire. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

In Christ’s name, amen.