When Pres. Bush was re-elected in 2004, he talked about having gained \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political capital.\u00e2\u20ac? He chose to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spend\u00e2\u20ac? it on Social Security reform, which didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work out so well for him. I want to offer a few thoughts about us gaining and using \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spiritual capital.\u00e2\u20ac?<\/p>\n
First, what do I mean by spiritual capital? Capital is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153accumulated goods devoted to the production of other goods.\u00e2\u20ac? So spiritual capital is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153accumulated spiritual goods devoted to the production of other spiritual goods.\u00e2\u20ac? In some sense what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about here is karma \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the [spiritual] force generated by a person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac? (thanks m-w.com). While we usually think about this in eternal judgment terms \u00e2\u20ac\u201c i.e. the good things I do now will produce good results later \u00e2\u20ac\u201c here I want to talk about spiritual capital in terms of our membership in wards.<\/p>\n
Moving into a new ward is always a strange thing. On the one hand, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the much-ballyhooed experience of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153having family\u00e2\u20ac? wherever one goes in the Church. As clich\u00c3\u00a9d as this can be, I find that it is true; I generally have a stronger connection with Mormons, wherever they are, than I do with my neighbors or other people of similar racial, class, gender, and even professional backgrounds (hence I like the Mormons-as-ethnic argument, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s for another time). But we all know that not all family members are entirely equal, at least in terms of their functionality (i.e. my crazy Aunt Bev). So when you move into a ward, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re checking it out for how comfortable you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be, and everyone is checking you out as to whether you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll fit in and, perhaps more importantly, contribute.<\/p>\n
Based on my personal experience and various conversations, the type of people who are suffering through this post might be the type of people who have some angst about fitting in in most LDS wards. This is not because the people who are reading this (i.e. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you\u00e2\u20ac?) are bad people, or even as weird as my Aunt Bev, but generally because you have a somewhat different intellectual makeup than the majority of Mormons (and the majority of people, period). You think about slightly different things, and you think and talk about things in a slightly different way. Perhaps neither better nor worse, but different. You probably think of yourself as an intellectual\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor informed, or thoughtful, or whatever-adjective-having-to-do-with-higher-brain-function-you-choose\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand other people generally see you the same way.<\/p>\n
You know that many Mormons are a bit suspicious of “intellectuals,” not because Mormons are dumb, but because “intellectuals” sometimes talk in ways that are unfamiliar or challenging or seemingly heterodox\u00e2\u20ac\u201din short, different. And to be labeled as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153different\u00e2\u20ac? when you move into a ward creates some problems for you, both for your social life and in terms of what callings you receive, etc. This is not ideal, we would probably agree, but I think it is generally true. You know you have interesting things to say, and interesting ways of looking at things, and you want to contribute your perspective and experience to your new ward. But you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re also afraid of being labeled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153different\u00e2\u20ac? if the first words out of your mouth are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153different.\u00e2\u20ac? What to do? Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where spiritual capital comes in.<\/p>\n
I think that if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve built up enough spiritual capital in a ward, then you can spend that spiritual capital in contributing your unique perspective. Spiritual capital is built by participating in all the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ordinary\u00e2\u20ac? aspects of church life, which people generally recognize as virtuous within the church: you serve in callings, you home teach and visit teach, you volunteer to help people move or to take meals, you show up pretty much every week, you act friendly, etc. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to pretend you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re someone you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not (so here I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking to someone who values the behaviors I just listed). Before too long, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve built up enough spiritual capital that you can start to spend it.<\/p>\n
Let me talk in more personal, concrete terms. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been in my ward for seven years, serving in all kinds of callings, and generally trying to be a contributing member of the ward. Over that time, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve built up a fair amount of spiritual capital that I can choose to spend as I want\u00e2\u20ac\u201din other words, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m able to say some pretty \u00e2\u20ac\u0153high-cost\u00e2\u20ac? things in classes because I know my comment won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be seen as having \u00e2\u20ac\u0153insufficient funds\u00e2\u20ac? behind it. For instance, a few months ago, my wife & I were having dinner with an established family in the ward (he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the bishopric, she was stake YW pres, their sons all serve missions, etc.). I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how it came up, but we started talking about Joseph Smith & the Book of Mormon, and before you knew it, I was blabbing about seerstones and folk magic. This was the first they had ever heard of such shocking details, and they had plenty of questions. I put these details into a faithful perspective, and shortly thereafter, I was asked to give a ward fireside about the translation of the Book of Mormon, with a specific request to talk about seerstones. Then, in a Primary activity a couple months ago, this same member of the bishopric taught the kids about how Joseph translated the Book of Mormon by staring into a hat.<\/p>\n
For me, this was spiritual capital well-spent, as I think there is real spiritual and pedagogical value to telling our story correctly, and in wrestling with the truth rather than a sanitized or fabricated version of it. You may spend your spiritual capital in other ways, whether it is talking about women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s issues or whatever. But I am convinced that if I did not have sufficient spiritual capital, my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153different\u00e2\u20ac? notions of BofM translation would have been marginalized or seen as destructive, rather than seen as a means of nurturing faith, even in the young.<\/p>\n
I should add that I think our capital is only well-spent, and will only \u00e2\u20ac\u0153produce additional goods,\u00e2\u20ac? when it is done with pure intent, in the service of the Kingdom, not in the service of our own intellect or ego.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Pres. Bush was re-elected in 2004, he talked about having gained \u00e2\u20ac\u0153political capital.\u00e2\u20ac? He chose to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spend\u00e2\u20ac? it on Social Security reform, which didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work out so well for him. I want to offer a few thoughts about us gaining and using \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spiritual capital.\u00e2\u20ac?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}