Mantle Versus Spirit
Teaching is tricky business, especially where religious doctrines and practices are concerned. Take, for example the concept of the mantle. When Latter-day Saints are set apart for a calling, we often refer to them taking upon themselves - or receiving - the "mantle" related to that calling. We probably associate this most often with missionary and leadership callings, but to an extent we also apply it to any calling.
I'm working on the assumption that this mantle refers to the special spiritual gifts, authority, and guidance that enable the person called to be qualified for the office he or she holds. We also notice a lack of this mantle when the person in question is released. For example, a Stake President of mine was recently released. He happened to live in my ward, and attended Gospel Doctrine class almost every week. During his time as President, he carried about him an aura of authority and spirituality. He was a student of the scriptures and an intensely spiritual man, but you could discern with your spiritual eyes a presence directly related to his calling. For lack of a better way of expressing it, he "looked" like a Stake President, and his words carried extra weight regardless of the capacity in which he spoke.
After his release, he lost this mantle and no longer carried with him this presence. My question, to illustrate the point of this post, is this: is it necessary for my former Stake President (or anyone) to lose his spirituality with his mantle?
I think the answer should be an obvious, "no." But consider how we treat this subject in the church sometimes. In the case of a Stake President or Bishop, few if any members I know would suggest a loss of closeness to the Holy Ghost accompanying the loss of the mantle. We and those we speak of would probably say that the gifts they enjoyed previously are now altered to fit their changed stewardship. That makes sense and I think that's the way it works.
But what about the case of full-time missionary service? Don't we expect, even train our young men and women to anticipate a loss of spirituality when they return from their missions?
We often hear and say, "once you go back to real life," or "getting back into the swing of things," necessarily separates a person from the Spirit of God. We expect a missionary, who has the temporary calling of preaching the gospel in our neighborhoods, to be more spiritual and closer to the Lord than are we, who have the permanent calling to do so. Furthermore, we expect the returning missionary to lose that spirituality and closeness. The most pertinent question that comes to mind is this: if that is true, why would you ever try to go back? Isn't it destructive to our purpose and our souls, if this is the case?
We all know that we can't continue the full-time missionary lifestyle and raise a family and get all the education possible and do everything else that is expected of us once our missionary service has ended. I think that is where this idea springs from. But shouldn't we be striving to raise the lives of ordinary members to the spiritual heights missionaries obtain? Shouldn't we be trying in the real ways, the ways that matter? Tracting and teaching discussions and going to mission conferences don't matter to spirituality. What matters is personal commitment to following the promptings we receive from the Lord. Heeding the prophets' words and following them matters. Studying and applying the scriptures matters. Fulfilling whatever our current role is with the same zeal, thoughtfulness, prayerfulness, and diligence that the best missionaries have is what matters.
In a way, missionaries have it easy, because they have nothing else to do. Our blessing is to learn what that life is like as missionaries, and our challenge is to learn to maintain it when we return, not hopelessly abandon it.
So why do we try to drag our missionaries back down to their old lives when they return? In many cases, they don't want their old lives back. I didn't, anyway. Only they think they have no choice because we always say that things will be worse for them after their missions than on their missions. Of course we encourage them to get married and seek to obtain the highest order of the priesthood, the most sacred covenants, and the longest, purest, and best work of their lives (raising a family). But then we turn around and try to dictate a loss of spirituality during the process. Does that make sense to anyone? It seems a less than encouraging message to send.
Do we do this to ourselves even more than we do it to others?
Perhaps one reason we see this so markedly in missionaries is that their calling is universal in its authority. Their stewardship is unto every person within their sphere of influence. No matter where or when we meet a missionary, we sense that he or she has a special dispensation of authority towards us. Even in the case of a Stake President the stewardship is more limited than that. Then there is the feeling we sometimes have when we are released from our missions or from other callings. We feel our stewardship - our mantle - evaporate. We know the Lord is no longer speaking to us about the same things.
But that does not mean that He is not speaking.
It may seem strange to some, but the most spiritual time of my life was my honeymoon with my good wife. We met as missionaries and worked together frequently in that environment, but I never felt the Holy Ghost as powerfully or as constantly as I did during the 10 or so days that we spent together immediately after our marriage. At no other time have I had as complete an understanding or experience of what the real promise of the Gift of the Holy Ghost is - to have His constant companionship. I think it is because I was doing nothing but the will of the Lord during that time, as I understood it. In other words, I was doing the same thing that I did as a missionary, in spite of the vast differences in the actual activities of the two periods. I thought about what I was supposed to think about. I did what the Spirit prompted me to do. I said the words the Lord gave me. I was fully involved in my stewardship and God-given role and I accepted His guidance in helping me fulfill it.
What one of those things can we accomplish as missionaries (or any calling) that we cannot accomplish as ordinary people?
I'm working on the assumption that this mantle refers to the special spiritual gifts, authority, and guidance that enable the person called to be qualified for the office he or she holds. We also notice a lack of this mantle when the person in question is released. For example, a Stake President of mine was recently released. He happened to live in my ward, and attended Gospel Doctrine class almost every week. During his time as President, he carried about him an aura of authority and spirituality. He was a student of the scriptures and an intensely spiritual man, but you could discern with your spiritual eyes a presence directly related to his calling. For lack of a better way of expressing it, he "looked" like a Stake President, and his words carried extra weight regardless of the capacity in which he spoke.
After his release, he lost this mantle and no longer carried with him this presence. My question, to illustrate the point of this post, is this: is it necessary for my former Stake President (or anyone) to lose his spirituality with his mantle?
I think the answer should be an obvious, "no." But consider how we treat this subject in the church sometimes. In the case of a Stake President or Bishop, few if any members I know would suggest a loss of closeness to the Holy Ghost accompanying the loss of the mantle. We and those we speak of would probably say that the gifts they enjoyed previously are now altered to fit their changed stewardship. That makes sense and I think that's the way it works.
But what about the case of full-time missionary service? Don't we expect, even train our young men and women to anticipate a loss of spirituality when they return from their missions?
We often hear and say, "once you go back to real life," or "getting back into the swing of things," necessarily separates a person from the Spirit of God. We expect a missionary, who has the temporary calling of preaching the gospel in our neighborhoods, to be more spiritual and closer to the Lord than are we, who have the permanent calling to do so. Furthermore, we expect the returning missionary to lose that spirituality and closeness. The most pertinent question that comes to mind is this: if that is true, why would you ever try to go back? Isn't it destructive to our purpose and our souls, if this is the case?
We all know that we can't continue the full-time missionary lifestyle and raise a family and get all the education possible and do everything else that is expected of us once our missionary service has ended. I think that is where this idea springs from. But shouldn't we be striving to raise the lives of ordinary members to the spiritual heights missionaries obtain? Shouldn't we be trying in the real ways, the ways that matter? Tracting and teaching discussions and going to mission conferences don't matter to spirituality. What matters is personal commitment to following the promptings we receive from the Lord. Heeding the prophets' words and following them matters. Studying and applying the scriptures matters. Fulfilling whatever our current role is with the same zeal, thoughtfulness, prayerfulness, and diligence that the best missionaries have is what matters.
In a way, missionaries have it easy, because they have nothing else to do. Our blessing is to learn what that life is like as missionaries, and our challenge is to learn to maintain it when we return, not hopelessly abandon it.
So why do we try to drag our missionaries back down to their old lives when they return? In many cases, they don't want their old lives back. I didn't, anyway. Only they think they have no choice because we always say that things will be worse for them after their missions than on their missions. Of course we encourage them to get married and seek to obtain the highest order of the priesthood, the most sacred covenants, and the longest, purest, and best work of their lives (raising a family). But then we turn around and try to dictate a loss of spirituality during the process. Does that make sense to anyone? It seems a less than encouraging message to send.
Do we do this to ourselves even more than we do it to others?
Perhaps one reason we see this so markedly in missionaries is that their calling is universal in its authority. Their stewardship is unto every person within their sphere of influence. No matter where or when we meet a missionary, we sense that he or she has a special dispensation of authority towards us. Even in the case of a Stake President the stewardship is more limited than that. Then there is the feeling we sometimes have when we are released from our missions or from other callings. We feel our stewardship - our mantle - evaporate. We know the Lord is no longer speaking to us about the same things.
But that does not mean that He is not speaking.
It may seem strange to some, but the most spiritual time of my life was my honeymoon with my good wife. We met as missionaries and worked together frequently in that environment, but I never felt the Holy Ghost as powerfully or as constantly as I did during the 10 or so days that we spent together immediately after our marriage. At no other time have I had as complete an understanding or experience of what the real promise of the Gift of the Holy Ghost is - to have His constant companionship. I think it is because I was doing nothing but the will of the Lord during that time, as I understood it. In other words, I was doing the same thing that I did as a missionary, in spite of the vast differences in the actual activities of the two periods. I thought about what I was supposed to think about. I did what the Spirit prompted me to do. I said the words the Lord gave me. I was fully involved in my stewardship and God-given role and I accepted His guidance in helping me fulfill it.
What one of those things can we accomplish as missionaries (or any calling) that we cannot accomplish as ordinary people?
Comments
Maybe it's less a loss of spirituality and more a loss in a specific focus?
The missionary and stake-president examples are apt: these people have a specific calling which focuses their spirituality. Would it be too weird to call them lasers, and the rest of us lightbulbs? Same amount of energy, less precise focus.
I don't know if this is a good road I'm traveling down, but it's got me thinking, at least.
I remember when I came home I was pretty omnidirectional, like a light bulb. My mission president had gone to great lengths to convince us that we didn't need to go back to the old ways, and I didn't even come close for a long time. But in order to do that, I had to find places to focus my energy, as you say. I became much cleaner, more involved, more thoughtful, studious, and solicitous of intelligent conversation than I had previously been.
I think the loss comes when we try to get back the pre-calling lifestyle. We consider its absence a loss. This is more prevalent among returned missionaries in my opinon, but then I don't know nearly as many former Stake Presidents.
This post was prompted by a gospel doctrine lesson in which the teacher claimed that loss of spirituality was inevitable after the mission. I was shocked at how many people agreed - almost in those exact words. My fine wife and I (who served in the same mission) were the only ones who maintained that such a loss was not necessary if spiritual commitments and attitudes were altered appropriately. We were not talking about perceived spirituality, but a personal distancing from the Holy Ghost. That's what the class was saying couldn't be avoided.
I certainly don't make a habit of contradicting an entire class of thoughtful people, but I just felt that that was wrong. Maybe I'm the one who's off here, but I don't think so.
As I read your post, I also thought that the spirituality of "normal" people, versus the spirituality of the missionary or someone else called into full-time or near-full-time Church service, has to be balanced. Missionaries are thrown into an unreal balance, one that can probably last, in most cases, for just a couple of years. But this tipping of the scales, as it were, helps them recognize the highly individualized ways the Spirit works in their life. That way, when they get home, they have a standard to judge themselves against as they strive to achieve that ever elusive spiritual balance.
Such spiritual balance, as the scriptures and prophets suggest, provides the leaven in our lives. We don't have to study the scriptures all the time; we don't have to live in the temple; we don't have to spend all day on our knees praying. In fact, as Dallin H. Oaks suggests, such zealotry can actually prove to be our downfall. Yet, we must do these things daily, just as a musician needs to tune their instrument frequently, to keep the chords pure, to keep ourselves attuned to the spiritual melodies and overtones of our existence as children of God.
That's what you got me thinking about, anyway...
Interesting point, Tyler, re: learning about the Spirit while in that 'unreal balance.'
(off topic, but it didn't seem appropriate to say at AMV)
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I've appreciated your mannered and well-expressed responses on the current question. They've given me much to think about --- mainly by clarifying my own thinking on the topic.
I see what you're getting at. It's interesting, as Th. says.
I want to state again that I'm not talking about the activities that occupy most of the day, I'm talking about a personal relationship with Deity and the communication of the Holy Ghost. Even though missionary life is conducive to these things, I don't think coming home should be a "step backward" in spirituality. Instead, it should be a new arena in which to apply what we've learned. The same goes for any calling.
What I'm speaking against is the idea that spiritual regression inevitably accompanies the loss of a mantle as well as the careless sayings and practices that teach this concept to our youth.
I assume you're referring to the discussion on AMV?
Thanks. I thought I was rather in over my head there.
Sorry---logged into the wrong account at the time.
It's probably harder to see the spirituality inherent in the temporal word (eg, working for wages, changing diapers) than the spiritual (trying to introduce people to Jesus). Part of our faith is believing that connection is there, but it's a heckuvalot less obvious.
You've just put the heart of what I'm getting at much more succinctly than I have been able to do. In all of our preparation of each other (especially the younger generation) for missionary service, temple ordinances, and other callings and activities in the church, we should be teaching communion with God in our daily lives and continual progression from one step to the next.
In my experience that doesn't happen enough, but it's the "smaller," daily moments that are the most reassuring to me.