“Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” – Robert Frost
A man bought an exquisite pearl for a high price. He wanted to showcase his beautiful pearl, so he searched and searched until he found a sufficiently ornate and beautiful box to put it in, and he invited others to come admire the pearl. The box was itself so fascinating that many who came to see the pearl were so awe-struck by the box that they barely noticed the pearl. The pearl was overlooked because of how elaborate and ornate the box was.
Clearly, this story is about the difference between the gospel (the pearl) and the church (the box).
Sometimes people say that someone is a good Mormon, but not a good person. That’s a similar line of thought to the pearl and the box. You can be good at doing all the outward things a Mormon is supposed to do: paying tithing, not drinking coffee, tea, or alcohol, not swearing, you can attend church and accept callings, you can show up for service activities, you can serve a mission, you can feed the missionaries–all these things are the hallmarks of a “good Mormon.” You can do all these things, and still not be a good person. You can be a hypocrite or harbor resentments, you can judge others, you can be a passive-aggressive manipulator, you can lay a snare for your neighbor, you can use your institutional power to hurt or control others, you can be an indifferent parent or partner, you can let your fears cause you to harm the vulnerable out of a sense of self-protection.
“I looked in temples, churches & mosques. But I found the Divine within my Heart.” ~ Rumi
Every person lives with a mix of good and bad impulses. Sometimes a good action (like paying tithing or following the Word of Wisdom) is done for bad motives (to gain approval of others, to avoid embarrassment, to appear more righteous than others.) Being self-righteous (or being focused on being right and making others wrong) is incompatible with actually being righteous.
I’ve been really enjoying the posts by the other bloggers on what a middle way Mormon is, and whether it’s a sustainable approach. I’d like to take the radical position that it is the only sustainable approach. When you focus on fealty to church leaders (or their inability to lead the church astray), when you focus on scriptural authority or whether something literally happened historically rather than attempting to live the principles and precepts being taught with earnestness and humility, when you focus on the “truthfulness” of the church, or its authority, rather than focusing on the gospel, you value the box more than the pearl, and just like the public alms-giver, you have your reward. Your reward is the approval of the community or of the church’s authorities. That is certainly a very human failing common to communities of Christians, but it’s not what it means to be a disciple.
These are all human impulses–the desire to be right, to win an argument, to be better than someone else, to feel justified in our actions–and they are the very things Jesus’ teachings expose. Like the Potemkin Village Pres. Uchtdorf talked about, the facade of perfection we put up is the sin. Leader worship is another aspect of this facade of perfection. Making an icon of the church, its leaders, its scriptures, or anything like it is putting one’s trust in the arm of flesh. It’s a distraction to get us off the hook for the difficult thing: living the gospel. Following leaders is the easy (and sometimes wrong) thing. Learning to discern truth for ourselves is the valuable and harder thing. If someone’s key takeaway is how to obey human leaders in this life, what a waste of intellect and potential that will be! I wouldn’t want to live on their planet. I can’t imagine any God we worship would achieve godhood in that manner. That’s how we achieve success in temporal endeavors (sucking up to a boss, playing the game, going along to get along), not eternal ones which require a sacrifice of all that.
The point of our existence is to grow, to learn to become our best selves, to gain wisdom through experience. Going to church for me surrounds me with people who don’t think just like I do. I can learn from them, sometimes by learning what not to do, and sometimes by observing what is admirable. They don’t get to vote on whether I belong or not, and only I can say what I get out of my experience. At church, I am surrounded by all kinds of people, the bigots and the big-hearted, and they are often the same people at different times. I don’t know if any of them are going to the celestial kingdom any more than I know I am. None of us is good enough on our merits.
The box always competes with the pearl. I like a fancy box as much as the next person, but the pearl is what keeps me interested. Like an oyster with an irritating grain of sand in its flesh, the pearl keeps me in limbo, questioning my own actions, hoping to do better, afraid of my own hypocrisies and self-righteous impulses. I’m as prone to having a beam in my eye as the next person. Sometimes I’d like to chuck the box and just carry the pearl in my pocket. I don’t know why it has to be on display for others anyway. It’s for my edification. It’s supposed to refine me. I don’t need anyone else to appraise it or explain it to me.
That’s the middle way.
Wheat & Tares 
This seems exactly right, thank you! I wouldn’t call this the middle way but the only way, as you have said. Love this.
This conundrum is true for not only the LDS Church but nearly if not entirely all denominations. So, how does one decide to beteeen all the various boxes in which to reside since in a number of ways they can do more damage than good?
For me, I must be resolute in my own journey of faith regardless of the box I find myself inhabiting.. Secondly, while recognizing the value and need to belong to a community of believers, I must make decisions regarding such based upon whether the box gives me a clearer understanding of the character of our Heavenly Father or does it detract. After all, isn’t that the point?
Beautifully said!
hawkgrrrl, I like it. But it is not clear to all that the pearl is the gospel and the box is the church. On another site exploring BKP’s little parable I found “The teachings of the living prophets and apostles, the Seventy , the Presiding Bishopric, and the general auxiliary leaders that originate from the Conference Center are the pearl of great price.” It seems BKP may have been referring to the conference center as the box. In view of some of the things originating from the Conference Center that seem in conflict with the gospel of Christ, I rather like your interpretation better than the one I quote here.
JR, yes, I thought it was pretty ironic that BKP missed the point of his own parable. Well, I guess that makes him a true apostle. They never understood parables either.
“When you focus on fealty to church leaders (or their inability to lead the church astray), when you focus on scriptural authority or whether something literally happened historically rather than attempting to live the principles and precepts being taught with earnestness and humility, when you focus on the “truthfulness” of the church, or its authority, rather than focusing on the gospel, you value the box more than the pearl,…” –That description is too simplistic. People who stress obedience to church leaders are often striving to live the gospel and obey God through the conduit they believe he established. People who focus on historicity are trying the best they know how to show that the box (church) really does or does not contain the pearl (gospel).
It seems that middle way works if you can see the same pearl being housed in multiple boxes – then the container is less important. But if you believe that only one box contains the pearl (or only one box contains the biggest pearl), then the box itself becomes a factor for those who care about accessing the pearl. At that point it becomes easy to conflate the two.
Mary Ann: I think that your comment goes to the heart of the notion of saving ordinances & authority, which I do see as being beside the point of the gospel for the most part. They can complement the gospel, but too often a focus on ordinances and authority eclipses the gospel. Even Mormonism’s roots has a very universalist bent, no doubt because Joseph’s brother Alvin had died without baptism, so he wanted to know he would have a chance to be saved. So, I’m not sure exactly how saving ordinances fit in to the pearl & box analogy. I have to think they are the box, though, because you can die and still be saved according to our theology.
“That description is too simplistic.” I think it’s not an either/or, but a continuum. On the one end you have people who make the church an icon and worship leaders and the “rightness” of their religious choice, feeling smug and superior. At the other end, your have those who feel that church is toxic, that it mostly does harm, that religion is the opiate of the masses, that we should just commune with nature. But most people are somewhere between those two poles. I’m between them. I would bet 90% of my fellow ward members are between them, seeing that all churches have some truth to them, all boxes can contain the pearl, from a cardboard box to an elaborate whited sepulcher. Everyone’s a cafeteria Mormon. They just don’t all know it.
“People who stress obedience to church leaders are often striving to live the gospel and obey God through the conduit they believe he established.” No doubt. It’s really only a danger when they use obedience to authority as a heuristic for “doing what’s right.” If they abdicate their own moral reasoning and judgment, they’ve gone too far.
“People who focus on historicity are trying the best they know how to show that the box (church) really does or does not contain the pearl (gospel).” True, but I keep feeling like this is still a distraction from living a moral life, and many who hang their hat on historicity are sign-seekers, IMO.
“because you can die and still be saved according to our theology.” We do saving ordinances for the dead because we believe they are necessary. According to the 4th article of faith, baptism and confirmation are definitely part of the gospel. You have to go outside LDS definitions to make saving ordinances a part of the box and not the pearl.
Yes, I see what you mean about saving ordinances, but I’m still not sure how they fit into the analogy. It depends on what ordinances are exactly and how they are salvific, not whether they are necessary. The pearl is essentially wisdom, a way of life, a moral compass. Ordinances are physical, administrative actions, recording information intended to be binding like a contract. As a covenant, I agree they are pearl more than box. But as an administrative record they feel more like the box. So I’m not sure we disagree, and I’m not sure we agree.
I think it’s fair to say that as soon as you try to make everything fit into an analogy, the analogy breaks down. As such, the analogy is not intended to fit every single instance, but rather to illustrate the whole. If you want to fit saving ordinances into the analogy, I’d say that they are the velvet that the pearl rests upon. Not the box, but also not the pearl.
You can’t really separate the box and the pearl (or the velvet lining). Without the pearl, the box is empty. Without the box, the pearl can exist, but has no velvet to rest upon. And if you carry the pearl in your pocket, you’ll lose it (because your pants will eventually develop a hole in the pocket). Without either the pearl or the box, the velvet has no context. And see, the analogy is already falling apart.
For myself, I think that people who stress obedience to leaders have missed the point of the pearl and are definitely focused on the box. They may think that they’re striving to live the gospel, but are they correct? Does what we think we’re doing matter more than what we’re actually, or should be doing?
The analogy question for me then is, is the box a lacquered bejeweled case that I am obligated to polish regularly, or is it roughly shaped by a carpenter that gets worn with use but protects the pearl? Both serve a functional purpose, but only one invites admiration for the box in and of itself.
A feminist who thinks she understands the gospel better than an apostle… Color me surprised.
You mean, a feminist like Jesus.
Once again the devil is in the details. For some the gospel is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. For others it’s the WoW, tithing, modesty, JS, family history, following your file leader, etc.. Another reason to be a christian and not a mormon.
A key component you’ve neglected to address here — Some of us who are middle way don’t have a problem with the box. I like my box pretty well, as a matter of fact. It’s only a box, after all.
What it comes down to for me is the perception that the pearl inside is only a grain of sand. Or even a very lustrous but totally uninspiring LED light, not to be nihilistic or anything. Don’t misconstrue: I don’t think that a “Middle Way Mormon” has to hold nihilist or cynical or atheist or agnostic beliefs. Only that those who do are in a fundamentally different position than those who do not.
But those are not sentiments that are easy to share over the pulpit, or in any setting, for that matter. That’s why what’s being called “MWM” is, for me, always a path of isolation, despite the best efforts of people who want to “empathise.” Yes, all Mormons fudge the orthopraxies in one way or another. No, not everyone believe the orthodoxy wholesale. However, most Mormons believe in A PEARL, of some sort, whereas certain kinds of Middle Way Mormons are prone to analyzing the pearl more along the lines of the cat in Schrodinger’s box.
You can’t fully empathise with this position unless you’ve accepted a prolonged, all-encompassing epistemological re-working of everything you previously used faith and hope to buoy up belief and certainty in. This can stem from but is more than an ordinary issue-by-issue trauma/crisis; the middle wayers who stay are people who seem to have accomplished a top-to-bottom re-thinking of the entire apparatus of orthodoxy itself, to include BOTH vanilla faith, and traumatic faith-crisis faith. Whereas people who don’t accomplish this pretty much just leave.
*Forgive me for complaining about the kindness and good intentions of other people, but I just don’t think empathy works as a panacea; in fact, I think it rarely works at all.
Angela, great post.
We should not cast pearls before swine, nor seal up the pearl in a closed box that we look beyond the mark.
If others are too defensive of the box and Sunday school is all about propping up the ornate box, that does not mean there is not still a pearl there for me to focus on. And if all I start doing is criticizing what others focus on, I’m also not focused on the pearl but on others.
There is a balance. A middle way. There is a personal path to follow while allowing others to follow theirs.
There are also specific times it is appropriate to speak up. Being middle way does not mean you don’t care about the box or the box worshippers. You just learn to live with them as part of the exercises.
The difficult part is continuing to stay motivated that the box and pearl are so important, and are truly necessary.
When you let go of literal, it’s hard to keep convictions about traditions when it seems there are easier ways to stay moral and good and have good experiences. It’s hard when others think you should do more to appreciate the box.
Over the years…it seems harder to pearl or the box are really all so important and have personal motivation to appreciate both.
But there is a way. And personal motivations are what it is all about anyway. Who we become.
As you so perfectly wrote:
“The point of our existence is to grow, to learn to become our best selves, to gain wisdom through experience. Going to church for me surrounds me with people who don’t think just like I do. I can learn from them, sometimes by learning what not to do, and sometimes by observing what is admirable. They don’t get to vote on whether I belong or not, and only I can say what I get out of my experience.”
Sometimes I feel I’m learning to relax and not get wound up about things…just experience it all and let it be what it is, allow myself to agree or disagree while increasing love. Nothing else matters.
Maybe I’m just stupid. You lost me on the second paragraph. The pearl is the gospel, the box is the church?
Maybe, I’m also pretty damned lazy. I stopped reading there…
First, the Mormon box is a mess, a farce, a joke. (With a very impressive stock portfolio.) Since I attend other churches with my wife every week I see the box compared to these other boxes and it is so bad it is a distraction. If these various boxes were coffins, Mormonism would be a crude pine box or maybe even a moldy burlap potato sack. It is truly amazing that we continue to get away with serving the rotten food we do in the weekly ward cafeteria.
The pearl or the gospel is more difficult for me to define. (Set me straight if I am wrong here.) In Catholicism it is defined by a complex mixture of church traditions, scriptures, creeds and current leadership. I think they got some things right but too many things wrong. In Protestantism it is defined mostly on scripture interpretation with a lot of subtle carry over of some traditions. I think this was an improvement in some ways, but the Bible is a very unclear and confusing set of books. Notice the extreme variation of interpretation across the world and over centuries- making a mockery of the idea of one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Both of these do seem to be centered on Jesus Christ, or at least trying to approximate it most of the time.
I see the pearl of Mormonism as an out growth of Joseph Smith’s revelatory experiences in the contest of a certain flavor of Protestantism admixed with his magical beliefs and wickedness. I see him as both visionary and scoundrel. Everything is suspect. The pearl of the Mormon gospel is defined by the “inspiration” of the current prophets ultimately, not by scripture or creed, although some traditions are carried on, partly because leadership is so old. Since the focus is on the prophets, it is not on Christ. That is the pearl, whatever they say it is, allowing them to sugarcoat and lie . My ancestors back 7 or 8 generations on every line were Mormon, it is as much an ethnicity as anything. The Mormon story I do find fascinating and somewhat inspiring. I am a Mormon boy. President Nelson is too and he can’t change that.
When I read the New Testament in a quiet moment or am moved by really good heart-felt gospel music, some Mormon but mostly Protestant, I think I catch a glimpse of the true gospel of Jesus Christ, obscured by the muddy water of what passes for religion. I am biased by my Mormon upbringing with an instinctive revulsion of the trinity, infant baptism, easy grace, sola scriptura, and so many other things. Mostly I am a lost sheep and when lost it is not possible to even know where is “the middle way.”
I am of an age when I no longer can swallow the pablum of self improvement and spiritual growth. Our last home teaching visit message ( about 3 years ago) was on becoming perfect. I responded that I think I peaked about 10 or 20 years ago and my goal is to slide more slowly into the embarrassment and disgrace of senescence and senility. If I was young again, I would want to learn and love and serve as much as I could.
I think true religion centered on Christ has 4 manifestations: 1- facing death/i ultimate moral responsibility-salvation (thus how to live), 2- building community, 3- raising children, 4- service. Mormonism works variably well in some of these areas. But it seems out of focus and going in the wrong direction. But how would I really know since I am basically stupid, lazy and lost.
Great story, excellent analogy!
For some people, the box IS the pearl and I’m thinking of my good friend.
Consider the intrinsic value of a pearl. Its purpose is to reduce irritation to an oyster. What is its value to a human? Nothing but what your imagination creates. The box, however, has intrinsic value since you can put stuff in it.
So it is that the analogy is even better than intended; for your valuation of pearl or box is not someone else’s valuation of pearl or box. If you value the pearl, then you don’t need to care much about the box, any box (church) will do, it is just the container. But if you value the box (a church) and you don’t particularly care about the pearl (spirit of God?) then choosing the box correctly is very important.
For me, I like the box to be commensurate with the pearl; the nicer the pearl the nicer ought to be its box unless I am intending to keep the pearl hidden in which case I’ll just put it in a shoebox or similar nondescript box and hope it doesn’t get inadvertently discarded thinking it is old shoes.
I’m not all that interested in pearls anway. I like shiny sparkly things (like the crow in Secret of NIMH).
Mike (the other Mike) writes “But it seems out of focus and going in the wrong direction. But how would I really know ”
Thank you, Sir, for those wise words “how would I really know”.
Mike: “When I read the New Testament in a quiet moment . . . I think I catch a glimpse of the true gospel of Jesus Christ, obscured by the muddy water of what passes for religion.” Yes, I think this is the pearl as compared to the box (religion). When we try to pin down something that is conceptual like the gospel, when we try to institutionalize it, to create rules around it, to create norms, checklists, schedules, activities, buildings, services, etc.–those things are the box (organized religion / the church). The problem is when the box contradicts or eclipses the gospel itself. We can’t fully comprehend the gospel, but institutions frequently add their own motivations and flaws into the mix that take our eye off the right principles for how to live.
I think you understood just fine, even without reading it.
I’m not sure that “contradict” or “eclipse” covers the gamut of such problems. E.g., I was somewhat shocked (probably didn’t show it and no one else showed any shock) when in ward council our high councilman [former bishop] referred to a non-participating ward member as being “inactive in the gospel” rather than “less active in the church.” That is of course far from the only instance of identifying the church with the gospel — recognizing no difference at all. Maybe that is only an instance of what was meant here by “eclipse”, but , to my mind, such identification of gospel and church seems even worse in its effects than “eclipsing” which is problematic enough..
Michael 2 and Angela C:
Thank you for your generous comments.
“How would I really know” does not translate into accepting mere plausibilities and is not going to lead to paying 10%.
How do we know what we know is a whole other discussion, perhaps an entire college course.
I hope you are right, Angela C.
Since Sam started serving in the Branch Presidency of a prison branch, we have come to appreciate the Pearl. They don’t really have the box: they have no auxiliaries, they can’t be baptised, or take the sacrament, or go to the temple. They have no ward socials. The only thing left is what matters most: the atonement of Christ, repentance and change. We have seen amazing things happen there, with men who will likely live the rest of their lives in prison. And, even though their meetings are usually peppered with f-bombs, they grab onto the hope and knowledge that God still loves them and can forgive them if they are repentant, and they do their best to show that love and forgiveness to each other. Its very powerful to see the change from the first time an inmate comes to a meeting, and a few months down the road when their entire countenance and attitude is hopeful and upbeat.
That is the pearl, what the atonement can do for us. Nothing else really matters. I think the priesthood ordinances point us to Christ, and remind us of that, which I feel is a good thing, but they function ok even without that.
Thoughtful article, Ang.
So Michelle, one has to be humiliated by the experience of being sent to prison and excommunicated from the church and be isolated from all the auxiliaries and be so completely unworthy of temple attendance and go through a daily ordeal that I can’t even imagine- before one is able to really appreciate the gospel of Christ, the gospel of repentance/change and hope/faith? Is there no better way?
Sounds like we need to disorganize the church and make life as miserable as it was in the dark ages in order to bring Christ back into the center. Because changing names isn’t really changing what goes on in church.And officially leaving the boy scouts which we already left in deed but not name decades ago and meeting for 2 instead of 3 hours and so on. This is only straightening chairs on the sinking titanic of our lives.
This rebirth, a noticeable change in attitude and countenance is what I seek at church and I’m not feeling it. I remain the same old, rotten, struggling, sinful, lost sheep. Of course, I am told that is my fault.
***
I had a friend, a former black panther and LDS convert, who had a hard life because of poor education and the chaos of wickedness in his family across generations. His angry daughter falsely accused him of molesting her young daughters after he caught her latest shack-up boyfriend snorting cocaine and physically threw him out of her apartment on which he was paying the rent. Because of his prior criminal record he was very nearly railroaded back to prison. One day while praying with him, and trying to cheer him up. I said- maybe God is calling you on a very difficult mission, to preach the gospel in a place no lily-liver, MTC-polished, full-time missionary would ever be sent. You are better prepared for this sort of mission than probably any active Mormon anywhere. Besides you could never afford to serve a couples mission anyway.I volunteer to be your mission president. He chuckled and said he hoped I was not right, but it was a good way to look at it.
Rather than complying with ? God’s plan for this mission literally into hell, a few of his loyal friends ponied up the resources to get him a decent attorney and private investigator. His daughter’s story unraveled rather quickly and she soon apologized and he soon forgave her. The previous level of drama returned. I thank God that a few of the Sam Baileys are doing this work of going unto those in prison. True disciples.
Life is hard. We need a church that is up to the challenge, even if we are not in the pen.
For me the pearl is the heart and soul of a person and the box is the outside physical appearance you see in the person.
The heart and soul matters most who is capable of becoming someday