A Life with Conviction

So tonight I did something a little uncharacteristic for me, but sometimes I get tired of doing everything that is characteristic for me.  I heard that Matt Walsh the blogger was speaking down in Provo (because he has gotten the most support from Utah) a few months ago and I didn't know of anyone else who wanted to go so I just decided that I was going to go anyway and maybe I would hear of others going down later.  Well I didn't hear of any others and then even today I was thinking, "Do I really want to drive all the way down to Provo by myself to hear this guy regurgitate everything I have already read in his blog posts?"  I wondered if I could return the ticket and all that type of nonsense and then I just decided I was going to go because I usually enjoy what he has to say in his blog and I wanted to support him.

Well I went and I was not disappointed.  I even saw and sat by another girl from my ward and her friends.  He said that we all paid for this and we could have gone to opening night of The Ninja Turtles instead, so he better make it worth our time and money. As I was listening to him talk, I was thinking, "Why am I enjoying this so much?"  He is obviously funny but that wasn't the only reason and the more I thought about it the more I realized that it is because he lives by and stands up for his convictions.  He finds meaning and purpose to his life and that was a stark contrast to how I have been feeling lately.  Honestly I have been feeling pretty blah about life lately, little purpose, little direction, little meaning. 

He started out by giving three examples of when he didn't stand up for himself, his family or his beliefs.  He said one day in class he mentioned his 5 siblings and some kid in the back of the class said, "Sounds like your mother couldn't keep her legs together."  He just sat down and didn't say anything and the teacher after class even told him that he did the right thing by not saying anything but he didn't believe he did the right thing.  He said that he wished that he had punched the guy in the face or at least given the guy a warning to never talk that way about his mother ever again.

He also talked about how there was an abortion clinic right next to his school and if it was two feet closer to his school it would be on school property.  He said that his mother and sisters would often go to the clinic and pray outside for the girls that they wouldn't abort their babies.  He said one early morning when he was at football practice some of the kids on his team saw them and said, "Oh look the Jesus lovers are outside the clinic." Then they made reference to his sisters as being the strange ones in school.  Again he said and did nothing. 

And shoot... now I can't think of the third example.  I should have taken notes.  Hopefully I will think of it later.  I will update this post if I do.

These experiences ate away at him to the point that he couldn't live that way anymore and now I can see why he so boldly stands up for what he believes now. 

He talked about King Henry VIII that wanted to divorce his wife because she couldn't bare him a son.  The Catholic church said no.  He tried to get the Catholic Priest John Fisher to agree with his decision to start his own church so he could divorce his wife and he refused to agree and he stood his ground so firmly that King Henry had him beheaded.  He talked about how so many of us today are not capable of standing this firmly.  We not only compromise on one thing but we compromise our way out of many aspects of our faith and our religion so that we can be tolerant, accepted and liked by people.  I have recently been thinking about the quote that says it is better to be trusted than to be loved.  Too often we want acceptance and we will even compromise our integrity for it.

He said that with Mormons there is the stereotype that we believe in polygamy.  He said that the divorce rate is high in this world and he was talking to a guy that had been married and divorced four times.  He said that man practices polygamy.  He said that the divorce rate among Christians is lower than the average but it is even lower among Mormons.  He said not only do you not practice polygamy but you are practicing it the least of all people.  I thought that was rather clever. 

He spoke about how there is no passion in our world today and people aren't standing up for anything anymore.  He said he doesn't necessarily need to agree with someone but if they have a conviction then they need to be passionate about it.  He gave an example of an environmentalist, he said if someone is an environmentalist then they should go out and chain themselves to a tree instead of going into their air conditioned homes and talking on their cell phones. He said that in congress back in the day they would really duke out their arguments and now it makes the news and is frowned upon if anyone gets into a heated debate because they just want everyone to be moderate and get along instead of having strong feelings or opinions.

At the end of the night there was a Q and A session and some people asked him if he was sure he wasn't Mormon and if he had read the Book of Mormon.  He said that there was a Book of Mormon in his hotel room drawer and perhaps he would take it with him.  One lady at the end of the night said that she often feels like she is living in zombie land where people just want to talk about the weather and things that didn't really have much significance, instead of talking about things that have far reaching and eternal consequences.  He said that he was never one for small talk and at one point he thought about writing a book called Big Talk to address that issue.  He said that we get so trained to not talk about politics or religion but that is all he has ever wanted to talk about.

Another person asked what his thoughts were on dealing with a family member struggling with same sex attraction.  He talked about how if you have a certain compulsion like kleptomania and you want to steal all the time, he said no one ever calls you a thief until you actually steal something and yet with people who have an attraction to their same gender are labeled gay before they have ever acted on it.  He said that the suicide rate is really high in the gay population and he felt that a big reason for that was because when people are labeled as gay, they are told that is just the way you are and you can't change but in his mind that is the most hopeless thing you can tell someone in that situation.  Tell a person that they are stuck the way they are even if it makes them unhappy and they are not supposed to feel worse about that?  Take their hope away for a better life and what do they have left?  He said he would tell his family member that they should fight it and that there is hope for them. 

Bottom line incase you were wondering, I am glad I decided to go. I wish I could have remembered more.  I knew if I waited any longer to write this I would have forgotten more.  Here is my evidence that I saw him in the flesh...