Aspire Higher

Recently I heard our principal say over the morning announcements that everyone needs to practice safe sex so that they can avoid sexually transmitted disease. That was painful on many levels, not the least of which has to do with the fact that there were undoubtedly, and contrary to popular opinion, many tender, chaste young hearts pierced in the hearing of it. Nevertheless, too many young hearts have also become inured to the gentle promptings to the chaste life: A few days ago I substituted in an English class and found it necessary to mention to at least two young women that the amount of cleavage their attire showed was unacceptable (actually, that's a very low number compared to what I see daily in the attendance office). Occasionally I see students fondling each other in the classroom. Often in the hallways I see “public displays of affection” from which I must abashedly turn away.

It seems to me that what we are dealing with here is a spiritually transmitted disease. We have foresworn ourselves from teaching values, however, from teaching the sanctity of the human body as the temple of the spirit God placed in it, and from teaching purity and morality.
We leave ourselves therefore with very little to back up our pitiable rules and dress codes. If there is, ultimately, no real right and wrong, what is the reason for doing anything?

Is there any wonder that from this little beginning, the individual and the society that produces him stumble around in a moral miasma, floundering in the swamp created by failed relationships, tepid education, and an amoral economy?

We have to have some kind of standard; people realize this: "Because things work out better that way, because it contributes to the common good."

Guess what, though? When it comes to selfish desires, those reasons simply don't hold sufficient sway to direct a person's conduct. I see such reasoning in modern textbooks on citizenship and I am torn between shaking my head that someone actually went to the trouble of publishing such banality, and outright guffawing - except it really isn't funny at all.

"Because God gave us commandments, because he loves us and because they are therefore for our best good, and because we stand to lose a great deal on the eternal scale if we ignore purity and morality."

Now those are reasons to do something.

Most of all, because Jesus Christ set the example, paid for our sins, heals our sorrows, and makes up for all that we miss out on in this life, through his infinite and eternal Atonement; we owe it to Him to do our little part, to show our gratitude and our obedience, and to shine a light for those of His children who do not yet know these things. A solemn obligation is upon us, in fact, to repent, or perish.

"Aside from Jesus Christ and his program of giving," I remember C. Terry Warner saying in a speech at BYU, "there is no real reason for doing anything."

I am looking for ways to share that message, because basically I am persuaded that most of those young hearts are yearning for something loftier, something, as Viktor Frankl would say, more meaningful. Pray with me that they will find it, and blessings upon you as you too strive to share it.