Specks and Clusters

    Last Monday, I was helping out a family, let's call them the Kim family, doing service when one of the kids comes out of nowhere and suddenly crawls all over me. She then proceeds to tell me all sorts of things like "where's your sideburns," "you look funny," "your friend has weird glasses," "do you always have to have a shirt and tie on," and inquiries of the like. Although a tiny dent was put on my ego (albeit the girl is only 5 years old), I started to think. For a 5-year-old, she notices the tiniest, most insignificant parts of a person and then points them out to you like they're helping you. If it be from the mole on your relatively clean cheek to that renegade piece of lettuce wedged between your teeth, it's a funny thing-- as a younger person, one starts noticing these kinds of things.

     On the other hand, some time ago, my companion and I met with one of the people we invited to church; let's just call him Mr. Lee.  We had a very lengthy discussion on his reservations with our church.  Out of it, he told us that in one of the lessons we had with him, he felt rather uncomfortable that a church member we brought with us was bragging about his successful business rather than teaching him our doctrine.  Long story short, he was offended.  Mr. Lee told us that he could see from a mile away whether or not someone was a successful businessman or if someone was a normal middle-class breadwinner from the way they look and the way they act-- as an older person, one starts noticing these kinds of things. 
    
     Now these individuals do have a 45-year difference in age, yet still God's children nonetheless.  The thing I did notice, though was that the way people of others can be summed up in a simple, yet "what are you saying" sort of aphorism: "Immaturity notices many different specks of traits to determine a person.  Maturity notices clusters of traits to determine a person."  Like the picture, this is how I envision how a person judges others as they progressively get older.

     Now, why in the world would I bring this facet of knowledge to light?  Well, the differing perspective of man can be seen progressing as one gets older.  Just as a young'un's thoughts are different from my thoughts and my thoughts are different from Mr. Lee's thoughts, this perspective is progressive-- it's amorphous.  Now, what's going to happen to it once we kick the bucket?  Here's the meat of the lecture: it's only going to progress.  The experience will never die with you.

      You're going to ask me now, how the heck do I know that?  Well, your local missionaries can tell you that, but as you die, you will need to be judged on that day when Jesus comes back again.  Till then, if you don't have your memory and the way you think and the way you judge people, how can you be judged with no recollection of a thought process?  What is logical and what God has planned is that people will have an eternal progression of thought.  The things you notice now will slowly turn bigger and bigger-- the specks become clusters and the clusters will become chunks.  Until that day of reckoning.

"And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge iup the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou <YOUR NAME HERE>, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good" (Doctrine and Covenants 122:7).

Food for thought.