A Pure Heart

I saw an article yesterday in BYU's alumni magazine (my undergrad alma mater) that spoke of "the journey to Zion [requiring] a return to virtue." Now, if you're not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), this post may not make much sense at first, but stick with me. I'll broaden it in just a minute. For now, when I say "Zion", just think "Utopia". That might not be quite right, but it'll help.

Now, I really liked the message of the article because Zion is a place I'd really like to live in and I've thought a lot about what it takes to build a Zion-like society. I can't say I've got the answers, but it definitely has to do with virtue. I was disappointed, however, when, upon scanning the article, it became clear that, by "virtue", the author meant "chastity." Now don't get me wrong. I think chastity is very important. In fact, without chastity, virtue isn't too virtuous. I simply assert that chastity is a pretty narrow definition of virtue. Necessary, yes, but not nearly sufficient.

In the LDS Church, we have a scripture that says "this is Zion - THE PURE IN HEART" (D&C 97:21). I believe the heart is often seen as a symbol of the seat or source of emotions and desires. Elsewhere, a group of people, having felt an outpouring of spiritual power, claimed "the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, ... has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually." (Mosiah 5:2). Shortly thereafter, their leader observed "ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of [Christ]" (Mosiah 5:7). I've had that kind of experience before where I felt like I had no desire to do evil. It doesn't always last, but I think I'm a little better of a pereson after each such experience. Perhaps, little by little, we can be transformed into something different than what we are, be "born again", have that evil nature rooted out of our hearts to be replaced by a pure heart, one that seeks no evil, desires no evil, and one from which no evil thoughts, words, or deeds could ever issue. That would truly be a pure heart. We're going to need some help to overcome our human natures, but when we achieve that, perhaps we can build that ideal, Utopian society people have been searching for for so many years. Until then, we're stuck with all the evils of which the human heart can conceive.

In his short story "Earth's Holocuast", Nathaniel Hawthorne writes of a huge bonfire into which all the vices of humanity (or rather, the tools of such vice) had been cast to rid the world of evil. They began with newspapers, magazines, tokens of nobility, then moved on to alcohol, tobacco, literature, and implements of torture and war, among other things. The story is Hawthorne's conception of a far-reaching reform and ends with a penetrating commentary on the uselessness of all such endeavors that can only go so deep. At the end of the story, a new character emerges speaking to four of the characters who are not so happy with the results of the reform. Hawthorne writes:

"'Poh, poh, my good fellows!' said a dark-complexioned personage, who now joined the group--his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and his eyes glowed with a redder light than that of the bonfire--'Be not so cast down, my dear friends; you shall see good days yet. There is one thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into the fire, and without which all the rest of the conflagration is just nothing at all--yes; though they had burnt the earth itself to a cinder!'

"'And what may that be?' eagerly demanded the Last Murderer.

"'What but the human heart itself!' said the dark-visaged stranger, with a portentous grin. 'And, unless they hit upon some method of purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will re-issue all the shapes of wrong and misery--the same old shapes, or worse ones--which they have taken such a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I have stood by, this live-long night, and laughed in my sleeve at the whole business. Oh, take my word for it, it will be the old world yet!'

"This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened thought. How sad a truth--if true it were--that Man's age-long endeavor for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of the Evil Principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the very root of the matter! The Heart--the Heart--there was the little yet boundless sphere, wherein existed the original wrong, of which the crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. Purify that inner sphere; and the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which now seem almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms, and vanish of their own accord. But, if we go no deeper than the Intellect, and strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole accomplishment will be a dream; so unsubstantial, that it matters little whether the bonfire, which I have so faithfully described, were what we choose to call a real event, and a flame that would scorch the finger--or only a phosphoric radiance, and a parable of my own brain!"