COMPENSATION REVISITED

by "The Beetdigger" - thebeetdigger@downtownweb.com

... the law holds with equal sureness for all right action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is
mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.

Our strength grows out of our weakness. Not until we are pricked and strung and sorely shot at, awakens the
indignation which arms itself with secret forces.

I have entitled my essay Compensation Revisited, a new response to Mr. Emerson's essay Compensation. Sometimes in the spring of life, by chance misfortune, something terrible and dreadful happens in the life of individuals. However graceful in feature or strong in character they were, now they find themselves in an unnatural state. We have a picture before us: the scarred features, or paralyzed and immobile, or misshapen or lost limb, or in some way taken from natural life. What their thoughts and feelings must be I cannot tell. I remember reading about the lame by the waters of Bethesda, who waited until the angel touched the waters and healed whoever rested therein. Jesus came by the waters once and healed those who waited. Perhaps they felt as the sheepherder did in Wordsworth's pastoral poem "Michael":

There is a comfort in the strength of love
Twill make a thing endurable, which else
Would break this heart.

Poor naked wretches, wherso'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just. (King Lear, III. Iv. 28-36).

Something changed in me once as I watched a program on The Learning Channel. It discussed what happened to children of different Canadian mothers who had taken a particular drug some decades ago. What was supposed to have been a benefit to them resulted disastrously in their offspring carrying deformed limb(s). From various interviews with their children a viewer gained an appreciation for what it is like to be handicapped. One interviewee married and has a child; another has prospects of the same. What was forcibly demonstrated to me was the absolute determination of these remarkable individuals to live a regular life like others. They had no less feeling or passion than us, what might have us believe they were altered to not desire as we do. The truth is, whatever we dreamt of they did too. It troubled me somewhat to imagine how they could expect to find happiness that many others possess, yet without limbs. How could anyone lead a regular life without a limb, or a mind, or an organ? By regular I mean married with children, happy and serving others, and continually learning, with an adequate source of income. For whatever misfortunes we have passed through, most trials usually do not alter us so that we are unable to hope happiness like others. That would be a tragic error-to not even hope for it. But what of others who are taken from a natural life, and placed in a completely different context? Is there an inequality of happiness? Or, are there some who can find it or retain it more easily than others?

I speak not only to those with "disabilities." I'm also thinking of those with inner piercing challenges. There may be a misshapen heart instead of the outer appearance; something troubling a worried mind; and there's never an end to what gives discontent to the soul. Maybe they had a nervous breakdown, or several divorces, or with sin, or excessively overweight, or with an "ugly duckling" face. What of these, and what have they to hope for? I still wonder what great things God has in store for his children. I'm thinking of something wonderful and strange.

What is the Law of Compensation, and who deserves it? It is God's and Nature's way of preserving and increasing happiness for individuals, no matter what their condition is; and everyone deserves it. All people, under any and all circumstances, have the capacity to grow and be happy. We can all be happy together. However this is realized, the idea is my breakthrough my imagination almost cannot conceive. But I have to play for the highest stakes.

I must believe in Compensation. It means simply that with a great exercise of faith we will be compensated for our mortal limitations. To be compensated means that, with the temporal and spiritual condition of every man, woman, and child accounted for and considered, and subsequent adjustments made and assistance given, all are equally provided the same privileges of happiness and success in their own respective ways as they desire. Compensation differs from perfection since our bodily frames are corruptible; yet on account of great faith individuals may feel the Holy Ghost to such a degree that, however high or low an estate that men and women may find themselves in, whether of feature, capacity, inheritance, or any other variable, they are all made equal through the grace of God. We needn't wait upon heaven for the resolution of mortality. We should be equal now!, only dependent on our faith (Doctrine & Covenants 78:6; 4 Nephi 3, 5, 11, 15-18). God has made us agents for an ideal society which we may realize (Doctrine & Covenants 58: 26-27). We shouldn't wait until the Celestial Kingdom for a people to be united in love and happiness. We can only be perfected and resurrected at a later time, but from this very hour all of our mortal limitations can be compensated! We may have broken bones and a bruised body, yet still retain our inner peace and a second birth!

By spiritual means, and temporal means, and whatever aspect of life and subject of study, all will teach us how to be equal in love and happiness; what would make us thank the stars we came out so lucky and successful! Like the main protagonist of the movie Groundhog Day, every day was the same until he learned to overcome the bonds of mortality through love. Allow me to share a few examples that now capture my fancy. I know a woman paralyzed from the waist, and because of it she has a very short stature; from her youth she goes about in a wheelchair; now she drives in a large van with special controls, without assistance, and expects someday to marry. I know another with a mental disability; yet not only is she fully aware of it, but also is a political activist of sorts, and promotes others with disabilities; says she "plays the field" for a boyfriend. From my memory of their lives I am tutored about how to live my life, and what my family and people can be.

At the beginning of this monthly magazine, one of my goals or dreams is that, under the guise of various subjects, and any number of styles and creative efforts, by people of different ages and languages, that many will come forward to present--not only dreams--but also plans for actual execution--what would promote the ZION ideal, of "one mind and one heart." Many must have a voice to share. Let this magazine then be one way to express it. I myself will also share articles as often as I am able, according to this construct that I have advanced in this article, to flesh it out with personal experience; or on any other subject that may catch my interest, be it happy or funny: anything under the sun that I think may be beneficial to myself and to others.

You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefitted
very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by
being kept workways with the wind and the waves.
Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all
things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still,
with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and
for his arm to be revealed (Doctrine & Covenants 123:16-17)

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