Some people wince when they hear things of a spiritual nature. My husband says that his dad would always be put-off by black athletes who thanked God after winning a race. He didn’t believe in God and thought others were simple-minded for believing such nonsense. After his eldest daughter died in a freak accident. Sixteen years before that, she had told me about her near death experience. “I remember when Patti had a near death experience during the birth of her first child — she said she saw the other side and it was beautiful and her grandmother was there, and she wanted to stay, but had to come back.”
I thought this information might be consoling.
He looked at me like I was a nut-case. I could tell it just hurt his ears to hear such nonsense. It was like finger nails on a chalkboard. You have to have ears to hear. And he didn’t. He’s dead now, I guess he found out what I was talking about.
Some people read parts of the Book of Mormon and write reviews on Amazon that say “this is a fake, this is ridiculous.” Sometimes religious people attack other faiths. They accept Moses parted the Red Sea, but are outraged that a group of people could accept that Joseph Smith received some gold plates. They don’t see that their own beliefs are a stretch to the human mind. (Mormons have irrational beliefs? Who doesn’t? -Dennis Prager)
At times it’s easy to know who is receptive and who is not. Sometimes not. I always remind my husband not to share too much. It’s not that I don’t want to share, but people are not always ready. We’re all at various levels of learning. There’s that odd scripture about not giving holy things to the dogs or throwing your pearls before the swine, because they might trample it.
What are dogs going to do with it anyway–just tear it up–they have no use for these things. And the swine, considered off-limits by the Israelites, symbolize the unbelievers who might trample sacred things underfoot or treat them lightly. The swine would not care much for the pearls at all.
But then, later the dogs are allowed to get the scraps that fall from the table. The Caananite woman asked Jesus to heal her daughter at a time when the gospel was only being shared with the Jews. And she was healed because of her faith.
But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. (Matt 15:7)
Talk to him about angels, heavens, God, immortality, and eternal lives, and it is like sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal to his ears; it has no music to him; there is nothing in it that charms his senses, soothes his feelings, attracts his attention, or engages his affections, in the least; to him it is all vanity.
