Sabbathought: "All men are subject to vanity, and must be allowed . . . ."

One of our most erudite scholars, Hugh W. Nibley (who passed away a few years ago), found a statement from the Prophet Joseph that helps to summarize our mortal condition here below:

"All men are subject to vanity, and must be allowed a generous margin of error to be themselves."

I can't find the original source for this but it rings true, it makes sense in the context of scripture and other statements about our reduced and vulnerable fallen condition. For instance:

For a wise and glorious purpose / Thou hast placed me here on earth
And withheld the recollection / Of my former friends and birth;
Yet ofttimes a secret something / Whispered, "You're a stranger here,"
And I felt that I had wandered / From a more exalted sphere
(Eliza R. Snow, "O My Father," Hymns, 292).

The doctrines of the Fall and of Premortal Life belong together, of course. What state did I fall from, if not from a celestial place with "my former friends and birth" before this mortal life? And thus, as echoed by Jacob in the Book of Mormon, " . . . our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated by our brethren," and, as "strangers and pilgrims on the earth," indeed, "strangers in a strange land."

We are not used to a fallen condition of humiliation and suffering and serious sacrifice, "a vale of tears" such as this life. C.S. Lewis observed, "If we are uncomfortable in this fallen world it is because we were made for another." But it is necessary to pass through this state in order to reach our final destiny, and cherish and appreciate it.

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to end up where we began, and know the place for the first time" (T.S. Eliot).

In the meantime it is well to recognize that all of us are subject to vanity and need a generous margin of error to be ourselves. What a comforting and plausible insight as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling! I sense good doctrine at work here, and I hope you do too.

God bless us all.

Steve