I think I've struggled my entire life with how much I was supposed to be a real person, or how much I was supposed to plaster on a facade of what the perfect me would look like. Some day. When I was perfect.

The problem, however, is that it's far easier to appear perfect than to be perfect.

Or maybe not. After all, I'm pretty good at spotting the sanctimonious Pharisee, having spent so much of my life being that person. You know, the person that makes rule-keeping obnoxious; the person that has every commandment nailed (except for that minor one to love thy neighbor).

And if I find it so easy to spot them, maybe everyone else does, too?

I was thinking a lot about this during our LDS stake conference the past two days. One of my friends, Dave, spoke, and he talked about a principle he now uses to guide his Sabbath-day observance: he basically tries to do things that build his personal and family relationships.

That's it. No long list of Do's and Don't's. Just that guiding principle.

Then another friend, Harland, spoke about how we need to ask ourselves if we're giving our best selves to our church, work, or anything other than our families. I care deeply about my family, but I'm pretty sure they get second or third place in my attentions quite often.

And then another friend, Laura, spoke about the need for empathy, and how Christ shows perfect love and understanding of each of us, whatever our trials. It struck me that being Christlike isn't about keeping rules, really. It's about developing profound respect and love for others, such that we want to carry them even despite their flawed, sometimes annoying selves.

As if that wasn't enough, on my flight today, I decided to read more from Way Below the Angels, which has been such a refreshingly honest assessment of LDS missions (or, at least, mine):

But then just like in the dismal upstairs bedroom in Hasselt long before, and sort of like in the attic just a few hours ago, came that calm that I now recognized as the closest thing to sure I ever felt about God. And that feeling said, without any words, that I didn’t have to baptize Lieve or even 83 other people to feel good about what I was doing.

The whole mission business, it hit me for at least a nano-moment, was more about suffering a little with people and feeling connected to them than it was about baptizing them. 

It was about being a friend, however trite that sounded, however much breaking-up boyfriends and girlfriends debased the term by saying they just wanted to be friends without even really meaning it, however much leader types were always saying to missionaries you’re not here to make friends, like that was some bad thing. Jesus had a pretty strong view about friends, as in laying your life down for them, which went way beyond the casual sort of relationship most people meant by that term. 

That’s what the whole mission business was about, it now seemed to me. Maybe even the whole religion business. Maybe even the whole life business.

This feels profoundly Right to me. Though it's also not who I've been for much of my life.

I was the missionary that took 18 months of my 24-month mission to realize I wasn't there to keep rules (which I did, to an amazing degree). I was there to love the people of France and Belgium.

And I was the father that didn't really understand until my eldest was nearly 18 that my job wasn't to block-and-tackle my kids into rigidly living every commandment that I had failed to keep as a youth, but was instead to help them understand how to become clean once they found their way to dirty. (And everyone, everyone, does, though some don't recognize pride as the most pernicious of all "dirty.")

And I am the husband that continues to struggle to truly partner with Jen on all this parenting without becoming so consumed by it that I forget that she's my first priority. Or should be. If I were actually a good husband.

In short (or, not, given how much I've already written), I think I've pretty much failed at life so far. The good news, however, is that I can do better for the rest of my life (and the remaining gazillion years we Mormons believe all of us go on - sorry to break that to you), and be much happier by living "after the manner of happiness."

Which is not really to make a fetish of commandments. Instead, it's to keep the two great commandments of which Christ said, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Namely love God and love our neighbor.

Only two. That seems easy. :-)