exactness and honor in loving

I have been pondering the problem of keeping the commandments with exactness and honor. Living with men who are trying to be perfect has its challenges. They are very hard on themselves and sometimes very hard on others. They want to be legal and lawful and sometimes forget about love. That last sentence isn't exactly true, they are very loving men, but the alliteration is good and there is some truth in it. Concern with legality and lawfulness can lead to self righteousness and hypocrisy. It is the problem of the pharisees.

"Loving kindness" as a code word is one of the legacies of President and Sister Walter's three years in charge of the Salt Lake Temple. They tried to clearly define the differences between ordinances and procedures. Some things we should try to do perfectly, other things are very very flexible. Instead of stressing rules, they encouraged us to follow the inspiration we received from the Spirit. It "was" against the rules to pick up a baby who was crying. Babies were to be transported in strollers regardless. Until Sister Walker passed a crying baby in the hallway and picked her up -- because the baby needed to be picked up and she knew it.

I think there is a reason why the first and second commandments are about love. We live as imperfect people in an imperfect world. No matter how hard we try we don't understand enough and are not strong enough to do everything right. We need to try to have our standards be as high as we know how to make them be, but we also need to try to have our standards help lift others up instead of dragging them down. We are sometimes tempted to say, "My way of being imperfect is better than your way of being imperfect."

It is possible to love and help others who are doing things we do not approve of. If they know we love them and accept them we don't have to pretend to have lower standards than we have. We don't even have to perfectly live the standards we try to be an example of. They can see us making mistakes and repenting.

Somehow the Savior was able to eat with sinners and associate with the unclean without sin. It is hard for us to live in the world but not be of the world.

In some situations it is important to be hard on people. Sometimes it is a man's job to be the policeman. Jesus Christ knew how and when to denounce the unrighteous and call them to repentance. The best guideline for us is to follow him. Focusing on love and peace helps most of the time -- especially for women. I am grateful to be a mother and a nurturer, but I don't want to mother and nurture in a way that makes others unnecessarily dependent and weaker than they could be.