Recently I heard a fireside presentation from a woman who has lived in a war-torn country most of her life. As she spoke about her trials and how the gospel had eradicated hatred and brought her inner peace, I thought to myself, “If only we could all learn this.”
It wasn’t just the thought of the horrible trials this woman had gone through, but the toll it took on her people. Years of living in hatred and fear makes one cling to ones’ own and distrust anything, or anyone, that is different.
If only we could walk in another’s shoes for a day, somewhere in the expanse of the United States, through the inner cities of Europe, or the villages of Africa. I have visited many countries and lived among many cultures. Yet the single thing that educates my heart in the matters of the human condition, when I can’t be away from home, is reading and studying about other cultures.
One of my recent non-fiction reading selections is Cleopatra, by Pulitzer Prize winner, Stacy Schiff. Living a few dozen years before the birth of the Savior, Cleopatra learned that “the chances of being murdered by someone who owed you a favor were every bit as good as the chances of being murdered by a member of your immediate family” (12). In a time of constant religious and political turmoil during the first century b.c., the value of life was diminished, and forgiveness and love didn’t have a place—both attributes that exemplified the Savior’s life. It’s no wonder that He needed to come to earth to establish the new law. Humans left to their own resources proved to create lives filled with greed, revenge, and apathy.
It is interesting that one of the Savior’s admonitions is to “learn of me” (Matthew 11:29). Learning about the Savior’s life will teach us that there is a new and better way to live above the angry and self-centered pulses of the world. The Savior brings us comfort when He adds, “ye shall find rest unto your souls” (ibid).
Learning about the Savior, as well as other cultures and peoples, will not only give us the much needed peace as our hearts and minds expand with love and understanding, but will teach us to become more tolerant, more willing to forgive, and able to accept our trials with an eternal viewpoint.
In the classic novel Silas Marner, by George Elliot, Silas is a man who hoards his money—so much so that he spends his days feverishly working and his nights counting and re-counting his gold coins. It isn’t until his gold is stolen that he truly begins to live, since his purpose of life was caught up in accumulation only—a singular and narrow vision. When an orphaned child mysteriously appears on his doorstep, Silas, now free of his self-absorbed shackles, can open a heart that has been closed for years.
In this instance, love replaces the love of money: “Marner took her in his lap, trembling with an emotion mysterious to himself, at something unknown dawning on his life. Thought and feeling were so confused within him, that if he had tried to give them utterance, he could only have said that the child was come instead of the gold—that the gold had turned into the child” (124).
When Silas Marner puts aside his narrow focus on life, only then can his heart and mind expand with love and compassion. Learning about those around us, whether it’s reading a classic novel, a historical biography, or something more contemporary, will expand our minds. We don’t all have the opportunity to live in a country foreign to our own, but we can learn of them through reading. Ultimately, our hearts will be softened and our minds opened as we replace narrow-focused habits and tasks with broader learning.
Heather B. Moore is the author of Alma the Younger, Ammon, and Women of the Book of Mormon