Deep Spiritual Thoughts

I have been thinking a lot of late about fate. In my literature class today we talked about two Russian words which I though about a lot back on my mission. The first is свобода (svaboda), which means freedom and independance. The other word is воля, which means will, or the ability to make choices.

Our class discussion just reminded me of how happy I am that the gospel allows us to understand free agency. Both of these words are used in 2 Nephi 2:26, which explains that we are free(воля) to choose freedom and life (свобода) or captivity and death.

On the same note, I learned from a talk by President Eyring that our fate is tied to others through the message of the gospel: "The Lord trusts His true disciples. He sends prepared people to His prepared servants. You have had the experience, as have I, of meeting people where you were sure the meeting could not have been by chance."

Marvelously, this all ties in to an article that I was reading this morning about how there was an entire school of Russian though which interpreted natural selection to be the survival of those who help others in their community, not those who fight and win. Kropotkin, the Russian thinker who expressed this idea, lived in England and noticed how the the Theory of Natural Selection was very similar to the "Island Mentality" of the British. On the other hand, the Russians were more prone to have to fight against nature itself in such a harsh environment, and those who could work together were most likely to survive. (http://www.marxists.org/subject/science/essays/kropotkin.htm)

That is my defense of karma.

Oh yeah, and a big shout out to my friends: Mike "No-mo Love" Orgill, and Jon "Scrubber Stealer" O'Bryan!