But the Sun Doesn't Set in Alaska

I got some counseling last year. I figured it was high time, since I had basically hit my quarter-life crisis. And while not every moment was exactly useful, there were two thoughts that have stuck with me until now:

First: I was living under others' expectations - friends, family, especially my church family. This resulted in me not making any choices for me, or not feeling like I was in control. I was constantly doing things because others wanted me to do them. It's amazing how tiring that gets.

The other thought was a random thing that popped in my head while we were discussing how I was going to balance the whole gay/LDS thing. We were discussing laws, and how I was going to deal with these spiritual laws that I felt like I still believed in to some extent, but I didn't know how to accept them.

As I recall, Mr. Counselor Man mentioned how it can seem impossible to accept these laws that feel so unchangeable. The example he gave was, "It's like the sun. It rises in the east, sets in the west, and there's nothing we can do to change that."

Without thinking, I mentioned, "Well, yeah, unless you live in Alaska. Then, depending on the time of year, the sun doesn't set at all. Or it never rises."

There have been a couple times, most notably on my mission, when I simply said something, and I later felt that it was true. After I would say it, I would feel a little heartfelt oomph that I had stated an eternal truth. I felt that here. And it got me thinking.

The sun doesn't set in Alaska. Or anywhere in the Arctic Circle during summer months. It is interesting that, from the perspective of most inhabitants of the earth, the sun rises and sets in a very predictable fashion: east to west, every day, without fail. From our perspective before, say, the days of Galileo, we may have been tempted to say "We are at the center of the universe, and the sun revolves around us in this fashion, always. It is an eternal law that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west." However, the comprehension of that 'eternal law' was marred by our limited perspective. It was a perspective shared by most of the planet, of course, but that did not mean it was entirely correct or fully understood.

From the perspective of someone in Alaska during the summer months, the sun merely moves in a circle, almost setting but not quite. It might move in a clockwise direction, but that's not necessarily east to west, because once it comes back around, it's heading west to east before it 'rises' again on the east side.

What I'm saying is that the comprehension of this 'eternal law' was limited by the perspective of one very large subset of the human population. It wasn't until we could add the perspective of others that lived in remote areas that we could see that our understanding was incomplete at best.

So it is with gospel laws, I think. "Man shall not lie with man; it is an abomination." Boom. Law. Rises in the east, sets in the west, so to speak. But is that really all there is? Could we be missing other perspectives? Is there context we aren't aware of because a small subset of mankind is viewing that law through a different lens? Back in the day, did we understand why the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, or did we simply state a law based upon personal observation and extrapolation? Are we doing similarly now in our contemporary readings of archaic scripture? Is anything missing? Context? The viewpoint of another? I certainly think so.

I think there's a lot more to the LGBT Christian conversation than we even have access to. I believe some of those perspectives and context are forever lost to the generations before us, and we may never get them back. It's as if everyone in the Arctic Circle vanished, and all they left us with was "And in spring, the sun rose in the east and set in the west." A true statement perhaps...but woefully incomplete.