I'm guessing that Eyepatch must have been passed over for DL, ZL, and/or AP.
ajax18 wrote:Maybe he did enjoy serving, but I find it hard to believe he couldn't have found more enjoyable things to do than open the African mission. I simply cannot buy the argument that living the gospel is its own reward in this life alone. Without an afterlife, it all breaks down. I guess that's where I disagree with contemporary Mormonism. I don't care how "spiritual" you get. Boats, beaches, margaritas, and senoritas sure beat worn out suits, Doc Martens, ties, and sweat if that is all there is to it.
Actually, if Viktor Frankl (
Man's Search for Meaning, etc.) is right (and I think he is), a meaningless life, however richly endowed with boats, beaches, margaritas, and señoritas, probably
doesn't beat worn out suits, Doc Martens, ties, and sweat if the latter are part of a life felt to be saturated with deep significance. Anyway, the notion that my mission president may actually have suffered through those years of callings strikes me as preposterous. I knew him. I knew his wife. I know his daughter. He wasn't suffering.
"Richard Cory," by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
In prosperous Finland, 38.7 men and 10.7 women commit suicide every year per 100,000 population. In prosperous France, it's 30.4 and 10.8, respectively. In poor Catholic Mexico, the suicide rate is only 5.4 men and 1.0 women per 100,000 people, while in poor Muslim Jordan, the suicide rate appears to be so low that my source gives it as 0.0 and 0.0 per 100,000.
http://fathersforlife.org/health/who_suicide_rates.htmI'm not sure exactly what that means, but it certainly doesn't seem to suggest a clear correlation between material prosperity and happiness.