Water Lilies and why I Love Jesus

One of the most exciting parts of learning a foreign language is the moment when you find a concept you love expressed elegantly and beautifully in a way you never knew possible. I had one of those moments one night on my mission. I was eating dinner with my companion, a native Chinese speaker, and we were discussing Chinese literature. He started telling me about one of the most famous pieces of ancient literature that nearly all Chinese students were required to memorize. It’s a short essay called “On Water Lilies” (爱莲说). The author, Zhou Dunyi, begins by saying that there are many flowers in the world that could be loved, but that he only loves the water lily. The most famous line in the essay comes as he describes his first reason for being enamored with the water lily. He says it 出(chu—arises from) 淤泥 (yu ni—the dirt/mud) 而不 (er bu—but is not) 染 (ran—dirty).

Elder Shi explained to me that it was meant to symbolize a person who chooses to stay as a member of society (which Zhou Dunyi contrasts with another flower to symbolize hermits in the essay), but who doesn’t give in to the pressures of society (which Zhou contrasts with yet another flower). I realized that this one sentence about coming up from the mud, but being clean beautifully expressed one of my favorite teachings in the gospel—that we should act for ourselves and not be acted upon. That we should love those who hate us and do good to them who despitefully use us. In essence, it symbolized Jesus.

I love Jesus. And I have to be clear—I really don’t know enough to know if Jesus of Nazareth was God, or the only begotten of the Father, or anything like that. What I’m converted to is the concept of Christ. Of all the endless possibilities, the Jesus portrayed in the New Testament is probably my favorite contender for God of the universe. And I want to explain why.

My favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon describing Christ is in 1 Nephi 19:9. It says,

“And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his lovingkindness and longsuffering towards the children of men.”

During the Cultural Revolution in China there was a girl named Lin Zhao. At first, she was an ardent Communist. As she realized exactly what Mao was doing, she started opposing him. As soon as she began openly criticizing his regime, she was thrown into prison, where she continued to write criticisms of the Party until they took her pen and paper away from her. In the end, she wrote poems on the walls of the prison in her own blood. Before they executed her she said, “If one day we’re allowed to speak again, don’t forget to tell people: there was once a girl named Lin Zhao that they killed because she loved them too much” (如果有一天允许说话，不要忘记告诉活着的人们：有一个林昭因为太爱他们而被他们杀掉。)

I love Jesus for the same reason that I love Lin Zhao. Both persisted in love at all costs, and were killed for it. They stood in resolute opposition to systems that were harming people. Both arose from the mud, but didn’t let it make them dirty. Jesus let the people hate Him and returned their hate with lovingkindness and longsuffering.

I love the idea of a God who created everything and recognized the pain he caused by creating it and so became one with it as an atonement. He suffered with the world, and died the same death that he imposed upon creation. I love the idea of a God that loves unconditionally. But there is something difficult in accepting a God of unconditional love—when He asks you to love Him back, it’s got to be unconditional, too. And you know what; I don’t think God conforms to our standards of perfection (assuming He even exists). Maybe He exists somewhere beyond our conceptions of good and evil. But unconditional love goes beyond the discrepancies between our understandings and the world He created. He says He’ll love me no matter what. And so even if I’m gay and people think that’s weird, I’ll love Him, too. And even if my family’s religion teaches that I’m a sinner, I’ll still love Him. And even if I feel like the vast majority of my prayers go unanswered, I’ll go on loving Him.

Because the point in believing in a God that loves unconditionally is so that I can try to do it, too. I love Jesus because I want to come out of the mud and be clean. I love Jesus because I want to look reality in the face and say “Yeah, life, you freaking suck sometimes. But damn you. I’m going to love anyway.” I love Jesus because I want to be like Him. And I want to be like Lin Zhao, and Socrates, and Gandhi, and the rest of history’s wonderful array of water lilies.

Ultimately, our individual belief in deity cannot change the facts of whether or not God is real. But it can change the way we live our lives. I accept God into my life not as an explanatory power of how the universe came into being and nor as a justification for the way I think or live, but rather as an inspiration for the direction I want walk, not in my material journey, but in my journey of becoming. As a reason to change. I love Jesus because He taught me the most profound truth I’ve ever known: that happiness is made, not found. And that God has made us to be free because our purpose isn’t to have. It’s to be.

There’s nothing we can possess that will bring the happiness we desire. Including circumstances. It must come from within. Our happiness is our own creation and our own responsibility.

Jesus is the most beautiful water lily I’ve found so far. And so even though I don’t know whether or not He’s real, I love Him.