Murmuring, Complaining, and Puss

Last week I had this little sore on my inner thigh acting up—it's been coming and going a lot over the past couple years. And then, I also have had this mouth thing going on. To explain, a few weeks ago I had a tooth extracted because it was seriously infected and then this week I got the temporary bridge put in, but it's still kind of been hurting. 

With such physical wounds, the temptation is to squeeze all of the puss out. With the thigh, I could do that to some extent, but not with the tooth, which got to be a bit frustrating. This might, though, have led me to think about what really does get infections out. See the fact is that although it does help to squeeze puss out sometimes, one should only do so in a sterile and safe environment, not around other people that could get sick or without cleansing agents to prevent reinfecting or spreading the wound.  But more than that, the greater remedy comes from taking an antibiotic.

So, other than the direct reason, why is it important to understand how to get rid of infections? Well, it can make for a nice analogy, that's why.  Having infections on the brain led me to think about the times when I feel like I have a spiritual infection, just pain in my heart and my soul.  When one has spiritual wounds, it’s very tempting to “vent” as we like to call it these days—just shout out all of the things we hate about our lives and the world and our problems--complaining, basically. But doing this is like squeezing out the puss in an unsafe environment, and so it can end up getting a lot of other people sick, and spread the infection more deeply in ourselves. Along the same lines, I like the quote by Neal Maxwell from his October 1989 conference address, "Murmur Not": "Letting off steam always produces more heat than light." (He has a number of other good things to say in that talk, too.)

Instead of venting or letting off steam, what should we do, then?  We need a spiritual antibiotic. We need to apply the atoning blood of Jesus Christ to heal the wound. Jesus is the antibiotic who heals all wounds. Sometimes it takes a while for the wound to heal, and we might need to clean out the puss, dead skin, etc., from time to time, but we need to do so in a sterile environment, like through prayer, or in a journal that is just between us and the Savior.  And then we also have to clean it, with other things the Lord has provided to help us use His Atonement, like prayer (again), the scriptures, hymns, church attendance, temple attendance, serving others, etc.--all of the Sunday School answers.

You might be saying that this is all well and good, but sometimes your wounds are too large and you really need to talk about them. I don't disagree. I don't think the commandment not to murmur is the same thing as saying don't talk about your problems. Solutions to big problems would never come if we didn't talk about them. It's just the attitude, the complaining, that is the problem. And, admittedly, some bigger sicknesses, like some big sicknesses of the world, while they still require the Savior’s atonement, in those cases, Jesus might need to be a stronger drug than an antibiotic, more like a hospital. Perhaps that might go along with the analogy others have made that the Church is a hospital.

So, since having this analogy come to mind, I’ve started thinking of people when they are venting as having "puss mouth," (just in my head). It's helped me to see them more clearly as being sick. But also, thinking about it now, the analogy can go further. If someone is cleaning out a pussy wound in front of you, what do you do? Well, since most of us learned as children that this isn't healthy, our instinct has come to be to walk away (though many still like to keep in visual range). This isn't a bad idea--to stay away, that is. But sometimes we have to be there. Many doctors have to be in hospitals to help people heal. But what do they do before treating people? They do what they can to immunize themselves--washing their hands, wearing gloves and masks, etc. Likewise, if we know we have to encounter a hostile situation beforehand, we can read the scriptures and pray both before and after. 

Curiously enough, I had such a situation this week. A situation where I knew I'd be facing a person the following day that I was fairly certain would not be happy with the things I had to say, as this person hadn't been happy with the things I'd said the day before that caused us to need to meet. But I prayed fervently the night before and the morning of, and things went okay. Yes, it was a very sad situation. The person was very hostile--full of puss mouth--but the Lord helped me to know what to say to help heal this person. The healing wasn't immediate, but I did actually receive an apology a couple days later. I feel very blessed to have had that experience to better help me as it is likely to happen again. (It tends to come with the territory of teaching a required Gen. Ed course at the college level. Tensions run high.) 

Now, the fact is that I'm human, and it did affect me still, and I can't say that I'll be perfect from now on avoiding complaining or venting, etc. But with the Lord's help, I know I can become better each time. In Jesus' name, I hope.