The Lessons of Leg Amputation

Or hopefully just skinned knees

Much of the learning we do in life is brought about by exposure to opposites. Frontiersman Brigham Young observed this truth: “Facts are made apparent to the human mind by their opposites.”

I’ve thought about that concept a thousand times. The paradoxical nature of it is compelling. I’ve thought a great deal about how the body is the instrument by which we experience the opposites that exist in the world. All of our senses, in concert with our mortal surroundings, allow us to experience opposites or opposition. And not just observe opposites from a safe, detached distance, but to have them play upon our bodies, which then carves truths into our souls.

We do not simply learn about opposites in this world, we endure them intimately through sensation, emotion, tension, resistance and the continual playing out of natural laws on our bodies. The difference between learning about mortal life and experiencing mortal life through a body is equivalent to reading about a leg amputation versus actually having one’s leg hacked off at the hip. And lesser examples abound: We learn what it feels like to be warm by being cold; we understand and value loyalty when we are betrayed. We cling to light after stumbling through the dark.

Could we understand or appreciate the ultimate pair of opposites—life versus death—without experiencing them both? It seems that God knew we could not understand the supreme gift of eternal life he wishes to give us if we did not experience its opposite—death. So, in a very real sense he could not raise us to everlasting life without first, killing us. Or, putting it more gently, allowing us to die.

In his wisdom, he put us in temporary bodies first so that the effects of this death would not be permanent. But death would seem supremely permanent from the perspective of mortality (the root of the word “mortality” meaning, to die). But in actual fact, this death would be overcomeable. In this way, we could learn what it means to live by dying.

You might say that life is designed to operate in sets of opposites that elucidate truth, and our job is to pass through these opposites gleaning the lessons they teach. Once you start seeing life through this lens, it’s hard to unsee it. Many oppositional truths are experienced and taught in the course of normal family life: Jealousy and generosity, humility and haughtiness, rage and resignation, toughness and tenderness—and of course, more tangible things like clean toilets and dirty ones; skinned knees and unskinned knees; spilled milk and un-spilled milk; tears and laughter.

Family life is a primary medium through which the dynamic opposites in the world find a way into our hearts and souls. This can be exasperating at times. When a glass of milk spills, the glass shatters, and there is a sopping mess to clean up, our first thought is not usually gratitude that we get to understand the beauty of unbroken things by experiencing brokenness. Our response to opposition, understandably, is often frustration.

But perhaps our response to opposition should more consistently be gratitude—gratitude for the truths opposition etches into our very souls.

With love,

Kimberly

Our daughter Heather experiencing opposition after an encounter with a diving board during her rough-and-tumble years

Heather all better years later after a fortunate engagement