I am not sure where the idea came from, but when I was quite young I had this idea that there were good guys and bad guys in almost every perceived area of my life. There were good kids at school and in our neighborhood, and bad kids as well. There were good neighbors and bad neighbors. People in the church were usually perceived as being good, even though there seemed to be some bad ones as well. Bible stories had good guys and bad guys, and of course the Nephites were the good guys and the Lamanites were the bad guys. There were good girls and bad girls. The good guys always were players on the teams I liked, and the bad players played for the teams that were trying to beat the good players. People who smoked were bad, and were really bad if they smoked cigars.
This idea kept me from venturing too far from home, as it seemed to me that there could be more and even worse bad guys in the neighborhoods further from my house.
No one that I can remember ever said any of this to me. It just seemed to be there, perhaps as a custom or a tradition. Perhaps I just liked it that way so I could identify with the good guys.
Neighbors came in different varieties to me. Some were members of the Church, some not. Some were friendly to me, some didn't seem quite so friendly. There were three known (to the neighbor boys) pedofiles in our neighborhood, one just down the street from me. I didn't know that term, and strange as it may seem, I didn't really think of the one who molested me as being a really bad guy. I just learned to avoid him. I am sure, however, that much of my perspective about sex was shaped by several experiences with Bob McKendrick.*
As I got older, there was still a good guy/bad guy perspective, but it was changing. In high school, there were still good guys and bad guys. I was a good boy because I didn't do some of the things some of the other boys did. I didn't drink, smoke or hang out late at night. And I avoided those who did. I was curious about girls, attracted by them, and heard many stories, but had no ideas about sex or petting. Even the few times that I did 'make out' never led to anything more. I didn't even know what more was, at least not until I got married. Then, I believe that my being molested started to manifest in me. I mistakenly thought that I wanted more than my wife was able to give me. But because of my ideas about good and bad, this did not lead to anything more than just being disappointed. I just learned to accept it.
I was the classic example of a boy who was sheltered. I was not ready for the world. So how could someone like me be living in France, so far away from what I had known. I eventually learned that no one is really good and no one is really evil. We are all in between. There are no good guys except how the world defines good guys, and I certainly was not a good guy.
My experience in the Marine Corps really broadened my perspective in many ways. I met many who were not LDS, but who were religious and loved their wives and children. I saw sacrifices made that I am not sure I could have made. I saw people, I think, for the first time, with no labels, and I liked them and enjoyed our differences. I realized that there were a lot more people better and braver than I was.
But I still did not feel comfortable in their world. Nor did I feel comfortable in the world as I experienced it on my mission in what was then the Central States mission, but I caught a glimpse of being in the world to help bring others out of the world.
But, I learned, the world is a dangerous place, not just because of crime, disease, war, corrupt people, and natural disasters, but because it is so inviting. It entices us with its glamor, its things, its music and its activities. And not only that, but it captures us with its systems and the values those system represent.
I thank my Heavenly Father for Hugh Nibley because of his gifts of teaching the word of God. As I wanted more and bigger, his writings always brought me back to the real world--God's real World, not the one we live in, which is Satan's. It was a conflict for me. Because of my desires, I tried to ignore what I was becoming to know as God's will for me and all His children, but I couldn't. He wouldn't let me.
The danger for me wasn't what I had thought it was in my early and formative years. It wasn't those bad guys. The danger for me was becoming too comfortable in Satan's world, putting my trust in the economy, ignoring what I knew to be true, and thinking of myself as one of the good guys.
"What is it, then, of Babylon that has such a stranglehold on its people? Why are we tempted to commit ourselves to things of pure human fabrication rather than to what is of God? Even when the Jews had an opportunity to return to Jerusalem, most did not, but stayed in Babylon, even though they had been taken captive by this great world power. This was because it is so easy to assume the value of Babylon's systems, her way of doing things, because Babylon was so successful. They failed to realize that they had been taken captive by Babylon--again!" (The Stranglehold of Babylon, Fingerofgod.blogspot.com)
Christ in John Chapters 14, 15 and 17, identifies seven categories of persons or people. These seven categories include everyone--all, in the drama which is our lives on this earth.
1. His Father
2. Himself, Jesus Christ, as the Son of God
3. The Holy Ghost
4. His apostles
5. His saints
6. The world, and
7. The Prince of the world
The summary of all our relationships to other beings is given in these chapters from the lips of the Savior.
The five levels at the top form an unbroken continuum, "a single universe of discourse, which does not embrace the two lowest levels: the world and the prince of the world operate on their own principles on the other side of a great gulf as in Lehi's dream.
I think what I mistakenly thought were bad guys, was really a sense that I was in a dangerous place, a world that was inviting me with open arms. I resisted even when I was young, but it was so persistent that as I got older, I succumbed to the those areas where I could still maintain my status as one of the good guys by not participating in its more lurid activities, but becoming captive nevertheless.
The tenet we hear often--being in the world but not of the world--is a fiction we have created to make us feel comfortable in the world while we see ourselves as good guys who are living the gospel. When we are in the world we are in it, subject to all its allures and temptations.
But Christ makes a different distinction. He said, "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own . . . but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:19).
When we go into the world to bring people out of the world, we are still in the world, but He prays for us, while he does not pray for the world.
"I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me" (John 17:9).
He has given us the tools necessary to navigate our way in the world as we work "To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God" (Acts 26:18).
"I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17:14 emphasis added).
In short, the saints must be in the world to do their dangerous work of recruiting other saints out of the world. And saints does not mean in name and membership only. It is not a club. It includes those who have desired to, and been called of Him to thrust in their sickle and reap. The saints are those who are repenting.
Another help He has given His Saints is the Holy Ghost, whose purpose is to comfort those who have been called and bring to their remembrance all the words which Christ has spoken. [When the Comforter comes in his place], "the world cannot receive [him], because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him" (John 14:16-17).
Here visitors from above are not welcome; they are treated as trespassers and offenders--despised, rejected, and persecuted wherever they go. But the Lord leaves His peace with His saints but "not at the world giveth, give I unto you (John 14:13). To those He says, "I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit" (John 15:16).
All these things may seem perfectly obvious once they are pointed out, but we tend to forget them and identify with the world by the simple process of following the way of least resistance. Once in the world, even the angels are tempted. The posture of "sheep among wolves" is a difficult one to maintain: in fact, in most cases the sheep were "turned into wolves." Almost invariably the easy way, offering "the flesh-pots of Egypt" or "the precious things" at Jerusalem is the winner against the hard way of life in the wilderness.
"When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.... He that received the seed in stony places...he hath not root in himself, but dureth for awhile: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns,..the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful" (Matthew 13:19-22).
The world's answer to John 14, 15 and 17: a hierarchy of fear and compulsion, both historically and presently, and it is becoming more evident to those who have been shielded from this for most of their lives.
The whole world has been engaged in a counterfeit version of the combat between good and evil (like I was) in which Shiz and Coriantumr, Lamanites and Nephites, destroy each other in the illusion that it is the good guys fighting the bad guys.
So yes, in France, a world so far removed from the world I grew up in, I feel the Lord's peace in me. But I am never comfortable in the world because I have experienced how easy it is to be drawn in and partake of its delights and false comforts. I must constantly partake of His words, pray to Him, but all the while still wanting to stay in the world to bring others out of the world where the Prince of this world reigns.
He has called me out of the world to say nothing but repentance unto this generation, and I do so knowing that there may come a time when those of the world will hate me for doing so.