Last Sat night my son went to the Tennessee-Kentucky football game with his cousins so I had to stay up late waiting for his return. Like so many Haitian immigrants, the Vols skinned and ate those Cats of Kentucky. The good guys one! And my son had a great time to boot.
I decided to pass the time with It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. My wife even stayed up to watch with me, basking together in the light of poorly animated nostalgia. As I watched the show, I was struck by several things as it relates to my last post about the brother of Jared’s top tier faith.
Linus plays the role of super duper believer who ends up with nothing to show for it. You may recall that I said the BoJ’s faith is not just super duper sincere belief and that we already have plenty of that in this world with very little results. The difference with the BoJ was that he had a promise from God and he acted on it.
Linus was one with no promise. He went into that pumpkin patch year after year with nothing but “sincerity as far as the eye can see” and what was his reward? Scorn, embarrassment, darkness, cold. Above all, though, none of the rewards. Linus tells himself and others that gifts are the reward of those faithful to the Great Pumpkin but we must believe and be sincere.
If you need a refresher on how TGP operates, here is Linus explaining:
The willfulness of Linus’ foolhardy belief in TGP is on full display when he says: “If you really are a fake, don’t tell me; I don’t want to know”. As we all know, Linus ends up spending the entire night in the pumpkin patch while the other kids go out for candy and a party.
At one point, Linus says “if” TGP should appear rather than “when” and immediately shutters in fear that this one small slip up could cause TGP to pass him by. This man, Linus, has tremendous faith, we could say!
But he has no promise.
And therefore his faith is vain.
As the anti-hero, Lucy provides us with the real measure of faith. She provides a Lecture on Faith that, in my opinion, puts Sidney Rigdon’s effort to shame.
It is actually Lucy who understands what the promise is and acts on it. She knows that if you dress up as something and walk up to a door on a certain night of the year and knock, you will get free candy and even gifts. No need for TGP to show up. Just go to the right place at the right time and knock.
Or in the case of the BoJ, go to the right place at the right time and speak “Zerin”.
Lucy has remarkable faith, doesn’t she?
The proof is not in sincerity. If it were, Linus would have succeeded. The proof is in the reward coming about. Lucy’s faith brought reward, Linus’ faith brought nothing. Why? Because Lucy had a promise and acted on it. Linus had no promise.
That reminds me of something: “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” It’s pretty simple, really.
What about Lucy’s infamous football antics with our pathetic bald-headed Charlie Brown? Lucy gets a lot of flak for these antics but we’re actually witnessing a master teacher trying to help a very dull student learn what faith is and is not. Charlie Brown is all too willing to act on faith that Lucy will not pull the football away at the last second. But she of course does, every time.
In the Halloween special, she goes so far as to provide Charlie-dumb-as-a-rock with a written and signed statement that she will NOT trick him this time. Charlie decides this is ironclad and predictably runs with all his might to kick the ball. Lucy predictably pulls it at the last second and then informs Charlie that the document was not notarized and therefore of no force.
The lesson? You can’t just act on any promise. You have to act on the right promises. Or better said, promises from the right people. Like, say, promises from Jesus and not the devil or man. The devil will always trick you. There will be promises aplenty, but he will always pull the ball and leave you high and dry. So don’t be a fool, Charlie Brown.
In the past I have been very much like Linus, filled w sincerity, sitting in the proverbial pumpkin patch for some promise I imagined was applicable to me but actually wasn’t. I mean, I just made crap up like Linus did. For example, years ago I thought if I practiced the Mormon ritual of the true order of prayer in my house that angels would show up. Maybe even Jesus Himself. I wore the temple garb, consecrated something as an altar, the whole nine yards. Fool! A sincere one, but a fool nonetheless. Like Linus, I invented my own promise and used sincerity as a mask for lacking wisdom.
Well anyway, I am wiser now. It is better to wait for a promise than to invent one. I do know the Gentiles have a promise. Whoever they are (*cough* dwarves *cough*), if they ever realize they have that promise and act on it, it is then that we will see the fruits of such faith as the BoJ. The Gentiles will then be like Lucy, a name which means “light bringer”. They will do as the BoJ who also brought light to a dark place through his own faith.
For:
then will I manifest unto [the Gentiles] the things which the Brother of Jared saw
Thanks, Lucy. Lesson learned.
WW
And yet, in the longer story arc of Linus, his propensity towards faith and belief was rewarded. We see him next during “A Charlie Brown Christmas” where, surrounded by commercialism, he reminds a despondent Charlie Brown (and everyone else) of the true meaning of Christmas.
Yeah, we are going to make mistakes sometimes, and believe in the wrong things, get mixed up, etc. Some things may not happen as we had originally imagined them to and leave us sitting in a patch for awhile, but a saying that was attributed to Joseph Smith went:
“I believe all that God ever revealed, and I never hear of a man being damned for believing too much; but they are damned for unbelief.”
Honestly, I’d rather be Linus sitting in that patch any day of the week than be Lucy. Not even close. She was a bully and a jerk.
You also forgot that Lucy is a form of Lucifer, a name carried by the Devil himself.
LEE
Yes, Linus was slow to learn but he eventually did, thanks in no small part to Lucy. By the time Christmas rolls around he’s starting to get his head on straight.
I’m sure you know that quote is from TPJS which is heavily edited and not at all trustworthy as a source so I’m not inclined to rationalize it. But if I was, I would say you’re badly misreading it because it’s referring to things God has revealed. Man is damned for not believing *those things* enough. God hasn’t revealed the existence of a Great Pumpkin to my knowledge, hence the need to correct Linus. It does matter very much what we believe. I suppose you could say it’s better to believe something rather than nothing and *maybe* that’s true. Unless you’re an Aztec. I think they would have been better off believing nothing. The many humans sacrificed certainly would have. So no, that’s not a very good approach to belief. There’s a reason new records need to come out and it’s to correct wrong beliefs, such as those Linus embraced.
And you’ve got Lucy completely wrong. Would the devil try to convince Linus to lay aside false beliefs? Not unless he was going to replace it with something worse. Would the devil ask every house for extra candy so Linus had some candy even though he didn’t go trick or treating? No, he’d gloat over Linus with every piece. Would the devil wake up in the middle of the night and go out to the pumpkin patch with an extra blanket to bring shivering Linus in from the cold and tenderly put him to bed? Not a chance!
A bully, you say? Well she does use tough love I suppose but we can hardly blame her for that. It’s hard teaching truth to people. Joseph Smith said teaching the people of his day was hard. “There has been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation, it has been like splitting hemlock knots with a Corn doger for a wedge.” Man, what a bully! He might as well have called them all “block heads”! 🙂 People thought poorly of JS too but like he said they “never knew [his] heart”. I think poor Lucy could say the same to you.
WW
It seems like Linus might be a better analogy for Joseph Smith than Lucy is, with both falling asleep in their respective patches after their sincerely believed-in (and duly mocked) deities and beliefs failed to materialize.
And I guess it depends on what the candy ultimately represents as to whether the Devil would get more of it for Linus or not. Regardless, Linus wasn’t after the candy at all – which you could get from any old house (unless you were Charlie Brown) – but toys that only the Great Pumpkin could bring.
LEE
I’m not sure how much longer we can justify debating the proper symbolism of Charlie Brown cartoons but the problem I see with your interpretation is there actually is no such thing as TGP. It doesn’t exist in the cartoon or in real life, so using Linus as a symbol for JS doesn’t work unless you think J Smith’s theology was factually untrue and he deluded himself and others like Linus did.
The main point of the post was to demonstrate that sincerity in untrue things (what Linus demonstrates) doesn’t get us anywhere whereas simple acts of faith in *true things* (what Lucy demonstrates) brings about the promised reward.
But of course you can tease out an entirely different story if you want.
WW
Ah – well, that is the issue, then. You think The Great Pumpkin isn’t real. The cartoon has an anthropomorphic dog that is smarter than any human on the show, and even walks on two legs, but it is denied the possibility of a real Great Pumpkin. Sad.
LEE
Feel free to fact check me if you want but there is no great pumpkin to ever appear. The closest you get is Charlie Brown saying it “appeared in a very sincere pumpkin patch owned by someone named Freeman in New Jersey”. Maybe that’s enough for your purposes. The anthropomorphic dog is there, however, and in fact, poses as TGP on a few occasions. TGP is fictional both in and out of Peanuts universe as far as I can tell. But a quick Google search reveals you aren’t the only real-life believer to join Linus in his patch.
LEE
I was trying to figure out why you’re so determined to defend Linus so I started searching on your blogs and found this post: https://coatofskins.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-great-pumpkin-and-waiting.html. Very interesting that in that post you also reference the story of the BoJ. Just so you know, none of this post or comments from me relate at all to the context of your prior post. You see yourself in Linus, and that’s fine. Just know that none of what I have said here relates to what you said in that post. We can both learn different lessons from Linus without undermining what the other sees I hope.
WW
I am defending Linus not because I see myself in him (though I did use his situation as an analogy), but I thought the character himself, and what he represents, needed defending. It seemed supremely unjust to paint him as the fool and Lucy as the good guy.
On some of our interactions that has been the case. I had a flashback going way back to the old Twist days, when you and some others went after Captain Moroni, called him a bad guy and Mormon a fool for writing about him in the way that he did. I jumped in and defended Moroni and Mormon because I thought the characterization was unjust. It never does any good, and I know it doesn’t change any minds (it didn’t then), but sometimes I just want to defend them even knowing that. Like the feeling that someone should speak up for them – the characters themselves.
Sometimes I do resist the temptation to jump in, believe it or not. I had a similar reaction when you went after Nephi recently, for example, calling him a bad writer, etc. I had to fight my reaction to come to his defense, so I made the joke about Martin Harris instead.
I am not sure why I feel defensive for these characters, but I do. Feels like gross libel, so it is some kind of psychological thing with me probably.
But I will commit to abstaining from defending any more characters – fictional or otherwise – on your blog.
LEE
I don’t care if you want to defend someone. I just don’t understand why you see it as libelous. If it helps, I am a fool at times too. In fact, I called myself one in this post. So was Peregrin Took according to Gandalf. We can be fools one moment and wise the next, which is what I see in Linus. Lucy can be a total b one moment and a sweet sister the next. Nephi can be an overall great dude who did amazing things while simultaneously maybe not the most direct writer the world has ever known. And a bit self righteous to boot. So what? Good people have flaws.
At any rate, I had forgotten about the Capt Moroni discussion so I went back and re-read it. Back then (and I guess still today) you were convinced I was calling him evil/bad even though multiple times I said he wasn’t. For whatever reason we seem to talk past each other sometimes. More importantly, in the end, I actually moved your way quite a bit b/c I realized I had misremembered a key detail about the prisoners being put to death. So the conversation actually did change minds and do some good. Bottom line, your comments are welcome so push back if you feel the need. I just can’t say I always fully understand what’s driving it.
WW
Nephi was pretty clear about what it meant if people didn’t understand what he was writing or were confused by it, whether Isaiah’s words or his own that he mixed in and followed up with. Anyone who has the ‘spirit of prophecy’ will understand those words, and Nephi said at a future day people would have that spirit and understand what he wrote, Isaiah’s words, etc.
If we can’t understand, it is because we don’t have the spirit of prophecy. Isn’t any more complicated than that. Doesn’t mean we will always be that way, but it would describe our current situation. Don’t hang your own issues on Nephi, in other words.
As for calling him self-righteous, I won’t even start on that. I’m tired of that line and take on Nephi.
LEE
I assume you’re talking about the first 7 verses of 2 Ne 25. If so, I’m afraid you’re misreading it, no offense. Nephi is contrasting his own writings with those of Isaiah. It is Isaiah’s words that require the spirit of prophecy and that are hard to understand unless you know how the Jews prophesied. Nephi says that instead of explaining the Jewish ways (since their ways were darkness) he’ll instead speak in plainness.
“I shall prophesy according to the plainness which hath been with me from the time that I came out from Jerusalem with my father; for behold, my soul delighteth in plainness unto my people, that they may learn.”
And also:
“I proceed with mine own prophecy, according to my plainness; in the which I know that no man can err;”
I appreciate Nephi and what he wrote. I also don’t think he was as clear as he thought he was because there are many men that err in reading his words. In fact, I don’t know of anyone who can clearly understand everything he says.