TheDiscipleMD

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal.” (‘Animal Farm’, George Orwell)

One of my favorite books of all time is Animal Farm, which I read in High School. I was forced to read it as an English assignment, and it’s one of the few reading assignments that I ended up enjoying. I can’t say the same for other tasks, such as “Waiting for Godot”! While “Animal Farm” was written as more of a political commentary on its time, I read it as a teenager on a more simplistic level. Just straightforward that power tends to corrupt!

In Orwell’s famous book, a bunch of farm animals lament that they are treated as inferiors by their human masters, so they rebel and begin to develop their own version of equality on the farm where they live.  But it doesn’t take long for a caste system to develop within the animal kingdom as the pigs begin to believe they are ‘more equal’ than the rest of the animals. The farm animals soon find that the only thing that has changed is that they have a new master. The desire to be ‘more equal’ is not a Godly attribute but one that comes from the natural man.

If you believe in a pre-mortal life, which I do, all of us come prepackaged to a degree, so we aren’t entirely a blank slate when we arrive here. We come from our Heavenly Home, where we have been developing for…who knows how long. So we each come with specific attributes that were attained long before this earthly life. Life, however, presents different challenges for us. These challenges can alter or at least temporarily hide some of those attributes. Those who come with mental handicaps, for instance, have most, if not all, of their attributes hidden from the rest of us. And the day will come when all that was earned will be revealed and restored. All pre-life attributes will come forth in individuals, and we will know everyone as they are, not just who we see.

Suppose we fully understand the doctrine of a pre-mortal life. In that case, we will never treat another as an inferior because…well, it isn’t within the teachings of Christ, and second, we might turn out to be the inferior one once all is restored and revealed.  Once, after conversing with a person I perceived to be of limited intelligence, I remember thinking, “How is this person going to be able to function in the hereafter, and what are their chances of living up to their royal heritage?”  Then the spirit reminded me that this person may not be who I think they are. Indeed, come the resurrection, when celestial bodies are bestowed, this person, with all their restored knowledge and intelligence, might be far superior to me. After pondering such, I was left with the burning question of, “How would I feel if I faced a person in the afterlife and they said with disappointment and hurt, ‘Thanks a lot for treating me that way when I was trapped in that physical body!”

With our limited knowledge of the total picture, sometimes we might feel we are ‘more’ than equal. But armed with the knowledge of the plan of salvation, we should better understand how and why we should treat and see others as our equals. As we do so, we will begin to treat all as we should—with dignity and respect!