A conscience is like a bed of campfire coals. Ignore it, and it goes cold. Tend to it, however, and the glow gets brighter.
It gives off light to see.
It warms the soul.
But these days, you don't have to read very deep in the newspaper to see there are a lot of cold campfires in the world. And that makes for a chilly world.
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "conscience" is considered part of the Light of Christ. And what I like is — like a nose — everybody gets one. No purchase necessary. Conscience is a gift, given in the womb.
And since every person has a conscience, every person — Muslim, Mennonite, Shinto or Shoshone — becomes a source of insight about it.
Benjamin Franklin examined his conscience and decided, "A good conscience is a continual Christmas."
George Washington felt people should "labor to keep alive in your heart that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."
Thomas Aquinas felt conscience proved the existence of God. Because its promptings are often not in our own best interest — such as the impulse to jump into a river to save someone — conscience must be "somebody else" talking to us.
James Metcalf called conscience our "walkie-talkie set with God."
Personally, I think of conscience as a tool. And as with any tool, you not only need to care for it, but somebody has to show you how to use it.
And the wise among us learn to use the tool of conscience the way they learn most things: from people who've mastered it.
Years ago I read an intriguing bird story. It seems a flock of ornithologists decided to lift newborn songbirds from their nests — meadowlarks, nightingales — to see if they would still sing in solitude. And they did. But their songs were very simple and weak. Once the birds were put back with their kind, however, they began learning the trills and subtle shadings in the song from other birds around them.
The birds had to be taught to sing.
Just as people need to learn the tricky steps for mastering right and wrong.
You need a good teacher.
That's the problem, I think, with souls who have a weak conscience.
Nobody took the time to teach them the song.
The nice thing is, teachers come to us in a hundred ways.
Back in 1958, a new song showed up in church: "Teach Me to Walk in the Light," by Clara W. McMaster. I liked it then. I like it even more now. And for half-a-century, the words "teach me to know of the things that are right, teach me, teach me to walk in the light" have hovered at the back of my brain, seeping into my mind at unexpected times.
Clara McMaster passed away at age 93 in 1997. But she remains one of those "practiced" songbirds who taught me about the melody of conscience. There have been many others.
I don't always get the tune right. Even after all that and all this time.
But my "song" is more subtle and sure, because many people took the time to show me how it's supposed to go.
E-mail: jerjohn@desnews.com