The Church

One of the least understood rules of life is the one about checking your ego, along with your coat, at the door. This valuable rule appears in scripture in other terms, but it is definitely there.

Consider Joseph Smith’s writing in the Liberty Jail: “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion” (D&C 121:39).

Some years ago I worked with high-powered political, business, education, and community leaders. I discovered during those fascinating forays into serious politics and business that the quest for power and money did not do good things to people. On many occasions I watched some otherwise decent men and women becoming grasping, blood-sucking creatures when they determined to pursue their own interests at any cost.

I not only observed, but was occasionally singed by these Machiavellian moves:

• Saying whatever would bring the desired object.
• Stabbing innocents in the back and then stepping over them as if they had disappeared once they’d fallen.
• Betraying trusts.
• Receiving wholehearted loyalty but never returning that precious gift.
• Forgetting that kindness is not optional among those who are true followers of Christ, no matter what the political expediency.
• Receiving so much service that one forgets how to serve.

Such behaviors, which abounded and were well rewarded, led me to think often about the Prophet Joseph’s experiences with those having a “little authority.”

I longed to understand the character of people like the Prophet Joseph and King Benjamin, individuals who had truly learned how to check their own egos. At the conclusion of many meetings, I said to myself, “How did King Benjamin do it? He ascended to the height of power, but that rarified throne never became a Rameumpton. Where was his ego while he was king?”

My search for answers to those questions led to these insights:

1.King Benjamin’s motives were magnanimous, and he knew what he was doing. “…I have not commanded you to come up hither to trifle with the words which I shall speak, but that you should hearken unto me, and open your ears that ye may hear, and your hearts that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view” (Mosiah 2:9).

2.The king never forgot how he got where he was. Plus he understood his relationship to his people and his reliance on the Lord. “I have not commanded you to come up hither that ye should fear me…I have been chosen by this people, and consecrated by my father, and was suffered by the hand of the Lord that I should be a ruler and a king over this people; and have been kept and preserved by his matchless power, to serve you with all the might, mind and strength which the Lord hath granted unto me” (Mosiah 2:10-11).

3.King Benjamin knew who he was. “I…myself am…a mortal man….I am like as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind…” (Mosiah 2:10-11).

4.However he may have been served, he continued to serve others, knowing that thereby he served the Lord. “I, myself, have labored with mine own hands that I might serve you, and that ye should not be laden with taxes, and that there should nothing come unto you which was grievous to be borne…I do not desire to boast, for I have only been in the service of God” (Mosiah 2:14, 16).When he discussed service, it was not strictly in our human context. Service, he taught, not only connected us to teach other, it also connects us to our God. He emphasized the point: “I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17).

To King Benjamin his people were not his lackeys, serfs, or subordinates; they were his “fellow beings.” To me that wonderful phrase connotes parity and mutual respect.

That was it! King Benjamin never operated in a vacuum as if he were the center of the universe. His real world was not political or financial, it was spiritual, and the implications of his actions and relationships remained ever clear to him. His energies were not directed at his own ego, but at blessing others.

In a very real sense, what checked King Benjamin’s ego was his own knowledge of who he was, how he related to the Lord, and how he connected with others.

The inspired words of Joseph Smith and the remarkable example of King Benjamin helped me piece together some of the most puzzling and challenging experiences of my life. They also drew me to the conclusion that checking our egos at the door is necessary if we are to avoid unrighteous dominion and other ego-driven ills.

F Is for Family

I was alone on a business trip in Canada when my brother called to tell me our father had died of a massive heart attack.

That sudden parting brought a grief as dark and impenetrable as the moonless, starless sky through which I flew home a few hours later. Staring into the blackness, I felt as bleak as that sky looked.   Forlorn, I felt a rawness of soul that made breathing painful and sleep impossible. I searched for comfort in moments of prayer and passages of scripture. I soaked in the Savior’s words, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25) because I so needed that reassurance.

It was not until I embraced members of my family in the sunlight of the following day that I recalled that it was my father and mother who had taught me that in my personal prayers and scripture study I could find comfort. And I did feel peace in knowing that the spiritual skills my parents had taught me were precisely what I turned to first when one of them left mortality.

From this and many other experiences of tragedy and joy, I have learned the importance of families.As a single woman who longs for a good husband and my own children, I often look with wonder at the joining of man and wife to raise little ones and care for big ones.

Family relationships are not easy. How could they be when they are such an important and long-standing training ground? Friends, colleagues, and neighbors may come and go, but family relationships endure. We are, after all, sealed in the temple with the potential to become eternal family units, not eternal business partnerships or neighborhoods.

The Lord often teaches us through family settings. Even a cursory look at the scriptures and Church doctrine shows that the Lord uses familial relationships as the means to help us understand critical truths. Consider these few:

• We have Heavenly Parents. We are their literal sons and daughters.
• The Savior is often identified by family names, including the Son of Man (Matt. 9:6) and the only begotten Son (John 1:18).
• Alma the elder explained to his people the fruit of unity and love: “And thus they became the children of God” (Mosiah 18:22).
• James defined “pure religion” in part as “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27).
• Each week at Church we even call each other “brother” and “sister.”

Family relationships, even figurative ones, link us. Our lineage links us inextricably. With the help of my own much-loved parents, siblings, and extended family, I’ve learned much about what family relationships can be at their best, their funniest, their wobbliest, and their worst. I do not claim to understand the myriad of family circumstances in which we Church members find ourselves. I have concluded, though, that striving to bless each other is the least we can do as family members.

When my dad dropped me off at the airport for my business trip, I gave him a hug, and said, “Thanks, Dad. I love you.” Those were the last words I spoke to him in mortality.

I hope “I love you” is tacit in all I do for and with my family.

G Is for Gratitud

A package of balloons was the last thing I packed before I left on a school-sponsored tour of Russia. I reasoned that since the high school students I was escorting would be in Moscow on July 4, I should bring balloons in place of firecrackers. 

Late in the afternoon on that grand American holiday, we made our way to a small park where we blew up our balloons and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” with gusto. Tanya, our 23-year-old Russian tour guide, looked on politely, holding a balloon while we relished our party.

After “Yankee Doodle Dandy” we created our fireworks. We jumped on, poked, and batted every balloon until it exploded. As the noise crescendoed, I encouraged Tanya. “Come on!” I shouted. “Pop your balloon!”

She looked stricken. “Oh no,” she responded immediately. “I love balloons, and I haven’t had one since I was a child. I want to save it.” With that she undid the knot, carefully let the air out, and slid this used balloon into her pocket.

The celebration ended; our trip ended. Some weeks later I stood in the midst of a national political convention on the night the presidential candidate was nominated. On cue, thousands of balloons fell. Almost instantly up to my waist in them, I watched hundreds more fall while my fellow delegates stomped, punched, and bludgeoned them into noisy acknowledgement of our political process.

I stood quietly holding one balloon, suddenly transported back to the Fourth of July in Moscow, Russia. Memories and emotions flooded back to me in that deluge of balloons. I saw again in my mind’s eye something I’d never imagined-an adult cautiously guarding one, valued balloon.

The celebration ended; the convention ended. As I returned home, I thought about balloons. In my entire life I’d never thought about them before. Taken for granted, balloons were tokens at birthdays and parties, something to add a splash of color and little else. But they were something to be grateful for too, I learned from Tanya.

Like so many small, insignificant things and events, balloons can be an occasion to thank the Lord for the blessings they represent. We are blessed to live in a time when such frivolities are so readily available and so inexpensive for most of us that we don’t give them more than a passing thought. What a luxury.

Alma admonished, “…when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God…” (Alma 37:37). Jacob counseled, “Behold, my beloved brethren, remember the words of your God;…give thanks unto his holy name by night….” (2 Nephi 9:52).

For clouds and colors, for food and family, for plumbing and possessions, for truth and travels, for vehicles and voting, for breath and something as simple as a balloon, we can be grateful at home and abroad, morning and night.