Editor’s note: This is the last of a four-part series on the changes that are made when an adult converts to the LDS Church. Read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.
In the first three parts of this series, I wrote about applying the spiritual gifts we receive through adult baptism and conversion beyond our personal lives and into the secular workplace. In this final installment, I would like to move from applying spiritual concepts in the traditional workplace and into the creative realm.
In my professional life I have been extremely lucky as I’ve been able to do the two things I enjoy most: Putting villains in jail via my position as a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department; and sharing my stories through the publication of nine novels, two dozen hours of episodic television, a feature film, and numerous short stories and non-fiction articles. My dual careers have proved to be surprisingly symbiotic ? each fueling the other in many respects.
Since becoming a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints four years ago, I have had cause to reevaluate my writing career. The themes and action in my published works have been colored by my thirty years with a major metropolitan police department ? more than twenty of them spent investigating sex crimes. The old saw of writing what you know still rings clear. In the new light of baptism and conversion, I recognized my creativity as a gift from the Lord. But was I using this talent as the Lord intended?
Novels
My novels are what they are ? genre entertainment ? and I am proud of them. While they are worldly in their content, they are no more so than those of John Grisham, Joseph Wambaugh, Jonathan Kellerman, and the many other authors whose titles they are displayed alongside.
Still, with all of the published works I have produced, the secular success of bestseller lists, fat royalty checks, book tours, and television and movie deals of the aforementioned authors have eluded me.
In the grand secular scheme of things, my writing career has gone virtually nowhere. Many writers with similar track records get to pick and choose their assignments, enjoy royalty checks on a regular basis, and are brand names in the business. So, why not me?
I’m not starting a pity party here or looking for commiseration. I have a different point ? an uplifting one ? yet one it took me a long time to understand, appreciate, and to be thankful for.
Long before I became a member of the Church, I had a firm testimony of Jesus Christ and had given my life over to the Lord. There is no doubt in my mind He has guided me through both my police and writing careers to this point and continues to do so.
When praying for writing breaks or successes in the years prior to my adult baptism, I always asked for the blessings to come only if they were the Lord’s will. I’ve always had little successes ? I was published, there was always a small check when I needed it ? but when huge success didn’t come, when the repeated answer to my prayers was to have patience, I accepted this was God’s plan ? even if I didn’t like it or understand it. I realized there had to be something more.
Henry B. Eyring had this to say in referring to pure motive as a requirement for the companionship of the Holy Ghost:
For instance, I may want a good grade in a course, when He prefers that I learn how to work hard in the service of others. I may want a job because of the salary or the prestige, when He wants me to work somewhere else to bless the life of someone I don’t even know yet. He surely will have purposes for your hearing me speak tonight. He knows you. I might have a desire to entertain or impress you. But I have tried to suppress my desire and surrender to His.
When I was baptized and joined the Church, I was put through some horrible times with my parents. They continue to this day to rail against my membership, accuse, and shun. Although, I handle things much better emotionally today than in the beginning, my creativity disappeared off the map for over two years: I couldn’t write anything longer than my name.
While this disaster was going on in my writing life, I was having more success than ever before in my police career. Still, the emotional upset leading to creative stagnation drove me to spend time in therapy. I worked separately with an LDS counselor and a police therapist, both of whom helped me tremendously. I worked hard in therapy ? always having been blessed with the ability to self-analyze and an optimistic disposition ? and made good progress.
With therapy now over more than years behind me, I recently had an epiphany: If I had experienced worldly success in publishing, television, or movies, I would have been led further and further away from the Church. If I had been given what I asked for ? if I’d have had the kind of money and celebrity that comes with that type of secular success ? I may have become unbearably self-centered, puffed up, and selfish. Today I could be spiritually empty.
I understand myself well enough to know the path of the Pharisees would have been hard to avoid. With that kind of secular success, it would have taken me a lot longer to reach conversion ? if ever in this life. Fortunately, I had already turned my life over to the Lord. He had a hard enough time getting me to where he wanted me without having to deal with me had I been on the bestseller list.
I now pray for something quite different in my writing ? not secular success, but to be able to use the gift of words the Lord has given me for His purposes. As soon as I started doing this, the opportunity to write for Meridian opened and the amazing reader response to my articles has been gratifying. Even as I began writing this particular series on The Ripples of Adult Conversion, I found myself turning to the Lord for guidance.
Creative Prayer
Like many of the other self-revealing points I have discussed in this series, I do so simply as a testimony to the power of adult baptism and conversion in my life. I struggled with writing the articles in this personally open fashion because I did not want to be misperceived. I started and restarted the first article in the series over and over, only to have it run out of steam each time.
Finally, the light bulb went on (why do we forget these simple things?). I asked the Lord to help me find the right approach for the article if it was a subject he wanted me to explore. The next morning when I sat down at the computer there was an email waiting for me. It was from an LDS writing acquaintance whom I hadn’t had contact with in quite a while. Out of the blue, he was writing to ask me if cops ever prayed for solutions to cases, if I’d ever done so, and what if anything had been the effect!
I sat there gobsmacked! The heart of the article I was striving to write could not have been captured more precisely.
The resulting correspondence over a half-dozen emails eventually formed the skeleton outline for these articles. I gained the strength to share my experiences with a wider audience and, in the less formal setting of an email, was able to write what was essentially an unpolished first draft.
In his epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 11:1), Paul wrote, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” As we engage in creative endeavors with the revelations of conversion, what we create gives substance to “things hoped for” through paint, language, sculpture, music or any art form. Artistic creation becomes a form of translation ? God’s message through art.
In bringing the fire of conversion and baptism to creative fields, we must consider what the Lord would have us portray and how he would have us portray it. As a writer, it is my job to entertain. My goal, however, should be to uplift and edify. So, when I write another novel, do I seek to capitalize on the commercialism of humanities basest attributes?
If an offer comes to write a feature film with an R rating because of language, sexuality, and violence, do I accept the commission? What if it is to star an Oscar-winning actor and has a strong chance of being a huge financial success? Do I waste the creative gifts entrusted to me, or do I seek a creative path to glorify the one who gave me the gifts?
Commercial Success
Commercial success and adherence to creative integrity are not mutually exclusive. Many LDS writers, musicians, filmmakers, and other artists honor their creative inheritance in a manner that has also blessed them secularly. Two prominent LDS authors, Anne Perry and Orson Scott Card, are both upstanding examples of this combination.
Many of their works are secular in setting, plotting, and exposition, yet they possess an underlying quality that makes their novels works of principle. Others of their works are unapologetically spiritual in seeking more direct paths to exalt the Lord, his love, and his message. Seeking to create with the same integrity as they display will no doubt keep us closer to the message the Lord would have us craft.
All experiences add to the well of human understanding from which we draw inspiration. Often, the most stressful and demanding life experiences are those that pour most heavily into our wells. This is especially true if we work to find the difficult blessings within them.
Through the trials of lack of secular writing success, I have known the Lord has had everything in hand. As horrible as the situation has been with my parents’ avid and vocal disapproval of my conversion, I know that I continue to move through that fire for a reason.
I asked the Lord to allow me to serve Him ? and in order for me to do so, He has had to put me through the refiner’s fire of change. It has humbled me; it has changed my priorities; it has strengthened my marriage. When I was recently called to the bishopric, I told my wife I would never have been called to this position, or been prepared in any way to accept its challenges, had I not been through what I had with my parents.
My favorite scripture comes from Paul’s epistle to the Thessalonians. He tells them, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (I Thessalonians 5:18). Paul is not referring to just good things ? he specifically states, every thing. So, as hard as our trials are, if we have truly given ourselves to Christ, then we can find comfort in knowing our trials are part of his purpose.
If we can give thanks during hard times, willingly undergoing them because we know Father needs us to carry these burdens and has a purpose behind them, we can find great comfort ? especially if we keep our minds and hearts open to the purpose, so if Father chooses to make his purpose clear, we will gain understanding and move forward.
Ethics guru Michael Josephson puts it this way, “It’s not easy, but if we develop the wisdom to treat frustrations and failures as empowering experiences and generate the strength to let go of self-destructive resentments and grudges, our lives will be filled with a lot more sunshine.”
Will we always understand his purpose? No, for His ways are not our ways ? He is unbound by time and flesh. But if we as parents had to put a child through a difficult trial because we knew it was in the child’s best interest, and that child had no concept of why he had to undergo this difficult thing, yet turned to us and said, “I’ll do this because I trust you and know you would never do anything that wasn’t in my best interest,” how great would our tears of joy be?
If we can get on our knees and say the same thing to Father when we are in the depths of pain and despair, the power of the heavens will be with us.
As a writer I recognize Jesus Christ as a master storyteller. The simple parables he used to teach, enlighten, and uplift stand as beacons because of the truths within them. While simple on the surface, there are far reaching consequences within each tale. Creatively, we can not wander if we seek to employ artistic skills in emulation of the son of the master creator.
The Call
The Lord has given artists, writers, musicians, actors, and others in the creative disciplines specific talents. At some point in time, each of us will be held accountable for how we have used these gifts. Will we have to admit to squandering them in prideful pursuit of vain ambition?
How much greater our joy will be if we can show creative works reflecting spiritual value. Each of us as individual creative artists need to seek through prayer and fasting the path the Lord would have us follow. How does he want us to use the gifts and talents he has given us? As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have we not covenanted those gifts and talents to him.
If our post conversion creativity reaches a wide audience, commercial reward may follow. If it does, we must seek to treat it as a blessing, not an invitation from the adversary to stray from our covenants. If confronted with commercial opportunities which compromise our spirituality, may we remember those covenants and keep our eyes on the higher prize.
