Editor’s Note:  We are pleased to present this once-a-week, all-summer-long series of familycentric essays from Richard Eyre. This is essay 7 in the series. Last weekend’s article, here, summarized the first six essays and has links to each so that newcomers can catch up. 

As most Meridian readers know, the Eyres, for five decades, have focused their professional lives on strengthening families.  This focus has ranged from writing New York Times #1 bestselling books to speaking to parents in more than 60 countries around the globe.  But their true passion is for an Inclusive, Eternal Family Paradigm that can’t be fully shared or grasped without the insights of the Restored Gospel. And they feel that the reverse of that is also true:  The Restored Gospel can’t be fully grasped or shared until it is seen through an Inclusive, Eternal Family Lens.  The goal of this series of essays is to better understand and have more realistic expectations of both Church and Family. And “family” is broadly defined so that each article speaks to us all, whether we are single or married, parents or siblings, aunts and uncles or grandparents.

Author’s Note: As we enter the second half of this Essay Series on Familycentricity (I’m continuing to expand that word) we will move more toward the practical and the how-to.  The goal will be to take some of the theology and doctrine discussed in the first half and turn it into personal application. We will start with an attitude, or a mindset, (or a paradigm) that at first sounds like something no one would pursue or want, but that turns out to be the most worthy and difference-making pursuit of all. 

Opening Stories

Elder LeGrand Richards, a venerable member of the Quorum of the Twelve during my youth and early adulthood, resided in our ward during the last years of his life. I loved the stories I had heard about him—especially missionary stories—including the time he snatched the microphone from a flight attendant as she finished her pre-flight safety instructions—and asked everyone on the plane who was LDS to raise their hands.  Then he said something like “Now, anyone sitting by someone with their hand up, listen while they tell you more about our faith during this flight.”

I don’t know if that story is apocryphal or not, but I can vouch for this next one because I was there.  With Elder Richards in our ward High Priest’s quorum, the rest of us took every opportunity to ask him questions.  One Sunday, someone asked “Elder Richards, how have you managed to live so long?” (I think he was 94 at the time). He paused, and then to the best of my memory said “Well, way back 70 years ago when Ina Jane and I got married, we made a solemn vow that we would never fight or argue within the walls of our home.”

We were impressed but thought maybe he had mis-heard the question and thought it was about marriage rather than ageing and longevity.

He paused momentarily, and I can still see the twinkle in his eye as he went on, “That’s how I’ve lived so long—I’ve spent so much time in the out-of-doors.”

The story that leads into the topic of this essay happened around the same time.  Elder Richards, no longer able to read the teleprompter or to keep his talks to the time limits required, was not speaking anymore in General Conference, but in one conference he did offer one of the prayers.  Something he asked for in that prayer, I thought, was filled with courage as well as wisdom.  As near as I can recall, he said “Please bless all of us General Authorities on this stand with a realization of our own nothingness.”

What is “nothingness” in scripture and in the Gospel? And how does it impact our families and our relationships?

Let’s circle into that question via a wish-list that most parents and most everyone in a relationship would subscribe to—and then let’s look at an oration by a great king that may rank as one of the most remarkable speeches ever given.

Parent’s Wish List

If any group of parents were suddenly given a magic wand that they could wave over their children to make a wish come true, what might they wish for?  Remember, it is a magic wand, so you can wish for whatever you want your kids to do or not to do, to become or not to become—you can wish even for things that seem impossible.  Here are some of the things we still wish for our children, and that you have probably always wished for yours:

That they would not fight or argue
That they would always be provided for
That they would keep God’s commandments
That they would avoid or overcome temptation
That you could successfully teach them to recognize truth and earnestly seek it
That they would love each other
That they would serve each other

Now if we were to pass the magic wand to parents of older kids—here are some of the things they might wish for their adult children:

That they would always (or as much as possible) be happy
That they would love and believe in God
That they would be forgiven for their mistakes and errors
That they would continue to grow spiritually in their knowledge and testimony of God
That they would be seekers of justice and truth
That they would be peaceful
That they would care about others and avoid harming anyone
That they would be fair and honest
That they would serve and help those in need
That they would try not deny any who asked them for help

What an (impossibly?) wonderful list of wishes!  What we wouldn’t give or do to have those wishes come true!

The Magic Wand (or the Challenge) that can Grant those Wishes

As amazing as it sounds, this list of wishes—seventeen of them—are promised to those who do one seemingly simple but actually very difficult thing.

King Benjamin, in his classic speech to his people, listed these very things (which we often read as admonitions) as the promises—the things that would naturally come to pass—if they would do one thing:

Remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness.

His wording and the “cause and effect” or “if, then” meaning of his words are clear.

The great king and prophet says in Mosiah 4:
“If ye do this”
(remember and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God and your own nothingness)
Ye shall
“always rejoice”
“be filled with the love of God”
“retain a remission of your sins”
“grow in the knowledge of the glory of Him that created you”
“(grow in) the knowledge of that which is just and true”
“not have a mind to injure one another”
“live peaceably”
“render to every man according to that which is his due”

And Ye will…
“not suffer your children that they go hungry or naked”
“(not suffer) that (your children) transgress the laws of God”
“(nor) fight and quarrel one with another”
“(nor) serve the devil”

But Ye will
“teach (your children) them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness”
“teach them to love one another
“(teach) them to serve one another”
“and also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need”
“and will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vein”

Paradigm Shift Required

Changing how we read and interpret this scripture which most have read so many times requires a mental shift and a new lens.  We have to read it anew and make the connection that Benjamin makes between a deep and powerful kind of humility and the influence it can have on those we love most.  He clearly and unequivocally promises that if we can obtain and remember this powerful principle of the “everythingness” of God and our own nothingness, we can obtain those remarkable 17 promises.

As we ponder that we should each ask ourselves some very consequential personal questions:

Are the things we usually read as admonitions or challenges in King Benjamin’s classic speech actually not admonitions at all, but promises? And does the nothingness challenge he gives us and the promises it brings center on our families and our parenting? Can one single admonition actually yield all 17 of the promises?  How does it tie in with the purpose and the value of praising God? Why and how is “Humble without being compelled” better than “Compelled Humility?”  What is an example of each? Why might the attitude or spiritual characteristic of Nothingness have more impact on a family than any number of methods or techniques?

Let’s explore these questions…

Family—The Deepest and most Troubling Division of All 

As discussed in Essay 6, we live in a vs. world—a polarized, divided world where there seems to be no agreement on anything.  In politics, we have just come to assume this. In a Stake, or in a Ward, the divisions can be painful and undermining. But when dissention, disagreement and dismissal take root in a family, they hurt most deeply and can seem to endanger even the very plan of God.

In the LDS paradigm, family is not only the basic unit of our society, culture, and economy, but of our eternity.  Family is the gift of mortality that makes us, potentially, more like our Heavenly Parents. In his classic, purpose-summarizing couplet, President Nelson tells us that the Gospel is “Home centered, Church supported,” mirroring the earlier metaphor of President Lee who called the Church “the scaffolding with which we build eternal families.”

The point is not that we should have expectations of never disagreeing with family members, or that we should beat ourselves up with discouragement when there is contention in our homes—rather, the point is understanding that all of our hopes and efforts and strivings for unity should peak within our immediate and extended families, because it is that family, not the Church, that is potentially eternal—and that can be the direct mirror of our once and future heavenly home— and that is, in fact, the very Government of God.

How 

Think for a moment about our beloved hymn Love at Home. Lovely as the lyrics are, we might also find some dark or ironic humor in some of the words:  “In the cottage there is joy…peace and plenty here abide, smiling sweet on every side…time does softly, sweetly glide…all the earth’s a garden sweet, making life a bliss complete…”  Linda and I are always tempted to change the last stanza to “when there’s no one home.”

Other song lyrics may also come to mind, the old pop song “We always hurt the ones we love” and the newer one “Tell me why we hurt the ones we love the most.”

Is there any simple solution for a problem as complex and varied as contention and discord in a family? Or is it a complicated, multi-faceted monster that can only even be approached by a combination of prayer, therapy, spiritual counseling and Priesthood blessings?

While all of these approaches, and anything else we can think of, is worthy of pursuit in the quest for something as eternally important as Familial peace and unity, the premise of this essay is that there actually is one single and enormously effective and impacting solutional direction that all of us ought to try to understand and apply.  But while it is simple in its premise and concept, it may be the hardest of all forms of God-directed self-improvement.  And it is something called “Nothingness.”

Nothingness, and its Promises

The Nothingness contemplated here is what Alma spoke of in Alma 32 as non-compelled humility.  He preached that those who are compelled to be humble are blessed by that humility but then asks the powerful question, “do ye not suppose that they are more blessed who truly humble themselves because of the word?”

Perhaps, among other things, he was comparing himself with his own father. Alma Jr. had been humbled in the most compelling way imaginable—by the powerful visit of an angel of the Lord.  Alma Sr. had humbled himself based on the words of one Abinadi, a profit from the wilderness who no one else believed.

But the consummate and defining explanation of Nothingness comes from King Benjamin, and it is his matchless discourse that connects it to family and to unity in the most profound and significant way.  In verse 11 of chapter 4, near the midpoint of his speech, Benjamin gives a pointed and singular admonition.  “Remember, and always retain in remembrance, the Greatness of God, and your own nothingness.”

In all of scripture, that may be the most consequence-connected and promise-laden advice ever given. Verse 12 connects that single direct admonition to the 17 remarkable promises we have just listed—family promises, relationship promises, righteousness promises.

What would you give to have that list of promises? King Benjamin tells us it is not about giving somethingness, but about giving Nothingness.

A careful pondering of the 17 promises suggests that they are all about peace and love and family and unity—the kind of unity that we cannot earn, and that can be given only by the Spirit of God, the kind that is invited and petitioned for through a paradigm of Nothingness.

The Magic Wand of Nothingness

Scripture (in all four of our standard works) teaches us that unless the hearts of parents are turned to their children, and the hearts of the children are turned to their parents, the whole earth and the whole plan will be “cursed” or “wasted.”

And it is within that context that we can begin to understand how Nothingness can be a magic wand. In that heart-turning process, and in the presence of His Spirit that shines into and through our Nothingness, each of the 17 promises is a natural, even logical outgrowth or consequence.  They all happen because of the clarity and charity of who we are within our prayed-for and accepted and non-compelled humility.

Long before we have attained it, we can begin to imagine ourselves in that perspective of Nothingness and in that awareness of God’s “everythingness” and begin to feel how each of those 17 promises can flow from this replacement of pride with humility.  And that lovely bit of imagination may be enough to start us on the long and hard pursuit of the actual quality.

This may be the flow of which the Lord speaks in D&C 121 after his admonishments of the patient and long-suffering ways in which the Priesthood is rightfully and peacefully used (another if-then connection): “The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion….and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.”

In Families (and another story)

In the frantic, self-absorbed world we live in, keeping and holding to this paradigm of humility and nothingness in our families is never easy, no matter how much we believe in it.  I can think of so many falling-short examples in my own life. And they have gone on for so many years…

One of the earliest that comes to my mind happened in the middle of one night during our Washington DC years.  Our first little baby Saren slept in the next room and my problem was that I’m a lighter sleeper than Linda so whenever Saren woke up, I woke up, and as always there were three potential courses of action:  1. Pretend to be asleep and hope Linda would wake up soon and deal with it, 2. Nudge Linda a little to help her wake up and deal with it, or 3. Do the right thing and get up quick before the crying awoke Linda.

That night I did number three but was soon regretting it.  I actually had a meeting the next morning at the White House, and I needed a good night’s sleep. I picked up Saren and took her in the kitchen out of Linda’s earshot, but nothing I could think of to do would calm her down–the diaper, the bottle, the blankie—nothing helped.  An hour went by—only walking around holding her helped. Then another hour.  I was angry (not at her, I told myself, at the situation.)

I kept pacing, and finally grace came in the form of a little epiphany.  There was a moon that night, and as I stared at her little sniffling moonlit face, it occurred to me, simply and strongly, that this infant was my sister, that if our birth order had been reversed, I might be the infant, held by her, trying her patience as she was now trying mine.

It was a tiny thought, but it brought with it that calm feeling of perspective and the personal nothingness that resides within it.  It was a feeling of respect, of reverence for a glorious tiny daughter of God and of worship for our common Father.

It was a beautiful feeling, but one that I often forgot as the years went by, one that I failed to remember when Saren was a teenager and I was that my opinion was the right one, and that Saren needed to obey me.

Oh, that we could remember and retain in remembrance our nothingness as parents, and remember that our children are often smarter than we think and that they will listen more humbly themselves if they feel our humility.

Then we would know even more surely that family and parenting and commitment and unity ARE most important things in the world and in eternity.

Back-Up

The natural-consequence joy and blessings that flow naturally from humility, particularly the non-compelled kind (because that is the kind that takes the hardest thought and the most deliberate pursuit) have not only been recognized by prophets, but by sage thinkers from all times and all walks of life.

C.S. Lewis said, “As long as you are proud, you cannot know God.  A proud man is always looking down on things and people and of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”

G.K. Chesterton said, “How much larger your life would be if you could become smaller in it…you would break out of this tiny theater in which your own little plot is being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.”

An anonymous writer said, “One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

And another, “The smaller you are, the bigger the things He can do to you and with you.”

And Chesterton came at it one more time, possibly with a chuckle, “Without humility, it is impossible to enjoy anything, even pride.”

Indeed, until we learn to see ourselves as small as we really are, it is hard to see other things as large and beautiful as they really are…and hard to see the full extent of God’s as our Eternal Heavenly Parents, and Christ’s glory as our Creator and Savior. But when our Nothingness allows us to find such perspectives, that awareness inevitably brings Unity and dispels pride. And nowhere is this as important as in our families.

With this nothingness comes not only worship and peace, but a gratitude for the larger sweep of the mystery and magic of what we cannot yet see or understand.  As we practice this kind of nothingness in our homes, it will ultimately carry over into our wards and our world.  As Richard Rohr puts it,

… Healthy religion is always humble about its own holiness and knowledge. It knows that it does not know… Imagine how our politics and our churches could change if we had that kind of humility in our conversations. It just doesn’t seem possible anymore. Both politics and religion are filled with people clinging to certitudes on every side of every question. This makes civil and humane conversation largely impossible because there’s no humility. There’s no openness to mystery as being that which is always unfolding. Mystery is not that which is not understandable. Mystery is that which is endlessly understandable.

President Nelson managed to say it all in three words: Let God Prevail.

The Mental Health of Nothingness 

The smaller we see ourselves, the less stress and pressure we feel, and the more perspective we have on the depression and anxiety we all experience. 

Linda and I write parenting books, attempting to offer advice and ideas and answers to families.  Yet the best parenting we have ever done is when we didn’t have an answer—where the scope or worry of an issue with one of our children reminded us of our inadequacy and of how little we knew and how we were, in fact, children trying to raise children.  Many times, within that nothingness, we have been able to offer a unique form of prayer, essentially talking as babysitters to the true parent (who we know loves and knows those babies infinitely better than we).  and asking that we might do as He would do, that we might know what He would do and what he would have us do.  He then manifests, through impressions, answers, and inspiration, His love to His children who are our children and to His children who are us.

The most spiritual kind of mental health comes not from the false confidence (and hidden doubts) of a “Can-do” attitude, but from the faith of a “Can’t do” (alone) attitude that opens us to the ultimate confidence of what He can do through us.

One other part of the Magic Wand of Nothingness 

So, if the personal paradigm of nothingness is the answer to the first “how” of obtaining non-compelled humility, it begs the next how question: How do we contrast our nothingness with God’s “everythingness?”?

At least one answer is almost shockingly simple: Through Praise!

Let me pose a series of separate questions that will back us into this answer:  Why do scriptural prophets spend so much time, effort and words praising God? Does God really need our praise? Why is such a large chunk of scripture devoted to often-repetitive Divine Praise? Couldn’t that scriptural space be better used in teaching us other Gospel doctrines? Why are 34 of the songs in our hymnbook about praising God? (Second most of any topic, second only to Jesus Christ) Why is Halleluiah (which literally means “praise God”) the most sung word both in ancient scripture and in today’s religious music? Why is praising God so practiced and so preached by Prophets?

There is one simple and intriguing reason:  Praising God is what causes us to, in the words of King Benjamin “Remember and retain in remembrance the greatness of God and your own nothingness.”

Every time we consciously praise God—in song, in prayer, in the reading and quoting of scripture, in quiet pondering or solitude, in seeing and giving thanks for His bounty and His beauty—every time, we are making ourselves aware of and reminding ourselves, and remembering His “everythingness” and our nothingness. It is not because God needs it, it is because we need it.

It is that praise which causes the remembrance of nothingness which then brings the non-compelled humility which in turn yields the 17 incredible blessings of family and unity which brings to pass peace and joy today and exaltation tomorrow?

It’s a high bar, it’s a long road, it’s an eternal goal that is not for the faint hearted, but we have eternity to lay hold on this gift we generally call humility and specifically call nothingness, and once we get on the path, stretched and distant though it seems, we will feel ourselves moving ever so gradually—but sometimes in satisfying, soul-expanding bursts—toward the 17 promises and the powerful unity that Benjamin promised could come to us and to our families.

What do we need to stay the course? Not everything…but Nothing.

Concluding Story

Fifty years ago, I bought a Movado watch in New York City.  I still wear it today. It has an elegantly simple black face with no numbers and just a round gold dot at the twelve o’clock position. The face is surrounded by an exactly round gold band.

I use that watch, and its round O to remind me to observe. Because when we really see, and hear, and feel the things and the people around us, we tend to forget ourselves and our egos; and when we look for and observe the beauty of all that our Heavenly Parents have created, we remember and retain in remembrance the greatness of God…and our own nothingness.

And when we do that, we open ourselves to King Benjamin’s seventeen promises.