Line upon Line

As a result of my calling to assist with the hosting for the Tabernacle Choir weekly rehearsals and recordings of Music & the Spoken Word, I interact with marvelous people from around the world who make their way to Temple Square in Salt Lake City on Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings to experience the spectacular music of that renowned choir and orchestra.

Recently, I introduced myself to a young family seated attentively in the center front of the Tabernacle. I learned from the mom that she had eagerly initiated that first-time visit to Salt Lake City and Temple Square for their family. As a young woman, she had lived in Florida next door to a family who had welcomed her in their home with convincing and lasting love. That friendship sustained her during her teenage years and has influenced her ever since. She explained that she had always felt something good, something elevating, something welcoming and wonderful in that next-door home and in the presence of those neighbors. She didn’t know exactly what to attribute the life-changing feeling to, but she was determined to somehow share something of it with her husband and two teenaged children.

She thought the profound feeling might have had something to do with her neighbors’ Latter-day Saint faith, so perhaps a visit to the center city of that Church would help her recreate for her family what had been so precious to her. Based on the reverent, intent expressions on the faces of her husband and children, I suspect that her quest was at least partially realized.

Another woman, who lived in northern California, described having experienced something similar in her younger years. As a teenager growing up in a tempestuous family, she chose to spend much of her time in select homes that offered refuge from the storm that frequently raged in her own home. Two homes in particular provided her the peace and calm she sought. The families in both homes were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of those homes included a mom who was a local, well-known newscaster. The dad in the other home was a favorite high school coach. Both those adults seemed publicly notable – even famous – to the visiting young woman. As a result of that observation, the young visitor simply concluded that the reason those two homes were so desirable, so welcoming and impressive, was because the parents were famous. She dubbed her happy personal retreats as “The Famous Homes.” She felt satisfied that the reason for the desirability and sweet feeling in those homes was because in both cases there were famous people living there.

A friend of mine owned an educational toy company. As a result, she regularly traveled to toy fairs across the country to familiarize buyers with her products. She was often assigned a booth next to the same man at those fairs. After many occasions side-by-side for several days in a row at fairs across the country, that friendly man engaged my friend in conversation and sought to become better acquainted with her. He was intrigued by the kind lady from Utah and wanted to more fully understand what drove her winning and irresistible ambiance. She happily chatted with the new friend but didn’t choose immediately to offer in depth information about herself. The man gently persisted.

One evening, he called her while she was attending a fair in one state and he in another. He still had the same questions in his mind. He was determined to learn what it was about her that he found so compelling and appealing. Sensing the sincerity of his interest, she asked, “Where are you right now?” He answered, “I’m in a hotel room, sitting on the bed while I talk with you.” She replied, “Does your hotel happen to be a Marriott Hotel? If so, open the drawer in the nightstand adjacent your bed. You will find a book in there. Read it, and you will better understand who I am and what motivates and defines me.”

He opened the drawer, found a Book of Mormon there, and began reading it. When he returned home to Boston, he invited the missionaries to teach him and eventually joined the Church. He and my friend joined forces as they united their toy businesses and their lives. They married and are happily working together to perpetuate the heavenly ambiance that had attracted him to her in the first place.

In all three instances, what one admiring on-looker could only think to describe as a “famous feeling,” was instead the effect of the Spirit elevating the behavior and magnifying the efforts of good, but regular, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was covenant making and keeping that enlarged the souls and influence of everyday people (who were really not everyday or ordinary at all). The companionship of the Spirit changed and magnified all they were and did.

Synonyms for the word “famous” include “widely known,” “big-name,” “celebrated,” and “superior.” Those synonyms suggest visibility on a grand scale, preference over others, and perhaps fortune. A more durable and desirable famous-ness might be adjusted as follows:

Common definitions of “famous”                     Godly definitions of “famous”

widely known                                                          deeply known

big name                                                                  beloved

celebrated                                                                adored

superior                                                                    excellent

Ideally, comparison, competition, and worldly prominence would be eliminated as essential measures of success. All are “famous,” or “supremely important,” “known,” and “eternally valued” by God, and can be by fellow travelers as well.

Among my favorite books is an ambitious one, Middlemarch, written by George Eliot. The 700-page novel is worth every effort to read it from cover to cover. The two heroes of the book are Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate. Both are promising young members of British society. Both have idealistic ambitions to accomplish greatness, accrue wealth, and become famous, as do many young people (and not-so-young people) of every day and every location.

Sadly, both Dorothea and Tertius end up in tragic marriages. Through the sorrow of their marriages, their dreams of famous-ness and what they assumed was success fade away. Ultimately, however, after the death of her first husband, Dorothea marries the man who is her “true love” and settles into what feels superficially to be a modest, undistinguished life as a wife and mother. Ultimately, she has a stunning epiphany as she watches a family simply walking down a local road. She realizes that she, too, is making a meaningful contribution to the very fabric of a beautiful world. Eliot’s final comment about Dorothea is: “Her full nature … spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

A good life is a life of goodness, not fame. We radiate and feel that “famous” feeling, not because of worldly renown, but because of personal goodness, purity of heart, constantly striving forward and upward, and the sanctification of the Spirit.

I attended a session of General Conference recently with a teenaged granddaughter. We had the pleasure of sitting near the front on the side of the Conference Center where the First Presidency enters. The crowd grew reverently hushed as those Prophets began to cross in front of us to assume their seats. After President Nelson sat down, that perceptive granddaughter whispered to me, “I feel like I have just felt Jesus walk past me.” I felt it, too.

That “famous” feeling. We know it. We try to embrace it. We strive to radiate it. It’s a feeling and source of influence more precious than fortunes, followers, or worldly notoriety. Something good, something elevating, something welcoming and wonderful. That’s the famous we seek.