Finding Swing

It is awesome, in the true sense of that word, to watch Olympic athletes compete in swimming, gymnastics, track, basketball, volleyball, and all of the other events. One of the events that I will watch a little closer this year is rowing.

Honestly, I wasn’t particularly interested in rowing until I read the book The Boys in the Boat that was recently made into a movie. That story follows the 1936 men’s rowing team from the University of Washington, which seemed to have every disadvantage. They were from working class families in small lumber and mining towns and didn’t have the resources of their competition. Many of the team were new to rowing and no one outside of the team believed they could win. Despite the disadvantages, Washington beat the elite teams at Navy and Cal to represent the United States at the Olympics in Germany.

Adolf Hitler saw the 1936 Olympics as an opportunity to prove Aryan supremacy and German dominance to the world. On the day of the final race, with Hitler looking on, German officials decided that the slowest qualifiers—Germany and Italy—should be in the most protected lanes. The American team would have the roughest water, some of the team members had become seriously ill, and the wind made it difficult to hear the coxswain who shouted instructions from the front of the boat. But during the race, something happened that rowers call “swing.” The book describes it this way:

There is a thing that sometimes happens that is hard to achieve and hard to define. It’s called “swing.” It happens only when all are rowing in such perfect unison that not a single action is out of sync.

Rowers must rein in their fierce independence and at the same time hold true to their individual capabilities. Races are not won by clones. Good crews are good blends—someone to lead the charge, someone to hold something in reserve, someone to fight the fight, someone to make peace. No rower is more valuable than another, all are assets to the boat, but if they are to row well together, each must adjust to the needs and capabilities of the others—the shorter-armed person reaching a little farther, the longer-armed person pulling in just a bit.

Differences can be turned to advantage instead of disadvantage. Only then will it feel as if the boat is moving on its own. Only then does pain entirely give way to exultation. Good “swing” feels like poetry. 

The members of that team describe those moments of “swing” as a holy experience that meant even more than winning Olympic Gold. That lingering feeling stayed with them all of their lives.

There are at least four ways the Lord has invited us to have swing in our lives. We are to be one with ourselves, one with our spouses, one with God, and one with our fellowman.

Elder Packer once told of a severe winter in Utah when deep snow had driven the deer very low into some of the valleys. Seeing that the deer were out of their natural habitat, some well-meaning agencies tried to respond by bringing in hay for the deer to eat. Unfortunately, many of the deer were later found dead. Those who handled the animals afterward said that the deer had starved to death with stomachs full of hay. The deer had been fed, but they had not been nourished and the hay they could not digest left no room for the nutrition they needed to survive.

In a similar way, there are influences all around us that try to fill us with messages that can starve our souls and distract us from those things that would bring genuine physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. We are encouraged to incur debt to “live our best life” and appear more prosperous than we really are. There is an abundance of food that is more harmful than helpful to our bodies. Tribalized news is on every channel to feed our individual and collective confirmation biases and maintain a constant sense of righteous indignation. There is an endless supply of games and other virtual experiences that give us fake successes and a hollow kind of confidence as imaginary sports superstars, army snipers, farm managers, and even city managers. We hear of people who look for love and connection online only to learn their affections were based on false representations. Despite the volume, there is little nourishment in these offerings. They are literally unbelievable.

“The Lord knows who we really are, what we really think, what we really do, and who we are really becoming” (Bednar, Things as They Really Are, June 2010).  As spirit sons and daughters of God, the Family proclamation says we “accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize [our] divine destiny as heirs of eternal life.”

The scriptures and living prophets have taught us that we will experience greater joy in our lives when there is high fidelity between who we really are and the person we are being on the outside. Being one with ourselves includes focusing on what is real—real opportunities to share a hug or serve a neighbor, real achievements as we strive toward personal and family goals, real food including vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, real prosperity through self-reliance, and the reality of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the redemptive and enabling power it can bring into our lives. We should be the same person alone, at home, at work, online, with friends, and in public. Having swing in our lives requires us to spend time with ourselves, evaluate how we are doing from time to time, see how we have changed, and make plans and goals to help us grow into our full and divine potential.

Steven Covey wrote in his popular 7 Habits book about a cycle of maturity that we all experience. As children, we are dependent on others for everything. As teenagers and young adults, we become independent and able to provide for our own needs. When we then surrender our independence to become interdependent with another person, the results are consistently greater than the sum of the parts.

The City of Enoch experienced interdependence on a societal scale. As they lived the law of consecration, they were able to completely eliminate all poverty from their community. Spiritual interdependence facilitated such righteousness, such harmony and “swing,” that the entire city was taken from the earth and promoted, as it were, to a terrestrial world.

Our marriages are intended to be interdependent, exalting relationships like the City of Enoch. Elder Bednar has taught:

By divine design, men and women are intended to progress together toward perfection and a fulness of glory. Because of their distinctive temperaments and capacities, males and females each bring to a marriage relationship unique perspectives and experiences. The man and the woman contribute differently but equally to a oneness and a unity that can be achieved in no other way. The man completes and perfects the woman and the woman completes and perfects the man as they learn from and mutually strengthen and bless each other. “Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord" (1 Cor. 11:11; emphasis added).

Our First Parents provided an example of the full partnership God intends every marriage to be. After being driven from the Garden of Eden, and the free rent and food provided there, Adam, “began to till the earth... and to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow... And Eve... did labor with him” (Moses 5:1).

Elder Marion G. Romney referenced this passage when he said, “The word with... is very significant. It means more than physical labor. It connotates a common purpose, understanding, cooperation and love… In Latter-day Saint families the husband and wife must be one.”

Despite our different roles at times, husbands and wives can enjoy full partnership with their spouse when they take care to work with each other rather than merely working near each other. The Family Proclamation counsels couples to pray together, respect each other, forgive one another, have fun together, and help one another as equal partners.

When Tara and I were married, she had already graduated from BYU and was teaching at a nearby elementary school. She had a newer car, a rented duplex, and minimal debt. I, on the other hand, was sleeping on a buddy’s couch with no car and a growing collection of student loans.

With our marriage, we became a family unit. In the spirit of consecration, each of us gave what we had to our newly-formed family. I became a proud co-owner of a little white Hyundai and the folks at the student loan office were suddenly very interested in Tara’s contact information.

A similar thing happens to us on the day we step into the waters of baptism. When we are baptized, we covenant with the Lord that we will always be willing to keep his commandments, remember him and take his name upon ourselves like a bride takes the name of her groom. In other words, we covenant that we are willing to be one entity with our Savior in the eyes of eternal law.

In the spirit of consecration, we give our debt of sin and imperfection to the newly-formed entity. At the same time, the Lord offers up his wealth of grace available through his infinite Atonement. Imagining for a moment that we could measure our sin with a number, the principles of mathematics tell us that it does not matter whether that number is negative six or negative six hundred trillion. Both of these numbers are equally imperfect and yet, when added to a perfect and infinite Atonement, both numbers are completely wiped out. Negative six plus infinity is infinity. Negative six hundred trillion plus infinity is infinity. In this way, though we are not perfect, each of us can be declared perfect as a consequence of our unity with our perfect Savior, made possible through a covenant or contract that is valid in the sight of eternal law, making us joint-heirs with Christ of all the Father has (Romans 8:17).

Our covenant agreement with the Lord requires us to work with Him in the same way that Eve worked with Adam. With an eye single to the glory of God, we must rein in our fierce independence, and the natural man, and at the same time hold true to our individual capabilities to do good and accomplish the mission the Lord has in store for us.

Elder Uchtdorf has taught:

Our relationship with God is most sacred and vital. We are His spirit children. He is our Father. He desires our happiness. As we seek Him, as we learn of His Son, Jesus Christ, as we open our hearts to the influence of the Holy Spirit, our lives become more stable and secure. We experience greater peace, joy, and fulfillment as we give our best to live according to God's eternal plan and keep his commandments.

We improve our relationship with our Heavenly Father by learning of Him, by communing with Him, by repenting of our sins, and by actively following Jesus Christ... To strengthen our relationship with God, we need some meaningful alone time with Him. Quietly focusing on daily personal prayer and scripture study, always aiming to be worthy of a current temple recommend-- these will be some wise investments of our time and efforts to draw closer to our Heavenly Father.

The kind of prayer that builds unity with God comes from the depths of our souls. It requires self-reflection and studying our thoughts, desires, and decisions before we approach the Lord. Elder Porter once taught that “God knows our innermost thoughts and feelings even better than we do, but as we learn to share them with Him, we make it possible for His Spirit to enter our souls and teach us more about our own selves and about the nature of God. By making ourselves totally honest, open, and submissive before God, our hearts become more receptive to His counsel and His will.”  In other words, as we spend time in heartfelt prayer, we can become one in purpose with our Heavenly Father.

As we open our hearts to the will of God, and strive to become one with Him, He will teach us about two gospels. The first is a preparatory gospel that focuses on learning obedience and receiving the blessings promised for our faithfulness. The preparatory gospel builds the foundation for our testimony with checklists and formulas to guide our obedient lives, deal with perceived scarcity, and do our duty.

In the Aaronic or Preparatory Priesthood, for example, prayers for the sacrament and baptism are provided verbatim. The Law of Tithing is a preparatory law that prescribes an amount to give back to the Lord-- no more, no less-- and is often associated with specific blessings for our obedience. In Primary we learn formulas that help us know how to say a prayer and how to repent of our sins. The former Boy Scouts and Young Women Personal Progress programs outlined specific actions that, if completed, earned merit badges or medallions or other external recognitions that were indicative of our progress and development. Prior home and visiting teaching efforts were also somewhat scripted with a monthly message in the Ensign and a leader calling at the end of each month to see if you had made the visits you were assigned.

Parallel to the preparatory gospel is a second phase of learning and development we might call the "higher law" or the "fullness of the gospel". The principles of the gospel in this phase build upon and are inseparably connected with those of the preparatory gospel, yet here our discipleship is no longer transactional. We still obey the commandments with all of our hearts, but we do so because we love the Lord more than we expect a blessing. We learn to give without expecting anything in return because we love God's children and want to bless their lives (see John 13:34-35).

In the higher law, we abandon the checklists and formulas that sometimes lead to unrighteous judgements of others or assumptions that only a few of God's children will be saved. In their place, we learn to follow promptings of the spirit and act on the circumstances of the moment. We come to know the abundance of the Lord: that He who multiplied the loaves and fishes has blessings and salvation for "all the works of his hands" (D&C 76:43) and He has asked us to return to Him in groups.

Just as obedience is the appropriate focus of the preparatory gospel, with 613 commandments in the Law of Moses to practice that obedience, the fullness of the gospel, the Law of Christ, highlights only two: to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). When two holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood lay their hands on someone's head to give them a blessing, demonstrating this love for God and their fellow man, the spirit guides their words accordingly. We are all likewise called to practice loving others and following the resulting promptings of the spirit as we gather together at church and as families, minister to one another, set goals with our children and youth, and begin to live the law of consecration with our time, talents, and resources.

Ultimately, we cannot be one with God without also striving to be of one heart and one mind with those around us. If God loves His children, and I testify that he does, than one way to be one with him is to strive to love those same children of our Heavenly Father. 

As he introduced the transition from home and visiting teaching to ministering, Elder Holland said:

Brothers and sisters, we have a heaven-sent opportunity as an entire Church to demonstrate ‘pure religion … undefiled before God’—'to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light’ and to ‘comfort those that stand in need of comfort,’ to minister to the widows and the fatherless, the married and the single, the strong and the distraught, the downtrodden and the robust, the happy and the sad—in short, all of us, every one of us, because we all need to feel the warm hand of friendship and hear the firm declaration of faith… As [we do so,] we lift our spiritual eyes toward living the law of love more universally."]

Can you imagine a society where each of us was one with ourselves, one with our spouses, one with God, and one with our fellowman? A society where we all brought our talents and experiences into perfect swing? I feel like I can only start to glimpse what that might be like and it is awesome in the truest sense of that word.