Bryce Moore's Blog, page 144

On Friendship and Time

As I was driving to Augusta yesterday on my birthday, I found myself reflecting on what’s changed in my life over the years. Specifically, I was thinking back on all the birthdays I’ve spent with my family, both when I was growing up and after I’d married Denisa. There’s been a lot of change over the years, and that led me to thinking about the friendships I’ve made over time, and how they’ve changed as well.

I’ve had a few “best friends” in my life. Of the ones I had growing up and in college, I no longer have much chance to communicate with any of them. Now and then I’ll get an email or a Facebook message or a Like on a post, but for the most part, those friendships are no longer a functioning part of my life.

I remember the summer before I left on my mission, my best friend from college, Sue, came out to stay at my house in Pennsylvania for about a week. We had an absolute blast. Went into New York City to see The King and I on Broadway. Drove to Amish country to check things out over there. Just hung out and spent time together. But over all of it was this pallor, because I knew it would come to an end.

At last I had to take her to the airport. This was back in the days when you actually walked out with the passengers to the terminals, and you sat together waiting for their plane to board. In many ways, I prefer the modern approach. I’m terrible at long goodbyes, and those old airport goodbyes were the pits. I remember sitting there just feeling sick to my stomach, because this was it. The End.

I already had enough experience with friendships to realize that they can drastically change as your circumstances shift. My friends from high school had all gone different ways. We still saw each other now and then, but life moved on. We weren’t as close anymore, and I knew we would never be. And here I was in an airport, saying goodbye to yet another stage of my life.

Sue and I kept in touch while I was on my mission. She was gone to Honduras on a mission of her own when I returned. Honduran postal service leaves much to be desired, speaking from experience. By the time she was home, I was engaged (secretly) to Denisa. (Though I told Sue about the engagement. Not many people knew. Less than a handful. Sue was one.)

Close friendships like that have a real rough time lasting through one of the friends getting married. Which is as it should be, honestly. Denisa is my best friend now, and there’s only so much room in a person’s life.

One of the things I’ve always valued and prided myself in was loyalty. I don’t necessarily make really good friends that often. I am a friendly person, and I’ll happily talk with many many acquaintances, but close friends take a while for me to develop, typically. Once someone’s in that “close friend” circle, though, it’s generally for life, as far as I’m concerned. If one of my close friends from high school or college were to reach out to me for help, I would try to do whatever I could to help them. Not necessarily for the person they are now, but for the friend they used to be, if that makes sense.

And generally, I’ve found those old friendships have deep roots. They go into hibernation, and when I have the opportunity to see old friends and interact with them, I’m often so relieved and happy to see everything is still there, and it’s like we never stopped being friends at all.

And now this post has gotten far too reflective for a Friday. I’m not even really sure where it was heading. It was more this package of thoughts that occurred to me on a drive home from Augusta, and I wanted to somehow give voice to it. I’m not tragically sad about old friendships that are no longer thriving. My personal feeling is that they will one day be resumed, each one of them. Of course, that gets us onto theological ground, and I think I’ve wandered far enough afield in today’s post to stop short of going there.

But I’ll end with a final thought. I used to actually write poems. True story. My favorite to write were classical Elizabethan sonnets. I loved the constraints the poem’s form put on me. Trying to pack as much meaning into such a structure was a fun word game.

And while I was on my mission in Germany, still reflecting on the aftermath of that goodbye in the Philadelphia airport, I wrote this one on friendship. I can still recite it from memory, and I still feel it sums up my feelings very well on the subject. And so I present it to you.

Have a pleasant Friday, and here’s hoping I’m back to my normal peppy self by Monday. Thanks for reading.

On Friendship

Is friendship’s flame so soundly smothered out

By hushed good-byes that slip through silent lips?

Can certainty be made to mimic doubt?

Does anchor chain the ocean or the ship?

Toy boat that burst and bubbled down the brook

Abruptly stopped. Caught. Tangled by the twigs

That lurk beneath the sunny surface. Shook,

Then merrily resumed its zags and zigs.

Great Neptune never changes for a chain,

And knowledge never dawdles doubtingly.

The silence of goodbye is mute in vain,

For friendship’s fire shouts out eternally.

The current rest may last three beats or four,

But rest assured: the song will play once more.

It’s My Birthday: Level Up!

I know that as some people get older, they begin to dread birthdays. One more sign of the body breaking down, or whatever. But why not view it differently? What if, instead of saying “I’m now 39 years old,” you said, “I’m level 39″?

In video games, we celebrate when we reach a new level. It means your character is able to do things it wasn’t before. It got smarter. Added abilities. Mastered new skills. And isn’t that pretty much what life is?

At 39, I definitely can do much more than I could when I was 19 or 9. Sure, some things have changed. I’m no longer able to pull an all nighter and not feel the effects, but I’m also smarter than I was. I no longer *want* to pull an all nighter, because I know its effects.

I’ve racked up a whole slew of achievements. Two masters degrees. Three children that I’ve successfully raised to level 13, level 9, and level 4. First house. Fourth car. And on and on.

Getting older isn’t a liability. It’s an accomplishment. It’s hard work, getting through life in one piece. Making it around the sun one more time. The fact that someone managed to do it so many times is something that should be admired, right?

Right.

In any case, thanks for all the great birthday wishes. As always, anyone wanting to get me something special could review one of my books on Amazon or Goodreads. MEMORY THIEF is sitting with just 6 reviews on Amazon at the moment, and I’m sure those reviews would love some friends. Especially that 1 star review. That person needs lots of friends to cheer up some. The Goodreads reviews are a bit more robust, at 41, but they could always use some more too.

Have a good one!

Home Renovations Update

Here we are at another September. The time of year most of the renovations around my home seem to occur. And this September is no different, although once again, I shall not be performing the majority of these renovations. I’ve learned over the years that, while I *can* do the renovations, the end result is rarely anywhere near as good as it would be if I simply hired someone to do them, and the amount of time it saves me more than makes up for the amount of money I would have saved.

So what’s on the agenda this year?

A garden shed/screened porch combination. First off, our garage is big, but it has a tendency to get cluttered, especially with a lawn tractor, lawn mower, bikes, snow blower, and all those garden tools that accumulate. So the initial plan was to build a small shed to house all that separately. But at the same time, I’ve really wanted a place where we could enjoy the outside without needing to get attacked by mosquitoes constantly. At first the thought had been to screen in the farmer’s porch, but it’s a small area, and not quite big enough for what we wanted. What if we were to combine the shed with the screened patio idea? Not like we see many (or any) of these elsewhere, but it made sense to me, so . . . It’s going to be a 24 foot by 16 foot shed/patio combination, built in the spot where the house used to have a barn in Ye Olden Days of Yore. We’ll declutter our garage and have a place to eat outside in the spring, summer, and fall. I’m excited.
Tearing down the front porch. I’ve never been in love with our front porch. It runs the length of our house and is too thin in most places to serve much use, and too exposed to really be a place you want to spend much time anyway. We’re tearing the whole thing down. We’ll put in some stone or brick front steps, and the rest we’ll landscape to cover up anything too exposed. Not sure what that’ll be like just yet, honestly. We’ll have to see what we have when we get in there. But I’ll be very happy to no longer have to shovel off that porch every winter.
Building a second bathroom. This will happen in November. The last piece of the home renovation project in the upstairs of the garage will finally(!) fall into place. I for one am very excited, as it will mean I no longer need to trek through the entire house to go to the bathroom at night. There will be much rejoicing.
Taking out the old staircase in the garage. It now leads quite literally to nowhere and is just taking up space. We’ll also insulate the floor where it used to lead to, so that our new movie room can be a bit better insulated. Because insulation. In conjunction with this, we might work on framing out a mudroom in our garage. We’ll have the additional space we need, and it would help us set things up so that we can renovate the kitchen next year or the year after. We want to have our current mudroom become part of the kitchen, and it would be much easier (and cleaner) to still have a place for people to take off shoes, store skis, etc.
Build a garden fence. Not sure if we’ll get to this. It depends how fast the other projects go. But Denisa wants a groundhog-proof fence so she can once more garden in peace. We’ll see how it goes.

I think that should keep us busy enough for this time around, don’t you? I’m excited to get these projects finished. A lot of them have been on my “Want Done” list for years and years.

Hooray for progress!

Thoughts on the Fair

It’s my birthday week again, and that must mean it’s time for another Farmington Fair. Hard to believe this was the 11th one my family has attended, but there you have it. It’s developed into quite the tradition for us, even though it inevitably falls at a very hectic time of year.

This time, we had the chance to introduce the fair to some friends who have moved into the area. It was fun being on the opposite end of that, since I still remember clearly being introduced to the fair myself ten years ago. (I worry that I didn’t do quite as good of a job at it as the friends who introduced us years ago, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying,)

As we were going around with our kids, it gave me time to reflect a bit on what things were like for Denisa and me back then and what they’re like now. A great slice of that was seen by just observing how each of my kids were interacting with the fair. Tomas was zooming around with his friends from ride to ride, as “spending time with his parents” at the fair has taken a bit of a backseat. DC was still walking around with us and happy to hang out with Denisa or me. MC was, of course, attached to us at the hip. (It’s a really busy fair. Losing track of your little ones would be bad.)

The rides themselves age up with the kids. Our friends’ daughter was small enough that some of the kiddie rides really intimidated her. MC had no problem with those, but some of the big kid rides were too much for her. DC couldn’t even fit on the kiddie rides anymore, and there were yet more rides she just wanted to avoid. Tomas just wanted to do the daring rides and that was it. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere, I’m sure. About how we each handle challenges that are generally matched to what we’re capable of (hopefully). And how as we grow older and better at handling challenges, life seems to have a way of finding new, harder ones for us to tackle.

In any case, it was a fun time. Got some maple cotton candy, mini donuts, french fries, and a new thing (to me): maple cream. Somehow if you boil maple syrup just right, it magically turns into this butter-like spread, but is still 100% maple syrup. I have a feeling demons are involved in its construction at some point, because it tastes absolutely amazing. I bought a pound of it on the spot, and I haven’t had to sign away my soul yet, so I think I made out okay on the transaction.

And of course for me there’s now the permanent connection the fair has to THE MEMORY THIEF, since a good portion of the book takes place there. It’s always fun to walk around and picture the different events of the novel happening in different spots. As if I could see Benji running through the crowd, trying to get away from the bullies, or breaking into the grounds late at night after everyone’s gone home. Good times.

Another one in the history books now. It’s running through Saturday, if you’re in the area. I highly recommend it.

A Visit from an Apostle

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to go listen to an Apostle speak. Elder David Bednar, to be exact. (For those of you who don’t know, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon) is organized around the same leadership structure that existed in the church Christ originally set up. So there are Apostles at the head of it. Fifteen, to be exact. Three of them constitute the “First Presidency” (the leader of the church (Prophet) and his two counselors) and the other twelve make up the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.)

In a church with something like 16 million members, the chance for Apostles to make personal visits to any one area are becoming more and more remote. If you live in Utah, it’s more commonplace (or at least it used to be), but this meeting this past Sunday was the first time I’ve ever been to hear an Apostle speak on the east coast, in my entire life. (They’ve visited, but never where I was living, when I was living there.)

That isn’t to say I haven’t heard them speak. Every six months, we have what’s called General Conference. It’s a series of six, two hour meetings over the course of a week (a women’s conference on Saturday, and then the rest of the meetings the next Saturday and Sunday). All of the Apostles and the First Presidency speak at each General Conference. But, as I discovered on Sunday, there is a big difference between sitting and watching a talk given remotely, thousands of miles away from you, and sitting in the same room as the actual person giving the talk, especially when the crowd size is smaller. (I’d guess there were around . . . 600-800 people in attendance? Not sure on that one.)

Elder Bednar spoke for a full hour. No written remarks. No notes except for the ones he made to himself to remark on things said during the hour of the meeting before he spoke. (It was a two hour meeting. His wife spoke, another general church leader and his wife spoke, and some local leaders spoke, as well.)

I was completely blown away by how excellent his remarks were. Inspiring, immediately applicable to my life, relatable, and profound. He spoke about a few topics: the importance of the message of the church to those who have not heard it, the importance of listening to local leaders and their inspiration, and then the bulk of his remarks were on rising above ourselves and our tendencies to want to satisfy our immediate wants. There’s no possible way for me to capture everything he said and do it justice. I have neither the time nor the ability. In essence, he used his personal life and examples from the scriptures to illustrate how the natural man is Cookie Monster. (Not making this up.) It’s an excellent analogy. Cookie Monster wants one thing: cookies. He wants them all, and he wants them now. It’s all about himself. He doesn’t want to share them. He wants to devour them. Likewise, the natural man (our natural inclinations) are to want things for ourselves. To do things that satisfy our immediate wants. It’s a drive we need to rise above if we’re to hope to become more Christlike and Godlike.

But like I said: you needed to be there.

And I’m very glad I was. Denisa and I had driven up to Bangor the night before, and we stayed the night in the city so we could attend the meeting bright and early the next day. A friend was preparing lunch for Elder Bednar and others immediately after the meeting, so I was over there at 7am to help her put the finishing touches on preparations. I was in my seat at 7:30, and the meeting started at 9. I told Denisa afterward that, having now been to it, it felt to me like an Event. A thing people should have prepped for. Cleared their calendars for as far ahead as they could have. The most recent Event that I could compare it to was the eclipse. You had to be there firsthand to experience it, and people traveled hundreds of miles to have that experience.

I will say this: I have written many articles on my church over the years. Some of them have been critical at times, as I find events and decisions made by local, regional, or even church headquarters disturbing or confusing. But when you sit through a meeting like that, it’s a perfect example of why I keep going, and why I still truly believe it. Elder Bednar was open about the struggles he feels in his role in the church. Many members, he said, believe (mistakenly) that an angel appears to the Apostles each night or once a week and goes over what they need to do. In actuality, they are led by the same personal inspiration and prayer that the rest of us use.

Church leaders will make mistakes. Sometimes that’s on them. Sometimes they do things we don’t understand, because that’s what God asks them to do. It’s hard to tell which is which. But they truly do want to do what’s best for the church and humanity in general. No part of that meeting was about how we had to all start paying money to the church. Nothing about hellfire and damnation waiting for sinners who resist church direction. It was 100% about lifting up the listeners and inspiring them to do better. It was a truly sacred experience, and I’ll never forget it.

Favorite Sports Movie

I’m off to another meeting in Bangor today, so time is tight. But I thought it would be interesting to have a quick discussion topic. Favorite sports movie of all time.

There are a few movies that jump to mind right away, of course. Hoosiers, Field of Dreams, Rocky, Chariots of Fire, Rudy, Caddyshack, Raging Bull. I love a good come from behind victory. I love character building stories. But I’m always amazed at some movies that I have missed.

(For example, I just asked a friend this question, and he mentioned Escape to Victory. A movie where Sylvester Stallone is a POW in a Nazi camp, and he organizes a soccer game against the Nazis to cover their escape. I have literally never heard of that movie before in my life. How have I been missing out all this time? This sounds almost as good as Over the Top, where Stallone is a truck driver entering an arm wrestling tournament.)

In any case, my personal favorite sports movie has got to be The Natural. Robert Redford. Adaptation of a fantastic book by Bernard Malamud. I must have watched that movie at least seven or eight times over the course of my life. I love everything about it. The acting The writing. The soundtrack. The story. The cinematography. Just a fantastic movie, though at this time, it probably retains the top spot out of nostalgia more than anything. Movies I watched when I was younger just have an easier time of the competing in lists like this.

Anyway. What’s your favorite? It has to be primarily about sports, but I’d love to hear what you love, and why.

On the High Council

I alluded to this tangentially in my post earlier this week, when I put up my talk from Sunday. (One of my most-viewed Sunday talks ever, might I add. Apparently there are a lot of people who are thinking about that topic!) But I recently received a new calling in church.

For context (and since it’s been a while since I posted about this), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon) is a lay priesthood. What that means is that we don’t have any paid clergy (except at the highest levels of church organization). So local church members end up filling roles in congregations. Organists. Bishops. Teachers. That sort of thing. We call these roles “callings,” and they are switched from time to time, by inspiration. So someone who’s been the Bishop of a ward for five years might switch callings and become the teacher of the seven-year-olds, just like that.

Since I’ve been in Maine, I’ve had several callings. I’ve been a Sunday School teacher, Elders Quorum President, Seminary Teacher, Ward Mission Leader, Teacher Training Facilitator, and more. Back in August, I received word I would be getting a new calling: High Councilor.

What does this mean? It means I’ll be one of a group of people who organize the work of the church in this area (the Bangor Maine Stake). I’ll be assigned a ward (not where I go to church usually) to watch over and help train and visit at least once a month. I’ll be assigned a congregation to deliver a talk to once a month, sometimes as far east as Machias, or as far north as Lincoln. (Does the stake go further north than that? I’m not honestly sure.) Machias is about a 3.5 hour drive, give or take, but I likely won’t be going there very often. I’ll also be assigned some part of the church body to supervise and shepherd along. (ie Young Mens, Primary, Sunday School, etc.)

Honestly, I don’t truly understand all of what I’ll be doing myself just yet. This is a level of church leadership that I’ve formerly only observed from afar, and so I’ll need to figure out some of it as I go along. It’ll certainly be an adventure, and it will be an additional item to devote some of my time to each week. Still, I believe these callings come through inspiration, and so I accepted it, despite having felt like I was already super busy before the call came in.

To become a High Councilor, I had to be ordained a High Priest. (There are several levels of the priesthood in the LDS faith. Deacon, Teacher, Priest, Elder, then High Priest, and a couple beyond there.) The last time I was ordained to a higher level was when I was 19 and became an Elder, almost 20 years ago. Up until that point, it had been a regular occurrence. (I became a Deacon at 12, Teacher at 14, Priest at 16, and Elder at 19, all typical ages for such ordinations.) So being ordained once again reminded me of all those earlier ordinations twenty years ago.

I’m excited to see how this all works. I’m not really worried about the talks, though typically they’re 20 minutes long, which is a hefty talk to prepare each month. Expect to see one of those from me more regularly now. (I think we have October and November off, however. So maybe not another until December?)

Practically, there will be a lot more driving and meetings in my future. I’ll be away quite a few Sundays and sometimes during the week. As always has been my experience in the church, I feel like things seem much more sacred and inspired until you’re suddenly in the room being part of decisions. Then you discover that we’re all doing our best to follow inspiration, just the same as everyone else. But there’ll be more time to talk about that in a later post, no doubt.

In the meantime, I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks for reading, and all prayers and best wishes are greatly appreciated. I’m sure I’ll need them.

Thank You to the Voters

The slashed budget came up for a vote yesterday. It was representing almost $1 million in cuts for the coming year, and I was very concerned what would happen if it passed. Needless to say, I was on edge the whole day. My gut told me the budget hawks were already bringing out as many people to the polls as they could. The big question in my mind was how many people the school supporters could really turn out. We’d seen some great response the last few weeks, but none of it matters if people don’t show up to vote.

The result?

Our opposition increased their turnout by 12.5%. They had one of their strongest showings, with 1,608 votes in their favor. But that’s about where they’ve fallen in before. Our side increased turnout by 124.3%. Read that number again. We more than doubled our support, bringing in 2,893 votes. So we ended up defeating the slashed budget by 1,285 votes. 64% opposed to 36% in favor.

Naturally I’m ecstatic. It felt so validating to have so many people turn out to show their support. Though I will admit 36% is still a very concerning number to me. It means that a full third of the community was totally ready and willing to accept the massive cuts that were on the table. I recognize many of them thought it was a bluff. That the school board would never really cut sports, drama, music, arts, and more. Up to 30 teaching positions. But they heard all of that and decided it was worth the risk anyway.

That’s troubling, and I think it speaks to how serious they are about the need to reduce spending. When a third of the community feels like that, I believe they should be listened to. Not that we should go through with all the cuts they wanted, but they need to be recognized and feel like their voice was heard. Otherwise, the rift only grows greater.

And we’re going to need some mended fences to come together, because we’re not done yet. From here, the school board goes back to the drawing board to see what sort of a budget they want to propose next. (The fourth such proposal.) That will then go to another budget meeting, where the public can vote to approve it or change it. And then that final budget will need to be voted on one more time.

Hopefully, that budget will be one that spares the schools from massive cuts, but reassures voters who are concerned about spending increases. Communication will be key.

And turning up to vote, both at the meeting and at the polls, will remain essential.

But for today, I’m just relieved and happy. Celebrations are in order, and then it’s back to work. Thanks to everyone for their words of support and encouragement. It really means a lot.

A Comparison of School District Budget Spending in Maine

There’s a consistent complaint aimed at my school district: it’s spending too much. It’s out of control. It’s trying to compete with rich districts in southern Maine. And budget hawks come up with any number of statistics to try and support this. The budget is up millions in a few years! Our administration has gotten huge raises! Grab your pitchforks and torches!

On the flip side, I’ve heard school supporters continually claim we’re well below our peers, and that the district is very careful with its money.

Both sides can’t be right. So instead of buying into the hype on either side, I did what I wish everyone would do in cases like these: I looked into the matter myself. The Department of Education in Maine publishes all the relevant data. You can look at it all here. And with a bit of research, you can interpret that data by region, comparing it to a map of the districts here. For 2015-2016′s budget (the most recent published), I compared my district to each of the surrounding districts, going on the assumption that those districts closest to us would be the fairest peers to compare ourselves to. Here’s how it broke down

RSU 9 (Mount Blue): 10,277.85
RSU 58 (Philips/Strong): 10,947.24
RSU 74 (New Portland): 11,305.85
RSU 59 (Madison): 11,712.27
RSU 54: (Skowhegan) 11,111,91
RSU 18 (Belgrade): 10,504.59
RSU 38 (Mount Vernon): 11,127.93
Fayette: 9,980.68
RSU 73 (Jay): 11,094.05
RSU 10 (Rumford): 14,470.53
Average: 11,348.78

And here’s that in graph form:

You’ll see numbers that don’t match that graph. It’s because they’re made up by people who want to tilt the scales one way or the other. The official Per Pupil Operating Costs are calculated by the state by excluding major capital outlay, debt service, transportation, and federal expenditure. Why is it calculated that way? Because it’s the best way to compare apples to apples.

For example, our district recently constructed or renovated two buildings. The state pays for the bulk of the cost (something like $5.5 million of the $6 million cost), but that isn’t reflected in the bottom line of our budget, which shows *all* costs of the district, including those covered by the state. To include that number when trying to compare per pupil operating costs would warp the data. It would make it appear Mount Blue is spending far more on its students than it actually is.

Which, of course, is why budget hawks try to do just that when they do their calculations. Try to tell them about the state figures, and they get all huffy, trying to discredit the state. “They don’t know what they’re doing. It’s all mumbo jumbo.” Well it isn’t.

We’re told our district’s budget has been skyrocketing while every other district’s in the state hasn’t. Again: not true. The average annual increases for the past fourteen years?

3.2%
4.0%
5.0%
2.9%
1.0%
-0.3%
0.4%
2.6%
6.1%
6.5%
5.7%
5.5%
4.3%
5.4%

The dip in numbers is around the Great Recession. Which was the last time the school board was under fire, except back then it was because they were trying to cut the budget too much(!) It’s just getting more expensive to teach kids in an age of rapidly advancing technology and rising utility costs. I wish it weren’t so, but it is. And that applies across the board.

The fact is, every single time I try to look into what’s actually happening in the district, I discover the school board has been open and honest in its presentation, and the detractors have been warping and misleading the public. Their whole campaign to reduce the budget is built on misinformation and outright lies. (What’s the difference? I’ll give people the benefit of the doubt when they first state something. That’s just misinformation. But when they’ve been corrected and shown the accurate information and persist in spreading that misinformation? Then they’re just lying.)

Don’t buy what they’re selling. Vote no today!

Resisting Conformity in Church

I had the chance to give another talk in church on Sunday (more on that later, when I have more time to post), and as is my habit, I’m presenting that talk to you here. It’s based on a talk by President Uchtdorf entitled “Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear.” Here’s my ten minutes on the subject:

This past April, President Uchtdorf gave a talk on fear. He speaks of the importance of avoiding using fear as a motivating factor in our lives, particularly within the Church. It’s a fantastic talk, as his so often are, but after I read it over in preparation for my talk today on the same topic, I realized I wasn’t quite sure what people in the Church are really afraid of.

Some things are clear. We’re afraid of getting callings we don’t want. Afraid of being assigned to speak in church. We’re obviously afraid of damnation and hellfire, or falling short of our potential. We’re afraid of disappointing ourselves or our leaders. Afraid of saying the wrong thing.

But as I looked at each of these fears in turn, they didn’t feel right as a topic to base my talk around. President Uchtdorf mentions much more serious fears. People who use unrighteous dominion to manipulate family, friends, and church members into doing things. Emotional and physical abuse both use fear as a common tool. Guilt is another flavor of fear often employed in life and the Church.

And while these are all topics I could speak on at length, they still didn’t click for today. And then I came across another idea.

Sometimes one of the biggest fears we may have in the church is the fear of being different. There is a strong pull in the church’s culture for all of us to dress the same, look the same, speak the same, believe the same, and act the same, and when someone shows up who doesn’t fit the norm, it can feel like the old Sesame Street game. One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.

If a man shows up to church without a tie on, or a woman attends in slacks, how long does it take before some well meaning member goes up to them to explain what they’re doing wrong? And yet what actual direction are we given for dress standards? We are told repeatedly to be well groomed and modest. That our appearance and clothing should show reverence and respect for the Lord. They should be tasteful and appropriate for the activity. The closest the handbook gets to dictating style and actual articles of clothing comes when it instructs priesthood holders on how to dress when preparing, blessing, and passing the sacrament.

Let’s play a quick game. Try to guess what exactly the handbook says about this. We know what young men typically look like. White shirts and ties. What if a young man were to wear a blue shirt? What if he were to wear no tie at all? Would that matter? The handbook suggests priesthood holders have ties and white shirts, because they add to the dignity of the ordinance. And yet it notes “they should not be required as a mandatory prerequisite for a priesthood holder to participate.”

Think about that. If even the sacred ordinance of the Sacrament only has suggestions for a dress code, how strictly do you think God really is when it comes to caring what you’re wearing? I would say He cares much more about what you’re feeling, believing, and doing. This isn’t to say we should all start showing up to church in our gardening clothes. The instruction to be well-groomed, modest, and reverent is still clear. But remember that the definition of well-groomed and reverent could well mean very different things to very different people. And they could both be right. It is not my job to inflict my definition on others.

The drive to conform extends to many areas of the Church. One of the times I felt its sway the most in my life was when I entered the Missionary Training Center. I think we all have an idea in our heads of how missionaries should behave, speak, and dress. I know I did. And for the first week or so, I tried very hard to conform to that picture in my head of the ideal missionary. It was difficult, and it didn’t feel natural to me. Those who know me know I enjoy a good joke and like to use a light mood to make work more pleasant. And I was struggling to maintain a facade. One where I was nothing more than a cog in the machinery of the missionary program.

One evening, I finally couldn’t take it. I knelt in my bed and prayed. Hard. I was praying for the strength to accept my new position and learn how to adapt to it. I wasn’t trying to get out of it or escape any duties or obligations. I was just looking forward at the next twenty four months and asking for assistance to make it through them. Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming feeling of peace and acceptance. And just like that, I realized something. I had been called on my mission because I was unique. God knew my personality. My strengths and weaknesses. To be the best missionary I could be didn’t involve changing myself to fit some ideal form or mold that all missionaries must conform to. It meant improving myself, yes, but in the end, I was called for my differences, not for my similarities to everyone else.

Still, even with those experiences, and even trying to always keep in mind that I should be accepting of others’ differences, there are times that I wonder what in the world other people are thinking or doing. Not just my friends outside the Gospel, but my friends within it. Their tastes, their activities, their politics–their entire way of life in some cases seems almost antithetical to the one I have chosen to lead. And I don’t just mean Red Sox fans. But at times like these, I think back to another experience: Timpanogos.

If you’ve been to Provo, you’ve seen Mount Timpanogos. It’s a huge monster of a mountain, just to the East as you pass the Point of the Mountain. Its peak reaches 11,752 feet into the sky, more than double Mount Katahdin’s 5,269. It’s a 7.5 mile hike one way to reach the summit, with an elevation gain of 4,580 feet. When I was about twelve years old, I hiked to its summit. I use the term “hike” rather loosely, because by the end, it basically consisted of me taking five or six steps and then sitting down to rest for a minute or two before repeating the process.

But the hike has stayed with me for a number of reasons. It’s one of the most challenging physical things I have done, but more importantly, it gave me a new view on life.

From the top of a mountain like that, you feel like you’re on top of the world. You can see for miles. The air was crisp, and the wind strong, and I could look down any direction and see the valleys below me. Up on top of a mountain, you stand at the center. The destination. If your goal is to reach the peak, any path up the side will get you there. Some of them might be much more challenging than others. Some of them might be easier on the knees. It all depends on your personal ability and where you started.

It’s the same way in life. We can all be heading to an identical goal, but we can and will all take very different paths to reach that goal. If my path is going right at the time when someone else’s is heading to the left, the solution isn’t for us to get together and decide on the exact same direction to turn at once. We’re both on different paths. We can counsel and advise, but the ultimate guide for each of us is the Holy Ghost, not popular opinion. We can and will receive detailed, tailored instruction direct from our Heavenly Father, and we should pay close attention.

So. Fear of conformity should not be something that dominates our lives. What can we do about it? For one thing, we can stop going around encouraging others to conform. The “kindness begins with me” principle. But beyond that, President Uchtdorf gives us a key:

“If we ever find ourselves living in fear or anxiety, or if we ever find that our own words, attitudes, or actions are causing fear in others, I pray with all the strength of my soul that we may become liberated from this fear by the divinely appointed antidote to fear: the pure love of Christ, for ‘perfect love casteth out fear.’”

I believe that when we feel that need to conform, it’s often just a symptom of our own uncertainty. Could God really love us for who we are, even with all of our mistakes? It’s easy to look around at everyone else and see how happy they all seem to be. How content. This is particularly true in this day of social media.

Academics at Yale and the University of California did a study earlier this year that found that greater than average use of Facebook decreases both happiness and mental health. One of the causes for this is that the things we read on Facebook are generally carefully curated. After all, who wants to go online and talk to the world about how their marriage is falling apart, their children joined the circus, and their job might be letting them go at any moment. So when we go to Facebook, all we see is confirmation that everyone else leads a perfect life while ours is in total shambles.

When faced with that, is it any wonder we start thinking we’re doing something wrong, and that we’d probably be better off if we just started shaving off our corners so we could fit into more round holes?

President Uchtdorf says, “Christ’s perfect love allows us to walk with humility, dignity, and a bold confidence as followers of our beloved Savior. Christ’s perfect love gives us the confidence to press through our fears and place our complete trust in the power and goodness of our Heavenly Father and of His Son, Jesus Christ.”

Doctrine and Covenants 121:45 states “Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.”

Remember Moroni 7:47: “But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.”

The answer to the fear of non-conformity is charity. As we have charity, we will be able to look past the differences of others and see their desires of their hearts. As we have charity, we will accept our own differences and embrace them, confident that God does the same for us.

I didn’t set out to write a talk on charity. The word isn’t mentioned once in all of President Uchtdorf’s talk. But looking back on it, it’s so obvious to me I wonder how I didn’t see it right off.

May we all be charitable to each other and to ourselves. May we guide our lives with love and not fear is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.