For Your Journeys in the Land Marie K. Hafen Ricks College Devotional October 3, 2000 I pray that my words can match my feelings for you. I love coming back to Rexburg and to you Ricks College students. We loved our seven years here. I have watched you, and listened to you. I have walked in your Doc Martens--when I was one of you and when I was one of your teachers. I too left home to go off to college when I was 18--blinking in my contact lenses, trying to hide my bad case of acne. But my braces were finally gone so at least I had a wireless smile. That is if I could get up my courage to smile--especially at boys. I had not dated much at all in high school, and boys were still a mystery to me. I was scared! Could I get good enough grades? Could I get along with my roommates? Would I have any dates, or would I be in my dorm room on Friday and Saturday nights counting the flowers on my bedspread? And besides all that, I was homesick. I'd have given anything to walk in the front door of my parents' house, hear my mom cheerfully call, "Marie, is that you?" and smell her spicy enchiladas warming in the oven. You know that feeling, don't you? You freshmen have been here just five weeks or so. Some of you are coming back to Ricks--sophomores and returned missionaries. This process of leaving home isn't as new to you now. But haven't you all found that it is time to leave home? It is time for new opportunities and new experiences; time to explore new freedoms. . . and, therefore, new choices. Time to discover new landscapes where you can grow like never before. Like you returning missionaries, I had to leave home again, because of a call from the Prophet. Four years ago, my husband and I sat across the desk from President Hinckley. He said, "Brother Hafen, I would like to extend to you a call. Your first assignment will be to the Pacific Area. You will be living in Sydney, Australia." Then he turned to me and said, "How does that strike you, Sister Hafen?" To which I could only gasp, "President Hinckley, that really strikes me." He chuckled. I wept. I was NOT thinking of new landscapes of growth for me. All I could think of was how far away Australia was. (Yet now that I am barely back, the Olympics are just making me homesick.) Honestly, in some ways I didn't want to go. It meant leaving family, friends, and students. We would not be welcoming our son Mark, when he returned from his mission. We would not be decorating the Christmas tree with our youngest, Rachel--in her second year here at Ricks. I would be leaving my mom and dad who were in their mid-eighties. I would be leaving my neighborhood, and the morning bike rides with Mt. Timpanogos directly over my handlebars. I had never lived away from the Utah/Idaho landscape. When it came time to board the plane, I didn't exactly dance down the LA concourse for the 13 hour flight to Sydney. I was scared. But as far as it is to the other side of the world, the journey I was about to begin was less a journey of miles than it was a journey of my heart. I didn't realize it then as I fastened my seat belt, but I was about to discover the depths of my heart reflected in the depths of the Australian landscape. One of the beauties of the "Land Down Under" is in her extreme contrasts--heights and depths, mountains and plains, droughts and floods, beauty and terror. Describing these extremes, Dorothea McKellar poetically captures this landscape. Aussies of all ages can recite these words by heart: "I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terror-- The wide brown land for me! . . . Core of my heart, my country! Her pitiless blue sky, When sick at heart, around us, We see the cattle die-- But then the grey clouds gather, And we can bless again The drumming of an army, The steady, soaking rain. . . ." Having just left places and people that I knew so well, arriving in this new landscape meant landing in many new extremes for me personally. It felt like I was in a drought of certainty and in a flood of questions. Like perhaps you are now, I was asking about my identity and purpose in this new place. How can I get along away from my family? What is my niche here? Will I find any friends? Do I have what it takes to contribute to life in this new land? Will I like how I grow or will it just hurt all the time? Essentially, I was asking, WHO AM I in this new life? No matter the specific answers, I for sure knew that I wanted to learn more, to grow more, to love more. I hoped that I could, and I believed in my head that I could, but I didn't yet know in my heart that I could. I had only just begun what a Northern Cheyenne woman wisely described as "the longest journey that any of us will ever take "--the journey from my head to my heart What are the extremes of your new landscape? You have now left the comforts of your parents' home, and other comfort zones: your high school friends, your hometown. You have landed in Rexburg, of all places! Eastern Idaho! Where potatoes are mascots and the winds blow so hard chickens lay the same eggs twice! And then there are your roommates. Russets? Maybe. Maybe she is from Seattle and has rusted instead of tanned. Or maybe she's from San Diego and thinks life is a beach. Yes, your roommates and life in your apartment, if it hasn't already, will become one of your extremes. So much for your roommates. What about you? How will you discover you in this new landscape? Discover what is in you? How will you move from your head to your heart? As you make this "longest journey," there are some extremes in this landscape that you should be aware of. There are some quicksand to be warned of, some predators to avoid, some bad weather to prepare for--and some beauties not to miss! In the safety of these moments here today, I would like, with candid words of warning and hopeful words of cheer, to offer--how you might grow instead of wither in the midst of your extremes. I want, most of all, to be encouraging. I follow in the spirit of President Hinckley, two weeks ago, as he fervently counseled mothers to warn their children firmly and with love about drugs, tattooing, body piercing, sleazy concerts, and any other debilitating habits and addictions. His clarity leaves us no room for misunderstanding or rationalizing. To avoid the pitfalls of this world--of this landscape, if you will--you must look inward to the condition of your heart of which the external behaviors are only extensions. We cannot truly grow if we bury our hearts and inherent worth under the rubbish of poor choices. The crux of my prevention message to you against dangerous extremes can be summed up in two words: Get real! In other words, avoid seeming, as you work to become authentic. Mere seeming thwarts our development. The world may entice you into the quick sand full of illusions. But remember, you will choose whether you fall for it. Satan wants you to fall. He doesn't want you to be real. He knows that you are a child of God and he wants you to forget or disregard that. Esau, the son of Isaac and the brother of Jacob, fell for this temptation when he gave away his inheritance--his noble birthright--for a bowl of cereal. He was not true to himself. And neither are you when you give yourself away too cheaply. "How do I succumb to the cheap extremes?" you may ask. One way, and there are many, is when--in your dating, for example--you are not as careful as you should be about when, how, and to whom, you show affection. The desire for that expression can be motivated by forces and strong drives other than true love. Erich Fromm said, "Desire can be stimulated by the anxiety of aloneness, by the wish to conquer or be conquered, by vanity, by the wish to hurt or even to destroy, as much as it can be stimulated by love. Sexual desire can easily blend with and be stimulated by any strong emotion, of which love is only one. Because sexual desire is in the minds of most people coupled with the idea of love, they are easily misled to conclude that they love each other when they want each other physically. . . . [But] if [this] desire . . . is not stimulated by real love, . . . it . . . leaves strangers as far apart as they were before -- sometimes it makes them ashamed of each other, or even makes them hate each other, because when the illusion has gone, they feel their estrangement even more markedly than before." (The Art of Loving (1956), pp. 45-6) In short, save your kisses for when you really mean them. In addition, even when--or especially when--true love is present, that is all the more reason to express your feelings with integrity. Real love depends on your integrity being intact. To put it bluntly, do not let someone persuade you into a NCMO session this week--or ever-- even if they promise you true affection. It won't be! And do not get into any other habit that brings temporary relief, but ultimately only makes you feel worse. Remember that a kiss symbolizing love and respect is different from a kiss of self-centered sensualism. When you are given entrance to the heart of a trusting friend, know that you stand on holy ground. In such a place you must be honest with yourself and with your friend about the sincerity of your love and the expression of its symbols. And then there is the temptation within the dangerous extremes to forget how much you are worth; to measure your worth and your love-ability by external signs. It's not unusual to wonder at times if other people love you or even if the Lord loves you. But if that doubt becomes a habit, you will lose touch with who you really are. Those times of doubt will pass much faster if you don't fall for the seeming external symbols like popularity, money, or fashion to determine your worth. Anybody can wear fashions that become costumes or act out a part, but only you can be you. If you measure your value by the number of dates you have in a week, you run the risk of feeling sorry for yourself. Too much of that and you eventually will be tempted to marry not for real love, but to show the world that somebody will have you Such a marriage is made of illusions. That seeming starts when you doubt your real worth. A former student, I'll call Amy, found it hard to live up to her own worth. She wrote in one of her papers, "I really loved this guy and I saw no problem with our relationship. There were problems though . . . I rationalized by saying, 'I'm not going to marry him--It's OK. And besides, I'll be a good influence. "I finally could not stand living a lie. I was not being true to myself. (And notice) I was not acting like the person that I knew I was inside." (She wasn't lifting him up. He was pulling her down!) She wisely concluded, "I needed to make a change in my life." And finally she did make a change. She had been letting the illusion of love overpower who she really was. When that muddied water cleared, she could see that "Remaining true to yourself and your beliefs is the best joy you can find." One crucial truth, in the long run--and in the short--is that only the Lord's approval of you really matters. When your identity is secure, when the knowledge that you are God's and He is yours, burns in your bones stronger than anything else you know, only then are you free to discover the fullest measure of who you are. Feeling His love is worth more than any other reassurance. If your belief is not yet something you know for yourself--how happy you will be when you do know! Talk to Him. You are everything to Him--His work and His glory. He will let you know He is there when you are in unfamiliar territory and stretched to your greatest extremes. He will never let you down. And then deep relationships will follow, especially as you date; they will evolve in their proper order and reflect the authenticity of both of you. Lowell Bennion once described a good dating relationship as being like a pyramid. The base of the pyramid is friendship. The ascending layers are built of time, understanding, respect, and restraint. At the top of the pyramid, if it is worthy of a marriage, is a glittering little mystery called romance, "the spark." That spark will be squelched if you try to perch the pyramid on its point instead of its base. In short, if you want a relationship to stand the test of time and be stable even when the world is not, be friends first. We, my husband and I, had known each other two or three months before romance dawned on us. We became friends because we had a BYU religion class together called, "Your Religious Problems." (In fact, we solved our most pressing religious problem by just meeting in that class!) After class each day, several of us would talk as we ambled down to the devotionals together. We discussed the gospel questions that had been brought up in class, sharing real thoughts of the mind and the heart. I remember very well the night our friendship genuinely became something more--the night the top of our pyramid really sparked. We were dancing. Gradually, all else faded except the music, and the sense of moving together to the mellow tones of Nat King Cole. I just remember feeling a little zinging flare, like someone had struck a match. As I remember (and I do have to admit that our memories differ just a little on this point), one of us said, "It's worth waiting for, isn't it?" And the other dreamily replied, "What's worth waiting for?" To which the other replied, "You know what's worth waiting for." Neither of us dated anyone else after that. We had discovered in our college landscape the natural growth of being in friendship first, and in romantic love second. That progression is worth seeking for and working for. The spark on our pyramid has never faltered. A sure protection from the metaphorical bad weather in this world is deep, authentic relationships. Seek to develop them. A real friend can provide a softening refuge from the harshness of the inevitable extremes; they can help shoulder your burden when otherwise your knees may want to buckle. The world would have you romp in the dark caverns and dangle over the jagged cliffs of doing whatever you want whenever you want. Against this temptation, may I show you a more en-joy-able way? Walk the higher road of self-restraint. Develop the power to deny yourself. Learn when to say no to your passions, in all their varieties, and when to say yes. A person with that kind of self-restraint will discover the truest kind of love. Alma explained this to his son Shiblon in a seeming contradiction: "Bridle your passions that ye may be filled with love" (Alma 38:12). Comparing verses from Sections 63 and 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants may help explain this paradox: (Note the stark contrast between the bitter fruit of lustful thoughts and the sweet fruit of virtuous thoughts.) In Section 63: Those who look upon others with lustful hearts "shall not have the Spirit," In Section 121: Those who have virtuous thoughts "shall have the Holy Ghost as a constant companion." Section 63: Those with lustful hearts "shall fear." Section 121, oppositely: Those with virtuous thoughts--find that their "confidence" shall "wax strong in the presence of the Lord." Section 63: Those who lust "shall deny the faith." Section 121, in contrast, states: For those virtuous-thinking ones--"the doctrine of the priesthood shall distill upon [their] souls as the dews from heaven." Note how strongly, and pointedly, the Lord warns--and promises. He uses "shall"--no doubt, nothing wishy-washy. When you think virtuously, the saving doctrines appear fortifying the truth already present in you real heart--a heart where there is no seeming, no pretending to be something you are not. You may think that virtuous living means that you will miss out on a lot of fun. But did you know that the problem isn't that lustful, cheap thrills--like NCMOs--are too satisfying, it's that they are not, cannot, be satisfying enough? As Jacob taught in 2 Nephi 9, do not sell your soul for that which "cannot" satisfy. The fact is, sex--in any of its forms--outside its appropriate boundaries will bury you in illusions--tricks that make it seem desirable when actually that kind of sex smothers your growth. The more you indulge in it, the more you forget who you are. This is an extreme you can choose to avoid. In the vernacular of the day, "Dude, don't go there." Aside from dating, let me mention two other ways that mere seeming may get you into trouble. First, this is a time of real confusion about the way a woman can seem to be successful. In this unstable landscape, some vices are telling you young women to just give up on the marriage and motherhood thing and liberate yourself by becoming a jet-setting career woman. This message scares some LDS young women so much they stay away from education altogether. Still other voices would tell young women they can have it; they can have it all; they can have it all right now--and this message can simply overwhelm you. Let us look to the teachings of the prophets to get priorities straight. The prophets celebrate the womanhood that is at the heart of a family home. Marriage and family do come first, not only for women, but also for men. It frustrates me that the world's current devaluation of motherhood is telling women that preparing to be a homemaker, wife, and mother is 'no big deal.'When I get real about this subject, I know that there is no more meaningful career (or calling, than to truly make a home--filled with love, and stimulation for the mind and the spirit. Such a home--maker feels the joy that lie beyond a first glance at the seeming drudgery of a diaper, a frying pan, or a worn-out tennis shoe. President Hinckley said, "Women who make a house a home make a far greater contribution to society than those who command large armies or stand at the head of impressive corporations" (Stand for Something, 152). What, then about education and careers for women? The Prophets teach us that the issue is not marriage or education, the issue is marriage and education. It is exactly because family life is so important that a woman needs, in President Hinckley's words, "all the education [she] can get." Having had a house full of my own children for over 35 years, complete with the wonderful and not-so-wonderful surprises, I can say without hedging even a little, that being a prepared wife and a mother is worth all that it costs. It's worth the stretch, the discouragement, the trauma, the tribulation--because this is growth--theirs and yours. The joy of that growth is priceless. Here is another more subtle form of seeming that can lure you away from being "the genuine article," as they are fond of saying in Australia. In communities where religious roots are broad and deep, it is easy to hide what you really feel behind actions that look the way they are supposed to look. I've noticed, this can be a common problem among us, especially in places like Ricks and BYU. Your very presence here is based on your displaying external signs that you live your religion, which may or may not accurately reflect your heart. A large percentage of us have grown up in the church so we know how to seem faithful, how to wear the signs and do all the right things, but that can easily be based in cultural habit more than in real personal conviction. Watch, in this next example, how one missionary moved because of his personal honesty from going through gospel motions to discovering the truest of the gospel's emotions. He writes: "When I began my mission, I was unsure of my testimony, but was caught up in trying to understand what missionaries did. . . . Yet I yearned to say 'I know', not 'I believe.' As time went on, I had experiences in which I saw for myself how the Spirit literally changed the lives of our investigators, members, and other missionaries. After several months, I found myself saying with complete integrity that the Lord had influenced my life. I discovered that for me a testimony is a gradual, growing thing rather than a sudden yes or no event. Through all of this, I never changed my conviction about being honest with myself. Because of that honesty, the spiritual experiences I did have meant more to me, because I knew they were real. "I could trace my development through the verses in Alma 32, which became a source of great comfort and understanding for me. As Alma put it, 'For ye know that the word . . . hath sprouted up . . . that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand. O then is not this real? I say unto you, Yea.' (32:34-5) Real people come to know why they do what they do and their actions are consistent with what they feel in their hearts. And so, you ask candidly, what do you do if in your heart you would genuinely feel to hurt someone? Do you act on that feeling in the name of personal honesty? No. Of course not. But yes, you do exercise self-restraint and acknowledge to yourself the need to change your heart. Then you set about doing everything you can to have "no more disposition [to do] evil" (Mosiah 5:2) but to grow continually and experience the "mighty changes of heart" (Alma 5:12-14). Notice what motivated such a mighty change in this story of a wayward young man. Having spent all he had, he would have been content to eat with the pigs. Then he woke up. His desperate situation compelled him to change his life. And here's the point. (Quote) "When he came to himself--"in other words, when he remembered who he really was--he desired to go home. "When he was yet a great way off," says the story, his father saw him coming, and "ran" to meet him. His father didn't walk; he ran! I testify to you that when you come to your real selves, your Father--your Heavenly Father--will run to you. As was the case with the prodigal son, your turning to Him will not eliminate all the consequences of poor choices. But your Father will be with you every step of the way as you deal with what has resulted from your choices; and you--if you desire--can, with His help, make your way Home. Never will He be with you more than when you are in the extremes of choosing to change for the better. He will never forsake you. All of these suggestions have been ways in which you can avoid causing yourself more pain than is necessary as you journey further into adult life. Remember too that the gospel is not given to us to prevent our pain, it is given to help us heal and grow from our pain. As Sheri Dew has said, "the gospel is not hard to live. Life is hard. And the gospel gives us the tools to help us live it." And I might add, life is supposed to be hard. We learn more that way in this earth school. So, get real! Remember your eternal worth, let relationships grow in their proper order, develop self-restraint, prepare yourself to make a home, be honest with yourself and others, and humbly change when necessary. These are all invaluable provisions against any extremes that you encounter in life's landscape. It is the lay of this mortal land that your highest joy may come even in the very middle of your difficulties. That mix is the heart of real life. It comforts me in the extremes I am facing right now to read of Ammon and his brothers' experiences as they "journey[ed] in the land." They suffered, they sorrowed, they were afflicted; and yet they knew "incomprehensible joy" (see Alma 28:8). Indeed, as Lehi taught, if you do not experience some sorrow and affliction, you cannot experience real joy. (See 2 Nephi 2:22-25) And, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, "if you miss the joy, you miss it all." Most Australians carry with them in these memorized lines this same message of joy arising from sorrow. Let's go back now to the fourth stanza of "My Country," and you will see what I mean: "Core of my heart, my country! Land of the Rainbow Gold, For flood and fire and famine, She pays us back threefold; Over the thirsty paddocks, Watch, after many days, The filmy veil of greenness That thickens as we gaze." When Australians have endured, and struggled through, and grown from "many days" of "flood and fire and famine," the land "pays [them] back threefold." The green of new growth comes after--often because of--the adversity. As we struggle through our traumas and tragedies, the Lord will sustain us more if we trust him. He will send His dews and veil our thirsty pastures in thick green. Let me share a story about how a young woman discovered what it is that allows us to know joy even as we are afflicted, and who it is that makes that joy possible. The students in my Book of Mormon class here at Ricks a few years ago were working on an assignment on the Savior's atonement. They were to study, then teach the doctrine to someone else, and then apply the atonement to their own lives. This had been a stretching, difficult assignment for Heidi. She was in the middle of typing her paper summarizing her findings and describing her own experience when she made her discovery--when her landscape began to thicken with green. She wrote, "I am sitting here typing my paper, but I am having a hard time seeing the words on the page because of the tears. It has just hit me as I have been typing, that the Savior made his atonement for me, that He loves me enough that He would do it for me alone." Heidi found out how the Savior feels about her. That knowledge is where her joy comes from. That joy is the core of her testimony. Everything else is built on that. Led by his honesty, the missionary we talked about earlier discovered this same core. And, this joy and testimony is my core--the "core of my heart." "Core of my heart, my country / Land of the Rainbow Gold," writes Dorothy McKellar of her homeland. But I discovered while in that land that she was also writing about me and you in the landscapes of our lives. In these last lines, the poem offers one more crowning image that is perhaps more meaningful than the author realizes. For me, she is sketching with words what I discovered while my heart was being dredged by the extremes: Core of my heart, my country! Land of the Rainbow Gold, For flood and fire and famine, She pays us back threefold; . . . . An opal-hearted country A wilful, lavish land-- All you who have not loved her You will not understand-- Australia is famous for its opals. What is so exquisite about these stones is the way they reflect the light. But their beauty isn't evident until after they have been mined, dug up from the depths of the outback. When the deep red soil gives way to the light, all the colors of the rainbow dance from within what otherwise appears to be just a rock. The outback appears desolate. But in actuality, if you dig, if you stretch, if you struggle, if you break the earth open deep enough, the land will compensate you for your trouble by yielding precious gems of light; each stone being unique. But notice, these gems come from the depths where there seems only to be darkness. Because of this, they have become a symbol of my heart-journey. When the Lord took me to Australia, I thought my heart would break because of the extremes in my experience. And, gratefully, it did break! It broke open when I started reaching to feel what my head knew was true. Before I left home, I knew the Church was true and understood the gospel well enough to live by it and teach it to others, but the pain of the separation from my family and friends made me want to feel the comfort of His love like I had never wanted it before. Even though I was with my best friend, my husband, I still needed to know and to feel that the Savior was with me--always, just like He promises. Facing little that was familiar to me, I needed to know that He would guide me no matter where I went. I understood that such a blessing of the Spirit's constant companionship depends upon my faithful living. Now my living took on new purpose and meaning. I wanted to be better at "always remembering Him." My heart broke open with the desire to reflect His light the way I could see His light reflected in others. My actions became expressions of my longings to belong to Him, and to be like Him. I have always very much liked the painting of the Savior in the wine-colored robe. For a long time that picture was how I thought of Him--as a picture. But then, in my thirst, I dug through the scriptures, I scraped away the false illusions as I prayed, and I stretched myself further to live what I was learning. Then, as the poem says, "after many days," He became real to me--He became a living, breathing being that I could feel. It is not that I have seen Him with my eyes. But my feelings for him run deeper than ever before. I feel so tender for Him. And I know how He feels about me; that He wants to be with me, too. This testimony is real, as real as the knowledge that I will be with Him someday--at Home. That was the jewel that I dug for and now live for. It was waiting for me to unearth it, with the Savior's help, from the landscape of my heart. And now, because I am always in this process, as my heart's opals are soaking in the Light of the Son, God's Son, I rejoice in what I feel for Him. When I turned to him, He ran to me. If you will turn to Him, He will run to you. In the metaphorical landscape that is you--the real you--you, too, are "an opal-hearted country," and "a wilful, lavish land." With all your will, please follow God's will for you. He will guide you through the extremes you encounter in your journeys in the land so you won't get buried in the darkness of illusions. I pray that "you will love [Him]," so "you will understand." I pray with these words from my heart that you will understand how much He loves you. May you bring your heart to Him and hold it up to His light. As with the opals, you will be stunned by the beauties of your unique colors. Know that you are His, and He is yours, forever. © 2000 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.