We Each Have a Story

Given in the Holladay 10th Ward

Intro

Thank you, Brother Clayton. As he said, my name is Nat Harward and I have been attending the ward off-and-on since September of last year, when I moved into one of the extra rooms with Josh and KC Brothers at the big red house on the corner of Wander and 45th that everyone knows.

It really has been a blessing in my life to be here in this ward. I appreciate the warmth and outreach that I have received from so many of you. And I hope that through the duration of the time that you get to be in this ward, that you will continue offering the goodness that you have to your neighbors and receiving and welcoming the nurturing spirit of those who are around you here.

The Start of our Story

Today I’ll be reflecting on Elder Gong’s talk from April 2022 conference, entitled “We Each Have a Story.”1 And as I continue, I’ll keep coming back to a foil of themes:

  • having vs choosing and
  • inheriting vs creating.

Each of our stories, as unique as they are, starts with family.

Whether or not we know them, we are each born of a mother and a father. And each mother and father is likewise born of a mother and father.

Elder Gerrit W. Gong, “We Each Have a Story”

And regardless of who and how and whether the mother-father roles in our lives were filled, “we are ultimately all connected in the family of God and in the human family.” Perhaps it is because our first relationships are with a mother and father that “When asked where meaning comes from in life, the majority of people rank family first” (Gong).

And so there begins each of our stories — with our mother and father and the physical inheritance that they bestow on us: our bodies encoded from a combination of their DNA.

Family Inheritances: Biology and then Some

In the book, It Didn’t Start With You a psychologist named Mark Wolynn suggests that at birth we inherit a lot more than just our parents’ biology:

When your grandmother was five months pregnant with your mother, the precursor cell of the egg you developed from was already present in your mother’s ovaries. This means that before your mother was even born, your mother, your grandmother and the earliest traces of you were all in the same body — three generations sharing the same biological environment. […] Your inception can be similarly traced in your paternal line. The precursor cells of the sperm you developed from were present into your father when he was a fetus in his mother’s womb.

emphasis added; Wolynn

You’ve probably already considered inheritances received from your parents beyond just their biology. Things like:

  • tradition
  • habits
  • mannerisms
  • recipes
  • stories
  • favorite vacation places
  • ways of speaking

and things like this.

All of these you might have found traces of further up the family tree, as things — not just from them (your parents) but from their parents or many, many generations back — all of these pieces of culture that get handed down from one generation to the next.

“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. Each of them are live in this moment. Each present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, A Lifetime of Peace

So in this way, our ancestors are all “Still very much alive” and “deserve to be remembered,” as they are the sources of so much that exists in our individual lives (Gong). By remembering them, we can be conscious of where and when pieces of our current lives or our inherited stories come from and perhaps even why they exist. And that understanding gives us a chance to make a clearer choice as to whether or not we will continue to nurture those pieces of ourselves, keeping them alive; or, if we will choose to retire those things, to prune them, or trim them — thanking those contributions for what we may have learned and saying it’s time to let them go.

This idea reminds me of the allegory of olive tree in Jacob 5, where not only is the House of Israel as a collective represented in the tree, or in the vineyard — with pieces that get grafted and moved around, and some that are productive, and some aren’t and get trimmed and burned — this is an image that works for you and I as individuals, too.

Why Remember Family?

On remembering our ancestors, I thought about the Disney Pixar movie from 2017, Coco,3 which touched me so much when I watched it. It was based on the mythical supposition that “if there’s no one left in the living world to remember you, then you disappear from [the spirit] world [or the afterlife].”

As Miguel, the main character, ventures into the world of the dead to connect with his long-past family, one of the matriarchs in his line tells him:

Miguel, I give you my blessing to go home and never forget how much your family cares for you.

Mamá Imelda, Coco

Now why might she say that?

Perhaps, it is because if you were to imagine your life and what your life would be like if you woke up every day and felt not only the infinite love of God and Christ for you, but also, if you had just an ounce of understanding and feeling of the love that your entire family tree has for you — everyone who has passed before you, all of their love, all of them rooting for you cheering you on, available to teach you something every day; if you could close your eyes, and see the faces of a hundred of your progenitors, and feel their strength and the lessons they have available to pass on to you from generation to generation — if all of that was welled up in you in a moment each day, wow. What a resource.

The Power of Family Stories

[Some] myth-shattering research years ago has reshaped our understanding of dinner-time discipline and difficult conversations [at home. They found that] The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: [which is to] develop a strong family narrative.

It was in the mid-90s, [when a psychologist at Emory University] was asked to help explore myth and ritual in American families. There had been a lot of research at the time [about what was causing the family to break down]. But [these researchers] were more interested in what families could do to counteract those forces [and be stronger together].

[At] that time, [the researcher’s wife … ] noticed something about [the] students [that she had in her classes, which was that] The ones who kn[e]w a lot about their families tend[ed] to do better when they face[d] challenges.

[The researchers went on that] Every family has a unifying narrative [… some are ascending, some are descending … but] the most [helpful and] healthy narrative [… they] call[] the oscillating narrative[, which might go something like this:]

Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. We built a family business. Your grandfather was a pillar in the community. Your mother was on the board of the hospital. But we had setbacks. You ha[ve] an uncle who was once arrested. We had a house burn down. Your father lost [his] job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family.4

Bruce Feiler, NYT, “The Family Stories That Bind Us”

This narrative best lines up with the actual, observed realities of all individuals and families in mortality: we win some, we lose some. “The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh away.”5

So whether we like it or not that’s what’s going to happen to each of us.

And note that this little aphorism at the start of the Book of Job immediately precedes an indication of his (Job’s) choice of attitude with regard to that reality:

So the Lord giveth the Lord taketh away and … “Blessed be the name of the Lord” … in His giving and taking, and in our receiving and losing.


When Family Fails Us

Back to Elder Gong:

Just as joys come in families, so can sorrows. No individual is perfect, nor is any family. When those who should love, nurture and protect us fail to do so, we feel abandoned, embarrassed [and] hurt. Family can become a hollow shell.

[…] Yet, with heaven’s help, we can come to understand our family and make peace with each other.

emphasis added; Elder Gong

We can choose to not be bound by the inheritance given to us by the stories that have already been told. We can choose to learn to keep the best, to trim the worst, and improve that which yet has untapped potential.

As Elder Gong urges us:

Learn and acknowledge with gratitude and honesty your family heritage. [By honesty, I think what he means is don’t gloss over difficult truths. He continues:] Celebrate and become the positive and, where needed, humbly do everything possible not to pass on the negative.

Let good things begin with you.

emphasis added; Elder Gong

Write a New Story — But Keep the Good

I’ll be the first to say that it takes a lot of work to prune an inheritance that hurts and to do everything that’s possible to not pass on the negative. It’s a whole talk on its own. I can briefly summarize it by saying: feel completely and forgive wholeheartedly. The endeavor is a heroic effort to heal the wounds in a family tree.

But on becoming the positive, I’d like to look to a narrative structure that has shown up in stories told around the world through the millennium of the hero’s journey — wherein, an individual

  • decides to wander out beyond the gates of the home that he grew up in, get lost, find something new, see a problem that they decide is worth solving … and
  • once taking on that adventure, to go through a phase of suffering, being in an unfamiliar place, facing challenges and failures and setbacks, but continuing on and on and on and on, working towards solving that problem, which, at some point,
  • will culminate in the darkest moments — reaching the deepest pit, the dragon’s lair, the scariest cave — where we at least want to go … and, in that space,
  • discovering, finding something new — a solution, or a treasure — and with that,
  • returning home a new person,
  • sharing new knowledge with our families and communities that raised us.6

Jesus Redeems the Whole Family Tree, the Entire Family Story

The promise of Jesus Christ is that we can become our best story and our families can become happy forever. In all our generations, Jesus Christ heals the brokenhearted, delivers the captives, [and] sets at liberty them that are bruised.

emphasis added; Elder Gong

This promise applies to those who have already passed on.

We all have skeletons in our family tree, which, upon discovering may be kind of hard to swallow — especially when we find traces of those skeletons in ourselves, and in our shadows — our dark urges that seem out of line with the light that we seek and hope to radiate to others.

But, I believe in the infinite mercy and love of God. That, could we see to the other side of the veil now, we would more often than not see people in our family restored, humble in heart, and perhaps urging us to have courage to do better than did they, as well as pleading our forgiveness for the scars we have felt from that which they passed on.

I too believe that in the garden and on the cross, every bit of our life experience that’s hard to swallow was consumed on the altar. There isn’t a hurt, an urge, a nightmare, a habit, a scar or a wound that Jesus has yet to feel and heal.

[So] we each have a story. Come [and create] yours. […] Find your voice, [write] your song [and sing] your harmony [to] Him, [our God]. This is the very purpose for which God created the heavens and the earth and saw that they were good.

emphasis added; Elder Gong

We’re each a son or daughter of Heavenly Parents, born to mortality of fallen, earthly parents — yet, eternally endowed with unbounded potential.

The ultimate question of man is not who we are, but who we could be.7

Jordan B Peterson

I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, amen.

Sources

  1. “We Each Have a Story” by By Elder Gerrit W. Gong – Apr 2022 General Conference
  2. It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn, 2016
  3. Coco, Disney-Pixar, 2017
  4. “The Family Stories That Bind Us” by Bruce Feiler, published March 15, 2013 in New York Times
  5. Job 1:21 KJV
  6. Notes on The Hero’s Journey from Damon D’Amore
  7. Beyond Order by Jordan B Peterson,
By |2023-10-30T21:23:07-06:00July 10th, 2022|Faith, General Life|0 Comments

Ideas for LDS Sacrament Meeting Talks

A friend posted: “I need some good topics for Sunday speakers. Hit me up with topics you have liked or would like to hear about.” Without any hesitation I banged out this list of ideas for LDS sacrament meeting talks.

A few of the immediate reactions:

Reaction to my ideas for LDS sacrament meeting talks

“If I ever write a book, you’re picking the title.”

“Holy cow! Where did all these come from? Seriously the titles alone speak a sermon.”

“Nat holy cow. If you just came up with those that is mind blowing.”

Spice up your Sunday meetings with these starting points off the beaten path.

If you write a sacrament talk or ask someone to speak from one of these titles, send me a copy or comment.


34 Ideas for LDS Sacrament Meeting Talks

When People Don’t Apologize: Forgiving and finding reconciliation with God

Would borrow from Forgiveness + Tribulation, a talk I gave fall 2019.

Honoring Fallen Parents: The Fifth Commandment and Romans 3:23

The Fifth Commandment enjoins: “Honor thy father and thy mother.”

Romans 3:23 says: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

How can we, how do we, honor parents … when they have ALL fallen short—at best—and done real harm, at worst?

Mediating Identities: Being an independent agent AND part of a family, part of a ward, part of a Church at the same time

… for there is a God, and he hath created all things … both things to act and things to be acted upon … Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself.

2 Nephi 2:14-16

[M]en should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will … For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.

D&C 58:26-27

vs.

And let every man esteem his brother as himself … And again I say unto you, let every man esteem his brother as himself. For what man among you having twelve sons, and is no respecter of them, and they serve him obediently, and he saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there—and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just? Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.

D&C 38:24-27

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.

John 17:22-23

Forgiving Ourselves: Letting go of shame, expectation, guilt and perfectionism

The Appeal of Hakuna Matata, and Gospel Prompts for Finding + Making Meaning in Shouldering Responsibility

“Time Isn’t Found, It Is Made” — and other pedestrian truisms the gospel turns upside down

I believe “time isn’t found, it is made” is a Henry B Eyring line. Need to verify.

We’re All Wart: How The Sword and the Stone helped me rediscover what it means to be a child of God

There’s so much to unpack from these opening 8 lines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MuUQk-XwgA

Heavenly Mother & The Tree of Life: Symbols of Divine Femininity

7 Years of Plenty and 7 Years of Famine: What I am really learning to lay up in store for my family

The Good Samaritan: Seeing myself in every character

I Am Alma Too: Conversations with my present-day children of varying degrees of faith

(I don’t have kids. To someone who does, go for it.)

From Obedience to Integrity: The personal transformation to leader from follower

Skeletons in Our Closet: What to do when family history uncovers unsavory characters

The Prodigal’s Sibling: Learning to love as my father did

Cardinal Truth: Spiritual directions intimated by North, East, South and West

Seeing Thru a Glass Darkly: The beams that got in the way of knowing my parents, siblings and spouse

The Kingdom of God is Within Me … so why do I place so much stock in others’ accusations?

The Tarnished Rule: Consequences of misapplying The Golden Rule, and how I finally buffed out the error

Why Hope When You Can Ask … and Act?

Being Nice and Cowardice: Which, really, am I being?

Being Even As He Is: A Chapter on Courage

Every Day is a New World: Living with Creative Force in Every Moment

Clinging to Dregs: The unseen upside to keeping ourselves dirty and why we make that horrible tradeoff

Embracing Possibility: The absolute terror of becoming the best possible versions of ourselves

Letting Others Grow: The petty ways I’ve kept my friends & family small

No One is Coming: Stand Up and Lead Your Own **** Life

Taking Responsibility: Voluntarily shouldering the burdens of mortality and climbing upward to The City on a Hill

Empty Handed at the Pearly Gates: Coming to grips with my own vapidness from a life of ease

Oh, So You Think YOU Could Be a Prophet?

Admitting Laman and Lemuel are there to Mirror Me

Lehi and Alma: Grace for parents who “failed”

Ether 12:27: Weaknesses and Epic Fails which only now, a decade later, I can appreciate and be grateful for

Leaning on The Atonement to Overcome Humiliation

The Sound of Silence: Answering my own prayers

There you go. What ideas for LDS sacrament meeting talks do you have now?

By |2021-12-22T17:15:01-07:00April 27th, 2021|Faith|5 Comments

How Do I Write a Good Essay?

Kurt Vonnegut will tell you a good essay has to start with good ideas. It doesn’t matter if you can craft a paper with excellent construction and form. Your ideas have to be interesting, new, deep and worthwhile in some way. Why is what you are writing about important? You may not know exactly what your whole paper is going to be about when you start writing. I have started papers and just written to see where I end up. However, you should have a good idea of where you may be headed. After you have good ideas, then use all the standard writing techniques to effectively communicate your thoughts. Just as great construction is no good without good ideas, great ideas aren’t worth much when presented ineffectively.

So how do I come up with good ideas for a good essay?

One method I have picked up this year, though it is more time consuming, is to thoroughly look over the material that I am writing about. This is easier when I mark up whatever I am reading the first time I read it. Go ahead, whip out the pens and highlighters and mark up your book. I used to think it would be rude to mark up a book and ruin the experience for the next reader. So I tried post-it notes. Those were messy. I quickly got over it and decided to have at it with my books (or make photocopies if it’s from someone else’s book). Marking the text has helped me tremendously. So when I read, I think ahead about the fact that I will be writing a paper and revisiting the words, and I therefore read carefully and mark things that are important or could be useful.

After picking a topic for my essay, I go back through my markings and jot notes (with page numbers) of everything related to the topic. I re-read those passages carefully and pay closer attention to the words and their meanings. That way, my mind is refreshed as to what exactly each work says about my chosen topic. This way, what I think, and end up writing, will be accurate. I will be writing about the text and not bringing new things to it that may not really be as applicable. It’s better to be based on what is actually there, and not what I am bringing to the work and mistakenly attributing to the author.

As I write, I cite the text frequently. Even if it is just a single word. Using the author’s words (and then expanding or following with my own connecting analysis) demonstrates two things: 1) that I read carefully, and 2) that my thoughts derive from the text. Now, I won’t go overboard and have more citations than my own words, but backing myself up with material from my sources (not just further explanations by myself) is always a good idea. It keeps me grounded in the experience other people can actually have with the work, since I am sticking to what is there.

Lastly, it takes time to write a good essay or a good paper. A first draft is never good enough. The papers that I have done the best with are the ones where I have taken the time to re-write and re-think whole paragraphs or sections. It is annoying to delete a great paragraph and re-write another, but that’s just how to make my work better. The easiest way to accomplish this is to write a draft as soon as I can. Preferably, five or more days before deadline. After I have a draft, I take it to a professor or another qualified individual and discuss it with them. I choose people who can help me with my ideas, not just proofread for errors. Once I started caring about writing good essays and showing that to the people I asked for help, they started earnestly wanting help me improve my words. I find the reviewers who know that I care are more willing to give additional advice and suggest better ideas than those who perceive I just want to get it done.

My papers and essays have been as good as the thoughts I came up with (my thoughts, not thoughts borrowed from another critic or source) and the time I spent making it better.

I know it’s tough to crank out a good essay, but I hope this helps.

Happy writing.

By |2021-03-15T13:07:50-06:00March 4th, 2004|General Life|0 Comments