Urgency

A while back, my son's friend told his parents that he felt no urgency to do his homework. This lack of urgency, of course, frustrated his parents and earned him less than stellar grades. Since then, any time someone, especially our children, does something inexplicably under or unmotivated, we note the obvious lack of urgency.

But urgency is a rather tricky concept. We know from the Parable of the Ten Virgins that we have to be prepared in all things spiritual. We know from latter day prophets that this preparation is non-transferable, that in the coming of the Bridegroom, if we are not prepared, we can't turn to our neighbor for help, like asking for a cup of sugar or an egg we lack for a recipe. Not because those who love us wouldn't share their proverbial oil, if they could, it just can't be shared. The oil in the parable transformed the virgins into the women who would be ready to welcome the Bridegroom; the act of preparing transforms us into who we need to be to meed the Lord.

So, prepare how? Prepare where and when? Any attention to any gospel subject can offer us a laundry list of things we should be doing. Any attendance at any sacrament meeting, any General Conference, any perusal of the scriptures can leave us with enough urgency to overwhelm and lead us to give up. It's ALL urgent and we can't possibly do it all now.

There are, of course, the basic necessities: covenants and ordinances that get us on the path of preparation. It is when we meet up with the 'press forward enduring to the end' part that things become daunting. Wise leaders have given us rulers and guidance. But all of this can still leave us frantic for some assurance that we are choosing the right order, the right priority of urgencies. It is human nature to look around ourselves, to check with the Joneses, as it were, for validation that we are choosing aright, placing our urgencies in correct order. As we compare our choices to those of others, we can theoretically see if we have chosen well, if we are preparing appropriately. But what if they're doing things differently? Which of us is wrong? What if our priorities have nothing whatsoever to do with the Joneses and only to do with our own revelation and inspiration over our own stewardships. Our answers do not cover those not within our stewardships. Our agency does not negate any one else's. How do we cultivate both deference to the agency of others as well as confidence in our own ability to heed and honor Divine voices?

Sometimes, though, it isn't a question of measuring ourselves against someone else's way of preparing for the wedding. Sometimes those we love clearly are not preparing at all, either for failure to understand the message of the Lord or for unwillingness to make and keep those commitments.

When I was in the MTC, there was an elder in my group who didn't really want to be there. He was there because it was expected of him, but he wasn't really prepared in any way for a mission. Entering the MTC is rough. You are learning and studying all day long nearly every day, with strangers, trying to prepare yourself for this wholly daunting task of being a real missionary once you walk out the door and onto the plane. The pressure cooker atmosphere affects each of us differently. For Elder O, he just wanted to go home. He called his parents and asked them to come get him. First they said no. Then they said okay, but you will have to get a job, you won't get your car back, your scholarship is deferred--they did everything they could to make coming home very unattractive. So Elder O decided to stay, but he wasn't happy about it. He was there under protest. I remember vividly him sitting in the corner of our classroom, arms folded in defiance, legs stretched to their full 6'5" extension, in such a way that I was effectively penned in by his legs, because his seat was next to mine. His anger was palpable; his displeasure hung over our class, making learning even more difficult than it had been. We all became angry with him, frustrated and impatient. Our branch president asked us to pray for him, for him to soften his heart so that he would want to be there. I tried, but I was praying to change him (which you shouldn't do, because it doesn't work). I was praying for him to want to be there so we would want to be with him and the thought clearly entered my mind "you can't make people skip steps. You have to love him where he is." Oh. I had to love him where he was, blocking me into my chair, defying every act of learning and growth? Ugh. It was difficult. But we were all trying. We were all praying and eventually, Elder O just softened. It was a good thing we had two months in that classroom together. He needed it. We needed it. By the time we left for Brasil, he wanted to be on a mission and by the time he came home, he glowed as someone who had found purpose, who had truly lost himself in service.

That story has a good ending. They don't always. But my heavenly admonition remains. I still have to love people where they are. I still can't make them skip steps, even if they never soften, even if they never, ever get where they need to be, where I need them, where I want them to be.

Loving people where they are may be the most difficult, the most Godlike thing we do. For God loves us perfectly in our myriad imperfections and it is only armed with that perfect love that we have any chance of preparing, of becoming transformed into that perfection He wants for us. Do we mourn and grieve those who falter and fall? Certainly. The Savior lamented and in those wrenching laments, we feel His endless love. This gives us a template for how to love people where they are, without losing sight of our own urgency. Unconditional love is complicated; it is difficult and wrenching. It requires suspended judgment, abandoned measuring. It requires that we try to be like Jesus. But we are not the Savior. We have our own steps to walk, our own urgencies to find, to order and to cultivate, our own oil to gather.

I wonder about the virgins; those that were ready for the Bridegroom must have been so sad to leave their sisters. Somehow, they prepared and loved simultaneously. They focused on their individual preparation plans, waiting and loving those with them while never losing sight of the pending wedding, the arriving Lord. The parable fails to tell us how they did it, how they maintained their focus and their love, how they followed the voice of the Bridegroom in order to be ready on His arrival. I have a guess that loving people where they are is part of it, because that includes loving ourselves where we are, taking our steps of preparation in order and with requisite urgency, filling our lamps, loving, learning waiting.