What is your Story?

Young Amber was on her way home from her 1^st Junior Olympics. As she settled in her seat, the Flight Attendant servicing her section noticed the Junior Olympic shirt Amber was wearing. She questioned Amber about the shirt and discovered that she had indeed been a participant in the recently completed World Junior Olympics.

“What event did you compete in,” the flight attendant inquired?

“The High Jump“, Amber proudly replied.

“How did you do?”

“I came in 14^th place.”

“Oh! How many were there in the competition?”

“14!”

“I’m sorry,” said the Flight Attendant.

This account went from facts to story in one statement. Up until the Flight Attendant’s judgment, the story of Amber’s Olympic experience was a series of facts. Our lives are made up of a series of facts, acted upon by the story we choose to tell about the facts.

Let’s consider Amber’s account from the Flight Attendant’s fabricated story. Fabricated because the Flight Attendant doesn’t know very much about the story, so she autobiographically filled in the unknown parts.

Let’s review the facts:

• Amber competed in the Junior Olympics
• She is a high jumper
• She came in 14^th out of 14

The Flight Attendant’s story:

• Amber came in last place
• Last place isn’t good
• Amber must be disappointed
• To show I care, I’m going to indicate my sorrow for a bad performance

What stories are available for Amber to tell? Here are a few more things to consider:

• This is Amber’s first year competing in the high jump
• There are 100,000 other young women in her age bracket competing in the high jump
• Amber came in 14^th in the world in the high jump competition in her first year competing in the sport

Amber’s story was a lot different than the Flight Attendant’s. She could be elated at her performance. Maybe she is determined to improve on her performance in next year’s competition, especially since she has seen all the others who are better right now.

When we twist existing facts into stories that fit our point of view, we miss reality and sojourn through life on false pretenses.

QUEEN ESTHER

Remember the story of Esther the wife of King Xerxes? Esther became the wife of King Xerxes through the help of her uncle Mordecai. Mordecai and Esther were Jews descended from the Jewish captives of King Nebuchadnezzar in 598 B.C.

The king was unaware of this. Early in the marriage, Mordecai became privy to a secret plot in the court of the king. He passed the information to Esther who told the king about the two members of the king’s court plotting his assassination and they were hung.

One secret kept hidden, one secret revealed.

The Grand Vizier of the court was Haman, an Amalakite, the sworn enemy of Israel. Haman despised Mordecai and Esther, and in his position, by royal edict, all but the king were commanded to bow before him. For reasons known only to Mordecai, he refused to bow before Haman.

In a fit of rage, Haman deceived the king into signing a death warrant not only for Mordecai but for all of the Jews which included the king’s wife, Queen Esther. When the Jews learned of the situation they went into mourning, including Mordecai, who sent word to Esther pleading that she disclose her nationality to the king and confront him with the situation.

Esther was deeply frightened. The penalty for going in before the king unbidden was death and she had not seen the king in 30 days. After more contemplation she requested a general fast of all the Jews in the kingdom, after which she agreed to approach the king saying: “And if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:16)

After the fast she approached the king, who was delighted to see her and beckoned her to come closer. Rather than spill her soul, she requested a private dinner with the king, herself, and Haman, the Grand Vizier.

The king consented, but Esther’s courage failed her during the dinner and Esther requested another dinner date with the two powerful men. Again, the king consented.

On the way home from the first dinner, Haman passed Mordecai in the gate. As usual, Mordecai did not bow, and Haman proceeded home fully enraged and told his wife and friends that Mordecai must die or that he Haman will be miserable forever.

His friends suggested that a high tower of 50 cubits be erected with a gallows on top and that Haman obtain permission from the king to hang Mordecai. So the gallows were built.

Late that night, Haman went to the king to obtain permission to hang Mordecai. In the moment of arrival, and unbeknownst to Haman, the king was pondering how to reward Mordecai for saving his life. When the king saw Haman he asked: “What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?” (Esther 6:6)

The egotistical Haman naturally thought the king referred to him and suggested that the man be dressed in regal robes, honored with a crown upon his head, and led through the streets of the city on the king’s horse.

The king was pleased with this idea and commanded that Haman see to it that Mordecai receive this honor immediately. Imagine the bitterness of the next 24 hours for Haman as he obeyed the king’s order and honored Mordecai, the man he hated, through the streets, bedecked with a robe and a crown, all on the king’s horse.

That same night he had another appointment with the king and Esther for dinner. This time Esther could not keep her feelings covered and the king pressed her for answers. She explained that she and her people were sentenced to death and she came to plead in their behalf.

The king was appalled and asked who would attempt such an infamous deed. The entire plot was unraveled and Haman’s appetite was spoiled as he was hung from the very gallows he erected for Mordecai. The king then appointed Mordecai into the Grand Vizier’s position that was now vacant due to an unexpected death.

Let’s review the facts and then the stories.

• Haman is the Grand Vizier
• People are supposed to bow to him
• Mordecai did not
• Haman hated Jews
• Mordecai and Esther are Jews
• Hamann plotted against Mordecai
• The king loved Esther
• The king is indebted to Mordecai for saving his life

Haman’s story

• Jews are evil
• Mordecai and Esther are evil
• Mordecai is bad for not bowing down
• The ends justify the means
• It’s okay to trick the king
• My life is miserable because of Mordecai
• The only way to make me happy is to kill Mordecai

Esther’s story

• The king has the right to end my life if I approach him without invitation
• The king may not kill me if I trust in the Lord
• All things will work out as the Lord desires
• I’m okay with whatever happens

Stories follow the facts. Behavior follows the story. What stories do we tell when life is difficult? What stories could people like Abraham, Joseph of Egypt, Joseph Smith, Nephi, and Jesus Christ tell based upon the facts surrounding the most desparate times of their respective lives?

Have you ever been counseled during a troubled time in your life to be patient and everything will work out? How did that make you feel? How did you feel when your parents said: “You’ll understand when you an adult or a parent“?

Have you ever lost a loved one to cancer or a car accident? Did you find difficulty taking solace that he/she is in a better place? Why do bad things happen to you when you are trying so hard to be good?

A FISH STORY

Imagine that you encounter an intelligent fish. Assume also that you can communicate with this fish, kind of like a Mr. Limpet. Furthermore, the fish can speak using the same vocabulary words as you, although limited. (Analogy is from Eric Skousen’s book; Earth in the Beginning.)

When you attempt to describe the world you live in according to your understanding and experiences, what difficulties will you have? How will you describe the wind? Snow? Rain? Turkey bowls in the mud? X Box 360? Wii? IPhones? Shopping at the mall? Lighting and thunder? How would you describe the sensation of walking, breathing, or of flying an airplane?

How do you get this intelligent fish to understand that he lives in a watery-filled world with a ‘veil’, meaning he is totally enclosed by a watery environment plus a water-air boundary? How do you convey the idea that light refraction vastly distorts his view of things outside his watery world?

In other words, how could you explain to this intelligent fish that most of reality as you experience it, is beyond his capacity to understand?

The distortion of light is very much a type of how we take facts and fabricate our stories. Research has shown that the predominant emotion of the human is negative. It is more powerful than positive emotion.

Negative emotion is the natural man and God has given each of us the capacity to conquer the natural man and tell a positive story. We are not required to mire ourselves in pity parties because life is full of conflict that we voluntarily turn into contention.

Remember, the Father promised each of us that He would provide us a way back to His presence. The atonement is part of the process. Our challenges and obstacles are how He tempers us preparatory to the final judgment.

JOSEPH SMITH

Now imagine you live in the freest nation the world has seen in 2,000 years and you have been arrested for professing that God has a body and that He is a separate Being than His Son.

To make matters worse, on top of your claim that God and Jesus are two separate beings, your source of knowledge is the fact that they appeared to you along with a myriad of angels.

Three years after this experience, while you are pondering, another angel appears to you and makes it an all night slumber party. It’s like a midnight movie with multiple showings as you listen to the angel’s narration of the past, the present, and the future.

When you confide in your alleged friends, they became angry with you. Four years later, after visiting with the angel every year, he allows you to take out a set of golden plates from the side of a hill and you are given a gift to translate the ancient script into a modern tongue.

To some, the fish story and the Joseph Smith story sound similar. The only difference between the fish story and the testimony of Joseph Smith is that: if the fish story is true, nobody will kill you because they are offended. Most people will smile and based upon your story, rightfully assume that your elevator doesn’t make it to the top floor.

By contrast, Joseph’s story angered so many people, because if his story is true, meaning a series of facts, then their stories need revising. Their churches are false, their economies might suffer, and their way of thinking must change. History has shown that people lose control over their faculties when they don’t get their way here on earth.

Joseph Smith was one of nine children. He was born in 1805 to very poor farmers in Sharon Vermont. He couldn’t control either fact. He was born with a propensity for honesty, for truth and with a searching mind. Most people think that honesty and a searching mind are positive traits when it doesn’t mess up their story.

He learned to be self-sufficient at an early age and to work hard. He rarely, if at all, murmured, although almost everyone around him mastered the art. At the age of 24, he founded The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. To faithful members, he is one of the greatest humans to ever walk the planet.

To members not of our faith, he was misled or he was blatantly wicked.

To faithful members, Joseph was called before his birth to perform the great work of restoring the gospel of Jesus Christ. He exemplified the concept of magnifying his calling. Joseph was hated by many because of who he was and what he represented, not because of anything he did to them. Their hatred was based upon the stories they told themselves.

Stories follow facts, and behavior follows the stories. President Thomas S. Monson said: “It is a fool who is offended where no offense is intended.”

Many people have acted like, are acting like, and will yet act the role of fools before this world comes to an end. Getting emotional about life is human nature, but learning to control our emotions and therefore our behavior is godlike.

By fabricating stories we generate a temporary good feeling about doing something we know we shouldn’t.

Consider how you feel when you are late to an appointment or a meeting. What stories do you tell yourself to smooth over the guilt of being late?

• I’m not a morning person
• I had a rough day, month, year, decade, lifetime
• My family is a mess and I’m stressed over it
• If it wasn’t for so and so, I wouldn’t be this way

How many of us have done something because someone else made us mad? Can you hear the echo? “If you’d be nicer I wouldn’t pray for boils to infest your body.”

MASTER MY STORIES

The story is told of two young girls running from the car to go to the bathroom. They lived in a small apartment and the family shared one bathroom. As they raced to the room of relief a violent verbal war commenced.

Dad could overhear the tone of the argument.

“I’m the oldest.” “I got here first.” “You can go when I’ve finished.” Soon they both emerged from the bathroom, physically frustrated and took their problem before their father.

In the wisdom worthy of Solomon, he counseled them to return to the bathroom and work it out themselves, but no physical violence was allowed. They had only one rule, they must both agree on the outcome.

Prior to running from the car to the bathroom, both girls exclaimed that they would burst if they didn’t get relief immediately. After 20 minutes dad heard the toilet flush and one of the girls walked out. A minute later his other daughter appeared.

Dad, now smiling, attempted to use the experience as a learning tool and questioned the girls on what they learned. To ensure a good teaching moment was wasted, both girls dug in:

“Well if she had let me go sooner it wouldn’t have taken so long.” Not a whit behind her sister, the other girl chimed in with a similar, “you always have to go first.”

“Girls,” dad calmly called the class to order, “before arriving home, you were both at emergency levels, yet you argued for 20 minutes deciding who would go first. It appears your behavior generated the very thing you didn’t want.”

“What do you mean,” one of them asked?

“Had either one of you let the other go first, both of you would have felt better 2 minutes after arriving home instead of 20 minutes filled with heated debate.”

“But…” one of the girls started to tell her story and dad held up his hand and asked: “What did you want more than anything else when you arrived home?”

“To go to the bathroom.”

“Not according to your behavior you didn’t. Think again. According to your behavior, what did you want more than anything else?”

The oldest, starting to see a different story dropped her eyes as the venom escaped her tone “I didn’t want my sister to go first.”

“That’s right. It appeared you were more concerned about your sister not going than figuring out the fastest way you could go. So your actions elicited the very opposite thing you actually wanted.”

SUMMARY

It’s been argued that life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. When we give in to our feelings and think about it, we put ourselves at risk for fabrication.

Too often in life, we want the other person to change. We want the environment to change and we even expect the Lord to change to fit what we want. Yet our own inaction, behavior, or stubbornness prevents us from obtaining our desire.

When we tell a negative story it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and commences a downward spiral that repeats itself daily until we do something different.

It’s possible to stop and reorganize any story based upon the facts. If you want to increase your level of joy, change your behavior. If you want to change your behavior, change your story. If you want to change your story, seek for understanding and avoid getting the world to agree with you.

Proverbs 23:7 summarizes things succinctly: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.”

“Men are that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25)

Our Father in Heaven wants us to be happy. I pray our actions are congruent with our desires. We’re only a thought away.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Talk given in Gig Harbor II Branch on June 13, 2010