The Gift of Inclusion

A few years ago, my sister had the keen foresight, before Dad's illness, to have him read and record the Christmas story, as found in second chapter of Luke, in a booth at the studio she where worked. Now that he has passed on, being able to listen to him read that story on Christmas Eve has become a pearl of great price for our family as we celebrate the holiday.

There are many important details in the Christmas story. Among them, I find it interesting that the Savior, who would be so sorely rejected by His own people in His earthly ministry, faced rejection on the very night of His birth. It was the infamous innkeeper on that Christmas Eve over 2,000 years ago who found no room for Joseph, Mary, and their soon-to-be-born child in the inn.

In this month's (December 2019) Ensign, the Ministering Principles article is titled "What the Christmas Story Teaches Us about Inclusion." It includes this concept:

"The innkeeper failed to make room for the Savior, but we don't have to make that mistake! We can make room for the Savior in our hearts by making room for our brothers and sisters at our tables, in our homes, and in our traditions. ...

"What better way to celebrate the Savior than to follow His example of inclusion? Remember that He invites 'all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile' (2 Nephi 26:33). Make room and create inclusion."


Recently, I read a number of Dad's old books now sitting on Mom's bookshelves, one of which is Elder Neal A. Maxwell's All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience. In this book, Elder Maxwell teaches the same concept:

"So often what people need is to be sheltered from the storms of life in the sanctuary of belonging. Such a service cannot be rendered by selfish people, however, because the response of the selfish will always be that there is no room in their inn. Chronic self-concern means that the 'No Vacancy' sign is always posted" (p. 55).

Experiences in both my growing up younger years and my adult years have taught me that the gift of including others is indeed a gift of the spirit, and a rare one at that. How few truly possess the ability to lift up the hands that hang low, to include others within their spheres of influence.

Growing up here in Our Lovely Deseret, I found it more common to be excluded than included by my peers. I wish I could say that has changed as an adult, but truth be told, it is not really any different. I look at the past and the present and see far more acquaintances than friends. It is not from a lack of trying. When people and/or groups continually show indifference to your efforts, it ends up not being worth the effort in the long run.

This is not to say I am lonely or entirely without friends. I'm just saying that life's experiences teach you who your friends are, largely by who shows up for things and who wants to be a part of things. The Lord has blessed me with incredible friends. They have been answers to specific prayers.

There will always be those who will exclude, I suppose. For all I know, they will go on excluding into their days in the old folks home. The thing is, I can't do anything about them. People are gonna do what they're gonna do. Their circles will stay the way they have always been.

This Christmas, and going into the new year, I am asking for the gift of inclusion. I am hoping to renew my efforts to minister to those in my family, my neighborhood, my ward, my workplace, and my community. Heaven knows there are those who need it.

Highway to the Stranger Zone

You unlock this door with a text message, maybe an e-mail. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of being out of sight, out of mind. You're being dumped into a land of both shadow and forgetfulness. You've just crossed over into the Stranger Zone.

We've all heard of the Friend Zone, haven't we? Well, most of us have . . . right?

The thing is, it doesn't really exist. Not in my experience, it doesn't. It's possible, but it's quite improbable.

You don't have to go on very many dates with someone to get friend zoned. Heck, you don't even have to have gone out on a date with someone to get friend zoned. I've seen it happen. I've also seen people hire a friend or a member of the bishopric to deliver that message second hand. Maybe hired goons with brass knuckles named Vito (the goons, not the brass knuckles), I dunno.

The Friend Zone is what you get for having the "let's just be friends" talk with someone in whom you are interested romantically, right after they put your heart into a blender, mix in Chlorox bleach, leave it in the fridge for four weeks, forget about it, pull it back out covered in freezer burn, duct tape the pieces back together, and then mail it to you by carrier pigeon.

Consider this sample conversation:

Girl: I think we should break up.
Boy (feverishly checking his pockets for a receipt for the engagement ring he purchased earlier that day): Wonderful! Who needs a heart, after all? As long as we can still be friends!
Girl (while checking her Pokémon Go stats on her phone): Sure, friends.
Boy: Great! That way, I can still go with you to the movies every Tuesday. As friends!
Girl: No.
Boy: Well, at least (using air quotes) "AS FRIENDS" (meanwhile, several anxious people in the restaurant turn their heads in concern, and the manager calls for security) I can still see all your Facebook posts when you rebound within a few weeks and find a better-looking, independently wealthy guy! One with big muscles!
Girl (almost cutting him off): AND a jeep!

I don't mean to say by this that the only alternative to the Friend Zone is any kind of Enemy Zone. I'm not going to do anything rash like gun the engine and run over someone who once dumped me if I see her crossing the street, for example. But I'm really not going to be part of her life in any way, shape, or form ever again. I call it the Stranger Zone.

Nine out of 10 times this is the case, anyway. With that tenth person, your interaction tends to be limited to very casual conversation; "hi"s and "hello"s and not much more.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. I'll use a Book of Mormon example here, and it is simply that Nephi and his family reached a point in time at which it was no longer safe for them to remain near Laman and Lemuel. Namely, they would be murdered savagely. Following Lehi's death, they packed up their stuff and put a great deal of distance between themselves and their brethren. Nephi and friends still loved their brethren, cared for them, and forgave them, but they needed space.

Likewise, it can be "unsafe" for you and your heart, your emotional and spiritual well-being, to be around someone who has caused you pain or to whom you've caused pain, and making a clean break is not a bad or wrong option.

My problem with the "let's just be friends" talk, which ends up being the Stranger Zone anyway, is that people mostly don't really mean to continue to be your friend if they're rejecting you.

I once upon a time went out with a girl in my ward a few times. I thought we had a pretty good time together, and my thinking moved into the "I'd like to get to know you better" conversation in my head.

Ha ha! I have delusions of grandeur sometimes, huh? Assuming anything else was going to happen was my first mistake. I called this person after a couple of weeks had gone by, after I neither saw her at church (it's a big ward) nor received any kind of ping pong/positive contact. She did not answer, so I left a voicemail. More time passed. I called and left another voicemail. Then I heard nothing back a second time. Ultimately, and in a final effort, in case her preferred method of communication was text, I sent a text message, my "third call, that's all," and finally received a reply, in which I was told, in summation: "I see us being only friends for now."

Naturally, this is not what she really meant. I don't blame her; it's never what anyone means. It's just the way our culture has conditioned us to act, as if getting to still be friends with someone who has crushed you like a gnat is some sort of consolation prize, like going on "Jeopardy!" and finishing the game with a negative dollar amount but still getting the chance to embarrass yourself of national TV and earning a gift card to Texas Roadhouse.

I finally saw this girl at the church the very next Sunday after the aforementioned text, and she avoided/walked right past me without saying a word. You know, like "friends" would do.

I also think of the time when cruel fate placed me and a date in theater seats that were directly a row behind my ex and her now-husband. It had not yet been a year since our breakup, and in that time, she had somehow recovered from this "difficult" breakup by finding this other guy, marrying him, and, at the time of this encounter, was already showing a baby bump. And there they were there in front of me, cuddling throughout the duration of the show.

It was torture.

Nevertheless, I did not make actual verbal or eye contact with this couple of front of me because they never turned around; had they done so, I would have smiled and said hello, and then I would have let them get on with their lives. I also paid attention to the show on stage more than I've ever paid attention to any musical ever. It is possible to be in the Stranger Zone while still being polite and still being a good person.

DISCLAIMER: Before the hate mail pours in, yes, ladies, I realize that we guys do stupid, unintentionally hurtful things, too. It's a recessive gene on the Y chromosome, actually. I accept dumb things I may have done wrong, too, because I'm learning as I'm going along, just as you are. I know only my experience and how certain events have affected me; I don't know anyone else's thoughts or motivations.

Basically, what I'm saying (to anyone who cares to listen? to the chair Neil Diamond is so fond of talking to? screaming out my window like Bastian at the end of The Neverending Story?) is: Don't send someone to the Friend Zone if you don't really intend to be that person's friend from that point forward. It's okay to accept the Stranger Zone. And in many cases, it's better for both people that it be that way.

The Opposite of Love

"Why does everyone want to go away? I love being home. But I don't like being left behind."
 -Beth, in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women

A few years ago, I attended a Sunday School class in which the teacher expressed the belief that the opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference.

I have thought about that lesson a number of times since, and I think there is a great deal of truth to it. With hate, which we normally would think to be the emotion directly opposite of love, there is at least some feeling there for you, even if it is a negatively influenced one. With indifference, there is no real acknowledgement of any feeling at all. It is apathy; it is ignorance.

I didn't realize until recently, though, that the teacher was quoting Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who just passed away last month:

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."

Indifference, then, causes a whole host of problems. Lack of caring about or acknowledging a problem, let alone doing something about it, leads to disastrous consequences. Fortunately, we do not deal with issues today that are anywhere nearly as serious as the horrors Wiesel faced during World War II, and I'm not attempting to address anything anywhere near that deep tonight.

This is not to say, however, that indifference hasn't crept into our society in less-subtle ways. Indifference is still alive and well under our very eyes. I see it all around, and it often appears in the form of cliques.

Cliques are great for those who belong to them, and that's fine and dandy. But what inherently happens with them is not that people are included but that other people, by definition, are left out or are forgotten.

This issue means a great deal to me because I have often found myself on the outside at one point or another during nearly every age and stage in life. I've seen cliques in my neighborhood, at school, at church, in the workplace, in my extracurricular activities, and even as a missionary. I have also been bullied on multiple occasions, which may be the ultimate rejection or feeling of being left out of a group. Many people never actually grow out of cliques, for I see them all over the place today. For all I know, there will always be cliques; there may be cliques at PTA meetings or in the retirement home.

As a result of my experiences, I suppose life has fine-tuned me to feel and see the needs of those left behind, and though I have not always been able to include everyone in everything, I have made an honest effort, albeit not a perfect one, to include as many as I could. My life has, likewise, been greatly blessed by those wonderful individuals who have reached out the hand of fellowship to me and have lifted my hands and my spirit when they have hung low, whether due to chemical or other reasons.

How rare is the true friend who sticks around; whose interest in you is motivated by true concern, patience, and shared mutual interests; and who is there by not assignment nor motivated by convenience. There's a handful of you who fit this bill, and you are appreciated greatly.

If you currently find yourself in a clique, I invite you to consider someone who might not be there at your next gathering but whom you could invite to join you. Or look for someone different to sit by next time. I assure you that you won't have to look too far to find them, because they are all around, and they are longing for friends. If you're not currently part of a clique, I invite you to come and sit by me, and we'll make fun of the cliques together.

Seriously, though, and not to make this sound too much like a Sunday School lesson of my own, but I feel like this idea fits the theme of the Island of Misfit Toys, which is: "Each one bring one." As one of the counselors in the bishopric taught on this topic: "You all know who sits 'alone' even though they're surrounded by a lot of people."