\u201cSpirit of the Army,\u201d<\/span><\/a> in the 1994 Annual University Conference addresses). On that natural foundation, surely we can find ways to keep alive the spirit of the self-study, which can be one way of bringing this large and busy campus closer together.<\/p>\nI will mention only briefly two other emerging themes, because our colleagues will talk more about them tomorrow. The fifth theme is that we are overloading the faculty. This issue has two different dimensions\u2014(1) trying to do too much and (2) lacking focus in setting priorities and allocating resources. This is an important problem because it especially affects how the university allocates the precious resource of faculty time. Faculty frustrations in this area can aggravate normal tensions over teaching versus research issues and can make faculty feel they don\u2019t have time for students. A sense of overload can also contribute to the impression that the university is sending mixed messages, at times appearing to aspire to more than it is willing to pay for.<\/p>\n
The theme of the overextended faculty is related to an occasional lack of clarity in academic programs and sometimes in what a department, or the university, expects of an individual faculty member. One of the chief values of the self-study process is that its evaluation phase is identifying gaps and ambiguities that can be remedied by simplifying, prioritizing, and refocusing in academic programs. In addition, two institutional committees are recommending ideas that will help us define individual faculty roles and rewards in new ways.<\/p>\n
As a sixth theme, the self-study shows some evidence of emerging tensions between the loyalties that faculty feel to their academic disciplines\/departments and the loyalties they feel toward BYU as an institution. In his book The Academic Revolution, David Riesman argues that university faculties are generally shifting their loyalties away from their institutions and toward their disciplines, a potentially dangerous development for students and for campus coherence. BYU faculty have always felt an unusual degree of allegiance to this campus, but as our academic stature has increased, we have encouraged our faculty to earn the respect of their disciplinary peers. That respect remains crucial, but it should not trump institutional claims lest we undermine the university\u2019s overriding commitments to religious education, general education, interdisciplinary work, and BYU\u2019s distinctive educational mission.<\/p>\n
A seventh, rather specific theme has arisen within the strategic concern of how BYU\u2019s unique resources can bless the Church. The Church needs BYU people who can do quality scholarly wok on a variety of important religious subjects. To frame the issues under this heading, the Board of Trustees recently approved a general policy indicating that BYU faculty, including those outside Religious Education, may undertake controlled amounts of Church-related scholarship with appropriate forms of approval and peer review. The Board also authorized the creation of an on-campus coordinating body on religious scholarship, along with creating a clarified partnership between BYU and the independent Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS).<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve not said much about themes relating to the academic support areas of the university because those evaluations are not yet in, having been designed to follow the academic reports. However, we are already seeing the need to clarify a number of departmental roles in the support areas as we compare original purposes with contemporary needs. In addition, we need to clarify how staff and administrative personnel may more efficiently exercise appropriately delegated authority. We will continue to share impressions about these and related topics.<\/p>\n
Speaking more generally now, I began with a couple of images in my mosaic of memories from the year just past. I\u2019d like to share four more such images. I think of a group of several hundred thoughtful educators I met in Zurich, Switzerland, who are concerned about the deterioration of the social, intellectual, and moral fabric in Western society. When they learned about Brigham Young University, with 1,500 faculty and nearly 30,000 bright and able students who live drug-free lives of integrity, chastity, and rigorous intellectual and spiritual development, one of them asked in a voice near tears, \u201cIs there really such a place? Are there really 30,000 students in one place who freely choose to live and learn that way? Such a place fulfills my dream for the ideal education, for it builds the ideal society.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think next of a moment last spring in an advisory board meeting in New York City for a group of scholars interested in issues of religion and society in the United States and beyond. A noted religious and intellectual leader unexpectedly asked if I would tell the group \u201cwhat is new these days among the Mormons.\u201d He explained that he was asking this question because he realizes increasingly that, compared to other American religious groups, the Mormons are becoming what he called \u201cmajor players,\u201d a growing Church with \u201cgreat vitality.\u201d Others in the group commented on the growing influence they see across the country from faithful and able Mormon scholars, mostly from the BYU faculty. They also displayed an astute understanding of the spectrum that ranges from Mormon scholars who are faithful to their Church to those who are uncomfortable with their Church\u2014a phenomenon they have commonly seen in other religious groups. They continued with serious but sincere questions, wondering why we do missionary work in Latin America and how our leaders are chosen. It became very clear to me that these sophisticated people knew more about us than we might assume. And they take BYU very seriously, urging our help in addressing the social and religious issues of the day. To them, this university is coming of age, both intellectually and spiritually\u2014and it s doing so not in spite of our serious religious commitments, but precisely because of them.<\/p>\n
Then I recall the picture of Rex Lee presiding recently at his last BYU commencement. He doesn\u2019t want any of us to start a good-bye party now that lasts four months, but I won\u2019t have a better opportunity than today to thank him and Janet for teaching me by the power of their example how to deal gracefully with adversity. Their lives these past few years capture what I would call \u201cgrace under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the sport of diving, a diver is judged not only by his or her overall execution, but by the difficulty of the particular dive. The responsibilities Rex has carried these past six years would never be easy, but under the physical constraints he has faced, the difficulty quotient kept ratcheting upward until his was one really tough dive. Yet he has done it with exquisite grace. I have known Rex Lee at close range for a long time, and I\u2019ve never known anyone who was more cheerful and more patient in the midst of aggravating and sometimes agonizing afflictions. And what I have learned in watching him is that his patience and cheerfulness have invited the Lord\u2019s strength into his life.<\/p>\n
In the 24th chapter of Mosiah we read the story of Alma and his people, who were in bondage to the wicked Amulon. Because Alma\u2019s people could not fight back, they cried to God in their hearts for deliverance. The voice of the Lord came to them, promising that, because of their covenants with him, the Lord would \u201cease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs . . . that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.\u201d As Alma and his people responded faithfully, we read, \u201cThe Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord\u201d (Mosiah 24:14\u201315). Eventually the Lord delivered them from their bondage.<\/p>\n
President Lee has had the same experience as did Alma and his people: when we are graceful in affliction, submitting \u201ccheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord,\u201d then God is graceful too\u2014and his grace gladly bears up against all the pressure there is.<\/p>\n
Finally, let us consider Alma\u2019s story in a more general application to life at BYU. Before going to bed one night last week, I picked up my current late-night reading, which is Orson F. Whitney\u2019s biography of Heber C. Kimball. I read there a quotation from D&C 45:66-67 about the New Jerusalem, called Zion: \u201ca land of peace, a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God; And the glory of the Lord shall be there.\u201d And then I went to sleep. Just before five the next morning, I awoke to find so many thoughts in my mind that I couldn\u2019t go back to sleep. I got up and wrote down a few ideas, hoping vainly that I could then return to sleep.<\/p>\n
The thread of these ideas was that Mosiah 24 is not only a story about patience in adversity\u2014it is also a story about what happens to all the people who come fully to Christ through his atonement and thereby enjoy the influence of his presence in this life. As the Lord told the early Saints, \u201cI am in your midst and ye cannot see me\u201d (D&C 38:7). The sacrament prayer promises that if we are faithful and always remember him, we may always have his spirit to be \u201cwith\u201d us. The people who have this experience are the Saints of the Most High God. Then these words began running through my mind, so familiar, but with a meaning I never knew before:<\/p>\n
Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear;<\/i> \nBut with joy wend your way.<\/i> \nThough hard to you this journey may appear,<\/i> \nGrace shall be as your day.<\/i> \n[\u201cCome, Come, Ye Saints,\u201d\u00a0Hymns<\/i>, 1985, no. 30]<\/p>\n
Perhaps this means, come, ye Saints, all ye that are heavy laden, come to the Savior of Mankind; keep your covenants with him, and he will carry not only the burden of your sins\u2014he will also ease the burdens of your hardest toil and labor \u201cthat even you cannot feel them upon your backs.\u201d Then you will wend your way with the joy that Adam and Eve discovered when they embraced the covenants of the Atonement amid the burdens of the lone and dreary world. Even called it \u201cthe joy of our redemption\u201d (see Moses 5:10\u201311).<\/p>\n
And though the journey of mortality can sometimes be very hard, grace shall be as your day\u2014meaning, in Nephi\u2019s words, \u201cit is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do\u201d (2 Nephi 25:23). Thus the Lord\u2019s grace extends further as our individual days grow longer, and harder. If we are faithful he will give us whatever the \u201cday\u201d of our personal circumstances may require.<\/p>\n
Then came another line from the song:<\/p>\n
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;<\/i> \nWith the just we shall dwell!<\/i><\/p>\n
Who are \u201cthe just\u201d? All those whose uneven printed margins are \u201cjustified,\u201d made straight; those for whom Christ satisfied the demands of justice. They will inhabit the celestial kingdom, for, according to section 76, they are the \u201cjust\u201d men and women who are \u201cmade perfect through Jesus\u201d (D&C 76:69).<\/p>\n
The verse continues:<\/p>\n
But if our lives are spared again\u00a0<\/i> \nTo see the Saints their rest obtain,<\/i> \nOh, how we\u2019ll make this chorus swell\u2014<\/i> \nAll is well! All is well!<\/i><\/p>\n
How do the Saints obtain their \u201crest\u201d? The prophet Mormon once spoke of \u201cthe peaceable followers of Christ [who] have obtained a sufficient hope [that they] can enter into the rest of the Lord\u201d (Moroni 7:3). Joseph F. Smith described \u201cthe rest of the Lord\u201d as a deep spiritual peace the Lord bestows on those Saints \u201cwho have set their eyes upon the mark of their high calling with an invincible determination in their hearts to be steadfast in the truth, and who are treading in humility and righteousness the path\u201d of the \u201cfollowers of Jesus Christ.\u201d The Lord\u2019s influence gives those who enter into his rest a tangible \u201cspiritual contentment . . . here upon the earth, . . . now, today\u201d (Gospel Doctrine,<\/i>\u00a0126\u201327).<\/p>\n
We read in D&C 84 that Moses \u201csought diligently to sanctify his people. . . . But they hardened their hearts and could not endure his presence; therefore, the Lord . . . swore that they should not enter into his rest while in the wilderness, which rest is the fulness of his glory\u201d (D&C 84:23\u201324). To see the Saints obtain their rest, then, is to see their \u201cinvincible determination\u201d lead them into the influence of the Lord\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, in addition to being a memorable song of encouragement and hope for weary pioneers, \u201cCome, Come, Ye Saints\u201d is\u2014like the story of Alma and his people in their bondage\u2014also a song about the meaning of the Lord\u2019s gracious power in the adversity and toil of our lives. If so, it is also a song about the extraordinary blessing of living among a community of believers who yearn to enter the rest of the Lord.<\/p>\n
God promised the Nephite people as a community that if they would keep his commandments, they would \u201cprosper in the land.\u201d We ordinarily assume the word \u201cprosper\u201d in this context means material prosperity. I once heard Elder Marion D. Hanks offer an alternative interpretation; namely, that \u201cprosper in the land\u201d means being within the constant influence of the Lord\u2019s presence. He derives this interpretation from the Lord\u2019s phrasing of his promise: \u201cInasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence\u201d (2 Nephi 1:20). The Saints\u2019 faithfulness thus allows them to enter into his rest and to stay there.<\/p>\n
I believe this promise extends to the Saints of the BYU community. When we so live that this community \u201cprospers\u201d in this sense, we are in the world but we are not of the world. We are no longer of the world because having the Lord\u2019s Spirit abide with us lifts us above the constraints of mortality, even as it strengthens us to endure the demands of mortality. As Alma\u2019s people found, God\u2019s influence makes our mortal burdens lighter. As Moses found when he entered God\u2019s presence, that holy environment replaces our myopic sense of time with the eternal perspective of Him for whom all things are present. And as Joseph F. Smith taught, the Lord blesses those who enter into his rest to be free from \u201cunsettled, restless\u201d feelings of mortal discouragement, \u201csuspicion, unrest, [and] uncertainty\u201d (Gospel Doctrine,<\/i>\u00a0126). In this condition of transcending our own mortality, we will have cast the influence of Satan from our midst as Moses did before regaining the Lord\u2019s presence. We will also be free from the spirit of contention, which cannot be where God is. Then we will know what Enos called \u201cthe joy of the saints\u201d (Enos 1:3).<\/p>\n
In some miraculous way, living this close to the Lord can transform our perspective and ultimately our nature. Perhaps this transformation is symbolized by our movement during mortality from the telestial to the terrestrial world, enabled by overcoming the adversary and increasing our obedience. We know this can happen to individuals. Can it happen to communities? Joseph and Brigham and Heber thought a community of faith made the transformation more likely because of the reinforcement made possible when people \u201clove one another and never dissemble, But cease to do evil and ever be one\u201d (\u201cNow Let Us Rejoice,\u201dHymns,<\/i>\u00a01985, no. 3). That is why the early Saints longed for Zion\u2014\u201ca land of peace, . . . a place of safety . . . ; And the glory [the presence] of the Lord shall be there\u201d (D&C 45:66\u201367). Is it inconsistent to think of a university as such a place? No, for the Lord himself said, \u201cI . . . am well pleased that there should be a school in Zion\u201d (D&C 97:3).<\/p>\n
Someone recommended recently that BYU should have a religious monument on the campus symbolizing our distinctive understanding of restored Christianity and our collective commitment that we will overcome the profane life and live the sacred life. But perhaps these 638 acres are already holy ground, and perhaps the Carillon Tower is already such a religious symbol. But only those who know the hourly song of the carillon bells take off their shoes; the rest just enjoy the music.<\/p>\n
Each of us is under pressure. Some of us just can\u2019t do all that is expected of us, and as a result we don\u2019t live as we planned to and we are not always there for those who need us most. Some of us feel great financial pressure. Some of us are pressured by personal weaknesses, others by high-pressure people who tempt us or manipulate us. Some of us feel the pressure of children who disappoint us or spouses who have come to seem too distant from us. Especially in our university life we may feel the pressure of not performing well enough or, worse, performing well but being misjudged or otherwise not supported by those who supervise our work. The passing years may have brought us failing health or the loss of those we most loved. The self-study tells us about the pressures of being institutionally overcommitted without enough attention to students who need us or enough communication with colleagues who don\u2019t understand us.<\/p>\n
May the song of the bells remind us of the Lord\u2019s promise to give us strength, insight, and grace under such pressures, easing the burdens that are placed on our shoulders. May we be like Hugh Nibley, feeling the reverence to lift our eyes to the hills or to take off our shoes on holy ground, thereby regaining perspective. May we be like the Lees and the people of Alma, submitting cheerfully and with patience to God\u2019s will. May our own religious lives reflect spiritual integrity in an attitude of faith so that our personal example can be our students\u2019 best teacher. We can live this way at BYU, for this is a school in Zion.<\/p>\n
So when the carillon bells ring out across the campus at every hour, \u201cCome, come, ye Saint, no toil nor labor fear; But with joy wend your way,\u201d may we know for whom these bells toll\u2014they toll for the Saints of the Most High God. And may the bells call us as individuals and as a community to come unto Christ until we are within his holy influence, where, even in this life and in this place, we and our precious students may together enjoy the eternal quality of life God gives to all the obedient. Then we will know that\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0is well. For this I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Brigham Young University. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cCome, Come, Ye Saints\u201d | Bruce C. Hafen | BYU Speeches<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n