President Worthen, distinguished guests, parents, friends, and members of the
Brigham Young University class of 2019, congratulations on this important day
and thank you for this incredible honor. With this honorary degree, I am proud to
say that I am finally a real member of the BYU community.
I have to confess that up to this point I've only ever impersonated a member of
the BYU community. I know that sounds bad, so let me explain. Several years ago I
came to this beautiful place, to BYU, to deliver a lecture. My wonderful host sent
me home with a ton of branded souvenirs: t-shirts, mugs, you name it. You guys are
great at product placement. One particularly nice gift that I got that
day was a briefcase and it had BYU emblazoned across the front. Now as it
happened, I actually needed a new briefcase, but I kind of hesitated to use
it because of the logo. It felt a little weird like false advertising. See I'm not
a member of the faculty at BYU, nor am I a member of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints. I'm a Catholic. Somebody told me, by the way, that I'm
your favorite Catholic, but I figure you say that to all the Catholics.
Anyway, my wife Esther, when I expressed this hesitancy, she said you know that's
ridiculous. She said use the briefcase, it's beautiful.
Okay, so I loaded it up, I took it out on the road. I travel all the time, I'm in
airports constantly, and here's the weird thing. I noticed that people would look
at my briefcase and then they'd look up at me. And they'd have this weird look on
their face like I've never seen an aging hipster Mormon before.
Excuse me, Latter-day Saint.
Now, it gave me some amusement, but here's the funny part,
I found that it was changing my behavior. I was acting with greater love and
kindness than I ordinarily would. People would look at my briefcase and I'd say I
want to help with their luggage. I want to give up my place in line, that sort of
thing. Why? Because I was unconsciously trying to live up to the high standards
of kindness of your church and your university. At very least not to hurt
your well-earned reputation for kindness. You know what else? I I even stopped
carrying cups of coffee. Look, I love coffee, but I didn't want people to think
that a member of your church is a hypocrite I had this paranoid fantasy.
You know, like I some guy telling his wife - You know I saw this Mormon guy in
O'Hare Airport ordering a venti latte at Starbucks. You know, I knew they were
hypocrites - I didn't want that. And you know what? That briefcase made me a
happier person, a more loving person. I was like the person I wanted to be. Why?
Because I was trying to be like, like you. So, what's the lesson here? It's not that
your BYU you briefcases have magic properties. It's that your greatest
witness to the world as members of this community is the conduct of your life.
Our nation and world need this, they need you, more than ever today. If you pay
attention to politics or television or social media God forbid, what do you see?
You see recrimination, reproach, insults, sarcasm. You see leaders at the highest
levels of our country who bully and berate those with whom they disagree. You
see families torn apart over political disagreements. You see political foes who
treat each other as enemies. People often characterize the current moment in
America as being angry. If only this were true. Anger is an emotion that occurs we
want to change someone's behavior and believe that we can do it. According to
the research on anger, while it's often perceived as a negative emotion,
it has social purpose and it's not to drive others away, rather it's
intended to remove problematic elements of a relationship and bring people back
together. Believe it or not, there is no evidence that in a marriage
anger is correlated with separation or divorce. For 28 years I've been married
to a Spaniard. The secret to the success of my decades of marriage is the lack of
correlation between anger and divorce.
The problem, my friends, is not anger. It's contempt. In the words of the 19th
century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, contempt is the unsullied conviction of
the worthlessness of another person. The destructive power of contempt is well
documented in the work of famous social psychologists and relationship expert John
Gottman who teaches the University of Washington in Seattle. Over the
course of his work, Gottman has studied thousands of married couples. The biggest
warning signs of divorce, he explains, are indicators of contempt. These includes
sarcasm, sneering, hostile humor, and worst of all, eye rolling. Hmm. I have teenage kids
I see lots of eye rolling, but if you roll your eyes at somebody you love, wo
be unto you. That is a little act that says you're worthless to the one person,
your spouse, the person you should love more than any other. You want to see if a
couple will end up a divorce court? Watch them discuss contentious topics and see
if either partner rolls his or her eyes. And just as contempt ruins a marriage
it can tear a country apart. America has developed a culture of contempt, a habit
of seeing people who disagree with us not merely as incorrect or misguided, but
as worthless. This is causing incredible harm to our country. One in six Americans
have stopped talking to close friends or family members over politics since the
2016 election. Millions are organizing their social lives and curating their
news and information to avoid hearing viewpoints differing from their own.
Ideological polarization is at higher levels that at any time since the
American Civil War. Listen now, listen to the words of church president Russell
M. Nelson. "Hatred among brothers and neighbors has now reduced sacred
cities to sites of sorrow." He said this in 2002. Today it's even truer,
isn't it? And this is harming more than our nation.
Remember that America is a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. We are an
example of democratic capitalism that has pulled 2 billion of our brothers and
sisters out of starvation level poverty
over the past half-century alone. This is a nation that's attracted you or your
ancestors with a promise of equal opportunity, religious freedom, and a good
life for you and your family. When America is torn apart, we become incapable
of living up to the plan, the holy plan for our nation which is to shine a
light for the rest of the world. So, what do we need? Some say we need to agree
more, but that's wrong. Disagreement is good because competition is good. It
makes us sharp and strong, whether in sports, politics, economics, or in the
world of ideas. We don't need to disagree less we need to disagree better. Other
people say we need more civility, but that's wrong too. Civility is a hopelessly low
standard for us as Americans. Imagine I told you that my wife Esther and I are
civil to each other. You'd say to get some counseling.
If we're gonna beat the problem of contempt we're gonna need something more
radical than civility, something that speaks to our hearts true desire. We need
love, which was defined by Thomas Aquinas as - to will the good of the other. We
need a new generation ready to model lives of love in the midst of the
culture of contempt. We need young people who can live out in today's culture. The
words of the book of Helaman Chapter five - And it came to pass that they did
go forth and did minister unto the people and as many as were convinced did
lay down their weapons of war and also their hatred and the tradition of their
fathers. He was talking about you. Make no mistake, this isn't easy to do. It
requires people who will not run away from the problem, who are unafraid to
infiltrate the culture of contempt, who are capable of modeling a better sense of
value and values. This requires the agility to be in the culture of a not of
it. When you think of it it's kind of like missionary work, isn't it?
Missionaries have the training and experience to participate in society
without getting sucked into his pathologies. They have the courage and
fortitude necessary to face resistance and go forth with the joy that comes
from sharing the truth. Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know anyone
with missionary experience?
Well guess what? It's time to dust off that experience and use it in a brand
new way starting today. Near my home there's a Catholic retreat center where
my wife and I teach marriage preparation class to engaged couples. In the chapel
there's a sign posted over the door, but not the door coming in. It's posted
over the door before you go out into the parking lot. It's written for people to
look at as they're leaving. Here's what it says: you are now entering mission
territory. The message is simple, but it's it's really profound. You're here because
you've found what's good and true, but you're going out to where people haven't
found what you discovered. You have the privilege of sharing it with joy and
with confidence. That should be a message to you who want to make America and the
world better. You know it our world needs, more love less contempt. You have the
skills you have the training to make this a reality. Most of you have been
raised your whole lives with the values that I magically got for a few minutes
from my BYU briefcase. You've received an education through hard work at one of
the world's greatest universities. Some of you know, maybe all of you, that this
university has an unofficial motto: Enter to learn, Go forth to serve. You get to
live up to that motto starting today, to sanctify your learning and ordinary work
by lifting up and bringing together a great nation. So, ladies and gentlemen of
the BYU class of 2019, I pray that our Heavenly Father will bless the world
abundantly through you. Congratulations on this accomplishment, and don't forget.
You are now re-entering mission territory. God bless you, God bless
America. Thank you very much.