Evening Run in Provo, or Thoughts on BYU One Year Later

I take off for a run, one night, deep in summer. In the middle of the dog days, as they say. The air is hot and envelops me entirely, as I step past out past the threshold of my apartment. The sky is dark, except for the fading sliver of light on the western horizon. It’s an early darkness though–the sun’s light hasn’t completely departed yet.

I run down 700 North towards the mountains. In the darkness all objects are best defined by their silhouette. The grass is thus defined by its crisp edges neatly framing the dividing line between sidewalk and yard, or grassy median and street. There could be a metaphor here, but if so, I can’t quite think of it. The lights are another peculiar things. The different tones of light seem to radiate corresponding emotion. The older orange lights that shed warm light well reflect the inviting feeling of a summer night. I pass a few of these as I stride past the Amanda Knight Building (a beautiful building, recently sold by BYU and likely to become student housing). Then there’s the blinding, harsh, nearly white light of car headlights flowing around me. I’m reminded of my dad’s old college physics textbook he kept in a bookshelf downstairs that had a long-exposure picture of car headlights and taillights on a freeway. It harmonizes into a flowing river of light–a white yellow stream on one side, and a red one on the other.

It’s far beyond my grasp to understand–in any real way–that each headlight of each car represents a person (or persons) with a story and a distinct journey. Every headlight on the road becomes, if only temporarily, a part of this larger river of light, before continuing its own singular journey. But this is a thought without feeling, something to theoretically accept, without possessing a deeper conviction of it as it lies far outside my limited intellectual and moral imagination.

The street lights fade as I jog up the stairs toward the Maeser Building. I crest the top of the stairs and am struck by how deserted the campus is now. Returning to campus is an exercise in remembering–and not just events, but the faint outlines of fleeting emotions. The things we never say, perhaps, as we don’t feel the need or can’t find the words. The high monotone of the “walk” signal as you cross toward BYU campus near the Wilkinson Center (or listen from your now-demolished dorm room as you fall asleep). The steady and low “shhhhh” of the summer sprinklers. The panicked and palpable energy accompanying the start of each semester. More than an experience, my time at BYU seems like a composite of discrete images, feelings, sounds, and smells–a multimedia collage of sorts.

Toward the end I had a certain fatigue, even dismissal of most things “BYU.” It is a strange place, but a beautiful one as well. A gorgeously flawed experiment in Church-run higher education. Now I pass the recently completed economics building across from the Joseph F. Smith Building after glancing up at the Kimball Tower. I used to look up at the Kimball Tower in embarrassment–as proof that Church architecture was fated for aesthetic purgatory, a constant reminder that BYU-Provo still had no architecture program. Now, I see it in a slightly more sympathetic light. It may be the most prominent eyesore in Utah County, but then again, is anyone actually keeping a list? If we were all amalgamations of historical figures, towards the end I had a high concentration of Robespierre and Lenin. I could have torn it all down. For a second my thoughts are interrupted as I step around a small snail in the sidewalk. I was ready to lop off the head of the institution. Shut down the American Heritage propaganda course, change the name of the Wilkinson Student Center (not to mention the Abraham Smoot Building), tear up the grass and plant sagebrush, and shut down the accounting program on grounds it was corrupting good young Mormon minds. But now, the Reign of Terror has caught up to Robespierre, and my Lenin is comfortable with more nuance. I can live with the flaws, both real and imagined, or so I tell myself.

Now I pass by the Marriott School and Helaman Halls, and turn left towards University Avenue and then home. I exist now in Provo like a shorebird awaiting the next wave, though, instead of scurrying away, I wait for it to wash over me. I wait in a mixture of amusement and affection. The living body of BYU is the marrow of Provo’s bones. The hope made flesh. Beautiful in their strangeness and incompleteness. Who do we have here? Overzealous recently returned missionaries? Check. Instagram influencers? A few, at least. Gym bros? Why of course. But now is the not the moment for undue criticism. What was lost is soon to be found, and their (and all other’s) return is imminent. The idea of a returning, a new beginning is inherently hopeful. It’s almost as if we super-impose a “spring” of humanity over a seasonal “fall.” A strange yet good juxtaposition of things. Which may describe BYU as well. Which is all I can hope for myself. Now I step inside my apartment, leaving the growing darkness and fading heat behind me.

Mindful Movement

I usually reflect on the subject of driving and how it has come to define our modern life as I’m biking to work or as I’m walking around Provo (usually taking in the Joaquin neighborhood or a particularly leafy sections of Center Street). The experience of self-powered travel, in my view a more mindful form of transportation, is entirely different in nature, form and effect (psychological, physical, emotional, etc.) than standard car travel. In many ways our approach to transportation is analagous to our Western approach to life. We focus so doggedly on an increasingly narrow goal that we miss much of what is around us.

Recently, my brother and I bought our first car. It is a strange experience to own a car. The freedom promised through its ownership proves illusory because to drive is to be perpetually frustrated. It is to be eternally one second too late to make the yellow light. It is to be too cold on a winter day while you wait for the car to warm up. It is to feel suffocated by the palpably hot and steamy summer car air as you wait impatiently for the A/C to sufficiently cool the car so as to not completely stifle sentient thought. It is to sit in traffic while anxiously glancing at your watch every few seconds, hoping against hope that you can get to your destination on time.

Now, this is not to say cars are entirely useless, for useful they can be. But the way they are commonly used, and often abused, is not useful and most definitely not sustainable. When used immoderately cars lead to the forgetting of where we are. When looking to diagnose the modern problem of amnesia of place, of declining communities, of fraying “bonds of affection” I would suggest the car (and communities built primarily for cars) as a leading suspect. Cars enable us (along with a variety of complementary modern technology) to live in a place without fully experiencing the place.

On the mornings I ride my bike the mile or so to work I am struck by the imposing beauty of the mountains. I drink in the smell of the Provo river as I cross the wooden bridge traversing it. I stare at the clouds and marvel at their ability to frame a day, to provide it proper setting. When I move myself, of my own power, around my community I begin to feel a part of that community and the landscape in which it is set. My bike rides home from work have taught me to respect the slight incline up towards University Avenue. I feel the incline in my legs– and interact with it–as I stand up and shift my full weight to the pedals. Maximizing downward force on my pedals I rise up towards, and slowly crest, the ridge.

Standing outside–being expressly present, immediately proximate–while biking around Provo has another key advantage to driving. For when caught waiting at a light I can stare around me and take in the full beauty of the world around me. In that moment I am completely unencumbered by any instruments, controls, or distractions. I find these breaks refreshing, even rejuvenating as I catch my breath and (even if shuddering from the cold) look around me and begin to take a fuller measure of the world. On the other hand these little pauses in a car are invitations to frustration. In these instances I look around distractedly and anxiously while waiting impatiently for the light to change to green. In a car I am completely encapsulated and separated from the world. This is usually accompanied by an anxiety of existence. I am prone to turning on the radio–but less for pleasure than as a means for tuning out deeper dissatisfaction.

Our hurry to get from one task to another has turned the journey between tasks into a task itself. The “commute” is a fearsome word in our American vocabulary but should not simply be equated with traveling to and from work. We travel in much similar ways to other events and turn our lives into endless sets of tasks without giving ourselves enough time to ask why. Journeys should be the best time to ask such questions, but too often these journeys devolve into tasks, and deprive us of the opportunity to find moments of transcendent peace or introspection. When travel is sterilized into a science, and when a journey becomes work, any potential time for self-reflection shrinks proportionally. Nonetheless, travel by car doesn’t automatically inhibit productive introspection. Long road trips on the open road and carefree scenic drives have many times encouraged my thoughts to wander in the most interesting of back roads. No, the car doesn’t inherently destroy a sense of journey or community or sense of place–yet when uninhibited and carelessly used it makes the demise of all these things much easier.

Thoughts from my Bike

I now work for a small debt collection law firm in Provo, Utah. The transition from higher education to menial and mind-numbing clerical work has been rocky, but one of the bright spots each day has been my commute to and from work. I love the way the air is fresh and crisp in the early fall mornings, just cold enough to wear a jacket without numbing your face and hands as you ride. The mountains are absolutely perfect in form and inspire my wandering thoughts as I make the short trip to work.

Recently I have taken to listening 60’s and 70’s folk-rock while I bike. I am constantly in awe of how these trail-blazing artists combined the melodious nature of folk with the jarring patterns and instrumentation of rock and roll to create, in their synthesis, something greater than the sum of its parts. I listen to Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Byrds, and others. Thoreau may roll in his grave at my addition of earbuds to a morning routine that perhaps should be only focused on the natural sounds all around me. However, with the natural sounds around me primarily consisting of car engines and assorted “traffic noise”, I hope he will forgive me.

Since I was young I have had an odd affinity to folk-rock. I still vividly remember the night I listened to Simon & Garfunkel for the first time. My mother had checked out one of their albums on CD and I listened to it, completely captivated, as I slowly fell asleep. I fell in love with their close and intricate harmonies. Gradually, too, I awakened to their searing social commentary. “He Was My Brother,” “A Church Is Burning”, “A Most Peculiar Man,” and others caught my attention with their jarring messages. Their close harmonies may have convinced me to listen but I stayed for the ethereal homily in their lyrics. These artists–Carole King, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Jackson Browne, Neil Young–they became not only spokesmen for a generation, but were sorts of modern-day bards and poets. Imparting not just a catchy tune, but an important, even essential, message. A message revolving around peace, love, and acceptance. Notwithstanding all of the frivolous excesses of that time it is a timeless message. For all the imperfections and mistakes of the messengers, they impart an alternative vision for a society caught in the middle of a senseless culture war.

Lately I have been listening to mostly Crosby, Stills & Nash on my rides to and from work. Their protest songs are a needed catharsis as I try to make sense of the corruption and malice in our current presidential administration. Most powerful to me in this time is “Ohio,” a song full of indignation with Nixon’s Vietnam War, and the shooting of four student anti-war protesters on a college campus by the national guard. It reminds me that our country has charted a course through choppy waters before and that there may still be hope. But such courses weren’t charted without effort, intentionality, and collective action. I yearn for an increase in all three of these things from our generation–so that the hope for a better future, a more peaceful world, and equitable way of living doesn’t simply fade into quiet cynicism or disillusionment as the quiet fading of the hippie dream at least partially did. In the morning and in the afternoon on these bike rides I can’t be cynical, for who can be in the open air with the sun to your back and mountains looming up in front. They invite you to hope, and for a moment the self-assured idealism of these hippie musicians doesn’t seem so misguided.

Defining Work Up

This past week I had to confront a rather painful reality of adult life–the 40 hour work week. I recently started (and then quit to take different job) a paralegal position in Midvale, Utah. I was again reminded of the banality of modern life. We have diminished the day so much into its bland constituent parts that we no longer recognize the substance of the time that is given to us. I have few complaints about the company I worked for, or even the majority of what they did. Yet, there was an irrepressible sinking feeling within me as I commuted to work and sat in my shared work space, not even wanting to fathom the possibility of having to work at the job longer than a few months. It was a panicked, suffocating feeling that I have not felt too many times before.

However, there was at least one other time I felt exactly the same. I was 14 years old and there was absolutely nothing I loved more than the thought of an idyllic summer spent out in the open; a summer full of games with my siblings, walks through the woods, lazy afternoons spent watching thunder clouds gather overhead, and an extended twilight made to slowly watch the fireflies light up the backyard. Suddenly, the idea of this idyllic summer that I had treasured, which was as much a reality as an ideal to be striven for, seemed to vanish before me. This happened as my parents urged me to take a job window-washing with a middle-aged man from my congregation. I detested the idea and the thought of not being able to choose the shape and pattern of my ideal summer. Nonetheless, through some (retrospectively) wise cajoling I relented and decided to try it out. I can’t recall exactly how many days I worked window-washing, but I vividly remember the day I quit. We had been working, according to my memory at least, much of the day, and as evening approached I was eager to return home and salvage what little remained of my summer evening. Unfortunately, the man I worked for had other ideas and decided to pursue one last job. As we completed this last job my mind and eyes flitted anxiously. I repeatedly looked at my watch, 10 or 15 seconds after having last checked it, and tried my best to hurry through the mundane, even frivolous, task ahead of me. By the time we were driving home I was nearly beside myself with panicked frustration coupled with the irritation most searingly felt as an adolescent. On the car ride home I bluntly informed my boss that today would be the last day I would work for him. He chuckled and tried to reassure me, suggested that I cool off, relax, and continue to work for him another day. He told me that I would be able to earn money. But to my adolescent mind, nothing was more sacred to me than a free and unscheduled summer, and the thought of money making up for a lack of that seemed sacrilegious. That was the last day I washed windows for him.

These same feelings, these thoughts, these notions I believed I had buried years before came flooding back. I thought that having graduated from college, having seen friends get full-time jobs or attain prestigious internships, all these things, would be enough to compel me to seek the same at any cost. But after an hour commute to Midvale (with all the attendant micro-irritations of driving past countless McDonald’s, gas stations, and cookie-cutter office parks), and an hour sitting at my desk, I was already burdened by the banality of it all.

Now, at this point, I don’t disbelieve in the necessity of a career, and I begrudge the importance of holding a job, but I utterly reject that work has an intrinsically salvific power. At least work as it is commonly referred to as the ability to compel oneself to stay behind a desk for 8 hours, to strive ceaselessly for “productivity” and “efficiency” to produce a “deliverable.” This all seem to be Orwellian double-speak seemingly designed to devolve man into machine. What if truly proper work is to stare thoughtfully into the sky while walking through a forest of quaking aspens?

I believe the easiest way to tease out the meaning around us is to ensure our terms are properly defined. What if we describe work beyond its dictionary entry (activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result) and ascribe to it any activity that is sympathetic or cultivating to the human condition. In that way it paradoxically becomes more expansive and more selective. What makes us more human will not (necessarily) be one’s ability to scoop coal out of the ground but one’s ability to think clearly about our place in this world and universe. This form of work could be a quiet stroll in nature, or poring over a thought-provoking essay–in fact it is essentially limitless in its variety according to personal preference. The point is that it helps us avoid a lazy, and disheartening, definition of work and may point us to more enlightened, feeling, and human lives. I don’t mean to discredit the menial tasks, or chores (or whatever you want to call them), that make our modern society function, but I wouldn’t want to confuse these with assignments and projects that elevate and ennoble the human mind and spirit. Perhaps a complete life is mixed with these menial tasks and what I have tried to define as a nobler, more expansive view of work. Yet, I would submit, it is never happily lived without a significant amount of passionate striving toward a goal that, whatever its end result, along the way makes one more capable of acting, feeling, and thinking in creative, compassionate, and profound ways. In other words, work, but work defined up. A work elevated and ennobled, distinct– semantically, symbolically, and literally–from simply the ability to make commutes, complete shifts, and fulfill rote tasks.

An Eschatology of Hope

Growing up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I have been intrigued to see how world-views can vary so much by congregant. For ease of analysis I would break down these distinctive paradigms into two camps. One is the perspective that the world is quickly becoming more and more evil and that whatever good still in the world is under near-constant siege. In this vision, any political good enacted by those with good and righteous intentions is mostly a pyrrhic victory. This is a mostly “black and white” perspective. There may be some nuance in this vision, but not enough to really matter. The second perspective is defined in nuance. In accordance with church orthodoxy it is still understood that there is, or will be, a certain culture, or sub-culture, arcing towards immorality and permissiveness. But, at the same time, this belief coexists with the understanding that our world is quickly becoming safer, more tolerant, and, generally, a better place to live. Nonetheless, there is obviously an amount of cognitive dissonance in holding these two sometimes conflicting ideas as true.

I believe that the reason that these two camps have formed is due to fundamentally distinct interpretations of our eschatology (the theology of death, judgment, and the destiny of the soul). There is some interesting reading to be done on the differences between postmillenialism, premillenialism, and amillenialism but it is quite clear that, doctrinally, we believe in premillenialism, in that we believe Christ will come before the thousand years of peace alluded to in the book of Revelations.

Disregarding the semantic arguments encircling the distinct views of the millenium, there is a common apocalyptic world-view that can take root as a result of premillenial eschatology. I find this hopeless and gloomy view illogical, and wholly uncharacteristic of Christian understanding. Nevertheless, I would identify a certain type of premillenialism as a cause of this. It is a premillenialism that has evolved into a siege-like mentality. Everything and anything is reduced to a cosmic and Manicheaen duel between good and evil. In this way we reduce Satan, or any ultimate evil, to an easily studied caricature. In an assumption that any of his malign purposes can be easily discerned, we paint with broad strokes and ascribe his cunning to any movement or happening not easily understood.

There are many unfortunate consequences of such a paradigm. Foremost, any belief in the forward progress of mankind is discarded. This is a crippling loss, and it permits a politics of cynicism and obstruction to flourish. Cynicism, because any social or political innovation that purports to progress our civilization will be met with skepticism of some ulterior motive, or perhaps simple disbelief. And obstruction, because this doomsday vision enables only this tool for doing good. Because (according to this view) the world is becoming ever worse, one must jam up the levers of political power and procrastinate the apocalypse (while converting ready souls).

I find this theology of apocalypse to be completely wretched. It promotes hopelessness, anxiety, and helplessness. It is utterly contrary to the empowering message of Jesus Christ, a message that preaches love, tolerance, action, faith, and hope. Instead, we need to wrest a message of hope from the premillenial eschatology. I don’t know exactly how that will be best be done, but I believe the task to be urgent.

Perhaps members of the restored Church of Jesus Christ, and all Christians as well, don’t take enough ownership of our theology. Sure, we have some variable level of knowledge of specific points of doctrine, but too often we don’t systematically develop these, and consequently our theology is threadbare and undeveloped. As I see it, our understood doctrine is as points of starry light in the night sky, but a true theology works as an organizing tool, a way to map and connect these points of light. I believe that each Christian should have their own theology, a way to make sense of the often confusing array of doctrine, a method to bring order to the chaos. For this is a truly Christian task, an emulation of God’s work. I don’t mean to say that each believer can pick and choose their own doctrine, but, just as each Gospel writer inserted their personality, their soul, into the narrative, so must we develop a theology that reflects Christ, his doctrine, and our personality. In so doing we will create a theology, and eschatology, not of despair and destruction, but of vibrant hope and renewal.

The Chaos of Certainty

What seems to define our current era is a tendency toward chaos, a collective feeling that the center will not hold. Edward Luce brilliantly lays out this thesis in his short book, “The Retreat of Western Liberalism.” He maintains that our modern world is defined by chaos and underlain by great uncertainty.

As I look towards the future, I sometimes find myself thinking about how long this mass hysteria will last. Will it define my generation? What is it that triggers such fear and collective self-doubt? The responses to these questions will define my generation (and beyond), and these queries necessitate thoughtful and reasoned research and discussion. Beyond any single specific policy proposal, I think that the manner we view our proposed solutions to be an integral part of the answer.

Any policy or program designed to lead to a more enlightened, peaceful, and prosperous community is based on a specific way of knowing and explaining the world. The paradigms through which we evaluate, analyze, and sort through these competing, and often conflicting, societal blueprints are so personal to our ideology, experience, education, and religion. And they are susceptible to innumerable biases, errors, and incomplete information. As the Apostle Paul wrote, we “see through a glass, darkly.” This seems to be one of the defining characteristics of human existence. Consequently, what political views we hold may be less important than how we hold them.

This lesson has been gradually unfolded to me since 2016. That summer I returned home from a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I saw a sort of visible and shocking poverty that I had never fathomed growing up in an affluent northern Virginia town. I had known wealth and comfort and peace and plenty for all my life. At home we left our doors unlocked and our bikes and sports equipment strewn across the lawn day after day. Yet, I came home almost precisely at the moment that Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination for president, a man who had run on the idea of a sick, enfeebled, impoverished, insecure America. I sat staring at the TV, completely shocked, when Trump spoke of “American carnage” at his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. The picture he painted reminded me not at all of the community that was America for me. Not surprisingly, he did not win my community, or state, in the election.

Yet, there were many communities that cast their vote for him because, symbolically or literally (or both), they were devastated. And not a ‘developing world’-type devastation. For in many measurable ways they were doing much better, but in another less-measurable sense, much worse. The coffee farm laborer in Nicaragua may be desperately poor, yet tragically this poverty is mirrored all around them and, excepting an escape from the county, this fate may seem unavoidable. On the other hand, a steel worker in Pennsylvania was born with the “American Dream” of self-advancement and material prosperity almost preternaturally, and after seeing other Americans achieve prosperity and fortune, was eventually laid off after 30 years of work with only meager savings. This steel worker is likely to feel a visceral sense of relative deprivation, especially when compared with the idealized wealth of the “coastal elites.”

In one sense the “correct” evaluation of America’s economic and political condition is incredibly relative and subjective. The truth for an unemployed former steel worker in the Rust Belt may be that America is in real and undeniable decline, that any national economic growth hasn’t delivered for them, and that the government only works for the privileged and wealthy. However, the truth for me in 2016 was that America was in a much better political and economic state than most other nations, and that ours was truly a government for the people, by the people.

These diametrically opposed paradigms (neither completely right nor wrong) collided on November 6, 2016. The result was an incredibly uncomfortable awakening to the reality that since the 1970’s our nation was becoming more and more unequal, that there was one America in which advancement and socio-economic progression were realistic, and another in which it was increasingly unlikely. Among many things, some of these symptoms and not necessarily causes, the meritocracy broke down, over-arching macroeconomic policy shifted from full employment to low inflation, capital controls eased, and (as Wolfgang Streeck notes) capitalists employed ‘investment strikes.’

In a sense, then, I was incorrect in my evaluation of the U.S. economy and consequently our democracy, for it was not working for all Americans. Although I still believe Donald Trump was, and is, wrong to blame this on immigrants and trade deals while not acknowledging the deeper roots, he (or his advisers) was right that there is something nagging many in Middle America, something that pushes towards frustration, resignation, resentment, and anger.

Now, nearly three years into Trump’s presidency, the political certainty on either ideological side is irrational and untenable. We hold onto partially true, or even completely flawed tropes to steady ourselves, not realizing that this grasping doesn’t connect us with reality, but rather to a sort of tribal mythology. To combat this, I believe, to paraphrase a college classmate, each of us has a sacred moral obligation to doubt. And not in some sort of fatalistically depressed way, but rather in a honest and searching manner. With the intellectual humility necessary to admit when you are wrong, when your logic is flawed, when your ideas don’t bear fruit. I don’t wish to say that the truth is unknowable or unattainable. I happen to believe in certain unchanging truths, nonetheless, the unchanging beliefs I hold onto happen to be relatively few in number (compared to what I don’t know or yet understand). For any given political question this uncertainty leads to sincere questioning, honest searching, and a gradual shift in perspective. Ultimately, our political models are only as useful as they approximate the world around us. So, if we perversely intend to twist and coax the world down to the comfortable ideological model we built for ourselves, then we should not be surprised to live in a rather twisted up, knotty, and chaotic world that bulges and contorts in all the wrong directions.

We must find ways to work within our ideological frame without being consumed by it. It is for the 21st century citizen to doubt while they believe. Not to cast away these frames, beliefs, or foundations, but to understand that the world is infinitely more complex than our finite vision. To understand that at certain times we must re-order, re-examine, or re-work our paradigms, no matter how long-held or cherished. I am convinced that any re-weaving of the social fabric–the one being torn apart by culture wars, rhetorical battles, and self-interested politicking–must begin with the intellectual humility of doubt, a doubt that enables one to see past ideology and begin to understand another’s arguments. This will combat the chaos of certainty, the delirium of the echo chamber. Meanwhile, as Pastor Jeffers tells Revered Toller in “First Reformed”, “Jihadism is everywhere–even here.”