Little increases bring forth great blessings

For the last several years, a couple of my children have participated in track and field events at their middle school. None chose to do high jump, instead they threw shot and disc and either ran the shortest races or the longest race. One did participate in long and triple jump. But despite their lack of interest in high jump, I have spent quite a large amount of time waiting in the parking lot waiting for practice to end, watching 6th, 7th, and 8th graders perfect the Fosbury flop style high jump.

Wikipedia describes the flop like this - 

"The Fosbury Flop is a style used in the athletics event of high jump. It was popularized and perfected by American athlete Dick Fosbury first in 1965 and whose gold medal in the 1968 Summer Olympics brought it to the world's attention. Over the next few years the flop became the dominant style of the event and remains so today. Before Fosbury, most elite jumpers used the straddle technique, Western Roll, Eastern cut-off or even scissors jump to clear the bar. Given that landing surfaces had previously been sandpits or low piles of matting, high jumpers of earlier years had to land on their feet or at least land carefully to prevent injury. With the advent of deep foam matting high jumpers were able to be more adventurous in their landing styles and hence experiment with styles of jumping.

The approach (or run-up) in the Flop style of high jump is characterized by (at least) the final four or five steps being run in a curve, allowing the athlete to lean into his or her turn, away from the bar. This allows the center of gravity to be lowered even before knee flexion, giving a longer time period for the take-off thrust. Additionally, on take-off the sudden move from inward lean outwards produces a rotation of the jumper's body along the axis of the bar, aiding clearance.Combined with the rotation around the jumper's vertical axis produced by the drive leg (think of an ice skater spinning round on the spot) the resulting body position on bar clearance is laid out supine with the body at ninety degrees to the bar with the head and shoulders crossing the bar before the trunk and legs. This gives the Flop its characteristic "backwards over the bar" appearance, with the athlete landing on the mat on their shoulders and back."

Just like in the high jump event, in life the bar constantly is raised. The bar could represent many different things in a person's life, but the constant is that it is inching upward as you continue to work. Once you get competent at a skill, more is expected. It gets rather tiring/discouraging to have this constantly advancing target, but it is important for our growth.

Elder L. Tom Perry told a story about his son, Lee, and a high jump bar. Elder Perry came home from a trip to find his son practicing the high jump in their basement:

"Lee was a member of his high school track team—he both sprinted and high-jumped. During the 1968 Summer Olympic Games held in Mexico City, the world became enamored with a little-known high jumper named Dick Fosbury. He had experimented with a new high-jumping technique that involved sprinting diagonally toward the bar, then curving and leaping backward over the bar. It came to be called the Fosbury flop. 

Like many others, Lee was intrigued by this new technique, but until the new school year started, he didn’t have a place to practice it. I came home one evening to find him practicing the Fosbury flop in our basement. He had set up two makeshift standards by stacking chairs, and he was jumping over a broomstick set on the chairs, using a sofa to cushion his landing. It was very clear to me that the sofa would not hold up under such treatment, so I called a halt to his indoor high-jumping. Instead, I invited him to go with me to a sporting-goods store, where we purchased some foam padding to use for landing and high-jumping standards so he could move the activity out of doors. 

After experimenting with the Fosbury flop, Lee decided to return to the western-roll technique that he had used previously. Still, through the end of the summer into the fall, he practiced high-jumping for many hours in our backyard. 

One evening as I returned home from work, I found Lee practicing his jumping. I asked, 'How high is the bar?' He said, 'Five feet, eight inches.' 'Why that height?' He answered, 'You must clear that height to qualify for the state track meet.' 'How are you doing?' I asked. 'I can clear it every time. I haven’t missed.' My reply: 'Let’s raise the bar and see how well you do then.' He replied, 'Then I might miss.' I queried, 'If you don’t raise the bar, how will you ever know your potential? 

So we started moving the bar up to five feet, ten inches; then to six feet; and so on, as he sought to improve. Lee became a better high jumper because he was not content with just clearing the minimum standard. He learned that even if it meant missing, he wanted to keep raising the bar to become the best high jumper he was capable of becoming."

Yesterday I thought about the bar. I thought about how in the LDS church raising the bar is a pretty standard phrase. I probably thought about it because Elder Ballard was part of a video we watched on the topic of our third hour class, "Making the Sabbath a Delight". A member of our bishopric spoke and lead a discussion using a video of a training workshop video made during the LDS April 2015 General Conference. In the workshop video, we saw then Elder Nelson, Elder Cook and Elder Ballard. Along with the three apostles, we heard from Sister Wixom and Sister Oscarson. 

I only remember parts of the talks they each gave. Really not much to be honest. But I do remember what the Spirit taught me. Our bishopric member asked the question, "Did your experience today during the Sacrament bring you closer to God?" (Actually I have no idea what his real question was. It was similar to that. Or maybe that is just what I needed to hear and remember. In any case, did you actually get something out of the sacrament today was basically the point.) His follow up questions was, "If the answer was no, why not?"

Now I have little idea what exactly happened after that question for a large part of the class. I was busy pondering my experience, or lack thereof, during the sacrament that day. My experience most days during the blessing and passing of the sacrament involves reading a General Conference talk on my tablet and trying really hard not to watch the deacons pass the sacrament because watching them DRIVES ME CRAZY. 

I generally have two, to three sons passing any given week. At one point in life I pondered whether it is my job to help them do a better job. The answer I have come to is basically no. Not my stewardship. So in order to keep any sort of spirit, I DO NOT WATCH.

Unfortunately yesterday a few things came together. One was me not preparing during the week for the sacrament. One was me choosing to have the family travel together to church rather than in two cars. (I believe this was a good choice despite the outcome.) One was the person in our family, who shall remain nameless, but who gets to church three minutes before the meeting starts regardless of the time of day that the meeting starts. One was the eight new families who have moved into our ward and taken up all the room farther up in the chapel where it is easier to ignore the disaster being perpetuated week after week. (Okay it isn't really that bad; it is just a bunch of mostly 12 year olds trying to nonverbally coordinate efforts and serve everyone in a room roughly the size of a basketball court. Oh and a group of teachers and priests who haven't clued into the fact that we have far more people than two months ago and therefore we REALLY DO NEED THAT EXTRA TRAY OF WATER ON THE TABLE during the blessing of the water instead of sitting back in the prep room.) 

Probably the biggest distraction was me not being prepared. But when that cute new little deacon who has now passed for about two weeks about smacked my husband in the nose offering him the bread tray at eye level, my husband jumped. And I noticed. Then I got distracted from the talk I was reading. At which point, my mind zoomed to all the things I needed to get done Sunday, and then Monday, and then the rest of the week. 

I was like a freight train barreling down the TO DO LIST TRACK. Completely aware of the movement around me. Not enjoying the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

Now I suspect that the Holy Ghost said, “There she goes into Martha mode. Well so much for the plans I had to help her come closer to Christ this week. So much for the blessing of the Atonement today. Shift modes. I will give her some inspiration about what to get done on her list. She wants to carry on today, on her own, for yet another week."

So two hours later, facing the question, "What did you get out of the Sacrament today?" My answer to myself sounded a lot like, "I wish you had asked a month ago, when I had the best sacrament experience of my life. Unfortunately the answer today is not much."

Fortunately God is good and merciful and He takes us where we are and tries continually to redirect. And two hours after the sacrament and now almost twenty four hours later, I have a lot more insight than I did when I partook of the bread and water yesterday.

And most of what I have is this. God wants us to do better. He keeps encouraging us to raise our own bar so we can get closer to him. Today He is asking us to make the Sabbath Day a delight, but ultimately all of it leads back to becoming "even as I am, and I am even as the Father; and the Father and I are one." (3 Nephi 28:10)

They want us to be like Them. Their bar is high - higher than we can jump. And They can actually get us there, but we will never be able to jump it if we sit on the dirty parking lot and don't try. So we need to (in this case) keep coming to church on Sunday. Keep trying to find ways to improve our Sabbath Day worship. Praying for answers and blessings, and if it comes down to it, employ spit grit, and a whole lot of duct tape to drag ourselves to the meeting and get something more out of the sacrament today, than we did last week.

Because They can totally work with us if we keep going and practicing and running at that bar and trying. And we will get better at it, little by little. And eventually our weaknesses will be strengthens and our small and simple works will, with the help of the Lord, achieve eternal life.