M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Why Latter-day Saints Must Be Versatile: The Renaissance Man — and Woman — Lives on
By Davis Bitton

When early missionaries like John Carter and William McLellin went without purse or scrip to preach the gospel, they of course preached, but they also prayed and led congregations in singing. In addition, they organized branches, calling people to positions and instructing them in their duties. And they did a good deal of individual counseling as well as presiding over disciplinary councils.

"I can preach sermons, but don't ask me to do anything else" — such a rigid, narrow self-definition was unthinkable. In the pioneer period, people (both men and women) were more versatile than people today. At least so it seems to me. Maybe it was simply farming that required a whole range of skills, whereas people in towns could be simply sales clerks or plumbers or telegraph operators. The need for versatility was particularly pronounced when new settlements were being established.

Take Patty Sessions, for example. Usually identified as a midwife who delivered some four thousand babies, she was much more than that. Without itemizing all her activities, we discover in her remarkable diaries that she did every conceivable kind of cooking and house work. A skilled hat- and clothes-maker, she made and sold artificial flowers, planted fruit and vegetables, hoed the weeds, harvested, quilted, provided many kinds of health care. She was, according to Donna Smart, who edited the diaries, "harder working, more productive, and more successful than many of her male counterparts." Patty was "a formidable business woman."

Unquestionably she had a spiritual side, addressing prayers to God in her diary. There wasn't much that Patty Sessions couldn't do.

Another good example is Arizona pioneer John McLaws. Among those sent to colonize the Little Colorado in Arizona, McLaws settled in Joseph City. A skilled carpenter, he was also a wheelwright, blacksmith, painter, teacher, hunter, butcher, sheepherder, shoemaker, and watchmaker. He played the violin, learned to play the clarinet, and wrote songs. He was in demand as an entertainer and was the caller at square dances. I forgot to mention that he was also a barber.

People like McLaws — and they must have been legion in nineteenth-century America — were highly valued in new settlements. Castiglione, who wrote Book of the Courtier in the early sixteenth century, would, I think, have admired the many-sidedness of Patty Sessions and John McLaws. Even though McLaws would feel out of place at a Renaissance court, he was his own kind of universal man, and Sessions was his female equal.

In the Church we are often called upon to develop abilities we may not think we have. In branches where numbers are few, even in wards, people are called on to do things they might not have listed on their resume.

Over a period of time, individual members serve as home and visiting teachers, teachers of different classes, activities leaders. They sing in choirs, direct choirs, provide accompaniment. They give talks. They participate in different forms of recreation and a host of service projects.

Opportunities for experience abound in seminary and institute, in Primary, in the programs for Young Men and Young Women. The adult leaders are stretched, and of course the children and young people accumulate a multitude of experiences and develop different talents.

The Relief Society is an incredible organization. Not qualified to be a member of it, I have nevertheless been able to observe and admire. Sisters throughout the world are strengthened by this great society of women with a common commitment to charity and service. Improvement and expansion of horizons are combined with service projects and spiritual enhancement that are unparalleled.

Why Be so Many-sided?

What, we may ask, is the purpose of these different kinds of development? It may be sufficient to say that part of the gospel is belief in eternal progression. Instead of stagnating, we continue to learn, continue to expand our awareness, develop different skills and talents. But it is important, I think, not to think in selfish terms.

It scarcely seems a lofty goal to be able to strut around and say "I can do this, and I can do that," preening ourselves on the ability to excel and outshine others. That cannot be the point. In the eternal perspective, many of our skills must seem so trivial as to be unworthy of mention.

The fact remains that if we are informed and articulate, if we have acquired counseling and administrative skills, if we can do a variety of things when called upon, we are simply of greater use in the kingdom. We can serve better and more effectively if we have filled many callings, each of them requiring us to develop a side of ourselves that may previously have been dormant. In the process, of course, we should become more patient, better able to cope, and more in tune with the Spirit. Just as God's work and glory is not to puff himself up but to serve his children (Moses 1:39), so the work and glory of a disciple, however experienced and able, is to love and serve.

I remember when humility was a virtue that needed attention in my life. Earlier, tracting the cobblestone streets of Limoges, France, had helped me acquire that attitude so essential to a genuine spiritual life. But a few years had passed, and I was cruising pretty high in my self-esteem. Moving into a new ward, I awaited a call. Then it came. I was called to be teacher of the Guide patrol — 11-year-old boys. It was not my first choice, but I had imbibed the notion that you simply don't turn down a call. I prepared conscientiously and tried to be a positive influence on those boys. Whether I succeeded in even a small degree I do not know. But I do know that I was humbled.

The Church cannot be summed up in one word or phrase. It is the organization that mediates our salvation. The ordinances, the missionary program, the temple — it is the Church that provides all of these. But there can be no disputing that, among other things, it is a miraculous school, providing experience of all kinds, maturing and developing different facets of our potential. So it has been from 1830 on. And one can scarcely doubt that so it was nearly twenty centuries ago when fishermen and tentmakers were called to the work.

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