We must work together

I just can’t help dreaming big.  It’s part of who I am.  I have big dreams about everything — a wonderful future, a fulfilling career, a family.  Even with challenges in my path, I can’t help but dream big.

I also dream big about others.  I have a dream that singles everywhere can come together to support one another.  But it doesn’t end there.  As I said, I can’t help dreaming big.  I envision a larger Latter-day Saint community where everyone — single or married — comes together and helps everyone.  After all, that’s what Zion is all about.

Building Zion

When we hear the word Zion, most think Moses 7:18.  And most focus on the “they were of one heart and one mind” part.  But to me, “there was no poor among them” says so much more.

Why was there no poor in Zion?  Because everyone ministered to everyone around them.  This is how Zion is built.  It’s also how to build the most effective singles groups and the wards and stakes where God’s Kingdom advances most readily.  After all, how could a people in which everyone ministers to everyone not be of one heart and one mind?

Contrast this vision with the reality in far too many places.  Many single members feel like second class citizens in the Church of Mormon Families.  Many married members, busy with their families, easily embrace an attitude in which singles can do their own thing “over there.”  Once singles get married, they can join their married friends in the “main group.”

Other married members, particularly those in leadership, want to do more but don’t really know how and have little if any time to investigate that question.  Their schedules of family, work, and Church callings are full enough without having to concern themselves with the singles.

Still other leaders (single and married) content themselves with merely planning activities, as though another helping of Sunday School (more commonly called a fireside) or another dance served with a little fat and sugar (in various forms ranging from punch to candy to cookies) is all the singles really need.

Hello?  Does this look like Zion to anybody?

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Getting involved in others' lives

We’re all busy.  I get it.  But we’ll never truly live in Zion until we involve ourselves in each other’s lives.  The Apostle Paul understood this.
Just as different parts of our physical body contribute differently to the functioning of the whole body, so different people with different backgrounds and different life situations can contribute to the functioning of the Church community.

Marrieds can’t say to singles, “We have no need of you.”  While serving in an elders quorum presidency, I occasionally sat in leadership meetings because the president and his other counselor had competing family obligations.  My service allowed them to attend to their families.  Singles everywhere can make similar contributions.

Likewise, singles can’t say to marrieds, “We have no need of you.”  Amongst the many different wards I’ve attended, I’ve felt the strongest sense of belonging where marrieds took an interest in helping me to progress towards marriage.  Their perspective from the other side of our cultural rite of passage and their support for my journey there were and still are much appreciated.

And none of us can say to single parents, “We have no need of you.”  These brave souls have the responsibilities of marrieds but without the help of a marriage partner.  These are also some of the most talented people in our midst, simply because life forces them to be so.  I know several single mothers who have made important contributions to their Church callings while holding a full-time job and raising children.  Constantly tired and stretched, they nonetheless touch other lives for good.  And in a world growing increasingly evil, we need all the good we can gather.

We need each other

The bottom line is we need each other.  None of us is perfect, and yet our placement together in the same community is perfect.  We’re all weak and strong in different areas, and that mix is not the same for any two people.  Thus, when the strong helps the weak, everyone helps everyone.  And that’s what Zion is, a community in which everyone ministers to everyone.

    For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
        For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
        For the body is not one member, but many.
        If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
        And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
        If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
        But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
        And if they were all one member, where were the body?
        But now are they many members, yet but one body.
        And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
        Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:
        And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.
        For our comely parts have no need: but God hath temper-ed the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked:
        That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
        And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.
        Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. (1 Corinthians 12:12-27)

But that dream doesn’t unfold into reality simply because it plays in our minds.  If singles and marrieds each continue to associate mostly with others like them, then we’ll never live the dream.  We must work together to make that dream a reality.

So let’s do that.  Let’s reach out to others, especially those different than us, and work to meet their needs.  Zion really can be only a helping hand away.