Success

Week #10 on the Island of Misfit Toys: The wife of one of the counselors in our bishopric taught today's combined, fifth-Sunday lesson. Because, as we've all been hearing repeatedly for the past week, women have no real authority to teach and don't have a voice, nor can they really do anything at all significant in the Church.

No, seriously, I'm not going to get into that topic today.

This was an inspired lesson about "success" and the choices/behaviors/habits that will lead us to real, lasting success.

She began her lesson by passing out pieces of blank paper and asking us to write down specific actions or goals that would lead us to success. I began rather tongue-in-cheekily, jotting down a list that included:

- Getting 100 likes on a Facebook status

- The Jazz making a smart draft pick at #5

- USA winning the men's World Cup, or at very least not getting terribly, embarrassingly beaten by Belgium Tuesday

- Burning down the South and then doing baptisms for the dead

- Eating bacon

- Climbing atop the Rameumptom to thump your chest, and then shouting out to the world exactly why you and your kin and your entourage are better than everyone else. Use good grammar, and give specific examples.

- Having muscles and a jeep. Or a Mini Cooper. I won't judge.

- A six-figure salary. Or more!

- Owning your own mansion, fully staffed with a butler, maid, masseuse, personal trainer, jester, llamas, and other servants/pets (what's the difference, really?) you can apply the strap to mercilessly whenever you feel like it.

 - Beating everyone else at Mario Kart

By the world's standards, that's a pretty good list. Well, the world's standards, as usual, are wrong.

I also wrote a list of "real" reasons, which included:

- Keeping the commandments

- Being Christlike

 - Building up, rather than tearing down, others. True success is a win-win proposition whereas, according to the world, you must lose and I must win in order to be successful.

- Peace of conscience/mind

- Perspective

- Serving others

- Family

- Saying "please" and "thank you." A lot. Because some of the most miserable people I know are also some of the most ungrateful.

- Friends/being a friend, without regard to another's creed, religion, beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.

- Finding joy in the journey

- Magnifying my talents/callings

- Tender mercies of the Lord

I like the second list better. Also, I put "eating bacon" over on the second list.

Sports Rivalries and the Rameumptom

Once again, folks, it's time for Holy Week.

Or, to describe it more accurately, it's the time of the year when even 50- and 60-year-old men act like bratty teenagers and get into "my dad can beat up your dad" chest-thumping shouting matches with each other over something as trivial as a sporting event.

For those who don't live in Utah or who are not familiar with the phrase, the term Holy Week refers to the seven days leading up to the annual BYU vs. University of Utah football game, which culminates in (usually) a grueling and hard-fought grudge match that leaves the winning team with a great sense of pride and bragging rights and an "in-your-face" smugness and the losing team with a sense of embarrassment and shame that lingers for the next 365 or 366 days. Or longer.

It's all really very silly. It tends to turn otherwise sensible, decent, and good people into raving lunatics and jerks. It can ruin friendships. The rules of good sportsmanship are completely forgotten. And the silliest thing about it all, at least as far as I see it, is that neither team's fans have any control whatsoever over the outcome of the game.

The sore winner's bragging can basically be summed up this way: "The team that I root for beat the team that you root for, and even though neither you nor I have any impact on the result of the game, my association with said winning team makes me, as a result, better than you. It's even better if my team beats yours in a humiliating fashion. In order for me to be happy, we win, and you lose."

The sore loser, meanwhile, finds excuses for his or her team's loss ("it was the referees' fault" or "we had an inexperienced quarterback this year," for example) and berates or makes vulgar gestures toward the other team's fans. He/she will never, ever utter the words: "The better team won today. We will do better next year."

It's most definitely a guy thing, but, over the years, I have seen more than a few females get in on the hype, too. And, of course, it happens on both sides—both those who bleed blue and those who bleed red.

Holy Week reminds me of Chapter 31 in the Book of Alma, in which Alma, Aaron, Ammon, and a few others head out on a mission to Antionum to reclaim the apostate Zoramites and find them praying on top of something called the Rameumptom, which is translated as "the holy stand" (Alma 31:21).

Alma discovers the Zoramites praying: "We believe thou has elected us to be thy holy children . . . and thou hast elected us that we shall be saved, whilst all around us are elected to be cast by thy wrath down to hell; for the which holiness, O God, we thank thee; and we also thank thee that thou hast elected us, that we may not be led away after the foolish traditions of our brethren" (Alma 31:16-17).

Fortunately, the gospel is not "win-lose" but "win-win." We are exalted only by humbling ourselves and by helping those around us to be better, just as we try to improve ourselves day by day. In the words of U2 and Bono: "If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel."

It's okay to love your team and to want them to do well and win. I grew up in a sports-loving family, along with sports-loving parents and four sports-loving brothers who played basketball, football, soccer, softball, and about every other team sport (and a sister who came around when she met her sports-loving husband), and I've known no other way of life. I love it when my teams win and feel bad with them when they lose.

It's also possible to be an enthusiastic sports fan without climbing up on the Rameumptom—in other words, without being a jerk about it.