Wright Words: Saying 'yes' to the green toy ball meetings

I love most Sunday afternoons.

There is nothing quite like coming home after church and knowing that until Monday morning, if you choose, the world exists exclusively inside your home.

Like many of you, we don't shop or eat out on Sundays, and we generally stay close to home base.

Sometimes we'll travel to visit a relative or share dinner with family or friends, but even in those activities, we do our best to treat it as a day of rest. Admittedly, we're not always successful, but we recognize our failures and constantly work toward a better understanding and a tighter embrace of the Sabbath. After years of far-too-casual treatment of his day, it's become a high priority for our family.

If you're actively involved in any church, you know that Sundays are not always strictly for worship. They're also a common day for the administration of church affairs. There are often planning or finance meetings, myriad committees, scheduling sessions and more.

The business of doing God's work, no matter your religion, unavoidably requires us to dip our foot in the world's pool of paperwork, assignments and administration.

My current volunteer assignment in the LDS Church is to serve as the president of the young men's organization covering 11 congregations in the Winchester, Va., area. Every week I have the opportunity to meet, fellowship and teach young men 12 to 18 years old in wonderful places like Woodstock, Front Royal and Berryville. I've never had so much fun serving in church.

This particular assignment, like many others, requires a number of meetings to ensure the needs of the young men in our area are being met.

Are they growing closer to their Heavenly Father? Are they being spiritually fed each week in their respective congregations? What can we, as leaders, do to enhance their growth as men in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

These meetings, held at least once a month, also cover the nuts and bolts of leadership. What activities might we share with the young women?

Who's planning the barbecue next week? Who's designing the poster? Who's inviting the speaker to our next youth conference? Who should be assigned to this or that new committee?

These are important decisions made in important meetings by people with important responsibilities. These sessions are usually enjoyable and productive. I value them and the people who sacrifice to attend.

On a recent Sunday, my family returned from church with fewer scars than normal. There was no pushing, biting or screaming. No animal cracker wars. No shoes tossed three pews forward. It was a complete, and rare, peaceful and successful trip to worship in the church we love so dearly.

After mom's famous nachos for lunch and a quick discussion about the busy week ahead — we call it Family Council in the tradition of my own mom and dad — the kids disappeared to read, color, play with toys, etc.

My youngest went to his room to play with his treasure-of-the-moment, a green toy ball he'd been carrying and sleeping with for days.

As for my wife and me, we found ourselves sitting in the living room rehashing the morning at church and enjoying the unusually quiet Sabbath afternoon.

Then I looked at my watch.

"You have a meeting today, don't you?" she asked.

Sigh. "I do."

"All the way at the chapel in Winchester?" It was another question she already knew the answer to. She also knew very well it's a 40-minute round-trip drive.

"Yep."

"You need to be there?"

"I do."

And with that I stood up, slowly retied my tie, and trudged back upstairs to retrieve the suit coat I'd tossed upon the bed.

Then it happened.

As I walked back out of my room, my 3-year-old son met me in the doorway. He was wearing his favorite crocodile shirt with red flannel snapping jaws and green shorts. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"I have a meeting, bud."

"A meeting?"

"Yes, a church meeting. I'll be home tonight."

Then with pure childlike innocence he pulled his green toy ball from his pocket and said, "But there's a meeting in my room, Daddy."

"There is?" The lump in my throat felt like an 8-pound bowling ball.

"Yes," he said. "It's a green toy ball meeting. And it's reaaaaaally important."

Ouch. Make that 12 pounds.

I knelt down and he opened his skinny fingers, one of them sticky with leftover nacho cheese. In his palm he held his prized green toy ball.

Looking back, I sure wish I'd said something profound. Instead, with tears racing to form drops and a pit in my stomach, I simply gave him a hug and promised to be home by bedtime. Then I closed his fingers back around the ball, patted his lowered head and sank down the stairs.

Ten minutes later, I rolled out of the driveway and headed to a meeting I hardly remember attending. I'm sure it was productive, and I'm sure important decisions were made.

I've thought of that afternoon almost every afternoon since. I love my church responsibilities and the opportunities I have to serve the Lord and the youths around me. Serving them brings me closer to him. Of that I have no doubt.

But what happens when the meetings and planning and planning more meetings becomes more important than the people we serve? At what point do I — or you — allow those we love the most to become low priority items on life's agenda?

I love the Lord. I love his gospel. I love the people with whom I worship every week. I'm especially grateful for the amazing young men I work so closely with and for whom I pray for their success and well-being.

But in the very end, when the meetings have concluded and the benedictions have been said, when the only one across the table is the Judge, the Holy One, the Redeemer of Mankind, I suspect my attendance at the administrative councils of life and religion will matter much less than the number of times I said "yes" to the green toy ball meetings.

I can't wait for the next one.

Wright Words: Pass the Grace, Please

Recently I was asked to write a column from time-to-time. After much hemming and hawing I finally agreed. Columns will appear here and on several other websites around the web. Below is my first. Hope you enjoy!

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Wright Words: Pass the Grace, Please

Sunday morning. 9:17 AM. I'm 30 miles from home and racing to a chapel I'm unfamiliar with for a ward conference. A work zone approaches and out of the corner of my tired eye, I see a town police officer sitting behind some bushes holding what I hope is a sophisticated high-tech water gun.

It wasn't.

Did I receive a traffic ticket? Yes. Was it of the speeding variety? Yes. Did Officer Fife care that I was dressed in a suit and obviously racing to the aid of my beloved brothers and sisters in need? Not so much.

But that didn't stop me from asking for grace.

A few weeks later I put the same suit back on and appeared in an historic courthouse just a country mile from the scene of my crime. After watching half-a-dozen other hardened traffic criminals make their pleas for leniency, I was convinced my excuses were…well…better.

In fact, my entire strategy was can't-miss. I took my place at the defendant's table when summoned and prepped to make my case for grace.

“How do you plead?” The Judge asked.

“Your Honor, can I plead ‘guilty' to speeding, but ‘not guilty' to the severity of the speeding?”

His mouth said, “Excuse me?” But his face said, “Whatchoo talkin' ‘bout Willis?”

I explained how I'd been late for church in an area I'm unfamiliar with. I told him how careful I'd been that morning on the way to court, driving the exact speed limit through the same trap to gauge average MPH, and how I'd been blown off the road by a school bus and a man I judged too old to even hold a license. I even made a premeditated, well-rehearsed joke that five others in the courtroom thought was rather funny. Unfortunately for me, none of them were wearing black robes and grandpa glasses.

My appearance that day ended without the grace I so desperately sought, but with a pit stop at the court clerk's office to pay a hefty fine.

As I drove home that day—very slowly—I pondered my life's near-constant quest for grace. It seems I'm always asking others to grant it, but am I so quick to pass it on myself?

Perhaps you've sometimes fallen into the same trap.

Ever been late on a credit card payment and gotten the dreaded phone call? Without fail we seem to respond with the same universal line: “Grace, please?”

We're late returning a movie, a library book or a rental car: “Grace, please?”

Who hasn't missed a turn, an exit, or rolled through a stop sign and impeded the path of another car, only to fire off an apologetic wave of the hand and a sheepish grin. The grin itself is pleasant and quiet, but if it could it would scream through the car window, “Hey buddy! A little grace, eh? I'm in a hurry/lost/from-out-of-town/my-wife-is-pregnant/fill-in-the-blank.”

Or maybe like me you've missed a deadline for a project at work, a homework assignment or a new manuscript: What's the refrain? “Grace, please?”

It's part of life. It's who we are. It's how the plan of happiness was designed. It is that word, “grace”, that allows us to embrace repentance, change our minds and choices, and taste life's sweet second chances.

Why then when my children make a mistake, despite the fact that I made the same missteps at their age, am I often too slow to extend grace? Especially since heaven and the neighbors know I'm asking for it myself when the sun on trash day rises and sets with the cans still sitting at the side of the house—full.

Mrs. Wright has heard it before: "I'm sorry dear, it won't happen again. A little grace, please?" Fortunately for me, my wife isn't nearly as slow to pass the grace as I am.

Yes, we all want grace. Leniency. A fresh shot. An opportunity to forgive and forget, right? Except in my case it's more like, “You do the forgiving, I'll do the forgetting, thank you very much.”

How about you?

I wish I could promise that my expensive trip to ward conference—the talks were lovely, by the way—had changed my understanding of grace forever and I'm a better man for it. Nah. But I do think I'm trying just little harder to pass the grace more quickly and more often. Maybe we all could.

Because we can't expect everyone to pass it to us if we're not willing to pass it back, can we?