The Best Place to Start is the Beginning

Of all the talks, Elder Larry R. Lawrence’s, of the Seventy, was understated and simple, and only after I looked at my notes again did I realize how powerful his message was. I want to focus on the arrangement of his talk and how it ties in with the possible/impossible topic of invention.

Elder Lawrence began the body of his message with one of the Lord’s commandments: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.” Elder Lawrence then remarks about how discipleship isn’t easy. He uses the story in the Bible of the rich young ruler who was humble enough to ask the Lord what more he could do, but not humble enough to act on the Lord’s advice. At this point in the talk, discipleship seems impossible. Elder Lawrence makes it seem like a gauntlet of hardship and upward drudgery, with no end in sight, acknowledging that we’ll have to wait for perfection in the next life. But Elder Lawrence set up the rest of his talk perfectly. As soon as he had his audience wondering about whether or not they’d be up for the task, he surprises them with small, simple stories of where they can start.

The seemingly insignificant anecdotes, reminiscent of the Spirit’s still small voice, act as the “possible” part of his talk. In these stories, the Holy Ghost whispered to those that had asked these bits of advice: “stop complaining”; “clean up your language”; “don’t interrupt people”; “keep the Sabbath day holy”; and in stunning simplicity, “clean up your room.” With each successive story, Elder Lawrence’s implicit message becomes clearer: the best place to start is at the beginning. It is possible to walk the strait and narrow. In contrast to his earlier anecdotes, discipleship becomes a possible task. With such an arrangement, Elder Lawrence is able to amplify the topic of invention of possible, and encourage and lift others to the task of discipleship.

Creating Ethos Through Personability

As Elder Larry R. Lawrence of the 70 spoke, I was pleased to realize that his talk was extraordinarily easy to listen to. Gavin goes into the precise parallelism Lawrence used to accomplish this purpose in his blog post.  

I could go on for pages about the brilliance of Lawrence's arrangement, but what I would like to instead briefly focus on is how he strengthened his credibility.

I don't know about you, but during general conference, I tend to be more excited about hearing familiar speakers, such as members of the first presidency or the quorum of the 12. I wasn't expecting to get anything life-altering out of Lawrence's comments, but that attitude was quickly changed. With his confident and wise demeanor and discussion of how important it is for us to undertake the journey of discipleship, I was quickly comforted and captivated as he explained how the Holy Ghost "is an ideal traveling companion". The overarching subject of this talk was achieving perfection--but it wasn't intimidating, because Elder Lawrence emphasized that "our direction is more important than our speed"--and that he too was on that same journey.

As Elder Lawrence shared promptings received by others and by himself, I was struck by how real he was. I think that I often put apostles up on pedestal, and sometimes it's hard to imagine them ever making mistakes. Lawrence shared personal promptings that he had received, such as "don't raise your voice", "take better care of your body by eating more fruits and vegetables", and "be patient when driving. Don't exceed the speed limit....I'm still working on that last one". For me, this showed me that he knew where we were at, and that he had been there too. This built his ethos by making me want to listen to this man who was also working on navigating life and had answers on how to do it successfully. This technique even drove home the message of his talk: I'm not going to be perfect in this life, and that's okay. But I can improve as I ask the Lord "what lack I yet?"

Predominant Parallelism

            Repetition is a well-known rhetorical technique for General Conference speakers, especially in terms of fundamental doctrines and practices.  Elder Lawrence of the Seventy integrated that pattern on a micro-level.  Uniquely, a large portion of his talk was simply the repetition of a single idea.  When a person restates an expression we call it repetition.  When he restates an idea, it becomes parallelism.  Elder Lawrence employed a variety of nuances to shape each iteration of his primary theme, the act of asking God what is inhibiting our progress, to give his message the feel of a rhythmic, ideological beat rather than a single note that is pounded out over and over again to the irritation of those paying attention.

            He accomplished this subtle shifting of ideas by first repeating the scriptural story that clearly explained the principle, sharing many short examples to quickly underline the continuity of his principle across a multitude of similar, everyday contexts, briefly expounding on the central theme to add contrast and depth, and concluding with personal examples and testimony.  The topic of invention of cause and effect was especially critical in the short example section because it helped us to see the real-world impact of asking God what we lack, and the consistency of the positive consequences that ensue.  However, even though parallelism was an effective tool, it was also important to the purpose of his message that not all of his talk followed that pattern.  Like an opera singer belting out an aria at a constant forte, sticking too strictly to unending repetition would have been too much to bear.  The ebb and flow of the non-parallel pieces of the talk ensured that we would not be distracted from the fundamental message by the overuse of a single method of delivery.  This allowed the parallelism to assume a supporting role, peripheral to the core truth that seeking correction from God unbars the stumbling blocks of our progression and facilitates our reentry into His Presence.

"parallelism," no changes made, by Barbara Krawcowicz. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode