Followership

I'm a scientist.  I like collecting and analyzing data.  That's how I started preparing for a lesson this week.  I found a list, Rotten Tomato's Top 100 Kids and Family Movies.  Turns out, I was only familiar with 66 of the story lines.  Of those story lines, I counted 32 that portrayed disobedience to parents, to government or to law as an admirable quality in the protagonists.  That means that just under half of the movies we have our children watch are counteracting our efforts to teach them about obedience. 

Well, maybe you think the list was biased.  Maybe Rottentomatoes.com cannot be trusted to select which children's movies would be good.  That would be a reasonable doubt, so let's look at some of the titles that fell under the 32: 

Mulan, the story of a girl who disobeys her father to become a hero 

Wreck-it-Ralph, the story of video game character who risks the existence of other video game characters by breaking the only hard-set video game rule so that he can earn a medal 

Tangled, the story of a girl who runs away from home to find excitement 

Monster's, Inc., the story of a couple of monsters who endanger the lives of all of their co-workers and neighbors by hiding a child in the monster world 

The Incredibles, the story of a family of superheroes who ignore the towns laws about using super powers in order to escape tedium of everyday life 

Mary Poppins, the story of a couple of children who convince their father to shirk his responsibilities in order to have more fun 

Finding Nemo, the story of small fish disobeys his father in order to learn more about the world 

Toy Story, the story of some toys who break the toy rules in order scare a boy away 

Harry Potter, the story of a young wizard who is constantly rewarded for trespassing and disrespecting teachers 

Frozen, the story of a young girl who endangers a village in order to escape the pressures of developing self discipline 

That being said, do I think that we should stop allowing our children to watch these movies?  No.  I am suggesting that we need to pay attention to the take home message our children pick up on.  If I were reading rather than writing right now, I would be annoyed by the fact that the messages listed could be considered "the" message of the story.  So, if you're as annoyed as I would have been, let me appease you frustration.  For anyone of these movies, I could list an alternate theme that is infinitely more uplifting.  Actually, if I could not do that, I probably would not like the videos and stop watching them.  If you think you can do the same go one and skip the next list, I'll meet up with you in the next paragraph.  The rest of you, take a look at these alternate themes: 

Mulan, the story of a girl who loves her father so much that she willingly sacrifices her own life to save his and those of her neighbors 

Wreck-it-Ralph, the story of video game character who discovers that he is free to choose to be a good guy or a bad guy 

Tangled, the story of a girl who learns to see her true self worth, rather pinning her value on her physical attributes 

Monster's, Inc., the story of a couple of monsters who find out they can be more productive by harnessing positive energy than by harnessing negative energy 

The Incredibles, the story of a family of superheroes who find out takes something different than super powers to find love at home 

Mary Poppins, the story of a father who decides that family life is more important than occupational success  

Finding Nemo, the story of small fish who's love for his son helps him to cross and ocean of life-threatening obstacles 

Toy Story, the story of toys who are taught that love is more important than rank 

Harry Potter, the story of a young wizard who is willing to risk great danger in order to save his friends and family 

Frozen, the story of a young girl who is finds out that her love for others can help her to control herself 

I'm sure you could have thought of a least a few themes from these shows that would have been better than mine, but that doesn't really matter.  The point is that no story is forced to follow any particular theme.  Even if authors, producers, or directors have a theme that they try to present, the audience is not forced to adhere to it.  The audience can make up there own themes.  If we don't communicate with our children about the ideas they get from stories, there's no telling what theme they'll pick up on. 

One theme that seems to shout at me in everything I see and hear is leadership: be a leader, don't let others direct your life for you, find out what's right for you.  These themes are wonderful and I'm glad to see them as I go about my life.  However, I don't believe that anything is inherently evil.  I often wonder if there really needs to be "a time to kill" (Ecclesiastes 3:3) or if that's just the way it is "under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9; also see Ecclesiastes in the Bible Dictionary), but there's certainly nothing bad about the ending of life since all men must die ( 1 Corinthians 15:22).  It's possible things are made wrong only by putting undue focus on them. 

To make sure that we don't place undue amount of focus on leadership, the Lord has also given us followership (i.e. obedience).  The cry of the theme of followership does seem as loud to me as does the cry of leadership. In fact, searching on line I found many endorsements of followership, but only as an attribute of leaders.  Forbes magazine interviewed an HP Executive Vice President who urged people to think about the important attributes of good followership in order to become good leaders (Peterson, 2013). 

It's hard for us to get past this idea of leadership.  We are inspired by the idea that we might made "ruler over many things" (Matthew 25:21) and we think of Christ as the Great Leader being the head of the Church (Ephesians 5:23).  Certainly if He were not Our Leader we would not be able to follow Him (Ephesians 5:1) but we remember that Christ submitted to the will of the Father (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36;  Luke 22:42).  Jesus Christ did absolutely nothing without having first seeing the Father do it (John 5:19), so He is the Great Follower. 

I know that the Lord does not intend for us to follow his commandments blindly.  The Spirit will teach us all things that we must do (2 Nephi 32:3) and will teach us so thoroughly that we will know with a perfect knowledge that what we are taught is good (Alma 32:34).  The trial is that we might not know anything more until after we obey.  I know that like Adam who had a knowledge of good and evil (Moses 4:28) and was obedient to the commandments of the  Lord even though he did not know why (Moses 5:5-6), the Lord will prepare us to receive the Spirit (Moses 5:9) and if we don't harden our hearts we will be given the greater portion of the word until we know all of the mysteries of God in full (Alma 12:10). 

Sometimes we get weighed down, forgetting that the Lord has not given us any commandment that we cannot obey (1 Nephi 3:7), or perhaps that the Lord commands us to be perfect (Matthew 5:48).  Sometimes we think that the Lord doesn't expect us to be perfect now and we forget that we cannot put of our repentance (Alma 34:33-34).  I don't think I will be a perfect teacher, a perfect musician, a perfect father, or be able to fulfill a million other roles perfectly in this life, but I also don't think that's what the Lord intended.  Moses was perfect in his generation (Moses 8:27).  Let me try that again.  Moses was perfect in his generation (Moses 8:27)!  Wow!  Did you know that?  And not just Noah, but Seth was also a perfect man (Doctrine & Covenants 107:43) and Adam must have been perfect too since he was like Seth in all things (also Doctrine & Covenants 107:43).  I don't know of any other scriptural references, but I am willing to bet the list does not stop there. Furthermore, I bet all perfect people are not even mentioned in the scriptures.  I better there are many truly perfect people on the Earth today.  It's even possible that you've met one some time in your life.  I'm pretty sure that I have met at least a few. 

In some ways, you can be perfect now.  I you can be a perfect tithe payer. You can be a perfect church attender.  You can a perfect prayer.  But, you don't have to be a perfect athlete to be a perfect person.  You don't have to be a perfect orator, a perfect communicator, or a perfect organizer.  All you need to do to be perfect is to obey the promptings of the Holy Ghost.  Be a perfect follower.  Stop comparing yourself to your neighbor because I can tell you right now that comparing yourself with anyone in the entire world there will be things you do better and there were be things the other person does better.  It doesn't matter.  Just listen to the Spirit.  Practice perfect followership, and if you don't practice perfect repentance.  Follow the Savior, the perfect example of leadership and followership, and you will also be perfectly happy. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.