A Plea for Healing

Now that the Utah County Republican Party Organizing Convention is over, I am grateful for all of the candidates for running positive, issues-oriented campaigns. I am especially grateful for the opportunity I had to meet and talk with so many delegates who gave their time to get involved, ask questions, and show up to represent their neighbors last Saturday. What an amazing process!

As a final message in this campaign, I wish to express my personal plea for healing in our party.

In my church, there is a story told of three brothers – Pahoran, Paanchi, and Pacumeni – who campaigned to win the leadership of their people. When Pahoran won the election, Pacumeni chose to “unite with the voice of the people.” But Pacumeni and those who supported him became angry. Instead of uniting, Pacumeni used flattery and anger to stir up his followers to rebel against Pahoran. Although Pacumeni himself was held accountable for his rebellion, the resulting contention caused their government to be distracted from their most important priorities. Within one year, the city was overtaken by their enemies and all three brothers had been killed (see The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Helaman 1:1-21, pages 368-70).

I saw firsthand something similar happen when Taylor Oldroyd was elected chair of the Utah County Republican Party several years ago. From his very first Executive Committee meeting, there was a group of individuals who, perhaps upset because their candidate did not win, kept opposing Taylor at almost every possible opportunity. Regardless of what you believe of Taylor’s leadership, I am convinced that the constant fault finding and bickering weakened our party and distracted us from our most important priorities. And that negativity only seems to have increased over the years.

I have told my children hundreds of times, “If you ignore your teeth, they will go away.” Sometimes, even with the best of intentions and efforts, infection can creep in where we least expect it. A couple of weeks into this campaign, I developed an abscessed tooth. The pain was very uncomfortable and distracted me for a time from many important priorities. It required that I see a professional who prescribed some antibiotics and created a treatment plan to take care of the infection. As I mentioned in my campaign speech, we have an infection in our party that needs to heal!

Do we accept the voice of the people and look to see what we can learn from our losses, or do we try to find blame and nitpick over trivial details? Do we have humility, faith, and good will in our hearts, or are we filled with pride, doubt, and cynicism? Do we share our opinions without name calling or personal attacks? Do we listen to and acknowledge valid and reasonable opinions even though they differ from our own? Do we withhold judgement until we have verified facts to the best of our ability? Do we treat our fellow party members the same way we would want to be treated?  If not, we must change and seek to heal the infection in our own hearts if we wish to have any collective influence for good as a party.

And just how do we heal?

I know from personal experience that if I stop and honestly listen with my heart I can identify a specific action or change that needs to be made. When I act upon that impression, I feel a sense of healing and integrity. Then I am ready to listen again and act, and so on. On the other hand, if I ignore or rationalize away those internal suggestions, I tend to sink into defensiveness and negativity. (I suggest reading the Arbinger Institute’s Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box for an excellent discussion on this topic!)

The first sentence of our Utah County Republican Party Platform reads, “We the members of the Utah County Republican Party do hereby affirm our belief and trust in God and that it was through His intervention that this nation was established.” 

Likewise, Benjamin Franklin noted during the Constitutional Convention of 1787:

I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that “except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest (James Madison, Records of the Federal Convention, pages 451-52).

Can you not see the parallels between what Franklin described and what has been happening in our party and even our country?

Even with all the work that we ourselves must do to make positive changes, ultimate healing comes through God, the Master Healer.

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

As a member of the Utah County Republican Party, my hope and prayer is that we now unite behind our elected county party officers and do all we can to help them successfully lead us. I encourage each of us to look inside our hearts and resolve to become better individuals, ruled by personal integrity instead of self-deception. And most importantly, I invite each of us to remember our God who is the Author of Liberty, and trust that He can help heal our hearts, heal our communities, heal our party, and heal our nation.