Brigham Young University

“One Step Enough”

JOHN S. TANNER

In a Facetious Little Essay entitled “On Transcen- tained what Thomas calls “the Wisdom of the West,”
dental Metaworry,” the science writer Lewis Thom- or TMW, “Transcendental Metaworry.”
as observes that “Worrying is the most natural and
spontaneous of all human functions. . . . Man is the I confess that sometimes late at night, between wake
Worrying Animal.” This rare capacity to worry, and sleep, I experience this rarefied state of TMW, or
Thomas continues, “is a trait needing further devel- worry about worry. I speak today as one personally
opment, awaiting perfection. Most of us tend to ne- familiar with what a song from the sixties called the
glect the activity, living precariously out on the thin “chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty.” I do so,
edge of anxiety but never plunging in.” To remedy however, in order to speak of faith and hope, with
this, Thomas recommends the practice of Transcen- which I am also intimately acquainted.
dental Worry (or TW), preferably “before work and
late in the evening just before insomnia.” According to Parley P. Pratt, the pioneers who en-
dured the first terrible winter in the Salt Lake valley
To practice TW, Thomas recommends the following: suffered more from fear than from actual hunger.
make yourself as uncomfortable as possible; tense Think about that. Remember how hungry the Saints
all your muscles; close your eyes tight “until the ef- were: “The people tried eating crows, thistle tops,
fort causes a slight tremor of the eyelids”; focus on bark, roots, and Sego Lily bulbs--anything that might
the muscular effort required to breathe (preferably offer nutriment or fill the empty stomach.” Yet they
attempting to breathe through one nostril at a time); suffered most from fear. For “the valley was new,”
then repeat to yourself a suitable mantra like “wor- says Brother Pratt, “ne[i]ther was it proven that
ry.” Soon you will experience the vertiginous plea- grain could be raised.”
sures of angst. Worries will circle in and out of your
consciousness like carrion fowl--swirling images of
burning rain forests, swelling pimples, unpaid Visa
bills, the national debt, the Testing Center, expand-   “Catch the Wind,” by Donovan.
ing waistlines, receding hairlines, late papers, and   Eugene England, Brother Brigham (Salt Lake City: Book-
finals in classes you never attended. Surrender your- craft, 1980), 146.
self wholly to this sense of anxiety. Then, if you are   Leonard Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom (Lincoln: Uni-
blessed with the right nervous temperament, you versity of Nebraska Press, 1958), 49.
will sink into the final stage of TW: “pure worry   England, Brother Brigham, 146.
about pure worry.” At this point you will have at- John S. Tanner was an associate professor of English at BYU
when this devotional address was given on 30 June 1992 in the
  The Medusa and the Snail (New York: Bantam, 1974), de Jong Concert Hall.
66-70.
© 1992 BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
--
Uncertainty can be more chilling than winter, doubt Acts 17:27; D&C 101:8) as he lights our way home,
more gnawing than hunger, tempests of the mind one step at a time.
more fearful than pelting rain. As Shakespeare’s
King Lear remarks: “This tempest in my mind / We have just sung lines by John Henry Newman
Doth from my senses take all feeling else, / Save that express this theme. Newman wrote “Lead,
what beats there” (3.4.12-14). Kindly Light” aboard ship on the way home to Eng-
land from Italy. He was homesick and seasick; he
And, in a similar vein, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn de- had just had malaria. Though he didn’t know it yet,
scribes a peculiar reaction evident in many people he was also about to take the first faltering steps of a
picked up by the Soviet secret police: “Sometimes spiritual pilgrimage that ultimately would lead him,
the principal emotion of the person arrested is relief and many who followed him, to another church. In
and even happiness!” After all, Solzhenitsyn explains, these circumstances, Newman writes:
there is a kind of exhaustion that is “worse than any
kind of arrest.” He illustrates this point with the ex- Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom;
ample of a priest who, having eluded arrest for eight Lead thou me on!
years, “suffered so painfully from this harried life The night is dark, and I am far from home;
that when he was finally arrested in 1942 he sang Lead thou me on!
hymns of praise to God.” Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene--one step enough for me.
Not knowing when or if an affliction will end is often [Hymns, 1985, no. 97]
more taxing than the affliction itself. This kind of
suffering, which I call the ordeal within the ordeal, The last line contains a phrase that became a motto
constitutes a perennial human predicament. Thus for my wife, Susan, and me through long years of
all ages echo the ancient cry “How long, O Lord, uncertainty in graduate school: “I do not ask to see
how long?” We suppose that we could brave most the distant scene--one step enough for me.”
any hardship, provided we knew if and when it
would pass. Think how patiently, for example, you “One step enough.” How often Susan and I have
older single students would bear being unmarried if taken comfort in this phrase. Yet even with those
you knew that in three years you would marry a words on our lips, we still trod gingerly into a future
good person--or, alternatively, that you would nev- that seemed so precarious and into which we could
er marry. It is not being single but the uncertainty see safe footing for only one small step ahead. We
that can seem unendurable. Likewise, think how craved precisely what we professed not to ask for--
stoically you married students would cope with be- namely, to see the distant scene. Like most every-
ing poor if you were sure that your plight was tem- body, we yearn for certainty and would avoid risk,
porary, that in time you would be able to afford the if we could--or at least consign it to a risk manager.
home you desire and find the employment you have (What an intriguing modern invention, risk man-
prepared for. How much more courageously and agement. Wouldn’t it be great if we could give over
cheerfully would we endure our trials if we knew life’s truly serious risks, like whom to marry or what
their outcome. Why, we might face even death more to believe, to someone else?) Suspense makes us,
boldly if we but knew the time of our demise. well, nervous. Susan is the kind of reader who some-
times skips to the end of the novel when the sus-
In periods of prolonged distress, we yearn for the pense becomes too intense. I am the kind of fan who
Lord to carry us to a mountaintop, as he did Moses, sometimes opts to watch a close game on replay, af-
and there reveal in detail the course of our lives (cf. ter I know the outcome.
Moses 1). Instead, God requires us to wander like
Abraham, as “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” The dramas of our own lives, however, are not avail-
(Hebrews 11:13), living on promises. To live on this able to us on video or in novels. We can neither fast
side of the veil is to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 forward nor read ahead. Because our tribulations
Corinthians 5:7); it is to “feel after” the Lord (see unfold in real time, the only way out, alas, is through.
This means we must endure not only our hardships
but the ordeal of anxiety within the ordeal; it means
  The Gulag Archipelago, I-II, trans. Thomas P. Witney we must live on promises and walk by faith.
(New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 14-15.
  Cf. Psalms 13:1-2, 35:17, 89:46, Habakkuk 1:20, Alma
14:26, D&D 121:2-3.
--
To walk by faith is to follow in the footsteps of Abra- “none inheritance” in Canaan, “no, not so much as
ham, the spiritual father of the faithful (Galatians to set his foot on,” but promised only that he would
3:7), who must sojourn as pilgrims and strangers on give Abraham the land “for a possession, and to his
this earth. In Hebrews we read: seed after him, when as yet he had no child” (Acts
7:5).
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a
place which he should after receive for an inheritance, Abraham spent all his days living on promises--not
obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he only with respect to the promised land but also with
went. respect to a promised posterity. With what could
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a seem like cruel irony, the Lord repeatedly pledged
strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Abram posterity as numerous as the dust of the
Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. [Hebrews earth and the stars of heaven (Genesis 13:16; 15:4-5;
11:8-9; emphasis added] 17:2-4; 18:17-19; 22:16-18). He also changed his name
to Abraham, meaning father of a multitude. Yet all the
“Not knowing whither he went,” Abraham left not while Abraham had no promised heir; all the while
only his city but city life itself, in the cradle of civili- he and Sarah were growing older.
zation, to become a nomad. As Abraham so aptly
puts it: At last, of course, Isaac was born. Then the God of
Abraham, who seems to have a keen sense of irony,
Therefore, eternity was our covering and our rock and our required the sacrifice of the very child through
salvation, as we journeyed from Haran . . . to come to the whom the prophecies that Abraham’s seed would
land of Canaan. [Abraham 2:16] become “a great and mighty nation” were to be ful-
filled (Genesis 18:18). How is it that Abraham “stag-
Moreover, Abraham did not cease to be a nomad af- gered not at the promise of God through unbelief”
ter he arrived in the promised land. Rather, even in (Romans 4:20), but “believed in the Lord,” who
Canaan he dwelt “in tabernacles” (i.e., tents), “as in “counted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6;
a strange [i.e., foreign] country.” While his nephew cf. Galatians 3:6).
Lot chose to live “in the cities” on the well-watered
plain of Jordan (Genesis 13:10-12)--and reaped the We distort the trials of Abraham (or of anyone else)
consequence of that choice--Abraham dwelt not in if we read them from the comfortable retrospective
cities. “For he looked for a city which hath founda- of history. Rather, as Kierkegaard reminds us, we
tions, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews must remember the fear and trembling. We must
11:10), and taught us by his example that “here have flee with Abram from Haran, not knowing whither
we no continuing city, but we seek one to come” we go, with eternity as our rock; we must wander
(Hebrews 13:14). with Abram in Canaan, living on increasingly in-
credible promises about possessing the land and a
As Abram wandered through Canaan, he was prom- great posterity; we must journey with Abraham to
ised the land over and over again (cf. Genesis 12:1-3, Mount Moriah, prepare the altar for Isaac, and lift
7; 13:14-17; 15:18; 17:1-8). Yet when Sarah died, the knife. We must, in short, become “contempora-
Abraham had to buy the cave of Machpelah in which neous” with Abraham in his trials. Only then will
to bury her. How poignant are Abraham’s words to we begin to understand why Abraham is the father
the sons of Heth, from whom he purchased the to the faithful, the model for all those who, like him,
cave: die

I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a pos- in faith, not having received the promises, but having
session of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and em-
dead out of my sight. [Genesis 23:4] braced them, and confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims on the earth.
The land was Abraham’s by covenant, yet near the
end of his life he did not even own a plot of ground
sufficient to inter Sarah’s body. Later, Abraham was
buried in this same cave, the only property he ever   See Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard’s meditation on the
owned in Canaan (Genesis 25:9-10). No wonder Ste- faith of Abraham.
phen the Martyr says that the Lord gave Abraham   See Kierkegaard’s Training in Christianity, trans. Walter
Lowrie, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 66ff.
--
For they that say such things declare plainly that they And thus he was called the Son of God, because he
seek a country. . . . received not of the fulness at the first” (D&C 93:12,
. . . a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God 14). He was called the Son because he received not of
is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared the fulness at the first. Does this imply that Jesus’
for them a city. [Hebrews 11:13-14, 16] human limitations define the essence of his sonship
(or mortality), just as they do ours? Does this mean
The scriptures are replete with examples of Abraha- that he had to learn his mission incrementally and
mic faith. Lehi’s example comes readily to mind. live through trials without knowing the beginning
Like Abraham, Lehi fled from his home, “dwelt in a from the end? I note that the Lord often had to fast
tent,” and was led by faith to a better country. Also and pray to obtain the Father’s unfolding will. And
like Abraham, Lehi seems to have left Jerusalem Jesus’ astonishing plea that he “might not drink the
“not knowing whither he went.” Nephi’s account, at bitter cup” (D&C 19:18) suggests that the Savior’s
any rate, depicts Lehi first fleeing into the wilder- prescience of the Atonement did not preclude his
ness and only later learning that the Lord intended very human apprehension about the ensuing ordeal.
to lead him to a new world (cf. 1 Nephi 2). That Le- In this, as “in all things it behoved him to be made
hi’s family made several return trips to Jerusalem like unto his brethren” (Hebrews 2:17). “For verily
may be explained, in part, by their unfolding knowl- he took not on him the nature of angels; but took on
edge of the journey they were undertaking. Perhaps him the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16).
they had to learn that their exile was to be an exo-
dus. Now, lest anyone think these examples of faith too
remote, I wish now to speak more personally, shar-
Likewise, missionaries in every age have always had ing my own experiences and those of others who
to walk by faith--from the sons of Mosiah, who jour- have influenced me. I do so not to boast but to bear
neyed to the land of the Lamanites on the strength of witness of heaven’s mercies and miracles. I do so in
prophetic promises (Mosiah 28:7; Alma 17:10-12), to gratitude to God and with the hope that my experi-
modern-day missionaries like Wilford Woodruff, ences might give others courage to hope.
who followed the Spirit’s prompting to go south to
Hertfordshire, where he baptized hundreds.10 All I come from a heritage of Abrahamic faith. Shortly
those who embrace the gospel become the progeny after the original John Tanner was converted, he felt
of Abraham (Abraham 2:10; Galatians 3:7) and like prompted to sell his beautiful farm in Lake George,
him have to walk by faith, one step at a time. New York, and move to Kirtland, Ohio--not know-
ing he was led there by the Spirit to help rescue the
This includes prophets of our day. I will never forget Church from severe debt. Several more times he and
a conversation with President Harold B. Lee that his family left everything to follow the Saints--from
taught me this. President Lee (who, by the way, Kirtland to Jackson, from Jackson to Nauvoo, from
loved the hymn “Lead, Kindly Light”) had talked Nauvoo to Salt Lake. With each move Father Tanner
freely that day about a new program the Church had and his family became poorer; with each dislocation
just announced. He then remarked that he had just they had to start anew. But because eternity was
reread the minutes of the meetings in which the pro- their rock, they left their progeny a legacy of faith
gram had been formulated and that he saw now, in more precious than gold.
retrospect, that the Lord had been guiding the delib-
erations all along. What a remarkable description of My paternal grandparents lost two grocery stores in
revelation! The Lord’s guidance was not fully evi- the Depression. Their sole remaining possession of
dent, even to his prophet, until President Lee turned value was a home. Then came a mission call to their
to survey the terrain he had traversed. The Lord led oldest son, my uncle, who assumed it was impossi-
his servant, yes, but one step at a time. ble for him to serve. “Of course you will go,” his
parents told him. They sold their home and moved
This lesson impressed me, but it should not have into an attic apartment. Friends were very critical,
surprised me. For even Jesus “received not of the and, from a practical point of view, their criticism
fulness at the first, but received grace for grace. . . . was justified, for my grandparents lived many more
years but never again owned a home of their own.
10  This story has been told many times. For a recent history Yet they gave their sons, including my father, some-
of the event, see Truth Will Prevail, eds. Bloxham et al. (Cam- thing more valuable than an estate. They gave them
bridge: Cambridge University Press for The Church of Jesus an Abrahamic legacy of faith.
Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1987), 132-40.
--
Likewise, my own parents have walked with a faith will be opened to complete your education through
of truly biblical proportions. Despite a world war, means you cannot now conceive.
long years of school, and never knowing financial
stability, they got the education and had the family Six long years and four children later I had my de-
they felt the Lord expected of them. Mom walked gree and, miraculously, a job in my field. Way after
across the stage to receive her diploma when she way had indeed been opened before us. For exam-
was expecting her first child. Six of us had been born ple, a housesitting job that we thought would last
by the time Dad received his Ph.D. Seven more chil- only a few months became, through the generosity
dren were still to come, this despite constant eco- of saintly Jim and Roma Sabine, three years of rent-
nomic uncertainty from my father’s self-employ- free housing. I was able to find full-time night-
ment. Yet my parents sent ten children on missions, watchman jobs at which I could study all night and
often with more than one in the field at once, and go to school all day. And even when we were mak-
made sure that all thirteen graduated from college. ing only sixty dollars a month on my early-morning
seminary salary, we paid tithing. The Lord was on
My folks worked very hard for this. And we, too, our right hand and on our left, lighting our way one
were expected to sacrifice: to save for missions, to step at a time.
put ourselves through college. But besides hard
work, my parents exhibited heroic faith. Many times I doubted the future. I could meet the
present distress but was anxious about the future.
In stories like these it is easy--too easy--to see the How often would I lament: “What am I doing to my-
faith and miss the fear. But you can’t miss the fear self and my family! There are no jobs in English. I
and trembling when it is your own history. In 1974, can’t complete a Ph.D. anyway. After all, I almost
when I was a senior at BYU, the job market for Eng- flunked freshman English. I can’t write. I can’t even
lish professors was desperately tight and predicted spell. What madness to think I can do a disserta-
to get much worse. It seemed only prudent to do tion!”
something practical, like apply to law school. But as
I wrote Duke Law School the obligatory essay on Still the years stretched on. Still anxiety enveloped
“Why I Want to Be an Attorney When I Grow Up,” my faith. My former roommates completed law
it struck me, with the force of revelation, that I did school, took real jobs, bought cars and homes. My
not want to be an attorney. I wanted to teach, prefer- best friend went on to clerk at the Supreme Court. I,
ably Renaissance literature. What’s more, I felt the meanwhile, pulled weeds at the Oakland Temple as
Lord wanted me to teach. So I tore up my essay and a gardener and worried about completing a seem-
applied instead to graduate school in English. The ingly interminable degree. Yet I persisted, borrow-
distant scene seemed so uncertain; all the forecasts ing generously from the faith of my wife, whose un-
said not to follow the less-trodden path I was taking. shakable conviction that teaching was my vocation
Yet the little light that illuminated my feet seemed to kept us walking down an uncertain path, one step at
point to graduate school. A way was soon opened a time.
up for me to go to the University of California at
Berkeley, but only one step ahead. How much more courageously could I have lived on
promises had my faith been as strong as hers. I am
At about the same time that I tore up my law school reminded of the ending of John Bunyan’s The Pil-
application, I got engaged. I was painfully aware grim’s Progress, which portrays Christian and Hope-
that all I had to offer my bride were long years in ful crossing the river of death. There “was no bridge
graduate school and then the prospect of no employ- to go over,” Bunyan writes, and “the river was very
ment in my chosen field. Plus, I had only enough deep.” The two pilgrims begin to despair, for there
money for one quarter’s tuition. Susan and I also is no way across except through. Then they learn
both wanted children and felt this was our first pri- this truth: “You shall find it [the river] deeper or
ority. I was inexpressibly happy about my marriage, shallower, as you believe in the King of the place.”11
but also very anxious about the uncertain future. So Susan generally finds the river shallower than I.
I sought a blessing from my father. I received, like Both of us, however, have to wade through rivers
Abraham, promises--cherished, treasured promises, with bottoms we cannot see.
but nothing you could take to the loan officer at the
bank: the Lord is mindful of your desires; he knows
your concerns and approves this marriage; the way 11  The Pilgrim’s Progress, ed. N. H. Keeble (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1984), 128.
--
As do all who sojourn through mortality. To be hu- For this, I thank both heaven and the hard work, in-
man is to be a pilgrim and stranger, homeward telligence, and goodwill of my committee. I do not
bound. No mortal ever ceases to need faith, for faith say the work that we have done is inspired in every
is a “task for a whole lifetime.”12 Indeed, to believe, point; we have already received many good sugges-
to love, to repent, to forgive--these tasks are always tions for improvements. But when I look back at
more than enough for any human life. Nor do mod- where we have been, the journey that sometimes
erns start ahead of the ancients with respect to eter- seemed tortuous and circuitous in the treading of it
nally significant tasks such as faith and love. We all now seems straighter and more purposeful. I hope
start where Adam and Eve did as they left the gar- this work will bless the university. This has been the
den. Let me borrow from Milton’s account of this only intention of every member of the committee.
moment in the concluding lines of Paradise Lost: And I hope that as BYU continues to nurture a com-
munity of thoughtful faith, it will also grow as a
The World was all before them, where to choose community of charity that remembers that the
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide: prayer “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief”
They hand in hand with wand’ring steps and slow, (Mark 9:24) is the prayer of a believer.
Through Eden took thir solitary way.
[12.646-49] Now the final caution I promised. What I have said
today does not mean that we should seek out risk,
So the world that lies before us bids us “choose our court anxiety, or take reckless chances. There is a
place of rest” and offers us Providence as our guide. difference between foolhardiness and faith. If you
If we are lucky, we will find someone to hold hands are the sort of person who likes risks, this is not the
with as, “with wandering steps and slow,” we make talk for you. We have an obligation to prepare for
our “solitary way” toward home. the future, to count the cost before we build, to study
out decisions intelligently as well as prayerfully. We
Now, since it has been much on my mind this past should be careful, and we should be wise.
year, I want to illustrate my theme with one final
personal example. This example is drawn from my Nevertheless, we must not trust only in our own
recent experience drafting an academic freedom wisdom. As George Santayana asserts,
policy for BYU. Then I will offer one caution, and
then I am done. It is not wisdom to be only wise,
And on the inward vision close the eyes,
About a year ago, Bruce Hafen asked me to chair a But it is wisdom to believe the heart.
committee that would draft recommendations on Columbus found a world, and had no chart,
academic freedom. Knowing this issue had swamped Save one that faith deciphered in the skies; . . . .
far larger vessels than my small craft, I did what any Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine
of you would have done. I had an anxiety attack and That lights the pathway but one step ahead
looked for the nearest exit. Over the next several Across a void of mystery and dread.
months, I tried lots of creative evasion strategies, but Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine
I also felt a growing conviction that maybe, just By which alone the mortal heart is led
maybe, this was work I was supposed to do. Per- Unto the thinking of the thought divine.13
haps, unknown to me, this is why I studied Milton
and Kierkegaard, two ardent advocates of liberty May the Lord light our various pathways, though it
and faith. I felt the tug of Mordecai’s question to Es- be “but one step ahead / Across a void of mystery
ther: “And who knoweth whether thou art come to and dread.” And may we, as covenant children of
the kingdom for such a time as this?” So, like Esther, Abraham, have the faith to follow that heavenly
I went forward, resolving, “And if I perish, I perish” light home. This I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ.
(Esther 4:14, 16). Amen.

Way after way seemed to open as my committee

came up against seemingly impossible impasses.

12  Fear and Trembling, 42 (cf. 145-46). See also George

Herbert’s poem “The Agonie,” which notes how some truths,
like love and sin, are deeper than philosophy and science can
measure. 13  “O World, Thou Choosest Not” [1894].
--