Filling the Measure of My Creation

When I graduated from Brigham Young University in 1993, the commencement speaker, Truman Madsen, made an observation and issued a warning which now seem prophetic:

The statistics say that many of you will end up in vocations and avocations you did not train for—and in all kinds of combinations. … I have often wondered how many thousands there may have been, say, in the seventeenth century, who were computer experts who could have turned out marvels of data access and problem solving. They lived and died wholly unaware of their latent skills. If there is little difference between one person and another, that little difference is important. Make the most of it. See that your difference makes a difference. Do not die with your own music still in you.

“Upon Your Heads,” Brigham Young University Commencement Address, 12 August 1993, italics added

That last sentence particularly resonated with me as a music student who was going on to study music composition in graduate school. It’s a paraphrase of the following haunting passage from the poem “The Voiceless” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.:

Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

I’ve thought about Brother Madsen’s warning many times over the years. It came to mind again today as I pondered a passage from the Doctrine and Covenants. Speaking of the earth as though it were a living being, the Lord says:

It must needs be sanctified from all unrighteousness, that it may be prepared for the celestial glory;

For after it hath filled the measure of its creation, it shall be crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father;

That bodies who are of the celestial kingdom may possess it forever and ever; for, for this intent was it made and created, and for this intent are they sanctified.

Doctrine and Covenants 88:18-20

The phrase “the measure of its creation” carries a world of meaning. It suggests that our value is intrinsically connected to our potential and that God understood what we would be capable of long before we were capable of it. God sees those “latent skills” Brother Madsen highlighted, and the “music” we can create with them, as soon as the opportunity arises and we act upon it.

That phrase appears again just a few verses later in the same revelation:

And again, verily I say unto you, the earth abideth the law of a celestial kingdom, for it filleth the measure of its creation, and transgresseth not the law—

Wherefore, it shall be sanctified; yea, notwithstanding it shall die, it shall be quickened again, and shall abide the power by which it is quickened, and the righteous shall inherit it.

Doctrine and Covenants 88:25-26

This characterization calls to mind a poetic passage from the Book of Mormon in which Mormon contrasts human stubbornness with the earth’s responsiveness to direction from God:

O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth.

For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God. …

Yea, by the power of his voice doth the whole earth shake;

Yea, by the power of his voice, do the foundations rock, even to the very center.

Yea, and if he say unto the earth—Move—it is moved.

Helaman 12:7-8, 11-13

It’s ironic that the word “terrestrial” means “earthly,” and yet our earth lives according to a celestial law and will one day become “heavenly.” Our task, then, is to follow the earth’s example, obeying God’s law, fulfilling our God-given missions, and becoming what He created us to become. That requires effort—creative effort and developmental effort. But God will help us, and the rewards are immeasurable.

One of my favorite authors when I was a child, Lloyd Alexander, wrote that the muse will “shake you roughly awake at four in the morning,” and he lived that discipline, publishing 48 books in his 52-year writing career. (See Lloyd Alexander, “The Flat-Heeled Muse,” The Horn Book Magazine, April 1965; Teri Harman, “BYU Lloyd Alexander doc, exhibit garner national attention,” ksl.com, 21 June 2012.)

Johann Sebastian Bach composed more than 1,000 musical works in his lifetime. During his early Leipzig years, while serving as cantor of Thomaskirche, he produced a new sacred cantata nearly every week. (See Alex Ross, “The Book of Bach,” The New Yorker, 4 April 2011.)

Of course, more isn’t always better, but I’d rather follow the examples of Alexander and Bach, creating and growing consistently, instead of dying with my music still within me.

Today, I will put to use the embryonic gifts I have received from God, in order to fill the measure of my creation.