A few years ago, Elder Kearon whispered something to me while I was sitting next to him on the stand. What he said to me… has gone through my mind almost every day since. Here’s what happened:
At the time, I was serving as a counselor in a bishopric. Elder Kearon was not an apostle, but a member of the Presidency of the Seventy and he was visiting our ward. I happened to be sitting next to him during sacrament meeting. In this meeting, there was a musical number that was being performed. So we sat back and prepared to enjoy some music from the choir.
Out of the blue, and too my left, an older woman approached the first row in the chapel. Just before the musical number began, she took her phone out, sat up tall, and started filming the musical number right in front of the stand, closest to Elder Kearon. The bishop of our ward looked over at me. I looked over at him. It was an out of the ordinary situation and I think both of us were caught off guard.
So I leaned over to the bishop and said, “what do you want me to do?” I was assuming he might ask me to go and chat with her. But instead, he said, “ask Elder Kearon!” So I turned to my left and whispered to Elder Kearon… “What do you want me to do?”
He looked at me, then looked at the older woman, and then back at me. He leaned over to me, and with his iconic smile on his face, whispered six words. “Do nothing. Be gentle. Be kind.”
It was that simple.
Elder Kearon was presiding at the meeting. He could have asked me to go and talk to her. He could have waved her off, or told her to stop. He could have made a scene or exerted power. He could have done any number of things to make a point and correct the behavior. But he analyzed the situation through the lens of the Savior and came back with a simple phrase. “Be gentle. Be kind.” No sermon needed.
The wisdom in Elder Kearon’s message to me had the teachings and character of Christ written all over it. In the NIV version of Matthew 11:29, Jesus is described as “gentle” and humble of heart. In Matthew 21:5, Jesus fulfills prophecy by entering Jerusalem on a donkey, symbolizing a gentle, peaceful king rather than a rough warrior. Paul appeals to the meekness and “gentleness” of Christ in 2 Corinthians 10:1. And again, Matthew instinctively shines a light on a passage in Isaiah when he says that Jesus would not “break a bruised reed.” The Jews in Jesus day could not comprehend of a “gentle” Messiah. And yet, time and time again, that is what the Savior exemplified. Even as he was preparing to leave the earth, he promised a “Comforter” that Paul would later describe as gentle.
In this situation and in so many others, there is a way to go about things. And if we’re not gentle and we’re not kind, then we’re probably getting it wrong. We’re probably pushing people away. We’re probably creating enmity where enmity doesn’t need to exist. And if we get it wrong in too many of our interactions with our brothers and sisters, then many of them aren’t going to want to be around.
The best leaders I know have a knack for being able to get things done, make a point, or correct a behavior without making others feel small or embarrassed. They pick their time and their tone and their demeanor carefully. They know that all of it matters. And that their interaction with each person matters. And in some cases they “do nothing.” And sometimes, the best course of action is to do nothing.
And if you’re in a situation where you do need to do something, or say something… “Be gentle. Be kind.”
