I'm not an emotional person. Like many men, I pride myself on being able to flip "the man switch" and dry up any waterworks that would otherwise unsettle the situation and ruin all credibility with myself. I don't know why I'm this way. I guess I just figure there should always be at least one person in control at any given moment.
Looking back on the last few years, I can only think of one time I've cried that I am comfortable admitting. Any true BYU sport fan already knows what I'm talking about: the tear-jerking Beck to Harline touchdown to beat Utah in 2006.
I still get goose bumps when I see the play. As I lay on the couch listening to the radio postgame show, I heard John Beck say something that, as seemingly non-consequential as it may have been, struck me. When asked about the game's ending, he replied, "That's one of the things about BYU. When you're wearing that Y on your helmet, there's always a little bit of magic in the air, and it was great to be a part of that BYU magic."
The words didn't seem cheesy to me. I knew exactly what he meant. Like Beck, I grew up watching BYU come back from four touchdown deficits. I saw last second drives and interceptions to secure victories. As a kid, things could never be so bad as to cause me to stop expecting a miracle. They were normal.
There's always been a sense of awe surrounding BYU, in my eyes. Since coming to BYU, my sense of enchantment surrounding BYU has lessened, but my admiration and overwhelming appreciation for everything that takes place here has only increased.
As I get ready to leave this university, it's hard for me to sum up my feelings as being anything other than a profound sense of gratitude for everything this institution has given me. I can't pin down exactly what it means to have the "BYU experience," but I think I have had it, and it has made me into who I am.
BYU is a unique institution - not only because it may be the only university where students feel comfortable doing "the lawn mower" at a dance, but because, it's a place where reason and faith interact and answer each other in the overall pursuit of truth. To be sure, BYU has its quirks, but even these have become more endearing to me than irritating, over time.
I've been thinking recently of a talk, introduced to me by undoubtedly the most influential educator of my BYU experience, that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave when he was the president of BYU. He devotes the majority of the talk answering the question of whether "the church should even have a university at all?" Surely there are other uses for the large amount of money that is invested in the students at this university. What about temple-building? What about humanitarian and missionary efforts? Aren't there better uses for the church's money?
The very fact the church invests so much into the university should be some indicator of the prime importance of an education gained at BYU and why President Holland called BYU "one of the mighty works of Jehovah."
BYU's uniqueness lies not in that it is cheap or even its LDS environment. It lies in the many times my search for academic knowledge was complimented and even grounded in faith. I've had faithful teachers who recognize that in order to seriously take the Lord's commission to '"love thy neighbor as thyself,' it turns out you have to know stuff." If anything, a BYU education should prepare its students to know how to better love and serve in the world. It should be an education that, as President Holland said, "emphasizes virtue, love, and the saving ordinances of God" and the simple truth that the "mind and heart must expand together."
All too often, the American university compartmentalizes knowledge and fails to integrate it into the whole, thus failing any attempt of producing what Sophocles called an "even-balanced soul" - a soul that is able to sort, prioritize and create a sense of connectedness with the knowledge it acquires, or even declare what among it is good. A compartmentalized education that divorces faith from reason presumes a compartmentalized pupil. In essence, it creates two separate worlds of truth, both failing to reap the blessings of a healthy dialogue between the two. It creates students who, as President Holland said "may not dare to ask the great human questions because their answers appear to be somewhere in the bottom of an academic dumpster."
I love BYU because it has helped me answer some of these "great human questions" or at least frame the way I think about them. Even more importantly sometimes, I've learned to appreciate my faith by understanding the "great human questions" for which the gospel supplies answers.
For me, this has been the magic of BYU, and I, like Beck, am honored to be a part of it. It's been an honor to learn in the same buildings of the past great men and women of BYU, including my own grandfather. I do get emotional when I think about everything the university has given me. It is a part of me, and, to quote another dear friend, "some of the best parts of me." To all those who have made and continue to make BYU what it is, thank you.
Brandon Dabling is the Issues and Ideas Editor for The Daily Universe.
Copyright Brigham Young University 15 Apr 2008
