More Miracles

Last week I saw the power of the Priesthood. This week I've seen how much better my life works when I go with God's plan, and His help, instead of trying to figure things out on my own.

Saturday was the first day of finals. I took two, and did decently--not great, but well enough for their respective classes. 

Yesterday, Monday, I decided to take my Chem 113 final. Chem 113 is the freshman chemistry lab class--I got to use beakers and mix chemicals and burn my hands with acid, it was great! Anyway, I did horrifically on the final exam. I won't know my score for a few weeks, but I would be confident in saying it is my worst test so far, ever.

About 9/10 of the way through the chem final, I realized one thing that was horribly, horribly wrong with my testing experience. I had not started the test with a prayer. 

At BYU, there is a saying that the holiest building on campus is the testing center, because so many desperate, earnest prayers are offered up there. I actually think this is a wonderful thing. We should all ask God for help in our tests, in the Heber J. Grant testing center or wherever else we may be!

And I had completely forgotten that. I was taking this test with an attitude not so much of "How can I prepare myself to be an instrument in God's hands, with His help" as "Hey, lets go show everyone just how awesome Jason Ray is! It'll be fun!" (Hint: Jason Ray is not very awesome. Just a really little bit.)

This realization hit me too late for my chem final, but I went at my American Heritage final today with a different attitude. I made sure to consecrate not just my final, but my entire day, to God (as part of a larger effort to consecrate my entire life). My performance was correspondingly much better. 

Such a simple answer, yet so hard for me to grasp!

This is not the only reason I know God is better at all this than I am. I have had several things happen today that basically scream in my face "Jason, stop trying to do this on your own, just turn to God and it will turn out better than you can imagine!" 

I'll try to take my last final--my final final--with the same attitude I had today. And even if it doesn't turn out quite how I think I want it to, I know it will happen exactly as God does. 

Of Priesthood Blessings and Choir Concerts

The forward to "Life of Pi" says that it is "a story that will make you believe in God." Tonight, I gained one of those stories for my very own.

Tonight was the University Choral choir concert. At the beginning of the semester, I was not planning on being in Choral; however, I thought about it and prayed about it and decided that it was the right thing for me to do, even though it would put me up to 18 credits.

This means that tonight was a night I had been preparing for and working towards for an entire semester.

Only one problem--Sunday night I came down with a bad cold that made my throat ache and burn at the same time,  made me wish I could lie in bed all day eating chicken noodle soup instead of going to classes. Singing? Out of the question.

Monday night I was reading in the scriptures about miracles. I came across a passage in Matthew: "And Jesus went all about Galilee...  healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." As I read that, a couple of things clicked.
a. Christ is really good at healing. Like, so good He kind of got a rep for it in His mortal life.
b. How many times have I heard it said that God wants to grant us our righteous desires?
c. I live within ten feet of five worthy Priesthood holders.
So all I had to do was get a Priesthood blessing and have some faith, and I would be healed to sing on Wednesday! I prayed to ask God how He felt about that plan. The feelings I got were very positive--yes, go for it, this is good, this is right. I asked two of my roommates to give me a blessing; I was blessed that I would be able to sing in the concert.

Two days later. I woke up this morning feeling a good deal better than I had the two days previous, but still not great. Yet, even though I could sing a few scales (very gently of course), I had one big problem--coughing fits. Periodically, throughout this entire day, I broke into massive coughing fits. These aren't cute little girly coughs, these are shake-my-entire-body-and-yours-too-if-you-stand-too-close coughs. The kind that make people duck for cover while they're walking down the hall.

I called my mom a little before noon to ask her opinion on my performing that night. She pointed out not only that my coughing fits could be hugely distracting to performers and audience alike, but that I might have been thinking about this the wrong way--not everyone gets healed. And that's not because God is lazy or spiteful, it's because He sees things more clearly than we do, and He knows what we really need. And sometimes what we really need is to get sick.

This was incredibly hard for me to accept. I had been working toward this night for an entire semester! I took 18 credits, devoted hours to practice and rehearsal every week, gave up things I would have liked to do, so that I could sing in this concert. And just like that, I was supposed to give it all up?

Well, yeah, if that's what God wanted. After a good 30 minutes on the phone with Mom, I resigned myself to not singing in the concert. I would buy a ticket and watch them instead. That way I would still be supporting the choir, even if I couldn't sing in it.

According to the syllabus for University Choral, the only way to be excused from singing in the concert is to talk to the director, Dr. Broomhead. Accordingly I went to our rehearsal 15 minutes early, accosted the director, and explained the situation. Then I asked if he still wanted me to sing in the choir.

"Does it hurt when you sing?"
"No..."
"Then go ahead."
"Even if I start coughing?"
"If you cough in rehearsal, no problem, just step out until you stop. If you cough in the show... well, we'll just take our chances."

And so, just like that, I was singing in the show again.

The rehearsal was tough. As expected, I coughed. A lot. And couldn't really sing half of my usual range. I had to leave early to go to class, so I didn't get to touch base with Dr. Broomhead again until just before the show. As I walked in I asked one more time if he wanted me to sing, even if I started coughing.

"Yep! Just go for it!"

I ate a cough drop and prayed some more.

Here is where the miracle happened. From the moment I walked into the De Jong (pronounced De Yong) concert hall until I was already walking back to my dorm after the show, I did not cough once. Not only did I not cough, but I was actually able to sing! It wasn't the best singing I have ever done, but it was confident and powerful.

And oh, it was exhilarating. Performing in front of an audience--an audience that is rumored to have contained President Uchtdorf--was an experience I will not soon forget. Feeling the connection between myself, the rest of the choir, the conductor, and the audience was amazing. The new heights that we, the choir, rose to in response to the challenge of performing were awesome, inspiring. In between songs, I couldn't stop smiling a big, goofy smile.

And knowing that I was singing on a voice given to me by God, by the atonement of Jesus Christ, knowing that without a Priesthood blessing I would probably be sitting in the audience--way in the back of the audience so that my coughing fits wouldn't distract anyone--made it all the sweeter.

How Far is Heaven?

“Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
--1 Corinthians 2:9


One of the things I like to think about the most is, what is heaven like? What will we do there? How will we act?

When I was a kid, I thought heaven would be like it is portrayed in Saturday's Warrior: people walking around on a cloud wearing scrubs, occasionally breaking into choreographed song-and-dance numbers. Not very interesting, in my childlike opinion... I hoped heaven would get better by the time I got back there.


Since then I have become somewhat wiser (I hope). Here is what I think heaven will be like.


Family. Last summer was the Watson family beach reunion. One duplex beach house, 20 aunts and uncles, about a million cousins. I spent the week with the three of my cousins who are closest to me in age. We went on random shopping adventures; we stayed up way too late watching movies and goofing off; we talked about the gospel while floating in the waves. When we came inside, we played games with aunts and uncles or chased around energetic little cousins.
Through the week, I began to realize why it is so important that our families be with us in heaven. I played peek a boo, watched Phineas and Ferb, joked, laughed, played, splashed, and decided I wanted my life to be like this forever. And that is the promise of the gospel—forever!


Music. A few minutes ago, I went tunnel singing. Tunnel singing is a BYU freshman tradition in which musically inclined people go to an acoustically excellent tunnel by the Marriot center on Sunday nights to sing hymns. The spirit I feel there... I usually show up five to ten minutes late. As I walk up to the tunnel, I can hear the people who are already there singing, singing praises, lifting up their voices high to heaven. I am able to blend my voices with theirs, and without a conductor, without any coercion or any reason to be there other than our own desires, we sing!
When heaven wanted to announce that most magnificent event, the birth of the Savior, they didn't set up a pyrotechnics show or a circus. They sent a choir.


Learning. “And that is how the properties of super-fluid helium strengthen my testimony!” So said my chemistry teacher this semester, Dr. Woodfield. The weird thing is... he was right. You see, helium does not become liquid until extremely low temperatures, about -269 degrees Celsius. Most things become solid a little bit past that point, and we then say that they are perfectly ordered. Helium doesn't. Instead of becoming a solid, it becomes super-fluid, like a liquid only liquid-er. Anything the water in your glass does, this super-fluid helium does even more. Interestingly, we also say that this super-fluid helium is perfectly ordered.
How does that work? I can get a solid crystal being ordered, but not a liquid! I just don't see how that happens!
Here's another analogy. Think of a beautiful waltz; the dancers have practiced and prepared to dance this number for years and years, perfecting their technique. They move with grace, with strength, they move perfectly. Now imagine you are down on the dance floor instead of watching from the stands. Dancers whirl around you in a confusing whirl, twirling and stepping and seeming but a breath away from collision. From your spot on the dance floor, you cannot see the perfect order of the dance—you only see chaos.
Such is life. We don't always understand what's going on or how it fits into God's plan, but that's because we are down on the dance floor. We don't really get super-fluid helium. We are but mortals.
Don't you feel great that you know that now? Heaven will be a place of ceaseless learning.


Friendship. I have been blessed with so many amazing friends I sometimes wonder if some saint accidentally gave a messenger angel my name instead of his, because there is no way I have done enough to deserve all these blessings. Friends who are my age, friends who are older or younger, friends back home, friends at BYU. Friends who I talk to for hours at a time, friends who are willing to do crazy stuff with me for no particular reason.
I have a ton of great friends. I am 18 years old.
How many friends will I have once I re-realize my true age?


Food. Every year, my family goes to Lyon Farms and picks box upon box of strawberries. Every year I hear someone say something along the lines of, “If heaven doesn't have strawberries, I'm not going.”
But come on—it's heaven. There's gotta be strawberries! And southwest eggrolls. And cookout milkshakes. And enchiladas.


Beauty. Every time I am walking around campus and glance up at Mount Timpanogos, it takes my breath away. I live in such a beautiful place, surrounded by glorious mountains, with an open, varied, gorgeous sky (I'm big on sky). And lets not forget where I came from, North Carolina, the land of trees and flowers and sandy beaches.
I no longer think we will be walking around on clouds in heaven, but I could imagine walking around on sandy beaches.


Every day of my life I realize how great this plan is. Me, little old Jason Ray, can grow up and live in a place so amazing I can't even comprehend it? Wow. That kinda rocks. A lot.

Dancing Through Life

A missionary in my ward, Elder Englund, had a t-shirt that he would wear to service projects. It had a picture of a big, square-jawed cartoon man on it, and the words “Bring Me the Horizon.” I asked him once what the square-jawed man was from. “I dunno, I just like what the shirt says!”

I played around with this phrase for a few months, and finally decided to adopt it as a sort of personal motto. I say it to myself whenever I run: Bring me the horizon. I will run far and fast and hard, and I will reach out and take it. (Don't ask me what “it” is. I don't know either).

One of the requirements for the old Duty to God program was to run 6 miles in an hour or less. When I attempted this I was woefully unprepared, and I powered through it on nothing but adrenaline and willpower—there was very little muscle involved in the process. Around the 4^th mile I thought I was about to collapse, and I started a continuous pep talk to keep myself moving. Jason! Keep running! Go, don't stop, keep going, take that horizon, give it everything you have and then give it everything you don't, just don't stop running!

I made it. Fifty-one minutes four seconds. Kind of a pathetic time for a 10k, but it still makes me happy to think that I finished.

Right now I'm at college. Nowhere in BYU's “Requirements to Graduate” does it mention running; my challenges here are different. Here my training isn't for a six mile run but for a chemistry midterm. But still, as I walk into the testing center with a small stack of scratch paper in one hand and my trusty TI-84 in the other, my mindset is the same. Come on! bring it on! I'll take this test, I'll make it bow down and admit my mastery, I'll show it who's boss. Bring me the horizon!

And yet everything is not the same. When I see the small black numbers on the screen I feel not the giddy post-run euphoria I felt after running six miles, but an aching disappointment. That's it? That's my great achievement? That is the result of my weeks of work, preparation, endless effort?

One of my favorite songs (it's #1 on the “Top Ten List of Songs Jason Sings in the Shower,” if you were curious) is “Dancing Through Life,” from the musical Wicked. It is a fun song, with a catchy tune.

Fiyero, who later becomes the scarecrow, sings this song as he arrives at his new school. “Life is painless for the brainless,” he sings, trying to convince his classmates to lighten up and forget about schoolwork. Great message, right?

So while it is one of my favorite songs, I tend to laugh about it in the way I laugh about a dog chasing its tail or my 10 year old sister telling me she is taller than me.

When I was preparing my schedule for my first semester of classes in college, I asked my older sister's opinion as to what I should take. “Take a dance class,” she advised. “Social dance is a good one to start out with.” I added it to my schedule.

I guess I owe my sister a debt of gratitude, because it turns out that I absolutely love dancing. It is one of my passions, my joys, maybe even as much as singing is my passion and my joy. When I dance I feel happy, I feel smooth, I feel confident and accomplished and a little bit sexy. When I dance I feel right.

One day as I was singing Dancing Through Life, I thought about the dancing that I do—the elegant Foxtrot, the stately Waltz, the savvy Cha Cha. A thought came to me in the way thoughts often do, complete and powerful. Maybe... maybe there are other meanings to the phrase “Dancing Through Life.” Maybe for me it doesn't mean acting like nothing matters, it means moving through life with the grace, the control, and the flow that I feel when dancing.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. When I say “Bring me the horizon,” when I attack the world like a foe to be vanquished, I will most likely end up flat on my butt. The world has been here a lot longer than I have; it isn't going anywhere just because I start banging on it with my toy sword. But if I move through the world with grace and with control, with precise movements and exact steps, then I will actually do things, I will be able to accomplish what I desire and make lasting changes and...

Wait a second, I'm forgetting something—I'm not a very good dancer. I stumble. I trip over my own feet. I forget the steps, I lead the wrong way, I lose my focus and my cool and I fail. Is this the way I want to dance through life, stumbling and falling? No! But how can I do it any other? How can I become the person I want to be, how can I change the very world, if I trip over my own feet?

Then I remember. I was not the one sent to change the world, but to be an instrument in the hands of the one who was. There is a Master Dancer (to give Him another name), and He never trips, He never falls, He moves with perfect grace. If I fall, He can catch me. If I stumble, He can set my feet right.

And so I was wrong on two accounts: first I thought I must attack the world, I must conquer it, I must make it bow down to my will. Next I thought that I would dance through it expertly, gracefully, moving with the rhythm and music of the universe.

If I fight, I lose; if I try to dance on my own, I fall.

And so we go, not I alone, but we together. He and I. The Master Dancer and his pupil.  

God's Love in a Grand Piano

Today was just one of those days.

Last weekend was absolutely fantastic. Truly magical--I got to spend a lot of time with some really fantastic people, I dressed up like a scarecrow, I danced like no tomorrow.

And then came today. Maybe it was the fall after the weekend's rise, like the ebbing of the tide. Maybe life is just like that sometimes. Whatever the cause, today I felt down. Like meh. Like nothing was going quite right for me, and like I couldn't get anything right.

As my usual retreat in situations such as this is music, I decided to take a break from pretending I was doing calculus to sing. I like to sing in the Harris Fine Arts Center (HFAC), in one of the practice rooms in the basement. I especially like these practice rooms because each and every one comes equipped with a (well maintained and in tune) piano, and while I do spend most of my time singing, there is something very cathartic about playing 5 minutes of Klaus Badelt and Kenneth Cope. Even better, a few of the rooms have a grand piano!

Just one problem. I am not the only one who loves these practice rooms; they are often quite packed, sometimes completely filled. When they are full I am forced to descend another set of stairs in search of an empty organ practice room. Finding harpsichords in the organ practice rooms may have been awesome, but there is something fulfilling, something solid, about a piano's keys beneath my fingers.

With this in mind, I started my walk down the long hall, peering from door to door, looking for an empty room. As I started my walk, I began a silent prayer. Today was hard, but I know you love me anyway. Please... help me find an open practice room, one with a good piano. A Grand Piano, even! I started walking.

As I proceeded down the hall, seeing full practice room after full practice room, I said another prayer. I know you could make a grand piano appear here if you wanted to, but you don't need to. I will know you love me even without a grand piano, and I'll be ok eventually. I'll get over this slump. If all the practice rooms are full, I can go downstairs! It's fine, really it is.

I reached the end of the hall. I looked at the last door. It was open, and the room was dark. I stepped forward, turned on the light, and saw a grand piano.

My Gracenotes

Saving grace. That grace which lifts up a poor, broken, downtrodden soul, a soul burdened by sin and by guilt, a soul that at some times desires nothing more but the end of existence, of feeling, of conscious thought, a soul that desires the mountains to fall upon him to hide his crimes from God… the grace which lifts up this soul, comforts him, heals him, nourishes him, succors him, plants in him seeds of an unshakeable, unquenchable faith, gives him joy where once was pain, gives him hope where once there was despair, which makes him into more than the fallen, lost being he was, which makes him into a Man, which makes him into a Saint, which makes him into a Son of the Living God. That is saving grace.

I walk along a sidewalk, glistening from a recent rain, and enjoy the beauty of the world around me. The trees sway slightly in the breeze, nodding to the rhythm of a song that I cannot hear. Birds chirp in the trees, joy made music, calling to one another and perhaps just to me. In the distance I see a mother and her child, walking up to their front door; the child reaches for his mother’s hand, instinctively, a motion he has made thousands of times before. The sun, temporarily hidden behind a cloud, bursts forth in light and glory and wonder, and I cannot help the smile that comes to my lips, the feeling of joy sharp as a knife, gentle as a cloud, and bright as the son whose light I live in.

Special thanks to Brian Doyle, who wrote an essay entitled “Gracenotes;” little anecdotes, observations, biographies and thoughts related to grace. The idea for this essay was that it could be pulled from his (much longer) essay.

Also, special thanks to Alma the Younger, who gives me a fantastic example of what saving grace is, and of living by grace.