Brandon Davies, BYU Basketball and the Honor Code

George Bernard Shaw stated that to punish is to damage, and you don't mend a person by damaging him. To me this has always meant that to correct someone, you discipline with love. The greatest examples we have of that come from Jesus. When he was presented with the woman taken in adultery, he drew figures in the sand. Weren't these figures the Aramaic or Hebrew words for acts that had been done by those very men in attendance? And then came the words based on love. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone at her. One by one, the men feeling pricked in their hearts, turned and left. Then Jesus asked the woman where her accusers were. She said they all left. Then, with love that she felt, he told her he didn't condemn her and to go and never again forget the love that she was. Those weren't his exact words, but I get that was the meaning. She had simply strayed off the path of her heart.

Then there was the woman that he visited with at the well in Samaria. After he told her all things that she had done even to being with a man that she wasn't married to, did she feel condemned? No, she ran to town and quickly spread the word that she had visited with the Messiah. She wanted to share the great experience she had just had.

On both these occasions, the women were lifted to a higher way of being. They were brought in contact with who they really were on a spirit level and that level was love. Didn't Jesus set the example of not damaging a person with punishment but rather lifting them and motivating them to live in a higher way?

While taking some impact training, we were taught that the physical body and spirit vibrate at different frequencies. To solve issues, we were to remain at the higher spiritual level of vibration and raise the body to that level. We were not to take the spirit down to the body's vibrational frequency. In other words, we were to get out of our heads and make decisions from our hearts.

Wasn't it Einstein who said that problems should not be solved at the same level at which they were created? I recall so well taking classes from Steve Covey where he taught us about synergy. In relationships when there is a problem, he taught that to be synergistic, both parties needed to go to a higher level. At that level, the problems could easily be worked out to the satisfaction and betterment of both.

When I heard the news about Brandon Davies and BYU's honor code and his suspension, I felt sick at heart and like I'd been kicked in the gut. I couldn't shake these feelings. Later, I turned on the BYU-New Mexico basketball game. It was well into the first half. When I saw the score, I turned it off. I didn't have the heart to watch. There was no heart on BYU's part. I felt sicker inside. Later on, I walked into the room where the TV was on while Jimmer was being interviewed. I only caught a portion but enough to hear him say how much this hurt because Davies was like a brother. I knew how much I was suffering inside, and I couldn't even begin to imagine the sufferings of the entire basketball team. How could they play or win? The heart had gone right out of them. Their light had been turned off so to speak.

I recalled an experience with a roommate and the honor code when I was a sophomore at BYU. We lived in Heritage Halls. One of our roommates had transferred mid-year from an out-of-state college. One of her classes required a research paper. She was a very intelligent and truly beautiful girl. Instead of doing the work herself on the research paper, she wrote to a friend in her home state and had her friend send one to her that the friend had done. After she turned in the paper, two of our roommates called the other three of us in to talk about her violation of the honor code. I sat there and said nothing. I was too afraid to speak up and say what I really felt. The girls decided that the original two who brought it up would go to the honor council and turn her in. The girl was called in and action taken. She wasn't dismissed from school, but she quickly moved out of our apartment. I stuffed my feelings and regretted losing her friendship because I had truly loved her.

I recalled this experience as I mulled over the situation with Brandon Davies. I realized that I was reliving this earlier experience and the feelings I never allowed myself to feel. I wasn't just sick at heart over Davies, but I was also sick at heart because I didn't speak my truth over half a century ago and had carried that guilt inside ever since. I felt like what we did echoed of Nazi-ism or Communism where family and friends spied on one another and turned each other in. If I had it to do over again, I would own my power and voice my opinion that before we did anything, we should tell her what we were feeling and contemplating and give her opportunity to speak first. In other words, we should do as Steve Covey now suggests to seek first to understand and then to be understood. We could have met together synergistically and through the power of love created lasting friendships instead of destroying that friendship. We should have intervened when she first mentioned the idea of using another girl's paper. With arms of love surrounding her, we could have offered to go to the library with her, to help her with suggestions, so that she would have felt encouraged to do the work herself instead of remaining silent and then judging her after the fact.

When harsh measures are used, that is the ripple effect sent out into the world. When loving methods are followed, we are sending the ripple effect of love out into the world. It seems to me, there could have been a much more loving way of handling the current situation. First of all to me the honor code is too black and white. Wouldn't it be much better if there were clauses written in for actions taken with a first offense, second offense, and then maybe three strikes but never you're out. Is the law the most important thing or is the person  more important?

At the very least, the kind and more compassionate way would have been to have waited a couple more weeks to take action. Then the whole team, the fans, friends and family would not all have been punished as well. It just cut a deep crater into the hearts and lives of this entire community.

A few years ago, I was over discipline at a Hebrew Religious School. One day, some girls came into my office before school started and told me the gum ball machine was missing. We used this machine as a fundraiser for the youth department. I went into the youth lounge and surely enough, the gum ball machine was no where in sight. I looked around and could not find it. It was time to ring the bell for school to start. Later, after services, I called three boys into my office who had arrived early at school that day. I asked them if they had something to tell me. They all sat there silent. I asked again if they didn't have something to tell me. Finally, one of the boys said, "Janice, I didn't do it." I asked if he was telling the truth, and he said yes. I released him to go to class. I turned and looked at the two remaining boys and asked if they had something to tell me. One of them said he hadn't done it either. I asked if he was telling me the truth. He was. I sent him to class. I turned to the third boy and looked at him with love from my heart. He admitted he had taken the gum ball machine. (Notice, I never mentioned the gum ball machine.) I asked him where it was. He had hidden it behind the couch. I explained to him this wasn't a cheap machine and that he could have damaged or broken it. I asked what he thought his discipline should be. He stared at the floor for a couple of minutes. Then he raised his head and looked me squarely in the eyes and said: "I will never do it again." My heart was full of love for this young man as I asked him: "You mean you are making a commitment to me that you will never do anything like this again, and that I can trust you?" He said yes and never moved his eyes from mine. I said okay and told him he could go to class and thanked him for telling me the truth.

I made a friend that day. That young man went out of his way to always say hi to me. After he graduated, whenever I saw him at functions, he would always give me a hug. Love is the greatest power in the universe, and I think at times we forget how powerful it is. We try to use other methods to control, and they just don't bring about the desired results. I learned from this experience, but I learned because I had been taught higher ways by learned men such as George Bernard Shaw, Stephen R. Covey, and Jesus. Seek first to understand and then to be understood. Be synergistic in solving problems. Let the spirit and heart guide you to solve problems at a higher level than they were created. Don't condemn while teaching. And of course, the ultimate to follow while correcting someone is the example of Jesus so that they feel lifted and motivated to a higher level of living and being.

I would suggest and hope that BYU and the Mormon Church would take steps to alter their honor code so that it functions at a higher level. It shouldn't be a lower law that condemns and drags one down, but rather it should be a higher law that leaves people feeling loved, lifted, and enlightened. Truly, a person is much more valuable than any law or rule and the rules shouldn't damage anyone.

And I believe that all this especially applies to those who have been the victims of abuse. They deserve to be treated with kindness, compassion, and charity. They deserve to be lifted and filled with light and love. Their hearts have been severely damaged and bruised, and those hearts deserve to be reverberated with the ripple effect of love. What happens to one of us, happens to all of us to some degree. We all feel it and are affected by it because we are all interconnected.

Growing up in the Mormon Church, I heard over and over again the solution to situations: "What would Jesus do?" I would ask what would Jesus do in this situation? Would he have used the stone of harsh judgment, public shame and humiliation, and dismissal thrown right at Davies' heart? Or would he have embraced Davies with love and reminded him of who he really is and that is love - the greatest power in the universe. Here is a young man whose hormones overpowered him. But where is his heart? He has admitted to being remorseful and heartbroken - feelings that come straight from the heart. Should those true feelings be crushed with physical stones of the law? Or is there a place for mercy as the great examples of Jesus taught?