I've met Lowell L. Bennion once. I phoned him and said I was tired of hearing people talk about his influence in their lives when I had never even met him. I asked if I could drop by and do that.
He graciously agreed.We spoke for about 20 minutes. Actually, I spoke for a good 15 minutes while he listened. And as I rattled on I had the uneasy feeling he was picking up on things about me that I'd tried to hide. In fact, he likely was learning things about me that I didn't know myself.
I thanked him warmly and we parted.
I don't bring this up to make the man look larger than life, but to offer an introduction to Mary L. Bradford's new biography, "Lowell L. Bennion: Teacher, Counselor, Humanitarian" (Dialogue Foundation; 389 pages; $24.95). For I think Bradford has put her finger on the essence of the man. Where most people see him as a great teacher, the truth is Lowell L. Bennion was really a great learner. As William Stafford said of a woman that he admired, "She could always out-listen anybody in the room."
Bennion loved to listen and learn. This, from an early chapter of the book:
A significant friend (for Bennion) was Angus S. Cannon. . . . Angus later described Lowell as "impersonal" in his desire to learn. "You find a lot of guys who try to learn something in order to give themselves airs. Lowell didn't have any of that."
Both young men, "enamored of ideas," sought answers to questions about their faith, reading such books as William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience." They began to realize that different approaches to religion can challenge provincial thinking.
Bradford's book traces Bennion's career like a high-minded and literary "This Is Your Life." Old friends and colleagues surface from the shadows to make comments. Photographs are displayed from time to time. Bradford herself plays the emcee, leading readers chronologically down the decades. (Bennion: the missionary years; the LDS Institute years; the Boys Ranch years). And she spices her chapters with headings that might have come from a Victorian novel: "Honeymoon and Heartbreak," "An Adventure All the Way," "Calm Center in the Storm."
The strongest parts of the book are Bennion's own comments. Bradford catches an advantage many other biographers miss because her subject is still living. And she makes the most of it; drawing on what must have been dozens of hours of interviews. When she has trouble stitching things together, Bennion himself can often supply the thread.
"Lowell L. Bennion" is not a flashy book. Unlike A.N. Wilson in his biography of C.S. Lewis, Bradford doesn't speculate or offer many sweeping interpretations. Sometimes the thread of story could use more context. In its way, her biography is a polar opposite of another LDS historian, Fawn Brodie. Bradford carefully details every source in notes at the end of each chapter. Her writing is clear, precise - never sensational. It's as if she hopes her prose will disappear and reveal Bennion himself perched on the page.
The result is not only a book that will be used as a source by future historians, but a book that uses primary sources to show us a man for our times - a man well-deserving of the effort that went into the telling of his life.
To begin with, Bennion had a running head start on the world. Married at 18 and called away from his wife on a mission to Europe, the boy matured early. The death of the couple's first child gave both Bennion and his wife Merle a certain gravity and resonance that stayed with them throughout their lives. A first-rate education in Europe gave the young man an intellectual edge on others at home. And he put his maturity and intellectual advantages to good use. He was only in his 20s when he became director of the LDS Institute at the University of Utah, but his writings and comments from the era sound like the musings of a man twice his age. When a young female student asks him, "I have two proposals of marriage. Which one should I take?" for instance, Bennion's reply has a touch of Solomon: "What makes you think you should marry either one?"
Still, the peaceful life of a mystic and guru was not his path. It's been said one difference between Christianity and other religions is Christianity's incredible emphasis on activism and forgiveness. Bennion would call on those twin virtues many times in his life. Crossed wires with his superiors eventually forced him to leave the LDS Institute program on principle, a move that sent more shock waves through the LDS community than anyone could have imagined. And - as often happens with great leaders - the struggles and heartache of members of his own family stand in stark contrast to the joy he was able to bring to others through his volunteer efforts and as longtime director of the Salt Lake Community Services Council - an irony that surely gave him pause.
Still, to borrow from Stafford again, Bennion "could always find true north" when he had to; and Mary Bradford's book charts his journey well. It does him justice and does her proud.
As I set the volume aside I thought of a scene from the movie "A Man for All Seasons." Richard - who would eventually play the scoundrel in the tale - comes to Sir Thomas More for career advice. More tells him to become a teacher, but Richard balks.
"But no one will know of me," he complains.
"Well," says More, "you will know, and your students, and God. Not a bad public, that."
Bennion tells Bradford, "I just want to be remembered in the lives of my students." But it's a futile wish. He'll be remembered in the lives of thousands of others as well.
Teacher, counselor, humanitarian - but, most of all a student, Bennion will be an influence for decades after he's gone; not because of his grandeur, but because of his humility. As I read the little quote from Bennion that introduces Chapter 13, I had the feeling he'd summarized his life one simple line, an epitaph in his own hand:
"I used to teach religion," Bennion writes, "now I practice it."
This book will help many of us make similar transitions.