Like many miracles of our technological age, the laser has become commonplace.

First demonstrated in 1960, a laser is a device that stimulates atoms or molecules in a medium to emit a special form of energy composed of light waves of a single frequency that move in unison. Such light is said to be "coherent." By contrast, the waves in a beam of conventional light are random and disorderly in their frequency and direction. The name laser, in fact, alludes to the process of creating coherent light, being an acronym for the phrase "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation."

With its light waves thus unified like soldiers moving in lockstep, a laser becomes a precise and powerful force that has been applied in a number of uses to benefit mankind.

Lasers are used in surgery to seal blood capillaries without damaging deeper tissues, to repair the retina of the eye and to cauterize stomach ulcers. Because of the information-carrying capacity of light waves, lasers have been used in glass fibers to carry 40,000 simultaneous telephone conversations. And lasers are used to search and read massive quantities of digital information packed onto pieces of plastic familiar to us as compact discs (CDs) and digital video discs (DVDs).

Like other operations of natural law, lasers remind us of the power there is in a unified force contrasted with the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of randomly applied efforts.

We see this demonstrated in various aspects of the work of the kingdom of God. Under divine inspiration, ward and stake leaders combine and coordinate the talents, energies and time of individual members in a manner that brings spiritual and temporal blessings to the whole body of believers. (See Ephesians 4:11-12.) Missions are organized to channel the full-time work of men and women in proclaiming the gospel and to coordinate it with the efforts of members in the wards and branches of the Church. And pursuant to redeeming the dead, a massive lineage-linked database called the Ancestral File in effect pools the research of thousands of submitters to facilitate the family-history efforts of everyone.

Such unity, in fact, is mandatory. Early in this dispensation, the Lord commanded His covenant people to "be one" and followed the commandment immediately with the strict warning, "If ye are not one ye are not mine" (Doctrine and Covenants 38:27).

Aware that we run the risk, through our fragmentation, of being rejected by the Lord as a people, we ought to be especially vigilant in guarding against factors that hinder or harm the cause of unity. These might include the following:

Animosity among our people. The Church of Jesus Christ has become a global body with a plurality of varying cultures. Wholesome manifestations of that diversity should be accepted and even celebrated, consistent with the 13th Article of Faith. But, like all aspects of earthly existence, culture ultimately is transitory and thus should never be permitted to transcend the eternal unity of purpose that should characterize us as a people. And differences in background, be they regional, sociological or political ought never to be occasion for division, contempt or ridicule one for another.

Murmuring against the Lord or His servants. The Apostle Paul admonished the Philippian saints to "do all things without murmurings and disputings" so they would be blameless before God "in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world" (Philippians 2:14-15). Murmuring always undermines the influence of the Lord's spokesmen in bringing His children to righteousness.

Closely associated with murmuring is resisting righteous instruction, correction and reproof. If it is true that "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) it goes without saying that each of us from time to time will need course corrections, which we ought to receive with humility and grace.

In His intercessory prayer, the Savior asked regarding those who would believe in Him "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us" (John 17:21). In its most proper form, prayer is, in fact, a process of unification wherein we seek to bring our own desires into conformity with the will of the Father in securing blessings for ourselves and others. (See "Prayer" entry in Bible Dictionary, pp. 752-53.)

As we contemplate the perfect unity that exists between the Father and the Son, we come nearer to understanding the oneness to which we must aspire as covenant people of the Lord. In so doing, let us resist those influences that divide us and seek for the laser-like precision and power that unity brings.