Hey
:)
Quick
update about the week. Another change with Elder Licea, here in Compañia
- the Center. I`m still DL. Now Roberto is the Executive Secretary.
The photos of the little girls from the link a couple of weeks ago are
twins (non identical) that I met on the bus a couple of weeks ago. They
were going to an amusement park with their dad. They're 5 too :)
I've been teaching an English Class of about 20 students for the last
several weeks. I`ve been enjoying it and we`ve already found 4 new
investigators through the class.
Now
a collection of excerpts from recent inspirational talks I`ve read:
Hugh
Nibley & Joseph Smith
A
young man once long ago claimed he had found a large diamond in his field
as he was ploughing. He put the stone on display to the public free of
charge, and everyone took sides. A psychologist showed, by citing some
famous case studies, that the young man was suffering from a well-known
form of delusion. An historian showed that other men have also claimed to
have found diamonds in fields and been deceived. A geologist proved that
there were no diamonds in the area but only quartz: the young man had been
fooled by a quartz. When asked to inspect the stone itself, the geologist
declined with a weary, tolerant smile and a kindly shake of the head. An
English professor showed that the young man in describing his stone used
the very same language that others had used in describing uncut diamonds:
he was, therefore, simply speaking the common language of his time. A
sociologist showed that only three out of 177 florists' assistants in four
major cities believed the stone was genuine. A clergyman wrote a book to
show that it was not the young man but someone else who had found the
stone.
Finally
an indigent jeweler named Snite pointed out that since the stone was still
available for examination the answer to the question of whether it was a
diamond or not had absolutely nothing to do with who found it, or whether
the finder was honest or sane, or who believed him, or whether he would
know a diamond from a brick, or whether diamonds had ever been found in
fields, or whether people had ever been fooled by quartz or glass, but was
to be answered simply and solely by putting the stone to certain
well-known tests for diamonds. Experts on diamonds were called in. Some of
them declared it genuine. The others made nervous jokes about it and
declared that they could not very well jeopardize their dignity and
reputations by appearing to take the thing too seriously. To hide the bad
impression thus made, someone came out with the theory that the stone was
really a synthetic diamond, very skilfully made, but a fake just the same.
The objection to this is that the production of a good synthetic diamond
120 years ago would have been an even more remarkable feat than the
finding of a real one.
We
have never been very much interested in "proving" the Book of
Mormon; for us its divine provenance has always been an article of faith,
and its historical aspects by far the least important thing about it.
Nibley believed the Book of
Mormon was a diamond that could cut glass. It slashed through the falsities of
modern materialism and humbled the mighty to the dust. The book and its message
meant everything to him. The ploughboy prophet, much as Nibley may have loved
him, was subordinated to his precious find in the field.
Tracking down references to
Joseph Smith in the indexes of Nibley's collected works, I found the largest
concentration in the reprint of a talk Nibley gave at the Sunstone Symposium in
1989 on "Criticizing the Brethren." It is the only place I know of where Joseph comes to center
stage, and we finally get a view of Nibley's thoughts about the man. He called
in Joseph on this occasion to address an issue that frequently troubles
intellectuals: how to deal with criticism of church leaders. Nibley used Joseph
Smith both as a model of an authority—the first among the Brethren—and also as
the target of criticism. Nibley tries to show how Joseph operated in each of
these roles, leader and target, as an example for modern church leaders and
modern church members. The point he wanted to make was that Joseph was
constantly under attack from lesser men who did not value him, but his reaction
was not to get upset. He rolled with the punches. Joseph was open, free, and
searching, and he allowed all men the same privilege. He was inclined to leave
evil to the Lord rather than cracking down.
I was interested to find that
the Joseph Smith in this essay was an expanded version of the ploughboy that
Snite defended. Nibley portrays Joseph as the simple innocent, assaulted by
scornful, arrogant, and ultimately unknowing critics. Joseph Smith did not lay
claim to high intellect or worldly might, Nibley reminds us. He simply reported
what had happened to him. "He spoke only of what he had seen with his
eyes, heard with his ears, and felt with his hands." And yet, he stumped them all. Nibley let Brigham Young drive
home the point. "The whole Christian doctrine, as Brigham Young put it,
'simmered down . . . into a snuffbox, . . . but, when I
found "Mormonism," I found that it was higher than I could reach,
. . . deeper than I was capable of comprehending and calculated to
expand the mind . . . from truth to truth, from light to light,
. . . to become associated with the Gods and angels.' " Nibley loved for the simple and plain to outfox the clever and
wise. He spent his life showing how the ploughboy surpassed them all.
Today I would like to share
with you several powerful and true accounts of magnanimous acts and liken them
to what the Savior taught. I hope that through these examples we might be able
to consider how we can magnify this characteristic in our lives. I should
mention that in an engineering ethics class that I teach, one of the
assignments given is for each class member to take a personal value, such as
magnanimity, and try living it completely for a week. The result of this
assignment generally provides a new awareness of the positive effects of
incorporating such ideals in our lives. You might consider such an assignment
today as an experiment on magnanimity.
The first story is an
inspiring illustration of true forgiveness and an example of being raised far
above revenge. It seems that the elements of war often provide the grounds for
magnanimous actions. This story took place in the course of the atrocities of
war when an enemy soldier pursued a young civilian woman and her brother down a
street. The siblings became cornered in an angle of a wall, and the brother was
slain before his sister's eyes. She subsequently dodged down an alley, leaped a
wall, and escaped. Later captured, and having been trained as a nurse, she was
forced by the enemy authorities to work in a military hospital. Into her ward
was brought, one day, the same soldier who had slain her brother. He was very
ill. A slight inattention on the nurse's part would insure his death. The young
woman faced a bitter struggle in her mind. Vengeance was a powerful conviction,
as was the impression of love. In the end, the better side of her conquered,
and she nursed him as carefully as any other patient in the ward. The soldier
had recognized the young lady as well, and, one day, being unable to restrain
his curiosity, he asked his nurse why she had not let him die. She respectfully
replied to him, "I am a follower of him who said 'Love your enemies and do
them good.'" This statement caused the soldier to ponder the situation for
a long time. At last he responded to her, "I never knew that there was
such a religion. If that is your religion tell me more about it, for I want
it." (Story paraphrased from Harry Emerson Fosdick, Twelve Tests of
Character [New York: Association Press, 1941], pp. 166–67.)
The young nurse truly had
adequate reason to at least have some other person administer medical help to
the young soldier. But she understood what the Savior taught about forgiveness
of enemies. In the story's end we see the beginning of another story. The
follow-up story would likely result in a new direction for the life of the
soldier. His life would likely be directed toward goodness, service, and love
for mankind. It would be a life where he would delight in doing good. Thus we
get a glimpse of the result of magnanimous actions. They not only allow good to
be done on a one-on-one basis but open the door, by example and precept, for
additional magnanimous actions.The next story, which is equally instructive, is an episode in the life of the distinguished Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
When Robert E. Lee was a cadet at West Point, a classmate took a violent and irrational dislike to him. The animosity persisted into later life. For many years this fellow officer made malicious attacks on Lee. One day a mutual acquaintance asked Lee what he thought of this individual. To the questioner's surprise, Lee spoke in the highest terms of him. Then his questioner said slyly, "I guess you don't know what he's been saying about you for years." "You have not asked me," Lee replied, "for his opinion of me. You have asked me for my opinion of him." [As related by James G. Gilkey in Stanley I. Stuber and Thomas Curtis Clark, eds., Treasury of the Christian Faith: An Encyclopedic Handbook of the Range and Witness of Christianity (New York: Association Press, 1949), pp. 775–76
Magnifying Magnamity
There is a couple of the recent reads.
There will be more forthcoming...
Elder Parry Harrison
No comments:
Post a Comment