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| Good morning brothers and sisters. The weather has been
nice this weekend, not too hot, but obviously summer. Yesterday I got my
sprinkling system up and running after an eight or nine months of
disuse. This kind of reminds me of a bad lead in to our lesson. On one
side of my house, I hit a sprinkler head with my lawn mower...uhhh,
about three years ago. So, for the past three years when the sprinkling
system has operated on that zone, there was a geyser. This is kind of
like an unharnessed fountain of knowledge. Yesterday I finally fixed the
sprinkler. Now that flow of water or metaphorical knowledge is contained
and directed to usefulness. Today's lesson is entitled, "Seek
Learning, Even by Study and Also by Faith." I think the topic of
this lesson is one of the best of the year.
Sally, would you please say the opening prayer for us today. Thanks. Today's lesson is broken into four primary sections in the manual. The sections are:
Let's start with The School of the Prophets. Just what the heck is the School of the Prophets and why is the plural form of the word used instead of the singular form? Yes, Tom. I see that you like to cheat and read the answers of the manual. I often think that the canned answers in the manual are pretty shallow and aimed at promoting a lack of thinking, which is ironic, given the topic of today's lesson. The manual states, "In this school, the leaders of the Church were instructed in gospel doctrine, the affairs of the Church, and other matters. They were to prepare for Church leadership and missionary service." That doesn't answer the question about the plural usage of the word prophet. Why is it the School of the Prophets, plural? Yes, Aaron, in our class it is appropriate on occasion to discuss the writings of Michael Quinn. Thank you for those insights. The word prophet had a very different meaning in the early days of the church. A prophet was one who prophesied. Many people prophesied in the early days of the church. It wasn't until later that Joseph claimed, uhhh, I mean received a revelation that he was the only one who could receive valid revelation for the church. Okay, let's move on to learning by study and by faith. What of this idea of studying by faith? Yes Samantha, what are your thoughts? Wow, thanks for these quotes and scriptures. Let me repeat what Samantha has said. First she gave us a couple of quotes by a great learner, Galileo.
Here are some scriptures.
From Thoreau's Walden:
And last but not least, my personal favorite from the list that Samantha gave to us:
Well, I think this is sufficient for this section. We didn't even have to use any of the canned material from the manual. Thanks again Samantha. I personally like the idea of continuing to learn throughout our lives. I think many of Samantha's quotes from above apply to this concept as well. Any other thoughts on continuing to learn? Thanks Randy. I think you raise some important points. Much of what we learn is steeped in dogmatism. It's pretty amazing that today, dogmatism plays as big of a role as it does. I think the last quote from Samantha plays well to that notion. Where should we be cautious with dogmatism? Religion, yes. History, yes. Some areas of popular science, I think so if I understand your point. I suspect we need to maintain a level of healthy skepticism in all areas of learning. I think we need to be particularly cautious with areas that are not easily verifiable using our standard tools of scientific examination. One of the things that is really amazing to me and many in this room is the tremendous discrepancy between the church history that shows up in this manual from Salt Lake vs. the rich church history that is available to us through scholarly publications. It's almost hard to believe that I am reading a history of the same topic when I read the Distribution Center version and then read the scholarly versions. Why is it that the church is not forthright in proclaiming the truth of it's history? Yes, Lisa, I suspect you are right. The church is focused on organizational preservation and the preservation of power in the current power structure. That is particularly interesting given that the church as originally formed was really more of a loose-knit community of believers, who thought organized religion or institutional religion was a path away from God... Okay let's move onto the next topic. What of education in the temple? This is a confusing one to me. Let me share a personal experience here. A couple of years ago my oldest niece went through the temple, just prior to her traditional Mormon, late teenage marriage. The day after she went through the temple, she made the comment, "Well, that was kind of weird, but we are committing to keep going back." Why would education, supposedly of the highest order, be weird? How many of you thought that the temple experience was weird the first time you went through? Perhaps a more appropriate question would be, "If you don't think the temple ceremonies are weird, why don't you?" I have found peace at times in the Celestial room, when given the time to think and meditate. I have almost found as much peace there as I do walking on a beach, sitting on a rock, watching and listening to a mountain stream, or observing the intricate beauty of a wildflower just below the level of a glacier. These are the places where I learn and feel God. The temple or at least the very last part of the temple ceremony is where I feel I have a short time to learn of or to feel God, unless I am whisked off by a temple worker. Thanks Bryan. I appreciate your insights. Many find learning in trying to understand what the temple ceremony has to do with anything at all. Thanks Brenda. I too wonder why the ceremonies have been changed so much since they were instituted in the mid 1800's. I appreciate the thought process that you use in the temple of trying to analyze what may be offensive to some and perhaps subject to change in the future. Whoa, we have gone over by a couple of minute. Sorry about that. I appreciate your thoughts and insights. For those of you who want to bag priesthood meeting or Relief Society, I have some fixin's for strawberry shortcake in a cooler in the back of my vehicle. See you there if you are interested. Let's bag the prayer today. Next week's lesson is in "Being Not Deceived." That should be a good one.... |