In The Eternal Everyday, Elder Quentin L. Cook said some bold things that many people in the modern world need to hear. Notably, he focussed his message on the need for humility, speaking out against boastful social media posts and almost every other claim to superiority. He counselled us to exercise humility and Christlike love for others rather than trying to belittle them or elevate ourselves.
I have previously thought that if Pride is "the universal sin, the great vice" as President Benson described it, then humility must be a great virtue, and the world needs it now more than ever. There are many social trends that feed on and exacerbate people's sense of pride, encouraging them to take pride in aspects of themselves over which they have no control, like their nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or skin color. In my opinion, being proud of any of those things makes very little sense. Of course, in my opinion, it makes little sense to take pride in anything at all. It makes some sense to be proud of our accomplishments, and I think that a certain amount of that kind of pride may even be healthy, but when we compare that which we have done and can do against that which God has done and can do, we see that we really don't have a whole lot of room to boast.
Pride is a terrible problem that I see too much in today's world, including in myself. I sometimes suffer from an inflated sense of my own importance. I think that almost everyone has at least some amount of trouble with pride, in one form or another. And in today's world, the pride seems shockingly overt and straightforward. Some openly and unapologetically acknowledge their pride. I wouldn't be surprised if some have even bragged about it. This world has a serious pride issue, and the only way I can think of fighting this issue is to take a personal commitment to try to be humble. If pride is the problem, surely humility is the solution.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
Saturday, January 6, 2018
The First Lesson Plan of the New Year
I have recently been assigned a new Primary manual and new teaching partners. As a team, we're going to have to establish who is teaching when. For now, all we've decided is that I'm going first.
This year, our Primary class is learning from the Old Testament, starting with a lesson on what happened before the beginning. Seriously, the creation is literally the first thing that happens in the Old Testament, but we're not going to cover that until two weeks from now. Until then, we're going to focus on the premortal existence, and I plan to teach it a little bit differently than I had taught my previous lessons.
When teaching about the Doctrine and Covenants and early church history, there was a continuing story linking almost every week's lesson with the lessons that go before and after it. As such, it was important to cover each section of the story and how they relate to each other, even if those connections aren't clearly spelled out in the scriptures. Since my class loved to read, and the manual explained the stories fairly clearly, I usually asked my students to take turns reading selected paragraphs from the manual, which we would then discuss as a class. This was a great way to encourage participation, both in reading and in discussion, and get the story across to the class.
However, for this lesson at least, there isn't much of a story that needs to be continued from one lesson to another. Next week's lesson will add more detail to the situation we'll learn about in this week's lesson, but the story doesn't really get started until the week after that. This lesson is more like a preface, and it focusses more on the doctrine than on the story. That's good news for me, in a way, because it means that it makes more sense to use scriptures than the manual.
So, here's my plan: After getting all the introductions out of the way, I will ask questions listed in or inspired by the manual, and I'll give the kids a chance to answer them. After the kids have given an answer or two (or none, if they can't guess), we'll turn to the scriptures, and I'll ask one of the kids to read a few verses that tell us the answer to the question. Then we'll discuss the question and answer for a bit and move on to the next question.
One potential downside to using this method is the time it takes to look up scriptures. When I was having the children read out of the manual, I could simply hand the manual to them and let them read the paragraph I pointed to. But I don't want to just hand the kids scriptures with verses highlighted and ready to read. I want them to learn how to search the scriptures and find verses themselves. That skill is less important now that we have digital scriptures that are easy to navigate and search through, but I don't want my Primary kids to be completely hopeless with a physical set of scriptures. We'll at least try using physical scriptures to find the relevant verses. If searching the scriptures ends up taking too much class time, either I'll reduce the number of questions I'm asking or I'll switch back to digital scriptures. That's something I'll have to figure out in the classroom.
Before that, I'll need to decide what questions I'll want to ask and which scriptures I'll use to answer them. Thankfully, the lesson manual already provides a fair number of questions, with scripture references related to them. We'll definitely want to use Abraham 3, since it covers many of the key points of the lesson. Alma 34 and Alma 40 might be useful for covering the middle parts of the plan. And there are several verses in D&C 76 that we could use to discuss the three degrees of glory.
I've made a list of some scriptures we'll want to use, and I made it on paper so I can bring it into the classroom with me. I hope it doesn't take too terribly long to look the verses up in physical scriptures. If it does, I might have to cut some scriptures out and explain those points of doctrine by paraphrasing.
I feel fairly well-prepared. Essentially, this is a basic Plan of Salvation lesson, with emphasis on the Premortal Spirit World and on how we were taught this plan before we were born. With my current plans, plus some time to introduce ourselves and the Old Testament, I should be able to fill all the time I'll have and get this new year off to a good start.
This year, our Primary class is learning from the Old Testament, starting with a lesson on what happened before the beginning. Seriously, the creation is literally the first thing that happens in the Old Testament, but we're not going to cover that until two weeks from now. Until then, we're going to focus on the premortal existence, and I plan to teach it a little bit differently than I had taught my previous lessons.
When teaching about the Doctrine and Covenants and early church history, there was a continuing story linking almost every week's lesson with the lessons that go before and after it. As such, it was important to cover each section of the story and how they relate to each other, even if those connections aren't clearly spelled out in the scriptures. Since my class loved to read, and the manual explained the stories fairly clearly, I usually asked my students to take turns reading selected paragraphs from the manual, which we would then discuss as a class. This was a great way to encourage participation, both in reading and in discussion, and get the story across to the class.
However, for this lesson at least, there isn't much of a story that needs to be continued from one lesson to another. Next week's lesson will add more detail to the situation we'll learn about in this week's lesson, but the story doesn't really get started until the week after that. This lesson is more like a preface, and it focusses more on the doctrine than on the story. That's good news for me, in a way, because it means that it makes more sense to use scriptures than the manual.
So, here's my plan: After getting all the introductions out of the way, I will ask questions listed in or inspired by the manual, and I'll give the kids a chance to answer them. After the kids have given an answer or two (or none, if they can't guess), we'll turn to the scriptures, and I'll ask one of the kids to read a few verses that tell us the answer to the question. Then we'll discuss the question and answer for a bit and move on to the next question.
One potential downside to using this method is the time it takes to look up scriptures. When I was having the children read out of the manual, I could simply hand the manual to them and let them read the paragraph I pointed to. But I don't want to just hand the kids scriptures with verses highlighted and ready to read. I want them to learn how to search the scriptures and find verses themselves. That skill is less important now that we have digital scriptures that are easy to navigate and search through, but I don't want my Primary kids to be completely hopeless with a physical set of scriptures. We'll at least try using physical scriptures to find the relevant verses. If searching the scriptures ends up taking too much class time, either I'll reduce the number of questions I'm asking or I'll switch back to digital scriptures. That's something I'll have to figure out in the classroom.
Before that, I'll need to decide what questions I'll want to ask and which scriptures I'll use to answer them. Thankfully, the lesson manual already provides a fair number of questions, with scripture references related to them. We'll definitely want to use Abraham 3, since it covers many of the key points of the lesson. Alma 34 and Alma 40 might be useful for covering the middle parts of the plan. And there are several verses in D&C 76 that we could use to discuss the three degrees of glory.
I've made a list of some scriptures we'll want to use, and I made it on paper so I can bring it into the classroom with me. I hope it doesn't take too terribly long to look the verses up in physical scriptures. If it does, I might have to cut some scriptures out and explain those points of doctrine by paraphrasing.
I feel fairly well-prepared. Essentially, this is a basic Plan of Salvation lesson, with emphasis on the Premortal Spirit World and on how we were taught this plan before we were born. With my current plans, plus some time to introduce ourselves and the Old Testament, I should be able to fill all the time I'll have and get this new year off to a good start.
Friday, January 5, 2018
Violence in Scripture
Yet, I don't think we should altogether cut violence out of the media we consume (assuming that the media we consume includes the books we read). The scriptures include countless stories where the heroes use violence. Nephi kills Laban. David kills Goliath. Ammon killed at least a few Lamanites. And who knows how many people Captain Moroni killed, yet we're told that "if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever" (Alma 48:17). He sounds like someone we should be like, and he was the leader of an army.
I don't think that violence is always bad. If it was, it would have been bad for Nephi and Ammon and Captain Moroni to be violent, meaning that they were all setting bad examples. I am convinced that there are some circumstances under which violence is acceptable, and sometimes maybe even good.
Maybe violence is only good when God commands it. Nephi was commanded to kill Laban, Ammon supposed that he had been commanded to use violence as well, and Moroni also was following God's commandments by going to war. Maybe the use of violence was okay at those times because God said it was okay.
But that reminds me of the Euthyphro Problem, which asks if things are good because God commands them or if God commands them because they're good. Previously, I said that I think that God's laws aren't actually God's laws. I don't think He made them up. I think that He learned them, and now He's teaching us. I think that there are underlying reasons for all of God's commandments, and that those reasons go deeper than "because God said so."
So, what does that mean for violence? Would that mean that Nephi killing Laban, David killing Goliath, and Captain Moroni killing an untold number of Lamanites would all have been the right thing to do, even if God hadn't expressly commanded them? I think so, but then the question is "Why?" Why would violence be acceptable and even commendable then, when it normally isn't?
It may be that God subscribes to the Greater Good philosophy (actually, I think that philosophers call it Utilitarianism, but I may be remembering that wrong). Maybe, violence is normally wrong, but it becomes right when it accomplishes a greater amount of good. The death of Laban was justified by the good it brought about, the killing of Goliath spared countless lives, and the Captain Moroni was waging his war in defence of the Nephites. In each case, more harm was prevented by the violence than was caused by it.
I have to guess that that's the key. Violence is the right answer when it is the best way to bring about the greatest good. Still, there are some problems with this philosophy, and I wouldn't mind going into them later. For now, I feel fairly certain that there are times when violence is bad and there are times when violence is good. Most media still uses violence too often, but that's not to say that violence is never acceptable at all.
I don't think that violence is always bad. If it was, it would have been bad for Nephi and Ammon and Captain Moroni to be violent, meaning that they were all setting bad examples. I am convinced that there are some circumstances under which violence is acceptable, and sometimes maybe even good.
Maybe violence is only good when God commands it. Nephi was commanded to kill Laban, Ammon supposed that he had been commanded to use violence as well, and Moroni also was following God's commandments by going to war. Maybe the use of violence was okay at those times because God said it was okay.
But that reminds me of the Euthyphro Problem, which asks if things are good because God commands them or if God commands them because they're good. Previously, I said that I think that God's laws aren't actually God's laws. I don't think He made them up. I think that He learned them, and now He's teaching us. I think that there are underlying reasons for all of God's commandments, and that those reasons go deeper than "because God said so."
So, what does that mean for violence? Would that mean that Nephi killing Laban, David killing Goliath, and Captain Moroni killing an untold number of Lamanites would all have been the right thing to do, even if God hadn't expressly commanded them? I think so, but then the question is "Why?" Why would violence be acceptable and even commendable then, when it normally isn't?
It may be that God subscribes to the Greater Good philosophy (actually, I think that philosophers call it Utilitarianism, but I may be remembering that wrong). Maybe, violence is normally wrong, but it becomes right when it accomplishes a greater amount of good. The death of Laban was justified by the good it brought about, the killing of Goliath spared countless lives, and the Captain Moroni was waging his war in defence of the Nephites. In each case, more harm was prevented by the violence than was caused by it.
I have to guess that that's the key. Violence is the right answer when it is the best way to bring about the greatest good. Still, there are some problems with this philosophy, and I wouldn't mind going into them later. For now, I feel fairly certain that there are times when violence is bad and there are times when violence is good. Most media still uses violence too often, but that's not to say that violence is never acceptable at all.
Violence in Media
Many of the Youtube videos I watched today shared the opinion that there's too much violence in media, and I think that I'm starting to agree. I had always believed that there were specific pieces of media that had too much violence in them, like entire genres of films and video games, but it has only today occurred to me that there are also too many pieces of media that have an "acceptable" amount of violence in them. One example that is frequently used is Star Wars: A New Hope. It's a classic Action/Adventure Scifi film that isn't too heavy on the "Action" and that teaches some good, valuable, important life lessons. Yet, if Luke Skywalker is set up as a role model, people might get the idea that it's okay to shoot one's way out of problems and that one's greatest achievement might be making some big thing (with lots of people in it) blow up.
One of the keywords to all good stories is "conflict." Conflict drives the action of most, if not all good stories. However, many writers for books, films, video games, and all other forms of media have taken the idea of "conflict" too literally, building stories around physical conflict when they could have used personal or internal conflict instead. I'm reminded of a scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in which Hermione confronts Draco Malfoy, who is gloating the upcoming execution of Buckbeak. In the book, Hermione slaps Malfoy, and in the movie she punches him, and, in my opinion, she shouldn't have done either. I'm not saying that Malfoy didn't deserve what he got. In both versions, he clearly did. But too many stories glorify moments when the hero uses violence against someone when a better response would have been to walk away.
I understand that there aren't always peaceful solutions to some problems, and I even accept that there are some times when violence is appropriate, even in some cases when it's avoidable. But there are an alarming number of stories in our media that focus on and normalize violence. Thankfully, there are also many that don't. But now I find myself wondering how much violence truly is acceptable.
One of the keywords to all good stories is "conflict." Conflict drives the action of most, if not all good stories. However, many writers for books, films, video games, and all other forms of media have taken the idea of "conflict" too literally, building stories around physical conflict when they could have used personal or internal conflict instead. I'm reminded of a scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in which Hermione confronts Draco Malfoy, who is gloating the upcoming execution of Buckbeak. In the book, Hermione slaps Malfoy, and in the movie she punches him, and, in my opinion, she shouldn't have done either. I'm not saying that Malfoy didn't deserve what he got. In both versions, he clearly did. But too many stories glorify moments when the hero uses violence against someone when a better response would have been to walk away.
I understand that there aren't always peaceful solutions to some problems, and I even accept that there are some times when violence is appropriate, even in some cases when it's avoidable. But there are an alarming number of stories in our media that focus on and normalize violence. Thankfully, there are also many that don't. But now I find myself wondering how much violence truly is acceptable.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Repenting Toward Perfection
The next Conference Talk to blog about Repentance is Always Positive by President Stephen W. Owen. That's an important reminder because repentance doesn't always feel positive. It often feels sort of like a punishment: "I did something bad, and now I need to repent." But repentance isn't a punishment, and it isn't even an apology. It's change. Specifically, it's changing one's behavior for the better, and that always means a positive change. It means moving forward and becoming a better person. It means taking another step toward our ultimate goal of perfection. I suppose it could all be just a matter of perspective, but the way I see it, repentance doesn't mean that we're imperfect; it means that we don't have to stay imperfect forever.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Proximity and Perspective
In Elder Gary E. Stevenson's General Conference talk Spiritual Eclipse, he spoke of the solar eclipse we experienced in August 2017, when the moon passed in front of and almost completely blocked out the sun. He noted that "Although the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, it is also 400 times farther away from the earth. From earth’s perspective, this geometry makes the sun and moon appear to be the same size."
The concept of perspective played a key role in Elder Stevenson's talk:
We should be careful to not let the proximity of earthly matters overshadow the magnitude of eternal matters. It's true that we have to live in the now and deal with the present, but we should try not to forget that eternity is greater than it sometimes seems and that it won't always be so far away. One day, eternity will be our present, and then our mortality will be in the distant past. One day, our earthly concerns will seem as small and insignificant as they really are. In the meantime, we should try to put things into an eternal perspective so our tiny, earthly issues don't eclipse matters of great, eternal significance.
The concept of perspective played a key role in Elder Stevenson's talk:
In the same manner that the very small moon can block the magnificent sun, extinguishing its light and warmth, a spiritual eclipse can occur when we allow minor and troublesome obstructions—those we face in our daily lives—to get so close that they block out the magnitude, brightness, and warmth of the light of Jesus Christ and His gospel.It's difficult to imagine how big the sun is because it's so far away. With the moon being so much closer, it looks to be about the same size as the sun. Similarly, it's hard to imagine how great God's plan is since many of its implications are practically an eternity away. Our everyday concerns, being much closer at hand, seem just as great causes of consideration as our eternal concerns, when the truth is that our eternal concerns are actually far more important.
We should be careful to not let the proximity of earthly matters overshadow the magnitude of eternal matters. It's true that we have to live in the now and deal with the present, but we should try not to forget that eternity is greater than it sometimes seems and that it won't always be so far away. One day, eternity will be our present, and then our mortality will be in the distant past. One day, our earthly concerns will seem as small and insignificant as they really are. In the meantime, we should try to put things into an eternal perspective so our tiny, earthly issues don't eclipse matters of great, eternal significance.
Monday, January 1, 2018
What We Can Achieve
It is now January, and I haven't finished blogging about November's General Conference talks yet. Thankfully, the last of November's Conference talks is
I find that amazing. When I think about about how flawed we are, and especially about how flawed I am, I am awed by the prospect that any human being, even me, could eventually become perfect. Granted, it's going to take a lot of work, and Elder Holland even said that "Our only hope for true perfection is in receiving it as a gift from heaven—we can’t 'earn' it," but still, the idea that we can become perfect is mind-boggling, even considering God's help.
Yet, that's the plan. It's been the plan since the very beginning. I'd even go so far as to say that the very reason God created us was so we could eventually accomplish the goal of becoming perfect. He wants to watch us grow and reach the same heights He has reached.
And the fact that we can reach those heights amazes me.
I believe that Jesus did not intend His sermon on this subject to be a verbal hammer for battering us about our shortcomings. No, I believe He intended it to be a tribute to who and what God the Eternal Father is and what we can achieve with Him in eternity.And, apparently, "what we can achieve with Him in eternity" is perfection.
I find that amazing. When I think about about how flawed we are, and especially about how flawed I am, I am awed by the prospect that any human being, even me, could eventually become perfect. Granted, it's going to take a lot of work, and Elder Holland even said that "Our only hope for true perfection is in receiving it as a gift from heaven—we can’t 'earn' it," but still, the idea that we can become perfect is mind-boggling, even considering God's help.
Yet, that's the plan. It's been the plan since the very beginning. I'd even go so far as to say that the very reason God created us was so we could eventually accomplish the goal of becoming perfect. He wants to watch us grow and reach the same heights He has reached.
And the fact that we can reach those heights amazes me.
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