Sunday, September 9, 2012

DRESS THE EARTH - CULTIVATE THE MIND - GLORIFY GOD

While reading a talk given by Spencer W. Kimball in the summer 2012 issue of BYU Magazine I was once again stirred into thinking about the purpose of life and what are some of the really important things we should be doing while in our mortal state. Quoting the Prophet Joseph Smith, President Kimball reminded us that “Man was created to dress the earth, to cultivate his mind, and to glorify God.”

Dress the Earth

Smokey the Bear will have to get the initial credit as he boldly taught us to care for the forests we had been blessed with. He growled at us and said we should always leave our camp areas cleaner than when we arrived and never forget to put out our camp fires. My parents added to the concept with their insistence that if anything was worth doing it was worth doing well. They even applied this ditty to pulling weeds in the garden and the flower beds. Kathleen continues to try to show me that the whole earth is a campground and that where ever we are and where ever we go our traces should be erased along with those thoughtlessly left by others. Even golfers are taught that repairing your own divot on the green should be accompanied by the reparation of other divots which might have been left unattended.

Interestingly, the real impact on my mind about dressing the earth as an important part of our mortal passage came while I was reading Everyman’s Talmud (there was no way I would ever be able to make it through the Talmud on my own). Anyway, while reading in Everyman’s Talmud, I was especially moved by the section which taught that the Lord, when he created the earth, deliberately left his work unfinished and then said to Adam that it was his responsibility to dress the garden. Isn’t it interesting that even the Garden of Eden which was reportedly spectacularly beautiful needed to be tended? The teachings of Judaism include the concept that the work was left unfinished with the intention that as part of their earthly probation his children would finish the work. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of each of us to make sure that our little corner of the garden is more beautiful because we dwelt upon it. The Talmud insists that there will be an accountability regarding how well we have cared for the land the Lord God has given us.

Living in Mission Viejo, California I am daily reminded about the possibilities of making the desert blossom like a rose. As I drive down the year-round flowering, vegetation lined streets I witness the fulfillment of man’s beatifying capabilities. I think dress is a very appropriate word to use in describing our responsibility toward mother earth. I envision that the Lord intended that we should dress her in the finest available trappings.

Cultivate the Mind

Ironically, it was near the end of my formal educational process while working on my Doctorate and attending a workshop in Flint, Michigan that the importance of ‘Cradle to Grave’ education finally impacted me. I have written about that experience previously, so I won’t bore those who read it previously with the details. It is sufficient to report that it was during those two weeks I committed myself to a life of cultivating the mind. Finally, after spending the first 32 years of my life in a fairly concentrated string of formal educational experiences, I then knew I had just been being taught how to learn and that now the real excitement of cultivating the mind could begin.

I don’t know to whom to give the credit, but I am sure that like most things in life it was not an original idea. When I was left to my own devices to continue my learning, it came to me that there were some areas of the endless fields before me where I would want to spend a lot of time and there were others where I would barely walk the surface. Somehow I knew I would be aided in making the decisions of whether to linger and dig deeply into a certain field or just gaze about and move on. Louis L’Amour required only a superficial glance as I worked through 91 of his books. However, my latest task of going through the ten year course of the Great Books of the Western World has kept me constantly with a shovel in my hand. Now that I am well into the 6th year of wandering through all the volumes which make up this collection I realize that there are many of the writers who have contributed to western thought which I have placed in the Louis L’Amour camp and other whose words have become like unto scripture to me.

For me, both depth of study and breadth of exploration are important to keep the cultivation of one’s mind fresh and exciting. There are studies which we do because of personal interest and others which we do because we know they will impact us in a positive way. My monthly reading of Golf Digest is an example of the former while the Scriptures and the words of the living prophets would be examples of the latter.

One of the great blessings we have been given is the ability to process symbols and words and have them formulate ideas in our minds. Like most blessings we show our greatest appreciation when we use and magnify them.

Glorify God

I could easily brush off this part of Joseph’s trilogy of reasons for our existence by simply stating who am I that I might think I could ever add glory to Him who is all glory? I could substitute praise for glory and therefore fulfill this direction though hymns and speech. Ultimately, I must come to the conclusion that if I am even remotely to be able to Glorify God it will have to be through striving to emulate His attributes, characteristics and perfections.

Just as I honor my earthly parents by holding to the good in their lives and making it part of my own, just as I show my admiration for those who have mentored me by taking from their teachings and making my life more meaningful, in this same way, it may be possible to glorify God by trying to see through the glass darkly and behold his light and allow it to shine through me.

It might just be possible that as I treat others as He would treat them, as I publish peace, as I sing and witness of Him, as I daily try to be like Him in some small way I am moving toward what Joseph said I needed to do to Glorify God.

14 comments:

  1. As I watch the tab broadcast with tears running down my face (a weekly tradition with Bill) I have to write and thank you for your message today and every week. I so enjoy the shot in the arm and inspiration.
    As I undertake a journey I never could have imagined, I am so grateful for such wisdom and direction to go forward and challenge myself to stretch and grow spiritually and mentally (not to mention master bits of technology!)
    I do miss seeing you each week and send my love and best to you and Kathy. Your friendship and love and support have been treasured for many years and culminated in the sealing of Kristin and Daimen
    I do hope you are both well Again I send my love and thanks for your influence in my life!

    Kathleen Brooks

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  2. As I watch the tab broadcast with tears running down my face (a weekly tradition with Bill) I have to write and thank you for your message today and every week. I so enjoy the shot in the arm and inspiration.
    As I undertake a journey I never could have imagined, I am so grateful for such wisdom and direction to go forward and challenge myself to stretch and grow spiritually and mentally (not to mention master bits of technology!)
    I do miss seeing you each week and send my love and best to you and Kathy. Your friendship and love and support have been treasured for many years and culminated in the sealing of Kristin and Daimen
    I do hope you are both well Again I send my love and thanks for your influence in my life!

    Allen Best

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  3. Thanks for your thoughts Brother Riley. I have always heard nothing but great things about you from my mother. How is your health? Are you doing any better? I pray that the Lord will strengthen you to be able to continue to do His work and influence the lives of others for good.

    There are a host of things I would love to discuss with you. I have an inquisitive mind and seek to receive instruction from the wise. I keep a list of questions I come across as I read and study the scriptures, and thoughts that come to my mind that I wish to ponder more. I was fortunate to be able to take a class from and develop a friendship with Robert Millet while at BYU, and have also cultivated a relationship with the man here in Dallas (I now live and work here with my wife) who is the CES Area Director of the Southern Plains Area. I also have great parents, and was blessed to serve under two faithful mission presidents and other leaders in the past who have taught me.

    Among other things I am curious how you got your start in the CES and am also curious in what order you did your reading, and what books you have (or haven't) read. I'm also curious to see what you think about how much of your knowledge and learning came from the words of others versus your personal revelation you have received through the Holy Ghost.

    I know the last time I reached out to you you were in the midst of severe health challenges. I hope all is well. If you ever feel that you have some extra strength, time, or desire to teach a young man give me a call. I would be honored.

    Love always -- a friend and fellow laborer,

    Stephen Hill

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  4. My last reaction to your THOUGHTS a week before this one still weigh heavily on my mind. I would much prefer to just let it all go, but the rub is that it won't yet release me. So I find myself focusing on what I see as a causal root rather than the resultant seed which so often distracts. That root affect which causes the sundry beneficial or detrimental and often simply benign effects in our lives is our AGENCY. For better or worse, by our agency we bless or damn ourselves, our loved ones and our neighbors. I am working on an an effort to explain my view of that. It is not so simple for me as normally presented, and I am having trouble working through it to simplify it to the point that it may be communicated effectively. If that ever happens, I'll share it. Don't hold your breath; it may be your last. :)
    In the mean time, with regard to agency's discordant affect on one who has fallen into habits of thought, this also may be difficult. Discountable if you prefer.
    " it may be possible to glorify God by trying to see through the glass darkly and behold his light and allow it to shine through me."
    "I am moving toward what Joseph said I needed to do to Glorify God"

    Con amor,
    Paul Maddox

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  5. Dear President Riley,

    I would rather like to have your weekly message in English instead of Spanish, are you still sending theEnglish version? If so, could you please take out of this one put me in the another one?

    I also would like to use this opportunity to thank you again for the help I got from a year ago when I needed someone to review an exposé I had writing to apply to the master I am now almost finishing.

    I just need to end writing my thesis and then I'll be done! I believe my English is much better than a year ago, but it is still hard for me to write academic English.

    Please give my greetings to your Sister Riley,

    Saria Novoa

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  6. Amados(as) enseñen a sus hijos el camino del padre celestial, camino de amor, paz y bondad, pues si le enseñas bien, ese será el camino que siempre seguirá, y nunca se apartará del bien. Proverbios 22:6

    Jean Paul Terceo

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  7. Querido hermano Bill & Kathy Riley:Gracias por sus pensamientos los cuales leemos con placer y atencion.Les deseamos que tengan salud y sigan iluminando nuestras vidas.Los amamos.

    Armando & Graciela Gomez

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  8. Thank you for your input, Brother Riley.

    Love,
    Daisy

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  9. Mi querido Presidente, gracias por sus reflexiones, siempre son una pausa edificante en mi agitado diario vivir..te recuerdo y aprecio muchisimo un abrazo a la hermana y saludos a tus hijos...

    Con amor, desde esta agitada Bogotá.

    René Jemenez

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  10. Muchas gracias presidente y hermana ya me comenzaron a llegar.

    Constanza Hernandez

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  11. Bill, I apologize for an undelivered promise: My attempt to deliver a coherent document expressing my (forever malleable) view of agency failed. A draft document exists, but I wasn't able to bring it to a sharable state. It was an unbearable task to attempt to expand each of my more or less convoluted perspectives into shape such that they could be apprehended by another. I shall say a few words:

    We struggle to overcome obstacles imposed by nature. Among those the cycle of life. We struggle with and against one another. Of all our labors under the sun, we struggle most with and against ourselves, our own agency; this is our gift from the garden, most precious and potent with pain. Is it so unlike the story of Pandora, another ancient metaphor, a gift from God which once received could not be recalled, and out of which all of our travails, and yes, our joys have been released to be forever our responsibility to contend with as best we may.
    These furies can't be completely contained or controlled! Not by one! (Well the story goes there was One.) "No man is without sin!" It was never meant to be so. So then what?
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    You are reading, (I pray not plowing through), the great books. You have read Hume and Berkeley by now and their treatment of free will. Their work is easily dismissed my moderns, especially those of us who know intuitively that our choices are not imaginary and don't care to play children's mind games. Yet these were not children but serious men. As a wise man once said, "he who has ears, let him hear," or simply, "hearken." I'm sure that you are not one to dismiss, especially since this train of thought has continued over centuries obliquely through novelists like Dostoyevsky and Sartre, Psychology, e.g., Pavlov and Skinner, and into modern science in their study of neurology and physics (ref the WEB).

    Our agency, exercised freely, appears to be less free than it appears at first glance. How much so? How much does that agency, exercised at some prior time, affect our agency now? When one has formed habits of thought, concepts that are now, long-since, pre-concepts, affect our thinking, our decisions. To what extent do these influence one's decision making process, one's agency?
    Being is the accumulated result of becoming.

    Continued...

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  12. I offer a few cases to demonstrate the different faces of agency. I will leave it to you to fill in the story line for each case. Your experience, learning and imagination equip you to do so if you so choose, If not, simply stop reading here and post this to spam. :(

    Case 1. A person reacts to a traumatic event with unexpected, perhaps unacceptable behavior, otherwise inconceivable.
    Case 2. Someone is caught up in a crowd, mob or perhaps peer influence situation which affects their behavior.
    Case 3. Someone who has been raised from infancy in a culture foreign to their parents, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, whatever; perhaps with no knowledge of their genetic heritage, will by an act of agency choose a faith. Step by step.
    Case 4. A minor drug is a gateway to a deadly addiction. Step by step.
    ----------------------------------------
    Case 5. A commitment to a new faith does somehow seemingly totally reset the imprints of all prior agency effects, and a new beginning is successfully established. Back to go, collect xxx.

    We are what we have become! We are beings, not become, but becoming!

    Hell fire, I don't know. That's why I'm withholding.

    --
    Paul Maddox

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