NEW THOUGHTS part 3

Just a reminder THOUGHTS FOR 100 SABBATH DAYS is now available on Amazon.com/books. I want to thank those who have taken the time to order their copies!!


For those of you who haven't abandoned me, having been frustrated by my lengthy tale, I will continue once again where I left off last week.

My Master’s program was the most joyful educational experience of my life. I was allowed to design my own curriculum, choose my professors and set my time table for completing the degree. The only negative thing about the entire experience was that I had to drive at night in a car to and from BYU that didn't have a heater. Well maybe my oral exams don't carry a bucket full of happy memories!

Since I had had such a wonderful experience with my Master’s degree, when the opportunity to work towards a Doctorate came I jumped in with both feet.

Finally, we come to the point of this long walk down memory lane.

In one of the classes I was taking for my Doctorate degree I was given the opportunity to attend an all expense paid training session in Flint, Michigan, on Cradle to Grave Educational programs.

Not that I haven't exhausted the point, but I must emphasize the fact that up to this point, I had pretty much founded my life, my beliefs and my thoughts on those teachings which sprang from the fountains of the gospel as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

During that memorable week in Flint, for some reason, for the first time in my life I was open to and found joy in being instructed by people who had no affiliation with my church. The backs of my arms were in a constant state of tingling as one after another men and women filled my mind with new thoughts, new insights, and new meanings for my chosen career and more importantly for life in general.

I left Flint with an amazing discovery, that rather than bringing doubt or conflict to the fundamentals of my understandings of life, what they had to say added depth, dimensions and dynamics to those things which were of utmost importance to me.

A torch had been lit within my soul, lighting my way toward a whole new unexplored world.

Shortly after returning home I was reading The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith and came across one of his definitions of Mormonism. He declared, ‘that Mormonism is truth, and wherever we encounter truth, we will take it to our bosom and embrace it as Mormonism.’ Then he amplified the thought by adding, ‘it mattereth not where we find it, if the Methodists have a truth or the Baptists, then we shall embrace it and it shall be Mormonism.’

I will always be grateful that this self-imposed restraint was lifted from my life, a one week odyssey which opened my mind to be able to see beyond imagined barriers and enabled me to hear words of wisdom from previously unexplored sources.

What a personal loss it would have ensued had I denied myself the delight I have found in the teaching of the wise and inspired men of the earth, outside of my cloistered walls, who have discovered and taught inspired truths and added depth to previously known truths.

Although I will continue to have faith in the foundation I received from my fathers, I will also continue to place truthful stone upon truthful stone on that foundation from, as Joseph says, wherever I might find it. I hope there is never a day that I don't spend some time with the scriptures, and I add to that hope that there are but few of my days when I likewise am unable to enhance those truths with the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, Justin Martyr, C.S. Lewis, The Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and enumerable others.

And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith. (Doctrine and Covenants 93:118)

My hope is that whatever the prejudice is which might be keeping us from gathering truth unto ourselves will be dissolved that we might free ourselves to begin to grow and progress with new thoughts of truth and light and thereby we might experience joy.

Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come. (Doctrine and Covenants 130:18, 19)

Along with the many attributes and characteristic such as grace, mercy, love and forgiveness which our Heavenly Father wishes us to emulate, intelligence is likewise numbered as part of His glory.

The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. (Doctrine and Covenants 93:36)

Just a thought in passing, long drives on cold nights when filled with pondering aren't really all that bad!