EVEN AS A LITTLE CHILD

If we truly want to understand the wonders of sight
Do we find it through the eyes of artist, astrologer, and optometrist?
Or
Do we begin to discover it in the first wondrous light seen by a newborn child?

If we truly want to understand the wonders of sound
Do we find it through the ears of musician, acoustician, and otologist?
Or
Do we begin to discover it in the first startling sound heard by a newborn child?

If we truly want to understand the wonders of touch
Do we find it through the hands of masseuse, farmer, and neurologist?
OR
Do we begin to discover it in the first tender mother’s touch felt by a newborn child?

If we truly want to understand the wonders of taste
Do we find it through the taste buds of chefs, dieticians, and physiologist?
Or
Do we begin to discover it when the first drop hits the tongue of a newborn child?

If we truly want to understand the wonders of smell
Do we find it through the noses of perfumer, sommelier, and rhinologist?
Or
Do we begin to discover it when the first whiffs enter nostrils of a newborn child?

When these and many like questions begin to be answered, we will be at the gate of understanding what the Savior meant when he said, “except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Fearfully, we may be becoming a generation like those in the days of Jeremiah who became a “foolish people, without understanding” or like those to whom Paul wrote in Ephesus who had “their understanding darkened being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.” Will we become just another generation which has chosen to be a light unto themselves rather than to be led by the True Light?

Some years ago I read an essay by Neal A. Maxwell about the dangers of scholasticism. It was a warning to every generation about relying too much on the accumulated understanding of scholars and the rejection of those who realize their own immense limitations, and cease to look to the fountain of Eternal Knowledge for truth and understanding.

We should be grateful for those who have constantly been there to jerk upon the reins of our own self-importance when the growth of our mountains of philosophical minutia starts to bring aggrandizement to the personal measure of our stature.

We should be grateful for the realization which attends the reverence of the word Father in reference to Deity and the enlightening understanding which begins to trickle upon us when we view ourselves as His children.

We should be grateful for the realization that all that has been learned to this point of our existence is but a feeble beginning of a foundation which yet lacks much work and be grateful for the eternities which will allow us to build brick by brick an everlasting library.

We should be grateful for the limited understanding we have been able to gain that our accumulated knowledge amounts to but a few grains when compared to the Omniscience of Father, just as we have come to recognize the minuteness of this ‘pale blue dot’ when viewed as part of the vastness of the Universe.

We should be grateful for the view that each day is like a new birth, wherein each wondrous vista, each soothing melody, each silken thread, each savory bite and each delicate aroma, can be as if it had never existed before.