Scrolling On Through - Throwback Thursday

The other day I was scrolling through my old blog to see what I had written in years past.  Just for fun, I decided to search for what I may have posted on exactly this day several years ago.  I couldn't find anything for this same day anywhere...  but a short post in June seven years ago caught my eye.  I think it stood out to me because it was only a couple of sentences long and I had highly recommended that all married couples listen to it.   The title read, "When All Else Fails, Love Never Gives Up." I remembered loving that talk.  When I heard it, it was the same year Joseph and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, This was great advice from a woman who had been married 60 years.

I tried clicking on the link to but it no longer worked.  Hmmm.  I searched the speaker's name directly on BYU's Speeches but still nothing came up.  This made me even more determined to find out just where I could listen to the talk again.  After a little more searching, I found it.  (Sister Johnson's is the third one from the top of this page.) I was super excited because this site not only has Sister Johnson's talk, it has a whole entire archive of Education Week talks.  I think I just struck gold!  

I'm glad I had these things recorded in my old blog.  The only regret I have with the posts from there is that I wish I would've written more of what was going on in my life.  There's so much in that blog where I only gave references to talks or quotes but I didn't really take time to put down more personal thoughts, impressions, and stories of the day.

-Alicia

"The Power of Not Knowing" - Ponderize - Week 23

"Wisdom is the highest spiritual intelligence.  While the natural man, through knowledge, can know nothing of wisdom.  A man may have a great intelligence and yet have nothing of the Christ life within him."

- Jane Lathrop Stanford

Liz Wiseman gave a great forum address at BYU several weeks ago called The Power of Not Knowing. I listened to it today. This is one of those talks I definitely want to repeat several times.  I really feel like I need to be better at asking questions and not act like I have all the answers, especially with my children.  It's a place of humility I know I haven't achieved yet.  

The text from this lecture isn't available but I've jotted down a few things she presents that I really, really love:

"Can we actually get too smart?... Is there actually more power in not knowing? I want to make a case for ignorance, and not ignorance in the case of the lack of education or stupidity, but simply the lack of certainty... As we gain knowledge and as we gain intelligence and we get smart, can we get a little too full of ourselves, a little too smart for our own good and maybe even a little too smart for the good of others?

When we come to depend on acquired knowledge, we can fall easily prey to secularism which offers us a one-eyed view of the world.... it's like we see half of the colors in a spectrum.  But we don't really fully see clearly until we unite our knowledge and our faith.

I think sometimes in our state of not knowing, it's actually where we come to know God.  It's where we discover!

We're so often at our best when we don't know.  The best leaders don't have the answers.  The best leaders have really good questions.  And they use those questions and their own intelligence to bring out the genius in the people around them.

I think it's time we recognize that at the top of the intelligence hierarchy, is not the genius - it's the genius maker.  And I think we need to recognize that we tend to do our best work when we're on the outer edges of what we know, when we're doing something hard and new and we're growing through challenge."

I think my favorite part in everything Sister Wiseman says is this:

"Sometimes in our state of not knowing is actually where we come to know God."

The uncertainty we face and the questions that may arise need not make us fearful of our capabilities or our future... for they humble us and bring us to our knees in prayer, connecting us with our all-knowing Father in Heaven.  The verse I've chosen to ponderize for this week is short but it will serve as a reminder to me that ultimately, there is beauty in not having all the answers and that there is infinite treasure to be discovered in the process of seeking.

"I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things" - Ecclesiastes 7:25

-Alicia

Keep Believing

Three days out of the week I have the privilege of walking from my home up to BYU's campus to attend my American Heritage class.  As I walk the seven blocks to the bottom of the hill and pass the rows of apartments and houses, one by one students will emerge from the various doorways and head north on the parallel streets.  At first it seems like there is only four, maybe five of us in view but then as the bottom of the hill draws nearer, the number is closer to fifteen or twenty students coming from all directions.  I commence my way on the steep path, the buildings from campus rise into sight there is now one long stream of students filling the walkway in front of me and behind me, forty or fifty.  When I reach the crest of the hill and pass through the first row of buildings, suddenly I'm in a sea of thousands of students. It's glorious!  Each day I experience this,  I think of a story I heard from a devotional and how the vision of one young man helped turn the tide of despair and restore the hope of the BYU dream.

By 1913, a new wave of financial problems was threatening the university’s future. BYU faced mounting debt. Faculty salaries were so low the teachers ran farms to survive, returning home to irrigate between classes. Its cornerstone laid in 1907, the Maeser Memorial Building sat silent and unfinished for years. Finally, it seemed, the only way to finance its completion was to divide the land on Temple Hill into housing lots and sell them. A student named Alfred Kelly was selected to promote this idea during a commencement speech, but the assignment troubled him. Early one morning he walked to the top of Temple Hill to pray. What he saw that morning as he looked out across the valley left an unforgettable impression upon all who heard him relate it the day of his address, because what Kelly saw was you.

“Gradually the morning light advanced across the valley floor toward the spot where I stood. I closed my eyes partially to the advancing light and was startled by the strange vision that seemed to appear before me. The advancing sunlight took on the appearance of people, thousands of young people who approached me, their arms laden with books. I turned around to find the area behind me illuminated as well. In that light I saw hundreds of buildings, large and beautiful temples of learning. Those young people passed by me and entered in. Then, with cheerfulness and confidence, they turned toward the east and lifted their eyes heavenward, where, again becoming part of the sunlight, they gradually disappeared from my view.”

Kelly sat down to a stunned silence. Suddenly Jesse Knight leaped to his feet, pledging several thousand dollars to BYU. Others followed suit. Eventually, under the direction of President Joseph F. Smith, the Church assumed the school’s remaining debt. Finally, the future of the university had become secure.

The Lord evidently had a plan for the ground the campus now occupies—as He always had for BYU. He would not let even its leaders prevent its divine destiny. Such divine intervention on the things that matter most to the Lord is a comfort to me, knowing He can intervene to correct my lapses in judgment or vision. - (A House of Dreams - John S. Tanner)

What young Alfred Kelly experienced that morning was nothing short of prophecy.  It gave the people something to hold on to, to believe in when everything in the moment seemed hopelessly lost.

In this devotional Brother Tanner also tells of a vision Karl G. Maeser had that too was prophetic.  It came just after his darkest moment when he was ready to quit the cause:

Maeser said,  “I am worn out and sick in spirit, . . . and with all my love for this Academy, I feel that I owe it to my very life, which is needlessly wearing itself out here in an apparently hopeless task, to accept any change that will promise me opportunities for permanent usefulness.”  He contemplated moving his family and taking a job at the University of Deseret (which is now University of Utah).  His daughter one day asked when the move would take place and he responded,  “I have changed my mind. I have had a dream—I have seen Temple Hill filled with buildings—great temples of learning, and I have decided to remain and do my part.”**

Maybe I'm a dreamer... but when the clouds of gloom hang drearily over our heads and it feels as if the end of struggle is nowhere in sight, when we are worn and beaten down from the tasks that surround us, we can learn from these stories of the past and remember that it's always darkest just before the dawn.  God sees the bigger picture of our lives.... and I promise it is full of glory, purpose, and Divine mission.

With that... here's my song for the day. Keep Believing by, Ryan Shupe

-Alicia

**Excerpt from DVD Passport to Destiny; taken from Wilkinson and Skousen, School of Destiny, 84–85; emphasis in original.

Confession

Okay, I have a confession to make....
I may have just a slight obsession and or addiction to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland talks. For years and YEARS I've listened to all of his BYU devotionals.  I'm not sure when exactly I got hooked or if it's necessarily a bad thing... I love to hear ALL of the apostles and prophets but for some reason, the way Elder Holland delivers the message and the words he chooses hit me with a force that both stills my soul and moves me into immediate action.  He's like the perfect mix between a drill Sergeant and Glenda, the Good Witch.  Can I say that?   I love listening to the talks his wife, Patricia, gives as well.  She also knows how to "nail it."

Yesterday, I had playing on repeat both of the devotionals they gave back in Jan. of 1987.  The Bitter Cup and the Bloody Baptism and The Soul's Center.  Classic, absolutely classic!  Highly recommended!

(I also have an obsession with talks by Elder Neal A. Maxwell.)