In my religion class this week we are learning a study suggestion someone has titled "clustering." I am giggling this minute a bit! What follows is the "clustering" of ideas that have shaped my thinkings this week. haha is that a word? I don't know but if not I coin it here! I like that it suggests that it wasn't a one time happening, but lots of different spurts of thinking moments spread over the space of time including this past week! What a blessing to have deep places to explore!
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In the video shared below about this "clustering" which I want to share with my kids so I dropped the link here for future reference, the speaker suggests that by using clustering in the scriptures, we are able to draw such depth and insight into the messages of the scriptures that would not be possible if the scriptures were just written as a thesis of doctrinal instruction on each topic. With the cross-referencing of principals, ideas, and truths through the stories of real people, families and communities as they learn, change and become, we learn far more than any single theologian could expound!
And so, I will elaborate on each of these themes, not rearranging them or deleting any because they are each important to my becoming this week.Laus Deo!
In my Teachings & Doctrines of the Book of Mormon class we are learning about studying clusters. I love this! I love to cross-reference my scriptures, and this takes it to a new level. https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/html5/html5lib/v2.82.2/mwEmbedFrame.php/p/1157612/uiconf_id/33020032/entry_id/0_8q80mwfj?wid=_1157612&iframeembed=true&playerId=kaltura_player_1568748025&entry_id=0_8q80mwfj
With that as a prelude to this igneous rock type report of my learning this week:
Oh listening IS so important! I am so grateful for the Couple Communication class that the High Priest in my life and I had the priviledge of learning because we were in the right time at the right place to have the Lord bless our life with a free, perfectly timed class intended for another, but perfect for us! We have often recognized the tender mercy of that 6 week training in our lives! It changed our lives forever! We have sought to recreate that experience for others without success! The fact that a teacher was brought free of charge to the office Brad was working in just before we departed to law school across the country was NO small miracle! It saved our marriage over and over again over those three hard years in Tennessee! It changed our lives! The lessons learned there bless our lives and the lives of our posterity today! I testified and shared principals of that training this very week in both my Family Relations group discussion, and in my University Studies team project this very week! Indeed the use of all of these great principals has blessed my life! I am so glad I had the opportunity to learn this material:
I was touched this week by this quote from my Intro to Entrepreneurship class. I know that work is absolutely necessary for any good thing to happen! We MUST be willing to do the physical, spiritual, temporal, mental, WORK to accomplish anything worthwhile!
"Work is an antidote for anxiety, an ointment for sorrow, and a doorway to possibility. Whatever our circumstances in life ... let us do the best we can and cultivate a reputation for excellence in all that we do. Let us set our minds and bodies to the glorious opportunity for work that each new day presents..."
"Education is not so much the filling of a bucket as the lighting of a fire. For members of the Church, education is not merely a good idea—it’s a commandment ... you have a duty to learn as much as you can." -Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Two Principles for Any Economy
I love President Eyring's quote about the uphill road:
"The Lord is anxious to lead us to the safety of higher ground, away from the path of physical and spiritual danger. His upward path will require us to climb. My mother used to say to me when I complained that things were hard, “If you are on the right path, it will always be uphill.” And as the world becomes darker and more dangerous, we must keep climbing. It will be our choice whether or not to move up or to stay where we are. But the Lord will invite and guide us upward by the direction of the Holy Ghost, which He sends to His leaders and to His people who will receive it." Raise the Bar, Henry B. Eyring, BYU Idaho Devotional January 2005 https://www2.byui.edu/Speeches/eyring_jan2005.htm
From my family relations class this week, I have interviewed two sisters from my ward who I look up to for their examples of great relationships. We learn so much from our family about life, about communication, about how to solve problems. So much of that is broken, and incorrect. I am grateful for opportunities, even pushes to breakout of that tradition and routine to learn, change, investigate, ponder new paths, and explore other options. I love this quote from the reading for that class about love this week:
"When it is within our power to give love, we should never withhold it." - Mary Ellen Edmunds
I wrote a paper on my interviews so I am not posting details of that here. I do note however, and I regret a bit that I didn't include my testimony of this in the paper, but I TOTALLY received a witness that the Proclamation is true! Indeed "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." As I visited with those beautiful Sisters, over and over as they shared experiences, lessons they had learned, and advice on family relations, they were witnessing that those things are what really matter. Faith, Prayer, Repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. I love that! I love that our family enjoys and does all those things together! I hope we can always have kindness, forgiveness, compassion in our ranks and not allow the pride of the world (See Come Follow Me notes and lessons noted later in this post) enter our family relations. We need to constantly work at repentance so we stay clear of pride. Oh I am so grateful for the gift of life it's self! I am so grateful that I got to fall in love with the most amazing man! Those ladies were sweethearts young. haha one of them fell in love when she was 14. I listened and laughed with her as we talked about that. After writing the paper, and pondering all week, I realized that my story is.... haha I fell in love with Brad Harr when he moved into my ward when I was....9! shhhh don't tell my 10 yr old! We didn't date until after his mission, but I admired, chased, tried to be around him whenever I could! He is the golden catch! He is my hero, sent to my life by my Heavenly Father! I am so grateful for him!!! What a blessing! I love that we knew each other for all those years. Our families were good friends. He is three years older than I am so, so I couldn't date until just a few months before he left on his mission. I know what the marriage squeeze is talked about in our text! I benefited from that. We have laughed about that this week! He always had girls around him! He was in Student Government, he was super popular and at a different high school, but in my ward! What fun memories I have of admiring him from a distance as he was with other girls! Then when he got home from a mission, his dad had promised me a date! I am so grateful for the blessing to be right there! I was really supposed to be living in Provo, and had dated other boys there, but when he got home.. oh my heart loved him for so long! I am so grateful that I was able to catch him! I wrote in my journal (paper at the time haha) how excited I was he asked me to go to the wedding reception of Leslie! haha that was the girl at the airport who was so mad at me. (another story) I celebrated that she was not a possibility for him! Committed to another! Yay! There were still several other girls I had to win off, but I did! I caught the love of my life! He is such a great dad to our kids! He is a worthy Priesthood holder who honors his priesthood, tries to take me to the temple every week (someday they will open again!) I love to be with him. I love icecream and walks around the temple. I love long rides to talk and set goals. I love learning and sharing all the miracles we find along the way! I love that he serves with all his heart. I am so blessed!
Jumping to another cluster of my life.....
Hearken! Hear Him! Heed.
This is totally jumping from one class to another, but that is how my studying has been this week, and I see that it has been exactly clustered so I would be heavenly taught!
It was on Tuesday of this week that the article just above "Found in the Footnotes" landed in my email inbox. I was drawn to it because I love to study the most recent General Conference addresses, and honestly I am missing that a bit right now because of the wealth of other studing I have to do right now! I love to feast upon those words, and so I was drawn to learn from that article in my inbox. Little did I know upon opening my inbox how that article would relate to the "clustering" I was learning about this week! I love President Nelson's insight into the word "Hearken" - He defines that word as "to listen with the intent to obey." Wow! Is that what I am doing right now? See how that relates to the communication comic from one class to the other assignment to study from the next? Integrated curriculum so simple and plain I am shocked and in awe!
The next quote here was from my gathering class, Thursday, shared by the lead student and we were asked to ponder on this quote and write. Here are those details:
"Like all sacred gifts, which cometh from above, words are sacred and must be spoken with care, and by restraint of the spirit." - Elder Jeffery R. Holland.
Coming from a mom who doesn't have a filter, I understand how detrimental unkind words are.
Grandma Mary had a quote on her wall I found myself pondering often while I was in her kitchen growing up: "Be careful of the words you speak, keep them soft and sweet. You never know from day to day which ones you'll have to eat." The dark walnut stained plaque had a picture of a horse eating on it, and I often remember wondering what this meant. Year after year, I realized that words are so powerful! We need to do just as it says!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgBazthb_kY
This video was just for me tonight! Years ago, the song "Your Not Alone" by Michael McClain was just for me on a sacred night in my life. Tonight, I needed this song to remind me that I am not alone! I will be found! Thank you Heavenly Father!
I was guided to this song by a sweet professor who shared this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjNPZWbT2d8 in an announcement for our class. I love that I have the opportunity to be guided so such powerful messages of love, hope and peace during this time of pandemic riots and destruction! This week outrage over a death of a black man has spurred gang violence, burnings and evil across the country. I haven't even known until tonight, I have been carried on wings of angels through each day with joy and peace! I am so blessed! Laus Deo!
This week I was studying Exodus 12:21 about Moses and the Passover. This insight came as I was discussing this with a small group in my gathering. They are both struggling in their personal lives, so we chose not to take the word lamb or family but we focused on the word Passover. I realized that the Passover was being noted and celebrated before the saving of the firstborn sons of the Israelites. I didn't ever realize that before! We know that the Passover represented the Savior, but I assumed that it started after the saving of their firstborns. I don't believe that is true.
We followed that scripture to Moses 7:47 which is referenced in the Topical Guide. Here we learn that Enoch saw the day of the Lord long before it happened. I love that all things testify of Him, even before time existed.
However, loved learning from the next verse Moses 7:48 where we learn that it was hard on the mother! Yes, it is! The earth is lamenting the wickedness, the pain that her children have wrought upon the land. It is powerful!
I love learning! I have been touched as we have witnessed our stake presidency trying to negociate all the hurdles to help open church again for our stake. They have had battles! I feel like it is like Nephites and Lamanites but these are all leaders in the church, Bishops not happy and bringing contention. They had a really difficult meeting this past week which was supposed to be less than an hour but lasted four hours! Why can't we be a Zion people? The Prophet of the Lord has told us to go back to church, why are we fighting about that? We should be celebrating! I can't even understand why people would be fighting about it. I see so many parallels to the scriptures we are studying in Come Follow Me this week! Alma 4 the people joined the church, they were being baptized. Then in verse 7 - they began to have exceeding riches and ... were lifted up in their pride. There were envyings and strife and malice and persecutions, and pride. Why do we let this into our lives? Why in my family? I think this is the problem with my birth family. Family relations are all we get to really cherish for all eternity! And yet, we let tiny things like pride and contention totally destroy because of envy!
I love the end of verse 15: "Nevertheless, the Spirit of the Lord did not fail him!" Yes, I want to hearken, heed, and Hear Him! I know that I am not alone, He is helping me, and with God Nothing is Impossible! I love reaching to take His hand! Laus Deo.