Did I mention the other day that I bought Hindi and Estonian copies of the Book of Mormon? Well, I did. And yesterday when I bought my textbooks through Amazon, I “inadvertently” slipped C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man and Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach into my virtual shopping cart. ‘Course, once your total is up in the hundreds, a few extra dollars doesn’t seem like such a large dent after all, does it. :) And then tonight I gave in and ordered a copy of Jan Gullberg’s Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers. We loves books, we do. :)
Last night I picked up a copy of Donald Knuth’s Digital Typography from the library, and hours later I still couldn’t put it down. It had been a while since I read any “geek” books (computers, math, science, etc. — and FYI, I consider “geek” to be a badge of honor :)), and boy oh boy did I miss it! I have a list of computer books I plan on reading over the next few months, but I’ll mostly be talking about that over on Outside the Box.
Well, I’m speaking in church tomorrow, so I guess I’d better go home and prepare. Or maybe I’ll read some more of Digital Typography, because I’ll have three hours before church tomorrow to study up for my talk.
Incidentally, that’s a good short topic: giving talks in church. I used to write them out, when I was younger, but sometime ago I gave that up and started speaking sans script. Usually I write down the references for the scriptures I want to base my talk on, along with any other quotes (General Conference or C.S. Lewis :)). But that’s it. I often don’t even write an outline.
Why? To speak by the Spirit. “Open your mouth” and “it shall be given you in the very hour the words which ye shall speak.” I believe that’s true. And so far it’s worked. It’s often somewhat frightening — it takes a lot of trust in the Lord — but He keeps His promises. (Incidentally, my talk is on trusting in the Lord. :)) The disadvantage of doing this is that sometimes I don’t remember the witty things I wanted to say, but then again the important thing is to speak by the Spirit, which means saying the things God wants you to say; the witty banter can be left for after-sacrament-meeting chat and elsewhere. Whether or not I’m eloquent is beside the point. In fact, it’s almost better if I’m not, because I don’t want the words to get in the way of the message.
As for writing a talk out in advance, I don’t think it’s bad — they do it for General Conference — but there’s something about this scriptless method that really appeals to me. What do y’all think?
Oh, speaking of C.S. Lewis a little bit back there, we’re reading The Pilgrim’s Regress for the CSL Society right now, and it’s more interesting than I expected. More later. :)
[tags]Book of Mormon, C.S. Lewis, Gödel Escher Bach, math, typography, Mormon, General Conference[/tags]
Comments
You hit on a hot button issue of mine. I can’t tell you how many truly awful talks I’ve heard that were justified by this or similar scriptures. Not that I’m saying your talk will be horrible, since I’m sure you’ve put in a great deal of preparation. But people shouldn’t use this scripture as an excuse to not prepare properly for their talks. Long rant on my blog.
It all comes down to how you define “preparation,” I think. In my case, there’s a lifetime of studying the scriptures and words of the prophet, which provides a solid foundation. I can then “treasure up” relevant ideas and scriptures and quotes, making them part of me. It’s like adding vegetables and seasonings to the pot, boiling it all up together into a fantastic stew.
I agree that it’s not an excuse to not prepare. But I wonder if it really is necessary to plan it out in advance (outline it, write a draft). Now, I don’t mean that it’s wrong to do so, and it certainly helps, but my own belief is that the Spirit can handle organizing the ideas it’s speaking through me. :)
Yesterday, for example, I had treasured up a number of scriptures and thought through a number of ideas, writing down references for those I wanted to mention. I didn’t write out anything more than that, though. Two minutes before I got up to speak, I decided on how to open my talk, but didn’t try to plan it out past there. And it generally works for me. Sometimes there’ll be momentary stops where I’m not quite sure what to say next, and I’m sure I repeated myself a few times, but that’s all fine by me as long as I know the Spirit is speaking through me. (And in yesterday’s case, it was.) I don’t know what the people in the audience needs to hear, or in what order, but the Spirit does. I’m content to let it guide the pathway of my talk.
And yes, it takes a great deal of trust. (Again, I don’t mean that writing out one’s talk isn’t trusting in the Lord.) It’s scary. Each time I pray mightily for the Spirit, because if I don’t have the Spirit with me, then I’m just going to be spouting a random cacophony of thoughts. :)
Then again, God didn’t give man reason to have us ignore it. But I guess the Spirit works differently for each of us. :D
Aye, there’s a good question: does the Spirit work differently in each of us? One of my seminary teachers said he knew he was feeling the Spirit because he would sneeze. Now, perhaps that’s true, perhaps it’s not; my question is whether each person feels the Spirit in an individual way or if in fact there are a set handful of methods the Spirit uses to touch people. I’m leaning toward the latter.
If it were completely individualized, it’d be hard to tell if we’re feeling the Spirit or not. A sneeze? An itchy elbow? A twitching eyelid? Achy bones? The possibilities are legion. It seems to me that there are a number of different ways the Spirit speaks to man — burning in bosom, peace in the mind and heart, impressions, thoughts, desires, feelings — but I don’t see that set being infinite. Each person may feel the Spirit most often in one particular way (for me it’s feelings and desires), but I think the ways are not that many.
Even so, it’s still hard to learn to recognize the Spirit, because each of those methods can be labeled as self-produced: a burning in the bosom? Heartburn or indigestion. Peace in the mind and heart? No stress. Impressions? Overactive imagination. And so on. Even seeing an angel could be claimed as the product of an overworked and fatigued mind.
I don’t mean that there’s nothing different about the Spirit, though. The characteristics may be shared with other phenomena, but there is something qualitatively unique about the work of the Spirit. We just have to learn to recognize his signature.
Returning to the topic at hand, what about Luke 12:11-12?
Or Mark 13:11 (same verse, basically):
I don’t necessarily think writing talks out in advance is wrong, but what do we do about the verses like these where the Lord explicitly commands us not to premeditate our answers?
Throw in your two cents