Ben Crowder

Remember how I said I’d post about Elder Douglas L. Callister’s devotional address? The rebroadcast ended an hour ago (which is how long I’ve been working on this post :)), and here’s my response:

First, the underlying premise behind all of his remarks is that our heavenly home and our heavenly parents are refined, cultured, and majestic, and that we should try to become like them in every way possible. I agree: if we’re to become gods and goddesses, we need to cultivate the attributes that define godhood. Even though we’re only human, we all have the potential to become like God. We shouldn’t waste our time rolling in the mud.

1. Refinement in speech. The things a person says — both the words they choose and what they talk about — tell an awful lot about them. People who are down-to-earth are spotted quickly, as are the snobby and self-absorbed. Intelligence or the dull lack thereof shows clearly on the surface as we talk. And, more importantly, our refinement or vulgarity is plainly evident in our language. Do we use expletives unworthy of sons and daughters of God? (I mean not only swear words, but also the gutter talk that tends to pop up among guys in locker rooms.) Do we sink or do we swim?

For me, I tend to be a linguistic chameleon, fitting in with the language of those around me. There was a time where I picked up the word “crap,” much to my chagrin. It took a few months to purge it out of my system. Now, it’s not the worst word in the world, but I do think it’s unrefined, vulgar, and out of character for a disciple of Christ. I can’t see Jesus saying it. Nor can I really see him saying “cool!”, “awesome!”, or any of that ilk, for that matter. I don’t know if that means we should avoid such language — it certainly isn’t harmful or vulgar — but I do like the idea of dignifying my language, making it noble and refined. If we’re to be kings and queens, so to speak, oughtn’t we to act like it? (I rush to add that this doesn’t mean being hoity-toity or snotty. True nobility raises others to its level; it doesn’t push them back down into the mud.) I’ll see if I can tone down my use of “cool” and company, and if it makes a difference.

Elder Callister’s comments on “well-measured words” also stuck with me. I’m wont to spout off whatever comes into my mind, which has its hazards. :) Sometimes I’m too lightminded, treading dangerously far from the glow of the Spirit, treating jokingly that which ought to be honored and revered. Not often, but it happens more than I’d like. I need to think more about what I say before I say it. Beyond that, I want to be one of those people who speaks of “stirring ideas, compelling books, inspiring doctines” — those who make their mark in this world, as he says. I want to uplift and edify others, not bring them down.

2. Refinement in appearance. As President Hinckley talked about in priesthood session last night, we need to be clean and neat in appearance, not slovenly or overly casual. It seems to me that society has casualized itself almost to a casualty level. We worship the god of comfort (and laziness), and all the while our respectability slips out the back door. No, we don’t need to dress up all the time, but we’re making everything casual, and that’s bad. In the newspaper this past week I read about some professor up at BYU-Idaho who requires all of his students to wear suits and dresses to class. Perhaps overkill, but in all honesty it wouldn’t hurt. Dressing messy brings us down, and we lose respect and trustworthiness in the eyes of others.

Why does that matter? Well, for followers of Christ it matters a great deal: we represent not only ourselves but also our Lord and His church. I wouldn’t want my appearance to be a stumbling block, keeping others from coming unto Christ.

I’ll add that the reason I wear a collared shirt and dress pants every day is only partially a reaction against this plague of casualness. Mostly it’s because I feel better when I dress up — more noble, more grown up, more qualified to do great things.

3. Refinement in literature. For some, the first obstacle is actually reading any literature in the first place. Slavery to the television and the movie theater (to the exclusion of the library) has spawned a number of problems in society, but we’ll save a discussion of those for a later date.

With those who do read, are we mainly reading the equivalent of junk food? I don’t think all popular lit is bad, but most of it won’t help us become gods and goddesses. There’s so much good, uplifting, ennobling literature out there (and here I’ll expand “literature” to include not just fiction but all the good books of the ages, across all genres). Do we really have time to waste on Dan Brown?

I loved how Elder Callister said that there will almost certainly be a magnificent library in heaven, and it delighted me to hear that President Hinckley perused his library — I always look through people’s libraries when I visit. I can’t help myself. :)

E. Callister mentioned David O. McKay’s habit of rising at 4:00 every morning and skimming through two books by 6:00, before going about his daily business. I’m sorely tempted to do that. :) If a man as busy as he could read two books a day, surely I can, too. (And I’d love to be able to quote thousands of poems by heart…) President McKay apparently called the grandmasters of literature the “minor prophets.” That makes me happy. :) It tickles me pink to think that God reveals truth to all sorts of people, especially those whose writings I’ve come to love.

The bit about reading books more than once was a quote from C.S. Lewis (I think from “On the Reading of Old Books,” but I could be mistaken). Part of me panics at the thought of reading books more than once — because there are so many to read and not nearly enough time to do it in — but then again I’ve re-read many of CSL’s books, and I expect I’ll re-read many of my favorites over the course of my life. What I think I ought to do is stop caring about reading every book out there :), and instead focus on enjoying the good ones I do read.

I laughed when E. Callister talked about a young man sitting in his dorm room on Friday reading a book. That’s so me! :) The “slower and more lasting stimulus of solitary reading” is a wonderful thing, I must say. My heart grows warm at the thought of reading with my wife and children.

4. Refinement in music. I have trouble imagining rap or heavy metal in heaven. If our musical diet consists only of what Elder Callister calls “musical french fries,” we’re cheating ourselves of the true beauty of the heavens, I think.

Another danger (and this applies to all the arts, I think) is that we may get so used to our superficial, popular media that we (temporarily) lose the ability to enjoy the more refined and cultured music, literature, and art that is out there. Popular media also seems to create an “insatiable appetite to be entertained,” almost like a drug. The classics (which I’ll use as a general term to mean the more refined, cultured media) don’t seem to have that effect, at least not for me. Is there a substantial difference? Perhaps. At any rate, Elder Maxwell’s statement that “we’re too prone to the tasteless” is all too true. Godliness is not manifest in the trash of our literature, art, and music, but in the gems.

I need to listen to more classical music. Music “opened the spiritual pores” of J. Reuben Clark, and I’ve found that listening to Beethoven (I’m listening to the Ninth Symphony right now) and Mozart and Bach and Handel and the rest helps me concentrate, pouring light through me. Other kinds of music have a habit of getting in the way, like smudges on glass. I certainly don’t mean that non-classical music is bad, but I do think we need to get back to the masters.

The refinement that comes from playing a musical instrument is important. In the past couple of years I haven’t played the piano as much as I’d like, and the hole it’s left behind in my life is very noticeable. (Though I can still play the hymns as well as before; my guess is that it either comes from having played them thousands of times, or it’s a gift from on high.) The lounge in my apartment complex has a piano, but we can’t play it till quiet hours end at 10 a.m.; someday I’ll have my own piano in my own home and will be able to practice at 5 a.m. when I’m free to do so. Bliss. :) (I’ve never really memorized any pieces, but instead I’ve focused on sightreading. And while I’ll admit that I’m pretty good at sightreading, I want to start memorizing material so I can make it a part of me.)

5. Becoming noble and great. The core of all this is that we’re children of God, heirs to the throne, but our nobility and greatness lies latent within us. We need to wake it up, becoming the princes and princesses we’re destined to be. The world will slumber on in its misty stupor of mediocrity, but we must rise above it, piercing through the fog with our brilliant, blinding light. We must not settle for less.

[tags]BYU, LDS, Mormon[/tags]

After the priesthood session of general conference, I walked over to the library and went down to the religion section to browse the shelves. Came out with two novels: Gerald Lund’s Jenny Haller (which I mainly checked out because part of the book takes place in the BYU library) and Jack Weyland’s The Understudy (because I’ve never read any of Weyland’s works, but I did like the movie version of Charly).

As I left the library, I realized that I haven’t really read much Mormon lit at all. When I was younger I read the Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites series and some Clair Poulson novels, but that was about it, and since then I’ve hardly touched it (with the only real exception of Orson Scott Card’s work). And no, I haven’t read The Work and the Glory. ~blush~ (By “Mormon lit” I mean “literary writings by and about Mormons,” I should say, quoting from the Mormon Literature Database.)

That’s going to change. As a Mormon writer (in embryo, but due any day now :)), I really ought to be widely read in this area. My preconceived notion is that much of the fiction is going to be cheesy, like Saturday’s Warrior or Baptists at Our Barbecue. I hope I’m wrong.

So, any recommendations? Must-reads? Must-avoids? Who’s good? Who’s not? (And I might add that I’m primarily interested in literature that doesn’t seek to undermine one’s faith. No apostate authors, please.)

[tags]Mormon, LDS, literature[/tags]

I was reading Moroni 7 yesterday morning and came to verses 10 and 11:

Wherefore, a man being evil cannot do that which is good; neither will he give a good gift. For behold, a bitter fountain cannot bring forth good water; neither can a good fountain bring forth bitter water; wherefore, a man being a servant of the devil cannot follow Christ; and if he follow Christ he cannot be a servant of the devil.

So an evil person can’t do even a single good thing? That seemed odd. Surely even Adolf Hitler could have performed some act of kindness, at least once, right? If the truly wicked can’t do good, then how could they ever repent?

Perhaps this “being evil” is much more of a transitory thing than it might appear at a first reading. Instead of being a more permanent quality attached to you in the long-term, “being evil” might actually refer to your current direction in life. Are you moving closer to God or farther away from Him? It would thus follow that as soon as a person who is currently evil does something good, they cease to be evil and become good, at least until they do something evil again. As C.S. Lewis said, “There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”

I guess I feel uneasy about labeling people as wholly good or wholly bad. And with good reason: none of us is perfect, and hopefully very few have gone beyond the power of redemption. But I’m sure Mormon was aware of that, certainly more so than I am.

Maybe he is referring to the “average,” the cumulation of character that defines us as a disciple of Christ or a minion of Satan. A lifetime of good decisions would make it reasonably to call that person “good,” and likewise, a steady stream of evil would classify a person as evil. In that sense, maybe “a man being evil cannot do that which is good” doesn’t mean that evil people are incapable of doing good, but rather that they almost certainly won’t, because of who they’ve chosen to serve.

Thoughts?

I got the proof copy of Project Cumorah yesterday at 5:15. It’s beautiful! Thick and hefty, to be sure, but it’s lovely. And you can now download the PDF or order the hard copy through Lulu by going to Riverglen Press. Here’s what the page looks like:

Oh, the sidebar on Riverglen Press apparently has some issues in Internet Explorer, so I recommend using Firefox. (You won’t regret it. :))

(This is cross-posted from BenjaminCrowder.com.)

[tags]Book of Mormon, Lulu, Riverglen Press[/tags]

Today I want to talk about change. Two cents, to be precise. Or non cents, depending on your perspective.

But really, I’m in the middle of a passionate love/hate relationship with Change. On the one hand, I loathe it, since I’m very much a creature of habit (as y’all may have noticed), and it’s nice for my snug little world to stay just the way it is. I don’t like goodbyes. (Unless we get to sing “God Be With You Till We Meet Again.” :P) Sticking with my current job is saving me from a lot of goodbyes, and life will stay roughly the same for the next school year. At least that’s the plan. :) I love my current calling (executive secretary) and would love to keep it till I get married and move out of the ward. (I’ve decided that the only thing that’ll get me to move out is marriage. I’ll probably be here a while. ;))

On the other hand, though (and you’ll have to tell me whether it’s the right or the left, or maybe even the big; the small got broken last week), I love change. I thrive on meeting new people, adapting to new situations and technologies, and carving different pathways. Change is exciting, fun, and challenging. If there’s something better out there, I’m usually all for switching. With computers, for example, I was originally a DOS/Windows guy, then I switched to Linux for eight years, and a year and a half ago I converted to Mac. And I would get bored if I never started reading new books.

I think change is one of those waves of life where it’s good and healthy to go back and forth between loving it and hating it. Of course, that in and of itself is change.

Okay, so today I guess I’m struggling to come up with something good to write about. Sorry. :) Thanks for all the comments lately, and hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to reply to most of them. Incidentally, the total number of comments exceeded the number of posts not too long ago (491 to 465 as of this post). Shall we try to hit 1000 by the end of the year? ;)

Anyway, my talk went well. Usually before public speaking or anything like unto it, my heartrate quadruples and I have to swallow a lot and I get a semi-queasy feeling. But the last few times I’ve spoken in church, I’ve felt surprisingly calm. But only in church. (Though admittedly my throat dries up about ten seconds after I start talking — I need to start requesting cups of water… :)) And I have to have a podium to hide behind. If it’s just me up there, I feel awfully vulnerable. Not that I really expect anyone to start chucking fruit at me, nor would I need to begin practicing dodging flaming arrows. (But that would be a pretty darn cool story. Someday…)

Finally, when I mentioned my Book of Mormon project to a girl at church today, she said, “Every time I talk with you I feel sooooo unproductive.” I don’t think she meant it in a bad way, but it got me thinking. I certainly hope I don’t give anyone guilt trips from reading this — on the contrary, I hope y’all can catch some of the zest and excitement and go off and do amazing things. I wish no one felt unproductive. If I inadvertently cause that, I’m sorry. (The best way to cure that is for you to go do something productive, I guess. :P) I must admit, though, that a healthy drive akin to obsessive compulsion does help out a bit. :)

That’s enough for today. I’m going up to my family’s for dinner. (Yes, real food. Mmm. :))

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]

The oddest thing has happened.

When I went to bed last night, I prayed for guidance as to which library job I should aim for, now that my first shot has turned out to be a dud. Circulation? Special Collections? Cataloguing? And with these thoughts in my mind, I fell asleep.

In the wee hours of this morning I awoke and got in the shower. Mulling over what I ought to do, the thought of staying where I am came to mind. Now, I was sure that I really needed to start working in a library as preparation for my career, and that’s why I was so intent on getting a library job. It seemed the natural next step.

As I thought over what it would be like if I stayed, however, to my surprise I found that the must-get-a-library-job impulse had faded, and it would be quite okay to stay where I am. “What?” I asked. “But…but…”

I made up my mind to wait to make a final decision till tomorrow morning when I go to the temple. And I thought about it some more.

By the time I stepped out of the shower, I knew what my decision was — to stay with the Center — and I also had a peace of mind and heart that everything will turn out okay.

And now the interesting thing is that all my well-laid plans for the future — work at the library till I graduate, get a staff job for a year, start my MLS, etc. — aren’t quite as concrete as they’ve been for the past few months. I’ve surrendered them up to my Father, and I stand here like a child, content in knowing that He has a plan for me. I don’t know what will happen after I graduate, but I do know that I needn’t fear.

(Side note: I still have every intention of getting an MLS and becoming a librarian — that revelation was strikingly clear and I’d be a fool to deny it — and temporary setbacks certainly aren’t going to get in my way or dissuade me from my course.)

It’s funny when God speaks to me through my feelings, especially because the skeptic in me is screeching “It’s just your own feelings, idiot!”, but I am absolutely certain in this case that it came from the Lord. The message has his signature.

While studying Latin and reading Grimm this morning, I had so much fun that I couldn’t just stop there. So I picked up my copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Spanish and started reading, not worrying too much about the dictionary but just trying to pick things up as I went along. Spanish is much, much easier than German, I must say — Spanish feels so translucent when compared to the bogs of Deutsch. But that’s because of my Latin experience and the prevalence of Spanish here in the States. (German’s not too hard, though, since it’s related to English and I’ve studied Old English as well.) Over breakfast I ended up reading some little story about Cardinal Mazarin in French, again just plowing through it without resorting to a dictionary. And to my surprise I was able to keep up with the story, even though I haven’t even touched French for at least four years. Crazy. :)

More and more I’m becoming convinced of the virtues of language study via diving right into texts. Sure, you need a little bit of a foundation — in French it’s useful to know that verbs are negated by being surrounded with “ne” and “pas,” and that (as in Spanish) the direct object is often placed before the verb when it’s a pronoun, and so on — but the necessary rudiments aren’t as many in number as I previously thought they might be.

I’m not recommending that anyone throw out their grammar books, of course; but this is a nice and fun method that can augment one’s study of a language. There’s nothing quite like figuring out the language on your own — like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Or something like that. :)

Anyway, going along with the language theme, I added Hmong, Marshallese, Niuean, Rarotongan, Serbo-Croatian and Tahitian to the Moroni 10:3-5 page, which brings it up to 47 languages. I also checked out copies of the Book of Mormon in Amharic (Ge’ez/Ethiopic), Mongolian, and Tamil, and I plan to add Arabic, Cambodian (Khmer), and Lao translations soon as well.

[tags]Book of Mormon[/tags]

Found this delicious quote over at Doctrinal:Net.

It is within our power to guide our youth in their reading and to cultivate in their hearts a desire for good books. It is most unfortunate where a person is not possessed with the desire for good reading. The reading habit, like charity, should begin at home. It is the duty of every parent to provide in his home a library of suitable books to be at the service of the family. The library need not be large, nor the books of the most expensive binding, but there should be a well chosen variety of the most select that can be obtained. Children should be encouraged in the home to read and be instructed in the value of good books and how to discriminate between the good and the bad in literature. — Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, Vol 3, pp.203–4

Evolution.

So now that you’re ready for a comment-hungry post, we’ll begin. :P

Yesterday in our C.S. Lewis Society meeting, we briefly touched on evolution (along with a handful of other aspects to science). It’s been a while since I’ve done much with science, and this was all it took to rekindle the sparks of interest. So, when I got home, I picked up my copy of The Origin of Species off the shelf and began to read.

I’m only some 40 pages into it, but I’m liking it a lot. I’d forgotten how much I love reading science. (I used to read lots of astronomy books when I was younger, but it’s been years.) More on all that in my next post.

So, back to evolution itself. It’s clearly a contentious subject, with both sides quite passionate in their beliefs. Here’s my stance.

First and above all, I believe in God. While I may not understand the mechanics of all God does, I know He’s there. My conclusion is thus biased. :) (And so are the conclusions of all the atheists who are just as convinced that God isn’t there.)

Now that we’ve established where I’m coming from, I’m of the opinion that evolution neither proves nor disproves God. Coming from my belief in God, whether or not evolution is how it happened has no bearing on whether God did it. Granting that God is omnipotent, we simply cannot constrain Him into using whatever method we happen to like. He could have created the earth the way we’ve thought for thousands of years, or through evolution, or by some other means entirely. To me, then, the question of evolution is completely separate from the question of whether there is a God.

Having said that, I don’t really think that most evolutionary scientists are trying to kill God. Rather, I contend that they’re just drawing an erroneous conclusion when they assume that evolution presupposes a lack of intelligence behind the universe. It’s impossible to prove or disprove God through science.

So did God use evolution? Judging by the evidence available to us, there’s a fairly good case for it. The theory isn’t perfect and there are certainly holes in it, but it can’t be too far from the truth. Things do change over time. It’s mainly just a question of how much they change, and what the limits are.

Perhaps we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. We do the best with what we’ve got, and if it doesn’t all make sense just yet, that’s fine by me. We’ll learn the truth someday, and in the meantime we’ll just keep working away at it, using the minds God gave us to try to figure out His handiwork. (Even if we don’t believe in Him. :))

Now, I still have only read 40 pages of Darwin, so I don’t know if he makes a case for human evolution in The Origin of Species. But the title of his next book was The Descent of Man, which leads me to assume that that’s what he talks about. I do believe that there is some variation between generations — hereditary diseases, hair color passed down, etc. — but I firmly believe that man is not descended from the ape. From the “The Origin of Man,” a 1909 statement by the First Presidency:

It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth, and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declares that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1: 34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race.

(Quoted from the evolution packet endorsed by the BYU Board of Trustees back in 1992)

On the last page of the packet there’s an interesting quote from the First Presidency in 1931:

Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored gospel to the world. Leave geology, biology, archaeology, and anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church….

Agreed. :)

[tags]evolution, Mormon, LDS, Charles Darwin[/tags]