A New Approach

When I was a teenager I read the book Clothed with Charity--a collection of talks from the 1996 BYU Women's Conference in Provo, Utah.  At the time I had recently made myself a book for quotations and notes, a book which I still have and use often.  The message of many of the talks that I read in that book have remained with me through the years--I even read a talk by the woman who would one day be my mission president's wife.  What a surprise it was one day while doing personal study in the mission field to come across a quotation from Sydney S. Reynolds!

I mention this because I have been thinking a lot lately about how to find greater value from my scripture reading--how to invest myself in it more thoroughly and more actively engage myself in spiritual growth.  I have remembered several messages from those talks that discussed the power of WRITING--especially about the scriptures and our spiritual experiences:

"...write to find that in exhaustive dailiness is power, courage, a bringing forth of the highest consciousness of what it is to be a woman.  Write." --Carol Clark Otteson

One message in particular was focused all about writing and journaling about the Book of Mormon.  N.C. McCullogh taught several ideas that have stuck with me through the years:

"A journal can be the welcome garden where the heart's seeds come to fruition."
"I keep a journal to discover what I know, how I know it, and why it matters.  I write to unearth treasures and mysteries buried in my heart.  Writing the tender stirrings of my heart if the act of spring on my subconscious.  It is not always a blossom that rises up to be shown, but it is always important."

I didn't record it in my quote book, but I remember her talking about how she has written about the Book of Mormon specifically for years, and that as she has gone over her writings as she reads and rereads the Book of Mormon she discovers new layers of meaning...new insights...places where her understanding has deepened since her last reading.

So I've been thinking about that a lot--this idea of writing about our spiritual journeys and The Book of Mormon inparticular--along with this thought from that Women's Conference:

"...eternal life doesn't start at the Savior's Second Coming....it's right now.  Our relationship with God and Christ goes back all the way and today is a part of it.  We need to think about each day as being an integral part of the great picture.  In other words, the mere fact that we are alive today is holy in itself."  --Mary B. Kirk (emphasis mine).

I think it's a beautiful idea that each day is an integral part of our relationship with God and Christ--that each day is holy.  I want to find spiritual growth each day.  So I've been thinking that I want to start using this blog to reflect on the things that I am reading in the scriptures and that I am learning spiritually.  I don't plan to be exhaustive in detailing every thought I've had--who would have time for that anyway?--and certainly not all things I meant for sharing in a public forum.  But I'm finding that I am in a rich period of learning right now, and not to record it would be to waste important lessons that ought to be remembered and shared.

So by way of introduction, here's where I am right now in my scripture study.  In a bit of a blur, really, ha.  I have been thinking a lot too recently about the recent Visiting Teaching Message in which Julie B. Beck teaches us that we should live our covenants with precision, and lists scripture study as one of the things we can do precisely.  I'm not very precise about scripture study.  But I want to learn to be. :)

Tinoa and I are reading The Book of Mormon together--along with Evie of course, who joins in by trying to chew on the pages.  Today we read in Alma 38 about Alma's teachings to his son, Shiblon.  We have found great success in reading together in the past few months as we have made it a habit that every morning, no matter what, we get up, we sing a hymn or a Primary song, and we read a chapter in the Book of Mormon.  I really love it.  By way of personal study I have blundered along trying to study the New Testament, as that is the course of study in Sunday School this year, but I haven't been extremely consistent.  Recently I started reading the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon, because I know I should study the Book of Mormon often, but I felt like if I started in 1 Nephi for the 65738th time and then didn't actually pursue the whole book that maybe I would seem false and without real intent.  (To whom I don't know, but I was concerned about it.)   What I have been really excited about reading though is the new book that has come out about the history of The Relief Society, Daughters in My Kingdom.  I love having incredible female role models in the Gospel--like Sister Beck, Chieko Okazaki, Barbara Thomspson, my mother, etc.  I have been reading in that one and have learned a lot already about how the Relief Society was put together and what it's goals are.  For example, yesterday I learned that D&C 25 is to apply to all women in the church and that it "establishes foundational principles for all Latter-day Saint women" (DIMK, 14).  I thought that was pretty amazing.  

So this is me.  It's Thursday, my battery on my laptop is dying, its rainy and gray outside, but I've decided that it is a day and a time for new beginnings anyway.  The beginning of my writing about my spiritual learnings.  For me, for you, for whomever may read.

Cheers.
xE