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What CREATING teaches me about the CREATOR
After today's sacrament meeting ended the bishop leaned over and asked how does it feel to create sacrament meeting topics. I had to admit I love it.
Today's topic was inspired by last year's Arts Sunday. I had to wear a hat more appropriate to keeping my eyeglasses clear of rain, but I did bring my black beret with me to which I have added twenty Mormon Arts-themed pins as you can see here.
I began my introduction to the topic by talking about the end of my mission, and my frequent rereading of Elder Ballard's 1996 talk on the arts while eating corndogs and getting desperately ill. (Good times.)
Then I talked about the beret and the work of some of the artists featured on it who are connected to our ward (see the other post for related contest information).
And then I shared this quote from then Elder Thomas S. Monson:
God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity in the cloud, the oil in the earth. He left the rivers unbridged and the forests unfelled and the cities unbuilt. God gives to man the challenge of raw materials, not the ease of finished things. He leaves the pictures unpainted and the music unsung and the problems unsolved, that man might know the joys and glories of creation.
And then I let them rip. I'll put brief notices of the talks in the comments section roughly three hours after this post goes live.
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ReplyDelete[Note: these will all be extremely abbreviated, even though the notes I took were more extensive]
Speaker one
She spoke on fashion and her passion for it and the inexpressible joy that comes from creating. Since Heavenly Father gives talents, be must approve of us using them. She quote the first stanza of Tintern Abbey and 126 as examples of beauty and power and Spirit in art. She quoted Moses 1 and My Heavenly Father Loves Me as examples of how creation helps us understand God. When she spoke of this topic with her father, he asked her, what do my photographs tell you about me?
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ReplyDeleteSpeaker two
Thelonius Monk. Thomas Edison. Igor Stravinsky. Creative people in the scriptures, hiding children in baskets or breaking walls with marching or lighting barges with stones. Christ was creator. He progressed through the Genesis creation from difficult to mastery, always welcoming direction from above and help from others. Three things we learn from The Creator: 1, work with what you have; 2, believe in your work; 3, seek instructions.
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ReplyDeleteSpeaker three
Grew up drawing logos---now doing it professionally, creating experiences for others. Consider Steve Jobs. What other CEO's death has been met by spontaneous worldwide public mourning? But Jobs was mourned because of the experiences he gave people. Similarly, God created a world that we might have experience---generally positive experiences. Perhaps making logos not that important, but creating a daughter is. Creating a home is. Creation is work. Work is creation. Both are meant to be enjoyed. Among other scriptures, consider the lilies.
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ReplyDeleteLater that night, at New Beginnings (the Young Women thing), the bishop cited the day's talks and pointed out that adolescents are actively engaged in creating themselves. Which I thought was an excellent point.
Th, I wish I had remembered or seen something to remind me.
ReplyDeleteI had to talk on Sunday also, AND I too had some control over the program. I would totally have junked my talk & written one specifically on
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ReplyDeleteNext year!
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ReplyDelete2015: http://thmazing.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-joys-and-glories-of-creation-svithe.html
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ReplyDeleteBy the way, I've since learned that Elder Monson is not the original source of this quote---it just wasn't attributed in his talk where I first read it. It comes from an old issue of the YMCA magazine: https://books.google.com/books?id=SrLNAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Trenton+rock%22#v=snippet&q=%22Trenton%20rock%22&f=false