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Cadence wrote:
It was way different in what it left out
That is typical PR in all it’s facets. Working with PR the biggest and most important thing you learn is.
Quote:More important then what is said, is what is not said. That is very telling.
Newsroom stuff is written to minimize negative impact on people outside the organization. That’s a huge difference, and expecting newsroom stuff to be anywhere close to comprehensive and not extremely selective is an exercise in futility. I read those things out of curiosity, but I move on quickly once the actual transcripts are available.
Curtis wrote:Newsroom stuff is written to minimize negative impact on people outside the organization. That’s a huge difference, and expecting newsroom stuff to be anywhere close to comprehensive and not extremely selective is an exercise in futility.
What?!?!?! Press releases are not authoritative? Does this mean that I have to stop drinking caffienated soda?
Here is a link to the video of Pres. Uchtdorf’s presentation. It is almost one hour long, and his portion starts at about 12:20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rc5GyF5i3Y It is good right at the beginning and then really gets rolling around the 31:00 mark – then it bumps again just before the 51:00 mark and again right around 56:00.
Curtis wrote:Here is a link to the video of Pres. Uchtdorf’s presentation. It is almost one hour long, and his portion starts at about 12:20.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rc5GyF5i3Y It is good right at the beginning and then really gets rolling around the 31:00 mark – then it bumps again just before the 51:00 mark.
Fan-dabby-dozy
Who wants to transcribe that video??? I hate watching videos and much prefer reading text. I will give it a shot at transcribing it, and let you know if I am able to. I think many more people than just me would appreciate having a transcript. I don’t suppose anybody else has found one yet? Okay, here is what I have so far. But without a transcriber it is going to take me too long to do the whole talk. This should give you a taste of it. He really is wonderful to listen to, and I would recommend going ahead and listening to it. Done quickly so don’t take me to task for any errors. There is much more after this. President Uchtdorf:
Thank you Elder Snow. It is such a privilege and joy to be with you today. Especially with Harriet. She is such a wonderful lady. I call her the sunshine of my life. And it is wonderful to be here with the love of my life and to speak of the light of my life which is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it is of course wonderful to be with you and thank you to this beautiful children’s choir.
They represent the topic you have here on your church history symposium, the worldwide church, the global reach of Mormonism. And they represented it in such a great and wonderful way I even recognized there was a little Chech hymn in there, among the others, although my Chech isn’t present anymore. But it is wonderful to see the international church to see how it reaches out all around the globe.
Now it is a privilege indeed to be with you today and when I received the invitation to participate in this symposium it felt like something very close to my heart. I am not entirely sure of all the reasons why, but I do know this: History is important. And keeping ourselves anchored to the lessons learned from history will enable us to emulate the best of what it means to be human.
It can also help us avoid the worst. George Wilhelm (not sure what he says here), the idealist and philosopher said “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” Which is supported by George Sentilianist (sp?), who said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The late novelist Michael Crighton is reported to have said “If you don’t know history then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that does not know it is part of a tree.”
History teaches us not only about the leaves of existence it also teaches us about the twigs, the branches, the trunks, and the roots of life. And these lessons are certainly important. One of the weaknesses we have as mortals is to assume that our leaf is all there is. And you find this often in other people, but I think if we look into the mirror we find it in even our own perceptions.
It is that our experience encompasses everyone else’s, that our truth is complete and universal. As I considered what I wanted to speak about today it seemed that the metaphor of the leaf needed to be at the heart. But I also ran across an old Yiddish expression that goes: “To the worm in horseradish the world is horseradish.”
So I want to emphasize that the truth embraced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints extends beyond leaves of any size, and certainly beyond horseradish. It extends beyond time and space and encompasses all truth: The mysteries of the tiniest atoms to the vast and incomprehensible secrets that the universe holds so tantalizingly before us. The gospel of Jesus Christ encompasses not only the truth of what was and what is, but the truth of what can and will be. It is the most practical of all truths. It teaches the way of the disciple. A path that can take ordinary flawed mortals, and can transform them into glorious immortal and limitless beings whose divine potential is beyond our meager capacity to imagine.
Now that is practical truth. It is priceless beyond imagination. It is truth of the highest order. The pursuit, discovery and application of truth are what we are on this earth to discover. And you are part of this process because you are scholars, you are interested in this field. And I very much appreciated of course the questions you presented to me as I asked for them. And I decided not to do the question and answer period after my remarks but I tried to imbed the answers to most of the questions right in my remarks, and I hope you will recognize them when you see them.
Now let me come back to the core of my remarks, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ is not only encompassing all truth, but it specializes in the knowledge that will be of greatest worth to us in this life and throughout the eternities to come. So it reaches way out into the future. And I like this one saying by Winston Churchill where he says: “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”
As mentioned before, one of the traits we share as human beings is that we assume that our own experience is a true and proper base from which to view the rest of the world. For example, when we are healthy we presume that those we meet are healthy and judge them by that standard. When we are sick we are more likely to wonder of others are sick as well.
It goes even to very trivial areas when you drive a Ford you see Fords on the road. We assume that the leaf of our existence defines the rest of the world.
Tolkien began his famous novel the Hobbit with these words: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Now you all remember Bilbo Baggins lived in a comfortable home in the shire. A small peaceful village that celebrated gardening, community gatherings, and a meal schedule that included breakfast, second breakfast, elevensees, lunch, afternoon tea, supper and dinner. I envy the schedule.
Bilbo was quite content with the leaf of his life. And it was beautiful for that. But little did he know of the twigs, the branches, the trunks and the roots that were all around him. Little did he know of distant towers, trolls and talking trees. The farther he went from the comforts of the shire the more remarkable and strange the world became.
While Tolkien’s world was one of fiction it can serve as a metaphor for our own experience. I grew up in a small branch of the church in Swikow (sp?), East Germany. Our little meetinghouse was a beautiful building with an old air driven organ. It was one of my privileges to sometimes have the assignment to work the bellows that supplied air to the pipe organ. While the congregation sang our beloved hymns of the restoration I pumped with all my strength so the organ would not run out of wind. The eyes of the organist unmistakenly indicated whether I was doing fine or needed to increase my efforts quickly.
I loved our little meetinghouse with its stained glass window. It was kind of an old villa. And in these stained glass windows there was Joseph Smith kneeling in the sacred grove. When I was young I supposed that this was what the church looked like. That what I was seeing in Swikow (sp?) was what every other member of the church saw during their Sunday experience throughout the world. That the little leaf of my experience was the same as everyone else’s.
….. Much more after this. Just takes too long to transcribe.
Harmony that’s outstanding. Thank you! Thanks Mackay. Amen. Thank you, Harmony. Thanks so much! I love the Tolkien reference.
I love the yiddish “horseradish” story. He talked about each of us being in the middle of our own exprience a couple of years ago:
Quote:“There is a sublime truth behind the idea that we are always in the middle. If we look at our location on a map, we are tempted to say we are at a beginning. But if we look more closely, wherever we are is simply in the middle of a larger place.
As it is with space, so it is with time. We may feel we are at the beginning or end of our lives, but when we look at where we are against the backdrop of eternity—when we realize that our spirit has existed for time beyond our capacity to measure and, because of the perfect sacrifice and Atonement of Jesus Christ, that our soul will exist for an eternity to come—we can recognize that we are truly in the middle.
Being always in the middle means that the game is never over, hope is never lost, defeat is never final. For no matter where we are or what our circumstances, an eternity of beginnings and an eternity of endings stretch out before us.
We are always in the middle.”
https://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/07/always-in-the-middle?lang=eng
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