Some thoughts

The subtitle of the blog says it will contain thoughts and musings. Lately it's contained mostly YouTube posts. Incidentally, I'm going to put up the Okkervil River Conan clip as soon as someone posts it...I was all ready to set the DVR last night then thought, "I'm sure it'll be on YouTube tomorrow"...so far my bet is not proving to be a good one, but I guess I'll wait a little longer before assuming it's a complete loss.

So on to the thoughts. Lately my scripture study has consisted of listening to the LDSVoices podcast on my way to work. Now I know that it's certainly not ideal, we've received admonitions from Pres Benson, Pres Hinckley, and others that there should be no substitute for the scriptures themselves...but until I figure out how to make that work (until I humble myself enough to make it a true priority) I've really been enjoying the podcasts.

Yesterday I listened to a talk by one of my favorite speakers, Truman G Madsen. He's a longtime BYU professor of philosophy, church historian, and my father in law's former mission president. I always enjoy his deeply-thought insights and personal glimpses of the lives of the early leaders of the church.

Here's something he said about prayer, and about Brigham Young:

Now may I take slices from autobiographical accounts? Are we to pray in practical and specific terms? Brother Brigham Young was hung up on a sandbar crossing a river on the plains. His companion, troubled, said, "Let's pray."

Brigham replied, "Pray? I prayed this morning. Let's get out and push." There is a time for total concentration in prayer and a time for answering prayer with your own muscles--helping.

But this is the same man who was specific enough to bring to the Lord concrete and urgent feelings, even hostile ones. His prize saddle was misplaced or did not hang properly, and the horse trampled it into shreds. He sharply rebuked the neglectful man and then made a beeline for the bedroom where he said (someone overheard him), "Down Brigham." Then he knelt and prayed, "Lord, I'm sorry. I was angry. Take my anger away and help me to do better next time."

"When I am angry," he said to a friend, "the first thing I do is pray."

Some of us have been taught that should be the last thing we do, that we should soak our head in a bucket and then pray. "I never am so angry but that I can pray," said Heber C. Kimball (JD 3:231). And as for the related emotions, the same holds true.

Of such a practice Brigham Young once said, "I do not recollect that I have seen five minutes since I was baptized that I have not been ready to preach a funeral sermon, lay hands on the sick, or to pray in private or public." Think of that! And then he added, "I will tell you the secret of this. . . . If you commit an overt act, repent of that immediately, and call upon God to deliver you from evil and give you the light of His spirit" (JD 12:102–3) rather than spend a week rationalizing and defending what you have done amiss or not done aright. He did it.


Now I'm sure I've lost all three of my regular readers by this point due to the length of this post, but I these words really resonated me and made me want to be better. Rather than add my commentary to Bro. Madsen's, suffice it to say that these words struck me and caused me to pause. I love these insights into the inner thinkings of the prophets. They always reveal to me the difference in the level of thinking of theirs and mine, and how I can improve...imperceptibly on the outside but profoundly on the inside.

OK. I think I've filled my thoughts and musings quota. Now time to find the Okkervil River clip...