Christmas is coming and I haven’t done much shopping, but I am well on my way to being prepared with my gift for my husband John. The gifts that we as a family give him are memorizations. For as long as I can remember John has discouraged buying store-bought presents to celebrate his holidays. Instead, he has asked that we memorize a poem, song, or scriptural passage to recite for him. This way our offerings could be described the same as William Shakespeare describes mercy: “It is twice blessed; it blesses him that gives and him that takes.”[1] I know this passage because I once memorized it for John. He has always felt that memorization gives our children and me a chance to give him something that we can also keep for ourselves. It is a gift from the heart when we learn things by heart.
I like the phrase “learning by heart.” In contrast to “learning by rote,” to learn by heart is to commit things to memory so deeply and richly that they sink deep into the soul.
I have learned that there can be many benefits to learning things “by heart.” For me personally, to commit a passage to memory deepens my understanding of the passage and fixes it in my heart. As I go over and over a passage in my mind, I think about it again and again. The richness of the words—the way they are put together, the possible symbolism, the clever use of literary devices, and new meanings that I may never have noticed or understood before—all become apparent in the process of memorizing. Memorizing can become a rich way of studying—a way of studying things out in my mind, then letting them sink deep into my heart. Learning by heart (which may be somewhat of a dying tradition) means to learn something so deeply that it becomes part of our core; it fills us; it changes us. This type of learning by heart prepares our minds and hearts for revelation and witnessing from the Holy Ghost. Joseph Fielding Smith said, “Through the Holy Ghost the truth is woven into the very fibre and sinews of the body so that it cannot be forgotten.”[2]
Often my heart has been filled with the Spirit during early morning runs as I have gone over in my mind “The Proclamation on the Family,” “The Living Christ,” or some scripture or poem I was memorizing. I had read the “Proclamation on the Family” many times and felt love and appreciation for it, but memorizing it forced me to linger over and repeat each word and sentence. As I did so, my mind and heart were prepared to be taught by the Holy Ghost. I began to see how the Proclamation spoke in detail to each of the cultural ills that plagues our society. I felt hope that the eternal truths taught in the Proclamation could arm me as I faced current and difficult moral issues. I began to feel greater affirmation from apostles and prophets and from the Lord for the family choices I had made over a lifetime. I was comforted by the knowledge that we had a Father in Heaven who has an unfailing plan for us. I felt His matchless love and goodness. I felt as it explains in Proverbs that “the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding” and . . . “wisdom entereth into thine heart.”[3] My heart was filled with knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and love which encouraged gratitude, personal improvement, and the desire to strengthen others.
This tradition of memorizing and reciting has allowed us as parents additional glimpses into the hearts of our children, to come to know them better. As they choose their own passages we often discover what challenges or joys they are experiencing. We also learn of their wisdom and sometimes of their sense of humor. I remember on John's 40th birthday when our then fifteen-year-old daughter presented a poem by Lewis Carroll:
“You are old Father William,” the young man said
“And your hair has become very white.
And yet you incessantly stand on your head.
Do you think that at your age it is right?”
My husband forgot his dismay at his passing years as he delighted in our daughter's sense of humor. Another time a daughter chose to recite Shakespeare's Sonnet 29, “When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state.” This came at a time when she was feeling inadequate and friendless. One child chose a love poem when he was feeling heady and in love. Another memorized Section 4 of the Doctrine and Covenants and announced to us that she had decided to serve a mission. What they learn by heart and share with their father becomes an expression of their own heartfelt emotions.
Learning by heart is a rich phrase. Think about the word “heart.” We all know that our hearts are central to life. Physically the heart is the life-sustaining organ of our bodies. Likewise, “heart” is used to describe the essential, most vital part of our spiritual being; one=s innermost character, feelings or inclinations. In a gospel sense, the heart is our spiritual core. Hence, the scriptures teach that “as a man thinketh in his heart so is he”[4] and that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”[5] The Gospel must be “written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone; but in fleshy tables of the heart.”[6] Over and over in the scriptures, prophets remind us, as Alma tells his son, to “let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.”[7] Learning by heart in its richest sense is a gospel duty. It is a twin commandment to remembering. We are to learn spiritual truth by heart and then retain in remembrance what we have placed deep in our hearts.
Many of you here today have spent several years at this wonderful university to become educated. What have you learned by heart? Some of what you have learned by heart is factual or informational. Such learning is useful. It helps us solve daily problems and meet immediate needs. Dr. Todd Britsch, former Academic Vice President of BYU, observed that in this world where we have ready access electronically to information, it is still important to have some information stored in our mind so we aren’t dependent on being plugged in to access it. He said,
“. . .we remember some data that helps us solve a problem, we direct someone to a particular location, we discuss a painting without a copy of it in front of us, we order a part for a computer without a catalog at hand. In each case we have memorized something that helps us shorten the process of dealing with daily experience. Without this storehouse of facts and data, we would be helpless.”
Other things we learn by heart serve even more profound ends, as Dr. Britsch goes on to describe:
“. . . a scripture that aids in counseling a sorrowing friend; a hymn whose words and music express our most profound religious feelings when we are struggling with a matter of faith. . . a technical point that helps us defend a position that is important for us, our family, or our community.”
Have you deposited rich and worthwhile learning into your memory bank so that when you need to make a withdrawal there will be abundant treasures of knowledge and wisdom available to you? Have you acquired the skill of learning how to learn so that you can continue throughout your life to fill your bank? In Preach My Gospel it says, “While learning from a good teacher is very important it is more important for you to have meaningful learning experiences on your own.”[8]
Recently I saw some young women learn how to find answers for themselves to their burning gospel questions. A Young Women president called our presidency and said that her girls had a question for us. The question was, “What is the Church’s stand on wearing two-piece swimming suits?” As a presidency we discussed their question and then continued talking about it with our General Board members. Then we returned the call to the Young Women president and said, “Although we have lots of thoughts about this topic, we don’t feel we should give an answer for you. Instead, we would like your young women, under your guidance, to study this question, reading everything they can in the scriptures and from Church leaders, including listening to General Conference with their question in mind. Then in a couple of months we would like them to come report their findings to us.” We just recently had that meeting. It was clear that these girls had not only learned answers to their question, but had learned how to learn answers to future questions. As it states in BYU–I’s Learning Model, “when learners and teachers exercise agency by acting in accordance with correct principles, they open their hearts to the Holy Ghost and invite His teaching.” Now these young women have found their own answers which will stay with them at their very core, in their hearts, and they will know how to continue to deposit treasures of knowledge in their hearts.
Learning by heart enables us to pursue lifelong learning more fully “by study and also by faith.” Your Learning Model also states: “Learning to act in accordance with one’s faith in Christ is fundamental to enjoying deep, life-changing learning. The power we access by acting in faith that is focused on the Savior allows us to exceed our natural limits and learn beyond our natural capabilities.” That type of education will stretch us and make us more fit for the kingdom — more serviceable to others.
Brigham Young stated: “We might ask, when shall we cease to learn? I will give you my opinion about it; never, never.”[9] He also taught: “Our education should be such as to improve our minds and fit us for increased usefulness; to make us of greater service to the human family.”[10]
I am grateful for powerful examples in my life of people who assume the responsibility to continually learn and serve, thus making the world a better place by their vibrant, faithful minds and hearts.
John's eighty-seven-year-old mother is one such example. It is always fun to talk to her because there is such excitement in her voice about each personal new discovery, be it about literature, history, culture, language, the scriptures, or any other topic. She has taught herself to speak several languages to be more useful in her temple service. She is the mother of thirteen children who follow her example in hungering for knowledge and sacrificing to serve. She is someone who has taken learning to heart.
I, likewise, saw a pattern of learning by heart with my dad. As a young man he served a mission in Czechoslovakia. At that time there was no MTC to train him in the language. He had to learn it as he went. He established a habit of studying both the scriptures and the language diligently early every morning. In 1990 when that country was again opened to the Gospel, he was called back to be the Mission President. He continued that early morning study of the language each day of his mission, and thus he became quite proficient in it. Several years after his return from the second mission, he was called to be a patriarch to the Czech people so that, in the words of President Boyd K. Packer, “they can receive this personal blessing and message from God in their native language.” Studying and memorizing the language, in his mind and in his heart, prepared my father to be a more useful servant in our Heavenly Father’s kingdom.
One of the many things I love about our dear prophet President Hinckley is his bright mind and his love for learning. At the dedication of a campus library, there was much talk about the vast technology that had been acquired that would help people access information from the great collection of books. President Hinckley was grateful for that, but then he tenderly held a beautiful book in his hands. He talked of his great love for the heft and feel of a book, that nothing surpassed the pleasure of holding it and reading from its pages. He inherited a vast library of books from his father and he knew its contents. Books have become part of him. His daughter Virginia Pearce said of him, “He frequently quotes Shakespeare. He quotes Kipling. Passages of great literature are just floating around in his head.”[11] This is because he memorized them in his youth and sometimes recited them to his parents, as our children have done for us.
My husband and I have heard lots of other relevant information just seem to “pop out” at the appropriate times, as we had the opportunity to take two ambassadors to visit him, one from the Czech Republic and one from China. In each case we were astounded as to the depth of his knowledge of the historical and political events of those lands. He is well read. He is a good thinker. He has a good memory and is wise in his ability to assimilate and utilize his knowledge. This lifelong learning has allowed him to be much more serviceable in the kingdom. He is able to draw treasures of wisdom out of the abundance of a mind and a heart well stocked with knowledge.
A combination of well-developed faith, intellect, and character prepares students for a lifetime of service. I memorized a poem by George Elliot that speaks eloquently about developing ourselves so that we may become one of the “choir invisible” whose lives “bring strength to others”:
Oh, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence. . .
-be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
By lifelong learning and service, we may join the choir invisible “whose music is the gladness of the world.” As graduates of BYU–Idaho, you have a special duty so to live. As President Kimball said of the university graduates in our Church: you “provide the music of hope for the inhabitants of this planet.”
For our lives to become the music of hope for the world, our learning must be heart-deep; it must reach our very core. We must be able not only to access information but to understand; we must acquire not only knowledge but wisdom. In this day and age, we can look up anything, but it can only change us if we know it in our hearts. T. S. Eliot said, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
“O remember, remember” Alma said to each of his sons. Let us “treasure up wisdom” in our hearts (D&C 38:30) by appreciating in our hearts our blessings of protection, comfort, and peace; by pondering in our hearts moments of inspiration and revelation received from the Holy Ghost; and above all, by remembering, remembering in our hearts that we are covenant children of Heavenly Father. We must engrave our covenants in the fleshy tables of our hearts. It is my hope and my prayer that, as Jeremiah says, God will put his law in our “inward parts and write it in [our] hearts.”[12] May we learn by heart those things that will continually fill our memory banks with wisdom and then use that wisdom in His service.
Notes
[1] The Merchant of Venice, 4.1.186-87
[2] Doctrines of Salvations, Vol. 1, p. 48
[3] Proverbs 2:6, 10
[4] Proverbs 23:7
[5] Matthew 6:21
[6] 2 Corinthians 3:3
[7] Alma 37:36
[8] PMG, 2004, p.17
[9] JD 3:203
[10] JC 14:83
[11] quoted in Jake Parkinson, “U. Endowment Expands,” Deseret News, 6 April 2003, A7
[12] Jer. 31:33