Brothers and Sisters, I am reminded today of the first lecture I delivered when I was teaching gross anatomy to first year medical students many years ago. The medical students met in a large lecture hall that held around 180. The room was steeply sloped and in front there was a moderate sized stage upon which the lecturer stood. Back in those days, we didn’t have the fancy electronic teaching tools we have today. All images were projected from a carousel projector from the back of the room. In order to control the projector, the lecturer had a remote control. Keep in mind this was nearly 20 years ago. There were no such things as wireless devices. This remote had a long wire that connected it to the back of the podium. In order to be heard, the lecturer had a microphone clipped to his lapel which also had a long cable connecting it to the back wall. The laser pointers of the day were these large cylinders approximately 10 inches long and over an inch in diameter. They were enormous compared to what we have today. I’m sure that the power cord for the laser pointer connected to a small nuclear reactor or particle accelerator or something, because when you turned it on, the lights in the auditorium dimmed visibly and the device began to emit an ominous hum. It was like some kind of first generation laser weapon prototype that had been decommissioned for use in the classroom. As if I wasn’t already nervous enough facing 150 type A personality medical students, all of whom were poised on the edges of their seats ready to pounce on me at the first sign of weakness, now I had this train of cords running down my torso and around my feet. If I took so much as a step I would certainly get tangled in them, then in an act of total personal humiliation, I would topple from the stage into the first row of students who would very happily truss me up and carry me to the cadaver lab! The nights preceding the lecture were sleepless and the day of my lecture arrived I felt drained and haggard. This experience feels kind of like that . . . only worse!
I know this begs the question “ If this is such a terrifying experience, why on earth would you agree to do it? Believe me, I have asked myself that very question. Well, for three reasons. First, I love you. Second, I love this place, and third as a faculty member at BYU-Idaho, I am fundamentally committed to the process of learning and teaching as it relates to our spiritual and temporal lives. Refusing an invitation to do just that runs contrary to everything that I believe you and I are about at this place. So having said that, I am willing to give it the “Old College Try” as they say.
I am pleased to be accompanied by my wife. Her positive attitude and congenial outlook on life buoy me up and her support is so critical to me in my life.I am also pleased to have my parents here today. Much of what I hope to present, today was first learned from their teachings and examples in their home
I’d like to begin today by sharing a poem. My father spent his professional life as an educator. He used to recite poetry to us as children. This is one of my favorites and it has stuck with me since I was very young. It is pertinent to what I want to talk about today. The language of the poem is a little “country” so some words may not be that familiar to you. When you hear the word “fodder”, that refers to feed, particularly for livestock. The word “shock” refers to a bundle or a sheave.
The poem is by James Whitcomb Riley and is entitled, “When the Frost is on the Punkin”
WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best, With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here— Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock— When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn; The stubble in the furries—kindo' lonesome-like, but still A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!— O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps; And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!... I don't know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be As the angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me— I'd want to 'commodate 'em—all the whole-indurin' flock— When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.
I love the imagery of this poem. I love the description of the Fall and of the especially the feeling of satisfaction and wealth that is described by the references to harvest.
I grew up on a small dairy farm. We milked a small herd of cows and we grew most of our own crops. My parents kept a large and well-tended garden and a small orchard adjacent to our home. So I am very familiar with the concept of harvest and it brings sweet memories to me. My mother adhered to the adage of gardening, “You eat what you can and what you can’t, you can!” In the late summer we began canning and freezing. We made freezer corn, we canned green beans and pickles. We bottled peaches and pears and other fruits. Later in the fall we picked apples and made them into apple sauce, pie filling, apple juice and apple cider. Tomatoes were canned and stored as salsa, juice or other sauces. Finally, our potatoes were dug up and bagged for the winter.
In addition to these activities, my parents stored a number of other food items. Of course the hard red wheat had its place in our basement storage room along with other staples such as flour and sugar. In a small shed adjacent to our home were extra freezers filled with frozen meats, jams and other items.
Try to visualize this with me. At the bottom of an old set of concrete steps in my parent’s home is their basement storage room. When you open the doors you are met with a rich earthy smell. Turning on the light reveals a relatively small space packed with shelves and at the end of canning season, these shelves are filled with jars and cans and boxes and tubs of the items I just described to you. If you were to walk into the outside shed you would see bags of potatoes on the floor, boxes filled with apples, tomatoes, fall squash and freezers filled with meat. Can you get a sense of the satisfaction, safety, self reliance and wealth this type of resource represents?. It makes me hungry just thinking about it.
This was our family food storage and it was used wisely. Once in place we didn’t just sit back and wait for a famine to strike before we began to use it. Items from these shelves adorned virtually every meal. My mother would pull from these stores items for side dishes, main dishes, garnishes and desserts
I watched her practice her considerable home economy skills as she used this resource to bless the life of our family and many others. On many occasions we would be about to sit down to dinner when company would arrive. They would be invited to join us. With a few quick trips to the basement, a meal that was intended for 6 would easily feed twice that. It was literally like witnessing the miracle of the loaves and the fishes first hand.
On more than a few occasions when Amber and I were newly married and our children were young. Our budget was stretched thin. As we left my parents home following a visit, we were almost always presented with a box or several boxes of food items from storage. My parents just seemed to know what we needed. We loved going home!
Now, I have played a bit of a mean trick on you today. We have brought you here shortly after lunch, turned off the lights, and talked to you about food storage. This is like a perfect recipe for a nap. If I were to now sprinkle in a few sentences about family history, I’m certain that I could have you all dozing quite soundly. I am the first to admit that I possess a formidable power. My current and former students will tell you that my lecturing style is like the verbal equivalent of chloroform. A few well placed syllables from me and virtually no one is immune to the sleepiness they induce. If you wonder who my students are, they are the ones who showed up with pillows! I recognize that it is more power than one man should bear, but in my own defense, I do try use it for good and not evil.
Despite this, I need you to rouse yourself for the next part of my talk, because while it may not be rivetingly interesting, it is important. What I’ve been speaking about so far is an extension of the Law of the Harvest. In my mind, implicit within the concept of harvest is the concept of storage. When we reap in abundance, we store the excess. This appears to be a natural law. When a plant produces more sugars than it can use immediately, it stores them. When you and I consume more nutrients than we can use immediately, our body stores those nutrients for a time of need. I have already talked with you about my experiences with growing and storing foods for our home storage. In the first devotional of this semester, Sister Clark spoke about spiritual nutrients and it began to stir an idea within me and I have been pondering it since. Can this template of reaping in abundance and storing the excess be applied to spiritual nutrients? Is there such a thing as a spiritual food storage? If so, what would it be?
Well, I brought with me today a few items that I consider as part of my spiritual food storage. The first is an old book of remembrance that my parents compiled for me. It contains a genealogy of my fathers as well as a history of some of my ancestors in their own words. It is also a record of God’s dealings in their life as well as in mine. In it, I have copies of my baptismal certificate, my ordination records, my patriarchal blessing, my mission call, and our wedding certificate. It’s almost like my very own set of Brass Plate. I love to pull this off the shelf and flip through the pages. I enjoy reading the experiences of my ancestors and the trials and blessings they experienced. When I see my baptismal certificates or certificates of ordinations, I reflect on the covenants that I have made with my heavenly father.
Another item that I have is one of several journals that I have kept in my life. This particular one is from my mission years. In it I have recorded my mission activities and the families my companions and I taught. It records episodes when my testimony grew and some of the challenges I faced. When I read these journals, I am prompted to remember how the Lord supported our efforts, how he opened doors for us and how he led us to families and strengthened our testimonies. It is an important part of my spiritual food storage.
Journals are a great way to add to add to our spiritual stores.In the October 2007, General Conference, President Henry B. Eyring spoke on Remembering. He related the following story:
“When our children were very small, I started to write down a few things about what happened every day. Let me tell you how that got started. I came home late from a Church assignment. It was after dark. My father-in-law, who lived near us, surprised me as I walked toward the front door of my house. He was carrying a load of pipes over his shoulder, walking very fast and dressed in his work clothes. I knew that he had been building a system to pump water from a stream below us up to our property.
He smiled, spoke softly, and then rushed past me into the darkness to go on with his work. I took a few steps toward the house, thinking of what he was doing for us, and just as I got to the door, I heard in my mind—not in my own voice—these words: “I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down.”
I went inside. I didn’t go to bed. Although I was tired, I took out some paper and began to write. And as I did, I understood the message I had heard in my mind. I was supposed to record for my children to read, someday in the future, how I had seen the hand of God blessing our family. Grandpa didn’t have to do what he was doing for us. He could have had someone else do it or not have done it at all. But he was serving us, his family, in the way covenant disciples of Jesus Christ always do. I knew that was true. And so I wrote it down, so that my children could have the memory someday when they would need it.
I wrote down a few lines every day for years. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?” As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.”
To me, spiritual food storage includes any items that cause us to reflect, recall and remember the lord and his blessings in our lives. For example, I consider my family and friends as a type of food storage. I have been blessed with a wonderful family and with tremendous friends. Many of whom are here. I rarely look at my children without considering with deep gratitude that the Lord would bless my life with them.
I work with a great group of people in my department. They are more than colleagues, they are treasured friends. Recently several of us were together sitting shoulder to shoulder and I began to reflect that over the past decade or so, I had sat with them in chapels, councils and classrooms. We had counseled, cried and laughed together. They are my brothers and sisters. I am strengthened every day by their examples and their testimonies.
Still other friends of mine have faced serious challenges in their lives and I am still strengthened by the grace and courage and strength with which they bravely faced their challenges. Whenever I am with them, I frequently reflect on how much I have learned from them about how the Lord comforts us in our afflictions.
Now, every robust home storage has some foundational element such as wheat or potato flakes or boxes of green jello powder. In a similar fashion our spiritual food storage must have some central elements. May I suggest to you these elements are the words of prophets both ancient and modern and the temple. With regard to the scriptures, please consider the Book of Mormon as an example. Language used to describe this book of scripture helps illustrate the nature of it as a storage form of spiritual nutrients.
1 Nephi 5:21
And we had obtained the records which the Lord had commanded us, and searched them and found that they were desirable; yea, even of great worth unto us, insomuch that we could preserve the commandments of the Lord unto our children.
1 Nephi 3:20
And also that we may preserve unto them the words which have been spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets, which have been delivered unto them by the Spirit and power of God, since the world began, even down unto this present time.
2 Nephi 25: 21-22
Wherefore, for this cause hath the Lord God promised unto me that these things which I awrite shall be kept and preserved, and handed down unto my seed, from generation to generation, that the promise may be fulfilled unto Joseph, that his seed should never bperish as long as the earth should stand. Wherefore, these things shall go from generation to generation as long as the earth shall stand; and they shall go according to the will and pleasure of God; and the nations who shall possess them shall be ajudged of them according to the words which are written.
Jacob 1: 2-3
And he gave me, Jacob, a commandment that I should write upon these plates a few of the things which I considered to be most precious; that I should not touch, save it were lightly, concerning the history of this people which are called the people of Nephi. For he said that the history of his people should be engraven upon his other plates, and that I should preserve these plates and hand them down unto my seed, from generation to generation.
Next time you are reading it, take a few moments to look for such key words as “record”, store, seal up, or preserve.” I know it’s not exactly like canning, bottling or pickling, but those words evoke the feeling of storage. This literally is a kind of storage that has been assembled for us by others. Specifically, the nutrients were hand picked by the prophet Mormon who “saw our day”[1] and knew what we would need, just as my parents seemed to know what my wife and I needed from their food storage.
The temple is not just a type of spiritual food storage, it is “The Storehouse”. Everything about the temple is designed to cause us to remember our relationship to our heavenly father, his plan for us and his never ending efforts and interest in our spiritual progress.
Now for those of you that don’t already have your eyes closed, please take a moment and close them. Imagine walking down the well-worn stairs leading to your spiritual pantry. Take a few moments to take stock of your spiritual stores. Are the shelves burgeoning with spiritual experiences and memories that you can call upon as you need them? Do you get a satisfying sense of sufficiency, preparation and spritual self reliance or are there gaps on the shelves? Is it dusty, somewhat barren and in need of stocking? Now evaluate how you have used this store. Are you pulling from it regularly to supplement your daily spiritual menu? Do you find yourself taking to time to reflect on your spiritual experiences and remembering the tender mercies of the Lord in your life and recognizing his hand in your life? Are you sharing your spiritual stores generously and appropriately with others by using your spiritual experiences and bearing your testimonies in both word and deed and using them to guide your actions as you work to spiritually nourish those around you?
Consider the parallels that I have suggested between a home food storage and a spiritual food storage. There is an interesting paradoxical difference between them. Unlike a home food storage, when you use or share from your spiritual food stores, the stores are amplified not diminished. Just as he widow who was blessed by Elijah, as she used and shared from her store of food, her cruse of oil and measure of meal were not depleted, they were replenished.[2] Share from your spiritual stores regularly and generously.
May I conclude with a scripture and a challenge. Going back to the theme of storing what we can when we reap in abundance, may I suggest that you are at a time and a place of spiritual plenty. The theme of harvest is as deep within this institution. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that a place like this is set in a valley where the law of the harvest is such an integral part of our heritage, so much so that the symbol of sheaves of wheat are incorporated into the decorations of our temple on the hill. It may be that you will never again be in a place of such abundance. The entire focus of the administration, staff and faculty of this place is upon your temporal and spiritual well-being. Your access to spiritual good will, and wealth of testimony is part of what sets this place apart. If you do not feel within your heart of hearts that this is the case, then you have yet to discover the true nature of this place.
With all this in mind, let us read together this scripture. I am taking it out of the context in which you typically hear it, but I believe it is applicable to the thesis of my talk. Please turn to Doctrine and Covenants 4:4:
For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;
Next turn to a similar scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants 6:3:
Behold, the field is white already to harvest; therefore, whoso desireth to reap, let him thrust in his sickle with his might, and reap while the day lasts, that he may treasure up for his soul everlasting salvation in the kingdom of God.
Will you accept a challenge from me to do just as these scriptures suggest? While you are here, thrust in your sickle. Take advantage of as many spiritual opportunities as you can. Harvest deeply and lay up in store. Learn to take time every day to look at how richly the Lord has blessed you. Record your impressions and reflect upon them frequently. May the Lord of the Harvest who watches over all who labor in his vineyard bless our bounty for our good. I so pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Notes
[1] Mormon 8:25
[2] 1 Kings 17:16