“When the earth begins to tremble, Bid our fearful thoughts be still; When thy judgments spread destruction, Keep us safe on Zion’s hill” (Hymn 83)

Over the past few days, my thoughts have been severely disjointed. As long as this condition is but temporary, it’s still preferable to having a disjointed body! I’m still neglecting so many things and not responding to several people’s requests, but I’m afraid if I don’t put down a brief entry tonight, that’ll just be one more wheel spinning in my head.

Ah, yes! That’s why this entry is captioned as it is, though nothing else I say will have anything to do with that—it’s just a phrase that’s been running constantly across my mind’s stage, especially when I’m about to fall asleep. I really hope this blog will get that one out, though I’m willing to retain the accompanying scripture thought (one of my favorites), that of Mosiah 5:15, which is for some inexplicable reason not cross-referenced to 1 Corinthians 15:58. I almost hesitate to say that the provided cross-referencing scheme is inadequate. It certainly isn’t to those who don’t use it. All the same, I won’t go into my studies about the history of scripture in print; it suffices me to say the footnotes are a tremendous effort, but hardly all-inclusive, on the mark, or always the best selection out of what would fit in a limited space. I have no idea where that came from, but it seems to foreshadow the rest of tonight’s data dump. My apologies in advance for a more informal and nostalgic entry.

I hope I don’t seem too much like the beloved “idiot” savant, Kim Peek, in this respect, but I do always chuckle at his statement: “I read books in the morning and in the evening. I go to the libraries in the afternoons” (Fran Peek, The Real Rain Man: Kim Peek [Salt Lake City: Harkness Publishing Consultants LLC, 1996], 74). (Incidentally, he tackled a perennial question: “One individual, a male teacher who seemed a bit negative in his body language as Kim responded to comments from others, raised his hand and asked, ‘If you are so smart, Kim, maybe you can tell us which came first: the chicken or the egg?’ Without a second’s hesitation, Kim shot back in an unusually feisty tone, ‘Did you ever see an egg cross the road?’” (Ibid., 123).)

I’ve been reflecting back on BYU apartment days with considerable fondness. That is where some of my oddities first escaped. I regularly clipped Church quotes and stuck them on my bedroom wall, then walls, and eventually the ceiling. My roommate looked at it askance and said, “Kris, you have a ‘Beautiful Mind.’” (That will make no sense if you haven’t seen the movie.) Right above my head I stuck President Hinckley’s thought (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, 145):

This work requires sacrifice, it requires effort, it means courage to speak out and faith to try. This cause does not need critics; it does not need doubters. It needs men and women of solemn purpose. As Paul wrote to Timothy: “. . . God hath not given us the spirit of ear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. . . .” (2 Tim. 1:7-8.)

I would that every member of this church, and every good man throughout the world, would put those words where he might see them every morning as he begins his day. They would give him the courage to speak up, they would give him the faith to try, they would strengthen his conviction of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe that miracles would begin to happen over the earth.

Frustratingly, I soon realized that my eyesight was too poor to actually read the thing from that distance when I first opened my eyes! I also recall coming home from the Nauvoo Temple dedication, as held in a stake building, to print off President Hinckley’s statement “You cannot turn your back on this work and prosper” and plaster it under the windowsill. That was the first time my roommate gave me a look like I was taking over.... But we were always friends. Even though he had this way of tensing up, shaking his head, and saying, “You’re so weeeeeird.”

One night in the front room, while I was cheerfully reviewing newly copied quotes, a visiting Relief Society sister asked me what one was about. ‘Twas one of my favorites, quite relevant to recently unveiled thoughts:

Numerous leisure hours have been made available to men. It is noticeable that many use these extra hours for fun and pleasure. Certainly an increased part of it could profitably be used for gaining knowledge and culture through the reading of good books.

Numerous people fail to take advantage of these opportunities. Many people spend hours in planes with only cursory glancing at magazines, and in the train or bus, time is spent “sitting and thinking,” and in many cases, “just sitting,” when there could be such a constructive program of reading. People in beauty parlors, professional offices, waiting rooms, and elsewhere waste precious hours thumbing through outdated magazines when much valuable reading could be done in these islands of time. (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 383)

That is hardly all that I do. I’m making a renewed effort to also practice President Hinckley’s counsel (TGBH, 44):

I want to make it clear that I am not adverse to some recreation. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and likewise Jill a dull doll. But when it becomes an end in itself, then we are in danger. We cannot expect to refine the substance of character from “the husks of pleasure.”

I’m spurred on by President Monson’s words—and I’m too tired to find what is undoubtedly a corresponding thought within more recent publications:

Here was one who was content to travel in any direction, according to the whim of the driver who stopped to give him a free ride. What an enormous price to pay for such a ride! No plan. No objective. No goal. The road to anywhere is the road to nowhere, and the road to nowhere leads to dreams sacrificed, opportunities squandered, and a life unfulfilled. (Be Your Best Self [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1979], 45)

Focus. The sharper the focus the greater the risk of insanity, I suppose, hence the need for the balancing effect of understanding as many principles as possible. In the end I see little wriggle room from the phrase “an eye single to the glory of God.” The corollary is that an eye capable of viewing His glory must be open to seeing quite a lot indeed. Else we can be broadsided easily. Maybe in my fatigue I’m trying to say that depth and breadth are required for true discipleship. Either one by itself seems to trifle with the other, totally out of sync with what’s necessary.

Still, I almost single-mindedly hold to President George Albert Smith’s mentality (TGeAS, 130): “This life is not given to us as a pastime. There was a solemn purpose in our creation, in the life that God has given to us. Let us study what that purpose is, that we may progress and obtain eternal life.” There are lots and lots of instructions about the most important knowledge being spiritual, etc., etc. (Whoa. That’s unlike me. Now I know I’m trying to wrap things up!) Etc. in this case=please look them all up. It does not=I don’t care, I’m bored.

Since I’ve been burning the candle on both ends, lately my “islands of time” have been spent snoozing. “You snooze, you lose” is fairly apropos. Just rising early without retiring early seems to me like I’m disobeying prophetic counsel, and I’m guilty enough right now, so good night!!!

P.S. I'll have you know that I could not do otherwise than bestir myself from slumber once this nagging thought took up a mighty commotion. This after a long day wherein I went to two jobs, two FHEs, and nearly finished my taxes. I discover that I'm attempting to imitate the "vices" of great men, rather than their virtues.

From Prophet to Son: Advice of Joseph F. Smith to His Missionary Sons [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1981], 89-90, 96-97:

I never asked, never expected anybody else to carry my load or lighten my cares. I never worked with any man who worked longer hours than I did myself. President George Q. Cannon is the only man I ever met to whose capacity for endurance I had to bow, and he possessed one gift--a rare one, too--which I, unfortunately, do not possess. It was this, at night when the toil of the day was done and we laid ourselves down for rest, the moment his head pressed his pillow, he slept and snored, and snored and slept, while I would toss and roll and sigh for sleep and rest, but like the will of the wisp, it would mockingly dance before my o'er wrought nerves, and perhaps for hours when most I needed it, elude me. . . . I have carried this nervous temperament for more then [sic] 66 years and still I live! But it is due to kind providence, and to the mercy and love of God, and not due to any wisdom, caution or power of my own. I shall endure it until He says it is enough, and then I will give up. . . . The burden would be too heavy for me to bear alone. But I can do it easily with God and my family on my side! . . .

You were writing your letter of January 8 after 12 midnight, and you had not "been to bed before 12 midnight for almost a month." I think I might almost say the same of myself. But whether it is I or you, it is all wrong! I know that in this respect I am guilty of transgressing the laws of life and health, and yet it seems as tho' I was impelled by necessity to do it. All day I give my time and effort to public duty, and what I have to do for myself and my five families I must do after working hours. Besides these duties necessary to myself and family, I do all the writing, reading, reviewing of matter for the [Deseret News] press, which I have to do by electric light, generally after everybody except myself (not even excepting the office guard), are wrapped in the arms of Morpheus. Still it is wrong, especially is it not wise when necessity compels one to get up early in the morning after working past midnight. It is wrong even though one sleeps in the morning to make up for lost rest, for it is turning day into night and night into day. In a manner it is consuming artificial light at much cost to the pocket and wasting free natural light, also at more or less cost to health. . . .

The Lord said, "Retire to bed early," and this is wise advice, but we do not heed it. Now let me say it, Let us go to bed early, that we may rise early and be refreshed. So far as we can. It is God's plan. He tells us to do it, and we should obey.

While turning pages in search of this thing brought most inconveniently to my remembrance, I recollected two other items I cannot fail to share with you, since they're in front of me.

Joseph F. Smith: Portrait of a Prophet [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000], 278 contains President Anthon Lund's funeral tribute to President Smith. Watch for his incautiously and unintentionally humorous implication:

We have heard President Grant speak about Brother John Taylor, about Brother Woodruff, and Brother Lorenzo Snow, and we have for some time looked forward to a day on which speeches should be made in memory of the prophet Joseph F. Smith.

Also, I was reminded on pages 308-309 of the exact language (to quote President Smith's April 1902 Conference address, contained in multiple sources) of a concept I drew upon in my last entry:

I believe that the Lord has revealed unto the children of men all that they know. I do not believe that any man has discovered any principle of science or art, in mechanism or mathematics or anything else that God did not know before man did. Man is indebted to the Source of all intelligence and truth for the knowledge that he possesses and all who will yield obedience to the promptings of the Spirit which lead to virtue, to honor, to the love of God and man, to the love of truth and that which is ennobling and enlarging to the soul will get a clearer and more expansive and more direct and conclusive knowledge of God's truths than any one else can obtain.