Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Commonplace Book

A Commonplace Book. “Commonplace”, from the Latin 'locus communis', meaning “a theme or argument of general application.”  For me, it is a collection of thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, poems, observations, and quotes that stood out and caught my attention, some with comment, some without. Essentially a scrapbook, a repository of thoughts too good to just pass over and let go.


“Life must be understood backwards. But . . . it must be lived forwards.”
(Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, journal entry, 1843) 

“The Lord doesn’t put us through this test just to give us a grade; he does it because the process will change us.”
Henry B Eyring, Waiting Upon the Lord, BYU Devotional, September 30, 1990) 

“Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”
(Fred Rogers) 

“If you choose not to find joy in the snow you will have less joy in your life but still the same amount of snow”
(Anonymous) 

“James Madison was, as wise people usually are, an accomplished worrier who rarely worried about the wrong things. It turns out, however, that he did when, in Federalist 48, he worried about Congress “drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.” For generations, Congress has been a centrifugal machine, spinning off powers. Limited government requires a limited president, which requires limits on what Congress can give away.”
(George F. Will, What’s next, a tariff on peanut butter?, Washington Post, 8 February 2019) 

“Do not confuse reverence with being quiet. Of course there are times and places when reverence is shown by not speaking or by using hushed tones. Also, in the correct setting and circumstance, being boisterous and reverent are not conflicting. Real reverence is simply not doing anything disrespectful, demeaning, or degrading to the Godhead. It has to do with how we think, how we act, and how we speak. It relates to our integrity and the way we treat one another. The level at which we keep the covenants made in the holy ordinances is a powerful indication of our reverence.”
(Donald L Hallstrom, of the Presidency of the Seventy, Living a Reverent Life, BYU Devotional, February 12, 2013)

“Joseph Smith declared that the mother who laid down her little child, being deprived of the privilege, the joy, and the satisfaction of bringing it up to manhood or womanhood in this world, would, after the resurrection, have all the joy, satisfaction, and pleasure, and even more than it would have been possible to have had in mortality, in seeing her child grow to the full measure of the stature of its spirit.” (President Joseph F. Smith, GD, 453) 

“Recently I heard a chorus of children sing the beloved song “I Am a Child of God.” I wondered, “Why haven’t I heard that song rendered more often by singing mothers or faithful fathers?” Are we not all children of God? In truth, not one of us can ever stop being a child of God!”
(Russell M Nelson, Decisions for Eternity, October Conference 2013) 

“Priesthood means service; bearing the priesthood, I will serve.”
(Recited each week by the members of the Aaronic Priesthood of the Fourth Ward of the Pioneer Stake in Salt Lake City, Utah, under the direction of Bishop William F. Perschon, as recounted by Elder Joseph B Wirthlin, April Conference 2007) 

“Divine covenants make strong Christians. I urge each one to qualify for and receive all the priesthood ordinances you can and then faithfully keep the promises you have made by covenant. In times of distress, let your covenants be paramount and let your obedience be exact. Then you can ask in faith, nothing wavering, according to your need, and God will answer. He will sustain you as you work and watch. In His own time and way He will stretch forth his hand to you, saying, “Here am I.”
(D Todd Christofferson, The Power of Covenants, April Conference 2009) 

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