(Click on the image to enlarge it.)
Anyone who has spent much time in Laie knows that it badly needed adequate lodging for visitors, and that the construction of a new hotel there will both benefit the local economy and the Polynesian Cultural Center enormously and be a significant tourist asset to Oahu’s North Shore. Moreover, it will provide wonderful internship and work-study opportunities — practicums — for students in the Hospitality and Tourism Management program at Brigham Young University’s Hawaii campus.
So President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s dedication of the newly completed facilities there represents a major milestone:
Of course, certain voices are predictably complaining, and mocking the idea of a Latter-day Saint apostle’s pronouncing a dedicatory blessing on a commercial facility.
Some of these voices complain about and deride just about everything the Church and its membership do, so there’s not much news here, really.
And most of them, I suspect, are agnostics or atheists.
Still, there might be a few of them who aren’t. If so, they should perhaps consult their inmost thoughts and ask whether they’re not being inconsistent.
Some, I suspect, probably regard the image of Catholic priests praying over the nets of the local fishing fleet as something that is, at worst, quaint and perhaps even touchingly pious. Few of us go commercially a-fishing these days. But what’s the real difference between praying over a fishing net or a crop of barley or a carpentry shop and praying over an accounting office or a dentistry practice or a hotel? (Would calling that hotel an “inn” help, perhaps? Is this complaint, for some, really just about nostalgia and a romanticizing of the past?)
“Most gracious Lord, who numbered among your apostles the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James and John, we pray you to consecrate this boat to righteous work in your name. Guide the captain at her helm. So prosper her voyages that an honest living may be made. Watch over her passengers and crew and bring them to a safe return. And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be upon this vessel and all who come aboard, this day and forever. Amen”
In praying for the new hotel in Laie, President Uchtdorf is, on the whole, simply following the admonition of the Book of Mormon, suitably adapted to a modern time and economy:
Cry unto him when ye are in your fields, yea, over all your flocks.
Cry unto him in your houses, yea, over all your household, both morning, mid-day, and evening.
Yea, cry unto him against the power of your enemies.
Yea, cry unto him against the devil, who is an enemy to all righteousness.
Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.
Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase. (Alma 34:20-25)
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In