A weekend that was probably better than I deserve

This weekend, now coming to a close, had the potential of real trouble.  I mean, it began on Friday the Thirteenth and concluded with the Ides of March, which didn’t go swimmingly well for the late Mr. Julius Caesar.  In between was Pi Day, so that wasn’t too bad, perhaps.

But it went well, albeit with dangerously large amounts of food.

On Friday evening, acting on behalf of the Interpreter Foundation, I hosted a dinner at the Riverside Country Club in Provo for those who would be participating the following day in a symposium at BYU on “Exploring the Complexities in the English Language of the Book of Mormon,” as well as for some of those who’ve supported Interpreter and Royal Skousen’s Book of Mormon Critical Text Project.  That dinner was made possible by the kind generosity of Dr. Lynn Dayton and Senator Margaret Dayton, who are members there at the Club.

On Saturday, our symposium — co-sponsored by the Interpreter Foundation and BYU Studies — extended from 9 AM until just after 1 PM.  It drew  a capacity crowd that seemed to enjoy the proceedings, and the presentations by Stan Carmack, Jan Martin, Nick Frederick, and Royal Skousen, with closing remarks by Jack Welch, were meaty, lucid, and well done.  I served as the convener and moderator.

Afterwards, some of us, along with some extended family, enjoyed a collegial lunch at La Jolla Grove.

Then — just a bit too soon thereafter, though we tried to be careful — my wife and I went up to Salt Lake City for dinner with other friends (which, of course, had to include just a bit of pie) and an opera.

The opera was Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and it was quite well done.  The acting was good, and I think it’s the first time that I’ve actually found it funny.  That said, I have to admit that I just don’t like this particular opera very much.  For one thing — and I realize what blasphemy this is, even as I write it — Mozart isn’t, on the whole, my favorite classical composer, and I just don’t find a whole lot that’s memorable in the music of Così fan tutte; I far prefer Die Zauberflöte.  More importantly, realizing that I risk being dismissed as a moralizing prude, the plot has always hit me as not only silly — which more than a few operas are — but morally revolting.  And the conclusion is not only implausible but objectionable.

Still, it was a very pleasant evening, and there are worse ways of spending one’s time than listening to Mozart.

Today, I was privileged to teach a Gospel Doctrine lesson on Matthew 13, and then my wife and I headed up to the Salt Lake Valley again to have dinner and celebrate multiple birthdays with extended family.

Faithful scholarship, music, good friends, good food, family, worship with neighbors, serious reflection on the scriptures — wonderful things, all of them.  Life can be quite good.