(A Wikimedia Commons public domain image of a detail from Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling in the Vatican)
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I call your attention to a pair of newly posted items on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:
The Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 41, “I Will Order All Things for Your Good,” on D&C 111-114, was, in one important regard, quite simple: The sole panelist was Martin Tanner. The “roundtable “was extracted from the 29 August 2021 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show. The complete broadcast, gloriously liberated from commercial and other interruptions, may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-August-29-2021/. The Interpreter Radio Show can be listened to on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or, as an alternative, you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.
Jonn Claybaugh has kindly provided yet another short help for teachers and students in the Church:
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Some of you may find this piece of interest. It’s by the prominent Evangelical Protestant philosopher William Lane Craig:
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The effort to extricate endangered people from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan just became a bit more personal for me. Someone who is deeply involved in it asked whether I might be able to help (in a minor and quite unheroic way). If I can help, I will. Otherwise, horrors.
In a distinct case, it’s far more personal and intense for a BYU acquaintance of mine:
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Quite understandably, in view of the current uncertainty about COVID-19, several people decided to opt out of our upcoming special Interpreter Foundation tour of Egypt in November. I can’t really blame them. But we’re still going. (Get vaccinated!) And that leaves several places on the tour open. The most crucial and time-sensitive issue at the present moment is that of the cruise ship that we’ll be using on the Nile River between Aswan and Luxor. Our Egyptian associate says that he will keep our hold on several cabins open for the next two days, but that he will then let them go to others. If you had been thinking of going with us to Egypt, or if you know anyone who was or who is still thinking of going, this is the last chance to sign up.
If you’re interested, you should contact Cruise Lady: Latter-day Adventures as soon as possible or have your interested friends or relatives do so.
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We had an exceptionally good meal tonight with good friends, in an exceptionally pleasant outdoor environment. I’ll identify the restaurant, since some might find that helpful and since a very small group of others will nearly explode with vocal and angry bitterness at the very thought. Their angry personal bitterness seems to gratify them and to give their lives at least some transient sense of purpose. In other words, my writing briefly about a good meal at a good restaurant is a twofer. It pleases both friends and enemies:
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We spent some time walking along the seashore this morning and then, this evening, we watched the sunset from Balboa Island. There are more ships out on the water than I’m used to seeing here. That fact, coupled with the always awe-inspiring descent of the sun into the water — I was looking for the legendary and elusive green flash, which I’ve seen several times before, but there was just a little bit too much cloudiness tonight in the very far distance and so I didn’t see it — reminded me of a famous poem by Henry Van Dyke that is entitled “I Am Standing Upon The Seashore.” Perhaps someone out there will find it particularly helpful because of a current sorrow:
A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come
to mingle with each other. Then, someone at my side says;
“There, she is gone!” “Gone where?”
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her
load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at the moment when someone
at my side says, “There, she is gone!”
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout;
“Here she comes!”
And that is dying.
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And, finally, here are a few items that I’ve drawn from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File©:
“Utah Sees Vax Rate Jump After Urging of Mormon Leaders, but Conspiracies May Derail Effort”
Posted from Newport Beach, California
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