Saturday, May 14, 2011

Alma 32-35
Nancy Baird - May 10, 2011



QUOTES FOR ALMA 32-35




"My heart is [stirred over] [on] a good matter:  I speak of ...things...touching the king."
 Psalm 45:1-2  (New English Bible/King James )


"In Highland New Guinea, now Papua New Guinea, a British district officer named James Taylor contacted a mountain village, above three thousand feet, whose tribe had never seen any trace of the outside world.  It was the 1930s.  He described the courage of one villager.  One day, on the airstrip hacked from the mountains near his village, this man cut vines and lashed himself to the fuselage of Taylor's airplane shortly before it took off.  He explained calmly to his loved ones that, no matter what happened to him, he had to see where it came from."
 Annie Dillard, For the Time Being, 204.


"Men are wise in proportion not to their experiences, but to their capacity for experience."
 Files of Nancy Baird


"He really believed in Heavenly Father, who knew everything and who wanted to share everything with him...He was absolutely confident that if he worked hard, he could learn what God knows."
 Henry J. Eyring, about Henry Eyring, theoretical chemist, Deseret News, 4/28/11  C8.



  "Dad continued to learn years after his leg muscles failed and his heart began sounding strange as he listened with his own stethoscope. Long a master of languages -- German, French, Hebrew, Latin -- he studied Arabic at 70, ancient Greek at 75 (so he could read original texts).  And somewhere in the middle of all this, he learned to read musical notation so he could explore the Beethoven piano sonatas.  His music teacher would come to his office -- the patients, poor souls, waited -- and together teacher and aging student would pore over the sonata scores...
    As a young man, though pressed by the needs of family and patients, he began the long struggle against the contraction of time and space that too often marks the frenzied, joyless life of adult purpose...
    ...The mind has a life beyond work.  My father understood that going to medical meetings and reading medical journals to improve his professional skills was an inadequate mental diet;  he needed what Einstein called "the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment."  He needed music studies in the middle of the day."
 from Judith Groch, "Life After Work,"  American Health, March '89, 98-100.



"Orson F. Whitney  at Eliza R. Snow's funeral mentioned an interesting thing.  You know that passage in Abraham where it says, "Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;  And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers..."  This was before the creation.  He (Whitney) said there were just as many women in that group as there were men.  He was speaking about Eliza R. Snow and why she should be one of the most gifted prophets and poets in the school--not just prophetess, but most gifted prophet.  She had tremendous gifts and powers."
Hugh Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, 443.


"He lived believing that 'everything hinted at something transcendent; that the presence of God was a daily experience and the sanctification of life a daily task."
about Abraham Heschel, the great Jewish rabbi,  files of Nancy Baird


"The Jewish term of potential for this world is 'timshel,' 'Thou mayest..." which gives a choice...God loves and gave; we are here to learn that, and that God cherishes agency, our capacity, wrapped up in "Thou Mayest."
 Marion D. Hanks, private letter of Nancy Baird.



Alma 32-35 - Nancy Baird - May 10, 2011 (Audio)