High on the Mountain Top

means it's the Saturday before class starts, freshman year. The bishop has declared that the ward is hiking to the Y, and so we are climbing up a mountain in the near-dark of early morning.



I straggle behind, and if it weren't for the bishop and second counselor hanging back with me I would be the last in line. I miss Mississippi air with its moisture and sweet, sweet oxygen. I've only been in Utah a week, and I can't get used to the feeling of taking deep, desperate gasps of air without really breathing.

As soon as I reach the Y I lie down and close my eyes, waiting for the world to swim back into place. I'm still recovering when the others start to sing. After a few minutes lying on the rock the pain in my chest and sides subside and I'm able to sit up, join the hymns, and watch the sun rise over the mountains on the other side of the valley.

From here you can see the clear demarcation between dark and light. We watch the golden-red line of the sun move over the lake, then the city, then hit the tallest buildings on campus. I have missed the vibrant, pressing greenery of home, felt surrounded by brown. Now, for the first time, I see Utah as beautiful.

High on the mountaintop a banner is unfurled. Ye nations now look up; it waves to all the world.- "High on the Mountain Top"

In Defense of Evangelicalism

Most of the boys I knew freshman year are leaving for their missions over the summer. A few boys I knew fall semester are already living and working in Canada and Norway and France.

All of the mission calls pouring in over the last few months put me in mind of a boy I knew in high school, and a conversation we once had where I mentioned my brother--then on his mission in California. "No offense," said this boy, "but I don't agree with evangelicalism."

My first thought was that this boy was fooling himself if he thought he himself didn't evangelize. The word means "to preach the gospel," and while it has a Christian connotation, everyone has their own gospel and most everyone has the desire to spread it. The Mormon missionaries and Jehovah's Witnesses knocking at your door are equivalent to the guy trying to get your signature on his petition to save the polar bears. And while all of these people are seen as rude by some, I think it is not only a right but right to try to make the world a better place by sharing your views.

Of course, we were in Mississippi, heart of the Bible Belt, where "evangelicalism" is the domain of Evangelical Christians with a capital E (Mormons are not Evangelicals though we are famous for our evangelizing.) This boy probably associated evangelicalism with the Man, who, where we grew up, is usually a Southern Baptist, and the Man is by definition close-minded and intolerant. But you can spread your views without attacking those of others, and if you want to have a civil conversation that's exactly what you have to do. I believe in civil conversations--they're good for the soul.

I try to be receptive to the evangelicalism of others just as I would like those others to be receptive to the message of my brothers and friends. That's why I have a slim book on my shelf called "The Perfection of Yoga" by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, which I took from a man on a New York street. Let's all listen to each other. Let's evangelize away.

It's All Relative

Learning about relativity in physics, it's struck me that many of the things we assume to be true--like the idea that velocities add--are just illusions caused by living in a slow world. Last semester in chemistry I learned about quantum mechanics and realized that we only think we can know exactly where things are because we live in such a massive world.

It makes me wonder what assumptions we make--about science, about philosophy, about everything--just because we live in a very limited sphere.

Dear Kristian and Kennedy

I realized that you have no way of knowing that I fulfilled my responsibility to comment on two blogs this semester. Here are the relevant links:

http://meandblue.blogspot.com/2009/02/few-thoughts-on-equality.html#comments

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3575751491068070568&postID=1730374354117317171