Tag: Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Brilliance of the Gilgal Garden

0-800px-Entrance_gilgal
Entrance to the Gilgal Garden

Last week, I visited the Gilgal Garden (749 East 500 South, Salt Lake City) for the first time, and I came away impressed and surprised. I knew quite a bit about the garden before my visit, from articles online and the initial campaign to preserve the garden in 1997. Still, the garden far exceeded my expectations, leaving me awestruck by the audacity of Child’s attempt to literally imprint in stone a personal expression of faith and”¦

“create a sanctuary or atmosphere in my yard that will shut out fear and keep one’s mind young and alert to the last”¦”

Continue reading “The Brilliance of the Gilgal Garden”

“Our Refined Heavenly Home”

.

Elder Douglas L. Callister of the Seventy wrote a delightful article in this month’s Ensign, “Our Refined Heavenly Home.” I’m ashamed to admit that I might never have read it had not my dear wife told me I should. (I keep saying I’ll stick the Ensign in the bathroom where it will actually get read, but it seems weird to have all those pictures of Jesus on my toilet, Backslider or no Backslider.) The article is adapted from a BYU devotional Elder Callister gave in 2006 which is about 1800 words longer and has even more dandy quotations. (Frankly, it’s tempting to just lift all his quotations and anecdotes and place them here for discussion, but I can’t quite feel good about that.)

The article has three main thrusts, language, literature and music, with an everything-else category to finish things off.

For brevity’s sake, I will take a short excerpt from each section to comment on, but in your comments, feel free to reference any part of his talk. Continue reading ““Our Refined Heavenly Home””