Beach Haven

In November, I had the assignment to speak in the Garrisonville, Virginia Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as part of my assignment as a member of the Stafford, Virginia  Stake High Council. The theme was “Be still and know I am God”. Among the ideas and stories I shared there were two that was the focus. I spoke of the peace that comes from serving in the temple.

I also shared a story about one of our family spring-break trips when we visited Mount Rushmore. When you go, there are two highways approaching from the south. The first is a modern multi-lane nearly straight freeway. We used that one to visit the giant stone sculpture. Once there we were all impressed with the scale of the work, and we gained some appreciation for how much effort it must have taken. We saw many people there from different states and countries. I’d say that part of the visit was worth the effort.

It was after we left, though, that we had a unique Black Hills experience. The other highway is not modern. It is two-lane, twisty-turny, and sometimes passes through drilled out portions of rock. As we left Mount Rushmore and headed south on this road, a few miles south of the monument we found a little turn-off, so we stopped and got out of the car to stretch our legs. Unlike at the monument, there were no other people but us. We found a set of boulders that rimmed a small cliff-edge from where we could look back the few miles we had traversed and see the sculptures from afar.

We decided to just be silent for five minutes and see what we noticed. You might note, this is no small task when you have small children in the mix. As we talked after, there were some common themes. Looking back at the sculpture that seems so impressive up close, now was sort of like a scratching on the side of one mountain. At the same time we were surrounded by many mountains of various shapes, sizes and colors. It was a sunny day with light puffy clouds that moved with the cool breeze. As the clouds moved the colors around us shifted. We could hear small birds and other animals, and see a few of them flying or scurrying about. There was a heavy scent of pine in the air. We could hear the blowing of the breezes at different volumes as it sifted through the trees. We could feel the changing flow of the air on our faces as it passed by us.

The message we all seemed to get in our discussion was how great man’s artistic talent is, but that talent comes from God. Then when one contrasts man’s art with the art of God’s creation, man’s effort pales in comparison.

Over the few weeks following my talk to the Garrisonville Ward, I took my own advice and made some time. My wife and I drove to Philadelphia on a Friday after work. We spent the night in a hotel and on Saturday morning we put in a few hours of service in the temple. As always, we were both uplifted and inspired. The next Saturday morning we helped clean the Courthouse chapel. When we were done I took my camera and went for a hike in The Crow’s Nest nature preserve near our home in Stafford. I walked down to a backwater bog known as The Birding Pond. I only sat there for 30 minutes. With the hike on either side it took me just over an hour. It was worth the effort. I’ll share a few pictures with you that resulted.

I hope each of us will make time to be still. In those moments of stillness, look for the comfort that reminds us of our loving Heavenly Father.

Below are a few pictures I took at The Birding Pond that Saturday.
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This past October our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, held its semi-annual general conference. It was also a weekend full of experience. Over the past few years of conference there has been continued change happening throughout the church. These changes are usually announced and discussed in general conference. I was actually able to attend the Saturday morning session with our son Nathan and son-in-law Kevin. Another son-in-law, Ryan, works for the church and was there for a very long day helping with the cameras. I want to share one experience from the session that reminded me of when I was attending the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo many years ago.

The conference center is large and accommodates many thousands. As you might guess, as more and more people began to fill the venue the noise volume also rose as we all engaged in our small conversations awaiting the beginning of the session. The choir and general authorities eventually were all also seated. Then the entire room hushed. Everyone stood up. There was complete silence. About 30 seconds later the First Presidency entered the room. There had been no signal given. No messages projected on the screens in the room. The prelude had continued as normal. Despite that, we all stood up and stopped talking. It was clear the Spirit we directing.

The reason I was in Utah had nothing to do with conference. Because of some of my national and international association work, BYU Radio had invited me to make two presentations on campus the Monday after conference. One of these they called a ‘masters class’ about radio industry trends, and what they might consider implementing in their station roadmap. The discussion was to be tailored for members of their station leadership.

The other was to be a presentation about my career. This one was odd to me. I often present in public settings about various industry or technology topics, but not about my own career. When I balked at the initial invitation some months before, their staff assured me it would be helpful. They said they look for people with a northern Utah background who have gone out into different industries and managed to be successful. The incentive of these sorts of invitations (they assured me others have been invited over the years) was to encourage students and staff to consider career options that takes them away from the immediate Utah geographic region. It seems they have many students who graduate with some sort of degree but don’t think to move from the area. This can make it difficult for many of them to find good work in their respective chosen fields of study. 

Since I was going to be there anyway, I went early and spent the weekend with some of our children and grandchildren. It was fun. One other unique aspect of General Conference this time was that a number of us had a calling change from the pulpit with no idea it was happening. In my particular case I will still serve on the Stake High Counsel in our stake, but since I have been assigned to support the Young Men program, as announced, that means I will now serve as the Stake Young Men (YM) President in my role on the Stake High Council. I have been involved with the YM program in one way or another since 1988. My wife was still here in Virginia. She immediately texted me that she couldn’t stop laughing, because here I was again coming back into the YM program after my recent release as our ward YM President. We’ll see how this all works out. The new approach seems to have a great deal of potential if families will buy in and make it happen.

Articles of Faith
9 We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

The Newest History: Science and Technology
By Melvin Kranzberg
May 1962
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In this article, Melvin Kranzberg argues for a new approach to history through the lens of science and technology. Old history is about politics and the state. Democratizing history adds society (the people) to history. A few of his arguments in favor of a focus on science and technology in history include:

• History is incomplete without including science and Technology
• Regular citizens make decisions based on science and technology
• No single group has a monopoly
• Science and technology add a fun factor
• One can gain solace in human potential through science and technology when civilization seems to fall backwards
• Science and technology progress even if society doesn’t

Kranzberg points out that interest has been increasing in the topic. The Cold War drove increased focus on science and technology, and that focus also drove interest in the study of its history, processes, social influences, etc. He also notes interest I stories about scientists and their ideas, human use of technology, and how understanding the history helps make modern science and technology decisions more informed.
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The original article was published in 1962. As it turns out much of his predictions have panned out in that there are whole disciplines related to science and technology that is academically concerned with history, philosophy, sociology and policy for example. Despite that, his point about using history to make better decisions about modern employment of science and technology may be overstated. Most college graduates today completing a degree in a STEM field have likely not taken any courses in any of the liberal arts areas that focus on STEM areas. Despite the fact that most “soft science” programs consider it important for “hard science” majors to have some understanding of such topics, perhaps the hard science program directors are not yet sold on the idea.

Final paper from class on History of Science at VT. Try to stay awake.
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​An entertaining video I watched while learning about the topic was from Terry Jones called The Story of 1. It's hilarious in a very Monty Python sort of way, but full of good mathematical and historical ideas. 

Here's the video:
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