My wife teaches the youth 14-18 Sunday school class in our ward. Today’s lesson was on the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. She said that in the manual it was in two parts, one all about the actual events of the martyrdom, and the rest about what might be called Joseph Smith’s “legacy,” essentially a list of all the things he accomplished. She felt there wasn’t time for both, and wondered which she should focus on?
Parallels
I understand the purpose of both, but personally a list of Joseph’s accomplishments belies the true purpose and meaning of what he did. I made a simple suggestion, and my wife followed the Spirit and put together a great lesson around the importance of Joseph Smith giving his life for the Savior. Among other things, she came up with this great list which she read to the class, allowing each student one guess as to who the list was describing:
I just wanted to give a quick update on some things.
First, this is still the right place. I changed the skin/theme to one that I felt was more professional and less busy. The old one had that cool “ancient scrolls and scripture” feel, but I just didn’t like it as much as I wanted to. This new theme is much better on the eyes and more functional. Hope you all like it as much as I do.
Second, I fixed the video in the Political Iconography post. Seems it wasn’t working, and that’s probably why nobody commented on that post. Still, an interesting video, and it should be working now. There’s a link below it to Youtube, in case its not.
Third, I have begun updating the J Ballard Washburn page, under resources (at the top). The first major update is a talk that he told me was “the best talk [he'd] ever given,” though he couldn’t remember giving it. I’ve posted the video on that page, and you can download an MP3 of it there as well. I’ll add more soon.
Nancy, who comments here, pointed out to me a very interesting and well-made video about iconography in politics today. It explores powerful iconography in use in American politics today. It a great video about symbolism used in the propaganda of our time. “Iconography” in particular, is essentially the same type of symbolism I employ in the design of this blog: using pictorial symbols or icons to convey meaning.
In fact its the same kind that we use a lot in computers and the internet, but its just so common, we don’t think about it much. For example, the little orange icon under the “Sacred Symbolic” title–at the top of this blog–with the white circle and a couple curved lines that appear to radiate out from it, mean “you can click here to subscribe or follow our RSS or Atom Feed” to anyone who uses Feeds. These “Feeds” are ways that websites update other sites and anyone who wants to subscribe by feed reader such as Google Reader, of any news posts or other changes that have been made to them. If you use facebook or Twitter but are not familiar with feeds or feed readers, its kinda like following another person on those sites, but instead you’re following the blog or website through your feed reader.
RSS reader
on Twitter
on Facebook
Tevya
