Clash of the Titans & Jesus Christ

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Category : Allegory & Parable, Ancient Religions, Media & Internet, Pop-culture, TV & Movies

My Mom enjoys a certain amount of notoriety in her and my Dad’s house for a conversation she had with a few of her children. Several years ago when Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was the new popular movie on DVD, a few of my siblings wanted to watch it at home. My Mother rejected the idea stating, “it’s just two hours of violence!” To which my brother quickly replied, “no Mom, this is the extended edition… its four hours of violence!” I don’t think my Mother liked it, but either the humor won her over, or my siblings were old enough at the time, that she wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it.

You can imagine my surprise when I heard that my Mother “liked” Clash of the Titans. Based on the trailers, I’d assumed it was a film long on action and special effects, and short on plot or character development. But after getting my Mom’s opinion (2nd hand), I just had to see this film. So I reserved it at a local Redbox the day it released, and gave it a watch.

And I was right… mostly. It was long on special effects and action, but surprisingly not so short on plot. All that aside, and at the risk of sounding like a real symbolism geek, the following is why I really quite enjoyed it, and am writing about a movie on a blog called Sacred Symbolic. Warning: spoilers ahead. Go watch it if you haven’t already, before reading this.

Leading LDS Blog, Conversation with E. Bednar, & Updates

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Category : Leadership, Media & Internet, Mormon Life, Video

Leading LDS

There’s a new blog called Leading LDS that you can find at LeadingLDS.com. It’s similar to this blog in that the purpose is to help inspire, motivate, and correct wrong attitudes. Where this blog takes the approach of teaching correct doctrine and looking beyond the sunday-school answers, Leading LDS focuses on teaching correct leadership and moving beyond the easy “coasting through this calling” level of leadership in the church.

Conversation with Elder Bednar

One of the most recent posts is a video from the church’s HR department entitled “A Conversation on Leadership With Elder David A. Bednar.” Kurt, the author of the blog states that this video “is exactly what [his] site is about.” I’ve got to say, everyone should watch this video. So click one of the links, check out this awesome blog, and make sure you watch/listen to this fireside with Elder Bednar. I just can’t tell you how powerful and helpful it is for anyone who is, or ever will be in a leadership position, in—or outside—the church.

Decoded: TV Show Needs Middle-Age Co-host

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Category : Iconography, Media & Internet, TV & Movies

I was recently contacted by Elya Beer, who’s associated with a new TV show called “Decoded.” Its essentially a show exploring symbolism. I assume they’re going off the popularity of Dan Brown’s novels & the movies made from them. From what the email says, it sounds like they want a real-life Robert Langdon:

Elder Oaks says religious freedom is under fire & other news

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Category : Media & Internet, Politics, Uncategorized, Video

Many of you may have heard about Elder Oak’s recent BYU-Idaho devotional address. I just wanted to collect some of the information here for you to read/listen to/watch. Its an important message at an important time.

First, read the full text of the talk at LDS.org, or download the MP3 at BYU-I’s devotionals archive.

Second, here’s an article the Church posted about it, along with the following Q&A video with Elder Oaks, about the talk:

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

Old Testament Video Resources

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Category : Images, Media & Internet, Misc, Old Testament, Video

Some of you probably know because you know me, or have noticed by my video and other media posts: I am kinda an amateur dabbler in video production and film making.

So I was excited when I noticed that the church announced a new DVD set as a resource for teaching Old Testament in the upcoming year. There are 56 videos in the set, many of which are new, or have never been available for purchase previously. There are also many, many other visual resources. From the preview video, they look like great quality reenactments of Old Testament stories. The reenactments either include, or other resources have, life-like renderings of the Tabernacle, Temple at Jerusalem and other stuff that can seem very distant until you see video that looks very real, as if peaking into the past. I’m excited to see all this new stuff, and see if it aides teachers in real Sunday School teaching situations.

You can watch the preview video they made here:

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

If you’re interested in how technology like this can help advance the purposes of the church, Bryce Haymond at TempleStudy.com posted, and started a Google Wave, about about using Google Wave to advance the purposes of the church.

Iconography – Powerful Political Symbolism

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Category : Iconography, Images, Media & Internet, Politics, Pop-culture, Video

OptumismNancy, 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.

New World DNA

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Category : Book of Mormon, Images, Media & Internet, Misc, Scriptures, Video

Tevya at Monte Alban

Tevya at Monte Alban

This last weekend I was at my parents home. I ended up not feeling well for a day or so. I looked around for stuff to watch (they don’t have regular TV and I forgot my laptop’s power cord) and happened across the documentary Journey of Faith: The New World. Having spent five weeks traveling through Mesoamerica studying the peoples and history there, it was my first pick. I’d already watched the original Journey of Faith and was very impressed by it.

“Things as They Really Are” – Elder David A. Bednar

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Category : Divine Potential, Media & Internet, Misc, Uncategorized, Video

Elder David A Bednar of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles

Elder David A Bednar of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles

I think it’s a shame that sometimes the CES firesides, which are addressed to young single adults, often go unnoticed by the rest of the Church. When given by an Apostle, they are frequently among the most direct and instructional talks that our modern Prophets give to a large audience. Luckily, they’re available on the Church website, for the rest of us.

Last Sunday Elder David A. Bednar was at BYU-Idaho and gave the CES YSA fireside. I’ve sat there in the Hart building and listened to him speak many times when he was the President of BYU-I. As awesome and powerful as those devotionals were, ever since he became an Apostle, there is definitely something different, more powerful in his teachings of the gospel and witness of Christ.

Elder Bednar spoke on the importance of our physical bodies in God’s great plan of salvation. In my opinion, he taught these doctrines with great clarity.  After doing so, he warned of Satan’s methods of trying to get us to misuse or minimize (or both) our bodies. He touched upon the age-old warnings against the misuse of our bodies, but then issued warnings that might be new to many, related to minimizing the importance of our bodies by spending too much time online, watching TV, playing video games, etc., where we forget our physical body and life is lived completely through the computer or some medium other than our God-give senses.

Characteristic of just how in-touch these great men are, he even specifically named some of today’s most popular virtual worlds and online social networks such as Second Life. Its interesting too that he speaks to both ends of the spectrum: those who spend too much time at a computer, as well as those who are overly conscious of their body and/or are adicted to their own body’s drug of adrenaline.

You can listen to or watch his entire talk here: