Types, Shadows, and Parallels

     A spiritual pinnacle of my Wednesday came during Institute.  We're studying the first half of the Book of Mormon this semester and what I love about our instructor's approach is that he's more conceptual in addition to teaching by the Spirit, which I think drives concepts home even more.  Today's discussion took us to Nephi's "thesis statement", found in 1st Nephi 1:20, where he says

"But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender ^cmercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of ^ddeliverance."

We looked through 1 Nephi 1-17 at various instances from Nephi's life where he benefited from the Lord's tender mercies, what those mercies were, and how it resulted in his or other people's deliverance.  While discussing one of Nephi's trials, our instructor, Dan, brought up the ancient Hebrew prose form of historical parallelism, where past events that are held in reverence are used to illustrate a point, such as the Lord's consistency in delivering His people, in this case, as Nephi often cited Moses' experience with the deliverance of Israel from Egypt and various experiences they had during their 40 yr sojourn in the desert. 
     As we delved further and further into the scriptures, and other's continued to comment on various things, Dan asked a question at the end that caused a lights on experience for me that got my heart pounding.  "Why tender mercies?" he asked... and I couldn't help but think of parallelism in the ancient records we often see, especially those instances where we read how various people and laws are in similitude of Christ's Atonement for us.  What greater tender mercy could we have than that, which ultimately leads to our deliverance from justice's miserable grasp and elevates us to a most joyous circumstance?  It seems like every time the Lord sees fit to proffer a tender mercy on our behalf, for whatever reason, it should prompt us to remember the Atonement's place in our life and in turn humble us further.
      This lights on experience was a signal to me that my heart was in a right enough place for the Spirit to be my companion tonight, feeding me insight, teaching me wisdom...a place I hadn't been in too long of a time.  Much too long, and I felt my old friend return to me tonight.  Much love.

Beastly

I recently watched the film "Beastly" and was sorely disappointed.  They took a perfectly deep and delicately beautiful tale of what it means to truly love and made it awkward. Not that budding love isn't adorably awkward in itself, but this is like 5th grade production of Shakespeare awkward. Little boy going through puberty awkward.
     Nothing puts out a romantic fire quicker than course, haphazard screenwriting and mediocre editing that makes the character development questionable.  I guess what disappoints me most is that a more modern version could have been powerful.  Gaah... 
     What is the film industry coming to?  It use to be what people looked forward to as a temporary escape with the assured knowledge that they would be entertained in a fairly civilized manner befitting their intellectual ability and then we get crap like this ("Beastly")  being PRODUCED!

     ....MAY-be I'm overreacting.  Then again, maybe I'm not.  With the declining moral and intellectual initiative of today's youth in general as they're coming out into the world, they need all the examples they can get of what a complete sentence that uses words a little deeper into the dictionary sounds like and how it's used properly.  So they have to go look a word or two up in the dictionary to figure out what guy is saying to girl to get her to see he's not so bad after all - that's fine, they won't die.  In fact, that may be the entry way into the next level of thought for them.  
       Don't get me wrong, I am in no way suggesting that today's youth are applicably inept.  There are many out there who still give me hope for the future because they've taken it upon themselves to be responsible, accountable and ambitious without their parents pushing.  
       However... when the gross majority use ambiguous abbreviations in typed correspondence, can't carry-on a conversation, let alone have an imagination or understand what the underlying themes of "Brave New World" or "East of Eden"  are, this is when I have cause to be alarmed about the intellectual capabilities that the film industry is supporting with dime-store pulp fiction with bad dialogue and flawed storyline.  


   Am I elitist?  Probably.  I have a right to be in this case.  If it makes you feel any better, I still pick up Newberry Award Winner books because they're still a good story that present a constructive theme to ponder without yielding to explicit sex scenes only there to satisfy a housewife's fantasy.  Maybe that didn't make you feel better...  What can I say?  The state of modern popular entertainment is just beastly.