I want to share with you three experiences that I have had recently that have helped me to feel the connection between spiritual and intellectual aspirations of BYU.
1. This semester I was able to visit the Education in Zion exhibit with the students in the freshman class I am teaching. It was inspiring to see and learn about the Study-Experience-Revelation Cycle and see how, across time, the Lord has been working to establish a school to simultaneously strengthen students both intellectually and spiritually (https://educationinzion.byu.edu/).
2. In our McKay School Dean’s Council we recently reviewed a section of Envisioning BYU that included excerpts from the dedicatory prayers for the Provo Utah and Provo City Center temples. BYU was mentioned in both dedicatory prayers and referred to in one as a “temple of learning.” This caused me pause to think of our work as a work that is taking place in a temple of learning.
3. In my personal Come Follow Me study, I am reading 2 Nephi 12 (Nephi quoting Isaiah). Isaiah invites us, “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord . . . he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” I thought about this scripture a little differently thinking of BYU as a temple of learning.
Many of you know that a hobby of mine is writing hymn texts. I would like to share a hymn text that I wrote not long after coming to BYU. It has new meaning for me now as I consider these three temple experiences that I have had this semester.
I rejoice in the privilege I have of working at BYU and for the opportunity to associate with good friends and colleagues here! I hope that each day as we come to work we feel like the Lord will “teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.”
The Mountain of the Lord (PDF, MP3)
Warm regards,
Charles