Just a short post today. This morning as I was trying to stave off a cold with some additional sleep, I began thinking about journals and the other records we keep. I must confess that although I write in my journal every day, I'm not a very good journal keeper. By that I mean that my journal entries consist principally of my thoughts as I read the scriptures, but don't include a lot of information about my personal life and the things that happen to me. While I believe those thoughts are valuable, I'm not sure that a future reader would get a very thorough picture of me by reading them. This is something that I need to remedy in the coming days.
These omissions lead me to wonder why I don't write more about my life in my journals. Generally I suppose I don't write things because I don't think they are worth being written. Information about my day or where I went or what I did, just doesn't seem interesting. And yet when I read through old journals I constantly find those small little details to be useful, and even wish that people had written more of them. The things that people felt didn't need to be written are frequently the things that I wish had been written.
None of us lives a life of constant interest or excitement. Most of our days are dominated by the ordinary and unexciting. But it is in ordinary and regular discipleship that we find our greatest joy. Indeed, as I have spent time going through journals and letters, I find myself inspired most frequently by the ordinary and habitual acts of discipleship, as well as the imperfections that accompany such devotion. In keeping such records, we obey the commandment of the Lord, given on the first day of the Church's organization. He commanded the Saints, "Behold, there shall be a record kept among you." (D&C 21:1)
President Spencer W. Kimball gave us wonderful counsel regarding this commandment. In the October 1975 New Era he wrote, "How happy we are as we find our grandparents' journals and follow them through their trials and joys and gain for our own lives much from the experiences and faith and courage of our ancestors. Accordingly, we urge our . . . people to begin today to write and keep records of all the important things in their own lives and also the lives of their antecedents in the event that their parents should fail to record all the important incidents in their own lives. Your own private journal should record the way you face up to challenges that beset you. Do not suppose life changes so much that your experiences will not be interesting to your posterity. Experiences of work, relations with people, and an awareness of the rightness and wrongness of actions will always be relevant. . . . No one is commonplace, and I doubt if you can ever read a biography from which you cannot learn something from the difficulties overcome and the struggles made to succeed. These are the measuring rods for the progress of humanity. . . . Your own journal, like most others, will tell of problems as old as the world and how you dealt with them. . . . Your journal is your autobiography, so it should be kept carefully. You are unique, and there may be incidents in your experience that are more noble and praiseworthy in their way than those recorded in any other life. There may be a flash of illumination here and a story of faithfulness there; you should truthfully record your real self and not what other people may see in you. . . . Some of what you write may be humdrum dates and places, but there will also be rich passages that will be quoted by your posterity."
The more I find from my ancestors and others that I study, the more I am grateful for the time they took to write. May we likewise bless those who will come after us with a record of our lives and testimonies. Whether we have children of our own or whether we presently lack that blessing, these records will become a blessing to someone and to the Church to which we belong if we will be faithful to this commandment.
Brett
I have been woefully slothful in my journal keeping of late. Sometimes I feel like I use the space just to vent or whine and not record anything of great interest or import. But, then, as I read your post today I realized that some day, perhaps those very musings might actually be a spark of hope to someone else, showing them that others have also struggled and worried and sorrowed, that there can still be light in the darkness.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this timely reminder that it's important to keep records, the good, the bad and the, well, ugly. ;) This life is not all one experience or emotion and by recording these things, we bear witness and testify to what we've lived and learned. Some of my favorite scriptures do this same thing - testify of life and opposition, and of the triumph and joy that can come in the midst of it all.
Hope you'll feel better soon!