Douglas L. Callister: God speaks all languages, and He speaks them properly. He is restrained and modest of speech. When God described the grand creational process of this earth, He said in measured tones that “it was good.” We would be disappointed if God had to use “awesome” or other exaggerated phrases in every paragraph.

Elaine L. Jack

Take a healthy helping of enjoyment and laughter from the smorgasbord of life's experiences. And give some to your neighbors and friends. While we don't choose all that lands on our plates, we may choose some of the trimmings. Laughter is a condiment that makes just about anything go down better. And the ability to enjoy life with all its frustrations and diversity is like a good sorbet — it freshens the palate.

Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful. --Gertrude Stein

The Holy Ghost

It is not surprising that a member of the Godhead would have so many positive effects any time He visits. What a blessing that God would assign Him to keep us constant company.
Imagine a dear friend who, whenever he comes to visit, helps you sort out your house. He does not condemn or cajole you. He washes a few dishes. He bakes a few cookies. He sorts the laundry. He never visits without leaving the place better for his visiting. He leaves us feeling hopeful and peaceful.
(Wallace Goddard)

Alexandra Stoddard

A friend introduced me to the home design books of Alexandra Stoddard a few years ago. Whenever I want a little inspiration for my home, I check out one or two of her books from the library. I recently discovered that she has branched out and written several books about how to live life happily.
This book, Time Alive, is packed so full of excellent quotes I can hardly believe it. Here is just a small sampling:

Emerson: If there is something great in you, it will not appear on your first call. It will not appear and come to you easily, without any work and effort.

Jospeh Campbell: Find a place where there is joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

Cicero: Even if I err in saying that the soul is eternal, nevertheless I am happy that I made this mistake, and while I am alive, not a single person can take away this assurance, which gives me complete calmness and great satisfaction.

Nikolai Gogol: It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.

Greta Nagel: Tranquility is more important than perfection.

Our Refined Heavenly Home

Elder Douglas L. Callister gave an excellent devotional talk at BYU on the subject of living now in a manner that will prepare us to live in our heavenly home.
"The nearer we get to God, the more easily our spirits are touched by refined and beautiful things. I imagine that our heavenly parents are exquisitely refined."
Brigham Young said: "We are trying to be the image of those who live in heaven; we are trying to pattern after them; to look like them, to walk and talk like them."

If you like these thoughts, you can read the whole talk at speeches.byu.edu.
The next four posts are all from this devotional talk.

Well-Measured Words - A Refined Home

God speaks all languages, and He speaks them properly. He is restrained and modest of speech. When God described the grand creational process of this earth, He said in measured tones that “it was good.” We would be disappointed if God had to use “awesome” or other exaggerated phrases in every paragraph.

Britain’s Ben Jonson said: “Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee.”

Our language reveals our thoughts, our virtues, our insecurities, our doubts, even the homes from which we come. We will feel more comfortable in Heavenly Father’s presence if we have developed proper habits of speech. We not only wish to see God’s face “with pleasure,” we want to open our mouths with confidence that our speech harmonizes with the refinement of heaven.

I suppose that the language of heaven, properly spoken, may approach a form of music. Did C. S. Lewis have this in mind when he wrote: “Isn’t it funny the way some combinations of words can give you—almost apart from their meaning—a thrill like music?”

At Jesus’ birth the angels appeared and spoke, not sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” We now try to capture that beauty in song, but the original angelic utterance was in spoken words, which thrilled like music.

Van Wyck Brooks, in his biography The Life of Emerson, told us that Ralph Waldo Emerson was invited to speak at the commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. After proper introduction Emerson presented himself at the pulpit and then sat down. He had forgotten his notes. He preferred to say nothing rather than words not well measured. For some, it was Emerson in one of his most eloquent hours.

There are those who always speak of themselves, and they are either insecure or proud. There are those who always speak of others. They are usually very boring. There are those who speak of stirring ideas, compelling books, and inspiring doctrine. These are the few who make their mark in this world.

The subjects discussed in heaven are not trifling or mundane. They are sublime beyond our most extended imagination. We will feel at home there if we are rehearsed on this earth in conversing about the refined and noble, clothing our expressions in well-measured words.

Best Books - A Refined Home

Could our society produce a Newton or a Mozart?
Can 85 channels and uncountable DVDs ever fill our insatiable appetite to be entertained?

One wrote: “We need the slower and more lasting stimulus of solitary reading as a relief from the pressure on eye, ear and nerves of the torrent of information and entertainment pouring from ever-open electronic jaws.” ( Storm Jameson)

Another said: “[Education] has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.” (George Macaulay Trevelyan)

I don’t know whether our heavenly home has a television set or a DVD machine, but in my mind’s imagery it surely has a grand piano and a magnificent library.
To be well read, it is not necessary to possess expensive collections of literature, for they are available to rich and poor alike in the libraries of the world.

President David O. McKay was inclined to awaken at 4:00 a.m., skim read up to two books each day, and then commence his labors at 6:00 a.m. He could quote 1,000 poems from memory. He referred to the grand masters of literature as the “minor prophets.” He was a living embodiment of the scriptural admonition to “seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom.”

Elder Callister and his wife recently spent four years on Church assignment in Eastern Europe, residing in Moscow, Russia. He said, "We often traveled on the Moscow underground subway called the Metro. We noticed the bowed heads of the Russian passengers, for they were reading Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, or Pushkin—and, sometimes, Mark Twain. The people were poor, but they were not obsessed with their poverty. They possessed the rich tradition of Russian literature, art, and music."

The images to which our minds are exposed are held in store, seemingly forgotten, even for years. But at the crucial moment they re-present themselves to influence our thoughts and lives. And so it is with the music, literature, art, media, and other images to which we are exposed.

These are the words of President McKay:
As with companions so with books. We may choose those which will make us better, more intelligent, more appreciative of the good and the beautiful in the world, or we may choose the trashy, the vulgar, the obscene, which will make us feel as though we’ve been “wallowing in the mire.”

If we know the books located at the bedside, we know much about the man.

C.S. Lewis said:
"An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only. I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once. Clearly one must read every good book at least once every ten years."

The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers “I’ve read it already” to be a conclusive argument against reading a work.

Hugh Nibley on scripture reading: “If you pray for an angel to visit you, you know what he’ll do if he comes. He’ll just quote the scriptures to you—so you’re wasting your time waiting for what we already have.”

Music - A Refined Home

When some music has passed the tests of time and been cherished by the noble and refined, our failure to appreciate it is not an indictment of grand music. The omission is within. If a young person grows up on a steady diet of hamburgers and french fries, he is not likely to become a gourmet. But the fault is not with fine food. He just grew up on something less. Some have grown up on a steady diet of musical french fries.

Recognizing the penetrating influence of great music, Oscar Wilde had one of his characters say: “After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own.”

After the first performance of Messiah, Handel said: “My lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wish to make them better.”
Haydn “dressed in his best clothes to compose because he said he was going before his maker.”
Brigham Young said: “There is no music in hell, for all good music belongs to heaven.” It would be punishment enough to go to hell and not hear a note of music for all eternity.

On the eve of his release, one of my fine missionaries during my tenure as a mission president spoke of a girl at home with whom he intended to renew association.
He inquired, “How will I know if she is the right one?”
I suggested, among other things, that he invite her to a cultural event. If she responded that this would be of no interest to her, then maybe he should pursue other alternatives. But if she had compelling spiritual qualities and could be enthralled by culture on Friday and love the athletic contest on Saturday, she might be the type of young lady he could choose as the mother for his children. It might be balanced and rewarding to be paired with her for eternity.

Our Appearance - A Refined Home

Elder Callister once had the opportunity to visit briefly with Audrey Hepburn, the great actress of days gone by, at the time she was making the movie My Fair Lady. She spoke of the opening scene in the movie in which she depicted a modest, unpolished flower girl. Her face had been besmirched with charcoal to make her seem part of her surroundings. “But,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye, “I was wearing my Chanel perfume. Inside I still knew I was a lady.”

We must not “let ourselves go” and become so casual—even sloppy—in our appearance that we distance ourselves from the beauty heaven has given us.

President Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of the Church, owned few things, but he took care of them. He was fastidious in his appearance. He pressed his dollar bills to remove the wrinkles. He knew where every article, nut, and bolt of the household was, and each had its place.
Would this be true of the environment in which you live? Is it a house of order? Need you dust, clean, and rearrange before you invite the Spirit of the Lord into your apartment?

President Lorenzo Snow said: “The Lord does not intend that the Saints shall live always in dens and caves of the earth, but that they shall build fine houses. When the Lord comes he will not expect to meet a dirty people, but a people of refinement.”

David Starr Jordan, a former president of Stanford University, wrote:
"To be vulgar is to do that which is not the best of its kind. It is to do poor things in poor ways, and to be satisfied with that. . . .It is vulgar to like poor music, to read weak books, to feed on sensational newspapers, . . . to find amusement in trashy novels, to enjoy vulgar theatres, to find pleasure in cheap jokes."