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Sabbath Devotional :: The Creative Process and the Making of Peace
“Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty.” When I first heard those words in Elder Dieter F Uchtdorf’s General Conference talk over 10 years ago, I was both intrigued and inspired. At the time, I was trying to grapple with being a full-time caretaker to my young sons while nourishing my own creative spirit. I am an adequate housekeeper at best, an introvert who would rather spend time alone with a book or at my piano than cooking, cleaning, or frankly, playing on the floor with children. But I grew up…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Harness the Power of Creation
“If there is anything lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things” (Articles of Faith). I’ve been thinking lately about the two driving forces in the world: the creative force and the destructive force. (We all know which eternal power represents which.) I conduct the choirs at a Title 1 (low-income) school, and many of my students are subjected daily to destructive forces at home and within their communities. They have parents that tear them down, peers that tear them down — a whole world, in fact, that seems bent on breaking instead of building them. It has been remarkable, then, to watch these students join…