Episode 8: Fast Forward to Jacob

My posts have been falling farther and farther behind the schedule on the S.T.O.M.P. calendar.  It took five posts just to talk about the vision of the Tree of Life!  For that reason, I've decided to "skip ahead" in my posts and move on to the book of Jacob.  

This brings up a point I would like to make, however, about different methods for reading the Book of Mormon.  Participating in STOMP last year changed me: it really did.  I've read the Book of Mormon countless times in my life, but something about last year's reading really stuck with me.  I believe I know why this particular experience was so different than previous experiences:

Before I began STOMP, I had taken seriously the challenge extended near the beginning of 2012 by our Stake Presidency to read through the Book of Mormon that year--both individually and as families.

What had been a failed "New Year's Resolution" for so many years now became a desperate mission.  I say "desperate" because, for one thing, as I've mentioned in past posts that I have spent time wandering in the "dark and dreary wilderness" and swimming in the "river of filthy water," I am very familiar with what it feels like to be heading in that direction.  My scripture reading had become so lackadaisical that I could hardly claim I was holding onto the Iron Rod anymore--I was really just walking alongside it, brushing my fingers across it every once in a while.

Also, we had some events in our life as a family that had really compelled me to turn to God.  As a result of these trials, I had several deeply impactful spiritual experiences: experiences that are too sacred and too precious to toss out onto a "public" forum like this (I use the term "public" loosely because I honestly think no one out there is reading any of these--and that's fine: I'm doing this for myself as much as anything else).

Thus, I had been prepared through: external events beyond my control; experiences that I had as a result of how I reacted to those events; and through my own inner resolutions that I made after taking an honest accounting of where I really stood in relation to the Tree of Life.

With the ground now fertile and tilled, Heavenly Father could begin to plant in my heart the messages and faith that I would need that would once again lend my life a course-correction that I desperately needed.

I had been using the same set of scriptures since my Freshman year of high school: my seminary scriptures.  These scriptures are what I used on my mission, in college, and throughout my life up until a little over a year ago.  What's great about them is that they're a sort of journal: I can see the notes and highlighted passages from different phases in my life like a stratified archeological dig site--my own

Archaeologists can use stratified dig sites to
determine how old something is, or what era
it belonged to: older junk is at the bottom;
newer junk is at the top.  It's all in layers
(like lasagna!)

life's story is told back to me by the little impressions or thoughts I'd jotted down in the page margins, or by the particular scriptures that have stood out to me (the red colored-pencil highlights are from my time in seminary; the orange crayon highlights are when I was coming back to church and getting ready to go on my mission; the yellow marker highlights and passages underlined by a black ballpoint pen are from when I was on my mission; etc.).

Because I felt like my participation in STOMP last year was going to be a fresh start for me, however, I decided to use a fresh set of scriptures.  So, for the first time in almost 20 years (ugh, that makes me feel old!) I was reading a "blank" Book of Mormon.  No notes, no highlights: nothing.  With that, I tried to come to the Lord with no preconceptions, with none of my own wisdom, with none of my own "mists of darkness" that I had cloaked myself in because of pride--pride I had obtained through an arrogant belief that I actually understood what was on those pages; pride that had led me to read them only casually, sporadically, and sometimes even indifferently; pride that had sculpted my participation in Gospel Doctrine class into making comments aimed at affirming my righteousness in front of others rather than sincerely "knocking" and "asking."  In essence, without realizing it, I had been saying beforehand that I already had "enough"; and because of that, Heavenly Father "[took] away even that which [I had]" (2 Ne. 28:30).  I found myself once again back in that stupid Great and Spacious Building--they were even holding my mail for me there!

"Welcome back Mr. McCulloch.  We knew you would return
soon...muahahahahaha!"

I'm so glad I took the time to listen--to listen to the quiet sound of someone outside that building calling out to me: "Get out of there you blockhead!"  I'm so glad I recognized the emptiness that comes with standing in that lobby; the phony smiles of all those false securities with which I had surrounded myself in order to believe that "all is well in Zion": or rather, "all is well in [Doug]; yea, [Doug] prospereth, all is well--and thus the devil cheateth [my soul], and leadeth [me] away carefully down to hell."  

King Benjamin admonished us "to be as little children."  How ironic it is that the trait most of us find so irritating in kids (you parents know what I'm talking about: the endless questions--"Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"  AAAAAAAH!!!) is just the trait that we should be emulating ourselves.  And maybe that's why so many adults find children's curiosity annoying: because deep down they know it's something they have lost.  Or maybe it's because we've become too lazy or too prideful to ask anymore, and we don't like to have this lethargy or this hubris pointed out to us.

Probably all-of-the-above...

Whatever the case, I gained fresh insight into the Book of Mormon that I'd never had before.  It was also helpful to read the Book of Mormon cover-to-cover in such a short timespan.  I was able to see greater continuity and connect certain events that I hadn't seen before.  However, what was really helpful, was that after reading through the book at Mach 12, I then went back and re-read it again at a slower, more deliberate pace.  When I did so, I once again used a "fresh" Book of Mormon.  This time, new insight came in a flood and my pen couldn't move fast enough.

And I've decided to illustrate this by scanning in a few pages from these two copies of the Book of Mormon, as well as some of the notes I took on bits of scratch paper and in my personal journal.

This picture is from the Book of Mormon I had used during STOMP last year.  As you can see, even though I've read the book of 1 Nephi a million times, and even though I was going through at a pretty fast pace, I still got quite a few little nuggets of new insight:

      

But when I went back through as soon as STOMP was done and did a more careful reading, you can see a BIG difference:

Yet, even this was not enough!  As I read, I often found myself snatching up whatever scratch paper may be around as a sort of "overflow" contingency:

You can see that these scratch-paper-notes are very ad hoc and scattered (which pretty much describes my personality, too).  So, I decided to record more detailed notes in my personal journal:

Something I'm sure you've noticed with all of these, however, are all the little arrows and doodles.  I'm a very visual person.  In fact, long before I ever had any interest in music, I had thought I would grow up to be an artist of some sort.  So, for me, it helps if I make my own visual aids as another means to understand the messages of the scriptures: not only so that I can see the messages with my finished product, but to also go through the process of creating my visual aids, which is instructive in and of itself:

I'm sure you can see from this picture why I decided to pursue music instead of art...
(And yes: those are rocket boosters I drew on the bottom of the Great and Spacious Building)

Anyway, I started talking about all of this because, even though I've jumped ahead in my posts so that they can "catch up" to where we're at in the STOMP schedule, I still plan on going back to post about the remaining chapters in 1 Nephi, as well as all of 2 Nephi.  I wanted to make it abundantly clear that STOMP is a great way to get a survey of the Book of Mormon--but by no means has anyone "finished" anything when they've read those last words of Moroni chapter 10.  It's a revolving door: once I've read Moroni's final admonition, I can jump back to Nephi's autobiography and scan the terrain once more--picking up little trinkets and treasures along the way that I had missed the last time.