One of the important gifts that the restored gospel provides Latter-day Saints is a return to ritual. Mormon rituals give our religious experience bones to hang on, and while the presence of ritual can lead to anemic spirituality, it also provides a method to keep in practice. Thus, we are to pray daily, to read scriptures and ponder them daily, go to meetings on Sundays, partake of the sacrament, go home teaching, attend the temple--the list is rather long. I think perhaps the strength of LDS doctrine lies in so many ways of applying it to practice, often by ritual.
One of those rituals is General Conference. In typical LDS fashion, Conference is a pretty practical ritual, stripped mostly down to its essential parts: Church leaders get up and talk for a while in front of a floral arrangement, and we all listen. In many ways, its simplicity is its genius, because we can each hear the Spirit's whisper without the interference of peripheral aspects of the ritual.
For the past few years, my wife and I have been fortunate enough to get tickets to attend Conference in person, making a kind of pilgrimage. This year, with our new baby (and without access to unused tickets from her parents North Carolina stake) we'll have to replace the pilgrimage with other ways of observing conference. My wife suggested this year that we follow something she (and I guess many of us) picked up in seminary: think of a few specific questions you'd like answered by the Holy Spirit and then watch attentively for an answer. This has the advantage of helping me focus in on specifics of what is being said, and coming with my heart thirsting for the word of the Lord. I usually try to make sure I'm dressed, and usually in my Church clothes, when I watch Conference to keep myself in a Sabbath frame of reference. (My wife thinks this is kind of silly, but if it works, it works!) I also take notes, but more and more I take rambley notes on specific topics instead of detailing every talk.
What do you do to "observe" the ritual of Conference? And how many of you got bribed by your parents to pay better attention--and with what? (Marshmallows were sufficient for me, but maybe you needed something with a little more pizzaz?)
One of those rituals is General Conference. In typical LDS fashion, Conference is a pretty practical ritual, stripped mostly down to its essential parts: Church leaders get up and talk for a while in front of a floral arrangement, and we all listen. In many ways, its simplicity is its genius, because we can each hear the Spirit's whisper without the interference of peripheral aspects of the ritual.
For the past few years, my wife and I have been fortunate enough to get tickets to attend Conference in person, making a kind of pilgrimage. This year, with our new baby (and without access to unused tickets from her parents North Carolina stake) we'll have to replace the pilgrimage with other ways of observing conference. My wife suggested this year that we follow something she (and I guess many of us) picked up in seminary: think of a few specific questions you'd like answered by the Holy Spirit and then watch attentively for an answer. This has the advantage of helping me focus in on specifics of what is being said, and coming with my heart thirsting for the word of the Lord. I usually try to make sure I'm dressed, and usually in my Church clothes, when I watch Conference to keep myself in a Sabbath frame of reference. (My wife thinks this is kind of silly, but if it works, it works!) I also take notes, but more and more I take rambley notes on specific topics instead of detailing every talk.
What do you do to "observe" the ritual of Conference? And how many of you got bribed by your parents to pay better attention--and with what? (Marshmallows were sufficient for me, but maybe you needed something with a little more pizzaz?)
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