Pioneer Trails Project

[helemon]

I recently learned that the church is working on something they call the Pioneer Trails Project. This project is pouring through the writings contained in pioneer journals. They are only looking at the time between when the pioneer left their home country to when they arrive in SLC. Missionary couples are reading these accounts and pulling out anything that could be construed as a spiritual or faith promoting statement. These snippets of thought are then put into a database. Members will then be allowed to search the database for the spiritual faithpromoting statements made by their ancestors!

So what is wrong with this you say? The fact that it lacks balance. It doesn't capture their questions, their doubts, their wavering. It doesn't examine how their expectations changed once they arrived in SLC and were faced with the reality rather than the dream. It is easy to have faith in a dream.

I want to read about how these saints reacted to the doctrine of polygamy. I want to read about the promises not kept, the prayers not answered, the deception, fraud, and broken trusts. It is dihonest to only examine half the story and hope members testimony will be strengthen by what an ancestor thought they were going to find at their journeys end rather than what was actually there.

Why does this project seem to have BKP written all over it? :duh

[peter_mary]

What you've described is the power of distillation. If you take a quart of well water and gently boil it all away, you will be left with whatever minerals were dissolved in that water. Those minerals are measured in parts per million, as in 1 part calcium carbonate, 1 million parts water...not a lot of calcium carbonate. But when all that's LEFT is calcium carbonate, it's easy to say, "Oh my heck! Look how much mineral was in there!" Check out an old hot water heater sometime...

That's what the Pioneer Trails project would accomplish...distilling out all the stuff that isn't faith promoting (no doubt measured in parts per million!), and leaving just the residue of faith. But to someone who didn't see all the other "stuff", it is easy to assume that the pioneer trail was one miracle after another, one answered prayer following on the heals of the last, one constant stream of angelic visitions...

Whatever...

Peter_Mary

[Born Free]

What you've described is the power of distillation. If you take a quart of well water and gently boil it all away, you will be left with whatever minerals were dissolved in that water. Those minerals are measured in parts per million, as in 1 part calcium carbonate, 1 million parts water...not a lot of calcium carbonate. But when all that's LEFT is calcium carbonate, it's easy to say, "Oh my heck! Look how much mineral was in there!" Check out an old hot water heater sometime...

That's what the Pioneer Trails project would accomplish...distilling out all the stuff that isn't faith promoting (no doubt measured in parts per million!), and leaving just the residue of faith. But to someone who didn't see all the other "stuff", it is easy to assume that the pioneer trail was one miracle after another, one answered prayer following on the heals of the last, one constant stream of angelic visitions...

Whatever...

Peter_Mary

What this niave approach also overlooks is that when people are under extreme stress, their mood states tend to become more volatile.

As a young national-serviceman, I was selected for officer cadet college which was purposefully designed to maintain extreme levels of stress on all dimensions and one would typically go from moods of elation to depression on a regular basis. So when someone has highs in a stressful context, it says more about human psychology than it does about 'spiritual experiences'.

But, if you are TBM, don't let some basic mental health facts get in the way of a good emotional faith-promoting experience.

Daryl