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Show RELIGION EDITOR: GAYLON GARBETT CO SATURDAY, JULY 24, 1999 THE DAILY HERALD 344-2M- 5 I r Student goes to event ' 1 V PROVO College stu- dent Kwame Tuffour, a native of Ghana and a member of First Baptist Church of Provo, participated in Crossover Atlanta, a weeklong evangelistic X.J Ss Q3 Marden J. Clark emphasis that preceded the 1999 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in June. Tuffour shared his faith door to door, also leading a sports clinic at an Atlanta Baptist Church. He attends Brigham Young University and is a ' ' member of the Baptist " Student Union on campus. Family gathering spurs musings on human family jo We live in a culture that values families even more than SUVs. We also value family That is why last Saturday found Bess and me with our son Dennis and Valerie driving up Provo Canyon through Heber City and Coalville to Morgan for the biennial reunion of the Wallace R. and Jean Boyce Clark family. Morgan because that was where we were all born, all nine of us except the last, for whom Mother had the luxury of a hospital in Salt Lake City. It was a beautiful drive, more beautiful than I ever remember it and maybe more beautiful objectively, what with all the rain we've had this sprLig and summer. On the way we drove along three lovely reservoirs: Deer Creek, Jordanelle and Echo. All three have been formed by dams built during my lifetime, all earth-fille- d dams. Had we elected to go through Kamas we would also have driven along another reservoir formed dam. by Rockport, another earth-filleThe Deer Creek and Jordanelle are on the Provo River, Rockport and Echo on the Weber. But all four control essentially the same watershed. Message on final day IIIIBMMi ,t-- . WILL KINCAID The Associated Press Sustenance: Hutterite women at the Willowbank Colony prepare lunch. Based on communal life, a Hutterite colony provides its members with food, clothing, shelter and medical care, and all eat at a common dining hall. Women spend most of the day preparing large meals they will serve to the men before sitting down at a separate table to eat. During this Sunday's 10:45 a.m. worship service of crowd would have been between 100 and 150. We met, heard reports on genealogy and other family matters, elected new leaders and ate. Yes, of course we ate, long and much, especially Earl Steed's perfectly barbecued chicken, but all kinds of other stuff besides. And we visited. Clarks love to visit. We didn't stay for the wagon ride up to the dry farm that Dad and his two brothers had broken and tamed on the west foothills, much of it steeper than plows and other machinery should work. I have disturbing memories of harvesting grain up there with a header and header boxes. The header was actually a large mowing machine pushed by two teams of horses that Uncle Carlos would skin with amazing dexterity over those hills. The headings would be carried up between two moving canvases and would come spouting out into the header box, where I often had the dirty task of arranging and tromping them. So many memories! But we just drove around town a bit, seeing how much of the fertile farm land has been taken over by housing, much of it by "gentleman farmers," workers who now commute to Ogden or Hill Field. Then back, by the same route we came. TWO PROFOUND impressions from the day: One, the absolute significance and joy of our family relations. We don't have to be Mormon to appreciate that significance and joy, but Mormon beliefs in the eternal nature of families tied together by temple covenants greatly enhance the significance and joy (though few of us can live even a day on the plane that such a picture suggests). one: The The other, a absolute beauty of the earth that the Lord has created for us. Bess and I have traveled much, but found few places on earth more beautiful and none that we would trade for these, our valley homes; the other prong, the cost to that earth and its beauty of the rapidly increasing human family that occupies his earth. I can imagine Mother and Dad looking down in profound satisfaction on that wonderful family, now well over 200 in the third generation, with more arriving monthly. That cost dominated our return trip. We kept remembering, or trying to re visualize the canyons and rivers the dams and reservoirs have replaced. And we can't help wondering by what celestial mathematics he will reckon up the profit and loss. Lacking celestial mathematics, we can't even begin to. d Marden Clark is a professor emeritus of English at Brigham Young University. the Church of The Nazarene, Pastor John Conlon will deliver a mes- - ' sage titled, "What Will You They built the colony You Stand Before the long barns and garages, a Say When God?" church and school, a dining The Church of The hall and laundry, a lumber is at 150 N. 700 Nazarene business and identical West in Provo. During the homes. Hutterites are Anabaptists morning service there is a chilwho trace their roots to the children's church for all and infant an dren nursery. 16th century Protestant Reformation and take their Sunday School begins at 9:30 name from Jacob Hutter, an a.m. with classes for all age's. '" Austrian religious reformer Sunday evening services 6 p.m. A welcome is at begin who was burned at the stake in 1536. They arrived in extended at all services. from North America 1870s in the and Bible school planned Germany number about 25,000, mainly SANDY Mountain in Minnesota and the Vista United Methodist Dakotas. Church is inviting children The Hutterite religion is to a castle adventure set in based on communal life. A merry old England. This colony provides its members Vacation Bible School will with food, clothing, shelter run the second week in and medical care, and all eat August and is open to all at a common dining hall. The children ages 4 through 12. colony owns all property. "This summer we will be Community life, including transformed back in time farming, is inseparable from into SonCastle Faire, where religious belief, Hutterites say. children will discover the joy Hutterites a of speak using their talents to German dialect, reserving serve the King of kings. We English for dealings with oth- - will feature lively songs, Colony buckles down with usual labor, says Y2K no concern : l By BECKY BOHRER Associated Press Writer d OUR DESTINATION was the city park in Morgan, where already 50 or so Clark descendants were gathered. Before the afternoon was over, the There is a day PROVO each of us will when coming be called to give an account of our lives. It will all be gauged about the way we conduct our relationships here on earth. Are we living well with our neighbors, or do we have some fence mending to do? Paul can help us get started. ..... EDGELEY, N.D. At three-apartme- Willowbank Colony, folks don't pay much attention to the approaching millenni- um. There's too much work to do. A crop must be tended. An order of wooden trusses has to be hauled out. Livestock must be fed. ' A distraction like the arrival of the year 2000 is of little concern to Dan Wipf, a leader of the spiritual Hutterite colony for 29 years. "It'll just be another day, another another hour, minute," said Wipf as he rushed from his home late one morning to the truss company where he on-sit- e works. Wipf, a short, bearded man, also dismissed forecasts Y2K comthat the puter glitch could have catastrophic consequences, a phenomenon that some in other religious groups have seen as signaling the end of the world. Technical trade: Dan Wipf, spiritual leader of the Willowbank Hutterite Colony in Edgeley, N.D., uses a computer program to design roof trusses in his office. A large part of the colony's hardware store and communal income comes from their e truss company, Golden Rule Lumber and Willowbank Truss. on-sit- "God does not want us to know when that will happen, so why speculate?" said Wipf. Outward preparations for the end times aren't being made at the colony. There's no need. Self-sufficie- nt group The 90 or so Hutterites who live southeast of Edgeley, population 680, are They drink the milk from dairy cows among the 100 head of cattle, raise 100,000 turkeys each year, use eggs from their chickens, and farm about 2,000 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat, plus garden crops. : See HUTTERITE, C8 See BRIEFING, C9 Lao Tzu known as China's 'Ancient Master' Although the founding ideas of Chinese philosophy are generally associated with the great sage Confucius, an equally important figure is Li Tan, better known as Lao Tzu, the "Ancient Master" and founder of Taoism. Whereas Confucius was a philosopher whose ideas laid the political, legal and moral foundations of Chinese civilization, Lao Tzu was a mystical sage, whose teachings form the core of Chinese spirituality and religion. It is sometimes said that traditional Chinese society was Confucian in public, but Taoist in private. There are many questions regarding the "historical" Lao Tzu. According to his traditional biography (first recorded almost 400 years after his death), Lao Tzu lived in the sixth century B.C. and was an older contemporary of Confucius. According to Taoists, Lao Tzu taught and occasionally confounded the great philosopher on several occasions. He was a political advisor, teacher, archivist, and master of complex Chinese rituals. Later Taoists saw Lao Tzu as the perfect embodiment of the Tao ("Way" of Heaven), and therefore divine. Indeed, the cosmic Lao Tzu is said to have existed before the creation of the world, and transformed himself into a mortal in order to teach and save mankind (an ideal with parallels in both HIGHER THINGS William Hamblin & Daniel Peterson Buddhism and Christianity.) As such, he did not die, but rather ascended to the Western Paradise of Heaven where he obtained immortality with the gods and was eventually worshiped as a god by his followers on earth. But before his celestial ascent, he graciously dictated his teachings in the five thousand word masterpiece, the Classic of the Way and Its Power (Tao Te Ching), which remains the foundational scripture for Taoists. THE CLASSIC of the Way is a terse, ambiguous and cryptic work, filled with poetry, proverbs and parables. The language is often intentionally obscure and ambiguous. Way (tao) is a word used for both the power (te) which is the essence of God and the universe, and also for the path or "way"of Heaven which people should follow to be at one with the Tao. This Way is considered ineffable: beyond description. As Lao Tzu put it: That Way that can be described is not the eternal Way." You must feel it, or perhaps be it, or you cannot understand it. Its nature cannot be explained by human reason or speech: "Those who know the Tao don't speak of it; those who speak of the Tao don't know it." For Taoists, the ambiguity of the text is a sign of its profound mystical importance; for others it is simply obscure and incoherent. Historically, however, the ambiguities of the text have allowed numerous simultaneous and overlapping interpretations, making it one of the most discussed, and perhaps least understood religious books in history; as H. Welch noted "no translation of the Tao Te Ching can be satisfactory, because no translation can be as ambiguous as the Chinese original " The essence of Lao Tzu's teachings is that there is a great universal benevolent power, known as the Way, which is the essence of all things. Humans must live in accordance with the Way and "do nothing" (wu wei) that is not in harmony with it. THE INFLUENCE of Taoism on Chinese civilization cannot be over emphasized. Although Confucianism remained the political philosophy of the elites, Taoism along with and often mixed with Buddhism remained ' the religion of the masses. Taoist priests, the Celestial Masters, claimed to have special esoteric knowledge and power derived from Lao Tzu, allowing them to serve as master magicians and councilors to most Chinese emperors. Despite half a century of Communist Chinese suppression of religion, Taoism still flourishes in! China in its many different forms; Traditional Taoist temples and priests are still in operation, while new religious movements in China ' continue to draw on Taoism for I ' inspiration. Likewise, in the past-fedecades in the West, various aspects of Taoist thought have forms of syncretistic popiu lar religion known as New Age movements. .... , per-meate- d " Further Reading: D. C. Lau, ' Tao Te Ching, (Hong Kong, 1982); i W. Chan, The Way of Lao Tzu, ! (1963). William Hamblin is a profesorof history and Daniel C. Peterson is a professor of Near Eastern lan- " guages at Brigham Young University. . ', |