Having class in the special collections section of the library was so neat! I have to admit that I’m a little bit of a history addict at heart and loved smelling and seeing pages that have passed through generations of hands. (haha and I thought my textbooks this semester cost a lot.) Old ink and paper just smells good!
I thought one of the most beautiful things we saw was old Medieval text. Made by Monks, it was complete with detailed decoration patterns around the page and bigger opening paragraph letters. The pages were so colorful, shiny, and detailed that just looking at the page took my breath away. Old books (accomplishments of any kind really) have such a sacredness to them because of the time and detail that went into them. One of the Medieval books took eleven years to make!
I feel more committed than ever now to keeping a journal and being the best “personal scribe” possible. Our collections guide expressed two very important reasons for journals. 1-personal growth and 2-posterity.
One thought I keep returning to has to do with my hands. During the presentation our collections guide was trying to compare a piece of hand-produced parchment with a piece of machine-produced parchment and requested a volunteer to hold up a plastic-cased copy. I jumped at the opportunity and raised my hand. Even though I wasn’t touching “the exact piece of paper,” I felt almost caught back in history. Carrying an ancient record between my fingertips sent chills up and down my spine. I was so close that I could see the erased pre-writing lines drawn on the sheet! Pretty soon my two minutes of heaven were up and I was back in my seat with a smile on my face. It wasn’t long after my volunteer experience that the presentation ended and I was walking up the library stairs texting my friend I was meeting for lunch. Suddenly I stopped. I stared at my hands in “time-warp” shock. All of the sudden it hit me that in a matter of five minutes my hands had switched to holding over one hundred year old parchment to the latest cell phone technology. I really felt like I’d felt through the walls of time with my hands. The past was a tangible thing for a minute.
It’s wonderful to think how the restoration of the gospel has opened the door to advancements in EVERY field! For centuries, select scribes were scrawling on bone, coal, wood, parchment, and papyrus. It took hundreds of years for the printing press to be developed and within the last twenty we’ve come up with cell phones!! Joseph Smith opened the gate of this last dispensation. The restored gospel has brought light and truth to the world that is manifest in ways that are plain to man in science, math, and the arts. God has a hand in everything and is preparing His people for when He comes again.
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