Beauty, says author Marilynne Robinson, is the “signature of God.” An important way to know God is to discern his signature in creations made to gladden the heart.
Imagine you’re preparing for a wilderness hike. You light a single candle as you assemble your maps, food, sleeping bag, tent, and so on.
Because of the light in the room, you do not notice the candle. Now imagine you turn off the light in the room. Now the candle shines clear and bright. It illuminates the room. It was not that the lit candle was invisible before, it was that the room’s artificial light obscured the lit candle’s natural light.
In some ways, we need to be in nature, away from the artificial light and the artificiality which crowds so much of modern life. There we can see God’s light, not as a single candle, but, as E.B. White put it, as “the combustion of stars.”
Digital screens can serve us, but they can’t substitute for the testimonies of nature and the natural world. AI cannot replace sunlight, wind, and natural wonder. Digital exchanges are at best a poor substitute or, at worst, a counterfeit for what we live through our senses, hearts, and minds.
Our physical and spiritual senses and abilities are God-given, in part so we can experience time, space, and physicality, including the stunning, revitalizing beauty of our physical world and environment.
Showing posts with label Mountains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mountains. Show all posts
Friday, August 14, 2026
Thursday, August 13, 2026
Each of us has personal moments of reflection, reverence, even transcendence. We feel present. We feel purpose and connection. This occurs in part because all things denote and bear record of their Creator.
We begin at the beginning. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. ... And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.” You may or may not consider yourself spiritual or religious, but each of us has personal moments of reflection, reverence, even transcendence. We feel present. We feel purpose and connection. This occurs in part because all things denote and bear record of their Creator. Put another way, God is God. Some talk too glibly about AI “becoming God” or “godlike AI.” Even if AI training changes or if we achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence) or ASI (artificial superintelligence), we know reasoning, even superhuman reasoning, has limitations. Man is not, and certainly divinity is not, defined solely by reasoning.
AI is not and cannot be God. AI can answer questions, but it cannot answer prayers. It may organize thoughts, but it cannot offer covenant relationships or blessings. Platforms and technologies cannot substitute for authentic, divine, and human connection.
Saturday, December 27, 2025
Take time to be still, to breathe, to wonder. Look up.
Take time to be still, to breathe, to wonder. Look up. Focus on His great gift--the knowledge of who you truly are, and the understanding that trials here are fleeting and that joy here is just the beginning of joy to come.
Patrick Kearon, Facebook Post, 12/23/2025
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
The Church Flourish[es] Best Out of Doors
By the time the Kirtland Temple was dedicated in 1836, it was too small to hold all the Latter-day Saints who wanted to attend its dedication. As the Church grew, so did the numbers of Saints who had to attend meetings outdoors. President James E. Faust (1920–2007), who served as my stake president when I was a young man and as a mentor when I was called as a General Authority in 2007, made this observation regarding the Church’s second temple:
“Before the Nauvoo Temple was completed in 1846 the Saints would meet outside, often near the temple, to hear Joseph and the other Church leaders speak. Sometimes thousands attended those meetings”—sometimes even in inclement weather.
“As [Elder] George A. Smith observed in his humorous way, ‘In the days of the Prophet Joseph … [the Church] flourished best out of doors.’”
October 2025
Liahona
Ronald A. Rasband
Monday, August 4, 2025
God knows that the higher you are, the farther you can see. Our Savior invites you to make that climb.
Placing your trust in Heavenly Father and in His prophets, whom He has sent, will help you to spiritually elevate and push you forward toward God’s expanded horizon. Your vantage will change because you will change. God knows that the higher you are, the farther you can see. Our Savior invites you to make that climb.
Seeking Answers to Spiritual Questions, Tracy Y. Browning, October 2024 General Conference
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
To be clear, the idea that God has stopped loving should be so far down the list of possible explanations in life that we don’t get to it until after the mountains have left and the hills are gone!
When we don’t feel the warmth of divine love, it hasn’t gone away. God’s own words are that “the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but [His] kindness shall not depart from [us].” So, just to be clear, the idea that God has stopped loving should be so far down the list of possible explanations in life that we don’t get to it until after the mountains have left and the hills are gone!
I really enjoy this symbolism of mountains being evidence of the certainty of God’s love. That powerful symbolism weaves into accounts of those who go to the mountains to receive revelation and Isaiah’s description of “the mountain of the Lord’s house” being “established in the top of the mountains.” The house of the Lord is the home of our most precious covenants and a place for us all to retreat and sink deeply into the evidence of our Father’s love for us
October 2024
General Conference
Karl D. Hirst
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
His matchless genius for beauty
I still love to hike high in the mountains among the magnificent granite rocks and peaks. Although silent, they speak of the power and majesty of God—and of His matchless genius for beauty. As Alma testified, “All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, … do witness that there is a Supreme Creator” (Alma 30:44).
I love stargazing at night, trying to wrap my mind around the eternity of time and space within my gaze. I always marvel at the knowledge that comes in those quiet moments that, despite the vastness of the cosmos, the Lord of the universe knows puny me. And He knows each of us. The creation witnesses of the Creator, and if we preserve these special, unspoiled places, they will eloquently and profoundly witness of our God and inspire us onward.
March 2021
2021
Marcus B. Nash
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