Water Skiing, Snorkeling and Scuba Diving and the ACLU

Several weeks ago I attended a Sunday School lesson taught by a friend of mine, an excellent teacher. He used the analogy of someone water skiing to start a discussion of how some folks read their scriptures. They know that by reading the scriptures on a daily basis that their lives will be blessed, in some small degree, by virtue of the fact that they are being obedient to that council given. Then there are those who are compared to folks who go snorkeling, they get into their scriptures a little deeper and by doing so are able to see things that are below the surface. Finally my friend brought up the scuba divers, those who delve deeply into the meanings of each and every word, sentence and structure presented so that at the end of their reading session they come away enlightened and edified, having gleaned much more than their counter parts.

We spent the better part of an hour, we could have spent the whole afternoon, scuba diving one chapter in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 8, which is an accounting of the vision of the Tree of Life. ( http://scriptures.lds.org/en/1_ne/8 ) We pondered what various words meant, how they referred to other scripture, the importance of the images presented until the chapter’s contents had been gleaned.

This morning I was reading in Ogre’s Politics and Views, an article which he called, ACLU Hates Good. (linked via title bar) Ogre went on to explain how we are up against an organization which has as part of its on going agenda, declared war on everything which makes America great.

“Our heritage is slowly being stripped away. Scouting is an embedded institution in this nation. It contributes to society by keeping good boys good and allows them to develop into good men. Why would anyone want to destroy that? Because they don't like our way of life.”

While you still have your scuba gear on, can you figure out why I thought that these two stories fit so well together? Has the mist overtaken our view of the straight and narrow path which leads to the Tree of Life, our ability to hold to the rod which runs so dangerously close to that river of filth?