Last weekend my husband and I attended BYU's "Life, the Universe and Everything" their Science Fiction/ Fantasy writing symposium. ( If you havn't started the video clip on the above blog entry, you can do so now!)
My favorite speaker there was their Guest of Honor, Orson Scott Card. He is the author of such books as "Ender's Game", "Wyrms", "Worthing Saga" etc.
In the address I attended, he spoke on the topic of "Why are LDS writers so heavily represented in the Science Fiction/Fantasy writing genre?" What he had to say on the subject really made me think.
Among other things, he said that as a religion we believe in the scientific method. We are not told to just believe what others say. We are challenged to find out things for ourselves. We are told in the "Book of Mormon" by Moroni to pray about it for ourselves to know that it is true. We are constantly told we cannot live on borrowed light and we must get our own testimonies. Another reason we are interested in Science Fiction and Fantasy is that we believe in miracles. We believe in practical heroes. They will do all they can and then some other "force" will come in and help him/her to conquer whatever it is they are fighting. In a fictional book it would be called some sort of "magic" but in reality it is our Heavenly Father who is helping us through miracles and Priesthood power.
I am grateful for a gospel that not only tells me we have a Heavenly Father who loves us, that we have Prophets, and a Savior. We are told and expected to find this out for ourselves that it is aall true. Card's address also made me grateful for how the gospel helps me to have a more positive view of our world and our future. It is a gospel of joy and hope and because of it, I know that despite hard trials in life there are happy endings. In fact if you live a righteous life there are no unhappy endings. Everything will work out for our good.
One of my favorite quotes by C.S. Lewis explains this ability to dream and believe in happy endings.
"You and I who still enjoy fairy tales have less reason to wish actual childhood back. We have kept it's pleasures and added some grown-up ones as well"
2 comments:
Thanks for that post. Interesting words from Card.
I thought he was a "Jack" Mormon. So what's up with that? ;-)
Tessa and I just listened to that song last night. She ran upstairs when she heard it playing.
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