The Faith of an Engineer (Special Extended Edition)

When I first began writing my Sermons of the Heart, my goal was to simply have an outlet to share ideas and inspiration that cross my path in everyday life. Over time, I've realized that my thoughts and writings are mostly for one person, and that is me. Yes, my words may mean something to my children or grandchildren someday. They may even mean something to one of you, if you've stumbled across my writings. But, in very large part, I have been richly blessed by my Heavenly Father to feel inspiration from the most ordinary of sources and to have words fill my mind and my heart that demand to be set free into writing.
 

I've also learned that those words of inspiration that I am blessed with sometimes need to be expressed in other ways. When writing about the Latter Day Saint or Mormon pioneers, I was touched by a song that shared the simple truth, "God gave us voices, but we make them sing." As I wrote about some pioneer stories that were meaningful to me, I couldn't help but wonder what melodies and lyrics comprised the songs that those faithful men and women gave voice to through their faithful and inspirational lives. At the same time, I knew what melodies and songs came to my mind when I read their stories. And I felt that my words and message in sharing their stories was incomplete unless I coupled those stories with those powerful melodies that inspired me.

This presented me with a dilemma. I needed my words to be recorded so I could do some audio engineering and put those words to this music. But who could I convince to record these words? This was just a simple project that meant something to me, rather than anyone else. And I didn't have the spine to ask anyone. So I bit the bullet and recorded my own voice. This was especially difficult for me, because there is little that I despise more on this earth than the sound of my recorded voice. But putting my words into a format that made my message feel complete, the way they felt in my mind and my heart was important enough to me to record myself anyway.

As I completed that project and put music with the words, I experienced something of a miracle, or a tender mercy as David Bednar might say. The music seemed to swell and grow with the words of those stories at just the right places, in ways that I didn't design or engineer. The message brought entirely new meaning to me as I listened to something that I had written, recorded, and engineered, but something that didn't feel like it came from me at all. It felt like it came from a much loftier source. It was indeed a tender mercy.

For my next sermon, I determined to try again and see if I might experience that same tender mercy of having the words and feelings of my heart played back to me in such a Spirit-enhanced format. I wasn't disappointed. Since then, I've created audio versions, or podcasts, of most of my sermons. I still loath the sound of my voice. But hearing such a complete and authentic representation of the contents of my heart is such a neat experience that I keep at it each time I feel inspired to write.

A few months ago, I was again listening to one of these podcasts, one that compared Jesus Christ to Superman, entitled Hero of Heroes. But as I listened, as with my experience with the pioneer-themed sermon, I felt that this one was also incomplete. Something was missing. Since the message involved dialogue from several Superman movies, my audio version used actual audio from those movies. But, as I thought about it, I now felt that my message was not complete without also including the video from those movies. So I began a new project to learn about video editing and to turn my message, that had evolved from written words to audio, into video as well. The project was a fun one for me, and it turned out beautifully, representing my heart perfectly.

In looking forward to Christmas, many things have been on my mind. But the thoughts that seem to dominate my mind and heart relate to my Christmas-themed sermon from last year, entitled The Faith of an Engineer. As with Hero of Heroes, I felt that my words, based in large part on several scenes from the Christmas movie The Polar Express, were still incomplete in written and audio form only. 

And so, I've created a video version of my message, simplified and edited to focus on the powerful message of faith from that movie. After finishing my editing and publishing my video, I watched it in its entirety for the first time. Although I knew exactly what was in the video, even my exhaustive efforts in creating the video did not prepare me for the rush of emotion and the Spirit that I felt as I watched.

So as my Christmas gift to you, I would like to share this Special Extended Edition of The Faith of an Engineer. Feel free to let me know how the message of The Polar Express touches you. I hope it does. And if you enjoy this, I simply ask you to share this with a friend as well.

Merry Christmas! May your hearts be touched by Him whose birth we celebrate as you more fully allow yourself to Believe.