A Letter to the Daily Universe,
I am 18 years old, and I have never seriously dated anyone. I am still learning how to do my own laundry, cook my own food, and live in cooperation with five other people. I have been at BYU for three weeks, and have already attended various stake conference sessions, firesides, and devotionals. I’ve learned a lot so far. I’ve learned about the joys of motherhood, the blessing of eternal families, the necessity of dating, and the keys to a successful marriage.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that marriage is a sacred ordinance that represents one of the purest forms of love we have for each other as human beings. However, as an 18 year old that can barely take care of myself, marriage is the last thing on my mind right now. I know there are those that have the spiritual and emotional maturity to enter into the covenant of marriage at this age, but I think I speak for the majority of freshman students when I say that even a slight deviation on fireside/ devotional topics would be much appreciated. While it is impossible to cater only to the perspectives of 18 year olds, I think it is fair to say that there are a great many spiritually uplifting topics that would be enjoyed by the entire student body that could be explored from time to time.
Agreed! It seems like the focus at BYU is always about marriage. Marriage is definitely a good thing, but, as you said, we're 18 years old! Freshman! Definitely not ready for that. I'm glad that you mentioned that we need a "slight deviation on fireside/devotional topics," because I agree completely. Great post!
ReplyDeleteThe risk here--critiquing an apostle's fireside is going to turn your readers off. And the CES firesides, while held at BYU, are not BYU events. Who should dictate what apostles decide to speak about? The Spirit, probably.
ReplyDeleteAlso, think about whether your examples are STAR (sufficient, typical, accurate, relevant). There have been 2 devotionals and 1 fireside so far...is that really sufficient to say that this is all that's talked about? Have you looked at the speakers for the rest of the semester? (None of the forum speakers will even be on religious topics.) Are there things that might still apply to 18 year olds from these messages? Does the fact that there are 18 year olds mean that all the 19-30 years old that are also the audience of devotionals/firesides, and may be considering marriage and/or married should be ignored?
These are just things you should think about...right now your argument is falling a little flat--though I think you could easily strengthen it, make it much more effective.
I can see where you're coming from; every Sunday sine we've had lessons about finding an eternal companion at BYU. However, that's just a part of being the youngest on campus where many are seriously thinking about marriage. It reminds me of when we were beehives and they would give us lessons on dating that seemed very irrelevant to a 13 year old. Though it didn't make sense at the time, they were just preparing us for when we are ready to date and this case get married. I guess we'll just have to be patient and learn to deal with all the marriage talk!
ReplyDelete