This happened awhile ago and I meant to post it then:
A cheery mood rested on the room as bishop raised his hand to make a comment with about 5 minutes left to go in the third hour...
A cheery mood rested on the room as bishop raised his hand to make a comment with about 5 minutes left to go in the third hour...
Let me set the stage: It was the 5th Sunday Lesson so naturally we met as a complete ward for the third hour. We are fortunate enough to have our meetings in the testing center and we enjoy spending our 3 hour block in the same desks where we often scrape our brains for a recollection of recently studied material. They split the beloved room in two for a sacrament room on one side and a classroom on the other. Those of you who know the building could probably see us piling into the seats of the aforementioned classroom ready for the impending message. We knew going into the meeting that we were scheduled to discuss the converse of a typical 'dangers of technology' agenda. Our conversations were to be about the good uses of tech and media, built off of the analogy that we ought to spend our times in spiritual safe harbors. We had a great meeting sharing scores of uplifting ways to use computers, the internet, etc. Many of the comments were insightful and occasionally we had an experience or example shared that just came out funny. We have a guy that ___ and one that even indexes while biking (... stationary or course). I was thouroughly enjoying the sincere suggestions as well as the fun, witty musings of others.
I was in this elated state of mind when bishop volunteered his thoughts. He began to explain again the purpose of discussing the topic, Satan is out to destroy us and his favorite tools reside in current technology so we must prepare a technological 'safe harbor'. And as he reminded us of the temptations so prevalent throughout the digital world I heard faintly from the adjoining sacrament room...
...the wrath of the stormtossed sea
or demons or men or whatever it be...
I didn't think too much of it at first, but then they kept going. Bishop was still enumerating the evils so available to us and the music. It was at this point that I leaned over to Matt and whispered an "Are you hearing this?", with affirmation we began to chuckle...
...No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean and earth and skies..
What made it even better... the second that the music goes into peace Bishop shifted his comments to illustrate the idea of a haven, a way to safely navigate the dangers of the web...
...They all shall sweetly obey thy will:
Peace, be still; peace, be still.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will:
Peace, peace, be still.
And as if right on cue, Bishops comments ended with the final note of the verse... You could not have planned it better... but it got better!!!! After the comment Brother McClellen, who was teaching, gave us the final minute or so to reflect on how we could make better spiritual safe havens. As the room fell silent music seeped in again, they still had two more verses!!! Oh... and it gets better! I couldn't help it, I found this way too coincidental, I had a fit of silent laughter for the duration of the "silence." The instant that the music stopped Brother McClellen was again in the front of the room concluding the lesson (right on cue). He added his final thoughts closed in the appointed way and someone came up for the closing prayer. I bet you can imagine what happened when the prayer was over... The pianist in the other room began their postlude and what was played? A repetition of 'Master the Tempest Is Raging'! It was just too good!
