Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf made his talk more interesting by taking a story that we all know--the story of our lives as we strive for discipleship and exaltation--and framed it in the light of Tolkien’s The Hobbit. He doesn’t stop after simply comparing our lives to a fantasy adventure. He goes into depth regarding all the luxuries and comforts that Bilbo Baggins has as a hobbit (eating several breakfasts, etc.) and the imperfect start to his journey. He said that in our journeys we face metaphorical spiders and dragons. He also compared discipleship to learning to play the piano: even if you have to start out simple and mess up at times, the only way forward is continuing to practice and practice.
Elder Uchtdorf could have simply said that we need to be better disciples and better appreciate this journey that is our life. Instead, his technique was to engage the audience with a familiar popular tale and using it to frame our journey in life in a different light. He vividly painted a picture that makes our own lives (which may feel mundane and meaningless at times) feel like an exciting adventure. By doing so, he made his talk all the more interesting and thought-provoking.
Julie, I thought that Elder Uchtdorf's talk was interesting as well. He usually uses some interesting anecdotes, and I thought the allusion to The Hobbit worked well in his sermon.
ReplyDeleteHe immediately caught a lot of our attention when he started talking about the Hobbit, as even those who have never read the book, or seen the movie (for example, some young children), know references or the basic plot, as the story is so well known. So he didn't need to go too much in-depth of the story--instead, he just give references--as you mentioned, the several breakfast, adventure, etc. I like how he usually uses stories in his talks to get to his message (ex. Ugly Duckling is one from an earlier talk).
ReplyDelete[posted on behalf of Marcus]
ReplyDeleteI thought this talk was great and how Uchtdorf use a well-known story to tie into his main topic. There is something I found particularly interesting with his talk (and most others I recognize now) and that is the decision to describe in detail the stories that he is referencing – even though The Hobbit is well known, there will still be some around the world that don’t know the reference, so he describes it anyway.