Organizing Your Patriarchal Blessing to Get the Most Out of It

Getting Organized a Godly Trait

SCRIPTURE:

            “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” –Genesis1:1

In the footnotes of our bible it tell us that the word ‘created’ in Hebrew means shaped, fashioned, created and refers us to Abraham 4:1

            “And then the Lord said: Let us go down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heaven and the earth.” –Abraham 4:1

If creating order is a characteristic of the great God in heaven, should we imitate Him? 

         Well, I pondered this during the time that I started my morning pages back in 1994 and had decided to use a 3 ring binder as my journal. I wanted my patriarchal blessing to be in that format. So I organized it a little better for me to read and retyped it. Prior to this I'd just made a photo copy of the blessing itself and stuck it hither thither and yon. Sometimes, I could find it and other times (mainly because we moved a lot) it was stuck in a file folder in with hundreds of other folders, usually mislabeled, and often still in a moving box. So, getting organized was REALLY needed.Also, I wanted a new shape from the legal sized original copy of my blessing.

          I have used my blessing for more than 30 years of study and it is remarkably like the other scriptures  found in the Standard Works: when read prayerfully with the Holy Ghost as your guide, new things pop out at you; new levels of understanding seem to appear, that heretofore went unnoticed.

         I retyped my blessing into a digital document with each paragraph of the blessing on one 8 ½ X 11 page, placing a page stop at the end of each page. I typed each sentence found in the paragraph as a separate paragraph, so to speak. In the past I’ve printed these pages out and placed them in plastic page protectors in my Journal. It made searching a word or phrase easier in a digital word document, as well as making it easier to see patterns or subject matter grouped logically. I used a large size font from 14 to 20 pt depending on how long the "paragraph" was or how many sentences were in it. Believe it or not, I began remembering words and phrases in my blessing much better. I do not memorize well and often felt frustrated that I would never become a "sister scriptorian" as President Spencer Kimball asked of us a Regional meeting long ago. I made a commitment right then and there to begin doing this great task, one small step at a time. Organizing my blessing in this large type format with a sentence=paragraph, and paragraph=one page, I became more familiar with my own personal scripture, my blessing. And believe it or not, even though I still don't memorize well, I can actually say, "I love the Scriptures. I read and ponder them regularly and have many revelatory insights into even difficult passages. I've become a Sister Scriptorian." Organizing my blessing this way has helped me come to value my personal scripture as well.

On the left is what my old journal pages looked like; on the right is a new concept from 2012

         In this large format, when I set goals, studied phrases, looked for a theme for the new year, I found inspiration or answers to questions in my life. In this format, it was also easier to include pages of notes, indicating scriptures I’ve read or passages from other books where I found explanations, even definitions from several dictionaries about a word or phrase found in my blessing. Then I'd place these studies immediately following the pertinent paragraph of my blessing. At the beginning of each year, I moved just the blessing pages to the front of a new binder for the next year, leaving my studies and goals in the old year's binder, where they were archived. For reference in this blog series, I have used these notes from as far back as my 1977 archived binders. 

        New Format for 2012 Required Re-typing My Patriarchal Blessing

         This year I’ve been inspired to do something a little different with these pages of my blessing. In the previous photo you will see how I had typed these pages in previous years on the left hand side. On the right of the photo is an example of  my new version.  One of the returned missionaries in our ward inspired me when he said that he took his blessing along on his mission, placed at the back of his scriptures. What a wonderful idea, because they really are our own personal scriptures.

          In an earlier blog I talked about the importance of a name and that gave me a new idea of what to call my patriarchal blessing. I’ve retyped my blessing under the title “The Book of Beverly.” Now each page is given a chapter number and each sentence becomes a verse. Some of my chapters have only one or two verses, but others have many more. This makes it easy to locate, memorize and quote certain passages. It is also easier to “footnote” the notes in my studies, indicating what verse from my blessing it is connected to by chapter and verse (example: see Bev 4:2, etc)

          I took this project one step further and I copied each page with a 50% reduction, cut the pages so they fit my scriptures, then stapled them between two sheets of heavier paper. I placed this “Book of Beverly” at the back of my scriptures. 

Now I include the Book of Beverly at the Back of My Scriptures

       Having your Patriarchal blessing in both sizes will help you use, understand and appreciate it more than ever before.

QUOTE:

            “Now my brethren and sisters, let me urge that we, old and young, begin to appreciate our (patriarchal) blessings.”

 –Hyrum G. Smith, Conference Report, Oct 1922 page 50