When he was 13 years old, historian Leonard Arrington read "Two Little Savages," a book describing two youths living in the forest.
The book had a profound impact on him. As he drifted off to sleep on a makeshift bed in his family's Idaho orchard, hearing the crickets chirp and watching the stars twinkle, he thought about the book and his own feelings about life."It all seems idyllic now," he told participants in a Saturday session of the Sunstone Symposium.
The experience taught him something he has carried throughout life.
"(I found) the holy was not somber," he said. "It was happy, chuckling, almost playful."
Arrington listed the five books (besides scripture) that have most changed his religious life and thought. Besides "Two Little Savages," the books were "Joseph Smith: An American Prophet," "Of Human Bondage," "Growth of the Soil" and "The Brothers Karamazov" ("one of the few great novels of all ages and countries," he said).
Those books and others made Arrington realize that "words were heavenly messengers" and helped him decide to become a historian.
Richard Cummings, retired director of honors education at the University of Utah, said one of the books that most influenced him was John A. Widtsoe's "Joseph Smith as Scientist," which helped him (temporarily) to reconcile his religious and scientific thought.
The third panelist in the session, University of Nevada-Reno English professor Stacy Burton, cited "A Mormon Mother" as influencing her, among such esoteric titles as the weighty philosophical tome "Truth and Method."
The session was one of the more popular at the symposium, which ended Saturday. Other Saturday speakers addressed topics including the intertwined political history of Utah and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, LDS views on land usage, the United Order in the modern world and LDS children of divorce.
There was also a tribute to Utah philosopher Sterling McMurrin.
Some tidbits from the sessions:
- Former University of Utah President and medical doctor Chase Peterson equating medical treatment with religious faith: "The last step cannot be predicted or planned until the first step is taken."
(As to having enough energy to take that first step, Peterson cited a study finding that people are sleeping an average of two hours less now than they were 85 years ago.)
- Brigham Young University graduate and Stanford graduate student B.J. Fogg characterized the BYU campus as a "pristine showplace" while the Stanford campus is a ratty "low-maintenance country club."
- Conflict-resolution consultant Stan Christensen related his encounter with a reporter while mediating a military dispute in Colombia. The reporter came from Bogota because he had heard rumors that guerrillas were going to massacre a group of American mediators.
- Performance artist Alex Caldiero sank to the floor and said with great gravity, "Once you sit, you can't sit down."
- Channel 2 political reporter Rod Decker said, "It is the fate of Utah to become steadily less interesting. . . . While our ancestors were heroic, we have become mainly quaint."
- Sex therapist Marybeth Raynes urged session participants to put their questions in writing, since she was sure most would be too embarrassed to state them out loud.
- Historian Samuel Taylor asserted that, instead of dying of natural causes, Brigham Young may have been murdered.
- And finally, Arrington, noted a limitation of his profession: "Creativity in history is imagination in a straitjacket."