While attending BYU, I had a great opportunity to attend some outstanding religion courses. Though the details have changed over the years, students at BYU are expected to take a certain number of religion courses in addition to the standard general education requirements of science, math, humanities, and so forth. While we were revisiting my old stomping grounds to prepare Hyrum to join the Y, we found a set of posters recognizing some of the great religion teachers who have worked there.
Jerome Perkins taught me the second half of the Doctrine and Covenants, and I think we had one other course together though it's escaping me just now. I felt that walking into his classroom was walking onto holy ground, and maybe I should remove the shoes from off my feet. I wrote copious notes in my scriptures, which I have copied over into new copies since. I loved how he opened my eyes to the crescendo of Joseph Smith's teachings from the revelation on the three degrees of glory, through the Kirtland Temple and the Missouri and Nauvoo eras.
Alan Parrish was a friend and a great teacher. He was Tall and had Big, Big hands that would engulf you when you shook hands. He invited his classes to his house each semester for a barbecue. I can't remember why he and I decided to call me Orson, after Orson Pratt, but that was my nickname for three delightful semesters: two semesters of Book of Mormon and one on the Pearl of Great Price. His is one of the very few gospel teachers whose voices I can still remember as he taught particular lessons, such as caring for the poor as King Benjamin taught or Alma's warnings of the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth of the wicked. He teased regularly and let me tease him right back. He got people thinking about what the scriptures truly mean.
Victor Ludlow taught me about Isaiah and Judaism. Every four years as we study the Old Testament, I pull the textbook he wrote off the bookshelf to teach my children how to recognize parallelism and chiasmus in the scriptures and appreciate the beauty of Hebrew poetry. He held a Passover seder at BYU, and I think it would be fair to blame him for much of my interest in honoring Passover every Easter. His courses were the most scholarly rigorous religion courses I had.
Gaye Strathearn taught me to love the writing of Paul. I would have a lot more to say about her, but ... there was this girl. It was a crazy summer, taking calculus, New Testament, and something like 5 hours of dance practice a day while falling in love with someone I shared New Testament class with. It was an amazing time, but the fact that I came away with not just a love of a girl, but a love for Paul says something pretty special about her teaching. Like my D&C, my paper New Testament still contains and honors her notes and teaching.
Joy and I enjoyed a date at the cafeteria and another walking along the Bosque River Trail
