The Sad Plight of Farm Analogies

31 December 2008 @ 12:07 pm | 6 comments

I couldn’t help but chuckle at this quote at Utah Policy:

“These guys don’t understand them. I use them every once in a while, but that’s who I am. They have to ask somebody else, ‘What the heck is this guy talking about.’”

– Utah Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan, asked in an interview with the Utah Farm Bureau News [PDF] if he ever uses farming analogies with his players.

Perhaps a strange thing to muse on, but I fear the same will happen to General Conference talks.  So much of the gospel applies references to agriculture and many church leaders have told wonderful stories of growing up on farms.

But as we became less of an agrarian society, I wonder how many future lessons will be taught using farm references or who will even understand what the heck they’re talking about.

(Possibly) Related posts:

  1. Salt Lake Architecture looks at Brigham Young’s farm chapel
  2. General Conference Priesthood sessions now available audio and video
  3. “The Storm Over the Mormons”

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  1. Clark’s avatar

    Clark on 31 December 2008 at 2:25 pm

    And here I thought we’d get an other apologetics slam… (I saw the title in the aggregator and I was thinking: FARMS uses common analogies between the writers?)

  2. Floyd the Wonderdog’s avatar

    Floyd the Wonderdog on 1 January 2009 at 6:13 am

    Sunday a speaker used a Rock Band analogy. My daughter was laughing the whole time.

  3. Chris H.’s avatar

    Chris H. on 1 January 2009 at 10:54 am

    I like farm stories. They make me feel better about bringing Pink Floyd and Aristotle into my talks.

  4. stepheny’s avatar

    stepheny on 2 January 2009 at 1:20 pm

    But, sports metaphors are always with us.

  5. David H. Sundwall’s avatar

    David H. Sundwall on 2 January 2009 at 3:00 pm

    Sorry for the let down Clark. I try to avoid high-brow subjects like apologetics.

    So rock songs, video games and timeless sports analogies are the GC subjects of the future. Hmmm.

  6. Scott’s avatar

    Scott on 3 January 2009 at 10:13 pm

    David,

    You bring up a really interesting topic, and I don’t think agricultural analogies are the only dying breed. While it was truly a horrific time for those involved, I’ve wondered for a long time how much longer the stories of the Great Depression will continue. They simply don’t have the same meaning to rising generations that they did 30 years ago. Even more sad–even tragic–would be a loss of meaning of pioneer stories.