My daughter Emma Hicken, gave this talk in church today One of my favorite paintings is a work by Georges Seurat called “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” As you stand before the large canvas, measuring about 6.5 feet by 10 feet, the first thing that strikes you is the sheer … Continue reading Virtues and “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”
Chris Styles recently passed away. I was reminded of a letter I wrote to her husband over 10 years ago about what I had learned from her. I have felt a desire to post some of these letters publicly here on my blog. Chris's passing perhaps spurs the needed action. She will be missed, but … Continue reading Chris Styles and Wisdom: A Virtue Letter
A young friend of mine serving a mission for my church wrote in his weekly e-mail, "This week has been very slow we are having trouble finding people to teach. But we are working on it. " I responded with the following: I enjoy hearing about your work...and as you describe the difficulties of not having … Continue reading The Virtue of Killing Time (or Being Killed By It?)
The following is from an October, 2013 version of the Virtue Wheel book. Former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano has said, “An organic system, which is what a company is, needs to adapt. And we think values – that’s what we call them today at IBM, but you can call them ‘beliefs’ or ‘principles’ or ‘precepts’ … Continue reading Virtue verses Values
I have loved this quote from Neal A. Maxwell for years: "In the geometry of restored theology, hope has a greater circumference than faith. If faith increases, the perimeter of hope stretches correspondingly." In considering this recently in the temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil, I had a set of images come to mind that perhaps … Continue reading Faith, Hope and Charity and God’s Will
I wrote the following e-mail to a daughter, a few months before her marriage. It contains some of my best thinking on the importance of purity before and in marriage. I felt last week ...that perhaps a letter to you might be helpful. Not really because I am worried, but simply because I love you, … Continue reading Being One, With Another Person
I used the following methods to over about five months beginning Thanksgiving, 2010 to March 2011 to determine the primary list of virtues for the virtue wheel. My analysis began with the color wheel hypothesis, the primary virtues of Faith Hope and Charity, and the complementary secondary virtues. I then analyzed every entry in the … Continue reading Virtue Analysis from Wisdom Literature of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Kip on Character 