Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Why Choice Oranges?

The word choice has multiple meanings.  I want to talk about two:

choice (noun): the right, power, or opportunity to choose.

choice (adjective): worthy of being chosen; excellent; superior.  carefully selected.

Young women around the world who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are taught to embrace and develop these values: faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity, and virtue.  Each value has a color associated with it.  When I was a teenage girl, growing up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my youth leaders gave us word associations to help us remember which value goes with which color.  The only color association that really stuck with me was the color orange for choice and accountability.  They simply said the phrase, "choice oranges".

A really good orange looks beautiful, smells fantastic, and tastes amazing.  These qualities make it worthy of being chosen, excellent, and superior, or in other words, choice.  It is exactly this kind of choice orange that I want the right, power, or opportunity to carefully select, or in other words, choose.  Therefore, the word association worked really well for me in this instance, because the simple phrase "choice oranges" contained the ability to choose, the kind of choice that is desirable, and the value color.

On April 5th of this year, Randall Ridd gave an address in which he said,  "...you have probably heard before that you are a “chosen generation,” meaning that God chose and prepared you to come to earth at this time for a great purpose. I know this to be true. But this evening I would like to address you as the “choice generation” because never before in history have individuals been blessed with so many choices."(https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-choice-generation?lang=eng&query=choice)

It is true.  I don't know who you are, or even if you believe in God, but you probably agree that we live in a day and age with so many opportunities, so much information, so many voices vying for our attention, that we must become experts in making choice choices.  Because, as Randall Ridd also points out, "The abundance of choice, however, carries with it an equal portion of accountability. It facilitates your access to both the very best and the very worst the world has to offer. With it you can accomplish great things in a short period of time, or you can get caught up in endless loops of triviality that waste your time and degrade your potential."  (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-choice-generation?lang=eng&query=choice)

This blog has many authors, each one a choice woman, carefully selected for their beautiful, fantastic and amazing qualities.  Each one uses her right, power, and opportunities to choose the good in this world.  None of us is perfect, nor do we claim to be.  We are each individuals with our own perspectives, experiences, mistakes, and voices, which we hope to share with you -- whoever you may be--and if you make your choice to spend some time with us, we commit to do our best to make our contributions choice!

1 comment:

  1. Leslie, I finally remembered at a time I could act on it, to go back to this post and read about your reason for the title of your blog. I love it. Thank you for your example of following the counsel of our leaders to use the internet to share the gospel and your (and others') testimony and life lessons in the gospel perspective. Surely these messages are needed today and hopefully the good folk of ours and other faiths will find spiritual nourishment here. Love you so.

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