Bishop Quinn Peterson, Rochester 2nd Ward Conference, April 10, 2022
I remember one of my favorite parts of kindergarten was a weekly tradition where the art teacher would bring in a famous piece of art and would teach us about these classic works. One of the most memorable lessons was about Georges Seurat, a French post-impressionist painter. If you are like me and you have mainly a kindergarten level appreciation of art, we were taught to remember Seurat by his distinctive style of painting with dots by remembering “Seurat the dot.” We were fortunate to have an original Seurat painting at our local art museum and I remember going to see this painting close up and noticing how areas that were green like grass and trees also had blue and orange dots mixed in with them that weren’t noticeable from afar. And these weren’t just mistakes. These were critical to creating the desired picture.
Without an eternal perspective, we can incorrectly find ourselves focused on dots that look different from those surrounding it, or that may look out of place. When we focus on these differences we risk looking beyond the mark and losing sight of our common faith in Christ.