Elder A. Theodore Tuttle, Part Two: Meet Ashley Montagu, Who Could Be Someone Else...

 For Part One, Part Three, or Part Four, click on that link!

 Elder A. Theodore Tuttle had several references in his talk, "The Things That Matter Most", a talk about the importance of setting priorities.

 

 The Quote 

"This points up our challenge: 

See “that the things that matter most … 

are not at the mercy 

of things that matter least.” (Ashley Montague.)"

 

Who was Ashley Montagu?

Ashley Montagu was a British-American anthropologist, whose opinions on race and women got him in trouble with the majority in his time. He lost his position teaching at the university and managed to reinvent himself as a freelance intellectual of sorts. 

A very interesting guy, and a prolific writer of various nonfiction works, in addition to being the husband of my seventh cousin three times removed. A very remote Jewish relation, which makes me happy. He's also the author of The Elephant Man, which was made into a movie by David Lynch in 1980.

But it's unlikely he said this quote.

Though he wrote a lot - I could be wrong. 

It could be Ashley Montagu. However, it also could be Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. It seems to be attributed to both men in different places.

 

The Content of the Quote

Since I can't determine definitively where the quote came from, I turn to the content of it. Either way, there are things that matter most - and there are things that matter least.

And figuring out which one is which is often a moment-by-moment evaluation that's not easily done in advance, except in the macro view. 

My faith, my family, and my work and learning come before pretty much anything else - because, in my belief system, faith and family continue out a lot longer than mere mortality. We lived before we came to this earth, we live here for a time, and then we live after. We are as eternal as God is, being His children.

To those who believe in God, there's a definite purpose to being here on Earth. It's a time to show God that we can be obedient to Him, and try our best to become like Him.

The side effect of this effort is personal peace through challenges, and eternal life with Him after we die.

 

Christ, by Heinrich Hoffman

Therefore, other distractions (of which there are plenty all around) have to be minimized to take care of these priorities. And it is indeed a challenge, but one that I am willing to face, for the love of Him that loved me first.