Soliciting Feedback: Wall of Revelation

For months now I have been working to realize a moment of inspiration I received, I believe during the April 2011 General Conference. It was an idea of compiling all of my favorite scriptures, spiritual and inspirational quotes, and other words of wisdom that have had an impact on me over the years and putting them on a large board where they could be permanently on display to prompt reflection and facilitate revelation and inspiration. This, I believe, builds on a few important principles:

1. The "Open Scriptures" Principle: I remember being taught somewhere that if you are having trouble reading your scriptures, you should try leaving them in a convenient and noticeable space (common advice) with the book open to a random page (less-common advice). What this is supposed to do is: 1) Remove one more obstacle to reading your scriptures, in this case the simple but real act of opening the cover; and 2) allow the passerby to glance at the words open to view and perhaps read, even in just a brief glance, some word of inspiration that may or may not lure them into stopping to read more.

2. The Passive Teaching Principle: I am coming to believe ever more strongly in the power of passive teaching. For example, having pictures of the temple in your kids room, or pictures from the Book of Mormon or Church history, so that they see them every day, feel the little confirmations of the Spirit that what they're looking at is true, significant, and good. The cumulative power of those daily, sometimes hourly confirmations of truth, I believe, can be very powerful over time.

3. The Ease of Recall Principle: Some of the quotations on my Wall of Revelation are certainly longer than others, but I deliberately tried to keep the passages as short and simple as possible in every case where it was practical. The purpose of this was to allow, as in principle #1 above, a passerby who may be struggling with a problem or challenge and seeking, perhaps just passively at this point, some kind of guidance or direction, to glance at the Wall and have the Spirit draw their eyes to a brief passage which they can read and comprehend in totality in under a second. That seed is then planted and the Spirit can nurture it within them and bring it into their minds to lead them to the understanding they need at that time. Elder Neal A. Maxwell recommended, and you can see him taking his own advice in his teaching, "Use inspired one-liners which will be remembered and retained...Would we cherish the Sermon on the Mount if it filled three volumes?" That's particularly why I love the proverbs I included: oh-so short and oh-so poignant.

Anyway, now that you know what I'm going for, we need help with the final look of the project. I decided to use sepia tone to monochrome the background image so that the words are the focus rather than the image. I didn't do black and white because it would have washed out too many of the quotes in the darker areas and overly accentuated others in the white. Color backgrounds had similar problems--calling too much attention to themselves and making the text hard to read. So sepia it is, unless anyone has a better idea.

Here are the two finalists Mitzi and I came up with:

I kind of like the symbolism of the raindrops, ripples, and how they tie in with all of the quotations. Each one read makes an impression, sending ripples through the reader's life. Yes, I am going sappy on you.

The Salt Lake Temple, where Mitzi and I got married, as well as the symbol of the Church and the sacrifices of our pioneer ancestors to live according to their faith and principles. Which principles? Why those on this board, silly!

We are kind of drowning in temple pictures around here, so we thought the raindrops might be a nice change and make this wall-dressing unique, rather than "just another of Dad's endless temple pictures." However, you kind of can't go wrong with temple pictures.

Let us know which one you like best and why, and if you have any suggestions for improving on what we're trying to accomplish. Thanks!