Running head: VIRTUAL TIME CAPSULE

Virtual Time Capsule

By June Saxton

September 11, 2011

Introduction

I have created this virtual time capsule because I want my posterity to know what is

important to me and therefore the things which I am including in it are very personal and

spiritual in nature. I want whoever opens this time capsule to see the objects that have a special

meaning to me in my life and I am hoping they will mean as much in one hundred years as they

do today. Most of the things have lasted a very long time, but if they don’t, I want them to give a

glimpse of why they have been important for so long up until now. What follows is a letter of

introduction, an example of my creed of morality, what happiness means to me and examples of

literature, art, music, cinema and an item of pop culture which are significant to me and an

explanation of why I chose them for inclusion in this time capsule.

Letter of Introduction

Figure 1. Photo of June Saxton by D. Saxton, 2010 used with permission.

My name is June Saxton. I am 64 years old. I live in Longmont, Colorado. I have 4

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children, ages 43 – 28, 2 boys and 2 girls. I have 5 grandchildren by my older children, but I do

not get see them much. My oldest grandson and my youngest son are both in seniors in college.

My son is a Psychology major and my grandson is Journalism major. I am retired and went back

to college in February of 2011 after being out of school for 30 years. When I went to school

before, I was a Psychology/Journalism major. My current major is Nutrition Science. I am not

sure that I will do anything with my degree once I get it because I will be 66 years old by then. I

just have a passion for learning and improving myself and thought it was about time that I got a

degree. Most of day is spent alone reading, writing, blogging, knitting or with my husband going

to movies, watching TV or out to eat. I am a very creative person and am always looking for new

outlets to express myself. I have always loved to write and right now writing for school and

blogging are my outlets for that passion. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-

day Saints (commonly known as Mormons) and my faith plays a strong role in my life. I attend

church weekly and my husband and I pray before meals and every night together before we go to

bed.

This is a difficult time to be alive. Money is tight for most people and the government is

3 trillion dollars in debt. Congress is threatening cuts in the budget for vital services like Social

Security which most seniors depend on for their very survival. Since I am on Social Security, this

concerns me greatly. The weather has been very erratic this year with tons of snow in the winter

in most parts of the country and hurricanes and earthquakes this summer. Seems to me that these

are the last days as mentioned the bible and I am wondering if anyone will even be around to

find this time capsule in a hundred years!

My main dream for the future is to become the best person that I can and to be an

influence for good in the lives of those I come in contact with.

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Morality

Morality in this day and age is on the brink of destruction also. My creed of morality is

based on the 13th Article of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1842,

Joseph Smith, Jr. composed the Articles of Faith of his newly formed church in a letter to John

Wentworth of the Chicago Democrat (Wikipedia, 2011). Today these Articles of Faith are part of

the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and are included

in The Pearl of Great Price. The 13th Article of Faith which states: “We believe in being honest,

true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we

follow the admonition of Paul-We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many

things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good

report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” (Smith, 1842). Whenever I am faced with a

decision between two things, I think of this and ask myself if the decision I am making is in

accordance with the things that I believe in based on the 13th Article of Faith. In today’s culture,

there is so much that is not virtuous, honest, lovely or praiseworthy. I think if more people took

the time to ask themselves if what they were doing, watching, listening to or seeing was of good

report, that society would be better off for it.

My husband and I go to movies weekly and recently I had to make a decision about the

movies we were watching. One week, we saw two movies that were supposed to be comedies but

were riddled with crude language and nudity. We did not enjoy these movies, but since we paid

our money, we sat through them cringing the whole way through. They were so bad that in each

movie other older people walked out of them. We should have too because we certainly did not

enjoy them. After the second movie, we decided that we would no longer go to movies of this

type. I just wish it didn’t take sitting through two bad movies for us to make the decision. The

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president of our church has cautioned us not to attend “R” rated movies for years. We should

have listened sooner!

Happiness

Coming to a definition of happiness has been difficult for me, but I was finally

able to conclude that what makes me happy is learning and growing every day. I am happiest

when I am creating something, whether it is writing a paper, blogging, knitting something,

making a piece of jewelry or creating an original recipe. I came to this conclusion after I read

the happiness unit in The art of being human: The humanities as a technique for living (Janaro &

Alshuler, 2009) and interviewing and surveying several people for the project on that unit.

Before that I couldn’t even come close to a definition of happiness. My relationships with my

family, friends and God and Christ also make me happy. Without them the things that I am

creating and learning would not mean nearly as much. I want to become the best person I can be

because I believe that there is a life after this one and that if I achieve this goal, I will live in

heaven with Jesus Christ (my elder brother), God (my Heavenly Father) and all of my earthly

family.

Literature

My absolute favorite author is Stephen King. I have an extensive collection of his books

which even includes the ones he wrote as Richard Bachman and some of his collaborations. I

cannot possible chose one as my favorite, so I am including the whole collection in this time

capsule. I admire Stephen King because he is such a prolific writer. I also like his style.

Normally, I do not like horror but Stephen King’s horror is psychological horror. He gets to the

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root of many peoples psychological fears.

My Stephen King collection deserves to be in the time capsule because of his major

contribution to literature. He has won many awards for his writing and many of his books have

been adapted into films, TV movies and series’.

Art

Figure 3. Christ in Red Robe. Print of a Painting by Del Parson, 1983 photographed by the

author.

This print is displayed in a prominent place in my living room and reminds me that Christ should

be the center of my life. In 1983, Del Parson with commissioned by The Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter-day Saints to paint a picture of Christ that could be used widely by church members.

Christ in Red Robe is the result (Wikipedia, 2011). There are many paintings of Christ but this is

one of my favorites.

A picture of Christ deserves to be in this time capsule because of his influence on the

lives of so many people, not only in our time, but in the lives of our ancestors.

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Music

I chose the Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because throughout

my life they have comforted me, helped me to feel the Holy Spirit and brought me joy. I have

always loved to sing, but I do not read music or have any training. I like my voice, but I was told

by my first husband, who was in the music business, that I could not carry a tune in a bucket. In

every church service there are at least three hymns that are sung by the congregation and I enjoy

belting them out. Also anyone can sing in the choir and I have noticed that when I stand next to a

good soprano voice that I can match their voice and I have surprised myself by blending

beautifully with them. I really enjoy it when that happens.

When I worked in a day care center and as a teacher of children in the church, I enjoyed

singing for the children because they just seemed to love it!

These hymns are worth preserving because of the beautiful spiritual messages that they

impart.

Cinema

I am choosing The Book of Eli as the film that I would like to include in this time capsule

because it is the story of a man who is told by a voice to deliver a certain book to a special place

on the West Coast. Along the way, we find out that the book he has is the last remaining copy of

The Bible. He journeys for thirty years trying to get that copy of The Bible where it needs to be.

It is stolen from him, but he succeeds in arriving at his destination and proceeds to dictate it to

the monks at San Quentin because he had memorized it. After he finishes he dies and they

publish it and place it in their library along with copies of The Torah and Koran. Meanwhile the

man who stole the book opens it and discovers that he cannot read it because it is in braille.

This movie deserves to be in this time capsule because it illustrates how important The

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Bible could be to future generations.

Pop Culture

It wasn’t hard for me to think of an item of Pop Culture that I wanted to include in the

time capsule because it is such a vital part of my life. I chose my iPod Touch. It is my lifeline to

the digital world and as long as I have a Wi-Fi connection, I can access the internet to get my

email, update my Facebook status and my blogs. Even without an internet connection, I have

access to my contacts, my calendar, my to-do-list, my grocery list and I can take pictures. It also

contains the scriptures and hymns of my church along with other books including some of the

classics.

My iPod Touch deserves to be included in the time capsule because it is a wonderful

representation of some of the other things that are important to me which I was not able to

mention in the other sections of this time capsule. It is also a wonderful representation of our life

and times.

Conclusion

This time capsule represents things that are timely for our culture as well as things that

are important to me. It contains examples of music, art, literature and cinema as well as an

example of my creed of morality and my definition of happiness. This is my prospective but

major portions of the people of America are Christians and therefore the things that I mention

would be important to them. It is my hope that whoever finds this time capsule will understand

me and my time better.

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References

Saxton, D, (photographer). (2010). Photo of June Saxton. From his personal collection.

Parson, D. (artist). (1983). Print of Christ in Red Robe. Photo taken by the author.

Janaro, R. P., & Alshuler, T.C. (2009), The art of being human: The humanities as a technique

for living (Kaplan University 2nd custom ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.

Smith, Joseph, Jr. (1 March 1842), "Church History [Wentworth Letter"], Times and

Seasons 3 (9): 706–10.

Wikipedia. (2011). Articles of Faith. Retrieved

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Faith_(Latter_Day_Saints)

Wikipedia. (2011). Del Parson. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_Parson

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