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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