Canaries With Gray on Their Wings
President Thomas S. Monson
First Presidency Message – June 2010
President Thomas S. Monson
President Monson talks of when he was a young bishop, a widow in his ward passed away and left three canaries. Instructions had been left for the two with pretty yellow wings to be given to her friends, but the third, with its yellow wings marred by gray was to be given to President Monson. Her note asked him to give it a home, it is not the prettiest, but its song is the best.
He likened the widow to the canary, “She was not blessed with beauty, gifted with poise, or honored by posterity”, but her “song” (meaning her life), blessed the lives of others and strengthened them in their time of need.
President Monson told us the world is full of canaries with grey on their wings. Only a few have learned to sing. We must develop our capacity to face trouble with courage by gaining a true perspective of who we are (sons and daughters of our heavenly father) so that we too can have a good “song” and bless the lives of others.
A Mormon Wordle of the message is below, along with a description of our efforts in producing it.
Canaries With Gray on Their Wings Mormon Wordle
We spent longer trying to Mormon Wordle this message than any previous post to date. We were trying to overlay it on the photo of some parakeets I took a few years ago below.
Parakeets
We tried to use a white on black image version of the Mormon Wordle above, extract the white text, and overlay it onto the parakeet image. After exhausting the selection tools in Photoshop Elements and Inkscape and never being able to cleanly select the white text, we gave up in the second week of July and posted our efforts.
One of the basic wordle shapes resembles a footprint. We chose it to promote the concept of us walking in the footsteps of the lady who walked in the footsteps of the canary with gray on its wings. Interestingly, on close inspection, you may note the lime green parakeet closest to the camera is actually just a plastic bird. Many of us are like that, we have not reached our potential and are just sitting there like a bump on a log. May we all emulate its song in our lives by lifting the lives of those around us.
