January 28, 2003

A TRIBUTE TO CLEON SKOUSEN

For more than a dozen years I served as the teacher of the adult Sunday School class in our congregation, and also taught a daily scripture study class called Seminary for high school students. During that time many people told me that I'm a great teacher, and it's true that I love to teach . I attribute much of my success as a teacher and as a scriptorian to Mark's uncle, W. Cleon Skousen.

Uncle Cleon is one of those rare people who have had the opportunity to live multiple lives. Cleon was an outstanding FBI agent, working personally with J. Edgar Hoover; he cleaned up Salt Lake City while serving as it Chief of Police; he was a religious scholar, author, and professor at BYU; he was a leader in the fight against communism and founded the Center for Constitutional Studies; and he is a devoted husband, father, and grandfather to a progeny of nearly 100. Any one of those careers would have been enough to satisfy most people! While I admire all of Uncle Cleon's contributions, it has been his ability to bring the scriptures to life that has touched my own life most deeply.

My first experience with reading the scriptures was a failure. Intrigued (and a little frightened) by what I had heard about end-days prophecies, I sat down at the age of ten to read the Book of Revelation. Needless to say, I closed the book after three chapters, utterly confused, and did not try reading the Bible seriously again for several years. When I did, it was with Uncle Cleon's masterful
"Thousand Year" series as a guide. Cleon had painstakingly gleaned the history from Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and the prophets, and put the whole into a chronological story that finally made sense. I read all three volumes straight through, finally understanding the history, the stories, the grandeur and the pathos of those great men and women who populate the books of the Bible. Now, whenever I teach the Old Testament, I use Cleon's books to refresh my memory of the history, and the Bible itself to reinforce the doctrines. Together, they make a marvelous pair of resources.

With so many children to guide and so many hats to wear, Uncle Cleon has had to husband his time carefully. He has never been given to idle chitchat. Consequently, his visits are always an historical and spiritual feast. Our children look up to him with great admiration, and remember the many times that he has entertained them with Bible stories like Jonah and the Whale and David and Goliath, or explained to them the prophecies of the Last Days. He brings romance to the story of Adam and Eve, joyous good humor to the story of Elizabeth and Zachariah, devastating pathos to the story of David. I can still see a picture in my mind of Uncle Cleon sitting on our couch in McLean, Virginia, surrounded by our four children who were then still in single-digit ages, holding them mesmerized by his wonderful narrations.

In 1980 Mark and I had the opportunity of traveling with Uncle Cleon on his penultimate tour of the Holy Land. Each night Cleon would gather our group together in a private lounge of the hotel, telling us the stories that took place in the locations we would be visiting the next day. Afterward he would invite Mark and me to his hotel room, where he would share with us some of the deep doctrines he had gleaned from his personal study of the scriptures. We felt a warm, tender spirit of love and truth in those private meetings. And the public tours were just as wonderful. I remember sitting on a rock wall overlooking the Sea of Galilee while Cleon talked with us about the Savior's Sermon on the Mount, explaining the importance of Christ's invitation to those who were poor in spirit or meek or mournful, "Come unto me." I noticed a man from another tour group leaning sideways to listen to Cleon's talk, shuffling slowly backwards until he had reached the borders of our group and could hear all of Cleon's words. Such was the power of his understanding of the scriptures!

As Uncle Cleon reaches his 90th year, I realize with sadness that we won't have him and Aunt Jewel forever (and what a jewel she is!). Another decade may be all. For this reason I am grateful that Mark has "imposed" on Cleon and Jewel's hospitality each time our family has visited Utah, and that they have so graciously invited us into their home, so that our children could know them personally. Those few visits were so powerful for our son Todd that he listed Uncle Cleon as the man he admires most when he wrote a paper for school about the effects of good teaching. I am also grateful for the books Cleon has written. Although our grandchildren may not have the privilege of meeting him face to face, they will be able to read his scripture guides and feel the magnitude of Uncle Cleon's testimony that God lives, that the priesthood has been restored, and that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world.

-- Jo Ann Skousen

email: jaskousen@mskousen.com

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