Pi and the Kirtland Temple

 This morning I found out that it gets even better relative to the symbol of Pi and the Kirtland Temple.

In my earlier post, Kirtland, Solar Eclipses, and the Life of Pi, I went through the finding that the Solar Eclipse on April 8 will pass directly over the Kirtland Temple at precisely 3:14pm, with that number also being Pi.

The Kirtland Temple's front entrance faces east.  There are two front doors, 4 corner windows, and one large window in the center of that east-facing wall.  Above the central window, at the top of the wall, those early Mormons inscribed the following words:  "House of the Lord, Built by the Church of the Latter Day Saints, A.D. 1834.

Here is a picture zoomed out of the Kirtland Temple from the front, and I have added a red box around the area of the inscription:

And here is a close up view of that area in the red box:

Recognize that shape the inscription is on?  Yup, it is the same symbol as Pi, with two columns upholding a beam.

That is pretty amazing, if you ask me.  The eclipse will past over the Kirtland Temple at the exact time that represents PI, and facing that oncoming sun (as it travels from the East), will be this sign in the form of Pi with the words "House of the Lord" written.  To my knowledge, this is the only writing on the exterior of the temple.

Later in the day, I visited William Tychonievich's blog where he performed a very interesting exercise with the story of the writing on the wall of the palace that Daniel interpreted for King Belshazzar in the Book of Daniel.  It seemed timely, as I had just been focusing on the writing on one wall, and he had been looking (or interpreting) the writing on another wall.

He actually re-translated the words "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" in approaching them as Elvish words (nice!).  In doing so, and in looking at the context of the whole story in Daniel, he came up with the following phrase:

When God sends a hand from heaven to write your doom on your palace wall, that's learning things the hard way!

I like this.  It matches up well with Belshazzar's fate, but it might also be relevant to recent and future events regarding the Kirtland Temple, the writing and symbols on its wall, and the organization and leaders that are now in possession of it.

Daniel, or some of his sayings at least, have been important to this blog in particular, since I have taken a much more literal view than most as to the nature of the Stone cut from a mountain in the last days that Belshazzar's father Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, and which Daniel interpreted.

As a bit of a play on words or another connection to William's translation, a Stone can definitely be a "hard' way to learn things, in more ways than one.