Rick, Thanks for this piece--especially the last few lines of your poetic expansion. I think that idea that WE make heaven heavenly or not is crucial to understanding the whole change-producing exercise that (the latest installment of) the plan of happiness aims for. I do believe you have to expand on your model for eternal lives of joy together to include a third element or realm. Whatever eternal lives are, they seem to be founded in three simultaneous realms of reality. These include individual 'salvation' of non-created intelligence, then genetic 'salvation' of sealed families, and third--the one you have missed in emphasis--the elective 'salvation' of friendly social order. The latter is the most under-developed aspect of the three part consecration covenant--building Zion. The first is based in eternal personal creative freedom. The second in irreversible combination of material genetic forms we call family. The third in elective and dynamic selection of mutually influential social relations--like friendships. More or less love applies to each realm of course. Keep up the good work on the family element. I am working on the third element that might be called the loving politics of Zion. Best wishes, Randall
I was emailed a private comment from a friend, Conan Grames, that I liked so much that I asked his permission to post it here. He said, "I really like the article and sent it to two friends—one who is thinking of leaving the Church and one who is thinking of joining. I thought it was good for both."
It appears to speak to those questioning integrity of the church scaffolding, abandoning it altogether as well as those judging those who do.
Your thoughts of "none can exclude but themselves" channel many of the same sentiments of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce as well as the prophet Joseph's when he wrote, "Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive."(1)
It does seem that we grow most liberal in our views of God's mercy both when we have experienced the undeserved gift of grace and when we see those we know and love deeply, in need of it.
I think your key points of this family focused paradigm are apt as is this idea of "to whom shall we go?"
The whole piece speaks to the wonder of revelation and ongoing restoration as we receive not only new truths, but re-formed and reforged perspectives.
There are a few paradoxical elements in your piece that we as humankind tend to struggle with and which are worth further exploration as you continue to develop these ideas.
1) The difference between cultural conformance and having our wills swallowed up in God's. In that same vein, God's perfect liberality without the slightest bit of permissiveness can seem like a conundrum until you recognize that He is giving and will give every opportunity, over the course of eternity, to choose to receive all that He has to offer. Your piece highlights this well
2) Our relationship with God's power (which is also the power of the eternal family) - to date the church has not seen a massive moonshine movement nor a tithing reduction campaign, but where the powers of Priesthood and Procreation are concerned there seems to be plenty of outcry and heartburn. This is another place where we need not cede the ground of God's commandments and revealed truth, but still have a great deal of work to do to expand our understanding and refine this paradigm to one that is positive and proactive.
3) Our relationship with Repentance - it's interesting that when we read about Enoch's Zion and Melchezidek's Salem, repentance is mentioned as a key preparatory ingredient in both. In both cases such repentance seems to be more transformational than transactional.
Sometimes the first principles/ordinances of the gospel can feel a bit like:
Faith - belief in God
Repentance - feeling bad and apologizing about not being good enough
Baptism - promising to be better
The Gift of the Holy Ghost - God helping us to keep that promise, until we don't and then we go back to feeling bad until we earn it again
As opposed to:
Faith - in Jesus Christ unto...
Repentance - transformation and renewal sealed by...
Baptism - covenant bond - holding fast the way only a God can through...
The Gift of the Holy Ghost - a refining and continual connection/experiencing the power of Godliness in mortality
This kind of perspective and relationship with God and Christ is ultimately what makes all the truths and the "ends" mentioned here so amazing and desirable. It's also what makes all the potential imperfections in the scaffolding much less important because we understand the power holding it up and have tasted what it might mean to reach that glorious end.
Thanks for sharing,
Adam
(1)Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (1976), 257, 240–41
Richard here. Some private feedback makes me aware of the need to clarify or underscore a couple of things: It is the sequence of the covenant path that I'm suggesting can be different for different people, not the covenants themselves. For example, a middle aged person who is not married should not conclude that he or she has strayed from the path or that other covenants are out of reach. So "paths" is plural only in that it could progress to one covenant and then double back to another one. And my intent is to glorify, not diminish the "means" or "scaffolding" of the Church which is indispensable to the end of Exaltation. I hope it will be read in the spirit and with the meaning I intended.
Thank you for the inputs and feedback Im getting privately at DrBridell@gmail.com (a pseudonym email that goes directly to me and that I always respond to.)
Rick, Thanks for this piece--especially the last few lines of your poetic expansion. I think that idea that WE make heaven heavenly or not is crucial to understanding the whole change-producing exercise that (the latest installment of) the plan of happiness aims for. I do believe you have to expand on your model for eternal lives of joy together to include a third element or realm. Whatever eternal lives are, they seem to be founded in three simultaneous realms of reality. These include individual 'salvation' of non-created intelligence, then genetic 'salvation' of sealed families, and third--the one you have missed in emphasis--the elective 'salvation' of friendly social order. The latter is the most under-developed aspect of the three part consecration covenant--building Zion. The first is based in eternal personal creative freedom. The second in irreversible combination of material genetic forms we call family. The third in elective and dynamic selection of mutually influential social relations--like friendships. More or less love applies to each realm of course. Keep up the good work on the family element. I am working on the third element that might be called the loving politics of Zion. Best wishes, Randall
I was emailed a private comment from a friend, Conan Grames, that I liked so much that I asked his permission to post it here. He said, "I really like the article and sent it to two friends—one who is thinking of leaving the Church and one who is thinking of joining. I thought it was good for both."
This is a beautiful paradigm piece.
It appears to speak to those questioning integrity of the church scaffolding, abandoning it altogether as well as those judging those who do.
Your thoughts of "none can exclude but themselves" channel many of the same sentiments of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce as well as the prophet Joseph's when he wrote, "Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive."(1)
It does seem that we grow most liberal in our views of God's mercy both when we have experienced the undeserved gift of grace and when we see those we know and love deeply, in need of it.
I think your key points of this family focused paradigm are apt as is this idea of "to whom shall we go?"
The whole piece speaks to the wonder of revelation and ongoing restoration as we receive not only new truths, but re-formed and reforged perspectives.
There are a few paradoxical elements in your piece that we as humankind tend to struggle with and which are worth further exploration as you continue to develop these ideas.
1) The difference between cultural conformance and having our wills swallowed up in God's. In that same vein, God's perfect liberality without the slightest bit of permissiveness can seem like a conundrum until you recognize that He is giving and will give every opportunity, over the course of eternity, to choose to receive all that He has to offer. Your piece highlights this well
2) Our relationship with God's power (which is also the power of the eternal family) - to date the church has not seen a massive moonshine movement nor a tithing reduction campaign, but where the powers of Priesthood and Procreation are concerned there seems to be plenty of outcry and heartburn. This is another place where we need not cede the ground of God's commandments and revealed truth, but still have a great deal of work to do to expand our understanding and refine this paradigm to one that is positive and proactive.
3) Our relationship with Repentance - it's interesting that when we read about Enoch's Zion and Melchezidek's Salem, repentance is mentioned as a key preparatory ingredient in both. In both cases such repentance seems to be more transformational than transactional.
Sometimes the first principles/ordinances of the gospel can feel a bit like:
Faith - belief in God
Repentance - feeling bad and apologizing about not being good enough
Baptism - promising to be better
The Gift of the Holy Ghost - God helping us to keep that promise, until we don't and then we go back to feeling bad until we earn it again
As opposed to:
Faith - in Jesus Christ unto...
Repentance - transformation and renewal sealed by...
Baptism - covenant bond - holding fast the way only a God can through...
The Gift of the Holy Ghost - a refining and continual connection/experiencing the power of Godliness in mortality
This kind of perspective and relationship with God and Christ is ultimately what makes all the truths and the "ends" mentioned here so amazing and desirable. It's also what makes all the potential imperfections in the scaffolding much less important because we understand the power holding it up and have tasted what it might mean to reach that glorious end.
Thanks for sharing,
Adam
(1)Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (1976), 257, 240–41
Richard here. Some private feedback makes me aware of the need to clarify or underscore a couple of things: It is the sequence of the covenant path that I'm suggesting can be different for different people, not the covenants themselves. For example, a middle aged person who is not married should not conclude that he or she has strayed from the path or that other covenants are out of reach. So "paths" is plural only in that it could progress to one covenant and then double back to another one. And my intent is to glorify, not diminish the "means" or "scaffolding" of the Church which is indispensable to the end of Exaltation. I hope it will be read in the spirit and with the meaning I intended.
Thank you for the inputs and feedback Im getting privately at DrBridell@gmail.com (a pseudonym email that goes directly to me and that I always respond to.)