Let me introduce you to my mom.
Her name is Kathleen.
She is beautiful and intelligent, kind and good.
Some how she is still humble and down to earth.
Some how she is still humble and down to earth.
She understands me when we talk and cry about the painful parts of living a mortal existence.
I feel like I can be my self with her. She loves me the way God loves me.
She knows I'm growing, I'm not done, yet she is so pleased with me just where I am in my eternal progression.
She emailed me a talk she wrote and gave a few weeks ago. She gave me permission to publish it on my blog.
That is a big deal for her.
She is quiet and private.
I've been warning her I want to put her writings on my blog for a while now.
The idea has become acceptable to her somehow.
So before you begin reading her words,
put your brain in a different gear.
Her brain waves vibrate at a much higher frequency than mine do.
We had the opportunity last year to go to Jordan, Israel and Egypt, and I am to give in a 4-6 minute talk a testimony about the Holy Land. It is not to be travelogue, and I want to speak in a way that doesn’t leave anyone out. Circumstances here and now can prevent travel to Israel and Egypt and the actual geographical places where the Savior lived and walked. So, let’s consider our future travel opportunities when neither health, nor finances; when neither “wars [nor] rumors of wars;” when neither time nor space will be prohibitive to our travel. Speaking of the privileges of the righteous who have died and passed into the spirit world Brigham Young says—“ …The brightness and glory of the next apartment is inexpressible… yonder how different! [in the spirit world we] move with ease and like lightning. If we want to behold Jerusalem as it was in the days of the Savior; or if we want to see the Garden of Eden as it was when created, there we are, and we see it as it existed spiritually, for it was created first spiritually and then temporally, and spiritually it still remains. And when there we may behold the earth as at the dawn of creation, or we may visit any city we please that exists upon its surface. If we wish to understand how they are living here on these western islands, or in China, we are there; in fact, we are like the light of the morning…This is what the faithful Saints are coming to; they will possess this power…” (more of the quote on page three) I do not begin to comprehend that, but I believe it and feel the truth of it, and I have several trips planned for when I get there.
Egypt, Jordan, Israel…we refer to a very small geographical region as The Holy Land. I’d like to expand the term The Holy Land in a way that puts all of us there. Latterday prophets have taught that one of the ways the Infinite Atonement of Christ is infinite is that it applies to an infinite number of earths. Referring to Moses 1 and D & C 76, Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught: “Now our Lord’s jurisdiction and power extend far beyond the limits of this one small earth on which we dwell. He is, under the Father, the Creator of worlds without number (Moses 1:33). And through the power of his atonement the inhabitants of these worlds, the revelation says, ‘are begotten sons and daughters unto God’ (D&C 76:24), which means that the atonement of Christ, being literally and truly infinite, applies to an infinite number of earths…” (Mormon Doctrine, 65) Elder Russell M. Nelson taught: “The mercy of the Atonement extends not only to an infinite number of people, but also to an infinite number of worlds created by [the Savior].” (The Atonement, Ensign November 1996, p. 35) And from President Marion G. Romney: “Jesus Christ, in the sense of being its Creator and Redeemer, is the Lord of the whole universe. Except for his mortal ministry accomplished on this earth, his service and relationship to other worlds and their inhabitants are the same as his service and relationship to this earth and its inhabitants.” (Jesus Christ, Lord of the Universe, Improvement Era, November 1968, p. 46-49).
Given that the Savior’s infinite atonement “applies to an infinite number of earths,” consider how holy this earth is. This earth on which you and I received our physical bodies is the very same earth on which Jesus Christ--the Great Jehovah, the Creator of worlds without number--received his physical body. Ours is the earth where the resurrection of Jesus happened. This earth is the altar of God in that it is the earth on which the Savior worked out the Infinite Atonement that applies to an infinite number of earths. This earth, the altar of God: Think of the words we sing in our hymn (For the Strength of the Hills): “we are guardians of an altar midst the silence of the skies.” There is a man in Sunridge Ward whom I often see when I am out walking early. He walks with a grocery bag and picks up the trash on the ground. When I see him, I am not thinking, “Way to go in the battle against littering,” or “Hooray for being ‘earth friendly;’” When I see him every day cleaning up our little corner of the world, the phrase that passes through my mind is: “we are guardians of an altar ‘midst the silence of the sky.” Our
earth is sacred. Our earth is The Holy Land…and here we are, you and I…we live and move and “have our being” in the Holy Land.
A brief testimony: First in a Jerusalem context – We walked through Hezekiah’s Tunnel. You can read about it in the Bible Dictionary: About 700 BC in the days of Isaiah, Hezekiah had the tunnel chiseled through 1700 feet of limestone to secure Jerusalem’s water in the event of an Assyrian attack. The tunnel is longer than the length of 3 football fields and water runs through it. While I was asking our guide “just how wet am I going to get?” (the water ranges from above the ankles to mid-thigh), and while I was privately asking myself “Exactly how claustrophobic am I?” and “can my back go the distance bent over like that?” With all that in my mind there was also this, these words written by Hezekiah to the Lord and recorded by Isaiah: “O Lord…In love to my soul thou hast delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou has cast all my sins behind thy back.” (Isaiah 38:16-17). I know that in the Atonement, the Lord has, in love to our souls, delivered us from the pit of corruption for he has cast all our sins behind his back. And I love him for it.
Second and last, in the context of a point in time and space that is part of my personal “holy land:” Years ago as I waited my turn for parent teacher conference with our daughter’s seminary teacher, I stood in front of a big poster on which were written many of the Savior’s names. It began “And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace…It went on: Mighty One of Jacob, Your Advocate With the Father, Lord God Almighty, Jehovah…It continued: Light of the Sun, Light of the Moon, Horn of Salvation, Lamb of God…At the bottom it ended with: Your Lord and Your God and Your Redeemer. And thou shalt call his name Jesus.” In the middle were his names: The Great I Am, I Am, I Am That I Am. As my eyes rested on those three names, I heard a voice say, “I Am.” I loved Jesus when I was a child, I had a testimony of him when I was a Presbyterian, that testimony grew when I became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, but since that day in our daughter’s seminary classroom I have known in a way I didn’t before that Jesus Christ, The Great I Am, is.
In the name of Him who is Our Lord and Our God and Our Redeemer, even Jesus Christ. Amen.
My favorite parts of her talk are the quotes from Brigham Young on what he has to say about traveling once we have died and moved on to the spirit world.
It sounds beyond incredible to me!
Here is the rest of that quote from him. (He was speaking at a close friend's funeral.)
*I can say with regard to parting with our friends, and going ourselves, that I have been near enough to understand eternity so that I have had to exercise a great deal more faith to desire to live than I ever exercised in my whole life to live. The brightness and glory of the next apartment is inexpressible. It is not encumbered with this clog of dirt we are carrying around here so that when we advance in years we have to be stubbing along and to be careful lest we fall down. We see our youth, even, frequently stubbing their toes and falling down. But yonder, how different! They move with ease and like lightning. If we want to visit Jerusalem, or, this, that, or the other place—and I presume we will be permitted if we desire—there we are, looking at its streets. If we want to behold Jerusalem as it was in the days of the Savior; or if we want to see the Garden of Eden as it was when created, there we are, and we see it as it existed spiritually, for it was created first spiritually and then temporally, and spiritually it still remains. And when there we may behold the earth as at the dawn of creation, or we may visit any city we please that exists upon its surface. If we wish to understand how they are living here on these western islands, or in China, we are there; in fact, we are like the light of the morning, or, I will not say the electric fluid, but its operations on the wires. God has revealed some little things with regard to His movements and power, and the operation and motion of the lightning furnish a fine illustration of the ability and power of the Almighty. If you could stretch a wire from this room around the world until the two ends nearly met here again, and were to apply a battery to one end, if the electrical conditions were perfect, the effect of the touch would pass with such, inconceivable velocity that it would be felt at the other end of the wire at the same moment. This is what the faithful Saints are coming to; they will possess this power, and if they wish to visit different planets, they will be there. If the Lord wish to visit His children here, He is here; if He wish to send one of His angels to the earth to speak to some of His children, he is here. (Brigham Young, JD 14:231, funeral of Aurelia Spencer)
Brigham, I love they way you explain things!
I have read more of what Brigham Young has to say about the life beyond this one and I think he must have taken his summer vacations in the spirit world he knows so much about it.
I also loved the idea that not only is Jerusalem considered the Holy Land because that is where our Savior was born and lived and died and then LIVED AGAIN!!!
This Whole earth is the Holy Land.
God has created worlds without number and Jesus is the Savior of all of them, but he
came to this earth.
Our earth.
This earth is Holy and we are here on it's face.
My mom is one of my greatest blessings.
This blog is one little way to share all the good I have been given.
I don't need to wait till I have my own publishing company to publish my mom's work.
I have too much laundry to do to start my own publishing company.
This blog works just great for that anyway.
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