There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”
He was my son, then,
almost.
He was the first son,
of my heart,
of my life,
of my soul.
The first sibling was he, naught.
The first sibling had been given,
as a gift to another family.
I learned of his life,
long after the gift had been given.
He was offered as a gift,
to my wife.
Being single with no committed, prospect,
this gift had been declined.
Shortly after our marriage, I learned,
of personal infertility.
Then shortly after that, came the birth,
of the second son.
He would have been our gift,
but Grandpa loved him first.
To accept this gift,
would be to end,
the life of a man, I adored.
So I watched this son, from afar.
Seeking then, every chance,
to continue to bless his life,
I revered him, from afar.
In his youth, many troubles, he experienced.
Some troubles require the intervention of a judge,
for many years, we visited him, in a secure facility.
This facility offered him choice and growth.
With this change, he experienced new joy
and deepened his relationships with his siblings.
Many years have passed and think,
I still, of this son.
Even in his death, I see hope and joy.
Our daughter has named her son,
in honor of his memory.
I hope they meet again someday,
and my grandson sees the joy,
I feel in the memory,
of the first son, of my heart.
Patricius,
Fifth century, Romano-British missionary.
Not born a slave,
born a grandson of a Christian Bishop.
Born free and then enslaved,
captured by Irish raiders,
taken, to care for sheep.
Escaped, six years later, no longer,
a slave.
Returns again, to his beloved Ireland,
there to serve the remainder of his days.
With him, comes Christianity,
knowledge, and learning.
One generation, or two,
out of Paganism and human sacrifice.
He instills a love in them,
a love of literature, art, and learning,
then a desire to serve, all mankind.
They begin to capture and copy books,
as they arrive in Ireland,
and build vast libraries, from the skins,
of the sheep Patricus tended,
as a youth.
With the destruction of Western Roman Civilization,
and their libraries, the Irish Pagans, now Christian missionaries,
are then prepared to restore, this learning and knowledge,
to the world.
This, then, is a marvelous work,
it begins, among men
"Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid." Isiah 29:14
What warmth do we leave,
to the others, this day?
What use could an angel be to him?
Then here, in the Garden.
Remove not the pain, could he now.
Carry not the burden, could he then.
Strengthen the Savior?
Maybe.
Once in literature, another came,
to strengthen, a chosen one.
though in story, and myth,
yet a lesson to contrast,
still.
On a hero's journey,
Frodo had been sent,
to cast the ring into Mount Doom.
In the end, his strength failed him,
at his faithful side was Samwise Gamgee.
Carry not the burden could Samwise,
but carry Mr. Frodo then could he.
Some speculate that the Angel was Michael.
to remind him of his Eternal Parents,
faith and confidence in his ability,
to carry this load.
If it is Micheal,
then remember not that Michael,
became Adam, whose spouse,
had helped him choose the better path.
The two, the angel and the Christ,
completing one Eternal Round,
a circular path to then lead.
The second creations,
to return the boon,
on their Heroes' Journey.
We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry. Unlike the rhetoricians, who get a confident voice from remembering the crowd they have won or may win, we sing amid our uncertainty; and, smitten even in the presence of the most high beauty by the knowledge of our solitude, our rhythm shudders. I think, too, that no fine poet, no matter how disordered his life, has ever, even in his mere life, had pleasure for his end. Johnson and Dowson, friends of my youth, were dissipated men, the one a drunkard, the other a drunkard and mad about women, and yet they had the gravity of men who had found life out and were awakening from the dream; and both, one in life and art and one in art and less in life, had a continual
[Pg 30] preoccupation with religion. Nor has any poet I have read of or heard of or met with been a sentimentalist. The other self, the anti-self or the antithetical self, as one may choose to name it, comes but to those who are no longer deceived, whose passion is reality. The sentimentalists are practical men who believe in money, in position, in a marriage bell, and whose understanding of happiness is to be so busy whether at work or at play, that all is forgotten but the momentary aim. They find their pleasure in a cup that is filled from Lethe’s wharf, and for the awakening, for the vision, for the revelation of reality, tradition offers us a different word—ecstasy. An old artist wrote to me of his wanderings by the quays of New York, and how he found there a woman nursing a sick child, and drew her story from her. She spoke, too, of other children who had died: a long tragic[Pg 31] story. “I wanted to paint her,” he wrote, “if I denied myself any of the pain I could not believe in my own ecstasy.” We must not make a false faith by hiding from our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the highest achievement of the human intellect, the only gift man can make to God, and therefore it must be offered in sincerity. Neither must we create, by hiding ugliness, a false beauty as our offering to the world. He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer. We could not find him if he were not in some sense of our being and yet of our being but as water with fire, a noise with silence. He is of all things not impossible the most difficult, for that only which comes easily can[Pg 32] never be a portion of our being, “Soon got, soon gone,” as the proverb says. I shall find the dark grow luminous, the void fruitful when I understand I have nothing, that the ringers in the tower have appointed for the hymen of the soul a passing bell.
Tychbornes Elegie, written with his owne hand in the Tower before his execution
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of paine,
My Crop of corne is but a field of tares,
And al my good is but vaine hope of gaine.
The day is past, and yet I saw no sunne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My fruite is falne, & yet my leaves are greene:
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seene.
My thred is cut, and yet it is not spunne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death, and found it in my wombe,
I lookt for life, and saw it was a shade:
I trod the earth, and knew it was my Tombe,
And now I die, and now I was but made.
My glasse is full, and now my glasse is runne,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
Thy prime of youth is frozen with thy faults,
Thy feast of joy is finisht with thy fall:
Thy crop of corne is tares availing naughts,
Thy good God knowes, thy hope, thy hap and all.
Short were thy daies, and shadowed was thy sun,
T'obscure thy light unluckelie begun.
Time trieth trueth, & trueth hath treason tript,
Thy faith bare fruit as thou hadst faithless beene:
Thy ill spent youth thine after yeares hath nipt,
And God that saw thee hath preserved our Queen,
Her thred still holds, thine perisht though unspun,
And she shall live when traitors lives are done.
Thou soughtest thy death, and found it in desert,
Thou look'dst for life, yet lewdlie forc'd it fade:
Thou trodst the earth, and now in earth thou art,
As men may wish thou never hadst beene made.
Thy glorie and thy glasse are timeles runne,
And this, O Tychborne, hath thy treason done.
Why is he longing, for Vicksburg?
He dreams of her nightly, now.
From whence comes, this desire?
Why the craving?
Why the need?
What did he leave behind, in Vicksburg?
The last visit, was so long, ago.
He left with the one,
With whom he had danced,
For so many years.
She had been his final companion,
assigned by his mission president,
to watch over and protect him,
on their journey home.
21 years before that day,
she had been assigned, the same task,
by her Eternal Father.
They had battled for so many years,
to build a lasting Eternal Relationship.
Here on the Battlefields of Vicksburg,
they began the process,
of leaving behind the old dance,
and starting a new one,
as they sought to forgive,
and be forgiven.
She has been gone,
for a decade, now.
He has just completed a journey
with her Eternal Companion,
and provided him with a good death,
with the assistance of his,
Eternal Companion.
Maybe the longing, for Vicksburg,
is craving a new Eternal Dance,
with his Eternal Companion,
and a desire to reunite with,
his Eternal Companion and their Parents.
Once more.
As I have grown older and desired to universalize my faith I saught a great deal of Holy Envy. I have known since I was a youth of 14 years of age that Joseph was chosen to restore the church. But for a church to be restored it must preexist Joseph's time. Elder John Taylor taught that there were many good and righteous men and women who lived during the apostasy and they guided and supported his church.
John Taylor, on ancient men and the light they offered
When I was fourteen and learning church history. I desired to seek out and find the pre-restoration prophets. Joseph Smith's maternal grandfather was a prophet who received a vision and printed a flyer of that vision.
I knew that God must speak to other men and that he must have begun the preparation for the restoration early. I love to study the Reformation, especially the English Reformation. The English reformation began anew under William Tyndale and was almost completed under Henry viii. Henry was not so much a protestant as an English Catholic.
One of myfavorite Puritan prophets was John Milton He was one of the rare Puritans who was not a Calvinist. I have spent decades studying his life and his works. I love his epic poem Paradise Lost. As I study the Puritan prophets I am more convinced that God the Father reveals himself to all men and women who desire to learn of him. That is why I am so strengthened in my desire to possess holy envy.
Let me leave you with one more reference the seldom read preface to The Great Bible an early precursor to the King James Bible and the one Henry viii commanded to be the English Bible read to his English Catholic subjects.
Why does he ruminate then,
on it, his testimony.
Cows are ruminates.
They eat their food more than once.
Grass is difficult to digest.
It must be eaten twice.
Once it is taken from the ground,
and stored in a pouch.
After it has settled for a while,
it is regurgitated and then digested again.
Is a testimony like this too.
Must we take it in, first,
Let it prepare our minds.
Do we then regurgitate it,
and consume aknew.
Then when it becomes daily practice,
Are we ingesting it again?
I know I must think of my testimony many times
and learn to feed it and use and consume it again.
Then when I share it I begin to bless those who I love
with my works.
What then of the little children?
Are they then not, such a blessing?
Sometimes I wondered,
when my daughter was,
a teen and angry.
If we could ever have the relationship,
we had when she was three.
For nearly a decade she would not even,
ride in a car with me, she was so angry.
Now she has her own little one.
and I see the cycle begin anew.
In a decade or more she may experience,
the same heartache and pain,
but for now, she has peace and joy,
Odin offers her.
Then does he look back for a sign,
or forward for a signpost?
Many have looked forward to a sign,
and missed the post.
C.S. Lewis says the signs only come,
in the beginning.
As one matures in his growth,
the signs spread out,
and then disappear.
By the time they are gone,
you fail to notice anymore.
The signs then are like fig tree buds,
in spring, they are a sign of the time,
but they are not the end time,
or the final fruits.
The final chapter of C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy.
Thus they spoke in anger,
or was it in frustration,
the devils who had rebelled,
in the beginning.
They still maintained their, knowledge
sure knowledge, they had been there,
in the beginning, until being cast out.
This rebellion was it worth the cost, to be paid?
it cost them their brightness and their shared glory.
Brightness can only be maintained,
in nearness to the Father,
and his reflected light.
The second creations,
fell not less, from lack of knowledge,
but from experience and freedom of the will.
They then learn to turn back toward the Father,
They then resubmit their will to the Father,
and then receive redemption from the Son.
As I, one of the second creations will I learn,
to resubmit my will to the Father, and receive redemption?
I want to remain in his presence and then bask in his warmth.
Thus sharing and receiving his Glory as I submit
to him, and become like him, a knew.
See Paradise Lost Book, Book III, John Milton
For what then of the devils?
Do they not then recognize him,
as the Son of God.
They then have a sure knowledge of his Mission
and of his works.
What then does this knowledge then gain them.
What knowledge and additional incite,
do then they gain,
from experience.
They are so wrapped up in hate,
and envy, and in strife.
So jealous of him, were they, then.
This then to be ejected from the Father’s presence,
for a refusal to submit,
to submit their will to the will of the Father.
Lucifer claimed to know, not, a time when he was not.
When he was not sovereign over his own spirit and will.
His refusal to submit cost him so much,
though he retained his knowledge
and early experiences.
He began to lose his reflected light,
the reflected light of God the Father,
as the moon loses its light as she moves further away from the Sun.
I desire not to lose my reflected light,
so I move closer to the Father and feel his warmth
and reflected light as I learn to submit my will,
to the will of the Father.
What does he then learn,
on this, the morning after?
This thing he now comes,
to understand, a knew,
this, then, this time.
Gethsemane had always been plan A,
not a contingency, not plan B,
but plan A.
He and the Father had studied it,
and discussed it, and approved it.
This the plan then,
how to rescue the second,
creations.
The first had rebelled,
had been cast out,
before their bodies,
they had received.
Their choice than to follow,
Lucifer, The Son of the Morning.
The Heavens mourned their loss,
at his rebellion.
To know a thing,
is not to understand a thing.
This then to know,
This thing he must now, experience,
to better understand,
to better become their advocate,
with the Father.
This then new experience,
is like, the experience,
of new Fatherhood.
One can study and understand,
the process, but to receive, then a child,
and then to raise a child,
this, then offers a new level, of understanding.
What then does he now, understand,
on the morning after, Gethsemane.
The Father,
had separated himself, not
than ever, from the Son.
This, then new experience,
This, then new death,
this we label, Spiritual Death.
Spiritual Death,
requires separation,
from the Father.
The Son had never sinned.
had never chosen, his ways,
over his Father's ways.
Or to say again,
the Father's ways were always,
his ways.
These ways, then,
one and the same,
were they, always.
The Father and Son,
always, of one mind,
and one soul.
How then does the Father,
separate himself,
from the Son?
What corner of the Universe,
can he then go to,
to then be apart,
and no longer be, one soul,
with the Son.
That the Son may now experience,
Spiritual Death?
To better advocate for,
their new Creations.
To redeem now, their new,
Creations.
This thing, then he learned,
then, here this day.
The pain of separation,
of guilt and shame.
Freedom, or free will,
was always going to require,
The possibility of the choice,
other than the Fathers choice,
This then we label,
the Fathers will.
With these choices, by the new creation,
they would then learn to be more,
like the Father and the Son.
This then to learn to rejoice,
to regret the consequences of,
these new choices.
Turning back towards the Father,
they would then, learn,
to resubmit their will,
to the Fathers will,
their ways becoming, aknew,
the Father's ways, again.
This then always learning,
that the Father's choices would then become,
their choices, the remainder of the Eternities.
The Son now understanding their choice,
from his experiences, on Earth, and in the Garden.
This then new knowledge and experience,
and then to take upon himself,
the full price, and penalty of sin,
or separation from God The Father.
Then becoming their, advocate with the Father.
Born July 6, 1965
Logan Cache County
Utah
Born May 5, 1960
Brigham City Box
Elder County Utah
January 6, 1990
Logan City, Cache
County Utah
Logan L.D.S Temple
It began with a gentle nibbling on her ear.
This is the first line of a poem I wrote several years ago
for my communications class at Brigham Young University – Idaho. It is about
the first time I made love to my wife. It was on our second day of marriage;
she asked me to help her make a baby.
The first day had been a long a tiring day. Bonnie had to plan and
prepare her own wedding reception. After
the wedding, we cleaned up the church cultural hall, so that first night
together had been a pajama night. She will forever remain the only woman to
make that request.
I ask myself this question at work. What is a marriage if it is not about
companionship and not about sex? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy sex as much as the
next man and the desire to participate in it has never left me, but my wife
lost the desire for sex, decades ago. I don’t know if it is because of early
menopause brought on by the hysterectomy, the way I treated her early in our
marriage, or just the physical fact that I am too fat for sex to be comfortable
for me. The fact remains that I have remained forever attracted to her and have
a desire to bless her life in whatever relationship I can maintain between us. Sometimes,
this can be difficult because, after 30 minutes with her, I need to find
something else to capture my attention as our interests are so divergent.
A couple of years ago, I wrote an essay, that on the surface,
seemed to say my wife was not my best friend but that my sister was my best
friend. My wife and I share a best
friend. It is my younger sister Debra. Years ago, my wife recommended that if I
wanted to see a movie or go do something socially that I should take my sister.
I have more fun on a date with my sister than I do with my wife. My wife knows
there is no physical attraction with my sister; we have similar interests and
enjoy doing the same things. There is no fear that I will begin an affair with
my sister. Neither my sister nor I
desire that sort of relationship; we just enjoy doing the same things socially.
Many times, when we were first married, I would take Debra and her husband on
double dates so I would have someone to talk to during dinner.
But if you read between the lines of that essay, you see
that Bonnie is my best friend, not because we have similar interests or because
we enjoy doing the same things. Bonnie
has dedicated herself to providing me with a good life, a clean home, and two
children. For two decades, she was always home when I arrived home. Bonnie knew
I hated coming home to an empty house. On those rare occasions when she could
not be home, she would send me on an errand or ask me to wait for her at
someone’s home until she could be home with me.
Bonnie may have only done this on a dozen occasions in those twenty
years.
I remember the story of the little boy who, on coming home,
runs into the house to find his mother.
Once he has located her, he can go outside to play or start his chores.
That is the way I felt about coming home.
I would look for my wife. I
needed to know where she was because she is the base I built my life upon.
When she discovered I was infertile, we attended some
adoption classes at L.D.S. Social Services. When that did not work out, she
hatched a play with her younger sister to provide us with a child. Without
Bonnie, I would not have received a child; I may never have become a father
without Bonnie and Nancy.
I always wanted to be a father and husband. In my teens, I
began a study of early L.D.S. Church history. I was reading the 7-volume
history of Joseph Smith and his restoration of the Church. It is the one edited
by B.H. Roberts. I would read and journal about my experience every night. My
ninth-grade teacher was teaching me to write simple one-page essays. I would write these essays and write letters
to my future wife and children.
My mom taught me from an early age about
the castle on the hill in the center of town. It was a temple, built by my
grandfathers, where she had knelt at an altar and promised to be my mom for all
eternity. She said because of that
promise; we would be a family for all eternity.
I wanted to find a woman who would make these same promises
with me at the same temple alters.
I would write and journal about what this woman would be
like, and I questioned how I would find her and know her when I met her.
In my Church, we are asked not to date or court women until
we turn 16; even then, we are asked to court in groups. This often includes
dances and combined activities with the young women in the Ward. The first girl
I dated one on one with was Linda Bullard. We had been friends when she was
younger and lived next to my grandma Bassett. I lost track of her when she
moved away at about ten. We met again when she was 14. This was at my bishop's
house, a friend of her foster parents. She invited me to their home for
Thanksgiving. This never worked out because she was too young to court.
The next girl I courted, I met on a Logan High Orchestra
trip. We attended a competition in San Diego, California. She made me lunch in her motel room. I fell asleep afterward while watching
television. This is not a great way to begin a courtship. I was attracted to several of the orchestra
girls, but none of them developed into anything more than admiration from afar.
When I was serving as Mission Recorder in the Mission Office,
I learned that Terri Sue Allen was going on a mission to Austria. She was a
year older than me in High School. I could start courting her after our
missions. She was one of the girls I was attracted to in High School. I visited
her several time on Sunday evening, and I even took her on a few dates, but she
was not interested in anything more. This infatuation lasted several years. After
I gave up on starting this relationship, I discovered Bonnie.
When I was 23, my roommate challenged me to get married next
year. I was not dating anyone at the time. He said I could set a goal and then
pray about it. This I decided to do.
I noticed a young lady in our young adult ward who had a
small child. She was a bit of a wild child seeking to change her life. Her name
was Cindy. I am not sure she was a baptized member of the Ward. Once, she came
dressed in a dog collar when we went out. One time we went to a local bar to
listen to a band. The band was led by a
friend from high school, Aaron Baugh. It
may seem weird to go to a bar and not drink just to listen to a band, but that
is what we did. Thankfully I realized this relationship was not the kind of
relationship I needed to get married in the temple.
I was introduced to another young lady by a member of our
young adult ward. Ginger Bright and I
went out a few times; she may have been my first steady girlfriend. She asked
me to stop dating her because she had been raped and could never make anyone a
good wife. I was grateful that she broke things off. The thought of waking up every morning and
seeing her in bed was not pleasant.
One day my date began bugging me about a girl from his work.
He said she was a return missionary and needed a good boyfriend. I was not interested
in asking her out. I have learned from experience that the only way I could get
him to leave me alone was to ask her out at least once. He made it seem like he
had talked to her, and she wanted to go out with me.
I was working part-time at a Television Repair shop. I had dropped out of college because my
grades were terrible. One day she brought her television in for repair. She
arrived in her sisters' car with her mom and her sisters' children. I thought they looked like the Beverly
Hillbillies. I called her up one day at work.
Her mom answered the phone, and I asked to speak with Bonnie. No, the television was not repaired but would
she go swimming with me that weekend.
The Young adult ward had an activity at a Hot Springs in Preston, Idaho. I think she went out with me to stop Dad from
bugging her at work about his return missionary son. The date went well, and
she did look good in a bathing suit. She agreed to a second date. I think it was to the movies. Our third date
was the Herzog family reunion. I needed to introduce her to my family
early. If she did not like my family, this
relationship would go nowhere. She loved my family, and they loved her. Within
six months, we were married and sealed in the temple. Only later did I learn
that she knew my older brother and swore she would never marry one of my
fathers' sons.
I enjoy family history and love to learn about my
grandfathers and grandmothers. I have a program on my cell phone that lets me
see all of their histories for at least seven generations. I have read many of
their life histories. It is an example of their relationship that has
strengthened Bonnie and my relationship.
Thurston Larson was one of the ancestors I
love to learn about. He immigrated from
Norway to a community in Iowa near Nauvoo; it was there that his family joined
the Mormon church. He was part of the group forced to leave Nauvoo and
immigrate west as part of the Mormon migration. He was part of the Mormon
Battalion and served in the Mexican American War. He married a young lady from
England. She left him for another man leaving him with several children. Later
in life, they remarried in the Logan Temple. He partly did this so he could
leave her with his war pension. Sometimes love means taking care of someone
even when they have wronged you. He must have loved her.
This is my grandmother Lauretta West
Byington. My mom told me her story from when I was a little boy. She died while
in child delivery. She left several children for my grandfather to raise as a
single father in the depression. She could have had an operation to deliver the
child, but she would die. She decided to take this last child to Heaven to
raise herself. She could not leave her husband with one more child to support
with little or no resources.
Her daughter Sarah Elnora (Nora) Herzog raised her last
child. Chancy came with her when she married my grandfather Leo Herzog.
These memories of my ancestors and their relationships have sustained
my desire to build a relationship with my wife. When life becomes challenging
and unbearable, I think of them, and their sacrifices give me the strength to
try one more time.
I do love my wife and my children. I want them forever. Without my wife and our temple covenants, I also
know I cannot with my mother and father and our extended family. I will devote the remainder of my life to
blessing Bonnie's life so that she will choose me again as her eternal
companion when we wake on the morning of the resurrection.
I have walked the Battlefields of Vicksburg MS. Whether those battles be from civil war days or the days of my youth.
In the fall of 1985, I lived briefly in Vicksburg MS. I was serving as a missionary for The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. During the weeks I would walk the streets
knocking on doors and speaking to people.
Searching for those who were searching for Christ. Most of the time my search failed. Not many people were searching for
Christ. Even though their lives were
largely unfulfilled they where not dissatisfied enough to seek a change.
On the weekends or on Preparation Day, I would drive the
single-lane road that covered the Vicksburg Battlefield Park. Men battled there
for lives that were largely unsatisfying and unfulfilled. In those times the Generals thought nothing
of losing 50,000 American lives in one day. These men may have come from both Boston
and Memphis, yet still, they were American lives.
At the close of my mission, I again walked the Battlefields
of Vicksburg, this time with my mom. I
had asked her to come and bring me home at the end of my mission. My Mom and I had
battled for two decades to create a relationship that was fulfilled and
satisfying. As I look back now as an
old man, I think we essentially won that battle.
And again, today I see men and women, American’s, battling
in the streets for their largely unsatisfying lives. We still waste far too many
American lives. We continue to battle for the unsatisfying, the things that
will never feed our bodies and support our souls.
How do I awaken myself and my fellow Americans to seek and find the one who will fill our lives and feed our needs?
Don Williams "Good Ole Boys like me
Jackson Browne, "Lives in the Balance
“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent”
Why must he then,
be faithfully nonconformant?
To believe then,
is to come to then, to know.
When they believed,
did they then conform?
Was it in the beginning,
or in the end?
Speaking of the Cowboy Jesus.
May a man have a vision of the one,
then standing next to a urinal,
in a stall at his wife's baptism?
May Christ reveal himself, to us,
in this manner?
What if the Cowboy Jesus would come riding a horse,
in his cowboy suit, consuming Camel Cigarettes?
Would we then turn him, away?
What if God disobeyed The Word of Wisdom.
Peter partook of the forbidden animals,
and converted the gentiles.
He is now a member of the Christian community,
because Peter broke his version,
of the Word of Wisdom.
Peter then faithfully nonconformed.
Once in Vicksburg, He met the one,
who dying of cancer, received a vision,
From the other, who was testifying to the truthfulness,
of the Book of Mormon, and the restoration,
while consuming Camel Cigarettes.
To break a rule is to be disobedient.
Disobedience is not faithful nonconformity.
Lucifer rebelled and desired his own will.
Eve disobeyed, to conform to God's will.
Truly it is the rule-breakers,
who disrupt the status quo,
and create a place, for growth.
Gethsemane had always been plan A,
not a contingency, not plan B,
but plan A.
He and the Father had studied it,
and discussed it and approved it.
This is the plan then,
how to rescue the new,
creations.
The first had rebelled,
had been cast out,
before their bodies,
they had received.
Their choice than to follow,
Lucifer, The Son of the Morning.
The Heavens mourned their loss,
at his rebellion.
To know a thing,
is not to understand a thing.
This then, he had come, to see.
This thing he must now, experience,
to better understand,
to better become their advocate,
with the Father.
This then-new experience,
is like, the experience,
of new Fatherhood.
One can study and understand,
the process, but to receive, then a child,
and then to raise a child,
this, then offers a new level, of understanding.
What then does he now, understand,
on the morning after, Gethsemane.
The Father had separated himself, not
than ever, from the Son.
This, then new experience,
This, then new death,
this we label, Spiritual Death.
Spiritual Death, requires separation,
from the Father.
The Son had never sinned,
had never chosen, his ways,
over his father’s ways.
Or to say again,
the Father's ways were always,
his ways.
These ways, then,
one and the same,
were they, always?
The Father and Son,
always, of one mind,
and one will.
How then does the Father,
separate himself,
from the Son?
To what corner of the Universe?
Can he then depart?
To then separate,
and no longer be one,
with the Son.
That the Son may now experience,
Spiritual Death?
To better advocate for,
their new Creations.
To redeem now, their new, Creations.
This thing, then he learned,
then, here this day.
This pain of Spiritual Death,
of this separation from the Father,
of guilt and shame,
over choices made.
Freedom, or free will,
would always require,
the possibility of then choice,
other than the Father's choice.
This then we label,
the Fathers will.
With these choices, by the new creation,
they would then learn to be more,
like the Father and the Son.
This then to learn to rejoice,
or regret the consequences of,
these new choices.
Turning back towards the Father,
they would then, learn,
to resubmit their will,
to the Fathers will,
their ways becoming, anew,
the Father's ways, again.
This then always learning,
that the Father's choices would then become,
their choices, the remainder of the Eternities.
The Son now understanding their choice,
from his experiences, on Earth, and in the Garden.
This then-new knowledge and experience,
and then to take upon himself,
the full price, and penalty of sin,
or separation from God The Father.
He then more fully becoming, for them,
their advocate with the Father.
