SOMETIMES I WISH I COULD JUST HIE TO KOLOB

WARNING!! THIS IS A FIRST FOR ME - A RANT BLOG TOPIC.

I have had a particularly bad weekend (alot of which I do not wish to get into), but there is one thing that stands out in particular. I was at a Primary "Meet 'N Greet" on Saturday for the students to get to know their new 2011 teachers. As it was winding down, I decided to spend some time chatting with a new member of our ward who actually teaches his children the doctrine (shame on him.....) and whose child actually knew some basic answers that many (read; 60% of the adults in the ward) could not answer.

Anyway, he was chatting up how his dad who is a temple worker in AZ had heard of a guy named Cohen who was preaching the advent of light into our world in the form of Baetelgeuse that was supposed to get jiggy on 23 Sept, 2011 (my birthday...). He was intrigued and googled it and ended up on my blog (much of my traffic comes from that Cohen post and from info on Sarah Menet where I think I have entered first place territory on both accounts). I admitted to him that I have not taken the time to put a disclaimer on the blog about me not necessarily agreeing with the timing that Cohen has put forth (none of the leading scientists out there have any clue when this supernova will go ballistic - let alone exactly when it will get here - and Cohen says it will be midnight, or some such a thing. If he is on, and I get a nice birthday candle to light up the night, then Cohen goes straight to the front of the line as far as folks with the gift of prophecy are concerned.....because he has nailed all three factors (time/place/event) that make a prophecy rock (see my previous post on the Heisenberg principle that says that is an impossibility unless you simply do not impact someone's agency by having made the prediction). He then shared that he and his dad both agreed that this guy (Cohen) was probably off. Next thing I know, our EQ President is saddling up telling my friend that he shouldn't listen to me due to blah, blah, blah which I then let him have it for being a doctrinal ignoramous (which he, in the past, has agreed he is when he is pressed on just about any doctrine). He said something to the effect that he would rather just poke his head in the sand and not know of the coming difficulties, etc (which might partially explain the status of his food storage and other commanded items that the Bretheren have been pounding home of late).

So......my monster RAG for today is how people of our faith cannot take the weakest of weak doctrines without choking and gagging. We are in trouble in a major way and are headed for a monster sifting that will astound even me in its scope and magnitude! We have folks in this church (the "social Mormon" crowd) that are just there because there are some pretty great folks to hang with one or two days a week. My EQ President is a great guy - but he is mostly a social Mormon who will with the coming of the great test (in my opinion). If the stuff I have in this blog is correct, the loss may be as high as 70-75% who will not be able to take the heat when it is applied - and who may simply be clueless as to which way to roll with it because they do not understand their basic (and old; read Joseph/Brigham/J.T. sayings that seemed perplexing 20-70 years ago but are hitting home with monster impact today) doctrines.

In some eyes, I may be walking on thin ice here, but I lay blame for this doctrinal ignorance at the feet of the recent (last 20 years or so since Benson) movement to try and "mainstream" ourselves and fit in with all the people that hate us and what we 'stood' for. Hell, I went to see what the Community of Christ was up to in their endeavors to that end and when I toured their "temple" in Jackson County and saw their D&C and their BofM (largely out of the picture), I knew that the road to worldly acceptance had a bad ending point!! And here we are; I hear regular talks about how the world loves us and how we now have a great spacious building to house ourselves in while we hear adulations of "all is well in Zion". Well, folks - and I pointed this out in my encounter with the EQP - we are statistically 5-10 years behind the world in our teen pregnancy and divorce rates and the highest in the US in the use of mind altering drugs (I am citing Utah, specifically). What this means, is that the divorce rate and out of wedlock pregnancy rate that the world now enjoys today will be ours in a decade, or so. NO THANKS!!

Either I am way off base here with my ravings that all IS NOT WELL IN ZION, or the early Bretheren and the Book of Mormon are correct in stating that things were going to get really bad for the Church right before the purge. Folks, looking at some basic statistics, my money is with the early Bretheren and some of the other straight shooters that I have posted on this blog. A Prophet's job is to give God's children the hard info and hope they have the guts to turn it around according to the principles of moral agency that we all have. Most of them end up on the business end of a fast moving rock or a musket or cross for having done so..... The last thing folks need to hear is that we have it all together - sounds like a little cheating of souls there. I don't expect to get slapped down for having echoed their words. You ought to see the disapproving looks when I state that the Book of Mormon was written for Mormons - and not necessarily to point the finger at Rome or some other organization. The Pope will never read this stuff - it was written for the Gentiles who refuse to listen to good counsel. Joseph Smith finally threw the towel in knowing what his fate was when his wife and most of the other wolves around him would not support him any longer in his preaching of the truths that were so beautiful and saving. The people had reached their spiritual elastic limit for truth and could bear no more, so he was killed - and what I would give to have a fraction of what he could have passed on. Here we sit, as President Benson stated in 1985, still under condemnation and without the sealed portion of the BofM because we are too thick-headed collectively to even absorb and digest what we have. When I realized the Book of Mormon was railing against me (the end of 2 Nephi) about ten years ago, it was a watershed moment. There is a reason that the humble child of Manasseh will have the privilege of building the Temple at the center stake - and we will largely be left out of the process in a way that would be all consuming. Read it - your Book of Mormon says it! Sure Ephraim will be there, but the righteous remnant of Manasseh will dominate the scene while the wicked of the Gentiles and Ephraim will be torn asunder by the doings of their once-scorned brothers. We as a country and a church have made our bed and will sleep fitfully in it while we await the totality of our demise. This is the end result and final stop of the train of political correctness. It will get to the point that I believe it will split the Bretheren squarely causing confusion and fear amongst the ranks. Right now we have high-ranking members of our church who seek for political office who, Peter-style, deny the efficacy of the legacy of their grandparents who clung to a belief that plural marriage was God's way according to Section 132 - even though we caved to the PC crowd back then and began taking the first steps down that thorn-filled road. Those ancestors whose sacred toil and lives of consecration that have been desecrated by the words of these Judas politicians will cry out for a retraction at the very least and there will be much humiliation by those individuals if they do not change. They have spit in the eye of the Prophet Joseph as well. This is the great division that will wrack the church. It is the words of the early Bretheren that precisely condemn many of us today as our current Bretheren echo them and we as a Church throw them aside with impunity. How I do not wish to be part of that punishing wave that will befall us to chastise and purify and cleanse us. I do not fear man, I fear what God's just hand will do to a largely forsaken and corrupt people. We truly will deserve our chosen fate - and I do think we are approaching the time when the day of repentance is past - yes, the Book of Mormon was written for us. The call of Mormon and Moroni at the end of the record, as they looked over their people whose fair ones had fallen echoes largely in my ears as of late. Mormon and Moroni wrote to those who would be reading their words - US!! Not necessarily the prelate in Rome, or the politician in Brussels, it was for us stupid. We are the fallen ones - and NO, all is not well in Zion!!

So as we continue to strip/downplay the wondering doctrines from our scriptures and our hymnals that point our thoughts and intellects heavenward, think of where that trajectory is taking us. Visit the CofC temple sometime and ask them how much it costs to rent what should be their most holy of edifices for a weekend. I about barfed when one of their male 'high priest' tour guides told me back in 2001.

And now to close this outspoken rant, being ever the eternal optimist, I have to state that for the first time in the past 20 years that I can remember, I was able to sing my favorite hymn (that every visitor to this blog must endure....), "If You Could Hie to Kolob" in Church today for the closing hymn. There is hope that someone still believes in that doctrine and that we have not tucked it away as too un-mainstream, or no longer cool to talk about. The PC scrubbing then is not complete - there may be some hope for us.... Just maybe my lunatic ravings are not falling on deaf ears??

Here are the powerful words to my favorite hymn that sends my spirit and mind reaching for the eternities and whose words written over 170 years ago still have science sprinting to catch up with them:

1. If you could hie to Kolob In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward With that same speed to fly,
Do you think that you could ever, Through all eternity,
Find out the generation Where Gods began to be?

2. Or see the grand beginning, Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation, Where Gods and matter end?
Me thinks the Spirit whispers, "No man has found 'pure space,'
Nor seen the outside curtains, Where nothing has a place."

3. The works of God continue, And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter; There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit; There is no end to race.

4. There is no end to virtue; There is no end to might;
There is no end to wisdom; There is no end to light.
There is no end to union; There is no end to youth;
There is no end to priesthood; There is no end to truth.

5. There is no end to glory; There is no end to love;
There is no end to being; There is no death above.
There is no end to glory; There is no end to love;
There is no end to being; There is no death above.

And yet another great rendition by Lex de Azevedo:

IF YOU COULD HIE TO KOLOB

ENJOY!!

AN APPENDAGE TO THE ABOVE FROM ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING MORTALS TO WALK THE EARTH IN THE LAST 100 YEARS:

Elder Boyd K. Packer in an address to Regional Representatives has said:

In recent years I have felt, and I think I am not alone, that we are losing the ability to correct the course of the church. You cannot appreciate how deeply I feel about the importance of this present opportunity unless you know the regard, the reverence, I have for the Book of Mormon and how seriously I have taken the warnings of the prophets, particularly Alma and Helaman.

Both Alma and Helaman told the church in their day. They warned about fast growth, the desire to be accepted by the world, to be popular, and particularly they warned about prosperity. Each time those conditions existed in combination, the church has drifted off course. All of those conditions are present in the church today.

Helaman repeatedly warned, I think four times he used these words, that the fatal drift of the church could occur in the space of not many years. In one instance it took only six years. (Helaman 6:32; 7:6; 11:26) (See also 3 Nephi 7:8.) (Regional Representative Seminar, March 30, 1990)