The Fourth Cornerstone: The Family

Looking To Zion Not-So-Lite
(The Yogurt Version)

The Fourth Cornerstone:  The Family

To Qualify as a cornerstone:
•    It must be an eternal principle
•    It must support and sustain itself
•    It must be sanctioned by Heavenly Father

The family is the skeleton of society.  It supports the growth or stagnation of any culture.  Families are spiritual as well as physical entities.  God established that from the very beginning.  Its purpose is to propagate the species, as well as teach God’s Law.  It is a mirror for our cultural problems and our cultural successes.

Today, the family is an endangered species.  Satan is attacking it from all sides.  If we are to build Zion, we must choose to follow God’s laws, rather than the laws of man.  By establishing this last cornerstone, we finally have a foundation that will support the weight and calling of God’s Zion.

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Looking To Zion Not-So-Lite
(The Lasagna Dinner Version)

The Fourth Cornerstone:  The Family

Okay, I’m putting on both my geek and artist hats for this post.  For those film buffs out there, you may or may not know the name Ray Harryhausen.  Harryhausen is an American film producer and special effects wizard.  He is probably best known for his work on the original King Kong (1933) and Mighty Joe Young (1949).  He’s done a great number of other sci-fi and fantasy classics, notably the 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963).  The special effect that he is most noted for is stop-motion model animation.  For those who do not know what stop-motion model animation is, it is an animation technique where you physically manipulate an object to make it appear to move on its own.  The animator manipulates the object and then takes a picture, repeating this process over and over until the desired result is achieved.  Each one of these frames is then sped up and you achieve the illusion of motion.  Some of the more recent, and famous, examples of this technique are: The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Chicken Run.  My family and I are big Wallace and Gromit fans and we just recently discovered a new favorite in Shaun the Sheep.

You’re probably wondering what this all has to do with Zion, cornerstones, and the family.  Well, it ties in with the process of producing the models for the animation.  You see, in producing Claymation, which is what most of us are more familiar with, the animator has to double as a sculptor.  All of those little models are built of wire and clay.  The wire skeleton beneath the clay is called the armature, and gives the sculpture the necessary support and range of motion in order to withstand the rigors of the animating process.  In essence, the Fourth Cornerstone is Zion’s skeletal armature.  It stands as a “type and shadow” of the much larger community.  The family unit is the framework that supports any society.

A few weeks ago, I talked about how the family is the Keystone of Zion.  I should have qualified it by saying that it was one of the keystones of Zion.  The bonds of family are the first strings binding any society together.  In fact, the greatest lessons of socialization are learned within the confines of the homes from the youngest of ages.  The family is where we practice connecting to one another, it is where we learn, either through good examples or bad examples, how relationships work.  Is it any wonder that Satan has targeted the family for extinction?  Is it any surprise that he is trying so hard to undermine and outright destroy the sanctity of this essential building block to God’s kingdom?  No.  Not in the least.  More and more, I’m seeing just how sacred the family is – mainly due to the fact that it is being so actively attacked and hunted.  Will we allow it to be hunted to extinction?  No, but I fear that it is already an endangered species.

So what makes a family, a family?  That seems to be the big question on everyone’s mind these days.  Well, let’s start there.  The family is the oldest form of organization known to mankind.  Traditionally, it has been considered the basic societal unit, consisting of a father, a mother, and their children.  Natural and Eternal Law supports this definition.  If we look to nature, we see that there is a Natural Order to things.  The family, as it is represented in nature, is a vehicle for procreation.  I submit to you that this is how God planned it.

Yet the Eternal Order of things builds beyond procreation.  When Heavenly Father created the Garden of Eden, He established the Eternal Order first, establishing a foundation for all of creation to follow.  He created Heaven and Earth and all the things that within them are.  And to govern and care for them, He created His last and greatest creation – man and woman.

As a follower of Christ, it is my belief that all things were created spiritually before they were created temporally. Before we came to this Earth, we were spirits, and as spirits, the relationships were cultivated and nurtured, were in fact – spiritual.  God created the family structure that He introduced to Adam and Eve, long before we ever came to the Earth.  It was a close knit experience, and one founded on the other three cornerstones that I have already spoken about.  We have been endeavoring, since the day we could recognize the need, to emulate that sense of society and the intimate bonds we formed there.  Is it wrong for a single parent, regardless of the reasons for their circumstance, to feel a void where their partner is supposed to be?  No.  It is natural.  Is it wrong for a homosexual to want a family?  Not in the least.  We all yearn “to belong to” and “to be accepted into” close knit relationships.  It’s the default for our spirits to look for and build relationships towards that end, since it’s what our spirits naturally recognize.

Spiritually speaking, do today’s choices of lifestyle conform to God’s vision of the family?  Sadly, no.  Alternative lifestyle choices step outside of God’s plan, promoting individual desire over adherence to divine plans.  The voices of commerce, entertainment, sensuality, acceptable theoretical scientific fact and logic, and political opinion, all sow seeds of discord.  If we don’t wear a certain brand, we are socially less than our peers.  If we do not watch certain movies or television shows, play certain video games, or listen to the most popular music we are not current.  If we do not drink or smoke, or indulge in some other form of bodily gratification, we are missing out on all the fun.  If we do not accept traditional scientific views, then we are uneducated quacks.  If we believe in God, who cannot be empirically or mathematically defined by our limited understanding of the universe, then we are religious wingnuts. If our politics conform with God’s values, then we are bigots. However, as we make choices that conform to worldly views, they wear away at the unity that ties our families together by focusing on philosophies that center around the importance of the individual rather than a unified whole.  Additionally, we as individuals can influence what our children believe. If we are seduced away from God's plan, how much more likely will our children be as well?

We cannot escape the fundamental organization of the family.  God established it in the Garden of Eden.  He could have chosen an alternative option.  We could all be amorphous, shape-shifting beings that become whatever we desire on a whim (which I must admit would be really cool from a personal stand point).  But the scriptures tell us that God didn’t do it that way.  Have you ever asked yourself why?  Did He perhaps have a reason for establishing such a precedent?  Yes.  Yes He did.

He created Adam and Eve, and gave them a commandment – go forth and multiply.  Build a great big family.  There was a purpose in this commandment, and it had nothing to do with civil rights.  In lieu of being created, they were now subject to the Laws of the Universe – both natural and eternal.  As their children, we are subject to those laws as well.  Satan, over time, has tempted mankind with the idea that he can get around the laws that are laid down.  That too started in the Garden of Eden.  Man’s run with the concept, and made all of his laws fluid and in many cases paradoxical.

So we find ourselves at an impasse.  Do we follow the desires of man or God?  Do we define ourselves as of the family of man, or of the family of God?

Satan will inevitably and collectively drive a wedge between mankind and God.  It’s what he does, and he’s become exceptionally good at it.  The world will inevitably accept a change in definition on what the family is, in order to appease the desires of men.  And then we will have Man’s definition of family versus God’s definition of family.  Man’s definition will change to suit the whims of the mob, wherein God’s definition will fulfill a long-term and eternal plan.  In the end, mankind will choose as it best suits their desires.  Heavenly Father reserved that agency for us all, making it sacrosanct and inviolate.  We will choose for ourselves the course we desire and, in turn, we will be subject to those choices.

Yet, where some will choose to walk their own way, others will choose to embrace God’s vision and follow His way.  This will be the way to Zion; and in Zion the family is a sacred thing, established and sanctified by our Heavenly Father.  At its heart, the family is meant to espouse peace and understanding, unity of mind and spirit.  If we are at war, it is because our families are at war within themselves.  If we are, societally, loving – that is a reflection of the love that is built and nurtured within the confines of our own homes.

So, with Zion in mind, I challenge you to look at the family from God’s perspective.  Make the family a sacred thing.  Fight for it.  Defend it with all your might, mind, and strength. And remember, there are many levels of family.  You have mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Close friends become an integral part of your family.  President Gordon B. Hinkley was wont to encourage the idea that God’s Church “…has become one large family scattered across the earth…” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Stone Cut Out of the Mountain,” Ensign, Nov 2007, 83–86).

As we build to Zion, we build to family.  As we build to Zion, we build to a life founded on God’s Law.  As we build to Zion, we build to a life filled with Faith, Hope, and Charity.  As we build to Zion, we build to Jesus Christ.  Four stones.  Four very large and oft times intimidating stones.  I look at all of them together and look at how to lay these four cornerstones in my life, and how they will apply to the actual building of the physical city of Zion.

My personal relationship with Christ will act as my guiding light.  He is the King of Zion, and it is only under His leadership that the city will be raised and governed.  Accepting that and abiding by His direction will see the city built sooner rather than later.  Faith, Hope, and Charity are the attributes that need to fill my life’s every action.  I look forward, hoping.  I believe in myself and my God, faithfully serving.  I love unconditionally, unifying myself with my brothers and sisters – regardless of race, financial circumstance, politics, or creed.  In these there is safety.  In these there is life.  With these attributes guiding my every action, exact obedience to God’s laws will not only be easier, obeying will become a pleasure instead of a hardship.  All three of these bind my family closer to me, making them immovable stones, stones that will support Zion’s weight and allowing it to endure every hardship the world has to offer.

Four immovable, eternal cornerstones that will lay the foundations of the greatest city the world has ever known.  The thought of it sends chills down my spine and fills my heart with such a majestic longing…

Laying these stones requires a great deal of effort and even more maintenance.  But we only have to look as far as the Salt Lake Temple, or any temple for that matter, in order to see a type and shadow of just how magnificent Zion will be.


Until next week,
Jeffrey