Looking To Zion Lite
The Condensed Version for Super Busy Moms
(This is in no way discriminating against Super Busy Dads – Moms are simply a lot scarier…)
We are all looking for unconditional love and acceptance in our lives. We felt that love and sense of belonging in the pre-mortal world, and we spend our whole lives looking for that same experience without really actively recognizing it. We might find perfect moments, or moments of perfection, but this hardly satisfies our quest.
If we ever desire to feel that again, we will have to build a place where that spirit can thrive. It will first take shape in our hearts, and then in the confines of our homes. From there, the spirit will touch others, incrementally growing until it fills the small circle of friends and family around us. From there it grows until soon the entire community is filled with that spirit of love and unity. It will move slowly at first, but its momentum will grow steadily and shortly, we will again experience that singularly perfect moment.
This world needs dreamers. It needs Dreamers and Doers. Men and women who will step up to that improbable task and believe in their ability to see it accomplished. I share all of these things with you in the hopes of helping build the momentum to see that dream become a reality. Even if you have but one moment this week, one instant, wherein you love perfectly or can look someone in the eye and embrace them unconditionally, then we are one step closer to building God’s City. Look for them. Beg God to help you to experience them more and more frequently. And once you feel them, do all that you can to make yourself worthy of sharing that feeling with someone else.
Is it hard?
Yes. Terribly so. We have to give up so much of ourselves in order to make this a reality. Can it be accomplished in this lifetime? Yes. One instant, one perfect moment and one moment of perfection at a time, we will build it until it becomes an eternal reality.
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Looking To Zion Not-So-Lite
(The “Everyone” Version)
During the first two weeks of July, my wife, my sons, and I took our first real vacation in years. There was no other design or purpose to our trip, outside of coming together as a family and exploring our world a little more. The motto of our trip became “Adventure!” early on, as we detoured (seemingly endlessly) throughout the back roads of eastern Missouri. It wasn’t a term of excitement or endearment; but more an expression of pleading exasperation to the Lord, and longsuffering amongst one another. We used it quite frequently as we made our way from Independence up to Nauvoo, and then back down to Saint Louis.
There was much grumbling, a little murmuring, and every once in a while our tempers frayed. The five plus hour trip from Independence to Nauvoo took a fair bit longer than we planned – due to a number of unexpected detours. Instead of arriving around lunch time, we made it closer to late afternoon. We were left with just enough time to visit a few of the sites, starting with the Visitor’s Center and ending with Lucy Mack Smith’s home.
My wife imparted some precious family history to us as we stood in that small home. Her ancestor, Joseph Bates Noble, was the original owner of the home. When it came time for the saints to leave Nauvoo, the home was passed on to Sister Smith, in order to care for her needs in her last years. It was humbling to stand where my sons’ ancestor lived, and it brought home the fact that, in spite of being a convert to the church, I can share in the pioneer heritage of the early saints.
From there we moved on, eating a light dinner and then watching the Nauvoo pageant. The production fanned the flames of my preoccupation to see Zion built. It showed me that Zion, as a physical place, was a reality that could be achieved. The characters came alive for me in a way that my readings have never allowed. King Follet, Parley Pratt, Joseph and Emma Smith…a vision of Nauvoo came alive for me.
Granted, it was an idealized vision of Nauvoo that ignored the majority of the harsher lessons the Saints were faced with. Yet, for one perfect moment while watching the actors play out the lives of some of my personal heroes, I saw what Zion looked like. I was filled with such a sense of longing afterwards, words alone cannot adequately describe.
As we drove down to Quincy, to our hotel, my wife and I discussed what I had felt at length. The whole experience reminded me of a dream that I’d had in the first month of my mission. I remember this dream clearly, as if I had just woken from it, to this day. I have struggled with the thought of sharing this in such a public forum, yet, in order to touch on the topic that has been weighing on me, I need to.
In the dream I had been wandering, searching and exploring the world alone for something…it was not clear what I was seeking, but the sense of weariness and exhaustion were evident in the way I felt. My legs were tired of walking, my once sturdy clothing was threadbare, and I walked with the aid of a tall walking stick.
The ground beneath my feet was rocky and desolate, having the feel of being high on a mountain…or perhaps in a desert filled with dunes of loose stones and sparse vegetation.
I remember cresting a rise, or perhaps it was a dune, the imagery wasn’t clear. What was clear was how uncertain my footing was. I had to take great care in moving downward, a task that took a great deal of time and active choice on my part. I wasn’t mindful of much beyond the precarious nature of my path, and therefore I was quite surprised to hear a deep voice call out my name. I stopped, leaned on a large stone that was easily twice my size, and looked up to see Brigham Young standing not twenty paces down the slope from me. He radiated authority, looking quite severe, and made me feel very small. I must admit that out of all the prophets that I have studied, Brigham Young intimidates me the most. Perhaps it was because of this dream, but I feel that, in some strange way, I have failed the man. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why I feel this way, but I do.
We stood looking at one another for a time, and then he simply said, “You’re late.” and beckoned me to follow. I did so, and after an indeterminate amount of time, we arrived at the gates of a walled city. The massive barrier was made of white marble, and polished so that it gleamed in the sun. As we entered, I noted that the whole community was out in droves, and that there were a profusion of buildings being erected; as evidenced by the abundance of scaffolding. It was like being amidst an ant colony.
There was a driven sense of purpose in every person I saw. No one stopped to talk to me, but I saw a host of familiar faces amidst the crowds as they went about their industry. Every building was white, like the walls of the community, but there was one edifice that stood out above them all in beauty. At the center of the city, the temple stood, more magnificent than any building I have ever seen. Even unfinished as it was, it shamed the monoliths and monuments built by man. Even the Salt Lake Temple seemed dull in comparison. Brother Brigham led me to the foot of a particular scaffold that stretched high up one of the walls of the edifice and motioned upwards, saying: “He’s been waiting for you.”
Now, it should be known that I am deathly afraid of heights – more specifically, falling from them. Therefore, being presented with the prospect of climbing a rickety scaffold (in a nice steady breeze mind you), was anything but appealing – even in I was being bade to do so in a dream. It took me several minutes of fierce battling with my terror, with Brother Brigham standing at my back, before I made to scale the skeletal structure. The going was horrific, and I vaguely remember waking from the dream later and feeling sore and exhausted. But I pushed forward, albeit at a snail’s pace, in spite of the swaying and the groaning of the wood, and the increasingly strong wind that seemed to want to sweep me off the side of the building. I moved upward to the silhouetted figure I could see above me. It took forever, but I did, at long last, attain my goal.
Upon cresting the level that held my mysterious appointment, I am not ashamed to say that my eyes looked neither left nor right. They were glued to the grain of the narrow planks of wood that separated me from a long fall. Thus, I didn’t see who my appointment was with until I was all but on top of the man. The hand that suddenly entered my vision patted to the worn and dirty wood beside him, ever so close to the far edge of the scaffold plank. I crawled like a baby, on hands and knees, to his side. It felt so embarrassing, and I was at once ashamed of my weakness and terrified at the thought of being picked up by the winds and dashed on the flagstones a hundred meters or more below. Yet, the man’s smiling face, and patient demeanor proved his kindness as he was content to wait me out. When I was finally able to settle myself and meet the man’s eyes, I saw that it was Joseph Smith Jr., the Prophet of the Restoration.
There was no glow about him, nor were there Heavenly choirs announcing his identity. The man before me was just a man. He sported work-stained clothes, and his dusty boots dangled over the side of the scaffold. His skin was dusty and bruised, and his hands were weathered and worn from hard work. Even his tanned face was dirty. He looked neither majestic, nor mighty…at least until I looked into his eyes. I feel wholly inadequate in my ability to describe what I saw in those eyes. They were deep, and filled with a wisdom that only a long or frightfully hard life brings. In them, in that moment, I saw unconditional acceptance and love. In them I saw an unshakable faith and an unwavering trust…in me. I can’t describe how I knew all of this was directed at my person, but it was. He was pleased to see
me. He
knew me. Not the me that I callously present to the rest of the world, but that
secret me – the imperfect, dirty, broken part of me that I’m so ashamed of. He saw it all and was
still glad to see me!
There are no words in any living language that could hope to convey what I felt in, and still feel about, that moment. And all of those feelings pale next to what I felt when he smiled and said, “I’m glad you could make it. We’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.”
Then he calmly reached to his side and produced a humble, brown paper-sack lunch. He pointedly told me that Emma had made extra, and offered me half of his lunch. We sat and ate, looking out over the sprawling city, and the joyful industry that played out below. My fear left me, like fog burning away in the open sun. The rest of what was said is sacred to me, therefore, I will not share it. However, I will say this: I had never felt such a perfect and abiding sense of acceptance and love until that moment. As the years have rolled by, I have been able to digest this dream and ponder its meaning many times. And at the end of it all, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is what it must feel like – on some miniscule and wholly imperfect level – to be in the presence of the Savior.
Since that day, I have spent great, if entirely unconscious, effort searching for that feeling again. I looked for it throughout my mission. I hungered for it in my wards and stakes. I tried to recreate it within my marriage. I chased after it in my friendships and other social relationships. All of my considerable efforts were wasted though. It was a perfect moment; one that could never be recaptured. At least until I felt the powerful spirit of Nauvoo through the eyes of the pageant.
Do I recognize that Nauvoo was anything but perfect? Yes. I know the history of the saints well enough to see the City Beautiful for what it was. Nauvoo wasn’t perfect, but the dream that built it was. Given enough time and freedom, I know that Joseph could have seen a Zion built there. I didn’t see the real Nauvoo that night, I saw the power and majesty of Enoch’s city staring me in the face. And let me tell you it was a beautiful place; a place where I had no fear of being myself – warts and all.
We spend our whole lives looking for acceptance and a sense of belonging, in a world that is actively working against us and God’s plan. We waste our lives trying to “fit in” or adhere to the “way things are” – fruitlessly searching for that perfect moment of acceptance and unconditional love that our spirits remember from another life. It makes us sick. It makes us question and doubt. It makes us look towards that great and spacious building from Lehi’s dream and wonder how they can look so happy and yet so empty at the same time.
I’ve driven myself to illness looking for that sense of peace. It is only now, almost twenty years after having that dream, I realize that I will never find that sense of acceptance or experience that perfect moment of unconditional love in the world that surrounds me. If I ever desire to feel that sense of perfect love again, I will have to build a place where that spirit can thrive. I have to build it. With my very own hands. It will first take shape in my heart, and then in the confines of my home. From there, the spirit will touch others, incrementally growing until it fills the small circle of friends and family around me. They will to grow in turn, until soon the entire community is filled with that spirit of love and unity. It will move slowly at first, which requires patience on my part. But its momentum will grow steadily and soon, I will again experience that singularly perfect moment.
So, yeah. I’m a dreamer. But this world needs dreamers. It needs Dreamers and Doers. Men and women who will step up to that improbable task and believe in their ability to see it accomplished. I share all of these things with you in the hopes of helping build the momentum to see that dream become a reality. Even if you have but one moment this week, one instant, wherein you love perfectly or can look someone in the eye and embrace them unconditionally, then we are one step closer to building God’s City.
Look for these moments. Beg God to help you to experience them more and more frequently. And once you feel them, do all that you can to make yourself worthy of sharing that feeling with someone else. Is it hard?
Yes. Terribly so.
We have to give up so many of our short-sighted dreams, and so much of our imperfect selves in order to make this a reality. Can it be accomplished in this lifetime? Yes. One instant, one perfect moment and one moment of perfection at a time, we will build it until it becomes an eternal reality.
May God preserve and protect you, and may you experience that perfect moment of clarity this week – this is my prayer and desire for all who read this. I leave you in the name of our beloved Savior, even Jesus Christ.
Amen.
