The Written Word: A Priesthood of Memory

Hello everybody. I'm not going to moan too much about the fact that it's been THREE YEARS since I posted anything on this blog. I just feel I should start up again.

What brought this on?

Well, the world is changing. (Cue the LOTR music, and shots of the Elves in hooded cloaks gliding through the forests, passing away from Middle Earth.)

And there is no getting around the fact that I'm changing along with it. I-- I am astounded to realize-- am getting old.

I suppose I always knew theoretically that I would get old. But I'm embarassed to say I thought I would grow old the way Jack Lalanne grew old... swimming from San Francisco to Alcatraz pulling a boat with his teeth when he was 70. 

But guess what? I'm no Jack Lalanne. I will be lucky to make it to 70 with enough teeth to pull the crust off a grilled cheese sandwich. I pull myself out of bed in the morning. I pull myself up the stairs every night. In short...

I'm feeling it.

 When I lived at Marks Rd I had a program running in my nervous system that said every day would be like this, family and kids, forever.

In 1976 Mary was born. In 2006 Ben left for Utah State. I was a mom at home for over thirty years. But now I've moved on. I live in Hong Kong of all things!

Not that I'm departing anytime soon. 

But departing I am. Grow old we must.

  

I'm hoping I will be at all their baptisms, (if Ben gets married soon) but probably I won’t be at all their weddings.

The baptism of my first grandchild-Nikolai Wilson Hales.

My husband says I sound morbid. Don't mean to.  I'm definitely not depressed or sad about growing old. If God designed it this way, He had a good reason.

I also prefer to be realistic. No matter how much one would like to slow down time, the torch always passes to newer generations. 

I could not be more enthusiastic about those newer generations coming along behind me. I just spent a month with them, including a glorious  week at the beach with all my children and grandchildren. 

It was so, so much fun to play in the water and the sand, and paint the granddaughters' toenails pink and collect shells. All that is wonderful and I loved it.

Old and Young

But I was seeing things differently. I could hear something ticking in the background that I'd never heard before. Now once I started considering realistically the fact that I won't always be here, my mind went in some new directions.

I find myself mulling this over: If there is a torch to be passed, what kind of torch will it be? What will I pass on of values, or of faith, and knowledge? 

One thing I know is that I don't want to fade from their lives completely when I die. 

I like what I've learned in the school of experience we call life. I have wrestled a few angels and have the wisdom and the limp to show for it. (Gen 32:24-30)

A marvelous depiction of Jacob's wrestle with the angel by LDS artist Brian Kershisnik

Certainly, my children and my grandchildren will have to learn about God by wrestling their own angels, but it is also possible to learn from earthly angels. 
What would I have done without Grandma Mabel's love of the scriptures. And her shining faith that "earth has no sorrow, that heaven cannot heal."
These things guided me. 

What's more important than 
the connections we have to the people we love?
I guess I want a way for those connections to continue.

And the only way is writing.

Writing lasts. 

Writing is amazing. Writing is like magic.
Writing lets us make connections between generations.

Writing is, in fact, the second of the God-given powers of godliness--the first being the power to multiply and replenish the earth.

You might even say it's the first priesthood, speaking metaphorically.

You see priesthood, if you go back to the ancient roots, is about being an intermediary between God and man.  That's what priests did. By using their sacred authority to act in God's name, they could secure blessings to the people and make sacrificial offerings for them. They brought blessings down from God, and they brought the people up to God through covenants and they linked the two. 

Priesthood is always about a way to link up God with his people. Priesthood, like writing, is all about connections. 

Now if you want to look at something very old in a new way, consider this scripture:

And then began these men to call upon the name of the Lord, 

 and the Lord blessed them;                               

And a book of remembrance was kept, in the which was recorded, 

in the language of Adam, 

for it was given unto as many as called upon God 

to write by the spirit of inspiration;  

And by them their children were taught to read and write, 

having a language which was pure and undefiled. 

Now this same Priesthood, which was in the beginning, 

shall be in the end of the world also. 

Moses 6:5-7

Does that fascinate you like it does me? What could it mean: "Now this same priesthood...?"

The Technical Stuff: Read the small print only if, like me, this fascinates you.
Being the textualist that I am, I combed through the Book of Moses looking for any previous use of the word "priesthood," or a reference to some priesthood-type activity, to see what Moses 6:7 was referring to. Whatever the word "priesthood" is talking about here, it should be found somewhere in the text nearby--that's the basic rule of scripture texts. You can't assume it refers to your own conceptions or what you heard in a talk.  But there is nothing else in the text that we typically think of as priesthood related. Aaron and Melchizedek were thousands of years away. Cain had just killed Abel. The human race had barely gotten started.

If you allow yourself to think outside the box and think of priesthood in a larger way, then conceivably the "priestly" things referred to are receiving the gift of writing from God, "writing by inspiration", "keeping a book of remembrance" (or, i.e., "a book of the things you want remembered" since the family tree was pretty stubby in Adam's day for this to be a genealogical record!) and teaching children to read and write.

In combing my memory banks, I recollect Hugh Nibley talking about this sacredness of writing and how it was originally something that priests did, and  was inseparably connected to the idea of sacred texts.  (Anyone want to give me a H.N. reference?)

I love this idea myself. Writing is sacred.  Of course like all good things, it can be used for other purposes, but think what this gift has enabled man to do.

It has given us a way to overcome death's stroke of finality, as we record thoughts that will outlast our physical time on earth, and remain for our posterity. It has given us a way to have the word of God as light and truth in our lives.

Animals Don't Keep Journals 

And have you ever thought about how the gift of writing separates us from the animals? They can’t do this—they can’t record their thoughts and feelings.  They can’t leave behind wisdom for their descendants. There is no Book of the Elephants, no Tales of the Walrus. 

Each baby elephant goes through the very same life cycle that her mother, and her great-great-great grandmother did before her. And each time, there is nothing new about it. Our hypothetical baby elephant won’t know the past generations' stories. She can only know the ones she knows, and must depend on what they teach her and her own instincts. She can take no credit for those either. She is what she is, a creature of the present, like all the elephants before her.

Elephants 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

Henry, Maude and Isla

To live a human life, not an animal life, but a fully human life, and to learn from it and write down what you learned so that it persists after you die is a sacred gift-- a priesthood indeed-- for it enables men and women to connect beyond the physical limits and boundaries that death imposes. 

I like to think of it as the Priesthood of Memory.

We are individuals with names and unique stories, each one of us distinct from every other human that has ever lived. We leave a trace, or should I say, we can leave a trace and we should leave a trace. Unlike the animals, we can leave a record of ourselves.

 Do we dare not do it?

(Not my actual hand....yet.)

So to Niko and Eva and Luke and Livi and Hazel and Finn and Penn and Faye and Georgia....

I have lots and lots of things I want to tell you. Anyone else is welcome to listen in.

But that's enough for today, my dears. Nana needs a nap. 

You Should Pray About This

I had this experience when I was a young wife and mother.

I hope my youth at the time can be counted as

some measure of excuse for my folly.

But looking back, I still treasure the

lesson I learned “the hard way” and at such expense.

We had one baby and a new house.

It had the ugliest flocked fleur-de-lis wallpaper of all time, and

deep orange shag carpet to go with its avocado green appliances,

but it was ours and we loved it.

I would strip the wallpaper myself (quelle horreur!)

and slowly make the changes that brought the house more into line

with my up-to-date 80’s aesthetic.

Hours and Hours

(Cute legs, eh?)

It was a happy day when we had finally saved enough money

to think about replacing that orange shag carpet.

I’m not sure how I heard about the Saver’s Warehouse.

Maybe a radio ad. But it seemed like just what we needed:

a membership club, whose fee would allow you to buy

carpet, furniture, appliances, etc.,

for dealer’s cost plus 10%.

If we bought our carpet from them

we would save more than double the 600$ cost of the membership.

I went to their warehouse on a Tuesday.

The salesman showed me all the carpet sample books and before long

I was drooling over catalogues of new appliances as well.

This seemed like such a good deal.

Couldn't wait to get rid of this!

I left with a fist full of brochures and a contract to fill out.

It was on the drive home that I heard the Little Voice in my head.

“You should pray about this.”

I talked back to the voice.

“It’s obviously a good deal and just what we need right now. It adds up.

Some things are just plain good sense. You don’t need to pray about everything!”

My logic didn’t seem to sway the Little Voice.

“You really should pray about this.”

The fact that I was drooling should have been a clue. It’s called lust.

I think I also must have resented the implicit questioning 

of my good judgment. 

I had never made a “business decision” like this one before.

In fact, I had never spent 600$ dollars before.

And I knew what I was doing, thank you.

So I joined. I talked my sweet husband into it,

assuring him that we would

more than make up the money in the very next week.

I turned in my check on Wednesday.

On Friday I called up the salesman to ask a question.

The phone rang and rang.

Finally on Saturday, I drove over to see why no one was picking up the phone. The parking lot was empty. There was a sign on the door. It was a letter from a lawyer’s office with an address for people to send their claims to. The place was in bankruptcy. I stood there in shock.



Finally I wrote down the address of the lawyer’s office and went home. Somehow I knew that I wouldn’t be getting my 600$ back. I was at the very back of the line, wasn’t I?

600$ was a fortune to us then.

How I dreaded telling my poor husband what his brilliant wife had done!

The truth of Nephi’s words in 2 Nephi 32 resonated in my mind.

“Ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father… that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.” (32:9)

Why wouldn't the Lord want to bless my efforts to beautify my home? I was seeking to magnify my calling as a homemaker and that was a worthy goal. I remembered the words of a religion professor:

“If it matters to you, it matters to Him.”

I could have asked for protection and guidance over my efforts to decorate my home. That is precisely what I had needed.

It was just my silly pride that had prevented me. I was like a little two year old who wanted to do it “mine own self!”

The Inner Me

And the worst part was that I had to face The Voice.

 I had to get on my knees and confess my stubbornness and foolishness.

But lo and behold, the Lord’s promises work there too. For when we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins.” (John 1:9)

As I prayed I felt God’s love and comfort even as I felt his correction,

for He chasteneth whom He loveth.

I felt Him say, “See. I am trying to help you. Trust Me. You’ll do better next time.”

And I'm working on it.

The Road of Life Goes Up and Down

I kneel next to my bed in earnest prayer and there stretched out before me at the end of my arm, is a small scale diagram in flesh of my own journey through life, tracked out in the ridges of my own hand. “Oh Lord, here I am again,” that little graphic reminds me. “Down here in the ditch!”

Leave it to C.S. Lewis to give a name to our mortal propensity for a life of ups and downs. He called it the Law of Undulations (quaint phrase!) in his Screwtape Letters. And he properly explained why it is so important to understand this pattern of life.

If you don’t understand it, Satan has a subtle advantage. For when we are in the valleys of life, he can whisper in our minds, “Oh bummer. Rough stuff, you poor thing. You realize don’t you, that your life will be like this forever. It sucks now and always will. Stretching on out there in eternal bleakness. This dark mood will never change. The rain will never stop. This challenge will never get better. You will never be happy again.”




Our enemy operates not unlike the Dementors in Harry Potter, who glide about, tormenting their prisoners by causing them to relive their worst memories, and making them feel like they’d “never be cheerful again.”


When I hear of people taking their own lives, I know Satan laughs, and wonder if his whisperings were believed. But the message is a lie, as messages from the father of lies always are. For the sun comes out again. And you will not always feel the way you feel today.

Interestingly enough, he tells the same lie to those who are up on one of life’s mountaintops.



When life is at a high point for you, when you are feeling blessed and close to God, Satan is sure to try and get in this same whisper.
“Oh, congratulations. You just got baptized! (Or found true love, or had a spiritual experience, or a communications breakthrough. Whatever.) Well it’s nice to know that life will be good now. You certainly deserve it. What a great future you have to look forward to. It will be smooth sailing from now on!”



Of course you don’t fall for this, do you? You see the trap. As soon as life settles back down and the next serious bump in the road comes up, there’s the little imp, all ready with his line: “Oh darn. You’ve really blown it. It was too good to be true." Or, "You’re not really cut out to be a Mormon after all. (Or “love never lasts” or “you aren’t really the spiritual type,” or “Nothing good lasts in my family.”) Now you've got the proof. Don’t let yourself get fooled again. Might as well give up now and not set yourself up again.”

You see what he does. When we’re up he tries to convince us that we should always feel this good so that we will be devastated when life’s road curves inexorably down off the mountain top and back into the next valley. And when we’re down in some serious valley, he tries to discourage us by convincing us that life will remain unremittingly bleak from here to forever. Both are useful lies in his arsenal.

The antidote is truth. In truth, the road of life goes up and down. Some times the hills and valleys are gentle; sometimes it feels more like peaks and ravines. All life is cyclical. Energy, light, heat, all of it travels in waves. The earth cycles through spring, summer, fall, winter and then goes back to spring, summer, fall, winter. After the rain, the sun comes out. After stretches of sunny weather, storms will inevitably come again.

I can’t remember why I was in my room crying my eyes out one day when I was in my twenties, but I remember my dad poking his head in sympathetically and saying wisely, “It’s just weather of the soul, honey.” He knew.