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Daily experience is revelation. We are moving right now from the Rio Grande valley to the edge of the plains. The experience has shed light on two parts of the gospel.

     Death

Moving homes is the death of a lot of dreams. The Lovely One and I keep thinking of things we meant to do here but haven’t. One or two we’ve squeezed in. The rest are gone now. That neighbor we keep intending to make friends with, now we won’t. A lot of these dreams have tangible form. As we clean out our home, we keep finding old projects we have to throw out.

We have to, because over the years. we have set up too many. Some of them are even incompatible with each other. But getting rid of them abandon a dream of how we could be. It is the death of future selves.

It is sad and hard to do. It is also good for us. We are taking stock and stripping down. “Fish or cut bait,” as the saying goes.

The business cycle is good for firms for the same reason.

I suggested recently that with infinite time a man could do anything. And he could. But he wouldn’t. With infinite time nothing would be done. A man would just wade deeper and deeper into habits and trifles. He would believe, with reason, that the next era would be plenty of time to do things different. But like tomorrow, the next era never come/

The Lord gave death to Adam and Eve lest they live forever in their sins. I understand that better now.

 

Roles

We were back in our Rio Grande valley congregation this weekend and will be for a couple more weeks. Moving requires a bit of back and forth.

 

The problem is that we said our goodbyes last week-end. None of our friends know how to treat us and we don’t then how to act either. We haven’t been gone long enough to be visitors or old friends returned. But we aren’t part of the sociality anymore either. It’s awkward all around.

In our new countryside, on the other hand, we are by no means settled. We don’t even know what congregation we’ll end up in. But relations with folks are not constrained by awkwardness at all: We are going to be here long-term, which stabilizes the relationships. Roles are known.

The afterlife doesn’t sound restful. The Father says that his glory is work. Yet the scriptures call it eternal rest.

The afterlife doesn’t sound immobile either. In my copy of the scriptures, angels and even the Godhead keep popping up hither and yon. Yet those same scriptures say heaven is where we enter in to never go out more.

What gives?

There is a Connolly novel that isn’t much good because it doesn’t live up to its promise. It hardly could. The book’s promise is this: it starts out with a man disappearing. He leaves a note behind: I found out who I am.

When I read that line, my hair stood on end.

Heaven is where you know who you are. Even the damned, or for Mormons the quasi-damned, bend the knee and rejoice. Heaven is where all the relationships last. Roles can be sure. All players are repeat players. Everyone has infinite skin in the game.


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