A Land of Milk and Honey

I recently had a dream that was memorable enough that I remember it, funny how that works.

The dream was part of a pattern of dreams, and this one had myself, and others, gathering still more others to a building, not unlike a hotel, but not really like one either. 

Towards the end of the dream I was asked to talk to the youth of the group to give them some idea of what was going on.  I likened what we were doing to Lehi and his family, or even the Children of Israel, as they were preparing to leave.  As I was doing that, the phrase 'a land of milk and honey' came up in my mind.  About that time my physical body demanded a bio break and I got up to take care of things.

As I pondered the phrase in question, I quickly made the connection to the Milk of Mercy, that I allude to in a previous post.  With a little more pondering, the phrase " the Honey of the good pleasure of our Lord" came to mind.  Since the "Milk of Mercy" represents the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which begins with the Doctrine of Christ, that seems to lead to the "Honey of the good pleasure of our Lord" representing the manifold and manifest blessings that the Lord bestows upon those who partake of the "Milk of Mercy".

Sounds like a great description of Zion to me which is indeed, a land that flows with "Milk" and "Honey".

A short musing on polygamy

Anyone who tries to elucidate polygamy to an unknown audience is playing with fire, and will undoubtedly cause more problems that he/she solves.  With that in mind, I will mostly skirt the issue, but will say the following.

Men and women are designed for pairing, one on one.  This is all that is required to have seed (children).  The very fathers that we are to turn a remembrence of, practiced polygamy; two of them anyway, I don't believe that Isaac is credited with more than one wife.  The polygamous marriages of Abraham and Jacob do give some clues worth noting. Neither sought their first polygamous wife. Circumstance conspired against their intentions and provided them with more than one wife.

With that said, I'm going to bail on the subject and suggest that we, like Abraham and Jacob not seek for more than one wife.  If Isaac did indeed have only one wife, as seems to be, we should emulate him when it come to marriage.

I also think we ought to pay very close attention to Jacob's words on the subject in the Book of Mormon.

Why the Endowment?

It would probably be useful to indicate why I spend so much thought on the endowment.

The scriptures are full of what are termed theophanies.  Other terms are Redemption,  receiving the Second Comforter and such. In short, it is when you meet Christ and are testified to, by Him, that your sins are forgiven and you are accepted back into His presence.  This will also include an offer of something that you desire (i.e. Solomon requesting wisdom) and a commission to represent Him to others.  This is how prophets are called by God.

As part of this experience, you are given an explanation of how things are organized and what your place in all of this is.  We have part of this experience captured in the Book of Moses, in the Pearl of Great Price.  The endowment is the Reader's Digest version of this experience, tailored for our weakness and mostly protected by symbolism.  Doing work for the dead, gives you an opportunity to review things as your own experiences give you more insight with which to puzzle out the things of God.

The Grand Key for understanding the endowment comes about half way through when you are instructed to consider your selves as though you were Adam or Eve.  This story is your story, told symbolically through the lives of our first parents.

Now, why does this matter?  This life is designed to be a place where evil can seem to have equal footing with good.  Your life will be one of encountering evil, and it's effects, and good and it's effects.  As you begin to orient your life towards the good, evil will become more compelling.  It is meant to be this way.  It must be a struggle.  Within the endowment, in the form of the covenants, are the "correct" choices if you want to return from where we fell.  That they are the right answers will not necessarily be obvious, but that obscurity is important to the struggle which is this life.

Your own theophany will be when you have sufficiently integrated correct living into your being.  You will still do stupid things, out of ignorance, or misdiagnosing a situation, but your character will be sufficiently Godlike for you to be welcomed home.  Yes, you will still need to be forgiven, we all do.  As long as you remain in mortality, you will still periodically do stupid stuff, requiring you to be forgiven again, and again (see Joseph in the D&C).  The caveat here is that willful disobedience will not receive forgiveness until you've paid the full price, once the Lord has welcomed you Home.

Willful disobedience after receiving your Second Comforter/Redmption is nearly impossible to return from, not because it is really impossible, but because you have already dismissed that life, knowing it intimately. This is what is captured in the story of Cain, who did all that was required to return home, and then decided he wanted something else instead. It is also how Satan fell from his previously high station.

Marks

Just a note to mention that the marks in the garment are synchronous with the signs.

Begin with the right breast.  This mark is unfortunately backwards and should remind you of the first sign, or what a person is doing with their right hand/arm when making the sign.

Next is the mark at the knee.  This placement signifies the significant nature of the fall and should remind you of what you are doing with your right hand when making the sign for the second token.

The next mark is the one in the navel.  This should remind you of what you are doing with your left hand when making the sign for the third token.  From the position of the navel, it indicates a partial return from whence we came.

Lastly is the sign for the fourth token, on the left breast.  It should remind you of the what both of your hands are doing when you begin the sign for the fourth token.  It should be noted that this mark has come back to the level of the first mark, indicating a return to where you began.

Signs

I'm aware that the section on signs is somewhat obtuse, so I'll try to add a little clarity here.

There are four actions indicated by the various signs.  They are:

1.  Seeking attention.
2.  Receiving something.
3.  Giving something.
4.  Reaching from above and bringing to below.

Now, if you know the signs, then I would ask you:

Which side of the body is being represented for that action?
How does that action represent the stage you are completing?

I hope this helps.

Anonymity

Anonymity

Although I've addressed this a bit in the previous post, I thought to add some insight into why I currently choose anonymity.

I realize that I will not be able to maintain my anonymity forever, in fact the first to view this blog will probably be friends who know me.  However, I feel it is important that my ideas have a chance to stand on their own merit, and not on any preconceptions around who I am and what titles I may, or may not have.

With that said, Lets add some musings to the previous ones:

For those interested in pursuing the penalties that are no longer in the endowment, I would suggest the following names be used to try and understand their meaning and relation to the story being told.  Consider them as representing things you reject by rejecting the covenants:

1. Breath of LIfe.

2. Milk of Mercy.

3. Without Seed.

Now, onto the Washings and Annointings:

Here, like the endowment itself, you will find four stages.  These parallel the Endowment and add detail and meaning.

You start in a room. Consider this the Garden of Eden, From there you proceed to a different room where you are washed/baptized.  Next is another room where you receive your annointings/endowment.  Then is another room where you receive your new garment/resurrected body.  From there you return to the room representing the Garden of Eden/Celestial realms.

The Endowment

The following is a recent work, having it's genesis about 4 years ago, and will differ in some respects to my previous post.  My wife was instrumental in it's final form (pictures, section on types and various re-wordings), which concluded last year.  It's subject is the endowment, with some other random musings included.  Format is .pdf.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0huOBplms1BU0hiMFNVa0Ywd2s