Family Reunion

I am resolved to attend the gathering this weekend in Grand Mesa, making the 12-hour drive today from Southern California to Colorado (with a pit stop overnight in Las Vegas). I am not seeking Jesus in the desert or a spiritual epiphany on a snowy mountain top. I am not going to hear a prophet's voice or to give a sermon. (Though I may do all of those things!) I am endeavoring to be among friends to lend my support to the burgeoning fellowship of believers in Christ who acknowledge and embrace the restoration of the fulness of the gospel begun through Joseph Smith.

If our gathering together in Christ's name welcomes and invites His presence and Spirit among us, so be it.

It is expedient to know one's course is approved of God. I wish to find (and stay on!) that strait and narrow path attended to by the Holy One of Israel. (See 2 Nephi 9:41.) I suspect I will spend many years yet with my family, travailing in the "wilderness", forsaking the world as we strive to learn humility, to exercise faith in God, to obey His commandments and follow His directives, that we might "qualify" and prepare for the Promised Land, to become "Zion".

I recognize that, in this life, weakness and corruption are our common (and continuous!) lot. But the love of God and truth are perfect, and our intentions to embrace both and follow God can be. I believe that through the atonement of Christ I (and my family) may be saved. Ultimately I wish for us to be proven, to be judged "faithful" and "worthy" by Christ Himself, whereby He undertakes to make a covenant with us to do whatever it takes to see that we receive and experience all that is necessary for us to experience eternal life with Him.

Fortunately, He has already done the "heavy" lifting: by bearing the burdens which His Father placed upon Him; by being lifted upon a cross for our sakes; and by lifting Himself (and the world) from death by walking out of that tomb.

Now it is incumbent upon us to do our part and follow Him.

During this trip I plan to partake of the Lord's Supper as it was originally administered, using the emblems Christ originally authorized and established. I will be doing this for the first time in 53 years. I confess it causes me no small amount of trepidation. I am loath to "break with tradition" and embrace a practice that has been discouraged, even condemned, by my former peers and religious leaders. Over many years I have embraced layers of disbelief, the traditions of men, and "false" religious practices, preventing me from "seeing" and coming unto Christ.

5 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. (Isaiah 24:5)

Did not Christ ordain that water could be used in place of wine to administer the sacrament, for expedience? (See D&C 27:2.) But, by our traditions, have we embraced that exception to make it the rule?

Did not Christ command us to not take our enemies to court or revile again, but to give to them who ask and not to cast any out, to bless and not to curse, but to forgive and turn the other cheek? Do we do this? Or do we transgress His laws by making exceptions to the rule?

Were we not once administered temple ordinances that involved the taking of oaths (with implied penalties), with washing and anointing of bodies in fact and not just symbolically? Did we change those ordinances for expedience? So that old men and women (and those who couldn't do so) might not be asked to stand and sit repeatedly? So that unbelievers might not criticize oaths and penalties? So that the litigious and fearful and misunderstanding and aggrieved might not sue the Church when they were touched underneath a veil? So that the carnal might not succumb to temptation and pervert the right ways of the Lord? Were all these things changed and done away with, thereby breaking the everlasting covenant?

I am amazed that I am yet so fearful to do what Christ has plainly taught and commanded because, over years, I have embraced and followed those who taught for doctrines the commandments of men. I confess I have, to some extent, exhibited false pride in being a member of the "Not Even Once Club", to my detriment.

For example, I have never once imbibed coffee, tea, or alcohol or used tobacco since I first joined the LDS Church.

But I have also never once partaken of the sacrament as Christ originally commanded.

Things once given not by commandment or by constraint have generally become "the rule" and have supplanted my worship of Christ in many ways, even preventing me from partaking of the symbols of our Lord's death and sacrifice with my friends and family. My religion, to some degree, has become (and still is) a loathsome parody and a stumbling block, preventing me from fully worshipping and fully following Christ.

That has got to end.

Those scales of darkness and disbelief -- the traditions and teachings of men masquerading as the doctrine of Christ -- must be cast off.

I hope I have better success and become more inclined and equipped to do so by making this "pilgrimage" this weekend.

Wish me luck! I hope to see many of you there.