Enjoying the Lord’s Spirit at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Dedication
August 23, 2009
5:34 p.m. Phil and I attended the final session of the dedicatory services for the Oquirrh Mountain temple at 3:00 p.m., today. Earlier in the day I had honestly expressed to the Lord my divided feelings about going, much in the spirit or manner of the man who admitted his imperfect faith to the Savior in Mark 9:24. I felt/ “heard”/perceived the thought (which I trust to be His thought) come into my mind and invite me to attend with Him. “We” will attend as one, He offered me to understand. And in “that spirit,” I went.
As soon as Phil and I sat down and began watching the images of the beautiful rooms in that temple, I was moved to tears, and in the eyes of my understanding, I saw not a negative impression or vision of what the Church spending this kind of money could be seen as, but instead I saw the most positive interpretation come into my understanding. Here’s what I wrote in my notebook: To know, as God does, that we are all so imperfect, and yet to offer us such a vision–such a tangible symbol! To provide for us the way and the means for us to worship Thee dear Lord with all our “might” and “strength” (our wealth and physical efforts.)
And then I became conscious of the words the Tabernacle Choir was singing in the background. I can’t remember the specific song, right now, but it’s lyrics spoke of such an ideal image of family and mortal life. And then tears really came up in my eyes, because I was seeing in the eyes of my understanding how much I–me, myself–love this Church for the way the God of our understanding does just that–holds those kind of ideals up in front of our minds, continually. Holding the ideal expression of human development and family life up in front of the whole world.
I know I have struggled mightily at times with the absolute fact that we are–none of us–even though we try to hope and pretend to be–living up to that ideal. We all fall short, and some of us fall very short–and some of us even use the ideals in the Church to hide horrible personal wicked intents and motives. Nevertheless, and not withstanding (trying to deny any of that), we are still the bearers of the “Greatest Story Ever Told,” – and that story includes not only our Savior’s living reality still every bit as available to us as possible through the gifts of the Spirit–it also includes our own amazing story. And I saw in the eyes of my understanding that it is that story–the one about us coming from the Celestial realms and being literal offspring of our a Man and Woman who have obtained Godhood, and being on an epic adventure here (ALL of us, without exception), and needing to rely wholly upon the merits of our Elder Brother to get us out of here and Home again—all of that amazing story is true. And that’s the story the LDS faith is holding up to the world, and that’s the story that the endowment represents–and tells us over and over and over again–hoping that we will someday wake up to the fact that it’s OUR OWN PERSONAL story too.
In the eyes of my understanding I saw, and with my spiritual mind/ears I heard the witness of the Lord that this ideal story is the REAL reality, and that the mortal reality is the “false” (as in very temporary, mock-up, scale model) reality.
Then the Spirit of the Lord brought to my attention the pictures of Minerva Teichert that adorn that temple’s wall (and others, of course), and then He reminded me of Minerva’s life–that she was so full of passion for her own vision of her art and in her lifetime it was hardly recognized by anyone. In fact, “the Church” (administered as well as peopled by less than perfect members) didn’t see the value in her work. But she didn’t let that stop her. She knew and she knew that God knew she knew her mission was to paint her heart out–no matter what others thought of her work. She was not a “cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all” Mormon woman, that’s for sure. She believed in herself and she knew God believed in her, too. And that’s all that mattered to her. And today, her paintings are honored to be part of the tangible worship service the temples represent.
Then the opening song began: “Holy Temples on Mount Zion” and these words rang through to my heart: “To our glorious King Emmanuel, . . . Let the mountains shout for joy . . . for the prisoners shall go free.” And my mind and heart was filled with the miracle of what I have witnessed in the 18 years since He Did Deliver Me from Bondage demonstrated the compatibility of the Twelve Steps with the principles of the gospel to the LDS community, and since HtH started its very minuscule but very sincere effort to create a safe place for LDS members to gather who were ready to admit complete defeat in battling their weaknesses and were willing to come unto Christ to find the power they could not muster on their own. And here we are, today, still doing whatever we can to keep that vision and dream going. We are truly all prisoners that have gone free and have every reason to shout right along with the mountains to our King Emmanuel (God with us), our Jesus (2 Nephi 33:6).
And all this before the opening prayer was even given!
And then in talk after talk I heard the “usual” stories rehearsed–of the families who had sacrificed so much to come to a temple. 27 hours one way for a family in South America to travel to the Buenos Aries temple. They made it, were sealed to their several children, but lost two to illness on their trip home. They had to bury them along the way. My goodness! It sounds like a story from 150 years ago!! And then a story about a bus load of Ecuadorian Saints who were held up at the border for 2 extra days (for a total of 5 days on the bus) to get through to attend the temple in Peru. They arrived in the middle of the night and when the temple president got a call that they were in town and headed up the hill to the temple, he rushed to the temple and had all the outside lights turned back on for them. When he entered the bus to greet them, everyone was in tears.
And I sat there and listened to these stories and I observed how “temporal” all these things are. They are all about “signs.” The sign of that first family’s devotion. The sign the temple president made by lighting the temple up at 3 in the morning for that bus load of weary members. And I was tempted to think somewhat negatively of all this temporal, physical demonstration of faith, all these actions and all this “big deal” being made around temporal things–and such costly things, too–as the physical symbols of the temples and even the physical symbolism that we enact in their rooms. And I felt the Lord so very, very patiently and tenderly whisper to me in the stillest and meekest of “voices,” and say spirit to spirit and heart to heart: Colleen, I meet my children at their level, at their needs. What you see taking place in my Church–all of the doing and the temporal, physical sign giving and sign-seeking is tailored to the exact needs of my children. You have my testimony of that. . . . And I was humbled and I was straightened and I saw that it is true. I saw that I can trust that everything that is happening in this Church is happening for a tender and compassionate and patient and longsuffering purpose in the Father’s and the Savior’s love for us–for we are just children to them. And like all children, we need structure and we need lots of repeated instructions and we need lots of patience and mercy. And like children, we get kind of “full-of-ourselves” and think we know better than others, . . . and sometimes (in my case, at least) better than the Lord.
Believe me, this was a most amazing temple dedication ceremony to attend. My heart is turned to the temple in a way I’ve never felt the depths and breadth and height of before. I am grateful to be LDS. I am grateful for a God that is this loving and patient and kind to His children–especially to this child.
I share this experience in the spirit of testimony and in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
