At first flash of Eden[1]Per the tenth Article of Faith, when Christ returns to “reign personally upon the earth, […] the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.” We were all cast out of … Continue reading
We raced down to the sea[2]As Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick, Noah’s flood still has not subsided; it covers three-fourths of the Earth. We still have not fully emerged from the Baptism of the Earth. It is to the … Continue reading
Standing there on freedom’s shore[3]“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).
Waiting for the sun[4]Homonym, too, for “Waiting for the Son,” the Son of God, who will also shine over this Earth bright as the sun, such that we will have “no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to … Continue reading
Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun
Can’t you feel it[5]“The gospel is a feeling” Alvin R. Dyer accurately stated–something you sense and feel, not reason out.
Now that Spring has come[6]The Doors were very clearly and self-consciously re-enacting ancient Pagan motifs in their music, right down to their Bacchanalias and nature-worship here on this track. Many a critic of … Continue reading
That it’s time to live in the scattered sun?
Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting[7]Is that not also what all Christians have been doing for over 2,000 years now? Is that not what we as Latter-day Saints are supposed to be actively doing in the here and now? Nibley said that the … Continue reading
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting
Waiting for you to come along
Waiting for you to hear my song[8]As oft-quoted Alma 5:26 also reminds us, “if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?”
Waiting for you to come along
Waiting for you to tell me what went wrong[9]We cannot accept His mercy until we first accept His justice; that is, we cannot repent of our sins until we first acknowledge that we have sinned, that we have done “wrong.”
This is the strangest life I’ve ever known[10]“For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act” … Continue reading
Can’t you feel it
Now that Spring has come
That it’s time to live in the scattered sun?[11]The Celestial Kingdom is as the glory of the Sun, we are repeatedly taught; yet as any child can tell you, it is nigh impossible to stare into the sun without blinding ourselves. We are not ready to … Continue reading
Waiting for the sun[12]“Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 25:13).
Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun
Waiting for the sun[13]Confusingly not from their 1968 album Waiting for the Sun, but from The Doors’ 1970 album Morrison Hotel. Jim Morrison passed away at the tender age of 27 only a year later, which bought him … Continue reading
References
| ↑1 | Per the tenth Article of Faith, when Christ returns to “reign personally upon the earth, […] the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.” We were all cast out of Eden, yet with our end goal being to return to Eden (as the Temple Endowment teaches us). Indeed, a yearning for the annual renewal of Spring is itself metonymic for a yearning for the Earth itself to at long last be renewed back into Eden. |
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| ↑2 | As Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick, Noah’s flood still has not subsided; it covers three-fourths of the Earth. We still have not fully emerged from the Baptism of the Earth. It is to the sea, then, that we must look again to our baptism. |
| ↑3 | “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1). |
| ↑4 | Homonym, too, for “Waiting for the Son,” the Son of God, who will also shine over this Earth bright as the sun, such that we will have “no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelations 21:23). Is that not what we are supposed to do as Latter-day Saints as well? Is that not the whole raison d’etre of Easter in the first place? |
| ↑5 | “The gospel is a feeling” Alvin R. Dyer accurately stated–something you sense and feel, not reason out. |
| ↑6 | The Doors were very clearly and self-consciously re-enacting ancient Pagan motifs in their music, right down to their Bacchanalias and nature-worship here on this track. Many a critic of Christianity, especially since James Fraser’s The Golden Bough, has made merry over the fact that our most sacred holidays were themselves mere adaptations of much older Pagan festivals, e.g. Christmas was but an appropriation of the Roman Saturnalia, and Easter–with its eggs and rabbits and baskets and other sundry fertility symbols all observed on the first Sunday after the first Full Moon of the Spring Equinox–was also obviously adapted from a pre-Christian festival.
But then, could not the inverse argument also be made: that these Spring festivals were themselves a yearning for an annual renewal that we all spiritually intuit must literally come to pass with the resurrection and the earth returning to its paradisaical glory? When Christ was crucified then resurrected, was that not enacting in reality what all the ancient festivals merely hoped for? As Paul said to the Athenians, “He whom he ignorantly worship, declare I unto you!” That is, did Christian Easter merely glom onto an ancient festival, or fulfill it? |
| ↑7 | Is that not also what all Christians have been doing for over 2,000 years now? Is that not what we as Latter-day Saints are supposed to be actively doing in the here and now? Nibley said that the primitive Church was a “Church of Anticipation”; so, too, is the Restored Church—or at least, we’re supposed to be. |
| ↑8 | As oft-quoted Alma 5:26 also reminds us, “if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?” |
| ↑9 | We cannot accept His mercy until we first accept His justice; that is, we cannot repent of our sins until we first acknowledge that we have sinned, that we have done “wrong.” |
| ↑10 | “For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act” (Isaiah 28:21). Remember that our strangest and most peculiar ritual–the Temple Endowment ceremony–is explicitly intended to prepare us to live the Law of Consecration; that is, to live the United Order, where “all that believed were together, and had all things in common. And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need” (Acts 2:44-45), where we will “[have] all things common,” where there will “not [be] rich and poor, bond and free, but […] all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift” (4 Nephi 1:3), a state of affairs so utterly alien to our current globalized economy as to be nigh incomprehensible. Nevertheless, that is precisely the “strange work,” what Morrison called “the strangest life,” that we are purportedly supposed to be preparing ourselves for! |
| ↑11 | The Celestial Kingdom is as the glory of the Sun, we are repeatedly taught; yet as any child can tell you, it is nigh impossible to stare into the sun without blinding ourselves. We are not ready to live in the sun, nor with the Son; we must by degrees prepare ourselves to live within it, for this immense and overpowering, frightening and terrifying joy. |
| ↑12 | “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 25:13). |
| ↑13 | Confusingly not from their 1968 album Waiting for the Sun, but from The Doors’ 1970 album Morrison Hotel. Jim Morrison passed away at the tender age of 27 only a year later, which bought him some martyrdom worship for at least a few decades afterwords; finally, however, by the time the 21st century rolled around, he had officially shifted from hero to punchline of the “Classic Rock” era so-called. His fans and evangelists finally became their own worst enemy, their pretentiousness and faux-profundity having the paradoxical effect of making his music sound ridiculous. At this point, even those few remnant Gen Zers who harbor any sort of affection for the increasingly-distant “Classic Rock” era more likely to be fans of The Rolling Stones, scarcely even acknowledging The Doors even existed, let alone remembering them well enough to mock them.
And yet, and yet. Jim Morrison’s self-destructive antics on stage directly inspired Iggy Pop of the Stooges, who in turn inspired the entire genre of Punk Rock directly after him. Besides, after a solid half-century, it feels a little gauche to still speak ill of the dead. There are far worse people to worry about than an old rocker who partied too hard in the ’60s nowadays. Selah. |