As a pre-mission teenager studying at Brigham Young University, I took a number of religion classes. It has been satisfying to look over some of the papers I wrote for those classes and to see how my understanding and writing style have progressed. While this text certainly doesn’t represent my best work, I thought I’d include it here just for fun.
Some folks see streets of gold and white pearly gates when they envision heaven, but not me; my celestial kingdom will look a lot like Provo without the road construction. I’ll spend my time walking aimlessly and admiring the snow on top of Mount Timpanogos without a care in the world, my thoughts wandering from my friends to my house to what girl I like, and then back again. Since I’m supposed to be progressing, I suppose I’ll occasionally think about the gospel and what I can do to improve myself, but I’d much rather leave my mind in its naturally empty state. After all, I’ll have all of eternity to ponder those things.
Sometimes I just can’t wait so I pretend I’m already there. The other day I was doing just that — walking amid the beautiful fall leaves and letting my mind wander freely in the stadium parking lot. It wasn’t quite heaven, though, for two reasons. First, the Cougars had lost in that stadium the previous week. In heaven they’ll always win, except when they play Ricks. Then the winner will be about as hard to predict as the day of the second coming; “no man knoweth the outcome.” Second, I wasn’t very happy with how I was progressing. I felt like I needed to work on some things and I wasn’t quite sure how to improve myself. Then an angel whispered the answer in my ear: stop thinking about football and learn to use the priesthood.
“Well that’s a great idea,” I thought to myself, “After all, it seems to me that every time men magnify their priesthood they get just a little bit more handsome, and I can use all the help I can get in that department!”
My little heaven vanished away as I was dragged back to earth and my Intensive Writing research paper. It seems like I’m always forgetting the things I learn in heaven when I get caught up in worldly things like tests and assignments and research papers. My mind is as messy as my bedroom, and my thoughts of self-improvement got lost in the clutter just like my church socks.
Then on Sunday a miracle happened. I’m not talking about one of those fake miracles you always hear about, like when your mother says you’re so scatter-brained that it’s a miracle you can even remember your own name, or when your choir teacher tells his entire fourth period class that you’re “eccentric” and that it’s a miracle that you can survive in the real world at all. I’m talking about a genuine, real-life miracle.
It was dark outside as I sat alone in my living room. If my porch light hadn’t cast it’s warm glow on the ground just outside my room I might have thought my apartment had somehow been removed from its foundation and was adrift in space, all isolated and alone in the heavens. Then a young lady and her boyfriend burst through my door, proving that I wasn’t as secluded as I thought. The young man was tall and sort of stoic looking; he kind of reminded me of Spock from the old Start Trek series without the pointy ears. The lady was pretty despite the tears that ran down her cheeks and smeared her mascara. The murky, tear-smeared makeup around her eyes seemed a fitting analogy for the sadness in her soul.
In an emotional voice that betrayed my first impression, the man asked, “Are you worthy to give a priesthood blessing?”
“Well that sure is a strange question,” I thought to myself. “It’s kind of like when someone asks you if your fly is up. You sure hope you’ve prepared yourself well enough that you can say yes.”
A little bit hesitant, I cautiously replied, “Yeah.”
“My girlfriend needs a blessing. Will you give her one?”
After I told him I would we began to prepare. Because the blinds in my living room were broken, we decided to perform the blessing in the kitchen where we could have our privacy. The dirty dishes seemed a little bit out of place, but I decided to ignore them as I had been doing for several weeks.
When my Bishop gives a blessing in church he always asks the brethren to “come stand in the circle.” I was a little bit worried because there were only two of us to bless the young woman; we were more like a priesthood line then a circle. Fortunately the Spirit came and joined us.
The room fell silent as we all placed our hands on her head. I felt a little bit like my little sister Kelsey Kay when she gives a prayer in primary; her teacher always comes up and whispers the prayer in her ear so she won’t forget anything important. The Spirit, standing in the circle next to me, whispered the important stuff in my ear, too. The words came easily and, as I was blessing her with comfort, something unexpected happened.
Sometimes I get frustrated with myself because I can’t remember very much from my preearth life. I know, I know; you’re not supposed to be able to remember anything. It’s a “veil of forgetfulness.” Even still, it seems to me that every once in a while, if I concentrate really hard, I can almost remember a little bit about what it was like. Back then we didn’t have physical eyes, but we could see each other in a different way. Our spiritual vision was much more reliable; we could look past the “I-can’t-believe-she-wore-that” outfit and the messy hairdo and see the goodness of every child of God written right there on their spirits. As I was blessing the young lady Heavenly Father opened my eyes just a little bit and let me see a little sliver of the way she really is, the way He sees her.
I didn’t know really know the woman I was blessing, and I’m not going to tell you that the Lord revealed everything about her to me in that instant; it wasn’t like that at all. Even after the blessing I didn’t know who she was, but I knew what she was. She was a child of God. The scripture about the worth of souls — you know the one I’m talking about — is very misleading. Each person’s worth isn’t just great in the sight of God; it’s infinite. My grandma always says that “Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” but I proved her wrong that day. Despite the dirty dishes, that kitchen was Celestial.
After the blessing the young lady had different kinds of tears in her eyes. Following a brief thank you, she and her boyfriend vanished back into the darkness from which they had come.
Fortunately, the Spirit stayed. I couldn’t help but say another prayer to thank Heavenly Father for letting me bless his daughter in just the right way. As I proceeded, He sent me some of that “pure intelligence” Joseph Smith was always talking about. I suddenly remembered my thoughts in the parking-lot heaven of the previous week.
I think I’m kind of strange because the only time a feel a “burning in my bosom” is the night after I buy a polish dog at the Cougar Eat. For me, feeling the Spirit is more like when my leg falls asleep. The tingly feeling starts up in my head and slowly spreads down through the rest of my body until I feel like I’m charged with spiritual electricity. That’s what happened after I was reminded, and I was so overwhelmed that I almost started to cry.
It has always amazed me that Heavenly Father has so much to do. He has to keep track of all the sparrows and each and every hair of each and every person’s head, and I’d imagine it must be kind of tricky to keep all the planets in their orbits, too. But despite all these more important things on his to-do list, he cares enough about me to take the time to give me just the right experiences. I needed to understand something about priesthood, and He taught me just what I needed to know. I’ll always remember feeling God’s love for the young lady as I gave her a blessing of comfort. His interest in my life makes me think that maybe He loves me almost as much as He loves her, and sometimes, if I squint my spiritual eyes really hard, I can glimpse a sliver of that love, too.