Margaret Barker

Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear .........

    I'm busy now in deep reading of Margaret Barker's many publications, conferences and in time I will plod through her authored books.  Amazing!
Cannot begin to capsulize what she herself writes/states in the manner in which she is able to cram so much information within two or three sentences.   Her books have been described as dense.  I read a review that recommended reading one of her earlier books as a means of working up to reading her more recent books, otherwise it may feel like a fire hose pouring forth information.   I agree with that review.

    In the truest sense of the words, I can now without hedging or doing so in a workaround manner, I can say that indeed, Joseph Smith was a prophet in line with definitions of O.T. prophets.  I can say indeed, the Book of Mormon is another testament as are many of the texts on which I believe Joseph Smith based his Book of Mormon, texts not published in what became the canonical bible.  I believe indeed that the LDS reference to the one true church may well be enlightened by Margaret Barker's amassed work on Temple study and will enlighten the listener to appreciate the earlier Temple as believed to be the true testament.    I can appreciate the idea of a restoration, of church, of Priesthood.  And I believe powerfully that Mother in Heaven exists with her hosts, and is hidden still -- and for a reason.

print of painting by Judy Law, 1991.  

     As I observe the Liturgy and Eucharist with newly imbued meanings in one Church, I also offer my testimony in another Church not as a mimic of testimonies I've heard to date, more with a hope that the testimonies I have heard to date convey within their oft repeated refrains the depth conveyed by Margaret Barker in pulling back the veil to reveal to all who will have eyes to see and ears to hear ....

   I'm not an easy sell, and if it takes multiple sources for me to get to a place, it is God most High marking out an individual path for me to get to the fullness of the Divine.  Those many dangling concepts hinted at and not fully revealed in the canonical books of the bible, both O.T. and N.T that have puzzled me for years seem to reveal themselves in the sense of a brilliant light coming on, rapidly, maybe too suddenly, un-nerving in blindness, and I've had only a few days to be with myself to take in these many revelations.

  Even so, it feels like a truth, a hidden truth making itself known, not in the suddenness sense of a conversion, more in line with years and years of personal preparation.  That said, the immediacy of the Saul to Paul conversion takes on new light for me.

   I've heard it preached in one Church that we are all standing in a historical time, and we can't yet know the the directions religion may take, but he was certain the direction would point to Jesus.  What he said and what I heard might be two different things, but his sermon that day gave me hope, a real sense of hope.  While it may not manifest itself in my lifetime, it is a hopeful thing for me that as the historical cycling of religion takes on another radical turn,  the Divine will emerge yet again in different form, perhaps, and Jesus will still be the core of the spiritual divinity.

  In her own words and her many works - Margaret Barker.com
(a significant endorsement of her work:  In July 2008 Marrgaret Barker was awarded a DD by the Archbishop of Canterbury 'in recognition of her work on the Jerusalem Temple and the origins of Christian Liturgy, which has made a significantly new contribution to our understanding of the New Testament and has opened up important fields for research'

Bearing testimony and bearing my testimony

It's been a year and a half since I was baptized into this Church.  It's been an internally tumultuous journey for me to come into this church so late in my life with a lifetime of experiences, spiritual connections.  I think I've examined so much literature dealing with the historicity of the Church, examined the online material of so many of those who are or have become disaffected with their membership in the Church upon learning of historical events, shared with them in their grieving for their loss, and I became convinced it was unlikely I could fully become a part of this Church.  I was content to carve out a space for myself in empathy, support for the many that also must carve out a non-traditional space for themselves in the context of the Church.

Until this past Sunday, when I for the first time conveyed my 'testimony' because I could in great part because of this Sunstone article written and/or contributed by David Knowlton in April 1991.  As I've heard repeatedly throughout the past two decades this business of a testimony is a huge element of the LDS Church faith.  And as I've heard the acts of giving testimony primarily in the Ward where currently attend, it goes something like this:

'I'd like to bear my testimony that I know this Church is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that this is the restored church on the earth -- and sometimes there will be an add on variance that might include atonement (ending with In the name of Jesus Christ)"

These are not words that I can say easily as they are not my core beliefs.  Therefore I have acknowledged aloud repeatedly that I have a non-traditional 'testimony', and so the members know that I am working on gaining a testimony.  I think I already have one, it just won't sound like the words the members at my Ward are used to hearing.  It's one of those elements that I recognize is important to the membership, and yet I do not appreciate in fullness what is meant by having a testimony from their perspectives.  For me what I have to say as my testimony works, and yet I somehow understand that it doesn't work for the membership, who simply politely let me struggle with the concept.

A year and a half later, upon reading the David Knowlton article; 'Belief, Metaphor, and Rhetoric: The Mormon Practice of Bearing Testimony Bearing' it brought light for me in the matter of how Mormons have and share their personal testimony.  I came to understand that the act of it is so much more significant to the person bearing testimony and those hearing it than the words can begin to convey.  My take away was a nodding of my head saying to myself - I understand - and thank you David Knowlton for taking the time to think this through and write the article.

What I understand is that while indeed this is a ritualistic practice which I recognized and wondered how it came to be that the Church teaches they do not practice ritual as a kind of a protest against the other churches that do practice rituals when in fact they do practice a form of ritual - just different than other churches.   In the absence of rituals as for example in the Liturgy of the Episcopal and Catholic Church, or the coming forth to be saved in some of the Protestant churches, the bearing of the testimony is in effect that salvific moment of feeling the Spirit, the presence of God in self, the emotional connection.  That I can and do understand, respect, value, appreciate.  And with that I could finally release myself from being hung up on the words and relate instead to the ritualistic feeling level of how Mormons bear testimony.

Wanting to hold to my own integrity as to my actual beliefs, I have struggled with the words typically used by people in sharing their testimony.   No I do not believe with heart and soul that this is the one true church.  I believe it is a true church inasmuch as many paths up the mountain is a truism and other churches/religions see themselves as just such a path - a path to Divine, to Creator, to God, to Great Spirit, to Heavenly Father.   And for me to the Beloved....that being my word of choice for the deep connection I feel to Jesus born of adversity in my young child years when no one or no religion was there to define for me what my feeling of Jesus was or is now.

I do know that Joseph Smith founded this church, that he was viewed as a prophet in his time, that he viewed himself in that light, that members viewed him in that light then as do many now.  I have read of his history via the non-accepted and accepted literature.  I needed to know who this man was, what was compelling about him, about the church he founded to get a better understanding of why this church prevailed when other churches of the time dissolved.  I can say that I do believe Joseph Smith was a prophet, relative to his era and time period of the 19th century Reformation period of religion.  I can say I value his reasons for coming to the beliefs he had and shared.  I can say I value his personal history growing up and in his early marriage, the losses of death he experienced with his brother, with his children.  I can say that he remains an enigma to me in that no matter who is doing the describing of who he was, what his actions were, he was all of those things and more, making him not a saint or sainted in his contributions or as much a saint as saints were made.

I do not know that Jesus died and was resurrected and gave us atonement or entry to cleanse ourselves of a supposed sin of the falling of Adam and Eve.  I do not know even that Jesus as described in the New Testament gospel lived and walked among mankind.  I do however, know of Jesus, as Jesus came to me in my young years and have spent a lifetime looking at religion to try to fill in the definitions of what it means for Jesus to be Jesus.  Sometimes it was satisfying, sometimes I harnessed those definitions as my own, sometimes I was heartbroken to learn that perhaps none of it was true and was part of a mythology (the overarching story of a culture's attempt to explain to itself).   I will never know in a true sense of the word know, and I'm content with not knowing as much as I yearn for the beauty in my internal imaging of Jesus to be a truism.  And if not, it is an internal imaging of beauty for me, by which I can hang my star, guide my ship, walk my walk.

I do not know that there needs to be a true church as much as in the 19th century period, many Protestant religions formed in opposition to the Catholic Church of that period, desiring that they were the true church, had a truth no other churches had, uncovered truths not yet known or exposed, walked the path of early Christianity, the primitive church, had personal access directly and without intercessory intervention.   Had my young child self required intercessory intervention to know Jesus, I would not have had the friend I so needed and had to have in Jesus to withstand the adversity in which I found myself within my earthly family.

In deep respect then for what a testimony means to Mormons, and the heartfelt emotion they feel in bearing testimony, I can say in truthfulness and honesty that I have a testimony of this church.  And I can do that in great thanks to the elucidation that David Knowlton provided for me in wrapping up a lot of my own thoughts into a reflective format that says what I lacked the words to say yet felt at my intuitive level to be truths.  

It is real enough...

What has transpired with us since last I made a blog entry?  Catching it up with brief  outline.  A visit to the Friends (Quakers) services in nearby community.  It is as is described, sitting quietly with others for 45 minutes, contemplating and no sound.  Brief sharing at end of service.  We tried, we really did, and the service just didn't resonate strongly with us.  I feel like we have done a fairness in completing our explorations of other churches, church services, church communities.

 January was our wedding anniversary month. The first part of the month, I came down sick with flu or winter cold or some kind of bug that was going around the county where we live.  I was down pretty much from Christmas day through the first two weeks of January.  Arthur went to Ward services Christmas weekend, and when members asked where I was, he explained I was home sick, not eager to share the germs with the members.

We had invitation to attend Christmas dinner with one of the member families and when she learned I was home ill, she said they would bring Christmas dinner to us.  Oh, not, please, that is just too much kindness on Christmas day.  The family has children, live about 1/2 hour away and I felt that would just not be the way for them to spend Christmas Day. I phoned her to dissuade her from coming out and I was anxious not to share the germs with her family.   Her husband answered and was okay with the change in plans but not before offering to drive out with a meal for us, staying in the car and having Arthur come out to pick it up.  Of course I said No, this was just too much, more so given that it was Christmas Day.   Nonetheless, their act of willing kindness has left a very strong, indelible imprint on me.  I'm just not used to this brand of sharing willingness.

I teach the lesson in Relief Society on third Sunday and it had snowed in the county that particular Sunday.  Church services cancelled.  We don't get snow here very often, and if we do, it's for about a week at the most.  Yes, I know we are indeed wimps here in Western Washington when it comes to snow. I didn't have to give the lesson that Sunday and wasn't sure how it works for the following Sunday -- carried over or a pass.  It was a pass.    

January - our wedding anniversary month.  My husband and I shared and enjoyed couple time together most of the month, and could not have planned anything better than this intimate time together, just the two of us in our beach house in a winter month.

We are well into February now and my collection of Mormon related library books have been stacked on the coffee table while I read through parts of them.  Terryl Givens 'People of Paradox, A History of Mormon Culture' (I like it), Grant Hardy 'Understanding the Book of Mormon; A Reader's Guide'  (reading the Book of Mormon as literature), Fawn Brodie 'No Man Knows My History' (don't know what that big controversy was about .. for me it was an informative and helpful biographical of Joseph Smith), and a start on Richard Bushman 'Rough Stone Rolling' (didn't get far into it - enough reading on Joseph Smith, letting some of it digest).    By far the book having the most impact for me was reading Samuel Morris Brown 'In Heaven As It Is on Earth; Joseph Smith and The Early Mormon Conquest of Death'.

As it turns out, this Sunday it was my assignment and I gave the 3rd Sunday lesson,  from the George Albert Smith manual; topic - 'The Prophet Joseph Smith, God's Instrument in Restoring The Truth'.   It feels to me like all that reading will pay off in helping me to give the lesson in a manner conducive to my own interpretation via the lens of George Albert Smith talk on the matter.  

We had invite to dinner at the Bishop's house with his wife and another couple from the Ward last Sunday.  We spent the entire afternoon and well into the evening with them.  This Sunday we had invite from another family at the Ward, spent the afternoon with them, dinner, movie, and participated in their Family Home Evening with their children.

The Ward had a talent show on Saturday, and we spent enjoyable evening with member families.  Arthur provided a piano medley, which was well appreciated.  I showed three of my paintings, which were also well appreciated.  The greater fun was watching the youngsters share their talents, and we were particularly looking forward to a solo performance by one of the boys we knew had been working on his musical contribution.  We had driven out to his home the night before to do a run through with Arthur to accompany the boy in his solo hymn 'Nearer My God To Thee'.  They did their practice which brought another invite from the parents that we stay for dinner.  This is the same family who had offered to drive all the way out to our home bring Christmas dinner to us.   One more time we had to turn them down and couldn't stay for dinner; we were expected at the Ward for clean-up duty as we were on the clean-up crew that week.

Also this week I had Visiting Teaching spent time visiting some of the Sisters.  Arthur had Home Teaching last week.   Having now captured the events, in no way does the writing capture the flavor of what is happening to me inside.  And frankly speaking, it feels too personal to write about.  For the record, though, it is the people of this Ward with their continued kindness, outreach, genuine enjoyment of us, sharing so much of themselves with us and their willingness to embrace us into their church and personal families that has me in studied wonderment.   While I feel like I have seated the logical elements, ie, church historicity, doctrines, beliefs and practices, well enough in my head (innoculated), the contradiction is in finding so much genuine kindness among the people.

For me this walk into this Church has taken a serious turn and I'm afraid of it.  I am finding that I am wanting more of this, yearning to keep moving forward into the life, and less about leaving substantial room to back out in case it erupts in my face.  If it does, well it does, and somehow I don't think it will.  If it does, what has been and is real enough is that these are authentic relationships at this point.  And they know I am not one of them, they know I am not even a 'convert' in the traditional sense of the word.  They know me for who I am, what my beliefs are, and should there be some kind of eruptive disruption in the future, what is happening now is real enough.

The online  Facebook discussion communities of members who are in various stages on the continuum in their faith walks are of great help to me in seating my own walk.  For me it is fluid, it is moving, it has not remained static.  I'm rather pleased that I began this blog as something I can look back on in retrospect to see what my perspective was, is, and will become.  As of this writing, as of today, as of now, it is real enough.  It is more than a religion, more than a belief set, and I don't yet have the words to write or describe it as it fits for me.

I'm Still Percolating

Still percolating. Updates though, while percolating.

 Baptism for the dead. I am coming to appreciate that this is indeed one of the rituals that LDS members do hold sacred, for reasons having to do with ensuring all have opportunity, living and dead. Also their belief that it among the commandments to make upon earth conditions as described in the scriptures. Although I'm not yet inclined to embrace all the scriptures they are using, preferring still bible as scriptural basis by which to begin to build foundations, and baptisms for the dead is but one verse in the New Testament referencing a practice done at that time in history, I am inclined to think about adopting the ritual in support of the fact that it is considered a sacred rite to LDS membership. Having now learned that the performance characteristics of this ritual are safe and do not include touching of the body beyond a laying on of hands on the head, that element is out of the way. Still a barrier and in the way - the issue of tithing equates to whether one can or cannot enter temple. Right now it is my thought that this church is putting up barriers that will impede my progression, something the leadership and membership desire for me, yet it seems I will need to pay my way to that progression.

 ....................... Sidebar, and in observing one bit of information, leads me to relating more of my (our) faith journey. Skip this part if you aren't interested in reading through 4-5 paragraphs, and I may well have related some part of our journey in previous blog postings.

 Interestingly, side note, there is an Occupy London (OWS) gathering at the St Paul Cathedral in London, Anglican (Episcopal) Church of England, which has been sourced as reason for two high ranking clergy stepping down from their positions in support of not banning the Occupiers from camping out at St Pauls. What has this to do with my blog subject? Just my observant following of the Occupy movement and my affiliation with the Episcopal church. I'm a bit of a dual citizenship Christian in that regard, actually more than dual citizenship but for now I'll reference just the two faith citizenships, Episcopal and LDS.

 I was baptized in Methodist church when I was a baby. In my young teen years I attended a neighborhood church when we lived in the South - probably a Baptist church and the minister called people to come down, and in the feeling of the moment, I went down which led the minister to herd me immediately into baptism - something I wasn't fully ready for, more was in touch with the feeling than knowledgeable about the practices or beliefs. Once again, as a young adult, via home lessons from the Jehovah's Witnesses, I began attending that church, was once again herded into baptism. By then I had our firstborn child and was looking for a spiritual home in which to raise her. That lasted two years, and I credit myself for a bit of perseverance in wanting good for my child, yet finding something not quite in line with what I was looking for, I left that church within two years. late into our adult years, after my divorce and marriage to my current husband, we were confirmed in the Episcopal church (church of my mother's formative years) where we found a church home where we felt welcome, wanted and needed. In time we came to see that the members were older and looking for younger energy to continue the offices of the church, which put us in the path of studies towards being licensed lay preachers, and further down the road unpaid Priests.

 The invasion into Iraq put us on a different footing, with a stronger discernment of ministry in activism to end the Iraq war, a call to Peace. With a military background and both of us having experienced some aspect of the earlier Vietnam war, we spoke as a military family and veteran calling for the troops to be brought home, the Iraq war brought to a close. This necessitated conflicting schedules with our functions at the church on Sundays and our public activism engagements. We advised the membership, spent years between 2004 and 2008 in intense activism efforts. Returning to our home church no longer quite felt like home to us. Years had passed with our country in turmoil, and we found it difficult to settle back into a quiet Sunday worship service routine as the expression of our spirituality, beliefs and recent activism energies.

 We had opportunity to visit a Lutheran worship service, as the Episcopals and Lutherans are in communion. It was not a lot different than Episcopal service and I loved the church building, a quaint building of Norwegian styled architecture. Lutherans have a quite extensive and somewhat impressive social services outreach. Thought it might be a bit too much though, husband still doing social work in his profession, and adding more social work outreach in his leisure hours after the years of intense activism might be a bit of overload. I chose instead to spend some time on the Boards of local non-profits, one that was being smeared badly and unfortunately given their history of good work in the community, and the other a church start-up food bank for local town. As it turns out on the Board of the food bank start up was the same individual who participated in badly smearing the other organization. I remained on both Boards until the inevitable demise of one organization had reached completion, in the hopes I might bring something to the table that would aid in turning it around. Not to be. In the diminished need of the existence of one board, I no longer felt comfortable being on the other board, taking my leave and still wanting for their endeavor to be a successful one.

 A few more years passed, we visited a church in our immediate community, good people, and perhaps a bit of the Evangelical coloring making it somewhat uncomfortable for us. By the time of the year 2010, we felt calmed enough to visit other of the local churches, still seeking a church home for our later years. We agreed we would visit the local denomination churches one by one, and some of the further distance churches based on what was attractive to us in their belief sets and practices, ie Quakers, Unity Church which we had enjoyed in our visit to congregation in Vancouver, WA. We started with a visit to my husband's church, local Mormon church in the area. I was impressed enough with the talks to believe I could make my personal spirituality work within context of this church, his church and I yearned for him to find some place of inner peace with his cultural heritage and identity vs the doctrines the church impressed upon him. I rather knew giving a thumbs up and announcing desire to proceed to baptism would generate the baptism preparedness activity which I by then knew every church denomination seems intent on insisting, thinking we could get it done and out of the way rather than the cat and mouse dance of being convinced to agree to baptism. I had years of life with my husband, exposure to his perception of Mormon beliefs and practices, and felt ready to make this dive for where it might take us. end sidebar............................

  Sunday talks at Sacrament Meeting. Conversion or Convert as a process and not an event. Speaker, a long time member of the church, and also holding an academic and skilled profession as an administrator of school system, spoke of being converted in some areas while still waiting for conversion in other areas. A relief to me to hear. The 'process' of conversion as a process as in over years, maybe decades, maybe a lifetime. Shares the out take from the parable of the wage earners with the late arrivals being paid the same amount as the all day workers. He used just a few sentences, it was a part of his talk, not the subject of his talk. Loved how he gave the parable a green light and ended that part of his talk as the end of his talk with those familiar phrase to 'get over it'. Gives me another sense of relief, that I have a place at this table even if I have arrived late to the party. Bishop talk, and he wrapped his talk up with the phrase to 'suck it up'. Another familiar phrase to me.

  Sunday School - Gospel Doctrine I just can't get into the teacher's teaching style. Asks the open ended questions and seems to me with an expectation of 'correct' responses, not shared thoughts of many. It feels to me like he is wanting people to read his mind as to what the correct response is, or at least based on my feeling/reaction when I do share a response which it feels like he pretty much writes off. I was resolved to provide no response at all, not to let my spontaneity overcome my resolve. I was successful. Bishop fulfilled his promise to sit with me, and again encourages me to share and respond. I'm thinking about this often. Knowing I bring different perspective since I've been exposed to different disciplines, I am coming to understand though, this is not about discussion, dialogue or sharing. It's pretty much rote, routine responses, even if the teacher has worked hard in preparing the lesson. Maybe it's his personal perspective that he brings to the lesson and since he and I would likely not see eye to eye on many of the New Testament readings, because he is in the role of 'teacher' it changes the dynamic as perhaps would not be in a private conversational exchange. Leaving this one as perplexing to me for now, likely will return to it from time to time in this blog. I am not doing well with the Sunday School class, nor the teachers called to teach it. Or at least that is my feeling about it, although I have not had any members call me out on it.

  Joint Priesthood and Relief Society Meeting (men and women meeting together) Four Talks - every one of them about Tithing (capital T intentional). Lay it off to it's that time of year, with tithing settlements sessions with Bishop coming up or can't help but feel like because I did bring the issue up with the Bishop in Bishop interview last week, it brings the topic back to the forefront. One of our newest members (moved here from another Ward) pointed out the distinction of 10% of income or 10% of increase and don't other contributions as strength, time, talents, gifts count as increase. That was not dismissed as not having merit, but given that all the other talks were firm on the 10% of income, I didn't get the impression that the point of increase was considered to be the correct application. Discussions with husband and he assures me that talk is not aimed at me (us) specifically and there are others in the Ward membership who are not paying tithing regularly or fully or at all.

  Community of Christ church meeting We had bumped into website for Community of Christ Church earlier in the week, and read through the website for several hours. It appears that while they are the product of Joseph Smith teachings that did not make the trek to Utah under Brigham Young leadership, remaining instead in East Coast states, the formation of the religions have quite different beliefs. Listening to Mormon Stories podcast; John Hamer, The LDS Succession Crisis of 1844 and the Beginning of RLDS (Community of Christ) we got a feel for the formation and beliefs of the Community of Christ church. Interestingly, when we lived on Samish Island in Skagit County, there was one road in and an RLDS sign was posted showing direction to what we presume was an RLDS campsite. As it turns out, that is correct, it is one of the Community of Christ campsites. I recall at the time, not knowing the difference between Fundamentalist LDS with polygamy, I had mistakenly thought RLDS to be that, and was always put off by seeing that sign, thinking it pointed direction to a polygamous compound. I was wrong about my perceptions, confused about the acronymns. RLDS means Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a name they changed to Community of Christ in 2001 more in keeping with original name of the Joseph Smith church - Church of Christ. Community of Christ church follows the Revised Common Lectionary with the liturgical years A,B, C. Familiar theme via our confirmation and activity with the Episcopal Church. Core message of the Community of Christ church is Peace. From the website, it certainly appeared that the hybrid blend of Mormon/Protestant beliefs might be a better fit for us, we contacted a congregation closest to us and were invited to come.

 We drove the hour drive and met with the people of that particular congregation, very small, newly forming and sharing church building with Methodist church in that particular neighborhood, diaconal Minister (meaning unpaid minister). The people were pleasant, warm, welcoming and inviting enough, sharing their meal with us, followed by their service. We tried to bring to the sharing some of our positive LDS experiences, yet I didn't get the sense there was familiarity to them of LDS community. It was, not as I might have thought, LDS Light, but seemed more of a start up congregation of what could easily have been any Protestant faith, or for that matter, a community non-profit reach out group. Were this what we were looking for, we can find it much closer to home, and we have found it in many of our church and community affiliations. Since they are a quite small group, their focus is on their immediate community needs, ie, holiday baskets, adopt a family, clothing and food drives, helping with holiday community dinner. Bless them and wishing them well in their endeavors, it is not quite what we were thinking it would be and if anything rather validated that I am more pleased than I realize with the LDS church and Ward we attend.

Putting a human face on the story of Joseph Smith

Lesson with the missionaries again tonight, and they wanted us to watch hour long dvd with them, give a bit of relief to the discussions.  I don't recall the exact title of the dvd, but it is an updated depiction of the life of Joseph Smith.  Some things I did not know about the traumas that shaped him in his early life;

-- trauma 1; he was a small 7 year old boy with a residual after effect of typhus - leg injury requiring surgical removal of tissue.  Spent some years crippled using a cane.

-- trauma 2; his older brother Alvin, 25, dies.  Religious belief sets at that time Second Awakening, Restoration included some harsh (imo) beliefs about damnation, hell, baptism, salvation.  Likely Joseph was told his brother was among those lost as he had not been baptized, was not saved, hell-bound.  (It is said this influenced Joseph Smith's later thinking in regards to baptism for the dead).

-- trauma 3; stillborn deaths of four (4) of their children - Joseph and Emma Smith.  Another of their children died at 14 months.

This portion of the dvd really struck a chord with me.  While I am not at a place to believe that what came next with the visions was inspired of God inasmuch as I am greatly willing to believe Joseph was spiritual in his questing and believed his vision to be real to him, many pieces of this puzzle clicked together for me in appreciating the very human, psychological aspects that made up parts of Joseph Smith's early years that would have a great influence on the visions and his structuring of what became the basis of Mormonism.

I was so taken by the human portrayal that I want to watch this dvd again, take it in sections, stop it at certain points and study it out.  I asked the young missionary how I might obtain a copy and he provided the resources where he thought it might be available for purchase, and the other young missionary said he had a copy he could loan to us.  He went out to his car to get it, and I am much pleased we will be able to view it as a study reference.

There did come a point in the dvd where it did seem the efforts to elevate Joseph Smith status shifted him out of the human-ness as portrayed in the earlier part of the dvd to a place of close to worship.  I'm sure as we watch the dvd together again, I may want to write about the portrayal of various stages of his life in the dvd, which will of necessity being church produced paint a more glowing portrait against so much of what has been written about his less than savory characteristics as a person.

The dvd did evoke strong feelings in me, leaving me with a more empathetic view of the course of history that birthed Mormonism.  I'll be getting back to writing about my impressions.

A btw, we began reading 'The Mormon Hierarchy Origins of Power' by D. Michael Quinn and the first two chapters are so thoroughly involved with explaining the concepts of Authority and Priesthood and who holds what authority and why and the march down the hierarchal chain of command, that I soon lost interest in trying to visualize all these men vying for some place of position, authority and relevance in this formation.  I'm fairly content to let the men mill about figuring out who is head of what and has keys to what and so on and so on as men are prone to do.  Unless or until they are stepping on my toes or those of the people I hold dear, the Men's Club can enjoy whatever it is that makes Men's Clubs attractive to them.  I mean no disrespect, truly, but as I listened I could feel the dinner burning in the oven, the dishes piling up, the kids crying as their needs went unmet, the laundry backing up and on and on and on as that is so much of what women do irrespective of all the other jobs they may choose to do alongside their jobs in their homes.

I said that I was willing to 'default' on the whole men's priesthood authority thing for now.  I didn't grow up inside this church, and am not beholden to a male ordered authority structuring and am perhaps less likely to feel the compression of my identity as it is defined within this church structure.  Not wishing to get sidetracked into a discussion of gender roles, gender identity, it provides me some element of relief that my adult life was not lived under these constraints.  Even as I don't fully agree that the eruption of women's choices and roles as I experienced in that second wave of feminism (1970s) was a balanced social reaction, I also don't agree that keeping women's roles in their status quo was useful nor indicative of personal growth for women.  I have said to my own children (now grown) that I don't regret the opportunity I had for career development, but that I would have preferred the timing to be different, not simultaneous to the time of raising children.  But I do digress.

This may have to do with a mellowing of my attitude about Joseph Smith as the originator of much of the LDS doctrines that seem odd in their male authority over women.   When I can see him as a human, a person, a boy, get some sense of his background, the historical time of religion that shaped his own religious/spiritual formation, I can get past the chagrin I have felt for him with regard to my sense of an oppressiveness of women to see him in a more personal manner.  Less the charlatan portrayal, certainly not the saintly deity portrayal and a somewhat more balanced view of a human making his way in the world, asking those angst kinds of questions we all ask, and looking for better answers than were being provided him at that time.