Letter from the Highlands, December 2002
by Anne Perry

Once again I am not exactly at home. It is Sunday morning, and I was prepared and fired up to teach my lesson on the gifts of the Resurrection, when my friend telephoned me to say that she had injured her wrist, and was concerned in case it might be broken. So I have passed on my lesson to someone well able to teach it, and am sitting in the accident and emergency room waiting to see what happens. The hospital is about fifty miles from where I live, and it was a beautiful drive, mostly beside the sea, and mercifully for this time of the year, the weather is clean, dry, and a good ten or twelve degrees Fahrenheit above freezing. Snow, and/or black ice I would not have liked. Frankly driving on ice terrifies me.

I had thought hard about the blessings of the Resurrection, beyond the fact that we may all inherit eternal life, with every possibility from mere endless existence, all the way to inheriting everything that God has in everlasting glory. I had intended to ask the members of the class for their opinions. I like to draw as much as possible from other people. I know how I loathe sitting and being talked at, or worse still, read to. Lessons are not supposed to be like that, they die on their feet when they are. Although there have been occasions, and I remember them with horror.

I recall others when everyone participated, and the blessings were enormous. It varied the pace and the content so it never grew boring. I believe we all learned ideas and points of view we had not considered before, aspects of a blessing, pitfalls we had been blind to, a new richness of perception. Sometimes people can have false ideas which have never been corrected, simply because they have never voiced them before, so those can be dealt with also, at times to the great relief of distress, or the avoidance of error in act or judgement.

Another gift which is worth a great deal, perhaps measureless because its fruit may be gathered year after year in the future, is the closeness we gain to each other through sharing our deepest thoughts and spiritual enlightenments, even revelation. Shared pain is treated with respect and sensitivity, it brings out the tenderness in all of us. Surely to share one another’s triumphs and disasters, whether on a small scale or large, is not only our baptismal covenant, but our wish? The essence of our faith, at least, is love. Perhaps it is the core of all the great faiths.

Hope is also at the beginning, and through the middle, until at last it is realized in the glory of the Resurrection. If we do not hope for more than we can earn for ourselves, then what reason would there be to turn to God, who can do what we cannot, who can complete what we can only begin, and who can mend what we have broken?

I would have asked the class: does any of you have a physical pain of any degree, a headache, a sore back, even a corn or a bunion, toothache, indigestion, anything at all? It is temporary. Have you a crookedness, a blemish, a disability however slight, or the signs of age which are not the beauty of maturity? They too are temporary. Why? In the Resurrection our physical bodies will not have pain or weariness. We shall come forth in the fullness of our best years, with not a hair of our heads lost.

Shall we know spiritual pain, emotional pain? Of course. We know that God suffers for us, even that He weeps. Surely we also will suffer for others, and if we have any memory or sense at all, we shall know regret, because we shall see plainly a better way than some of those we have taken.

But there is forever in which to improve. Some of our decisions we make here, but only according to the light and knowledge that we have. Brigham Young has painted us the clearest picture of eternal progression of which I am aware. He speaks of worlds without end where we can learn the creation of planets, of trees and beasts, and the birth of human spirits, and the nurturing and teaching of all of them.

I remember speaking to my mother once, and she is not a member of the church. She was concerned about the afterlife, and thought of it as eternal rest. I explained that it was not rest at all, but for the most righteous of us it will be an endless teaching of other spirits everything that is good and valuable and of beauty, and bringing them to the point where they see it also, and grasp it. And all this is done in the company of an eternal companion with whom we share a love that is passion, friendship, loyalty and trust to which there is no limit and no bound. She thought that was the most wonderful thing she had ever heard! And it is.

It is the greatest gift in all time or space, in life and eternity. And to most of Creation it is a secret – not that we live for ever – most faiths teach that – but that we have real life, abundant and glorious life, not mere existence.

Praise of God is not a matter of singing, lovely though that is, or of saying beautiful words, real praise is imitation! If we really believe with all our hearts that God is the supreme, the first and best being that exists, would we not give everything there is in order to be more like Him? Watch any child, does it not copy its parent? Haven’t you seen that with your own children more times than you can name or number? Sometimes it’s wonderful, other times you could die of embarrassment! Every word, every gesture can be an imitation of your own. It is done in love, learning,the hunger to be the same.

Should we not then strive to copy our Father? How could you NOT want to be as like God as you can? Is that blasphemy to think it? Some faiths would say it is. I believe it is blasphemy not to! ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect’. Step by step, grace by grace, it can be done. It may take time unimaginable, but now is the best time to begin. By the grace and love of God, we have time without end, but we don’t have any to waste.

Which brings me to other gifts from our knowledge of the Resurrection. All of us either already have, or will at some time, lose to death people whom we love. It hurts. If the death is untimely then it hurts even more. It can cause a lasting pain if we have parted leaving things not said or done which should have been. Something as simple as ‘I love you’, or ‘thank you for all that you have given me’ cannot be said once a person is gone. Say them now! If it is appropriate, even consider writing them. A person hears what you say only once, they can read what you have written as many times as they wish.

But we believe in a Resurrection, not just to a formless spirit, but to a body of flesh and bones, in an eternal friendship, bonds of love, of family that need never end. All humanity is one family. We knew each other before this life, perhaps we had close bonds then. For those who have little or even nothing at all of family in their present lives, in the Resurrection we will meet again those we knew before. It will not be a meeting of strangers! This life may have been only a short parting before the return to an everlasting union!

Is that not worth living for with all the strength we have, to do good, to strive for honour and compassion, courage always, kindness when it is easy, and when it is hard, generosity of heart and mind, gentleness of spirit?

In the Resurrection faith will be rewarded with knowledge. It will not be necessary any more because we shall see the reality. In the measurements of eternal existence, we have such a short time to walk in darkness, to struggle with doubt and fear and overcome them, then the chance will slip from us. I hope I will not be saying ‘If only I had exercised faith BEFORE I knew! Now it is too late’. I want to be among those saying ‘I am so glad I walked uprightly, with trust at least most of the time, when I could not see, but I believed! We can all remember the words of Christ to Thomas, ‘Blessed are they who have not seen, yet have believed’.

Coming towards Christmas is a good time to think of the Resurrection. Had the Saviour not come to earth and lived the life He did, without blemish, walking so often alone, then he could not have faced and survived Gethsemane, and there could be no Resurrection. Christ’s birth is the beginning of love, His Resurrection is the completion of it. The gift is there. How much of it we accept is up to many things, but for most of us who live in lands where the Gospel is taught, it is largely a matter of choice. For everyone, everywhere, it is a choice as to whether we will do the best we can, or something less. Fortunately only God is the judge of whether we do that or not. Ours is not to judge each other, but to love, and to help, and that is enough weight to carry.

I am now home again. My friend’s arm is not broken, only badly jarred and perhaps sprained. It will be extremely painful, but it will mend.

I am happy to say that my mother is also doing very well. She will remain in the nursing home, because she is not able to care for herself, and needs the presence of someone all the time, but she is eating quite normally, and is walking, even without the need of help, some of the time. In March when I left to go away on necessary business, she was in a coma, and we none of us expected her to live, let alone to sit up in bed! Now she is fully dressed every day, with shoes and stockings, and her hair properly done, nails varnished and jewellery on! Her speech is still badly affected, but she has given ample evidence that she understands far more than she is able to repeat back, and she remembers!

I believe during that time of coma she went on a spiritual journey, but she is able to tell us only fragments of it, and that is exactly as it should be. We must walk by faith. The knowledge we should have will be given us, more would rob us of the only opportunity in all our existence to learn and to use that trust in God which is the light of the Holy Spirit, born of love, and not on our sight of the glory that awaits us.

It is the Adversary’s plan that we should not be tested. It is a plan of failure, a plan of one who does not believe we have the courage, the faith or the strength to succeed as our Father has done, in the past eons before this. It is the plan of one who is certain we cannot go where God has gone, that we are not worthy of Him, that we do not want it enough to fight for it, that Christ’s love is not great enough to redeem us, and God’s love and belief in us is misplaced.

He is WRONG! God is right. We can do it! The only question is whether we will.

This Christmas let us stand for the true joy of what it means, not by criticizing the commerciality of it, much as that grates, but killjoys win no friends, but by letting others see that we have a happiness that is built on faith in the promises of God, hope that we will succeed in making enough of every opportunity for good so that God can complete the work we begin. Let us find that charity which shows itself in kindness, tolerance of those we do not understand, and may find difficult to like, generosity of goods when we have them, but far more than that, generosity of judgement, of praise that is honest, of time to care, of encouragement, of seeing others’ worth, of comforting grief and failure, a gentleness of Spirit in all things.

Happy Christmas, and may 2003 bring you abundance of life.

                   

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