Temple Trip--Mesa

Mesa temple grounds--petrified log

Mesa temple grounds--lemon tree

Mesa temple grounds--orange tree

Mesa temple grounds--grapefruit tree

Mesa temple grounds--cactus garden--Tree Cholla(?)

Mesa temple grounds--cactus garden--Mexican Fencepost

Mesa temple grounds--cactus garden--yucca(?)

Mesa temple grounds--cactus garden--Saguaro

We enjoyed being in this historical temple (dedicated in 1927) and stayed all day.  (It has a cafeteria.)  The temple has four separate endowment ordinance rooms plus a V room, mostly created out of the original progressive endowment rooms, in a remodeling that took place in 1974-75.  The grounds are large, covering 22 acres, with lots of grass, and a large visitor's center.  There are two reflecting pools, one on the north between the temple and the visitor's center and the other on the west by the main entrance.  We were fascinated by the citrus trees on the grounds and also a cactus garden.  I did a little research to try to find names for some of the large and more interesting cactus varieties on display.

Temple Trip--Phoenix

Phoenix Temple

Beautiful temple inside and out.  The celestial room is oval and the V was impressively wrapped around it on one end and the viewed from the second ordinance room through an opening of Greek pillars.  Very different and thoughtfully designed.
We recalled that there was intense opposition from neighbors to this temple.  Now it seemed peaceful, and entirely fitting in its place.  We hoped that the antagonism had disappeared.

Temple Trip--Las Vegas

Las Vegas Temple

This temple is special in that Wendy received certain promises here while visiting here a number of years ago.  It has a very dramatic look and feel in the celestial room, and is one of the most impressive I have visited.  This room is located on an angular point to the south and is tall with lots of glass and is decorated with a Silver State theme, white and silver, that glisten in the day-time sun.   You step into it from a not too bright hallway, and the contrast takes your breathe away.

It is also impressive as a place of refuge and protection from a very adverse environment outside its walls.

Temple Trip--St. George

St. George Temple 

One of my best selfies

Painting in Visitor's Center

I was interested in this painting in the Temple Visitor's Center, showing the Sacred Grove vegetation as not being leafed out yet at the time of the First Vision.  This is probably correct if  the date of the vision was in early April as many believe.  

We found someone we knew at the Visitor's Center and had a nice visit.  This was Sister Jessica Starta, serving as a sister missionary.  Her family lived in the Mt. Zion Branch in North Carolina when we served there on our mission.  She was a sweet little girl of about 12, very loving and very committed.  We were not surprised to see her serve a mission.  Missionary work is quite interesting at the Visitor's Center.  They cater to foreign tourists, who arrive there by the busload on their way to tour the nearby national parks.  A lot of the displays in the Center were bilingual, English and French.

Temple Trip--Cedar City

Cedar City temple, under construction 24 Oct 2016

This shot was taken across a vacant lot on the ridge to the south of the building.  It is placed on a low hill to the west of the city and is becoming surrounded with beautiful homes.  There will be a very prominent view of the temple as you approach the city along I-15 from the north.  According to web site ldschurchtemples.com, it should be ready for dedication in late 2017.  We're looking forward to when we can add this place to temples we have attended.

Arizona Temple Trip--10 Temples in 10 days

Wendy and I left on on a 10 day temple trip a week ago Monday, October 24th, during a 2-week period when the Payson temple was closed for cleaning.  We went down I-15 to Cedar City to check on progress on their new temple, stayed in St. George temple housing that night, and attended that temple and also the Las Vegas temple on Tuesday, and then drove as far as Kingman AZ.  On Wednesday, we finished the drive to the Phoenix, AZ area, attended that temple in the late afternoon and then drove to a nice motel in Mesa AZ about a block from the Mesa temple.  We spend the full day Thursday in the Mesa temple.  On Friday morning we made the short drive to attend the Gilbert temple, then drove to the Gila Valley temple near Thatcher AZ.  We arrived in time to do a temple session on Friday evening, and then did another session on Saturday morning, after which we made the drive to Snowflake AZ, arriving in time to do a temple session in the evening.  On Sunday we attended church in the ward belonging to a nice couple we met in the temple and also had dinner with them in the afternoon.  We really enjoyed the ward, which had a powerful sacrament meeting featuring testimonies of ward members about their conversions and about serving missions, a strong gospel doctrine class, and a special RS-Priesthood meeting on member-missionary work.  We found the B family to be so kind in opening their home to us in the afternoon.

On Monday we left for Albuquerque, traveling by way of Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Parks where we paused to view some highlights.  On Tuesday we attended the Albuquerque temple in the morning, then traveled during the day to Monticello, where we were able to attend temple sessions in the evening and again the next morning. We then drove northward through Moab and Green River and west across 1-70 then up the Hwy 89 to Ephraim, where we had reservations at a B&B owned by a lady who had worked briefly with Wendy at the Payson temple.  We took Wednesday evening off from the temple and watched the Cubs win the World Series.  Then we spent the next morning at the Manti temple and arrived home in the mid-afternoon on Thursday Nov 3rd.  We had traveled 2041 miles.

Here is a summary of our temple work:
St. George, 25 Oct:    Endowment session
Las Vegas, 25 Oct:     Endowment session (WC)
Phoenix, 26 Oct:        Endowment session
Mesa, 27 Oct:            2 Endowment sessions (1 WC), 2 Sealing sessions
Gilbert, 28 Oct:          Endowment session (WC)   
Gila Valley, 28 Oct:   Endowment session (WC)
Gila Valley, 29 Oct:   Endowment session (WC)
Snowflake, 29 Oct:    Endowment session (WC), Initiatory session
Albuquerque, 1 Nov: Endowment session (WC)
Monticello, 1 Nov:     Endowment session (WC)
Monticello, 2 Nov:     Endowment session
Manti, 3 Nov:             Endowment session (WC), Sealing session
Endowments: 13 M 13 F
Couple sealings: 36
Child sealings: 3 F
We were witness couple 9 times.  Endowment films: A:1, B:2, C:8, D:1. Live:1

Something from the past

Here is an e-mail exchange today, which was fun:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim:

 

Thanks for your kind e-mail.  Some 30 years ago, I was a career employee of the Utah child welfare agency, serving in the state office with a variety of assignments for strategic planning, effectiveness evaluation, and management system development.  While a full-time employee, I also worked on my doctorate, which I completed in 1990.  Our agency was interested at that time in preventative family-based services in child welfare, and I found faculty at the Graduate School of Social Work with an interest in testing these same kinds of programs.  I became part of a research team under the direction of Mark Fraser and Peter Pecora which published several books and articles flowing out of this research.  (One of these two men would be the primary authors of most of the reports.)  I wrote my dissertation on a piece o f this research.  We did not have the luxury of using controlled samples in these studies, but utilized correlational techniques such as event history analysis to try to tease out contributory variables for program successes.  During that time, as a favor to a friend who operated a small private non-profit youth treatment agency, I did some evaluation work on their programs.   I noticed the potential to develop a controlled study as they were not able to serve all of the families referred to them for a home-based intervention, and this became the study to which you refer.

 

I retired at about that time and have not had the opportunity to pursue other similar studies since then.  My wife and I served a service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I spend my time in various service and family projects, but not this kind of research.

 

If I have left out any detail in which you are interested, get back to me.

 

Robert

 

 

 

From: Kimberly Hokanson

Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2016 9:13 AM

To: roberte@lewisfam.com

Subject: 2004 Article

 

Hi, Mr. Lewis,

 

I'm a doctoral student at Boston College, and I'm using your 2004 article, "The Effectiveness of Families First Services," in a class project.  I just wanted to drop you a line to tell you how much I loved this study.  Have you done any others?

 

Hope all is well.

 

Yours,

 

 

Kim

Spiritual impressions described by Truman Madsen

      I am sharing something that I ran onto, in which Truman Madsen attempts to put into words descriptions of kinds of spiritual impressions, especially some that he concludes that seem to confirm that our inner self is the eternal intelligence made into a spirit child of God the Father.  This attempt to describe, to me seems unparalleled and intriguing.  Do any of these ideas seem meaningful to you?
    “Here is an attempt to capture the flavor of the Latter-day Saint “experiment in depth,” revelatory touches with the self that seem to disclose the longer-than-mortal sense.  (Inevitably we veer into the oblique but somehow more expressive language of simile and metaphor.)  There are:
    – Prayer flashes, when our words outreach thought and we seem to be listening above ourselves, completely at home while we are surprised at hints of hidden spirit memories within.
    – Familiarity of persons, immediate luminous rapport – this face or that gesture or motion –  that elicits the sense of recall, a premortal intimacy, especially in the environs of teaching and being taught.
    – Haunting sensations, usually visual, sometimes auditory, of a landscape of life or a bitter predicament in the soul, that call up simultaneous feelings of “again” and “for the first time”; like being thrust, as leading actor, into the last act of a play without knowing, and yet almost knowing, what occurred in the first two.
    – Numbing protests from below sometimes of unrelievable urgency or guilt, that are ruthless in unmasking our pretense.  These are not simply the yeas or nays of “conscience” about acts, but bell sounds of a whole self that will not be muffled, that ring with presentiments, thrusting us toward ends that seem tied to an elusive but white-lighted blueprint inside.
    – Shades of consciousness that occur just at awakening or just before sleep, unpredictably impressing while they express, in images or silent words or free association.  By the sanctity of their feeling-tone, these are different than our usual helter- skelter menagerie of thought.
    – Dreams and illusions that seem not to be mere dreams or mere illusions, catching us quite off-guard and lingering in their after-effect, as if life were a game of internal hide-the-thimble and we were “getting warm” to our own potential.
    – Unaccountable reverberations (e.g., in tear-filled eye or tingling throat or spine) from a phrase or sentiment (which, for the speaker or writer may be merely parenthetical), or from a strain of music, or some trivial stimulus in the midst of drudgery, bearing a holy atmosphere of spontaneous and total recognition.
    – Reflections of our faces in the mirror when we look in and not just at, our eyes.  As if light were coming to the surface, and a curious recovery, and even awe, of the self occurs. There lurks an autobiography, a soul-story that is foreign, yet intimate, unfolding a more-than-I-thought-I-was.
    – Right-track feelings, the sense of the foreordained, like emerging from a fever to find that roughshod or happenstance trials have been presided over by some uncanny instinctual self who knows what he is about.  Just before or just after turning a crucial corner, this someone nearer than you, that is you, holds a quiet celebration that injects peace into the marrow of the bones.
    Such flashes and drives are tied to the whole gamut of complex mental life and may have neat and utterly mundane naturalistic explanations (such as the chemistry of the occipital lobe). Yet the joy that comes from these uprisings, rooted, as they seem to be, in some more primal creative being and that, in turn, in God, supersedes any of the pleasures of human possession or external manipulation.”
(Truman G. Madsen, “Eternal Man,” Deseret Book Company: Salt Lake City, UT, 1970, pp. 75-76)

Study notes: The Contrite Spirit, by the Hafens

PAGE
xv    Definition:  Contrite Spirit
8      Why grace is not free– needs to satisfy the nature of human growth
        not that grace won’t help us grow (without our complete engagement), but it can’t
9      Growth requires that we bear “hard things”
10    Recently, there seems to have been an increase infusion of teachings about the Savior’s
        atonement into LDS understanding.  Also p.24 
13    Life is a customized curriculum suited for each individual, to help us (individually) learn what
        God sent us here to learn
19-20    Temple story of Adam and Eve is the story of receiving and engaging the Atonement,
        temple ordinances are for the development of the soul
22-23    Agnes Caldwell story      Severe mercy   p.52
27    Definition: Atonement
29     Four gifts in the Atonement
        1) Resurrection
        2) He redeemed us
        3) He strengthens us
        4) He perfects us
36    Sources of our need for strengthening: Weaknesses, Mistakes, Harm from others, Adversity
44    His empathy.  Our extremities–the price we paid to know Him
47    Charity as a bestowed gift. Comes from outside us.
50    How dear a price we may pay for the gift of charity
54-61    Melchizedek Priesthood ordinances and principles, part of an ascending pattern (mostly
        temple related)
        p. 56 sacrifice and consecration   p. 58 hope and charity
73-74    Definition: the Rest of the Lord
96-111   Chapter 11 Waiting upon the LORD–important.
128-141 Chapter 13 Diversion to give us a history of changes in US cultural expectations and laws
--  Higher priesthood, higher principles:
        about marriage and children
145  The natural order of marriage--not dependence or independence, but interdependence
147-148    Covenantal, sacrifice based marriage–the triangle
151  Elijah’s sealing power includes reconciliation
152- Chapter 15  Compare our Lewis nFamily Creed
        p 160 multigenerational Church--multigenerational families of faith   Elder Maxwell’s original
        statement
152  Interpretation of  2 Ne 31–Enduring to the end means cultivating the higher (Melchizedek
        Priesthood) principles of Hope, Charity, and feasting upon the word of Christ
156  Missionary goal: temple
        p.162 convert internalizing MP culture
180- Chapter 17 The reach of the sealing power??
199  Being a Savior on Mt Zion may be more than doing temple ordinances.  How one responds to
        life’s adversities.  Not passing on pain.
200  Transitional figures–They change patterns in family history, absorb rather than pass on, a current
        of harm.  Isaiah 58:12  
        p 203 another layer of meaning to the phrase “redeeming the dead”
205  Definition: Sacrifice
        Definition: Consecration
216  Difference between being active in the Church and being a consecrated disciple
        Is the first AP and the second MP?
222  Definition: Justification
223  Definition: Sanctification
231  How the temple helps
246  Great motivator– the yearning to be “at one” with those we love.

We like these Rock Chucks

 

Along the Spanish Fork River Trail between the golf course and the Tree Road there are some places where big boulders have been brought in to shore up the river banks.  A colony of rock chucks have made their home there, and we saw a burnch of them while going on an exercise walk a few days ago.  We hope the Spanish Fork city fathers will let them stay.

Remembering

Today was the 12th anniversary of when JoAnn passed away.  We remembered this by cutting some pretty roses and putting them on her grave.

Facing the Awful, Three-headed Monster

     As mortal beings, what are the major threats to our happiness and peace?  The Book of Mormon prophet Jacob provides an interesting and powerful metaphor to answer this question.  He suggests that we are menaced by an “awful monster” called “death and hell”, which involves “the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.” (2 Ne 9:10) This is a single monster, but it seems to have two or more components or perhaps heads.  I am suggesting that this monster is at least three-headed, following the instruction provided by Elder Oaks in the October 2015 General Conference, that we all have an intuitive awareness of the threat posed by each of these manifestations, and that the Gospel plan of happiness provides complete and total remedies through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

The three threatening heads of the awful monster:
     1) The first threatening head has to do with our mortality.  We all will die.  Physical death will also overtake those with whom we have caring and valued relationships.  Most persons fight with all their might to retain mortal life.  And death suggests tragic loses and wasting of our experiences.  There is so much that we have learned.  And also there are those we love.  These relationships often represent our best and happiest achievements, the things that we hold most dear and precious.  Mortality puts this all at risk and we feel this threat.
     2) The second threatening head derives from our human weaknesses and failures, the tendency which we share with all humanity to not always live up to our best.  “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  We sense that we are not all clean, and that we are subject to an over-riding justice that demands compensation.
     3) The third threatening head on the monster has to do with coping with challenges, suffering, and injustices of this world, typically not of our making (pains, sickness, fears, afflictions, trials, persecution, tribulations, opposition, tests, sorrow, trouble, unfairness, incompleteness, betrayals, etc.).  As Elder Oaks describes: “
     “We and those we love suffer sickness. At some time each of us also experiences pain from traumatic injuries or from other physical or mental difficulties. All of us suffer and grieve in connection with the death of a loved one. We all experience failure in our personal responsibilities, our family relationships, or our occupations.
     “When a spouse or a child rejects what we know to be true and strays from the path of righteousness, we experience particularly stressful pain, just like the father of the prodigal son in Jesus’s memorable parable (see Luke 15:11–32).
      “I am still speaking of mortal infirmities not caused by our sins. Some are born with physical or mental disabilities that cause personal suffering for them and struggles for those who love and care for them. For many, the infirmity of depression is painful or permanently disabling. Another painful affliction is the circumstance of singleness...
      “Few disabilities are more crippling to our temporal or spiritual lives than addictions. Some of these... are likely to have been caused by sinful behavior. Even when that behavior has been repented of, the addiction may remain.” (Elder Dallen H. Oaks, “Strengthened by the Atonement of Christ,”October 2015 General Conference address)
     Another way of describing the third threatening head, as the Givens have pointed out, is that there is a fundamental uncertainty about this life, “that leaves lingering questions and points of disjunction and conflict..., there is no escaping our fragmentary grasp on the deepest truths of our predicament” (“The Crucible of Doubt: Reflections on the Quest for Faith”, Chapter 2). 
     Although there are many satisfactions in our mortal lives, we all still must face an existence that contains much that unfair and unknown.

Defeating the awful three-headed monster/Remedies through the atonement of Jesus Christ:
     1) Christ’s resurrection has overcome physical death for all.
     "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
     "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
     "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
     "So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
     "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"  (1 Corinthians 15:51-55)
     “The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame, even as we now are at this time...
     “Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost; but every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame, as it is now, or in the body...” (Alma 11:43-44)
     2) Christ’s suffering pays the price of our sins, as we repent:
    "And now, it came to pass that when king Benjamin had made an end of speaking the words which had been delivered unto him by the angel of the Lord, that he cast his eyes round about on the multitude, and behold they had fallen to the earth, for the fear of the Lord had come upon them.
    "And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth. And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men.
    "And it came to pass that after they had spoken these words the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy, having received a remission of their sins, and having peace of conscience, because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come, according to the words which king Benjamin had spoken unto them.  (Mosiah 4:1-3)
     3) Christ will heal or provide compensation for every human affliction
         Elder Oaks summarizes:
     “Alma described this part of the Savior’s Atonement: “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people” (Alma 7:11; also see 2 Nephi 9:21).
     “Think of it! In the Savior’s Atonement, He suffered “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind.” As President Boyd K. Packer explained: “He had no debt to pay. He had committed no wrong. Nevertheless, an accumulation of all of the guilt, the grief and sorrow, the pain and humiliation, all of the mental, emotional, and physical torments known to man—He experienced them all.”
     “Why did He suffer these mortal challenges “of every kind”? Alma explained, “And he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12).
     “At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus explained that He was sent “to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). The Bible often tells us of His healing people “of their infirmities” (Luke 5:15; 7:21).    The Book of Mormon records His healing those “that were afflicted in any manner” (3 Nephi 17:9). The Gospel of Matthew explains that Jesus healed the people “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Matthew 8:17).
     “Isaiah taught that the Messiah would bear our “griefs” and our “sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). Isaiah also taught of His strengthening us: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee” (Isaiah 41:10).
     “Thus, we sing:
Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, …
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
     “Speaking of some of his own mortal challenges, the Apostle Paul wrote, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
     “And so we see that because of His Atonement, the Savior has the power to succor—to help—every mortal pain and affliction.”  (Elder Dallen H. Oaks, “Strengthened by the Atonement of Christ,”October 2015 General Conference address)

     How does this healing or help come? 
     •    Sometimes His power heals an infirmity.
     •    Sometimes He succors or helps by giving us the strength or patience to endure our infirmities.
     •    He always provides the compensation for our loss or deprivation, sometimes in this life and sometimes in the life to come.

So, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and conquers and defeats the awful three-headed monster.

Prominent Ancestor and Cousins

Rev. John Lothropp (1584–1653) — sometimes spelled Lothrop or Lathrop — was an English Anglican clergyman, who became a Congregationalist minister and emigrant to New England. He was among the first settlers of Barnstable, Massachusetts. Perhaps Lothropp's principal claim to fame is that he was a strong proponent of the idea of the Separation of Church and State (also called 'Freedom of Religion'), keeping the government out of religion and religion out of the government. This idea was considered heretical in England during his time, but eventually became the mainstream view of people in the United States of America, because of the efforts of John Lothropp and others. Lothropp left an indelible mark on the culture of New England, and through that, upon the rest of the country. He has had many notable descendants, including at least 6 US presidents, as well as many other prominent Governors, and government and business people.

Lothropp married Hannah House in England, on 10 October 1610. They had eight children:
    Thomas Lothropp, baptised 21 February 1612 in Eastwell, Kent, England, by his grandfather Rev. John Howse, parson there. Record from Bishop's Transcript records at Canterbury.
    Jane Lothropp, born 29 September 1614 in Egerton, Kent, England; married Mayflower passenger Samuel Fuller (1608–1683), son of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller (1575-1621).
    Anne Lothropp, born May 1616 in Egerton, England
    John Lothropp, born February 1617/18 in Egerton, England
    Barbara Lothropp, born October 1619 in Egerton, England
    Samuel Lothropp, born 1622 in Egerton, England
    Captain Joseph Lothropp, born April 1624 in Eastwell, Kent, England
    Benjamin Lothropp, born December 1626 in Eastwell, Kent, England

After Hannah's death, Lothropp married again, to Ann Hammond (?) in 1635. They had five children:
    Elizabeth Lothropp, born in Scituate, MA
    Barnabas Lothropp, born June 1636 in Barnstable, MA
    Abigail Lothropp, born 2 November 1639 in Barnstable, MA
    Bathsheba Lothropp, born February 1640/41 in Scituate, MA
    Captain John Lothropp, born 9 February 1643/44 in Barnstable, MA

While Lothropp's fame may not have lasted much beyond his life, famous descendants continue to influence the world through this day. His direct descendants in America and elsewhere number more than 80,000, including:

    Rev. John Lathrop (1740-1816), great-great-grandson; congregationalist Boston minister
    Presidents of the United States:
        George H. W. Bush
        George W. Bush
        Millard Fillmore
        James A. Garfield
        Ulysses S. Grant
        Franklin D. Roosevelt
    Revolutionary War figure Benedict Arnold
    Early leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
        Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith
        Wilford Woodruff
        Oliver Cowdery
        Parley P. Pratt
        Orson Pratt
        Also: Marion G.Romney, Harold B. Lee, Joseph F. Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith   
    State governors:
        Jeb Bush
        Thomas E. Dewey
        Jon Huntsman, Jr.
        William W. Kitchin
        Sarah Palin
        George W. Romney
        Mitt Romney
        Jim Guy Tucker
    US Senator Adlai Stevenson III
    Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
    CIA Director Allen Welsh Dulles
    Roman Catholic cardinal Avery Dulles
    Old West gunfighter and lawman Wild Bill Hickock
    Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
    Educator, president of Yale University, and American diplomat Kingman Brewster, Jr..
    Historian, College Administrator, and president of Harvard University, Catherine Drew Gilpin Faust
    United States Representative Galusha A. Grow, father of the Homestead Act
    Historical, Asahel Lathrop Mormon Pioneer
    Artists Lewis Comfort Tiffany and Georgia O'Keeffe
    Physician, author Benjamin Spock
    Wife of the founder of Stanford University Jane Stanford
    Author and doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and his son, US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
    Novelist Michael MacConnell
    Founder of Post Cereal Company C. W. Post
    Founder of General foods Marjorie Merriweather Post
    Founder of Fuller Brush Company Alfred Carl Fuller
    Founder of University of Chicago Law School, Founder of the Harvard Law Review, and Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School, Joseph Henry Beale
    Financier John Pierpont Morgan
    Writer Cynthia Rouse, Alexandra Rouse, Tony Rouse, and many other Mitchell relatives.
    Professor of Physics and Professor of Geology, Daniel Perry Lathrop, University of Maryland, College Park.
    The Allred family, including actor Corbin Allred and polygamist sect leaders and brothers Rulon C. Allred and Owen A. Allred
    Actresses Dina Merrill, Shirley Temple, Brooke Shields, and Maggie Gyllenhaal and her brother actor Jake Gyllenhaal.
    Actor Clint Eastwood and Kevin Bacon
(from Wikipedia article “John Lothropp” and notes by Dorothy D. Hall)

     Here is the lineage to our family:
Rev. John Lathrop (1578-1653) md. Hannah House
            I
Jane Lathrop (1614-1678) md. Samuel Fuller (of the Mayflower)
            I
John Fuller (1656-1726) md. Mehitabel Rowley
            I
Samuel Fuller (1682-1757) md. Naomi Rowley
            I
Aaron Fuller Sr. (1711-1762) md. Ruth Sawyer
            I
Aaron Fuller Jr. (1738-1819)  md. Rebecca Bloggett   
            I
Robert Fuller (1760-1825) md. Jerusha Brudage
            I
Sarah Fuller (1791-1847) md. Joseph Remington
            I
Jerome Napoleon Remington (1819-1877) md. Lydia Ripley Badger
            I
Helen Maria Badger Remington (1857-1929) md. Jeremiah Franklin Davenport
            I
Franklin Remington Davenport (1878-1965) md. Kate Naomi Lufkin
            I
Hazel Lufkin Davenport (1906-1990) md. Clarence Monroe Lewis
            I
Robert Eugene Lewis (1937-     ) md. JoAnn Evans
            I
Alison, Angela, Valerie, Matthew, Emilie, Michael, David, Nathan

Post Script on Tree Symbolism

I want to conclude my discussion of the meaning that might be associated with a tree.  Above all is the tree of life, which Nephi represented as the “love of God.”  The love of God, of course, is manifested in the gift of his Son (John 3:16), who worked out the atonement and offers eternal life to those who partake of the fruit of the tree and accept him.  By extension, the tree may represent the results of accepting Christ, which is salvation and exaltation in God’s heavenly Kingdom. The love of God also manifests itself in the hearts of those who partake of Christ and is delicious and satisfying in the here and now.  This tree may also symbolize the means by which salvation and blessing are accessed, the great plan of happiness that is the Gospel, and its ordinances, along with repentance and righteous living.

This tree is also representative of the atonement of Christ, as he was lifted up and suffered on the tree that was a cross.  The tree may also symbolize Christ himself, as the giver of life, or his power and priesthood which is inseparable from Christ himself.  The fruit of the olive tree is used to anoint kings and priests, and to give blessings of health and vitality.

In some senses, this tree may represent distinctions in gender roles of the highest order.  Trees provide elevated vision, sustenance, and shelter, which may equate to the preside, provide, and protect for fathers in the Family Proclamation.  As Cassler suggests, the sons of God administer the ordinances of salvation and exaltation and in that way may preside over the  the doorway through the veil that brings us home to God.  This of course suggests a second tree which relates to the nurturing capacity of women, that of bringing souls to mortality and the perpetuation of the fullness of life and love in families.

My Book of Mormon reading strategies

I recognize the importance of regular study of the Book of Mormon, which can be an anchor to our faith in may ways.  But what reading strategy is best?  I have worked with several approaches that give different benefits:
 
1) Read the book all the way through from front to back.  The tried and true method.

2) Read the book all the way through from back to front (a chapter at a time, starting with Moroni 10, then Moroni 9, etc.)  This approach has two advantages.  First, it cuts you loose from the chronological setting for the chapter, and therefore may give a little more focus to the message; 2) It emphasizes the end of the book instead of the beginning.  We all know First Nephi, because we have started reading the book many times.  This put emphasis on the destruction of the Nephite civilization, Mormon and Moroni’s doctrinal messages, the Jaredites, etc.

3) Study the book topically and write short articles about what you learn.  For me, writing consolidates learning and gives me ownership of the insights.

4) Read select passages over and over until you have exhausted any insights (the rabbinical approach).  This is my current strategy.  I have made a list of major doctrinal pieces that occupy the majority of whole chapters or more.  Then I read the entire passage, then I read it again.  And again.  And again.  I follow-up on ideas that the reading suggests in other writings.  I make notes on insights received or I may do the short article thing.  I don’t leave this passage and go to the next, until I have exhausted my interest in this one.

This is my list of major doctrinal chapters in the Book of Mormon:
1 Ne 8, 10-15   The tree of life–vision of the Gospel plan, atonement
1 Ne 22        Discussion of Isaiah’s prophecies of latter days
2 Ne 1-4       Lehi’s prophecy and blessings to his children
2 Ne 6          Jacob’s prophecy of the Jews
2 Ne 9          Atonement and resurrection
2 Ne 10        Jacob’s prophecy of latter days
2 Ne 25        Nephi’s prophecy of the Jews and Christ
2 Ne 26        Nephi’s prophecy of Christ’s visit to the Americas/Priestcrafts
2 Ne 27        Book of Mormon prophecy
2 Ne 28-30   Conditions in the latter days/rejection of the Book of Mormon/restoration of 
     Israel
2 Ne 31        The strait and narrow way/first principles
2 Ne 32        Holy Ghost
2 Ne 33        Nephi’s last testimony
Jacob 2        Chastity
Jacob 3        Pure of heart
Jacob 4        Christ
Jacob 5-6     Allegory of the olive trees/prophecy of the House of Israel
Mosiah 2-5   King Benjamin address
Mosiah 12-16  Abinidi--The Ten Commandments/how salvation comes/redemption through
     Christ
Alma 5        Spiritual rebirth
Alma 7        Prophecy of Christ/repentance/redemption
Alma 9-14   The coming and mission of Christ/repentance/redemption/priesthood
     responsibilities
Alma 26        Ammon’s gratitude
Alma 29        Alma’s desires
Alma 32        Faith
Alma 33        Worship/prayer
Alma 34        Repentance/prayer
Alma 36        Repentance and forgiveness
Alma 37        Missionary work
Alma 38        Alma’s testimony/salvation
Alma 39        Sexual sin/repentance
Alma 40-42   Atonement/mercy/resurrection
Helaman 13-15   Samuel’s prophecy
3 Ne 12-14   Sermon at the temple
3 Ne 15-16, 20-21   Israel and the last days
3 Ne 18        Sacrament
3 Ne 27        The gospel, atonement
3 Ne 29        The Book of Mormon and the last days
Mormon 7    Invitation to the Lamanites of our day
Mormon 8    Book of Mormon coming forth/reactions and warnings
Mormon 9    Miracles and signs
Ether 3        Faith and perfect knowledge
Ether 8        Secret combinations/freedom
Ether 12      Faith, hope and charity
Moroni 7      Faith, hope and charity
Moroni 8      Baptism of little children/First principles
Moroni 10    Spiritual gifts/Sanctification

Norman Rockwell exhibit at BYU

Wendy and I saw an exhibition of Norman Rockwell's work at the BYU MOA today.  By far my favorite piece was called “The Problem We All Live With, ” a  painting by Rickwell depicting 6-year old Ruby being escorted to school by U S Marshalls.

Here is the story of this happening.  It is a wonderful story of faith and prayer:

"...In 1960, six years after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional. Ruby was one of four first-graders selected to integrate two elementary schools. She was sent alone to William Frantz Public School.


"On Ruby’s first day, 150 protesters gathered outside. They chanted, “Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate.” Six-year-old Ruby was oblivious to the meaning, and later recalled singing the rhyme to jump rope. She would not understand the cause for the commotion until months later, when a classmate told her, “I can’t play with you. My mama said not to because you’re a nigger.”

"As she left school that first day, Ruby saw someone in the crowd carrying a black doll in a coffin. Her autobiography "Through My Eyes" shows a photograph of smiling demonstrators posing with the coffin for the cameras — a haunting image. When Ruby arrived the next day, some spat at her and shouted, “Go home, nigger.” One woman screamed, “I'm going to poison you. I'll find a way.” Ruby recalls, “She made the same threat every morning.”

"Ruby was not their only target. The crowd also threatened each white student, hoping to shut down the school entirely. After several days, only three of the 576 white children arrived for school.
 
"One was the daughter of the Rev. Lloyd Foreman, a Methodist minister undeterred by the raucous mob. Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck described how a group known colloquially as the “cheerleaders” hurled insults at the minister and his daughter: “No newspaper had printed the words these women shouted. … But now I heard the words, bestial and filthy and degenerate.”

"Another white student endured for three weeks, but the little girl awoke one night screaming. She pleaded not to be sent back to school with “those ugly ladies; those ladies who yell so ugly.” Her family packed up and left Louisiana.

"Ruby also had nightmares. “Did you say your prayers before you went to sleep?” her mother would ask. “Honey, that’s why you’re having a bad dream. Go back now, and say your prayers.” Remembering those moments, Ruby writes, “Somehow it always worked. Kneeling at the side of my bed and talking to the Lord made everything okay.” She also remembers: “My mother and our pastor always said you have to pray for your enemies and people who do you wrong, and that’s what I did.”

"Ruby’s prayers are the subject of the children’s book "The Story of Ruby Bridges" by Dr. Robert Coles. Concerned about the trauma to Ruby, Coles had offered counseling. One school morning, Ruby’s teacher watched as Ruby stopped in front of the screaming mob. Her lips moved. Coles later asked Ruby what she had said to the crowd. “I wasn’t talking,” Ruby responded. “I was praying for them.” When Coles asked why, Ruby answered, “Well, don’t you think they need praying for?”

"Every morning and afternoon, she said the same prayer: “Please, Dear God, forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing.” Recognizing the words of Jesus, Coles reflected in an interview, “Now, I’d heard that some place before. … It silenced me.” Ruby’s parents could not read or write, Coles noted, “and yet they had taught her biblical truths in a way that she was to live them out. I would like to see some of us who have fancy educations bring up our children similarly.”

"It is fitting that Norman Rockwell gave us the enduring image of Ruby Bridges. Few routines could be more ordinary than a child’s daily arrival to school. Yet little Ruby was at the center of an extraordinary conflict. How did she endure? By the most ordinary of means — prayer. It’s hidden from Rockwell’s painting, but when faced with “The Problem We All Live With,” Ruby sought help from a source of strength available to each of us.

"America changed as a little girl outlasted her enemies by praying for them."    (From a Deseret News op-ed piece, by Michael Erickson)

Interpreting the Tree(s) of Life

Undoubtedly, the tree of life motif might be interpreted in multiple ways.  The ancient Jewish rabbis taught that there were four levels of meaning in the interpretation of text in biblical study, 1) the plain or contextual meaning, 2) the allegorical or implied meaning/hints, 3) the metaphorical meaning as compared to other scripture and literature, and 4) the hidden or mystic meaning.  Symbols may suggest multiple meanings, for example baptism may suggest the death and burial of the old evil person, or our rebirth into a new life, or remembering the death, burial and resurrection of the Savior and his atonement for our sins, or represent a covenant to follow the example of Christ in our lives.  None of these interpretations is wrong.  The Savior often spoke in parables, which only the spiritually attuned could understand.  We have sometimes been advised as temple workers, when asked about the meaning of various symbolic representations in the temple, to avoid giving dogmatic interpretations, but rather to suggest seeking the Spirit to the person with the question.  Let that Spirit tailor the interpretation to the needs of the individual patron.

One of the challenges in understanding the tree of life is to compare how Lehi and Nephi’s tree relates to the trees in the Garden of Eden.  Griggs in the study just summarized gives what seems to be a contradictory response to this question.  First, he avers that the trees of life in the two circumstances are not the same (“another tree”), since fruit of the Garden tree was forbidden to be eaten and the Lehi-Nephi tree had partaking of the fruit of the tree the most important objective of the person’s spiritual quest in this life.  Yet in the same paragraph he postulates a second tree in the Lehi-Nephi scenario of which men continue to eat “the deadening fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil” which appears to imply that the two sets of trees are the same. 

Griggs also gives a negative cast to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that it represents worldly and evil choices. This is like in the Lehi-Nephi dream the filthy water or the great and spacious building and may be consistent with Lehi’s interpretation of the forbidden fruit as bitter (2 Ne. 2:15).  Yet generally in LDS theology, the fall of Adam and Eve is not seen as a negative but a necessity.  Without the fall “the great plan of happiness would have been frustrated.  There would have been no children, no blood, no mortality and death, no probationary experience on earth, no atoning sacrifice, no forgiveness, no resurrection and thus no hope for joy here or eternal life hereafter.” (Dennis L. Largey, “Book of Mormon Reference Companion, Deseret Book, 2003, p. 264)

Here is another way to interpret the symbolism of the two trees in the Garden of Eden that I find interesting, that helps interpret gender roles and differences in a way that might explain some LDS doctrines about men, women, and families.  It seems to suggest that both the of the trees were heavenly in origin and had heavenly purposes.  Is that true?  Well, to me it has a good feel.  But it is symbolic interpretation that teaches some principles--

“The LDS do not believe that the Fall was a great tragedy. Rather, we believe that the Fall was foreordained, that it was for our progression, and thus the Fall was a blessing. Number two, the LDS do not believe that Eve sinned in partaking of the fruit of the First Tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And number three, because the LDS do not believe Eve sinned, we also do not believe that Eve was punished by God for her role in partaking of the fruit, but rather rewarded.

“The Great Plan of Happiness devised for the children of God mandated that they leave their heavenly home, receive a mortal body as a blessing, enter into full agency by being separated from God, and then return once more to their heavenly home to be judged for how they used their agency.  That is, the Plan was to be a “round,” if you will: it would take us from our heavenly home and, if we walked that path well, the plan would bring us back to our heavenly home, now much more like our Heavenly Parents, with much more knowledge, a fuller agency, a desire to choose the right, with so much more than we ever could have acquired if we had stayed in heaven with a pale or dilute version of agency.

“Only the children could choose to leave, and to bring to pass a separation from their divine parents.  And so in the Garden were placed a son and a daughter of God, and two trees.  Two persons, two trees.

“Both Trees represented doorways along the journey of the Great Plan.  The First Tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, symbolized the doorway leading from heaven, and the ordinances of entering mortality with a mortal body, gaining full agency, and having the light of Christ awakened within.  The Second Tree, the tree of eternal life, symbolized the ordinances of salvation and exaltation, and the doorway back to our heavenly home...

“...The First Tree was the gift to be given by women in the Great Plan.  It is through women that souls journey to mortality and gain their agency, and in general it is through the nurturing of women, their nurturing love of their children, that the light of Christ is awakened within each soul.  And we should include in that list of souls Jesus the Christ. Even Christ our Lord was escorted to mortality and veiled in flesh through the gift of a woman, fed at his mother’s breast, and awakened to all that is good and sweet in the world. Women escort every soul through the veil to mortal life and full agency.  It is interesting to think that even Adam, who was created before Eve, entered into full mortality and full agency by accepting the gift of the First Tree from the hand of a woman.  In a sense, Adam himself was born of Eve...

What gift will Adam give to further the Great Plan?  The LDS believe that Adam and his sons will give the gift of the fruit of the Second Tree to the children of God, those who are worthy to receive it, just as Eve and her daughters give the fruit of the First Tree to all who are worthy to partake of it.  The fruit of the Second Tree is the ordinances of salvation and exaltation administered by the sons of God.  Just as the doorway through the veil into this life is administered and guarded over by the women, the daughters of God, so the doorway through the veil that brings us home is administered and guarded over by the sons of God.  And those that have accepted the gift of the Second Tree from the hands of the sons of God will pass through that veil and back to that celestial place where they can be with their Parents once more.

Just as Adam was asked to hearken to Eve and received the fruit of the First Tree, Eve is asked by God to hearken to Adam in accepting the fruit of the Second Tree.  We would be remiss if we did not see that there were two hearkenings, two gifts given, two gifts received, two stewardships.

That means that priesthood, in the LDS understanding, is not some extra given to men and denied women.  Priesthood is a man’s apprenticeship to become a heavenly father, and it is clear from LDS doctrine that women have their own apprenticeship to become like their heavenly mother.  The ordinances—and they are ordinances—of body and of agency—pregnancy, childbirth, lactation—the spiritual ordinances of the First Tree are not less powerful or spiritual than the ordinances of the Second Tree.  Women have their own godly power.

Some have erroneously felt that the Church and its male leaders preside over the members’ families, and that somehow that means that men are to rule over women.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Restored Gospel helps us see that the Church is intended to be the gift that the sons of God give to the family, just as the daughters of God give a great gift to the family.  The Church, then, is but an auxiliary to the family, which stands above it in the eternal plan.  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland,... has said, “There might be wards and stakes in heaven—I don’t know anything about them—or there may well be some other organization that we don’t know much about.  What we do know will exist in heaven is families.  And most of what has been revealed about our afterlife, our eternal life, our celestial life, focuses on family organization…” The family is the divine organization, and we know from LDS doctrine that, in the family, women and men rule as equals.  President James E. Faust, of the First Presidency of the LDS Church, said: “Every father is to his family a patriarch and every mother a matriarch as coequals in their distinctive parental roles.”  (Valerie Hudson Cassler  “I am a Mormon Because I am a Feminist” http://mormonscholarstestify.org/1718/valerie-hudson-cassler)

More about trees: The Tree of Life

 

     Continuing our family dialog (or maybe its my monolog) about the tree metaphor (see post of last Dec 11th).  I ran across the reprinting of an interesting and insightful 1988 Ensign article (“The Tree of Life in Ancient Cultures”) by C. Wilfred Griggs about the Tree of Life.  The author points out this particular symbolism serves to demonstrates the Book of Mormon to be an ancient text, because of its commonality with the pervasive representation of the Tree of Life, as an object of man’s quest to obtain and enjoy its fruit, in the art and literature of every ancient Mediterranean culture in the period before, during and after the time of the prophets Lehi and Nephi.
     Here are some of the connections described by Griggs (my summary):

1) Small gold plates, engraved in Greek language and found in Italy, Sicily, Crete, and Macedonia depicting “the dead, wandering in the world of the shades, and [warning] them to avoid a destructive spring on their left, [but to keep to the right to find another spring] beside a white cypress tree.  After pausing for refreshment and nourishment, the wanderers continue to the lake of memory, where after responding appropriately to questions posed by the lake guardians, [they] receive eternal memories and enter into the gods’ presence, [with those] successfully completing the journey becom[ing] gods themselves.”
     The cypress tree is the tree of life and the spring nearby the spring of life.  The other spring is the source of forgetfulness and punishment.

2) In Old Testament and Jewish writings:
     – In the Adam and Eve’s exclusion from the Tree of Life included exclusion from God’s presence, and thus, whenever man regained God’s presence, a tree of life representation symbolized the reunion.
     – The Lord spoke to Moses out of a bush that burned with fire but was not consumed.
     – The rod of Aaron symbolized that God was with Moses and Aaron as it swallowed the rods of Egyptian magicians.  Later the rod blossomed and bore almonds as a sign that the Lord chose the tribe of Levi to bear the priesthood.
     – Messianic prophecies (Isaiah, Zechariah) speak of the Messiah in terms related to a tree of life.  Christ is called the Branch, giving light and life to the earth.
     – Zachariah also saw a vision of two olive trees on either side of the menorah (sacred lampstand) of the tabernacle.  Most scholars see the latter as representative of the tree of life.
     – In sacred but non-canonized Jewish literature, when Enoch traveled to the Seven Sacred Mountains, he saw a sacred tree similar to a date palm but more beautiful and grand than he had seen before.  His guide told him that the fruit of the tree could not be eaten by mortals unitl they were purified after the judgement and that they would have to enter the temple to partake.  In the Secrets of Enoch, the seer is shown the heavenly dwelling place, where stand the tree of life.  In the Testament of Levi, Enoch prophecies that in the last days the Lord shall open the gates of paradise and give to the saints to eat from the tree of life, and the spirit of holiness shall be upon them.  Ezra is promised that in the last days is opened Paradise, and plant4d the Tree of Life.  Jewish literature often portrays the tree of life as the seat of an oracle of God, as source of inspiration as well as nourishment, and a scared sanctuary apart from worldly cares and dangers.

3) Other Ancient Near Eastern Cultures
     – In a famous Mesopotamian epic, the hero Gilgamesh undertakes a long journey to find the plant that gives life.  His guide takes him to the washing place, to wash off his grime in water clean as snow, then he is dressed in a cloak to clothe his nakedness and a band is placed upon his head.  He then passes through the great waters to obtain the plant whereby a man may regain his life’s breath.  He is frustrated in his quest by a serpent which drags the plant away.   In a similar Sumerian legend, again about the story of the tree of life in the creation of the universe, Gilgamesh is given by a goddess a magical drum and drumstick made from the tree of life which is in her garden.  The hero loses them to the world of the dead.  An Akkadian myth tells of a shepard who to bless his people needs an heir, and with the aid of an eagle, flies to heaven to obtain the “plant of birth” to cure his childlessness.  Other wrings tell of Eridu, whose earthly abode is in a tree, so that the branches, used to sprinkle holy water, have therapeutic value.  A commentator states that sacred tree is everywhere the abode of a God, or is guardian of the temple.

4) Ancient Egypt
     – Countless examples of the tree of life symbol, found in representations of the lotus plant and the papyrus, in numerous artifacts, lotus being the symbol of rebirth and regeneration. The Egyptians frequently depicted life emerging from these plants.  w.
     – The Ished, a persea tree, grew in the temples, and ritual required each Pharaohs name at his coronation ceremony.  A small statue shows Ramses making an offering to the gods, while kneeling on the leaves and branches of the sacred Ished tree, with his names and deeds  to be inscribed on leaves of this tree.
     – Egyptian coffin covers often depict the deceased eating and drinking from a tree of life, and out of which the goddess Nut is growing.  In one figure she is offering food and drink to a man, who needs nourishment as he wanders through the dark netherworld.
     – Other artifacts show divine beings refreshing the pharaohs with fruit of the tree of life.  A pond or stream of sacred water often lies near or under the tree, with the God of writing inscribing the name of the king on the tree. Partaking of the tree is a sacramental act, symbolizing unity with the gods; this is not available to mortals in ordinary circumstances, but is found only in rituals relating to eternity.

5) Ancient Greece
     – The tree of life is a common mythological symbol of religious ritual.  It is the sacred palm in a golden cup from Minoan Crete.  Vases show the god of fertility or nature, Dionysius, kneeling before a palm or pouring a sacred offering or libation on a palm growing out of an altar.
     – Ancient Greek literature is replete with references to a sacred tree, or tree of life.  In the epic The Odyssey, the hero sees a tree growing out of the alter of Apollo, different from any other tree on earth. Apollo’s mother grasps a palm tree during his birth.  The newborn god is then washed with water and wrapped in a new white garment.  Stories also tell of Athenians visiting the oracle of Delphi during the Persian Wars to dedicate a bronze palm tree with golden fruit to Athena.
     – Often the sacred tree was an olive, not a palm. The token Odysseus used to identify himself to his wife is their marriage bed, carved from a great olive tree still rooted in the ground.  Later the olive tree on the Acropolis, believed to have been planted there by the goddess Athena, was thought be the source for all olive trees in Attica.  The victors of the Olympic games were crowned with branches and leaves from an olive tree growing near sacred altars at Olympia.  The games represented the ritual process of obtaining the tree of life, similar processes being described in many ancient cultures.  In Greek mythology, Heracles exemplified this process in his twelve labors, which would secure him eternal life.  In the last two, he descends into Hades, and acquires golden apples from the sacred grove of the Hesperides.  He accomplishes all his tasks but has to give the apples back to his heavenly guardians, because it is not proper for a mortal to have the sacred fruit.

6) The New Testament and Early Christian Writings
     – While the tree of life was an enduring symbol in the ancient world, with virtually the same characteristics, as a symbol of eternal life.  New Testament and early Christian writers realized that it could only point to Jesus Christ.  The tree of life is significant in the Book of Revelation, and those who overcome the world will be able to eat of it (Rev. 2:7; 22: 2, 14).  Other passages refer to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, for example, when the olive tree becomes Paul’s symbol of eternal life for the Saints, both Jew and Gentile (Rom. 11:16-27; also notice the similarity of his analogy to Jacob’s allegory of the olive tree in the Book of Mormon in Jacob ch. 5).
     – Olive oil, a product or fruit of the sacred tree, was used not only used in the Old Testament for the ritual anointing of priests and kings, but also was used in the New Testament for anointing and blessing the sick (See Ex 30:23-33; James 5:14-15).  The name Christ (Gr.) and Messiah (Heb.) means “the anointed one” and anointing for divine kingship and for God’s blessing has special significance of Jesus.
     – The New Testament also alludes to the cross of Jesus as a tree (Acts 5:30; Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:24).  It has been noticed that the Greek word used for tree in these passages is the same word that is used for the tree of life in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament), rather than the usual New Testament word for tree.  According to a number of sources, early Christians thought of the cross as a tree of life.  Here is a translation of an ancient hymn:
     “The tree of life is the cross which gives a radiant life to our race. On the top of Golgotha Christ distributed life to men.  And henceforth he further promised us the pledge of eternal life.  Our Savior typified his body in the tree, the one from which Adam did not taste because he sinned.”
Also from an early Church Father:
     “By the tree of death we were born to the life to come;...therefore, pluck believingly the fruits of life.”
Cyril of Jerusalem writes that the cross fulfilled the Old Testament symbol of life coming from the wood in the temple, on the ark [of the covenant], and even the rod carrying the bronze serpent: 
    “The Tree of Life [meaning the cross] therefore was planted in the earth, that the earth which had been cursed might enjoy the blessing, and that the dead might be released.”
Methodius called Jesus both the first principle and the tree of life.  John Chrysostom speaks of life through the cross, and calls the cross the fountain of life.

7) The Book of Mormon
     Griggs states that “the Book of Mormon provides an excellent example of how sacred writings preserve and transmit great religious symbols...”
     “The tree of life appears in the visions fo both Lehi and Nephi as a symbol of spiritual nourishment and salvation.  The symbol contains many critical elements found in Old World cultures: (1) the difficulty of gaining access to it; (2) the various destructive forces around and about it; (3) the spiritual qualities required to make its fruit acceptable and nourishing to its partakers; and (4) the divine nature of the tree and its fruit, which render them unavailable to mortals lost in darkness and laden with sin.”
     “The tree of life as found in Nephite culture had other–future–ties as well.  John Sorenson, for example, has noted that “Tree of Life symbolism occurred widely in Mexico and Central America in ancient times.  Many of the same artistic features occur in scenes there as in Near Eastern art.”   M.Wells Jakeman and V. Garth Norman have also documented specific similarities between some of those tree representations and references to the tree of life in the Book of Mormon.
     “Among all these representations, however, nowhere is there a better depiction of the tree of life and true meaning than in the Book of Mormon.  Lehi and Nephi learned that only by holding fast ot the rod of iron, representing the word of God, could people reach the tree and its fruit... Those who reached the tree but partook of the fruit without forsaking the world and its enticements became ashamed, falling away into forbidden paths.
     “The destructive forces about the tree included mockers and a filthy river representing the hell prepared for the wicked.  The tree’s white fruit, described similarly in other ancient cultures, was sweet and more desirable to the righteous than anything else.  The tree itself represented the love of God, specifically manifested in the ministry and sacrifice of the Savior.
     “Alma later used the tree of life motif in his sermons, inviting the people “to be baptized unto repentance, that [they] also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life.”  Although the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden tree of life in the Garden of Eden was well-known among the Book of Mormon writers, the New World prophets, like those in the Old World, looked to another tree of life with fruit they could eat.
     “These and similar ways in which Book of Mormon writers use the symbolism of the tree of life place the Book of Mormon solidly in antiquity.  But the greatest challenge of the vision of the tree of life in the Book of Mormon is not in tracing its history...  The greatest challenge is in making the truths it symbolizes an integral part of our lives.  Most men continue to eat only the deadening fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  The tree of life, however, is available to all who do not wish to live forever in their sins, and the Book of Mormon invites all people to approach and partake of the tree’s divine and eternal fruit.”

Stage 8 challenges

I am about to violate the basic rule for meeting of the challenge of psycho-social development Stage 8.  This is my current Stage, as per Eric Erikson’s writings.  He was a prominent psychoanalyst of a few years ago who developed a human development model called The Eight Stages of Man that I learned in my graduate studies.  I am now in the Stage #8, which is the stage for old age.  My responsibility is to develop wisdom and avoid despair and disgust, so that my descendants may have a model for aging gracefully and not be afraid of this stage of life.

But a week ago, I experienced what seemed to me at the time to be one of the very worst indicators of the aging process, a colonoscopy.  And through the 5-day preparation period I developed a lot more despair and disgust that wisdom.  It is so awful!!!  But then I suppose that the child birth you ladies experience is infinitely more stressing, so shouldn’t feel sorry for myself.

Aside from the results being totally positive, no polyps and no cancer, the only other bright side was that when I awakened after 45 minutes or so under the anesthetic I felt SO RESTED.  I had had to get up at 2:45 am to start the last stage in my prep, having about 3 hours sleep before that.  Then up continuously until we left for the Drs., with the procedure at about 8:15 am.  Now it was 9 am. 

I said to Wendy. “That was the best night’s sleep I’ve had for months.  I should do this anesthetic thing again.”

Someone suggested that this is how morphine feels.  I don’t know.........