On Zion

Reader dear, I hope you've had a lovely week. Mine was sleepless as the kids were often up at night with colds, but it had its bright moments. And now we head out to Lake Tahoe for some good fun. After this week, goodness knows I need it.

                                

Amongst the week's weeds of fatigue and chaos, I grew some thoughts on peace and beauty. It was Pioneer Day in Utah on Friday--the day we celebrate becoming a state and all of the people who gave their hearts and lives to its cause.That made me think about why the Mormons crossed seas and swamps and rivers and plains to come to this desert valley. I can only imagine that it was because of a kind of dancing zeal for Zion that lit up their insides with hope for a better world and energy enough to create it. How did the ambition plant itself there in so many wild hearts? I think The Book of Mormon had quite a bit to do with it.

Lately the text has come alive for me in new ways. I've been noticing more and more that Zion is the record's principle concern. The authors and prophets aim to teach us readers how to bring it about. Every vision and story and speech speaks of it or points to it in some way or another. Lehi's family searches for the promised land--this is Zion. Lehi sees his family partake of the fruit of a tree that makes them happy--this is Zion. The people of King Benjamin cry with one voice "apply the atoning blood of Christ," and feel no more disposition to do evil--this is Zion. Holy prophets testify of Christ, that he can cleanse us and heal us and give us peace--this is Zion. When the people of Nephi become of one heart and one mind, equal in all things and made partakers of the heavenly gift, alive in the spirit, knit together in love--this is  Zion. The rest of the record is about the tragedy of loosing Zion to the horrors of sin. Nephi, Mormon and Moroni urge us to be wiser than their societies have been. The last verses of the final book of the record include a tender plea for the daughter of Zion to strengthen her stakes and to enlarge her borders, to come unto Christ and be perfected. All is the work of at-one-ment.

I love this deep and vast vision. I can see why this book's words stirred believers to sacrifice everything for it,  the kingdom of God, that pearl beyond price of which Jesus himself  so ardently spoke. The early saints who came to the Utah territory were filled with this Zion spirit. It's how they made a desert blossom, by embueing the ground with the love of God and neighbor.

I have seen how the gospel of faith and repentence and covenant keeping brings this spirit into life. My heart marvels over how deeply and consistently The Book of Mormon has something to teach us about individual and collective oneness with the divine. It is the scintillating star for today's saints, those who still strive to build Zion within, at home, and abroad in this last dispensation. Do we take it to be such?