Approaching Zion: The Seventh Seal

Let Zion Rejoice!

"A ceremonial sky / painted by artists / untouched by priests' knife / falling gently towards / forgetfulness."

   ― "Zion"

We are in uncharted waters, sailing through the Seventh Seal upon the Savior's skiff.

   And when he had opened
   the seventh seal,
   there was silence in heaven
   about the space
   of half an hour.

(Revelation 8:1)

I confess, I fear the silence; when I am home alone I usually have the TV on in the background.  I dread the day our voices will be quieted in the night.

That is why four years ago I began blogging on Owl of the Desert (I described the impetus for it in the post "Reflection").  We never know the time remaining to us, so I have tried my best to heed the Lord's call to warn my friends and neighbors.

   I sent you out to testify
   and warn the people,
   and it becometh every man
   who hath been warned
   to warn his neighbor.

(D&C 88:81) 

Over the years you have witnessed the evolution of my beliefs and faith as we have sailed the tides of God's garment together into the great unknown, always stretching towards the truth, reaching against the blackness.

The Lord has prepared spiritual Arks to carry His children during the coming storm.  We are windswept and sunburnt among circling sharks, praying for a favorable wind.  And yet we are not alone.

My friends, being a refugee on Christ's lifeboat has its perks.  There's nowhere else I'd rather be than here with you.  For it is here, in our seaweed rags, and with our sunken-cheekbones that testify of our spiritual hunger ― far beyond the vale of Land-ho ― that we may experience God fully beneath a dark sky.

For, who misses the light pollution produced by our spiritual suburbs?

At midnight the sea comes alive beneath the stars, so close you can reach out and touch them.

The one time I can bear the silence is when I am staring at the night sky; it fills me with wonder and peace.  Now we look up and see God moving in His majesty and power.

Cradled in the ocean of His arms, far from strongmen and spiritual czars, we can at last behold His face.

A vision of the earth returning to its paradisaical glory, giving birth to the Millennium, awaits.

Maritime Law
​
   There is no rainfall
   like that bestowed
   upon the open sea.
   Open faced we rise
   to the rainfall falling,
   flooding across the pores
   and grooves of our gopher wood
   skin.

   ― "Ark"

We are in the Ark.  The Ark is Christ.  The body of Christ is the Ark.  We are the Ark.

Here, there is no law but the Ark-law.  After all, the "law of the land" does not apply on the ocean, where Maritime Law governs.

   Wherefore, hear my voice
   and follow me, and you
   shall be a free people,
   and ye shall have no laws
   but my laws when I come,
   for I am your lawgiver,
   and what can stay my hand?

(D&C 38:22)

The land-laws (what we call today the "common law," which I am comparing to our religious rules) are powerless now we've set sail.  In international waters we are subject only to our Captain.

Having fled the land of our captivity, we've embarked upon a great adventure in Christ's humble craft.  We need no longer worry about the law of landfolk.  We are creatures of water and wine, having been baptized in the bosom of God's love.

If you're reading these words, chances are you've been cast overboard, jettisoned, thrown from the great Spanish Galleons towering over the horizon; or perhaps they made you to walk the plank of Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson's ship, the HMS Victory, for refusing to declare loyalty to the Crown.

For us there is no crown but that made of thorns; and no brow we honor but the One who bore It.

Castaways are we, and yet ― gathered into the sails of Christ's blood ― we want for nothing (though we are poor and lack many things, as little children).

For us, victory is not found in the might of the British Navy, beneath her lofty masts ― but rather in the meekness of the manger, in the song of the Shepherd, and in the quietude of Gethsemane's fire.

We are Christ's starchildren sailing the heavens, the Elosh'arim (the gates of God), through whom His light shines upon the world (Matt. 5:14-16).

So we sail onward upon the waves of His wonder, not relying upon the combustion engines of Babylon to guide us, but upon the breath of God, filling our sails with His eternal wisdom.

Having dedicated our strength to Christ, we need no longer row as galley slaves for masters who make a mockery of Bethlehem with their feigned frankincense and fool's gold.

A Prism

"I ask / Was the ark / fashioned for dry ground? / Step into the rain"

​    ― "Ark"

Over the past four years I have tried to find different ways to shine a light through the Prism we call Christ.

For Christ is a Seer Stone (Crystal), and as light passes through Him, it splits into its variegated parts ― like white separating into the seven colors of the rainbow.

We typically think of Him as the Unifier, but let's not forget He is also the Great Divider:

   Suppose ye that I am come
   to give peace on earth?
   I tell you, Nay;
   but rather division.

(Luke 12:51)

What else did we expect from the One we call the Light of the world?  For light reveals what was hidden; it illuminates; it also burns with searing heat.

And so my intent has been to shine the light of truth through the Christ-Prism to split it into beautiful reds and oranges and yellow, greens and blues, indigo and holy violet.  The word of God is a many-splendored, colorful thing.

But then, always, to return the colors to oneness in Him, so that truth becomes white again, whole.

For four years on Owl of the Desert I have tried to shoot a beam through our Living Crystal, our Helpmeet, our Friend, to illuminate His face.  I have shot the ray of faith through the Prism; and of charity; of Zion; common consent and of God's law, His priesthood; the doctrine of prophets and stewardship and keys.  I've shot the ray of the Law of the Harvest and the wheat and tares; the temple and tithing; and of community and of the Holy Ghost Revelator.

But no matter our subject ― whether discernment or the role of the Church ― my purpose has always been the same: to reveal His lovingkindness and mercy.

But I have not stopped there.  What is the opposite of love?  What is the opposite of equality?  What is the antithesis of the gospel?  I tried to shine a black light through the Prism, too, so we might witness the workings of the adversary; I refer to the dark light of Babylon, the perils of priestcraft, religious authority and unrighteous dominion; the Handbook, and the pitfalls of obedience. 

What more can I say?   Well, since you asked . . . .

A New Age

​​"What are these swelling / phantoms elongating / across the water / day and night, night / after day?"

   ― "Ark"

And so we come to the point of this post.  I feel a sense of premonition, as if the earth were readying for birth.

​Perhaps you've also felt it: a shift in our spiritual evolution as the Lord hastens His work.
​
Don't worry, I don't think there's any risk of us being translated just yet (I still love Taco Bell’s Mexican pizza and Baja Blast too much).

But I am aware that the earth (and in consequence, our spirits) has begun a new course.  By way of comparison, if we were running in the Olympics, we seem to have completed a lap around the track; we race on for the race is not yet finished, but is accelerating towards the finish line.

We are changing; can you sense it?  The earth itself is changing.  Our spiritual orientation is shifting, awakening, along with the planet's (D&C 88:19-20).

Beneath the canopy of Christ’s cross, we are given agency to be co-creators in the life we lead, and also in the world we create for others to live in.  But listen now: the next step is to become co-creators with the earth to nurse a new age into existence.

The Father has opened a seal (a link) (a time) and as a result I have observed in my personal life two developments:

   (1) greater desire to join the angelic host in laboring in the vineyard alongside our Master for the last time (Jacob 5:62), and

   (2) greater disinterest in most of the things happening in the Church and in the news.

Heaven hears our cries; the Lord is listening to the thoughts of our hearts.  A new world is born in consequence of our faith.  Another Great Awakening is upon us, even as a Great Darkness rises in opposition.

We need, more than ever, true messengers sent from above to guide us.  We need, more than ever, to love one another tightly.

We need, more than ever, to turn to God and Arise.

The Time is Far Spent; We Have All the Time in the World

"Life was / an act of aching / the coaxing of an ember / breathless, trying to remember"

   ― "Goodbye"

This new age is following a pattern as old as time; for as in the days of Noah, "so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matt. 24:37).

The Second Coming may not be what we expect.  As Clark Burt noted:

"The way future end-time events unfold may surprise us.  They may not resemble in the slightest what we 'thought' God was going to do.  We may be deceived if we cling to our traditional, two-dimensional understanding of how things will play out."

Please re-read that quote and let it sink in.  Clark continued:

"There [will be] unknown factors that enter into the redemption of Israel [in the end times] that constitute a trial or test of the Lord's people.  These trying elements result when the ancient types combine in unexpected fashion to form the new events.  The new events serve as a test because they may or may not conform to a person’s worldview."

(Clark Burt, "Repentance: All But the Very Elect Will Be Deceived, Part 2," July 23, 2024, Given by the Finger of God blog.)

Now, a bit of mystery.  All things held in the hand of God exist in opposition (2 Nephi 2:11).  But remember, opposition is not necessarily a bad (or negative) thing.  Think of gravity: two objects are held together because of the force they exert on each other.  Or consider the earth's magnetic field, which contains both positive and negative polarities.

There is a foundational duality woven into the universe, so that all eternal coinage contains flip sides.  Opposition describes and defines the relationship between things, such as life and death, good and evil, light and dark, male and female.  One cannot exist without the other.

The contours of a thing are manifest at the boundary where it meets its opposite.

The Lord does not utterly "destroy" the opposition, for doing so would result in imbalance and topple the scales of eternity.  He overcame death and hell, but did not obliterate them.  Death and hell continue to exist, because they are eternal (as He is) (see, D&C 19:7-11).

A thing is overcome not through its eradication, but through placing it in the proper order relative to its opposite.  In this way the light governs, through oppositional order.  Opposites attract; the divine interaction of opposites (think of male and female) is a nexus for creation.

By way of analogy, consider our immune system.  During the flu season we get sick if our immune system is weakened.

We each have a spiritual immune system.  The goal is not to avoid the darkness, but to maintain our health (our light) in its presence, despite its influence ― as we would build physical immunity to pathogens.

You don't strengthen your immune system by living in an hermitically-sealed bubble (that actually weakens it).  Our immunity grows through being exposed to harmful bacteria and viruses. 

There are evil spirits all around us; the key is not to live in a bubble, avoiding them; the key is to develop an immunity to their evil influence so we may walk among them unfazed, untouched ― as a doctor, who somehow doesn't get ill even though he's around sick people all day.

But please do not misunderstand: neither do we seek after the darkness, for "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matt. 6:34).  So be wise.

Christ's gift was to embrace and reconcile the opposition inherent in all things so they became ordered as one, and thereby He was able to encompass both, and all.  This allowed Him to transcend the duality, the back-and-forth, in order to achieve Unity.  Why is His House is a house of order?  Is it because He places His children into a hierarchy, like in military ranks?  Heavens no.

The order of God is fundamental, not social; it is cosmological, not cultural.  It speaks of the nature of light, of existence, of intelligence ― not about ordering pawns on a priesthood chessboard.  It is so all things may become "one."

This explains, perhaps, the reasoning behind Christ's cryptic saying to "resist not evil" (Matt. 5:39).  The more we resist (oppose) something, the more power it has over us.

As the world falls apart, and as the earth delivers her treasures to her children, we will find the path forward is not in opposition to the "bad" (for that just keeps us entangled with it), but in transcending it through submission.

Christ showed us to not just discern between opposites, but to discern the opposite that exists in the other.

​This is the spirit of the Seventh Seal.