Categories
thoughts

Figurative Phylacteries


photo credit: chaim zvi

I was recently reading in Deuteronomy chapter six where Moses instructs the people thus:

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)

As I read that, the thought struck me that there are some laws and instructions that must be followed literally, such as the command that the people mark the upper and side posts of their door with the blood of their Passover lamb (Exodus 12) but that commands such as this, which are literally kept by wearing phylacteries and having a mezuzah on their door, are more important to be kept figuratively if the people are to become covenant people with the Lord than they are to be kept literally.

Categories
culture life meta

Change is in the Air

I’ve been feeling the need to reorient my online (and offline) activity for a while now. It has been interesting to work through the process of identifying what needed to change and how. There may be some person out there who noticed yet another title change. I never was particularly comfortable with the previous title, but as I identified the kind of purpose and image I would like to pursue I am very excited about “The Zion Chronicle” as it captures what I am working toward and seems fitting. I expect to be doing a lot more here writing about life and society in a quest to identify and promote the development of Zion in my own life. Hopefully others will find some gems that can bring them to Zion (or Utopia, Shangri La, Eden, or whatever other name you might assign to your ideal for human society).

As part of this change I started using Stats Counter to have some idea of what is actually happening besides me writing and people commenting. Interestingly one of the first three searches that landed someone here at my site after I signed up for stats counter was a search for “sister beck conference talk.” I don’t know if my Canadian friend was looking for Sister Beck’s most recent conference talk or something else but they landed on a post I wrote in the aftermath of Sister Becks incredible talk “Mothers Who Know” from the October Conference of 2007.

As it had been so long since I wrote it I took the time to go read what I had written about the talk. When I read the post I was, quite frankly, disappointed that someone might see that as indicative of who I am. At the time I was so busy trying to keep my site from being overly religious in an attempt to foster an open political dialog that I said almost nothing of consequence and I completely failed to convey what an inspiring and inspired talk it was. That talk is a beacon to those wishing to establish a Zion rooted in a strong family culture and I managed to water down my reaction to the point that it sounded like little more than a breath of fresh air.

Since that time I broke my political writing off into another site and actually found that I was not comfortable maintaining the kind of political neutrality that lead me to give so little praise to such a wonderful talk. I have been pleased with the outcome of abandoning that neutrality in my political writings and now I am looking at refocusing on some spiritually significant topics here (some political others apolitical). I hope that others will never have any excuse to wonder at the depth of my feeling for the topics I address here like they might well have done when reading what I wrote in October of 2007.

Categories
life

Zion

I am going to reserach and write about everything I can find that has been written or spoken under inspiration regarding Zion. This includes Zion as found in Eden, Enoch, Salem, Kirtland, Nauvoo, Salt Lake, and the New Jerusalem. I may even include anything about Heaven and Old Jerusalem rebuilt relevant to what I find on the first list.