28 May 2019

Where in the world has May gone?  Where has the year gone?  Yesterday it was winter and the snow lay three feet deep.  Winter is gone.  Spring is on its last leg.

I’m 72.  How can that be?  Where did my youth go?  Yesterday I was a young father surrounded by children day in and day out.  Now I’m surrounded by dozens of grandchildren whose activity makes me dizzy.  They’re here by day, and then suddenly we’re left alone in a quiet house.  We look at each other and smile.  It’s heavenly to have the children and grandchildren near, and being so attentive and being best friends.  The silence following their visits is heavenly, too.

“I love this season of life,” my wife says.

I do, too.  Parental responsibilities are mostly on our children now, and we can relax.—Almost.

Old habits and old ways of thinking are hard to break.

Yesterday evening an odd string of vehicles suddenly streamed in our driveway and headed over to the old barn.  The procession was led by a water truck with fire-fighting capabilities.  It was followed by an excavator, 4-wheelers, cars, pickups, our kids and their families, and their friends.

“They’re apparently going to burn the old barn,” I told Marjorie.  “Let’s go watch.”

“What am I going to feed them?” she asked, looking desperate.  “I can’t go.  They’ve come a long way.  They’re all going to want to eat.”

Old habits and old ways of thinking are hard to break.

“It’s not your problem,” I replied.  “They’re not expecting you to feed them.”

Unconvinced, and feeling that she was shirking her duty, I managed to get her through the gate and started toward the barn.  Her progress was nearly derailed when a grandchild came back asking for matches.

“I’ll go get them” Marjorie volunteered.

I vetoed that.  I knew that she’d use that as the excuse to stay at the house and magically make a huge dinner appear.  I pointed her back toward the barn, and went to get the matches myself.

As it turned out, plans had been made to make a smaller bonfire where hot dogs would be roasted away from the large conflagration.  Marjorie’s sense of responsibility was very alive and active, but her worries were groundless.

That old barn, in which I’d played as a child, and in which I’d worked as an adult—that old barn, which was already old when I knew it—had stood there for over one hundred years.  It had lots of history.  It saw lots of use.

I’d raised hundreds of calves there, and milked many a family cow.  My boys had farrowed out sows, and raised pigs there.  As a boy I’d hung wool bags in the opening of the hay loft and personally tromped the wool from my sheep.  They were sheared where strings of Jersey cows had formerly been milked  by hand every night and every morning by owners before my time.

The barn had served its time, had become decrepit, and had finally collapsed from the weight of winter snows.  Within minutes yesterday, it was a blazing inferno being cooled by a firehose to keep it from melting the nearby power line or from spreading to the woods.

Time marches inexorably on.  That barn, in its youth, was constructed of fir beams and pine siding, and had gleamed light-colored and new in the sun.  Gradually the boards had weathered.  The support posts dried and cracked.  Shingles came off.  Holes appeared in the roof.  A rafter broke.  The roof sagged, followed by eventual collapse and death.

That’s the story of life and the world.  Time marches inexorably on.  Events that are far in the future eventually arrive.  They arrive much sooner than we expect.

The Nephites were told by Samuel that the birth of the Savior would occur five years hence, and that His arrival would be accompanied by specific signs.  There were those among them who “began to reason and to contend among themselves, saying:  That it is not reasonable that such a being as a Christ shall come ... we know that this is a wicked tradition, which has been handed down unto us by our fathers ...”  (Helaman 16: 17-19).

Those statements currently carry familiar echoes.  The wise and the learned (in their own eyes) make a mock of religion and laugh at the idea of a Second Coming of Christ.  Timewise, we’re right where the Nephites were at the beginning of Third Nephi.  The Lord’s coming is imminent.

Jacob, chapter 5 is a 77-verse-long allegory of the history of the House of Israel.  Timewise, we are in verse 74.

In October 1830 the Lord gave a revelation to Joseph Smith in which He said, “For behold, the field is white already to harvest; and it is the eleventh hour, and the last time that I shall call laborers into my vineyard.”  (D&C 33:3).

The eleventh hour begins at 10 o’clock.  The eleventh hour announcement was made 189 years ago.  The eleventh hour is now past and gone.  We’re in the twelvth hour.  The clock is ticking toward high noon.  If we’re in the 74th verse of Jacob, chapter 5, there are just three verses left.

We’re either at the beginning of 3 Nephi, chapter 1, or at the end of 3 Nephi, chapter 7, depending upon whch of the Lord’s advents you want to compare our time to.

He’s coming.  The day will happen.  It will be infinitely better for us to be watching and prepared rather than to be surprised and shocked when His coming happens.