One of the greatest conversion points for investigators to the Mormon faith, and what is most beloved by longtime members, is the axiom "families can be together forever." They describe how this doctrine brings immense comfort and peace, knowing that they will be with their loved ones beyond this life.
I have vivid memories of singing a hymn by the name Families Can Be Together Forever in church, repeating the lyrics, "I have a family here on Earth. They are so good to me. I want to share my life with them for all eternity," and feeling a little panicky. Maybe all the other children in the congregation, singing with bright smiles and eager voices, came from happier families than mine. Maybe I was truly an anomaly to want to be far, far away from at least one member of my family in particular, and the possibility that I was tethered to them for eternity felt...well...terrifying.
It's a strange contrast of emotions to understand as a little girl, because though I felt keenly desirous to get away, I was equally and intensely obsessed with belonging to them. They were my everything. And my church taught me to uphold the family above all else. The whole purpose of our existence was to be born into a family, raise a family, and return to Heaven still intact as a family. That's a tall order, but one for which orthodox Mormons anxiously and devoutly strive.
I felt comfort in knowing that though my childhood home life was dysfunctional, hopefully I could get lucky with my own husband and kids. Maybe eternity wouldn't seem so scary if it were with someone I handpicked. That gave me something to strive for.
So when I met my husband, and we began to speak of getting sealed in the temple, I felt an unexpected anxiety come over me as I contemplated what it meant to be sealed for time and eternity. Our relationship was blissfully straightforward, loving, and all around good. So why the hesitation? If I loved him, and he loved me, why would an eternal marriage be something to hesitate about?
On one hand, it's a big deal to commit to one man for my entire life, that shouldn't be underestimated. But I'm also being asked to commit to this same man for all time and eternity. Is it even conceivable for a young, twenty-two year old girl, which I was at the time, to make a decision with such eternal ramification? Is it conceivable for anyone, of any age or degree of wisdom? I loved my soon-to-be husband more than I had ever loved anyone, but this wasn't about love--this was about breaking my brain over the incomprehensible commitment of eternity. A pledge of that nature somehow seems to me now inappropriate, maybe even a little bit naive.
We were married civilly, then sealed in the temple after four years of marriage. We made what we believed were eternal covenants. Yet, we never stopped questioning what all of it really meant. And somewhere in my deepest pondering a vision opened up where future-me appeared, thanking present-day-me for asking these hard questions. She said to me, "You have no idea how small and little this one lifetime is. You have no idea what eternity actually is. Stop putting off life for some imagined future. Stop trying to preserve relationships as they are now. Let your relationships evolve naturally. Let them grow together or grow apart as they will, but trust me to know what's best for me when you are me. Focus on what you know."
What do I know? I know that we are born, we live, we die. Maybe "til death do we part" makes the most sense after all--til the death of our relationship, then shall we part. Are we giving each other enough room to grow? To allow people to come together for a time until certain lessons are learned, or contracts are fulfilled, and then they can choose to move on? Do we actually believe in agency, or do we believe in iron-clad "sealings" that hold us bound to one another? Are we willing to acknowledge that we have no idea what happens after we die? To think that our family units just carry on in the same way in the next life is suddenly quite extraordinary. If we focus too much on preserving the family unit, are we undermining the importance of the individual journey and the profound beauty of choice? If we spend all our lives trying to belong to our family, could it be to our own detriment?
I sometimes imagine a preexistence where all of us chose to come to Earth through our specific family lines in order to gain certain opportunities for our personal growth. Maybe there was something about the unique DNA combination of our two parents that enticed us. "Yes, I'll take a bit of that artistic expression, some of that psychosis there, and oooh, yes, a heap of that anger management issue! And don't forget to throw in that sense of humor and sex addiction!" Perhaps there was something significant that we hoped to learn from each genetic inheritance.
But there's also the other theory, that maybe we didn't choose any of it, and it's just how the chips fall, based on nothing but happenstance and luck (or no luck). But either way, I'm less and less convinced that our current family arrangements as we currently define them are binding and eternal.
By stepping out of the family-centric doctrine and recognizing the remarkable uniqueness of each family member, something amazing starts to happen--everyone is set free. We come to realize that parents do not own their children! Our duty as parents is to raise up our children to the best of our abilities, passing along any tidbits of wisdom we may have gained along the way, doing our best to love them unconditionally--and then we let them go. We recognize that they were simply on loan to us. They came through our family line. They booked passage through our loins. We gave them a fleshy, temporary visa. But we did not create their souls. The best thing we can do for them is validate their existence exactly as they are, remind them that they are exactly who they are for a reason even if they look and act differently than their social or family culture supports, and stand by their side no matter where their path may take them. We must set them free to find themselves, to follow their unique path, to go wherever life takes them, without any rigid expectations of how they're supposed to cross the finish line.
But how unromantic and unfeeling, I hear you say.
I'm not ruling out the possibility of eternal relationships and family arrangements altogether. I'm just ruling out the madness of trying to preserve our present family relations as they are now and project it into an unknowable eternal context. Families are so important. We're not meant to walk through this life alone. There is so much potential good that comes from family life, but too often we use the structure as a means to own, coerce, control, and perpetuate our ego, creating co-dependency and suppressing self-actualization. Instead, families should provide structure, in order to promote healthy boundaries, develop self-confidence, promote emotional maturity, and encourage self-actualization--in an ideal world, anyway.
I love the idea of souls, and with it, the idea of soul families. This idea purports that our souls will resonate with individuals from all different family lines and walks of life, that our true soul-family extends far beyond genetics. I lean into this idea. I even suspect I've met some of them, some who are members of my genetic-family and many more who are not. I hope I will be with the people I love in the next life.
But essentially, I don't spend too much time defining the "next life." I hope there will be me, and you, and all sorts of people to love, and all sorts of learning and growth to aspire to. I'm happy leaving it with that. I prefer hope to knowledge. Give me ambiguity over doctrine any ole day of the week. And until I cross that bridge, slipping off my "mortal coil," I'm going to take advantage of every moment of mortality afforded me.
But this whole line of thinking would have been inconceivable to my young orthodox Mormon mind as I sat singing that simple hymn, feeling heavy with the weight of the "together forever" doctrine on my heart. I was taught that our families fate was the end all and be all. If I wanted to be with my family forever, every one of us had to opt in to the Mormon path. Otherwise, the Plan of Happiness would quickly devolve into the Plan of Suffering. It was everyone in, or everyone loses. How bitterly ironic that the doctrine that allows for families to be together forever is the very same one that splits them apart, thrusting loved ones into disparate "degrees of glory," aka eternal separation.
And because of my debilitating fear of being eternally separated from those I love--and certainly not wanting to be shunned in my current existence--I towed the line, not even conscious of what I was doing. I did everything I could to belong, to be accepted, to be found worthy of their estimation.
As my faith and theology expanded beyond the boundaries of Mormon orthodoxy, I began to feel incredible and profound peace in my relationship with and understanding of God. But suddenly, my temporal sense of belonging was cracking. I was on the verge of being rejected by the only people in the world I've ever cared about.
But I did it anyway. I fell down the rabbit hole and let myself unravel. In that moment, at rock bottom, when my worst fears were realized and I was shunned and rejected by those I loved most for not conforming, a most unexpected thing happened. I found freedom. That unquenchable hunger for belonging that had possessed me all my life was suddenly pacified. I felt full. I felt whole. I belonged to no one but me.
As I listened to President Nelson's address, "Come Follow Me," at the April 2019 conference, he shared a very personal and tender story of his daughter who lay on her death bed. He wept as he recounted their final exchange, how he comforted her by saying:
"You married in the temple and faithfully honored your covenants. You and your husband welcomed seven children into your home and raised them to be devout disciples of Jesus Christ, valiant Church members, and contributing citizens. And they have chosen spouses of that same caliber. Your daddy is very, very proud of you. You have brought me much joy!"
He concludes his remarks with:
"The anguish of my heart is that many people whom I love, whom I admire, and whom I respect decline His invitation. They ignore the pleadings of Jesus Christ when He beckons, 'Come, follow me.' I understand why God weeps. I also weep for such friends and relatives. They are wonderful men and women, devoted to their family and civic responsibilities. They give generously of their time, energy, and resources. And the world is better for their efforts. But they have chosen not to make covenants with God. They have not received the ordinances that will exalt them with their families and bind them together forever."
For the ten percent of Mormon families (and that's a generous estimation) who his message applies to, where everyone has chosen the Mormon covenant path, it truly is a Plan of Happiness like President Nelson describes. But for the sweeping majority of families I know, and belong to personally, where all it takes is one single person to choose a different path, it has become the Plan of Suffering. Their current peace is stolen from them based on their perception of a distant unknowable eternity--it causes families to bleed. The President of the Mormon church believes that God is weeping for those "wayward" ones. Well if there is a God who weeps, I believe he's weeping, like me, over this theology and the suffering it's needlessly causing.
What is eternity?
For me, it used to mean the perpetually distant future, the far away and unattainable tomorrow, our inconceivable and unknowable fate. No beginning, no end. One continuous round. A clock that never runs out of batteries. Time just goes on and on. But this kind of eternity is madness making! It inflames my procrastinator, my apathetic nature, my long-sufferer and endurer-to-the-end. It perpetuates a lifestyle of "just get through, because everything will be better in the end."
Now I realize that eternity is right now. It exists outside the realm of time. Eternity is found the moment you step out of the past and let go of the future. Eternity is only found in the present, which is why it never comes, and it never goes, thus allowing it to never begin, and never end, because it's always here, constantly, permanently, forever.
If "I love you for eternity," doesn't equate to "I love you right now," then it doesn't add up to anything but misery. We either love right now, or not at all. That's romantic. That's full of feeling. Try it for yourself. Go to someone you love right this moment. Grab them by the shoulders. Look deeply into their eyes. Now say these words: "I love you right now. I choose you right now. All we have is right now. Let's make it count." That's an eternal love that I can comprehend!
So in this profound and paradoxical way, families really can be together forever. When agency truly rules the day, you may just find yourself choosing to be together in the forever-present because you actually want to be, because you're happy, because you're both opting in moment to moment to moment, but not because you're obligated to one another. Not because your hands are tied. Not because you think it will get better down the road.
But if you, like so many, find yourself trapped in perpetual forward movement, putting of living in your profound yearning for the future, for the after-life, for everything to be made right eventually, all while suffering, drowning in loneliness, wishing time would pass so you could finally be happy...you'll miss it. It's passing you by. It's all an illusion.
If you, like so many, find yourself in torment over loved ones that have chosen a different spiritual path, outside of the Mormon tradition, and you grieve over the empty chairs at your Heavenly table, ask yourself if this is indeed still the Plan of Happiness, or has it morphed into the plan of suffering? And what is the cause of that suffering? A fixation on belonging to the family before first learning how to belong to oneself. A belief that you own your children's spiritual journey. A notion that there is only one right path for every single soul. A claim that loving relationships can only transcend time if certain religious ceremonies are performed. A misunderstanding of the purpose of life and the nature of eternity.
I'm willing to accept that President Nelson is right. It could be that I have threatened my eternal fate by challenging the doctrine of saving ordinances. I'm open to that. What if I don't make it to the Celestial Kingdom, and I'm separated from my orthodox loved ones for all eternity? Then there's one thing we can agree on--this life is precious. So let's take advantage of the time we have left.
Celebrate now. Love now. Be with those you love now. Let the rest take care of itself.
