CONTINUALLY BEFORE THE LORD

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By Lael J. Woodbury

FOREWORD

COMMISSIONER'S LECTURE SERIES

by Neal A. Maxwell

It is a privilege to present scholars from various academic fields in a lecture series which permits them to draw upon their knowledge and insights in the context of their religious commitments.

The series seeks to achieve several objectives. First, it will provide forums for presentations, the content of which will reflect aspects of the congruence of high-level secular scholarship and spiritual truths.

Second, it will create opportunities for young members of the Church, as well as others, to hear from these high-achieving but orthodox, individuals who have made their mark in various fields of scholarship.

All of the participants have my deep gratitude for their "second-mile" willingness to participate in this series, which has involved them with multiple audiences. These participants represent a large body of scholars of similar quality and with similar commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is fortunate that we can have the words and writings of at least of few.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Lael J. Woodbury has served as dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications at Brigham Young University since 1973. He has held numerous other administrative positions at BYU, including associate, assistant, and acting assistant dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications and chairman of the Department of Speech and Dramatic Arts. He is currently chairman of the Academic Enrichment Council and area chairman of the advisory committee, Bachelor of Independent Studies program. His professional experience in dramatic arts is extensive. He has directed professional summer theatre and area centennial pageants and has published twenty-seven articles and book reviews in national scholarly journals.

Dean Woodbury's educational background includes a B.S. from Utah State University, an M.A. from BYU, and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. In 1971 he received the Karl G. Maeser Research and Creative Arts Award form BYU. He has taught at BYU, the University of Iowa, Colorado State College, Bowling Green State University, and the University of Illinois.

Service to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an important part of Dean Woodbury's life. He is currently president of the BYU Second Stake. As chairman of the Drama Committee of the Mutual Improvement Association's general board for three years, he helped create and direct the dramatic programs of the Church, in which more than fifty thousand youth and adults participate annually.

He is married to the former Margaret Swenson, and they have four children.

This paper was prepared for the Commissioner's Lecture Series, Church Educational System, and delivered at the LDS Institutes of Religion at Logan, Utah, and Tucson, Arizona.

CONTINUALLY BEFORE THE LORD

The commissioner, knowing that these remarks will be published, has asked that I direct them to the mature mind, but I won't annoy him if I also interest you. I invite your tolerance of my approach tot his subject, for the first part of the lecture is necessarily abstract--even recondite. But if you'll stay with me to the second part of the lecture, we'll be back on familiar ground. You'll know then that we're members of the same church, and, hopefully, you'll feel the wait was worthwhile.

A minor experience that had a major impact in my life occurred while I, as a member of the MIA general board, was driving with a colleague back to Utah through southern Idaho. As you know, southern Idaho is bleak. I was bored. I was anxious to get back to civilization, green grass, and people; I wanted the time to pass rapidly. But suddenly my friend, who had been dozing, stirred and nudged me. "Hey, Lael," he said, "Look at that."

I looked around, but I couldn't see anything worth looking at, and I said, "What's the problem?"

"Look at that. Isn't that the most beautiful thing you ever saw?"

I looked again, and I still couldn't see anything interesting. "What are you talking about?"

"You know how a black road turns to silver in the summer sun?" I agreed that I did. "Notice how it creates a lazy S as it curves over the hill in front of us?"

"Yes, I can see that."

"Now notice how these telephone poles border the side of the road. They make an interesting abstract pattern. They don't mean anything; they're just pattern--form."

I looked, and I could see what he saw, and I said, "Yes that is rather interesting."

"Now notice where the road tops the crest of the hill. That's a beautiful image."

I looked at it, and I looked at the curve and the telephone pole. I confessed, "Well, I'm getting there, but help me a little more, can you?"

"Now squint, so that you mask from your gaze all of those images that you really don't want to see." So I squinted. And, with a little help from him and with a prayer in my heart, the transformation took place. I could see! I could see a lovely arrangement of form. It didn't necessarily mean anything. It was merely a nice image on which to rest my eyes.

But that experience became a turning point in my life, my brothers and sisters. I hope that I can have the same impact upon you, because I became a different man by pondering the significance of that event. There we were--two handsome, young, well-educated men driving through southern Idaho, both looking at the same stimuli (that's important to remember)--except one was seeing bleakness and desolation, and the other was seeing beauty. "Isn't that a remarkable thing? I thought. "Perhaps we all drive through life separating ourselves into categories. We all perceive the same stimuli, but some of us go through life seeing bleakness, and some go on through life seeing beauty." Some see the moles on people's faces, and some see the beauty of people's characters.

Occasionally, to illustrate this point to my students, I hold u a large white sheet of cardboard with a small red spot down in one corner. I hold it up and say, "Take a look at this and tell me what you see." I judge that 94 percent of them say, "Well, I see a little red spot." And I say, "That is a wrong answer. How can you say that you see a red spot? The correct answer would be, 'I see a large sheet of white cardboard. True, down near one corner is a little red spot, but for the most part I see a piece of white cardboard.'" I wonder if that exercise can tell us anything about the way some people perceive us.

While teaching at the University of Iowa I formed a friendship with a psychologist there. He once brought a set of optical illusions to me and said, "Look at these and tell me what you see." Optical illusions present the same stimuli to each viewer; unlike language, they don't have to be decoded by the brain. He asked, "What do you see?"

"Well, I don't know."

"Take a guess."

"It looks rather like an arrangement of squares, perhaps some cubes, just rectangular forms."

"Great." He then acquired a grant, went to Africa with these same optical illusions, and he asked tribal people there, "What do you see?"

"We see vertical forms."

Afterwards he pondered the paradox "Why do Americans see rectangular, and African natives vertical forms? I wonder if our reaction occurs because we live in a carpentered society?" You and I are surrounded by rectangles. We're inside a rectangle now: rectangular floor, ceiling, rather rectangular seats. But a jungle society is surrounded by trees. Perhaps that's why its citizens see vertical forms in certain optical illusions. We see what we know--what we've been conditioned to see. I suggest to you, my brothers and sisters, that the artist, by definition, is more sensitive to certain stimuli and concepts than are most other people.

Time is a Concept

That's a key dimension of their talent: how to be sensitive to what they see and how to communicate it. What they see must not be essentially what they know. They must see and perceive what is--a different, almost impossible achievement. Let's apply that generalization to one earthly-celestial concept, the concept of time. Time is a concept, I believe, a concept that can be regarded from several viewpoints. We can regard time, for example, as a linear instrument. You and I usually do. We think of the past, present, and future. We think of yesterday, today, and tomorrow; a sequential string of events; cause and effect that are a cumulative process.

But, my brothers and sisters, the view that time is linear is not compatible with most scriptures that have anything explicit to say about time! I now believe that man's concept of time is merely a convenience, a tool of mortality. God has a wholly different view of time and its use, as we will when we are immortalized. And the artist, because he is uncommonly sensitive, has insights into what the celestial view and use of time are.

Consider these short scriptures. And please do consider them, because I want you either to accept them or reject them. Don't just ignore them. Analyze them. Accept them or reject them. What, for example, shall we make of such scriptures as these:

That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been. (Ecclesiates 3:15; emphasis added)

And there is no new thing under the sun.

Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. (Ecclesiates 1:9-10)

They [angels] reside in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord. (D&C 130:7; emphasis added)

We are told two lines of the new song that will be sung when Zion is established:

The Lord hath redeemed his people;

And Satan is bound and time is no longer.

(D&C 84:100)

What does "and time is no longer" mean? And even more challenging, but also more helpful, is this statement:

He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever.            (D&C 88:41; emphasis added)

The next verse of this passage points out that the universe is governed by laws given by God. later we learn that all time--even varying periods of time--is but "one year with God, but not with man" (D&C 88:44).

This issue is not to be confused with the time laws observed on Kolob. We're aware of those laws, which might be accounted for by Kolob's rate of rotation or other familiar principles. But I take these scriptures to say, plainly, that for God there is no time. And this statement from a modern prophet seems to endorse that view:

When you enter a holy temple, you are by that course gaining fellowship with the Saints in God's eternal kingdom, where time is no more¹

God's time is no time. Our time is a convenience devised for man in this world. When we recognize that fact, we see enormous implications for our behavior, values, and priorities.

The artist is especially valuable at this point, for he gives us models and paradigms for considering time that transcend any others. For example, the time art that most closely parallels our usual perception of time is probably the modern naturalistic drama. In it, time is seen as a continuum--a chain or cable, as it were, having a beginning, a middle, and an end, or a past, a present, and a future.

Look at the table "Philosophy and Structure of Selected Artistic Modes." Notice, by examining naturalism's parts, objectives, and the techniques of its playwrights, how time is treated in the dramatic mode that we're most comfortable with--the mode that most closely parallels the way we view time in life.

Philosophy and Structure of Selected Artistic Modes

Naturalism's examples are substantive, well-structured plays: An Enemy of the People, All My Sons, even classic plays such as Hamlet or Oedipus a concept that structures a condition of becoming, an experience in progress. Naturalism reflects a preoccupation with cause and effect, with actions and their consequences. Because Oedipus killed his father and married his mother, he brought a curse upon Thebes and had to discover the murderer. When he discovered that he himself was the murderer, he tore his eyes out. We understand this law--cause and effect. Because one thing happened, and because another thing happened, a result happened--a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The condition of becoming is the form itself. The purpose of the stage in naturalistic theatre is to create an illusion of reality. The artist hopes to persuade the audience, to some extent, that the actors are real people. The artist wants the audience to respond by identifying with the actors and their problems. He depicts a "slice of life" so that the audience can see life as it really is.

Naturalism is a splendid and effective art form. We're comfortable with it. We understand its structure well; it parallels our life-view of time. There are other forms of art, some of which pose different perceptions of time--structures that, in my view, parallel in some ways the perception of time that God might have. Let's examine that artistic mode in which the condition of the art form is not becoming, but being. Let's look at the form of theater of the absurd. Here we are asked to step forward, as it were, so that instead of standing alongside the cable of time and viewing the beginning, the middle, and the end of an action, we stand in the center of time. From the center ewe can see everything that surrounds us, as we do in life, at one moment. You and I do not experience time sequentially at any one moment of life. We experience a state of being. If we freeze the moments of time in which we exist, we find that we are not becoming; we are at this moment in this room experiencing all that is happening. We are always in a condition of being. In any one moment we are not becoming; we are. Thus, life and experience consist of all that we perceive in one moment--a cyclic or panoramic perception. We hear cyclically. We perceive space cyclically. We taste, feel, and smell, not sequentially, but spherically.

The purpose of the absurd art form is to make us realize, to immerse us in experience so that we recognize the constituents of life and their meaning. It's a complex process. Conventionally we see time as a cable--a cable having a beginning, a middle, and an end. But now I seize the cable of time and cut it is two. I pick up one end, peel back the insulation, and find many perhaps 150--cables inside. They lie there entwined. They are there whether I exist or not. They are always being. Now what am I looking at? I'm looking at a single strand of the cable of time, one segment. What do I call it? I'm looking at now, the one experience. I'm examining a state of being, but I'm doing it sequentially. This is a sometimes confusing artistic mode which may not appeal to you. But there are people who think that now is the only important subject for study, and I'm becoming converted to their view as I mature.

The only totally dead man is the one who lives forever five minutes ahead of the actual moment. He's the man who never enjoys his food because while it's in his mouth he mentally places it in his stomach. He's the man who never enjoys his food because while it's in his mouth he mentally places it in his stomach. He's the man who never enjoys the drive in his 1974 Grand Prix because while he's driving he's thinking about what it will be like when he walks into his office. He doesn't enjoy the clean smell of his office because he's worried about what the president will say to him in their pending meeting. He's a man who is five minutes ahead of himself--never living the moment, never enjoying now.

Such a conception of time is not limited to the dramatic arts. Do you recall the painting by Picasso depicting a conventional body, a conventional neck, surmounted by three heads? You hear people say, "Oh, Picasso can't even draw." Picasso can draw whatever he wants to draw--beautifully. I expect that he posed his model and said, "I'm going to paint what you look like, full front, during one moment of time; then I'm going to paint your profile on the same torso; and then I'm going to represent the back of your head on the same torso. I'll call the painting "'The Three Faces of Eve.'" Is he a sensitive artist or a madman? Your answer depends upon whether you receive his message, I suppose.

Music, although a time art, usually takes place in not time, in the sense that it returns at the end to the very beginning. The ending is very important because those final, crashing harmonies signify completion, resolution, a return home. And we are home at the very beginning. Music places us in a "delicious jeopardy"--a state of being--and then rescues us. Great art always exploits that minor miracle.

Sometimes a state of suspended time can be uncomfortable. My father used to sleep in the basement of our home because there was a boarder upstairs who used to frustrate him immeasurably. Dad said that the boarder would sit on the bed, take off one shoe, and drop it. And then, said Dad, "I'd sit up, staring at the wall for the next ninety minutes, waiting for the other shoe to drop! And it never did!"

Have you been to a movie musical lately? Go see No, No, Nanette, or South Pacific, or a similar musical comedy. In four plots out of five, the plot is sequential--cause and effect. The boy says to the girl, "Oh, honey, I love you so much that I can hardly stand it." She responds, "You do?" He answers, "I love you so much I have to tell you in song." And then time stops while he sings of how much he loves her (a state of being), and at the conclusion he is at the moment in time in which he began. Then the plot continues.

Thus in absurd theatre art, in the theatre of changes, in graphic art, in music, time often serves as a metaphor for celestial time. There is an uncanny parallel between the artist's view of reality (time) in these modes of art and the reality of God, his world, his perception of what is. We humans are essentially becoming. At least, we think of ourselves this way: growing, maturing, improving. I'm not sure that this is the best way to perceive the process of life, as adding one best quality upon another. We are becoming but God is being, and the I Am--not the I will be, but the I Am. Let me repeat some of the scriptures I used earlier in terms of this idea.

That which hath been is now.

All things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things.

All things . . . are continually before the Lord. (emphasis added)

To engage these ideas, we need to adjust to concepts that are beyond the conventional. I was helped in this exercise by reading about the theory of antimatter. According to an article in Time, Russia's scientists are

already working on a colliding beam accelerator that will bring together protons and their antimatter opposites, antiprotons. Such experiments may provide answers to theorists who believe that there are whole galaxies in the universe composed of antimatter.²

Think of it, whole galaxies of antimatter--this from scientists, for whom the material, the palpable, is usually the only frame of reference!

Reading this article reminded me of the artist whom I once approached in his study. He was seated on a rather high stool, and he was tearing off pieces of paper and tossing them randomly to the floor. "Very interesting," I said. "Are you studying the pattern they make there?"

"No, I'm studying the empty spaces the pieces of paper define."

Some while ago I read about a newly developed time camera. With it, one can take photographs of yesterday--images that no longer exist (at least, to the unaided eye). When I explain how it is done, you'll nod and say, "Well, that's not so hard to understand." But just because it can be explained by natural law does not diminish the fact that, within our time referent, the camera does indeed record today an image that existed yesterday. The camera's film is heat sensitive. When exposed to a vacant parking lot, it records a reasonably clear outline of the cars that were parked there yesterday because of the temperature residue they generated.

What, then, shall we make of this? Of what use is this information? One justification for studying it is that we are to be instructed

in theory, in principle, in doctrine, . . . in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God . . .

Of things both in heaven and in earth, and under the earth; . . . things which are, things which must shortly come to pass . . .that ye may be prepared in all things. (D&C 88:78-80; emphasis added)

Another justification for studying this topic is that a celestial perception of time gives a right perspective for viewing earthly time. Evidently, time as we know it is essentially a convenience, an instrument, a way of putting a handle on concepts that are otherwise difficult to comprehend. In a world that is becoming, time is a mechanism for knowing being.

Being is the thing we most want to know. We want to know what a man is, not how he is becoming. We say a man is spiritual, honest, virtuous, or corrupt. We say that a fabric is yellow, that a mountain is high, that a woman is lovely. These are descriptions of being, summaries, essences; and we say a man is wise if he can distill and describe the essence of a phenomenon more accurately than another man can describe it.

Essences house the critical meaning we hunger for. We want to know who is God, what kind of man was Joseph Smith, is this a naughty child, what was Marilyn Monroe really like? We presume that God, better than any other being, accurately perceives such truths. He know who we are; he knows if we are worthy; he is able to distinguish the righteous from the wicked.

God's Concept of Time Differs from Man's Concept of Time

The evidence suggests that God does so because he perceives time as we perceive space. That's why "all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and is round about all things." Time, like space, is "continually before the Lord."

But the fact that I must return to earthly time later illustrates its instrumental value, as well as its limitations. It would be a pleasure for you if I could present the entire essence of this lecture at once--as I can present to you a space object such as a painting. Then you could at once perceive its totality, the relationship of its parts, whatever symmetry of form it might have. You could then, if you wished, examine at leisure any parts or subparts that you found interesting. I believe that that quality characterizes celestial time. I don't see any other way to view the statement that all things are continually before the Lord.

You and I don't yet have that facility of viewing time as an essence. But we will. That is part of what it must mean to be exalted. Right now we perceive music in time as a blind man perceives form in space--sequentially. He explores with his fingers, noting form, texture, contours, rhythms. He holds each perception in his mind, one by one, carefully adding one to the other, until he synthesizes his concept of what that space object must be like. You and I don't do that. We perceive a space object immediately. We simply look at it, and to a certain degree we "know" it. We do not go through a one-by-one, sequential, additive process. We perceive that it is, and we are able to distinguish it from any other object.

I'm suggesting that God perceives time as instantaneously as we perceive space. For us, time is difficult. Lacking higher facility, we are as blind about time as a sightless man is about space. We perceive time in the same way that we perceive music--sequentially. We explore rhythm, pitch, amplitude, texture, theme, harmonies, parallels, and contrasts. And from our perceptions we synthesize our concept of the object or event--the musical artwork--that existed in its entirety before we began our examination of it.

Equally compete now is each of our lives before the Lord. We explore them sequentially because we are time-blind. But the Lord, perceiving time as space, sees us as we are, not as we are becoming. We are, for him, beings without time. We are continually before him--the totality of our psyches, personalities, bodies, choices, and behaviors.

If this is so--and I'll explain how it is--knowledge of this fact "should change our entire approach to life." For life becomes, then, not a cumulative, additive process, one in which we layer on increments of perfection like successive coats of lacquer. Life is rather a challenge to discover who we are, not to determine who we shall become. Who were we, and what were we when we shouted for joy as the foundations of the earth were laid? What feats did we perform in the great battle in heaven? How did we keep our first estate? Why and by whom were we foreordained to the holy priesthood, to leadership positions, to heirship in the house of Israel? In what way are we created int he image of God; how are we his sons and daughters; how literal is our endowment to become kings, priests, and gods? The greater prophecy is not what we shall become, but what we are. The challenge is not to add on perfection, but to strip away blindness and corruption and to discover what we are. The essence is greater than the promise. We are better subsumed in being than we are in becoming.

If time is merely a way of knowing space, if time is a mechanism for structuring the concept of here, not there, if here and there are different points in time, and if artistic models help us comprehend this view, we'll be interested in some of time's ramifications. I said earlier that God apparently sees time as we see space. I mean by this that, as we saw in several art forms, God perceives time cyclically. You and I perceive time with tunnel vision: we look at one thing, and then another, and then another. We perceive time as past, present, and future. We think of an hour ago, now, and tomorrow. We would regard the same type perception of space as tunnel vision, looking first at this object, then that, and then that. We perceive time as the blind man perceives space, one unit at a time. But we perceive space cyclically. At any moment we see at least 180 degrees, I believe. In art-theatre, music poetry--we can adopt a cyclic view of being. In the theatre of the absurd we are not viewing men in the process of becoming inarticulate; we are viewing inarticulateness itself--being, not becoming. In the theatre of changes we inspect now--the cross section of a moment, again a state of being.

What can be a more explicit statement of God's cyclic view of time than the statement that all things are "continually before the Lord"? How else can we explain these scriptures?

That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been.

There is no new thing under the sun.

Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. (emphasis added)

Because celestial time is cyclic and ever before us, we have a greatly increased ability to remember. For in celestial time we perceive laterally, not as through a tunnel; in earth time we dredge up from the past. Celestial time is forever before the beholder; earth time is layered under experience. One is perception; the other is recall.

For such a beholder the future is known because it presently exists. The Lord "showed unto the brother of Jared all the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also all that would be; and he withheld them not from his sight, even unto the ends of the earth" (Ether 3:25). Enoch saw "all things, even unto the end of the world" (Moses 7:67), and Moses "beheld the world and the ends thereof, and all the children of men which are, and which were created" (Moses 1:8).

Not only are the past, present, and future all perceived as the prevent to the cyclic view, but a celestial being also posses greatly increased powers for perceiving them. We are not limited there to the conventional senses, according to Orson Pratt. He stated:

Suppose He should give us a sixth sense, a seventh, an eighth, a ninth, or a fiftieth. All these different senses would convey to us new ideas, as much so as the senses of tasting, smelling, or seeing communicate different ideas from that of hearing.³

He spoke of the ability to receive and consider many different ideas at the same time--an ability which we have when perceiving space and an ability anyone must have in order to perceive time cyclically:

Not one object at a time, but a vast multitude of objects rush before his vision [the vision of a person with the Spirit of God], and are present before his mind, filling him in a moment with the knowledge of worlds more numerous than the sands of the sea shore. Will he be able to bear it? Yes, his mind is strengthened in proportion to the amount of information imparted. It is this tabernacle, in its present condition, that prevents us from a more enlarged understanding . . . .

Instead of thinking in one channel, and following up one certain course of reasoning [a linear, tunnel-vision process] to find a certain truth, knowledge will rush in from all quarters; it will come in like the light which flows from the sun, penetrating every part, informing the spirit, and giving understanding concerning ten thousand things at the same time; and the mind will be capable of receiving and retaining all.⁴

Elder Pratt also explains that celestial beings have the ability to see with all parts of their bodies:

The spirit [like the eye] is inherently capable of experiencing the sensations of light . . . . I think we could then see in different directions at once, instead of looking in one particular direction [tunnel vision] we could then look all around us at the same instant [cyclic vision].⁵

This explanation helps me comprehend Philo Dibble's account of what Joseph Smith told him, that after receiving revelation his "whole body was full of light and I could see even out at the ends of my fingers and toes."⁶ It also helps me understand the familiar promise in the Doctrine and Covenants: "And if your eye be single to my glory, your whole bodies all be filled with light, and there shall be no darkness in you; and that body which is filled with light comprehendeth all things" (D&C 88:67).

Brigham Young gave a similar description of spherically perceiving space, language, and concept:

I long for the time that a point of the finger, or motion of the hand, will express every idea without utterance. When a man is full of the light of eternity, then the eye is not the only medium through which he sees, . . . nor the brain the only means by which turning his head, as he can see before him. If you have not that experience, you ought to have. It is not the optic nerve alone that gives the knowledge of surrounding objects to the mind, but it is that which God has placed in man--a system of intelligence that attracts knowledge, as light cleaves to light, intelligence to intelligence, and truth to truth. It is this which lays in man a proper foundation for all education. I shall yet see the time that I can converse with this people, and not speak to them, but the expression of my countenance will tell the congregation what I wish to convey, without opening my mouth. We are at present low, weak, and grovelling in the dark, but we are planted here in weakness for the purpose of exaltation.⁷

Parley P. Pratt seems to hold a concept of panoramic time which is forever before the celestial spirit. He speaks of how "there is no apparent limit to the speed attainable by the body when unchained, set free from the elements which now enslave it, and dictated by the will." Celestial spirits are "quickened . . . by an independent, inherent principle, called the will, and urged onward by the promptings of the eternal, infinite mind."⁸

Brigham Young described even more explicitly how we might will ourselves instantaneously to any point in time, even as we now direct our gaze instantaneously to any point in space:

The brightness and glory of the next apartment is inexpressible . . . . They [our youth] move with ease and like lightning. If we want to visit Jerusalem, or this, that, or the other place-and I presume we will be permitted if we desire-there we are, looking at its streets. If we want to behold Jerusalem as it was in the days of the Savior; or if we want to see the Garden of Eden as it was when created, there we are, and we see it as it existed spiritually, for it was created first spiritually and then temporally, and spiritually it still remains. [This is an unequivocal statement that we shall perceive places and events that transpired before the present point of time.] And when there we may behold the earth as at the dawn of creation, or we may visit any city we please that exists upon its surface. If we wish to understand how they are living here on these western islands, or in China, we are there.⁹ (emphasis added)

As a final example, I cite this experience of Peter E. Johnson, who died while on a mission for the Church. What follows is a description of his experience after he died, during which it was suggested that he return to his body and continue his life. He was then shown what would take place if he remained in the spirit world. My point in presenting this experience is to verify that for him, in the state of death, time ceased to exist. His senses were multiplied, quickened, and expanded. He saw the future before it occurred! This is a difficult concept for us to grasp, because there are no precedents fro it in our experience. But Enoch saw the future before it occurred. So did the brother of Jared. And so did Moses. Brother Johnson presents his experience in narrative form, as he must because he is using language--a time art--to convey it. But apparently it happened "instantaneously" and was perceived by him on several sensory levels.

When we returned to the place where my body was lying, I was informed with emphasis that my fist duty would be to watch the body until after it had been disposed of, as that was necessary knowledge for me to have in the resurrection. I then saw the elders send a message to President Rich, at Chattanooga, and in due time all preparations were made for the shipment of my body to Utah. One thing seemed peculiar to me, that I was able to read the telegram as it ran along the wires ,a s easily as I could read the pages of a book [an example of a sense we don't have in earth time]. I could see President Rich, when he received the telegram in Chattanooga. He walked the floor, wringing his hands with the though in his mind: "How can I send a message to his father?" The message was finally sent, and I could follow it on the wire. I saw the station and the telegraph operator at Price, Utah. I heard the instrument click as the message was received, and saw the operator write out the message and send it by 'phone from Price to Huntington. I also saw clearly . . . the people on the street. I did not have to hear what was said, for I was able to read their thoughts from their countenances. The message was delivered to my aunt who went out with others to find my father. In due time he received the message. He did not seem to be overcome by the news, but began to make preparations to meet the body. I then saw my father at the railroad station in Price, waiting for my body to arrive. Apparently, he was unaffected; but when he heard the whistle of the train which was carrying my body, he went behind the depot and cried as if his heart would break. While I had been accompanying the body en route, I was still able to see what was going on at home [another example of multiple simultaneous time perceptions]. The distance, apparently, did not affect my vision. As the train approached the station I went to my father's side, and, seeing his great anguish, I informed my companion that I would return. He expressed his approval of my decision and said he was pleased with the choice I had made.¹⁰

These experiences and the scriptures indicate that for God, at least, there is no time and there is no space. Or, more accurately, there is only all time, all space. And you and I are part of all time, all space. We are not essentially fragments of the twentieth century, painfully layering increments of perfection. We are coeternal parts of eternity.

There is no heaven; there is only all heaven. Reality is only what is. Thus, the joy to which we all aspire is not an adding or acquiring of virtues and grace. Discovering joy is a ridding process, a peeling away of vanity, fear, pride, and selfishness, until we find that which is the godness of each of us--each as flesh and bone of our father-God, each capable of transmitting that godness to our posterity.

The Way to Perfection May Be Understood by Perceiving Time Eternally

According to doctrine you are coeternal with God. If you are coeternal, you are timeless. And if you are timeless, you are not moving in time. If you are only you, now, you are as one standing beside a brook, watching the stream of life-time pass you by. But if you are the endless, timeless, continuum of yourself, you are all of yourself forever and ever, and now is merely a useful indicator, like a marker on a slide rule, which indicates and magnifies this mark, and this, and this. In this concept the brook stands still, and the viewer does the moving.

As the brother of Jared perceived, the continuum of you is uncreated and unending. What changes and improves is, not your essential nature, but your ability to perceive, to control, to understand. Thus, as man is, God once was. But God's understanding, perception, and power are fully liberated and perfected now; apparently, they were once as limited as ours.

You, a mortal, see only now, and can only think about whatever is not now. God, being quickened, perceives the continuum of you instantly and at every point. It is in perception and control that we grow, not by changing our essential nature.

Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever. (D&C 122:9; emphasis added)

Maintain poise. View life with serenity. Cast out fear. God is forever with you, and you are "continually before the Lord." Because you are "continually before the Lord," there is no need to wait for a second endowment to vitalize your life. There is no reason to yearn for those sweet words, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." You are continually before the Lord now. Your future is present; your crown is prepared and engraved with your name.

How would you change if you were told that you are sealed up unto eternal life, except to resolve never to lose that blessing? But you have been told that, in your patriarchal blessing and in the temple endowment. You are sealed up to exaltation and will receive the highest reward, unless you deliberately reject that promise by apostasy or misbehavior. Your days are known; your blessings are allocated; your reward is certified. Moses, Enoch, and the brother of Jared testified that this is so. You are continually before the Lord because all things are known to him. Your time is as space to him. He knows all, because all things are before him.

One purpose of art is to help us perceive that truth. Tonight, make this simple test. See whether it gives you the same useful perspective about these ideas that it gave me. When I was in the navy, I was assigned as a night lookout for enemy submarines. While doing this, I looked at the horizon and noticed that the sky is always, even at night, lighter than the ocean. So night after night I riveted my view to the horizon, expecting to see there any enemy ship silhouetted against that little band of light. One night an older, wiser petty officer came to me and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Well, I'm looking for enemy submarines."

"Where?"

"I'm looking right at the horizon."

"That's what I figured. try this experiment with me. Pick out a star in the sky. Choose a relatively faint star and look at it." I did. "Can you see it?"

"Yes."

"Is anything happening?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"I can't see it anymore," I said, "It's fading away."

"Now, pick out another similar star," he said, "except this time look just above it." I did. "Keep looking at it." I did. "Anything happening?"

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"I can still see it clearly."

"Isn't it strange?" he observed. "Sometimes by looking above an object, we see it more clearly than when we look directly at it."

This is the purpose of art, my brothers and sisters. This is the purpose of the doctrine of Jesus Christ: to redirect our perspective; to elevate our gaze above reality, so that we can perceive reality, truth, what is, more closely.

I bear you my sure testimony that God lives, and I publicly thank the authentic artists of the world who have given me insights into his nature and into the awesome and divine principles by which he governs. This I do in the name of our Holy Redeemer, Jesus Christ, Amen.

References

1. Harold B. Lee, "A Sure Trumpet Sound: Quotations from President Lee, " Ensign 4 (February 1974): 77; emphasis added.

2. "Toward Asymptopia," Time, 10 January 1972, p. 46.

3. Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, 2:247.

4. Ibid., p.246.

5. Ibid., p. 243.

6. N. B. Lundwall, comp., The Vision (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft Publishing Company, n.d.), p. 11.

7. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 1:70-71.

8. Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology, 5^th ed. (Liverpool: John Henry Smith, 1883), pp. 162, 163.

9. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 14:231.

10. Peter E. Johnson, "A Testimony," Relief Society Magazine 7 (August 1920): 252-53.