Sitting in Sacrament Meeting one Sabbath Day and contemplating the Sacrament Prayer, the following words, that I have heard hundreds of times, just seemed to reach out to my mind, “…this do: that they may have His spirit to be with them.” I pondered those words for a few minutes, thinking about what that might really mean to have Christ’s spirit to be with me. I know what it is like to feel the spirit, even to be almost filled with the spirit. I know that when I feel the Spirit, I feel warm, I feel good about life, and I feel kindly. I become emotional, quite easily, as I realize how blessed I am and always have been. I am, also, very much aware of my weaknesses and pray in my mind for strength to maintain positive thoughts and avoid those that would leave me vulnerable. In spite of my human frailties, I know the Savior loves me as he does all people. The Sacrament is a very important weekly event for me as I try to renew myself spiritually and determine to be a better person. So that, “I may always have His spirit to be with me.”
Not too long ago, I wrote histories for both my father and my mother. These histories were based on my own personal remembrances as well as research and a few notes from family members. I felt an amazing thing happen to me as I wrote and had to contemplate these two important people in my life. I was able to draw images, from my mind, of both my mother and father from over 60 years ago. Why sixty years ago? Because I left home when I was 18 years old and never really returned. I left because I had work in another state. At nineteen, while still away, I was drafted in the army during the Korean Conflict. After my tour of duty, I married and attended a university some seven hundred miles away from them. Then I continued to work and live in the state I graduated in. The only time I spent with either my mother or my father was a few hours during a weeks vacation taken most every year. Letters were sometimes months apart, and a phone call was made once a year on Mother’s or Father’s Day. I would sometimes feel ashamed of myself for not being a better son. I almost felt more like a stranger than their son. Dad died shortly after I graduated from college and mother about twenty years later.
Why am I describing all of this? Because writing their histories literally brought them back to me. There were times when I actually felt their “spirits with me.” Never before nor since have I had such a clear image, in my mind’s eye, of either my father or my mother. I was just a kid when I left home, and yet I could see mother talking to me, preparing our supper, doing things around our home and sewing at a sewing machine at dad’s tailor shop. I could see dad chopping wood, weeding his garden, and pressing clothes in his shop. The images were strong enough that I felt like I could almost reach out and touch them. We were not really a loving family in the sense that there was not a lot of hugging and expressions of love. As I wrote, however, with their images in my mind, I wanted to reach out and hug them, mentally. I felt a great deal of love for both of them. They were my parents, the people that brought me into the world and raised me, to a large degree, to be who I am. They were not members of the LDS church, but I have a feeling that had I not been raised the way I was, maybe I would not be a member of the church today. When I was a young boy, they were a church-going people who loved and worshipped God. Somehow I feel that I was prepared in my youth to be a golden candidate to receive the Gospel light one day. My remembrances of my parents and those whom they descended from has reminded me of the story of the Mendes in the movie, Amistad. The movie describes how our ancestors can impact our lives. The movie was about a group of “Mende” (blacks Africans) on trial in the South to determine whether they were to become slaves or free men. Their very freedom was going to be based on how well their leader (Sinaue) could present their case. Sinaue was asked if he feared the outcome, and he said: “We will not be alone; I mean my ancestors. I will call into the past, far back to the beginning of time, and beg them to come and help me, at the judgement. I will reach back and draw them into me, and they must come, for at this moment, I am the whole reason they have existed at all.” This was interpreted to mean, “He believed that if one can summon the spirit of one’s ancestors, then they have never left, and the wisdom and strength they fathered and inspired will come to his aid.” I love that thought and will try to expand on it even more. We believe that not only do we have many of our ancestors physical characteristics but that we have inherited spiritual and intellectual strength from them. It’s in our genes! The Mende called for help from his ancestors, which we, too, may do, but we also believe that our ancestors are calling to us for help, for we must physically perform earthly ordinances for them that they did not or could not perform for themselves. The mental and or spiritual time travel done by our ancestral spirits is a two-way conduit. They can strengthen us and we can help them.
So, the important message that I have for those who may be led to read this, is, if your parent’s histories have not been written, write them!
I started this brief article with the thought of having the spirit of Christ with us as described in the Sacrament prayer. We can also have the spirit of our deceased ancestors with us if we care enough to write their story. Their story will keep their legacy alive so that they will not be forgotten by their family and all those who will be raised up as their descendants. May God bless us to feel their spirits and to be ever aware of their need for us to do for them what they cannot do for themselves. I believe that I may have been a golden contact, that I may have received this sacred knowledge so that the work for my deceased family could be accomplished. I really believe that though my mother and my father were not interested in the church in this life, that they are now members and that they have been set free as their work has been done in the temple of our God. May I encourage you to write your parents histories; this do so that: “You may have their spirits to be with you!”
Who Am I?
The limbs that move, the eyes that see, These are not entirely me;
Dead men and women helped to shape The mold which I do not escape;
The words I speak, my written line, These are not uniquely mine.
For in my heart and in my will
Old ancestors are (stirring) still,
Celt, Roman, Saxon, and all the dead From whose rich blood my veins are fed, In aspect, gesture, voices, tone,
Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone; In fields they tilled I plow the sod,
I walk the mountain paths they trod; And around my daily steps arise
The good and bad of those (I prize).
—Richard Rolle