OUR ETERNAL FAMILY

I heard a remark from someone. If my brain worked like it did 15 year ago I could tell you who it was and when I heard it. Anyway, the remark went something like this. ‘We are spending endless hours making familial connections with ancestors. Our effort also leads us to finding living people with whom we never knew we were connected. Some people have thousands of people who now hang on their family trees.’ Then came the BUT! ‘All of the inhabitants of the earth who ever lived, who are now living or who will ever live have a one-step pedigree chart linking them to Heavenly Parents.’

My personal journey toward embracing the universal kinship of humankind has been a long and twisting path, but I am grateful I am finally coming to be able to accept the eternalness of mankind’s relationship. I still find myself occasionally treating people and thinking about people in ways and thoughts which are anything but eternal or familial.

During the first quarter of my life, I placed everyone with whom I came into contact into groups called family, friends, members of the same church and others. The labels sometimes had to do with a level of shared intimacy, but I often found I had far less contact with people in the family group than those in any of the other groups. There were also times when the ideas and thoughts which dominated my mind shifted from being influenced by the group with which I happened to be spending the most time. Luckily for me, even those I identified as ‘others’ seemed to be, by and large, among those who would be called good and honorable. I say luckily, because during this time of my life I was often easily swayed by whatever group gave off positive vibes of enjoyment when we were together.

The second quarter of my life came abruptly upon me shortly after graduating from High School. With a couple of friends I had joined the Army Reserves and so the morning after leaving the safety and comfort of those with whom I had associated in the first quarter of my life, we were on a train heading to Fort Ord, California, to go through basic training and training in a specialty. Although remnants of my first quarter groupings remained I was abruptly counted as one in a platoon and a company. After just a few short weeks of basic training the two friends with whom I had joined the reserves, Terry Martin and Bob Stewart, both came down with the Fort Ord Flu and were put back into the group behind us in basic training. I spent the next eight weeks being indoctrinated into understanding that those in my platoon were now made up my brotherhood of life. I had just started to feel the importance of this new brotherhood, when I was recruited to be the fast pitch softball pitcher for the company team which was made up of our trainers and the staff for the company. So now I had a ‘brotherhood’ and a ‘team’ added to my expanding circle who were defined in different ways than those I had been with during the first quarter of my life.

Shortly after completing my six months of active duty in my army career, the final two months of which were spent in a small company mail room after having been trained as a clerk typist for two months, I returned home and wasted a semester of schooling while awaiting the opportunity to be called as a missionary for The Church Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was suddenly and completely thrust back into the familiar relationship groupings with which I had been involved prior to my active duty days.

When my mission call came, I won't say I was shocked, but when I read that the area of the world in which I was called to serve was to be Northern Mexico it was definitely a surprise. At Garden Grove Union High School students from that part of the world were in a very remote corner of the ‘others’ category. I also have to admit that during my four years of High School not one person of that heritage was ever considered as part of the friends group. Even during the six months I was at Fort Ord, the only persons whose origins were from south of the border who made it into the platoon or team groupings were drill sergeants and the catcher on the softball team.

I never would have been able to anticipate nor appreciate the mighty relationship change which was about to be wrought upon me in the cities of Ciudad Valles, Piedras Negras, Tampico, San Luis Potosi and Nuevo Rosita in Northern Mexico. During the years I was serving in Mexico my extended family of brothers and sisters expanded beyond my wildest imaginations. I learned that deep feelings of love have nothing to do with country of origin, pigmentation, culture or genealogy, but have everything to do with gaining the understanding, knowledge and testimony that my fellow missionaries and those with whom I came into contact as I dwelt in Northern Mexico are indeed brothers and sisters of the same immediate Eternal Parents. Even today, almost six decades after living in Mexico, Kathleen still wonders if I don't have residual love for my Hispanic brothers and sisters which often seems to be manifest to a greater degree than to others of our ever widening familial circle.

The rest of the second quarter of my life, all of the third quarter of my life and a portion of the fourth quarter of my life were spent getting married, becoming a father, preparing for a career, spending 50 years as a teacher in the Church Education System and fulfilling callings in the organizations of the church. There was also a good deal of activity involving teams during many of these years which, in the end, dwindled down to a couple of geezer golfing buddies.

I would be terribly remiss if I did not mention the privilege Kathleen and I had of living and serving in the marvelous country of Colombia. Even though the embracing of others as brothers and sisters whom I had not seen since we dwelt in our First Estate with our Heavenly Parents had already become an automatic response, the time we spent in our mission, deepened and increased this marvelous understanding with its attendant feelings.

I doubt I could even begin to accurately come up with a number, but it could easily be in the 10’s of thousands who were added to the known members making up my brothers and sisters. They would have born different identifying labels such as colleagues, students, sharers of stewardships, titles of positions and flocks, but all were being added to what has become an immense grouping of brothers and sisters one step removed from living under the tutelage of our shared Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.

The last decade of my life took an unexpected turn which involved two new adventures I never could have anticipated. The first started when, my brother from the same Eternal Mother, Paul Maddox kindly and patiently helped me overcome my anxieties and got me started on a path which first made the computer an important part of my daily routine and then for some reason got me into writing. Those brothers and sisters who served as my English teachers can pick themselves up off the floor, and I hastily add that if Kathleen did not add her grammatical expertise to my writings, all would be dross. Anyway, during this decade through the writing of my Thoughts for a Sabbath Day and Life’s Lessons Learned, I have made contact with countless numbers of already encircle brothers and sisters along with newly embraced brothers and sisters from all over the world. Thanks to Face Book I am able to know many of them from their pictures, but whether I have that wonderful experience or not, far and wide my heaven known brothers and sisters have become part of the wonderful familial circle of love I feel each day.

Although I am just barely entering the path of eternal kinship myself, if someone were to ask me about the secret to being able to enlarge one’s circle of brothers and sisters during mortality, I would probably say, find someone each day with whom you can serve and make their lives a bit happier because of the experience.

I know Universal and Everlasting love is an attribute known only by Gods, but I am grateful for the pittance of that characteristic which I have been able to gain through the wonderful earthly journey I have been blessed to enjoy.

I bear solemn testimony as deeply as the earthly meagerness of my understanding will permit, that I believe to the extent my present progress will allow me that we (all of humanity) are but one step removed from a common parentage.

THOUGHTS FOR A SABBATH DAY – WILLIAM L. RILEY

EDITED BY – KATHLEEN W. RILEY

Our solemn prayer continues to be that we along with all our brothers and sisters will continue to strive to break down the causes of our dysfunctions and move us a little closer to once again being the Eternal Family we once were.