Saturday 19 November 2011

privacy of the patriarchal blessing

i've been thinking lots about privacy lately. mostly because i want to be as involved in the obama campaign as i can be without breaking the hatch act. which then gets to this question: when does my public life end and my private life begin?

i was looking for answers on deep, existential things, so i did what i always do, turned to the scriptures and my patriarchal blessing, which feels like my most personal piece of scripture.
i've recently reconnected with it, and its feeling really meaningful right now. it always helps me feel like i have a cool mission for my life. i love that i know i get to choose it, but seriously, my life is so awesome when i just choose to trust God's plan for me. so, i reread my blessing and reconnected to that language about his plan for me and suddenly thought:

if i became a public figure, could people demand to read my blessing? lets pretend a mormon was elected president, would that mean his/her blessing should be canonized? then i wondered, would Mormons assume that the election of one type of mormon would prove the untruthfulness of the opposing side, or would Mormons be able to step back and realize that a democratic election does not the truth make?

then i got really curious to read jon hunstman and mitt romney's blessings. i mean, a blessing like that might could sway my vote, either way. but it seems like at the point of being a chief executive or a chief judge, one should need to reveal what they believe about themselves. though in order to make it fair, anyone asking must be willing to provide the same type of openness and transparency.

i do like what the church says about them:

so in the case of a presidential election, once someone asks to see a patriarchal blessing, they should have a 2-5 page statement of their personal beliefs about God's role in his/her work when acting as President of the United States of America. seems like we should get to know if that feels right to us.

for instance, joseph smith got his blessing when he was in his 20's prophesying that he would establish the "New Jerusalem", subdue his enemies, enjoy his posterity to the latest generation, and "stand on the earth" to witness the Second Coming." it does seem like the voting public should know that those are his life goals (or if they are or not). but it would be completely unfair to punish somebody because they had clearly define life goals. just because one candidate is more self-actualized than another doesn't mean that the struggler doesn't need to answer the same questions. so, if anyone were to ask for mitt or jon's blessing, they better be willing to explain what they think their life mission is about in a spiritual way.

thoughts?

No comments: