Houston, we have a problem...Life on Mars looks eerily familiar.

(Just a note: since things are always better with a good soundtrack, I've added a few arrangements of some favorite hymns for this post.....I know, I know.....I'm a dork.....too late to change that now, though.)

In writing this post I am committing an historical faux-pas; relating things out of the order in which they happened.  Yet, it is the post which has been the most difficult.  It may sound insane to say that a vacation can be emotional, but for me, the entire trip to Illinois was emotional.  Perhaps it was due to the fact that each of the places we visited, each of the people we learned more about, had already claimed a portion of my heart and mind from a very young age.  C.S. Lewis was as dear a friend to me as any child could have, Lincoln, as I said last time, was a hero to a small child born over a hundred years after his death, and Nauvoo....well, if a city can, of itself, be dear to the heart, Nauvoo is to mine.  In Hebrew 'Nauvoo' means 'beautiful place' or 'place of rest.'  I suppose to the physical eye, it is a fairly typical mid-western town.  Not very prepossessing in terms of wealth, prestige or glamour.  Its beauty is of a different sort.  The history of Nauvoo is short, but not simple.  In 1839, after fleeing Missouri, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints settled on the banks of the Mississippi.  There they built from the swamps a home, a beautiful place, a place of rest.  There also they began, in 1841, the construction of a temple.  It sits on the highest point of land, overlooking the broad, majestic river.  Yet, the Saints were driven again to flee their homes, this time leaving behind not only buildings and stores, homes and gardens, but the beautiful place of rest they had sacrificed so much to build for themselves out of wilderness.  It was here also, that Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were taken from their families and carried to Carthage, from where they did not return.  The feelings one has, standing in a place such as this are indescribable.  I thought I would feel pain at the thought of the pain and loss which was endured, but I didn't.  The peace which was mixed into the mortar and stones, plowed into the fields, still remained.  As the Saints were driven to the banks of the Mississippi, they watched the temple they had built burn.  Yet, here I was, standing on the steps and looking at the same river they had been forced to cross in the month of February.  The temple was rebuilt.  People were once again able to enter its doors.  

My mom and I, on our last day, drove down to the place where the members crossed to the opposite shore; as I stood there, many things filled my mind.  I thought of the part, in Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant," after he has forced the children out of his beautiful garden, where they had been wont to play.  Wilde wrote, "They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside.  'How happy we were there,' they said to each other."  I remember watching the short animated film of that story as a child, and how, when the narrator spoke that line, the lonely longing of those words struck me.  "How happy we were there."  As well, I thought of the line from one of my favorite musicals, "Fiddler on the Roof."  The Jews are being forced from their village of Anatevka to wander where they will; some of the villagers are standing in Tevye's yard, saying their goodbyes.  One line always stands out to me-"Anatevka.  Where else could Sabbath be so sweet?"  The day was overcast and cool, but not unpleasant.  The grass was deep and green, tree branches trailed in the flowing river-how my heart broke for those who had left this beautiful place.  But, as we were standing there, listening to the peaceful lapping of the water on the shore, looking for the last time on Nauvoo, the bells of the temple began to toll.  A peace which carried with it a certain power of strength and courage became so tangible it was nearly palpable.  I myself, in only two days, had come to love this city, and the people in it.  There was Elder and Sister Wilson, a man who worked in the sandwich shop where we ate two or three times, and the countless others we had come to truly love, through their kindness.  It was indeed a beautiful place, with beautiful people.  I finally realized then, that the same reason the members had to leave was the same reason they could leave this place of rest.  One of the only consistent things about history is the human race's inability to reconcile differences of religion, therefore the early Latter-Day Saints were fleeing their homes.  Yet, because of that same religion for which they were being persecuted, they realized that the place of rest was not in the city they had built, but within the knowledge they had of their Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ.  This they could carry with them, even if they must leave behind their possessions and trust in His care, that they would find another place of rest, whether in this life or the next.  This may sound cliche, but it was an important realization for me to arrive at.  That realization was the peace which permeated that verdant corner of Illinois.  That was what made it beautiful.  It was re-enforced to me that, although this life is fraught with pain, loneliness, uncertainty, loss and fear, it is also full to the brim with love, kindness, beauty and, if we know to which source to look, peace.  Not a peace of mortal proportions, but a peace in the knowledge that we are indeed precious in the sight of Heavenly Father, that our pains and sorrows do not go unnoticed, nor our prayers unheeded.  They may not be answered in the manner in which we would like, but that does not mean they go unheeded.  

There is a book I have on my shelf, which, should the house suddenly spontaneously combust, and I only had a moment to choose which books to escape with, and it came down to this or my C.S. Lewis, I'm sure dear Lewis would understand.  It is called, "Shepherds, Why This Jubilee?" by Jeffrey R. Holland.  It is a book about Christmas.  Notice I didn't say, a Christmas book, but a book about Christmas.  Please forgive the long quote, but bear with me, it is worth it, I think.  

"As they made their way toward the temple that day, the Holy Spirit was resting upon a beloved elderly man named Simeon, one whom the scriptures describe as 'just and devout.'  It was revealed to this gentle and venerable man that he would not die before seeing the Messiah-"the Lord's Christ," as Luke phrases it.  The Spirit then led him to the temple, where he saw a young carpenter and his even younger wife enter the sanctuary with a new-born babe cradled in his mother's arms.  Simeon, who had waited all his life for "the consolation of Israel," took that consolation in his arms, praised God, and said: 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.  And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.  And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.' He was joyously happy.  He had lived to see the Son of God be born.  He had held the child in his very arms.  He could now die the happiest man in all of Jersualem, maybe in all the world.  But his joy was not of the superficial kind.  It was not without its testing and trying....his joy had something to do with 'the fall and rising again of many in Israel,' and with this child's life-or at least his death-which would be like a sword piercing through his beloved mother's soul.  We might well ask, "Was such an ominous warning, such a fateful prophecy, appropriate in this season of joy?  Surely such was untimely, even unseemly, at that moment-when the Son of God was so young and tender and safe, and his mother so thrilled with his birth and his beauty?"  Our answer is, yes, it was appropriate and important.  The true meaning, the unique and lasting and joyous meaning of the birth of this baby, would be in the life he would lead and especially in his death, in his triumphant atoning sacrifice and in his prison-bursting resurrection.  It is the life at the other end of the manger scene that gives this moment of nativity in Bethlehem its ultimate meaning.  Special as this child was and divine as was his conception, without that day of salvation wherein he would gain an everlasting victory over death and hell on behalf of every man, woman, and child who would ever be born-until that day should come-this baby's life and mission would not be complete.  Worse yet, without that triumphant atonement and resurrection he might have been remembered only as one born in abject poverty, scorned in his own native village, and tortured to death by a ruthless Roman regime that knew everything about torture and death.  But wise old Simeon understood all of this-that the birth was ultimately for the death-and it thrilled his soul that salvation was come.  Yes, for me the most important Christmas visitor of all may have been old Simeon, who, not in the absence of hard days and long years but because of them, would sing with us tonight at the top of his voice, 'Joy to the world, the Lord is come; let earth receive her King!...No more will sin and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground; he'll come and make the blessings flow, far as the curse was found.'"  

The same reason the inhabitants of Nauvoo were forced to leave was the same reason they could leave.  Although they stood on the banks and watched their homes burn, that burning could not destroy the knowledge they possessed.  That is what I learned from Nauvoo, the beautiful place, the place of rest.