Proxy – Our responsibility

In my last blog, I described an episode in my young life in California. I prefaced my story with come comments about my father. I grew up without a father at least beginning from the time of normal remembrance. Because of my father’s separation from his children by his choice, neither by me nor by my mother, I and my siblings lost the blessing of a righteous father’s love and example. My mother had a good religious background and made great efforts to bring up her children in love and righteousness, but the influence of the father was not there. My father was in love with having a good time filled with worldly adventures and experiences. In many different ways he offended his children. I have never held a hateful thought in my heart for him, although, I have seldom had a thought of him. Yet, recently he has been upon my mind. I’ve wondered about his present feelings in the spirit world where he now resides. Gospel ordinances have been vicariously preformed for him that would take him back to the presence of our Father-in-Heaven, providing he accepts them. However, on the other hand, ordinances are gifts and blessings which when acted upon bring about promises related to those gifts and blessings. We know that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ brings about forgiveness through repentance and baptism. Furthermore we know that this life is the time for repentance and that the spirit that we take with us as we go into the grave is the same spirit that will possess us when we enter the spirit world.

A scripture has recently come to my attention (D&C 98) “If the children shall repent, or the children’s children, and turn to the Lord their God, with all their heart and with all their might, mind and strength, and restore for all (the) trespasses wherewith … their fathers have trespassed or their father’ fathers, then …vengeance shall no more come upon them … and (those) trespasses shall never be brought any more as a testimony before the Lord against them”.

It seems to me that after vicarious ordinances for the dead are performed in the temples of our God, and as a proxy are living with full purpose of heart, repenting, sacrificing, might, mind and strength, our repentance can have vicarious ramifications. As we restore for sins or trespasses of our fathers, or as we ourselves repent of sins that have been passed down to us from our fathers, or where our fathers have no chance to make things right, it seems that we can help to save our fathers from responsibility they otherwise would have had for suffering caused by their sins. Through both proxy work and the work of our own repentance, which itself is a vicarious work, we are “response-able” i.e. positioned and able to perform a saving labor on behalf of our families.

“Dearest father: Because of your absence in my early life, I fell into grievous sin and missed out on becoming a faithful member of the lord’s kingdom and did not serve my Lord faithfully. Even though now I still fall short, I trust that my repentance will serve you that your trespasses may not be brought up before the Lord. May you know that I am dedicated to His service for I know that He suffered for our sins and through our repentance we are made whole by Him. Perhaps, I can assist in bringing to pass a glorified house, even the house of Israel, that eternal great family, where you will be included. For we are all his sons and daughters ; brothers and sisters, through the atonement. The atonement is the great central proxy ordinance of time and eternity.”

Anyone who believes in the atonement of Christ, whether he knows it or not, believes in vicarious work for the dead.

As with “The Brothers Karamazov’ by Dostoyevsky, the dying brother Markel with no bitterness at all in his voice told his little brother, “Run and play now, enjoy life for me too” Indeed, the spirit of proxy work was illustrated by the author.

“Go my son, repent for me and do what I should have done there and all will be well with me.”

Family, Family, Gratitude, Gratitude may they be our lot.

RHB

A Story of the Past

Dear Readers

From time to time, I plan to recall stories from the past and let you have a look at them. Some of these you may have heard previously and some may be new to you. I've been writing a family history of the Warren family and I have found that there are few stories that reveal the past. Maybe you will contribute something to this blog since you are all authors.

Life on North Main Street

In the year 1939, my mother and father divorced. I was about 12 years old. My father didn’t seem to care about the children that were left for my mother to care for, as he made no effort to contribute to our financial support, let alone emotional support. From that time forward, my father was not part of my life nor of my siblings. I did not see him nor did we have any contact with him the balance of his life with one exception. That divorce was literally a divorce from the Brooks side of the family. I never made contact with my grandmother Brooks nor any of my Brooks aunts or uncles until late in life when I became interested in my family history. It is interesting to reflect back upon a period of time after I was married and moved back to the town that I was born in and where the Brooks family lived. I lived there with my family for a period of five years and not at any time did I visit my grandmother Brooks. I guess it illustrates how deep the divorce was between the Brooks’ and my mother’s side of the family, the Gibson’s.

At the time of the divorce of my parents, there were four of us children and the country was in the midst of a depression. My mother finally got a job working for Riverside County. With the help of her siblings, Aunt Martha and Uncle Jim and Aunt Bertha and Uncle Bill, my mother rented a small house with some acreage on North Main Street in Riverside. This was a happy time for us we were able to acquire rabbits and chickens and to have a garden area. In fact, about one acre was planted in tomatoes. All of this was through the help of my Mother’s siblings. As mentioned we were happy here. I rode the bus to school. I was called “Indian” by my school friends and I could run like the wind and there was not one that could catch up to me in running. Oh, how I loved to run.

When I would come home from school, mother would frequently ask me to slaughter a rabbit or a chicken for dinner. I learned how to do this early after living there from my uncles. I learned to dress rabbits and chickens and use an axe to decapitate the head of the chicken and then scald them in hot water to remove the feathers. I never quite got used to killing rabbits. They would have to be skinned and the dressed by hanging the by their hind legs for the cleaning. In fact even now, it is difficult to eat rabbit because of that memory.

My brother, Loren, was a very entertaining boy at that time and still has that attribute to this day. During the times mentioned above, he was about 6 years old. We had a large round dining table in the kitchen. The house was very small; several bedrooms with a large kitchen and back porch. Radio was our favorite pass time of listening to mystery programs, like the “Green Hornet”, comedy like the ” Amos and Andy” show and many others. My brother, Loren, would at times locate himself under the dining table around the center pedestal and act out the radio announcer or other persons that he heard on the radio. I remember setting with my mother and getting the biggest laughs of the day listening to him chatter playing “Radio”.

How long we lived on North Main Street, I’m not sure, but our next move was to live closer to my Grandma and Grandpa Gibson and my Aunt Bertha and Uncle Bill. Since we were living near to them when war was declared against Japan on December 8, 1841, we probably only lived on North Main less than a year.

Kimberly's new baby girl, Kaylee Brianne McAdams shown above. (see phpGedview).

RHB