Distance: Thoughts from the Temple
Posted in: What's the Buzz
When I joined the Church, there were 12 operating temples on the planet. I recall hearing about families in those days saving money for years in order to make 5 day journeys, traveling through jungles on rickety busses full of live chickens or on leaky boats on the verge of collapse, to their closest temple. After sacred ordinances were performed and families were sealed forever, they’d make the same trip in reverse, back to their homes. Happy, but battered and broke.
Yesterday I walked from my home to “my” temple in 8 minutes time. I can see the temple from my office window. (Interesting that my temple is one of the 12 operating temples I knew upon initiating my Church membership.) When I lived in Northern California, we drove 3 and a half hours to the Oakland Temple where I secured my own endowment. Eventually our ward was folded into the Medford Temple district, reducing drive time by an hour. Thank GOODNESS! So much closer…
Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) has a total of 382 temples in various stages of use and development, including dedicated, under construction, and announced: 205 dedicated temples, 197 in operation, 8 under renovation, 56 under construction, and 121 announced. The Church is working hard and investing a ton of resources in order to “dot the Earth” with temples and reduce or eliminate the hardships of traveling to and attending temples.
So, given these developments one would think that I would be attending the temple at least once a week. I have no boats on which to sail, no busses full of chickens, no life savings to pour into the 8-minute walk. Not a full confession, but … I do not attend once a week. Why not? Why do we as humans treat distance so strangely? My son and his family live 35 minutes from my wife and I. They may as well live in Arkansas given as often as we see them.
I find that the answer to why distance makes no difference is that priority determines behavior, regardless of distance. Distraction and busyness “get in the way” of the things that matter the most. Our Church leadership seems to recognize this as they admonish General Conference attendees – which are the most faithful Church members – to attend the temple more frequently.
I’d like to let our leaders know that their words have worked. At least in my case! I heard them, secured some family names, made a temple appointment, and actually went, ignoring the inevitable adversary’s work encouraging me not to go. Now, to “lather rinse repeat” this process!
Thank you for reading…
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