latter day satyagraha

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Through email conversations with a great friend of mine, I have come to reflect on the tranformational theme of sacred emigration in Mormonism. Here is an excerpt from an email he wrote to me on the prospects of change within the “wagon circles” of our LDS home church:

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I’ve been thinking about a “revolution” in the church, which got me thinking about what our options really are in the given circumstances. A revolution suggests a – hopefully nonviolent – sudden change in the hearts of both leadership and membership. In neither groups I find any desire for whatever change, folks are happy just the way they are. In the LDS church there is a microscopic minority that would be open to revolution, facing an entrenched male authoritarian totalitarian leadership structure supported by an overwhelming majority of members. So forget revolution.

How about evolution? Such a process calls for gradual change which may take a lot of time. Forgive my impatience, but I would like to see some changes in my lifetime. A number of progressive sites are making their progressive points, connecting mormon history and theology with equality, social justice and nonviolence. However, in the LDS church this is no more than a nuisance, some creative graffiti writing on the wall, routinely erased by obedience to authority, correlated church curriculum, faithful promises in the temple, and personal feelings of loyalty and fear, and the inability of critical thinking.

I’ve come to realize that there is no way to reverse the present evolution towards fundamentalism, and even in the remote possibility of doing so, it would take a very, very long time to see any real change.

How about emigration? Certainly a well known theme among Latter-day Saints. Sometimes you just have to pack up your stuff and leave! Emigration for us could mean joining the Community of Christ, which never went West but has definitely gone places! She has evolved from a traditional restoration church to a progressive peace church! That kind of evolution took her many decades though – by the way starting from a much less conservative entrenched theology than the LDS church – but even there I notice widespread inability to catch the vision of a progressive leadership.

But if I’ll be a latter-day saint, then why not go all the way and for myself redefine sainthood with what it used to be! This is what I’m going to do: I will follow the mormon pioneer trail all the way back in opposite direction towards Nauvoo and look for those who stayed behind, thus honoring both those who braved the journey as well as those who stayed behind. I’m looking for both Joseph and Emma!

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In this context, it is soothing to remember the ‘anthem of hope’ of nineteenth-century Mormon pioneers: “Come, Come, Ye Saints” (originally ”All is Well”). The lyrics were written in 1846 by Mormon poet William Clayton. Clayton wrote the hymn “All is Well” on April 15, 1846, as his Mormon pioneer caravan rested at Locust Creek, Iowa, over 100 miles west of their origin city of Nauvoo, Illinois. Just prior to writing the lyrics, Clayton had received word that his wife Diantha had given birth to a healthy boy in Nauvoo.

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Reflecting on my friend’s email and on the lyrics of the LDS anthem of sacred emigration, I personally think that the gathering place always was meant to be at Independence, Missouri – and if so, perhaps our theology must follow the Liahona of peace given to Lehi and to his family as they were themselves traveling to the Promised Land, and that those who were born again in the waters of Mormon must join together in a Christ-centered theology of peace and justice. For this reason, I ponder over the words of the Islamic scholar, Fetullah Guhlen:

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Emigration is an important phenomenon in human history. Besides its general relevance to the establishment of civilizations, it has special significance in connection with the ‘holy ones’, those chosen to carry light throughout the world.

First of all, every individual is a traveller and therefore, in some sense, an emigrant. His journeying starts in the world of spirits and continues through the stations of his mother’s womb, childhood, youth, old age and his grave, and from there to a completely new world. Although he is among millions of people, each individual is born alone, lives his own life, endures his own death, and will be resurrected alone. Likewise, each of those of high stature who throughout history have guided humankind, started their sacred mission from their single self, then disseminating light from the torch they carried and illumining the minds and hearts of others, inculcating hope and faith in their followers and transforming the lands once submerged in darkness into pools of light. And each one of these guides had to emigrate from one place to another for the sake of their cause.

Every new idea or message has always been resisted where it has appeared, and those who have offered it have usually been welcomed in new places where their pasts were unknown. It is for this reason that the fate of the ‘holy ones’ is almost the same: they begin with belief and love, followed by struggle against the deviation and error of the masses, and then comes the turn of emigration for the sake of the well-being of humankind.

In every movement of revival, prior to emigration, two stages are of great importance. In the first stage, a woman with a cause develops her character, overflows with belief and is inflamed with love, and surpassing her own self, grows into a passionate slave of truth. She struggles, in this stage, against the temptations of her carnal self to build her authentic, spiritual character. This is called ‘the major or greater struggle’ – al-jihad al-akbar. Then she rises, in the second stage, to radiate the lights of belief to the world around her. This stage is, in fact, the door to emigration.

Emigration should not, of course, be understood only in the material sense. Rather, a person experiences emigration throughout his or her life in the spiritual sense. Each inner intellectual or spiritual transformation, from indolence to action, from decay to self-renewal, from suffocation in the atmosphere of sinfulness to exaltation in the realm of spirit, may be regarded as an emigration.

Every individual who has emigrated for the sake of a sublime ideal will always deeply feel the pressure of the ideal which urged them to emigrate and design their life according to that ideal. Secondly, they will be freed from the criticism regarding some faults they might have made in childhood or youth. Whereas, in their own land, they are probably remembered and criticized for past faults, and have little influence upon people, in the land they emigrated to, they will be known for their spiritual brilliance, unadulterated ideas, pure intentions and extraordinary sacrifices. For these and other reasons, it has almost always been emigrants who changed the flow of history and started new eras in the life of humanity.

Toynbee, the renowned British historian, mentions 27 civilizations founded by nomadic or migrant peoples. This is because no one can overcome such dynamic people. They are not habituated to ease and comfort, are ready to sacrifice everything worldly, used to every kind of hardships, and always ready to march wherever their cause requires them to go. Those who later walked in their footsteps found ease and serenity in fighting with difficulties, and found vigour and life in despising death and everything worldly, and eternity in constant renewal in thought, spirit and action. They migrated from land to land to convey knowledge, morality and civilization everywhere that they settled.