{"id":107713,"date":"2024-11-07T15:28:38","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T22:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=107713"},"modified":"2024-11-07T16:55:07","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T23:55:07","slug":"sorrow-for-wayward-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/11\/sorrow-for-wayward-children.html","title":{"rendered":"Sorrow for Wayward Children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Glyph<\/a>
Note the arm and hand offering a conical piece of bread in this fragment of an inscribed architrave from the tomb of Amenemhat Surer (circa 1390\u20131352 BC, Dynasty 18, New Kingdom, reign of Amenhotep III) \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reprint has just gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0The Temple: Symbols, Sermons, and Settings<\/em>: The Symbolism of the Cupped Hand in Ancient Egypt and Israel: Iconography, Text, and Artifact<\/a>, written by Stephen O. Smoot<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in The Temple: Symbols, Sermons, and Settings<\/em>, edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. For more information, go to https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/books\/the-temple-symbols-sermons-and-settings\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a 1983 study, Lynn M. Hilton explored the concept of the hand as a cup in ancient temple worship.1 Hilton\u2019s analysis of the imagery of the cupped hand as a ritual gesture offered some useful initial exploratory insight. This article builds on Hilton\u2019s analysis and points to additional iconographic, textual, and artifactual forms of evidence for the cupped hand as a ritual gesture in ancient Egypt and Israel. As this evidence makes clear, in both ancient Egypt and ancient Israel, an important ritual action was to fill the cupped hand with offerings for the deity. These offerings could be made by either directly filling the palms of the hands or through the use of cultic vessels shaped as a cupped hand. Furthermore, in ancient Egypt, the outstretched cupped hand could also represent the petitioner receiving blessings from the deity as opposed to making an offering, while in ancient Israel, the action of filling the (cupped) hand was directly linked with being consecrated in a priestly capacity.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"The<\/a>
This building, at the corner of Mission Avenue and Walnut Grove Drive in Rosemead, California, is the chapel that I attended with increasing regularity over the course of my childhood and adolescence, first in the Rosemead Ward and then in the newly created San Gabriel Ward. I\u2019m grateful to Wade Englund for locating this photo for me on Facebook. I recall it being mostly faced with green stucco as I grew up, and then being changed to white.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the Southern California chapel \u2014 now long demolished \u2014 where my childhood wards met, the chapel that I attended sporadically as a young boy and more regularly as a youth, and from which I set off for Brigham Young University and, eventually, for my mission to Switzerland, a large plaque was displayed on the front wall, to the speaker\u2019s left behind the sacrament table. \u00a0It read as follows:<\/p>\n

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And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.<\/p>\n

For this shall be a law unto the inhabitants of Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized.<\/p>\n

And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands.<\/p>\n

And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord. \u00a0(Doctrine and Covenants 68:25-28)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I can still see that plaque clearly in my mind, and I\u2019ve never forgotten it, neither the words that were emblazoned upon it. \u00a0It was intended, of course, to remind parents to ensure that their children were taught the principles of the Gospel, and that the parents modeled Gospel-oriented lives for their children.<\/p>\n

In not a few cases, when the Gospel is not passed on to children, the fault does lie at the feet of parents who failed to adequately and conscientiously teach or exemplify it. \u00a0But even good and faithful parents lose children. \u00a0God the Father himself \u2014 presumably the very best of parents \u2014 lost a third of his children in the premortal world.<\/p>\n

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And this we saw also, and bear record, that an angel of God who was in authority in the presence of God, who rebelled against the Only Begotten Son whom the Father loved and who was in the bosom of the Father, was thrust down from the presence of God and the Son,<\/p>\n

And was called Perdition, for the heavens wept over him\u2014he was Lucifer, a son of the morning. \u00a0(Doctrine and Covenants 76:25-26)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Moreover, the scriptures testify that God mourns over those of his mortal children who reject the covenants and principles of the Plan of Salvation, the Plan of Happiness. \u00a0I think often of the vision of Enoch that is recorded in Moses 7, one of my favorite passages in all of the Standard Works:<\/p>\n

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And he beheld Satan; and he had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness; and he looked up and laughed, and his angels rejoiced. . . .<\/p>\n

And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?<\/p>\n

And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity?<\/p>\n

And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still; and yet thou art there, and thy bosom is there; and also thou art just; thou art merciful and kind forever;<\/p>\n