No Empty Chairs: ownership, belonging and agency in the LDS culture

“All happy families are alike. All unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.” This Tolstoyan quote seems to perfectly describe our modern-day mentality and cultural  premise that deviating from ‘the norm’ invariably makes one’s experience an unhappy one. In reality, no “happy” family is perfectly happy all the time. What is perceived as “happy “from the outside is often not. Moreover, “failed” marriages and families often turn out to be the most fertile “grow-boxes” of human experience.    

As a church, we claim to have all the secrets to happy family life and all the proven recipes to “successful” marriages.  We know that happiness as well as ‘the most important work’ we’ll ever do is only achieved within the walls of our homes.  And that becomes our center and life’s pursuit. 

In our search for soulmates and better halves we become convinced of being incomplete.  And more importantly incapable of being happy, content without anyone else by our side.  We annihilate our ability to stand on our own, putting out the fire of sovereignty faster than candles over a birthday cake.

We often say that “family is everything ” . But does that by default imply that outside of our family we are…nothing? Do we do our children a disservice by communicating that feeling loved only happens within a group? That once they leave the sheltered space of our parental abode the feeling of being loved is jeopardized? That being loved only comes from without and is created for us by someone else? The scriptures teach that “true happiness comes from within, and proceeds from the light emanating from the Holy Spirit and not from things that temporarily fill the void”.

“Families can be together forever” is thrown around quite a bit. But what does it mean and more importantly what does it look like ? We try to wrap our minds around it by envisioning eternity as a Sunday dinner, where every chair is happily occupied by a respective family member. And the thought of any one of those chairs being empty in “our heavenly” home has become unacceptable, unfathomable. “The heaven or bust” mentality sets us up for imminent failure, for the minute anyone in our enormous family doesn't live up to our ‘celestial’ expectation, the chair loses its occupant.  And our idyllic picture is ruined.

Superimposing the idea of our earthly home right over the  heavenly one, we arrogantly assume that the two are one and the same. After all, what could be more heavenly than what we know and have now? The only problem with this picture is that it makes no provision for individual agency, central to the Father’s Plan.  Nor the custom made individual plan of eternal progression.  Noone can be forced to dine at the celectail table, if all they are ready for is a simple terrestrial meal ,or a grab-to-go telestial snack. 

What does it mean that our children are “sealed to us”? Does someone brand them with our family name, like cattle, when no one is looking?  And have we,too, been “branded” at birth as someone else’s?!?! Do we place invisible tags of ownership on our loved ones ? And is  “we belong together” sometimes conflated with “we belong to each other”? But like a pair of shoes that does “go together”, we walk the path of life parallel to one another, yet  “belonging” to an entirely different third party.   

The need to belong is nurtured, fostered in us from an early age. Belonging in the LDS culture is massively linked with our identity as well as the measure of  our faithfulness (“I belong, therefore, I  know who I AM” and I can follow “in faith”) . Belonging becomes our  modus operandi and In our desperation we are willing to compromise to belong. 

The flip side of belonging, of course,  is ownership. And while belonging and “owning” others is comforting to us, we fail to recognize when we ourselves become owned. And while finally being part of a greater whole, we are also affected and controlled by it.

The truth of the matter is, nobody belongs to anyone.  And while every couple stepping away from the temple altar “knows” that they will be together for time and all eternity, not many realize that the claim to eternal relationships can only be made by those sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise ( D&C 76:53). Such divine ratification is  hoped for by most, understood by few, and received and experienced by even fewer.

The real trial of our faith begins , of course, when the choice is to be made between following God and preserving the integrity of what we perceive as ‘an eternal family’. Being the black sheep, standing up to the group is never easy. But that has been the lot of Joseph of Egypt, of Job,  of Nephi and countless others that have chosen to rise to the occasion and follow the Lord, rather than stay with the group and perish.

Our misconceptions about the true nature of our family relationships  during mortality entrap us, causing us to exercise our agency in ways that would have been different, if we had a more accurate perspective on things. Sometimes we stand over our relationships, deemed by us and others to be ‘eternal’,  trying to resuscitate them in every possible manner. In reality all we can do is stay true to who we are and allow others to do the same, even if it shatters all hope for eternalhood.  

 In the “Lord’s true Church”  that has founded its theology on “the most correct book”, we stand by our infallibility “with every fiber of our being “.  And despite the warning of the scriptures against such practice (D&C 93:39) we cling to the  traditions and paradigms of our fathers, assuming that everything about them is true and is worth preserving. And like old wine bottles that have served us so well for so long, they seem perfect, until, that is,  the new wine has arrived...

To me family space is both  sacred and precious. It is a place where we nurture those we love, preparing them for both mortality and eternity.  Home is where memories are made and hearts can glow. But I have learned that all happy families consist of people that take responsibility for their own emotional and spiritual well-being, with no expectations of such things from others.  And maybe if we ALL bring that to the table of our heavenly home, there will no longer be any more empty chairs.