Over the past several days, I have written essays prompted by two centennials: the ratification of the Vision of the Dead, which eventually became D&C 138, and the ending of World War I. The first centennial prompted reflections on the spirit world and the second on war and peace. I wrote these essays mostly for myself and my family in the hope they might inspire profitable spiritual reflections on Halloween and Armistice Day. I am happy to share them with the campus ‘ohana as well.
Dear Family:
Did you know that Halloween this year fell on the centenary of an important event in Church history? Exactly a century ago on Halloween, the leading councils of the Church ratified a glorious vision of the spirit world. The headnote to D&C 138 reads: “A vision, given to President Joseph F. Smith in Salt Lake City, Utah. . . . on October 31, 1918, it was submitted to the counselors of the First Presidency, the Council of the Twelve, and the Patriarch, and it was unanimously accepted by them.” Though merely a historical coincidence, it seems appropriate to me that this revelation about the dead should have been confirmed on Halloween. This centenary caused me to ponder the doctrine of the spirit world on Halloween and the days that followed.
D&C 138 clarifies important truths about the relationship between the world of the living and of the dead. This subject is central not only to All Hallows Eve (31 Oct) but to the religious festivals that follow the next two days: All Saints Day (1 Nov) and All Souls Day (2 Nov). All three holidays concern themselves with the spirit world, even if they do so by mixing folklore with Christian faith. I am struck by how President Smith’s vision corrects the part-Christian, part-pagan traditions associated with the afterlife through these holidays and confirms others.
Halloween is the least religious and most fully secular of these holidays. As we all know, in modern America it has become little more than a sugar-fest for children and an excuse for people of all ages to don costumes. The holiday bears only faint echoes of All Hallows Eve and does nothing to deepen our understanding of the spirit world.
In fact, it distorts it. Halloween renders the very idea of ghosts as either childishly ridiculous or horrifying. Though meant in fun, Halloween horror has become less amusing and more disturbing and distasteful to me the older I get. I suppose that’s because there is too much horror in real life.
So, as some of you know, I have long looked for some way to make Halloween more spiritually uplifting. This year I found one way in the Halloween centenary of D&C 138. I took this historical coincidence as an invitation to re-read the revelation. This proved to be an edifying Halloween experience. I recommend it and intend to repeat it every year.
As I read the revelation, I thought about how it also relates to All Saints Day and All Souls Day. In the traditional Christian calendar, All Saints Day is an occasion to remember the righteous dead. How appropriate, I thought, that President Smith beheld the departed spirits of the “noble and great ones” (v.55) in vision. He saw the “spirits of the just” (v.12), “assembled in [a] vast congregation of the righteous” (v.38). He learned that Christ visited them and organized them to preach the gospel to the spirits in prison. The joy President Smith felt in this vision of the righteous dead is well captured in an anthem traditionally sung on All Saints Day:
For all the Saints who from their labors rest,Who thee by faith before the world confessed,Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.Alleluia, Alleluia.(LDS Hymns, no. 82)
From now on when I sing or hear this beautiful hymn, I will think of the vision that so thrilled and comforted President Joseph F. Smith, our beloved “Iosepa” here in Hawaii.
All Souls Day is traditionally a time to remember one’s own dead and, in some traditions, the souls who are stuck in Purgatory. The holiday sometimes involves fanciful notions about the dead returning to earth. Some cultures leave out food for the dead, decorate graves, light candles, and pray for the dead to be purged from sin and thereby released from bondage. Tellingly, President Smith learned how the spirits who dwell in darkness actually can be liberated from captivity by receiving the gospel. “The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God” (58). This work of liberation is going forward in our temples.
Thinking about this as I read the revelation, I felt prompted to create another new personal Halloween tradition: to attend the temple. This seemed like a fitting thing to do during a holiday known in Mexico as “The Day of the Dead” (El Día del los Muertos). You will be acquainted with this holiday through the beautifully animated film “Coco.” The real way to redeem our dead ancestors is by participating in vicarious ordinances.
After we left the temple, Susan and I attended the baptism of a lovely student Lena, who lost her father when she was only one year old. Soon after, her mother moved the family from Jordan to the United States, but Lena felt increasingly lost in this new secular society the older she got, having left the Muslim faith but not having embraced another. Until now. Here at BYU–Hawaii she found the gospel. At her joyful baptism, Lena spoke tenderly of her hope to be united with a father she has never known.
The Restored Gospel gives us this hope. Hope rings through the revelation ratified one hundred years ago on Halloween. This vision comforted the grieving spirit of the prophet who received it. Iosepa knew what it was to lose his parents, spouses, and thirteen children, including his first-born, at whose death he wrote in his journal “My soul is rent asunder. My heart is broken, and flutters for life! O my sweet son, my joy, my hope! . . . O God, help me!” When he received the revelation, President Smith was living through a terrible world war that killed millions and a devastating flu pandemic that would kill even more millions. The story of these contexts for D&C 138 is recounted in a moving essay by my friend and former colleague George S. Tate entitled “’The Great World of the Spirits of the Dead,’ Death, the Great War, and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic as Context for Doctrine and Covenants 138” (BYU Studies 46, no. 1 [2007]). I also re-read this last week. I recommend it to all of you.
In all these ways—reading D&C 138; thinking about its connection to Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day; attending the temple; hearing a new convert rejoice in the promise of being united with her deceased father; and remembering the death and devastation that the prophet and the whole world felt at the time the revelation was received—the spirit world has been on much my mind. I rejoice that, against the distortions and superstitions about the dead promulgated at this time of year, the Restored Gospel sheds such light and hope. It provides a true Halloween treat.