What are ‘Holy Places’? What makes them holy? Are there different kinds of ‘Holy Places’? Has our understanding of ‘Holy Places’ changed over time?

I suspect that most LDS Church members think of the Temple when we think of a holy place, but when pushed we might agree that the Sacred Grove is also a holy place, separate from our temples (even though the Palmyra Temple is just steps away). But even today, for most of us, the Temple is at least an hour or two away, somewhere we travel to. So, what does it mean to “Stand in Holy Places?” It probably doesn’t mean that we should live in the Temple. So what sanctifies those holy places that we create for ourselves?

Much of the answers to these questions may be very individual—the elements that make a space holy for each of us may be different, each one with emotional and spiritual associations that help us connect to God. And it seems likely to me that things that help me make those associations might not help you, and vice versa. The sanctifying elements might also have cultural influences and associations, so that what is holy in one culture might seem blasphemous in another. So, that leads us back to the questions above. What makes something holy? Or maybe the question should be, what are the characteristics of the elements that make things holy? Are there principles underlying how we create holy places?

Much advice and even proscription has been given in the scriptures and in the counsel of general authorities on what these elements are. I don’t know that I can add to that counsel. But the scriptures covered in this Come Follow Me lesson do include some suggestions.

 

The Lord wants me “to keep a history.”

I suggest that ‘keeping a history’ is actually a way that we can create holy places. The process of writing history is a way of curating or of sifting through the events of our lives to find meaning there. Its how we both remember life events, including the spiritual, and its how we figure out how we understand life events. Whether kept in writing or recorded as audio or video, whether short or long, whether kept as a diary or a memoir or even as fiction, we learn from keeping our history, and what we understand through that process both tells us what helps us feel the spirit and what things would make a holy place for us.

Part of the first generation of Saints born in Utah, Samantha Tryphena Brimhall Foley (1858-1948) moved with her family in 1888 from Colorado’s San Luis Valley to Albuquerque, where they met a diphtheria epidemic that cost the lives of two of her children. During the travel she had a revelation that she should learn Spanish, leading to her spending most of the rest of her life working with Mexican converts. Brimhall-Foley wrote poetry in both English and Spanish, including the following poem, comparing the process by which we receive inspiration from God to the new wireless technology of when this poem was written. In the poem, she urges her readers to “record the voice that speaks, and make thy heart its goal.”

 

Wireless

by S. T. Brimhall-Foley

We list the pealing sounds that roll where vivid lightnings start;

Or note the smothered rumbling groans of crater’s troubled heart;

With sacred awe we search the cause of voices thundered there,

‘Tis then, through nature, God does speak by wireless in the air.

The waves that roll upon the deep, and clash and foam and roar;

The rolling tempests there that sweep the sea from shore to shore,

Have voiced a language—deep, sublime, aloof from minds of men,

Yet, carried far on wireless wings, ’tis but God’s voice again.

The sun, which lights the many worlds, knows all their lands and seas,

And fills their clouds from ocean beds to waft them o’er their leas,—

Has learned the language of a smile and answers with a ray;

While God is speaking all the while, e’en suns list to obey.

There is a voice in every ray that plows the blue afar;

There is a voice in every orb, and every falling star;

Then why not man define the tongue, or read the writing there,

Of every tone and sound sublime which God sends through the air?

The starry worlds, which travel on through endless realms of space,

In order move, and never clash, or loose their lightning pace,

But know the language of the deep, of way-marks stamped with light;

And God’s own voice, though often still, they’ve learned its power and might.

Then, man, be wise, God speaks through thee, his station is thy soul;

Arise, record the voice that speaks, and make thy heart its goal.

Leave not the rocks and suns and seas his record all to bear,

But place thine heart where it shall catch his message through the air.

1912

 

The Spirit speaks with a “still small voice.”

Listening to the voice of the spirit, like keeping a history, helps us find the elements of our holy places. Not only can we get revelation that tells us what elements will help us, but the process also can help us understand what each of us need to create holy places.

Hannah Tapfield King (1807-1886) was one of the English converts who influenced LDS literature and culture in the middle of the 19th century. King joined the Church in 1850, and immigrated to Utah in 1853. Her poetry appeared in the Millennial Star before she immigrated, and then in LDS periodicals in Utah afterwards. In 1879 she published a volume of her poems, “Songs of the Heart” and in 1884, followed that with “An Epic Poem,” the first published epic poem about the LDS experience. In the following poem she explores how to hear the voice of the spirit.

 

A Voice

by Hannah Tapfield King

Why is it when I hear that voice

A spell seems weaved around mine ear

That bids my heart and soul rejoice,

As if some happiness were near?

 

There’s heavenly magic in the sound,

But language cannot tell me why;

Silence then speaks and breathes around,

And though I love it makes me sigh.

 

Strange being is this human life,

And strange the mystic threads that weave

Around our heart with beauty rife,

And all its sombreness relieve.

 

O, are not these some little part

Of that bright atmosphere above?

Concocted by a God-like art

And purified by God-like love?

 

And did we not a portion bring

Of this pure essence from on high,

When we were bid aside to fling

Our glorious home and lay it by.

 

And mated to a mortal frame

To bear, to suffer, and to die,

That we might greater glory gain—

Eternal as the Heavens are high?

 

I ween Our Father’s love bestowed

These whisp’rings of a brighter home,

To lighten something of the load

Which pilgrims bear as here they roam.

 

O whispering sweet as breath of spring!

O mystic spells that wrap me round!

Thou Great Unknown! my heart I bring,

That doth with gratitude abound;

 

And offer it in faith to thee,

And bless Thee for the music there,

Whose chords respond in unity

With Nature’s voices that I hear.

 

Sweet voice I thank thee for the train

Of thought which I have tried to trace;

Thou’st floated brightly through my brain,

To joy and beauty giving place

 

Speak on, and let me hear thy tones;

Ring out and let me hear the sound;

It breathes the sweets of “hearts and home”

And memory’s spells it flings around.

1868

 

The righteous are gathered to Christ in the last days.

The scriptural and cultural focus on the gathering during the 19th century gives us another question about ‘Holy Places.’ Are gathering places also holy places? If so, then does that change what the characteristics of holy places are? The utopian way that early LDS poets described the gathering places lead me to assume that yes, gathering places are holy places. But then, since several of our gathering places were lost (Kirtland, Missouri, Nauvoo), then we must admit that holy places can become no longer holy, sometimes for reasons outside of our control.

Of course, the gathering was also a social activity—members gathered to gathering places to be with a community of Saints. This suggests that having others in our holy places is one of the elements that makes those locations holy. Of course, the experience that LDS Church members had in Nauvoo (to say nothing of the conflict in today’s United States) shows that social issues can also be a cause for a place to no longer be holy.

Another subject arises when we consider the title of this section — if we are ‘gathered to Christ’, then that place is holy by definition. And since the Church no longer urges members to gather to specific geographical locations, our gathering must be to Christ. Indeed, Christ is clearly one of the elements we all need in our holy places.

In the following poem, Thomas B. Marsh, paraphrases Isaiah 60 and its utopian description of Zion, or also what a holy places should be like.

 

A Paraphrase

by T. B. M.

Arise O Zion, fair and lift thine eyes,

Exalt thy lofty towers towards the skies;

See the resplendent glory round thee spread,

Fill all thy courts and rest upon thy head!

See Gentiles from the distant nations too,

Come to thy light, and in thy temple bow;

See numerous kings and princes from afar,

Cast down their crowns, and in thy glories share!

Behold thy sons shall come in flocks as clouds

Around thine altars bow, in shining crowds,

Rejoice in God that he doth now unfold;

His hidden treasures, as in days of old.

By sons of strangers shalt thy walls be reared,

And by all nations, thou shalt be revered,

And greatly honored, while their kings shall bring,

Their richest treasures and thy glory sing.

Whereas in wrath I hid my face from thee,

Behold in loving kindness thou shall see,

The glory of my presence manifest,

Among thy tens of thousands in the west!

Thy gates shall not be shut by night nor day.

That Kings and Gentiles may be brought to thee.

Lebanons former glory shall be thine.

To thee shall come the fir, the box and pine,

To beautify the place where I shall stand,

Within thy walls upon my holy land.

The sons also of that ungodly band,

Who cast thee out and drove thee from thy land,

Shall come, bending unto thee bowed down,

Call thee the Zion of the Holy one,

Of Israel, who by his almighty arm,

Hath gathered thee and claimed thee for his own.

The substance of the Gentile nations round;

Shall come to thee, and in thy streets abound

Instead of wood, fine brass be brought to thee,

Iron as plenty as the stones shall be;

Silver as iron unto thee shall come,

And gold as brass, thy streets and courts adorn.

And all thine officers shall bring thee peace,

And thine exacters deal in righteousness.

Violence shall no more be heard in thee,

Neither within thy borders shalt thou see

Thy fields with blood and carnage covered o’er,

The warriors trumpet there, is heard no more:

While wicked slay the wicked all around!

The Earth shall shake; the stars from heaven be hurled,

While God with outstretched arm destroys the world,

The seas shall move, and islands flee away,

Mountains flow down in that tremendous day!

The crooked be made straight, the valleys rise,

The sun and moon be darkened in the skies!

The trump shall sound, the dead in Christ shall rise!

While all the living saints beneath the skies,

Shall then be quickened and ascend on high,

To meet with Enoch’s city in the sky,

Descend with Christ with all his holy train,

Upon the Earth a thousand years to reign!!!

Thy children now in righteousness shall rest,

No more afflicted nor no more oppressed.

(For peace and union now shall spread

Their balmy wings o’er all the spacious globe)

They are planting of mine own right hand,

The branch which shall inherit Zion’s land.

While Christ shall reign, and thousand years shall roll,

And songs of praise are heard from pole to pole,

And echoed throughout heaven’s vast domain

In pealing anthems to the Lamb ’twas slain.

1837

 

Peace is found in “holy places.”

“Peace is found in ‘holy places’” seems obvious. Given the discussion above, it seems like the difficulty might lie first in defining what a ‘holy place’ is. But I suspect it’s also clear that figuring out what elements make a place holy, and what makes those elements work, are even more important. The sections from this lesson may help some with that. We can learn a lot from keeping a history, from listening to the spirit and from figuring out how to gather to Christ.

In our culture we believe that one place we can find peace is at home. I believe this is in part because of the comfort and familiarity we find there, along with the unconditional love of family. Unfortunately, home doesn’t always include those items. In the following poem, poet and hymn writer George Manwaring gives us a prayer for blessings on our homes—one way we can try to address the homes that don’t have the peace we seek. After all, prayer is a way of creating ‘holy places,’ isn’t it?

 

God Bless Our Home

by George Manwaring

God bless our home—how sweet the prayer;

For all is love if God is there;

‘Tis heaven on earth if home afford

The peace that cometh from the Lord:

And naught but sweetest joy can come,

If only God will bless our home.

God bless our home, our humble plea,

Shall oft ascend, O Lord, to Thee;

Let Thy good spirit from above,

Fill our hearts with Thine own love;

That we with faith may ever come,

And claim a blessing on our home.

God bless our home, our happy home,

That e’en if angels chance to come,

They may be pleased awhile to stay,

And bless us ere they go away.

Teach us to live till Christ shall come,

That we may dwell with Him at home

1879