Worship, Hair, and Angels

Yesterday I was driving with my wife to and from a track meet and one of the things we discussed is why angels have never appeared to us. We talked through as many reasons we could think of that would explain it. Is it that God has told the angels not to? Or maybe the angels have thought about it but just can’t stand us (or humanity in general) enough to bother with it? Or are they desperate to do it and are somehow prevented from doing so?

The reason the topic came up is because I’ve been thinking about this part of Moroni 7:

Has the day of miracles ceased? Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them?

Or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved?

Behold I say unto you, Nay. For it is by faith that miracles are wrought!

And it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men.

Wherefore, if these things have ceased, Wo be unto the children of men, for it is because of unbelief, and all is vain.

For no man can be saved, according to the words of Christ, save they shall have faith in his name

Wherefore, if these things have ceased, then has faith ceased also, and awful is the state of man, for they are as though there had been no redemption made.

These are pretty grim words. All is vain. Awful state. As though no redemption was made. And yet, angelic appearances seem to be quite rare. In fact, the only people I know of who claim such a visitation are people that I suspect are likely word smithing the idea, if not outright fabricating.

Regardless of whether that’s true or not, if I take these words at face value, I would conclude that all I need is to get rid of “unbelief” and make sure faith has not ceased and then presto bango! an angel should appear. Right? The above says if there is just one man on earth who is willing, that God would continue to do miracles and send angels to appear and minister.

Granted, I am not perfect, far from it, but I think I have certainly made an above average effort to demonstrate faith and root out unbelief. In fact I think that’s likely true of most spiritual people, so where the heaven are the angels?

My wife and I didn’t reach a definitive answer to that question but we wondered if perhaps it was not an issue with our intent but an issue with our means. Meaning, we are somehow approaching God incorrectly via omission or commission. I have tried many forms of worship, however, so I thought if that’s true, then somehow teaching me how to worship correctly would be the polite thing to do. Otherwise how am I to ever know?

As I was falling asleep later, I thought about mentally reciting a mini Rosary but then I remembered our conversation and thought to myself “how do I know this isn’t a faulty form of worship that’s actually hindering me?” I put a pin in that idea and fell asleep.

I had two dreams.

First, I dreamed that I changed my hair from straight to being thick, bushy, curly, and with frosted tips. I was admiring my new ‘do in the mirror and thought it looked really good. Turning to the side I thought, “wow I look like an elf! My ears are even look a little pointy!” Not that elves really had pointy ears necessarily, but in my dream that was what I thought. And actually my hair looked a lot like Frodo’s in LoTR except that I had the frosted tips everywhere so I guess I looked more like a hobbit.

But when I looked head on I realized my bangs were super short, like 1-2 inches. It was about as short as Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber except only right in the middle:

I tried playing w the part to cover the awkward part and it mostly worked but I thought to myself “there’s no way my wife won’t notice that”. Reluctantly I decided to give up this amazing head of hair. I put my palm on my head and then wiped it down my face. With that, my hair was back to normal, almost like it was a mask.

In the other dream, I was trying to repair the trim around someone’s garage door but the framing was done poorly so it was extra hard. I was getting very annoyed at whoever framed it. Then suddenly there was a woman there who started to repair it in a totally different way than I was attempting to do and I thought “yeah that will probably work”. She then turned to me and said “however you worship in the home, the Lord God will bless.”

I got kind of excited and thought “really? surely it can’t be so simple”. As is my custom, I thought of the most extreme example I could to disprove it and said “oh yeah? well what if I worship the Devil?” She said “that’s not worship”. I accepted her definition and thought this was a pretty good deal. Basically, do *something* and as long as it’s done with true intent then the Lord God will bless it. I may learn a better way later, but I don’t need to worry about doing it wrong.

I suppose that was a response to my reluctance to pray a Rosary and to reassure me that whether I do or not, God will bless any sincere effort. IOW, it won’t harm me but it’s ok if I do something else. My wife said “well, hey, we were just talking about angels showing up and it looks like one found you.” Maybe. Somehow I don’t think that’s exactly what Mormon meant by angels appearing unto men, but maybe it is.

In checking Moroni 7 today, I realized Moroni is quoting his father and reciting some preaching Mormon had done among his own people. I wonder if those words are an indication that wherever the Promised Land is, those are the rules. If you have faith, angels can and will show up. And I wonder if where we are, those aren’t the rules. It’s practically impossible here I suspect.

If so, we probably shouldn’t sweat Mormon’s words too much and instead just recognize that we are not in the Promised Land and therefore we can’t expect things to be the same.

For those Gentiles who do go to the Promised Land to scatter the Lehites, however, they would do well to remember this part of the nature of that land. Presumably any among you who cast off unbelief and exercise faith can lay claim to the same miracles.

As for the hair dream, I think the takeaway is don’t wear disguises or try to appear like someone you aren’t. Someone is bound to notice and you’ll feel much better if you remove the mask yourself rather than being unmasked by someone else.