pages/essays/same-sociality.md
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@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@ this theory?
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---
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+Comment:
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> The spirits that dwell in these tabernacles on this earth, when they leave
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> them go directly into this world of spirits. What! A congregated mass of
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> inhabitants there in spirit, mingling with each other, as they do here? Yes,
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> them, precisely as our Elders associate with the wicked in the flesh, when
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> they go to preach to them (DBY, 378)[^DBY378].
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+Comment:
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+> When you are in the spirit world, everything there will appear as natural as
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+> things now do. Spirits will be familiar with spirits in the spirit
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+> world--will converse, behold, and exercise every variety of communication
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+> with one another as familiarly and naturally as while here in tabernacles.
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+> There, as here, all things will be natural, and you will understand them as
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+> you now understand natural things. You will there see that those spirits we
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+> are speaking of are active; they sleep not. And you will learn that they are
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+> striving with all their might--laboring and toiling diligently as any
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+> individual would to accomplish an act in this world (DBY, 380)[^DBY380]
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+
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+Comment:
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+> > We can assume that not only did we have, and will have, wards and stakes
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+> > and bishops and Elder's Quorums and the like, but we did have, and will
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+> > have, dancing troupes and popular singers and cooking stars and sports and
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+> > ... the list goes on.
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+>
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+> I have more thoughts than time to write them here at the moment. Overall,
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+> I think "the same sociality" is accurate, but perhaps not as we think. As an
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+> example, the Church is not "wards and stakes and bishops" and the
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+> like--those are a temporary (and IMO telestial) manifestation of the order
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+> of the Priesthood. At one point we had only one stake. Sometimes now we also
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+> have branches and districts. Maybe sometime in the future we'll have some
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+> other form of earthly organization. It's not the temporary, temporal form
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+> that matters, but the underlying principle.
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+>
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+> Likewise, I don't believe the image of us living "with our families" as we
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+> often think of it makes any sense. If my wife is sealed to her parents as
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+> their child, does she live with them "as part of their family" as
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+> a daughter? Or does she live with me as my wife? Do our adult children
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+> "live with" us, or with their own families?
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+>
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+> When we try to constrain exaltation to our current understanding of what
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+> "the same sociality" means, we end up with concepts that don't hold up. IMO
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+> it's the connection--the sealed, eternal connection--between husband and
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+> wife and between generations that matters. That, with the priesthood as the
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+> scaffolding, is the "sociality" that remains eternally. In a perfect,
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+> exalted world I wouldn't be at all surprised to find this has an analog in
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+> friendship, as we are all ultimately sealed together as family too.
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+>
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+> But I don't really see anyone bouncing from cloud to cloud on their way over
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+> to their bishop's house for a backyard barbecue in the Celestial Kingdom.
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+> That kind of thinking is, IMO, analogous to 4 year olds applying their
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+> thinking and their world to what it is to be grown up and married when they
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+> play "house." They have a hint of what it is to be grown up and married, but
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+> they miss the much deeper essence of the experience.
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+
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---
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[^DBY378]: This references The Discourse of Brigham Young, but I think the
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page number is misattributed, or used from a different version. I did find
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the text
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- [here](https://archive.org/details/discoursesofbrig028407mbp/page/580/mode/2up?q=%22The+spirits+that+dwell+in+these+tabernacles+on+this+earth%22)
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+ [here](https://archive.org/details/discoursesofbrig028407mbp/page/580/mode/2up?q=%22The+spirits+that+dwell+in+these+tabernacles+on+this+earth%22).
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+
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+[^DBY380]: Same for this one. Found the text
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+ [here](https://archive.org/details/discoursesofbrig028407mbp/page/582/mode/2up?q=%22When+you+are+in+the+spirit+world%22).