Family and Priesthood

So, ever since I wrote that song, I've been thinking a lot about martyrs. I finally got my copy of "The Zeezrom Syndrome", and I've started reading it. I've noticed that there are a lot of other Book of Mormon stories of martyrdom, like Abinadi.

I don't know what's driving me to be thinking about these things at this stage in my life.

Then, I pick up the Ensign this month, and there's a whole article on martyrs.

One thing in the article struck me as really interesting. It wasn't about martyrs or the Book of Mormon, though, but about the Priesthood and about family. The article was talking about how in most cases the martyrs of scripture aren't killed until after they've completed the tasks that God has in mind for them to do. In some cases, their lives are constantly threatened, but they are protected. Then when the task is done, and the Lord is ready to bring them home, he allows them to be killed.

That brings in a whole bunch of questions about the nature of freewill and things, but that's not what I wanted to go into today.

In any case, in this article it said:

"The Prophet’s father, Joseph Smith Sr., gave his son a blessing in September 1840, telling him, “‘You shall live to finish your work.’

“At this Joseph cried out, ‘Oh! Father, shall I?’

“‘Yes’ said his father, ‘you shall. You shall live to lay out all the plan of all the work that God requires at your hand.’” (Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith by His Mother)

For me, it was one of those moments when I take it off on a tangent. Instead of thinking of the message at the moment, it occurred to me that it was interesting that Joseph Smith, Sr, would be giving his son a blessing. I mean, here is the founder of the church, and the one that restored the Melchezedek Priesthood to the earth, and he's receiving a blessing at the hand of his father. That shouldn't be interesting. It just occurred to me that it's very likely that Joseph, Jr, may well have been the one to give the priesthood to Joseph, Sr. Joseph, Jr, talked with God Himself, and angels. And yet, he also asked his earthly father for priesthood blessings and guidance.

And that's totally normal. I've done it myself many times. I've also given blessings of comfort and guidance to my own children.

It just struck me as interesting.

Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.


Mark's Other Blog Posts: Getting Ready for the Birthday Dutch Oven Gathering

Mo' Boy on Mormon Church & Church Culture

The Mormon Church definitely has a culture all of its own. We are, as the scriptures declare, "a peculiar people", to be sure.

Since my blog here has been in the fringes of the bloggernacle a long time, I've recently been going through old posts and I thought it would be cool to share some of those again. One of the things I like to do here in my blog is to comment on our Mormon Church popular culture. Often that includes commenting on popular arts, like music and movies. I'll save those for another post, because they're sort of in a category of their own.

So, I got to thinking about the social aspects of church service, church attendance, and overall membership in the Mormon Church. Here are some of the gems I came up with.

• How the Church's food welfare program works from a personal perspective.
• A start of a series of posts on Service.
• A "Day Without a Gay" or a "Day without Mormons"?
• The top ten reasons why we don't do our genealogy!
• Thoughts on Famous Mormons.
• In which everyone should not get so bent out of shape - the Mo' Boy Doctrine.
• Who takes care of Daddy?

Feel free to let me know if you think I'm way off base on any of these. Sometimes I'm so far off base, I've been mistaken for an outfielder...



Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.


Mark's Other Blog Posts: Dutch Oven Beef Ribs, Humor: How High School Sports Prepare You for the Workplace,

The Zeezrom Syndrome

Since I wrote that last blog post on the Book of Mormon story of Zeezrom, I thought it would be interesting to see if there were any other bloggers/writers out there who had shared some insights into the man and his life.

I found that one man, Rod J Vessels, had actually written a whole book about him, called, "The Zeezrom Syndrome"

Immediately I was fascinated, and I started to look up some of the references there in the Google search. Even though there were a lot of mentions of the book at various sites, there was precious little information about it. A few pages gave me some basic hints, but none of them actually told me what "The Zeezrom Syndrome" actually IS.

I was, however, intrigued. I love the story (I mentioned it's one of my all-time favorite Book of Mormon stories). It turned out that I had some Affiliate money stored up in my account over at Amazon, so I went ahead and bought it. When it arrives, I'll read it and review it here.

In the meantime, here are some other references which I found interesting:

• A review over at Irreantum (The Association of Mormon Letters)
• A transcription of a radio interview with Bro. Vessels. Very enlightening and interesting, but it still didn't really explain the Syndrome (not in my mind, anyway).
• An article at a psychic website (yes, you read that right) that compares it to the "Eye of the Needle Syndrome" (whatever that is).

Based on my brief encounters with second and third hand information about the book, I'm guessing that the Zeezrom Syndrome has something to do with being caught up in pride and materialism, bringing on lessened spirituality.

But that's just a guess.

More to come on this great Book of Mormon Mystery!


Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.



Mark's Other Blog Posts: A Birthday Dutch Oven Gathering, and Keyword Analysis Research,