Glimpsing eternity

     There is some concern about "running out"- of space, time, fuel, food, etc. It borders on panic for some and has certainly become a hot political issue in many cases. So far, in the United States no limit has been set for the bearing of children. There is considerable effort to become more energy efficient in our vehicles and homes. Yet, when you consider where everything came from, there is no rational reason to fear "running out".
     Recently Russ and I have been watching a series of lectures on meteorology. Predicting the weather is a much more complex effort than I ever realized! But, put simply, I can remember the basic diagram learned long ago in science where water falls from the clouds in the sky, soaks in the ground and gets used by plants and animals, then eventually evaporates back into the sky to form clouds again. There is no actual disappearance or creation of hydrogen or oxygen atoms. In a similar fashion, everything on and in this planet has come from this planet. Unless there has been some kind of interplanetary importation going on that I am unaware of, everything here is made of atoms/materials that have always been here. Atoms can be re-organized into different substances- for instance, plastics are made from naturally made petroleum products but are then in a form that take a very long time to break down again to be easily formed by nature into something else. Man has become quite clever in re-making things but hasn't yet figured out what to do with things he has created through his re-organizing of atoms. Hence, the ecological disasters by our primitive nuclear energy use or destruction of natural eco-systems. Man is not the only inhabitant of the planet but we are the most advanced. Plants and animals existed and went extinct before we arrived. We are not the only cause for destruction or construction. However, we are still greatly lacking in knowledge and wisdom to know how to clean up our own messes. We are simply children figuring out how to build with the blocks we have been given- but those blocks are eternal. We can gain a little glimpse of wisdom and eternity if we can wrap our heads around the fact that everything that is here has always been here, including our bodies- our clay tabernacles. Nearly 200 years ago, Joseph Smith, during a sermon at a funeral, had this to say:
     You ask the learned doctors why they say the world was made out of nothing, and they will answer;'Doesn't the Bible say He created the world?' And they infer from the work create, that it must have been made out of nothing. Now, the word create came from the word barau, which does not mean create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos- chaotic matter; which is element, and in which dwells all glory. Element had an existence from the time He had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed, they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning and can have no end.
     We have everything we need to make trees, humpback whales, and mountains. We just don't know how. We needn't be too impatient, though. We are slowly learning in the aggregate. We just need to be observant, open to learning, and avoid being self-centered in our thoughts and actions. We are children of God and He wants to share with us everything He has--- and that's everything.