Join Scot and Maurine Proctor and other Meridian readers to one country that ought to be on everyone’s BUCKET LIST – Russia. Such a beautiful and, literally, iconic country. Our friends who own the cruise company have slashed cabin prices sometimes $3,000 per person below what other cruise companies charge…and no one has a program like we’ll have on our cruise August 20, 2022.

Besides kicking things off with a rare public appearance by the last Premier of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev who will ONLY be on our August 20 cruise for an evening discussion with you and all of our guests, but just think, the Bolshoi Theater is closed for the summer so our entertainers are all from the Bolshoi and the best folk ensembles. Not only that, but a number of spots are designated just for Russian Latter-day Saints; what a singular opportunity for cultural exchange.

So much more to tell you about but it is better to just call Elizabeth at 1-(435)-775-2225 and she’ll fill you in – she’s conducted these cruises for 10 years! She knows. Visit our website page at www.HeartOfRussiaCruises.com/Meridian and check out the full 13 day Itinerary and other delights. Like their new introductory video. See you there!

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Ever wondered why we constantly hear these phrases in popular culture or media:

1. “Ooh yes, you will always be, My endless love…” 

2. “If love doesn’t last forever, what’s forever for?”

3. “Together forever and never to part, together forever we two…”

4. “You are my special angel through eternity…”

5.  Family is everything. We’ll never be apart. I’ll be with you (child, parents, spouse) again soon.

Are these just hopelessly romantic thoughts, breathless hyperboles or are they truths buried deep within us that were planted within us before we took our first breath?

Few, if any of the people saying these phrases, nor the writers, directors or producers of films – including the faith-based films that quote these – can not trace their powerful feelings that love has no end to a religious-sect’s teaching because nearly all formal religions teach just the opposite. Nothing remotely akin to the wonderful feelings these sayings express.

All but one Christian church preaches that marriage doesn’t exist in the hereafter. They stake their claim on post-earth singleness and the idea that families end at death’s door from a verse from Matthew 22: 30. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. 

Therefore, Eternal Love, Eternal Families are not to be taken literally but should just remain nice thoughts.

Sad that those who love the gospel of Christ should relish such a fatalistic and nihilistic philosophy when the answer is very simple. Note the verb “marry.” It’s an action verb. And, yes, heaven is NOT the place to perform a marriage. Nor do people date or are allowed to arrange marriages — “given in marriage.” This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God. This life is when marriages are performed. But Christ in no way is saying “till death us do part” is a glorious philosophy.

In fact, Jesus pointed out, “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Matt. 19:4–7). Eternal marriage is making two become one and the philosophies of men should not attempt to end that marriage or tear it “asunder” under the marriage vow of loving each other “until death do us part.” That’s tearing love asunder.

David H. Yarn, Jr., emeritus professor of philosophy and instructor of religion, Brigham Young University said it well, “The Lord’s promise is that those marriages performed by his authority and ‘sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood’ (D&C 132:19) shall endure forever.”

That is a beautiful, wondrous philosophy or truth that bards can wax poetic over. 

And they do. Without knowing it, philosophers from deep thinkers to popular lyricists alike agree that love and marriage ought to be forever. We instinctively know our soul mate is never-ending and eternal in nature. 

Notice we never read or hear heart-thumping prose about how wonderful it will be to be together with faithful earthly friends doing nothing but praising God…with no family linkage.

You can’t write a song about “My Temporary Love” and “how lovely it will be to have death end our romance.” 

Non-Christian religions aren’t much different except Judaism that in many circles has long taught that marriage is everlasting. In fact the entire premise the Sadducees were discussing with Christ revolved around the question of which husband and wife would be with in the afterlife if she’d married more than once on this earth.

Islam, Buddhism and most India, China, and other eastern religions are very individual oriented. Relatives are revered here on earth but after that, nothing unless we come back again and again until we become essence or — nothing.

Atheists offer nothing as well. Agnostics are just eternally ambivalent or confused about making a commitment. Satanic worship is strictly dark about these relationships.

In the end, one must wonder where we came up with the amazing thoughts like “Our love is here to stay, forever and ever” that send our hearts soaring not only in romances in our teens and 20’s but last until we’re nearly too old to dream. 

Plato proposed that profound ideas were pure mental forms imprinted in the soul before birth. Thankfully he got that right because only one religious philosophy overtly teaches the concepts that lead to these divine thoughts. Their scriptures teach that “man is that he might have joy” and “this is My work and My Glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” They preach Families Can Be Forever, and Eternal Marriage, not ‘till death us do part. They emphatically declare that such romantic notions are reality. Only one religion teaches this so that should tell you something about that religion.

The Poet Laureate of England, William Wordsworth correctly penned, “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!”

His formal religion did NOT teach him that. But the spirit within him, the Light of Christ, witnessed to him these eternal truths that we all knew before we came to this earth life.

The religion that seriously teaches all of this goes on to say we were all together as friends and family before this earth was formed and voted to come to earth to be reunited or experience earth life so we could have “all that my Father has.” 

Moreover, it extends the joy of this religious philosophy to every person ever born because it teaches that the light emanating from Christ inspires all men and women with the hope that they can be together with their loved ones forever. Thus, even if people’s religion fails to teach these divine principles, those dreams are already buried within them awaiting the inspiration to set these beautiful dreams free into our realities, making us truly happy. And if a person doesn’t get to know these great truths in this life, their philosophy has a way for every man and woman to capture this joy.

Even those who divorce themselves from this religion, never lose the dreams it engendered within them. They find it impossible to create a better belief system that incorporates, smoothly, these romantic and heavenly blisses. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to take my eternal companion on a date and relish the joy of being together now and forever.