Greetings all! I thought it would be appropriate on the occasion of my
first post to this forum, to introduce myself and share a bit of who I
am and where I've come from. I'd like to begin by saying that I found
my way to this forum through Sterling Allen's 'Greaterthings.com'. As
a recent convert to the Church of Latter Day Saints, I was looking for
a web site that was LDS oriented, where I might learn and have
conversations on deeper doctrine than that which I was receiveing in
my gospel essentials class at church on sundays. I am certainly not
your typical, 'never really been to church but believe in God', type
of convert, which seems to me to be the typical convert I see joining
the church these days, good people who are discovering something
wonderfull for the first time. Not me, I firmly believe that I was a
Mormon, 25 years before I even met a missionary of this church. I had
come to some very unique conclusions about faith and christian living
while I was a young teen (12-15 years), that flew so heavilly into the
face of the religious status quo, that I was outcast as a blasphemer
and not welcome at any of the congregations I tried to fit in with.
Once the ministry learned of my beliefs, I was asked to leave. For me,
it made perfect sense at the age of 12, that as sons and daughters of
God, our purpose in life was to become enlightened so that we could be
worthy to inhierit the creative conciousness of our Diety and thus
become Gods ourselves. Furthermore, I believed that the universe as it
is, was designed to be endless for the express purpose of providing
we, enlightened beings a place in which to create worlds, much as our
Heavenly Father and God, had done here.
Imagine my surprise when I read the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of
Great Price, for the first time. I wept at all the lost time in my
life, but hey, who am I to question Gods/my plan. I have lived in hell
on this planet and used to think that it was anyones fault but mine, I
know differently now and if I had it to do over, I think I would do it
the same. I am self taught in the divinities and philosophy and since
joing the LDS church, I feel my understanding has taken a step forward
and I find a whole new realm of knowledge to absorb. So I thank you
all for your welcome and hope that I may participate in these
discussions with you, though I seem to be at a disadvantage and have
need to upgrade my library as you folks are using texts, I've not
encountered before, so please bear with my ignorance untill then.
For now, I'd like to leave you all with a sonet I wrote on June 17
1999. Originally it was written over Father's Day, but I feel it is
more appropriate for our Easter celebrations:

One Lonely Night

Thy son in his moment of oblation
Body and blood a sacred offering
Be'stills my heart of certain dolorous
And there be psalms of joyfull thanksgiving
In times before time thy glory ordained
Praised be thy name by angelic chorus
A kingdom of honour ever sustained
We sing with en-raptured jubilation
One man with a boundless love eternal
His condencension beyond our knowing
For us he suffered all indignity
His gospel like seeds forever sowing
In mankind a boundless love paternal
Let us ever remember gethsemene.

copywrite 2000 Phil Wallace
all rights reserved.

God Bless!