"FAMILIES CAN BE TOGETHER FOREVER" -- In church we teach our children that families can be together forever.  Indeed, family ties will continue to exist eternally in the highest echelons of the Celestial Kingdom.  But I wonder at the viability of the pictures that this slogan puts in the heads of young members of the church.  Who knows what our family relationships may be like as we busily progress toward the ultimate blessings promised to the faithful saints.  
         "As man is, God once was."  As God is, man may become."  (Joseph Smith Jr.)   As we get into creating and populating worlds, I wonder how I will then relate to my parents, my siblings, and my children.  And what will be the nature of our relationship with Father Adam and Mother Eve?  Could it be that, in that exalted state, we might all know and love each other as siblings in the family circle of our Heavenly parents?

Creation

When God sets out to make a world,

does He,

himself, shape every stone and bird and tree,

... and personality?

Or does He somehow stir in Natures Pot

then watch and wait to see

the shape of ocean, hill, and lea?

Did He design Yosemite,

and wonders such for me to see;

or are there forces working,

and He merely turns a key?

Are there eternal laws of truth

that He obeys, as well as we?

Or, does He manage now the forces

that once worked

to bring Him forth to Be?

We  have no other God=s before him,

but He must have a Father, same as we.

I=m starting now to see.

My glory mostly will depend

on Gods who will descend from me!

8 Robert Lynn Brown 4/28/04