"To See in All Directions at the Same Time"

"When the veil which now encloses us is no more, time will also be no more (see D&C 84:100). Even now, time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves impatiently wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course. Whereas the bird is at home in the air, we are clearly not at home in time—because we belong to eternity! Time, as much as any one thing, whispers to us that we are strangers here. If time were natural to us, why is it that we have so many clocks and wear wristwatches?" -Neal A Maxwell "Patience" 1979

I belong to eternity. I want to be able to understand everything: the past present and future, in terms of one moment. I want to be able to see a moment and how it will affect and was affected by other moments long past or still waiting in the wings. I want "to see in all directions at the same time."

Alas! that is not the way of the world. It is the human condition to be forever limited in our scope, our world view, our connections with all people and things that exist outside of ourselves. It is not even possible for us to fully comprehend the elements of our own personalities. Our emotions, reasons, motivations, hopes, dreams, fears, etc. are all elusive to our perception.

Most of the time.

Every now and again, there are moments of profound insight. It is as if some thick drape were pulled aside for a nanosecond; a period of time too short for full-comprehension of the concealed, but just long enough to testify that there is something brilliant just beyond. Once we have seen it, we never cease striving to see it again.

For all of the days that the drape is pulled tightly, that there is nothing ahead but some all-too-familiar darkness, and a little hope that things are going to change, I will never stop wishing that I could open my eyes to see in all directions at the same time. It is in trying to comprehend the outside world, my own nature, and the relationship between the two in terms of yesterday, today and tomorrow that life becomes more than what I give it credit for most of the time. It becomes many times less complicated, and simultaneously many times more complex than it seems at first glance. So I will glance a second, and a third time, and on and on until I finally understand. Though I have every confidence that such an understanding will not be possible until I have learned to walk some brilliant hall of eternity in the eons of some time that exists outside of time. Not until I'm back in my native element.