Intergenerational Healing

I’ve never really had a burning in my bosom for the doctrine of redeeming the dead. I mean intellectually, I get it. If you believe that every person needs to be baptized by one having proper authority in order to be saved, then yes, it’s good to have this backup plan for those who might not have had a proper opportunity in their lifetime. I guess it’s never really resonated more deeply than on a mere intellectual level though. Until I read this. Even if you aren’t Mormon or no longer espouse Mormon theology, I think the talk is still well worth the read. To me, it speaks more to the beautiful idea of intergenerational healing.

I think most people would be willing to admit that they carry baggage from their family of origin (FOO), some obviously more than others, but the baggage is there. I think any claim by someone that he or she carries no baggage at all would fall into the unkown unknowns category. Things you don’t know that you don’t know.

At any rate, I believe that the baggage comes from being raised by parents who at best, had no idea what they were doing, and at the very worst, intentionally inflicted abuse and their own buried pain on their children. In many cases, those parents are doing the best they can with what they had because they too were raised by parents who probably spent their fair share of time stewing in emotional dysfunction. And back it goes.

Then I begin to see how I am the product of generations of accrued emotional dysfunction, passive aggressiveness, emotional dishonesty, manipulation, etc. You also add growing up in a state with a high concentration of people with the same beliefs and you get another generous layer of generations of accrued Mormon cultural baggage. I imagine all our ancestors looking down and saying amongst themselves, “Good grief, what the hell did we do?” I imagine them saying that because I think most of it was unintentional, but now that they know what they know, they see and understand the negative aspects of their legacy.

This is where each one of us can step in and redeem them. And this is where redeeming the dead suddenly becomes one of the most beautiful things I can conceive of. I have the opportunity to practice unconditional love and forgiveness of what has been passed on to me and I can deconstruct it and build something much healthier. As a result, I free myself and those who have gone before me from prisons of dysfunction that are partly of our own making and partly inherited from those who have gone before. That’s true sealing power.