Church Archives - Death of Hemingway

On my back patio, there’s an empty cage where a small, spiky piece of my heart used to be. Poppy was with me through some of the bumpiest rides in my life. She was with me when I had no job or anywhere to live, we survived the snowpocalypse, and she was always down to take a nap on my chest as long as I didn’t breathe in too deep and disturb her.

Towards the end, she got grumpy and hissy and barely ate. I think she was hurting from the cancer that spread throughout her little body. I took her to the vet this morning and was informed she was too far gone and advised to say my goodbyes. I didn’t expect it to hit me as hard as it did, looking at this tiny, fading creature that I’ve loved for the past two years.

I’m sad that she’s gone, but grateful that I’m the only one hurting now.

This was the post I uploaded to my Facebook and Instagram accounts when my hedgehog, Poppy, passed away. She was a good hedgehog. She wasn’t very nice or cuddly, but she was good. Every once in a while she’d let me hold her, especially when I was bathing her because she wanted me to get her out, and I could tell she knew I loved her. The outpouring of sympathy from my friends and family wasn’t something I actually expected. I’ve been in relationships before where news of a family member dying was met with “So? What can you do about it?” so I don’t usually expose myself when feeling vulnerable. I needed that support, though. In the past couple of years, I’ve been able to surround myself with people who actually care about me and that has improved my life and state of mind drastically.

I know she wasn’t a dog or a cat or any other animal that people normally mourn for when they die, but I loved Poppy and I’ll miss her. I knew hedgehogs didn’t live very long but I thought I had more time. I also didn’t think her passing would hit me as hard as it did. When the vet called and told me I’d need to come say goodbye, I had to leave work and sit in my car and cry for a while. It was a hard day. I took a long lunch and cried as I picked up her toys and the cage she used to live in. Even while I type this, I’m getting a little choked up.

Some people have asked me if it’s any easier moving on since I have another hedgehog (Branch), but it’s not. My love isn’t divided among my pets. It doesn’t get dispersed and then go back into the pool. I love each of my pets wholeheartedly and I’ll always miss them when they’re gone. If pets get to go to Heaven (which I believe they do), then I guarantee she’s up there right now hissing at God and digging around in the dirt, happy and pain-free.

People were always asking me why I had a hedgehog in the first place. You can’t really pet them or play with them. Some (like Poppy) are grumpy and hissy all the time so you can’t even hold them unless they’re in a snuggle sack. Even then, Poppy would hiss if I breathed in too much and moved the sack while she was napping in it. I guess I’ve got a thing for the cute and mean types.

In the beginning of 2021, Texas experienced and unprecedented ice storm. We called it the Snowpocalypse. I was trapped in my apartment for days with no heat. I had to bury myself under a pile of blankets and survived off of ramen and deer sausage. I kept Poppy’s heat lamp cranked to 10 and she didn’t seem too fazed by any of it. Since I worked from home during that time and couldn’t connect to my company’s VPN and because I’d already put in my two weeks notice to leave for another job, my release date was “accelerated”. So I got to chill on the couch and play DOOM for a week with Poppy in my lap, hissing and poking if I got too into the game.

Poppy was an escape artist. When I got home from my church mission, I had to stay with my parents for a little bit to get back on my feet. Unfortunately, they were in the middle of selling their house so the room that Poppy and I stayed in was empty. I had to sleep on an air mattress every night after coming home from ten hour shifts at Amazon. It wouldn’t have been so bad but the air mattress had a hole in it. So I’d wake up on the ground every morning no matter how many times I patched it. One night I woke up around 2AM (I had to be up at 4:45) because I thought I heard something scratching the mattress. I used my phone flashlight to look around but didn’t see anything. I was so tired, I wanted it to be my imagination so I laid back down. But then I heard it again. I heard it scratching by my head so I reached down and was poked by a little hedgehog running by. Somehow she’d gotten out of her crate and was having a blast running around our room.

Another time after we had moved into an apartment with my sister, I was getting ready for work and noticed that Poppy’s cage was empty. I looked for her as much as I could but I had to go to work. I figured she was hiding under a shelf or behind the couch or something. I spent my lunch break looking for her but still couldn’t find her. I was getting a little worried. When my sister got home, I didn’t get a chance to tell her Poppy was missing before she went to her room. I was getting dinner ready when I heard her scream! She wasn’t expecting two beady little eyes to be looking at her when she looked under her bed!

She wasn’t very friendly or cuddly but she was curious. Sometimes I’d let her run around my mom and dad’s house and she’d run to their dog and sniff him. He wasn’t a fan. She wouldn’t poke him though. A little over a year after I got her, I got a second hedgehog. A boy named Branch. I put them together to see if they’d get along and they did for a little bit but then Poppy started crunching on his quills so I decided they needed to be separated.

It’s been a couple months since Poppy passed on, but every once in a while I’ll think about her and get a little sad. Sometimes I blame myself. She was so small and vulnerable and I was supposed to protect her. But sometimes there’s nothing we can do. We just need to enjoy time with the people and pets we love while we can.

Miss you, Poppy.

Jeston Texeira

Jeston is a former student of Texas A&M, the author of Jesse Granger: Bushranger in Hit the Ground Running, and a volunteer at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, TX.

deathofhemingway.com

Here is Part 2 of my series explaining, correcting, and expanding on (to the best of my knowledge) the points made in Stephen Mansfield’s book The Mormonizing of America. You can read Part 1 here. You can buy the book here.

6 – The God of this planet, usually referred to as “Heavenly Father”, was once a man. He now leads a family that rules earth with him. They are spiritual beings but since they are a purer form of spirit, they have an elevated type of physical body. Jesus and Lucifer are brothers, both sons of Heavenly Father. There is also a Heavenly Mother.

The Book of Mormon doesn’t say anything about God having once been a man. Joseph Smith taught that God has a body of flesh and bone but from what I can find, he never said anything about God having once been a man. Lorenzo Snow said that he was though.

As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may be.

-Lorenzo Snow

I don’t believe it’s doctrine, though. Maybe deep doctrine. The way the missionaries explained it to me was that Jesus Christ laid the blueprint for us and so we will eventually have to do all that He did and that He had to do all that God did. So by that logic, God is a resurrected and exalted man. That leads to the “does God have a God” question and I won’t get into that right now. I personally don’t know about the “purer form of spirit” point but maybe the author meant they’re exalted. In which case, he’s right that they have a perfected physical body. But we all get those when we die and are resurrected.

A lot of people try to use the fact that members believe that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers as a sort of “gotcha”. But what they either fail to realize or ignore is that members believe that everyone, including Jesus and Lucifer, was a spirit formed by God in the premortal life and so we are all spirit brothers and sisters. There is not much known about Heavenly Mother. There’s no doctrine on her and she’s rarely mentioned by any modern day prophets. It’s widely believed that she exists, though, and that she gives birth to all God’s spirit children. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me considering the scriptures say He “formed” us from intelligent matter. Did He put us together and then put us in Heavenly Mother to bake and then be born? I’ve never gotten a sufficient description of Heavenly Mother or why she’s rarely if ever mentioned by anyone in the Church.

7 – When Heavenly Father was devising a plan for populating the earth, Jesus and Lucifer both offered proposals. Jesus’ plan was chosen and Lucifer’s was rejected. Lucifer rebelled and a third of the premortal spirits followed him. There was a great war in the heavens. Jesus was then sent to earth as a loving savior. Mary became pregnant with Jesus as a result of Heavenly Father having physical intercourse with her.

I’ll take this one step-by-step because the logic of it sort of confuses me. Jesus and Lucifer did both offer plans on how best to save mankind and get them back to Heavenly Father after their time on Earth was through. Jesus’ plan was to give us agency (or freewill) to choose right or choose wrong. He knew none of us would choose the right 100% of the time so He offered Himself as a sacrifice to atone for our sins. Lucifer’s plan was good in spirit. He wanted to send everyone to Earth without freewill. He wanted our return to be guaranteed but we wouldn’t have learned anything. And knowledge is important to members. The Scriptures say we will bring our knowledge with us after we die and we will continue to learn. Like Mansfield said, Jesus’ plan was accepted and Lucifer’s was rejected. This is where it gets murky for me,

Because of this rejection, Lucifer rebelled and was followed by a third of the spirits, resulting in a great war in Heaven. But if Lucifer didn’t rebel, mankind wouldn’t have needed a plan because there wouldn’t have been anyone there to tempt them to sin. He only rebelled because a plan he was proposing to defeat himself was rejected and that plan was being proposed because of his upcoming rebellion which would come as a result of the rejection.

The last sentence is throwing me off. Maybe some Saints believe that God had physical intercourse with Mary. It seems that there are some quotes from Brigham Young, Bruce R. McConkie, and others that make it sound this way. And maybe that’s the way they intended it. But to me it wouldn’t make sense. This will probably take a whole other blog post but I’ll just make a few points. Saints believe that marriage is the most important institution established by God and that it was put in place since the beginning. Marriage is between one man and one woman. If God is married to Heavenly Mother, that’s one man and one woman in a relationship. So He’d be cheating on Heavenly Mother if he had sex with Mary. Also, it was taught to me that we live in the terrestrial world because we are imperfect. And since no unclean thing can enter the presence of God, He cannot come down to our world. That’s why He sent Jesus. So how could He come down in the flesh and have sex with Mary? Jesus was born to a virgin. If God had sex with her, that would make her not a virgin. Those are some of my thoughts on that.

8 – Adam and Eve were actually gods who made a heroic choice in eating the forbidden fruit. Their choice made mortal life possible which then gave all preexistent spirits an opportunity to live on earth and qualify for celestial glory.

The only thing I’m not certain on from this point is when he says that members believe Adam and Eve were gods. They were the first spirits to come down to Earth and be given physical bodies. Eating the forbidden fruit did allow them to be able to choose between good and evil and therefore allowed them to sin and stumble and to repent and be forgiven. Without this sacrifice, they would have remained in a perfected state and humanity never would have been able to progress. We would never learn from our mistakes if we never made them.

“Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.” 2 Nephi 2:25

9 – Life on earth is best understood as a time of testing in order to qualify for eternal exaltation.

This is one of those points about the Church that people misunderstand. They think that qualifying for eternal exaltation is the same thing as being saved. It’s not. Everyone is saved from death by Jesus’ sacrifice. Everyone will be resurrected, gain a perfected body, and stand before God to be judged. But the Scriptures teach that there are three different celestial kingdoms and even three different degrees of the highest kingdom. So how you withstand the tests here on Earth determine which kingdom and degree you end up in, not whether or not you are saved.

10 – The death of Jesus Christ introduces men to Heavenly Father but then men must obey the laws and ordinances of the gospel themselves in order to be saved.

This goes along with what I was saying in the point above. Obeying the laws and ordinance of the gospel doesn’t get you saved. You are automatically saved thanks to Jesus Christ sacrificing His life. You will be resurrected, you will receive a perfected body, and you will stand before God to be judged. Following the ordinances (baptism, endowment, sealing) determine which degree of the Celestial (or highest) kingdom you qualify for. Following the laws makes sure you get to stay there.

Read Part 1 here

Buy The Mormonizing of America here

-Jeston

Follow me: @DoHpodcast and @JestonTexeira or on Instagram: @Death.Of.Hemingway