This post has been buzzing around my head for about a month, now. But I wanted it to be “just so”, and so it just languished there. It languished, that is, until I decided to keep it short and sweet.
About a month ago, a friend asked me whether my patriarchal blessing mentioned a wife. I told him it did, and that it promised that she would bring into my life children… so he asked whether I believed that. I suggested that the blessing could be interpreted to mean a wife and children in the next life or — and here is where I stumbled — that the Patriarch was simply mistaken.
It’s odd, really… I’m comfortable with our dear and inspired prophet being mistaken from time to time — in the truth of our faith being both a personal and institutional journey towards God. Yet I wasn’t at all comfortable with the notion that patriarchs could miss the mark. We hold our patriarchal blessings in such high esteem. Could I possibly think for a moment even that mine wasn’t made to order, a veritable blueprint?
What do you think? Do we hold patriarchal blessings in such high esteem—higher, even, than our prophets? And if so, should we?
NB: This post is cross-posted from Nine Moons: Of Prophets & Patriarchs, please join us over there to comment!
