We live in a time of intense scattering. The opportunities to scatter throughout the world or even away from the world to somewhere else are multiplying like the heads of the hydra. People appear in and disappear from places with little more than a thought. Over and over, I’ve watched a culture of moving, of scattering, erode once-thriving groups of friends down to nothing. In fact, I’ve done more than watch. I’ve often been one of the scatterers myself.
When I moved to where I currently live, I knew from the beginning that I had a time limit here. That meant, as I entered a group of friends who were more established in the area, that I fully anticipated to be the first to move away. So, it came as a surprise that I wasn’t. Not too long ago, one friend took a job out of state and was gone two weeks later. Only a few weeks later, another friend mentioned he was applying for jobs thousands of miles away. Both came as shocking reminders that no one is stable today.
So it is against this backdrop that I ache for the calls to gather found in the Doctrine and Covenants. I long for us all to be called to a place together, to gather in a stable community that will let us develop the kind of bonds only made through shared time and space, through shared life. I yearn for Zion.
“And again, a commandment I give unto the church, that it is expedient in me that they should assemble together at the Ohio” (D&C 37:3). “For this cause I gave unto you the commandment that ye should go to the Ohio; and there I will give unto you my law; and there you shall be endowed with power from on high” (D&C 38:32). I can’t read these verses without feeling the thrill of invitation, of gathering. I can see how the Lord brings His people together to bless them, to endow them, and I want to be part of it.
But, almost in the same breath, and actually in the next verses, I am reminded of the reality of gathering. Right after the first commandment to gather in Ohio: “Behold, here is wisdom, and let every man choose for himself until I come” (D&C 37:4). Individual agency is actually more important to the Lord than His calls to gather. Or D&C 38:33: “And from thence [Ohio], whosoever I will shall go forth among all nations, and it shall be told them what they shall do.” Not only does the Lord let people choose whether they will gather or not, He will actually command them to scatter again almost immediately after He has gathered them. “How oft will I gather you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings” and how oft will I scatter you out from under my wings to bless all nations (3 Nephi 10:6). As it is written, “To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted” a time to scatter, and a time to gather (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).
All of this tells me that the yearning I feel for gathering, and not just the act of gathering itself, is central to the work of the Lord. The work of salvation on the earth is an oscillation between gathering and scattering. The scattering and gathering of Israel are this pattern at the macro scale of the world, the plan of salvation itself is scattering and gathering and scattering and gathering at the cosmic scale. And the pattern is written into our worship down to the weekly gatherings and scatterings of wards in their own geographic Zion or the daily scattering of a family to various labors and gathering to pray and sleep.
So perhaps the call, in our time of scattering, is not yet to all gather in a particular location, but instead to find the movement of gathering that surrounds us. Our call is to join the tides of scattering and gathering, bobbing among them as best we can as we bless all the nations and biomes and Zions of the earth. And all the while, staying attuned to the yearning that prepares us for the moment that we are, ourselves, gathered home as the fruit of the field into the garners of God.