General Conference's Inner Meaning: Solemn Assembly

Hey, y'all. General Conference was awesome. It felt to me like something happened, not just physically, but spiritually, viscerally, in the depths of my and collective being. Life had somehow re-oriented itself. It was an act of becoming-new, of a clearing away of obstructions.

And it was an act. General Conference is not just something heard, something said, but something done. It furthers the Gospel. It acts it out en masse. This acting-out occurred in the words of the conference. What was said did something. They blessed us. They changed the rules of the game

I felt prompted to use my blog to tell you, insofar as I am able, the acts that occurred by means of the speech. I will probably not do a very good job. But I want to let you know that the Church is real and does further itself, does become itself, in a bigger way than you can possibly imagine. It seethes beneath the surface. More is done by events like this than we realize. This "seething" is Swedenborg's inner meaning, what communicates to the divine in us, what helps the angels and spirits with us know what to do. They are listening to General Conference too, as we do. They hear what I am going to stammeringly translate. They hear in deeds.

As such, know that this act I am doing is an attempt to further the act done by General Conference itself: the acting-out of love and the spreading of those deeds here and far.

I will try to do this for each talk, or at least every talk by a member of the twelve, as audacious and ambitious as that sounds. I probably won't finish. But I hope this will be valuable for someone.

I've finished the "interpretation a la action" for the first talk, the solemn assembly. The talk is in normal text, and the interpretation is in bold. Here it is:

Brothers and sisters, President Nelson has asked that I handle the business of the solemn assembly for which we are gathered today.

An initiation into communality, into love. By saying “brothers and sisters,” President Eyring. reconfigures and re-orients our minds to a consciousness of brotherhood, of sisterhood. We become brothers and sisters. This is an initiation into the spiritual sense of family, the becoming-spiritual of the family. Here, spiritual ties forge themselves. We become our spiritual counterparts. This is an initiation into, not finite, earthly family, but eternal family, not conditional family, but unconditional family. We realize in our very flesh, our everyday consciousness, the light that forges ties in the first place, the force that works itself into consciousness and makes links, the essence of relationship itself. We become embodiments of relationship. We relate to relationship. In this sense, we represent representation, and as with all movements of this type, a spiritual glow emerges that results from a kind of feedback loop. This feedback loop depicts on a lower level the reality that produces that lower level. It manifests what it depicts.

President Nelson is, in this case, a manifestation of the principle that realizes in the flesh the power of realizing in the flesh. President Nelson is, here, pure performativity: the act of creating what you speak as you speak it, a kind of efficacious speech, a speech as will, the words no longer merely descriptive, merely passive recipients of the world, but active creators of it. The power of godliness here realizes itself. God descends and acts in the acting of what is spoken. The “solemn assembly,” as the communality emphasized above, is the realization in us of a great deed, a great performative speech-act, that reconfigures and orients the consciousness of everyone involved. This act can only occur with both in a context, in a situation, with both people to speak and to hear, to present and sustain, to proclaim and to witness. This is both active and passive, both here and there. This is the reality of life: a great inhalation and a great exhalation. This is the movement of divinity, acted out and writ large for everyone not only to see but also to take part in. This is a ritual. This is a correspondential embodiment.

This is an occasion of great significance for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout the world.

Here, he’s situating the event just mentioned. It is not only what it is, here and now. It has effects that reach out to everyone, the whole world, and, by extension, the whole spiritual world. It resonates through everyone that witnesses it, which means that they too become manifestations and embodiments of it. The “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” is here not just a finite organization but also a specific spiritual tone, a kind of high-pitched resonance, that emanates from certain centers. This “tone” is also a specific mode of being, something that re-creates itself, resurrects itself, perpetually through space and time. For a “center” to emanate this tone means that the tone exists self-generatively, as a movement of self-creation, there. President Nelson is such a mode of self-creation, such a center, but so is the Church at large. As such, every person who hears the tone and subsequently sounds it acts out that mode of being and introduces themselves into the grand body that it signifies. This is bracketed by the physical boundaries of the Church, though it extends beyond it like an aura. It has its foundation in the rituals and ordinances. They are its “body.”

Dating from October 10, 1880, when John Taylor was sustained to succeed Brigham Young as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, each of these occasions has been designated as a formal solemn assembly of the body of the Church to express the voice of the Church.

Here, he states that this spiritual performative act has occurred before and will occur again. It is a deed that exists, in the most specific sense, whenever one manifestation of God dies and another must take his place, but in the most universal sense, whenever anything changes in the way the Holy Ghost reveals himself. Say you’re reading the Book of Mormon and you transition from the Book of Alma to the Book of Helaman. The change in spiritual qualities involved here, bright as they may be, involves a kind of rebirth, a re-incarnation of certain spiritual qualities in a new medium, a new vessel, a kind of shattering and re-forming, a kind of death and rebirth. This is what is occurring here and must always occur: a time of transition where authority gathers itself up and finds itself anew in a new vessel. Life must die to be reborn, and spirit must scatter itself to find itself. This is the way of things.
We will vote by quorums and groups. Wherever you are, you are invited to stand only when requested and express by your uplifted hand that you choose to sustain those whose names will be presented. You should vote only when asked to stand.

Here, the “quorums” and “groups” are specific embodiments of spiritual qualities. They realize themselves in these quorums and groups, and when we sustain the new leadership, the spiritual quality manifest by the President and the leadership realizes the way it is grounded in these more specific qualities. In a broader sense, this is a realization of the more universal resonance that exists in all these “tones” in the specific way that they do. The quality of “Mormon-ness” exists in both the quality of Priesthood and the quality of Womanhood. It is the universal one in each. To sustain them is to act out and carry forward this resonance. This resonance here re-creates itself.
The General Authorities assigned to the Tabernacle and the Assembly Hall on Temple Square will observe the voting in those facilities. In stake centers, a member of the stake presidency will observe the voting. If anyone casts a contrary vote, those individuals should contact their respective stake presidents.

Here, the ways in which this resonance, this act of witnessing, of re-creation in particulars, is acted out is detailed. Someone “opposing” or even saying “opposed” does not impede this realization, this performative act, but only alerts it to particular nuances in its situation. It is like an act of perception: what it does not act out, it can see. Just as one forgets what one can do well in an embodied sense (think riding a bike: you don’t know “how” you do it; you just do it), here, what one does not embody one can see clearly. This is a chink in the flow of movement, but one that can later be mended.

We will now proceed. Again, please stand and vote only when asked to do so.

Here, the acting-out of the performative re-creation of the church begins to occur. What happened before was less a realization of the act than a necessary description of the act, a kind of reserved, preparatory action, like how Saturday is the day we get ready for Sunday.

We ask members of the First Presidency to please arise.

To arise, in this sense, is to manifest the quality you embody. Here, the quality of the First Presidency manifests itself.

It is proposed that the First Presidency sustain Russell Marion Nelson as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

To “propose” like this is to prepare the spiritual qualities for reception, for embodiment. Just as the quality of the first presidency embodied itself just earlier, the more universal quality it manifests here also “arises.”
Those of the First Presidency in favor, please manifest it.

This is the union, the marriage, the consummated act whereby the more universal quality manifests itself in the less universal quality of the First Presidency. If the “proposal” was a proposal, this is the wedding. This marriage repeats itself accordingly in the next few lines.

It is proposed that the First Presidency sustain Dallin Harris Oaks as First Counselor and Henry Bennion Eyring as Second Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church.

Those members of the First Presidency in favor may manifest it.

It is proposed that the First Presidency sustain Dallin Harris Oaks as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Melvin Russell Ballard as Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Members of the First Presidency in favor may manifest it.

It is proposed that the First Presidency sustain as members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: M. Russell Ballard, Jeffrey R. Holland, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, David A. Bednar, Quentin L. Cook, D. Todd Christofferson, Neil L. Andersen, Ronald A. Rasband, Gary E. Stevenson, Dale G. Renlund, Gerrit Walter Gong, and Ulisses Soares.

Members of the First Presidency, please manifest it.

It is proposed that the First Presidency sustain the counselors in the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators.

Members of the First Presidency will please manifest it.

The First Presidency will now be seated.

Here, the act ceases. The quality of the Church has been reborn on this level.

We invite Elder Gong and Elder Soares to take their places with the Quorum of the Twelve.

Here, certain qualities have now been re-embodied and now assume their full stature as they were before.
The members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles only, including Elder Gong and Elder Soares, will please arise.

Here, the more universal quality begins to embody itself on a slightly lower level by the act of these lower levels stepping forward, as it were.
It is proposed that the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles sustain Russell Marion Nelson as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, together with his counselors and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as they have been presented and voted upon by the First Presidency.

Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in favor, please manifest it.

Here, the act is consummated again.

You may be seated.

And it ceases.

We ask the General Authority Seventies and members of the Presiding Bishopric to please arise.

Again, now it begins to be reborn on an even lower level.

It is proposed that all General Authority Seventies and members of the Presiding Bishopric sustain Russell Marion Nelson as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, together with his counselors and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as they have been presented and voted upon by the First Presidency.

All General Authority Seventies and members of the Presiding Bishopric who are in favor, please manifest it.

And it is consummated.

You may be seated.

And the act ceases.

We ask the following to please arise wherever you may be throughout the world: all Area Seventies, ordained patriarchs, high priests, and elders.

And, again, reborn on an even lower level.

It is proposed that Russell Marion Nelson be sustained as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, together with his counselors and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as they have been presented and voted upon.

All in favor, please manifest it.

And it happens.

Any opposed may so manifest it.

Please be seated.

And it stops.

Will all members of the Relief Society—that is, all women 18 years of age and older—please arise.

Here, womanhood itself, insofar as it participates in that universal tone, lends itself to the manifestation of that universal tone.
It is proposed that Russell Marion Nelson be sustained as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, together with his counselors and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as previously presented and voted upon.

All in favor, please indicate by the uplifted hand.

And it happens.

Any opposed may so indicate.

You may be seated.

And it ceases.

Will all those holding only the Aaronic Priesthood—that is, all ordained priests, teachers, and deacons—please arise.

The Aaronic quality manifests itself.

It is proposed that Russell Marion Nelson be sustained as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, together with his counselors and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as previously presented and voted upon.

All in favor, please indicate by the uplifted hand.

It lends itself in act.

Any opposed may so indicate.

You may be seated.

And it ceases.

Will the young women who are ages 12 to 18 please arise.

It is proposed that Russell Marion Nelson be sustained as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, together with his counselors and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as previously presented and voted upon.

The quality manifest by youth in womanhood insofar as it participates in that universal quality now helps manifest that quality.

All in favor, please indicate by the uplifted hand.

It does so.

Any opposed may so indicate.

You may be seated.

And it stops.

We now ask that the entire membership, wherever you are located, including all of those who have previously stood, please arise.

Here, the whole reach of that spiritual quality, the whole body it reaches and pervades, embodies that quality manifestly and in act. It has fully become itself, and it is here reborn, resurrected.

It is proposed that Russell Marion Nelson be sustained as prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, together with his counselors and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as they have been presented and voted upon.

All in favor, please indicate by the uplifted hand.

And it comes to pass.

Any opposed may so indicate.

You may all be seated.

And it stops.

Thank you, brothers and sisters, for your love and support.

For which this spiritual quality feels loved.