Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
“Adam-ondi-Ahman”

“Adam-ondi-Ahman”

Last updated on: September 5, 2018 at 9:52 am by Dan Peterson

“Adam-ondi-Ahman” 2018-09-05T09:52:59-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Butchart Gardens, near Victoria, British Columbia, are extremely beautiful, but evidently can’t compare with the gardens beyond. (Wikimedia Commons public domain)

We spent yesterday afternoon and evening at the incredibly beautiful Butchart Gardens.

Walking through and around them, and sailing just off of them, I found myself thinking of two rather distinct things.

First, I thought of the hymn “Adam-ondi-Ahman,” written by William W. Phelps and included in the first Latter-day Saint hymnbook in 1835. But I thought of it very specifically in my favorite recording of it, which I have at home on vinyl but cannot find online. That recording is by Marvin Payne, and his lyrics, if I recall them correctly, differ just a little bit from those of Brother Phelps. Here’s how I remember them:

This earth was once a garden place,

With all her glories common,

And men did live a holy race,

And worshiped Jesus face to face,

In Adam-ondi-Ahman.
We read that Enoch walked with God,

Above the pow’r of mammon,

While Zion spread herself abroad,

And Saints and angels sang aloud,

In Adam-ondi-Ahman.
Her land was good and greatly blest,

Beyond all Israel’s Canaan;

Her fame was known from east to west.

How great the peace and pure the rest

Of Adam-ondi-Ahman!
Hosanna to such days to come,

The Savior’s second coming,

When all the Saints and nature meet

And bow in beauty at his feet

In Adam-ondi-Ahman.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the tune, I include here a link to a rendition of the hymn by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which I don’t like much but which I prefer to the other versions that I’ve found — apart from Marvin Payne’s. (The melody is even slightly different.)

Second, I thought of the very many reports of those who have had near-death experiences, describing incredible flowers, gardens, and colors in the next world. I offer here just a few items from my notes:

One near-death experiencer speaks of “vibrant,” even “exploding” colors.[1]

[1] $Lee Nelson and Richard Nelson, Near Death Experiences, vol. 4 (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 1994), 15.

“The place where I was, seemed very desirable to remain in,” remembered Jacob Hamblin, who had fallen from high in a tree in 1858 and had been unconscious for roughly eleven hours after the fall. “It was divided into compartments by walls, from which appeared to grow out vines and flowers, displaying an endless variety of colors.”[1]

[1] Little, Jacob Hamblin, 58.

George Russell wrote of “seeing the world illuminated by ‘an intolerable luster of light’; of finding himself looking at ‘landscapes as lovely as a lost Eden’; of beholding a world where the ‘colors were brighter and purer, and yet made a softer harmony.’”[1]

[1] Huxley, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, 94-95.

In his dialogue Phaedo, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato has his master Socrates speak of an ideal world that exists beyond the material world in which we live:

In this other earth the colors are much purer and much more brilliant than they are down here. . . . The very mountains, the very stones have a richer gloss, a lovelier transparency and intensity of hue. The precious stones of this lower world, our highly prized cornelians, jaspers, emeralds and all the rest, are but the tiny fragments of these stones above. In the other earth there is no stone but is precious and exceeds in beauty every gem of ours.[1]

“When worshipers offer flowers at the altar,” says Aldous Huxley, “they are returning to the gods things which they know, or (if they are not visionaries) obscurely feel, to be indigenous to heaven.”[2]

Huxley: “prodigious buildings set in rich, bright gardens with distant prospects of plain and mountain, of rivers and sea. This is a matter of immediate experience, a psychological fact which has been recorded in folklore and the religious literature of every age and country.”[3]

William Blake saw visionary landscapes “articulated beyond all that the mortal and perishing nature can produce” and “infinitely more perfect and minutely organized than anything seen by the mortal eye.”

[1] Plato, Phaedo.

[2] Huxley, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, 104.

[3] Huxley, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, 121-122.

Bob Helm speaks of “the most beautiful landscape I had ever seen. The colors were outside my experience, vivid beyond my dreams,” and he saw a celestial city, with “buildings constructed of a translucent material.”[1]

[1] Ring, “Amazing Grace,” 29-31. Compare Pat Clark’s experience, recounted at Ring, “Amazing Grace,” 26.

The colors at Butchart Gardens are stunning. If those of the next life are incomparably more beautiful, then that is really something to which to look forward.

Posted from Victoria, British Columbia

Uncategorized

Previous Post

July 21, 2018

"Do Latter-day Saints believe that men and women can become gods?"

Next Post

July 22, 2018 Carl Sagan Remembered

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who declared, "Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Joshua Gideon Moses Aaron