“Come to Zion”

‘Zion’ has become a dirty word in our world: now it is shorthand for the displacement of native peoples from their homelands, and a justification for the flexing of military power for scriptural causes. I’m not sure that when my people sing songs about ‘Zion’ that they’re thinking of these overtones: and when I talk about the concept, I certainly don’t mean these things.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s a parallel tradition of ‘Zion’ which constructs the concept in the mind and the heart, as a ‘Utopia’ (or no-place). LDS scripture suggests this in some places: “for this is Zion – THE PURE IN HEART” (D&C 97:21). This conception is given by diaspora Jewish people, and perhaps fits with the LDS idea of ‘the stakes of Zion’: the interpretation after the mid-20th century that resulted in the instruction to converts to no longer emigrate to Utah on conversion. The LDS Church has consequently begun to remake itself as a player in a pluralist society, as one influence amongst a competing influx of influences. Yet, this may seem to cut against the very core of what Zion is, in both senses. How can an adult in our media-saturated world remain ‘pure in heart’, without becoming blinkered?

I still believe this is a question worthy of careful consideration. This is because I still believe in Zion, in the sense that I always believed in it: as a community of like-minded friends. Zion, to me, is feeling at home, not just in our home, but in a ‘zone’ one step wider: in the streets and market-squares. It is feeling in harmony with the world: that we’re working together for a common goal.

Of course, I need to be clear that I’m not talking about any kind of Communist/Socialist project. I’m aware that capitalism offers the confluence of ideas, people and competition that helps to avoid stagnation. I’m not suggesting a model: but I am expressing a desire. A yearning: and not just for a state of mind, but for a place.

Places do matter. When I step out of my front door, my mind necessarily interprets and responds to my environment. I live in a pluralist society, so the competing streams of media messages cut against the feeling of ‘home’. They tell me I need more, and different: that my family is incomplete without, for example, the new high-tech toothpaste. The countryside is more responsive to my desire for ‘home’. The villages, even more. Yet even the villages near where I live seem to have less of a sense of community than anywhere else, with their security systems and guard dogs.

As an odd and  idiosyncratic model of the psychologies of ‘Zion’, allow me to briefly dwell upon a small tribe of Gauls, who, I read, inhabited the last remaining outpost against Roman rule in BC 50.

I loved the Asterix books when I was growing up. You probably know the backstory. If not, I refer you here. The community that the village enjoys is created by their opposition to endless legions of Roman soldiers, who they regularly sally forth to beat up, thanks to the magic potion that they possess. Sound familiar? The psychology expressed in Asterix is, in some ways, functionally similar to the LDS/Christian/Jewish conception of ‘Zion’. It is defined in opposition to ‘The World’/Heathen nations/Babylon, and is empowered by this energising tension. A wall is constructed around the village, and those inside are friends: those outside can’t be trusted.

A page from 'Asterix and the Great Divide'

The result of this containment, of course, is community. The village has a bard, a strongman, a chief, and a hero, and a practitioner of each essential trade. The village is self-sufficient, and works and celebrates together. Everyone knows everyone else, solves problems together, and would risk its neck to save one of its own. It’s a wonderful picture: one that inspires the most idealistic, and strengthens the weakest.

But could it be possible to have ‘Zion’ without ‘Babylon’? The psychology of ingroups and outgroups is deep-rooted. I want to find a better model, though, because the aggressive tension of the model I’ve described can, in my opinion, have a dark side, which places it in opposition to the higher ideal of a wider friendship and community. I don’t want to have to beat up any Romans, or demonise anyone in order to have this community.

When my family was about to emigrate to Australia (I was seven years old), my school class gave me a book: a gift with a beautiful metaphorical significance. The Asterix story ‘The Great Divide’ tells the story of a single village, elsewhere in Gaul, that has been divided by disagreement between two rival chiefs and their followers. A schism years earlier has caused the inhabitants of the village to cut a huge trench through the ground, and even the houses and buildings, to materialise their opposition. The story invokes the age-old romantic tale by introducing a boy and girl, who, from either side of the Divide, fall in love, and necessitate a change in the attitudes of their communities. Perhaps it’s idealistic of me, but I can’t help but hope that this other drive – for love – could unite us with those we have been estranged from, across the self-imposed Divide.

How wide is your circle of in-group, versus your outer sphere of those you consider ‘Other’? We all, biologically, come programmed with this psychology. But I’m interested in hearing about what experience you have had with lowering the ‘wall’, removing the battlements, and perhaps – finding that those outside aren’t ‘baddies’ after all.

Where we have felt distance and difference, perhaps our generation will rise to see harmony and love.