MY MOUNTAIN

   Well I do not think I could live like the real honest to goodness old mountain men lived but I have always loved the mountains. I was born in my parents home in a little old mountain town that was about 7000 feet in elevation and that may or may not be why I love the mountains? I suppose from the time I was about 12 years old I hiked the mountains that surrounded my little home town.
   When our children started coming along, some of them turned into desert rats and loved the red rock and sand not far away from my mountains. In my opinion of course the sandy desert with its 100 degree heat could not compete with the green, cool mountains.
   I and our family and friends have hiked, camped, fished, hunted and in later years just enjoyed our cabin that was built in a grove of aspen trees on the mountain not far from the little town I was born in.
   One morning about 15 years ago, while sitting on a rock overlooking a lake near our cabin I jotted these notes on a piece of paper.

        My Mountain                        

This is my mountain. Of course I don’t own it!               

As the Indians say, “You can’t own a mountain. It belongs to God.”

He made it in all its glory, from the pines to the grassy sod.
It is majestic, this mountain of mine.
It has been here since the beginning of time.

On my mountain I have hiked, I have camped and I’ve played,
It was never a place to become afraid.
From the time I was young, then a teen and now 67
I know on my mountain that I am closer to Heaven.

Many people drive by this mountain of mine,
But they never stop and take any time
To look at the trees, the lakes and the stream,
The paintbrush, daisies and all flowers that beam.

The colors are numerous, if people would just look.
You could never find sights like this in a book.
Of Greens there are many, light quakies, dark pines.
Flowers of blue, red, and white and pink so sublime.

The sky is a blue that is hard to describe.
It is a beauty that would never be captured by a scribe.
My mountain is a place for deer and elk to play.
The beaver builds dams and a coyote has his say.

A snaggled old pine juts from the valley floor.
An Eagle sits on a branch his domain to explore.
He jumps skyward and his majestic wings do extend.
He glides on an updraft, his wings hardly bend.

I watch as a doe crosses a clearing in trees,
With two fawns behind, in grass to their knees.
These deer show no fear as they start down a decline.
They seem to know this mountain is theirs, and it’s mine.

The wind gently rustles the grass, with tops full of seed.
They sway back and forth waiting for animals to feed.
This mountain of mine is not always serene I fear.
This mountain that is home to wild cats and to deer.

In the winter it may become a frightening place to be.
The snows come so gently, one flake, then two and even three
And they keep on coming to the depth of a large tree.

The snow becomes deep and the wind blows it about,
It is no place to get lost. No one could ever hear you shout.
The leaves have all fallen, and the animals did go
To holes in the ground, or the valley below.

New scenes on my mountain now change and come alive
And you see God’s pictures that belittle “Currier and Ives.”
Some people say in winter, my mountain is bleak
But the snows soon melt from all but the highest peak.

Then God causes his miracle of spring to appear
Then all over oven my mountain life starts to appear.
This mountain of mine is a wondrous place.
In spring the floor is covered with Queen Ann’s Lace.

There are also daisies, white, purple and gold
And they stay here all summer until it gets cold.
This mountain of mine in spring comes to life
With plants, and water, and all sorts of wildlife.

Everything is growing and is running around.
The gophers all “pop” from their holes in the ground.
The springs, they start flowing and rivers they rush,
To get off the mountain through trees and through brush.

Then everything starts over on this mountain of mine,
Just as it has forever since the beginning of time.

 These thoughts were put on paper while I was at our cabin with the Relief Society Sisters from the Winder 13^th Ward on Augut 6^th & 7^th 1999. I was sitting overlooking Fairview Lake early in the morning.

Wallace R. Baldwin

7 Aug 1999

A LETTER TO CALEB

A LETTER TO CALEB

As I sit here tonight I wonder if you are also sitting somewhere in a heavenly sphere, watching and listening to what is happening in this world of ours?

I can almost imagine you asking yourself if what you went through for your family while you were here on earth was worth it? The trials and tribulations of Kirtland, Nauvoo and Liberty Jail were more than I can imagine as I sit here in comfort in my home. But how do you feel about the trials you had to suffer? Were they worth it, to bring a new Church and a new way of thinking to help your family and their families learn new things and change so that they might return to live in a heavenly sphere in the hereafter as one large family?

Do you and those with you still dream and imagine there is still hope for your family and friends, even in this world of sin, hatred and despotism? Or do you realize these things are just part of a larger plan and it is inevitable that they will happen; so you sit there watching and hoping that we will rise above the sins of the world and look for and see the good and the beautiful and raise ourselves up to be a generation ---like yours—that can change the world, do much good, see the light and life of the gospel come into the eyes of our children. Are you hoping these things happen for us as they once did for you as you lived, traveled and suffered and had joy with Joseph and the other Brethren when the Church was in its infancy?

What you did was not without cost! Nancy and yourself gave all your earthly possessions, with the exception of what you could load into a wagon, to join an unpopular Church, leave your home to do as the Lord counseled his people, just as Lehi did with his family in ancient times. Thousands of others did the same thing along with you and I often wonder if I today would sacrifice as you did, if I was asked? I imagine it could be said you gave your life for what you believed! The beatings and the suffering in Liberty Jail caused such pain and agony that you died at the relative young age of 56 after the long trip across the plains to the promised land of Utah. How do you feel about these things? I often try to imagine those things but somehow I am unable to comprehend them?

I am sure you realize that you left posterity here to carry on with the beliefs you had. Of course some of them chose a different path and I am sure that must have caused you grief and heartache, perhaps even a broken heart? However I am sure you understand just as I do that this is all part of the eternal plan—The part we call Free Agency. We all can chose what we think is right or wrong-just as you did—after conversing with Parley Pratt about his strange new religion. I also am sure that you have learned, just as I have, that although we have the right to choose we also must accept the consequences of our choices; be they right or wrong!

As I never really had the opportunity to meet you and get to know you, I often wonder if we were anything alike in our thinking or our actions. As you were told in your Patriarchal Blessing your have suffered afflictions but borne them with patience. You were also told that the Lord had looked down on you and forgiven you for your sins and your former trespasses. That tells me we are at least alike in some ways. We have both sinned and we are capable of repentance and that we both held the Priesthood. I hope that someday we may meet and embrace and feel of each other’s spirit and have joy in our posterity together.

Caleb, when you were in Kirtland, Nauvoo, Liberty and Garden Grove I wonder if you even imagined what would happen to this small Church you had become a part of? It is now like nothing you could imagine at that time! You pledged your time, your talents and all the means at your disposal to help build Temples in both Kirtland and Nauvoo, only to leave them to screaming mobs. Now there are over 100 Temples scattered over this earth and there will be many more because we have been promised they will dot the land. Of course I am sure you know this now but did you imagine it when you were helping to build the first Temple in Kirtland?

It is hard to believe that a Church made up of common people like you and I and our children and grand children could grow to twelve million souls so quickly and it is still growing and flourishing every year, month and day.

I hope with all my heart that I will never forget what you did for our family and that I try to live a life that will bring us together. I am sure you are well aware that the Church is doing fine. I have pledged to do my best and sometimes I even do. However I do not believe I have ever suffered as the early Saints had to and I hope I am never called to do so. I hope your posterity, including myself, have done the best we can and as the pioneer song says, “All is well.”

Written by:

Wallace R. Baldwin
3^rd Great Grandson
of Caleb Baldwin
18 Dec 2004

LONELINESS

   In 1994 I put some thoughts about loneliness on a piece of paper. Since that time I have learned a lot more about being lonely.
   My wife of 57 years passed away in 2012 and my son passed away in 2013. They died about three months apart. I don't know about anyone else but for me it took a while for the loneliness to settle in. However it did come and it was a lot different than anything I had imagined.
   I can truly say I love the people around me (both family and friends) that cheered me up, came by and talked about old times, and fed me, or in other words just continued to be friends.
   One thing that was hard for me before Donnie passed away was when someone was grieving, I did not to know what to say so I would just not say anything. I have found out that at least in my case it has been far better to talk about it than to ignore it.
   Thanks to all my friends and family and here are a few thoughts on loneliness penned in 1994

LONELINESS        30 Apr 1994

Loneliness arrives with the winter snow
Far more often than when flowers grow.
The dark comes sooner, both eve and morn,
And lonely thoughts, then seem to be born

Winter brings darkness, and the wind doth blow.

And many don’t visit, because of the snow.

Loneliness does not arrive all at once I fear.

But its pain is as real as the point of a spear.

Lonely has been here from the creation I believe.
Adam was lonely so God created his Eve.
Loneliness does not come to just we who are old.
The young also get lonely, or so I’ve been told.

 One Sunday I was pondering on what it is to be lonely and if being lonely was any different in our modern times, than it was in times past?

 Many things went through my mind. I thought of the loneliness of Moroni in the D&C, Moroni 8:2-3, where all the Nephites were killed except Moroni. He had watched them being killed. Even his father had been killed and he was all alone in a country where he was being pursued. Imagine the loneliness he felt. In Moroni 1:1 he just finished abridging the plates and states, “he has not perished but he is still in hiding, lest he should be destroyed.” And in Moroni 10:34 he is still alone and knows he is going to die. It is hard for me to imagine the loneliness he must have felt at that time.

 While meditating I thought of some of the times I have felt lonely or alone. Not nearly as intense as Moroni’s situation but nevertheless, indeed lonely.

 You might ask if it is possible to be lonely with people all around you. I can answer that. Indeed it is. In the many years I have traveled for my work, I found many times there were people all around me. But indeed I still felt all alone. When the day was done, they went to their homes and families and I had to go to the four walls of a motel room in a strange town.

 I recall one time while visiting the sick at a rest home a little old elderly lady came up to me and said, “when you get through talking to that man would you mind coming and talking to me for a few minutes.” It tugged at my heart to realize that here was a lady who’s only wish at that moment was to have someone spend a few minutes to talk to her. Oh, how lonely she must have felt.

 Then the thought, do loneliness and fear go together? I recall at least one time when this was true. My daughter and I had gone snowmobiling and we got one of the machines stuck in some new powder snow by our cabin. I decided to take the other machine and go around the road to make a trail so she could follow it out. I started down the road and got in some very deep powder. I did not dare stop as I was afraid I would get the second machine stuck so I kept going farther away, always hoping to turn around and head back to the cabin. Just as I must have known it would happen, I finally bogged down in the powder snow and could not get out. I was afraid. I was alone! To make a long story short I was rescued by three guys who I am sure were angels. After trying everything I could think of I had prayed intensely, and just a few minutes after that here came three guys on snowmobiles and got me out. I was alone, snowbound and I was afraid for my daughter who I had left up by the cabin. I don’t know which was the worst, the fear or the being alone, and as I said maybe they are connected.

 I have been alone in my own home for a few days and I did not like it. I guess we humans are not designed to enjoy being alone.

 Back to my thoughts of can you feel alone in the presence of other people? Imagine Joseph Smiths feeling when he was in Liberty Jail. My 3^rd Great Grandfather, Caleb Baldwin was with him in that dungeon and I cannot even begin to imagine how they felt. They must have felt alone and abandoned, for Joseph asked the Lord, “O God, Where art thou?” Just to read the D&C 121:1-6 makes me cringe at how alone and forgotten these brethren must have felt.

 I have thought many times of how lonely people must feel when their loved ones pass beyond the veil. What could be more lonely than being left behind, alone? After spending most of your life with someone I guess the only thing that could be worse would be to not understand that if we live the Gospel as best we can, our loneliness will only be for a short time and then we also will pass the veil and be together with our loved ones.