Our Living Conditions - Conclusion

In the summer of 2001, I was still working as a social worker for the state of Arizona in St. Johns. My dad came by one day and picked me up for lunch. We went to Corky’s – the one and only burger joint in this small town. He had retired from his government job, and I think he sensed that the end was near for him.

“When I die, the responsibility of seeing that the Family United Order continues is going to fall on your shoulders,” he told me.

I didn’t want to think about it. Who wants to ponder the death of a loved one?

Still, a year later he was gone. He had asked that he be buried on the “Land”, and so we set aside a family cemetery plot within yards of my house and buried my father there.

Scarcely had we lowered his body into the earth that my dad’s “friends” let their true faces show. There were some that said that we were not a “real” United Order, because the only people that belonged were family members – never mind that the Order now had almost 20 people.

There were others that said that – with the death of my father – our Order was left without any who held the “fullness of priesthood”. My father had received his “second anointing” – or he had attained the highest degree of the Mormon hierarchy. Thus he was qualified to preside over a United Order. But now that he was dead, there was no one “qualified” to lead our United Order. Or so it was pointed out to our family.

So the obvious solution to me was, “Fix this then.” My suggestion was to administer the second anointing to me, or one of my brothers, so that our United Order could continue. But that wasn’t the point of other men demonstrating out that our family was leaderless. They pointed out that our family was leaderless… so that they could step in and become the leader.

My father was not a wealthy man, ever in his life. And yet I was amazed that other men coveted what he had – his land, his family, his priesthood calling, etc.

One man brought us a “master plan” that subdivided the Land into streets and plots for houses. This man also proposed to my mother on several occasions. He tried to take us under his wing and mentor us, but became frustrated when my brothers and I resisted his efforts. His words to a couple of my friends were, “The death of Ted Jessop was the best thing to happen to this people. I’m going to go down to Arizona and take the bull by the horns.” The “bull” in this instance being me and my brothers.

People have always done me and my brothers a disservice. My father was a charismatic figure, and so they assumed that my father had such an influence over us that we had no minds of our own. So with my father gone, they thought they could swoop in and replace my dad. They were wrong. My father taught me to think for myself. I shot off a strong letter, telling these men to back off and leave our United Order alone.

But without my father there, the United Order did start to wither. Part of it is my fault. My dad asked me to make sure that it continued. But I got bitter. I got angry that I had bit back my own needs, and what did I have to show for my effort? I was in my thirties with nothing but a rundown trailer, a bunch of broken cars, and ubiquitous credit card debt accompanied by accrued interest.

The United Order came to an end…

Since, I have recognized that I have failed. I realize that it is a part of Mormonism that I am not living, and I would like to live it again. But I always feel constrained, because I know that – because of misconceptions – I lived it incorrectly.

I have a small circle of friends – young men like me in our late thirties or early forties who have been studying United Order. In our studies, we have read authors like Frédéric Bastiat who has shown the purpose of law – to protect us in our freedoms. Nothing more. We realize that the abuse of power has not consumed only our nation’s political leaders, but the leaders of Mormonism as well. The mainstream Church’s leaders are corrupt. But so are the leaders of Mormon fundamentalism who have used their priesthood callings to lord over the lay members, using priesthood ordinances and wives as an incentive to control men. They use the United Order to suck people’s money and land from them. Look at the United Effort of the FLDS – what a joke it was. Look at all the people in Pinesdale, Montana – and other places – who are forced from their homes on priesthood properties because they don’t tow the proverbial party line.

We have also studied Ayn Rand in great detail – particularly her book “Atlas Shrugged” that shows the follies of socialism and the parasitic mentalities it develops. I like Ayn Rand’s philosophies, but I think that the pendulum swung a bit the other way with her. There is no room for charity in her paradigm, and I think that we can all agree that Christ was the perfect example of charity.

So we have come to a conclusion of what the United Order isn’t – it isn’t communism. It isn’t socialism. Freedom – in all of its aspects is tantamount to a prosperous society, and that includes free enterprise. There must be no force, no compulsion, and there must be private ownership.

I still am working on what United Order is. I believe in the Law of Consecration. But how do you implement this without creating a sort of religious fascism? When I have these answers, then I will be ready to live it again. But until then…

So anyway, I draw this little tale to a close about how the reporters found a man with his two wives and many children living in a rundown little trailer out in the middle of nowhere.