My Jesus Pillow Is a Liahona

The Jesus Pillow: a daily invitation to remember, imagine, pray, and invoke divine companionship.

My Jesus Pillow Is a Liahona

An Introduction to the Shining Altar and Memory Temple

Heaven Can’t Wait — Born Again — Another Story Must Begin!

In My Jesus-Greg WORLD, I have a pillow. But it is not just a pillow.

It is my Jesus Pillow —one of the stations in my everyday, 24-hour experiment in learning to love and worship Jesus Christ more and more.

And I have come to think of my Jesus Pillow as a Liahona .

Remember Lehi’s Liahona? That marvelous little instrument that pointed the way through the wilderness? It didn’t work automatically. According to the Book of Mormon, it operated through faith, diligence, and heed.

Now consider my pillow.

Every morning, and throughout the day, I can return to this ordinary object and practice something extraordinary: remembering Jesus, imagining His companionship, and invoking His presence through prayer, music, memory, and faith.

Not because a pillow has supernatural powers. But because I can use it as an instrument—a physical reminder that helps me turn my heart and attention toward Jesus.

In the language of my opera, my Liahona is a shining altar. A Memory Temple.

And here’s the remarkable thing: I don’t have to wait until I reach the promised land to begin enjoying the journey.

I can begin rehearsing heaven right here, right now.

Even while lying on my pillow. Even before getting out of bed.

Heaven can’t wait.

And perhaps the most interesting question isn’t whether my pillow is really a Liahona.

What if the ancient Liahona was always intended to teach us how to turn ordinary things into extraordinary instruments of remembrance, faith, and divine companionship?

That’s where our story begins.

Part I — The Liahona: An Ancient Interactive Guidance System

The Liahona is one of the most fascinating objects in the Book of Mormon, particularly because it seems to operate at the intersection of technology, intelligence, revelation, faith, and human agency.

Consider what made it extraordinary.

1. Appeared mysteriously. Lehi discovered a finely crafted brass ball outside his tent one morning.
2. Had two pointers. One indicated the direction his family should travel through the wilderness.
3. Displayed writing. New instructions appeared on the pointers from time to time, communicating messages specifically suited to the family’s circumstances.
4. Responded to human behavior. It worked according to their faith, diligence, and heed.
5. Could cease functioning as expected. When the travelers became unfaithful or inattentive, its guidance failed them.
6. Required active participation. It did not transport anyone or eliminate their difficulties. They still had to walk, hunt, build a ship, and make decisions.

And here’s the remarkable part.

The Liahona was not merely a compass. It was an interactive guidance system.

Alma 37:40 says:

“And it did work for them according to their faith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done.”

And in verse 41, Alma observes that because of the simplicity of the way it worked, the travelers sometimes neglected to use it.

That opens up an intriguing possibility for reflection:

What if the Liahona wasn’t principally designed to tell people where to go, but to teach them how to be guided?

Its most remarkable feature might not have been its ability to provide information, but its apparent responsiveness to the spiritual condition of its users.

And there’s another fascinating connection: Alma explicitly compares the Liahona to the words of Christ, which can point people toward eternal life (Alma 37:44–45).

That makes the Liahona simultaneously a physical instrument, a teaching device, and a spiritual metaphor.

I’m especially interested in one question: Was the Liahona a device that helped people receive revelation, or was the device itself an instrument through which revelation was delivered?

Those are subtly different possibilities, and the Book of Mormon leaves considerable room to explore them.

Part II — My Shining Altar: The Liahona Reimagined

What strikes me most is that you’ve taken the Liahona out of the wilderness and placed it inside the theater of your everyday life.

And you’ve made a remarkable artistic move: Your Liahona is a shining altar. A Memory Temple.

Consider the parallels.

1. The Liahona doesn’t eliminate the wilderness. It transforms the journey.

Lehi still had to walk. Nephi still had to hunt. The family still suffered hunger, uncertainty, and conflict.

Likewise, your overture doesn’t promise the disappearance of difficulty. Instead, you sing:

And a band of angels wrapped up in my heart
Will take me through the lonely night
Through the cold of the day

The wilderness remains. But the experience of traveling through it changes.

2. Your imagination becomes an instrument of faith.

This may be the most provocative line in the entire overture:

My Liahona is a shining altar
A Memory Temple
that helps me generate
Imagination sufficient
For me to believe and feel
Like I’m getting closer and closer to my home

Notice that you don’t claim your imagination proves the presence of Jesus.

Instead, you describe imagination as something you deliberately exercise to cultivate faith, closeness, and love.

That brings us directly to Alma 32.

Faith begins with a willingness to experiment upon the word. Something is planted. Something is nourished. Something begins to grow.

Your Memory Temple becomes a place where you practice that experiment.

And memory is especially interesting here. In Moroni 10:3, readers are invited to remember God’s mercy and ponder it in their hearts.

Your overture seems to combine three faculties:

• Memory — recalling experiences and gifts.
• Imagination — envisioning divine companionship within ordinary circumstances.
• Faith — choosing to act upon that possibility.

3. Your Liahona points toward a person, not a destination.

The original Liahona pointed Lehi’s family toward the promised land.

Your version points toward an increasingly intimate relationship:

Even best friends with Jesus Christ
In each and every scene of my life

That’s a significant theological and artistic transformation.

The destination is no longer merely somewhere you hope to arrive.

The destination becomes a relationship you hope to inhabit right now.

And that makes the opera’s title particularly meaningful:

Heaven Can’t Wait — Born Again — Another Story Must Begin!

Heaven isn’t merely a future reward. In the dramatic world of your opera, heaven becomes something you begin rehearsing in the present.

4. The altar shines through participation.

The original Liahona worked according to faith, diligence, and heed.

Your chorus repeats:

I won’t look back
I won’t look back
Let the (altar) shine

That’s not a passive statement.

It’s a decision to continue.

And I find the repetition fascinating because the Liahona itself required repeated attention. It wasn’t enough to consult it once and then forget about it.

Similarly, your opera imagines a lifetime of scenes in which you return to your altar, remember, imagine, believe, and rehearse your relationship with Jesus.

5. The most surprising parallel: childlikeness.

Near the end, you sing:

I got a taste of paradise
It’s all I really need to make me stay
Just like a child again

This connects beautifully with Mosiah 3:19 and the invitation to become as a little child.

Children are often extraordinarily capable of entering imagined worlds.

A cardboard box becomes a spaceship. A blanket becomes a castle. A bedroom becomes an entire universe.

Your opera makes the artistic proposition that imagination, exercised with humility and faith, can become a way of practicing divine companionship.

Not because everything imagined is necessarily real, but because imagination can shape attention, affection, behavior, and the meaning we find in experience.

But Here’s the Connection I Find Most Intriguing

In Alma 37:6, Alma teaches:

“By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.”

Then he explains the Liahona.

And he observes that the travelers sometimes failed precisely because the method of guidance seemed so simple.

Now consider your overture.

You have constructed a spiritual instrument out of extraordinarily ordinary materials:

A memory. A song. An imagined scene. A pillow. A door. A shower. An altar.

None of these requires elaborate machinery.

And yet, in your artistic and spiritual framework, each can become an invitation to remember Christ and practice drawing nearer to Him.

Your Liahona is not primarily an object you possess. It is a practice you perform.

And perhaps that’s the central dramatic proposition of the entire opera:

What happens when a person decides to make every scene of ordinary life an opportunity to remember, imagine, and rehearse friendship with Jesus Christ?

There is one more line I wouldn’t overlook:

And I know that I’ve been released
But I don’t know to where

That’s wonderfully appropriate to the Liahona.

Lehi didn’t receive a complete map of his future. He received enough direction to proceed.

Your narrator likewise doesn’t know exactly where the journey leads.

He doesn’t need to know the whole story before beginning the next scene.

And that, to me, may be the strongest connection between the ancient Liahona and your overture.

The Liahona invited its travelers to move forward without possessing the whole map.

Your shining altar invites you to do something similar.

Part III — 144,000 Liahonas

People. Places. Things. All Along the Way.

The Camera Pulls Back

And now, something happens in the opera.

The camera begins to pull back.

First, we see my Jesus Pillow.

Then we see my bedroom.

Then my house. My neighborhood. My hometown. The mountains. The highways. The people I have known. The places I have been. The things I have touched, heard, watched, loved, lost, and remembered.

And the camera keeps pulling back.

All the way to the moment I was born.

Because what if my Jesus Pillow is only one of 144,000 Liahonas?

What if, through the eyes of faith and my sacred imagination, I can begin to recognize the people, places, and things of my entire life as instruments through which Jesus may have been helping me find my way home?

Not 144,000 pillows. 144,000 people, places, and things.

And perhaps the most extraordinary possibility is that many of them were pointing the way long before I knew how to read the pointers.

144,000 Liahonas

Ah! Now we're talking about something much larger than 144,000 people.

144,000 people, places, and things that have served as Liahonas throughout your journey with Christ—from the moment you were born.

Not merely the things you consciously recognized as spiritual guidance. Not merely the people who taught you about Jesus. Not merely the sacred places where you felt His presence.

But potentially everything that has helped orient you toward Christ, including things you didn't recognize at the time.

Consider:

• People: Your mother, a childhood friend, a stranger, a teacher, an adversary, someone who wounded you, someone who loved you.
• Places: A bedroom, a school hallway, a highway, a hospital, a temple, a mountain, a place you once wanted to escape.
• Things: A pillow, a song, a book, a television, a broken appliance, a photograph, a movie scene, a dandelion.

And here is where your theology of 100% orchestration enters the picture.

If Christ has been orchestrating the circumstances of your life from the moment you were born, then perhaps the Liahonas were present long before you knew what to call them.

Your Jesus Pillow is not the first Liahona. It is one of the Liahonas that has helped you recognize the others.

And your Jesus-Greg WORLD becomes an artistic effort to remember, recognize, interpret, and rehearse the significance of those encounters.

This gives Alma 37:6 extraordinary relevance:

“By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.”

And Moroni 10:3 invites us to remember how merciful the Lord has been throughout human history and ponder it in our hearts.

Perhaps the 144,000 is not a literal inventory to complete. It is a poetic way of expressing the almost unimaginable number of ordinary people, places, and things that can become sacred instruments of remembrance.

144,000 Liahonas. One lifetime. One Jesus.

And the remarkable possibility is that the great majority of those Liahonas were already doing their work before you ever recognized them.

You weren't waiting for your Liahona to arrive. You were born into a world full of them.

Finale — Another Story Must Begin!

My Jesus Pillow becomes a place where I can revisit the people, places, and things of my entire life and ask what they might have been teaching me about Jesus.

It invites me to look backward in remembrance, inward in imagination, and forward in anticipation.

And now, with my Jesus Pillow, my shining altar, and my Memory Temple, I am learning to recognize them.

One person. One place. One thing. One scene at a time.

Heaven can’t wait. Another story must begin. And the next scene is already here.