A Day Alone with John Mark

The line splits love in two. Bestowed by all-wise beings, it is the supreme reality of the universe. As it shows up in mortal parents, the record has Jesus call it dangerous and oftentimes semiselfish. He says this to a boy whose parents got it right, and he says it by way of a boy whose parents did not. Amos's parents refused to let him follow; the record's words are that they "loved their son so much that they denied him the blessed experience" (177:2.2). Amos believed the gospel as much as John did, but Jesus says he cannot fully depend on him because of his early home life (177:2.4). Of John's home the record says specific things. His parents bore each other sincere affection. He was not overloved into an exaggerated sense of his own importance. His parents had wisdom as well as love, withheld most of the indulgence their wealth could have bought, sent him to the synagogue school with the neighborhood boys, and let him have original experience (177:2.2). He spent his first eight years in a normal and well-regulated home, and that, Jesus tells him, is why he can be counted on (177:2.4). They kept talking about home for more than an hour. Jesus explained that a child gets his first impressions of the universe from his mother's care and his first ideas of the heavenly Father from his earthly father (177:2.5). Jesus did not return until after sunset. The record says he spent this last quiet day of his earth life visiting with a truth-hungry youth and talking with his Paradise Father (177:1.3), whose will, the record says, he chose in every situation involving two ways (136:4.9). He asked John to tell no man what had been said, and John never did (177:1.5). For the few days that remained, John Mark stayed within sight of Jesus and slept only when Jesus slept (177:1.6).

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