Faith as a bottle of mustard

Last night we had ham for dinner.  No special occasion needed in our house to eat ham - we raise pigs every year to eat, and the current set of pigs are due up for the butcher in about 3 weeks.  So, about this time of year I start going through the chest freezer to see what else we need to start eating to make room over the next month for the new occupants.  Upon my brief survey of what we have left, ham it was.

It was also a chance to open a jar of apple sauce.  I make apple sauce every year (recently from our own apple orchard as of the last year or two), and we have quite a few left as their shelf life is probably expiring in the next few months.

Besides applesauce, we always break out mustard with ham.  Probably if I had time or cared more, and this wasn't supposed to be something I was throwing together really quickly, it would have been some better sauce, but last night (and most every other time we have ham as well) I just reached for the good old yellow mustard sitting in the fridge.  This guy:

I was in the act of squeezing out some mustard during dinner that I noticed the brand name:  French's.  Again as with other instances, it wasn't like I didn't know that French's was a mustard brand, but I looked at it this time almost as if for the first time.  French's.  As in France.   Here we were again with another France reference, and I noted that the name stood against a red banner, and this red symbolism stood out to me in light of my thinking around the red Sawtooth Stone being in France.

I determined at the time, however, I wasn't going to try and divine anything else from the mustard bottle.

The bottle had other ideas, however.

This morning I opened up the refrigerator to make lunch for my youngest son who has a summer camp this week (so does my daughter but she had already been up and packed her own lunch).  As I opened the door and looked inside, there was the mustard bottle front and center where it been put away the night before.  I think my kids cleared the table (but I can't remember), but in any case, whoever put it away had put it right on the main shelf in front of pretty much everything.  It was like it had been sitting there patiently waiting all night to greet me again in the morning.

As I gave him a wary once-over again, the word that jumped out to me now on his packaging was "mustard".  I mean, of course it was mustard, I knew this, but now it being mustard seemed relevant to me.  As I considered this, the biblical scripture quoting Jesus as saying something about having the faith of a mustard seed came to my mind.  This seemed like it could be an interesting avenue of thinking, so I said "Alright, I give in.  Let's divine the mustard bottle."  He had been waiting all night, after all.

I looked up the scripture because although I could remember that Jesus said something was possible if one had the faith of a mustard seed, I actually couldn't remember what that thing was.  

I did a quick online search, and the first reference that came up was the mention found in Matthew 17:20.    In this scene, Jesus had just cast out a devil that the disciples had failed to cast out, and then told them that it was because of their unbelief that they failed.  You know, just like Yoda rebuking Luke Skywalker who couldn't raise his X-wing from the swampy marshes of Dagoba, and then doing it for him while saying Luke failed because of his own unbelief. 

Here is the verse (with 19 added for additional context):

Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?

And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

OK, so at this point the story wheels really started churning in my brain, particularly with reference to moving mountains.

Part of my story, and frankly one of the stories that Joseph Smith taught but that has been swept under the Mormon rug in some ways going all the way back to Brigham Young, is that Planets or Worlds that have been separated from each other will, physically it seems, be brought back together.  That would include the worlds I have written about here, I think (if I have them right, and there may be more, I guess), such as Valinor, Eressea #1 and #2, Numenor, and this Earth.  

In ways I don't entirely understand, these worlds will physically be brought together, perhaps resulting in something like Philo Dibble's stacked world schematic.  Or something else.  I don't know.

I have compared worlds and planets with Mountains, and so you might see why I saw a story here in the combination of this bible verse and the mustard bottle.  Mountains will be moved, as this story goes.  And some amount of faith will required to move them - to create the highway or road that leads back home - the "new and old way".  Where will this faith come from?  From a seed of mustard in France.

This made even more sense to me when I decided to look up the definition of mustard on Etymonline.  Of course, a primary definition relates to the seed that produces this yellow condiment.  But there was an interesting thing that stood out to me.

Per Etymonline, root words for mustard are the Latin mustum and the Old French moust.  Mustum and moust both mean "New Wine", and mustard originally acquired this name because they used to make it by adding must (new wine) to the seeds of the plant from which mustard seeds come from (the plant would later acquire the name from the paste - it wasn't originally called this, if I followed correctly). 

Wine!

I already have the symbolism of both the Sawtooth Stone and its location in my mind from the "French's" brand name on the red banner from the night before, and now we have the mustard itself representing "new wine".  In looking at my words last fall, one contributing factor for me landing the Stone in France in its transport from Idaho was the mention of Wine.  I add attributed those words to Tom Bombadil in his welcome of the Couriers, as they would have arrived on or around March 13, 2021:

Fellow travelers. House richly, and bring forth the best wine.

I had (perhaps tortuously) used the wine reference to place this welcome as occurring in France, but later events, blog posts, and just general 'stuff' (including mustard bottles) has me still thinking this remains a good guess.  Keeping with this thought of location, I've made a few off-the-cuff, wild-ass guesses as to the potential location or general whereabouts of Tom's House specifically within France.  I think as of my last thought, I wondered whether Grand-Riviere, France, sort of near the eastern border by Switzerland, could be a potential spot to check out.  This was based on dialogue I had seemed to pick up relative to a "Big River" and a Stone, as discussed by The Germans.  Grand Riviere is French for Big or Grand River.  Further, I thought through the word "study" in those words, and concluded that perhaps this was not a verb but a noun - something like a library or room of records - that this study was to be found in a place called Big River.  Those words again are below (the link is just above in this paragraph):

 

Jan. 26
Study find in big river stein
Arnu entuli has san
Arnu en stein
Stein

So, that I think is where I left off with specific guesses - somewhere over in the East of France by Grand Riviere, because, well, it has to be somewhere, and that is as good a spot as any.

And honestly as nutty as this sounds, based on my mustard bottle, I think I might be close.

When I looked up Mustard on Etymonline, the listing right below was for Dijon, which is a type of mustard.  I actually ran into this earlier as well, because I quickly googled about whether other people have mustard with their ham before I mentioned busting out the mustard here (I didn't want anyone reading this to think I was crazy or weird or anything!), and it turns out that yes, but Dijon mustard seemed to be a popular choice for many over just basic French's yellow like we've unsophisticatedly been using in my household.

Anyway, the listing for Dijon has not the type of mustard as its first listed definition, but rather a reference to a place in France.  Specifically, the entry said a "city in the Burgundy region of eastern France, from Latin Divio, Divionis, from the personal name Divius "divine, godly,"

Call me uncultured, but I did not know there was an actual place called Dijon, and seeing a mention to it being also in eastern France caught my attention.  The Burgundy region itself stuck out.  I don't drink (a Mormon habit), and so don't know a lot about wines, but I do know that Burgundy is a type of wine, and apparently also the name of a wine region in France.  Most websites cite Burgundy (Bourgogne in French) as being one of the top 4 or 5 wine regions in France.  A nod to the mention of 'best wine'?  Though my guess is the 'wine' that is being offered by Tom may also have something to do with the books and records he has at his disposal and is offering to share during their stay.

Burgundy is also a color.  That color being a nice, deep Red.  Just like our Stone, potentially.  So that is an obvious tie, and not much more to say there.

It is also, and I absolutely have to throw this in because I did do a post on the Anchorwoman (Eowyn), the last name of Ron Burgundy, the Anchorman.  Probably strangely relevant, I hate to say it.  In fact, Ron Burgundy could be interpreted to mean "The Red Ruler's Counsel", perhaps referring to both Stone and Man.  Remember just yesterday that I mentioned a "Golden Counsel" and wondered what that Stone that would have referred to.  Well, maybe that really was the Anor Stone (Golden in color), and the Red Counsel - as represented by the Anchorman Ron Burgundy - is actually the Sawtooth Stone (with a 'counsel' referring to the Stone itself).

I digress.

Going back to location, I then obviously had to look up where Dijon sat in the East.  How close was this to Grande Riviere?

Well, not too far away, it turns out, but not necessarily on each others' doorsteps, either.  It would be just under a 2 hour drive, it looks like.  So, still a fairly large region if we are using these two points to help create a general region where we might be looking.  Here is where they land with respect to each other on a map of France - I have highlighted their positions with green stars, which I hope show up OK:

So, you can see they are in the same general area, with Dijon and Grande-Riviere separated by about 85 miles.

At the very least, one other data point that places us in that eastern region, but still a fairly general area.

Back to names, Dijon itself is an interesting one given its definition of "Divine, Godly".  My view is that Tom is actually Aule, one of the Valar, or Gods, and this seems to fit with wherever we might find him, his study, and the Stone.  But it might also be a nice application to the 'mustard' itself.  A Godly or Divine New Wine.

Along that thread, and based on a thought I just had right now, ham is considered an unclean meat in much of Abrahamic religion and tradition.  Both Jewish and Islam cultures forbid its eating.

This was a major sticking point in Peter's dream recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, where he was shown unclean animals and commanded to eat them, to which he first said "No Way".  But God said he had cleaned them, and they were not 'common' anymore.  In my mind, this Mustard or New Wine may in itself be a cleansing for a bunch of Hams (Men on this Earth) who will be welcomed back to a place where they have been previously forbidden to go.  "Francis is bacon", the other version of the phrase that went through my head of "France is bakin'" (William Tychonievich has used that other version a few times), may apply here in some fashion.  Francis - The Free Man/ French Man - being among and one of the Bacon (unclean Pig-Men).  

In other words, the Sawtooth Stone, and events that stem from it finally being used, including the possession of other records, will not only generate the faith by which entire worlds are brought back into connection with each other, but perhaps also the faith by which Beings, probably considered closer to unclean beasts by those who sit high in their Empire State Building and dress in their fine apparel (which I am guessing are in fact more attractive than our own animal skins that we currently don), will become clean and go home.  

I'll conclude this with one more thought on "new". When I read New Wine, I looked it up on Etymonline as well just to see if anything was interesting. I got back such terms as "made or established for the first time, fresh, recently made or grown; novel, unheard-of, different from the old; untried, inexperienced, unused"

I bolded the part that stuck out to me when I read it because it brought me right to Jesus' words to those at Bountiful, regarding a 'great and marvelous work' that will happen:

And when that day shall come, it shall come to pass that kings shall shut their mouths; for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

For in that day, for my sake shall the Father work a work, which shall be a great and a marvelous work among them; and there shall be among them those who will not believe it, although a man shall declare it unto them.

Anyway, now I am a little bit worried about whether my ketchup bottle is also going to have something to say to me later on as well.