An Unexpected Trip to Kirtland

This past week I took a business trip to Cleveland, Ohio to meet with one of my customers. In actuality, I visited a small suburb, Mayfield Village, just East of Cleveland. I had the misfortune, or fortune, of arriving the day after the worst snowstorm they'd had in nearly 30 years. Thankfully, the roads were mostly cleared, so driving wasn't all that challenging.

I arrived on Sunday afternoon, and as I settled into my hotel room, I leafed through the visitor's guidebook looking for a recommendation for dinner. I found a map of the local area and was surprised to discover that I was only about 10 miles from Kirtland. I looked up directions online and found it was only a fifteen minute drive, so I hopped in my car, decided I'd save "Little Italy" for another night, and made my way to Kirtland, figuring that I'd be able to locate the Kirtland Temple once there.

Sure enough, once I entered Kirtland, I started to see signs for "Historic Kirtland" and figured that this had to be where the temple is located. I turned left off the main thoroughfare, following the signs for Historic Kirtland. It turns out that Historic Kirtland is owned and operated by the Church. Peeking into the area from the road, I couldn't see the temple, so I initially drove past, hoping there might be an entrance that went directly to the temple further up the road. The road ran up along the side of a hill, and staring out across the small valley below, I could spy the temple through the leafless trees on a hill on the other side. I kept going up the road until it became apparent that it was heading away from the temple, and I found a place to turn around.


Coming back down to the bottom of the road, I went ahead and turned into the parking lot for Historic Kirtland. Mine was the only car there, except for oneother that apparently belonged to a grounds-keeper who lives there. I got out and started wandering around a bit, hoping I'd find a path that might lead me up to the temple, but it was pretty clear that there was no path. I had suspicions that there wouldn't be, since - so far as I knew - the Reorganites (i.e. the Community of Christ) own the Kirtland Temple still. I crossed a little footbridge, still holding out hope, but then I noticed that some cars were driving up another road between Historic Kirtland and the temple, and it appeared to pass right by the temple, so I decided that must be the road to get on.

I left Historic Kirtland, turned back to the main road and discovered that it was the road I'd espied from Historic Kirtland. I followed it up the hill, and sure enough, there was the temple. The Reorganites have a visitors' center for the temple, but it was closed (it was after 5 PM when I made my excursion), so I parked and just walked over to the temple.



The grounds were empty, and covered with snow about two to three feet deep. A sidewalk wound through the snow from the visitors' center to the temple. To the left of the path there are benches arranged for outdoor presentations, and just before reaching the temple, the sidewalk intersects with another sidewalk, arranged in an oval. The temple was surprisingly larger than I expected it to be. In my mind, I've always pictured it about the size of a church, and while it is smaller than our modern temples, it is still a fairly imposing building, if not in length or width, then certainly in height.

There are cracks in the walls, lightly plastered over, but still visible under the whitewash, radiating outward from the windows. The paint on the window sills is fading and chipped, as is the paint on the wood of the tower. While I am sure the Reorganites are trying to keep up the temple, it is clear that it could benefit from some funds and loving care from the Church.

Looking more closely at the windows, there is an outer pane of modern glass, meant - I'm sure - to protect the original glass on the inside. The original glass shows the bumps and mottles of early glass work, a little frozen ocean of silica trapped in a wooden frame. It was dark inside, so I couldn't really make out anything through the glass. Hopefully, I'll be able to take another trip to Ohio in the future and can plan my time better so that I can actually get into the temple.

I walked around to the front, because you never see pictures of the front of the temple. There are two doors, painted green. Stone steps lead up to the doors. Above the doors is a plaque such as can be found on all of our temples, reading "Holiness to the Lord."

I wandered around a bit longer, trying to take in the feeling of the place. Snow has a wonderful ability to muffle ambient noise, while the cold air seems to have a wonderful ability to sharpen sounds. So, standing alone in the snow at the top of a hill beside the first temple in the modern dispensation, I could hear the cold breeze flowing, the occasional snap of a branch buckling under the weight of snow and ice, but little else. My fingers grew sore from the cold air as I walked back towards the visitors' center and turned to take a few more shots with my cell phone's camera. Mercury lamps were starting to turn on and paint the nearby snow in their odd orange-blue color. A bird in a nearby tree startled as I approached and fluttered off to another tree, chirping at me agitatedly.

I thought about this place. Such a simple building, so old, sitting amidst a small town now. Some amazing things happened here, the heavens opened, and descended upon this place. Reading of the manifestations during the dedication, it is almost unbelievable that such things happened, let alone here, in frontier America. I'm glad that I got to see this place, and be there for a little while. And really, I'm glad that I was alone when I first got to see it, so that I could have those moments of solace and just be able to soak it in. Hopefully, I'll get to go back and learn a little bit more about these places, but for now, this was what I needed, and I'm glad I got to see it (and a special thanks to Amy for encouraging me to take the chance while it was available to me).