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A few days ago, I dug out my LDS patriarchal blessing to see how I was doing.

Traditionally given to Mormon teens, the blessings are intended to be a spiritual guide for one's life. The blessings are administered by the stake patriarch, invariably a man of considerable spirituality, faithfulness and decorum — or at least someone given to behaving himself.

Pronounced in archaic King James English, the blessing might say something general like "Go thou to church a lot," or even something specific like "Thy friend Ralph is a minion of Satan."

I received my patriarchal blessing a few days before leaving on my mission. It's been years since I looked at it. However, based on what I remembered, there was every reason to believe that I was in trouble.

My renewed interest in what my blessing said stemmed from being given copies of the patriarchal blessings for my father, his father, and his father's father (my great-grandfather).

All their blessings straight-up say they will see the second coming of Christ "in the flesh" — meaning they'll be alive and on Earth to witness it.

There's just a bit of a problem. Actually, it's a pretty big one: Given that two of them are really dead, and the final one is really old, did the rest of us miss something?

My own patriarchal blessing doesn't say anything about me being around for the second coming. It doesn't even say I'll be one of the sinners who gets flash burned during the warmup act.

I can take this a couple of ways. First, that no matter how well I behave, I won't be here on the big day. Second, that somewhere along the way, church patriarchs stopped making "witness the coming of the Lord" an automatic part of the blessing.

One of the elders in a district I served in during my mission got sick and stayed home for a week. While poking around the apartment out of boredom, he found and read my patriarchal blessing. Then the comparisons began.

Him: "Mine says I'll see the second coming, that I was a personal friend of Joseph Smith's in the pre-existence and he will welcome me again, and that one day I shall be included among the most elect of the church."

Me: "Does it say you'll do all of that with a big-ass dent in your head?"

Him: "Well, yours doesn't say anything except about needing to protect yourself from filth."

Me: "So I'll wear gloves."

Whatever else they're meant to be, I don't think patriarchal blessings were ever intended to serve as spiritual pedigrees. They're certainly nothing to wave around and brag about.

Besides, anything a patriarchal blessing says is almost always followed by a big if — as in "if thou art faithful."

One of the last lines in my blessing is: "Remain faithful and thy example will be evident before the world."

Great. Since I'm an ex-cop, father of three daughters (two of whom are crazy), have been called/consigned to work in my ward's nursery, and earn a marginal living at a liberal newspaper, you can tell how poorly I followed the counsel of my patriarchal blessing.

On the other hand, since Elder What's-His-Face got divorced twice and ended up in frequent trouble with the law, I'm OK with how my blessing worked.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby.