What Hasn't Changed
What changed overnight was how I think about people. And that change was not subtle. Maybe I sin in my new cynicism and mistrust: I certainly mourn. But I feel what I feel, and I'm not going to pretend. Perhaps my sin was relying on the arm of flesh, as the scripture probably goes. Or maybe I did not sin at all, and this is one of the consequences of earth life.
In this absurd proportion of grief and drama precipitated by a long series of horrifyingly bad collective decisions, I am grasping for an eternal perspective: truths that will give me some firm ground to stand on, and maybe even allow me to move forward.
The Book of Mormon is the singularly most depressing book I have ever read - and I've read several slogs by Thomas Hardy. Book of Mormon prophets Mormon and Moroni witnessed the destruction of their people. Older records describe armies literally killing each-other down to the last man until whole nations were corpses and the water was blood.
There is no easy comfort in this story - no happy ending - and even God weeps to see his children destroyed. Sometimes we, too, will weep for each-other. Every time we read the book of Ether, for instance.
The climax, and thematic center of all of the book's saga, though, was the advent of Jesus Christ, and during the most difficult times, He never abandoned His prophets.
That has not changed. God cannot change the path of a whole country determined on self-destruction (whatever form you fear that destruction will take). God does not undermine our agency, collectively or singly. But God works with individuals and inside hearts. No matter how hardened or empty other hearts become, inside or outside the church, He will not withdraw or give up on any heart willing to accept Him.
That is the rock. Any heart that lets Christ in increases the light in the world. Sometimes we bask in daylight, and sometimes we have to illuminate the darkness, but God is constant.
In this absurd proportion of grief and drama precipitated by a long series of horrifyingly bad collective decisions, I am grasping for an eternal perspective: truths that will give me some firm ground to stand on, and maybe even allow me to move forward.
The Book of Mormon is the singularly most depressing book I have ever read - and I've read several slogs by Thomas Hardy. Book of Mormon prophets Mormon and Moroni witnessed the destruction of their people. Older records describe armies literally killing each-other down to the last man until whole nations were corpses and the water was blood.
There is no easy comfort in this story - no happy ending - and even God weeps to see his children destroyed. Sometimes we, too, will weep for each-other. Every time we read the book of Ether, for instance.
The climax, and thematic center of all of the book's saga, though, was the advent of Jesus Christ, and during the most difficult times, He never abandoned His prophets.
That has not changed. God cannot change the path of a whole country determined on self-destruction (whatever form you fear that destruction will take). God does not undermine our agency, collectively or singly. But God works with individuals and inside hearts. No matter how hardened or empty other hearts become, inside or outside the church, He will not withdraw or give up on any heart willing to accept Him.
That is the rock. Any heart that lets Christ in increases the light in the world. Sometimes we bask in daylight, and sometimes we have to illuminate the darkness, but God is constant.
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