These chapters are parallel with chapter 29, including the verse about ‘a marvelous work and a wonder’. Like Ch. 29, this shows that the Lord’s plans are unaffected by invaders, and that the Lord always has the last word. (31:1-8) The theme of ch. 29 is the need for and the work of divine transformation, the “Marvelous Work and a Wonder”, which is the doctrinal / spiritual perspective. Ch. 31-32 discuss the work of divine transformation from a temporal perspective.

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The beaver proposed building a dam on  the creek, but the creatures who dwelled on the bank naturally demurred.

The beaver then returned with a new proposal.  He would place sticks and logs in the stream so that if a creature fell in, it might find something to cling to.  This safety measure, he averred, if done properly, might even offer an easy way to cross the waters.

He received their assent.

Unaccountably, after he had installed his safety measure-cum-transport option, the creek flooded.

Oh my, the beaver said.  I will have to add more safety measures, they are needed now more than ever.

My daughter helped me solve a puzzle about peace.

Quotes below are excerpts from her journal she sent me.

In my Classical Civilization class we spent a lot of time talking about what violence does to us psychologically/when it invests us so heavily in a story.  One guy said something I thought was really cool – he said that that’s something we’re drawn too because God is perfectly violent – (sometimes death is merciful) and that same ability to conquer/defend/protect is sooo appealing to us, but easy to get wrong.

Then a ton of girls raised their hands and just tore into this guy.  “God isn’t violent.  He’s the opposite.  He is loving and kind and anything violent ever comes from the devil” etc.  [No wonder guys today are emasculated.  God is being emasculated.]

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Heckuva graph

From this article on dedollarization

I gather there is currently an Argentine firebrand politician, he hates leftists and such, who has a real chance of being elected to office.

Looking it up . . . His name is Milei and he’s running for President, which must be an office of real power in Argentina from the way the news articles talk about it.

Anyhow, last night I dreamed that in the late 40s Hercule Poirot saw the shape of the disaster to come in our civilization and fled to Argentina to set up a small cohort of people dedicated to preserving a remnant of the old civilization and eventually to fight back.  Over the years the group grew in strength and ability until they finally felt able to offer one of their own, Milei, for President of Argentina.

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So much depends on whether you are an advanced animal or an immature angel.

On whether you are the top of your genus or a toddler god.

Even some people who theoretically believe the latter fall into thinking that God is grading them and will grade on a curve because, after all, they are doing pretty good for talking plains monkey.  In the reality God is not grading you at all, He’s raising you, He loves you as you are, but He doesn’t intend for you to stay that way.  He intends for you to grow up.

From Eric, in the Anti Nephi Lehi post

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I’m reminded of a story President Eyring told in conference about a man who had once been a district missionary companion of his. The man had a pretty rough past that included a bitter divorce and losing his children, along with losing an eye in an accident, before coming back to the Church when he discovered a copy of the Book of Mormon in the bottom of a trunk. Brother Eyring described one time when he and the man were teaching together:

I asked the people we were teaching, as I testified of the power of the Savior’s Atonement, to look at him. He had been washed clean and given a new heart, and I knew they would see that in his face. I told the people that what they saw was evidence that the Atonement of Jesus Christ could wash away all the corrosive effects of sin.

That was the only time he ever rebuked me. He told me in the darkness outside the trailer where we had been teaching that I should have told the people that while God was able to give him a new heart, He had not been able to give him back his wife and his children and what he might have done for them. But he had not looked back in sorrow and regret for what might have been. He moved forward, lifted by faith, to what yet might be.

One day he told me that in a dream the night before, the sight in his blind eye was restored. He realized that the dream was a glimpse of a future day, walking among loving people in the light of a glorious resurrection. Tears of joy ran down the deeply lined face of that towering, raw-boned man. He spoke to me quietly, with a radiant smile. I don’t remember what he said he saw, but I remember that his face shone with happy anticipation as he described the view. With the Lord’s help and the miracle of that book in the bottom of a trunk, it had not for him been too late nor the way too hard.

While repentance and accepting the atonement set us in the right direction, we shouldn’t be surprised when some things, like a missing eye, aren’t set right until the resurrection.

Oh, I say, dash it, ye olde witches were rather sporting.  Dashed adventurous of the old biddies.  But one rather draws the line at hog pens.

It occurred to me that the Anti Nephi Lehis are a type of the view we have that judgment is when capabilities we absolutely cannot handle well are stripped from us.

A lot of people in the Church are extremely whiny about the idea that repentance might not completely wipe away the effects of some kinds of sin, especially sexual sin.  Be very careful about what analogy or metaphor you use to describe it or else the Analogy Police and the Metaphor Cops will descend upon you.  (And you will inevitably be accused of fostering suicide).

But.

Dangit, I’m going to poke the tiger.  (Sorry if the tiger is you.  Sorry sorry sorry).

The thing is, a lot of sin IS like nailing a board.  When you repent the nails gets removed, the damage stops, the board is fit for the purpose again, but it still has a nail hole.  Getting back into grace is sweet and right but your life doesn’t instantly jump timelines and get back on the track you would have been sans sin.  The effects can linger for months, years, or a lifetime.

Look at the Anti Nephi Lehis.  Because of their sins of rage, they had to lay down their weapons and become pacifists.  The capability and the blessings of self-defense and righteous physical power were denied them for a generation.  There were other blessings that came of it, their magnificent martyrdom for instance, but they couldn’t just act like the thing they repented of had never happened.

P.S.  What are the best theories about what Anti Nephi Lehi means anyway?  I remember reading something in the good ol’ days of FARMS, but can’t find it now for some reason.

Job 3.  Job has just had everything bad happen to him, including boils erupting all over his flesh.

He does not curse God.  Instead he curses the day he was born.

Sometimes in our circles I have seen a tendency to think that someone who doesn’t like a trial or adversity is being unfaithful.  the logic seems to be that if God sent you the trial then being angry at the trial is the same at being angry at God.  Job’s example shows otherwise.  Unpleasant things are unpleasant.  Unhappiness when something unhappy happens is not faithless.

Elevating doctrine about Christ in the flesh surrounded by a mountain of frippery

I approve.

Several years ago I wrote one of my better parables about two friends in an airport, and one of you invented Airport Friend.  Airport Friend changed a good parable to a great one.  Partly because Airport Friend, though deluded, seems like a pretty cool guy or gal.

Airport Friend would be amazing to spend time with in Paris.

Short read, check it out.

It is  a valuable spiritual practice from time to time to do a half-baked slipshod job of filling out forms.

“The one who is close to me is close to the fire. The one who is far from me is far from the kingdom.”

Lost saying of Jesus.

This feels right and true.

In my dream there must have been some kind of partial collapse because Greater Deseret was an independent state. We trumpeted how well we treated other religions here–news articles about Stake Presidents helping to build some sect’s church house, things like that–both because it made us feel good ourselves but also for good relations with other American countries, some of which had strong religious interests of their own.

This worked well until in a town on what is now Colorado’s western slope (Paonia, I think) the Methodists acquired prime main street property right in front of our temple and wanted to build to block its view. They also proposed a couple of inflammatory features, signage and statuary designed to give us the finger. We denied the permit and they made a lot of hay of it. In fact, it was a bit of an international hullaboo. The upshot was that they got to build their chapel (without the inflammatory signage and statuary).

What we did do was rebuild our temple. To make a point, I suppose, the part directly behind chapel we left empty. But for the rest we made the temple huge, completely dominating their chapel. Looming over it really. It was more horrifying than anything.