My Shepherd will Supply My Need

That hymn moves me greatly. When the choir sung in General Conference this last time I was rapt. I had a sort of a reverie or daydream.

There is a vast, corrupt empire. There is a little frontier war being fought. The center of the Empire hardly cares, but it is a desperate struggle for the ones fighting it. Their foe, a people of tribes and villages, is outnumbered but deadly. And of course in the way of things in a vast corrupt Empire, their strength isn’t being brought to bear. Funds and men are frittered away, bizarre orders are given, competent leaders seemingly reassigned at random.

But the Empire soldiers are far enough away and left enough to their own devices that over time they develop their own identity and even something like elan. Perhaps the single biggest factor is the enemy’s battle song. It is not a fierce song.  It is unspeakably sweet.  It is a song of the tragedy and glory of the fighting both sides do, and of respect for all who stand and fight in spite of fears. It points to something greater than this fight or even this war.  The song includes the Empire soldiers. They are greatly moved by it. They have a higher conception of who they are because of it. They act with greater valor, but also with greater kindness to their foe. They respect their foe. Unlike in every other imperial campaign, they don’t commit atrocities or tortures or brutalities. Even though they are engaged in a campaign of naked conquest for a nasty imperial center, in some ways the struggle has become noble on both sides.

That soon ends. In the way of corrupt empires, demanding results without supplying resources, commissars are sent to figure out why the conquest hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe the commissars were sent specifically because of a rumor that these imperial soldiers were treating the native peoples decently. Either way, the commissars soon find out about the decent treatment and put a stop to it. They relieve a few officers, execute a few, and everyone else reluctantly falls into line.

The enemy people soon fall with the usual rapine, destruction, and slavery. The troops are disbanded and a new occupying force is sent in.

—

It is a year later. It is very, very early in the morning, a cheerless dawn over the imperial capital. There is a leaden, exhausted quiet. The vast rambling structure on a low hill where the empire has its center, full of squat domes, still has some lights on from late revels and dissipations, and perhaps a few faint shrieks from late tortures, but even there little is happening.

There is a vast empty square in front of the main entrance to the imperial complex. It is gray and full of shadows in the faint morning light.

Suddenly you notice that some of the shadows are shifting on the far side of the square from the entrance. There are men there in gray uniforms moving furtively. They are men from the frontier war. Suddenly there is a signal, a shot rings out, and the far side of the square erupts with men running towards the complex at a dead sprint. They are armed and carrying ladders and other siege equipment. Some are trundling carts.

The guards are late to react but they do. Horns start sounding. Scattered alarms. Feet come pounding. The portcullis comes creaking down. Flaming oil is thrown from the wall into the moat.

The men in gray shove the cart under the portcullis before it can come all the way down. The guards start hacking at it, it blocks the entrance enough that the men in gray can’t pour past it easily. Meanwhile other men in gray are trying to throw planks across the moat but are hampered by the flames and the difficulty of steadying them to reach the other side.

One of the frontier soldiers leaps onto the cart and then down under the portcullis, swinging his sword madly. He is singing. Another leaps into the flaming waters and starts towing the plank bridge to the other side. He is singing. They are all singing.