because there were no more Calvin and Hobbes
The Books of Mosiah and Alma are this time of great cultural ferment that I’m calling Nephite Modernity.
Something odd I’ve just noticed. The phrase “wives and children,” “our wives and our children,” “their wives and their children,” shows up 20 times in the Book of Mormon. 16 of those times are in Mosiah and Alma. 1 is in Mormon, 1 in is 3 Nephi, and 2 are in Ether.
You: What does it mean, G?
G: I don’t know what it means, you.
It does reinforce the idea that the Mosiah-Alma era is a distinct era. It also makes me wonder if the translation of the Book of Ether is responsible for this phrase taking off with the Nephites.
Alma’s approach with his wayward son is interesting. He doesn’t just teach doctrine alone. He doesn’t just rebuke alone.
He starts specific: identifies the sin, rebukes it, and discusses the consequences. He also discusses the specific doctrine. Fornication and harlotry is a great sin and will lead to damnation is not repented of. He then spirals out to more general doctrine about the resurrection, choice, and agency.
I liked it.
As you know, I am reading the Book of Mormon this year in light of Lehi’s Dream. My main insight from Lehi’s dream is that it describes an iterative process where people take of the fruit repeatedly, and where many of the images in the dream are actually repetitions of the same process of coming to Christ over and over again in an upward spiral.
So it was interesting to have a belated insight about Alma’s seed in Alma 32–a chapter with obvious connections to Lehi’s dream since Alma describes the ‘fruit’ of the successful seed with references to the fruit in Lehi’s Dream.
Here is the belated insight–Alma is also talking about an iterative repeated process. That’s evident for two reasons. First, he says that when you cease to have faith that the seed is good because you know it is, you still need to nourish the ‘tree.’ Second, in Alma 32:34, when someone reaches a stage of knowledge he doesn’t say that their faith goes away. He says it becomes dormant, i.e., waiting for the next time you need it. Dormant and dead and done are not the same thing.
Actually, the reign of the judges did, title deliberately eyecatching.
I continue to reel from my realization this time through the Book of Mormon that switching from the kingship to the judgeship was a disaster that resulted in stacks of corpses year after year after year. (Which is not the same as saying it was wrong, Mosiah was in a genuinely tough spot and perhaps there was a window for a better response that key people chose not to take.) But setting aside any moral judgment it was just a disaster in fact and a case could be made that the entire destruction of the Nephite people hundreds of years later was just the result of the judgeship (it’s not a slam dunk case because of the supervening Savior, but the argument would be something like Judges–>Gadiantons–>rot of Nephite culture that revived after the Savior’s influence wore off. I’ll sit down to think about it more seriously at some point.)
Anyhow, these were my thoughts in the dark. It’s 3 AM and I’m lying in the dark trying to solve the problems of a foreign culture 20 centuries in the past. What my brain is telling me is that what the reign of the judges really needed was a king. It was an experimental system and it really needed someone running the experiment. The judge couldn’t be that person because the judge was a product of the system. It needed Eternal Mosiah.
I am impressed with how much truth Alma 32:32 packs into a simple sentence.
Therefore, if a seed groweth it is good, but if it groweth not, behold it is not good, therefore it is cast away.
There’s nothing in there about whether the seed is unblemished or whether it might need some pruning when it grows, or suffer some partial dieback at one point. Nothing at all. If it grows, its good.
Perfection is the destination, not the journey. Enjoy the journey.
The sun hasn’t quite set on America’s vacation from history but for Alma, as for many souls throughout the history of mankind, mass death was a reality.
And from the first year to the fifteenth has brought to pass the destruction of many thousand lives; yea, it has brought to pass an awful scene of bloodshed.
And the bodies of many thousands are laid low in the earth, while the bodies of many thousands are moldering in heaps upon the face of the earth
I do not recommend.
It starts out winsome. Extremely winsome. A cozy alternate history where England is still half-medieval, half-Victorian. Ornate trains whisk sturdy yeomen over Channel-spanning bridges on pilgrimages to Rome. Diplomats gather to pay their respects to England’s fallen king as the sung notes of the funeral mass soar in a time-hallowed cathedral. (The protagonist is one of the choir boys singing said funeral mass)
It’s fun.
But the one thing you can’t have in a mid-century novel is fun.
The trek is not over.
What is Freedom?
There are many different definitions of freedom floating around. They contradict each other, and they all have their limits. Worse, there are some actual experiences of freedom that don’t fit any of the definitions and at least on their face contradict each other.
So I am going to propose a new definition.
A Mexican-American kid on a temporary work assignment in our ward spoke about freedom last Sunday. He apparently had some real interest in the subject of free agency and freedom on his mission to the Midwest and talked with various Saints there about it, and gleamed some interesting insights. He concluded that for him freedom was freedom to become (like Christ).
That struck me profoundly and instead of listening to the remainder of his talk as he moved on to other subjects, I mulled over freedom.
Let’s talk about the experience first. Freedom is first and foremost something we know from the inside. I have had real felt experiences of freedom and so have you.
A modern day parable of the refiner’s fire:
If you treat wood so that it partially destroys the inner structure, then subject it to heat, and pressure, it ends up stronger than steel.
Can literally stop bullets.
The greatest sculptor who ever lived began where Michelangelo left off. He made statues that changed their meaning a hundred times as you walked around it. He made great, towering works that shifted their content as you walked towards them–the work was not just one sculpture of genius but several, depending on your angle. He made outdoor pieces whose meaning and beauty shifted with the sun.
That was the first phase of his work. (more…)
No unclean thing can enter the kingdom of heaven.
Christ cleans every repentant thing.
WARNING: Political musings follow. (more…)