People in the middle of a divorce talk about falling out of love, as if there's nothing they can do about it. Scripturally, we're commanded to "love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart, might, mind, and strength," which suggests there's more to loving someone than falling under some arbitrary spell over which we have no control. To love is an active verb.
D&C 38 famously informs us, "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear." So why is it that the most serious "preppers" are often the most fearful and paranoid? It happened to me, as I improved my own preparedness and collected my all-important Year's Supply. It turns out that figuring out how to prepare for all kinds of different disasters teaches a person a great deal, most of which revolves around just how many different disasters are possible.
I wonder if we're preparing for the wrong thing. D&C 38:8,9 -- But the day soon cometh that ye shall see me, and know that I am; for the veil of darkness shall soon be rent, and he that is not purified shall not abide the day. Wherefore, gird up your loins and be prepared. Behold, the kingdom is yours, and the enemy shall not overcome. Funny, that doesn't say anything about guns or food storage. Instead it says we should be purified, and that we'll soon know that Christ lives. Maybe that's what being "prepared" refers to: being purified, and prepared to meet Christ. But wait -- later on it starts talking about the wars and violence our 400 pounds of wheat per person is supposed to get us through: D&C 38:28,29 -- And again, I say unto you that the enemy in the secret chambers seeketh your lives. Ye hear of wars in far countries, and you say that there will soon be great wars in far countries, but ye know not the hearts of men in your own land. There it is: your neighbors are conspiring against you! Now it's going to tell us how to prepare, right? D&C 38:30 -- I tell you these things because of your prayers; wherefore, treasure up wisdom in your bosoms, lest the wickedness of men reveal these things unto you by their wickedness, in a manner which shall speak in your ears with a voice louder than that which shall shake the earth; but if ye are prepared ye shall not fear. Note that it doesn't say anything about getting food and learning to smite your enemies. Instead, it says we should treasure up wisdom in our bosoms. I guess that's what it really means to be "prepared". Maybe with enough wisdom, we won't fear. I should note here that I have nothing against the idea of preparing to weather a disaster. That so many of us have no savings, can't go more than three days without help from a grocery store or Burger King, and blindly expect that in any serious difficulty the government will arrive on its white horse to rescue us from our own stupidity and blindness, is horrifying. Our unending refrain that our New World has somehow evolved its way out of the violent and degenerate nature that has characterized all prior humanity remains standing only because we regularly shore it up with carefully cultivated cognitive dissonance and historical apathy. I'm grateful for what my family has done to keep us alive through troubled times. But that's not what the scriptures mean whey they ask us to be "prepared". Mormons like to parade Joseph Smith's perfections about as testament to his prophetic glory. An unschooled farm boy raised in poverty, they say, must have enjoyed uncommon heavenly help to learn the scriptures as he did, learn to write as he did, and so on. Though these claimed demonstrations of divine approval probably don't miss the mark by much, they also don't prove Joseph Smith was a prophet, and they gloss over Joseph's flaws. "Anti-Mormons" on the other hand, or more generally those who would dismiss Joseph Smith as a fraud, focus on his mistakes, or in any case on stuff that appears to our modern eyes as foolish, misguided, or downright sinful. Plural marriage in its different forms springs immediately to mind, as does his adherence to folk magic, his translation of the Kinderhook plates (and, for that matter, of the Book of Abraham), and so on. The Doctrine and Covenants itself provides examples of Joseph Smith's shortcomings; as early as section 3, the Lord commands him to repent and describes in some detail the nature of Joseph's mistakes.
And therein lies the key to the matter: a prophet is no more perfect than any of the rest of us, no matter how exultantly we proclaim the praises of whichever mortals we currently call prophets, and no matter how disastrously they prove their fallibility. Moses, for example, messed up badly enough he wasn't allowed to enter the land he'd led his people toward for forty years. Yet apparently the Lord approved of him anyway, because he was assigned to appear on the Mount of Transfiguration. The Lord is far more ready to forgive and comfort us than we are often willing to accept. For instance, the Missouri saints were driven out of their homes and suffered terrible hardships not, as we love to believe, because of religiously intolerant neighbors and wanton frontier violence, but because of their "jarrings, and contentions, and envyings, and strifes, and lustful and covetous desires" (D&C 101:6) Because of those sins, many were killed and all were forced to leave their belongings and run, and yet the Lord was still willing not just to forgive but to save them, comfort them, crown them, and make them His jewels (v. 3, 9-15). It will never do to dismiss Joseph Smith as a prophet simply because of his imperfections. When the Lord says He gives men weakness that they may be humble (Ether 12:27) He doesn't somehow exempt the prophets. Anti-Smith claims simply tell us what we already knew -- that he was human. This should not discourage us from studying his teachings; it should teach us that if a mortal, flawed much like we are ourselves, can gain God's favor, so can we. "God hath not revealed anything to Joseph, but what he will make known unto the Twelve, and even the least Saint may know all things as fast as he is able to bear them." (Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith) That is comfortable and beautiful doctrine. |
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