This must be the saddest chapter of the entire Book of Mormon. I do think the final chapters of the Jaredite's story in the Book of Ether are pretty sad, but this seems worse. Maybe it's because this was the people chosen to take the place of the Jaredites. They were a branch of the olive tree that was from natural roots, not wild, and they brought forth bitter fruit and will be cast into the fire. Mormon tells us of the type of wickedness of the Lamanites and Nephites. You can tell that his soul was in anguish at their sins and especially for the sins related to chastity and virtue.
vs 21 Mormon says he cannot recommend them to God. I wonder if this is a role that he as a prophet of God knows he will have to do at the judgement bar of God. vs 22 he takes comfort that he can recommend his son.
vs 23 As I was reading the first verses of the chapter and hearing Mormon mention the deaths of Archeantus, Luram, and Emron and I thought, what if those were brothers of Moroni's. There is nothing in the scriptures to support this, but I thought, even if they are not. What if they were in the other list of men mentioned in the book of Mormon that fell with each of their 10,000. In the end it doesn't really matter, but maybe Mormon did have other children and a wife and what was their experience through all of this? I just feel sad for Mormon and Moroni and the loneliness of their leadership.
The big question that circles in my mind is what does all of this teach us as a church, a community, a country, and most importantly as a family and as an individual? We must see clearly the pride cycle it is a theme that I hear in other discussions outside of reading the Book of Mormon. I learned of the Sigmoid curve yesterday, I think this could be related to the price cycle. It is what it looks like when the pride cycle is broken. It very literally is the antithesis of the pride cycle which forms a circle. If you break that circle what would it look like? It would either be a spiral down or a spiral up. The spiral up looks like the Sigmoid curve. On an individual level Brandon W. calls it "drift". In other scriptural terms I think the Lord calls it the straight and narrow way that leads to eternal life. Because the way is so straight and so narrow, Lehi saw in his vision of it the need to have a rod of iron to cling to so as to make it to the final destination.
I plead in prayer to find and stay precisely in the center of that straight and narrow path and for some ability to help my family to do the same.
vs 21 Mormon says he cannot recommend them to God. I wonder if this is a role that he as a prophet of God knows he will have to do at the judgement bar of God. vs 22 he takes comfort that he can recommend his son.
vs 23 As I was reading the first verses of the chapter and hearing Mormon mention the deaths of Archeantus, Luram, and Emron and I thought, what if those were brothers of Moroni's. There is nothing in the scriptures to support this, but I thought, even if they are not. What if they were in the other list of men mentioned in the book of Mormon that fell with each of their 10,000. In the end it doesn't really matter, but maybe Mormon did have other children and a wife and what was their experience through all of this? I just feel sad for Mormon and Moroni and the loneliness of their leadership.
The big question that circles in my mind is what does all of this teach us as a church, a community, a country, and most importantly as a family and as an individual? We must see clearly the pride cycle it is a theme that I hear in other discussions outside of reading the Book of Mormon. I learned of the Sigmoid curve yesterday, I think this could be related to the price cycle. It is what it looks like when the pride cycle is broken. It very literally is the antithesis of the pride cycle which forms a circle. If you break that circle what would it look like? It would either be a spiral down or a spiral up. The spiral up looks like the Sigmoid curve. On an individual level Brandon W. calls it "drift". In other scriptural terms I think the Lord calls it the straight and narrow way that leads to eternal life. Because the way is so straight and so narrow, Lehi saw in his vision of it the need to have a rod of iron to cling to so as to make it to the final destination.
I plead in prayer to find and stay precisely in the center of that straight and narrow path and for some ability to help my family to do the same.
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