17 And he did minister many things unto them; and all of them cannot be written, and a part of the would not suffice, therefore they are not written in this book. And Nephi did minister with power and with great authority.
Source
To be honest, I haven't had a charitable heart over the last few months. As current events are enough to rock anyone's boat of peace (well, mine at least), I could offer myself an excuse. But, when I read in the scriptures and see myself shouting back at me, it's a good sign my direction needs a bit of correcting. And by "shouting back", I don't mean telling me all the bad things I've done wrong recently. I mean, all my interpretations mirror my preconceived notions of what the scriptures ought to mean, to me, in my present existence. And so the scriptures are the worst kind of mirror, one that reinforces prejudice in its various forms, and reading them is no longer a spiritual exercise, but the earthly pursuit of being right at all costs.
I will sin a bit now and share one that's been popping up too frequently in my thoughts:
9 And behold, that great city Jacobugath, which was inhabited by the people of king Jacob, have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness, which was above all the wickedness of the whole earth, because of their secret murders and combinations; for it was they that did destroy the peace of my people and the government of the land; therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up unto me any more against them.
Source
The whole point of this post was, originally, to _not_ post that verse. Because of my reaction to it, how it makes me feel about certain things happening in the world today, I knew that this was a bad reason to write about the scriptures. So, why am I being sneaky and looking for a backdoor way to post it here anyways? Well, I hope that by so doing I can point out the greater lesson, at least to me, of my recent thought patterns -- "a part of them would not suffice".
I can see a thousand ways to use this verse for self-serving ends. For instance, I could point out some political ideology, and then posit that said ideology is leading to the destruction of the peace of "the people", and then bam! I win the internet. Thanks, everyone, I hope you enjoyed my ego show. Or, maybe I could pick some gospel topic, and use this verse to demonstrate how any particular slippery slope leads right to the heart of pure evil! BAM! Won the internet again, thank you, and please don't mind my gloating in the comments. And, to go with the sneaky double-back guilt trip, I could use this in conjunction with the title of my blog post to demonstrate how anyone who doesn't think deeply enough about the scriptures is not being righteous! OH SNAP! Now you've gone and done it, won the internet again, and this time with the head fake straight to intellectual superiority. Man I'm awesome. And, for the opus magnus egoist, I could use this as a play on how humble I am, because I alone see that really, what this means is I'm the only one in the universe who understand the true nature of the scriptures, therefore I must write about them! BAM BAM BAM!!! Gunned everyone down with that one, now it's on to the me show and after party, featuring ME, of course.
Writing about spiritual things is, therefore, tightly intertwined with ego (here I go again!). No, I hope that if you ever see someone say something like that, you don't feel guilty, 'cause the worst thing in the world would be, IMO, for people to not share their experiences. And, too often, when I write it does seem a bit like a wrestling match of me vs the universe, and I only "win" if the universe heels to my personal understanding of what THINGS OUGHT TO MEAN! (I apologize for the all-caps, but I want to be open and honest about how these things feel to me sometimes).
The Book of Mormon consists, much of the time, of someone writing about things that other people did. Its namesake, Mormon, shows up as narrator voice in a few places, but really he is transcribing, abridging, and transmitting the shared experiences of a civilization. That's a tall order, and I personally think it's pretty cool that we don't have 600-odd pages just about Mormon (it's o.k., Nephi, we love you...). Mormon does editorialize to an extent, but frequently he gets out of the way so other's experiences shine through. The title for this post is one of those times, and herein is wisdom -- Mormon didn't write something, because he didn't feel like he could convey it correctly. He didn't try to fit what was said into the space he had, nor did he abridge it, nor did he minimize it. Rather, he came upon an experience that he wanted to share, but couldn't, and rather than trying to transmit that experience in anything other than its full truth, he simply said "I can't do this justice, so I'm going to leave it out".
I will now not "call out" anyone for doing the opposite of this. I cringe because I've tried to convey things that were inappropriate to convey for exactly this reason -- I wasn't the person involved, I didn't have time to tell the whole story in all the necessary detail, and most of all it wasn't my experience to share. I think the better path is to meditate upon the experiences of others and cherish them for what they are; the truth of their existence that they chose to share with me. Hopefully I can actually follow that path. And, if you don't, at least understand that I'm right there too. And thank you, everyone, for sharing your time with me. I look forward to much more of it in the future.
