rattlesnakes, robbers, & right and wrong

a small group of friends were hiking through the desert. they were laughing and talking, joking around with each other... that's why they didn't hear the warning signs. in fact, none of them had a clue they were inches from a rattlesnake until it struck, piercing one boy's leg just above the ankle. the other two boys ran off after the snake, tromping through the sagebrush wielding nothing but their pocket knives. they searched til nearly sundown when they finally found the snake and made swift retribution with their little pocket knives. they ran back to their friend, dead snake in tow. they were exultant! their friend would be so glad they had gotten that stupid snake... only he wasn't. he wasn't anything. because while they were tromping off after the assailant, the venom had spread through his body. the boy was dead.

we, america, have killed our snake. revenge was not swift. the consequences were not minimal. the devastation that has occurred in the wake is far too copious to overlook. but now that snake cannot bite anyone else. this is a good thing. it really is. but there are a lot of other snakes, and the battle has only just begun. and our country has suffered immensely for it, for this desire for revenge or retribution... while we've been away chasing a snake, our homefront has amassed an incredible amount of debt, million are homeless and unemployed, our reputation with former allies has been tarnished. we have died a bit and a poison has begun to spread.

two things come to mind... (before i continue it's worth noting that i see the world through a religious lens. i believe in God. i believe in Christ. i believe in the validity of records of mens dealings with God, namely the Bible and Book of Mormon.) and in the Book of Mormon there is a story of a prophet's son named Nephi. He and his family lived in Jerusalem, but the Lord instructed them to flee to the wilderness due to the wickedness and impending destruction of the city. After trekking for weeks, the Lord said they needed to return to Jerusalem to get a record known as the Brass Plates, basically a set of scripture much like our old testament. So Nephi and his brothers went back.

A very wicked man, a city official, was in possession of the record, and after several failed attempts at reasoning and bartering with him for the Brass Plates, the brothers were ready to give up. But Nephi refused to return to his parents in the wilderness without the record, and went into the city by night. He stumbled upon a drunk man, passed out in the streets of Jerusalem. It was the wicked city official, the one who was in possession of the record. And here's the shocker... Nephi was then instructed by the Lord to kill this man. More specifically, he was told, "... the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief." (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 4:14)

pause.
reread.
think.
formulate your own opinions...

interesting, no? 

applicable?

Joseph Smith (a man i believe was called of God to be a prophet) said, "That which is wrong under one circumstance may be and often is right under another. God said, 'Thou shalt not kill.' At another time He said, 'Thou shalt utterly destroy.' This is the principle on which the government in Heaven is conducted, by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the Kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is. Although we may not see the reason thereof until long after the events transpire." now i'm not saying osama's death was revealed or inspired of God, but i find it difficult to discern whether it's right or wrong. his death, i mean. this a rarity for me... i'm a very black-and-white person. i see things as either good and leading us towards God, or bad and authored by the devil. it's almost as if the only way i can explain the bin Laden situation is to say the death of him is beneficial to mankind, the pursuit of him was not. but that makes absolutely no sense, so i'm not satisfied with stopping there.

so... onto the other story this whole situation has brought to mind, also from the Book of Mormon (it's my favorite little book of life-lessons-learned....) his name was Gadianton. he was so incredibly wicked. right up there with Hitler, bin Laden, and Scar (the wicked uncle on Lion King... bad bad lion). Gadianton was bff with the devil. they worked together, had promises and made oaths with each other. About 20 years before Christ was born over in Jerusalem, Gadianton was spinning an intricate web of wickedness over in the Ancient Americas. he had a group, a gang called the Gadianton Robbers. in our day we would call them terrorists. they hid in the mountains where the government couldn't find them. they stole crops, animals, people... they incited violence and warfare, rooted fear in the hearts of the righteous. eventually they even usurped power and infiltrated the government. in the end, the Gadianton Robbers were the prime motivator behind the destruction of an entire righteous civilization.

why?

and can we learn from this, or will we continue to witness our own demise at the hand of terrorists?

i'm still formulating my thoughts and opinions, but here's what i think it all comes down to: fear. "doubt and fear will never exist in the minds of man at the same time alongside faith. it is impossible. one or the other will leave, faith or doubt and fear." (joseph smith)

do you believe that? i believe that. i believe that when a person, or a community, or a country bases it's decisions, and eventually actions, on fear, then we don't leave ourselves room to act on more noble motivators. love. compassion. peace. understanding. empathy. faith.

had the hiking boys had compassion on the pain of their fallen friend, rather than a fear of the snake's bite, his life would have been spared. and perhaps it is better to spare a good life than to take a bad life. 

martin luther king, jr. said it better, 

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, 

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. 

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

Through violence you may murder the liar, 

but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. 

Through violence you may murder the hater, 

but you do not murder hate. 

In fact, violence merely increases hate. 

So it goes. 

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, 

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. 

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: 

only light can do that. 

Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(via my friend annie w.)

we have obtained a small victory, but perhaps the greater victory would be a restoration of the faith of the american people. faith in our government. faith in our economy. faith in our constitution. faith in our God.