1 Nephi 16

So when I finished, they said, “You’re killing us, brother. This is tough love in the form of a sermon.” I told them that, well, yes, when you’re guilty and wicked and, well, rude, you do tend to think the truth is hard. It cuts to the bone. “Now, if you want to change, fine. That blunts the edge of what I’m saying.” I told them again to change. And they did, pretty implausibly at this point in our relationship. But I had high hopes for them. These things were said and done as my father dwelt in a tent in the valley called Lemuel.

Oh, different subject: did I tell you about my girlfriend? One of Ishmael’s daughters, on whom I’d had my eye for awhile. My brothers married other daughters. Zoram did too. Quite a haul. And a good deal for Ishmael, although we had to improvise dowries. (Seeds and nuts, anyone?)

So we’d done everything Dad set out to get done. Then God started talking to him again.

One night he heard that voice tell him that the next day we were supposed to drag up his tent and move further out into the wilds. The next morning he went out the tent door to do his business. Then he saw it: a big brass ball with two spindles that pointed in opposite directions. One spindle pointed the way we should go, Dad said. But how he knew which direction to pick was a tough one, since they pointed in opposite directions.

We packed up and got ready to move. We crossed the River Laman, traveled for four more days south-southeast, then pitched our tents, proclaiming that this was now the land of “Shazer.” We took out our bows, arrows, and slings, shot some game, cooked it up, slept, and moved on, staying in the vegetated areas near the banks of the Red Sea. Days of this, killing, eating, sleeping, and moving on, all the time following the ball, then pitching tents when we needed to. And after days of this, we rest ourselves for a time.

One time I went out to hunt and broke my expensive high-tech metal bow, which made my brothers mad because either (a) mine was the best bow, (b) I was the best shot, (c) I was the least lazy, or (d) all of the above. When I came back with no food, they were mad, although a little less vocal to me about it, because they had wives to vent with now. Bi-genderal pit parties it started to feel like. So I gave them all what-for, made a wood bow and one arrow, then asked Dad where he thought I should go to kill something. He asked God—no surprise there— and God told him to buck up and stop complaining. Which sent him into an emotional tailspin.

So God told him to look at our magic ball and see what was written on it. (I forgot to mention the writing part earlier.) He looked and freaked out. It wasn’t very kind to any of us, yours truly excepted. I noticed that the ball’s pointers only moved when we had faith and would do what it said. And the writing on it kept changing, based, apparently on God’s mood with respect to us, given our vascillating behavior. This all goes to show that by small, and usually weird, things God can make great things happen.

Suddenly the ball pointed up toward a mountain top. Dad was too depressed, so I went up. Animals everywhere and I killed them, I don’t even remember how, since I only had one arrow. But who cares? It was a miracle that came from this crazy ball. So we all sang, gave thanks, and ate like starving Middle Easterners.

Then back to our slogging through the wilderness. It was like we were trying to reenact Moses’ wanderings with old-time Israel. Walking, shooting, pitching tents, on and on. Not surprisingly, we had our first casualty: Ishmael, who collapsed. We buried him in a place we called Nahom, which means … I can’t remember.

Obviously, Ishmael’s daughters couldn’t stop crying and wailing, old-timey Israeli lamentation. And they blamed my dad for their dad’s death. Which made sense, of course. What had they gotten out of this excursion except blisters and, in a couple of cases, deadbeat husbands? They listed all they’d gone through, which seemed overkill, since we’d all been through the same stuff. But death hits you hard, especially when you don’t have a home. So they wanted to head back to Jerusalem. They decided the best way to do this was to start by killing Dad and me.

Women. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live with ‘em.

Egged on by Laman, the women and Lemuel rattled off Dad’s claims to revelation, angelic visits, and so forth, concluding that he was really a scam artist and control freak who’d conned us all into leaving our regular support systems so he could bully us around till he died. They all bitched, I preached back, they conspired, I threatened them in the name of God, and guess who won? I’m the one writing the book, right?