Helaman 12

Alright, my turn. Here goes: Men’s emotions and motivations lie. They swerve and tilt unpredictably. God merely asks that men stop lying and, may I say, “go steady.”

Here’s how he works: When people honor him, or at least remember him kindly in what they do, he

—fattens their crop yields

—makes their livestock more fertile

—shows them where to find gold and silver

—squashes their enemies

—increases longevity

—makes people who hate them hate them less

And when he’s done with this checklist, people immediately turn on him. They

—use his scriptures to wipe their feet

—emotionally freeze up

—scratch their heads and say, “Wachoo talkin’ ‘bout, Mr. Prophet?”

Money warps people like that. (Same with all the things money supplies or insures.)

So God messes with people’s self-conception by sending

—disease

—drought

—spoilage

—household pests

—mosquitoes

—panic attacks

Nevertheless, men remain

—foolish

—devious

—overstimulated with ambition

—morally narcotized

—near-irreversibly hypnotized by transient sensory flagellation and the perverse cattle-prod of low-grade eroticism

—in a hurry to brag

—in no hurry to focus on anything smart, except in the sense of “smart” fashion or hair styles

God says, “I’m good.” They say, “And your name is …?”

They want adventure. But they don’t want a guide for it.

Think of it this way: in a contest between men and dust, dust wins. Because dust has no self-will but follows the wind patterns that God set up in this lavish interconnectedness we call “nature.” Indeed, dust is the most refined aspect of geology, about which God is quite fond.

He likes mountains getting squeezed up from tectonic plates, likes the ground shaking in the process, can’t get enough of erosion (he loves the epochal time scale—just his speed). Sometimes he’ll even bark like thunder, disrupting the steady and more or less constant wave forms that wrap the earth like a shawl. He also likes to do seismic prop comedy, elbowing mountains out of place, dumping snow on landfills, that sort of thing.

He goes for cosmological impressions too: making you think the sun stood still, when it never moves anyway. Or making people hallucinate polar zones where it never gets dark. Or never gets light.

He also goes for epic drought illusions: the whole ocean drying up, a sort of reverse mirage. Very psychedelic. He’s insatiable.

He can even pull a mountain up by its roots and drop it on a city. He’s never done that, so far as I know. But it’s in his notebook for possible stunts.

Oh, and he also has this thing where he plays hide and seek with buried treasure. You bury it and either he makes you forget where it was, lose the map you made, or kills you before you can dig it up and spend it.

Of course, since he can curse you for eternity—or spare you— the rest of this is pretty small potatoes. He doesn’t want to curse, I should add. He actually wants everyone to go to heaven, where he lives. But that requires the kind of self-surgery you’ve read lots about in this book by now.

So … Listen to God’s message, live it, and reap the benefits. Pretty simple. He really, really wants you to do it. All appearances to the contrary, he thinks punishment stinks. Really doesn’t work, he’s learned. Not for longterm reformation, anyway. So, whatever it takes to get people to improve, he’ll give it a shot. He’s pretty clever. And patient. Very patient. (Again, think of geology.)

Maybe that’s just my spin on it. Because I, at least, don’t believe in punishment. I want everyone spared. But that’s not my call. Of that I’m certain. I’ve got enough to do just scratching plates with a stylus.

I suspect many people—men, especially—will never make the grade. Their fate? Let’s not talk about it. Smell that barbecue? Enough said.

Amen.