Helaman 7

Nephi went back to Zarahemla after his sojourn north, where he’d preached and predicted many things, which is a sure-fire way to get thrown out of any territory, north or south. But when he saw how bad things were in his homeland, he heaved a divine “ugh.” The Gadianton Group had seized the day. So, mass-religiosity went into the dumpster, fashionable atheism took over, side-deals and backroom payoffs ran the judicial system, and the stated motives for any political ambition were money, sex favors, and a license to kill. Nephi was amazed how quickly the mutation had come.

His gut reaction: “I want my country back. My namesake Nephi, now a honcho in the pantheon of lore, had good clean fun here. And his family—in other words, the ‘society’—got along pretty well (except for the blood feud with his brothers). People were genuinely nice. Maybe it was all the crap they’d lived through to get here. But they took their time blowing up at each other. They thought twice about knifing each other in the back. Even at their worst, they had reasonable discussions about God. Okay, maybe I’m fantasizing a bit; I wasn’t there and nostalgia is at its worst when the nostalgia-monger wasn’t there. But I think if I’d lived back then I’d have been happier. And right now I’ve never been sadder.”

He said all this to himself, but audibly enough to a few passers-by, since he was kneeling on a tower when he said it (specifically the one by the main gate of Nephi’s Garden, on the highway that runs by the main market in Zarahemla). So much for praying in secret.

He actually began to draw a crowd, since this was an oddity and the society was basted with believe-it-or-not spectacle. Do something weird and they’ll come running. Which was not why Nephi did it. But he knew how to take advantage of any accidental audience.

So when he saw hundreds of people crowding through the garden gate to see him, he started up this acrid sermon:

So why are you here? What are you waiting for? Me to list your crimes?

I’m on this tower because it’s closer to God, whom I can’t even detect when I’m down in the muck of your city. I came here to cry in God’s face.

And you think that’s a novelty act, a sideshow. But in God’s eyes you’re the sideshow. A freak show like the tented menagerie in a smelly carnival. And Satan’s the barker.

You think existence is a bungie jump: he’ll throw you off the bridge and you’ll snap back. But no one does.

Give it up, give it up. You’re on the death jump. Climb back up the bungie before it breaks.

You think God has stiffed you. And you’re right. But have you ever asked why? Because you’re the stiff ones. Like bones. Or stone columns—oh so straight to look at but unable to bend, only shatter.

God wants you to be sheep and I agree that’s annoying in a way. He gave us brains to think. But he’s smarter. And that makes you like sheep next to him. He’s mad at you for thinking you’re shepherds. So he’s throwing you out to the wolves and dogs and bears and vultures.

He’s like the job you quit for better pay, then don’t even show up for work. You’ve got these little cliques based on shiny chariots and greased hair and sickly-sweet perfume and satin bedsheets. And you’ve got these horrendous hobbies: sex games, torture games, collectible body parts, insane bluffs, theft by flattery.

You should be howling like the dogs God’s thrown you to. Because if you don’t give up this trash of a life you advertise to the world, God will hand all your property, all your real estate, all your jewelry, all your confidential bank statements, to the spiritual pimps who’ve had their knives to your throats for years now. And your mental resistance will fold up like old money.

Because—and I’m actually quoting God now—your strength is like that of a fish stuck in the rocks at low tide. You’ll suffocate, drown in your own spittle. Unless you swerve hard toward me. I always leave that possibility dangling. I can’t help myself (still God talking here).

You think the Lamanites are worse than you? You’ve got some nerve. They’ve been better than you for years. They’ve earned God’s trust. He’s backing them now. He’ll let them live longer than you. Because, frankly, he’s sick of Nephites.

Indeed, he and I (not sure who’s who here) are repulsed by the Gadianton Group. And you love it. This is a crash waiting to happen.

And you actually run your hands through your hair and polish your nails on your coat and say: God loves us because we’re rich. Righteousness equals prosperity.

To God, though, you’re already sub-human. The worst primates he created. So he’ll subtract your lands from your portfolios and then he’ll subtract you from the land.

I’m not making this up (Nephi said). I’m hard-wired to heaven.