Mormon 8

I am Moroni, finishing up Dad’s book on his behalf. He dictated a lot of the thoughts, at least, in what follows.

After the Cumorah battle, the Lamanites caught and killed all of the southern escapees. (They say.)

They killed my father too, which is why I’m the one nicking up these metal pages. I’m probably next on the list of casualties. But I’ll write till I can’t anymore. Then I’ll hide this with the other plates.

I have no ore to make more plates, by the way. And I’m running out of room. Also, I’m totally alone. No family, friends, acquaintances of any kind. I’m just a bet the world is waiting to see who wins.

If round numbers mean anything, I’ll just say it’s Year 400.

Yes, the Lamanites have hunted down our tribes savagely enough. This is the holocaust of the New World. But don’t hate me for saying that God’s hand is the one that swung the sword at us. And now the Lamanites are in a bitter civil war. I guess bloodlust is contagious.

The only righteous men around are the special three that Jesus chose not to die. But they’re not really around. No one but my Father and I have seen them for years. Given how we were living, I’m sure God invited them out of the country.

Anyway, if you get this book in your hands, which obviously you have done, don’t slight it because of its little flaws. If you take it seriously, God will show you more and better things. I wish I could be the one to show you them.

Some will salivate over the monetary worth of these plates. Not as antiquities, mind you. I mean the raw scrap value. But God won’t let anyone melt them down. The value is in what’s been etched into them. The eventual proprietor needs to know that from the get go.

To own these will be God’s gift to a discrete child of his, someone who knows what each “therefore” is there for. Someone who cares about lasting agreements between God and man. Someone who can focus. That person, whoever it is, will have veins running with a gold more valuable than this metal. It’s fading, the patina is thickening. But what’s on these plates will shine brighter than any polishing could ever make them. And only God’s power will get to the essence of that literary light.

I’m not claiming flawlessness, of course. Men wrote every word you read. But we did our best. Don’t hate. And don’t put down things you had no part in and could never have done yourself. We’ll all be judged. But don’t you pre-judge. The sentence for doing that could be lasting and irrevocable.

Don’t ask for any more of a sign than the very existence of what’s in your hands right now. Don’t be rash, or God will be rash back. And no one can survive that.

Anyone who gets nasty and aggressive with the future proprietor of this book will skip to the head of God’s docket. Don’t tempt his gavel.

Don’t dare say: I can manage this into oblivion. Don’t twist these promises of deity into a rope you hang yourself with.

God is bigger than the senses. He lasts longer than anything perceived through them. He can’t default. That’s a strictly human propensity.

I can’t write like Isaiah. And I don’t have room or longevity to transcribe him here. But you should really study him. He’s been a favorite since the first Nephi stepped off the boat.

Nephi’s only one of the past residents of this seemingly boundless continent who is watching you, sifting your thoughts, shouting through time for your attention, insisting you pay attention to God’s covenants with them.

God still knows them, remembers their unselfish prayers, remembers how they trusted in ideas and sentiments they couldn’t lay their hands on, how they could move physical objects with their hearts, how they could demolish prisons with a single word, how they could chill their bodies in the hottest furnace, repulse the bites of snakes and lions … all through the solidity of their faith in God.

(They even prayed for the future proprietor of these plates. He’s going to need it.)

No one should doubt these plates will get dug up and used again. God has told me that. Don’t try to minimize that eventuality.

It will happen right at a time when no one expects it, when people say such supernatural stuff is all bunk. It will be like someone speaking from the dead. And what else is writing for?

It will happen when blood of oppressed people will cry out from the ground to break the secrecy of conspirators.

It will happen when people rationalize away God’s power, churches will stink with pride and competition.

It will happen when news of natural disasters—forest fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.— along with wars like ours will travel broadly and be hard to escape unless people close their eyes and stop their ears.

It will happen when chemical poisons trouble the air and water and spiritual poisons corrupt the collective soul of mankind. Culpability will be unheard of. The classic evils of murder, prostitution, mendacity, larceny, and so forth, will still be around. But any sense of guilt will have been shed like the skin of snake. Or whatever guilt remains will be soothed by books more bent on self-help than self-reformation.

It will happen when some churches even offer forgiveness for large donations.

I can’t use the language that comes to mind when I think of how that time will be. But I’m not one to talk. Because half the people I’ve known are worse than the ones I’m foretelling. But why start churches for money? Why damn yourself with pseudo-sacred revisionism? Look hard at what’s been revealed and don’t smash it like a mirror whose image you despise.

Beyond the horrors I’m forecasting, God has let me see luminous grandiosity in times ahead. Especially for my descendants.

But I’m here not to gush about that. I’m here to warn you. You’re not here. But my words are in your head as if you’d thought them yourself. I can’t see you at this moment. But Jesus has shown you to me. And I know how you’re wrecking the best visions I have.

Pride is the red carpet you walk on to every event. Pride is the runway you stroll down to show off your slinky clothes and perfect posture. Pride is the chiseled abdomen that holds up what’s left of your hearts.

Moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoney … that’s what your brain waves sound like all the time. But you couldn’t step to the curb to share one coin. You wouldn’t pay for one swallow of a dying man’s medicine.

Celebrity Christianity, that’s the name of normative religion in your day. It’s all about smoothing away wrinkles instead of furrowing the brow with concern. It’s all about reupholstering furniture instead of clothing the freezing fruit picker. You’re ashamed of Jesus’ behavior—too random and meager in productivity, you think. You come up with catchy nicknames you then tarnish (e.g., “socialism”). You lick the boots of the world’s trophy-makers just for a shot at putting one on your shelf.

Ignorance is bliss, you like to say. And it’s true for awhile. But it’s not capital-“B” Bliss. I think you know the difference.

The blood of all our dead soldiers howls against the shame you’ve produced for the world. Their widows and orphans will point you out in the police line-up of their oppressors.

Maybe it’s just all the swords I’ve seen cutting through skin in battle. But I have this vision of one hanging over your heads, about to drop. That’s God’s sword and it stretches from one horizon to its opposite.