Moroni 9

Dear Son,

This is to let you know that I’m still alive. But I’m also perturbed.

We just lost a huge battle to the Lamanites. Archeantus, Luram, Emron, and many more of our top soldiers were killed.

We’re losing and I just have to blame it on God pulling out of our alliance because we’ve succumbed to these satanic cycles of hatred and payback. I’m speaking out to my men but they buck at every word I say that saddles them with any strain of guilt. Anger has become our coat of arms. Love sneaks around at our feet, sniffing like a dog for some crumb of respect. We used to love the bouquet of fine wine—even the wine of the ritual Jesus gave us. Now the only bouquet men sniff is the scent of blood.

Whatever we can do the make the heart-rocks crumble, we have to do it. Whether we have any effect is not the point. We have to stay true to ourselves and our divine task. We all die—and then what? I’m banking on rest for those who did as they ought.

Casualties: I got from Amoron that Lamanite troops accosted many prisoners from the Sherrizah Tower. They killed the men and made the women and children eat the carcasses.

As for our troops, at Moriantum they took mainly women as prisoners, raped and tortured them, then slaughtered and cannibalized them, all as part of an ultra-macho code of so-called bravery.

Goodbye civilization. And farewell to the soul of a nation. Why wait for God to punish? We’re already committing soul-suicide.

I keep praying God will make a big show of his might and level the worst of us. But so far the Lamanites are doing that.

I forgot to mention how the women of Sherrizah were living off of spoiled Lamanite food cartons, only to have them robbed by Zenephi’s army. The women have headed out, scattering in search of food. We don’t know how many haven’t starved to death or been caught and made into sexual slaves or, indeed, been eaten themselves.

My troops are skimpy and weak. Lamanite armies block the pass to Sherrizah. Chaos reigns.

But I just moan when I think about the depravity of our people, hardly worse than our foes. Order? Everything unglued. Mercy? Strangled to death.

Given those facts, I have effectively lost my command.

Our army has no code of conduct as they used to. It’s dog eat dog, each more savage than the next. Words failed writers like me when Jesus came to town with his distinct version of collective bliss. Now they fail me in describing the blood-splattering and woman-whipping.

As I said, words have been sapped of their expressive force. It’s as if they too had been executed in this mad parade to the cosmic cliff-jump.

How do you account for a people without any principle except self-gratification? I can hardly pray for them anymore.

But you give me hope. And I pray for you daily, partly that he’ll spare you and let you re-proselyte every apostate. Without you, I’m sure, they’d slide down a spiral of fear and spike-hearted spirit-shredding.

But they’ll die out just like the Jaredites, chests pumping with revenge. Along the way, how many of our men will just desert to the Lamanites and begin killing their own families for survival?

Write me if you can. I hope I’ll see you again. I have some more sacred plates to pass along.

Your brain is overgrown with the weeds of all this, I know. But, if you can, keep pulling them up and finding the good ground that’s left. The ground that whispers Christ’s name and tells the story of his body and blood in peril, then triumphant. Somewhere deep in the soil of our minds is a shred of grace, the same grace that lets cold, dark seeds grow from colder, darker ground.

Remember how we called Jesus the “Prince of Grace”? And so it is. He sits next to our Father, the King of Grace, both on thrones that mean something for our continued existence. Just not here, now.

Someday, son. Amen.