Post #200, Mango-Svithe

Relgious content ahead, proceed at your own risk.

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I had an interesting past couple of days. Very weird and surreal, and almost dream like at this point, it went past and it was just about one of the weirdest weeks of my life. For how good of a weekend I had last weekend this one is looking to be an awful one. Most of my comments on this one will be coming from some Book of Mormon chapters I read this morning. Alma 60-62. This is among the war chapters in the Book of Mormon and in this part Moroni got really angry at Pahoran, another general in the army, he felt Pahoran was being an awful general, he didn't care about the war and all that, so Moroni decided to chew him out by sending him a note. And here's a snippet of what he said.

Verse 1-2, "...Behold, I direct mine epistle to Pahoran, in the city of Zarahemla, who is the chief judge and the governor over the land, and also to all those who have been chosen by this people to govern and manage the affairs of this war.
For behold, I have somewhat to say unto them by the way of condemnation; for behold, ye yourselves know that ye have been appointed to gather together men, and arm them with swords, and with cimeters, and all manner of weapons of war of every kind, and send forth against the Lamanites, in whatsoever parts they should come into our land..." and then in verses 5-9
"...But behold, great has been the slaughter among our people; yea, thousands have fallen by the sword, while it might have otherwise been if ye had rendered unto our armies sufficient strength and succor for them. Yea, great has been your neglect towards us.
And now behold, we desire to know the cause of this exceedingly great neglect; yea, we desire to know the cause of your thoughtless state.
Can you think to sit upon your thrones in a state of thoughtless astupor, while your enemies are spreading the work of death around you? Yea, while they are murdering thousands of your brethren—
Yea, even they who have looked up to you for protection, yea, have placed you in a situation that ye might have succored them, yea, ye might have sent armies unto them, to have strengthened them, and have saved thousands of them from falling by the sword.
But behold, this is not all—ye have withheld your provisions from them, insomuch that many have fought and bled out their lives because of their great desires which they had for the welfare of this people; yea, and this they have done when they were about to aperish with hunger, because of your exceedingly great neglect towards them."

Now imagine yourself in Pahoran's shoes for a moment, and I'm sure all of us can. Think to a time when you've recieved an email or letter and you were wrongly accused, or someone spoke ill of your name. It hurts, it stings. It doesn't feel good.

Moroni was so bold in his letter that even near the end in verse 33 he said.

"Ye know that ye do transgress the laws of God, and ye do know that ye do trample them under your feet. Behold, the Lord saith unto me: If those whom ye have appointed your governors do not repent of their sins and ainiquities, ye shall bgo up to battle against them."

Ouch, not only to have your actions called into question but also your whole soul, everything you hold dear. It couldn't have felt good. I know if I were put in this position and I can think of one time when I had been, when one missionary as I was also a missionary completely questioned and denied that I had any sort of testimony of the church. It hurt bad that someone so close could say something so vile.

Pahoran then did something that in that situation I don't know if I could have done. He immidiatly sent a reply to Moroni and in chapter 61 he started with verse 1 and 2. "Behold, now it came to pass that soon after Moroni had sent his epistle unto the chief governor, he received an epistle from Pahoran, the chief governor. And these are the words which he received:
I, Pahoran, who am the chief governor of this land, do send these words unto Moroni, the chief captain over the army. Behold, I say unto you, Moroni, that I do not joy in your great aafflictions, yea, it grieves my soul." Then onto verse 9 and 10, "And now, in your epistle you have censured me, but it mattereth not; I am not angry, but do rejoice in the greatness of your heart. I, Pahoran, do not seek for power, save only to retain my judgment-seat that I may preserve the rights and the liberty of my people. My soul standeth fast in that liberty in the which God hath made us free. And now, behold, we will resist wickedness even unto bloodshed..." He shortly there after closed his epistle but not before telling Moroni that his group had been sent to and fro and that they did still believe in the cause, they had just ran into problems, but many of those problems had now been dealt with.

Pahoran recieved an awful nasty letter and was able to move forward from it and turn it into a positive, one of my wishes is that when we go through our skirmishes with each other that when misunderstandings arise, that we can try to get beyond it.

So then on to the rest in chapter 62 verses one and two, "And now it came to pass that when Moroni had received this epistle his heart did take courage, and was filled with exceedingly great joy because of the faithfulness of Pahoran, that he was not also a traitor to the freedom and cause of his country.
But he did also mourn exceedingly because of the iniquity of those who had driven Pahoran from the judgment-seat, yea, in fine because of those who had rebelled against their country and also their God."

They were able to reconcile and go onto a better cause. I was thinking today of how many times we have misunderstandings which become big things. Once on my mission when dealing with the elder I mentioned earlier whom was my zone leader at the time, one of my best friends sent me a letter, I was very angry with leadership as a whole at the time and couldn't believe that someone so mean could become a zone leader. Well I open the letter and find that my really good friend has become a zone leader in his own mission. Still venting on this rage at this zone leader I channel all my frustrations in a letter to my friend, basically lambasting him for sucking up and become a stupid zone leader. I tore into him good, and I sent it, he was not happy to recieve it but luckily we were able to work things out, though slowly because it took nearly 3 months for a letter to get back and forth between us. Luckily when we were able to get back together in person, things smoothed over and things were able to be explained. How many times do we get hot headed ourselves when something rubs us the wrong way. Just look at the BYU editorial section, something rubs someone the wrong way, they get hot headed and write a scathing letter. That's how we are.

So this morning I took Moroni's place, I felt I had been wronged and I was hurt by it, so I sent a scathing email to this person displaying my displeasure in feeling wronged. Unfortunatly also like Moroni, my information was incorrect and so I was wrong in the first place. But the deed had been done and a giant misunderstanding had occured. I won't go into any more specifics as it's still fresh on my mind, but this story was one of the first things that popped into my head. Now honestly, I really hope the other person involved does not see this for a while, since time is often what is needed at most. But I wrote this more so for myself then anyone else, so that I could get my thoughts out onto a canvas.

So then to the questions, how do you suppose you would act in Moroni's place? How about in Pahoran's place. Suppose the same sort of scenario happens but in your life, what would we do in these circumstances? And a follow up to that one, would we be justified in doing so? Thoughts? Comments?

This has been the official second Mango-Svithe.