Leaving the Garden of Eden to Mourn With

I have been thinking for some time about what it could mean to leave the Garden of Eden. I think that it has to do with becoming a grownup, which in turn has to do with choosing to make decisions (rather than just letting things happen to you). (I realize that this is a fairly big assumption, but since I already have a full posting and a half here without defending it, I will leave that job for another day.) (Oh, look, I just found a quick scriptural backup: Alma 12:31.)

So, for instance, a classic way to leave is to choose to marry. Once you do this, your exposure to economic hardship, pain, suffering, sickness, and the possibility of abandonment have just gone way up. However. The possibilities for joy, etc. have both gone way up at the same time.

Another thing: when you have done something wrong-- when you have transgressed a moral law-- you can choose to stay in the relative comfort of pride, or you can choose accountability, and repent. If you choose to repent, you are leaving a sort of false garden of Eden: you choose to experience the pain of having done wrong (though not as badly as you would if you had chosen to wait until the end of the world), but also the joy of having repented.

So, the other day I was explaining to my niece about how Eve chose to leave the Garden of Eden so that she would have the opportunity to experience the bad stuff, because she knew that she wanted to know the good, when I made a connection to-- no surprise to anyone who knows me-- going to funerals.

I know that bringing good things to others counts as standing in the place of the Savior in a very significant way, and that this bringing of good things can include feeling sympathy for others' sorrow. But as I was talking to my niece, I realized that we need these extra experiences with sadness, if we are to reach our full potential. There is a part of our spiritual development for which it is necessary to process large amounts of grief. To some-- to many, even-- it is given to have this grief personally at various points in time, and for them at that time it isn't an option to have it or not. But to others is given a chance to relieve such burdens, and it isn't just nice to do it; it is essential for who they are to become. Just to be clear: those who have the grief do not have a right to dump it on others, who may or may not be in a position to receive it; but those who are around them have a need to mourn with, and it is their privilege to pick up some of the pieces, if the person who is mourning will allow them to. To become like the Savior, it is necessary to do the kinds of things that He did, and this includes mourning in season, taking in more grief than was already in your life.

Boy, that sounds dreary, doesn't it? But I noticed a while ago that in the Garden of Gethsemane, which according to Mormon theology was the place where the most vicious of adopted consequences were loaded on to the already heavy soul of the Savior, He had an angel to comfort Him. In our times of excess grief, maybe in those times of "mourning with," the entire universe, almost, becomes open to us; we have access to angels and the Holy Ghost and God's comforting presence, even though our best earthly friends may sleep through the significance of such a moment. To me, that moment when the universe cracks open, of, in D.O. McKay's words, "communion with the infinite," are worth an awful lot of suffering and sorrow.

Unexpected in the Book of Alma

I had noticed a long time ago that the first chapter in the Book of Alma focuses unusually much on law: so, the people had agreed to this law, and they all knew about it, and the law lets you believe what you want, but the law will not allow you to enforce that belief by the sword, and the law says that if you murder someone in broad daylight in the middle of the street and don't even deny it, then you get the death penalty. The law, the law, the law.

Chapter two: some people want to change the law, but the law says that you have to have a referendum, and by golly you lost the referendum, and you have no legal grounds to go to battle, but off you go anyway... the law, the law, the law.

So that was sort of what I was expecting from the Book of Alma. Chapters 3 and 4 wrap up the battle and its aftermath, and then we're on to Alma's humongous sermon in chapter 5, which I truly expected to be full of "law" references which I hadn't fully paid attention to before, and which were going to teach me all kinds of wonderful things about, um, the law. But this was not the case. I didn't find many law references. In fact, by the time we get to chapter 9, we find that the people who are the most focused on the law are the ones who turn out to be the third-worst bad guys in the entire Book of Mormon (the two before them being cannibalistic Nephites and the Gadianton Robbers, by my completely unofficial count-- but that is a discussion for another day. The point here is, these lawyers are BAD).

Maybe I was thrown off by the fact that I have heard the questions in Chapter 5 used so often as bludgeons. People I barely know, and who barely know me, saying, "Have you received his image in your countenance? Are you stripped of envy and pride?" Oddly enough, especially given our modern media environment, I haven't heard that many people saying, "Have any of you made a mock of your brother?"

So. Stepping back, taking a breath, and re-reading from Chapter 1 on through-- let's see, I'm in chapter 36 now-- I have discovered two themes, one of which I expected, and the other of which I did not.

This is the one I did not expect: Alma had a personal relationship with the Savior.

Wow!

He had this clear idea of who the Savior is, and how others would benefit from knowing Him, and he used all the powers of persuasion and reason which he possessed, to try to get others to get to do what it would take so that they could know Him, too. I suddenly feel like I know Alma better than I have ever known him before, and I like him, as a person. I find him to be a genuinely humble and loving human being.

The other theme was that Alma had a thing up his nose about equality among the people. From the beginning of his ministry to the end, there are constant references to how much stuff people have, and how they are treating each other, and whether they're getting it right. I feel like I don't know the full story on this-- or, rather, the feeling that there are missing pieces is more acute here than in other places. Surely this has something to do with his childhood (remember how Amulon had his kids pick on Alma the Elder's kids in Mosiah 24: 8?), and also-- surely-- it has to do with the actual sociological condition of the Nephites at the time, but-- I just feel like I don't really know the whole story. It's something to focus on the next time through.

The other thing I'll be focusing on the next time through is tying all this to Alma's reverence for the stories of his ancestors, a theme which has been pointed out to me so many times that I was sort of tired of it, but it is nonetheless interesting. And also, I would like to get more of a feel for his actual relationship with his sons, and how that ties in to everything else. So many interesting things.