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.