Moroni: build community
Community. Why is it? How is it?
I read the closing chapters of the Book of Mormon, written by a guy whose community became so toxic that he had to go into hiding to save his own life. He, Moroni, was the faithful son of a faithful father, Mormon; Mormon died in battle trying in vain to preserve his people, the Nephites. His efforts failed because the people around him actively rebelled against restraint. Mormon stated that he feared God had ceased working with them, that the Spirit of God no longer spoke to them. You may say, so they didn’t have a living prophet; so what?
No, his father meant, and Moroni saw, that the people no longer listened to conscience. They no longer held together in any loving way. They had sex, they bore children, they gathered to fight. They defended themselves and their possessions, including their families. They clung to each other because humans cannot live without other humans, but they did not care about each other’s well being. They cared, each of them, for him or her self. So they owned each other. Because the weak cannot survive without the strong, the weaker of them put up with being bossed around. When the weak grew into strength, as children grow, they became bosses themselves and fought; when the weak petered out, as the elderly, they were abandoned.
Their society did not last. They managed to so tick off their neighbors and each other, and their habits were so dissolute, that the ones who stayed with the group killed each other. The ones who left the group either died out or joined other groups. The community collapsed, as violently as could be. Anger led to more anger; hate to more hatred. There was no hope of forgiveness and no expectation of mercy. They drove each other to the wall, and then killed them.
Moroni watched this happen. He watched his father teach forgiveness, show kindness, defend his family. He grew up learning to fight and why you should not kill, while watching battle after battle after battle. Moroni grew up knowing his people hated the words of God, while he loved to hear of God’s forgiveness. Moroni watched his friends turn to hatred or be killed by those who hated them. Moroni did not die, not then; he lived 20 years after his group’s destruction. We know this, because he wrote about it, engraved on gold plates intentionally chosen to last until the end of time.
Moroni’s writings are aimed directly to us. He does not want us to fall apart, or worse, tear ourselves apart. He begs us to accept forgiveness and try again, with tears and prayers to God. We stand on a precipice; we choose to build our community or tear it down.
