Which Dad Do I Remember?

Dad passed away yesterday. Right now we’re busy with the burial ceremonies, so I won’t have a ton of time to write.

This whole thing is really weird for me; I have a lot of mixed feelings. Most of growing up, Dad was amazing. He was this tough dude that would go out on the dangerous caravan trading routes and bring home riches. He was always kind to me too. I really looked up to him. Then he started listening to those weird apostates like Jeremiah who were attacking our religion and God’s chosen leaders. Once he joined that clique, he only ever seemed to be disappointed with me.

And then for the last twelve years, he’s brought nothing but increasing hardship on our family. And he thinks I’m the problem! He was warned in a vision that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, and then once we get to this new land, he’s also informed via a vision that Jerusalem was destroyed. He offered that as proof that he did the right thing in destroying so much of what our family had worked to build. But if his first vision was crazy (or possibly a deception by evil spirits who tempt proud men like Jeremiah to rise up and condemn the rest of the leaders), then his second vision was likely also inaccurate. Then at the end of all of this, after I followed him out here against my better judgment, and put up with Nephi constantly trying to outdo the rest of us, after all of that, he tells my kids I’m wicked and that their curse will rest upon my head. He’s basically teaching them to not honor their father and mother.

So yeah, the part of me that’s still the kid back in Jerusalem is sad to see Dad go. But adult me has seen nothing but hardship and difficulty from Dad’s decisions, and so I hope our family can turn over a new leaf now where we won’t be led into suffering through the whimsies of Dad’s dreams. Laman might be a bit harsh at times, but he’s essentially a very practical guy. The challenge that’s coming will be Nephi. It’s clear he wants to be in charge, and his leadership would be just as poorly thought through as Dad’s, but it would have an added problem: he has a chip on his shoulder because he wants to be in charge, but he’s the younger brother. So who knows what he’d resort to if he thought he had a chance to take charge.

"Long live the king"

Anyway, over the next few days, we’ll finish up with the ceremonies for Dad. I’m going to try to focus on the good times before everything went south (literally).

Everything I Know Is Wrong — Vol 2

Good news, we’re still alive. The storm has passed. And I guess God put me back in my place...again. Here’s the full story.

So two posts ago, I mentioned I was going to see if we could have some fun on the boat. Ahijah, true to expectation, taught us some good songs. We broke out the wine and we started to dance. It was the best time we’d had in weeks. Nephi, however, saw people having fun and decided God doesn’t like fun, and so we’d better stop it. I get that we need to obey God, but we need balance in our lives. People need time to unwind, and I don’t think Nephi gets that.

Anyway, he ripped into us for singing, dancing, and a few of Ahijah’s slightly off-color jokes. And normally I’m used to that, and can deal with it. And normally, none of us ever have more than a moderate amount of wine at a time. But we did get a bit to free with the wine, and Nephi’s self-righteousness came off as extra abrasive, so Laman and I told him off and tied him up on the ship so he’d leave us alone. We basically put him in a time out. Once he cooled off, we planned to let him go.

Nephi had been doing a lot of the steering up to that point (shocker, I know), so with him tied up, Laman went to take a turn. We thought the director was jammed or something, or that we might’ve broken it in the tussle with Nephi, so Laman had no idea where we were going. I tried to unjam it, or see if I could fix it, but no luck.

We went back to check on Nephi and tell him we’re in trouble because the director must’ve been broken when we tied him up, and asked him if he had the tools he needed to fix it. Rather than be a team player, he just lit into us again and said the director stopped working because of our wickedness. At that point we decided he hadn’t cooled off enough to come out of time out.

Because we didn’t know where we were going, the next day we ended up steering ourselves into a giant storm. Everyone was telling us we needed to let Nephi go, and the storm came because we tied him up. My thinking was correlation doesn’t equal causation. God himself seems to enjoy a bit of wine (story here), and so even though Nephi and Dad have been on God’s side on a number of issues over the last eight or nine years, there’s no way he’s right about this one, and he needs to get off his high horse. I felt like he was trying to rule over the entirety of the family now, and we needed to put him in his place. Not that he’s below us, but just that he’s not over us either.

Anyway, storm kept getting worse, and everyone kept saying we needed to untie Nephi. After four days of that storm going, it got so bad, we knew it was over. The ship didn’t seem like it could take too much more of this, and the waves were getting crazy enough that capsizing seemed inevitable. Everyone was begging for us to untie Nephi. I kept thinking there’s no way that’s connected to this storm, but we figured we’d give it a shot. Also, if the ship capsized, we didn’t want him to be tied to it. If there’s anywhere close to swim to, that at least would give him a chance at survival.

So we untied him, and looking at him, he was in rough shape. I felt pretty bad. His wrists were pretty swollen because not only was he tied, but also the rocking of the boat probably threw him against the restraints quite a bit. He was honestly classier than I expected. He didn’t rail on us, instead he just went and grabbed the director, and kneeled down and prayed. And…well, the storm stopped.

I snapped this picture within a minute after Nephi finished praying. Bizarre.

Guys, I don’t know what to say at this point. It just feels like God is trying to showcase that He’s picked Nephi to be His favorite, and to rub that in every chance possible. Nephi was all worried that our partying was going to upset God, and it didn’t. There was no storm because of us having some fun. He was wrong. We tried to get him to chill out by putting him in timeout, and that’s when God decided to show His displeasure.

What am I missing here?! I didn’t think God was like this. Since when does He pick favorites who He supports regardless of how right or wrong they are? I never understood Job before. He made God seem too arbitrary. It didn’t match with the understanding of God that our prophets taught back home. But now I think I get it. He saves whoever He wants, and He condemns whoever He wants. “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And I guess I’m just on the loosing end of His arbitrary nature. But I don’t want to be on the bad end. I’d like to be favored of God.

I’ve been trying.

I guess…I guess I might as well give up at this point. It’s clear He doesn’t want me.

Shock and Awe

Time to come clean and eat some crow. I’m now busy helping Nephi build the ship. I probably won’t have a ton of time to blog over the next while as we work on this. The day after my last post, Nephi came up behind me and Laman and touched us with his hands. No idea how to explain what happened, but all I can say is there was some power in him that really shook both of us. I guess that’s what I asked for in my prayer—a clear, unmistakable message. And boy did I get it. Anyway, Laman and I took that as evidence God is with Nephi in this ship building project. So even though I’m going to miss Bountiful, we’re doing our part to build a quality ship so we can leave.

Some scenery from our beautiful home we'll be leaving. (And yes, that's the point from which Laman and I were planning to help Nephi "cool off.")

A quick note before I finish up though. I’m still trying to figure things out. Yes, God has given me evidence that Nephi is His man, and I’m accepting that evidence and obeying accordingly, but He hasn’t done anything to help resolve the questions I’ve expressed over and over again. I almost feel like He doesn’t care enough to be bothered. I mean Nephi and Dad get all sorts of personal visitations and answers to their questions, and I get nothing except chastisement and shocks. I really wish God loved me the same way He does Nephi.

Button Pushing

Just finished up another chat with Nephi, "the diplomat." I really need to stop letting him push my buttons. So Laman, Sam, and I were talking about Dad’s dream and the stuff he taught us about the olive tree. I explained my whole take from my last post—basically the confusion here comes from Dad interpreting certain scriptures as temporal when they’re clearly spiritual, otherwise God would have to be a liar.

Laman was in a pretty good mood (for once) and decided we should try to give Dad the benefit of the doubt. Basically we could try interpreting the scriptures temporally in a way that didn't lead to inconsistencies. Sam chimed in and point out that’s probably a good idea; he’d always felt like Zenos’ parable didn’t work with a purely spiritual interpreation. When I asked what he meant, he said something like, “Well, look at the section on the wild branches being grafted in. What could that possibly mean as an analogy to our spiritual lives?” Which is a good point.

So we were chatting about it for awhile. Dad had mentioned the Gentiles in connection with the wild branches, and we were trying to figure that out when Nephi showed up. He asked us what we were talking about, and we told him.

Nephi: Have you asked God your questions?

Me: Uhhh, not really. If God was here, I’d ask Him. But since he's not here to talk with, we’re doing our best to figure it out.

Nephi: Why don’t you do what God commands? Why would you die because of the hardness of your hearts??

Me: Wooahh, Nephi? We’re trying to understand these things—

Nephi: Don’t you remember what the Lord said? If you don’t harden you hearts, and ask in faith believing that you will receive, while diligently obeying God’s commands, He’s going to answer you.

So timeout from the script for a second for me to just add a quick note. Nephi and Dad hit on this “ask God to receive information” theme quite a bit. But I’m not sure what to do with it. I pray regularly, and I ask questions, and sometimes I feel the Spirit, but answering questions about stuff like the wild branches of the tree and the Gentiles would require God to communicate with me in ways capable of conveying more complex information—full sentences, paragraphs, concepts, etc. I’ve never experienced anything close to that, even when I ask. So what am I supposed to do? Anyway...

Nephi went on to explain his view on things. Basically that the olive tree was the house of Israel. Our family is a broken off branch of that tree. The wild branches are the Gentiles, and in the future, the Gentiles will get the fulness of the gospel and bring it to our descendants who will have lost the gospel by that point. Then our descendants will be grafted back into the original tree, or in other words rejoin the house of Israel. And these things apply not just to our “branch” but all of the house of Israel.

We then asked him about his take on a few of the symbols in Dad’s dream. He basically said the tree was the tree of life, the rod was the word of God, the river was hell, and it separated the wicked from the righteous. And then something about judgment.

Me: Interesting theory...

Laman: Yeah, it seems consistent, but I’m not sure if it’s actually correct.

Nephi: Well, you ought to ask God then, and He’ll tell you.

Me: You keep saying that, but I don’t know if you understand how hard it is for us to do what you’re saying. We’re trying our best here to understand this stuff, but you keep railing on us because we aren’t full-on prophets who receive paragraphs of quotes directly from God. You gotta be a bit more understanding of people, otherwise you’ll be the only one of us who doesn’t end up marrying one of Ishmael’s daughters. Most women (and people in general) would prefer to live and die alone as opposed to living with someone who is always bearing down so hard on them for not becoming their own personal Moses.

Nephi: The things I’m saying are only hard on the wicked—

Laman: —See! There it is again!

Nephi: Righteous people love the message I share because it brings salvation. It testifies that they’ll be lifted up at the last day. The wicked on the other hand always take the truth in a negative light. It cuts them deep. And if you guys were righteous, you wouldn’t be complaining about what I’m saying.

Laman [sarcastically]: Righteous like you??!

Nephi: Laman! It’s not about me! This is about you and the Lord! The Lord has offered you guys salvation! He wants to have a real relationship with you. He wants to talk with you, not just hear you offer up vain prayers to Him. He wants to answer you, teach you, show you, lead you. And I promise you that he will. I’m not a perfect person. I have so many failings I don’t know where to begin. But God is merciful enough to reach down to me and lift me up, and He’ll do the same for you guys. You need to get over me. I’m not important. God is. Please do what He asks. Turn to Him. Come to Him.

Me: You gotta decent point here. I guess sometimes we let you push our buttons, because to be honest, you often come off as a bit…—

Laman: —Self-righteous.

Me: I was trying to think of a nicer way to put that, but yeah, self-righteous.

Nephi: Look, guys, I know I have a tendency to get excited about this stuff, and speak very directly. It’s because this stuff is actually exciting, and the implications are very direct. I wish I could tell you everything I know, but know this: the Lord is leading our family, and if we obey Him, He will bless us.

Laman: Fair enough. I’ll try to do a better job of praying about things when I have questions.

Me: Same here.

Sam: I’ve been doing that all along, but you guys don’t listen to me.

Me [winkingly]: Shut up, Sam!

Sam: You guys are funny. I don’t know what’s going on with Nephi, but as I pray about these things, God has answered my prayers too. Not in ways that allow me to spell out all the symbolism in Dad’s dreams and the scriptures like Nephi can, but in ways that are important for the questions I’m asking.

Sam’s a good guy. He’s been hanging out with Orpah a lot lately. I’m thinking those two will make a pretty good couple. Anyway, back to the discussion. Like I said, I really need to stop letting Nephi push my buttons. I think he has a good heart, he’s just not the most compassionate in the way he talks. I’m gonna try to do better.

They're Coming with Us (and some prophetic words)

This update is coming sooner than I expected. The good news is I’m not in prison. Also, Ishmael’s place is pretty nice; we’re staying here to help him and his family get geared up to head out. And yes, that means he's going with us. Nephi did all the talking, which made sense. I still haven’t really drank Dad’s Kool-aid so I’m not a very effective representative of his views on this matter. Nephi on the other hand really sells it.

I dunno, maybe I’m being too hard on Nephi. That angel seemed to like him, and he did get the plates. So in spite of his weaknesses, I have to remind myself that he’s got some redeeming qualities. That’s hard to remember though, because I really don’t get what’s going on with him and Dad. They seem to be doing everything wrong, and yet God hasn’t stopped them yet. They criticize our leaders and our people, when it’s obvious that we’re keeping the Law of Moses. Yeah, we’re not perfect, but neither are Jeremiah's followers. Shortly before we left, I heard one of the prophets teach the following:

"Too many people think Jews and their leaders should be perfect or nearly perfect. They forget that the the Lord's grace is sufficient to accomplish His work through mortals. Our leaders have the best intentions, but sometimes we make mistakes. This is not unique to our faith, as the same thing occurs in our relationships among friends, neighbors, and workplace associates and even between spouses and in families.

Looking for human weakness in others is rather easy. However, we make a serious mistake by noticing only the human nature of one another and then failing to see God’s hand working through those He has called.

Focusing on how the Lord inspires His chosen leaders and how He moves Israel to do remarkable and extraordinary things despite their humanity is one way that we hold on to the Law and stay safely within the Good Caravan Israel."

Why do Dad and Nephi have to be so negative? Isaiah was pretty clear when he said, “How beautiful up on the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!…Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for Jehovah hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.” Don’t they know what these words mean? Why would they rather be negative and criticize others instead of be counted among those who bring good tidings?

Anyway, sorry for the tangent, but it’s just something that’s been on my mind lately as I'm trying to figure this thing out. I admit I’m still at a loss.

Anyway, back to the main point, Ishmael and Nephi really hit it off. So Mr. Charisma apparently isn’t as awkward as I thought. He just gels with certain types of people. With Zoram and now Ishmael, I’m worried we might have too many of Nephi's “type” pretty soon.

Luckily they're balanced out by Ishmael’s sons and a couple of his daughters who seem to be a bit more practical. Both of Ishmael’s sons have one young kid, and his oldest son, Hoshea, will be getting a second kid soon. His wife, Ashtaroth, is about six months along. Sheerah, Ahijah’s wife (Ahijah is Ishmael’s second son), just had a baby two months ago. So needless to say, neither Hoshea nor Ahijah are all that pumped about abandoning everything to live in the desert. It was one thing for our family to do it with all of us kids being a bit older. But taking a newborn out to live the life of a nomad…well, I can see why his two sons are ticked at us.

Last night, I could see how unhappy Hoshea and Ahijah were with their Dad, so I pulled them aside and kind of gave them the run down. I let them know that most of us weren’t excited about it either, but it’s like Dad and Nephi are on a different planet. I told them to store their stuff somewhere secure because eventually our Dads and Nephi would come back to earth when the reality of the situation (read: potentially starving in the desert) set in. We just gotta get through this until Dad and Ishmael have had time to cool off and feel it’s safe to return. I don’t know if this helped them settle down or not, but at least they’re cool with me now and realize we’re on the same side.

Same goes for Zilpah and Jael, two of Ishmael’s daughters, who were there when I was trying to calm their brothers. They don’t have circumstances that cause the same level of concern as their brothers, but they’re rightfully concerned anyway. Zilpah’s worried that her dad is full on apostate now. He’s no longer just reading and listening to the Jeremiah faction, but now he’s abandoning Israel. I totally get where she’s coming from. I didn’t really have a good answer to help her out because…well…I worry about the same thing.