Moroni

Too easily the layers of the day's activities stack on top of the layers of previous day's thoughts. Like stacking old overhead acetate sheets atop each other, a stack of about seven or so create an opaque barrier, so it is with my memories. By the end of a week, I can't remember what came the week before.

For that reason I like to write things down. So I'll continue using this Internet medium for a while.

That being said, my thoughts about the Moroni edited portion completing the existing Book of Mormon are still clear and vibrant. Even though my thoughts about today's readings in Second Nephi are screaming to be recorded.

As I finished Mormon's account of the decline of his people and the destruction he was a witness to, it was apparent to me how Joseph could not have made this story up.

Here is a young married man, having enough education to read and write, but certainly not schooled in the art of war and world history; a man who hired himself out helping neighbors dig holes on their property, who labored in the fields and forests. He presents a book to the world that contains Moroni's account of the death of his father.

In the last chapters of Mormon's record, Moroni recounts the final scenes of Nephite civilization. He was obviously distraught. Both chapters are full of subtle anxiety, anguish, grief, despair and mourning: for his father; for himself; for the responsibility he shoulders, alone, to finish his father's work; for the destruction of his people and the civilization he grew up in; for doubts about his abilities as a translator, scribe and engraver; for doubts about whether he will have resources enough to finish the project:

Behold, I have but few things to write, which things I have been commanded by my father...Behold, my father hath made this record, and he hath written the intent thereof. And behold, I would write it also, if I had room upon the plates; but I have not; and ore I have none, for I am alone; my father hath been slain in battle, and all my kinsfolks, and I have not friends nor whither to go; and how long the Lord will suffer that I may live, I know not.

Reading on, we next find Moroni's abridgment of Ether's record. Obviously this work took some time and effort. During the abridgment, Moroni interjects his own commentary and teachings, from the perspective he has gained. It seems that he has become more comfortable with his role as translator, abridger and engraver. The tone of this portion isn't as harsh, or as raw, as the emotional rush expressed in Mormon chapters eight and nine. The commentary is more measured, contemplative and broader in scope than the last chapters in Mormon.

As Ether's record draws to a close, Moroni finishes painting another picture of civil self-destruction, this one even more consuming and brutal than the destruction of his own civilization. Moroni seems almost surprised that he has any space left on the plates when he is finished with Ether. He also seems surprised that he is still alive, more than thirty years after his father's death:

Now I, Moroni, after having made an end of abridging the account of the people of Jared, I had supposed not to have written more, but I have not as yet perished...wherefore I write a few more things, contrary to that which I had supposed...

Moroni closes his father's work with a scrapbook of notes, instruction and letters that he has kept and prized as he has lived, traveled, hidden and translated. Material to fill the space remaining on the plates. Finally, he finishes with his own testimony that his words will be used in the future as a promise, warning and challenge.

The difference in tone and emotional texture between the last two chapters of Mormon and the Book of Moroni struck me, this time around, as profound. A strong, subtle difference that I have grave doubts a farmer from western New York could have come up with, without divine help.

I love Joseph. I love Moroni. I love Mormon. I am impressed by the things they did and how they lived. More so now, after this latest reading of their marvelous work.