Let the Mountains Shout for Joy!

I've never read a passage of scripture more excited than Doctrine and Covenants 128:18-24. Joseph's energy in it makes me want to get just as excited about the Gospel. When I think about it with the right attitude, it's really obvious why we should be so. Just look at the doctrine contained in Section 128: God has given the righteous dead the opportunity to receive all the blessings possible from the ordinances of the gospel of Christ, and he has given his mortal saints the privilege of facilitating such a magnificent work! Not only that, but, having been raised in the restored gospel, I have had the immense gift of being one of the "babes and sucklings" who receive knowledge kept from the world for centuries (128:18)! Life is amazing!

Without A Hurt the Heart is Hollow

If thou art called to pass through tribulation; if thou art in perils among false brethren; if thou art among perils among robbers; if thou art in perils by land or by sea; [i]f thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife, and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age, shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can't you stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb; [a]nd if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

Doctrine and Covenants 122:5-7

Sure they will. Why not? The only problem is that when asked how affliction will be for your good, most people will just regurgitate a trite Sunday school answer about how you will get stronger from it. Stronger to what end? To deal with more affliction, of course. The don't think about it enough to realize that this reply utterly begs the question.

Fortunately, soon after this fallacy occurred to me, I realized that the Book of Mormon contains a real answer to the question: For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, ... righteousness could not have been brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility (1 Nephi 2:11). You simply can't have happiness without misery. By giving us greater pain, the Lord opens up the possibility of greater happiness if we endure it well.

In my choir concert this weekend, we sang a set of mostly bittersweet pieces about remembering, including "Try to Remember" from The Fantasticks. The first two verses tenderly ask the listener to recall simpler, happier times "when life was so tender that no-one wept except the willow." The third verse, though changes tack a little:

Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
Although you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember
Without a hurt the heart is hollow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember
The fire of September that made us mellow.
Deep in December our hearts will remember
And follow.

We can't have joy without pain. It's simply not possible, and I'm okay with that. My life is full of both righteousness and wickedness, holiness and misery, good and bad, corruption and incorruption, sense and insensibility; but it is full, above all, of joy. I don't like the bad things when they come, of course, and they sometimes sting pretty badly long after the fact, but I wouldn't forget them for anything.