Before I begin, let me rant just a little over the fact that I had drafted a marvelous post and lost it into the cyber-ether. Damn it all to hell.
Now, on to more pleasant topics: This choice little video (if I can get it to upload properly and not completely obliterate my prose, my links, my footnote and my Shakespeare quotes) does wonders for re-interpreting Second Nephi 1: 13-15.
So for today's scripture study, I want you to watch the video and contemplate the implications of the following scripture -- especially after you know what God did with that hot little virgin Mary.
13 O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of men, that they are carried away captive down to the eternal gulf of misery and woe.
14 Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return[1]; a few more days and I go the way of all the earth.
15 But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.
14 Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return[1]; a few more days and I go the way of all the earth.
15 But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.
It is good to know that God is only going to let the bondage game go on so long before he decides to encirle you about eternally in the arms of his hot, heavenly love. Watching that video, I was thinking, "Now, if I were God, sitting nigh up to Kolob, and that girl was all tied up in those painful looking ropes, why I would free her and redeem her and let her behold my glory."
Sorry women, but this is a patriarchal religion after all and you'll just have to be gratified with being saved from your bondage.
[1] I've wanted to do a footnote ever since I saw Gluby do it on his blog. I didn't have anything and then I realized that Lehi's little bondage speech contained some language that I had read before -- not when I was re-reading 2 Nephi for the twentieth time because I could never get past the sections where Isaiah was copied from the Old Testament, but rather from one of my even more frequent readings of the most famous dramatic soliloquy of all time. Ladies and Gentleman of the blogosphere, I give you Hamlet's To Be or Not To Be speech:
To be or not to be, that is the question —
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, . . . blah blah blah all in iambic pentameter . . .
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
I'm so grateful that Shakespeare and Hamlet had the good sense to quote an Ancient American Prophet from 600 B.C. Shakespeare was so incredibly attune to the truth and nature of life. Yet, it appears that Joseph Smith and Hamlet suffered from the same cognitive disconnect -- they both seemed to know a lot of travellers from death's undiscovered country. Hamlet talked to the ghost of his father -- did he just forget about that? And Joe had a regular revolving door of the dead -- Christ, Moroni, Peter, James, John, John the Baptist, Elijah, Moses, etc. But alas, for us mere mortals, we have decidedly few visitors, but hey what do I know? I am but mad north by northwest, when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.
