Things I am Learning; week 7 Im going to talk about The Hunchback of Notre Dame even though I talk about it every day of my life, because its the best book in the history of secular literature and you might have forgotten why without me there to remind you every six minutes. This is why: because Hugo spun the story in such a way that he basically broke the universe. He found a loophole. To summarize: its 15th century France, the priest of the cathedral (Frollo) is corrupt; hes in love with Esmerelda the gypsy girl; his adopted son/slave is also in love with her; she has this pseudo marriage going on to a crazy homeless playwriter (Gringiore); her husbands in love with her goat; shes in love with the captain of the guard (Phoebus); hes engaged to this obnoxious teenage girl he cant stand; its madness. Skip to the end of the book and total chaos has ensued. Paris is burning, gypsies are running amuck, people are rioting. The first time I read it, I remembering wondering how Hugo was going to dig himself out of that one. Its a love story and love stories basically have two options, right? They end up together or they dont. Unless youre Victor Hugo, and you spin the laws of the universe until your characters can not end up together and still end up together. Every character gets exactly whats coming to him according to the way he behaved throughout the book. Gringiore never exactly did anything wrong (hes just crazy) so hes basically the only one who gets a happy ending. He runs out of town with Djali (the goat hes in love with). Esmerelda gets tried as a witch and hung. Frollo falls off Notre Dame and dies a painful, terrifying, very public death. And Phoebus - the scum of the scum of the scum - doesnt even get to die. He survives and has to spend the rest of his life with that cackling teenage girl (a fate much longer and much more painful than death). Which is exactly what he deserves. Quasimodo is really the only good character in the book and he does get the happy ending he deserves. After Esmerelda is dead, she gets thrown into a mass grave and that night Quasimodo crawls in, finds her body, and holds her until he dies of hypothermia and their skeletons freeze together. For Quasimodo, that was the closest he was ever going to get to being with the woman he was in love with so it really is a happy and fair ending. I was blown away the first time I read it. Masterpiece. Lately Ive been thinking about the poetry of the plan of salvation because the five steps of the gospel (faith, repentance, baptism, confirmation, and endurance) and the role of the atonement are referenced in the Book of Mormon again and again and again. Before I came to be a missionary, I felt like I understand the atonement and why its important. But since I got here Ive been studying the Book of Mormon more and its helped me understand the poetry of the plan, the way it solved an unsolvable problem; that the plan of salvation has the same element I love so much in Hunchback. The problem is that justice and mercy seemingly cant co-exist. You can be fair. Or you can be merciful. But to be merciful is to be unfair and unequal, and to be just is to cruel. God has promised us justice and Hes promised us mercy. Alma explains in Alma 42:13 that if justice was destroyed God would cease to be God. The scriptures describe Him as a just God and a merciful God. Paradox. Boyd K. Packer, conference 1977: “There once was a man who wanted something very much. It seemed more important than anything else in his life. In order for him to have his desire, he incurred a great debt. He had been warned about going into that much debt, and particularly about his creditor. But it seemed so important for him to do what he wanted to do and to have what he wanted right now. He was sure he could pay for it later. So he signed a contract. He would pay it off some time along the way. He didn’t worry too much about it, for the due date seemed such a long time away. He had what he wanted now, and that was what seemed important. The creditor was always somewhere in the back of his mind, and he made token payments now and again, thinking somehow that the day of reckoning really would never come. But as it always does, the day came, and the contract fell due. The debt had not been fully paid. His creditor appeared and demanded payment in full. Only then did he realize that his creditor not only had the power to repossess all that he owned, but the power to cast him into prison as well. ‘I cannot pay you, for I have not the power to do so,’ he confessed. Then,’ said the creditor, ‘we will exercise the contract, take your possessions, and you shall go to prison. You agreed to that. It was your choice. You signed the contract, and now it must be enforced. ‘Can you not extend the time or forgive the debt?’ the debtor begged. ‘Arrange some way for me to keep what I have and not go to prison. Surely you believe in mercy? Will you not show mercy?’ The creditor replied, ‘Mercy is always so one-sided. It would serve only you. If I show mercy to you, it will leave me unpaid. It is justice I demand. Do you believe in justice?’ I believed in justice when I signed the contract,’ the debtor said. ‘It was on my side then, for I thought it would protect me. I did not need mercy then, nor think I should need it ever. Justice, I thought, would serve both of us equally as well.’ ‘It is justice that demands that you pay the contract or suffer the penalty,’ the creditor replied. ‘That is the law. You have agreed to it and that is the way it must be. Mercy cannot rob justice.’ There they were: One meting out justice, the other pleading for mercy. Neither could prevail except at the expense of the other. ‘If you do not forgive the debt there will be no mercy,’ the debtor pleaded. ‘If I do, there will be no justice,’ was the reply. Both laws, it seemed, could not be served. They are two eternal ideals that appear to contradict one another. Is there no way for justice to be fully served, and mercy also? There is a way! The law of justice can be fully satisfied and mercy can be fully extended--but it takes someone else. And so it happened this time. The debtor had a friend. He came to help. He knew the debtor well. He knew him to be shortsighted. He thought him foolish to have gotten himself into such a predicament. Nevertheless, he wanted to help because he loved him. He stepped between them, faced the creditor, and made this offer. ‘I will pay the debt if you will free the debtor from his contract so that he may keep his possessions and not go to prison.’ As the creditor was pondering the offer, the mediator added, ‘You demanded justice. Though he cannot pay you, I will do so. You will have been justly dealt with and can ask no more. It would not be just.’ And so the creditor agreed. The mediator turned then to the debtor. ‘If I pay your debt, will you accept me as your creditor?’ Oh yes, yes,’ cried the debtor. ‘You save me from prison and show mercy to me.’ Then,’ said the benefactor, ‘you will pay the debt to me and I will set the terms. It will not be easy, but it will be possible. I will provide a way. You need not go to prison.’ And so it was that the creditor was paid in full. He had been justly dealt with. No contract had been broken. The debtor, in turn, had been extended mercy. Both laws stood fulfilled. Because there was a mediator, justice had claimed its full share, and mercy was fully satisfied. Just like that, justice is served, mercy is extended, the laws of the universe balance, and the unsolvable problem is solved. Poetry. We have to understand that neither mercy nor justice is going to trump the other in the end. They balance. So in my opinion, the reason the atonement is brought up so much in the Book of Mormon is so we understand that this is our chance to accept that mercy. I used to think it was so mean that the scriptures repeatedly talk about the wicked being cut off from the presence of the Lord. If He loves us all His children, why is He cutting some of them off, right? But then when I restarted the Book of Mormon I noticed something right away: in 1 Nephi 2:21 Christ tells Nephi that inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. I recognized that passive tense of be from studying newspapers junior year old high school. Newspapers write captions like man found dead in park because either they dont know who did it or theyre not allowed to say. If you dont have a subject, you can rework your sentence so that you dont need one. The verse could say inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, the Lord shall cut off from His presence but it doesnt. Because thats not whats happening. The phrase be cut off doesnt have an acting subject because there isnt one. Its just a reaction. If I drop my keys on the floor, they fall because thats a natural reaction of gravity. I can say the keys fell and I dont attach responsibility to the fall because there is no acting subject (other than gravity). The same natural reaction happens when we rebel against God. He doesnt want to withdraw from us, but when we do things that distance ourselves from Him (like sin) its just the natural result that we move further and further away until were completely cut off. He didnt move. We moved. God doesnt cut us off; we cut him off. 2 Nephi 7:1-2 says Yea, to whom have I sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have he sold yourselves. When I came, there was no man; when I called, yea, there was none to answer. The Book of Mormon never, ever references Heavenly Father cutting someone off. Every single time they become cut off and I know because Ive been looking. Its not referenced because it doesnt happen. Mercy doesnt work for us unless we let it. I think sometimes we want mercy to mean that we can do whatever we want and not be held responsible, but thats not mercy. Thats elimination of the law. If theres no standard of justice, there can be no mercy. In the pre-mortal life, we chose a world with a law that wed justly be held to and consequently, God cannot deny justice when it has its claim. When we chose the plan with a law, we chose the plan that requires us to accept mercy. Mercy is the opportunity to change and close the gap between us and Heavenly Father. Its the divine help available to rise above our sins. And the wording the Book of Mormon uses when it talks about mercy makes it clear that it requires action. Alma 3:14 - except they repent of their wickedness and turn to me that I may have mercy on them. Alma 5:33 behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: repent, and I will receive you. The arms of mercy are extended and waiting. You have to accept that help while its still available. There will come a day when it no longer is, because mercy cannot rob justice. Paul taught in 1 Corinthians that ye are bought with a price. That price is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That sacrifice is the loophole that can satisfy both mercy and justice, the element that makes the plan so perfect. I like how Alma describes it because I feel like hes amazed with the poetry of the plan too: Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state; for except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God. And thus we see that all mankind were fallen, and they were in the grasp of justice; yea, the justice of God, which consigned them forever to be cut off from his presence. And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God and a merciful God also. Anyway.......Mayday Parade is going to be in Salt Lake this week and Im not, so my heart is probably going to break. Love Sister Moon
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 02:36:13 +0000
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