War & Peace

From Understanding the Book of Mormon by Grant Hardy, page 107:

(Mormon's) choice to dwell on dysfunctional eras seems odd in a book whose point is to urge readers to embrace the Christian gospel.  We might expect inspirational accounts of the glorious existence possible for nations who repent and come to Christ; instead we get extensive narratives only from contentious and self destructive periods of war.  The bulk of the text is devoted to the two hundred years that precede Jesus' visit, ... while the two centuries of peace that followed Jesus' appearance among the Nephites is dispensed with by Mormon in just twenty-one verses.  Either Mormon is not interested in the economy, politics, sociology, or religious practices of these periods or he doesn't think this is what his readers most need to hear.

It is interesting how we seem to learn better by negative experiences than through positive ones.  I was thinking of that as I listened to Elder Cook's General Conference address from this past Conference weekend.  Can we really learn peace through tragedies like 9-11 and the Newton School shooting?  They do offer powerful examples of wickedness and evil, and I guess do give us opportunities to lean on the Savior and forgive our fellow man.

We had a FHE lesson with the kids last week where we shared the tragedy of this murder of a member of the Church as part of our teaching the importance of the law of chastity.  It appears to me that the whole terrible affair could have been avoided by obedience to that eternal law.  I was thinking of that during President Monson's and Elder Perry's talks.  Powerful, lots of talks about peace.  Wonderful messages were given during conference by all the speakers, I hope to learn how I need to apply them to my life.