Thursday, August 14, 2008

Park City

Mosiah 11:13

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. While I pick my scripture to ponder I try to avoid Scripture Mastery. What does that have to do with this scripture? Absolutely everything.

This scripture is in the middle of a description of how King Noah (bad guy) treats his people. He taxes them one fifth of everything and uses the money for his own riotous living. He eats food, dresses in fine linens, and drinks wines. He takes the gold, silver, and ziff and decorates his palaces, workers, and himself with it. He even builds towers in the land of Shilom. Shilom was a resort town for the Nephites.

Wait a minute? Resort? I can see it now. Nephites lounging around a pool drinking all manner of beverages with umbrellas in them. Nephites getting deep tissue massages and golfing. Nephites eating at five star restaurants that are in the resort. Nephites wearing robes and hotel sandals. Nephite men and Nephite women getting a weekend away from their Nephite children.

Then after I was done picturing these Nephites having a grand time at Sandals, I re-read the passage. They went to Shilom as refugees when they had to flee their land. Then I thought of (confirm Allison’s geeknees…now) how Helm’s Deep was a resort for the people of Rohan. If we look up the word resort, the sixth definition is a person or thing resorted to for aid.

I don’t really have any doctrine to get a hold of here. I thought it was funny to think the Nephites had a resort town.

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1 comment:

FPrince said...

Ah imagination. We're in Mormon right now, just finished 4th Nephi. Not everything in the Book of Mormon is warm-fuzzy good news. Some very dark times are depicted. Which actually corroborates your theory about the resort towns. How would they know the ghetto without knowing the bling?