Clyde made an interesting comment—that our “tools” today might be the money we set aside in IRAs and savings accounts for retirement or even future missions.
That thought has stayed with me. If those are our tools, do we sometimes hold onto them too tightly? In the end, won’t they become slippery anyway? Would they be better used now in helping others?
As I finished the book of Ether this morning, that question felt even more pressing.
The story ends in complete devastation. Two men—Shiz and Coriantumr—lead their people into total destruction. What strikes me is that this didn’t happen quickly. They spent four years gathering and preparing for war. Four years to reconsider, to change course, to walk away.
And yet, they didn’t.
That part is hard for me to understand. I keep thinking I would have gathered my family and anyone willing to leave and gone far away. Why didn’t they do that? Why did no one stop it? Maybe the supplies that were gathered in those four years were numerous and they had no way of fending for themselves. A thought.
I also find myself wondering about the practical things. Who was growing the food? Who was feeding families while everything unraveled? Even in our day, that kind of work takes enormous effort.
In the end, none of it mattered. Hard hearts and blind minds destroyed an entire civilization. They went from millions of people to almost none.
Moroni describes them as being “drunken with anger.” That phrase feels painfully accurate. Anger can (and does) blind us. It can destroy.
And then there is Coriantumr—spared, wandering, eventually finding the Mulekites. A quiet witness that this destruction really happened.
Ether preserved this record, and I’m grateful he did. It’s a sobering reminder of how far people can fall—and how quickly everything can be lost.
It also brings me back to that earlier question:
What am I holding onto that might not matter in the end?
And what could I be using now to bless someone else?
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