Reclaiming our Landfills

The Mormon Messages video of the day is Reclaimed.





The funny thing about this video is that it says just about everything the original talk said, just in much fewer words. The video cuts out the more detailed description of the Idaho Falls airport, neglects to tell us Webster's definition of a Landfill, and bypasses a few Atonement verses from the scriptures, but the overall message, including many of its key points remain.

There is, however, one key point in the complete message, left out of the video, that I'd like to share with you. Okay, maybe two. In these paragraphs, the speaker, Elder Shayne M. Bowen, makes two more connections between the reclaiming of sanitary landfills and the reclaiming of our souls. He says:

Just as the landfill requires dedicated work and attention, laboriously applying layer after layer of fill to reclaim the low-lying ground, our lives also require the same vigilance, continually applying layer after layer of the healing gift of repentance.

Just as the city fathers in Idaho Falls would feel bad about a person trying to dig up his old garbage, our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, feel sorrow when we choose to remain in sin, when the gift of repentance made possible through the Atonement can clean, reclaim, and sanctify our lives.

First point first: How much dirt would you have to pour on a pile of trash before you'd let your kids play on it? 10 feet? 30 feet? Would that be enough? And while we're talking about how much dirt we need, just how big is the area we're trying to cover? Airports are huge, and the park is described as having "acres and acres of green grass filled with baseball and softball diamonds." Multiply "acres and acres" by the desired thickness of the dirt layer, and you get, literally, TONS of dirt. Thank goodness the Atonement is infinite!

Now, there isn't a bulldozer in the world that can spread out that much dirt in one go. Even with a team of bulldozers, it would take days to cover the whole park. As Elder Bowen said, covering the garbage takes "laboriously applying layer after layer of fill," and "our lives also require the same vigilance, continually applying layer after layer of the healing gift of repentance." Generally speaking, the process of repentance take a lot of work and a lot of time.

That leads us to the second point: Don't undo that work! I have a bad habit of falling back into bad habits after repeated attempts to repent. I apply a few layers of fill, then I dig my trash back up again. You'd think I'd learn to bury my garbage and keep it buried, like the Anti-Nephi-Lehites did. Maybe someday I will. Maybe gaining that wisdom is the whole point of me being here, or at least a part of it.

We all could use that wisdom. Many people hold onto bad habits, or frequently recall some sins they've long since repented of. Some people try to change, and perhaps even succeed, but continue to see themselves as the way that they were. They see the dirt layer as just a thin mask, with their 'true selves' hiding just beneath the surface.

That's the unfortunate truth of repentance: The garbage is still there. The past happened. Maybe it happened many years ago, and there are tons of layers of good, fertile dirt stacked on top of it, but deep down, it's still there. A sin was committed and someone has to pay the price for it. The good news is that Someone did. Now, we have to pay His price, meet His conditions. And once we've justified ourselves with God and our age-old sins are completely forgiven, He'll forget about them completely. "What garbage?" He'll say, "I only see a park and an airport."

Once the price is fully paid, God will forget that there was ever a debt owed in the first place, but will we? Will we remember the garbage, buried under miles of dirt, and thousands of right choices, and ages of living pure and worthy lives? Will we remember then the mistakes we're making now?

I think we will. There may be some wisdom in choosing to remember that old pile of garbage we once stacked up for ourselves. Not to accuse ourselves of having once been terrible people, but to remind ourselves that we've had our shares of weaknesses and shortcomings, so we shouldn't be too hard on those who are still dealing with theirs. Maybe we'll remember something that helped us, or hindered us, and we can pass the advice or warning along. Maybe we can give them a shoulder to lean on, and tell them "I know how you feel. I remember how that feels." Maybe someday, a part of us will be glad we have a pile of garbage in our past.

But we're not at that point yet. For most of us, the garbage isn't in our past, it's in our present. For those of us in that category, the message is: Bury it! For those of us that have buried our garbage, or at least some of it, the message is: Keep burying it, and don't dig it back up. And for those Celestial people who have turned the sanitary landfills of their mortal lives into their own Freeman Parks, my message is: Remember your garbage, and have mercy on people like me.