It Will Flourish Again

In the book Les Gardiens du Temple by Cheikh Hamidou Kane, which takes place in a post-colonial Africa country among a native people trying to navigate the merging of their civilization with that of the West, one of the characters pondered the unthinkable wrongs done to them. As he mourned the countless number of his ancestors brutally taken away in previous centuries by slavery, he looked ahead to the future: "Il faut survivre, pensa l’homme, et résister au vertige. Pour cela, sans perdre de vue les gouffres alentour, il faut fixer son regard tout près, évaluer avec précision les prochains pas, attacher solidement les passerelles procéder de la manière prudente des charpentiers. La déprédation ancienne, de même que le retrait en cours des coffrages de l’édifice colonial laisseraient le chaos. Il s’agit de planter des tentes et, sous leur abri provisoire, de méditer la Cité nouvelle et de la bâtir en même temps. Il faut la méditer, car elle doit être ajustée ainsi que l’habit. Si le corps fut vigoureux et s’il a été malade, se souvenir qu’il est vivant et de nouveau s’épanouira. Ce n’est pas le linceul de la mort, massive sur nous hier encore, qu’il faut accommoder; désormais nous ne mourrons plus. Notre mort a été vaincue. Elle est ensevelie dans le passé comme en un cimetière. Ce qui est présent, c’est la vie, qui est le matériau de notre ouvrage. Nous ne sommes pas disparus. Nous n’avons pas été anéantis. Le temps présent retentit de la clameur de notre vie. Ainsi que la lumière fait des ténèbres, la clameur de notre vie qui emplit le temps présent a dissipe le malheur. Par la lumière qui toujours est revenue, par la vie souveraine, demain sera comme si les malheurs d’hier ne furent jamais." (pg. 71-72. Here is a rough translation: “We must survive, thought the man, and resist the vertigo. To do this, without losing sight of the surrounding chasms, we must fix our gaze very close, accurately assess the next steps, firmly attach the footbridges, proceed in the prudent manner of carpenters. The old depredation, as well as the ongoing removal of the formwork of the colonial building would leave chaos. It is a question of pitching tents and, under their temporary shelter, of meditating on the new City and building it at the same time. It is necessary to meditate on it because it must be adjusted as well as the covering. If the body was strong and if it was sick, remember that it is alive and will flourish again. It is not the shroud of death, massive upon us yesterday, that must be accommodated; henceforth we will no longer die. Our death has been conquered. It is buried in the past as in a cemetery. What is present is life, which is the material of our work. We have not disappeared. We were not wiped out. The present time resounds with the clamor of our life. As light makes darkness, the clamor of our life that fills the present time has dissipated misfortune. By the light that has always returned, by the sovereign life, tomorrow will be as if the misfortunes of yesterday never existed.”)

                I love those words and that attitude of looking to the future regardless of what has happened in the past. No matter what wrongs have been done to us, no matter what difficulties we have passed through, we can conquer the suffering and death and sorrow of yesterday and look forward to tomorrow with the light that will return. We can flourish again as we choose to hold to that light instead of the past darkness. These words remind me of the stirring declaration of King Limhi to his people: “O ye, my people, lift up your heads and be comforted; for behold, the time is at hand, or is not far distant, when we shall no longer be in subjection to our enemies, notwithstanding our many strugglings, which have been in vain; yet I trust there remaineth an effectual struggle to be made.” They had failed in several attempts to escape their enemies, and because of their sins they had suffered greatly and many lives had been lost. But with the strength of the Lord they could still look with hope to the future. He continued with how they would find that effectual struggle: “Therefore, lift up your heads, and rejoice, and put your trust in God, in that God who was the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; and also, that God who brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and caused that they should walk through the Red Sea on dry ground” (Mosiah 7:18-19). The God who could bring forth the children of Egypt miraculously across the Red Sea—leaving behind forever the slavery of their people there—can bring us forth into the light of the future no matter what has injured us in the past. We can trust in that God who declared, “For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith” (2 Nephi 27:23). As we look forward in faith for better days ahead, trusting in the light of the Lord that can bring us out of past darkness, we can overcome all the pains of yesteryear. Despite all the wickedness and depredation inherent in mortality that we experience, we have a light that will ever be available to guide us to a better future: “He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death” (Mosiah 16:9).