Compassion can Transcend Both Time and Space

I was teaching my Sunday School class last week about the prophecies of Samuel the Lamanite.  One of those most profound prophecies was that the entire Nephite civilization would be destroyed in a matter of 4 generations.  One question that was brought up was "Why would they care what was going to happen in 400 years?"  

I have been thinking about that question all week long, perhaps because I didn't feel like it was really answered during class. Why would they care, and a more introspective question why should we care, really, what happens to the world 400 years from now or what happened 2000 years ago?

The day after this question was asked an article appeared in the FAITH section of the Deseret News. Elder Holland an apostle for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, had been participating in a conference at the Windsor Castle in London England.  During this conference  titled "Religious Persecution: The Driver for Forced Migration", Elder Holland " spoke to the gathering of civic, philanthropic, and religious leaders from around the world. He pointed to religious freedom, belief and activity as keys to improving the plight of refugees." He said:

"The sexual violence and persecution of refugees is a crisis deserving more global outrage. The world needs to be more outraged than it is," he said, "when we read of the persecution, the violence, the sexual violence, the murder, the rape, the destruction of families and any social structure that these people have had — almost entire cultures being destroyed." (See full article from Deseret News)

In recalling the persecutions and forced migration of Latter-day Saints in 19th-century America, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland noted that their anguish was lessened by the compassion of others. “We will never forget the precious opportunities, blessings, and miracles given to us during that time from God and from kind, caring people.” (See full article from Church News)

In the context of this talk the answer to the question above for me was this: compassion needs to transcend through both time and space. We need to care about the past, the future and what is going on today on the other side of the world. We need to care! These people in need of more global outrage are not my neighbors.   I have not seen their faces. They are as obscure to me as the people 400 years ago.  I do not know there names or much about them really.  But knowing their stories, their trials and their testimonies can still relate to me a sense of compassion for my fellow brothers and sisters. The same way that seeing the faces and understanding the  plight of those fellow world citizens, my brothers and sisters all over the world. The wonderful things about the gift of compassion is that it can transcend both time and space. To me its the difference of being a global citizen and reverting back into tribes and family units, like the Nephites did before the birth of Christ (3 Nephi 7:3). The Nephites just came from a massive thriving economically progressive, culturally diverse civilization to something that history has taught us was the smallest most basic unit of civilization, that of tribes. We have to care, we have to be concerned about things that are going on in the world.  Even if we have to be that small band of righteous saints who hold things together. (Helaman 13:13)

Just one more lesson we can learn from asking questions and internalizing the things we read in the Book of Mormon.


Here is one of two speeches that Elder Holland gave at the conference.