Spiritual Insights...and other stuff

While exploring the wild recesses of YouTube this afternoon, I found myself funkily entranced by a 1982 Oliver Cheatham song called, "Everybody Wants To Be The Boss." Though written more than three decades ago, the song still seems to reflect contemporary society - we all wanna be top dog. Everyone seems to be gunning for president, CEO, supervisor - the list goes on. But what does it mean to be the boss? What are the responsibilities of being a leader? As it turns out, Ammon, a character in the Book of Mormon, is the one who answered this question for me. In the passage I was reading, Ammon and his homies were about to split up to go to different Lamanite cities to preach the word of God. It began with, " Now Ammon being the chief among them, or rather he did administer unto them" ( Alma 17:18 ). So Ammon was head honcho, and he "administered" unto them? Sounds to me like administration, like some kind of business venue. A dab peculiar for the BCs, if y...

Our story begins when a stalwart Nephite missionary named Ammon travels to a far away land to preach the word of God to the enemy, the Lamanites. Through much service and sacrifice, he finds himself taking part in the breathtaking conversion of many previously bloodthirsty individuals, in the which they bury their weapons of war, swearing never to shed blood again. Things start to go South at that point. All the Lamanites who rejected Ammon are livid - they despise anything with even so much as a whiff of Nephite, so Ammon's missionary work didn't exactly tickle them pink. In their ensuing rage, they mercilessly slaughter more than a thousand of their converted brethren, who refuse to retaliate in any way. Our wicked Lamanites remain unsatisfied, and subsequent attacks are scrawled on the calendar. As you can see, things were not going well for these newly converted Lamanites. Ammon keenly observes their impending danger and presents his marvelous solution to the king: "...