Broken Flower

On Tuesday, March 24, on my way to the Assembly Hall, I came across a yellow pansy on the sidewalk. The groundskeepers had probably broken it off when they walked around the flowers to trim the bushes surrounding the Triad Center. I picked it up and carried it with me for a while, brushing the dirt off it and moving the petals back to their original place. Scuffed and marred, the flower still had some beauty to it.

Admittedly, the first thing I thought of when I held the pansy was of a documentary called India's Daughter, about a woman, Nirbhaya, who was gang raped on a bus in New Dehli while coming home from seeing The Life of Pi. She was so brutally tortured that she died of her injuries a few days later. One of the most stunning things about that documentary are the interviews with the men defending her attackers. ML Sharma, defense lawyer for the four rapists, said, "A female is just like a flower. It gives a good-looking, very softness performance, pleasant. But on the other hand, a man is just like a thorn. Strong, tough enough. That flower always needs protection. If you put that flower in a gutter, it is spoilt. If you put that flower in a temple, it will be worshipped." Attached to this metaphor is a stigma that when a woman is raped, she loses her value permanently and ultimately deserved it.

I don't like those guys. I also don't like anyone that thinks that women are objects. Anyway...

Sometimes I feel like this pansy that has been ripped off and stepped on, except I feel like I have done the damage myself —that I've smashed the flower into the pavement with a sledgehammer, ground it into a pulp with my heel and spat on it for good measure. Worthless. Permanently damaged. Good for nothing but compost.

Let's just say that the guilt that accompanies sin really sucks. Especially when you feel like you can't get away from the sin no matter what you do or how hard you try.

3.1415926

In honor of Super Pi Day, I thought I would make the one and only (useless) definitive list of Chapter 3 Verse 14 that have ever existed in the Standard Works. Just because. You're welcome!

Book of Mormon

1 Nephi "But Laman fled out of his presence, and told the things which Laban had done, unto us. And we began to be exceedingly sorrowful, and my brethren were about to return unto my father in the wilderness."

2 Nephi "And thus prophesied Joseph, saying: Behold, that seer will the Lord bless; and they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded; for this promise, which I have obtained of the Lord, of the fruit of my loins, shall be fulfilled. Behold, I am sure of the fulfilling of this promise;"

Jacob "These plates are called the plates of Jacob, and they were made by the hand of Nephi. And I make an end of speaking these words."

Mosiah "Yet the Lord God saw that his people were a stiffnecked people, and he appointed unto them a law, even the law of Moses."

Alma "Thus the word of God is fulfilled, for these are the words which he said to Nephi: Behold, the Lamanites have I cursed, and I will set a mark on them that they and their seed may be separated from thee and thy seed, from this time henceforth and forever, except they repent of their wickedness and turn to me that I may have mercy upon them."

Helaman "But behold, a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people, yea, the account of the Lamanites and of the Nephites, and their wars, and contentions, and dissensions, and their preaching, and their prophecies, and their shipping and their building of ships, and their building of temples, and of synagogues and their sanctuaries, and their righteousness, and their wickedness, and their murders, and their robbings, and their plundering, and all manner of abominations and whoredoms, cannot be contained in this work."

3 Nephi "And he caused that fortifications should be built round about them, and the strength thereof should be exceedingly great. And he caused that armies, both of the Nephites and of the Lamanites, or of all them who were numbered among the Nephites, should be placed as guards round about to watch them, and to guard them from the robbers day and night."

Ether "Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters."