Week 7: Staying Emotionally Connected

As I read Arta Romney Ballif’s Lamentation, I was filled with sadness. Sadness for Eve as a mother, sadness for Adam as a father, and even a little sadness for Cain. The poem brought me to tears. It made me consider, for the first time, what the murder of Abel must have been like for Eve. It made me think of my own son who has chosen not to live the gospel he has been taught since birth. It made me think of my own mother who love me through all the choices that I made that I know disappointed her. In all of the times I’ve read the scriptures about Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, I’ve never really considered how Cain’s actions must have affected his parents. The focus has always been on the difference between Cain and Abel, and how Cain was rebellious from the beginning. I’ve never actually thought about the family relationship and how it suffered.

I think part of the reason the poem made me so emotional was because I could relate to the feeling of knowing there is nothing I can do for my child who has done something wrong. Even though I love that child, I cannot take away the consequences of the choice that was made. That is one of the hardest things about being a parent – watching your children suffer the consequences of their mistakes. Even when they make terrible mistakes, the love for a child does not go away. I think that was something that the poem brought out very clearly. Cain may have become hard-hearted and beyond feeling, but his mother was not, which added to her suffering. It also brings to mind how hard it has to be for our Father in Heaven to have to leave us to deal with the consequences of our actions, knowing that it is what is best for us.

In marriage and family life, we are going to be faced with trials we can’t plan for. Because of agency, others may make choices that bring us sorrow. None of us are perfect, and we all make mistakes. Perhaps not to the degree Cain did, but we all do things that we may need to be forgiven of. I think having an understanding of the Plan of Salvation, and of the Atonement, we have a better perspective that helps us get through the trials the bring suffering. Not that those trials will be any less difficult, simply that we can face them with a different kind of strength because we understand the bigger picture. Elder Hafen put it best when he said, “…because they accepted the Atonement of Christ, Adam and Eve…could…grow from their experience without suffering irreparable damage.” (Covenant Hearts, pg. 70) I am so grateful that the same blessing applies to each of us.

I want to include the Poem because it touched me so deeply. I hope you enjoy it. (Taken from Bruce C. Hafen, Covenant Hearts, pg. 67)

Lamentation
by Arta Romney Ballif

And God said, “BE FRUITFUL, AND MULTIPLY –“
Multiply, multiply – echoes multiply

God said, “I WILL GREATLY MULTIPLY THEY SORROW – “
Thy sorrow, sorrow, sorrow –

I have gotten a man from the Lord
I have traded the fruit of the garden for fruit of my body
For a laughing bundle of humanity.

And now another one who looks like Adam
We shall call this one, “Abel.”
It is a lovely name“Abel.”

Cain, Abel, the world is yours.
God set the sun in the heaven to light your days
To warm the flocks, to kernel the grain
He illuminated your nights with stars

He made the trees and the fruit thereof yielding seed
He made every living thing, the wheat, the sheep, the cattle
For your enjoyment
And, behold, it is very good.

Adam? Adam
Where art thou?
Where are the boys?
The sky darkens with clouds.
Adam, is that you?
Where is Abel?
He is long caring for his flocks.
The sky is black and the rain hammers.
Are the ewes lambing
In this storm?

Why your troubled face, Adam?
Are you ill?
Why so pale, so agitated?
The wind will pass
The lambs will birth
With Abel’s help.

Dead?
What is dead?

Merciful God!

Hurry, bring warm water
I’ll bathe his wounds
Bring clean Clothes
Bring herbs.
I’ll heal him.

I am trying to understand.
You said, “Abel is dead.”
But I am skilled with herbs
Remember when he was seven
The fever? Remember how—

Herbs will not heal?
Dead?

And Cain? Where is Cain?
Listen to that thunder.

Cain cursed?
What has happened to him?
God said, “A fugitive and a vagabond?”

But God can’t do that.
They are my sons, too.
I gave them birth
In the valley of pain.

Adam, try to understand
In the valley of pain
I bore them
fugitive?
vagabond?

This is his home
This the soil he loved
Where he toiled for golden wheat
For tasseled corn.

To the hill country?
There are rocks in the hill country
Cain can’t work in the hill country
The nights are cold
Cold and lonely, and the wind gales.

Quick, we must find him
A basket of bread and his coat
I worry, thinking of him wandering
With no place to lay his head.
Cain cursed?
A wanderer, a roamer?
Who will bake his bread and mend his coat?

Abel, my son dead?
And Cain, my son, a fugitive
Two sons
Adam, we had two sons
Both – Oh, Adam –
multiply
sorrow

Dear God, Why?
Tell me again about the fruit
Why?
Please, tell me again
Why?