I read the book Sergeant
Nibley Phd: Memories of an Unlikely Screaming Eagle yesterday. I very much enjoyed it and
recommend it. It was about
Hugh Nibley’s experience in World War II as part of army intelligence. He was part of the force that invaded
Normandy on D-day.
One particular experience of his I found particularly
inspiring, so I want to share it with you.
One day I was asleep, all covered
up in my foxhole, and Dave came running up and said, “Get up! Grab a carbine and come quick! The Germans are in Carentan, and
they’re going to attack!”
And I heaved an enormous sigh of
relief and I said, “Thank heaven!
It was only a dream!”
Because before he woke me I had been dreaming that I had committed a
rather serious crime—I think I committed murder—and I was terrified by the
dream. When I woke in the foxhole
with the guns firing and the noise and shouting all around and the dense smoke
of rifle fire, I was so happy I could sing because I hadn’t committed that
crime. When I found it wasn’t
true, it was as if I’d found myself in my bed in a palace. “How happy I am! Everything is all right! The world is lovely and right because I
have not sinned!” (p127-128)
I love this story because it shows what a wonderful thing it
can be to have a clear conscience. I suppose the Lord gave Hugh Nibley that dream specifically so that the comfort of finding it wasn't real would buoy him up in difficulty.
Elsewhere in the book, Nibley reflects on that further on
that experience:
I remember the dream I had in the
foxhole outside Carentan. The one where
Dave Bernay woke me up and I felt so happy because it was just a dream and I
hadn’t actually committed the terrible crime I had dreamed about. There I was in the middle of a battle,
and I was completely happy. It was
a very strong thing; it came to me very strongly: I shouldn’t be happy in this circumstance! But it’s not what happens to you that
matters. It’s not what becomes of
you, it’s what you become that’s important. And the tragedy today in America is not what becomes of us,
but what we become. As Brother
Brigham used to say, if you don’t deserve hell and you’re sent to hell it
doesn’t bother you. You just say,
I’m in the wrong place; there has been a mistake. It’ll be corrected, I don’t
belong here. But if you belong
there, that’s the sad thing. Then it’s what you are. There is the tragedy. (p125-126)
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