The Willie Company -- a moral tale

Again, I plan to wax a bit philosophical. Be warned.

I stopped yesterday at a place called Sixth Crossing. It's a Mormon place, I think kind of like an RV park for retired Mormons, although they call it a missionary camp. The place is a museum/shrine dedicated to the Willie Company. The Willie Company was a group of Mormons who came out to Utah using handcarts -- little carts with all their belongings on them, pulled by a person rather than by an animal.

The only problem was, the Willie Company left a lot later in the season than they should have and had pretty poor planning and equipment. As a result, they ended up getting caught in a monster snowstorm out in Wyoming at this Sixth Crossing place. The people were dying, and a rescue party was sent out from Salt Lake. Eventually, through a sort of miraculous coincidence, the two groups managed to find each other, and most of the Willie Company was saved.

The Mormons see this as a story about the courage of their ancestors, and about this miraculous rescue that they think is a sort of divine intervention. And that story is definitely there. But it seems to me this is also a story about the results of pushing the envelope. Why didn't they just leave the next year? It's like driving out on the highway without a spare, blowing out a tire, and having somebody come along awhile later, after a bear eats all your food, with a spare that fits. Which part of the story do you look at?

OK. I don't know if that even makes any sense. But I wrote it, and I'm not going to delete it now.