Yvonne Says

Immortalize Yourself

2012-02-14T16:04:00.000-05:00

Age and Youth

The spectacle of Terri Schiavo’s husband feuding with herparents and siblings over what her wishes would have been if she had waked from a persistentvegetative state long enough to learn her prognoses and speak her mind played out before the entire world. After shedied in 2005 everyone was talking about the importance of having that conversationwith friends and family in addition to providing an advanced directive statingpersonal wishes before anything unthinkable happened. No one said anythingabout an ethical will.

Right now you are probably asking yourself what in the worldis an ethical or legacy will? Who ever heard of such a thing? Well, it is adocument that contains the intangible things people hoped to have passed on totheir survivors. It can take the form of a letter, an autobiography, a video oraudio taped message. It is a bit like David giving Solomon instructions on howto be a king, or Lehi telling his older two sons to “arise and be men.” It canbe as long or short as one wants depending on how much information or personalhistory is to be included. Our personal beliefs and the basis for our standardsof conduct, our trials and the things we learned from them are all appropriate.In the Schiavo case it could have helped to keep her family members fromturning on each other.

As you don’t know what it is you don’t know, there arethings we know about ourselves and how we feel about the way life treats usothers can only guess at. Only we have experienced our personal struggles withfamily life, illness, finances and faith. I do not believe it is likely my childrenthey will turn to me for the answers to their adult problems. But, I think itwould be good for them to know that I struggled as well and that I were notfully mature or developed when I reached the age of majority. My actions havebeen teaching them things over the years. They may have misinterpreted whatthey have seen. An ethical will is an opportunity to explain our experiences andclarify what they thought they saw.

Some people say that the legacy will they received from aparent was more meaningful than a monetary bequest.

I already have an advanced directive with very specificinstructions. There are some things I have not talked to my children about andI think now they should know about the seasons in my life so they canunderstand that

1. Life doesn't get any easier as the trial offaith never ends.
2. Not everything is about me; sometimes it is butnot always.
3. You are stronger than you think you are.
4. Enduring means that when you get to the end ofyour rope you tie a knot and hang on.
5. My parents did not create my problems, but theydid set the best example for me they could.

Life is not over yet and there is something to learn everyday. Immortalize yourself, share what you have learned.

This Week's Poem In the Concert Hall

2012-02-08T09:18:00.000-05:00

In the Concert Hall

The artist’s calloused hands

Roughened by washing

Move over the strings like a

Spider effortlessly spinning

Music.

The red draped, crystal chandeliered

Opulence blazes with light,

Does he feel what I hear? Is he

Caught In the moment’s thrill? The

Trance fractured; unaffected

He bows again and again every

Night.

The Good Knight a medieval mystery by Sarah Woodbury

2012-02-06T18:28:00.000-05:00

Publishing is difficult. Writing has become like speaking; everyoneknows how to talk by the time they are three. The large majority of us can doit well enough to make clear sounds and form words that others will understand.That doesn’t mean however that all of us are able to read a story well, makeourselves understood or give a speech in public. It takes more than speaking acoherent sentence to communicate through spoken language.

Similarly everyone who is literate has at one time or another readsomething and then said to no one in particular, I can write that well. I couldprobably do better than that. Just because a person can write a coherentsentence does not mean that person can write a novel, a short story, or even apoem. They most likely would have to take a good deal of time to write downinstruction as to how to read a recipe or build a house or even a stool.

Now we have come to a place in the writing world where it is difficultto find agents and publishers and we want it to be easier to get the words thatwe labored over before an audience who will appreciate our efforts. So some ofus bypass the difficult process and in order to achieve our goal go straightto self publishing. I have recently read a book by Sarah Woodbury whopublishes her own work. It was the kind of writing that make reading a chore. Along hard well written book can be a chore because it challenges the reader tobecome better at reading and understanding. This book made me wonder why the author hadn’t done her homework. Didshe think that she didn’t need to?

In the beginning there is a murder. A king has been ambushed andkilled. The two main characters examine the body and declare that he was notkilled in the heat of battle he was killed somewhere else and dragged to thescene. How could they tell? They could tell because, the ground was not soakedin blood and he, “bled out somewhere else.” He was stabbed in the chest with aknife and not with a sword because the wound was too crude; clearly She did notknow that until the rapier came into use in about the 16^th centurythe sword was the crude instrument, not only that, there was some kind of notchat the end of the blade that left its mark on the wound. It sounded just like ascript for one of the CSI TV shows.

Did she think that if she set her story in the twelfth century no onewould notice that a knight, soldier or king would not be carrying a non descript knife but adagger designed specifically for hand to hand combat. Didn’t she know that aman stabbed in the heart with a dagger would die instantly? In the end themurderer tells us he dragged the body face down to the place where it was foundto avoid getting blood on his clothes. Well, that was a lot more difficult thatit needed to be. If he had dragged the body by its feet with the toes facingthe sky there would have been no bleeding from the wound as he was already deadand the heart was not beating. By dragging the corps the other way gravity mighthave caused some blood drops to fall. The real reason he dragged the body facedown was so the author could put scuff marks on the toes of his boots.

She has a character that is the second son of a king who she calls hisbastard son. Didn’t she know that the bastard son of a king would never becalled prince, and would never ever inherit even if no legitimate heirs wereproduced by his father?

She must have known that writing in the modern vernacular would makeher story seem trite because she did try to use a few words that seem strangeto our ears. She used the word, canted the past tense of cant, repeatedly. Thecharacters often canted their heads when leaving someone of superior rank orwhom they wanted to acknowledge. The show of obeisance to a superior, needed only tohave been done once. The reader would then understand the relationship between thetwo characters and the next time they met would assume that proper etiquette wasfollowed. When used as a noun cant means a hypocritical statement when used asa verb it means to slant or tilt. Today we would probably call it spin.

The author had the makings of a good story. Too bad she decided thatshe could write edit and publish it all by herself. There is no substitute fora good editor.

An Open Letter to Mitt Romney

2012-02-01T20:07:00.000-05:00

Volunteers of America Soup Kitchen

Dear Mr. Romney: The newsreported today that you don’care about the poor because they have a federal safetynet to protect them. But, if that net should be broken then you will fix it.

Howis it possible to know who the poor areand whether the safety net is broken or intact when no thought to their wellbeing is ever given. Unfortunately the safety net for the poorest among us is such that once a person is caught in it getting loose is a herculean task.

If our elected leaders do not care about the poor, who will advocate for them? They have no lobby. Already we arehearing that the present administration is too generous with the disadvantaged.Too many are receiving food stamps. Yet those who accept SSI receive the sameamount in every single state in the USA. In some states that goes a lot furtherthan it does in places where a decent rental does not even come close to what theycan afford.

It means they must always shop atthrift stores. They can never own anything of value and are strictly limited asto how much they can have in a savings account. If they manage to earn enoughto meet most of their needs they run the risk of losing their benefits beforethey are ready to be thrown back into the mainstream. Some, with chronicillnesses that require daily medication and ongoing care will never be able topay for their treatments and health care is denied them because of either pre-existingconditions or lack of the means to pay the premium.

These are complicated issues thatare difficult to deal with. Someone must care about them. The poor will alwaysbe with us. They deserve to have their needs considered with compassion. Theydeserve better than to be dismissed. They deserve better than to be regularly demonizedas undeserving and lazy cheats.

No one wants to grow up withouthope of something better than living on public assistance. So, Mr. Romney I askyou to think about the poor. Take some time to find out who they are and howmany there are of them. Find out which are employable and which are not. Tell thevoters what you are going to do to fix what is most certainly broken.

When I could believe that youwill really mend the social safety and do it in such a way that it wouldrestore dignity and hope to the people who struggle everyday to live on the whatthe public sees fit to give them after they meet the requirement of being “trulyneedy”, I might consider voting for you. As things now stand, I don’t consider about it.

Stranger in the Mirror

2012-01-25T14:35:00.000-05:00

The world turns on titled axis,

Something is out of whack.

The stranger living in my mirror winks

And smiles. Her appearing takes me aback

Her thick neck is wrinkled; eyes don’t blink.

The nose long and crooked, skin folded

Under chin; I think. Yesterday in a window

I spied her stalking as I, flattenedto the sill,

Looked in, tall and straight faryounger then

Earlier she had been.

The planets turn on tilted axis. The days go

Rolling on. Dwarfs work in the deepmines

Sending out the sun at dawn. Can they turn time’s flow

backward take months and years away. Till the lines

Are smooth, skin is supple the hair neither white nor gray.

Grasshopper and the Ant

2012-01-23T12:05:00.000-05:00

Milo Winter 1919 illustration of Aesop's Fables

Once upon a time there was a Grasshopper who lived in the same field asthe ants. All summer long the grasshopper ate the grass and grew fat while theants spent their time collecting and storing away whatever they could carryinto their holes. When the winds blew and the snows came the ants stayed intheir holes and survived on the fruits of their labor. When the grasshoppercould find nothing, he came knocking on their door. He begged them to let him inand to share what they had or he would starve. The ants told him they wouldlike to help, but he hadn’t worked during the summer the way they had and senthim away, foolish grasshopper!

There once was a man who spent his days farming. But he was never satisfiedwith the fruits of his efforts so he plundered his neighbors fields after dark.The Gods were so displeased by this behavior that they turned him into an ant. Buthe continued to take what was not his. Ants still sneaks into people’s kitchen’sto raids their supplies. He may have changed shape be he did not change hishabits, selfish ant!

Yesterday we talked about the origins of our present church welfare systemas we discussed a talk titled Providingin the Lord’s Way. It is a plan intended to safeguard the privacy anddignity of those who use it. It is intended to keep their ability to act ontheir own intact and to promote emotional and spiritual health. Whenever thisplan comes up in a church setting someone reminds us that whatever we do mustbe done in the Lord’s way and not the world’s way; the implication being thatthe world’s way does not protect privacy, safeguard dignity, or keep the user’sability to act for themselves intact: neither does it promote emotional norspiritual health.

This title of the talk is taken from the Doctrine and Covenants 104:14-16. In this passage we are reminded who created the earth and therefore ownsall of the resources that are part of it. We learn that these resources areintended to provide for the saints. In verse 16 we are told “… but it must bedone in mine own way;” this is the part we always hear about before talkingabout the worlds way and the evils of the dole. This comes before theconversations turns to perpetuating a culture of poverty where children don’tknow what work looks like because they have never seen it, a culture where theyare all grasshoppers and no ants.

It is extremely difficult for me to sit through these discussions andkeep quiet. I want desperately to point out that they are ignoring the rest ofthe passage. What comes after the semi colon is this “and behold this is theway that I the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shallbe exalted, in that the rich are made low.” v. 18 Therefore if any man shalltake of the abundance which I have made and impart not his portion, accordingto the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall with the wickedlift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.”

So it would seem that in the end the ant is no better off than thegrasshopper. It is better not to try to decide who merits help and who doesn’t.Our society is too complex for such simplistic thinking.

Line by Line

2012-01-18T07:54:00.001-05:00

From the Depths of a Hand Bag

Sorting through my purse while waiting in

The warm comfortable church for the interview

To begin I found, nd empty ball point pen that

Once wrote blue. A green pen that writes

Indigo, notes to myself, pick up milk, and dry

Cleaning; a lipstick and a half gone marking

Pencil ideal for blueprints. It has underlined

Words in Isaiah, stories about Ruth, Esther and

Job. Gently eroding with each word or significant

Passage. The borrower is servant to the lender. Time

And chance happen to all men.

The youth come and go they laugh and giggle some

Talking earnestly. I was here first—waiting. Are you

The transportation for the smiling boy in a suit, white

Shirt and tie? The President wants to know. “No, I am

Here to see you.” They disappearand I resume my quiet

Vigil: David’s mighty men at Bethlehem’s well, Jesus

At the fount in Samaria, Lot’s wife looking back. Do unto

Others as you would have them do to you.

The blue scripture marking pencil, its life measured

By its length not hours has long been in the dark

Bag bumping against the nail file and mirror, notes

And lipstick. Does it miss the soft leather bound

Volumes of ancient words: the smooth thin easily torn

Pages, the usefulness; arrows, lines words, blocks of

Color; the sacred things defiled, made accessible

By the pencil’s sacrifice and understood while

Line by line the pencil is consumed?

Pride and Prejudice: My Reaction

2012-01-16T11:09:00.001-05:00

Jane Austen

Yes, I know it is startling when you consider that I do notread Jane Austin, but I finally read this book. It is Austin’s second. MissAustin was born in 1775 and died in 1817. She came from a family of six boysand two girls. Her sister Cassandra was her closest friend. Her father hadconsiderable means and was considered a part of the landed gentry. This is theclass just lower than the nobility. Jane’s romances are all about the people ofthis social class.

Because inheritance in England was based on the law of primogenitoronly the oldest son would inherit. He then had the responsibility of takingcare of his siblings. In a family such as the Austen's when the oldest inheritedhe would likely provide an annual payment to his two unmarried sisters and fivebrothers would have to make their own way, although they could at their older brother’spleasure be given money to help them out. The results of this system left manymen landless with the need to find their fortune. The military and the clergy weretwo of the places to look for a living. Others migrated to the colonies wherethey could begin a new life and own property. If you want to learn about lifein the late 16^th and early 17^th century Jane Austen’swritings will give you a picture not available anywhere else. If you like toread in a language and style of the transitional period between Middle Englishand modern English her books are for you. That is one of the reasons her booksare not for me. I don’t get pleasure out of reading the same half page sentencethree times in order to understand what it is about or to figure out who thespeaker is.

Pride and Prejudice is a romance novel that follows the sameformula as every other romance novel every written; girl meets boy, girl getsboy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy. It is written in the omniscient narratorpoint of view. I rather liked that because so few books today are truly writtenin that style. It gives a very clear idea of how it needs to be done. She isable to look into the thoughts of each character at will. Yet in order to buildsome kind of suspense and keep the reader engaged she does not tell useverything at once. I especially like the brief look she took at Lydia. In justa few pages we learn all we need to know about this loud, self absorbed teenaged spendthrift whose whole joy in life is chasing men. She is what today wecall boy crazy and it doesn’t take us long to find that out. No we don’t seeher running around after men in a chapter written from Lydia’s point of view.We listen to her relate to her sisters in a carriage where she talks and talksand talks. We see her relate to her family and she tells us almost all we needto know about her in those few pages. Further, it only takes a few lines tolearn what we need to know about the main characters parent’s marriage.

I felt exhilarated when I finished the last page. I didn’tfeel connected to any of the characters and I haven’t missed them. I didn’tkeep reading because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened. I kept readingbecause I had decided I would finish this book. I wish that the language hadbeen updated because words don’t have the same connotations as they did in the17^th and 18^th centuries. I did learn that the qualitiesof pride and prejudice go together. It shows how snap judgments brought on byeither pride or prejudice cloud peoples judgment. It also shows these twoqualities transcend social class to the detriment of us all.

This Weeks Poem

2012-01-11T09:34:00.000-05:00

Purple Pansies

To Purple

Here is to grapes, lilacs, cold trembling lips

The blending of hot and cold: the color purple.

Here is to the color of a warm sweater

A hand me down ultra suede suit; to

Deep dark clover above a field of green,

The proud Iris and lone African violet

Sitting in the window, wild ones

Growing at the edge of the lawn in shards

Of earth. Here is to the dark end of the

Spectrum where red and blue marry each

Giving and in the gift create something

New. Here is to the blending, merging

Marrying, mingling of red and blue at the out-

Side of the spectrum. Here is tothe uniqueness

Of their offspring and retained distinctiveness

Of each. Mixed together they warm and delight

In a manner escape into private realms denies.

Women: the Invisible Reformers

2012-01-10T15:17:00.000-05:00

Catherine of Aragon

Anne Boleyn

Catherine Parr

Elizabeth I

Since I listened to a talk on Sunday that began with a recitation ofhow we got our English Bible and then transitioned into the restoration and thecoming forth of modern scriptures I have been struggling to articulate some ofthe issues that stuck in my mind. Issues that I need to make sense of. First Inoticed that there are no women in these stories and there should be. Next thepolitical, religious and social context is overlooked and finally, the tendencyto proof text history by taking a statement from one of the actors from the middleAges. It is then applied to something that is now in our past but was in thespeaker’s future. This is given as proof God had put the words in the mouth ofa martyr/heretic hundreds of years ago and the fulfillment of those words isthe evidence in the present of prophecy.

I am going to address each of these issues. I willwork backwards.

Proof texting history:

William Tyndale’s last words were, “Lord, open the king of England’seyes.” Then flash forward about 75 years to the publication of the King JamesTranslation of the Bible and Tyndale’s words become a prophecy fulfilled. Well,maybe not. The king of England was not opposed to an English translation of theBible. Maybe Tyndale was referring to Henry VIII seeing that his wresting of thescriptures to justifying the divorce from Catherine of Aragon was foolish.Maybe he wanted Henry to open his eyes to the well financed double agent in hiscourt working against him in the Flemish council that brought about Tyndale’sarrest and execution at the hands the Imperial (Holy Roman Empire’s)executioner. Maybe he was thinking of the truth about his supporter at Henry’scourt, namely Anne Boleyn who was convicted on false charges and executed only monthsbefore Tyndale. My second example is the assertion that in 1494 Tyndale saidthe time would come that a ploughboy would know more about the Bible than thosewho opposed him. This is followed by the claim that Joseph Smith was that boy. Tyndalewas born in 1484. At the time the alleged statement was made he was but tenyears old. Wycliffe lived in thethirteenth century so he couldn’t have said it. But Erasmus who was born in1467 did write something like in it 1516, “I would have the weakest woman readthe Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul … I would have these words translatedinto all languages, so that not only Scot and Irishmen, but Turks and Saracensmight read them. I long for the ploughboyto sing them to himself as he follows the plough, the weaver to hum them to thetune of his shuttle, …,” Was Erasmusprophesying about the ploughboy Joseph Smith? That seems like a stretch to me.

None of those who set out to translate the Bible into the language ofthe common people lived in a vacuum. And while Tyndale was a martyr others werenot. It is also possible to make a good case that Tyndale was not punished fortranslating. It might just be that the heretical beliefs he held and broadcastabout were the actual source of his trouble. In fact some have speculated that hiscriticism of Sir. Thomas More who hated Tyndale was the cause of his death asthe man who betrayed him was given money from More’s estate.

TheEnglish women who nurtured the reformation include:

Catherine of Aragon who stubbornly refused to acquiesce to Henry’s divorceand unwittingly made him open to the suggestions made by Anne Boleyn that heleave the Roman Church.

Anne Boleyn encouraged Henry VIII to commission an English Bible translation.She owned a copy of Tyndale’s Bible. She worked unsuccessfully to have theseized monasteries turned into places where among other things the scriptureswould be taught.

Katherine Parr used her influence with her husband King Henry VIII tomove the church in the direction of those religionists who wanted more freedomof thought and worship.

Elizabeth the first was the first woman to be the head of the English church.Mary her sister had tried to reinstate the Roman Church in England. Elizabethchose not to follow that course.

English women were better off than some others in the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries. Their accomplishments and contributions go mostly unnoticedor unacknowledged. I find it validating to know that there were some we know ofand some probably who remain unknown who did much to further the reformation.If they did nothing more than read the scriptures in their circles they weredoing much. Had the religious conservatives had their way not even queens wouldhave been allowed to read the Bible. Yes, getting the Bible into the print wasimportant but it was not the end of the struggle. Making it available forcommon use was no mean task and women played an important part therein. I wish we would talk more about them .

Digging Carefully Through the Artifacts of Life

2012-01-07T12:32:00.000-05:00

Cleaning my desk or my basement, which I do from time to time, is in myimagination like an archeological dig. It is similar to the levels ofcivilization built up over centuries. The basement is a time capsule for the takingaway of each layer reveals something previously put away for later use and thenforgotten. When I first started piling things up in the basement I put belovedthings away that I had no space for. During my most recent reorganization Ifound a calendar with pictures of my oldest grandson, his parents and infantsister.

The archives of one year

The most interesting thing that turned up was the official looking pieceof paper that certifies that I am a professional teacher. It took me completelyby surprise. It delighted me to realize I am indeed a real teacher not just avolunteer without qualifications.

Poof of my accomplishment

The doll my mother gave me. I remember watching her crochet it. Twocorn husk dolls that were a birthday gift from a missionary companion and adoll from an investigator. They have not fared well in my care. If I clean themup they might fall apart.

A four doll collection

A piece of my own handy work I had forgotten existed. Now I know it istill extant I can barely entertain the idea of getting rid of it.

Look closely and you will see a broken windmill

Whenever I take up the task of cleaning the past away, it is always a surpriseto find how deep the layers go.

This Weeks Poem

2012-01-04T15:06:00.000-05:00

Cello Practice

H o u s e

Cleaning

Din has

Stopped.

Vacuum

Now Silent.

Basement timbers vibrate

In sympathy with an instrument

Too large for growing hands. Beautiful

Resonating Tones punctuated with the

Deep guttural rasping of spicatto and

Notes just under a finger’s width away

From perfect intonation.

Happily The student

Plays on. She works content

In the belief that she can conquer

All. She believes she is the best. Those

Who win prizes in her stead have the

Weather on their side, know someone or

The accompanist will be no help, and

She will go on secure in

Knowing

She can

Do any

What’s In a Name

2012-01-02T11:40:00.000-05:00

Now the colder weather is here I feel like wrapping up in a blanket andsitting in front of my space heater with a cup of hot chocolate and a goodbook. Now all the activity of the holiday season is behind us and the jovialfamily and friends have gone home there is a lot of cleaning up still to do soI am looking ahead rather than back.

I am looking forward to finishing my dad’s biography. I began the researchshortly after he died more than ten years ago and have had it in my mind sincethat time. I am reaching the end of the first draft process. Sometimes when Ihave felt stymied I started reading and editing from the beginning. I think thefirst paragraphs have been combed over so much there is little that needs to berevised, yet every time I begin again there is something I missed.

The part I am working on now is difficult because of the many questionsthat may never be answered and all the emotions that go along with the openingup of old wounds. February will mark the end of the ninety ninth year sincehis birth and begin the one hundredth. I would like to have it finished in time for that milestone. It would beexciting to have it completed and ready to share with his descendants so thatby the time the 2013 rolls around the one hundredth anniversary of his birth will hold aspecial meaning for all those who are following after him.

As I near the point when I will need a title thinking about it makes mefeel like I am doing something in off moments. My working title, Eddie’s Bio,doesn’t seem to adequate. I want something that will tell what it is about whilesparking some interest; something that will catch the eye and imagination ofpeople who might not be close to him. The right title is as important as choosingthe best name for a child. What if Catch22 had been titled Catch 19; MeinKampf had been Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies Stupidity andCowardice; Moby Dick the Whale; Everything You Always Wanted to Know aboutSex (But Were Afraid to Ask) had been The Birds and the Bees; Lolita, The Kingdom By the Sea orStephenie Myer’s Twilight had beenForks.

This is not a work of fiction, but neither is every title listed above.How do these titles sound?

The Life of an Ordinary Man,

The Life and Times of Eddie Rice,

You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man,

What it Meant to be a Good Man inthe Twentieth Century: the life and times of Eddie Rice;

Eddie Rice: his life and times.

An Extraordinary Century throughOrdinary Eyes: the life and times of Eddie Rice.

A Loving Biography of Eddie Rice

From Day Laborer to SalesManager: the life and time of Eddie Rice

From Heretic to Believer: Thelife and times of Eddie Rice

Once Upon a Time in the West: thelife and times of Eddie Rice

Wild and Woolly and Full of Fleas:Eddie Rice his life and Times

Which one of those titles would lead you to read the account of a manwho lived through most of the twentieth century and had to learn how to livewith a rapidly changing world?

The Mormon Menace a Review

2011-12-31T14:53:00.000-05:00

The Mormon Menace: Violence andAnti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South by Patrick Q. Mason, OxfordUniversity Press, 2011 is a scholarly book of just under two hundred pages ofexposition plus notes and index.

My major interest in reading it came from a desire to understand why itis some Protestant religions refuse to call Mormons Christians, write hatefilled books and tracts and continue to keep allegations and charges from atleast a century ago alive in the public mind. In this respect The Mormon Menace is a success andprobably the only book of its kind.

The front flap on the jacket says, “Anti-Mormonism was a significantintellectual, legal, religious, and cultural phenomenon …,” as though Mormonismhas been fully accepted into the Christian community. While that is not yet thecase, and may never be, Mason makes bare the reasons. They include the ethos ofthe post reconstruction white evangelical protestant patriarchy that requiredthe perpetuation and protection of the Victorian ideal of womanhood; the preservationof popular sovereignty and states’ rights; as well as vigilante rule in theabsence of organized law enforcement.

Of course Mormonism was the other with which there could be nocompromise because the doctrines were strange and incompatible with Southernvalues. When the itinerant Mormon Elders began making friends and converts wholeft their former congregations it was only natural that their competitors inthe religious market place would notice and take steps to discredit the faiththey were peddling. When peaceful means failed to change things they had norecourse but to resort to violent measures in order to protect their flocks.

In large measure the values and doctrine of Mormonism were eitherdeliberately misrepresented or innocently misunderstood. The belief that Mormonwomen were forced into carnal slavery once they reached Utah fueled theviolence. The conviction that the Mormons intended to establish a Theo democracyand take over the national government, which ought to be laughable, was downrightun-American. Yet these same ideas persist on some level in our society eventoday. How else could Mitt Romney be called the second most dangerous man inAmerica?

The Mormon Menace makes avaluable contribution in the form insights into what it means to thrive as theother in society.

Reading this book brought back childhood memories of afternoons in theBaptist ministers home where the Catholics and Mormons were demeaned. Itbrought to mind the landlady in Hohenems, Austria who was told by the priest toturn the missionaries out. She refused because she needed the money. The onlypublic laundry in town closed its machines to the missionaries and before theyleft the Mayor said goodbye and expressed the deep compassion he felt towardthem when he saw them eating lunch under a street light in the cold. All thisbecause Mormon missionaries bring change, disrupt families and teach faith,repentance and baptism.

All of the efforts to stop missionary work in the Southern StatesMission in the postbellum period came to naught. Sometimes the elders and theirconverts left for awhile, but they always came back. Morgan points out thatbetween 1980 and 2000 twelve of fourteen southern states saw a 70% increase in theLDS population.

This book is well worth reading. To those who enjoy scholarly books, I recommendit whole heartedly.

This Week's Poem

2011-12-28T11:19:00.001-05:00

Road Trip

Hurtling through the tender night

Bugs splatter like rain
Where they attacked the beast
Against the windshield’s monstrous pane.

In mornings dawn comes trains

Lumbering, plodding steadily in the track
I spy U P on a boxcar. Did not; did to!
Kids playing games shout from the back.

Are we there yet?
The green fields of home came nearer.
Mile upon mile fence posts race by while
life’s journey goes on, those loved long grow dearer.

Looking back it seems sweet to think of small bodies
Resting in slumber; feet, fingers all tangled together,
Gone is the day when together we lay behind the
Windshield threading its way till it seemed forever.

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 12

2011-12-24T14:45:00.001-05:00

The story by Tolstoy titled WhatMen Live By is the story of an angel, Michael, who fell to earth in order to learn the answerto three questions: What dwells in man; what is not given to man; and what menlive by? Michael lives with Simon the poor shoemaker long enough to learn theanswer to the three questions. The answer to the first is that love dwells inman. The second is that it is not given to man to know what he needs and finallyman exists because of love.

We call this love that gives mankind its existence charity or the purelove of Christ. It is patient, long suffering and kind. It is forbearing notgiven to fits of anger. It is not proud. It is the greatest of all the gifts ofthe Spirit. It is this gift upon which the efficacy of all the others stand.

Onthe day before Christmas I commend to you

The gift of charity

The gift of tongues

The gift of discernment

For your own life, the gift of prophecy

The gift to perform miracles

The gift of the faith to heal

The gift of the faith to behealed

The gift of the word ofknowledge

The gift of the word of wisdom

The gift of discernment ofadministrations and operations

The gift to believe those whoknow

The gift to know by the HolyGhost that Jesus the Christ is the son of God.

Merry Christmas!

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 11

2011-12-23T15:53:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I attended a musical presentation that I expected to bein English. It turned out, with the exception of the welcome at thebeginning and the thank you for coming at the end, it was totally in a foreigntongue. That would have been all right if there had been no lyrics to go alongwith the music, but such was not the case.

It took some of the joy out of the experience for me and most of mygroup.. The young children loved it from beginning to end. They understood therhythms and the melodies and that was all that mattered. Had there been atranslator present we all would have better understood and appreciated theprogram.

This is akin to the gift of tongues. Some people have the ability tospeak in tongues but without someone to translate what they say in meaningless.So there must always be a translator. They are separate parts of the same gift.Additionally the gift of tongues helps some people with learning, understandingand speaking foreign languages. It is a most useful gift. Next to the giftsrelated to healing it is one of the most sought after.

Onthis second day before Christmas I remind you of

The gift of tongues

The gift of discernment

For your own life, the giftof prophecy

The gift to perform miracles

The gift of the faith to heal

The gift of the faith to be healed

The gift of the word of knowledge

The gift of the word of wisdom

The gift of discernment of administrations and operations

The gift to believe those who know

The gift to know by the Holy Ghost that Jesus the Christ is the son ofGod.

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 10

2011-12-22T09:57:00.000-05:00

There was a man who had an important job that required him to hire andto make deals with people from many walks of life. He felt inadequate wheneverhe met with important men and women. If he made a mistake the effects wouldreverberate much farther than his immediate circle where love abounded,mistakes were overlooked and forgiveness was freely and quickly given.

The important man’s wife was never surprised to get his call asking herto entertain the prospective business associate on a moment’s notice. Businessmenand world leaders passed through her home on a regular basis. After each lefthe would ask her impression of their guest. She freely gave it; and the dealrose or fell on the kind of evaluation she offered. He always listened and neversecond guessed her because she had the gift of discernment. She could tell thequality of person’s character by conversing with each who came into her house. Henever made a bad deal as long as he listened to his wife.

Onthis third day before Christmas I remind you of

The gift of discernment

For your own life, the gift of prophecy

The gift to perform miracles

The gift of the faith to heal

The gift of the faith to behealed

The gift of the word ofknowledge

The gift of the word of wisdom

The gift of discernment ofadministrations and operations

The gift to believe those whoknow

The gift to know by the HolyGhost that Jesus the Christ is the son of God.

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 9

2011-12-21T20:14:00.001-05:00

With the primary election and caucuses set to begin in a January thereare many who have set out to foretell who will be nominated to represent theRepublican Party in the general election. Pollsters are polling and analystsare analyzing. Odds makers are making odds. All these prognosticators usevarious methods to try and predict what the outcome will be. Some look to thepast and try to discern patterns that will reveal what is going to happen. Somecompile statistics and make comparisons. There are some things that mankindcannot foresee, and we are better off for it. Nevertheless the gift of prophecyis one of the gifts given by the Spirit. It is most useful when used in connection witha person’s sphere of responsibility and action. It is given to help in makingdecisions regarding one’s own life and does not extend to persons outside one’ssphere of responsibility. There is knowledge about things and people outside oursphere of responsibility and influence that cannot help us and is only relevant to theperson involved.

Onthis fourth day before Christmas I remind you of,

For your own life, thegift of prophecy

The gift to perform miracles

The gift of the faith to heal

The gift of the faith to behealed

The gift of the word ofknowledge

The gift of the word of wisdom

The gift of discernment ofadministrations and operations

The gift to believe those whoknow

The gift to know by the HolyGhost that Jesus the Christ is the son of God.

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 8

2011-12-20T16:42:00.000-05:00

People who do things out of the ordinary that we cannot readily explainnow-a-days we are prone call magicians or frauds. When the Savior commanded thewind to be still and it was, that was a miracle. Some people are given the giftto perform miracles. We are able to domany things through science so what in the past might have been miraculous nowappears common place. Never the less with some by exercising great faith stillcan be given the gift to do miraculous works. Without faith there can be nomiracles.

Onthis fifth day before Christmas I remind you of

The gift to perform miracles

The gift of the faith to heal

The gift of the faith to behealed

The gift of the word ofknowledge

The gift of the word of wisdom

The gift of discernment ofadministrations and operations

The gift to believe those whoknow

The gift to know by the HolyGhost that Jesus the Christ is the son of God.

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 7

2011-12-19T12:56:00.001-05:00

Faith to heal is a gift that is as important to healing as the gift tohave the faith to be healed. It has been believed for some time that meditation andprayer are a boost to health. Some years ago researchers not content with anecdotalstories of healing brought about by prayer decided to do some experimentation.They postulated that the only way to objectively measure the effects of theprayer of others for persons in hospitals; the person being prayed for would haveto be a stranger and unaware of the prayers offered in their behalf. Otherwisethe well known psychological (placebo effect in drug trials) effects would kickin and taint their results. After a long time the studies were discontinued andthe conclusion that prayer for strangers who do not know about prayers given ontheir behalf have little or no effect.

This seems an obvious outcome as healing is a question of faith onthe part of those who are sick as well as those who pray for them. It has beensaid that the faith of the sick person is more important than the faith of theone who offers prayers. When that is the case then these two gifts worktogether for the profit of the community. These gifts are the ones we hear mostabout these days. They are the ones most sought after. They are given withoutprice. Scientists have not yet learned how to measure faith.

Onthis sixth day before Christmas I remind you of

The gift of the faith to heal

The gift of the faith to behealed

The gift of the word ofknowledge

The gift of the word of wisdom

The gift of discernment of administrationsand operations

The gift to believe those whoknow

The gift to know by the HolyGhost that Jesus the Christ is the son of God.

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 6

2011-12-18T22:44:00.000-05:00

Faith is the evidence of unseen things. Some people are given the giftof great faith. They have enough faith to be healed. Remember the story of thewoman who touched Jesus’ robe as he walked through the crowd. Though he did notsee her, he felt her touch and recognized that her faith had taken somethingaway from him. The King James translators called it virtue. Others call itdivine power. When confronted the woman admitted what she had done and told himshe of her healing. This is an example of one who had the gift of faith to behealed.

Onthis seventh day before Christmas I remind you of

The gift of faith to be healed

The gift of the word ofknowledge

The gift of the word of wisdom

The gift of discernment ofadministrations and operations

The gift to believe those whoknow

The gift to know by the HolyGhost that Jesus the Christ is the son of God.

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 5

2011-12-17T10:54:00.000-05:00

There are two kinds of knowledge; the knowledge we have thatit makes it possible to win trivia games consisting of things we know frommemory or by heart. This kind of knowledge is what makes the first answer wethink of more likely to be right than the one we take time to think on. It isnot wisdom. The other kind of knowledge is to know where to look to find thecorrect answer. The gift of the word of knowledge encompasses both these kindsof knowledge. Its purpose is to sharewhat is known and to teach wisdom. We use this gift by studying out of the bestbooks about all things in the world around us. It is appropriate to haveknowledge of history, current events, geology, geography, astronomy, physics,international studies, political science and every other form of study especiallythe things of the kingdom of Heaven.

On this eighth day before ChristmasI remind you of

Thegift of the word of knowledge

Thegift of the word of wisdom

Thegift of discernment in regard to administration and operations

Thegift to believe the words of those who know

Thegift to know by the Holy Ghost that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 4

2011-12-16T18:46:00.000-05:00

One of our favorite games is the Dictionary game. All itrequires is one dictionary for all and paper and pencil for each player. Theperson with the dictionary finds a word and reads it to the group. Each playerwrites a definition of the word. The one who chose the word writes the correctdefinition. The papers are passed to the person with the dictionary who readsall the definitions without revealing who wrote them. After that the groupsvotes on which word they think is correct. The player who wrote the definition withthe most votes gets a point and the dictionary passes counter clockwise to thenext person.

This is a fun and funny game because of the many surprisesand wild definitions people come up with. Today’s gift today is described by a word that everyone thinks they knowthe meaning of but find it difficult to define. This is the gift of wisdom.Some of us have it and some of us don’t, and it is not difficult to see thelack of it in others.

A wise person looks ahead and corrects course to avoid obstacles.A wise person learns from her own mistakes. A wise person does not run aroundwith people who have no purpose in life. A wise person exercises good judgment.A wise person saves a penny a day, gets up early to catch the worm and goes tobed at a decent hour. She possesses insight and common sense. A wise person is able to learn from themistakes of others.

On this ninth day before Christmas Iremind you of

Thegift of wisdom

The gift of discernment as it relates to administration and operations

The gift to believe the words of those who know

The gift to know by the Holy Ghost

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 3

2011-12-15T10:06:00.000-05:00

The ability to recognize the different kinds of leadership and operationsare important gifts. There are at least two kinds of leaders; those who areappointed and who lead by virtue of that appointment, and those who lead becausethey have the natural ability to win cooperation and who people willinglychoose to follow. Those who possess the ability to recognize the various stylesand kinds of leadership are better equipped to be leaders themselves.

Those who are able to discern what is given of God in terms of manifestationsand policies are able to make better decisions whatever the need. These two kindsof discernment work together for the profit of the community.

Onthis tenth day before Christmas I remind you of

The gift of discernment withregards to leadership, manifestations and operations

The gift to believe the wordsof those who know

The gift to know by the HolyGhost

Twelve Gifts before Christmas day 2

2011-12-14T12:07:00.000-05:00

Akin to the gift of knowing by the Holy Ghost that JesusChrist is the Son of God is an especially wonderful gift. It is the gift tobelieve those who know. It is the opposite of skepticism. Believing the wordsof others is a manifestation of humility and a willingness to learn. It is not gullibilityor recklessness. It means acceptance of delicious new thoughts and ideas ratherthan letting preconceived notions crowd them out. The believing do not demandirrefutable proof in the form of miracles or heavenly visitations. They areable to keep the faith during difficult times because they understand perfectknowledge is not easy to come by and they are content to wait upon the Lord.

On the eleventh day before Christmas I remind you of the

Gift of believing the words of those who know. And

Of knowing by the Holy Ghost.

Twelve Gifts Before Christmas day 1

2011-12-13T09:39:00.001-05:00

Twelve days from today we will celebrate Christmas. In thepast our family started our celebration on this day be giving an anonymous giftof one thing, not necessarily a partridge in a pear tree, to a family who livednearby. Each day we would add to it just as the song The Twelve Days of Christmas describes. So, I have decided to givea reminder of a Gift of the spirit each day between now and Christmas.

There are many gifts given for the profit of those who lovethe Lord and who will use it for the good of all and not as some kind of signthat can be used to influence others or to aggrandize themselves. Notice thatthese gifts for all male and female alike; and only those who wish to use thesegifts to benefit themselves and elevate themselves over others are deniedaccess to them. While no one has all of the gifts everyone has a gift from theSpirit of God. One might say these are gifts from God to his children. So todayhere is one gift to ponder.

This gift for today is the gift to know from the Holy Ghostthat Jesus Christ is the Son of God who was crucified for the sins of theworld.

Does anyone know best?

2011-12-12T16:36:00.000-05:00

Listening to the Republican debate in Iowa on Saturday night I wassurprised to hear the words “I know” spoken with apparent confidence by each ofthe candidates even though they didn’t agree with each other on many things.Their apparent task was to convince the voters that they should be the nomineefor the President of the United States. As a result they spent a good deal oftime telling us what the present president does not do and how they “know” howto do it better. They each know what the right course of action is; and, it iswhatever they think their target audience wants to hear.

Mr. Gingrich “knows” that the Palestinians are an invented people,because until the Great War Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. That islike saying India’s people are an invented people because they were part of theBritish Empire. Palestine was Palestine beforethe Ottoman Empire existed. People lived there. Some of them lost their legallyheld property and were displaced once Harry Truman decided to back the creationof Israel in 1948. Mr. Gingrich knowswhat is right for America when it comes to foreign policy and he knows whattruth is even if he leaves some things out.

Ms. Bachman knows that she is the most Christian of all the candidatesand she knows the right way to solve America’s problems.

Mr. Perry knows what Mr. Romney wrote in his book better than Romneydoes. He also knows how to create jobs because he knows what is right forAmerica.

Mr. Romney knows how to create jobs because he is a business man. Only he knows what is right for America and he said so over and over.

Mr. Paul knows that all our problems would be solved if the governmentstayed out of everybody’s business.

Mr. Santorum knows how to be nice and sound reasonable and how to getthings done.

They all each know something no one else knows the right way to solveAmerica’s problems be they economic or some other kind. None of them know whatis best. Maybe the thing they know that is right isn’t best. What if the thingthey know that is right for America is akin to a good strong dose of nasty, vile tasting medicine with horrible side effects that will if endured over timecreate a world that works they way they think it should? What if their cure or preventative is worseand then the problem?

Maybe if the ideologues would put their moral indignation aside longenough to think about what might be best and not worry about being right thepolitical discourse in this country would be more civil, candidates would notpretend to know something that is unknowable without experience, and thegridlock in Washington would begin to loosen up.

The Perfect Gift: A Review of the Canadian Tenors at the Kennedy Center

2011-12-10T12:00:00.001-05:00

Thursday evening the Canadian Tenors gave their firstperformance of a program titled The Perfect Gift. They were the featuredartists in the National Symphony Orchestra’s annual three performance holidaypops concert. This is a series that has become so popular that this year afourth performance was added. The recently appointed principal pops conductorSteven Reineke replaced Marvin Hamlish.

Hamlish had presented a family friendly program built aroundholiday themes that included a visit from Santa and a mention of Hanukah. Thehouse was regularly sold out and there were always children in the audience. New and amazing artists graced the stage. Itwas always a light festive evening.

Nothing could be farther from the previous holiday pops than theprogram presented by Reineke and the Canadian Tenors. The program, as is thegroup, is a work in progress. At the end of the list of numbers in the pre-printed program the words “program subject to change,” appear. This basically renderedthe program useless as a guide. This was partially mitigated by various membersof the group explaining things and introducing people as they went along. They explained so much that they had to changethe program because they ran out of time.

While noticing their totally black rumpled attire didn’tseem particularly festive might be nit picking, the makeup of the group is not.The diversity of singing styles they represent is cited as strength, two withpop training and two who sound more operatic technique; this is also a liability.They do not blend well and because they all sing in the same range anythingthat is lower than their normal range sounds strained. Neither is their lack ofstage presence or charisma. It is a difficult to put a finger on just what isoff in their performance; it could very well be composition that is missing.They seem more like a group of soloists than they do a group. Outside thesinging nothing seems planned. The stories they tell about their families seem ad libbed,untimed and unrehearsed. Their jokes didn’t make much sense and seemed morelike offhand name dropping and double entendre

I would have liked to hear more music that I recognized. Iwould like to have heard more music that was traditional holiday fare. I wouldlike to have heard the lyrics in English. The arrangements were dark and dissonantwith heavy base accents and hard rock sounding accompaniments. Part way throughthe first half, maybe it was in the middle of God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen Ibegan to miss the old format. By the time the artificial snow was falling inthe middle of O Holy Night I wanted more than anything to hear the orchestraburst out with Sleigh Ride.

Although the performance was not sold out and some peopleleft before or in the middle of the second half, most of the audience seemed tolove it. They stood for the tenor who sang The Lord’s Prayer. They wereecstatic when the group finally sang Hallelujah. O Holy Night with the children’schorus was so loud only a Grinch wouldn’t like it.

If I could have just heard Mel Torme’s Christmas Song Imight have been content.

The Canadian Tenors will be on stage at the Kennedy CenterConcert hall tonight at 8:00 pm, andtomorrow at 7:00 pm.

This Weeks Poem

2011-12-07T13:15:00.001-05:00

Bringing Home a New Mattress

Thoughts of Mother flood my head.

How in the dead of night each infant fed
Close to her breast warm and safe
Surrounded by the comforting mystery of her bed.

In the bright of light day laboring, we

A woman next to the girl that was me
Smoothed the trappings of that sacred place
Making it lovely and delightful to see.

White sheets folded in hospital corners

Pulled tight under blue and green woolen warmers
Under orange blanket with a half circle sun
All wait for the present to revert to the former.

Though my pale peach sheets such corners shun

The deluge of memories continues to run
As her lullaby throbs on and on till it is done.
As her lullaby throbs on and on till it is done.

John 15:1-3

2011-12-06T15:45:00.001-05:00

Recently at our Empty Nesters Family Home Evening we talked about anarticle title Be of Good Cheer. Ourresident expert on languages and grammar said that the Greek word that istranslated as cheer actually means courage. During the course of the discussion our hostess and discussion leadertalked about John 15:1-2. Therein Jesussays he is the true vine and his father is the husbandman. Every branch thatdoes not produce fruit he will take away or prune; it will be cut away from thevine. All the branches that do bear fruit will then be purged so that they willbring forth more fruit. Some people were a bit uncomfortable with the wordpurged but we were assured it only means pruned.

Well, no it doesn’t. Prune and purge are not synonymous. Prune means tocut away or shorten. Purge means to clean. It can also mean to expunge or toget rid of negative elements. It has to do with purifying something. In orderto make something pure corrupting elements must be removed or put away. Nowpruning might be considered a method by which purging could be accomplished butthe difference is that of a tool to a task. Everything that is cleaned and purified by anymethod has been purged. Everything that has been pruned has been shortened.

The purging by ruling parties or regimes during the twentieth century hasgiven a negative connotation to the word. It conjures up murder and intolerance. Thereaction to the word in v. 2 by the people in the group shows how usage hastainted our perception of what purge means. The dead branches that areincapable of producing are to be cut away and will have no more connection to thevine. The remaining vines, the ones that have produced fruit and are stillcable of flowering and setting fruit will be cared for and purified in orderthat they will produce even more. This is made plain at the beginning of v. 3; “Nowyou are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. They areclean not because they are shortened but because the Lord has taught themtruth.

As I was pulling down vines of various kinds in our back yard I wasfrustrated at how difficult it was to separate the nuisance vines from theplant I wanted to save. When I did manage to disentangle the various branches Inoticed that the forsythia that I wanted to save was rather rangy and stunted.Cleaning the nuisance vines away was a purging process: A process that cleaned away all those plantsthat might have been the real one, but were not. The branches that had diedneeded to be cut off or pruned away. This made it so the energy of the plantcan go into the purged/purified branches capable of growth.

If you skip all the way to verse 11, nearing the end of the discourse,the message is made plain. It is a message of hope, courage, and good cheer. Itassures the disciples that they will even in difficult times experience joy.

Holy day/ Holiday

2011-12-02T20:28:00.001-05:00

Austrian Pastry

The receptionist at my Primary Care Physicians office saidMerry Christmas as I was leaving the other day. I was so surprised by thisgreeting on the last day of November that I was nearly speechless. I managed tomumble, "you too," before I shut the door behind me. Never the less somethingfelt a bit off by this exchange. Perhaps the efforts to keep religion out ofour discourse over the holiday season have become so much a part of our societythat acknowledging faith is the same as professing belief in the tooth fairy.

At church everyone is busily working to remind us thatsecularism and consumerism have taken over our celebrations and great effortmust be made to keep the true meaning of our festival alive.

Holidays began as holy days. Long before labor unions decidedthey wanted a couple of days off for recreation and worship and managed to getthe work week shortened, the farmers and the common laborers worked seven daysa week. At least they had no regularly scheduled day off. In the country theydid have fairs and festivals that workers attended. They also had a host of dayswhen they were given time off for religious observances. Since for most of thattime period there was only one church in Western Europe those days includedChristmas and Easter. The workers would take the day off, attend Mass, feastand celebrate in other ways. On all Saints Day they visited the cemetery, wentto Mass, feasted and celebrated in other ways. In the forty days before Easterthey observed Lent. But, before that they celebrated carnival for weeks while theydid everything to excess until Shrove Tuesday. The Protestants gave up Lent butkept the celebration and in some places moved it to October. They alsocelebrated various Saint’s Days. Each day was named for a saint and it was notuncommon to use the day named for one’s patron saint as an opportunity to go toMass, feast and celebrate in other ways.

As time went by, language being prone to change as peoplespeak it and then spell phonetically, holy day turned into holiday. Now we areworking to make secular something that was derived from the desire forholiness.

Vienna, Austria is an international city. It is inhabited bypeople of many nationalities and faiths. At Christmas time the lights on the MariaHilfer Strasse are spectacular. The bakery windows are filled with wonderfully appearingconfections. One Christmas Eve away from the lights and bustle of the innercity I celebrated with a family in a little apartment. That night the lady of the house was bakingvanilla crescents and rolling them in powdered sugar. It is the only time ofthe year that she makes them. They set up and trimmed the tree. We ate and sangand late at night, my companion and I walked out in the lonely street. On ourway home every time we had to cross a street we looked for the speeding carsand saw none. Instead of jumping out of the way as traffic zoomed by driversstopped to let us cross and smile as they continued on their way.

We remarked to each other about how strange it was to be outon such a night. It was a night filled with the spirit of kindness andfriendship. It is that spirit what makes the season holy, special and set apartas surely as the food that is eaten or the songs that are sung only during thattime of year. Unquestionably anything we can do to show kindness and friendshipto others even if it is only a happy greeting, transcends our differences and helpsbring in the spirit of holiness into our celebration.

This Week's Poem

2011-12-01T13:19:00.003-05:00

Loves me or not

How long

The years?

How far

The miles?

How deep

Brotherly love:

One phone call

One letter,
One gift;

Ten shared

Minutes once

Every nine

Years, if it’s

Convenient?

On The Road

2011-11-29T19:00:00.001-05:00

windmills in Kansas

I went out in the rain this morning. It was cold and unpleasantly dark.It reminded me of the day we drove from the west side of Indianapolis, Indianato Manassas, Virginia. We had driven from Wichita, Kansas to Indiana theprevious day . We were driving two different cars. It took longer than expected, just a fewfingers apart on the map made it appear no more than a hop skip and a jumpthrough Missouri and Illinois. Darkness fell long before we arrived. Once weturned our lights on a pleasant drive turned into a harrowing trip.

Someone in an old car seemed to be stalking us. I would pass him tokeep the car I was following in sight. Hewould speed up to go around me. Once he had maneuvered between us he would slowdown. The game went on for miles until our hotel loomed in the near distanceand we turned off the road. Sleep was sweet and long.

In the morning the weather report was all about rain that was movingnorth east from somewhere to the south of us. We did not rush. Rain was beginningto fall. Showers came and went throughout the morning. At lunch time we stayedinside a warm eatery for most of an hour. While we rested the storm caught upwith us. It plagued us the entire day. We had to stop for accidents. We took a “shortcut” and lengthened our trip. We got lost trying to find our way throughWinchester, Virginia. It was midnight before we got home.

Many years ago we set out to drive over the Alpine Loop from BridalVeil Falls, Utah around Mt. Timpanogos and down American Fork Canyon. The loopclimbs for 3,000 ft the average grade being 6.7%. The digital gas gage in our minivanshowed four gallons of gas when we started the climb. By the time we reachedthe summit it read empty. We expectedthe engine to stall any minute. It was getting along toward evening. We had nofood, water or blankets with us. The prospects of walking back for help in thedark or sitting in the wild till someone came along was nerve wracking. We keptgoing. As soon as we started down gas began to show on the gage. By the time wepulled into a filling station in American Fork we had two gallons of fuel left.

Last week we took a road trip to Massachusetts. We took food and waterand a pillow. The weather was grand. The traffic was light in comparison to otherThanksgivings. Our fourteen year old car served us well. When I remember thetrips we have taken over the years and think about the wrong roads taken, thefights over what the map really says, and all the bad weather we have traveledthrough I am aware that these journeys tell the story of our life together.

Which of your experiences tell the story of your life?

This Week's Poem

2011-11-22T15:10:00.001-05:00

Psalm 7

A prayer of thanksgiving by Yvonne Stephenson

Dearest, lovingheavenly father living high in the heavens,

Look down andsee what good things your loving kindness

Has brought about. Your nurture and tenderloving care has

Smiled upon meyour daughter with showers of blessings

Upon my head.You have provided for my physical needs.

You havesustained me through trials of no consequence and

Great moment.You have given me a place to rest my head and

Calm my fears.You have replaced my sorrow and discomfiture

With peace andjoy. You are my light and my liberation; from the

Drudgery andtedium of my days you set me free. You have provided

All things goodto me therefore I will honor you.
I will glorifyyour name because you took me to yourself and
You pardoned meand loved me for who I am not what I have done.
I will trust inyour arm of mercy forever.

Giving Thanks

2011-11-21T13:27:00.001-05:00

Ever the skeptic it is not unusual for me to feel agitatedand irritable with preaching aimed at convincing me of my blessings. I bridleat the audacity of others who presume to tell me what I should include in myprayers. I would like to suggest that petitioning God for approval andblessings upon my daily endeavors is not an act of selfishness. The very factthat a person exercises faith by pleading for help from the Lord is an act ofhumility, contrition and faith. It is an acknowledgement that God exists andhas the power to intercede and influence human dealings. Prayer is the recognition of the divine handin all things.

A college roommate, who had problems galore, used to talkabout her personal value, when she described herself as being so low she couldsit on a gum wrapper and dangle her feet; she had a story she told herself. Shefound it listening to the comedian Shelly Berman. The essence of it is that aperson gives off carbon dioxide with every breath. Plants need carbondioxide. A flower gives off oxygen. Humansneed oxygen. So if you are living and breathing you are useful to a flower.Because a flower provides you with oxygen thank a flower.

As a society we revel in our individualism and selfreliance. Since we gave up earning our bread by planting seeds and waiting forrain; since we turned to supermarkets rather than gardens for our produce wehave forgotten where the things that sustain life come from. Because we canforecast weather with some accuracy we have forgotten that we don’t control theelements. Since we learned how to build weapons of mass destruction we think weare more powerful than the forces of nature. We can fly, travel to the ends ofthe earth and back in record time, propagate hybrid plants and genetically engineercrops to grow in places they would never grow before, we know how to clone. Wecan do anything we set our minds to. We think we are so smart and independentwe barely need each other.

At this season of Thanksgiving remember where the blessingsof rain and flowers came from. Remember who created the seas and skies and whocontrols the storms. Remember who gives us our daily breath. Remember who lovesthe disadvantaged, disabled and the poor. Each is part of the ebb and flow of life.Without us they struggle to live. Without them we toil alone for things oflittle moment. Bow you head and acknowledge his hand in all things.

Outside

2011-11-16T07:59:00.001-05:00

Apteryx

Tends the
Derming grass
Nilgaly manycushing
Its shoots toward the
Dueterium.
Light infixed
Droplets immeglan
Thirsty roots
Bedizening into
Knurlling earth where
Oligo rot kelandly into
Dust.

More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Utah Women

2011-11-14T11:39:00.001-05:00

I am just finishing up a book titled Remarkable Utah Women. It is one of the More then Petticoats series of books about remarkablewomen in each state. This book is small with only ten chapters of about tenpages each. It is authored by Christy Karras, a journalist who formerly wrote forthe Salt Lake Tribune. It is a quick read but is not really for fifthgraders as at first glance it seemed to be.

It begins with a chapter about the life of the Midwife PattySessions, a truly remarkable woman. She raised a family of her own and broughtaid and comfort to women not only by delivering their babies but by treatingtheir children and giving them blessings of healing. Eliza R. Snow also had thegift of healing and the book tells a touching story of her healing a sick boythrough her prayers and the faith of young children praying with her. Then the exercise of spiritual gifts onbehalf of others is never mentioned again. The author focuses in on theoppression she perceives in the practice of plural marriage and includes theexperience of Jane Manning James, a black woman who sought the blessings of thetemple with partial success.

For those women she profiles both Mormon and gentile wholived in Utah before 1890 the common thread is polygamy. The Mormon womendefended it and the gentiles and apostates fought against it. A balancedpicture never emerges and the ones the author always believes are the ones whofought against it. There are a couple of woman who were notorious during theirlife time, but have since fallen into obscurity. To call them remarkablebecause they got a lot of publicity or spent time with outlaws or ran brothelsseems to overreach. It is as if she could not find women outside the Mormon Churchto fill out the number she planned to profile. Once polygamy was off the table,Mormon women ceased to be remarkable in any way. Juanita Brooks who wrote the bookMountain Meadows Massacre is the subjectof the final chapter. Brooks who was born in 1898 is the only one of theseremarkable women to experience the challenges of the modern state of Utah orthe Mormon Church. Considering that until recently Mormons constituted an overwhelmingmajority in the state this seems a half hearted attempt to present an accurateor even a balanced picture of remarkable Utah women.

The book was published in 2010. Surely during the onehundred years since the turn of the twentieth century there has been at leastone other remarkable Utah women.

I would consider my 94 year old aunt one of them.

This Weeks Poem

2011-11-10T11:03:00.000-05:00

Leaving for the Front,. Valentin Galochkin 1957

Let Him Go

Hey lady, many years I’ve seen you across the

Table fire blazing from your eyes as you
Defend him:

Hey lady, do you hear your own

Scorn when you accuse her.

Hey lady, until now I have

Seen them both through those flaming

Orbs and imagined him an oppressed,
Timid tiny man subjugated to a Commanding
Officer.

His wife a Misandrist Tyrannizes his

Sons, makes lists, damages property.

With

Enough power you might put a Stop to that.

Lock her up. Medicate her. Help me, help me
You plead. Help me wrest power from the Jezebel,
You beg;

While

He—your warrior child—holds the biting

Screaming woman tight to his bosom and
Closes his ears.

Two Trees

2011-11-07T10:47:00.003-05:00

There is a metaphor going around thatpurports to mitigate despair some women experience because they are exemptedfrom the priesthood. It is about two trees. They are the trees planted in theGarden of Eden. In the original story one was the tree of knowledge with fruitthat if ingested will cause death. Just touching it could be fatal. I call itthe tree of death because it is the opposite of the tree of life. The fruitfrom the tree of life is the antidote for the poison of the tree of death.

In the new version there is thetree of knowledge and the tree of life. Eve covenanted with God in thespiritual realm that she would eat the death tree’s fruit; only it is not adeath tree, it is the tree of eternal progression. The spirits waiting in the spirit worldwatched and waited for her to keep her promise. They cheered once she did.The teller of this tale goes so far as to suggest that Adam covenanted that hewould do nothing to prevent her from eating the fruit. Together they wouldstand like books ends at each side of mortality. One at the beginning of lifethe other at the end where because of priesthood ordinances performed by menthe consequences of the fall are overcome and eternal life attained.

This story takes rationalizationto dizzying heights. Priesthood ordinance do not atone for Adam’s transgression.The atonement of Christ alone looses the bands of death. By this account eatingthe fruit was not a sin. The Lord doesn’t curse Adam and Eve he curses theground. Anything that can possibly be twisted to fit a reading that makes womenand men equal in standing with God is present. Anything that makes theirdisobedience glorious is emphasized. But it doesn’t quite succeed. This ispartly because there are so many holes in the argument. Every written accounttells us that God first warns and then forbids them not to eat the fruit. Theyate it. Breaking a direct commandment is a sin. The accounts say that theground was cursed because of what Adam did. And what did he do, he listened(hearkened) to his wife. They sinned.

It is also because the Eden storyis an allegory used to teach us about the relationship between man and God. Itsapplication is extremely limited. It just doesn’t feel right to say thatpriesthood is the opposite of motherhood when clearly the opposite ofmotherhood is fatherhood. Men and Women may stand on equal ground before God, butthis story does not show it and there is no amount of fudging andreinterpreting that can make it so.

I thought about these two storiesas I listened to the oral version that changes from time to time. Its purposeis to facilitate covenants that bind us to God. As it now stands women promiseto obey the Lord’s law and hearken to their husband’s counsel. Much has beensaid about what the word hearken means. Inthe circles of the discontent it means to obey. If we were to analyze the otherwords as closely we would find that counsel does not mean the same thing as law.Counsel does not mean to command or forbid. Counsel means to advise, guide,inform, warn; it means to give a recommendation or suggestion. As it now standswomen never promise to obey her husband’s law. When they did promise toobey their husband’s law there was a caveat that still stands. They has now andhave always had a way out. They promises to listen to their husband’s advice as he obeysthe Lord. And who is the one who decidesif he is holding up his end of the bargain?

She is.

Wednesday's Poem

2011-11-02T12:02:00.002-04:00

Revelation Ch. 11

Fair beardless youth his

Inward eye alight

Stands by darkening window

And awaits the night.

Silent he stares out

Where the Beast peers in

Pale lips curled into a grin.

Once more he utters a muted cry

Lord, Prince of Darkness is it I?”

“Yes, you no good son of tears.”

Soundless thunders through his ears

“Fear not to do what I now say.

All mine like you, are won this way.

Take courage and you’ll win the prize

The faceless voice breaths out its lies.

Scary Story

2011-10-31T12:54:00.000-04:00

Two kids an infant and a toddler sleep in their rooms. Except for thesound of the black and white 20 inch portable television on its wire stand inthe corner, the house is quiet. Their mother watches and listens to the lateprime time crime show. Witnessing ugly crimes in dark shadows lighting the dimscreen; gun shots and screams assault her ears: From the corner of her eye—ashadow.

Small and quick the darkness dashes across the room andthen is gone. She shakes her head and rubs her eyes. She yawns. A dream fromthat half waking part of her consciousness she assures herself. Yet a shiverruns up her spine and without giving up her warm place in her chair she glancesfurtively around the room. The sofa is there, no place to hide behind that, asewing machine a book case, the closet which flanks the front door across theroom. There is another exit off the kitchen, but the shadow is between her and theback door.

She sinks deeper into the chair and covers herself up to her neck withthe orange and brown afghan. Over the quiet dialogue the sounds reach her fromthe kitchen. Soft scrabbling sounds. She forces herself out of the chair,strides across the room and turns the volume down. The angry faces of criminalsand cops glare out at her. Their mouths open and close in the middle of their ragecontorted faces. A victims twisted face eyes closed, mouth open wide in a hideoussilent scream fills her vision. Leaves fall out in the yard. The scrabblingintensifies. The mother turns the sound on to cover her fear and mask the housesounds. For surely they are house sounds. All houses make sounds. They settleand creak in the wind. Some of them whistle in a minor key.

All is peaceful. The mother is calm. She hears the infant stir. Whichchild will she save, she wonders? Can she move quickly enough to get both ofthem out of the house through the front door before the shadow envelopes themall? Maybe if they keep still and she creeps out the front she can get helpbefore it is too late. Maybe the intruder will believe she is alone.

“Stop,” she scolds herself. “Silly goose, making yourself upset.”

Suddenly there is a knocking. She holds her breath and waits. All isquiet until the back door begins to rattle, she hears the sound of metalagainst metal. She crouches while she sneaks to a place where she can see theglass in the door. The curtains are shut. The door is still. The knob is notturning. The dead bolt is in a place, all as it should be. She tip toes back toher chair and takes up her position. Poised on the very edge she waits.

When the scratching starts again with greater intensity, she steals upthe stairs, creeps into the bedroom and lifts the receiver from the cradle onthe phone. She puts it to her ear and listens. She breaths out a long sigh whenthe dial tone signals her to act. She dials the police.

The dispatcher tells her to stay on the line. He tells her not toanswer the door before he knows the officer is outside. He keeps talking andshe listens for the sound of a car and a knock on the door.

She is relieved and happy as she lays the receiver on the pillow andhurries down the stairs. “Mam,” the dispatcher speaks to the pillow. “Mam,”

The mother is at the door. Now she hears the knocking from the outside.Carefully she turns the knob and begins to pull the door toward her.”

“Mam,” the dispatcher says again. “Mam wait till I tell you to open thedoor.”

Happy Halloween!

Little Things Mean a Lot

2011-10-28T16:31:00.000-04:00

A couple of days ago I ran across a little piece I had decided tocollect. The most valuable part of the article was about how great things comeof small activities. Put in just a little time on one thing every day and aftermany days it will be a big thing. If you write 1,667 words a day at the end ofthirty days you will have written 50,000 words. Sew one seam a day and in aweek or two you will have made a dress. Do the same thing repeatedly over yearsand you will be an expert in that thing.

Reading though the article I was surprised that I adopted it. At thetime it seemed to make a lot of sense. I set it aside to read again and to usein some way. The major thrust of the article was that the things we say affectour expectations and our expectations affect our feelings of well being ordepression or worthlessness. You get the picture.

Taking leave of people and saying have a great day does a disservice. Thephrase creates false expectations that will breed unhappiness. I thought aboutit and remembered the day I went off to college. I was going a long way fromhome and leaving my two younger sisters, younger brother and my parents behind.The morning that I left my parents gave me a box of stationary and a pen. Itwas a delight to have something small I could take with me that belonged tome alone. I wouldn’t have to share it with anyone unless I wanted to. As weparted my mother gave me her final words of advice. “Don’t feel bad if youflunk out,” she said. When I think about it now it seems like that is what shesaid. It might have been don’t be surprised if you flunk out, but I am notsure. It did not fill me with false expectations or feelings that I might nevermeasure up to her high hopes. I decided what she meant was don’t worry, you cancome home no matter what happens. We will always love you.

I didn’t flunk out. I graduated. I did it for myself not to please myparents or meet their goals. As I thought about this I realized that it is notwhat people say to us, but what we think about what they say to us that makes thedifference. The author of the article would say bravo well done to my mom. Iwould have preferred that she had said something else. I have lived my lifethinking that she did not believe in me; that she thought I was dumb.

I have had the article around for a couple of years. I have decided tothrow it out.

Justified

2011-10-26T10:57:00.000-04:00

At the baptism the strawberry

Blond and the dark brown silk
Put their heads together, giggled.
Waiting impatiently, to be
Made perfect: Washed and dipped;
To shine flawlessly.
Misdeeds forgot, erased, gone circling
The drain. Afterwards they giggle, play
Run tease: not yet perfect but clean,
Pure and innocent.

It's Food Day

2011-10-24T16:40:00.000-04:00

World Food Day was October 16. The Center for Science in thePublic interest has designated October 24 as national food day to promotedialogue about our food, where it comes from and how it is processed.

The six aims of food day are

1. To reduce diet-related disease by promoting safeand healthy foods.

2. Support sustainable forms and limit subsidies toagribusiness.

3. Expand access to food and alleviate hunger.

4. Protect animals and the environment by reformingfactory farms.

5. Promote health by curbing junk food marketing tokids.

6. Support fair conditions for farm and foodworkers.

A lot of city dwellers have gotten a long ways from theland. As far as our children know thefood comes from the grocery store. Milk comes from a truck and produce, well;it is difficult to be sure where it comes from. Apples and bananas come withlittle stickers on them that tell where they were grown. Few if any are grownin the United States.

Grains can come from anywhere and it is surprising how muchsoy flower is used in wheat products. Soy is one of the things that mygranddaughter is allergic to. Everything that is prepared which comes from astore is a possible unsafefood for her. 25% all vegetableseaten in the US are in the form of potato chips and French fries. (Washington Post, Oct 24, 2011)

Nowthat the day is almost gone, eat real; celebrate Food Day with a home cookedmeal around the table where you talk about food issues that concern you.

Little Drudgeries

2011-10-19T13:02:00.001-04:00

Horlog Clock Machine in Museum of life in Burgundy, en Dijon, France

Like empty boxes scattered on the floor

Time swirls, ticks and lumbers with each

Little drudgery postponed folded into an

Hour most empty with unmade beds and
Cluttered floors. Moments, full with waiting
To begin, drop into corners, cracks crevasses:
Slip on toward a thousand things put off,
Forgotten or cannot be ignored. They only
Take a moment yet use up all the day. Obstinately
Time passes. Each day the hours are filled. Unless—
Of course—with abandon they are killed.

"Your Mom is a Feminist

2011-10-17T12:10:00.000-04:00

A long time ago a person I called friend, in a conversation with mychild who had said, my mom says…, replied, “Well your mom is a feminist.”

The context and words have long been forgotten and it is possible the wordssounded feminist to my friend’s ear. However nothing could be further from thetruth. There is either a misunderstanding in some Mormon women’s minds aboutwhat feminism is, or feminism is so broad it can incorporate and welcome womenwho disagree with its fundamental beliefs yet share their desire for paritywith men. I say parity because the connotations are a bit different than those associatedwith equality. I identify with those who want to have separate and equal roles.When I say separate and equal I am thinking of the way the branches of ourgovernment are separate and equal or the sovereigns of two separate nationstates are equal.

Never the less there was a time when I longed to experience the kind ofcamaraderie the men appeared to have. Women relate differently to each otherthan men do. With fluctuating hormones and all the rest that goes with femaleness,relating to other women can be treacherous. I will admit it; I coveted what Ithought I saw. As time has passed I haveceased to stress about the way some men treat women as they exercise the powerthey have within the structure of the church. My focus has turned from what womendon’t have in favor of what we do. Within the church nothing stays the same forvery long. Change is a constant. If things are not going well or even if theyare it will be a few years at most, until things adjust.

It used to be that women weren’t allowed to pray in church and man hadto be the concluding speaker; no more. Some men take their babies and tend themduring at least part of the Sunday meetings. In the jumble of voices callingfor women to demand better treatment there is one thing that has never beenmentioned in all the conversations about what women want and are missing outon.

The Relief Society was organized on the same pattern as the priesthoodand is intended to do for women what priesthood does for men; that being to givethem an organized way to serve. If you look at how they are organized with aleader, two counselors, a secretary along with instructors and others who workon committees as well as visiting teachers the similarities are clear.

There is one difference that goes virtually unnoticed. The instructors forthe adult men are chosen and called by the leader of their group. They aresustained by their group. Their names are never presented before the entire congregationfor approval. With the exception of the visiting teachers every woman who iscalled to serve in the Relief Society must be called by the bishop and acceptedby the vote of the entire ward. The Relief Society president can make recommendationsbut it is the bishop who has the final word. The groups advocating change nevermention this seemingly tiny thing. Wouldn’t a small thing be a better place tostart than trying to change some of the other things that seem so big?

Choosing Faith ... or Not

2011-10-15T21:27:00.000-04:00

I have just finished reading an article on the BiosLogos blog here thatdeals with the six reasons young Christians are leaving the church. It reportson a study that considers the reasons some Christians disconnect from churchafter reaching the age of 15.

1. The church is overprotective: 25% of thosebetween 18 and 29 said Christians demonize anything outside the church andignore the problems of the world.

2. Teens and twenty somethings lack depth in theirreligious experiences: A third of them said church is boring and irrelevant totheir life goals.

3. Churches are perceived as anti science: Thechurch is too confident it has all the answers and do encourage scientificinquiry.

4. Young Christian’s church experiences relating tosexuality are often simplistic and judgmental: One of the tensions young peopledeal with in our highly sexualized environment is how to remain pure and chastewhen the age of marriage keeps rising.

5. The exclusivity of Christianity: Some think thatchurch is like a country club, only for insiders.

6. Church feels unfriendly to those who doubt: Itdoes not feel safe to admit doubt or ask important life questions. Some do notthink they receive support when they feel depressed or experience otheremotional problems.

Reading this article helped me remember how it was in my youth. We didn’thave Bishop’s Youth Discussions once a month. We had a youth fireside everySunday evening. It was completely planned and run by my high school peers. Weread books together. We invited speakers that interested us. We had an LDS manjust coming out of a job as an undercover officer working in drug enforcement asa guest speaker. We talked abouteverything from dating to the eternal nature intelligences. Nothing was offlimits. We debated deep doctrines from our youthful inexperienced perspective.We didn’t worry about any topic being inappropriate. There was always an adultthere because each week we met in one of our members homes. Everyone waswelcome.

I am not young any more, but sometimes I think church is boring.Sometimes it is about as interesting as watching grass grow. Yet when I lookaround I see people of all ages reading books, playing games, checking e-mailor drawing pictures. I recognize that there are some people who need to keeptheir hands busy in order to focus. But surely part of the reason there are somany things going on that distract from the spirit of the meeting must be toescape the boredom that is the fulfillment of ones expectations. My escape fromboredom was to pay attention to what was going on and analyze what was beingsaid. I still do it. It keeps all of life interesting.

The conclusion of the matter was that church is for the whole person. Itneeds to be intergenerational. The Apostle Paul compared the church to a body, themembers each representing a functioning part. In order to be complete it needsall of its parts. It can’t get by without any a finger or an ear or any of theinternal organs. Likewise youth and ageneed each other. Together they help make each other whole. None of them shouldever perceive themselves to be of no value.

In the Sancturay

2011-10-12T10:41:00.000-04:00

Paradison Canto 31 by Gustave Dore`

Listening to the preacher talk about post

Mortal life he wondered if his parents could
Be listening, watching. Did they see tears
Well? Could they hear words spoken;read
Lines written by those they left behind? The ones
They reared to adulthood. The ones who walked
Far away from the home they refused to hold
In memory; the place always pushing its way out of the
Id pulling the at the corners ofConsciousness.
Popping up in conversations like Insects
Sneaking through open doors. Mice slipping
Through tiny cracks fouling everything sweet and
Rich in the present.

Listening to the preacher talk about post

Mortal life he wondered if he conjured from
Behind the veil their soft eyes, smiling faces, would
They notice how their departure,flight from
Worn out bodies, left gaping wounds that cannot heal?
There with the ones who reared them to adulthood,
Do they silently marvel as thestream of life ebbs
And flows swirling aroundmemories of things
Imperfectly understood hidden in the stream of
Unconscious thought repeating itself like the news
Crawl in Times Square: Light Seeping under the
Door illuminating a sliver of floor
Revealing nothing?

Power or Influence

2011-10-10T13:05:00.000-04:00

This past week I attended an interfaith emergency preparedness trainingsession sponsored by the county. It was a most interesting experience. All theother attendees where either ministers in their own churches, or they were paidfull time employees.

I felt a little out of my element as my experiential background was notthe same as the others.

The speaker from George Washington University had wonderful suggestions;suggestions that would be helpful to our ward. Though I took notes andcollected materials it seemed a futile and feeble effort as I had no hope thatanything I learned there would ever be implemented. You see, I am thepreparedness chair. I have a title. My name is on the list of ward officers onthe Sunday program but I have no power and hence no influence.

It has been said that power and influence are different things. But, whatif power and influence are the same thing? Then when D. & C. 121 says “nopower or influence can or ought to be maintained …”we see a literary device commonlyused to emphasis the importance of what is being said. It does not mean thatthe two are not synonymous even if some people would like to make a distinctionwhich we must choose between.

Yet there are different forms of power.

There is the power to and there is the power over. Some people thinkthat power over is what men use to get what they want and the power to, or influence,is what women use to get their way. This is strange since without power therecan be no influence. When we talk about influence being a female characteristicdifferent from power we are really talking about manipulation. Though manipulationhas a negative connotation it is by manipulation that most influence works.

There is the power that comes from position. A law enforcement officerhas power that comes from the government. An elected official’s power comesfrom the voters who have the ability to vote her into or out of office. Withoutthe sanction of the state or its representatives an individual can have nolegal power or influence in that sphere.

A principal might hire a teacher and assign her to a classroom. She hasthe power to give assignments, collect papers and assign grades. Without thatpower it she can have no influence. However if she does not know how to use herpersonal power to win the cooperation of the students she will have little effect.

As I sat in the training meeting on Thursday I exercised the one powerI had. I could take notes and collect information. Without the support of thebishop and his active visible leadership I have no influence. That is the wayit is because the congregation will only willingly follow someone who they knowis in charge. In fact we have done some rather silly things simply because thebishop asks us to.

It seems absurd to me to say men have power and women have influence. Ifthey have one, they have the other. The more influence an individual has themore power she wields. The more powerless a person is the less influence aperson can exercise.

Ancient Wisdom

2011-10-05T12:25:00.000-04:00

While reading the wisdom

Literature I have been surprised

To see that there is nothing new

Under the sun for what was is and

Will always be for as Solomon has said:

Ignorance is bliss as

All’s well that ends well.

There is no tomorrow there’s is

Only today repeated over and

Over again and again and again, so

Eat drink and be merry for

What goes around comes around.

While dead men tell no tales for they

Know nothing: and he who steals

My purse steals trash; for a good
Reputation is worth more than gold.
While no one is perfect, in the end
We’re all dead.

What I Heard Watching General Conference

2011-10-03T12:50:00.000-04:00

The last couple of days were nice quite special days filledup with the words of the General Authorities. There were many moments ofclarity and some that caused reflection. Here are some of the things I heard,and thoughts they provoked.

1. Elder Cook’s tackled the problem of evil, and while itwill never be possible to lay the asking of why to rest I especially liked whathe said about thinking of what might have been. How often when an untimely andviolent death is reported on the news do the relatives of the victim lamentthat their beloved son or daughter will never go to the prom, walk in agraduation, have a wedding or give them grandchildren. Looking back at what the deceased did in theirlife is so much better than ruminating on what is gone. That may be my favoritetalk for that reason.

2. President Monson talked about the direction our societyis going. I say going and not evolving because as trends move continuallytoward the decline in moral and ethical teachings I recall that Evolution isalways in a positive direction. It is movement from a less complicated lessadapted state toward one that is more complicated and more adapted to survival.When the arrow goes the other way then we see degeneration. Degeneration is theunraveling of Evolution. To me an evolved person is one who has no tendenciestoward adaptations that we might call self defeating behaviors: No tendenciestowards things that will cause harm to the self or others; no selfishness, nogreed, etc. And yet, in many ways it is the best of times and it could be saidwe live in a golden age.

3. Brother Bennett talked about choices. I don’t remembermuch of what he said, but I will never forget him holding up his two hands,each of them representing a choice given a child who didn’t like what was on itsplate. On one hand was the choice to eatthe main course thereby choosing ice cream for dessert. On the other hand wasthe choice to reject the main course, which would also be a rejection of icecream and the choice to go immediately to bed. Then, he said, the childproposed a third choice; play, eat the ice cream and not go to bed. Everyonelaughed, but we did not hear the outcome of the negotiation. And the negotiationaspect of the scenario is the part that made the exercise futile.

When using natural and logical consequences to teachchildren it is important that the consequences make sense to the child. In thisinstance the natural consequence of rejecting the main course was hunger. Thelogical consequence is not getting ice cream. Going directly to bed is neithernatural nor logical. Eating is social as well as nutritional. Sending a childfrom the table robs it of the social interaction, the bonding and the learningthat can take place during a family meal. So a child should be able to eat ifit wants to but if it doesn’t it is free to sit at the table and enjoy thesociality of the situation. It may not eat ice cream and it does not have to goto bed. It will experience hunger. Depending on the situation sending the childfrom table might be rewarding. Being in its room with its toys and books mightbe a positive experience as opposed to sitting quietly at the table whileeveryone else is enjoying ice cream.

4. My absolute favorite talk was by Elder Richardson on teachingon the same model as that the Holy Ghost uses to teach us. He said we must teach by the Spirit meaningnext to or in the presence of. The way to do that is by considering thepersonal needs and circumstances of the learner. Teach what the to the learner’sneeds. Teaching is more than talking and telling it includes listening and observation.The Spirit teaches by prompting and inviting to action. It is not covering material. It leads and guides butdoes not do for us what we can do for ourselves. We must ask ourselves when weteach in our home or in church callings how can I invite those around me tolearn for themselves.

That is what I heard while listening to General Conference.Maybe you heard something else.

All Cats Are Mammals

2011-09-28T15:54:00.000-04:00

There on the big TV screen the bright comely

Actor reads her lines with glee. You have to be

Careful she intones, giggles winks—breaths

It would be a mistake to decide that since cats

Have whiskers all mammals do too.

Now this may seem a petty complaint. But let's

Keep things straight.

What about dogs, humans Rabbits and bats,

Dolphins and whales just think aboutthat.

They all have hair, of some sort or other

And teeth that will each be replaced by another.

That’s not all they share. I can tell you this fact

All squares may be rectangles, but all mammals aren’t cats.

Crooked, Bent and Old

2011-09-27T10:33:00.000-04:00

This morning I thought about the plant sitting next to my kitchenwindow. It came into my house nearly thirty years ago. It was young and grew by leaps and bounds. It was practically indestructible.Originally there were two main stalks each abundant with leaves on the top. Itwas straight if not very tall.

As the years went by I took it with me each of the three times we moved.Not every house had a sunny window for it to grow in so it began to bend tosearch out the light. At first I turned it from time to time to try and help itgrow straight.

Time passed; each year it became more crooked and it became moredifficult to even out the bends in the stalk. Eventually one stalk died and Icut it off. I fully expected that a new healthier stem would sprout from theroots, but none did. I put it in a ten inch pot and settled it next to a windowwhere the scant light would hit it for part of the day. I watered it whenever Ithought about it, but not every week. Since then it has moved from window towindow but there is no ideal location and though it hasn’t grown in years it isstill green.

Sometimes I look at it and think it should go. It is just taking upspace and is in the way. Sometimes I think it hasn’t grown because it is rootbound. I think about putting it in a larger pot with fresh soil and somefertilizer. Most of the time I don’t think of it at all and still it remains greenand turns toward the sun.

I looked at it this morning and wondered why I keep it. I put water onit and took its picture. I moved it around to make it look its best and Ithought how alike this plant and I are. We need each other.

When I look at this plant I see a non judgmental friend. A friend whoneeds me to survive and will not demand anything of me. It just stays in itsplace and waits for the water that will eventually reach its roots. It can go along time without water which means I can leave for days or weeks and it will bethere waiting for me when I come back. It accepts what I have to give and itremains constant.

When I look at this plant and notice how it has become crooked I amreminded how important turning toward the light is. When I am tempted to shutmyself away in the darkness of self pity this old bent plant reminds me thatthe way to peace and joy lies in turning away from the beckoning shadows towardthe light. It reminds me that turning and bending to find a source of strengthmakes living things change in unexpected ways. Growing older may not make oneperfect, wise or beautiful; yet it is possible for it to make one constant,faithful and kind.

Growing Up

2011-09-21T18:08:00.000-04:00

Larva become pupa

Pupa turns to chrysalis

Chrysalis morphs to butterfly,

Moth, dragon fly.

Tadpoles become frogs.

Kittens become cats

Puppies become dogs.

Maggots become flies

Piglets grow into hogs.

It, male or female

Morphs to he or she

Children grow to adults,

Woman, man each choosing

Rich, poor, beggar, thief

Lawyer, doctor, merchant

Chief.

Clean Again

2011-09-20T13:13:00.000-04:00

Mormons go to meetings. Sometimes the purpose of the meeting is to plan, others it is to study and discuss. There also meetings where an ordinance is the main goal such as sacrament meeting where the sacrament of the Lord’s supper is the center of the worship but which includes preaching for the edification and enlightenment of the congregation. Twice a year there is a general conference held in Salt Lake City. It is presided over and planned by the president of the church. In each locality a group of congregations called a stake meet twice a year in stake conference. It is planned and presided over by the stake president. The purpose of these meetings is to hear from the leaders either local or general how the affairs of the church are being handled and to receive instruction.

It is my view that the participants in these meetings should be active in contribution to the meeting by singing the songs and actively listening to what is said by each of those called upon to deliver a short message. Active listening requires the worshipers to pay attention and ask themselves questions about what they hear. Those questions might include, is what was said true? When it is true does it matter?

Most recently my stake president spoke about the importance of covenants in his address at the end of our stake conference. He started with the sacrament of the Lord’s suppler and read the words used to bless the bread and water. Even though I have heard the words often it was different to hear them in the context of the conference where he took time to compare and contrast the two prayers. I decided what he was saying was true and that it does matter.

Then he talked about baptism.

He prefaced his remarks by reading from the Doctrine and Covenants verses that indicated baptism is for the repentant who are immersed guilty and brought up out of the water innocent. Then he read the account of Jesus’s baptism which said Jesus was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. He continued by saying he couldn’t imagine an eight year old being guilty. Therefore they are baptized to set their foot on the correct path. My mind immediately went to my experiences with baptisms beginning with my own. Approximately six weeks went by between my birthday and the time I was baptized. None of my children were baptized on their birthdays and while I am sure they were not guilty of any serious sins I began to wonder about how many “mistakes” could have occurred within that time period..

A number of questions arose as I wandered down this path of thought. Just how innocent are children? If time passes between the moment they become accountable and the time when they are baptized isn’t it possible for them to sin in the interim? Wouldn’t they then be considered guilty and in need of baptism? Or is it only serious sin that makes us dirty and in need of cleansing? Must we steal? Children can do that. What about lying? Children do that all the time and by the time they reach the age of accountability their lies can be quite sophisticated. Maybe their lies don’t hurt anyone. Does that make it all right? If obedience is the first law of heaven—and it may not be, it may be love—then every child I have known is guilty on some level. Is it possible that children are not subject to temptation until after they are baptized? If they are truly innocent and cannot sin why do they need baptism at all? There are some pretty strong words in the Book of Mormon explaining why infants don’t need baptism, the main reason being they are innocent and incapable of repentance. They are alive in Christ through the atonement. (see Moroni 8)

While I watched the children who looked to be old enough to be accountable around and in front of me play with their cars on the back of the bench, work on crossword puzzles, read novels, and generally distract themselves from the worship service I wondered if disrespecting deity in a dedicated space might make us all guilty. The meeting went on around them as though they were not present. They were dressed in their best clothes just killing time until the meeting ended.

At baptism we become part of the family of believers who worship the Savior. We promise to always remember him. Eight year old children can understand that. We promise to be good examples and keep the commandments. Eight year old children whose parents have used the seven years of early childhood to teach them about the first principles of the gospel can understand that. They need baptism so they can start out clean again just as they were as infants.

Arguing with Loud and Clear by Anna Qundlen

2011-09-17T11:09:00.000-04:00

Loudand Clear is a collection of articles published between the early1990s and 2003. An article written in July of 2001 is titled Playing God and No Sleep. It was inspiredby a cross stitch sampler on her MD’s wall that read, “GOD COULD NOT BEEVERYWHERE SO HE MADE MOTHERS.” She talks about Andrea Yeats, the Texas womanwho drowned her five children, and declares that dealing with spilled milk theringing phone, a fevered child, crying, and the other seemingly endless demandssend all overworked mothers “bonkers.” She asserts we who have found ourselvesalone in the house with our kids can understand. Her psychosis is ratherlightly passed over as a result of the chaos in her home. It is the fault ofthe motherhood cult that requires women of our culture to do it all and to takecare of everyone.

This was not the first time Ms. Yates had experiencedpsychosis. Her physician knew about her problems as did her husband. She was notleft alone to play God. Quindlend writes of imagining the little fingers underwater and the oldest boy fighting back. When I think about this tragedy I see awild tortured women pacing around the house with her infant in her arms. Shewon’t let anyone else hold the child. She doesn't hear the phone ring. Shedoesn't notice the fevered child or the spilled milk. She is in her own realitythat only allows her to know how difficult her personal ordeal is. She isunable to think of the welfare of her children because her racing thoughtswon’t allow her to focus. When her mindclears she acts on the impulse of the moment and makes things worse. It wouldhave been better had she not been left alone with the children at all until herfull health was restored.

One might expect that after the mapping of the human genomeand extensive research begun in the more than ten years since George H.W. Bushdeclared the decade of the brain and dedicated in depth research into thatorgan we might have come far enough to recognize that mental illnesses such asdepression and postpartum psychosis is not caused by chaos and a disorganizedhousehold. It is not caused by being the primary caretaker in a house full ofchildren (five under seven in Andrea Yates case). The chaos and disorganizationare a symptom of the psychosis. Postpartum psychosis is caused by hormonalchanges. Other psychoses have physical causes that are not yet fullyunderstood.

In the article mental health issues were secondary to thepressure our culture puts on mothers to be perfect examples, provide perfecthomes and a perfect stimulating environment. The condition of motherhood andour cultural expectations of mothers was the thrust of the essay. I wish shehad chosen a different example.

EverythingIs Under Control written September 2001 is one of many dealingwith the aftermath of September 11. It is not the only one that deals with lossand grief. In general Quindlend recognizes that while a loss can still be feltafter grief ends grief does end. Unfortunately in the case of the destructionof the twin towers she thinks it should be kept alive. She thinks that New YorkCity should keep the memory and the raw emotion alive for perpetuity. But nomatter how hard we try to hold that moment of horror in our memory time willpass. The grandchildren of those who watched the towers fall will have norecollection of the awfulness of the images. They won’t remember where theywere that bright Tuesday morning when the Pentagon was hit. The emotions of thesurviving nation will be tales they have heard from once upon a time.

From December 2001 Honestly—You Shouldn't Have is a verybrief diatribe about consumerism and how profit making stole Christmas. In itQuindlend attempts to debunk the idea put out by the Bush administration thatspending money would proper up the economy and at the same time be a patrioticact that would help defeat our enemies. She suggests that the answer to therecession when it comes as it surely has lies in a one year cut in the federalpayroll taxes, influential corporations voluntarily pledging a six monthmoratorium on layoffs and instead of buying the latest electronic toys peopleshould give generously to charities. In the main I agree with her regarding theglut of consumer goods and the advertising that convinces us that invention isthe mother of necessity.

I was surprised to read thesuggestion that corporations might voluntarily promise to forego layoffs forsix months. She calls herself a liberal Democrat. This was Herbert Hoover’sgoal. It didn't work out very well for him. It is unrealistic to expect or evenhope that corporations would put their bottom line second to any otherconsideration.

People who love Quindlend willprobably like Loud and Clear. Myfirst venture into her work was difficult. I thought I would be able to connectwith her writing. I did enjoy her voice. I like the simplicity of her style. IfI had read each of the essays stretched out over a longer time period I mighthave enjoyed it more. Reading it with the goal of returning it to the libraryin a few days provided a surfeit of ideas and emotional writings. Reading itwas like eating too much food at a restaurant and then trying to eat anoversized piece of cake. I’m glad itsdone.

The Outing

2011-09-14T11:31:00.000-04:00

Dressed in uniform,

Blue shirt, Khaki pants
The bent man waits at
Open door. Are you
Ready Momma?

Behind, his wife shuffles

Tiny steps; anticipating
Joy, she follows down
The long passage.
He turns Deaf ear to
Her babbled remembrance
Of their Wedding lunch. At the
Blue Bird cafe.

He orders

Food. Everything
Remains as though today
They are at their zenith.
Refreshed at the place Where
Those they knew best:
Loved most are interred.

Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids--a review/response

2011-09-12T11:22:00.000-04:00

The premise of Bryan Caplan’s book is that the main reason the birthrate among white Anglo Saxon middle and upper middleclass couples has declined to near less than two children over their life time is that parenting is work. It is not fun. Society and the couples themselves demand a level of involvement that makes child rearing a 24/7 job for eighteen years per child. His book gives potential parents reason to hope for a better life and that reason is genetics. Kids will grow up to do what their genes are programmed to make them do and there is nothing parents can do to change that. So relax make the accommodations that will make life pleasant and have fun. He spends a good deal of time talking about research on identical and fraternal twins raised apart and separately mining for evidence of his thesis that kids are not clay to be molded. They are more like plastic that will give but always pops back into its original shape. Has he never seen plastic that has been buried in a landfill?

I find some of what he says useful. Relaxing about parenting is certainly preferable to stressing out over it. Having said that I have knows since the day my second child was born that children bring their own personality with them. Those of us who believe in a pre-earth life and the concept of the eternal man have no problem recognizing that there are some things that parents do not have the power to change; that children have inborn and even eternal characteristics that transcend anything a parent can do.

It would be nice if parenting were about having fun, but our job as parents is not to have a good time. Our purpose is to find joy in our posterity. The thing that brings joy is accepting the responsibility to parent God's spiritual offspring and to help them learn the difference between right and wrong as well as help them learn to make the best choices possible when they reach maturity. Our goal as parents is not to mold lumps of clay into our image or to write our own history on a blank slate. It is to help the spirits entrusted to us desire to be like their Heavenly Father. Clearly this is not part of Bryan Caplan's belief system.

He voices a few other premises which strike me as false, the most glaring being that genetics is simple rather than complicated and that all parents want the same thing for their children. He compounds the silliness of this conjecture by suggesting that first on the list of things people want is that their children be tall. This is something that is obviously an inherited trait and its inclusion is just a distraction as are the other things he suggests all parents want for their kids. These are things that one might assume everyone knows are not affected by nurture which he defines in the narrowest possible way. At one point he says that common sense tells us the earth is flat as evidence that we need to change our thinking. How can he expect to be taken seriously?

The really big problem I have with this book though is that he seems to be saying relax be permissive, don't discipline/punish your kids will be what ever their genes have predetermined. He doesn't take into account the sibling studies that brought about the family constellation as determinative model showing that there were more differences between siblings raised together than there were across families with siblings the same place in the birth order. By the same token identical twins raised apart are more alike than fraternal twins reared together. So the researches have postulated that in order for a trait to be heritable it must appear more often in identical twins than it does in fraternal ones. (That seems a strange measure as any sibling relationship should be equally valid.) Using that measure they have defined heritable traits to be: IQ (whatever that is), mental speed, perceptual speed and accuracy, religiosity, traditionalism, alcohol and drug abuse, crime and conduct, job satisfaction, choice of jobs, cheerfulness, depression, risk taking, authoritarianism, extroversion, neuroticism, amount of television viewing, well-being, self-acceptance, self control, dominance, optimism, pessimism, hostility and cynicism. You notice that these are all broad categories. Nowhere do we find success, health, or height, etc. on list this.*

There has to date been no specific genes identified which account for these various traits. Within each of these traits is a wide range of possibilities about how and when they might develop or change. This brings me to the other thing that he neglected to take into account, namely learning theory. He says that putting kids in the naughty corner works, but its effects wear off. This is his evidence that it doesn't matter what parents do, their influence is only short lived. Eat, drink and be merry for the kids will grow up. I say if the effects wear off no learning has taken place. He doesn't seem to be aware that kids learn from siblings, peers and other adults in their lives. He doesn't consider any influences besides heredity which to him is sufficient.

Most of us know about Pavlov's dogs and teaching pigeons to make selections in order to get food. The reason for the saying that elephants never forgets is that in India the elephant tamers would go into the jungle and capture young elephants. They would take these elephants to their camp and tie them to a stake with a heavy chain. Initially the elephant would struggle against the restraints. Over time the elephants would give up. When the elephants became used to the restraints and were considered domesticated they didn't need a strong chain to tether them anymore. A light rope that the elephants could easily break was enough to keep them from breaking freeing and returning to the wild. They remembered what they learned and never forgot.

If we look at discipline as training and recognize that training takes time then it is not surprising that neither few nor many times in the naughty corner is enough. In fact unless the time in the corner is part of a complete philosophy of child rearing then it is nothing more than a technique that might or might not have a benefit in terms of discipline. It is a technique that often gives the appearance of teaching but in reality is a form of first aid for overwrought parents. It stops the undesirable behavior but it doesn't get at the underlying causes. In any case it has no chance of producing learning (changed behavior) unless it is consistently and evenly used over time. It will produce no lasting change unless the child is quietly told why it is she is being sent to the naughty corner, given the opportunity to think about why she is there and then given the opportunity to return when she has decided she is willing to change the offending behavior. If she returns and shows by her actions she was not ready to change then she can go back to the corner until the parent says she can come out. It must be used over time until the value it is supposed to teach is internalized. Once it is internalized then the child will have learned to discipline herself and the change in behavior will be more permanent. As with any training tool it must be used correctly or the behavior will continue. Should the child grow up and reject the value that was never learned in the first place people like Mr. Caplan will say it was because of her genes.

Since the first President Bush declared the decade of the brain sufficient work has been done to establish that the human brain is not a fully developed organ until the early twenties. Children are not little adults. The brain does not develop at the same rate as language. The last thing that develops is judgment. If science and facts mattered to law and policy makers legal maturity would not be eighteen.

Humans go through a series of developmental stages. We often think that the final stage of development is the one that leads us into adulthood where we are complete. In truth we learn all through our life. We change all through our life. We have never been lumps of clay to be molded into pots. But if we were, the only one who would do the molding would be ourselves through the choices we make. If we were a blank slate the only one who could write on it would be each of us individually because of our personal choices. All of the experiences and the environment we live in are a part of our personality development and our genes are part of that environment as well. You can't get off the hook by saying her genes made her do it; I absolve myself of any responsibility, but it sure has been fun.

*Seligman, Martin, E.P., What You Can Change and What You Can’t, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1994, p. 43.

An Unintended Historical Tour

2011-09-10T20:39:00.001-04:00

I’m thankful today for our sump pump. Because of the pump our basement only half flooded the day before yesterday. And since I occasionally look for tender mercies and decide to see the hand of God more in my life I am grateful that it didn’t happen until we got home from our long visit in the Rocky Mountains.

The rain was coming down in sheets and rolling over the rain gutters like a river. The real problem was underground water seeping through the saturated walls of the basement. We worked (there were two of us) a long time with towels and mops moving the water in the direction of the drain in the store room. It wanted to move out and fill up the whole floor. It seemed a hopeless task, yet we persisted until the rain began to abate. Surely the water would have reached every corner and damaged everything it touched had we not been there.

As difficult as dealing with the water was it did not damped our joy at returning home. Our little house in the high mountain desert in a metropolitan area might as well be in a wilderness. It is near schools and shopping centers, a library and a bit farther off a Megaplex with places to eat before enjoying a movie. Still there is neither air conditioning, nor television nor access to the internet. The cooking utensils and bedding I stored in the garage before our last tenants moved in were mostly gone. It was a disappointment to find our trust had been misplaced.

One day we made a trip out to Salt Air. The lake (Great Salt Lake) was very low and the beach was very wide. The building itself looked in good repair on the outside. Though it is an historical marker it is in private hands and just a shadow of what it used to be. The main ballroom has been fixed up, but it looked as though it hasn’t been used for a long while. That is not too surprising as the city is about ten to fifteen miles away. The concerts, ballgames and other night life there is much more attractive than the old tired resort of more than 100 years ago. History has passed it by.

Tooele had all the same stores strung out as in every other small town I have ever visited. Park City was like Jackson, Wyoming and every other old mining town in rural America, a tourist trap. It was Grantsville that didn’t look like much but had a little gem of a museum named for the Reed-Donner party.

Grantsville is just a few miles south of Interstate 80 in the western part of the state. It feels like the last town before the Nevada border. When the Reed-Donner party was crossing this section of what would become Utah they stopped in aat the site that would become Grantsville because that is the place there was grass and fresh water. The museum is located on a side street behind a wrought iron fence. There is a sign on the fence that says to call the care taker/guide and he will be right over. We called and he came within five minutes as promised. He was a gray haired man wearing jeans and a baseball cap with Reed-Donner embroidered on it. He let us into the one room school house filled with artifacts donated and scrounged from digs around the mountains and valleys. For me the most interesting of the artifacts were the ones that had something to do with my ancestors. Edward Hunter my grandmother’s paternal grandfather, the first bishop in Grantsville left his E. Hunter in his own hand in a ledger book. There was a picture of Harrison Severe, my grandmother’s maternal grandfather on the wall. In a group picture of the Grantsville band was Harrison Severe’s father-in-law, Robert Orr. It felt good to see tangible and photographic evidence that these people I have recorded on paper were real.

Harrison Severe

It was a satisfying day. Grantsville isn’t much anymore. A lot of people who lived there moved on to Idaho and other places. Some of them like J. Ruben Clark, Jr. went much further than that. We saw a one room log cabin and the cage that was part of the first jail. Grantsville isn’t much. I don’t know if it ever was, but our visit to the Reed-Donner museum made me feel connected.

A Twenty First Century Hypothesis

2011-08-08T16:52:00.000-04:00

Some forty years ago a book called None Dare Call it Conspiracy by Gary Allen came out. Its purpose was to sound the alarm about a centuries old conspiracy on the part of international bankers to control the money market and the world through finance. He claims this has been the real conspiracy all along. While everyone was focused on communism and charities like the Rockefeller foundation the international bankers were secretly taking over everything. They were doing this by manipulating governments into massive borrowing. And, nothing brings about more borrowing than a war.

Gary Allen learned about this conspiracy by reading in a book by Professor Carol Quigly of the Georgetown University Foreign Service School called Tragedy and Hope, a 1300 page history of the world.

When I married my sweetheart was a staunch believer in the tenets in Allen’s book. So we decided it would be interesting to find Quigly’s tome and check up on the chapters and passages where he exposes this banking conspiracy. We didn't find what we expected. First we learned the book, though recently published, was not readily available. We checked out our local library and found they didn't have a copy. We could have found it at the Library of Congress but we were too impatient to wait for a librarian to find it in the stacks. Eventually we found one copy at the Georgetown University Library.

We turned eagerly to the table of contents to find the chapter that would bring to light the conspiracy that Quigly had no problem with. There was none. We looked in the index and found one line under bankers that said something, but not what Mr. Allen had screamed in all caps. Most of what he had to say was common knowledge. It was disappointing not to be able to verify Allen’s claims. All we did was cast doubt on the quality of his research.

If I believed in conspiracies and I chose to believe the one Allen identifies in None Dare Call It Conspiracy I would say the current problems we are having worldwide are little more than these international conspirators deciding that if the capitalists want to be able to keep expanding their bottom line governments need to stop borrowing money for things other than wars. They need to demonstrate to the spoiled Americans and the European Democracies that if they continue to spend money on their people the people will not be willing to work in low wage menial jobs. The price of labor will go up and their shareholders will be unhappy. If the shareholders ain't happy ain't nobody happy.

If I believed in conspiracy theories I would say it all makes sense now. Anything that will make the cost of labor rise is bad for the business. Anything that will lower unemployment will raise the price of labor so we need a higher unemployment rate to encourage the lazy bums who are unemployed to work for less in more undesirable jobs. The international banking conspirators don’t really want to take over the governments, after all, governments are their best, most reliable customers. They just want to be able to manipulate policy and keep the interest coming. As I once heard the most important interest is the interest you are paid and it is better not to pay any out. The Federal Reserve has been holding interest rates down for too long.

Enough Already

2011-08-06T13:50:00.001-04:00

Our county has a noise ordinance. It stipulates that it is a violation of the county code for householders to play music or have any parties where sound is so loud it can be heard by the neighbors. This is a form of noise pollution that needs to be eradicated. Interestingly enough the more noise we eliminate the more noticeable other more subtle sounds become. This principle carries over into many areas of life. The cleaner the house is the more we noticeable the dust. The more we eliminate the ephemeral stuff from our thinking the more clearly real issues and answers become.

Recently the term Cafeteria Mormon has been used to describe members who look at the whole package and say I love the whole package but I don’t like thus and such so just take that out and I’ll observe what I like. Everyone has their own list of things that they would rather not put on their plate. Polygamy is on the top of the feminist’s list. So much progress has been made in the area of women’s rights over the last more than one hundred years; that this item that isn't even on the menu. For most of us it is nothing more than a footnote..

Enough already, harping on a dead subject does not enhance credibility. No woman who is a member of the Utah based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will find polygamy on the menu. And, no one, either living or dead is going to be required to be married for time or eternity to anyone they do not wish to be with.

Is it the priesthood ban? That has been off the menu for more than thirty years. So the question is, what is it they are really concerned about? How detrimental can talking about the value of marriage and motherhood with the young women be? We live in a society where there are now more children living in single parent households than there are with a mother and father. The speakers at college commencements tell the women to think only of careers, motherhood is not important.

The Total Fertility Rate (TFR=total number of children the average woman will have over her lifetime) has dropped to 2.06 per woman in the U.S. Economists are starting to worry that declining fertility rates are a threat to our economy as the TFR needs to be at least 2.1 to maintain a steady population. Considering the messages society sends, somebody has to say something different; why not the YW leaders?

Consider the metaphors for the kingdom given in the gospels, a mustard seed, salt, a pearl, a field, a candle, a coin, a lone city on a hill; none of these things are large. They are all desirable but they are small. If this cafeteria is another metaphor for the kingdom, it is a very small one and the negative connotations of a school cafeteria aside there is a core menu that is delicious and healthful. Additionally it carries a wide variety of side dishes that change from time to time to meet the needs of its patrons.

Enough already there is so much good to enjoyed, let’s stop looking at the dust and complaining about the menu.

Through the night

2011-08-03T13:29:00.000-04:00

Dark and deep
It was too
Hot to sleep a
Breeze rustled the
Curtains. From outside
The cracking of grass
As little insects passed
Disturbed the one eyed
Lumbering monster; who
Lived in the dry creek but
Never did creep from under
Its bridge into daylight.
It has never been seen, but
It surely is mean.
Its rhythmical
Echoing sighs bounce to the
Sill of the window. Should
It peep in investigating the
Din it would see a man’s
Head on the pillow
His mouth open wide,
With each new breath that would
Scare even death as he snores and
He snores.
The poor fellow

Cathedrals, Roads and Taxes

2011-08-01T21:31:00.000-04:00

St. Stephen's, Vienna Austria

St. Stephen’s cathedral in Vienna, Austria like many cathedrals of the middle ages was started but never finished. The unfinished church that stood in 1137 on the field where St. Stephen’s now stands was dedicated to St. Stephen in 1147. The building has been under construction ever since. Although the general structure was finished in 1160 renovations and expansions including reconstructions because of natural or man made disasters continue. If you look closely at the picture you will see scaffolding that remains on the upper stories of the church.

Like other cathedrals St. Stephen’s in addition to the never ending general maintenance looks unfinished because it could take a hundred years and more to build a cathedral. When the sponsors ran short of money these lavish monuments to religion were the first things cut. The skilled workers artists and artisans died without passing on their skill. Eventually the church lost interest in working on them. They had other more pressing matters to deal with.

It is frightening to think our republic is like a cathedral. Yet there are some real similarities. It is always under renovation and reconstruction. And, it is subject to the whims of the wealthy who make decisions for everyone. Too often they make these decisions based on factors other than what is good for our democracy and what will enhance it.

Virginia is a reactionary state. After all it is not only the home of Tom Jefferson and George Washington but it is the state where Patrick Henry made his famous “give me liberty or give me death” speech. Patrick Henry never accepted the constitution because he didn't want to be taxed by both his local government and the Feds. He became Virginia’s governor but his political career ended there.

More recently Virginians decided they didn't like the personal property tax, better known as the car tax, and elected a candidate for governor who promised to phase it out. It wasn't very long before other taxes started going up to cover the revenue lost to the counties and cities. His successor knew what to do. He began cutting expenses. It cost a lot of money to keep all the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) locations open and operating everyday from 10:00 a.m. till 9:00 p.m. So he started closing offices and cutting back hours. The DMV was open fewer days with a shortened schedule. The lines grew longer and longer. Everyone who owned a car or had a driver’s license or wanted one had to stand in line for hours. It wasn't long till the phasing out of the car tax stopped.

More recently the department of transportation working with Virginia decided Interstate 495, the capital beltway, needed to be renovated and expanded. About three years ago they started tearing up perfectly good roads to make room for their expensive project. They cut down trees and tore up everything in the middle and down both sides of the existing roadway. It is a big, ugly, congested mess. Nevertheless, it seems to me that here is a project where the government can save money. Just stop building it. Wait till our economy is in better shape. Sure it would discomfit everyone who ever has occasion to drive on the beltway. It would equally distribute the misery just like it does now. The only thing that would change is that the orange cones would be gone, the project would be put on hold and the rich wouldn't get to pass everyone else up while driving in their Lexus lanes, at least for now.

The individual has been waxing while the commons has been diminishing for some time now. Wouldn't it be nice for once to put the commons ahead of the special interest groups?

Mind Reading

2011-07-27T15:59:00.000-04:00

Hide and Seek by James Tissot
in the public domain because it is more then 100 years old

Hiding behind doors
Peeking out from corners
Shyly smiling cast down
Eyes reveal where the pencils
Have gone. Crumbs on the counter
Prints on the window, a sock
On the stair, giggles behind
A hand tell who’s
Been there.
The mind reading
Supernatural, all
Seeing psychic being
Knows what mischief lies
Back of chuckles and
Sighs. Though the little
Ones try they Just
Can’t fool Mom.

Don't Tell Me What to Put on My Plate or in My Bookcase

2011-07-25T17:03:00.001-04:00

There is a little demon that lives somewhere deep inside. It stays hidden most of the time, so deeply its presence is easily forgotten and often presumed dead. It is not that green eyed demon known as Jealousy. No, it is the long nose sharp toothed demon known as Rebellion. Since yesterday it has been making itself known and it would be good if it would just stop.

When I opened the program in church yesterday there was a flier inside that raised Rebellion’s hackles. Admittedly it was a small thing as most of the things that stirs the rebellious fires usually are. Every three months or so the week before the fifth Sunday the announcement that there will be a much and mingle the following week appears. Right below the announcement is the lecture. Bring finger foods in a disposable container. Put them in the kitchen. Prepare it on Saturday. No cooking on Sunday. Standing alone at the bottom of the page are the offending words, “Keep it simple, it’s the Sabbath.”

I can think of some really simple food that would not be eatable if prepared the day before and would take only minutes on the Sabbath. On the other hand if I am going to fix something the day before why should it be simple? Why can’t I do something complicated?

The words keep it simple called up the memory of the story about a woman who was hosting a visiting authority. She stayed home from meeting to prepare a special meal. When the authority arrived he ate her food and then told her he would rather have seen her at meeting and eaten peanut butter sandwiches than have had her sumptuous dinner. This story is usually told by a man who knows nothing about cooking just before suggesting that a nice meal of pot roast and potatoes is too fancy a meal for Sunday. Whatever alternative they suggest is always more labor intensive than roast beef.

We have a little book group in our ward. It was proposed and organized by someone on a Relief Society committee four or five years ago and four to six of us have been meeting since that time. It is difficult to get a group together so at some point announcements for the group began appearing in the RS bulletins. Recently one of the counselors decided the reading list for the year should be made available to everyone. All these things were aimed at increasing interest in our little group. As usual there were unintended consequences. Someone noticed that Greg Mortenson’s From Stones to Schools was on the list. It was an old list and we had talked about changing it because of allegations that Mortenson had fabricated some of the events in Three Cups of Tea and that he had mishandled the money donated to his charity. Someone who has never taken an interest in our group told the Relief Society President that she believed From Stones to Schools would not be an appropriate book for us to read. It would not be edifying to read a book by an author who had been discredited. This brought out Rebellion more strongly than the munch and mingle announcement had. Rebellion who wasn't at all interested in the book when it was suggested now wants to read it. Reason will most likely prevail.

I cannot end without saying books aren't supposed to be edifying. Mortenson’s books are meant to garner donations. Fiction books are supposed to be thought provoking and they are supposed to be moral and tell the truth, not the facts. Our reading list was not intended to suggest what all women should read. It a list of the books that the members of the group at a meeting everyone was invited to decided to read. It reflects the interests of the members of the group. In my mind that is the way it should be. In the end our book group will most probably disassociate itself from the Relief Society. The rebel in me is not at all happy.

Memories

2011-07-20T11:29:00.000-04:00

I've been dreaming of him wishing
He were here. We argued before

He left. The weeks passed like honey
Dripping off a spoon on a cold

Day. The short time remaining
Until he returns is eternity stretched

Out : A wasteland filled with waiting
And longing: Of remembering the sound

Of his shoes, the irritating students streaming
In and out like ants; the feel of his leg next

To mine, the touching, holding, being one. Specific
Tactile memories and thoughts are all about him.

While the days crawl on I close my eyes—
Feel him near.

Use it up. Wear it out, or go without,

2011-07-18T16:48:00.000-04:00

The charity that I have been donating old household items and clothing to calls from time to time to ask if I have anything for them. Usually the answer is negative. It is not that I don’t have stuff I am not using. The real problem is it is spread throughout the house and tucked in unexpected places. It is not possible to go to one place and pick it up and get it ready. Additionally some of it needs some kind of maintenance before it is fit to be given to someone else. Making a donation ready can be time consuming and energy sapping. It is easier to put it off

Today I chose to finally go through my drawers and closets. With the firm conviction that many items were going unused I started with the sock drawer. It was overflowing with all kinds of socks from mule socks to anklets and various kinds in between. It should have been easy to cull out the socks without mates, the holy ones and the nylons with runs. There was one without a mate, none with holes and one pair of pantie hose with a run. Still the drawer is full. My other drawers and closets yielded three bags before I got tired and called it quits.

In the midst of deciding which of my precious worn out stuff to toss and which to save I came across a warm winter lining made of fake fur for my nine year old leather coat. I haven’t used it much and I momentarily toyed with adding it to the giveaway pile. I’m never going to wear it. It won’t fit any other coat. What could anyone else do with it? But, it is too good to trash. So there it hangs. I looked at my out of date blazers and decided to keep them.

These things reminded me of our neighbor from Latvia. He had fled his home country to escape Stalin’s secret police. He learned from his neighbor that they were waiting for him in his apartment so with only the clothes he had on his back he left without going inside. He lived in a German work camp during WWII and eventually came to America. When he was very old he decided it was safe to visit. After his trip he told us it had been wonderful. He had recognized many of his old friends who were still there. It was easy to identify them because it was winter and they were still wearing the same coats.

In the middle of the day my Chinese made computer desk that has a shelf for the keyboard dropped a screw and the keyboard shelf dumped the board into my lap. Efforts to fix it have proven fruitless. It was not made to be repaired. Like everything else it is made to be replaced. Obsolescence is part of the design and expectation.

I saved some of my old clothes so I can have them shortened, made over and use them again and again. Maybe it's time to give up the old value of making things last. Is it really more cost effective to pay a tailor than it is to buy something new? I don’t know, for sure. I’m not certain if that is even the right question. Maybe I need to keep wearing the same clothes so people will recognize me when I walk down the street.

Split Personality

2011-07-13T11:52:00.001-04:00

Dione

Hey impulsivity, loquaciousness who asked you to leave?
I have missed you so. Each time I stood on the
Fringes of a friendly crowd my arms folded
Over my body as though protecting myself from
Some unknowable ever present danger, I looked
For you. Where were you when I went on dates with mute
Men who sat aloof and waited for someone else to
Breach the silence between us. Where were you
When I tried to hide behind lowered lids never looking
Into the eyes of another. I needed your bubbling laughter.
Your quick wit and friendly smile. Now the frown has turned
Into hard lines on the forehead and deep into the corners
Of my mouth. With every friendly passerby who said,
“Smile.” The Lines grew deeper and tuned hard as the
Mouth on a ventriloquist’s dummy. Wherever you were
You looked on and did nothing.

It was so grim living alongside shyness. Every time there
Was a move, whenever one of those close friends went away and
It was time start over you thought you wanted me to step up,
break the ice and keep you from standing dazed next to
The blond guy at the locker next to yours. He wanted to talk.
You could have become friends. But you were mum--speechless.
If there was wit anxiety stifled it; Or was it not terror at all but
Only blankness. I felt the loneliness too. I would have liked
To bounce from party to party and person to person sparkling
And alive with mirth. I wanted to dance. If you had smiled or
Looked a fellow in the eye maybe we wouldn’t have been so alone.
Shyness, kept your real self hidden behind issues, under
Ideas, as though that was the small stuff. The bits and pieces
Of life, the important things, hopes dreams sorrows and baseball scores
Remained hidden. So don’t blame me for giving up. It was
You who drove me underground.

You go inside. Then I’ll play.

What Does God Need With a Starship

2011-07-11T18:37:00.000-04:00

In the movie Star Trek V The Final Frontier Captain Kirk takes his ship on a quest to help Mr. Spock’s half brother in his search for God. When they reach the planet at the center of the galaxy where God is to be found they come in contact with a being that appears as a giant head on a screen. This being tells Kirk he wants him to give him his ship. Kirk asks why he needs a starship. here Well as everyone who saw this movie knows there is no satisfactory answer. The being demands immediate and blind obedience which Captain Kirk refuses to give.

I have often thought about this scene and realized that had the writer been Mormon the answer would have been. “I don’t need your starship. But you need to give it me. It will be for you own good.” The first time I heard this explanation of why we need to pay tithing I was taken by surprise and had not really thought about it. The assertion that God could finance the church by just depositing treasures in a bank account somewhere seemed a little off. But, who am I to limit an omnipotent being.

I talked it over with my friend who agreed that the Church (read Kingdom of God on earth) needs out tithing and since the members of the church who pay tithing benefit from their contributions we need to pay ourselves tithing. It is like when the Relief Society held bazaars. The women would work hard all year doing handwork for the bazaar. Then they would go and buy the stuff they had made from each other, the proceeds going to the Relief Society.

Another friend standing close by suggested that if there were no law of tithing the Lord would find another way to fund his church. Yet tithing is the way he has already found. I expect that at this point if everyone stopped paying tithing the Lord would not come up with a new plan. No, he would allow the membership to experiences the consequences of their actions and if necessary let the kingdom run out of money.

We have gotten a bit spoiled since correlation got rid of the ward building fund, the ward budget that paid for the lights and heat, the Elder’s Quorum dues, the Relief Society dues and various other funds that people were asked to pay into. The other way that the Lord has provided is what was in front of us all the time.

Malachi asked, “Will a man rob God?” Then he answered his own question, “But ye have robbed me… in tithes and offerings.” Maybe he doesn't need it, but it still belongs to him.

Old Age Isn't for Sissies

2011-07-10T21:39:00.001-04:00

My two grandmothers outlived their husbands, one by a few months the other by twenty one years. One was 67 the other 83. In the next generation men and women alike are living longer than their parents. They are experiencing infirmity which few that came before lived long enough to confront.

It has been difficult to watch them struggle with the inevitable loss of their physical powers. It seems the world has turned upside down and the competent people who nurtured my generation; they who seemed to have all knowledge and experience, they who knew exactly what to do in every situation and could manage their own lives now need help. They need it but they don’t know it and are unwilling to take it from the children they reared. So we sit idly by as we watch, worry and wait.

Our society has not yet come to terms with the idea that not all adults are capable of taking care of everyday decisions. Our culture lives by the axiom that all people are created with an equal and separate right to make their own choices. The irony is that we also take as axiomatic the proposition that everything happens for a reason and every choice we make is hardwired into our brains. This dichotomy leads to numerous other paradoxical beliefs and actions that a pure pragmatist would shun.

Recently my 87 year old mother-in-law has been experiencing a crisis brought on by a bout with a antibiotic resistant infection. Because of it she went from old to infirm in the course of a few weeks. She has been waiting to die for about twenty years now, but the prospect of it actually happening scares her. She doesn't hear well. She needs new glasses. She doesn't understand without someone to act as an interpreter between her and the medical people in her life. Unfortunately her intermediary is her 85 year old husband. It is difficult to figure out which one of them is harder of hearing and more lacking in understanding.

Long before the crisis they decided they would not become a burden to their children. They would buy long term care insurance and if, heaven forbid, the time should ever come when they could no longer live independently they would use it to buy assistance. They assured everyone that they would know when that time would be. The question is does anyone ever really know until something truly awful happens, how bad it really is.

I have learned from watching and waiting while my parents struggled with infirmity the following:

• We hold our freedom so dear that only under the most extreme conditions will anyone suggest that the infirm are unable to make their own decisions.

• In order for children to influence their infirm parents they must present a united front. Nothing less will do. If even one child does not agree nothing will work.

• It is extremely tough for parents to see their children as the more knowledgeable part of the relationship.

• The Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act (HIPPA Laws) makes it impossible without the written consent of the parent for children to learn anything about their loved ones care.

So we wait, watch, worry and hope that one day we will all come to terms with the new reality forced on us by the prospect of a longer life span.

The Path up and the Path Down

2011-07-06T18:32:00.000-04:00

Is one and the same when it is a line
Not a circle going round and round.
Looking at life some see a line grow
Thin in the nothingness where from
None can come again.

The ring on my finger etched with infinity
Has neither beginning nor end. It
Cannot be unwound like a skein of days
There is no point where it began—the place before
I loved him. There is no path back
To a time before there were babes at my breast.

A river never runs up stream. Yet sometimes,
By the reflecting pool watching the sunset
On the Washington monument talking about
That nearly forgotten time, the feeling returns,
And I am there.

Celebrate!

2011-07-04T09:06:00.001-04:00

The Declaration of Indepence, July 4, 1776; A Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America reads in part:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance; unless suspended in their operation till h is assent should be obtained.

He refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He had dissolved representative housed repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness, his invasions of the rights of the people.

He refused, for a long time after such dissolution, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned t the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without and convulsions within.

He endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose, obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass other to encourage their migration hither, and raising the condition of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their their substance.

He has kept among us, in time of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civic powers.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them b a mock trial, form punishment, for anh murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the absolute rule into those colonies:

For taking away our charter, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the powers of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invest with power to legislate for s in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstanced of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most bar barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends, and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He as excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless, Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction al all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms, our repeated petitions have been answered only be repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………

We, therefore, the representative of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, … do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies, are and of right ought to be, free and independent states: that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, … and as free and independent states they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And, for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our retunes, and our sacred honor.

Life Lessons from Handwork, of all things.

2011-07-02T10:02:00.000-04:00

The Beehive girls in our ward, or at least their leadership, decided to learn crochet. They called for volunteers, people conversant with the art but not necessarily expert. Since I have been doing crochet since I was about twelve, but have never become expert, I stepped up. How hard can it be to crochet a chain? The foundation chain is the thing I do best and I can do it without thinking at all. I take the thread/yarn in one hand and the hook in the other and the chain just happens.

The thing I had forgotten is how it was I learned crochet. I just couldn't remember how difficult it was to learn to make a bow or tie a slip knot. I had also forgotten what it was like to be twelve and thirteen years of age. Somewhere in the middle of this exercise I realized that none of those present would have enough information or practice when they left the room that they would be able to pick up a ball of yarn and a hook and do it again. They didn't know how to hold either the yarn or the hook and they didn't really care. If they were going to take on this project they were going to do it their way.

No matter how many verbal explanations I made, hands on placing the fingers in the correct place or slowly demonstrating correct form I did; the idea that there has to be tension in the yarn in order to pull it through a loop did not sink in. Even the instructor for the evening, a woman who is self taught, wasn't able to get the yarn around the hook without changing hands. Most of them decided it was too difficult and the lazy, slaked yarn, way was the best way. It was a frustration for everyone concerned.

About teaching a skill I learned it is better to start with something genuinely easy before dealing with technique. In this case it would have worked better to have provided pre made foundation chains so the girls could have practiced pulling loops through the chain and actually made something small that they could take home with them. Once they became more interested because they had actually created something there would be plenty of time to learn technique.

If you are going to teach a skill, or anything else for that matter, preparation is more important than expertise. Without a well thought out plan that takes into account to age and interest level of the learner not much learning is going to happen. The plan has to include ideas about the best way to demonstrate and practice as a group and individually. It has to be organized so that everyone has someone to practice with sitting by her side. And, it is not a bad idea to have materials and perhaps a small display of things that can be produced; however, this is only a small part of the total preparation and presentation. What it is you want the learners to comprehend must take up the major portion of your preparation and teaching time.

At the end of the hour every learner needs to have a finished product in their hand that they can take home with them.

Mastering a physical skill of any kind requires effort over time. There are no short cuts. The effort to learn, will bring about self discipline, a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction in finishing something will increase feelings of self worth.

The most important thing to be learned from the attempt to learn crochet or any other physical skill is that anything worth learning is going to be difficult. If it is easy nothing of value will be produced. It is only by accommodating and learning to control tension and opposition in life that beautiful things are created.

Summer Rain

2011-06-29T09:29:00.000-04:00

Falling hard and fast drums out a steady rhythmic path

Against the glass. It collects ponds and pools running

Leisurely to the ground.

In gutters torrents race roaring ground ward

Toward their place. The roof sings hurry, hurry got
To go, got to get there. Inside the house rings
With echoes of each dripping throbbing drumbeat.

On the other side of window glass safe and dry at last
The world lives in vivid freshness. It will warm the soul and
Make the spirit whole so long as lightening stays away,
No thunder comes this way to shatter the shelter from
The wetness.

Crossing the Prairie, Rocky Mountains and Wasatch Front

2011-06-27T15:55:00.000-04:00

As early as 1850, the Mormon’s who were settling the Great Basin, began to see the hordes of gold miners traveling to California by any means they could, many of them on foot with little more than they could carry. Some led one cow or carried only a back pack to seek their “god—gold.” The Mormon leadership began to think that Saints waiting to save money for the trip to Zion could just as easily and more quickly migrate without the aid of teams of oxen and fully loaded wagons. In 1851 a general letter to the saints by the first presidency dated September 2 suggested that the migrants begining at the Missouri River “with cows, handcarts, wheel-barrows, with little flour, and no unnecessaries [could] come…quicker and with less fatigue, than by following the trains with their cumbrous herds,…” (Roberts, B.H. Comprehensive History of the Church, vol. 4, p. 83 Published by the Church, Brigham Young University Press, Provo, Utah, 1965)

The first trips with handcarts took place in 1856. That year some 2012 persons traveling by means provided by the Perpetual Emigration Fund Company walked to the Salt Lake Valley. Most of them left England for Boston where they traveled by rail to Iowa City, Iowa. There they found finished handcarts waiting for them. In 1856 three companies arrived in Iowa City in June. The last one left Iowa City on the 23rd. The first two companies arrived in Salt Lake on September 26, the third on October 2. These three groups had made the 1,300 mile trip with fewer deaths than was the average of those traveling by ox train. Though they typically traveled eleven miles a day on their best days they were able to make thirty miles.

Unknown to the Saints who arrived in Utah on October 2, there were still 900 emigrants on the plains. The first company arrived in Iowa City just days after the last of the three groups left. There were no handcarts or tents waiting for them. They had to wait while the carts were made of green unseasoned wood. Each crudely made all wooden cart weighed 60 lbs. They did not leave Iowa City until July 15. After 26 days of being plagued by dust, heat, rain, deep mud and a posse with a warrant to search each of the few wagons for young women allegedly tied down with ropes, they arrived at the Missouri River and Florence, Nebraska on August 11. There they voted and decided to continue on. By September 17 they were 265 miles west of the Missouri on the Platt River. There they experienced the first frost. They were coming to the end of the easiest part of the journey. From there things got worse and worse.

There were five companies of Saints that made the trek in 1856. The last of which didn’t leave Florence until August 29 fared the worst. It is estimated that of the 900 that left after July, 222 died and an unknown number suffered from frost bite and were crippled for life. The story of their rescue is too long to retell.

As I listened to the stories of the trek adventure that was the essence of youth conference over the weekend, I was astonished at what the young men and women who had participated had to say about the experience. They we totally misinformed about the history of the handcart experiment.

They had no idea that the ones who made the original trip did not consider it a hardship, but a less expensive way to reach the place they longed to be. They didn’t know that two thirds of the trip was easy. They didn’t know that most of the people walked. They didn’t know that the carts were too small for more than one person to pull. They didn’t know that from 1856 through 1860, when the experiment was ended, of the ten handcart companies that made the trek over the plains, across the Rockies to the west side of the Wasatch Front eight of them made the trip in less than three months. They need to know that the climb to South Pass is gradual and not steep. The steep grades they had to negotiate were largely going downhill and at the end of their journey.

There is one commonality the real trek has with modern life. In the beginning all seems easy. The further you go the more difficult things become.

You Might Be a Grown Up When

2011-06-25T10:32:00.000-04:00

It is difficult for parents to watch their children grow up and struggle with making choices. The difficulty arises from the disparity between possibilities parents see for their children and the real consequences of the choices they make. A happy peaceful relationship requires that the parents give up and let go of what they counted on. They have to let the dream die and accept the person who lives in their child’s body. Some people grow up. Some people never fully mature into adults. If you think you are grown up you might be when:

You have reached the aged of 18 and act upon your right to vote.

You can get your hair cut and take a shower or bath without being reminded.

You can cook to feed yourself, do laundry to cloth yourself and know how to groom yourself.

You know what a clothes hanger and a closet are for and you don’t sleep in your clothes.

You can recognize your own short comings and work to improve.

You can find and keep a job over years not months.

You know how to drive and want a license for that purpose.

You take appropriate responsibility for your successes and failures in life. (You can tell the difference between an excuse and a reason.)

You know when to talk and when to listen.

You have friends you spend time with.

You learn from your experiences. (Refrain from blaming others for your standing in life.)

This list could continue on and on. I think this is a decent start.

Randomness and the TSA

2011-06-23T14:32:00.000-04:00

Homeland Security and the TSA have assured people who fly that the full body scanners are not dangerous. They have also sought to make people feel better about this repugnant invasion of privacy without probable cause, much less a warrant, by suggesting that their use is random. The implication being that anything that is random is all right because most of the time most of the people will not be required to subject themselves to these screenings. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In my county anyone with a driver’s license is in the jury pool. Jurors are chosen randomly by a computer. Some people never get called some people get called often and others only a few times. This is evidence that their methodology is truly random. If there were a pattern then everyone would be called for jury duty the same number of times. The responsibility would be more evenly spread among licensed drivers.

If we were to drop a set of ping pong balls into chute leading to several different channels most of the balls would fall in the middle channel and if there are enough of them falling at a fast rate they will form a perfect bell curve. Most of the balls will be in the middle with only a few on the sides. If this is a demonstration of true randomness then we would hope the greatest number of travelers clustered in the middle would be the ones who are not selected for the enhanced screenings.

That might be an incorrect assumption. Passengers are not allowed a choice as to which gate they pass through. At all the stages along the way as one goes from check point to check point there is someone there to give directions. If you stand there long enough it is easy to see the pattern as the travelers ahead of you run the gauntlet. The problem is once you are in a particular line there is no changing course. I suppose the look of boredom on the faces of the sentinels at each juncture gives the appearance of disinterest; but I think that is a misinterpretation of what is really happening. If you are in a big airport Like Dulles where it makes a difference which line you are in these people know which is which and just exactly how many people to send into each line to keep it moving at a slow but steady pace. This is not randomness. This is premeditated.

If you are in a smaller airport like Salt Lake City it doesn't matter what line you are in because the screener singles out every second or third person for the scanner. It is not random either. In order for it to be random they would have to mix it up by checking every fourth person and then the second person and then the eighth person, etc to get rid of a discernable pattern.

But, even if it is truly random in one airport it cannot be truly random across the entire system. And the assumption that the bell curve favors those who are not chosen is inaccurate. If the mechanism we drop the balls into is the entrance to airport security then it depends on where whoever set the gates up has put the scanners whether the majority or the minority will be selected. This is not random at all.

If it is truly random the method of selection will not matter some people will be repeatedly chosen while some will be singled out a few times and still others will never be scanned.

If the machine is dangerous because of the exposure to x-rays then always being scanned presents a greater health risk that is born unevenly across the flying population. That is the first thing that bothers me. The second thing that bothers me is the alternative. Finally the matter that is really scary though has to do with the ones in the population that are never scanned at all. It is probable that some of them who are dangerous will be in that group. True randomness can never be effective. So it appears we are giving up our rights without being any safer than we were before.

Dowager

2011-06-22T10:58:00.000-04:00

The old woman sits, her belly puffed up like a toad’s,
Her clothing pulled tight across each soft fold.
The old woman sits by the window, her neck shorter by half;
She barley can see or hear the young children laugh.
Now there she sits by the sill all skin and bones
Like a dowager Empress without any throne.
She’s given up everything beauty and youth
The only things left are the thoughts she calls truth.
Without sight or hearing she feels people pass by
Would anyone notice, she wonders, if today she would die.

There in dreary corner the old widow stands
Folding unfolding and wringing her wrinkled hands.
Does anyone watching question as she takes her ease,
Just what it is with her mind’s eye the old woman sees?
She might surprise them this dowager Queen
Whose living life over and over as if in a dream.
There at the altar she says her I do’s
She kisses her sweetheart then starts life anew.
There are her children little Dom, Nick and Millie
Along with all the strangers she fed in west Philly.

She longs for her loved ones, Mother, sisters all gone away.
With each waking moment she awaits the fine day
When they will come all bathed in light
to beckon her home out of the night .

Five Were Wise: Matthew 25 Revisited

2011-06-20T16:42:00.000-04:00

Rembrandt, The Parable of the Talents, at the Louvre in Paris

Being back in our home congregation yesterday we again experienced the discussion of Matthew 25. I can tell you there were vast differences. As an aside I remember when I was team teaching and my partner was out of town. I gave a lesson and a week later when he returned he gave the same numbered lesson in the teacher’s manual. They were so different that some of those in attendance weren't sure we had actually covered the same material.

This time we did not see a video of the ten virgins sleeping in the street waiting for the bridegroom. The discussion of the symbols in the parable went much the same way. The bridegroom is the savior. The light is the gospel. The marriage feast is the reunion of the savior with the believers.

Who then are the wise virgins? Doctrine and Covenants section 45: 56- 57 answers that question. “And at that day, when I shall come in my glory, shall the parable be fulfilled which I spake concerning the ten virgins. For they that are wise and have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived—…” So the wise virgins are the believers. I suspect the foolish virginins are believers who have been decived.
Verse 12 in the KJV corresponds to verse 11 in the JSV (inspired version). Here we learn that the five foolish ones, having been to the sellers to get their own oil, and thus not present when the procession moved into the house before the door was shut, have knocked asking admittance. The groom replies saying, “Verily I say unto you, ye never knew me.” In the KJV the groom says, “I never knew you.” This is a significant change as it raises the question, what must we to do know the bridegroom?

The next part of the chapter deals with the parable of the talents. Each of the three entrusted with varying amounts of money are part of their employers household. But, it seems apparent that though the one who was entrusted with the smallest amount, in spite of his assertions about character of his boss, knew him not well at all.

It seems to me that since the consequences of coming to know the Lord is to be like him and to find favor in his eyes it is the most important part of the chapter. In order to know the Lord a person must embrace the good news of the gospel by having faith in Jesus Christ, repenting of all sins, being baptized in the Lord’s name, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. Then the lamp will remain full of oil. Then the talents will continue to earn interest.
The last part of the chapter tells us, at least in part, how to go about enduring to the end, .

Beginning at the words, “When the Son of Man will come in his glory.” We see the people divided into two groups one on his right hand and one on his left. Those on his right are commended because they gave him drinks when thirsted fed him when hungry, clothed him when naked, gave shelter when he was homeless, visited him when sick or in prison. Those on his left hand are dismissed because they gave him no drink when he was thirsty, neither did they feed him when hungry, clothed him when naked, nor visit him when sick or imprisoned neither did they shelter him when he was homeless. Each group asks when it was they saw him and did or did not do those things.

We all know the answer to those questions. We know that what we do for the distressed we do for the Lord and that what we do not do; we do not for the Lord. If we are to come to know the God we must come to recognize him in the world around us and do what he would do.

If the Son of Man were to come tomorrow which camp would you be in?

In Observance of Father's Day

2011-06-19T16:15:00.001-04:00

When I was a child I believed as all children do that my daddy was perfect. He was handsome and strong and if he wasn't always square with the world then it was the world that needed to shape up.

I don’t recall the actual date and time when I came to the terrible realization that all I had believed about him was not true. It was like the sensation of being hit in the face with ice water. Suddenly all of his faults were writ large. Nothing else was visible.

After he died I began researching and writing his biography. It has been a wonderful and enlightening experience. I have seen his life with a fresh perspective. The documents have provided the context for the life of the whole man, a man who was not perfect. Nevertheless much of what I believed about him was true and much of what I thought I had discovered as part of my disillusionment was a fiction. He might not have been perfect that did not mean he wasn't good.

There are some facts that remain undisputed. Viewed through the context of the times and all the other relevant details of life in the mid to late twentieth century they mean something quite different than I had believed them to indicate.

One of the documents I now have in my possession is a copy of his patriarchal blessing. What joy and peace it brought to my spirit to read the words of that blessing. This eighth grade graduate who left school to work as a hired hand was promised that accepting priesthood responsibilities and magnifying them would cause him to grow. He would become more accomplished in his work and he would be compensated. He was promised that when he was liberal with his tithes and offerings his table would be spread throughout his life with the bounties of the earth. It is a fact that there was always food on his table.

In 1977 he answered the question; “If there is a dominant theme for our family, what would you say that is?” he listed the following: being together, desiring to do right, keep the commandments the best you can, pray regularly and pay tithing.” Of tithe paying he continued, “You don’t miss tithing if you pay it. You might miss it at the time you are paying it, but after you have paid it you don’t miss it. A lot of time we’ll neglect paying tithing because we have other bills so pressing you feel like you've got to do it, but I still believe that if a person will pay their tithing as they go, they’ll be real happy and you won’t have those problems.”

It made a difference to his life because he knew he was fulfilling his obligations to his community. If everyone tired to live on their own and keep it all for everything for themselves we wouldn't have the buildings and churches we have, he concluded.

In the last few years of his life he made a project of visiting relatives to bear his testimony. The day that he sorrowfully left his home for the last time he went bearing his testimony to those who moved him out.

Today I think of him and remember all the good things he did in his life and I am grateful for his dedication to the principles he believed in. I didn't always agree with him and sometimes I was angry with him, but now understand things I didn't comprehend the day I recognized his humanity.

Leaving Church

2011-06-15T19:04:00.000-04:00

An electric clock over the open door,
Narrow windows framed with heavy curtains
Light filters through clothing and hair of
Stragglers. Women and girls leaving church,
Stand in profile malingering in shadowed
Pews. One basks translucent in a white light flood,
An angel without wings, her short sleeves expose white arms.
It is 1953. I see my mother and grand mother
In my mind’s eye. In memory their words echo.
They don’t seem strange these farm women from
The Mormon countryside going home to lay the table,
Finish the roast and complete the picture as they
Leave church.

There is a photo here in the spring issue of BYU Magazine called Leaving Church by Dorothea Lang.