Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Spiritual Autobiography
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Spiritual Autobiography
Irreantum
Irreantum Staff
General Editor Laraine Wilkins
Fiction Editor Sam Brown
Poetry Editor Mark Brown
Readers Write Editor David Pace
Personal Essay Editor Angela Hallstrom
Book Review Editor Jana Bouck Remy
Copyediting Team Manager Beth Bentley
Copyediting Staff Colin Douglas
Liz Lyman
Sarah Maitland
Henry Miles
Alan Rex Mitchell
Vanessa Oler
Steven Opager
Design and Layout Marny K. Parkin
Contents
From the Editor
Special Feature
Life History Writing: Perspectives Laura Bush, Boyd Petersen, and
Matthew K. Heiss 11
Personal Essays
Bicycle Blues memoir excerpt by Phyllis Barber 35
One-Eighty memoir excerpt by Christopher Kimball Bigelow 47
In the Presence of God: A Spiritual Autobiography Cheryl Pace 71
Stone Pillows Deja Earley 89
Milton Abbey Kathryn Street Larson 95
Poetry
Conference Weekend; This Morning in This Rain Brent Pace 27
Reading the Creation with Gutenberg;
All Saints Eve, a Year and a Half Later Melanie Hinton 30
Desert Night Amy Jensen 33
Dar al Luz Mark Bennion 64
The Sound of Salvation Brian Pew 67
Staying On; Certain Midnight Hours Dixie Partridge 100
A Spider Teaches the Fall without a Recommend Steven Peck 103
Departments
Readers Write: Spiritual Autobiography
105
From the Archives: The Next Thing I Knew I Was One of Them:
Oral Conversion Stories from BYUs Charles Redd Center for
Western History
113
Book Reviews
133
Contributors 145
Irreantum
Volume 7, Number 2 (2005)
1 Nephi 17:5. And we beheld the sea, which we
called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters.
ear-ee-an-tum:
years before St. Augustine, and in certain sections even earlier than that,
then Joseph Smith brought forth a collection of narratives distinctly autobiographical in nature, compared to other commonly accepted scripture,
given the preponderance of texts narrated from a first-person perspective.
And if the Book of Mormon is a record of the spiritual history of a people,
rather than their political history, then Mormons have a model for testimony,
another testament of Christ, recounted by those who witnessed first-hand
the dealings of God with his children on the earth. Nephis mandate to liken
all scriptures unto us (1 Nephi 19:23), thus becomes particularly poignant,
given the personal storytelling enacted so frequently through the use of the
word I in the Book of Mormon.
And yet we cant deny a certain commonality of Mormon spiritual
autobiography with the identified tradition. Joseph Smith inherited religious
sensibilities from his forebears, including his grandfather Solomon Mack,
who wrote a highly readable spiritual autobiography in chapbook form
(Mulder 157). Early church leader Parley P. Pratt wrote a lengthy autobiography, the style of which marks him as a stepchild of the eighteenth century,
as noted by R. A. Christmas (35). Other nineteenth-century autobiographical
works written by church members are still being mined for their historical,
as well as literary, value (think of the writings of Jane Manning James, used
as a source by Margaret Blair Young and Darius Gray for their Standing on
the Promises series of historical novels). The overwhelming number of spiritual autobiographies housed in the Church archives alone offers a bountiful
resource, and testifies to the grassroots nature of the call to write the story
of ones own spiritual life. Such practice is grounded in the Protestant call to
account for ones own life through introspection and a personal relationship
to God.
In the twentieth century and beyond, spiritual autobiographical forms
still emerge in the form of life histories for Mormons. But the increasingly
integrated nature of Mormon culture, with its attendant trend towards
more education and access to publishing venues has opened avenues for a
number of LDS church members to write more seriously, and with a larger
audience in mind. It remains to be seen whether we can make a list of the
most influential autobiographies written by Mormons. Those which have
received national press seem to fall under the category of failed spiritual
autobiographies, where exposs of Mormon practices or stories of escape
predominate. These works have been around since the nineteenth century.
8
Those from the last few decades include Sonia Johnsons From Housewife
to Heretic (1981), Deborah Laakes Secret Ceremonies: A Mormon Womans
Intimate Diary of Marriage and Beyond (1993), and, more recently, Martha
Nibley Becks Leaving the Saints: How I Left the Mormons and Found My
Faith (2005).
It might be more apt to call autobiographical works recounting a spiritual
journey away from the faith autobiography than spiritual autobiography.
But in a sense, Mormon first-person narratives are always a form of spiritual
autobiography, given the degree to which religious activity permeates members lives. Any Mormon writing autobiographically, I would argue, must
grapple with questions of faith, if anything authentic is to emerge. Perhaps
the distinction can be made between religion and spirituality. For lifelong
members, religion is given. But for anyone, inside or outside the church,
legacy or new members, spirituality must be acknowledged, whether such
acknowledgment takes the form of seeking or receiving. Its expression in
narrative terms may draw from a common vocabulary and thematic lexicon,
either derived from Mormonism or from the larger religious community, but
the details are personal, echoing Joseph Smiths own declaration to his father
after the first vision, I have learned for myself . . .
Overall, the personal essays included here are somewhat darker than I
anticipated. But they are honest and reveal a powerful introspective urge
to consider both the highs and lows on the soul-searching path toward the
divine. Some of the essays do not reveal such struggle, but rather express
insight gained in quiet moments and through everyday lived experience. The
pieces in this issue offer a wonderful kaleidoscopic perspective on life in and
with Mormonism. The short critical pieces at the beginning likewise offer
various frameworks from which to understand the genre of spiritual autobiography in a Mormon context. I am particularly fond of the From the
Archives section in this issue, because it offers up the stories of plain-spoken
folk who found their way to Mormonism through missionaries. These are the
stories I am hungry to hear when I am in church, the stories that inspire me
to find my own truth amidst the clamor of religious excitement.
For those of us who look for the appearance of the great Mormon novel,
it may be that our search is misplaced when we look to fiction. As Laura
Bush notes in her piece on womens spiritual autobiography in this issue,
perhaps we should be looking for the great spiritual autobiography. David
Leigh names the ten spiritual autobiographies of the twentieth century with
9
close to canonical status (226), and I list them here so that readers may
have ideas for where to draw inspiration from some of the great spiritual
leaders of recent times: Mohandas Gandhis An Autobiography: The Story
of My Experiments with Truth (1929), Black Elks Black Elk Speaks (1932),
Thomas Mertons Seven Storey Mountain (1949), Dorothy Days The Long
Loneliness (1954), C.S. Lewiss Surprised by Joy (1955), Nikos Kazantzakiss
Report to Greco (1961), Malcolm Xs The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965),
Paul Cowans An Orphan in History (1982), Rigoberta Menchus I, Rigoberta
Menchu (1983), and Nelson Mandelas Long Walk to Freedom (1994). Some of
these works I have read, others are written by leaders I have heard of, and
still others are written by people whose names are completely new to me.
Irelish the opportunity to read the works that are new to me. But this list
is not complete for me without the Joseph Smith History and the Book
of Mormon, not to mention the life histories written by my grandparents.
Our Mormon texts, as a variation on the form of spiritual autobiography,
can only enrich our reading and open doors for the kind of writing we welcome in the pages of Irreantum.
Laraine Wilkins
Works Cited
Christmas, R. A. The Autobiography of Parley P. PrattSome Literary, Historical,
and Critical Reflections. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 1: 1 (Spring
1966), 3343.
Leigh, David. Reading Modern Religious Autobiographies: Multidimensional and
Multicultural Approaches. In Seeing Into the Life of Things: Essays on Religion
and Literature. Ed. John L. Mahoney. New York: Fordham University Press, 1998.
22641.
Mulder, William. Telling It SlantAiming for Truth in Contemporary Mormon
Literature. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 26: 2 (Summer 1993), 15569.
Seeing into the Life of Things: Essays on Religion and Literature. Ed. John L. Mahoney.
New York: Fordham University Press, 1998.
10
Special Feature
Life History Writing: Perspectives
contributions by Laura Bush, Boyd Petersen, and
Matthew K. Heiss
The practice of record-keeping among Latter-day Saints began
from the day the church was first organized. According to the
diary of Willard Richards, the substantial bulk of church records
were carried in the first migration of Saints across the prairie from Nauvoo
to the Great Salt Lake Valley, at some supposed. In an entry from 1846 May
29, Mt. Pisgah Iowa, Richards diary notes the considerable weight of these
records: Bro. Joseph Horns teamHenry Fairbanks driver, received of
Willard Richards to carry on the journey over the mountains 1 Box records
381 [lbs.] 1 Box records 205 [lbs.]. Fairbanks took the record to Winter
Quarters from which place Thomas Bullock transported them to the Great
Salt Lake Valley (in Jessee 469). The transport of this bulk of records during
a journey from one land to another takes on almost archetypal significance
when one considers the pattern of record-keeping that emerges in the Book
of Mormon, indeed, even to the point where Nephi would be prompted to
kill in order to obtain a written record of his people.
Admonition from prophets and general authorities of the church to write
a life history abounds. In 1849 Orson Pratt wrote: We should keep a record
because it will furnish many important items for the general history of the
Church which would otherwise be lost. . . . The plain simple facts should be
given, not from hearsay or from report, but from actual knowledge (Searle
59). A two-fold, and somewhat contradictory, notion of the nature of church
record-keeping emerges in this passage. The emphasis on plain simple facts
suggests a practice of objectivity, much related to history rather than storytelling. But the emphasis on actual knowledge rather than hearsay or from
report points to the personal nature of writing, where narrative can emerge,
opening up to a practice akin to literature.
11
take on a greater significance than any single writer may ever hope to attain.
Let us hope this legacy will continue.
Laraine Wilkins
Narratives, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, leading scholars in the field of
womens lifewriting, demonstrate that storytelling is the means by which
we retrospectively make experience and convey a sense of it to others. They
and others in autobiography studies demonstrate that as we tell our stories
discursive patterns guide, or compel, us to tell stories about ourselves in particular ways (26). Linda Rugg, also a scholar of autobiography and visiting
professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University in 1996, offered a preliminary sketch of the particular ways that traditional Mormon life narratives
are developed. As a nonmember professor teaching a course in autobiography
at BYU, she was surprised to discover striking similarities and a kind of
formulaic pattern among her LDS students life writing. Rugg observes,
Almost all of the writers focused on their religious experience as the central
motif in their lives. Further, that religious experience was defined in much the
same terms from student to student: childhood instruction in religion from
parents and family, missionary experience (which often denoted a kind of
conversion to true, personally held faith), and the foundation (or the planned
foundation) of a family within the Church. (15)
one degree or another, they often feel compelled to defend their religion or
membership in the Church. And fifth, they frequently write their life stories
for both member and nonmember readers, anticipating the possibility of
reaching a broad audience inside and outside their Mormon community. In
addition to these conventions in Mormon autobiographical writing, however,
are what I term the faithful transgressions that exist to varying degrees of
faith or transgression, especially in the writing of Mormon women. By
faithfulness, I mean an autobiographers degree of continuing commitment
to her Latter-day Saint belief system, but also, and perhaps more importantly
for literary critics, her degree of faithful adherence in form and content to
the writing conventions of Mormon life narratives. With regard to belief, I
use the phrase faithful transgression to describe moments in the texts when
each writer, explicitly or implicitly, commits herself in writing to trust her
own ideas and authority over official religious authority while also conceiving
of and depicting herself to be a faithful member of the Church. Recently,
however, Ive been revisiting my own terminology, asking whether it would
be able to encompass the autobiographical writing of more transgressive
Mormon life narratives than I included with my initial use of the oxymoron
faithful transgression. I believe it can.
To illustrate, while the title and content of Martha Becks autobiography,
Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith, clearly
announces her departure from anything like faithful adherence to LDS
belief, as an autobiographer, she nevertheless faithfully follows many conventions of Mormon life writing patterns, including a persistent focus on the
truth of her personal and historical experience; her establishment of the
credibility and authority to explain her familys as well as Mormons history
and doctrines (tithing, fasting, word of wisdom, temple ceremonies, LDS
terminology, etc.); and her clear anticipation of a broad audience of both
member and nonmember readers. Given these commonalities with other
Mormon autobiographers, the aspect of Becks writing that distinguishes her
most from, for example, the faithful transgressions of loyal dissenter Juanita
Brooks, is that rather than defend Mormonism to outsiders, Beck documents
the intolerableness of active participation in her former faith community.
Furthermore, one of her writing purposes is to critique the Church and her
father, Hugh Nibley (ironically one of the Churchs best known apologists),
while simultaneously needing to defend herself against anticipated attacks
byMormons.
16
Although Becks book demonstrates faithful adherence to Mormon life writing conventions, within the tradition of Mormon womens a utobiographical
writing, her work is obviously more transgressive than faithful. Derived
from the Latin trans, meaning across, and gradi, meaning to step, the
term transgression describes an act that goes beyond a limit or boundary.
The intense dialogue and writing campaign waged against Becks book even
before it was published provides clear indications that significant numbers
of Mormons believed even prior to reading the book (if they ever do) that
it crossed boundaries. Transgression may also be defined as a sin or an act
that violates some law. Within the context of my own analysis and thinking, Iuse the term transgression more to mean boundary crossing than sin.
But from an orthodox perspective, many Mormon women writers transgressionsespecially those committed by self-proclaimed rebels and apostates such as Martha Beck or Deborah Laake in Secret Ceremoniescould be
viewed as sinful or damaging acts, both to themselves and to their Mormon
community. Regardless, transgressive life writing occurs when a Mormon
woman writer trusts her individual conscience and expresses ideas or beliefs
that resonate within her as being right and true, but which she knows implicitly or explicitly violate rules of Mormon doctrine or cultural norms within
her faith community.
By examining Mormon autobiographers central themes, evidence, audiences, and rhetorical style or ethos, as well as the particular areas of dispute
where these writers commit themselves to value and valorize their own personal experience and position over official religious authority, I and other
literary critics can uncover significant personal, cultural, and literary tensions
manifested within Mormon experience and culture. As a feminist literary
critic, I encourage further interest in determining how Mormon women
writing their life stories in a Victorian-minded religion with a male governing
body has affected the way they construct their rhetorical and literary position
in Mormon and non-Mormon society. Within the patriarchal organization
of the LDS Church, life writing has always been an ecclesiastically authorized
venue to express personal views on numerous topics. I invite more literary
critics to join in the discussion about Mormon life writing and literary accomplishments. The field is ripe and ready to harvest.
17
Certainly this letter suffers from the same kind of literary over-kill that I find
in the writing of many of my freshmen honors students, but my freshmen
are eighteen and nineteen. It is easy to forgive such shortcomings in a fifteenyear-old. This letter is also an early example of a strain that runs throughout
Hughs correspondence: nature as the muse for Hughs lyrical prose. For
example, in a letter he wrote in the late 1950s, at a time in his life when he
was over-worked and emotionally drained from dealing with his ailing, aged
parents, Hugh describes his wanderings in the in the severest of the Sevier
desert, a perfectly desolate waste of reddish-brown sand and huge volcanic
blocks:
It was indescribably restful. How natural and easy death seems in the quiet
anonymity of the dunes! The dry sand drifts with a soft hissing sound in a
gentle wind; the bones that lie around beautifully cleaned and polished elicit
no pity or remorse, for nothing has any particular identity and everything
seems at rest; there is a relaxation and a rightness about everythingafter
a few hours of sitting or walking about in a perfect emptiness of sand and
air one imperceptibly relaxes and begins to soak up certain basic realizations
which in any other setting would not be accepted without a struggle. The first
is that my being here or not being here doesnt make the slightest difference
to anything, one way or the other. The neat white vertebra you kick with your
toe might be that of a lame sheep, a coyote, or Alexander the Greatit doesnt
make the slightest bit of difference, one is no better than the other as far as this
world is concerned. For me this was escape pure and simple, but I came back
another day greatly refreshed, having seen some marvelous country that I had
never dreamed existedless than a hundred miles from home.6
19
After reading letter after letter where Hugh describes the natural world
with this kind of poetic sensitivity, I am convinced that he very easily could
have been a nature writer on a par with Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard,
Aldo Leopold, or John Muir.7 In fact, while stationed in the lush beauty
of Clearwater, Florida during Army basic training, Hugh worried that if
I stayed here any longer I would turn into a naturalistwhich I consider
disastrous in view of the superior instruments of knowledge offered as I
firmly maintain by both the written documents and the mathematical skills
of the race.8
Much of his correspondence reflects a cynicism about world events typical
of what we find in his social criticism. In a haunting letter he wrote to his
grandmother in 1938, Hugh sized up the spiritual state of the world:
And so the world goes down into a time of troubles which is but the reflection
of its own love of darkness. All of which we have been taught, but have not
learned, to expect for a hundred years. If there is any subject for tears [. . .] it
is those successful ones among us who have found their heaven in rewards of
a base conformity, who seek their strength and solace in the buying power of
fellows like themselves, whose possessions alone justify them in all things and
whose property is their whole sanctification and authority. These will not have
to wait to a hereafter to learn their folly; we are soon to see them giving their
lives (and especially where they can, other peoples lives) to save their treasures,
which for all that will vanish like smoke.9
His letters from the European war front during World War II are marked
by a distinct cynicism about warfare. A letter written in December 1944 to
a fellow intelligence officer is typical: The whole world today is paying the
price of a few careers. I have never objected to being the simple-minded
implement of other mens greatness, but one can hardly submit to that without becoming the foil of their spite; for when the mighty fight, the mighty
clash by proxy. We are the humble abrasive that polishes their armor.10
Despite the gloom of such musings, Hugh maintained a healthy optimism
that is reflected in his thoughts about faith, perhaps the only theme in his
correspondence to inspire a greater lyrical quality than nature. In a letter he
wrote to his son, Charles Alex, he employs images from nature to describe
that deeply personal faith:
How can one express the surge of emotion that comes out of the earth and
swoops down from the sky whenever the plan of life and salvation and all that
20
It is precisely this surge of emotion, well-contained in Hugh Nibleys published work, which escapes so eloquently in his correspondence. Only there
did he feel free to compose the spiritual autobiography he never thought
worth writing.
in their own nations. So many of the issues that get a lot of research and
writing attention, such as handcarts crossing the plains, Mountain Meadows
Massacre, Utahs statehood, polygamy, etc. are pretty much irrelevant to
many of our international brothers and sisters, who are simply trying to figure out how to conduct a sacrament meeting, fill out a Perpetual Education
Fund application, or get the entire family to the temple. Simply put, it seems
to me that many international first-generation Church members are just
trying to figure out how to be Latter-day Saints.
And yet, these Latter-day Saints experiences are just as much a part of
Church history as anything that happened in the nineteenth century or is
happening now in the Church Office Building or here on this campus. But
who is going to tell their story?
Let me tell you about an experience I had seven years ago during my first
trip to Ghana, which, I hope, holds the answer to the questions I posed.
But first let me give you a bit of background before the Ghana story: I
began working in Church Archives Collection Development in 1988. At that
time, there were three of us trying to document the history of this rapidly
growing worldwide Church. One archivist spoke Spanish, so he took responsibility for all of Latin America. My other co-worker was wrapped up in a
British Isles project. And because there was an older couple in my ward who
had just returned from serving a mission in Nigeria, I took all of Africa.
I began to collect records and record interviews with missionary couples
and mission presidents who had served in Africa. Whenever I heard about
the Church in Ghana, inevitably I would hear the name Emmanuel Kissi.
When I researched what few Church records we had in the Archives relating
to Ghana, I found references to Dr. Kissi. Finally, ten years after I began to
document Church history in Ghana, on 16 September 1998, while in Ghanas
capital Accra, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet and interview the
man himself.
During that interview, Dr. Kissi told me about his brother, Stephen Abu,
who lived in Abomosu, a rural town in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Dr.
Kissi said his brother had just been released as district president after several
years of service. In his final speech, President Abu recounted some of the history he had experienced in Abomosu. Being a collection development archivist, I asked if it was possible to get a copy of this talk. I told Dr. Kissi that
in the Church Archives we had very little African Church history written by
Africans and that such a talk would be a valuable addition to the Archives
22
Africa collection. Dr. Kissi said he would talk to his brother and get me a
copy of that history.
Well, Im still waiting for a copy of that talk. Dr. Kissi did not fulfill his
promise to me. Instead, he wrote a book about the history of the Church in
all of Ghana, not just in Abomosu. The book is titled Walking in the Sand, a
Ghanaian term signifying that all is well. Actually, Stephen Abus history is
contained in Chapter 6 and is a fascinating story of anti-Mormon persecution, endurance, and eventual triumph through faith.
Through all of this, Elder Kissi taught me an important lesson and has
taken me a step closer to getting the answers to those hard questions I posed
at the beginning of this talk: Church history needs to be written by and for
local Latter-day Saints.
At the inaugural conference of the Mormon Pacific Historical Society,
Church Historian Leonard Arrington said, As the Church becomes more
international, it will become increasingly important to write the history of
theLatter-day Saints in their homelands. By reconstructing these peoples
lives, we give their heirs a sense of their LDS heritage as well as provide
real models for their own lives, models with whom they can identify
(Arrington1).
I believe Leonard Arrington was talking about the Spirit of Elijah. I grew
up thinking that the Spirit of Elijah was exclusively about genealogical
research that made temple ordinances available to the dead. And, of course,
that is implied in the scripture about turning the hearts of the children to
the fathers. But what about turning the hearts of the fathers to the children?
Could this be a call for personal, family, and local Church history focusing
on the great things the Lord hath done for each of us? (Book of Mormon
foreword). I believe it is. I am coming to believe that family history and
Church history are two sides of the same coin.
In a talk given here at BYU, President Hinckley said the same thing, but
used a different metaphor. Instead of talking about a coin, he talked about
a chain. He shared an experience he had at the dedication of the Columbus
Ohio Temple.
As he sat in the Celestial Room, he began to think about his ancestors.
He started with his great-grandfather, the first Hinckley to join the Church
back in the Kirtland era. He then thought about his grandfather, who was
baptized in Nauvoo and who crossed the plains to Utah. This same grandfather, Ira Nathaniel Hinckley, built Cove Fort and was the president of the
23
Millard Stake. Finally, he thought about his father, who eventually became
president of the largest stake in the Church, with more than 15,000 m
embers.
While thinking of these three men, President Hinckley looked down at
his daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter, and he suddenly realized that he stood right in the middle of these seven generations. President
Hinckley said:
In that sacred and hallowed house there passed through my mind a sense of
the tremendous obligation that was mine to pass on all that I had received
as an inheritance from my forebears to the generations who have now come
after me.
As I sat in the celestial room of the temple pondering these things, I said
to myself, Never permit yourself to become a weak link in the chain of your
generations. It is so important that we pass on without a blemish our inheritance of body and brain and, if you please, faith and virtue untarnished to the
generations who will come after us.
26
Brent Pace
Conference Weekend
In my fathers basement, I learned the long and short of it. And on the
conference weekends twice each year
I hid away
hoping hed believe me when I promised
Id listen to the brethrens talks
on our clock radio. Alone.
Boredom often took me to the bathroom
to play in the incomplete eternity of my sisters three-way mirror.
I hoped to catch a glimpse of how I might look to others.
How many times I tried to glance, nonchalant, at my left side:
the Carmen profile. Or at the back of my head,
at my ears that stuck out beyond my missionary haircut
to see myself the way a gentile might.
Obsessively latent. Accidentally handsome.
A bathroom Beauty Queen.
This morning, I look for you. I find a letter
reminding both of us the time changed in the night
sometime between that hour when you fell asleep
and that foggy moment when I came to join you
and Aloysius lying upside down and to the south.
27
28
29
Melanie Hinton
30
31
32
Amy Jensen
Desert Night
was a typo for three weeks of Relief
Society announcements. The sisters came anyway, angel food
cake, brownies, no-bake cookies, fondue in hand,
balancing compliments with clairs.
It made the next Sundays testimony meeting awkward
when Charity Christensen called down forgiveness for the anorexic, the
bulimic.
Mary-like, we sat in ponderous silence.
It made me think about that special
on Karen Carpenter when I was nine
(I never knew her for her songs),
or stories of suspicious bathrooms
in the girls dorm where my cousin worked.
Still three weeks later I crossed our lot,
dried puncture weeds and wild grasses stiff from drought
digging into my sandals, scraping against my skirt
as the arid heat reflected off the tinfoil-covered serving plate I tried to hold
so steady.
Three houses down I dodged the gushing sprinklers, rang the bell, found
refuge
in the air-conditioned dining room, the easy laughter.
I did not know the reach and hold of hunger yet, that dessert
might not be sweeter than the taste of self-control,
or that my baklavas sallow layers could crumble on lips,
flake and fall on calloused knuckles
bleached white with time
like so much brittle divinity.
33
Bicycle Blues
Excerpts from a memoir-always-in-progress with
the various titles: Bicycle Blues, Body Blue,
The Stuff of Dreams and Nightmares
Phyllis Barber
chemistry
I speak of my life in the present tense as its always with me.
Something important happens in the spring of 1963. It happens in a chemistry classroom at the Henry Eyring Science
Center at Brigham Young University, the kind of classroom built like the
side of a pit. The real chemistry happens when I walk through the door and
down the stairs, swinging my purse on its long strap. Im nineteen, only half
aware that Ive outgrown my gawky high school body and that I can register
an effect when I run my fingers through my long, silken hair, and slide my
long, smooth legs under a desk. David is sitting on the fifteenth row, watching me take my seat. Later, when its safe to say so, he tells me when he saw
me that day, he knew I was the one he wanted to marry. Of course, girls
like me fantasize about that kind of fairy talelove at first sightthe stuff
of young dreams, the knight, the prince who cant utter a word because hes
speechless with awe.
Its spring, when sap runs high and colts run frisky, and Im running
for Vice President of Culture (the office that manages the weekly student
assemblies and consults with faculty regarding visiting artists and performers), while David runs for Vice President of Student Relations (the office
that manages the pep rallies, the song leaders, cheerleaders, flag twirlers, i.e.,
the campus hotties). One presidential and four vice presidential positions
are up for grabs. David returned from a mission for the LDS church the
previous fall and is enrolled as a junior. I am a sophomore. After passing
35
the constitutional test we had to take to run for office and after conducting
hard-fought and hectic campaigns, we both win our respective offices. We
flirt and banter after Executive Council plenary meetings, and during summer vacation, David pursues his intention to marry me with carefully calculated letters sent from his home on Mt. Diablo Street in Concord, California.
We become engaged in September at Aspen Grove, in the same canyon
where Robert Redford will play a role as Jeremiah Johnson and where he
soon will buy a ski resort, name it Sundance, and then bankroll a film festival
of the same name. Beneath the autumn leaves drifting to the ground, David
quotes Marx to me, something about striding through the fields of the world
with our love to conquer all. Political science major that I am, Im impressed.
I say yes.
During that year, we meet with the Executive Council weekly, meet at
times with President Ernest Wilkinson and other school administrators, and
attend many social functions as school dignitaries. After being nominated
by the Tribe of Many Feathers as their candidate for Homecoming Queen,
Im selected as one of five finalists out of a field of fifty-five. (Who knows
why Martin Seneca, president of this club for Lamanitesthe BYU term for
Native Americansasks me to be the groups candidate instead of one of
their own, but Im pleased to represent them. With my black hair and olive
complexion, Im reminiscent of the culture, if not part of it.) The photographer who snaps my picture in a dim basement hallway of the Student Center
says its very difficult to capture a beautiful woman on film. Im flattered. But,
true to his words, the campaign photo that appears in The Daily Universe is
abysmal and I dont receive enough votes to make the royal trio. Close, but
no cigar.
We travel to Concord at Christmastime to meet Davids somber family.
With shock, I realize this is not the gregarious Mormon scenario Id hoped
for; his family is in a lot more trouble than my own. Theres a sterility in his
home, a starvation, an uneasy truce between his parents. There are secrets in
the walls. But though I have serious second thoughts about our marriage and
am pretty sure Im making a mistake, Im a woman of my word. I do what
I say Ill do. Im lucky someone has asked me to be his wife. After all, my
parents sent me to Brigham Young University with the hope of my finding a
good husband, the education being a secondary accomplishment. The worry
about the best education is reserved for my only brother, Stephen.
Too busy with school and extracurricular activities to question my deci36
sion or listen to my deepest sense of whats good for me, I keep my word.
And for all I know about love (Ive dated very few young men, none of them
seriously, and I still have occasional feelings of awkwardness and insufficiency
from my natural shyness and devastatingly difficult pubescence), I think Im
in love. That we have love. That love and enthusiasm can conquer all. I am
an optimist, above all else, even though I have my moments of indecision.
David says hes surprised when I show up at the St. George temple. I am
two weeks into 21, David 24, and we, in the company of our parents, are
married in a white nineteenth-century temple set against red rock cliffs and a
sailors blue sky in southern Utah. We make our eternal promises on May29,
1964. David beams and I avert my eyes shyly as we kneel on either side of the
altar where we become husband and wife, the innocent maiden granting her
hand to the her knight, the one who holds so many keys to her future and
beyond.
After the ceremony and a few snapshots with our parents box cameras as
we stand in front of the temple, then we speed in Davids brown and boaty
Plymouth back to the local TraveLodge where we can lose our virginity. A
tacky orange and brown bedspread is turned back, there are innocent fumblings and then a rapid and nave consummation of our marriage. Both of us
wondering what it was all about, though neither of us dare say anything, we
drive to Las Vegas for a traditional Mormon wedding reception that night
punch and nut cups and wedding cake served on glass plates on card tables
set up in my parents backyard. Underneath an arching trellis woven with blue
net and twinkling white lights, and between two columns covered with white
corrugated paper made to look like Roman columns, we greet friends who are
surprised at the good weather in our backyard. The wind is blowing and the
rain is falling all around our small yellow two-story tract home with its cinder
block wall, but oddly none blows or falls into our yard where the wedding
party stands in a reception line. My mother says thats because of her prayers.
I believe her. Shes taught me to ask for Gods help in difficult times.
After two honeymoon nights at the Tally Ho, interspersed with a Saturday
visit to my parents home where Davids mother decides which wedding gifts
we should take with us, we drive back to Provo on Sunday and hit the ground
running. David is finishing his undergraduate degree in summer school, and
Ive taken a job in the telegraph office at Geneva Steel, branch of U.S. Steel,
in Orem, Utah.
Im ready to live a charmed life until I get very sick with honeymoon cys37
titis, and until I encounter Ruby, one of the two regular telegraph operators
on the job who doesnt want some bright-eyed BYU student working in the
same small room with her. Every day is a strain, and she makes clear that Im
an intruder, a fifth wheel magnified. Ruby, however, has to bite her tongue.
After all, Ive been hired for the summer to cover her vacation. Not helping
matters, the executive who hired me because his wife knew Davids mother
when they lived in California, asks me to play a role in a promotional movie
for U.S. Steel. I play the part of a secretary to a steel executive. Things worsen
with Ruby. Whenever she gets a chance, she makes snide remarks and makes
it all too clear that Im distasteful to her during my time on the job.
Thus, the fingers of the real world start thrumming on the consciousness
of what I have liked to think of as my wide-eyed innocence.
As I prove my good Mormon wifeness by canning cherries, boiling water
in a hot kitchen with no air conditioning, all the time sicker than sick with
cystitis, I think of Ruby. Tightly curled red hair, narrow eyes, distrustful,
resentful. I cant understand why. Its only later that I understand how some
people resent BYU students with their golden glow, so full of their BYUness,
their goodness, their mission in life. I brashly think everyone loves a good,
wholesome BYU student, a girl with bounce to every ounce. Little do I know
how offensive I am to her, with my enthusiasm, my arrogance, even though
I cant call it such a thing at the time. Everyone has to love me and my love
of life and God. They have to.
the legend
Marrying David and moving to the Bay Area in 1964 is, for me, like the disturbing of a tightly compressed sea shell. As the larger ocean washes my small
shell onto a beach and forces an opening, Im impacted as snails, clams and
mussels are impacted. I feel the pull of the moon, the wind, the rain, and the
unceasing movement of water moving me across hot sand.
David has received scholarship offers from Hastings in Berkeley as well as
from Harvard, but when we decide to stay on the West Coast because of his
aging parents, we choose Stanford over Cal. When wed visited the Berkeley
campus earlier in the year, we both felt an invisible turmoil, even a violent
rumbling of something beneath the surface. By the time we arrive in Palo
Alto in September, the Free Speech Movement is well under way in Berkeley
and is sending shock-waves throughout the Bay Area, the West Coast, and
38
the nation.
The missile crisis/Bay of Pigs. Malcolm X/Selma, Alabama/Meridian,
Mississippi/We Shall Overcome. Sexual Freedom rallies in Berkeley/burning bras. Volunteer psychological drug tests at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto
where Davids sister has been kept for twenty years, where we visit her on
Sundays and where Ken Kesey has been employed as a janitor. A qualified
Stanford student can be paid $140 for four weeks of testing: LSD the first
week, psilocybin the second, mescaline the third, and a mixture of all three
on the fourth. And, of course, Viet Nam.
Even though I stroll the quiet downtown streets of Palo Alto and inhabit
such normal establishments as Liddicoats Groceries where I buy asparagus and strawberries, and the House of Today where I covet sophisticated
Scandinavian housewares, and even though I attend the Stanford LDS
Student Ward and teach Cultural Refinement lessons in Relief Society, I
sense something like a tidal wave happening outside my safe shell, the fragile
encasement of what Ive known.
There are those lost flower children who sit drugged-out on stoops in
Haight-Ashbury while television reporters speak to anxious parents who
cant find them. Theres the notion of free love tangling around the societal
consciousness like tendrils on a vine. Bread trucks and step vans painted in
psychedelic flowers with mattresses in the back. Everything and everyone is
suddenly clad in tie-dye shirts and dresses and scarvesbursts of yellow like
bursts of acid, luminous greens, blues and reds. Long, flowing hippie hair.
Jesus types. Birkenstocks. No make-up. Mother Earth women with pendulous breasts hanging behind a veil of Mexican cotton.
Palo Alto, where hibiscus and calla lilies grow like weeds. Palo Alto, with
the Bijou where I see my first Bergman film, where David and I discover
Keplers Bookstore on El Camino Real and spend Saturday afternoons
searching the shelves and reading posters about North Beach happenings in
San Francisco--readings by Kerouac/Snyder/Ginsberg. Carol Doda, the topless dancer. New names to me. Sometimes we hear musicians jamming in the
back room.
Im a shellfish being asked to step out of myself and swim into the bigger
world even though Im still a hometown girl from Las Vegas, which is still,
in 1964, a small town. Ive had cosmopolitan beginnings at a classical dance
studio in Las Vegas, where I played piano for the ballerinas and showgirls
from The Strip. Ive watched Sally Rand, the famous fan dancer, do warm39
up exercises at the barre. Ive had high school friends whose parents were pit
bosses, casino managers, dealers, even a president of one of the hotels. But
none of that has the effect of the Bay Area, where Im caught by the forces of
tides and sunspots and occasional meteors.
Im employed at the Stanford Development Office where I compose letters
to corporate donors from President J. Wallace Sterling. He adds his personal
corrections to some of the letters, which I retype, and then I help one of the
Development officers with the preparation of the annual corporate donor
list. Everything seems so calm in the sandstone halls of Stanford, and yet,
when I walk outside, Im not sure I can trust the serene rows of eucalyptus
trees lining the main boulevard.
One Saturday afternoon when Im looking for something to fill the time I
spend alone because Davids first priority is his first year of law school, I wander into a Menlo Park music store on El Camino Real, your average-looking
music store with cymbals, guitars, and banjos hanging from the ceiling.
When I see a sign behind the counter that says, Banjo Lessons Available,
I think that sounds good. Ive always been involved in one kind of music or
another and why not learn the banjo? I love the Kingston Trio. Peter, Paul,
and Mary. Puff, the Magic Dragon.
How much does it cost to rent a banjo? I ask the clerk. Hes wearing a
T-shirt that says, I Want to Take You Higher, cut-off jeans, sandy-colored
Birkenstocks, and small rounded sunglasses.
Fifteen dollars per month. But well write it off if you take lessons.
Sign me up, I say, and when I return three days later for my first banjo
lesson with my rental instrument in tow, the clerk accompanies me to a small
cubicle at the back of the store.
You look like Joan Baez, he says. A button-down version, but yeah,
theres a resemblance.
I love her voice, I say as if I know a lot about her, though Ive only heard
her on the radio. Ive heard about her husband, Dave Harris, whos a student
at Stanford and whos getting lots of press for his anti-war speeches. Ive heard
she has a shack in Big Sur.
Youre taller, but both of you have that dark hair and olive skin and same
kind of eyes. Even the lips have something thats similar. Its uncanny. A little
eerie. He holds back the curtain of the practice room.
I hope to hear her sing in person sometime, I say, holding the five-string
40
backup.
When I arrive at the store for what I dont know will be the last of my lessons, Jerrys talking with the clerk who raises his hand in greeting but talks on
as if I werent there. I hear new language: strobe lights, Merry Pranksters in
the warehouse, a batch of electric kool-aid, and Bob Weirs coming in tomorrow. When the clerk finally says to Jerry, Your 3:30s here, then to me,
Enjoy your lesson with Captain Trips Garcia, they both laugh and kibitz
and rattle on some more. I feel as though Im a square-shelled creature with
tight hinges, not privy to this language or this scene. Maybe I can find a way
into this world behind walls, but maybe I dont care whether I do ornot.
Jerrys wearing dark glasses, as always, and as we walk back to the practice
room, I wonder about his name. Garcia, I say. An ancestor of mine wrote
an essay called A Message to Garcia.
Lots of Garcias, he says as he sits down with his banjo and starts to play.
Hes like a music box sitting across from me on a metal folding chair, always
riffing off on his banjo while I wait quietly to learn a few elementary chords.
Who is this man called Garcia? I wonder, and suddenly I know Im a stranger
in a strange land where something is happening that I dont understand.
Garcia of the dark hair, the dark eyes that seldom surface over the tops of his
dark glasses, and when they do, I sense a trickster in their darkness, a mocking of my conventionality and my limited perception of the basic chords.
This is something Ive never seen before.
Suddenly, the cubicle where we sit feels especially small and insufficient
for me and for his music. I feel as though the tides running too high here,
and I should stay away from the edges of the shore. When I play my C, G,
and F chords and play two scales for Jerry with awkward fingers, my elbows
akimbo, he stares off into space as if something is out there waiting for him.
Hes a man who doesnt fit into this small room behind a curtain at the back
of a music store in Menlo Park. Hes a man consumed by this instrument, by
its speed and intensity, and this takes up the space of the cubicle where were
playing the game of master and student.
After he shows me how to use my fingers like hammers on the strings,
my inward-bending fingers wont perform like his. They slip. They feel
like lobster pincers. The hand thats wrapped around the neck of the banjo
cramps.
Maybe I should spend my extra time with my piano, I say in that
moment of truth, thinking this isnt something I need to master after all.
42
This is about being female, the teacher says. This is about giving birth,
about giving life, about being the woman who conceives and ripens and
bursts. I feel my body becoming rounder, even as she speaks.
I become a devotee. I take other mid-Eastern dance classes at the University
of Utah and at small, discreet dance studios. I go to workshops, even to one
in Las Vegas where my parents still live and where I stay for the weekend.
My parents dont say much, but theyre worried about my marriage. Theyve
been keeping a watchful eye on David, who seems unorthodox to them.
David enjoys baiting my mother and her certainty, though hes diplomatic
in his efforts. He knowsa more shockinghistory of Joseph Smith than she
does,so theresalways a clash on those small details. He cares for my parents,
especially my father, and yet histendency to challenge givens always ruffles
feathers at my parents home.
Although my parents express a polite interest in this new turn in the life
of their middle daughter, theyre keeping an eye on me as well. Thank goodness my father has always loved dancing; somehow my newfound interest
fits the general category of permissible movement to music. My parents dont
roll their eyes when my friend Patricia and I walk out the front door in our
costumes, though they dont seem to have words for the occasion.
At one of the workshops, an Iranian drummer gives me the name of
Anoush, which he says means Beloved. I enjoy being Anoush. I learn
all the rhythms one can play on the zils. I buy scarves and coin belts and
a sequined bra. One night I perform at the Grecian Gardens restaurant in
Murray. I feel the earth rising up through the soles of my feet.
The BYU Law School where David is teaching has a faculty party. They
hear Ive been dancing and ask for a performance. Theyre not an insular
bunch, after all. Some of them smile and clap their hands to the doumbek
drumbeat and the wailing sound of the oud. Most ask polite, intellectual questions after I dance. I tell them about my serious interest in folk
ethnography.
Just beginning to publish my writing and encouraged by editor Paul
Swenson, I write an article, What Does a Nice Girl Like Me Get Out of
Belly Dancing? for Utah Holiday. The photographer takes exotic pictures in
my backyard la veils, zils, bare midriff, and bare feet. Im a new woman.
Ihave a new image.
The avid belly dancers get together and give performances for their friends
and significant others, and suddenly, Im part of a new group of women. Not
44
the conservative Junior League volunteer types or the earnest Mormon ladies,
but women who more openly enjoy the art of the earthy feminine, the art of
being alive. I feel the boundaries around myself loosening. I love feeling my
body move and undulate and sway. I love being in my body, literally, for the
first time as Ive always been ashamed of my rail-thin body and boxy hips.
This is a chance to start moving from the inside, to feel what it is to be a
woman with a pelvis, breasts, a stomach, and a womb. This is a chance to love
the sensual woman I am instead of the proper, well-mannered, button-down
and zipped-up community volunteer/good neighbor Ive always tried to be.
After giving birth to four sons, I start giving birth to Phyllis, the Woman.
No longer was I content to be Phyllis, the Good Girl, or Phyllis, the Tight
Rigid One Who Never Breaks Rules That Are Always Lurking in Every
Corner. I attend dream analysis groups, womens groups, sweat lodges,
Solstice celebrations, Native American ceremonies. At each new event, I meet
a wider circle of women.
I begin teaching belly dancing in our home. Chris, Jeremy, and Brad
peek around the doorframe to watch the women twirling and floating their
scarves through the air. They stare. They giggle. I teach neighbors and women
from the Valley View 8th Ward and also women in the LDS Relief Society in
Grantsville, a small mining/agricultural town to the west of Salt Lake City.
Each week I drive past the Great Salt Lake catching glimpses of the huge
blue expanse, the seagulls, the bleak salty sand where no trees grow, the
towering Oquirrhs, the Kennecott Copper smelter. Some of my students
husbands work in those mines. How we end up having belly dancing lessons
in the churchs cultural hall I dont remember, but the women arrange everything. Week after week, they arrive in their leotards, puffy scarves tied around
their waists, and the zils Ive ordered from a catalogue attached to their fingers with elastic. I bring my boom box and fill the hall with the sounds of
the Middle East. Its definitely an unusual activity for the Grantsville ward
house, but no one could claim it wasnt an uplifting, cross-cultural one. Its
about the joy of your body, which is your temple, I tell the class. When
you dance, tell the story of who you are and what matters to you. This isnt
about being a cabaret dancer, which of course some of us might like to be in
our wildest dreams. Everyone giggles. Its about you.
We become fast friends, dancing every week together, laughing, enjoying
this new kind of sisterhood, and one of the students even arranges for me to
45
ride the big bucket down into the mines with her husband and some other
miners, all of us dressed in slickers and souwesters to keep dry, water dripping everywhere as we descend into the earth.
My wifes enjoying your dance class, the students husband says, grinning. You think maybe us husbands could see what you girls are up to?
You know youre not allowed in Relief Society, I tease him. He gives
me a royal tourtrains into tunnels, maps of the mine, locations of offices.
But several weeks later, I receive an invitation to perform for the Grantsville
Chamber of Commerce, apparently attended by many of the students
husbands. Of course, I say, lulled by the pleasure the women have shared
together. I take my most modest costume, make an agreement with myself to
dance conservatively, and, as I drive to Grantsville in the dark rather than the
daylight, I turn on the light to recheck my face in the mirror. I dont want to
wear too much makeup.
When the music begins and I make my entrance, I see these men, their
faces above their Salisbury steak dinners, their neckties, their collars, their
various heads of hair. Suddenly I cant see any individual faces as I dance.
They all become Church Fathers staring at Salome as I dance. Then their
faces blur as I twirl. Im nervous. Maybe I dont fathom the power of my
own body or my dancing, but the joy and playful innocence I feel with the
women isnt here at this restaurant tonight. My smile is plastic. My bare feet
feel the grunge on the floor. I wish I would have worn a long-sleeved shirt
and workout pants and done aerobics for them. I decide to cut the last section of my dance, make a pretty bow, then find my coat immediately, say the
necessary good-byes and hit the road back to Salt Lake.
I never go back to Grantsville, at least to teach dancing. The lessons stop
immediately. Theyve been cancelled. Im never told what happened, or who,
if anyone, orders the wives to quit. Maybe the men got a whiff of too much
liberation for the sensible women in their lives.
46
One-Eighty
Selections from a work-in-progress titled As God Once Was:
A Memoir of Growing up Mormon
Christopher Kimball Bigelow
In the autumn of 1985, I was living with my friends Rick and
Lance in a three-bedroom apartment on 200 North, just a
couple of blocks up Capitol Hill from Temple Square. Across
the street, in a park area, lay the graves of my great-great-great-grandfather
Heber C. Kimball and several of his wives and progeny. The apartment itself
was likely located on Hebers former land.
When one of Lances friends from the restaurant where he worked got
kicked out of her apartment, he told her she could stay with us. Several years
older than us, Lori was a dirty-blonde chain smoker. Rick and I welcomed
her because she was old enough to buy us alcohol.
One afternoon, Lori burst into the apartment and shouted, Youre not
going to believe this!
What? Rick said from the couch.
I just saw a guy get blown up by a car bomb. Lori pointed west. Half
a block away. Right in front of the gym.
I thought I heard sirens, I said.
It was unbelievable, Lori said. I was looking right at the guy. He was
kneeling on the front seat, reaching for something in back. He picked it up,
started to turn around, and then Boom. I saw him go flying.
Was he hurt? Rick asked.
Oh, yeah. Big hole blown in his knee, and blood on his head too. He was
conscious, but he couldnt hear us.
So youre an official witness? I asked.
You better believe it, she said. Ive already spent more time talking with
the fuzz than I ever hoped to in my life.
Is this related to those other bombings? Rick asked.
Definitely. I heard the police talking about it.
47
We didnt know it yet, but the person Lori had seen get blown up was
Mark Hofmann, whod already killed two people with pipe bombs to cover
up his unraveling forgery scheme. An outwardly practicing Mormon who
was secretly apostate, he had forged several documents purported to be
from early Mormon history and sold them to the LDS Church, including
documents that exposed embarrassing details about Joseph Smiths interests
in folk magic and the occult. The most notorious document was a letter
describing how a magical white salamander, rather than the Angel Moroni,
had appeared with the Golden Plates.
The citys response to the scandal ranged from paranoia to jubilation. Our
favorite nightclub announced an Attack of the White Salamander theme
party, advertised with posters showing a Godzilla-sized white salamander
stomping through the streets of Salt Lake City. For Halloween that year, I
saw several people dressed up as white salamanders.
Okay, so this letter turned out to be a forgery, my friend Richard said.
But the Mormon Church bought it and tried to hide it. They must do that
kind of thing all the time.
They probably have a whole vault of embarrassing stuff, I said.
Lance said, My question is, if the church is supposedly led by prophets,
why would God let them be tricked like that?
Exactly, I said. Anyway, I heard Spencer W. Kimball is completely
senile. Hes not even leading the church anymore.
While I felt completely cynical about the modern church corporation,
Ienjoyed imagining that Joseph Smith might have dabbled in treasure digging, folk magic, and the occultin fact, I would have felt disappointed
to learn he had not. To me, those interests demonstrated imagination and
creativity that the prophets religion had subsequently lost. If Mormonism
had ever offered me anything as cool and freaky as a talking white salamander,
Inever would have left it.
SSS
Bigelow SOne-Eighty
Lance was diagnosed with HIV. Lisa developed schizophrenia and wouldnt
leave her bedroom. Derek got arrested for molesting a child. Dean almost
died in a drug-related car crash. Other people I knew went into rehab or
tried to commit suicide. Only Rick seemed to be doing well, making money
as a waiter at one of Salt Lakes most exclusive private clubs and driving a red
Fiat convertible.
I decided I wanted to concentrate more on Flourishing Wasteland, a local
alternative magazine Id been daydreaming about for several months. To
get some privacy, I moved into a studio apartment near Brigham Youngs
gravesite on First Avenue, with the Salt Lake Temple and its spire looming
out the window like a spaceship undergoing countdown on a launch pad.
My dad loaned me money for an Atari computer that plugged into my TV
set, and I started typing my observations and opinions about the Salt Lake
alternative scene.
One morning, while the water was turned off in the apartment building,
Richard dropped by to get high with me.
Hey, what happened to your water? he called from the kitchen, where
hed gone to refill my bong.
Theyre working on the building, I yelled back. Lets just roll a joint.
When I returned from my parking valet job that evening, the door to my
apartment was ajar, and I could hear someone inside making noise.
Whos there? I called.
The building manager rounded the corner from my kitchenette. I want
to know what the hell you think youre doing, she said, glaring at me. You
left your sink on, and the apartment downstairs is completely flooded. And
what the hell is that. She pointed to the wall where Id spray-painted the
words Flourishing Wasteland in three-foot-high letters, surrounded by a colorful psychedelic design.
The next day, I moved back home to Bountiful.
SSS
After a few weeks of living with the family, I accepted my dads invitation to
accompany him and the older kids to southern California for a long weekend.
While the kids went to Disneyland, my dad and I relaxed on the beach
and later enjoyed an expensive seafood dinner. During our conversations, he
didnt push me about religion at all. I wondered how much he and my mom
had discussed their strategy for handling me. Overall, they were showing
admirable restraint.
49
A couple of nights later, I was sitting in bed during the wee hours writing in
my journal. Occasionally I could hear the wind gusting outside the window.
Our family dog Buff was pacing and whining, even though Id already let
her out to pee.
I was writing about what move I wanted to make next in my life. Do
another issue of Flourishing Wasteland ? Register for more classes at the uni50
Bigelow SOne-Eighty
versity? Get another apartment? Give it another shot with Pamela? Find a
new girlfriend? Take up Mimi on her offer to try heroin? Pull a one-eighty
and put in my papers for a mission?
At one point, when I paused from my writing and looked toward the
center of the room, I felt a strange kind of thump about six feet in front of
me. My heart started to race. Lying near my feet, Buff raised her head and
let out a bark, followed by a low growl.
I hadnt seen anything, but the sensation was undeniableand it was
angry. It felt as though something had tried to punch through an invisible
barrier right next to me. Something had tried to force its way into my bedroom. Something was trying to get me.
With my stomach fluttering, I stood up, walked over to the light switch,
and flipped it on. Buff leapt down from the bed and started to pace again.
Must be a flashback, I said out loud.
I waved my hand in front of my face, but I didnt see any psychedelic tracers. I stared at different items around the room, but no colors appeared extra
vivid and no textures crawled or pulsated.
I got back into bed, scooted myself into the corner, and wrapped my arms
around my knees. My mouth was dry, and I could feel my breathing. I was
waiting for the next thump.
Several minutes passed. When the wind surged especially loud outside,
Ijumped. Lying next to me, Buff lifted her head, licked her chops, and let
out a little whine. I felt a tingle creep down my back.
Searching my bedside table for possible distractions, my eyes fell on the
Stephen King novel I was reading, but I knew that wouldnt help. Then I saw
my moms Bach tape. I stood up, inserted the tape into my stereo, and leapt
back into bed as if something might sink its teeth into my rear end.
As I stroked Buffs head and listened to the trilling and plinking of the
harpsichord, I knew everything had changed.
SSS
After a few hours of sleep, I awoke with Joseph Smith on my mind. Id heard
the story countless times of how the devil had attacked fourteen-year-old
Joseph when he knelt in the grove of trees to ask God which church was true.
I crept upstairs to the living room and took down one of the familys
leather-bound scripture volumes. I flipped past the Book of Mormon and
Doctrine and Covenants until I found the passage from Joseph Smiths personal history:
51
Bigelow SOne-Eighty
She closed the book. When Heber told Joseph Smith about the attack,
Joseph said it meant that the work of God was taking root in the land. As
you know, Heber went on to baptize thousands.
And you really think he saw these demonsI mean, with his bare eyes?
Absolutely. Theyre real.
How could they use knives if they dont have physical bodies?
Thats a good question.
We were quiet for a few moments. You know, my mom finally said, the
devil had quite a program worked out for you. I can see why hes so mad,
after all that work.
This doesnt necessarily mean Im going back to church.
My mom ran her fingers over Hebers image. Thats between you and
Heavenly Father. Spiritually youre his son, not mine. I have to keep reminding myself of that.
SSS
That evening, my dad came into my bedroom while I was trying to read my
accounting textbook.
Your mom told me what happened, he said.
Yeah.
Weve been praying something would wake you up spiritually. But we
didnt expect this. Im sorry.
Its not your fault. I just hope it doesnt come back.
Usually the devils best tactic is making people think he doesnt exist. But
he blew that with you.
I guess so.
Youll like it better when you feel the Holy Ghost. Do you think youve
ever felt it?
Maybe some tingling a couple of times. Like when I got my patriarchal
blessing.
I can feel it right now. You know what you have to do if you want to feel
it, dont you.
Pray, study the scriptures, fast, pay tithing, all that stuff.
Keep the law of chastity and the Word of Wisdom.
Yeah, all that stuff.
If you want a blessing of strength and comfort, let me know. You might
54
Bigelow SOne-Eighty
need some help breaking certain habits. Now, would you like to come
upstairs for family prayer?
It was the first time anyone had invited me for family prayer since Id
moved back home. I could feel myself getting caught in a current, but I
decided to go along with it.
SSS
A few days after the disturbance, my sometimes girlfriend Pamela called. Her
voice made me feel warm below my stomach.
Are you heading into Salt Lake tonight? she asked.
Yeah. I was planning to play cards with Rick and some others at Sharons
apartment. I was going to fake taking a puff whenever the joint came tome.
Do you want to pick me up?
I guess.
When Pamela sat down in the passengers seat of my parents white Mazda
hatchback, she smiled at me. I hadnt seen her in several weeks. I noticed she
was wearing makeup.
She squinted at the car stereo. What are you listening to?
Bachs Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. Its the best one.
Yuck. Even your Big Black was better than that.
I breathed in and out. Then I said, Im exploring some other pathways
inlife.
Youre wigging me out, is what youre doing. Pamela began patting her
coat pockets.
No smoking in my familys car. And guess whatI havent had a cigarette
in three days.
Her hands stopped moving. Cant you sneak outside or something?
Ive chosen not to smoke anymore.
Pamela pulled out her pack of cigarettes and frowned at me. I kept my
eye on the road, knowing she was jealous because shed often tried to quit
smoking.
She held the pack on the flat of her palm for a few moments. Then she
crushed it in her fist, rolled down the window, and threw it out.
What else? she asked, brushing tobacco crumbs off her thighs.
What else what?
What else is going on with you?
I let out my breath. What do you think?
Youre not going back to the church.
55
Bigelow SOne-Eighty
I started to kneel at my bedside each evening and pray aloud. When I closed
my eyes and projected my thoughts toward the center of the universe, my
consciousness seemed to expand beyond the confines of my own head.
No one answered back, but I thought I could sense an undercurrent of
attentiveness.
The main thing I asked for was protection against more thumps. If that
meant embracing my familys faith, I prayed for humility to do so. Part of
me hoped Heavenly Father would whisper a different path to my mind, but
I couldnt imagine what such a path would be. Choosing another Christian
denomination instead of Mormonism made about as much sense as choosing
a typewriter over a computer. But obviously I needed something, otherwise I
got mixed up with dark forces that went thump in the night.
The first time I attended church with my family, I felt a better vibe than
Id expected. Former Scoutmasters and Sunday School teachers swarmed
around me as though I were returning from a two-year mission instead of a
two-year rebellion. The Church was still teaching the same old watered-down
gospel principles, but I listened with new interest, hoping something would
turn me on. Deep down I expected that Id have to go on a mission to experience anything major enough spiritually to counterweigh the scary thump.
My siblings grew less guarded around me, as if I were their brother again
and not some uncouth houseguest. When my parents looked at me, I could
see both pride and relief in their eyes. The only time their faces clouded was
57
Bigelow SOne-Eighty
my head, he paused for a few moments, and I could hear him working his
tongue against the roof of his mouth. Then he called me by name, invoked
the Melchizedek priesthood, and blessed me with greater strength to resist
temptation, especially tobacco. He admonished me to keep doing religious
things so I could feel the Holy Ghost and gain a stronger testimony of the
true gospel. I expected him to mention a mission, but he did not.
The sensation I felt during the blessing was not unlike a nicotine buzz.
SSS
No cigarettes, and no sex, I told Pamela the next evening. We were sitting
on a velvety couch in her parents basement, which still had orange shag
carpet and gothic hanging lamps.
Not that again, she said. I want you in bed with me, where you belong.
I scooted away from her. Is this good-bye, then?
I hate it when you play head games.
No head games. Just no sex and no cigarettes. This time I mean it. My
dad gave me a blessing, and I think its working.
Pamela scowled at me and folded her arms.
I want a blessing too then, she said after a few moments. Can you give
me a blessing?
I dont have the Melchizedek priesthood.
Do you think your dad would give me one?
Why not your own dad?
I wouldnt want my parents to know. Pamela looked down at her hands.
Theyd just freak out and go overboard. Im not saying I want to be Mormon
again. I just want a blessing. Ive tried everything else.
I considered whether my father would be willing to give Pamela a blessing.
My parents were nice enough to her face, but I knew they were worried about
her influence on me. Would they interpret her request as a positive development, or would they think it was a manipulation? I wasnt sure I knew which
one it was myself.
The thing is, I dont want it for smoking, Pamela said.
I looked at her. If you dont want to quit, whats the point of getting a
blessing?
I do want to quit. But something else is bugging me more. Im sick of
throwing up. Im sick of bulimia.
I laughed.
Its not funny. The doctor says my ulcers are getting worse. She put a
59
The bishop was a beefy, toupee-wearing man with his own carpet-cleaning
business. After Id settled into the seat across the desk from him, he welcomed me back to church and congratulated me on my willingness to serve
a mission.
How long has it been since you let go of the iron rod?
Two years.
And what made you decide to go on a mission?
I guess I finally found out the devil is real. I figure the best way to get
away from him is serve a mission.
The bishop put a finger on his chin and gave me a puzzled look. Thats
an interesting way to put it. Usually people say they want to serve Heavenly
Father.
That too, of course.
I like to think of serving a mission as paying tithing on your life. The
Lords given you twenty years, and now youre giving him two years back.
I can see that.
We hear people say their mission was the best two years of their life. But
that implies everything is downhill from then on out. Its true youll probably
never be closer to the Holy Ghost than on your mission. But I prefer to say
its the best two years for your life.
I told him I had some sins to confess.
Did you murder anybody?
No.
Consent to or help pay for an abortion?
No. I felt a twinge of guilt for never having used protection. If Pamela
had gotten pregnant, I didnt know for sure that we wouldnt have sought an
abortion.
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Bigelow SOne-Eighty
Then we can work through it. The bishop swiveled in his chair, opened
a file drawer, and pulled out a missionary application.
I started out by telling him about shoplifting the Dungeons & Dragons
manuals five or six years earlier. I worried he might suggest I make restitution
to the store, but he did not. Then I gave him the laundry list of my Word of
Wisdom infractions.
Do you feel like youre free of all addictions? he asked.
Yes, its been several weeks.
Well see how you do for another month or two. Now lets talk about
chastity.
I shifted my position and looked over at the picture of the First Presidency
on the wall. Then I confessed that Id fornicated with my girlfriend.
How many times?
I thought for a moment. I lost count.
And this was all with the same partner?
Except for one time with one other person.
When was the last time it happened?
About three months ago.
When he looked into my eyes to discern if I was leaving out anything,
Ididnt flinch away.
And how do you feel about these sins?
Bad.
He folded his hands on the desktop and blinked at me.
I know sex is bad. Before marriage, I mean.
Joseph Smith told us that sexual impurity would be the most challenging sin for the Latter-day Saints. Tell me, why do you think fornication is
sobad?
Because its breaking a commandment.
Yes, but why is it a commandment?
I thought for a moment. Because people can get pregnant or pick up a
disease?
Because youre messing with someone elses possible entry into mortality.
Getting someone started on the wrong foot could have eternal consequences.
If you even risk bringing someone here under the wrong circumstances,
youre in deep sin.
The bishop reached for a jar of breath mints on the corner of his desk.
After he popped one into his mouth, he offered me one. I shook my head.
61
He picked up his pen and started filling out the missionary application. Be
sure to keep up your daily prayer and scripture study, he said. You might
consider some extra fasting, maybe weekly for a while. I want to see you
every Tuesday night. If everything keeps going well and the stake president
agrees, well send in your papers in another few months.
The bishop set down his pen and smiled at me. Why dont you go ahead
and get your physical. And youll need to take the language proficiency test.
Have you had your wisdom teeth out yet?
SSS
Later that evening, when Pamela and I told her parents that Id applied for
a mission, they got mad at us for teasing them. When they finally realized I
was serious, her mom burst into tears and her dad fell to his knees.
This feels pretty good, Pamela said the following Sunday, after wed
attended a student congregation near the University of Utah. I even saw a
guy with an earring.
I was better about studying the scriptures, but Pamela was better about
volunteering for service projects. She insisted we listen only to classical music,
and I walked out of movies that had too much sex or profanity. Pamela got
rid of her short-shorts and halter-tops, removed her extra earrings, softened
her hairstyle, and bought a floral-print dress for church. I threw out my old
D&D manuals and all my record albumsand if Id known my sister Stacey
was going to scavenge them for her boyfriend, I would have burned them.
When I tried to talk my family into swearing off television so we could all
become less worldly and more spiritual, Pamela said I was reminding her too
much of her dad.
One evening I asked her if she really believed in Mormonism.
Its better than I remembered, she said. I like praying. I only throw up
when my parents stress me out. I dont have any reason not to believe it. But
I wouldnt say I know its true, like everybody else does.
Looking into her crinkly eyes, I wanted to ask her how many sex partners
shed had during her life. Ten? Twenty? Whether or not the Church was
everything it claimed to be, I knew I didnt want a future with Pamela unless
she was committed to a moral code like Mormonism. While I served a mission, she would have to develop her own faith.
I wish you could just stay home and marry me, Pamela said.
I do too, but a commandment is a commandment. If Im going to be
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Bigelow SOne-Eighty
63
Mark Bennion
Dar al Luz
It is not the beginning,
she thinks before rolling up
out of bed without inhaling too quickly
so pressure wont break the water in her stomach,
its not the morning kicks
pushing after nine months of punishing.
Shes thought of this, off and on,
since those teenage years
when she received a leather book,
and two sisters in navy skirts shared the words
Otherworldly, antemortal
that swung in the evening patter,
lighting up their angled grins.
But the life swells within,
and she focuses all knee-bending efforts,
these weeks, waiting
in the doctors office, waiting for the end
of bladder scrunching
as shes wheeled down the hall,
lifted onto one of the hospital beds.
She writhes in the stiff sheets,
turns with a roar
to the half-smile on the doctors face.
There she goes,
wiping her hands, tugging her husbands cheek
while at once, her mind funnels into forgotten chambers
to the moment when she feels
the base of a vast mountain,
and below it a valley wallows in starlight.
64
Close as it looms,
she know that now
this fetus has been pure maple
for years on top of that mountain
in fog and sleet, having
come from the edge of rocks
where hosts of the unborn alight
and the sugar that shapes him
is thicker than a few drops,
thicker than trees gum,
and hes waited there, collecting sticks,
laughing with travelers from the paved streets
until one day the jokes are dull enough
to leave behind and forget.
Narrow as the chamber is,
she looks to him,
seizes on the seconds of breaking
and this time the cramps in her back
shoot up. It is spinal death,
the joints and muscles shes known all her life
going out
to the pulse and throttle, the idea
her body slid down the mountain,
swam from the creeks, from the gold
below the grass and dirt shes still finding ways
to reconcile with.
He drops
and spreads, rubs raw the hunkering walls,
dives into the river,
makes out a message in holler and claws
65
66
Brian Pew
69
70
I
It is 1954, and I am four-years-old. I can see my father. It is very, very quiet.
I feel enveloped by silence, just the way I do when it snows, when the out
of doors seems to swallow all the ordinary sounds of our neighborhood, but
for the rhythmic scrape of shovels. Daddy is holding my body over the bathtub and pounding on the back of my limp form. He seems calm and I feel
calm, but this is clearly another one of my emergencies, because this is how
my daddy, 31-year-old Frank Nelson Daley, handles himself in my emergencieshead on. Hands on. It is odd to see the top of his head, and to see
myself from the outside. This oddity is perhaps why, years and years later,
the moment will have become a memoryone of the several meaningful
seconds that define who I have become and may not want to have become.
Suddenly, there is sounda distant siren. The last thing I remember is the
room going dark, and something cold against the inside of my cheek.
I wake up in a crib in the corridor of Boston Childrens over-crowded
hospital. I will be in the corridor for the duration of my stay. I am part of
the early years of the post WWII baby boom, and Boston Childrens Hospital
hasnt caught up with demand. My crib is half covered by a clear oxygen tent,
and someone is pouring ice into a tank at the back of the crib. It is very cold,
and I am very, very upset, which in turn upsets a large woman named Nurse
Davis. Nurse Davis and I will be here together for the next month, and she
will not be sorry to see me go. She does not like children who get upset, and
I do not like being cold. I will not remember her face because I will never
quite look up enough to see it. I will remember for all of my life, however,
the sight of her name tag on her white uniform through the bars of the crib.
Nurse Davis. I do not tell her about the extra people in the childrens ward,
the ones she does not seem to see.
We, the children in that ward, talk amongst ourselves and share nursery
songs as well as our experiences with visitors and staff, blood and breathing tubes, death and the other people that regular grownups dont seem to
see. We experience these things, but like soldiers at war who sense that they
will have to leave most of their experiences behind on the battlefield, we
understand that we will have to leave our hospital experience behind. There
72
is no place in peacetime for the memories of the once enlisted. Most particularly, there will be no place in our peacetime lives for the experience of the
other people, nor the fact that little children die. Babies though we are, we
know that these are facts to be kept distant from peacetime life.
In peacetime, therefore, I become a very talkative child who has learned
to leave a great deal unsaid. The unsaid is understood by something unseen,
something other, something not me and ever reassuring. I assume that it is
what everyone is discussing when they use the word God, so I call the unseen
presence God. I have learned to rely completely on the sense that God is near
and accessible, like Mommy in the kitchen. Mommy never goes anywhere.
God never goes anywhere. Mommy is always afraid. But God is never afraid,
and I am finally free to focus on things other than the fact that there are other
kinds of people, and the true, true thing that sometimes little children die,
that they can die right next to Mommy, right in the middle of a conversation.
When I leave Boston Childrens Hospital to return to our home in rural
Maine, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are still real, and
all the relatives I know are still alive. Everyone has a house and I can go in
and out of all the houses, because the friendly people know me. They dont
have TVs. We have a TV. Inside the TV is a puppet named Howdy Doody,
and a club called the Mickey Mouse Club. There is a Mousketeer with my
name. My family has a new, red convertible and there are no such things as
seat belts. We sit in the open air and the wind blows on us and we go to
Bubbling Brook where they serve ice cream cones. We skate on the ice at
Rocky Woods. Everyone in the world looks exactly like us, and everyones
life is exactly like ours. The world is very, very fair except that a few families
have more kids than we do.
They have more kids, but we have more houses. In the summer we live on
an island. When it rains, it rains hard and loud. There are foghorns. We light
the oil stove, put together puzzles and make paper dolls. We play Parcheesi.
We drink Zarex and eat popcorn every night. Everyone picks wild blueberries, and I know how to make them into pancakes. Our lives are exactly like
everyone elses here, too, except that almost everyone here is a Catholic. The
Catholic Church has a lot of kids in it and is therefore a lot more fun than
ours, but other than the fact that we are superiorand therefore lonely
Protestants, we have a pretty good life.
Grandmother Bonnello has seven sisters, and they have families, and those
families are cousins somehow. Mommy and I pray for cousins at night. At
73
the end of the Lords Prayer, we ask God to bless all the key players in my
young lifeMommy, Daddy, my sister Diane Elizabeth, and the grandmas.
Great Grandma Brunt and Great Grandpa Lewis. Then we sweep through
the rest of meaningful humanitymy aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
Amen. We are not concerned with anyone foreign, the sick, the infirm or
the poor. We dont know any of those.
For now, childhood is the most blessed gift my parents will ever give
me. I swing on a metal swing in a paradise of family, friends, holidays, and
sandboxes. Uncle Nelson and Aunt Mary live one street over in Paradise,
and have a wooden wheelbarrow. There is a doll collection in a glass cabinet
at the top of their stairs. We eat boiled eggs cupped in ceramic chickens at
Aunt Marys house, and we put butter on them. We drink tea and eat little
cakes at fouroclock at a small table in the living room, not in the kitchen,
not even in the dining room. Aunt Marys tea cakes are beautiful. They are
pink frosted, and have little silver pearls on them. They are dry and tasteless,
and the little pearls are bitter. I will love remembering them when I am a
great-aunt myself. I will come to believe that the first lesson learned from
peacetime in Paradise was that to abide by beauty and tradition makes sweet
memories out of bitter cakes.
The beauty and tradition of peacetime in Paradise will begin to disintegrate when I am only eight, but the lessons learned there will sustain me
forever. Peacetime, especially for children, has more staying power than war.
Theres no sustenance in battle, just the lessons of war. There will never be
sustenance in battle. That is the first lesson of war, I thinkone must end
the battle to feed the soul. Theres no other way.
II
It is 1976. I am twenty-six-years old, married and I have a four-year-old
daughter named Julianne Ruth Sabula. I am in a counseling session at a pastoral counseling center. My friend has sent me there because I am so unhappy.
I have told him about the unhappiness in my marriage. I have not told him
about memories that defy my sense of things.
Do you know what a clairvoyant is? asks a quiet, bearded counselor. Ido
not. He explains.
Clairvoyant, n. person who is said to possess the supposed power of seeing
absent persons, things, or events.
74
I dont see absent things, I imagine them. I think he is crazier than me, and
I think I wont be coming back. He would have us talk about it longer, but
the room looks to me as though it is pulling away like a train into a tunnel.
When I talk to him, the imagined sight goes away. I listen for my fathers
voice. I look at my arm resting on my lap, but I imagine my fathers arm. He
is clutching it with the opposite hand. Talking is out of the question. I need
to leave. I need to leave right now to find Frank Nelson Daley.
I drive to Rhode Island Hospital and find my mother and sister in ICU.
My mother is catatonic, and my sister is crying. A doctor explains the situation to me, and tells me that my father wants to see me. I think he must
mean my sister. Dad and I are not close anymore. We have not been close
for years. Arent you Cheryl? the doctor asks.
My father is lying in a hospital bed, and he appears more shaken than I
have ever seen him. This seems to be the kind of emergency he cant meet
head on, an emergency of his very own. I dont know what to do or say. We
do not look at each other. I thought I was immortal, he says at last. I tell
him I know, but actually, Im completely surprised. No, really, he pleads,
I really did. There is an awkward silence before he asks me entirely without
emotion whether he is going to die. It seems like the most natural thing in
the world that he should ask, and not at all strange to answer. No, dear, not
this time, I tell him. This will happen again? he asks me. Three more
times. You wont learn much from this one, is the answer. How long have I
got? he asks. I tell him about twenty years, and the conversation is over, not
to be continued. We will not be any different with each other than we have
been for years. I will never know why he asked me the things he did, and I
will never know why I was so audacious as to answer.
Audacious, adj. very daring or bold; impudent; insolent.
III
I cannot tell my story without telling my version of the stories of so many
others. I suspect that a single narrator who presumes to expose the lives of
others can only author fiction. Therefore, in the interest of non-fiction, and
in deference to the demands of my conscience, I ask you to take my word
about a few things, entirely without the supporting evidence of details or the
75
shadow of death, and that on the other side, I will be better prepared for real
death, less afraid of anything for the rest of my life. I imagine saying thank
you. Easter is six months away. I get out of my chair and make dinner.
IV
It is 1984. My mother wants me to go to an art seminar with her. I make the
excuse that I cant afford it, and she offers to pay for us both. She is a respectable talent, like her father before her and his father before him.
I have driven to her home and we are standing in her basement. Having
run out of display space, she has stacked rows of her paintings against the
basement walls. I pull out two of my favorites and announce that I want
them. I am the only family member who has none of her work. Even her
friends and mere acquaintances have some. She has trapped me into this
damn seminar, and I am trapping her into giving me some of her art, which
is to say, some of her self. She cant think of a reason to say no. What I want
is just rotting in the basement anyway. She hands over her paintings unhappily, and I have never felt so victorious.
For the next week, we paint with a group of about a dozen other artists,
and an antagonist named Mother becomes a woman named Mabel. Capable,
enthusiastic. We sometimes forget to eat, and almost always paint through
the night right into the next morning.
I am seeing Mom when she is not frightened, but I will not see her that
way again. We will not be together again in a setting where she can present
herself as the woman she was meant to be, or perhaps the woman she is but
cannot show her children.
Almost exclusively, my mother paints beautiful, perfect landscapes, landscapes so real that one might walk into them if people were welcome on her
canvases. When my father dies, I will be surprised to discover wild geometric
designs, water-damaged and in disarray on the floor of a bathroom closet.
Iwill ask my mother about them, why she has never hung any of them up.
She will explain that my father did not like modern art. She will confess that
she has never cared for realism.
Realism, n. (in art or literature) representation of things as they actually
appear in nature or real life; fidelity to fact.
77
V
It is August, 1996, and I have been living in Brooklyn, NY for eleven months.
My mother is on the phone. She is on Peaks Island, and Dad has had a stroke.
She cant seem to make any sense. She is emotional and incoherent. Idont
know what to do but to meet it head on. Hands on. I resent it, though.
Things have not much improved for me, and God and I are on strained terms.
I dont give a damn what God expects of me at the moment. I dont give a
damn if there is a hell and thats where I am headed.
Hell, n. abode of the dead or of departed spirits;
Which makes it different from Heaven and Earth how?
abode of evil spirits; infernal regions, any place of wickedness; state of anguish,
misery, wickedness or torment; place where refuse is gathered; evil spirits collectively; power of evil spirits.
Oh.
I tell my mother to pack the car and to drive with my father to my sisters
home in Rhode Island. I will meet them there and send them home by plane.
Then I will drive their car to Florida. I tell her to pack nothing but clothes
in the suitcases that will be checked baggage. I tell her to take her money,
her checkbook, medications, and anything else important onto the plane
withher.
A month later I meet my parents in RI. I check their luggage and discover
that my mother has packed $16,000, her checkbook and all my fathers
medications into the suitcase that will be her checked baggage, and then she
has placed three things in her purse to take on the plane: a little bag of pink
plastic curlers, a jar of Metamucil, and some lifesavers.
Metaphorically speaking, it is clear to me that my mom, Mabel Alice
Bonnello, is not in the kitchen anymore. Not even the scared mom I know I
cant rely upon, but have often tried to rely upon anyway. Its too late to get
to know her, too late to resolve anything unresolved. It is never too late to
forgive, but I know so little about forgiveness. I have never really understood
it, and I dont even know what I would be forgiving this woman for who is
78
my mother. What crimes has she committed? Does being who she is count
as criminal activity because it disappoints me?
What do I want from what is left of Mabel Alice Bonnello? Do I want
approval, even now? Im a grandmother, for heavens sake. And who can give
believable approval or disapproval anyway? Who knows anyone well enough?
If we are called upon to approve or disapprove, what else can we do but give
approval to a reflection of ourselves, to the known and familiar? What else
can we do but withhold approval from that which is different? I think I must
be different. I seem to make even my own family uncomfortable. I hate them
for their discomfort. I hate myself as probable cause.
While I unpack $16,000 from a small suitcase, I look at these two elderly
people who are my mother and father. For the first time, I understand that
I will soon lose them. The anticipated loss presents itself as an eleventh-hour
opportunity to learn the value of forgiveness. It is not an opportunity I want.
I cannot forgive the parents who find it hard to love me. If I do, I imagine I
will be faced with the too-formidable task of forgiving myself for being hard
to love.
I am helping my parents get ready to go to the airport. Mabel turns her
face to me like an obedient child and waits for me to wash it. That is the
exact moment when forgiveness yields to me her sacred fruita sudden and
unconditional love. I love Mabel Alice. I love myself as a daughter who loves
her mother. What am I to do with this love?
Mom shows me how to put two little pink curlers in her hair. She explains
how they make all the difference in how she looks. She is anxious and wrings
her hands almost continuously. She seems to understand that my father is
dying. She has been married to him for 54 years and he has been taking care
of her for nearly 60. She was a schoolgirl out walking with her father when a
heart attack dropped him at her feet, and Frank Nelson Daley took up stride
beside her, her new and life-long protector.
Protector, n. one that protects; one who rules a kingdom while the sovereign
is under age.
My sovereign mother has never grown up. She is a little girl version of
Peter Pan who will refuse to leave Neverland to the very end, even as she
takes her last, protected breath. Her last protector will be morphine.
79
Franks last protector is God. A presence is with him, and I am with him.
He is calm and unafraid. My mother, my father, and I have been in Florida
together for three months. I arrived with the car and couldnt bring myself
to leave them. Now it is Christmas Eve, and I tell Frank I need to go to Utah
to see my family, that I will see him again in two days. No, you wont, he
says gently. No, I wont. I affirm. Goodbye, Diane. He pauses. Oh, Im
sorry. I know who you are. I know you arent Diane, he assures me. The
daughter he understands, adores, and admires isnt here. The wrong daughter
is at hand. He wants to see the other one, one last time. The man who seldom
asks for anything wishes I was Diane Elizabeth Johnson, and for love of him
in this moment, so do I.
Perhaps the first lesson of death is that we do not choose when to close
the door and leave each others presence to stand in Gods. We do not choose,
and so there are no deathbed reconciliations of the sort we so love in movies.
We die together as we have lived together, and in my experience, we have
lived together far more successfully than we imagine. So the last words to
pass between my father and me are, I know you arent Diane.
Frank Nelson Daley, 2 April 19235 January 1997
VI
In October, 2002, my husband, David George Pace, and I will have lived in
New York for seven years, through the deaths of both my parents, my dear
friend, Barbara Johnston, and my cherished uncle, Arthur M. Livingstone.
We will have survived the near death of the daughter we share, the falling of
the World Trade Center, and the complete failure of our marriage.
But for now it is only May, 1999 and David is asking me for a divorce. I
hate who I have become with you, he tells me. But I cant sense hatred in
the air. I sense fear, and then something else altogether more upsetting than
hate. I sense indifference. David is indifferent to me. Whats more, Iaccept
just like that and as a matter of coursethat he has not ever felt much of
anything else. Why did you marry me? I ask. You were the only person
I knew who was strong enough to stand between me and my family, he
answers.
I stand defenseless in the presence of God. This emotionless, oh-so-muchyounger man I claim to love has been suffering without respite, and having
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failed to stop the bleeding of his invisible wounds, I have come to blame him
for his condition. I have left him to suffer alone, and to support my happiness while he does. Suffering has now become not less than mortal danger
on my watch. David is indifferent not only to my life, but to his own. I cant
imagine there is anything I could ever have done about it. The whole of it has
never been about me. This crisis is about what it has always been aboutthe
abominable Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and its insidious
domination over Davids family and friends of childhood. I am as sure of that
as I am sure of anything in the world.
Sufferer, n. one who suffers, esp. by pain, damage, loss, etc.; one who permits
or allows.
From 1991 to 1995, we lived in Utah. In 1995, David decided he needed
to escape the dark, prejudicial state of being that was the beating heart of
Mormon society in his experience. He was tired of their smugness, tired of
their deceit, their intolerance, their disdain of his non-Mormon life with
his non-Mormon wife. So, we left his Church towers behind us, packed
up hisrage, and carried it to New York City. The Church wasnt here, but
the haunting hatred was. So, David resigned his membership, returned
his diploma to BYU, and found a home in my parish. But while his body
trooped to Episcopalian masses, his soul continued to rage at all things
Mormon. Ishould have noticed there were no things Mormon in our immediate vicinity but David himself.
How could a discussion about divorce be happening? Where is the God
of imaginable visions I have always relied upon?
Imaginable, adj. able to be imagined.
What can I remember?
VII
It is early in our marriage. We have been married months not years, and
already I am raging alongside my husband. I am proud to support him, too
proud to consider what I am supporting. Is there ever a time to take up arms
alongside obsessive hatred? Can healing ever come from joining the front
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lines battle? Has it been so long that I have forgotten the first lesson of war?
End the battle to feed the soul. Theres no other way.
But how? I am becoming uncomfortable as comrade in arms, and David
ever more torn by it. While I hate for him the family, the friends, the culture, and the faith that he can never seem to hate quite enough, he bounces
back and forth between the world of his youth and the world of our marriage. Icant keep up with his contradictions, and my purpose, it seems, is
to express, justify andincident by incidentto take the fall for his rage.
I think I am a comrade at arms, but I have simply become the new object
of what seems to be insatiable rage. By the time 1998 rolls around, David
accuses me of anti-Mormonism.
With that, I withdraw from the battle. I leave David to go home alone.
I distance myself from his family gatherings using as my excuse the care of
my widowed and failing mother. I think I am bringing peace, but I am fast
metamorphosing into an object of new disdain. By December 1999, David
accuses me of indifference to the Mormon problem, to his family and tohim.
VIII
It is April, 1999, and David has just asked for a divorce. The grounds?
Irreconcilable indifference. To life itself, I think.
I go in search of God in the kitchen. When he shows up, all I can say is,
Its about time. It is easy to be awed by that which seems to be God, but it
is not always easy to feel respect. I play both sides of yet another conversation
with air. I tell God I need inspiration. He tells me I only need love. I call God
an idiot.
The following morning, I look over the financial condition of my marriage and determine that, given the increased value of our apartment and
some fortunate investments, I am in a position to leave David. In point of
fact, my position will improve if I do. When I explain that to David, he
wants to know if I am leaving him. Im not. That isnt it at all. I think Im
about to do something very hard, and I just want to make sure it is a real
choice I am making, and not one of those imagined choices one makes
knowing full well theres really no choice at all.
I tell David that far from leaving him, I will contest a divorce. I tell him
what I will say, and he knows that I am likely to win. I tell him I understand
our marriage exists in name only, but that while he sorts out his distress,
Iwant him to keep the logistics of his life in place. Keep his job, remain
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IX
Between April 1999 and October 2002, I find myself watching Mabel Alice
Bonnello grapple with the reality of death, all the while watching David
George Pace learn to grapple with the reality of life. One can only be
humbled and awed by these most basic expressions of the human condition.
There isnt any more for me to say about it.
Mabel Alice Bonnello, 24 March 19228 October 2002
David George Pace, 23 June 1961
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X
It is not October, 2002. It is only June. Mom is dying by sheer force of
will, David is living by sheer force of will, and perhaps also by sheer force
of will I have become certain, not that I know the right things about the
Mormon world, but that I feel the right things. I begin to challenge Davids
assumptions. I dont think he can love himself if he hates his origins. David
seems to be both smarter and more articulate than me, so God figures I
need the home court advantage, and I can see the wisdom in that. Whatever
accusation David makes against the LDS church, I counter with a parallel
accusation against some other group or organization with which I am more
familiar and for which David seems to have undue respect. In short, I go
about normalizing, equalizing, and humanizing the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints. I go to battle not only against Davids arch-villains, but
his heroes. It is my intent not only to end the battle, but to level the battlefield between the Mormon and non-Mormon worlds as both David and I
imagine them to be.
XI
David is accustomed to being in control of the subject of Mormonism in our
household, and therefore, ours is only occasionally a civil encounter. And
as we celebrate our tenth anniversary together on October 27, 2002, David,
within whose hard-won, masculine way of love I have become entirely selfassured, accuses me of whitewashing the crimes and insidious motives of
the corporate church.
Corporate, adj. united in a body and acting as an individual
First too hostile, and then too indifferent, and now too kind. Clearly, the
matter of my relationship to Davids faith is one of some importance, and
there is no position from which David is not discounted. Hate the faith
anddiscount the beloved family and forces that have created him. Ignore
the faith and discount the family and forces that matter to him. Love the
faith and discount any reason for or meaning to his suffering. David is
caught between devils and angels. He does not seem to know that both are
part of creation. They simply must coexist. Nonetheless, he is smiling more,
and displaying a greater sense of ease in public situations. He has become
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XII
It is 2005. I am 55 years old, and David is 44. We are living in Salt Lake City,
and have been here for just over two years, in our first house together. We
have new furniture and two cats. We go skiing in the winter. We live across
from the largest park in the city and spitting distance from downtown. We
grow a garden. We address ourselves enthusiastically to Mormon issues and
civic causes.
David begins to work more and smile less. He is fast becoming a man torn
in two again, living in a city that by tacit force of habit, reinforces division at
every turn and from every quarter. He is responsible, reliable, a rock below
the surface of the water upon which our small familymother, father, adult
daughter, 11-year-old grandsonbuilds its little life.
He is a responsible, reliable voice in the public forum. His first novel
about growing up Mormontakes first place in a competition sponsored
by the Utah Arts Council. His personal essayabout his ten Mormon sisterstakes first place in a competition sponsored by Writers at Work. And
his increasing lack of vitality is becoming positively palpable.
I wonder if we have made a mistake to come back to Utah. I have made
myself a woman without a country, in a sense. Never Mormon, and never
welcome in non-Mormon circles so long as I choose to identify with the
Mormons. But I have also found a place and a people that matter to me,
where I know what I have to give, and a generous community accepts.
Increasingly, I am more comfortable in Mormon than in non-Mormon
circles. Our needs are aligned, and a religious voice is an acceptable voice in
public discourse.
But David is beginning to look ill. And he isnt an oddity. There is distress
and depression in abundance, it seems. There is something. There is something. There is something I have failed completely to understand about the
Mormon community. Too often, there seems to be a tacit fear and longing,
invisible wounds that never heal, and do fester.
God?
Yes?
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XIII
God and I are in the moment. We are without beginning, middle, or end.
The particulars of the moment seem so unimportant to me. The presence of
conversion seems to be everything, and the conversion experience is not so
unlike the breathing experience in that it seems to be on autopilot. Exactly
as my breathing keeps my body alive, continuous conversion keeps my spirit
alive. Exactly as one great breath at birth didnt cover me for a lifetime, one
great revelatory conversion hasnt either.
I breathe and convert, breathe and convert. It is happening unaware while
I pick up the groceries, and drop off the dry cleaning. In truth, it is happening in my every encounter with anyone or anything. I give no thought at all
to my breathing unless it is tested, like when I am forced to walk uphill after
a lost ski. Likewise, I dont give a whole lot of thought to my conversion
until it is tested. I think of God in the face of sorrow, death, illness, when
the incomprehensible catastrophe happens, and most of all, in the midst of
my own sins. That is, when the power of life and habit trumps the power of
intent, and reminds me that I am not ever really in control.
Then I look for God in my kitchen. We are intimate and unafraid of one
another. I moan, complain, insult, and bargain. I enjoy waving my fists at
Heaven. I cry.
Gods response always feels like the same response. My conversation with
air tells me that life is as life should be. It is meaningful. It is the very fullness
of perfection. As I age to where dark situations are ever darker, the light of
revelation seems to grow brighter in proportion. The sustenance of peacetime
and wisdom hard-won in battle come together to testify to truth created by
God and held for safe-keeping in the human spirit.
It seems to me that the closer one gets to reality, to realistic expectations,
the closer one gets to ones self, to ones companions, and to God. Reality is
the sum of creation, I think, and only God knows all of creation. You and
I are left to believe in miracles. I never imagined there would be so many
miracles.
And I never imagined that my spiritual autobiography would be about
little more than going the distance day by day. All that I can swear to is that
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as I go the distance, I breathe and convert more easily. Im not trying to create the good life, but to come to terms with good life. I have ceased tryingto
create or become anything in my life in faith. I am trying to discover and
to appreciate creation. I look forward to knowing what the creator is, who
Godis.
Meanwhile, I have come to trust God without reservation, if not to understand what God is. I have come to believe in perfect justice, if not to understand
why there is justice at all. I have come to believe in the goodness of all of
Gods creation, if not to understand its evil. Time has become as arbitrary as
New England weather, and I have learned to live among the quick and the
dead.
XIV
It is June 2005. I am devoted to too many people to name, and wonder at my
good fortune. I am awed by my husband, David George Pace. I am in love
with the mystery that is my daughter, Julianne Ruth Sabula. I am indebted
beyond measure to Eric Stephan Vaughan, who has become a man right
before my eyes and for the sake of my beloved. I rejoice in Josiah Sullivan,
my grandson.
We are a cobbled-together little family, not quite blood, not quite legal
and not quite forever, but a family nonetheless. Together, we are children at
play in the presence of a God who laughs, a God for whom nothing and no
one is too sacred to serve as a punch-line because everything and everyone is
presumed sacred.
Sacred, adj. inspired by God.
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Stone Pillows
Deja Earley
The first time I walked through Bath, England, my friends wandered ahead while I stopped to examine the faade of an abbey.
On either side of its entry, sculpted angels climbed ladders to the
height of the church. I couldnt forget them. No matter where I walked in
the city, I recalled the image of fourteen angels decked in dresses and wings
perched on rungs. Some looked down, conscious of their height, or coaxing
us to join the scramble to heaven. And some looked at the rung above
determined, serious about getting to God.
Consider the story of Jacobs ladder. In Genesis, Jacob stopped to sleep
for the night. He used stones for his pillow and had the dream of his life. A
ladder with angels ascending and descending, lead up to heaven and to God
who told Jacob what was in store for himfamily as abundant as the dust
of the earth, and Gods friendship for the rest of his life. Not a bad bargain.
But when Jacob woke up, he was a little nervous, a little unsure of what had
happened, a little scared. It wasnt every night he had dreams like that. So he
decided the place might be special, that it might have been his rock pillows
that made God speak. Jacob called the place Beth-al, which means house of
God, and used those pillows as an altar to say thanks. He poured oil, lit a
fire, and told God hed be happy to have His constant camaraderie. I wonder
if Jacob thought of the angels and ladders when he looked up at the smoke
from his sacrifice. I wonder if he slept on rocks from then on, or at least when
he wanted God to speak to him. I wonder if it seemed strange to Jacob that
God spoke while he slept on stones or that God made promises while he
snored. But I like that God used a wild dream to illustrate a serious covenant.
The abbey sits in the center of Bath, next door to Roman Baths where
green water and ancient mythology still bubble up everywhere. I cant help
but think that the religious men who built the abbey carved the ladder and
the angels because they were trying to reference the name of their city to
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Beth-al, instead of the Pagan Roman baths. Or at least to refer to both. Today,
Bath seems conscious and even proud of the mix of pagan and sacred.
While we stayed in Bath, my traveling friends found a random advertisement for Abbey Mode. The performance was to take place in the abbey on
a Sunday evening, and promised to be a psychedelic adventure with lasers
and music and audience participation. It was free, and sounded harmless, if
strange, so a few of us decided to go.
SSS
When we enter, the pews are scattered with white balloonsnot yet chubby
with air, but looking like they are waiting for us. The rib vaulting and the
elaborate walls are lit upa purple/blue glow in the chancel and red running
the length of the aisles.
A priest at the front waits for everyone to settle down. He explains that a
local composer has organized and arranged this performance, which will be
a commentary on the sacred and the common, the church indoors and the
church outdoors and how they blend and crash. He turns the time to the
composer.
The composer explains four elements of audience participation and we
practice our roles: twiddling our lips with our fingers, whistling from high to
low, releasing balloons to let them whiz around the abbey, and clapping four
times in a row. My friends and I laugh self-consciously as things get started.
Earlier that day, as we sat in Sacrament Meeting in our careful Sunday
clothes, we listened to reverent music and planned talks. It was the worship
we are used to, the worship most of us have participated in for our entire
lives. We have come to this performance because we think that because it is
in an abbey, we can trust it to be similar to our own form of spiritual expression. . I like the sound of the priests introduction, but Im not sure what he
means. Sitting in the pew, I worry that Abbey Mode will not be so much
spiritual as sacrilegious.
The drums start low. Primitive. They set the rhythm for the choir and
orchestra who march down the aisle dressed in black with satin purple sashes
like beauty queens, and in silver glittered masks like jesters. They stand at
attention and in formation in front and down the aisles, holding their satin
yellow flags at an angle from their waists. I watch their facial expressions.
Some mouths are pulled into seriousness below their sparkly masks. Some
mouths twist in embarrassment, painfully aware of their costuming, their
role in this scattered melody. I like the shy ones best for looking as insecure
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as I feel. But I watch the solemn ones. I want to laugh at the show, but I also
want to understand it. I want to know how the church inside and the church
outside intersect.
The rector stands to offer A Prayer of Eternity, acknowledging the complexity of God and his creation. A swell of horns and organ, and vaulting
choir voicespowerful, sock-knocking harmony. And then silence. If I close
my eyes so I dont see the sparkly jester masks, the performance is normal
tones of glory, praise, sweet ascending sound. I feel it saturating me, vaulting
me, spreading to my toes. This is the feeling I hoped for, but didnt expect to
get in such jumbled worship.
Timid bells ring over the chapel, peppered with bird noises, feet stomps,
lamb bleats, and a man on a microphone who is either moaning like a mad
man or mooing like a cow. The sounds end with a diminishing shhhhhhhh.
Im not sure what to do with this shift, how to fit my sweet saturation with
lamb bleats and moans. I decide that Gods creations are not at odds with
His glory. Why shouldnt there be a few lamb bleats mixed with melody?
The signal to twiddle. Apparently, I am an incompetent lip twiddler. I
switch back and forth between laughing too hard to do it, or laughing
because I managed to do it, and it tickles. For the last two of the ten seconds
I sit back and listen to 600 people buzzing their 1200 lips. Why buzz? I consider absurdity. I remember a friend once told me that his mission had been
one part spirituality, two parts madness. A smattering of sunny baptisms, but
more often drunk men falling at his feet swearing theyd seen Jesus.
The signal to whistle. I have accepted my incompetence at whistling since
I was fourteen, so I purse my lips like a pro, but I don't attempt a sound.
I imagine the others whistles rising to the vaulting and nose-diving to the
soles of our shoes. The participation, as silly as it is, appeals to me. I like
sending our sound to all corners of the cathedral, filling the space.
Projected bats on the vaulted ceiling. Or doves? Or ghosts? This must be
the laser show element. It is interrupted oddly by the pattern of the ribs so
they flash and distort, looking either more eerie or more holy, I cant decide
which. I can hear everyone asking what they are, and I suspect confusion is
part of the point.
The din dies. We hold our balloons, ready. Breathe into them. And
release. This is my favorite moment. The white wings fly, a blessed riot up to
the doves in the vaulting, making crude sounds and making us laugh. One
gets trapped between mine and my neighbors shoulders, ricocheting like
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a pinball until it falls, deflated. And we all clap, led by the composer. Four
times. We file out with the jestered choir.
For me Abbey Mode has been the mind-tugging that delights. Abstract
elements in a concrete religious space have worked with my own sense of
the sacred. But mine isnt the only reaction. My roommate in Bath, Janae,
detested it. We discuss it while we get ready for bed. She says it was absurd,
irreverent in the most unsettling way. And I can see her point. If anyone tried
to pull that in my church at home, I would be the first to hit the vaulted
ceiling. In another place or another mood, I might be equally offended. I
generally get nervous when people make unconventional statements on God
and religion. But from where I sat that night, the Abbey Mode statement
seemed sincere and interesting.
As Mormons, our emphasis is on individual spirituality, and creating a
quiet, reverent environment within which to receive personal revelation.
Church is not entertainment. There is no performance by a single leader, no
dancing, or wild singing, sheep sounds. The creation of the meeting is diffused through all the members of the ward. Everyone gets a chance at some
point to speak or teach. And when you are not speaking or teaching, ideally
your mind is engaging the subject at hand. One should be taking what others
are saying and applying it inside, allowing it to saturate. At times, when my
mind wanders too much to focus , or the speaker is uninteresting to me, this
model doesnt work well. I sit through church for three hours and go home
with very little below the skin. But many days I actively engage what I hear.
When something is said at the pulpit, it resonates with me. Good days or
bad, I have no problem with my reverent church services. But there are times
when I crave more flash, more performance.
SSS
In high school I performed with the Utah All-State choir. Eight hundred of
us stood in the Tabernacle on Temple Square and sang for our parents. We
closed with a gospel spiritual, complete with dancing, and clapping, and
hallelujahing. When we left, my sister confessed she had slept through my
concert. All except the gospel number. She clapped and sang as we walked
back to the car, teased about writing President Hinckley to say she wanted all
church music transferred to the gospel genre. I secretly agreed with her, but
I was nervous that I did. I was embarrassed that the closing gospel spiritual
had been my favorite from the start. Shouldnt I have adored the sweet reverent melodies? The ones I was used to? Why didnt we have an occasional
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gospel number in church? Did God not like that music? I didnt know what
to think; I watched out the window all the way home. The question lingered,
tugged on my mind, made me wonder about worship.
Later the same year, my AP Art History class took a trip to San Francisco.
On Sunday we had the option of traveling several hours to an LDS meeting,
or, for the sake of new experience, attending the famous Glyde Memorial
Church, whose parish consisted mostly of downtown San Franciscos homeless. A few girls made the trek to the Mormon meetinghouse across town. All
my friends picked Glyde, and I was curious, so I decided to go.
Glyde meets in a huge auditorium with a stage in front. Our group of ten
students sat in the balcony. We were a little unsure about what we were in for,
and I kept wondering if I should have felt guilty for not opting for Sacrament
Meeting.
Most of the meeting was a concerta church choir backed up by a rock
band, was set up on stage, and they sang some high-energy songs about
Gods love and our sin and the worlds tempting snares. While they sang and
the band played, a slide show was projected behind them. The woman who
was operating two slide machines stood near us, rocking out while she projected. Sometimes there was just one picture on the screen, while she covered
one lens with the palm of her hand. Other times she kept both hands poised
in front of the projectors and switched back and forth between two images.
Up on the screen a dancer flipped between moves, in sync with the womans
hand flips. It was clear by the way the slide woman handled the machines
that she took her job seriously. Her expertise with the slides seemed to be part
of her worship, her Sabbath gift to God.
Periodically throughout the meeting, someone went to the microphone
and said it was time to give someone a hug. That made me extra nervous. I
didnt know that I wanted to hug the homeless. I tried to hug only within
our tight group, to stick to my friends. But we stuck out in that church, and
people in the balcony flocked to us at hug time. Although I admit I was
hunting for evidence that the people we were hugging were indeed homeless,
they seemed to be some of the kindest people Ive ever hugged. They asked
me where I was from, and when I told them I was from Utah, their faces lit
up. Oh, youre Mormon! You all have the most beautiful choir! Someday we
hope to be as good as your choir. You want to be like my choir? I thought.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is worlds away from Glyde Memorial, style
wise. It seemed odd that they were their role models. I left Glyde Memorial
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in love with its style, because of the sincerity of its worshippers, and the way
they made my soul feel like rocking out, shouting hallelujah with an electric
guitar backup.
SSS
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Milton Abbey
Kathryn Street Larson
I wasnt thinking about God on a drizzling June day as I hiked
through a forest in Dorset. Our study abroad group had set out from
a green meadow in the quiet village of Shillingsworth for a fifteen mile
jaunt through the countryside. I was focused on a friends tragic love
storyone involving ice skates and the emergency roomand on keeping
the attention of the tall blonde boy who sent shivers down my spine whenever he looked at me. There was no time for musings or prayers, just gossip
and flirtation. When I slipped on mud, I laughed. When the boys eyes met
mine as he explained his thoughts on the absurdity of modern literature, I
swooned. Jumping over the sheep droppings littered across the path didnt
prompt me to stop to think about the deeper side of life. Nor did the sight
of beech, oak or even holly trees that grew overhead. I was content to chat
and to watch my group of fellow hikers, strung out laughing and singing in
front of me. Then the forest ended, and Milton Abbey began.
In a silent valley surrounded by dense forest, Milton Abbey stands alone,
stoic and unyielding. When I stepped out of the forest I gasped, making
the boy next to me laugh. But there wasnt anything else I could have done.
The land was flat and wide, with short grass that extended right up to the
edge of the forest. The grey stone church seemed to gather strength from its
superlative height, and loomed over the valley, presiding. It was as if God
Himself had descended from the heavens to place a giant signal in the path.
Wayward travelers, pay attention! it seemed to say. Pay attention to me.
I walked transfixed toward the building and away from the boy, feeling
myself shrink smaller and smaller with each step until I stood, tiny and
inconsequential, at the abbeys wooden doors. About to enter, I looked down
at myself. Mud coated my pant legs. I was wearing three blue mismatched
shirts, all soaked from the rain, and I could feel how hair that had fallen out
of its braid now lay matted and wet down my cheeks.
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I picture Moses having the same problem. When he was out in the wilderness
minding his own business and a bush randomly burst into fire, Ill bet he
thought about the dirt on his robe. After all day out in the desert, of course
he was dirty. There would have been sand in his hair and dust between his
toes. Zipporah probably had a heart attack when she saw the state of his robe
as he came into their tent that night and told her about his chat with Elohim.
But when Gods voice called out from the flames, none of that mattered.
Moses didnt run for a change of clothes, or lament that he didnt have a
toothbrush or a razor. All he said was Here am I. Then he took off his shoes.
SSS
After leaning my muddy boots against the abbeys giant stone doorframe, I
walked inready for Gods message. I was conscious of high sweeping arches
and intricately carved benches, but instead of finding redemption in the
stained glass windows as I had expected, I felt a distracting chill running up
through my damp socks that I couldnt shake. It was bad enough that I was
walking though the church looking like a drowned rat, but now as I padded
down the knaves stone floor, waiting for my revelation, I left a set of wet
footprints behind me. I was exquisitely aware of each step I took, each new
contact with smooth, condensed cold that fought its way into my bones.
I tried to look at the high altar, but I was sidetracked by a line from Gerard
Manley Hopkins Gods Grandeur repeating over and over in my head. All
. . . wears mans smell: the soil/ is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
Whatever Hopkins original intent for that line, there in an ancient stone
abbey with damp socks and muddy trousers, my feet could feel. God was
seeping up into my bones.
SSS
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I wonder now if Moses was aware of the ground that he was standing on.
Was it cold, forcing him to dig his toes into the sand; or hot enough to make
him hop from one foot to the other? I imagine that he was so distracted by
the voice of God telling him that his people were about to be delivered from
bondage, that he didnt have time to really think about how the sand was
burning the soles of his feet. Yet, the Lord was sure to tell Moses to take his
shoes off in the first place. He said, Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for
the place whereon thou standest is holy ground (Ex. 3:6). The Lord caught
Moses attention with firesomething fabulous and eye-catchingbut I
imagine He didnt have Moses respect and devotion until Moses took his
shoes off in deference to Gods holiness.
SSS
In the six weeks spent in England before my chance encounter with Milton
Abbey, I had been in plenty of crypts and cathedrals and vestries that were
really quite similar to it. I had walked through expansive naves and admired
blue stained glass windows and tiptoed across patterned thirteenth century
tileall in respectable clean clothes and sensible shoes. My cleanliness,
though reportedly next to godliness, had done nothing for meI remained
unmoved. But standing in Milton Abbey, wet and cold and dirty on a
Thursday afternoon, I felt the weight of God more forcibly than I had in any
other place. Other distractions were finally gone.
Maybe thats why we believers are baptized barefootwhether as children
or adults. We reduce ourselves to the very elemental to show our dependence
and devotion to God, and he, in turn, cleanses us. If we showed up at a font
in Versace, would we really be bowing down to the Lord, or just to fashionsense? I just cant imagine Stilettos as proper receptacles for inspiration or
steel-toed work boots as overt signs of devotion. Then again, maybe wet
socks arent any better.
Earlier in the day, before my group happened upon Milton Abbey, we had
hiked along the ridge of a hill that looked down into a valley of dairies and
wheat fields. I watched an old man wearing Wellies and carrying a scythe
walk to the edge of his field. A few yards away, lambs ran to suckle from their
mothers. Wheat, so green it was almost blue, swayed gently in the wind. I
stopped to absorb the scene and noticed a wooden sign on the side of the road.
It had a verse from Psalms 104 carved into it. Oh Lord, how manifold are
thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.
That picture played through my mind as I continued to stare at the high
97
altar. The glorious chill in my feet, my close one-on-one contact with God,
made me question why the altar was so far away from everything. Why
would the priest perform his rituals so separated from his congregation? It all
seemed sterile. Something, somewhere was missing. I gave up looking at the
altar, walked to the back of the church, and looked up at the ceiling. High
among the beams, a sparrow flew from one window to another. It didnt act
distressed at having been caught inside among Romanesque arches. Instead,
it seemed to seize the opportunity, and flapped around the ceiling, whistling.
The sparrow reminded me of the valley wed hiked through with its lambs
and wheat squished into the space of the high altar. I saw travelers covered
in mud from the forest or sand from the desert bowing down to their God
and his creation. God didnt come down to Moses in a painstakingly carved
marble column or a plaster likeness of a priest. He burned inside an eternal
flaming bush, and wafted above the Israelites in a cloud.
I closed my eyes and pictured a forest of birch trees covered in ivy inside
the abbey, their branches reaching to the ceiling, taking the place of flying
buttresses and painted ceiling beams. In my mind, moss cushioned the hard
stone floor, and wildflowers grew from the sides of the pews. Here I could
walk around in wet socks and dirty trousers and still feel that not only the
Lord, but everyone else, was glad I came.
Once again, Hopkins wandered into my mind. And for all that, nature
is never spent:/ There lives the dearest freshness deep down things. Before
man ever conceived of piling stones on top of each other, and coloring little
pieces of glass and saying the combination of the two created a proper atmosphere for worshipping God, God had already given man a place to reverence
Himthe world he created. Strange, I needed a church to teach me that.
I turned and left the Abbey, bent down to put my boots back on, and
looked back at the forest Id emerged from ten minutes earlier. It looked
strangely familiarlike the church interior Id just constructed in my mind.
I stopped and sat down on a stone ledge, and watched the trees. God was
there, waiting.
SSS
Moses stood by a flaming shrub, and didnt question its validity. He listened
and answeredvoiced his concerns and did as he was told. The Lord didnt
wait until Moses was already knelt in prayer, or had come to the temple to
offer sacrifice. He came to Moses in the middle of the day, in all its heat and
dust and humanity. He came when Moses needed him most.
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I bent my head forward in a motion to get up, and realized the thoughts in
my head were addressed to God. I was praying. I thanked Him for the view;
I thanked Him for allowing me to be there to see his creation, for touching
me somehow, for the call of the bird I heard, for simply listening.
Halfway through my prayer I heard something rustling nearby. I opened
my eyes to see a raven land on the stone step next to me. The last line of
Gods Grandeur rushed into my mindBecause the Holy Ghost over the
bent/ World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. I froze.
Iturned my head slightly to examine my companion. The raven ignored me,
and I admired the tuft of feathers that covered the crest of its beak, the tiny
white stripes at the top of its wing, and the way its black feathers shone blue
in the sunlight. When it finally flew away, I wanted to sprout wings and follow it to the Promised Land, leaving my shoes on the ground below.
99
Dixie Partridge
Staying On
It isnt pride in the land,
exactly. Fences sag,
bull thistles cluster in corners
and near sheds. In the wind
he hears their thistly voices
cracking and plotting . . .
Five sons on their own,
and hes unable to walk fields
he refuses to sell.
Its not so much the romance
of man and the landfarming with horses
long past the new age of machines
but the knowledge that leaving
becomes more impossible
than making a living here:
short growing seasons, the winter edge
of starvation in cattle,
deer raiding his stacks.
Too tired to watch
as the thistles move in, sneaking
through fences and hiding under hayricks,
he rocks in his platform chair,
details from the drought thirty years back
ready on his tongue:
Ive worried about the weather
all my life
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101
Steven Peck
103
104
Readers Write:
Spiritual Autobiography
We want to inspire you.
Readers Write includes essays on a preannounced topic that
our readers can address in a short form. If, as Mary Lythgoe
Bradford suggests (in citing Eugene England), the personal essay for Mor
mons is a variation on the testimony as literary genrey, then we hope you
will find inspiration here akin to what can be found in the best of testimony
meetings: personal edification, a sense of community and the fortitude to
share your own story. Submissions may address the topic from any perspective, but should be thoughtful and honest.
Topic for next issue: Film and Religion
Like other cultural forms, film tells us who we are and how to be. One early
Brigham Young Academy president encouraged students to go to the cinema
to learn American mating mores, including how to kiss. Today, there are
more films being produced than ever before, including movies that celebrate,
explore, challenge and some would say reify Mormon culture and the LDS
faith. How have the movies shaped your spirituality and your religion and
how you view yourself as a part of the human family?
Submissions should not exceed 800 words and should be sent to submissions@irreantum.org.
SSS
San Manuel
Years after my mission to Argentina, troubled by the distance between
appearance and substance in our everyday LDS practice and interpretation
of spirituality, I found my prideful resistance to the institutional Church
beginning to assert itself. But what started there would become, one day, a
105
questioning of the whole structure of my faith, of waking up to that disturbing revelation of no longer knowing.
I am reminded of the story Saint Manuel the Good, a melancholy
tale of a fictional parish priest, San Manuel, martyr of Spanish Catholicism
who cannot soothe his tortured unbelief. He is the spiritual invention of
Miguel de Unamuno, philosopher, novelist, essayist, dramatist, and poet of
Basque, Spain.
The story is related by Angela Carballino, a woman from San Manuels
parish in Valverde de Lucerna (Green Valley of Heavenly Light). Manuel,
whom she considers to have been the very father of her soul, is secretly a
wretched, unbelieving priest who nevertheless sacrifices himself to the feeding of his flock; feeding his sheep with a faith that to him is purest illusion,
but that for them, having been born only to die, is sweet consolation.
Through the most sweet authority of his presence, words, and voice (Angela
writes) Manuel is, like Jesus, a healer of many who are sick or who believe
themselves otherwise afflicted.
A turning point in her narrative comes when Angelas brother Lazarus
returns home with a small fortune made in America. Lazarus, initially striving to persuade his mother and twenty-four-year-old sister away from the
wiles of a corrupt Church and the feudal countryside, ends up befriended
and apparently convertedby this remarkable priest. But afterward Lazarus
reveals to Angela the truth of his unlikely resurrection. On their long walks
along the shore of Valverde de Lucernas lake, Manuel counseled Lazarus to
come back from his apostasy, for the good of the community, even if he did
not truly believe. Not to feign, Manuel explained, but something more like
dipping your fingers in holy water, to end up believing.
In the end, the tearful Manuel must reveal to this unlikely proselyte
the depths of his (the priests) own unbeliefwhat for all these years he has
hidden from his simple parishioners and now only tells Lazarus, already a
nonbelieverlest it torment Manuel so much that he end up shouting his
disillusionment in front of his congregation. He is there, after all (as is the
Church), to bring the people life, not death. Truth itself might be something
too terrible, too intolerable, too deadly for them to bear. Any religion, for that
matter, is true if it brings people toward a spiritual life, a life of peace and
consolation. Manuels religion is simply to comfort himself by comforting
others, to console with a consolation that is not his own.
I wish my own consolation were as clear-cut (not to say simple, or
easy) as Manuels. My familyat least my wife and my motherneed me
106
Readers Write
Will it be so for me? Will it be only in dying that the crust falls from my
eyes and I finally see?
Brett Alan Sanders
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Readers Write
his car. Hes a fanatic; some say when he changes oil, he leaves the drain plug
out for days to get rid of the last drop of used oil. Lee has yet to be converted
to V-8 engines.
Cars head for the exit. The first screams out south toward downtown,
tires smoking, and the next screams north, so that, just in case the police are
around, both will not get nabbed. In a few minutes a police car arrives, and
cars calm down. I put up the top on my convertible, idle to the exit, and
turn north for our 25-mile trip home. Brent and I dont talk much as we roar
through the Fort Hall Reservation, across the Blackfoot River, and stop at his
parents home on the south edge of Blackfoot. Brent opens the door to leave,
pauses, says, Pick me up for church in the morning.
At seven forty-five in the morning, Im tired and at Brents. We drive to
the Fifth Ward chapel and enter the back door into the basketball court,
where our ward holds priesthood meeting. Bishop Clarence Cox, about sixty,
wears wide suspenders to keep his slacks centered on his semicircle stomach.
Brent enters first. The bishop has to look up to see Brents eyes. He shakes
Brents hand and fusses over him. Im next. Bishop Cox grabs my hand, looks
into my face, and says, I want you on a mission in March, as soon as you
turn twenty. His eyes pierce mine and he does not smile.
Feeling pressured and ill-at-ease, I smile to lighten the moment, and wax
poetic, Your nose knows Im in no condition for a mission.
Get in condition, he replies.
But the idea of a mission kindles conflict in me. It means public speaking,
which terrorizes me, and yet I want to learn to speak in public. I want to
overcome this fear, which has haunted me all my life and even kept me from
finishing a class required for a college degree.
For the rest of the holidays, Brent and I consider our options: join the
military together or serve missions now and attend college together in the
future. Before Brent leaves, he has decided to forego the GI Bill, which
expires in weeks. If we serve missions now we lose out on its education benefits. Before leaving for Seattle, he has decided to serve a mission as soon as
he reaches 20, and he encourages me to do the same; maybe we can even go
to the same mission.
In a few days, Brent flies back to Seattle, leaving me without a peer to
encourage me toward a mission, and a week later, the army recruiter visits
my home to convince me to join the service now and to serve a mission later.
Minutes after he leaves an unexpected visitor arrives, shows me a coupon Id
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sent to enquire about diesel training. I tell him I have two weeks to decide
on the army or a mission. This stranger amazes me with, Thats easy. He
closes his brief case and for the next hour fascinates Mother, Dad and me
with stories; his father had served five missions and was his first missionary
companion.
The diesel man finishes and reaches for his briefcase. Dad walks him to
the porch door, locks it behind him, locks the kitchen door, and comes back
with the alarm clock, winding it. Time for bed. Dad says, That was some
guy.
The next day, Im at work on my temporary job on the railroad section
gang. While sweeping newly fallen snow from a railroad crossing at the north
end of Blackfoot, we watch a new Buick slow down and move to the other
side of the street to pass. Inside the car is the diesel man. I wave and he waves
back, and I wonder if he recognizes me. And it is then that I make my decision.
In the evening at home, I watch at the window for the bishop to return
home from Cox Motors, the dealership for Dodge, DeSoto, and Plymouth.
Bishop Cox has lived across the street from my parents since I was six. He
turns into his driveway, and I walk to his alcove porch and ring the doorbell.
We sit in his front room on the couch, and I relate to him the visit of the
diesel man and end by saying Ive decided to put my life in order and serve
a mission.
Bishop Cox puts his arm on my shoulder and doesnt say anything. We sit
in silence as the room dims in the last rays of the winter sun, and I begin to
focus on my mission, my thoughts slowly wandering to the future. A serene
concern eases over me as I consider my commitment and my farewell and
the talk I cannot evade.
At my farewell, I stand up, look down into the faces of my friends and
neighbors and then fix on the pulpit, not making eye contact with the audience again for the few minutes I say things I cannot now recall.
SSS
Readers Write
my church leaders said education was important for women too, and I came
to believe them. I married an accomplished public speaker, who debated in
high school and had to drop out of college when her father died. She became
a legal secretary, remained determined to get her degree, and eventually
completed it.
Public speaking, college, and marrying right became the initial steps on
my un-planned journey to graduate school and on to becoming an officer in
the Foreign Service, where my calling as a counselor to three mission presidents required me at times to speak almost weekly, in Spanish, to congregations in Ecuador and Paraguay.
I suppose the diesel man failed as a recruiter. But he helped this Idaho
boy decide to serve a mission, which opened the gates to college, to graduate
school in the East, to a career in Latin America, and to a life exceeding my
expectations.
Henry Miles
111
conversion stories, such conversion narratives always emerge for each subject
interviewed. This is sometimes due to the framing of the interview through
questions which often focus on the subjects childhood and early religious
experiences; sometimes the interviewer explicitly requests the conversion
story. Remarkably, in either case, these stories always have their own cohesive
narrative structure. The conversion stories do not emerge in bits and pieces
throughout the interview. Rather, as the topic of conversion to Mormonism
emerges in these interviews, the subject narrates the account as a structured
whole, requiring little, if any, prompting from the interviewer.
This pattern suggests that the conversion narrative itself serves as an
important reference point in the tellers identity as a Mormon. Though
these narratives have been used as sources to identify broad patterns among
church members in various ethnic groups, the cohesive narrative structures
themselves help to preserve individual voices. As Jessie Embree, director of
the Center, explains:
Oral history interviews provide important data for research, but they do more
than that. They preserve the personal voices of singular Church members,
allowing those members to talk openly about their experiences and feelings
as Latter-day Saints. The excerpts from the Redd Center interviews . . . are
the raw, unedited research data [and] . . . provide a flavor of the individuals
interviewed, their faith, and their very real concerns about how they can best
fit into the Churchs patchwork quilt. These histories are personal. (102)
114
115
Thai. I practiced English typing by myself about fifteen days before I took the
test. I went and took the test. They had over a hundred people that applied
for the job, but they wanted only fourteen people. The results came out, and
nobody passed the test.
A week after one of the department called me. They wanted me to come
to their department about the job. At that time I was so happy. I thought,
Oh, this is the answer because I did pray. When I went over, they said that
they wanted me to take the test again. While I was there, there were six
other people there. There were seven including me. I talked to all those six
other people. They all had a couple of years experience of working and typing. I was the only one that had never done any work before. I kind of felt
frustrated while I was waiting for my turn to take the test. I thought, Oh,
I know I will never get the job. I prayed while I was waiting. I prayed so
hard. When I finished the test, they didnt say anything. Two days after that
they called me that I got the job. At that time I knew that it was a blessing.
I knew that I didnt do it myself.
The people who was hiring talked to me. They said, Thusanee, do you
want to know what is your test score? I said, Yes. Show me. They said,
Here. Look at it. I looked at it. I just couldnt believe my eyes. My score was
the lowest. I asked, Why did you hire me when mine is the lowest? The
answer was, We dont know why. When we look at the picture, we just have
some kind of feeling. We just wanted you. At that time when they told me,
I knew that there was something. That was the first time when I had my own
testimony about the Church. That was when I started to believe about the
Church. I knew that I didnt do it myself.
F:
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F: Like I said before, the school that I went to was Catholic and run by nuns.
They did motivate us to go to mass every Sunday. My parents were Catholic,
but they were not very active. Maybe my dad would take us to church so that
we could tell the sisters that we had gone to church. Most of my moral values
I acquired at school. I had a very clear idea of what was wrong and right. As
I got older, we started searching for truth outside the Catholic Church.
[]
V:
F: One reason was that the nuns decided to close Vedruna. We started looking for another school. Public schooling is not very good in Puerto Rico.
That wasnt an option. The other private schools were very hard to get into.
Vedruna was a really good school. The education there was excellent. At that
time my dad had an offer for a transfer to the States with Eastern. It was the
right time. The position appeared, and they gave it to him. So we just moved.
It was the right thing.
The place that we moved to was actually called Humble, Texas right outside of Houston. They had a very good school system. It was hard at first. At
Vedruna there were thirty girls in my class. Then I moved to a school where
there were five hundred students. It was a different culture.
V:
V:
From the beginning I believed everything that the missionaries taught me.
I thought it really made sense. I could feel strongly through the spirit that it
was the right thing. I was a little bit scared. My parents didnt mind my going
to church. They were not active in any church at that point. But they thought
it might be a rush decision because it had only been three weeks since I had
been learning about the Church. They didnt want me to get baptized just yet.
They wanted me to go to church without making any commitments. But I
felt that I should. I was sure of what I was doing.
I remember I kept going to different activities. It was a hard time. I had
pressure at home. When I was at the church activities, I felt really good. I
was really confused. I remember during those three weeks I kept getting all
of these headaches. I had headaches all of the time. I slept badly. I felt really
restless. I just didnt know what to do.
I was at this Young Women and Young Men activity, and my sister Elaine
had come with me. She hadnt been taking the discussions, but she went with
me. She was feeling really good, too, and it was such a nice experience. All
F:
118
of a sudden I had this feeling of, Why not get baptized? There is just no
reason why I shouldnt. Once I decided that, I felt so peaceful. Everything
went away, the confusion, the headaches, everything. I felt so good. I told the
sister missionaries, I want to get baptized. I told my parents. They were a
little bit worried about it, but they supported me in my decision. They were
there when I was baptized. My whole family was there. It didnt take them
very long to realize that it was the right thing.
No. Before my family moved out of the reservation and went to Omaha,
most of my family was Lutheran. My great grandfather was a minister, and
my family became inactive when they moved to the city. When I was about
twelve, some ministers came to our door. They wanted to start a little church.
It consisted of a mixture of some families around our area. It was the Baptist
church.
My grandmother was always really religious. She still participated in the
Native American religion, but she also needed another religion I think to live
her daily life. She became very, very active and strong in the Baptist church
and when I was fourteen or fifteen, I was also baptized a Baptist.
Grandmother was a great believer in our Heavenly Father and a great
believer in prayer. I remember times when she would start praying the
middle of the night and still be praying when the sun came up.
I remember one day coming home from school and seeing these two men
in suits running after and chasing my little cousin. I ran to protect him. I
stopped them, and I said, What do you want? Who are you? Did he do
anything wrong? I wouldnt even let them go into my aunts house. I stood
on the porch and literally blocked them. They said they were elders of the
Latter-day Saint church and would I be interested in listening to what they
had to say. I said, Not me. But why did you chase my cousin? He said, He
T:
119
told us that if we would give him a ride home he would let his mom talk to
us. He got a free ride home, but when he got out of the car, he shot like a
rabbit across the street. Thats what you saw.
I told them to wait out on the porch. I went in and talked to my aunt.
She didnt want anything to do with them. It was on a Tuesday because they
had MIA that night. They explained that to me and said, Would you like to
come out? They said, Its just a function. Its not any religious type of thing.
Its just for the young folks to get together and have games, treats, and fun. I
asked my grandmother if I could go. I said, They will pick me up and bring
me home. She said, Okay. But she didnt want anything to do with them
either.
After we opened the door for them, they continued to come back. For
about a year they would come. Even though my grandmother was part
French, she hated white people. I remember opening the door to some white
elders wanting to come in. She would never accept any of them. They kept
in contact though. Im glad they did because one day these two brown elders
came. One was a Maori and one was Hawaiian. The Hawaiian looked just
like my brother. When my grandmother saw him, she invited them in. Thats
when the Church came into my life. Because they were brown elders, my
grandmother said it was okay for them to teach us, the little kids, the gospel.
I was a teenager at the time.
I have kind of a sad story to tell you about my baptism. When I was ten
years old, a relative of mine lived next door to us. She wanted us to go with
her. She said she was getting baptized. The elders told us to get a change
of clothes because we were going to go swimming after wards. I ran in and
asked my grandmother if we could go swimming. I asked for my two sisters
and a girl cousin, too. My cousin was eleven, and my oldest sister was twelve.
So we were really quite young. They took us to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and
baptized us without teaching us or even asking if we wanted to be baptized.
What a shame that was!
Wasnt that very strange? I remember that whole thing. I remember the
laying on of hands. I remember the baptism very clearly. I remember when
we were leaving the stake center something made me turn around. When I
turned around, above the door it had the name, The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints.
Five years had gone by and almost six, and the missionaries came again.
This time I was taught. Three weeks after I was taught, the Lamanite
120
was going to say. She showed me the letter. She had tears in her eyes. She said,
I agree with what you told me in the letter. Youve always been a good girl.
Okay, you can go to your church. The only thing I ask of you, is that when
you go to this church, be the best person you can be in that church. Okay?
I said, Okay. That was it. And I am still active today.
124
Thats the reason you couldnt pastor those churches the way that you should.
You need the power of the Holy Ghost.
I said, How do I get the Holy Ghost? At that particular moment that
same voice that was talking to me said, Coming down the aisle is a man.
Stop him and talk with him. Hell tell you what you need to do to receive
the Holy Ghost. Not thinking I jumped up, went around, and sure enough,
there was a man coming down the aisle. Not thinking I ran up to him and
said, Hey! Wait a minute. I need some help. He said, How can I help
you? I said, I was reading my Bible back there, and the Lord told me that
I needed to find out how to get the Holy Ghost. I thought he laughed at
me. He was laughing because it tickled him because I think hed witnessed to
every person in that mill, but I never had met him. He was on the way out.
He was going home. He stayed there that day, and he talked to me a long
time.
That began to happen every day. He was on one shift, and I was on another.
He was staying over an hour or two hours talking to me. He turned me over
to another guy that was on my shift. He lived in Akron, but they belonged to
the same church, The Pentecostal. They began to instruct me and teach me.
One night after he got done this fellow from Akron said, What is hindering
you from being baptized? I looked at him, and I said, Ive been baptized I
dont know how many times already. He said, That doesnt mean anything.
Youve got to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I said, Lord,
if this is what Youre leading me to do, I guess nothing is hindering me.
He got off at twelve oclock. I got off at eleven. I came home here, and
I told Barb, Theres a guy coming over. She said, Tonight? I said, Yes.
Hes coming over, and he wants to talk to me about getting baptized. She
thought I was crazy. Next thing I knew she had got herself dressed. Sure
enough at one oclock there was a knock on the door. Here he stood. He had
called his wife. Shed driven down from Akron with her friend. Here we had
all these people sitting in our living room at one oclock in the morning.
He talked to us for awhile. This one woman, I guess, had had cancer.
Itwas her testimony that moved my wife. At three oclock in the morning
this man found somebody, and they opened up a church in Canton. They
took us over to baptize us. I remember it was just shortly before five-thirty
in the morning. They got a young elder out of bed, and they baptized us in
the Pentecostal church.
The Lord told me that I lacked the power of the Holy Ghost. They were
126
of the belief that once you were baptized you had to receive the Holy Ghost
by the evidence of the speaking of tongues. They sat, and they worked with
us. I guess they called themselves spiritual midwives. They kept telling us to
say, Jesus, Jesus, holy, holy. After a while, the elder stopped, patted me on
the legs, and said, What are you thinking of praising the Lord for? I said,
I dont know. He took me through some scriptures. H said, Start saying,
Thank you, Jesus just thinking on the scriptures that you read. It wasnt two
seconds after that. Something happened. I began to speak in tongues. My
wife never did that night. She was so happy to see that I had received it. She
did receive it exactly thirty days later. I received it on my birthday which is
September 15. She received it October 15, thirty days later.
We were in the Pentecostal church for three years. We were faithful to it.
We made very meeting and became members of the choir. They had a radio
choir. They just went all over the place to sing. That was a joy for us. I had
been laid off from Diebolds after three years. We got to travel all the places
with the choir.
I was singing in the choir one day. I was up there just jumping, clapping,
and having a good time just shouting all over the place because I really
enjoyed that. The next thing I knew here came that voice again. It said, Stop
and listen to what youre singing. Listen to the words of the song. I stopped.
I listened. Then I became more or less depressed. After we finished that day,
I never went back up in that choir again. In fact, I stopped going to church.
My wife would still go to the church because she didnt understand what
had happened to me. Id go down into the basement of the house. I couldnt
understand why if I spoke in tongues once and was overcome by the Holy
Spirit, why couldnt I do it again. Paul talked about eh prayer language that
you pray every day. I couldnt do it anymore. I became troubled with that.
While she was at church, Id be down in the basement praying to the Lord.
Iwas trying to find out why I couldnt speak in tongues.
This one particular day Id been down there for about two and a half hours.
I decided I guess its not going to happen for me. Just about that time it
hit like lightning and I started speaking in tongues. I went on and on. My
wife came in from church. I was coming up the basement steps. She looked
at me all strange. She said, Whats wrong with you?! I said, I dont know.
Iasked her if I was taller. She said, Taller? What are you talking about?
Ifelt like my head was bumping up on top of the ceiling. It was almost like
I was looking down on top of things. She said, No. You look the same to
127
me! From that time on I started having great experiences with the Lord but
not in the church services.
One particular night that was a young peoples night, and they had a
young woman that was preaching. When she got done preaching, she asked
if there was anybody that wanted a double portion of the Spirit. Like a shot
I was up and I was down to the altar. I wanted a double portion of the Lords
Spirit. There was a little nine-year-old boy that was there. The pastor of the
church and everybody was there at the altar lined up. The Spirit hit me, and
I got to speaking in tongues. It just me like a ton of bricks. I and this little
nine-year-old boy. Everybody else had said their prayers and had gone. I was
still down there, and this little nine-year-old boy was still there. They had
closed the service, and everybody was going home. I was still at it. The little
nine-year-old boy was still at it.
Then they finally did get me up off of my knees. Things started getting
funny. I guess I had gotten an overdose of the Spirit. I actually got drunk in
the Spirit because my friend said, Brother, better straighten up here because
these folks are going to think youre drunk. I laughed. I ran all around the
church. There was this one little woman that they called church mother. My
mother-in-law was with us. She didnt understand what was going on. She
thought Id lost my mind. That one church mother said, Youve got to stop
because shes going to think youre crazy and think weve done something to
you. Theyre going to think youre drunk. When she said drunk, that did it.
I laughed and ran around the church. She was running behind me trying to
catch me. They finally got me in the car. I went home; I was still speaking
in tongues. I got so I sat on the side of the bed. I tried to undress. I was still
speaking in tongues.
Then I began to see visions of African people. I was speaking and singing
in their dialect. I was seeing them in the vision, and I was singing in their
dialect. My wife was laughing at me. I tried to say to her, Dont laugh at me,
but I was still with the beat. I remember falling asleep that night. While I
was asleep, I still saw visions of those African people. The Lord sat two gifts
on me that night. I wont say exactly what they were. I dont know what the
purpose of them was, but thats been several years ago now. Nothing has ever
happened.
I never went back to the Pentecostal church after that. My experiences
were great that I received at home.
I had been out of work, so I found a job driving over the road as a truck
128
driver for a company out of Dover, Ohio. I worked with them for several
months. I was driving around the beltway in Washington, D.C. It was about
six oclock in the evening. There was a terrible storm that night. I was listening to the spirituals on the radio on a Washington station. I heard an unusual
sound or a voice. I turned the radio down and I didnt hear anything, so I
turned it back up. I went a little further, and I heard it again, a little louder.
I turned it down again. Still I couldnt make it out. I turned the radio back
up. The next time it was almost like it hollered. I turned the radio off. When
I turned it off, the voice continued. It said, Dont let me catch you with
your work undone. I questioned, Lord, what does this mean? What do you
mean? I never really received an answer back from that. I took it to mean it
was time for me to stop fooling around, go on back into the church, and do
what I was supposed to do.
I came back off of that trip, gave the man my two weeks notice, and went
o my father who was a district supervisor or a presiding elder over twentyseven churches. He just happened to have an opening in one church. He
wanted me to go up, hold it temporarily, and take it into the conference
for him that October. This was March which meant that I had to keep the
church open up until the annual conference. I did that. At the annual conference they appointed me pastor of Allen Chapel in Ravenna, Ohio.
I pastured that little church for over two years. I was there preaching and
teaching the things that Id learned really in the Pentecostal church. Even
though I had a strong AME church background, my beliefs were more
towards the Pentecostal than any other religion that I had any affiliations with.
After two and a half years, they appointed me to another church, a larger
church, was in Alliance, Ohio. The requirements at that church were I could
not work any job. I had to be a full-time pastor. They had a beautiful parsonage there. It was a brand new parsonage. They paid a decent salary plus they
paid the hospitalization for the pastor so that everything was lined up very
well. That sounded pretty good. It looked like it was going to pay us off in
blue chips. It looked like things were really lining up good for us.
One of the requirements of them sending me to that church was they had
a school in Alliance that was a Methodist college. The requirement for me to
keep the church that I had was that I had to enroll there as a full-time student
so that I could get my B.A. degree and go on into seminary. All I had was
the training and the schooling that I had gotten from the AME church.
I enrolled as a full-time student at Mount Union College in Alliance. After
129
about five months I became very depressed. I couldnt figure it out except hat
I knew that I wasnt doing what I felt that I needed to be doing. I was very
unhappy. I didnt really go along with a lot of the doctrinal teachings of the
AME church even though I was born into that church. I knew that there was
a lot about it that left a lot to be desired.
I had a two-hour break between my classes at school. I used that two
hours this one particular day just for prayer. I sat out in my car, and I prayed
hard. In the meantime my wife was taking care of an elderly woman on the
other side of Alliance. I had no idea that she was praying too because she
knew I was unhappy. She was unhappy. We knew that something had to
break. I was searching for what I felt to be Gods truth. I had to have the
real truth, and I had to know for a certainty that this was Gods truth and
not something that man had concocted. After Id finished praying those two
hours, I went on back to my class.
I came home, and my wife told me that she had talked to two young girls
while she was out there on her job. I just more or less shrugged it off. I heard
her, but I didnt hear her. About two days later she mentioned again about
these two girls. I said, What two girls? She said, I told you about hem.
They want to come over and sit down and talk with us. That particular day I
had had a bad day because I had just come out of a business meeting with an
officer of the church over some frivolous matter. It left me in a very bad and
an angry mood. She said, They coming over at five-thirty. I said, Theyre
coming over today? She said, Yes. If you dont want to talk to them, you
can go downstairs, or Ill go downstairs and you can stay upstairs. Or you can
go to your room. I didnt relish the idea of being sent o my room. I decided
Id sit and listen to whatever these young girls had to say.
When they got there, they introduced themselves. They told us that they
were LDS missionaries. They had badges on their dresses. She said, Were
Mormons. I didnt know what a Mormon was. I didnt really care because
I was mad anyway. When they sat down and they began their discussion, I
was waiting for an opportunity to chase the young girls home because I was
mad anyway. I didnt figure there was anything that they could tell me. They
did the discussion.
When they got done, they showed a filmstrip of the First Vision, as they
called it, about Joseph Smith in the grove. About midway through that filmstrip that same voice that had come to me on other occasions said, Thats
what you were praying to me about the other day. At that time that perked
130
131
Book Reviews
Compelling Coming-of-Age Novel
A review of Katie Parkers Just the Way You Are (Spring Creek Book
Company, 2005)
by Robin Parkinson
Katie Parker got her start in Mormon literature writing an AMLList column that covered romance and young adult fiction. Her
column not only took popular fiction seriously but also did a great
job of explaining it to readers who were not necessarily fans. In a way this
novel accomplishes the same thing. It embraces the conventions of young
adult literature but is written with enough skill to be of interest to readers
who are not fans of the genre.
Just the Way You Are follows the adventures of LaNae, a Latter-day Saint
student at the University of Oklahoma, and the ups and downs of social life
centered at the Institue. Midway through the novel, LaNae is in the computer lab when a friend shows her a way to reveal passwords. She tries it out
on accounts belonging to her friends at Institute, and then thinks no more of
it. But LaNae is annoyed at Emmett, one of the boys at Institute, for not asking her on a second date. A few days later she finds herself in the computer
lab again.
Suddenly I have a slightly devious, slightly mean idea. What if I log into
Emmetts account for a minute and see what hes got there? I still remember
his password. I dont remember anyone elses, but Emmetts has stuck with
me. I wont hurt anything. And I wont look at anything that looks personal.
She doesnt intend to snoop but stumbles onto a program Emmett uses to
rate the Institute girls hes dated in various categories: beauty, sense of humor,
homemaking, musical abilities, commitment to the Church, love of dogs.
I picture myself telling the girls back at the dorm about this, and picture them
hanging on to my every word. (You guys will never believe this, but Emmett
Potters got all of our names in a computer program!)
133
When LaNae discovers that Emmett has given her a low rating, she is so
annoyed that she decides to play a prank on him. She elevates the scores of
her friend Jane, who thinks Emmett is strange. LaNae doesnt stop to consider that Emmett uses the program because he feels unsure of himself and
doesnt trust his own judgment. As the title suggests, this is a novel about
figuring out who you are and your place is in the world.
LaNae, Emmett, and Jane, all freshmen at the University, are the three
principle characters in Just the Way You Are. The point of view shifts between
LaNae and Jane mostly, with occasional chapters by Emmett, an e-mail interlude with multiple authors, and one or two chapters in third person with
no narrator named.
LaNae is the character with whom I most identified. Her given name is
actually Cathashe comes up with LaNae in the first chapter, when she
leaves for college, by rearranging the letters of her middle name. The nagging
voice in the background of all Cathas waking thoughts is that of her father,
who is verbally and sometimes physically abusive. For example, Emmett
notes in his program that he is comfortable with LaNae but that comfortable doesnt get you the princess. Catha, on reading this, thinks, No, I am
definitely not a princess. Youre stupid, you cant do anything right, your brains
always in park, I hear my fathers voice tell me. Hes right, as always. She
doesnt want to be Catha any more because she believes that everyone will
judge and dislike her because of her family situation. In the course of the
novel, she discovers that changing how you feel about yourself is a lot harder
than changing your name.
Jane, by contrast, is confident about being out on her own and is sure
she has the answers, both for herself and others. She spent her teen years
coaxing and cajoling a friend to church and mutual without ever realizing
the friend had a drinking problem. Now she is mad both at her friend, for
not measuring up, and at herself, for not noticing. Jane loans a Tabernacle
Choir CD to a Baptist girl down the hall but is judgmental when the Baptist
girl brings her a Christian rock CD in return. Jane learns that Emmett has
been dating every girl in Institute once and taking them all on the same date.
When he asks out LaNae, Jane decides it would be better for LaNae not to
know. When LaNae learns of the deception, Jane learns the hard way that
her self-assuredness might be a form of arrogance.
One of the funniest parts of the novel occurs when LaNae decides to turn
the tables on Emmett and Jane by breaking into the computer account to
134
Book Reviews
135
Faraway Child is about Jennifer, a young mother dealing with life in general,
which can be very difficult for anyone with small children around. But her
two-year-old daughter Kaye is particularly challenging; she screams and has
fits when she does not get her way. Continually trying to keep her quiet
enough and presentable in public is wearing Jennifer out. At first she assumes
that its just the terrible twos, but Kayes behavior continues to worsen. At
a friends suggestion she has her daughter evaluated and learns that she is
autistic.
This book is neither a romance nor a suspense novel, which is refreshing.
Emotional elements are still prominent in the book as Jennifer attempts
to deal with various relationships in light of how she must deal with Kaye.
Jennifers journey from inactivity in the Church and feeling like the world is
caving in on her to a turn to the Lord and feeling a semblance of being able
to handle things is very believable.
Other people she must learn to deal with include her husband, who is
struggling as a student and as the familys sole breadwinner; her older child,
who seems to be ignored and forgotten far too often; her sister, who has
always been a close friend but is now moving across the country; her motherin-law, who is quick to condemn Jennifer for Kayes behavior; and the goodygoody nursery leader at church who refuses to watch Kaye. Although Jennifer
does not feel like they can or should ask for help, her husband quickly asks
the bishop for the help they need so their little family can receive the spiritual
strength that they crave and not fall in on itself. And the help does come.
There are little miracles as Kaye is assigned her own personal Primary teacher
and attends a school for autistic children. While her condition does not
change, Jennifer finds hope in watching her behavior improve bit by bit.
Even though the gist of the storys ending is obvious from the beginning
Kaye will still be autistic at the endthe familys ongoing struggles kept me
interested and turning page after page to see what would happen next and
how Jennifer would handle it. Wadsworth does a magnificent job of showing
the frustrations of life with Kaye, yet also showing her unique personality
and how she is truly a blessing to her family:
136
Book Reviews
I spotted Kaye standing next to the giant sunflowers that lined the back fence.
They were taller than she was, and Kaye stared at the huge brown center of
one flower. It was almost as big and round as her face, and she looked at it so
closely, the tip of her nose was covered with brown pollen. Tenderly, with a
light enough touch to barely move the flower, Kaye traced the outside of one
of the petals. She touched the prickly stem, stared at her fingers, then got on
her tiptoes to put her face next to the heavy flower. It seemed to dip its head
to kiss her cheek.
Look how beautiful that is, Jen. She sees things none of the rest of us see.
Brienne [Jennifers sister] sighed, then rose from her seat to start clearing the
table. (41)
Code Red begins with a fascinating premise, as set forth in the books preface:
Adults always seemed to get angrier when they discovered a child had overheard their quarrel, and these men were already angry enough. (Nicole)
huddled deeper into the thick brush where she had been picking berries. . . .
She examined more thoroughly what she could see of the man who stood
with his back to her. Though she couldnt see his face, she could tell he was a
little taller than either of the other two men. He had wide shoulders like her
father, and the way he stood was the posture she knew so well. Dad wasnt due
back until tonight, but he might have come home early, she thought with a
thrill of excitement. . . .
The soldier facing her said something, and the soldier with his back to her,
the one she was becoming convinced was her father, lunged toward him. That
was when she noticed his hands were tied behind his back. . . . She heard a
small pop and watched the soldier who might be her father crumple to the
137
The rest of the story takes place years later. Nicole is now a new college
graduate who, when she was eleven years old, witnessed a killing of a man
whom she suspected at the time was her father. Her fathers mysterious disappearance coincided with that event, but her mother and doctors believed
that she was mentally unstable and had made up the whole scene. Now she is
back in the same area (Fort Lewis, Washington) to stay with her sister whose
husband is deployed in Iraq. Her fathers disappearance was never satisfactorily explained, and Nicole is ready to search around Fort Lewis for answers.
Fortunately she also meets a handsome young single LDS guy who helps her
in her quest.
Code Red is pretty standard romantic suspense. Theres a romance developing, and theres a mystery to be solved, and theres danger as attacks on
Nicole repeatedly surface out of the blue. Someone out there does not want
her to learn the truth about what happened to her father. The story is clean
and the characters are true to their LDS beliefs. Religion really seems to be
peripheral in this story; while the main characters are all LDS and go to
church and so forth, there arent too many moments of spiritual reflection,
and the story could easily translate to the national market. Fans of LDS
romantic suspense will enjoy this one.
138
Book Reviews
Greg Wests book is titled The Gathering: Signs of the TimesA Novel of
Millennial Fiction. Fans of the Department of Redundancy Department will
smile at that last phrasearent all novels fiction?
The setting is the year 2009. The world is in a state of turmoil, with the
U.S. facing major catastrophes and formidable foes overseas. China has
become a real threat to American security; North Korea is making war-like
noises. And, to make things worse, a new computer virus is set to explode on
the world scene, bringing entire economies to their knees.
When Congress convenes secret hearings into the problem, an extraordinary scheme is hatchedsince the virus is timed to go off on a certain date,
the world should immediately change to a different way of marking the date.
Now, add to this mix the startling announcement that we have been visited
by extraterrestrials, and that they are now angling to take over the worlds
governments, and you have something of a wild story.
Behind all this are some well-described and developed characters, some
of whom are Latter-day Saints. As they view the terrible events before them,
they recognize the fulfillment of prophecies, and look to the Prophet of the
Church to give them guidance. One of the central characters, a young man
named Jared Walsh, is killed in military action early in the book, but he
maintains a vigil over his family. His father, Ron, is a leader in their ward in
Alaska, and takes a commanding role in guiding the Saints away from danger
and into a safe place.
The author clearly considers the prophecies and teachings of both the
scriptures, and of the Mormon leadership, to be authoritative. And, in truth,
he captures the spirit of the apocalyptic, end-time view very nicely. Despite
what sounds like an absurd premise (extraterrestrials, changing the way we
mark dates), he actually weaves the thing into a compelling and interesting
book.
But . . . the book is self-published. As so often happens with self-published
works, this book suffers from a serious need of editing. Punctuation is so
erratic that the reader is often distracted from the story. An example:
139
Now, except for the words Ron explained, the rest is a single quote. This
type of messy stuff is so extensive that, even as a fairly patient reader, I found
myself distracted and disturbed. Surely this could have been fixed before the
book went to press.
Another example has the President of the Church saying the following:
It is evident, that as our government has not the power to save us; that we
should prepare to defend ourselves. (184)
I purchased Grace Notes: The Waking of a Womans Voice after hearing author
Heidi Hart speak about her interfaith marriage. Hart was raised a Mormon,
was married in the temple, and converted to Quakerism eleven years later.
Her husband remains committed to Mormonism, teaching gospel doctrine
and taking their two sons to LDS services regularly. As an active Mormon
who is curious about the Society of Friends (and who attends the local liberal
140
Book Reviews
closed door of their sickroom. She also looks at the closed doors in her life:
lost opportunities, the suppression of her true self, the imposing door to
her fathers study behind which he hides when he is angry. In the following
passage, Hart combines the threads of silence, her marriage to Kent, her
sickroom, and the negative heritage passed down by her parents:
If its true that people find partners who expose the work they must do in order
to grow, I found someone whose silences asked me, though I didnt know it
at first, to learn to break them. In the apartments and houses where Kent and
I spent the first decade of our marriage, we played out the same pattern my
parents had during my childhoodbut with me behind the locked door. In
our first apartment, I chose the bathroom. Like my adolescent sickroom, it
server as both refuge and escape. When Kent sulked because Id left crumbs on
the counter or forgotten to shop with coupons, his silence filled the rooms like
water. The bathroom was the only one with a lock. I stayed in there to stem
the flood. Before my wedding, my mothers only wisdom had been Youll cry
every day for the first year. I did. (60)
Hart also struggles with accepting her body. She traces the source of her
ambivalent and sometimes hateful attitude towards her body back to her grandmother, who hides her disgusting body under perfumes, and her mother,
whose body was a diary of shame and fear and who taught her daughter
to hide her body under a thick mask of makeup. She uses her newfound
voice to reclaim her body: I could word my way back to my body. I could
try to see from inside my own skin, not as Id viewed it from the outside
since I was ten, as a bleeding burden or as church property or as my husbands private treasure . . . [then] I came to the poem I knew I had to write.
Revisit the moment of your most passive silence, came a whisper inside of me.
Give the girl you were a voice (16869). Hart then launches into a harrowing
account of her pre-marriage hymenotomy, the violent taking of her virginity
by a patronizing physician. By giving voice to this girl, long silent and long
silenced, Hart has given others a voiceshe has said the things that others
perhaps have not courage to say.
Much of Harts struggle is against the institutions that are at the center
of Mormon religious life. Harts journey is essentially a long struggle against
conformity, against the claims which Mormonism, men, and the culturally
mandated role of the Angel in the House had on her body and spirit. She
142
Book Reviews
144
Contributors
Phyllis Barber is the author of And the Desert Shall Blossom: A Novel;
Parting the Veil: Stories from a Mormon Imagination; The School
of Love; How I Got Cultured: A Nevada Memoir (winner of the
Associated Writing Program Award for Creative Nonfiction, 1991); and Legs:
The Story of a Giraffe. Raised in southern Nevada, she now resides in Salt
Lake City.
Mark Bennion teaches writing and literature courses at BYU-Idaho. When not
teaching, he and his wife, Kristine, enjoy venturing to remote corners of the
United States and beyond.
served a mission in Melbourne, Australia, and
worked as an editor at the LDS Churchs Ensign magazine. A graduate of
Emerson College and Brigham Young University, he co-founded and edited
Irreantum and the satirical Mormon newspaper The Sugar Beet. He is the coauthor with Jana Riess of Mormonism for Dummies (Wiley, 2005).
Christopher Kimball Bigelow
Deja Earley
Matthew K. Heiss
145
Jeff Needle
is the author of the LDS novel Just the Way You Are and has
reviewed LDS fiction for a number of years. Her work has also appeared in
the New Era and Westview. She lives and writes in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
She maintains a blog at katieparker.blogspot.com and a website at www
.katieparker.net.
Katie Parker
146
Contributors
gies. Her published books are Deer in the Haystacks (Ahsahta Press, 1984) and
Watermark (winner Eileen Barnes competition, Saturday Press, N.J., 1991).
is an evolutionary ecologist in the Department of Integrative
Biology at Brigham Young University. His poetry has appeared in Dialogue
and BYU Studies.
Steven L. Peck
University, Long Beach. He lives with his wife Jana and their two children
in Irvine, California.
Irreantum
Call for Submissions
Upcoming issues will focus on Film and Religion,
Poetry, and The Mormon Stage. We seek submissions of critical essays on these topics, as well
as short stories, personal essays, and poetry. We
especially would like to see translations of works
written by, for, or about Mormons in languages
other than English. Send inquiries or electronic
manuscripts (MSWord, WordPerfect, or rtf files) to
submissions@irreantum.org.
147
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