Volume 14, Number 2 (2012)

Irreantum Staff
Editor Josh Allen
Poetry Editor Jim Richards
Book Review Editor Scott Hales
Layout Marny K. Parkin

Association for Mormon Letters Board

President Margaret Blair Young
Past President Boyd Petersen
Board Members Mark Brown, Dennis Clark, Eric Samuelsen, Philip Snyder,
Charles Swift
Secretary Darlene Young
Membership Secretary Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury
Treasurer D. Matthew Jarman
Awards Coordinator Dennis Clark
Webmaster Jacob Proffitt
Blog Moderator Jonathan Langford
AML-List Moderator Stephen Carter

Front cover: Errand by Carla Jimison

Irreantum (ISSN 1518-0594) is published twice a year by the Association for Mormon Letters (AML), PO Box 581422, Salt Lake City, UT 84158; www.irreantum.org.
Irreantum vol. 14, no. 1 (2012) 2013 by the Association for Mormon Letters. All
rights reserved. Membership and subscription information can be found at the end of
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Views expressed in Irreantum do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or
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MLA International Bibliography.

 5 From the Editor

Fiction

21 Scott M. Roberts The Revelations of Douglas Chandler

65 Warren Hatch Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

Poetry

44 Doug Talley Maple Tree as a Study in Quiet Exuberance; A

Few Answers for the Blue Roving Sky; After Years of Fidelity, a
Meekness; Sweeping Confession like an Arc across the Sky
62 Jim Papworth And We Turn; As Memory Fades
112 Robert Brown Matzevah; The Martyr; If I Had Possession
over Judgment Day; The Desecration of My Familys Dead
Pets

Creative Nonfiction
Critical Essay
Reviews

7 Justin Kennington Dominant Hands

49 Kylie Turley Chronic
85 Andrew Bud Adams Mormon Faith, Fantastic
Transformation, and Free Will
123 Kjerste Christensen A New Look at an Old Story:
Character Motivation in James Goldbergs The Five Books
ofJesus
129 Christopher Cunningham Mormon Girl Explains It All
Joanna Brookss The Book of Mormon Girl
135 Scott Hales At the Crossroads of Mormon Fiction
Helynne Holstein Hansens Voices at the Crossroads
141 About the Artist
142 Contributors

Volume 14, Number 2 (2012)

-r-ntum
And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum,
which, being interpreted, is many waters.
1 Nephi 17:5

Irreantum is a refereed journal published twice annually

(Fall/Winter, Spring/Summer) by the Association for Mormon Letters.
We seek to define the parameters of Mormon literature broadly,
acknowledging a growing body of diverse work that reflects the
increasing diversity of Mormon experience. We wish to publish the
highest quality of writing, both creative and critical.
We welcome unsolicited submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and plays that address the Mormon experience either directly
or by implication. We also welcome submissions of critical essays that
address such works, in addition to popular and nonprint media (such
as film, folklore, theater, juvenile fiction, science fiction, letters, diaries,
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Please visit www.Irreantum.MormonLetters.org for submission instructions. Only electronic submissions will be considered.

From the Editor

I live in Rexburg, Idahoone of the quietest towns Ive

ever seen. Tucked into one corner of a high-mountain desert, we
boast just two movie theaters, three grocery stores, a handful of banks,
a couple of places to buy clothes, and one Wal-Mart. At roughly ten
oclock on weeknights and at around midnight on weekends, this little
village shuts down completely.
After the shut-down, these are things I cannot hear:
1. The hum of trucks on a nearby highway.
2. The clanking of late-night construction projects.
3. The slamming of car doors by neighbors coming and going.
The place, Im telling you, is quiet. Library quiet. And yet, I am
tiredso very tiredof noise. Even in my Idaho hamlet, there seems
to be so much of it. And its everywhere. Admittedly, Ive courted much
of this noise. Ive longed for it. Craved it. Ive even made my fair share
of it, and some of it, I deeply cherish. But still, the noise worries me.
Theres early morning noisethe scraping of snow shovels on sidewalks at 6:00a.m., the rumble of school buses zigzagging across town,
the loud slap of water jetting out of the showerhead and onto the tiled
floor. And there are the anxious cries of children who cant find their
homework, their shoes, their backpacks.
Theres professional noisethe endless back-and-forth between
administrators and professors on the college campus where I work,
the not-so-whispered hallway arguments, the grand philosophical
debates, the obviously personal disputes. All over campus, theres the
racket of students in groups trying to talk over students in other groups.
And there are the ringing noisesthe incessant beeping of cell phones,
the constant (but somehow still surprising) ding that announces the
arrival of an email, the digital jingle that accompanies the receipt of a text
message.
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Irreantum

And theres the mostly pleasant noise of home. Sometimes at the

end of a day, when Im walking from my car to the front door, I hear
my four young children before I even see them. Maybe my twelve-yearold is playing jazz piano, banging out a clumsy 2-5-1 chord progression
that drifts into the street. Or maybe my ten-year-old is practicing for
his next drum lesson. He might be is his room, wailing on his snare
drum and his high-hat while his right foot stomps out a heavy bass
beat that can be heard three houses down.
There are, of course, noises that I hatealways. The worst, Ive discovered, are the noises that I dont hear out loud. Im talking about the noises
that buzz in my head, the clanging that comes from knowing that even
now, as I write these words, a list of tasks is piling up. There are floors to
be vacuumed. Papers to be graded. Im talking about the noise of daily
rigor. For me, this noise is always paired with the noise of self-doubt. The
noise of insecurity. The noise of internal skeptical voices, endlessly talking.
So much noise. And here is a truth:
Im afraid of all this noise. Like too much junk food, too much
noise is bad for us, and I worry about what the noise is doing to me.
No matter how valuable or educational or important or beautiful any
of my noise might be, I know that noise takes things from us and that
art moves in stillness.
To become artists, we must seek out silence. We must stop the
voices in our heads. We must escape the world of beeps and dings and
scrapes and chatters if for only a few minutes each day.
Thats not easy in 2013. The noise that comes our way wants our affections. It demands them. More than this, noise wants us to join into sit
at the piano, to turn on the TV, to crank up the radio, to further the debate.
But artists must want more than these things. We must want a minute to stop and think. A minute to read. A minute to write.
So here is my wish for you:
May you take this little book somewhere quiet. May you find a momentary escape from noise. May you, for a time, still the voices in your head.
And may you sit and read and think.
Josh Allen
6

Dominant Hands
Justin Kennington

The umpire shall be the judge of the men ...

he shall have the power to disqualify men.
From Dr. Naismiths original 13 rules of basketball

One day when I was in third grade, Mrs. Atkins handed

each of us two famous sayings with the last few words omitted. The
idea was that students would fill in the blanks with their own rewritten wisdom. My first quote to complete was, You can lead a horse
to water, but__________. Remembering my cowboy grandfathers
warnings, I finished the saying as, you can lead a horse to water, but
dont get behind it. The second quotation I remember as being more
obscure to a third-grade mind: A rolling stone gathers__________.
Eventually, I penciled in another warning, this one from a rock hounding trip with my Dad: A rolling stone gathers everything in its way.
Underneath both quotes, Mrs. Atkins had written the instructions,
Now, write your own phrases to live by. These were easy. My first one
read, Dont run and eat at the same time. The second was, I hope I
get a dog. The third, decorated with a border of five-pointed stars, read,
I want to be a star basketball player. I underlined the word startwice.
The basketball courts Ive played on range from a twenty-two thousand
seat arena with a spring loaded floor and jumbo-tron to a blacktop
backyard with a barbed wire fence and sheep pen as the out-of-bounds.
In retrospect, I never really had a preference for any one place; each
courts personality adds such a unique element to the game that I never
1st place, 2012 Irreantum Personal Essay Contest

Irreantum

could be bored. A low ceiling, for example, makes you take any arch
out of your jump-shot. On blacktop, a ball bounces differently and on
the dirt of a country court, a stray dog or chicken might play your sixth
man. A big arena can mess with your depth perception so that even
great shooters often spend the first quarter of a game chucking the ball
right over the backboard.
The two constants in every place I played were ten-foot rims and
Dad. He never missed a game I played. He was there at my first game
when our Hoytsville Hotshots, an eager team of scrawny boys in
shorts so big they looked like Elizabethan bloomers, lost thirty-two
to two. Our only score came when the opposing team got mixed up at
half time and made a basket for us. As I got older, attending games got
harder, but he still made it to every one, even if it meant getting up at
3:00 a.m. to get to work by 5:00 a.m. so he could leave at noon to drive
five hours to watch me play. He came through my college days until,
finally, he wore out and died while watching me play for a city-league
championship. In my family, basketball was, literally, life and death.
And I remember every court where I learned about both.
It is a Saturday in mid-December, and I am 10 years old. My legs are too
skinny to hold up my socks and my legs goose-pimple against the cold in
the small gym. It is a Mormon church with a small court, and although I
get to play because Dad is the ecclesiastical leader, I am allowed no heat
and only one set of lights to keep costs down. Ten folding chairs stand in
a straight line in front of me. Dad nods to them and leaves for his office.
He is a Bishop, a laymans calling which requires that he volunteer his time
as counselor, confidante, and sometimes judge to the congregation which
makes up over eighty percent of our town. Hell return in about three
hours to see what Ive learned, so I dribble through the chairs, running fast,
head up, rump down, switching hands so my body is always between the
next chair and the ball. Over and over, until Im no longer chasing the ball
through a maze, but sliding through opponents without needing to look.
I have 5 brothers who all played the game at various levels and in
diverse places. The two oldest, Kirk and Blaine, played in Europe,
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Kennington: Dominant Hands

Texas, and Canada; I played in Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom,

and across the Western United States; Matt and the twins played in
the smallest of small-town Utah. We all learned in different gyms but
we all learned the same things in the same way: drilling fundamentals while absorbing a steady if not exactly verbal commentary on our
performance.
Make a bounce pass. Keep your head up. Bend your knees. Close
down the passing lane. See the whole court. Not a chest pass, I told
you a bounce pass. Box out on the rebound. Youre dropping your
elbow. Keep the ball low. Dont leave your feet on defense. Dont
back down from anyone. Play hard, but if I ever catch you playing
dirty, itll be your last game. Give me five scrappy team players who
score 10 points a piece over a team with a forty-point scorer; do the
math. Ninety percent of basketball happens away from the ball. Stop.
Point out all your options. Everyone practices shooting, but shooting
doesnt win games. Defense does. If your shot is off, you can always
play defense. Watch your man; hes got some weakness in his game.
Find it. If you try to play him straight up hell beat you. Find out what
he likes to do, which hand he favors and take that away. Anticipate.
Force him into playing the game on your terms.
Nowadays, being able to do all this simultaneously probably has
an impressive sounding name, something like multitasking, but its
really just good basketball.
Ive always been struck by how American, indeed, how human, the
story of the invention of basketball is. How an educator in New England, Dr. James Naismith, was given two weeks to devise a winter
physical education experience that would appeal to a group of bored,
unruly students. His first attempts were failures, but on the last day,
driven in part by a determination not to fail and a stubborn refusal
to give into his students boredom, he created a game, the popularity
and influence of which must have exceeded any expectations he originally had. I love the story because its an example of a game literally
taking on the characteristics of its creator and the circumstances of
its birth. Basketball is a game of skill, determination, and serendipity.
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Its also a great way to keep students happy. It saved my professional

career.
As a greenie teacher not even out of college, I was having trouble
with a group of rowdy 8th grade boys who had run out their previous three teachers. In my first week, they had me on the verge of
quitting, but I hated the idea of losing to a few prepubescent bullies, so I stayed. Finally, one particularly bad day, I dont know why,
I put my chalk down and told the kids we were going to the gym. I
picked the three rowdiest boys and told them that if they beat me
Id take them to McDonalds, but if I beat them, they had to bring
treats to a class party. They grinned evilly. McDonalds wasnt much
incentive, but the chance to beat a teacher in front of the girls was.
Itucked my tie into my shirt, checked the ball at the three-point line
and walloped them. Brenda, whod volunteered to hold my glasses,
handed them back shyly: I think youre going to be a good teacher.
While never quite friendly, the rowdies never gave me trouble again
and, in fact, they would tell others in the class to Shut up so we can
listen to Mr.K. Fifteen years later, I still take problem students out
on the court; I still win, though thats because Ive learned to adjust
the game to fit my slowing legs and devolving jump shot. Thank you,
Dr.Naismith.
At the conclusion of his second year in dental school, Blaine qualified for UNC Chapel Hills top summer externship. The problem was
another student qualified, and the committee refused to be responsible for choosing who would be awarded the scholarship. Told to
work it out between themselves, Blaine and the student met for lunch.
Blaine suggested flipping a coin. The other student, noting a six-inch
height differential in his favor, suggested a game of one-on-one, winner take all. Blaine, who is noted for his honesty but not always tact,
shrugged: All right with me, but, fair warning, if we do it this way, I
will beat you. Are you sure? The other student was, and Blaine got
his externship.
Much later, I asked Blaine how he managed to win. He grinned, I
admit he was beating me at first. Actually, he was better than me with
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Kennington: Dominant Hands

his right hand. So I made him go left every time. And I think I wanted
it more than he did.
In each gym, Dad had a knack for finding the place to sit where he
could orchestrate the game, moving players by the force of his will as
if he were playing a sort of speed chess. He never took notes, but he
remembered every play and would tabulate statistics in his head and
formulate game plans. He had an honorary seat in Kirks home gym
in Karlsruhe, Germany. The coacha history teacher who had never
played the gamewould send Kirk to get Dads advice at the half and
then pass the information on to his players.
Dad usually sat behind the opponents bench. At one of my highschool games in Park City, a school then known for its dirty play, he got
fed up with watching one of the Park City players kneeing people in the
thigh, elbowing them in the stomach, or grabbing their testicles. It was
clear the coachs strategy was to win by getting someone injured enough
to put him out of the game. Dad started up an imaginary conversation
with himself concerning the qualities of a real ballplayer. Though sotto
voce, the comments were loud enough that the coach could hear and when
the conversation began addressing the characteristics of a good coach, the
coach lost his cool, cut loose with a tirade of loud profanity, and eventually
had to be ushered off the court by the police. His coaching contract was
not renewed. I dont think Dad meant for the man to lose his job, but he
wouldnt just stand by and watch someone desecrate the game.
Dr. Naismith disliked profanity. Never used it himself and didnt
allow it in others playing the game. The worst cursing I ever heard
from Dad was a ritualistic, pre-game Give em hallelujah. I think Dad
and Naismith would have enjoyed sitting together in the stands.
Delivering Dr. Naismiths eulogy in 1939, Theodore Aszman, said,
No one ever heard him yell at a game or wave his hat. He was not
the sportster, but the student; not the vociferous fan, but the analyst.
Dad never joined in cheers, either, not even the Otis Brown cheer.
The Otis Brown cheer was created during Kirks era. Otis was a
third stringer who only played if there was a 30-point spread either
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way. During such a game, the crowd started chanting, Otis, Otis, Otis
Brown, we want Otis Brown. Finally, the coach relented. Otis dashed
to the scorers table, stripped off his warm-ups and ran to his defensive spot. In the dead silence that followed, the referee put his arm
around Otis shoulder and said, Son, I think you forgot something.
Since he never got into games, Otis hadnt bothered to put his shorts
on and had forgotten that in his excitement to finally play. When he
came back on court to finish the game fully clothed, he got a standing
ovation and for the rest of the season, the crowds favorite cheer, no
matter the score, was, Otis, Otis, Otis Brown, we want Otis Brown.
At the end of the year banquet, I swear Im not making this up, he was
given a special award as the best athletic supporter of the year.
Much as Dad laughed privately at the Otis story, he never joined
the crowds chants. Instead, he chose to remark on what could be
learned from Otis. Aside from the obvious lesson to double-check
your uniform, he pointed out the guts it took for Otis to keep playing
hard every day when he knew he would seldom if ever get into a game:
Its easy to play hard when everything is going well, but a real ballplayer plays hard and smart no matter what. You never give up. Never.
The sessions began sometime in the 7th or 8th grade. I call them sessions because I can think of no other word to describe Dads postgame lectures and antics. Hed replay the game from memory, forcing
me to analyze every moment, choice, and its outcome. Unfortunately,
his photographic mind chose to filter out anything positive. Sessions
went on for hours in the car on the way home, and on bad days continued around the dinner table long after Id cried myself into a stupor. Sometimes theyd get physical if during the game I had missed
a box-out or hadnt taken a charge. Id be forced to show him what I
should have done and because he was a big man Id have to push and
shove just to maintain position which always lead to him demonstrating the right way to do it and me on the floor with bruises coming,
though never on my face, never where they could be seen easily. Twice,
I remember him using his fists, and perhaps even worse, making me
fight back. I was always weak enough to do it.
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Kennington: Dominant Hands

One of the greatest basketball movies of all time is Hoosiers. Set

in the basketball heartland of America, the movie tells the story of a
hard-nosed coach, Norman Dale, who brings considerable knowledge
of the game to an undisciplined team. One of the small-town fans
asks him what hes going to do with the players, and Dale replies, Im
going to break them down and build them back up again. Unfortunately, Dad stopped before he got to the second part of that equation.
I do not remember much of the sessions except that I would get sick
from them and stay up the rest of the night throwing up or with headaches from crying too much.
My older sisters and younger brothers recall more; if they were
still up when we got home they would sit in the shadows outside the
kitchen door alternating between silent anger and silent pity, trying
to separate the ballplayer from the brother as one or maybe both
was vivisected piece by piece. They themselves would at one time or
another have their own performances analyzed. But it was Kirk and
I who got it the worst, possibly because we were the best. It was Kirk
and I who sometimes got sessions with friends watching wide-eyed
from the back seat on the ride home.
Coach Dales team from the movie won the state title. So did mine
my senior year. We went undefeated. I still have one of the nets we cut
down in celebration. Occasionally, I pull it out, and every time I roll
the worn strands between my fingers, I remember the euphoria of a
dream season and the nightmares of sleepless nights.
The most beautiful sound in the gym: the snap nylon net makes when
a basketball hits it dead center. The second most beautiful: shoes
squeaking on a polished wood floor. The third: the collective intake of
breath when the winning or losing shot is in the air. An almost holy
trinity if you close your eyes enough to listen.
It was in my high school gym that I learned to shoot free throws with
my eyes shut. On most gym floors, there is a tiny nail on the free
throw line that marks the hoops center. If you put the foot of your
shooting hand on the nail, shooting blind is quite straightforward, as
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Irreantum

long as your muscles have practiced enough to memorize their motion.

Shooting with eyes closed wasnt just a sideshow trick, though. It was
another small way to neutralize an opponents home court advantage.
Unfamiliar surroundings can play havoc with a shooter. If I were having problems at the foul line, even during a game, I would close my
eyes and let my practice take over.
When a player gets to know his home gym well enough, he can
often shoot from anywhere on the court without really seeing the
basket. Since my eyesight has deteriorated to the point that I cant
see anything effectively beyond six feet without glasses, thats how I
play now. Kirk knew his gym so well that the coach would sometimes
stop him in the middle of a scrimmage, tell him to close his eyes, and
account for every player on the court. He could put them within a
foot of markers such as a warped section or a board with a knothole.
The coach would laugh and blow his whistle to resume play. Kirk is
still good at this, although he does it in business meetings now, sizing
up situations quickly, knowing where his advantages are.
In the summer of 82, Mom showed up at a basketball camp to drive
me over to the hospital to see Dad. Diabetes had finally caught up
with him. Hed been living with it for a long time, but refused to tell
anyone including himself. Finally, drinking two gallons of water on
the drive to work and having to stop every fifteen minutes to urinate
got so annoying that he went to see a doctor who refused to let him
leave the hospital because he should have been dead long before. They
fixed him up and told him how hed have to live from then on. He
went home and continued to live according to his own rules, which
included refusing to admit that he was sick and neglecting his prescribed medication and regime.
One of the conditions associated with diabetes is, of course, eye
trouble. If left untreated, or even sometimes with proper attention,
the condition can lead to blindness. In retrospect, I dont know how
long Dads eyesight had been going bad, but it now seems to me that
for several years hed been able to see basketball courts very clearly, but
unable to read things closer to home.
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Kennington: Dominant Hands

By the time I got to college, Dad and I werent speaking, but he still
came to my games, and I couldnt shake his presence in my studies,
relationships, and general day-to-day. My psychology major girlfriend,
anxious to help, told me I suffered from self-esteem problems and
that I should get out from under his thumb, stop letting him live his
life through me. Its a negative reinforcement pattern, she said, we
read about it last week in class. She really did care, but I didnt like
being psychoanalyzed, so we split up soon after. I can understand her
perspective, though. To any outsider, even to his family, his techniques
often seemed cruel, bordering on the abusive.
But, even then, deep down I realized that I wasnt the fastest, strongest, tallest, or most talented ballplayer, and any success I had was
because I worked harder and was pushed and analyzed harder than
any other ballplayers Ive known personally. I was good, but at a price.
What my girlfriend couldnt see was that I wasnt searching for a lost
identity as much as I was trying to figure out if the price was too high.
I dont know when or how it happened that basketball became the
unofficial Mormon sport, but even today, most new LDS church buildings have cultural halls that really are basketball courts that can also be
used for other less important activities: theatrical events, socials, even
wedding receptions. Where I live now in Utah, some wedding reception businesses specialize in hiding the hoops and the blue crash pads.
Even in countries where say, soccer, reigns as a national obsession, many
LDS buildings have thinly disguised basketball courts: when I was in
Brazil all the LDS church buildings I attended had a chapel, classrooms,
a kitchen, and a futebol be salao (indoor soccer) court complete with baskets and painted court dimensions. As a young man, I spent most of my
weekday church-related activities playing shirts against skins or horse
if not enough bodies showed up for a full team. When the term church
ball evolved as a term to describe the LDS churchs commitment to the
gameward, stake, even district tournaments and teamsI embraced
the pairing as natural, something akin to what Norman Maclean said
about his Presbyterian faith and his fathers sporteven though one
day a week was given over wholly to the Lord, my brother and I received
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as much instruction in fishing as in all other spiritual matters. Later,

some wag came along and observed that church ball is the only fight
that starts with a mutual prayer. Grudgingly, I admit there is a bit of
truth in all the humor, but even today, the two words are synonymous
in my mind and action, as deeply ingrained as breathing.
I still remember the summer my avowed atheistic, Oxford-trained
Professor of English caught me after class one day to ask first if I
were Mormon, and secondly, if I were a ballplayer. He didnt ask what
kind of ballplayer, but we both knew what he meant. Apparently, hed
grown up playing against Mormon teams all over the United States
and England in community and provincial leagues. When I told him I
was indeed LDS and played ball, he whistled and shook his head. We
always knew Mormon teams by the way they played: not dirty, just
hard. Fundamental without the fun. I never got so beat up as playing
Mormons. They really wanted to win. Of course, he then had to set up
a weekend pick-up game for class members, and I emerged next Saturday with a perfect record and a new nickname: the Mormon Mauler.
With the last game on the line, I made contact for an old-fashioned
three point try and inadvertently caught the professor with an elbow
that put him in the ER with two black eyes and six stitches across the
bridge of his nose. When I tried to apologize Monday after class, he
just laughed. You Mormons. I love playing against you. Later, when I
got my final essay back, I saw that hed scribbled at the end: Thanks for
the schooling, Kennington. Youre a tribute to the game and your faith.
I still dont know if that was a compliment or not, but I got an A in the
course. I couldnt help but think that, somehow, being a ballplayer was
turning to my good yet again.
The building where Dad died was first a Spanish mission, then a middle school, and finally, a community gym. There is a balcony on one
side where he used to sit with arms on the railing so he could glower at
referees. That night I was playing in a tri-city championship, and the
game was close. I was fouled in the last minute and made the first free
throw. The other team called a time-out to ice me, and I remember

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Kennington: Dominant Hands

noticing that Dad was gone which was strange. Mom used to leave
the gym if the game was close, but Dad would just concentrate harder,
as if he could think a win. Mom told me later, that with two minutes
to go, he turned to her and said, I think I need to leave. She walked
him out to the stairwell where he sat on the top step, looked up at her,
puzzled, and said, I cant make it. He tried to lean against the railing, missed, and rolled down a flight of stairs to land spread-eagled
on the landing. Back inside the gym the referee was lining us up for
my final free throw when our reserve shooting guard came running in
to tell me Dad was having a heart attack. A member of the opposing
team was a paramedic, and he followed me out to help, but Dad never
regained consciousness.
It is odd, the seemingly trivial details that impress themselves on
the mind and emotions during raw moments of life or death. I remember how gray Dad looked, and I remember being angry at the circle
of people standing around to gawk. I remember my friend telling me
theyd won without me and asking if he could help. The most haunting
detail, though, the one that replays itself in my mind like a scouting
film, is the moment between the referee handing me the ball for my
free throw and the news that Dad was down and asking for me. My
mind seemed to simultaneously clutter and empty itself, and the first
thought that entered, perhaps appropriate but nonetheless disturbing,
was Ive got one more shot, let me win this game first.
Several months after Dads death I was poking through his old computer desk for scratch paper. In the bottom drawer under a stack of
his old flowchartshed worked at Evans and Sutherland as a programmer and project manager since the company began I found the
box I had made for him in third grade. It was an old shoe box completely covered with tiny, ripped pieces of masking tape then stained
with brown shoe polish to give it a wood veneer. I had forgotten it.
Inside was Dads journal. No one had ever seen him keep a journal.
There were only two entries in the whole book. The first was dated
January 4, 1985:

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A start. Six still at home: AnnaBeth, Me, and the boys: Justin, Matt,
the twins. The rest are doing well. Kathi is in Vanderhoof, British
Columbia. Kirk works at BYU. Cheri is in Bremerton. Blaine in Texas.
Keli in Provo expecting her first. Lauri in Manti. Weather is cold: 10
degrees. But no one is suffering or hungry.

The last line fascinates me. Dad was an insatiable reader and a
thoughtful speaker who chose his words as precisely as a surgeon cutting into a patient. So why the words no one is suffering? Was he
trying to convince someone that he was right in pushing, even forcing,
his children to be better than they themselves could imagine? Was
he proud of how hard hed worked to provide for his family, proud of
how well they were doing, and was this his understated way of saying
it? That would be consistent with his reluctance to give direct praise,
the highest form of which was, Not too shabby. Or was pain simply
seeping into his mind as he felt the blood slowly turning to syrup in
his veins?
He still eludes me, as a good ballplayer should, doing the unexpected even in death. Take his journals second and final entry, dated
May 19, 1985:
High school winding down for Justin. Awards assembly on Friday.
He received the following: Valedictorian, Copley scholarship, Best
Defense in Basketball, General Sterling Scholar, All State Football,
Academic All State Basketball, Athlete of the Year.

The rest of the pages are blank. He used half of his lifes record recording mine, and, as far as I know, he never wrote down another incident
of his own life.
Specialization is for insects, not humans, said the humorist Lazarus
Long. I think the quote could be effectively rewritten as, specialization is for baseball players, football players, and other less complex
life-forms, not basketball players. Basketball demands perfecting all
aspects of the game: physical fundamentals like dribbling, passing, conditioning, defense, rebounding; mental fundamentals like the ability to
see three steps ahead, the flexibility to withstand the games inevitable
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Kennington: Dominant Hands

momentum swings, the desire to win, to do it right. I see those types

of ball-players everywhere from ESPN highlights to church ball. My
brothers all turned out to be ballplayers. Blaine, now an oral surgeon,
calls basketball the hardest exam hes ever taken. Matt, who uses his
law degree to teach creative writing on a pittance, still makes sure that,
in spite of what anyone else thinks of his decision, he plays every situation on his terms. Richard and Aaron tag-teamed into aviationone
pilots for Delta and the other is an air-traffic controller. Kirk, who will
be retiring from the university soon, recently summed it up for all of us
brothers when he said, Basketball is the greatest sport in the world, as
long as you are willing to suffer for it. Otherwise its just 10 people milling around trying to throw a spherical object through a metal hoop.
Whats the point in that? And no, its not just a game.
My oldest boy, Owen, is six years old. Two days ago, he played in his
first organized game. I missed it because I am overseas with work for
several months. The game was soccer rather than basketball. I dont
know much about soccer, except that I played when I was in Brazil. We
Americans would trounce the Brazilians on the court, and theyd return
the favor on grass. Owen told my wife that he wished I was there to
watch him, but I am thinking perhaps it is a good thing that I missed
his first game and that he seems more interested in kicking rather than
throwing a ball. I dont know if I want him to grow up knowing places
like the cultural hall, the gym, the arena, as well as I did. And still do.
Ido know I dont like who I am or have become when I play. I cant play
just for fun or fellowship. Ive tried, but basketball isnt meant to be fun.
Its fundamentals. Its hard work. Thinking. Practice. Intensity. Never
giving up. Winning. Above all, its studying the game, the opponents
weak hand. And taking that away. I do know that Owen is anxious
for me to come home so he can show me his new soccer shoesIm
learning a new lingo...theyre called cleatsto demonstrate that hes
practiced the task I gave him before I left: learning to dribble through a
line of orange plastic coneswith his feet.

19

The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

Scott M. Roberts

Elder Chandler planted himself in the door to our apartments tiny kitchen and said, We need to go see Indira Bostic.
I had my mouth full of leftover spaghetti. I chewed and swallowed
while I contemplated his earnest face, and finally said, Domani. in
programma alle dodici.
His eyes flicked with annoyance as he worked through translating
the Italian. I know were going to see her tomorrow. She needs us
tonight.
Spirit goes to bed at ten thirty, Doug, Elder Haskell said to Elder
Chandler. He scooped a piece of sausage off my plate and deposited
into his mouth, smacking his lips.
Get your own, I said to Elder Haskell, menacing him with my
fork. I warmed up the leftovers from lunch. Theres plenty.
You got more sausage than me. Elder Haskell jabbed at another
sausage, but I parried him away with my fork.
Elder Chandler put his hands on the table and leaned down to
look me in the eyes. The Lord has told me through His Holy Spirit
of truth that our sister, Indira Bostic, needs us right now.
Every single greenie Id ever trainedeven Elder Haskellhad
this moment. An epiphany. Secret, spiritual knowledge, granted from
on high by a dynamic, forceful, talkative Heavenly Father to an obedient and worthy son. President Allred and I had laughed about the
consistency of the event. It always occurred some time in the third
month of their first city. I had been transferred before I was two
months into my first city and spared the embarrassment. But Elder
Douglas Chandler was right on schedule.
1st place, 2012 Irreantum Fiction Contest

21

Irreantum

Seventy-three percent of epiphanies die suddenly when forced to

expose themselves to the air outside ones head. I scooched my chair
out from the table and leaned back until it balanced on two legs.
Assuming a non-threatening, non-aggressive posture, just like President Allred had counseled. I waited for him to say more.
He didnt disappoint. I was reading in the Book of Mormon.
I stopped myself from nodding. It would either be 1st Nephi 3 or 17,
Ether 4, or Moroni 10. Brass plates, or an impossible, faith-built boat,
or glowing stones, or a promise from God Himself.
I was reading about Alma and Amulek, and the people ... the martyrs of Ammonihah.
I was so surprised, I just about choked on my spaghetti.
Elder Chandler didnt notice. I was at the part where Amulek says,
Let us stretch forth our hands and save them from the flames, and
Alma says, No, the Spirit constraineth me. And just then, I heard a
voice. It was just like everyone says, quiet and clear. It said, The Spirit
does not constrain you, Douglas.
I waited. Elder Chandler blinked at me then said again, a bit impatiently, It said, The Spirit does not constrain you.
I looked at Elder Haskell, but he just shrugged. I asked, How do
you go from reading about Ammonihah to needing to go visit Indira
Bostic right this very second?
I feel it, Elder Payson.
Elder Haskell pushed his chair back and stood up. I feel the need
to go to sleep, he said. You boys have fun.
If Indira Bostic had been able to afford a telephone, Id have
humored Elder Chandler. Let him call her, sure. Let him satisfy his
revelation the easy way. But she didnt. And what was more, she lived
in the Gut, in the narrow, cluttered, twisting alleys of Old San Mateo.
The Gut was one of the oldest parts of the city but lacked the grace
of other ancient Italian cities. Elder Haskell called it the Colon, and
he wasnt wrong. During the day it wasnt too bad. You could expect
to see your muggers before they stuck a knife in your face. After sundown ... well. Functioning streetlights were few and far between in
the Gut.
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Roberts: The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

You feel the Spirit is telling you to break mission rules and go visit
a single female after... I looked at the clock on the wall, ...ten oclock
at night, in a part of San Mateo President Allred has specifically said
we need to be out of by six?
Unless we have good reason. He said that, too.
I couldnt have said it better. Good reason was precisely what was
lacking here. Not just in Elder Chandler, but in every single green
missionary Id trained. So pumped up on glory and personal revelation, so infused with the wild, unlikely stories of sixteen years of missionary experiences from Sunbeam teacher to priest quorum advisors.
They came out to the field expecting battles and hymns, the Spirit of
God whispering in their ears. So that every niggling thought, every
stray observation became ... grand. An epiphany. And theyd turn
their minds over to the willy-nilly imaginings of their own hearts.
No, I said shaking my head. This is a bad idea.
I saw him relax. He took his hands off the table and stuck them in
his pocket. That wasnt a request for permission, Elder Payson. That
was an invitation.
He exited the kitchen so quickly, I felt a breeze in his wake. I let
my chair tip forward, the front legs thumping hard on the floor. I
followed Elder Chandler out to the hall. He was putting on his shoes.
Youre going to go by yourself?
No. Elder Jansen said hed come with me.
Elder Jansen was Elder Haskells companion. Almost as green as
Elder Chandler. Neither of them spoke Italian very well, and Elder
Jansen definitely didnt know how to navigate the Gut.
The door to Elder Jansen and Elder Haskells room opened. I
turned to see both of them in suits and ties with shoes on their feet
and apologies hanging off their faces.
Im not going to let a couple verdini walk into the Gut by themselves, Elder Haskell said.
They shouldnt even be going, I said, a bit hollowly. It took Elder
Haskell a good three hours to get ready in the morning, and hed been
in pajamas when he left the kitchen. Here he was, not two minutes
later, looking as sharp as a brand new AP.
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Irreantum

Elder Haskell shrugged. San Mateos nice by night, he said.

The Gut isnt, I said. Elder Haskell, I know youve got a... thing
about breaking rules. But this is more than just disobedience to curfew. The Gut is dangerous at night.
How do you know? Elder Jansen asked.
Elder Chandler said at the same time, It doesnt matter if were
doing what Heavenly Father wants us to do.
I chose to respond to Elder Chandler. The Lord protects the obedient. When we choose not to follow the commandments, we dont
have that promise of protection.
It was the wrong thing to say. Elder Chandlers eyes flashed, and
his face hardened. It took me a second to realize why. The martyrs
of Ammonihah. Those people had been obedient, and the Lord had
specifically instructed his servants to let them perish. Elder Chandler
finished tying his shoes. He stood and put on his jacket.
Come with us, he said quietly.
There are rules against letting your companion walk off by himself.
And about letting yourself be left alone, Elder Haskell said, throwing
an arm around my shoulder. Come on, Eddie Payson! The night is
young! We are four ministers of God, out for a stroll through Hell!
Elder Jansen sucked in a breath at that, but he didnt say anything.
Elder Haskell smirked. He thought he was J. Golden Kimball. I
thought he was a lot more like Corianton.
I put on my shoes.
No one mugged us.
We got plenty of looks and sneersfour young men dressed in
conservative dark suits and white shirts and ties, walking through the
Gut in the dark? Of course people stared. People standing under the
odd street light looked away from whatever conversation they were
engaged in when they heard the tap of our feet on the cobblestones.
Look past them, I hissed to Elder Chandler. And close your
mouth.
The streets were dark and close and winding. Before coming to San
Mateo, Id served in Cuneo, a city in western Italy near the border of
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Roberts: The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

France. Cuneo was a Roman settlement and the streets were straight,
running at right angles to each other. Grid-simple efficiency.
There was none of that in the Gut.
San Mateo is a port city, but you cant smell the ocean in the Gut
because the buildings are so tall and close they block most of the
wind. An occasional, determined breeze will rip through the streets,
a fury of humidity, full of the scent of fish and mud and salt. For the
most part, though, the air is still. The buildings seem to loom over the
streets as if pressing down on the air; misers to hold the atmosphere
in, to keep it from escaping, to keep the wind from tearing it away
from them.
Indira Bostic lived in a single room apartment in a squalid complex
on the east side of the Gut. Like her, most of the other tenants were
immigrants: Phillipinos, Africans, Peruvians. Indira was from Bosnia,
having fled the violence there in the early 90s. Beyond that, she hadnt
shared much about herself. I thought she just liked to be visited, to
see a couple faces that didnt turn hard and unsympathetic at her halting Italian. She was lukewarm on the Book of Mormon and shrugged
away our invitation to pray about the truth of the gospel. She seemed
hungry for companionship but averse to commitment. A couple of
the sisters from the branch had visited her and invited her to church
but shed never shown.
Indira Bostic was the classic example of an eternal investigator. Still,
there was that hunger in her face. Whenever I considered not visiting her, I remembered Christs injunction about visiting the lonely. I
had cut ties to eternal investigators before; it wasnt easy, but Id never
regretted doing it. What kept me coming back to the Gut? To ring the
buzzer in front of the arched doorway to Indira Bostics apartment
building?
Misplaced charity, some missionaries would say. The latter-day
task of full-time missionaries was to harvest the elect, not forever try
to teach the apathetic. These are the last days, the last moments of the
world, and there is no time, no time...
The Spirit of God, some others would say. Christ himself took
time to heal the sick, the afflicted, the lonely, the sinners. Should his
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Irreantum

ministers expect to do less? These are the last days, the last moments
of the world, and how better to spend them than in the work of the
Comforter, doing works that Jesus would surely do?
The intercom on the wall next to the big, wooden double-door to
her apartment building was powerless, but the door was ajar. Elder
Haskell pushed it open. We stepped into the dirty courtyard.
A scooter whined past the door before I closed it, its headlight
painting the four of us with light and shadow. Elder Chandlers face
was bright pink. He was sweating.
What are you going to say to her? I asked him. I managed to keep
my voice even. My internal clock told me it was nearer to midnight
than it was to ten oclock.
Elder Chandler shook his head. I dont know. I dont know why
the Lord brought me here. I dont know...
Now he had doubts. Now he didnt know what to do. The courtyard was quiet. Outside the gate a man laughed raucously. His voice
bounced and echoed through the alley.
Like Nephi, Elder Jansen said. I could ... hear the grin on his
face. I went with the Spirit of the Lord, not knowing beforehand the
things that I should do.
I waited on Elder Chandler. He heaved a sigh, then pushed ahead
of Elder Haskell. I followed him up the stairs and heard Elder Haskell
and Elder Jansen follow me up. Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap. Four
pairs of shoes on the stone steps announced us as we ascended. Indira
lived on the sixth floor, practically in the attic. When Elder Haskell
started whistling, I shushed him. When I turned back around, I heard
him slap his hand over his elbowthe Italian version of the finger.
Ti spezzo in due, I whispered automatically. Our in-joke from
when hed been my greenie. A line from Rocky IV, which wed accidentally sampled at a members house.
I heard his reply back, Ti spacco la faccia.
And then silence except for our footfalls all the way to Indira
Bostics apartment. The door was already open. The frame was in
splinters; a smeared boot-print marked the door near the handle.

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Roberts: The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

Indira Bostic was on the floor, her shoulders shaking, a pool of

blood spreading under her bowed head.
Her nose didnt look broken, but it was a close thing. One of her
eyes was already swollen shut, and the right side of her mouth was
lopsided and grey-green with bruising. Elder Jansen made her damp
wads of tissue paper to stuff in her nostrils. I wrapped a package of
frozen peas in a towel for her to press against her eye and mouth.
Elder Haskell scrubbed the floor.
Elder Chandler stood in the open door watching us all with wide
eyes.
Mia bambina, mia bambina, Indira repeated over and over. My
baby girl, my baby girl.
Che successo? I asked. Id never even known shed had a child.
The story came in fits, Indira mixing Italian and her native language so we had to keep asking her to re-explain, to start over.
Indiras daughter, Alessandra, had gone to live with her father when
she was very young. Her father, like Indira, had fled Bosnia when
genocide and war had overtaken the country. He and Alessandra had
taken up with a bunch of gypsies. Theyd bounced around eastern
Italy, Switzerland, France, until her father passed away in Nice. Her
fathers brother-in-law had taken over Alessandras care then.
He made her prostitute. My baby, my baby, Indira moaned.
Alessandra had fled east, to San Remo, where shed called Indira.
Indira had taken a train to pick her up and brought her to her home.
Theyd been followed.
I fought for her, Indira said. I fought for her now like I should
have back then, but it was not enough, I was not enough. O merciful
Jesus Christ, he has my baby girl again!
How many? Elder Haskell asked. He was spattered with suds and
water. The cuffs of his shirt were pink with what was left of Indiras
blood.
What? I asked.
What? Indira asked.

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Irreantum

How many men were there? he asked again, calmly. Id never seen
him so calm.
Three. My husbands brother-in-law and two I did not know.
Did they have a car?
I do not think so. They told Alessandra not to make trouble on the
metro or theyd come back and beat me again.
We should go to the police, Elder Jansen said in English.
Elder Haskell and I spoke up at the same time. No.
We cant just let them go, Elder Chandler said. He shut the door.
It bounced against the broken frame.
When did they leave, Indira? Elder Haskell asked.
She stared at him and finally answered, Maybe twenty minutes
before you came.
We can catch up to them, I said. The closest metro line is the red.
It wont be running as often now that its so late.
Elder Jansens jaw dropped. Were going to go after them? Have
you lost your mind?
Elder Haskell nodded at me, but frowned. They take the red. Then
where? We have no idea where theyll go after that.
Indira said, The gypsy camp in Settimo Sanmatese. Thats where
theyll go. They go there, they borrow a car, they take her ... they steal
her again, O God, O sweet Jesus...
Elder Jansen hissed, The police can catch them faster than we can.
Elder Chandler was still fussing with the door. He said,No they wont.
If theyve gone to a gypsy camp, the gypsies will hide them from the police.
Theyll stonewall the police or let them borrow a car or ... anything.
What makes you think well have any better luck finding her?
I looked at Elder Haskell. He met my eyes and shrugged. Elder
Haskell has a girlfriend in that camp, I said.
Ex-girlfriend, he amended. But she still writes.
I had really hoped that wed catch them in the metro station. It would
have made things easier to confront them in a public place rather than
in the warren of the gypsy camp. But the station was hollow from one
end to the other.
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Roberts: The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

We can still catch up with them. Elder Haskell said, as if to reassure himself. He bounced on the balls of his feet, as eager as Id ever
seen him.
Elder Jansen grunted, and sat down on a bench with a huff of air.
Not bouncing at all. Sulking instead.
Elder Chandler was quiet, distant. He stared down the long, dark
tube of the metro tunnel, his arms folded across his chest. I didnt
know it would take this long, he said suddenly. I thought it would
be quick. Go see Indira. Give her a blessing, maybe. At the very best,
I thought wed be inspired to invite her to be baptized. What are we
doing out here in the middle of the night? What is Heavenly Father
doing with us?
He sounded bewildered. Frightened, even.
Id say hes sending us out to put the fear of God into some child
traffickers, Elder Haskell said. He cracked his knuckles. Inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, even so shall Elder
Haskell do unto you. That sort of thing.
Dont ... dont think too deeply about that one, I said to Elder Jansen.
Elder Jansen gave me a shove. Whats wrong with you two? This
isnt what were supposed to be doing. This isnt our calling. He
pointed at me. You didnt even want to be here. You dont even believe
in revelation, Elder Payson.
Where did you hear that? I asked.
Everyone says so.
Everyone. Elder Haskell was the only missionary Elder Jansen
would have heard mission gossip from. I glared at him.
Elder Haskell shrugged. Its kind of true, Eddie. You have to pick
things apart. You have to ... analyze things. Look how you evaluated
Douglass urge to come out here tonight.
I believe in revelation, I said.
You believe in study, Elder Chandler said. You dont believe in
inspiration.
Thats not true. I think I know what I believe in.
Elder Chandler unfolded his arms. I know how you act. You...you
act like revelation is this rare and precious thing that only mission
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Irreantum

presidents and prophets partake of. Youre a doubter. I love you, Elder
Payson, but you are the most dour son-of-a...
He trailed off, swallowed. I realized my mouth was hanging open.
I closed it.
Elder Haskell said, I wouldnt call him dour...
Shut up, Haskell, I said. He did. I came with you, didnt I?
Not because you believed, Elder Jansen said.
You shut up, too.
So now youre going to add unrighteous dominion to doubt? Elder
Chandler said. Very nice. Just because youre district leader doesnt
mean you get to tell everyone to shut up. Persuasion, long suffering,
gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned ... those things mean anything
to you?
I wasnt going to shut up anyway, Elder Jansen said. You came out
here because all the rest of us were going, and youre such a rules Nazi,
you couldnt stand the thought of being left alone.
Youre out of line, JJ, Elder Haskell said to Elder Jansen. Eddies
not a rules Nazi. And what does all of this have to do with what were
doing right now? Look, I love a good dog-pile as much as the next
missionary, but Eddies belief or non-belief in revelation or inspiration or whatever just doesnt matter right now. We need to discuss
what were going to do when we get to Settimo Sanmatese.
Call the police, Elder Jansen said.
They wont come, I said, relieved to be talking about something
else. Or theyll delay so long, it wont matter.
How do you know? Elder Jansen said.Maybe you got a revelation.
Elder Haskell gave him a push. Knock it off, JJ.
Why wont they come? Elder Chandler asked. Its kind of their
job, isnt it?
Because theyre gypsies, I said. Back when Elder Haskell was my
greenie, in Torino, we had a couple investigators in the gypsy camps
there. Middle of the night, the police came in with fire trucks and riot
gear and cleared the place out. It was a complete surprise to everyone.
Never a word of warning. They just came in, soaked everyone down,
beat a couple men bloody, and strong armed them into leaving. The
30

Roberts: The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

next day, Elder Haskell and I went to the camp to find an empty field
and a couple bulldozers.
Marie wrote to me to tell me what happened, Elder Haskell said.
Her dad and brother got roughed up that night. They broke her
brothers arm.
Elder Chandler asked, Marie?
Elder Haskell blushed. My ... er ... friend. The one were going to
see now.
Have you been writing her back? I asked.
He shook his head. Im not a total apostate. Late night jaunts, sure.
Sleeping late, okay. Flirting with a pretty gypsy girl on while Im on
my mission? Not anymore. My last companion read President Kimballs Lock Your Heart talk out loud for companionship study for
three weeks in a row. Last letter I sent to her, I told her I was focusing
on the work.
A squeal in the dark tunnel announced the arrival of the metro. I
checked the display board showing when another train would be arriving. It was blank. This was the last train of the night. Wed be walking
back to San Mateo.
The car we boarded was empty. Elder Chandler kicked at a crumpled
newspaper, tumbling it along the center aisle. He still had a bewildered,
lost look on his face. He collapsed into a seat, leaned his head against
the window, and closed his eyes. He turned his body so he could stretch
his legs out on the seat next to him and folded his arms over his chest.
We shouldnt be doing this, police or no. Its dangerous, Elder Jansen said.
The metro made a cacophony as it sped along the tracks, creaking,
wailing, drumming. No one answered him for a long time.
If ever there was a time to break the rules about going off alone,
this is it, I finally said. Im not going to try to convince you to come
with me, Elder Jansen.
With us, said Elder Haskell.
The metro slowed, coming to a stop. The doors whooshed open.
Elder Jansen didnt move toward them. He just cleared his throat and
sat down on a seat.
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Irreantum

The doors closed. The metro pulled forward.

This is stupid, Elder Jansen said. Beyond stupid. But it doesnt
feel wicked.
Elder Haskell plopped down next to him, threw an arm around his
shoulder. Thats the spirit, JJ, he said.
Elder Jansen fixed him with a stare. Its Elder Jansen. Im serious
about it this time, Elder Haskell.
Your seriousness does not imply a commitment on my part, Elder
Haskell said.
I left them, and sat behind Elder Chandler. His eyes were halfopen. He closed them all the way when he saw me looking. Will you
tell me what youre thinking? I asked him.
He didnt open his eyes. He said, A direct will you question. Slick,
Elder Payson. By the book.
You know me. We cant just let them take Indiras daughter.
Youre not going to try to convince Elder Jansen. But youre going
to go after me?
Elder Jansen isnt my companion. After tonight, whatever happens,
you and I are still going to be working together.
We could die tonight. Those men traveled hours and hours to kidnap Alessandra. They beat up her mother pretty bad. We could die,
trying to rescue her.
Happy day. All is well.
You dont really feel that way.
No. Im pretty scared.
You think this is ... right, trying to rescue her?
Yeah, I do.
I didnt know it would happen like this, Elder Chandler said. Now
he opened his eyes; now he sat up straight and turned to look at me.
The Lord didnt say anything about this.
He didnt say anything to me at all.
Why didnt He? Youre senior companion. Youre more experienced.
Im more cynical. Im ... dour.
But youre going to do this thing the Lord is springing on us anyway, even though He doesnt speak to you?
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Roberts: The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

He spoke to you, and you proved it. Im not saying youre a prophet
or anything, but the evidence of your inspiration is clear.
He looked away for a moment, then back. If Elder Jansen and
Elder Haskell hadnt come, I would have gone by myself.
I would have come with you. Im not going to let a greenie wander
around the Gut by himself. That, or I would have locked him in the
room we shared. I didnt say that.
Im terrified. What if this happens again, and I walk out in the
middle of the night, and its...nothing? This time...
I said, Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof.
He blinked at me. What?
One day at a time, Elder Chandler. Lets try to survive the gypsy
kidnappers first.
We knelt on the gritty floor of the metro, all four of us, shoulder
to shoulder in a small square. The metro rocked and rumbled and
squealed as we folded our arms and bowed our heads.
Will you pray for us, Elder Chandler? I asked.
He closed his eyes. We closed ours with him. Heavenly Father,
he said. We come to Thee, begging for safety tonight. You led us to
Indira and now...O God, please help us. Were going to do something
... crazy, Heavenly Father. But we feel its right, like its what Thou
wouldst do. Protect us, Heavenly Father. And protect Indiras child,
Alessandra. If we cant find her, please help her. But let us find her,
Heavenly Father, so we can bring her back to her mother. Soften the
hearts of those wicked men who took her. And make us strong to be
able to bear this trial.
He closed his prayer and wiped his eyes. We all stood. In the brief
moments of his prayer, the metro had left the underground to emerge
outside. Moonlight illuminated the landscape on either side of the
track.
The metro pulled into Settimo Sanmatese.
The gypsy camp was a couple kilometers from the metro stop. I
smelled it before I saw it: wood smoke and bacon, mud and sewage.
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We followed the smell until we saw a collection of trailers and cars

all gathered together under the moonlight. The camp looked like a
conglomeration of beetles, carapaces shining.
Looks like a scout camp, Elder Jansen said as we slid down the
embankment. Smells like one, too.
We were met by two burly men with whistles and sticks, but they
recognized Elder Haskell and led us to Maries familys trailer. We
tapped on the front door until it opened.
Paolo? she said, staring at Elder Haskell.
Buona sera, Marie, he said. Even in the dim light, I could see the
blush creeping up his ears.
What are you doing here? And so late? her eyes flitted from Elder
Haskell to meno spark of recognition there at allto Elder Chandler and Elder Jansen, and to the men who stood behind us.
We need your help, Marie, Elder Haskell said.
As he talked, Maries family gathered behind her to see what the
commotion was. Eyes gazed out blearily at us. Father, mother, little
brothers. Some of their neighbors awoke and lit electric lamps and
came out to listen. Men in tank tops and boxers, women in nightgowns, kids in underpants, all leaning out of doorways, out of openside windows, to listen.
Wed never had such an audience. I had the crazy thought that proselyting would be a lot more successful if we were allowed to create commotion like this. Midnight contacting, thats what the Church offices
would call it. Forty-seven percent effective in getting people to listen for
a full twenty minutes.
Marie looked lost. What do I know of this girl or her uncle? I have
been asleep.
You can ask around better than we can, Elder Haskell said. Half
of the people in this camp do not speak Italian. Fewer speak English.
She bit her lip. Something warred in Maries face. I suddenly
wished that Elder Haskell had been writing her. It might have made
things easier. But Marie wiped her face and spoke something to the
men behind us. They replied, pointing toward the southwest corner
of the camp.
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Roberts: The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

Let me get some clothes on, Marie said. They only speak Romanian and French.
She shut the door. As if it were a signal, lights darkened, windows
closed. Faces receded back into their trailers and truck beds. Moments
were all it took to go from having an audience to standing idle in a
quiet, silent night.
Marie came out, and so did her father. Milos, I remembered. That
was his name.
What are you going to do with these men? he asked Elder Haskell.
Elder Haskell shrugged and looked at me.
We are going to ask them to let the girl go, I said.
Marie tugged on a pair of boots. Just ask? Did you bring money,
at least?
No. Just trouble, Elder Haskell said.
How American, Milos said.
I have money, Elder Jansen said. It had been so long since hed
spoken, I had almost forgotten he was around.
How much? Marie asked.
Elder Jansen swallowed. Five hundred.
Lire? Thats not much.
Five hundred dollars. He looked around at us. My mom sent
some cash through the mission pouch. For emergencies.
Milos frowned. It is not enough.
We stood in the silence and the moonlight, fidgeting. Finally I said,
Then we will ask nicely again.
You are just boys, Milos said. These are desperate men.
They took a child from her mother, I said. They are going to sell
her body to strangers. It doesnt matter what we are or what they are.
It does not matter. We are going to take her back. Are you going to
help, Milos?
He shrugged. I am not letting my daughter go off alone with Paolo,
that is for certain. And I do not want to see you boys in a hospital or
to face the questions that will rise from the Italians over such a thing.
The men with the sticks and whistles left us as we stepped away
from the trailer. We tramped through the field to a pair of trucks at the
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Irreantum

far southern end of the camp. A campfire flickered between the trucks,
splashing the faces of the three men gathered around it in red light
and dancing, black shadows. They werent talking. One of thema tall,
lanky manwas massaging the knuckles of his left hand.
Southpaw, I said to Elder Haskell, nodding at the man.
Ill keep it in mind, he replied.
The three men stood when they saw us. Milos stepped toward
them, arms spread wide, saying something in Romanian. He gestured
us forward, around the fire. Marie hung back. The men sat. We sat.
Milos laughed and chatted with the tall southpaw. The other two men
were silent and did not look at us.
I had thought it would mean something if ever I saw evil. Id seen
wickedness before, of the kind that any American kid might see if they
pay attention. Abusive spouses, abusive lovers, tyrannical parents, that
sort of thing. Cheats and adulterers and liars and thieves. But here
I was rubbing shoulders with kidnappers, child traffickers, exploiters,
thugs. Real evil. And there was nothing special about them at all. The
southpaw looked worn and tired. His skin hung off him like hed lost
a lot of weight recently. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his
black hair was unkempt and greasy. The other two looked no more
pert, yawning and stretching and staring at the fire. They both wore
caps, but when one of them took his cap off to scratch his head, I saw
thinning blonde hair. Not the typical, eastern European look of a gypsy.
The southpaws companions didnt look like they belonged here in this
gypsy camp at all. They were as fair skinned as any Utahan and had the
wide cheekbones and square jaws of ... Germans? Frenchmen? Maybe
even Russians or Ukrainians.
Tired sinners, anyway. Wicked men a long way away from home.
The southpaw knocked gingerly on the window of the truck nearest
him. Knocked harder. Finally, he opened the door and reached in. He
spoke harshly to someone inside the truck, and at last she came out.
Alessandra. She looked about fourteen or fifteen and gangly. I could see
Indira in hercurly black hair, dark eyes, sharp nose, high cheekbones.
Definitely her mothers child. Alessandra didnt look frightened, though
her eyes were puffy and red. She glanced over us and ... nothing. Not
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Roberts: The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

interest. Not sadness. Nothing showed in her eyes or face. She smiled at
us when the southpaw spoke to her. Her smile was oblivion with teeth.
Milos said to us, He wants three hundred for her. He grinned and
nodded to the southpaw as Elder Jansen dug in his wallet.
The southpaw laughed and pointed at Elder Jansen as he shakily
handed him the money. He even patted his cheek, like some sort of
familiar uncle. He pushed Alessandra over to him, clapping his hands
and babbling in Romanian.
Milos replied, and we stood and walked away from the fire.
Is that all? Elder Haskell said. I could hear disappointment in his
voice. Spoiling for a fight all night long, to have it snatched away so
amiably.
That is all, Milos said. He glanced behind at the men sitting around
the fire. I started to turn; he took me by the elbow and kept me facing
forward.
What did you tell them? I asked.
He did not answer right away. Our feet whispered in the grass.
Ahead of us, Elder Jansen and Elder Chandler flanked Alessandra.
In front of them, Elder Haskell and Marie walked side by side. Elder
Haskells hands were stuffed deep in the pockets of his slacks. Maries
hands tapped her leg as she walked.
Milos cleared his throat. The girls uncle is a ... business man. We
are conducting business. I told him we would go back to my truck,
and you boys would ... I will need to wash my mouth after tonight,
Elder Payson. I am sick with what we talked of.
A strangled sound crawled out of my throat. I chewed it down.
Thank you, I managed.
He nodded. I am a liar. A cheat. I am not a faithful husband, nor
a good father. But tonight, maybe I have done something worthy of
Jesus Christ. Tonight, maybe I am a new man.
Make it official. Come to church on Sunday.
Maybe I will send Marie and the boys.
Can you give us a ride back to San Mateo?
He shook his head. They will see my truck leaving. They will know.
He thinks you will have her all night. In the morning, you will be gone,
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she will be gone, and I will be asleep in my trailer. What do I know of

anything? I snore like a monster. Everyone knows it. My friends will
protect me and my family. If I help you leave, though... He shrugged.
Well, God bless you anyway, Milos.
You, too, Elder Payson. Keep Paolo away from my Marie.
Marie explained who we were to Alessandra. The girl looked at us suspiciouslythe first real emotion Id seen on her face. Elder Chandler
brought out a picture hed taken of the two of us and Indira. She took
it from his hands tentatively, staring at it, then at us. She squinted as
if she couldnt quite reconcile the smiling faces in the picture to the
people standing in front of her. I couldnt blame her for her skepticism.
But my guts were tied in knots, and I was sure that at any moment,
her uncle or one of his goons would stop by to see how things were
getting along, and then, then...
Alessandra nodded. She offered the picture back to Elder Chandler;
he shook his head and motioned for her to keep it. Alessandra folded
it and put it in the pocket of her jeans.
We climbed the embankment out of the camp to the road. No traffic. The asphalt stretched long and empty and darker than the night
sky for seven kilometers back to the outskirts of San Mateo. We
edged the shoulder of the road, balancing between gravel and dirt and
blacktop. The moon hung low and bright over the hills.
A truck roared past us, laying on its horn, a sudden, brief tempest of
air and noise. Alessandra cringed away from it, hunching her shoulders
and bringing her arms to cover her face. Elder Chandler bumped into
her, put her off balance so she pinwheeled for a moment on the side of
the road. He caught her arms. She gave a little cry, turned, batted his
hands away, and punched him hard. Not slappedshe balled her right
hand into a capable fist and threw a right cross that connected with his
chin. It whipped Elder Chandlers head to the side, sent him reeling
backwards into me. I stopped him before he could fall.
Alessandra stood still for a moment, her fists raised, her eyes passionless, empty ... A tremble coursed through her, shaking her from
the top of her head to her knees.
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Calmati, calmati, I said. Calm down, calm down. To Elder Chandler, I said, You okay?
He straightened himself, blinked, and rubbed his face where shed
struck him. Just surprised.
Alessandra didnt speak. She turned and walked on. Elder Haskell
and Elder Jansen looked at me uncertainly. I motioned them to keep
going, too. It was a long way back to San Mateo, and from there to Indiras home. And then? Indira and Alessandra couldnt stay therethat
would be the first place her kidnappers would look. Maybe we could get
one of the single sisters in the branch to take them in. They could stay
with uswed obliterated mission rules enough already, surely one more
couldnt do any harm.
The first sound of the attack was four feet slapping hard on the asphalt
behind me. I didnt get a chance to turn to see the men before I was bowled
head over heels down the embankment. Someones foot kicked me hard in
the ribs, and a big fist crashed against the side of my head. My joints softened, and I fell to the ground, wheezing for breath, head swimming in stars.
At the top of the embankment, Alessandra screamed. Elder Haskell
cried out. There were three thunkssomething solid striking something meaty. Someone gurgled. I rolled to my knees, dug fingers into
the embankment and made my legs find the strength to push up, up, up.
The two men, the not-gypsies wed seen at camp, threatened Elder
Chandler, Elder Jansen, and Alessandra. One of them held a long,
crooked bar; the other, a knife. Elder Haskell was on the side of the
road, clutching his side, rolling and moaning. I didnt see any blood,
but I remembered the meaty thunks Id heard.
Neither of the men were looking at me. They had their eyes on
Alessandra and my two missionaries. The man with the bar took a
step, flicking the bar forward and down. Quick. Sinister. I tried to fill
my lungs with air, but a sick, jarring pain seared my ribs.
Man does not live on air alone. I jumped at the guy with the bar
and managed to get my arm around his throat. The momentum of my
charge carried us into the roadway. My sudden, unexpected weight
on his trachea brought him face first into the asphalt before he could
catch himself. He didnt struggle after that.
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The attacker with the knife lunged at me. My right arm was trapped
beneath the guy Id tackled and I couldnt untangle myself. He twisted
my free arm and I lifted to my tiptoes, howling. He held my arm, elbow
facing skyward, wrist bent ninety degrees up. His knife glittered. An
agony blossomed in my hand, burning from the second knuckle of my
little finger, blazing the nerves in my palm and elbow, scorching to my
brain. I clenched my teeth and sucked the pain in, tried to think of a
way to squirm out of his grasp. Something wet and warm covered my
hand as I flexed my fingers.
The man said something. The knife touched my hand again, but
didnt cut. Odd how in all that agony, my nerves were able to identify
the edge of a knife, so sure, so clear. Odd, odd, odd, and the oddest
thing was four American boys in suits and ties out where they should
not be on the far, black backside of night, on an empty road, accompanied by wickedness, protecting strangers.
Where we should not be. Where God had sent us anyway.
The knife wiggled against my fingers again. I opened my mouth
and filled it with the words Elder Chandler had given me.
The Spirit does not constrain you, Doug, I said. My voice broke,
hoarse with pain. The Spirit does not constrain you, Doug.
The knife bit deep into my flesh. But the indecision and terror fled
from my companions face. He stepped forward, and I saw the rock in
his hands, a jagged chunk of granite, seized from the side of the road.
The man screamed and screamed at him, but the knife didnt bite any
deeper. Elder Chandler raised the rock and stretched forth his hand.
The rock sailed clean past the knife mans ear.
The man gave a short bark of a laugh that ended in a sudden crack,
and a wet gurgle. He released my hand. The knife fell, point first, into
the gravel and stuck there.
The Spirit doesnt constrain me either, Elder Haskell said, thumping a crooked bar against the meat of his palm.
President Allred settled into the plastic chair at the side of my hospital bed. You did not cut off your finger making a midnight snack,
he said.
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Roberts: The Revelation of Douglas Chandler

The pain medicine the doctors had given me made me feel warm
and woozy. To tell or not to tell? I wasnt sure what the others had
decided. I wasnt sure if hed talked to them already. I wasnt even sure
of where my clothes were, much less big questions like whether I
would still be a missionary at the end of the day.
And Elder Haskell did not break two ribs falling down a flight of
stairs in his hurry to get you to the hospital. President Allred sat forward, hands clasped. What were you doing last night, Elder?
Have you spoken to the others, President? My voice sounded funny.
That doesnt matter.
I told him. From start to finish, beginning to end. And President
Allred listened and didnt say a word. He sat forward in his chair,
elbows resting on the edge of my bed. When I finished, he sat back
and sighed.
I am not telling your mother that, he said.
I dont blame you, sir. What are you going to tell her?
His eyebrows lifted. Me? No, Elder. Youre going to tell her. If youd
been dillying with this girl or out partying with investigators, sure, I could
lay out your sins for your parents. But this? This is holy. This is between
you and your Elders, and that family you rescued, and God Himself. I
just pay your hospital bills. He shifted in his chair, leaned back, put his
hands behind his head, and smiled. Actually, thats kind of a nice feeling.
You deal with your folks, Elder. Im not a part of this equation.
I told my mom I was mugged.
I never saw Indira or Alessandra again. They had been staying with
the branch president and left early one morning without a word to
anyone. Elder Chandler and I visited Indiras apartment after I got
out of the hospital just to make sure they hadnt gone back. The door
frame was still broken. Elder Chandler pushed the door open, and we
stepped inside.
There was little to mark Indiras existence. Her apartment was empty
of possessions. The closets were clean. The refrigerator, too.
Shed left a copy of the Book of Mormon on the counter. I thumbed
through it, frowning. In Church videos, she would have highlighted
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some personally significant passage. Something that would give closure to this whole insane-but-divine shenanigan. And we were meant
to find it, of course, a secret, final, resolving epiphany. A key to wisdom from a loving, communicative Heavenly Father.
There was nothing.
Its okay, Elder Chandler said. He scuffed his foot on the floor.
Imean, its good that theyre not here.
Si. Molto bene. I put Indiras copy of the Book of Mormon into my
backpack with the other three I carried around to hand out to strangers. The thought of just giving it away made me sway and shake. I took
it out again and held it.
You all right, Elder Payson?
Gods not ... giving you any hints about where we can find them,
is He?
I thought he might be offended, but he laughed. No.
Indira left her copy. I waved it at him.
Elder Chandler stopped scraping his foot across the tiles. He said,
God knows where to find them, I think.
I wanted to say something ... dour, or cynical, or studied. But staring at the unstained floor, and holding scripture in my hand, and hearing the sounds of life and living out in the Gut, my voice stopped in
my throat, and I held still. I wouldnt call it an epiphany. More a quiet
realization than a sudden burst of soul-altering revelation.
God knows His own work. Sometimes, it is crazy, counter-logical,
even dangerous. But it is good. If we are listening and willing, we get
the privilege of doing something so insane, so precarious, so outrageous, it is only justified through divine communication.
How often have I missed His invitation? I wondered. I rubbed my
bandages and finally stowed Indiras copy of the Book of Mormon in
my backpack. I wouldnt miss His call again.
We said a prayer of gratitude, and for Indira and Alessandras safety
before leaving. The broken door swung shut behind us, and the echo
of its closing followed us down the stairs and out to the street.

42

Maple Tree as a Study in Quiet Exuberance

Doug Talley

This posture on my knees, I have spent so much time here,

on the floor, in a field, in a chamber of the heart, it is now
long my natural state to close both eyes to this world
and search the dark for any sign, the faintest hint
of the narrowest sliver of some lost, forgotten light.
Is it hope, or madness, that I wake every morning
expecting news of an angel? Dante had no sooner
groped to the white sands of purgatory, washed up
from the icy backwaters of hell, as though he fell
from a bad dream, when he saw the first of many,
and I think of that scriptural enticement to the windows
of heaven, suspecting those ancient Jewish casements

2nd place, 2012 Irreantum Poetry Contest

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Talley: Poems

were never filled with manufactured glass, never

transparent apertures to the fiery hosts of heaven,
but rather a few nailed boards, something to be opened
to invite natural light in and dispel all darkness.
Sure enough, the Hebrew is , rubbth, meaning
a lattice, and the present equivalent is this lone maple tree
with its latticework of branch sifting a low November sun,
here where I bow, here alone in the south pasture
with a single maple, stripped to the bone, casting
its latticework of shadow on a chamber of the heart
and stirring to life this voice, this faintest hint of light,
this quiet exuberance, A tree took root in the blood.

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A Few Answers for the Blue Roving Sky

Anyone who leaves this world takes in hand a library.
Each book intimate and familiar as the shadow of a tree
rooted to a tree, with its spread image, branch by branch,
leaf by leaf, drawn across this charnel-house earth.
See how the spirit anchors to heart and mind just so,
to the tree growing in a child, how it opens like a song
whose only purpose is the slow dance of devotion,
one lover with another. Each book of this library
repeats a shadow, a song. Heavens, one will read,
a hummingbird just took wing in the days hosanna.
Enough, cries another, of this ordeal, this bleeding wound.
And still another murmurs, How heavy with apples
are the trees this fall, how rich the harvest this year.
Each in answer to the roving blue sky, Who are you,
and where in the world are you going now, and why?

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After Years of Fidelity, a Meekness

Like Job, I had made a covenant with my eyes.
Long married, why should I think now on a maid?
My wife satisfies me still, deeply and happily,
whenever she nuzzles into my neck,
always with quiet self-assurance and tenderness,
alwaysthough the hour be dark or bright.
I am not unaware I may only be fooling
myself with imaginary, pretended virtues.
Still, an older friend, more disciplined than I,
tells me the spoiled, angry urgethat carnal pulse
always demanding its own satisfaction
will soften with time. It aches less to turn away,
to avert the eye. And this even Dante confirmed,
growing aware of an increased virtue
signaled by an increased delight in doing good,
per sentire pi dilettanza bene operando, he wrote.
What, after all, is left to the soul at this late hour,
what but the satisfaction of a right vow observed,
though Job suffered miserably for his own integrity?
What is left but a pure, unspoiled embrace,
when the day closes and drowns the sun in crimson red
and the violet sky swallows the last of the moon?
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Sweeping Confession like an Arc across the Sky

A mere rinse of water, this misted rainfall,
this ablution, that charms from the sunlight
its hidden trove of scarlet, amber, and indigo,
otherwise invisible to the fusted world.
Is there not somewhere in the eternities a balm
for every open wound? Isnt every rainbow
the healing token of some shattered seerstone,
proclaiming infinite mercy? In this light,
who would longer deny the Nazarene,
what man refuse discipleship still
after the order of Melchizedek? What poet
in this light shrinks from his yoke of song
and does not gather instead all his kisses
for the skin, his best words for the soul,
of his wifeher every cell a largesse?
Each passing moment begs confession.
As I grow older and simpler, the more
I find myself, as promised, absolutely lost
in another, and less and less concerned
with honor, or even acknowledgement,
from the worn and fusted world.

48

Chronic
An Essay about Being Sick. Very Sick. For a Very Long Time.
Kylie Turley

Getting sick has changed things for me. I used to look in

the mirror and see a competent, faithful, attractive woman striding
through her thirties who had much to offer; now I see a woman whose
medication-induced hair thinning and deep wrinkles speak of pain
and worry; a wife who offers her husband the onus of being unequally
yoked and the burden of an increasingly-disabled companion; a mother
who needs her children to clean and cook and gardennot because
of some well-developed child-rearing methodology, but because she
cannot do it herself; a daughter of God who wonders what kind of
Father would choose a life of pain for a beloved child. I have rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinsons disease, as well as medication side-effects
ranging from ringing ears and osteoporosis to extreme weight loss and
migraines. How do I feel about that? It depends on the day: Vulnerable.
Angry. Exposed. Useless. Tolerated. Sad. I am a liability, a hindrance, a
commitment. My purpose is seemingly to give others an opportunity
to serve, and, frankly, that is a lonely, depressing way to live.
Phew. That last paragraph sounds maudlin. I have a rheumatologist,
a neurologist, a neuroophthalmologist, a gynecologist, a dermatologist, and a movement disorder specialist on speed dial. Luckily one
of my sisters is a counselor and one of my friends is a psychologist,
though I probably ought to locate a neurosurgeon, occupational therapist, and an internistjust to be safe. Apparently a few things can
still go wrongas I learned when my last MRI showed a 5.18mm
Honorable mention, 2012 Irreantum Personal Essay Contest

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Irreantum

brain lesion. Well, I told everyone, No surprise there. I have suspected brain damage for years. Dont you think it explains so much?
That brings me to one of my primary coping methods: denial
served with a dash of humor and a pinch of sarcasm. It is really quite
useful. Health insurance and massive medical bills? Pshaw. Those nice
politicians will get it all sorted out. Husband? Clearly, he adores me. And
kids? No problem, there; why would any child want a healthy mom?
Unhealthy moms do not hover while you do chores, do not hound you
to be overly-involved in extracurricular activities, and do not see anything wrong with the whole family putting on their pajamas by 6p.m.
on Friday nights. I particularly enjoy pretending that I might feel better
tomorrow. Or at least next summer. And the future? I need not be concerned, since it will doubtless be lovely. Sufficient is the day and all that
stuff. There is so much room in my life for healthy denial.
I have been in denial since my health fell apart seven years ago. If
I heard my story, I would label me hypochondriac and move on, but
be aware that I used to be perfectly healthy. I lived over a year with
random finger joints swelling, foot pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, and
neck pain before someone thought of rheumatoid arthritis. Enter
denial. I spent the first six months wailing bi-weekly to my sister,
Ikeep thinking this will just go away. I dont know what RA is. How
can I have it? I am not a sick person. I do not even have a doctor. No
one in our family is sick. All these forms say to list family illness, and
I draw a straight line through no all the way down. Most days I spun
some bizarre spiritual denial as well. It went something like this: God
does not give us trials that we are not capable of handling. I cannot
handle having rheumatoid arthritis. Therefore, God will take away.
Heavenly Fathers ways are apparently not my ways.
I next tried spiritual bargaining: the I will serve Thee all my days if
Thou wilt cure me kind of emotional appeal/deal, which obviously did
not work for me, either. That might have been because I had already covenanted to serve Him years ago. Oops. Maybe I should have held out?
One morning, a couple months into the arthritis diagnosis with four
medications tried and rejected, I limped to breakfast, fell onto my
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pillowed wooden chair, and stared at my bowl of lumpy oatmeal. Cradling my hurting right wrist with my swollen left hand, I felt tears
squeak out and leave a chilly trail down my cheeks. I glanced at my
five children and their upset faces, then stood without a word and
limped out. In my bedroom, I collapsed on the pillow-top mattress,
unable to curl up in a ball because my knees and hips hurt. My husband came in, but I rolled my back to him and kept crying. Over and
over I whimpered, I cant do this. I simply cannot do this. I cant.
The stupid thing about such moments is that they do not change
a thing.
Which does not keep me from having them.
Personally, I believe in breakdowns, another strange mechanism I
periodically pull from my coping arsenal. My sister-in-law, a TypeI
diabetic since age 11, told me that she gives herself three days for every
new crisis. It seemed like fairly good advice, so I tried it out. Four
years ago, when my left arm stopped swinging, I moaned for at least
three days, whining to my husband that it threw me off balance, that
I felt weird, that everyone was staring. Three years ago, when I lost
sensation in my left foot, I took a day or two to mourn; you do not
know how much you miss feeling the back sides and tips of your toes
until you cannot feel them, not to mention the ticklish shock of touch
on your instep. You should offer a prayer of silent gratitude right now
for the sensation in your left foot.
When my neurologist admitted that some of my symptoms might be
Parkinsons disease, I knew it was time for a breakdown and some routine
denial: I bawled all the way to my husbands office, demanded a blessing,
then convinced my 4-year-old daughter to spend the afternoon eating
buttery popcorn and watching Pride and Prejudice with me. Certainly I
would have to adjust, to reconcile myself to the new loss, but I did not
have to do that immediately. It is slightly irrational, but it helps. Everyone
knows the big blows take some adjustment, but so do the little ones.
With chronic illness, there is not just one large reconciliation. I wish
there were. I hate this slow deterioration, this constant corrosion,
this creeping disintegration. I thought about it again today when
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my neurologist reassured me that it would be very, very rare if my

5.18 mm brain lesion turned out to be a tumor. She spent a good
15minutes soothing meexplaining details, sizes, homogeneity, and
the relative normalcy of just one. I put on my serious face, but inside
I was thinking that a tumor might be easier. Fact: both my doctor and
I know that if my next brain scan shows more lesions, we will start
talking about multiple sclerosis. Most days I hold running conversations with God; today I said, Really, Father? Not just one, but three
chronic, degenerative illnesses? I know that Thou art holy and mindful of
me and my best interest, but I am just wondering, how could this possibly
work out well for me or my kids or my husband or anyone else around me?
Not that I am questioning Thee. Or Thy plan. I am just saying.
A few months later, visiting at my parents home, my 7-year-old son
comes to tattle on his older brother.
Mom, he complains. Christian is saying Im a baby, and he wont
let me play with him and the other cousins.
I try to listen patiently, though both the teasing and the resulting
whining are habitual and annoying.
Go get him, I say in third person omniscience, and tell him his
mom wants to talk to him.
My little boy gleefully trots off, having accomplished his mission.
My older son sulks in, defensive and abrasive, launching into an explanation before I can open my mouth.
I cut him off. Honey, I say moderately, noticing that my sisters
are watching the interchange. Can we just get along today? Can we
all play nicely?
He agrees and stalks out, still mad in spite of his verbal compliance.
No doubt we will have the same conversation again shortly.
My sister stares at me, opens her mouth, closes it, then rocks back
in her chair.
He came, she finally blurts out.
What? I inquire, knowing she is talking about one of my sons but
not understanding. Caid always tattles; Christian always teases. What
is so surprising?
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Turley: Chronic

Christian. He came. He knew you were going to get mad at him,

and he came anyway.
He did. I am not astonished that he came. He always does. But my
sisters surprise surprises me and makes me think. I regularly tally up
all my children lose by having a sick mom, but I should give credit
where credit is due: Okay, Father, I think. I thank Thee for showing me
one good thing about having RA. My children come when I call. They
respect my pain enough to know I cannot chase after them and could never
physically drag them off the playground equipment after four warnings
about leaving a park. I am not conceding that this is going to work out well
in any holistic sense, but I will give you that one. He came.
Despite all of the talking I do with Him, I really do not understand
God or this chronic illness plan He has going for me. Religious people
tell me that all things happen for a reason, which is rather tricky to
understand. All the spiritual stuff is. I doubt people mean to imply
that my wicked nature needed this particular lesson to humble me,
but they do. I also doubt they mean to suggest that I could be healed if
I just had enough faith, but they do. I have been told that I caused my
illness and that I unconsciously want pain and illness to get attention.
Personally, I think it is rude to say such things. I ignore them.
No one need say it, anyway. It is not as if we chronically sick people
do not wonder the same things and feel guilty all by ourselves.
If I let it, the guilt could gnaw my insides out, and so could the anger.
I hate knowing that this year might be the last year that I can slip
my shirt on and off by myself, or the last month I will hold a fork
and feed myself, or the last time I can force my fingers to unbuckle
a babys car seat. I despise the loss of the little things. Since my right
wrist began hurting two years ago, I have been unable to chop crunchy,
fresh vegetables, no matter how sharp the knife is or how much I love
to eat them. This entire essay was typed with voice-activated software,
since Parkinsons means my left hand and fingers no longer obey brain
signals very well. I am grateful that I can still walk, but my left foot
drags a bit, and I abhor the uneven sound: click, scratch-click, click,
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Irreantum

scratch-click. A couple of months ago, I had to have my husband

shave my armpits. Trust me: humiliation does not begin to describe
it, though my husband insists that it is always his pleasure to help
mebathe.
I used to lose the ability to do big things: Labor Day of 2007 was
the last time I went rock climbing. I was afraid it might be, but I had
to learn it the hard way. I spent the next day in bed with excruciating
pain, unable to count to ten unless I was lying perfectly still with heating pads tucked strategically around me. I paid the price with doctors
visits, steroid shots, and constant pain in places you do not need to
know about for the next two months. I will not be rock climbing again,
not even on my best days.
The loss plays tricks with my mind. Hopeful, happy people probably have no idea how much of their ability to handle problems today
comes from their belief that tomorrow will be better. At the same time
chronic illness robs the present of ease and vibrancy, it makes a hopeful future impossible. Can healthy people understand? The future
weighs so much. Most days I really can handle the physical pain of
arthritis and the shaking and slow movement of Parkinsons, but the
knowledge that it is never going away makes it unbearable. Absolutely
unbearable. I bend under the bulk, bowed by the burden, and wonder
when the weight will snap me in two like a toothpick. Maybe I used to
pride myself on facing reality with a cool, calculated stare and analytical logic, but I now know how not to think, not to plan, not to organize.
Thinking about the future is not allowed.
I have heard that living in the moment is a strength. That may be
right, but it is a strength that takes some getting used to.
When I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, I decided to deal
differently with illness than I had with past problems. Typically I hide
in my head and solve my problems in my own little world, then come
out when I am ready. But I learned a new way from watching a friend
deal with the death of her baby courageously and in full public view. I
told family and friends openly, crying and admitting my frustration and
my confusion. Word spread, and people with chronic illness sought me
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Turley: Chronic

out to say that the first year or two are the hardest, but you will be okay
when you get stabilized with a medication that works for you. That
helped. Unfortunately, it did not turn out to be true, but I am just the
weird one for whom medications do not work or cause bizarre and/or
severe side effects. My diabetic sister-in-law recommended I add flexibility to my coping cache: Do whatever it takes, she said, suggesting
I feel free to whine, pray, laugh, cry, deny, embrace, ignore, fight, be still,
take methotrexate or not, try acupuncture or yoga or not, go to a movie,
read, or hold my breath. Or not. Whatever I needed. She said, When
you are strapped into a roller coaster against your will, enjoy the view
when you are up, scream when you are upside-down, and close your
eyes when you need to. That makes more sense all the time.
I do not believe that misery should like company, but it really helps
to have people who understand. For most people, I show my stiff upper
lip side; a few close friends and family members get my this is really
hard side. My friend with MS gets the morbid humor. She brought
my family dinner one night during my week of bed rest after a spinal
tap gone wronga nice, homemade lasagna complete with bread and
salad. The next day she called, laughing hysterically and nearly yelling
into the phone, You will never guess where I am. The hospital! We
giggled for 15 minutes about coordinating hospital crises and the jittery
feeling caused by prednisone. My husband raised his eyebrows in deep
concern as I wiped away tears, snorting at the hilarity and suggesting
I have him run the leftover lasagna back over to her family. For some
reason, it is only funny with people in the same situation.
Sometimes, when they learn of my illnesses, people say things like,
You are going to learn to be so compassionate. That does not help.
You do not have to believe me, but I know that I am right when I say
that simply being in pain does not automatically teach empathy. In
fact, often it is just the opposite. It feels like someone is scratching
coarse sandpaper up and down my temples when I hear people lament
the pain of papercuts and stubbed toes. Yesterday my husband looked
at me with sad, bleary, puppy dog eyes and mournfully intoned that
he was so sick of being sick, blowing his nose like a fog horn for effect.
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Irreantum

I let the words hang in the air. For ten long, awkward seconds. Then
I told him I was sorry and that I hoped he would feel better soon. I
managed not to roll my eyes. And, actually, I do hope he will soon get
over his two-week cold; after all, someone has to take care of me.
I am exaggerating a little bit. It is true that I am much more aware
now, aware that there have always been people around me who struggle with illness and difficulties. Before this happened, I was indecently
ignorant of pain and distress. Remember when I said I did not know
anyone with rheumatoid arthritis? Turns out I was wrong; approximately one in every 100 people has rheumatoid arthritis, and I know
thousands of people. I have been surrounded by people with arthritis
all my lifebut I was too selfish to realize that they had it. I was
prone to judge someone who did not help take down chairs and wash
dishes after the ward dinner, or who did not sign up regularly on the
compassionate service list. Now I worry when I see people sitting out
rather than participating. I wish I knew what was wrong and how I
could help them. I never want to add to another persons pain if I can
avoid it. No one needs me to add to their burdens. If that is empathy,
then maybe I am learning it.
One person spent a vigorous hour explaining to me that despair
cometh because of iniquity (Moroni 10:22). I tried to reason that
just because despair cometh ... of iniquity does not necessarily mean
that it only comes from iniquity. I thought it was a nifty piece of logic,
though I did not persuade my debating opponent. So label me iniquitous because despair is a short three or four sentences away almost
every morning and at any given moment of the day. All it takes is that
electric jolt when my feet hit the carpet, some of the thirty-three joints
per foot becoming swollen and inflamed during the night. My calf
muscles cramp and rebel from the Parkinsons, and I know better than
to simply stand up without holding onto something. I hear panic ring
in my mind, the alto of my speaking voice laced with a high-pitched
whine, that tightens my back and shoulder muscles, clenches my teeth,
and starts pressure building behind my eyes. I think:
(1) If this is how I feel today, how will I feel tomorrow?
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Turley: Chronic

(2) I already have to make my children twist the can opener, chop
my vegetables, and scrub the floors; how will I manage when they
aregone?
(3) And when they return home with cute little grandkids, I will
not be able to hold the sweet babies, much less play with the toddlers.
I will be bedridden and helpless.
See? Despairin three sentences. It takes a firm mind to stay
focused in the moment, and sometimes it takes a half-hour or so to
convince myself that I really do want to get up out of bed and get going.
Spiritual things would be less confusing if I did not believe in a
God of miracles. But I do. If thou wilt, says the leper to Jesus in Mark
1:40, Thou canst make me clean. The Lord is moved with compassion and touches the leper, saying, I will; be thou clean (Mark 1:41).
The parable is inspiring and distressing. I hold three separate statements as true: God can do miracles. God loves me and is moved with
compassion for me, too. I will deal with increasing pain and disability
for the rest of my life. For me and for many others who pray for healing, Christ apparently says, I will not. I know that He can; that fills
me with hope. For some reason, He chooses not to; that is difficult.
When the Relief Society president learns that another medication has
gone wrong for me, she corners me at church.
Sitting on a metal folding chair in the back of a classroom, the president tugs her shirt and crosses her legs right over left, then re-crosses
left over right. How can we help you? she asks, looking uncomfortable but concerned. In typical LDS fashion, she suggests that the Relief
Society bring in meals.
I laugh. That is so nice of you. It really is, but I am not getting well
anytime soon. What are you going to do? Bring me dinner for the rest
of my life? I smile and run my fingers through my hair, pulling out
more loose strands, then laugh again to let her know I am joking.
She does not flinch. Her eyes are clear and tearless, and her voice
is steady, If we need to.
I blink. She has caught me in the little I am fine lie that I tell
everyone every day.
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Irreantum

Sister Marshall calls the next morning, I am bringing you dinner

tonight. You cant tell me no. I will be by at 5:30 p.m., and she hangs
up the phone. For the next five nights, my family is fed casseroles and
fruit salads, cookies and cakes, breads and vegetablesmore food
than even five hungry children can eat. I beg the women to stop so we
can eat leftovers and not have food go to waste, insisting again that I
am fine and meaning it for once. A small miracle.
Sometimes it seems as if my life is like a moonless night, dark and
dim, obscure and shadowy; I am easily overwhelmed by the gloom. But
a few bright stars stud the crushed velvet sky, even on the darkest of
nights. I wait for starry flashes and firmly direct myself to notice them.
I am sitting on the couch and realize I am not in pain. It is shocking and
short-lived, but I relish ita good day, I declare, for that moment alone.
My little girl puts on one of her ninja/princess outfits, complete with
purple satin cape and metallic green headscarf. She dances through
the kitchen, points her finger at me, and announces, Guess who I love?
Ismile at her crooked grin and twinkling eyes, and I see her as she is
meant to be seen. The mini-lilacs by the front sidewalk bloomlate
like always because the north-facing planter never receives full sun.
The shady coolness makes growing anything but moss difficult, but it
is also a rare gift: while other lilacs have wilted and faded grayish-blue,
mine are fresh and violet, fully-blooming and fragrant for Mothers
Day. It is a small thing, but I breathe in deeply, the lightly perfumed air
floating around me. My sister brings dinner, not because I am particularly worse today but simply because she lives next door, and she likes
cooking and she can, and she likes serving and she does. I savor her
spices and her kindness, tasting her fiery jalapeos and love long after
the dishes are washed and she has returned home.
When ones life of necessity moves slowly, there is ample opportunity to live deeply in small moments. For that, I am grateful.
I used to live briskly and efficiently through big and small things
family, home, work, service and play. I was useful to and needed by so
many, and I liked it; being useful is good.
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The question is whether being chronically ill is good, too. I know

things now, and I know them in bone-deep, sink-to-the-marrow ways.
There are things worse than having chronic illness; one of them is
watching someone you love hurt when you can do nothing to help.
People can love you, even though you do not do anything for them. To
ask for help when you know you will never repay the favor is humbling
and liberating. Some of the most important lessons you should teach
your childrenthings like compassion and serviceare learned best
when they discover someone is in genuine need. Perhaps suffering is
my greatest gift to them, the greatest lesson I will ever teach.
I wish I were brave enough to insist that what I have learned is well
worth the pain, that I would not choose any other way. But that would
be another lie. I cannot help wanting the miraclethe black-andwhite, intense, direct, grandiose, and marvelously healing miracle; I
would return to being healthy in a heartbeat, were it up to me. For
years, I kept that little secret, as if God did not know, as if saying it
meant I was faithless, as if it were sacrilege to question the hard things
in life. I do not think that anymore. I believe Christ knows how it feels
to want this cup to pass. I think He understands not wanting to live
through what lies ahead, and I do not think he is upset when I tell
Him that I am afraid, that I do not want to do it, that I did not know
how hard it would be. He knows.
I am not my illness, but being sick has changed who I am. In my
mind, I am ready to serve with all my might, mind and strength, yet in
reality I find myself encompassed about by worries, weaknesses, swollen joints, and shaking limbs. My old life revolved around working
hard and being busy and industrious. I see many people around me
living that good life, that shoulder-to-the-wheel, anxiously-engaged
life. I have had a different part chosen for me. My new life is painstaking and unproductive. Things rarely get accomplished, and I have
squarely set aside my old goals of getting PhDs, writing books, and
harvesting big gardens. The years stretch out interminably before
me, and I fear the future. Still, my new life has time for the peaceable things. People and relationships and lovefor them, I have time.
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Irreantum

Daily, Gods grace lingershazy and obscure, slow and unhurried, a

sacrament cup filled one meager drop at a time, a soul sanctified by
a slow burn, a chapter in the Book of Life written word by painfully
exquisite word.
It is a miracle, I suppose. Just another small and bittersweet, chronic
miracle.

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And We Turn
Jim Papworth

from the turgid heat of summer

from the buxom clouds and thunder
from the black-cloaked butterflies
and moths battering our bulbs
from the clumped heads of purpled thistle
from the torn holes of rhubarb leaves
the grasshoppers anvil jaws
from the moons crisp curve winging
through September, through August,
from the skys dippers like small fires
from dust of combines, whine of tractors
from the green land, from languid days
from the killdeers thin legs
its skittering away
from the swallows kaleidoscopic flight
and Huns shaking into their chuckle
and sparrow flight and orioles
from the pine martin noiseless across a forest log
from the scuttle of cattails
and the dark-flagged bodies of blackbirds
and the yellow heads, the red shoulders
the round tunnels of their eyes
and from the lacy-winged dragonflies
hacking the air with their stutter
from the stutter of cicada
the ratcheting stutter of hoppers
stutter of the fields headless wheat stalks
and finally from you, oh, spinning earth
your moan, your wooing, your cradle
from the bent wings of your flight.
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Papworth: Poems

As Memory Fades
But memory is what we forget. We forget
in a balance of here and then. Fading, of course.
It is the unsaid when the said rises in its peculiar sounds.
Lovers, mothers, children. Red wrath. Whispering
something behind the fence at Webster School
fourth grade. Kissing Joan Helpman.
The unbearable nature of separation
not from the thing, but the words around the thing.
How to survive, what plants to pick from the forest:
mint or lemon; water cress or wood sorrel.
It cannot be dementia, this early.
The snapping-synapses giving in to imagination.
What to hold: when to release.
Which room for anguish. Which room for comfort.
Which corridors between the rooms.
This thing, this creature, this ugliness romping.
It might be fear or the underbelly of fear.
It has a name, but who, now, can remember?

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Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

Warren Hatch

Shaler Lake small below us. The topography of the basin

clear. Lets sit, I tell Mummer. Maybe have them get out their maps,
spend a minute comparing map to country from up here. The boys
are strung out below us, hunched into their packs as they climb. Wally,
Pyro, Spam. Then Yamba keeping an eye on Moby. Len Moon shepherding them along, stoop-shouldered, considering the world before
him. One by one, they make their way up, choose boulders, and sit
dangling their legs above the steep curving-away ridge. They drink,
rest, and study their maps and how the upper basin above treeline
spreads below them. Their breathing calms.
See how the basin floor looks like some giant bear raked his paw
across it, especially on the rock? Wally says. What do you think of
that?
Pretty soon they work out how massive boulders ground their
way across bedrock as the boulders were trapped and carried under
the foot of a long-dead glacier, scoring the stone. They find a boulder
at the end of a bearclaw scrape, and another. The boulders look like
pebbles from up here, but they are as big as houses. There, maybe the
glacier ground a boulder to pieces. They realize that our last bivouac
was in a claw-scrape carved by a great bear glacier.
Mummer stands. Now be careful, he reminds them. Stay on line.
And dont walk below each other, Yamba says. Dont kick rocks
loose. And watch for rockfall above you. And sing out if anything
comes loose.
They set out winding their way up the talus slope, Yamba routefinding on point with Moby. We string out behind, walking with that
3rd place, 2012 Irreantum Fiction Contest

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Irreantum

peculiar gait of a mountaineer on loose stone, the slight hesitation

to test the stone before transferring weight between legs. Even the
brand-new boys pick it up quickly. Every now and then, a grapefruitsized stone slides free and sometimes bounces down the hill a couple
of yards. Rock! they echo each other down the line.
We hunch and stoop at our packs and balance our way up the rock
slope of broken mountain and loose-turning stones. Packs pushing us
down, making us ungainly. Burning lungs and legs.
We approach the first cliff band, about a forty-foot step. Yamba
chooses a good route, a stepped fracture in the cliff band, and climbs
up. They like to climb, and the first cliff band problem distracts them
from the tedium and toil and burning lungs of the scree slopes.
Yamba and Mummer find a good ledge on the trickiest section of
the step and slip out of their packs, guiding the boys who struggle.
Remember you have that pack behind you, Mummer says.
It changes your balance, Yamba says. Itll peel you off the wall if
you dont pay attention to your center of gravity.
Spam is clinking like a tinker. Mummer looks down from his perch
at Spam, looks across at Yamba, looks back at Spam. You look like a
hobo, Spam, he says. Spam has gear hanging all over his expedition
pack. He got behind breaking camp and got in a hurry.
While we wait to climb on, Pyro and I help Spam re-rig his pack.
You dont want to hang yourself up and get pulled off balance.
And I guess I dont want to look like a hobo.
Wally gropes at his pants, trying to pull them up under the thickpadded belt of his expedition pack. He has practically no hips or butt,
and the pack is continually pushing his pants right back down as soon
as he pulls them up. Spam shakes his head. Hes a stout kid and has
no empathy for Wallys trouble.
All you got to do, Spam says, is you got to grow into your britches.
Wally grits his teeth.
I strip out some parachute shroud, measures it around Wallys
waist, cut it off, and hand it to him. Loop this through your belt
loops. Cinch it up, and squareknot it. The technological miracle of
the belt.
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Hatch: Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

Im betting that new-fangled device will be trouble in the not too

distant future, Len says.
Above the second cliff band, they try the snowdrift, but the spur
it follows is too steep, and a standing wave of wind blows across the
drift, sublimating snow into atmosphere and knocking bewildered
boys off balance. One moment the air is still, except for a low moaning and a ticking in the corn snow and ice of the drift. Then one more
step, and theyre in the windblast. They all try it, and slip off, skidding back down, akimbo on their backs, wet with sun-soaked snow.
So they skirt to the windward side of the drift. Windblasted, shirts
blousing out, they gasp in the wind and grin. The thrilling wind on
the bones of the world.
The boys dont talk much, concentrating on the climb, the breathlessness, the blast of wind. When they do talk, they yell words torn
apart by wind. They shrug at each other.
A few of the boys turn aside from the line of ascent and relieve their
bladders, inspired first by the wet cold of the snow on their backsides
then by each other. Wally starts to dance and fidget, fussing at his
rope belt. He turns aside for a moment but cant master the knot.
Near the top of the drift, he suddenly throws himself on his back
in the snow, on top of his backpack. He fumbles and unclips his pack
belt, then finally undoes the knot in his cord-belt, slips out of the
shoulder straps, and jumps up. He unlimbers himself, weathervanes
downwind, and releases a prodigious stream. Pyro stops short and
turns away, respectfully. He has empathy. Moby swings wide around
them about twenty feet downwind, climbs on.
What the heck is all this mist? Moby yells. He looks up at the sky,
waves his arm to shield his face. What the heck.
Hes taking a leak on you. Pyro yells.
What?
Len yells, Cause and effectpay attention.
What?
I wave him ahead, and he shrugs, turns upridge.
Len steps up even with me. Wally finishes, and Len claps my shoulder and climbs on.
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Irreantum

Above the snowdrift, the spur ridge steepens, and the boulders get
larger and mostly more stable the higher we climb. Were in the lee of
the last cliff band, sheltered from wind. Blocks of stone as big as cars
and houses. Like one big jungle gym winding up into sky. The boys
use hands and elbows and knees to lever themselves over and between
boulders. They pop up here and there like marmots, winding back
and forth, their route centered on the point where the last cliff band
meets the spur. The rasp of their breaths carries across the rocks.
Sweat no longer evaporates on the wind. It stings our eyes, soaks
our shirts. From time to time, in the stillness, a boy steps on a loose
stone, and it grinds against its brothers, vibrating deep, hollow like a
shifted manhole cover. A grinding sound that makes your heart skip
when you hear it under your bootsolethe rare feel of the world
shifting under you. They pause, trying to keep from walking directly
under or above each other, on rockfall lines.
They crane their necks up the spur ridge, studying the last cliffband. It is the tallest and most sheer of the cliff bands that parallel
the ridge, as high as three hundred feet. But where it meets the spur
that we are climbing, it effaces to about fifty feet. Moby leads up to
the base of the cliff band with Yamba. Mummer and Spam string
out behind them. They drop their packs and get out the climbing
gear. Our route up through the cliffband is a tight chimney set in the
corner of a dihedral, followed by a ten-foot, upsloping natural arch.
Yamba, Mummer, and Wally disappear into the chimney one after
the other. Then at the top of the chimney, Yamba and Wally face each
other across the dihedral and throw the static rope down. Mummer
has climbed half-way up the chimney then traversed out to a shelf.
He holds a length of parachute shroud tied to a carabiner midway
along the static climbing rope, to keep the static rope from snagging
or chaffing in the chimney.
When I reach the base of the dihedral, the boys there are clipping
their packs into the static rope one at a time, then waiting their turn
to free-climb the chimney. Yamba and Moby are sweating at the packs.
One by one, the boys wedge to the back of the chimney, twist up
and to the front, and so on, wiggling and stemming up through with
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Hatch: Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

combinations of straddles and back presses. Coming out of the chimney top, they make a short traverse to the arch, where Len waits.
Until now, they have mostly had the mountain in their faces as they
climbed. On the arch, theyre still safe, but for the first time with a sense
of exposure and vastness. Below them, the world drops away. The great
tumble of boulders, the lower spur with its white slash of snowdrift
and its cliff bands dropping away into evening shadow. Shaler Lake,
now deep cobalt, almost black. And the upper basin tundra-meadows,
the bear claw rakings, then the lower basins of spruce forests.
Yamba, Mummer, and Wally climb up fine. Spam and Pyro balk
quite a bit. Then they try to scramble, nose down.
Slow down, Len says. Relax and enjoy the view. His voice gentle
but without compromise.
But Moby seizes up like hes frozen there, leaned over and gripping
the rock with his ankles and thighs and belly and arms and splayed
out fingers. The curl of his lip has increased. Len climbs up, sits down
next to him, looks out across the basins. He says, Listen. I met a fellow once right here climbing over into the next basin. He had his
collie with him.
I clip a carabineer onto a shank of webbing and toss the shank to Len.
So youre saying if a dog could do it, I ought to, Moby says.
No. Collies are a lot braver and unquestioning than most people.
Loop this webbing around your waist a couple of times. This guy with
the collie. He had carried his pack on his back and his old hipshot collie in his arms or sometimes on his shoulders between his pack and
his head. The high country meant a lot to the dog, and the dog meant
a lot to the man. Tie a square knot there.
So whats your point?
No point. Just a story. It is as if theyre still here now. Walking up
over this arch, that man, that collie on his shoulders and the world
dropping away on either sideits as if they changed this place somehow by being here. Thats called a swami wrap, just clip this biner into
it. There. Now do you want to clip into the rope?
No. Im okay, Moby says.
Okay, just work the problem, Moby.
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Irreantum

And Moby starts humping his way up the arch.

I wait, scanning down along the spur ridge, and right at the top of
the snow drift, a dark smudge appears. It wasnt there, and now its
there. I sit and wait. Then it shuffles north, crossing the spur ridge,
and stops where it crosses our path and its front wags back and forth,
sampling wind. I look back up at Len and Moby. Occupied. Pyro and
Spam watching Moby. Mummer and Wally are picking their way
along Yambas route up the final pitch to the spine of the ridge.
The bear shuffles on down the north side of the spur ridge and
vanishes between fins.
I follow Len and the boys up the arch. They wind their way over
shelves and ledges and between little fins. For the first time since the
lower cliffband, the route crosses smaller, loose stone. Patches of scree
made up of mostly grapefruit- and football-sized stones from here to
the ridge spine. Easy to kick loose. The slope is steep enough to put an
uphill hand on the ground to balance.
Watch this loose rock here, and, watch your line, the boys
remind each other over and over as they work to keep out from above
or under each other.
Len loops webbing into a swami wrap around his waist, clips on a
carabineer, twists a double figure-eight into the end of the climbing
rope, and clips it into the carabineer. He climbs six or eight yards as
Spam peels off climbing rope, and he pauses. Spam whips a butterfly
into the rope, finishes his own swami wrap, and clips into the butterfly. Another eight yards of rope, then Pyro. They stretch diagonally
up the mountain in a chain. Spam gently tugs the slack out of the
rope anchoring him to Pyro. Pyro holds up a butterfly for Moby, who
shakes his head.
We catch up with the lead group squatting and peering down at us
from a lip of gneiss.
We ought to clip you in, Mummer tells Wally.
Im not afraid.
Yeah. Thats why we ought to clip you in, Yamba says.
Id rather have gone north fifty yards, climb the cliff band where its
a real wall, instead of that little chimney, Wally says.
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Hatch: Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

We dont have the right gear, Mummer says.

Whats all this?
Static climbing rope, Yamba says. Good for rappelling or walking
together on exposed pitches. Not for free lead climbing. The rope isnt
elastic enough. Bust your ribs if you fall. Need a dynamic rope. And
no proper climbing harnesses. And not enough nuts and friends.
Wally blinks. Mummer points at the hexentric nuts and the camming devices.
Wedge them in cracks, clip in your lead climbing rope, Yamba says.
I know what they are, Wally says.
Moby, you looked like Buck on that arch! Spam says.
What?
My moms Chihuahua. You looked like Buck trying to hump our
neighbors Rottwei I lock eyes with Spam.
Mummer looks downridge, into the dusk-settling abyss. Lets
travel, he says.
No need to be wandering this ridge at night, Yamba says.
We climb on. That fearless Wally. I am pretty sure it comes from
his mother. His daddy dumped the family but still gives them hell.
Mean-hearted and brave-hearted are not the same thing at all. Last
year, Wally and Pyros mothers met us on the trail our last night. I
never saw any father do thatwe were still most of a days travel and a
vertical mile from the trailhead to that wild camp. It was hard on those
women, but they figured out where we were and joined us. They love
those boys. Wally is going to give his mother some hell these next few
years. Break her heart. But if she is his gravity, I think he will do okay.
Moby. Look, Moby, I say over his shoulder. Just tell them, Of
course I was freaked. Yeah. People respect that. Dont chase cool so
hardyou kinda gotta just let it come to you. Watch Spam.
We shorten the gap with Spam. Spam, I say. Howd you like
climbing that last chimney?
Oh, that was fun. Kinda tight.
How about the arch?
I was scared for a minute. I about wet my pants.
The boys in earshot laugh.
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Irreantum

Im glad I didnt know that then, Pyro says. I only went across
because you did.
Moby pauses, and I pause, and the gap lengthens. And I say, Moby,
see how they trust him.
I dont care who trusts me.
Yeah. You do. And there you go spewing crap again. I grin.
The curl of his lip relaxes. Then he grins.
The ridgeline starts to curve away with each climbing step, and
every boy starts to hurry just a little until one after another, they crest
out, stomping in crunchy corn snow on the Spread Eagle-Agassiz
ridgeline. The deep basin of Hells Kitchen stretches below us, its lakes
like shards of sky fallen down. The snow fields fanning down to valley
floor. Braided brooks and marshland and tundra shimmering purple
with lupine and punctuated by solitary spindly spruce and patches of
groundpine or mountain mahogany. Marshland and brook funneling
into stream, cascading into lakes. The deep spruce and fir woods lower
in the basin already starting to fill with an ocean of dark.
Easy to imagine the curve and spin of the earth up here, the world
rising to meet you on one side of the ridge and slipping away on the
other. The spine of the Uintas stretches east, and spurs branch north
and south. Agassiz to the west along with the minor west peaks of the
range. Then sixty miles farther west, the massifs of the Wasatch Range
Nebo, Loafer, Maple, Provo-Cascade, Timpanogos, Lone Peak, Twin
Peaks, Ben Lomond, Ogden. On the desert beyond the Wasatch Front,
Willow Creek. Home. The boys call out Timpanogos, then Provo-Cascade, and the deep canyon between the two massifsthe way home.
Between there and here, hidden behind high, blue ridges, the successively higher valleys of Heber and Kamas and the long Slate Gorge up
into the Uintas lie in dusk. Then the trailhead at Hayden Pass, hidden
behind Agassiz. The boys perch on blocks of gneiss and dig maps out
of their pockets, unfold them, locating peaks and lakes, passes, ridges.
Arguing over the geography, orienting themselves to their world.
Beneath the bones of the Uinta peak ridges, conifer forests fill
basins, running to the horizons. The closer forest has a gray tinge of
tree death. Drought, mistletow, pine bore. The forest seems every year
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Hatch: Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

more stressed in a way that lodges under your rib cage. How would it
be possible to lose a forest? Yet the Cedar Breaks forest two hundred
miles south on the west end of the Colorado plateau succumbed to
pine bores in just a decade. I have read about worse in the Pacific
Northwest. I look at Yamba, wind ruffed, stalking Pyro with a snowball. What will my boys see when they are my age, and they stand here.
Yamba clambers over, settles next to Len on a block of gneiss, says,
I saw a bear, still not sure if he really did.
Len says. Good eye. Did you see where he picked up our scent?
Where he kinda bobbed around?
Right there.
But then he went on with his business?
Yeah. On with his business. Pretty rare to see a bear, especially
when youre beset with little green people. Len ruffs his hair. Even
you and your bunch.
Lenstanding on that windblown arch coaxing Moby as he balked
and straddled and humped, yet seeing the bear on the spur ridge a halfmile below. Fighter pilot eyes.
From where we sit, our ridgeline runs like the most ancient of roads.
Listen, I say, Im going to tell you a poem and you wont understand
it for a few years, so just remember it until thenor at least remember that I told you a poem here about walking on ridgeways.
Does it rhyme? Pyro asks. Theyre all wary. Ive tried to unload
stuff that doesnt rime on them before. They prefer poets along the
lines of Robert Service. Ballad of Sam Magee.
Yes. It rhymes. I had a teacher. He was a good teachera Welshman. And he had a teacheran Englishman named Andrew Young.
The Welshmans teacher taught him this poem, and he taught it to me.
Its called On the Ridgeway, and it goes like this:
Thinking of those who walked here long ago
On this greenway in summer and in snow
She said, This is the oldest road we tread,
The oldest in the world? Yes, love, I said.

The breeze ebbs. Snow ticks as it expands in the crevices beneath

our feet.
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Irreantum

What the heck? Wally says.

Well, first of all, hes talking about walking in a place like thisa
mountain ridgeway. But not as high. Roman soldiers built roads along
those ridges in England around the time of Christ. It helps to know
that poet is remembering his wife in the poem. They have had a good
life together. She has died. And he misses her. I cant tell you much
more about the poem. The rest comes with living. I recite the poem
again. Mummer pokes at the snow with his walking stick.
We set out north along the Spread Eagle-Agassiz ridge, away from
Agassiz and toward Spread Eagle. Firm walking snow, almost level,
just a slight crunch. Fine walking. And we follow the ridge up to a
little saddle, that fault line cleft that breaks the ridge spine. We bivouac there. Not much room. But a bit of wind shelter among cloven
blocks of gneiss below the moaning, fretting wind. Following the fault
line east, a chute drops from our bivouac saddle down the opposite
side of the ridge into Hells Kitchen. The chute is full of old snowdrift,
which makes it easier for us to stay up here. The boys dig down into
the drift for clean snow, and they start stoves and melt snow to replenish our water.
Dont scorch your pots, Mummer says.
Look. Add some water to the pot, along with the snow, Yamba
says.
Pyro and Spam have packed a couple of trout with snow in plastic
bags deep in their packs. They dig them out and poach them carefully
and lift the bones away, preserving the skeletons. Then they take the
bones back along the ridge to a tiny ant hill of few but furiously active
ants and lay the bones out on the ant hill. Pyro laughs. Thatll look
pretty funny to somebody, he says.
Why? I say.
Well, you know.
No. Im not sure I know.
Well its kinda hard to explain. Like, you knowfish way up here.
They both laugh at the thought. Fish on a walkabout.
I add water to a bit of freeze-dried chicken.
Dried chicken tastes like wet cardboard, Moby says.
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Hatch: Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

It is a trick to make dried chicken taste like anything besides cardboard. I pinch in some chicken bullion.
You know what dried chicken with bullion tastes like?
No. What? I say.
Bullion-flavored wet cardboard, Spam says.
Get back, you little beast, I say. Im working. I mince a clove of
garlic into the brew, shave in ginger root. I bring the mix to a boil, add
dried peppers and mushrooms, then part of a Kung Pao seasoning
packet. And I crush a few peanuts and throw them in. All along the
fault crack in wind-sheltered clefts, the boys invent. Teriaki, marinara,
Cajun, mesquite. Pasta and rice and potatoes and beans. Dried beef
and chicken and tofu. Like Bedouin we squat or sit cross-legged or
lean on our sides, and we share our food, our discoveries, between us.
This food, its like poems, Moby says.
Pyro and Spam and Wally look at Moby.
What the heck? Spam says. Poems.
I say, I think so. Like poems. If youre paying attention.
Then Moby says, You know what this place reminds me of?The
Ten Commandments.
What? Pyro says.
He means the movie, Len says, with Charlton Heston.
The what-and-who? Pyro says.
You know. Its on TV like every Easter, Moby says.
Moses! Moses! Spam says, drawing out the hard O and throwing
himself at Mobys feet like Anne Baxters Nefretiri.now I have that
image twitching around in my head. Some parts of the movie have
not aged well.
Right, Moby says. This place is likeremember when Moses
goes to talk to God on the mountain?
On Sinai, Len says. Get me that Bible.
Wind frets and snaps in the prayer flags in the boulders above our
bivouac, ticks across corn snow.
He takes the Bible, flips to Exodus, reads, Now Moses kept the
flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the
flock and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the
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Irreantum

Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush,
and the bush was not consumed with fire. And Moses said, I will now
turn aside and see this great sight. And the Lord called to him out
of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here
I am. And the Lord said, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the
place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
He hands the Bible back to Mummer. The boys all have tucked
their feet back up under themselves.
Cold. Venus. A waning crescent moon above the Wasatch Front.
Vega at the top of the sky. Some of the boys have gotten half into their
sleeping bags with their cookpots. The others still sit cross-legged,
unconsciously fingering the soles of their shoes. They sing a little hymn
their mothers taught them. How their shy voices resonate together in
this little fold of rock. How the night above them snatches song away.
This little ridgetop hollow where the mountain has cracked apart. It is
like Horeb. Like where Moses turned aside and spoke with God.
One of the boys says their evening prayer.
Well. Dont anyone barf in your sleeping bag tonight, Mummer
says. Remember the Great Oreo Explosion of 01.
What? the younger boys say.
Part of the troop Lore, Yamba says.
I dont remember that, Len says.
I say, Before you came back to Willow Creek. Yamba threw up in
his mummy bag at midnight in a snowstorm on the Walking Hills.
Too many Oreos.
Len says, Its minor miracle that doesnt happen more often, given
the sorts of things you boys will eat and your philosophy of personal
hygiene. And how you all tend to burrow down pretty deep in your
bags.
Well what about that story, Pyro says.
No barf stories tonight, I say. Memories I dont want to conjure
up here.
That years-ago winter trip out on the West Desert, the dunes stretching to the horizon. The pale sand-like desert colors with no name, the
blue and purple west mountain ranges. Their desolate rhythms. The
76

Hatch: Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

winter-snow cornicing of the dunes north faces, the hollow shadows

in their lee slopes.
Len and I and three boys who havent turned in climb up and sit on
boulders above our bivouac. The boys have set their headlamps to
red LED to preserve their night vision, flicking them on and off as
they bob and twist like red-eyed Cyclops, holding star wheels up to
the night sky or paging through the astronomy book. A lot of sky up
here above trees and ridgelines and peaks. Brilliant night, the weight
of stars sloping down around us.
The boys crane back, searching for the Perseid radiant. Wind snapping the prayer flags, moaning across the ridge boulders.
Start from a sure place, Len says. Remember where home is.
Decades he traveled from military post to military post across the
far-flung world. Len Moon had been my Scoutmaster when a chance
posting at Hill Air Force Base brought him home for a few years. He
taught us boys much of our first sense of this high, wild country and
of how to go about our lives in the tamed country without shoving
too much, and I guess we considered his being with us as an inevitable matter of course. Then his next postings whirled him back out,
farther and farther across the world. He returned again for good after
those years, a beloved son of this country. All those people who leave
Willow Creek and never return homewhen someone returns, we
understand more what we have lost.
Remember where home is, he says again.
The rim of the Dipper, Wally says. From the rim, he and Pyro
find their way to Polaris and on through to Cassiopeia. At her feet,
Perseus. Both constellations awash in the great river of the Milky Way.
They try to imagine and explain to each other the orbital mechanics
of the meteor shower, the earth spinning along an arc through the
trailing streams of a comet that passed here decades and centuries
ago. Every couple of minutes a meteor streaks across the sky, and they
track it to Perseus.
Len says, Canst thou bind the sweet Pleiades, or loose the bands
of Orion?
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The three red-glowing eyes pivot toward him and stop. What?
Yamba says.
He unfolds his legs, stands up above the sheltering blocks of stone,
braces himself, and yells into the wind,
The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth, the great lights of the sky?
Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven,
and canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?
Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds?
Gird up now thy loins like a man, and answer thou me
where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

A wind-crazed thing to do, his voice torn and scattered across the
night sky. The boys bewildered. Mormon bishops are not generally
wild-haired, ranting-in-the-wind, Old Testament prophet types. He
settles back in the lee of his stone. Get up, he says. Get up and loose
your voices. Ride the wind.
Yamba, Wally, and Pyro look around at Len, at me. And they
hunch their way up on their blocks of stone. They hold their arms
out like wings, balancing and teary-eyed against wind, and they howl
into the wind where their voices come to almost nothing, stolen. And
they laugh.
They climb back down next to Len. He says, Something happened
to me one winter night years ago. I sat fussing with a nice little eightinch reflector on a Dobsonian mount that Id picked up at a garage sale.
I was trying to keep the Great Nebula in Orions sword in-field as it
slid down that winter sky. That great cloud dozens of light years across.
Each filament that billowed from the cloud several light years long and
full of newborn stars. That was like wind dragging your greatest words
and shouts out of your lungs as if they were nothing. The vastness.
What am I?
The boys lie back watching the stars, and their red Cyclops eyes
blink out one by one. Then one after the other, they climb down to
their beds.
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Hatch: Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

Len and I drift down and check on the boys curled down in their
bags in a row wedged between boulders on that holy ground under
the stars. Then we settle in ourselves. Hes restive tonight, agitated
almost. With this ridgecrest wind and the stars streaming down the
bowl of the sky. He says, I used to memorize things, recite them on
long flights. I was leading a flight of F-100s back to the States from
Germany, fiddling with that passage from Job. We stopped to refuel in
Sondrestrom, Greenland. Night, just ahead of a storm front.
As soon as we lifted out, they closed the runway. But my landing
gear wouldnt come up. I worked the problem for about fifteen minutes, and no luck. With the extra drag of my gear, I wouldnt have fuel
to make Newfoundland. So I sent the other three F-100s on to our
next stop in Goose Bay and told Sondrestrom tower I was coming
back. They didnt like it, but I had to come in.
The worst weather I ever tried to set down in. No visibility flying back up the fjord. I hung on the flight control radars voice and
my instruments. Eerie when he said I was over the threshold lights.
I never saw the runwayI barely felt it. I flared and laid that F-100
down like a feather and shut the engine down before the nosegear
touched. I wasnt going around again. Eighteen inches of snow already,
and every emergency vehicle on the base at the end of the runway. Im
sure they thought they were there to find what was left of me and
scrape me up off the permafrost. And hoping I wouldnt crater down
on top of them. Two weeks stuck in Sondrestrom.
So you memorize something, and bits and pieces of the world you
walk through tend to get woven into it. That is comforting decades
later. He lies back and breathes out, then says,
By what way is the light parted,
which scattereth the east wind upon the earth?
Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds?
Doth the eagle mount on high at thy command
and abide upon the crag from whence she seeketh prey?

He laughs softly like the remnants of the crazed night wind. He

says, I have gotten so old so fast, and he turns on his side, and presses
the old exultation of warrior and hunter deep. And he sleeps.
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Irreantum

The wind moans above the hollow where were bivouacked, rising. I
climb out of the fold and relieve my bladder downwind into the great
abyss of Hells Kitchen. Im thinking of the Great Oreo Explosion
and Im smiling. What a trip. Some things you just dont think of
until they happen, although in retrospect a boy scout barfing in his
sleeping bag seems inevitable. Yamba and Mummer were just little
fellows. Real tenderfoots. Near-grown now so soon. Spreading their
wings to the winds of the world.
Sometime you have to make your first journey. Sunday afternoon
in May nearly a decade ago when Yamba was ten years old. He and
I lay on our bellies in the living room, topo maps spread around us.
He got the idea that we could walk through the Willow Creek
streets, up into the foothills, then into the high country, and not come
out until Grandmas house. We imagined walking through town
before dawn, streetlight pooling in empty streets. Cats like shadows,
spooking across streets. Mule deer leaving off from nipping tulips and
shrubs and walking with us back up into the foothills to bed down as
we continued on, high above the valley.
We would climb that chain of ridges to Little Baldy, follow the
Great Western Trail around the base of Timpanogos to Timpooneke.
Then Pine Hollow trail to the Ridge trail, north through the Lone
Peak country, Marys Lake then the Twin Peak country. Finally down
Millcreek Canyon into the city and Grandmas house. Sleeping under
the stars after each days walk. And all the adventures that start by just
walking down the street.
It was a big trek, so we thought up a littler trip to try first, and
the next Friday, we stuffed our packssleeping bags and ramen noodles and jerky. Water. And all that gear. Then we started up the grass
ridges west of town, north of Willow Creek Canyon. Afternoon sun
beating down, Yamba flushed. Find a pace, I said. No hurry. Take
time to see.
We sat and drank. And climbed higher. And sat again. We shared
jolly ranchers; his cheeks sucking in and making me laugh. He was
like an elf, deep grass up to his chest, and up to my waist. He stopped
and turned and studied the valley spreading below him, catching his
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Hatch: Bishop Moon Sings the Stars

breaththe world a revelation to him. The towns spread, giving way

to alfalfa, sage, then salt pans toward the lake or foothills leading
up into mountains. The streets and swaths of orchards. Theres my
school and the church up the road from our house. Theres your high
school, Dad. And he is a revelation to himself: there is the map of my
life spread below me, and here I am.
See that fleck of light? I said.
He twisted around, crested wheat grass to his chest, nodded.
Then he climbed further up the ridgeline to a limestone fin, sun
so recently set that he squinted at the horizon. Mercury in the suns
afterglow, already near setting. Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn clustered
low in the west, above the dusk-filled bowl of valley. School, orchards,
grocery. Pin-pricks of street and house light. Steel mill up-valley, redglowing whorls of slag. And those planets sloping down the ecliptic
to the western horizon. Far across the lake to the southwest, a range
fire burned along the foothills of the East Tintic Range, hidden under
the great anvil head of smoke blossoming above the Tintics like a
thunderstorm.
He was fitting those worlds together for the first time, their relative
scales, the eventual relentless distances.
He laid out the stones he had gathered on the trail and looked up.
Which is the sun? I asked, and he chose a rounded, fractured,
boys half-fist of quartz.
And the first planet? I asked.
Well, Mercury, he said.
The god of speed, the messenger. Which stone?
Something pretty burned looking, he said, choosing a bubbly bit
of pummice. He traced a circle around the sun, left them together.
Now what?
Venus. Goddess-of love and beauty.
His eyes narrowed. Another bit of quartz, another orbit.
Earth. He dug in his pocket. His cats eye marble, clouded with
blue and white whorls. Pitted and scored.
He built his orrery, moving planets around staggered orbits,
leaned back, dusted his hands against each other. That looking-up
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Irreantum

close-mouthed smile like he was holding a poliwog in his mouth. I

pointed with a stem of grass at the cats eye. Okay, Yamba, I said,
Right now were here. See how the sun has just set, so we cant see it
from where we sit. But we can see the planets. So where are we on the
planet, and where are they?
Well were here, he said, just around the bend. Then he started
with Mercury, skated it around its orbit, imagined the planet peeking
over the horizon, those blue hills melting into night. He rotated the
earth to test his placement, looked at the horizon. Mars took some
thinking.
Then he slid the stone along its orbit to the far side of the sun,
slowly, stopped before the quartz-piece of sun would block its view
from his cats eye earth. Jupiter and Saturn then came quickly.
He touched a stone and leaned to the side.
They dont line up like that very often, do they? he said.
No, I said.
And we are here.
Yes, I said.
Look there, I said, across the Canyonthat fold in the mountain.
Part of the Sevier thrust belt, that thousand-foot-thick limestoneveined blue taffy-twist of dolomite across the South face of the canyon mouth.
What is it, he asked, and I said again, A fold in the mountain.
And he was quiet. The seven days of creation were more than words.
More than days work. An infinite fractal blossoming in his mind.
We skirted cool hollows where deer were coming out into twilight.
Does and bucks with new horn buds showing. Their long mule ears
up, pivoting to find us.
We climbed in deepening gloom, up through those little hollows below the south face of Little Baldy, and up onto the ridge to
a step just large enough to bivouac, threw out our sleeping bags, and
settled. Above us in the night Bald Mountain loomed, dark. Above
Bald Mountain, the Timpanogos Massif rose, white-veined with
snow under the stars. The city spread below us, a galactic swath of
light brightening under the settling night between mountain and lake.
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Beyond the lake, the rangefire now glimmering in the Goshen Valley
foothills.
We lay on our sleeping bags, cooking ramen noodles on a stove
between us. The extravagance of a couple of cans of Shasta Blackberry soda, which made him hiccup. Those deer, he said, remembering. How quickly he had learned to come up quietly to the edge
of each pocket, waiting for the mule deer to appear one or two at a
time as our eyes became accustomed to gloom. Still waiting until they
stopped grazing, stood, and pivoted their long ears, searching, and
moved on. And how when we crossed the pocket, the air suddenly
cooled. How the cooler evening air slid down the ridges and settled,
cupped in those pockets. And the sense of the deer having been there,
the brush of warm breeze in the cool pockets.
Maybe I was nervous like those deer, maybe about the possible
distances to come for Yamba.
He was still fond of Treasure Island, of a version of Beowulf that I
read to him and his sisters. I believed I could still make him smile at
Green Eggs and Ham.
The fire over in Goshen Valley, I said.
He nodded, following my gaze.
I said, One day, you will be a father, and when you are, I hope you
will read to your sons and daughters. ... Treasure Island.
Billy Bones, he said.
Beowolf, Green Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop.
He jumped on my chest and laughed and sat up. The town where
the boy has lived all his life spreading at his feetthat first time
he had seen his valley, his neighborhood from beyond. His school,
orchards, the grocery storefarther, little swaths of cottonwoods
flecked with houselights at the base of foothills along the valley rim
where the other towns lay. The bowl of valley bordered by mountains
and lake. The conjunction of planets he discovered as the sun set. A
context and ever-widening wholeness he had never considered.
Yamba sat in his bag, knees pulled up to his chin. His mother had
taught him a quiet devoutness that suits his nature. I followed his gaze.
His town, his neighborhood, home, church, school. The spreading
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Irreantum

orchards inhabited by pirates and cowboys and savages. Every manner of desperado. And beyond, the Goshen wildfires creeping up the
far foothills. And above all, the aligned planets following Mercurys
plunge below the horizon.
We watched the range fire creep up ridgelines into the Tintic high
country.
Tell me a story, he said.
Three in the morning. A meteor flashes across Lyra, skips, and reappears. I trace its arc back to Perseus, now well up in the east, at Cassiopeias feet. And at the feet of Perseus, the Pleiades have also risen and
are just above the horizon. I squint sidelong, shifting my view back
and forth to make out the curving sickle of the Pleiades.
This afternoon when Moby followed me around camp helping set
the other boys gear right for the possibility of afternoon thundershowers, that was a blink of hope. And when he said our food was
like poems, that was like a meteor to wish on that he might care for
someone beyond himself. Hope in brief counterpoint to that foreboding in the periphery of my mind that his debts are wreaking havoc on
the scales of mercy and judgment.
Farther along the fault line, a boy shifts and awakens, watches
for meteors until he falls asleep again. The Perseids rain down now,
two to four a minute. The boys wake up throughout the night to the
streaming meteors. One or two boys at a time rolling onto their backs
and lying transfixed.
Len Moon. Those booming words swallowed into wind. His voice
tumbling the boys dreams over and over in night and Jobs poetry. If
those boys understand only the fewest of those words, let the words
tremble deep in their bones.

84

Mormon Faith, Fantastic Transformation,

and Free Will
Andrew Bud Adams

Most fantasy authors have at one time or another commented on how their genre is not meant for escaping reality, but
understanding it. More than that, there are undoubtedly many who
interpret the truth being represented in fantasy literature as the reality
of the supernatural. This is not to say that the Narnia books teach that
other worlds are accessible through wardrobes or that Harry Potter
is an instructional manual for witchcraft; indeed, their authors and
readers have adamantly insisted otherwise. Instead what Im implying is that one type of fantastic event or being may be, intentionally
or not, representative of another. For a member of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who believes that one of mankinds
primary purposes in life is to seek ... diligently and teach one another
words of wisdom; yea, [to] seek ... out of the best books words of
wisdom; [to] seek learning, even by study and also by faith (D&C
88:118), it might be divine intervention, priesthood ordinances, or
even the influence of Satan that he or she sees symbolized in fantasy.
In other words, the whole of fantasy literature becomes a metaphor
for actual supernatural influence, how it transforms our lives, and
how we respond to it.
Certainly all writing can, in similar ways, teach, uplift, inspire, and
even reprimand its readers. But I intend to argue that a Mormon reading of fantasy literature in particular reinforces Biblical archetypes
of personal transformation and accountability. To do so, I will first
define fantasy as supernatural transformation; second, show how
different types of transformation are demonstrated through the Old
Testament; and third, fully define a paradigm through a reading of the
New Testament.
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But before I do so, let me first clarify what this essay is not. Much has
been said about the abundance of Mormon speculative fiction authors,
including Katherine Morris and Kathleen Dalton-Woodburys list
of such authors (Is It Something in the Water? Why Mormons
Write Science Fiction and Fantasy) and Scott Haless 2011 blog post
500Words on Mormon Science Fiction and Fantasy in which he quietly debunks the idea that Mormons prefer to write fantasy because
they cant face the realities of life. I expect my analysis might help
answer those same questionsimplying, for example, that Mormons
prefer fantasy because in it they see evidenced the realities of doctrine.
However, I also recognize that Mormon fantasy authors generally
avoid explicit religious references in their work, as recently asserted by
Joyce Mercer regarding Stephanie Meyers Twilight series:
Even though vampire characters seem to provide the perfect occasion
for surfacing religious matters, Twilights four volumes give the appearance of containing very little explicit religious content. Twilight does
not dismiss religion as do some other young adult fantasy works: for
instance ... in Philip Pullmans ... fantasy world [in His Dark Materials] religion at least in its church organizational form is the enemy. Twilights narratives just fail to mention much about religion overtly.(270)

In other words, there are enough fantasy authors to represent every

faithand lack thereof. Philip Pullmans demiurge certainly can be
seen as the agnostic antithesis to C.S. Lewiss Aslan, and so on. But
I will not be addressing these stories or motives directly, nor will I be
interpreting fantasy written by Mormons. Instead I will be providing
a paradigm for interpreting any and all fantasy, regardless of authorial intenta paradigm that results from a Mormon perspective. This
hearkens to preexisting paradigms, such as Joseph Campbells monomyth cycle in which the hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder where fabulous forces
are ... encountered until the hero wins and returns (Campbell 23). The
very term monomyth, first coined by James Joyce (Campbell 343), is
relevant to the idea that Mormons see in contemporary fantasy echoes
of spiritual truth. It is obvious that the infantile fantasies which we
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all cherish still in the unconscious play continually into myth, fairy
tale, and the teachings of [any] church, as symbols of indestructible
being. This is helpful, for the mind feels at home with the images, and
seems to be remembering something already known (15152). However, they differ inasmuch as his is primarily a question of likeminded
plots and mine concerns the nature and effect of supernatural wonder
and fabulous forces upon character.

A Definition of Fantasy
Growing up in a Latter-day Saint household, parable and allegory
became familiar and comfortable to me, as did the clearly illustrated
juxtaposition between action and consequence, right and wrong.
Already my own world was being categorized into two realities, or
potentials pathsthe one I was taught would lead to happiness and
the one I was taught would lead to sorrow.
It is no secret that similar influences helped generate some of the
greatest works of literature and the most notable examples of romance,
now called fantasy. Less recognized, however, seems to be fantasys
expectation of a transformed character or setting. For example, much
of the fantasy book genre today has nothing to do with transformation, but is nothing more than a collection of adventure stories told
in made-up worlds having no apparent relationship to this one. This
distinction became most clear to me when my ambition for supernatural stories brought C.S. Lewiss novels of dual reality and J.R.R.
Tolkiens trilogy of Middle-earth into my hands.
Most critics compare The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the
Rings to emphasize the difference in voice and audiencethat is, to
place Tolkien on a higher pedestal for his darker, more mature and
thoroughly original constructed world. In fact, it was Tolkien and not
Lewis whose works prompted an entire hobby of world-making, which
has created a culture all its own. Media analyst Henry Jenkins refers to
this as the process of designing a fictional universe that will sustain
franchise development, one that is sufficiently detailed to enable many
different stories to emerge but coherent enough so that each story feels
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like it fits with the others (294). This definition is striking because it
identifies one of the most glaring (and frustrating) problems of todays
fantasy genre, which is its immediate and tailor-made appeal to the
masses for the sake of making money. It is from this trend that the term
escapism arises, referring not only to an indulgence in fantasy, but an
individual works tendency to cater to or even require that indulgence.
This brings me to another stepping stone in my development as a
structuralist reader of fantastic literature. One of the textbooks given
me in an English course my last year of high school was Laurence Perrines Story and Structure. In his chapter Escape and Interpretation
Perrine gives two uses of reading literature, namely for enjoyment and
for understanding. He suggests that some literaturewhich he calls
escapeyields only enjoyment, which is fine but dangerous when
indulged in. In a later chapter on Fantasy, Perrine describes two very
different uses of fantasy but leaves them without titles or distinctions, even though he goes on to treat only one of them in particular.
Hesays:
The non-realistic story, or fantasy, is one which transcends the bounds
of known reality. Commonly, it conjures up a strange and marvelous
world, which one enters by falling down a rabbit-hole or climbing up
a beanstalk or going through a green door or getting shipwrecked in
an unfamiliar ocean or dreaming a dream; or else it introduces strange
powers and occult forces in the world of ordinary reality, allowing one
to foretell the future or communicate with the dead or separate his
mind from his body or turn himself into a monster. (271, emphasis
added)

Here Perrine perfectly describes the two uses of fantasy in literature about which I have yet to encounter a more detailed analysis. These two distinctions of fantasy are both entirely separate from
todays accepted notion that world-making is the mark of fantasy.
Middle-earth itself does not qualify as fantasy according to the
above description, though events within its narrative might (like the
effect of the One Ring on Frodo, or the presence of a ghost army). In
other words, Perrine is referring to fantasy that can only be called
fantasy as juxtaposed against the mundane. He is describing specific
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phenomena in which transformation occurs by fantastic or supernatural means. Furthermore, his distinction is between transformations of
setting and transformations of self, pointing out that in one case the
character enters or exits the supernatural presence, while in the other
that presence enters or exits the character.
The last aspect of my analysis is that of free will. The archetypes of
characters that cross between realitieswho experience transformation, either in self or in settingcome as a result of questioning the
outcomes of those transformations. For those outcomes I look not at
the nature of the new realities but at the characters own reactions to
them. Their own judgment of their altered circumstances becomes
the indicator as to why the fantastic transformation speaks so powerfully to the human condition and its conflict between predestination
and free will. In other words, these characters come to regard their
transformed realities as either parallel to their originals or alternate.
The realities are not inherently one or the other, similar to Perrines
classification of literature: It is maturityin this case, not just of the
reader, but of the characterthat decides where truth is paralleled
in the fantastic events or if it provides an alternative, an escape, from
reality. Warns Joseph Campbell, [T]he circumstance [of reading fantasy] is obstructive, too, for the feelings come to rest in the symbols
and resist passionately every effort to go beyond (152).
The use of the words parallel and alternate to describe two different perspectives of worlds (as opposed to the worlds themselves) is
mine, inasmuch as they are typically interchangeable or used both
positively and negatively. Fantasy author Avi alludes to this usage of
the terms when he says, At first glance, fantasy seems to provide an
alternate universe. Actually, I think fantasy provides a parallel universe (496).
In On Fairy-stories, J. R. R. Tolkiens treatise on the uses of fantastic literature, he refers to escapism as a positive thing. I would
argue he is therefore not speaking about true escapism or an alternate
experience, but the investigation of a parallel reality. A professor of
theology clarifies this by noting Tolkien observes that the escape of
the prisoner is not to be confused with the flight of a deserter, just as
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the acquiescence of the collaborator is not the same as the resistance

of the patriot (Kelly 201). In other words, temporary escape from
reality might in fact be an investigation in truth, versus a temporary
or permanent escape for the sake of resisting truth.
That said, it is also true that Tolkien shies away from structuring
fantasy into modes of interpretation, claiming, in his section on Origins of the fairy-stories, that such studies of literature are the pursuit
of folklorists or anthropologists: that is of people using the stories
not as they were meant to be used, but as a quarry from which to dig
evidence, or information, about matters in which they are interested.
He calls this a perfectly legitimate procedure in itself but with the
potential for being misleading, inasmuch as it distracts from authorial intent or the individual nuances of related texts (45). In fact, he
submits that analytic study of fairy-stories is as bad a preparation for
the enjoying or writing of them as would be the historical study of the
drama of all lands and times for the enjoyment or writing of stageplays (76). He seems, in other words, to disapprove of any system
of interpretation that would discredit the individual nuances of fairy
stories and thereby group these together as childish or escapist.
I believe, however, that such a catalogue need not, for one, minimize those stories nuances, nor discredit them as thought-provoking
literature; on the contrary, a Mormon approach to fantastic stories
serves Tolkiens same end, which is to consider what they are, what
they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them (46). Therefore, there is value
in understanding the relationship between Biblical miracles and, say,
vampire stories, and I will argue that what they have in common is
their reliance on supernatural transformations. Tolkien comes nearest
to identifying transformation as his distinction when he states,
We [the creators] may put a deadly green upon a mans face and produce a horror; we may make the rare and terrible blue moon to shine;
or we may cause woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear
fleeces of gold, and put hot fire into the belly of the cold worm. But
in such fantasy, as it is called, new form is made; Faerie begins; Man
becomes a sub-creator. (49, emphasis added)
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He seems to be getting at two points: that fantasy, where it occurs,

occurs due to a transformation of form or reality; and, as he hints at
herewith reference to mankind as sub-creatorthose transformations represent an aspect of creation and life that is eternally relevant, and therefore, extremely poignant. He states this more explicitly
in his conclusion, that [t]he peculiar quality of the joy in successful
Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying
reality or truth (88).
If transformation is more potent in the telling of truth, or empathy, or creativity, that is certainly relevant to Mormon readers. Tolkien
asserts, Fantasy does not blur the sharp outlines of the real world; for
it depends on them (97). Or to sum up, fantasy is best defined by
the presence of supernatural transformation.

Transformation Archetypes in the Old Testament

Adam and Eve present an interesting starting point, not only because
they are the starting point of Judeo-Christian tradition, but because
their crossovers between realities exert some of the strongest influence
on later literature. What eventually would become crossovers between
mundane and fantastic worlds started as a crossover from a fantastic
or paradisiacalgarden into sorrow and ignobleness. Even more interesting, however, is how that expulsion from the Garden of Edenthe
crossover from comfort to distresscame even earlier in mankinds
pre-mortal existence, as put to epic verse by John Milton and clarified
by Mormon scripture.
In a reading of Genesis and other Biblical accounts of the Fall, a
Mormon will recognize three specific instances of fantastic transformation undergone by Adam and Eve. The first of these, as alluded to
above, is perhaps the most ambiguous without the aid of LDS scripture, but certainly attainable with only the Bible for reference. I refer
to birth, or Adam and Eves bodily creations. Through his own exegesis, Philo of Alexandria noted the spiritual nature of man or the mind
of the ideal man as described in Genesis 1:267, versus the embodied man in Genesis 2:7 (Boorstin 52). The second of these scriptures
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relates how God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. This
refers to the physical creation of humankind, or more specifically of
Adam, with Eves body created slightly later (Gen. 2:2123). Genesis1,
however, relates an earlier creation: God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created
he them. Interestingly enough, this creation prompts Gods instructions to the male and female beings whom he has not yet given bodies, instructions concerning their governing of the physical world (1:26,
2830). One might well interpret, then, that their first creationthe
spiritualaccompanied a specific purpose, which purpose required
their presence on the newly created earth. And so, in accordance, God
formed man [Adams body] of the dust; the breath of life may well
have been Adams spirit, with the two together encompassing what is
apparently known as a living soul.
The pre-mortal existence of man is a subject hidden throughout the
Old Testament (Num. 16:22, 27:16; Job 38:7; Eccl. 12:7; Jer. 1:5; Zech.
12:1) and reaffirmed in the New ( John 9:2; Acts 17:28; Rom. 8:29; Eph.
1:4; Heb. 12:9; Jude 1:6; Rev. 12:7); however, it is most explicitly revealed
through The Pearl of Great Price, a Mormon book of scripture containing Abrahams vision of the intelligences that were organized
before the world was (Abr. 3:22). This crossover from the spiritual to
the physicalthat is, birthprecedes the New Testament emphasis
on the crossover that occurs at death (the physical to the spiritual). It
can be called a transformation rather than a simple beginning inasmuch as the spirit existed before the physical body (however briefly
is unclear), and so Gods putting of the former into the latter represents a transformation of setting, with the new body acting as a sort of
vehicle (and symbol) for the new world the spirit has come to inhabit.
This, too, comes from the Mormon belief that the spiritual creation
occurred separate from the newly formed earth, as stated above and
as suggested by the fact that God planted a garden eastward in Eden;
and there he put the man whom he had formed (Gen. 2:8).
In other words, where were the spiritual Adam and Eve before being
placed in their bodies and then into the Garden? The two creations
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combined imply a fantastic crossover in location more so than identity,

inasmuch as their spiritual selves did not change, but simply transferred
to two new settings (the physical body and the physical world). By way
of distinguishing them for future use, I refer to these first of Adam
and Eves transformations as transfers (drawing on the Latin implications of across, beyond, through, changing thoroughly, and to bear,
carry) in order to represent the permanency of their changed state.
The second and third of Adam and Eves transformations are
directly related to their pre-mortal instructions concerning the Garden and their mortal lives, which likelyintentionallysymbolize
the first transference, as well as its incarnation in the New Testament.
Two falls occur in the short narrative of Genesis 3: First, Eve and
then Adam partake of the fruit from the tree which is in the midst of
the garden, which God had forbidden them even from touching (v. 3).
This does exactly as the serpent said it would: the eyes of them both
were opened, so as to know the difference between good and evil (v. 5,
7, 22). Second, and as consequence of the first, they are exiled from the
Garden to work and to toil the rest of their days, and to bear children,
forever separated from the paradise of Eden (v. 1619, 23).
That these represent two fantastic transformationsone of self,
the other of settingis perhaps less ambiguous than the Mormon
claim that they are also, in their essence, positive examples of Adam
and Eves accountability. They are fantastic inasmuch as the fruit
apparently grants a supernatural acquisition of wisdom and intelligence that enables the two of them to recognize that they were naked
(v.7), or in other words, that the potential for procreation is available
to them; and also in that the Garden represents a seemingly supernatural realm on earth devoid of the thorns and thistles of the nowcursed ground (v.1718). Surprisingly, the positive turn to their choice
is represented by these same two examplesby the fantastic crossovers themselves. Gods instructionagain, given before the creation
of Adam and Eves bodiesto [b]e fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it could not have been fulfilled without, first,
the knowledge of procreation, and second, the cursed nature of the
earth that might require its subduing (as certainly the ground of Eden
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presented no such problem). That is to say that one command, given

to them in spiritual form, contradicted the second, given to them in
physical form, and so a choice was made that might enable the greater
of the two.
However, like Adam and Eves first transformation, these two suggest a permanency in their narrative that is only contradicted by later
doctrine. These become permanent transformations, then, and so I
call the expulsion from Eden another example of a transfer (as foreshadowed by the first) and the eating of the fruitthe transformation of selfI call conversion, which implies a transference of mental
devotion with that same sense of permanency. In addition, these are
arguably positive crossovers in the minds of Adam and Eve, whose
choices were made willingly, and likely with an understanding of the
implicationseven a desire to fulfill their first commandment. Their
crossovers parallel an original purpose and realityor truthrather
than granting distraction from it. So this argument applies to all
three of the transformations discussed because they work toward the
same end: the existence of mankind. From these three examples of
two transformation modes I draw the single character category of the
Disciplesthe characters who are not merely willing, but dutiful in
their sacrifice of a previous reality for the hardships and rewards of
a second, which nevertheless parallels the first in its principles. And
in fact, I will show how this element of sacrifice is what separates the
Disciple characters from those to be called Investigators.
But Cain, who comes next in the Biblical narrative, is hardly an
Investigator. On the subject of sacrifice, his is rejected by God while
his brother Abels is accepted, apparently because Cain does not doest
well (Gen. 4:7). For whatever reason he fails to perform or present
the offering correctly but becomes wroth when it is deemed unacceptable (4:5). As the famous story goes, Cain murders his brother
Abel as a result of his anger and his jealousy, and for his punishment
receives a curse from the earth (4:11) that, unlike his parents punishment, makes him subject to the earth: When thou tillest the ground,
it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a
vagabond shalt thou be in the earth (4:12). Cain then goes out from
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the presence of the LORD, and [dwells] in the land of Nod, but I
would argue that it is the curse, along with the removal from Gods
presence, that marks his transformation, more so than the physical
relocation. He is cursed, made fugitive, marked, and otherwise separated from the family of Adam in such a way that is apparent to them,
lest any finding him should kill him (4:15). Thus, his first reality is
unity with his family and the presence of God, free from any curse or
marking; and the second is his loss of that unity and those freedoms,
the sacrifice that marks the convert but that, in this case, is a mark of
regression.
The curse motif as originating here becomes a popular subject of
transformation fantasy in the Gothic period especially, but as a mode
can be designated with the same title as Adam and Eves fruitful
crossoverthat is, the conversion. But that is assuming Cains transformation is purely mental, which it apparently is not, owing to that
recognition just mentioned. Whatever form the mark took in its role
as a physical indicator, it should be pointed out that this was not inherent to the curse, but added with it by Cains own prompting and for his
protection (4:1415). Thus it appears there was a mental (or perhaps
spiritual) transformation as per the conversion, followed by a physical
one. This presents a new mode of transformation that I refer to as
metamorphosis.
At its Greek root this term simply means transformation and so is
outwardly synonymous. As Ovid shows, however, it need not refer to
only one type of transformation; and if so, its biological usage would
indicate, for example, the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly
or a tadpole to a frog. This latter definition is most indicative of Cain,
whose transformationsboth spiritual and physicalare permanent
and affect his entire family line, even down to Lamech, who uses this
family tradition as an excuse to commit murder himself: I have slain
a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall
be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold (4:2324).
This also indicates that Cains transformations are confronted as an
escape from his original reality. He himself complains, My punishment is greater than I can bear (4:13).
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Thus, in this Biblical example that immediately follows the first,

Cains two modes of transformationthe conversion and the metamorphosisrepresent a new character category, namely the Victims
of Circumstance. Cains transformations occur as a result of the choice
to commit murder, but they alone cannot call him a Victim; rather, it
is his complaints to God and his apparent lack of moral change that
keep him trapped within a negative influence. Like his parents Fall
with the eating of the fruit, his mental change makes him a convert.
However, Adam and Eve converted to truth by sacrificing their own
limitations, while Cain converted to a selfish existence by sacrificing
regret and accountability. His new reality, by his own choice, becomes
an alternative to the life he once led in the presence of God, which
life he never gains back. Not coincidentally, the New Testament
would later represent this same pattern in the life of an earlier figure, commonly known as that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan
(Rev.12:9).
Moses, a prophetic and epic character, brings the Old Testament
out from these tragic and opposing examples to represent a new and
positive experience in transformation. Like Adam, Eve, and Cain, he
too describes multiple instances of crossover. Interestingly enough,
Mosess famous line I have been a stranger in a strange land (Ex.
2:22) does not refer to either, though this and his excursion to Midian
have influenced literature belonging to the transformation theme.
The first of Mosess two crossover types occurs more than once but
is first described in his encounter with the burning bush on Mount
Horeb. The voice of God speaks to him from this supernatural scene,
instructing him, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground (3:5). It would seem this location, owing to the presence of God, effects a physical transformation
on the earthly environment, akin to the spiritual one affecting the
family of Adam from which Cain is exiled. It is similar, therefore, to
the Garden of Eden, as a heavenly pocket surrounded by base earth.
As Moses enters into itand there converses with Godthere is
something of the same transference of setting seen already. Whats
more, it occurs again and again, with each such excursion suggesting a
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higher degree of progress in its nature and its offering of solace. Daniel Boorstin describes this suggestion well:
Moses first encounter with his Creator-God already revealed the
divine paradox of Creation. Historians of religion call this Moses
theophany, their name for a visible appearance of God or a god to a
man. But Moses had not dared to look upon his Creator. The contradictory characteristics of this Creator-God appeared at once. For while
the God was not to be seen or even to be named, He entered immediately into every mans life and treated man as a kind of equal. (40)

That equality is the suggestion, but it is a prospect Moses must

repeatedly leave behind. The difference between this and Adam and
Eves fantastic settings is in permanence. Adam and Eve cross from
a supernatural plane to a natural one permanently, but Moses does
just the opposite: The transformation of his setting is from natural to
supernatural, temporarily. After receiving his instructions from God,
Moses went and returned to Jethro his father in law (Ex. 4:18). At
first this might seem insignificant. After all, Moses, like Adam and
Eve, becomes obedient to the will of God, and in so doing effects a
mighty and positive change in the lives of thousands. While it is only
his shoes he sacrifices during his visit on Horebs holy ground, he
gives the rest of his life to the service of his God, swallowing his fears
and complaints and trusting in Gods promises.
Yet the temporary transformation speaks to a different sort than
the permanent and indicates a different outcome. It is not, after all,
this visit in Horeb, or again later at Sinai (1933), or in the tabernacle
when the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto
his friend (33:11) that transfigures Moses so that the skin of his face
shone (34:29), though these observations are key to the Mormon
understanding of how God reveals His word to mankind. Rather, it
is Mosess last visit to Sinai, lasting forty days, that finally exerts this
metamorphosis upon him; and it is this last transformation by which
he is later known in the New Testament. Therefore, those similar and
temporary transformations of settingwhat might be called transitionswere subject to and perhaps less effective in their influence
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than the permanent transformation of self, in which Moses becomes

a man who even in supposed death is not dim, nor his natural force
abated (Deut. 34:7). It can be said, then, that those individual meetings represent Moses the Investigatorthe character that studies or
enjoys, visits and experiments with a new and supernatural reality, but
always returns from whence he came. Then with Mosess ultimate sacrifice of body and mind comes his permanent transformation, as if
now he carries those purified meetings with him. He is purified, and
so is no longer Moses the Investigator, but Moses the Disciple. By
Mosess obedience and endurance, truth is paralleled in both modes
of transformation, but fully realized in the latter.
If the Disciple and the Victim are both convertsone to a parallel
reality and one to an alternate one, respectivelyand if the difference
between the Disciple and the Investigator is simply that permanency
of transformation inherent to conversion, then it follows that the same
can be said of the Victim and the Complainer. That is, the difference
between them is that the Complainer is one whose transformation
into an alternate or negative reality is temporary, minus that stubborn
and damning level of commitment that some like Cain might apply
to their escape. It becomes merely an experiment in escapism, owing
to a lack of responsibility regarding realitys expectations. To witness
this experiment in the Old Testament, akin to the other examples in
its supernatural element, one need read so far as the short book of
Jonah. It is possible, however, to perceive Job much earlier as an archetypal Complainer, inasmuch as he, too, experiences a transformed
reality and, perhaps even more noticeably, complains about it. But the
qualification cannot be so simple as all that. Moses, after all, complains quite a lot when first bidden by God to lead the Hebrews out
of bondage. The key to distinguishing Job from Jonah, therefore, lies
in a close reading of their individual characters and how ones positive
response to his transformation is far more sincere in its nature.
The book of Job asserts that Job is a perfect and upright man
whom God is apparently proud of (1:1, 8). When his livestock were stolen and his sons were killed, Job sinned not in his reaction of mixed
grief and worship (1:22). However, the truly supernatural crossover
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affecting not just Jobs environment, but Job himselfoccurs when

he is physically transformed: So went Satan forth from the presence
of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot
unto his crown (2:7).
Although this story is commonly recalled for Jobs continued reaction of patience and praise of God, the truth is that Job complains of
his situation, trying unsuccessfully to live in two worlds at oncethat
is, to fear and worship the Lord but to receive sympathy from his
friends. Job asks his wife, What? shall we receive good at the hand
of God, and shall we not receive evil? (2:10), while his friends dare
not speak to him, seeing that his grief was very great (2:13). Job not
only curses the day he was born, but even seems to suggest that it
was not God whom he feared all along, but what God could do to
him: For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that
which I was afraid of is come unto me. I was not in safety, neither
had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came (3:2526). It would
seem, therefore, that Job helps represent the category of characters
that opposes the Investigators. His suffering in his transformed state
is not permanent, so his is not the metamorphosis of Cain. Instead
it requires a new designation for which the term phase seems appropriate, indicating, as it often does, a temporary change or a level in a
larger process. And it would appear that Jobs reaction to his phase is
unlike the Investigators, so long as he finds no parallel to truth in his
new reality and so calls it alternate; and in this case, the alternate is
not a preferable escape, but a seeming punishment.
But again, what really determines the difference between the parallel and the alternate experiences? It cannot be setting alone, as in both
cases the new reality might not be preferable. After all, Adam and Eve,
though dutiful, likely are not eager to lose their paradisiacal garden in
order to begin their earthly trial. The difference is in the characters
perspective, and more specifically, in the outcome of his experience.
The question, then, is how might Jobs experience differ from Jonahs?
Jonah, unlike Job, is commonly recognized for his Complainers
attitude. When commanded by God to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh, Jonah famously tries to flee to Tarshish and, through
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the process of events, ends up in the belly of a great fish. This is his
own supernatural crossover, another example of the transition: His
temporarily transformed setting places him in a reality that, like Jobs,
he fears and bemoans. It would seem, however, that he overcomes this
Complainers attitude after three days and three nights inside the fish,
inasmuch as he prays for forgiveness:
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me
round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down
to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about
me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord
my God. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord:
and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that
observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto
thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord. ( Jonah 2:59)

This passage is interesting for a number of reasons. First and most

striking is Jonahs apparent humility, betrayed only by his emphasis
on the unpleasantness of his situation. He also goes into great detail
to prove, to the readers satisfaction, that this truly was a crossover in
realities, likening it unto a descent into hell. His claim that he will
sacrifice might sound like the Disciples, who permanently commit to
change by leaving behind a portion of themselves or a former setting.
Finally, and contrary to his humility, he includes a warning against
[t]hey that observe lying vanities.
This last not only foreshadows Jonahs own character, but also
explains why he is a true Complainer who does not, as he would lead
God to believe, benefit by his occupation of the fishs belly or come to
understand Gods will. This becomes evident when, upon release from
the fish and the sea, he preaches to Nineveh as commanded, but never
considers that God might grant them the same mercy he himself just
received. Not only do the people repent, but God revokes his warning
against them, and Jonah becomes displeased and very angry (4:1).
Clearly he does not understand his experience in the belly of the fish,
nor can he see past himself to understand a true principle in context
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Adams: Faith, Transformations, and Free Will

of others around him. In other words, he retains his Complainers

attitude; like Job, he wish[es] in himself to die and stubbornly insists
to be angry, even unto death (4:89).
However, this retention does not mark him a converta Disciple
or a Victimbecause it is not supported by the events. Jonahs new
reality is the belly of the fish, not to mention the bottoms of the mountains to which it carries him; and the conversion this analysis takes
interest in specifically regards that new reality. That it is a temporary
excursion means it is isolated from the remainder of Jonahs life. Had
he found in the fishs belly a preferable, enabling truth, and remained
therein, he might have been an Adam or a transfigured Moses; or,
more likely, after exiting the belly as he does, had he maintained the
positive insight he claims to have achieved, he might have been a pretransfigured Moses, Moses the obedient Investigator. But in truth he
does neither. He gains only enough from his fabulous experience in
order to escape, but makes no sacrifice of gratitude as he claims, and
no true alteration in his demeanor. So while Jonahs understanding
of his transition persists to the end of his story, the transition itself
is but an experience, a temporary training opportunity that he does
not learn from immediately, but that he might come to understand
were his narrative to continue. Unfortunately, it ends with Jonahs silly
Complainers words of It is better for me to die than to live, and with
Gods reprimand for such a hollow perspective (4:811).
Jonah suggests, then, that the Complainer, unlike the Investigator
and the Disciple, never undergoes a change in perspective despite the
opportunity extended him by a supernatural transformation. Self or
setting may transform, but perspective never does. This distinguishes
him from even the Victim of Circumstance, who, like the Disciple,
changes enough in response to his transformed state as to sacrifice
the old for the new, even if it is to his disadvantage. The Complainer,
while making no sacrifice one way or another, at least bears the potential for eventual enlightenment.
Is Jobs situation the same, then? The similarities might suggest as
much, but the one major difference is in the outcome. While Jonah
seems incapable of learning from his own supernatural escape, Job,
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Irreantum

on the other hand, benefits thereby. True, he and his comrades complain to the point of rebuke on the part of the Lord, but somehow Job
makes the connection that Jonah does not: He recognizes the value
of his experience and comes to praise God even greater than before:
Then Job answered the Lord, and said, I know that thou canst do every
thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Who is he
that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I
understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Hear,
I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare
thou unto me. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now
mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and
ashes. ( Job 42:16)

Contained in Jobs prayer, as opposed to Jonahs, is ample evidence

to support his claim of repentance. Not only does he acknowledge his
problem without mention of the horrors of his circumstances, but he
is granted, through this insight, the opportunity not just to hear God,
but to see him as well, hearkening to the Investigative experiences of
Moses. Furthermore, while Jobs friends are reproved for their false
comforts, God grants Job twice as much as he had before (42:10),
and he lives to see the four generations that follow him. Instead of a
Complainer, he becomes an Investigator, demonstrating true sincerity
in his search for understanding.
As a result of this comparison, it is evident that the difference in
the archetypeswhether Complainers or Investigators, Victims or
Disciplesis not in the nature of their transformations, but in the
way they react to those transformations. It is the conflict brought on
by inexplicable change, with the determinant being whether or not
the character profits thereby. Of course, in the case of transitions and
transferstemporary and permanent transformations of settingit
could be argued differently regarding how the character affects the
setting. After all, it is likely the people of Nineveh might call Jonahs
imprisonment in the fish positive, as it was this experience that
brought Gods will to their ears. But this only serves to emphasize
the theme of perspective, the idea that a crossover from one reality to
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Adams: Faith, Transformations, and Free Will

the next might be called positive or negative. The key, as all these Old
Testament figures have shown, is a matter of choice.
The following tables summarize the archetypes so far defined through
these Old Testament figures (keeping in mind that the changes referred
to occur by fantastic means).

Table 1:
Four Archetypes of Free Will
Positive
Reaction
Negative
Reaction

Permanent

Temporary

Disciple

Investigator

Victim of
Circumstance

Complainer

Table 2:
Character Transformations (Incomplete)
Permanent
(Disciples and Victims)
Change of
Setting
Change of Body

Transfer

Transition

Adam
and Eve

Moses

Metamorphosis
Moses

Cain

Conversion
Change of Mind

Temporary
(Investigators and
Complainers)

Adam
and Eve

Jonah
Phase

Job
Spell

Cain

Transformation Archetypes in the New Testament

The New Testament grants new strength to the Old Testament
theme of free will by its extreme emphasis on faith. In Hebrews, Paul
uses some of the same figures and instances of crossover to point to
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Irreantum

lives as journeys, not destinations, suggesting the Investigative or

Complaining atmosphere of mortal existence, with a reward available to the former: God having provided some better thing for us
[the believers], that they [the non-believers] without us should not
be made perfect (11:40).
Transformation itself transforms in this new dispensation due
to a new concept: an afterlife of judgment and reward. The division
between two worldsthat is, two masters (Matt. 6:24)is polarized immensely, with the believers on one side and the non-believers
on the other. This mirrors a suggested similarity in the afterlife, where
such a polarization is said to occur literally, both of self and of setting:
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive
. ... There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory
of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There
is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another
glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So
also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised
in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown
in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised
a spiritual body. ... The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second
man is the Lord from heaven. (1 Cor. 15:2122, 4044, 47)

This example, again, relies heavily on a Mormon interpretation.

Not inspired by the above verses, but certainly reinforced by them,
is the Mormon belief that the afterlife does indeed consist of celestial, terrestrial, and telestial divisions. Pauls letter to the Corinthians
also explains one of the key points of the New Testament doctrine,
reinforced by The Book of Mormon, which is that the resurrection
of Jesus Christ enables the resurrection of all people. Paul points to
this as the fulfillment of Adams fall, which is usually read to mean not
just victory over death, but over sin, both introduced by Adam and
Eve. Therefore, Adam and Eves transfers are now read as mere transitions, in that the transformation of their setting from supernatural to
natural now bears the promise of returning, even transcending, to a
higher glory.
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Adams: Faith, Transformations, and Free Will

All of this, Biblical and Latter-day prophets say, comes to pass by

the very transformation of Jesus, who satisfies earlier representations
of Disciples in his ultimate sacrifice of setting and self in favor of a
new, greater reality. The four Gospels are replete with such phenomena, but each individual account is enough to make the point. Jesuss
baptism by John marks a conversion mode of transformation, a spiritual and permanent entry from one realitythat of mortal mindset
and distance from Godto a new and higher one:
And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the
water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the
Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a
voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased. (Matthew 3:16-17)

The baptism, in its manner, not only symbolizes Jesuss later resurrection, but serves as an earlier crossover between two selves, the
later receiving an open view of the heavens and an introduction by
the Father. This recalls and even outdoes earlier Investigators and
Disciples like Noah and Moses, whose wills are not immediately one
with Gods like Jesuss is, saying, I am in the Father, and the Father
in me ( John 14:10). In all later transformations, whether in his temptations by Satan (Matt. 4:8), his transfiguration before Peter, James,
and John (17:2), his suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane (26:36
37), his spiritual occupation of paradise (Luke 23:43), his resurrection
(Matt. 28), or his temporary return to the Father ( John 20:17), Jesus
is either the Investigator or the Disciple, the willing and the dutiful,
perfectly demonstrating the element of choice in perspective with his
poignant prayer: O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt (Matt. 26:39). The
testimony of the New Testament is that transformationby covenant,
by ordinance, and all together by supernatural authorityis made
possible only by Jesus Christ. Transformation is not demanded, but
preached, considered the only means or gate for entry into eternal
happiness: Enter ye in at the strait gate ... Because strait is the gate,
and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that
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Irreantum

find it (7:1314). The difference between one reality and another is

the difference between worldliness and godliness, with Christs work
and authority effectively bridging earth and heaven, for which his followers are instructed to pray: Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven (6:10).
This coming together of earthly and heavenly things is the commonest feature among Biblical and classical works, and a predominant
doctrine among Mormons, who believe in and exercise transformation powerthat is, priesthoodand worship Jesus Christ in holy
temples. These hearken to the ancient tradition: Like certain Jewish
temples of the Old and New Testaments, the Greek temples were not
primarily places of worship but houses for gods (Boorstin 93). This
influence on artistic expression was not confined to religious architecture alone, but included their founding tools of geometry and physics,
beginning with the Roman architect Vitruvius:
Vitruvius ... ingeniously showed that the human body provided the
elements of architectural symmetrythe circle and the square. The
figure he described came to be known as Vitruvian Man, and cast a
spell over the visual imagination of many centuriesfrom Leonardo
da Vinci to William Blake. The dimensions of the human body, by
defining both circle and square, provided the elements of all other
symmetry. (Boorstin 104)

Aside from providing dimensional symmetry, this circle and square

design also represented the coming together of men and God, not
just in the habitation of godly temples, but in the structure itself.
Thus the Doric column, as used in buildings, began to exhibit the
proportions, strength, and beauty of the body of a man (Boorstin
105). The symbolism extends even further, with the square suggesting the four elements, seasons, and cardinal directions of the earthly
world and the circle recalling visions of heaven and God with brightness round about, which is the likeness of the glory of the Lord
(Ezek. 1:28). These efforts represent mortal attempts to cross over
between ignorance and wisdom, darkness and light, enabled by the
temporary transformation of their normal reality through worship
106

Adams: Faith, Transformations, and Free Will

and devotion. They suggest a strong beliefeven expectancyin a

fantastic potential.
The loss of that potential, having first been characterized by Cain,
finds a new and slightly different representative in the New Testaments portrayal of Satan. Though interpreted differently by other
Christian faiths, Revelation 12:34 alludes to the pre-mortal existence described earlier, this time in reference to a great red dragon
who with his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did
cast them to earth.... Mormons understand this to mean Lucifer, or
Satan, who, like Adam and Eve, was created spiritually first, but who
for rebellionalong with a third of the hosts of heavenlost the
opportunity to be born physically, instead transferred from heaven
into a new, permanent reality where, according to The Book of Mormon, he is miserable (2 Ne. 2:27). Therefore, he defines the archetype
for Victims by transfer.
Satans devils, in the meantime, continue to seek access to transformation, always unsuccessfully. Those calling themselves Legion so
desire bodies that they ask Jesus to cast them into a herd of swine,
giving an example of Complainers by phase, inasmuch as they acquire
changed form for only a time, which change results in their failure to
live and worship Christ (Mark 5). Furthermore, the man first possessed by them undergoes, like many in the New Testament, what I
call a spell or being spellbound, not only for the enchanted and mentally
mesmerizing quality it suggests, but also for its meaning of indefinite
time, as in a spell of sickness or to visit for a spell. It is the temporary form of the conversion, the mental or spiritual transformation
represented by literal curses, blessings, and any case in which a believably fantastic presence enters a person temporarily.
The above case would of course be a negative spell, but positive can
be found in the scriptures as well, particularly in the New Testaments
description of the difference between feeling the power or influence
of the Holy Ghost and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Jesus
imparts grace in the form of power and authority (Luke 9:1) to his
ordained twelve (Mark 3:14), who, in this transformed state, can then
do the same for others, as when the magician Simon sees that through
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Irreantum

laying on of the apostles hands the Holy Ghost [is] given (Acts 8:18).
He attempts to buy this power, here called the gift of God, but is told
that it cannot be purchased (8:20). Mormons, who likewise believe
the latter is only given by the laying on of hands by one in authority, pay special attention to the day of Pentecost, when the multitude
that is already filled with the Holy Ghost is still instructed by Peter
to [r]epent, and be baptized ... in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins, and ... receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts
2:4, 38). The Apostle Peter serves as an appropriate reminder of this
type, inasmuch as he knows, by revelation, that Jesus is the Christ (see
Matt. 16:1617) yet is not fully converted until following the latters
resurrection (compare Luke 22:32 and Matt. 26).
The New Testament therefore shows that, by transformation
power, the dead are raised, the cursed and possessed are rid of evil
spirits, and a body of followers is organized; but each of these is incidental to the transformations of Jesus, serving as evidence not only of
his changing power, but of its need and authenticity. It is no wonder,
then, that Christians might see symbols of faith in works of fantasy,
where similar powers are exercised.
To summarize the paradigm Ive outlined in this essay, there is the
question of which form the transformation takes, whether of setting,
individual, or within the mind; whether that transformation is permanent or temporary to the story; and finally, how the characters who are
affected by it react (positively or negatively). When combined, these
form as many as twelve different archetypes of transformation, now
complete with examples from the Old and New Testaments. Additionally, the following table includes characters from ancient, classic,
and contemporary fantasy to indicate how this paradigm translates
across the literary landscape.

Conclusion
Both investigation and the purely escapist pursuit are legitimate
motivations for reading and believing fantastic tales. The examples
given from a Mormon reading of scripture speak to the same feature
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Adams: Faith, Transformations, and Free Will

Change of Setting

Table 3:
Character Transformations (Complete)
Permanent
(Disciples and Victims)

Temporary
(Investigators and
Complainers)

Transfer

Transition

Adam and Eve

Lucifer

Moses

Jonah

St. George
(The Faerie
Queene)

Achilles
(The Odyssey)

Odysseus

Lucian
(True History)

Peter Pan

Jack (and the

Beanstalk)

The Pevensie
Children
(Narnia)
Harry Potter

Change of Body

Dorothy (Oz)

Superman
Metamorphosis
Moses

Phase

Cain

Callisto & Arcas

Lycaon
(Metamorphoses) (Metamorphoses)
Pinocchio
Spider-Man

Sauron, Gollum
(LotR)

Edward & Bella

(Twilight)

Voldemort
(Harry Potter)

Job

Legion of Devils

The Beast
(Beauty and...)

Io
(Metamorphoses)

Wart/Arthur
(Sword in the
Stone)

Pinocchio
Remus
(Harry Potter)

Jacob (Twilight)

Conversion
Change of Mind

Prospero
(The Tempest)

Spell

Adam and Eve

Cain

Peter

Man Possessed

Miranda and
Ferdinand
(The Tempest)

Narrator
(Tell-Tale
Heart)

Dante (Divine
Comedy)

Dido (Aeneid)

Ofelia (Pans
Labyrinth)

Gollum,
S aruman (LotR)

Alice (in
Wonderland)

Frodo (LotR)

Max (Where
the Wild
ThingsAre)*

Don Quixote
Calvin
(and Hobbes)*

*For my comparison between Max and Calvin using this paradigm, see
Stepping into a Wild World: Remembering Maurice Sendaks Where the
Wild Things Are. Deseretnews.com. 09 May 2012. Web.

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Irreantum

of fantastic literature that is true regardless of its escapist or interpretive aim. That is, as folklorist and author Philip Martin says, the
element of free will: What separates fantasy from much other fiction is the great import of decisions made by small folk (31). And,
as each instance has demonstrated, that great import of decision is
prompted by a divisionsought or avoidedbetween the ordinary
and the unordinary, the mundane and the fantastic, the natural and
the supernatural, with both coming to represent the real for its Investigators, Complainers, Disciples, and Victims. The parallel or alternate
realities are realities nevertheless, no matter how distinctly fantastic;
and for the characters experiencing them, whether by entering them
or being entered by them, they become just as real as the realities from
whence they came. This diminishing grasp on what is real and what is
unreal is what prompts the character to choose between them, relying
instead upon recognition of true principles. Therefore, through fantastic transformations where belief and principle are most violently
tested, the real becomes far less important than the true.

Works Cited
Avi, et al. Worlds of Fantasy. Reading Teacher59.5 (2006): 492503.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 June 2012.
Boorstin, Daniel J. The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination.
New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Print.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato, CA: New
World Library, 2008. Print.
Hales, Scott. 500 Words on Mormon Science Fiction and Fantasy.
www.low-techworld.org N.p., 6 Apr. 2011. Web. 8 June 2012.
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York UP, 2006. Print.
Kelly, Tony. Faith Seeking Fantasy: Tolkien on Fairy-Stories. Pacifica
15 ( June 2002): 190208. www.pacifica.org.au Web. 8 June 2012.
Martin, Philip. The Writers Guide to Fantasy Literature: From Dragons
Lair to Heros Quest. Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Publishing, 2002.
Print.
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Adams: Faith, Transformations, and Free Will

Mercer, Joyce. Vampires, Desire, Girls and God: Twilight and the
Spiritualities of Adolescent Girls. Pastoral Psychology 60.2 (2011):
263278. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 June 2012.
Perrine, Laurence. Story and Structure. New York: Harcourt, Brace,
1959. Print.
Tolkien, J. R. R. On Fairy-stories. Tree and Leaf. The Tolkien Reader.
New York: Ballantine Books, 1966. 3399. Print.

111

Matzevah
Robert Brown

After I saw you last

I set a smooth white stone
on top the concrete slab
between the benches
inside the underground
metro.
I set down another
in the rush hour train
and the escalator
before it brought me
up to the light. I set
a stone
on top the monument
below where Im interred
all day. And then, again
nine hours later,
along with my coins for
passage
down to the other side.
I set down one stone, each,
on the overcrowded
metro bench and train car.
I dropped more stones below
our apartment

3rd place, 2012 Irreantum Poetry Contest

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Brown: Poems

in the elevator
because every day
I die most with the
anticipation.
But I leave my stones,
my Ebenezers,
outside our apartment
in a reddish orange
terra cotta planting pot,
so that none breach
our living room slash den
slash dining room slash kitchen slash library slash bedroom
because this five hundred
square feet is the hollow
of our own type of whale,
and when were inside
I have no need of a
cairn.

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Irreantum

The Martyr
When the angel came
did he trick the ram into the thicket
with talk of berries or cool water?
Did he say to the ram,
Hey, Ram, you like candy?
Come over here and have
some of this goat candy.
And then he was snagged?
Or did the angel bargain with him:
Rams will name their children in your honor.
Catholic rams will pray through you,
little Muslim and Jewish rams will memorize your exploit.
Or did he remind him of his indifference,
his wifes wandering eyes
or the girl who turned him down
when he asked her to ram Homecoming?
Did he say, Dont you want all the pain to just go away?
Jump into the thicket, Ram,
and no one will remember
that time you farted in gym class

114

Brown: Poems

or all those other things

you wince to remember.
Let Abraham sacrifice you
instead of Isaac
and your chest will warm with adrenaline
as you imagine ram accolades
at the news of your solemn bravery
in the face of so much sorrow.
Later, when Abrahams knife parted
his ram chest and he bleated
and the adrenaline surged
did the ram feel deceived, justified,
or did he remember that time his brother
hurt him playing ram basketball?
The ram cried, ran to his room.
Later his brother asked forgiveness,
but the ram was smug, and it felt good
to have his forgiveness asked in good faith
and deny it.

115

Irreantum

If I Had Possession over Judgment Day

After 7 and a half years of plenty
I drove to the county junction at midnight
and waited for the devil
to tune my guitar and stay
the impending famine
from hounding me.
He wore a jean jacket, leather boots
and a lopsided mustache
and in exchange for my soul
he tuned my guitar so I could play
like an airplane propeller
cutting through a tub of butter.
My real bowl of porridge, though,
was our covenant against the season
and when I woke up the next day,
my soul in eternal hock,
I saw the devil
had kept his word

116

Brown: Poems

because the locusts had come

and a third of my sunflowers
dried to husks and turned
from heaven so that for the first time
in 7 and a half long years
I stopped waiting.
And when the last fallow seed
fell beneath the dust
bowl my guitar played the greatest blues
song anyone ever heard,
and I could finally relax.

117

Brown: Poems

The Desecration of My Familys Dead Pets

I
My nieces pet guinea pig,
Christmas, lays on a stump, exhumed
on Easter, some months after its death and burial.
Its dry bones with tufts of hair
still clinging, all neatly reconstructed.
The long guinea-pig buck teeth
tilt the skull back
into, perhaps, a redemptive heads up
from the past.
Nine months ago
my niece mourned
the death of her first pet,
a fat guinea pig
who squeaked incessantly
and smelled like sour milk;
eyes puffy, the back of her hands
smeared with snot, my niece suffered
the most traumatic event of her young life.
Now, my niece gives me hope
as she smiles
her archaeologist smile.

119

Irreantum

II
When I was twelve
Jim, the vagrant,
the twenty-something homeless man
was adopted into our home
along with his dog, Shadow,
and they were two of the best friends
of my isolated adolescence.
One day, Jim told me
he wanted to eat his dog,
Shadow, after she died.
He patted her rump
roast and the dog smiled dumbly
her innocent dog smile.
Later my parents threw Jim out
for something he may or may not have done,
and I didnt try to stick up for him.
We got a call from Jim some time after that,
because he couldnt keep his dog,
and he wanted us to take care of her,
but we couldnt because of this
and because of that,
and, again, I didnt speak up.
And I knew Shadow
would be Jims dinner.

120

Brown: Poems

III
Christmas bones, dug up on Easter,
resurrects the memory of Jim, the vagrant,
eating Shadows rump roast,
with shaky hands and
a forced smile, and (forgive me)
a lump in his throat.
Christmas bones, dug up on Easter,
resurrects my guilt
for allowing Jim to be thrown out
for allowing his (probably very tasty)
dog to diewithout so much
as a word of defense.
And yet my niece gives me hope
because she dug up her past
and resurrected her innocence
on a stump in her backyard
near the robbed grave
of one of our familys dead pets
by, in a sense, eating her shadow
and smiling
an archaeologists smile.

121

S i g n at u r e
N e w

BookS
P o e t r y

Salt, poems by Susan Elizabeth Howe

Even if the landscape is bland, the poetry is spicy.
Sweat I want to lick / from the base of you neck,
Susan Howe writes to a lover who is dear to me
as salt. Kisses. / Taste of my own blood. / Desire
we float in, the great salt / lake Every poem is a
keeper, says Peter Makuck, founding editor of Tar
River Poetry. It is to the saturated brine of the Great
Salt Lake that Howe repeatedly turns, Elisabeth
Murawski adds, because that is her true country.
From Gods body sweat flowed / into the seas
during the six days / he worked on the world, the
poet surmises. And so, the sprinkled tomato, blood /
in our bodies, the taste / of sex are all remnants of
God. Who knew that such a simple condiment could
occupy this exalted status? But in the Utah desert, it
is essential, even if abundant in the nearby lake for
which the area is known.
www.signaturebooks.com

A New Look at an Old Story:

Character Motivation in
James Goldbergs The Five Books of Jesus
Kjerste Christensen

Review of James Goldbergs The Five Books of Jesus (CreateSpace, 2012)

Early in the The Five Books of Jesus, a group of skeptical

scholars confronts John the Baptist on his teachings. The narrator
observes: Maybe its an inevitable conflict between revelation and
education: though each always wants to give the other its due, neither
is quite ready to acknowledge the other as a supreme, lest its own
integrity be lost in the process. (p. 7)
A similar conflict exists between scripture and storytelling. Story
telling aims to make a connection with its audience, while scripture
aims to communicate the purest truth. But the passage of time obscures
the truth of scripture as changes in language and culture separate it
from its audience. Storytelling can restore that connection by adding
details of character and motivation, but scripture-based storytelling
necessarily strays into speculation to do so.
In The Five Books of Jesus, a retelling of the New Testament gospels,
James Goldberg plunges headfirst into storytelling (and speculation)
without looking back.
This story is not a new oneindeed, its one of the best known
stories in western civilizationso it puts a different set of narrative
requirements on the author. In a new story, the suspense of not knowing what will happen drives the plot. Retellings invert this narrative
suspense, because the point of the story is not the action but the motivation. We already know what the characters are going to do, but we
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continue to turn the pages to learn why they are going to do it.
In this framework, an author has the ability to enhance the basic
structure of the story by adding texture and depth to it, but he also
has the ability to upend our perception of that structure by adding
details that completely change our reading of the major events.
Goldberg uses both techniques, sometimes adding details to round
out the apostles as characters and sometimes significantly altering our
perception of a well-known narrative episode. Of all the apostles who
get expanded back stories, I think Matthew is my favorite. As a tax
collector for the Romans, hes something of a pariah in the community. However, he isnt motivated by money, but by the ability to protect the people in his community, because the position gives him the
ability to exercise some leniency with those who cant easily pay their
taxes. I also smiled at a detail about James and John which implies
that the thunder in sons of thunder is actually their strong-willed
mother.
The story of Mary and Martha is also one which completely
changed for me in Goldbergs retelling. The episode is traditionally
presented as one in which Martha is clearly in the wrong, and so Jesus
rebukes her for her misplaced priorities. In The Five Books of Jesus,
Martha is portrayed as feeling overwhelmed about being a good hostess to Jesus and his disciples and when he rebukes her, its actually
more of kind reassurance that helps her calm down and stop worrying. And then Jesus goes to the kitchen, himself, to help her feed all
of her guests.
Peters denying Jesus is another story that gets a makeover. Traditionally, Peters actions are interpreted as weakness and selfishness. In
Goldbergs version, Peter knows he needs to warn the others about
what has happened to Jesus, and he knows equally that he cant do
that if he is arrested himself, so his denial that he knows Jesus is motivated by trying to keep a low profile so that he can protect others.
Peter is well aware that his only option is to choose the lesser of two
evils, but his actions still leave him heartbroken.
As its title suggests, The Five Books of Jesus is centered on the life
and ministry of Christ. However, even though Goldberg richly fleshes
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Christensen: A New Look at an Old Story

out the lives of the minor characters in this story, the motivations and
inner life of Jesus remain relatively vague and what we do learn about
him tends to be seen through the eyes of those close to him. This
leaves open to interpretation whether were learning more about Jesus
or about the people who are observing him. Perhaps Goldberg is telling us that the way we react to Jesus is more important than who Jesus
actually is. Or perhaps its simply difficult to give a character arc to
someone who is already supposed to be perfect when the story starts.
But if Jesus is the lead actor in this story, its Judas who steals the
show. We should be content to focus on Jesus and his goodness, but
instead were rubbernecking at Judas because were dying to know how
the loyal disciple will betray his master and fall from grace. Goldbergs
Judas is haunted by a past of poverty, violence, and oppression, and is
utterly loyal to the man he thinks will lead a divine war of retribution.
But Judas is so fixed on the person hes projected onto Jesus that he
doesnt pay attention to who Jesus actually is. He is so convinced that
Jesus mission is to be a literal warrior that he betrays Jesus to the
authorities in order to force his hand. Even so, the greatest tragedy of
Judas is not his betrayal of Jesus, but that after those events, he once
again thinks he knows how the story will end and this time he cant
bear to witness it, so he leaves the stage early and misses the actual
ending.
The bulk of the story is told in the 3rd person, but the narrator
occasionally shifts into 2nd person, at first in reported speech, but
then unmistakably addressing the reader.
Then John walks into the river, and you can see the shape he cuts
downstream in the current. And that shape is a knife which cuts your
heart open, so that by the time you reach the water youre aching to
give up all the wrong things youve done. And you tell him: I cant go
on this way, and he says: you dont have to, so you say: but how?
and he looks at you hard, so hard you see your life with new eyes, and
when he tells you what you have to do, youre ready to make your decision: to walk away now, forever, and staunch the bleeding with an old
rag until you can harden your heart, or to step forward, cut your own
shape into the current, then lose yourself for a moment beneath the
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Irreantum
water, immerse yourself in a covenant it is no small matter to break.
(p.67)

The effect of the shift into 2nd person is unusual, but not jarring,
and further contributes to the feel of the story as told not by a distant,
omniscient narrator, but by a friend or a neighbor in a close, familiar
setting. This narrative approach pays off on the last page of the book
when the narrator shifts into 1st person to explain why he finds the
Christ story so compelling that he has decided to retell it once again.
Still, it is a story thats been told many times, and its interesting
to try to identify the audience that Goldberg is aiming for with this
particular version. Is he aiming for a highly educated audience or one
thats encountering the story for the first time? Is the novel aimed at
a particular denomination? The story could appeal to someone very
knowledgeable about the original time setting, because the novel is
full of references that show Goldberg to be well-versed in Jewish culture (for instance, the individual books have Hebrew titles, and the
story is full of detailed descriptions of food, geography, and cultural
customs). That said, I think even a reader completely unfamiliar with
the Gospels would find the story engaging and accessible. Telling
this story with any level of detail inevitably requires taking a stand
on some theological issues (e.g., Mary has other biological children),
but as far as I can tell, Goldbergs book is intended for a general, nondenominational audience. (Indeed, his author bio studiously avoids
mentioning his personal religious affiliation.) Even so, I found one
line particularly resonant for Mormons:
[A]s a matter of principle, its dangerous to believe in a prophet who
is still alive and may therefore easily yet prove to be a false one. Its
far better, the scholars tell their students, to wait for death to seal a
prophets message and actions and for generations to pass so that consensus can emerge. (p.8)

This passage refers to John the Baptist, but my mind went immediately to the 19th century followers of Joseph Smith, who were similarly faced with the overwhelming prospect of believing in a living

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Christensen: A New Look at an Old Story

prophet. The stories of past prophets (ancient or latter-day) are often

told in a sweeping, epic style that paints some actors as clearly good,
others as clearly evil, and their actions as more or less inevitable. Its
easy to forget that everyone involved was working only with the information they had at hand to make the best choices they could, day by
day. By restoring the immediate motivations of the players, Goldberg
lets us at least understand the perspective of those involved, if not
necessarily sympathize with them.
The best retellings take a story weve read a hundred times and
make us see it with new eyes. James Goldberg takes us on a new path
through stories we thought we knew, ending in a place of faith and
hope. So Jesus rebuke of Martha is a gesture of kindness, Peters
denial of the Christ is wrenching, but not necessarily selfish, and perhaps there is hope, even for Judas.

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Mormon Girl Explains It All

Christopher Cunningham

Review of Joanna Brookss The Book of Mormon Girl (New York: Free
Press, 2012)

From the time she was a child, Joanna Brooks liked her
Mormon friends birthday parties best because she didnt have to
explain turning down Coca-Cola. When the time came to choose a
college, she chose BYU because it was a place where she could live
among people to whom [she] would have to explain nothing. At first
it seems strange that Brooks, intent on not explaining herself, would
devote her recent memoir The Book of Mormon Girl (Free Press 2012)
to doing exactly that. What becomes clear, however, is that Brooks
has no problem explaining herself. What she always wanted to avoid
was defensiveness, apologetics, and dissimulation. It is Brooks ability
to only explain that sets The Book of Mormon Girl apart.
The Book of Mormon Girl, in many ways, owes its existence to Mitt
Romney, whose two presidential campaigns led the national media
to seek out Joanna Brooks as an insightful voice into Mormon life.
Over the past year, she has spoken about Mormonism on All Things
Considered, The Daily Show, and written for The New York Times,
Washington Post, and Huffington Post. While Brooks unorthodox
story, at first may make her seem like an unlikely spokesperson for
the faith, she intimately understands the vantage point Mormonism has outside the mainstream of American culture. She explains,
The more I learned to tell my own unorthodox story in public, the
more I have learned how to tell the unorthodox story of my Mormon
faith(187).
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Irreantum

The Book of Mormon Girl is a memoir divided into three acts and
devoted to the question, What do we do with ourselves when we find
we have failed to become the adults we dreamed of as pious children
(199). The first act details Brooks childhood. She looks at her parents and religious community. The section reaches its peak in a chapter provocatively titled Mormons vs. Born-Agains, where Brooks
defines herself as a cultural warrior for Mormonism at the 1985 Mormon Rose Bowl Dance Festival. The second section of the memoir
starts with Brooks adolescence. She considers the influence of her
young womens leaders, the development of her sexuality, and the Mormon teachings on chastity. It also moves through her disillusionment
as an undergraduate student at BYU. The memoirs final act jumps
ahead to Brooks as a mother, and her attempt to reconcile herself with
Mormonism. Much of this acts drama comes from the debate over
California Proposition 8, an issue she disagreed with the church on,
complicating her reconciliation. The memoir ends with Brooks plea
for a more inclusive brand of Mormonism.
Brooks perspective evolves throughout the memoir. The early chapters detailing her innocent childhood house much of the books charm.
The plan of salvation, which lends its name to the title of the books first
chapter, is Brooks first connection to Mormonism. Among her earliest
memories is one of her father explaining the relationship between the
body and spirit using a cotton work glove. Brooks describes her younger
self as a precocious child,an ancient spirit striving to remember the shape
of eternity at the kitchen table (3). She describes in detail the 1960s film
Mans Search for Happiness, which caused her deep longing through the
center of [her] chest (24). As the memoir unfolds, however, her connection to the faith focuses less on the eternal perspective of Mormonism
and more on its Christianity and pioneer heritage. When she meets her
Jewish husband, for example, she is attracted to him because he could
have made it across the plains. And when she decides to teach her children Mormon words, she chooses sacrament and pioneer rather than
premortality and exaltation. Ultimately, Mormonism is a home more
than anything else for Brooks. She describes it as my first language, my
mother tongue, my family, my people, my home (144).
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Cunningham: Mormon Girl Explains It All

Throughout the memoir, Brooks relies on lists to describe her Mormon world authentically and without judgment. These lists can be
funny, like one delineating the warning signs of communist infiltration;
familiar, like a list of items in the family 72 hour kit; and embarrassing,
like a list of things to which church leaders compared a womans virtue.
These lists show the good, the bad, and mostly the mundane. Because
Brooks has no interest in defending or incriminating Mormon life,
these long lists say there is nothing to look at here. In fact, Brooks
pursuit of authenticity occasionally bogs the book down, such as when
she details the collected works of Cleon Skousen or the beauty regime
of Marie Osmond. While these characters add to the texture of the
Mormon life Brooks describes, knowing that Skousen wrote The First
Two Thousand Years, The Third Thousand Years, and The Fourth Thousand Years feels unnecessary. Aside from these moments, however, the
books two-hundred pages are a breezy accessible read.
Aside from being a kind of primer for Mormon life, The Book
of Mormon Girl is also a coming-of-age tale. One of the most vivid
moments of the book consists of Joanna returning from girls camp
and opening up the camp leaders cooler to find tampons Fatter than
fingers! Brooks describes trying not to derive from the size and number of these tampons the condition of Sister Williamss insides.... But
there it was, in our laps, the evidence. Giant tampons (9697). These
discoveries of young womanhood shock the protected naivet of the
early chapters, and force Brooks to wrestle with the meaning of Mormon womanhood. When Brooks takes these questions back to her
faith, it causes her to reflect achingly on the lack of experiences for
young woman in the church comparable to the Aaronic priesthood,
and the demeaning ever-present object lessons on female chastity. The
conflation of faith and sexuality is most prominent when Brooks discovers the Mormon voice most revered in the memoir, Marie Osmond.
Pre-teen Brooks would follow her beauty routine religiously hoping
that with enough discipline, and a few implements from the local
drugstore she could reach what she had concluded from Maries
teachings was the ultimate goal for a young woman, to be so pure
and clear, no one would know [she] was there (65).
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Irreantum

The deft touch with which Brooks is able to describe her early
years is lacking in the books final chapters. While she attempts to
maintain the balanced inoffensive tone of the books beginning, these
attempts feel strained, such as in an extended paragraph where she
describes complaints of Mormons and No on 8 demonstrators in
identical language:
I start hearing from other Mormons that people have stolen their Yes
on 8 signs, left dog feces on their front steps, and thrown bleach on
peaceful Yes on 8 demonstrators. (170).
After the [No on 8] meeting ... people tell me that their No on 8 signs
have been stolen from their front lawns, dog feces left on their doorsteps, and acid thrown on No on 8 demonstrators (173).

Despite these awkward attempts at equanimity, Brooks fails to

stay above the fray entirely. She describes the anger Mormons felt at
temple protests as a centuries-old persecution complex (175), and
quips that Mormons have married [themselves] to gay folks for a
long, long time by getting front and center in the battle against gay
civil rights (177). Also, Brooks unwillingness to wrestle in detail with
her adult religious experience holds back much of the books last act.
She brushes past her early adulthood away from the church in a onepage chapter titled Sealed Portion that begins with her admission
this is the part of the story I do not want to tell, a desire she largely
fulfills (143). While she writes, I felt my church turn away from me,
and it was kind of a death to me (143), Brooks doesnt describe what
this means or how it influenced her daily life. This hesitation, while
understandable, leaves the end of the book lacking the honesty and
detail that made the books beginning so memorable.
By writing so lovingly and intimately about Mormon childhood
but then baring her struggles with Mormonism, Brooks raises the
question of who this book is written for. She speaks explicitly at times
to the wayward Mormon boy or girl who she feels could benefit
from this story (143). To other, traditional Mormon audiences, The
Book of Mormon Girl becomes a passionate plea to expand the definition of Mormonism, a plea Brooks devotes the entire final chapter to
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Cunningham: Mormon Girl Explains It All

making explicitly. The book, however, is written for more than a Mormon audience. In her acknowledgments, Brooks recognizes the many
congregations that sheltered her along the way, from Catholicism to
Judaism to the Religious Society of Friends. Brooks also writes the
book in language non-Mormons would understand, such as saying
that teenage boys collect tithes and offerings, which makes the point
immediately accessible to those not familiar with Mormon vocabulary.
In fact, the appendix of the book contains questions for book groups,
and the first, What did you learn about Mormonism recognizes the
books appeal outside of Mormonism. This story is one of an adult
faith. Brooks observes, As I wrote, agnostic Catholics, reform Jews,
gay Christian girls, even stone-cold atheists, gave me a hard look,
then nodded and said: Yes, I recognize something familiar in the
story you are telling (187). Her story, while specific to her Mormon
experience, contains the kinds of life lessons that transcend individual
denominations.
What do we do with ourselves when we find we have failed to
become the adults we dreamed of as pious children is the central
question of Brooks memoir (199). It is an honest question required of
all adults of faith. As Brooks begins her tale she admits, an orthodox
Mormon story is the only kind of story I ever wanted to be able to tell
... [But] this is the story life has given me to tell (10). Hers is a story
of doubt, weakness, faith and courage. It is a masterful memoir, and
one you would do well to read.

133

At the Crossroads of Mormon Fiction

Scott Hales

Review of Helynne Holstein Hansens Voices at the Crossroads

(CreateSpace, 2011)

In the novel Piney Ridge Cottage (1912), Nephi Anderson

provides an early example of one of Mormon fictions favorite plot
formulas. Julia Elston, a young free-spirited Mormon woman, leaves
her rural home for the first time only to become entangled in a lovetriangle involving Chester Lawrence, a dashing non-Mormon stranger,
and Glen Curtis, a shy Mormon boy from her home town. Julia, of
course, struggles to choose between the two suitors. The mysterious
Chester is virtuousdespite his gentile backgroundand can take
restless Julia anywhere she desires but the temple. Glen is more stable
and wholly committed to the gospel. But hes also dull and has a predilection for stalking that does not work as well for him as it does
for Twilights Edward Cullen. The success of the novel depends upon
Julias capacity for vacillating between these two choices. The more
she delays her choice and allows tension to mount, the more involved
we become as readers.
Sound familiar? For at least part of the novel, Jack Weyland uses
a variation of the formula in Charly (1980) when he pits dull Sam
against the classy (and upwardly mobile) Mark. In both this novel
and Piney Ridge Cottage, the outcome is as one would expect. Despite
the fact that the non-Mormon suitor is often more successful, more
charming, and significantly more interesting than his rival, the young
woman chooses the Mormon. The first Work and the Glory novel and
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Irreantum

Ryan Littles 2002 film Out of Step also capitalize on this formula.
Mormon readers seem to like it.
This is good news for Helynne Hollstein Hansens novel Voices at
the Crossroads (CreateSpace 2011), which received an honorable mention from the Marilyn Brown Novel Award committee in 2008, losing
outunderstandablyto one of the best Mormon novels in recent
years, Todd Robert Petersens Rift (2009). Like Piney Ridge Cottage,
Voices at the Crossroads is about a young Mormon woman who longs
to break away from her small-town roots. But Hansens FrenchAmerican protagonist, Marie-Xavire Volp, is no Julia Elston, who
is at heart a homebody who seems more disposed to caring for sick
relatives and tending to the men in her life than setting out on her
own. Marie-Xavire tries to march to her own beat and thrives on
flouting conventions, especially when members of her University of
Colorado singles branch are her audience.
A ward choir director and Sunday school teacher, she scandalizes
them by wearing ornate crossesalways a cultural taboo in Mormon
circlesand referencing arcane bits of French history in her lesson.
She also distains authorityparticularly patriarchal authority
which further marginalizes her in a church largely run by men. She
keeps the commandments, to be sure, but only as a way to subvert
power. As she explains to her roommate Cynthia in the first chapter:
Ive wrapped my mind around one thing that is very, very certain,
Cynthe. I can never, never, never give any bishop or stake cabal any
reason to look down on me. No one will ever accuse me of breaking
commandments and no one will ever have the power to make me take
an inferior seat to anyone else in the Church. I wont give the Church
powers that be [...] the smug satisfaction of criticizing or disciplining
me. I will not be a pariah. (1617)

But Marie-Xavire is not always so subversive. Despite her initial anti-authoritarian posturingwhich some readers may read
as hereticalMarie-Xavire is wholly committed to her Mormon
community, even if she has pronounced issues with its culture. Even
so, in her constant analysis of the world and people around her, she
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Hales: At the Crossroads of Mormon Fiction

frequently comes across as judgmental and self-righteous. She stereotypes Mormon men as predictably controlling and self-serving, yet
she often displays the same tendency. When her sister contemplates
marriage barely out of high school, for example, Marie-Xavire tells
her to not even think about it at this point!! and do herself a favor
and run screaming from this guy (182183). The advice is sound, of
course, because the guy turns out to exude spiritual sleaze. Yet on a
deeper level it also betrays how Marie-Xavire, like the Stake cabal
she so resents, is quick to assert her worldview and values on other
people and situations. Already having a low opinion of her sisters
interests and lifestyle choicesin many ways she and her sister are
oppositesand having never met the boyfriend, she judges the situation without trying to understand her sisters perspective. That she
turns out to be right is a moot point. Throughout the novel, MarieXavire struggles to have faith in the capacity of others to make the
right choices.
At the same time, she has a pragmatic streak that allows her to
adapt to her environment when it does not go her way. At heart, the
novel is about Marie-Xavire finding herself. While her convictions
are never lacking, they nevertheless shift constantly in a kind of freeplay with her concept of identity. Early on, readers get a sense that
Marie-Xavire is less certain of who she is than she realizes. As a way
to give structure to her life, for example, she looks to the French existentialists Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sarte, television, and
French cinema for models. Her name also lacks anchor. To some, she
is Marie-Xavire. To others she is simply Marie or X, a nickname
that literalizes her place at lifes crossroads. As the novel progresses,
however, a more satisfying portrait of Marie-Xavire emerges as her
identity develops independent of outside models.
Which brings us back to Mormon fictions favorite plot formula.
For the first part of the novel, Marie-Xavire finds herself drawn to
the dangerously attractive Brannigan Foster, her non-Mormon exboyfriend, and Luc Gauthiers, an equally attractive recently-returned
missionary. Both young men are intellectual and liberal enough to
engage Marie-Xavires mind, yet she mistrusts both of them. She
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Irreantum

breaks up with Brannigan, even though she still wants to be with

him, because he pressures her to have sex. Later, however, she resists
committing to a relationship with Luc, despite her attraction to him,
because he is a Mormon man and she fears he will discard his feminist
ideals, try to marry her, and turn her into his personal satellite. Even
so, Marie-Xavire clearly favors Luc and those who are familiar with
the formula are not surprised.
Except Hansen takes the formula in another direction. If MarieXavire seems unwilling to tell her story independent of outside
models, Hansen is not. Rather than allowing the pieces to fall predictably as they do in Piney Ridge Cottage and Charly, she introduces
another option that supplies a more satisfying type of tension. What
if Marie-Xavire recognizes that she does not have to choose between
Brannigan and Luc? In their stories, Julia and Charly are never given
the option to kiss their rival suitors goodbye and take to the road.
Marie-Xavire, however, is not so compliant. At every opportunity,
she lets her readers know she is an individual whose future is in her
own hands.
Does that mean Hansen discards the formula by the end of the
novel? In many ways, that is the question that drives readers to the
novels end. Is Voices at the Crossroads a Charly for intellectuals? Or
does Hansen subvert the formula and give Mormon fiction something new?
My own opinion is that Voices at the Crossroads is nothing we
havent seen before, although I appreciate the way Hansen makes
a place for French culture in Mormonism. One of Marie-Xavires
quirks is that she meets with dead French feminists like Simone de
Beauvoir and George Sand in her dreams, and receives advice from
them on how to navigate the crossroads. Unfortunately, these dreams
are too few and far apart to season the novel in a memorable way.
Besides that, Hansens characters are unconventional without being
revelatory. Rarely do they do anything that truly surprises.
In its current form, Voices at the Crossroads is itself at a kind of crossroads. As a novel about unconventional Mormons, it has the potential to move Mormon fiction not so much away from the formulas
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Hales: At the Crossroads of Mormon Fiction

we expect (and even love), but to disrupt and rework them in a way
that gives them fresh appeal. I think with some revisions (and muchneeded proofreading) Voices at the Crossroads could be that novel, but
it too often falls back on what we expect from Mormon fiction. Like
Marie-Xavire, it needs to be more fearless, more willing to strike its
own path.

139

Award for Best Short Story Anthology,

Association for Mormon Letters
A startling and original collection.
Karen Rosenbaum, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
Jack Harrell is one of the brightest stars of modern Mormon fiction.
Boyd J. Peterson, Mormon Studies Coordinator, UVU
Not your typical Mormon Literature.
Nate Sunderland, Rexburg Standard Journal
If you know jack about Mormon fiction, you know Jack.
Stephen Carter, editor, Sunstone magazine
One of the most delightful aspects is the sheer unexpectedness.
Shelah Mastny Miner, BYU Studies
Also by Jack Harrell: Vernal Promises, winner of the Marilyn M. Brown
Award for Fiction, Association for Mormon Letters

www.signaturebooks.com

About the Artist

Carla Jimison teaches art at Brigham Young University

Idaho. She earned her MFA at Brigham Young University and specializes in printmaking.

Artist Statement
Carla sees art as metaphorical poetry and enjoys exploring symbolism
through her work. In Jean Chevaliers dictionary of symbolism, the
first line of the entry on birds states, The flight of birds leads them,
naturally, to serve as symbols of the links between heaven and earth.
The Bible, the Book of Mormon, and even the papyri in the Pearl
of Great Price document birds filling this and many other symbolic
roles. Carla designs her images to be capable of invoking multiple
archetypal questions, giving the viewer the opportunity to explore the
metaphoric possibilities of her work.

141

Contributors

Andrew Bud Adamshas studied and written about Biblical, classical, and fantasy literature at Brigham Young University, the State
University of New York at Potsdam, and Goddard College. He currently teaches for Utah Valley University and BYUIdaho. For more
of his work, visit andrewbudadams@blogspot.com.
Robert Brownis a technical writer from the Washington DC area.
He has worked as an English teacher in the past and enjoys writing
poetry, short stories, and essays. You can find a link to his other publications at robertspencerbrown.googlepages.com.
Kjerste Christensenis a librarian who has spent the last five years
working at the University of Maine. She recently accepted a position
at Brigham Young Universitys Harold B. Lee Library as the Faculty
Cataloger for 21st Century Mormonism.
Christopher Cunninghamstudies writing at Brigham Young
UniversityIdaho. He will graduate in April, 2013. He writes and promotes literary quality LDS fiction.
Scott Halesis a PhD candidate in the Department of English and
Comparative Literature at the University of Cincinnati. He is currently writing a dissertation on the Mormon novel.
Warren Hatchteaches writing in the sciences and technologies,
editing and design, and wilderness writing at Utah Valley University. He has published a collection of poetry, Mapping the Bones of the
World, with Signature.
142

Contributors

Justin Kenningtonis a poet, playwright, and essayist who currently lives in Payson, Utah. He supports his writing habit by teaching writing, improvisation, and literatureparticularly Shakespeare
and Native American literatureat schools, theatres, and universities throughout the state. His other passions include fly-fishing, performing, and all things British.
Jim Papworths greatest pleasures come from his home lifehelping
Anne raise their two youngest sons; the twenty- and thirty-somethings
have all landed in their own comfort zones or are attending universities. He enjoys being outdoors except during inclement weather. He
appreciates a good book, enjoys his students, likes to shovel show, and
has taken up cooking as one of his soft hobbiesmuch easier on his
knees than backpacking.
Scott M. Robertsis a man who has done despicable things with
a spoon. When not indulging in silverware debauchery, he writes
speculative fiction. His work may be found in Orson Scott Cards
Intergalactic Medicine Show, Writers of the Future, and in the Monsters and Mormons speculative fiction anthology from Peculiar Pages.
Scott lives in northern Virginia with his family and a motley troupe
of wizards, detectives, and crazy persons.
Doug Talleyreceived a BFA in creative writing from Bowling
Green State University and a JD from the University of Akron. He
works presently as an executive in a small insurance consulting firm.
His poems and essays have appeared in various literary journals and
in 2009 his work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His collection
of poetry, Adams Dream, was released in 2011 (Woodsboro Md.: Parables Publishing). He and his wife April live in Copley, Ohio, where
they both continue to write and raise their family.
Kylie Nielson Turleyhas been a BYU Honors Writing lecturer
since 1997. She enjoys writing about nineteenth-century LDS literature, Utah history, and Mormon history, as well as herself, her husband, and her five children.
143

Thanks to Our Donors

The Association for Mormon Letters gratefully acknowledges the following members who have made an extra contribution by
paying AML dues at the Lifetime, Sustaining, or Contributing levels.
In addition, we have listed those who have received an honorary lifetime membership in recognition of their influence and achievements
in Mormon literature.
Lifetime Members ($500)

Honorary Lifetime Members

Marilyn Brown
Rebecca England and Jordan
Kimball
Robert Hogge
Eric Jepson
LaVerna Bringhurst Johnson
Neal Kramer
R. Don Oscarson
R. B. Scott
Mary Ann Taylor

Lavina Fielding Anderson

Elouise Bell
Mary L. Bradford
Richard Cracroft
James DArc
Terryl L. Givens
John S. Harris
Edward Hart
Bruce Jorgensen
Jordan Kimball
Gerald Lund
William Mulder
Levi Peterson
Thomas F. Rogers
Steven P. Sondrup
Douglas Thayer
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Sustaining Members ( $250)

Ron Priddis
Signature Books

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Irreantum Subscription Order Form

Irreantum subscription

Includes Association for Mormon Letters membership.

Annual dues: $25 regular

$20 full-time students

$100 contributing

$250 sustaining

$500 lifetime

The nonprofit Association for Mormon Letters (AML) promotes

the production and study of Mormon literature and its enjoyment
by all. All members of the Association for Mormon Letters
receive a subscription to our twice-yearly literary magazine,
Irreantum,
may participate in discussion and recognition of Mormon literature through AML Awards and the AML Review Archive,
sponsor AML events such as the AML Annual Meeting, and
sponsor the AML website and AML blog along with access to
the AML proceedings, which includes papers presented at the
annual meeting, and access to the AML Review Archive. There
are now over 1,000 literature and film reviews archived on the
AML website, and everyone is welcome to browse through the
archive.

Make check payable to aml and mail to:

AML, PO Box 581422, Salt Lake City, UT 84158
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