Boo and Yamba climb fast, finding trail in dusk, and I follow
on stiffening mud and snowcrust from last week’s first snow.
They skirt Cliff Lake then Petit, Linear, and so between glacial morains,
taciturn boys bewildered by plunging cold and this sudden-setting
behavior of water. The lakes bend in each ascending basin,
Very bold,
I saw a star fall from heaven,
Kindle a fire in the valley of decision.
There could be nothing upon earth
So exquisite
My sister once died,
alone, on the operating table.
They brought her back of course
—no harm done—
is a volatile fuel
that blazes you far
into the white desert
like some 50s speed test pilot
The world was divided into three. Three shards of sagebrush and sky. That’s how it looked to Emma as she blinked through the thick wooden wagon spokes next to her head. She winced at the…
The first time I remember seeing a baptism was at a tiny Southern Baptist chapel in Chiefland, Florida. All dolled up in my frilly pastel dress, white buckled shoes, and lacy socks, my brother and I walked across the hot parking lot from Grandma’s black Mazda truck into the homey brick chapel, each holding a finger of our grandmother’s hand. She had pressed her best dress so stiff she may as well have washed it in pure starch. My little brother’s six-year-old indoctrinated Southern etiquette displayed itself proudly—church was not a regular outing, and he didn’t mind being suited up and shown off. Plenty of others coming into the chapel were in their Sunday best, most of whom gave the air of being “regulars,” but medleys of worn denim mixed with the collared shirts and skirts didn’t seem out-of-place.
I am the Mormon among Catholics part of this equation. I was raised in Utah Valley—well I got taller, anyway. I got my undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University (BYU) and both of my graduate…
Although I was brought up in a Congregational church and my husband in an Episcopal church, after reading Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain in the early 1970s, we converted to Catholicism. There we found a spiritual home. I now help out in a seven-month class for those who want to become Catholic. Why is a Catholic from Seattle interested in Mormon history? My background includes Episcopalians, Quakers, Presbyterians, Mormons, and Unitarians. It involves belief, dissent, and conversion, and then belief, dissent, and conversion all over again, with some large doses of persecution thrown in from time to time.
At the conclusion of each Mormon History Association’s annual conference, there is a “devotional.” (Until I became a devotee of Mormon history, devotional was always an adjective, as in “devotional literature,” but the Latter-day Saints have shifted my grammatical foundations, and, because of my exposure to Mormons, I’ll never hear words like “fireside,” “garments,” or even “Jell-O” in the same way.) At these devotionals, I always look to see if my favorite LDS hymn is being featured—“The Spirit of God”—number 2 in the LDS hymnal.
I grew up in an anti-Catholic world. The first thing I remember hearing about Catholics in the small town in which I was raised was not just negative, it was extremely so. Everyone I knew was distrustful, suspicious, or hateful toward Catholics. When I joined the LDS Church at age ten, I heard more anti-Catholic sentiment, including the branding of the Catholic Church as “the Whore of Babylon,” and “the great and abominable church” or “church of the devil,” based on a biased reading of the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 13:6, 14:9).