Bird of Paradise
April 13, 2018A drum was beating that night as my family and I entered the elementary school gymnasium. Animal skins were stretched across a portion of hollowed-out tree, two flat brown hands pounding on their surface. Instantly…
DiaBLOGue
One Sunday’s Rain (After Word of My Father’s Illness)
April 13, 2018All morning: rainwater
off the roof onto pebbles
washed smooth of pale soil
in the garden.
New Wine and New Bottles: Scriptural Scholarship as Sacrament
April 13, 2018Anthony Hutchinson’s A Mormon Midrash?: LDS Creation Narratives Reconsidered (DIALOGUE, Winter 1988) is a heroic and important article that deserves careful examination. Hutchinson’s provocative and illuminating themes range from modern scholarly techniques, through King James…
Counting the Cost
April 13, 2018It wasn’t the silver balance scale the teacher used for a centerpiece. Initially I thought it attractive, effective as a visual aid. It wasn’t her manner or her voice, all appealing, that offended me. It…
Why Ane Wept: A Family History Fragment
April 13, 2018Ane PEdersdatter of Sjaelland, Denmark, entered Bear River Valley in northern Utah much as if she were going to jail. Her granddaughter Elvina told the story long afterwards: About April 15th [of 1866] Ane left…
Being Faithful Without Being Told Things
April 13, 2018When I was a child, my mother read regularly to my siblings and me, and together we paged through all the children’s classics. I loved the sound of her voice repeating the familiar words and…
My Liberty Jail
April 13, 2018This dialogue of anguished questioning and consolation has an intensely personal meaning to me. The 1980s were a decade that severely tested my faith in Heavenly Father and my commitment to the Church. Whatever others will remember of these ten years, I will remember suffering: personally, professionally, and spiritually.
My Mother’s House
April 13, 2018I spent the thirteenth of December 1985 traveling by automobile from Ogden, Utah, to Snowflake, Arizona, to attend my mother’s funeral. It was my fifty-second birthday. My wife, daughter, and I commandeered a bedroom in…
The Dark Gray Morning
April 13, 2018The dark gray morning has its eye on you
Forget about the stormy
you have more pressing worries. What to do?
The dark gray morning has its eye on you
The New Zealand Mission During the Great Depression: Reflections of a Former Acting President
April 13, 2018The time was 21 April 1932; the place, New Zealand. I had served as a Mormon missionary for nearly two and one-half years, the normal period according to Church practice for a foreign assignment at…