Typically, when an individual contracts a disease, friends and relatives rally to provide needed support. Even terminal illnesses, though reminders of our own mortality, elicit comfort and sympathy. Friends and family form support groups, dispense…
In the chapel,
In the straightbacked
Ache of the pew,
We held them—lap toys
For some time now, especially since World War II and the shock and guilt evoked in the Western world by the virtual extermination of the European Jews, traditional Christian views of the role of the…
Hunched over and rocking a little,
he answered the president in stutters,
and I wrote it all down in the ledger—
the girl’s name, how many times, my pen touching
Many Latter-day Saints worry that as the Mormon Church has become more corporate in nature, it has not retained its strictly religious focus. Some have argued that its extensive financial holdings have made the Church…
I mourn my father.
I am afraid to relive him
lest my heart break.
Certain characteristics of Mormon families are consistent with the social and theological emphasis the LDS Church places on family life. For example, in 1987 I wrote about the four C’s of the Mormon family: Chastity…
Telling the truth about history is most essentially, I think, knowing who we are and where we come from. When Mormon historians began to shed additional light on the beginnings of Joseph Smith and the…
in a perfect diamond of flight
slip between me and the sky, circle
toward rest and cover for the night.
The lake is a polished absurdity
This anthology is designed for people with a professional interest in Mormon historiography as well as for the much larger number of men and women who have been intrigued or alarmed by the rhetoric about…