In a 1991 New York Times Book Review article, African-American literary theorist and cultural critic Henry Louis Gates, Jr., used the bizarre case of The Education of Little Tree to reexamine the issues of “identity” and “authenticity” in literary studies.
Custom/culture; sacred/profane; vision/imagination; literal/figurative—call them borderlands, call them crossroads—we catch glimpses of possibility and more fully understand the limits of our faith in these places. And the place where “Mormon” crosses “literature” looks like the…
I am neither a scholar of the Hebrew Bible nor a theologian, yet very occasionally some unsuspecting soul asks me to preach or speak about the Bible. In 1994 I substituted one Sunday for a…
It’s Christmas
and our mothers, weary in their memories,
in their good for others (those holiday chores)
keep their feet under them like birds.
In a spiritual crisis of the individual, the truth and authenticity of the person’s spiritual identity are called into question. He is placed in confrontation with reality and judged by his ability to bring himself…
Jesus said, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.” In fact, that statement shows up in the New Testament three times: in Mat thew 12:39, in Matthew 16:4, and again in Luke 11:29.…
As religions often do, Mormonism promises salvation to its faithful participants. It also speaks of those who are not its participants, who are in some way outside the religion. Under this second heading, there are…
You poor sad, dead little girls
Tonight I am crying for you.
I have walked gingerly in your blue shoes,
Your small shoes, your worn shoes,
My grandma died three years ago. What I have of her now is a collection of odds and ends of memories. I have a few physical reminders: her senior class ring from Jordan High School, an old can full of buttons, and a photo of the two of us at my college graduation. The memories are gradually turning into anecdotes that I tell myself over and over.
In a monthly cycle,
women gather to play cards,
to not talk of the children
they have or don’t.