A Missionary Farewell
June 21, 2023Listen to the audio version of this piece here. A crowd of several thousand poured into the Provo Tabernacle. They filled the wooden pews, the kind that are never quite comfortable but perfect for keeping…
DiaBLOGue
Healing Together: The Lonely Intersection of Faith and Sexuality
June 21, 2023Dialogue 56:2 (Summer 2023) 109-112
“My wife has left me because I’m attracted to men. I can’t live with myself for hurting her. God has abandoned me for going against the teachings of the Bible. I don’t deserve to be alive.” His despair was overwhelming.
A Superior Alternative
June 21, 2023I’m an Aries with my sun in the sixth house, which means, according to astrology, that since the moment I was born, health has been my top priority. I had a hard time believing that…
Homemade Medicine
June 21, 2023Grandpa filled gelcaps with his own mixof dried herbs. Before clean food,before expensive organics, beforewellness became photogenic,he was a health nut. I asked himwhy did he grind dried leavesthe color of new hay,why did he…
The Last Day
June 21, 2023“Scott Eccles?” “Yes!” “Please follow me.” Scott Eccles leapt from his seat, straightened his tie, and surreptitiously placed his fists on his hips in the Superman pose, for he had watched a video online that…
Heart Sutra (In the guest bedroom at dawn, after the pandemic)
June 21, 20231Today we scorn Russians,But we were invaders, too.Our lifestyle at stake in Iraq.Searching but not finding.Blood and bones and dirt.Infection and tears.Fighting to prove . . . what?Truth? America? God on our side? Twenty years ago, I heard…
No Man Can Serve Two Masters
June 21, 2023Enjoy this poem in audio version here. But my diagnosis says otherwise. Depression oozes under my door: the destroying angel visits:until I can’t get out of bed. One week later I’m waving bloody hyssop like glow sticks at a ravenudging sushi…
Throwing Up in the DC Temple
June 21, 2023Enjoy this poem in audio version here. Maybe it was envy that churned inside meas I looked around the room. Wonderingwhat healthy Mormons felt instead of fear. My body forced everyone to consider what it meant to be sick in…
Passion
June 21, 2023“And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God?”—1 Nephi 11:16 A body so light, it floatedacross wind-whipped wavesand did not sink. So full of life,it survived empty forty days,no wheat for forty…
Fierce Passage
June 21, 2023Enjoy this poem in audio version here. Today while researching ancestors, sifting through nested petalsof records for names that belong to me, peoplewho’ve left their bloody signatures in my genes, I found Melissa, some sixth…