The Leper
November 2, 2021An armadillo dug up the grassin my parents’ yard last year— the kind that bounce buckshotoff their back and carry leprosy. If only I could do the same:materialize armor, lumber along. I could curl up…
DiaBLOGue
Bi-Bestiary
November 2, 2021I suppose only the animals that paired offand shuffled up the rampsurvived the flood. So this Bishop, pointing outthat we would rather flirtthan marry—well, he built an Ark out of the treeslining the church property.He…
Daffodils
November 2, 2021Your lips are melting petals,Wilting into my mouth.My tears not clearEnough to revive them. When you learn to fly,Will they forget to dance?Lose their maypole eyelashesAnd languish, lonely, withWings cut. And yet,I pray, make me…
Created in His Image
November 2, 2021I.The first lie they told me wasBlonde Jesus. Thick Belinda locks,And blue ocean eyes.He hangs on the cross, whiteLike a tender lamb, orWhite like a lily flower,Or like white snowSmothering brown ground. II.The second lie…
LePetit Richards and the Big Dipper Carpet—An Amusement Based on a Reworking of Whittle’s Research Notes
November 2, 2021Podcast version of this fiction piece. This was not the only time that Richards, originally born Neville Colyer, the son of a millwright in Oxfordshire, had worked through the imagery of the stars. He had…
Spirit of Pentecost
November 2, 2021Instead of unremitting lucha libre, I desired détente between my sexuality and birth faith. A gap between graduation from law school and starting work opened a unique space for spiritual odyssey. I resumed attending church…
The Joy and Burden of Serving as Bishop: An Open Letter to Bishops
November 2, 2021Dear Bishop, The mantle you bear will be a delight. You will observe the healing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ and feel the love our heavenly parents have for their children. You will…
Thoughts on the Sacrament During a Pandemic
November 2, 2021Podcast version of this Personal Essay. The sacrament feels like a medical procedure these days. It’s passed by men, not boys. I wondered about that requirement until I looked around the chapel at our scanty,…
“I Cannot Describe Salt”: Elizabeth Willis, Poets in Exile, and the Church Invisible in the Age of Pandemic
November 2, 2021Ever since Socrates banished poetry in Book X of Plato’s Republic with a flippant “if . . . poetry can show any reason for her existence in a well-governed state, we would gladly admit her,”[1] Western poets…
Mormonism and the Possibility of a Materialist Apostasy
November 2, 2021The notion of apostasy is central to the identity of the Mormon people.[1] One might even say it is the raison d’être of Mormonism. It is the thing that explains why there needed to be…