White Lady Speaks to the Genesis Group
Preliminary explanation, because inevitably somebody doesn’t get it: This is one of those risky posts–a satire. Think Stephen Colbert. The subtext is real, however (like Colbert’s). The truth is,...
View ArticleLen Hope–in his own words
This is the story of Len and Mary Hope, black converts to Mormonism. Len was baptized just before WWI near Magnolia, Alabama, and Mary later on in Cincinnati. When they first attended church, they were...
View ArticleWedding Rehearsal Revisited
My husband and I celebrate twenty-eight years of marriage today, May 17th. Bruce, as most of my friends know, was my professor before he was my husband. I got free tuition when I married him. He was...
View ArticleIntersections
Mel Hamilton is one of my heroes. He spoke on July 13th about his experience as one of the Black Fourteen at Wyoming University in 1969. He and thirteen other black players on the team—the best Wyoming...
View ArticleDarmok and Jalad at Tanagra
This was one of the last posts I did when I blogged at By Common Consent. It has renewed significance now. My husband and I recently saw a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called “Darmok.” In it,...
View ArticleA Few of my Sisters
This is Augustina Choc and her family. It’s not a great picture. You can see my thumb holding it. This was the passport picture the Choc family of Patzicia, Guatemala had when they went by bus to the...
View Article“Margaret Young has Weighed In.”
These words, beginning my friend Russell Stevenson’s one-sentence summary of one of my blog posts, should be spoken in fear and trepidation, and only at a Weight watcher’s meeting. I had a message from...
View ArticleThat “Third” Conversation? Never, No Never!
Fourth grade can be terrible. Not only do you get introduced to hard math, but all the kids start experimenting with identity and control. In my fourth grade class, a particular girl was in charge. Of...
View ArticleChristmas Church in China
“Do you actually believe in GOD? Do you PRAY to him? Do you think he lives in the clouds?” These were the chants of my parents’ students in Shandong, China upon learning that Mom and Dad were...
View ArticleThe Future of Mormonism (the Next Five Years)
Editors’ Note: This article is part of the Patheos Public Square on the Future of Faith in America: Mormonism. Read other perspectives here. Despite claims that the sky is falling and multiple...
View ArticleRisen and Rising
My fundamental belief as a Latter-day Saint is that we are continuously in process of either blossoming or withering, that our potential is infinite and our mortality only one phase of our eternal...
View ArticleDeath of a Latter-day Saint
Embedded in this post is a youtube link to my father’s funeral. This is something I would want everyone studying the Latter-day Saint faith to listen to as an example of what a Mormon life is or can...
View ArticleRobert Blair Obituary, Part 4: The Story Teller’s Last Stories
Note: This post includes a photo of Robert Blair’s lifeless body in the last part. If photos of dead bodies cause you anxiety, please do not continue. I have written the previous obituary segments in...
View ArticleOn a Day When I Miss My Dad
I put a photo of an ultrasound into Dad’s coffin on February 27. The viewing before his funeral hadn’t started yet, and no one was watching. The ultrasound was of the fetus who is still becoming...
View ArticleSalvador: The Truth behind the Fiction, Part 3
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken. (Oliver Cromwell) Daniel Choc was one of Dale Grover’s most ardent supporters, having lived on the plantation for two...
View ArticleSalvador: The Truth Behind the Fiction, Part 5
1 John 2:16 – For all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. I am a living testimony to the fact that...
View ArticleSalvador: The Truth Behind the Fiction, Part 6
Blessed be the name of my God, for his Spirit hath not altogether withdrawn from me, or else where is thy glory, for it is darkness unto me? And I can judge between thee and God; for God said unto me:...
View ArticleBirthday Thoughts
On June 7, I turned sixty-one. My two best friends, Jackie Selck Clegg and Elizabeth (Buffy) Cannon Wright, both died in their forties, Jackie of cancer and Buffy in a car crash. My aunt Carolyn also...
View ArticleThe First Vision–beyond words
It was years afterwards that Joseph Smith made his first attempt to describe what we Mormons refer to as “The First Vision.” Certainly, making a pamphlet boiling down a theophany to mere words was...
View ArticleRenewing Our Imaginations
When I’ve taught creative writing, I have asked my students to look at the world with “poetic eyes.” I have asked two questions at the beginning of class: “Who or what did you fall in love with?” and...
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