Book Review - A Storyteller in Zion by Orson Scott Card

I waited way too long to read this remarkable collection of thought and counsel.  I have long loved Card's fiction, in fact Ender's Game is my all time favorite Sci-Fi novel.  I hadn't begun to give Card the attention I'm now persuaded he deserves.  I always stayed away from Sunstone and Dialogue magazines because they had a reputation for seeking to correct the church.  I remember when Booklogged read this I thumbed through it and saw that some of the essays were written for one or the other of those publications.  I guess I judged Orson by the company he kept.  Ironic, since his articles republished in this volume were written to take critical writers in Sunstone and Dialogue to task.  I ignored Card until one day I heard that he'd turned up on Rush Limbaugh.  Rush Limbaugh?  No kidding.  I knew Orson was a dyed in the wool Democrat and the seeming incongruity was irresistible.  I'm no Democrat.  I'm no fan of Rush Limbaugh either.  In fact more recently I can also declare that I'm no Republican either.  I went to Limbaugh's web site and found the circumstances.  I was one up on Rush, at least I'd heard of Orson Scott Card.  If you followed the link you've discovered that Rush was thrilled with a newspaper piece Card had written.  He was clearly astonished by his honesty, candor and clarity of thought.  That is exactly what I love about this book!

I haven't read a book that opened my eyes to new possibilities like this one in a long long time.  It was published in 1993.  How I'd have benefited had I read it 17 years ago.  Card is clearly a well trained intellectual and his work is thought completely through.  His discourse on art, Zion, homosexuality, relationships and more is truly brilliant.  I recommend every Latter-day Saint read his work.  You'll get a clearer view of who we are and what we mean.  If you don't find his separation of substance from fluff as refreshing as I did, I'll be truly surprised.  Never has anyone spoken my language more eloquently.  While I have examined many of the concepts and principles Card elucidates, I certainly have not thought them through to the magnificent, eloquent conclusions he arrived at. 

I haven't read another LDS writer whose loyalty to the Church was more apparent, nor whose gift for making perfect sense of it's teachings more exalting.  Church members on both the left and right of today's political spectrum would do well to clarify their positions through the lens of Card's honesty.  Get it.  Study it.

Five Stars

Confessing Other People's Sins

Yesterday, I felt troubled while sitting in Gospel Doctrine Class.  For a while I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was that had me unsettled.  Then I realized that everyone who commented was busy confessing someone else's sins.

We were discussing Isaiah and the teacher had listed several scriptures on the board.  As we examined each one we tried to interpret what that ancient prophet witnessed and then recorded about us.  Much of it had to do with the sinful way in which we of the Latter-days were predicted to behave.  A person would be asked to read a verse and then imagine how it was fulfilled in our day.  Many of those interpretations included examples of how someone they knew or had seen, had actually done the "disgusting" thing Isaiah was describing.  It seemed to me that many of the comments were offered in a tone of thankfulness "that I am not like other men."  (See Luke 18:10-14)  

It is possible that I am judging a bit harshly.  I think I was most sensitive to the situation though, because for the past six years I have been worshiping at the Detention Center.  There, when we speak of transgression and sin, we speak openly of our own weakness and our personal need for repentance, improvement and understanding.  By contrast the Gospel Doctrine Class seemed to be quite certain that they were on firm ground and that someone else was in need of repentance, improvement and understanding; but most certainly not themselves.  I am not naive enough to think that in a congregation of 80 souls no one was personally in need of Isaiah's warning, including myself.

Quite frankly, if I were to have recorded the comments and let you listen objectively, you might have thought you were listening to a group of Zoramites.  Listen to Alma's description of them from chapter 31 of the Book of Alma.

 27 Behold, O God, they cry unto thee, and yet their hearts are swallowed up in their pride. Behold, O God, they cry unto thee with their mouths, while they are puffed up, even to greatness, with the vain things of the world.

  28 Behold, O my God, their costly apparel, and their ringlets, and their bracelets, and their ornaments of gold, and all their precious things which they are ornamented with; and behold, their hearts are set upon them, and yet they cry unto thee and say—We thank thee, O God, for we are a chosen people unto thee, while others shall perish.  

Sounds an awful lot like the scriptures we were discussing in Isaiah.  Now I'm not in the business of condemning anybody.  I'm the weakest of the saints.  I look around my ward and find that I love and admire each of my fellow worshipers.  What disappoints me is that we go to church and pretend we are not the ones the scriptures were written for.  We speak in class as if we have already made it and that the lesson is surely for some one else. Oh, and heaven forbid that our 9th Ward brothers and sisters might be led to discover that we have problems like everyone else!

It seems to me that a big part of the problem is the admonition that we all take so seriously - to be a good example.  We take that to mean that we are expected to present ourselves as perfect Latter-day Saints and breathe a sigh of relief because doing so enables us to "justifiably"cover our sins.  I personally don't think that is what the Lord had in mind.  Alma was a good example!  A good example of a flawed and rebellious person humbling himself, repenting of his sins and receiving the blessings of the Atonement in his life.  When he sat in Gospel Doctrine class it is likely that he repeatedly told the story of his redemption and reminded his fellows that it was not until he cried out, "O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me..."  (Alma 17:16)  that he received a remission of his sins.  Now that's a good example!

I wish that my Gospel Doctrine Class or High Priest's Group meeting were more like an LDS ARP (Addiction Recovery Program) Meeting.  How close we become as we share our experience, faith and hope in an atmosphere of honesty, testimony, humility and kindness.  We speak of our weakness.  We weep as we share our experiences of recovery, repentance and redemption.  We find hope because we see example after example of real people who have real problems and get real forgiveness and find real happiness.  We plead for mercy and feel the gracious companionship of the Spirit in each of our meetings.  How is it that with our fellow Saints we are so reluctant to be that honest with one another.  How much closer to Zion would we be if we were.

Now lets revisit Luke, Chapter 18:

  10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.

  11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

  12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

  13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

  14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one  that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Sound familiar?  It should.  I am going to work a lot harder at confessing my own sins and not those of another.  I have enjoyed the blessed privilege of being allowed to sing the song of redeeming love.  Why?  Because I, in great weakness needed to be redeemed.  Part of the reason it took me so long to enjoy that blessing is because I actually thought that my fellow travelers in the Kingdom were doing so well all on their own.  Hardly anybody bothered to show me how redemption was obtained.  Surely they weren't all pretending to be righteous out of a duty to be a good example were they?  Surely some among us have actually humbled themselves and received Christ's infinite mercy in their otherwise broken lives.  If you are one such, please share your story with us?  We all need to be shown how it is done.  We're tired of pretending.  We really want to change and to be able to rejoice in that newness of life that we hear so much about.

After Alma described the Zoramites he prayed these words:

 35 Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee. 

This is also my prayer.  The members of my ward are indeed precious to me.  I need them and I hope they need me.  I pray that together we will be humble, open and willing to share our stories of weakness and need and how the Lord in His mercy has allowed us to stand on His merits when our own were so pathetic.  Let us confess (no gory details necessary) our sin and weakness and acknowledge the means of our rescue so that we might be like Paul, "an example of the believers." (1 Tim. 4:12).

Book Review - Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

First of all it is needful to recognize that this is a young adult novel.  Most of the reviews I've read were written by young adults all of whom (that I read, at least) were highly critical of the book.  I am not a young adult.  I loved it!

Reading young adult fiction, as an adult, I don't expect the mature or sophisticated writing that can be expected of one written for older audiences.  Still, I thought it was very well, very interestingly written.  As for story, plot and substance the whole series is very deep and thought provoking.  There's the  trouble the younger set has with the book.  By their responses, they wanted it to be a romantic, happy-ever-after tome where everything turns out to be sweetness and light; so they bellyache about all the conflict and disappointments that are so pervasive in Collin's work.

Apparently, the books, and this one in particular, are too deep for their intended audience.  I thought Mockingjay was superb!  Better than that I thought it to be important.  The critical message of the story, to me, was that just because one side is clearly bad, does not mean that their opponents are good.  I think this is lost on most of the audience.  This is no surprise because it is lost on most Americans right now as well.  Likewise, it is true that just because you think yourself to be good, that doesn't necessarily mean you are on the good side or that your opponents are automatically and legitimately classified as bad.  

Way to go Suzanne Collins, for dealing with real issues and daring to show that, even in the face of loss, sacrifice, tragedy and overwhelming odds, right, though unpopular, is right!

The Hunger Game series is serious fiction and well worth reading.  The series finished strong.  Mockingjay was the best of the three volumes and made it plain the author had created a well thought out story from beginning to end.  

Five Stars.

Things Change

I tossed another ball into the Kid's Canal last week.  This time it was a tennis ball.  It didn't fair as well as my previous voyager.  I followed it just a hundred yards before it got hung up in some low hanging branches.  I decided to leave it be and see what happened.  For a week or so it was stuck in the same place.  Then, last Thursday I found it was gone.  It being fall, the water level had gone down and released it from it's sticky prison.  Not many yards down the stream though, I found it stranded in an eddy.  It went around and around from Thursday until some time after my Saturday stroll.  I know that because this morning it was no longer treading water in that minuscule vortex.

Again, I found the ball stuck among some exposed roots some distance on down the stream.  As I watched the ball struggling against it's obstacles, while being encouraged by the current; I realized that this is much like life.

Sometimes we move along quite nicely only to find ourselves stuck in a problem situation.  We try and try to move on, but we're stuck.  I thought it was encouraging to realize that inevitably something changes.  Something outside ourselves that frees us to move on.  Just like the tennis ball, our progress is influenced by our environment.  Maybe you can't find a job and then out of the blue the economy improves and washes you out of the roots of unemployment.  Perhaps, you'd like to continue your education, but you're spinning round and round in a house full of pre-schoolers.  Suppose your house just burned down in Herriman and you're camped out in the High School gym.  Snags?  Yes!  But things will change, they always do.

My tennis ball may be stuck there all winter.  I'll keep you posted.  It may even get frozen in the ice.  But I guarantee that if I'm patient, it will move on.  I have no idea how.  I may not even witness it.  Jeff might float by in a tube and take it home.  High water next spring might do the trick, who knows.

I have several people in my life right now who are stuck in some pretty difficult situations.  There is no doubt, however, that things will change.  The key is patience.  God will see to it.  Things will change.  And sure enough, they'll move on.

Post Script:  


It's now one day later.  I seriously thought the tennis ball would be hung up all winter.  Those were some serious roots!  So imagine my surprise when today it was gone.  I looked as I walked all the way to Main Street.  No sign of it.  I decided to extend my walk and went on along the canal to 5th South.  Just before the bridge at the Cinema, there it was!  Merrily bobbing along without a care in the world.  I had only hoped to see it if it had hit another snag, there were plenty to encounter.  I imagine my little tennis ball moving on to meet its destiny.  So it is with each of us.  I remembered what Elder Munday said at Stake Conference on Sunday.  "How many of God's children does He want to bring home?"  "All of them."  It was nice to see the ball moving pleasantly past it's snags.  Gives me hope that I will too.

Garden Tomatoes

Our tomatoes did lousy this year.  The weather couldn't make up its mind, the plants got nipped and finally quit trying.  It was so sad watching them languish away in the garden.  So pathetic next to the Spuds that did so well. We went to the Farmers Market and discovered that we weren't the only ones.  Hardly anyone has tomatoes this year.  Such a tragedy.

We can put a man on the moon, but we can't come up with a grocery store tomato that tastes like anything but polyester.  Buying a store-bought tomato is about at ridiculous as licking a photograph of one.  So, we look forward all year to August and September and real tomatoes.  We grow a garden for no other reason really.  I wonder how the nutritional value stacks up between flavorful and plastic tomatoes.  Why is there even a market for the artificial ones?

With that off my chest, I'm writing to celebrate that Kristi and Ronnie and their tomatoes got it right!  They brought us a bag and we rolled out the bacon, cottage cheese, Doritos, toaster and whole wheat bread and had a feast. These were the nicest, plumpest, reddest, firmest, tastiest tomatoes ever!  The fact that I haven't been eating them fresh from the garden this month, made them better than ever!  I guess scarcity has its virtues and last night the fact was made abundantly manifest.

As much as I like a good BLT, I think I like sliced tomatoes and cottage cheese better.  The combination, though wildly different, is as wonderful as peaches and cream.  Have you ever tried Doritos and cottage cheese?  That's terrific too!  Doritos, cottage cheese and fresh garden tomatoes, now that's the ticket!

Another summer time treat will be my feast today.  I like to take a nice piece of tasty whole wheat bread, anoint it with a touch of Miracle Whip, slice some tomatoes on top, pepper it to taste, then cover it with a nice slab of Tillamook sharp cheddar and broil it in the oven until the cheese starts to bubble.  Yum!  I'm sure I'd like it with Killaree Irish Cheddar too, but I like the orange yellow with the tomatoes, over the pale cream color of the Killaree.  Don't ask me why.  Maybe it's like the white margarine they once sold in the store.  It just didn't look right.  I remember for a while they even gave you some yellow die you could knead into it if you couldn't take the color.  White, it looked like you were spreading lard on your bread, which they do in Austria they say.  Doesn't that sound delectable.  My mom used to spread bacon grease on her bread.  At least that tasted good.  Yellow or not I don't eat margarine anymore anyway; it just isn't natural.  All those modified fats and not nearly as tasty as butter.  Who said, "I can't believe it's not butter?"  I can!   Any way eye appeal is half of a good meal and there you have it.

Now none of this is all that great for my health but the other day I got a note that put things in perspective anyways.

 The Japanese eat very little fat, while people in Mexico eat lots. Both groups suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans. Africans drink very little red wine, while the Italians drink large volumes of the stuff but both these groups too have fewer heart attacks. An epidemiological conclusion might be that you should eat and drink what you like: speaking English seems to be what kills you.  

I like that, but I hate my paunch.  So I'll still keep walking and usually watching what I eat.  I'll try to learn another language.  But in the end, I'll probably not change my diet significantly.  Who wants to get old enough to die of prostate cancer, when you could go quickly with a heart attack.  One of my all time favorite movie quotes comes from Jack Nicholson's character in Bucket List.  In the hospital undergoing chemotherapy, he has just finished barfing his guts up in his hospital  toilet.  Braced against the sink, he looks himself in the mirror and says, "Somewhere, some lucky bastard is dying of a heart attack."

So, every now and then, I'll eat my tomatoes adorned with bacon or cheese.  I'll relish the flavor and thank God for being so nice as to give me taste buds and for making food that tastes so wonderfully good.  And, I won't worry too much about it or my inability to do it credit in my dangerous native tongue.