Death of a family man.

Grandpa launches son Greg

My sweet grandpa is in his last days, at home on hospice care. He's not eating much anymore, and the nurse has explained that that is normal--when a person is ready to die, feeding the body no longer makes sense.

He's started hearing a lot of phantom music and seeing phantom people--but mostly babies. Not his dead mother or father or wife or adult son or any of his 13 dead siblings.....but unidentified little babies. I've never heard accounts of dying people seeing mostly babies, and I find it curious. It could of course just be a hallucination--a figment of his imagination, but even if it is, it probably speaks to the unique workings of his mind. Maybe a conscious or subconscious awareness of how his current struggle is nothing more than being born into a strange new world, just as he was 91 years ago? Or maybe thinking back on his life and the most important moments, his imagination is drawn to the little ones he has cherished and the expansion of his beloved family?

On the other hand, my religious faith suggests that there's a very real possibility he's seeing something that's actually there, albeit in a different dimension. Could the babies be those of his great-grandchildren that he will meet in the next world rather than in this one? Maybe including the little one who was born just a few days ago here in Utah? Could some of those be ones I've left stranded by my long spinsterhood?

Grandpa rocking granddaughter Kelly

I have full confidence in the ability of Grandpa to help the babies get sorted out, whatever they want from him. And if he has to advise some of them to just give up on me and sign on for the next Jolie-Pitt delivery, they should take his advice. He's a good man who has his head on straight, even if he's seeing phantom babies. BECAUSE he's seeing phantom babies. Babies are the future, the new cool thing--and heaven is not just restoring the lost past, but adding upon the present. My grandpa gets that, even as he fades away, because he's the ultimate family man.  Kiss the babies for me, Grandpa!

The world is many and is mad, but we are sane and we are one.

I've been down the last three months, and my good dead friend Gilbert Keith Chesterton has allowed me to prop my chin up on his big warm heart through the emotionally dreary winter. I've been after his prose only--he was no great poet--but I've come across some deeply felt poems for his wife that have warmed me. I posted one here (in the comments) three years ago--here are two others I just found:


Love's Trappist

There is a place where lute and lyre are broken.
Where scrolls are torn and on a wild wind go,
Where tablets stand wiped naked for a token,
Where laurels wither and the daisies grow.

Lo: I too join the brotherhood of silence,
I am Love's Trappist and you ask in vain,
For man through Love's gate, even as through Death's gate,
Goeth alone and comes not back again.

Yet here I pause, look back across the threshold.
Cry to my brethren, though the world be old,
Prophets and sages, questioners and doubters,
O world, old world, the best hath ne'er been told!



Creation Day

Between the perfect marriage day
  And that fierce future proud, and furled,
I only stole six days--six days
  Enough for God to make the world.

For us is a creation made
  New moon by night, new sun by day,
That ancient elm that holds the heavens
  Sprang to its stature yesterday--

Dearest and first of all things free,
  Alone as bride and queen and friend,
Brute facts may come and bitter truths,
  But here all doubts shall have an end.

Never again with cloudy talk
  Shall life be tricked or faith undone,
The world is many and is mad,
  But we are sane and we are one.

Tribute.

It was a suicide. The man who swept exuberantly into my life ten years ago and helped restore my faith is gone--by his own hand--because he felt he had not made a difference in the world. I was in the Bountiful Temple a few days ago, thinking about him, remembering when he took our student group to the Winter Quarters and Nauvoo Temples. Praying for his family, and asking for forgiveness for not sending him a Christmas card this year. I didn't send anyone a Christmas card this year. Christmas cards are sort of goofy, right? Especially when you're Facebook friends with someone and they can see everything you do all year and can easily interact with you. But I will always wonder if a renewed expression of my gratitude to him could have made him feel a little better about the worth of his life--enough better to erase this awful ending. As I sat in the temple I asked God to let him know what I was thinking, and to comfort his wife and children.

I was in a hurry to get to the temple, so I forgot to remember that in the dark I was passing Holbrook Canyon right as I arrived--but I noticed it as I was leaving, and a flood of emotion hit me. Four months ago I got lost alone, far off trail, in the Sessions Mountains. I wandered for eight hours, five of those in the dark, pushing through branches, climbing over boulders, wading through streams, and finally stumbled back to the Holbrook trailhead scratched, bruised, wet, and relieved. As I emerged from the gully, the brightly lit spire of the Bountiful Temple, with its trumpeting Moroni, rose out of the dark and silent ground to greet me--the first evidence of civilization. I was so delighted that I called out in the dark, "Hello, beautiful temple!"  I was no longer alone and afraid. God had led me safely through a scary and solitary time and was restoring me to life and community--many of the same feelings of elation I had when God put Rulon in my path and used him to lead me out of a time of doubt, fear, and private suffering. As I passed Holbrook Canyon my brain instantly made the connection between the two events and the tears returned. He had killed himself in the mountains. On a hike, alone. Removed from the world he felt he'd failed.

I have no doubt that he was an answer to my prayers, and one of the most clear and dramatic answers I've ever received to a prayer, in the way he, without knowing my concerns, addressed each of them.  Most importantly, though, he was proof to me that God had been listening and caring that I was alone and afraid and put me in the path of someone who knew those feelings and was able to help, even if unwittingly. That he succeeded in helping with my particular problems and questions was secondary to the fact that God's hand was revealed by putting me in the path of this incredibly generous stranger.

My dead blog is a pathetic place for a tribute to someone who felt his life was for naught. But I think if he'd really understood just how important--how pivotal--a figure he was in my life, he would not have been able to believe he'd made no difference. I'm just one person, but I promised God I'd try to do good with my restored faith, and now I promise Rulon as well. Rest in peace, friend. Your spiritual lineage continues in those you loved and served.

Filial obligation post.

My dad told me he wants me to blog more. As an eldest child, I'm compelled to comply, so here we go:

Hi, Dad! It's past my bedtime, but I'm still going to say my prayers and brush my teeth, because my dad didn't raise no smelly-breathed heathen babies.

xoxo
Marie

Blasphemous self-consolations.

I get pretty intense baby lust during Christmas. All those images of the new little family with the angelic sleeping baby switch on something fierce and I find myself feeling a bit sad about my situation. The music is to blame, too. I can only think of one Christmas carol that presents the realities of parenthood, and that one's in Spanish--"Los peces en el rio," with its mention of diaper washing and the sore hands that result. And I can only think of one Christmas song ("Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella") in which yacky visitors to the stable are chastised for risking waking the baby.

What if the Baby Jesus was really a colicky wailer?

Allergic to donkey hair?

A not-so-tiny trial to his parents?

The Bible doesn't say, so I'm going to assume that he was, because believing this will help get me through the holiday self-pity-free.

Here are some possible adjustments to the Christmas carols:

The *%@!! cattle are lowing, the Baby they wake
Then little Lord Jesus a ruckus He makes

*********************************************************

The Child, the Child, wailing in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
If we just can get through this night

*********************************************************

Shall I play for you, pa-rum-puh-pum-pum
On my drum?
Mary shook her head and said, "Are you a sadist, drummer punk?? I just got Him to sleep!"

*********************************************************

Yea, Lord, we greet Thee,
Born this happy morning;
Why are You crying--is it something we said?
Word of the Father,
Now in flesh, and wailing
Yes, come, you may adore Him,
But please be very quiet
No, really--SUPER quiet
Or don't come at all.

*********************************************************

A thrill of hope, the weary pair rejoices
For yonder lies their Child, still at last
Fall on your knees
But please don't wake Him up
We don't want those gifts
We'd rather have some sleep
And if you sing that high note here
We'll kick you out.

*********************************************************

Endless night, sleepless night!
All was calm, 'til you turned on the light
We know you came to adore our sweet Child
So put Him to sleep, since you got Him riled.
Dream of heavenly peace,
Where is the heavenly peace?

*********************************************************

Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o’er the plains
Woke the Baby Jesus up
As did all the passing trains.

Glo-oooooo-ooooo-oooooria, in excelsis Deo!
That's ve-e-ry-y pre-tty-y bu-ut please ke-ep i-it down out there! That is what we pray-o.

Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
Use your inside voices, please
If you insist on singing songs.

Glo-oooooo-ooooo-oooooria, in excelsis Deo!
Why aa-are yo-oou still si-iin-gi-ing, have yo-oou no-o pi-i-ty? Ple-ease do not stay-o.

I am not a professional, so don't bother suing me for malpractice.

A really good church talk on self-loathing and emotional healing this last Sunday brought the topic of avoidant personality disorder back to my mind. I have absolutely no qualifications other than a whole lot of Internet reading, but I'm pretty sure a good 15% to 20% of my single friends have this disorder to some degree. The percentage in the general population is around 1% to 5%, but among us leftover solitary souls it has got to be much higher. The more I read about this affliction, the more I'm convinced that I'm seeing evidence of it in many of the single people around me:

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Symptoms:
An avoidant individual has a pathological mistrust of others, always expects to eventually be rejected, and often subconsciously behaves in such a way as to hasten the rejection and so relieve the anxiety over waiting for eventual rejection. They may have friends, but few or no close friends. By avoiding others or behaving in a hostile manner they mask their vulnerabilities and their desire for connection and enter into a cycle of self-fulfilling negative prophecy--they consciously or unconsciously "test" their friends and family to see if they will be loved unconditionally in spite of offputting behavior. During these tests, people who would not have rejected the avoidant individual often walk away from the relationship not because they want the relationship to end, but because they believe that the avoidant individual wants the relationship to end (because the avoidant individual is continually reclusive or hostile). The avoidant takes this as further evidence that they are not lovable and that people cannot be trusted and the cycle of chronic self-loathing and mistrust continues. In certain avoidant individuals this offputting behavior ironically manifests as a mask of superiority, designed to convince themselves that they are too good for the person who they fear will reject them--this is supposed to protect them from feeling sad or inferior if/when that future rejection (imagined or real) occurs. They often fantasize about themselves in ideal relationships, while believing that good relationships are not possible for them.

Causes:
Possible genetic predispositions are assumed, but a large percentage of avoidants had childhoods marked by some sort of parental rejection or neglect or excessive criticism. Another common background for avoidants is a parent who required them to serve as a substitute spouse--i.e., to help with other siblings to a degree that was inappropriate for a child or to share in too many of the emotional burdens felt by a custodial parent after a divorce or other family upheaval. In the case of the rejecting/neglecting parent, the avoidant individual comes to believe that unconditional love, which is supposed to be a hallmark of parental love, is a fantasy, or that they specifically are unworthy of being loved unconditionally by anyone since their parent did not love them unconditionally--that there is something uniquely wrong with them that caused that parental rejection and that will cause others to reject them as well. In the case of those avoidants who were required to serve as a substitute spouse for a parent, they come to see love as a burden, a chore, and have trouble believing that it can also be a joy and a comfort, so often they feel a lessened motivation to try to be close to others due to their belief that any real-world relationship will be too much pain and not enough pleasure.

Treatment:
Frequently counseling consists of encouraging the avoidant person to force themselves to endure relationships longer than is comfortable for them. This gives them the opportunity to see that what they have historically viewed as rejections from others often are minor misunderstandings that mean little to the other person and do not reflect any negative judgment of the avoidant individual. By forcing themselves to endure anxiety for longer stretches they get better at dealing with the stress and are able to experience more of the positive aspects of relationships that can only develop over time, thus opening up the possibility that they will begin to accumulate evidence that their views of themselves have been excessively negative and that they are worthy of being loved.


I've said it before and I'll say it again: Why is my life so easy? Why did I get away with so much good fortune when so many of those around me suffer every day with anxieties like these? I have such great admiration for those who keep trying, whether or not they understand exactly why they're struggling or how to heal.

Pioneer Day: Suffering Saints.

Emil Herman Emanuel Christensen

It wasn't many years ago that I learned that my great-great grandfather, Emil Herman Emanuel Christensen, a convert from Denmark, committed suicide--and at the same time finally understood why photos of his daughter Lillian, my great-grandmother, almost always show her with a mournful face.

It turns out he was an alcoholic. This was not terribly unusual in Utah Territory at the time, as the alcohol prohibition of the Mormon Word of Wisdom, while encouraged, was not yet enforced as a entrance requirement for the temples. That policy change didn't happen until 1902, when he was 39 years old and well set in his addiction.

As the story was told to me, he had not long prior managed to quit drinking long enough to earn permission to enter the temple and be sealed to his wife and children--a very joyful event for the family. But soon thereafter he relapsed, and the despair of failing his family and religious community drove him to hang himself.  No doubt Lillian's sad face reflects the burdens laid on an eldest daughter in a household with a drunken father, and (later) no father.

Lillian Christensen Fullmer Brown

I mourn for Emil Herman Emanuel Christensen, who battled with what was seen at the time as a solely moral failing, and failed. Had he lived in this time, he would have had far more powerful options for grappling with and overcoming this demon, and his daughter's face might not have been so sad for so long. I don't know his character, but I like to believe he would have succeeded if he had been given more tools for recovery.

So the question becomes--was it cruel to exclude people like my great-great grandfather from the temple? People with crippling addictions who didn't know how to overcome them? Can part of the blame for his suicide be attributed to that strict new temple admission rule?

Perhaps in light of what we know now, it was cruel--perhaps one could say that he wasn't given a fair chance to beat his alcoholism, and so should not have been made to suffer socially and religiously.

But there is also his sad daughter to consider, and the marred family life that resulted from her father's drinking. Without that harsh shaming laid on alcoholism beginning in 1902, perhaps the great shift to sober living would not have happened in the Mormon community--a shift that has blessed my life and the lives of countless others. The heavy weight of chemical addiction has largely been lifted from faithful Mormons through this social and religious pressure, making it easier for families to remain intact, making us more productive, and adding years to our lives.

Death certificate of Emil Christensen

I am so sad for you, great-great grandfather Christensen, that you had to be the one to live in that moment when the traditions of thousands of years bumped up against a difficult new standard. I doubt I would have fared better in your place, given my own rather addiction-prone nature. But thank you for taking the blow in that moment and for signaling to your children through your efforts to quit--and even through your suicide--that you viewed your actions as wrong and believed that there was a better way. For all the sadness your sad end caused, and even though that tragedy was unnecessary, you stood at the beginning of a new tradition in our family, and by it I have been greatly blessed.

Rest in peace.

We need more movies about chastity and casseroles.

Have I really been away from the ol' blog for almost two years? What is wrong with me? Have I forsaken my delusion that blogging somehow makes me a Published Writer? (No.) Have I tired of the sound of my own typing? (No.) Have I gone out and acquired a social life too full to accommodate my cyberblather? (No.)

I have simply become lazy. I think of something I could write about, and suddenly my fingertips feel heavy and my brain gets foggy and I just want to daydream of winning a Pulitzer. I am an Olympian sloth. Facebook requires so much less in the way of coherent thought.

But just so Blogger doesn't shut me down for inactivity, here's a blog entry from February 2009 that I never posted.

It's fluffy.

It's wordy.

It's a complete waste of your time.

But not a waste of my time--all I have to do is click "Publish Post" and then go back to my daydreaming. The prophets really were wise when they counseled us to store up some extra blog entries for use in times of winter and famine.

***********************************

From February 2009:

~~I hereby propose an alliance between the Backward State of Utah and the Backward State of Minnesota.~~

I love it when I forget what's in my Netflix queue and get a surprise in the mail. When I opened the most recent arrival I had a vague recollection from a couple months back: emotionally exhausted by the depressing documentaries I'd been watching through the winter, I'd dropped into my queue a little independent film--a romance--that the Netflix Taste Gods prophesied I would like. It's called Sweet Land. Sweet, as advertised--not great cinema, but charming, well-acted, and gorgeously filmed. I'm guessing it was recommended based on my deep and abiding love for the movie Lars and the Real Girl, for it is a sort of Lars set in 1920. In both of these movies (caution: spoilers!):

1) a conservative, churchgoing, steady, SilentSolitaryLutheranNorwegianMinnesotanBachelor, living sparely but self-sufficiently in the harshly beautiful north, orders woman through the mail

2) a VibrantFemaleOutsider intrudes

3) desiring to do the right thing, SilentSolitaryLutheranNorwegianMinnesotanBachelor proposes chaste housing arrangements that involve him sleeping in the garage/barn while MailOrderWoman sleeps in quaint and cozy room inside the old family home

4) the TightKnitNorseLutheranCommunity struggles to accept MailOrderWoman, especially as they assume that SilentSolitaryLutheranNorwegianMinnesotanBachelor is living in sin with her

5) ultimately the TightKnitNorseLutheranCommunity proves to be the good sort of religious community* and warmly welcomes MailOrderWoman after some difficult what-would-Jesus-do-ing

6) SilentSolitaryLutheranNorwegianMinnesotanBachelor also struggles, at first wary of VibrantFemaleOutsider's effect on his safe and predictable life

7) at key dramatic moment SilentSolitaryLutheranNorwegianMinnesotanBachelor startles audience by taking his frustrations out on the wood pile with an axe

8) SilentSolitaryLutheranNorwegianMinnesotanBachelor slowly opens up to the exotic ways of VibrantFemaleOutsider and embraces life

9) a beloved character dies

10) kindly Lutheran women bring casseroles and concern

11) warm-faced Lutheran minister gives sincere eulogy that makes it all okay

12) wedding and babies implied, but not seen

13) happy happy, the end.

So I've been hearing all this recent local chatter about the need for Mormon Cinema to step up and offer something cleaner than Hollywood fare for the religious/conservative population of the U.S........but my now-extensive knowledge about Minnesota culture makes me confident that Utah and Minnesota are natural allies in these dark cinematic times. Regrettably I was once heard to say that Minnesota and North and South Dakota were essentially useless and should be donated to Canada. I hereby retract 1/3 of that unkind declaration** and proclaim that Minnesota is the new Utah.***  I think we should pool our state arts funding and hire Ryan Gosling and Amy Adams to play a SilentSolitaryLutheranNorwegianMinnesotanBachelor and a BubblySweetMormonUtahnCoed thrown together by fate at a non-denominational charity raffle. After chaste pratfalls and compromises they meet each other halfway....in Nebraska.

Hot casseroles o' love ensue.

* Meaning not the sort of religious community that is ever featured in a Hollywood film--but I'll leave the rest of that rant for another day.....as long as you don't make me watch that hideous Chocolat movie again. Gag, blech, retch.

** If the Dakotas wish to be spared Canadianization, they should apply for my affections in similar fashion.

*** That is the highest compliment I can offer Minnesota, so you can just put those Utah jokes right back in your pocket, wiseguy.

Rejected poem.

Divided, Beautified

Granite cracks, cries
For rain
Ice!
A wider wound
A seeping, silting, softening
For first roots
For newborn hooves
For tender feetlings
Then waits for the seed to heal the ravine
For the night to deliver the day

Little poem for an Easter weekend.

MightI

Lord
not withstanding Thee
I stand
still
tousled, and after
shaken, and after
singed, but
I wait upon a rock---
wait upon a whisper
upon wings



Isaiah 40:28-31
1 Kings 19:11-12
Psalms 46:10-11

"The strong, honest, ugly, patient shapes of necessary things."

I went on a splendid date last week, during which we discovered a mutual affection for G. K. Chesterton: his boundless humor, his faith in the face of depression, his bemoaning the dearth of cheese poetry.*

So a couple days later I was stalking Chesterton online and came across information about his wife, Frances Blogg. They were a very devoted couple and doted on each other until his death. Among the Chesterton relics related to Frances is a letter he wrote to her during their engagement. It is long despite my heavy editing; if you don't have time to read it all, read just the last five paragraphs. It is funny and sweet: even as I laugh my heart melts into a pink puddle on the floor....





* Turns out Chesterton was wrong on this point, as my date then introduced me to the appallingly prolific James McIntyre, Cheese Poet of Canada. This cheese poem was my favorite. Read at your own risk.

Mormon artists confess: kids are harder than they look.

Today on The Almost-Dead Blog: really old news. (Nothing like stale material to liven things up.)

Over a year ago was the most recent triennial LDS International Art Competition Exhibition. I meant to blog about it then-ish. I didn't.

But now I am.

Fear not: I won't blog about the entire show, though it was for the most part very good. (The exhibitions get significantly better each time, i.e., fewer cheesy Norman Rockwell knockoffs and more quilts

depicting the Orion nebula. Yes, really. See the picture? It was so friggin' cool! Pioneer handicrafts shot warp-speed into the Twenty-Fourth-and-a-Half Century!)

The pieces related to parenthood in particular caught my attention, given how Mormon culture tends to paint children as pure delight and consequently paint parenthood as a sugar-cookie-baking joyride. Not that most LDS parents won't admit to you one-on-one that their experience deviates from this ideal most days, but in public church forums we like to be "uplifting" and focus on the sunny bits of family life with children, as we consider these families to be central to human social organization through eternity. So these public, Church-sanctioned displays of artistic honesty regarding life with little people were a bit startling, and very refreshing.

This is a piece by a Chinese Mormon sculptor. The tree is a representation of a family: the human figures' heads, hands, and feet have been removed -- the torsos and arms of the intertwined father and pregnant mother make up the trunk and two main branches of the tree and the headless bodies of dozens of children weigh heavily on them. There is a real feeling of joy to the piece -- the tree's twigs are the cheerful waving arms and legs of the children -- but you get a sense of the strength and endurance required of the parents to make that joy possible. (And the slightly creepy headless people give the piece an edgier feel than is normal for the LDS International Art Competitions.)

The caption on this piece explained that it was a

depiction of the artist's grandparents as carefree newlyweds. Their joy was later diminished when their first two children were born dead and then they had a severely disabled daughter who required constant care her entire life. The couple's earthly experience with parenthood was dimmed by the burden and sadness of this circumstance, but they looked forward to the resurrection, when their family would be together and physically whole.

The main figure here is a mother and the little people scrambling over her and chasing through her hair (with faces of monkeys, dogs, and other savage critters) are her children. She's a sort of longsuffering Mother Earth, unable to move much because they're twined around her legs. She seems happy that they're enjoying themselves, but a bit weary and frazzled nonetheless. This piece makes me kinda glad to be single, frankly.

This one was probably my favorite of the parenthood pieces. If you look closely, you can see that the mother is slowly unraveling her own pink sweater and knitting it onto her daughter. An honest and rather lovely depiction of the sacrifices of parenthood. Neither of them is smiling and they don't make eye contact -- but the gesture itself is the evidence of love. The mother is intensely focused on her task of giving up comfort for her child, who looks maybe a little cranky and impatient with the process. ("I don't want this lame homemade sweater! Take me to the mall!")

Hooray for good art. Two years to the next International Art Competition -- can't wait to see what they give us next......I hope someone crochets a giant 3-D supernova. And maybe I'll tat the head of Donny Osmond!

Eulogy for a loyal phone.

I think my trusty five-year-old phone is fading away.

It had to happen eventually, but it still makes me sad. For three years Verizon has been sending me slick "New Every Two" mailings that feature the flashy, feature-heavy phones I can get free or almost-free, but I've tossed them all.

For you see, gentle reader -- those supermodel phones are not my phone. My phone is special, and they don't make 'em like that anymore.

Can I tell you why I love my phone, as part of the grieving process? Yes? Thank you.

1. It is very small and very light (it fits discreetly in my bra when I'm out walking in a skirt that has no pockets).

2. It is sturdy and very tightly constructed (to resist bosom sweat when it's riding in my bra).

3. It has a flashlight feature that I use all the time (does YOUR phone have a flashlight feature? as in an actual lightbulb on the end of the phone? didn't think so!)

4. It holds a charge a very long time and recharges lightning fast.

5. It has exceptional reception and sound.

6. It has a way better speakerphone feature than any other cell phone I've seen. A couple years ago when a group of female relatives were gathered around my aunt's (much newer) phone to hear my cousin's exciting engagement news, we couldn't understand what she was saying. We resumed the call on my homely phone and heard every word crystal clear.

7. Its candybar style means that if you sit on it there is no hinge or sliding panel to break (I would've broken dozens of hinged phones by now).

8. It had exactly what I wanted (and those features were exeptionally well engineered) and because it didn't have a bunch of extra junk it was a reasonable price and so I didn't have to continually fear damaging or losing it.

9. I once stabbed it with a pitchfork (hard) and it kept on ticking.

10. I don't care that I can't add any ringtones.

11. I don't care that it has no picture capabilities.

12. I don't care that it has no camera.

13. I don't care that it can't access the internet.

14. I don't care that it can't do my taxes or direct me back to Kansas or tell me the name of that song, for it is a PHONE, and it does all phone-ish tasks beautifully.

Rest in peace, lil' phone. You have served me well.

(In lieu of flowers, please send chocolate.)

I'm afraid of Jesus.

In downtown Salt Lake City, in a beautiful old building, is the Hope Gallery. The owners specialize in the Scandinavian masters; they own and display many originals and sell beautiful reproductions. They also have the exclusive rights to sell prints of Danish artist Carl Bloch's moving paintings of the life of Christ, which are great favorites in the Mormon community. I love Bloch's paintings as much as the next Mormon.

Two Novembers ago the Hope Gallery had a sale on all their reproductions of Carl Bloch paintings. My mother requested a print of Gethsemane (Castle Version) for her birthday, and while I was in the gallery I was enticed to buy a canvas reproduction of my favorite Bloch: Casting Out Satan. It was expensive by my standards (over $200, even on sale), but I felt it was worth it. I love that painting. I love how Christ looks fragile and weary from his long fasting, his backlit robe revealing the shape of his slender arm, but his gesture of authority over Satan is confident, powerful. I love how he is removed from the busy context of crowds and synagogues and transported for a moment back to his primal confrontation with the enemy of our souls. I love the bare, rugged montaintop setting -- like my memory of the top of Mount Sinai. When I held my breath and wrote out the fat check I imagined my favorite Bloch painting hanging in a central place in my home for many years and even the cheapskate in me felt it was a good thing.

The particular size I wanted was not in stock, so they told me they'd call when it was ready to pick up. However, during the week or two that I waited for their call, I realized what I'd done -- I'd passed over the Woman at the Well, Christ and the Children, Healing at the Pool of Bethesda, The Doubting Thomas, and all the other warmer, more forgiving scenes. I'd chosen my favorite Bloch painting, but hadn't considered what it would be like to look at it, large, on my wall every day. To every day see a muscular Satan -- beautiful, like my favorite sins, swirling in a vibrant red robe. To feel that Christ's bold gesture of reproach was directed toward the dark corners of my life that I'm not ready to confront. To not be able to close the church magazine and make my favorite Bloch disappear when it became a too bright for comfort.

I still don't know what I'm going to do. The gallery has long since stopped calling to remind me to pick up my print. My only options are to go claim it or take store credit and use it to purchase some other print.

If someday you come to my apartment and see on my wall a fancy canvas print of The Daughter of Jairus or of little Danish girls picking wildflowers, I hope you won't judge me. It's crazy to be afraid of Jesus. NO ONE is afraid of Jesus. Except that I appear to be. I'm working on it.

Pioneer Day: re-smirching the worthy dead.

I always knew that William P. Smith was my great-great-great-great grandfather. I knew that he was born in England, joined the LDS Church there, immigrated to America, briefly lived in Nauvoo, operated the pioneer ferry across the Missouri River for a few years, and then walked to Utah. I knew that he was a bone doctor and that his first wife, Rebecca Mary Grimshaw, (my great-great-great-great grandmother) and his daughter Alice Smith Done (my great-great-great grandmother) were noted midwives in the Mormon community. I knew that for awhile he lived in the Union Fort area of Salt Lake County. All in all an upstanding Mormon settler, but not, in my estimation, terribly remarkable among the vast host of hardy LDS pioneers.

I assumed he had lived and died a faithful adherent to the church for which he had worked so hard. Why would I believe anything else? His daughter Alice, through whom I descend, was as solidly devout as they come, and I counted that branch of my family the most stoically faithful of my many pioneer branches (i.e., no known cranks, suicides, drunks....) I had considered it almost boring in its faithfulness – and that is why I rarely looked closely at it. Alice had spent most of her adult life up north in Cache Valley delivering babies and having twelve of her own, and I had assumed that her parents had moved up there at the same time and died near her.

But no – as interested as I've always been in family history, I had somehow never noticed that William P. Smith and Rebecca Mary Grimshaw Smith remained in Union Fort to the end of their lives. I – we – had no idea that they were buried near my parents' home in a tiny pioneer cemetery. For decades we had driven past their graves on the way to the grocery store, oblivious to their silent bones. When I finally took the family there for our first visit a few months ago, we were pleased to find that their graves were among few marked well enough to still be located.

So I was getting intrigued. I went to the Family History Library to see what I could learn about the Union Fort community, and turned up little local history book called A Union, Utah, History. There was William P. Smith's photo, captioned “Union's early doctor and dentist.” Yay, Grandpa! You're almost famous! I read futher: “William P. Smith, a doctor in the fort, was so charitable to the Indians that they referred to him as the 'Medicine Man.'”

I dug around on the Internet and found a great website devoted to Rebecca Mary Grimshaw and William P. Smith – GOLDMINE. Histories collected from their grandchildren, tales of his many years as Union's watermaster, even the recipe for William's special salve:

1/2 pound beeswax
1/2 pound rosin
1/2 pound mutton tallow
1/2 pound lard
Melt all together and add 3/4 teaspoon of white vitrol.

On this website was even more information about his compassion for the Indians. One history stated that a newly widowed Indian squaw had fled from her late husband's tribe, where it was the custom to kill and bury the wife of any man who died. William and Rebecca hid the woman, threw her pursuers off the scent, and then helped her get back to safety in her parents' tribe. In fact, William was so beloved and trusted by the Indians that when Union Fort was completed, he refused to move his family inside it. “Tut, tut,” he reportedly said to the more fearful pioneers. “They [the Indians] will not harm thee.”

Better and better, thought I. William P. Smith is shaping up to be the best Mormon pioneer ever known! Love this guy!

I read further. It started to get wacky. After Rebecca died, William remarried and divorced, then remarried again, this time to a woman named Sarah Pidd Griffiths. She was the widowed second (polygamous) wife of a local man named Griffiths, and even after Mr. Griffith's death she remained close to her former “sister wife,” Ann, who had fifteen children from the marriage, including five sets of twins. (For real – the poor woman is buried in that same little pioneer cemetery, and all the kids' names are listed on her gravestone.) Anyway, Sarah stayed in the house with her “sister wife” Ann after their husband died, leaving her own two children with Ann and the other fifteen children during the day to go out and try to earn money for the large fatherless household. While he was in Ann's care one day, Sarah's little boy was knocked into a vat of boiling soap was horribly burned. The doctor called was William Smith, and though the boy ultimately died, Sarah was touched by the doctor's manner. Once Ann's sons were old enough to help her stay afloat, William and Sarah decided to marry.

Ann, however (understandably) was terrified of losing Sarah's assistance in her household, and followed them to Salt Lake City, where they were to be married in the LDS Endowment House, a requirement for all faithful church members. She caused such a scene at the Endowment House that the Church officials asked William and Sarah to come back another day to be married. William had had it. Already fed up with polygamy (which he disliked) and growing ever more disillusioned with those in his religious community, he decided that he would not wait to be married in the proper Mormon way. They headed east up to the foothills and were married in a non-Mormon ceremony at Fort Douglas, headquarters of the federal government's hated military watchdogs.

This development made the Union Fort Mormons even more suspicious of William (who after the marriage adopted the first letter of his wife's maiden name – P – as a middle initial so as to stop getting mail for all the other William Smiths in the area). I'm guessing the Sunday church chatter went something like this: He hangs out with Indians, he refused to live in the fort, he controls our water, he married secularly, and he took his wife's name. He's nice, yeah, but he's trouble. He and Sarah were ostracized by the Union Mormons and sometime during this period allied themselves with the Joseph Smith III clan (the Reorganized LDS Church) and were excommunicated by the Brighamite Mormons. Some Brighamite Mormons of Union Fort began to threaten them, and one history states that they were afraid to go out after dark after a mysterious shooting incident.

In 1885 Joseph Smith III (son of the Prophet Joseph Smith) came through Utah, attempting to win converts away from Brigham Young and bring them back to the Midwest and into his version of Mormonism. And who was housing Joseph Smith III on his journey and convincing the Union Fort Mormon bishop to let him speak to the “Brighamite” Mormons in their church building?

Yup. William P. Smith. He is even mentioned by Joseph Smith III in his account of the trip to Utah, and Joseph Smith III gave a eulogy at William's son's funeral (his son was murdered by an angry local).

At this point it was clear why these stories never trickled down through our straightarrow branch of the family – William P. Smith was a real wild card, and he got CENSORED by his own posterity. Curses upon their tidy little history-mangling souls.

About the same time I was learning all this, I saw a documentary about the history of black people in the LDS church (I blogged about it a year ago). In one of the DVD special features Darius Gray mentions that he lives near the pioneer cemetery in the Union Fort area and often walks there to visit the grave of Green Flake, one of the most famous black Mormon pioneers (Flake drove the cart in which the ill Brigham Young first rode into the Salt Lake Valley). I remembered that the book about Union Fort history had contained a chapter on blacks in that community, so I went back to read it. Black Mormons were then (and still are) rare in Utah. I learned that the largest settlement of black Mormons was, for some years, in Union Fort, and that there was an integrated school there. I looked up the 1860, 1870, and 1880 U.S. Censuses for that area and sure enough, there was a considerable group of black people living in Union Fort during that time. The book on Union history says that while many black people lived there over the years, the only member of that community that was embraced by most of the white Mormons of Union was Green Flake himself, with his connections to Brigham Young. When Flake left the area toward the end of his life, the black residents of Union scattered -- by the 1900 Census there are no more black people in the area. Green Flake and several other black residents of Union Fort were buried three rows away from William, Rebecca, and Sarah Smith.

I wonder where my cranky ancestor fell in all this. On one hand, he was known as a remarkably compassionate and openminded man. Perhaps he was one of those who made Union seem the most hospitable home for these black Saints, just as he had done for the Indians? Maybe in being a bit of a rebel himself he had a heart for the outsider?

On the other hand, I believe his stubbornness was also a fatal flaw. One history recounts how he would sulk and give Sarah the silent treatment for days when he didn't get his way. And I suspect that, like me, he sometimes took too much pride in being a little bit outside and other, seeing his imperfect fellow Mormons as hopeless hoi polloi rather than as true Saints in embryo, capable of being transformed by the power of the gospel over time. That perhaps his (good) efforts to be more Christian to outsiders ultimately led to a holier-than-thou attitude toward his less openminded fellow Mormons. Perhaps he ultimately rejected his faith because of its flawed members.

None of this is knowledge – simply speculation based on what I've read about him. I'm left to marvel at how much I, Genealogy Girl, didn't about these stories and to fret that I'll never learn the answers to my questions about this fascinating character in my family tree.

Why didn't any of my *&%! ancestors keep journals??

So that is my final comment in this rambling but heartfelt posting: KEEP A JOURNAL OR DIE. Or rather, you will die, sooner or later, so please keep a journal. Save your emails, which are the modern journal. Do something. So I don't have to kill you.

Happy Pioneer Day!

When ambition is gone, there's always terror....

The other day a Facebook friend was questioning his decision to pursue science as his profession, stating that perhaps firefighting would have been an easier, saner choice.

No surprise there -- firefighter and scientist are great career favorites of the under-eight XY crowd. Probably "Transformer" and "King of the Galaxy" as well.

This made me think of a little kids' book I wrote a few years ago, entitled I Want to Be a Scientist Like Stephen Hawking. Two prior authors had tried and failed to write an acceptable text about Hawking's life, and it was no easy task for me, either. You see, the challenge in selling Prof. Hawking's story to kiddies as inspirational tripe is that 1) he was an enormous slacker who was scared into diligence by a debilitating disease and that 2) no one would be writing books about him if he were an amazing cosmologist without full-body paralysis and a spooky computer-generated voice. On the cover of the book you see his slack-jawed grin and the backdrop of his wheelchair and the subtext seems to be "and if you don't have the spine to make your dreams happen, little child, there's always the WRATH OF GOD...."

I'm all for scaring the kiddies into line.*




* To quote Laurie Anderson: "For when love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom...."

Psychologically unhealthy spinster hobbies, part 1.

It's that time of year again -- the male mallards in the pond on my street have been passionately quacking their views re: why this year's ducklings should inherit THEIR earlobes. (You don't think ducks have earlobes? You clearly don't have ducks living on your street.)

I trust that one day soon a row of paddling puffballs will appear on the water, and when they do, I shall gift their parents with a new-baby mix CD. (You don't think ducks have CD players? Geez, ya snobby urbanite -- you probably think they don't have indoor plumbing or electricity, either!)

Several years ago I sifted my music collection for baby/childhood/parenthood songs to make a mix for a friend, and since then have been forcing these songs upon friends and family as two by two they go off to try their hands at little-person wrangling. (I'm sure they'd prefer a Dr. Spock book or help with late-night feedings, but this is much more fun.)

If you have other songs for my collection please let me know. I'm mostly after positive songs, though if they're not strictly rosy on the topic of parenthood, beautiful or charming will serve as well. Eastery-springy-metaphory also works.

A Little Bit (At the Beginning) -- Joe Raposo with Patti LaBelle and the Abyssinian Baptist Choir

All the Pretty Horses -- Hem
All We Ever Look For -- Kate Bush

Annabelle -- Gillian Welch

Babies If I Didn't Have You -- Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Back Home Again -- Low

Be Careful There's a Baby in the House -- Loudon Wainwright III

Beautiful -- Paul Simon

Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)* -- John Lennon
Bertie -- Kate Bush

Birth-day (Love Made Real) -- Suzanne Vega

Birthday -- Beatles

Born at the Right Time -- Paul Simon

Born, Never Asked -- Laurie Anderson

The Castle of Dromore -- Cherish the Ladies

Cheerios on the Floor -- Black Eyed Snakes

Cherry Tree Carol -- Emmylou Harris

Child Among the Weeds -- Eliza Carthy

Child of Mine -- Carole King

Circle Game -- Joni Mitchell

Come Little Children -- Donny Hathaway

Creatures of Love -- Talking Heads

Cry Baby Cry -- Beatles

Dance Me to the End of Love -- Leonard Cohen

Danny's Song -- Kenny Loggins

Diamond Day -- Vashti Bunyan

Don't Drop the Baby -- Low

Father and Daughter -- Paul Simon

First Born -- Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Freedom Hangs Like Heaven -- Iron and Wine

Golden Slumbers -- Beatles

Goodnight -- Beatles

Growing Up -- Peter Gabriel
Happy Birthday -- Innocence Mission

Heirloom -- Bjork

Here Before -- Vashti Bunyan

Hey Girl -- Donny Hathaway

Holly Up on Poppy -- XTC

How Beautiful Could a Being Be? -- Caetano & Moreno Veloso

...I Love -- Low

I Need a Nap -- Kate Winslet & Weird Al Yankovic

I Wish -- Stevie Wonder

Isn't She Lovely -- Stevie Wonder

Kiss of Life -- Peter Gabriel

Kooks -- David Bowie

Lately -- Vashti Bunyan

Little Green -- Joni Mitchell

Little Things -- Joe Raposo

Lord, Blow the Moon Out Please -- Hem
Love That Boy -- Innocence Mission

Loves Me Like a Rock -- Paul Simon

Memo to My Son -- Randy Newman

Mother and Child Reunion -- Paul Simon

Mother and Son -- Babe Soundtrack

Mother Stands for Comfort -- Kate Bush

My Darling -- Wilco

My First Child** -- Nil Lara

New Mama -- Neil Young

New Star in the Sky -- Air

Ob la di Ob la da -- Beatles

The Obvious Child -- Paul Simon

Orphan Girl -- Gillian Welch

Ovary Z's -- Geggy Tah

P. Sluff -- Geggy Tah

Pony Boy -- Bruce Springsteen

Precious -- Annie Lennox

Reaching Out -- Kate Bush

Room for the Life -- Kate Bush

Season Cycle -- XTC

Skip Rope Song -- Kate and Anna McGarrigle, et al.

St. Judy's Comet -- Paul Simon

Stay Up Late -- Talking Heads

Summertime -- Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald

Sun, Son (Shining on the Water) -- Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Surfer Girl -- Low

Sweet and Low -- Bette Midler

The Sweetest Gift -- Sade

That Was Your Mother -- Paul Simon

Things We've Handed Down** -- Marc Cohn
This Woman's Work -- Kate Bush

Then She Appeared -- XTC

To Zion -- Lauren Hill

Upward over the Mountain -- Iron and Wine

Valentine's Day -- Hem

Waters of March -- Jobim & Elis Regina or Marissa Monte & David Byrne or Basia or Anya Marina or....

Wayward -- Vashti Bunyan

Welcome into the World -- Geggy Tah

What a Wonderful World -- Louis Armstrong

When a Man Needs a Woman -- Beach Boys

When Mac Was Swimming -- Innocence Mission

When I Called Upon Your Seed -- Low

Wiggle Wiggle -- Bob Dylan

Wonderful / Song for Children / Child Is the Father of the Man / Surf's Up -- Brian Wilson

Ye Yo -- Erykah Badu

* Suggested by Sharon.

** Suggested by some dude in a Yahoo Group.

Still geeky after all these years.

You can mock me (go for it, Emily), but I still love Rick Steves. And this is why.

He proves that any 100% whole-grain boy scout can be an informed and curious world traveler. (Or the geeky, socially backward teenaged me, sitting home most Friday nights watching his "Europe Through the Back Door" TV series and dreaming of all the places I would one day go.)

He's as interested in knowing people as places, and his interactions are genuine, warm, and humble. For all his slouchy, bespectacled dorkiness he never makes me embarrassed to be an American/Westerner as do so many other travel show hosts.

He has special dispensation to make fun of Mormons because his first post-parents European traveling companion was his LDS high school buddy: two teen prudes, 70 days, backpacks, hostels, and a shoestring budget (they did it on $7.35 per day, after airfare!) Take that, hippie gypsies: the dork boys are movin' in! (It's a great read -- you really should click on it.)

He focuses on how to cut out empty expenditure and concentrate your pesos on the richest travel experiences. (Unfortunately, wearing drip-dry wrinkle-proof baggy khakis every day is a part of this frugal vision, but other than that....)

His travel business headquarters is in a Washington town where my grandparents lived, and it has gargoyles over the entrance. Inside is a free library of travel books and videos, open to any and all. Nice fella, that Rick.

He speaks the local languages as much as he can, even though he delivers everything from German to Italian in his nasal and abominably accented tenor.

He's filmed some shows with his wife and kids, demonstrating how families can travel together sanely, economically, and without hating each other by the end of the trip.

He has neither that snotty I-only-do-high-culture attitude nor that obnoxious I-only-go-where-other-tourists-don't attitude that characterizes just about every other travel show host I know of. Any adventure is fair game for the mighty Rick.

His recent travel show about Iran ignored politics, focusing on culture, history, and people. At the same time he managed to provide in easy-to-swallow form what scholars on the Middle East have failed to convince U.S. policy-makers of -- that Iran's population is overwhelmingly pro-Western, educated, empowering of women, and rich in the kinds of "civil society" associations that are a necessary precursor to a truly democratic society. He reminds his audience that the negative turn in our relations with this place is a direct result of our upholding oppressive pro-Western regimes and quashing democracy in order to feed our lust for oil.

Oh dear. I swear this didn't start out as a political rant -- it really was supposed to be about Mr. Steves. I'm still a big fan, Rick! If you ever need an extra person on your travel crew to....iron your drip-dry wrinkle-proof baggy khakis?....I'd be happy to step in.

Will work for exotic cheeses and good, wholesome adventure.

Stale movie reviews (or: don't ask too much of me in February).

I've been noting how long this blog had sat untouched. The world is doubtless a better place without my binary babble, but I can't help but feel that the blog feels neglected. (Yes, I assign consciousness to my blog and I talk to my cat.)

However, I'm sick and my brain's in a fog and writing something new would surely cause cranial combustion. So I'm posting this short collection of movie/TV reviews that I wrote two Decembers ago. The shows are fourteen months older now than they were then, but I love them just as much.* There, little blog. I hope you feel loved.


********************************

[Written December 2008]

Yeah, yeah, I know. You've got a list of must-read books and must-finish chores and must-eat vegetables and must-run marathons a mile (26 miles?) long and you really don't have time to hear How Fantastic my latest cinematic discoveries are. So just stop reading, Dude. No one's forcing you.

1) PBS! (Yes! I'm a dork!) Two recent science shows on PBS have rocked my world, and if you check your local listings you might be able to find one or both of them in an encore presentation. One was a National Geographic special on stress, and the other was a Nova special on the epigenome. Just when you thought you knew how you were supposed to navigate the universe, public television comes along and plays merry hell with your equilibrium. I love it.

2) An Inconvenient Truth. Yes, I know I'm the second-to-last person on the planet to see this one, and after winning the Nobel Prize, does Mr. Gore really need an obscure Utah blogger to give him one more thumbs-up? But just in case you happen to be that very last person on the planet who's not yet seen it, you should. Even though we all seem to be coming to acknowledge the changes in the winds and what they mean, the movie explains things more clearly and coherently than I'd heard before. Even if you're already converted, see it for the handy factoids that will help you convert others. (Warning: be sure to walk or bike or mass-transit to the video store to decrease your post-movie self loathing.)

3) The Business of Being Born. Thank you, Netflix. This is Ricky Lake's labor (!) of love, an attempt to chip away at the modern American mindset toward childbirth that is robbing families of real choices and the best outcomes for mothers and babies. I watched this one two-and-a-half times before sending it back. Short path to my verdict: Fair-minded, yet passionate about its message. Moving and intimate, had me in tears several times. And it includes clips from one of my favorite Monty Python bits, so how can you go wrong? (Dudes weren't just funny -- they were truthtellers.) I think all potential parents should see the film. It's very good. I like it. Long, incoherent, tangential path to my verdict: Don't click here -- you'll regret it!

4) Almost Strangers. A BBC miniseries written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff. I have a longtime obsession with his earlier offering, Shooting the Past, and more recently learned about this one (thanks for the tip, Sharon!) Like Shooting the Past, I don't recommend it to just anyone. Poliakoff is obsessed with storylines that ferret out the tiny, lost dramas in the lives of everyday people's everyday ancestors, so if you've got any degree of genealogy-itis, you will love both of these films as I do. If not -- probably a three-hour yawn fest. I, for one, have decided that Poliakoff must be my long-lost bastard Jewish uncle and I'm off to England to hunt him down and give him a hug.

5) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Everybody gushed: soooo goooood. But for a long time I couldn't get past the premise -- movie filmed from the viewpoint of a completely paralyzed man who can only blink his eyes. I'm fairly claustrophobic and this sounded like a feature-length panic attack in the making. But still they gushed, so I caved and moved it to the top of my Netflix queue. Now I have joined the gush -- loved it. The film does let you feel the claustrophobia pressing down on your lungs for a good while. And it lets you feel the despair and the anger and the regret, but it gradually gives way to imagination and humor and humanity and even a little redemption. Bless Jean-Do Bubeque for mustering enough hope to blink out his story letter by letter so that we can witness the remarkable journey he made while trapped inside his leaden body. Plenty of tears, but all of them earned.



* I decided to not post them at the time because of the childbirth movie review, which I thought might be a painful read for someone close to me, who had just survived an unnecessarily traumatic hospital birth with an oafish and irresponsible doctor (whose car tires I have slashed dozens of times in my fantasy world). But she's finally close to healed, so I hope she won't mind.....

Take this and swim with it.

I’ve dreamed up the best TV channel ever, and I’m offering my idea gratis to any entrepreneur out there looking to stake her claim in the Oprah vacuum. It’s a reality show -- but unedited, real-time, and more addictive than heroin. Here’s all you need:

1) one empty TV channel

2) one really long cord with a light and camera attached

3) one seaworthy boat from which to dangle said cord

You lower the camera into the dark, dark depths of the ocean and just leave it there. All day, every day. I promise you that millions will quit their jobs to stay home and wait for those fanged, transparent, glowing, deep-sea Satanic fish to swim by the camera. It may only happen once a week, but they will watch and they will wait. It will be the best horror flick ever: viewer as prey, waiting in a dark alien realm with no narrator or soundtrack warning him when the monster will strike -- just the maddening sound of his own pounding heart hour after hour. Buh-bum, buh-bum, buh-bum.

Or for a more lighthearted direction, you could interview the fishies backstage, learn their heartwarming backstories, do makeovers (lipstick on a lanternfish!), and have viewers vote them out of the ocean.

I'm the biggest cheapskate in creation and I don't like scary stuff, but I would actually pay for TV service if I could get the Evil Fish Uncut channel.

Come on – someone get on this, already.