The Face of the Other

Godly character, change of heart, and forgiveness of sins

2012-01-20T10:39:00.003-07:00

Well, you can't say I don't try to take on big topics. I was prompted to consider this subject--godly character, change of heart, and forgiveness of sins--when I read an article on Patheos by Francis J. Beckwith titled "Better to be an adulterer than a Mormon?: Evangelicals, Gingrich, and Romney" (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/returntorome/2012/01/better-to-be-an-adulterer-than-a-mormon-evangelicals-gingrich-and-romney/#comment-57152). Beckwith reflects on a visit to Utah including discussions with faculty at BYU and with the LDS Public Affairs office in Salt Lake. Beckwith is sympathetic with the idea that moral character may count for more in a president than correct theology or even the status (according to a given theology) of being "forgiven."

One reader, Michael Bauman, left a comment questioning Beckwith's stance and suggesting that, if God forgives and regenerates a sinner, then past sins should not disqualify someone from being president--a position I pretty much agree with. Otherwise, what would all the parables about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son mean--not to mention Christ's statement, "Neither do I condemn thee; go thy way and sin no more"? But Bauman thinks either that Catholic forgiveness is superior to other kinds of forgiveness or that--even if people are equally forgiven in God's eyes--being a Catholic and having an understanding of Catholic theology would make someone a better president. As he puts it, "All other things being equal, it's better to be a forgiven Catholic . . . than a forgiven Mormon . . ."

Reading the article and the comment prompted me to add a comment of my own--a rather long one, which I reproduce here:

Obviously the questions raised in this article are complicated. For instance, what factors make for the best president? The truest and most nuanced theological understanding? The best moral character? Will the best president be the person theoretically (according to one's theology) most likely justified in God's eyes, despite serious character flaws? And then there are factors less tied to theology, like leadership skills, knowledge of domestic and international issues, experience, etc.

The story about an Evangelical Protestant preferring an adulterer or a murderer over a Mormon likely includes the proviso, "As long as the adulterer or murderer has confessed Christ as his Savior." In the view of many Evangelicals, such a confession--either before or after the adultery or murder--would guarantee justification and salvation, on the grounds of "once saved, always saved" (also known as "the perseverance of the saints").

I'm not Roman Catholic, but it appears from the comment made by Michael Bauman that a murderer or adulterer who has been absolved by priestly authority would, in the Catholic view, be better off than a non-Catholic who had never committed those sins or who had committed them and repented but lacked absolution.

Here's my problem with both the Evangelical and the Catholic response: does notional and even emotional reliance on Christ (as expressed in the Evangelical acceptance of Christ as Savior) guarantee a change of heart? does going through the actions of confession and penance and receiving official absolution guarantee a change of heart? And is God interested in such a change of heart, perhaps even more than simple freedom from sin? Could it be that the means either Evangelicals or Catholics propose for obtaining forgiveness are valuable in God's eyes primarily as a way of starting someone on the path toward that change of heart? And--back to politics--is a regenerate heart more important in a president than correct theology or even than officially "absolved" or "saved" status?

I'm sure many Evangelicals would agree that merely assenting to Christ's role as your Savior doesn't finish the process God intends. And I assume absolution is not, in the view of thoughtful Roman Catholics, merely a magical action that changes a person without any serious engagement on their part. If the state of a person's heart is what ultimately matters, then none of us really knows to what extent any of the candidates have obtained divine forgiveness or how far along they are in the process of becoming what God would like them to be.

A few final questions. Do Evangelicals and Catholics believe that non-Evangelicals and non-Catholics--perhaps even Mormons--can experience peace with God, forgiveness of sin, and improvement of character, even without what they consider a correct theological understanding or (in the Catholic view) without priestly absolution?

If such absolution is required, then no non-Catholic can claim to be forgiven of past sins. Michael Bauman suggests, though, that there might be such a being as "a forgiven Mormon." If that means someone forgiven according to the Mormon view, then that would be someone who has faith in Christ, has sincerely repented (meaning changed in outlook and behavior), and is seeking to be obedient to God's commandments--all of this accomplished with God's enabling grace, leading to forgiveness of sins and change of heart through God's redeeming grace. This process is nicely summed up in the Mormon belief that Christ will save people FROM their sins, not IN their sins [see Alma 11:37; Helaman 5:10]. Is such an understanding theologically correct--or close enough--from an Evangelical or Catholic point of view? And how does its correctness or lack of correctness translate into reality? In other words, do Evangelicals and Catholics believe that Mormons who engage in the process I've described can really be forgiven?

For political purposes, the point of these questions is this: Can we know--without knowing the hearts of the candidates--who among them, Protestant, Catholic, or Mormon, is really forgiven in God's eyes and, beyond simply having been absolved of past sins, which of them has the godliest character?

Much to blog about

2011-06-07T10:49:00.004-06:00

So much to blog about, so little time! I've wanted to say a bit about the death of Osama ben Laden, about the delightful experience of getting to know Doctor Who, about my wife's trip to Atlanta and St. George, and about preparing for my own trip to England and the Czech Republic, and about many other things--and I will at some point spend some time with some of those things, if only to remember some of the rich and challenging parts of life I've been living.

But for now, I'll point to blogging I've done elsewhere. Since last reporting on "Secret Memo" (a blog on which I put some of my opinions, political and other), I've posted about six items there, notably including "A Letter to Jon McNaughton" (http://secret-memo.blogspot.com/2011/05/letter-to-jon-mcnaughton.html) and "Respecting the President / Political Bullying" (http://secret-memo.blogspot.com/2009/09/respecting-president-political-bullying.html).

I've also created another blog: "Welcoming the Other". Entries have included "A little bit about this blog" (http://welcomingtheother.blogspot.com/2010/09/little-bit-about-this-blog.html) and "King Benjamin on helping the poor (http://welcomingtheother.blogspot.com/2010/12/king-benjamin-on-helping-poor.html). Though I haven't done much with this blog, I think it may be worth copying one of the entries here.

A little bit about this blog (from "Welcoming the Other": http://welcomingtheother.blogspot.com/2010/09/little-bit-about-this-blog.html [Sept. 25, 2010])

I've just created this blog as a place to put things that don't seem to fit in my other ones. My original blog, "The Face of the Other," has philosophical (and non-philosophical) musings and reports on personal and family events. It is also fed to my author page on amazon.com.

I have a couple of explicitly political blogs, started in the election season of 2008.

And I have a blog called "Secret Memo" where I discuss odd or controversial matters, or just things I don't want to put in the other blogs.

So I have plenty of spots to put things. But I felt a need to start this new blog for two reasons. One was that I wanted a generic space that didn't have the suspicious-sounding title or sometimes odd content of "Secret Memo," but also that wasn't being fed to my author page (as "The Face of the Other" is). Also, I like to be careful about what appears at the top of "The Face of the Other," given that it is my prime and original blog.

The second reason is that it occurred to me I needed a space for more pragmatic concerns. "The Face of the Other" is more contemplative--even though (as its subtitle suggests) contemplation ought to lead to action, given that my encounter with others makes me aware of my responsibility ("In front of the face, I always demand more of myself").

But I need to go beyond knowing that I am responsible to act responsibly. And so I've titled the new blog "Welcoming the Other." The subtitle of the current blog comes from an interview with Emmanuel Levinas ("Dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas," Face to Face with Levinas, ed. Richard A. Cohen, somewhere on page 26 or 27). The full passage includes the following:

I am defined as subjectivity, as a singular person, as an "I," precisely because I am exposed to the other. It is my inescapable and incontrovertible answerability to the other that makes me an individual "I." So that I become a responsible or ethical "I" to the extent that I agree to depose or dethrone myself--to abdicate my position of centrality--in favor of the vulnerable other. As the Bible says: "He who loses his soul gains it." . . . It is not that I wish to preserve . . . the idea of a subject who would be a substantial or mastering center of meaning, an idealist, self-sufficient cogito. . . . Ethical subjectivity dispenses with the idealizing subjectivity of ontology, which reduces everything to itself. The ethical "I" is subjectivity precisely insofar as it kneels before the other.

Another passage (this one from Levinas's book Totality and Infinity) illuminates what's involved in welcoming another person:

To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught. The relation with the Other, or Conversation, is a non-allergic relation, an ethical relation; but inasmuch as it is welcomed this conversation is a teaching. Teaching . . . comes from the exterior and brings me more than I contain. (51)

And here's another one, harder to figure out if you don't already know something of Levinas's thought: "The relationship between the same and the other, my welcoming of the other, is the ultimate fact, and in it the things figure not as what one builds but as what one gives" (Totality and Infinity 77).

And another: "[Though the Other calls the I into being, this call] leaves room for a process of being that is deduced from itself, that is, remains separated and capable of shutting itself up against the very appeal that has aroused it, but also capable of welcoming this face of infinity with all the resources of its egoism. . . ." (216).

And a particularly wild one--but crystal clear, pretty much, once you start to get a feel for Levinas:

It is only in approaching the Other that I attend to myself. This does not mean that my existence is constituted in the thought of the others. An existence called objective, such as is reflected in the thought of the others, and by which I count in universality, in the State, in history, in the totality, does not express me, but precisely dissimulates me. The face I welcome makes me pass from phenomenon [i.e., "a reality that lacks reality, still infinitely removed from its being"] to being in another sense: in discourse I expose myself to the questioning of the Other, and this urgency of the response—acuteness of the present—engenders me for responsibility; as responsible I am brought to my final reality. This extreme attention does not actualize what was in potency, for it is not conceivable without the other. Being attentive . . . presupposes the call of the other. To be attentive is to recognize the mastery of the other, to receive his command, or, more exactly, to receive from him the command to command. When I seek my final reality, I find that my existence as a "thing in itself" begins with the presence in me of the idea of Infinity. But this relation already consists in serving the Other. . . .
. . . This [the face to face] is not a play of mirrors but my responsibility, that is, an existence already obligated. It places the center of gravitation of a being outside of that being. The surpassing of phenomenal or inward existence does not consist in receiving the recognition of the Other, but in offering him one's being. To be in oneself is to express oneself, that is, already to serve the Other. The ground of expression is goodness. To be kath'auto ["in or according to oneself," i.e., having reality in onself] is to be good. (178-79, 183)

Well, that's enough Levinas for now, and certainly more than enough of an explanation of why I've started this blog.

Two speeches

2011-01-13T17:34:00.004-07:00

Over the past 24 hours, I've heard two good speeches. One was from Condoleezza Rice, the other from President Obama. I would give Dr. Rice's speech an A or A-; I would give the president's an A+ or an A++.

Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, spoke at a forum assembly at BYU. The Marriott Center was packed--and she did a good job. She spoke about the American ideal that anyone can become what they want to become, about the need to improve our educational system, about the importance of both faith and intellect, about the importance of family, about the value of optimism ("things that seemed impossible at the time may, as we look back, seem inevitable"). She spoke about the value of traveling to other countries and learning other languages and about our responsibility as a nation to help others throughout the world.

There were a couple of things I resisted: I don't believe reducing regulations on business is an unadulterated blessing--we all depend on reasonable regulations that protect our health and safety and the integrity and fairness of the system. But I agree that excessive regulation can hamper creativity as well as efficiency. On another point, though I agree with what she said about the value of democracy, I believe there are significant problems associated with trying to export our version of democracy to the rest of the world, especially when it involves overthrowing other governments by violence. (I'm happy to say that, in this speech, she didn't endorse the method I've just mentioned.) On the other hand, she spoke about America as a nation of immigrants and about the vital importance of welcoming immigrants that suggested a liberal or at least moderate outlook on that issue--an outlook I share. In fact, as I thought about it, I realized that some extreme conservatives may dislike her for being too moderate.

Overall, her speech was not partisan. (Of course, given the hosting institution, it was not supposed to be.) I was happy to be there in person, to be (as she entered) only a few feet away from her, to stand to honor her, and to applaud her sensible and inspiring words. I have long admired her. Despite her participation as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in some decisions I disagreed with, I understand she played a moderating role at that time. She is a woman of wisdom, intelligence, faith, and goodwill.

The other speech I listened to was last night--President Obama's speech in Tucson in response to the attack on a peaceful assembly in that city that led to the death of six people and the wounding of others. It is one of the great speeches of which I am aware, powerful, eloquent, consoling, inspiring. How I wish for a softening of the hearts of any who, out of partisan bias, are inclined to resist the goodness and truth of the words that were spoken and the spirit in which they were spoken.

I won't try to summarize the speech here. You can watch it here-- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41048443 -- or read a transcript here-- http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/12/president-obama-speaks-at-memorial-honoring-victims-of-arizona-shooting/.

I'll just give a few excerpts. As I noted on my Facebook status earlier today: "It's easy for all of us to pick sides and try to keep track of who's winning and who's losing. It is the measure of a truly great leader that he or she can lift us above this way of thinking and help us see each other as fellow members of a community, even as brothers and sisters, members of the human family, sharing in each other's sorrows, joys, and hopes." That is what President Obama did last night, at least for those willing to listen and feel.

The excerpts:

. . . at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.

Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. . . .

Yes, we must examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future.

But what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other. That we cannot do. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let's use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.
. . .
. . . we are reminded that in our fleeting time on earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame -– but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.

That process of reflection, of making sure we align our values with our actions – that, I believe, is what a tragedy like this requires. . . .
. . .
The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better – to be better in our private lives, to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, it did not, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud.

We should be civil because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.

They believe and I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here – they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another, that's entirely up to us. And I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.

That’s what I believe, in part because that’s what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. . . . She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism, vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.

I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.
. . .
May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America.

Introducing . . . the Beatles!

2010-11-18T21:52:00.002-07:00

I thought I'd take advantage of the "life-changing" announcement that the Beatles are now on iTunes to reveal at least a little of the role they have played in my life. It turns out that Margaret and I experienced a Beatles related event today: we attended an academic lecture--a remarkably good and illuminating one--titled "American through the Beatles." It was given by Trent Hickman, one of my colleagues in the English Department at BYU, born (pretty much as I had guessed) in 1970, the year the Fab Four broke up. (I wonder if calling them "the Fab Four" is as hokey as calling Shakespeare "the Bard." I'll have to think about that one.)

I first heard "I Want to Hold Your Hand" about 47 years ago, and though I didn't know initially who was performing, I was very taken by this fresh and exciting new sound. But then during most of 1964 I resisted the Beatles, partly because they were so popular, partly (as a 13-14 year old) because I prided myself on my rationality. But then in September of 1965, I heard "Ticket to Ride" on a bowling-alley jukebox in Payson, Utah, and was captured by the song's marvelous fusion of lyricism and anguish. Then came the movie Help!, with its zany fun and appealing music. And then in short order came "Yesterday" (how could I resist!) and Rubber Soul (still possibly my favorite album). I became not only a Beatles fan but a Beatles "expert" (i.e., I was so obsessed I soaked in everything I could about them), and my life became intertwined with their music for the next four years. In February 1970 I started a mission* (arriving in Paris in April), and so I took a break from the Beatles just about the time they broke up. But I could swear I heard "Let It Be" before I left home. (Much later, in 1996, I heard it sung by a street singer in Paris, near St. Germain des Pres.)

After returning to the US in 1972, I followed Paul McCartney somewhat (solo and then as a member of Wings) for a few years. As I remember it, I started re-collecting some Beatles music on cassette tape during the 1980s. Then came CDs (and I gradually got a complete collection); then the Beatles Anthology CDs (and TV specials) in the 1990s. Somewhere along the way I also collected a complete set of remastered vinyl records. More recently I've kept up on some of the reissuing of the Beatles' oeuvre and have continued to follow Paul's career in particular, though with some attention to the others. Of course, I remember learning of John Lennon's death in 1980: I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the time.

Now for (possibly) the most unusual event in my life related to the Beatles. Sometimes during the summer of 1997, our stake* held a picnic in a park near our home. I had recently been called as a counselor in the stake presidency and was going to introduce myself to the stake by taking part in a little presentation on the stage that was set up in the park. My son Rob was 10 at the time (and precocious, as he still is). He interviewed me, asking a series of predetermined questions, I answered entirely (or almost entirely) with lines from Beatles songs.

I'm going to reproduce the entire interview here. But first--just so everyone knows--I will acknowledge that, as with all (earthly) passions, my passion for the Beatles has the potential to be an unhealthy obsession. I try to keep enough detachment to remember the relative unimportance of all this and to remember that the Beatles' influence was a mix of good and bad.

But musically, they were marvels. Apart from a handful of their music that I don't like, they produced a large body of high-quality work, and the best of their work ranks with some of the best music the world has seen (and I'm including what is commonly called "classical music"). As people, as a cultural phenomenon, and as a source of music, the Beatles somehow conveyed an energy, vitality, freshness, and sense of passion and joy rarely seen.

By the way, for those who wonder what the heck a "mission" and "stake" are, I'll provide answers at the end.

THE INTERVIEW (R=Robert Young; B=Bruce Young):

R: Hello, my name is Robert Young. I'm about to do a live interview of the newest member of the Stake Presidency, Bruce Young.

I need to give you a little background first. He's a member of Pioneer 4th ward. But he's spent most of the past year out of town and just got back in May. For 6 months of that time he was helping direct a BYU program in England.

Some people think it is his interest in Shakespeare that qualified him for this work, but the truth seems to be that he was chosen because he is one of Utah Valley's foremost experts on the Beatles. For that reason we've asked him to answer all questions with quotations from their songs.

Is that true, President Young?

B: Yes it is, it's true.

R: Speaking of England, what did you think of the Queen?

B: Her majesty's a pretty nice girl, but she doesn't have a lot to say.

R: President Young, could you explain why you left Provo last year?

B: You know if you break my heart I'll go, but I'll be back again.

R: I understand you were in Massachusetts for the first part of this year. How did you feel when you got back?

B: It's been a long time, now I'm coming back home. I've been away now, oh how, I've been alone.

R: I understand there was a fire in your home last year. Did that affect where you lived for a while?

B: We all live(d) in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine.

R: So it wasn't long after your return that President Billings called you up to talk to you. What was the first thing he said?

B: When I call you up, your line's engaged. I have had enough, so act your age.

R: So what was your response the night you found out about your call to the stake presidency?

B: Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as if there here to stay, oh I believe in yesterday.

R: What did you feel after you had some time to think about it?

B: Help! I need somebody. Help! not just anybody. Help! you know I need someone. Help!

R: So how are things going now?

B: It's getting better all the time. (better better better)

R: What helped make the difference?

B: Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.

R: I understand you sometimes come home fairly late on nights when you have stake meetings. How do you feel when you come home?

B: It's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog. It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log.

R: Do you have any idea how long you will serve in this position or when you might be released?

B: When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now.

R: Well, sir, it looks like you've lost your hair already.

B: Look! what your doing!

R: Let me ask you a few questions about your life and your family.

How did you feel about yourself before you met Margaret?

B: I'm a loser, I'm a loser, and I'm not what I appear to be.

R: So how do you feel now?

B: I'm in love with her and I feel fine.

R: How many children do you have?

B: Your mother should know (whoo-oo), your mother should know.

R: Do you have anything to say to Margaret?

B: You know how much I love you, you know I always will.

R: I understand your oldest daughter is old enough to date now. And I understand you have a policy that she shouldn't date the same boy twice in a row. What do you say if she asks for an exception?

B: You know I told you before, no, you can't do that.

R: She hasn't go her license yet. When she does, do you have something to tell her?

B: Baby you can drive my car.

R: I understand you have a 10-year-old red headed son who is pretty smart. How do you feel about him?

B: A bad little kid moved into the neighborhood (doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-oo-doo-doo) He don't do nothin' right just sit there, 'n' look so good. (doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-oo-doo-doo)

R: What is your 8 year old daughter's name?

B: Julia, Julia.

R: She likes to jog with you, but has a hard time keeping up. Is there anything you say to encourage her?

B: You better run for your life if you can little girl.

R: Do you have anything to say about your 5-year-old son Michael?

B: Slow down, your movin' way too fast. You gotta give me little lovin', give me little lovin', whoooo, if you want our love to last.

R: Do you have any final things to say?

B: I don't want to spoil the party so I'll go. I would hate my disappointment to show. There nothing for me here, so I will disappear.

R: Do you think we could have another live interview with you next year?

B: Don't bother me, leave me alone, don't bother me.

R: Well, maybe we'll check with you later and see if we can get you to change your tune.

B: We can work it out, we can work it out.

[The end]

*mission: i.e., a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; I served in the France Paris Mission, which included (at that time) most of western France.

*stake: an organization in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encompassing several wards (congregations), corresponding more or less to a diocese in Catholic church government. The stake presidency consists of three men, a president and a first and second counselor. I ended up serving for three years as second counselor to Lewis Billings and then another seven years as first counselor to Brian Wolsey.

Thoughts on September 11

2010-09-11T08:48:00.008-06:00

September 11 brings me memories and mixed feelings. I find myself pondering good and evil, life and death, love and hate, suffering and heroism, tragedy and redemption. I also find myself distressed by the anti-Muslim feelings that rise among many on this day—feelings that are unfortunate and unfair in so many ways and that I believe are especially out of place on 9/11. Why?

(1) Muslims as a whole did not perpetrate the terrorist acts that took place on this day.

(2) Most Muslims condemn such terrorist acts.

(3) Muslims were among those killed on 9/11.

(4) Islam is one of the great religious traditions and has helped inspire much goodness and some of the world’s greatest cultural achievements. It is the foundation of the lives of millions of good people.

(5) While Christians naturally disagree with Muslims on many issues (as they also disagree with Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and others, as well as with many of their fellow Christians), true Christianity—in my view—requires respect for others, including respect for the freedom of others to believe and live differently. We can discuss our differences, but should do so with civility, charity, and humility.

(6) Latter-day Saints in particular should extend respect and understanding toward Muslims because we have been misunderstood and persecuted in much the same way they have. Furthermore, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have worked to build good relationships with Muslims and have stated that there is much that is good, true, even inspired in their religion.

(7) Above all, to make 9/11 an occasion for antagonism and hatred toward Muslims is to partake, in some degree, of the same spirit that motivated the terrorists on that day.

The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas dedicated one of his books (Otherwise than Being) to those he was closest to among the victims of the Nazi terror—but also to “the millions on millions of all confessions and all nations, victims of the same hatred of the other man, the same anti-semitism.” (Emphasis added.) Any hatred of others is evil in essentially the same way, whoever the others are that we choose to hate and whatever excuse we make for ourselves. Hatred has always tried to justify itself.

But any hatred of others damages the very foundation of our spiritual and moral existence: hatred refuses to heed the call to goodness—and service and respect and responsibility—that issues from the face of every other human being. As Jesus put it, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one”—which clearly means any one—“of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

When two of Jesus’ disciples wanted him to call fire down on a village that had rejected them, he responded: “You know not what spirit you are of. For the Son of Man has come not to destroy men’s lives but to save them” (Luke 9:54). Would he say the same to Christians who want to burn Qurans or whose hearts in any other way are bent on destruction or disrespect?

Every major religion and ethnic group has had members guilty of horrific acts; none of us wants to be, or should be, judged by acts committed by our co-religionists that we object to. And none of us wants to be told there is something wrong with our religion (supposedly revealed by such acts) when our own understanding of our religion in no way justifies the acts. That is exactly the situation in which most Muslims find themselves.

My own experience—and the experience of others I trust—confirms that most Muslims are good people and that their religion is part of their goodness.

Latter-day Saint attitudes toward Muslims and their religion

As noted above, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have called for respect and understanding among those of various religions, including Islam.

Within the past few days the Church released a statement in response to the threat made by some Americans to burn the Koran on September 11: “A key tenet of our faith is to accord everyone the freedom to worship as they choose. It is regrettable that anyone would regard the burning of any scriptural text as a legitimate form of protest or disagreement.” (Source: http://www.blogger.com/“http://lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-statement-on-the-burning-of-the-koran”.)

The same attitude is expressed in earlier statements. The First Presidency of the Church made a statement on February 15, 1978, "regarding God's Love for All Mankind," that includes, among other things, the following:

"The great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God's light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals.

"We believe that God has given and will give to all peoples sufficient knowledge to help them on their way to eternal salvation."(quoted by James E. Faust, "Communion with the Holy Spirit," Ensign, May 1980, 12)

As mayor of Nauvoo, Joseph Smith—first prophet and president of the Church—issued the following statement:

“Be it ordained by the city council [of] Nauvoo that the Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Latter-day Saints, Quakers, Episcopalians, Universalists, Unitarians, Mohammedans, and all other religious sects and denominations, whatever, shall have free toleration and equal privileges in this city.”

Joseph Smith taught that God’s love for his children is universal:

“The Mussulman [Muslim] condemns the heathen, the Jew, and the Christian, and the whole world of mankind that reject his Koran, as infidels, and consigns the whole of them to perdition. The Jew believes that the whole world that rejects his faith and are not circumcised, are Gentile dogs, and will be damned. The heathen is equally as tenacious about his principles, and the Christian consigns all to perdition who cannot bow to his creed, and submit to his ipse dixit.

“But while one portion of the human race is judging and condemning the other without mercy, the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard; He views them as His offspring, and without any of those contracted feelings that influence the children of men, causes ‘His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.’ He holds the reins of judgment in His hands; He is a wise Lawgiver, and will judge all men, not according to the narrow, contracted notions of men, but, ‘according to the deeds done in the body whether they be good or evil,’ or whether these deeds were done in England, America, Spain, Turkey, or India. He will judge them, "not according to what they have not, but according to what they have," those who have lived without law, will be judged without law, and those who have a law, will be judged by that law. We need not doubt the wisdom and intelligence of the Great Jehovah; He will award judgment or mercy to all nations according to their several deserts, their means of obtaining intelligence, the laws by which they are governed, the facilities afforded them of obtaining correct information, and His inscrutable designs in relation to the human family; and when the designs of God shall be made manifest, and the curtain of futurity be withdrawn, we shall all of us eventually have to confess that the Judge of all the earth has done right.” (From Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith pages 217-18.)

Recent Church members and leaders have worked to establish positive relationships with people of other faiths, including Jews and Muslims. The Church has partnered with Muslims to provide disaster relief and to engage in scholarly work. [See the comment below with links to an article about some of this work.]

Another example: President Boyd K. Packer has become friends with Dr. Alwi Shihab, a Muslim and an important figure in the government of Indonesia. Invited by President Packer, Dr. Shihab gave an address at Brigham Young University on October 10, 2006.

You can read the introduction by Pres. Packer and the address by Dr. Shihab at the following site: http://www.blogger.com/“http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=11324&x=54&y=4

You can hear the introduction and the address by going to http://www.blogger.com/“http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1643&tid=7” and choosing one of the options there.

Here are some excerpts from Pres. Packer's introduction:

Ahead of us, indeed already all around us, is the world of Islam. Christianity and Islam will clasp hands in cooperation and understanding or clench fists in confrontation and prejudice.

. . . We have witnessed two watershed events: September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center terrorist attack brought Christians and Muslims into confrontation. The December 27, 2004, tsunami opened opportunity for Christians and Muslims to cooperate. The first was a wake-up call; the other pushed us out of bed.

. . . The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expresses ‘special love and concern for the eternal welfare of all men and women, regardless of religious belief, race, or nationality, knowing that we are truly brothers and sisters because we are sons and daughters of the same Eternal Father.’

. . . Knit together by world history and by Old Testament history and doctrine, the Church and the Islamic world can see each other as People of the Book, indeed Family of the Book.

Church members and Muslims share similar high standards of decency, temperance, and morality. We have so much in common. As societal morality and behavior decline in an increasingly permissive world, the Church and many within Islam increasingly share natural affinities.

Muslim scholars point out that the Quran does not restrict Paradise to Muslims. The Quran rewards all those of faith who perform righteousness and believe in the after-life. The Book calls Jesus Christ Messiah, Son of Mary, and by the names Messenger, Prophet, Servant, Word, and Spirit of God.

It is important that we in the West understand there is a battle for the heart, soul, and direction of Islam and that not all Islam espouses violent jihad, as some Western media portray.

It is as well important that friends in the Islamic world understand there is a battle for the heart, soul, and direction of the Western world and that not all the West is morally decadent, as some Islamic media portray.

. . . Alwi, a devout Muslim of Arabic ancestry, and I, a Christian and devout Mormon, have agreed to symbolically walk arm in arm into the future. Together we hope to build a bridge. Except what that symbolizes is accomplished, all of us face a very dark and very dangerous future.

Now I introduce Dr. Alwi Shihab with a title which I borrow from another venerable Islamic leader and cleric (whom we both know and love), Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia—Gus Dur. I apply that title to you, Alwi. You know that by interpretation it means ‘Dear Friend.’

Some closing thoughts

Now to add a few more words about my own experience: For several years, I have taught excerpts from the Quran (or Koran) in courses at Brigham Young University. I’ve found much in it that is inspired and good. In my view, it might be described in much the same way the Apocrypha is described in section 91 of the Doctrine and Covenants: “There are many things contained therein that are true, . . .; There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men. . . . Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; And whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom; And whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefited” (verses 1-6).

Even more significant is the goodness I have found in the individual Muslims I have met. Whatever our differences in outlook and custom, we are brothers and sisters, children of a common Father. September 11 is a day to reaffirm that bond and pledge ourselves to work against hatred and in favor of respect, compassion, and goodwill. It is the wrong day (as if any days were right for this!) to promote fear, anger, and contention.

For more on Islam from a Latter-day Saint point of view, I recommend the following:

http://www.byui.edu/perspective/v4n1pdf/v4n1_peck.pdf.

James A. Toronto, “A Latter-day Saint Perspective on Muhammad,” Ensign, Aug 2000, 51

James B. Mayfield, “Ishmael, Our Brother,” Ensign, Jun 1979, 24

Orin D. Parker, “A Life among Muslims,” Ensign, Mar 2002, 50

Joseph B. Platt, “Our Oasis of Faith,” Ensign, Apr 1988, 39

The relative worth of Troilus and Cressida--and of art and literature in general

2010-09-10T16:47:00.002-06:00

Artists, writers, and lovers of art and literature sometimes find themselves depressed or irritated by what they consider the simplistic and narrow-minded judgments of those who object to some of what they love.

A discussion of this issue recently took place on a website called "Dawning of a Brighter Day" sponsored by the Association for Mormon Letters. I'm adding here two comments I made. (See http://blog.mormonletters.org/post/2010/09/03/Brother-can-you-paradigm.aspx.)

The first comment has to do with a switch that was made on the BYU theater schedule from Troilus and Cressida to Romeo and Juliet. The second comment is more general.

(1)
. . . [F]irst, on Troilus and Cressida: When I learned it was going to be performed at BYU, I was surprised, but I added a requirement in my Shakespeare syllabus for my students to see it. (Now I'm requiring them to see Romeo and Juliet--mainly I want them to experience live Shakespeare.)

I was surprised because I had a hard time imagining the large audiences drawn from students and the community for a main stage production being ready to have a good experience with one of Shakespeare's oddest and most astringent plays. I thought it might work better on a smaller stage for a more self-selecting audience. But (I thought) I guess it depends mainly on how it's done. The play can be done in any number of ways, from something approaching a romantic combination of sweetness and pathos (with plenty of dark undertones, to be sure) to something unredeemably harsh and cynical. For myself, I'd prefer something somewhere in the middle.

I saw a powerful production of the play in England some years ago, one that may have been a bit harsh for BYU but that otherwise came close to the right balance for me--except that there were moments so overwhelmingly erotic that I don't believe I could experience such moments very often without real danger and damage. Anyone who could handle them better than I could must be a lot stronger than I am, or else self-deceived or far gone into desensitization. Though the production has found a place firmly in my memory, I seem to have survived intact. Am I a better person for having seen the play? I don't know. "Better" can mean so many things, from wisdom to sensitivity to compassion to strength.

I already knew the play pretty well. Professionally I need to know it: it has a significant and peculiar place in the Shakespearean canon. Seeing the production added a few nuances to my Shakespearean expertise. Like most of what Shakespeare wrote, the play is a masterpiece in its particular niche, though not as moving or profound or enlightening (by a long shot) as plays like Macbeth or King Lear or The Winter's Tale--or Measure for Measure, to take a play with closer affinities to Troilus and Cressida. T&C helps shatter naive idealism about love and war, but apart from that, I find it harder to make a case for its value than for most of Shakespeare's plays.

Even kept intact, I can imagine it performed at BYU in a way that might work, though some of Pandarus's lines might cause some squirming, and it would be hard to imagine audiences knowing quite how to handle Thersites, with his constant stream of invective and vulgarity.

I don't know much about how it was decided not to do the play at BYU, but from the little I know, I doubt it was done (entirely) in a simplistic way depending on "Platonic" binaries. The play really is problematic.

Of course, so is Romeo and Juliet, though not in the same way or to the same degree as T&C. Plus it has a place in the cultural consciousness that T&C lacks. It will be interesting to see what's done with R&J. I can imagine anything from a sensationalist soap-opera style production to a profoundly sympathetic and illuminating rendition of the play. That's one of the perils and gifts of live theater: the moral value depends in great measure on the particularities of the production and unfolds (often surprisingly, unpredictably) in the very moment the performance takes place.

(2)
General thoughts: I agree with much in Eric’s post and in the comments. But I also find much said that, even while objecting to oversimplification, tends to simplify the issues and to characterize alternative views as naive, erroneous, and simplistic when there are in fact intelligent versions of them worth attending to.

In practice, I sometimes find myself on one side or another. I have recommended a film I consider wonderfully moral but which is then objected to by at least a few viewers, who of course I imagine to be narrow minded and judgmental. (Mostly, I just feel sad that they don’t see what I see in the film.) On the other hand, I find myself depressed and sickened by language, images, and assumptions in films that I want to, and to some extent do, enjoy. I have a son who objects to any editing of films, presumably including editing for airlines and for television. But as for myself, I am deeply grateful for effective editing that spares me being assaulted by things that deaden my sensitivities and make my inner life harsh, dissonant, confused, and ugly. My wife and I find deeply disturbing the thought of certain music going through our younger son’s mind. On the other hand, I love and teach works of literature that are challenging and, in their own way, disturbing (I would say redemptively disturbing) as well as inspiring and edifying.

How much damage do we need to risk as part of the process of learning and growth? As some have noted, our whole mortal experience is based on the assumption that some risk is required. But I see people who have acquired a taste for destruction—for the tang of chaos, violence, and lust—minus any discernible progress toward light and goodness.

C. S. Lewis, who loved literature and music with a passion, who was eclectic in his tastes and exceptionally intelligent and learned, nevertheless placed literary and artistic values much lower than ultimate ones. “If we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.” Of course, a souvenir is not the same as awareness. A souvenir is something we cling to, or that clings to us—like the lizard on the oily man’s shoulder in The Great Divorce. When it comes right down to it, Lewis argues, “the salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world.” Happily, we don’t normally have to choose one or the other—and in fact, remembering how infinitely less important the entire world of arts and letters is than any one person allows that world to reveal itself at its most delightful, illuminating, and enlivening; whereas clinging to music, art, and literature as if they were our salvation (like idols of a sort) kills them.

Heaven and Hell

2010-08-20T10:06:00.001-06:00

The following are thoughts about heaven and hell originally posted on Times and Seasons: http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2009/07/what-death-can-teach-us-about-heaven-and-hell/.

In this post, I draw on insights from C. S. Lewis as well as scripture and other sources.

C. S. Lewis has many intriguing things to say about this topic--or rather this cluster of interrelated topics: why there's a hell, whether it's eternal, whether redemption from hell is possible, what essentially life in heaven and hell might mean, whether heaven includes or allows for association with friends and family, how different heaven might be from life as we know it here, etc. My comment can only scratch the surface of what he has to say (which of course I look at with the coloring and emphasis provided by my Latter-day Saint point of view). I'll give here just a few tidbits.

On family in the afterlife: Besides questioning and deflecting hope of family reunions in the afterlife, Lewis also apparently longed for such a possibility. He wrote in The Four Loves: “We may hope that the resurrection of the body means also the resurrection of what may be called our ‘greater body’; the general fabric of our earthly life with its affections and relationships. But only on a condition . . . : nothing can enter there which cannot become heavenly.” (In LDS terms, a truly celestial marriage could only be a marriage that had become truly celestial.)

On our “small-minded expectations”: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. . . . We are far too easily pleased” (“The Weight of Glory”).

How different heaven might be from life as we know it here: By what Lewis calls “transposition,” all (perhaps) that is familiar to us might continue but be transformed and lifted to transcendence. We may “be hardly more surprised by hitherto unimagined differences than by hitherto unsuspected similarities. . . . When I know as I am known I . . . shall see how the transcendent reality either excludes and repels [the categories/concepts/realities I’m familiar with], or how unimaginably it assimilates and loads [them] with significance. Had we not better wait?”--i.e., wait and see. (All this is from “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism”; see also “Transposition” and much of Miracles.)

On the same question from LDS sources, I just read a verse the other day that blew me away, though I’ve read it many times before: “For since the beginning of the world have not men heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath any eye seen, O God, besides thee, how great things thou hast prepared for him that waiteth for thee” (D&C 133:45). So we hope for something far beyond our present capacity to imagine. Yet Joseph Smith also noted the similarities: “that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy” (D&C 130:2).

On “second chances” with implications for friends and family (this is me now, though Lewis has things to say on this as well): If God is love and if that love is essentially and supremely an absolutely unqualified concern for the welfare of others, then desiring the salvation of all (“not willing that any should perish” [2 Peter 3:9]) is part of what it means to be godly. (By the way, one of my favorite definitions of hell is from The Brothers Karamazov: “the torment of no longer being able to love.”)

Given God’s power and love, I believe that all will eventually have as many blessings as they can possibly (which among other things means “willingly”) receive. Any sort of permanent hell would thus require a person’s firm, knowing, and irrevocable choice (I believe this view is supported both by the scriptures and, as it happens, by Lewis). Or perhaps a permanent hell might also result as a person, through a series of choices, undergoes such a change of nature as to be unable any longer (ever) to choose to allow God's redeeming and transforming power to operate. (This last sentence is packed with all sorts of assumptions and speculations--but it does for me hint at what it might mean to be unredeemable.)

Short of these terrible possibilities, both the scriptures and the Spirit suggest to me that there's ALWAYS hope. John H. Groberg gave a talk on that theme that repeats the phrase "there's always hope" 40 times (http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6901). I endorse that view and would add, the story’s not over yet and won’t be for quite a while.

A change in status?

2010-08-02T15:47:00.003-06:00

On my Facebook profile, that is. I changed my political view from something like "I like to think I transcend partisan politics (hah!)" to "Moderately liberal, mildly progressive, and somewhat conservative." That was my somewhat playful way of saying that I don't think these big labels, which engender so much distrust and contention, are really polar opposites. Each of the words means lots of different things; each has its own history and its own connotations; none of the words is truly an antonym for any of the others.

So I do in fact favor an open, free, pluralistic society, based on civility, tolerance, justice, respect, and goodwill (one meaning of "liberal") and have political positions on some, but not all, issues that are commonly considered "moderate" or "moderately liberal." In general, I favor "progress" (who doesn't?), but with the caveat that not every change is really a change for the better. And I do favor conserving what is good (though not everything is good simply because it is old or traditional). And even when changes are made, I believe they need to be made carefully, with respect for the organic texture of social and spiritual reality. So I guess that makes me "somewhat conservative." (I greatly admire Edmund Burke, one of the great "conservative" thinkers of history.) But at the same time, I find some typical "conservative" positions of the moment (as well as some typical "liberal" positions) abhorrent. (For more on this--a statement I recently discovered by Dallin Oaks--see the third comment below.)

I didn't throw in "radical" since I believe extreme political views tend to be impractical, arrogant, and destructive. Yet if the word "radical" is taken in its literal sense (having to do with the "roots"), I think we have to at least think our problems through "radically" and consider what "radical" solutions--ways of getting at the roots of problems--would mean.

Which reminds me: I've just been rereading some of the dispute between Erasmus and Luther on "free will" (Erasmus believed there is some measure of human free will; Luther didn't). I'm more Erasmian in my style--looking, with modesty, for a moderate, reasonable stance that accords with the complexities of real life. Yet I admire the boldness and bluntness of Luther, who was absolutely sure he was right and who couldn't stand what he thought was Erasmus's wishy-washiness. Luther certainly had immense impact on the world, but I think some of what he did was destructive and hindered rather than enhanced human understanding and improvement. I hope Luther and Erasmus have become friends again and have come to accept a much larger, deeper, richer, and excitingly real reality than either of them could have imagined during their mortal lives.

My Waste Land walk--and more

2010-06-16T02:00:00.004-06:00

Actually, it wasn't just a Waste Land walk. I also saw things related to Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the expression "thrown into the clink." My walk was followed a couple of days later by another set of the kinds of experiences I especially like to have in London--wanderings to spots that have special meaning and resonance to me.

Last Thursday, I spent part of the afternoon combining an errand with a T. S. Eliot/Geoffrey Chaucer/London theater walk. I headed out shortly before 3:00 and returned shortly before 5:00--so this all lasted about 2 hours, from leaving the BYU London Centre to returning.

It was an overcast afternoon, with moments of wind and a few sprinkles of rain--a nice atmosphere for the spots I visited. I took the Central Line to Bank, got out, and saw an impressive building, the Royal Exchange, located at the intersection of several streets. This is part of the financial area of "the City"--the City of London.

I checked the nearby spot on Cornhill St. where T. S. Eliot worked as a bank clerk for Lloyd's Bank. I looked at Queen Victoria Street and walked down King William Street, both mentioned in The Waste Land. I checked two other streets mentioned in the poem: Cannon Street and Lower Thames Street. Along the way as well as later on my walk, I saw lots of Christopher Wren church steeples and stopped at a couple of churches mentioned in the poem: St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Magnus Martyr. This last one has a beautiful Wren interior (nicely refurbished), described by Eliot in the phrase "Inexplicable spendour of Ionian white and gold" (there are interior columns of the Ionic order, mainly white with some gold decoration).

Then I walked across London Bridge ("A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, / I had not thought death had undone so many") and went to Southwark Cathedral, a church Shakespeare and many other actors and playwrights attended. Shakespeare's brother Edmund is buried there, as are the playwrights John Fletcher and Philip Massinger; also the medieval writer John Gower and the Jacobean clergyman Bishop Launcelot Andrewes (a friend and contemporary of Donne's, one of the 50+ who worked on creating the King James Bible, and famous for sermons, one of which T. S. Eliot uses in his poem "Journey of the Magi").

One of those helping visitors in the cathedral talked with me about the literary and theatrical associations and also told me about a visit not too long ago by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. In the 1700s a Mohawk chief had come from America to present a petition to King George II, but died of smallpox before he could do so. He's buried in the Southwark Cathedral yard (mainly because it's technically outside of London and so foreigners could be buried there). In 2006, the current Mohawk chief came from the U.S. and presented the petition to Queen Elizabeth, and she dedicated a monument in the churchyard to his 18th-century predecessor.

Next I headed over to the George Inn, one of the few remaining old inn fronts, overlooking Talbot Yard where plays would once have been performed. Talbot Yard was once also the location of the Tabard Inn, where The Canterbury Tales begins.

After that Chaucer moment, I walked past the Borough market and down Clink St. (once part of an area notorious for foul prisons and the source of our expression "getting thrown into the clink") on my way to Shakespeare's Globe. (To avoid any confusion, I should note that Shakespeare's Globe is a RECONSTRUCTION based on what scholars think the original Globe looked like. It's been built in the general vicinity but not at the exact location of the original Globe.)

At the Globe, I bought a ticket for Henry IV, part 1, on Saturday afternoon (no yard tickets were left, so I had a seat--more on that later), then walked over the Thames on Millenium Bridge to St. Paul's and took the Central Line from St. Paul's back to Queensway.

On Saturday I did indeed return to the Globe for a performance of Henry IV, part 1, the first time I believe I've seen it performed on stage. Apart from a mummer's play added at the beginning, with a fair amount of pseudo-historical vulgarity, I enjoyed the performance. The Falstaff and Hotspur were both excellent; the actor who played Prince Hal was also very good. And just about everybody else did a fine job. I found a few of the speeches, especially near the beginning of the play, a bit wearisome and hard to follow--but that's Shakespeare's fault, a fault Samuel Johnson agrees with me on seeing as such, by the way.

I saw the first half of the play from my seated position, with a slightly obstructed view. I found it hard to focus and feel engaged. And so after the interval, I went into the yard, and watched the second half standing and leaning against the stage. I much preferred seeing it that way. For me at least, the Globe experience is several times better being in the yard and getting up close and personal.

It turns out it was Sam Wanamaker Day at the Globe. (Wanamaker was the visionary whose energy and enthusiasm helped make the reconstructed Globe a reality, though he didn't live to see it completed.) Stanley Wells, an important Shakespearean scholar and editor (though perhaps not the demi-god he was described as at the ceremony), was the recipient of this year's Sam Wanaker Award. I stood right behind him (impressed by his hot pink shirt, the collar of which showed above his jacket) as he prepared to mount the stairs to the stage and receive his award.

After the post-play ceremony, I walked into the Globe lobby and saw a couple of familiar faces: Tim Slover and Jane England, here with a group of students from the University of Utah. After happy embraces and a bit of chat, they went to an after play discussion, and I moved on to more adventures.

The adventures were (1) finding Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station (it's actually closer to Platform 8, tucked away in a bit of a corner); (2) walking from King's Cross up St. Pancras Road to Old St. Pancras Church. I looked through the graveyard, struck by how few of the inscriptions are legible, how few of the "hungry generations" who lived and died there are remembered. A group of headstones have even been moved into a clump surrounding a tree--the work of Thomas Hardy when he was employed to move old remains to make way for rail construction. But finally, I found the grave of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (the monument gives her her husband's surname). This is the spot where Percy Byssche Shelley and Mary Godwin (later the author of Frankenstein) declared their adulterous love.

I believe Shelley's wife Harriet was still alive at the time--she who later drowned in the Serpentine. I've also visited that spot, near the BYU London Centre, and thought about her sad life. The marriage with Percy had started very happily. But Percy was a (self-justifying and, I'm afraid, very selfish) tremulously sensitive being who responded to his dream of ideal beauty and sympathy in whatever place he found or imagined it. And so the marriage soured; Percy and Mary (and a sister) went off to the Continent. And Harriet, abandoned, drowned. I've discovered a scathing defense of Harriet written by Mark Twain and well worth reading.

But lest I end on a negative note, Percy wrote some great poetry and, as I've learned here, contributed some of the more thought-provoking passages to Frankenstein.

Keats and other treats

2010-06-16T01:29:00.003-06:00

On May 28, I visited Keats House in Hampstead, a part of London far enough away from the center of the city that it feels almost like a smallish town. In any case, it's away from the bustle and crowds of the city.

A couple of days later I sent my students in the Study Abroad program an e-mail, from which I provide excerpts here.

First, on the National Portrait Gallery:

"I love the National Portrait Gallery because it focuses on people's faces and gives a rich sense of English culture and history. It's also a manageable museum for a single visit--you can see virtually everything in 1 1/2 or 2 hours. You could even do a rush job in one hour. The National Portrait Gallery includes portraits of many famous British politicians, artists, musicians, philanthropists, scientists, and WRITERS, from Tudor times through the present, including just about all the writers we're studying in our class.

"I strongly encourage you to make the National Portrait Gallery one of your options for fulfilling the site visits checklist for our class.

"Nearest tube stops: Leicester Square and Charing Cross. Entry is free."

Then I reflect on my visit to Keats House:

"Along with most of you, I visited Keats House on Friday. My trip each way, including walking to the tube stop and walking from the tube stop to Keats House, took 50-55 minutes, probably close to 52-53 minutes each time. I stayed at the house for an hour and 20 minutes--longer, probably, than any of the rest of you. I revisited most of the rooms three or more times. I'm a bit of a Keats fanatic. Most of you probably took half the time I did or less.

"But I hope you had a good visit. I wanted to share some of the things I noticed and thought about, just in case you missed them. If you found anything memorable I haven't mentioned, please share it with me.

"In the time of Keats, the house was really two adjoining houses. They had separate entries but were joined by a wall, which has now been opened up, so that they formed a single building. The movie Bright Star is very accurate in most respects. However, in suggesting that Keats's bedroom was right next to Fanny Brawne's (with just a wall separating them), the film takes some liberties. They would have had rooms at the same level, each in a separate house, but whether the rooms were right next to each other, we don't know.

"Keats probably first met Fanny Brawne while visiting friends, possibly in the room where you paid for entry, before he himself moved into the house.

"In the Brawne rooms on the ground floor you should have seen a bust of Keats putting him at his accurate height of 5 foot 1 inch. There's also a painting of Keats, a photo of the sonnet "Bright Star" in Keats's handwriting, and THE ACTUAL ENGAGEMENT RING he gave Fanny. (He wanted to break off the engagement when he became ill, but she refused. There was still hope they might marry after he returned from Italy, but he died there.)

"Other literary connections in the room include a book on display by Leigh Hunt called Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries (it includes one of the early discussions of Keats after his death) and another book called Keats's Relics showing a photo of the copy of Paradise Lost that Keats gave to a friend,

"Keats's Parlour: It is set up to match a painting by Severn (also in the room) of Keats sitting in the room. Also hanging on the wall is an engraving of a likeness of Shakespeare Keats is known to have had on the wall at that very spot and a picture of Milton dictating Paradise Lost to his daughters. In the book cases in the room are books Keats is known to have owned and read (though not necessarily the same copies he had)--books by Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and many others.

"Keats often sat in the room, looked out the window, and doubtless read and wrote. He is said to have composed 'Ode to a Nightingale' while sitting under a mulberry tree that used to stand in the yard outside the house.

"Brown's Parlour: Keats shared the house with his friend Charles Brown (the arrangement is depicted in the film Bright Star). In this room the two probably entertained friends. (Either here or upstairs--I forget which--Brown put a sofa where Keats could lie and look out the window after he became ill.) Now located in the room is a painting based on Keats's poem 'Isabella' and a picture of the blind Milton playing the organ. This room also has pictures (and a bust, I believe) of many of Keats's friends, including the poet Shelley and others.

"In the Chester room (added to the house by a later tenant) is a portrait plaque of Keats by Giuseppe Girometti, considered the best likeness of Keats, as well as a painting by Keats's friend Severn depicting Keats on Hampstead Heath (near Spaniards Inn) listening to the nightingale that inspired the famous ode you read.

"Upstairs in the Brawne side of the building is Fanny's room, set up to indicate her interest in fashion (something the film depicts). In the other side of the building is Brown's bedroom (including some 'Tassie Gems' of the sort that inspired Keats's poem 'On a Leander Gem') and of course Keats's bedroom, to which his fatal illness often confined him. Keats's bedroom includes a copy of the death mask made in Italy. You can, in other words, see the actual contours of his face as it appeared shortly after his death.

"Also in the various rooms are copies of some of Keats's poems and excerpts from his letters. I was intrigued to discover some poems I didn't know, including 'To My Brother George' and 'To My Brothers' (which mentions his brother Tom, who died of tuberculosis--John Keats apparently contracted the disease while nursing his brother). Another poem I discovered is 'What can I do to drive away . . .' The letter excerpts included some you were assigned to read, but many that are not even in our book, including several to and about Fanny Brawne. It's interesting that initially Keats didn't get along with Fanny. They had little 'tiffs' and he called her a 'Minx' (look it up). But before long he was smitten."

As I note at the end of my e-mail to my students, if you want to read some of the poems and letter excerpts, you can find them here:
"To My Brother George": http://www.bartleby.com/126/14.html
"To My Brothers": http://www.bartleby.com/126/21.html
"What can I do to drive away": http://infomotions.com/etexts/literature/english/1800-1899/keats-to-511.txt
Letters to Fanny Brawne:
http://englishhistory.net/keats/letters/brawne13October1819.html (13 Oct. 1819)
http://englishhistory.net/keats/letters/brawnefebruary1820.html (?Feb. 1820)
(for others, see http://englishhistory.net/keats/letters.html)
(for more on their relationship: http://englishhistory.net/keats/fannybrawne.html)

I should add that, though I've always liked Keats, my time in London--teaching some of his poetry and visiting the house--has deepened my appreciation. I've especially been impressed by "Ode to a Nightingale." Yes, the desire to fade away--through poetry, drink, or death--is escapist and ultimately a denial of what makes us human. But I think Keats is at least partly, if not fully and deeply, aware of that. The poem itself ends by noting that the imagined escape is only that--imagined--and that we necessarily return to our station of being ourselves.

The poem's references to human suffering are moving, especially as they set Keats's own experience, seeing his brother waste away with tuberculosis and then die, in the context of the many generations who have gone through similar experiences.

Note these lines:

The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs . . .

The "youth" who "grows pale" alludes certainly to his brother. And then there are lines about the "hungry generations" and about the "sad heart of Ruth," lines I ponder in a recent blog post (http://faceofother.blogspot.com/2010/05/some-thoughts-from-london.html).

In one of his letters, Keats considers whether such suffering is a necessary part of our existence--if in fact, it fulfills the very purpose of life, which he speculates to be the gaining of an identity or "soul" through experience: "Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school and intelligence and make it a soul? a place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways."

Keats's letters are great treasures, filled with insight and sometimes whimsy and humor. The letters show that he is a much deeper thinker and much more sensible about life and its purposes and responsibilities than a superficial reading of his poems might suggest. The letters help attune us to the moral and intellectual dimensions of his poems that it's possible to overlook if we're caught up in their rich imagery and music.

Keats was remarkable, especially considering how young he was and the short time span during which he wrote his greatest poetry. As many of you will know, he died at age 25.

Speaking of "Ode to a Nightingale," my wife has just brought to my attention a beautiful Youtube video created by our friend Dia Darcy, with the poem read by our nephew Brian Sabey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mal6mjldk

Some thoughts from London

2010-05-30T10:36:00.002-06:00

It's been some months since I've blogged. Two things are now prompting me in the blog direction: the fact that I'm now in London with my family, having lots of amazing adventures, and the fact that I had some thoughts today--not so directly related to London--that I want to share.

The thoughts: We--my wife Margaret, my son Michael, and I--attended church today at the Hyde Park Ward in London. The sermons (i.e., sacrament meeting talks) were good, thought provoking: one, by a teen-aged boy, on service; another, by a British woman, on personal purity (she helped me see the connection of purity with integrity and unselfishness and the necessity for self-discipline aided by divine power); the third talk, by Roger Macfarlane, our Study Abroad program director, on several related topics--receiving the Holy Ghost, rejoicing and experiencing a change of heart NOW as we have in the past, seeking to move steadily and even seamlessly from each step in our progress to the next, the needed course corrections (aka repentance), and finally the need for patience, which, when deeply understood, turns out to be essentially synonymous with faith (and, I would add, with hope and with diligence).

But it was in Sunday School that I was really touched and softened. The class was taught by a wonderful African woman. The topic was mainly the book of Ruth. (During the class I remembered lines from Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale," a poem I just read and taught two days ago: "Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path / Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, / She stood in tears amid the alien corn.") Interwoven with the discussion of Ruth and Naomi and Boaz today were questions about our own willingness to leave the familiar for the unknown, our bonds with others, our gratitude.

For some reason, in the course of the discussion I thought about my parents, both gone from this world for over a year now, my mother for almost two years. I thought about them, with their flaws, of course, but my thoughts were mainly about how they had devoted themselves to me (and my siblings), teaching us the gospel, seeking to prepare us for life, caring for us.

Scenes from my childhood went vividly through my mind--times at the dinner table, other times at home. In a way, it was like a vision, or a re-vision. I've had mixed feelings about my childhood, remembering the rough patches and imperfections as well as the good times. But it's as if I saw things anew today, more truly, more fully and deeply, not really with the flaws removed but with them receding to their proper place in the whole picture so that the true essence prevailed: the devotion, the love, the sacrifice, the offering of heart and time and effort that blessed me day after day and year after year. I felt a strong sense of who my parents are--of their goodness, of the cries from the heart and the quieter yearnings that revealed their deepest desires: that there be love in our family, that their children be happy and good.

That feeling has remained with me through the day today. I guess these are appropriate feelings for Memorial Day weekend--interesting because I had forgotten that Monday is Memorial Day until I read an e-mail from a relative this afternoon, well after returning from church, commenting on the upcoming day. Remember, I'm in England, and we won't be taking the day off on Monday or visiting the grave sites of my parents or of my sisters or other departed relatives. But I'll be visiting them, as I've visited today, in thought.

I've been blogging more than you know . . .

2009-08-20T18:57:00.005-06:00

It dawned on me that, despite my infrequent posting here at "The Face of the Other," I've actually been doing a fair amount of blogging. Mostly it's been at another of my blogs: http://secret-memo.blogspot.com. I started that blog originally with the idea of writing something before last November's election but only to be read by others after the election. (Hence the "secret memo" title.) But despite a couple of political comments, actually posted after the election, I've mainly used "Secret Memo" as a place to put random posts that I may or may not want everyone to read.

So I'm finally going to open the doors on this secretive corner of my blog life and list some of my recent posts there:

"The Conspiracy Theory Mentality" (check it out and see--if you dare!)

"False Claim about ACLU" (this copies an e-mail I wrote to a friend who wanted me to pass along an e-mail he had gotten about some terrible things the ACLU supposedly wanted to do)

"Instruments of the Lord's Peace" (actually an LDS General Conference talk that I like to refer people to--one of the best discussions of the topic I've ever seen, by the way)

"Heaven and Hell" (copy of a comment I put on a blog post at "Times and Seasons": I discuss, briefly and with quotations from C. S. Lewis, why there's a hell, whether it's eternal, whether redemption from hell is possible, what essentially life in heaven and hell might mean, whether heaven includes or allows for association with friends and family, and how different heaven might be from life as we know it here--remember, I said "briefly")

"A comment on biblical criticism" (copy of my comment on a blog post written by a very nice evangelical Christian, who happens to be married to a Mormon--her blog post is actually a paper she wrote for a class at BYU)

"Politics--where do I fit on the spectrum" (musings provoked by an exchange with a relative of mine on facebook--proving that everything eventually ends up where it started)

"TWILIGHT: The short version" (one of my favorites--this is a brilliant and hilarious satire written by Eric Snider)

In addition, you'll find lots of earlier posts at "Secret Memo" on such subjects as my sister Lynda; President Obama's birth certificate; evolution and the LDS Church; things to see in Oxford, England; excerpts from the e-mails I wrote home while in England during the summer of 2008; and the flubbing of the oath of office at the presidential inauguration.

Click and enjoy!

Books I've read lately

2009-06-04T16:15:00.004-06:00

My wife's been noting that I haven't posted anything lately on my blog. So here's an attempt to give her--and anyone else interested--something fresh to read. And I mean not just what I've posted here, but the books I've posted about.

On the Road With Joseph Smith: An Author's Diary by Richard L. Bushman

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
A short but fascinating book by an eminent historian (Bancroft prizewinner, emeritus Columbia University professor--also was my stake president when I first went to Harvard). It's mainly in the form of a diary he wrote after the publication of Rough Stone Rolling, his biography of Joseph Smith. The diary is not so much about his writing of the biography, though he does reflect some on that, as it is about the aftermath--book tours, lectures, his reactions to reviews in the New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. But most of all it's a reflection--wise, profound, stimulating--about how a scholarly attempt to be "objective" and at the same time true to one's deepest convictions runs up against ingrained preconceptions in one's readers. People, including academics, writers, and book reviewers, who pride themselves on their fidelity to "objective truth" can be among the most rigid in refusing to consider possible realities that don't fit within their paradigms.

What I loved best about this book, though, was Bushman's candor and humility. He comes across as absolutely human, talking about his moods, his questions and beliefs, and his struggles to be honest, spiritually receptive, and good (I love his daily mantra: "Today I will be a follower of Jesus Christ").

The diary also amounts to a kind of survey of the religious/intellectual landscape of early 21st-century America. There are references to Bushman's interactions with all sorts of individuals and institutions--various universities (from Columbia to MIT to Notre Dame to BYU to Stanford), scholarly organizations, radio and Internet interviewers, publishers, newspapers and magazines (from Newsweek to the Christian Science Monitor), the Library of Congress, LDS General Authorities, and religious and non-religious folks of various stripes (including an eminent evangelical scholar, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and non-believers). In the course of almost a year he spent writing the diary, he traveled (from his base in New York City) to Utah, California, Idaho, Washington state, Wyoming, Montana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, New Jersey, and elsewhere.

Among the many others mentioned are people that I (or in some cases my wife) know--Jim Lucas (a former roommate), Bushman's wife and kids, Curt Bench (a bookseller), Molly Bennion, Newell Bringhurst, Grant Underwood, Ariel Bybee, Jana Riess, Marlin K. Jensen, Jeffrey R. Holland, Clayton Christiansen, Terryl Givens, the Frandsens (of La Canada, CA), Marcus Smith (with KBYU-FM), Cory Maxwell, Robert L. Millet, Jeff Needle, Hugh Nibley, Cherry and Barnard Silver, Andrew Delbanco (who was at Harvard when I was there), and indirectly Walter Jackson Bate (I was his assistant--Bushman refers to his biography of Samuel Johnson as a model). Those personal connections were an added bonus in a book that, even without those, would have been one of the most humane and thought provoking I've read in some time.

P.S.: You can find the book's concluding comment online at http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/cp/vol-07/no-01/author/.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I just finished this book, which was recommended by my son Rob. It's a remarkable book, well written, imaginative, deeply thought provoking. Though often classified as science fiction, it really transcends that genre. The term "speculative fiction" works better: the book imagines a post-apocalyptic future in three stages, but with recurring themes and symbols. Besides presenting, often with subtle humor and biting irony, a number of striking characters and incidents, the book is drenched with philosophical, ethical, and religious implications, and comments (through the events and the characters) on science, technology, politics, history, and lots of other things. The author skillfully depicts individual stories but sets them in a large-scale global and historical context so that the drama involves the fate of civilizations and even of humanity, as well as of individuals.

For me, the author's apparent point of view became a little too obvious near the end, but for the most part the ideas in the book are dramatized, not preached, allowing readers to grapple with the ideas without feeling pressured toward a particular conclusion. Another intriguing thing about the book, from my point of view, is that it begins with a character named "Brother Francis Gerard of Utah" (I live in Utah), associated with a monastery which seeks to preserve learning after a period of nuclear destruction and subsequent social chaos. I look forward to the sequel Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, which apparently further explores events taking place between parts 2 and 3 of the earlier book.

View all my reviews.

One year ago today: My sister Lynda's death

2009-04-07T08:35:00.003-06:00

My youngest sister, Lynda Young Tuckett, died on April 7, 2008, making this the first anniversary of her death. Her daughter Aubriana posted the following on facebook yesterday: "In honor of my mother, who died one year ago from tomorrow, April 7th, I am going to be wearing church clothes all day to remember her and what an amazing example she is. Anyone who would like to do the same is welcome to." My wife and I have decided to follow her example.

For more about Lynda, see
>http://faceofother.blogspot.com/2008/07/lynda-young-tuckett.html (thoughts and feelings),
>http://secret-memo.blogspot.com/2009/01/lynda-young-tuckett-retrospective-in.html (photos), and
>http://secret-memo.blogspot.com/2009/04/lynda-young-tuckett-on-first.html (her obituary, written by her husband Joe; also found at http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/lynda-young-tuckett-obituary.doc).

Daren Curtis Young, March 10, 1922-March 27, 2009

2009-03-27T17:58:00.010-06:00

Despite the loss of my baby sister and my mother last year, my father held on strong for several months. (See "Lynda Young Tuckett" and "Ruth Wilson Young" below.) These losses hit him hard, and he was lonely especially after the loss of his wife, but his health seemed good. He was able to take care of himself and to participate in activities at Cove Point Retirement Community, where he was "mayor." And he seemed in reasonably good spirits, except for the loneliness. But I'm sure it was more challenging than I had realized.

He began to noticeably decline sometime in December. In January, my brother Daren and I tried to figure out if the problem was depression and if Dad was taking all of his pills. (It appeared he was, despite eyesight challenges that made it impossible for him to read the labels.) We had a get together when Larry visited during January. Dad was there but seemed very tired, not very sociable. Looking back, it's pretty clear the problems were really physical. He was scheduled to have blood drawn and had a doctor's appointment in May. I called to have that moved up, but the soonest we could get was in March.

Then on February 5, I got a call from Cove Point saying that Dad had collapsed when coming in from a ride in the van. He had gone to the doctor's to have his blood drawn. The trip had worn him out apparently. He was so pale and unresponsive they had called paramedics. I met them there and then met them at the emergency room, where they took him.

[more coming . . . in summary: Dad was admitted to the hospital, spent a couple of weeks there; then Orem Nursing and Rehabilitation for a couple of weeks; then Cove Point, but within a few days it was clear he wasn't up to it--plus the doctor's appointment that finally took place revealed that his kidneys were shutting down. He went to the hospital again, where we faced the fact that he wouldn't be getting better; all the siblings came at one point or another, or several points; other relatives visited. Dad was finally admitted to a hospice in Salt Lake; I had several visits with him there; Daren and Steven spent LOTS of time there.]

About 2:16 p.m. on Friday, March 27, my brother Daren called and told me Dad had died about 5 minutes before. He later told me about his last day with Dad. [more later]

Links:

the obituary--Walker Mortuary: http://www.meaningfulfunerals.net/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=348782&fh_id=10575
Provo Daily Herald: http://ads.heraldextra.com/articles/2009/04/01/obituaries/340919.txt --or if those go out of date, try http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/Daren-Curtis-Young-obituary.doc

"guest book" comments on the obituary: http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/guest-book&comments-daren-c-young.doc

the funeral program: http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/Young_program-Daren_C.pdf

slide show (with musical accompaniment) showing photos of Daren from childhood onward: http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/YoungDaren0409.wmv (you can either left click and wait for the slide show to load, or you can right lick and "save target as" a file on your computer)

my talk at the funeral: http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/funeral-talk-daren-c-young(full).doc

my brother Daren's talk: http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/daren-talk-for-dads-funeral.doc

(talks from my other siblings will be available soon--I hope)

Inaugural festivities with the Youngs

2009-02-10T10:38:00.011-07:00

I'll expand this later, adding some more photos, for instance, but wanted to be sure to get this picture up: a photo of Margaret and me at an inaugural ball--right here in Provo, Utah. About 200 attended.

It was on a Monday evening, the night before the inauguration, and included lots of the glitterati (?) of Provo. Actually, it included lots of good, ordinary folks, but we dressed up for the occasion. It was held at a cafe on University Avenue in Provo, with the tables moved out for the occasion so more people could fit. But it was still VERY crowded. (Besides all the revelers, there was a band--old big band style--with about a dozen members, playing away and making it hard to hear.) Luckily, two other spots near the cafe, including an art gallery, were opened up so we could take breaks in quieter and less crowded settings.

Everyone who wanted was able to have their picture taken with Barack (soon to be President Obama). We also had a toast, with sparkling non-alcoholic something or other. The organizer, Stirling Adams, offered the toast, which you can read by clicking here: inaugural toast.

The next day, Margaret and I were moved and sobered to witness the inaugration of a new president. Margaret viewed it at a gathering at Calvary Baptist Church. I viewed and listened on TV and the Internet in my office. At some point, I'll add some links to pictures of the inaugration, the text of the new president's speech, and thoughts I had--thoughts related to my country, the world, my extended family, my faith, and lots of other things. I had recorded the inauguration and associated events. Over the next few weeks, Margaret and I watched and rewatched many parts of the events. Once again, taking part in these historic events was a profoundly stirring, inspiring, and sobering experience. (And there were some lighter moments, too--on which I'll also comment.)

Reactions from LDS Church leaders:
http://www.mormontimes.com/around_church/general_authority/?id=5918
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-leaders-attend-president-obama-s-inauguration
Inaugural address:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/20/obama.politics/index.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28751183/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/obama_inauguration/7840646.stm
Photos: http://www.npr.org/multimedia/2009/01/inauguration_swearing_in/index.html/
My comments on the oath of office: http://secret-memo.blogspot.com/2009/01/stumbling-on-oath-of-office.html
The famous birth certificate: http://secret-memo.blogspot.com/2009/02/president-obamas-birth-certificate.html

Didn't I go to England last summer?

2009-02-02T10:39:00.012-07:00

I've been looking through my posts of the last few months and am surprised to find that I don't even seem to have mentioned my trip (July 22-August 2, 2008) to England. It was a memorable visit. But I guess with so many memorable--and challenging--things happening during 2008, I never got around to mentioning the trip to England.

At some point I'll maybe add pictures of Oxford's gleaming spires or of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. (Note: Now added!) Just the briefest of summaries right now. I'll probably attach excerpts from the e-mails I sent home as comments.

I stayed in London, at a bed and breakfast; visited various sites in Oxford (including Blackwell's bookstore, the Ashmolean Museum, Keble College, St. Mary the Virgin Church, and, as part of a walking tour, various Inklings related sites); saw three plays in Oxford (Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and Much Ado), one in Stratford (Hamlet), and two in London (Timon of Athens and Merry Wives); visited sites in Stratford and had "tea" with Helen Hargest (a librarian there); went to various spots in London (including the Globe Theatre, Westminster Abbey, the National Portrait Gallery, and an Indian restaurant, "Masala Zone"--also ran into Chris Clark, a friend who teaches at Utah Valley University); saw old friends and made new ones at church in Oxford; and attended a C. S. Lewis conference in Oxford (lots of good presentations and interesting people, including Francis Collins, with whom I chatted briefly). At the conference, I presented a paper titled "Self and Other in Lewis and Levinas."

Here's a link to the LONG version of my account of my trip to England: http://secret-memo.blogspot.com/2009/02/england-july-22-august-2-2008.html

A time of transitions

2009-01-03T11:10:00.023-07:00

I admit it's been difficult to add a new post, not only because I've been busy (as usual), but because I've enjoyed knowing I could go to my blog and see first thing a picture of the beautiful Obama family. But time passes, and newer memories need to take their place alongside older ones.

The present is a brief list of some of what has happened over the past two months.

In mid-November Margaret went to yet another film festival (this one in St. George); later in the month we had birthday celebrations for Kaila and Julie; Julie started a new job with the "kid's club" at 24 Hour Fitness gym; and we got a new cell phone family plan, which means that Misha and I now have cell phones of our own. We had a delightful Thanksgiving, combining traditional foods with some Greek dishes that Julie prepared.

In early December I had my C. S. Lewis class over to see the movie Shadowlands (I do this just about every year); and on December 14, we had a Young family party, allowing all of us in Utah (my family, the Tucketts, the Lifferths, Daren and Steve, and Grandpa Young) to spend time together and giving Grandpa Young a chance to see his Lifferth great-grandchildren before they moved. As the month proceeded, Fall Semester came to an end, and we had a wonderful Christmas, visiting with family, sharing gifts (including the very popular "Guitar Hero"), and remembering the glorious truths that the holiday commemorates. (In the photo to the left, Misha, Julie, and Rob line up outside our bedroom door, youngest to oldest--as is our tradition--to find their stockings and presents surrounding our fireplace.)

Christmas offered a brief break in the arduous grading process I have to finish up every semester. On the very day I turned in grades (December 30), my first copies of the book I've been working on for years arrived. (See the blog on "Finishing my book" below.) Besides the milestone of my book's publication (Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare--they've actually given it a 2009 copyright date), the last couple of months also mark the completion of a further stage of Margaret's documentary (Nobody Know: The Untold Story of Black Mormons)--special features for the DVD. Margaret and those she's working with (mainly Darius Gray and Jim Hughes) are hoping to release the DVD soon, and they've been working on having the documentary broadcast.

Two more major transitions took place before the end of the year. On December 28, Margaret and I were moved to a different branch at the MTC (Branch 45, also French-speaking)--a move that proved to be more difficult for us than we had anticipated because of our strong attachment to the missionaries we've been working with. But we're beginning to bond with the missionaries in our new branch and look forward to enjoying the new branch as much as we have the old one. Finally, on December 31, Kaila and her family moved to Indiana. I had the honor of picking them up at 5am and taking them to the airport. They're now staying in a hotel in Columbus, Indiana; will soon move into an apartment; and will be looking for a house.

A word on the Young family party on December 14: Besides allowing us to get together, the party turned out to be in part a commemoration of Grandma Young--my mother Ruth. Daren made chocolate chip cookies, using the recipe that we trace back to our Grandma Wilson, my mother's mother. (I plan on posting the recipe soon.) He also made the chex mix that our mother had often made for family events. And I brought a picture of her (along with her reminiscences of teaching at BY High) that I had gotten from a BY High web site. (I found a photo too--copied below--at a related site.)

As we noted at the beginning of our yearly Christmas quiz, this has been a year of "hard exits, joyous entrances, and many transitions. We grieved the passing of Bruce's baby sister, Lynda, in April, and of his mother, Ruth, in July. Only six and a half weeks after Ruth died, we welcomed our third grandbaby into the world--Oliver Wallace Lifferth." And now we have to deal with the fact that the Lifferths--Kaila and family--are many miles and many hours away in Indiana. Though I find all of these changes and separations difficult, I believe what I've often said about this sort of thing (elaborating on an idea I picked up from Arthur Henry King): these things must be part of the plan; for one thing, if it were not for these separations, we maybe wouldn't realize how much we love each other, how deeply connected we are.

For our year-in-review Christmas quiz, see http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/christmas2008.htm--where you can take the quiz and have it automatically scored!

Our election night party

2008-11-05T11:40:00.022-07:00

Election day was exciting for all sorts of reasons. Margaret and I and our son Rob had all voted early. Another family member (who had been uncertain who to vote for) dreamt the night before that Obama was elected and woke up feeling happy. That evening, while Margaret was preparing for a family party, I took our daughter Julie to vote for the first time. I think I was more excited than she was.

In honor of Barack Obama, Margaret brought together food representing places he has lived or has significant connections with: she made pineapple upside down cake (in honor of Hawaii), Boston baked beans (to suggest the Harvard connection), picked up something close to deep dish pizza (for Chicago), and got naan--flat bread--from Bombay House because it's probably something like what they eat in Kenya. Kaila made and brought some Thai soup, which is almost sort of like something they might eat in Indonesia (maybe?). I guess we should have come up with something from Kansas too. And I really think something from Arizona would have been nice, in honor of John McCain. We had at least one McCain voter at the party.

By the time I left for devotional at the Missionary Training Center, Pennsylvania had been called for Obama, a major step toward winning. I enjoyed devotional and then went to the classroom area to greet the missionaries and other branch presidency members. But since the district I would normally have met with had left for the field that morning, President Robinson suggested that I could head for home if I wanted. I took him up on the suggestion. News I heard on the radio while driving indicated results were continuing to trend toward Obama. I reached home around 8:30, dug into the food again, and started coloring in one of the electoral maps Margaret had provided. By this time Margaret, Julie, Misha, Rob, Stephanie, and Kaila and Noah and kids (Gabby, Alex, and Oliver) were there.

It was becoming clear that Obama was going to win the electoral vote. By this time Ohio had gone for him too, and as I had announced earlier in the evening, Pennsylvania plus any one of several swing states--Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, or Florida--would probably clinch it for him. The TV stations declared it for Obama immediately after 9pm our time--just after the west coast states closed their polls. (For video of the moment, click here.) What the stations then showed were scenes around the country--even some around the world--with people reacting to Obama's victory with smiles, cheers, and tears. It was clear that we were witnessing history. And we had taken part in the making of that history.

We then listened to McCain's gracious concession speech in which--having to subdue the booing of the crowd when he mentioned Obama--he paid tribute to his opponent, offered his help and good wishes, and expressed his love for his country. I've often seen people show their best side in defeat. In this case, I believe McCain showed evidence of true greatness.

And then we listened to Obama's speech--serious, eloquent, moving, inspiring, generous, hopeful. We all felt grateful to live in a country where this kind of thing can happen. I'm sure people will begin wrangling again soon, but it felt--it still feels--as if there is a genuine possibility that Americans can work together with goodwill to solve problems. There is even hope on a global scale that we can recognize our kinship and interdependence and spend more time helping and learning from each other and less time fearing and destroying.

Photos from our party: (1) Top: Margaret, Misha, Bruce, Julie, Rob, Stephanie; (2) Middle row left: Rob; (3) Middle row middle: Stephanie and Julie; (4) Middle row right: Bruce; (5) Bottom row left: Gabby; (6) Bottom row middle: Gabby and Julie (and Barack); (7) Bottom row right: Stephanie and Rob. (For more photos see "Election party photos.")

Politics, etc. (with less than two weeks till election day!)

2008-10-22T16:33:00.003-06:00

I've had to put in work on my political blog at odd moments over the past months. It's finally more or less complete. If you're interested, go to http://bruceyoung-election2008.blogspot.com.

Recent events (October 2008)

2008-10-22T16:28:00.004-06:00

When I get a chance I'll say more here about recent events, including Margaret's trip to Wyoming, more work related to my book, a retreat at Aspen Grove sponsored by the Mormon Arts Foundation, and a presentation (by Margaret and me) on The Painted Veil at BYU's International Cinema. Stay tuned . . .

Ruth Wilson Young, April 15, 1923-July 5, 2008

2008-09-07T20:16:00.012-06:00

Besides losing my sister Lynda (see "Lynda Young Tuckett" below), I lost my mother this year--Ruth Wilson Young, a remarkable woman. She was the youngest child in a large family and, for most of her life, was raised by a single mother. Her father, Alfred Raymond Wilson, died when she was four. After that, her mother, Emma Jane Bingham Wilson, also a remarkable woman, raised the large brood on her own, among other things working as a newspaper reporter. Ruth helped with the reporting work at times. My cousin Grace told me that sometimes when my mother--as a teenager, I believe--was taking care of her and both were ready for bed, a phone call would come and Ruth would say, "Get dressed. We have to go cover a fire" (to pick one example).

Ruth earned degrees at BYU (a bachelor's and, in the 1960s, an Ed.D) and Colorado State (a master's). She taught at BYU for several years as a part-time teacher in Home Economics Education--though in reality she put in full-time hours, for instance, driving to various parts of the state to supervise student teachers.

Of course, I knew her best as my mother--and as one of the most powerful influences in my life. For instance, she introduced me to literature, and my love for literature was probably first inspired by hers. She was the mother to six (I'm the oldest). She also served in her community and church. But all of that you can learn more about in the obituary and the talks given at her funeral. (Here are the links: (1) obituary; (2) my talk; (3) my sister Annette's talk; (4) my brother Larry's talk; (5) my brother Daren's talk. Also, (6) the funeral program.)

Here I'll say a bit more about the events leading up to her death--with maybe just a bit after that on the funeral.

For years, especially after being hit by a truck in 1987, she has suffered from pain and from sleeping problems. But things got worse recently, especially after Lynda's death. Though Mom appeared stoic in her response to losing another daughter, Lynda's death probably hit her quite hard. She was suffering from what appeared to be depression. I took her to the doctor's, where she was prescribed a couple of medications to help with the pain and the sleep issues. They didn't help much. I then got her doctor to prescribe something for depression. (By the way, I did much of this with the strong encouragement of my brothers, who don't live as close as I do, but who are wiser and more attentive in many ways.) She was staying in bed most of the time and having difficulty taking care of herself. My brother Larry, who lives in Washington state, came down on June 16, I believe, and a day or two after that had my brother Daren and me meet with him and a medical person at Cove Point retirement center (where Mom and Dad were staying) to assess the situation. We decided that she needed to go the hospital.

She was hospitalized from that point on. It turns out she was in worse shape even than we had realized, especially with breathing problems. Larry spent time with her and with Dad that week. Daren also came down to spend time with them. I soon began visiting daily. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to spend lots of time for a couple of weeks. About two weeks before she entered the hospital, I had been given June 23 as a deadline to get my book manuscript in to the publisher. I managed to get everything but one chapter in on that date. The remaining chapter came in on June 30. The memory of being torn between these two duties--getting the book project finished and spending time with my mother--is still painful. But it's painful not so much because I wasn't able to spend a lot of time with her during part of her time in the hospital--I did end up visiting her daily for most of the time she was there, and after the book was in, the visits were longer. My main regret is that I hadn't spent more time with her before she entered the hospital. I kept in touch frequently and visited periodically. But I had always had it in my mind that we would have long talks; I would learn more about her life; I would get closer to her and make sure she knew of my love and gratitude. By the time she entered the hospital, it was hard to have conversations with her. And it became almost impossible after they started trying to work with her breathing problems. She had an oxygen mask on much of the time, usually a full face mask that made it hard for her to communicate and hard for anyone else to understand her. Little fragments of communication were drawn out.

I did, though, manage to repeatedly express my love for her, by saying the words but also by holding her hand. I showed her the cover for my book; I told her the book was dedicated to her and Dad; I even printed up a copy and left it with her, hoping she would recover and be able to read it. I think I may have left it on July 4 or at most a day or two earlier than that.

I visited on July 4, in the evening. She seemed in good spirits. Her room had a nice view of the stadium where the fireworks show would take place later that night. She wanted to see it. I asked a nurse to check later and see if she was awake for the show. My mother said things that showed she was a bit disoriented but that touched me because they showed she was thinking of me and my family. She asked how my son Rob was doing and if he was enjoying school. She also asked about my work--was another semester starting, etc.

My Dad and I visited with her the next morning. She seemed tired and so we didn't stay long. Then that afternoon--I think some time around 2 or 3--my brother Larry called and said, "Mom has died." It felt as if I'd been slugged in the stomach. I had known it was a possibility, and we had been worried that her recovery seemed to be taking so long. But she had seemed to be making progress in many ways, and I really was looking forward to having her be back in a state that would allow me to do more things with her and spend more time talking with her.

Larry suggested that I should tell Dad in person. Margaret and I went to Cove Point, found him playing bingo. I got him to come out in the hall with me and told him Mom had died. He almost collapsed. He was in pain, saying he'd always thought he would go first. Margaret and I spent some time with him. Then Daren and Steve Fisher came down, went to the hospital with Margaret to collect Mom's things and be there when the mortuary folks arrived.

For the next several days we went through quite an intense time of being with each other as family and working with the mortuary on funeral and burial plans. The funeral took place on July 10. It was a truly beautiful funeral, just about exactly an hour long (which Mom had requested). We followed her plans pretty closely, but with a few modifications (maybe even improvements). Everything went almost perfectly; there was a wonderful spirit through all the events--viewing, funeral, burial, luncheon. Lots of family and friends came. We have a loving extended family, many of whom felt very, very close to Ruth. Besides the talks (see the links above), here are links to some of the comments people sent: "Guest book, part 1"; "Guest book, part 2."

I'll conclude with a bit of my talk (you can find the whole thing here):

I miss my Mom. I miss her beautiful smile; the joy you can see in some of the pictures we have of her. (It was difficult for her to smile the last while; we had to ask her to smile; and it took some effort.)

Like all of us, she wanted to be loved. I hope she knows she was deeply, deeply loved. My Dad especially showed that love by his tender care for her in her last weeks.

My biggest ache as she struggled the last few weeks was that I wanted to hear her talk (I would have been happy hearing her talk for hours). But I realize now that I also want to hold her hand, and embrace her. The apostle Paul wrote that, if Christ was not resurrected, we (who believe in him) are of all men, most miserable. I have sometimes wondered why the resurrection is such an important doctrine of the gospel. Some of us enjoy talking and thinking so much that we can imagine that life as a disembodied spirit might not be all that bad. But the scriptures tell us that in reality, we would consider the lack of a physical body a limitation, even a kind of bondage; for "spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fullness of joy; and when separated, [we] cannot receive a fullness of joy" (D&C 93:33-34).

As I've lost two sisters and now my mother, I've realized one reason the resurrection of the body is so important. I don't just want to talk with my sisters and my mother again--I want to see them in their full physical warmth and reality, and embrace them, and feel the bond of love we share not just mentally, but spiritually and physically.

This loss has been very hard for us. But we have also felt peace as we've realized that our mother is now with two precious daughters, with her mother, and with the father that she hardly knew (since he died when she was a small child). She was also the last of her siblings to go, and so she has completed that family circle. I am sure there have been and continue to be sweet reunions.

I am grateful for a loving heavenly Father who has placed us in families where we can feel what we feel for each other, and learn to love and serve and care for each other; and I am grateful to our Savior Jesus Christ for giving us the hope of redemption and resurrection, and of an eternal reunion with those our hearts have become so strongly connected with.

Thank you, mother, for your wonderful gifts and for your magnificent life.

Finishing my book

2008-07-30T14:11:00.015-06:00

Some readers will thrill at the title of this post--and maybe add a deep sigh of relief. People ask me, "How long have you been working on this book?" That depends on what you mean. If you mean this particular book, it's been something like 22 months. But I've been doing related work for much of my life. I must have hit upon the topic of family life in Shakespeare almost 30 years ago. It was the topic of my doctoral thesis at Harvard, finished in 1983. I proceeded to research aspects of the topic more deeply, especially parental blessings in the plays and in daily life of the time--publishing a couple of articles on that subject in 1992. I had become aware at some point in the 1980s that Shakespearean studies had undergone a profound change, affected by the new streams of critical theory, including feminism, new historicism, and poststructuralism, and the changes required me to rethink my work and find ways to communicate what I had to say. I presented frequently at Shakespeare Association of America meetings on topics related to gender and family life, incorporated the topics into several of the classes I taught, published additional articles, and worked year after year on a book on the subject--finally completing it in March of 2002 (I remember because of the Olympics) and sending it to Routledge, a publishing house that had agreed to review the manuscript. Nine months later they returned it with reports from two readers, both of whom had some criticisms, but with one recommending publication and the other recommending against it. A split decision like this almost always means a "No" from the publisher, and so it was in this case.

But then, in August (I think) of 2006, I received an e-mail from an editor at Greenwood Press inviting me to write a book to be titled Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare. I was hesitant since it would mean writing a book somewhat different from the one I had already completed. But the editor said somebody was going to write it and suggested that if I undertook the project, I'd have more control over maintaining a distinction between the two books. So I agreed to do it.

The project was much more arduous than I had anticipated. Chapter 1 is on "Background"--i.e., family life from ancient times through the Middle Ages, not just in England but in the various cultures (Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Christian) that helped shape family life in the Western world through that period. I've spent so much time criticizing others who have more or less made up their account of family life in the past (or at least generalized from inadequate evidence) that I felt I really needed to know the subject. And so I gave myself an education--which took a lot of time and effort, even with time off from teaching the first part of 2007. Chapter 2 ("Family Life in Shakespeare's World") was easier to write since I had really already done the research for this topic and mainly had to reshape what I had written before, fill in some holes, etc. Then I went to England in July 2007 and did intensive research for Chapter 4 ("Family in Shakespearean Performance"). I spent time at the Shakespeare Centre Library in Stratford and the British Film Institute in London and got to know about 80 productions (mainly by skimming through film and TV versions and through videotapes of Royal Shakespeare Company performances over the past 20 years). I also went to some live performances in Stratford and London, including a wonderful Merchant of Venice at the reconstructed Globe Theatre. Back in America, I wrote the chapter.

With teaching (Fall Semester 2007), a calling at the MTC, and other responsibilities, I found it very difficult to make progress quickly, even with many evenings at my office. With my wife's encouragement, starting in October, I was often in my office on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings--but with some Wednesday evenings devoted to welcoming new missionaries to the MTC and all Tuesday evenings taken up with MTC devotional and district meetings. One thing we learned is that it really is better for me to spend more time at home--despite the fact that three of our kids are supposedly on their own and one is sixteen and reasonably independent. Spending so much time in my office was unspeakably dreary for me, but it was also more of a strain on Margaret and even the kids than I realized.

A further complication came when I realized--in November, I think--that the publisher expected me not only to select the illustrations for the book but to obtain high resolution electronic images of them and the rights to use them. That meant many hours of searching, deciding, communicating, and negotiating with lots of interesting people and institutions, including a theater producer in India, a photographer in London, the Bodleian Library, the Huntington Library, the Pepys Library at Magdalene College (Cambridge University), the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Shakespeare Centre Library in Stratford, and several agencies that handle rights and reproductions for illustrations. (This is not by any means a complete list.) Anyway, this process along with bouts of discouragement stalled me further, into Winter Semester 2008. At some point that semester, my son Rob helped pull me out of the doldrums by agreeing to let me report to him regularly by e-mail on my progress and also by cheerfully encouraging me.

An original deadline of October 2007 had been extended to December and then March. By May or early June I had pretty much completed everything except chapters 3 and 5--and that included not only the chapters already mentioned but a glossary, a comprehensive bibliography, and a section of primary documents that amounted to over 100 double spaced pages of excerpts from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century sources, each preceded by an explanatory headnote. With these last three items especially, I had the invaluable help of a couple of research assistants. One of them, for instance, typed up the "primary documents" that I had selected in modernized form. I meanwhile had written the headnotes and then read through what she had typed up to catch any errors and to add "explanatory glosses" (explanations of words and phrases that modern readers might not understand). There were lots of other tasks, including finding and checking sources, proofreading, and revising, with tasks I could delegate done by the assistants but much done and all organized and supervised by me. I don't know if my description adequately conveys the work involved in all of this. But it was tough--especially since I was also teaching Spring Term (mostly May-June 2008).

Then an interesting thing happened. I decided I'd better check in with the editor. I think that was very early in June. He replied that he had wondered what I was up to and said he really needed to have me submit a complete manuscript by June 23--approximately three weeks away. Oh, oh. That three week period also included the end of Spring Term (luckily I had a TA to help me--explicitly because doing everything myself plus finishing a book would have been near impossible), giving grades, and--taking a trip to San Francisco. Margaret and I had already decided on that trip; tickets had been bought. As detailed in a previous post (below), the trip may in fact have been a life saver, preserving my sanity and reviving my energy and spirits. And I did lots of work during the trip. Once back in Provo, I redoubled my efforts, finished chapter 3 and most of the fine tuning on the other materials already written, and got everything except chapter 5 sent to the editor on June 23. (I sent slightly improved versions of some of the items a few days later.) Chapter 5 followed on June 30. There were celebrations!

That doesn't mean all the work is done. I still need to prepare an index, but that's not due till September. Also, I'll need to go through the copyedited files I'll be sent in August, and after that I'll need to review the page proofs. A research assistant and I have been checking back through everything for errors and problems. And I want to improve a few parts of the book. But the project is ALMOST finished. The book is due to come out in December.

It may have been on June 30--if not, a day before or after--that I decided to do a Google search on my book title. I found that the publisher had already been marketing it for some time. (That was the main reason I needed to get the manuscript in--so it could be published before the end of this year.) That Google search was the first time I saw the book's cover. I had not been consulted, but I was very pleased. The cover is actually from a Dutch painting, but Dutch artists did a lot of the best work of the period, and Dutch and English domestic scenes would have looked much the same. The publisher also had given the book a description, as follows: "The particulars of family life in Shakespeare's plays are grounded in Elizabethan culture, a world foreign to contemporary students. This book helps students learn about family life in Shakespeare's world and works. It begins with a look at the classical and medieval background of family life in the Early Modern era. This is followed by a sustained discussion of family life in Shakespeare's world. The book then examines issues related to family life across a broad range of Shakespeare's works. Later chapters examine how productions of the plays have treated scenes concerning family life." Some while after--a couple of weeks ago, I think--I got a catalog from Greenwood that includes my book. I eagerly showed it to colleagues at a social gathering--something I'd normally be hesitant to do, but this had been such a burden, and I was so happy to have the burden almost completely lifted.

My next post will be about my mother's death. The coming together of the book deadline and my mother's illness was very difficult, as I'll describe in that forthcoming post. But I was able to show my mother the book cover, which I printed out using the image I had found online. And I told my mother that the book was dedicated to her and my dad. I even printed out the complete manuscript, with illustrations inserted, so she could see it, maybe even read it if she got well enough. As it turned out, I showed her that complete manuscript the day before she died. So she knew it existed; she knew it was dedicated to her and her husband; she had seen the cover. This was not fully the outcome I had hoped for, but it was at least a small mercy--because I know she was happy to know I had finished the project, and I'm sure she was proud of me, happy (as she often told me) that I was her son.

In case you're interested, here is the last part of the preface, as it currently stands (for the sake of space and emphasis, I'm including only the tribute to family): "Above all, I am grateful for my family—my parents, parents-in-law, children, and other relatives who have taken an interest in the project, and my wife, Margaret Blair Young, a brilliant but generous critic and a faithful friend. Without the encouragement, patience, and kindness she and others have provided, I could never have written this book."

A trip to the San Francisco Black Film Festival

2008-07-22T13:17:00.007-06:00

Some of you who haven't been paying attention might wonder why Margaret and I would fly to California for the San Francisco Black Film Festival. The reason of course is that Margaret helped create a documentary ("Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons") that was featured at the festival. In fact, three of us went: besides Margaret and me, Darius Gray, the other main force behind the documentary. I came along in part because we figured out that I had enough frequent flyer miles that I could basically go for free--or for no more than a $5 fee. And since I love San Francisco and love traveling with Margaret, it seemed like an obviously great thing to do.

One problem: After we had booked our tickets, I got word from my editor that my book on Shakespeare needed to be finished by June 23--about a week after our planned return from San Francisco. Margaret and I decided I should come anyway, not only because we had already used up frequent flyer miles to get my ticket, but because it might provide a welcome break from the intense effort we knew I would have to be putting in to meet the deadline.

The three of us left together on the evening of June 12 and were picked up at the San Francisco airport by Ron McClain, a remarkable man who lives with his family in Oakland. (We stayed with the McClains during our time in California.) Brother McClain has been serving as a director of Church Public Affairs; I believe he's also a temple sealer. And to round things off, once upon a time, before joining the Church, he was a Black Panther.

[See Margaret's comment on this entry for one episode I forgot to mention: running into some of our MTC missionaries at the Salt Lake Airport--on their way back from a visit to San Francisco to get visas.]

Friday, June 13, Margaret and I took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into San Francisco and walked about 7 or 8 miles seeing the sights. It was a lovely day--sunny (I got a bit sunburnt) but not too hot. Most of the neighborhoods we walked through were beautiful, with lots of flowers (including bouganvillea). We started by dropping a copy of the documentary off at the Museum of the African Diaspora, where it would be shown the following day, then walked to some historic sites and museums, including a museum in the Bank of California with Kirtland Safety Society banknotes signed by Brigham Young and others and a Wells Fargo museum with lots of interesting things about stage coaches and other aspects of the old West. We walked through Chinatown, then found Portsmouth Square, now filled with Chinese men (playing mah jong, we think) but once the center of old San Francisco. The American flag was first hoisted in this square. Sam Brannan, who started the first newspaper in the city, walk down the street near here announcing the discovering of gold. Robert Louis Stevenson used to hang out in the square, and there's now a monument to him.

We continued walking to Coit Tower, a fascinating building rising from a high point in this hilly city--and also mentioned in an episode or two of the TV show Monk. I took the elevator to the top and had a magnificent view of the city. After leaving Coit Tower, we saw Lombard Street from a distance (famous for being impossible zigzaggy) and walked to Ghirardelli Square--we smelled chocolate in the air as we approached and then got free samples at the Ghirardelli factory store. We proceeded to Fisherman's Wharf, had a seafood lunch, and then continued to the pier from which a ferry departs for Alcatraz, only to find it was all booked up for the next couple of days. We ended up deciding to wait till another trip to San Francisco some day to visit Alcatraz.

Saturday was the day Margaret's documentary was shown at the film festival. While she and Darius made sure things were ready, I did a bit more sightseeing (in the Mission District), and after the showing, while they were filming an interview for "special features" when the documentary is released as a DVD, I walked up Columbus Avenue to see a couple of spots recommended by Margaret's San Francisco friend Connell (actually the very person they were interviewing). I stopped in the City Lights Bookstore, famous as the place where Allen Ginsberg read "Howl" and for other associations with the Beat writers. Then I went to XOX Truffles and bought a variety of some of the best chocolate truffles known to humankind. That evening Margaret, Darius, and I went out to dinner with Steve Evans and his wife--Steve Evans being one of the major Mormon bloggers (it would require another paragraph to explain that phenomenon).

As for the documentary itself, it was a great success, showing to a sell out crowd and followed by a question-answer period that revealed how deeply engaged the viewers had been--viewers with quite various backgrounds, some Latter-day Saints, most not, some black, some white. I made it to the museum in time to see the last part of the documentary (I've seen it in its entirety quite a number of times) and to listen to the question-answer period. I also chatted with some of those who had attended and gave a passalong card and the articles of faith to a woman who said she had been to Ghana a couple of times and had been fascinated on her most recent visit to learn that lots of people there are joining the Mormon Church. She wondered what they found so appealing and wanted to know more. I gave her the cards and suggested they would provide a way to make contact with the Church and pursue her interest. There was such a strong spirit--THE Spirit was so strong--that it didn't feel awkward or hard at all to share what I believe and feel and care about. It occurred to me later: "A perfect love casts out all fear."

A young man named Freud was in charge of the equipment and had been frustrated by some serious technical problems as things were being set up. In response to his rough edges, Darius befriended him, and he--Freud--was so impressed by the film that he asked if his wife could see it. Yes, he was told, it would be shown the next day in Oakland. Ron McClain had arranged to have it shown at the Visitor's Center of the Oakland Temple; as interest grew, it was moved to the adjacent stake center--with care taken to make clear it was not being sponsored by the Church.

On Sunday evening, a great crowd came, mostly members but also Freud and his wife, as well as a woman scheduled to be baptized within the week, as I remember. The local mission president and his wife were also there. Again, the Spirit was very strong. The question-answer period showed again how deeply engaged people were. Between the showing and the question-answer period I had noticed Freud and his wife going out to the parking lot. Afraid they were leaving, I gave Freud a hug and thanked him for coming. He said they were coming back in; they were just taking something out to their car. During the question-answer period, someone asked how the film had been received at the film festival. Margaret turned the question over to Freud, who stood in that Mormon chapel and said that it was very well received by a sell-out crowd and that they considered it "one of the gems of the festival." Bridges of understanding and love were built that weekend. It amazes me to think how quickly and how strongly bonded we felt with people we had never known before, with people very different from us, at least in superficial ways. Something deep in our common humanity had been touched.

Margaret and I had decided that it would be in my best interest to do no more sightseeing on Monday. While she went into the city to a modern art museum and other sights, I stayed at the McClains' with my laptop, working all day on my book. I had also been working on it during our flight to San Francisco and at various moments on the other days. Though arguably, the trip had cost me a day and a half I would otherwise have had to work on the book, I believe that in some ways the trip saved me. I had become so tense, so wound up, that a breakdown of some kind was a real possibility. The trip--besides being wonderful in its own right--was refreshing, renewing, gave me perspective.

P.S.: This was also the weekend that Tim Russert died. We watched some of tributes broadcast about him. We were moved by his goodness and impressed by his abilities. We felt genuine loss at his death.

Lynda Young Tuckett

2008-07-16T05:55:00.013-06:00

About ten years ago, my baby sister--Lynda Young Tuckett--was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a masectomy and treatment for the cancer, and she recovered and continued to be the delightful presence in our lives that she had been since her birth in 1962.

A couple of years ago, the cancer returned, this time in her bones (and I'm not sure where else). Again, she received treatment, much of it painful. She continued to work part time--much loved by the children and colleagues she worked with. She was a devoted mother and wife. Her husband, Joe Tuckett, had to change jobs a couple of times (partly because he's too good a person to let himself descend to the depths required for survival at a certain used car dealership in Provo--and having looked at cars there, I'm speaking from experience). He ended up with a job at the same place our son-in-law, Noah Lifferth, works. Joe and Lynda's oldest child, Steven, was on a mission in Canada when his mother's cancer returned. We are grateful he not only finished his mission and returned to see his mother but had over a year with her after his return. The other two children are daughters: Angeline (22 years old) and Aubriana (who recently turned 17). Lynda was also a devoted daughter. She and her family often visited my parents in Provo, sometimes when Lynda came here for treatments.

We have good memories of family events with the Tucketts, especially Thanksgivings at their home in Payson. We occasionally had a joint home evening with them and my parents. But we didn't spend as much time with them as I wish we had. On a Saturday in March, we had a family get together that had been delayed since December. We all met (my parents and many of their children and grandchildren) at Golden Corrall in Orem for lunch. Lynda, though still beautiful, looked distinctly worse than I had remembered. She had a hard time eating. But she had the same positive, friendly attitude she normally had. We are grateful we were able to spend that time with her and that our children were there too.

April 5 and 6 were the days of General Conference, and Margaret and I enjoyed listening to the sessions. I remember peaceful, spiritual feelings from those days. But we also heard from my parents, Saturday night, I think, that Lynda's doctor had bad news. She had had tests over the preceding week--tests she'd been worried about--and indeed the results were bad. The doctor said she had weeks and perhaps only days to live.

Margaret and I didn't want to complicate things for the Tucketts at such a difficult time, but we felt strongly that we wanted to visit, needed to visit. And though we had thought of delaying a couple of days, we felt some urgency and decided to see if we could come on Sunday. We brought my parents with us to Payson and found Lynda sitting in her living room, clearly struggling very, very badly. We sat with her and visited with each other and the Tucketts. I spent a few minutes kneeling at her side, holding her hand, and talking with her. I asked her how she was feeling, if she was in pain. It took her a moment to respond--her physical state and morphine, I believe, were slowing down her response time. She said, if I remember, "No, not pain, but . . ." I filled in, "Just kind of yucky?" A pause. "Yes." I told her I loved her. She responded, slowly, with some effort, "I love you."

The next morning we got the news that she had died. I had hoped for a few more days at least. But at least we had seen her again and been able to exchange those words that reaffirmed our connection. Lynda had died in her husband's arms. They were on a bed together, and she had started to slip off, so he had taken her in his arms to keep her steady, and she died--the morning of April 7, 2008.

Family and friends gathered, of course, for the viewings and funeral. My brother Larry gave a magnificent talk at the funeral that I will link here as soon as he sends me an electronic copy. The funeral went on just a bit too long after his talk--but I was very tired, and the extended time gave me a chance to rest. I offered the family prayer at the end of the viewing that preceded the funeral. As we said our farewells before the closing of the casket, my father seemed devastated--this was the second time he had to be parted from a daughter in this way, and he had a special bond with those daughters. (In May of 1997, my sister Nancy died of complications resulting from M.S. Like Lynda, she died at age 45.) My mother seemed stoic, though as we later learned, Lynda's death must have had a much stronger impact on her than was visible. I broke down during those last moments before the funeral. I remember sobbing as my father and I and a sibling or two held tightly onto each other.

We have marvelled at Lynda's husband Joe. Not only did he remain devoted and loving to the end--showing her constant and immovable love--but he was positive and full of faith, confident that their separation would be temporary. We know the separation must be hard and may get harder. But even now, over three months later, we continue to be impressed by his strength, faith, and cheerful good will. When Lynda died, it appeared he wanted to do anything he could to honor her and celebrate her life. Among other things, he wrote a heartfelt obituary--which I got to help a bit with as a technical editor. I felt my main job, in a way, was to make sure I didn't get in the way of the pure emotions of love and respect he wanted to express. You can--and actually you ought to--read the obituary by clicking either here (for text only in Word), here (for a JPEG version), or here (for a Word document version).

I hope others who knew Lynda will add memories and comments here--filling in details I've neglected or adding your thoughts about Lynda. (Margaret has already written two posts about Lynda, found here and here.)

For more photos, see "Lynda Young Tucket: A retrospective in photos."

Less important, but . . .

2008-07-14T20:46:00.008-06:00

I'm going to start with a brief report on the less important things I've been doing over the past few months. (Interesting that the "less important" things include my job.) Winter Semester I taught a graduate course on "Shakespeare and Religion" and an undergraduate world literature class that included some of my favorites--King Lear, Tartuffe, Faust, The Brothers Karamazov, The Waste Land, and Things Fall Apart, among many others. Spring Term I taught an undergraduate Shakespeare class, with the help of an assistant (Amanda Erdmann), who did a wonderful job. Because I was still trudging away on my book, I greatly appreciated having a TA--not something I usually have for this course.

As English Department ombudsman, I get to deal with problems involving students and their teachers. I try to help the parties resolve things or at least (I hope) not make things worse.

Shakespeare Association of America meetings were in Dallas this year. I roomed with a former student, Vernon Dickson, who is now teaching in Florida. Among the highlights were seeing two foreign Shakespearean adaptations--an Indian film titled Maqbool, giving Macbeth a modern Bombay gangster twist, and a highly transformed version of Hamlet set in medieval China. I took part in a stimulating seminar on character criticism in Shakespeare. Since the seminar leaders are trying to get a book collection published, drawing on the seminar, I have the assignment of revising my paper by August 1. If you're interested, you can look at the paper in PDF or Word format by clicking on the highlighted words in this sentence.

One of the most memorable things about the past six or seven months has been taking part in the excitement of American politics. Margaret had been a fan of Barack Obama's for some time, after reading his autobiography, Dreams from My Father. I was leaning toward Bill Richardson, partly because of his audacious but well thought out ideas for dealing with Iraq, partly because of his experience, partly because he's quite funny--or at least the video clip introducing him was. But at some point in January, I became an Obama supporter as well. Tuesday evenings became especially memorable. I stayed at my office until time to go to devotional at the Missionary Training Center (speaking of which, Margaret and I have continued to enjoy our work there with the missionaries). Depending on the time zone of a given week's primary, I might have some idea who was winning before I left for the MTC. But usually I'd find out as I drove home around 9:15 or 9:30 at night. Then Margaret and I would watch the returns on TV. Mornings were fun with "Morning Joe"--an early morning talk show that focused on the political races. The Colbert Report help liven things up with spoofs. And Margaret often watched Countdown with Keith Olbermann, who gets a bit rough but who can be entertaining too.

We didn't entirely neglect the Republicans, but of course, they wound down much earlier. I know Mitt Romney and came to his defense with a couple of postings, including one on a rather disturbing site called "Pastors4Huckabee," where a pastor explained why true Christians should never vote for a Mormon. I preferred the Mitt Romney I knew when I was in graduate school in Massachusetts--even the one who saved the Olympics. The one who presented himself as a candidate from 2007 to early 2008 had become a bit too right wing and mean-spirited for my tastes. But I still find him likable--especially when he's not being political.

I got so excited about the primaries (the Democratic ones, anyway) that I ended up making phone calls to Texas and North Carolina, posting comments on various sites, contacting a superdelegate (Deb Kozikowski in Massachusetts), and even starting a new blog (Election 2008: My Views on Issues and Candidates). I'm the chair of my local precinct (we're talking about a handful of people involved within the precinct). I was a delegate to the Utah County convention (we have an incredibly good set of candidates in Utah County--I think they could even get elected if people get to know them). I thought I was a state convention delegate and went to the convention. But it turns out someone else had been elected (I had not been able to stay for the whole meeting where state delegates were selected). I had been confused by the fact that I was receiving e-mails from a bunch of people asking me to vote for them at the convention. I apparently got on an e-mail list of state delegates. Finding myself not on the list once I got to the convention in Salt Lake was disappointing of course. But I gathered up some free political items (bumper stickers, etc.) and ran into Rod Decker, a reporter whose sister Jeanne Griffiths is a friend of mine. I reminded him that I had met him at his sister's place in Virginia many years ago (almost 20, I think), and he remembered me. Even more, he remembered an essay I had written talking about my courtship and marriage. The guy has quite a memory.

Being political has been a challenge. Since I'm no longer in a stake presidency, I felt I could finally put a bumper sticker on my car. But I was hesitant about doing it because I knew some people at the MTC might be traumatized seeing an Obama sticker in the parking lot. I didn't get to choose whether to put on a bumper sticker, though--my 16-year-old son Misha decided to put it on for me ("I thought you wanted to put it on, Dad"). I invented a way (using cardboard and dental floss) to cover the sticker while at the MTC. But I've stopped doing that since Charlotte England told me not to worry--and to be a bit braver and more gutsy.

My mother was a Hillary Clinton fan--something my wife and I were definitely not. But as it became clear that Obama was going to take the nomination, my mother became reconciled. Of course, as the political season died down and she became seriously ill, politics became much less important to us.

One more recent event of interest: BYU's radio station--KBYU-FM--has a wonderful program started by Marcus Smith and titled "Thinking Aloud." Marcus invited Steve Walker (another English Department member) and me to converse with him about C. S. Lewis. The conversation was recorded on July 3 and broadcast on July 10--at the exact time of my mother's funeral. I think my mother would have been pleased, though I hope she was listening in on the funeral rather than the radio broadcast. It was rebroadcast at 8pm that night, and Margaret and I listened to see how it sounded. You can also listen online, anytime--to download the program as a "podcast" if you go here: http://www.byub.org/podcast/ (I haven't figured out quite how it works, though). Here's an easier link (thanks to one of my readers): http://byubmp3.byu.edu/fmarchive/thinkingaloud/ta080710.mp3 If you click on this one, you can listen directly.

In a day or two, I'll try to move on to some of the more important items of the past few months.

The Past 3 1/2 Months

2008-07-11T07:14:00.005-06:00

A paradox: the stretch of time when, perhaps more than any in my life, I've had the most news to blog about is the very one when I've had the least time to do it.

Now, with a lull of about ten days, I'm going to try to do some catching up. It's certainly possible I'll miss something, but here's a list of events worthy of at least a long blog each:

1. The death of my baby sister, 45-year-old Lynda Tuckett, on April 7.

2. More news on Margaret's documentary, including a trip to San Francisco that I got to join in (June 12-16).

3. The completion of a long-standing and challenging project: my book is finished and is scheduled for publication in December! (I turned in the last chapter on June 30.)

4. The death of my mother, Ruth Wilson Young, on July 5. The funeral took place yesterday.

And along with all of this, there was teaching Winter Semester and Spring Term, serving as the English Department ombudsman, going to a Shakespeare conference in Dallas, doing a radio interview on C. S. Lewis, and taking part in one of the most exciting political seasons in U.S. history. Since this last item included starting another blog, making phone calls to Texas and North Carolina, attending conventions, communicating with a superdelegate, checking political news constantly for a stretch of several months--and sharing the experience with my kids and especially with my wife--I should maybe post an entry on politics as well.

But certainly items 1 and 4 are the most significant, and I have much to share about those two great women--my sister and my mother--who recently made the journey from this world to another.

The Problem of Evil

2008-04-22T14:54:00.005-06:00

It's been a long time since I've posted. Much has happened with Margaret's documentary since I wrote about it in January. The problem is that I've been extremely busy and haven't felt I could afford the luxury of visiting blogland.

But last night Margaret showed me a discussion on Times and Seasons about "the problem of evil," and before I knew it I found myself adding a comment. You can find the entire discussion via the following link: http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=4512

I'm copying my two comments here:

(1) First comment:

As I started reading this post, I had lots of brilliant points to make. As I've read the comments, I find most of my points have been made (and made better than I would have), and new problems have been raised I hadn't been thinking about. I'll still try a stab at summarizing my thoughts, including some that came as I read the comments.

1. As stated abstractly, the "problem of evil" and possible solutions to it are no match for the actual complexity and mystery of existence.

2. When we say "evil," we mean lots of different things, and some of our logical difficulties come from confusion about what we mean by the word.

3. I think some of the commentators have underestimated the power of LDS theology in addressing the problem of evil. (But I'm not sure "finitist" is the best word for LDS theology--I'd like to radically reinterpret the concepts "finite" and "infinite"--and I'm not sure I want to reduce the restored gospel to a "theology." I'd rather think of it as a set of revealed doctrines and glimpses of ultimate realities that we are in process of beginning to understand.)

4. As some have already noted, LDS theology (or any view that claims that God did not create "the whole set up" out of nothing) is helpful in understanding the existence of evil in several ways. One is that the possibility of evil may simply be built into the nature of things. But as some have pointed out, that doesn't explain why God doesn't prevent that possibility from being realized. Our growth and ultimate happiness (which God desires) must require our exposure to, our intimate involvement in, just this sort of universe. That this is necessary must also be inherent in the nature of things. A God with absolutely no limits, who makes reality in any way he wants, could achieve his ideal ends in any arbitrary way he might choose. And so our ultimate good could, in that case, be achieved without evil, without suffering, in fact, without the loss of a single soul. Either God is working with a reality that has certain built in features, or he has for some reason created it the way it is despite the fact that he could have made it differently.

5. What struck me especially, as I read the comments--and what I had not been thinking about before--is this: Even if we grant that evil and suffering are in general necessary for our ultimate growth, it does in fact appear that some people have far more than their share of trials and some have far less. I don't think our premortal progress can explain all the discrepancies. (I could give my reasons at length, but I'll forbear for now.) Of course, we don't know the deepest needs of others or even of ourselves, and so theoretically this very uneven distribution of trials could be suited exactly to each of our conditions. But again, that doesn't seem to me an adequate explanation of what I actually see. (For one thing, do all the hundreds or thousands who suffer and die as the result of a particular natural disaster have exactly the same need for that experience?)

Though a good deal of what we experience may be customized to our needs, I'm inclined to think that much of what we experience--especially the suffering and losses and limitations that result from natural causes--is not deliberately and exactly designed to meet our individual needs. In fact, some people probably do suffer far beyond what they need to for their eternal good, and some may suffer far less than might be required to give them needed tutoring. In fact, I don't think suffering and evil and loss make complete sense if we look ONLY at this life. But I believe that there is a larger framework of experiences beyond this life--including tutoring, healing, and whatever else is required for our good--that will compensate for all the imbalances of our mortal experience.

When I shared this thought with my wife (Margaret the good and wise), she added another compelling thought: that this experience of evil and suffering necessary, it appears, for our eternal growth is NOT simply individual but communal. We may eventually experience vicariously the horrors and the triumphs that others have experienced in mortality. We are all intimately connected and, unless perhaps we resist our connectedness and retreat into isolation, we will share the experience of mortality as members of one another, members of God's family. That may be part of what Dostoevsky was getting at when he had Father Zosima say, "All are responsible for all and before all."

This vicariousness--of empathy, compassion, charity, and responsibility--certainly connects with the atonement, which, as several have noted, must be at the core of our understanding of "the problem of evil."

(2) Second comment:

First of all, hello to Jim. I hadn't made the connection (JWL=my friend Jim).

Second, in response to some recent comments, I agree that dealing with evil as a purely logical problem is interesting but ultimately not anywhere near as important as dealing with it as a reality. As C. S. Lewis put it, in dealing with suffering, "a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all."

Craig V mentioned my desire to redefine "finite" and "infinite." I'll leave that project for another day except to say that my understanding of the words is influenced by the thought of Emmanuel Levinas.

What's relevant here is perhaps this: Is our faith in God based on an ontological definition of God or on our personal relationship with him and our sense of his moral character? In the first case, certain outcomes are guaranteed because they are built into the definition. In the second case, we have confidence in God's promises because we know he is good and loving and keeps his word.

The problem some have with the second approach seems to be this: Yes, we know God loves us and wants to save us (bless us, exalt us, etc.), but how do we know he has the power to do so, if that power is not built into an ontological definition of his nature? My answer is similar to David Paulsen's: I know God is good and trustworthy. He tells me he has the power. I believe him.

Documentary news

2008-01-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

In case you're looking for news on Margaret's documentary (Nobody Knows), here's the latest:

(1) It will be shown in San Diego at the San Diego Black Film Festival, Saturday, February 2, at 5:00 p.m. Apparently tickets are going fast and a second screening is being contemplated. For info, go to http://www.sdbff.com/ and more specifically http://www.sdbff.com/tickets.htm and http://www.sdbff.com/glance.htm.

(2) The film will also be shown in Dallas, Texas, as part of the Texas Black Film Festival on Friday, February 1, at 2:00 p.m. For info go to http://www.texasblackfilmfestival.com/ or http://www.texasblackfilmfestival.com/Schedule.html.

(3) Margaret says that "The next Utah screening will be on Saturday March 8th at 11:00 a.m. in Ogden's Egyptian Theater as part of the Foursite Film Festival." Info may be found at http://www.foursitefilmfest.com/events.html (but apparently you won't find anything specific there until Feb. 1).

Note also the post below on the film's appearance at the LDS Film Festival in Provo.

Nobody Knows--the documentary

2008-01-24T19:41:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since I last posted on my blog. (I'll fill you in on some of the details later.) What has finally prompted me to get back to posting is an important event that took place last Saturday at the LDS Film Festival in Provo: the premiere screening of Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons, a documentary that Margaret has been working on for many months. To get a sense of what the documentary is all about, you might want to visit http://www.untoldstoryofblackmormons.com.

I'm copying here comments I posted on Gideon Burton's blog, where he reviewed the documentary (see http://gideonburton.typepad.com/gideon_burtons_blog/2008/01/lds-film-fest-3.html for his review):

Gideon, thanks for your generous and powerful review, powerful in large part because you've tuned in to the power of the documentary. Margaret and Darius and others who've been involved have done a remarkable job collecting the material and putting it together to create a finished product of high technical quality (something rather amazing considering how little money they had and the fact that this is pretty much a first effort in documentary making for most of those involved)--and even more than that a product that conveys such a rich and deep sense of the experiences and faith of black members.

[An inserted note: By the way, my contributions have been pretty minor--mostly being supportive along the way and helping with little assignments here and there. Darius and Margaret are really responsible for what's happened, with some important contributions from Jim Hughes, the main editor, and others. As you might have guessed, Margaret has really been the driving force behind the project and has done most of the writing, organizing of materials, entry into film festivals, etc.]

Many of those who've seen the documentary, both black and white, have said how helpful and inspiring they've found it. But I suspect not everyone is ready for it. Because the documentary reveals how rough things have been for blacks in the Church, many of whom have been extraordinarily valiant, some people are going to have a hard time dealing with it. The documentary conveys a strong sense of faith and affirmation, but there are a lot of hard things too, and some people will resist acknowledging and experiencing those hard things. Some, on the other hand, may acknowledge the hard things but mix that acknowledgment with anger or harsh criticism. (By the way, as I was reading recently the familiar scriptural passages about the mote in others' eyes and the beam in our own, it occurred to me that the beam referred to may be, more than anything else, lack of charity--a gigantic beam we have to get rid of before we can start picking motes out of other people's eyes.)

Everyone ought to find the documentary troubling. The question is how we deal with being troubled. Are we mature enough, charitable enough, repentant enough--do we have strong enough faith and deep enough humility--to turn those troubled feelings into empathy, determination, and positive changes in attitude and behavior?

That question reminds me of a couple of scriptures I sometimes quote when I talk with students about the value of Shakespearean tragedy (and tragedy in general):

Moroni 9:25: . . . may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever.

Alma 42:29: And now, my son, I desire that ye should let these things trouble you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance.

Mormon and Alma are talking about somewhat different kinds of trouble: Mormon has written to his son about horrific scenes of brutality and is concerned that a knowledge of such wickedness and carnage not overwhelm Moroni with despair. Alma is telling Corianton not to let his anxiety over doctrinal issues prevent him from focusing on what is most important: repenting and becoming a true disciple of Christ.

Nobody Knows is relevant to both kinds of trouble: how do we respond to other people’s wickedness? how do we respond to our own (which is much harder to see)? And how do we deal with troubling doctrinal and historical questions?

Some have worried about how helpful the documentary would be in setting such troubles in a context that builds faith and inspires charity. But I understand that some of those who have been concerned have concluded, after seeing the completed documentary, that it is powerfully faith promoting. I agree, even while wondering how some people will respond. I was restless during the hours that followed the screening, thinking specifically about a friend who had come and who had left before I had a chance to talk to him. Seeing him the next day, I was relieved to learn he had positive feelings about the documentary. I asked him if he had any thoughts or suggestions. Apart from one segment that had confused him a bit, he said, "No--I just came to learn." The documentary didn't utterly change his understanding and attitudes in one fell swoop. But it opened his eyes to some things he hadn't been aware of, and it was clear to him the film makers had done their homework and knew what they were talking about.

For anyone coming with an open mind, it appears the documentary will at least help chip away at some of the old misunderstandings. I hope that for many it will do even more. I think we need the kind of experience the documentary provides to help us rise to a higher level of discipleship--to go beyond being merely nice and move toward being true followers of Christ. I hope enough of us are ready to respond in this way that the documentary can do the good within the Church that it is capable of, as I believe it will (maybe in some ways more easily) do good outside of the Church. And I hope we can be charitable with each other--I mean especially with fellow members--even if some don't respond ideally.

Lewis in General Conference

2007-10-07T12:56:00.000-06:00

I'm teaching a class on C. S. Lewis right now, and I told my students I wasn't sure whether he'd be quoted in General Conference this time. But he has been once so far, by Elder Michael Teh on Saturday afternoon. It was wonderful passage from The Screwtape Letters. I'll give the complete passage here. Keep in mind that this is advice from one devil to another, so we have to do some subtle translating to get the point:

"Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient's soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary. There is no good at all in inflaming his hatred of Germans if, at the same time, a pernicious habit of charity is growing up between him and his mother, his employer, and the man he meets in the train. Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, his intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy. You can hardly hope, at once, to exclude from all the circles everything that smells of the Enemy: but you must keep on shoving all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy, and all the desirable qualities inward into the Will. It is only in so far as they reach the will and are there embodied in habits that the virtues are really fatal to us. (I don't, of course, mean what the patient mistakes for his will, the conscious fume and fret of resolutions and clenched teeth, but the real centre, what the Enemy calls the Heart.) All sorts of virtues painted in the fantasy or approved by the intellect or even, in some measure, loved and admired, will not keep a man from our Father's house: indeed they may make him more amusing when he gets there."

This is a passage maybe especially relevant to the world of blogging, given its ambiguous place, somewhere between face-to-face and fantasy.

Margaret's documentary

2007-09-05T13:56:00.000-06:00

As many of you know, Margaret has been working with Darius Gray and others on a documentary titled Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons. Though so far I've only seen the trailer (actually a couple of versions of it), I can testify that it's a remarkable piece. Here's Margaret's report: "We are nearly there. We have a fine musician doing some scoring now, and have a few more days of edits ahead of us, but we will be entering this documentary into a competiton on Oct. 5. We have taken it from 70 hours of interviews to 70 MINUTES."

To see the trailer, go to this link: http://www.untoldstoryofblackmormons.com

Prepare to be inspired!

End of the summer; start of school

2007-08-28T16:00:00.000-06:00

Well, the inevitable has happened: summer is coming to an end; school is starting. Misha has already started into his second year at Provo High. Beginning of school meetings are now taking place at BYU.

I will give a bit of report shortly on the events of today (August 28) as well as a preview of things to come. For now, I just want to thank everybody who gathered, and especially my sister Lynda, who brought my parents.

And the meetings--considering that they are meetings--have been pretty good so far, especially, I'd have to say, the meeting this afternoon. John Tanner did it again. I'm still recovering from the emotions his talk--the last part especially--prompted.

I've added a comment that explains what took place on August 28 (and gives the wording of the "citation"). At some point I'll add a link to John Tanner's talk, when that's available.

Me and movies

2007-08-16T15:01:00.000-06:00

Before anyone jumps on me for bad usage, (a) "me and movies" alliterates, (b) it's a more common way of saying it than "movies and I," and (c) it's short for "About me and movies."

I just posted a comment on Michael Medved's review of September Dawn in which I think I make some good points and in which I reveal a good deal about myself--maybe more than some would care to know.

For my comment, see the comments on this post (click below) or click here or here (comment on page 8).

Back from England

2007-07-31T12:08:00.001-06:00

I've been back from England for over a week now, but obviously haven't gotten around to making my report. I'll do that when I get a chance. I had a wonderful visit there--two-and-a-half weeks in Oxford, London, and Stratford-upon-Avon, mainly doing research at the Shakespeare Centre Library and the British Film Institute, also attending a few plays, making my standard pilgrimage to C. S. Lewis sites, and doing some other interesting things. But it's good to be back.

Our latest trip

2007-06-18T18:20:00.000-06:00

We're still reeling from the results of our latest trip--mainly to San Diego, but with stops in Las Vegas and jaunts to Chula Vista and Mexico. The most stunning result was our loss of a daughter--that is, as a resident in Provo. She (Julie) now lives in Henderson, Nevada. For the story, see the post below ("Left in Las Vegas") and especially Julie's version on her own blog, http://myartisfashion.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html.

But a lot of other interesting things happened too, a brief account of which appears here. I invite elaboration in the form of comments from those who took part in the trip. Comments from anyone else are welcome as well.

The brief account: On Saturday, May 26, about 9:40am, we (Margaret, Julie, Misha, and I) left Provo and headed south on I-15. Our destination was San Diego, where we would be staying with my old roommate Steve Egbert and his wife Paula (and son Chris). We stopped in Las Vegas, where my cousin Danny had fixed lunch for us, then headed off again and arrived about 9:30 California time at the Egberts'.
     Sunday, May 27--special Church events: One reason for our trip was that Margaret had been invited to speak at two special events in the area, a sacrament meeting held in connection with a Singles' Conference and a fireside for a multi-ethnic group. Margaret and I both spoke at the sacrament meeting, where Margaret had everyone in stitches as she told the story of our courtship. At the fireside, which was almost entirely in Spanish, I bore my testimony and Margaret talked about black pioneers and about Pablo and Daniel Choc of Guatemala. Our host at both events was Brother Tony Boyd, a wonderful African-American man with a truly remarkable conversion story.
     Monday, May 28--Memorial Day: The Egberts took us to the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center in "old town" San Diego and to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery (near Cabrillo National Monument), with thousands of white crosses, and a nearby lighthouse and tidal pools. Then we went to lunch at Jose's in La Jolla and saw La Jolla Cove and a nearby beach covered with seals, then went to La Jolla beach, where Misha did some boogie boarding.
     Tuesday, May 29--MEXICO!: We had originally been thinking of spending a couple of days in Mexico and getting to the real Mexico, which, for Margaret and me, means beyond Ensenada. Our kids were nervous, though, and so were we, just a bit. So we decided on a one-day trip. We drove past Tijuana, stopped at a village along the coast named Puerta Nueva and ate a lobster lunch, then stopped at a Wal-Mart (!) in Ensenada for bathrooms and ice cream. (And there was a Home Depot next to the Wal-Mart.) Then on to our favorite stop of the trip, La Bufadora--a blow hole along the coast that sprays water into the air. The walkway to the blow hole is lined with shops--Margaret and I don't remember them being there 20 years ago when we last visited. But we got some good buys on Yucatec hammocks and a plant holder made of sea shells. We drove back to Ensenada for dinner, but it took us about an hour to find a suitable place, by which time tempers were frayed. But I had some great seafood soup! As we headed home, it got dark sooner that I had anticipated, I got confused making lane changes near Tijuana and ended up hitting into a curb and damaging the plastic wheel and engine covers under the van. We drove through Tijuana and finally found our way across the border. One advantage of being there a bit late is that there was virtually no line, and we were through in less than 15 minutes.
     Wednesday, May 30--back in San Diego: Actually we had gotten back the night before, not all that late really (maybe 10:15). Wednesday (after I had the van's alignment checked and went to an AutoZone to see what the "engine maintenance" light was all about) we headed to La Jolla again and spent the afternoon at La Jolla Cove, a beautiful spot where we did some snorkeling in the cold water and saw lots of interesting fish and where Misha ended up swimming with a seal. The seal came to shore for a few minutes (with the lifeguard telling everyone to stay away from it) and then headed off again. Julie and I did some picnic shopping at a grocery store, we ate at a nearby park, and then we headed back to the Egberts'.
     Thursday, May 31--on to Las Vegas: About 12:30 we left the Egberts' and got on I-15 going north. After a stop in San Bernardino to see one of Julie's friends, we continued to Las Vegas and arrived in Henderson (right next to Las Vegas proper--is that an oxymoron?) JUST as auditions were beginning for the Saints Voices United choir run by Gladys Knight. Julie had wanted to try out but, as she says on her own blog (Myartisfashion), had resigned herself to the possibility of not being able to. We got her there a bit late, since we had to wander around to find the right chapel. She wanted to go in and do everything on her own. So we left her there and went with my cousin Danny to the Green Valley Ranch Casino buffet (that could make an amazing story of its own--think international fare and Roman decadence).
     Later that evening, around 9 or so, Julie called and told us she had been accepted into the choir. Only problem: three mandatory rehearsals the following three days, and members of the choir have to live within two hours' driving time. I picked Julie up; then we went as a family to the strip to see the fountains of the Bellagio; but Julie was hungry, and Margaret and I were trying to figure out how the heck we were going to deal with Julie's being in the choir. We had parked in Caesar's Palace parking and then trecked much longer than we thought it would take to get to the Bellagio fountains, and a show had just ended when we got there. Without going into details, I'll just say that Margaret (without a cell phone) ended up leaving the rest of us, and we weren't sure where she was headed. We headed off trying to find her, got lost in Caesar's Palace for about an hour, and then finally found her in the casino area. She had been lost there too and had felt assaulted by the sounds, images, and atmosphere of that hellish place. We now think of the experience as a powerful parable: evil is real; it tries to draw you in and trap you and then won't let you go; you seem to be going in circles, bound forever in its chains, until finally (with desperate effort and pleas for help) you find the exit.
     Anyway, we finally found the exit to parking, got very lost on our way back to Henderson (got some nice help along the way), and arrived at my cousin's place very, very late.
     Friday, June 1--Miracles: Friday morning things started looking brighter. Julie and I did some shopping; I got phone numbers, including to the LDS Institute of Religion in Las Vegas. Margaret called there, asked if they had listings of girls needing roommates, and was given three phone numbers near the chapel in Henderson used by Gladys Knight's choir. Margaret caught the owner of the best (in price and location) of the three places during a narrow window of opportunity, and we started making arrangements to see the place. But first, we had lunch at Red Lobster in Henderson with the Waites. There's another story. They are the parents of the missionary Julie is writing to, the one we met in Guatemala last summer. And yes, they live in Las Vegas. Now, they've sort of adopted her; later, she even stayed at their place a couple of days. They are delightful people--if I'm remembering correctly, their names are Lane and Torrie.
     After lunch, we checked out Julie's prospective housing. It's actually a house, a very nice one in a nice residential neighborhood. Julie has several roommates (originally four, now two), all Latter-day Saints and all, I think, college graduates. Julie signed a contract and got a key, and by early evening we had her settled there. Then we left--left our daughter in Nevada--and headed back to Utah. We arrived about 1 a.m. Saturday morning.

A few reflections: Honestly, even though it seemed crazy to leave Julie in Nevada, it felt right. Things worked out remarkably (though we're still dealing with a lot of the practical details). We're confident this will be a wonderful experience for her. And as for us, it's kind of fun having Misha to ourselves. He and Julie used to hang out a lot, so now he has to hang out with Mom and Dad. We've got Rob at home too, and that's nice. We occasionally even see him. As for this major change, with Julie on her own, as I've told several people, we couldn't have done better if we'd been planning it for a month. It still surprises me, given my rational and pragmatic tendencies, how amazingly and quickly things can sometimes work out, when they're supposed to.

One more thing: The Egberts were incredibly hospitable and friendly. I wish we could spend a week with them every month or two. Besides feeding us, providing lodging, and spending time with us (and providing snorkeling gear), they also introduced us to a new favorite, which we now buy regularly at Costco: Newman's Own Concord Grape Juice. That sweet beverage brings back sweet memories.

Hope you had fun learning of our trip or--if you're a skimmer--looking at the pictures. Check in on comments for further interesting details.

Left in Las Vegas

2007-06-02T13:08:00.001-06:00

We left our daughter Julie in Las Vegas--not by accident really, but certainly with some degree of surprise. I'm going to see if I can get Margaret to tell the story, which is very, very interesting. So stay tuned . . .

(Note: Margaret's brief version of the story and Julie's longer one both appear under the comments on this post. Julie's version--WHICH YOU HAVE TO READ--also appears on her blog: http://myartisfashion.blogspot.com/.)

Pictures from the past

2007-06-02T11:58:00.000-06:00

We're just back (as of a little after 1 a.m.) from a trip that included the San Diego area, a bit of Mexico, and Las Vegas, where we left our daughter Julie to start a new phase of her life. More on all that later.

In San Diego we stayed with my old roommate Steve Egbert, who has hundreds (possibly thousands) of photos he's now digitized. I include three here. The one at the top shows me (second from the left) and friends being "cool." (I think my 15-year-old son was impressed, or at least surprised, to see this picture.) I don't remember the incident, but it apparently took place in 1975. A more normal picture of roommates at the dinner table accompanies this paragraph. And below is a photo that is almost hard for me to look at since it includes my beloved and now deceased sister Nancy.

Isn't she beautiful? This is years before she was diagnosed with MS. Nancy (Young, later Layton) is on the bottom row of the picture, furthest to the left. I'm in the middle of the row, next to Dave Beer (a roommate) and Joyce, who became his wife. Furthest to the right on the top row is my little sister Lynda, probably about 14 or 15 at the time. Next to her is another of my roommates, then Nancy Lucas, then her brother Jim Lucas (another roommate, now a lawyer in New York City), then Steve Egbert, and then my brothers Daren and Larry. I don't remember who is sitting between me and my sister Nancy. And I'm not sure of several other names in the other photos. I'll work on tracking those down and add that information later.

It's strange looking at these photos now and thinking of what has happened since: marriages, deaths and other losses and challenges, children born and raised.

The poem "To Margaret"

2007-05-23T09:32:00.001-06:00

Well, I guess there are fewer people who get a kick out of literary analysis than I thought. So I'll give some answers to the questions I posed a few days ago (May 18, in the post "Happy Anniversary"--SEE BELOW) and let you all move on to other things.

But please do consider reading the poem once more--preferably out loud--and savoring it, especially after you've read my explanations.

   (1) Kind of poem: Sonnet (14 lines--was invented about 700 years ago in Italy, first came into English about 500 years ago)
   (2) Kind of sonnet: Italian or Petrarchan (yes, there are several kinds of sonnets, Italian or Petrarchan being the original version invented by Petrarch in the 1300s; the English invented another rhyme scheme, called the English or Shakespearean sonnet, though it was used a couple of decades before Shakespeare was born; and then in the 1590s, Edmund Spenser invented the Spenserian sonnet). All sonnets can be said to have an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines), but the division between the two is more prominent in the Italian or Petrarchan version. The rhyme scheme is the real giveaway: normally, abba abba followed by six lines with some combination of two or three rhymes (e.g., cddcee, cdecde, cdcdcd, etc.), but in the case of the one I've written, abb'a' a''b'ba''' cded'ce' (the apostrophes after some of the letters mean that these are "off rhymes"--meaning not very exact at all--so this is a "modernish" poem).
   (3) Quotations: The first two lines are paraphrased from A Grief Observed (C. S. Lewis) and refer to his wife, Helen Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis, who had just died of cancer. The book is the published form of the heart-wrenching diary he wrote after her death. His actual lines: "Her mind was lithe and quick and muscular as a leopard." She "was a splendid thing; a soul straight, bright, and tempered like a sword." "I see I've described [her] as being like a sword. That's true as far as it goes. But utterly inadequate by itself, and misleading. . . . I ought to have said, 'But also like a garden. Like a nest of gardens, wall within wall, hedge within hedge, more secret, more full of fragrant and fertile life, the further you entered.'"
      "Mine own, yet not mine own" is Shakespearean, from A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's said by one of the young lovers when they all wake up after a night in the woods and finally find they're all in love with the right person. I've always felt the line marvelously evokes the sense of belonging yet also of otherness, even strangeness, that comes with an intimate relationship. I am intimately connected, in some ways even merge, with my beloved. Yet that connection somehow makes me even more aware of how absolutely unique and independent, in some essential way, each of us is. As Levinas puts it, the other person "escapes my grasp by an essential dimension, even if I have him at my disposal." And in the case of love--if it is genuine (genuinely respectful and caring)--I am very careful about even seeking to have her at my disposal and in fact want more to be at her disposal. Paradoxically, or miraculously, I can in some sense "possess" her (or be possessed by her) while still respecting her agency and her otherness.
   (4) Jack and Joy: No, not from a nursery rhyme (that would be Jack and Jill?). Rather, C. S. Lewis and his wife. She went by "Joy"; he went by "Jack." Though the "C. S." stands for "Clive Staples," one day (age 8, I believe) he announced, "My name is Jacksie," and he was known to friends and family as "Jacksie" or "Jack" from that point on.
   (5) Other allusions: Besides the Levinasian overtones in "Mine own, yet not mine own," there's more Levinas in the phrase "your real and complete otherness." But that phrase also echoes Lewis (this is a point of convergence between Lewis and Levinas). In A Grief Observed Lewis says: "The most precious gift that marriage gave me was this constant impact of something very close and intimate yet all the time unmistakably other, resistant--in a word, real." And then he applies this thought to God and to people in general, reminding himself he must never confuse his image or idea of someone with the real "someone" who is other than and outside of himself and who cannot be reduced to an image or idea: "I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want [my wife], not something that is like her. . . . Not my idea of God, but God. Not my idea of [my wife], but [my wife]. Yes, and also not my idea of my neighbour, but my neighbour." For "All reality," he says, "is iconoclastic"--that is, it breaks apart the images we have created as a kind of subsitute. "The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness. That is, in her foursquare and independent reality."
      That (from Lewis) sounds very Levinasian. Compare, for instance, this from Levinas in Totality and Infinity: the Other, in his expression, "at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it"; "The face of the Other at each moment destroys and overflows the plastic image it leaves me. . . . The face is a living presence; it is expression. The life of expression consists in undoing the form in which the existent, exposed as a theme, is thereby dissimulated. . . . This way of undoing the form adequate to the Same [that is, to my self-contained consciousness] so as to present oneself as other is to signify or to have a meaning." (I believe this is all on pages 50-51 and 66--for those of you who want to read the passages in context and figure out exactly what Levinas is saying.)
      One more thing: "many selves" refers to the seven nouns in the last two lines of the poem--that is, Margaret's many roles, many ways of being and doing, contained within one unique and eternal self. For the eternal dimension of selfhood, see Doctrine and Covenants 93:29 and the King Follett discourse. And for "queen and goddess," see Revelation 1:6, 5:10, 21:7, D&C 76:56-60, 132:20, Romans 8:17, John 1:12, 10:34, 1 John 3:2, 2 Peter 1:4, and several passages in Lewis's writings.

Happy anniversary

2007-05-18T09:02:00.000-06:00

I've been hoping to post something new--on Luke's gospel, on faith, on the movie States of Grace, or on that topic I keep promising to get back to, Groundhog Day and the ring of Gyges (I will! I will!)--but have been very, very busy.

It occurred to me that this might be the perfect occasion to wish my wife a happy anniversary--or almost perfect, since it was our 22nd anniversary yesterday (and we did celebrate, going to our favorite restaurant, Bombay House). We've grown together in many wonderful ways over those 22 years, and my appreciation and love for Margaret have deepened and continue to deepen. Besides our anniversary, we'll soon be celebrating Margaret's birthday (in June--but she'll be at a film festival in California). And of course we just celebrated Mother's Day.

So to honor Margaret Blair Young, I offer the following poem, written some years ago (May 1998 to be exact), but still very much an expression of how I see her:

For Margaret

"A mind as lithe as a leopard; a bright sword;
"A garden--gardens within gardens"--so
Jack wrote of Joy, and prophesied of you.
My wonder, my beloved--whatever word
Or words I choose, or borrow, pale before
Your real and complete otherness. This view
Of you so near and yet so distant, so
"Mine own, yet not mine own," is illusions' cure.

But you are more: a fount of love and life,
Fertile source of words, ideas, health
Of heart, deep questions and deep harmonies;
Holding many selves in one eternal self--
Writer, teacher, gardener, mother, wife,
Besides the queen and goddess yet to be.

Two notes: (1) As the poem suggests, any person is really unfathomable, and that's certainly true of Margaret. But if you want to get to know her better, you can read her blog essay (see the link below) or, for that matter, any number of other things she's written, including her six novels. Or better yet, hang out with her for a while--22 years or more if possible. (2) If you have responses to the poem or questions about it (like "who the heck are Jack and Joy?), please feel free to post comments.

A week and a half at the MTC

2007-05-11T12:04:00.000-06:00

OK--I resisted (blogging) for three days. I want to report that Margaret and I have been loving our work at the Provo Missionary Training Center. We've spent two Sundays there. Julie has come to the 8:00 a.m. sacrament meeting (a miracle in itself), and Misha came with us last Sunday to eat dinner with the missionaries. On our way through the cafeteria to find the missionaries in our branch, we saw President Boone (MTC president), Brother Breinholt, and their wives and introduced Misha to them. Seeing our son in his Sunday almost best, tall, good looking, and with longish hair, President Boone said, "We love to see future missionaries." Misha's future mission (he's now fifteen) was also a topic as we ate with the missionaries.

I'll tell more about the routine later, but just two notes for now, one on new missionaries, the other on visits to the residence halls.

We had only 19 missionaries in the branch until Wednesday, when a new group of 15 arrived--12 elders and 3 sisters headed to the Canada Montreal and Switzerland Geneva missions (plus one to the West Indies). We spent several hours with them Wednesday evening helping to orient them.

Probably my favorite duty so far at the MTC has been visiting the missionaries in their residence halls. We've done that twice now, the last two Thursday nights. (I think it was after our first visit that Margaret said, "This is the funnest calling we've had.") Last night, after dropping Margaret off at the sisters' hall, I went to visit the elders, chatted with them, asked how the new ones (and the older ones) were doing, and then joined them for a hymn and a prayer. I also shared a scripture--and they asked me for news "from the outside world." I mentioned the Romney-Sharpton controversy (in vague terms) and said one thing I was happy about was that, on CNN, representatives from both major parties had defended "the Mormons." (On a side note, I especially liked James Carville's attitude; the Republican representative was good too, but when asked if Mormons were Christians, he hummed and hawed a bit, while Carville said, "I would point out that the preferred name, I think, of their church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They certainly say they're Christians. I believe them. . . . they certainly do believe in Jesus Christ" [click here for more].)

But what the elders really wanted to know is how well the Jazz were doing. (If you don't know who the Jazz are, consider moving to Latvia--when we visited there in 1996 and mentioned we were from Utah, a young Latvian said, "Oh, the Jazz!") I had heard they had won two of their recent games, but I wasn't helpful beyond that. I promised to do better. As Margaret and I drove home, I found out she knew all about the Jazz's latest game, having heard the whole story while working with her co-documentary makers earlier in the day.

The highlight of the evening was probably the hymn I sang along with the elders, one I had never heard before, though the music is familiar (from Dvorak's New World Symphony). Called "Souviens-toi, mon enfant," it is unique to the French LDS hymn book. Here are the words:

Souviens-toi, mon enfant: Tes parents divins
te serraient dans leurs bras, ce temps ne’st pas loin.
Aujourd’hui, tu es là, présent merveilleux,
ton regard brille encore du reflet des cieux.
Parle-moi, mon enfant, de ces lieux bénis,
car pour toi est léger le voile d’oubli.

Souviens-toi, mon enfant, des bois, des cités.
Pouvons-nous ici-bas les imaginer?
Et le ciel jusqu’au soir, est-il rose ou gris?
Le soleil attend-il la neige ou la pluie?
Conte-moi, mon enfant, la couleur des prés
et le chant des oiseaux d’un monde oublié.

Souviens-toi, mon enfant: A l’aube des temps,
nous étions des amis jouant dans le vent.
Puis un jour, dans la joie nous avons choisi
d’accepter du Seigneur le grand plan de vie.
Ce soir-là, mon enfant, nous avons promis
par l’amour, par la foi, d’être réunis.

It's an absolutely beautiful hymn, evoking eternal memories and reminding us of eternal possibilities. For a translation, or my attempt at one, click on the comments.

The Dangers of Blogging

2007-05-08T06:58:00.000-06:00

The blogging world is wonderful in so many ways, but it has at least one great danger: the danger of addiction. That danger is not so great with a blog like mine, where I post every few days and get only a smattering of comments. (Please, sir, may I have more?)

But as I've dropped in on some of the sites where Margaret occasionally blogs ("By Common Consent," etc.), I have encountered the dangers in active, vivid form. Of course, I wanted to read Margaret's moving blog essay (see the post preceding this one, below), and I wanted to comment on it. But soon a conversation began, with multiple parties, and I was writing little mini-essays of my own as my "comments." And I kept checking in to see what people said in response to my comments and in response to each other's comments and to respond to people's responses to my responses. In short, it got to be a problem. I'M SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING A BOOK!--and with the computer screen in front of me, the temptation is always there to check in on the blog conversation between and in the midst of other tasks.

And I have to confess, I got distracted by a couple of other conversations on "By Common Consent" and "Mormon Mentality" (see here, here, here, here, here, and here for bits).

So Margaret and I are both working on restraining ourselves, maybe developing a 9-step program of some kind. But remember: MY blog in non-addictive (so far), and you can explore it safely and, I hope, with only pleasant and beneficial effects.

Link to a post by Margaret

2007-05-03T12:22:00.000-06:00

Margaret has written a beautiful essay on another blog explaining what it means to be a Latter-day Saint. Her essay is a wonderful mini-autobiography and should become a classic in our own family, I hope for generations to come. Here's a link for any who would like to read it: http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2007/05/to-the-pastor/

New call at the MTC

2007-04-30T09:51:00.000-06:00

Yesterday--Sunday, April 29--Margaret and I began our service at the Missionary Training Center in Provo.

Here's the story: On Monday, April 16, the day after being released from my ten years as a counselor in the Provo Utah Central Stake, I got a phone call from President Breinholt, a counselor in the MTC presidency. We scheduled an interview for the next day. Margaret and I came to the MTC on Tuesday morning and spent almost two hours, which included a call extended to me to serve as a counselor in a branch presidency. (The missionaries at the MTC are divided into branches that average somewhere around 40 missionaries.) For some reason, I was feeling rotten that day, and I was concerned about how this call would affect time with my family. But I knew it would be a good thing; Margaret was very excited about it and rightly knew that we could actually involve the family in some ways; and I knew I would end up saying yes if I took time to think about it more. So I just said yes right then. President Breinholt was wonderfully kind and understanding and helped us get acquainted with the MTC and with the call.

Friday of that week I found out I would be serving in branch 46, a French-Tahitian language branch, with Ron Eliason as branch president and Kuinisi Matagi as first counselor. Brother Matagi is originally from Samoa, served a mission in Arizona speaking Navajo, and met his wife (a Tahitian who speaks French) in Hawaii. Currently there are just 17 elders and 2 sisters in the branch, but more are coming on May 9.

It turns out that this new call is about as heavy as the one I've had previously--maybe more so, since there are fewer Sundays free (like virtually none except near Thanksgiving, Christmas, and when I'm out of town). But the call is more focused. And I'm very excited about it. It will be a wonderful opportunity to stretch, grow, learn, and I hope contribute. And since Margaret and the kids can be involved to some extent, I think it will be an opportunity for all of us to grow and grow closer to each other.

In a nutshell, I'll be spending about 7am-4pm every Sunday at the MTC, along with Tuesday evenings (about 6:30-9:30pm), some Wednesday evenings (when new missionaries arrive for our branch), and an hour on Thursday evenings when both Margaret and I will (separately) visit missionaries in their residence halls.

A little over a week ago, on Sunday, April 22, I got to sit with my family in sacrament meeting in our home ward--the first time, I believe, in almost ten years. Except when we're on break for some reason from the MTC, we won't be sitting together again for a while.

Yesterday Margaret, Julie (our 18-year-old daughter), and I went to the 8:00 a.m. sacrament meeting where I was sustained. Margaret and I bore our testimonies, along with the outgoing counselor (Brother Curtis) and his wife--actually they're being transferred to a German-speaking branch. I was then set apart by Brother Breinholt, after which I got to participate in a series of meetings (priesthood, district meetings, branch council) and interviews. I got acquainted with all the missionaries--they're a great group and are heading to several missions: Montreal, Canada; Paris, France; French West Indies; and Ghana, meaning the French-speaking areas of West Africa. Meanwhile, Margaret went to Relief Society and a special meeting for wives of branch presidency members.

I'm a bit overwhelmed right now, trying to figure everything out and especially to be spiritually fit for the service. But I'm happy to be embarking on a new chapter of my life, especially since I'm doing it--or a lot of it--with my sweet companion Margaret.

The text of the New Testament

2007-04-25T19:58:00.001-06:00

As I noted recently, Margaret and I are part of a book group whose most recent book was Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman. Ehrman describes himself as a "happy agnostic," having gone from more or less fundamentalist belief in scriptural inerrancy earlier in his life through Christian belief (of a sort) that was more open to the realities of textual transmission.

I've been interested in this topic for 25 years or so, so a lot of this was not new to me. But I did learn some things and enjoyed Ehrman's readable style and pleasant personality. Still, I found myself frequently disagreeing with him, on matters of detail and on his interpretation of some of the data. And I found myself noticing, not with irritation but with a kind of amused recognition, some of the intellectual/discursive tics of the typical English major (which I think Ehrman may have been at one point): he seems eager to come up with something new and different and then bring out all his artillery to make his point; and though he starts some sections by acknowledging disagreement among scholars, by the time he gets to the end of the section he speaks with apparent certainty--"clearly" this and "obviously" that, etc. His tendency to overstate some of his claims will rub some people the wrong way. As someone in our book group put it, readers who encounter writers who don't acknowledge contrary views tend to be resistant and to supply the contrary argument on their own.

He gives much useful background, though especially when talking about dim antiquity he generalizes a lot and fails to acknowledge that specific people apparently had remarkable experiences that can't be explained away by "trends," "influences," "developments," etc. But his main task seems to be to show us that lots of familiar passages in the New Testament may not have been in the original documents. Of course, we don't have the original documents. But we have manuscripts dating from about AD 200 onward along with indirect evidence going even further back.

Ehrman discusses about 45 passages, but in many cases these are minor items he touches on quickly. I set aside 12 or 13 that didn't seem worth spending much time on, and of the remaining 32 I picked 17 that seemed to me most interesting and significant, including the ones he spends the most time with. The passages I looked at include all the items on the list found at the back of the book titled "Top Ten Verses That Were Not Originally in the New Testament." (I count them as 8 items, since some of them appear together as part of longer passages.) That "Top Ten" list is preceded by the following VERY misleading statement: "These scribal additions are often found in late medieval manuscripts of the New Testament, but not in the manuscripts of the earlier centuries." Though a lawyer could identify some loopholes in the sentence, it seems to be saying that the passages listed were NOT found in manuscripts earlier than the Middle Ages--that they are absent from any ancient manuscripts--but were added later, during the Middle Ages (i.e., after about AD 500, when the Middle Ages are usually said to have begun). Interpreted that way, the statement is blatantly false.

With the exception of one of the verses, 1 John 5:7 (which I acknowledge to have genuinely weak support--in fact, Erasmus originally left it out of his edition of the Greek New Testament), ALL of the items listed are found in manuscripts dating back to the 400s or earlier and most have even earlier indirect support. One example: the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:12), though probably not part of the original text of the Gospel of John, is a genuinely ancient story, and I think almost certainly a true one about Jesus. Far from being added in the Middle Ages, it is referred to by Christian writers as early as the 200s and is found in existing manuscripts of John as early as the 400s. It is likely the story was part of one or more collections dating to the early 100s or before. Jerome and Augustine, in the 300s, refer to its existence in manuscripts of John, Augustine speculating that some manuscripts lacked it because men were worried about the effect the story might have on their wives.

Other passages have even stronger support, and Ehrman's reasons for rejecting them are often weak, ESPECIALLY when his reasons derive from his interpretation of a gospel writer's style and intent. In a later post, I'll give an example from Luke--but it would take a mini-essay for me to make my point on that one.

Another thing Ehrman doesn't reveal is that in a few cases his views, presented with great confidence, contradict the conclusions of mainstream scholars. That's true of his proposals for changes in Mark 1:41, Hebrews 2:9, Luke 3:23, Luke 24:12, and to some extent Luke 22:19. That doesn't mean he couldn't possibly be right. It just means he is not, as he generally presents himself as doing, presenting the assured results of modern scholarship. In some cases, he's making an off-the-wall suggestions that most scholars don't accept.

Also, it's interesting that, despite his announced aim to show that many traditional readings should be rejected, in 7 or 8 of the 17 disputed passages I looked at, the traditional reading has reasonably good scholarly support, and in another couple of instances a good case could be made for the traditional reading, from a scholarly/textual point of view.

Attached are two handouts I've created that give what I've discovered about the 17 passages I tackled: (1) Handout 1 (click here) has two pages, "Passages Discussed in Ehrman" and "More Passages Discussed in Ehrman," presenting Ehrman's proposed reading, a standard scholarly consensus (and the degree of confidence the scholars in question had), the King James Version (which usually, but not always, differs from the previous two readings), the "score" of the traditional (KJV) reading according to a system I've devised, and then evidence FOR and AGAINST the traditional reading in ancient manuscripts and early Christian writers. (2) Handout 2 (click here) lists proposed dates for the composition of the four gospels along with a generally appreciative review of Ehrman's book by a Catholic writer.

I'll be revising handout 1 at some point since I took the evidence and so-called "scholarly consensus" from the 2nd ed. of the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (1968), ed. by Kurt Aland, Bruce Metzger, and others. There is now a 4th edition, which I will soon get my hands on, that may lead me to modify a few details. By the way, Bruce Metzger was one of Ehrman's teachers; Ehrman dedicated his book to Metzger--making Ehrman's differences in judgment from his teacher of course perfectly acceptable but still slightly ironic.

Current events

2007-04-24T11:19:00.000-06:00

A quick list of some current happenings chez nous and in the environs:

(Tues., Apr. 17:) Margaret and I had an interview at the MTC we'll tell you about shortly.

(Wed., Apr. 18:) Misha had tutoring from a new math tutor, Nancy Krause.

(Thurs., Apr. 19:) We spent the evening with the Lifferths, Noah taking an exam while the rest of us ate fabulous muffins and cookies made by Kaila.

(Fri., Apr. 19:) Margaret and I went to book group at Lynn and Lenore Davis's to discuss Misquoting Jesus. For those interested in New Testament textual studies, I'll soon be giving you more on the book and the book group meetinig, with attached handouts responding to some of the author's claims about specific New Testament passages--and I'll explain how reading his book has helped increase my faith.

(Sat., Apr. 20:) Temple, shopping, and housecleaning (more or less the usual).

(Sun., Apr. 21:) I sat with my family in church!!! Misha and I visited two of the people we are assigned to home teach.

(Mon., Apr. 23--Shakespeare's birthday!:) I gave a final exam at 7:00 a.m. for the class I took over the last couple of weeks because of the teacher's illness.
Don't worry--you won't be getting a weekly travelogue from now on. I thought, just for once, I'd give a snapshot of our lives. But mainly this is a reminder of some things I'll expand on when I have the time--and when the time is right.

Life goes on

2007-04-16T15:17:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I was released from a church calling I've had for almost ten years. I'm still processing the change and will tell you more in a later post. Feel free, though, to post any condolences or congratulations as comments on the current post.

As for life going on, it apparently does. And so this week I'll be getting back, I hope, to diligently writing my book. This morning I finished a Shakespeare class I got to take over from an ill colleague. Wednesday we'll have a math tutor come to help one of the kids. Margaret and I will be attending our monthly book group on Friday (the book is Misquoting Jesus). And THURSDAY we get to go to the Lifferths, eat dessert, play "guitar hero" (which I do NOT do well), and administer a test to Noah.

We're looking forward to it!

Quick report on San Diego

2007-04-12T11:13:00.000-06:00

I'm back from the Shakespeare Association of America meetings in San Diego. (Click here for the web site.) I didn't do any sightseeing--I've been to San Diego before, we're going as a family at the end of May, and the conference hotel (Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina) was not convenient to town (it's about four blocks from the airport).

But I enjoyed the conference. I roomed with a young faculty member from Allegheny University (Meadville, PA), named Jim Casey, and we had some good talks. I ate lunch a couple of times with Mike Jensen, a friend from California who respects but strongly disagrees with my religious beliefs. (We also talked about Levinas, family life in the past, and other topics, and he said how much he was impressed by the BYU students he had heard talk on National Public Radio on both sides of the Dick Cheney issue.) I saw other friends, including former student Kent Lehnhof and BYU colleague Brandie Siegfried, who I seem to talk with more at conferences elsewhere in the world than I do in Provo even though she has an office on the same floor as mine at BYU.

I went to sessions and seminars on various topics: historical formalism in Shakespeare studies, "Trans-Shakespeare: Temporality and Identity" (which included a fine presentation on Vigny's translation of Othello and Anglo-French Shakespearean relations in the early 1800s), academic publishing, classical associations, "Shakespeare and the Trace of Theology" (including an especially interesting piece on Calvinist theology and King Lear), and "Re-Sounding Shakespeare" (a seminar about Shakespearean music, speaking Shakespearean verse, and Shakespeare on the radio).

The seminar I took part in, titled "Shakespearean Attachments," was so large it had to be split into two parts. I took part in the first day's discussion. My paper was on "Family, Sociality, and Identity in Shakespeare's Comedies of Identity" (I'll explain some time what it was really about). Both mine and Kent Lehnhof's papers used Levinas, and Levinas's name was tossed about during both sessions. One seminar member, though, questioned whether modern philosophy ought to be used in connection with old texts (like Shakespeare), and another member referred to a critique of Levinas by someone who wanted to remind us that our neighbor might be a monster. That's not a critique Levinas would have been unaware of or unprepared for, so I was a bit irritated to have the challenge thrown down and not really have much of an opportunity to take it up. Furthermore, I had never heard of the person who was quoted as criticizing Levinas. The name sounded like zhee-zhak--I thought maybe it could be a Frenchman named Gijac or Jijaques. After returning to Provo, I did a search and found the real name: Slavoj Zizek, a Slovenian thinker/writer. As I've gotten to know his thought a bit, I find some of it attractive (he is a bit more obviously pragmatic than Levinas appears to be, and he makes some good arguments against things like the invasion of Iraq and the NATO bombing of Serbia). But I also found some things that put me off, such as (apparently) a defense of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror.

Otherwise, the "Shakespearean Attachments" seminar was both thought provoking (with some especially interesting papers on what "neighborliness" meant in Shakespeare's time, practically, ethically, and theologically) and confusing. After each session I felt I was less clear about what exactly we were talking about.

Other events at the conference: an opening reception at Balboa Park (Thursday evening), the annual luncheon on Friday with a fine talk by Georgianna Ziegler, a performance of English broadside ballads by Lucie Skeaping and Robin Jeffrey (Friday evening), and an advanced screening of Kenneth Branagh's latest film, As You Like It (Saturday evening). I did not go to the annual dance, "with live music by Tom Berger and the Hey Nonny Nonnies" (seriously), but my roommate did.

Broadside ballads, by the way, are songs that were sung on the streets of London, and elsewhere, and sold in one-penny sheets with the lyrics. They covered all sorts of subjects, from current events to strange (and usually fabricated) occurrences and constitute what I've referred to as the Renaissance English equivalent of country music crossed with The National Inquirer. I'm apparently not totally original in coming up with that idea, since the promotional materials referred to the ballads as something like popular music combined with the tabloid press.

I enjoyed As You Like It, which will be released in August, apparently only on TV (HBO), later on DVD. It wasn't up to Branagh's greatest (Henry V, Much Ado, Hamlet) but was nowhere near as bad as his worst (Love's Labour's Lost). The play was set in Meiji Japan, but more with atmospheric suggestion than realistically. It was actually filmed in a botanical garden in England that has tori gates and other elements that can pass for Japanese. Some of the casting choices were interesting--Brian Blessed doubling as the two dukes, three black actors as the de Boys boys, and an intermixture of ethnic Japanese here and there.

I spent a good amount of time among the booksellers and got a few items. And I had the adventure of losing my Palm Pilot either on the plane coming to San Diego or somewhere in the airport there. They found it and called me, and I did the 10 or 15 minute walk to the airport to get it and walked back. Maybe that doesn't sound like much of an adventure, but it was.

The other adventure, I guess, was catching an early flight back to Provo so I could enjoy Easter (and a Passover celebration) with my family on Sunday. I made it, amazingly, to our ward's sacrament meeting at 11am but was then so dead tired I had to nap before our Passover dinner at 5--which was a marvelous event, mainly because of the wonderful people there (Margaret, Julie, Misha, Kaila, Noah, Gabby, Alex, Rob, Stephanie, and briefly Julia Blair).

It's good to be back.

Going to San Diego

2007-04-03T10:36:00.001-06:00

I'm still looking forward to hearing from Misha about the Clapton concert. But since life is moving on, I thought I'd give a progress report. I've had votes for a variety of topics. It will be easy to talk about sonnets, chocolate, and the classes I'll be teaching this coming year. I also need to talk about the book I'm writing (publisher's deadline is October 1). But I will get back to Groundhog Day soon. I know there's interest out there, and I really want to get my ideas down because Plato, Levinas, and that movie are wonderfully, mutually illuminating and because what they (together) reveal is a crucial lesson of life. (Am I pushing this too hard? I don't think so.)

Meanwhile, though, I'm leaving for a conference on Thursday: the Shakespeare Association of America meetings, held in San Diego this year. I'll get to do lots of interesting things, including see a new film by Kenneth Branagh. I'll give a report when I get back.

Eric Clapton in Salt Lake

2007-03-27T17:46:00.000-06:00

Since Eric Clapton is the current vote winner, I'll start a brief post about his visit to Salt Lake. This post will expand as I get the real experts--Margaret and Misha--to add comments.

The story in brief: Margaret (my wife) and I, after trying insanely to win tickets to the Clapton concert by calling 103.5 "The Arrow," decided to buy them--which we did, and gave them to our son Misha for Christmas. Part of the gift was that he would get to go with his mom, who has been a Clapton fan for many years. Some Christmases ago, I gave her the Cream of Clapton CD. (As she notes below, daughter Kaila gave her Clapton Unplugged.) Misha, who is 15, has become a Clapton fan and is following in his footsteps by becoming an amazing guitarist. Eric Clapton is arguably the finest rock guitarist in the world. I would also put the late George Harrison in the running (Harrison and Clapton were friends, and Clapton plays the guitar on Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"), but some think there's no competition.

The concert took place in Salt Lake on March 8. (Margaret and Misha went and made an evening of it; besides the fact that Margaret loves Clapton, it was her turn because some years ago I "got" to go to an 'Nsync concert with daughter Julie.) You can click here or here for stories on the concert and here for photos. But Margaret and Misha need to tell the real story . . .

Here's Margaret:

    First off, Kaila gave me "Clapton Unplugged." You gave me "Cream of Clapton."
    Installment #1: Christmas season. Bruce and I both have speed-dials set for all three numbers of 103.5 fm. When we hear "Cocaine" or anything else by Clapton, we start madly pressing buttons--home phone, office phone, cell phone. We get busy signals. We never win. Finally, we buy the tickets. Then we break the news to Michael that we tried and tried to win the tickets but we just couldn't.
    Meanwhile, I wrap the tickets in a video box with some a few little things to make it rattle and put it under the tree.
    Christmas morning arrives. Michael opens several gifts before getting to that one. He opens it, looked shocked, says, "I thought you said you didn't get them."
    I answer, "No, I said we didn't WIN them."
    He breaks into one of his wonderful, ever subtle smiles.
    SWEET!

Now we need to hear from Misha. And here he is (in the form of a report prepared for school):
    On March, 8th, 2007, I attended the Eric Clapton concert at the Energy Solutions Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. I loved it. I thought it was great. Eric Clapton only said 13 words to the audience: “thank you and good evening” and “thank you” four times. But it doesn’t really matter because he spoke with his guitar.
    There were lots of people. Most of them were old, and a lot had long hair. A lot of them were drinking beer and “having a good time.”
    The opening band (Robert Cray) was good. All they did was blues.
    The songs Eric Clapton played were:
1.   Tell the Truth
2.   Key to the Highway
3.   Got to Get Better in a Little While
4.   Little Wing (By Jimi Hendrix)
5.   Anyday
6.   Driftin’ Blues
7.   Outside Women Blues
8.   Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out
9.   Running on Faith
10.   Motherless Child
11.   Little Queen of Spades
12.   Further on up the Road
13.   Wonderful Tonight
14.   Layla
  Encore:
1.   Cocaine
2.   Crossroads
    They brought the opening band to come out in the encore. The concert was just five minutes short of two hours, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I consider Eric Clapton one of the best guitar players in the world, and it was very entertaining to watch him. But I think all the other members of the band were really good too:
Doyle Bramhall II – guitar
Derek Trucks – guitar
Chris Stainton – keyboards
Tim Carmon – keyboards
Willie Weeks – bass
Steve Jordan – drums
Michelle John – backing vocals
Sharon White – backing vocals
    They all got a chance to solo and they all very talented, but Eric Clapton is the most talented. He’s played with tons of different bands, and he’s had lots of practicing at guitar and singing over the years. He’s the main reason I went. Eric Clapton played on both electric and acoustic guitar. He was very good at both. Eric Clapton played blues and rock. My favorite songs were “Little Wing” (a ballad written by Jimi Hendrix), “Layla” (he did the “Derek and the Dominoes” rock version), “Cocaine” (also a rock song), and “Wonderful Tonight” (rock but a bit softer).

You vote!: what you'd like to discuss

2007-03-24T10:48:00.000-06:00

I've been just a bit busy lately, but would like to keep discussion going by asking you to VOTE on what topic you'd like me to bring up. Here are some possibilities:
(1) Why ritual?
(2) Sonnets
(3) Eric Clapton
(4) Chocolate
(5) The book I'm writing
(6) Courses I'll be teaching this fall (world lit, intro to lit, and C. S. Lewis)
(7) The graduate course on Shakespeare I'll be teaching Winter 2008
(8) "An objective view of the New Testament texts: an attempt"
(9) Groundhog Day (yes, I will be getting back to this soon, but how soon may depend on the degree of interest--and whether you can handle watching the movie again to prepare for discussion)
(10) Other

Just add a comment indicating which topic(s) you're most interested in.

Comparing translations of a passage from The Purgatorio

2007-03-15T21:04:00.001-06:00

For those interested in translations of Dante, I thought I'd try out a passage: the last 19 lines of canto 27 of the Purgatorio. To avoid using up lots of space here, though, I've created a document you can reach by clicking on this link:

http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/purgatorio-27.pdf or, if you prefer, http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/purgatorio-27.doc.

Here you'll find the Italian plus a couple of English translations. Take a look and tell me what you think. And if you have another translation you'd like us to look at, post it as a comment.

More on Dante (or should I say "allegro"?)

2007-03-14T15:19:00.000-06:00

For those interested in Garry Wilmore's Tuscan bean and rice soup recipe (and musings on Dante), go to http://imieicariamici.blogspot.com/2005/05/my-now-famous-tuscan-bean-and-rice.html.

Favorite translations of Dante

2007-03-13T14:11:00.000-06:00

I'd be interested to know if anyone out there has a favorite translation of Dante--meaning mainly the Commedia ("Divine Comedy")--and why it's your favorite.

My favorite is the one by John Ciardi, mainly because I know it well. It seems to me clear, contemporary sounding, and fast paced (meaning it doesn't get bogged down in sounding eloquent). And it seems (from what I can tell) reasonably accurate.

Ciardi attempts to capture the feel of Dante's terza rima by rhyming the first and third lines of every group of three lines (these three-line stanzas are called "tercets"). For you lit majors, that means axa bxb cxc dxd--with "x" referring to the middle line of each stanza, which does NOT rhyme with other lines. Dante, by contrast, rhymes the middle line of every tercet with the outer lines of the following tercet, thus: aba bcb cdc ded efe.

As Dante buffs will know, the Commedia is made up of three large "canticles" (cantiche): the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso. Each canticle is made up of 33 cantos (except that the Inferno has an extra introductory canto for a total of 34). The entire Commedia thus has 100 cantos (which, being 10 times 10 [3 times 3, plus 1], is a cool number alluding to the Trinity, whose superlative three-ness [3 squared] plus perfect unity [1] Dante associates with the number 10). Got that?

Ciardi ends each canto with a rhyming couplet, which Dante does NOT do. Dante ends a canto by rhyming the middle line of the second to last stanza with one more solitary line at the end, thus--aba bcb cdc d--whereas Ciardi ends a canto aba bcb cdc dd.

Maybe at some point we can compare specific passages in different translations.

Meaning of "The Face of the Other"

2007-03-09T15:39:00.001-07:00

Since I'm not quite ready to get back to Groundhog Day, I thought I'd throw in an explanation of the title of this blog site. "The face of the Other" is a phrase used by Emmanuel Levinas, an important twentieth-century philosopher who has won my deep interest and admiration. I'll make two clarifying points and then give some quotations from Levinas:

(1) “Other” (sometimes capitalized, sometimes not) usually translates the French word autrui, which means “the other person,” “someone else” (other than oneself). It is thus the personal other, the other person, whoever it is, that each of us encounters directly, or experiences the traces of, every day. Of course, we encounter a multiplicity of others, but Levinas more often uses the singular “other” to emphasize that we encounter others one at a time, face to face.

(2) By “face” Levinas means the human face (or in French, visage), but not thought of or experienced as a physical or aesthetic object. Rather, the first, usual, unreflective encounter with the face is as the living presence of another person. Thus, when we come "face to face" with another person, the experience is a social and ethical one (rather than intellectual, aesthetic, or merely physical). “Living presence,” for Levinas, would imply that the other person (as someone genuinely other than myself) is exposed to me--that is, is vulnerably present--and expresses him or herself simply by being there as an undeniable reality that I cannot reduce to images or ideas in my head. This impossibility of capturing the other conceptually or otherwise reveals the other’s “infinity” (i.e., irreducibility to a finite [bounded] entity over which I can have power). The other person is, of course, exposed and expressive in other ways than through the literal face (e.g., through speech, gesture, action, and bodily presence generally), but the face is the most exposed, most vulnerable, and most expressive aspect of the other’s presence.

Some quotations from Levinas:

The face is a living presence; it is expression. . . . The face speaks. (Totality and Infinity 66)

. . . the face speaks to me and thereby invites me to a relation . . . (Totality and Infinity 198)

The face opens the primordial discourse whose first word is obligation. (Totality and Infinity 201)

. . . the face presents itself, and demands justice. (Totality and Infinity 294)

In front of the face, I always demand more of myself. (“Signature” 294 in Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism)

[I am] not free to ignore the meaningful world into which the face of the Other has introduced [me]. (Totality and Infinity 219)

For many more quotations concerning "the face," see http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/levinas/face.pdf or http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/levinas/face.rtf. And for more on Levinas, see http://english2.byu.edu/faculty/youngb/levinas/guide.htm.

Coming Soon!

2007-02-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'll soon be posting part 2 of the Groundhog Day and Ring of Gyges discussion. Meanwhile, you might want to watch the movie (again) so you're ready to comment.

And check out the links I've added to some of my favorite blogs (upper right-hand corner of this page)--mainly blogs by extended family members and friends.

Links to blog posts on The Great Divorce

2007-02-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

Sometime when I have time to figure out how to do it, I'll add connecting links from this blog to another one: "Factotum," the marvelous blog of my daughter Kaila. She had me do some guest blogs on C. S. Lewis's The Great Divorce. If you're interested you can see them (in reverse chronological order) in her "Book Club" section:

http://factotum01.blogspot.com/search/label/Book%20Club

To read my posts in order, go to
(1) http://factotum01.blogspot.com/2007/01/great-divorce-some-preliminaries.html
(2) http://factotum01.blogspot.com/2007/01/great-divorce-symbols-influences-and.html
(3) http://factotum01.blogspot.com/2007/01/great-divorce-later-episodes-and-major.html
(4) http://factotum01.blogspot.com/2007/01/closing-thoughts-on-great-divorce.html

Groundhog Day and the Ring of Gyges

2007-02-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

By Groundhog Day I mean the movie, with Bill Murray--you know the one, with the same day repeated over and over until finally (maybe because the main character has learned to transcend himself) a new day begins.

The ring of Gyges figures in a story told in Plato's Republic. Gyges is a shepherd who discovers a magic ring enabling him to become invisible at will. After using it to seduce the queen and kill the king, he himself becomes king of Lydia. In The Republic Plato has Glaucon tell the story to illustrate the nature of justice and the motives that lead people to be just or unjust. Glaucon argues that all people will be unjust--that is, will wrong and manipulate others--if they can get away with it. The only reason people are just is because they fear the social consequences--that is, they are afraid of getting caught and punished. "Justice" or morality is thus, in this view, a social construction, or at least something that functions only in terms of social expectations and constraints. People behave "justly" only because they lack the power or the courage to pursue self-interest ruthlessly. But anyone who is powerful enough will supposedly pursue self-interest without restraint, and that will mean behaving in ways that we conventionally call "unjust."

This view, by the way, is not Plato's. He has Glaucon introduce the argument only so that the book's main character, Socrates (who, in real life, had been Plato's friend and teacher), can refute it. But in many ways Glaucon's argument is compelling--or, rather, seductive. It is easy to fantasize about being invisible, doing whatever we like without anyone knowing, and having no consequences. This tantalizing dream of unconstrained self-indulgence appeals to something in human nature--what the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas calls "the happy spontaneity of the self" ("Signature" 293). (For a translation of the Gyges episode in The Republic, click here.)

Levinas also discussed the myth of Gyges and his ring. For him, Gyges--who sees without being seen--is an image of the human self living for itself alone, as if it were not responsible to anyone else. The fact that we are capable of doing this is a consequence of our being truly separate from each other. But that separation, though the necessary grounds of our individual existence (and, hence, of our individual moral responsibility), also gives rise to the futile and self-destructive dream of complete autonomy and "the possibility of injustice and radical egoism" (Totality and Infinity 173). (See also Totality 61, 90, 170, 173; and Otherwise than Being 145.)

According to Levinas, in addition to being separate from each other, we are also necessarily connected with each other. It is the other person, who is absolutely other than myself and who cannot be reduced to a concept or possession, who first makes me aware of myself and who makes the world genuinely real and external, because it is something I have in common with others. The other person also calls my egoism into question and thereby endows me with moral responsibility. To be human is to be responsible--we can try to ignore this responsibility, but we cannot escape it. We have always already been responsible to and for others, or as Levinas puts it: "I am defined as a subjectivity, as a singular person, as an ‘I,’ precisely because I am exposed to the other. It is my inescapable and incontrovertible answerability to the other that makes me an individual ‘I.’ So that I become a responsible or ethical ‘I’ to the extent that I agree to depose or dethrone myself—to abdicate my position of centrality—in favor of the vulnerable other. As the Bible says: ‘He who loses his soul gains it’" (Face to Face with Levinas 27).

Plato and Levinas, each in his own way, show why morality does not arise simply from yielding weakly or naively to social constraints and why the fantasy of being like Gyges does not correspond to the reality of our situations as human beings--most importantly, why we would not be truly happy if we were able to get away with whatever would satisfy our personal desires.

The question to which Plato has Socrates respond in The Republic is this: Is it better to be unjust (assuming that you get away with it) or just (even if you are thought to be unjust and are mistreated as a result)? Or put in different words: Is justice better than injustice, even if neither men nor gods know that you are just?

The answer, which it takes much of the book to explain, is that it is better to be just because justice consists in each element in the human soul performing its proper role and relating to the other elements properly, with the result of harmony, happiness, and wisdom. And so even if a just man is misunderstood and persecuted (as Socrates was), he will still be at peace, while the unjust man, even if he is successful in worldly terms, will not be at peace with himself. He will live in a state of fear, agitation, and insatiable desire. Since he lives in an obsessive, addictive state, with the evil parts of his nature in control, he is not truly free. But the just man, who is ruled by reason, the source of true knowledge and wisdom, is truly free.

There is much to be said for Plato's view. But I find Levinas's arguments even more compelling. Yes, it is possible to be unjust--that is, even though we are responsible to others, we can try to ignore that responsibility, we can deafen our ears to the call of the Other. (Or to be more precise, we can try to deafen our ears. In reality, as Levinas notes, though "The will is free to assume this responsibility [to and for the Other] in whatever sense it likes[,] it is not free to refuse this responsibility itself; it is not free to ignore the meaningful world into which the face of the Other has introduced it" [Totality and Infinity 218-19].) But what happens if we try to ignore our responsibility? Our existence becomes isolated, more isolated the more we seek to ignore the otherness of others, to treat them as objects or obstacles. And this isolation deprives our existence of moral significance and transcendence. We are stuck with being only ourselves.

When we do that, not only does our existence lack moral meaning (or rather we twist ourselves into an attitude of trying to ignore that meaning, for it always has moral meaning), it also takes on an eerily unreal quality. For if we do not acknowledge the otherness of others, if they are only "things," then our consciousness becomes closed in upon itself and lacks the dimension of exteriority provided by the presence of others who are genuinely and absolutely other than ourselves. The world takes on a dreamlike quality; we are overtaken by the solipsistic anxiety that only the self exists--that all that seems external is only a phantasm, perhaps something we are fantasizing, perhaps something put in our minds by some malign being (the "evil genius" that Descartes imagines). Therefore, only when we acknowledge that others are truly other than ourselves and accept our responsibility for them does the world become fully real to us. Only then in fact do we ourselves become fully real. "The solipsistic anxiety of consciousness"--the anxiety that only I exist--the terrible situation in which my consciousness "[sees] itself in all its adventures as captivated by itself, ends here": ends, that is, in my genuine encounter with another person. "The privilege of the Other in relation to the I--or moral consciousness--is the very opening to exteriority," the opening up of a world outside of myself that I share with others ("Signature" 294).

In an essay titled "Freedom and Command," Levinas makes his points in a somewhat different way. He specifically discusses Plato's ideas about tyranny and then makes the point that the tyrant who seeks to control others absolutely loses the satisfaction of controlling others to the extent that he is successful in doing so. Why? Because to control another person is to turn that person into an object. But when a person is turned into an object, there is no longer anyone there to control or to be aware of my success in achieving absolute control. A tyrant who is successful in exercising absolute control will have power over nonentities, for his subjects will cease to be other than himself to the extent that he succeeds in controlling them. The entirely successful tyrant would no longer have anyone left who could genuinely acknowledge his power, no one over whom he could truly have power.

In contrast to the empty and meaningless existence of the tyrant is our calling as human beings to "be for the Other"--that is, to be beyond ourselves by serving and caring for other people. When I acknowledge and welcome others, my "center of gravitation" moves outside of myself (Totality and Infinity 283). And yet that shift in the center of my gravitation makes me more truly myself. As Levinas puts it, "The I, which we have seen arise in enjoyment as a separated being having apart, in itself, the center around which its existence gravitates, is confirmed in its singularity by purging itself of this gravitation, purges itself interminably, and is confirmed precisely in this incessant effort to purge itself. This is termed goodness. Perhaps the possibility of a point of the universe where such an overflow of responsibility is produced ultimately defines the I" (Totality and Infinity 244-45). This is what Levinas means when he writes of "transcendence": at one and the same time, I am myself (uniquely myself, because I am the only one who, right here where I am, can respond to the Other), and yet I am also beyond myself by being genuinely in relation with someone who is absolutely other than myself.

What does this have to do with Groundhog Day? Some of you who know the movie well will already have guessed at my point. I'll be explaining that point in my next post. (To be continued . . .)

Plans (or Prolegomena, if I have to be fancy)

2007-02-03T21:41:00.001-07:00

OK, we've got a correct answer to the question posed in my previous post. But who, you may ask, is Levinas? (More on that later. For an online introduction, click here.)

My wife has suggested that I use this blog to jot down some of my ideas, which I often talk about but rarely get around to writing up. So--very soon--I'll start doing that. Two topics I'd like to tackle are these:

(1) Groundhog Day and the Ring of Gyges

(2) Why ritual?

I bet you can't wait to find out what the heck I'm talking about.

The Face of the Other

2007-01-31T14:31:00.000-07:00

Let's start by seeing if anyone knows where the title of this blog comes from.