Ring Out, Wild Bells

The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die...
Ring, happy bells, across the snow.
The year is going; let him go.

Ring in the valient men and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand.
Ring out the darkness of the land;
Ring in the Christ that is to be!

Words: Alfred Tennyson
Music: Crawford Gates,
Professor (emeritus) at the Eastman School of Music

(This writer performed many times in his musical
"Promised Valley" - as good a musical as any ever on Broadway,
solid and soaring in epic scope. More on Gates' artistry later.)

For more: URL:http://en.wikipedia.org Type in: Hymns of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1985 book)

We Seek After These Things!

The world is full of beauty, and though we live in perilous times, there is great hope, as well.

Let's discuss it. Reveal it to one another. So that both may be edified, let us freely share ideas and ideals in a spirit of meekness and mildness, realizing that at times, boldness and courage will demand the best of us all.

Many would like an inside scoop on the LDS faith. This blog attempts to give the reader a window into the soul of one faithful and thoughtful member. It is a view from which some general understanding might be extrapolated, some expanse of bridge built, and perhaps, an alliance of the heart knit together.

For if you believe in Christ, I am for you; if you are agnostic or atheistic, I too am for you. Free, open markets? You have in me an ally. Centralized, planned economies? Come, let us reason together. For, if it is true that power resides best in The People, then committees should not be afraid to let them make their own economic decisions, and revolutionary dictatorships should trust The People to map out their own destinies, messy though they may be.

This blog is offered with the presumption that if I tell you things that I consider virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we might come to greater understanding of one another.

"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men...If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." (13th Article of Faith, Joseph Smith)

I deeply believe these words.

And it doesn't mean that Mormons have all truth. On the contrary, these Christians are constantly searching for the beauty and truth of this world. One early Church Father said that those who come to this faith should bring the best of their world with them. Bring it with them!

I stand in awe and reverence at truth, when I learn of the lives of my students, friends and neighbors. My heart swells in broadened horizons at their story - for they are all endowed with such story.

So now, may we learn one another's language of the heart, and of the mind; of our might and strength. Together!

O, this shall be a marvelous journey!
Posted by Publius at 4:17 PM 0 comments Labels: Good Report, Mormons, Understanding

Rocky Anderson - I Never Laughed So Long...So Long...So Long!

Paul Simon wrote a lyric in tribute to American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, with basa nova chords, lauding Wright's lasting impact on American architecture. Bidding him a fond farewell: "I never laughed so long/so long/" Then, in a final double-meaning goodbye: "So long!"

However, Ding, Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead!

Let there be no double-meaning here. We say "so long" to Rocky. And our jubilant jam hits high riff. Munchkins are liberated from the Wicked Witch of the West. And Rocky Andersen leaves power as the most Leftist, radical and power-hungry, agenda-driven bureaucrat in memory.

Salt Lake Tribune writer, Derek Jensen, heaps on alliterative superlatives, in his eulogistic piece praising the pedantic Mayor's burly baritone and "muscular mind to match." Jensen leaves you breathless! But equally bloated in alliterative blow-hard bluster will be this offering.

So on to the argument! Ah, yes, it was to Rocky Anderson that we owe so much Olympic notice from the world! Wasn't it his plan that the TV network scrap the LDS Temple as the visual backdrop, and replace it with his beloved City and County Building? But the national network told him: Nuts!

So, Rocky came along, and "jolted the local landscape!" But if Salt Lake is so blue in its political persuasion, how could it have been jolted? Oh. It was the Mormons who were jolted! I just thought Mormons were tired of his using his "non-political" mayor's office as a pulpit for his personal prejudice, and to re-make this valley into the People's Republic of Rocky's Mountain.

And then, in the Jensen article, we hear that oft repeated accusation of Utah's being "parochial." Thank you, to the grandfather of regional literature, Wallace Stegner, for that word, which Salt Lake Lefties love to chant. But the title of Stegner's article was (and make sure you get the gist of the title): "At Home in the Fields of the Lord" - you got the "at home" part? (Read: A Great and Peculiar Beauty: A Utah Reader, Thomas Lyons & Terry Tempest Williams, editors.)

While I'm sure Mormons were a tad closed to begin with. Who wouldn't be with an extermination order hanging over their heads! However, over the past 150 years - roughly the same time as from Pilgrims to the Framers of the Constitution, mind you, (Stegner's claim)they've come into their own, with young men and women serving in foreign lands and bringing back those cultures and sensitivities to poor "parochial," backward and red Utah. But then...Rocky came along to save us from our narrow-minded selves!

His mayoral leadership has been called "overwhelmingly positive." Yeah, as positive as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is "positive" in his persecution of minority political parties, his shutting down of opposition newspapers and jailing "jingoistic" journalists (which Derek, you can be as a Leftist, too). So, how so with Rocky, you ask?

O, where to begin? First, his attempt to sell the Mormon Church a bull for stud service (the land), only to find that the bull didn't have the equipment they thought they were getting (the easement). Lucky for all of us, Rocky finally found in himself, what the bull was lacking, and made it right.

Also, he has laid the foundations of further persecution of Mormons, in his collusion in establishing the Leftist enclave The Leonardo Center - a repository of pejorative stories about people who have been wronged by Mormons. It's a given - the stories are what they are: other people's voices telling how a religious group, who professes to be Christian, can fall so very short of their mark - to be like Christ.

Be that as it may, the editorial trajectory of the Missing Stories, brought about by Les Kelen is what is most disturbing. In his self-proclaimed effort "to fight institutionalized racism," he paints Mormons with broad stereotypical brushes, into a monolith of misconception. On reading those stories, one would think that "all Mormons are racist bast**ds." The Leonardo would make Spencer W. Kimball into a "Bull" Connors, if all they relied on were Kelen's stories. And thus he perpetuates myth!

Rocky belongs to the aforementioned opinion group. And so, with the Mayor's help, The Leonardo was slipped past voters amid a barrage of soccer fields and play parks. The voters just thought they were getting another venue of learning. The question you have to ask yourself is: Whose learning are you getting? And where are they going with it?

Look to the Southern Poverty Law Center for a direction. (I admire the Center's films and have used them in my classes. But one should realize their political bent. The ends of the Civil Rights Movement were absolutely needed; but the non-Constitutional means were questionable. And our celebration of Marxist methods of social change at the expense of Constitutional processes still fans the embers of more social unrest and riot to come. I see it in my inner-city students.)

Additionally, there are volumes of stories missing from the Missing Stories, of people outside the Church - people who are of different races, and who have been blessed in their associations with Mormons. But that is a group of people that Kelen doesn't believe exists (and for that fact, neither does Rocky).

According to Kelen, all people, so blessed, would have had to leave their own cultures, and join the Mormon Church, in order to receive any benefit or friendship. Thus, Rocky and Kelen and others of their ilk, with the establishment of The Leonardo Center have institutionalized their nonsense. In addition, they are asking for more money to preserve this repository of their prejudice.

As I represent the Lollipop Guild, I'm glad that Rocky Anderson, the left-wing demagogue is gone. Now, we just have to learn how to build bridges to unite us, and not walls that separate us.

But then, as a member of the ACLU, Rocky has been all about walls. So long....so long....so long!

On the Redefinition of Marriage

A must-read for all who want to tackle the difficult issues of same-sex marriage and the misapplication of equality to the debate, read Monte Neil Stewart's "Judicial Redefinition of Marriage," in the Canadian Journal of Family Law, vol. 21, Number 1, 2004. Available at:
http://www.manwomanmarriage.org/

The Nativity Story film - Raw, Gritty and Moving

If you didn't buy it then, you should definitely try it this Christmas season. This is a powerful rendition of a timeless story, with a cast of strong young actors. Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes) and Joseph (Oscar Isaac) weave a conflicted but convincing love that grows as they ready themselves for the destiny of rearing the Son of God made flesh.

2000 years ago, when it came out in the original, only a few shepherds and just three wealthy wise men knelt at the feet of the Holy Family. I'm told, it didn't do as well as they had hoped at the box office, when it came out last year. Not to worry. The pay-off comes in the manger scenes. They're timeless.

When the shepherds and three reluctant Wise Men reverently approach the manger, the wondering Joseph watches them, who listened to the Angel and followed a guiding star, to approach the King of Kings.

Elliot Davis's cinematography is marvelous, with a gritty realism that carries you back in time, and plunks you down beside the fire. The constant threat of the Roman Occupation cast an oppressive pallor on all Jerusalem - the brutal taxation, the slaughter of innocents, the unrelenting barren landscape of Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Egypt. Like granules of grit and dirt, interesting faces surround us in all the crowd scenes, further carrying the illusion deeper.

Especially effective as Herod is Ciarn Hinds, who recently starred in Amazing Grace - the film about William Wilburforce and the abolition of the slave trade. Hinds was most notable in his role as the young naval officer Frederick Wentworth in the 1995 Masterpiece Theatre production of Jane Austen's Persuasion.

Add this film to your holiday favorites. It is a classic of Christmas witness.
URL:http://www.thenativitystory.com

Religious Test to Hold Office? This Mitt Romney Thing

Have you read the U.S. Constitution? No religious tests for office! But some self-righteous idealogues, holding onto Old American prejudices, feel perfectly at ease with this particular religious bigotry. Evangelists, Baptists should know better! A line from A River Runs Through It jabs: Methodists are Baptists who can read. (If my memory serves me.)

My grandfather taught at a private Methodist university - Emory. He had a doctorate of Divinity and Medicine. He was Moravian. Moravians were a religious brotherhood who, during the Revolutionary War, would not take up arms for religious reasons, but cared for the Continental Army's wounded in Bethlehem, Penn., so well that the Continental Congress issued a Citation at the request of Gen. George Washington praising the Moravians' care of the war wounded.

Taking that position was an unpopular one in that day, being who they were. But the country found it within their heart to honor a religion, different than the mainstream.

Americans would be well-served to find similar tolerance now with former-Mass. Governor Mitt Romney. This bigotry comes from left-wing and right-wing extremists with agendas different than our own - different than the mainstream of America.

Take the Baby Out of the Movie!

Seeing a movie on Christmas Day brings my bother and I together during the holiday season. This Christmas we went to see Will Smith's I Am Legend - set in a futuristic world that relies soley on science to find a cure for cancer, but creates a global pandemic that destroys some 97% of all human life. What little life remains is either dark flesh-eating, super-charged hives of inhuman people, or normal survivors who have an immunity to the mutation.

Near the end of the film, when hope in the storyline gains a foothold, a little child from the audience fussed, and for a moment you thought it was part of the movie - it fit so well with the hope presented. Suddenly a fella's voice said really loudly: Take the baby out! In a high baritone pitch - that had a touch of vanity for its own tonality. It sounded metrosexual, single and self-righteous.

The child was fine really, but the mother dutifully took it out. Later another voice from the back of the theater rang out, at a quiet moment at the end of the film: And a child shall lead them! The baby... was fine! This other man's emphasis was on the irony of shutting up a child in a movie where an innocent child's voice was precisely what was needed! Sure, we want the writer's script to provide the sound FX, not the audience. However, it goes deeper than that.

When children get really fussy and make any film uncomfortably difficult to watch, parents should, without question, take the child out as soon as possible. And they should determine beforehand, whether their child will present a breach of etiquette for movie goers.

However, at the core of some of this is an ugly intolerance against children and those who have them, that seems extremely wrong to this observer - especially in this city: Salt Lake City, where Leftists and elites look down their noses at anything fertile. ("Ah hah," you might say, "that explains it all! Salt Lake!" Then, dear reader, it is to you I speak.)

Your disposable income, college educations and numerous dogs breed in you a short-sighted view that has its roots in the Me Generation of the 70s. It is a view that is economically unviable, and places many Western nations at risk of not being able to regenerate themselves, and to revitalize the democratic institutions that gave rise to the prosperity you enjoy. (Commentary, "Why Have Children?" Cohen, June 2006;and recent books: The Empty Cradle, Longman, 2004; Fewer, Wattenberg, 2004.)

You may have your view; it is your perogative. But when you begin to shout down a mother and a child - and you are a man, doing so. I will not stand idly by while you spew your metro-mindset.

First Blog Offerings: Redford, Mormons, Seek Beauty

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Plastic Automatons-Your Brain,
Dear Redford, A River Runs Through It

In the 40 years that I've known this peculiar people, I've not known them to be mindless, plastic automatons. My first and formative years were spent outside the Church. Summers and vacations unfolded on Amelia Island, off the coast of Florida, just below Georgia's Cumberland Island.

Known as the Martha's Vinyard of the South, Fernadina Beach was how we knew Amelia Island. My cousins, aunt, uncle and great grandmother lived there. Mother Doug lived there till she was 96 years old. Some of my fondest memories are of Aunt Hitta's mansion with its dusty dark rooms, old Victorian furniture, and tweeting parkeets. Now a bed and breakfast, it's probably one of the island's 50 buildings on the National Registry.

We ate shrimp by the large bowls full, walked the white sandy beaches near the lighthouse. And kicked minnows into the sandtraps that we dug out of the sand, just out of reach of the last ebb of a wave, before it rushed back to the sea.

My father and grandfather had studied medicine at Harvard Medical School. Grandpa taught first year medical students at Emory University. Dad had an EENT practice in Atlanta. (That's when Eyes were included in the Ears, Nose and Throat.) Both were Phi Beta Kappa. "Although your grandfather really earned his," Dad would always add. As a son, I imagine no son ever feels he approaches his father's greatness; as a dad, I know they do. (A tongue of fire moment, that.)

My early recollections, are that around the house, locked in white cabinets were medical instruments and medicines. Petri dishes lay stacked in the refrigerator, as my dad cultured microorganisms for his research.

My father died when I was nine, leaving a deep ache in my heart. But blessed by a discus scholarship, I went on to college when older and graduated with honors. The young Mormons with whom I associated went on to schools like Stanford, Thunderbird, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Oxford. They are believing, faithful members - hardly the mindless, plastic automatons that Mr. Redford recently disparaged.

Of course, there is no more artificial, plastic craft than acting. Mr. Redford attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York - just as prestigious a school as those my pals attended. (Some years ago I auditioned and was accepted into the AADA summer program - yet to finish.)

I'm left to wonder, though, how many Mormons Mr. Redford really knows. And though once married to "one" for a season, how plastic would he have to have been, not to know her as plastic.

Although, I suspect, she wasn't the plastic one.

Posted by Publius at 5:21 PM
Labels: Amelia Island, Emory University, ENT, Phi Beta Kappa, Plastic Automatons, Redford

We Seek After These Things

The world is full of beauty, and though we live in perilous times, there is great hope, as well. Let's discuss it. Reveal it to one another. So that both may be edified, let us freely share ideas and ideals in a spirit of meekness and mildness, realizing that at times, boldness and courage will demand the best of us all.

Many would like an inside scoop on the LDS faith. This blog attempts to give the reader a window into the soul of one faithful and thoughtful member. It is a view from which some general understanding might be extrapolated, some expanse of bridge built, and perhaps, an alliance of the heart knit together.

For if you believe in Christ, I am for you; if you are agnostic or atheistic, I too am for you. Free, open markets? You have in me an ally. Centralized, planned economies? Come, let us reason together. For, if it is true that power resides best in The People, then committees should not be afraid to let them make their own economic decisions, and revolutionary dictatorships should trust The People to map out their own destinies, messy though they may be.

This blog is offered with the presumption that if I tell you things that I consider virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we might come to greater understanding of one another.

"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men...If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." (13th Article of Faith, Joseph Smith) I deeply believe these words.

And it doesn't mean that Mormons have all truth. On the contrary, Mormons are still searching for the beauty and truth of this world. One early church father said that those who come to this faith should bring the best from their world with them. Bring it with them!

I stand in awe and reverence at truth, when I learn of the lives of my students, friends and neighbors. My heart swells in broadened horizons at their stories.

So now, may we learn one another's language of the heart, and of the mind; of our might and strength!

O, this shall be a marvelous journey!

Posted by Publius at 4:17 PM 0 comments
Labels: Good Report, Mormons, Understanding