On a my eternal companion

It may surprise you to discover my wife is not my best friend and companion.  That distinction would go to my sister, Debbie.  My wife has known and understood this fact our entire marriage. I think she knew it before I knew it.  My wife feels the same way about my sister.

I  married my wife, partially, because she is Debbie’s best friend. I introduced them on our third date at the family reunion.  At the time Bonnie was living with her parents in Franklin, Idaho and Debbie was living with her first husband in Lewiston UT. Debbie was attending high school in Logan Utah and Bonnie would give her rides home after school. If we had not married, Bonnie would have kept Debbie as a best friend.

I had four things in mind when selecting my wife.  I thought about these needs for year's. This is an important thing to know and understand.

I knew that she needed to be physically attractive, to me.  I was not interested in marrying a beauty queen, but she needed to be someone I was attracted to.  I was grateful when the lady I was dating before Bonnie ask me to stop seeing her.[i]  I thought many times how terrible it would be to wake up in bed with Ginger every morning.  I was so grateful that she stopped dating me.

I needed her to be older than me.  I dated older women.  I am not sure why this mattered to me, but I knew it mattered to me.  A therapist may wonder if I was looking more for a mother, than a wife. This may be partially true.

I knew that she had to love and respect my parents.  She did not have to agree with their lifestyle, but she needed to speak well of them or remain silent. That is why our third date was to the Herzog Family reunion. I thought it was better to shock her with my family and then get a response than to get attached to her and then find that she did not like my family. I joke that her family reminded me of the Beverly Hillbillies, but that is what attracted her to me.[ii]

It wanted to marry a returned missionary. This would demonstrate her commitment to the Mormon church and its teachings.  At the time men went on missions at 19 and women went on missions at 21. This is partially why I dated older women.  If women could not serve missions until they were over 21 then the pool of available women would be mostly older women.   

Aunt Nancy Martin[iii] was my second mom.  When my mom was struggling as a young wife and mother, Aunt Nancy was my unofficial nanny. I was with her so often that people wondered if I was her child. It is this early nurturing that enables me to love today. Aunt Nancy could not make babies, so Mom shared her babies with Aunt Nancy. When I was a teenager, I thought about marrying someone like Aunt Nancy; someone who could not create babies. I knew somehow, we would find a way to raise babies like Aunt Nancy raised babies. Bonnie told me she may not be able to make babies.  I told her that it would not stop our marriage. This was a bridge we would cross when we came to it.

I remember when I was courting Bonnie that I struggled to find things in common to do together. We first went swimming or to the movies.  I took her to visit family members. In the end, we would meet after I got off work.  She worked nights at the hospital so she would come to Logan early and we would walk the streets together late at night.

I can spend about 30 minutes with Bonnie and then I get bored and must find something to entertain myself.  When we were first married and living in the small house in Logan, I would go downstairs to the basement and play with my computer for hours after dinner.  I did not know how to spend time with Bonnie.  She soon put a stop to that and then I read lots of books.  We watched a lot of television when the children were young.

One of my greatest failures as a husband and father was not interacting enough with my wife and children.  Most of the time I needed to take a second couple to dinner with us or on vacation because I had so very little in common with Bonnie. It was nearly too late when I learned to appreciate spending time with them. That is why our vacations were spent going to family reunions or campouts with Debbie.

I can remember that third day in our first apartment. We got married on a Saturday. On Sunday we went to Cornish UT to bless Debbie’s first child, Fridy. Monday morning, I had to go to work.  When I came home, she had cleaned our apartment, bought food, and filled the fridge, and had dinner waiting for me on the table.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Bonnie was the first woman to clean the house and cook just for me.  Charlene, Uncle Dave Bassett's wife, when I lived with their family in Kainesville Utah, cared for me like one of her children, but Bonnie did that just for me. She was always home for me when I got off work.  When she could not be home, she would call and tell me to wait for her at someone's home or go visit my parents.  She knew that I was frightened to go home to an empty house.  I felt so abandoned and alone when this happened. It took me decades to realize she was doing that for me because she loves me. I think this happened less than a dozen times in the first 20 years of marriage.

Bonnie was the first woman I remember kissing, besides momma,  and the only one I have been intimate with. It all began with a gentle nibbling on her ear. It was on our second day of marriage.  She led me to our bedroom and ask me to help her to make a baby. She was so gentle with me.  I think that one act bound me to her forever.  Some birds find themselves bound to the first person or item they see after breaking out of the shell.  That act was like breaking out of a shell for me. With that one act, we were forever one soul.

On making a baby ... 

Let's make a baby,
She said.

It was not the first night,
But the second.

The first had been a pajama night.

Still, he had not slept with a woman,
Except for momma, her momma, or an aunt.

The first day was busy,
The wedding breakfast,
Temple ceremony, when he nearly fainted, and the wedding reception.

So, the first night was a pajama night.

She was the first to kiss him,
Except for momma.

That second night, they did try, to make a baby.

Little did they know, He could never create new life.

Still, they luved to try.

The babies did come, send from another who luved them all.

He so luved his Eve.
So times seam tough and life is a struggle,
Still, he knows she was the first and will remain the only,

To ask him, to help her, to make a baby. 

It is difficult to explain why I am so tightly bound to a woman who so completely bores me.  I struggle to find things in common, things we can share.  I can remember dreading long drives in the car with her.  For a couple of years, we went together to Wyoming, once a week, while I repaired televisions in people’s homes.  Those drives were hard, most of this time was spent in silence as she crocheted or did handwork. I struggled to find things to talk to her about.  When she would drive, I would read a book or sleep.  I often fell asleep when we are together from sheer boredom.

on two great suns 

Two great suns, once there were.
once in orbit near a great sphere,
Attracted they were one to another.

This then what of the attraction. 

Little in common had they then,
even less now so they find.
This then holds, what attraction? 

This distance required, as the sun's glow brighter,
a greater distance, in their orbit sphere. 

This then fear then he feels,
that destruction may come,
at a smaller orbit, as their strength and bond
glow brighter. 

Daily he checks, this then the dance.
Weaving in and out, each other's sphere.
This many years now, then have they danced.
The choice than to continue, this covenant path. 

Long-lasting projects are created by partners.  A leader needs someone beside him who can tell him when he is wrong and needs to change.  Bonnie is that for me. She is bold and is not afraid to correct me, to help me remain on course.  This too has been a source of tension between us.  She is tenacious. When she has an idea, she can be like a bulldog.  She will remain at her post and no level of prodding or arguing will change her mind or divert her course of action. 

Now as we live parallel lives, I have never felt more tightly bound to her.  I live with my father while I care for him and attend college online.  I check in with her daily and we meet weekly for breakfast together.  I find myself looking forward to these times together.  I no longer struggle to find things to talk to her about. I no longer am bored by her presence.  Maybe I am growing and maturing.  I do know that no one will ever mean more to me than her.  We have an eternal marriage covenant and I remind her that this time apart will seam small compared to all of eternity.   

I look forward to a time when our babies will number, as the sands of the sea.

 

---

[i][i] Ginger Bright, I discovered after were married that Ginger was Bonnies cousin.

[ii] The Beverly Hillbillies was a television program from the early 1960.  They were a family of poor hill fold from the Ozarks.  Oil is discovered on their property and the become wealthy. They take their Hillbilly lifestyle to Beverly Hills California. 

[iii] Nancy Carolyn Herzog Martin (1947-2015) was my moms’ youngest sister.  Growing up they shared the same bedroom. Many people thought they shared the same personality.  They were alike, yet so different. It was like they took a similar pattern and developed different traits with that pattern. Many times, mom would take Nancy on our family vacations.  My parents and Nancy would share a bed, mom sleeping between Dad and Nancy. This was a common thing people would do when I was younger, it was not sexual.

On Sonnet 23

Sonnet 23

Methought I saw my late espoused Saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Joves great son to her glad Husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.

Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint, [ 5 ]
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,

Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
Her face was vail'd, yet to my fancied sight, [ 10 ]
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd

So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O as to embrace me she enclin'd,
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

 ((unknown), The John Milton Reading Room, 2020)

 

I came across this sonnet on the internet today.  It was written by John Milton after the death of his second wife.  His first marriage, to Mary Powell,  had been difficult.  He was older than his first wife and after a few weeks of marriage, she returned home to her parents.  They reconciled a few years later and she returned to him. They had three children together and she died in childbirth with a daughter. Their infant son soon followed her.  He was left with two daughters from this marriage. His second marriage was to Katherine Woodcock was more successful.  She too died from complications from pregnancy.  This left him with three daughters. ((unknown), John Milton's relationships, 2020)

Perhaps this poem is best understood by someone who has lost or nearly lost a spouse, or companion.  Alcestis was the mythical Queen of Thessaly.  She was known for her devotion to her husband she replaced him in death. (Mark, 2020)

In the summer of 2015, I nearly lost my wife to Stomach Cancer.  Like Milton’s first marriage our relationship has always been a difficult one.  I am devoted to my wife, and she is devoted to me, but we are not each other’s best friends and companions. Our marriage has survived because we wake up each day and commit to renewing our relationship.  This life is about relationships and the promises we make and keep. This is the new covenant given to us by Christ on the cross.  A covenant of renewal and rededication.

My gift of poetry was born at this moment.  I was given this avenue to process my grief. The pain was severe enough I nearly ended my life.

Now my wife is recovering and my poetry is in full bloom I can better appreciate this great poem on love, death, renewal, and resurrection.

Works Cited

(unknown). (2020, 12 20). John Milton's relationships. Retrieved from Wikepedia.org: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton%27s_relationships

(unknown). (2020, 12 20). The John Milton Reading Room. Retrieved from Dartmouth.edu: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/sonnets/sonnet_23/text.shtml

Mark, J. J. (2020, 12 20). Alcestis. Retrieved from Ancient History Encclopedia : https://www.ancient.eu/Alcestis/#:~:text=Alcestis%20was%20the%20mythical%20queen,and%20wife%20in%20ancient%20Greece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

on restoration and prophetic vision

I deeply believe in the prophet Joseph Smith and in his mission to restore the Church.  

I believe the church is in a constant state of restoration.

I believe God has other prophets too.

John Milton was his prophet to the English people, as were William Tyndale and John Wycliffe.

True religion lies somewhere between the faith of Thomas More and the prophetic voice of William Tyndale.

The church was not taken from the earth at the death of the apostles but was taken into the wilderness where she was nourished by his poets and musicians. (see Revelations 12:6)

I know, those who know me best could confirm, that I am a sinner in continual need of restoration (need for personal repentance).

Facebook post from November 2014

Thoughts on the presidential election and my own racism

 

 

Transcript of President Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (1865) 

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to achieve and cherish a lasting peace among ourselves and with the world. to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with the world. all nations. 

A. Lincoln

April 10, 1865 

It seems we are deeply divided nations.  Polls have never been more wrong about the presidential election.  I think many people who depend on polls have never administered one or attempted to collect one on the telephone.  I have spent nearly 20 years of my life calling people on the phone and attempting to get them to finish a poll.  The one thing I have learned is rednecks, like me, do not answer polls on the phone. 

I have often wondered what it is about Donald Trump is that makes my people so attracted to him.  It is a hope that things can be better.  Over the years more of the same has not worked. The politicians have failed us and the same people who design the polls seek to slice and dice up into neat little packages to sell us than to their politician friends. 

155 years ago we were a deeply divided nation, moving towards the conclusion of a real civil war. Shortly after speaking these words, the president would be martyred. He would offer his life for his country at Ford's Theater. 

As a young Mormon missionary, I have walked the civil war battlefield of Vicksburg Mississippi. I have seen the monuments from a real civil war.  I also refused to walk the streets of the colored children of that war.  A war that cost so many lives to free their grandfathers. 

I knew the people of my church did not want me to convert poor African Americans.  We had a word for them.  We called them das rights.  This out of the mistaken belief that no matter what you ask them they would respond, Das Right, I believe dat too. We heard of the missionaries who came to town, converted a whole lot of people, and left them to promptly go inactive when we transferred to a new area.  We wanted to convert that Golden Family. Translate this to rich middle-class white people who would then pay to tithe and serve in the church.  Then to be the Sunday School Teachers, Primary Teachers and Bishops and Stake Presidents. 

How long will we continue to fight this war?  If I had it all to do again would I walk the streets of the projects? 

I have family members who adopted colored children and I have seen the struggles they have endured to be accepted by both worlds.  they were not wanted by the members of their race because they had a white mother and father and not accepted by the members of my church because of the color of their skin. 

I don't have any answers, only question, as I struggle to deal with my prejudices. 

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. 

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. 

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." 

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. 

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. 

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 

I have a dream today!"

Martin Luther King Jr. "I have a Dream. 

Can this dream be fulfilled while I still refuse to serve in the projects among his people? 

King David was a man after God's own heart not because he was sinless but because he sought to change. 

I ask myself, Can I then change and be the change I desire in the world?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The need to be grateful

 Dying She, was,
or was He? 

To grateful, for the small things,
Needed he then, tobe. 

A full head of hair.
A Hair Stylist, with real talent.
Two children, and a wife, he adored. 

And very very angry was he, still.
She was the center of his universe.
Talk about it, he could not.

Why? 

Then came the one who brought the cure.
and angry was he,
very, very angry was he, still.
Talk, he could not, and why they knew not. 

Yet, came the cure, the full head of hair.
A full remission.
... and now to the rebuilding, of a life,

Together.

 

To let the anger, be still.

Note edited from an earlier poem,
from the time before the cure.

The Cowboy Jesus

 

 

The Cowboy Jesus

Steve Bassett

 

On the Cowboy Jesus.

 

He had spent the last week rereading Levi Peterson's The Backslider.  Really, he was listening to the audio version on Audible.  He spent most of his days at work reviewing his favorite audiobooks. Changing Led's and scraping corrosion takes very little mental energy and his boss has suggested it to make the work go faster when he first hired him.  It also made him feel he was learning something new daily. 

The Backslider is the story of Frank Windham.  Frank lives in the mid-1950s in south-central Utah.  Franks works as a ranch hand for a local hay rancher.  He works during the week and visits his mom on weekends. Frank is a backslider, a jack Mormon.  Franks's father, a polygamist, had died when he was 10 and his older sister had died when she was 3, this left Frank, his brother, and mom.  In town lived his dad's other wife who his moms spend her time nursing grudges against.  She had always felt like the red-headed stepchild.  His mom had been banished to the farm in the late 1930s when the Fed's and the church begins to crack down on polygamy. She also spends her time striving to be the best Mormon and live the requirements of the gospel including strict adherence to the Word of Wisdom.  She banished all thoughts of sugar, sweets, and meat.  All vegetables, all cooked, to remove flavor texture, and pleasure. 

It was her belief that that men and women should only enjoy each other when they wanted to create a child.  These beliefs are partly what lead Frank to be a backslider.  He enjoyed good food and dancing on the weekends.  He just could not help himself and the worst crime of all he pleasured himself nightly in his bed at the bunkhouse, on the ranch.  He was surely going to hell for his wicked ways. 

One day in a temper of bitterness and rage, he decides to get his boss's daughter pregnant and then to abandon his job and move back to his mother's home and repent of his sinful ways.  To be a better Mormon. He soon regrets his decision and determines not to do this act. The problem is God had other plans for Frank.  His boss's wife asks their daughter to take Frank on a horse ride to see some dinosaur fossils. In a rage of hormones Marianne leads him to make love that first night in his pickup truck.  After that she and Frank make love every time, they get a chance.  Luckily, Frank had a good supply of rubbers, until the night when she is on the rag and he cannot help himself.  He knows that you cannot get a girl pregnant who is on the rag.  He does it and feels bad afterward.  Only a low life scum back would make love to a woman on the rag.  In the morning he determines to leave the farm, go home and repent of his sinful ways.  He meets with the bishop and repents of his sins and begins to pay his tithing.  The bishop plans for his ordination to the priesthood.  All is well for the backslider accept he learns Marianne is pregnant and she no longer wants him.  She hates him with a deep passion.  Still, Marianne's mother urges him to marry her and give the child a name.  Marianne's father hates him too but may begin to forgive him if he marries his daughter. If he will come back to the farm and run the farm as a good son-in-law should so he can retire and become a gentleman farmer. In the rest of the book, we see how Frank learns to love his wife and see beyond his Mormonism and respect his wife’s Lutheranism. In the final chapter, after his wife’s baptism, he is given the vision of the Cowboy Jesus in the men’s room before a urinal. 

The Cowboy Jesus is dressed like the Marlborough Man. He comes riding a horse and chewing some tobacco. Frank asks him if tobacco is against the Word of Wisdom.  The Cowboy Jesus confirms that it is against the Word of Wisdom. He confirms that it is before taking another piece of chew.  Frank tells him that he is a backslider. Franks tells him about his dead sister and his brother who in a fit of rage cut of his male organs and now thinks he is a girl.  He tells Jesus how his mother was unfairly treated by his father’s other wife.  The Cowboy Jesus agrees that Franks's life was tough, and he had been treated rather badly by life. Frank also tells the Cowboy Jesus that he hates God.  The Cowboy Jesus tells him he needs to get over hating God.  That he needs to stop this nonsense about only enjoying his wife when they want to have a baby.  He especially needs to treat his mother-law much nicer. His mother-in-law feels bad that Frank has turned her into a Mormon. Frank decides to abandon his backsliding ways and to enjoy sugar, and meat, and sex.  He will buy back his favorite horse and take his wife fishing on weekends when they can get away from the farm. 

He loves the image of the Cowboy Jesus.  It reminds him of the vision of Peter when the blanket descends from the heavens and Peter is commanded to eat all of the forbidden foods.  That Peter is to take the gospel to all the world, that the gospel is no longer restricted just to Jews. and the descendants of Israel. 

His father-in-law reminds him of The Cowboy Jesus.  He is a man who works 7 days a week 15 hours a day to feed and clothe his family.  His faith and worship are performed from an old pickup truck or moving pipe on hayfields for his employer. You never see a  man work so hard. His father-in-law had been a little like Frank, he drank too much and smoked too much, until he meets his wife’s mother and then that began to change.  His mother-in-law had almost been a single mother when they married. Her first child had died as an infant.  His Father-in-law looked forward to the day when he would meet his first daughter in Heaven, until then he would work to support their family.   Their last child had been born when he was an older man.  Cody had been his grandson, he loved him too much to remain only a grandson, so Cody became their last son.  Soon a daughter followed too, the child of a second daughter. 

Therefore, he loves the image of the Cowboy Jesus.  He sees in the Cowboy Jesus all the things he wants for himself.  Following the true gospel and not just some religious norms.  He has adopted two children.  They are a gift from the same daughter that offered his father-in-law Cody.  The wife and mother now raise their 4 children together as one family.  They have always been much more like sisters than mother and daughter.  Two women raising four children, under the guidance of the Cowboy Jesus.

On the new haircut

They admired her new haircut
they all gathered about her,
in church.

The ladies loved,
the new, look.

Little do they understand,
she cut it herself,
this morning. 

Her hair is coming out in handfuls, now.
This is what remains,
after this morning's shower.

The tumor has left her stomach.
He learned of it early in their marriage.
It had remained entombed there, this many years.

It has invaded her optic nerve, now.
Like it invaded their life, before.

How does he live a life, without her?

They fought so many times,
for their marriage,
for their life, together.

Still, there is hope,
that the gardener,
may have brought the cure.

This is the hope they share.
The hope for the cure.
The hope for the children,
for the return of health,
and the hair one day.

I just spend the evening screaming at my father. I just went to put my clean sheets on my bed and found my father has put them in the wash for me. I am angry deeply and do not understand why?

When I married 30 years ago, I never dreamed that I would spend my twilight years caring for my father and visiting my wife on the weekends.

Is it his fault that he simply cannot remember that he just saw me take them out of the dryer? That seeing my wash in the hamper he just wanted to make my life a little simpler by helping me to wash my clothes?

Am I angry that even though I knew it was a possibility, that I can never create new life? That I still feel the deep need to create a new life with my wife even though I wonder if she still feels the same need? That my children no longer need me like I wish they did? That I was never able to adopt my first two sons?

My wife was almost a single mother when we wed. She had a chance to adopt my children's oldest brother, but she, being single with no prospects and living at home, he then went to another, good home. That the next son could have been ours, but grandpa loved him first.

Can I learn to be grateful for the handmaiden who offered us the next two children? I have taught my children to appreciate the gift of life.

That my wife is alive today to visit, and not just a gravesite to put flowers on, this weekend. That I know not why she is alive, but I am grateful, still.

John Denver "I Want to Live"

The wife

He never called her by name,
only the wife.

She remembers the many years of silence,
between them.

The judge had told him,
marriage or the military.
He tried the army,
they didn't want him.

Then one day he came home,
asked his mom what she would say,
if he were married.
She said pack your bags.
He did.

There have been so many losses,
between them.
The first child, a daughter,
when she was an infant.

The arguments, the many arguments,
you can only be this bone-deep angry,
with someone you truly love.

His older brothers had tried for years,
to break them up.

Many nights they spent,
staring across the table, in silence.

Is this where the commitment begins.
Each seeking to find something,
between them, to renew.

The commitment each day,
once more, to try once more.

With time more children were born,
two boys, now they share, three children,
between them.

It is partly the memory,
of the loss of their daughter,
that helps him to change.

To help him become,
what they need of him.

The silence will always remain,
between them,
but the bond will grow brighter each day,
as they renew their promises,
to each other.

what if your blessings come through raindrops

'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near'

Songwriters: Laura Story

Blessings lyrics © Warner Chappell Music Inc

He learned of cancer, early in there life, together.  When you live with death it becomes a part of you.  It lives with you, there between the two of you.  It shares your bed, it shares your dreams, it reminds you daily of why she is so dear. It is like leaving his hand in cold water, it soon numbs him to the pain.  With time it becomes noise, the background noise to the music of their lives. So they lived with it for 20 plus years.

It then sneaks upon him when he least expects it. He is reminded that death is always near.  He gets angry, and he curses God and he yells at the one who is most dear.  How can she leave him here, with the children and his fear? 

He knows he can never marry again.  To share a life brings so much pain, love, and fear. He has worked so hard to build a life, with her, and the children.  He fears to share this need and pain, so he buries himself in his work.  He says he is working to pay the bills.  This is true, partially.  He really needs to mask the pain, from the loss and despair.

So, he lives with death 

and mourns her loss, 

and poetry then comes. 

it comes as a gift, and the miracle too. 

To restart their life together, once more.

"What if my greatest disappointments

Or the aching of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy"

Laura Story “Blessings”

Laura Story "Blessings"

on gender confusion

 Why can’t little boys be allowed to raise their babies while their wives run off to earn the bread?

There was a time when I wanted to be a little girl. I wanted to cook and clean and to sew. I tried to take home economics when I was in Jr. High. In the 1970’ this was not permitted, so they signed me up woodshop and tried to turn me into a little boy.

I am not saying I wanted female genitalia. I like my male organs. I long to be with and create a new life with a woman, even if to practice and not to create.

In our society, we confuse sex with gender. Before the 20th century, this was not a problem. When we lived on farms, fathers took their sons into the fields and came home to help their wives with the garden to prepare the meals. My grandfather in the swiss alps lived with his animals, the added warmth carried them through the rough alpine winters.

Suddenly at the end of World War II, the men came home and needed jobs, so we fired all of the women who worked in the shipyard and flew the planes, delivered to the war front. Women were unhappy with this thing forced on them but what choice was left to them?

On our television, we created the false narrative of the “Leave it to Beaver” family. My grandmother must have felt the weight of not fitting into this new paradigm. She had always worked to feed the family and do her housework. Grandpa never earned enough, as a gravedigger to support the ten children, so she worked at the Deseret Industries or she cleaned motel rooms. The children when they were older worked to support the family.

They were looked down at school because the best she could afford was Levi’s and clean white t-shirts.

We need to separate sex from gender. Maybe if more men were permitted to stay home and raise the babies and their wives were encouraged to join the corporate world, or learn to weld, or program computers less of them would be gender confused?

I had an Uncle Eddie who was an orderly and loved to care for older people. He relaxed in the evening by watching football and crocheting while wearing a mumu. He had his hair in curlers preparing to look good the next day at work. He was not gender-confused. He was happy to be what he was. He found a good woman who enjoyed his lifestyle, and they enjoyed a good life.

I hope more of you are permitted to be good little boys and good little girls without reference to your biological sex.

When I Was a Boy by Dar Williams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5YzRr9yPo&fbclid=IwAR3lw1OcKVtTqC0h5x3QnlRIGCKCvFwSVvHUKIwGpJ-BYiHXDkDzRcCTLm0

On being too old to give a dam

Maybe, I am getting too old to give a dam.  I have spent far too many years and shed too many tears knowing I am not a good enough Mormon.  I grew up in a morally challenged family.  Yes, Momma and Daddy were married in the temple but then they stopped attending church services.  Momma always believed in the promises she made to me, my father and my siblings at that alter in the temple.

It seems even though we date back to Nauvoo, we always have to be rescued every generation,  re-herded to church attendance, but we always believe.  In our family reunion, we have two traditions.  The first is the late-night campfire, it is half A.A, Meeting and half family testimony meeting. The second is the family meeting on Sunday.  It is a half talent show and half testimony meeting. 

We mingle as one, the half that holds temple recommends, and the half that holds an adult beverage.  We all sing “I Am Child of God” and deeply believe it.  We are one family, we might fight each other but we will never allow and an outsider to come between us.

About two weeks ago I was discovered by a group of family members that I never imagined existed.  I was contacted by my son's siblings from his birth father.  The thought never occurred to me that Alan was married before him and Nancy.  I never even took the time to learn his last name, and now his ex-wife and children have welcomed us into their family.  What a joy to have our family expanded. You can never have enough family.

I hope you are soon too old to give a dam.  I hope you find and expand your family.  I hope you find love and joy in life and in living the kind of life Yashua Ben-Joseph (I.E. Jesus Christ his Christian name) would have you live.

Nothing About Me is Mormon Anymore - Al Fox Carraway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiEgU2EZUmE&feature=youtu.be

A paper for comm150

My goal this semester was to increase my communication skills with my wife.  Because of the needs of our aging parents, I live with my father and my wife lives in our family home in a town about 20 miles away.  My father needs daily guidance and her mom needs physical assistance.  My goal then was to see if I could increase our communications and intimacy using texting, voice calls, weekly visits, and sharing the poetry I write.

Take a walk down memory lane with me today.
My parents have always been very central to my very soul even through the many decades I was angry about the way they raised me the first three years of my life.   I used to borrow my mom’s van when I would make weekly trips to Wyoming repairing big-screen TVs in people’s homes.  I would play this song for hours on her cassette deck.  I selected my wife based on the relationship she would build with my family.  My wife and my sister became best friends while I was courting my wife.  Today they run a day-care center together.

"I was standing at the counter

I was waiting for the change
When I heard that old familiar music start
It was like a lighted match had been tossed into my soul
It was like a dam had broken in my heart
After taking every detour
Gettin' lost and losin' track
So that even if I wanted I could not find my way back
After driving out the memory
Of the way, things might have been
After I'd forgotten all about us
The song remembers when”

Trisha Yearwood, The Song Remembers When

My wife and I listened to this song a great deal when we were first married.  I sent her this link one morning to remind her of my love for her and the life we built together.

“Remember when I was young and so were you
“And time stood still and love was all we knew
You were the first, so was I
We made love and then you cried
Remember when”

Alan Jackson "Remember When"

I wrote this poem for one of my English classes last year.  It is about the first time my wife and I made love on our second day of married life.  The day we were married was a busy day.  My wife planned, decorated, and hosted her own wedding reception so by the time we made it to the hotel room that night she was very tired.  We made that first night a pajama night.  The second day was in our apartment where her family and friends have helped her move her stuff the previous week including her king-size water bed. We had spent that Sunday visiting my sister and blessing her first son Fridy Leishman.  We have never had a honeymoon, life just got to busy.  That night she escorted me to the bridal chamber and ask me to help her make a baby.

On making a baby ...

Let's make a baby,
She said.
It was not the first night,
But the second.
The first had been a pajama night.
Still, he had not slept with a woman,
Except for momma, her momma, or an aunt.
The first day was a busy day,
The wedding breakfast,
Temple ceremony, when he nearly fainted, and the wedding reception.
So, the first night was a pajama night.
She was the first to kiss him,
Except for momma.
That second night, they did try, to make a baby.
Little did they know, He could never create new life.
Still, they loved to try.
The babies did come, send from another who loved them all.
He so loved his Eve.
So times seam tough and life is a struggle,
Still, he knows she was the first and will remain the only,
To ask him, to help her, to make a baby.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2017/08/on-making-baby.html

My wife and her mom have always seemed to be more sisters than mother and daughter.  I wonder what their relationship had been like before they were born.  My wife was 29 when we married and she had a brother and sister young enough to be her children.  She was living at home when we married. she helping her mom to raise these children. When we found out I was not able to create new life we thought we would help her mom with these children and borrow the nieces and nephews on weekends.  My wife started a daycare center in our hope to help with the baby’s pains.  My wife’s sister chose to become our handmaiden and create two children for us to share.   I have taught my children of Nancy’s love for them. The choice she made to create their life and how they need to honor her choice.  They were never a mistake or a problem to be solved.

This is the last picture I have of Ashley, Nicholas, and their older brother Cody.  I really wanted to be Cody’s father but grandpa loved him first.  If we had taken Cody then it would have removed my fathers-in-law desire to live. My mother-in-law raised two babies of her daughter’s and we raised our two.  My wife and her mom did their best to raise them as one family unit in two separate homes.

The Babies they raised together

They were sisters, first, were they not?
Then mother, and daughter.
The babies, then they raised, together.
Unmarried she was and living at home.
Helping her mom with the babies.
Born when out of high school, she was.
Young enough, they were.
They could have been, her children.
Then the young man along came he.
Too young for her was he,
she then 30 and he is 25.
This then the cradle, she robbed.

Then the small house, in the center of town.
It was her grandmother's house, the first they bought,
together.

Then no babies came, to them,
infertile was he, failed her request,
to help make a baby.

Then the daycare center, in their home,
more babies then come, to raise.

Her sister, fertile was she.
This then her gift, a baby, to them.

This then their baby to raise together.

Her mother received a gift, two babies,
from her daughters.

This then more babies, to raise, together.

These babies, siblings would be.
One home, two houses, and three babies to share.

Then later, one final gift, this baby,
to them, this day.

This then the babies, they raised together.

I wanted you to this picture, the joy in my children’s lives.  If you knew Ashley’s and Cody’s history you would wonder how she grew to love and forgive him.  He spent a few years in reform school for the mistakes he made with his sister’s.  When you walk into a courtroom and participate in prosecution and then purchase a van so can visit that a boy, that should have been your first son, you learn the real power of love and forgiveness.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2019/10/the-babies-they-raised-together.html

This then the drive

This then the drive, to visit, one of the babies.

Nearly grown now, is he?
He is tall.
He is smart.
One of the babies, we raised, together.
But the choices, he made, what of the choices.
He is not what he did, he is one of the babies.
So a used van, I buy, to take them, for a visit.

This then four hours, we will drive, one way.
In the van, my wife and I will sit,
while mom and dad visit with the baby,
now a young man.

I hold a prayer, that is all I can hold.
No influence have, I over this baby.
All I have is my love.

He could have been my first baby,
But grandpa loved him first.
So all I have is my prayer and hope.
A hope that he will become more then he did.
More than he is, now.

This crime, this thing, forgiveness will then come.
For to love is the only choice I have, today.
To choose any other is to damage my soul.
So I will love the boy I have no influence over,
and I will cherish this memory, we make today.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2019/10/this-then-drive.html

So, you ask how is Bonnie and my relationship, today, I visited her this weekend to again ask this question.  Al least twice a week I ask her if we are good and is she happy.  She reassures me that we are good and that she loves me, still. It seems like we are both two great suns orbiting one great planet.  This planet represents our parents and our children.   This is the poem I wrote this weekend and shared with the wife yesterday.

on two great suns

Two great suns, once there were.
once in orbit near a great sphere,

Attracted they were one to another.
This then what of the attraction.

Little in common had they then,
even less now so they find.

This attraction what does, it hold?

This distance required, as the sun's glow brighter,
a greater distance, in their orbit sphere.

This the fear then he feels,
that destruction may come,
at a smaller orbit, as their strength and bond
glow brighter.

Daily he checks, this then the dance.
Weaving in and out, each other's sphere.

This many years now, then have they danced.
The choice than to continue, this covenant path.

http://www.mymuzes.org/2019/12/on-two-great-suns.html

#Note this paper was written entirely today for this class.  The poems and videos were preexisting by I wrote the paper entirely today in one sitting

On faithful disbelief

Richard Feynman stated somewhere, and I have lost the reference, that the most difficult person to teach science to is a religious person.  In his philosophy of science, the most powerful tool is to learn to disbelieve.

It is hard for a religious person to disbelieve.  We have the “I know narrative in our church.”  We teach our children from a very young age that “I know” and that it is important to know. It gets ingrained and the truly faithful person always knows.  The most faithful then become bishops and stake presidents.  The strongest “I know’s” then become the Seventies, Apostle, and Prophets. When you know you fail to investigate your truth. 

Along come people who are comfortable with not knowing but have sufficient belief.  They first investigate their disbelief and then they begin to investigate their errors. This happened to faithful church scholars in the 1960s. They then discover that Joseph Smith did indeed allow Negro priesthood ordination.  This knowledge then filters up to the “I Knows” and then one dares to pray about it, to discover if his belief was correct and then, to find a method to confirm his errors to the remainders of the “I knows”.

You see this same narrative in Richard Bushman's work when he begins to reteach the “I Knows” about seer stones. It has taken some time but the, “I knows” are beginning to teach about the seer stones again.

It takes time to learn to be a faithful disbeliever.  It is hard and time-consuming and there are no rewards, there is only rejection. Most take the path of least resistance and leave the church. It is hard to be a faithful disbeliever.

I hope you have the courage to stay and to be a faithful disbeliever.  This church really needs you if the restoration is to continue.

Richard Feynman On religion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Qdl6Gbx0k

On God being with me in Hell

So I was sitting at my work station changing out LEDs on a display panel. They say you can tell what matters to a man when he is thinking when he has free time to think. Changing led’s on a panel is not difficult and it requires little mental energy. I was thinking about the essay on Telling God to go to Hell. I was wondering if God would go to hell for me. Was he with Corrie ten Boom, the Nazi Concentration Camp, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Nazi Jail and his martyrdom?

I remember an old poem of mine, I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.mymuzes.org/…/on-being-like-job-and-on-return-if…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrie_ten_Boom

on telling God to go to Hell

Has there been a time when you just wanted to tell God to go to Hell? After 40+ years of deep study of church history and doctrine, I was very unhappy with my "church experience" I would come home from church services so hungry and craving more, more of what I was uncertain but I needed more. I remember taking out the garbage one night and cursing God in my unhappiness. When in 2015 my wife was in end-stage cancer and my daughter was not speaking to me. I just wanted to tell God to go to Hell.

I have since learned that my Heavenly Parents just wanted to be with me, in a relationship. I sure my Heavenly Mom wanted to cuddle with me, but in my anger and shame, I was pushing them both away. I have found some peace now as I serve my Earthy Father and my daughter has forgiven me for causing the distance between us.

Maybe the answer comes in the service I offer and not in the answer's I demand.

"I gave You my heart
So, tell me, why is it broken?
If You're the healer,
Why are my wounds still open?
What do You want from me?
Are You sure You want everything?
Even my honesty?
Even my honesty
Even my honesty"

"I know You've promised that You won't leave me broken
But right now I need to know You're here in this moment
Why won't You answer me? (Answer me)
What do You want from me?
When all I can bring You is my doubt and my anger
You'd still rather fight with me than let us be strangers
Is that what You want from me? (Want from me)
The way You get close to me
Are You sure You want all of me?
All of my agony?
All of my questioning?
Even my honesty?"

Jason Gray - "Honesty"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aLj-Cz7aog&fbclid=IwAR2wvTrcBOVL5du3Glw1pUs2CLTtG6czlp0k6fNbOLR2z1qcEccTubVv1fE

Why we build temples.

We as Mormons build temples for a very unique reason. The first modern temple built was at Kirtland Ohio.  It was built not as a place to worship a god but a place for our Heavenly Parents to be with their children.  The knew the world they had created was a dirty place.  It was a world full of sin and degradation. They knew, when they sent our first earthly parents, Adam and Eve, that it would be so.  It was part of their plan, for us to learn, to be like them.  Still, they wanted to be with their children again. So they ask Joseph to built them a temple, where they could be with their children again and anew.

In our first fifty years, we built very few chapels and churches. We build four temples, and The Endowment House and a Social Hall before we ever build a church.  We inherited one chapel, from the United Brethren in England when the entire congregation joined the Mormon church.  This was quickly sold to fund their immigration to Utah. It seems we preferred to worship in open-walled boweries, similar to our park pavilions today.

Today, because of a global pandemic we have lost the use of our chapels and temples.  We now worship in our homes, like our ancient parents did, in Isreal. We know not how long this will continue. We have been stripped of all the programs that form a religion and we are left with our family, the sacrament, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I hope we remember this time, and teach our children of these times, and remember what true religion should be.  “ Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27

R.E.M. - "Losing My Religion" (LIVE @ MTV's 10th Anniversary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAjC7BSqAA&fbclid=IwAR0DCmXgoccQjabQUJrsoE7oKv3j5-9ibO3U69IllVNskC8caamnVzA1sLY

my grandfathers castle

My grandfather built me a castle.
It sits on a small hill
overlooking our town.

You may ask why
he built It.

He wanted a home,
for God, to come,
for  God, to be,
with his children.

He argued with the prophet.
Such beautiful carvings they were,
patterned after the highland cattle,
of his native Scotland.

They could be used to shape the molds,
to poor metal into and to create the cattle,
the ones below the baptismal font,
in the castle.

Remove the hair,

from the Scottish Highland Cattle, was the command. 

This he refused to do,

so the task to remove the fur,

was given to another.

My family has often fought with and for the prophets.
It seems we are rescued every generation,
each choosing again to renew those promises.

Maybe that is why he, they, built it.
I know it reminded my momma of her promises.
It reminds me of mine.

I live my life daily, below a castle.
the one my grandfather built,
to house a god.

My grandfather Alexander McQueen carved the cattle, to shape the molds, to create the sculptures, that carried the first  Baptismal Font in the Logan Utah Temple.   Family legend has it that he fought with Brigham Young over the design for the cattle.  He carved them after the LongHorn Scottish Cattle. They were beautiful but because of the nature of mold creation, they could not be used for that purpose. Legend has it that Brigham Young hired someone to scrap the hair off the molds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkqO9_GGGuk

On Divorce

Divorce was never something forbidden in the ancient church but it is not to be taken lightly.  With marriage comes a commitment to a spouse, and when children are born or adopted, this commitment extends to the children.  These commitments also extend to our parents and siblings.  We are bound together in one huge covenant relationship.

My parents were married for nearly 50 years.  My mother passed away about 7 years ago and my father still feels a deep loss at her death.  I have often wondered how they sustained this relationship.  My father is rather emotionally immature and he has a limited education.  Early in their marriage, when I was still in high school, my father had affairs with 3 ladies at work.  My mother never spoke of these to me, I sensed a wave of deep anger in her but I never understood the source of this anger.  I do not know why my mother stayed but I do know that they worked on their marriage and improved their relationship.

Maybe part of the answer to the question is the castle, sitting on a hill overlooking our mountain valley.  Some call it the Logan Temple but I always saw it as a castle that protected our town.  I and my brother were sealed to my parents in this castle when I was a month old.  I had just undergone emergency surgery that preserved my life.

My parents never attended church, but whenever I passed this castle my mom reminded me that we were a forever family because of the promises she made there to me, my siblings, and my father.

Again, I do not say that divorce is never necessary, I have had at least one grandmother who found divorce was needed, due to spousal abuse.  What I say is if a way can be found to preserve the marriage it can benefit the wider family relationship.

I have found, with experience, and time, that my parents, siblings, wife, and children have been blessed by mom’s choice to stay with my father and to honor her temple covenants.

A portion of a paper I wrote for a BYU-I class on The Articles of Father

This week we were studying Article 6.