Because if I left the Church my wife’d kill me— and who knows, polygamy might come back! Besides, I’ve been a Mormon for so long I can’t even imagine not being one. And, finally and frankly, I stay because I …
Category: Issue 184
Dog at Work
Pumping out pups was pleasurable union work, with minimal butt-kissing. Methodical (but far from boring), it left Dog’s mind free for multi-multi-tasking, as the line moved slowly, parts came and went, and looked the same (more or less). In a way, Dog was a lot like your average working stiff. He’d just been at it …
Pups and Cats
Half the pups were happy to hear that Dog could still chase cats (or cat, generally speaking). Dog said their next life would be just like this one, only better— which meant lots of cats. The pups’ other halves weren’t half so happy, but didn’t bark, as long as this was kept quiet. It had …
Morning Sequence
Tree Pose For a minute or two, we’ve created our own sacred grove—twenty of us swaying in the sweaty breeze of the gym fan, arms drawn heavenward. Our left legs are lifted off the floor, knees swung wide, heels propped against the inner thigh of our standing legs. I feel a slow burn in my …
Invisible but Real
In 1999 my husband and I met with an attorney who had offered to advise us pro bono on what to do about the fact that, since he had no birth certificate, Göran couldn’t convince the U.S. passport office that he was a citizen. He’d submitted written requests and processing fees to the bureaus of …
The Benefit of a Doubt: How the New Presidency Could Change Mormon Political Conversation
In August 2016, our family moved to Belgium for a year-long sabbatical. We had already participated in the Utah primary caucuses, and we used an overseas ballot to send in our vote well in advance of Election Day. We are eight hours ahead of Utah, so when we woke up on the morning of 9 …
Everywhere Is the Center of the World
In the summer of 1930, the poet John Neihardt took a detour from his intended destination and drove his 1927 Gardner down a remote trail on the desolate and impoverished Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Reservation was home to the Oglala Lakota, or the Sioux Indians, as we call them. At the time of the …
Science Fiction Fan, With Faith
I say I’ll return as a vampire, swirl my cape and morph into a crow, a bat, a storm, a whirlwind, farther from heaven than curse is from prayer and these words are from what I truly believe, but more acceptable to my unchurched friends who only believe in fiction.
Hope in the Age of Trump
I will never forget the moment when I knew he had won. The look on my wife’s face. 8 November 2016. I had driven up to Salt Lake to see a play about Joe Hill, the labor organizer, and his preposterously biased trial and conviction (and eventual execution) in a Utah court. My wife said …
The Lord of the Dance
And David danced before the LORD with all his might, wearing a priestly garment. —2 Samuel 6:14 Let them praise his name with dancing . . . . Praise him with tambourine and dancing! —Psalms 149:3, 150:4 Religious and spiritual dancing are as ancient as belief itself. In many religious traditions—e.g., Native American, Christian, and …