2015 in Review: Books

This is the second in a series looking back on 2015.  Other entries will include movies, music, food, TV, and more.

Compared to the year previous, my reading totals took a severe hit in 2015.  Of course, 2014 was a remarkable year in which I read 58 books and nearly 14,000 pages.  For 2015, my total (according to Goodreads) was 31 books and 8,468 pages.  Yikes!  I’m not sure what happened, to be honest.  I was going strong during the first half of the year, but I feel like things slowed down dramatically after I returned from my summer stint in Nauvoo.  August and September won’t so bad, but I completed only two total books between September 22^nd and December 31^st, one of which was rather small.  I’m appalled.

Moving on, let’s take a look at what kinds of books I was reading in 2015.  Of the 31 books I read, half (15 of them) were fiction.  Of the 16 non-fiction books I read, 9 were books on Mormonism, broadly construed.  I say “broadly construed” because one such book was on RLDS / Community of Christ history, and these people do not view themselves as Mormon.  But you get the idea.  This reveals yet another drastic shift in my reading habits—only 29% of the total books I read, or 56% of my non-fiction selections, were on Mormonism.  This may have something to do with my conversion to Community of Christ, but was likely further influenced by my participation in a book club during some months of 2015.  I wasn’t always choosing, in an explicit sense, the books I was reading.

10 of the books on my list are books that I read with my children, not including picture books.  This also represents a slowdown in reading to my kids, which is sad.  After reading the Bunnicula series and some of its spin-offs in 2014, we’ve struggled to know what to read together.  For 2015, we latched onto the Fudge series by Judy Blume.  The boys quite enjoyed the books, but Mom and Dad did not relish them nearly as much as we did the Bunnicula series.  In fact, I gave two of the four Fudge books we read just two stars, and the other two I gave three stars.  (Bear in mind that, unlike movies, I rate books on a five-star system so as to coincide with Goodreads).  The best of the bunch was Superfudge, which we finished back in April.  I had the impression Blume is supposed to be a great author, but I didn’t think her writing was all that great.  Sometimes it was even on the poorer side.  This is certainly true when it comes to narrative flow.  One problem I had with the books was how episodic each of them felt.  It may be that Blume captures something about child psychology, and captures it well, but the characters themselves are rather flat.  I deem them fluffy entertainment.  My kids seemed to enjoy them, which is great, but I wouldn’t recommend them per se.

Aside from Blume, only two authors showed up on my annual reading list more than once.  One of them is another author of juvenile fiction, Louis Sachar.  With Melanie and the boys, I read both Holes and Sideways Stories from Wayside School.  Both were quite good.  We read the latter, which featured some very off-the-wall humor, while in Nauvoo.  I associate the book with sitting in the upstairs loft / bedroom of the Sidney Rigdon house, all three boys nestled into a single bed.  Sigh.  The other author to appear twice is Samuel Morris Brown.  He wrote one of three books I read last year to which I would give a superlative five-star rating.  That book is In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death.  Published by Oxford University Press, In Heaven as It Is on Earth explores the influence of death on founding Mormon prophet Joseph Smith’s developing theology.  Brown argues that many developments in early Mormonism arose as the prophet Joseph both responded to and sought to overcome the prevalence of death around him—his brother, his own children, and so on.  It’s a captivating read.  Impressed by Brown’s earlier work, I excitedly picked up a copy of First Principles and Ordinances: The Fourth Article of Faith in Light of the Temple.  Even having left the LDS Church, I continue to find LDS temple theology and the development thereof to be quite fascinating.  Thus, I was quite disappointed by Brown’s book, to which I gave a low three stars.  My main beef was that the concepts Brown presented were not fleshed out enough to appreciate or make complete sense of.  As I said in my Goodreads review, “Brown draws some broad strokes with this book. They are intriguing enough that I want to stop and look at the picture he is painting, but I also wish he would come back and paint a bit more.”

Continuing with the theme of Mormonism, three of my favorite reads from the year dealt heavily with the issue of polygamy.  Richard S. Van Wagoner’s Mormon Polygamy: A History was originally published in 1986 but remains an excellent and extensive overview of Mormonism’s most infamous spiritual practice.  The book had quite an impact on me.  Prior to reading the book, I knew that Joseph Smith himself had practiced and yet publicly denied polygamy.  I knew he was, sadly, rather deceptive to his legal wife Emma regarding his polygamous relationships.  But I was shocked to learn just how pervasive and long-lasting the dishonesty surrounding polygamy was.  Extensively lying to the public, and even to their own church members, about polygamy continued with several of the LDS Church Presidents that followed Joseph.  I was also surprised to realize just how much of LDS culture today is influenced by its polygamous past.  Several times during my reading of the book, I saw connections between the behaviors being encouraged in the polygamous heyday of the 1800s and the modern Mormon mindset.  To cite just one example, the perpetuation of polygamy relied on convincing prospective plural wives that they should obey a church leader’s counsel no matter what, even if it didn’t sit well with them or they couldn’t understand why such a thing would be required.  I find it interesting that such a mentality continues quite strongly in the LDS tradition and yet is starkly absent from Community of Christ, which has always decried, and in fact owes its existence in large part to its denunciation of, polygamy.

Another great read is Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippets Avery’s Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith.  Also written in the 1980s, Mormon Enigma remains the preeminent biography of Joseph Smith’s only legal wife, Emma.  As one would expect, polygamy factors heavily into the book.  I’d deem the book a must-read, even though the writing sometimes annoyed me.  The content itself is excellent, but things aren’t always communicated clearly, and sometimes stories are thrown into the mix that seem like asides and not entirely relevant to the discussion at hand.  On very rare occasions, the authors also appear biased toward a pro-LDS interpretation of events that isn’t adequately supported by the text.  You may also find it interesting to know that, if you go to Nauvoo and take a tour of the historic sites owned by Community of Christ, a great deal of what you’ll hear can be found in Mormon Enigma.

The final book on polygamy that I read is The Polygamous Wives Writing Club by Paula Kelly Harline.  Harline’s book, published in 2014, offers a fascinating peek into polygamy as it was lived among the average—that is to say, non-elite—members of the early LDS Church.  The book is comprised largely of diary entries and the like from the plural wives of rank-and-file LDS men.  These are not the women who were married to apostles and prophets, but those married to normal folk.  By reading this book, you get an idea of what it was like for those women who practiced “celestial marriage” as part of an otherwise very normal, very routine life—which is not to suggest that these women were content in their situations.  Despite being published by Oxford University Press, The Polygamous Wives Writing Club is a very approachable read, suitable for non-scholastics as well as those with a more academic bent.  Early in the book, I feared a little too much speculation was creeping into the commentary supplied by the author, but it’s easy enough to overlook such things as one wishes.  It’s a very worthwhile read.

I mentioned above that I was part of a book club in 2015.  More specifically, it was the Salt Lake City congregation of Community of Christ book club (not an official title).  I haven’t read every month’s selection, and I’m uncertain I’ll continue with the club at this point in time, but book club accounts for four of last year’s reads, plus one book that I read most of during December but didn’t officially complete until after the new year (disqualifying it from this list).   The first such book I read was Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber.  I got the impression that everyone else in book club had gone goo-goo ga-ga over this book, but I found it rather middle of the road—for the same reason, I think, that two other hugely popular book club selections didn’t really resonate with me.  They feel like fluff pieces to me.  There really isn’t much depth to them at all.  They might contain a handful of quotes worth remembering, although even those are often only the caliber of something you’d see on a motivational poster or passed around on Facebook as part of some feel-good meme.  And that seems to be the aim of these books: to make you feel good and motivated.  Problem is, they seem to rehash their own ideas over and over and over again without ever diving too deeply below the surface.  The other books that fall into this category are The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown (which I enjoyed even less than Pastrix) and the book I finished last week and so can’t officially count (Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor).

Two of the book club selections I read were actually pretty good.  I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb, which tells the story of The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban (as the subtitle reminds you) is undeniably engaging.  How can you not be pulled into such a story?  And yet the writing itself is not particularly memorable.  There were moments when it seemed obvious the reader was getting much more of Lamb’s journalistic voice than Malala’s own.  There were also moments when the things being said felt obligatory, motivated by public relations, and/or otherwise mildly contrived.  You can’t go wrong reading it, but it’s not a story that’s worthwhile because of the way it’s told.

My favorite book club selection of 2015 turned out to be Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk who argues that, at their core, Buddhism and Christianity are really teaching the same things.  I’m very much drawn toward ecumenical and interfaith types of ideas, and I’m a universalist at heart.  It’s easy to see why I would like this book better than some of the others.  There is also a great deal more wisdom—honest-to-goodness wisdom, folks—packed into this book, gems like:

To “love our enemy” is impossible, because the moment we love him, he is no longer our enemy.

And here is, I believe, an excellent and beautiful defense of religious pluralism:

It is good that an orange is an orange and a mango is a mango.  The colors, the smells, and the tastes are different, but looking deeply, we see that they are both authentic fruits.  Looking more deeply, we can see the sunshine, the rain, the minerals, and the earth in both of them.  Only their manifestations are different.  Authentic experience makes a religion a true tradition.  Religious experience is, above all, human experience.  If religions are authentic, they contain the same elements of stability, joy, peace, understanding, and love.  The similarities as well as the differences are there.  They differ only in terms of emphasis.  Glucose and acid are in all fruits, but their degrees differ.  We cannot say that one is a real fruit and the other is not.

Now let’s move on to the best of the best, from both fiction and non-fiction.

My absolute favorite read of the year, which also happens to be non-fiction, is Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet by Roger D. Launius.  I finished Pragmatic Prophet in early May, shortly after I had officially become a member of Community of Christ.  I wanted to learn more about the first president of the church after the death of founding prophet, Joseph Smith (Jr.).  I had grown up accepting Brigham Young as Smith’s rightful successor, but the more I’ve learned about Young over the years, the more horrified I’ve become.  Reading Pragmatic Prophet was an eye-opening experience, not only because I knew next to nothing about the so-called succession crisis or the early days of what became known as the RLDS Church, but because Joseph Smith III provides such an astoundingly stark contrast to the man I had always believed rightfully held the title of prophet and president after Joseph Smith’s death.  The difference between the two men is truly astonishing.  I fell in love with Joseph Smith III while reading this scholarly work, published by University of Illinois Press.  He was a humble and sincere man who sought to do only what he truly felt God wanted him to do.  Especially powerful to me were the dreams and/or visions of Joseph Smith III that seem so clearly to foretell of the two distinct paths that the LDS and the RLDS churches would take.  Pragmatic Prophet solidified for me the notion that God is and always has been a part of the RLDS / Community of Christ tradition, no matter how much God has also been involved in LDS history.  I’m not the type of person that would want to limit God’s influence to only one of the two churches, but not everyone would be as generous as I.

Other highly recommendable works of non-fiction:

• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
• Yes Please by Amy Poehler
•  Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy by Miranda Wilcox and John D. Young, Editors

The best work of fiction I read in 2015 is Brady Udall’s 2001 novel The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.  It’s a quirky, depressively humorous book that features a catchy story and an even catchier voice in main character and narrator, Edgar Mint.  Edgar is the perpetual victim who never sees himself as such, even when a mailman accidentally runs over his head with a mail truck at the age of seven.  Edgar is, understandably, a little odd from that point forward, but he’s someone you’ll love spending time with.  Now, it’s true that Edgar spends some of his time in a Mormon foster-family, but I promise that’s not the only reason I liked this book.

Other highly recommendable works of fiction:

• The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donahue  (One of the most genuinely creepy “scary” books I’ve ever read!)
• Heroes of the Dustbin by Tyler Whitesides
• Finders Keepers by Stephen King

Nauvoo: An Epic Look Back on an Epic Summer of Epicness

I’ve been back in Utah for less than eight full days and Nauvoo already seems like something that happened ages ago. Such is life. I realized after returning home that there were plenty of little things about Nauvoo that I never made mention of. It’s easy to skip over the mundane—the normal, day-to-day things that were a part of Nauvoo living—and yet those are the details that will, someday in the future, help to evoke a more salient memory of how I spent my summer vacation in 2015. Don’t worry—I’m not going to mention every insignificant detail I can remember. And, since I’m writing anyway, I’m going to include things that weren’t a part of my everyday life in Nauvoo. In short, this is just a look back and a slight coloring in of what I’ve already shared. That sort of thing. (If you’re wondering about the abundance of epicness in the blog title, it was influenced by my kids—especially Beegy—who seem to regard the word “epic” as their adjective of choice when describing something cool.)

One thing I would be remiss never to mention about Nauvoo is the preponderance of bugs. Fortunately, it wasn’t something that affected our home life. We didn’t have an abundance of creepy crawlies inside of the house, although spiders weren’t uncommon (and I even once found one on my pillow). Outside of the house, however—whooey! I talked about mayflies in an earlier post (or two), but those were a rare sight, all things considered. The bigger problem was in fact the spiders. And the main location that we had problems was our car. Overnight, our car would inevitably be wrapped in a cocoon of spider web. That’s not much of an exaggeration—large sections of the car would be covered in spider webs, no matter how recently they’d been cleared away. They’d get inside, too. You might open your car door only to discover a wall of spider web between you and your seat. Melanie once took the car through a car wash, and by the next morning, several spiders had set up shop and covered many spots on the car with web. It was cuckoo. From what I could tell, the backside of our sideview mirrors was a booming spider metropolis. You’d see many spiders per day sneaking out from behind the mirrors, back where human eye and hand could not go. The photo below was taken within a day or two of having our car washed. You can see at least four spiders in the photo.

We enjoyed much animal life aside from spiders during our time in Nauvoo. I’ve never seen so many wild bunnies in my life. On a couple of occasions, I saw multiple bunnies hopping around together, but usually it was just a single bunny. This made me wonder if it was the same bunny I was seeing over and over again. It seems that during at least one tour per day, the bunny would be hanging out at one of the historic sites. Tourists often got more excited about the wildlife than the historic sites themselves. That was especially true when a turtle was hanging out by the Nauvoo House one day. (I saw turtles only twice that I can remember.) Geese were extremely common. Near the visitor’s center, there seemed always to be a flock of geese just hanging out.

An obvious matter to discuss is how my left foot held up with all the tour-guiding I did in Nauvoo. With my left foot being partially constructed of metal, I have a slight limp. Aside from that, I’m not the most active guy in the world. Going from a rather sedentary lifestyle to one wherein I would give walking tours multiple times a day was something that made me a tiny bit apprehensive before heading to Nauvoo, although I realized it was probably in my best interest, health-wise. Still, I didn’t know how well I’d hold up. Fortunately, I did quite well. Per usual, there were days when I’d get up with a stiffer ankle than other days, and it would take me a little bit of walking around before the pain and the more extreme hobbling would subside. But overall, I think giving tours and walking around a lot helped my foot to adjust. I started to get better in the mornings than I was before I went to Nauvoo. That is, I think my limping and need for a morning-time adjustment period decreased during my time in Nauvoo. On the flipside, my restless legs syndrome got worse. Like gout, my restless leg syndrome (RLS) is self-diagnosed and (thankfully) not very extreme. I hadn’t even heard of RLS when years ago I first started noticing that, at times when I was watching TV, my left foot would start to “tickle” inside and feel like it needed to spaz out. I don’t think it’s ever been anything other than my left foot, and the sensation is always concentrated up near the big toe. (Could it be a side effect of the injury that led to my metal foot? I don’t know.) It can be really annoying, and I fear that if it ever gets worse, it will be the kind of the thing that would make you want to cut your damn foot off. Anyway, I don’t have these sensations every day. I might go weeks without feeling them, and I might only feel them a little bit for one night and then not feel them again for another few weeks. There’s no rhyme or reason to it that I can tell. And yet, giving walking tours every day, it was extremely common for me to feel some restlessness in my left foot at night. Extremely common. So, that’s discouraging, to think that being a more active person might exacerbate the antsy sensations in my foot. That would suck. I hope to be more active now that I’m back in Utah, so we’ll see what happens.

If it wasn’t clear from my blog entries, I was extremely happy in Nauvoo. I was sad to leave. I really loved the life I was living there. I was hanging around people every day who were interested in discussing the same things I’m interested in, including a brilliant man who was always willing to let me pick his brain. It was highly educational, but without the pressures of academia. I was also able to teach tourists about things I care about, and sometimes you’d even get a tourist who seemed to be on a spiritual journey of his/her own, and then answering questions felt ministerial. It was awesome. And yes, life was simple. Even the dearth of options in Nauvoo had a certain appeal to it, making life feel really easygoing. (I fully recognize that being in Nauvoo long-term would likely drive me insane, especially during the winter. I’m just saying it was a nice, laidback escape while I was there.) The kids loved it, too, which is awesome and amazing. They were all sad to leave Nauvoo, and Eddie several times mentioned his desire to return to Nauvoo next year. I really like that idea myself. Depending on what life is like seven or eight months from now, I would definitely consider going back. While in Nauvoo, I loved the idea of Nauvoo being something we do every summer for the next several years. I don’t even know if that’s an option, but I like the idea. In fact, my happiness was eye-opening. It solidified some things about what I want to do with my future. You see, I was honestly happier as a tour guide than I can remember being during my entire PhD program. I felt much more in my element, much more interested, and much more at peace. I am done living in the past and not embracing what I know and love about and within myself. I’m done spending time on crap I have almost zero interest in. I reject the notion that I’m cosmically indebted to finish walking a path simply because I once started down it. I am done. I am officially abandoning my dissertation and relinquishing any speck of intention I once had to complete my philosophy PhD. My only regret is that I didn’t have the courage to do this sooner, that I second- (and third- and fourth- and fifth, ad nauseum) guessed what has been clear to me for a long time now and, as a result, tried to fit myself into a mold that didn’t feel authentic or rewarding or appealing. I’m happy to be someone else now. I’m happy to be yet another step closer to me.

Speaking of authenticity, my time in Nauvoo also reminded me of some truths I have learned over the last several years. I think it is wholly compatible with my membership in Community of Christ to say that love is the true religion. I really believe that. There is enough crap in the world, and enough crazy shit in church history that it’s just crystal clear to me God could not possibly have been okay with. The whole notion of God welcoming us into Heaven only if we subscribe to the correct religious institution makes zero sense to me. How could you really deduce what the correct path is? And if you can’t, what kind of a jerk would God be to condemn you for that? I think many religions teach that God is an all-loving, all-powerful being, only to turn around and negate these ideas with their creeds and claims of exclusivity. I thank God (literally) for the experiences I’ve had with love, which have been abundant over the last few years. If God is love, as is proclaimed in scripture, then I do know God better than I ever have. And perhaps for this reason, it is clearer than ever to me what is and is not an abomination, religiously speaking. No religion is perfect, I know. But I rejoice in where I am at now. It is so good. Sooooo good. I’m not even talking about religious institutions, per se. I mean religion in a broader sense. Let’s be honest. Each of us practices his/her own religion, it’s just that given enough similarities and overlap, several of us can attend the same buildings on Sunday, read from the same sacred texts, use the same vocabulary, and speak in ways that make sense to each other. We put a label on those similarities and presume everyone who embraces the label is the same, but they’re not. We’re not. None of us are. If God is handing out salvation based purely on those labels, then God is capricious. If the labels matter at all, then God is a respecter of persons. If God is love, then love is what matters. Where love is, there God is also. I really believe this, and I believe I have experienced it. I’m experiencing it with greater regularity than ever, and it’s beautiful. I will mention here that Melanie and I officially submitted our letter of resignation to the LDS Church while in Nauvoo, an irony (in the popular but inaccurate sense of the word) in which I probably took a little too much pleasure. I expect that some will be saddened by this news, even though it really doesn’t change anything about my life. Please note that I’m not trying to say that leaving the LDS Church is necessary for one to experience love more fully and completely. Perhaps it was in my life, but I’m not trying to universalize my experience. My only point is that my time in Nauvoo reaffirmed to me that God transcends religious institutions. And how couldn’t that be the case, if God is love? Surely love transcends religious institutions. Why do we refuse to accept it?

Since I’m tooting what some would consider my apostate horn, I’ll mention that I tried coffee again while on my way back to Utah from Nauvoo. In Laramie, I poured myself a cup in the morning, feeling inclined to give it another go. I wouldn’t say I was optimistic, but I felt open to trying it. With three packets of Splenda and two creamers, I thought it wasn’t too bad. Of course, I had taken several sips before then, so I think my perspective was skewed. I didn’t think it tasted very coffee-ish at all by the time I had added those things, but Melanie tried it and thought it was awful. I think the crappy coffee flavor had infiltrated my mouth enough by that point that I was only noticing what wasn’t coffee-flavored. Anyway, despite thinking it was okay, I had very little of it before throwing it away. I’d say being a coffee drinker is a still a long time away, and not something I’m all that inclined to pursue. I don’t really foresee it in my future, but who knows.

Let’s talk about souvenirs. I mentioned in a previous entry that Peter bought a fox and that Eddie, Beegy, and Melanie and I bought birds. On the last day of work, I bought a few new stuffed animals for the ride home: a skunk, a beaver, and a bat. I purposely avoided assigning a particular animal to a particular child, but the skunk ended up being Peter’s (he named it Sneaky), the beaver became Eddie’s (he named it Beavy), and the bat went to Beegy (who never named it). The day before my last day at work, I loaded up on books and a (coffee?) mug. I bought only books that I felt were significant and important reads and that I could purchase more cheaply with my employee discount than I could obtain used. In total, I purchased five books (not including a Community of Christ hymnal that Melanie wanted). I had also purchased two books earlier in the summer, meaning I averaged one new book for each week I was in Nauvoo. Not too shabby! I’m very excited to read them.

Alright, I guess I should wrap this up. Believe it or not, as small as Nauvoo was, there were things I didn’t get around to doing. There are a handful of LDS historic sites I would’ve liked to visit, just for the heck of it. I also thought I’d see one or both of the LDS pageants during my time in Nauvoo, which I didn’t. There are also some little scenic things I didn’t ever stop and appreciate, such as the Stone Arch Bridge. If I ever return to Nauvoo, I’ll have to check these off of my list. On the non-religious side of things, I would like to tour the winery. Melanie and I had tentative plans to do that with some of our friends who came to Nauvoo, but it didn’t happen. Maybe next time. Outside of Nauvoo, if I’m ever again in the neighborhood, I hope to see Winter Quarters, Nebraska; Adam-ondi-Ahman; and Lamoni, Iowa, which was once the headquarters of the RLDS Church and where Graceland University resides today.

There you have it. Another dose of Nauvoo. Is that the end? Probably. Maybe. Probably. For now.

My last night in Nauvoo, with my fellow summer interns.  As you can see, I'm not eating warm apple crisp.

Coming Home

We left Nauvoo on the evening of Friday, July 31st. No surprise, we didn’t hit the road quite as early as we’d hoped, so we didn’t reach our hotel until close to 1 AM. It didn’t help that we got a bit lost for a short while. I think we inadvertently skipped one of the steps on our Google Maps directions, the kind of thing people who are hip enough to have a GPS system would never do. Fortunately, we got lost only once we were in the vicinity of our hotel. Melanie made a quick call to her brother, Tom, and had him look up directions based on where we were. We were only 10 minutes away from the hotel, but we couldn’t have found it without Tom. Thanks, Tom! On the plus side, getting lost gave us an opportunity to explore Omaha (and its surrounding areas, like Council Bluffs, IA). Excluding trips to the beach and public pools, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many shirtless men in such a short period of time. As I noted in a Facebook status update, being a man and wearing a shirt does not seem to be a popular combination in Omaha. And it wasn’t just the cool dudes hanging out in front of the gas stations after midnight. In the morning, we saw several men walking around without shirts. Classy!

We spent our first night at the Sleep Inn in what is technically Carter Lake, IA. We had one of the cutest hotel rooms I’ve ever seen. The room was T-shaped, with a bed in each wing of the top of the “T” and the bathroom and desk being situated in the “stem” of the “T.” (Each bed had its own TV, too.) That might not sound particularly cute, but the coloring and everything added to it. (See the photo below, which I am politely lifting from Kayak.com.) The beds were super comfortable, with delightfully squishy and plush pillows. We slept great. That’s what we liked about the hotel. Other aspects of the hotel were much sketchier. With the exception of the employee who checked us in, every member of the staff we encountered looked like a heroin addict who had just been released from prison. I wouldn’t have felt safe leaving my personal belongings in my room, if I may be so judgmental as to say so. The complimentary breakfast was also a joke, the worst I’ve ever seen. We went down to breakfast a good 35 minutes before it was supposed to end, and there was next to nothing available to eat. I’m not exaggerating when I say there was literally one slice of white bread, one English muffin, two small donuts, a few apples, and almost anything you’d get out of a spout was about to run dry. Filling up a cup with waffle batter to pour into the waffle iron, I wasn’t sure I’d get enough batter to make a waffle. When I did get a waffle, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get enough syrup out of the syrup thing. Melanie and I had to share a spoon for our yogurts because there weren’t enough spoons. The kids finished off the little bit of cereal that remained, and I wasn’t sure we’d get enough milk out of the carafe. It was quite disappointing. (In contrast, our next hotel refilled breakfast items even when there was literally only four minutes remaining of breakfast time. That’s how you do it, folks!)

This doesn't match the layout of our room, but decoratively, it is the exact same style.  Thanks, Kayak.com!

Upon leaving the hotel on the morning of Saturday, August 1st, we hit our final church history site of the summer: the Kanesville Tabernacle. I admit, I hadn’t heard of Kanesville until a couple of months ago, but the early Latter Day Saints spent more time in Kanesville than they did nearby Winter Quarters. The Kanesville Tabernacle (the original, which was about a mile away from the visitor’s center and reconstructed tabernacle today) is where Brigham Young was sustained as church president. Or, rather, it’s where he was sustained by approximately 1,000 church members and some members of the Quorum of the Twelve. My understanding is that the LDS Church is interpreting this moment in history as the moment when Brigham Young becomes President of the LDS Church. There are some glitches in that interpretation, however, as I understand it—though I admit, I’m not sure how well I understand it. One problem with trying to wrap your mind around some of this is that the LDS Church can be intentionally vague about things. I promise I don’t say that to be negative, it’s just true. At the Kanesville Tabernacle, for instance, there are signs that talk about “the Twelve” and how they “unanimously” sustained Brigham Young. But based on details you read on other signs at the same historic site, it’s clear that it wasn’t the entire “Twelve” in attendance. So, they (purposely, I believe) give the impression that all twelve apostles were in attendance and agreed about Brigham Young becoming president, but that isn’t really the case. In fact, Lyman Wight opposed Brigham Young and ended up with his own faction. So, if you just read the signs at the historic sites and try to understand things based on what is strongly implied (and darn near explicitly said) on those signs, you get an inaccurate picture. Anyway, it’s strange to me to think that Brigham Young truly became the president just in virtue of being sustained by a small fraction of church members. That doesn’t strike me as legitimate. But the bigger issue in my mind is that I am unaware of Brigham Young ever being ordained as president. Being sustained is one thing, but ordination is another. I can’t find any information about Brigham being ordained as president. I’ve heard some people claim that he never was, but I don’t know. I only know that I can’t find anything about it, and you’d think the LDS Church would promote it like crazy if they knew the when and where of such an ordination. If Brigham wasn’t ordained president, that’s a very significant thing. If you hold to the LDS view on how priesthood succession and authority works—with ordination by the laying on of hands being so central to the rest—a lack of ordination could potentially undermine Brigham’s entire presidency. It might even have a domino effect that would delegitimize subsequent presidents of the LDS Church, including any priesthood ordinances performed during their tenure, since those would require the sealing power that is understood to be invested only in the president of the church. I myself don’t base my religious beliefs on this type of legalism, but I am fascinated by these matters precisely because if you take the LDS view of things seriously, it often ends up being problematic for the LDS Church in some way. That fascinates me. (If you’re wondering, Joseph Smith III was not only blessed by his father to be his successor, but he was both sustained and ordained as church president. That gives Joseph III’s claims to presidency much greater legitimacy, if you want to take the legalistic view of church authority seriously.)

Creegan poses in front of a statue of a man bidding his wife and daughter goodbye because Brigham Young has claimed them as wives.  (Just kidding!)

I think Mormons sometimes view the RLDS Church (known today as Community of Christ) as clearly not a true continuation of the original church since they were and admit to being "reorganized."  But the LDS Church did the same thing.  The "reorganization" was of the first presidency, and that's exactly what happened with Brigham Young in 1847, as the LDS Church readily admits with this here plaque.

Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards look over a list of young women as they decide who gets whom for a plural wife.  (Just kidding!)

A quote from a revelation received by Brigham Young, now included in LDS D&C 136.  I'm not being snarky when I say I find this verse rather poignant, given that it turns out to be so very applicable to Brigham Young himself.

An artistic rendering of Brigham Young being sustained as president by eight of the twelve apostles (including Brigham himself).

Note those who were absent.  What was Lyman Wight doing in Texas?  Oh yes, opposing Brigham Young and leading his own faction!  D'oh!

 

Brigham Young gears up to sing "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" at the Kanesville Karaoke Club.  (Just kidding!)

The nice thing about the Kanesville Tabernacle is that it was the only LDS-owned historic site we visited this year where the onsite missionaries weren’t immediately bearing their testimonies to us. They actually stuck to the history. I don’t recall a single hint of testimony-bearing during our entire visit. It was kind of nice, if I may say so.

After leaving the Kanesville Tabernacle, we started our daylong drive to Laramie, WY. I don’t think there’s anything interesting to say about the drive. Western Nebraska and Wyoming are ugly in comparison to where we had been, and that made the drive somewhat dull. Melanie and I listened to a fair amount of podcasts; the boys played on their electronic devices. The latter are a true lifesaver. There was not a single complaint about the many hours we spent in the car on the way back to Utah. Amazing. We arrived in Laramie at about 8:30 PM local time, thanks to changing time zones. As it turned out, we had booked a room at the exact same hotel that we had stayed in on our way to Utah after moving out of our Tallahassee, Florida apartment last summer. Even more coincidental, we were put in the very same hotel room. Yes, I am certain—it was in the back corner of the second floor, which made it easy to remember. After getting checked in, we went swimming until 10 PM, then let history repeat itself once more by heading to Chili’s for a late-night dinner, just as we had done approximately 13 months earlier. For the third time in as many days, I didn’t get to eat what I had planned on, which was a bummer. Country fried steak is no longer on the Chili’s menu, and that was always one of my favorite Chili’s items. With that being gone the ground peppercorn burger having been omitted long ago, I now have zero inclination to return to Chili’s. Not that my food was bad. I tried to make up for my bad experience at Outback a couple of weeks earlier by ordering a ribeye, cooked medium. Like Outback, Chili’s overcooked the steak, but not nearly to the degree that Outback had. At least the steak at Chili’s was juicy rather than dry. The seasoning left something to be desired, but I quite enjoyed my “skillet mashed potatoes,” which had a thick coating of melted cheese on top. Cilantro was also placed on top, which seemed different for mashed potatoes, but I love cilantro, so it was a win. Beegy fell asleep before his dinner ever arrived. Eddie and Peter enjoyed their food, and Melanie thought her pork carnitas tacos were exceptionally good. Overall, it was a successful visit.

Never seen one of these before.  Melanie snapped this photo for us as we entered the freeway in Omaha and took toward Wyoming.

My ribeye.  Skillet mashed potatoes are in back.  See the cheesy glaze?  Yum!

The drive from Laramie, WY to our home in Utah felt slow and tedious, as the last day of driving so often does. It wasn’t a purely mental thing, either. There was lots of road construction, by which I mean lots of highway that was reduced to one lane and situated between bright orange traffic cones and barrels. I didn’t see any actual construction going on, but it was a Sunday. In some states, that matters. (It wouldn’t have in Florida.) This means we kept getting slowed down, sometimes to stop-and-go speeds, often behind large semis. It wasn’t any fun. It was fun that our boys started to recognize things and point them out. Beegy would get especially excited about things he remembered. And I’m not talking about things around the SLC area. I’m talking even out by Green River, Wyoming. He’d recognize a particular landscape or whatever. We got home around 6:30 PM. The boys were excited to revisit Grandma and Grandpa’s trampoline. Melanie and I were just excited to be done. We did take a quick tour of the home improvements that have been made during our time away: Melanie’s parents painted their bedroom light purple (which looks great with their gray bedding) and have a new washer and dryer. Despite being exhausted, I stayed up until 4 AM. It makes no sense, but it’s what happened.

And that’s that. We’re here. It’s over. Nauvoo is a memory. How fleeting it was. I do have some apprehension about being here. I would not be the least bit surprised if I go through a period of depression sometime in the very near future, having gone from having a daily purpose in life to again having very little direction or structure. It’s okay. I’m prepared for it, and that will help. I’m excited to partake of the benefits that Utah has to offer, such as an event tonight at the SLC Library with John Hamer. As a reminder, John Hamer features significantly into Melanie’s and my journey into Community of Christ. It was his lecture at the SLC Library last summer that inspired us to attend an actual worship service at Community of Christ. Tonight’s event, titled “Ever Diverging Expressions of the Latter Day Saint Restoration,” should be epic (as my kids would say). I shall return and report.

Adieu, Nauvoo!

Writing a goodbye post about Nauvoo would’ve been a lot more meaningful to me had I gotten a chance to write it while still in Nauvoo. As it turns out, I am writing this post from Utah approximately four hours after arriving back home. My 2015 summer internship in Nauvoo ended more than two full days ago. Crazy.

My last week in Nauvoo was a busy, busy blast. I assume I will already forget many details, which is sad, but I’ll do my best. Saturday the 25th and Sunday the 26th were both work days for me. On Saturday night, the family and I made our last jaunt to the movie theater in Keokuk, the nearest town with an actual stoplight. We saw Pixels, which the kids loved, and their enjoyment of it brought me much happiness. Church on Sunday was fine enough, from what I remember. Sunday school ended up being donuts and coffee, but without any coffee because it turned out there wasn’t any on the premises to be made. (Had there been, I might have been tempted to try it again, despite not yet having had any coffee I’d go so far as to say I’ve enjoyed.) So many of the people in the Nauvoo congregation work at the Joseph Smith Historic Site that conversation comes easy. There’s probably too much shop talk going on, but it’s nice to do something you’re interested in talking about.

Monday the 27th was my final day off before leaving Nauvoo. I figured I better do some final exploring of Nauvoo while I had the chance. I went solo, making my first stop the Calvin Pendleton Home and School. I then attempted to go to the Lucy Mack Smith Home, but the door was locked despite having an “Open” sign on the front of the house. Do they lock people out of it if they already giving a tour? I don’t know, but that’s my only guess. I gave up on it and then made an impromptu stop at the Lands and Records Office. I looked up one of my ancestors and found out where he used to live, then drove to that location and took photos of the empty field that it is today. I next went downtown (if it deserves to be called that) and saw what they had, which was very little. I snapped a few photos and decided to hit Nauvoo Mill & Bakery for the last time. Little did I know I would end up there one additional time that day, but more on that in a moment.

This field is, I believe, where my great-great-great-great (I don't even know how many) grandpa used to live.  I assume there would've been a home of some kind and that he didn't sleep in the grass.  (Edit: To clarify, I think it is further back in the tree area that the guy would've lived, kind of behind where that house is on the left edge of the photo.)

Some of what downtown Nauvoo has to offer, which is relatively little.

Obligatory temple shot.  It is a beautiful building.  I wish I'd had a chance to go inside.

At Nauvoo Mill & Bakery, I purchased some strawberry and cream cheese croissants that Melanie and I had tried earlier in the summer and quite enjoyed. I considered it a last hurrah. When I left the bakery, I was going to go pick up an order of onion rings from Peter’s Place. Peter’s Place is a burgers-and-shakes, Mom-n-Pop type eatery on the outskirts of town. I’d heard they have really good onion rings, and I had always meant to try them, so now was the time. Before I could go to Peter’s Place, however, Melanie texted me to request some things from Nauvoo Market, the only grocer in town. I had also wanted to stop at Casey’s and get a fountain drink, plus I thought I should check out the Fudge Factory since I hadn’t yet. This resulted in me making a lot of brief stops, jumping in and out of the car, buying snacks and treats aplenty. Peter’s Place, for the record, did have pretty good onion rings, texture-wise. They were super crunchy. Flavor-wise, they were fine, but not something I’d bother making a special trip for. I thought I’d take some back to Melanie, but you hardly get any onion rings in an order. I ate them all myself. I did get a fountain drink on my way to Peter’s Place, and I did stop at the Fudge Factory on my way back home. I got just two little pretzel braids that were covered in chocolate, crushed pecans, and caramel. They were quite good.

I mentioned earlier that I would end up back at Nauvoo Mill & Bakery. While there, I noticed they had a pecan pie in their display case. One of my tour guide co-workers (call him Ford) has raved about their pecan pie, but complains that it is rarely available. I have even witnessed Ford call Nauvoo Mill & Bakery to ask if they have any pecan pie, only to hang up sadly upon hearing that they do not. I asked Melanie if I should go back and buy the whole darn pie and then invite Ford and his roommate Azrael (whom I’ve mentioned before) over for pie. Melanie thought I should, and so I did. By the time I had returned, a couple of slices of the pie were missing. I bought what remained. I went back home, spent some time there, and then Melanie and I loaded up the kids to make a trek to Ft. Madison, since we had discovered that the Hy-Vee grocery store in Ft. Madison contains a Starbucks. Melanie was desperate for a green tea Frappuccino after going nearly seven weeks without one. On our way to Ft. Madison, we stopped by the home where Ford and Azrael live and invited them to come over for pie later in the evening. I explained what I had done, to which Ford replied, “So, you’re the one who bought the pie?! We went in there earlier today and asked if they had pecan pie and they said some guy had just bought all that they had!” We had a good laugh about that. We laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Okay, not really. But we chortled some.

The Nauvoo Mill & Bakery wasn’t the only place I visited twice that day. On our way back from Ft. Madison, we stopped for dinner at Peter’s Place. I figured it would be a place the kids would enjoy. I was a bit disgruntled by our visit. The kid who served us was very friendly, but had his humor knob cranked to 11 and made me feel obligated to laugh at every joke he made, which was about 75 jokes per minute. They were also out of tons of stuff. They had no Diet Pepsi, no Mountain Dew, and no Pepsi—literally the first three drinks I would’ve chosen from among their selection. I didn’t know this until I had bought and paid for a drink. They were also out of ice. No joke. There weren’t lids for the drinks, either. Thankfully we weren’t interested in the caramel shakes or junior burgers, which we had been informed were also out of stock that day. I was unimpressed, let me just say that much. My Navajo taco, which is supposedly one of their most popular items, tasted like canned food from a grocery store all dumped together on a slightly overdone and too-flat scone. If I ever return to Nauvoo, I shan’t be eating at Peter’s Place. I will, however, make trips to Ft. Madison for green tea Frappuccinos.

The kids engage in some high quality tomfoolery just outside of Peter's Place.

A photo of Peter in front of Peter's Place, for obvs reasons.

Tuesday, I was back to work, but we had fun plans in the evening. Several people from the Joseph Smith Historic Site (including Ford, Azrael, Sheradon, and others) were heading to Burlington, Iowa for a 7:05 PM showing of Jurassic World. Melanie and I took the kids. Because we had to leave right after I got done with work, we decided to eat dinner at the mall that housed the movie theater. That wasn’t the best plan in the world, as their food court consisted of literally two eateries: a Maid-Rite and some Chinese place. Not having had Chinese food since leaving Utah, that’s what Melanie and I ate, while the kids ate stuff from Maid-Rite. By the time we got our food and ate it, we were pushing it on making it to the movie on time. The previews were already going by the time we got into the auditorium. Melanie would later head to the lobby to take advantage of their Tuesday night deal: a free popcorn with every drink purchase. With Tuesday night tickets costing only $5, we were able to splurge at the movies without it being as outrageous as movie prices typically are.

On Wednesday night after work, our good friend Jenn stuck around for dinner. Jenn’s husband Seth had gone back to Utah for the Sunstone Symposium, so we tried to keep her company. We had a good time, and afterward I decided to hightail it to Burlington to get a haircut at the only hairstylist within a 35-minute radius of Nauvoo that was still open. Eddie and Creegan wanted to tag along for whatever reason, so they went with me. (Beegy actually acted like he wanted to get a haircut, despite having gotten a haircut just a few days prior. I guess he likes them. Go figure.) It ended up being one of the best haircuts I’ve gotten in the last decade. Being damn near bald, you probably think I’m making some kind of a joke, but I’m not. Damn near bald guys can still get better and worse haircuts.

Thursday was our last night in Nauvoo. It was also my last time to be lead guide (which doesn’t matter much, but I figured I might as well mention it). Because it was my last night in town, my boss at the Joseph Smith Historic Site took everyone out to dinner at the Hotel Nauvoo. They have a nice buffet that is a bit on the pricey side. Isn’t that generous of my boss to do that for us before we left? It was really nice. The one sad thing—and I admit, I got more sad about it than a 36-year-old man should—was that I never got any dessert. I scooped up some warm apple crisp, one of my favorite types of dessert, and was about to eat it when my fellow interns and I were escorted outside for a group photo. I had planned to head back inside and eat my dessert, but we took a while with the photo and everyone else ended up leaving the restaurant. There was no going back at that point. I hadn’t even had a single bite of the dessert. It still stings a bit.

That brings us to Friday, July 31st, my last day in Nauvoo. The day started off neatly enough. Before the visitor’s center opened for business, the historic sites director showed us interns some of the original manuscript pages of Joseph Smith’s “New Translation” of the Bible (known today in Community of Christ as the Inspired Version and in the LDS Church as the Joseph Smith Translation). Shortly thereafter, I singlehandedly (actually, I used both hands) unwrapped a newly arrived cradle that was made in the 1870s. Several early RLDS prophet-presidents had slept in the cradle as babies. When it comes to tours, I had it easy. I accompanied my boss on a tour with a very large group of S&I (formerly called CES) instructors for the LDS Church, interpreting the Mansion House when that group had to be split into two. I gave only one tour on my own, to a group of only three people. For the first time, I bumped into Joseph and Emma Smith themselves while on tour. In actuality, it was two LDS missionaries in costume for some vignette they would be performing in just a moment, but they were standing together in front of the Mansion House and already in character. Naturally, we had to stop and shake hands and make the obligatory jokes about going into their house and how we’ll keep it in good shape. Knowing I wanted to get on the road as early as possible, I was allowed to go home shortly after 3 PM. I helped Melanie pack up a few final things, put some oil in the car, said our goodbyes to Jenn and her kids, took a few final photos around town, and left Nauvoo.

Moments before leaving Nauvoo.  We are standing in front of the Sidney Rigdon home, which was our home for approximately five weeks.

The Red Brick Store (reconstruction), where most of my tours would come to an end.

The Mansion House, which Joseph Smith called home during the last 10 months of his life.  This was the most popular stop on our tour.

The larger, red brick structure is typically called the Nauvoo House, although it was officially dubbed the Riverside Mansion when completed.  It is one of the stops on the tour, although we do not enter the building.  The stone building in the forefront was the office of Lewis Bidamon, whom Emma Hale Smith married three-and-a-half years after Joseph's death.  Our friends Jenn and Seth are staying in that building now.

The Homestead, which was Joseph and Emma's first home in Nauvoo.  This is where they lived the longest during their time together in Nauvoo.

The Homestead, from another angle (slightly more to the north).  I once joked to a tour group that the Homestead well (visible just behind the informative sign) was the very well that inspired the popular hymn, "All is Well."  One woman laughed very hard at this joke; everybody else just stared at me.

As this post is already running a bit long, I think I’ll save details about our return trip to Utah for another day. Until then…

Sports!

We’ve had a couple of sports outings during our time here in Nauvoo, both within the last week. The first was last Monday, July 20th. Several people from my work went to a Burlington Bees baseball game in Burlington, IA. I had hoped to go to a Bees game this summer, but of course, I was expecting to see the Salt Lake Bees, Utah’s AAA baseball team. Coincidentally enough, Burlington has a AA baseball team also named the Bees. (I think they are or at least once were affiliated.) We went on a promotional night when tickets were just $2 and several concessions were just $1 each. Turns out AA baseball is even easier to attend. The parking for the stadium is completely free, and there is plenty of open seating.  (Only a few small sections of the seats are reserved seating, otherwise it is general admission across the board). As always, I watched relatively little of the game because I was socializing. We had a really good time.

Even showing up at the last second, it was pretty easy to get a parking spot.  A free parking spot, mind you!

I had to wear my hat gangsta style because the sun was to my left.  Good thing I can pull off such a refined look!

I had a great view!

Our next sports event was miniature golf on Friday, July 24th. Okay, that’s not much of a sport, but still. For the record, it wasn’t merely miniature golf. We got ice cream, too. There’s a miniature golf, batting cage, ice cream shop located right next to the Iowa State Penitentiary in Ft. Madison, which is only about 20 minutes from Nauvoo. Most people here in Nauvoo (that we know, anyway) talk about going for “prison ice cream.” When I say it’s right next to the prison, I’m talking as right next to it as you can get. You’ll see in the photos below. Anyway, we had a good time, although the humidity was outrageous. Our camera case felt soggy by the end of the night.  It was cray-cray.

Our prison putt-putt party included our friends from Utah.  (Seth, the one with a beard, is the associate pastor of the SLC Community of Christ congregation.)

Jenn and Melanie at the same table as in the above photo.  Notice the miniature golf course and batting cages in the background.  And what's that castle-looking thing?  The prison!  Right there!  See what I'm saying?!

Maybe the mini-golf course and ice cream shop were put right next to the prison in order to make the prisoners jealous and encourage their rehabilitation.  Who wouldn't want to rehabilitate when a brownie sundae is waiting just outside the prison walls?

The end!