This is the fifth in a series looking back on 2015. Other entries will include books, movies, food, television, and more.
The last time I posted an entry from my 2015 year-in-review series, it was January 30th. At the time, I felt sheepish about the fact that January was coming to an end and I was still recapping the previous year. Then I practically stopped writing blog entries at all. Here it is, touching on mid-April, and I still haven’t completed my year-in-review of 2015. It seems completely absurd to start it up again at this point, I’m sure, and yet I’m going to do so. I had stuff I wanted to say about my musical year of 2015, and I’m going to embrace the whole “better late than never” philosophy when it comes to this. So here we go…
For me, the first standout album in 2015, although an album much older than that, is Men Without Hats’ 1987 release, Pop Goes the World. I got this album from the library in early February and listened to it almost non-stop for weeks. I found it unbelievably catchy, and it coincided with my coming to a point of clarity in my spiritual journey that also left me feeling giddy. The album served as a perfectly upbeat companion to a time in my life when things were changing, when anything seemed possible, and when I was deliriously happy—which is the precise term I used in a blog entry I wrote at that time, wherein I give credit to both Pop Goes the World and my religious revolution. I now think of Pop Goes the World as my conversion album. Many of you will be familiar with the title track “Pop Goes the World,” a decent hit for Men Without Hats back when it came out. If you’re like I was just 14 months ago, you’ve never heard the rest of the album. But, man, it’s fun. Although there are several songs that are certifiable earworms, I’ve chosen to share “Moonbeam” below. Apparently, it was also released as a single in ‘87, but I have no recollection of it. Does it ring a bell with any of my readers? I apologize that the video is of such terrible quality, both visually and creatively speaking. But the audio isn’t bad, and that’s what we’re going for here.
I discovered The John Butler Trio in 2015 thanks to a YouTube video shared on Facebook. I admit, I haven’t listened much to this band since, but I was blown away by the solo acoustic performance of “Ocean,” which I will post below. It’s impressive enough to be worth sharing, no matter how much (or how little) the band has otherwise taken root in my mind. The guitar-playing is mind-blowing.
One of my favorite folksy artists is Canadian singer-songwriter Hayden. Hayden released Hey Love in late March 2015, and while it may be one of the least memorable of his albums, it’s still good. Here’s the video for “Troubled Times”:
One of my favorite punk bands, Stiff Little Fingers, released a new album in 2015 titled No Going Back. Their first three albums, released between 1979 and 1981, will forever remain their best, but they’re in pretty good form considering. I need to spend more time with No Going Back, but here’s a sample for you: “Throwing It All Away,” a rather radio-friendly none-too-raucous ditty if I do say so myself.
Barenaked Ladies also reappeared on the scene in 2015 with the release of Silverball, just in time to spend some time on our car CD player as we drove to Illinois to spend seven weeks living in Nauvoo. Silverball is a marked improvement over 2013’s Grinning Streak, but still near the bottom of the band’s extensive catalog. Multi-instrumentalist Kevin Hearn continues to be one of the group’s greatest assets, if not an under-utilized songwriter. “Tired of Fighting with You” features Hearn’s classic surreal lullaby sound and quirkily poetic lyrics. This track doesn’t showcase the more energetic pop-rock tone that dominates the rest of the album, but it’s a good song.
1980s New Wave superstars Duran Duran are still going strong, having released Paper Gods in September. Perhaps only one album will eclipse Paper Gods as the album that featured more heavily into my life during 2015—and no, I’m not referring to Pop Goes the World. (Oh, the suspense!) Creegan has been an incredibly fun part of my music listening over the last year. He is an avid music listener, and he picks out his favorites from every CD he hears and demands that they be replayed over and over again. The first three tracks of Paper Gods—titled “Paper Gods,” “Last Night in the City” and “You Kill Me With Silence,” respectively—were all exceptionally big hits with Creegan, who loved the album in its entirety. But I’m actually going to share the fourth track from the album, “Pressure Off.” Why? Because it’s catchy as hell. What other reason do you need?
One of the best releases in 2015, in my opinion, was Ben Folds’ So There. The album concludes with over 20 minutes of concerto music, spanning three tracks. Preceding that are eight piano-heavy pop tunes, in classic Ben Folds form but with more orchestration than he’s ever done before. My favorite is the opening track, “Capable of Anything,” which I’ll share here:
One musician I continually find myself surprised to enjoy as much as I do is Joe Satriani, guitarist extraordinaire who specializes in instrumental rock. I found his 2015 release, Shockwave Supernova, thoroughly enjoyable. The final track is one of my favorites on the album, the slower, aptly-named “Goodbye Supernova.” I really like the bass in this song. Not that it’s impressive, it just sounds really good to me. I think it reminds me of something else, which might not be what Satriani wants to hear, but regardless, there is a nostalgic quality to this tune that pulls me in and makes me feel like closing my eyes and reflecting. Here it is:
I bought Shockwave Supernova as a birthday present to myself along with a few other albums. I rounded out my Collective Soul collection by nabbing both 2008’s Afterwords, which I had previously neglected, and their new 2015 release, See What You Started by Continuing. Collective Soul is one of those bands that I really enjoyed in the 1990s and then stopped paying much attention to after a couple of their albums were merely so-so. After nearly a decade-and-a-half of pretty much ignoring them, I came by a really cheap copy of their 2009 self-titled album and gave it a listen. I quite liked it. I can understand someone arguing that many of their songs sound quite a bit alike, but such a complaint can be lobbied against many a good band. All I know is, the last few Collective Soul albums have been very enjoyable, and I’m glad to have them back in rotation. Below are the videos for “Hollywood” from Afterwords and “AYTA” from See What You Started by Continuing.
One of my absolute favorite album discoveries of 2015 was one of my birthday CDs, White Hot Peach by Primitive Radio Gods. Choosing one song to showcase from this album is incredibly hard. It’s so damn good. I’m not sure the audio quality is as good in the following video as I wish it were, but the song is awesome. Please enjoy “Fading Out.” After you listen to this, can you honestly say you don’t want to listen to it about 100 more times before doing anything else?
It was late October, or maybe November, when a friend of mine called me up and invited me to go with him to see Shakey Graves in concert. I’d never heard of Shakey Graves, but I went for it and had a very good time. I was amused that, of all the concerts I’ve ever been to, this country-tinged, electrified, singer-songwriter type gave the most rock star performance of any artist I’ve ever seen live. Brassieres thrown onstage? I’d never seen it before, but it happened for Shakey Graves. He had a certain boyish charm and energy about him that kept the crowd enthralled, myself included. He wasn’t shredding up the guitar like you might expect of a heavy metal musician, but man, could he fingerpick the hell out of it. I’ve decided that a video of a live performance is more fitting, since that’s how I experienced Shakey Graves. In this video, he looks very much like he did when I saw him at The Depot in downtown Salt Lake City: black baseball cap, plain white t-shirt, and a thick but short beard. Enjoy this dual performance of “If Not For You” and “The Perfect Parts,” both from the 2014 album And the War Came.
And now for the absolute biggest album of 2015, as far as my family is concerned: Blurryface by Twenty One Pilots. We got this album from the library, and even more so than with Duran Duran’s Paper Gods, my kids could not get enough of it. They knew a couple of songs from the radio—“Tear in My Heart” and “Stressed Out”—but they quickly fell in love with pretty much every track on the CD. I tell you, watching Creegan cock an attitude and sing along with “Stressed Out” is pretty darn entertaining, but even I found myself enjoying the crap out of this album from a purely musical standpoint. For all the many hours of continuous airplay that it received in our car, I never got sick of it. I still don’t feel sick of it, even though it still gets regular airplay. (Santa was wise enough to give us our own official copy for Christmas.) Twenty One Pilots are sometimes classified as an “alternative hip hop” duo. If you know me, you know hip hop is pretty far from my style, but I guess the “alternative” part is doing enough work to keep my ears perked up and happy. Yes, there’s a fair amount of rapping, but there is also plenty of melodic singing and even some edgy screaming now and again. Musically and lyrically, these guys are hella talented. Spoiler alert for when I review 2016, but I’ve since listened to another couple of albums by Twenty One Pilots and they are relentlessly amazing. Each of the three albums I’ve listened to had me instantaneously hooked. Twenty One Pilots are one of the best discoveries I’ve made in the last few years, without question.
I’ll be sharing a few videos to orient you to Twenty One Pilots. The first video is the official video for “Stressed Out,” which is on the radio almost constantly, it seems. On the off chance you haven’t heard it, now you can. The next video is one of Creegan listening to “Stressed Out” while in the car. I discreetly filmed him with my cell phone so he wouldn’t know what I was doing and stop behaving however he was. Sadly, despite seriously belting his heart out numerous times up to this point, it seems my filming had the cosmic effect of cramping his style. In the video, he starts off singing in a silly, non-serious way (not as he had been up to that point), makes an observation about the lyrics, mimics a drumbeat, and eventually just lip-syncs and dances a bit. It’s still cute, and you still get a feel for how he sometimes acts when he’s singing along, but it’s not what I hoped it would be. To make matters worse, the picture goes blurry for most of the video. But it’s the best I can offer. The third and final video below is merely the audio track of my favorite song on the album, “Hometown.” It’s amazing.
The end!
Formerly Benj (& Purge); formerly Sucking on Oranges
Showing posts with label Video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Video. Show all posts
Saturday, April 09, 2016
Friday, October 23, 2015
The Parliament of the World’s Religions, Part III
After three days at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, I had seen a grand total of only six presentations, plus snippets of a couple of others, and the Jewish Havdalah service. That isn’t much, considering the possibilities, but it was draining in its own right. As I mentioned in my first Parliament post, I was sleep deprived to begin with. I had trouble staying awake in several of the sessions I went to. Thus, I was torn about what to do on Sunday. I had already decided to attend church rather than Parliament in the morning hours. Nothing on the Parliament schedule compelled me to skip church, where guest visitor Steve Shields (an author, historian, and minister of Community of Christ, who converted from the LDS Church in the early 1980s) would be teaching Sunday school and Melanie would be giving the sermon. There were two Sunday afternoon Parliament sessions that interested me, and one that I was slightly curious about but also leery of. (I feared the latter would be more new age oriented than I wanted it to be.) Of the two presentations that really appealed to me, one of them could be watched live online. I packed up my backpack with everything I would normally take to Parliament and put it in our trunk before heading to church, but once church ended, the benefits of going downtown didn’t outweigh my motivation to have a relaxed day at home. I had hardly seen my family for three days, and that drew me in as well. I went home with my family and never regretted that decision.
Monday, October 19th was the last day of Parliament. I was back in the game, showing up for an 8:30 AM session called “A Practical Vision for the Second Axial Age.” This had been one of the presentations I had most looked forward to. I was disappointed. I guess I’m a party pooper, because I wasn’t keen on breaking into small groups and tossing ideas around with other people. As an introvert, that kind of spontaneous intimacy makes me uncomfortable. But aside from that, I had really hoped that the presenters themselves were going to say a lot about the theory that was outlined on the program, which was all about us being in the midst of a great shift away from individualism and toward globalism in our religious and ethical sensibilities. They talked about this for a little while before having us break into groups, but it was all very generalized. Nothing they said made an impression on me, and when they started to divvy us up into groups, I decided to slip out the back. Like my decision to go home on Sunday, I didn’t regret this choice. It provided me an opportunity to explore the art exhibits on display at the Parliament, which had thus far been largely ignored by me. In turn, I once again had an opportunity to put my digital camera to use. Here are some of the things that I saw:
At 10:30 AM, I went to the plenary session called “Spotlight on Indigenous Peoples.” My friend Dan went with me. The plenary was good, from what I saw, but I was quickly fighting off sleep. (Dan passed out almost as soon as the meeting started, making me feel better about my own struggles.) Eventually, I felt I needed to call my mom to check on her picking up Creegan from preschool, which she had agreed to do so I could make it to Parliament. I was also very interested in a session that would be starting right after the plenary session, so I thought I should eat sooner than later. I woke Dan, told him I needed to go, and left. All was well with Creegan and my mom, so food became my next priority. I wandered in the direction of a sandwich shop I used to enjoy many years ago when I worked downtown, but I wasn’t fully convinced I would eat there. I kept my eyes open on the way. Melanie and the boys were going to pick me up that night, and we were all going to go to dinner, so I didn’t want anything too filling. I soon spotted, just across from the sandwich shop I had been considering, a hot dog place. I thought of the hot dog place I used to frequent in Atlanta that had awesome and unique hot dogs. It sounded fun to do something like that, and I thought it would be slightly less filling than something else. And so, I headed over to Redhot and had a “Hawaii Five-0” and some fries. The Hawaii Five-0 consists of a bacon-wraped Kobe beef hot dog with teriyaki sauce, pineapple salsa, and Japanese mayo. It was good. The fries were good, too, but I had no idea I’d be getting such a large plate of them. It ended up being a rather filling meal after all.
I made it back to the Salt Palace just in time for a 12:15 PM session titled “Pathways to Peace: Different Perspectives.” The session included brief speeches from representatives of various faiths, including Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism. I’m not sure how much it was part of the original plan—I had the impression it wasn’t—but the session concluded with a woman singing some selection from an opera. She was quite good.
I was scheduled to be at the Community of Christ booth from 2 – 4 PM. The “Pathways to Peace” session ended just before 2. I hurried to the exhibit hall and found that most booths were already being deconstructed. The Community of Christ booth had itself been dismantled. To be fair, I had never received confirmation that I would be “working” the booth that day, but I had volunteered to do so and had it in my head. I just assumed they’d need me. Apparently, they did not. The unfortunate thing was that Melanie wasn’t going to pick me up for another two-and-a-half hours. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, and so I wandered. It ended up being a good experience. Some rock band was cranking music out in one of the foyers. It was extremely loud, but people were loving it. There was quite a large crowd dancing around immediately in front of the band when I arrived. I stuck around for a handful of songs. The crowd dissipated between songs, but there were always people dancing. I filmed some of the performance, but it seems rather subdued when I watch the videos. You can’t tell that it was bloody loud. I don’t know much about technology, but I wonder if the music was so loud that my simple cell phone microphone couldn’t adequately capture it. (Does that even make sense? I don’t know.) It just seems like much of the music is magically missing in the video. Even so, I’ll share some of those videos now.
Hanging around, I also had the chance to film one of the Tibetan Buddhist monks working on the mandala I wrote about previously. If you don’t know the method for creating these amazing works of art, just watch. The patience and precision it involves is mind-blowing. It was also around this time that I had my final angelic visitation at Parliament.
I soon found myself outside, enjoying the cool late afternoon air. I took some final shots, read a little tiny bit, and listened to podcasts while waiting for Melanie to call and tell me she was nearby—something that wouldn’t happen for at least an hour. But I was content. And that brings me to the end of Parliament. Just so you’re not completely wondering, I’ll mention that dinner at Blue Iguana was yummy as always.
My adventures for the night didn’t end with Mexican food. After dinner, Melanie and I went to our monthly book club meeting at the SLC Community of Christ. That was a very enjoyable meeting in and of itself, and it seemed an appropriate way to top off my Parliament experience. The book we had read is Living Buddha, Living Christ, written by the Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh, who argues that Buddhism and Christianity, when lived to their fullest and properly understood, are really teaching the same things. I saved a whole bunch of quotes from this book, but I’ll conclude by sharing just one small portion of one quote that I particularly enjoyed. It captures the Interfaith spirit that the Parliament of the World’s Religions is all about, and I find it quite profound.
I’d like to add my amen to this. Although I’ve long been a kind of universalist—someone who believes salvation will ultimately come to all and that myriad legitimate and equally effective religious traditions exist—the quotation above really struck me. Most of my life was spent in a religious tradition where, I believe it is safe to say, the assumption is that conformity and uniformity are evidence of God’s influence in your life. If you are truly in touch with the Spirit and being directed by God, you will be the same as all of the other people in a select group in terms of how you understand, believe, experience, and express your spirituality. Such was the thinking. But the quote from Thích Nhất Hạnh made me realize just how much this type of mindset presumes that we humans are all the same. And yet we’re not the same. And if we’re not the same, then we won’t become identical just because the same God is working in all of us. A lemon and a blueberry are quite different from each other, and yet it truly is the same sun and the same rain that gives them life and makes them what they are. Isn’t that a beautiful thing? I think it is. I think it is.
Steve Shields and I, taken at the Community of Christ church in Salt Lake City, UT.
Monday, October 19th was the last day of Parliament. I was back in the game, showing up for an 8:30 AM session called “A Practical Vision for the Second Axial Age.” This had been one of the presentations I had most looked forward to. I was disappointed. I guess I’m a party pooper, because I wasn’t keen on breaking into small groups and tossing ideas around with other people. As an introvert, that kind of spontaneous intimacy makes me uncomfortable. But aside from that, I had really hoped that the presenters themselves were going to say a lot about the theory that was outlined on the program, which was all about us being in the midst of a great shift away from individualism and toward globalism in our religious and ethical sensibilities. They talked about this for a little while before having us break into groups, but it was all very generalized. Nothing they said made an impression on me, and when they started to divvy us up into groups, I decided to slip out the back. Like my decision to go home on Sunday, I didn’t regret this choice. It provided me an opportunity to explore the art exhibits on display at the Parliament, which had thus far been largely ignored by me. In turn, I once again had an opportunity to put my digital camera to use. Here are some of the things that I saw:
The mandala being crafted by the Tibeant Buddhist monks is nearly complete.
A small Jain temple was constructed for Parliament.
One of my favorite photos from Parliament.
Ordain Women had an interactive art piece on display called simply "The Keys." Those who wanted to show support for women's ordination in the LDS Church could choose a key, write their name on the key, and affix it to the display.
I realized at Parliament just how much I am drawn to art that incorporates glass.
Parliament gave me the opportunity to walk my first meditation labyrinth. I've long wanted to try a labyrinth. I'm not sure this was the ideal setting—the fact that it was the final day of Parliament is evidenced by those packing up in the background—but I can see the potential for it to be a reflective and tranquilizing activity.
The "Remembered Light" exhibit featured the art of Frederick A. McDonald. As a chaplain in the U.S. Army during WWII, McDonald gathered pieces of broken stained glass from destroyed churches and the like as he moved around Europe. He then transformed those fragments into beautiful pieces such as you see here.
I wish I had taken a photo of the description of this piece. It said something about the "improbable" note sequence and the fact that the line of notes endlessly repeats, all of which is meant to symbolize our striving for world peace. Or something like that. Trust me, it was all very profound when not paraphrased by a jack ass.
At 10:30 AM, I went to the plenary session called “Spotlight on Indigenous Peoples.” My friend Dan went with me. The plenary was good, from what I saw, but I was quickly fighting off sleep. (Dan passed out almost as soon as the meeting started, making me feel better about my own struggles.) Eventually, I felt I needed to call my mom to check on her picking up Creegan from preschool, which she had agreed to do so I could make it to Parliament. I was also very interested in a session that would be starting right after the plenary session, so I thought I should eat sooner than later. I woke Dan, told him I needed to go, and left. All was well with Creegan and my mom, so food became my next priority. I wandered in the direction of a sandwich shop I used to enjoy many years ago when I worked downtown, but I wasn’t fully convinced I would eat there. I kept my eyes open on the way. Melanie and the boys were going to pick me up that night, and we were all going to go to dinner, so I didn’t want anything too filling. I soon spotted, just across from the sandwich shop I had been considering, a hot dog place. I thought of the hot dog place I used to frequent in Atlanta that had awesome and unique hot dogs. It sounded fun to do something like that, and I thought it would be slightly less filling than something else. And so, I headed over to Redhot and had a “Hawaii Five-0” and some fries. The Hawaii Five-0 consists of a bacon-wraped Kobe beef hot dog with teriyaki sauce, pineapple salsa, and Japanese mayo. It was good. The fries were good, too, but I had no idea I’d be getting such a large plate of them. It ended up being a rather filling meal after all.
A crap load o' fries. They were tasty. The fry sauce was really good, too, and not typical. It reminded me a little bit of the fry sauce I've had that's made with BBQ sauce, a touch on the sweet side.
I made it back to the Salt Palace just in time for a 12:15 PM session titled “Pathways to Peace: Different Perspectives.” The session included brief speeches from representatives of various faiths, including Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism. I’m not sure how much it was part of the original plan—I had the impression it wasn’t—but the session concluded with a woman singing some selection from an opera. She was quite good.
I was scheduled to be at the Community of Christ booth from 2 – 4 PM. The “Pathways to Peace” session ended just before 2. I hurried to the exhibit hall and found that most booths were already being deconstructed. The Community of Christ booth had itself been dismantled. To be fair, I had never received confirmation that I would be “working” the booth that day, but I had volunteered to do so and had it in my head. I just assumed they’d need me. Apparently, they did not. The unfortunate thing was that Melanie wasn’t going to pick me up for another two-and-a-half hours. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, and so I wandered. It ended up being a good experience. Some rock band was cranking music out in one of the foyers. It was extremely loud, but people were loving it. There was quite a large crowd dancing around immediately in front of the band when I arrived. I stuck around for a handful of songs. The crowd dissipated between songs, but there were always people dancing. I filmed some of the performance, but it seems rather subdued when I watch the videos. You can’t tell that it was bloody loud. I don’t know much about technology, but I wonder if the music was so loud that my simple cell phone microphone couldn’t adequately capture it. (Does that even make sense? I don’t know.) It just seems like much of the music is magically missing in the video. Even so, I’ll share some of those videos now.
I want to say, "Watch for the Jew who comes in at the 0:22 mark and steals the show!" but I fear it will be misconstrued as racist.
I loved the slow, deliberate dancing of the Indian (?) woman in pink at the center of the frame when the video begins. I wasn't really looking at my camera while filming, so I noticed her a bit later and then refocused the camera on her for a few moments, not realizing she had already been showcased pretty well at the beginning of the video.
Hanging around, I also had the chance to film one of the Tibetan Buddhist monks working on the mandala I wrote about previously. If you don’t know the method for creating these amazing works of art, just watch. The patience and precision it involves is mind-blowing. It was also around this time that I had my final angelic visitation at Parliament.
With all the angels hanging around, naturally the queue for the angels-only restroom grew quite long.
I soon found myself outside, enjoying the cool late afternoon air. I took some final shots, read a little tiny bit, and listened to podcasts while waiting for Melanie to call and tell me she was nearby—something that wouldn’t happen for at least an hour. But I was content. And that brings me to the end of Parliament. Just so you’re not completely wondering, I’ll mention that dinner at Blue Iguana was yummy as always.
Parliament in Panorama.
At Blue Iguana. I think the skeleton is to warn customers that the service is kind of slow.
My adventures for the night didn’t end with Mexican food. After dinner, Melanie and I went to our monthly book club meeting at the SLC Community of Christ. That was a very enjoyable meeting in and of itself, and it seemed an appropriate way to top off my Parliament experience. The book we had read is Living Buddha, Living Christ, written by the Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh, who argues that Buddhism and Christianity, when lived to their fullest and properly understood, are really teaching the same things. I saved a whole bunch of quotes from this book, but I’ll conclude by sharing just one small portion of one quote that I particularly enjoyed. It captures the Interfaith spirit that the Parliament of the World’s Religions is all about, and I find it quite profound.
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.
I’d like to add my amen to this. Although I’ve long been a kind of universalist—someone who believes salvation will ultimately come to all and that myriad legitimate and equally effective religious traditions exist—the quotation above really struck me. Most of my life was spent in a religious tradition where, I believe it is safe to say, the assumption is that conformity and uniformity are evidence of God’s influence in your life. If you are truly in touch with the Spirit and being directed by God, you will be the same as all of the other people in a select group in terms of how you understand, believe, experience, and express your spirituality. Such was the thinking. But the quote from Thích Nhất Hạnh made me realize just how much this type of mindset presumes that we humans are all the same. And yet we’re not the same. And if we’re not the same, then we won’t become identical just because the same God is working in all of us. A lemon and a blueberry are quite different from each other, and yet it truly is the same sun and the same rain that gives them life and makes them what they are. Isn’t that a beautiful thing? I think it is. I think it is.
Goodbye, Parliament! I'll miss you!
Thursday, October 22, 2015
The Parliament of the World’s Religions, Part II
Saturday, October 17th was the third day of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. I didn’t get to the Salt Palace Convention Center until around noonday. That means the first session I attended was the 1:30 PM plenary on income inequality. This ended up being the only plenary session I attended in its entirety. Prior to the plenary session, I passed some time listening to musicians, exploring a few more of the exhibits, and visiting with people. I also snapped several more photos. This was my third day of lugging around a camera which had barely received any use, and I decided to change that. Let me begin by sharing some of those photos now.
I ran into a couple of guys who were tour guides in Nauvoo with me this past summer. Before the plenary session, I saw Jared. After the plenary, I happened upon Shad. I got photos with each of them. Both Jared and Shad attend college in Utah, but in cities are that are roughly 90 minutes away from SLC. This was my first and only time seeing them since coming back to Utah.
At 3:30 PM, I attended a session called “Poverty and Transcending Greed.” Community of Christ President Steve Veazey was the first presenter at this session. He spoke about Outreach International, one of the church’s charitable organizations. Apostle Barbara Carter followed President Veazey, talking about the Open Table project, which Community of Christ has collaborated with. The session concluded with Pamela Ayo Yetunde, who had years earlier left her job as a financial consultant because she could no longer stand participating in a business that had the primary purpose of facilitating greed. Ms. Yetunde spoke about the importance of engaging in spiritual practices that foster non-greedy mindsets. A video recording of this particular conference session can be accessed by clicking here. The same video appears below.
Although it was 5 PM at this point, I wanted to stick around for a 7:30 PM Havdalah service, a Jewish ritual celebrating Shabbat. In the interim, I went to dinner with my pastor Robin and fellow SLC CofC congregants Brittany, her husband Josh (whom I had hung out with much on Friday), and Monica. We opted for the food court at the nearby City Creek Mall, which made dinner much cheaper and more casual. When we wandered back to the Salt Palace, most people were planning on attending the 7 PM plenary on war, violence, and hate speech. Because the Havdalah service overlapped with the plenary session, I couldn’t attend both. But I heard my associate pastor, Seth, might be getting a shout-out at the beginning of the plenary, so I decided to go for the first 20 or 25 minutes, which would still allow me to attend the Havdalah service in its entirety. This ended up being the best decision I made during all of Parliament. Barb Carter (mentioned earlier) also had reason to leave the plenary session early, and so she and I ended up sitting by ourselves in a place where our leaving wouldn’t be so interruptive. This gave us an opportunity to chat. Now, I had already spoken a little bit with Barbara on a previous day, and I could tell from that very brief interaction that she is a really neat person. Her sincerity and love shines through as she speaks with you. She’s one of those people who can’t help but radiate such warmth. That drew me to her from the get-go, but I believe I can say that my conversation with her as we waited for the Saturday night plenary session to begin was for me the true spiritual highlight of the entire Parliament. It all started with Barb asking me to tell her more about myself. I gave my spiel, which included an admission that, in certain aspects of my life, at least in certain ways, I feel kind of aimless right now. Barbara then counseled me. I don’t think she was trying to counsel me, exactly. She was just a good listener who then shared some of her own experiences, very much from the heart. But it was a truly sacred moment for me. Barbara’s words resonated deeply with me and spoke very much to my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences, even beyond the more superficial details I had shared with her. It was a beautiful moment, and I was on a spiritual high. Within a few minutes, Emma’s Revolution would be on stage, performing an opening song for the plenary, a song titled “Peace, Salaam, Shalom.” They would be accompanied by a chorus of children, and they would indeed begin with a shout-out to Seth. (Watch the video below for more details.) Riding the spiritual high of my conversation with Barbara, this was all very powerful to me. I questioned my decision to leave for the Havdalah service, but it was time to do so. I found the willpower to drag myself away and headed outside, where the Havdalah was set to take place.
If you play the video here, you’ll start at the beginning of the plenary session. If you click here, however, you will be taken immediately to the moment when Emma’s Revolution takes the stage and introduces the song.
While I couldn’t hear much other than the singing at the Havdalah service—whenever the Rabbi simply addressed the crowd, he was so soft-spoken that his microphone didn’t help much—I very much enjoyed myself. Huddled together in a group, under the night sky, a candle flickering, with those who were able singing along in Hebrew—it felt holy. At one part of the service, various fragrant items were passed around—sage, something like a lemon, etc. We were told the scents were meant to invigorate and restore us. There was a mindfulness in the passing of these items that truly made it feel sacred. I remember holding out my hands, close together, as the woman beside me gently and purposefully placed an aromatic object in my hand. I remember gently lifting it to my nose and inhaling, slowly but deeply, taking the scent deep into my breast and soul. Perhaps it sounds strange, but I wanted to preserve the inner tranquility I was feeling, and so I chose to slip away before the ceremony officially came to a close. I was heading for the train, but I did not want to slip my headphones over my head, as is usual for me. I wanted that internal stillness to persist. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I wanted to enjoy the melodic rise and fall of Hebraic chant-singing fading away behind me as I walked into the night. It was a lovely conclusion to my Saturday.
Parliament lasted another two days, but this seems like a good spot for a break. I’ll end with a photo of Barbara Carter and me taken on the night of Monday, October 19th. Barb attended our monthly Community of Christ Book Club meeting, and I didn’t want to let her go without getting a picture with her. She graciously agreed. So, yes, this is officially a non-Parliament photo, but since Barbara was here for Parliament, it all makes sense.
To be continued…
Tibetan Buddhist monks creating a mandala. This photo was taken on Friday, October 16th, but I failed to share it in my previous post.
When I arrived at the Salt Palace on Saturday the 17th, it was to the sounds of Solaris.
Having your photo taken with the cardboard cutout of Joseph Smith III became the thing to do for members of Community of Christ who visited our booth.
Giving you a sense of the Exhibit Hall. The Community of Christ booth is to the right, nearer to the viewer than anything you can actually see here. Our booth was at the end of a row, so it would be facing toward you if you could see it, perpendicular to the booths more obviously showcased here.
The Tibetan Buddhist monks kicked off the plenary on income equality. Check out the video directly below.
A sampling of the monks' chanting (praying? singing?). You should really do yourself a favor and see the beginning of their chant, which you can do by clicking here. It's fascinating.
I ran into a couple of guys who were tour guides in Nauvoo with me this past summer. Before the plenary session, I saw Jared. After the plenary, I happened upon Shad. I got photos with each of them. Both Jared and Shad attend college in Utah, but in cities are that are roughly 90 minutes away from SLC. This was my first and only time seeing them since coming back to Utah.
With Jared.
With Shad.
At 3:30 PM, I attended a session called “Poverty and Transcending Greed.” Community of Christ President Steve Veazey was the first presenter at this session. He spoke about Outreach International, one of the church’s charitable organizations. Apostle Barbara Carter followed President Veazey, talking about the Open Table project, which Community of Christ has collaborated with. The session concluded with Pamela Ayo Yetunde, who had years earlier left her job as a financial consultant because she could no longer stand participating in a business that had the primary purpose of facilitating greed. Ms. Yetunde spoke about the importance of engaging in spiritual practices that foster non-greedy mindsets. A video recording of this particular conference session can be accessed by clicking here. The same video appears below.
Steve Veazey, President of Commmunity of Christ, speaks.
Community of Christ Apostle Barbara Carter.
Although it was 5 PM at this point, I wanted to stick around for a 7:30 PM Havdalah service, a Jewish ritual celebrating Shabbat. In the interim, I went to dinner with my pastor Robin and fellow SLC CofC congregants Brittany, her husband Josh (whom I had hung out with much on Friday), and Monica. We opted for the food court at the nearby City Creek Mall, which made dinner much cheaper and more casual. When we wandered back to the Salt Palace, most people were planning on attending the 7 PM plenary on war, violence, and hate speech. Because the Havdalah service overlapped with the plenary session, I couldn’t attend both. But I heard my associate pastor, Seth, might be getting a shout-out at the beginning of the plenary, so I decided to go for the first 20 or 25 minutes, which would still allow me to attend the Havdalah service in its entirety. This ended up being the best decision I made during all of Parliament. Barb Carter (mentioned earlier) also had reason to leave the plenary session early, and so she and I ended up sitting by ourselves in a place where our leaving wouldn’t be so interruptive. This gave us an opportunity to chat. Now, I had already spoken a little bit with Barbara on a previous day, and I could tell from that very brief interaction that she is a really neat person. Her sincerity and love shines through as she speaks with you. She’s one of those people who can’t help but radiate such warmth. That drew me to her from the get-go, but I believe I can say that my conversation with her as we waited for the Saturday night plenary session to begin was for me the true spiritual highlight of the entire Parliament. It all started with Barb asking me to tell her more about myself. I gave my spiel, which included an admission that, in certain aspects of my life, at least in certain ways, I feel kind of aimless right now. Barbara then counseled me. I don’t think she was trying to counsel me, exactly. She was just a good listener who then shared some of her own experiences, very much from the heart. But it was a truly sacred moment for me. Barbara’s words resonated deeply with me and spoke very much to my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences, even beyond the more superficial details I had shared with her. It was a beautiful moment, and I was on a spiritual high. Within a few minutes, Emma’s Revolution would be on stage, performing an opening song for the plenary, a song titled “Peace, Salaam, Shalom.” They would be accompanied by a chorus of children, and they would indeed begin with a shout-out to Seth. (Watch the video below for more details.) Riding the spiritual high of my conversation with Barbara, this was all very powerful to me. I questioned my decision to leave for the Havdalah service, but it was time to do so. I found the willpower to drag myself away and headed outside, where the Havdalah was set to take place.
At seemingly random times, in seemingly random places, a group of angels would appear at Parliament. They would sing and walk. Some of them didn't sing. Some of them just made eye contact with anyone they could, a beaming smile on their faces. This group appeared just as my entourage and I made our way out of the Salt Palace to go to City Creek Mall for dinner.
Emma's Revolution performs "Peace, Salaam, Shalom" at the Saturday evening plenary session.
"Peace, salaam, shalom!"
If you play the video here, you’ll start at the beginning of the plenary session. If you click here, however, you will be taken immediately to the moment when Emma’s Revolution takes the stage and introduces the song.
While I couldn’t hear much other than the singing at the Havdalah service—whenever the Rabbi simply addressed the crowd, he was so soft-spoken that his microphone didn’t help much—I very much enjoyed myself. Huddled together in a group, under the night sky, a candle flickering, with those who were able singing along in Hebrew—it felt holy. At one part of the service, various fragrant items were passed around—sage, something like a lemon, etc. We were told the scents were meant to invigorate and restore us. There was a mindfulness in the passing of these items that truly made it feel sacred. I remember holding out my hands, close together, as the woman beside me gently and purposefully placed an aromatic object in my hand. I remember gently lifting it to my nose and inhaling, slowly but deeply, taking the scent deep into my breast and soul. Perhaps it sounds strange, but I wanted to preserve the inner tranquility I was feeling, and so I chose to slip away before the ceremony officially came to a close. I was heading for the train, but I did not want to slip my headphones over my head, as is usual for me. I wanted that internal stillness to persist. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I wanted to enjoy the melodic rise and fall of Hebraic chant-singing fading away behind me as I walked into the night. It was a lovely conclusion to my Saturday.
Parliament lasted another two days, but this seems like a good spot for a break. I’ll end with a photo of Barbara Carter and me taken on the night of Monday, October 19th. Barb attended our monthly Community of Christ Book Club meeting, and I didn’t want to let her go without getting a picture with her. She graciously agreed. So, yes, this is officially a non-Parliament photo, but since Barbara was here for Parliament, it all makes sense.
To be continued…
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Up in Smoke
The last 10 days or so have been a wild ride. Eddie and Peter went back to school. Creegan started preschool. After a decade-long hiatus, Melanie is once again living her dream of being a Kindergarten teacher. Life is busy. Aside from the minor ways in which I assist with everything listed above—and my contributions to most of these things are very, very minor, I readily admit—I have spent much of the last week researching cars. If you read this blog, you are probably Melanie, my mom, or me, so you already know this, but Melanie and I no longer own a functioning automobile. After nearly eight years of faithful service to my family and a brief but awe-inspiring battle with fire, our Toyota Corolla passed away on Sunday, August 16th. It was 16 years old.
To tell this story properly, I need to go back to Saturday, August 15th. On the evening of said date, I was going to head out and run some errands. Up until this point, our car had been working just fine. But when I started the car that evening, it was shuddering and convulsing the way cars often do when they’re about to stall. I backed out of the driveway to see if using the gas would help the car come to its senses, but it did not. I quickly pulled back into the driveway, shut off the car, waited a moment, and restarted the car. Nothing had changed. I again shut off the car and decided to check the oil. It made no sense to me that oil would be the problem, but the only problem I’ve known our car to have (and I’m not sure it’s a “problem” so much as a nuisance) is that it burns a lot of oil. The oil was just at the minimum level line, so I topped it off, not really seeing how this could possibly affect anything. But being that it was the only thing I knew how to do, I did it. It didn’t help. When I restarted the car, it was still having its spasms. I decided to take it for a spin around the block, just to see if anything would change. I backed out of the driveway and the car immediately died. When I turned the key, it started back up without a problem, which gave me the tiniest bit of comfort. I then drove around the block.
The car made it around the block, but it was shaky the entire time. Also, pushing on the accelerator seemed to make little to no difference in how fast the car would go. It topped out just above the speed any automatic car would go if you put it in drive and merely took your foot off the brake. I returned home and let the car sit. Not much later, Melanie’s dad came home. He knows much, much, much more about cars than I do and has been roped into fixing all of his kids’ cars on numerous occasions. We asked him to look over the Corolla. He did so, reporting back to us that he expected it was the spark plugs. As I understand it, he replaced the spark plugs, but it didn’t help. I’m not entirely sure what all he looked at or tried, but he eventually came to us and said the car was now working fine, noting that the spark plug wires had been the true culprit. We rejoiced in once again having an operating vehicle and went to sleep peacefully that night.
On Sunday morning, we got ready for church and loaded ourselves into the car. It started up beautifully. Everything seemed fine. Well, sort of. The check engine light was on—but it had come on the night before, and I know those lights don’t always go out immediately after you fix something. More worrisome to me was the strong smell of gasoline. It was very strong. I know sometimes after a car is worked on, it stinks or smells strongly of this or that chemical or what have you. I assumed that’s all it was, and we started our 20-ish minute drive to church. The smell dissipated as we drove, which seemed like a good sign. And yet whenever we stopped at a stoplight, it became quite intense again. Ridiculously and unbearably strong. I expressed concern about it. Melanie thought we should continue and just ask her dad about it later. Clearly, neither of us thought it was of such importance that we shouldn’t be driving the vehicle. And so we continued.
Aside from the smell of gasoline, everything went fine and dandy until just after Melanie and I exited the freeway. We stopped in the left turn lane at a red light just a few blocks from our church. While stopped, I suddenly noticed the oil light and battery light on the dash become illuminated. The car may have stalled, which would explain those lights coming on. I think it probably did, but I didn’t really have time to think about it before smoke started to billow out from under the driver’s side of the hood. I think I had just enough time for “oh crap” or some such sentiment to pass through my mind before a flame shot out from underneath the hood. I say “shot out” because it flared up enough to be seen, but I don’t want to be overly dramatic. It wasn’t something I’d want to describe as “explosive,” although people keep using the word “exploded” when they talk about the event with me. Regardless, I didn’t feel a sense of panic, but I did recognize the urgency of the situation and immediately told my family to get out. Melanie assisted Edison and Peter, who exited the car on the passenger side. I helped Creegan, who had been sitting behind the driver’s seat. We hurried over to the gas station on the southeast corner of the street and watched as the smoke being belched out from underneath the hood increased and darkened. Peter and Creegan were crying. Melanie was too. Eddie seemed fascinated by it all, although I think his relatively positive demeanor was probably his way of dealing with such an intense situation. (I have seen a similar response in myself when big things have happened.) Melanie called her dad and 911. I called our associate pastor and let him know we wouldn’t be at church, something that seemed important only because Melanie was slated to teach the Sunday school class for young children. A very kind man, without any request from us, ran over to our car and grabbed some stuff out of it (including the Crockpot full of food we were bringing for the potluck after church). A very kind woman offered to let our kids sit in her car and listen to music to try to put them at ease. This man and woman were the first heroes on the scene. Others would soon arrive.
When the fire department arrived, they went to town on our car. They sprayed it down, then proceeded to saw into our hood and peel it open can-opener style. For whatever reason, they also smashed the driver’s side window. Melanie’s dad had arrived on the scene to take us back home. We waited for the hubbub to die down, at which point we were allowed to collect more belongings from our car. It was a good thing. Melanie had her work ID in the car, we had car seats in the back, and various other little things were gathered. Our beloved Corolla was then towed away. We went home, some of us more traumatized than others. (For whatever reason, I never felt too distraught by it all. “That’s a bummer” probably summarizes quite well how I felt about it.) Melanie contacted the insurance company and learned that we could pick up a rental car the next morning. We tried to spend the rest of our Sunday in as relaxed a manner as was possible.
Since approximately 8 AM on Monday, August 17th, Melanie and I have been driving a rental car—a little black Fiat that all too frequently has to downshift in order to pick up speed—as we wait on a settlement from our insurance company (which has indeed declared our Corolla a “total loss”). I have spent copious hours online researching used cars. The bulk of my time in the last week or so has been spent on this. It’s probably overkill, but I always get stressed over major purchases and want to be smart about it. Used cars in particular cause me stress, because it feels like such a crapshoot. What’s more, I’m trying to determine the best plan for getting us into two cars as soon as possible. Melanie and I had been talking about getting another car and letting the Corolla become our secondary car. We had talked about this the day before such plans quite literally went up in smoke. That’s the biggest disappointment about losing the Corolla—not that we have to buy another car now, but that doing so gets us no further ahead in being a two-car family. With Melanie’s new income, I am hopeful that we can yet pull it off to have two cars. But figuring out more than one decent used car, at least one of which must be relatively cheap, only adds to the stress.
I will conclude with the four images I snapped on my cell phone. My cell phone camera is quite shoddy, so you get what you get. Enjoy!
To tell this story properly, I need to go back to Saturday, August 15th. On the evening of said date, I was going to head out and run some errands. Up until this point, our car had been working just fine. But when I started the car that evening, it was shuddering and convulsing the way cars often do when they’re about to stall. I backed out of the driveway to see if using the gas would help the car come to its senses, but it did not. I quickly pulled back into the driveway, shut off the car, waited a moment, and restarted the car. Nothing had changed. I again shut off the car and decided to check the oil. It made no sense to me that oil would be the problem, but the only problem I’ve known our car to have (and I’m not sure it’s a “problem” so much as a nuisance) is that it burns a lot of oil. The oil was just at the minimum level line, so I topped it off, not really seeing how this could possibly affect anything. But being that it was the only thing I knew how to do, I did it. It didn’t help. When I restarted the car, it was still having its spasms. I decided to take it for a spin around the block, just to see if anything would change. I backed out of the driveway and the car immediately died. When I turned the key, it started back up without a problem, which gave me the tiniest bit of comfort. I then drove around the block.
The car made it around the block, but it was shaky the entire time. Also, pushing on the accelerator seemed to make little to no difference in how fast the car would go. It topped out just above the speed any automatic car would go if you put it in drive and merely took your foot off the brake. I returned home and let the car sit. Not much later, Melanie’s dad came home. He knows much, much, much more about cars than I do and has been roped into fixing all of his kids’ cars on numerous occasions. We asked him to look over the Corolla. He did so, reporting back to us that he expected it was the spark plugs. As I understand it, he replaced the spark plugs, but it didn’t help. I’m not entirely sure what all he looked at or tried, but he eventually came to us and said the car was now working fine, noting that the spark plug wires had been the true culprit. We rejoiced in once again having an operating vehicle and went to sleep peacefully that night.
On Sunday morning, we got ready for church and loaded ourselves into the car. It started up beautifully. Everything seemed fine. Well, sort of. The check engine light was on—but it had come on the night before, and I know those lights don’t always go out immediately after you fix something. More worrisome to me was the strong smell of gasoline. It was very strong. I know sometimes after a car is worked on, it stinks or smells strongly of this or that chemical or what have you. I assumed that’s all it was, and we started our 20-ish minute drive to church. The smell dissipated as we drove, which seemed like a good sign. And yet whenever we stopped at a stoplight, it became quite intense again. Ridiculously and unbearably strong. I expressed concern about it. Melanie thought we should continue and just ask her dad about it later. Clearly, neither of us thought it was of such importance that we shouldn’t be driving the vehicle. And so we continued.
Aside from the smell of gasoline, everything went fine and dandy until just after Melanie and I exited the freeway. We stopped in the left turn lane at a red light just a few blocks from our church. While stopped, I suddenly noticed the oil light and battery light on the dash become illuminated. The car may have stalled, which would explain those lights coming on. I think it probably did, but I didn’t really have time to think about it before smoke started to billow out from under the driver’s side of the hood. I think I had just enough time for “oh crap” or some such sentiment to pass through my mind before a flame shot out from underneath the hood. I say “shot out” because it flared up enough to be seen, but I don’t want to be overly dramatic. It wasn’t something I’d want to describe as “explosive,” although people keep using the word “exploded” when they talk about the event with me. Regardless, I didn’t feel a sense of panic, but I did recognize the urgency of the situation and immediately told my family to get out. Melanie assisted Edison and Peter, who exited the car on the passenger side. I helped Creegan, who had been sitting behind the driver’s seat. We hurried over to the gas station on the southeast corner of the street and watched as the smoke being belched out from underneath the hood increased and darkened. Peter and Creegan were crying. Melanie was too. Eddie seemed fascinated by it all, although I think his relatively positive demeanor was probably his way of dealing with such an intense situation. (I have seen a similar response in myself when big things have happened.) Melanie called her dad and 911. I called our associate pastor and let him know we wouldn’t be at church, something that seemed important only because Melanie was slated to teach the Sunday school class for young children. A very kind man, without any request from us, ran over to our car and grabbed some stuff out of it (including the Crockpot full of food we were bringing for the potluck after church). A very kind woman offered to let our kids sit in her car and listen to music to try to put them at ease. This man and woman were the first heroes on the scene. Others would soon arrive.
When the fire department arrived, they went to town on our car. They sprayed it down, then proceeded to saw into our hood and peel it open can-opener style. For whatever reason, they also smashed the driver’s side window. Melanie’s dad had arrived on the scene to take us back home. We waited for the hubbub to die down, at which point we were allowed to collect more belongings from our car. It was a good thing. Melanie had her work ID in the car, we had car seats in the back, and various other little things were gathered. Our beloved Corolla was then towed away. We went home, some of us more traumatized than others. (For whatever reason, I never felt too distraught by it all. “That’s a bummer” probably summarizes quite well how I felt about it.) Melanie contacted the insurance company and learned that we could pick up a rental car the next morning. We tried to spend the rest of our Sunday in as relaxed a manner as was possible.
Since approximately 8 AM on Monday, August 17th, Melanie and I have been driving a rental car—a little black Fiat that all too frequently has to downshift in order to pick up speed—as we wait on a settlement from our insurance company (which has indeed declared our Corolla a “total loss”). I have spent copious hours online researching used cars. The bulk of my time in the last week or so has been spent on this. It’s probably overkill, but I always get stressed over major purchases and want to be smart about it. Used cars in particular cause me stress, because it feels like such a crapshoot. What’s more, I’m trying to determine the best plan for getting us into two cars as soon as possible. Melanie and I had been talking about getting another car and letting the Corolla become our secondary car. We had talked about this the day before such plans quite literally went up in smoke. That’s the biggest disappointment about losing the Corolla—not that we have to buy another car now, but that doing so gets us no further ahead in being a two-car family. With Melanie’s new income, I am hopeful that we can yet pull it off to have two cars. But figuring out more than one decent used car, at least one of which must be relatively cheap, only adds to the stress.
I will conclude with the four images I snapped on my cell phone. My cell phone camera is quite shoddy, so you get what you get. Enjoy!
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Tales of a Nauvoo Tourist
The bulk of this post was written on Monday, July 13th. I didn’t have a chance to post it until today, July 14th. It should be read as though it’s July 13th, except for this part at the beginning that I have put in italics, because that wouldn’t make any damn sense.
Today was my second day off in a row. I spent a good chunk of it exploring Nauvoo as a tourist, rather than as a tour guide. This is really only my second time since arriving in Nauvoo to go sightseeing myself. I really enjoyed it. I knocked a lot of destinations off of my to-do list.
In the early part of the day, Melanie and the boys went sightseeing with me. They’ve already done much more sightseeing than I have, since they are often looking for something to do during the days. The boys don’t always handle historic sites very well, and I don’t blame them. It’s got to be painfully boring for them. I told them this morning that they would have to bear going to just three places. Originally, the Nauvoo Groves was one of our planned stops, but even early in the day, it was so damn muggy and hot. (Have you noticed my frequent use of mild swears lately? Must be something in the Nauvoo air making me want to cuss. The humidity, most likely.) The heat index was supposed to get up to 108° F today, and the intensity started early. We quickly changed our mind about doing anything that would require standing outside, so we ended up seeing the Wilford Woodruff Home, the Sarah Granger Kimball Home, and the Stoddard Tin Shop.
Here are the standout things about each site we visited this morning. At the Wilford Woodruff Home, I appreciated that the sister missionary seemed to adjust her script for our benefit once she learned we were with Community of Christ (which she learned very quickly). She was totally respectful, but seemed to tweak how she would phrase things. Of course, I can only assume she did, but it seemed obvious at times. When she spoke to our boys about Woodruff, she identified him as the “fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” rather than simply as “the prophet” or something. Right before she used the word “president,” she seemed to hesitate half a moment, and I think she consciously decided not to say “prophet.” Obviously, she views Woodruff as a prophet. And I don’t think she needs to deny her beliefs, but I don’t think that’s what she was doing. I think she was just meeting us where we’re at, and that effort was appreciated by me. It’s a stark contrast from most of the sites you visit, where they are immediately saying things that make it crystal clear they assume you are LDS. I know 90% or more of their guests probably are, but not only LDS people visit these sites. I think they should sometimes be a bit less presumptuous.
At the Sarah Granger Kimball Home, it stood out to me how much of the spiel was actually about her husband Hiram and not about her. Especially at first, Sarah’s life was told via Hiram rather than vice versa, which seems odd given that the home is named after her and not her husband. It was also funny to me how supposedly faith-promoting stories can sound kind of messed up once you’ve left the relevant religious tradition behind. It happened a couple of times today that a missionary would tell some story meant to demonstrate faithfulness but that struck me as bothersome. The first was at the Sarah Granger Kimball Home. Supposedly, Sarah once joked with her husband Hiram about how much their baby was worth. She asked if the baby was worth $1,000. Hiram reckoned so. Sarah then joked about how they either needed to sell the baby to the Church or keep the baby but pay the Church $500 in tithing. Hiram apparently tells Joseph Smith this, and Joseph laughs but then says, “Yeah, you really should give me $500.” And so they do. And they consider it tithing. On the increase that was their child, I guess. And this story was meant to inspire us, the tourists, to pay our tithing. Or something. I don’t know. It all sounds a bit wiggity-wack to me. But the best part of stopping at the Sarah Granger Kimball Home was watching a herd of cows in the field next door fighting over a puddle in which they all wanted to stand in order to cool off. You’ll see them in a photo below.
The Stoddard Tin Shop was a lot more interesting because the missionary guy who gave us the tour actually taught us how they did stuff. That was cool. The boys handled it a lot better, too, so they must have found it at least mildly intriguing. I appreciated that the missionary guy frankly admitted to me—albeit privately, after the rest of our tour group was gone—that Sylvester Stoddard had left the Church, presumably over the issue of polygamy. He could’ve just said Stoddard left the Church. Whenever it’s the LDS person volunteering information about polygamy, I’m at least somewhat impressed.
After our morning jaunt, Melanie had a lunch date with some of the women she’s gotten to know here in Nauvoo (and Jenn, our friend from Utah that is also here in Nauvoo now). I had the kids, including a few that don’t belong to me. Things went fine and dandy in that department. When Melanie returned, I decided to head out again on my own. We still had kids to babysit, but Melanie didn’t seem to care about seeing more of the historical sites today, so I went solo. Granted, I love having my family in tow, but not having kids helped immensely. I saw tons of stuff within a relatively short period of time. My first stop was the Cultural Hall, which is in actuality the original Masonic temple for Nauvoo. The sign outside admits that the Freemasons used the building, but the LDS Church isn’t so brave as to call it the Masonic Hall, as would probably be more proper. Anyway, I really wanted to check it out, but I didn’t realize it is primarily just used to put on shows and other performances. There’s not much to do or see there otherwise. When I walked in, I could hear live music. A missionary ushered me to a bench, and I quickly understood that I had just been seated for a music performance by some of the Young Performing Missionaries. It was primarily a brass band, with some drums and clarinets. I suddenly felt trapped, unsure of just how stuck I really was. If I had known there was a concert going on and nothing else, I wouldn’t have entered the Cultural Hall in the first place. Now I found myself wondering how rude it would be to stand up in the middle of a brass band version of “How Great Thou Art” and leave. I heard four numbers before I mustered up the courage to bail between songs. The songs weren’t bad, with the exception of “How Great Thou Art,” which was actually the final song I heard. Someone was out of tune or something, and it often sounded a bit terrible. “There is Sunshine in My Soul Today” was much better. My favorite was the clarinet and flute version of “My Heavenly Father Loves Me” (the Primary song that starts out, “Whenever I hear the song of a bird…”). I love the sound of the clarinet, and I love that Primary song. It was a good rendition. Before each song was played, one of the missionaries would essentially bear his or her testimony about its message. The cadence and manner with which these youthful missionaries bear their testimonies is so distinct, and now being something of an outsider, these things just really leap out at me. Truly, LDS folk are a peculiar people. I don’t think they realize how much so. I didn’t, which is why I keep bringing this up in my blog posts. I’m not poking fun. I’m just fascinated. I also get so curious about the LDS mentality concerning “the Spirit.” LDS folk regularly say things that imply the Holy Ghost just hangs around places of historical significance, just chilling out or something. One of the sister missionaries said something about how strong the Spirit is in Nauvoo “because the Prophet really did walk these streets.” So, apparently, if Joseph Smith walked down a given road, there is now permanent Holy Ghost residue on the street that won’t go away. And now if you walk down the same road Joseph Smith walked down, you will inevitably feel the Spirit. Because it’s just there. Hanging out. For 200 years or so. It’s an interesting way of thinking.
Once I had escaped the Cultural Hall, I went about a block—maybe only half a block—south to a trio of sites that are right together, almost as one unit. I started off in the Nauvoo Print Shop, where I learned a bit about how they made newspapers. It really was a painstaking task. I also learned how many of our common expressions are tied to the printing business, such as “Mind your P’s and Q’s,” “Cut to the chase,” and I think another one or two that I can’t remember. I then went into John Taylor’s home. Taylor preceded Woodruff as President of the LDS Church. I know Taylor was one of the most adamant defenders of polygamy, so I found it curious when the sister missionary had me read a quote from Taylor about leaving Nauvoo and heading for the Utah Territory. The quote says something about leaving the United States and how the Saints would rather suffer than do wrong. In the context, knowing what I do, my only way of understanding the quote was to think that he was referring to polygamy. Part of the benefit of leaving the U.S. was that the Saints could openly practice polygamy (so they thought), which the U.S. government didn’t allow. I assume Taylor was saying that the Saints would willfully suffer before they would commit the wrong of abandoning polygamy. Now, this wasn’t the entirety of the quote she had me read, but I asked if that particular passage was a reference to polygamy because I wasn’t sure what else that part of the quote would have been referring to. The sister missionary didn’t act too flustered with my question, but she didn’t really seem to know how to answer it, either. She said something about how no matter where the Saints would’ve gone, someone would’ve found something to harass them about. I’m not sure how that answers my question, but at least she tried.
After Taylor’s home, I went to the Nauvoo Post Office. I walked in while a tour was already in progress, heard the last little bit of it, and then wasn’t offered to hear whatever I’d missed. It kept the visit short, which was fine by me.
My next destination was just around the corner: the Brigham Young Home. This was the destination that felt the most preachy to me. I think it really was more preachy and I wasn’t just biased, but admittedly I have a lot more qualms with Brigham. Every time the sister missionary bore her testimony about what a great man he was, I just had to grin and nod and hope she wasn’t going to ask me if I agree. The message the sister missionary shared was heavy on validating the view that Brigham really was the true successor to Joseph, a theme I feel creeps up somewhat regularly at other LDS-owned Nauvoo sites. Perhaps because non-LDS branches of the Latter Day Saint movement also trace their heritage to Nauvoo—with Nauvoo being the central spot at which the church splintered after Joseph Smith was killed—it may be that a primary goal of the LDS Church at the Nauvoo sites is to reaffirm their legitimacy as the rightful heirs of the “one and only true church.” I really think it is, because as I’ve mentioned before, so many of the spiels you hear at the LDS Nauvoo sites are actually about the post-Nauvoo period. You’ll see things on display that are all about the post-Nauvoo LDS Church leadership, like decorative plates with Brigham Young listed as the President of the Church, or photographs of The First Presidency from Utah in the late 1800s. This is stuff on display at the historic sites here, which really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Anyway, the sister missionary who guided me through the Brigham Young home talked about Brigham clearly being God’s chosen prophet because who else could lead a group of people across the plains? (Didn’t a lot of people go across the plains aside from the Mormons?) She said she knew Brigham was the true prophet because when the Saints left Nauvoo, they didn’t even know where they were going—they just left. (I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, but how would it make Brigham a prophet, exactly? No matter where the Saints had settled, couldn’t she have said the same thing?) In one room, the sister missionary told me it was where the Quorum of the Twelve would often have their meetings. “Think of all the revelation that would’ve been received here,” she said. She then shuddered and added, “Wow, I get chills just saying that!” It makes you wonder what kind of revelation she’s imagining, because most LDS people believe in receiving personal revelation all the time. I’m sure she doesn’t get chills thinking about all of the revelation that is received in some random suburban home in Draper, Utah. Was the revelation received in Brigham Young’s house any more miraculous? Not necessarily. But I guess I’m being a jerk at this point, right? Okay, then. Let’s move on.
My final destination of the day was the Seventies Hall. The sister missionaries let me know that the Seventies were basically just missionaries themselves. One of the sisters explained that by the time of the exodus from Nauvoo, there was an astonishing 35 Quorums of the Seventy. I think this was supposed to be evidence of the impressive success of the Church. What this woman probably doesn’t know is that Brigham made almost every eligible man in Nauvoo into a Seventy after Joseph’s death because that put the majority of men in the Church under the jurisdiction of the Quorum of the Twelve, ensuring they were under Brigham’s control rather than the control of William Marks, whom several people (including Emma Smith) wanted to be Joseph Smith’s successor. Having 35 Quorums of the Seventy, in other words, was a political and strategic move on Brigham’s part by which he intended to maintain as much control over the splintering church as possible. That’s not very faith-promoting, really. (Don’t worry, I didn’t mention this to the sister missionary.) A cool thing about my visit to the Seventies Hall, however, was being able to rifle through their list of known Seventies from the Nauvoo period. I found an ancestor listed that I hadn’t even known lived in Nauvoo, nor did I know he had been a Seventy. The things your parents fail to teach you!
On my way back home, I was thinking about taking photographs to try to show the close proximity of where I am temporarily living to all of the historic sites I give tours of on a daily basis. I realized photographs wouldn’t work nearly as well as a video, so I filmed a brief and spontaneous driving tour that I then uploaded to Facebook. I’m including it here as well. I had a Duran Duran CD playing as I was filming, and I couldn’t resist singing along, so consider that a bonus feature. Here is the video:
After dinner, I had a bit more fun exploring Nauvoo, this time with my family again by my side. I didn’t get any photos because our roaming was not pre-planned. However, we found ourselves at the Old Nauvoo Burial Grounds, a cemetery kind of in the middle of nowhere and rather obscured by thick trees. It was pretty cool, although I got a ton of mosquito bites while we were there. That and a stop at Casey’s for a donut was a nice finish to a really good day. I can’t wait for Wednesday, when the family and I plan to head for Springfield and become tourists yet again. Stay tuned…
Today was my second day off in a row. I spent a good chunk of it exploring Nauvoo as a tourist, rather than as a tour guide. This is really only my second time since arriving in Nauvoo to go sightseeing myself. I really enjoyed it. I knocked a lot of destinations off of my to-do list.
In the early part of the day, Melanie and the boys went sightseeing with me. They’ve already done much more sightseeing than I have, since they are often looking for something to do during the days. The boys don’t always handle historic sites very well, and I don’t blame them. It’s got to be painfully boring for them. I told them this morning that they would have to bear going to just three places. Originally, the Nauvoo Groves was one of our planned stops, but even early in the day, it was so damn muggy and hot. (Have you noticed my frequent use of mild swears lately? Must be something in the Nauvoo air making me want to cuss. The humidity, most likely.) The heat index was supposed to get up to 108° F today, and the intensity started early. We quickly changed our mind about doing anything that would require standing outside, so we ended up seeing the Wilford Woodruff Home, the Sarah Granger Kimball Home, and the Stoddard Tin Shop.
Here are the standout things about each site we visited this morning. At the Wilford Woodruff Home, I appreciated that the sister missionary seemed to adjust her script for our benefit once she learned we were with Community of Christ (which she learned very quickly). She was totally respectful, but seemed to tweak how she would phrase things. Of course, I can only assume she did, but it seemed obvious at times. When she spoke to our boys about Woodruff, she identified him as the “fourth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” rather than simply as “the prophet” or something. Right before she used the word “president,” she seemed to hesitate half a moment, and I think she consciously decided not to say “prophet.” Obviously, she views Woodruff as a prophet. And I don’t think she needs to deny her beliefs, but I don’t think that’s what she was doing. I think she was just meeting us where we’re at, and that effort was appreciated by me. It’s a stark contrast from most of the sites you visit, where they are immediately saying things that make it crystal clear they assume you are LDS. I know 90% or more of their guests probably are, but not only LDS people visit these sites. I think they should sometimes be a bit less presumptuous.
At the Sarah Granger Kimball Home, it stood out to me how much of the spiel was actually about her husband Hiram and not about her. Especially at first, Sarah’s life was told via Hiram rather than vice versa, which seems odd given that the home is named after her and not her husband. It was also funny to me how supposedly faith-promoting stories can sound kind of messed up once you’ve left the relevant religious tradition behind. It happened a couple of times today that a missionary would tell some story meant to demonstrate faithfulness but that struck me as bothersome. The first was at the Sarah Granger Kimball Home. Supposedly, Sarah once joked with her husband Hiram about how much their baby was worth. She asked if the baby was worth $1,000. Hiram reckoned so. Sarah then joked about how they either needed to sell the baby to the Church or keep the baby but pay the Church $500 in tithing. Hiram apparently tells Joseph Smith this, and Joseph laughs but then says, “Yeah, you really should give me $500.” And so they do. And they consider it tithing. On the increase that was their child, I guess. And this story was meant to inspire us, the tourists, to pay our tithing. Or something. I don’t know. It all sounds a bit wiggity-wack to me. But the best part of stopping at the Sarah Granger Kimball Home was watching a herd of cows in the field next door fighting over a puddle in which they all wanted to stand in order to cool off. You’ll see them in a photo below.
The Stoddard Tin Shop was a lot more interesting because the missionary guy who gave us the tour actually taught us how they did stuff. That was cool. The boys handled it a lot better, too, so they must have found it at least mildly intriguing. I appreciated that the missionary guy frankly admitted to me—albeit privately, after the rest of our tour group was gone—that Sylvester Stoddard had left the Church, presumably over the issue of polygamy. He could’ve just said Stoddard left the Church. Whenever it’s the LDS person volunteering information about polygamy, I’m at least somewhat impressed.
In front of the Sarah Granger Kimball Home.
After our morning jaunt, Melanie had a lunch date with some of the women she’s gotten to know here in Nauvoo (and Jenn, our friend from Utah that is also here in Nauvoo now). I had the kids, including a few that don’t belong to me. Things went fine and dandy in that department. When Melanie returned, I decided to head out again on my own. We still had kids to babysit, but Melanie didn’t seem to care about seeing more of the historical sites today, so I went solo. Granted, I love having my family in tow, but not having kids helped immensely. I saw tons of stuff within a relatively short period of time. My first stop was the Cultural Hall, which is in actuality the original Masonic temple for Nauvoo. The sign outside admits that the Freemasons used the building, but the LDS Church isn’t so brave as to call it the Masonic Hall, as would probably be more proper. Anyway, I really wanted to check it out, but I didn’t realize it is primarily just used to put on shows and other performances. There’s not much to do or see there otherwise. When I walked in, I could hear live music. A missionary ushered me to a bench, and I quickly understood that I had just been seated for a music performance by some of the Young Performing Missionaries. It was primarily a brass band, with some drums and clarinets. I suddenly felt trapped, unsure of just how stuck I really was. If I had known there was a concert going on and nothing else, I wouldn’t have entered the Cultural Hall in the first place. Now I found myself wondering how rude it would be to stand up in the middle of a brass band version of “How Great Thou Art” and leave. I heard four numbers before I mustered up the courage to bail between songs. The songs weren’t bad, with the exception of “How Great Thou Art,” which was actually the final song I heard. Someone was out of tune or something, and it often sounded a bit terrible. “There is Sunshine in My Soul Today” was much better. My favorite was the clarinet and flute version of “My Heavenly Father Loves Me” (the Primary song that starts out, “Whenever I hear the song of a bird…”). I love the sound of the clarinet, and I love that Primary song. It was a good rendition. Before each song was played, one of the missionaries would essentially bear his or her testimony about its message. The cadence and manner with which these youthful missionaries bear their testimonies is so distinct, and now being something of an outsider, these things just really leap out at me. Truly, LDS folk are a peculiar people. I don’t think they realize how much so. I didn’t, which is why I keep bringing this up in my blog posts. I’m not poking fun. I’m just fascinated. I also get so curious about the LDS mentality concerning “the Spirit.” LDS folk regularly say things that imply the Holy Ghost just hangs around places of historical significance, just chilling out or something. One of the sister missionaries said something about how strong the Spirit is in Nauvoo “because the Prophet really did walk these streets.” So, apparently, if Joseph Smith walked down a given road, there is now permanent Holy Ghost residue on the street that won’t go away. And now if you walk down the same road Joseph Smith walked down, you will inevitably feel the Spirit. Because it’s just there. Hanging out. For 200 years or so. It’s an interesting way of thinking.
Once I had escaped the Cultural Hall, I went about a block—maybe only half a block—south to a trio of sites that are right together, almost as one unit. I started off in the Nauvoo Print Shop, where I learned a bit about how they made newspapers. It really was a painstaking task. I also learned how many of our common expressions are tied to the printing business, such as “Mind your P’s and Q’s,” “Cut to the chase,” and I think another one or two that I can’t remember. I then went into John Taylor’s home. Taylor preceded Woodruff as President of the LDS Church. I know Taylor was one of the most adamant defenders of polygamy, so I found it curious when the sister missionary had me read a quote from Taylor about leaving Nauvoo and heading for the Utah Territory. The quote says something about leaving the United States and how the Saints would rather suffer than do wrong. In the context, knowing what I do, my only way of understanding the quote was to think that he was referring to polygamy. Part of the benefit of leaving the U.S. was that the Saints could openly practice polygamy (so they thought), which the U.S. government didn’t allow. I assume Taylor was saying that the Saints would willfully suffer before they would commit the wrong of abandoning polygamy. Now, this wasn’t the entirety of the quote she had me read, but I asked if that particular passage was a reference to polygamy because I wasn’t sure what else that part of the quote would have been referring to. The sister missionary didn’t act too flustered with my question, but she didn’t really seem to know how to answer it, either. She said something about how no matter where the Saints would’ve gone, someone would’ve found something to harass them about. I’m not sure how that answers my question, but at least she tried.
After Taylor’s home, I went to the Nauvoo Post Office. I walked in while a tour was already in progress, heard the last little bit of it, and then wasn’t offered to hear whatever I’d missed. It kept the visit short, which was fine by me.
My next destination was just around the corner: the Brigham Young Home. This was the destination that felt the most preachy to me. I think it really was more preachy and I wasn’t just biased, but admittedly I have a lot more qualms with Brigham. Every time the sister missionary bore her testimony about what a great man he was, I just had to grin and nod and hope she wasn’t going to ask me if I agree. The message the sister missionary shared was heavy on validating the view that Brigham really was the true successor to Joseph, a theme I feel creeps up somewhat regularly at other LDS-owned Nauvoo sites. Perhaps because non-LDS branches of the Latter Day Saint movement also trace their heritage to Nauvoo—with Nauvoo being the central spot at which the church splintered after Joseph Smith was killed—it may be that a primary goal of the LDS Church at the Nauvoo sites is to reaffirm their legitimacy as the rightful heirs of the “one and only true church.” I really think it is, because as I’ve mentioned before, so many of the spiels you hear at the LDS Nauvoo sites are actually about the post-Nauvoo period. You’ll see things on display that are all about the post-Nauvoo LDS Church leadership, like decorative plates with Brigham Young listed as the President of the Church, or photographs of The First Presidency from Utah in the late 1800s. This is stuff on display at the historic sites here, which really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Anyway, the sister missionary who guided me through the Brigham Young home talked about Brigham clearly being God’s chosen prophet because who else could lead a group of people across the plains? (Didn’t a lot of people go across the plains aside from the Mormons?) She said she knew Brigham was the true prophet because when the Saints left Nauvoo, they didn’t even know where they were going—they just left. (I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, but how would it make Brigham a prophet, exactly? No matter where the Saints had settled, couldn’t she have said the same thing?) In one room, the sister missionary told me it was where the Quorum of the Twelve would often have their meetings. “Think of all the revelation that would’ve been received here,” she said. She then shuddered and added, “Wow, I get chills just saying that!” It makes you wonder what kind of revelation she’s imagining, because most LDS people believe in receiving personal revelation all the time. I’m sure she doesn’t get chills thinking about all of the revelation that is received in some random suburban home in Draper, Utah. Was the revelation received in Brigham Young’s house any more miraculous? Not necessarily. But I guess I’m being a jerk at this point, right? Okay, then. Let’s move on.
My final destination of the day was the Seventies Hall. The sister missionaries let me know that the Seventies were basically just missionaries themselves. One of the sisters explained that by the time of the exodus from Nauvoo, there was an astonishing 35 Quorums of the Seventy. I think this was supposed to be evidence of the impressive success of the Church. What this woman probably doesn’t know is that Brigham made almost every eligible man in Nauvoo into a Seventy after Joseph’s death because that put the majority of men in the Church under the jurisdiction of the Quorum of the Twelve, ensuring they were under Brigham’s control rather than the control of William Marks, whom several people (including Emma Smith) wanted to be Joseph Smith’s successor. Having 35 Quorums of the Seventy, in other words, was a political and strategic move on Brigham’s part by which he intended to maintain as much control over the splintering church as possible. That’s not very faith-promoting, really. (Don’t worry, I didn’t mention this to the sister missionary.) A cool thing about my visit to the Seventies Hall, however, was being able to rifle through their list of known Seventies from the Nauvoo period. I found an ancestor listed that I hadn’t even known lived in Nauvoo, nor did I know he had been a Seventy. The things your parents fail to teach you!
The Masonic Hall, referred to as the Cultural Hall.
The Nauvoo Post Office in the foreground, with the John Taylor Home directly behind it, and the Nauvoo Print Shop behind that.
Lots of revelation in this room at the Brigham Young Home. Feel the chills?
Feeling iffy about Brigham Young.
Inside the Seventies Hall.
Outside the Seventies Hall.
On my way back home, I was thinking about taking photographs to try to show the close proximity of where I am temporarily living to all of the historic sites I give tours of on a daily basis. I realized photographs wouldn’t work nearly as well as a video, so I filmed a brief and spontaneous driving tour that I then uploaded to Facebook. I’m including it here as well. I had a Duran Duran CD playing as I was filming, and I couldn’t resist singing along, so consider that a bonus feature. Here is the video:
After dinner, I had a bit more fun exploring Nauvoo, this time with my family again by my side. I didn’t get any photos because our roaming was not pre-planned. However, we found ourselves at the Old Nauvoo Burial Grounds, a cemetery kind of in the middle of nowhere and rather obscured by thick trees. It was pretty cool, although I got a ton of mosquito bites while we were there. That and a stop at Casey’s for a donut was a nice finish to a really good day. I can’t wait for Wednesday, when the family and I plan to head for Springfield and become tourists yet again. Stay tuned…
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