From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #742 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Thursday, June 13 2002 Volume 01 : Number 742 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 11:34:44 -0700 (PDT) From: William Morris Subject: Re: [AML] Will BAGLEY, _Blood of the Prophets_ (Review) - --- Paris Anderson wrote: > the single most violent act to occur > > on the overland trails, yet it has been all but forgotten. > > The same can be said of The Bear River Massacre which also happened in > Utah > Territory. 250 were killed there. But the ringleader of this one > wasn't > exicuted. He became a General. Funny the advantages of wearing a > uniform > while killing children. > One of my first experiences with anything that could be called Mormon literature was reading the book _The White Indian Boy_ by Elijah Nicholas Wilson: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1589635833/cyberhaven00/103-6088725-6244629 Wilson was a Mormon boy who ran off to live with the Shoshone. He later was a trapper, a pony express rider, and an Indian reservation agent. It's a captivating story. One of the most climatic, wrenching moments in the book was when he acted as a scout for the U.S. army only to find out that the army was going to massacre the village he led them (I believe he thought that they were just going to spy on and possibly contain a 'rogue' tribe--not kill all the men, women and children). If I remember correctly, it may have been the Bear River Massacre that he witnessed. One of the things that impressed me about the book was how his insider/outsider position led him to realize that there were bad and good people, and positives and negatives in the Mormon and the American Indian communities. I believe this book was quite popular at one time in Utah. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? What is/was your impression of the work? ~~William Morris __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 13:26:34 -0700 From: "Richard R. Hopkins" Subject: Re: [AML] Ghostly Query I'd recommend Duane Crowther's excellent treatise entitled, _Life Everlasting_. Be sure to get the most recent edition. Richard Hopkins - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 13:43:56 -0600 From: "Mary Jane Jones" Subject: Re: [AML] Secret Combinations in Literature >For a more involved book, I found Umberto Eco's _The Name of the Rose_ a >masterful telling of conspiracy in the same time period. There the overt >battle is a series of murders in a monastery that purportedly are done by >the devil himself. Yet the subtext is philosophy and the battle between >what was called nominalism and realism (Platonism). The final conspiracy >involves a copy of a book by Aristotle on humor. Once again it gets into >the conspiracies of the time as they relate to sex, politics, philosophy = and >religion. There isn't an "evil" in the book per se. More dogma and >misunderstanding. "The Name of the Rose" was made into a film in 1986 starring Sean Connery, = F. Murray Abraham and Christian Slater. I enjoyed it as a teenager--the = film was exciting, creepy in a uniquely medieval way and just philosophical= enough to make a teenager feel intellectual but not lost or bored....I = saw it on video, but I think it's rated R for intense thematic material = and a scene with partial female nudity. My friend's dad who was watching = it with us made us fast-forward that scene.... Mary Jane (Jones) Ungrangsee - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 12:48:26 -0700 From: "Jerry Tyner" Subject: RE: [AML] Ghostly Query John, I have a story which is not published but I know it to be true since it = happened to a member of my father's extended family. I was directly = involved in this as well. Let me know if you want this for your study. Jerry Tyner Orange County, CA - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 13:59:48 -0600 From: "Janelle Higbee" Subject: Re: [AML] Secret Combinations in Literature - -----Original Message----- From: "Clark Goble"=20 For a more involved book, I found Umberto Eco's _The Name of the Rose_ a masterful telling of conspiracy.... - ---------------------------------------- Eco's masterpiece of conspiracy and secret combinations is _Foucault's Pend= ulum_. It's mind-bending. When I was reading it, I had to stop every fe= w chapters to put the book down, shake myself, and go for a brisk walk ar= ound the block to get re-grounded in reality. >From the back cover blurb: "Three clever editors (who have spent altogether too mcuh time reviewing cr= ackpot manuscripts on the occult by fanatics and dilettantes) decide to h= ave a little fun....On a lark, the editors begin randomly feeding esoteri= c bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing conn= ections between all their entries. What they believe they are creating is= a long, lazy game--until the game starts taking over..." >From _Publishers Weekly_ review: "An intellectual blockbuster...Dense, packed with meaning, often startlingl= y provocative, the novel is a mixture of metaphysical meditation, detecti= ve story, computer handbook, introduction to physics and philosophy, hist= orical survey, mathematical puzzle, compendium of religious and cultural = mythology, guide to the Torah, reference manual to the occult, the hermet= ic mysteries, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits, the Freemasons--ad infinitum= ." I also seem to recall that packed somewhere in the book is an obscure refer= ence to Mormonism...but as I can't find my copy of the book at the moment= (hmmmm...a conspiracy of subversive Eco-maniacals absconding with paperb= acks??), I have no proof. Maybe I'm just imagining the mention of Mormon= ism. Eco is triumphant at turning your own brain against you. - -Janelle Higbee - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 14:33:04 -0600 From: "Jacob Proffitt" Subject: RE: [AML] Setting Goals - ---Original Message From: Karen Tippets > > Personally, I disagree about setting goals not being a part > of the gospel. I > believe the Lord fully intends for us to set goals, and one > of them is to be > part of the celestial kingdom. This assertion depends very much on your definition of goals. What do you consider a goal? I want to be part of the Celestial Kingdom. No argument there. But is it really my goal? According to most current definitions it isn't. I haven't written it down. I haven't calculated a path. I don't have a list of sub-goals. I don't track my progress. And frankly, I defy anyone to track their true progress there. It seems to me an invitation to pride to state with any kind of firmness how close you are right now to the big CK. I can say with some degree of certainty that I'm closer now than I was five years ago. I would have a tough time, though, telling you how close I might actually be or how much further I have to go. > Setting a goal is a form of spiritual creation. If you > reread Genesis, there > are two creation stories there. The Lord creates things > spiritually, then physically makes them a reality. > Goal setting for us humans is practise in > spiritual creation. Are you saying that spiritual creation is merely an act of setting goals? I disagree. For one, spirits are real and physical, just not discernable in our present state. When we die, our spirit will still exist--not as a goal, as a real, physical entity. Setting goals my be an act of creation, but on the same order that creating a building blueprint is an act of creation. It *isn't* inherently spiritual. > Now some of us may not set very good > goals, or perhaps > some of simply set worldly goals. But I found that I achieve > much more when > I set goals: whether it's to write, or change a bad habit, or > start a new > good one, to make it through nursing school, or whatever. > When I don't set > goals, I drift and accomplish much less. Goals help one > focus on a specific. I think you are on dangerous grounds when you generalize from your own experience to universal experience. For one, I'll counter by my experience that setting goals is a dismal, dreary experience for me. Goals hinder me--they hold me back. You can tell me that I must not be very good at setting goals, but that's a judgment that is unearned. I've studied all the Franklin/Covey stuff and I *wanted* things to work like they say they do but for me, they do *not*. I made a choice--I could continue wearing myself out trying to form my life into an alien mold and wonder why I am such a failure, or I could reject their mold and try to figure out what works for me. For another, some people have been *commanded* not to have goals. Take Christ telling the apostles to take no thought for the morrow. The same admonition was given to early church missionaries. One of the more interesting people I've ever studied, Matthew Cowley (an apostle in the 50s) was told by the prophet not to make goals and to never prepare his conference talks before hand. > The wards that I have been in that have a theme or a ward > goal have been > stronger, more spiritual, better attended, more missionary > minded, more > temple minded, more focused on helping each other than those > who did not. Again, that's a personal experience. In my experience, wards I've been in with a strong theme and explicit goals tend to lose sight of individuals, to over generalize, to ostracize resistance, and to misread or ignore events that fall outside of the 'goal'. Goals may be a way to focus energies, but wards are messy things full of life. If goals become rigid, wards will ossify and harden in ways that resemble spiritual arthritis. Don't get me wrong, I like focus. In our ward, we have specific things we focus on and we follow-up on them constantly. But we have expressed that focus in ways that have no deadline and in ways that aren't able to ever actually be said to be completed. We monitor progress, but not in any way that can be given a number. > I think a lot of people talk about goals, but not everyone > understands why > they can be very important--hence the discussion in the > EQ.--possibly led by > non-goal setters who understand that it might possibly be > important or > helpful, but since they don't set them for themselves--don't > quite know how > to go about teaching someone else about it. I am mystified by this reference. I haven't heard an EQ lesson on setting goals in years. Goal Setting isn't in the curriculum and I don't see any reason to insert it there. > It's worth taking time to do some goals--and to make well > rounded goals: > physical, spiritual, social, emotional, financial. And not > to get so caught > up in the setting there of that one doesn't do anything to > the achieving > thereof. Maybe for you. Not for me. Frankly, I've always been mystified how you can actually make spiritual, emotional, and/or social goals. How do you quantify spiritual progress? Are you *really* more spiritual if you go to more church meetings? Probably, but not necessarily. For me, if I'm doing more supposedly 'spiritual' things just because I set the goal to do so, it works against the actual purpose of that activity. In other words, if I'm reading my scriptures just to fulfill a goal then as I'm reading, I am so busy congratulating myself on achieving my goal, or grumbling about setting such a stupid goal, or undermining the reasons for setting the goal, or calculating my progress on the goal, or figuring how many times I can still fail and still consider myself 'progressing' that I might as well be reading the phone book for all I'm getting out of my activity. I know other people function on a different basis from me and derive great value out of goal setting, but I don't persecute them for their goal-obsessions and I'm a little tired of them persecuting me for my lack of goal-orientation. > As to how this relates to writing and Latter-Day Saint > literature: I suggest > that most of us would find we are much more productive if we > were to set some > goals. But not to neglect one area of our lives for another > area--balance is > important. Set the goals, review them regularly, be excited > and do some > visualization of ourselves in the achieved goal. Infuse them > with some > emotion. Make them positive statements rather than negatives > (I do, rather > than I do not). Suggest away. You might be right. But don't be too shocked if you aren't. My capabilities vary from one day to the next. Some days, I can achieve a lot. Other days, I'm lucky to get out of bed. Some of that is due to ADD, but I'd be willing to bet that most people are that way. We all have cycles of productivity and capability--frankly, I think that God invested so much into cycles in our world that I'm betting there's a deeper meaning to them--and thinking that we can act at peek efficiency every day is asking for trouble. At the heart of goal setting is an underlying fallacy that we can improve ourselves incrementally forever. I read a story when I was a boy about a young man who got up every day and lifted his new-born horse. Since he lifted that horse *every day*, he was able, in the end, to lift a full-grown horse. Nice idea, but it just isn't true--for one, muscle-mass doesn't build that fast in a man, for another, where do you hold on? There are human limits on our capabilities and pushing for that next level of perfection is eventually going to cost more than we can give in a life-time. I stand in awe of those who can get by on less than four hours of sleep a night--I don't kid myself that I could be just like them if only I tried hard enough bit by bit, though. > Know that it is much like programing a > computer. Once we > have put things into our mind, eventually those things will > come out and we > will find ways to achieve our goals. That isn't at all like programming a computer. That is a false comparison. Once you get the right algorithm, a computer does the same thing *every* time. People will *never* be like this. People are not programmable. People function on a complicated series of event and counter event and people always, in the end, have free will. A person doesn't have anything at *all* forcing them to act the same way in the same situation. You can set habits, but setting habits is a function of continuous time and effort, not figuring out the right algorithm. Just knowing what is right isn't at all the same as doing what is right--*very* unlike computers. People *always* function at less than they know they should do. There is *always* a gap between what people *know* and what people *do*. At least, I've never met or even heard of anyone who is content to say that they are perfect and that they always do what they know is right. > How long eventually might be could be determined by how often > we short > circuit our own progress by believing that we can't really do > this. But I > know it works because I know where I was, and I know where I > am. I know > where I'm going--and as that commercial says, "I've come a > long way baby," > and I've got a long way to go, as we all do. And I can say the exact same thing without having achieved a discernable goal in my life. Just because something works for you doesn't mean it works for everybody and it doesn't mean that it is the only way for things to work. I understand the evangelism of wanting to share something that has made profound changes in your life. But you should be aware that others do not function in the same way that you do and you must stand ready to acknowledge those differences even if you don't understand them. > As children of > our Heavenly > Father, should not one of our goals be to succeed at being > the best "US" we > can be, with all the creative potential that might entail? Sure. I have a "goal" to be the best me I can be. But it isn't written down and it isn't plotted or sub-divided much more than that. I have issues that I'm working on, but they, too, are general in nature and not written down or plotted and sub-divided. You may be convinced that your way is better, and it might be for you. It might even be for me. But in my experience, it is not. And my experience is what I choose to go by. Jacob Proffitt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 15:17:32 -0700 From: "Jerry Tyner" Subject: RE: [AML] Baby Exhaustion My wife already weighed in on this topic and as many men as have posted = I'm going to give it a go as well. Personally I loved Gae Lyn and = Sharlee's posts on this. Being in my mid-twenties when we were married there was the extreme = pressure to have a family as large as you could. I do not remember until = the late 80's the caveat of "no more than the mother's health could = handle". Unfortunately back then they didn't teach about mental health = which should be a major part of the dogma now.=20 When Kathy and I were dating she asked me how many children I wanted. I = told her a full wrestling team and a couple of cheerleaders thrown in. I = remember her jaw hitting the floor when I told her how many that was = (for those non-combatants a wrestling team in those days was 13 + 2 = girls for cheerleaders). She asked me if I would settle for half and I = told her yes. I actually settled for 2 - one boy and one girl seven = years apart. I personally think we had our son too soon since we were = only married about 6 months when Kathy became pregnant with our son. = However, hind sight is 20/20 in all cases. I kid her that she was = celebrating the end of the first wrestling season of coaching (around = Valentine's Day). It probably would have been sooner if she had not had = what appeared in the blood tests as German Measles. The doctor told us = she could not, under any circumstances, get pregnant until the virus was = gone. She told me he was my birthday present (he was born 2 days before = my 26th birthday and we brought him home on my birthday). He was = technically 3 weeks premature. The really bad part was right after he was born I started my second = season of coaching Wrestling at my high school alma mater. I was also = working as a technician at a local company which made disk drives and = tape drives for main frame computers. Every day when I got home from = practice I was handed a crying baby. Lucky for me (bad news for my wife = - - she wanted me to suffer a little bit with him) I was in really good = shape and when I put him on my chest he would go to sleep and that would = put me to sleep as well. There was a little bit of silent resentment = there (sometimes not so silent - post-partum depression?). What Kathy did not talk to me about was there were several times she = knew she had a miscarriage but never told me until many years later. = This happened after our son and after our daughter were born. I do not = know if I was emotionally mature enough to have gone through the = grieving process with her. They were all early on in the pregnancy so I = could not tell visually. As with many men I had tunnel vision and was = over focused on what I was trying to get done in life and on the job. We had our financial struggles through the year. I do not know anyone = who doesn't. That is part of the marriage process we were not warned = about. I wish I could have been making enough to support my wife in = those years without her working. About five years ago miracles happened = in our life to allow her to retire and not work again. I'm sure the = stresses would have been different with her at home but the rewards may = have been greater as well. Now I know and am committed to never allowing = her to work if she doesn't want to. I think from a man's point of view is the feeling of rejection from your = wife and not knowing what to do to correct it. Had I been more wise back = then I would have pitched in more around home. The lousy hours I was = working when the first child came left me exhausted during the week and = during wrestling season just plane gone. When the second child was born = we were living 60 miles from where I worked and over a very congested = freeway. My weekends were spent recovering physically and mentally from = my commute. I usually fell asleep Friday night and only woke up = periodically (for Church, etc.) and did not wake up until Monday when I = had to do it all over again. Now in my mid-forties I sit and wish I could go back and fix what I = screwed up. I try to repent every day and am at this point trying to = correct years of neglect. Luckily my health is improving as is my wife. = Allergies are a terrible thing especially when you live in the land of = pollen like Southern California. Maybe one day I will be worthy of my = wife's forgiveness for the way I acted in the early years of our = marriage while our children were small. I missed a lot. Hopefully at = this point I will be able to teach my children better than I was taught = so they correct the mistakes I made in this generation of our family. Maybe that should be a thread? What mistakes have we corrected that our = parents made and what mistakes did we make that our children will need = to correct in their generation of marriage and child rearing? BTW - for those who do not know the years of our kids birth we had a = running joke in our family. Every time Kathy became pregnant the Dodgers = would win the World Series (1981 and 1988). She never did write to Tommy = Lasorda to tell him if he would pay her to get pregnant she could almost = guarantee the Dodgers would win the Pennant....fun to think about = anyway. In fact when our son was born on October 29th in 1981 we were = watch the parade on TV in the hospital as she was going through labor = (okay, I was watching...she was breaking my thumb off at the knuckle = with each contraction). Jerry Tyner Orange County, CA - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 20:41:53 -0700 From: Jeff Needle Subject: Re: [AML] Will BAGLEY, _Blood of the Prophets_ (Review) At 09:12 PM 6/10/2002 -0700, you wrote: >Thanks to Jeff Needle for his enlightening review of Bagley's book on the >Mountain Meadows Massacre. > >Jeff, could you comment further on Bagley's evidence for the assertion that >Brigham Young authorized if not ordered the massacre in reprisal for the >assassination of Parley P. Pratt. > This is a difficult question, as Bagley makes clear in one of the cites I give in the review. Any direct link would not have been committed to writing. Other clues must factor in. Page 239 has an interesting narrative: "On a cold May morning in 1861, the Mormon prophet and his entourage of some sixty men, women and children, stopped at Mountain Meadows. They viewed Carleton's monument at the site of the wagon battle, 'put up at the burial place of 120 persons killed by Indians in 1857.' The monument was beginning to tumble down, but the wooden cross and its inscription, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord," still stood above the rock cairn. "Brigham Young read the verse aloud, altering the text to fit his mood. "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, I *have* repaid.'" We would look in vain for any clear verbal, or written, order or authorization from BY. Bagley makes it clear that this won't exist. Instead, we find an atmosphere that made the massacre possible, where folks would believe that this is what BY favored. I feel a bit uncomfortable defending Bagley's thesis here. An outsider treads lightly. I suspect Will himself could answer this question better. > Juanita Brooks couldn't answer some of the most intriguing questions about >the massacre precisely because eye witness accounts were lacking. You say >that "Bagley takes us through a minute-by-minute account of the slaughter, >accumulated from hundreds of documents, many not available to Brooks when >she wrote her important book." Are any of these said to be eye witness >accounts? > Yes, there are said to be accounts written by some who were able to escape the massacre. Some of the children who escaped fled to the home of Rachel Hamblin, who learned of the massacre from them. >Bagley asserts that Brigham Young would have used oral code if he had >authorized the massacre. Isn't Bagley essentially asking us to believe his >contention without evidence? > In the paragraph preceding the one cited, John D. Lee's own account is cited, where Lee, and others, understood BY's "oral code" to indicate that wagon trains passing through should not be permitted to pass unmolested; that if he intended them to pass peacefully, he (BY) would say it explicitly. This seems to be the general understanding, and BY did not seem to say or do anything to dispel this attitude. Sorry I can't do any better than this. - ---------------- Jeff Needle jeff.needle@general.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 09:36:37 -0500 From: lajackson@juno.com Subject: [AML] Re: Censoring Comments Marianne Hales Harding: I think I'd rather go work for Satan's school in SLC (all you UofU grads can take some gentle ribbing, right?). ... I know [BYU]'s a tough climate as far as orthodoxy is concerned, but it strikes such a discordant tone to me to think of my dear professors chosing employment over being right with God. Yowsa. _______________ I prefer to call it "that pagan school to the north, from which the First Presidency and five of the Twelve graduated." (A sixth attended UofU, two of the Twelve are Y graduates, three were graduated from Utah State.) There may be many things I wouldn't say, but I don't think I would lie to keep my job. I've been placed in that position in the past and, so far, not succumbed and have survived with the truth. On the other hand, I can't think of a single reason why a person should lose a temple recommend simply for attending an R-rated movie. I would strongly advise against it. I recognize the differences of opinion on this list, but I personally believe there is no R-rated film worth the price I would have to pay to see it. I believe that the risks of viewing and the resultant thoughts and actions far outweigh the benefits. As a personal decision made over 20 years ago after seeing two of them, I have not attended them since. As a priesthood leader, I would counsel accordingly, including what prophets have said on the matter. But in and of itself, I do not see any reason a person should lose a recommend simply for attending one. And if those are the present circumstances, I can see where there would be a great concern for survival. I am stunned at the informal survey results Eric presented. Larry Jackson ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:20:52 -0700 From: "Bill Willson" Subject: Re: [AML] Secret Combinations in Literature "Hi! 8-)" he said as he stepped out of the shadows he had been lurking in. Clark Goble wrote: I often wonder at the Book of Mormon, not because of how prescient it was, but because of how out of keeping with Joseph's milieu it seems. Yes there were the many, many anti-Masonic books out along with anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish literature. Heaven knows there were at least as many conspiracy theories then as now. Speaking of conspiracies then and now, I have often wondered if any of our Latter-Day Writers have addressed the issues raised about the church in *The God Makers.* Have the enlightened LDS writers chosen to ignore this trash or have they written anything to expose and or refute its false claims? Just curious. Regards, Bill Willson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 22:14:13 -0600 From: "Scott Parkin" Subject: [AML] Literature of Validation (was: Accepting Each Other's Offerings) Melissa Proffitt wrote: >>> But it's the idea of a "literature of validation and acceptance" that I'm not quite sure I understand, probably because I'm not certain what you mean by "literature of criticism and improvement" as well. I know I seek out stories that seem to reflect my own experience, but I don't think of them as specifically written for that purpose. <<< What, you want me to be clear? Such expectations... At its grotesque extremes I mean literature that says it's okay to be Mormon and to believe as Mormons believe (validation) versus literature that says it's silly to be Mormon or to believe as Mormons believe (criticism to exclusion). In between are the thousands of grades that explore to greater or lesser degrees why we should believe versus why we shouldn't, as well as what we should believe and what we shouldn't. It seems to me that the vast majority of stories intended for Mormon audiences take a pretty critical look at either our belief or our behaviors. Stories that explore what it means to be Mormon have at their core one (or more) of several purposes--to celebrate righteousness, to expose error, to expose folly, to criticize policy or behavior, to illustrate method, or to explicate belief. In other words, most of our literature is a literature of criticism with an aim toward either improvement or rejection. We expose the errors, follies, or other ways that we need to improve--or as proofs of why we need to condemn and walk away. One could argue that such literature is a study of failure, whether it be personal or institutional. How POV recovers from that failure is what puts the story on either the faithful or rejecting end of the spectrum. But where are our stories whose primary message is that it's okay to believe as a Mormon believes and that show how such belief can lead to hope or peace or even success in our lives--not just in recovering from sin, but it dealing with the ordinary pain and struggle of daily life? Where are our Utopias? With the exception of Nephi Anderson's _Added Upon_ I can't think of any off the top of my head. We examine the failure points of our faith quite often. I don't see us examining the points of success nearly as often. We criticize a lot; we validate only rarely and sparingly. Or so it seems to me. You comment later about pitying back-pats, but that's not what I'm talking about when I speak of a literature of validation. Is it pity to congratulate the winner of an Olympic event? I don't think so; it's recognition of excellence and bestowal of earned praise. Is it pity for the AML to award novels and plays and short stories? Again, I don't think so; it's recognition of excellent work as an encouragement to do more and better work. So while I don't dispute that many people bestow pity in the form of approval for weak efforts, that's not precisely what I mean. I think there's a fairly substantial difference between the rather arrogant bestowal of pity on the undeserving and the honest recognition of fruitful effort. No, I will never be mistaken for Shakespeare or any other good writer, but the fact is that sometimes my writing has merit and is worthy of honest praise. When my seven year old writes a story for her second grade class, I will never mistake her work for a grand literary opus; at the same time, I can and do honestly marvel at her ability to tell a story and praise her for the rather substantial improvements she has made over time. My goal is to encourage her to do more and better by letting her know that what she's done is worthy of recognition. Perhaps that's just a means of creating codependence--my daughter wants my praise so she does the things that will earn recognition from me. I want to see her feel good about her efforts and feel some sense of self-worth, so I look for excuses to praise her and encourage her to do more. I also take many opportunities to show her how much more there is to learn so that she doesn't stop working toward improvement, and will show her examples of superior work so she can learn to produce such work herself. I think literature can do the same kind of work in recognizing the successes of our beliefs and the good results that faith brings--not just in overcoming failure, but in simply handling the affairs of living. Recognizing good effort is not the same thing as declaring the need for improvement to be ended. >>>In fact, I tend to think of wanting approval as a bad thing--not that I think people should be trained by whippings alone, or that it's bad to enjoy praise. It just gets paired in my mind with a sort of pitying back-pat that I wouldn't have gotten if I hadn't been so darned needy. <<< This is an area that I think is so individual as to defy clean definition. But here's my perspective... Why should seeking approval be thought of as a weak or pitiful condition? What's wrong with wanting to do what's right and to be recognized for doing it? Isn't that the whole basis of The Judgment--the hope that at some point Christ will reach out to us and proclaim "Well done thou good and faithful servant" as we're taken into his presence? I suppose there's an element of pity in that since Christ grants us redemption by his grace and not one of us has the power to redeem ourselves. The end result is that without his pity we're out of luck. I guess that means that any attempt to please God is really just an attempt to extract pity from him, which essentially invalidates any effort to do good as a rather cynical manipulation designed to extract approval from deity and get something we haven't really earned. And while I can't argue that there are many who play the game that way, I also believe that some people want to do good not in order to extract pity, but to earn legitimate recognition. Even the prophets have been known to remind the Lord of their righteousness in following his commandments, thus entitling them to a promised reward. The line between humble recognition of progress and demanding entitlements we haven't earned is pretty broad in my mind. I admit quite freely that sometime we become so frantic for approval that we become willing to accept unearned praise. I know that I experience that on a pretty much daily basis, and that frantic desire to feel like the things I'm doing are somehow worthwhile if very strong with me right now. I'm in the middle of a fairly substantial crisis of confidence right now both as a writer and as a breadwinner. I desperately want praise and acceptance of my own offerings in both areas right now--and am failing in both cases. But I defend myself on that basis that I have no interest in false praise or meaningless pity. I want a job that pays me for being good at what I do. I want publication in quality venues as recognition that my work is worthy of appearance there. I want earned praise, not unearned pity. Where's the pride of accomplishment is publishing your own words? To me acceptance by an editor is a minimum requirement for validation of my skill as a writer. In the absence of praise I have to ask myself why, and the only answer I can come up with is that I have no value, either as a writer or as a breadwinner. My skills are not valued, therefore I have no value. Since I have no idea what to do to become valuable I find myself at a point of despair--insufficient skill to win, and no way to find out what skills are needed or how to get them. I just want to know how to win. Praise tells me I'm moving in the right direction. In terms of literature, there are a whole series of stories we can tell that focus not on how we overcome our failures, but how our strong foundations help us overcome challenges that have nothing to do with our moral perfection or lack thereof. Scott Parkin - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 01:25:41 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Secret Combinations in Literature The Laird Jim wrote: > What worries me are > several problems that come up when creating even a false secret brotherhood > dedicated to evil. > > First there are their acts. Evil is not pleasant to write about > Creating > characters that are steeped in evil is no fun, and making them believable is > even less fun. Well, you've got two choices. Do it, no matter how unpleasant, or write some other story. What other possibility is there? > How villainous can a > villain be and yet exist in literature that Mormons would not object to? > What would be the point of writing a book that my own people wouldn't read? > Especially because it wasn't uplifting. A villain should be a villanous as that character should be; no more, no less. Whatever the story demands. If your fellow Mormons won't read it--so what? If that bothers you, write some other story. What other possibility is there? > A second problem is the oaths. In the Book of Mormon there are several > places where the writers were forbidden to list the oaths of the Gadianton > Robbers or the earlier followers of Akish. > The problems comes in when making up fake oaths as a literary > device--what happens if one hits too close to the truth? I've shied away > from detailing the oaths a number of times in the four books that deal with > my own fake conspiracy but the sequel to one of the completed ones is going > to expose the secret works of these bad guys and I've been hesitating over > it for a couple of years. It's one thing to shout the secret works of > darkness from the rooftops and its another to create false ones that are > plausible and then expose them. Yes, they are different things. The latter is fiction, and everyone knows it's fiction, so it's harmless. You make the oaths as plausible as you can because that's your job. You had better hit as close to the truth as you can. What is it you're worrying about? That someone might take your fake oaths and start a secret combination? Secret combinations have been popping up long before you came along. They don't need your help. > Which brings me to plausibility. > If the bad guys > exist to destroy freedom, how can what they replace it with be portrayed as > both desireable and undesireable at the same time? While remaining > plausible. That's easy. Just check out the United States of today. A great many people desire the security of less freedom, of being told what to do so they don't have to worry about it. A great many Mormons do too, in fact. One-third of the hosts of heavens preferred the security of Satan's plan to the risky responsibility of the Father's. Choosing security over freedom is a very easy thing to make plausible--happens all the time. > In _The Screwtape Letters_ CS Lewis mentions how little he enjoyed writing > the book, thinking like a devil and trying to second-guess the methods by > which a devil would attempt to seduce a soul to Hell. But he still wrote it, didn't he? And we're all the better for it. That book has its own backdoor sort of inspiration. Not all stories should be Charlie's-Monument-inspiring. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #742 ******************************