A World Traveler I Am Not

Fun little game that I found online; worth playing around with, if you have a moment.


visited 31 states (62%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Now regarding my own country, I suppose I'm fairly well traveled. There are some major blank areas--the far northeast, the upper midwest, the deep southeast--but, allowing for the way you get to color in a whole state on the basis of visiting only one part of it (New York City and Long Island gets me all of the Hudson Valley! The Dallas-Austin-San Antonio corridor gets me all of Texas west of the Pecos!), I think my pattern of exploration across the United States holds up. Only a couple of areas of real embarrassment: by refusing to count a state that I have only driven through (or landed at an airport to transfer planes in), as opposed to having actually visited for some specific purpose, I am reminded to my chagrin that I never once visited the Atlantic coast during all those years we lived in DC (the Eastern Shore of Maryland, sure, but for the rest, Delaware and New Jersey were just places to drive through), and I am further embarrassed that we have traveled to and visited places all around Kentucky, but never actually gone there. We'll have to rectify that, someday.


visited 18 states (8%)
Create your own visited map of The World

Now as for the whole planet, I'm a piker; no more so than your average middle-class American, I suppose--indeed, on the basis of the folks I know here in Kansas, actually must less so--but looking at it starkly like this really hammers home just how much there is to see, how little of it I'll likely ever experience personally, and how so many of the places I have been occurred because of luck or opportunities outside of my control. Mexico is there because of a trip to Tijuana my family made during a visit to San Diego 25 years ago; Israel, Egypt, and Italy are there because of a BYU-sponsored church trip I went on after my senior year in high school; some of the Caribbean nations are there solely because of a grand cruise that my parents once took all their married children on; Germany is there because of my graduate school work and the generosity of DAAD; South Korea is there because that's where I served a mission for my church. That just leaves Canada, which we have actually visited by choice a few times. As for the rest of the world? Well, I guess that's where Michael Palin comes in...

Friday Morning Videos: "Voices Carry"

Admittedly, this tune and video were massive hits; they were everywhere my junior and senior years in high school. But the band itself was never a great fit with the mainstream, as Aimee Mann's subsequent career has demonstrated. But anyway, I just put up a video which tells the story of a woman sticking co-dependently beside her drunken, self-destructive man; I might as well put up this one about feminist defiance as compensation.



My wife and old friends from my freshman year will not let me get away without mentioning my "Kiss This Guy" moment with this song; until I arrived at BYU, I thought the lyric (completely nonsensically, but what did I know?) wasn't "Keep it down now / voices carry" but was "let's go downtown /it's so scary." Pathetic, I know. I hope if I ever meet Aimee she'll forgive me.

Now That's Clever

A friend of mine who lives in Japan found an advertisement for an exhibition of this fellow's work on a train he was riding, and he couldn't resist snapping a picture and sharing it with friends. I don't blame him--the photo captivated me too.


Apparently the artist--Yasumasa Morimura--is a pretty big player in the contemporary art world...big enough at least to have a major exhibition at a prominent Tokyo gallery. Intriguing, to say the least. As my friend commented, "Who said the Japanese don't have a sense of irony?"

Populism, Plebiscitarianism, and the Tea Parties

Over the weekend, Samuel Goldman and Daniel Larison had an exchange relevant to one of my annoyingly constant pre-occupations: defending a notion of populism which is local, democratic, and egalitarian, all at the same time. Picking up on an argument made by Peter Beinart--namely, that those who support the Tea Party movement "are today’s version of the California suburbanites who rose up against their property tax bills in the late 1970s...[t]hey’re the second coming of what Robert Kuttner called 'the revolt of the haves'"--Goldman allows that the Tea Party movement isn't a true populist one...at least, not on the first, more historical definition of populism. But what about the second? He writes:

On the one hand, populism can refer a particular tradition of redistributionist, anti-corporate, usually agrarian political ideas. Most Tea Partiers reject that tradition. On the other hand, populism can describe a conception of the appropriate relation between governors and governed in a representative democracy. On this view, policy should be much more closely tied to public opinion, or to direct popular decision, than to the judgment of legislative or bureaucratic elites. Many of the Tea Partiers, it seems to me, are populists in the latter sense. If you prefer, call them plebiscitarians rather than populists.

For Larison, this only goes to show how poorly thought out are most of the slogans which the Tea Partiers brandish; looking at the polling support which most Tea Partiers appear quite willing to give to established entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, he suggests that their plebiscitarian rhetoric is highly confused, as no one, not even themselves, appear to be taking seriously what building a truly anti-federal government majority would actually entail (for one thing, convincing majorities of the American people to reject social welfare entitlement spending). Goldman isn't terribly disturbed by this; he allows that the Tea Partiers may suffer from "extreme cognitive dissonance," but that such doesn't compromise their longing for a more direct democracy, as they understand it, all the same.

An important point needs to be added here, I think: namely, that Goldman's two definitions of populism are complementary--in fact, are historically entwined. The redistributionism, agrarianism, and anti-corporatism of William Jennings Bryan and those who supported him was grounded in a particular notion of democracy-as-sovereignty...or, to use more classically republican language, of self-rule. As expanding industrial technology, mobility, and complexity came to characterize the post-Civil War American economy--economic activity which both followed and supported the centralization and urbanization of America's primary generators of wealth and prestige--what the farmers and small town residents of states from Georgia to Kansas to Montana recognized was that their ability to maintain a decent livelihood was becoming dependent upon the decisions of bankers and railroad moguls who lived far away, in New York City and Philadelphia and Chicago. The corporate monopolies of the Gilded Age were deeply undemocratic, not because (or at least not only because) their wealth and power enabled them to buy influence outside the normal democratic procedures of the American polity, but because their very size forced other, small, less prestigious economic actors to orient the control over their own lives--lives focused upon what historically had been more or less self-sufficient communities--to the whims of others. It was, very simply, the replacement of self-government with a free-market oligarchy. And that was what turn-of-the-century Populists hated: being obliged by the rules of the market economy to consent to the rule of a distant minority of wealthy robber barons, a rule which made meaningless the willingness of majorities of people, all across the American South and West, to work in accordance with economic rules they themselves had set. Populism, in the end, was, as Norman Pollack has argued, all about attempting to erect a different, more responsive "framework of democratic power."

For numerous reasons, that framework would almost certainly be inoperable today--but the relationship between demanding greater democratic empowerment and redistributionist, egalitarian policies remains very real, even if it is rarely expressed in populist terms....or when the connection is noticed, it is noticed in highly confused ways. The frustratingly wrong-headed complaint which Megan McArdle made about the passage of the health care bill being an example of the "tyranny of the majority"--a complaint which, if one thinks about it, seemed to suggest that the solution for such tyranny would be for elected politicians to be...even more responsive to popular majorities!--is a case in point. If one dreams of more plebiscitarianism, I'll support it, not the least reason for which being that a little more direct parliamentarianism in our government, a little more willingness to empower voters to direct the government towards specific ends--and, then, giving elected representatives the tools to do so--would very likely (or so I would argue, anyway) result in a more responsible and less poisoned movement towards that which can be popularly and broadly expressed and responded to, in terms of votes. (To use various Western European parliamentary states as examples, the results could easily include both greater social welfare guarantees, and more restrictive, common-sense abortion laws.)

To be sure, a little more listening to voters would have its own political complications and pathologies; there is something to be said, sometimes, for government bureaucracies which often lack both the funds and the political accountability to accomplish what they understand (sometimes poorly) themselves to have been directed to do. But if the primary complaint of the Tea Partiers really comes down to a mildly incoherent plebiscitarianism, I can't complain too much. Whether they realize it or not, they're presuming, or demanding, a more populist democratic framework...one whose ends--especially if directed to local targets--are much more likely to be amenable to an empowering, egalitarian democracy than their own noisy libertarianism.

Friday Morning Videos: "Joey"

Now here's another one that was just a little too alternative to be properly categorized: Concrete Blonde. I first heard their music a year or two after their big album, Bloodletting, came out; I think my old friend Matt Stannard had a copy. My favorite track off it was "Tomorrow Wendy"; I'd never heard anything like it before--but then, the Goth style didn't have much of a presence in Provo, Utah, in 1991. I wish they'd made a video of that tune. "Joey" is really good too, though.

Why Michael Palin is, and isn't, My Favorite Python

Having recently finished reading the wonderful, revealing, and somewhat curious first volume of Michael Palin's diaries, and having recently finished watching the last of his many television journeys around the world, I feel a need to say something about Mr. Palin. He's a fabulous writer, a witty conversationalist, a skilled media performer, and a very funny man. My favorite Python, though? That's hard to say.

If you claim that Michael Palin is your favorite member of Monty Python, you're not really saying anything controversial. His enormous popularity speaks for itself--the Royal Geographic Society didn't invite him to be their honorary president for nothing. He's the key player in my all-time favorite Flying Circus skit (if I can ever say "no" to a student with half the timing Palin demonstrates at 2:16, I'll die a happy man). He has a tremendous range, from flustered weakness to strong-armed smarm. All of the Python's express nothing but fondness and admiration for him as a man and a co-worker; John Cleese himself has said that there's no Python he'd rather work with than Palin.

And yet...maybe that's too easy; maybe Palin is to Python as Paul McCartney is to the Beatles. He wasn't Python's best comic actor (that was Graham Chapman), nor its fiercest visionary (that's the two Terrys, Jones and Gilliam), nor the best at wordplay (Eric Idle). And then there's Cleese--a near-unmatchable physical comedian and, more than that, someone whose whole comic perspective has been profoundly shaped (or so it has often seemed to me) by his own sometimes-angry, sometimes-aristocratic engagement with Britain's class system. Perhaps that's it: Cleese--and, to greater or lesser degrees, all the other Pythons--seem to be willing, on occasion, to get angry; to engage in critique. Palin isn't.

This comes out, again and again, in his diaries. Now to be sure, my knowledge of Britain (and, specifically, England and London) in the 1970s is minimal at best. And moreover, it's not as though Palin--whose diaries are a marvelous display of an inveterate record-keeper at work--had any kind of obligation when he was writing this entries to systematically critique or evaluate his social, cultural, or political environment(s). Still, as much as I loved all his little idiosyncratic and insightful observations on the pop culture world which he and the Pythons came to dominate through the 70s--Bruce Springsteen comes off like Billy Graham (pg. 266), Ringo Starr is dangerously deep into booze (pg. 484), Mark Hamill looks like a chirpy delivery boy (pg. 560), and more--I kept waiting for him to, well, say something about the world that was changing, and changing in ways that could not be turned back, all around him. Changes that he was, in fact, very much a part of, though perhaps I can only say so now that spent years thinking about the connection between culture and economy.

Early on Palin is contemptuous of the Heath government, and describes himself as a "fervent socialist" (pg. 71)--but he's a socialist with a sympathy for and a love of the kind of local life that his neighborhood in London affords him; when he talks about his ideal form of urban planning ("open play area[s] at least twice the size of the car park...severe restrictions on cars in central London...space indoors and outdoors, where people would want to stop and gather"--pg. 66) he sounds very much like he was anticipating New Urbanism. And yet...he never seems to reflect upon what kind of costs or limits which preserving or promoting such environments might entail. On the one hand, he's a cosmopolitan: a trip to Dorset leads him to write rather condescendingly of the "oppressive weight of years of tradition" experienced in the country, and describes himself as "hopelessly and happily corrupted by the richness of London life" (pg. 200). On the other hand, he grouses about the decimilization of English streets and phone numbers (pg. 55), and leans towards a "no" vote in the 1973 referendum about whether Britain should stay in the European Community (pg. 238). He celebrates the liberation of British culture, taking delight in the new freedoms of expression and sex around him (pg. 326), and admits that he feels like a fraud when speaking with the vicar who performed his first son's christening (pg. 56), but is never really able to figure out if he believes in God or not (pg. 594). Meanwhile, the strikes and power-outages of the late 70s are grist for morbid humor for him, and when Margaret Thatcher arrives in 1979 and lowers tax rates, he figures he's probably become about 10,000 pounds richer in a single day (he admits that "there is some inescapable lack of social justice" in the budget, but that "it doesn't keep me awake"--pg. 559).

Palin, in short, comes off, slowly but surely, entry after entry, as a smart but uncritical man, or at least not a man at all interested, ultimately, in orienting his life or his commentary about such around a critique of his and his friends' and his country's situation. He's not ideological; he's not a troubled person; he's living the best ordinary life he can. Which, of course, makes him great fun to read--not to mention showing off his own devotion to his children and family. But given the troubled times he lived through, I wanted something more.

Of course, for those who are intellectually inclined (like myself), any period of time can be understood as a time of crisis, a troubled time in need of diagnosis and assessment. So it's really rather foolish to be bothered to discover that an excerpted collection of diary entries, three to four decades old, written by a comedian and television and film actor, seems to lack much of that at all. Yet I am still somewhat bothered by it, by the lack of anger or regret or resolve which comes through Palin's basically generous, optimistic, pedestrian prose. Perhaps I can blame Crooked Timber for this. My knowledge of Britain in the early 80s was, for years, the product of the Reagan-era American conservative celebration of Margaret Thatcher; I'd heard about the Miner's Strike and such, but had no appreciation of what it seemed like to those who were there. Two CT bloggers--Chris Bertram and Harry Brighouse--have shared their thoughts and memories of that traumatic event often, and the firm conclusion I've come to from talking with them and following their links is pretty simple: that by the early 80s Britain had become so transformed, so urban and advanced in its needs and expectations, so capable and presuming of economic flexibility, that the rigid particulars of the postwar British social contract--a contract in which the National Union of Mineworkers played a huge role--simply weren't workable any longer. In 1974 Palin considered the Three-Day Week a tool in the Tory propaganda war, and saw the Heath government's moves against strikers as sinister and Orwellian (pg. 156); by 1979, Palin was delighted to learn that, thanks to Thatcher's spending cuts, Shepperton Studios (which Palin was a board member of) could rent an additional stage from the surrounding community (which was desperate for income) for cheap (pg. 572). I'm not saying his views changed; I have no evidence of that. I'm saying the terrain shifted under his feet, making what worked for the miners in 1974 incapable of replication in 1984...and that meant that, for better or worse, Britain was a different sort of country by the time the decade ended: a stronger country, perhaps, but also a harsher one. Unreasonable demand though it may be, I wanted to see Palin recognize that.

Some people did, even if they were artists and entertainers. The following passage, from a tribute to Morrissey, seems to express it well:

1983, the year of "This Charming Man," is the year the '80s became the '80s. Up until that point, Thatcherism in England and Reaganism in the United States had been little more than hollow promises. Then interest rates fell, the two economies thawed, and spandex was everywhere. It was the year of Flashdance at the box office, of "Every Breath You Take" and Thriller on the Billboard 100; the year of Risky Business and The Big Chill. If this list doesn't make you want to crawl into your bolt hole–well, you are probably not a Smiths fan. I think the word that best captures the times is heartless, as evident in the stupid rictus of Sting's face, circa 1983, as it was in Margaret Thatcher's budget cuts. No wonder Morrissey's voice sounded so fresh, so slyly subversive. As much as he publicly avowed a hatred of Thatcher, culminating in "Margaret at the Guillotine," it was Thatcherism that made Morrissey. The Iron Lady represented a hardness of purpose, a pitilessness that would allow England once again to produce winners. But also, inevitably, losers.

A country of winners and losers, as opposed to the mostly poor, compromised-but-still-traditional, apologetically-egalitarian-but-not-really country that, if Palin's diaries are any guide, was an empty shell by the end of the 70s. And who knows? Perhaps it was terminal, just waiting for the final crisis to knock it over, for much longer than that; perhaps one of the reasons the Pythons saw relatively little need for active satire, and instead preferred outrageous absurdity, was because the world around them, the pretension that the Queen was on her throne and all was in its place, already seemed by the end of the 60s simply ridiculous: a fallen social structure, just ripe for being kicked when it was down, especially since the powers that be didn't know that it was already gasping for breath on the floor. (It is revealing, perhaps, that one of the few times Palin does come of as genuinely angry is in his recounting of his and Cleese's infamous "debate" over The Life of Brian with Malcom Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Southwark; in Palin's words, Stockwood sat there, "resplendent in his purple bishop's cassock...fingering his spectacles and cross with great dexterity," accusing Palin and Cleese of wicked mockery "with all the smug and patronising paraphernalia of the gallery-player, who believes that the audience will see he is right, because he is a bishop and we're not"--pg. 595.)

Well, Thatcher's Britain, the Britain after the Miner's Strike, the Britain of Morrissey and more, was certainly a land of winners and losers--and by the time Palin and the bishop clashed in 1979, it must have been obvious to just about everyone who the winner of that contest was going to be. The writing must have been on the wall for years; indeed, in a sense Palin's diaries are themselves a transcription of such: of the slow, perhaps inevitable gestation of the modern capitalist Britain, needing only the neoliberalism of Thatcher and Co. to kick away the legs of a social order that, thanks in no small degree to Monty Python itself, was probably already hollowed out through and through. So in the end, I guess I'm saying I wish Palin's writings showed a little self-consciousness; a little awareness of how his own life choices and work were part of the trouble (and, of course, the gains and the laughter) of a changing decade. If nothing else, such a realization would certainly make for a good joke.

Though actually, in fact, it did:



I suppose I need to read the second volume of Palin's diaries, to see if there's any behind-the-scenes story to that gag. If there is, whether it reveals any self-consciousness or not, I'm sure Palin will be able to tell it well.

Once More Into the Breach...

Because I can't resist books, or lists, here's one more, despite have done this twice already.

So all while so many people (including me) spent the month of March talking about the books which had most influenced their thinking, or whatever, my wife has been regularly updating me as to a much bigger project which children's-and-young-adult-literature power-blogger Fuse #8 had taken on: establishing the top 100 children's books (novels or stories, one should say, not picture books) of all time, via a poll of both children and adults. It was a pretty impressive bit of work, and Melissa would excitedly share with me the results as she slowly unveiled them. And now, of course, Melissa and other bookbloggers are talking about how many of the list they've read, which ones they agree with, and which ones they don't. I'm not children's or young adult literature reader myself, these days, but whom am I do deny the lure of one more list?

Thing is, in my previous lists, talking about influential books both prior to my university education and during it, I was able to easily come up with 15 that have really stayed with me. When it comes to kids' books of all sorts, I can only come up with half that number. I simply didn't read a lot of that stuff when I was between the ages of five and ten; half of my reading material then, or at least half that of what I can remember, was actually adult stuff (like Watership Down or The Lord of the Rings) which I struggled with, but which stayed with me all the same. But, after giving it some thought, I can think of eight (well, seven and a half, really) that deserve a place. As always, in alphabetical order

Lloyd ALexander, Taran Wanderer. All of The Chronicles of Prydain are wonderful, but this is the one that stuck with me. Adventure, thrills, and moral introspection, pitched at the perfect level for a 10-year-old. It didn't make Fuse's list.

Roald Dahl, The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The Dahl I like best are his various grown-up short stories, like "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," and such. But of all his children's fiction, this was my favorite. It didn't make Fuse's list.

Ingri D'Aulaire, D'Aulaires's Book of Greek Myths. My older brother Daniel and I tore this book apart, memorizing it, and acting out the stories. I got to be Hermes. It didn't make Fuse's list.

Norman Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth. I loved the puzzles in this book, the wordplay and wit. In some ways, it haunted my imagination in much the way Harry Potter came to. It came in at #10 on Fuse's list.

E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Simply adored it--in particular, adored the way it situation an adventure and a quest in a world that seemed as close-by to my ordinary life as the local library. It came in at #5 on Fuse's list.

Sterling North, Rascal. Made me want to be more independent, to live in tree houses and be friends with animals, to be able to identify bird calls and be able to smell pine trees. If I was any kind of Boy Scout, it's probably because of this book. It didn't make Fuse's list.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit. In many ways, a superior book--if not a superior work of imagination--to The Lord of the Rings itself. It came in at #12 on Fuse's list.

And finally, any or all of Donald J. Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown books. I mean seriously, if Fuse wants her list to be taken seriously, how can you not include these? Sally Kimball will beat you up, otherwise.

My Mormon Testimony (Or Something Like Unto It)

A month ago Hugo Schwyzer, a blogger I've read pretty regularly for years, wrote a post on why he is a Christian. It was what we Mormons refer to as a "testimony"--a testifying of what he believes (namely, in the salvific power of Jesus Christ), and why. Testimonies have become, over the decades, both essential and routine in the Mormon faith. We speak regularly of having, or seeking, or sharing with others, our conviction--our personal revelation, if you will--of the "truth" of Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon or what have you; in our popular rhetoric (if not always in our specific doctrines) the possession of such a testimony is generally held to be a crucial distinguishing mark which separates Mormons from other Christians (after all, anyone can read the Book of Mormon and perhaps find it interesting or gain some message of hope from it, but how many accept it fully for what it purports to be?). For those within the faith--as well, obviously, for many outside it as well--being able to testify of something strikes a powerful, even necessary, spiritual chord.

I liked Hugo's post very much, in part because of the approach he took. Every testimony will, of course, be different, but I was particularly struck by the fact that Hugo felt it important to talk about how much he didn't know; how much, that is, he believes without really understanding what it is he believes:

I’ve never been concerned with proving God exists. God for me is something I experience in a way that isn’t particularly rational--it’s sub-rational, or extra-rational. It’s more emotional and sensory than it is logical. I believe the stories about Jesus--including the bits about his conception and his resurrection--despite my wariness of the miraculous. I believe the stories because they spoke to me as no other stories have. What seems absurd on an intellectual level makes good sense far deeper in my core.

That's a testimony, an expression of belief, right there. But when you're a Mormon, and you're brought up to accept the possibility of receiving personal revelation--of having a truth revealed to you, removing all doubt--is belief enough? Some would say yes; others no--they would argue that belief is good, but conviction is better.

A group of Mormon scholars a while ago put together a website, collecting the testimonies of various academics and others involved in intellectual pursuits, asking them to express--to borrow the parlance of Hugo's post--why they are Mormons. They asked me to write up something, and I was happy to do so...though I fear it reveals me as mostly a boring self-interlocutor, always trying to understand why I believe in, and feel attached to, something, even though I doubt I have have a firm, revelatory conviction of the truth of that which I nonetheless believe in and am attached to. Anyway, this is what I wrote (it's also posted here). It will be long and self-indulgent for many of you, and will make reference to Mormon practices (missions, patriarchal blessings, etc.) that you probably won't understand. But who knows? Perhaps, as with Hugo's post, something in it will resonate within you. And besides, you've already read this far, so how bad can it be?

*****

I have wondered if I have a testimony for as long, I think, as I have been aware of how my fellow Saints around me use the word. I am, for better or worse, an intellectual–and moreover, a doubting and debating one. Statements of all sorts regularly strike me as dubious, and demand further explanation. The statements I’d heard in sacrament meeting talks and testimonies since I was a little child–“I know the church is true” and the like–were no exception; what is it, I wondered, which entails such knowledge, and how do you know if you have it? So I kept my ears open; I asked questions; I studied. The answers, of course, varied greatly; parents and teachers and seminary manuals and Deseret Books publications and general conference talks would speak of a burning in the bosom (Luke 24:32), a peace of mind (Mosiah 4:3), a conviction of truth (John 15:26), a spiritual whispering (1 Kings 19:12), etc. But whatever the terminology, there was almost always--or at least so it seems to me today, as I reconstruct events and arguments (both internal and with others) from over the decades--some reference to or assumption of revelation or intuitive realization: some moment or process of insight, whether pure nous or directly from God. Once we “give place” in our hearts to the possibility that the prophetic claims of Joseph Smith, or the history of the Book of Mormon, or the scripture stories about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, may in fact be real and true, there will come a time (assuming we are striving earnestly and righteously, two huge caveats all their own) when this seed will “begin to swell” within us, to “enlighten [our] understanding” about that which we initially merely “desire” to know the truth of (Alma 32:27-28). Whatever it is, then, I came to accept that a testimony is a gift, something recognized or received or planted within us, a confirmation or a connection that comes to a person, granting them something that wasn’t there before.

At some point, as I continued to grow and study and debate and doubt, I also realized that the language of testimony needn’t be so tied to propositional knowledge: the presumably objective facts of Smith’s spiritual authority, the Book of Mormon’s authenticity, the Atonement’s reality. It could be tied to the simple feelings of fellowship which come along with being a practicing member of the community. Eventually, there came a time when it wouldn’t have surprised me if that (a reliance upon community feeling rather than revealed truth) turned out to be the case for a great majority of my fellow Mormons--indeed, I am still of such a mind. But years ago that realization didn’t much change my thinking, since whatever I thought of the matter, as a committed member of the church I could not easily discount what other members of the community apparently meant when they used the word “testimony.” And their use of that word troubled me. Because through my youth and missionary work, through my young adulthood and marriage, through becoming a father and a scholar, it seemed to me almost certain that I didn’t have one.

Almost certain, I should emphasize, for it has also always seemed to me (or at least, it had always seemed so by the time I had figured out a language and had developed enough of a self-awareness to be able to even ask myself this question) quite possible that I had received or recognized something, but had talked myself out of it. I seemed to be good at that, endlessly talking to myself, and that troubled me even more. For in fact I had had experiences--very rare and idiosyncratic experiences, to be sure, but experiences nonetheless (a lost wedding ring which was found following a heartfelt prayer is one that sticks in my mind)--that made me wonder if I hadn’t heard something, felt something, had something confirmed to me....but then the doubts would return, doubts attached to the same sins I’d struggled with for years, doubts that would loom up in my thinking as a confirmation of themselves--for if I really had recognized within myself or received from God a testimony, wouldn’t I know it? Thus, with frustration and confusion and not a little bitterness, I came to suspect that the gift of a testimony just wasn’t, for whatever reason, going to be mine.

So what changed, in the end? Perhaps nothing changed--I still am unclear as to whether, through all my church service and prayers and scripture study and occasional and careful speaking on fast Sundays, I have ever experienced or felt or heard something that would let me know, for a surety, the truthfulness of Joseph Smith’s prophetic claims, or of the Book of Mormon’s historicity, or the actuality of Christ’s Atonement. And, of course, as I mentioned above, a tend to suspect that often other feelings lay behind the words which we Mormons use to speak to each other about such things. But probably more importantly, I have also learned to attend to and appreciate other gifts I have....and perhaps that appreciation does constitute a change, after all.

For you see, I actually do know--with a knowledge which I have learned to identify as discursive and hermeneutic, something known not through revelation or insight, but through dialogue, experience, reflection, and interpretation--that I have one spiritual gift, or perhaps two (they’re related, I believe). My patriarchal blessing describes it as a gift of wisdom (D&C 46:17), but to me the truer description of my gift comes a couple of verses earlier in the revelation: while to some it is given to know “that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world,” it is my lot, I think, to rather believe the words of those who have that knowledge (vs. 13-14), even if it is not something I may ever be blessed with myself.

My conclusion, in other words, is that I have the gift of believing--which is not the same as knowing, but a gift which I have come to feel more and more grateful to be in possession of all the same. While I am uncertain and doubtful as to any direct influence the divine has had in my own life (and, indeed, am often highly--though I hope also tactfully!--critical of the details of many accounts of such influence which populate our culture), I do not fundamentally doubt the possible truth of any of them. I am open to the supernatural; the idea that an omniscient God may take interest in the life of an ordinary individual such as myself seems perfectly plausible. I have tried the atheistic route, and it was a failure: I simply couldn’t pretend to myself that I didn’t believe something, that I didn’t suffer from a sehnsucht or longing for that which I sensed was plainly there, despite my inability to actually apprehend any of it. In short, certainty eludes me, but credibility comes easily. When I see men and women whom I know to be good and loving and intelligent people testify that they have found truth through the priesthood ordinances elaborated by Joseph Smith, or a relationship with God through the words of the Book of Mormon, or healing through seeking the Atonement through prayer, fasting, and compassionate service in the church, I can see no reason to dispute them. I believe them: I believe the words of my father, my wife, and so many teachers and neighbors and friends I have been blessed with. While I don’t think I have within me any great conviction that they are all right, it doesn’t strike me as at all possible that they are all wrong. The way I even frame such questions arise from the community I am part of, and while embracing a community does not mean agreeing with every single part of it, it does mean acknowledging that one’s identity is not wholly separable from the beliefs which it conveys.

Such belief probably sounds somewhat indiscriminate, and perhaps it is to a degree. How do I distinguish the value I attach to the beliefs which arise from my own affective relationships to parents and teachers and friends and spouse from those which may arise for someone else whose loving environment differed from mine–a Catholic environment, a Buddhist one, a secular one? In truth, I do not. This is not to say I do not assess the beliefs I encounter in light of my own, and vice-versa; as Charles Taylor has argued, it is a central feature of all moral reasoning to subject our moral and spiritual intuitions to a “strong evaluation,” to comparative “discriminations of right or wrong, better or worse, higher or lower” (Sources of the Self [1992], pg. 4). I do engage in such judgments, all the time, and the resulting evaluations and distinctions make me, I hope, a better–perhaps even a truer–believer, more capable of expressing, and defending, the grounds and implications of that which seem eminently believable about those convictions others have testified to me of. But I cannot pretend that such evaluations amount to the ability to confidently assert a radical epistemological distinction on the part of my own beliefs over and above all others. Ultimately, the most I can say is that non-Mormon beliefs are not my own, and so I debate with and doubt them (though sometimes, upon consideration, I find sympathy with them as well) from the point of view of a tradition I am affectively–and happily–attached to.

That my beliefs are tied up with identity and attachment does not, I think, reduce their value or force. A willingness to Socratically struggle (with oneself and with others) over one’s received beliefs is not the same as relativism. Socrates himself was no sophist: he was a realist, in the sense that he never appeared to feel that there wasn’t something real to all his constant talking, even if he could never articulate it with certainty (indeed, even if, as was recorded, the most he was ever sure of was that he “knew nothing”). Socrates spoke of his daimon; we might speak of a sort of holistic intuition, or to borrow from the German romantic tradition, of verstehen. When describing King Solomon’s wisdom, the Old Testament record curiously speaks of not only his knowledge, but of his “largeness of heart” (1 Kings 4:29)--which I take to mean not simply his sympathy for others’ claims, but his capacity to believe what it was they said.

The fact that I can get all philosophical about what I suspect to be my most fundamental spiritual condition shouldn’t be taken to mean that I consider it to be an excellent one, as I don’t. Frankly, I’d much rather have conviction. I’d like to be able to speak--as so many I love and have learned from have themselves spoken--with certainty about this thing that I felt, these words which I heard, this miracle which I witnessed, this truth revealed to them. Being critical is often a drag, especially when one’s criticism so often ends up becoming self-criticism. (“You say you doubt that’s true, but don’t you also doubt your doubts?”) So I still pray for confirmation and revelation....though admittedly far less often than I used to, as my contemplation of the implications of my gift for believing, a believing which goes hand in hand with debating and doubting, have brought more contentment into my life as the years have gone by. As I reflect upon those I’ve known whose lack of conviction has led them anyway from the church, and think about how much my children need to see their parents grounded in something, I treasure the fact that somehow or another I am gifted with a naive belief in the Restoration, and the gospel of Christ.

In fact naivete, properly understood, is probably the best way to express all this. Paul Ricoeur described it as a “second naivete,” one which calls us across the “desert of criticism” and makes possible a certain kind of belief in or intuition of the reality of the sacred (The Symbolism of Evil [1967], pg. 349). To Ricoeur such naivete was a function of hermeneutics–which, it is worth noting, was originally a theological (indeed a pneumatological) endeavor, concerned with the role of spirit, or spirits, in the text or symbol or world. While I realize that it is dangerous to wish for things--as you may get what you desire--I still wish that I could be one of those who see and feel, with great immediacy, such spirits. But in any case, I’m glad that I believe they’re there.

Friday Morning Videos: "When Smokey Sings"

ABC was usually pegged as a New Wave band, and they had a few big hits as such, but they were too orchestral, and too willing to really swing or rock (for a while, Roxy Music's rhythm section provided their percussion), to entirely fit into the synthpop genre. Here's a little number they tried later on, under the influence of the Motown sound.



Pretty awesome, I say.

"Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote...."

Raced the rain clouds in to work this morning, but now they've broken apart, and I'm looking out of my third story windows across the Friends University campus, taking in the buds and pear tree blossoms waving in the wind, casting their shadows across the grass, and I'm feeling April all the way down to my toes. I feel like a hippie, that is.



Hard to think about teaching when I have a fence to fix, and a rototiller I need to borrow back from Paul; our garden isn't going to get ready by itself.