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November 15, 2018 2018 Eugene England Personal Essay Contest Winners
From the 2010 Summer Symposium in Salt Lake City
Presentation: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in the Mormon Community
Presenters:
Moderator: Kaimipono Wenger, JD, assistant professor, Thomas Jefferson Law School, San Diego.
Kristine Haglund, editor, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
Bridget Jack Jeffries, MA candidate, history of Christianity in America, Trinity Divinity School.
John Dehlin, PhD, clinical/counseling psychology, Utah State University, funder of Mormon Stories podcast, StayLDS.com

Abstract: The work of political economist Albert Hirschman suggests a nuanced approach to public dissatisfaction with an organization. Dissatisfied members of an organization, business, or nation have a variety of choices available, including both exit (simply leaving) and voice (discussing their dissatisfaction). As Hirschman notes, greater loyalty to the organization can correspond to greater use of voice. Contradicting traditional Mormon views, dissent may actually indicate greater loyalty to the organization than does silent acquiescence. Panelists will discuss loyalty, voice, exit, and dissent from a variety of angles, ultimately suggesting that the LDS understanding of public disagreement may be underdeveloped, and sketching ways in which legitimate dissent could take on a broader role in the LDS community.
Sunstone 2010, 274: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty in the Mormon Community
https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/podcast-player/18875/sunstone-2010-274-exit-voice-and-loyalty-in-the-mormon-community.mp3
Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 1:35:18
1 hr 36 min
November 15, 2018 2018 Eugene England Personal Essay Contest Winners

From the 1991 Summer Symposium in Salt Lake City
Presentation: Child Sexual Abuse in the LDS Community
Presenters:
Marion Burrows Smith, co-founded, former executive director, Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center.
Carlos Y. Robey, executive director, Intermountain Sexual Abuse Treatment Center; former director, Utah State Prison Residential Program for Sex Offenders.
Brent D. Ward, senior vice-president and general council. Huntsman Chemical Corporation; former U.S. Attorney, District of Utah.
Marsha, mother of a victim.
Laura Blanchard, program chairperson, Utah County Child Abuse Council; chairperson, Advisory Board for Utah County Children’s Justice Center.
Abstract: Child sexual abuse is epidemic in Utah with its 73 percent LDS population. The Church promotes comprehensive youth programs and a reverence for authority which gives perpetrators of sexual crimes unique access to fresh victims. LDS neighborhoods are warm and friendly, an ideal environment for child molesters, most of whom at relatives or family friends. When discovery of abuse occurs, untrained Church leaders may try to treat pedophilia and other sexual disorders with counseling which fails to alter behavior. The panel will explore ways to identity and treat victims and perpetrators. It will discuss typical Church and parental responses to reported abuse, examine the presence of neighborhood sex rings in Utah, outline help which is available, and offer suggestions for more effective ways of dealing with this illness in our society.
Sunstone 1991, 80: Child Sexual Abuse in the LDS Community
https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/podcast-player/18862/sunstone-1991-80-child-sexual-abuse-in-the-lds-community.mp3
Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 1:30:55
1 hr 31 min
November 02, 2018 Salvator Mundi
By Robert A. Rees
Robert A. Rees is the director of Mormon Studies at the Graduate Theological Union. He is compiling a collection of his essays on the Book of Mormon, and can be reached at [email protected].

On October 2017, I got a call from my son-in-law Paul Clark informing me that Salvator Mundi, a painting of Christ by Leonardo da Vinci, would have a rare three-day showing in San Francisco. I knew I had to be there.
So the next day, my friend Mara Alverson and I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and wended our way to Christie’s Auction House in the Dogpatch District. We were surprised to find only a few dozen people waiting in line and soon found ourselves standing eight feet from the painting, with a clear view and ample time to take it in.
According to Christie’s, Salvator Mundi is “one of fewer than 20 surviving paintings accepted as from the artist’s own hand.” But that confirmation was only made recently after a long history of its being attributed to one of da Vinci’s students and only after extensive cleaning and analysis by da Vinci experts. The painting, which has a long, uncertain, and even mysterious provenance, auctioned for over $450,000,000!
Standing in front of the painting, it seemed impossible to plumb the depths of Leonardo’s artistic-spiritual vision, even if I had hours to spend in its contemplation. I had the feeling that Leonardo had captured something of the Savior’s essence and presence that I had not seen in the thousands of other portrayals of Christ I have viewed over the past sixty years (including at a number of museums and galleries in London last summer). It was the same feeling I have when listening to Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions and his great Mass in B-Minor.
I have come to recognize that feeling in the presence of great art, music, and literature—“a witness of the spirit” that confirms the revelation of something both true and beautiful. Wallace Stevens says, “The wonder and mystery of art, as indeed of religion in the last resort, is the revelation of something ‘wholly other’ by which the inexpressible loneliness of thinking is broken and enriched.” Some of what is “wholly other” is revealed by what is “holy other”—spiritual insights of heart, mind, and soul that help one transcend the ordinary to experience the extraordinary. That’s what I felt pondering Leonardo’s Christ.
We have very little knowledge of what Christ looked like. Most scripture scholars and cultural archeologists posit that the Nazarene likely looked like a typical Jewish man of his time. After all, he is recorded as easily slipping away from crowds or enemies, and Judas had to specifically identify him to those seeking his harm. Thus, we can speculate that physically he had no especially distinguishing features. This is confirmed by Isaiah who said, “He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (53:2). But his spiritual beauty was always there for those who had eyes to see, as is evident in Leonardo’s spiritual imagination. As the artist himself said, “There are three classes of people: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.”
Salvaltor Mundi utterly captivated me—through both the painting itself and its constituent parts. For example, I was drawn into the deep blue of Christ’s tunic and stole, which is made richer by Leonardo’s technique of beginning with underpainting and then applying glazes in a style known as sfumato (from the Italian word meaning “smoke”). In da Vinci’s own words: “When a transparent color lies over another color differing from it, a compound color is composed which differs from each of the simple colors.”
It is significant that Christ’s tunic is blue, a color associated in Medieval paintings with “heavenly grace,” which is why it is also the color most often identified with Mary,
12 min
November 02, 2018 Tower
By Ryan McIlvain
Ryan McIlvain is the author of Elders (2013) and The Radicals (2018). A former Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford, McIlvain has taught writing and literature at Rutgers, Stanford, and USC.

Dad came home that afternoon from a last-minute grocery run, honking the horn from the driveway. I’d just turned thirteen, or maybe fourteen—springtime in any case, the air cool outside, greening.
“Take this to your crazy mother,” Dad said when I came to the car window, handing me a trio of Stop & Shop bags stretched taut with milk and butter and other dinner ingredients—and of course Dad’s soda and candy bars. A boyish sweet tooth into his early middle-age, and a damnable tendency to procrastinate shopping—it was the Sabbath! Dad had skipped church that morning, yet he was dressed for home teaching. He took that seriously. A pair of clip-on ties between us, baggy khakis, white socks, and black dress shoes.
When I got back to the idling car, Dad and I left for the McClintocks. Every month, Dad said, Let’s go hometock the McClinteaches, and he said it again now. His particular brand of Christian duty required him to check up on a family in the ward, in this case the six-spoked McClintock wheel, held together on a high school math teacher’s salary and carried around in a dying station wagon. For my part, I contributed the monthly home teaching lessons: a boy’s exegeses, though really I considered them better than most Mormon homilies—better organized, better phrased. I already thought of myself as something of a writer.
Dad drove us in his rickety gray Taurus, the foot wells flooded with Mountain Dew cans (“Get me another Mormon beer, son!”), the cup holders deep with gum and candy wrappers, a grime-glued collection of coins at the bottom. The car’s scent was sweet, its surfaces sticky. There was the time Dad picked me up from basketball practice and bought us Frosties on the way home, asking about the team and my progress in it, riffing on the Military Hard-Assed Father from The Great Santini (“My children excel at sports!”) and then, in an apparent non sequitur, starting into the scene from Shine where the Old Country Father explodes over the bathwater soiled by his son. You shit in the tub? You disgusting animal! How dare you shit in the tub! Arm flailing ecstatically with the invisible wet towel, until Dad’s wrist caught the Frosty in my hand and sent the cold brown gelid sauce all over my shorts, the seat, the side console. “Oh no, no,” Dad said, but he wasn’t angry. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did it get on you?” I was laughing. “I’m sorry,” Dad said, “I’ll get you another one. I’m really sorry.”
He turned the car around, still apologizing, filling the air with unexpected tenderness. “I get carried away sometimes,” he was saying. “I hope I didn’t ruin your shorts—you like those ones, don’t you? I’m really sorry, Sean.”
At the McClintocks, Dad and I sat on a low, caved couch, leaning forward to get our postures sufficiently solemn. They’d been dealt a blow, Sister McClintock told us, looking over to her husband who looked at the floor. The two of them sat at either side of the longer couch, bookending their usually fidgety children, three younger boys and then Jill, an uneasy friend of mine with carrot-colored hair, known to lord her year of seniority over me. This afternoon, though, all the lordliness had gone out of her. She looked as drained and chastened as her little pale siblings, her thin, tall mother, her stockier father. A paisley swath of green oak leaves spangled in the window, turning matte-side and shine-side, filtering complicated light into the room. At last Dad spoke up and said he hoped the family knew they could count on us. If there was anything we could do—
“There is,” Sister McClintock said, not unkindly, but first they’d hear the lesson we’d prepared. The family’s eyes shifted over to me; they knew the ...
31 min
November 02, 2018 Words Matter: Lines Written in a Pew
By Anita Tanner

This is how religion kills language:
it mounts a thought,
drives and whips it to a frenzied destination
high on a mountain peak—
the ultimate, unquestioned authority
of words, unaware
how riding wreaks language,
bleeds wounds spurred by desire
here on the peak of performance.

How facile, this peak,
to know a thing, not trust, believe,
or hope for, but know assuredly,
out of touch with the lush valley down below
where words, engendered by gentle teasing,
coax nuanced meaning
broken, mysterious.
1 min
November 02, 2018 A Dove and a Serpent
By Tom Kimball
Tom Kimball is an English student at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, Ohio where he also works as a staff volunteer at the Kirtland Temple.

Set in the heart of the garden was a thorn of sorts. A tree. A slash of red and blue in an ocean of greens and browns.
The tree was terrible, and beautiful. It caught the eye, and it didn’t let go. Everything around it was soft, centered, and perfect; but the tree was harsh, vibrant, and fantastic.
Eve was beginning to understand that this tree wasn’t going away, and no matter what she did or how far she walked, it would forever call her back until she was standing again in front of the weaving branches and twisting trunk.
A dove alit in her hand. It was beautiful, white, and warm.
“What will happen?” asked Eve.
“Everything,” said the dove.
“Why would I want that?” she said.
“You won’t. You’ll feel such suffering, you’ll wish you’d never even seen me. But you will experience such joy, you’ll forget I ever existed.”
“Why do I have to choose?” asked Eve.
“Because you are brave. And Adam is loyal. He dares not imagine even a single day without you.”
Then the dove spread her soft wings and lifted into the air.
“Adam,” said Eve. “I have to go, and I can never come back. But I want you with me. I can’t promise we will always be happy, I can’t promise I won’t betray you, or hurt you, or even love you all the time.”
Taking a breath, Eve locked eyes with a stunned Adam and said, “But I want to love you, and I want to be with you.”
So Adam picked up a rock and smashed flat the head of the serpent that had been whispering in his ear for so long.
And then there was everything.
Hurt, sorrow, and despair; pleasure, love, and joy—all in the lives of Mother Eve and Father Adam.
3 min
November 02, 2018 420 North
By Alex Peterson
Alex Peterson was born of goodly parents. He lives in Ephraim, Utah with his wife and offspring, with whom he likes to hang.

The whispering came again—this time a hint stronger than before. The feeling was distinct, like what they taught me in Sunday school. I don’t think it was just the sweet pork burrito talking.
I was driving back home on Highway 89. The air was warm with spring and hay fever, but I had the windows down anyway to celebrate the end of a long, dark winter. The car hit a dip at the county line and the Sanpete County asphalt abruptly became rough and cracked. My hair blew around in the wind and I squinted at the sun, but I left my sunglasses folded on the dashboard. The dreaded dark of February was still too close and I didn’t want to filter any sunlight from my chemically challenged brain.
The voice came again.
I considered rebuking it out loud in the name of Jesus, with my right arm to the square, using a phrase Bishop Larsen employed to cleanse apartments of evil spirits. But I didn’t. The voice didn’t have a scary feeling; it was peaceful and calm.
“But this isn’t the way it should work,” I thought.
“Try it. What have you got to lose?” the voice whispered.
“What have I got to lose?” (I actually said this aloud.) “My life in jail, for starters. This isn’t Colorado—it’s Utah. Red state—not blue. Fry sauce, not cannabis.”
“So, let’s combine both states—Utarado? Coloratah? Let’s do fry sauce and thc, with some fat fries for the munchies. You can’t tell me it’s any worse than your list of crazy anti-depressants. Or sedatives. Or sugar. Or those huge Diet Pepsis.”
“But it’s obviously against the Word of Wisdom.”
“So is too much beef.”
“Following the admonition of the Church has kept me safe. I respect my leaders and I just can’t see the brethren ever approving it.”
“So what else is new? The jury is out on mocha ice cream, you know. And inter-racial marriage is still a four-letter word in some households—but Lamanite/White and Delightsome weddings are getting more common now. Times are a-changing.”
“It’s not just the Church. Have you seen the Reefer Madness videos? It’s a gateway drug. Even some of my out-of-town friends who drink think marijuana is bad.”
“They say, as they pour another bottle of wine and fade into oblivion,” the voice answered. “You don’t even have to smoke it, dude. You can eat thc gummy bears or granola bars. You can even make it into green Jell-O salad with shredded carrots if it makes you feel better.”
“Just because Mike said it was a godsend doesn’t mean it will work miracles on me,” I replied.
“But what if it took the edge off, or gave you back some sanity? What if it actually is a gift from God to you? Via Colorado?”
“Get thee behind me, Satan,” I said loudly. The road was climbing up a mountain pass now, the smell of sage and earth blowing through the open windows. The trees got thicker and the air cooler as the miles passed.
I started to relax.
“I’m still here, dude.”
“What kind of spirit talks like this? The Holy Lebowski?”
“Or HG, or Poltergeisterino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing. Whatever, man. You’re the one talking to yourself. Plus, I don’t use the f-word.”
The car eased over the pass and began descending toward the mountain valley. The “herbal” idea had come on gradually—an article here, a podcast there, a few friends from out of town who told me about relief from back pain, from epilepsy, from anxiety and depression. And then, last year, I fell into a pit so deep, dark, and hopeless that I nearly lost my will to trudge through life.
The pit drained even my desire to move. I couldn’t read or watch movies. Even if I wanted to talk to someone about the problem, my tongue was too exhausted to make words. It drained my ability to experience wonder and robbed my capacity f...
16 min
November 02, 2018 An LGBTQ Borderlander
By D. Jeff Burton
D. Jeff Burton is the author of For Those Who Wonder and a former member of the Sunstone board of directors.

In this column I share the story of a gay/bisexual man I’ve become acquainted with over email. Names and details are changed to protect his privacy (and job).

Nate: I have been reading your Sunstone column for many years. I can relate closely to some of the experiences people have in the LDS Borderlands, especially those who are partially or totally in the closet. Personally, I’m partially in two closets: the Borderlands closet and the LGBTQ closet. But I’ve had pretty good success reconciling this situation with my Mormonism. Perhaps some of your readers will find my experiences interesting and even helpful.

Jeff: I’m glad you contacted me. We’re always looking for thoughtful, meaningful stories from members like you. Borderland experiences, good and bad, have helped many people, and I’m grateful to everyone who has shared their stories in this column.1
Can I start off by having you fill out the standard questionnaire?
(Nate’s edited responses to our Borderland questionnaire follow.)

* How would you describe your upbringing in the Church?

I was born of goodly parents, a second child with one older sister and two younger sisters—all of us about a year and half apart. My mother was really hands-on with us, but my dad kept very busy with his careers—in business and in the Church. He was in bishoprics and the stake high council during most of my years growing up. He was a good man and set a good example for us, but he could be a little doctrinaire about our religious life.

* What is your current status in the Church?

I’m married with two grown children and I attend church meetings frequently with my wife. I don’t currently have an “important” calling, but I do help with ward dinners, substitute teaching, service projects, and Primary (my wife’s calling). My callings depend on the kind of bishop we have at the time. Some don’t seem to know how to deal with guys like me, while others try to bring me closer to the center. I go to church mostly because I just like being with my neighbors and friends in the ward.

* What issues / events / actions / concerns caused you to move into (or through) the “Borderlands?”

That’s a complicated question. I’ll have to give you a little background.
Since I grew up with mostly females in my daily life, I was very comfortable being with my sisters and their friends. I even put on a dress once in a while just for kicks (though I see now that they probably thought I was joking or making fun of them). When I was about nine years old my dad asked me why I didn’t go out and play with the boys more often. “I just feel more comfortable and happy with the girls,” I thought. But I didn’t tell my dad that. He likely thought that a boy playing with girls meant the kid was a sissy.
When I turned twelve, I was ordained a deacon and started socializing more with guys my age. I guess I was going through puberty about that time because I noticed that one boy in the quorum was really cute. I wasn’t surprised or upset by my reaction; I just thought it was what every guy felt. I was starting to get erections around that time but I didn’t know why or how they occurred, especially since they sometimes happened around guys I liked.
In other words, I didn’t know much about sex and gender identity at that point. I lived in an era, a family, and a part of Utah where those topics weren’t discussed. Honestly, when I heard people joke about a guy “being gay,” I thought they meant he was being a happy nerd.
One Sunday, during my first few months as a deacon, my bishop took all the Aaronic priesthood boys into a large classroom and started laying down the la...
17 min
November 02, 2018 Poured Out Like Water
By Charlotte Johnson Willian
Charlotte Johnson Willian is a child/family advocate who resides in the southern hills of Indiana, where she is surrounded by the trees she loves. This essay received first place in the 2017 Eugene England Memorial Personal Essay Contest.

A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, could explain the universe to us.
—Lucy Larcom

Each week, I listen intently as my son or fellow priests articulate prescribed prayers over bread and water—a moment of simple reverence overcoming teenage defiance.
Fingers that work a keyboard, thumbs that relay text messages, hands that save Earth from planetary aliens by video game now solemnly tear bread—break the body of the Savior—and pour tap water, splashing the freely-offered life blood.
Some of the most familiar words of scripture for Mormons, the invocation begins as one of the family of faith—“we ask thee”—then veers away from the body of saints. “That they may eat . . . and witness . . . and are willing . . .” The mouthpiece must capture God’s attention and plead the cause of those gathered—they will eat and remember and obey if they may always have his Spirit; words on behalf of the congregation that my daughters will never voice. Grant the mouthpiece a portion of Spirit too, despite him drinking orange juice straight from the jug, belching at dinner, and—on the drive to church—beseeching others in the car to Walk this way / Walk this way along with Aerosmith.
Upon the arrival of a gleaming tray, I bypass the bits of rice cake and lift a morsel of bread, pledging faith and obedience for renewal. I bring a portion of clear liquid to my mouth and picture Christ on the path to Golgotha, catch the last drop of the tiny offering on my tongue, close my lips to doubt and replace the empty cup. The priests receive the final trays and serve the token bearers, then solemnly smooth the table covering free of wrinkles. At a signal, the young men turn from the place of offering and find spots with their families, sitting near the ends of pews or politely squeezing past sets of knees; these same boys who play hard on activity night—driving to the basket with legs askew, springing wildly from the path of the dodgeball, or leaping to grab a flying disc. Bless and sanctify our fibrils of connection.

The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
—Isak Dinesen

In a small coastal town of Denmark, my mother, Grete, and her five siblings grew up in a series of tiny apartments, occasionally with an additional attic sleeping room. Understandably, the children spent much of their time outdoors playing, biking, or swimming in Horsens Fjord, a small inlet off the Baltic Sea. This was not the swimming of my childhood, nor that of my children, in monitored public pools surrounded by brightly colored beach towels on adjustable lounge chairs. My mother and her siblings biked to narrow, grassy beaches and raced down roped wooden piers. They swam and reveled in often-frigid water. My adventurous mother, a “tomboy,” was the apple of her father’s eye and the first in her family to own a bike with gears, a 3-speed beauty.
My mother discovered an American religion, Mormonism, and, several years later, romance with a former missionary farm boy from Utah. She crossed an overwhelmingly wide Atlantic Ocean to the United States in 1954—long before text messaging, the Internet, or even cheap international telephone calls. My grandfather, unable to face a shipside farewell, refused to accompany his favorite daughter for her embarkation from Copenhagen aboard the ship Stavangerfjord. She and my grandmother faced that moment alone.
Despite her Viking ancestry and hardy constitution, my mother endured the crossing seasick, contemplating her immeasurable losses and only promised gains. Seven years later,
27 min
November 02, 2018 I Was Raised by Communists!
By R. A. Christmas

Thank God—because my sweet grandpa admired
Senator Bob Taft, disliked FDR, and was all for
“shipping the Negroes back to Africa,”

and my sour grandpa would back me into a corner
of his warehouse, and tell me I didn’t know how
to work, and why he hated the Teamsters.

And thank God (again) my folks unknowingly
let me sleep-over at my best friend’s house, whose
parents were “pinko-commie-sympathizers”

who took us swimming (naked) in the Pauling’s
pool, with the ladies cracking up when my friend
fell asleep in the sun and sprang a hard-on,

where I came to love Weavers and Paul Robeson
records, and saw his mom dance in their kitchen
when “Misha” made bail for the Hollywood Ten,

where I learned (in ‘48) that Nixon was a tricky
dick, and us boys sang “This Land is Your Land”
to the Tubman Society (a front)—all of which

in a wacked-out way prepared me to later accept
and follow the greatest 19th century socialist
of them all, the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith,

who ran for President, promised to end slavery,
and infamously said, “I intend to lay a foundation
that will revolutionize the whole world.” Amen.

2 min

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