From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #898 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 Tuesday, November 19 2002 Volume 01 : Number 898 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 13:49:08 -0700 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Women in DeVore BofM Movie At 01:50 PM 11/13/02 -0500, you wrote: >The website has an artist's rendition of a heavily cloaked woman with >her face exposed, one of several portraits floating in space around a topless >beefcake with rippling pecs and washboard abs. Hunkaliscious! > >My gay friends (and Barbara Hume) are rubbing their hands together in >anticipation. Quick! What's the URL? barbara hume, who appreciates the aesthetic qualities of eternal design work - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 03:03:51 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] Kirby on Evans/DB (SL Tribune) KIRBY: Is Bible Next on Banned Books List? Saturday, November 16, 2002 BY ROBERT KIRBY Salt Lake Tribune Columnist Deseret Book recently announced new moral guidelines for books the LDS Church-owned chain will carry. Ironically, among those works failing the new moral muster is The Last Promise, the latest heart tug by best-selling Mormon author Richard Paul Evans. The Last Promise allegedly (I haven't read it) contains scenes wherein a married woman submits to hugs from a man not her husband without being immediately disfellowshipped. You would expect Deseret Book to yank my books. Heck, one of them even has the word "hell" in the title. Meanwhile, my novel Dark Angel contains scenes of nudity and the words "shucks" and "darn." But Richard Evans? Come on, how much more Mormon can you get than Richard? Well, apparently a lot. Deseret Book says a survey of its customers revealed that many are churchgoers awaiting transfiguration even as they shop, and who do not like to encounter bad stuff on the shelves. Fortunately, the new guidelines put Richard and me in lofty company. Some truly great authors may also get the toss, including Shakespeare, Steinbeck and Bronte. Still, I cannot point out just how weenie Deseret Book is without confessing my own sins against Richard. I am also guilty of interfering with his access to the marketplace. Several years ago, while signing our own books at Media Play, Pat Bagley and I were seated at a table next to a stack of Richard's enormously popular book The Christmas Box. What transpired next is not something of which I am proud -- though admittedly I still find it humorous -- and I hasten to add that it was done out of sheer boredom rather than envy or malice. During lulls in the crowd, I would surreptitiously pull copies of The Christmas Box from the stack and place an "autographed copy" sticker on the dust jacket. Then on the inside cover I wrote, "Bah! Humbug!" and signed it "Richard Paul Evans." I only did it maybe three or four times. However, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to Richard, although I bet he laughs when he reads this even as he reaches for the phone to call his lawyer. Now that we have that out in the open it is time to take a page from Jimmy "Lusting in my Heart" Carter's book and wave the olive branch. Here is what I propose: I promise not to help Richard with his book signings any more if Deseret Book will back its corset off a notch or two and display his book. For his part, Richard might agree in future printings of The Last Promise to add a chapter wherein the hugging harlot gets hacked to pieces by an angel with a flaming sword, or possibly just whipped by some Danites. Until we can work out the details, I think Richard and I should continue portraying life the way we envision it, including the odd bout of cursing and/or extramarital hugging. Meanwhile, Deseret Book should continue to dump books that contain scenes depicting murder, incest, genocide, lying, adultery, robbery, anarchy, assaults, cannibalism and child abuse. OK, maybe not the Bible and the Book of Mormon. But everything else. Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 21:11:47 -0800 From: Robert Slaven Subject: [AML] Re: New Hymns From: margaret young > The late Clint Larsen was adament on the need for new hymns--and would, I'm > sure, have written a whole hymnbook himself if he had been given permission. > For most of us, the green hymnbook is still relatively new and does have some > nice additions from the blue one many of us grew up with and used for our > tabernacle rubbings in crayon. The "new" book left out (as I've heard that > Michael Moody readily admits) a hymn that never should've been nixed: "Come > Thou Fount." It also doesn't include (as Moody has purportedly said it > should've) "Amazing Grace." I need to go through the old book again. I only joined in 1981, so I hardly had time to get to know it before the new green one came out. > Of course, I would really like some good > traditional spirituals in the hymnbook (and permission to SING THEM. When I > was music chair, I was told we could have no sacrament meeting solos that > sounded like Negro Spirituals--which is a really stupid rule.). Oh, so it's not just my old singles branch president. I was assistant choir director, I was helping put a Christmas program together, and I'd found this great arrangement for five male voices (four parts and a soloist) of 'Mary had a baby'. And our branch president nixed it! I was so bummed! (For those who don't know it: "Mary had a baby, yes, Lord, Mary had a baby, yes dear Lord, Mary had a baby, yes, Lord, the people keep-a comin' and the train done gone.") > I'd like some non-European songs. Hear hear! Not that I know any that leap to mind, but surely there's some good stuff out there from some of our African and Asian brothers and sisters. > I'd like to import more hymns, like "Blessed Assurance" > and "Precious Lord". (I sang "Blessed Assurance" in Genesis once as a solo > and Pres. Gray received a complaint that Genesis was going Baptist. I haven't > sung a solo since.) I'd like some songs that you'd WANT to clap to, even if > you were urged not to--songs like "This Little Light of Mine", "He's Got the > Whole World in his Hands", "O Happy Day" and "Amen!" I definitely think the > Spanish hymn sung every Christmas in Mexico which searches for the holy baby > should be in the hymnbook, and I would like "Moscow Lights" to be given gospel > lyrics. And I want Mormons to learn how to sing like the gospel was exciting > and maybe even joyful. Don't have the exact quote, but didn't Gladys Knight say at a fireside or something (where the prophet was at least in attendance, if not actually speaking himself) how much she loved the gospel and the church, "but man, do we ever have to work on our music!"? Praying for Sister Knight to be called and sustained as General Church Music Buttkicker.... Robert (still chafing at the 'no brass instruments' rule...grumblegrumblegrumble) ********************************************************************** Robert & Linn-Marie Slaven www.robertslaven.ca ...with Stuart, Rebecca, Mariann, Kristina, Elizabeth, and Robin too 'Man is that he might have joy--not guilt trips.' (Russell M. Nelson) - --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.410 / Virus Database: 231 - Release Date: 2002/10/31 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 14:04:36 EST From: BroHam000@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] New Age Mormons? Paris Anderson wrote: I've been very disappointed in the Church over the last year, because there never are results. With Ch'i Gung the results are dramatic. That's hard for me to understand, because I know the Church is true and it is the Kingdom of God. So what gives? Does that mean you might find answers in the Church, but if you need results--go somewhere else? That's what experience teaches me. To me the answer is kind of in the question...there IS nowhere else to go. = =20 "All truth...one great whole", right? Brigham Young said "The Latter-day=20 Saints realize that there is no period of man's existence not incoporated=20 with the plan of salvation, and directly pointing to a future existence. =20 Consequently, when we stand here to speak to the people, let every man speak= =20 what is in his heart. If one of our Elders is capable of giving us a= lecture=20 upon any of the sciences, let it be delivered in the spirit of meekness --= in=20 the spirit of the holy Gospel. If, on the Sabbath day, when we are= assembled=20 here to worship the Lord, one of the Elders should be prompted to give us a= =20 lecture on any branch of education with which he is acquainted, is it= outside=20 the pale of our religion? I think not. ...It matters not what the subject= =20 be, if it tends to improve the mind, exalt the feelings, and enlarge the=20 capacity. The truth that is in all the arts and sciences forms a part of= our=20 religion. Faith is no more a part of it than any other true principle of=20 philosophy. ...Were I to lecture on...principles of any kind, our religion= =20 embraces it; and what it does not circumscribe, it would be well for us to= =20 dispense with...(Discourses of Brigham Young, pp. 331-32)". Also, ""Our=20 doctrine and practice is, and I have made it mine through life -- to receive= =20 truth no matter where it comes from. (p. 11)" In other words, if you prayed and were led to results through Tai Chi and=20 other disciplines, and the spirit of truth was present in those results,=20 those things are just as much a part of the Gospel, the Church, and the=20 Kingdom of God, as any other. Go for it. Linda Hyde - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 12:46:19 -0700 From: "Jacob Proffitt" Subject: RE: [AML] New Age Mormons? - ---Original Message From: Paris Anderson > > I've been very disappointed in the Church over the last year, > because there never are results. With Ch'i Gung the results > are dramatic. That's hard for me to understand, because I > know the Church is true and it is the Kingdom of God. So > what gives? Does that mean you might find answers in the > Church, but if you need results--go somewhere else? That's > what experience teaches me. Kind of. The church doesn't endorse any specific regimens, spiritual or physical. Think about it--even spiritually they don't go beyond saying "read your scriptures daily" and "pray always". Well, *how* should we study scriptures? What should we pray about? Physically, they tell us our bodies are temples and that we should take care of them. Well, care for them how? How often should I exercise and what exercises should I use? Very broad guidelines. I'm pretty sure that this is a deliberate choice. After all, the point is that each member be personally engaged in their salvation (physical or spiritual) and definitive statements or programs would make our decisions rote--and discourage actual understanding. Our purpose here isn't to live as blind automatons. Our purpose is to learn those things that have eternal importance--and to adapt ourselves to make those lessons viable. We aren't given answers on a platter--we're given answers after looking hard and learning not only a lot of information but how to develop criteria and qualifications for our answers. This is how Gnostics go so wrong--it isn't *just* stuff we have to know. We have to find reasons and figure our causality and delve into complex interactions and counter-indications. And *then* we have to implement what we've learned in our own lives in all its complexities (which is the toughest part for me, frankly--I always know more than I do). It's tough. The gospel just isn't for wimps or people looking for easy answers to all of life's tough questions. The answers are *there*, mind. They're just not easy. Jacob Proffitt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 14:10:01 -0700 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] New Age Mormons? At 10:46 AM 11/14/02 -0700, you wrote: >I've been very disappointed in the Church over the last year, because there >never are results. With Ch'i Gung the results are dramatic. That's hard >for me to understand, because I know the Church is true and it is the >Kingdom of God. So what gives? Does that mean you might find answers in >the Church, but if you need results--go somewhere else? That's what >experience teaches me. Those things that are good and true are part of the Gospel, even if not part of the church structure. God gave you a brain and body, with which you have been discovering concepts of value to you. That takes away nothing from the Church. I have had results because of the Church -- for example, I have had emotional and physical healings that would not have happened for me before I found the Church, because I didn't know how to establish that two-way contact with our Father in Heaven. But I've also found much that has given me peace from sources not obviously connected with the Church. God gave me a son, whom I raised by myself, and he is now a physical therapist who helped me recently when I blew out my knee. That sounds as though it could have happened anyway --- my son is naturally geared toward helping people - -- but without the Church I might not have been able to bring him up as I did. When I first investigated the Church, I loved the fact that they were accepting of all the gifts available to people, whether or not they come through the formal structure of the LDS establishment. barbara hume - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 16:17:09 -0700 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] Reading Copies >The "not for resale" is there to prevent bookstores or dealers from >selling the advanced reading copy as if it were a published copy of the >book. ARCs are frequently printed before the final copy edit, and are >almost never printed or bound as well as the published book. Thanks for the clarification. I receive many ARCs because I write reviews for several Web sites; most of them are simply printed sheets held together by a binder clip, but some are in a nicely bound form (although, as you say, often with errors not yet corrected). If I like the book well enough to keep it, it's nice having it in a form that fits well on the bookshelf. barbara hume - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 03:12:08 +0000 From: "Andrew Hall" Subject: [AML] UDALL, _The Forgotten Founders_ (Below is a featuer on Udall, then a book review) Deseret News Sunday, November 17, 2002 Stewart Udall: troubled optimist By Dennis Lythgoe Deseret News book editor Former government officials do not ordinarily write books, unless it is in the category of autobiography. But Stewart Udall, former member of Congress and U.S. secretary of the Interior under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, figures he doesn't have to do "an ego trip" like that. He says a full- fledged Udall biography that will tell his story "warts and all" is already being written by Ross Peterson, Utah State University history professor. So Udall has instead written about "The Forgotten Founders" of the Old West, both a historical and personal look at what he regards as the important people of westward settlement - the Indians, missionaries, pioneers and farmers who did the actual work of settlement. It was not the gunslingers like Wild Bill Hickok and Billy the Kid, though Hollywood has anointed them for stardom. And it is certainly not the miners who blasted away entire mountains and permanently scarred the landscape. Udall has already written four other books, the most important being "The Quiet Crisis," written in 1963 during his service in the Kennedy administration, and "The Myths of August" (1994), about the Cold War and the tragedy of bomb testing that led to the health plight of downwinders. The first has been judged by environmentalists as a major engine to the environmental movement of that era (although the most important book about ecology, says Udall, was written the previous year by Rachel Carson, "The Silent Spring"). During a spirited interview in the offices of the Deseret News, Udall, who now lives in Santa Fe, called Carson's book "the fountainhead of the ecological movement. She said we have to look at the whole planet =97 the entire system. Because it was an international best-seller and translated into 18 languages, it is still read today as a bible of conservation, built on the foundation started by Teddy Roosevelt." Udall believes he was able to capitalize on Carson's excellent "kick-off" by writing his own book and promoting the environment through presidents who were friendly to his policies. "There is= =20 a cycle in American politics. In the '60s and '70s, through Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter, we were able to establish new values. The last 20 years represent a different period with arguments and divisions we didn't have before." Udall remembers that when he went into President Kennedy's Cabinet, "most of the rivers in this country were sewers, very badly polluted. We developed policy for the rivers with the federal government putting up half the money. Utah today remains a battleground for land-use policies." "I was startled when Gov. Leavitt came out recently for a national park in the San Rafael Swell. I've been waiting for this to happen, and I think it suggests subtle changes in Utah. After all, it was an Idaho U.S. senator, Frank Church, who led the floor fight for the Wilderness Bill. I call myself a troubled optimist who expects a new consensus on environmental values in the next few years." (Udall's greatest contributions were "The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act" and "The Land and Water Conservation Fund.") Udall is still working on the downwind controversy, trying to get compensation for Navajo Indians who were exposed to radiation from uranium mining. "I'm trying to finish up by next summer. How many lawyers are actively practicing law at 82? Not very many. It gives me satisfaction to help people." The new book on westward settlement he regards as his last book, because he is suffering from macular degeneration and can't do major research any more. "I'm in the category now where I can pretend to be an elder statesman. This book comes out of my reflections about my own life. I was fortunate that my life has a larger span than my actual years. In a way, I felt like I'd grown up on the frontier." So, has Udall the politician and advocate become a historian in his later years? "I'm not a trained historian, but I've taken the advice of many of my historian friends, such as Leonard Arrington, Nancy Limerick, Richard White and Ross Peterson. "Another of my great friends was Wallace Stegner (the now deceased Utah-bred novelist and historian who advocated environmentalism). I'm trying to correct the record. That's audacious, I suppose. But I felt that when I looked at the Gold Rush, the settlers and the role of religion in the Old West, they deserved to be treated separately. The gunslingers and the miners came later, yet they've been lumped together and glorified by Hollywood." Udall calls his focus "the wagon people, who put a few tools and some belongings in wagons and took their wives and children 1,000 miles or more. That's heroic. " So to personalize the book, Udall used some of the stories of his own ancestors, including Jacob Hamblin and John D. Lee. He also took the legendary Bernard DeVoto, who grew up in Ogden "to the woodshed" for emphasizing fur trappers over religious settlers. "He was a brilliant writer who won a Pulitzer Prize, but his writing was not history." Udall feels strongly that his own Mormon roots are among the most important, so he gives them proper credit, even though he is not himself "a church-going Mormon." "I lived in a Mormon village for 18 years (the small northeastern Arizona hamlet of St. Johns), and my views of land and resources come from my Mormon upbringing. "I like the story about Henry David Thoreau, who, when he was on his death bed, his family sent for a minister. The minister said, 'Henry, have you made your peace with God?' Thoreau said, 'I didn't know we'd quarreled.' "That answers the question for me, too." 'Founders' honors forgotten pioneers By Dennis Lythgoe Deseret News book editor THE FORGOTTEN FOUNDERS: RETHINKING THE HISTORY OF THE OLD WEST, by Stewart L. Udall, Island Press, 237 pages, $25. With "The Forgotten Founders," former U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall has written a revisionist history of the Old West. Although his training is in the law and the majority of his experience is in government, Udall has written a very interesting book that slams the prominence of fur traders, miners and gunslingers while applying a pat on the back to the Indians, missionaries, pioneers and farmers who represent "the bedrock of settlement." He has not hesitated to place into the mix some of his own ancestors, including John D. Lee, infamous for his role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, as examples of those who sacrificed and built up the American West. This is history with a personal touch, but it reads very well. Perhaps it has something to do with Udall's longtime association with such professional historians as Alvin Josephy and Ross Peterson. Or maybe he could have lived another life as a scholar. Udall's major focus is what he considers the underrated role of religion in the settlement process, with an asterisk by the Mormons. Since Udall is a Mormon himself and served an LDS mission as a young man, this can easily be seen as one of his more pronounced biases. Yet Udall has spent most of his life as a non-practicing Mormon, so his praise of the Mormon pioneers takes on even more relevance: "As creators of new communities, energetic Mormons excelled on several counts. The reach of the 96 settlements they initiated in their first decade in the Salt Lake Valley is astounding." He also believes that Franciscan friars and Protestant and Catholic pioneers have not been given their due for helping to carve out Western society. He classifies their goals in a series of counter-phrases =97 "amity not conquest; stability not strife; conservation not waste; restraint not aggression." Udall's purpose, then, is to blow away the so-called "myths" that bother him about how Western history has so often been told. He is far from the first to write such a revisionist interpretation, however, and he will likely get some robust critiques from Western scholars who have focused their research on trapping, mining and outlaws. But his view is well-expressed and logical in presentation. It is also feisty, especially when he takes on one of the most legendary writers and historians of the West, Pulitzer Prize-winning Bernard DeVoto, author of a frontier trilogy - "The Year of Decision," "Across the Wide Missouri" and "The Course of Empire" =97 and winner of numerous prizes for his writing. Udall does not consider DeVoto a historian at all and criticizes him because he began his career as a novelist who wrote under the pseudonym "John August." "His bravura debut as a historian can be attributed to his masterful writing and to his ability to transform raw materials of history into exciting folk dramas. "DeVoto believed that 'history was surcharged with romanticism,' a conviction that unfortunately led him to ignore ordinary settlers in his accounts and build his stories around scenes and characters he deemed more colorful." Udall is less convincing when he takes on the powerful DeVoto legacy than when he touts the triumphs of the settlement process - but if DeVoto were here, he would undoubtedly give as well as he received. Copyright 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.=20 http://join.msn.com/?page=3Dfeatures/featuredemail - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 22:38:44 -0500 From: "Tracie Laulusa" Subject: Re: [AML] New Hymns I'm with you Margaret. Blessed Assurance is one of my favorites. We did a choir arrangement (purchased from Jackman) and didn't receive one complaint. I heard George Dyer sing Come Thou Font of Every Blessing recently. Truly lovely. I have wondered why the early church declined to use hymns from other religions. Could it possibly be that because there was such religious fervor at the time that it would have caused some real contention among those who had converted from other sects, as most everyone did? I don't know. But if that was the case, it shouldn't apply now--almost two hundred years later. Surely we can listen to the music of other faiths and rejoice in that which is wonderful. Tracie Laulusa - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:11:41 -0700 From: "Kathy Fowkes" Subject: Re: [AML] Y'All Need to Get Out More [MOD: I've split this post, which deals with two separate topics.] > As for climate, I like the desert. If I had *my* druthers I'd live in > Arizona. But I feel just as trapped in Missouri, climate-wise. Plus there > are no mountains here. It was wonderful just to SEE mountains again--if > only for three days. Refreshing. But the people here in Missouri are truly > wonderful too. Wanna trade places? You can have my house, and I'll take yours! ;-) I fell so in love with Missouri, and so did my husband. I showed pictures of the Ozarks to my kids (which is not where you live, I know!) and they are now hoping to move to the show me state too someday. > > >And that *doesn't* *happen*. Not in my ward, or in my area. > > No, I do *know* it's happened, from personal reports. There is probably > good reason President Hinckley has addressed this type of inclusive > behavior in recent conference sessions. If the people are repenting, then > that is excellent news. I'm glad to hear it. It has happened right here in River City -- that is, Pheonix, Arizona, and I wish I hadn't had MY blinders on and had done the same thing! On my old street in Phoenix there was this wonderful family living next door. Happened to be the Bishop and his family. They had a policy that their children could not play at a couple of houses in the neighborhood. My children, because of my prideful, more liberal view that everyone is a child of God and deserves the benefit of the doubt, and they're just kids, etc. etc., have paid the price. The one thing I had hoped to prevent my children from suffering I was not able to prevent due to my pigheadedness -- at least one of my children was molested and exposed to some of the viler types of pornography at this one house, and we are still suffering fallout from it 12 years later. There was another family that was very anti, and I finally had to no longer allow my daughter to play over there because the little girl my daughter's age, all of 4 years old, was constantly proclaiming her superiority over my daughter, the BofM wasn't true, we were all going to hell if we didn't leave the Mormon church, etc etc etc. She also did a lot of hitting, which her parents never disciplined her for, and a lot of "If you don't do what I say, I won't play with you anymore" type manipulations. I so resent the way she treated my daughter that I actually have cut her out of any pictures we took from that time period. I just don't want to be reminded of what a lousy parent I was that year. Of course, I don't even begin to believe that only members houses are safe for my children! Not with what I know about certain brethren and the reasons for their excommunication. I think it is a mother's and father's perogative to decide through observation, prayer, inspiration and "instinct" or "gut feelings" (which may or may not be the same thing as promptings and impressions of the Spirit) if it is okay for their child to play at another child's house, member or not. I know no one's discounting that. But there at times reasons to make up excuses like "I don't let me children play at this family's house because they don't live the same values we do" or whatever works, suffer the stigma of being provincial and insular, and protect one's children. Having gone through this dilemma, and made the wrong decision, I prefer giving families the benefit of the doubt if they've made this kind of rule for their children, no matter how they define the rule to the neighborhood. Kathy Fowkes - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:11:41 -0700 From: "Kathy Fowkes" Subject: [AML] New Essays Web Site [MOD: This is the second part of a post I split.] On this note, to make a literary tie-in, I'm contemplating putting together a new website on which I'd like to publish essays (no poetry! Except maybe Linda's) that are more or less centered around the theme of how the light and love of Jesus Christ and the power of the at-one-ment he rendered on our behalf helped us through our own personal Gethsemanes. I want people, both men and women, to be able to explore the most painful struggles, the reality of our lives, the things often mentioned here that seem to be avoided by LDS publishers, but also to include the truth and power of God's ability to provide us with the strength, courage, faith, stamina, and love to endure, to muddle through, and even to overcome and triumph. If there's interest at all, I'd like to include both fiction and non-fiction. Would anyone be interested in contributing? Is there already a website like this? I intend to buy a domain name to make it easy, and enlist the help of my husband to make the design pleasing and navigable. What would be the drawbacks? Any comments, pro or con to the idea? I've been mulling this over for a while, and would really like some feedback from everyone here. Thanks. Kathy Fowkes - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:34:48 -0500 From: Isaac C Walters Subject: Re: [AML] New Age Mormons? Paris Andeson wrote: I've been very disappointed in the Church over the last year, because there never are results. With Ch'i Gung the results are dramatic. That's hard for me to understand, because I know the Church is true and it is the Kingdom of God. So what gives? Does that mean you might find answers in the Church, but if you need results--go somewhere else? That's what experience teaches me. - ----------------------------------------------------------------- Allow me to introduce myself a little before responding to this interesting issue. My name is Isaac Walters. I'm a theatre director. I currently teaching directing and acting at Indiana University South Bend. While teaching as an adjunct at UVSC I started Mountain Top Theatre Company, a theatre company dedicated to created a way of doing theatre based on an understanding of the gospel. So in response to the questions posed above about the difference between the gospel and the experience's with Ch'i Gung--It seems to me that there is a gap between what we preach in the church and our practice. Brigham Young said that the reason we were given bodies was to over come sin. He said that we needed to repent in this life rather than in the spirit world because it is easier to do it here than there. The reason he gave was that we have bodies here and don't in the spirit world. We learn in the Doctrine and Covenants that the body and the spirit together make up the soul, with the implication that when you deal with one you deal with the other. Elder Holland's talk "On Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments" makes this point and says that is the reason sexual transgression is so serious. We are also told that every law the Lord has given us is spiritual. That would seem to say that there is no distinction between the physical and the spiritual for the Lord. I was in a workshop once with Yoshi Oida, a traditionally trained Japanese actor who is currently an internationally renowned experimental actor, when he asked "Why do we do body work?" We all looked at each other blankly and then he told us, "Because the body, the mind, and the emotions (and I would add the spirit) are all connected. Of those three the easiest one to control is the body." I think that we as a church have yet to make this connection. We're aware of it when it comes to sins of commission like breaking the Word of Wisdom or sexual sin, but have yet to make the jump into recognizing that physicality can also be something that can be used for spiritual progression. Specifically how that should happen in the church, I don't know yet. But it is something that I want to find out more about. Isaac Walters Resist what resists in you, become yourself. - --The Mahabarata - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 09:44:41 -0700 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: Re: [AML] Book of Mormon in Film Thanks to Justin for his musings on this valuable subject. I'd simply add = this: the Book of Mormon is not primarily a book that tells a story. = It's doctrinal. The stories exist to illustrate specific doctrinal = messages, and those messages are the heart of what the book is about. = There is a dandy narrative in 1 Nephi, and it's followed by a sermon in 2 = Nephi. 1 Nephi is cinematic and 2 Nephi, not so much. But that sermon is = more important than the story, and the dreaded Isaiah passages in 2 Nephi = (which bog everyone down sometime around Jan 20 every year, about the time = that exercise bike gets moved back to the garage) are in fact the evidence = which lead us to those stunning conclusionary chapters, 2 Nephi 25-33. = Miss that, and focus on the Nephi narrative, and you've missed something = absolutely fundamental about the text. =20 So, in making a film about the Book of Mormon, showing bronzed actors in = faux Middle Eastern costumes building a boat and sailing it eastward to = the Americas might make for some nifty visuals. But that approach would = similutaneously reduce the story to, well, just a story. The Cecil B. = DeMille approach, which would be to interlace that story with some idiotic = love story in which Our Hero emotes away at some actress wearing four inch = false eyelashes, would be to turn the Book of Mormon into high camp. Both = these approaches miss the boat. As would the real dingbat solution, which = would be to have some guy in a fake beard drone away at us for hours at a = time. =20 Why not take some more imaginative approach? Take the Book of Mormon = seriously, for a change, as a doctrinal book. Assume it exists essentially= for our day. I made a tiny effort in this direction with Gadianton. I = wouldn't mind a Book of Mormon movie that went straight where the book = goes, to doctrines and ideas. Cheesifying the action sequences we can = trust the Living Scriptures folks to take care of. Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:31:57 -0800 From: "Kim Madsen" Subject: RE: [AML] Tooting My Musical Horn Way to go Ivan! I went to links and had a listen. Just beautiful. I'm definitely getting the"Come to Bethlehem" collection. I'm still mulling over the "Timeless Christmas" though, since I had to find it on the Deseret Book link and they are on my bad list right now. If I run into it at Seagull or something, I'll probably get it--but NOT from DB. [MOD: I've cut the rest of this and put it in the compilation post on the New DB policy thread.] [Kim Madsen] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:37:17 -0700 From: margaret young Subject: Re: [AML] Tooting My Musical Horn I wanted to toot my cousin's horn as an addendum to Ivan's post. Geoff Groberg, who is one of the musicians on "A Timeless Christmas", which includes Ivan's guitar work (and YES, I will be buying this CD for Christmas) is amazing. He and his band played for my dad's seventieth birthday. The music is just great. Now for the literary tie-in--well, Geoff's wife, Jen, was the first "Eliza Lyman" in the debut of _I Am Jane_. And Geoff's and my cousin, Lee Groberg, is doing documentaries all over the place--the latest about Nauvoo. And Geoff's and my uncle John Groberg has now reached celebrity status, and is the only GA who is also a movie star. Therefore, I'm thinking I'll add "Groberg" to my name so I can sell more books. If I hyphenate my mother's maiden name with "Blair" I become Margaret Groberg-Blair Young. I think sales will soar after I get Deseret Book to make that little change. [Margaret Young] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 11:36:41 -0700 From: Gideon Burton Subject: RE: [AML] BYU Professor Problems Reading about what Margaret does in her creative writing class just makes me want to take it! A great writing exercise, too, to rewrite and change POV. I think one way to handle this sort of thing is take head on some of the problems of creative writing and literary studies for Mormons right at the outset. I don't mean just warning people about offensive content, but discussing why we Mormons tend to be both justifiably and unjustifiably cautious about art in general. If they are interested in writing or reading that only reflects our idealism or LDS public relations, then they aren't really interested in art at all. But if they want literature to engage themselves and others in what can be moving, transformative vicarious experience, then there will be risks to our minds and spirits. There will be sifting required. There will be mistakes. But looking for bland illustrations of gospel principles, or being satisfied with portrayals that fit conventional LDS mores, may in fact be more disloyal to the gospel than anything else. All growth requires pain, and this involves facing up to our own (and our people's) imperfections. Margaret's (and Darius') writing about the treatment of African-American LDS has been exemplary in this regard. As for the worry over objective truth, one way to handle this is to go to D&C 93:24 and point out that it says truth is *knowledge* of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come. This should give new respect to literature as a truth-revealing medium, since it aids us in becoming conscious of the relativity of knowledge about truth (especially via point of view). The D&C also talks about God speaking to us according to our language, which suggests that God respects the essentially rhetorical nature of communication and knowledge. We see through a glass darkly, said Paul, and literature grinds us lenses to better peer through the dimness, the inevitable partiality of our own language and knowledge. I often face the problem of a self-righteous student in my LDS Lit class, and the way I try to handle it is that they are not taking their own religion seriously enough if they are trafficking in appearances or pharisaic measures of propriety (I don't put it quite so barely). Spencer W. Kimball told us that artists must plumb the depths as well as the heights. B. H. Roberts, speaking of joy, said that it is "to arise out of man's rough and thorough knowledge of evil, of sin; through knowing misery, sorrow, pain and suffering; through seeing good and evil locked in awful conflict; through a consciousness of having chosen in that conflict the better part, the good; ... It will arise from a consciousness of moral, spiritual and physical strength. Of strength gained in conflict. The strength that comes from experience; from having sounded the depths of the soul; from experiencing all emotions of which mind is susceptible; from testing all the qualities and strength of the intellect." (New Witnesses for God, Vol.3, Ch.40, p.201). If that doesn't sound like what literature has a chance to offer students, I don't know what does. But it takes some doing to convince LDS students of how seriously its leaders have taken the powers of literature. Orson Whitney is great in this regard. Though he spoke of the missionary powers of great LDS writing (We will yet have Miltons and Shakesepares of our own...) he also spoke of literature as a means of education, of engaging the world, not just converting it. And if you think about it, Milton and Shakespeare are not conservatives at all. Their significance lies in the depth and breadth of their engagement of things both human and divine, and that has proven a vivacious, messy, uncorrelated affair that we should all be very grateful for. Well, there will always be those that only want books or movies that reiterate the status quo, or that reflect and confirm beliefs. The Latter-day Saints who feel that way do not yet understand the radically powerful nature of these art forms or of their own theology. We should try to introduce them charitably to both, but we should also not allow them to dodge responsible engagement of the issues by taking refuge in surface issues. Jesus didn't, and wouldn't. Gideon \ - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #898 ******************************