Snake for Thanksgiving

By David Woolley

I never should have agreed to ten days in a snake-infested jungle, hanging out with local Indian villagers and checking out ancient ruins as possible settings for a future book. But when Ryan Wilson (93 Premier) won an almost-all-expense-paid spot on the Choice Humanitarian cultural work project and expedition to the hinterlands of Guatemala and when his parents declined to fill the required chaperon position, dummy me, I accepted the calling to watch over the boy. Which means when those indigenous cannibals come after us white men, I'll volunteer to go hunt for more firewood while they boil Ryan in a pot.

Early this coming Saturday morning, November 17th, we arrive in Guatemala City and hook up with our eight-member expeditionary team before puddle-jumping in a prop plane into the mountain jungles of Guatemala. Picture a remote airstrip just wide enough for one 12-seat, rusty-bucket, single engine craft from the 1960s to squeeze between mammoth rain forest vegetation rising forty feet off the jungle floor. No radar. No tower. No terminal. Nothing but a lone wind sock made from the intestines of the last white man to land in those parts and you get just an inkling of the stupidity required to volunteer for an adventure like this.

The pre-departure handout from the expeditionary force reads: "In Guatemala we run into numerous creatures which the villagers will tell you cause Muerto--dos horas. All you Spanish speakers out there are already laughing. For you non-linguistic types, the rough translation is "dead in two hours." The literal translation is, "What the heck was I thinking?" In this particular Central American jungle there are, and I quote, "coral snakes, poisonous lizards, poisonous millipedes, and tarantulas," to say nothing of the larger beasts with long fangs and complete disregard for the power of a US passport or the long arm of the US State Department. The advice from the expeditionary force? Be careful. The closest hospital is more than a two hour mad-dash through the jungle. I repeat: "Muerto, dos horas!"

Right next to the I-hate-poisonous-creatures line is the I-detest-pre-departure-shots-filled-with-half-dead-microscopic-organisms line. All that doctored-up gamma globulin is engineered to develop an immunity to yellow fever, white fever, black plague, DPT, DT and Sparta. And they still don't have a shot for the common cold. But then, after reviewing the goal production stats from the U18 state cup third group match, we haven't much of a shot either.

There are lots of shots for this expedition, none of which I have allowed be administered to me due to my complete hatred of needles. Needles in the arm. In the bum. In the thigh. One in my big toe. They're the kind that swell up, hurt lots and produce hallucinations of men with spears and painted faces. The expedition Nazis (aka the Wilson family) finally stepped in and set up an appointment with the health department on Wednesday morning, otherwise the immigration service would have likely booted me from the plane. We could hope, right?

There are some redeeming virtues to this expedition. Ryan Wilson will likely never complain about his mother's cooking again. I get to visit the most likely site for the ancient coastal mountain Land of Nephi (Guatemala City), the likely site of the City of Nephi (Kaminaljuyu) and also the ruins of the most likely location for the Mulekite's ancient city of Zarahemla (Tikal) on the sprawling eastern plains region of the country. We both get to play soccer with the locals (Go Rangers) as long as we bring our own ball. No pig bladders please. We get to help put in the seasonal crops. And the Guatemalan Indian villagers get to watch us run for cover at the first sighting of an *eighty-legged millipede.

So next Thursday, November 22nd, while the rest of you are enjoying moist turkey, mashed potatoes accented with a light brown gravy, a helping of your mother's yams, some sage & onion dressing and your aunt's sweet rolls, Ryan and I will be dodging poisonous darts from the rival villagers across the piranha-infested Grijavla River while fighting over the last helping of raw snake flesh. In all your feasting next week, don't forget to offer a prayer of thanks in our behalf. We'll likely not be in much of a thankful state of mind.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

*Editors Note: millepedes have between 80-450 legs so an eighty-legged poisonous millipede like the one mentioned above, would give us the greatest chance of survival. Its much slower and certainly out-runnable.

The Smell of Tickets is in the Air

By David G. Woolley

I'm a long time conference sign holder. I invented the sport. When I started holding signs that read "Hungry for Conference Tickets" the only other sign holders were hunkered down behind police barriers in the free speech zones. They were dressed in jeans and a black T shirt. I wore a white shirt and tie, didn't call anyone to repentance and church security allowed me free reign on church property to scare up some tickets. I got so good that between the parking lot and the front doors of the Conference Center I collected enough tickets for half the souls in the standby line none of whom had a clue about the art of sign holding.

These days us ticket sign holders outnumber the free speech sign holders ten to one and the new arrivals are getting more creative every year. Last conference I didn't even bother to compete on the same street corner with the three 18.9 year-old sign holders begging for tickets with their poverty plea angle written in pencil lead script on notebook paper with a sappy, tug on the heart-strings sign "Drove from California all night. Leaving on mission next week. Please give us tickets." As if all the new competition isn't bad enough, the no-sign-holder-for-tickets-allowed-on-church-property policy is sure to drive an experienced scalper to the Stake President for a handout. It's comforting to think that someone on temple square is thinking of us even if they're the ones with the high-tech communications devices hidden inside the ear canal. Can't they give a tithe-paying regular guy a break? There's simply no such thing as an easy ticket anymore.

Last conference the *do-you-have-an-extra-ticket sign holders hung out on the *street-corner-free-speech-zone with the *you're-going-to-hell sign holders. *(an asterisk is, once again, an excellent word choice to let you know that the topic for my next post is The-Incorrect-Use-of-Hyphens-in-All-Their-Glory).

It was during April Conference 2007 when I found myself (not figuratively or spiritually or even ecumenically, but physically found myself standing next to one of the unhyphenated, really big, yellow with plasticized rain protection, professional quality sign holders). He had a 12 x 14 3mm card stock double reinforced mortar board with felt backing. I had a sheet of typing paper. He had 132 point font Times New Roman. I had magic marker font. He had a ten foot pole with a shoulder harness. I held mine between my fingers. The light was red. The corner was crowded with hundreds of conference goers waiting to cross. I lifted my pathetic sign and asked my unhyphenated-go-to-hell-sign-holder-neighbor if he had any tickets he wanted to unload. He shook his head no before calling the crowd to repentance.

I lifted my sign higher and said, "You sure?"

He said, "The only ticket in there is a ticket to hell."

I said, "I'll take four."

Getting into conference is easier than getting into the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. Its also easier to pull your bottom lip over your eyes. It may be because they don't televise it (the Christmas concert, not the lip pulling). I think its because Craig Jessop gave all my unhyphenated friends complimentary tickets. This year I plan on calling more conference goers to repentance.

Two Christmas concerts ago some of us die hard choir aficionados slept out in front of door #14 at the Conference Center on a snowy October evening to beat the Internet ticket rush and get front row seats. Craig Jessop told the choir about the ardent fans waiting all night in the snow. That was us. The men with the cool listening devices didn't kick us off Conference Center property. They figured the snow would do that, but we persevered. The following year church security changed the distribution policy. I like to think I had a part in forming the new rules. Internet ticket requests only. I also like to tell people I invented it (the Internet not the ticket policy). I think the new rules reflect a fear that the line for Christmas concert tickets is going to form weeks before the conference standby line.


Last October I opened ten windows to the Internet, pointed five other computers at the church website and when the appointed Christmas concert ticket request hour arrived all I got were four hours worth of "Due to high volume, we are unable to process your request at this time."

This year, despite the anti-gambling sentiment among ticket distribution personnel, concert tickets will be awarded by lottery. Beginning October 22nd the church website accepts requests. Two weeks later, after sign ups close, a random drawing awards lucky concert goers with tickets. I have a friend who always gets lucky. Three mouse clicks and she has her tickets. Hundreds of thousands of mouse clicks and I have no tickets. Do you think a lottery is going to change my luck? I'll likely get front row seats in gambler's hell next to my unhyphenated-yellow-sign-holding buddy before I ever get into the Conference Center balcony seating. My only regret is that my unhyphenated friend will be calling me to repentance for eternity.

I purchased an encryption code-breaking program. I can print unlimited tickets for any seat in the house and email them to everyone in my distribution list. If you happen to see one of those men with a cool listening device hidden inside the ear canal hauling a 5 foot 9, 160 pound, dark complected male out of the Conference Center holding a crumpled sheet of typing paper that reads, "Will Work For Tickets", don't judge me harshly.

I should have invested in a sign with a ten foot pole!

September 21st

By David G. Woolley
History has a way of repeating itself and in my case that happens every 1st, 11th, 21st and 31st of each month. I complained about these dates in my last blog, but repetition has a way of, well, repeating itself. Today's date ends with the cosmic number one. Cosmic because it is likely the meteoric day appointed from the foundations of the world as my Latter Day Authors blogging day. And cosmic because it was the gloriously grand day appointed for Joseph Smith to be yanked out of thinking that his first vision was a personal experience intended only for his personal salvation and inform the seventeen year old that "God had a work for me to do".

We all have a mission in life. Mine is bad blogging. What else could a writer of fiction be than a bad blogger? I spend hours figuring out new and creative ways to muffle my voice and disappear from the pages. If I'm fortunate enough to succeed my voice falls entirely silent and my characters do all the talking. Blogging is the anti-fiction. There is no invisible third party beguiling the reader into believing they are communicating dreictly with a fictional character. The blog is the nightly news equivalent dangerously left to the unable hands of amateurs and for this broadcast I happen to be your anchor speaking right at you without the protecting filter of a fictional character. If you're feeling my intrusion, I beg your pardon, but today is September 21st and there is some good news to share.

Despite my recurring mention of the dates that end with the number one, I'm not fixated on calendars, though this month does sport one of the really important dates in all of recorded history. Sometime tonight, one hundred eighty four years ago, a seventeen-year-old Joseph Smith was concerned about his standing before God and when he prayed for assurance that his sins were forgiven an angel named Moroni not only assured him that his plea had been heard, he set the boy's feet on a path that would lead four years later to the unearthing and translation of an ancient record of scripture.

I am just this morning placing the finishing touches on historical notes that will be appended to a novel titled Day of Remembrance. I'm going to suggest to the publisher that it be released next year in September. Good luck with that. It will likely be a hard sell. Publishers prefer to get things out as soon as possible no matter how non-cosmic the date. Last Thursday, September 13th 2007, Jews celebrated Rosh Hashanah (The Jewish New Year). It's a solemn day devoted to remembering covenants made with God. The feast celebrated on that day is called the Feast of Trumpets. The horn playing is intended to awaken Israel to a remembrance of her covenants. It was the day Moses returned down the slopes of Sinai to the playing of shofar horns (a trumpet made from the hollowed horn of a ram and a common instrument in the homes of ancient Israelites) with the covenant written on stone tablets. About 1200 years later in Lehi's time the day was known as Ha Zikron (The Day of Remembrance).

This Jewish holy day falls on the first day of the month of Tishri on the Hebrew calendar,but doesn't always occur on the same day on our western Julian calendar. Next year the Day of Remembrance will be celebrated on September 30th, 2008. When the angel Moroni directed Joseph Smith to the hill three miles south of his home to get his first glimpse of the ancient gold plated record buried in a stone box it was Monday, September 22nd 1823 and the Day of Remembrance had already been celebrated seventeen days earlier on September 6th. On Joseph Smith's second visit to the hill one year later the Day of Remembrance was celebrate the day before. On Joseph's third visit in 1825 the Day of Remembrance was celebrated nine days earlier on September 13th as it was this year, and in 1826 the Hebrew celebration took place ten days after Joseph's yearly visit to the hill on October 2nd. It wasn't until the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday September 22nd 1827 did the celebration of the Day of Remembrance coincide with Moroni's declaration that the time had arrived for Joseph Smith to receive the ancient record. Not unlike Moses, Joseph Smith returned down the hill south of his home in Palmyra New York bearing a record he called a New Covenant and he did it on the same day Jews celebrate the remembrance of ancient covenants.

In honor of a four-year run of events which began one hundred eighty four years ago tonight with a sincere prayer offered by a seventeen year old boy in the attic bedroom of the Smith family cabin and culminated with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, I share this historical note:

The Feast of Trumpets marks Israel’s final harvest period in the fall of the year. It is the first feast in a series of three of the holiest feast days in Judaism which are also referred to as a trio of feasts of ingathering beginning with the Feast of Trumpets followed ten days later by the Day of Atonement and ending with the Feast of Tabernacles. Bruce R. McConkie indicates that these High Holy days occur during the final harvest period to metaphorically symbolize Christ’s final harvest of souls (McConkie, Promised Messiah, 432-37). These interrelated feasts include the symbolism of the Feast of Trumpets as a time when God remembers His covenants with Israel and is likely the reason the feast day was originally known as the Day of Remembrance (ha-Zikron) before it became better known as a Jewish New Year (Rosh ha-shanah). The term Zikron means memorial or remembrance and according to Hebrew scholars the blowing of trumpets on the Day of Remembrance is in keeping with the definition of Zikhron “as a sound that will arouse God’s remembrance (or judgment) of his people” (Bloch, Jewish Customs and Ceremonies). Numerous Jewish scholars explain the purpose of the trumpet sound on the Feast of Trumpets as the signal of Israel’s redemption from world-wide exile. The Old Testament indicates that “And it came to pass in the day [the time of regathering] that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt (Sherman and Zlotowizt, Rosh Hashanah, 58, 61-62, 112-13, 117-18; Artz, Justice and Mercy, 55, 94, 154; Block, JewishHoly Days, 21; Snaith, The Jewish New Year Festival, 162; Leo Trepp, The Complete Book of Jewish Observance, New York: Behrman House and Summit Books, 1980, 95).

The prophet Zechariah writes that “The Lord God shall blow the trumpet,” and that Ephraim will help raise up God’s covenant people, and that those of Israel’s blood would return to be part of the God’s flock (Zechariah 9:13-16). After the Israelites returned from Babylonian bondage the prophet Ezra gathered them together and read the law to them on the Feast of Trumpets (Nehemiah 8:1-2) and they rejoiced when the truth was restored to them. LDS scholar Lynette Reed indicates that this ancient restoration of the law after exile in Babylon which took place on the Day of Remembrance may have its latter-day counterpart in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Among the ancient readings still used during the celebration of the Rosh ha-Shanah is the restoration of Ephraim. The prophecies of the prophet Jeremiah are among the important readings on this feast day where he calls Ephraim a darling son and that God will “remember Ephraim” (zakhor ezkerenu).

The name most often used for the day on which the Feast of Trumpets is celebrated today is Rosh ha-Shanah which means New Year. But that was not its original name and the significance of the day is really a new beginning rather than the start of a new calendar year. On this day the Lord is said to move from His seat of judgment to His mercy seat by mercifully providing a new beginning through gathering Israel out of exile, remembering His covenants with their fathers, and restoring them as His covenant people. This new beginning was to be initiated by the sounding of the trumpet.

The sounding of the trumpet appears not only as a remembrance of the revelation given at Sinai, but also as an indication of future events. Just as the trumpet preceded God’s revelation of the law at Sinai (Exodus 19:16) some scholars believe the trumpet sounding during Rosh Hashanah signals further revelation, including the establishment of the true law (Goodman, The Rosh Hashanah Anthology, 42). Old Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants scriptures speak of the trumpet preceding the establishment of truth that leads to redemption (Isaiah 58:1, Alma 29:1, D&C 33:2). “And at all times, and in all places, he shall open his mouth and declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump” (D&C 24:12). The statue of the angel Moroni atop Mormon temples is portrayed as blowing a trumpet, proclaiming the gospel to the world, and particularly to the house of Israel. A review of LDS history and scripture indicate that most of the restored truths in the gospel of Jesus Christ began with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

The return covenant-blessings from God which follow Israel’s remembrance of their covenants with God are repeated in prayers offered on the Day of Remembrance and are similar to the words written by the prophet Moroni in the title page of the Book of Mormon where he stated that one of the two main purposes of the book was, “to show unto the remnants of the House of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever”. As part of the prayers offered on Rosh ha-Shanah Jews today still read the Old Testament passage, “I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 26:45).

Jewish religious scholars (Arzt, Justice and Mercy, 146-48) indicate that Jeremiah’s prophecy regarding the remembrance (or restoration) of Ephraim has special significance to the Day of Remembrance, but are uncertain what that significance may be. LDS scholar Lynette Reed suggests that the part the Book of Mormon plays in restoring knowledge of significant religious covenants to descendants of Ephraim is the connection between remembrance (or restoration) and the Day of Remembrance.

Happy 21st of September everyone! And be grateful that September only has thirty days.

What All Stories are About

By David G. Woolley

There was a time in my college days I didn't believe the script writing professor. He said all stories were ultimately about birth and death. The man was an ad director who retired from his Manhattan agency for a career in teaching script writing. Not that you can't trust ad people and their creative attempts to convince me I need a hand sewn magnetic head warmer to promote brain wave function, but they're the ones who hype high fructose corn syrup to reduce the risk of type four diabetes--the type of diabetes the coroner diagnoses. Can you really trust a professor who makes a comment using the word all ?

I don't remember everything I learned in my college statistics courses, but when a lecturer said it was statistically possible to know if a question was true or false based on how it was phrased, I perked right up. You mean there is a real-world application for standard deviations? I admit my perkiness was more about not having to study the course material too deeply and still have a statistically significant chance of acing the test. It was the greatest find since Columbus used a time machine to transport the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock. History is my best subject. My statistics professor was also the same scholar who advised a local frozen food packing company that the best way to insure lower rates of employee turnover was to hire applicants who scored below thirty percent on the company's entrance exam. Apparently exam scores predict a reverse correlation between the repetitive work of stuffing pasta into plastic freezer bowls and job satisfaction. Based on those findings I was willing to suspend my disbelief and I took copious notes to preserve forever the knowledge of how to divine which test bubble, A or B, to darken with a #2 pencil.

Turns out it was a pretty simple matter of semantics. If the question uses the words all or always, you can be 95% certain that the answer is false. When my script writing professor insisted that all stories are ultimately about birth or death, I was statistically skeptical. It wasn't until after he explained the nuances of his claim that I learned he fell into that narrow 5% category of being always semantically false while at the same time remaining true to the art of storytelling.

I said, "Where is the story of birth or death in the Sound of Music?"

He pointed out that when characters change they essentially let their old way of thinking or behaving die in exchange for a birth into a new way of behaving. What he called a new life. Maria, the Captain, all the Von Trapp children, the blond-headed telegram delivery boy of going-on-seventeen-fame turned Nazi. Even Max the freeloader who loved rich people ephiphanized new wine and stored it in a new bottle. There's something to that Jewish parable. It was Max who said he loved the way he lived when he was with rich people, but finally exchanged his greed and let his new-found Von Trapp Family Singers escape over the Swiss Alps.

Okay. Maybe my script-writing professor was right. There are metaphorical births and deaths in that rerun-of-a-drama, but that was an old story lost among millions of newer stories.

I said, "What about Ground Hog Day?"

I was willing to concede the stories of romance, drama even documentary. But comedy? I figured I had him until he pointed out that the main character in Ground Hog Day, when he discovered he was living in a repetitive day that re-cycled every twenty four hours, searched for happiness in the base pleasures of the world. When that didn't make him happy, he gave away his former life, essentially letting it die. It wasn't until he was reborn into a new life did the repetitive daily routine break and the story end with a satisfying conclusion.

Darn. I was forced to concede comedy too.

This is the point where I should limit my analysis to storytelling and declare that birth and death act as metaphors for character change. But its deeper than that. Character change just may be a metaphorical death and birth equivalent for slavation. The spiritual connections are obvious. Faith. Repentance (and its corollary forgiveness). Baptism. Atonement. Maybe what my script-writing professor was teaching me without actually mentioning it was that all things are spiritual. Even all our stories.

Always.

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day is nine months away which means I qualify for the early-bird brownie points offered by a Washington think tank underwritten by Hallmark. It's a very long paper trail, but after some serious investigation I made the connection between Hallmark and the "Sell More Gretting Cards" lobby. I did remember, without any help from the think tank, Hallmark or the Greeting Card Lobby, that Mother's Day falls in May. And to make sure that last sentence didn't end up as the mother of all errors in the comments section of this blog and to avoid having to explain my calendar impaired sieve-of-a-mind, I looked it up. Isn't the Internet a useful tool? So many facts, so few insecurities. I usually wait until I trip over the five gallon buckets of roses booby trapping the aisles at Wall Mart on the eve of Mother's Day before my Neanderthal gift-giving flight or fight reflex kicks in and I crowbar open my wallet to get a little something for my angel mother.

* An asterisk is a weak word choice for a disclaimer, but then few of you knew that this little guy (*) was a word. You may be surprised to find out that crowbar was reported in last month's edition of the New World Dictionary online version to be both a noun and a verb which means that if I were editing something you wrote, you'd never get away with sneaking the ly adverb crowbarly into your manuscript. I'll buy a Cafe Rio enchilada style burrito with mild green sauce (very yummy), wrapped in one of those humongously (darn, another ly adverb) deliciously (darn) made from scratch wheat tortillas to the first writer who sneaks the locution "he said crowbarly" into your next submission without getting caught by your editor.

Mother's Day falls on Sunday May 11th next year, but for my mother it marks a full year and a half anniversary of a journey I never thought I'd observe. I'm not a busy body. Fiction writing has forced me from my comfortable modus operandi "mind your own business" world view (something I learned from my mother along with wearing clean socks, taking off muddy shoes outside, washing behind the ears and eating everything on the plate) into something of a people watcher. Writing about others requires studying the object of the pros, but in those childhood years before writing forced me from so much self absorption, I was the focal point, the man in front of camera, the ring master, the magician plying his disappearing trade. And when the house lights came up and I appeared from behind the olive green drapes stage right to find the theatre empty, there was always mom, sitting on the edge of the sofa, observing every nuance of the living room performance. I distinctly remember her peering through the chain link fence of the high school athletic field. Tickets were an extravagance, but there was no fence that could keep her from supporting her children.

No matter how bungling the effort compared to the works of abler hands, no matter how novice the talent when laid alongside the masters, no matter the failures or faltering strength or loss of nerve I, with my brothers and sisters, were never abandoned to the forgotten masses because mother managed to do what God does. It has been a long time since she held me on her knee and ogled a smile from my lips, but she still watches from the wings, offers wiser council than sometimes I'm willing to admit, and she marvels, and oh how she can marvel, at our very existence, making her children the object of her work and her glory.

In a world that rewards so generously the merits of a life dedicated to professions and corporations, achievements and renown, I was reminded again this week of the nobleness of motherhood. Mother has walked alone for nearly a year now and I watch from the wings her struggle with loneliness that I can only imagine. She stops by the grave nearly everyday. Tells dad all the detailed doings of the family while adding that she knows he already knows what she's telling him, but she couldn't help but share it with him at the end of another day on earth--alone. She also tells Dad to spook away the grounds keeper and keep him from carting off the flowers she leaves behind until they've seen the best of their days.

Bills frustrate her. Extended warranties confuse her. She's not fluent in the language of oil changes, tire pressures or indoor plumbing. And the house work of two, now done by one, is a burden of the heart as much as for the shoulders. It is in these soul-searching sacred moments where the wine of ancient prophecy finds fulfillment in new bottles and turns the hearts of the children toward their father's and the hearts of the father's towards their children.

Happy Mother's Day Norma Anne.