James Elliott's Blog

A few years ago, I met a remarkable person named Jenni James. Jenni is a bestselling author of something like 40 books (HERE's a link to her Amazon Author page and you can count them). I can't remember under what circumstances we met, but I know it involved exchanging home-baked goods at our doorsteps, and being invited into each other's houses, etc...Jenni is an awesome cook.

I don't remember how the subject came up, but Jenni asked me if I wanted to be in a writer's group. Another writer, Allison Brown, was interested in starting a group in our area. That invitation has changed my life.  I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. I owe Jenni and Allison a great debt of gratitude for their kindness and their advice over the past three years or so.  Three years! Time is so weird.

Last year we decided to put together a book of fairy tales. I wrote a Snow White adaptation, "Blancanieves," for that book. This year we've got another compilation and I wrote a Peter Pan story for it.

I invite anyone who is interested to click the photo and grab yourselves a copy.

My mini-novella Blanca is
now on Kindle."We voted, and we decided we're going to write fairy tales."

I arrived late to the meeting, and I missed the discussion and the vote about the anthology our writing group planned to write. The famous author in our group had written a dozen--or maybe two dozen--fairy tale adaptations, and they decided we would all contribute a fairy tale to an anthology. They were smart.

I tried not to seem terrified at the prospect of writing a fairy tale adaptation.

"What do you think, James?"

"Awesome!"

"Are you sure?"

"Uh huh."

I'm not sure how I chose to adapt Snow White. I chose Spain because it seems like a Spanish tale. I chose insanity as opposed to an actual magic mirror. The evil queen is Snow White's biological mother, and she has motives other than physical beauty and which are arguably noble.

I threw together this cover
to share the story on Wattpad.At the group meetings that followed, I sat and listened, and I cracked dumb jokes. Mostly I cracked dumb jokes. I also learned a lot. At home I worked on my fairy tale and other projects. I ended up with a mini-novella, that I was pretty happy with. It went through edits and I fixed things and made it better.

I now love the fantasy/fairy tale genre. My tale Blancanieves (the Spanish name for Snow White), was published in 2017. This year I have another tale in the 2018 volume. Peter And The Lost Boy is a short version of the novel I am working on, and it will be out in October in A Medley of Fairy Tales Volume II.

Anyone who has read my selection of stories, Dead On The Corridor, should know that my tales are not for the faint of heart. In Blancanieves, for example, there is a throat-slitting scene, and at least two other violent deaths. I don't do Disney cartoons.

My novel, The Shadow of Neverland, is intended for audiences ages 12 and up. I should be finished with it sometime in early 2019, heaven help me.

My mini-novella Blanca is
now on Kindle."We voted, and we decided we're going to write fairy tales."

I arrived late to the meeting, and I missed the discussion and the vote about the anthology our writing group planned to write. The famous author in our group had written a dozen--or maybe two dozen--fairy tale adaptations, and they decided we would all contribute a fairy tale to an anthology. They were smart.

I tried not to seem terrified at the prospect of writing a fairy tale adaptation.

"What do you think, James?"

"Awesome!"

"Are you sure?"

"Uh huh."

I'm not sure how I chose to adapt Snow White. I chose Spain because it seems like a Spanish tale. I chose insanity as opposed to an actual magic mirror. The evil queen is Snow White's biological mother, and she has motives other than physical beauty and which are arguably noble.

I threw together this cover
to share the story on Wattpad.At the group meetings that followed, I sat and listened, and I cracked dumb jokes. Mostly I cracked dumb jokes. I also learned a lot. At home I worked on my fairy tale and other projects. I ended up with a mini-novella, that I was pretty happy with. It went through edits and I fixed things and made it better.

I now love the fantasy/fairy tale genre. My tale Blancanieves (the Spanish name for Snow White), was published in 2017. This year I have another tale in the 2018 volume. Peter And The Lost Boy is a short version of the novel I am working on, and it will be out in October in A Medley of Fairy Tales Volume II.

Anyone who has read my selection of stories, Dead On The Corridor, should know that my tales are not for the faint of heart. In Blancanieves, for example, there is a throat-slitting scene, and at least two other violent deaths. I don't do Disney cartoons.

My novel, The Shadow of Neverland, is intended for audiences ages 12 and up. I should be finished with it sometime in early 2019, heaven help me.

Sunlight in September is different than mid-summer in Utah. It's the light that comes through clouds after a rain, but there has been no rain. It seems as if Utah isn't the desperately dry place it really is, and maybe some of those clouds in the partly cloudy sky will expand and fall on us and give us the drenching that church-going Utahns have been praying and fasting for. The light is subdued, as if some of the red from the oaks and maples on the mountains has filtered into it.

The nights are chilly, but not quite freezing, and the days are still almost mid-summer hot. The grass on the lawns grows faster for some reason and it's as long after one week as it ever was in July when I could get away with mowing every two weeks. We haven't had rain, but I don't have to water as much.

Skunks are out every night, and by the smell of them, they're coming closer to our homes. I came face to face with a very young skunk in my hen-house this week. He wasn't afraid of me, and he wasn't alarmed. He just kept eating the egg he had just broken. I waited until he left, and then I boarded up the small hole he had come through, a one-and-a-half-inch gap that I didn't believe a skunk or raccoon could squeeze through. I never thought of their babies.

It's hunting season, and I am surrounded by hunting land. Throughout the day I hear gunfire all around us. My son comments each time. He's a pretty good aim with a rifle, and I think he wants to go hunting.

I planted one zuccini this year. That's about the right number for anyone. I've got two zuccini squash sitting on the kitchen counter right now, which I plan to cook for dinner tonight. We dehydrated some yellow summer squash that I'll throw into soups and stews this winter.

I planted three tomatoes this year. That's about the right number for my family, too. I've got some Peruvian selections of potatoes growing out there---little strange-looking things that don't look like the ones from the supermarket. That strange look is why I planted them. The common russet, red and yellow potatoes are so cheap in stores that they're almost not worth growing in a backyard. Pumpkins, butternut squash and acorn squash are just about ready to pick. My peppers have gone crazy this year. In my spring garden, where I grow peas and greens that I harvested back in June, I let the sunflowers grow through the summer, and they've been in full bloom for two months. Thousands of birds come and eat the seeds, and I throw the rest of the flowers to the hens.

Autumn is coming to kill most of the green around here, but not before turning it into something beautiful. I'll be forty-two this week. Forty-two! There is so much I want to do in the next forty-two, and I have only just begun. I believe that I have a good while to go before my own autumn. I hope that Nature does something worthwhile with me before winter.

[image error] I finished reading The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, a few months ago. Since reading it, I have begun a dozen times to write about it, but I'm just not sure how. It seems like something I shouldn't touch. But I'm going to do it anyway and share some thoughts that it brought to mind as I read.

Last year a few dozen women dressed in the red robes and white headpieces, like the ones in the Hulu series, and they stood in silent protest at the Utah State capitol. This was a stark picture against the gray and white backdrop of the State capitol buildings. Seeing it in the news made me shiver, because I could sense the justice behind their cause. As a white male I am identical to the oppressor in the novel, in the television series, and in Utah. So, I will try to be sensitive here as I talk about the book.

I first want to talk about the writer's style: Stark, beautiful, poetic. Many passages touched me the same way good poetry does, and I stopped to re-read them several times just to experience them again and again. There aren't many books have that effect on me. I love Atwood's style.

The least beautiful prose (done purposely, I believe, for effect) occurs at the end of the book. I can imagine it's not everyone's favorite ending. This may be a bit of a spoiler: At the book's end, we are presented to a cold and scholarly view of the people we have just been reading about. We see the protagonist, a woman named Offred, through impersonal eyes. She scholars are having a casual conversation, even making jokes, about this character we care about. They are many generations removed from Offred, and they view her dispassionately, as nothing more than a historical specimen.

One scholar expresses disappointment that Offred didn't talk more about the form of government and other things scholars often care about. From where they stood, far away in time from Offred, the scholars are unable to empathize with her. It was here that the book's impact settled into my mind. I felt the guilt and shame of having analyzed other human beings in exactly this way, for speaking about the sufferings and experiences of other humans as if I were a food critic commenting on the relative sweetness of a cake.

This book is not perfect. There are a few aspects of the story that require the skills of a Star Wars apologist so it all works perfectly. I forgive the novel for those things, like I forgive Charles Dickens for sometimes putting way too many handy coincidences in his novels, and Mark Twain for making the world so small that Tom Sawyer could find Huck Finn in the American South. I forgive well written books for their little idiosyncracies.

The Handmaid's Tale has stuck with me, in my psyche, since I finished it. I don't believe America will fall backward and become that world; however, I can understand the problems in my culture, the anger of women after thousands of years being bullied, harrassed, assaulted, undermined, dehumanized, delegitimized, etc...I can understand that "we've come a long way since 1955" is not a good excuse for still having problems today.

I loved Margaret Atwood's writing.  I want to read more! On a social level, I want to do what I can to never again settle for just being a "nice guy."  I feel compelled to learn, to get rid of the aspects of my character that may contribute to human suffering, and to become good.

I know this is kind of a rambling string of thoughts. I've got a lot on my mind lately, and I guess my disparate thoughts reflect that. There's a lot going on in my world aside from reading and writing. But thank goodness for great books.

I'm pretty obsessive about producing a clean manuscript. I revise, revise and revise some more. Then some more...and some more...and on until I eventually have to close my eyes and be done with it. Usually the first draft and the hundredth draft vary so much that they're hardly related at all (admittedly I'm a "big picture" kind of person, and I depend on copy editors for help with dumb things like typos).

As a youth I was a musician--a percussionist and vocalist. In my classical voice training I studied music theory, and learned things such as when it's appropriate to add a hint of VII to your V, or how to change time signatures to add variety without confusing everyone. It was much more mathematical than I ever wanted it to be, but I passed!
Now, when I read good books, one of my critical filters is my musical training. I intuitively look for rhythm and whether the "music" of the text is erratic and disconnected from its different parts, and whether it flows at a speed I can follow. This is difficult to explain. All good fiction has a certain cadence, a consistency of rhythm. Fans read good fiction because it awakes their creative faculties and makes them feel something, while still giving them plenty of intellectual stimulation. 
The fiction writer must, in all circumstances, realize he or she is partnering with the reader to create the story. If I don't write fiction so that a reader can create my stories right alongside me, then I'm not really a writer but just a guy who writes things nobody likes. If so, the reason nobody likes it is because I talked past them, over them, or under them. I didn't write in a way that invited them to create with me.
I'm working on finishing up several short stories right now, and I'm somewhere near the end of my drafting. This is the most tedious part, and the hardest to explain. Here, I read each paragraph and observe what my mind creates. If my rhythm is too fast or too slow, if I use distracting grammar, or anything else that I feel might pull the reader out of the process of creating my story, I tweak it, then re-read and tweak again.
I've read thousands of pages by authors and editors about how to remove distracting language from my writing, and I've taken notes on scraps of paper and stuffed them into a little notebook. After several years I've created quite an unruly mess of "things to remember." I'm now compiling this information and putting it in one easy-to-navigate place. And that place can be found in the tabs along the top of this blog.
Right now I've only got about a dozen topics--my main points of weakness--and a short blurb for each one. But I'll be adding to these over time. Feel free to add any comments, so I can learn from you.
I hope you all have a beautiful day.

Click the photo above to visit the article at The Minds JournalChronic Depression. Eternal, day in and day out depression...High-Functioning Depression.

You get up, make your bed, make breakfast, get the kids off to school, go to work. You smile all the while, and people at work think you're great to work with, and that you're "fun." You might laugh a lot. You watch funny videos and laugh. Your children tell funny stories and you laugh. You're not joyless, but you're not happy either.

But you want to die. You wish you could disappear, but for your children and for other people you love, you keep going. You open your eyes, stand up, and go. You can't stop so you continue.

Because you keep going, because you can still laugh, and sometimes especially because you can laugh, most people think you're okay. They might even think you're worthy of emulation. You might be considered the on-site comedian at work and at family reunions and other social functions. You probably have the weirdest sense of humor of anyone except for that other high-functioning depressed person. Some people like to be around you just to see what you'll say next because it will either be zany, or insightful, or both.

Maybe you've read every self-help book you can get your hands on. I have. Maybe you've found a social or political grievance that gives you an outlet for angst, for that sense of horror. I've done that too. There is evil in the world, and you know it because you hurt every single day, sometimes for no apparent reason. We're crazy...but maybe we're not. Maybe all the rest of humanity is crazy. But no, I have to believe I'm the crazy one because the world can't possibly be as bleak as I perceive it to be. We have to believe that the world as we perceive it is not the world that truly exists. We have faith in the rest of you, that your rosy perception is the right one.

Click the photo to read an article about high functioning
depressed mothers.Some of us separate what we feel and what we know. We live a bifurcated life where we know how we feel, but we love the fact that at least others can be happy.

We are truly happy for you if you are happy, although I suppose some of us are narcissistic enough to want to bring you down.  We are not envious of you, at least most of us aren't. Envy requires at least a little hope. Your happiness is beautiful to us, just knowing you exist and that you're happy. Many of us hope to contribute to your happiness in some way, because you deserve happiness. We love you and admire you.

Men and women suffer from high-functioning depression. You probably don't know it because we generally don't mention it. Our spouses usually know. Our children often know something is wrong. Perhaps we've had to tell our managers at work. But for the most part, you'd never know.

We are ashamed of everything, so we work hard to overcome shame by being perfect at our work or at parenting and at everything else. We're perfectionists at church, at school, at work, at home. Some people watch us run around and they admire us for our strong work ethic. But we think we're lazy and stupid. Sometimes we might overcompensate for our perceived shortcomings, and sometimes you'll think our behavior is strange. When we realize we've been acting strangely, we feel shameful about that too. Everything fills us with shame or guilt, or both.

And please, please, please do not treat us with pity or feel badly for us. That's just another reason for us to feel bad. We don't want to hurt you. In fact, we want to make you happy. We do this in different ways, usually something in the creative arts. Maybe we make crafts, or we paint, or we write, or we become comedians...We want to be one of the many reasons you are happy.

Our conscience is a cruel and unforgiving god. We try to overcome the heartlessness of this god by loving others, and being less cruel to humanity than our inner judge is to ourselves.

Some of us surround ourselves with people who constantly remind us how unworthy and imperfect we are.  At some level we feel less crazy if we can keep a third party representative for our inner judge close at hand. So we find friends or jobs whose opinions of us represent the inner judge. At least then someone tells us exactly what we're feeling. You're stupid. I would be better off without you. Why are you so incompetent? Why are you so lazy? My guess about why we keep these people around is that it's way less crazy to feel that way because someone is constantly telling us so, compared to simply feeling that way for no good reason at all.

We love life in a way, seeing the beauty around us, and knowing it's beautiful. We look at you, your goodness and kindness, and we love you. We can contemplate all this beauty and feel it deeply. For example, I look at a quiet snow-covered landscape, and I feel peace.

I see myself walking into it, into the trees, and never coming out--disappearing into the forest, merging with it, ceasing to be me, having never existed at all except as part of the beauty I'm witnessing.









https://www.healthline.com/health/dep...
https://themindsjournal.com/overlook-...
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000245/
https://www.romper.com/p/13-things-ev...

A Short Novel About Occupying Foreign Nations

I'm taking a tour of Steinbeck's work these days. Several months ago I finished Grapes of Wrath and In Dubious Battle, and I'm currently reading Cannery Row. Earlier this week I finished his short novel The Moon Is Down.

The former three are books about poor people in America in the early 20th Century. The Moon Is Down, published in 1942, takes place on a fictional English island. It begins with an invasion of the island by the military of an unnamed English-speaking nation.

Steinbeck's writing style, his ability to use every-man's English to draw the reader into his stories, his uncomplicated but perfectly drawn images, and almost everything else that made his writing last beyond his lifetime, it's all found in this book. However, because it is short, the character development is not quite as profound as in his longer novels. If you like Steinbeck's writing style, but you don't want to read socialist-leaning fiction, this is a good one.

This book explores what happens when a powerful nation invades a weaker nation in order to exploit that nation's natural resources. At the beginning of the story, the invaders enter the island and take it after subduing the island's inadequate military. Aside from a few deaths in the skirmish the invaders plan on keeping the peace and even assume they'll have friendly relationships with the islanders, and they even allow the government of the island to keep working...although they make it clear if the island's leaders don't do their bidding, they'll quickly remove them from power.

The military allows schools and shops to remain open. They increase the coal mining--coal being the natural resource they wanted--and try to allow things to operate as usual.  But there's a slow decline in their sense of control, a decline in economic growth, and after many months, the islanders want to be free from their occupiers. The occupiers see themselves as the enforcers of law and order, but the islanders see them as the invaders they are. The story ends just as things start to get really ugly. At the end, the island's mayor and the local medical doctor have an amazing interaction that I won't recount here, but which is poignant similar in spirit to the way the Grapes of Wrath is poignant, with profound lessons taught in words and in actions.

What I found most interesting was the insight. World War II was raging in Europe, and America was entering the fray. But this story was written prior to the infamous wars fought only to defeat economic ideologies and to exploit natural resources.  This was before we overthrew Guatemala's democratically elected government, just to name an example,  to protect our consumption of tropical fruit (our actions led to the mass murders of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalan natives and poor people). It was before we went around occupying nations and murdering citizens because they weren't capitalists (we were protecting "American interests abroad"). It was before we really got down and dirty in the Middle East.

What happens at the end of the book is this: The natives of the island begin conducting terrorist activities. They are out-weaponed, so they find sneaky ways to blow up military resources, railroad lines, etc...In today's lingo, they become terrorists. In the peoples' minds, some of their friends have been executed, their children are hungry, they're being exploited by foreigners. They're angry as hell and they're not going to take it any more. Furthermore, the English mainland is sneaking dynamite over to them to help them fight this powerful military regime (in today's terms, England is a State sponsor of terror). The island's Mayor knows what is happening, although he avoids having any direct knowledge about who, why, how, and when. That way, he can plausibly deny knowing anything. The military invaders become increasingly angry with the Mayor, though they know he knows little or nothing about the terrorist activities.

I was struck by the fact that this was written before America sent our military around the world, militarily attacking sovereign nations for ideological reasons and producing millions of desperate angry citizens in the process, who become terrorists.

In the book, the people blowing up the occupying military are heroes--the terrorists are heroes. No matter what their freedoms were before this army showed up, the people saw their occupiers, I think rightly, for what they were.

Perhaps that's why this book is one of Steinbeck's lesser known novels these days. It rings too true to American activities over the past several hundred years, and we're not very good at self-reflection.

This is the preface and first several pages of my book, 
Dead On The Corridor

The ebook is only $2.99 here
Read it free on Kindle Unlimited

Preface__________

I am surrounded by mountains in every direction. The little valley where I live in the geographical center of Utah was originally inhabited by several Native American tribes, but they were displaced by Mormon Pioneers who fled the United States in the Nineteenth Century for what was then a territory of Mexico. Later, they were joined by thousands of Scandinavian immigrants. Those were my ancestors.     The region was thought to be Zion, and God was thought to be the grand architect.Here in the most drought-stricken parts of North America, my ancestors clashed with and displaced the tribes; fought wars; experimented with theocracy, polygamy, and communism; built temples, churches, schools. They instilled in their children an apocalyptic mythology; a faith in unique symbols, doctrines, and rituals; a sense of responsibility toward the living and the dead; traditions, food, dialect; and so many other things that still flavor the culture today. My ancestors established an iron-clad patriarchal system, in which men alone are believed to have the divine authority and power to rule in God’s Kingdom, and they embraced a social doctrine that made obedience to their authority the first law of heaven. But they also established the legendary Mormon work ethic, a social doctrine of charitable service, and the teaching that humanity is a family and all human beings are children of God. The curses and blessings that rise from these traditions are evident today like a city on a hill.Interstate Fifteen now cuts right through the earliest Mormon settlements, extending from Southern Nevada, through the middle of Utah, and into Idaho.I am a part of this culture. For better and for worse we are peculiar. The founders of my culture with all their justices, injustices, fears, loves, hatreds, and joys are my parents. And I am their child.



Consecration__________
T
he voices of nearly two hundred people rose into the chapel’s vaulted ceiling, echoed from its neutral cream walls, and dissipated. The organ crooned along. A family of latecomers could hear the organ from the parking lot. Mother and father wiped the sweat from their foreheads as they walked across the sunbaked asphalt and stepped onto the sidewalk. Their children ran behind them like a brood of ducklings. They entered through the church’s double doors just as the congregation sang the last line of a hymn taken from Job’s declaration, “I know that my redeemer lives!”   The hymnals were closed and returned to the wooden slots built into the backs of the pews. Then an old woman offered a rambling invocation. “Our dear, kind, gracious Heavenly Father. We thank thee for this beautiful day. We thank thee for our good bishop, Bishop Argyle…” She prayed for the bishop’s counselors, and for the men who oversaw the bishop, then for everyone on up through the hierarchy of church leadership. She prayed for the nation’s leaders, the worlds leaders, and for rain needed to water the parched high desert in which many congregants grew their crops. She prayed for everyone who was suffering, for struggling families, for the homeless. Nearly every soul in the world, living or dead, might have considered itself blessed when she finally said “Amen.” The bishop rose from his seat behind the pulpit. He was in his mid-thirties but seemed a decade younger than he was. The congregation loved him, and smiled up at him as he made the announcements. Outside their meetings they all spoke proudly of him, as if he were their own son, often describing him as Christlike. In appearance he did not look like the Jesus depicted in paintings. He was short, built like a bulldog, and his black hair was cut nearly to the scalp. He wore an ill-fitting blue suit and a Dr. Who themed tie.His young wife and three small children sat among the crowd, but the toddler had wandered away from his family, toward the front of the chapel, where a teenaged girl had taken him under her wing. Before he moved on with the meeting, the bishop had to settle the day’s administrative business. When he announced three new Sunday School positions, the congregation raised their hands in unanimous approval. Down in the benches, young parents distracted their fussing, fidgeting toddlers with snacks, games, coloring books, toys. Babies whined. Women, young and old, paid attention, or wrestled their over-active children into their seats, read their volumes of scripture, or stared at the screens on their phones. Older couples sat close to one another, holding hands. Widows and widowers sat together in cliques, sometimes whispering to each other. All the pleasant scents of colognes, perfumes, deodorants, blended with the chapel’s sweet clean scent, creating a smell familiar and comforting to everyone present. Some men and teenaged boys leaned forward with their elbows on their knees, resting their foreheads on the back of the pews in front of them, napping.A handful of twelve-year-old boys and older teens, the deacons and priests, charged with blessing and offering the sacrament of the Last Supper to the congregation, sat in the front, at attention, with tired eyes.Most congregants had not taken food or water since dinnertime the night before. This was the first Sunday of the month, when Mormons around the world fasted.       When the bishop finished the administrative matters, there was one last piece of important business to address. This was the reason several families had come from out of town. “Before we partake of the Sacrament,” the bishop said, “we have a very special baby blessing. I’d like to invite Brother Kendall Sanderson to come up with his beautiful baby girl. Also, anyone who has been invited to participate, please come up.”The young father, no older than his early twenties, made his way out of a long bench, shuffling past several pairs of knees. He cradled his infant daughter, whose little white dress flowed far past her tiny feet and hung from her father’s arms. She had been sleeping, but in all the jostling she stirred.A half-dozen other men, grandfathers and uncles, came out from the congregation to the front, just below the pulpit. The bishop, too, stepped down and joined them as they formed a tight circle. Each man had to turn sideways to make room for everyone. The baby’s father held her out into the center, and the other men placed their right hands beneath the father’s hands. Then each placed his left hand on the right shoulder of the man in front of him.The baby, who had been fussing, looked at the dark suits and at the mens faces, and began to cry. “Dear Heavenly Father,” began the young father. “By the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, we hold this baby in our hands to give her a name and a blessing. The name by which she shall be known upon the records of the church is Diedra Anne Sanderson…” In the prayer that followed he went on to express hopes for his daughter’s future, that she would always be surrounded by loved ones, that she would stay true to the faith, that she would grow healthy, strong, intelligent, and that she would make proper life choices. Tender emotions overcame him during the blessing. His voice shook, and he continued through his tears.In the circle’s midst, on the altar made of men’s hands, the baby screamed, red-faced, mouth open wide, lips curled. Her arms flailed and her legs kicked frantically beneath the flowing white gown.Only one minute passed. The blessing was over, and the congregation unanimously responded “Amen.” The circle of men parted and went back to their seats. The proud father turned to the crowd and lifted the wailing baby to the view of every eye. People smiled and made various subtle sounds of approval. By this time, several other babies in the crowd were crying and the chapel’s high ceiling dispensed the sound equally into everyone’s ears.The bishop stood again at the pulpit and spoke through the noise. “We’ll now prepare for the Sacrament by singing ‘God Loved Us So He Sent His Son,’ after which the bread and water will be blessed and passed by the young men.” He nodded to his left, smiling at the deacons and priests. The boys smiled back.Then the organ commenced with a prelude. 

This is the preface and first several pages of my book, 
Dead On The Corridor.

The ebook is only $4.99 here
Read it free on Kindle Unlimited



Preface__________

I am surrounded by mountains in every direction. The little valley where I live in the geographical center of Utah was originally inhabited by several Native American tribes, but they were displaced by Mormon Pioneers who fled the United States in the Nineteenth Century for what was then a territory of Mexico. Later, they were joined by thousands of Scandinavian immigrants. Those were my ancestors.     The region was thought to be Zion, and God was thought to be the grand architect.Here in the most drought-stricken parts of North America, my ancestors clashed with and displaced the tribes; fought wars; experimented with theocracy, polygamy, and communism; built temples, churches, schools. They instilled in their children an apocalyptic mythology; a faith in unique symbols, doctrines, and rituals; a sense of responsibility toward the living and the dead; traditions, food, dialect; and so many other things that still flavor the culture today. My ancestors established an iron-clad patriarchal system, in which men alone are believed to have the divine authority and power to rule in God’s Kingdom, and they embraced a social doctrine that made obedience to their authority the first law of heaven. But they also established the legendary Mormon work ethic, a social doctrine of charitable service, and the teaching that humanity is a family and all human beings are children of God. The curses and blessings that rise from these traditions are evident today like a city on a hill.Interstate Fifteen now cuts right through the earliest Mormon settlements, extending from Southern Nevada, through the middle of Utah, and into Idaho.I am a part of this culture. For better and for worse we are peculiar. The founders of my culture with all their justices, injustices, fears, loves, hatreds, and joys are my parents. And I am their child.



Consecration__________
T
he voices of nearly two hundred people rose into the chapel’s vaulted ceiling, echoed from its neutral cream walls, and dissipated. The organ crooned along. A family of latecomers could hear the organ from the parking lot. Mother and father wiped the sweat from their foreheads as they walked across the sunbaked asphalt and stepped onto the sidewalk. Their children ran behind them like a brood of ducklings. They entered through the church’s double doors just as the congregation sang the last line of a hymn taken from Job’s declaration, “I know that my redeemer lives!”   The hymnals were closed and returned to the wooden slots built into the backs of the pews. Then an old woman offered a rambling invocation. “Our dear, kind, gracious Heavenly Father. We thank thee for this beautiful day. We thank thee for our good bishop, Bishop Argyle…” She prayed for the bishop’s counselors, and for the men who oversaw the bishop, then for everyone on up through the hierarchy of church leadership. She prayed for the nation’s leaders, the worlds leaders, and for rain needed to water the parched high desert in which many congregants grew their crops. She prayed for everyone who was suffering, for struggling families, for the homeless. Nearly every soul in the world, living or dead, might have considered itself blessed when she finally said “Amen.” The bishop rose from his seat behind the pulpit. He was in his mid-thirties but seemed a decade younger than he was. The congregation loved him, and smiled up at him as he made the announcements. Outside their meetings they all spoke proudly of him, as if he were their own son, often describing him as Christlike. In appearance he did not look like the Jesus depicted in paintings. He was short, built like a bulldog, and his black hair was cut nearly to the scalp. He wore an ill-fitting blue suit and a Dr. Who themed tie.His young wife and three small children sat among the crowd, but the toddler had wandered away from his family, toward the front of the chapel, where a teenaged girl had taken him under her wing. Before he moved on with the meeting, the bishop had to settle the day’s administrative business. When he announced three new Sunday School positions, the congregation raised their hands in unanimous approval. Down in the benches, young parents distracted their fussing, fidgeting toddlers with snacks, games, coloring books, toys. Babies whined. Women, young and old, paid attention, or wrestled their over-active children into their seats, read their volumes of scripture, or stared at the screens on their phones. Older couples sat close to one another, holding hands. Widows and widowers sat together in cliques, sometimes whispering to each other. All the pleasant scents of colognes, perfumes, deodorants, blended with the chapel’s sweet clean scent, creating a smell familiar and comforting to everyone present. Some men and teenaged boys leaned forward with their elbows on their knees, resting their foreheads on the back of the pews in front of them, napping.A handful of twelve-year-old boys and older teens, the deacons and priests, charged with blessing and offering the sacrament of the Last Supper to the congregation, sat in the front, at attention, with tired eyes.Most congregants had not taken food or water since dinnertime the night before. This was the first Sunday of the month, when Mormons around the world fasted.       When the bishop finished the administrative matters, there was one last piece of important business to address. This was the reason several families had come from out of town. “Before we partake of the Sacrament,” the bishop said, “we have a very special baby blessing. I’d like to invite Brother Kendall Sanderson to come up with his beautiful baby girl. Also, anyone who has been invited to participate, please come up.”The young father, no older than his early twenties, made his way out of a long bench, shuffling past several pairs of knees. He cradled his infant daughter, whose little white dress flowed far past her tiny feet and hung from her father’s arms. She had been sleeping, but in all the jostling she stirred.A half-dozen other men, grandfathers and uncles, came out from the congregation to the front, just below the pulpit. The bishop, too, stepped down and joined them as they formed a tight circle. Each man had to turn sideways to make room for everyone. The baby’s father held her out into the center, and the other men placed their right hands beneath the father’s hands. Then each placed his left hand on the right shoulder of the man in front of him.The baby, who had been fussing, looked at the dark suits and at the mens faces, and began to cry. “Dear Heavenly Father,” began the young father. “By the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, we hold this baby in our hands to give her a name and a blessing. The name by which she shall be known upon the records of the church is Diedra Anne Sanderson…” In the prayer that followed he went on to express hopes for his daughter’s future, that she would always be surrounded by loved ones, that she would stay true to the faith, that she would grow healthy, strong, intelligent, and that she would make proper life choices. Tender emotions overcame him during the blessing. His voice shook, and he continued through his tears.In the circle’s midst, on the altar made of men’s hands, the baby screamed, red-faced, mouth open wide, lips curled. Her arms flailed and her legs kicked frantically beneath the flowing white gown.Only one minute passed. The blessing was over, and the congregation unanimously responded “Amen.” The circle of men parted and went back to their seats. The proud father turned to the crowd and lifted the wailing baby to the view of every eye. People smiled and made various subtle sounds of approval. By this time, several other babies in the crowd were crying and the chapel’s high ceiling dispensed the sound equally into everyone’s ears.The bishop stood again at the pulpit and spoke through the noise. “We’ll now prepare for the Sacrament by singing ‘God Loved Us So He Sent His Son,’ after which the bread and water will be blessed and passed by the young men.” He nodded to his left, smiling at the deacons and priests. The boys smiled back.Then the organ commenced with a prelude.