Squaring the Circle

I just returned from a wonderful trip to Wales. On the way, I arranged to visit Temple Church in London, a place I have been trying to get to for many years. It was well worth it.

Put aside all the silliness you have heard about the Templar Knights, even Monty Python. They were deadly serious. And for all the blood and error, they were searching for and attempting to establish a concept. It was in the round church quartered by the Cross. Temple Church is in a circle based on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The site of the Resurrection of Jesus was considered to be the center of the earth to the medieval Christian mind. Everything radiated from there.

In 1215, powerful Barons in England threatened King John with the loss of his life and kingdom with some very good reasons. And with no candidate at the time to replace him as king, the Baron's came up with concepts instead. The most important being: No. One. Is. Above. The. Law. And they made John sign a Charter to that effect with 25 of them as guarantors to remove the king if he failed to live up to the Charter. Well, fail he did as did many kings that followed. But the principles were enshrined as the faults of the Charter slowly worked themselves out over the centuries. This is an ongoing process. 

How Many Are Deaf to Covid-19?

 

At the Ear Doctor's Office

As a voice crying in the wilderness, I went half deaf myself.

There is no need to panic or reimpose the initial lock-downs and masking. It is more than prudent to follow the current guidelines regarding Covid-19 prevention along with so many other communicable diseases:

1. Follow the consensus recommendations of serious medical professionals, scientific experts, common sense, and even the religious leaders of my particular preference and get vaccinated with necessary boosters.

"To the Welsh"

I finished reading Llyfr Mormon, The Book of Mormon in Welsh. My system was not to translate every word or understand every grammatical structure. I simply read it along with the original English translation of Joseph Smith which was done by the gift and power of God. Mine was more for the general sense of it and I cannot deny that I felt the Spirit of God witness in the language of my ancient fathers and mothers.

Regeneration by Henry Vaughan

Spring is Easter is Passover is Life from Death:

Regeneration

A ward, and still in bonds, one day

I stole abroad;

It was high spring, and all the way

Primrosed and hung with shade;

Yet was it frost within,

And surly winds

Blasted my infant buds, and sin

Like clouds eclipsed my mind.

Stormed thus, I straight perceived my spring

Mere stage and show,

My walk a monstrous, mountained thing,

Roughcast with rocks and snow;

And as a pilgrim’s eye,

Far from relief,

Measures the melancholy sky,

Then drops and rains for grief,

So sighed I upwards still; at last

’Twixt steps and falls

I reached the pinnacle, where placed

I found a pair of scales;

I took them up and laid

In th’ one, late pains;

The other smoke and pleasures weighed,

But proved the heavier grains.

With that some cried, “Away!” Straight I

Obeyed, and led

Full east, a fair, fresh field could spy;

Some called it Jacob’s bed,

A virgin soil which no

Rude feet ere trod,

Where, since he stepped there, only go

Prophets and friends of God.

Here I reposed; but scarce well set,

A grove descried

Of stately height, whose branches met

And mixed on every side;

I entered, and once in,

Amazed to see ’t,

Found all was changed, and a new spring

Did all my senses greet.

The unthrift sun shot vital gold,

A thousand pieces,

And heaven its azure did unfold,

Checkered with snowy fleeces;

The air was all in spice,

And every bush

A garland wore; thus fed my eyes,

But all the ear lay hush.

Only a little fountain lent

Some use for ears,

And on the dumb shades language spent

The music of her tears;

I drew her near, and found

The cistern full

Of divers stones, some bright and round,

Others ill-shaped and dull.

The first, pray mark, as quick as light

Danced through the flood,

But the last, more heavy than the night,

Nailed to the center stood;

I wondered much, but tired

At last with thought,

My restless eye that still desired

As strange an object brought.

It was a bank of flowers, where I descried

Though ’twas midday,

Some fast asleep, others broad-eyed

And taking in the ray;

Here, musing long, I heard

A rushing wind

Which still increased, but whence it stirred

No where I could not find.

I turned me round, and to each shade

Dispatched an eye

To see if any leaf had made

Least motion or reply,

But while I listening sought

My mind to ease

By knowing where ’twas, or where not,

It whispered, “Where I please.”

“Lord,” then said I, “on me one breath,

And let me die before my death!”

Cant. chap. 5. ver. 17 [KJV Song of Solomon 4:16 ]

Arise O North, and come thou South-wind and blow upon my garden, that

the spices thereof may flow out.

HENRY VAUGHAN (1621-1695)


-more poetry by Henry Vaughan here

My Library, Part 2

The further adventures of me in my library.

This one is mostly about children's books and reading to children. Enjoy:

Where I spend a lot of my time.

 

Am I less anonymous if I post a video of me in here? I'm far from an "internet sensation" and I couldn't even figure out Tic-Tok that well. The filming is pretty poor. This is maybe for posterity's sake, maybe to explain a little about myself. 

The Rule of Law Must and Shall Prevail

Public domain photo of U.S. Capitol by the National Park Service (not implying any endorsement)

What a relief to see Steve Bannon indicted for contempt of Congress for failing to answer a constitutionally legal subpoena to testify and produce documents. It is very good to start with the easiest case. Bannon was not a member of the Executive Branch at the time of the insurrection of January 6 and the planning leading up to it. He is also, perhaps, the most disgusting of the former president's inner circle in his political philosophies and personal demeanor. I will spare you any photos of him here.

Flash of Possible Prophecy

 Jolted by a photo this morning of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

From Wikimedia Commons. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.O International

This is one of those thoughts of potential prophecy that is not a fixed, future point in the time continuum, but an opportunity for thought, choice, agency, and responsibility.

My Handcart Ancestor and Her Traveling Companion

 he evidence is pretty solid that our Elinor* (1789-1861) was the traveling companion of Mary Taylor Mayo (1791-1856) in their travels to America and on the Pioneer Trail. Mary is the one who died just short of South Pass on the Overland Trail. She died September 13, 1856, in Nebraska Territory and was buried in Oregon Territory when the Ellsworth Handcart Company stopped for the night at Pacific Springs.

There are two contemporaneous lists of the members of Ellsworth's Company that departed Iowa City on June 2, 1856. Neither one is in alphabetical order. The people are generally grouped by families. Interestingly, Elinor is not grouped with her daughter, Jane Vaughan Lewis (1827-1890) and her family. They travelled from Britain to the United States in different ships within weeks of each other. However, Elinor and Mary Mayo are listed together on both lists.

RHYDDID!

It seems important to state today if only to reassure my few readers, much less myself, that I still believe in God and in the United States of America. This is true even if I go to church today without a blazingly bold tie in red, white, and blue. I'm thinking of the one my Dad gave me some time ago with the Frank Lloyd Wright designs on it. That's a more subtle homage to the American Spirit as well as his Welsh ancestry.

"Negroes Attack Bothell, Washington!" Didn't Happen!

1968 riots in Washington D.C. after MLK,Jr. Assassination
 Warren K. Leffler / Library of Congress, Public Domain, 

1968 was a really bad year, Assassinations, Riots, War in Vietnam (my uncle was there), and really bad politics. I was an elven-year-old kid in the suburbs and it was a little scary. My Dad was talking with a friend on our front lawn. The friend said that he was buying a gun for his wife for when the Negroes come.

To my Dad's credit, he wasn't really going along with this. He didn't buy my Mom a gun. But, he didn't push back too hard with his friend. He just sort of winced and said something like, "I don't know if that's ever going to happen."

Returning to Church - or not....

An email drafted for my Bishop and EQ President that I'm not sure if I should send. Comments?

I just got my second Covid shot and I'm feeling pretty good about that.

I posted on Facebook that I'm looking forward to meeting with friends again in a couple of weeks as long as they were also vaccinated and still wear a mask in public places (-pretty much the standard of my mission to be in the Church History Library). But if I were to apply that standard to meeting with the ward how long would it be? Am I wrong to assume that it's probably never?

Art Comes Home from the Sea

My Dad's art is still in a bit of homelessness as he is with my Mom in assisted living and much of it is in storage. We are trying to help him decide where his art should go believing that it should be passed down through his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to be preserved through generations to come and not wind up in somebody's garage or a rummage sale. I mean, he signed his name on completed works and that should be respected down the generations and not forgotten. My wife recently came by a mountain landscape done by a great-uncle that has a family surname on it and the date of 1956. It will be preserved in family.

My sister had some pieces divided up for safe storage by display among our brother, herself, and me. We are trying to care for those and I had several pieces framed by the studio that my Dad prefers here in Salt Lake City. We found a lot of art in the dusty, mice-infested attic. One piece broke my heart a bit as I blew the dust off and passed a paper towel over the surface. I had the art dealer clean off the marks as best he could and frame with the closest to driftwood we could match:

I remember the day.

Punch to the Gut

 Stunned since January 6.

The pressure had built from the election up to that point with the monstrous lies too ridiculous and too outrageous to laugh too long.

I honestly don't know if our America will survive. There was so much unfinished work yet to do and now it seems to be in vain.

I can't trust the people who supported the horrible man who caused this. Well, it wasn't just him but all his enablers. Does that include us all? I don't know who all of them are. They are all around and I am brokenhearted. 

There are people I greatly love and have even respected who seem to betray me now. The hard truths I have been dealing with in my own brain have been ground into dirt. 

Post-Election Post 2020 - Not Quite a Blue Wave

 

"Not So Blue" The View up Mercury Passage, Tasmania, Australia by Colin Chick

And yet, it is pretty blue! And very pretty at that.

My body is pretty well oxygenated as I have been taking a lot of deep breaths since the election was called yesterday morning by the Associated Press recognized as the impartial leader of the constitutionally protected Free Press in the United States. It appears to be a solid win with some votes still to be counted in the tight races of Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, etc. Votes are certified by each state and the electors convene in December to make it official. In American tradition when the outcome is clear, the losing candidate offers a graceful concession to the winner. That will not happen this election.

It remains to be seen how blue the Senate will be until after two run-off elections in Georgia later this year. They are in newly blue Georgia so don't count out the Democrats yet.

But even if there is a Republican Senate led by the Obstructionist-in-Chief McConnell, there is so much good that will happen and so much bad that will not in the next four years. The President will not be constantly tweeting outrageous lies and insults. No matter how evil and corrupt you believe the Biden Family to be (and I don't think they're too bad) it will be nothing like the horrible example of moral turpitude we have had these last four years. I have yet to understand why so many millions voted for him. I know some say it's not for him but the conservative "policies" but still....

School Board Update

 Dear School Board Members:

I'm just back from dropping my wife off to teach school [....]. We loaned our second car to our daughter-in-law who is finishing her student teaching [elsewhere in Utah]. On the way to dropping off my wife, we stopped off at 6 a.m. when the store was open to pick up bags of ice for the Science projects today as my wife is the Science team lead. We did the same Monday when the sidewalks were so icey themselves. My wife will call when she's ready to come home. Usually it's about dinner-time, so she is putting in 12-hour days, sometimes more, and then there's the grading and prep time at home. I'm not trying to give another hard-working-teacher sob story, just context.

I am aware that many teachers are in favor of going to 4-days of students in school because it is easier to manage in a lot of ways. There still remains an increased risk of covid transmission when you double the number of students in school no matter how hard you try to implement distancing and mask-wearing. As you should know, cases are climbing in Utah and around the country. Last Summer, Governor Herbert said he wanted to see the case rate below 400 before schools opened. We barely made it and now we are well over a thousand a day. The hospitals are nearly full.

Please Vote!

 

It's coming!

Conspiracy Theory Is Not the Way to Go

There are a couple of books out by Matthew L. Harris of Colorado State University - Pueblo. One was noted in a link I shared in a Facebook posting that I will copy here because it led me to state my political interpretation rather succinctly.

[linking to an article "How did Mormons become so Republican?]:

Hopefully, we're finally getting out of this philosophy of one man....

Ya know it's interesting that no one of that stature has ever taken the extreme positions and conspiracies theories he did. Sure, there was that guy in the dorm and more than one crazed Utah politician, but nobody of the same stature in the church. What's that thing about paying attention to living leaders and not dead ones?

I'm going to be very blunt here. As blunt as Steve Schmidt has been with trump.

The Conservative Mormon fallacy has been:

Battling the Davis County School Board

It might be helpful and encouraging to some in these frightful times to share my ongoing battle with the Davis County School Board that in response to complaints from a group of parents, has changed our modified schedule limiting attendance to manageable, social-distancing limits, to full overload of our classrooms beginning Monday:

jrobison@dsdmail.net,
emumford@dsdmail.net,
jutanner@dsdmail.net,
bgerrard@dsdmail.net,
geckersley@dsdmail.net,
mstevenson@dsdmail.net,
cphipps@dsdmail.net,
rnewey@dsdmail.net,
boardmtg@dsdmail.net

August 5, 2020

Dear School Board Members,

Corona Virus and trump

I don't know how this will end. trump made his covid-19 bed and now he lies in it. I just want this on the record: