David G. Woolley's Blog, page 2
June 24, 2010
World Cup Soccer "Vuvuzela (trumpet)" Update
With all the controversy over the horn-blowing vuvuzela soccer fans at
South Africa's World Cup, this photo explains a lot. If you've watched any matches you may have noted that players and coaches are complaining they can't hear on the field. Sound technicians at television stations around the world have worked feverishly to find a way to filter out the horn-blowing that is even more obnoxious live than it is via satellite or cable. But really, do a few network computer geeks think they can filter out this trumpeter? I wouldn't want to be the one to keep his trumpet-playing from being heard. In a crucial decision handed down by FIFA last week, the vuvuzela will not be banned from any World Cup stadiums. Trumpeting isn't only an African cultural artifact, its big business in thousands of kiosks surrounding each venue. And for our trumpeteer, its more than commerce. Its a mission. The vuvuzela is to South Africa's 2010 World Cup as hot dogs and apple pie were to the USA's 1994 World Cup.
The Africans are buying the plastic horns in droves and, apparently, word has gotten out beyond the confines of Johannesburg. One of the most heralded horn-blowers of all time was photographed recently in the stands, lending his heavenly talents to the ruckus in South Africa this month. Doesn't he have family playing for Mexico, Honduras, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, or maybe even the USA? Go USA!
Go Moroni!
Bring home the cup to the New World!
__________________________
Join author David G. Woolley at his Promised Land Website.
August 26, 2009
One Good Man
*Editor's Note: The Top of the Morning Staff has been waiting for director Christian Vuissa's (Errand of Angels and Baptists at our Bar-B-Q) next film to be released. Originally titled A Father in Israel, the movie is scheduled for release October 9th, 2009 under the title One Good Man with a subtitle of Life as a Latter-Day Dad. The movie has already won film society awards and accolades as a rich, authentic look at Mormon life. We hope you enjoy this film clip and spend a few moments reviewing the official One Good Man movie website for more details about this wonderful new addition to Mormon cinema. Christian Vuissa is fast becoming the source for high quality, artistic, heart-warming movies. We haven't seen the movie yet, but if it comes close to Errand of Angels we'll give it four stars and be tempted to go all the way to five. We'll let you know once the movie is released later this year.
August 20, 2009
Today, Like The Days Of Noah
Editor's Note: A talented creator of LDS YouTube video favorites, davidkat99, has produced another powerful short in Today, Like the Days of Noah. The video compares the faith required to build Noah's ark on dry ground to the trials of modern-day discipleship. All the quotations and voice overs in the video are from General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In the short discussion below, the creator of this video explains additional insights that led him to develop this presentation. The Top of the Morning staff, after a rather long summer vacation, is back in the Top of the Morning offices, and gosh, golly, jeepers, does it feel good to be back, ready for another year of our very best. Thanks for joining us for our yearly journey featuring videos, in-depth articles and of course, more on the Book of Mormon. We're getting back into "school" with this artistically rich, and prophetically thought provoking video from davidkat99.
From the Director, davidkat99:
It's been sometime since I have felt inspired to create another video. To tell you the truth, it has been nice to have a break and focus on family, reading, church and work. But I have felt strongly the need for this video to be created. A friend of mine, Karen Boren, a wonderful author and researcher found the quotes which prompted me to create this video.
There was only one time in history, where men were given in marriage to men, and women given in marriage to women. Want to venture a guess as to when? No, it wasn't in Sodom and Gomorrah, although that was my guess. Homosexuality was rampant there, of course, but according to the Talmud, not homosexual marriage. What about ancient Greece? Rome? No. Babylon? No again. The one time in history when homosexual marriage was practiced was during the days of Noah. And according to Satinover, thats what the Babylonian Talmud attributes as the final straw that led to the Flood.
"The generation of Noah was condemned to eradication by the flood because they had sunk so low morally, that, according to Midrashic teaching, they wrote our formal marriage contracts for sodomy and buggery--" Leviticus Rabbah 18:13. Quote from "Jewish Bioethics," Dr. Fred Rosner and Rabbi David Bleich, Ktav Publishing House, Israel, December 1999, page 219:
It is interesting that we are experiencing all of the same things that happened in the days of Noah. Same sex marriage laws have been passed recently in Connecticut and Iowa. Vermont and Maine will honor same sex marriage in September and New Hampshire in January 2010.
But as it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be also at the coming of the Son of Man; For it shall be with them, as it was in the days which were before the flood; for until the day that Noah entered into the ark they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage; And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. JST Matthew 41-43.
Now this video is not about same sex marriage, but rather about the need we have to prepare both spiritually and temporally for what is to come.
__________________________
Join author David G. Woolley at his Promised Land Website.
July 3, 2009
Lives, Fortunes & Sacred Honor
Editor's Note: All of us here at Top of the Morning hope you enjoy this piece about the signers of the declaration of independence. May we all have similar courage and hold sacred our honor as did these patriots who, with us, across the span of two centuries, still stand for liberty in the face of government tyrrany.
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr, noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over his home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The Redcoats jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.
Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates. Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." They gave you and me a free and independent America.
The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government! Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't, not in the face of modern government tyranny. Take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday to silently thank these patriots, and then decide to stand with these uncompromising men of liberty and refuse to let tyranny destroy the gift of a republic they bequethed us with their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
__________________________
Join author David G. Woolley at his Promised Land Website.
June 10, 2009
The Great Mormon Novel
by David G. Woolley
*Editor's Note: In a column titled Great Novels Need Doubt as Vantage that appeared in the Deseret News Mormon Times, religion editor Jerry Johnston lamented there would likely never be a Great Mormon Novel because he has, "known some marvelous Mormon wordsmiths. But being a Mormon is not like being Catholic or Jewish. There is precious little wiggle room for devout LDS writers. There aren't a lot of gray areas to explore."
Here at the Top of the Morning, author David G. Woolley suggests that the great Mormon novel will take the broken, first step stories and make them complete. And why not? If Mormonism is the fullness of the gospel, then shouldn't Mormon novelists be the ones who bring that fullness to storytelling? Here is David's response to columnist Jerry Johnston.
June 10, 2009
Dear Jerry:
The Great Mormon Novel is possible. It will happen. It will be faithful, uplifting, and embraced by those in and outside of the church for the very reason that it completes the now incomplete definition of the great novel by mending our broken stories where evil is personified as good, and completing our incomplete dramas where good is lampooned as evil.
The great Mormon novel won't chart new territory or break new ground as much as it will lead the reader to rediscover the storytelling path to our fullest mortal potential--the path that is lost in so much secularization.
The great Mormon novel will reacquaint men with the divine. It will celebrate the demands of gospel centeredness. It will rediscover what has been lost. It will restore faith in men, reverence for God and it will uncover the revelatory connection between heaven and earth. It will find joy in the work of building the kingdom. It will portray the shedding of one's ego and ambitions. And it will find its voice, not in the surrendering of one's ideas as you suggest in your article, but by celebrating the divine creativity that flows from discovering that the will of God is an infinitely more holy road than is the dead-end of half way back authorship. The community of great Mormon novelists isn't limited to Mormons who leave the fold and come half way back to the church. There is a more complete ending to every story than coming half way back.
The literati of our time celebrate redemption in the half way back story. The world finds comfort in those first redeeming steps. There is a certain worldly familiarity in the Aaronic Priesthood approach to redemptive storytelling, and since all storytelling is about redemption, the great Mormon novel will plumb the depths beyond those first preparatory steps and carry the reader into the restored fullness of the redemptive human drama.
The great Mormon novel will be a Melchizedek novel that takes redemptive storytelling through to is fullest, most complete, entirely natural dramatic high point. A temple climax set in the figurative tops of the mountains. It will give us hope that men are that they might have joy. Divine. Eternal. Joy.
The great Mormon novel won't be the investigator turned convert King Lamoniesque story. It will be the disciple, final stage, Enosesque story. The story of an active, bishop-like, tithe-paying, Relief Society President-like, moral, obedient, humble, temple-going, ecclesiastic supporting soul, who finds redemption not in the preparatory steps of coming back into the fold, but in the sanctifying graces of the life of discipleship, adopting God's will as his own. Isn't that the message of the restoration? Restoring an understanding, not of the first principles and ordinances, but of the divine potential in each of us? The great Mormon novel will give the reader a glimpse of their divine end while they are yet living in the earthly pages of their mortal beginnings.
It will happen Jerry. New wine will be poured into new bottles. The great Mormon novel will be written. The old rules of literary critique will be discarded for new ones. The old ways of viewing a novel will become new. The world will unwrap our literary gift left under the tree and know us better. The pages will be salted with inspired inklings and prophetic foreshadowings and when the reader arrives at the last page, she will close the book and say, "I knew it was going to end like that." And by knowing us better, the world will know that though the end is foreshadowed in the beginning, the satisfying climax isn't in the first steps of coming half way back along the narrow way or the opening scene of chapter one, but in enduring to the sanctifying conclusion. Which is, as in all great stories, The End.
Sincerely,
David G. Woolley
LDS Novelist
__________________________
Join author David G. Woolley at his Promised Land Website.
*Editor's Note: In a column titled Great Novels Need Doubt as Vantage that appeared in the Deseret News Mormon Times, religion editor Jerry Johnston lamented there would likely never be a Great Mormon Novel because he has, "known some marvelous Mormon wordsmiths. But being a Mormon is not like being Catholic or Jewish. There is precious little wiggle room for devout LDS writers. There aren't a lot of gray areas to explore."
Here at the Top of the Morning, author David G. Woolley suggests that the great Mormon novel will take the broken, first step stories and make them complete. And why not? If Mormonism is the fullness of the gospel, then shouldn't Mormon novelists be the ones who bring that fullness to storytelling? Here is David's response to columnist Jerry Johnston.
June 10, 2009
Dear Jerry:
The Great Mormon Novel is possible. It will happen. It will be faithful, uplifting, and embraced by those in and outside of the church for the very reason that it completes the now incomplete definition of the great novel by mending our broken stories where evil is personified as good, and completing our incomplete dramas where good is lampooned as evil.
The great Mormon novel won't chart new territory or break new ground as much as it will lead the reader to rediscover the storytelling path to our fullest mortal potential--the path that is lost in so much secularization.
The great Mormon novel will reacquaint men with the divine. It will celebrate the demands of gospel centeredness. It will rediscover what has been lost. It will restore faith in men, reverence for God and it will uncover the revelatory connection between heaven and earth. It will find joy in the work of building the kingdom. It will portray the shedding of one's ego and ambitions. And it will find its voice, not in the surrendering of one's ideas as you suggest in your article, but by celebrating the divine creativity that flows from discovering that the will of God is an infinitely more holy road than is the dead-end of half way back authorship. The community of great Mormon novelists isn't limited to Mormons who leave the fold and come half way back to the church. There is a more complete ending to every story than coming half way back.
The literati of our time celebrate redemption in the half way back story. The world finds comfort in those first redeeming steps. There is a certain worldly familiarity in the Aaronic Priesthood approach to redemptive storytelling, and since all storytelling is about redemption, the great Mormon novel will plumb the depths beyond those first preparatory steps and carry the reader into the restored fullness of the redemptive human drama.
The great Mormon novel will be a Melchizedek novel that takes redemptive storytelling through to is fullest, most complete, entirely natural dramatic high point. A temple climax set in the figurative tops of the mountains. It will give us hope that men are that they might have joy. Divine. Eternal. Joy.
The great Mormon novel won't be the investigator turned convert King Lamoniesque story. It will be the disciple, final stage, Enosesque story. The story of an active, bishop-like, tithe-paying, Relief Society President-like, moral, obedient, humble, temple-going, ecclesiastic supporting soul, who finds redemption not in the preparatory steps of coming back into the fold, but in the sanctifying graces of the life of discipleship, adopting God's will as his own. Isn't that the message of the restoration? Restoring an understanding, not of the first principles and ordinances, but of the divine potential in each of us? The great Mormon novel will give the reader a glimpse of their divine end while they are yet living in the earthly pages of their mortal beginnings.
It will happen Jerry. New wine will be poured into new bottles. The great Mormon novel will be written. The old rules of literary critique will be discarded for new ones. The old ways of viewing a novel will become new. The world will unwrap our literary gift left under the tree and know us better. The pages will be salted with inspired inklings and prophetic foreshadowings and when the reader arrives at the last page, she will close the book and say, "I knew it was going to end like that." And by knowing us better, the world will know that though the end is foreshadowed in the beginning, the satisfying climax isn't in the first steps of coming half way back along the narrow way or the opening scene of chapter one, but in enduring to the sanctifying conclusion. Which is, as in all great stories, The End.
Sincerely,
David G. Woolley
LDS Novelist
__________________________
Join author David G. Woolley at his Promised Land Website.
May 7, 2009
Liahona Etymology: Coining a Name
by David G. Woolley
*Editor's Note: If you're just tuning in, we've changed our usual programming for May due to a fast-approaching submission deadline for the soon-to-be-released Compass of God and we invite your feedback on the following scene along with pleas for feedback on previous posts.
If you've got a minute, have a look at this scene and post your comments on the comment page. The point of view character is Sarah, daughter of Jonathan the Blacksmith. This scene is based on historical notes which will appear in the printed version of Compass of God detailing the careful etymology of two Hebrew words Ona and L-iah (or el-iah). Those in the Book of Mormon who first encountered the unfamiliar device likely combined the Hebrew Ona and L-iah to coin the word Liahona, essentially creating a new word based largely on how they used and how they viewed the most important operational aspects of the navigational instrument. Warning: other chapters provide further details regarding the writings that appeared on the Liahona and its possible origins, however this particular scene is devoted to the etymology of the Compass of God.
Chapter Number: TBD
Scene: 1 of 1
Purpose: Multi-faceted. Transfer of the Liahona from Mulek to Sarah. Show how the name Liahona was likely given to the compass. Strengthen the relationship between Mulek and Sarah for future scenes. Underscore the major theme of the novel: Compass of God.
Point of View Character: Sarah, daughter of Jonathan the Blacksmith
Characters on scene: Two (Mulek and Sarah, with Cameo appearance by Ruth, Sarah's mother)
Dramatic High Point: Multiple Points (The appearance of Ruth, The revealling of the name of the Compass, the accptance of the compass by Sarah as guardian)
Begin Scene
* * * * *
"Who's there?"
Sarah turned from the water cistern and lifted the oil lamp up to the canopy of olive trees shielding the starry night. There was no late evening breeze to make such a noise. No night fowl. Not a single reason for the erratic shaking that jumped through the branches like an African monkey. She left her urn beside the water cistern and slowly backed toward the kitchen door. Something wasn't right and she had to warn Papa to hide Aaron. Quickly. She'd never heard or seen anything like this since the day—
"Good evening, Sarah."
She spun around to find a man standing behind her. How did he know her name? She raised the lamp to his face. He was a good two hands taller with straight brown hair, a straighter nose, and high cheeks. Despite the start he gave her she didn't call out, she didn't run away, she was possessed by a calmness that begged her to be still. He wasn't a soldier, not by the white chamber servant's robe that draped over his square shoulders and cut short just above the knee, revealing long-boned legs and rather expensive leather sandals for a servant. "How did you get in here?"
"How I always get in."
That was impossible. They watched the house carefully. Latched all the doors. No one came onto the property without them knowing about it—not since they found Aaron half-dead in the courtyard. There was something strangely familiar about the stranger's eyes and when he smiled she saw the memory of years past standing before her. "Mulek?"
"Did I frighten you?"
"You're alive?"
"Answer me this." Mulek took her hand and pressed it over his heart. "Is it still beating?"
"It is you. Who else could it be?" Sarah slowly took her hand back. "It's been so long since my father took you away to Sidon. I assumed that, well, we had no word for so many years."
"You look well, Sarah."
Mulek spoke with a much deeper voice than she remembered and it made a handsome sound to hear him say her name. She quickly combed through her deep red hair with her fingers. Did he notice most of her childhood freckles were gone—just as Papa promised they would disappear? "I wouldn't have recognized you dressed like—
"Like a chamber boy?"
Sarah laughed.
"Think of me as a navigator."
What an odd choice of words for a prince.
"I've been at sea these many years."
"The Prince of Judah a sailor?"
"Something like that, yes."
Sarah laughed again, loudly enough that Ruth called from inside the kitchen window, asking if she was all right.
"Mama, you're not going to believe who—
Mulek pulled her close, pressed her shoulders against his chest and covered her mouth with his hand, telling her not to say a word about his return. The force of his movement was so sudden and the change of inflection from playful to serious gave her a frightening start. He whispered he was hiding in the royal palace chambers masquerading as a chamber boy and beyond his mother and father, no one, not even his younger brothers whom he watched everyday since his return last week, knew he was in Jerusalem. He thanked her for her father saving his life by spiriting him off to Sidon so many years before, but he couldn't thank him personally. Not yet. It was safer for everyone that they not know of his return.
"Sarah?" Ruth leaned out the window. "What did you say girl?"
Mulek let her go, placed his finger to his lips reminding her not to reveal what he'd told her and then he backed away with both hands in the air like a prisoner at her mercy before disappearing behind the trunk of an olive tree and leaving her in full view of the window. Why was his life veiled in so much secrecy? He was a good, honest man, and a kind soul. Humble for one so intelligent. Educated beyond his years, and willing to sacrifice his safety for the lives of the prophets. He'd been that way since she first met him and there was no reason to believe that the years spanning his absence had done anything but prove him worthy of the deepest trust. Sarah lifted her lamp to claim Ruth's attention and when mama turned her way she said, "You're not going to believe this."
"What is it dear?"
A small pebble flew from behind the tree trunk and hit her in the back of the head.
"Ouch."
"What was that, daughter?"
"I said…" Sarah stepped away from the tree trunk and raised her voice. "You're not going to believe what a—
Three more pebbles, thrown with a powerful arm, struck her in the backside and she squealed.
"Is everything all right, dear?"
"Stop it!"
Ruth leaned further out the window. "Stop what?"
Sarah shook her finger at the tree trunk before turning back to Ruth. Keeping Mulek's secret didn't worry her nearly as much as his rock throwing. She quickly said, "You're not going to believe what a beautiful night it is." She glanced at the trunk and when she was certain another rock wasn't coming for her she added, "A rather ageless, mysterious night."
"Don't stay too long, dear." Ruth held the sill with both hands. "I need water to boil for your father's tea."
Sarah waited for Ruth to pull back inside before slowly stepping around the olive tree to find Mulek with his back braced against the trunk. He held a cedar box close to his body with both hands—a box he didn't possess when first he surprised her. Somehow he managed to sneak the contraband into the yard and hide it behind the tree without her seeing. "Does the Prince of Judah really need to sneak about with so much secrecy? You're safe now. Captain Laban's dead. He can't hurt you."
Mulek stood away from the tree. "I had to be sure that you were still the same Sarah I remembered the day I first met you."
"You mean the girl foolish enough to play beneath the water clock."
"You remember."
"How could I forget? Red clay flecks dotted my cheeks and I was soaking wet like a wilted lily on a pond."
"Your freckles." Mulek brushed his thumb across her face. "They're gone."
"I remember your hair." Sarah touched his long hair that reached to just above his shoulders.
"You mean the hair I didn't have?"
"You shaved it down to the scalp like an Egyptian school boy with a long tail growing out the side."
"It has been a long time, hasn't it?"
"And you escorted your mother as if…"
"As if I were a palace watchman announcing a royal visit?" Mulek shook his head. "Mother insisted I learn royal etiquette."
"She trusted you."
"And I trusted her." Mulek took Sarah by the arm and thanked her for noticing how much he honored his mother. "So much has changed."
"Not everything." Sarah tugged on his the sleeve of his white chamber boy's robe. "I never stopped believing you'd come back. Someday."
"I never stopped believing I could trust you." Mulek lifted the lid to the cedar box and removed a brass ball engraved with constellations and decorated with small writing plates dangling from hooks about the base. "It's worth more than all the gold in Judah." He placed the smooth, round ball into her hands. "I want you to keep it safe for now."
"Wouldn't the palace treasury be a better choice?"
"That's the first place they'll look if they find out I've returned."
"If who finds out?"
"Will you keep it hidden for me?"
A lattice work of arching brass graced the open top and begged her examination of the inner workings. Two spindles, the tip of one fixed in place with a small brass latch around a post and the other free floating, were balanced on a fulcrum in the center of an ornately carved face. Four large brass posts were set in a circular pattern around the perimeter, the largest at the top of the circle with the words left hand etched into the brass. A quarter turn down the circular face, another large post appeared with the word forehead beside it. At the bottom of the circle the post bore the words right hand and three quarters turn around the circle the last large post was carefully engraved with the words back of the head .
"There are men who would kill to hold what you're holding."
"Here." Sarah handed it over. "Have it back."
"You're safe. I promise." Mulek refused her offering. "Neither God nor I will let anything happen to you or this device. You're both far too valuable." He leaned in closer. "May I show you one of its secrets?"
The kitchen window went dark. It was getting late and Papa was likely laying Aaron inside the secret chamber where her brother slept each night against the possibility of soldiers forcing their way inside while they were sleeping, the most dreaded of whom was Daniel—her own flesh and blood. "I can't endure anymore secrets."
"Where is the red haired girl I once knew with a sense of adventure?"
"I like to know where the adventure is taking me first."
"You fear the uncertainty."
"I want to understand it."
"If you know a secret, then it isn't a secret anymore." Mulek stood beside her, set his chin on her shoulder, his warm hands pressing her hands against the cold metal sphere as he slowly turned the brass ball. "See how the free floating spindle maintains the same direction no matter how we turn the device."
"I don't want to know anymore." She could feel the seriousness of his words against her ear. "I don't want more unwelcome attention to come to me or my family."
"Please, Sarah. Hear me out."
"Why me?"
"You're the only one I trust."
"What about Miriam? I trust your mother with my life."
"You're the one God trusts with this." Mulek kept turning the ball until the free floating spindle lined up with the largest brass post at the top of the circle where the words left hand were written. "See there. That's how you set the device, with the spindle aligned with the left hand."
"Left hand? What do you mean? Why the left hand?"
"You're curious?"
"I want to know what it means."
"Raise your left hand the same direction as the spindle."
"How has that anything to do with easing my fear over—?"
"Trust me."
Sarah held the brass ball with her right hand and raised her left hand in perfect alignment.
Mulek said, "What does left hand mean?"
"It hasn't a meaning. It's an appendage with a wrist, a palm, and these." Sarah wiggled her fingers and waited for Mulek to respond with another question, or more of his sage commentary, or at least a slight laugh to acknowledge her humor. When he didn't she said, "What else am I to answer?"
"What do you think of when you reach a fork in the path and you choose the left hand way?"
"That's a superstitious question."
"What do you think of?"
"I suppose you mean unlucky. Cursed."
"Anything else?"
Sarah forced her eyes open ghoulish wide and whispered, "The dark unknown."
"You're far too much like your sister, Elizabeth. You think too deeply."
"Would you prefer I think shallow thoughts?"
"Left hand means north."
"I knew that."
Sarah handed the brass device back to Mulek, but he refused it again and said, "We're not finished."
Did he mean not finished showing her the device or not finished forcing her to stand in the most discomfited of positions with her left hand raised to the great north star? Mulek reached his fingers into the ball, unlatched the fixed spindle, moved it down a quarter turn to the word forehead and fixed it in place. "See there. The free spindle points toward the left hand and the fixed spindle points the direction you're facing."
"That would be east." Sarah let him take the device and without him asking, she raised her right hand while he moved the fixed spindle to the bottom of the circle and latched it to the post bearing the words right hand.
Sara said, "That's south."
"And this is west." Mulek moved the fixed spindle to the last position next to the inscription back of the head.
It was an awkward way to stand with her left hand pointing north, her right hand pointing south, the back of her head aligned with the setting moon and her face squared to where the sun would rise come morning, but as long as she had the attention of the Prince of Judah, it was an inelegance she would endure.
"This is how the Jews have found their way for thousands of years."
"Then we're finished?"
"Not entirely." Mulek walked a slow circle around Sarah. "When an Egyptian takes his bearings he faces upstream on the Nile and calls the southerly direction forehead."
"That would change the right hand in Egyptian to west." Sarah nodded with her hands still raised. "Back of the head would become north and right hand would become east. I understand."
"Every nation, except the Jews, employs the Egyptian way. The Phoenicians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Assyrians." Mulek held up the brass ball. "That's why Linius never entirely understood it."
"Linius?"
"The Captain of the Amhporas was Phoenician. He taught me everything he knew of the sea, but the device is a Hebrew instrument, passed down for centuries through the hands of Noah and to men of the Orient before came to Linius. He never would have figured it out if he didn't come to trust me, a Hebrew, and allow me to decipher his navigational charts. The entire world was off by a quarter turn." Mulek came around in front of Sarah and stopped circling. "When we Jews chart directions we begin by standing with our back to the Great Sea." He stepped in next to her and they stood shoulder to shoulder with Sarah's right elbow passing below his chin. "That's how it's been for thousands of years in our lands—turn your back to the Great Sea and every other direction falls into place. All the holy writings of every prophet begin with back-of-the-head westerly directions, then it was a simple matter for them to write about right-hand southerly directions, forbidden and cursed left-hand northerly directions, and forehead easterly directions. Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, all of them recorded their directions precisely as we're standing now with our backs to the Great Sea."
Sarah slowly lowered her arms and when Mulek didn't tell her to stop she broke her stance and stepped around in front of him. His sun-bleached hair and wind burned lips spoke of years sailing the Great Sea. "The device, what do you call it?"
"It hasn't a name beyond calling it 'Ona—direction."
"Ona?" Sarah repeated the Hebrew word, each time more slowly than the first. "Direction. I like it. It's a fine name. Entirely sensible."
"It isn't only a device for direction. It's useless without a gift from God."
Sarah took the brass ball. "Isn't this gift enough?"
"The gift is when the Lord reveals the charted course to your heart and your mind, in dreams and thoughts, in moments of quiet and moments when the sea threatens to swallow your vessel whole." Mulek rested his hand on the brass ball. "This is where heaven and earth meet. Without God the way can't be charted and without this director the storms are sure to steer you off your course."
"Don't we all have a gift from God for charting our course? A still small voice?" Sarah laid her hand on his hand. "Call it L-iah, then."
"The Lord?"
"No, no. Put them together."
"L-iah…" Mulek paused and in his best Hebrew slowly said, "L-iah-ona?"
"That's a much better name. Liahona. The direction of the Lord."
"Take it." Mulek returned the brass ball to the cedar box and set it in her hands. "Keep it safe."
"What if something happens?"
"You'll know what to do."
"And if I fail you?"
"L-iah-ona." Mulek pressed Sarah's hands against the cedar box. "You'll not fail if you follow the direction of the Lord."
__________________________
Join author David G. Woolley at his Promised Land Website.
*Editor's Note: If you're just tuning in, we've changed our usual programming for May due to a fast-approaching submission deadline for the soon-to-be-released Compass of God and we invite your feedback on the following scene along with pleas for feedback on previous posts.
If you've got a minute, have a look at this scene and post your comments on the comment page. The point of view character is Sarah, daughter of Jonathan the Blacksmith. This scene is based on historical notes which will appear in the printed version of Compass of God detailing the careful etymology of two Hebrew words Ona and L-iah (or el-iah). Those in the Book of Mormon who first encountered the unfamiliar device likely combined the Hebrew Ona and L-iah to coin the word Liahona, essentially creating a new word based largely on how they used and how they viewed the most important operational aspects of the navigational instrument. Warning: other chapters provide further details regarding the writings that appeared on the Liahona and its possible origins, however this particular scene is devoted to the etymology of the Compass of God.
Chapter Number: TBD
Scene: 1 of 1
Purpose: Multi-faceted. Transfer of the Liahona from Mulek to Sarah. Show how the name Liahona was likely given to the compass. Strengthen the relationship between Mulek and Sarah for future scenes. Underscore the major theme of the novel: Compass of God.
Point of View Character: Sarah, daughter of Jonathan the Blacksmith
Characters on scene: Two (Mulek and Sarah, with Cameo appearance by Ruth, Sarah's mother)
Dramatic High Point: Multiple Points (The appearance of Ruth, The revealling of the name of the Compass, the accptance of the compass by Sarah as guardian)
Begin Scene
* * * * *
"Who's there?"
Sarah turned from the water cistern and lifted the oil lamp up to the canopy of olive trees shielding the starry night. There was no late evening breeze to make such a noise. No night fowl. Not a single reason for the erratic shaking that jumped through the branches like an African monkey. She left her urn beside the water cistern and slowly backed toward the kitchen door. Something wasn't right and she had to warn Papa to hide Aaron. Quickly. She'd never heard or seen anything like this since the day—
"Good evening, Sarah."
She spun around to find a man standing behind her. How did he know her name? She raised the lamp to his face. He was a good two hands taller with straight brown hair, a straighter nose, and high cheeks. Despite the start he gave her she didn't call out, she didn't run away, she was possessed by a calmness that begged her to be still. He wasn't a soldier, not by the white chamber servant's robe that draped over his square shoulders and cut short just above the knee, revealing long-boned legs and rather expensive leather sandals for a servant. "How did you get in here?"
"How I always get in."
That was impossible. They watched the house carefully. Latched all the doors. No one came onto the property without them knowing about it—not since they found Aaron half-dead in the courtyard. There was something strangely familiar about the stranger's eyes and when he smiled she saw the memory of years past standing before her. "Mulek?"
"Did I frighten you?"
"You're alive?"
"Answer me this." Mulek took her hand and pressed it over his heart. "Is it still beating?"
"It is you. Who else could it be?" Sarah slowly took her hand back. "It's been so long since my father took you away to Sidon. I assumed that, well, we had no word for so many years."
"You look well, Sarah."
Mulek spoke with a much deeper voice than she remembered and it made a handsome sound to hear him say her name. She quickly combed through her deep red hair with her fingers. Did he notice most of her childhood freckles were gone—just as Papa promised they would disappear? "I wouldn't have recognized you dressed like—
"Like a chamber boy?"
Sarah laughed.
"Think of me as a navigator."
What an odd choice of words for a prince.
"I've been at sea these many years."
"The Prince of Judah a sailor?"
"Something like that, yes."
Sarah laughed again, loudly enough that Ruth called from inside the kitchen window, asking if she was all right.
"Mama, you're not going to believe who—
Mulek pulled her close, pressed her shoulders against his chest and covered her mouth with his hand, telling her not to say a word about his return. The force of his movement was so sudden and the change of inflection from playful to serious gave her a frightening start. He whispered he was hiding in the royal palace chambers masquerading as a chamber boy and beyond his mother and father, no one, not even his younger brothers whom he watched everyday since his return last week, knew he was in Jerusalem. He thanked her for her father saving his life by spiriting him off to Sidon so many years before, but he couldn't thank him personally. Not yet. It was safer for everyone that they not know of his return.
"Sarah?" Ruth leaned out the window. "What did you say girl?"
Mulek let her go, placed his finger to his lips reminding her not to reveal what he'd told her and then he backed away with both hands in the air like a prisoner at her mercy before disappearing behind the trunk of an olive tree and leaving her in full view of the window. Why was his life veiled in so much secrecy? He was a good, honest man, and a kind soul. Humble for one so intelligent. Educated beyond his years, and willing to sacrifice his safety for the lives of the prophets. He'd been that way since she first met him and there was no reason to believe that the years spanning his absence had done anything but prove him worthy of the deepest trust. Sarah lifted her lamp to claim Ruth's attention and when mama turned her way she said, "You're not going to believe this."
"What is it dear?"
A small pebble flew from behind the tree trunk and hit her in the back of the head.
"Ouch."
"What was that, daughter?"
"I said…" Sarah stepped away from the tree trunk and raised her voice. "You're not going to believe what a—
Three more pebbles, thrown with a powerful arm, struck her in the backside and she squealed.
"Is everything all right, dear?"
"Stop it!"
Ruth leaned further out the window. "Stop what?"
Sarah shook her finger at the tree trunk before turning back to Ruth. Keeping Mulek's secret didn't worry her nearly as much as his rock throwing. She quickly said, "You're not going to believe what a beautiful night it is." She glanced at the trunk and when she was certain another rock wasn't coming for her she added, "A rather ageless, mysterious night."
"Don't stay too long, dear." Ruth held the sill with both hands. "I need water to boil for your father's tea."
Sarah waited for Ruth to pull back inside before slowly stepping around the olive tree to find Mulek with his back braced against the trunk. He held a cedar box close to his body with both hands—a box he didn't possess when first he surprised her. Somehow he managed to sneak the contraband into the yard and hide it behind the tree without her seeing. "Does the Prince of Judah really need to sneak about with so much secrecy? You're safe now. Captain Laban's dead. He can't hurt you."
Mulek stood away from the tree. "I had to be sure that you were still the same Sarah I remembered the day I first met you."
"You mean the girl foolish enough to play beneath the water clock."
"You remember."
"How could I forget? Red clay flecks dotted my cheeks and I was soaking wet like a wilted lily on a pond."
"Your freckles." Mulek brushed his thumb across her face. "They're gone."
"I remember your hair." Sarah touched his long hair that reached to just above his shoulders.
"You mean the hair I didn't have?"
"You shaved it down to the scalp like an Egyptian school boy with a long tail growing out the side."
"It has been a long time, hasn't it?"
"And you escorted your mother as if…"
"As if I were a palace watchman announcing a royal visit?" Mulek shook his head. "Mother insisted I learn royal etiquette."
"She trusted you."
"And I trusted her." Mulek took Sarah by the arm and thanked her for noticing how much he honored his mother. "So much has changed."
"Not everything." Sarah tugged on his the sleeve of his white chamber boy's robe. "I never stopped believing you'd come back. Someday."
"I never stopped believing I could trust you." Mulek lifted the lid to the cedar box and removed a brass ball engraved with constellations and decorated with small writing plates dangling from hooks about the base. "It's worth more than all the gold in Judah." He placed the smooth, round ball into her hands. "I want you to keep it safe for now."
"Wouldn't the palace treasury be a better choice?"
"That's the first place they'll look if they find out I've returned."
"If who finds out?"
"Will you keep it hidden for me?"
A lattice work of arching brass graced the open top and begged her examination of the inner workings. Two spindles, the tip of one fixed in place with a small brass latch around a post and the other free floating, were balanced on a fulcrum in the center of an ornately carved face. Four large brass posts were set in a circular pattern around the perimeter, the largest at the top of the circle with the words left hand etched into the brass. A quarter turn down the circular face, another large post appeared with the word forehead beside it. At the bottom of the circle the post bore the words right hand and three quarters turn around the circle the last large post was carefully engraved with the words back of the head .
"There are men who would kill to hold what you're holding."
"Here." Sarah handed it over. "Have it back."
"You're safe. I promise." Mulek refused her offering. "Neither God nor I will let anything happen to you or this device. You're both far too valuable." He leaned in closer. "May I show you one of its secrets?"
The kitchen window went dark. It was getting late and Papa was likely laying Aaron inside the secret chamber where her brother slept each night against the possibility of soldiers forcing their way inside while they were sleeping, the most dreaded of whom was Daniel—her own flesh and blood. "I can't endure anymore secrets."
"Where is the red haired girl I once knew with a sense of adventure?"
"I like to know where the adventure is taking me first."
"You fear the uncertainty."
"I want to understand it."
"If you know a secret, then it isn't a secret anymore." Mulek stood beside her, set his chin on her shoulder, his warm hands pressing her hands against the cold metal sphere as he slowly turned the brass ball. "See how the free floating spindle maintains the same direction no matter how we turn the device."
"I don't want to know anymore." She could feel the seriousness of his words against her ear. "I don't want more unwelcome attention to come to me or my family."
"Please, Sarah. Hear me out."
"Why me?"
"You're the only one I trust."
"What about Miriam? I trust your mother with my life."
"You're the one God trusts with this." Mulek kept turning the ball until the free floating spindle lined up with the largest brass post at the top of the circle where the words left hand were written. "See there. That's how you set the device, with the spindle aligned with the left hand."
"Left hand? What do you mean? Why the left hand?"
"You're curious?"
"I want to know what it means."
"Raise your left hand the same direction as the spindle."
"How has that anything to do with easing my fear over—?"
"Trust me."
Sarah held the brass ball with her right hand and raised her left hand in perfect alignment.
Mulek said, "What does left hand mean?"
"It hasn't a meaning. It's an appendage with a wrist, a palm, and these." Sarah wiggled her fingers and waited for Mulek to respond with another question, or more of his sage commentary, or at least a slight laugh to acknowledge her humor. When he didn't she said, "What else am I to answer?"
"What do you think of when you reach a fork in the path and you choose the left hand way?"
"That's a superstitious question."
"What do you think of?"
"I suppose you mean unlucky. Cursed."
"Anything else?"
Sarah forced her eyes open ghoulish wide and whispered, "The dark unknown."
"You're far too much like your sister, Elizabeth. You think too deeply."
"Would you prefer I think shallow thoughts?"
"Left hand means north."
"I knew that."
Sarah handed the brass device back to Mulek, but he refused it again and said, "We're not finished."
Did he mean not finished showing her the device or not finished forcing her to stand in the most discomfited of positions with her left hand raised to the great north star? Mulek reached his fingers into the ball, unlatched the fixed spindle, moved it down a quarter turn to the word forehead and fixed it in place. "See there. The free spindle points toward the left hand and the fixed spindle points the direction you're facing."
"That would be east." Sarah let him take the device and without him asking, she raised her right hand while he moved the fixed spindle to the bottom of the circle and latched it to the post bearing the words right hand.
Sara said, "That's south."
"And this is west." Mulek moved the fixed spindle to the last position next to the inscription back of the head.
It was an awkward way to stand with her left hand pointing north, her right hand pointing south, the back of her head aligned with the setting moon and her face squared to where the sun would rise come morning, but as long as she had the attention of the Prince of Judah, it was an inelegance she would endure.
"This is how the Jews have found their way for thousands of years."
"Then we're finished?"
"Not entirely." Mulek walked a slow circle around Sarah. "When an Egyptian takes his bearings he faces upstream on the Nile and calls the southerly direction forehead."
"That would change the right hand in Egyptian to west." Sarah nodded with her hands still raised. "Back of the head would become north and right hand would become east. I understand."
"Every nation, except the Jews, employs the Egyptian way. The Phoenicians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Assyrians." Mulek held up the brass ball. "That's why Linius never entirely understood it."
"Linius?"
"The Captain of the Amhporas was Phoenician. He taught me everything he knew of the sea, but the device is a Hebrew instrument, passed down for centuries through the hands of Noah and to men of the Orient before came to Linius. He never would have figured it out if he didn't come to trust me, a Hebrew, and allow me to decipher his navigational charts. The entire world was off by a quarter turn." Mulek came around in front of Sarah and stopped circling. "When we Jews chart directions we begin by standing with our back to the Great Sea." He stepped in next to her and they stood shoulder to shoulder with Sarah's right elbow passing below his chin. "That's how it's been for thousands of years in our lands—turn your back to the Great Sea and every other direction falls into place. All the holy writings of every prophet begin with back-of-the-head westerly directions, then it was a simple matter for them to write about right-hand southerly directions, forbidden and cursed left-hand northerly directions, and forehead easterly directions. Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, all of them recorded their directions precisely as we're standing now with our backs to the Great Sea."
Sarah slowly lowered her arms and when Mulek didn't tell her to stop she broke her stance and stepped around in front of him. His sun-bleached hair and wind burned lips spoke of years sailing the Great Sea. "The device, what do you call it?"
"It hasn't a name beyond calling it 'Ona—direction."
"Ona?" Sarah repeated the Hebrew word, each time more slowly than the first. "Direction. I like it. It's a fine name. Entirely sensible."
"It isn't only a device for direction. It's useless without a gift from God."
Sarah took the brass ball. "Isn't this gift enough?"
"The gift is when the Lord reveals the charted course to your heart and your mind, in dreams and thoughts, in moments of quiet and moments when the sea threatens to swallow your vessel whole." Mulek rested his hand on the brass ball. "This is where heaven and earth meet. Without God the way can't be charted and without this director the storms are sure to steer you off your course."
"Don't we all have a gift from God for charting our course? A still small voice?" Sarah laid her hand on his hand. "Call it L-iah, then."
"The Lord?"
"No, no. Put them together."
"L-iah…" Mulek paused and in his best Hebrew slowly said, "L-iah-ona?"
"That's a much better name. Liahona. The direction of the Lord."
"Take it." Mulek returned the brass ball to the cedar box and set it in her hands. "Keep it safe."
"What if something happens?"
"You'll know what to do."
"And if I fail you?"
"L-iah-ona." Mulek pressed Sarah's hands against the cedar box. "You'll not fail if you follow the direction of the Lord."
__________________________
Join author David G. Woolley at his Promised Land Website.
April 9, 2009
The Four Most Caring Words (Part I)
by David G. Woolley
Editor's Note: We promised part III of the Language of Nephi and we still plan to deliver. We're just building suspense and maybe some bad will. Sorry. Check back in a couple of days for what we think will be a very interesting post. Until then, please indulge us our economic view from the fiscal desk.
In this initial The Four Most Caring Words post we examine our current economic crisis by looking at some spending numbers. Then in Part II and Part III we'll have a look at similar economic booms and busts from the Book of Mormon. There really is some hard economic data in the Book of Mormon on nearly all the economic principles driving the current crisis. In the final post of The Four Most Caring Words series we'll detail the recommendations in the Book of Mormon for getting out of this kind of economic mess and how to avoid it in the future by adopting the heaven-ordained economic mind-set. Hope you enjoy our newest series The Four Most Caring Words. And don't forget to check back for our continuing series on the Language of Nephi. So many series, so little time.
According to Elder Robert D. Hales in a discourse given during last weekend's LDS General Conference we can't afford it are the four most caring words you can speak. Here at Top of the Morning we agree. Have a look at our video clip above which graphically illustrates our point. Debt has far too much power to trash free agency and when you get into the subtle and nuanced business of depriving your brothers and sisters of their free agency you're planting your feet solidly on evil territory. It's no wonder the prophetic council for our day is to get out of debt and stay out of debt. Sadly, during the past fifteen or twenty years of economic plenty, households spent far too much on wants, over-extended their credit, and saved less than any other generation in the history of financial record keeping. It was a collective miscalculation that the good times were gonna keep rolling. We ignored the most caring words and told ourselves not to worry, we could afford it.
If debt is bad for households, can it still be a good idea for, say, the people who print the money? We don't think so. In fact we think that the only difference between micro household debt and macro national debt is the number of people it enslaves by removing their freedom to choose, essentially limiting their free agency, removing the path to self reliance and making large segments of the population dependent upon government dole. We're of the opinion that this massive spending is potentially satanic in the sense that it has the potential to enslave an entire country and possibly the entire globe by threatening the freedom to be self reliant, self determining and free. Permit us an adjusted-for-inflation dollar chat in support of our opinion.
The Bear Sterns bailout last October 2008 came in at around 29.5 billion dollars, give or take a few bonus compensation packages. Compared to the cost of building the Panama Canal at $790 million dollars or the Hoover Dam at $78 million dollars, that one bailout alone could buy Americans a Panama Canal for every state in the union with water to spare. That's a lot of waterway transportation infrastructure. Likely too much. If you add the $97.2 billion to bail out Bank of America and another $97.4 billion for the Chrysler and General Motors bailouts you've got the equivalent of about 350 Panama Canals. That's enough canalary for every river, stream and donnybrook on the planet. And that doesn't even include the $112 billion dollars for AIG. The AIG mess alone is almost as much as we spent on the entire Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII which cost us $115 billion inflation adjusted dollars.
Most of you may not have noticed the day the US government handed over $139 billion to General Electric. The CEO, Mr. Immelt, is on the President's economic advisory team which makes that bailout just a little questionable. It's the sort of economic back scratching that has been the foundation for strong, healthy secret combinations since the day Cain slew Able. If you include the $235 billion dollars for Citigroup the running total reaches $710 billion dollars for big banks and corporations and we're just getting started.
The $300 billion for home owners who can't pay their mortgages is just slightly below the entire cost for World War I which came in at a whopping $324 billion. That's the entire cost. Them. Us. And every warring nation in between. Thankfully it's not as much as the $400 billion handed to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last month. Those are the two government owned and operated lending firms that pretty much precipitated this entire mess and no one blinked an eye when congress last week passed out $220 million dollars in bonuses to the Fannie and Freddie people who recklessly approved loans to borrowers they knew could never pay them back. We were likely too busy being angry about the $218 million dollars in bonuses that went to AIG people to get mad at congress for slipping $220 million dollars of bonuses under the table to their friends at Freddie and Fannie. Or maybe we were just so inundated with bailout burnout to keep track any longer. But I can't help keeping track. The secret combinations just keep piling up.
These government spending numbers are ginormous. Anyone of these programs or packages would rank among the largest spending programs in US history. In fact, each one, separately, qualifies as record breaking for any spending program since the beginning of time. Nothing compares to this. Ever. Each spending program approved by congress and signed into law by our president, by itself, is right up there with the entire New Deal that totaled $500 billion in spending. Yes. The entire fifteen years of New Deal dole.
Now add to these spending programs the TARP money (Troubled Asset Relief Program) at $700 billion dollars and don't forget the $787 billion dollar stimulus spending package--that thousand page bill congress never read, and you end up with a grand total of codified into law, already spent 4.3 trillion mind-boggling dollars to date and that's only four months into this mess. That's eight times the cost of the New Deal and it even beats the all time record holder, World War II at 3.4 trillion inflation-adjusted dollars.
Unfortunately that isn't the end. Our president and congress have committed to spend up to 7.8 trillion more dollars in new programs over the next 8 years. That's new dollars, above and beyond what it would take to operate the government each year had we kept with our previous budget projections. Add it all up and you get a whopping 12.2 trillion dollars. That's twenty-four times the cost of the New Deal and we managed to spend it in four months not fourteen years.
With a budget like this we could Panama Canal across every land mass on every planet, orbiting moon, and asteroid in the solar system. Water or no water. There's simply no way to raise this kind of money. We don't produce enough goods and services in America to tax our way out of this spending predicament so our government has made the precarious decision to borrow from our increasingly wary creditor. China.
When all these Chinese debts come due, the US will likely be forced into some kind of bankruptcy. But since there is no such thing as a federal bankruptcy, and there's no way on earth we can work our way out of this kind of spending morass, our money becomes worthless. We can't buy anything. We can't sell anything. We can't convince anyone in the world to loan us money or ship us goods, or food, or oil. It is a perfect economic storm of our own making. For years our government muted the four most caring words, and now those excesses of spending on too many things we wanted but didn't really need has precipitated a crisis, we are beginning to regret our collective political silence.
Or are we?
We know we can't afford all this spending. The government knows we can't afford it. And the government knows that we know we can't afford it. But still we passively persist in the engorgement of government through unprecedented debt on the fear that our propserity will collapse when we really should be tightening our collective spending belt. Really tight. Painfully tight. Budget-reducing, program-reducing, benefit-reducing, entitlement-reducing, lean-on-your-family, your-food-storage, and your-faith-in-God tight.
In our Top of the Morning opinion, the only solution, and it is a solution available to us through a narrow time-window of likely ten or twelve precious-short months before we pass the spending point of no return, is for government to stop spending now and repeal much of the obligations signed into law over the past four months. That or we may end up paying what I can only articulate as the dreaded double tax.
The government can't tax dollars we've earned, paid taxes on and put securely away in savings. At least not by the current tax code. So what do they do with those trillions of dollars Americans have earned and placed in savings accounts or taken out of the stock market and placed in safe haven financial instruments during the past six months of financial panic? They make your money worthless. That's right. The government does it by printing new dollars. Lots of new dollars without borrowing the value of those dollars from a creditor through the sale of US Treasury Bonds.
The government took the first step toward the double tax a few weeks ago when the FED announced they were monetizing the debt, essentially cutting the tie between the printing of money and the borrowing of the value of that printed money in the form of a government IOU, what money people call the purchase of government debt by the FED without tying that purchase to any debt instrument like selling bonds to foreign governments. Mainly to China. The initial result of monetizing the debt to fund the printing of money rather than funding debt through taxation sent gold prices soaring nearly $80.00 an ounce in less than ten minutes of trading. The second knell in this death march was more subtle than the intial monetization. Over the past three weeks the government has had a rather difficult time selling bonds. No one wants to buy them unless we twist their arm. American debt has become a rather high risk venture so the interest rates we pay to China have soared along with the price of gold. You can't blame China. Can a government that borrows from itself, essentially writing itself an IOMe, still be taken fiscally serious by any intelligent creditor for very long?
Likely not.
The more deadly result of all this printing of money and monetizing of debt kicks in when all those dollars are passed out and begin flooding the economy at the mall, the gas pump, and the grocery store. Inflation. Too many dollars chasing too few goods and services. This is not your normal annually adjusted, warm fuzzy, when-I-was-a-kid-a-candy-bar-cost-ten-cents inflation. Which is followed immediately by loss of faith in the dollar. An inflation induced panic. At the current rate of government spending, inflation could reduce the buying power of your savings in half, or a third or an eighth of its current value. Or worse. That's what economists mean when they say the current level of government spending has the potential to wipe out family savings and make large segments of the population dependent on government dole. What no one is talking about is that may be precisely the aim of all this spending: to make you dependent on government programs rather than providing you with the tools and the freedom to become self reliant. And you thought the government couldn't tax the money you stuffed under your mattress. Wrong.
We can't afford it. These are the four most caring words you can utter and you may want to make sure your government leaders hear them from you again and again until they begin to understand the terrible consequences of debt powerful enough to enslave all of us in a free-fall from economic free agency into an the abyss of economic dependency. For the remainder of our lives.
Join us for our next post in the Four Most Caring Words series when we examine similar boom and bust dilemmas in the Book of Mormon, beginning with the ancient economic principal that has been at the root of all heaven-ordained economies. Thou shalt not covet. That command, or the lack of abiding by that edict, reiterated by Elder Boyd K. Packer in last week's LDS General Conference Priesthood session, is at the root of all the ancient economic data coming out of the Book of Mormon. The hard numbers are in that restoration scripture if you know where to look. And we plan on taking a very hard look.
Until the next post, Top of the Morning to you.
__________________________
Join author David G. Woolley at his Promised Land Website.
Editor's Note: We promised part III of the Language of Nephi and we still plan to deliver. We're just building suspense and maybe some bad will. Sorry. Check back in a couple of days for what we think will be a very interesting post. Until then, please indulge us our economic view from the fiscal desk.
In this initial The Four Most Caring Words post we examine our current economic crisis by looking at some spending numbers. Then in Part II and Part III we'll have a look at similar economic booms and busts from the Book of Mormon. There really is some hard economic data in the Book of Mormon on nearly all the economic principles driving the current crisis. In the final post of The Four Most Caring Words series we'll detail the recommendations in the Book of Mormon for getting out of this kind of economic mess and how to avoid it in the future by adopting the heaven-ordained economic mind-set. Hope you enjoy our newest series The Four Most Caring Words. And don't forget to check back for our continuing series on the Language of Nephi. So many series, so little time.
According to Elder Robert D. Hales in a discourse given during last weekend's LDS General Conference we can't afford it are the four most caring words you can speak. Here at Top of the Morning we agree. Have a look at our video clip above which graphically illustrates our point. Debt has far too much power to trash free agency and when you get into the subtle and nuanced business of depriving your brothers and sisters of their free agency you're planting your feet solidly on evil territory. It's no wonder the prophetic council for our day is to get out of debt and stay out of debt. Sadly, during the past fifteen or twenty years of economic plenty, households spent far too much on wants, over-extended their credit, and saved less than any other generation in the history of financial record keeping. It was a collective miscalculation that the good times were gonna keep rolling. We ignored the most caring words and told ourselves not to worry, we could afford it.
If debt is bad for households, can it still be a good idea for, say, the people who print the money? We don't think so. In fact we think that the only difference between micro household debt and macro national debt is the number of people it enslaves by removing their freedom to choose, essentially limiting their free agency, removing the path to self reliance and making large segments of the population dependent upon government dole. We're of the opinion that this massive spending is potentially satanic in the sense that it has the potential to enslave an entire country and possibly the entire globe by threatening the freedom to be self reliant, self determining and free. Permit us an adjusted-for-inflation dollar chat in support of our opinion.
The Bear Sterns bailout last October 2008 came in at around 29.5 billion dollars, give or take a few bonus compensation packages. Compared to the cost of building the Panama Canal at $790 million dollars or the Hoover Dam at $78 million dollars, that one bailout alone could buy Americans a Panama Canal for every state in the union with water to spare. That's a lot of waterway transportation infrastructure. Likely too much. If you add the $97.2 billion to bail out Bank of America and another $97.4 billion for the Chrysler and General Motors bailouts you've got the equivalent of about 350 Panama Canals. That's enough canalary for every river, stream and donnybrook on the planet. And that doesn't even include the $112 billion dollars for AIG. The AIG mess alone is almost as much as we spent on the entire Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII which cost us $115 billion inflation adjusted dollars.
Most of you may not have noticed the day the US government handed over $139 billion to General Electric. The CEO, Mr. Immelt, is on the President's economic advisory team which makes that bailout just a little questionable. It's the sort of economic back scratching that has been the foundation for strong, healthy secret combinations since the day Cain slew Able. If you include the $235 billion dollars for Citigroup the running total reaches $710 billion dollars for big banks and corporations and we're just getting started.
The $300 billion for home owners who can't pay their mortgages is just slightly below the entire cost for World War I which came in at a whopping $324 billion. That's the entire cost. Them. Us. And every warring nation in between. Thankfully it's not as much as the $400 billion handed to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last month. Those are the two government owned and operated lending firms that pretty much precipitated this entire mess and no one blinked an eye when congress last week passed out $220 million dollars in bonuses to the Fannie and Freddie people who recklessly approved loans to borrowers they knew could never pay them back. We were likely too busy being angry about the $218 million dollars in bonuses that went to AIG people to get mad at congress for slipping $220 million dollars of bonuses under the table to their friends at Freddie and Fannie. Or maybe we were just so inundated with bailout burnout to keep track any longer. But I can't help keeping track. The secret combinations just keep piling up.
These government spending numbers are ginormous. Anyone of these programs or packages would rank among the largest spending programs in US history. In fact, each one, separately, qualifies as record breaking for any spending program since the beginning of time. Nothing compares to this. Ever. Each spending program approved by congress and signed into law by our president, by itself, is right up there with the entire New Deal that totaled $500 billion in spending. Yes. The entire fifteen years of New Deal dole.
Now add to these spending programs the TARP money (Troubled Asset Relief Program) at $700 billion dollars and don't forget the $787 billion dollar stimulus spending package--that thousand page bill congress never read, and you end up with a grand total of codified into law, already spent 4.3 trillion mind-boggling dollars to date and that's only four months into this mess. That's eight times the cost of the New Deal and it even beats the all time record holder, World War II at 3.4 trillion inflation-adjusted dollars.
Unfortunately that isn't the end. Our president and congress have committed to spend up to 7.8 trillion more dollars in new programs over the next 8 years. That's new dollars, above and beyond what it would take to operate the government each year had we kept with our previous budget projections. Add it all up and you get a whopping 12.2 trillion dollars. That's twenty-four times the cost of the New Deal and we managed to spend it in four months not fourteen years.
With a budget like this we could Panama Canal across every land mass on every planet, orbiting moon, and asteroid in the solar system. Water or no water. There's simply no way to raise this kind of money. We don't produce enough goods and services in America to tax our way out of this spending predicament so our government has made the precarious decision to borrow from our increasingly wary creditor. China.
When all these Chinese debts come due, the US will likely be forced into some kind of bankruptcy. But since there is no such thing as a federal bankruptcy, and there's no way on earth we can work our way out of this kind of spending morass, our money becomes worthless. We can't buy anything. We can't sell anything. We can't convince anyone in the world to loan us money or ship us goods, or food, or oil. It is a perfect economic storm of our own making. For years our government muted the four most caring words, and now those excesses of spending on too many things we wanted but didn't really need has precipitated a crisis, we are beginning to regret our collective political silence.
Or are we?
We know we can't afford all this spending. The government knows we can't afford it. And the government knows that we know we can't afford it. But still we passively persist in the engorgement of government through unprecedented debt on the fear that our propserity will collapse when we really should be tightening our collective spending belt. Really tight. Painfully tight. Budget-reducing, program-reducing, benefit-reducing, entitlement-reducing, lean-on-your-family, your-food-storage, and your-faith-in-God tight.
In our Top of the Morning opinion, the only solution, and it is a solution available to us through a narrow time-window of likely ten or twelve precious-short months before we pass the spending point of no return, is for government to stop spending now and repeal much of the obligations signed into law over the past four months. That or we may end up paying what I can only articulate as the dreaded double tax.
The government can't tax dollars we've earned, paid taxes on and put securely away in savings. At least not by the current tax code. So what do they do with those trillions of dollars Americans have earned and placed in savings accounts or taken out of the stock market and placed in safe haven financial instruments during the past six months of financial panic? They make your money worthless. That's right. The government does it by printing new dollars. Lots of new dollars without borrowing the value of those dollars from a creditor through the sale of US Treasury Bonds.
The government took the first step toward the double tax a few weeks ago when the FED announced they were monetizing the debt, essentially cutting the tie between the printing of money and the borrowing of the value of that printed money in the form of a government IOU, what money people call the purchase of government debt by the FED without tying that purchase to any debt instrument like selling bonds to foreign governments. Mainly to China. The initial result of monetizing the debt to fund the printing of money rather than funding debt through taxation sent gold prices soaring nearly $80.00 an ounce in less than ten minutes of trading. The second knell in this death march was more subtle than the intial monetization. Over the past three weeks the government has had a rather difficult time selling bonds. No one wants to buy them unless we twist their arm. American debt has become a rather high risk venture so the interest rates we pay to China have soared along with the price of gold. You can't blame China. Can a government that borrows from itself, essentially writing itself an IOMe, still be taken fiscally serious by any intelligent creditor for very long?
Likely not.
The more deadly result of all this printing of money and monetizing of debt kicks in when all those dollars are passed out and begin flooding the economy at the mall, the gas pump, and the grocery store. Inflation. Too many dollars chasing too few goods and services. This is not your normal annually adjusted, warm fuzzy, when-I-was-a-kid-a-candy-bar-cost-ten-cents inflation. Which is followed immediately by loss of faith in the dollar. An inflation induced panic. At the current rate of government spending, inflation could reduce the buying power of your savings in half, or a third or an eighth of its current value. Or worse. That's what economists mean when they say the current level of government spending has the potential to wipe out family savings and make large segments of the population dependent on government dole. What no one is talking about is that may be precisely the aim of all this spending: to make you dependent on government programs rather than providing you with the tools and the freedom to become self reliant. And you thought the government couldn't tax the money you stuffed under your mattress. Wrong.
We can't afford it. These are the four most caring words you can utter and you may want to make sure your government leaders hear them from you again and again until they begin to understand the terrible consequences of debt powerful enough to enslave all of us in a free-fall from economic free agency into an the abyss of economic dependency. For the remainder of our lives.
Join us for our next post in the Four Most Caring Words series when we examine similar boom and bust dilemmas in the Book of Mormon, beginning with the ancient economic principal that has been at the root of all heaven-ordained economies. Thou shalt not covet. That command, or the lack of abiding by that edict, reiterated by Elder Boyd K. Packer in last week's LDS General Conference Priesthood session, is at the root of all the ancient economic data coming out of the Book of Mormon. The hard numbers are in that restoration scripture if you know where to look. And we plan on taking a very hard look.
Until the next post, Top of the Morning to you.
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Join author David G. Woolley at his Promised Land Website.
March 29, 2009
The Language of Nephi (Part III)
Editor's Note: We've been verifying all sorts of complex linguistic and archaeological data with important Book of Mormon accounts for part III of the Language of Nephi. That's our excuse for not posting part III sooner. The Top of the Morning staff is really excited about our next installment and we're nearly complete. Check back in the next twenty four to forty eight hours for what we think will be a fascinating look at the Language of Nephi, the City of Nephi and exactly how Mosiah's spoken tongue and written language likely mixed with the language of the Mulekites at Zarahemla, three centuries after Lehi arrived in the New World. Thanks for your patience.
