Bryce Moore's Blog, page 120

How to Win an Argument When You’re Wrong

[image error]I get it. Sometimes, we all say things that just aren’t right. We have beliefs we can’t back up worth a bean. But just because we think something that’s totally unjustified, doesn’t mean we need to lose when we argue for our point of view with anyone else. If there’s one thing I’m learning from our current political environment, it’s that you can win just about any argument as long as you approach it the right way. Here’s my breakdown of Important Steps to Follow:

If at all possible, try to move the focus of the argument away from the area where you’re completely wrong, and over to safer territory. If the argument is about who should do the dishes, and you haven’t done the dishes in five months, switch the battleground to something where you’re stronger. Say . . . the ultimate breakdown of household chores. It doesn’t really matter where an argument begins. All that matters is where it ends. And you winning.
Keep track of several irrelevant weaknesses of your opponents. Whenever they draw blood in an argument, whip out those weaknesses and divert the attention away from your own. So what if you didn’t do the dishes this month. They didn’t remember your birthday three years ago. I think we can all agree that people who don’t remember birthdays are far less caring than people who do minor things like “live like a complete and utter slob.”
Never, ever, EVER let yourself be suckered into allowing the argument to shift toward verifiable facts. Facts are not your friends when you know you’re wrong. As soon as the argument shifts into absolute truths, you’re going to be sunk. So keep it grounded in generalities if at all possible. Things that can’t really be proven one way or another. Ideally, things you can say are a certain way, without anyone coming along to question those statements.
Ask for proof when someone makes a claim against you. Lots of proof. No matter how much proof they provide, question its reliability and ask for more. Who cares if they’ve been keeping a “Who Did the Dishes Diary” for the past several years. Was it just them keeping it? Why wasn’t it an uninvolved bystander? Should we really allow their evidence to stand when it’s so clearly biased?
When things aren’t going your way, you can always shift from generalities into hyper-specifics. (If you do this fast enough, it’ll really stump your opponent.) What does “doing the dishes” mean, anyway? What does it consist of? You brought a dish to the sink last February. Isn’t that part of “doing the dishes”? Why haven’t we ever really nailed down this definition? Can you honestly be expected to live according to a standard that (up to now) was so loosely defined? I mean, you can commit to following anything from now on. You’re a reasonable person. But let’s not be petty about things and take cheap pot shots just because you haven’t scrubbed a pot in the last decade.
If you happen to be painted into a corner with facts and hard evidence that destroy any shred of a hope you have of actually winning the argument, fall back on the old reliable approach : deny. Deny the proof. Deny that you said that. Deny it’s your voice on the recording. Deny it’s you on that video tape. Just keep denying things. In the end, an argument is won by the person willing to keep arguing. Anyone walking away from the argument is clearly the loser. Deny until they give up.
Always remember that logical fallacies are your friend. Straw man arguments. False dichotomies. Slippery slopes. Use these as much as possible. Ideally, your opponent will call you out on them, and then you can switch the argument away from where you’re losing and over to safer ground: about how your opponent uses hoity toity language to try and distract from what really matters.

With these simple steps, you’re pretty much guaranteed to never lose an argument ever. Which you can brag about often to anyone who actually still cares to listen to what you have to say. #winning

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Heaven is a BYU Game

[image error]I headed down to Massachusetts over the weekend to go to the BYU/UMass game, being played at Gillette Stadium (home of the Patriots). I’d been looking forward to going for quite some time, since the last time I’d been able to see the Cougars play live was back in 2014, four years ago.

This time, they had a bunch of activities surrounding the game, with a “tailgate” beforehand. It turned out to be inside, and it was jam packed with BYU fans. I heard they’d been planning on having 500 people show up, and around 1,600 came, instead. You could tell they weren’t prepped for so many. Lines were really long, but it was still fun to see Cosmo (the mascot), have free face painting, eat snacks, and hang out with a ton of likeminded fans.

The game itself started out really shaky, with BYU quickly going down by 10 points in a game they were heavily favored to win. Thankfully they turned things around, and things got much better after that.

But really, the coolest thing for me was the chance to have multiple run-ins with people I hadn’t seen in a long time. Old roommates, old friends from church, professors, family. It was like one big reunion show, with guest stars that weren’t announced ahead of time. And that’s just the people who we managed to somehow run into. I imagine there were many more people there who I knew, but I didn’t know they’d be attending.

That feeling (running into old friend after old friend and meeting up again after a long time away) is one thing I really look forward to in the afterlife. A lot of the concepts of the hereafter can be very foggy and hard to really picture in concrete terms, but this is one that’s so easy to picture. It’s a consolation when people pass away, thinking of the other people they’re now able to see again. (Yes, this presupposes you believe in an actual afterlife, but let’s keep this topic bright and cheery, shall we?)

I’m not sure how this would work for other fans of other teams. When Penn State plays a game out in California, do a slew of Penn State fans show up? There were thousands of BYU fans at that stadium. It definitely felt like a home crowd for BYU, based on the amount of noise we were able to churn out. I tend to think BYU sits at this strange intersection of sports and religion and alumni, but it could also be just because I’m familiar with it more than any other university. Ute fans who live on the east coast feel free to speak up to contradict me.

In any case, it was a fun time, and I was very happy we had a chance to go. (And win!) Go Cougars!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

A Bad Step Forward for Fake News

[image error]The Trump presidency got off on a bizarre foot the day after he was sworn in, back when he had his press secretary swear up and down that Trump’s inauguration was the most attended inauguration ever, despite the fact that photographic evidence clearly disproved that claim. I couldn’t believe someone would just look at the proof against the argument and then dispute it as “fake news,” but that’s what happened.

That’s been a trend Trump has followed since then. His supporters don’t seem to mind. They tend to dismiss anything that disagrees with their views as “media bias” and “hit jobs.” Not that this is anything particularly new. Right wing pundits have been poking at the “lame stream media” for years now. But Trump really dialed that up to eleven, basically saying something was black when it was white, and not caring if anyone disputed him, confident that his supporters just wouldn’t mind.

The next step was to start accusing media of doing the things the Trump campaign has been doing. Of lying, or at least doctoring the truth. Essentially, the approach was to first have the media make a big hullabaloo about “fake news” to the point that it really enters the common lexicon, and then to use that same argument and all the furor around it as a weapon against the media itself.

This all took a very negative step forward with the recent events around the CNN reporter being banned from the White House. If you haven’t heard about it, he was essentially asking Trump a series of hard questions in an press briefing. Trump didn’t like it, so he asked for someone to come take the reporter’s microphone away. The reporter didn’t back down. It’s all on tape. The aide that tried to take the mic was a female intern.

Trump has since used the “we need to stand up for women” argument to justify why they revoked the reporter’s credentials to visit the White House. They don’t tolerate reporters “placing [their] hands on a young woman just trying to do her job.” And to prove their point, they highlighted a video of the event.

Except the video they highlighted was doctored, a fact multiple experts are now coming forward to prove.

I have no doubt the Trump administration will deny it. “Fake news.” But I also don’t doubt they’ll start to use this same argument (“videos can be doctored”) against anything that comes out against them. It’s part of the pattern they’re following, and I’m not sure what we can do to stop it. (This is especially important as video doctoring becomes more and more sophisticated. Right now it’s relatively easy to tell what’s been done to a video, but in an age where video cameras are ubiquitous on cell phones, we’ve been relying on that video evidence more and more for “proof.” But when that proof suddenly is debatable . . . )

It’s a very discouraging development in my mind. I wish this weren’t the world we live in, but I don’t know what to do to fight back against it. I would like to see both sides of the political spectrum reject it, but I think slowly but surely, the argument will worm its way into our debates.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

A New Sunroom

[image error]Yesterday we officially resumed work on our house. You already know we’ve been making plans for a new kitchen. That’s going to be a long term project, though, since there are some other smaller projects that need to happen to free up space in the house so that the kitchen can grow.

First up? Tearing down the mudroom on the front of the house and turn it into a sun room.

This is something we’ve wanted to do for quite some time. The house has had two “front doors” since we moved in. At first, this was more than a little confusing, since we’d have delivery people get confused about where to drop off packages. So we’d think we didn’t get anything, only to find out days later the package had been left tucked by the wrong door. It also bewildered people coming over to visit. Which door did they knock at?

Later on, one of the front doors warped, so it didn’t open or close easily. We sealed it up with spray foam and just didn’t use it. But then the room sort of turned into a house dumping ground of sorts. It collected clutter, and we liked to pretend it didn’t exist.

Those times are over. Last week I cleared out all the stuff in there, and yesterday they began tearing it apart. We’ve bought five windows and are going to have the whole space well insulated and lined with window seats that have storage beneath them. This will hopefully let Denisa store her flour containers and such, and do it in a way that’s invisible. (We also need to get rid of a lot of the junk that was in there. It’s scattered throughout the house now. Sigh.)

It’s a good thing we had this done, though. The wood holding up most of that porch turned out to be completely rotten. It will all need to be rebuilt. The plan is to leave the roof that was there in place but to build everything else all over again. It’s not a terribly big spot, but I’m definitely glad I’m not the one doing it.

Once that project is done, we need to add a mudroom to the garage, since the kitchen will be expanding to take up the current space of the mud room. Then we’ll tear the walls down between the kitchen and the mudroom and the kitchen and the sun room, and the kitchen will turn into this huge Voltron of a room that will be awesome.

But for now, it’s demolition duty.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Political Fallout

[image error]Well here we are on the day after election day, 2018. I had a later night than I ought to have had last night, but I just can’t help watching all the results as they pour (or trickle) in. I was following three news sources simultaneously last night. CNN for television results (because I continue to find them the most middle of the road network), FiveThirtyEight for online national analysis (seriously, their liveblog and results graphs were really informative and spot on, particularly after they fixed their model that was giving me a heart attack at the beginning of the evening), and the Bangor Daily News site for local results (which came in far too slowly, but welcome to Maine.)

I wanted to do a couple of things with today’s post. First, to go over some of the things that happened yesterday, because the day proved memorable for a few reasons. And second, to go over the results themselves and give a rundown of my thoughts. First, the events.

In my twelve elections here in Maine, I’ve never had to wait in line longer than 2 or 3 minutes to cast my vote. Yesterday I ducked over before my reference desk shift, thinking I had 25 minutes, so plenty of time to walk over, vote, and come back. It ended up taking me almost an hour. I waited in line for 45 minutes. I counted more than 200 people in line when I left. I’m not sure how much of that was due to higher turnout, and how much of it was due to a more complex ballot. (Maine was doing Ranked Choice Voting for some elections, so we ended up having three different pieces of paper we had to turn in at the end.) In any case, it was surprising.

As I walked up to the voting location, there was the customary crowd of people around the door, asking me to sign petitions or wanting to shake my hand. I’m always, frankly, irritated by this. I don’t want to meet or talk to people when I vote. I feel like they’re being nosy, and I want them to mind their own business. This time there was also a tent set up with a big banner hanging from it. It was pretty text heavy. I scanned it for a moment, then just kept walking. No one was there, so I didn’t think more on it.

Later, I found out the tent was being staffed by a person who was out trying to talk to people he thought might be students registering to vote. His goal? He wanted to “educate voters” about the consequences of registering to vote in a place you don’t permanently live. While nothing he was saying was false, the fact that he was targeting students and listing off potential laws they might end up breaking leaves little to the imagination of what his goal was. I got steamed about it, posted his picture to social media and called him a less-than-flattering word (which I subsequently apologized for, because I shouldn’t have done that). Still frustrating. I suppose I can sort of kind of see what he thought he was doing or how he justified it to himself, but the net result is trying to get people to not vote, which feels pretty sleazy to me.

Despite all of that, we now have results. Over all, I’m quite pleased with how the election went. A few notes:

Nationally, it played out about how it was predicted. Republicans took more of the Senate than I’d like, but Democrats came on strong in the House. At least there’s a break on the runaway train that’s been the Trump administration up until now. I would have loved to have seen a big ol’ blue tsunami rush through everything, showing to the country and the world that America won’t stand for continuous racist behavior, but apparently enough Americans are okay with it to support it, either believing A) racism is okay or B) it’s not really racist. Whatever. I’ll take what I can get.
Locally, the Democrats cleaned house. We have our first female Governor in Janet Mills, and they took the House and the Senate. I’m happy to see the LePage administration finally exit stage left, and I’m excited to see what the new government comes up with.
The bond measure for the university system passed as well, meaning my library will get a renovation in some form, which makes me happy personally.
Ranked Choice Voting is actually going to come into play for the Poliquin/Golden House of Representative race, which also is exciting. I’m glad to see it put to use already, and I hope people stick with it. I’d love to see it extended to all Maine elections.

In any case, today feels much better to me than two years ago. While my faith in our country isn’t full restored, I’m encouraged by the process and feel much more optimistic for the future. Again, I don’t have anything against the Republican principles I grew up with. I can get behind a lot of their goals. It’s the methods they’ve been using to achieve them, the ideologies they’ve been embracing, the rhetoric they’ve used, and the leader they’ve chosen that has led me to reject them as a political machine. Until they switch things up, I’m for anything that takes them out of power.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

What’s the Worst Movie You’ve Ever Seen?

[image error]For today’s non-political post, I figured I’d go with something a bit more lighthearted. Just a simple question: what’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen?

I don’t mean a movie that’s intentionally bad. That doesn’t count, in my book. It also doesn’t count if the movie isn’t fully funded. I mean, there are a ton of B-movies out there that were never supposed to be very good to begin with. Anything in the MST3K range of movies, for example. You can’t really hold it against them. They are what they are.

No, I mean a Hollywood movie that was supposed to be all that and a bag of. Ideally, it’s a movie you paid money to see. In theaters would be the best, to prove this was something you were looking forward to. You expected it to be good, and then it was anything but. To me, waiting to catch a movie on Netflix or TV already implies a certain lack of confidence in that film.

So when I think back over all the movies I’ve watched over the years, one film really rises to the top (or is it “sinks to the bottom”). Battlefield Earth, starring John Travolta. It was a movie that I saw the week of release. I was a big fan of the book, and so I was excited to see what was done with the film. It had big name movies stars. A budget of $73 million. It was being hyped as a labor of love by Travolta, who wanted to do his religion proud and make a great adaptation of an L. Ron Hubbard book.

And it was so incredibly awful from start to finish.

It was like they’d taken the novel and passed it through a paper shredder, then glued the confetti together into something kind of resembling a film. It was bad at every level. Plot. Writing. Acting. Camera work. I wasn’t just critical of it as a fan of the novel. I was critical of it as a fan of decent storytelling.

It’s because of Battlefield Earth that I was so wary of Fellowship of the Ring. People look back on Jackson’s awesome trilogy now, but I remember sitting in the theater for that movie opening night, simply wishing as hard as I could that the movie wouldn’t be awful. And the PTSD of Battlefield Earth was strong back then.

I’ve never watched the movie again. I have no desire to. I don’t recommend anyone else ever watch it. Those 118 minutes of my life are gone, permanently. I would have been better served shoving jalapeños in my eyes for that time, instead. I honestly don’t think anyone out there can possibly have a worse movie to nominate than Battlefield Earth. It remains the measuring stick I use to compare all other bad movies. Yes, I realize IMDB only has it as the 16th worst movie ever, but only Disaster Movie and Epic Movie have as many votes (in the 80,000 range). Most of the others have like 24,000. And Disaster Movie and Epic Movie are intentionally bad, so they don’t count.

Battlefield Earth was supposed to be the real deal. And it was anything but.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Political Burnout

[image error]In case you’ve been living under a rock, tomorrow is election day in America. And I debated writing a post today about how I’m going to vote and why. Except when it came time to actually write it, it seemed . . . redundant. I mean, I’ve been banging the drum around certain topics for what feels like forever. Did I really want or need to write yet another post about it?

What in the world could I say that I haven’t already said before?

I’ve been against Trump since before he was elected. I hate what he’s done to the tenor of politics in this country, and what he’s done to the tone and focus of the Republican party. I know people who say to look at the legislation he’s passed. The *things* he’s done, and not the things he’s said. I can’t separate it out like that. As long as he’s in office, I will personally do everything I can to stop his agenda from moving forward.

Of course, this is made more simple by the fact that my other big push is for tighter gun laws. I’ve said before that I’ve made it my litmus test for a candidate. “Do they support tighter gun laws?” If the answer is no, then I won’t vote for them. I think it’s shameful that we’ve done nothing as a nation to try and solve the problem of gun violence in this country other than thoughts, prayers, and hand wringing.

So the question of “who to vote for” is made pretty simple, especially since I’m still a registered Republican, and the party is sending me all these mailers that talk about how their candidates will “protect your guns.” Each mailer I get like that only reminds me who *not* to vote for. (Especially since I hate political mailers as well . . .)

In the end, the only really “up in the air” questions on the ballot for me are the ballot questions:

Tax the rich to pay for home health care for the elderly and disabled
Wastewater bond
Infrastructure bond
Public university bond
Community college bond

I’m for better public infrastructure and education, so I’m for 2-5. (#4 is something I can particularly advocate for, as I know firsthand just how needed the funding is for the public university system in Maine. Please vote yes!) So then we’re down to Question 1, and I’m honestly still up in the air about it. On the one hand, I want to help out the elderly and disabled, but on the other, I’m generally against spending other people’s money to solve problems. With the other bonds, it’s the state taking out money, which will be passed on to all tax payers, and so I’m part of the payment program. With the first, it’s just limited to taxing people who make a certain amount of money or more.

They make more money, so they can arguably afford it, but if you make the state a place where the rich just get taxed more than elsewhere, they’ll move. They’re not idiots. So . . . I generally feel this is the wrong solution to a real problem. I’d like to see it handled differently. I’ll likely be voting “No” on that issue.

But in general, I’m just tired. Tired of having all these political debates. Tired of the fact that some issues are still up for debate. I’m tired of making arguments over and over for or against the same things. Tired of confronting people. If someone is still voting for Trump and his ilk at this point, I don’t see anything I can say that will change their mind.

So in the end, I suppose this is just a “please vote” post. We’ll see how it all settles out on Wednesday. My hope is that the tide of nastiness finally begins to really turn. I’d love to see the House retaken by the Democrats, and for a Democrat to return to the Governor’s mansion in Maine. Which still feels odd to me to say, since I’ve been a Republican for so long. But the party I really believed in . . . doesn’t exist anymore, in my mind.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

What Simple Things Make You Happy?

[image error]I’ll be honest: ever since we bought our new bed, I really love lying down each night when I go to sleep. I know it sounds silly, but it’s like every time, I’m just extremely happy with the choice we made to buy that mattress. Yes, I realize that makes me sound like a total shill, and the mattress isn’t for everyone, but boy do I sleep well on that thing, and it cost half of what another decent mattress would cost. Add to that the fact that Denisa and I have our own, unconnected mattress each, so we don’t feel it if the other person is tossing or turning at night, AND that it’s a king size equivalent, so my feet don’t stick off the end of the bed . . .

It just makes me happy.

So I wanted to try and think of other things that make me happy like that. Simple things. They don’t have to be too elaborate. It’s November, after all. The month of Thanksgiving. And so here’s my list of Simple Things that Make Me Happy:

My new bed (see above)
Walking through freshly fallen leaves: I love the sound they make and how they smell, and I love how they remind me every time that I’ve arrived at my favorite stretch of the year. Fall into winter. Great holidays. Football. Wood stoves. Mulled cider. Snow days. Good times ahead.
My new addition to my house: It all turned out pretty much exactly like I pictured it. I’ve got my huge projection screen, a quiet place to sleep, a great bathroom, a cool loft. I’m continually pleased with how it all ended up, which is good, since I’m up there a lot.
Finishing the crossword each day (without looking at the answers). It feels even better in the last half of the week. Sense of accomplishment!
Being able to download anything I want on my phone, and not having to delete other stuff to make room for it. Getting the bigger sized storage was totally worth it.
Playing Magic the Gathering: Arena. (I probably have too much fun playing this.)
Seeing my kids succeed in something they’ve worked hard to achieve.
Eating my chocolate banana shake at night when I’m dieting. I look forward to it the whole day. It’s always the same thing, and I always love it.
Waking up to a message on my phone telling me it’s a snow day, and I can sleep in, instead.
Reading a book or watching a show that’s so good, I decide to sleep less so I can consume more of it. (Though definitely *not* the feeling of waking up the next morning after having done this.)

I’m sure I could go on, but there’s a least a sampling of the little things for me. How about you? What little things make you disproportionately happy?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Book Review: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m going back through books I never read growing up, reading award winners and the like just to see how they’re put together and what made them great. (It also helps that many of them go on sale over time in the Kindle store, so I can get them for about $2 each.)

While I continue to love fantasy, my obsession with it throughout grade school meant that I skipped over a lot of great reads at the time. (Though to be honest, a lot of these Newbery winners would have been skipped by younger me anyway, just because they would have looked boring. Island of the Blue Dolphins? Who wants to read that? Remember, this is 10 year old me speaking.)

This is just to say that I finally read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and wow! What an incredible book! For those of you who don’t know, it’s the story of an African American girl in the south at the height of segregation. It incorporates history and characters into a riveting account that does a wonderful job of personalizing this painful part of America’s past.

One of the things I love most about books is their ability to transport us into another person’s life. We get to see their thoughts and feelings as they go through the experiences of the novel. I feel like this can help humanize people who otherwise would be Other, if that makes sense. It’s what I tried to do to an extent in VODNIK (though sadly the book never really had a chance of getting published in Slovakia. Each time we tried, publishers froze up as soon as they heard it had a Roma as a main character.)

This is a fast read, which makes what it pulls off even more impressive. To pack that much emotion into so few pages is a feat to be applauded. I loved the book from start to finish, and definitely give it a 10/10. Should be read, even by young boys who might think it looks boring.

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What I Believe and Why

[image error]I was asked to present on my religion today in a public forum at my university (11:45am-1:00pm in Roberts 023). I’ll be joined by other staff and faculty, each of us presenting about our faiths. It includes Christianity, Judaism, Paganism, and Islam. It should be a really interesting discussion, and I’m very curious to see how it will play out.

Because I know many of you won’t be able to make it (and because it always helps me to think things through ahead of time), I thought I’d write down some of my answers to the questions we’ll be addressing. The stated goal of the meeting is as follows:

Panelists will tell us about their religious path, what they commonly wish people knew about their religion, and when they have been particularly aware of their religious identities at UMF or in Maine.

It’s followed by time for questions, and who knows where that might lead. Here are the prompts I’ve gotten, and my responses:

How did you come to follow your religious tradition?

I was born into the faith. My parents both come from families that can trace their roots back to the very beginnings of the church. When you read about Mormon pioneers making their way west, those were my ancestors. I grew up in the faith, going to church every week for three hours. At the same time, we’re encouraged to develop our own testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel. I read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it, and I felt I received spiritual confirmation it was true.

That was taken to a completely different level, however, when I went on my mission. I served in former East Germany for two years, from 1997-1999. I’d always planned on going on a mission, but when I actually went, it was a bit of a shock. I still remember the first night in the Missionary Training Center. For me, “going on a mission” had been a lot like “happily ever after.” I never really thought much about what the nuts and bolts of it would look like.

My first night as a missionary, the realities all set in. I’d be away from my family for two years. I’d only talk to them on the phone four times total. (Christmas and Mother’s Day) I wouldn’t watch movies or read novels. I wouldn’t listen to regular music. I’d be going up to strangers every day to talk about religion.

Anyone who knows me now knows I like to think things through, and I don’t generally do things “just because.” I was the same then. I realized it was one thing to feel good about a religion, but if I was going to really dedicate my life for two years to this gospel, I needed more of a confirmation than that. I needed to be really sure.

The next nine weeks were, thankfully, filled with opportunities to help me find out for myself. Lots of studying the scriptures. Lots of personal prayers. I had some very powerful experiences that bolstered my faith to the point that I was really standing on my own, rather than on what my parents and teachers had taught me. That experience only deepened during my time as a missionary, hearing day in and day out from almost everyone I talked to about how I was wrong. East Germans had lived under state-sponsored atheism for decades. I had many opportunities to hear pretty much every argument against religion in general and mine in particular.

But I also had many experiences that proved basic things to me. God exists, and He hears and answers prayers, not just in an abstract “I felt good” way, but sometimes quite literally. I can pray for guidance, and when I follow the promptings I receive, things will work out. That certainty I developed on my mission has gone on to bless my life countless times.

What is the biggest misconception about your religion?

There are a number that often get brought up. I’d say the largest is that we’re not Christian. This is a touchy subject for many, because there are definitely some Christian denominations who argue against us. Even though our name is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” some argue the Jesus Christ we believe in isn’t the same Christ other Christians believe in.

We believe we’re the restored church of Christ. That He came back to the earth to restore the same church He founded when he first lived. That there was an apostasy from that original church, and so a restoration was necessary. We believe Christ restored that church through the prophet, Joseph Smith. We believe Christ still leads this church through modern revelation and a living prophet.

So sometimes the “who is Christian” topic can get pretty thorny. But we believe, as do other Christians, that Christ was and is the Son of God. That He died for our sins and was resurrected. We believe in following the Ten Commandments and in loving our neighbors as ourselves. We believe the Bible to be the word of God, but we also believe translation errors have crept into it over the years. We believe in the Book of Mormon, an account written by prophets in the ancient Americas, detailing their interactions with Christ as well.

With all this talk of modern prophets and revelation, many also believe we’re a cult of a sect, that we’re all brainwashed. I explain that like this: we believe God has always had a pattern for speaking to His children. He does it individually through prayer, and to a people as a whole through prophets, from Noah to Moses to John the Baptist and on to Peter or Paul after Christ’s death. It’s easier, however, to believe in past prophets than it is to believe in current ones. Again, there’s plenty of precedent for this, historically.

Many of our critics believe in past prophets, but don’t believe in current ones. We believe the need for God to communicate to prophets today is just as important as it was 2,000 or 4,000 years ago. God loves all His children, and He wants them all to be happy.

It’s a complicated topic, and the answers can get pretty complex as well. I guess I’ll just leave it at that for now.

When were you most aware of your religious identity at UMF?

I’d say it was definitely back when Proposition 8 was working its way through California. This was the law that banned gay marriage back in 2008. I had been at UMF for only a year, and UMF, as most of you know, prides itself on being LGBTQ friendly. Meanwhile, my religion was taking a very public stand against Proposition 8, getting members to campaign against it. Raising funds to get it passed. That stance was not popular at all here on campus.

Most of the people I spoke with were upset about the law. At the time, most of the people also weren’t really aware I was a Latter-day Saint. It led to some fairly awkward conversations where I ended up speaking far less than I usually do. A big part of that was due to the fact that I was uncomfortable with my church’s stance. I didn’t want to speak publicly against the church, and I also didn’t want to speak in favor of Proposition 8.

Since that time, I’ve written this blog, and you can look back at the postings I’ve made and see the way my views on gay marriage have evolved over time. (11+ years of writing will do that for you, at least.) There are still members of my faith today who are 100% opposed to gay marriage or anything like it. There are other people who have left the church over its stance. I find myself (as usual) in the middle somewhere. I personally believe people should be able to marry who they want, and I vote accordingly. I believe the church’s stance is evolving as well. Revelation often looks clean cut in retrospect, but the process itself is much messier than we’d like to believe.

Again, a complicated answer for a complicated question.

How has your religious practice/faith informed your time here at UMF?

My faith informs my life on a daily basis. It is ingrained in who I am and how I act. I pray and read the scriptures daily. I pray for guidance in the choices I make, both personally and professionally. This doesn’t mean I run my library like a church building. I am a staunch advocate of patron rights, including things like an unfiltered internet, no censorship of materials, and presenting as wide a range of thoughts and beliefs in the collection as possible.

But how to interact with people? How to have difficult conversations? My faith informs all of that. I believe faith is here to help us today, not at some distant point in the future after we’re dead. And my experience confirms that.

Faith isn’t abstract for me. It’s a very real, very tangible thing. And I suppose that’s where I’ll leave that answer for now.

Thanks for reading!