Emma Lou Thayne2013-05-24T23:46:21-04:00Emma Lou Thaynehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=emma-lou-thayneCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Emma Lou ThayneGood old fashioned elbow grease.Enough Is Enough: Getting Over Gunstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25740842013-01-29T12:08:16-05:002013-03-31T05:12:01-04:00Emma Lou Thaynehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-lou-thayne/
When I was growing up 80 years ago, I loved a shoot-'em-up show. I could pretend I was on one of the horses galloping like mad to the rescue. As kids we shot cap guns and rubber-strung rifles and always had an "enemy." During the Depression I remember standing at the counter of the corner confectionary clutching my penny. Which? A roll of caps or a jawbreaker? The caps always won, and I shot judiciously to make the delicious smell of a shot last.
Later, in high school in the '40s, we could choose for P.E. 50minutes in the rifle range in the basement. ROTC boys helped the sergeant show us how to lie on the padded platform, to pull the trigger of the long gun softly and try for the target. The gun retracted to bruise a shoulder, and the gunpowder stung the eyes and brought on a cough. But it was triumph to hit a bull's eye.
That was the last of a gun in my hands, but the cowboy shows kept me shooting and riding and loving a campfire on the screen.
So why now be appalled by Clint Eastwood doing in the bad guys? Maybe it was watching the bad guys laughing as they mowed down men and horses by cranking a Gatling gun, shooting dozens of bullets a minute. Or the same bad guys laughing as they picked off men running from a burning building, some still on fire.
The glee. That was it. The heinous glee in killing. Even our hero Clint manages to wipe out six outlaws from under his poncho and shoot out the rope that was set to hang his tortured friend. The shooting eerily echoed the maniacal gunning down of innocents by a far-from-heroic gunman in recent headlines.
And this old movie is probably a pale comparison to a video game where the player shoots policemen like ducks in a shooting gallery. Surely the mayhem was minor compared to the current bloody violence of three out of four previews of coming attractions inflicted before the start of a movie in any local theater.
After the Clint Eastwood shoot-'em-up my no doubt old and fragile sensibilities sent me reading First Corinthians about faith, hope and charity, topped off with good laughs at some Nora Ephron goofiness about her neck before I could go to sleep.
And before I stormed a letter off to a paper or my legislator, I tried to look at the other side of using a gun. I called my cousin.
Not only does she live on a ranch and own a gun, she also worked for 40 years at the Browning Arms Company plant that adjoins the beautiful acres where my father grew up and where she now lives in Mountain Green. She, her husband and their grown children all own guns and keep them locked in a gun case. They like to hunt and need guns to shoot predators (mostly coyotes) that go after their livestock.
But she uses an assault weapon! For shooting at a distance and being sure to hit. This cousin so attuned to my love of horses and mountains and broad meadows below those mountains. This cousin who loves to read and is signed up to take the writing class I teach to write her own story. Also loving guns? Assault rifles?
I had to sleep on the idea. This morning I'm thinking that guns in her life are probably no more a sign of reckless animosity than my cap gun was those years ago. She, like 70 percent of gun owners polled in a Pew Research survey, wants solutions to prevent killing sprees that have so tormented the nation.
But even upon learning something of "the other side" of gun control, I think enough is enough. Surely bright, creative, feeling people who can take on space and bring the many other technological "miracles" of the past century can find ways on this blessed earth to limit accessibility to military firearms and thwart the inclination to violence. The cowboy shows of the '30s were make-believe. Gun violence now is real to me.
Violence to the psyche results from this kind of violence, especially from violence to children. Fear follows and begs for protection -- please, some protection.
Finding protection demands wise, balanced consideration unpolluted by ideology or tradition. And most of all, unpolluted by the corruption of money.
Please, before my generation is gone, let's find a rescue -- some thoughtful, humane, balanced changes by the good guys, gun lovers or otherwise, to harness the death-dealing bad ones.]]>The Mormon Momenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12598732012-02-10T10:10:47-05:002012-04-11T05:12:01-04:00Emma Lou Thaynehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-lou-thayne/
Mormons are making headlines -- again. Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, and Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah and ambassador to China, have been running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Though Jon has left the race, his less identifiable Mormonism was as much a part of his persona as Mitt's more tithe-paying traditional look. But this is far from the first time Mormonism and its beliefs have been in the national news. And one of the prime objections of the public to a Mormon in office is "polygamy."
In 1950 my husband completed his Stanford master's thesis on Mormon U.S. Senator Reed Smoot, elected in Utah in 1903. While I vividly remember typing five carbon copies (!) of the 132 pages, I remember even more the riveting details of an investigation that essentially put the Mormon Church on trial before the nation.
Republican Senator Smoot was seated in the Senate in 1903, but powers in Washington were not about to accept the idea of such "mockery of the Constitution," fearing that Smoot was a polygamist and had sworn allegiance to the Mormon Church and against the United States. Not only was Smoot a Mormon, he was in the hierarchy of the Church -- a member of the Twelve Apostles, next to the three in the presidency, and one of the most influential leaders.
For more than three years a subcommittee of the Senate investigated Senator Smoot for the possibility of his being a polygamist. This in spite of the fact that polygamy had been banned by proclamation of the President of the Mormon Church before Utah became a State in 1896. Smoot was not and never had been a polygamist. But suspicion reigned.
In that investigation, Smoot presented his defense; witnesses were called -- even the president of the Mormon Church -- to verify his non-polygamous standing. According to historian Kathleen Flake:
"The four-year Senate proceeding created a 3,500-page record of testimony by 100 witnesses. The public participated actively in the proceedings. In the Capitol, spectators lined the halls, waiting for limited seats in the committee room, and filled the galleries to hear floor debates. For those who could not see for themselves, journalists and cartoonists depicted each day's admission and outrage."
Near the end of the ordeal an opinion was voiced by fellow senator, non-Mormon Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania: "I would rather have seated beside me in this chamber a polygamist who doesn't polyg than a monogamist who doesn't monag," his famous statement goes. The Senate, encouraged by Smoot-supporter President Theodore Roosevelt, voted 42 to 28 to allow Senator Smoot to retain his seat, which he held for 30 years.
How might Senator Penrose's part humorous but telling remark ring in today's rancorous debates? Or feature in the headlines?
Current Mormons do not "polyg." My great-grandparents in the mid-1800s were polygamists, loyal to the "principle" revealed at that time by early prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. But not all Mormons were polygamous even then. Scholars vary in their numbers, but a solid study reports that in the 1870s one-fourth of Mormon households were polygamous in Utah. The Manifesto in 1890 declared polygamy unacceptable by the Church. Though polygamy took a long time to die out, more than four generations of Mormons have lived by the law of the land.
Sometimes the media and many readers confuse Mormonism -- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) -- with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). The FLDS are led by their current prophet Warren Jeffs, who is now serving a life sentence in prison for the sexual assault of an underage follower he took as a bride. Despite shows like "Big Love," polygamy has nothing to do with mainstream Mormonism, now more than 14 million of us. We live in communities, are educated publicly or privately, hold office, worship according to our own conscience, see movies and use the Internet. Anyone in the LDS church who practiced polygamy would be excommunicated.
Maybe this "Mormon Moment" presents a chance for each of us to examine how we vote -- to be sure we exercise the privilege of choosing and speaking and writing with our own voices, loyal to our own concepts of freedom that allow places like The Huffington Post to exist in order to voice our priorities in a free country.
I get to choose a Mitt or anyone else, according to my own convictions, and I relish the chance. Just as I get to go to church on Sunday, or not, and still hold to my own beliefs and hopes for the next generations to do the same.]]>What Counts At Age 86tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12327552012-01-26T13:07:43-05:002012-03-27T05:12:01-04:00Emma Lou Thaynehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-lou-thayne/
At 86, personal ablutions take more and more time. I used to say. "I'll hop in the shower." Loved it. Now a shower takes balance I don't have and bending I'm very bad at. Dressing up with support hose is a chore. I've abandoned mascara since I can't see well enough to hit an eyelash.
I like to pretend personality can make up for the beautiful shoes I loved wearing as I pull on my orthodics with lots of padding to ease my ailing foot into the world. My skin that used to love a tan now has purple splotches at any exposure. Getting on my knees for a prayer I might manage, but the getting up is a killer.
Every morning I reach for my glasses and one hearing aid before answering a phone or bringing in the papers. The obituaries get my attention even before the letters to the editor or political cartoon as I report to my husband, who's making our healthy juice to launch us into the day of being out of the obits.
In my horizontal relationships when I'm languishing with concern for a grown grandson's mental illness or my husband's minor cancer surgery, a phone call from a friend or a calming of my anguish by the gentle power I've prayed to in the night can alter my most urgent needs.
In the same way, being a greeter at my Mormon Sunday service is like handling joy in every handshake, let alone hugs. The old, the in between, and the very young offer their spirits to elevate mine.
Just so with a gathering of 20 of my fourth daughter's book club friends, all to chat with me about my new book, "The Place of Knowing, A Spiritual Autobiography." We listen to each other. They stay until 1 a.m. to fill me in on their stories and give reason to relish being together.
Sharing the grief of a friend losing her husband or another losing her eyesight keeps me humble and grateful still to have both and them as my friends. My old tennis buddies still get us together for lunch even two years after my splat on my left hip running for my favorite wide backhand. Though the fall meant a remake of my hip and sadness in no return to that court, we now laugh about the years together and of getting to where my latest word to my younger partner was "Yours!"
A group of friends from my husband's Brigham High school years are thinning out, but they still appear mostly at funerals, sometimes weddings, now at planned gatherings when we show up for a heart-felt, smiling visit. And recently I had a 70th reunion for my class of '41 from East High School in Salt Lake City. Of the 645 who graduated together, 70 showed up for lunch. Some we hadn't seen for 70 years. The invitation: "Canes, walkers, and wheelchairs allowed. We are survivors thankful and proud." And we were. As we reminisced and talked about "used to," we smiled and were glad. No longer faces cut from the yearbook on our nametags to help us remember, we mingled and were renewed feeling for sure like more than the thankful oldies we had become. Hooray for us. And for friends who last beyond any planned reunion, who simply care what in the world we're about.
And then there's the vertical. My divine friend in one of my favorite scriptures sees from the cross his friend John standing near his beloved mother. Jesus, caring to the end, says to his friend almost with his last breath, "Behold thy mother." And his friend takes her into his home to live.
That same comfort is available to me. My Mormon faith has engendered this assurance into my pores. Years ago when our oldest of five daughters suffered for three years from a scary episode of manic depression and bulimia, I was serving on a General Board responsible for a program for thousands at a conference in Salt Lake City. With a musician friend on the same committee I wrote words to a hymn that spoke of my desperation and affirmed my belief in asking "Where Can I Turn for Peace?" and my reply, "He answers privately, reaches my reaching, in my Gethsemane, Savior and friend." With professional help. medication, and her own faith, our daughter did get well, married and has a life of being a friend to others with the same problems.
Thank you, my friends who make aging OK, vertically and horizontally. For touching my life in a thousand ways. Especially at 86 you color my days and nights and give balance to whatever comes. Relationships? Please.]]>Prayers of Longing and Thankstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9357562011-08-31T12:32:00-04:002011-10-31T05:12:02-04:00Emma Lou Thaynehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-lou-thayne/
But the parentheses are taking over. A cluttered card is labeled "Club." For at least 60 years I've turned there to call those old friends from high school who with their husbands gathered once a month for dinner. In our 40s and 50s, in turn, we women cooked up a storm for the 18 or 20 who came. Best china, silver, linen table cloths and napkins, goblets from our trousseaus, and labor-intensive recipes lent a festive mood to our easy conviviality, and left a worn-out hostess.
Then the husbands began to die, and we girlfriends started meeting for lunches instead of dinners. Today I turned to that card to call the three who, with me, are all that remain of that intimate crowd. One comes from a care center where she falls often enough that I fear when she doesn't answer her phone. Another was head of education for a national substance-abuse treatment program. Today, her uncertain knowing of what day it is means I need to call a daughter to write down the date and time for her and promise to drive her to our lunch. The third one still drives from 40 miles south. The four of us will have lots of remembering and catching up for our one hour at a convenient restaurant.
Often I ache to hear the voice or feel the touch of a loved one in those parentheses. But several years ago I had a scary, though gracious, experience with death that taught me to be patient and not to be afraid, in a way more profound even than the beliefs I held from growing up Mormon.
On the freeway, a six-pound iron rod came through the windshield and smashed into my temple, barely missing my eye. For seven months I couldn't read or look down or live any of the life I was used to. I learned to listen to an inner music I'd been too busy to hear. That experience was the beginning of "The Place of Knowing: A Spiritual Autobiography." I had been to that place and returned with a promise to tell about it.
Now when I long for those I have lost -- those in parentheses -- I picture them where I know them to be. I am filled not so much with loss but with the continuity and power of affection and faith.
Meantime, my husband of 61 years and I wake feeling lucky first to have each other, then to be able to get up and dress and get on with abbreviated lists of must-dos, expecting to plan for a nap somewhere. Our point of fatigue is shorter every day. We're consciously grateful not to have Alzheimer's or cancer or macular degeneration that so many of our dears are dealing with, the always-there threats to those going-on-90.
The moon will flood over our bed in the corner room of the cabin tonight. Not much has changed on the mountainsides or in the forest in the canyon where I lived all my growing-up summers as a tomboy with my brothers and cousins, so many now in parentheses. As chokecherry and serviceberry blossoms fade into a plump, hot August, I too expect fall and then winter. I'll wake to birds and wind songs in trees and a far sky full of weather, never unaware of time, time, time.
Husband Mel will make our breakfast, his unique drink of five fruits and magic flakes in the blender to keep us at least for one more day out of parentheses of any kind. My prayers have become almost entirely "thank you." Thank you for the bounty, for relationships to cherish, and the continuity of seasons. I want to be in on good causes and notice the beauty as long as God allows. I want to do anything but go gently into any parentheses, and only then when the inevitable says "Now."
MAKING THE BED WITH MY HUSBAND, BOTH 86
Any day now one of us will be gone
the other fumbling in irrelevance
sinking into puppet tasks
betrayed by memory
that lurks beneath the making
of a bed, the shower spray,
the phone, now someone else,
the neighbor's mower, the car
idling in the drive, the tasteless
Cheerios in skim milk,
the CD of the choir, the mixed up
photos on the fridge, the air.
The very air.]]>On Learning to Go Away: Reflections of a Mormon Poettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8462262011-04-08T21:20:39-04:002011-06-08T05:12:01-04:00Emma Lou Thaynehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-lou-thayne/
I was 54 years old before I ever was away on my own. The devout Mormon culture I grew up in thrives on togetherness. Even in prayer. Attendance at meetings is an index to being attuned to the Gospel. Missionary companions are never alone; they travel two by two day and night. Living an inner life is seldom the topic of lessons or reading. To cultivate both belonging and a need for solitude in the same woman is rare.
I've always lived with people I loved. Growing up beneath the Utah Wasatch Mountains with my happy, affectionate parents and adventuresome brothers was a passage to easy friendships and an entree to group after group that I liked. At the same time, being the only girl, I had time alone in my room where I could read or write surreptitiously in my diary or just look out the window to the sky.
For years I was the mother in a home for seven that I was very good at "keeping." We had meals on time and clean clothes and music lessons, along with boating and cabin times, work parties and friends for sleepovers. We played, laughed, cried over illnesses and lost loves and went to church together.
I dreamed of a day between Sunday and Monday that no one knew about but me, to just be. I finally learned to stay up all night one night a week to write or finish furniture or bottle raspberry jam -- just to be quiet and get to the end of a thought. I'd always choose a night when I'd be busy the next day -- not sitting in a meeting! Then I'd go to bed normally and be just fine.
I insisted every day that each of my five daughters had an hour alone. No friends, no phone calls, no TV. Just choose whatever persuaded them -- reading, studying, drawing, practicing their violins, flute or piano -- but doing it alone. As grown women they have thanked me and now love solitude themselves.
I traveled with my husband and family and with tennis players and members of boards. I spoke to groups across the country, always to be met and taken care of. My life was full. And I was dying. In all my busyness, something was missing that I could not name.
When I was accepted for a poetry symposium in Port Townsend, Wash., with some persuasion, my husband agreed. There, just an anonymous one of dozens of poets, living in a sparse single room in an old barracks, I learned to find space to pay a different kind of attention. I had time to focus on details and moments, not generalities. I had time to reexamine, to revise, to reinvent my sense of the world. And it was joyous fun! On the saltwater shores of Puget Sound, I learned to breathe in the "full measure of my creation."
Knowing is a process, not an arrival. Coming home, I struggled with how to be available to the many and the much I love and still be true to myself and to what solitude had offered me. The clarity of what I had learned pushed me to find spaces to be alone. I rented a little studio close to home to go to one day and night a week. I was accepted by writing retreats in Virginia, Illinois and Florida that were sponsored and inexpensive enough that I felt guiltless about going. I accepted offers from friends to visit their unused places. My family adjusted to my absences and learned that spaces in our togetherness made room for more relished time together. And I claimed the space to be all I can be.
Even now at 86, overwhelmed by an abundance of dear ones and things I want to do, I still struggle to find the delicate balance where what I love most does not get neglected. I still take a "sabbatical" to live at our cabin in the mountains. On June 1, I smile to my accepting bishop, "I'll be back in September." My husband Mel likes the city and his swimming and is up and down the 10 miles from home; family and friends love to visit; and I get to be the earth creature I learned to be growing up in that canyon, in touch with my mountains and my God who created them.
My spiritual life withers in too much togetherness, just as it thrives in quiet. Alone I find my link to the verticaI, the divine: I meditate and pray and walk and dream and write by the hour anything long. I meet myself and my creator again. But I could never be content without also being connected to the horizontal, my people. Because I know I'll get to occupy both worlds, I'm content in either, with the heavenly balance of both. ]]>