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The Funeral
Who do I think I’m kidding? I’m not going to go back in there until this thing is over. It’s not just the sight of that poor kid’s dead body that’s bothering me. It’s the whole situation. I’m 20...
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A Tale of Two Birds
Faith is a capricious creature, bounding from steadfast and soothing to unreliable and inadequate in the blink of an eye. My fickle faith deserted me abruptly and unexpectedly one morning in early 1985...
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Learning to Lie: An Unexpectedly Useful Life Skill
I lie for a living. Ok, that’s not exactly right. I manipulate people and situations and facilitate the manipulation of people and situations by others in service of a greater good, and I get paid...
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When I Saved an Apostle of God
This past weekend, for the first time in years, I watched all sessions of the semi-annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint (LDS – Mormons). Nowadays you can stream...
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Accepting the Truth: Would You Like to Hear More?
Listening to anything other than religious hymns or classical music was strongly discouraged during my time serving as a Mormon missionary in Peru from 1983-1985. The idea was that other types of...
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Defender of the Faith: Claiming to Be a Wise Man
I was amazed I hadn’t seen it myself. I knew the album well, having spun it incessantly through the late 70s and early 80s and believing its opening track, “Carry On My Wayward Son,” to be a rock...
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A Little Black Spot on the Sun Today
A few weeks back, a piece by a music blogger I follow about the album Synchronicity by The Police started me down an unexpected path of nostalgia, sadness, and finally, hope. I haven’t owned the album...
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Traffic in My Mind
I don’t do change well. I spend months, and sometimes years, pining for it and trying to passively will it into being, only to tense up and pretend that casting it from my thoughts can somehow hold it...
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Just Let Me Believe, for Frank’s Sake
The way it was told to me, Frank Marino believed that, upon its carrier’s untimely demise, Jimi Hendrix’s soul (or spirit, or life-force) had merged with Frank’s to create a new combined being,...
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