Bring ‘em Young

 

 

 

Before I start, I want to say that I am fond of the Mormon people. I have been thrust repeatedly into the bowels of the saints and have found no better tribe upon the face of the earth. So, let us begin with the wisdom of Sherlock Holmes. When you consider all possibilities and remove the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth.

 

We are all born with a “God Hole” in our brain. That strand of DNA that questions life and it’s surroundings. Man looks at a situation and asks, “Why?” And a child has plenty of choices as to the answer to that question. Most of the answers are bitter pills because life, in and of itself, is a bitter pill. Most of our lives we struggle to turn pain into pleasure. Pleasure and dopamine run out and we return to square one.

 

There is a rare individual who can find an answer, a rarer one who can keep the answer and the rarest who can convince others that he has the answer. Such an individual was Joseph Smith Jr.

 

When Joseph ascended to the top of a hill in Upstate New York he was truly seeking an answer. The area had revival fever and expected The Lord to return any day. Many new sects were springing up, cherry picking the King James Bible to substantiate what they were burning in their crazy minds. The first rule was that they were right and everyone else was wrong! And, in righteous indignation they were out to save the world . . . from beautiful downtown Screw-All New York!

 

Young Joseph had a head full of religious fervor, his Bible, and a good heart. The early nineteenth century was a magic time. Anything was possible. Jesus was everywhere but the Devil could jump up on a stump at any time. Joseph was around fourteen years old in the early stages of puberty and at that age the Devil jumped up on that stump a lot. Guess that’s why Jesus said, “Seventy times seven.”

 

Young Joe had learned the art of treasure hunting. He’d hire out to locals digging for Black Beard’s buried treasure out in some potato patch and of course he never found it but he had hair in his ears, and he sure could pray, which was entertaining in and of itself.

There was no TV, movies or Broadway Plays up in Palmyra, so they’d sit around the fireplace and spin tales. And young Joe had a real gift for it. He was practically the Netflix of the nineteenth century sans the WiFi! He built a story that would hold the interest of family and friends and laid it on thicker and heavier as he went. Then back to the potato farm, digging more holes and hanging out on the hill.

 

And then one day he came off that hill and started telling a story about seeing an angel. I think there are actually three renditions of this because Joe edited it as he went along. Now two things. First edits are needed when you’re spinning a yarn. Heck, I’ll edit this a bunch before I turn it loose. And two, I, myself have seen angels. But they always went away when I sobered up. So, let’s revert to Sherlock.

 

One day he said he’d had a power meeting on the hill with God, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit. Hey, you gonna spin a tale you might as well go for the gold, right. Then the angel came back and told him that there was a chest buried with golden plates in it and inscribed on them plates was the story of an entire civilization that sprouted up and there was this big battle causing a guy named Moroni to write the story on golden tablets and bury them. Ok, buried chest, golden tablets . . . Dig baby dig.

 

Now there was gold on that there hill. And Joseph’s God hole was filled with it. After years and years of Netflix by the fire he’d concocted a tale that would blow Steven King away. Myth time!

 

Whenever someone does something extraordinary supporters will say that they were too disadvantaged, too uneducated, too disinterested to have done it. They will point out the intricacies of the work which is well beyond human abilities. It was a miracle! Hallelujah! I wrote three books when I was in High School on Big Chief tablets and my English teacher said that I would never be able to communicate in the English language.

 

After years and years of fireside chats Joe had the story down pat. Did it have a passle of through lines! Hell yeah. And characters with Middle East sounding names and pseudo geography all over the place and you just know brother Smith never saw a globe or a map. So it came time to write it down, I mean translate the golden tablets because they were written in a dialect that nobody has seen before or since.

 

He made many trips up on the hill purportedly searching for the buried box full of tablets and finally, according to him the angel showed him where it was whereupon he acquired the treasure and ran home quick quick fighting bandits and scoundrels all the way. Then he began the translation process. At first his wife, Emma wrote it down for him as he hid behind a hanging blanket and translated. Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. The tablets came with magic glasses called the Urim and Thummim. In time when Oliver Cowden began to take Emma’s place the glasses must’ve gotten foggy because Joe began to smash his head into his hat and call out the passages.

 

And Voila! We now had The Book of Mormon. All about how a flock of Jews came to America and took over which actually scares me because I’ve been to Wall Street, and they are definitely there! Anyway, where was I?

 

Well, when you compose your own Bible you just gotta have a religion to go with it. So, Joe and Oliver run down to the River Jordan, I mean Schytt Creek and baptize each other becoming the first two members of the Church of something or other and begin looking for a publisher to take on this new revelation. After much toil, tears, and Porter Rockwell’s berry picking money they got a printed copy.

 

The BOM was a pretty decent straight up story but, hey, you seen one angel you’ve seen them all and Joe had regular council with heavenly bodies up there who advised him about the use of heavenly bodies down here. LORD! This resulted in Po-Leg-on-Me. Joe said certain of the elect could not attain full glory without a string of fillies going through the Pearly Gates behind them.

 

Mormonism was a mobile movement. New York, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and out. Well, Joe was out. Joseph Smith had a way with women. All indications are that his ramblings began with a fourteen-year-old housekeeper. Fourteen-year-old housekeepers are interesting. And Joe was very interested in this one. He explained the higher levels of spirituality to her. Seems another angel appeared to him and told him that he needed to take little Miss Pious unto him or the angel would have to slay him mightily even with a flaming sword. At first, she deferred but after she prayed on it she decided to bless him with the goodst of the body.

 

From there the Prophet blessed any number women, including married ones and was also a charter member of The Bald Beaver Bunch if you get my drift. It was a miracle he even had time to prophesy with all the laying on of hands. But he did write two more books. The Pearl of Great Price and Doctrines and Covenants.

 

What’s better for a church than having a living prophet? A dead prophet. By the time he got to Nauvoo Illinois the celestial clock was ticking. When confronted on the far side of the Mississippi River by his wife, Emma, Mrs E Pluribus Unum, One out of many, he agreed to return to Carthage and surrender to the law, proclaiming, “I go as a lamb to the slaughter,” which was most likely the only prophecy he got right because a slew of Masons, pissed off husbands and pissed off Masonic husbands showed up to invite him to the Nether Regions. Joe believed he could fly, and he did fly out the window at the Carthage Jail.

 

But his spirit lives on. The Mormons picked up and headed west to the Salt Lake Rim to erect a new Zion under a new prophet. I’m not going to try to address all the where’s and wherefore’s of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints but it’s . . . interesting. They have mellowed over the years. I have about as much contention with the Methodists as I do the Mormons. I like religious girls, however. Like Paul said, we have all fallen short of the glory and when a Mormon girl falls she does it up right. Only you gotta put up with all the “Oh Goding” all over the motel room but never forget the lifestyle of Prophet II . . . Bring ‘em Young!