Be comforted.

And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his Spirit, and said unto them: Be comforted. And they were comforted.
Alma 17:10

When I'm riled or full of stress

I know the Lord will kindly bless

me with His spirit, if I ask --

and yet it seems a heavy task

to bow my head before the Lord

and seek for some assured accord.

O foolish man, why do you balk

and at His side refuse to walk?

Just drop your pride, let meekness bloom,

and for the Lord make lots of room!

The Gamelan.

Mount Hemenhaw. Poughkepsie Range. The Krindle Republic.

As brick-and-mortar stores scramble to justify their continued existence, they’re trying to be all things to all customers, to blend instant gratification and infinite selection. And it falls upon the workers on the front lines to make it all happen.

Andy Newman. NYT.

It was early spring, a feeling of untrammeled longing in the air, and the swifts wheeled overhead in their immemorial mating ritual -- swooping down and circling the tall buildings until they smashed into one another and fell to the sidewalk, where hungry panhandlers made quick work of them. It's a grisly and disturbing annual spectacle, which I avoided that day by hurrying into the nearest store. 

A woman in a very stylish red dress immediately pounced on me from behind a counter, nearly groveling as she welcomed me to the store and asked how she could help me.

"I dunno" I mumbled, slightly embarrassed. "What sort of stuff do you sell in here?"

"Oh sir!" her eyes lit up like flambeaux on a winter night. "We can get you anything you want -- anything at all."

I decided to be facetious. 

"Can you get me a bottle of powdered helium?" I asked lightly. "Organic, of course."

"Let me check -- I'll be right back!" she said to me as she straddled a moped and raced off into the dim bowels of the store.

While she was gone a trio of children sidled up to me to sing the Whiffenpoof Song a cappella. They then offered to reblock my necktie. I politely declined. Watered silk is not a material you let strangers handle, no matter how well-intentioned and innocent they might be.

The woman in the elegant red dress reappeared on her moped. She dismissed the children with the wave of a palm frond. She looked very downcast. She also looked increasingly desirable in that silky red dress.

"I'm so sorry, sir" she said quietly. "But powdered helium is a product that will have many industrial uses but hasn't been invented yet. I consulted with our overseas agent at the Encyclopedia Britannica for confirmation -- here's his report, if you'd like to look it over."

"Uh, no, thank you" I replied. "That won't be necessary." I craned my neck to look out the window, hoping the panhandlers were done with their gory feasting. But now they were chasing plastic bags blowing around the streets, laughing maniacally, so I decided to stay put. 

"I can always use another pair of socks" I told the woman in red, in order to comfort her. She really did look ravaged. I thought she might start crying. She had no name tag, but wore a large, gaudy, plastic sunflower on her blouse. It started to make me nervous. "Does that thing squirt water?" I asked her.

"Do you want it to, sir?" she asked earnestly.

"No, not really" I said. 

"Then it doesn't" she said quickly. "What kind of socks are you looking for?"

Suddenly a sharp bitterness welled up in me. I wore socks every day, everywhere -- even to bed. They symbolized conformity and oppression. Right then and there I decided to discard my old way of life, like a thoroughly read newspaper, and start all over again.

"On second thought" I told the lady in the red dress, "forget the socks -- I need flip flops and a backpack. And will you go with me to explore the Gomantong Caves in Kalimantan?"

There was a heavy silence. I could hear apps clicking on and off from her smartphone.

"That's in Borneo, right?" she finally asked.

"Yes" I said simply.

"Will we drink wine under the stalactites?" she asked moodily.

"Anything you want, my dear" I cooed. I could tell her resistance was weakening. This was good, because I had just decided that I couldn't live without her in my life, and would go chase plastic bags myself if she turned down my wild offer.

Then she was in my arms.

Then she was in my wallet.

"Doesn't look like you have a lot of money" she said as she rifled through my credit cards and cash. 

"Trust fund" was my only response.

We flew to Samarinda the next day. I never asked her name. She never asked for mine. We were two untamed lovers, reveling amid an overripe tropical splendor. When she was eaten by a clouded leopard I went back to my old life at the gypsum board factory in Waukegan, and never played the gamelan again. 

Going Backward.

But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
Jeremiah 7:24. 

When that still small special voice

tells you not to make a choice,

and you make it anyway --

it is bound to ruin your day.

Going backwards, you can't win

with your actions steeped in sin.

Like Macbeth's imagination,

it may start as mere flirtation;

but when ears are disinclined

to accept God's words refined

there is only grief and pain

(though the world some fools might gain.)

Help me, Lord, go forward to

all that's glorified and true!

so long as it was built tall and fast and had people living in it.

(From a news story by Connor Dougherty. @ConorDougherty  NYT)

I call it Tissue Towers, and all thirty-nine stories are built out of repurposed kleenex. It took me only thirty-nine days to build. And rent is only thirty-nine dollars a month. All three-hundred-and-ninety units were rented out within a week of our Grand Opening.

It began as a dream during a closed meeting of the Feral Falls town council, of which I was the tassel coordinator. Not a very glamorous job, admittedly, but one that required me to sleep through most meetings as silently as possible. After all, my uncle is still listed as Missing In Action in Luxembourg. 

Bill Humberstone it was, who got me thinking. He said, during that fateful meeting: "People are getting taller and heavier; my sons are a half foot taller than me and each one weighs more than a fullback -- and they eat like one, too. Something's gotta be done."
Then Morty Sambal chimed in: "Yeah. This idea of shrinking rooms until there's no place to turn around is nuts. Why did the zoning board pass that ordinance anyway?"
Now it was John Wetmack's turn: "Oh, you know those guys. They're drunk with power and want the Munchkin vote."
At this point Sarah Rexburg broke in: "Remember how much room there used to be outside? That's all going away now, because of social media."
And then I fell into a deep slumber and dreamed a dream:

In my dream I was in the middle of a large field full of trashy weeds and splintered apple crates. Broken glass glittered on the ground. Small black bugs scuttled around; when they ran into each other they fought until one devoured the other. It was a hellish landscape; I was uncomfortable with it, so I called out for help.

A large scroll seemed to descend from the skies and unfurl before me. It was the blueprint of a sleek apartment skyscraper. At the bottom, in big gold letters, it said: "Build Ye With Haste Out Of All Waste."

I awoke with a start. The closed meeting was over, so I was all alone in the council room. Feverishly I went to the whiteboard and drew as much of my dream blueprint as I could remember. And there it was -- the cure for smaller rooms and the shrinking outdoors. Large spacious apartments, with beautiful views of the rolling pine groves, the twining lilac terraces, and the immaculate fields of capers. The formula for turning used tissues into steel and concrete and glass came to me in a flash. I wrote it down on the cuff of my shirt, then hurried off to see the newspaper editor, who was a friend of mine since the Maple Syrup Riots. 

"It's a damfool project" he told me when I had finished narrating my dream to him. "You'll have contractors and neighborhood watch organizations up in arms -- and wait until the Governor hears about it! He'll send in the National Guard."
"But" I insisted, "it's completely feasible and won't cost more than the price of repaving a parking lot. You can see how much this is needed, can't you?"
"Yes, but . . . " the editor tapped his Ticonderoga #2 pencil against his chin in deep thought. I waited patiently. A flugelhorn sounded in the distance, announcing the arrival of another glyptodon. They were becoming a nuisance, I thought to myself.

"Won't work" he finally said. "What happens when it rains? The whole shebang will melt into lumpy sludge."
I smiled at him. "You know it hasn't rained in ten years" I reminded him. "And your paper predicts the drought will continue for at least another ten years."
"Yes" he admitted, "that's so."
"All I need is some seed money to get this off the ground, and in just over a month I'll have cheap rooms available so big that you can play footvolley in them!" I looked at him expectantly. I knew the paper had oodles of money, just laying around, ready to be invested.

"Well . . . " he began. "It's been a good year for the paper. Lots of people dying from flu and titanic acne, so we're getting a lot of paid obituaries. That's where the real money is, y'know."
"How much you charging now for an obit" I asked out of curiosity.
"Ten-thousand each" he said, a rapacious grin pasted on his face.
"Wow!" I replied. I took a deep breath, and went for it. "How about your paper financing my dream?"
"Okay" he said, without batting an eye. "I'll have my secretary write you a check for fifty-thousand now, and another fifty next week."

Naturally I reserved the penthouse at Tissue Towers for myself. From its dizzying heights I drop paper bags filled with glyptodon musk on unsuspecting pedestrians far below. Anyone hit by one of my bags who bothers to come up to complain to me is automatically offered a job at the newspaper -- which now not only charges a fortune for printing obituaries but also charges a huge weekly fee for not delivering the newspaper at all. Since most people no longer want anything to do with the manufacture of newsprint, the profits from that particular gambit are obscene. So they hire people just to sit around and write scripts for a new Austin Powers movie. 
This is why America works so well, and Russia is nothing but a head cold. 

Pride and Craftiness

. . .  and that he might pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions which were among his people . . . 
Alma 4:19

Nothing pulls down man's facade

quicker than the word of God.

Pride cannot withstand the speech

of those who minister and preach.

The crafty find their schemes undone

when offered mercy from the Son.

And contention my heart leaves

when the scriptures it receives.

Give me doctrine, sound and pure,

and all things I may yet endure!

Radio Sputnik. Rootin' for Putin.

In January, Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, started broadcasting on three Kansas City-area radio stations during prime drive times, even sharing one frequency with a station rooted in the city’s historic jazz district.

Neil MacFarquhar.  NYT. 

In the heartland bobolinks

sing along with Russian finks.

Stations greedy for some cash

air a bunch of Moscow trash --

Putin is a nifty guy;

he would never use a spy.

All the Russians are our friends;

and this hogwash never ends.

Talking heads trash Uncle Sam,

and they never give a damn

that such turncoat sophistry

tarnishes democracy.

Sputnik pays a handsome chunk

to the stations (nickname: Skunk.)

Money talks, and it says "Da!"

"We will air your phony blah."

It's free speech, I guess you'd say.

Still, to have the Ruskies pay

Americans to reprimand

sears them with the Quisling brand.

I suppose that Fu Manchu

stands next in this broadcasting queue.

And so our airwaves soon will throb

with a Chinese hatchet job!

Stiffnecked

Yea, and this was not all; they were a stiffnecked people, insomuch that they could not be governed by the law nor justice, save it were to their destruction.
Helaman 5:3

Am I ever justified

with a neck that's petrified?

Or a brazen brow so thick

it is like a solid brick?

Stubborn and contrary, too,

law and justice I eschew.

Renegade in heart and soul;

only Christ can make me whole.

Place my feet upon the path

that avoids thy awful wrath!

Else destruction I espy

coming for me by and by!