Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation. For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand. (Doctrine and Covenants 58:3-4)The Savior’s disciples once asked why a certain man had been born blind. Had he committed some premortal sin, or … [Read more...]
Salvador: The Truth behind the Fiction, Part 2
May 6, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The Atonement of Christ is the very root of Christian doctrine. You may know much about the gospel as it branches out from there, but if you only know the branches and those branches do not touch that root, if they have been cut free from that truth, there will be no life nor substance nor redemption in them. [Boyd K. Packer, “The Mediator,” Ensign, May 1977] We Blairs were Dale's disciples. In some ways we were more Dale's disciples than Christ's. We saw Dale as a holy man who willingly surr … [Read more...]
Salvador: The Truth Behind the Fiction
May 2, 2016 by Leave a Comment
“At some point, God will ask you to sacrifice on his altar not only your stories about your own life but your version of his stories as well. Your softly lit watercolor felt-board version of scripture stories and church history must, like all your stories, be abandoned at his feet, and the messy, vibrant, and inconvenient truths that characterize God's real work with real people will have to take center stage. If they don't, then how will God's work in your hungry messy, and inconvenient life e … [Read more...]
On a Day When I Miss My Dad
April 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment
I put a photo of an ultrasound into Dad's coffin on February 27. The viewing before his funeral hadn't started yet, and no one was watching. The ultrasound was of the fetus who is still becoming Olive Aisley Wagstaff, my next granddaughter, my father's fourth great granddaughter. On February 18, the day before Dad died, I told him that Julie, my baby girl, had heard her baby's heartbeat. Dad said a typically "Dad" thing. "That's wonderful!" That little conversation happened just before I tu … [Read more...]
Robert Blair: Mormon Scholars Testify
April 18, 2016 by Leave a Comment
A Linguist’s Perspective on Things Beyond UnderstandingI don’t think that the universe with its billions of galaxies, trillions of stars and planets, and a huge assortment of other objects and phenomena, together with the laws that govern their precise movements, came about by accident. Many scientists conjecture that it all came out of an infinitesimally tiny speck so dense that it contained all that was to become the elements of matter. That out of that submicroscopic particle came all the … [Read more...]
Burning Bush
March 19, 2016 by Leave a Comment
I talked with my father about death quite often. I was always with him at the end of dialysis, which was sometimes a scary time. I would sit him up slowly, knowing that if it was too fast, he would faint. He did faint many times, and I simply rubbed his calves and said, "Dad? Are you with me? Can you come back?" Eventually, he would regain consciousness. He said sometimes that he wondered if he might die during one of those fainting episodes, and what it would be like to die. He was aware … [Read more...]
Robert Blair Obituary, Part 4: The Story Teller’s Last Stories
March 11, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Note: This post includes a photo of Robert Blair's lifeless body in the last part. If photos of dead bodies cause you anxiety, please do not continue.I have written the previous obituary segments in third person. This one will be in first person. In 2005, Mom and Dad were in China, where they had taught English for five years. Dad had lost most of the function in one kidney. Now, the second kidney failed. All of us Blairs joined in prayer that we'd find a way to get him home f … [Read more...]
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