![\"Alien](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/10\/Planet_Comics_43489.jpg\")
<\/a>I think that I may actually have been credited, the other day on the Peterson Obsession Board, with having invented<\/em> the notion of a limited geographical model for the Book of Mormon \u2014 having done so, I suppose (because it\u2019s the only reason for which I ever do anything<\/em>), with an eye toward massive personal financial gain. \u00a0If so, what an honor! \u00a0Unfortunately, though, the writer in question wasn\u2019t very clear, so I can\u2019t quite be sure. \u00a0And he also didn\u2019t specify whether I originated the idea while writing as L. E. Hills<\/em> in 1917 or under my pseudonym of Janne M. Sj\u00f6dahl<\/em> sometime prior to 1927. \u00a0In either case, I expect that I came up with the idea while resting on The Grassy Knoll in Dallas after my narrow escape from an alien abduction.<\/p>\n Please remind me to avoid traveling ever again with the junior representative of our nuclear family\u2019s second generation.\u00a0 (Names here have been suppressed in order to spare them from the tender mercies of my obsessive anonymous online stalkers.)\u00a0 That second-generation unit, accompanied by a third-generation unit, was set to fly from Provo Airport yesterday afternoon \u2014 how remarkably convenient, I thought to myself: flying out of Provo!<\/em> \u2014 to Dallas, and then on to Richmond, Virginia.\u00a0 They took off without incident and then, after an hour and a half or so, landed in Salt Lake City.\u00a0 Mechanical issues.\u00a0 So they spent the night with us again, and then, this morning, were to fly from Salt Lake City to Dallas to Richmond on American Airlines.\u00a0 And then their flight to Dallas was delayed a little bit.\u00a0 And then it was delayed several more hours, thus placing their connecting flight on to Richmond beyond reach.\u00a0 So they managed somehow to switch their tickets to the same flight that my wife and I were taking today from Salt Lake City to Washington DC.\u00a0 Which was then, about half an hour short of its destination at Reagan National Airport, diverted to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n We deplaned in Philadelphia because our aircraft needed to be refueled and because, anyway, our pilot and copilot had timed out.\u00a0 We sat in the airport in Philadelphia, in close proximity to the gate where our airplane was docked, for a couple of hours or so, waiting to discover our fate. \u00a0Finally, they announced an opening in the weather over the District of Columbia. \u00a0So we got onto the plane with a new crew and waited for roughly another hour before takeoff. \u00a0We had been scheduled to arrive at Reagan National at something like 5:00 PM. \u00a0We finally got into our hotel at about 10:30 PM.<\/p>\n Frankly, I was expecting the eventual outcome to be worse<\/em>. \u00a0I thought that we might not be able to get in to DC until tomorrow. \u00a0Now, of course, I recognize that this is very much a First World problem. \u00a0But this sort of thing has happened to me several times during the past two years or so.\u00a0 I\u2019m wondering whether my experience has been typical, or whether I\u2019m being singled out for special mistreatment by the vengeful Erinyes, the Greek Furies, for my multitude of egregious sins.<\/p>\n I watched a curious 2024 film on the flight out to Washington DC . . . er, to Philadelphia. \u00a0And then, umm, on to Washington DC. \u00a0It was The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare<\/i>, which is described as \u201can action-comedy war film\u201d and which was directed, co-written, and produced by Guy Ritchie. \u00a0The only stars whose names I recognized were Henry Cavill and Carey Elwes \u2014 though I scarcely recognized them as they appeared on screen. \u00a0I did recognize the actor who plays the title role in the television series Reacher<\/em> \u2014 although I\u2019ve rarely watched the show, he\u2019s difficult to miss \u2014 but I didn\u2019t know his name. \u00a0The film is based on a book by Damien Lewis that was published in 2014, titled Churchill\u2019s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII. \u00a0<\/i>Specifically, the film tells the story \u2014 how true to the historical facts it is I cannot say \u2014 of the exploits of \u00a0Winston Churchill\u2019s so-called \u201cSpecial Operations Executive\u201d and \u201cSmall Scale Raiding Force\u201d during the extraordinarily daring \u201cOperation Postmaster\u201d<\/a> that was executed off the coast of Africa.<\/p>\n After the film, I began to read Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery<\/em>, a 2007 biography of the great<\/span> British parliamentarian and Christian crusader against slavery, who lived from 1759 to 1833. \u00a0Eric Metaxas is a very good writer and, thus far, I\u2019m enjoying the book. \u00a0Here is a passage from it that I marked while reading it and that, of course, is also to be found in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122:<\/p>\n The carping accusation sometimes leveled at Christians, that they are \u201cso heavenly minded as to be no earthly good,\u201d would be leveled at Wilberforce many times in the years to come, but of no one could it have been less true. \u00a0His new [Christian] perspective made him about as zealous to improve the social conditions of the world around him as anyone who has ever lived. \u00a0As we shall see, in Wilberforce\u2019s day, it was devout Christians almost exclusively who were concerned with helping the poor, bringing them education and acting as their advocates, and who labored to end the slave trade, among other evils. (64)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I was pleased, too, to read that my own beloved Berner Overland region of Switzerland \u2014 and specifically its \u201ccapital city\u201d of Interlaken, where I lived for seven months of my mission and to which I return whenever I can, along with the region\u2019s famously beautiful Jungfrau \u2014 powerfully appealed to Wilberforce\u2019s aesthetic sense and appeared to play a role in his spiritual awakening:<\/p>\n \u201cWe went thither by way of Switzerland, and I have never since ceased to recur with peculiar delight to its enchanting scenery, especially to that of Interlaken, which is a vast garden of the loveliest fertility and beauty stretched out at the base of the giant Alps.\u201d (49-50)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Those are the words of Wilberforce himself. \u00a0And Eric Metaxas comments:<\/p>\n At Interlaken, Wilberforce was awed and affected by the exquisite grandeur of the Jungfrau. \u00a0His love of nature was a constant throughout his life, and surely the transcendent power of its beauty must now also have stirred his heart toward thinking of first things. (51)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Having fallen in love with the Interlaken area and the Jungfrau when I first saw them at the age of nineteen, and having made pilgrimages to them many times since then, I can certainly understand such a response.<\/p>\n Posted from Washington DC<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 I think that I may actually have been credited, the other day on the Peterson Obsession Board, with having invented the notion of a limited geographical model for the Book of Mormon \u2014 having done so, I suppose (because it\u2019s the only reason for which I ever do anything), with an eye toward massive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":45077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2126,2128,2132,3703,38972,38969],"class_list":["post-111980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-berner-oberland","tag-interlaken","tag-jungfrau","tag-slavery","tag-the-ministry-of-ungentlemanly-warfare","tag-wilberforce"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/a>