{"id":94830,"date":"2022-04-13T16:17:07","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T22:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=94830"},"modified":"2022-04-13T16:17:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T22:17:07","slug":"a-miracle-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2022\/04\/a-miracle-remembered.html","title":{"rendered":"A Miracle Remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Cokeville<\/a>
Official film poster for T. C. Christensen\u2019s 2015 film \u201cThe Cokeville Miracle\u201d
(Wikimedia Commons fair use)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been deeply saddened to hear the news that Laura Harris Hales<\/a>, the wife of Dr. Brian C. Hales<\/a>, passed away this morning.\u00a0 She had been ill for a relatively brief time with a grievous form of cancer.\u00a0 She and Brian have been associates, allies, and friends for a long time.\u00a0 She will be greatly missed by many.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just a bit behind in announcing them, but there are some new items on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me<\/em> Old Testament Lesson 17 \u201cAll That the Lord Hath Spoken We Will Do\u201d<\/em>:\u00a0Exodus 18\u201320<\/a><\/p>\n

The discussants on the Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me<\/em>\u00a0Old Testament Lesson 17,\u00a0\u201cAll That the Lord Hath Spoken We Will Do,\u201d<\/em> on Exodus 18\u201320, are Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen.\u00a0 This roundtable has been extracted from the 13 March 2022 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show. The complete show may be heard at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreter-radio-show-March-13-2022\/<\/a>. The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard every week on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640.\u00a0 Or, if you prefer (or if you live outside of the Salt Lake Valley), you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Come, Follow Me<\/em> \u2014 Old Testament Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 17, April 18\u201324: Exodus 18\u201320 \u2014\u00a0\u201cAll That the Lord Hath Spoken We Will Do\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Once again, Jonn Claybaugh has generously contribute some concise notes for students and teachers of this year\u2019s \u201cCome, Follow Me\u201d readings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nibley Lectures: One Eternal Round<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 Lesson 4<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1990, Hugh Nibley presented a series of twelve lectures on Facsimile 2 in the Pearl of Great Price. The lectures occurred almost weekly, beginning on June 27, first in the Maeser Building and later in the Joseph Smith Building auditorium.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A friend and neighbor kindly invited me to go with him to Spanish Fork last night, where we listened to relatives of his recount their experiences during the famous \u201cCokeville Incident\u201d (aka \u201cThe Cokeville Miracle\u201d) \u2014 the 1986 hostage crisis that occurred at Cokeville Elementary School in Wyoming.\u00a0 It\u2019s a truly remarkable story, one that is entirely worthy of attention.\u00a0 Two of the women who spoke to the youth gathering last night \u2014 one of my friend\u2019s sisters and one of his sisters in law \u2014 were teachers at the school during the event.\u00a0 The third woman was a student in the elementary school at the time.\u00a0 All three were held hostage and yet, against all reasonable expectations, they survived the detonation of the homemade bomb that the two hostage-takers had brought into the little school.\u00a0 My friend\u2019s brother was also in the audience, from which he offered a few helpful comments and explanations.\u00a0 He had been working out on his ranch when he heard the news of the school takeover and had been obliged to watch it all from outside.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was pleased to hear one of the women expressly describe T. C. Christensen\u2019s 2015 dramatic film The Cokeville Miracle<\/em> <\/a>as \u201caccurate,\u201d and to observe the tacit agreement of the other two to that verdict.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read quite a bit about the incident \u2014 which, to be exact, took place on Friday, 16 May 1986 \u2013and have even visited the school on two separate occasions, so I didn\u2019t learn a whole lot about the events themselves that was new to me last night.\u00a0 But it was still worthwhile to me to listen in person to people who were actually victims of the hostage takeover, and to hear their reflections on what happened.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll share a few fairly trivial notes from the gathering last evening:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of the crisis, mental health professionals from Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and California converged on tiny Cokeville in hopes of helping the elementary school kids and their teachers and the school\u2019s staff to process what had happened to them.\u00a0 One of the former teachers recalled a psychiatrist or psychologist from California asking her how she was doing.\u00a0 She responded that she was doing fairly well, all things considered, but that she really disliked the sight of a certain door that had played a role in those still-recent terrifying events.\u00a0 He responded that she should think of it differently:\u00a0 \u201cThis is where a miracle happened,\u201d he told her.\u00a0 \u201cThis is hallowed ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I agree.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other teacher, I believe, recalled a colleague who was an avowed religious skeptic.\u00a0 \u201cI won\u2019t believe,\u201d he liked to say, \u201cuntil I\u2019ve seen the burning bush for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some time after the hostage incident, she asked him \u201cSo, did you see the burning bush?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cNo,\u201d he replied.\u00a0 \u201cI didn\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0 Then he added, \u201cI don\u2019t know who saved us, but I really like his style.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another thing that was done to try to give the kids some good memories to replace the horrific ones of the hostage crisis was to bring in a circus \u2014 something that surely can\u2019t be a common occurrence in a little town that, even today, has a total population of just slightly above five hundred.\u00a0 So, one of the teachers recalled with a laugh, she was able to ride an elephant up and down the main street of Cokeville \u2014 something that, I\u2019m guessing, the town\u2019s founders never would have envisioned and that most likely will never happen again<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The younger of the three women said that, rather curiously, those involved in the 1986 hostage crisis and bombing have tended to speak about it only very rarely until the past few years.\u00a0 She sees this as not quite a veil of forgetfulness cast over their minds but a divine way of ensuring that they were able to grow to maturity without the horror of the experience overshadowing them and blighting their childhoods and their adolescence.\u00a0 Recently, though, she\u2019s felt the freedom and even, to some extent, the obligation, to address it publicly.\u00a0 And she says that the filmmaker T. C. Christensen also felt for years that, although he wanted to create a movie about the story, the time wasn\u2019t yet right.\u00a0 And then, suddenly, it was.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another of my friend\u2019s sisters is the widow of Elder L. Tom Perry, of the Quorum of the Twelve.\u00a0 After the event last night, she told me of how they<\/em> heard the news of the crisis.\u00a0 They heard it on the radio while they were driving toward a Church assignment in Sacramento.\u00a0 She grew up in Cokeville; her sister and her sister in law \u2014 two of last evening\u2019s speakers \u2014 were teachers in the school.\u00a0 It took the Perrys quite a while to find out what had happened.\u00a0 They heard (falsely) that a teacher had been killed.\u00a0 They heard about the explosion.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t get a call through.\u00a0 I hope that I\u2019m not out of bounds in saying that she teared up while recalling that day.\u00a0 Who wouldn\u2019t?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

One man in the audience had attended school in Cokeville years after the hostage-taking.\u00a0 He was puzzled by the fact that he had seldom heard the story mentioned.\u00a0 Only once every three or four years, he estimated.\u00a0 He wondered why.\u00a0 It\u2019s a really big story, he said.\u00a0 A really important one.\u00a0 People need to hear it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Again, I agree.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 I\u2019ve been deeply saddened to hear the news that Laura Harris Hales, the wife of Dr. Brian C. Hales, passed away this morning.\u00a0 She had been ill for a relatively brief time with a grievous form of cancer.\u00a0 She and Brian have been associates, allies, and friends for a long time.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Miracle Remembered<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    ***   I've been deeply saddened to hear the news that Laura Harris Hales, the wife of Dr. Brian C. 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