RE: [ZION] Beholder of Zion
Ron, I'm not familiar with your work, but I get the feeling from this short piece that the boy didn't really love SLC. At least not with his whole heart. It is fascinating to him, eating at him, part of him, betraying him, shaping him, annoying him and clinging to him like a familiar odor, but he doesn't seem to love it. It's full of memories bigger than life, distorted by a confusion of perception and reality, and he can't quite ever seem to square the circle in his own mind. He's a *beholder* of Zion, after all, not a *belonger*. Of course maybe that was the point, I have no idea what Cee's love of Manhattan was really like either. Tom -Original Message- From: Ron Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: November 5, 2003 5:36 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ZION] Beholder of Zion At the present, I'm editing some short stories, columns, poems etc. for an proposed anthology. I thought some of you may enjoy this short piece, relevant somewhat to our discussions today. A BEHOLDER OF ZION By RB Scott C2003, 1986 Cee's love for her Manhattan was not unlike Jed's for his Salt Lake. As a youngster he lived near enough to walk to the center of the city after school and on weekends. Often, he would sequester himself in the back of the vast oval Tabernacle on Temple Square while Alexander Schreiner's fingers worked their magic over the five keyboards on the console of the massive pipe organ. At times it seemed as if the performance was intended specifically for Jed, hiding out, alone with his imagination in the upper balcony. There was something positively uplifting, calming about the haunting tones and accompanying reverberations that emanated from those towering Sequoia-like pipes. On occasion, he slipped up the tight circular stairs that led to the choir seats, which spread out like a hillside meadow between the forest of massive pipes and a furrowed valley of wooden pews, each one planed and sanded by the callused hands of Jed's ancestors and their brethren. Sitting on those benches, as he regularly had for general conference in April and October and, later, for concerts by the Utah Symphony Orchestra, he imagined Paradise, communing face-to-face with one departed ancestor or another, that God lived up the hillside, there in the hollows of those majestic, euphonious trunks of native pine. Four blocks from home, he played out a different, if equally fulfilling fantasy. On the gridiron in the stadium at the University of Utah: five seconds left in his mind, he would race down the field, cut left across the grain, dive as his outstretched arms crossed the goal line, snaring the pass with his fingertips. The fans would be going crazy as his teammates hoisted him onto their shoulders; he had lived righteously, fought the good fight, and now God, being just, had blessed him with a winning touchdown catch -- against BYU! Deeper into the sprawling campus he'd roam the university's old cavernous library, pulling books with strange-sounding titles from the shelves, selecting one or two of them to take to the his hideout in carrels sequestered, entombed deep in the stacks, reading for hours as if he was a diligent graduate student gathering research for a Master's thesis. It was there he read that babies need not be cut-out of their mother's bellies; that Benjamin Franklin had been an incorrigible womanizer; that his church's original prophet, Joseph Smith, opened a tavern in his family's manse in Nauvoo, Illinois, and that his successor, Brigham Young, and members of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles once made regular use of spittoons, stationed like sentries at doorways leading to the holiest sections of the temple. And, that many actually thought New York City was a quite wonderful place, not at all the horrific den of thieves and murderers and hookers his parents and the local newspapers made it out to be. Right then and there he learned that perceptions often bear no resemblance to reality and that reality has everything to do with how one beholds it. // /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// // /// // /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// / --^ This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE!
RE: [ZION] Beholder of Zion
The piece was extracted adapted from a chapter in a (forthcoming) novel. I'd say you're quite the perceptive reader. And, thanks so much for commenting. Ron -Original Message- From: Tom Matkin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 11:07 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [ZION] Beholder of Zion Ron, I'm not familiar with your work, but I get the feeling from this short piece that the boy didn't really love SLC. At least not with his whole heart. It is fascinating to him, eating at him, part of him, betraying him, shaping him, annoying him and clinging to him like a familiar odor, but he doesn't seem to love it. It's full of memories bigger than life, distorted by a confusion of perception and reality, and he can't quite ever seem to square the circle in his own mind. He's a *beholder* of Zion, after all, not a *belonger*. Of course maybe that was the point, I have no idea what Cee's love of Manhattan was really like either. Tom -Original Message- From: Ron Scott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: November 5, 2003 5:36 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ZION] Beholder of Zion At the present, I'm editing some short stories, columns, poems etc. for an proposed anthology. I thought some of you may enjoy this short piece, relevant somewhat to our discussions today. A BEHOLDER OF ZION By RB Scott C2003, 1986 Cee's love for her Manhattan was not unlike Jed's for his Salt Lake. As a youngster he lived near enough to walk to the center of the city after school and on weekends. Often, he would sequester himself in the back of the vast oval Tabernacle on Temple Square while Alexander Schreiner's fingers worked their magic over the five keyboards on the console of the massive pipe organ. At times it seemed as if the performance was intended specifically for Jed, hiding out, alone with his imagination in the upper balcony. There was something positively uplifting, calming about the haunting tones and accompanying reverberations that emanated from those towering Sequoia-like pipes. On occasion, he slipped up the tight circular stairs that led to the choir seats, which spread out like a hillside meadow between the forest of massive pipes and a furrowed valley of wooden pews, each one planed and sanded by the callused hands of Jed's ancestors and their brethren. Sitting on those benches, as he regularly had for general conference in April and October and, later, for concerts by the Utah Symphony Orchestra, he imagined Paradise, communing face-to-face with one departed ancestor or another, that God lived up the hillside, there in the hollows of those majestic, euphonious trunks of native pine. Four blocks from home, he played out a different, if equally fulfilling fantasy. On the gridiron in the stadium at the University of Utah: five seconds left in his mind, he would race down the field, cut left across the grain, dive as his outstretched arms crossed the goal line, snaring the pass with his fingertips. The fans would be going crazy as his teammates hoisted him onto their shoulders; he had lived righteously, fought the good fight, and now God, being just, had blessed him with a winning touchdown catch -- against BYU! Deeper into the sprawling campus he'd roam the university's old cavernous library, pulling books with strange-sounding titles from the shelves, selecting one or two of them to take to the his hideout in carrels sequestered, entombed deep in the stacks, reading for hours as if he was a diligent graduate student gathering research for a Master's thesis. It was there he read that babies need not be cut-out of their mother's bellies; that Benjamin Franklin had been an incorrigible womanizer; that his church's original prophet, Joseph Smith, opened a tavern in his family's manse in Nauvoo, Illinois, and that his successor, Brigham Young, and members of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles once made regular use of spittoons, stationed like sentries at doorways leading to the holiest sections of the temple. And, that many actually thought New York City was a quite wonderful place, not at all the horrific den of thieves and murderers and hookers his parents and the local newspapers made it out to be. Right then and there he learned that perceptions often bear no resemblance to reality and that reality has everything to do with how one beholds it. // /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// // /// // /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read
