LDS author Douglas Thayer's novel of teen’s fight to survive avalanche

The late Douglas Thayer, a BYU English professor who died in 2017 at 88, penned some pretty good books, including a memoir of his boyhood in Provo, “Hooligan,” and the novel, “The Treehouse,” a well-written but bleak-to-a-fault novel of a Mormon youth’s teen years, mission to Germany, a horrific stint in the Korean War, and his post-war life.

Thayer is a top-tier Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints novelist out there. His final novel, “Will Wonders Ever Cease: A Hopeful Novel for Mormon Mothers and Their Teenage Sons” (Zarahemla Books, 2014), is a good read that mixes an adventure with the protagonist’s stream-of-consciousness thinking as he works to avoid peril and death.

The plot involves Kyle Hooper, 15-year-old Mormon boy in Colorado who takes off in a Suburban to go skiing without his parents’ permission. Almost abruptly, Kyle’s knocked unconscious and his vehicle carried away by a massive snow avalanche.

He comes to several hours later alive thanks to the strength of the Suburban, fortified years earlier by his late grandfather. Kyle is deeply buried in snow, but lucky enough to have landed close to a stream under the avalanche. That allows him to have oxygen. Without a cell phone — it’s smashed — but a car with battery power and some food and drink, he struggles through several days trying desperately to survive and dig himself out.

Kyle is a well-developed character of Thayer’s and the reader will enjoy following along with his ingenious and courageous efforts to save himself from what looks like a long, prolonged and certain death. Mixed in with the survival efforts in this slim novel are this typical but charismatic teen’s thoughts, which run the gamut from girls, church, testimony, his very religious mother, his remote father, his less religious but very talented grandfather, a brother, Trace, who died recently, family, his best friends, and musings about how friends and family are taking his ordeal.

In one emotional scene, Kyle turns on the Suburban’s radio and learns he’s been given up for dead, and retrieval efforts won’t resume until spring.

Within these thoughts, three characters are well-formed by Thayer, an author in his 80s. Kyle’s mother, Lucille, who is originally perceived as a Mormon scold but is revealed to be refreshingly progressive on issues such as homosexuality and premarital pregnancy, and possessed of a strong will, his Grandpa Hooper, whose legacy of common sense and handyman’s know-how is used to great advantage by Kyle, and his late brother, Trace, whose last months alive Kyle recalls as he endures his own struggle to survive.

About the only thing I don’t like about this novel is the bland title, which seems more suitable for self-help or inspirational genres. But it’s a good read, compelling and thought-provoking and readers — drawn into Kyle’s plight — won’t be able to put the book down in the final pages.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNET in 2014.

Another kid baptized amidst a day of chaos

This is another Culture of Mormonism blog post rescued from the Wayback Machine. It was written on Aug. 7, 2009. It's a kind of whimsically portrayed -- but accurate -- account of our daughter Sophie Gibson's baptism. I am happy it contains a mention of my now-deceased father, Ray, blessing Sophie. He blessed all our children after their baptisms. It ialso ncludes a great cartoon from Cal Grondahl. It was originally published at the now-defunct StandardBlogs.

We baptized our middle child this past Saturday. Little Sophie Gibson’s bouts of occasional naughtiness will now be logged in the heavens, I was quick to assure her the night before, when she didn’t want to practice the LDS baptismal ritual. Nevertheless, I managed to get her to hold my right hand as my left was raised and we simulated the baptism … I know what some of you are thinking, and yes, it did lead to repercussions in the font.

When I was baptized almost 38 years ago, I don’t recall much fuss about it. It was my birthday, which may be somewhat unique. But I was hustled into the car, driven to the stake center and dunked by my father. Then we went home and waited until Sunday for the confirmation.

It’s different now. Little cards were mailed to friends for Sophie’s baptism — and older daughter Mary’s a few years back — and a couple of cakes and lots of soda pop was purchased. There was a family and friends get-together at the home a couple of hours before the big event. Like these events always are, the older attendees grabbed the comfortable chairs in the living room while younger parents chatted in the kitchen while their kids scarfed cake, ice cream and soda. Occasionally a toddler would wander into the living room to be oohed and aahed at by the seniors.

The next step is heading to the chapel for the service. It’s a relief because other than Sophie’s rather timid interview with the bishop, we have nothing to do with its preparation. The songs, talks and prayers are all handled by the efficient bureaucracy that is the LDS faith. There were only two eight-year-olds to be baptized so things moved quickly.

We moved to the baptismal room. Sophie and I were first. I raised my left hand and uttered what I thought was a pretty good prayer. As I raised a dripping Sophie out of the font, though, I noticed a batch of gray and white heads hovering over the younger toddlers who usually grab the front-row seat at these events.

“You forgot the word of,” said one white head.

No problem. I baptized Sophie again and all seemed well.

The second baptism followed and both of us were in the dressing room. I was halfway into my clean clothes when a man in authority came in looking grave.

“Which hand did you raise during the baptism?” he asked.

Uh oh. I knew I’d goofed.

“The left,” I answered.

The other baptizer with me admitted he also had baptized his granddaughter with the left hand up.

“You’ll both have to do the baptism again,” we were told.

So, I hustled out of my dry clothes and started to get into the wet clothes. I told the other baptizer he could go first this time.

A few minutes later there was another visitor.

“Because you went first originally you’ll have to go first again. How soon can you be ready?”

I told him just a minute.

This was all my fault. I was giving my daughter quite an introduction to baptism. When we went into the font for a third time, I noticed a dead earwig. I wondered if this would scare Sophie, since she screams when she sees an earwig in the house, but she just pointed and said, “Look dad, an earwig.”

With my right hand up, I aced Sophie’s third baptism attempt.

Later, my father managed Sophie’s confirmation in only one take.

After the baptism, with all guests gone and Little Caesar pizza in our mouths, there was peace.

I caught Sophie eagerly telling everyone about her three baptisms.

“If you tell your grandchildren that you were baptized three times, make sure you mention it was dad’s fault,” I advised Sophie.

Mary baptized. Sophie baptized. In three-plus years it’ll be Joe’s turn — the final baptism day.

-- Doug Gibson

The White Horse Prophecy apocrypha still gets talked up from time to time

I wrote this column a while back in late 2010. I thought it's interesting enough to post on blog. Perennial candidate Rex Rammell is still running for political office as late as 2018. ... After a few recent conversations with some older members of the LDS Faith, I know the White Horse Prophecy still fascinates some.

Most of us Mormons, if we are long-timers in the church, have heard that the “Constitution will hang by a thread” in the last days and that the LDS prophet, or church leadership, will save the United States from destruction.

This all comes from the “White Horse prophecy,” a bit of Mormon lore, where two devout followers, Edwin Rushton and Theodore Turley, apparently had a conversation with the prophet Joseph Smith. A “transcript” of Smith’s part of the conversation, 10-plus years later, ended up in Paradise, Utah’s John J. Robert’s private journal.

I have to admit, growing up, I thought the White Horse prophecy was Mormon doctrine. Many of the LDS adults I listened to spoke of it as if it were church doctrine. As I grew older, and couldn’t find it propagated in any priesthood or Sunday School texts, I realized it was apocrypha. It’s not impossible that Smith actually said that, it’s just that it doesn’t mean it’s a revelation by LDS Church standards.

When an LDS prophet receives revelation from God, it is submitted to the church’s Council of the 12 Apostles and discussed — and I imagine debated — in detail before it passes muster as prophecy.

In other words, a secondhand, 10-year-old journal transcript of an alleged conversation a late prophet might have had doesn’t cut it for inclusion in LDS General Conference. In fact, as early as 1918, church leaders were discounting the White Horse prophecy. The church leader at the time, Joseph F. Smith, described it as “trash” and “false.”

There is an excellent article from the FAIR LDS site on the White Horse prophecy, that includes the entire journal account, at Read

So why does the White Horse prophecy have such an ability to hook more credulous members? I think it’s human nature. We all want to have a little of the Indiana Jones in us. We romanticize our church existence, fantasize that there is more to it than a two-year mission, counting members during sacrament meeting, home teaching, collecting fasts offerings and Gospel Doctrine lessons. We admire our faith and want its important to be inflated more in the world than it is. Also, let’s face it, the White Horse prophecy makes for great LDS conversation. But even Bruce R. McConkie, in his once-revered “Mormon Doctrine,” called it “false and deceptive.”

Other faiths are no different. Look at the rapture fantasies of fundamentalist Christians. Another example, that twists into hate and sin, is radical Muslims or — to a far lesser extent, radical Christians — killing infidels or abortionists.

In short, though, to the rest of the world, the White Horse prophecy can only embarrass the Mormon church on those occasions when it, for some reason or another, makes the media wires. And that has occurred with fringe Idaho gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell, a Republican, calling for a Jan. 19 meeting — open only to 100 handpicked LDS priesthood holders — that will discuss the White Horse prophecy in detail. (Hat tip to Top of Utah Voices columnist Neal Humphrey) (Note: Rammell had a change of heart on making the meetings LDS Priesthood exclusive.)

Sigh.

“I am tired of people telling me that I can’t bring God and the Constitution into my campaign speeches. ... We are in America’s second Revolutionary War to save our freedom, which we paid for with blood. We need God’s help and I’m not ashamed to ask for it,” Rammell was quoted in 2010.

And, as Rammell explains in an Idaho Statesman article on his crusade, he is willing to discuss the issue with non-Mormons and expects them to join his efforts to defend constitutional principles. Read

Personally, I would like to see as many religions as possible involved any of these types of crusades that the Rammells of the world engage in. I believe in an equal distribution of outlandish theories.

As for his crusade, Rammell is probably a longshot toward bringing the White Horse prophecy into the Idaho statehouse. In 2008, he won only 5.4 percent of the vote in an independent candidacy for U.S. Senate. (Note: He didn't do too bad in 2010, gaining 26 percent of the vote but losing the GOP primary to then-incumbent Gov. Butch Otter.)

--- Doug Gibson