“My Brethren have made the case for the metaphor of musket fire, which I have endorsed yet again today. There will continue to be those who oppose our teachings and with that will continue the need to define, document, and defend the faith.”
—Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
A Mormon Poem
I come to you
as the veritable anchor.
Regardless of your regard,
in the summer of St. George,
high on the hill —
bold and beautiful,
I drive up something special
that mother said was the emblem
of the greatest in the world.
My sight keeping you, dear
friends, in beautiful legions,
so well kept. Thank you.
I delight at the reach
of ordinances, outward grace
thousands have forged in
mind and heart — consecrated,
effervescing with love,
yet edified and distinguished
in America BY pain.
I oppose people thinking
differently, I’m not intellect.
There are consequences,
a radicalizing of attitudes
and the destruction of faith.
Fortunately, we get this unique
President with undying love
of the Church and human lives.
I maintain the role of defender
who can handle trowels and more.
He, the one defending Life, fired
at those hostile to the mission
and the feelings that swirl, so
to command institutional dignity.
In that spirit, let me go farther.
I can tell Christ never withheld
commandments demanding lives.
Yes, we will always need friendly fire —
and from time to time, wounding
students who are beloved.
There are goals that maintain
loyalty to prophetic leadership
which need swords and war.
I focus on sex more
than I pray. But I digress!
Back to blessings!
Do you see the beautiful unfolding,
notwithstanding critics? Like the Church,
spiritual and unique and, even more
importantly, reinforcing that unfolding
dream of obedience and bright budding.
You may be certain that I come quickly,
even as the flagship, to bloody the world,
to stand second to none, to pursue
destiny, not a thing to be waited for.
To help you pursue that destiny
in the only real way I know how,
I leave Jesus and endeavor
to conquer in the end.
I thank you for your loyalty.
Notes and an Invitation for Discussion
Reactions to this poem are welcome in the comments below. Thank you for reading.
This erasure poem utilizes words and phrases taken from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s speech The Second Half of the Second Century, delivered to BYU faculty at the 2021 Annual University Conference. This poem should be read as an original work, not as an abridgment of Elder Holland’s remarks.
The form of this poem owes to contemporary poet Richard Blanco. You can try some of his poems for free at the Poetry Foundation website. In particular, I recommend “El Florida Room” and “Since Unfinished.” For another Mormon erasure poem, try McConkie Erasure: April 1975.
This post’s featured image was accessed from the National Park Service webpage: The Mormon Militia and Pipe Spring.
Wheat & Tares 
This is absolutely beautiful. It is very reminiscent of the writings of Asael Smith, Joseph’s grandfather. Asael believed, much like this wonderful prose, that everyone could have a personal relationship with God. There is no need for a musket wielding intermediary.
It isn’t musket fire per se that’s the problem–rather, it’s what we believe needs defending.
John Charity Spring, thank you for the compliment. Though, if there is beauty in the poem, Elder Holland’s text deserves some credit. He has been one of my favorite Latter-day Saint orators, even after I went inactive. That’s key to understanding why I found his embrace of the unsavory (ugly) gun metaphor so heartbreaking.
Jack, fair warning, I’m feeling unkind today. Please know that my voice is calm in what I write next: you are at least the second person in the last month to dismiss something I took pains to write and edit thoughtfully. You have made no attempt to engage with my poem or its ideas. Instead, you have burped out a loyalist talking point in defense of an institution that thirsts for respect and inclusion by the larger academic community, while offering little if any in return, at least from the pulpit.
Anyhow… I wish that you, and others, had engaged with the text of this poem. Because doing so involves low stakes and plenty of acceptance for a variety of viewpoints. Poetry is hopelessly subjective by design. It’s a chance to read phrases and imagery thoughtfully arranged, have an honest reaction, and then contemplate that reaction to learn more about yourself. If you do that, and share that in a comment, you have succeeded as a poetry reader.
Really, at the end of the day, who cares what the poem means to the poet? There is almost nothing wrong that readers could say, if they would just engage with the poem, respond with honest reactions to the poem, and supplement those by quoting specific lines from the poem. But apparently, yet again, that’s just too big of an ask for internet readers, especially conservative ones.
Jake C.,
I should know better. I’m a composer–and I’ve had my stuff dismissed out of hand too. And so, I apologize for not being more sensitive.
That said, in my own defense, some criticisms of the church (to me) are tantamount to criticisms of my family–that’s how near and dear the church is to me. And so, while I envy your abilities as a wordsmith–I have a hard time not taking the criticism in your poem personally. Maybe that’s a bit childish on my part–but those are my honest feelings.
Jake,
Thanks very much for that. I’ll tell you why I appreciate your writing.
I left the church in my 40’s at the turn of the millennium. I was heavily involved with computing, and it was just becoming possible to research church history without traveling to the U of U Marriott Library or Sandra’s store (I live in California). I wrote the requisite (required? :)) 40 page treatise to my LDS extended family and left. All of my children left as well a few years later. My wife, a convert, remained deeply engaged in the church but we managed to find some stability, even with our different directions. Since then, my kids have married great (non-member spouses) and are doing well by any measure – with beautiful children that are very much a part of our lives.
About 3 years ago I re-engaged the church after a deep spiritual experience I was neither looking for nor even paying attention to. My ward has been a good experience so far. But I returned with a completely different perspective on my participation, of course. And I read exmormon reddit with empathy, understanding and often agreement, of course.
I needed to provide that background to better explain why I appreciate your work so much. Life is such an open-ended experience, and the spacious field that Nephi saw, the world that God made that was good, and the place where we explore and learn by our own experience, is such an interesting place to experiment and grow.
Your writing reflects that ground truth. Rather than simply setting up black and white assertions that are often counterproductive to “learning to distinguish between good and evil”, your poem juxtaposes competing ideas in a way that promotes thought and introspection – e.g. learning.
Even more important than learning to distinguish between good and evil, is learning how not to assign events to that small category. Almost all questions, decisions and efforts in our lives are about personal exploration, learning and joy – not judgements about good and evil. The style you wrote respects that – it raises questions gently, indirectly and lets the reader find their way. And at the end you also let Jeffrey Holland speak for himself – and in the only way, in fact, that any of us can speak.
Thus, you allow me to give to him the grace that I give myself and hopefully to others. The grace that we are all doing the best we can, in the only way we can find at the moment, in a mostly good garden. And we do it with the challenging imperative to sort out a few moral choices, within a relatively short time span.
If Elder Holland saw muskets where I do not, I can still acknowledge his personal field and at the same time value the part of the field or garden that is mine. His talk, as all talks are, was 99% personal because they reflect the absolutely unique experiences and life that the speaker lived. I can accept he sees the world that way, and I do not (as long as he doesn’t fire his musket in my direction – which is a topic for another time)
Thanks again for that,
Rod Holland
Jake,
This is really interesting and thought provoking – well done! Forgive me and my simple mind but I found this to be beautifully unsettling.
I see a discordance in each section. There are elements of love and light concomitant with sinister elements. Maybe a good analogy is that of a poison apple. Or maybe it is more like a mirage of comforting ideas that never actually materialize into anything comforting. What appears as cool water is only heat waves radiating off of blistering sand.
Jake C
I think your poem is lovely and thought provoking, a chance to process the church’s attitude dealing with people who have a different experience.
I personally wish the idea of musket fire aimed at LGBTQ people had never been presented by Holland. It is painful to imagine the church aiming it’s guns in this way at fragile children of God that are simply trying to be themselves. As one of my sons explains “It’s contrary to everything I was ever taught in Primary.”
So late in getting back to this but I wanted to acknowledge these additional comments that came in. Waterbear, your assessment of the poem’s vibe resonates with similar feelings to my own. rhholland and lws329, thank you for looking at the poem and the broader issues in such emotionally sympathetic terms. Very helpful to me as a blogger to see this range of feedback. Lastly, thank you to everyone who commented for doing so directly and candidly. I’m very grateful to have your responses