Paul Enns Wiebe
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from Sacred Books & Sky Hooks

8/20/2019

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Joseph and his followers had stopped for an eight-year stay in Kirtland, where they (1) bought land, (2) made more converts, (3) built the first Mormon temple, (4) organized, under Joseph’s and God’s able leadership, the Church’s governing bodies, with Joseph becoming its first “President, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator,” (5) sent pairs of missionaries to other lands and places, (6) initiated the practice of polygamy, and (7) generally prospered—until the bank Joseph and several of his minions had formed met with failure.

During this time, Joseph also established what he thought would be the final Zion, an outpost of converts in Western Missouri. He traveled to and from this Zion with regularity, once with a militia bent on defending the Mormon pioneers there from belligerent unbelievers. When the Kirtland bank failed and good, solid Mormons began to apostatize, he left for Missouri and Zion posthaste and definitively. As an associate of Joseph’s later said, perhaps embroidering the state of affairs, at that time “there were not twenty persons on earth that would declare that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.”

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Introducing Pope Dun the Incredible!

8/16/2019

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At the Vatican, the pope was sound asleep, having four hours earlier mumbled the simple benediction he had learned as a child. In New York City, the anchors at the major networks were preparing to sign off after reading the news of the most ingenious and entertaining samples of human depravity that had appeared in the last twenty-four hours. In Las Vegas, thousands of American parents were busy initiating their offspring into the deepest mysteries of the nation’s folklore. At a race track in Southern California, eight sleek thoroughbreds were pounding the turf and coming down the home stretch as the spectators either clutched their tickets in anxiously sweating hands or, resigned to their temporary fate, began to destroy those tokens of hope. 

​And in the Kansas metropolis of Kirkland, not its real name, two men were preparing for a meeting that would launch a chain of events that was destined to have profound consequences both for America and for the largest and most powerful ecclesiastical organization in all Christendom. 
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from Dancing Over the Rays of Light

8/10/2019

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Salomon saies, or may bee it was Aristote, or may bee it was one or another of our modern Authores; Reading maketh a full Man, or Woman; Conference a ready Man, & etc.; and Writing an exact Man, & etc.; And I assure my selfe, such wil be chisseled upon your Graces Tombes, though Scoffers there bee, that wil dissent. And for such Cause it is, that I doe now publish my Essay; which, from all my Days, gatheres together my Thoughts, concerning the swifte Passage of Time. For I doe hope and conceive, that this my Essay, may laste, beyond my owne allotted Yeares, and truly may laste, to what the very best, and the very wisest, of our modern Authores, has called, The last Syllable, of recorded Time; or if not so longe, then so longe, as Bookes shall last, and Readers there bee, that study them, as they are meant to bee studied. 
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from Just Another Dead White Male

8/9/2019

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WIVES WHO HAVE BEEN LEFT BY THEIR HUSTANDS FOR ANOTHER WOMAN: this was the theme of the “Mary Mudd Show” on the morning after Labor Day. Dr. Digby had invited Sue Heedon and Mildred into the TV lounge during lunch hour to watch several wives testify to the hurt and the pain a woman feels over a husband’s sudden preference for an alternative lifestyle.

“It’s something you gals should identify with,” Doctor had explained to his faithful receptionist and assistant. Sue Heedon nodded sadly and agreed that yes, the subject was certainly something she was an expert on, in fact if she’d have known they were looking for hurting women she’d have volunteered for the show, she certainly needed the money, hint hint. Mildred hesitated, however. As she pointed out to the good doctor, she wasn’t really sure she qualified because it wasn’t clear that there was really another woman involved and it also wasn’t clear whether her husband had left her or it was the other way around. But Doctor smiled and patted her on the back and reminded her that for all practical purposes it amounted to the same thing.

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from The Church of the Comic Spirit

8/8/2019

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Main Street. A pair of young American tourists, George and Sandy, ride down the street toward the tent. He is driving a jeep, she is following on a two-humped camel, seated sidesaddle. The camel is laden with her extensive trousseau. Both wear Hawkeye caps and sunglasses, and both have cameras dangling from straps around their necks.

Narrator’s Voice: And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him.

God’s Voice: No, no, no! There weren’t three, there were two. And one of them was a woman. And they didn’t stand by him. They approached him.

Narrator’s Voice: But it is written--

God’s Voice: Written, schmitten. I’ve got eyes in my head. I say there are two, and I say one of them is a woman.

Narrator’s Voice (Sighing): You’re the boss . . . “And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, a man and a woman approached him.”

God’s Voice: That’s better.
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from Sacred Books & Sky Hooks

8/7/2019

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Immediately after young Allred left, I phoned Alcina and told her that her faux fiancé had been over. Then I asked her when we could meet, and where. She whispered that she’d be over as soon as it was feasible and quickly hung up.

A few hours later she was at my door, sans wig, sans dark glasses but carrying her laptop and a travel bag.

​“Where have you been? And”—looking at the bag—“where are you going?”

​“I’ve been at home, planning a wedding, and we’re going to Kirtland.”

I was confounded. “Wedding? We? Kirtland?”

“Let’s have a cool one—for the road,” she suggested.
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from Dancing Over the Rays of Light

8/6/2019

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My unwanted guest was a man I had met in the hallway a short week ago; a man who, at the behest of the two elderly ladies, was in search of a naked, aroused gentleman who had forgotten to apply his Old Spice; a man who, I had come to assume, was the director of the Heartland Retirement Center; a man who was known as Kermit Muster; a man who, I assumed, had come to apprehend me.
But Mr. Muster had come for an altogether purpose. He had come to ask for money. Not for himself, but for the institution of which he was the proud director and of which he presumed that I, Barney, was an equally proud tenant.
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from Just Another Dead White Male

8/5/2019

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Remember how we used to go camping? I was reminded of those times last night when your mother and I had a long talk about the good old days, etc. 

We never actually made it out to the Sierras as we’d planned, but the back yard served just as well, didn’t it. There weren’t any bears and wolves out there, but there were the Blossums’s ducks, which are still around (I can hear them now), even though Lee Roy is no longer around to feed them (Did your mother ever send you the obit?). I remember how much you enjoyed playing with our fine feathered friends as a boy.

Say, you’ve been missing out on a lot back here, besides the back yard birds and your mother’s cooking and my sintillating (sp?) literary conversation. You’re also missing out on watching your exceptional nephew and niece grow up. (Strictly speaking, she’s your grandniece—have I got you interested? interested enough to write for more info? It’s quite a story!) 
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from Church of the Comic Spirit

8/3/2019

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Selection of Miss Holy Land

The pageant stage. Sarah’s daughter stands before an enraptured audience. She wears a scarlet dress; her banner proclaims her to be Miss Sinai. She is performing in the talent portion of the Miss Holy Land competition, favoring the crowd with a superb rendition of the aria 
È strano from Verdi’s La Traviata. English subtitles.

Daughter: È strano! è strano!
[How strange! how strange!]

In core scolpiti ho quegli accenti!
[In my heart are sculpted those words!]

Saria per me sventura un serio amore?

[Would to me true love bring bad luck?]

Che risolvi, o turbata anima mia?
[What think you, oh troubled spirit mine?]

The audience applauds wildly. Sarah and Abraham look at each other and nod their proud approval.

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    Picture

    Paul Enns Wiebe perpetually asks himself, "What do I want to write when I grow up?"

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