Utah Women in the Law

This evening I attended a gathering at the Little America Grand Hotel paying tribute to the first 100 women admitted to practice law in Utah. It wasn't until the 1970's that the total women admitted to practice law in Utah reached the 100 mark.

Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham was one of two keynote speakers, Elder Dallin Oaks was the other. Chief Justice Durham was the 72nd woman admitted to practice in Utah's history. Now she is the state's Chief Justice. She and Elder Oaks served together temporarily on the Utah Supreme Court. She was added to the court in 1982, Elder Oaks departed in 1984 for church service. It was an interesting evening. I am glad I was able to attend, and take my wife, and daughter, Lindsay. 

There were excerpts from court opinions in the late 1800's from both Utah and Wisconsin when the first women were applying to practice law in both states. Surprisingly, the attitude from Wisconsin was condescending, critical, and discouraging toward women who wanted to be lawyers. But from Utah, there was praise and encouragement - even the expectation that women would add some degree of dignity and compassion to the profession.

Events like these serve to remind us how greatly things have changed in relatively recent times. Some of the things we take for granted have only recently occurred.

Societies which fail to educate, and allow women to influence every aspect of their lives are diminished by the failing. Advancement to the entire culture is tied to the education and contribution of women. They should be allowed every opportunity possible.

Early Morning Seminary

I've been substituting an early morning seminary class this week. It's a Doctrine & Covenants course, and we've been covering Sections 132, 133 and 135. These include the eternal marriage covenant, plural wives, prophecy of Christ's Second Coming, and martyrdom of both Joseph and Hyrum.

I drew a layout of the Carthage Jail yesterday morning, described the movements of each of the four in the upper room (Joseph, Hyrum, John Taylor and Willard Richards) during and after the attack, then discussed what happened between the killing and the time the bodies made it back to Nauvoo.

Joseph's last words, "Oh Lord my God..." is a shorthand reference to the distress call for the Third Degree, or Master Mason. The entire call is, "Oh Lord my God, is there no help for the widow's son?" Invoking the call, requires all other Masons to rally to help the one in distress.  Joseph was aware members of the mob who came to kill him were Masons. By addressing the call to the mob, Joseph was putting the Masons on their sworn duty to provide relief. He was putting them to the test of their oath, which they failed.

It is good to stay in touch with younger Latter-day Saints through teaching opportunities. I teach Priests in my own ward. There are two interesting observations I've made. First, younger minds are more open and willing to be taught. They are interested in thinking or considering ideas. The more you can inform them, the better able they are to gain perspective about the Gospel. They possess a resource which diminishes with time - teachability (to use the vocabulary of scripture, humility). Second, the youth who have grown up using the current form of institutional teaching materials are woefully less informed than those who grew up forty years ago. They are every bit as interested and curious as past generations, but the material used to inform them has been so diminished in content that they are left with the most superficial of understanding of the Gospel. All you parents need to assume responsibility for fixing that with your own children. The institutional approach narrows the scope each year, leaving less and less substance taught.

I've studied the restored Gospel and church history for over 40 years. I continue to search more carefully into the subject year by year.  There are so many things to appreciate. I think the most interesting, gripping and important subject you can study is the restored Gospel.  Not through the kind of superficial inspirational drivel now sold by Deseret Book. You can go round and round with that kind of crap - won't make one bit of progress there. You'll be briefly entertained, and then lulled to sleep by such quasi-religious infotainment. You will never awaken to your awful situation by being coddled, inspired and reassured that "All is well in Zion." If you intend to actually come to grips with the Gospel, you need to read the Book of Mormon, other scriptures, everything you can find about Joseph Smith, and original material or works based on original materials taken from then contemporary sources. The bibliography from the new book I'm working on has a number of great sources worth considering.

But the Gospel is not study alone. The purpose of study is to inform our conduct, our thoughts and our words. What truths we learn need to be put into action and lived. It is in the living that the power of the Gospel is released. As we "do" what we are instructed, we find ourselves in company with angels and Heavenly messengers.

That process which Joseph Smith describes in the Joseph Smith-History found in the Pearl of Great Price, still works. For any soul who decides to try it.

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day. Many of you will be getting a phone call from your missionary. My daughter will speak in Sacrament today. It's a different daughter than the one who spoke for the last two years on Mother's Day. Seems we can't have it come without one of our daughters speaking.

My mother died years ago. I always remember her always on this date. She was a remarkable, stern, intelligent, spry, curious and faithful woman. Every morning at breakfast she would read a verse from the Bible to us, even though I did my best to feign disinterest. She persisted. Somehow, despite my own neglect of reading the Bible, when the missionaries taught me, I already knew most of the material they used from the Bible. Although she was not Mormon, her teaching was absolutely necessary for me to become what I am now.

She drug me to the Baptist Church every week, always hoping I'd become a Baptist. But the only church I ever joined was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That was troubling to a devout Baptist. I've often said that throughout my childhood she was afraid I would go to hell. Then I became a Mormon and removed all doubt.

If your mother is still here, take time for her today. And if she's gone, like mine, then take some time for your wife as mother of your children. I'm planning to go prepare dinner and then clean up afterwards. (Even if I go to KFC and use paper plates.)

Book Now Available

The book based on this blog is now available for those who are interested. It can be ordered through Amazon and is titled Removing the Condemnation.

It is 568 pages and has no word index because I'm leaving this blog up for those who want to search for a word, topic, post or entry. The book is arranged by scriptural divisions. You can use this blog to locate a word or topic, find the scripture cite being discussed, and locate it within the book based on the scripture. It's a little cumbersome, but adding a word index would have moved the book to well over 600 pages, at which point the cost would have gone up too much for my liking.

Let me reiterate that I do not make anything on what I write. That small portion of the book price which finds its way to me is donated to the church. There are, of course, those who publish, print, sell and ship books who do depend on the sale price for their living. I am a practicing attorney, and therefore do not.

I continue working to shepherd the book on restoration history along and hope it will be completed and available by fall, but there is no release date at present. I can only promise it will be out this year. 

On a completely unrelated topic, tomorrow is Mother's Day. Don't forget your wives, mothers and sisters who are mothers tomorrow.

The Books

The quote and cite checking on the latest manuscript is underway. I'm amused by how many volumes are on the cart, so to speak. There was a library required to write what I've been working on, and the book will relieve people who read it from the necessity of buying and reading shelves of material, if they don't want to.

I am a little concerned about the length of the book because length increases pages, and pages increase cost. A book is not particularly reader-friendly if the font drops below 12, so it is not practical to reduce pages by taking the font to 10 because that makes it hard to read. A word index will be required because the content is such that readers are likely to want to be able to navigate through the material with an index. 

The first read-through edit has been done. This identified ambiguities, or things that would benefit from further clarification, or examples. This first edit results in rewrites to clarify. The result is always expanding the volume, because some clarifications add a paragraph to the text and several footnotes. This process is about 80% completed.

The second edit is only to check the citations and quotes for accuracy. Since there are over a thousand citations and quotes, this is somewhat tedious, but can be done simultaneously with the read-through, clarification process. This citation check is about 30% completed.

The final edit is a word/phrasing/punctuation/grammar edit which checks all the technical writing style. It will be done on a text that is accurate as to meaning and citations, and focus only on writing conformity to good technical standards.

When the editing is completed, the book is then typeset, a process which takes a few weeks. This makes the book look like a finished layout. Only after the typeset, is it printed for the first time. The printed product is called a "galley-proof" and will be marked up for printing errors and mistakes. Printed proofs are used to look for mistakes that are then marked in red. This is the "red-line" process. After the red lines are finished, the print layout is corrected to remove all the errors found. The finished, corrected version is then turned into a print-ready copy and submitted to the printer. The printer takes about three weeks to provide a print proof for review and approval. When it is approved, the book becomes available on Amazon.

The new book is drafted, but still has a great deal of technical work to be done before it will be ready. I thought it might be interesting to let people know this process. Mill Creek has suggested releasing it as a two-volume set to reduce cost for any single volume. But I think that is self-defeating, because then the cumulative cost of the two is greater than a single volume. It is possible, however, that the word index will lengthen it to the point a paperback printing of a perfect-bound book is not possible. Then the only choice would be to make it two volumes, or release it as a hardback-only printing. If it becomes hardback-only, the cost will rise dramatically. I'm not interested in making it costly, so that has no appeal to me.

We are looking into getting another printer to do hardback versions of all the books, because there have been requests for those.

On the bright side, they are shipping me a copy of the finished proof of Removing the Condemnation this week. When it arrives, I can approve and release it. So the blog book (titled Removing the Condemnation) will then be available in printed form. It will be over 525 pages in length, and would be increased by many more if a word index were provided. Therefore, there will be no word index for that book, but the blog will remain up and can be searched on-line to find something. Also, there will be no Kindle version of that book because the blog will remain up.