David Alan Harvey Loft Workshop, entry 6: My personal history with race and the Mormon Church - or - how I fell in love with, met, courted, engaged, lost and married my wife

Looking Back at Me: I fell in love with my wife before I ever met her, or even saw a picture of her. It happened when three words slipped through the lips of Sister Martyna White Hawk, a Mormon youth missionary from South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation... but I have gotten a bit ahead of myself. So let me back up just a bit...

...here I am, backed up a bit, down on the street below the gold-gilded statue of the Angel Moroni, perched atop the spire of the Manhattan New York Temple. He holds his trumpet to his lips, ready to herald the Second Coming of Christ, who will come from the east. 

I am now in my second day of trying to shoot a photo essay on Mormon missionaries in New York City. I had not planned to shoot such an essay, but had spontaneously switched from another, hazy, plan at the suggestion of David Alan Harvey, who had just seen three of my missionary images in the short slide show that I had used to introduce myself to the other participants in David's Loft Workshop in Brooklyn.

My first day on the essay had been an utter failure. I had failed to contact a single Mormon, let alone a missionary. I managed only to photograph the Moroni statue from a few different angles in fading light.

On the morning of this, the second shooting day, I had finally got a call through to a Mormon who informed me that all the missionaries in New York City were about to begin a mission conference at a Mormon church housed in the same building as the temple, but not consecrated as part of the temple. I informed David of this at the beginning of the morning workshop session. He said I must go right now, pulled some cash out of his wallet, called for contribitions from others, and then shoved enough bills at me to cover cab fare from Brooklyn to Uptown Manhattan - about $30.

The cab driver expertly worked his way through what seemed to me to be impossibly congested traffic and dropped me off just outside the temple, a bit more than half-an-hour later. I entered through the door that serves both the temple, closed to those without temple recommends, the church house and various offices. Inside, I found a Polynesian doorman, clean-cut, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and tie. He directed me to the chapel area on the third floor where the conference was taking place in a gymnasium. The doors were closed. I could not just barge in. I returned to the doorman, who then directed me to a public information office on the second floor. Inside, I found a pleasant, clean-cut, young man, also dressed in suit, white shirt and tie.

My hair was long and shaggy and so was my beard. I had planned to get both cut and trimmed before I left Alaska, but never got the chance. I felt most self-conscious, because I know from long experience that Mormons in authority can take matters of dress and grooming most seriously.

I explained my purpose to him and told him that I had served a mission decades before, and had for many years been conducting a sporadic project to photograph Mormon missionaries whenever I happened upon them. 

He seemed willing to help, but lacked the authority to grant me mission cooperation. He led me back up to the third floor, opened the door to the back of the meeting room just a bit more than a crack and signaled another, older, public information officer, clean-cut, spiffily dressed in a suit, white shirt and tie, to join us in the hallway.

The young one introduced us, and then explained my purpose to the older, adding that I was a returned missionary and "an active member of the church."

The later description threw me a bit, because I have not been active in decades, had not said I was and did not want to advance a false claim. Yet, it did not seem wise to correct him, so I didn't.

The older fellow also struck me as friendly, willing to help, but he too lacked the authority. He stated that I would need to talk to the mission president, who would be tied up in meetings until lunch and perhaps beyond. He suggested that I come back in a couple of hours.

I agreed. I then asked the younger to direct me to the nearest barber shop. He did - about five blocks away.

There is an Apple store about two blocks from the temple where one can take any kind of malfunctioning Apple product for a free diagnosis. I had brought my laptop with me in the hope that I could have the screen fixed in time to edit this day's take. So, before I walked to the barber shop, I dropped into the Apple store. I put my name on a waiting list for an hour later. Staff assured me that I would be seen within ten minutes of the scheduled time, the diagnosis would happen swiftly, probably less than ten minutes, and the repair scheduled - likely before the afternoon ended.

I returned, clean cut, 15 minutes before the scheduled time. I sat down, opened up my laptop, and waited for my name to be called. My malfunctioning monitor did an excellent job of catching the reflections of staff and customers.

My appointed time came and went - 10 minutes, 15, 20, half-an-hour, 40 minutes... without my name being called. I grew nervous. Of course, I know that one needs to be at a meeting on time, but David had stressed to always, "go early." Even an hour early; two hours early. It doesn't matter if you have a long, boring, wait. What matters is that you ultimately get the pictures.

I did not want to be one minute late. So, about 20 minutes before the two-hour mark, I packed up my laptop, left the store and headed back toward the meeting.

Most Mormon churchhouses come with a chapel, a gymasium and a stage. Mormons tend to love basketball and the gyms prove perfect for other gatherings as well, from potlucks to memorial viewings, to gatherings to watch plays on the stage and to place rows of folding, steel, chairs when the congregation overflows the chapel, as it does for certain services. In my mission, Mormon chapels sometimes contained the only indoor gym in a reservation village - and certainly the only one other than the school, if the school had one at all.

A significant portion of our missionary work was devoted to basketball. The Northern Indian Mission encompassed North and South Dakota, Eastern Montana, Eastern Wyoming, Northern Nebraska and Western Minnesota. The NIM staged an annual basketball tournament with a series of local and regional playoffs - all leading up to the mission championship tournament in Rapid City.

Until I got distracted by surfing, I had been a promising high school wrestler and had played football until my senior year, when, to everybody's dismay, I left the sport behind to become yearbook photographer. Many adults shook their heads in disgust. They lamented that by shedding my football pads for a camera, I, one of the shortest and lightest players (yet pound for pound the toughest, the coach once said) on the football team, had just thrown away my entire future - FOR A CAMERA!!!

I had never cared to play basketball at all, but I took my missionary work seriously. When I became Senior Campanion in Fort Thompson on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation, I set out to organize a basketball team. The events that followed played out almost like a classic, underdog, sports movie. I recruited my team almost exclusively from the most ornery, delinquent, teenaged-hell raisers and trouble makers on the reservation.

They all loved to play basketball, and they were good - no they were great. Maybe they got into trouble. Maybe they drank and swore, fought and fucked, and pissed in public places when they felt the need, but their hearts were big, their brains intelligent and they knew the game of basketball well. It was sometimes a challenge, but we got along great, these hellraisers and I.

To qualify for the tournaments, a player had to reach a certain record of church and seminary attendance, whether they were Mormons or not. None of my players were Mormon, but they all became regulars at Sunday school and seminary. The least skilled player among them knew much more about the game than did I, so my basic method of coaching was to bring them to the huddle, say, "go out there and do whatever the hell it is you do" and then turn them loose.  Then they would go out and win, game after game.

They beat everybody they came up against, they won district, they won regional and then I took them to Rapid City, where they defeated all contenders until finally it was time to battle Pine Ridge for the championship.

Pine Ridge was a much larger community than Fort Thompson. Despite all the victories my boys had racked up, when the human skyscrapers from Pine Ridge dribbled onto the court, clad in menacing black-trimmed red uniforms, I feared the run might be over. It looked to me like that they had to average a good six-and-a-half feet or more in height. My players averaged less than six - a number were shorter than me, at five-foot, seven-and-a-half. The Pine Ridge bench was deep, Fort Thompson's shallow.

Worse yet, their coach was the Shoshone missionary who had become my senior campanion on my tenth day in the field - and so served as my break-in Elder. He was athletic, strong, intelligent and ambitious, yet had a certain sense of insecurity that made him always want to prove himself superior in all things, whether it be "scripture blast" or the ball court. Every day that it was possible, he made me go one on one against him in basketball and then lorded his victory over me.

He wrestled me once. That did not go well for him, so he never wrestled me again.

Now, he looked proud and confident as he stood on the sidelines with his youthful skyscrapers. He greeted me with that same "I'm going to kick your butt" grin that he had always flashed at me before every one-on-one game that we had ever played.

"How did you ever get here, anyway?" he asked when we shook hands. "It doesn't matter. You're doomed."

But... YES!... YES!... YES! My boys beat his boys! It was a classic, come from behind squeaker finish - I can't remember the score, but we won. I was awarded my own little trophy as coach of the Northern Indian Mission Championship basketball team.

Now, I found the mission president in the gym taking individual snapshots of the New York City Mormon missionares. The scene had irresistible appeal to me and I had a strong feeling that if I did not get a shot off now, I might never get another chance to photograph any of the missionaries gathered here, period.

I briedfly told him what I wanted to do, said, "this would be a good place to start," and then shot this picture. He raised his right hand slightly, then stepped back from his picture taking to talk to me.

He was friendly but reserved, and listened intently as I explained in more detail the project that I hoped to shoot.

He answered, "it will be impossible for you" to do a photo essay on Mormon missionaries at work in New York City. Then, he backed off that statement just a bit and said there was only one way that I might get some pictures of missionaries working in the city... if I just happened by chance to come across a pair somewhere out in New York as they went about their work and then took some pictures of them. That was the only way. Nothing else was possible.

We were together in a room in which every missionary working in the city had gathered, and he had just told me it was going to be impossible for me to photograph them, except by chance encounter. For the reasons stated in my entry of January 6, I had expected this result and so was not surprised. Yet, I was not ready to give up.

I noted that all these missionaries were right here, right now, and could we maybe at least talk a little more and see if we could find a way for me to photograph some of them? He said to come back in 15 minutes, we could talk, and he would give me the parameters I would need to follow if I by chance I were to photograph any of "my missionaries."

I wandered over to a seat near the near the far back corner of the gym, sat down and began to wait.

A few minutes later, the older of the two PR officers, who stood much taller than me, walked up close to where I sat and looked down into my face with a stern look upon his. He told me that this was a gathering for the missionaries and their church guests only and that I should leave now. I mentioned that the mission president had told me to wait 15 minutes and had promised to talk to me then.

Keeping both his expression and countenance stern, he emphatically stated that the president was busy and had no time for me. As gently as I knew how, I again brought up the mission president's promise to talk to me, 15 minutes following our earlier, brief, conversation.

He then stated that the president would be busy for another five hours.

"Come back in five hours," he said.

I returned to the Apple Store, signed up again for the first available time, then waited for about an hour beyond that until my name was called. The technician who saw me quickly diagnosed the problem. The cable from the computer to the monitor had gone bad. Both it and the monitor would have to replaced, at a cost of $350. He told me to bring my laptop back in at 9:00 in the morning for repair the next day.

I was distressed. I did not want to have to carry the laptop with me for the rest of the day, nor did I want to take the time to bring it back in the morning or to come back and get it later in the day. Yet, I needed it. How could I edit and prepare my slideshow without it? This would also mean I would have to miss the first part of the Loft workshop and critique the following day - and I had missed it all today.

With plenty of time yet to kill, I wandered slowly about, did a number of people shots, plus a few more of Moroni and the temple. I wondered where this young woman, standing with her rolling suitcase, was going? Where had she come from?

Given the cut of her dress, I felt confident that she was neither going into or leaving the temple, but I found her bag an appropriate metaphor of the temple's purpose in Mormon belief. In so many ways, Mormons see the temple as a way station between mortality and eternity. It is a place where sacred promises and covenants are made to help ensure that those who make them will gain eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom, in the presence of both God and Jesus. All who experience these rites are sworn never to talk about their content outside temple walls - not even among themselves: not because the rites are shocking - they are not - but simply because they are considered sacred.

When I was small and Mom would sit at my bedside and pass along the history and teachings of the church, the stories of the Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, of God, Jesus, the ancient and modern prophets, including Joseph Smith and David O'Mckay, she would also often speak of the temple and how important it was that I live a clean, righteous, chaste, life so that when the time came, I would be worthy to enter the temple - and the Celestial Kingdom thereafter - along with my wife, children, parents and all members of my righteous and eternal family.

Nothing that I would ever do would be more important than to be ordained into the Priesthood and to marry the right woman in the temple. Mormons do not believe in "until death do you part" but rather in marriage for "time and all eternity."

When the time came for me to marry, these were the traits I must seek out in a potential mate: she must be Mormon, chaste and worthy to enter and wed in the temple. She must also be white. Almost certainly, she would be a woman who I had known as a spirit in the preexistance, when we would have already chosen each other as mates.

From the earliest days of the church, Mormons had been converted from across the race spectrum, including those with African blood. At first, if they lived worthy lives, all Mormons could enter the temple and partake in its sacred rites. After the death of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young decreed that those with African blood - even one drop - could not enter the temple. Males of African descent could not hold the Priesthood.

As it was taught to me by my mother, I did not know about the early black Mormons. I thought it had always been this way, back to the day when Cain had slain Abel. According to her understanding, Mom explained that in the prelife, there had been a great war in heaven. One-third of God's spirit children had chosen to follow Lucifer, who wanted to force every person to be righteous and thus insure their eternal salvation. The remainder chose the plan Jesus had advanced, in which he would be the one to bring the gospel of freeagency to the earth. At the conclusion of this great war in Heaven, the followers of Jesus cast the followers of Lucifer into outer darkness, where they could never take on bodies or participate in the resurrection. 

There was a third group, Mom taught me. They did not follow Lucifer, but they did not really join in the battle to expel him and his followers. They had been lazy, willing to sit back and let others do the hard work. Still, they had the right to be born, to be resurrected. Were they to live righteously on Earth, follow and keep the commandments, they could still ultimately earn their celestial glory, but, due to their sloth in the pre-existence, the burden here was greater for them. Their males could not hold the Priesthood. They could not enter or marry in the temple. To ensure that we would recognize them and not mingle our blood with theirs', they carried the Mark of Cain - black skin.

So taught my devout and loving mother, as she sat at my bedside. As I grew and attended Sunday School, church and ultimately Priesthood Meetings, all of her words seemed there to be confirmed.

In matters of race, the Mormon Church has advanced far since the dark racial days that it dwelled in during the time of my childhood and youth. I now read that these things that my mother taught me and that seemed to be confirmed at church were misunderstandings advanced by many members but never backed up by recognized scripture.

When you are a small child, you believe what your mother teaches - especially if she is as sincere, loving, and earnest as was mine. I grew up in all-white neighborhoods, with no one to challenge these assertions. Yet, by 1978, my associations had enlarged and my perception of the world and of race had changed. I was still an active Mormon, but my mind was plagued by many questions about many things Mormon - teachings and attitudes on race being in the top tier. One day in that year, I was driving with Margie into East Fork Canyon on her White Mountain Apache reservation. The car radio was tuned to the news. To my great surprise and relief, it was announced that Spencer W. Kimball, President and Prophet of the Mormon Church, had announced a revelation that put an end to this discrimination.

From that day onward, "the fullness of the everlasting gospel, including celestial marriage, and the priesthood, and the blessings of the temple," would be open "to all men, without reference to race or color, solely on the basis of personal worthiness."

Blacks Mormon males could now hold the priesthood and serve missions. All worthy black Mormons could now enter the temple and participate in all its rights, including marriage. I was so relieved to hear that story, thrilled. Yet, it also left me troubled. Why had I ever been taught this doctrine of racial discrimination? Why had I been raised to grow up believing it to be the Word of God? Why had I ever taught this doctrine of discrimination to others - including to black people?

With pain, I often remembered a set of young brothers who my companion and I had taught in the missionfield. They believed our words and wanted to be baptized. They wanted to enroll in the LDS Indian Placement program, in which they would spend their school months living with a Mormon family in Idaho and attending school there and their summers back home on the reservation. How crushed they were when the time to enroll came and they were denied, because their lineage included African blood. And it was I who had been the biggest influence in leading them to that disappointment. Then there was a young woman, a couple of years older than me, whose black and Lakota blood had combined to create one the most beautiful women I had ever seen.

When I met her, she was already a converted Mormon, devote, sincere and dedicated. She never missed church. Yet, she had turned away from romance with potential Mormon suitors, because she did not want to burden a Priesthood holder by enticing him into marriage with a woman she did not believe he would ever be able to take to the temple. She married a Protestant minister instead, but in time, converted him to Mormonism and so put him in the very spot she had tried to keep other suitors out of. We spent some long and painful hours discussing the situation. 

Last I heard, their marriage had been sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. I know nothing of their status today.

My heritage, my family, was Mormon. My great, great, great... grandfather had sat in jail with Joseph Smith had set out across the plains with Brigham Young, who had conducted a number of marriage ceremonies for him as he gathered together his seven wives and fathered his 63 children.

My closest friends were mostly Mormon. I did not want to alienate myself from them or to hurt any of them - especially my mother. I did not want my loss of faith to be an instrument in weakening their faith. I did not want them to lose their faith. I could see that they got much good out of it and did not know what would become of them if they lost it.

I carried on as best I could, stalwart Mormon on the outside, torn on the inside by this and many other issues for three more years. Then I moved my family to Alaska. No one in Alaska knew my history. Few here recognized me as Mormon. Still, for the sake of my heritage, my mother, I made some weak attempts to attend church. In the Wasilla ward I attended, the bishop and his counselors were all hard right wing politcally. They mixed up their politics and religious beliefs and in front of their congregation presented them as one; they spoke of their politics as God's politics. I recognized this as nonsense, not church teaching, knew from experience that we of more liberal bent had our place in the church, too, but I was put in the awkward spot of either having to appear to agree with them or of becoming a disruptive force at church meetings - which, in fact, I did become. I was not comfortable. I did not fit in. I quit attending. So did Margie, and all our children. 

We raised our children in a question mark, teaching them no religious doctrine at all. Although I have witnessed those painful times when my children have been lost and wandering, I do not feel bad about this. This life and eternity is all a question mark to me; a great mystery. My children can discover their truths for themselves.  I will not tell them what they must believe. To feel lost and to wander is part of the process - a process that I remain engaged in.

There is no wanderer more lost than I - it is the search that sustains me, that keeps the needle out of my arm, the alcohol from overpowering my cells, the self-fired bullet from piercing my brain. Yes, these tendencies are all strong within me. It is the search that holds them at bay.

Oh, boy - I did not mean to go off on this tangent. I just wanted to briefly relate how the second day went for me and to tell the story of how it was that Margie and I came to marry. So I had better hustle along and get to it, before those few of you who are still here leave.

Anyway, my hope for official cooperation in shooting my essay had been dashed. Still, I had set out to take Mormon missionary pictures. I was not going to let the day end without doing so. I could dutifully wait until the five hour period came to an end and then try to see the president. If I succeeded, and he actually talked to me, I reasoned that by the time our meeting ended all the missionaries gathered here would be gone and dispersed.

I had one hope - to do just what the mission president himself had suggested: to happen upon some missionaries at work in New York City. There would be no better chance to happen upon some than when they left the conference and ventured back to their posts in the city.

Well before the five hour period neared its end, I sat down upon a park bench across the street and waited. I imagined that after the meeting, the missionaries would all come outside, gather together for a group photo, and then spend a bit of time visiting and taking individual photos before they left - just as we had done in NIM.

I planned to discreetly take a few photos of this process, pick a pair of missionaries, wait until they left and then introduce myself, follow them and document whatever tiny sliver of their lives might reveal itself to me.

Instead, after what seemed an interminable wait, two missionaries came out by all by themselves and quickly descended into the subway. About 20 minutes or so later, two more exited and did the same.

A bit later, another pair came out, carrying boxes.

I reasoned that the president must be holding individual interviews with each missionary; there would be no group gathering. The president would not come out until he had spoken with the last of his missionaries. That could be hours yet and by then every missionary would be gone.

In the meantime, I needed to pick a pair, introduce myself and follow along. Then came a long gap of maybe 40 minutes when no more Elders left the building. Finally, a group of six young Elders exited at once - these five and Elder Bussard. It was time to go for it. For the reasons stated above, there were no black Mormon missionaries when I served, so I decided to try my luck with the black missionary and his companion.

They broke from the group and walked toward the subway entrance, probably less than 200 feet away. I scurried up to them, introduced myself, told them what I was doing and asked if they would mind if I followed. As every set of missionaries that I have ever approached has been, Elders Bussard and Matthews were friendly and agreeable. Whether they were comfortable with the idea might be another story, but they were friendly and agreeable.

I followed them into the subway. A train soon pulled up. A crowd surged out and another surged in. Elder Matthews, the black elder and obviously the senior companion, looked at the crowd in dismay. "That's one thing I don't like about New York," he told me, "The subway gets too crowded. We'll wait for the next train and see if it is any better."

As we waited, two more more Mormon missionaries came down the stairs and onto the platform - "lady missionaries," sisters - both of them Polynesian, the two women at right. Now, I return to the Looking Back at Me story that I began with - the story about how I fell in love with, then met, courted, won, lost and then married Margie.

Margie's grandfather is said to have been the first White Mountain Apache ever to baptised into the Mormon Church. While she grew up in an often tumultuous manner, she did grow up Mormon and upon graduation from a Utah high school and the Mormon Indian Placement Program, attended Brigham Young University. After two years, she volunteered to serve a full-time mission and was sent to the NIM - about the same time as I was.

In time, she wound up stationed in Manderson, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Manderson is just a few miles from Wounded Knee where, on December 29, 1890, the Seventh Calvary massacred at least 150 beaten-down Lakota and possibly as many as 300 - most of them women, children or elderly.

There, Margie befriended a teenaged Mormon Lakota girl by the name of Martyna White Hawk, who quickly came to admire and love her, and was strongly influenced by her. Martyna then volunteered to serve a "youth mission" and was sent to Fort Thompson, where I was stationed. She was teamed up with a full-time lady missionary - a boisterous, daring, cowgirl from the high Rockies in Colorado, who struck me as half-crazy and who always wanted to prove herself to be the toughest man in any room that she entered or field that she walked upon.

I was their District Leader, and had near daily interaction with both of them. One day, during a serious discussion focused on the trials of this life, Sister White Hawk began to tell me about a lady missionary stationed in Manderson, an Apache from Arizona, who had helped her through some hard times. Then she spoke the three most beautiful words that I had ever heard: "Sister Margie Roosevelt..."

I fell instantly in love.

Yet, I knew this to be absurd, hopeless, ridiculous. I had never even seen a picture of this Sister Margie Roosevelt. I had no idea what she looked like nor the nature of her personality. Besides, it could never be. Right there in the very missionary and seminary lessons that she and I were teaching to Lakota and Dakota were words of counsel, urging those we taught to marry someone of their own race, in the temple.

I did not like to teach those words. Many of those we taught were already members of the church, sincere believers, and a few of them were interracially married. When they heard or read those words, they would ask if they had done something wrong by marrying each other. In these words it seemed to me that we, who were forever preaching about the values of a good marriage, were attacking the marriages of mixed couples living in hard circumstance who looked to us for guidance.

In the Book of Mormon, I had read the words, "white and delightsome" to describe the righteous Nephites, and "dark and loathsome" to describe the wicked Lamanites - both said to be descended from the Israelite Lehi, who led his family from Israel to the Americas. It was Mormon belief that among those Native Americans they called Lamanites were many who would be converted to the gospel, who would become among the most rigtheous and valiant children of Israel and would one day help guide the church through "the last days" to the time of the Second Coming of Christ. They would become "white and delightsome," as their ancestor Lehi had been.

When my mother had sat at my bedside to teach me these things, it had sounded right. But when I got out among the Lakota and Dakota people, I no longer liked the sound of it. I did not like to teach it as doctrine. I had never seen any people more beautiful than those I had been sent to put on the road toward becoming "white and delightsome." I did not want to see them lose the beautiful dark skin and gorgeous black hair that brought out this beauty of who they naturally were.

It also troubled me to give lessons that stated that I must marry a white woman. Yet, that's what my mother had taught me. That's what had been ingrained into me through so many years of church lessons.

Now, I was in love with a dark-skinned Apache woman who I had never seen and I wanted to marry her. 

The desire was absurd. It couldn't be.

Probably, I would never get to know this Sister Margie Roosevelt anyway, so what did it matter?

A month or so after I first heard Martyna speak Margie's name, I went to a mission conference in Rosebud and she was there, sitting in the distance with her companion. Afterwards, all the missionaries gathered outside the chapel for pictures, and to visit and mingle with each other. Finally, I met the woman I already loved, face to face.

Her hair was long, jet, black, thick, a bit wavy, her skin dark and delightsome; beautiful. Her smile was gentle, lovely and there was fun in the spark of her eyes. There was something natural and unstrained between us. When we talked, it was as though I spoke not to a stranger, but to someone I had always known - perhaps as a spirit in the preexistence.

Now, back to the Lincoln Center subway station in New York: as you can see above, another train came, the four missionaries boarded and I followed, camera in hand...

...maybe it wasn't as crowded as the train Elder Matthews had let pass, but it was still crowded...

After Rosebud, Sister Roosevelt vanished from my sight, but not my mind. There, and in my longing heart, her place had become permanent. At the end of summer, I drove from Fort Thompson to the mission home to take care of some mission matters.

Sister Roosevelt just happened to be at the mission home. Mormon missionaries are never supposed to be alone with members of the opposite sex - in fact, missionaries are never supposed to be alone without their companion, period. A missionary is required to be with his or her companion, or another missionary, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to help each other avoid temptation.

Somehow, Margie and I found ourselves all alone, in the driveway to the mission home. She leaned languidly but innocently back against the mission president's two-tone LTD and we talked, alone, for a good 15 minutes. Then we parted.

I spent that night with a pair of Elders stationed in downtown Rapid City. It was a hot and busy night and as I lay in bed, I could hear the sounds of young people cruising, car engines revving, motorcycles being shifted through their gears, the roar of their engines rising and falling.

After the quiet that usually surrounded our country quarters on the reservation, the noise of downtown Rapid City was striking - and inviting. I wanted to be out there, on those hot, loud and noisy streets - driving a motorcycle with Margie sitting behind me, her arms wrapped tightly around my chest - or maybe in a car, just driving, she leaning into me, her left arm intertwined with my right, her head against my shoulder, her long hair falling across my shirt, her face lifting to mine at red lights or reckless moments to allow her warm, moist, lips to lock with mine; she there at my side to ride with me through this life and forever.

I did not see her again or hear anything about her current activities until early fall. I had just finished my mission, and had enrolled back into BYU. It was Sunday, the sun bright and warm but not hot; a tiny tinge of orange and yellow in the green leaves heralded oncoming autumn.

I was walking across what seemed to be a nearly empty campus between the Harris Fine Arts Center and the Wilkinson Student Center when I spotted a beauty with long, black hair and a modest yet form-fitting knee length yellow dress, walking towards me. It was her. We stopped. We talked. I walked away smitten and helpless, filled with hopeless desire.

By then, I was dating another girl, a white girl, blond, a freshman, smart, very pretty, trying to make it work, trying to pretend that she was the woman that I was meant to court all the way to the temple. Yet, it did not feel quite right. As pretty as she was, in my mind I could always see that long, black hair, that beautiful dark skin and face... yet, I had been taught all my life that a union with the one from whose head that hair fell would be contrary to the will of God.

After that chance Sunday meeting, nearly two semesters would pass by before I saw Margie again. In the meantime, the relationship with the blond had quickly failed. After that, all the girls that I dated were American Indian, all tied one way or another into the Northern Indian Mission. There were two Dakota girls from Fort Thompson,  a member and a non-Mormon who I had worked closely with and who decided to come to BYU as a result. We never dated with romance on mind. We were just friends, who enjoyed each other's company.

The girl I dated the most was Navajo. In the final summer of my mission, she had come to Poplar, Montana, on the Fort Peck reservation, not as a missionary but to teach children behind their grade levels how to read in a church-funded educational program. She was short, petite, beautiful and vivacious, completely full of fun. We liked each other greatly and in a way, truly did love each other as well, but we, too, dated not in search of romance, but for friendship and companionship, because we got along extremely well and enjoyed each other's company.

A number of times, as we talked about our hoped for futures, she would say that she could never marry a white man, no matter how much she might care for him. It would not be natural; it would not be right.

I did not see Margie again until the end of spring semester, when we crossed paths in the Wilkinson Center cafeteria. We sat down, ate lunch together and shared our summer plans. She was going to do some summer school but also planned to return home to the White Mountain Apache reservation for awhile to work. I was headed to Southeast Alaska to participate in a summer journalism program.

I returned to BYU for fall semester. Just before classes started, I was again in the Wilkinson Center, Cafeteria, this time with my mentor, Nelson Wadsworth, the Time-Life veteran who taught me what photojournalism was supposed to be, and a top photojournalism student, Roger Hatch, who would graduate and then go on to manage a water plant. We had come together to discuss what we were going to do with the student newspaper, but, as I passed through the check-out line just behind them, I spotted Margie sitting alone at a booth.

Without a word, I slipped away and sat down at the table with her.

"How was Alaska?" she asked.

That was it, my friends. We have been together ever since.

Of course, it was not so simple and ever blissful as this might make it sound. I had barely begun to date Margie when it suddenly seemed that just about every other returned missionary from NIM got the same idea. There were Polynesian RM's, white RM's, Navajo RM's, Shoshone... all coming, calling on the phone or knocking on the door as we lounged about on the rug in her apartment living room, or coming up to us when we stood somewhere talking, to insert himself between her and me to try and flirt with her.

I had planned to take my time in proposing to her, but I had to put a stop to this. Less than three weeks after our first date, I asked her to marry me. Five agonizing days later, she said yes. Together, we went out and bought a ring for her. It was Halloween, and there were goblins, witches and ghosts at the jewelry store window, peering in at us.

I should note that our second date had taken us to Salt Lake City. On the way back to Provo, we stopped at my parents' new home in Sandy. Dad was not there when we entered, but Mom was. She loved Margie instantly. Somehow, despite all that she had taught me about marriage, she knew that this dark-skinned, black-haired Apache was the woman I was going to marry and it would be good. In one instant, Mom dropped this life-long, heavily-ingrained prejudice forever.

Yet, we were not done with the affliction hammered in by that prejudice. After we had been engaged for a while, Margie was suddenly struck by doubt. She did not doubt that she loved me. This she knew. She doubted that God would want her to marry me, because she was brown and I was white and she had been firmly taught that this was not right.

We would discuss this for agonized hours at a time, and then she would come back around - for a day, two days, three... and then the doubts would come again. It became unbearable. Then the teachings I had been raised with rose again as well. I began to wonder, too. Maybe somewhere on BYU campus was the white girl that I had bonded with in the preexistence, the woman the Lord wanted me to marry, instead of dark brown Margie. When I would catch the glance of a white girl looking at me, I would wonder if maybe that was her. Margie and I broke up. She gave the ring back to me. I threw it across the room. Then, broken-hearted, we spent all of our time together, even more so than before. We skipped classes. Day and night we were together. The only place either of us could find any solace was in the grieving arms of the other.

Finally, we decided to totally separate for three full days and to fast and pray throughout. This would be a complete fast - no food, no water, no sustenance or liquid of any kind. Then, perhaps, the Lord would make His will known to us, whether He wanted us to marry or to break apart to join with partners of our separate races.

At the end of that three full days,* we planned meet at a certain place on campus and then walk from there to our favorite Mexican restaurant, pray together and break the fast.

Come the end of the three days, I felt famished, dehydrated and weak. My shoes felt as though they were made of lead and weighed 20 pounds each. To climb a flight of stairs was to struggle up a hard mountain.

I reached the designated place before she did and sat down upon a bench. The sun had set. It had grown dark. Lamps stood at uniform distances apart on the walkway that I knew would be her path toward me. I waited and watched. Soon, I saw her form appear in the conical light of the most distant lamp, tiny and small, but familiar - her black-trimmed red coat snugged tight in the waist and hanging just below her hips in a way that accentuated the shape of her body.

She soon stepped out of the light and disappeared into the darkness, only to soon reappear in the glow of the next lamp. And so she progressed, moving repeatedly from dark to light,  each time coming a little closer, appearing a little larger than before, until finally she stood, full size and close, before me, looking lovingly at me, her face weak but serious, a touch of moisture in her eyes.

And what had come to me after three days of fasting and prayer? An answer from God? No. Physical weakness, that's what had come. I knew no more about the mind of God and His intent for me than I had before.

What I did know was that I loved this woman and it was not God's decision to make; it was mine, and hers, and no one else's, be they mortal or divine. God wouldn't mind. Whatever we decided would be okay with Him. He was not so small minded as so many Mormons and countless other religious people made Him out to be.

On February 14, we married, in the Provo Temple. It was good and we were greeted and treated warmly by all within, but I felt bad also. Margie's parents had driven all the way up from Arizona. They were Mormon, but not qualified by their lifestyle to enter the temple for the ceremony. They were denied the privilege of seeing their oldest child marry. Her father would die in a car crash eight months later, without ever witnessing the marriage of a single one of his 11 children. Ten months after our marriage, baby Jacob came to us.

Speaking of babies, I took the above picture of the two young Mormon Elders, Matthew and Bussard, and the bump of new human life, after the two sisters had got off at their stop and left the train.

*Should any of you ever go on a complete, foodless, waterless, three-day fast, DO NOT go out to eat at your favorite restaurant afterward. Break it with a bit of broth, a tiny bit of bread. Add to this gradually, over hours. We broke our fast with a feast. We suffered. I think we damn near died.

And here they are, Elders Bussard and Matthews, after getting off at their own stop. Given the history of the Mormon church in regards to members with African blood, I asked Matthews if it was ever hard, being a black Mormon missionary. Sometimes, in Harlem, he said. When he had served there, there were blacks who tried to give him a hard time about it. But it was okay, he smiled, because he would meet them on the basketball court and there teach them a few things - not only about basketball but about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

This, he bore his testimony to me, is God's true and living church and as a missionary he carried the word of God, the message of Jesus to all those, black, white, or otherwise, who would listen, and that was what mattered to him. He was loving it, he said. It was the greatest experience of his life so far.

Elder Bussard said he was loving it, too, and that it was his greatest experience as well.

I exited the subway and walked with them for a while. As is almost always the case when I meet young Mormon missionaries, I liked them, and felt empathy toward them. I would even say I loved them, as an older Marine might love a younger Marine. I had walked where they walk, had felt their fears, their hopes, their joys, their loneliness, longings and frustrations, had experienced their failures and their successes. I briefly entertained the thought that somehow, I might pick up with them again the next day and shoot my essay, but in a gentle way, Elder Matthews made it clear that this was not to be. He noted that there are missionaries in Brooklyn, where I was staying and where David Alan Harvey's loft is, and suggested that I look around and see if I could find some Elders there.

He was vague on what he and Elder Bussard would be doing the next day. For now, they were just going to return to their apartment to study and prepare. As we drew nearer to whatever building held that apartment, Elder Matthews seemed to grow nervous. It became clear to me that he could not take me to that place - most likely it was against mission rules to bring unauthorized visitors to their living quarters.

Mormon missionaries live with lots of rules.

So this was it - the conclusion of my failed attempt to shoot a photo essay on Mormon Missionaries at work in New York City. We stopped. Elder Matthews gave me his card and asked me to send him any "cool pictures" that I might have taken. "No hurry," he said. "Three, four months from now - whenever you get time."

Elder Bussard, the junior companion, had been mostly quiet throughout our little journey together. Now that look of concern one gets when he feels he is being left out came over his face. "I want you to send them to me, too," he said.

"When he sends them to me, I'll send them to you," Elder Matthews told him.

"Okay," he said.

I was not sure I would have any cool pictures. All we had done was to take a 115 block ride on a crowded train, followed by a very short, uneventful, walk together.

We said goodbye and shook hands - firmly, the way Mormons do. Then they stepped into the crosswalk, into the gaps between the onslaught of traffic that did not stop or slow for them. I shot a final frame, then turned around to walk back to the 181st Street Subway station.

Before I boarded the train, I dropped a dollar bill into his guitar case and took this picture. The idea did not occur to me then, but only just now, as I write these words alongside this photograph. What if I had just hung out with this guy? Made friends with him, shot my essay on him?

I can't say for sure it would have worked, but maybe it would have. It was now clear to me that it was going to be virtually impossible for me to shoot a full essay on Mormon missionaries in New York City. I had to come up with a new plan. It could have been him, but I just didn't think about it. There were only two full shooting days left in the week now, and I had lost two by taking this brief journey into my own past.

This is what the monitor on my laptop looked like. It was actually worse than what you see here, because the image constantly jumped about. Sprays of irridescent color repeatedly flashed across the screen. I had hoped it would be fixed by the time I returned to the Brooklyn apartment, but instead I would have to take it back to the Apple store early the next morning - and then pick it up again later.

One more, just for you, Elder Matthews. I have searched and searched, but I fear that I have lost your card, so I do not have your email address. Yet, I have a feeling that this post will find you, anyway. True, this image is ALMOST identical to the one at the top of the post, save for the fact that your eyes have migrated just a bit to the right, although not quite far enough to look into Sister Fumaono's.

I know that throughout your two years as Mormon missionary, this is about as close as you will get to a woman. I know it. Cynical people may be skeptical, but I know it. Even if on the great plain of South Dakota and not a crowded New York subway, I have stood right where you stand right now. I know the feeling. True, I do not know what plans you might have for the time when your mission ends, nor what plans she might have. You two might go separate ways and never see each other again, except, perhaps, at a mission reunion or two or few, where you might introduce your spouses to each other.

Yet, I saw the way your eyes rose in interest when I told you that I met my wife on my mission. And I could not help but to take note of the fact that we waited to let one crowded train go by only to board the next crowded train once the sisters had arrived. As for Sister Fumaono - well, just look at her eyes. Look at your eyes. Maybe it is nothing. Maybe she is not even really looking at you. Maybe she is looking at her companion who stands immediately behind your other shoulder. It can be hard to tell for certain in a two-dimensional picture. Still, it looks to me like she is, but maybe not. Maybe I am just too eager to use her as a stand-in for Margie in telling my own story. Still, I think it might be worthwhile for you to keep track of this sister once your mission ends, become Facebook friends with her, keep in touch. Text her, call her up now and then. If you happen to find yourselves in the same city, take her to dinner, and to a movie. Leave that white shirt and tie at home.

Good things could happen - you just never know.

You might even find yourselves in the temple together, at the same time. I am glad that you can enter the temple now, even though I no longer can.

I know some Mormons will read this and interpret my personal experience and struggles as an attack upon their beliefs. It is not. It is just my story. Embrace your Mormon faith. When some attack you for it, I will defend you. I often defend Mormons, because some of the pernicious, intolerant and bigoted attacks against Mormons that I hear or read anger me. In a certain way, whatever my developing philosophy and the contradictions, I am Mormon and will always be. I will never again be part of the congregation of the faithful, my belief, lack of belief, will never again allow this, but my Mormon heritage and upbringing is too deep in me to ever fully walk away from.

Tomorrow, I must drive to Anchorage to pick Margie up from her baby sitting duties and bring her home, so I won't have much time for this blog. I will make one more short post related to this topic and will better explain this. Then, I will move on to the remainder of my David Alan Harvey Loft Workshop experience. With all this behind me, I should be able to move fairly quickly to the conclusion - HOWEVER - what I have learned from the many delays I have exprienced in putting up this post is whatever time it takes me to write the story, that's how much time I must take.

If few readers take the time to plow all the way through, at least the story is now written - partially.

David Alan Harvey Workshop, entry 4: My essay topic turns from the loft building to Mormon missionaries in New York City

Remi, second from right, and his crew, with his completed painting.

I photographed my father's death, along with the events that closely preceded it and those that followed soon after. During Dad's final hours of wakefulness, my sister sat down on the side of his bed with her laptop computer open to show him a black and white photo taken from his B-24 during the air war against Germany. I grew up with this photo. My earliest memories reach back to it. In it, there is flak in the air. The B-24 that had been flying in formation next to Dad's has been hit. It has rolled onto its side. Flame and smoke tear out from the fuselage, from which one wing has broken off and is peeling backwards. Debris pocks the air.

Had that tragedy ocurred just one plane over, then I likely would never have been.

On the final day of his life, I left Dad's deathbed to drive to one of his favorite sandwich shops. I bought several sandwiches - none for him, but for those family members keeping vigil. On the way back to the medical center, I saw two Mormon missionaries - one Polynesian, the other white - standing on a dusty sidewalk at the edge of a new subdivision, talking to a youth clad in baggy, red and black shorts that hung just past his knees.

I raised my camera and snapped off three frames as I drove past. This is what I always do when I come upon Mormon missionaries. I take their pictures. Then, sooner or later, I pull up the pictures, look at them, and wait to see what story from my own days as a Mormon missionary first come to mind. I then write that story, and put it and the picture together.

It is a very long-term project, advancing at turtle speed. I call it, Looking Back at Me.

We knew Dad would hold on through Veterans Day and he did, then passed away at the very beginning of May 29, 2007. My oldest brother wanted me to stay with him in the house that he had inherited from my parents well before their deaths, but, with my parents no longer living, I could not stay in that house. I returned to my motel, got what sleep I could and then in the afternoon of a hot day, took a walk through a park near my parents' home. I soon came upon two Mormon missionaries.

A light, pink, tie hung down over from the neck of Elder Jones to drape his white shirt. He was from Kodiak, Alaska, and was serving the final days of his two-year mission in Utah's Salt Lake Valley. I took a portrait of him as his companion appeared in the background, mingling with young people who had been playing soccer.

The second day of the David Alan Harvey Loft Workshop was the first day of any real work. It began with us students showing the slide shows that David had asked us to bring as a way to both introduce ourselves to the group, and to give him the opportunity to give us all a striking critique in picture editing.

He had asked that we include about 20 images in our slide shows. I immediately figured out what I wanted to show. I would sum up my entire career - beginning with the influences that led me to become a photographer - in 20 frames. I would begin with the photo of my dad lying in his deathbed, looking at the picture of the flaming and disintegrating B-24. Both the picture and the dying man had sparked my interest in photography.

From there, I would go to a surfing picture, because surfing was the subject that actually drove me to take my first pictures, and to ruin my first camera by taking it into the surf, trying unsuccessfully to hold it over my head as waves broke over me. Next, I would try to find something from my high school yearbook, senior year, when I had been staff photographer.

Perhaps something from my first two years at Brighman Young University, where I had majored in Communications with an emphasis on photojournalism. Then I had just the image from my mission - me, straddling a palimino horse bareback on the Crow Creek Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota - cowboy hat on my head, boots on my feet, tan Levi's and a white shirt and brown tie with little gold lions on it. Then my return to BYU, when my career really began after a Mormon veteran of Time-Life returned to his Utah roots to teach photojournalism and to turn the student newspaper into a genuine venue for student photo-journalism. 

Next would be an image from my wife's White Mountain Apache reservation, where I served three-and-half years as the editor, reporter, photographer, designer, ad salesman and delivery boy for the tribal newspaper, and did a three-part article and photo spread on the tribe forNational Geographic shoot. Then to Alaska, with a brief rundown of the small publications that I either reshaped or created from scratch here - including something from my book, Gift of the Whale: the Iñupiat Bowhead Hunt - A Sacred Tradition. 

First, I searched out the image of Dad, Mary Ann and the B-24. I quickly found it, but also found myself in the middle of pictures from the final years of both my parents lives. I could not pull myself out of those pictures, so, just for fun, I put together a 26 image slide show from them. I included three missionary photos, including the one from just after Dad's death, plus just after Mom's, when two missionaries came out of Taco Bell to our car to try to cheer him up. Despite his grief, he looks rather bemused.

I did not include any of the images from the moment of his death, or the scenes immediately thereafter when we children and some grandchildren remained gathered together in the room with him. I had to make those pictures, but I cannot look at them. I cannot show them to anybody.

Still, I thought it best to stick to my original plan, so I set them aside, planning to come back and do my original career-summation idea. I was impossibly busy. I had no time to assemble the intended career series. So, at the last moment, I loaded all 26 images based on the final days of my father and took them to New York. 

Soon, it was the morning of the first real day of the workshop. Us students had all gathered there to go one at a time through the 20 frame and one 26 frame slideshows, subjecting them to David's critique. It was an amazing process to watch. In turn, the student would present his or her slide show, then David would have Michael Courvoiser project them all onto the screen at once, in what David called, "contact sheet" mode.

David would then swiftly go through the images, cutting the ones that he did not feel needed to be there. Maybe one was weaker than another that told the same story. Or maybe a photo spoke to the photographer, but David could see that it would speak to no one else. He would quickly narrow them down until only as few as four or five remained.

Suddenly, a contact sheet that might have looked a little bit weak at 20 images sung. Each image left was strong. Each slideshow then made a presentation that would say to just about anyone, "this person is a real photographer - someone to take seriously."

In the image above, Zun Lee, from Ontario, the son of an Asian mother, presents his slide show. Zun had only recently discovered that the man who fathered him but did not raise him was black. Zun's images were strong, exceptionally done. David removed a few, but not too many.

Finally, it was my turn. I was nervous. I had never shown this set of photos to anyone, except Margie, just before I came. And it opened me up, exposed my Mormon history to all in the room. All too often, I have found people, including artists and journalists, who express the kind of stereotypes and prejudices toward Mormons that they would condem in others were they to voice similar sentiments toward other groups of people.

Yet, my Mormon story is a story I must tell. This was as good a place as any to begin. So I showed the pictures, recounting a bit about the stories behind them. My presentation was well-received. David did not cut out a single frame. Later, he told me he would help me make a book project out of it.

The onus is now on me and so far I have not come up with the time to do anymore with it. I must find the time. I've got so many projects cooking - not one of them funded. But I must do it. One way or another, I feel compelled to tell the story of where I come from.

In presenting this story, I unknowingly forged an immediate bond with Zun Lee. I will explain later.

After seeing my slides, David suggested I shoot my essay on Mormon missionaries at work in New York City. I was startled, but quickly agreed. The building was wonderful, but Mormon missionaries would be a story that dealt with my own origins.

Before I came to the workshop, David essentially Skyped this about my photography: as far as catching spirit and soul, I had that down. My main weakness was that I did not conceive my photos as individual creations to stand alone on their own power, without words. He wanted me to strengthen my images to be able to stand all alone, without one word written about them.

"I don't want to take anything away from what you do right now," he said, emphasing that I could push more of my images into stand-alone territory and still combine them with words.

He told us that this week would be intense. In about two days, we would feel frustrated, confused, discouraged. He would push us, he would be honest and when necessary, hard, in his critques. Yet, he would encourage, support and praise as well - but only when earned. When the workshop came to an end, we would all have accomplished something - the creation of an essay, shot in just one week. We would see that essay presented to an audience that would include a number iconic and top photographers as well as other people important to the New York, national and international photography community.

We would then feel good about what we had done - but in the meantime, we should be prepared to experience days of frustration and discouragement. He also predicted that what we learned would not really hit us until two or more weeks afterward.

Our "warm-up performances" on the night of our slide shows would be slide shows presented by two internationally reknowned "iconic" photographers: Chris Anderson and Bruce Gilden. As there were a dozen of us, our individual shows would be approximately one minute in length - just time enough for each of us to present between five and ten images - depending on how many show-worthy images we could produce in a time period just shy of five days.

Five images might not sound like much, David stressed, but for a five day shoot, five images was a lot. A hard-working, skilled photographer could be expected to produce one good image a day. So any of us who wound up with a five image show would have done well.

Perhaps.

I did not want a five image show. I wanted a ten image show: ten, good, solid images of Mormon missionaries hard at work, or just goofing around, maybe sometimes being frustrated, sad, happy or angry, in New York City.

Michael Courvoisier helps Carolyn Beller find the place where she wants to go on the map.

Now - how the hell was I going to accomplish this? I had never once seen a Mormon missionary in New York City. Having grown up in the church and gone through its establishments, I had an innate knowledge that trying to set something up through church and mission authorities would almost certainly be problematic. When I have stumbled upon Mormon missionaries with my camera, I have always found them friendly, open, easy to work with, cooperative about being photographed.

With higher authorities, even those close to me and my family, the opposite has been true. In formal settings, I have had much better success photographing Protestant, Evangelistic, Russian Orthodox, Catholic, Hindu, Native American and the spiritual activities of just about any other religious group than I have with the Mormons from whom I come. 

So far, I am pleased with how my own, randomly shot, Looking Back At Me project has developed. I honestly believe that I have gotten more strong, incisive, pictures than I have seen in any other Mormon missionary photo project. There is something about that spontaneous, impossible to plan for moment that no one anticipates or expects that can be most revealing.

Yet, I have often thought that sooner or later, I should shoot a tight essay on one pair, or just a few pairs, of Mormon missionaries - and that I should do so on the South Dakota and Montana reservations where I served. I have given much thought as to how I could go about it. Early on, I rejected the idea of going to mission or other church authorities to help me set it up, because from experience I knew that they would greet such a possibility with great caution, skepticism and an abundance of parameters. If they were to grant their cooperation at all, it would likely come at the cost of parameters that I would not find acceptable.

The Mormon Church goes to endless lengths and spares no expense in its efforts to get its message out, but to the degree that is possible, it also wants to control that message and to head off possible damage before it occurs. I grew up hearing stories about the persecution my ancestors, who were friends and jailmates with Joseph Smith and headed out across the plains with Brigham Young. I heard how badly they suffered as they were driven from the Northeast to the midwest and finally to Utah, and the greater State of Deseret.

As a child growing up in non-Mormon communities, this persecution complex was driven home to me when bullies would gang up on me and beat me up or wash my face with snow because, "we hate you fucking Mormons." I was always taught that, according to prophecy, the time was coming when our Mormon people would be subjected to persecution even greater than that faced by our ancestors.

So I think the persecution complex lingers, and to some degree explains the institutional gunshyness that even I must face as a photographer as I seek to tell my own story.

And yes, my great, great, great, great grandfather had seven wives and 63 children. So that's out of the way. Margie's Apache people also had polygamists among them.

Well, I think that's enough seriousness for this entry. After we had all presented our slide shows, and watched an excellent and moving slideshow on suicide presented by Brooklyn-based  photographer Kerry Payne, originally from Queensland, Australia, we walked to a nearby Mexican Restaurant for lunch. This is not Kerry - this is Carolyn Bellor, currently of Chicago, but who speaks with a sourthern accent and who has done a lot of work in the south. Right now, she is shooting in India. She sat across from me at lunch. As photographers tend to be, she was a bit self-conscious about being photographed, but, as most of us also tend to understand, if we are going to shoot others, then we must also yield when others want to shoot us.

She was a good sport about it. She was also quick to laugh, quick to hug and quick to become a friend... and so she remains - a friend, Facebook and otherwise.

That's Kerry Payne to the right, and here is her essay on suicide as it appeared on Burn. She undertook this work in response to the suicide of her father, who took his life at age 60. I, too, am working on a book that deals with suicide. I intend to make it my next book. The people I know who have committed suicide are too numerous to even begin to recall.

We were all pretty hungry. I ordered a chicken burrito which was good, but there were some fish tacos that were better... much better. Carolyn had one and gave me a taste. Boy! I wanted to send my chicken burrito back and replace it with a fish taco, but it was too late.

I think this might be one of those fish tacos. If so, I know why everybody wants it. It looks like Michael got it.

Workshop lunches proved to be fun places to be, so we spent way too much time there. Afterward, we were free to go out and get to work on our essays. First, I had to make a quick trip back to the loft and then up to the roof. I wanted to see if Remi had finished his painting yet. He had. He and his crew were still about, so they gathered atop the painting for me and posed for the picture that opens this post.

Afterward, we said goodbye and then they walked away. Remi gave me his card, but I have lost it. So far, I have not found him on Google. If any reader knows how to contact him, please forward this to him - and his contact info to me.

It was now midafternoon - time to track down some Mormon missionaries in New York City. I pulled out my iPhone and googled, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints, New York City." Several numbers appeared. I called them all. Not one call was answered. I heard no voicemail invitation.

The Mormon Church has no paid pastors or preachers. The local bishops and ward leaders gnerally support themselves by taking on paying jobs; some own their own businesses. So I knew the phones probably rang unanswered in empty buildings. I could not think of a good reason that I did not get a single voice-mail request.

One of those numbers was for the New York Mormon Temple, located one block from Central Park across the street from the Lincoln Center. So I walked to the nearest subway station, a good mile away and jumped on the "D" train. Unfortunately, it was the wrong "D" train - the one that turns right when it reaches Central Park, instead of left.

This mistake, coupled with a false correction, cost me at least half an hour. I did not reach the temple until after 5:00. There were no Mormon missionaries anywhere to be seen. Historically, Mormons have built their temples in locations from where they could be seen from far away - but not in New York, where the temple at first appears just be another building, towered over by those that surround it.

Still, it is the only building with a tall spire atop which a golden angel blows a long trumpet. This is Moroni, and I grew up with him. I had come all this way by foot and subway from Brooklyn, I had put in all this time. I had to photograph something Mormon, so I decided to a series of studies on the Angel Moroni:

Angel Moroni over New York City, Study #2,029: A common view.

In fact, the view was all too common. There was nothing in it to distinguish this statue of the Angel Moroni from others standing atop temple spires around the globe. Somehow, I had to get a picture that said, "Angel Moroni in New York City." I just happened to be eating a pretzel that I had bought from a vendor near the temple's base. Hence:

Angel Moroni over New York City, Study #4: as seen through a pretzel.

Then I realized that while big, soft, pretzels say "New York City" to me, because New York was the first place I ever experienced one, pretzels are common to many places. Plus, the old New York pretzels of distinction seem no longer to exist even in New York City, so the pretzel did not really do the job, either. I had to find a better symbol of New York. Hence:

Angel Moroni over New York City, Study #3,973: the angel and the skyscraper.

 

Angel Moroni over New York City, Study #4442: the angel and the tall building, with a touch of sky.

Being a wayward Mormon myself, I am in no way trying to preach or convert anyone, but for those who do not know, I should explain the angel. It is Mormon belief that at different times in history, two small groups of Israelite people migrated to the Americas, the second migration taking place about 600 BC, well after the first group had destroyed themselves. 

The second group divided into the righteous, white, Nephites and the second into the wicked, dark-skinned, Lamanites. They fought often. During the three days between the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, there was great destruction in the Americas, which ended when Christ appeared to the Nephite and Lamanite people, who subsequently united in righteousness. For a time afterward, there was no manner of "ites" at all. The suriving inhabitants of the Americas were all just Christ's people. In time, they fell back into their old warring groups. Eventually, the white Nephites became the most wicked of all - so wicked that God allowed the Lamanites to destroy them all, right down to the last man: Moroni.

Before the Lamanites got to Moroni, he took their sacred history and theology, inscribed over the centuries on plates of gold, and buried them in a hill near what became Palmyra in upstate New York.

This is getting too complicated. It does sound like I am preaching. But I am not. It does not matter to me whether you are Mormon, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Atheist, Evangelistic... whatever. If your religion gets you through this tough life, and you don't use it as an excuse to hammer down and trample on anyone else, particuarly me, then I am fine with it and I will accept you whatever you believe.

I'm just telling you what was taught to me first by my loving mother as she sat at my early bedside, so that you will know why the Mormons have placed this angel atop a tall spire just off Central Park in New York City.

Anyway, it is Mormon belief that Moroni everntually resurrected and in the early 19th Century entrusted the Golden Plates to Joseph Smith, who translated the smaller part of them into the Book of Mormon, named for the prophet of that name and founded The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - The Mormons. Then Smith returned the plates to Moroni, who would again put them away from safekeeping until the world was ready to have the larger portion unsealed and translated as well.

 

Angel Moroni over New York City, Study # 9: a wheelchair passes beneath. 

Conversely, it is not now my intent to either deride the Mormon faith or try to dissuade anyone from it. When I meet people of faith, any faith, I do not like to attack or try to weaken their faith. I recognize the strength they get from it. This includes Mormons, Catholics, Sikhs - everybody. I just want to tell my own story. My own faith took a beating and I never found answers to overcome the many questions that arose. I will not go into those questions now, but they were many.

One of the biggest of all involves a wheelchair. Don't try to guess. If I live long enough to assemble the photos that on this subject that I have already completed and cannot add one more to, then my explanation will be available to you. You can reject that explanation; proclaim my faith to have been weak and me, unvaliant. That's okay. It's just a story I must tell.

Angel Moroni over New York City, Study #42: angel at the window.

 

Angel Moroni over New York City, Study #1: time to go home...

...home being an apartment in Brooklyn that I was sharing with four other Loft Workshop students. There is a subway station at Lincoln Center, just beyond the temple doors, but I walked to the one at Columbus Circle, about six blocks away.

Just before I reached it I came upon this scene and stopped to take a picture. I overheard enough of the conversation to know that the young man was a stranger to the young women. They had stopped him, asked him if he would mind taking a picture for them and had entrusted him with one of their cameras.

I imagined what it might have been like if I could somehow have been a young man, stopped by the women. After I had taken the picture, I would have handed the camera back to them.

"Thank you," they would have said.

"Oh, no problem," I would have responded. "My pleasure."

"Would you like to walk with us for awhile," the one on the right would have asked.

"I was headed to the subway," I would have answered. "But it's a nice night, and it's too hot down in the subway. Sure. Why not?"

And off we would have walked.

I boarded the train, got off at the wrong stop, then had to wait much longer than usual, but finally a train pulled up.

My mother loved to sing, and what she sang mostly were Mormon hymns, and Mormon primary songs for children. Except to attend funerals, I have not been inside a Mormon Church for at least 25 years. Yet, most mornings when I wake, it is to the sound of Mormon hymns playing in my head.

After my mother died, not only in the morning but many times throughout the day, for many days, weeks, months... even now, sometimes, nearly six years later... I hear one of those hymns, sung solo, without accompaniment, in her voice. I see her, standing, short but above me, singing with that enraptured look she used to get, her hands clasped in front of her chest...

"There is beauty all around..."

Yep, Mom, you sang correctly  - beauty, all around - even in the dreary depths of the New York subway system.