The time my neighbor Jeff Pettit came <br />outside when I was ten and – I can’t <br />remember why – shot staples at me from <br />his stapler, my esteem for him plummeted <br />with the impotent trajectory of the staples. <br /> <br />I already held him in declining regard for <br />recruiting me to experience the stepford <br />smiles of his mormon congregation. <br />His parents kept glancing over to see how <br />my face was responding to all the singing <br />and PR. <br /> <br />Years later, appalled by the church’s <br />excommunication of dissenting women, <br />my colleague Julie wrote and asked to be <br />excommunicated herself. <br /> <br />They sent back a letter expressing concern <br />about her soul and setting a trial date. <br /> <br />No, you don’t understand, she wrote back, <br />I don’t want a trial, I just want to be <br />excommunicated. <br /> <br />In a response noteworthy as much for its <br />anticlimactic brevity as for its utter resignation, <br />they wrote back and said ok done. <br /> <br />Julie knew that hidden behind the terse <br />wording, they were busy blacking out her <br />name, de-listing her, purporting to speak <br />for God, firing blanks.<br /><br />Michael Philips<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/julie-s-excommunication/
