Tuesday, June 8, 2021

The Poetry of Paul Toscano

Those of you who know who Paul Toscano is are probably surprised at the title of this post. He is not famous as a poet. He is infamous as the husband of one of the "September Six" Margaret Toscano. He was excommunicated in 1993 as well during that purge of people who were too smart and/or two Christ-focused to be trusted by Mormons Incorporated. Not to be confused with Murder Incorporated, which was much more merciful than the LDS church.

I was lucky enough to discover his writing roughly ten years ago. I was re-reading some of it today in a spare moment. He and I are polar opposites when it comes to politics. I would like to think he and I are kindred spirits when it comes to our ideas about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I cannot write anything like he can (obviously), but I can pass on some of his best work that has touched my searching soul.

In his book The Sanctity of Dissent Paul writes the following in the Prologue.

"The brethren were not chosen primarily to receive revelation for us, 

    but to teach us how to obtain revelation for ourselves."

None of the 15 Pharisees currently running the LDS church would ascribe to this. We all know that "Follow the prophet" has been the mantra for far too long. Seems to me like a recipe for following the prophet straight to hell.

Even the God of this world, JESUS did not tell his disciples, female and male, that all they had to do was trust Him. He told them in 2 different hemispheres, "be ye therefore perfect." 

Trust JESUS and then do what HE does and don't worry about mistakes. It is going to take an almost infinite amount of time to become like HE is. Because of CHRIST, and His father the MOST HIGH GOD, we get to keep trying until we get it right. 

Those bolded and bold words of Paul Toscano's are put in couplet form for a reason. They do not rhyme, and they are not in iambic pentameter, but they are poetry to me.