Chapter 12: Storm Warnings, and Exercising Diskette Drives and Controllers
Chapter 13.0: Straits -- Getting Julia Booted Up
When we got to the house, we set the Micro Chroma 68 up on the magazine table in the living room and set it to work exercising the disk drives again.
"Magazine table?"
"Tea table, coffee table, same thing. No tea or coffee in our house. Sometimes we emphasize that fact by calling the coffee table a magazine table."
Julia laughed softly as we went into the kitchen to see if we could lend a hand with dinner.
"Sorry about the plain fare," Mom apologized.
"Do-it-yourself grilled cheese sandwiches with whole wheat bread, green beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. Good food. I feel right at home," Julia replied with a grin as she flipped her sandwich in the frying pan. "Can I say grace this time? I mean, ask the blessing."
"Don't see why not."
Giselle added, "I don't object."
Dad was working late, and wasn't home yet.
Mom nodded. "Please. And we don't mind if you call it grace."
Julia hesitated.
"Just the way you would at home." I gave her a nudge. "We're all Christians here."
So she offered grace her way, and Mom and Giselle gave her hugs. I had to wait my turn.
And we all ate, fixing more sandwiches as we ate.
After eating, Julia and I returned to the living room and we checked the drives. There were no errors, but since they had been running for less than an hour, I didn't really expect any.
I shut the tests down so we could use the computer, and we took turns using Tiny BASIC as a calculator and using the text editor. Homework took us both a bit over an hour.
When Julia finished her homework, we moved our stuff to my room, and she got out her Micro Chroma board and started working on it again at my desk. She used my anti-static straps.
We set my Micro Chroma 68 on the corner of the desk, between us, and I sat on the car seat and finished my homework.
When I put it away, Julia said, "I'm curious about those packages you got yesterday."
"So am I." I reached over to pick them up from my desk.
"But I think they can wait."
"Oh?"
"We do need to talk about religion."
I sat back. "If I get those out, I'll be back down that rabbit hole again."
"Exactly. I need you to be here, to talk to me."
"Okay, I'll just listen. Go ahead."
She worked silently for about half a minute. "Feels funny."
"Why?"
"I don't need you looking at me. Don't laugh." She was smiling.
"I can't help it."
"Laughing or looking at me?" Now we were both chuckling.
"Both."
"Find something to do."
Still chuckling, I dug in my parts bin. But, instead, I got out paper, pencil, ruler, and eraser. "I think I can talk while I doodle."
"Watcha gonna doodle?"
"Memory selection."
"Tell me what that means later."
"Switching pieces of memory between RAM and ROM, mostly."
"I sort of understand that."
We both chuckled, then worked in silence for a few minutes.
"So. Religion," I prompted.
"Mom and Dad like you."
"My parents like you, too." I thought for a moment. "But your parents don't really know me all that well. And what does that have to do with religion?"
"They think it's okay if I become a Mormon."
"Ideally, these would be separate topics of discussion."
"This is the real world. Reverend Johansen has been over to the house three times this week."
"When have you been home to talk with him?"
"I haven't. He talks with my parents, instead."
"Oh."
"They aren't impressed."
"Why's that?" I set my pencil and paper down and shut down the Micro Chroma 68.
"He thinks we should apply pressure to you to give up Mormonism."
"Okay, I need to tell you my opinion of something here." I started undoing screws and connectors so I could remove the mainboard.
"What are you doing?"
"Just going to finish out the memory selection circuit, so I can switch RAM in anywhere in the memory map, and even switch out the monitor ROM."
"Switch out the monitor ROM?"
"So if I put a 68701 in it I can boot it from the 68701's internal EPROM."
"Why?"
"Flexibility. Maybe. I have a hunch that I need the flexibility."
"Oh. So what about your opinions on something?
"First, Mormon was a prophet. Prophets testify about Jesus Christ. Therefore, people who really follow Mormon's teachings are following Jesus' teachings. People call us Mormon, but we are Christians."
"That's your opinion?"
"That's fact, or something close to fact, and doctrine."
She put the soldering iron down and scratched her head.
I continued, "There is something I call cultural Mormonism."
"People who are members from birth, not because they believe it?" She picked the iron back up and continued her work.
"That too, but more general -- We have a history, and we have a culture. Some people confuse our culture with our religion, our tradition with doctrine."
"Outward church?"
"Yeah, it's tangled up in that, too."
"All churches have that."
"True. Can I borrow that iron for a moment?"
"Sure."
She set the soldering iron in its holder, then watched as I picked it up and applied solder to hold an IC socket in place. I set the iron back, and she picked it back up.
"So I don't exactly recommend becoming Mormon," I added.
"You're talking about cultural Mormon."
"Right."
"Okay, I'll try to figure out the difference between tradition and what you actually believe. But how do I find out what you guys believe?"
"Ah, the missionaries can teach you that. We can arrange for you to meet with them."
"You've been a missionary. Can't you teach me?"
"It's no longer my calling."
"If I meet with them, can you be there, too?"
"Of course. That's even what I'm supposed to do, but I wouldn't miss it."
"Okay."
"And I think I should study a bit of what Reverend Johansen wants me to study, too."
"Why?"
"Because it's an important part of your life."
"Okay. I'm glad."
We both worked in silence, taking turns with the soldering iron.
"Can you give me an overview or something?"
"Well, a boy named Joseph Smith, back in the early 1800s, wanted to know which church he should join. He prayed, and had a vision in which he was told not to join any. All the churches back then had strayed too far away from true doctrine."
"All?"
"When I read the histories, it's fairly clear to me that religion was too mixed up in politics, science, the arts, education, just about everything. Too much about the Church trying to be the ultimate answer to everything, too much about control, not enough room for the Holy Spirit to guide. I think you've seen some of how that happened in your research for your classes."
"Yes, I have. This country has been a big influence in making it possible for people in this modern world to practice their religion independent of their community and cultural affiliations, hasn't it?"
"Definitely. People need to be free to work out their religion for themselves, or religion isn't much use for its real purpose. So Joseph Smith was told to join none, and he was also told that he would play a part in restoring true religion to the world. When he was older, he had another vision, and he was shown where he could find some ancient records like the Bible, but from the Americas instead of the middle east."
"Is that the Book of Mormon?"
"Right. And, as you now know, we use it as a companion to the Bible."
"And it teaches about Jesus Christ."
"Very much so." I put the iron back down, checked my work, and started putting the mainboard back in place.
"So, are the native Americans the other sheep?" She picked the iron back up.
"The other sheep mentioned in John 10, yes. But he also told the people here that he had other sheep than they, even."
"More sheep. As in other countries?"
"Yeah."
"Not just the people Paul went to teach."
"Right."
"So does the Book of Mormon teach that the gospel is for everyone in the whole world?"
"Oh, yes. It definitely teaches that." I plugged the Micro Chroma 68 in, and it booted up okay. "So far, so good. But I'll have to write code to test it, to be sure it's really working."
"Other preachers didn't take kindly to all of that, I guess?"
"No."
She put her work down for a minute and thought. "So that explains why there has to be a different organization."
"Jesus called new apostles, so we have twelve apostles. And we have a lay ministry, where all the members receive calls, and sort of take turns teaching and being leaders."
"Being leaders?"
"Teaching, being bishop, presiding over quorums, that kind of thing."
"Could you be a bishop?"
"If I were called."
"Could I?"
"There are apparently some cultural issues about that. Some people think it's doctrinal issues, but I think they misunderstand."
"What do you mean?"
"The way I understand what we do in the temple, men and women should share the priesthood callings. But we have a bunch of false traditions from the cultural background that make it difficult."
"Such as?"
"Hard to explain, but there's a lot of confusion about what the priesthood is. And it's really easy for members to overreach their responsibilities. We have the women and the men organized in separate, somewhat parallel organizations. It's an imperfect fit, but it seems to invite less misunderstanding this way."
Julia frowned. "Hmm. So what is priesthood?"
"We say it's the authority and power to act in the name of God, but the power is faith, and everyone should have faith. Authority is permission. I sometimes say it's our excuse to do God's work, to do good things."
"We need an excuse?"
"Men seem to, more so than women, I think."
"That's not making sense. Women do bad things, too."
"Priesthood is not something magic that prevents us from doing bad things, or that automagically makes what we do good and right. We still have to follow the Holy Spirit and not some other spirit. Too many people think what we call priesthood is the same as witchcraft."
"Witchcraft? Magic?"
"Priesthood operates by faith. Faith is belief in things that are true, especially things that are not seen but are true, and the actions such belief induces."
"Paul says, 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.'"
"Hebrews 11, starting at the first verse. Exactly."
"And Witchcraft is?"
"Near as I understand it, trying to bring things which are not real into existence by force of will and deception."
She was shaking her head. "Okay. Not okay. What about science? Which is that?"
"Good science tends to operate on principles of faith, bad science tends to work like witchcraft."
She rested her forehead in her palm and sighed. "What about magic tricks?"
"Sleight of hand?"
"So, deception?"
"Entertainment, unless the magician is trying to pervert the faith of the audience. In my opinion, of course. But we've managed to stray far away from the overview and the basics we need to be focusing on."
She thought for a moment. "Do you think it would cause even more problems with other churches?"
"What?"
"Calling women as bishops."
"Hah. I'd forgotten where we got sidetracked. Probably cause worse problems among our members."
"How so?"
"Too many of our good men operate under the model of the tie-breaking vote being the man's. Too many of our women happily respond by asserting themselves in the kitchen or the bedroom, or with the kids. And that puts us right back in Machiavelli's world."
Now she closed her eyes in frustration. "So. Who gets the tie-breaker?"
"Heh. It would be easy to just say, 'God'. But that would fail to answer. If we are not one, we are not God's. So there is no tie-breaker. Just prayer and trying to understand each other, and trying to understand God's will."
Her face screwed up in thought. "What happens when you are sure you are right?"
"Argument, and loss of access to the Spirit of God."
Now she nodded. "I guess that's what would happen if I were to sure I were right, too."
"Strong opinions are not bad, we just have to be willing not to chase the Holy Spirit away."
Julia continued to nod as she set her mainboard on my desk. "Well, I think I'm finished with this." Then she turned to me and took my hands. "Somehow, we're making the theory real between us."
I think, for a moment, our hearts beat as one.
"What about other races?" she asked.
"The gospel is to all people, bond or free, black or white, man, woman, child, whatever."
"Scripture?" She let my hands go so I could get my scriptures out, and I did so.
"Several places, one is 2nd Nephi 26." I opened to the chapter in the Book of Mormon, and she took the book and set it in her lap, and we read it together, silently, me reading upside-down.
She said, somewhat to herself, "The law is given by Christ."
"As in the sermon on the mount."
"I can see that."
We continued to read.
"Verse 13. He goes and reveals the gospel to every nation."
"And there are other places where it says that."
"This book in verse 17, is it the Book of Mormon?"
"In this specific case, that's how I understand it."
"In this specific case?"
"Patterns get repeated in God's work."
We kept reading. "We talked a little about churches built up for power."
"Yeah."
"Verse 28. All are privileged, none are forbidden."
I nodded in agreement and we continued to read.
"Last verse. Black and white, bond and free, male and female, ... the heathen, Jew and Gentile, all are alike unto God."
I didn't say anything.
"So why did your church restrict blacks for so long? It's only been in the last year or so that the restriction was changed, right?
"We aren't perfect, unfortunately. I think this is another case where God has been willing to overlook the faults of many of the members of the Church so that the Church itself could grow. We have to trust God to make it up to those who were restricted so long, and we have to actively reach out now."
"Jesus is our Savior and our Redeemer, so He can make it up."
"Exactly. Although the white members have lost quite a bit for the wait, more than the black members have lost, when I look at from the eternal point of view. Not to make light of what black people of faith have lost, but white people of faith will lose their essential faith if we don't reach out and change things."
"I'm part hispanic."
"I know."
"And part African."
"And I am part native American and part Swedish." I shrugged my shoulders and grinned. "If we get married, you have a right to hit me up-side the head if I try to exercise any kind of unrighteous dominion. Shoot. Even if we don't. Let's see your mainboard boot up."
We hooked her mainboard to the TV, and to the power supply in the Micro Chroma 68, and powered her mainboard up. It showed the TV-BUG prompt right away, so we turned the power back off and plugged the ribbon cable from my keyboard into her mainboard, and we powered it up again and played around with the TV-BUG commands.
I knelt beside her while I explained the commands and what they did. She reached around my waist and gave me a hug. And I hugged her back.
"Can you call the missionaries and make an appointment?"
"Good idea. We somehow got way out in the wilderness." I checked the clock. "Still a little time before curfew, maybe we can arrange something tonight."
So we went into the kitchen to use the phone, and arranged for her first meeting the next morning, before lunch.
*****
"It doesn't play games!" Tito voiced the general disappointment in the Micro Chroma among her siblings. We didn't have a keyboard with us, so it basically did nothing but display the TV-BUG prompt.
"Not yet, anyway. We'll be working on that. Or maybe you can." I chuckled.
"How many times have you kissed?" Sisi asked. She was sitting between us on the couch.
"We haven't," I replied.
Julia looked at me, and I saw her amusement and read her thought. She leaned across in front of Sisi, and I leaned forward to meet her.
"Hey!" Sisi's shout was muffled.
"Once." Julia said with a grin, as our lips parted.
"Gross!"
"We'd better be careful or Sisi'll be calling the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Little Sisters," I joked.
"Hmmph."
"Don't ask questions you don't want answers to," Julia smirked.
Julia's mother cleared her throat.
"So are you going to come get Hoot again tomorrow morning?" Tito asked.
"I need to help Joe get his disks running so we can make the keyboard for this thing work."
"I'll bet you won't even touch the computer all morning!"
"Mario!" Mrs. Cisneros reprimanded.
"No, much to my regret," I sighed, "I'm pretty sure we'll only be taking a break from the computer for an hour or so before lunch."
"What for?" Sisi asked.
"I'm going to listen to their missionaries."
"Oh. That could be interesting." Julia's father looked at his wife. "Do you think we should sit in on this?"
"I think we should let Julia do this herself. Maybe we can have them come tell us what they've told her later."
Mr. Cisneros looked over to me. "You think they'll have time tomorrow afternoon?"
"I'll ask. They've turned into pumpkins now. Can I give them your phone number in the morning?"
Chapter 13.1: what?
[Backed up at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2020/06/bk-33209-straits-getting-julia-booted-up.html.]
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