Ten years ago, before the Church History Library opened its own building, the Library was housed in the east wing of the Church Office Building. There was a security desk just inside the library door, with two doors leading into the secured space – a door on the north where employees and their guests signed in, and a door on the east where patrons showed their ID to the security guard and signed in. Everybody signed out when they left.
One afternoon I was chatting with the security guard – as you might imagine, I had gotten to know the regular guards quite well, because I went to the Library every day. The guard, who was not a historian himself, of course, was in the middle of reading Richard Bushman’s then-new Rough Stone Rolling, his magnificent biography of Joseph Smith. He loved it, and was telling me what he loved about it.
Someone came through the employee door behind the security guard and picked up a pen to sign out. It was Richard Bushman. He seemed to be taking quite a long time to test the pen, find the place in the book where he was to sign, look at his watch, consult his notebook … and I realized he was listening to the guard’s appreciation of his book. So with a question or two, I encouraged the guard to keep on talking. I finally asked him if he would like to meet Dr. Bushman someday. Oh, yes, he was very enthusiastic about that – and that’s when Dr. Bushman extended his arm to shake the guard’s hand and to introduce himself.
The guard’s comments about Rough Stone Rolling had been entirely candid. His positive remarks had not been colored by any attempt to flatter the listening author, nor, if he said anything negative (I don’t recall that he did), could it have been any less than his honest, personal response. I don’t suppose a scholar gets many such opportunities to hear directly from readers and know that the words are so true.
Richard Bushman’s career has often been a blessing to the Latter-day Saints, when he has brought the best of his professional training to illuminate the Mormon past and reflect on the Mormon present. He is also a thorough Latter-day Saint, with a faith that has been strengthened, rather than worn, by contact with the intellectual sphere. He is the kind of man C.S. Lewis had in mind in one of my favorite essays, Learning in War-Time:
The intellectual life is not the only road to God, nor the safest, but we find it to be a road, and it may be the appointed road for us. Of course, it will be so only so long as we keep the impulse pure …
[W]e need intimate knowledge of the past. … A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.
The work of Richard Bushman does that for Mormondom: He lets us know – as candidly as that security guard – how our past and our present are alike or different. He isn’t swayed by temporary fashions in intellectual argument or in anti-intellectual panic. If the intellectual life isn’t the safest, we don’t have to travel it alone, and we have a guide who knows it is at least a road to God.
The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship is hosting a colloquium in honor of Richard Bushman this June. In connection with that, the Institute will present Dr. Bushman with a book of letters of appreciation from those who have been touched by Dr. Bushman’s life and work. Many of these letters will no doubt come from scholars and churchmen whose names are as well known and respected as Dr. Bushman’s.
But such a book also needs letters reflecting the appreciation of that security guard, and of me, and of you if you have any reason to acknowledge his role in your study, your testimony, your simple awareness that he has been there doing the work that needed to be done. Send a letter, so that he will know.
The Maxwell Institute’s webpage provides the details you need, including the deadline: May 1, 2016 and the address for your letter: ThanksRichard@byu.edu.
Thanks for this.
That is a great story.
I laughed out loud when reading this story — because there are few things so precious (and scary) to an author as hearing someone give their unvarnished opinion of your work when they don’t know you are listening. So I understand very well why Dr. Bushman was quietly delaying signing out while listening to the guard. 🙂 He is truly one of the most important historians in Church history (and in Church History), and deserves the recognition he is getting. I will take the time to write a letter as well.
True story: I was attending an Amiga developers’ conference in 1986 or 87 as a speaker; I was consulting editor for BYTE Magazine, where I had a monthly column. While I was standing in line to pick up my ID badge, I overheard the two guys in front of me. One said, “Hey, Bruce Webster is speaking at the conference.” The other made a slight face, raised his hand, palm down, and did the “so-so” back-and-forth waggle. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing right there at the honest reaction. I actually mentioned that incident in my talk; the guy who had waggled his hand came up afterwards to apologize, and I said, “No, no, no; it’s wonderful to get unfiltered feedback.”
I absolutely love the quote from C.S. Lewis. How appropriate for our time.
David, that entire essay from beginning to end is worth reading – I practically have it memorized. Substitute whatever interferes with your progression for “war-time” and it’s relevant.
The fuller passage from which I extracted lines for this post:
Two paragraphs down are lines that have guided me for 30 years, as surely as any line from scripture:
I once went into a Barnes and Noble to buy a copy of Rough Stone Rolling for a friend. I asked the clerk if she had a copy and she replied that it must be about Mick Jagger and the
Rolling Stones. I told her not exactly.
I remember corresponding with Dr. Bushman about some errors in Rough Stone Rolling (as they seemed to me). He was generous, cordial, and immensely cooperative. When the paperback version of the biography appeared, all of the corrections were made. I doubt many other historians would have been as magnanimous.
Thank you, Ardis.
Heard him speak in a smaller venue than the annual MHA here in Seattle a number of years ago, just after RSR was published. Very impressed by both his humility, and his subject knowledge. He seemed to typify exactly what C.S. Lewis was describing in that essay.
Ardis: Thanks for providing the fuller passage and especially the lines from the 2 paragraphs down. I had never read this, but it put into words, that I could not, what many could benefit from.
Thank you, Ardis.
Thanks, Ardis, for this lovely post and most of all for the words of Brother Lewis.
This is wonderful-the information about Richard Bushman and the excerpt from C.S. Lewis. I let a few friends read my book of Rough Stone Rolling and their comments were all mirrored mine. They loved reading the book and were very much interested in Dr. Bushman. I will admit that I say hello to him when I am near him or in a group listening to him, but it is always his wife, Claudia, whom I shower my praise. She is very worthy of the accolades afforded her, though. But after reading this post, I realize that I need to let Dr. Bushman know how much I admire him and his work. I will surely write one of the letters.