Columnist makes plea for humility

HOLLADAY — Gratitude for God's blessings, and a hilarious plea for understanding and humility highlighted a Thanksgiving interfaith service on Sunday.

About 500 attended the service, held in the Big Cottonwood LDS Stake Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 5165 S. Highland Dr. After the program, which was sponsored by the city of Holladay Interfaith Council, guests were treated to a plethora of snacks and sandwiches.

Richard Melenson, representing the Jewish community, offered an invocation that gave thanks for "the daily miracles and for the goodness which is with us every hour, morning, noon and night. ... May we always be grateful." His prayer offered thanks for the blessings of "living in this great country."

According to Cierra Fitz, a 22-year-old youth leader from Our Savior's Lutheran Church, Holladay, a wonderful gift from God, which empowers all, is life. Jesus died for humanity's sins, she said, and that gift is so huge people can never repay it.

"All we can do really is be thankful," Fitz said. "God has given every single one of us gifts. ... We can really show him we're thankful in how we use our gifts."

Ellis R. Ivory of the Big Cottonwood Stake (and chairman of the Deseret Morning News board of directors) introduced the night's main speaker, Salt Lake Tribune columnist and author Robert Kirby. "We've been fans of his for years," Ivory noted. "Not only are his columns and books interesting, but so is Robert Kirby."

He had asked Kirby where he went to college. "He said he didn't," Ivory said. Kirby told him he had learned to write through reading, which was "a positive addiction" and kept him out of trouble.

Taking the podium, Kirby said his family moved to Utah in 1970 when he was a teenager. He is a member of the LDS Church and had grown up in a military family, moving from place to place before Utah.

"I had a typical Mormon upbringing. ... When we moved to Utah it was sort of like coming home, even though we'd never lived here. ... It was actually awful."

He found it frustrating to relate to people. Being raised in the military, he associated with folks all types of ethnic backgrounds. But Utah wasn't like that.

"People were all the same. A lot of time they were related. ... I was actually suffering from sensory deprivation. Everybody was white." Although he too is white, he said, "I wasn't used to that."

Following an LDS mission, he returned to Utah and became a police officer in Tooele County. "I tell people that's where God practiced making people before he got really good at it," he said. Next he moved to Utah County, where he was an officer for about ten years.