It’s four o’clock in the morning at FASO and I’m writing notes for this on the back of a photograph because I’ve fallen...
This is a telling of a kids story I wrote in fewer than half the original words. If you are new to this story, we need to ask ...
Being born with the gift of music can be dangerous. So you should give it away quick. Here are a few gifts from me to you. You ...
When you even just try to do good, maybe good things can happen. Otherwise, you could get staked to the bottom of a pond....
My first introduction to Paul was in 1978 and when he walked in and announced to us that he was ‘the best jaw harp player wes...
We can make a ukulele recorded in a closet sound like it’s being played in the Notre Dame Cathedral, and whether a particular...
Deeply engaged as I am in a serious job hunt, I’m learning a lot of tips that I will now share with you. There are two keys t...
What happened was that I wound up sustaining a number of general officers by the raise of the right hamburger, and voted my tha...
There’s a hymn that has in it the expression “accents sweet.” I’ve sung it, and if it wasn’t in church, it was somew...
Well, what say we kick things right off here with a moral dilemma? It’s the Sabbath Day- quite a nice one, actually, bright b...
I’ve been picking and grinning at Capt. Len’s City BBQ (just south of the roundabout in Alpine, that one town in Utah). My ...
If the appearance of failure has raised its appalling head in your life because, well, you’ve actually sort of failed, how ...
This month’s Backstage Graffiti will, of course, be about hermeneutics and exegesis. Words which when I called up the “Inst...
This column is not politics-free, and therefore may be hazardous to your health. Where is all of this leading? China- where my ...
I’ve finally decided to live the gospel. Maybe that requires some explanation....
Marvin prepares for Christmas with muslin, Crazy Glue, and an extra baton to lead music....
All of us are profoundly ignorant of so many things that if we don’t learn to enjoy it, our lives will be truly not amiable....
This is not a column about faith under adversity, but writing under adversity! Only Marvin would think of it....
You can collaborate on a book or a play and sense a little bit of heaven, but we have a big collaboration ahead, and we might n...
Marvin shares the haunting and beautiful words of the songs in his new album, "Roses and Hope"....
Pioneer trail facts you never heard before and stories that will never die....
Roses and hope are milk and honey for the soul. Love and believing are what makes the broken whole...
A new radio show celebrating our pioneer history is hosted by Meridian’s own Marvin Payne....
So what do we do about swearing? My ten-year-old son John came to me for some counsel. He was troubled that some of his friends...
Come backstage with Marvin Payne in four very different venues....
Who of us could have anticipated that “texting” would ever be a word, let alone the primary mode of human interaction?...
ANOTHER GREAT PERSONAL HISTORY TOOL: You could write “My Life According To What I Can See From My Couch When I’m All Alone ...
How do you go about “publishing peace”? Marvin journaled it to find out....
Sometimes a guitar can be an answer to a prayer....
Acts of kindness are even sweeter when accompanied by Oreos....
Climb Mount Timpanogos with Marvin Payne and see what you can do with lively journal entries....
Backstage on the closing night of “110 In the Shade,” there are so many things Marvin will miss....
Marvin’s backstage at the play “110 in the Shade” and has made a new friend....
Unlike the moms on Mother’s Day, dads don't really mind going to church on Father’s Day, because the expectations on us are...
One of the features of Mother's Day is bad poetry, and this one is a doozy....
I'm reading Isaiah. No, really. That way I can read the Bible and the Book of Mormon at the same time....
Marvin's passion of searching for the origins of words leads him to some antic thoughts....
Opposite Pride is Humility, which is nothing more nor less than pure Honesty. It is "seeing things as they really are"...
In the Hawaiian lei, the blossoms dried rapidly, and then slowly began to fade-just like some of the sweetest moments in our li...
"I told him it was broken, but it was all I had."...
In case your fright quota wasn't filled in October, Marvin has written a funny and charming story to be read in November-with a...
The Conference Center is so large, it may hold several time zones....
I once read that the secret of flying is to throw yourself at the ground and somehow miss. Here's the real secret....
Actor, Marvin Payne, visits New York City for the first time, and comes away dazzled by small miracles and kindnesses....
The arches in the national park will have tumbled down before you and I are much further along. We have been since long before...
I don't much mind Mondays, really. It's always kind of a new start, symbolically, another chance at getting at least the mundan...
We're at war. We're on the battlefield, whether or not we choose to be, and our best weapon is joy because the Adversary has no...
When my friend came home from Africa, everybody asked her if she had a new appreciation for all the things we have here. She an...
"Some guy called from India this morning, representing someone in the Midwest that we owe money to, and in the course of the co...
When you live in a technical world with so many passwords, they sure ought to mean something to you....
Would life be different for us if the Wise Men had just brought the Christ child Christmas cards?...
Marvin's pick for President wasn't on the ballot, but should have been....
Marvin Payne's take on heavy subjects like terrorism, politics and the economy will make you laugh and make your day....
When everybody else put in grass in their strips by the new sidewalks in town, Marvin put in rocks, chosen carefully one by one...
All the facts and figures you ever wanted to know about the Mormon pioneers, plus a glimpse of the pioneering spirit....
If you don't hear what the elders quorum instructor is saying, there's probably a good reason for it....
Some things, whether they be things of faith or opinions about the timing of explosive devices, are open to continuing revelati...
Assumptions are challenged and shattered, prophets wiggle their ears, and all is well with the Tabernacle Choir....
Destinations are just fine, but here's the rub: Very little of our time is spent there. If we're living in the present (our onl...
Momentous times call for momentous journal entries. And if you don't have time to do it, don't worry. A ghostwriter may just do...
Here's the bottom line. Read Meridian Magazine and learn stuff!...
Elder Boyd K. Packer said it. Something about how the Brethren are just folks. I'm not sure I captured it accurately, because I...
Oh no! The stuff in your journal could become somebody elses' novel....
Just when you thought it was safe to click on Meridian Magazine, Backstage Graffiti returns. Probing and dissembling our fundam...
If you're going to procrastinate wanting a guitar, the best way to repent of that procrastination is to buy the guitar as soon ...
What rhymes with "showing up"? Let's not even go there....
A musical testimony is born and the bearer writes about it. Witness the birth of a Christmas CD....
It's one thing to write in a journal, and quite another thing to go back and read what you have written. Find out what you've b...
Sometimes people don't write down the words that are spoken. And when you don't have the real words, awkward things can happen....
The writing of this column was suspended for the birth of a butterfly. Take a ringside seat and watch a miracle in progress....
Putting a hook in the water can change your life. Even when you don't catch anything....
'Tis the season for flag-waving - whatever flag you call your own....
If you think it's too much trouble to write a journal, why not sing it? Ten thousand roadshow writers can't be wrong....
This month I'm reporting on the birth. Every poignant detail, every quiver and stab of emotion and pain, every rustle of the th...
It's big and voluptuous and gorgeous and curvaceous and arch-topped and glistening and has a Florentine cutaway and a single go...
A "Mormon" Sesame Street can light up children's eyes and hearts in places the Little Rascals wouldn't dare to go, even with sl...
This is the deal. I want you to write in your journals, to leave behind honest, inspiring, heartbreaking, transcendent, even le...
Picasso had his "blue period." Bob Dylan had his "trying to sing nice" period. Marvin Payne has trampled "paper roses," and is ...
When I was a kid, books by Mormons about Mormon things were not meant to be read. They were meant to be given. They betokened t...
I don't remember the impact, the slam of stone on flesh, the utter, instant, quailing melding of mineral and bone. But it must ...
Many of the saints think of Mt. Timpanogos as a temple, which is a kinder, gentler, merely three stories way of thinking of it....
Maybe they had the strange idea that their fourteen hundred dollars wasn't really theirs, but the Lord's to move his work along...
I kind of missed the point of school altogether, because I never "got" that learning was something one might enjoy....
We can be standing at the window listening for the Hallelujah Chorus, when in fact the Lord wants us to be listening for our bi...
I have, on a number of occasions, written Backstage Graffiti to you in various accents. But you didn't know because I didn't te...
It's the old "Is the glass of water half full or half empty?" question. I think you can see life either way and be telling the ...
"I hope to add some measure of grace to the world." I really love that. But how do you do that?...
What do Africa and South America have in common? They're dripping! And what's at the bottom of the whole world? Not water ? Ant...
Nothing lost or left behind should keep us from now becoming what we can become, from learning what we now can learn....
Any time a guy shares with his sweetheart any form of Austenbrontiana, she will irresistibly think he is more sensitive than he...
Some hours later he awakens with a start. Is it the silence that has surprised him into wakefulness? But it's not entirely sile...
Every town has its ghost story--and here's one from Alpine, Utah, a folk tale that rattles around year after year....
Almost every time you hear a scary story, the storyteller starts off by telling you his story is absolutely true. This story is...
Still in a quandary over how to begin writing your journal/personal history? We've discussed here doing it by the year, doing i...
You probably thought the only way you could get Meridian was on the Internet. Marvin shares a secret....
I own two "redeemed" guitars. I think this is kind of special. One was redeemed many years ago, but the second is every bit as ...
Can't think how to start writing your life's story? How about choosing some constantly recurring aspect of your life and write ...
"This year I avoided planting even one bean on the driveway. I avoided planting even a single kernal of corn on a rock." writes...
At a certain age (Marvin's to be precise), one feels the urgency to precede one's mummification with one's "memoirification."...
Marvin gets serious and gives advice to a budding, young LDS actress struggling with some of the moral dilemmas inherent in the...
Marvin plays the dog Boo and we're supposed to be unoffended?...
Marvin gives birth to some new (yet very old) ideas on the meaning of family....
The concept of 'time' itself can be paradoxical in nature. Marvin contemplates organizing his past as opposed to his present or...
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Whatever that means. This week Marvin hammers out a column on clichés....
Marvin's goes cruising. Wanna come along?...
In his ambling, funny way, Marvin Payne tries to connect politics to journal writing-and almost succeeds....
Everybody keeps asking Marvin for a Mormon version of "Fiddler on the Roof", and this month he gives us a peek at just what it ...
Okay, so what does it all mean? Two and a half hours after a couple of thousand dollars' worth of tickets have been gleefully r...
In this era of instant Teen Idols (not Teen Idles, even I was one of those), Barbie-esque screen personalities (I use the word ...
The "actor's nightmare" is when you find yourself onstage and, for any of myriad reasons ((or for none at all)), you don't know...
A personal history might be easier to write if it has a very particular focus. "On my first Christmas morning, in 1948, I was d...
Now Meridian Magazine can call itself "The place where Latter-day Saints gather--and sing!"...
Who is the heavenly choreographer (or "Choreographer")? And is He worthy of respect? Can He bring grace to even the clunkiest o...
When you sit down with your journal, remember that you can't write your life. You can only paste in snapshots of it....
Marvin shares his feelings about the play Hancock County....
Marvin Payne shares his thoughts about playing the part of a child of God....
Marvin shares some thoughts about his latest project, "Family, A Joyful Proclamation!"...
Marvin Payne gets poetical....
Gifts. What are they for, anyway? For that matter, what are they?...
How to use your journal in place of a GPS (global positioning system): You can buy one of these fancy global positioners to fin...
A journal can be a place where you admit things to yourself-things like, "I picked up the phone this morning and nearly sang be...
Do you ever forget your lines? Try looking on the fleshy tables of your heart....
Did you ever sit up straight from whatever you were doing on a particular Tuesday with the thought, "Oops, I forgot to eat. Sin...
When else are we allowed to imagine ourselves not merely as someone different, but as someone greater than we are? And is't the...
A couple of conferences ago, President Hinckley marveled at how we're all being reduced to "dot-coms." I've just been "reduced....
To the question in question: Am I safe to read? Well, I wear a white shirt to church. Always. Sometimes I get up and put on a s...
Don't let me catch you asking if writing in your journal is a practical thing to do. It is, but if you keep asking yourself tha...
This column has suddenly become quite literal. Tomorrow is the deadline for Backstage Graffiti, so I'm sitting (you guessed it)...
Of the thousands of moments of choice in our lives, each important choice is between the same two things....
Well, my first portrayal of J. Golden Kimball is now history. Performing a one-man show has its own built-in array of unique re...
I am delighted nearly to distraction by your comments, suggestions, and encouragements. I will include a number of them here in...
This is the column that will either make you say, "Now I finally see that the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is s...
Your letters keep pouring in-Marvin responds....
Whether an audio recording or scribble in a notepad, your journal is worth keeping....
When Marvin Payne wrote his first column for Meridian last month on journal writing, he asked for our readers questions and com...
Amazingly, I soon found myself, early in the week, looking for things to write about in order to fill the "weekly" part of the ...
