Light

I find light in all its iterations compelling. I often sit crossed legged in front of our bedroom fireplace with a fire and/or just a candle on the hearth. Sometimes I listen to music or beat a drum as I watch the flames. Sometimes I just sit.

Bill Shrives

For forty years, Bill Shrives was a train signal supervisor for Southern Pacific Railroad. Every day, the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people depended on his doing his job conscientiously and correctly. As with nearly everyone who plays an important part in keeping the economy humming, it is safe to say that nearly no one thought about Bill Shrives when their train sailed safely past the signals he inspected.

Welcome the Season!

Since we are entering the holiday season I am thinking about building some of my posts around the holidaies and maybe some of my evolving ideas of a personal liturgical calendar. I seem to have needed this calendar all of my life and over the last ten years or so I have been actively and successfully pursuing it, including a thoroughly Mormon Passover and some beginning stabs at celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Muddle

This last week has again brought into sharp focus one of my more important discoveries of the past decade. It is “The Muddle” and I am surprised and appalled that I was so old before I figured it out. On the off chance some of you have not yet figured it out, here is my take on the subject.

Kolob

Some fellow who has clearly never talked to a Mormon gives a nice (mis)summation of LDS beliefs in a local paper. (Hat tip: Voldemort). Like many such, he has things to say about Kolob — a lot more, really, than I’ve ever heard at church. Is Kolob even really part of LDS doctrine any more?

Words and Music

Here’s a short quiz, for fun: For each of the following, name the modern-day green-book hymn whose tune was originally associated with these lyrics. 1. To Anacreon in Heav’n, where he sat in full glee, a few Sons of Harmony sent a petition,

Welcome Aboard, Ardis!

In case it may have escaped your notice, Ardis Parshall has been posting and commenting a great deal lately. Actually, she’s so quickly made herself at home here at Times and Seasons, with her superb series of historical posts, as well as her reflections on everything from running a business to doing archival research, all from her own unique yet thoroughly Mormon perspective, that it almost escaped our notice as well. But not quite! So allow this to be a somewhat delayed official introduction of Ardis to the Bloggernacle as T&S’s newest permablogger. Welcome, Ardis! (We’ll be getting you your own set of keys any day now.)