Karl Llewellyn and Joseph Smith on the Couch

Do you ever have one of those odd moments when you are seeing something unfamiliar and suddenly it becomes extremely familiar? Or perhaps you see something very familiar but it suddenly reminds you of something equally familiar but totally different? I had one of those experiences today.

They will never forget you ’til somebody new comes along

Some of our readers may have felt like this cartoon when Dave Landrith’s last blog met a(n un?)timely demise. Fortunately for those readers, Dave has now made like this cartoon — the resemblance is uncanny, really — and started a new party blog. Fellow inmates travelers include a random John, John F., annegb, danithew, and Proud Daughter of Eve. The blog’s tagline suggests that it is written by peculiar people; truer words, I am relatively sure, were never spoken. Also, it looks really spiffy. Welcome (back) the bloggernacle, folks!

At Play

My daughter loves to play on the hardwood floor next to the stone hearth behind the wooden rocking chair. She is one. I keep on thinking this is an accident waiting to happen and tend to move the chair, spread the toys away from the hearth, and sit down beside her just in case.

Thanks, Seraphine

It’s been great to have Seraphine as a guest blogger these past few weeks. Her posts have covered a variety of topics and have never been uninteresting; I suspect that her posts on feminism will continue to draw readers and commenters for some time to come. (All of Seraphine’s T&S posts are available here.) For now, though, Seraphine returns to the garden from whence we borrowed her, the always-interesting Zelophehad’s Daughters; readers who enjoyed Seraphine’s posts here are advised to look for more over at ZD.

The Place of Ranting in Mormon Thought: A (Longish) Response to Russell

I have been thinking all weekend about Russell’s post attacking the Mormon legislators who voted in favor of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The post was a rant. Russell is disgusted and outraged, but there was more to the post than that. Russell didn’t simply think that the Mormon legislators were wrong. He thought that they had betrayed their Mormoness at some deep level. I’m trying to figure out whether or not there is any value in what Russell has done.

Some Thoughts on Embodiment

“[L]iterature does its best to maintain that its concern is with the mind; that the body is a sheet of plain glass through which the soul looks straight and clear, and, save for one or two passions such as desire and greed, is null, and negligible and non-existent. On the contrary, the very opposite is true. All day, all night the body intervenes; blunts or sharpens, colours or discolours, turns to wax in the warmth of June, hardens to tallow in the murk of February� –-Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill

Ben Huff

My childhood was split between northern Virginia, outside of DC, and the international community in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I went to high school at The Cate School near Santa Barbara, CA. I met Kristine during a year at MIT, took a great class on scripture study from Jim at BYU, and just missed Melissa in the Japan Tokyo South Mission, finishing my service a little before she arrived. I met Adam at the University of Notre Dame and completed my PhD in Philosophy there in 2006. I specialized in ethics and wrote my dissertation on happiness and friendship in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics. I now live in a log cabin just outside of Ashland, VA, where I teach philosophy at Randolph-Macon College. I enjoy classic jazz, cooking, mountain biking, and playing ultimate frisbee. (Edit this post).

Anticipations

A seminary teacher once told me: Before conference, write down a question you need answered. Think carefully, ponder and pray about what the question should be. When you have your question, write it down on paper. Pray that an answer will be given in conference. Then, as you listen to conference, listen for your answer. What (if you don’t mind sharing) will you be listening for, this conference?

Trusting God

During my senior year of college, my life fell apart. Depression had entered my life months before, and I had been trying to ignore its growing bleakness, hoping that it would go away if I pretended it wasn’t there.

Did Brigham hate your 501’s?

Here’s the lead from an article in today’s New York Times: “IN the 1830’s, when men’s pants were first tailored with buttons visible down the front of the fly, the Mormon leader Brigham Young discouraged the population from wearing them, calling them ‘fornication pants.’”

Another Sabbath

Opening Exercises: my girls stretched on hard chairs, schooled hands still seeking their phones; leaders whispered, heads together, in the back; we settled into our common rhythms—every week the same.