Author: Russell Arben Fox

I wrote this–the only sustained essay I’ve ever produced about my mission–about seven or eight months after I came home, while I was a student at BYU.

Today is Whitsunday on the Christian liturgical calendar, a holiday in honor of the Day of Pentecost. Not quite four years ago, in June of 2005, I wrote something about the gifts demonstrated on that day, and about those–decidedly less spetacular–gifts which I believe I have. I’m somewhat proud of it; I think it is…

An old friend of mine (a former bishop, for whatever that’s worth) whom I keep in touch with by e-mail has spent much of the past decade working for the U.S. government in different capacities in Russia and Ukraine. In response to some recent news items regarding limits on visas to the former Soviet Union,…

As has become tradition around here, Times and Seasons is opening up a thread for comments and discussion, insights and observations, thoughts and questions, arising from Sunday afternoon’s General Conference session. Enjoy!

As has become tradition around here, Times and Seasons is opening up a thread for comments and discussion, insights and observations, thoughts and questions, arising from Sunday morning’s General Conference session. Enjoy!

Since Kaimi was kind enough to link to it, I thought I’d elaborate a bit on some comments of mine which Peggy Fletcher Stack used in her excellent article summarizing the accomplishments of President Hinckley, and the opportunities and challenges facing President Monson. It would be interesting to hear more from some of the other…

As has become tradition around here, Times and Seasons is opening up a thread for comments and discussion, insights and observations, thoughts and questions, arising from Saturday afternoon’s General Conference session. Enjoy!

As has become tradition around here, Times and Seasons is opening up a thread for comments and discussion, insights and observations, thoughts and questions, arising from Saturday morning’s General Conference session. Enjoy!

[This post was originally put up on Holy Saturday, April 7, 2007. I thought about putting up something different this year, but I couldn’t think of anything that can approach the beauty of this essay. Enjoy]

[This post was originally put up on Good Friday, April 6, 2007. I thought about putting up something different this year, but I couldn’t think of anything that can approach the beauty of this little story. Enjoy.] Once upon a time, three little trees stood in a forest high on a mountain, dreaming of what…

Today was our stake conference, and we had a visiting general authority: Elder Terrence C. Smith, one of the North American Area Seventies. His talk was one of the finest, most doctrinally insightful sermons I’ve ever heard at a stake conference. But what really caught me came in the first minute of his talk. He’s…

For the first time in American history, a Mormon had a serious shot of making it to the highest office in the land. But no more: Mitt Romney has pulled out of active competition for the Republican nomination and thus for the presidency. How should us Mormons feel about that?

For some years, when I was a teenager and then a young man, I was convinced President Hinckley would die as a counselor in the First Presidency; that he would never become president of the church.

Because Adam asked, here’s my Santa Claus/Meaning-of-Christmas manifesto, originally written on my own blog three years ago. A brief update: our oldest daughter, mentioned below in this post, is now eleven, and while she is a joyful and spirited participant in the Christmas season, particularly for the sake of her three younger sisters, she isn’t…

My wife’s grandmother, Elaine Harris, has lived in Evanston, Wyoming, all her life, except for a brief period during the Depression, when lack of work at home forced her parents–my wife’s great-grandparents, John and Dorothy Martin–to relocate their family to Bountiful (technically Woods Cross) in search of employment. It was there, seventy years ago this…

Up at 6:20am, into the shower, on with the shirt and tie and jacket. Grap some Grape-Nuts in the kitchen. Open the front door: a half-inch or so of sleet on the ground. No biggie, I think. Normally I walk, but this morning I’m running late, so I hop in the car, drive to the…

It has no doubt been noticed–for those that care about the deep red-blue rivalries of Utah, anyway–that Times and Seasons does pretty well when it comes to drawing upon the Cougars insofar as perma- and guest-bloggers are concerned, but until this point, our track record with the Utes has been lacking. With arrival of Paul…

Today, my older brother, James Daniel Fox, turns 40. That’s right: 40. Forty! Which means I’m thirty-nine, and that’s plain crazy. Something has gone dreadfully wrong, I know it.

The recent conference on Mormonism and American Politics at Princeton University, organized by former Times and Seasons blogger Melissa Proctor, was–from the perspective of this participant at least–a resounding success: plenty of exchanges, ideas, and arguments, some presented formally through papers and many others emerging informally through conversations after and between sessions, all packed into…

So, that costume you’re going to wear to your ward Halloween party tonight? The one you’ve been working on for weeks? The one that you’ve consulted your parents/spouse/children/roomates/bishop/stake high council about? The one that manages to be simultaneously perfectly orthodox as well as moderately heretical, perhaps even a little risque? The one you’re so proud…

There has been much discussion of Mitt Romney’s run for the White House, both here and throughout the Bloggernacle. Predictably, scholars don’t want bloggers to have all the fun.

As is tradition here at Times and Seasons, please feel free to post your comments, thoughts, insights and inspirations regarding the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference here.

As is tradition here at Times and Seasons, please feel free to post your comments, thoughts, insights and inspirations regarding the Sunday morning session of General Conference here.

As is traditional here at Times and Seasons, please feel free to post your comments, thoughts, insights and inspirations regarding the Saturday afternooon session of General Conference here.

As is tradition here at Times and Seasons, please feel free to post your comments, thoughts, insights and inspirations regarding the Saturday morning session of General Conference here.

There are those who get invited to guestblog at Times and Seasons because they’ve been a regular in the Bloggernacle for ages and we figure their turn has come. There are those who get invited because it collectively occurs to us that we and our readers would really benefit from hearing from a circus animal…

This summer, Times and Seasons was fortunate enough to host three superb guest-bloggers: Dave Banack, of Dave’s Mormon Inquiry fame; Patricia Gunter Karamesines, who came to us by way of A Motley Vision; and Kathryn Lynard Soper, who blogs and writes at her pseudo-eponymous blog and the journal Segullah. We are proud to announce that,…

…or Patricia Gunter Karamesines, to those who know her outside the blogging world.

Last week, Adam Greenwood pointed out to me an essay by Sally Thomas in First Things, titled “Home Schooling and Christian Duty.” Her article defends home schooling against a very particular kind of attack–specifically, the claim that educating one’s children in the home, away from the public schools, is a failure to be a witness…