Category: Mormon Arts
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CFM 5/18-5/24: Thoughts and Poetry for “Be Strong and of a Good Courage”
Trying to find images that go with the poetry I collect for these lessons is often frustrating. It seems like all the images I find in image searches have text written across the image, as if the image itself can’t communicate what needs to be said. In addition, many images consist of hikers or climbers…
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A Review: Legends of Deseret Album
For the nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints, music was not merely a leisure activity; it was a spiritual and social technology used to raise the spirits of a people in an arid, isolated, and challenging landscape. In a remarkable new recording project titled “Legends of Deseret: A Collection of Rescued Pioneer Music,” published by Tantara Records, BYU…
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CFM 5/11-5/17: Thoughts and Poetry for “Beware Lest Thou Forget the Lord”
The idea of ‘forgetting’ covers a lot of territory. Forgetting our keys is one thing, forgetting to pick up your child is another, and forgetting that you even have a child is still another.The first happens to everyone, the last is almost inconceivable, outside of some kind of dementia. So what exactly do we mean…
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CFM 5/4-5/10: Poetry for “Rebel Not Ye against the Lord, Neither Fear”
We are all rebels in some way or another, just like we are all sinners. Any sin is a kind of rebellion. As a result, we do things that are against the counsels of the Lord willingly and intentionally, often justifying it through the scriptures. And too often we dismiss statements like “Rebel Not Ye…
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CFM 4/27-5/3: Poetry for “Holiness to the Lord”
What is holiness anyway? When something is made holy, like a Temple, it is formally dedicated to the Lord, through a number of different means. The more I think about it, the more it seems like we who are attending the Temple and participating in things that are holy are participating in making them holy.…
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CFM 4/20-4/26: Poetry for “All That the Lord Hath Spoken We Will Do”
The statement “all that the Lord has spoken we will do” seems kind of obvious in a sense. If God is saying to do it, how can we gainsay? But, of course, we don’t actually do that — we all fail to do the things we should do, the things that God has asked, and…
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CFM 4/13-4/19: Poetry for “Stand Still, and See the Salvation of the Lord”
Our self-reliance sometimes gets in the way of relying on the Lord, and even inhibits us from trusting in Him—in having faith that He can provide for our salvation. The fleeing Israelites described in Exodus seem to be caught between the armies of Pharaoh and the waters, leaving them to despair. Their salvation didn’t depend…
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CFM 4/6-4/12: Poetry for “Remember This Day, in Which Ye Came Out from Egypt”
The story of the exodus of the Israelite from Egypt is often used as a metaphor for the downtrodden and despised. Our own tradition has frequently used the story for its similarities to the pioneer trek from Nauvoo to Utah, and, for different reasons, the story was an important element in the discourse of the…
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CFM 3/30-4/5: Poetry for “He Will Swallow Up Death in Victory”
The centrality of the atonement in LDS doctrine and thought is beyond dispute. Even in the earliest LDS poetry, the atonement is frequently mentioned, and its role expounded. There is no shortage of material about Christ and his sacrifice. But that doesn’t mean that our understanding of the atonement is complete and consistent. It has…
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CFM 3/23-3/29: Poetry for “I Have Remembered My Covenant”
Often the titles of lessons raise questions for me. If God ‘remembered’ His covenant, does that mean he forgot? Is forgetting an error? Or is it ok to forget sometimes, even if it is an agreement we made? What are we saying about the nature of God when we say that He ‘remembered His covenant?’…
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CFM 3/16-3/22: Poetry for “God Meant It unto Good”
Given the famine described in the Bible, it is certainly fortunate that Joseph ended up in Egypt and in a position to help his family. His rise there to 2nd in the kingdom seems highly unlikely, something that might require the help of divinity to occur. And the explanation this lesson focuses on, “God meant…
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Latter-day Saint Where’s Waldo and Stephen Biesty Cross-Sections
Google recently released Nano Banana 2, the most advanced image generator for small detail kind of stuff. (Still not the more advanced for artistic purposes, that’s still Midjourney–when people still say that all AI image generation is slop I point them to online fora of Midjourney artists). When I was a kid I loved those…
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CFM 3/9-3/15: Poetry for “The Lord Was with Joseph”
The story of Joseph, as portrayed in this Come Follow Me lesson, is closely connected with confronting trials and overcoming adversity. Today, while it’s hard to believe that most of us face adversity like that of Joseph, I suspect that our trials still have a significant impact on our lives. Perhaps how we react to…
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CFM 3/2-3/8: Poetry for “Let God Prevail”
The phrase “Let God Prevail” suggests a certain view of life—the idea that we might be a kind of impediment to what God wants to do, and that we need to get out of the way. And the idea makes sense theologically, since we believe that God respects our agency, and will not force us,…
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Hymns and Tunes I Submitted for “Hymns—For Home and Church”
I have no idea where things stand with the new hymnbook, Hymns—For Home and Church, but I think it’s safe to say that the pieces I submitted were not selected. So, for fun, I thought I would share them here. Submission options included up to five texts and/or five tunes. I submitted five total (two…
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CFM 2/23-3/1: Poetry for “Is Any Thing Too Hard for the Lord?”
Many of the difficulties that we face in our lives in the gospel come down to assumptions we make about God. We expect a consistency according to our conception of things. In short, we expect a vending machine, instead of God. So the answer to the question about what could be too hard for the…
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CFM 2/16-2/22: Poetry for “To Be a Greater Follower of Righteousness”
Since the Old Testament is so long, each lesson covers much more material, making it much harder to have overall themes for the lesson. As a result, each lesson tends to be more episodic, covering a broad range of topics. This lesson is like that, covering everything from righteous desires, to Melchizedek, to tithing. I…
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Brave Like Eve Art Exhibit Open in Bountiful, Utah
Those who have followed Times and Seasons for a while may know that I like talking about art from time to time. The Certain Women Art Show is an important artistic institution for its ability to transform complex theological concepts into immersive visual dialogues, and their latest exhibition, Brave Like Eve, currently on display at…
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CFM 2/2-2/8: Poetry for “The Lord Called His People Zion”
For me, this lesson (to be taught February 8th — I work 2 weeks ahead) might be one of the most important lessons of the whole Come Follow Me cycle. The example of Enoch and the idea of Zion, our utopian ideal, lead to important questions about what we do today and how we organize…
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The First AI-Written Mormon Horror Novel
As of about a month or so ago, GPT 5.2 Pro is starting to autonomously solve previously unsolved mathematical “Erdos” problems (a famous set of unsolved problems proposed by arguably-smartest-man-of-all-time Paul Erdos). We’re officially at the point where it can solve math problems we haven’t been able to. However, my understanding is that these are…
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CFM 1/26-2/1: Poetry for “Teach These Things Freely unto Your Children”
I’m old enough that when thinking about teaching children my mind quickly goes to the wonderful and insightful Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song, “Teach Your Children Well”. Most of all, the song points out an often overlooked element of teaching, that we really don’t know and can’t completely understand what our children have gone…
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CFM 1/5-1/11: Poetry for “This Is My Work and My Glory”
I’ve left off any image to represent Gods “work and glory”; since we teach that His work is “to bring to pass the Immortality and Eternal Life of Man,” I am not at all sure how to represent that. Images of what ‘heaven’ looks like all seem to me to be either unlikely or based…
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CFM 12/22-12/28: Poetry for “The Matchless Gift of God’s Divine Son”
One advantage to providing the poetry for these lessons early is that it allows teachers and others a little time to adjust the timing of lessons. For example, this coming week’s lesson in Sunday School should be on the Family (see last week’s post), but given that the coming lesson is on the Sunday before…
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CFM 12/15-12/21(The Family): Poetry for “The Family Is Central to the Creator’s Plan”
The LDS focus on the family is one of our best-known doctrines—an idea largely based on our belief that we are children of heavenly parents. As a result of these beliefs, we consistently worry about how well we are doing as parents, and about the strength of our family relationships. I often wonder if we…
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Is “Godhead Incarnate” False Doctrine? Reclaiming John Rutter’s Candlelight Carol for LDS Theology
A popular choral piece for Christmas performances (at least in Utah) is John Rutter’s Candlelight Carol. It is a beautiful piece, but one thing that has struck me as interesting is that when it is performed in Latter-day Saint circles, there is a line that tends to be modified. While the desire to ensure our…
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“It’s just Violence” Why I Think Sex Actually is Worse than Violence in Movies
When members of a certain stripe are discussing whether a movie is appropriate despite its R-rating it’s common to say “it’s just violence” (or another one: “there are a handful of F-bombs”). It’s also routine for members of a different stripe to bemoan the fact that sex is considered the be-all for appropriateness in movies…
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CFM 12/8-12/14 (OD 1 &2, Articles of Faith): Poetry for “We Believe”
When I think about the phrase “We Believe”, I lean to thinking that the more important word is “We” instead of the traditional focus on “Believe”. And I think the history of the early Church in the 1830s supports this focus. Many members of the Church were decidedly anti-creedal; i.e., they were against having a…
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CFM 12/1-12/7 (D&C 137-138): Poetry for “The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead”
A less-discussed principle of the gospel is the idea that it is universal—i.e, that the gospel and its blessings are available to all of God’s children, including those who are dead. The application of this belief leads to performing ordinances for the dead, a practice that is unique, as far as I know, among Christian…
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CFM 11/24-11/30 (D&C 135-136): Poetry for “ He “Has Sealed His Mission and His Works with His Own Blood”
Our feelings about Joseph Smith can often be conflicted. On one hand we revere him as the prophet of the restoration, who has “has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived.” But need to the use of the phrase “save Jesus only”…
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CFM 11/17-11/23 (D&C 133-134): Poetry for “Prepare Ye for the Coming of the Bridegroom”
It’s difficult to overestimate the importance of the second coming in the restoration. Early members of the Church thought it would come quickly, in just a few years. And they wrote and taught about that expectation. While it seems like the focus on the second coming has diminished over time, we still regularly preach and…