Category: Mormon Arts
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Church + Music = Fun
Music is a wonderfully enriching part of church life, both in worship services themselves and in church culture generally. It’s a blessing in many, many ways—including ways that are light-hearted and fun. Forgive me, then, for sharing the following not-so-serious and rather random stories with a musical twist. (1) The ward where I grew up…
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Letting Go
Thanks so much for all the fun. Before departing, I leave this layered perspective on parenthood and then return you to your regular T&S, already in progress.
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Sacred Spaces, Holy Ground
We, the children of our Heavenly Father, naturally make places where we can draw closer to Him. Almost all of us do it- in some way- all over the world. The thoughts and efforts we put into these holy places reflect our theology, values, hopes and desires.
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A Mormon Image: Smiles
“…make the world a better place by smiling all the while.” (Primary Song #267) From the author of salt lake architecture and green mormon architect blogs.
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A Mormon Image: Memorial
from Bill of Wasilla, who writes: Dad is the man who lies in this flag-draped coffin. I will not say too much about him for now, except that he was a good father and that, thanks to him, and many more like him, most of them gone now, the evil dream of a man named…
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A Mormon Image: Guardian Angel
This is a statue of an angel in the cemetery where my first baby is burried. I like that she’s smiling. Death is heartbreaking but it’s not only sad. I am also filled with hope when I think about my son. He is alive and happy and we can be an eternal family. It has…
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A Mormon Image: House of Learning
My sister studies outside the John Taylor building on the campus of Brigham Young University- Idaho. “..seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” D&C 88:118 by Blake
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Halloween Costumes and Inner Conflict
Halloween scares me. Of course, I’m scared of lots of things—poverty, cancer, rape, gang violence, Satan, etc. I thought I should admit that up front. Make of it what you will.
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A Mormon Image: Preparing for the Wedding Reception
Photo by L-s Sus, who writes: The picture is of my wife and son and was taken at my sister’s wedding. It captures many themes that resonate with my concept of Mormon identity: Family, Motherhood, Nurturing, and Beauty. It also reminds me that we have benevolent heavenly parents who reach down and give assistance, and…
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Photo Series: A Mormon Image
In an effort to increase the beauty-to-blather ratio around here, we’d like to kick off a new series of posts featuring photos and other images which carry meaning to us because they resonate with our Mormonness. And we’d like to include all of you in this project. That is, we’re inviting you all to send…
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My Teen Swears in the Name of Art
They immersed themselves in the characters and, by so doing, opened the door to deeply significant conversations between the cast, their parents, and the community. Artistic explorations have the power to touch us deeply, in ways that detached discussion about concepts cannot.
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Corianton – An Unholy Review
Short review of Corianton: By today’s standards, it wasn’t a very good movie. But by 1931 standards? Well, it wasn’t a very good movie.
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Let Them Praise His Name in the Dance!
I went on one of the best dates I’ve been on in some time tonight – my daughter and I went to BYU’s World of Dance.
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Rough Dawn Breaking
The marble skin of Joseph’s perfectly-muscled chest sparkled like diamonds in the Palmyra sun. Emma stared, captivated by the velvet tones of his voice, the intoxicating scent of his tousled bronze hair. “You should stay away from me,” he had warned her moodily. “I’m too dangerous.” But he couldn’t seem to stay away from her…
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Mormon prayer and Mormon art
If you want to find a unique Mormon tradition of verbal art, you should listen to Mormons pray
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Jer3miah, The Great Mormon Novel, and The Problem with Mormon Media
The Book of Jer3miah phenomenon has been noticed on Salon, coincidentally just as an ill-advised Mormon Times essay touched off strong reactions by suggesting that the Great Mormon Novel could never exist.
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Uber-Deep and Important Doctrinal Questions
After reading the post from a couple days ago about optimal tithing rates, I started to think about some of the unanswered questions that have come to mind while I’ve been playing Brick Breaker in Elder’s Quorum pondering the mysteries of the Gospel. It seems like this audience might be able to offer some differing…
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What Do We Mean by Non-Profit?
I heard the following story at Sam Wellers about some local LDS Church units and selling books. I don’t know when this happened or who it was — no doubt someone here knows the story better than I do, or knows of a similar story — but it strikes me as the kind of thing…
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What My Father Did
A few weeks ago my father retired after spending three decades working for the Church Historical Department. I’m no doubt guilty of an excess of filial piety, but I think that the Church and Kingdom are better for the work that he did.
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Regarding Carol Lynn Pearson
Over the holidays I discovered the poetry of Carol Lynn Pearson, which I have been enjoying. At times she spills over into the trite or saccharine, but on the whole I like it. There is nothing agonistic about it, which is the reason that Terryl Givens doesn’t much care for it. I think that he’s…
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Relics
The Book of Mormon is a reliquary in prose. In some extensive sections and at some critical moments, what drives the narrative is the question: how did a set of golden plates, a steel sword, a ball of curious workmanship, a breastplate, and two translucent stones end up inside a stone box buried in a…
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Hum together, right now
While the candidates have been talking the talk about cooperation and unity, a few humble LDS editors have been walking the walk.
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Mormon Halloween: Its Origin and Destiny
I’m not sure whether or not Halloween is actually “Mormon” to any significant degree. Mormons generally participate in the holiday here in the U.S., of course. And we even have a few requirements of the holiday in a Church setting — for example, we don’t allow masks at Church-sponsored Halloween events. But I don’t think…
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Key to the Culture of Mormons
Last Saturday I gave a walking tour of Mormon history sites in lower Manhattan, one of the services our stake history committee offers regularly. One stop on the tour is the location where an early LDS newspaper, The Mormon, was published by John Taylor. That newspaper featured an interesting statement in its masthead–what it called…
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Mormons Like the Suburbs
For my last post as a guest blogger, I have written something a lot more dough headed than the stuff usually posted on this blog. This is a flavor of what I am up to on my own dough headed blog. While I hope you enjoy it, I also want to thank Times & Seasons…
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M Gets a Joke
A while back our household sat down to watch an episode of Monk. We like Monk because not only is it funny, it’s also sad and tender and offers good – sometimes very good – cultural satire. As I fed M she kept turning her head to look at the TV, watching whatever it is…
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“Mormonism”: A Perfect Storm
Library Journal this month ran an interesting article offering a big-picture perspective on the world of LDS and LDS-related publishing, highlighting close to 40 books on doctrine, history, sociology, comparative theology and devotional topics, as well as periodicals, video, and internet resources. The article’s aim is to help librarians choose recent, reliable books about Mormonism,…