Publishers Weekly announced their list of the top ten religion books for 2011 recently.
Category: Cornucopia
As Sisters In Zion
Here are the original words to this hymn.
A Prophet Occupies Wall Street
This from then-member of the Quorum of the Twelve Spencer W. Kimball in the October 1953 General Conference:
The Boy Scout Thing Redux
It started when I was about four-years-old. My oldest brother became a Cub Scout — and got a uniform and badges and all sorts of awesome awards and activities. As soon as I could read, I began pouring over Boys’ Life…and coveting. We didn’t even have Achievement Days/Activity Day back then (not that it compares, but still), so I begged my parents to let me be a Brownie in the Girl Scouts organization. Alas, the church leadership had strongly recommended avoiding the heathen group, which left the girls with…nothing. For 43 years I’ve carried this uneasiness about the disparity between the programs provided for boys and girls, between the budgets allotted to the boys and girls, between the recognition given to boys and girls, about the excuses given for the disparity. As the mother of four girls, it bothers me more now than when I was young. Even now, girls have a years-long program that results in a certificate and a piece of costume jewelry — often handed to them unceremoniously in sacrament meeting — while boys receive badge after badge after pin after pin and one recognition event followed by another that culminates in the ulitimate Court of Honor. A couple of weeks ago a man in the ward called me to let me know that someone would be dropping by to collect my annual “voluntary” scouting donation. I took a deep breath and — for the first time…
Thrift as a Principle of Stewardship
In my post last month, I wrote about fundamental scripture based doctrine that lead us to value the earth. Now I would like to demonstrate that Mormons care for the earth through their stewardship, primarily in the management of our own homes and families. The first principle of stewardship is thrift. If we as a people live by the principle of thrift, we will as a natural result consume less and be in a position to serve more. Using our resources, financial and otherwise, wisely is the first step in becoming the stewards that God expects us to be. If we all are economical about the use of our time, money, and resources, then we will be, in practice, a very green people.
The Manner In Which I’m Mormon: My Articles of Faith
Over the past ten years, my approach to the doctrines of the church has shifted dramatically. I’m Mormon now in a very different way than I was then. With the various discussions attempting to define what it means to be Mormon, I thought I’d share what it means to me (well, what it means to me at this time — check back in ten more years and we’ll see where things are at). I believe that the religion that does nothing for people in this life isn’t likely to do much for them in the next. The church is true to the extent that it is useful. (Yes, that makes me a philosophical utilitarian.) I believe that exposure to a variety of information and experiences (including those that are disagreeable, challenging, or foreign) is the foundation of discovering truth. It is our responsibility to seek out and understand positions that conflict with our own so that we can obtain perspective. However, I believe that even a perfect knowledge of truth wouldn’t give us the power to convey that knowledge perfectly to others. Language is limited, and the interpretation of language depends heavily on the context of the listener. Two individuals can hear the same principle taught and understand it in two very different ways — even to the extent that truth taught to one person can become falsehood by that person’s understanding of it. I believe that worship is the act of…
Where do BYU students come from?
Schedule (abridged)
Friday, October 28: 9:00 am: Decorate church building
BYU Women’s Studies Conference
I hope to see some of y’all there.
Chicken Little Eating Crickets: When a mindset turns a windfall into a catastrophe
The panic prone little bird concluded the sky was falling, heralding the end of all creation when a nut fell from the tree above him, bonking him on the head. Something had indeed fallen, giving him a slight injury, but it was not the sky. It was actually lunch–vital sustenance handed to him, a grace independent of all merit on Chicken Little’s part.
Designed to Meet Needs
(This is the third part in a series about my vision for a community. Here’s Part One and Part Two.) Time to look at distribution of labor, education and job skills, and self-determination. … Like I said previously, I’m targeting a $1,000-per-month lifestyle that covers food and housing for a family. In practice, the way I imagine implementing it is with a three-tier system: Tier 1: $2,000/month Tier 2: $1,000/month + part-time community maintenance Tier 3: $0/month + full-time community employment Each tier is designed to meet a different individual need. Tier 1 is for people who have money and/or good employment, and who just want to escape from the mundane responsibilities of life. They’d have their meals, laundry, grounds maintenance, etc. taken care of. Kind of a sustainably affordable vacation resort, albeit in a shed-cabin. Tier 2 is for people who want to make enough money to support a family while doing work that they love. In Alison’s words, they are the one’s who want to spend their time “painting sunsets”…or running a dance studio, or writing novels, or throwing pottery, or researching and publishing on obscure academic topics. The idea is that you might not be able to make enough money doing that to support a family in a conventional modern American lifestyle, but you could probably pull it off here. The trade-off is spending some number of hours each week (probably in the 10 to 20 range)…
Mormons and Muslims
I had a university professor who lived in Iran and ran a television program dedicated to classical Persian music prior to the Islamic revolution. He spent a lot of time during the seventies crossing sketchy borders into various ‘Stans. One of his tools for successful border crossing (not to mention survival) was a pamphlet he wrote himself, highlighting similarities between Mormons and Muslims; things like a founding prophet, directly revealed scripture, fasting, and polygamy. I was intrigued by his comparisons, and this class was one of the many things that prompted me to study Arabic and learn more about Islam. It’s sad to me that so many Mormons (like Americans in general) have negative and badly stereotyped views of Muslims. As adherents ourselves to a religion that often seems to get more than its share of unfair and unfounded criticism, we can afford a deeper look. During the time I’ve spent in Muslim countries (and with Muslims in this country), I have noticed quite a few points in which Mormons and Muslims have more in common than either group does with other denominations of Christians. One of the first that seems to come up is alcohol. If you go out to a restaurant and decline to order wine, your American waiter will think you’re cheap, your Italian waiter will think you’re crazy, and your Tunisian waiter will light up in pleasure and disbelief, commend you for your temperance, and tell you this…
Breaking Gender Stereotypes at the Dinner Table
Given that my wife is female and her heavy and varied involvement with food (cooking school, PhD in Food Studies (scroll to bottom), sometimes-food-blog, etc.), most people assume she’s doing all the cooking at our house. Not so. In fact, even before we were married, I did so much of it that at our sealing we laughed when Grampa said (tweaking us both in turn), “Now Ben, when you come home, and C. has burned the roast…” We maintain a strict division of labor in the kitchen. She does all the baking, and most of the French and American food. I do most of the Mexican, Asian (except Korean), and pseudo-Italian food. And so I present below a recipe I made up, good for fall. It’s become a favorite at our house, and it packs a good punch. What I love most is when people compliment C. on it, and she disarmingly says “Oh, Ben made it.” Italian Lentil Stew Ingredients Spicy Italian sausage. (Don’t worry about the “spicy” part. It mixes in with lots of other stuff. I’ve made it with 6 links and made it with 3, it just depends how “meaty” you want the stew.) 4-5 cups Lentils (I’ve made it with both red and green. Green break down less, but I prefer the color of red.) 1-2 Large Onions, medium dice. Bag of spinach 5 good-sized carrots (peeled, diced into medium size. You want them soft…
Building the Dream City
In my previous post about the principles that would govern my ideal community (affordability, space, distribution of labor, technology, education and job skills, and self-determination), several of you made comments and asked questions about how those principles might work in practice. Here are my thoughts. … Affordability Across the street from my workplace is a Lowe’s (Lowe’s is a hardware/supplies store, for those of you that aren’t familiar with it). The Lowe’s parking lot has a bunch of sheds. Being the odd kind of guy I am, I took a tour of the sheds during lunch one day, and discovered that sheds are a lot cooler than I thought. One looks like this: It’s about 100 sq ft (9.2 sq m) with a workbench at one end. It’s got enough space to lay out a couple of futons, and the workbench could make a decent dining bar. But my favorite is this one: It’s a little bigger, at 120 sq ft (11.1 sq m), but best of all it’s really tall and has a loft storage area. The first one is about $1,000 and the second is about $2,000. Best of all, they’re stick built, which means they could theoretically be insulated and drywalled. I figure that a tricked out shed would come to about $5,000. … Now, before you try and burst my bubble and tell me that no one wants to live in a shed, let me say —…
The Hundred Dresses
Not being able to apologize may be worse than admitting you are wrong.
The World I Choose
My first posts at Times & Seasons were about building zion-like communities. I’ve wanted to expand on those posts in the year and a half since I originally wrote them, but whenever I try the words refuse to come. Why? In part it’s because communities are difficult and complicated. Mostly, however, it’s because the ideal community that I envision is so dear to me that it pains me to put it into words. I feel like the words do violence to the vision, and a part of me fears that, in transit from vision to writing, the vision might get lost. That said, I’ve reached a point where I realize that there’s no moving forward until I’m willing to get started. So here’s my vision of the place I hope to inhabit. … First is affordability. Life is too wonderful to spend it worrying about finances, and too short to spend unnecessary hours in the workplace. I hope to spend the time I have in the society of my loved ones, in appreciation of art and nature, in creative works, and in learning through study and observation. I think the first trick to making all of that happen is to live affordably. My target number would be to have expenditures somewhere around $1,000 per month in food and housing for my whole family. … Next is space. The $1,000 per month target isn’t really all that unrealistic on its own.…
Benedictus
The theologian is indispensible. She is the not-thoughtless. She takes no thought because she gives it. And the more she gives it away, the more it multiplies.
Definitely a cult. Maybe.
A recent CNN blog post referred to a “cult” and described their sacred rituals as “completely violent, mind controlling and alarming.” Indeed? Let’s examine. The worshippers gather together in the countryside, on the land of the leader’s extended family. He stands at an altar before them and shouts in a loud voice, reciting the strict and detailed requirements of the adherents which he claims (don’t they always claim this?) came from God, governing their eating habits, sexual habits, hygiene habits, even where they can live and whom they can marry. The worshippers chant their agreement in unison after each rule is read out, agreeing to all he tells them God says. After reiterating these “laws” hand-picked young men loyal to the leader slit the throats of cattle, and begin splashing the cow blood all over the adherents, binding them to the cult community and strict obedience, on pain of death by throat cutting. “Completely violent, mind controlling and alarming” and just so weird. Definitely a cult, yeah? …oh wait, false alarm, pitchforks down, everyone. It’s the Law of Moses and Exodus 24 (slightly conflated with some Deuteronomy and rearranged for polemic effect). What exactly is going on here? Covenant rituals often involved animal sacrifice, as a way of ratifying the covenant and symbolizing, often rather graphically, the downside to violating the covenant. Indeed, one “cuts” a covenant in Hebrew. In other words, while we hear often about the blessings of…
Elder Oaks Testifying Before Congress Today
For those interested, Elder Dallin H. Oaks is testifying right now before the Senate Finance Committee on tax reform, specifically incentives for charitable giving. He is testifying at the request of Senator Hatch.
Theologians Anonymous
1. We admitted we were powerless over our theologies — that our thoughts had become unmanageable.
Homeschooling Then and Now
As was mentioned in my introduction a week or so ago, my parents homeschooled us “back in the good old days when homeschooling was weird and subversive, not hip and progressive.” I’m now homeschooling my own children, and it’s interesting to note how the movement has evolved during the past 25 years. My adjectives describing the change don’t fit perfectly, of course, but they are representative of general trends, at least in how the perception of homeschooling has changed. When my mother decided she’d like to keep me home from kindergarten in 1985, it was a bizarre and scary thing to do. She’d learned about homeschooling while taking a class from Reed Benson at BYU. He lent her a copy of his doctoral dissertation on homeschooling, and told her about his nine homeschooled children. So she hunted down some of the books he recommended by John Holt, the father of the modern American homeschooling movement, and decided to try out this radical but exciting idea on her firstborn child. Me. One thing I remember vividly from those early years of homeschooling was how many random people thought my education was their business. I was often given a surprise pop quiz about history or the multiplication table by supermarket checkers, moms at the park, or even skeptical aunts and uncles. Anyone at all, and especially off-duty school teachers, felt it was incumbent upon them to make sure my parents weren’t committing…
Beyond Translation: Job and Isaiah at Ugarit? Part 2
In Part 1, I promised some Biblical examples of where translation alone fails to convey all the meaning an Israelite would have grasped. I’ve broken these examples into three fuzzy categories. 1) Israel is often described in the Torah as a “land flowing with milk and honey.” We probably all have milk and honey in our kitchen, yet not quite what is described here. In the Old Testament, milk doesn’t usually come from cows, and honey doesn’t come from bees. Cattle were primarily used for beef, while milk came primarily from goats, only rarely from cattle. Israelites didn’t raise bees, so honey was likely difficult to acquire. “Honey” was a boiled-down thick sweet syrup, usually made from dates or some other fruit, though on rare occasion “honey” does seem to clearly indicate bee-honey. Israel, we might say then, was “a land oozing with chèvre and fruit-honey.” 2) Several times in Genesis 1, curious circumlocutions appear. There’s no mention of the sun or moon, but “greater light” and “lesser light.” Even though the account culminates in the seventh day, the Sabbath, there’s no mention of “sabbath.” And lastly, though we have the world bifurcated into water and dry land, the seas are mysteriously plural. All of these are explainable via polemical context. First, both the sun (shemesh) and moon (yareach) were also the names of those deities outside Israel, just as Ra designated both sun and sun-god in Egypt. We can…
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
I read Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy over the weekend for the first time since high school. I was glad to see that it’s a book that ages well. As a teenager I enjoyed it as a fun, imaginative science fiction romp. Now I appreciate it as a commentary on the absurdity of life and the immanence of death. (Speaking of which, this book fits in quite nicely with my previous post on Halloweeen. Hitchhiker’s Guide is definitely a Halloween classic, at least in the way I look at Halloween.) The story is essentially a series of unrelated and random events, all designed to illustrate that life is senseless and bizarre, and that trying to find any sort of meaning in it is an exercise in futility. The vignette that best sums up what I believe to be Adams’ thesis is the bit about the nuclear missile that turns into a sperm whale, which I’ll quote in full here: … Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more. This is a complete record of its thoughts…
Daily Bread
“Give us this day, our daily bread, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This is the prayer in my heart, the words my mind speaks each time I cut a slice of bread. I don’t bake bread every day, but all of the bread my family eats, I have baked. This is cause for gratitude. I am able to make bread, good bread, to feed my family. I am home enough to wait through the rises. I am strong enough to knead the dough. I have a reliable oven in which to bake, sunny warm spots free of drafts for rising. I have a grinder for my wheat and a carefully stored up abundant supply of ingredients. I have a dozen recipes I use regularly, switching breads as whim, weather or ingredients on hand dictate. Some of my slow rising breads I only make in summer when my house is warm. Made in winter, those end up as dense, compact loaves. I am thankful I’ve been baking long enough to build up this repertoire, this knowledge of accumulated experience. And the bread is good. My husband took a class in baking artisan bread during grad school. He loves good bread and enjoyed working the dough. But he’s never had the time to develop the feel for the dough that he needs to produce consistently excellent bread. It’s hard to do if you’re an occasional weekend chef.…
Can God Proscribe Behavior?
First of all, I want to be clear where I’m coming from. I would call myself a faithful member of the church. I pretty much go along with all the “orthodox” Mormon stuff. I’m not cafeteria. I’m not New Order. I’m stereotypical, boring, Happy Valley Mormon — except that I despise scrapbooking. Second of all, I think asking questions, searching for insight, and being uncomfortable with parts of Mormonism don’t make me, ipso facto, unfaithful. Nor do I think doing so is bad, wrong, or problematic. In case you haven’t noticed, I have problems with church gender issues and polygamy. And leaders who micro-manage. And serving in Primary. But not too much else. Third (of all), I would like sincere feedback. Hold back on snark, please. I’ll censor freely. In my last post, “Shunning the Unbelievers“, a subject came up on which I’d like more input. The idea was presented that if we want “things to get better” we have to insist that the status quo is not acceptable. In my case, for example, if I want gender issues to “get better,” I need to demand that the current situation is wrong. Here’s my problem. I don’t know that it is wrong. It feels wrong to me in some cases. It seems unfair. But I’m not convinced that my feelings are really relevant. No, it’s not that as a woman I’ve been beaten into submission, have no confidence in my…
Rachel Whipple joins Times and Seasons
We’re big fans of Rachel’s posts and comments, and so we’re awfully happy to announce that she is joining Times and Seasons as our newest permablogger. For anyone unfamiliar with her blogging, Rachel’s introduction can be found here, and her posts are here. Welcome to the group, Rachel!
Halloween and the Extended Christmas Season
For me, Christmastime starts around the end of September, with the first hints of autumn coolness. It extends through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, and ends sometime around mid-February. My calendar looks something like this: Christmastime (September through February) The Wet & Cold Season (March through May) The Hot & Dry Season (June through August) Being yet the beginning of October, we’re still right around my new year. When the relentless Sacramento summer heat starts to withdraw and I need to roll my windows up for my morning commutes, I feel the stirrings of new life in me. I get nostalgic for the past, and excited for the possibilities in the future. I think of the holidays during this season as extensions of Christmas. Even the Christmas holiday itself is an extension of the Christmastime season. Thanksgiving and Halloween and New Year’s. And sometimes Valentine’s, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter, depending on how long my Christmastime season lasts. Each of these holidays is a distinctive manifestation of one of the facets of Christmastime. Each attempts to capture a different species of joy and gratitude. Halloween is a special one, because I feel that it’s so misunderstood. It’s really two holidays in one. The first — the one that gets all the attentions — is the celebration of wildness and abandon, symbolized through candy grabs, nighttime adventures, costumes and parties. This is the part of Halloween that celebrates fright, gore,…
Times & Seasons Welcome Sarah Bringhurst Familia
Times & Seasons is pleased to introduce Sarah Bringhurst Familia as our newest guest blogger. Sarah grew up in California, where she and her four siblings were homeschooled (back in the good old days when homeschooling was weird and subversive, not hip and progressive). She received her BA in Near Eastern Studies at BYU, and served a mission in Santiago, Chile. After their marriage and the birth of their first child, Sarah and her husband Tony took their two-month-old baby on a summer field study to the Philippines, where they slept in nipa huts, backpacked into mountain villages, and caught an incurable travel bug. Since then, they’ve lived in Italy, Ireland, and most recently Tunisia. Sarah enjoys playing the piano and folk harp, writing poetry, learning languages, and ethnic cooking. She is continuing the family homeschooling tradition, and spends way too much time cobbling together the perfect curriculum while the kids dig for bugs in the dirt. She recently returned to California with her husband and two children, and blogs about travel, homeschooling, Middle East events, and day-to-day life at Casteluzzo.com.
The Manner in Which I’m Mormon: My First Principles and Ordinances
The first principles and ordinances in my life, borne of my experiences and observations, are these: Exposure, which leads to awareness, or, in other words, the knowledge of good and evil Awareness, which leads to gratitude and wonder Wonder, which leads to vision and discipline Discipline, which leads to understanding and becoming Understanding, which leads to humility and perspective Becoming and perspective, which lead to joy, which is sustainable happiness Sustainable happiness, which is the purpose of life They aren’t as concise as the 4th Article of Faith, but they work for me. Also, they are a work in progress. There are missing pieces. For example, you see that there’s nothing in there about our relationships with others — nothing about love, kindness, family, or friendship. Those are deeply important to me, but I’m not sure how they fit into the structure I have here. As I make more sense of the life, things, and the world, my first principles and ordinances will change. That said, I’m pretty confident in putting “exposure” at the root of the tree. It is the base ordinance (or principle or virtue…I’m not quite consistent in distinguishing between those three terms yet.) Without exposure to foreign ideas and experiences, we will never have the perspective necessary to judge the useful from the less useful, the “happifying” (to take a word from Brigham Young) from the merely “contentifying”. I believe that is the lesson of 2…
Mormons without the Mormon Church
In his recent conference address, Elder Ballard emphasized that we must avoid the name “Mormon Church” and instead use as much as possible the official, full name of the Church. His message stems from two concerns: (1) the missing association with the name “Jesus Christ”, hence no immediate recognition of the Church as Christian. (2) the potential confusion with other groups, in particular polygamist groups, that are referred to as “Mormon.”