Snow White. If on Christmas Day of 1975 you were for some harebrained reason outside on the frozen Belgian tundra and you squinted up your eyes against the shiny white landscape to look east from the edge of the little town called Zichem, then you would’ve almost certainly noticed in the houseless distance the improbable sight of four overcoated and possibly harebrained missionaries-dressed-as-local-businessmen trudging along a slippery, messy path next to a big field.
Category: Cornucopia
The Kingdom of God Is Within You
Would you like to learn more about how to not just brownout when you kneel down in prayer? It’s a good New Year’s resolution: learning how to be still and listen for God.
Resolved:
I generally hate New Year’s Resolutions, mostly because experience has taught me that I will fail to carry through. I don’t like failing. It seems that we usually pick for resolutions something about which we are conflicted. The resolution may be about losing weight, which is the conflict of habit and genetics against a health or aesthetic ideal. Or it may be about exercising, or getting enough sleep, or devoting time for personal scripture study and meditation, or it may be about losing weight. Most Mormons are able to avoid the common resolutions about drinking and smoking less, but we still want to spend more time with our families, get out of debt, and volunteer more. But this year, in a moment of inspiration, I hit upon a resolution for this year, one that I believe I can actually keep. Here’s the rub though: I can’t tell you what it is. This isn’t like blowing out the candles on your birthday cake and not telling anyone the wish because if you do, it won’t come true. It’s because speaking the resolution would be a violation of the resolution. For example, let’s say I had some difficulty getting along with a family member in the past, and my resolution is to not complain about that person any more. By saying, “My resolution is to complain about X,” I am actually in a passive aggressive way complaining about X. Saying that I’m…
The Council in the Preexistence (medieval Antichrist edition)
In the twelfth century, Walter of Chatillon wrote a rather pessimistic appraisal of the world’s condition.
A Mission Dream For the Last Day of Autumn
Five-Sense Gray. 9:15 in the morning in the very late autumn in Belgium. It’s barely and unenthusiastically light because the sun has just come grudgingly up (if you call ten feet above the horizon up), and because the heavens are so blanketed with clouds that whatever slivers of rays manage to get through are absorbed right away into the gray. Belgian towns aren’t colorful in any sort of autumn or winter light, but in this particular flannel-gray sort they might as well just go ahead and say it: we are thoroughgoingly monochrome.
A Letter to a Friend
Below is the text of a letter that I wrote about a year ago to a close friend who was in the midst of a crisis of faith. I have edited it to remove any identifying information: Dear Friend, It was a pleasure to talk with you earlier. I am sorry to hear about the spiritual and intellectual difficulties that you have been struggling with. You are — quite literally — in my prayers. I have thought a great deal about what you told me of your struggles with faith and the Restoration. I hesitate to offer any advice or “solutions” to your difficulties, both because I don’t know precisely what troubles you and because I realize that when one opens up the hurting parts of one’s soul often a sympathetic listener rather than a fix-it guy is what is of most value. With that apology, let me offer a couple of thoughts. I don’t think that a faithful life is something that flows out of a full theological reconciliation. That is, I don’t think that we are tasked with answering all of our theological questions and doubts and only once that reconciliation has been effected commit ourselves to living a faithful life. I realize that this runs counter to much of the rhetoric in the church, rhetoric that is borrowed in large part from our proselytizing efforts. According to this model, one is given a revelation of the truthfulness…
What the Smith Boys Said
Book of Mormon (Stories) Girl
I’m no longer of the opinion that religion matters because it makes life meaningful. Religion, it seems to me, makes meaning rather the way breathing makes CO2: as leavings, as tailings. That’s fine. Meaning may follow, but it’s meant to be exhaled. If you hold your breath, you’ll suffocate.
BMGD #48: Moroni 7-8 and 10
A Prayer of Sorrow and Hope
On this day, on every day, let us mourn with those who mourn. For our hearts are broken, and all the sorrow and pain and suffering of the world has fallen in the shattered shells of ourselves. Let us take us these fragile broken pieces and lay them on Thine altar. Let us make our broken hearts an offering unto Thee. O, God, we hurt. O God, let us find some comfort, some peace, in doing Thy work, in mourning with those who mourn, and comforting those who stand in need of comfort. Lord, forgive us our sins, on this day, on every day.
Wearing Pants
Everybody’s talking about pants. And having already recently conducted my own private (and unrelated) “wear pants to church” event, I thought it would be an opportune time to share my thoughts here. I had been contemplating wearing pants to church for awhile and had several reasons for doing it, although when it actually came down to it, the choice to wear pants on that particular Sunday had mostly to do with the fact that I was exhausted from taking care of sick family members and my dress pants were clean and pressed, while my skirt was not. Turns out, though, I liked wearing pants. They worked a lot better for playing the organ than my knee-length skirts (which tend to ride up as I move my feet around on the pedals) or my long skirts (which I never wear on Sundays when it’s my turn to play because they trip me up on the pedals). I was comfortably warm in the chapel for the first time in many months. I got a chance to wear the nice slacks my mother-in-law bought me last year, and which I don’t really have much occasion to don in my stay-at-home Mormon mom life. Wearing pants also made me more aware of how members or visitors might feel who stand out as different at church, whether it’s because of their clothing, marital status, race, tobacco odor, or whatever other reason. My biggest reason for…
Missions and language learning
How well does the average missionary who goes to a foreign country learn his or her mission language?