Breastplate of righteousness? Check. Helmet of salvation? Check. Garments of vengeance and cloke of zeal? Check, and double check. Read More

I keep telling myself this, but now I really mean it: It’s time for me to make a graceful exit. Thanks for a fun 10 days, everyone. I’ve appreciated all your comments (yes, all). If I’ve left any loose ends you want to call me on, or if you’d like to contact me for another reason, email me: kathryn (at) kathrynlynardsoper (dot) com. Cheers! Read More

A message from Jack Welch and Gideon Burton: The upcoming issue of BYU Studies, volume 46, no. 2, will be a long-awaited, double-sized issue about Mormons and film. Read More

In January 2007 the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued new guidelines recommending first-trimester Down syndrome screening for all pregnant women, regardless of age. That means this year, 4 million American women will be offered first-trimester screening for DS, and thousands will receive a positive prenatal diagnosis. This protocol is supposed to increase women’s reproductive freedom, but I fear it does just the opposite. Read More

Now working on my final guest post. Thought I’d toss a (non-related) bone in the meantime: Here are ten candid, insightful, courageous pieces from Segullah’s back issues. Enjoy! Read More

Brigham Young’s condemnation of novel reading during the last two decades of his life is a perfect example of a much-studied moment in the history of reading, the hypothesized “reading revolution” of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But the peculiar trajectory of Brigham Young’s attitude, from wary tolerance of novel reading to blanket combination of it,[1] is unusual. Read More

I’ve just been called as Gospel Doctrine teacher. Read More

I heard today from a great-grandchild (one of 30) of the little girl in the story below Read More

…about the Church’s new pamphlet on same-sex attraction? Read More

This essay was recently published in Literary Mama. I’m posting it here as a precursor to my upcoming post about prenatal testing for Down syndrome. I. In the beginning You can tell a great deal about people by the way they react when you tell them you’re going to have a retarded child. Read More

Who I am is not enough. It is necessary to become more. May 3, 2007 Been out of action nearly a month due to injury from hiking in broken-down boots. Finally bought new boots. Two days ago I made it into the canyon and found it well awakened since my last visit: trees far along in their leaves and birds flying and lizards scuttling as if there’s been no winter hiatus. Also, birds sounded fit to burst with song. Read More

When I think about the curricula available to evangelical homeschoolers, I instantly become guilty of several of the deadly sins. Oh, if I were a young earth creationist, the riches that would be mine! Read More

Summer, 2003: I was a wreck. Read More

Let not any man publish his own righteousness, for others can see that for him; sooner let him confess his sins, and then he will be forgiven and he will bring forth more fruit. (TPJS 194-195) Read More

Two years ago when Segullah made its debut I fielded lots of questions. The most frequent was this: Why a new journal? Read More

This is a talk I gave in Sacrament Meeting today. Read More

A week has passed since Pioneer Day. We remembered it here. In my sacrament meeting, where the speakers reminded us of President Hinckley’s meditation on the shade cast by the trees the pioneers planted and the “long shadow” they themselves cast in which we still find some shelter from the heat of the times. Read More

ECS wrote about this article over at FMH [1]; I’d like to take a different perspective on it–I want to tell you what I liked about it. [2] Read More

Memory is a poor substitute for feeling, and language is a poor substitute for memory; yet it is through those dual prisms that we translate the ephemeral raw material of emotion into something more permanent. And it is only that language of memory of feeling — awful, inadequate substitute that it is — that can be preserved and recounted and ultimately woven into narratives about life. Read More

I have a tattoo on my left ankle. Read More

Times & Seasons is happy to welcome our newest guest blogger, Kathryn Lynard Soper. Kathryn is a mother of seven with a passion for writing and editing creative nonfiction. Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, she’s lived in Utah since her BYU days (BA English, 1993). Founder and president of Segullah Group, Inc., Kathryn is editor-in-chief of Segullah: Writings by Latter-day Saint Women and editor of Gifts: Mothers Reflect on How Children with Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives (Woodbine Press, 2007). She recently published personal essays inLiterary Mama, Meridian Magazine, and Mamazine, and is currently writing a memoir about her first… Read More

One of the frequent laments about Mormon literature is that so much of the Mormon experience is tied to spiritual experience, which is very difficult to describe in prose. Mormon authors facing that problem could learn a trick or two from Stephen King. Read More

We sometimes hear two related but distinct chains of reasoning about the consequences of what are perceived as womens’ natural tendencies. Chain One: Women are naturally more spiritual than men. Read More

And just where is the dustbin of history these days, you ask? It’s at Amazon, where the pitiless laws of supply and demand are on full display in the “used books” queue attached to every book title. That’s where I rescued a like-new copy of Claudia and Richard Bushman’s Building the Kingdom of God: A History of Mormons in America (OUP, 2001) for the price of $0.03. [And that’s three times what the lowest-priced copies are selling for today!] Read More

See here. Read More

We moved into our house on the first weekend of January, 1980. One reason we chose it was that it reminded us of Pennsylvania, where we did graduate work. (The other reason? It was the only house we afford because the seller gave us great terms.) Read More

The postal rate for periodicals is expected to rise significantly this week, due to changes in the ways rates are calculated. Read More