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!
BYU Studies cinema
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.
A little knowledge
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.
Extra-ordinary
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!
Brigham Young and the history of reading in the West
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.
Teach me diligently
I’ve just been called as Gospel Doctrine teacher.
My Love Letter to Boy Scouts
I heard today from a great-grandchild (one of 30) of the little girl in the story below
What think ye…
…about the Church’s new pamphlet on same-sex attraction?
Bitter, Sweet
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.
Fields Notes #3
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.
Book Review: Head Start with the Book of Mormon
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!
Coming Home
Summer, 2003: I was a wreck.
True Confessions
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)
Hearing Voices
Two years ago when Segullah made its debut I fielded lots of questions. The most frequent was this: Why a new journal?
To the Mountains of Ephraim
This is a talk I gave in Sacrament Meeting today.
From the Archives: Pioneer Children
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.
The Hafens on Equality
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]
(Language of) Memory of Feeling
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.
Fleshy Tablets
I have a tattoo on my left ankle.
Times & Seasons Welcomes Kathryn Lynard Soper
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 year mothering her son Thomas, who has Down syndrome. In her leftover time she practices survival housekeeping and indulges her delusions of grandeur. Welcome Kathryn!
Field Notes #2
We might use language in our attempts to set boundaries, but language contains in microcosmic acts the macrocosmic thrust toward new form. November 4, 2006 The trail into the canyon is rougher at November’s threshold; run-off from recent storms took the same trail to the canyon’s main water course that I must take.
Mormon literature: the horror, the horror?
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.
Chains
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.
Rescued From the Dustbin of History
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!]