Ben tells me that a few words of personal introduction are in order, both to introduce myself (since up to this point I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been a stranger to the blogosphere) and hopefully to contextualize some of what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll write over the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
I should say at the outset that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m quite pleased to be here. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m particularly honored to be invited by Ben Huff, who has been a close friend during my seven years here in South Bend, Indiana. Those of you who read the virtual Ben Huff know his incisive mind and profound thoughtfulness about all things moral, ethical, and spiritual. Those of us who know him in person are blessed with his warmth, wit, laughter, loyalty, compassion, deep integrity, and friendship in its truest forms. He is one of the deepest and most endearing people I know. I was also fortunate to be in South Bend during Adam Greenwood\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all-too-brief (and all-too-full) three years here. We had many a late-night chat that often ended with me thinking that there is no one in this world who drives me crazier but also inspires and teaches me more than Adam. I probably just drove him crazy.<\/p>\n
Notre Dame has been my home for several years now, first as a graduate student in American history and now as a guy with a Ph.D. who is hanging around trying to figure out what the rest of his life will look like. When I came here I said I would stay until the football team wins a national championship. I’m still here.<\/p>\n
The best thing about South Bend has been meeting and marrying one Melissa De Leon. The first thing my mom said when I told her I was going to Notre Dame was, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Notre Dame? How are you going to find a good Mormon girl there?\u00e2\u20ac? It took a circuitous route, but the short answer is that Providence is alive and well, and it helped me immensely to be in a ward where there were very few other single men to vie for an attractive and accomplished woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention and ultimately affection. At the end of this month we celebrate our 18-month anniversary\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6yes, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still in the counting-months stage.<\/p>\n
Professionally, I study race, religion, and violence. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the question, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we all just get along?\u00e2\u20ac? is as silly as it sounds. Like President Hinckley in his most recent address in priesthood session, I just have a hard time figuring out why people are so ugly to one another. Many people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like studying violence because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s depressing. Peaceable by nature, I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m able to study racism, bigotry, and violence\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe darkness in human history\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbecause I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m quite confident in the power of the light of Christ to guide me, and us, back. I suppose I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a bit na\u00c3\u00afve.<\/p>\n
Finally, when I was at the MHA conference a couple weeks ago, I looked around and thought to myself, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is where I belong. These are my people.\u00e2\u20ac? I always feel like a bit of an interloper in the broader academic world, not because anyone has told me I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t belong, but because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not always sure I want to fully belong\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut then again, perhaps it is only sanity to feel like a stranger in a strange land when the land is indeed strange. My experience is that most academics–even, or especially, the religious ones–think that Mormonism is ridiculous and that Mormons are fascinating. I take both as compliments (although it took me a while to sort out the first part). I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never had the seemingly requisite crisis of faith and\/or identity, simply a series of rediscoveries of what Mormonism is that never cease to surprise, delight, and madden me, often in ways that I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t distinguish between the three.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ben tells me that a few words of personal introduction are in order, both to introduce myself (since up to this point I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been a stranger to the blogosphere) and hopefully to contextualize some of what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll write over the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}