Like most rugged and red-blooded American men I have long enjoyed the work of Jane Austen. (more…)

While the Bloggernacle was ablaze with commentary on the June 29 First Presidency letter to California Mormons (see interesting updates here and here) plenty of posts on other timely topics were zipping through cyberspace. (more…)

I recently finished Bart D. Ehrman’s latest book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer (HarperCollins, 2008). Like all Ehrman’s books, it is both informative and troubling. (more…)

I’m reading a commentary on Psalms and in the section on the authorship of the Psalms, the writer has this to say: (more…)

According to an article in the New York Times today, evidence of Jewish belief in a resurrected Messiah decades before Christ’s birth may have been discovered. (more…)

Let the eagle scream. (more…)

The anniversary of Shelby Foote’s death has just passed us and the Fourth of July is almost upon us. (more…)

From the Archives– -more-

Let’s read the Book of Mormon as a commentary on American constitutional law and vice versa. Alma 30:7-10 reads: (more…)

The temple plays a role in the social life of European Mormons that is significantly different in a couple of ways from the usual American experience. (more…)

On the sweetness of Mormon life, with apologies to Adam: (more…)

The Inklings has introduced me to Charles Williams, who was an odd sort of Christian. (more…)

Let’s call her Sister Jones. We both taught seminary in Northern California a few years ago. I liked her from day one: faithful, funny, and willing to lend out anything from her complete collection of Sunstone back issues. (This was in the days before full Internet access, you see.) (more…)

So asks Ronan. Here’s my polygamy theory–and it is worth every penny you paid for it: (more…)

The July 2008 Ensign has an article titled “Cancer, Nutrition, and the Word of Wisdom.” I think it is ill-advised for several reasons. (more…)

I was recently rereading my missionary journals. (more…)

Here’s your chance to discuss the week’s links. (more…)

They still make Westerns because the harsh, unforgiving West of the 19th century was a land of stark moral choices. 3:10 to Yuma is just the latest example. (more…)

Bloomberg reports the following from McCain about economists who criticized his (lunatic) summer gas plan: (more…)

The Lovely One and I went to our ward’s temple sealing assignment last night. (more…)

Unless I’m carrying boxes, I’m probably not actually helping anybody. (more…)

On the sweetness of Mormon life. (more…)

Read the previous post in this series here. (more…)

From the hundreds of posts that flow through the Bloggernacle each week, here are a couple of recent gems you ought to read. (more…)

I kinda vaguely remember hearing about that LDS woman who was killed in Iraq awhile back. (more…)

We have probable confirmation of water on Mars. (more…)

Here’s your chance to comment on the week in sidebar links. (more…)

CNN reported yesterday that 83 out of 99 counties in Iowa have been declared disaster areas — the scale of the flooding is tough to grasp. Those flood waters are now spilling into the Mississippi and moving south. Another service opportunity for the MIY (missionaries in yellow), who are out filling sandbags in Quincy, Illinois. Our sympathy and support to all of those struggling against the waters.

“The Church is happier with doubters who go on missions and accept ward callings than with the vocally orthodox who find ways to shirk.” Discuss. (more…)

A good thing now comes to an end. We thank Wendy Ulrich for her fantastic guest posts, and wish her the very best.

I’ve just begun reading her book, Forgiving Ourselves, and I can already tell that it will be a life-changing experience. Here are some of the chapter titles:

The Spiritual Basis for Self-Forgiveness
Defining Self-Forgiveness
Receiving the Gift
Repentance
Shame and Pride
Depression
Anxious Perfectionism
Self-Destructive Unselfishness
Trauma and Abuse
Though Your Sins Be As Scarlet
Forgiving Ourselves as Parents
Believing God

Dr. Ulrich, thank you again. We hope you’ll come back and visit us soon.

Comments are now open

Is a Mormon universalism possible? Or in other words, is it possible for Mormons to envision their faith as one of many efficacious paths to God? I have my doubts, but maybe there is an argument to be made (more…)

I had an interesting conversation the other night with a man in my ward. He is a wonderful human being with a wonderful wife raising a wonderful family… one of those people you are delighted to see called as the Gospel Doctrine teacher because you know things are going to get interesting and real, while staying firmly grounded in the scriptures. He is one of my favorite people. (more…)

I am at a stage in life when I think a lot about place. After a decade or so of moving every 1 to 3 years, our family has arrived on the banks of the James and there is a very good chance that this is where my children will grow up. My interest in place is heightened of course that I live a mile from the site of Jamestown — first English settlement in America — and work in Williamsburg — colonial capital of Virginia and, as one acquaintance put it to me “Disney Land for history major.” We live in a part of the world that takes its sense of place very seriously.

One of the ways that I have of thinking through and becoming acquainted with a place is by learning local history. I acquired the habit, I think, from my father who was forever telling me the stories — almost invariably Mormon — of this or that place in Salt Lake City or Utah: the place where the only tree in the valley grew when the settlers arrived, where the old walls of Salt Lake stood, which parks are built over the sites of old forts, where Brigham Young’s houses were, and so on. I think that one of the reasons why I always feel so at home in Salt Lake is the way in which my consciousness of the place extends in four dimensions.

There is this odd way in which I feel detached from the history of Virginia. (more…)

This week I went to an excellent lecture on inequality. Clayne Pope, retiring economist, pointed out that while income inequality in the U.S. has been pretty close to the same for the last 200 years, leisure-time is now concentrated more heavily among the poor, while education inequality and lifespan inequality have both dropped like a rock. These are great things, wonderful even.

Unfortunately, I fear that improvement in Sunday School comment inequality may well be stagnant. (more…)

In Fuchuu, Japan, I taught a young woman who had attended a Christian school and church for some years, but had become a bit turned off. She asked us why we were out trying to teach the gospel. (more…)

A song that is synonymous for me with Father’s day is Dan Fogelberg’s Leader of the Band. (more…)

I wrote this–the only sustained essay I’ve ever produced about my mission–about seven or eight months after I came home, while I was a student at BYU. (more…)

Tweny years ago today, June 15, 1988, I entered the Missionary Training Center and began my 24 months as a missionary assigned to the Korea Seoul West Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’d like to take this moment to offer all my mission companions, every missionary I knew, both my mission presidents, all the people I ever taught, all the members I ever interacted with, the Korean people as a whole, and the church my deepest apologies, and ask for their forgiveness…because, as a missionary, I really sucked. (more…)

At the end of my junior year of high school, I caught a glimpse of my graduating student body president one last time (more…)

More grist for the mill here. Please read, return, and report.

P.S.–I never wash my floors either.

Here’s your chance to discusss the week in links. (more…)

I basically pay my mortgage by thinking about contracts and promises. It is a tough job, but someone has to do. Of late, I’ve gotten to thinking about God’s promising. Consider these two quotes: (more…)

There are advantages to attending a ward too small for fixed wooden benches in the chapel (more…)

C.S. Lewis said he was never less convinced of the truth of Christianity than when he had been vigorously defending it. (more…)

On the sweetness of Mormon life (more…)

Missionaries spend from two weeks to three months in an MTC learning how to be a missionary. Many have also taken missionary preparation classes, or served mini-missions to help them prepare for their new life in the field.

Returning missionaries preparing for their new life at home receive a half-sheet of counsel that says, in essence, “be good and good luck.” (more…)

I’ve just come across an interesting thinker about cities and planning who, like Joseph Smith, believes that once a city reaches around 10,000 or so of population a new city should be started. (more…)

If you have been too busy with real life to do more than your required online reading here at T&S, here are a few posts you might have missed. (more…)

I didn’t. But if you read “The Skeleton in Grandpa’s Barn” and Other Stories of Growing Up in Utah (Signature, 2008) you’ll get an informative glimpse of what it was like. (more…)

Here’s your chance to comment. (more…)

Brother Jonathan Goff at the Selenian Boondocks blog has a great post on what we can learn about space expansion from the Mormon experience settling the West. (more…)

Several years ago I read a delightful book on creativity, The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. It was full of interesting questions:
“List ten tiny changes you’d like to make for yourself.”
“What would you do as a career if you had seven more lives to live?”
“If I didn’t have to do it perfectly I would try….”
“List twenty things you’d like to do before you die.” (more…)

Score one for FAIR. Last week, in Utah Lighthouse Ministry v. Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit rejected an appeal by Sandra and Gerald Tanner’s anti-Mormon ministry over its claims of trademark infringement, cyber-squatting, and unfair competition that arose out of a parody website created by the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR). (more…)

Previous post here (more…)

Heads up for those in the D.C. area. Greg Prince, co-author of David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, hosts a great series of events at his house in Potomac, Maryland, the next of which is coming up on Sunday, June 8th. (more…)

A while ago I was having one of those oft repeated conversations about faith, doubt, and intellectual reconciliation. My thoughtful interlocutor asked, “Is there anything that you could learn that would cause you to abandon your beliefs?” The clear assumption of his question was that there was something distinctly fishy about a set of beliefs that cannot be falsified. It is an assumption worth thinking about. (more…)

We’re pleased to announce that Marc Bohn has agreed to become a permablogger at Times & Seasons. We enjoyed his guest blogging stint, his contributions to the side bar, and look forward to his contributions. Welcome aboard Marc!

Last week Adam cited a widely-shared “conservative case for gay marriage.” (more…)

Today’s Gospel Doctrine lesson: the conversion of Alma the Younger.
(more…)

My grandmother, mother, and I all served missions, so I was delighted when my firstborn announced her intention to serve, submitted her papers, received her call.

Little did I know. (more…)

For the uninitiated, Thomas Jefferson Education (hereafter TJE) is a method of homeschooling–a method very popular among Mormons. (more…)

The week in links. (more…)

I picked up Alan Jacobs’ book Original Sin. Good stuff. (more…)

Should be of particular interest to our SSM hounds.

(more…)

A Megan McCardle McArdle guestblogger has a well-expressed version of “the conservative case for gay marriage”. (more…)

The other day somebody sent me a YouTube link for a comedian I’ll call Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones was a chubby gramdma with hot flashes – not the kind of person you usually see doing stand-up. Most of the “funny” email forwarded to me makes me sigh and hit the delete button. Mrs. Jones made me laugh out loud.

It felt sort of weird.

Which made me realize that I don’t laugh nearly enough (more…)

Wendy Ulrich, Ph.D., is a former president of the Association of Mormon Counselors and Psychotherapists, and the author of Forgiving Ourselves: Getting Back Up When We Let Ourselves Down, recently published by Deseret Book. She is the founder of Sixteen Stones Center for Growth in Alpine, Utah, offering seminar-retreats on topics such as spirituality, abundant life, loss, forgiveness, and other aspects of personal growth. She was a psychologist in private practice in Michigan for twenty years before moving to Montreal, Quebec to serve with her husband as mission president. They currently live in Utah.

Welcome, Dr. Ulrich! We’re honored to have you as our guest.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. (more…)

Being mildly depressed about blogging at the moment, I decided to go trolling for a “good news” story to post. Here it is, a story about SVU from the SL Trib: “A bastion of Mormonism in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.” (more…)