Flowers— they bloom a day, then to our graves. Wilted, these flowers; still fervent, the bees at Mother’s grave. We crowded in— sons, sons-in-law, grandsons— to carry her here. I am orphaned, though a man—dead: Father, now Mother. In this verdant valley they had farmed, we buried them. Winds—into the …
Category: 183
As Honey for Sweetness: Wrestling with the Various Voices of Scripture
Julie M. Smith When, at the Lord’s command, Ezekiel ate a scroll, he proclaimed that it was as sweet as honey (see Ezekiel 3:3). This image of Ezekiel incorporating the Lord’s word into his very being—internalizing and digesting it so that he can convey the message to the people—suggests that the word of the Lord …
Finding Jesus in the Labyrinth
By Robert A. Rees On 3 April 2016, my wife Maya and I celebrated Easter at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara, California. It was a lovely, moving choral Eucharist service, beginning with a processional hymn familiar to Latter-day Saints, “From All Who Dwell Below the Skies.” Next was the usual Episcopal Eucharistic celebration: the …
Into the River
by Larry Menlove Elder Bicknell and Elder Vanguard looked down at the hard-pack road. The old woman’s legs—thin, white, and spider-veined—stuck out from under her pale green housedress, which had scrunched up high around her thighs owing to the throes and contortions she had undergone. Standing over their bicycles, hands gripping the tape of their …
Becoming the Beloved of the Lord: Maturing Through the Stages of Spiritual Growth
By Philip G. McLemore Several years ago I developed a model of five stages of spiritual growth and maturation based on personal experiences that had unfolded during my meditation practice, and which I believe are consistent with images of the soul’s relationship with God presented in both the Bible and Mormon scripture. For the purpose …
The Pattern: “Fill Up the World” and “Let Every Man Live”
By David R. Hall More than seven billion human beings currently live on our planet in a wide variety of circumstances, with extremes of wealth and poverty and—in most places—in a manner that is steadily eroding the ecology. The United Nations projects that the earth’s human population might exceed 15 billion by the end of …
Experiences of a Missionary Borderlander
By D. Jeff Burton I exchanged the following edited emails with Jeremy Jones (all names and details have been changed), a young man who is currently serving a mission in Ireland. Elder Jones: I thought you might find my situation interesting. I have always considered myself a Borderlander, but, as you’ve probably noticed by my …
The Madness of Faith
By Emily Belanger I was barely in Kindergarten when my father went crazy. Certain he had assassinated Bobby Kennedy and was being trailed by helicopters only he could hear, he went into hiding. For weeks at a time he would camp deep in the New Hampshire forest, only emerging when he ran low on supplies. …
Well, Dr. Nibley… I Do Have a Suggestion: Always Believe God, Always Disbelieve Lucifer
By Ian R. Harvey Wandering through the Internet one day, I bumped into a YouTube video of Hugh Nibley giving his “Adam and Eve” presentation in his Pearl of Great Price lecture series,1 so I decided to sit in. About 23 minutes into the video, just after Dr. Nibley has zipped through Moses 5:112 without …
A Reluctant Pioneer
By Stephen Carter Stephen Carter is the director of publications for the Sunstone Education Foundation. An earlier version of this article was presented as a sermon on 17 July 2016 at the South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. Or right-click to download the audio here: A Reluctant Pioneer …