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How BYU Tried to Create a Whole New Field of Study

In 1982, one BYU professor stood on the brink of creating a new discipline. As the Sunstone Review reported in its November 1982 issue, “Dr. Wesley Burr has suggested a new term—famology—for a new academic field.” And what does famology study? Coming from a BYU professor, there can be only one answer: families! Burr was …

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Rorschach Test

By Miguel Barker-Valdez   I am a walking Rorschach test. As a physician’s assistant in an orthopedic surgery clinic, patients have referred to me as “the well-dressed Mexican,” the surgeon’s “little Japanese friend,” and most recently, “the man from East India.” Facebook has pegged me as “77% Brazilian, 13% Japanese.” My father called my brother (Paul) …

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The Living and the Telling

By Lisa Torcasso Downing THE LATE EVENING SKY is black, overcast—the atmosphere dissected by a misty line of streetlamps. My window is rolled down, my hand raised to the night. Salt air blows through my fingers. “There it is,” he says, followed by, “Jesus.” I see the yellow light of the rental car’s blinker flash …

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The Family Forum: The Hidden Family System

By Michael Farnworth Don’t forget to win first place Don’t forget to keep that smile on your face Be a good boy Try a little harder You’ve got to measure up And make me prouder We’ll love you just the way you are If you’re perfect —ALANIS MORISSETTE I’VE BEEN STUDYING families and their dynamics …

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The Family Forum: Passing on the Shame

By Michael Farnworth We can be active in the Church, attend the temple, pay our tithing, read the scriptures, have Family Home Evening, pray, and teach our children the doctrines of the Kingdom but, without knowing it, we can still be mean-spirited, petty, manipulative, demeaning, and hostile when disciplining our children. Take me for example: …

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The Saga of Beef Gone Bad

By Lisa Torcasso Downing Lisa Torcasso Downing resides and writes in Heath, Texas. She is fiction editor for both Sunstone and Irreantum. Her fiction has been featured in Dispensation: Latter-day Fiction and The Best of Mormonism 2009. She is presently working on a novel and a short story collection.   I cooked roast beef today, …

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Gay-at-home Dad

by John Gustav-Wrathall John Gustav-Wrathall, in addition to working at a law firm and being a parent, is author of Take the Young Stranger by the Hand: Same-Sex Relations and the YMCA (University of Chicago Press, 1998), and teaches American religious history at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.     Or, right-click here …

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Playdate with President Benson

by Stephen Carter Stephen Carter is the editor of Sunstone and author of What of the Night? a collection of award-winning personal essays from Zarahemla Books. He is stay-at-home dad to two almost-teenage sons and the world’s most beautiful toddler daughter.     Or, right-click here to download the audio file: Playdate with President Benson …

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The Family Forum: Discipline Part I

By Michael Farnworth Ed.D Michael Farnworth retired from Ricks College after 31 years of teaching family psychology. He is married to Cindi Halliday and is father to Brad, Camie, and Jeff, along with their spouses Melinda, Nate, and Lindsay. He is grandpa to Joel.  Contact him at: farnworthm@yahoo.com. Years ago my mother ran across the …

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Return of the Native

By Levi S. Peterson Levi S. Peterson is a former editor of Dialogue and author of novels The Backslider and Aspen Marooney, short-story collections Canyons of Grace and Night Soil, and autobiography A Rascal by Nature, A Christian by Yearning. He lives in Washington with his wife Althea.   The Phoenix-bound airplane was airborne before …

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