I hate to admit this, but I’ve never been much of a fan of conference. These days I’ll usually catch the Sunday a.m. session, read the Bloggernacle commentary and then glance over the talks in the May/November Ensign, and that’s pretty much it. (more…)

I have it on good authority (friend of a friend whose mother’s brother does landscaping for a Church employee) that this is the GC when they will ditch Sunday School.

Some of you may not know this about me, but I’m Canadian.

I know, I know.

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If you go into the Church archives, behind the rows of computers are several short bookshelves filled with large three ring binders. Registers are tables of contents for document collections. The register for the Brigham Young collection maintains a significant footprint on these shelves. One entry is listed as the 1858-1863 Office Journal of President Brigham Young (marked “Book D”) and over it is stamped in red ink, “Confidential.” Today, I received a newly printed copy in the mail. (more…)

It’s the end of the month, must be time for home teaching. It’s been a while. Blame the hiatus on my move to Old Europe.

Hey, here’s a challenge: if you’re a bloke, be sure to go home teaching in October. Let’s have a BCC-sponsored HT-fest.

Anyway, on to the lesson. It’s inspired by James E. Faust’s September Ensign message, “The Father Who Cares.” (more…)

Scholarly controversies, like sartorial fashions, have a way of becoming quickly passé, as I am reminded by a group of articles which Dialogue has posted on the e-Papers section of Dialogue Paperless. I am thinking particularly of the three articles posted there on chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, which you can view if you like by going to http://www.dialoguejournal.com/ and following the icons. We have had zero comments on these three articles, indicative of a general indifference to the topic. I would be interested to know how readers of this blog would vote if they were on an editorial board making a decision whether to publish a piece on chiasmus. (more…)

I am following Connor’s new project with much interest. As I surf around the Bloggernacle, I’m seeing little robotic icons with their right hands raised begging, “Sustain this!” (more…)

Jonathan’s post got me thinking about housework again.

My family has a heritage of domestic help. My great-grandmother had nannies, and servants. However, she loved to cook and was apparently very good at it. Her kitchen was equipped with a special sink with a cover, where she could put vegetable peelings and dirty dishes to await a servant who would come along after she was finished and clean up the mess. My grandmother had a cleaning lady and so did my Mom. In fact, I never really learned how to clean house while living in my parent’s home – I was only taught how to prepare for the cleaning lady to come. Things had to be removed off your dresser so the cleaning lady could dust, and under your bed had to be tidy so the cleaning lady could vacuum. This was not very demanding work. The cleaning lady seemed nice but quiet – she was from Yugoslavia and spoke a small amount of English.

I am breaking with my family tradition of having household help, and not simply because of budgetary constraints. (more…)

Martha Hughes Cannon (seen in image, click to enlarge), is a wonderful and fascinating character in history. She was a doctor, educated at the University of Michigan. She was a State Senator (D), defeating her own husband who ran on the Republican ticket and became the first woman to hold such office in the United States. Perhaps most importantly to her, she was a mother. (more…)

…in which our hero undertakes a new quest, and great cataclysms arrive upon the land.

“Honey, you know what would be great? Reading the Marriage and Family Relations manual together. It could be fun!” (more…)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a stake ambitiously decided to mount a production of Handel’s Messiah. A large choir is assembled and practices for many months–the better part of a year. The director, a local member, has a Ph.D. in music, and tears his hair out trying to get the voices of the choir to bend to his will. Four soloists from among the singers are selected. Musicians are hired to play the brass parts and some of the strings that can’t be handled by local talent. A large number of people pour blood, sweat and tears into this event. As the performance approaches, many non-LDS are invited to attend, and many do. There is a full house. (more…)

The image of the pioneer wagon rolling across the Prairie — Victorian bonnets amid Big Sky and bison — is an enduring slice of Americana. And yet, as Americans commemorate the anniversary of a famous pioneer disaster this year, history reveals that for one group of migrants, the journey began not at the Mississippi but in rural England.

(more…)

In 1999 someone posed the following question to me:

This evening our family read the following verse in our family scripture study: “. . . the people of Nephi were exceedingly rejoiced, . . .” (Alma 45:1).

Even our young ones went, “Huh! What kind of English is that?”

So what’s up with that? Is it a typo? A printer’s error? An obscure usage of the verb “to rejoice”?

My (edited) response follows: (more…)

BCC is now sporting its Fall colors.* What do you think? I think it’s spiffy. Well done to ol’ Stapers, our resident design guru. Overall, is the bloggernacle an aesthetically pleasing place? Winners? Losers?

Romantics make poor intellectuals. (more…)

Of my eight children, I only have one boy—“the little prince.” He’s grown up with quite a knowledge of the female psyche, but has his own way of looking at life. Now that he is close to turning 12, I’m starting to reevaluate adolescence. (more…)

Nowhere in the New Testament will you find a condemnation of slavery, nor an updating of the Mosaic slave code. Instead you have stuff like Ephesians 6 where slaves are told to be “obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling”; and Philemon, where Paul sends back a runaway slave to his Christian owner. Jesus does not raise a word against the practice. (more…)

The name C.L. Bruno may not mean anything to you, but you’ve heard of her before. She’s smart and insightful and, well, bored. She’s guest posting with us for a couple of weeks. Welcome!

Last Sunday my daughter had her missionary farewell—oops, I mean, she gave a talk in her singles ward, along with another young man who was going on a mission. The two sang an arrangement of “A Marvelous Work.” The boy’s father, an accomplished musician, accompanied them on the piano. I, the proud mother, thought they did a fabulous job. Except, in the middle of the song, the piano stopped playing. At first, I and the rest of the congregation simply thought they were singing a cappella. Their voices blended wonderfully. But then the boy cast a glance at his father, and I realized the pianist was frantically searching for a missing page. He finally found his place, came in on the last page, and all had stayed on key. My daughter told me later she was shaking and clinging to the podium during the “a cappella” section. (more…)

Doctrinal ideas are like the exposed geology of Southern Utah. In the various strata of our history, movements of our people are veins of documentary sediment, some still being added upon. Some veins are followed to the Great Source, others end at a void or insignificance. Perhaps the greatest example of the latter is what I call Elder Brotherism. (more…)

Every Ward has their white shirt rebels. You know, the dodgy guy (like Rusty) who refuses to wear a white shirt. They are, however, outliers, freaks, rebels. But not in the Mormon colonies, it seems. (more…)

I asked a couple of friends, “how would you characterize the change in the blogs over the last 2 years, if any?”

One friend’s reply: “Boringer.”

Many of us are new — for kicks sometime, I recommend you scan through the archives (see the sidebar) or look at our old site. For those that have been around a while, how have things changed?

A frequent question from both member and critic alike asks what exactly is Mormon Doctrine. There are a lot of answers to this question, but the response that best reflects reality is one that reframes the original question. To respond coherently, we must ask what is the authorized doctrine of the Church. (more…)

Some of the more web-savvy of you may follow YouTube and already know the tale of lonelygirl15. For those who don’t, here are a couple of articles summarizing the internet scandal du jour, and for the extremely lazy, here’s an even more brief summary: some film people in NY made up a teenager and her online journals for YouTube, in the hopes of landing a film deal.

Sound familiar? (more…)

“So, how long are you going to be away for?”, he enquires.

“I think I’ll leave Thursday afternoon and come back Monday morning. I don’t want to be rushed.” I pull out the calendar. “Hmmm …. on second thought, maybe not.” I backpedal. (more…)

The following report comes from BCC commenter Mark Brown, aka Mark IV.

Have you ever wondered why people in you ward never name their baby boys Lilburn? Does your great grandfather’s patriarchal blessing promise that he will help build the temple in Jackson county? Why do Mormons have a love/hate relationship with the Show Me state?

Your questions would have all been answered last weekend. The Missouri Mormon Experience: From Conflict to Understanding was held at the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City. The house chamber was the setting for this event, which was billed as an academic and commemorative conference. The presenters were from BYU, the Community of Christ, the University of Missouri, and an archivist who works for the state of Missouri. The keynote speaker was Jan Shipps, and the guest of honor was U.S. Senator Kit Bond. He was honored for his action as governor when he rescinded Executive Order # 44 which had been issued by his predecessor Lilburn W. Boggs, and which we know as the Extermination Order. Governor Boggs is the distinguished looking gent whose picture accompanies this post and who would have been appalled at the prospect of 30,000 LDS people within the borders of his state. (more…)

George W. Bush is not a man of God…at least not my God. There is a possibility that he is devoted to some other God. I may even speculate about that as we move along. (more…)

Deaths and supernatural visions are said to come in threes; perhaps it is, therefore, fitting that I tell the story of my encounters with treasure digging in three vignettes.

***

When I was younger, my father served in the military, so our family lived in base housing. Our home had a sandbox that was remarkably important to me and my neighborhood friends. You see, we had concluded — using reasoning that now strikes me as somewhat opaque — that below the sandbox was a significant cache of “rich oil.” This belief was reinforced by an “old map” that one of the children drew, showing an X marking the spot of the sandbox. As we dug, we could almost feel the oil churning beneath our feet. (more…)

There has been a discussion recently on an e-mail list on which I participate about why it is that men (almost) always give the last talk in sacrament meeting. An answer that was proferred was so that the male priesthood holder would have an opportunity to correct any doctrinal error in the preceding talks. This is an explicit responsibility of the presiding authority, but is it necessarily the role of the concluding speaker? It doesn’t happen very often. I can think of one case where someone (a man, and also a priesthood holder) gave a perfectly fine talk on tithing and said that the Church does not define the basis on which one applies the 10%, whether it is gross, net or whatever. That is up to the individual to determine. The concluding speaker “corrected” the prior speaker, to the effect that tithing absolutely has to be on the gross–ironically getting it wrong himself. (more…)

I do my e-mail on Yahoo. Before they expanded the size of the mailboxes, my personal storage space was very limited, and so I rarely archived any of my old correspondence. But I did save the following question that was put to me back in 1998, and my response thereto: (more…)

There are certain things that one doesn’t bring up in correlated discourse. Like when the three Nephites visited uncle LeRoi (actually it was just two of them, but how embarrassing is it not to get the trifecta) or how the rock where you hide your key in the front yard is actually a Urim and Thumim. One of the great granddaddies of such conversation killers is reference to Masonry – the organization where our forefathers received their first lessons in dramatic ritual. (more…)

Three cheers for the newest BCC permablogger: Taryn Nelson-Seawright. In addition to having the longest name of anyone on our sidebar, Taryn is smart, interesting and a fine addition to our secret cabal. BCC accordingly joins the ranks of Our Thoughts, LDSLF and New Cool Thang as part of the mormon-blogs-where-both-spouses-blog ring. We soon plan to launch a new aggregator site, the Mormon Isthmus, “Your Gateway to the Spousal Nacle.”