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Trevor at the Fountain

Armed lightly with his dark English wit, and a shade 
of amber from Woodpecker Ale, Trevor’s blue eyes glaze 
a smile as he reclines at the market fountain in Cambridge, 
just like a Roman soldier would resting in his rags after 

Cry for the Gods: Grief and Return

Fires were raging in the hills near Hearst Castle in the late summer of 2016. They spread and spread, consuming the Monterey pines and golden hills of the most remote area of the California coast, extending close enough to the castle that, at last, tours were cancelled and plans were made to remove the most precious art. From the darkened dining hall, the orange shadow of the flame cast an eerie half-light on the stone walls which, for the first time since their construction, shone no light, were hid by no tapestries, echoed no sound. The Mediterranean towers and domes once spoke of the power of humanity’s conquest and wealth—now they stood abandoned, a desperate testament to the beauty humanity creates and is unworthy of.

To Be Young, Mormon, and Tongan

In his article “Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education,” Professor Bryan Brayboy posits that our stories are our theories.I feel most comfortable in story. As both a Mormon and a Tongan, I have used stories to educate and edify. 

I Am Not Your Trigger

I feel the need to call attention to a pattern of destructive behavior that I believe needs to stop immediately. Like all destructive behavior, the only people we ultimately hurt with it is our ourselves.…

Three Sealings

My mother made spiral-bound books for the first few of her nine children: pastel-colored accounts (which she wrote, illustrated, and laminated) of how we had made our way from the spiritual realm to the mortal;…

Mormon Poetry, 2012 to the Present

Over the last few decades, universities have become the home of contemporary poetry in the United States, where nearly every major poet is also an academic. Poets, like other professors, teach classes, publish in tiered journals, sit on committees, undergo tenure review, secure grants, win prizes, attend conferences, and oversee graduate students. The result is that poetry, whatever else may be said of it, is a recognized industry of intellectual activity within university culture. It constitutes an academic discourse not unlike history or sociology.

Spare the Rod

At 7 a.m. on a Monday morning, I talked with Death on a mountain.

It’s hardly a mountain. It’s barely a hill. 

I’m writing this, and so I can call it a mountain if I want. Besides, I’m from Wichita, Kansas; a sudden forty-foot-elevation hill is a genuine geographic landmark.

“Behold, Other Scriptures I Would that Ye Should Write”: Malachi in the Book of Mormon

The years following the return of the Jewish captives from Babylon were filled with tension. While literal walls were being built around Jerusalem to keep the city safe, pious Jewish leaders were constructing religious walls around the Jewish faith to ensure that YHWH would never again become angry enough to allow his holy city to be destroyed. It was during this period that an unknown author, known later as “Malachi,” produced the final book of the Nevi’im or “Prophets.”

“A Portion of God’s Light”: Mormonism and Religious Pluralism

In 2015, the Catholic Church celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its landmark proclamation Nostra aetate. As one of the key documents of the Second Vatican Council, Nostra aetate laid the foundation for contemporary Catholic interreligious engagement. Promulgated by Pope Paul VI, the document opened up multiple pathways to dialogue and identified the theological parameters within which these dialogues and collaborative projects could be undertaken.