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“Lamanites” and the Spirit of the Lord

My parents grew up conditioned toward racial prejudice—as did most Americans, including Mormons, through their generation and into part of mine. But something touched my father in his early life and grew constantly in him until he and my mother were moved at mid-life gradually to consecrate most of their life’s earnings from then on to help Lamanites.

David

This blade of stone 
cuts the grass 
to the quick. 

Spencer W. Kimball: A Man for His Times

Spencer Kimball wrote in his journal in 1951, on the occasion of David O. McKay’s becoming president, “I am positive that the appointments of His Twelve by the Lord and the subsequent deaths control the Presidency…

The Vast Landscape of His Heart

As a first cousin once removed from President Spencer Woolley Kimball (which doesn’t mean much in a family as extended as ours), I considered myself a sort of shirt-tail relative. That is, I was clearly…

Spencer W. Kimball, Apostle of Love

Although I had heard his addresses in general conference and in at least one stake conference, I was first impressed with Spencer Kimball as a spiritual leader on 6 April 1954, when he spoke in…

All My Silent Midnight Hours

Things just get worse.
Which heavenly linoleum stripe
Leads to universal Emergency?
The resident angel could scour my soul.

Grains of Life: Fragments of a Sonnet Cycle

If I could give to you a dew-wrapped day, 
You have no need to tell me — I should know 
That you would use it all to make things grow. 
The furling bud, the fruiting branch are pay 

Penetrating Muddied Waters: Creationism and Evolution | Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended: A Guide to the Evolution Controversies, Norman D. Newell, Creation and Evolution: Myth or Reality?, Niles Eldredge, The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Evolution, and Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism

The conflict between creationism and evolution in the past few years has prob ably brought mixed feelings to many Latter day Saints. Although some excellent scholarship has demonstrated that we have little or nothing in common with the philosophical positions held by modern creationists (Jeffery 1973), their combination of conservative politics, religious devoutness, and concern with the moral condition of our society are appealing to many Mormons.