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Sacred Groves and Wicked Problems

I’m standing at this lectern in large part because I wrote a book called On Zion’s Mount. Many, many times since 2007, the year I finished the manuscript in Los Angeles and relocated to Long…

Utah Naming Practices, 1960–2020

1. Introduction You can tell you are from Utah if you are Jaxton, your mother is Sariah, and your grandparents are Alma and LaRue. Jokes such as this one, which center on the creative names…

“Blessings Deferred”

“So how does the priesthood ban make you feel?” At the time I didn’t have the right tools to answer my freshman year religious studies professor at Brigham Young University, so I muttered something about…

Yes Culture

The brussels sprouts were good, the falafel was good, and the fries were better than good, but what Farmer and the Seahorse did spectacularly were its bathroom stalls. They were narrow and wood-walled with thick…

The Power to Judge

I stood in a winding stone corridor. At the end of the hall was an inviting bright light. Unclear as to where I was, I slowly and carefully headed in the direction of the glimmering…

The Ultimate Battle

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither…