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Charity on the Rocks

March 14, 2018

My husband grew up backpacking, and it was one of the conditions of our marriage that I would learn to backpack too. I do it now, and occasionally even enjoy it, but it’s definitely a stretch to say that I’m good at it or love it as wholeheartedly as Mike does; backpacking is perpetually a challenge for me, and my favorite part is the end of the day when I collapse in our tent with my Kindle. I say this by way of prefacing a personal story so that you understand the context as I start telling you about a time when nature nearly got the best of me. 

Negotiating the Paradoxes: Neylan McBaine’s Women at Church | Neylan McBaine, Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact

March 14, 2018

Neylan McBaine’s book Women at Church includes the following interview excerpt: 

On one Sunday in my ward, the final assigned speaker was a woman. She seemed flustered to be in the last slot, was apologetic to the audience and lamented that we weren’t going to get the final word in the meeting from a priesthood holder. And then she gave her talk.

The stake president happened to be visiting, and after she finished he stood to make a few comments. He thanked her for the talk, and acknowledged she was just being self-deprecating. But he said it was his responsibility as presiding officer in the stake to correct misinformation. He then affirmed that there is nothing wrong with scheduling a sister to speak in the last slot in sacrament meeting, that that is perfectly appropriate. When we don’t do that, it is just a tradition.

When Good is Better than Great—Susan Elizabeth Howe’s Salt | Susan Elizabeth Howe, Salt: Poems

March 14, 2018

What Beatrice said of Dante might well apply to Susan Elizabeth Howe’s latest collection of poetry, titled Salt. The observation was fictional, served up in an obscure but brilliant nineteenth-century book, Classical Conversations by Walter Landor, in which, during an imagined last conversation, Beatrice tells Dante, “You will be great, and, what is above all greatness, good.”

Jesus Enough

March 14, 2018

1886  When Darby turned fifteen, his mother Cora said if he didn’t make up his mind to accept Jesus pretty soon, it would be too late. She said he had to make the choice either…

Famine and Scarcity

March 14, 2018

My grandson, age seven, 
head bent over his crustless peanut 
butter and honey sandwich, 
small bowl of grapes, 

Stella Nova

March 14, 2018

From where He kneels, 
Bleared with blood, 
Still shaking, 

Putting Up the Blue Light

March 14, 2018

As children, we liked our red-carpeted front rooms best 

when the Christmas tree tossed the air with the richness
            of pinyon pine,