Dear Editor, My compliments to you and Dialogue for the Fall 2024 Roundtable section, “Fifty Years Since Lester Bush, ‘Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine.’” My family and I appreciated relearning that history and evolution. We especially discussed…
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to take a seminar from a professor at my university in the Native American and Indigenous Studies Department, focused on religious and/or spiritual traditions, belief systems, and…
Birds, across cultures and time, hold a rich tapestry of symbolic meanings, entwining life and death, omens and auguries, angels and spiritual guides. They are often seen as carriers of the departed souls, and at times, they are believed to embody those spirits. Adam McLean, a Scottish writer on alchemical texts, notes, “The essential thing about birds is that they have as their domain the air element, mediating between the earthly realm and the heaven world.”
Orange dust blows into my eyes as I step out of the car onto the hot-enough-to-cook-an-egg sidewalk in the Diplomatic Quarter, or DQ as everyone calls it, of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We are a few…
Within the Latter-day Saint cultural milieu, there are phrases frequently utilized during church meetings—from testimonies to talks to firesides—that are so ubiquitous that we should rightfully wonder if such statements actually deserve repeating. Irrefutably, these…
In this darkening, you watch the aura
of a northwest sky turn lavender blue.
Waverings of new leaves go quiet,
unused senses seem to be opening.
Nights of little sleep, now the morning of the switch
from daylight saving time. In the cold before dawn,
the road I follow bends where the river bends,
its curve of mist ghosting upward like a long exhale.
stout dowager to this tiny grove inside
her little cell
morning echoes
foretelling arrival of winter
the bird begins to gather debris
He calls out to me in the darkness
He has learned to sleep on his own
But still finds himself restless and yearning
For my mother arms
And my mother warmth