Like many Mormon missionaries, I was the catalyst for a fair number of overdue weddings.

Been together for years, have several kids together*, can’t imagine living their lives separately, just never got around to an actual wedding. Indeed, it was usually impossible to tell which domestic arrangements were official until you asked them at the end of the fourth discussion. Happily, the goal of preparing for baptism was all that some of them needed to take the plunge (no pun intended).

Then there were the others, with the common refrain: “Why does it matter if we get married? We’re already together. It’s just a piece of paper.” (more…)

12 years ago my first daughter died of cancer. This is what I wrote on her birthday that year, with slight updates since. Today would be Betsey’s 16th birthday. Happy Birthday, Betsey Pearl.

Every year, this day seems to come by sooner.

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This is a story of two friends in an airport.

“I don’t get it,” the one friend said. “Your life is so constrained. So narrow. You are standing in here in this little line. You won’t leave it. And then you’ll stand in another line and you’ll shuffle onto an airplane with an assigned seat you’ll have to sit in. It’s so suffocating. Me, I love my freedom too much to ever do that. By rejecting all these rules, I get to wander around wherever I want. I can go down to the luggage return or even out to the parking garage. I get to experience the airport to its fullest. There no limits. Whereas you, you just stand in line. Why do you do it?”

“I am flying to Paris,” the other friend said.

I.

“Mottramism” is a term that Rod Dreher has periodically employed to denote an unreflective acceptance of eccesiastical authority. The term was coined by Mark Cameron, who describes it thus: (more…)

A friend said, forget politics, the basic program for righting the world is three simple steps.

1. Get yourself together.
2. Get a good family going.
3. Get your kids to repeat steps 1-3.

He’s right.

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What’s the right way to act when you disagree with the Church?

I’m not asking this question because it’s some sort of novel situation I find myself in. Far from it. Who doesn’t have disagreements with the Church? Even with the prophets, dead or living? Even with (*installs lightning rod*) the Word of God itself as recorded in the scriptures? There are thousands of pages of scriptures, conference talks, Church policies, Sunday School lessons, half-remembered anecdotes from your batty old aunt about how they used to run things in the pre-war M.I.A., etc. The odds that you could thoughtfully ponder all that and not find some points of honest disagreement are astronomical. (more…)

A certain man fell among thieves, and was robbed and beaten and left for dead.

A Levite walking by took a selfie pic with a concerned face, and posted it to Facebook, with the comment that somebody should do something and it was time to stop the hate. It got lots of likes and re-shares.

And a priest walking by also saw the man, and a took a photo, and tweeted it, #NoMoreRepublicanSpendingCuts. And lo, the hashtag trended, and a celebrity did retweet it. And verily the counter hashtag, #VictimLivesMatter, which shared a clip of a Democratic congressman calling for an end to oppressive policing in the Jerusalem area, also trended.

And a Samaritan passed by, who possessed not even a smart phone, neither did he watch the news. And he had compassion on the man, and bound his wounds, and took care of him.

Who then was this man’s neighbor?

Every year there is an end to Christmas day and an end to the Christmas season.  It is always a bit melancholy.  Each of us will have a last Christmas of our life.  That will be a bit melancholy too.

Our kind of Christmas will end someday too.  Someday there will be a Last Christmas within the circle of the world.

But this year I have had an intimation that at the true last Christmas, Christ will be there.  It will not be sad at all. (more…)

Helpless as a Baby and Helpless as a Child–what we learn from Christ taking on the feeble helplessness of an infant.

How we are Mary and Overlooked Christmas Scriptures and We are Joseph and Mary and Holding the Messiah–four essays on being a father or a mother or a recipient of revelation. See also this brief meditation on the comparison between Mary and the tree of life.

Most people believe in God because they feel that life means something.

-thus Walter Russell Mead, who is yule blogging.

As previously noted by others, a sacrament service on Christmas day is a glorious thing. One thing that can be expected at some point in such a service is fairly direct preaching of Christ’s full mission as Redeemer. But before things that were to come, Christmas marks the commencement of the hero’s march, before any of the hard work, a time for music and singing and celebration. A happy time when he was protected and cared for.

A week and half before Christmas, Mrs. Mansfield and I saw a son off at dawn for a flight to the missionary training center. There will be hard times ahead for him before we see him again, but for this month he is a baby missionary in a nurturing place.

This was our family’s smoothest, most comfortable Christmas that I can recall.  No stress, no melancholy, lots of coziness.

• We bought two presents for each child.  One small, one medium.  The kids didn’t miss the extra presents and it makes it much easier on us.  Less mess, less wrapping, less arrangements.

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Today we will sing the hymns of Christmas and take the sacrament.

One of the several things a belief in and love of the supernatural does is increase one’s admiration for nature.

If nothing else, looking at the intricacy of nature as a divine handiwork makes one grateful for the gift the creator bestows by crafting the stars to look as they do; or planets and comets in their careers; or the rings of Saturn and his moons like Christmas tree ornaments; or snowy mountain crags; or thunderstorms at sea; stately oaks with crooked limbs;or hawks on the wing; or horses who race with manes like banners flying; or the look of a girl just turning her head to expose the line of her throat and the curve of her cheek; or the laughter of a child ringing; or the shapes of leaves of beech and ash and elm; the whisper of wind in wintery branches; the crash of the surf at the strand; the energetic dance of butterflies in a sunlit meadow; the ungainly speed of the ostrich; the whistle of birds at dawn; the twitch of a rabbit’s nose; the sweetness of honeycombs; the intricate mathematical beauty of crystals and chemicals; the abstract elegance of a noble helium atom.

If all this was merely the product of blind forces, it is certainly amazing, but the amazement is merely within our brains, and has no further meaning. If all of this is handiwork, it was made for you.

It is a gift, just as much as the child God sent to the Virgin on this day to redeem all these things from time and death.

And if it is a gift, then let us give thanks and rejoice, because gratitude is the only thing that makes life not just endurable, but joyful

-thus John C. Wright.

In hymns today we will rejoice with sound and lips and tongue and soul and feeling.  Spirit and flesh.  (more…)

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