I get my best music recommendations from artists. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I don’t actually have to know any hipster artists. An obscure cartoonist in Manchester, England, introduced me to this angel, and my last month or so has had its heavenly factor boosted by an order of magnitude. You can experience [...]

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Somewhere I read about a person who saw a bumpersticker that said “tourist on earth” and this made him contemplate what being a tourist meant. To him, it meant: seeing everything as new, being open to whatever experience comes, and appreciating the things that are appreciated by the locals. This is much paraphrased and informed [...]

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My mother and I used to fly to NYC to go to musicals. London was closer, but this was before our discovery of it, and of the Mousetrap. I had a sister who lived there, then; we would stay with her. Usually we had an additional excuse to be there, visiting the sister, for example, [...]

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I just received a short message from the bishop in response to my letter. In contrast to his previous letter, it was respectful and compassionate in every whit. It was a personal (as opposed to an official) expression of love and concern, for which I am grateful. I promise to spend some time on this [...]

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Because Elise is chomping at the bit (thanks Elise, for the impetus!), I am opening up nominations for the second Mind on Fire Reading Group. The first one was a great success. We debated Sam Harris’ The End of Faith across multiple blogs, and about ten of us met in person at an undisclosed (but [...]

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First, a few administrative details: I am currently looking for my temple recommend. If I do find it, I will destroy it immediately. I promise you that we have no desire to give our recommends to anyone else or to use them to enter a temple. I am in favor of your suggestion and think [...]

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The drama continues. We received a letter from our former Bishop, which suggested, among other things, that we have our names removed from the records of the Church (a sort of voluntary excommunication). I was also encouraged to not publish anything negative about the Church. The irony is that all we’ve wanted from our former [...]

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One Matt Thurston’s comments on my “Out of Mormonism” post was far too insightful and articulate to leave buried, so I’m excerpting a paragraph and including it here. Many closet doubters find themselves in a catch-22: they are often chastised for questioning in church settings, but after revealing themselves, their past integrity is then questioned. [...]

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Keith Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress. I don’t know much about Ellison, but at the very least I see this as a symbolically important at home and abroad. He demonstrates clearly to Americans that Muslim does not equal Arab and to the rest of the world that Americans are able to elect [...]

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In preparation for the Republican’s defeat today, I baked a Schadenfreude pie. As soon as CNN projected that the Dems would take the House, we sat down to savor its bittersweet darkness as we gloated over the great fall of the Republicans from monopolistic power. And as happy as I am to see a minimal [...]

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