I find it helpful to think about my connection to Mormonism like a relationship with a former lover–a sometimes overbearing, demanding and perhaps abusive partner who was also often sweet and supportive. The long-lasting affair was complicated, but in the end, it was good for me to move on.

This metaphor also helps me to understand better why I struggled in my approach to religion in general. Over the past year, I’ve considered the following: devoting my life to the academic study of religion (like getting a PhD in psychology?), going on the attack and helping others to abandon religion (becoming a therapist?), and ignoring religion altogether and moving on (leaving the dating scene). As much as I’m attracted to the Religious Society of Friends (and as gentle and considerate as Quakers can be), I’ve been very hesitant to make any serious commitment to another religion. I don’t want to get burned again.

Over the past year or two, I’ve subjected you all to this banal drama via my posts on Mind on Fire. I’ve been maintaining this site since 2001, and religion has been a persistent thread running through it, even if individual posts deviated from the topic. xJane can tell you that I’ve considered repeatedly abandoning the discussion of faith and spirituality. She doesn’t know that a couple times I thought about getting rid of the blog altogether (thankfully, her involvement in this site tempered my actions).

I realize, finally, that I’m a religion nerd and always will be. Religion is fascinating. No matter how irreligious I may be at any point in my life, I love thinking, reading, talking and writing about this stuff. I may as well be doing this on-line with others who feel the same way. Religion is in my blood. By extension, Mind on Fire is here to stay and its main topic will be religion.

You may not have detected any changes yet, but I have recommitted myself to Mind on Fire, and I’d like to give you a sense of what to expect from this site in the coming months:

• The main topic at Mind on Fire is religion. You could say that “mostly religion, most of the time” is our unofficial motto. This includes related topics, like spirituality, atheism, and the “culture wars,” but I promise that we won’t stop riffing on our favorite non-religion topics on occasion.
• I am slowly going to make the site look and feel a little more professional. We won’t remove personal reflection or commentary, but we may have fewer personal journal type posts. I would like to devote more time to discussing current events and the role that religion plays in them.
• I am going to tone down my anti-religious rhetoric. I am still a skeptic and atheist, but I like building bridges more than I like burning them. I am still going to attack some of the aspects of organized religion I find repulsive (abusive authority, institutionalized sexism, social censorship), but I will choose my battles and my words carefully. Hopefully these will be rallying cries that will call out to believers and skeptics alike.
• Mind on Fire is at its best when it’s exploring the complexity of religious institutions, practice and belief. I’m going to do my best to challenge your preconceptions and stereotypes as well as my own. And I invite you all to keep me honest as I strive to avoid blanket generalizations.
• My OC Pilgrimage posts were very well received, and they were fun to experience and create. One of my big goals is to increase the journalistic content of this site–to include original research, interviews, and descriptions of events, encounters and excursions. I’ll try to do something constructive with that graduate education in religion.

This is such a break from the past for me that I considered killing the old site altogether and starting completely fresh. I withstood that temptation, but I feel obliged to share with you this change. I hope you all find it as invigorating as I do.

Welcome to the new and improved Mind on Fire:  <i>Mostly religion, most of the time.</i>