***   I know that it really irritates a small group of my worst critics, but irritating them isn’t actually the reason that I continue from time to time to post notes about near-death experiences.  I simply find such accounts fascinating, and I know that many others do, as well.  I also find them very important.  Anyway, my most obsessed and implacable detractors would still regard me as both a buffoon and an abomination even if I were... Read more

    ***   I’ve said for quite some time here that, as part of the overall Witnesses project — which was not at all exhausted by last summer’s Witnesses theatrical film — we would eventually be posting a series of short features on social media, for viewing at no charge.  Well, I’m extremely gratified to announce that the first of them, this one weighing in at slightly more than eight minutes in length, is now up: Undaunted Witnesses Episode... Read more

  ***   I like to think about such things as these from time to time, and I hope that you find it interesting and valuable, as well.  First, though, a lead-in passage that comes, perhaps rather unexpectedly, from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.  It nicely expresses the ancient belief, which flourished up through the time of Shakespeare, in the so-called “harmony of the spheres” — which was another way, in a sense, of referring to the mathematical harmony that... Read more

    ***   It’s Friday, so, with wearisome predictability, another new article has appeared in the online Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.  Like all such articles, it is offered to you at no charge (though we certainly hope that you’ll consider offering a little something to support our ongoing efforts):   “Putting Down the Priests: A Note on Royal Evaluations, (wĕ)hišbît, and Priestly Purges in 2 Kings 23:5 and Mosiah 11:5,” written by Matthew L. Bowen:... Read more

    ***   Precisely nobody appears to be clamoring for this information right now.  But here it is, nonetheless:   It seems very probable that I’m going to be speaking at a YSA stake fireside in southern Alberta (possibly in Lethbridge, though I’m not yet certain about that) on Saturday, 16 July 2022, and maybe in a sacrament meeting there in Lethbridge on the following Sunday, 17 July 2022.   It also seems that I’ll be the keynote speaker... Read more

    ***   We’re just back from enjoying a meal with a friend at the Market Street Grill in South Jordan and then going with her to see a very well-acted and well-sung performance nearby in Sandy at the Hale Centre Theatre of The Light in the Piazza.  I’ve said it before, but the Hale theaters are a Utah treasure.  And so, for that matter, are the Market Street restaurants.   We’ve seen a fair amount of live theater in... Read more

    ***   I think that I somehow failed to call your attention to this item, which appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation on Friday.  (You have my apologies.)  So here it is:   “Interpreting Interpreter: The Promise of Passover,” by Kyler Rasmussen This post is a summary of the article “Our Faithful Lord: Passover to Easter” by Rebecca Reynolds Lambert in Volume 51 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series... Read more

    ***   A really impressive project was done for the Primary kids in my ward today by Joseph Vancott, with whom — and this may perhaps be my one chance at fame — I served for a while in our ward Sunday School presidency:   “LDS Daily Shares Pictures of Incredible Replica Tomb for Primary Children”   He mentioned to us just before sacrament meeting that he had constructed a replica of Jerusalem’s Garden Tomb but, when I... Read more

    ***   Easter isn’t about family, as such, but it’s a great family day nonetheless.  Happily, we were able to spend this afternoon with one of our sons, my wife’s sister, and my father in law, who is now in his ninety-sixth year.   Before that, we attended our ward sacrament meeting, which was — not surprisingly — Easter-themed.  “The fundamental principles of our religion,” said the Prophet Joseph Smith, “are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets,... Read more