I probably should have posted this article in March, at the beginning of Spring–or the ‘Poet’s Season,’ as Wells calls it. But, on the other hand, I don’t want to focus on her argument that spring is most inspiring to poets. Instead, some of the assumptions that she makes are quite interesting.
Continue reading “Sunday Lit Crit Sermon: Emmeline B. Wells on the Poet’s Season”
One frequent and misguided claim about Mormons is that we are anti-intellectual; that somehow we reject learning. While I can’t agree with that characterization, I do think that there is a complexity to the issue. Theologically, mormonism is actually highly supportive of intellectual pursuits–but tempers that with an overriding constraint; spirituality. In addition, Mormon culture adds its own wrinkles to this attitude, with clear anti-intelectual elements that are justified by the theological constraint.
Continue reading “Sunday Lit Crit Sermon: Jedediah Grant on Learning”
for Stephen Carter in partial fulfillment of a promise
but especially for greenfrog, who showed me a bit of backbone
When a subject and object look at one another, there is no subject and no object, there’s only relation, the scope of which extends beyond either creature’s ability to fully grasp it. You can’t grasp it, but you can step out to meet it. If you do, prepare to catch on fire “¦
When I was in my early twenties, two events ignited my life. The first involved a disagreement with a close friend whose feelings of friendship toward me had cooled. I was changing, growing up a little, I guess. I think my friend no longer felt needed, and feeling needed was important to her. My feelings of deep friendship hadn’t changed, yet somehow that didn’t matter, not to her. Why not? I wondered. Why shouldn’t my feelings matter to her? Continue reading “Pillars of Fire”
A Motley Vision 