*Updated* Music weaves its way through scriptures and is an important part of Christianity generally and LDS worship and culture specifically. Music is something that is made, as we see in references to heavenly choirs,[1] to Earthly singing,[2] or to instrument playing (e.g. David and his harp, Miriam and her timbrel, or late-night violin sessions in the Nauvoo Temple).[3] Music is a means of worship, as we see in the creation of structured, melodic prayers like we find in the Psalter, in the LDS Hymnal, or in the compositions Georg Frederic Handel and Thomas Tallis. And we experience music a ..read more

There were three phases to my ward’s experience with the Covid Pandemic: (1) a remote phase that I think lasted from early 2020 to the fall, (2) a hybrid phase that I think lasted for about a year, where some were remote and some were in person, and (3) a business as usual phase that continues to today. During the remote phase Church services and classes were remote via Zoom, during the hybrid phase some remained remote but others attended in person subject to safety protocols, and upon the last phase the only difference from before the pandemic was that a zoom broaddcast of sacrement meeining ..read more

Six or nine months ago, I finally bought a classical mouthpiece for my soprano sax. And in December, I played a special musical number in Sacrament meeting. (Funny story: I was originally going to play a duet with one of the missionaries. But the week before, he injured a couple of his fingers working on his bike—they got better, but not in time to play his oboe with me. Then I was going to do a piece accompanied by a ward member on piano, only he got really sick the day before. So it was just me.) It’s easy enough to find arrangements of Christmas hymns for solo instruments and piano, or for ..read more

Alma 34:17-24 is a surprising set of scriptures. Recall that in this part of the Book of Mormon narrative, Alma and Amulek are teaching those who had been excluded from their worship community. The individuals who were excluded believed (and I suppose had been taught) that the only proper way to worship was within the walls of the buildings they had helped erect but which they were not allowed to enter (and the text doesn’t say this but it seems reasonable to assume given the well-developed liturgy and practices that existed among the Zoramites that a centralized priestly authority that oversa ..read more

This morning, after I woke up and played Wordle and Connections, I opened up Bluesky and discovered that at least my corner of the social media site was consumed with discussion of postmodern classical composer John Cage and what is probably his most famous composition: 4’33”. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with 4’33”, the rest of this post won’t make a lot of sense. So before moving on, it’s worth taking a listen. (And, in fact, I found a couple wonderful performances—even if you are familiar with it, it’s worth experiencing again.) I usually think of it as a piano piece, and I believe it was per ..read more

My wife Sandy was born and raised on the south side of DeKalb, Il, two hours due west of Chicago. My family moved to the north side of DeKalb in the mid-60s. We didn’t now each other existed until high school, because the grammar and middle schools were separated by north and south, but there was only one high school, which all students attended. So in high school I knew who Sandy was, but I had no personal interactions with her. I only had one oblique interaction with her. One day I walked into the school library and there was a display of the winning entries to an art contest. Most of those ..read more

I want to start with perhaps the most misunderstood and misrepresented object lesson from ancient literature: the story of Scylla and Charybdis from (among other sources) Homer’s Odyssey. The actual story comes from Book XII of the Odyssey, the last of the four chapters devoted to Odysseus’s wandering throughout the Mediterranean Sea while trying to bring his men home to Ithica. Most scholars believe that the legend of Scylla and Charybdis represents the Strait of Messina a treacherous passage about 3 kilometers wide between Sicily and Southern Italy. In ancient mythology, though, Scylla was ..read more

Adapted from a sacrament meeting talk given in Elk Grove, California on 4/22/23 Once upon a time, I built my faith – and my relationships – on the expectation that certain things were fixed and permanent, even though I couldn’t prove them. In the ocean of life, my expectations were like a raft of ice. No matter what else happened, I could expect that my next step or two could be safe and secure from the waves on my little raft of faith.  Speaking of walking through the ocean of life, let’s read the story of Peter walking on water from Matthew 14. 22 …Jesus constrained his disciples to ge ..read more

What is the relationship between Jesus and the veil of the temple? I thought it might be useful – if the Bible is going to be brought into the discussion – that we try to find a solid understanding of the relevant New Testament temple-related Christology. If we accept Markan priority, Jesus and the veil first appear in the gospels together in Mark 15.38: at the death of Jesus “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” (In this post, “curtain” (NRSV) and “veil” (KJV) are used interchangeably.) The same word – katapetasma – is used both for the inner curtain that separated ..read more

I had a conflict and so was unable to watch Saturday Conference, but I was able to tune in for the Sunday sessions. To catch up I read some of Peggy’s commentary on the Saturday sessions. The first several paragraphs were focused on the ages of the 1P. Now, I knew RMN was deep into his 90s, but I was not aware that RMN will turn 100 in August, and DHO is 91 and President Eyring is 90. I guess I just hadn’t been paying attetention, but I was shocked by how old they all were. And so I sent the captioned title to the BCC backlist. One of my blogmates mentioned that there has been a lot of chatter ..read more