Stewardship and Citizenship at the City Level
I would like to offer a few posts that explore ways of getting involved in the political process, from an LDS perspective and particularly in relationship to the environment. I want to start at the...
View ArticleCitizenship and the Environment: An LDS Primer
Before moving on to a discussion of state and national level involvement, I wanted to pause and consider the broader principles of citizenship, specifically as they pertain to people of faith concerned...
View ArticleNot Yet Full, Not Yet Empty
I am always disappointed by the apathetic but I distrust the overzealous. And it only seems that the deeper we slide into apathy as a society, an increasingly yawning gap stands between those who feel...
View ArticleStewardship and Citizenship at the City Level: Part II
It is easy, and understandable, to get cynical about politics. There are those who choose not to vote out of a sense of frustration because they sense that a vote makes little difference. I think this...
View ArticleSmoking, Pollution, and Other Sins
The Utah State Legislature is contemplating a bill that would outlaw smoking within a car when a child is present. The bill seems to bring into direct conflict two of the most cherished principles of...
View ArticleInterview with Generation Anthropocene
This was a very interesting opportunity to be interviewed at Generation Anthropocene, a podcast program based at Stanford University. Our interview covered everything from Utah politics, attitudes...
View ArticleLDS Belief as Ecologically Harmful
I once read an excellent essay by David Kinsley entitled “Christianity as Ecologically Harmful” with a companion essay entited “Christianity as Ecologically Responsible.” These two essays explore two...
View ArticleLDS Belief as Ecologically Responsible
As I mentioned, this is part II of a brief investigation. I have spent a great deal of energy and writing on this particular question, so I make mention of some of these points at the risk of repeating...
View ArticlePope Francis Links Concerns for the Poor and the Environment
“Please, let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.” At first glance this is a counterintuitive statement. How...
View ArticleImmigration, Promised Lands, and Homelands
LDS pioneers who arrived in the Great Basin in 1847 were, well, squatters. I don’t know what else to call them. The academic term for their development of the Great Basin is “extralegal,” that is,...
View ArticleStewardship and Citizenship at the State Level
Polls in this country indicate a gap between the mainstream voter and elected officials at the state and national levels. I am not sure how different the trends are between the two parties, but there...
View ArticleA General Authority Teaches Stewardship
History was made on Friday. Elder Marcus Nash, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ, spoke as a formal representative of the church at the recent Stegner Symposium...
View ArticleFive Paradoxes of Mormon Environmental Advocacy
This is a brief summary of the speech I gave at the recent Stegner symposium, with a little more elaboration on the final point that I ended up having to rush through. You can see a video of the...
View ArticlePatience in Suffering
NOTE: My book, Home Waters, after which the blog is named, treats the theme of environmental stewardship but not always directly. It also touches on themes of community, human suffering, the humanities...
View ArticleFour Lessons from a Suicide
In relation to my previous post about patience in suffering and about my brother’s suicide in 1982, about which I write in greater detail in my book, Home Waters, and whom I remembered on the recent...
View ArticleLife’s Insubstantial Pageant
Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” is for me a kind of touchstone. It is the play I know and probably love the best (although “King Lear” is a contender) and the one I have seen most often performed. I read...
View ArticleBalancing Intellect and Faith
I spoke last week to a group of LDS students at Oxford University about the challenges and opportunities of reconciling faith with intellect. I have written about this before, especially as it relates...
View ArticleGardens and the Art of Self-Reflection
Inspired by my recent travels in the UK, including several visits to some of its most outstanding gardens, I have been thinking about the role a garden can play in teaching us about ourselves in the...
View ArticleGreat Lovers… of Places
William Wordsworth wrote an important book that during his life time vied for the most popular work he ever published. Nowadays it is much less well known. It is called Guide to the Lakes, published...
View ArticleWhy I Am A Christian
The first and most obvious answer to the question is that I am a Christian because I believe in Christ as the redeemer of the world. I believe in the reality of Christ’s redemptive powers because of...
View Article