By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

I grew up in a conservative ward on the east side of Salt Lake City. It’s not the richest part of town, but it definitely qualifies as somewhere between middle- and upper-class. The houses run for several hundred-thousand dollars (in Salt Lake they’re a lot). There is one small apartment complex on the edge of the ward boundary, next to a busy street that’s pretty run-down. The neighbors are concerned about this and have been pressuring to have them torn down and rezoned for homes for a while now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Early on in my marriage, I claimed the last session of General Conference as my own.  After a busy weekend of tag-team parenting, the final session has always been a special time of reflection.  I go alone and I sit alone. I like to hear from speakers who are less known to me and enjoy the feeling of ritual completion.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are really, really pleased to announce that a new blogger is joining BCC.  We’ve been impressed with Kris Wright’s writing over at A Grain of Salt and at Feminist Mormon Housewives, so we bribed and threatened Microsoft-style until she agreed to join us here.  Here’s what you need to know about Kris:

Kris is really interested in alternative energy and house building, especially straw bale houses (which results in her hearing lots of three little pigs jokes from members of her ward).  Before this fall, she was an upstanding citizen of cyberspace who just e-mailed, googled and went to Amazon occasionally — but then, she met Kristine (who casually mentioned that she blogged).  She decided to check out some Evil Blog and the rest is history — plus a lot of unfinished domestic tasks.

Welcome Kris!  We’re glad to have you aboard.

Okay, this has nothing to do with my earlier posts about the Evil to Come.  But next week, I am planning on taking a few days to visit family in Provo.  Anything I should do while I’m out there?  Any special bookstores, art collections, anything?  Those of you who live in Zion, I’d love to see y’all while I’m out there.  The fry sauce is on me.

When I was in Kindergarten, my teacher gave me a bookmark that said,”my books are friends that never fail me.” It turns out to have been a prescient gift, since I spent much of elementary school (and jr. high and high school) feeling quite friendless, except for my books. However, since college, I’ve sadly mistreated my book friends–schlepping them around the country in boxes, unpacking haphazardly (if at all) and throwing them on shelves willy-nilly. Since we’re completely snowed in this weekend, and my husband has an apparently limitless tolerance for playing Yahtzee with my children (bless him!), I’ve been getting reacquainted with my old friends and trying to find a more comfortable and orderly arrangement for them. I’ve learned a few things:

1) I’m really, really, really Mormon. I don’t have a lot of the standard markers of Mormonism in the rest of my house–no Del Parsons Jesus, no framed copy of the Proclamation on the Family (I know you’re all shocked, shocked!)–but once you get to the bookshelves, my preoccupation is very clear. I think close to half of all the reading material in the house is Mormon-themed. I’m not sure what to think about that.
Read the rest of this entry »

Disclaimer: I understand that there are many sensitivities surrounding any discussion of the temple. Please know that I avoid specifics and do my best to accord the LDS temple the respect I think it deserves. I hope others who may not be LDS or members will do the same, and I hope we as Latter-day Saints extend the same courtesy to other faiths.

It’s my understanding that the temple ceremony was changed again recently. I haven’t attended and so am unaware of many specifics. I do know that the washing and anointing ceremony is handled differently, though the wording is the same. I was also told that one change may "anger feminists" (a quote from my source).

Read the rest of this entry »

Red church, blue church.  Aargh.  Thanks Kaimi for the tip.

My wife and I are about to move to Washington state. As part of the moving process, my wife has requested that I go through all my "junk" (i.e., all the miscellaneous files I drag with me wherever we go, but which I never read, and which I probably will never even look at again), and discard whatever I don’t want to keep. Intended as a quick project, it has turned, predictably, into an inefficient, interminable nightmare. Yet it is also great fun, as I get to spend countless hours rediscovering papers and pamphlets from my past that I had forgotten even existed, and peruse them at length.

Yesterday, I happened upon a file entitled, appropriately enough, "Mission Garbage." Inside, I discovered a motley assortment of writings that had circulated among various, excited elders in my mission, and which I decided, for some unknown reason, to keep copies of. Only now do I realize the purpose of my having held on to this stuff … A higher power must have wanted me to post these in the Bloggernacle for your amusement!

Read the rest of this entry »

I want to counter two common arguments against complaining. But first, a story:

When I was 10 years old, I took a gymnastics class one day a week after school, and my father picked me up on his way home from work. Since it was the 70s, he was in a carpool, and one day one of his carpool partners was driving when they picked me up from gymnastics. I felt very awkward about having someone besides my dad go out of his way to pick me up, and tried to get in the car as quickly as possible, so as to minimize the amount of trouble I was creating. Alas, in my haste, I managed to close the door on the tip of my thumb–just the very tip, quite painful, but not enough to draw blood or break bones. My dad’s friend (not a dad, not accustomed to waiting for kids to buckle seatbelts) was already pulling away, and I didn’t want to inconvenience him by asking him to stop. So I rode home–a 10- or 12-minute drive–with my thumb stuck in the door.
Read the rest of this entry »

I have been a Ward Mission Leader for the past 3 ½ years. That’s a very long time to have served in such a calling. It is so long, in fact, that I’ve come to believe I am entitled to some special Church benefits — perhaps a one-year Word of Wisdom reprieve, a “Get Out of Tithing Free” card, a lottery win, or at least a meaningful, Three Nephites visit as I drive up the I15. While contemplating my imminent negotiations with the Brethren on this point, I was suddenly released last week! Finally. (Truth be told, the only way I got this to happen was to wait for a new Bishop to be called, and then prematurely announce in Fast and Testimony meeting that we had finalized our plans to move out of the ward).
Read the rest of this entry »

So I was reading the news (read: eonline.com) this afternoon, and came across the following item in the live blog from the Golden Globes last night:

7:22 p.m.: Arrested Development‘s David Cross walks the red carpet accompanied by…the Book of Mormon. He’s overheard telling an interviewer that he brought along the tome as emergency reading material because "these things get boring."

Huh?  Was that outright funny?  (religious comedy props–the new wave of humor…)  Ironically funny?  (Perhaps an homage to Mark Twain’s famous "ether in print" comment…)  Endearing?  Surrealist Art?  Sincere?

I invite you all to come up with theories.  Author of best theory will be crowned BCC queen of the day (regardless of your actual gender.)

Long-time BCC readers will recall my plug for NBC’s weight-loss reality show, The Biggest Loser. Ryan Benson, who is one of the three finalists, is a friend of mine and a former member of my ward. I know you’ve all been faithfully watching the show weekly as a show of solidarity with your co-religionist, and even if you weren’t otherwise inclined, I’m sure my earlier demand that you do so anyway was met with your unquestioning obedience.

But just in case I’m mistaken, let me invite you to watch tomorrow’s show specifically, as it is the final episode, where “the” Biggest Loser will be chosen. So far, it looks like Ryan is likely to win, and if he does, he gets the $250,000. Even more importantly, he’ll probably get to tour the talk show circuit, and given that he’s an aspiring actor, I imagine this could really jumpstart his career.

But folks, there’s an even more important reason to tune in tomorrow….. You might even get to see ME!

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, that’s a bit of a high brow title to describe my community theater experience last month, but it was an experience to be celebrated, and what better way to celebrate than with a fake British accent.  (Just ask Madonna…or Esther).  Sometime in November, my roommate, who teaches children’s music classes at the local community center, was asked to be the pianist for the community theater’s production of  "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever."   She was already singing in another production, but after being assured that it just involved playing some hymns during the pageant, she suggested that they contact me.  I was a bit skeptical, because I’m more than a bit stage shy when it comes to playing the piano (more on that later), but I figured it was just a couple of hymns, and I really could use the money….so voila.  I got the job.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the last 36 hours or so, my son Peter has gone from being vaguely aware of the way letters sound to being a reader. We’ve plowed through all the Little Bear books, a couple of Seuss things, and we’re on to Amelia Bedelia. Heady stuff!
Read the rest of this entry »