Reasons Why I’m Not Changing My Name, Ranked

November 15, 2018 by

micheile-henderson-406428-unsplash

I’m married! Which means some of my acquaintances have mysteriously stopped calling me “Carolyn Homer” and started calling me variations on “Mrs. Carolyn Jones.”

My name has not changed.  It will not change.  I am “Carolyn Homer” for life.  I anticipate and will be amused by occasional mix-ups — but my name is my name.  Names matter.

Hopefully my decision is no longer viewed as a big deal.  But I’ve gotten a bit of pushback from more conservative/traditional corners, including from within the Church.  So for slightly whimsical explanatory sake, here are the reasons why I’m keeping my name, ranked.

15.  Jones is a boring last name.  It’s a Top 5 most common surname in America, held by millions.  I am not a boring person.

14.  I never want to be the target of a “keeping up with the Joneses” joke.  Ever. [Read more…]

Filed Under: BCC Funbag, Family, Gender & Sexuality, Marriage, Mormon, Women Tagged With: , ,

God of the Deluge

April 19, 2018 by

2204054918_09486aa401_b

Mette Ivie Harrison is a well-known mystery and young-adult novelist and frequent guest here. She is the author of The Book of Laman, published by BCC Press.

Eight weeks before the Boston marathon, my treadmill broke. I know, big deal, right? Most runners love the outdoors and it was starting to be spring. But I am not most runners. I love indoor training and the security it provides, from pitstops to water to Netflix and no dogs. I wasn’t happy to have to run outside, and this feeling was compounded when I found I had Achilles tendinitis. But I just kept training because I had to do Boston this one year I qualified. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Doctrine & Policy, Guest Post, Mormon, Religion, Theology Tagged With: , , , ,

The Burden of Choosing to Believe

March 23, 2018 by
4270707735_9a80ac4d13_o

Image Credit: Delphine Devos

“I envy you your faith, somedays,” an agnostic friend in college once remarked as we ate lunch in the spring sunshine.  “I wish I could have faith.”

“You can, you know.   Faith is a choice,” I urged with perhaps a touch too much missionary zeal.  “In the Book of Mormon there’s a famous sermon about how faith is like a science experiment.  If you even have just a ‘desire to believe,” and choose to act on that desire, you’ll feel God’s love, and see results.”

 

“But logic is too deeply engrained in me for that to work,” he responded.  “I’d just dismiss any positive feeling as a weird firing of brain chemicals, a manufactured emotional manipulation.  It’s not tangible or real.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Doctrine & Policy, Mormon, Religion, Scriptures, Society & Culture, Theology, Theology, Doctrine & Policy Tagged With: , , ,

Wave Operators. Omniscience. God. Heaven. Charity. Atonement. Reconciliation. Love. Infinity. Part I.

March 30, 2015 by

“Maybe we’ve spent too long trying to figure this all out with theory. . . love isn’t something we invented. It’s observable, powerful. It has to mean something.”
“Love has meaning, yes. Social utility, social bonding, child rearing.”
“We love people who have died. Where is the social utility in that?”
“None.”
“Maybe it means something more, something we can’t–yet–understand. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artifact of a higher dimension that we can’t consciously perceive. I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen in a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t understand it . . .”

“I saw . . . my brother Alvin, that has long since slept; and marveled how it was that he had obtained an inheritance in that [Celestial] kingdom, seeing that he had departed this life before the Lord had set his hand to gather Israel the second time, and had not been baptized for the remission of sins. Thus came the voice of the Lord unto me, saying: All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; also all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom; for I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works,[and] according to the desire of their hearts.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon Tagged With: , ,

The Dead Thing in My Can of Tuna

September 20, 2008 by

Guest Blogger, Steven Peck is an associate professor and evolutionary ecologist at BYU who blogs on issues of science and faith at the Mormon Organon. He is currently doing a year sabbatical with the United Nations in Vienna, Austria working on African tsetse fly population ecology.

After class one day, I guiltily grabbed one of those over-packaged lunches so indispensable for those in a hurry to gulp down something quickly. This one was canned tuna salad and crackers. I felt guilty at the amount of unnecessary material piling up as I squirreled through the packaging to find my meal. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Economics, Mormon, Navel-Gazing & Poetic Observation, Religion, Society & Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,