Patheos

BuddhistCatholicContemplativeEvangelicalGeneral ChristianHinduJewishLatter-day SaintMuslimNew VisionsProgressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Patheos

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos Patheos on Facebook Patheos on YouTube

Home Waters

2013-10-13T20:25:39-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Fishing for Metaphors

Last updated on: October 13, 2013 at 8:25 pm   By georgehandley

Fishers are compulsive storytellers. Maybe it is because they have spent so many hours for just a few minutes of excitement and this is their way of justifying this profligate expenditure of time. In my experience, it just feels selfish to keep a miraculous experience to oneself. One wants to spread the joy. In fishing as in life, one learns that getting the right results comes after careful preparation, knowledge, skill, planning have done all they can do. Then something... Read more

Uncategorized

2013-10-06T15:54:00-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Mental Illness and the Atonement

Last updated on: October 6, 2013 at 3:54 pm   By georgehandley

Inspired by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s masterful talk on mental illness, I have been reflecting on the great hope that is in Christ’s suffering on our behalf. I don’t want to repeat myself, but as someone who has been touched in the most personal and painful way by the effects of mental illness on a brother who took his life many years ago, I simply want to reiterate the truthfulness of his words. (more…) Read more

Uncategorized

2013-09-29T16:29:32-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Bishops, Lay Clergy, and the Quest for Community

Last updated on: September 29, 2013 at 4:29 pm   By georgehandley

Several experiences lately have caused me to reflect on the nature of a lay clergy in the LDS church and the duty that we all share to sustain each other in our various responsibilities. It might be true that familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes, but familiarity is also the only way to test and develop true love. Religion is shallow if it only fosters love of strangers, of mythic heroes, or of extraordinary people. The great test of... Read more

Uncategorized

2013-09-15T18:30:40-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

On Poetry and Politics, or Why We Can’t Seem to Stop Fighting

Last updated on: September 15, 2013 at 6:30 pm   By georgehandley

In honor of Seamus Heaney’s life so well lived, I revisited one of my favorite essays of his, “The Redress of Poetry.” What Heaney addresses in this essay is the age old question of the role of art in the polis and the role of imagining alternative worlds within the context of lived experience. To what extent does art offer a frivolous and perhaps meaningless alternative reality to the concerns that press hard upon us each day? When, on the... Read more

Uncategorized

2013-09-08T16:03:03-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

On Music and Community

Last updated on: September 8, 2013 at 4:03 pm   By georgehandley

Last night I had the unusual opportunity to hear James Taylor sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I have seen JT in concert many times. If I remember correctly, that was my fifth. And I have seen the choir perform many times too, of course. I love choral music, especially sacred music, but I also love the gritty voice of a balladeer, someone who sings from the rooted individual experiences of loss, error, political and social disappointment, and personal redemption.... Read more

Uncategorized

2014-12-30T11:08:23-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Science, Faith, and Policy

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 11:08 am   By georgehandley

Living in Utah provides interesting up-close observations of tensions that are being worked out within Mormon culture on a public stage. One tension that is not unique to Mormonism but is nevertheless persistent in our history is the strained relationship between faith and science. Take, for example, the recent news that Rep. Chris Stewart is challenging the science behind the EPA’s enforcement of clean air policies. It turns out that the science he is criticizing is, in part, produced by... Read more

Uncategorized

2013-08-25T10:51:11-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Reading Literature as a Religious Practice

Last updated on: August 25, 2013 at 10:51 am   By georgehandley

  A course devoted to reading the Book of Mormon as literature made headlines recently. As happy as I am to see such a course, I don’t really see why this should be news. I guess maybe it is news because it implies, for some people, that the book has somehow been demoted from its sacred status. I don’t see why or how this is the case. In my mind, to read something “as literature” can only mean reading it... Read more

Uncategorized

2013-08-20T13:52:58-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

An Appeal To Those Concerned But Not Yet Alarmed By Climate Change

Last updated on: August 20, 2013 at 1:52 pm   By georgehandley

(This is cross-posted at http://earthstewardship.org/) According to a recent study done at Yale University only 13% of Americans are alarmed about anthropogenic, or human-caused, global warming (AGW), while on the other end of the spectrum 10% are adamantly dismissive and another 15% are at least doubtful about it. Interestingly, the majority of Americans are either concerned (26%) or cautiously concerned (29%) about the theory. If the political culture of my home state is any indication, the deniers in Utah and in mainstream Mormon... Read more

Uncategorized

2013-08-11T21:37:49-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Mormon Sense of Place, as Seen by a Non-Mormon

Last updated on: August 11, 2013 at 9:37 pm   By georgehandley

Mark Twain was perhaps the first of outside visitors to Mormon Utah, arriving with pen in hand, eager to give account of the strangeness and oddity of Mormon community life. For a Mormon writer like myself who was born in Utah but raised and educated on both coasts, I can sympathize with the difficulty of penetrating such peculiar communities that are seemingly out of sync with mainstream America. Living as I do in a city that is the third largest... Read more

Uncategorized

2013-08-04T14:08:05-06:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Love and Losses

Last updated on: August 4, 2013 at 2:08 pm   By georgehandley

I recently had the unique opportunity to hear recordings made on cassette tape over thirty years ago, recordings that my mother carefully preserved until she recently transferred them to CD. These included tape recordings that my family and I sent back and forth to each other during my two-year mission in Venezuela in 1985 and 1986. It is a bit surreal, not to mention highly sentimental, to hear your mother’s voice speaking with love and concern for you when you... Read more

Uncategorized

Follow Us!

Follow Us on Facebook



TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Go to this tiny creature, you sluggard! Observe its ways and be wise, for it has no commander yet stores provisions. What industrious insect is this?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The spider The grasshopper The ant The bee


Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2016 March 2016 February 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 March 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012


TRENDING AT PATHEOS Latter-day Saint

Did Prayer Cure His Cancer? Or Was It...

At 4 AM one morning, Joshua W. Brown’s wife awoke to a...

8 Ways a Near-Death Experience Rewires the Soul

Does Consciousness Survive Physical Death? After 50 Years of Research, Dr. Raymond...

Holy Longing: What Our Restlessness Is Telling Us

“One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.” -John...

The Making of a Dumbass

  What this is NOT about.  This blog is definitely not about...

Who Told You That?

Who said the Israelites were God’s chosen? That’s right, they did. Who...

The Spirit World Is the Real World: God...

A Monk’s Wisdom on Body and Spirit I sit with Brother Martin...

view all Latter-day Saint blogs

Patheos on Facebook Patheos on YouTube

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Copyright 2008-2026, Patheos. All rights reserved.

Subscription Support Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In

Follow Patheos Patheos on Facebook Patheos on YouTube