by Stephen Marsh

Jan Shipps recently spoke at the Legacy Chapel in Plano, Texas to a capacity crowd — chapel and overflow filled. She had a lot to say, much about her own history and why she is comfortable as a Methodist and what she sees as her calling to explain the LDS to the outside world and how that came about. She also confessed that the LDS entry in Encyclopedia Americana was written as a way to explain the Church to reporters and other outsiders and save herself the 30 minute introduction she had been forced to generally give them.

She also had some interesting perspectives that gave me pause.

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My four year-old daughter Julia is quite adept at manipulating her parents. Unfortunately for her, she hasn’t yet learned how to keep her methods secret.

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Over at BCC, Bob Caswell has an interesting post on the unrated version of The Passion of the Christ and how it relates to individual members’ decisions to view R-rated movies. Check it out!

I have been performing as a puppeteer and storyteller on a regular basis for about six years. I love children’s stories and spend a lot of time think about them and adapting them into puppet scripts for our shows. I am concerned about the stories we, as a society, are telling our children and I want to make some observations about content.

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I figured it would be nice to have a bit of scriptural commentary on the blog. Initially I don’t want to delve into the more boring close readings, but simply scriptures that have touched me and that I keep returning to time after time. You can consider this a weekly column on my part. Well, at least until I get through all my favorite scriptures. This week is probably the scripture I turn to the most, D&C 123:11-17.

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