More Thankful Every Day: Conversion Week on T&S

This week on Times and Seasons several of us will be sharing conversion stories, whether discussing our own conversion to the restored gospel or that of others. We figured that there are few things more appropriate to Thanksgiving week then to reflect upon those events for which many of us have cause to be deeply thankful.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Let’s play a game. You can choose between two jobs. One pays $50,000 and the other pays $100,000. You know, or can guess, that if you take the first you will give about $5,000/yr in fast offerings and other gifts to the poor. If you make $100,000 you will give about $15,000. You will also pay several thousand more dollars in taxes, but we’ll set that aside. So in one case, you consume about $45,000 and in the other, you consume about $85,000. Which do you take?

Two coalminers

Their story would have made an agreeable Ensign article were it not for that later development that ruined its beauty. Oh, believe me, I was tempted to censor the second part. But it would feel like cheating. Besides, the aftermath carries the morale of the story.

Is Mormonism Romantic?

A couple of excellent articles on C.S. Lewis’s life and work have appeared over the past few days–all part of the build-up to the release of the upcoming movie of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, of course, but still good articles nonetheless. In particular, the New Yorker piece, brought to my attention by Ronan Head, provides opportunity to think again about Lewis’s very magical, very romantic sense of the divine, and our own.

Where does the Bloggernacle live?

Bryce Inouye has created a bloggernacle Frappr page that shows you where our bloggernacle community lives. If you’re willing to share your zip code, add yourself! (Note that Frappr requires you to leave a short comment in the “shoutout” box. )

Mark Your Calenders!

The Third Annual LDS Law Students conference is coming up. The organizers have already put together a very slick looking website with lots of information about the conference. The scheduled speakers include Harry Reid (Senate Minority Leader), Thomas B. Griffith (U.S. Court of Appeals Judge), Robert F. Drinan, S.J. (Professor of Law at Georgetown and ordained Jesuit priest), Richard Bushman (Professor emeritus of History at Columbia), and others. There will also be panels on corporate law, public interest law, women and the law, and much much more. I attended the conference last year at Columbia and loved it. Interesting presenters, smart students, good times. The conference will be held February 17th & 18th at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC.

Fiction Books for Children

Despite appearances to the contrary, we here at Times and Seasons do not spend all our time debating the finer points of church doctrine, history, culture and theology. A lot of the time, we talk about our kids. And since raising kids–and in particular, finding good books to read to them and with them–is something a lot of our readers can relate to, we thought we’d open the blog up to some discussion and recommendations of that topic. First up, a guest post from my wife, Melissa Madsen Fox, who besides being a great consumer and critic of youth fiction, also maintains a blog where she reviews much of the same. Take it away, Melissa!