I just got back from vacation and found Tim Townsend’s article about Chatfields Boutique in Des Peres, Missouri – click here – specializing in bridal and formal gowns that are modest.

What a concept!

This is an idea that has caught hold in Utah, where Latter-day Saint clothing entrepreneurs have, in recent years, been helping young teens and adults dress up without dressing down, way down to cleavage baring styles reminiscent of Hollywood’s Night at the Oscars.

Learn of one such clothing entrepreneur in the Meridian Magazine article: Keith Hall takes on Fashion Industry with Beautifully Modest Clothing.

For years Latter-day Saints and people of many faiths have been imploring clothing manufacturers to provide clothing with more cloth. But the response was always the same: modesty does not sell. 

When I went shopping in St. Louis a couple years ago to buy my daughter a prom dress there were none that didn’t show a whole lot of shoulder and revealing…

A friend was visiting Cape Cod recently and brought me a most unusual gift. It was six inches in diameter and formed from two concentric disks, the top disk slightly smaller than the bottom disk. The two disks were held together by a rivet which allowed the disks to turn freely, either clockwise or counter clockwise. The top disk bore the title: CHOOSE YOUR RELIGION: A GUIDE FOR THE SAVVY CONVERT. A large red arrow enabled the top disc to point at any one of thirty “religions” by name. The reason I put the word religions in quotes is because some readers would be quick to declare one or two of these as, “not religions at all.” Consumerism is on the chart, along with Atheism, and Psychoanalysis.

Cut into the top wheel are six openings which are labeled: Description; Accessories/Paraphernalia; Afterlife Promises; Potential New Friends; Drawbacks; and finally, Perks. The device is…

I have enjoyed reading the comments that have been made to my last post — Latter-day Saints examine racial history. I especially enjoyed the expressions of faith in the grace of God.

To clarify, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is built on the foundation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe in a restored, not reformed gospel. We believe in living prophets and apostles and our doctrines are derived from an open cannon of continuing revelation from God. Our roots are in Christian teachings, but our doctrine is distinct relative to other Christian traditions because of our open cannon. If there are errors in our practice, those errors are of man.

Our open cannon makes us open for correction or clarifying revelations. It makes our church vibrant and responsive to challenges in our times. We often refer to the church as a “living church”.

We rejoiced in the clarifying revelation…

One of the members of the Ethical Society of St. Louis who has a background in Buddhism has been teaching a class in “Ethical Mindfulness,” in which he’s trying to blend the mindfulness meditation practice of Thich Nhat Hanh with the philosophy and social activism of Ethical Humanism. I have been getting great benefit from these classes. Humanism has many positive ideals, but we humanists are still working to create or find common practices that help people develop their ethical ideals and the habits to act on them. This seems to be where we can learn a lot from classical Buddhism, which is generally non-theistic and which focuses on practices that help us become more aware of ourselves and our actions, and therefore more able to choose “right action” rather than to react out of anger or fear.

Developing the habit of following my breath and observing my thoughts and…

Much has been made in the month since the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey found that up to 44 percent of Americans have at some point switched religious or denominational affiliations. I myself read about it in The New York Times.

The “much” that has been made has included much hand-wringing. But to be perfectly honest, I would have been much more surprised if the Pew Forum had reported the opposite, that changes in religious affiliation had declined. We in America—where the religious landscape has been shaped by two (or more, depending on who’s counting) “Great Awakenings”—we invented “church shopping.” And as cultural values of individualism and mobility combine with global immigration and vast technological changes, why wouldn’t our religious practices follow suit? Our religious loyalties have shrunk in direct proportion to the shrinking of our world. Or, to put it another way, our religious curiosity has multiplied…