Segullah

Mormon women blogging about the peculiar and the treasured

Speaking in Tongues

I’m in the process of trying to go back to school. One of the new (well, new since I went to college) requirements is to have intermediate proficiency in a foreign language. I enrolled in a Spanish class and went last week for the first time. It was, in a word, bewildering. I was lost–completely [...]

Song of the Heart

When I was a child, there was a family in our neighborhood who always came caroling on Christmas Eve. They’d sing for us and give us a perfectly round (baked in a soup can) loaf of banana bread, frosted with buttercream frosting and topped with a sprig of holly. Christmas had arrived. As a teenager, [...]

You People with Depth Perception Scare Me

That’s what I said to my husband as I squeezed my eyes closed, certain he was going to back the pickup right into the garage door. He finally did brake, slid the gearshift into park, and turned to me. “No, it’s you people without depth perception who are scary.” I laughed. He had a point. [...]

Walking Barefoot at the Fourth Hole

This post (originally written two years ago) is the last in a series of posts about my grandparents. Thanks for sharing memories with me. We’ve been coming here for four years now, so I guess you could call it a tradition. Each summer my parents, siblings, and their families gather for a three-day weekend at [...]

Forward

I spent a semester abroad in Israel as a college student in 1994. One of the places we visited was the Qalandia refugee camp. I remember the intensity with which our Arab professor spoke of the circumstances of the camp. How hard he tried to impress upon us the conditions under which they lived. How [...]

I’m a foot, not a nose

Sometimes I think of myself as a foot in the body of Christ’s church—relatively unglamorous (painted toenails notwithstanding), but willing to work and contribute in many ways. So when I got one of those fateful phone calls asking me to meet with the bishop, I considered the possibilities. Maybe he’d ask me to walk or [...]

choosing covenant

I wrote this a while ago when I was feeling conflicted about making covenants while too young to fully understand them. Both the poem and my feelings are still a work in progress, so we can talk about either. “the serpent” you have the power to choose, he hisses, wrapping around my discontent with soothing [...]

Rock, Dust

Photo by Aidan McRae Thomson I love the Apostle Peter—his enthusiasm, his heedless loyalty, his solid faith. His answer to the Lord’s question, “Will ye also go away?” forms the foundation of my own belief: “Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” The completeness of his devotion is part [...]

The Mighty Wurlitzer

I wrote this a few years ago but decided to post it today in memory of my grandma, who passed away Sunday evening. It used to be a chicken coop. That’s how the history always starts, a history that sounds almost like a legend because it has played in my ears for as long as [...]

To rip or not to rip…

While visiting with a friend a few weeks ago, I casually mentioned that I edit my journal. Once she started breathing again and retrieved her jaw from the floor, she spluttered, “But you can’t do that–it’s history!” (Guess what she majored in? Yup, history.) So we talked about it, and in the end, we agreed [...]

What’s in a name?

I remember the first time I found out what my name means. I’m guessing the only reason I have this memory is because I was old enough to wonder and to have unknowingly formed an expectation. Without realizing it, I assumed that the meaning of my name would provide some great insight, reveal some hidden [...]

Funny Girl

My sister is funny. The sort of funny that takes no thought–just flashes of quick wit that leave me giggling and wishing I could even think to say something like that. Whenever I spend time with her, I laugh. Funny is not my default setting, but oh I wish it were. I wish my knee-jerk [...]

To Not Have Sinned

I plead with you, my brothers and sisters, my young friends and my older friends, avoid transgression! The idea that one is better off after one has sinned and repented is a devilish lie of the adversary. Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “Sin and Suffering,” BYU Speeches, Aug. 5, 1990 She was our guest speaker in [...]

Buried

We’ve been getting a lot of snow. I shoveled three times today to try and stay ahead of the falling, falling, falling snow. The water is wonderful, I said to my aching back. The water will be so nice in the summer. Green grass and flowers wouldn’t be possible without this shoveling. But apparently my [...]

Tunnel vision

I read last week about Elder Scott’s watercolors being displayed in Salt Lake during the holiday season. As I scrolled through the images of his paintings, several thoughts ran through my mind. The first was that I hadn’t realized that I’d viewed him with tunnel vision until his artwork took him out of that tunnel. [...]

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