Sunstone Symposium Day 3 - Friday thoughts
I wanted to title this post “One reason I really like Sunstone“, but I also want this to be an open thread on thoughts from Friday’s sessions. Feel free to share your own!
So why do I really like Sunstone? I feel at home in this community and its diversity.
Today is a great example, as I attended sessions ranging from History to Philosophy to Poetry to a panel discussion on polygamy and the HBO series Big Love.
Where else can I listen to Van Hale, an older and known personality, talk about the value that Joseph Smith placed upon diversity in both word and deed, only to be responded to and supported by an up-and-coming graduate student from Claremont?
Where else can I move directly into a presentation from Jim McLachlan, an animated and engaging philosophy professor from Western Carolina University, as he enthusiastically delivered his paper exploring the commonalities between Joseph Smith and 16th-century Protestant mystic Jakob Böhme?
Where else can I hear a moving tribute to May Swenson by her much younger brother, Paul Swenson, as he described her life, her poetry, and her influence? This session, for me, was an unexpected gem, and thus far one of the highlights of this Symposium.
And where else can I sit next to Mormon Fundamentalist women like Anne Wilde and Mary Batchelor, who speak openly and eloquently about their beliefs and their impressions of HBO’s portrayal of a polygamous family?
The thoughtful presentations, the challenging discussions, the interesting (and sometimes off-the-wall!) comments - this is a comfortable, engaging place. I’m glad I have the opportunity to be a part of it.
August 11th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Sunstone, how do I love thee…
What I love the most is the general environment of affirmation. But meeting old friends and making new ones is also cool. Plus some of the sessions I attend are…dare I say it…more spiritual than church meetings often are!
I have one question for repeat attendees–does it seem like the median age for the summer symposium just dropped ten years? Maybe it was just the blogging sessions I attended, but it was wonderful to see so many younger people!
I caught three afternoon sessions. I really enjoyed Dennis Potter’s discussion of liberation theology and the sacramental worldview (I’d love to talk to anyone else who heard him present).
John Dehlin did a entertaining but extremely timely presentation on the Mormon Internet, and managed to include the phrase “Mormon Porn” in a Sunstone session for perhaps the first time in history.
There was a very spiritual presentation (that I helped out in) on visiting and learning from other churches, that included touching personal experiences from Parker Blount, Phyllis Barber, David Youkstetter, and Bob Rees.
August 11th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
I have one question for repeat attendees–does it seem like the median age for the summer symposium just dropped ten years? Maybe it was just the blogging sessions I attended, but it was wonderful to see so many younger people!
I have to agree. As one of the ‘youth’, I spent the last two years feeling especially young. This year there seemed to be several more college-aged persons in attendance.
August 13th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
Hmm, My husband isn’t interested in Sunstone, but dropped by to pick me up late Friday. He said he thought that the Pillars of my Faith session looked kind of like a snowbird meeting in Tucson (where we used to live). But earlier sessions I attended seemed to have a younger crowd than usual. I have attended Sunstone off and on, for about 20 years, and I thought this was one of the best ones ever. I particularly liked the Pillars of My Faith, on Friday night, and also liked the session with couples of varying degrees of church activity talking about how the differences had affected their marriages.
Anyone know when the mp3s will be up at the website?
August 14th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
The “Join None of Them” session with Parker Blount, Phyllis Barber, John Remy & co was wonderful! I’m a bit biased, perhaps (being John’s wife), but it was one of those rare sessions that was completely entertaining, thought-provoking, deeply spiritual, and affirming! Definitely one to buy on mp3 if you missed it in person.
August 14th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
I’ve often heard friends refer to the experience of listening to LDS General Conference as an opportunity to charge their batteries. The batteries to which they refer are no doubt spiritual batteries, which are accessed by attaching Conference Jumper Cables to the positive and negative electrical nodes located in the heart and head respectively. I “hook up” to LDS General Conference every six months, but the electrical currents seem to bypass my heart and head and go straight to some internal machine that induces sleep. Attempts to re-wire my engine have mostly failed.
Truth be told, I still get a nice spiritual jolt or two while listening to General Conference (especially when the Mo Tab sings!), but the power source feels more akin to a portable Briggs & Stratton 6300 Watt Generator.
Sunstone, on the other hand, feels like electrical equivalent of being hooked directly into Southern California Edison’s gazillion megawatt main power grid in San Onofre. Talk about charging my batteries!
For those who couldn’t make it, or missed a session due to “Session Conflict” — a common Symposium anxiety disorder that arises when one has to choose between two, or three, or four (!) equally appealing sessions — here are some of my personal favorites (all of which will no doubt soon be available to download):
1.) Mormon Feminist Bloggers: Can Blogging Help Mormon Feminism. This session had a lot of energy. I didn’t think it possible, but Lisa at FMH appears to be more vivacious in person than she is in cyberspace. Someone needs to interview her for a Podcast. Sunstone Blog’s John and Jana offered cogent and heartfelt analysis and personal experience, and Margaret Toscano summed it all up in her usual professional fashion. Just a perfect session.
2.) Reflections on Mormon Liminality: A Generational Response. This session was memorable in part because of the unique (and welcome) perspective of a father and son (Bryon and Eric Martin), who shared their views on the ability to sustain the liminality of Mormon belief (i.e. the in-between or transitional state between being a True Believer and not.) I was particularly touched by Dan Wotherspoon’s heartfelt response and “skin” metaphor. That’s all I’ll say here; I’m actually interested in writing more about this session (and idea) in the future.
3.) Author-Meets-Critics: Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball. Edward Kimball is great. Can’t wait to read this book.
4.) Varieties of Irreligious Experience: Schoolmarmery, Success-Mongery, and Sycophancy. Paul Toscano is just ridiculously eloquent, especially here. I’d call this session a “must-listen”. Are there plans to publish this paper in Sunstone? Please say “Yes”!
5.) The Promise and Peril of the Internet Within Mormonism. John Dehlin did a great job summing up recent events happening around the Internet relative to Mormonism. This could have been a three hour session and still only scratched the surface.
6.) Will, Grace, and Angels in Brokeback America: Straight women, Gay Men, and Mormonism. This was the emotional highlight of the weekend for me. Hard to imagine a panel with four more intelligent and articulate women than Holly Welker, Emily Pearson, Annette Daley, and Doe Daughtrey.
There were many more, of course, but work beckons… But if you are looking for a nice spiritual and intellectual charge of your batteries, all of the above are guaranteed to jolt!
August 14th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
I’d like to bear my testimony. If the stuff that went on at Sunstone went on at church, I’d be an apostle by now.
Well, lucky me. I didn’t go to any of those sessions, Matt. I guess I have some great listening ahead of me. I think I’m going to get that complete works of Sunstone 2006 CD.
When does that come out anyway?
August 15th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Although I am not a social butterfly, either at parties or symposia, I (to paraphrase a Church cliche) enjoy the fellowship of the Sunstone Saints, and feel that I am among kindred spirits on many levels. I like the “academic” flavor of the sessions, the mutual respect among people who may disagree, and the lack of preaching and minipulation.
There were two sessions on Friday that were particularly meaningful:
As one who is less active in the Church but considering a cautious re-entry, I enjoyed the session on “Why We Stay.” I liked Bonner Ritchie’s quotation of a friend who said that “My mind tells me to leave the Church, but my heart tells me to stay.” And Armand Mauss’s conclusion: “Why stay? Why not!
The “Join None of Them” session in which panelists described their visits to various non-LDS services was fascinating. John Remy’s accout of his visit to a Quaker service was particularly moving. Bob Reese’s mention of his visit to the Hollywood Presbyterian Church where the Music Department is staffed by gay ex-Mormons was revealing. This session brough to mind my own practice during the 70s of slipping-away from Sunday School at Stanford Ward to attend the Sunday morning protestant service at Stanford Memorial Church. We have much to learn from other denominations including the quality of our preaching (lay pulpit notwithstanding) and especially our hymn-singing.
August 15th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
I enjoyed your thoughts in #7, Lee. I had planned to listen to both sessions you highlighted when they are made available for download.
I’m intrigued by your “considering a cautious re-entry” comment. If you feel like it, I’m curious why you are considering re-entry. Is it the Gospel? A desire to reconnect with the LDS Community? Something else?
August 17th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Matt, in answer to your question in 8 above, I am motivated primarily by a desire to reconnect with the LDS community, but also by the Gospel and my Mormon heritage; I am a fifth-generation Mormon. Michael Quinn’s comment about being a DNA Mormon comes to mind. At the same time, I have some real problems with the institutional Church; hence the conditional approach.
August 26th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
The panel, For Better, For Worse, For Apostasy, etc., #273 was a major hightlight.
It was from the late Christian psychiatrist M. Scott Peck that I first learned about the existence of Sunstone. He and I met in 1988 in Telluride, Colorado at a US-USSR Sister Cities conference, where Peck was an invited speaker. Coincidentally, just before coming to the conference I had recently read his most recent book, The Different Drum, as well as his The Road Less Traveled sometime earlier. Introducing myself after his presentation, I referred to The Different Drum and his concept of the Four Stages of Community. I also made him aware that I was Mormon. He responded by asking if I knew about the Sunstone Foundation and when I said no, he explained that Sunstone, a group of young, independent minded Mormons, seemed to him an ideal example of Stage III: Emptying, whereas the ecclesiastical Mormon Church was to him an ideal example of Stage I: Pseudo Community. Peck went on to say that he understood many leaders in the ecclesiastical institution who occasionally experience Stage IV individually were mainly concerned that Church members caught in Sunstone’s Emptying stage would get stuck there and never move into Stage IV: True Community.
I want to tell you that Peck would have been impressed by the experience of the three temple married couples on this panel. In sharing their individual struggles to find meaning, the truth of their own convictions and the level of their own commitments to each other, they clearly moved into Stage IV: True Community. Sharing their struggles as they did, pulled the rest of us into that mysterious, wondrous level that Peck so beautifully describes in his book. I didn’t see a dry eye in the place, which included my Swedish born, non-Mormon evangelical wife.
PS: I failed to mention Community Stage II: Chaos, where people begin telling their own truth—intellectually and emotionally, even when unpleasant. Mikhail Gorbachev’s innovative Russian equivalent is glasnost.