Wayfare Magazine (2025)

17/06/2025

A week ago, I witnessed the remarkable fruits of peacemaking temporarily transform downtown Los Angeles, one of the most significant centers of ongoing political turmoil within our nation’s increasingly polarized landscape. It was a lesson and a witness to the prophetic power of ministering as the Savior would, at a moment in our country when many find themselves relentlessly tossed within a political “war of words and tumult of opinions.”

At this time, it is my firm conviction that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must stand for the revealed principles which have been repeatedly expressed by leaders of our faith on the question of how to respond to our immigrant neighbors—documented and undocumented alike.

… On the evening of June 10, 2025, as part of my official calling as the Los Angeles Stake Interfaith Director and with the approval of my local leadership, I joined with other local faith representatives and clergy in taking part in an interfaith prayer vigil near the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels. The intent of our assembly was to “gather in prayer and reflection,” to “call for nonviolence,” and to “stand in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors.”

The event was non-partisan, not sponsored by or endorsing any particular party or politician, and took no collective stance on any specific law or proposed bill. Rather, it represented an assembling together of diverse neighbors and spiritual communities in shared concern, compassion, and advocacy for sacred values that we hold in common—extending them towards a city that desperately needs ministers and peacemakers at this time.“

Read ’s experience “Encountering the Spirit of God in the City of Angels” on WayfareMagazine.org

16/06/2025

Every day I watch my three-year-old son learn to navigate the politics of the playground in languages not his own.

We currently live in Bangkok, Thailand, where my husband works as a United States Foreign Service Officer. The city is vibrant and varied. Motorbikes zip in and out of traffic and neon-bright tuk-tuks ferry tourists to golden temples or bustling markets ripe with the smells of lime, coriander, and grilled pork. On any given day, I see Buddhist monks in saffron robes, Thai middle school students in lilac blue uniforms, Japanese businessmen clutching leather briefcases, and American babies carried by their Cambodian nannies.

While my husband conducts visa interviews or helps distressed American citizens, I’ve primarily learned the lay (and law) of the land through the city’s parks and playgrounds. Our apartment complex’s communal playground offers a lesson in cultural geography. Like Bangkok, the playground is multicultural and multilingual. Thai, Japanese, English, Russian, and Burmese (spoken in Myanmar) are the predominant languages I hear as children run around, bounce up and down on the see-saws, try to climb up the scuffed yellow slides, and scoot past each other on their balance bikes.

I usually observe this chaos while sitting on a tiled bench near the sandbox while my three-year-old son pours sand into a dump truck. As he plays—whether by himself or with others—I sometimes try to play the role of a bored observer, hoping to facilitate his sense of adventure and independence.

To paraphrase Hamlet, “the play’s the thing.” In this case, play is how children grow, how they make mistakes, how they draw limits, and how they explore their inner and social worlds. Play brings provocations, invitations, negotiations.

I like that idea. But I would like the idea more if I could guarantee that other children on the playground understood my son. Not knowing the language of the playground can be disorientating.

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Keep reading in “The Playground Linguist: Language, Subjectivity, and Universal Love” by .armconnect on WayfareMagazine.org

12/06/2025

In honor of Father’s Day, we present a collection of essays that explores the sacredness and complexity of fatherhood. We invite you to read and consider them, allowing their stories and ideas to challenge and expand the way you view the fathers in your life.

In these memoir essays, five writers explore the layered, unfinished middle-ness of fatherhood, earthly and heavenly. Peter Conti-Brown describes how his son’s baptism transforms the way he views his father’s tragic life by allowing him to find grace in unseen struggles. Paul Reeve recounts how receiving an unexpected gift becomes a surprising revelation of his father’s quiet but steady love for him. Tyler Johnson interrogates the beauty and power of words, an understanding that begins as a boy under his father’s careful and playful writing tutelage. Isaac Richards braids his father’s poems into an essay that lovingly explores connections between poetry, scripture, and memory. And John Turner describes how his relationship with his own father is impacted as he writes Joseph Smith’s biography and learns of Joseph’s unwavering love for his imperfect father.

As these unique and thoughtful writers seek to make meaning of their experiences with fatherhood—some, as fathers themselves—we hope their essays help you imagine a more expansive vision of the hallowed yet complex relationships in your own lives and embrace living them in medias res.

08/06/2025

“I remember one morning in particular when I expressed frustration with my anxiety and with my seeming inability to improve, wondering why my anxiety always seemed to get in the way of any serious progress. Why wouldn’t the Lord simply lift my anxiety from me? As I spoke my complaint, the thought came to me unmistakably—your anxiety is your cross, your thorn in the flesh, and you will have to carry it as best you can.

And as I have tried to lift this cross through my sixty years of life, I have found that the best way to carry it is to be an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to be engaged as fully as I can, even if that engagement is almost always fraught with anxiety. At first, this may well strike readers as strange. As I have visited with other anxious people who are active in the Church, I hear concerns and even complaints that resonate with my experience. What about the charge to get out of your comfort zone? Well, what if your comfort zone is not all that comfortable? What if going to church and doing what you already do makes you uncomfortable? Doesn’t being engaged in the Church exacerbate anxiety? All I can say is that in my experience, the answer is no.”

Read more in “Anxiously Engaged” by Stan Benfell on WayfareMagazine.org

15/05/2025

Matthew Wickman invites us to rethink what might be the miracles in our lives in his latest post “Subtle Grace” found on wayfaremagazine.org
Art by Colby Sanford

08/05/2025

Read Kristine Haglund’s latest essay “Jesus Before the Metaphor” at wayfaremagazine.org Art by Diego Rivera

04/05/2025

*Readers should take care and note that this essay describes an obstetric emergency, traumatic birth experience, and postpartum depression*

Read “An Expanse of Light & Memory,” a beautiful essay from senior Wayfare editor on Mothering & being Mothered, on WayfareMagazine.org

Artwork by

02/05/2025

As part of the ongoing How to Think Politically series, Wayfare Magazine is pleased to host Nate Oman’s essay of popular philosophy “The Disposition of Mormonism” together with a forum of brief responses from signal thinkers such as Peter Conti-Brown (University of Pennsylvania), Greer Cordner (Boston), Samuel Moyn (Yale), Katharina Paxman (BYU), John Durham Peters (Yale), and Joseph Spencer (BYU).

In brief, Oman argues that, because it treats religious faith and forms as precious inheritances from the past, the Latter-day Saint faith tradition is conservative in disposition, in contrast to liberal or progressive dispositions. While Oman takes pains to distinguish between disposition and political orientation, his framing permits interesting political interpretations at a time in contemporary US politics that warrants critical conversations about Mormonism as a political force. It is perhaps fitting that today, May 1, is also International Workers Day.

The following forum aims to spark such conversation with generous critique.

28/04/2025

Jenna Carson’s moving essay “Blood and Milk” is now available to read or listen to on WayfareMagazine.org ❤️

Readers should be aware that this essay on the hard, beautiful work of chaplaincy discusses pregnancy loss, stillbirth, and mentions sexual assault.

Artwork by

23/04/2025

What does it mean to walk the covenant path? What is the purpose of covenants?

Join us for a new series of essays on the Covenant Life, where editor Tyler Johnson will be joined by a host of authors who will help us to explore the contours of a covenant life within the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We’ll hear from JB Haws, Rosalynde Welch, Dierdre Green, Patrick Mason, August Burton, Sarah Sabey, Travis Hicks, Peter Mugmancuro, Jeremiah Scanlan, and many others. Our hope is that together we can add depth to our collective religious understanding of what it means to allow our covenants to shape us into individuals who can be bound together into a beloved community, a covenant people.

“To live a covenant life is to promise to spend your life seeking to discover how God would have you engage with your fellow humans and the world around you.

In this way, covenants matter not primarily because they constitute a checklist that helps us prepare for the afterlife, nor primarily because they are required stops on the road that allow us to return to heaven, but, instead, because they transform us, not just individually but also collectively.

…These hypotheses are preliminary, and chiefly of value for the questions they raise. Indeed, this realization merely sets the theological stage for a more comprehensive understanding of what it means to live a covenant life. Within this framework, we can begin to look at individual ordinances and covenants and to examine the ways these rituals and their associated promises are meant to shape our lives.”

—Tyler Johnson

Subscribe for free at WayfareMagazine.org, then be sure you manage your subscription and turn on notifications for “On the Road to Jericho” to receive each new installment in your inbox!

18/04/2025

The Stations of the Cross, also known as the Way of the Cross or Via Crucis, commemorate Jesus’s passion and death on the cross. Each station depicts a moment on his journey to Calvary. The practice began as pious pilgrims traced his path through Jerusalem on the Via Dolorosa. Today on WayfareMagazine.org, we invite you to view the following images created by , along with accompanying meditations and prayers, as we contemplate the suffering and sacrifice of Christ.

17/04/2025

What if you were called to serve in the restoration of polygamy? PILOT PROGRAM is the story of Abigail Husten, a writer and professor whose life is turned upside down when she and her husband Jacob are called to participate in a pilot program restoring polygamy to current LDS practice.

Please enjoy the an excerpt from PILOT PROGRAM by Melissa Leilani Larson on WayfareMagazine.org. If you’d like to find out what happens next, mark your calendars for April 30, 2025, when the Roadshow Theater Company will produce a reading performance of PILOT PROGRAM in its entirety. Visit thecompassgallery.com for tickets.

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ABIGAIL writes another blog post.

ABIGAIL: I called Heather and left a voicemail. Just like that. I couldn’t help myself. She was working in San Francisco, at a publishing house where I’d helped her get an internship during grad school. It was less than an hour before she called me back, and the next thing I knew she was on a plane. I didn’t know what I expected her to say. I didn’t even know what I was going to ask her. I just thought, if there needs to be someone else— Why not someone just like me?

The doorbell rings.

HEATHER enters.

HEATHER: Oh my gosh, it’s freezing.

ABIGAIL: Yeah, it’s terrible. Ice on everything. I’m amazed you made it up the walk. We keep waiting for the icicles to drop and kill someone.

HEATHER: They’re huge.

ABIGAIL: Right? Anyway, come on in.

The two women regard each other.

HEATHER: Wow. Hi.

ABIGAIL: You’re here. I can’t believe it.

HEATHER: Why are we being awkward? So strange. Come here.

They hug.

ABIGAIL: It’s so good to see you.

HEATHER: It’s good to be seen.

ABIGAIL: Come in. Have a seat. Jake will be home any minute.

HEATHER: Thanks.

ABIGAIL: You’ve been busy.

HEATHER: So have you. I love your blog. It’s my sanctuary. I read it every day and think, “Wow, I know her.”

ABIGAIL: Hush.

HEATHER: It’s true. I’ve converted people to reading your stuff. You’ve made me start my own.

ABIGAIL: AmidTheHeather.com. It’s clever.

HEATHER: Not too precious?

ABIGAIL: It’s perfect. What else could you possibly call it?

HEATHER: I’m just getting started, of course. Nowhere near your level.

**

Wayfare Magazine