Wayfare Magazine

  • Home
  • Wayfare Magazine

Wayfare Magazine Wayfare is a magazine from Faith Matters.

“Kyivskaya Street is a major road that cuts through Simferopol—the city I lived in for the entirety of my mission, as I ...
23/09/2025

“Kyivskaya Street is a major road that cuts through Simferopol—the city I lived in for the entirety of my mission, as I never transferred. It’s also the setting for Part One of what I believe, without concrete evidence, is a two-part story.

Simferopol is the capital city of the Crimea, and although the entire peninsula is an East Europe tourist hub during the summer, the landlocked capital doesn’t attract as much traffic as beach resorts like Sevastopol, Yalta, and Sudak. Summers, then, meant hard work for full-time missionaries. The folks we were teaching left town for vacations, and with peak temperatures and humidity, there often weren’t many folks on the streets. It was all we could do, some days, to have full conversations with anyone other than fellow missionaries.

One hot, sticky Sunday, my companions and I passed hours attempting to find anyone to speak with. We kept to the main roads, hoping they’d have more foot traffic, and passed out one or two vizitki—small cards listing the Church’s name, plus the times and address of local worship services and English classes. On the back of each vizitka we had scrawled our names and phone number. On good days we could hand out stacks of vizitki; that day was not a good day.

Exhausted, but trying to keep the faith, I saw a pedestrian yards ahead on Kyivskaya Street. I silently promised God that if the woman didn’t cross the street before we crossed paths, I would invite her to church. I slipped a vizitka into my hand and watched the woman’s figure as she approached.

When she was still a bit ahead of me, I launched into my spiel. “Hello,” I called, already extending my hand with the card. But just as the words, “We would like to invite you . . .” came out of my mouth, I lost the air in my lungs, and my knees buckled.”

Read “D&C 109: Breaking Off Yokes of Oppression“ by on WayfareMagazine . org, and find more even resources for ways to think about the temple in the weekly Come Follow Me newsletter on faithmatters . org.

Artwork by 🧡

“The work of bringing wholeness to the world is grounded in living in the world. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do i...
19/09/2025

“The work of bringing wholeness to the world is grounded in living in the world. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. My hands are most often found, in my little world, in the near-constant care of young children. Do it with thy might. I wake them, help them dress, brush their hair, my hands on their heads like a blessing. Time for breakfast. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do . . . I prepare food, help with last-minute shoes, papers, signed reading logs, lunches, and backpacks . . . do it with thy might. I walk them to school. This is holy work? It is the pressing work before me. It is creating hale and hearty children. It is leading to whole lives that are full. It is demanding and creative. It requires constant attention and careful repair. Mistakes are made in abundance, but so are efforts at restoration. This is holy work.

… Wave upon wave of crashing sorrows continue. Darkness and brokenness persist. And so too does our call to “do with might” the many acts of repair ahead of us, as we participate in the holy work of creating a world that is whole.“

*

Read “A Careful Mending of the World: The Creative Work of Hope” by in Issue 4 of Wayfare or on WayfareMagazine . org

Each essay from Issue 5 of Wayfare Magazine—the peacemaking issue—is now free to read online at wayfaremagazine(dot)org/...
15/09/2025

Each essay from Issue 5 of Wayfare Magazine—the peacemaking issue—is now free to read online at wayfaremagazine(dot)org/t/issue-5

Which essays or passages have stuck most in your mind since you first read Issue 5? (We couldn’t fit them all in here, so apologies if your favorite is missing!)

“I remember the first time I saw J. Kirk Richards’s painting Breath of Life (From the Dust) (2011). I was 17 years old, ...
09/09/2025

“I remember the first time I saw J. Kirk Richards’s painting Breath of Life (From the Dust) (2011). I was 17 years old, a senior in high school, working as a volunteer at the Springville Museum of Art. In 2011, there was a particularly good batch of work entered into the museum’s annual Spiritual and Religious show, and I was delighted to see new works on the gallery walls during a casual walkabout. As I entered the step-down gallery, however, I abruptly stopped in front of an eight-foot-tall painting. Three figures—two male, one female—were engaged in a moment of divine creation. I glanced at the label for interpretive guidance: Breath of Life (From the Dust). The title comes from the creation story in the book of Genesis: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). With this passage in mind, I made myself comfortable on the bench in front of the painting and went to work deciphering the image in front of me:

Who are the figures?

Adam (left), Heavenly Father (right), Eve (middle).

Jesus (left), Heavenly Father (right), Heavenly Mother (middle).

The artist himself (left), Heavenly Father (right), Heavenly Mother (middle).

An everyman figure (left), Heavenly Father (right), Heavenly Mother (middle).

I must have spent half an hour looking at the painting. The longer I looked, the more each of these possibilities truthfully coexisted. Although obscured by a cosmic swell—and literal dust applied to the canvas—Richards had done something ineffable, but nevertheless something true, something real. Richards was making theology visible.

This was the first time I had seen the divine feminine, which is just another way of saying it was the first time I saw myself.“

Read ’s reflections on ’s “Breath of Life” on WayfareMagazine.org

I have a confession: I am often restless in the temple. This restlessness arises from a disquieting sense that what is m...
30/08/2025

I have a confession: I am often restless in the temple. This restlessness arises from a disquieting sense that what is meant to bring us closer to God instead has the potential to become a polished icon of separation from the suffering Christ—from the brokenness, benches, and bagels. If the temple is only a place of sacred worship and stillness for ourselves and for the dead, but not a catalyst for Christian engagement in the world, are we missing the mark? Covenants are made in the temple but are not kept or lived there. When temple worship becomes the ultimate end instead of a provisional stop on the journey, have we recreated the temple as an idol? And in so doing, have we averted our gaze and diverted our energy from the holy noise of mourning and human need in the world just outside its doors? Perhaps the restlessness I feel in the temple is precisely its salutary call to get out into the world and to live the covenants renewed therein. It is the sacred charge to live what the gospel teaches us to believe.

If we view the five sacred covenants made in the temple as ascending in significance, then the Law of Consecration would represent the highest law. But if the covenants are viewed as a symmetrical line of five, it is the third that stands at the center, neither first nor last, but the hinge upon which balance turns. It is the axis, the heart, the fulcrum—flanked by two on each side like sentinels or witnesses. At the center, three is the moment of arrival, the still point in the turning world. Three is where meaning gathers. In storytelling, it is the climax. In rhythm, it is the beat that grounds the pattern. And in Biblical numerology, three is trinity—wholeness expressed in triad form.

The third covenant that we make in the temple is the Law of the Gospel. The Higher Law. The New Covenant. Jesus’s “Kingdom Manifesto.”

—Jenny Richards () in “Homeless Jesus“ on WayfareMagazine(dot)org

There was once a family living in Palestine at risk of starvation. A terrible drought reigns, the crops fail, and the an...
31/07/2025

There was once a family living in Palestine at risk of starvation. A terrible drought reigns, the crops fail, and the animals are withering. Hope perks up when they hear that there is grain nearby, stockpiled by a rich and powerful nation.

They hatch a plan. The aged patriarch, who presides over his often unruly eleven sons and sole daughter with uneven success, sends the sons to get grain, laden with goods for a potential exchange. He knows that the family has been chosen by God to fill the earth and is still smarting from the loss of his favorite son years before, so he sends only ten of them, keeping the baby of the bunch at home.

The ten brothers arrive in the rich country, and after cowering before an intimidating figure in charge of the whole country’s grain supply, they get the grain and return home with it. They get it in abundance, and even free of charge.

After much more intrigue, with many poignant and beautiful plot twists, the story tells how the whole family is united, even the missing twelfth son, who, unbeknowst to his brothers who had previously betrayed him and sold him into slavery, had become the great man they met.

The story of Joseph and his brothers truly is one of the greatest stories of the Jewish people. But it is also one of the greatest stories of the human race. It belongs to all of us now. It is one of the many treasures that the Jewish people have brought to humankind. We should all be grateful that the people of Israel managed to survive, and, as promised to Abraham, went on to bless the whole earth. They got grain when they needed it, and because of that, they lived and the whole human family benefited.

Mr. Netanyahu, with a simple decree you can be like Joseph. You can open the gates and let in the trucks to Gaza. Not in a trickle, which will only cause looting and violence as desperate people fight over scraps. But in marvelous abundance. Israel was once saved by a generous gift of grain. The whole human family looks on in horror at the famine now unfolding in Gaza. You can lift it. Be like Joseph—save starving people in Palestine. Be like Joseph—and save Israel as well.

—John Durham Peters, for Wayfare Magazine

“I walk up eighty-nine steps to my disability theory class every Monday and Wednesday. One day, I start my ascent just a...
30/07/2025

“I walk up eighty-nine steps to my disability theory class every Monday and Wednesday. One day, I start my ascent just as the elevator does and find myself cresting the eighty-ninth step as the elevator reaches the fourth floor. The stairs are harder but just as fast! Fist pump. The efficiency and exercise give me a sense of satisfaction, strength, and capability. I walk into class slightly breathless, but I easily hit my step goal for the day.

Disability theory, I learn, begins with a basic assertion that this world has, through social expectations, assumptions, and design, disabled and disregarded many individuals who fail to meet an often unspoken social standard. Our world is constructed around what a typical or “normal” individual should be able to do. We do not often question these standards because they seem to be the natural way of the world. It means we, through limiting access to spaces, further disable individuals who need accommodations. For example, we may be so accustomed to able bodies as the norm that we are blind to the need for wheelchair ramps or braille in our buildings and classrooms.

It means that we may use “blind” as a metaphor for ignorance, which I just did in the previous sentence. I didn’t notice the inherent problem of this metaphor or how often I used it until I sat in class next to my friend Rebekah. As a child, Rebekah loved to swim and dive, but she was born with a weak retina attachment. Over time and compounded by swimming, Rebekeah eventually lost her sight. She is now raising seven children and going to graduate school, all while fighting for access to readings, for an accessible online learning platform, and to be seen as relevant in the classroom.”

Keep reading “Ladders to Heaven” by Kirsten Burningham on WayfareMagazine(dot)org

Read ’s full essay “Pioneering” on WayfareMagazine(dot)org Artwork by Ben Crowder
24/07/2025

Read ’s full essay “Pioneering” on WayfareMagazine(dot)org

Artwork by Ben Crowder

“These little ones who crossed the plains nearly two hundred years ago hold an important key to applied Christianity: ta...
24/07/2025

“These little ones who crossed the plains nearly two hundred years ago hold an important key to applied Christianity: take care of each other, rejoice in God’s beneficence, and don’t lose sight of the wonder of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Read “Sang As They Walked” by Rachel Terry on WayfareMagazine(dot)org.

Art by Minerva Teichert

A pioneer acts as the first step toward change—the first to arrive, the first to achieve, or the first attempt. Bold and...
24/07/2025

A pioneer acts as the first step toward change—the first to arrive, the first to achieve, or the first attempt. Bold and resilient pioneers fill Utah’s history. For example, many Native American groups lived and thrived in Utah first—long before the Saints arrived—including the Utes, Shoshone, Goshutes, Paiutes, and Navajo. With the construction of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, thousands of immigrants bravely arrived in Utah from China, Europe, and Mexico to work and develop communities. They were among the first from their countries willing to contribute their talents and learn a new language to make Utah thrive. Green Flake was the first enslaved member of the Church to arrive in Utah in 1847. Flake drove the first wagon into Emigration Canyon, and by the time Brigham Young arrived a few days later, he had already planted crops. Seraph Young, a Utah schoolteacher, was the first woman in the United States to vote. She voted on February 14, 1870 on her way to work, decades before the nineteenth amendment was passed.

Assembling from many countries, and driven farther west than the US westward frontier at that time, the nineteenth-century Mormon pioneers felt called to seek and live gospel truths beyond the reach of any one homeland or heritage—both their ancestral homelands and the American homeland that persecuted them. We celebrate Mormon Pioneers as a hopeful representation of a global movement committed to living free of persecution.

*

Get Wayfare’s Pioneer Day essay collection in your inbox by subscribing now at WayfareMagazine(dot)org!

Supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, Wayfare Magazine announces a call for essays and creative works...
18/07/2025

Supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, Wayfare Magazine announces a call for essays and creative works exploring the themes of latter-day science and restorative modernity. We anticipate that the resulting Latter-day Science forums will support a Spring 2026 special issue of Wayfare Magazine, published in both print and digital formats, alongside separately solicited essays, reprints of classic essays, and other creative works (art, hymns, fiction, poetry, etc.).

The forum co-editors, neuroscientist Madeline Peterson, intellectual historian James Ungureanu, and media scholar Benjamin Peters, invite you to explore the dynamic relationship between science, religion, and modernity through a Latter-day Saint lens. We seek nonfiction and fictional stories—narratives previously untold or overlooked—that the LDS tradition can reclaim and contribute to modern knowledge, enriching our collective understanding of a material, evolving, emergent cosmos and humanity’s entangled place within it.

The LDS tradition, with its emphasis on continuous revelation and the pursuit of truth, offers a unique vantage point for considering the interplay between the earthly and the divine. What do the last two hundred years of science, religion, and modernity have to offer one another? How might the theo-scientific resources emerging from the entanglement of the Latter-day Saint tradition and modern science since the 1820s help address fundamental questions?

We aim to advance thoughtful narratives, close readings, novel theorizations, renewed inquiries, and other creative works that broaden understanding of the human condition in a working cosmos.

The deadline to submit is November 1–find the full call for submissions on WayfareMagazine.org!

Address


Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Wayfare Magazine posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

  • Want your business to be the top-listed Media Company?

Share