Wayfare Magazine (2026)

16/02/2026

As we pause this Presidents’ Day to reflect on the legacy and weight of national leadership, we are reminded that the work of tending to our shared civic and moral life belongs not only to those in office, but to all of us. We have gathered a collection of essays that invite us to move past partisan thinking, embrace difference with dignity, speak to our children about politics with courage and charity, and remember that simple niceness falls short of real peacemaking. In this sensitive political moment, we hope these essays offer new ways to lead in our own circles with curiosity, humility, and hope.

Find the President’s Day collection on the homepage at WayfareMagazine.org

11/02/2026

“For reasons too personal to share here, the last years have often left me groaning and splintering, like a beam bearing far too much weight. I have spent months that have stretched into years journeying through my own version of what Jeffrey R. Holland once called “the battered landscape of . . . despair.” And this moment of seeing and feeling and sensing grace did not answer any of my persistent questions, nor did it heal any of the wounds I’ve now been nursing for so long.

But while I found no balm for my pain, I was also reminded in that moment that we do not believe in a perfect Eden lost, but in a mournful yet meaningful mortality gained. Grace cannot be the absence of sorrow because even God weeps. Grace cannot be the end of suffering because Jesus carried his cross. Grace cannot be bliss because being bound in love will leave us forever alive to each other’s suffering.

And that is the truth about grace: even its endowment does not restore what time will take away. Indeed, suffering cannot fully be grace’s opposite; instead, the two weave themselves through one another. Grace is because suffering is... Indeed, it is probable that my soul could only have opened to this insight in this way, at this moment, precisely because it has been cracked open by the very suffering that has broken me asunder. To be clear, my most foundational theological belief is this: God will never cause or condone suffering. Yet, since we exist as eternal beings in an oppositional universe, this is my secondary and nearly as resolute conviction: Our Heavenly Parents can consecrate suffering they do not cause or condone. Thus, while we are never meant needlessly to remain party to suffering, yet we can always trust that God will raise a phoenix, even from our darkest ashes. That light will make its way into and finally illuminate even what may initially seem to be the loneliest, scariest, and seemingly most impenetrable darkness.

God is light; and light finds a way.“

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Read “This is Grace” by Tyler Johnson on WayfareMagazine.org

21/01/2026

While in the temple one day, I understood something new through the narrative. In my own personal study I had learned that the Hebrew word אָדָם, translated as Adam, means “earthling” or “humankind.” The Hebrew word חַוָּה, or Eve, means “life,” specifically “divine life;” that is why she is the mother of all living. As I watched the narrative, I thought of how the natural man in all of us, or the Adam, chooses to stay in paradise where there is no growth because there is no discomfort. The divine life in all of us, or the Eve, chooses to receive knowledge of good and evil, even though it causes pain and suffering, because it is also the only way to find joy.

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Read “Temples of Flesh and Blood: What the Menstrual Cycle Teaches About the Nature of God“ by Abigail Eve Harper on WayfareMagazine.org

12/01/2026

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” —Genesis 1:26

“Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own—indeed to embrace the whole of creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder.” —Wangari Maathai

The first law of ecology is that everything is connected to everything else. As it happens, this is not unlike the first of God’s laws. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Matthew 22:37-39). Heavenly Parents envision their children connected in all directions in an ecosystem of love. I believe that our care of the Earth is one of the most important manifestations of our love for God and for each other. In this time of discord and division, restoring reciprocal relationships with our sacred home has never been more needed.

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Read “Loving Our Sacred Home” by Ben Abbott on WayfareMagazine.org

01/01/2026

I am not alone in finding aspects of the Old Testament disturbing. When I was knocking doors in Hokkaido, Japan as an evangelizing missionary, I met a man who told me he believed in the God of the New Testament, who was compassionate and loving, but not in the God of the Old Testament, who was vengeful and violent. It was the first time I encountered an explicit version of a nearly 2000-year-old idea: Marcionism. The scriptural canon of Marcion of Sinope included only a gospel similar to the gospel of Luke and some Pauline letters; the Hebrew scriptures were rejected. The early Christian church in Rome excommunicated Marcion and declared his teachings heresy in 144 A.D., but that has not stopped his ideas from reappearing in a variety of forms. I’ve heard fellow believers reject or deemphasize the Old Testament many times. Why do Marcion’s ideas keep resonating and reappearing—including once from the man I met in Hokkaido—thousands of years after his official excommunication?

Marcion’s ideas are appealing because it is not easy to read or justify episodes of the Old Testament that depict intolerance, violence, or other morally foreign ideas. However, ultimately, the Marcionite rejection of the Old Testament must itself be rejected. We can reflect on the reasons Old Testament episodes feel uncomfortable while still acknowledging the Old Testament as an important part of our heritage.

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Read “Our Distant Ancestor” by Peter Wilson on WayfareMagazine.org

08/12/2025

“God is not a concept, an idea, something frozen in time. God is a person, and thus encountering God is not about mastering a rigorous set of doctrines, but understanding and trusting in the bonds of a relationship that will inevitably change over time, just as your relationship with those you trust most will change over time.

The heartbeat of that relationship is what religion is: something living, something that grows and evolves, something that flourishes in different ways in different times and places.

The fact that religion is living can give hope. Jesus is calling in every language, in every time. Having faith is having the hope to live in the world that being religious promises is possible and acting on that hope; to be willing to turn your back on the temptation of sterile idolatry and to plunge into the possibility and blessed reality of change.”

—Matthew Bowman, Spiritual Cartography (read the entire essay on WayfareMagazine.com)

05/11/2025

“When I look at the contemporary Latter-day Saint context in Utah where I live, I see a community that has greatly benefitted from the gifts of form, religion, structure, and answers. I see the well-manicured landscaping of BYU campus and temple square, the stability that comes with a smooth transition of power after a Church president passes away, the vast amounts of wealth the Church has accumulated after careful investing, and so on. All of these things are the result of the work of the Church’s highest leaders, who bring their experience in fields like law, business, auditing, and organizational structure to make the Church run smoothly. This operational excellence gives Latter-day Saints a sense of stability, security, and safety. All of that is, in so many ways, a blessing.

And yet I wonder about the opposite pole—the open and expansive formlessness that comes with raw spiritual questioning. Is there space in the contemporary Latter-day Saint community for “not knowing” (truly not knowing) to balance the “knowing” of testimony meetings? Is there space for artists, storytellers, scholars, and philosophers when what they explore doesn’t fit the mold? Is there space for personal revelation even when it moves someone toward non-traditional beliefs and practices?

I realize that in posing these questions, I’m already hinting at my own position on the matter. And yet in doing so, I don’t mean to imply that everyone should agree with me or share my particular beliefs. I don’t even want everyone to share my beliefs, as that would lead to communal lopsidedness. The Body of Christ, to use the Apostle Paul’s metaphor, has many members.

I only wonder if it’s possible to more fully embrace both form and formlessness in community—and whether, to return to the syntax of wisdom, Latter-day Saints in the twenty-first century need more of the formless, as precarious as that might sound.

What if God is bigger than form, stability, structure, and safety? What if God also includes formlessness, creativity, flexibility, and risk?

What if a living tradition is always “both-and,” like the in-breath and the out-breath?

—Jon Ogden

Keep reading on WayfareMagazine . org

30/10/2025

“Halloween acknowledges the darkness around and within us and gives it a figurative face. And then, it invites us to respond in a radically unexpected way: to approach the threshold of another and knock—to take the position of a beggar, placing ourselves momentarily at another’s mercy. And for those who hand out the treats, Halloween asks us to respond generously to the knock of the Other—to look beyond the masks, however horrifying they may appear, and offer hospitality.

To knock is to risk rejection; to open is to risk intrusion. Both entail some danger because there is real darkness in the world. Political policies and rhetoric do have real consequences, sometimes for the worse. Movements rise and fall that can distort truth and corrode virtue. There are bad actors with nefarious designs. But Halloween reminds us that our perception of darkness does not always reflect reality: The house we fear may conceal kindness; the mask we dread may hide a face not unlike our own. Crossing the frightening front porch is risky, but, as my children learn, it is often rewarding.

The subtle sermon beneath the bustle of the holiday is that, while darkness exists, so does light; that neighborliness, generosity, and goodwill can be found even in the darkest of nights; that our common humanity is more fundamental than the masks we wear. And, perhaps this: That ultimately, the way out of the darkness lies at the threshold—in our willingness to knock on another’s door and to open ours.

These days, I find Halloween profoundly hopeful. Maybe even holy.“

Read “Happy, Hopeful, Holy: A Different Kind of Halloween” by David Sabey now on WayfareMagazine . org!

22/10/2025

“Joseph Smith was less concerned to know his lost brother was waiting in heaven than, simply, to know his lost brother again. And thus, the religious world he imagined was one in which the centrifugal economic and social forces tearing his family apart were stilled, and human beings were knit together again. His religion was a way of describing a deep truth about human nature: that we are not, fundamentally, individuals tasked with self-creation, but that we are social beings, shaped by those around us more than by ourselves.

In his lifetime he expressed this impulse through polygamy, the gathering of the Church, and sealing. In our lifetimes the Church expresses this impulse through celebration of the Western nuclear family. And understanding that religion is something deeply marked by history and culture allows us to see the fundamental hunger lying behind both of these expressions; to perceive them as different, but of a kind. Liberation, authenticity, finding who we are is not a project of disassociation and separation. Rather, liberation is recognizing our belonging; that we are shaped by others, by our communities, and by our families, and in that recognition finding reconciliation with ourselves and with others.”

Read more in “Spiritual Cartography” by Matthew Bowman on WayfareMagazine . org

14/10/2025

What is a prophet, and what is a priest? Why does that distinction matter, and why does it matter that the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is both? What does that teach us about the purpose of religion in our lives?

Read “The Prophet and the Priest” by Matthew Bowman on WayfareMagazine.org, and become a paid print subscriber to review Issue 6–the prophecy issue—in the mail this year!

01/10/2025

Come join us for our inaugural Wayfare essay club! Come discuss two essays from our most recent issue of Wayfare with Wayfare editors and staff. They’re available to read for free online—but come even if you haven’t read them! It will be an engaging discussion on peacemaking and polarity, and of course we’ll have snacks. Can’t wait to see you there!

28/09/2025

In November 2021, an elderly man, thin and with a dignified demeanor leavened by an impish smile, traveled from Salt Lake City to the University of Virginia with an urgent message. Wasting little time on pleasantries, he launched straight into his theme. “I love this country, which I believe was established with the blessings of God. I love its Constitution, whose principles I believe were divinely inspired. I am, therefore, distressed at the way we are handling the national issues that divide us.”

In expressing his distress, he was not speaking merely for himself. This was Dallin Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then almost 90, he had been a successful lawyer, a justice of the Utah state supreme court, and president of Brigham Young University. Called to the First Presidency in 2018, he was next in line to succeed Russell M. Nelson, the church’s president and prophet; and he had become the public voice of the church’s civic theology.

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Keep reading on WayfareMagazine . org!

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