by Deborah

HAPPY EARTH DAY! TftCarrie’s got the cool links

Check out the new Mormon Columnist at Vanity Fair! You go girl.

So you wanna get published? Writing advice from author/blogger/teacher Angela Hallstrom

If you’ve been following Ana’s foster care adoption saga for the last year . . . she’s getting closer to the happy ending we’ve been praying for.

Kage on learning, retrospectively, from our trials.

Seraphine on struggling with domesticity

Brooke’s crafty beautiful shelves. I’m inspired (but probably not enough to do anything about it)

Shelah: on sticking with scripture study, minus the hoped-for “inspiration”

Daniel Peterson defends Book of Mormon — but also counters the myths I grew up with (including the one in the very picture that accompanies the article!):

Peterson said the Book of Mormon was revealed to Smith through a seer stone. Smith never went through the golden pages of the ancient record, but instead put the seer stone in a hat, then buried his head in the hat to shut out ambient light. The stone lit up a line of text, about 30 words at a time, which Smith then dictated to his scribe. Once the text was transcribed correctly, the line disappeared and a new line came into focus, Peterson said, quoting eye witnesses who were 19th Century farmers associated with Smith. . . .

“It was a translation by revelation,” he said.

No single account of how Smith translated the Book of Mormon exists, but scholars have assembled bits and pieces to put the story together. Smith, himself, never disclosed how he did it, Peterson said.

If Smith had negative feelings toward his wife, the seer stone quit working until Smith apologized. Then the translation could continue, Peterson said.

A common belief among LDS members is that Smith put up a blanket or sheet between him and the scribe, primarily Oliver Cowdery, so the scribe couldn’t see Smith working with the plates. But Peterson said the only sheets that were put up were to screen the work from folks passing by the windows, more often at the Peter Whitmore home where much of the translation took place.

Just because:

Inside the pope’s meeting with abuse victims

A whole story in one sentence — I feel a one-sentence post coming on.

Eighty and radiant (hat tip: Amelia)