I started using the static site-friendly, largely non-creepy Tinylytics service in 2023, and a few weeks ago, I finally forked over the money for the paid version of the service. [EDIT: I’ve since cancelled my subscription to the service because I’m no longer sure it aligns with my values.] This year, I’ve become skeptical enough of quantification as a concept that I feel vaguely guilty about tracking which of my posts get how many views, but I’m also a researcher who understands the value of quantification, and it’s also, well, validating to see which of my posts get traction. That said, I still know not to put too much faith in these numbers—for example, I got a very abnormal 537 hits to my website from Finland on October 24th that I just can’t figure out.

When I was ordained an elder a couple of months ago, my congregation gave me the gift of a full set of the 1976 History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I genuinely love this gift and am excited to one day make my way through all eight volumes! Yet, it’s also gotten me thinking a lot about what I want my service in this denomination—now, of course, named Community of Christ—to look like. In many ways, it’s the history of this church that drew me to it when my faith began to crumble: If it weren’t for its shared history with the church I grew up in, Community of Christ may not be as interesting to me as it is. Yet, I’ve also quipped to friends that while I’m glad to have joined Community of Christ, I don’t know that I ever would have joined the RLDS church (at least, not in the form that it took in 1976). I’ve also written repeatedly on this blog about my feelings about the relative importance of the Independence Temple compared to the Kirtland Temple for this denomination in the years to come: One is an anchor to our past, but the other points to our future.

It’s now been over six months since the transfer of the Kirtland Temple from Community of Christ to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and there’s still a lot to process for folks on the Community of Christ side of things. I remain committed to what I first said after hearing the news: that I have no interest in telling people how to feel about things, and that even if I did, I wouldn’t be on solid ground doing so. Yet, a thought occurred to me this morning that has helped contextualize some of my other thoughts over the past six months, and I did want to go ahead and share that.

Back in early March, as part of my flurry of posts about the Kirtland Temple, I wrote something about some of the dubious historical bits associated with Latter-day Saint beliefs about the significance of a purported visitation of the biblical prophet Elijah to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple. That post has gotten a lot of hits over the past few weeks: According to my excellent, privacy-conscious analytics provider, it’s up to 70 hits over the past 30 days, 55 of which were over the week leading up to April 15th, when I got my last email digest.

I am not great at observing the different seasons of the liturgical year. A good friend of mine once responded to this complaint with “Welcome to living a liturgical year life,” so I gather that to a certain extent, this is how everyone feels about it. It always feels a little frustrating to me, though, because I love the idea of the liturgical year.

I attended a spiritual retreat sponsored by my congregation last Saturday, and one of the activities we did was to string together some painted wooden beads representing the different liturgical seasons as we read about what each of those different seasons represents. I love the sense of “waiting for something great to happen” of Advent. I love the bursting forth of the spirit associated with Pentecost. I even appreciate the invitation of Ordinary Time to make the everyday sacred in its own way. I’m just bad at making those areas of focus when those seasons roll around (maybe the prayer beads I have up in my office now will help).

As I’ve written before, I don’t necessarily believe that the dubious historicity of a particular religious event ought to undermine its theological significance, but I do strongly believe that dubious historicity undermines the ability of an individual or organization to insist that others agree with their theological conclusions. To take a major example, the unlikelihood of a literal resurrection in scientific terms isn’t going to stop me from finding value in the resurrection story at Easter, but it sure as heck is going to stop me from insisting that my atheist spouse make that story an important part of her life.

I have spent far too much time blogging this week (even before the sale of the Kirtland Temple was announced), but weeks like this don’t come often, and I feel like holding onto this week’s thoughts will be important in the years to come. So, here’s another post!

A friend recently suggested that I subscribe to the daily meditations sent out by Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation, and today’s was lovely, focusing on finding God in all things. Here’s the passage that stood out to me in particular (and perhaps you’ll see why):

For as quickly as I felt like I came to peace with the sale of the Kirtland Temple, I’ve had conversations and encounters since yesterday’s post that make it clear that I still have a lot of work to do processing all of this in the weeks, months, and years ahead. I’ve heard from a lot of people in pain: people who have been to Kirtland dozens of times but never want to go again, ordained women in Community of Christ who are angry that the new owners of the temple can’t respect their ordination, and yet more. It would be wrong of me to lean on the peace I’ve come to and not be present for others’ pain. I’ve also seen at least one petty Mormon comment arguing that Community of Christ’s recent history with schism and financial instability is proof of Brighamite superiority (buddy, do I have some bad news about 1830s Kirtland for you!). It would be inaccurate of me to argue that I’ve already fully come to peace when that kind of comment makes me so angry.

Yesterday, Community of Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that the former had sold the Kirtland Temple, other historic sites, and some important documents and artifacts for $192.5 million dollars. As the title to this post suggests, I’ve pretty quickly come to peace with the decision, and I want to explain some of that process in this post. However, there are some conflicted emotions lingering beneath that peace, and I want to make clear that the goal of this post is not to tell anyone how to feel about this.

I have my own (complicated) thoughts to share on this later, but more than anyone else, I’ve wanted to hear from David Howlett (and, okay, Lach Mackay). Appreciate Jana’s coverage here.