The symposium takes place Thursday through Saturday at the Sheraton hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. We have great discounts for first-time attendees.

Web registration is closed; but you’re welcome to register at the event itself.

For more info: click here.

“Honey, do you mind if I stay an extra day?” I pleaded.

Before I had left, I told her that I was only going for two days. But I absolutely had to stay for one more.

You see, I was at my first Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium, and I was convinced at that moment that being a Mormon was the coolest thing in the world.

For me, Mormonism is about exploration and creation. Our history is full of explorers: Lehi and his family, Zeniff, Hagoth, the Sons of Mosiah, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young. All of them used their unique worldview and mission to forge new paths and create new spiritual insights. And that’s what these people at Sunstone were doing. They were taking the blocks of Mormonism and saying, “Now what can we build with this?”

This year, we have all sorts of interesting people coming. For example, a number of bloggers from Feminist Mormon Housewives will be presenting panels on “How Blogging Helps Process the Travails and Triumphs of Motherhood,” and “Bridging Stereotypes through Blogging.”

Michael Farnworth, a retired professor from Rick’s College, and an insightful speaker on marriage, will be presenting on integrating feminine energy into marriage. His 2007 session, “Fantasy Bonds in Eternal Marriages” is on my top 10 list.

Dr. Caitlin Ryan of San Francisco State University has done extensive research on families with homosexual children and will present the implications of her research to LDS contexts.

We’ll also have apostles from the Community of Christ (formerly the RLDS Church), some big-name and not-so-big-name-but-still-very-interesting scholars (both LDS and non-LDS), filmmakers, authors, and yes, even some LDS mediums.

Subjects we’ll be covering include Mormon literature, activism, history, and popular culture. We’ll also have practical panels on supporting special needs children in the Church, and being a stay-at-home mom. The much-loved “Pillars of My Faith,” “Why We Stay,” and “This I Believe” sessions will also make their annual appearance.

One of the things I love best about the symposium is the ability of its attendees to fight gracefully. At the 2008 symposium, a first-time attendee took serious issue with the thesis of one presenter and the two had an intense—rather loud—discussion afterward. This year, the former first-time attendee is going to be on a panel where she can present her viewpoint on the subject they were debating. You can bet some serious thought has gone into her presentation.

But my favorite thing about the symposium is what happens to me while I’m there. M. Scott Peck writes in his book The Different Drum, that a well-functioning community is one that has created “a laboratory for personal disarmament.” Somehow, the atmosphere at symposiums is such that the masks I usually wear start to drop off. I find myself becoming more willing to “experiment more deeply … with love and trust.” I begin to see the “suffering and courage and brokenness and deeper dignity” of the people around me. And I begin to open.

This happens to me at every symposium. It’s the main reason I’d keep going back even if I weren’t Sunstone’s editor.

By all means, if you haven’t given the symposium a try before, join us this year. The registration rates are ridiculously inexpensive, and we offer a hefty discount for first-time attendees. If you just haven’t come for a few years, we’d love to have you back. Heck, we might even let regular attendees in.

You can download the preliminary program here.

You can register online here.

The symposium looks like it’s going to be tons of fun, featuring Red Brick Store luminaries like Angela Hallstrom, Kristine Haglund and Shelah Miner. And me, from time to time.

You want to come.

Photo by: Gexydaf

The Sunstone posse drove up to Seattle this weekend to run Sunstone Symposium Northwest.

The program was quite an interesting one. We heard a presentation from Spencer Ellsworth on how Mormonism’s unique theology helped a small group of hippies in San Francisco to kick their drug habit. Then we got to hear from Mormonism’s premier folklorist, Bert Wilson, and the granddaddy of the Mormon short story, Doug Thayer.

I think the highlight of the symposium was a presentation by Ron Walker, who set forth a compelling and compassionate view of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, based on the book he helped author, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, published by Oxford University Press. If you haven’t picked this book up, I would highly recommend it. Apparently Walker and his co-authors had unprecedented access to LDS Church archives, so it has a lot of new information in it.

We also had two panel discussions, one on how women balance work and family, and one called “This I Believe – Mormon Style.” Where the panelists read short essays focusing on one aspect of their belief systems. Use the links to watch Kristine Haglund and Molly Bennion read their essays.

And, of course, there was the post-symposium gathering where I got into intense discussions with Kristine, Steve Evans, and J. Stapley among others. The best thing about those discussions was how skillful these people are at the art of conversation. I started remembering just how much I enjoy interacting with people who are both passionate about their views and relentlessly self-reflective. People who don’t just let you talk so that they can talk next, but who react authentically to what you have said.

I know I’ve been part of a good conversation when I come out of it with new ideas. And I came out with a lot.

There’s really nothing like a Sunstone symposium. Gathering with the explicit purpose of bringing intellect to bear on spiritual and religious matters leaves me feeling elated for days. After all, intellect is an innate part of our being and I think God is pleased when we can integrate it with our spirituality and physicality, because when we do, we are using all our tools as we work out our salvation.