#AMMA SYNCLETICA QUOTE MEANINGS FULL#

This shift towards stereotypical “urban” spiritual characteristics–pragmatism, individualism, flexibility, diversity–has arguably threatened something essential about the Christian faith, but such an argument is rarely heard in our community which, for the most part, sees the practices and opportunities of urban modernity as simply a new challenge to integrate into their faith life. Rather, I think the lived experience of American Mormonism itself has become thoroughly suburban, or even urban, perhaps as profoundly shaped in its assumptions about spiritual life by post-WWII suburban developments as American evangelical Protestantism has been. Maybe that just means that living in Salt Lake City is similar to living in Last Vegas or Phoenix or any other urban agglomeration located in an arid place–but I suspect there’s more to it than that.

While its proximity to the Wasatch Range and its canyons, alpine meadows, and ski slopes may make it easy for those who live in the heavily urbanized corridor from Ogden to Provo to forget that they also live in a desert, the order of ordinary life there also serves to push that awareness ever further away from everyday awareness. I lived in Utah for five years, as an undergraduate and graduate student at Brigham Young University, and was happy to leave it for many reasons, not the least being the six months out of every year where the dominant natural color everywhere I looked was a dull brown.

#AMMA SYNCLETICA QUOTE MEANINGS FULL#

It wouldn’t be wrong to sum up one of the main themes of these leaves simply as: I am thankful I don’t live in a desert.ĭespite our shared faith community being one that achieved its first full development on the edge of America’s Great Basin Desert, that attitude is, I think, probably somewhat woven into modern Mormonism as well. Among other things, it seems that at this time of year I regularly feel gratitude for changing seasons, for frost on the grass, for fall foliage, for the smell of the earth after a November rain.

Since we’ve saved these leaves over the years, I can look back at mine, and there are several constants. We write on cut-out leaves something we are thankful for, then hang them on a “tree” of dead branches, and on Thanksgiving Day, we share them all. For years, our family has had a “Thanksgiving Tree” tradition.

Amma syncletica quote meanings