Andrew has been a speaker, interviewer, and panel guest for Mormon Stories, and was a founding blogger at Mormon Matters. A sixth-generation Mormon, Andrew was active in the LDS church until he resigned in 2011. He enjoys studying both naturalistic and religious approaches to spirituality.

Spiritual Nourishment in Nature

For thousands of years, humankind as built cities to escape the hardships of nature, but has turned to nature for spiritual nourishment.  The rishis (seers) who wrote Hindu scripture lived in the wilderness.  Old Testament prophets sought God on mountaintops.  The Buddha and his disciples sought enlightenment in the forests.  After taking their vows, Hindu and Buddhist

Tips for Transitioning

Kierkegaard said: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”  My exit from the LDS church five years ago was far from graceful, and with hindsight I understand it better now than when I lived it.  Here are some lessons I learned backwards for those who are living their transition forwards.

How Worship Works

Over the past year as I’ve studied Hinduism, I’ve learned about unfamiliar spiritual practices like praying and making offerings to images (statues or portraits) of gods and saints. As a Mormon, I’d have reflexively condemned this practice as worthless and blasphemous “idol worship”.  However, I’ve come to see it quite differently.  In fact, I’d now go

Meditation: A Beginner’s Guide

Over the past several years, scientific research has confirmed that meditation improves the brain in several significant ways.  One of the most surprising discoveries is that the benefits of meditation are not limited to intangible, subjective ones reported by test participants, but that meditation also produces physical improvements in brain structure that have been confirmed with fMRI