Mormon Renaissance

It all started last month, when I convinced my sister to watch Nathanael so we could go to a local play my friend was involved in. Well, that friend ended up being the catalyst to a whole world of opportunity and ideas: New Play Project.

If you live in the Utah Valley area, I urge you to attend the next play. Submit a play of your own, audition, volunteer. Get involved in whatever way you choose, but get involved. This is an amazing project with talented people who care about making a difference in the world.

And they are.

So my friend pulled another surprise out for me recently. He sent me some interviews and asked me to read over them for a new magazine he's editing. So I read a bit, and made some suggestions, but I had no idea what was coming.

Wow.

Mormon Artist came out today. Ben wrote a short post about it. And there's a section at the end all about New Play Project and several of the key people.

But the title of my post comes from the essay of James Goldberg's at the beginning of the magazine. He talks about the Harlem Renaissance and how Langston Hughes started writing his ideas and they changed the world--even though he was only 18 and no one knew what would happen.

And then he makes the most amazing connection--we are in that place. "...none of this heritage is restricted to any ethnic group or country. Anyone can choose to adopt this heritage as part of their own identity. The whole world is getting less national and more global and Mormonism is one of the world’s first great post-national cultures."

And so we can choose to do what the writers of the Harlem Renaissance did--tell our stories. And as we tell them, they will be heard. And the telling and the hearing will change the world.