So, Elder M. Russell Ballard, one of the LDS church’s apostles, was in Santa Fe yesterday for the installation of the Catholic church’s new archbishop (link), which stirs up various thoughts. I did the same thing last month at my corresponding level, skipping my own church meetings with my son to be present for his friend’s first communion. We invite neighbors to our children’s baptisms, and some come. There is an acknowledgement in such acts that others’ religious lives matter and are beneficial, even though we believe they are at least somewhat incorrect and could be improved upon.

Santa Fe is a place that several of this website’s writers are connected to. I first drove through it on a Monday evening in January of 1990, ate dinner, then crossed the Rio Grande and climbed the hill to Los Alamos. Four and half years later I would wed a woman who had lived on that hill since she was five. Her father was later president of the Santa Fe stake, and I wonder if his successor was present with Elder Ballard yesterday and somewhat expect that he wasn’t invited. I also wonder if Elder Ballard spent any time at the Santa Fe stake center before or after his time at St. Francis cathedral. I wonder because it’s the ugliest stake center I have experienced, sited by Interstate 25 like an outcast, in extreme contrast to the cathedral on the town plaza.