Virtual Oases, August 18

• This isn’t a new book, but I hadn’t heard of this edition before reading BiV’s review. So cool!

• Bizarre but fascinating historical artifact from Ardis.

• Another great article on Pres. Faust from Peggy Fletcher Stack.

• This piece of art took my breath away (and the post is pretty good, too 🙂

• Carol Lynn Pearson is profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle.

• At Z’s Daughters: Why discourage women from serving missions?

• Kristine, FMH Lisa and others spoke about Mormon blogs at Sunstone. You can hear their presentation here. M&M posts her reflections here.

• A post that got me thinking: Emily writes about inconvenient Christianity . . . and the commenters discuss the line between selfless service and counter-productive self-sacrifice. This is a rich, difficult topic at the heart of choosing the label of Christian. Jesus descended further into the practical pain of others than I am able to go — well before Gethsemene. The four gospels are beautiful, but do not provide an easy blue-print for living.

Just because: Another tragedy of the war . . .