By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Near the end of my first decade of life, singer Neil Young penned and recorded a song called “After the Gold Rush.” The haunting lyrics of…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien- When I gave my 24-year-old son Danny a recent tour of my new office at my new law firm, he sat in my chair, put his…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– As I watched my friends—the monks from the old Trappist monastery in Northern Utah—cope for the last five years with the closure of their beloved Huntsville…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien Many of us add meaning, understanding, and context to daily life with genealogy research about our family ancestors. Our personal lives seem more interesting when we…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– On a warm summer afternoon in August 1950, after a long train ride from his hometown in St. Louis to Ogden’s historic Union Station, a young…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Parents usually feel a sense of wonder and accomplishment at the landmark first birthday of their child. The feeling is not much different when an author…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The English critic Clive Bell described art and religion as “two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy.” This keen insight explains my strong…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The 2003 Jon Krakauer book and the 2022 FX/Hulu mini-series Under the Banner of Heaven point critical fingers at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– A most memorable, but embarrassing, chapter of my childhood is that time when I told my mother I hated pre-school nap hour. She sent in a…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– For many years, I thought Catholics had no role in the Days of ‘47, the annual Utah celebration of the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in…