Exponent II's Blog, page 121

Guest Post: Open Letter to Brother Wilcox

Dear Brother Wilcox:

Where do I begin? My testimony of Christ is based around justice, specifically social justice. Day in, day out, the Christ who overturned the money-changers’ tables in the Temple, the Christ who healed the sick, the Christ who forgave sinners, the Christ who raised people from the dead and loved outrageously, He is my rock and my foundation. I am His disciple, He is my guide, and the Spirit is my informant and comforter. My ancestors and my Heavenly Parents call out to me daily, reminding me of my purposes on Earth: growth, service, action, and consecration of my talents and abilities to the betterment of all. I wandered through agnosticism, Catholicism, Buddhism and Taoism for 44 years to find this Church. I am grateful for every moment of that journey and its end, but I came into this church with eyes wide open. I know bias when I see it, no matter how subtle or socially acceptable the manifestation. Your fireside of 6 February 2022 was unconsciously, but noxiously, prejudiced. 

Your words about the issue of Black members being denied the priesthood were absolutely appalling. You derailed a legitimate question posed not just by young members, but by investigators like me at age 44, by recentering it on “us all” (i.e. Whites). That pivot was beyond offensive, for a great many reasons. For one, it is against stated LDS policy – the ban on Blacks in the priesthood has been formally disavowed as racism. It was also inhumane, as is all racism, and tone deaf, as it was trumpeted in Black History Month, no less. You discounted the pain and suffering of generations of Black saints by denying the importance and truth of bias and racism in our shared history. This goes against everything that my testimony acknowledges or requires of me. Rather, my testimony of Christ, and of the Church, requires that I write this to you.

You are a BYU professor, a General Authority, a lifelong member, and an author. You know full well that Black members of the Church had the Priesthood at the time of the Restoration, and that it was taken from them for 150 years. That is the truth. There is no “better question” about the Priesthood. Pivoting to “why didn’t we all have it for 1829 years?” is just a diversion from Anglo-American emotional malaise. It denies the real question, the valid question, that is being asked: what was legitimate about the racial and ethnic discrimination that caused Black men, Black women, and Black children to know the full blessings of the Church, to have full exaltation within their reach, and then to suffer denial of full blessings and exaltation – no sealings, no missions, and only an incomplete grace of the Sacrament. I love the Temple, and I can’t imagine it being withdrawn from me. If Zion was ever to be a country, Blacks’ citizenship was blithely and painfully revoked before their eyes, and refused them, even as their White counterparts grew in the joy of the Restored Church.

I’m a genealogist, and one topic those of us who work with Black history and records discuss is the horror that the earliest Colonial Black Virginians must have felt as their status as indentured servants who could achieve freedom was taken away by law. The hope of becoming independent business owners, land owners, church members, and of accumulating generational wealth and respect was wrested from them. They built Jamestown, and went from being peers of White indentured servants to enslaved people with no hope of freedom, a descent that was addressed only with the end of the Civil War (though arguably, it has not yet been fully rectified – if it had, we wouldn’t be dealing with this issue now). I cannot imagine the pain and powerlessness of being kidnapped, indentured to strangers in a strange land, building the beginnings of a nation with my labors, and having my expectations dashed as the promises made to me for that toil were systematically broken by a transition to enslavement.

The Church, under Presidents Young, Taylor, Woodruff, Snow, Smith, Grant, Smith, McKay, Smith, Lee, and even Kimball, committed the same offense against Black saints. Black saints consecrated their talents and worldly goods to the glory and growth of Zion, yet their access to the Celestial Kingdom evaporated by edict. This denial was a daily, in-your-face second-class citizenship. It was back-of-the-bus status before buses were created. It was Jim Crow before Jim Crow, and everybody alive at the time knew it, including Brigham Young when he made that initial choice. The other prophets had to know in their hearts that it was injustice, even as they continued to uphold the inequity.

One of the most engrossing and engaging points of my investigation was the challenge at the beginning of the Book of Mormon. I was told to read it and pray, and in prayer, to ask to know whether the Book of Mormon was true. I rose to that challenge. I accepted it. I realized that, with that question being the first challenge posed to an investigator, I was considering a faith based in seeking truth. Because questioning is a true form of LDS scriptural learning, it is valid to question the motives of mortals, even prophets. It is right to ask whether Brigham Young was a racist, whether polygamy was wrong, and a thousand other things. Why? Because there is only one perfect Christ. Only Christ was Christ, and even he insisted that he needed to be baptized by a human being in order to fulfill his earthly mission. 

Asking uncomfortable questions, therefore, is valid. Pivoting away from the discomfort that questions raise is irresponsible.

This is why we say Black Lives Matter. This is why we march. Your pivot to an unasked question, why the whole world was denied the true church for 1829 years, posed an incorrect timeline – Jesus Christ was alive and preaching for the first 33 years of the Common Era, and his disciples for decades afterward, until the Apostasy. But the offense lies in the deeply denied truth of Black pain inside and outside our church. I have witnessed the fury, the injury, the anguish of Church members over the last few days. The fact is simple: the ban was racist, discussing racism is uncomfortable, and working through discomfort is the only way to learn and reach new levels of understanding. Denying any White saint that opportunity isn’t just squelching his or her spiritual growth, it’s putting Black missionaries and members in physical and spiritual danger by making their lives seem de facto less important than some spun-up theoretical exercise in conflict avoidance. Black saints feel “othered.” Black saints are tokenized. Black saints feel unsafe. Black saints are told to kill themselves, by members of this church, because they are Black. This happens daily. White supremacy is rampant in our church. Running from your own discomfort surrounding these issues means you’re valuing yourself over those who are subject to daily attacks. If you are concerned about people leaving the Church, please consider the distress of Black members who try to remain.

It is clear to me, even if you won’t admit it to yourself and at some level, that Black lives don’t matter enough to you. If they did, you would never have spoken so. You would have discussed the facts as they stand. You’d respect all members of the African diaspora, and their cousins in Africa, by being honest: the ban was racist. We have a racist past and present. We must confront it all, however frightening it may be.

As White Americans raised in a world that standardized the kidnap and brutalization of Black bodies for centuries, and despite our best hopes and efforts, we are all, to some degree, racists. I read your apology. To those you offended, especially your dear Black friends, you apologized, and committed to do better. I believe that you did know better, but OK. I’m going to take you at your word on this, and offer you what I have learned in a decade of concerted effort to rectify my own racist thinking, speech, and actions. We all need assistance at times, regardless of our level of education, our age, or our privilege in this world. Please take this offer as such.

First, get some White friends who are avowed and active anti-racists. They’re not hard to find. Ask them the questions you have about Whiteness, Blackness, bias, and racism. Don’t put the weight of the work you need to do on Black people. It is not Black America’s job to teach White people how to act or speak. Black folks deal with White nonsense in their everyday lives, and they are tired. How do I know? I am blessed to have Black friends and family who tell me the truth, and I respect the lived experience of others.

Next, get some Black friends. I don’t mean polite conversationalists with whom you can chat amiably about the weather as you pass them in the hallway. I mean real friends, people who will be ruthlessly honest with you. Pay attention to what they say about the world, what they need, what they want. Listen, don’t ask or tell. Do not question them when they tell you about an incident or words that they deem racist: if they say it’s racist, it is. They know. It’s their lived experience. Take these lessons on board silently, and commit to do better than the examples of racism they show you.

When preparing to respond to questions about racism in lessons or talks, employ the Rule of Three: ask three of those trusted and trusting friends how to proceed when discussing race BEFORE ACTUALLY DISCUSSING RACE. Accept your amateur status with humility, and instead of being just another White male blowhard, listen. Learn something, and speak with care. Follow, do not presume to lead.

Above all, acknowledge that there is a deep cultural divide between Black and White saints. Just because a Black saint or family looks happy and says all the right things at church, during a ministry conversation, or in a class, doesn’t mean that this is so. I have been educated well in a single fact: Black America speaks two languages. One is for us, and one is for them. They switch codes to be safe in White America – “don’t sound angry,” “don’t have too much of a blaccent,” “don’t ask for too much space or time.” In fact, the saddest part of all of this is that I, a White woman, was asked to write this piece in the first place. I suggested that a Black writer would be a better choice – I have not suffered racial or ethnic discrimination inside or outside the Church. The response I received was that the Black writers who were approached didn’t want to have to modulate their tone or word choices, yet again, in order to avoid sounding like “angry Black men” or “angry Black women.” How pathetic that the Church represents, above all else, a stifling blanket of smothering racism, of expectations of performative obedience, to even one person. How sad that my voice was considered worthy of this discussion.

But I have no fear of this discussion, or of what might happen to me for speaking up – I am a White woman. I don’t have the same outcomes as my Black family. The issue of racism in the Church, in all its manifestations, in all its permutations, is an issue that is of Satan. Racism is of Satan, and pretending not to be racist is of Satan. Telling the truth, however – that is of Christ.

Please, educate yourself. There are so many great books out there that take the onus of education off of individual Black people during their busy and stressful days. Ibram X Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist” is a good start. “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo is also a classic. And whenever you start to feel uncomfortable, unsafe, angry, victimized, or resistant, know two things: first, this is the necessary first step to repentance, and second, your discomfort is nothing in comparison to the gaping wound of racism. Don’t pour more salt on their wound; instead, address your own and heal it.

Sincerely,

Sister Brigid Jones

 

Brigid Jones is an adult convert, raised agnostic, former Catholic convert who gave it up for Lent,  continual struggling Buddhist and Taoist. She’s a historian, a scholar, and a perpetual city girl.

What Do You Do When Brad Wilcox and John Bytheway No Longer Have All the Answers?

Popular speakers and authors Brad Wilcox (left) and John Bytheway (right).

I had several favorite speakers and authors growing up as a teenager in the nineties. One of them was John Bytheway, and another was Brad Wilcox. I would save my money and go to Deseret Book to buy their talks (recorded on cassette tapes) and play them endlessly on repeat. I could probably recite whole sections of them from memory if I sat down and tried. I can hear every voice inflection, every pause for laughter, and every emotional testimony that they bore on these recordings. I thought they were brilliant men. 

I went to each John Bytheway fireside I could possibly drive to, and in college I was thrilled to sign up for his Book of Mormon class at BYU. One day I went up to him after class and tearfully told him how much he’d meant to me during my teenage years. He was kind but brushed it off with a self-effacing joke about how disappointing it must be to take his class now, since his teaching style was so different from the more entertaining way he tries to speak at firesides. I was mildly let down by the interaction because I actually loved his class, and just wanted him to say, “Aw, thanks. That’s such a kind thing for you to say.” Instead he looked uncomfortable and like he wanted to bolt, but it was okay. I thought he was just very humble and still loved his class and took copious notes on every word he said. 

I didn’t meet Brad Wilcox in person until I was a married adult, living in Lehi, Utah. I saw he was the keynote speaker at the kickoff to Lehi Family Week years ago, and I was excited to attend. Afterwards I went up to meet my other idol, and tell him about how he was the soundtrack to my life for years. He was very friendly and told me that he didn’t think anyone even remembered those old talks, and told me a secret that I could now download all of them for free on his website. It was a little better interaction than talking to John Bytheway, because he seemed genuinely happy to hear he’d been helpful to me, but he also made me feel a little out of date still referencing ancient talks that no one had mentioned to him in years. 

Overall my experience with both men was highly positive until around the year I turned thirty, at which point I stopped seeing them as heroes (just like John Bytheway had tried to encourage me to do as his student) and instead saw them more as ordinary men with a knack for public speaking.

This year I turned forty, and both of these men are still speaking and writing for youth. During my thirties I changed my mind about the acceptability of women and girls holding no positions of authority in the hierarchy of a church that impacts their lives so intensely, and it’s been very interesting to me to see what these heroes of my youth have to say about women and the priesthood.

I recently stopped into my local Deseret Book and picked up a new book by John Bytheway from a display stand. I flipped through it and found some pages where he addressed the issue (a topic that I never heard mentioned by him or Brad in my teens or twenties).  Right now a lot of people are viewing Brad Wilcox’s viral video from an Alpine, Utah fireside this past weekend and are shocked at his explicitly racist explanation of the priesthood ban – but I think it’s important to acknowledge that this isn’t the first time it’s been said by a popular youth speaker. Below is the link to what Brad Wilcox said about the priesthood, and I highly recommend you watch the whole segment (both about why Black men didn’t have the priesthood and why women still don’t).  His voice inflections and occasional mocking tone makes it sound very different than just reading it on a page.

 

At 10:55 he ends by asking, “…Girls, how many of you have ever entered the temple to perform ordinances? Okay, raise your hands. Raise your hands high. Do you realize that you’ve done something that no man on this earth can do? There’s not a male on this planet who can enter a temple to perform ordinances without being ordained. And yet, you just waltz right in! You walk right in. So what is it that sisters are bringing with them from the premortal life that men are trying to learn through ordination? Maybe that’s the question that ought to be keeping us up at night.”

In conjunction with this talk, here is what John Bytheway has already published about the priesthood in his current book for sale at Deseret Book, on page 49:

 

To those of you who have now watched Brad’s fireside in Alpine, John’s choice of words will sound extremely familiar. Who came up with this idea first? Was it John in his book, Brad in an earlier talk that wasn’t recorded, or was it a high ranking general authority (or even apostle or first presidency member) who gave this message to them and asked them to disseminate it to the public? It seems unlikely that they both spontaneously came up with the exact same response, with almost identical wording, independent of each other. The racism has been discussed widely online, and I will defer to others for that conversation. It’s worth mentioning that Brad Wilcox has already come out and apologized to Black members of the church for the racist remarks, but has yet said nothing in reference to the sexist comments that he made immediately after.

I’m a woman who was raised in the LDS church, and I have two daughters, one attending Young Women’s, and the other in primary. We’re being told that as females, we’re somehow luckier and more special than our male peers because we can just “waltz right in” to the temple whenever we feel like it. Except we can’t. (What is Brad even talking about?) We have to do everything else that a man does to go to the temple. I don’t get a free pass on paying tithing, drinking tea, or skipping my church meetings. I still have to answer temple recommend questions every two years and be interviewed by my male priesthood leaders where I tell them what kind of underwear I wear each day. I have to cross every single hurdle that men have to cross – except for the one that lets me bless my sick children in the middle of the night, preside in a meeting, or see women with authority, independence and final decision making ability. For most of the history of the temple, women (including myself) didn’t make covenants directly with God like the men did, and our entire destiny and eternal potential is a complete mystery because Heavenly Mother is a hidden secret – but because we don’t have to have priesthood ordination to go into the temple, somehow that’s supposed to make it all okay? Are men picked on and persecuted because they get to possess the actual power of the God of the entire universe while girls and women just have to do everything else exactly the same, only minus the power and authority? Oh, my. It must be so hard to be a man.

It was just over a hundred years ago that girls and women were told they were very lucky not to have to deal with politics and voting like the men did. Choosing who to vote for was described as a burden that men took on reluctantly, but heroically. Many women believed that was the case for a very long time, until they realized that it wasn’t true at all. Having power and being involved in decision making (not by just influencing the men in their lives, but by actually having a vote themselves) wasn’t a burden – it was a blessing! Priesthood ordination and true equality for women in the church will likewise not be a burden. It will be the greatest blessing they have ever experienced. If our only consolation prize for not being ordained is that we don’t have to be ordained to go to the temple – that’s a meaningless reward. The current status quo will not be good enough for the next generation of young women. The world has changed since the 1990s. I have changed since the 1990s. Brad Wilcox, John Bytheway, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints *has* to change if they want to stay relevant in the lives of girls and women like myself and my daughters. It’s simply not an option anymore.

Come Follow Me: Genesis 24–27 “The Covenant is Renewed”

Rebekah Imanu by Hilary Sylvester

Come Follow Me Lesson Genesis 24-27

Rebekah Imanu (Rebekah Our Mother)
by Hilary Sylvester

This lesson gives us the opportunity to look at one of the great matriarchs in the Old Testament, Rebekah through two key stories: Rebekah serving Abraham’s servant at the well and Rebekah convincing Jacob to deceive Abraham in order that he receive the firstborn son blessing. Questions and comments directly from the lesson are in italics.

I will take some excerpts of past blogs about Rebekah, but if you want a quick way to do a deep dive how to highlight her in this lesson, check out Caroline’s post, “Rebekah of the Old Testament: a Mormon Feminist Model.”

Rebekah at the Well

This story highlights that Rebekah is an answer to prayer, chosen by God to be Isaac’s wife.

12 And he said, O aLord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, bsend me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham.

13 Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw awater:

14 And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast aappointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master.

Genesis 24:12-14

Rebekah appears, gives the servant water, waters his camels, and invites him to come stay with her family.

What symbolism might we assign to the well and the water Rebekah is drawing from? Genesis 24:15–28, 55–60.  What qualities do you find in Rebekah that you would like to emulate?

Former perma blogger, Denisse, writes a lovely summary of Rebekah at the well and offers the traits Rebekah exhibits here, “kindness, service, self-confidence, courage and great faith.”

This great faith is evident in that Rebekah and her family believe Abraham’s servant is sent by God, and Rebekah willingly leaves her family to go be a wife to a man she has never met.

We see that Rebekah’s family loves and respects her when they involve her in the bridal negotiations,

“And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go.”

Genesis 24:58

Rebekah’s Infertility and Faith

Rebekah leaves her family of origin forever to marry a man she has never met. After taking this leap of faith, she can’t have children. She is a stranger in an unknown place, and in a culture where motherhood is the primary way a woman is valued.

What would that have felt like for her?

I think of this in my own life when answers to prayers don’t come in the time or manner I expect them. I think of how the scriptures are full of stories of those who don’t fit societal conventions, who carry heavy burdens, and this helps me to remember that even as years go by with no clear answers to fervent prayer, we can know that God sees us and loves all of us even when we feel forsaken.

On a cheekier note, I appreciate the pattern here. While Sarah decides to “give her handmaiden” to Abraham, Rebekah remains Isaac’s only wife.

Does this decision for monogamy indicate a deeper love of Isaac and Rebekah…a deeper faith, or was Rebekah more confident in her role as a future mother? Of course, we can’t know the answers to these questions, but I find thinking about people in the scriptures this way enriches my scripture study and helps me to see these people of faith as more human and more as imperfect people trying to make their way.

Rebekah’s Revelation

In Genesis 25: 21, we see that Isaac goes to God, praying for a child, and Rebekah conceives. But, this pregnancy sounds hard and troubles Rebekah as we read,

“And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to ainquire of the Lord.”

Genesis 25: 22

God answers her in verse 23, and she is blessed with a prophecy

“And the Lord said unto her, aTwo nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the belder shall serve the younger.”

Genesis 25:23

What is the significance of God speaking directly to Rebekah as she receives this prophecy? (Note: Rebekah and Hagar* are the only matriarchs in the Bible to receive answers to prayers directly.)  As a parent, how would you feel if you got this prophecy?Do you think this was comforting to Rebekah or upsetting?

This prophecy begins to come true when we see Jacob talk Esau into exchanging his birthright for food (Genesis 25:29-34).

Caroline sums up nicely what happens next: When Isaac is old, blind, and believes he is approaching death, he determines to give a special blessing to his firstborn son Esau. When Rebekah hears of his plans, she springs into action, ordering her younger son Jacob to impersonate Esau in order to obtain this blessing. Rebekah feels so strongly that Jacob should get this blessing – and no wonder, given her revelation from God forty years before that Jacob should inherit the promise – that when he objects, fearing a curse from his father if he is found out, she says to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son. Only obey my word, and go…..” (Genesis 27:13).

How do you think Rebekah feels when she says this?Is she worried about a curse?Is this an example of extreme faith or extreme pride?

Jacob obeys and successfully receives this blessing, though their trick is quickly uncovered when Esau returns and learns of what has happened. Despite Esau’s anger and his own emotional reaction, Isaac does not choose to retract the blessing, but instead carries forward with the changed plans.

Why doesn’t Isaac change his plans? Tradition dictates that Esau should have the blessing. Does Isaac perhaps continue because he knows Esau already sold his birthright?

Rebekah orchestrates all this, but I wonder if she knew the consequences. In Genesis 27: 41, we read,

“And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his father blessed him: and Esau said in his heart, The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then will I slay my brother Jacob.”

Did Rebekah know Esau would kill Jacob?Did her faith take into account that she might need to help Jacob escape and perhaps loose him as she lost her family of origin when she went to marry Isaac?

And of course, the question the lesson asks (I included the manual’s response here, too):  

Were Rebekah and Jacob wrong to deceive Isaac?

We don’t know the reasons behind the approach Rebekah and Jacob used to obtain a blessing for Jacob. It is helpful to remember that the Old Testament as we now have it is incomplete (see Moses 1:23, 41). There may be information missing from the original records that would explain what might seem troubling to us. However, we do know that it was God’s will for Jacob to receive the blessing from Isaac because Rebekah had a revelation that Jacob was to rule over Esau (see Genesis 25:23). After Isaac acknowledged that he had blessed Jacob instead of Esau, he affirmed that Jacob “shall be blessed” (Genesis 27:33)—suggesting that God’s will had been accomplished.

A guest post by Mathy states, “Rebekah was given a prophetic revelation while pregnant with her twin sons that the younger son would be the one who should receive the birthright. As both sons grew, it became obvious why this revelation had been given and yet when the time came, Isaac still stubbornly insisted that he was going to give the birthright to Esau. So Rebekah intervened. She deceived her husband into giving the birthright to her righteous son Jacob. And she was in the right. Isaac was the priesthood leader, but he was dead wrong in his judgments, and if he hadn’t had a righteous and tenacious woman equal in her ability to receive Heavenly guidance and carry out righteous judgments, the line of the Priesthood would have been lost.”

Optional: Rebekah as a Model Mormon Feminist

While it probably won’t fly in most ward lesson plans, I’d like to indulge in our own virtual classroom space here and explore Rebekah as a model of faithful Mormon feminism borrowing Caroline’s hermeneutic framework.

“She might not shatter boundaries, but she does challenge them as she inserts herself into ‘men’s business,’ and Mormon feminists can find inspiration in her confidence and ingenuity as she does so. Rebekah therefore stands as an important model–a woman who acts with courage and confidence as she refuses to be sidelined and silenced by patriarchal familial expectations.”

“Like Mormon women, Rebekah operates within a system that imposes clear boundaries on her ritual actions. In this particular place, time, and narrative, it is not within the scope of possible action for Rebekah to bless Jacob herself, so she does what she can to ensure the proper outcome in the patriarchal context in which she lives…Some might wonder why Rebekah doesn’t simply have a conversation with Isaac and explain her revelation from God that Jacob is the heir to the promise, but the text gives us no clue as to why that was not an option.”

Tikva Frymer-Kensky, a Jewish feminist scholar, writes about Rebekah (“Rivka” in Biblical Hebrew), “Rivka knows he has made his decision and she will not be able to persuade Isaac to change his mind.” Thus trickery and manipulation are the only tools left to her in this patriarchal context. Frymer-Kensky justifies Rebekah’s actions given this realty, saying, “Rivka will use whatever means are in the tool kit of those without authority to make decisions…. Only the powerful value honesty at all costs. The powerless know that trickery may save lives.”

What does faithful Mormon feminism look like to you?

*Don’t miss Kaylee’s beautiful interpretation of matriarch, Hagar, in The God of Hagar, Part 1 and Part 2 recently featured here on The Exponent. Hagar is mentioned perfunctorily in the Come Follow Me lesson plans, and Kaylee’s hermeneutics is an enriching exercise in scripture study as we think about Hagar, a marginalized and enslaved woman who God guides, saving her and her son to lead his own people of faith.

References:

Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle: The Rivka Stories.” In Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories, 5–23. New York: Schocken Books, 2002.

Metzger, B. M., & Murphy, R. E. (1991). The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. Oxford University Press.

Meyers, C. (2021). Rebekah: Bible. Jewish Women’s Archive. Retrieved February 8, 2022, from https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/rebekah-bible

I wanted spiritually-minded, queer-friendly lessons for my children. Here’s what I found.

When church shut down in March of 2020, my husband and I began gathering our kids on Sunday afternoons for spiritual lessons. We enjoyed this time, but as the months went on, I wanted some guidance on age-appropriate, spiritually-minded lessons centered on values, but not a particular religious tradition. In mid-2021, I began hearing about Uplift Kids. I signed up for a two-week trial and quickly realized I wanted to stay on for the annual membership.

The Uplift Kids lesson library includes lessons on topics such as values (e. g. kindness, forgiveness), wisdom practices (e.g. stoicism: finding inner calm), life topics (e. g. racism, bullying, friendship), and more. For me, Uplift Kids became a guide for having some of the conversations I most wanted to have with my kids. Jon Ogden (he/him), a co-founder, and his spouse Becca Lee (they/them), illustrator, are friends of mine from grad school and I reached out to them for an interview so I could share more about the program. I’m so glad they said yes.

Becca Lee and John Ogden

Katie: Please tell me a little bit about yourselves—just a high-level overview for our readers with your background and education.

Jon: I grew up in Springville, UT, and served an LDS mission in Ventura, CA. I went to BYU and got an English literature degree and then a master’s in rhetoric and composition. I have since worked in content marketing, instructional design, and lesson curriculum. We live in Provo.

Becca: I grew up in Seattle, WA. All of my family and extended family are LDS, and then I came to BYU to get an undergraduate degree in English. I met Jon and we got married halfway through our master’s degrees—he was studying rhetoric and I was studying literature. And then we had our first kid right as I was graduating. Then I did an MFA in creative writing. A few years later we had our second kid. Our oldest is now 11 and our youngest is 7.

Katie: How did you become involved in Uplift Kids? What need did you recognize that Uplift seeks to fill?

Jon: After I experienced a faith shift, I found several groups that I was part of that I felt like I belonged to, including Lower Lights, a mindfulness group in Salt Lake City. Lower Lights pulls from all the wisdom traditions as well as psychological research. I found a lot of friends and just felt at home there. As a result, I wanted a similarly expansive way for my kids to experience moral development and spirituality. So a group of us as Lower Lights took on this question—what can we do that can expand some of these same approaches, but have them reach all ages? We started prototyping a bunch of things—first with six families, then thirty families, and then we developed more than a year’s worth of lessons and created a lesson library, using feedback from families to refine our lessons.

Katie: Uplift lessons seem very flexible to accommodate spirituality, wisdom traditions, academic research, and secular learning. What is the reasoning behind incorporating these practices?

Jon: We found that there is emerging science on the benefits of spirituality. For instance, Lisa Miller, a professor at Columbia University, wrote a book called The Spiritual Child. Her research shows a scientific link between spirituality and overall well-being. She shows that spirituality is invaluable to child development. There are many similar findings from other researchers, including neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann. Our intention is that by finding an intersection of spirituality and science, parents can have practices that will transform the home. In this way, Uplift works if someone is religious in a particular tradition—like an active Christian or an active Buddhist—or if they are a nonbeliever who belongs to no tradition.

Katie: What should people expect when they open a lesson from Uplift?

Jon: First there is an optional parental guide to orient the parents to the topic. It includes questions for reflection, resources from the latest scientific research on that topic, and what the wisdom traditions say about the topic (e. g. Buddhism, Taoism). There are quotes from therapists, scientists, or other experts on the topic. Or, the parent can dive right into the lesson. There’s an opening activity, such as a curated video, physical activity, or object lesson. Then there are age-specific sections with content for teens, kids, and littles. For littles, each lesson contains a hands-on worksheet parents can print and color. Then there’s a closing activity such as time for reflection, or discussion on how to put the value into practice in the home. Finally, there are tips on how to keep the conversation going throughout the week.

Katie: As I was looking for resources to use, it was important to me to find a framework that was queer-friendly. What efforts has Uplift made in that regard?

Jon: We have a lesson on LGBTQ+ identities, and we try to be cognizant of those topics throughout our lessons. For example, in our lesson on lineage, we have a chart for littles where they can put themselves, their parents, and grandparents, but the chart isn’t gendered. We recognize that people who use Uplift might not fit what is termed “the norm.”

Becca: I illustrate for Uplift and that is my largest role on the project, but I get access to the lessons before they’re sent out to families. I am non-binary myself, and I think it helps to have a queer person on the team. We especially try to be conscious of the way we talk about families—are we using gendered language? Are we making everyone’s experience with sexuality and gender feel safe and normal with a child’s budding identity and how they experience the world? Are we making space for queerness to exist? Most of the time it’s easy to be inclusive when we ask the right questions.

Katie: I love the illustrations that accompany the lessons. What is your process with the artwork?

Becca: It’s a great arrangement. I get to watch the lessons take shape, so I make the mood of the illustrations match the intention. I get a topic a week in advance, and usually I’ll propose an idea as soon as I get the topic. Most of the time we use animals so we don’t have to worry about gender or race, or even age. That way the viewer can transpose their identity onto the character. I also have a lot of flexibility in what I get to create. We were working on a lesson about emotions and discussed creating an emotions chart, and we considered—do we want to use animals, or perhaps different children of different races? Then I suggested we do the color and shape of what that emotion feels like. When it came together, that collaboration of being able to pitch something and problem solve with all of us creating together worked well.

Katie: What has surprised you about this process of creating Uplift?

Jon: It has surprised me that the response has been so positive. Our retention rates for people who do the trial are between 90-95%. People really like it. The response has been wildly positive. I’ve also been surprised by how free people feel empowered to break away from traditional forms of teaching in the home. They’re watching a video at dinner or talking about topics at bedtime, in addition to more traditional models where everyone gathers around together.

Becca: The most surprising thing for me has been how much just engaging with the material has improved my parenting. There’s a breadth of knowledge there that I just wouldn’t get in my day-to-day life. I might have good intentions about having a conversation about sexuality or other topics, but this gives me a way to have bite-sized conversations with confidence. When I talk to other parents, I’ve found that I’m confident in approaching topics because I’ve read through that content in an Uplift lesson. I’ve become a more intentional parent. There’s a tendency to think of Uplift as an educational resource to help kids, but it’s also a really important tool in becoming a better parent. There’s so much research that goes into these lessons and they pull from so many meaningful sources. I always thought it would be a good thing for kids, but it’s been really positive for me, too.

Katie: For me, it has felt important to move away from a checklist spirituality where there’s an endless list of things to do and a lot of shame and guilt if you aren’t doing the entire checklist. How do you want people to feel when they approach Uplift?

Jon: We want it to feel like an ongoing conversation. We don’t want there to be any sense of, “I’m not doing Uplift right because I didn’t get through all of the content.” That’s the opposite of what we hope. Uplift is a tool to have ongoing conversations about the issues that matter most. For instance, in our lesson on kindness, there’s a video from George Sanders. And if on a Sunday afternoon you get together and watch this seven-minute video, and just ask the kids how they felt about it—do you feel you are treated kindly at school? Do you treat others kindly? And if that’s the entire thing you do, that’s fantastic. If it generates more conversation and you keep going through the rest of the lesson, that’s great too. The purpose is to have conversations and experience transformation in the home without feeling any sense of burden.

Becca: We have two kids and their age gap is six years. It’s pretty adaptable to their age gap for whatever we need. Whether we’re watching one video and having a brief conversation, or working through multiple points, we pick out the parts from the lesson that makes sense for our kids.

Jon: And our youngest child may just run away from the lesson.

Becca: However much he participates, we count that as success.

Katie: My youngest is three, so I get that. What is coming up next for Uplift Kids?

Jon: We’re looking at more ways to do community, whether that is pods of families meeting together or integrating with communities that already exist. A church in Park City—St. Luke’s—is using Uplift as their curriculum for kids. We want to do more of that with progressive religious traditions, as well as non-religious traditions, like possibly Montessori or Waldorf schools, so kids can be learning these things alongside other kids. We’re also producing physical products, like a deck of cards with Becca’s illustrations of emotions that parents can use to talk about emotional intelligence. We have a journal that members can purchase and print at cost. And there’s more to come.

You can find Uplift Kids at their website, or on Instagram.

Kris Irvin, a tweeting transgender Latter-day Saint who pushed for equality, dies at 35

https://www.sltrib.com/news/education...

What not to say to single people at church

At a recent general conference, it was noted that more than half of the adult members of the church are unmarried. Look around your ward. Are half of the adults in sacrament meeting single? If your ward is anything like the wards I’ve been in, the answer is almost certainly no. A big reason for that is that the church can be a hostile place for singles. As a single person who is too stubborn to accept the invitation to go away, I’ve compiled a list of things not to say to single people at church. These may sound over the top, but I assure you, I’ve repeatedly heard some variation on each of them.

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Photo by Leah Kelley on Pexels.com

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1. Don’t worry! I know someone who got married at [insert age]!

This age is inevitably at least 5 years younger than I currently am. I’m happy for your friend, truly, but just because they did doesn’t mean that I will. It might happen, and it might not.

2. Why aren’t you married?!

I don’t know. Only God knows, and God hasn’t seen fit to tell me. We all enter this world single; it’s the default state of humanity. It doesn’t need justification or explanation. It just is.

3. You’re too picky!

The selection of a spouse is among the most important decisions in life, especially when we teach that marriage transcends death and lasts for eternity. This is not a time to lower one’s standards. Plus, I feel bad for the spouse of anyone who says this – are you saying you lowered your standards?

4. You can always get married in the afterlife!

When you say this, what we hear is that there’s nothing for us here and we’re better off dead. Just don’t. Please.

5. Anything that insinuates that life’s wisdom and true adulthood is imparted upon marriage

We’re not overgrown adolescents. We’re full-fledged adults. I have a degree, a job, and a mortgage. I have to change my oil, rake my leaves, pay my bills, and clean my toilets just like you do. I’m more similar to a 40 year old married person than a 20 year old single person. If you married young, your memories that you’re attributing to single life are really memories of young adulthood. We’ve progressed through life’s milestones the same as you have; we’re not frozen in time at whatever age you were when you got married. Also, it’s absolutely insulting to have mid-singles activities “chaperoned” by a 20 year old newlywed as if grown 30- and 40-somethings aren’t already adults.

6. My husband travels for work a lot, so that’s like being single!

No, it isn’t. You get status in the church. You get a second paycheck coming in. You have a partner to share life’s challenges with. You get tax breaks!

7. Have you tried online dating?

Yes. Or No. But I can assure you we’ve heard of it and made an informed decision for ourselves.

8. You need to try harder!/It will happen when you least expect it!

I’ve heard both of these contradictory statements. I’ve had periods of trying harder and periods of not expecting it. Neither one resulted in a husband. We’re stuck in a situation where no matter what we do, married people will judge us as not having done the right thing.

9. Any speculation on someone’s sexual orientation

There are straight people who are single. There are gay people who are single. There are bisexual people who are single. There are people of other orientations who are single. And if someone wants you to know their orientation, they’ll tell you. Otherwise, mind your own business.

10. You’re too smart/accomplished/educated/wealthy to attract a man.

Well, that’s kind of insulting to all the married women out there, isn’t it? Plus, I don’t want a man I have to be small for. I want someone who loves me for who I am, not in spite of it.

11. We’ll just have the singles provide XYZ for this activity. They have plenty of extra time!

We work. We manage a household. And we have nobody to share the load with. We have the same 168 hours per week that you do. Most of us are willing to do our fair share to build up God’s kingdom, but we shouldn’t have to do everyone else’s share, too.

Now that we’ve covered what not to say, let’s cover what to say:

Hello! How are you? What’s going on in your life? Have you read any good books/seen any good movies/started any fun hobbies lately? Basically anything you would say to a friend of any marital status. We’re people and we want to be talked to like people, not like some dreaded “other”. We have good days and bad days just like you do. We have interesting things about ourselves. Our entire life isn’t reducible to just “single”.

One of the great commandments is to love our neighbors as ourselves. That includes our single neighbors.

Only If You’re “Agreeable”

Dedicated to Madi Mae

 I often feel uncomfortable as a person of color residing in a predominately white church.

Often, it has little to do with the way I came to be a member. It has nothing to do with my less-than-ideal family tree with enough drama to be considered a Caribbean telenovela. My discomfort has nothing to do with judgement from others who believe my sassy way of living the gospel doesn’t fit to the golden standard of being a Latter Day Saint.

It always has to do with the color of my skin.

Biases hide in plain sight as misconceptions and micro-aggressions play hide-and-seek with white discomfort. This uneasiness manifests in white tears and the often-damaging stereotype that to be black is to be compliant, passive, misinformed and uneducated.

At times, its easy to ignore and feign “ignorance for the sake of being ignorant”. As an act of self-preservation, I even find myself playing along, hopping over the “slippery rocks of prejudice” as I hope for a way out of the white-washed narrative of correctness favors the “lighter, whiter complexion”.

At the beginning of 2021, I sat on the sidelines during one of my classes at BYU as I surveyed what would be another painful experience. For fourteen weeks, a classmate mocked me silently each week with snarky expressions, dismissing my words as she sought to prove that her “white experience” was more Christlike.

I sat idly by as she denied the racism another classmate and I had faced. I watched as she maintained that people who continually made ignorant and often racist statements needed more prayer instead of correction.

It’s the Bajan way to get loud when passionate and to speak with conviction even if one’s voice raises a few decibels. In this class, I was loud, proud and in charge of my thought processes, calling out the often-ignorant statements made by other classmates made under the guise of Christlike perfection.

 As a convert to the church, this loud, “take charge attitude” is the one thing which sets me apart from most as I have often been told that my voice is simply too “much” in the quiet halls of member life.  

Each week chipped a little bit more of my voice away until there was none left. Slowly but surely, the weight of the sour expressions shattered my confidence into a million pieces.

I often sum up my experience post-Utah as a tug-of-war between what people “think” I should be and “who I really am”.

 I took a semester off to recover after my ordeal with Covid and this time, I stood by my words as I shattered the ceilings of comfort each week during my Zoom discussions. Still, this didn’t shake off the feelings of dread each week as I signed into the meeting as I prayed my words would be received with the kind, educational intention that I had placed behind them.

At first, all seemed well. My classmates got used to me rocking the boat and sharing my experiences as a convert who had much more experience “with the world”. Still, my mind remained unsettled as I prepared for the collision.

A few weeks before the semester ended, I grimaced as I read a message from another student who perceived my R.B.F as aggressiveness My body became racked with fear. Thoughts of facing expulsion rang in my head. Although I knew I had done nothing wrong, I knew that in a “fight to be right against someone white”, I would never win.

In the eyes of so many, people of color and especially black women should be docile creatures of comfort. We should aim to “stay sweet”, to “not rock the boat” and to “idly await validation”.

I adopted these methods for the first three years after my conversion. In my own small way, I did all in my power to remain “the perfect LDS convert”. Somewhere along the line, something within me snapped as I realized I had slowly fell into passivity. I fell into the category of “perfectly agreeable”

My grandmother never raised a passive young woman, yet here I was simply awaiting word on how “good I had become”. As I sought to find a way to be myself in a gospel where I was relegated to “goodness”, I found the “vim in my voice” that allowed me to be myself while still being a member of the church.

Eventually the “back and forth” becomes exhausting and we are only left with decisions as to which way to go? What road leads to fulfillment and happiness?

Even so, in time the pushback came.

The peanut gallery shouted from the rafters as they express their disdain.

You’ll be loved if you’re agreeable.

You’ll be appreciated if you keep your mouth shutYou’ll be loved if you say what everyone wants you to say.

Now the voices have shifted to a louder refrain.

Don’t you want people to love you…They’ll love you if you’re less direct…less YOU

Time and time again, I am told by my Caribbean friends that I shouldn’t care or that I shouldn’t have an opinion of the biases that exist even as their claws rip against my skin. Instead, I am told that I protected by my geographical location.Still, the words, the interactions and the misconceptions pierce my skin, wounding my heart in the process.

I don’t want to be anyone but myself. I don’t believe I should have to pretend simply to be classified as “good”. Still, there are many who will find the flaw in my sassy approach to living my life within these sacred halls, begging me to comply to be seen as more “acceptable”.

As my thirtieth year of life quickly approaches, I recognize that its time to unlearn what has been learned.

I hope in time I can burst the bubble surrounding race in church spaces and bring others to the understanding that black women are not a “monolith of white-washed human emotion”.

 

To the underestimated, the overlooked and the outcast

Trust Your Power

-Colin Kaepernick

 

 

Softening Mormon patriarchy, one correction at a time

Softening Mormon patriarchy, one correction at a time

The God of Hagar, Part 2

Chiastic structure of Abraham’s story, inspired by a footnote in the New Oxford Annotated Bible

Part 1

TW polygamy, slavery

In the footnotes for Genesis 20 in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, there is a chart showing the chiastic structure of the text of Genesis 11-22. It puts chapter 16, the story of Hagar and Ishmael, at the center of the narrative. A chiasmus is when the text has words or phrases or themes that follow an ABB’A’ or ABCB’A’ pattern. Hagar’s story being in the middle was both fascinating and puzzling to me. I remember learning in seminary that the center of a chiasmus is usually the most important part. I loved that a story about a woman communing with God was central to this story arc, but why it was chosen as the center point was not obvious to me. It didn’t seem to be connected with the rest of the surrounding story all that well. After all, Hagar’s intensely spiritual experience occurred when she was all alone, away from the “protection” of the deeply patriarchal world described in the surrounding text.

At some point I had a troubling thought: What if it isn’t Hagar speaking with God that is the center of the story, but her polygamous marriage to Abram? This is what our church curriculum focuses on. Actually, we don’t focus on the polygamy part, we focus on the “celestial marriage” part and the “blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant” part (but that’s all code for polygamy). Hagar’s story is treated almost as an endnote in the Come Follow Me curriculum this year. Polygamy isn’t mentioned directly, but Doctrine and Covenants 132 is referenced a few times within the study guide.

I’ve chosen to keep Hagar’s theophany at the center of the chiasmus. Her experience with slavery and covenants contrast with Abraham’s experience and invite us to contemplate the nature of God. Here’s my summary of these chapters:

A. Sarai is barren. Abram leaves the protection of his father’s house and family. God promises land to his offspring. (Genesis 11:27-12:9)

B. Sarai is presented to pharaoh as Abram’s sister. God afflicts pharaoh with plagues because of Sarai. (Genesis 12:10-13:1)

C. Abram and Lot separate. Lot is captured in a battle. Abram rescues Lot and pays tithes to King Melchizedek.(Genesis 13-14)

D. God promises Abram that his descendants will be as the number of the stars and will possess the land. Abram asked for a sign and was told to make sacrifices. Abram cut the animals in two, so this is referred to as the covenant of the pieces. God tells Abram his offspring will be slaves for four hundred years. (Genesis 15)

E. Sarai gave Hagar to Abram as a wife. After Hagar conceives, the two women fight, and Hagar runs away. (Genesis 16:1-6)

F. The angel of the Lord speaks with Hagar at a well in the wilderness. Hagar names the place “the Well of the Living One who sees me”. (Genesis 16:7-14)

E.’ Hagar returns to her mistress. Ishmael is born. (Genesis 16:15-16)

D.’ God requires the covenant of circumcision and changes Abram and Sarai’s names. Sarah will conceive and the covenant will continue through her line. (Genesis 17)

C.’ Abraham entertains three holy men and Sarah is told she will conceive. Lot entertains two holy men in Sodom. Lot’s daughters get him drunk and conceive by him. (Genesis 18-19)

B.’ Sarah is presented to Abimelech as Abraham’s sister. God closed the wombs of all the women because of Sarah. (Genesis 20)

A.’ Sarah conceives and Isaac is born. Sarah tells Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael. God says don’t worry about casting them out because the covenant is through Isaac. Abraham does it, and Hagar and Ishmael almost die of thirst in the desert. God guides them to a well. God tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. Abraham would have done so if an angel didn’t stop him. Abraham has stopped protecting both of his sons. (Genesis 21:1-21 and Genesis 22:1-19)

I will focus on the center three levels (D, E, and F) for the rest of this article. The D level is all about covenants and slavery. With the covenant of the pieces, the God of Abraham seems to think that literal offspring who will be enslaved is preferable to Abram adopting a slave as his heir. Abram was promised that the slavery would be after his own time. Maybe Abram felt okay about this deal, but it sounds awful to me. Hagar’s story (which hasn’t happened yet) is an inverted foreshadowing of the Israelite’s exodus from Egypt. Hagar was an enslaved Egyptian who raised her son as Abram’s heir, but in the end they escaped to Egypt. Abram’s descendants were enslaved in Egypt. Moses was raised in the Egyptian royal family, but lead the Israelites to escape. How Abram treated Hagar is how his descendants were treated by the Egyptians.

The D’ level is about the covenant of circumcision. Abraham caused all the men of his household to be circumcised. Abraham’s household is large: he lead over three hundred men “born in his own house” to rescue Lot. The men that were circumcised included slaves that were born in his household and slaves that he bought. Abraham owned these people. They could not consent to this procedure. They could not choose their own religion. The God of Abraham is a god who changes people’s names like a slave-master changes the names of his slaves. The God of Abraham changed the names of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah.

The covenant of the pieces and the covenant of circumcision are generally not what church materials are talking about when they mention the “Abrahamic Covenant.” That one is found in Abraham 2:9-11. These verses say that all who believe in the gospel are adopted into Abraham’s family and have the same blessings of priesthood, salvation, and posterity. (I find this ironic, given that Abraham was unwilling to create a family through adoption.) Many church resources connect the “Abrahamic Covenant” with temple ordinances and temple/celestial marriage (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I’m sure there’s more; that was just a quick search. All of these resources also reference Doctrine and Covenants 132, the section about plural marriage.)

The E level deals with polygamy. Hagar is given to Abram, conceives, and bears Ishmael. She runs away from her harsh mistress/sister wife, but is forced to make an impossible choice: face the danger of the wilderness alone or return to her polygamous marriage. She chooses to return to her marriage, but eventually she and her son are cast out into the wilderness anyway. This is what Abraham’s “celestial marriage” looks like: abusive.

The F level of the chiasmus is a tiny spot of life-sustaining comfort in a desert of abuse and harm. The angel of the Lord speaks with Hagar. She tells the Lord of her current troubles. The Lord prepares her for her future challenges. Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her “El-roi” meaning God of seeing or God who sees. She named the well “Beer-lahai-roi” meaning the Well of the Living One who sees me.

Hagar’s story serves as a literary foil to Abraham’s story. She helps to put Abraham’s actions in context. Abraham’ position grants him power and privilege; Hagar’s position limits her choices. Abraham is the oppressor, Hagar is the oppressed. While both Hagar and Abraham were promised innumerable posterity, Hagar’s covenant gives her hope for her posterity’s freedom, but Abraham’s covenants point to his posterity’s future enslavement. Faith and trust in God are generally seen as admirable traits, but it’s certainly reasonable to question the ethics of worshiping this god: a god who sees how much this form of marriage can hurt women, yet supports it anyway. A god who sees the harm caused by slavery and patriarchy and yet also participates in such things.

The juxtaposition of Hagar’s and Abraham’s stories invites us to question the nature of God and our relationship with deity. The book Sisters in the Wilderness suggested that Hagar (as an Egyptian) may not have worshiped the same god as Abraham. This idea is fascinating and brings up so many questions. Hagar’s conversation with the angel at the well would have been easy for biblical authors to leave out. If her god was a different god, why would the scribes leave it in? I don’t know, but I also don’t know how to reconcile the God of Hagar and the God of Abraham into one being. I don’t want to worship a god who condones slavery. I don’t want to worship a god who may tell me to sacrifice my children. I don’t want to hear church lessons that tell me that unquestioning obedience to a god like that is good and worthy of emulation. D&C 132:32 is one of the scriptures linked to in the Come Follow Me lesson. It reads “Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham”. There are many “works of Abraham” that I don’t want to emulate. I would much rather worship and emulate the God of Hagar, who listened to and witnessed someone’s struggles. This is a holy and helpful thing.

Guest Post: Come Follow Me: Genesis 18–23 “Is Any Thing Too Hard for the Lord?

By Miriam

Miriam is a PhD candidate in Prevention Science at the University of Oregon, mother of 3 girls, and striving to teach her girls that their voices matter.

My family does 3-5-minute scripture study sessions while we eat dinner at night. I’ve found that it’s helpful if I make quick little segmented lessons ahead of time that we just pull out during dinner. Because I have an 8 year old who is sick of hearing solely men’s voices in the scriptures and over pulpit, I try to include as many women’s voices as I can. We also rarely have dinner together a full 7 nights in the week, so I usually don’t make a full 7 lesson plans. I’m sharing these lesson plans here with you.

These chapters in Genesis have some craziness to them with incest and rape and all kinds of Old Testament-esque type things. I’ll give a quick recap of each chapter below (which some of them I probably won’t be sharing with my inquisitive little 8 year old), then delve into something I think we can learn from it.

Genesis 18 – Abraham and Sarah are told by some holy men that they’ll have a baby even though they’re super old. They’re also told the Sodom and Gomorrah will be destroyed.

In this chapter, Sarah and Abraham don’t think it could be possible for them to have a baby because they’re super old, but God says to Abraham, “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14). Then later in the chapter Abraham’s friends are going over to Sodom, but it says Abraham didn’t and instead “Abraham stood yet before the Lord.” (Genesis 18:22)

I think we can see miracles when we’re willing to accept the Lord. Sister Elaine S. Dalton said in General Conference, “be not moved in your acceptance of the Savior’s Atonement.”

How can we stand firm in accepting the Savior? What miracles have you seen in your life as you’ve tried to accept the Savior?

Genesis 19 – Lot is told to take his family and flee their community. He takes his wife and two daughters but leaves the son-in-laws. While they’re fleeing, Lot’s wife turns back and gets turned into salt. When Lot and his daughters get to the mountains, the daughters get their dad drunk and rape him so that his seed will be preserved.

In verse 26 is the famous story where Lot’s “wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.”

Having doubts is normal and Lot’s wife was clearly having some doubts. The Bible doesn’t give us enough context as to why her doubts meant she wasn’t allowed to live and I’m sure there was a lot more to it than the 13 words we read in Genesis. Setting what was going on for Lot’s wife aside, let’s think about what it means for us to doubt. Reverend Jacqui Lewis said on her blog, “Come and bring your heart — broken, but healing; your dreams — deferred but vivid; and your faith — which likely sits alongside some doubt. Be comforted, loves, that doubt actually makes our faith stronger. The wrestling, the struggling, the doubting grows our faith muscle. Don’t be afraid to express the doubt, to dig into it, to be, as my therapist would say, on its side. The truth of that all will set you free for move love! These are hot-mess times, the kinds of times that can inspire doubt. I have doubts, but I am absolutely confident that good people all over the globe are putting love in the world, love that is stronger than hate.”

How can we use our doubts to grow our faith muscles and help us become closer to God?”

Genesis 20 – Abraham and Sarah go to a new town and decide to tell people they’re brother and sister instead of husband and wife (which, news flash: I didn’t realize…they actually are half siblings who married each other). Apparently Abraham thought people might kill him “for his wife’s sake.” Abimelech sleeps with Sarah then is told in a dream that she’s married so he gets kinda upset that he didn’t know. But Abimelech and Abraham made up and seemed to be chummy by the end of the chapter. Also, it says Abimelech has a wife, so there’s clearly a gendered double standard for who is allowed to sleep with multiple women.

In verse 17, it says that “Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children.”

God heals. Christian blogger Christina from belovedwomen.org said, “I want to remind you today that we serve a God who is a healer and is in the business of restoring that which is broken and making it into something beautiful.”

How has God healed you? How have you allowed God to help restore broken parts of you? How is God healing you know?

Genesis 21 – Sarah has that baby she was promised. So then Sarah tells Abraham to get rid of Hagar and her child and they are forced to leave. God hears the prayers of Hagar and her son and God is with them. Abraham and Abimelech promise each other to be friends (I think that’s what the covenant was)

Hagar thinks she’s about to die because she’s left destitute. She puts her baby under a shrub because she doesn’t want to have to watch him die. But God heard the baby crying and sent an agnel who said to her “What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation.” (verses 17-18)

Hopefully we won’t have to experience the immense heartache Hagar was going through as she was rejected from her home and had nowhere to turn. However, we each will experience heartache and fear. It is in those moments where it seems that no one is there for us that we need to remember that God really is there for us. Sister Sharon Eubank said for a BYU-Pathways devotional, “The Lord loves you. He is aware of you. He will bless you in the smallest things if you ask Him for help. As many times as you get up and try again, He will be there for you. He won’t ever give up on you.”

How can this knowledge, that God won’t ever give up on you, help you? How can we remember this and feel it in our souls?

Genesis 22 – God tells Abraham to kill Isaac like an animal sacrifice. He starts to do it but then is stopped by an angel and given an animal to kill instead.

Abraham is promised by God, “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” (verse 18)

Sister Barbara W. Winder said in a General Conference address, “as we obey the commandments, we have the evidence of blessings, feelings of accomplishment, and inner peace… Through obedience we build spiritual strength that sustains us during times of adversity.”

How has obedience brought you strength? How has obedience brought you closer to God?

Genesis 23 – In verse 1 Sarah dies and the rest of the chapter seems to be about Abraham negotiating a burial fee.

Perhaps this might bring a discussion about death and what that might mean in your own family. Death is hard and it can mean a lot of different things for different people.

Anglican Pastor Tish Harrison Warren shared her thoughts on death in a NYTimes piece. She said,

“I believe that after I die, somehow mysteriously but also materially, Jesus will raise me up to live on this good earth, made new. I believe this because I believe that Jesus is risen from the dead. Specifically, I believe the witness of the disciples and others who lived and died for their claim that they (and somewhere around 500 others) had seen Jesus alive again and spoken to and touched him. That’s ultimately why I believe there’s a God at all and why I believe God has defeated death.

“As a priest, when I talk about life after death with others, I tend to keep it objective, theological and creedal. I worry about making resurrected life sound sentimental, as though we are just making stuff up, dreaming of what we wish was true. So I try to be evenhanded and factual.

“But the fact is, I believe this is true, and I believe there are good reasons to believe it’s true, but I also want it to be true.

“I hate death. I have never made my peace with it and I never will. I don’t want to live in a world where everything good suddenly ends…I want to see the people I love again.

I hope that my longing for eternity — for joy and pleasure and friendship and beauty to last — is there because it whispers of something that is true. I hope that death feels wrong to me because it really is wrong, it really is not how things are meant to be. And I hope that this hope for more is not silly or delusional. I hope to see my friends again and that death is an interruption, but not an ending.”

                What do you believe about death? How does your relationship with the Savior impact your feelings of death?