Exponent II's Blog, page 127

Book Review: Under a Leafless Tree: The Story of a Mormon Girl from East Prussia

One of my favourite things about the holidays is the story telling. My grandparents have long since passed away, but when I was little, I loved hearing the pioneer stories of my maternal great grandparents, and I loved hearing the stories of my paternal family as they migrated from Europe, to turn around and serve as American soldiers without taking a breath. I loved the stories of ovens without timers, cars without seatbelts and shoe holes repaired with gum. The kinds of stories that make you smile, and appreciate how good things are now.

 

If you are at all like me, then this is the book for you. It was recently released on kindel, though it was originally published in 2013.

 

Helga Meyer is a remarkable woman. This book is a collection of her memories. Friend had long asked her to record her story, so pinning a microphone to Helga, the words came. Lark Evans Galli lovingly recorded the words while an army of friends transcribes the recordings, then went back to Helga to ensure what had been written was right.

 

In reading this book, you feel the sense of a many helping hands. Most certainly you come to know Helga, and of her triumphs and trials. But mostly you feel the beauty and simplicity of her faith amid war, manifesting in a billion miniscule miracles:

 

“When Hitler came to the regime I was in my thirteenth year. Right from the beginning they wanted the youth to belong to the girls’ group. It was called BDM, or Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls). They had uniforms: white blouses and dark skirts. I think blue skirts. I came home one day when they recruited for the BDM, and all of my girlfriends were joining. I said, “Oh Mutti (Mother). I would like to go and belong to the group.” She said, “Kindchen, Helgalein, you are a Beehive girl, and you don’t need to belong to that group.” So I never belonged to any of these groups.”

 

Holding Helga’s hand, we can hear her voice through the typed words, as she tells us about her life before the war, and after the war in East Germany. Some of the stories are confronting, but told with simplicity, such as her description of the crystal night, being amidst flailing shrapnel and even being shot.  I physically shook my head as I read her retelling of when she escaped East Germany by crossing into West Germany- while pregnant! And how a gypsy told her that better days would come. And how she was finally able to migrate to America.

 

This book is filled with photographs of the people in Helga’s life, making for a rich, immersive experience. Though I have never heard her voice, whenever I read, I felt like I could hear it- simply telling me about her, her life and her inspiringly positive perspective. I felt lighter in reading the book, and with a newfound gratitude for family, and freedom.

 

This is a remarkable book; I recommend it for World War II history buffs, those who enjoy non-American Mormon history, and church members who seek to be inspired by 20th century pioneers. It is easy to read, and a solid choice for the holidays.  It can be purchased at Amazon from $9.99.

Guest Post: Why Heavenly Mother is Essential: Part 6

Guest Post by McArthur Krishna, McArthur comes from a pack of storytellers. And while the pack rightly insists she’s only in the running for third-best storyteller on a good day, she’s made her living in stories. Stories in words and visual art that inspire, demand, encourage and cajole us along this wild ride of life. If you know her, she will unabashedly tell your stories too (with some degree of truthiness). Look out.

This is the sixth of a seven-part series about why Heavenly Mother is essential.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

I have been writing this series for a few weeks now. It feels good to spend time thinking about my Heavenly Mother, perhaps because (Proverbs claims) without a vision, the people will perish. 

We can look around and see lots of perishing. This is real. This is painful. This is not something to stand in judgement on or to dismiss as wheat and tares sorting. We are taught we need the whole body of Christ. And, we have covenanted to “mourn with those who mourn.” I will continue to mourn and also to wish sincere Godspeed as I see friends and strangers take paths they need. 

However, I will also work for vision. 

And, as a woman, the vision is intrinsically linked to Heavenly Mother. 

Elder Pace expands on the question of destiny of women.

“Sisters, I testify that when you stand in front of your heavenly parents in those royal courts on high and look into Her eyes and behold Her countenance, any question you ever had about the role of women in the kingdom will evaporate into the rich celestial air, because at that moment you will see standing directly in front of you, your divine nature and destiny.”

Elder Glen L. Pace, The Divine Nature and Destiny of Women

I don’t know about you, but I have questions. And some of those questions are more troubling than others. (Troubling? Let’s be more clear. Try “soul crushing.”) How… Why… What in the world…. well, I am sure you have your own. 

An article interviewing Camille Kimball stated:

“I’ve always had an inquiring mind. I’m not satisfied just to accept things. I like to follow through and study things out. I learned early to put aside those gospel questions that I couldn’t answer. I had a shelf of things I didn’t understand, but as I’ve grown older and studied and prayed and thought about each problem, one by one I’ve been able to better understand them.”

She twinkles, “I still have some questions on that shelf, but I’ve come to understand so many other things in my life that I’m willing to bide my time for the rest of the answers.”

I don’t claim to have her grace, patience or her “better understanding”. And I especially don’t always have a twinkle. But, I do appreciate knowing some firm buttresses about Heavenly Mother along the way. We have been discussing them in previous articles in this series, but let’s add this one:

Essential Fact #6: Heavenly Mother is our destiny and female role model  Kathleen Peterson, “Mother”

I want to interrupt here with this: this is not a zero-sum game. Our Heavenly Parents are not Greek gods jealously fighting over who is more important and who gets what. When we value our Mother in Heaven, it takes nothing away from the relationship I strive to have with my Savior and His other parent, Heavenly Father. They are united. 

So, is Jesus a role model— of course. Is Heavenly Father a role model— of course. But is Heavenly Mother also a role model? Of course! And, for a woman to understand that Heavenly Mother is her destiny matters. 

Why?

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland calls Heavenly Mother “crucial” in Her contribution to our lives.

“To all of our mothers everywhere, past, present, or future, I say, “Thank you. Thank you for giving birth, for shaping souls, for forming character, and for demonstrating the pure love of Christ.” To Mother Eve, to Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, to Mary of Nazareth, and to a Mother in Heaven, I say, “Thank you for your crucial role in fulfilling the purposes of eternity.”

If we are to be like our Heavenly Mother, it means we also have a a purpose to fulfill. And if we are to fulfill our purpose in eternity, what do we need to do? I appreciate Elder Holland’s list above… giving birth can happen in a number of ways (I have birthed businesses, ideas, projects, art pieces, relationships), for shaping souls (this one is stunningly intimidating), for forming character (ditto), and for demonstrating pure love of Christ (the doozy). 

But then I was thinking more about what are the “purposes of eternity”: to become more godlike and return home to live with our Heavenly Parents. What does that require?

I think the most important thing it requires is a growth mindset. If you refuse to grow, you are stuck. Solid. 

My husband and I have been living in India for eight years. I kind of expected this was going to be our place and our life. And then some things shifted. The most important was a shift with our kids. But after that, was a shift that made us realize that we were on the path to being stuck and that continuing in that location was exacerbating the situation. As this was an abhorrent thought to both of us, we decided it took some drastic action. 

We have been pushed and pushed for growth. There are days I simply don’t like it. I am clearly bad at it. I am trying to learn to be braver. It helps me to know that I have Jesus to help me along the path towards my destiny of Heavenly Mother and when I feel that comfort I remember this quote:

“I have heard it said by some that the reason the women in the Church struggle to know themselves is because they don’t have a divine female role model. But we do. We believe we have a mother in heaven… Furthermore, I believe we know much more about our eternal nature than we think we do; and it is our sacred obligation to express our knowledge, to teach it to our sisters and daughters.”

— Patricia Holland, counselor in the YW general presidency, One Thing Needful: Becoming Women of Greater Faith in Christ

I am trying, emphatically, to live up to that sacred obligation. 

Guest Post: Why Heavenly Mother is Essential: Part 5

Guest Post by McArthur Krishna and Martin Pulido.

McArthur comes from a pack of storytellers. And while the pack rightly insists she’s only in the running for third-best storyteller on a good day, she’s made her living in stories. Stories in words and visual art that inspire, demand, encourage and cajole us along this wild ride of life. If you know her, she will unabashedly tell your stories too (with some degree of truthiness). Look out.

Martin is the co-author of the BYU Studies article, A Mother There: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven

This is the fifth of a seven-part series about why Heavenly Mother is essential.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

You would think after years of doing research on Heavenly Mother for our books that I would be little more on top of things. Still, last Christmas when I saw a piece of art that showed Heavenly Mother handing Jesus to Mary, I stopped in my tracks. Jaw-dropped.

Brittany Nguyen, “Entrusted“

But what stunned me was simple— I had never considered that She had sent HER son. I think we have heard the phrase so often “God sent His son” that it just never hit my brain that even the son of God has two parents. Jesus would not exist without both of his parents. Knowing this and recognizing Her sacrifice as well as Jesus’ and the Father’s is vital.

Essential Fact #5: Jesus is also Heavenly Mother’s son

Christ had both a mother and father. That parenting together is important. That being involved with us is “Their work and Their glory.”

What does that mean?

It means She is essential to our salvation—as the deity who birthed him. 

“The visions and teachings of these prophets suggest that Christ is as bonded to his Heavenly Mother as to his Heavenly Father and that the Mother plays a role in our salvation commensurate with the role played by the Father.”

Val Larsen (First Visions and Last Sermons)

If we follow Christ’s example, then it means Heavenly Mother matters. If it mattered that He would have a mother, it matters that we do too. 

It means that Heavenly Mother is not a doctrine just for women.

When Bethany and I sat down to write our Heavenly Mother guide book, we wrote a girl’s version. We each have three daughters, we write books about women in the scriptures; it just made sense. And then I got a message from a woman who begged me to make our book into a children’s guide. I refused on the principle that we were discussing wombs and hips and whatnot and I didn’t want a boy in that space. However, I offered that she could send me an email with her thoughts on why we should write a guide for boys. As a mother to five boys, she had a lot of thoughts. I called Bethany, “We got to do a boy’s guide. Not kidding.” 

Many of the specifics of Heavenly Mother matter to all genders and to those who don’t ascribe to a gender. Heavenly Mother is our mother. But, for the purpose of the rest of this article, I want to talk about why the doctrine of Heavenly Mother specifically matters to men. 

Valerie Hudson has shown us that when countries treat women more equitably, the countries fare better. Yet the understanding that the divine model is equality of Heavenly Mother being on par with Heavenly Father as equitable partners impacts lots of different spheres. I was reading an article that talked about men and women who share more tasks in their homes have a lower rate of divorce. If both partners are sharing and working together that means you feel like more like a team and you’re more likely to want to stay. This knowledge changes our priorities and ranking family as vital. And it is not just the relationship of men and women. Knowledge that Gods live in relationships, means we need to practice, value, and invest in those.

I am not a negative person, but it does not seem to me that many boys are being raised with this understanding, in or out of our faith.

How would the world shift if men and women saw each other as their peers? That equality is the divine model and the two Supreme Beings of the universe are on par with each other? I heard a story of a mission president who was just exploring this doctrine. As the implications unfolded to him he said, “I wish I would have known this. It would have changed how I treated the Relief Society President in my ward when I was bishop, it will change how I treat the sisters in my mission, it changes how I treat my wife.” 

It changes everything. 

Yet, this is all from my perspective as a woman. Since I often get the feeling people consider Heavenly Mother to be a doctrine that only concerns women, I asked Martin Pulido what his thoughts were. He is one of the authors of the A Mother There article and he teamed up with us for our “Boys Guide to Heavenly Mother”. Martin is a great thinker and showed me ways to consider Heavenly Mother that I never had before. For this post, I also called on Martin: his thoughts are the following.

Crystal Suzanne Close, “A Heavenly Mother’s Love”From Martin:

Like many latter-day saints, I grew up somewhat familiar with the idea that I had a Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. I sang O My Father and Oh, What Songs of the Heart (not surprisingly I had not sung We Meet Again as Sisters) in worship services. The belief in “heavenly parents” was communicated in the First Presidency’s Family Proclamation, which I received as an 11 year-old living in Spain in Fall 1995. My family spoke about the idea some in a family home evening, and it appeared in Sunday School discussions. Most of the time it was a sidebar conversation, with an “okay, that makes sense” reaction from me, but I always felt a longing to know more. I loved my earthly mother deeply, and expecting my Heavenly one to be somehow like her, I wanted to know about my Heavenly Mother. 

When I was given the opportunity to research further into Heavenly Mother in LDS Christian thought in 2008 at BYU, I excitedly jumped at the opportunity. I was surprised at the wide array of reactions I received while I did the research:

One gentleman predicted due to my line of questioning that I would become some hippie “know-it-all” in the back of the pews sporting a long beard and kicking my feet up on chairs wearing Birkenstock’s. (I can imagine worse fates)Some belittled the whole activity: “any ‘research’ toward Heavenly Mother will be into books and articles written by those who don’t have or don’t follow the Spirit.”Others cautioned me: She was too sacred to talk about, so why was I probing?Some concerned family members worried I would be excommunicatedIn one case a family member offended me, stating in not so many words that all women adored me for my Heavenly Mother research, and if I hadn’t already been married, I could pretty much get any LDS girl that I wanted for what I was doing. As if that was entering my mind? I found the comment deeply unsettling. I didn’t think Heavenly Mother would take too kindly of any thoughts like that.And then was one that really surprised me — people asking why I was so interested and touched by the doctrine given that I was “male and Melchizedek”

I’d like to speak on this last reaction. I’ll start by noting how I understand why Heavenly Mother means much to latter-day saint women. In a faith that has embodied Heavenly Father and Jesus as male, masculinized its angels in scripture as resurrected ancient male prophets, and had the mouthpieces of God’s will on earth be male priesthood holders, it can be hard for women to see themselves in God. As Eve was carved from Adam, women can be viewed as secondary, derivative, an distorted echo of the male. Indeed, women in LDS art until this last generation were largely portrayed as the saved, not as saviors, on the path to sanctification, but not holy. They may have been faithful, dynamic saints, yet they were elevated to this station solely through the instrumentality of the male. Heavenly Mother ruptures this pattern, allowing women to see the divine in themselves, as equal and not subordinate or holy only in consequence of men. Their femaleness is not something they need to transform to become like God. It’s already there. It makes up God.

To see God in a woman is to recognize greater weight behind a woman’s voice. I remember in college and as a missionary, when men would take a break during a talk in General Conference presented by a Relief Society, Young Women’s, or Primary presidency member as “they weren’t really prophets” anyway. Their “message was for moms”; it may have been nice to listen to, provided uplifting commentary, but it wasn’t really necessary as they “couldn’t speak for God.” But when God is in a woman, it’s hard to dismiss their words, to not respect their perspectives and let the Holy Spirit confirm them. This insight extends beyond how we interact with women in the Church, but how we interact with women in our homes, workplaces, and community organizations.

To see God as my Heavenly Parents enables us to see divinity as emerging from relationships between men and women. It calls out very quickly that it’s not all about you as a man, or as an individual. Divinity is an inherently social venture. B. H. Roberts astutely observed: “To one accepting ‘Mormon’ theology, the sexes are not made to walk separately and alone… Neither one can say to the other, ‘I have no need of thee!’” Men and women require each other; there is no concept of “divinity” without them working together. How this can cause us to the re-prioritize the value of our relationships. Far from corporate ladder climbing, progression in eternity is more around the quality of, commitment to, and sacrifices made for our relationships with our earthly and Heavenly families.

All this said, to reduce Heavenly Mother to a potential source of female empowerment is a mistake. Heavenly Mother means much to me and other latter-day saint men. Just as the giving of God’s Son to the world re-contextualized our understanding of God’s love, Heavenly Mother, with the deep sacrifice mothers have in bringing in and flourishing a life, further transforms our understanding of divine grace. It balances the generosity of redemption with the generosity of creation. It calls out that our Heavenly Parents sacrificed time, energy, and no doubt emotional heartache to hold an eternal responsibility over our development and care.

When one looks, scripture communicates of God’s supreme maternal care. Whether described as a mother eagle, a hen hovering over her chicks, or a bear defending her cubs, God as mother is there. God asks in 1 Nephi 21:15, “For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?” As is sadly sometimes the case, God observes, “Yea, they may forget,” but then counters against this impoverished reality, that “yet will [God] not forget thee, O House of Israel.” God will be the mother that mortal women sometimes fail to be. God is the Mother of mothers. These words always made more sense to me in context of a Heavenly Mother.

To breathe deeply in the reality of a Heavenly Mother mystifies one with overwhelming security that there is another perfectly loving being bolstering you and helping you grow into all you can be. There is latitude in the will of a Mother, who endures the pain and joy of separation to allow newness of expression. As with Moses’ mother Jochebed, Heavenly Mother passed us along to another mother, to experience a different life raised in Pharaoh’s courts (the world) to grow our souls. In this there is a confidence that God is letting you discover yourself, to learn through experience the good from the evil, and determine what you want. 

While we were given up, and there is a freedom to be experienced in mortality, that flexibility is balanced by the haunting possibility of squandering one’s life. For to be the son of a Mother calls out what we owe, an indebtedness one grapples with even as one does not know how or when they can fulfill it. For how can a man repay a mother for their birth? Yet the unpayable debt commands effort, to love and give even as you were loved and Given. As a result, I am constantly nudged by questions such as, “Am I honoring Her (and my Heavenly Father)? Am I treating my brothers and sisters, my wife, as I ought? What do my Heavenly Parents think of me? Am I following Their Son?” The debt of creation calls me to embrace parenthood in the broadest sense, of caring for and tending to one’s community, to adopt the world as my stewardship, to increase the scope of my responsibilities. 

It is to appreciate what you’ve been given by women too – to look into the face of a man, and to see a woman there. To see Heavenly Mother in you, or in Jesus Christ. The Church’s family search application has a fun Compare-a-Face activity, which allows you to see how facial features match those of ancestors. It’s no surprise that many female ancestors are shown to be close matches. You get to see yourself as participating in a matriarchal line. It may be the waviness of your hair, the tint of your eyes, the curve of a lip, the prominence of the cheekbones. As we peer into our characters and personalities, as men we likewise ask, “what is it that comes from Her?” I am sure much does.

There is a lovely poem by Deja Earley, “Of Thy Womb,” where the female narrator reflects on the presence of Heavenly Mother after the death of a baby’s premature delivery. “She’s not at my bedside, shimmering / in empathetic sorrow when I wake. She’s not / there at the edges of me, or at the emptied center.” But one area the narrator sees her Mother’s possible presence is in the tenderness of her Catholic husband. “perhaps She’s in Sam’s hand / as he passes it over my forehead / gently as a prayer.”

As a man, I can be empowered by seeing Heavenly Mother in myself. My masculinity does not keep me from embracing Her as a role model. Men can see Her in, and honor Her by following, Her Son Jesus Christ, recognizing Christ as fully manifesting the Father and the Mother’s perfections and love. To see Jesus’ own description of himself as a mother hen looking over chicks shows how he developed maternal love at Jerusalem and in the Americas. Such an image echoes God’s own roosting over the world on creation’s morn and beckons all men everywhere to grow in motherly kindness.

The Power Of White Tears

Unlike many across the world, I chose not to watch too much of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

As a black woman, seeing the gross disrespect to the American court system was triggering. I learned during the various trials that justice will never come for those who shed their white tears and are granted victimhood based on the color of their skin. Instead, I chose to reflect upon my blackness and my attempts to survive my BYU school experience by being true to myself by being the opinionated woman of color that I have become over the last three years.

Being true to oneself in a predominately white space is difficult to near impossible at times existing within the walls of the church. Over time, I’ve come to recognize that people love the agreeable nature of persons of color and seek to silence us or resort to “white tears of fragility” when confronted with a truth that goes against their own perspective.

I realized early on that my tears would never be equal. But did I want to lower myself to such fragile standards?

A few months ago, I was blocked by a popular LDS influencer for no apparent reason. At first, I was confused, using my alts to look through the comments I had made on her profile. In my mind, my comments had been honest yet kind but were instead understood as meanspirited and attacking.

Once discovering the potential comment, I reached out to the influencer in hopes of explaining myself. I explained clearly that this comment which detailed why Pioneer Day just doesn’t feel the same uplifting way for Indigenous members wasn’t an attack on her content but just giving another perspective which many living in Utah weren’t quite aware of.

Instead of a swift apology, I was more confused than ever when the influencer seemed to blame me for adding to her anxiety and mental health condition. I immediately took screenshots as a form of protection, showing the interaction to my good friend Tracey as we nick picked over whether I had in some small way contributed to triggering this girl’s emotional breakdown.

We found no cause for alarm, but I continued interacting with this influencer listening to the misdirected blame game being cast my way. As I shuffled through the growing piles of excuses that were provided which had little to no connection to my original comment, I grew tired of the fake, forced encounter and left it alone to preserve my crumbling mental health at that time.

I’ve always believed that overcoming mental health battles is an individual process of reflecting and fortifying oneself. The reflection takes place which makes us acknowledge triggers and potential areas of concern that might cause us to return to that dangerous mindset. The fortification helps us to strengthen ourselves against those triggers we may struggle with as we obtain the tools which shield us from these events causing us to spiral again.

In my years of dealing with my own silent battles, casting blame on innocent bystanders seemed foolish.

This encounter rubbed my skin raw. Although the intention behind it would scream of innocence, the racial bias behind it was apparent. As a black woman, I had been seen as aggressive, meanspirited and combative despite my best attempts to been seen as helpful.

Over time, I’ve seen that this is not a one-off encounter. As a black woman attending BYU-Idaho, I’ve seen many times how people assume that being vocal or calling out problematic content makes me more aggressive than a white counterpart. I’ve been silently warned by classmates to keep my mouth shut and go along with things I won’t endorse as gospel truth.

Back in winter semester, I was told to shut up with silent expressions each week by one classmate. I defied her at every turn, shutting down the toxic comments she made and sharing the morally correct responses to her very biased assumptions.

During a topic of racism, I shared my story of “The N Word Saga”. Another black student also shared her experiences expecting some sort of sympathy from this woman. Instead, we got pushback as she silenced our struggles, dismissing them as plain ignorance of people and turning to tears to prove her Christlike love for these people that allows her to forgive. Then, she started crying.

I walked away from that lesson with a much clearer understanding of white tears.

I feel the weight of them when interacting with members of the church, feeling the inequality of their power over me and many saints of color who have to police their emotions to conform to church culture.

We feel these tears on our backs like pelting rain when we must hide who we are to be seen as just as educated, just as knowledgeable and having a contribution like any other member.

I’d like to think that at some point we can turn these white tears off and remove the tap of white fragility that allows these encounters to be normalized as acceptable forms of dealing with conflict.

But this will always be wishful thinking. These tears are fueled by the fragility behind them and used as weapons of the mass destruction of anyone who dares defy their whiteness.

As a person of color, I acknowledge their power even when opposing their use. Doing so reminds me of their purpose and their function to soothe the seemingly fragile spirit.

Still, I believe their use is just plain cowardly…

Guest Post: These Are They Who Are of The Terrestrial

World Earth Rise Sunrise Space Outer Sun Globe

Guest Post by Nicole Sbitani. Nicole is an adult convert, a woman of color, and a professional diplomat. She blogs at nandm.sbitani.com and writes microfiction @nsbitani on Twitter. The content of this post does not represent the views of the U.S. Department of State or any other U.S. Government agency, department, or entity. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and in no way should be associated with the U.S. Government.

I’ll never forget the pain and confusion I experienced in a Gospel Principles class as a new adult convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints years ago. The lesson was based on Chapter 41: The Postmortal Spirit World. The section on “Spirit Prison” states:

“In the spirit prison are the spirits of those who have not yet received the gospel of Jesus Christ…Also in the spirit prison are those who rejected the gospel after it was preached to them either on earth or in the spirit prison. These spirits suffer in a condition known as hell…After suffering for their sins, they will be allowed, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, to inherit the lowest degree of glory, which is the telestial kingdom.”

As the only member in my family and someone whose dearest loved ones have all “rejected the gospel…on earth”, I did not find this vision of the afterlife particularly comforting. In fact, it sounded pretty similar to that of the previous church I attended, where I was told my family was going to hell but I should be grateful because I deserved to go to hell too and instead got to go to heaven. But what is even an eternity in heaven separated from those who raised you, fed you, grew you into the person you became, loved you, cared for you when you were sick, held you when your heart was broken, shared your life – the only life you can remember – with you?

This doctrine also differed from what missionaries and many of my member friends had taught me. They preached hope through proxy ordinances including baptisms for the dead, promising that they knew families could be together forever in the Celestial Kingdom thanks to proxy work. It seems this common understanding contradicts not only revelatory Scripture but the teachings of early leaders in the Restored Church.

The most direct revelation on the subject can be found in Doctrine & Covenants 76:71-78 (emphasis mine):

71 And again, we saw the terrestrial world, and behold and lo, these are they who are of the terrestrial, whose glory differs from that of the church of the Firstborn who have received the fulness of the Father, even as that of the moon differs from the sun in the firmament.

72 Behold, these are they who died without law;

73 And also they who are the spirits of men kept in prison, whom the Son visited, and preached the gospel unto them, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh;

74 Who received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it.

75 These are they who are honorable men of the earth, who were blinded by the craftiness of men.

76 These are they who receive of his glory, but not of his fulness.

77 These are they who receive of the presence of the Son, but not of the fulness of the Father.

78 Wherefore, they are bodies terrestrial, and not bodies celestial, and differ in glory as the moon differs from the sun.

Verses 71 and 78 make it very clear that all the people discussed in the intervening verses are destined for the terrestrial kingdom (which I will admit is an improvement over the telestial fate asserted in Gospel Principles). Verses 73-75 describe much of the people for whom I and almost everyone else I know have done proxy baptisms among our ancestors: good people who chose not to get baptized and join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during mortal life. Those who “received not the testimony of Jesus in the flesh, but afterwards received it” are obviously those who died without becoming members, made even more clear by the immediately preceding verse that clarifies that those spirits would have the opportunity to have the Son preach them the gospel in spirit prison. In other words: if they soften their hearts and accept the gospel and accept saving ordinances like proxy baptism, the best they can hope for is the terrestrial kingdom. So why are we implying (or sometimes even teaching) contradictory doctrine?

It has been baffling to me as I’ve raised this issue with many member friends over the years how different their reactions are. The most common response is disbelief, followed by a lot of bending-over-backwards impossible logic once I point to the Gospel Principles chapter and the plain and simple language of D&C 76. I heard everything from “we don’t really know what any of the words in that Scripture mean and they could mean something completely different than what they say” to “I know what it technically says but I have a testimony that says otherwise.”

Honestly, for something with such dire consequences for my and my whole family’s salvation, those weak rationalizations aren’t enough. I agree with my friend at The Well Examined Life blog that “spirit prison” is a difficult doctrine to swallow and seems to defy other truths we know about God’s mercy and agency for every person. My friend also brought attention in the same post to Joseph Smith’s narrow understanding of who would qualify for exaltation via proxy baptism:

“When Joseph Smith introduced the doctrine of vicarious baptism in 1840, he also endorsed the idea of limiting the availability of baptisms for the dead in a similar manner. In a letter he sent to the Quorum of the Twelve, he wrote:  “the Saints have the privilege of being baptized for those of their relatives who are dead, whom they believe would have embraced the gospel, if they had been privileged with hearing it….”” from “An Epistle of the Prophet to the Twelve,” History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Vol. IV (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1974), p. 231 (emphasis added).

For modern members whose families and other loved ones have heard about the gospel from us and chosen not to embrace it, it is apparent that the baptisms we perform for our dead were not part of this proxy ordinance as originally conceived. I earnestly pray for clarifying revelation and clear doctrine from present-day leaders on this issue. Especially as the church grows, more and more members will wonder why the eternal family doctrine doesn’t seem to include them. I have a personal testimony and a belief that it should, and I hope official church materials (and not just the wishes of rank-and-file members) will one day make that indisputable.

Returning to Lament

“Lament” by INTVGene. This photograph has not been modified and is covered under CC BY-SA 2.0

I am on the leadership team of an online ministry with Community of Christ that supports those in the middle of faith transitions. This is the text of a talk I was recently asked to give.

Tonight our theme is lament and so I am going to be talking about grief and lament a lot this evening, where I define grief as feelings of loss and lament as the passionate expression of grief. I want to begin with some caveats and invitations here as we begin this discussion of lament. 

So, I’m going to begin with a story of some of the things that have caused me grief. I also want to say that the things that have caused me grief that I wish to lament and express that grief are maybe different from the things that you grieve. If my griefs are not the same as your griefs, I want to invite you to identify your griefs as you read this. I also invite you to find ways to lament those griefs, both as a spiritual practice and as a pathway to self-empathy and emotional health.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was trying to stay on top of my grief by naming all of the things I was losing: quiet alone time in my office at work, the physical presence of colleagues and friends, sharing coffee and meals with others, getting to visit my sister and her family, my children attending school in person, and singing in person with my congregation. I have spent various chunks of the past 18 months feeling my grief and alternatively just wanting everything to be fine. And now there is part of me that feels like I should be used to this by now. Life must go on, I tell myself. I am tired of grieving and so I feel I must be done. Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, we spent so much time in my congregation talking about our grief. 

At that same time and also at the beginning of the pandemic, I heard a lot of people talking about hope. I did not know what to do with hope. It seemed like hope was something to grab at that was not grounded in anything real – like maybe hope was kind of a bullshit concept like the tooth fairy – something we tell ourselves to feel better about difficult moments but has no depth.  

Then summer came and so many plans were cancelled. My husband and I are both professors and have our summers off from work – this is a tremendous privilege that we have. We can schedule a lot of fun things during this time. I had been busy making plans for the best summer ever when the pandemic began. Perhaps the cancelled plan that hurt the most was that my kids were going to go to Girl Scout Camp for a week. This was going to be a good growth experience for them. I spent my teenage years at a Girl Scout Camp and I was eager for my kids to do something similar. Their time at camp was also going to give my husband and I a week to ourselves – our first time alone since they were born. When those cancelled camp days came and went, I felt devastated. 

But the more I shamed myself for complaining about all of these big and small griefs, telling myself that others had it worse that I still have my home and my family and my job, the worse I felt. 

I learned that lament is different than complaining. Lament is letting yourself give voice to your griefs in a way that you can feel throughout your body. It is expressing the passion and sadness you feel about the things you have lost. If complaining is casual, lament is full of intent.

Lament is also sacred. There are a number of Psalms of lament that give voice to feelings of despair when we feel like we’ve been abandoned by God we have loved. And we hold these Psalms, like other scriptural texts, as sacred. 

And for those of us here tonight, we’ve likely felt abandoned by a God we have loved and held onto, to a church that we loved and provided us with stability, and to a sense that God made the world right through divine intervention. If we are here tonight, we’ve probably spent considerable time lamenting the things we have lost in our faith, even if we have gained new faith.

We might feel grief about our church wounds, but there are also plenty of other things to mourn while we are at it. The pandemic has highlighted so many things to grieve in our society: racial injustice, transphobia, misinformation and polarization, the stress we may have experienced over the election, feelings of terror at watching the events of January 6, the stress and grief of watching family and friends get sick and die, the inflation of prices while wages remain stagnant, and the list just keeps on going. It is overwhelming. I don’t always know how to express lament in the face of so much loss, but scripture offers some models that feel timeless.

Habakkuk 1:2-4 (NRSV) reads

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,

  and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

   and you will not save?

Why do you make me see wrongdoing

   and look at trouble?

Destruction and violence are before me;

   strife and contention arise.

So the law becomes slack

   and justice never prevails.

The wicked surround the righteous—

   therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

In these verses, I see a reminder that the feeling that we have been abandoned by God to a world that is out of our control is a sacred human experience – even if it is a painful one.

I want to offer that engaging in intentional grieving and lament are practices that can help us stay connected to our empathy. When we attempt to shut off or distance ourselves from our feelings, we shut down empathy for ourselves and have less to give to others. When we open ourselves up to feel our grief and express our lament, we open ourselves up to a greater diversity of human feelings.

About a year ago, I gave the peace lesson for the Beyond the Walls congregation. The election was about to happen and I was full of despair, grief, and anxiety. In the months preceding that, some loved ones came out of the closet as transgender and nonbinary. I was happy that they were discovering and sharing their true selves. I also worried about their safety in a world where their gender identities were a focused target of the alt right.

I chose to give the peace lesson on lament and as part of that lesson, I read Psalm 102:1-11. As I read that, I felt like I was praying my own prayer of grief: where are you, God? It is lonely here and I am afraid.

As I let myself feel my feelings through speaking those words, I also felt something else: a deep hope for the world to change. This was the elusive hope I had been hearing so much about. But it was not a shallow thing, not a nonsense concept, but something deeply grounded in grief and lament. I had no idea that this is what hope was, but suddenly it showed up in this moment of grief and lament. And the world was no better and the alt right were still after trans people, but this hope thing was beautiful and comforting, whispering to me in my lament that we are called to build Zion and we have not given up on that yet.

And to be clear, I’m not saying that this experience of hope cancelled out the feelings of grief and loss. Rather, it gave more dimensions to my grief and helped me better hold my sadness. This hope thing, which I had not understood before, had real strength. Just as lament was about speaking the truth about grief and loss, hope was also telling an adjacent truth, that we can work to create the peace and justice that we long for. May we heed that invitation.

Guest Post: Complicated feelings about my son receiving the priesthood

Guest Post by Ann. Ann has a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics. Contrary to what some people told her, she has been able to use the degree while raising her four children. 

Photo by Tory Byrne from FreeImages

This week our ward is hosting the annual “Temple and Priesthood Preview” for children who will turn 12 next year. My twin daughters will be 12 and so they are going. I’m still deciding if I will be going with them or if I’ll let their dad attend the meeting.

I have complicated feelings about this milestone. I’m happy that this isn’t just a “Priesthood Preview.” There seems to be at least a token effort to acknowledge the girls are getting older too. But what are the leaders going to say? Will it be, “Hey boys, your new special job is to pass the sacrament in January. And girls, your new special job is to um um um oh you can hand out towels in the baptistry. That’s comparable, right?”

My feelings about my daughters turning 12 are complicated enough. But my feelings are even more complicated because I also have a son. A son with an intellectual disability. We don’t need to go into the details of his disability, but it’s there and it’s noticeable. Everyone in the ward knows that he’s mentally different from the other children.

Our ward has been fabulous with my son. Absolutely fabulous. They called a special helper to sit with him during Primary. They helped him participate in the Primary Program in a way he felt comfortable. Ward leaders acknowledge him often. When it was time for his baptismal interview our Bishop didn’t complicate things with trying to figure out his emotional age. He was 8 years old and that meant he could be baptized. Full Stop.

I’m certain that in a few years when my son turns 12 our bishop won’t have any reservations about ordaining him to be a deacon. He’ll be allowed to pass the sacrament – probably with help at first. The ward will be supportive of his efforts. It will be another way they include my son and treat him just like any other boy. I will be so happy that my ward is so supportive of my son. It will feel great.

Until I look at my daughters.

My daughters, sitting on the bench with me. Unable to pass the sacrament.

I’m stuck in a place where I’m simultaneously happy that my son won’t be excluded because of his disability, while being sad that my daughters will be excluded because of their gender. It hurts to know that my daughters can’t do something because they are female. While my son gets to do something just because he is male.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with these feelings or this situation. Do I say that I don’t want my son ordained until he expresses an interest or until I feel he’s emotionally mature? Or is that hurting his social standing among the boys his age? Do I have a long conversation with my daughters about how the church is sexist, and yeah it kind of sucks that their brother who can’t even tie his shoes gets to pass the sacrament? Or is that sowing resentment between siblings?

These are questions without good answers. I’m probably going to puzzle over this situation for a long time. In the meantime I still need to decide if I’m going to the Temple and Priesthood Preview on Sunday. I think I will. I need to know what my daughters are being told.

Mormonism and Matriarchy

As a late-twenties-something Mormon woman, I sometimes proclaimed that I couldn’t wait to get older, say whatever I wanted, and bully everyone. This was (partly) tongue-in-cheek, but also revealed real frustrations and hurt. I often felt deeply conflicted at church. Intelligent, witty, talented, loving women surrounded me, cared for me, mentored me, and, yet, sometimes I felt small and powerless around them.

I recognized the chain of authority and the benefits of age (I’m a youngest child after all), but I resented my place in it. While I made jokes about my future role in a patriarchal system, I also feared it. Too often, it seemed like the reward for knowing your place as a young woman meant limited control and more social freedom as an older woman.

Another part of me deeply admired how more mature women often appeared self-confident, willing to speak up, and less intimidated by conflict. I looked up to them when they took control, insisted on things going their way, and even highlighted the ridiculousness of young men half their age (or more) exercising authority over them. I recognized power in their role, yet also recognized its limitations in a patriarchal structure.

No matter how strong these women appeared, they never held the ultimate authority. A man needed to approve every expenditure and leadership decision. Rather than stand up to this system, the ward matriarchs built a new hierarchy of women based on age instead. In contrast, when I looked at our male counterparts, their place in the patriarchy started at a young age and remained certain throughout their lives.

What’s my point here? Am I stereotyping all older Mormon women? Am I truly that ungrateful for the women who’ve welcomed, encouraged, empowered, and loved me over the years? Absolutely not. In fact, I see most of what I jokingly referred to as “bullying” as women owning a strength and authority that all LDS women should feel entitled to. An authority that should start at a young age and remain certain throughout our lives.

I just wonder if a matriarchy within the LDS Church could look and feel different if women held more overt power and authority in all aspects of the church? What if…

What if female presidents could make final budget decisions?What if paid childcare allowed LDS women to hold positions of authority at a younger age without stressing over childcare? What if the LDS Church normalized women speaking last?What if women leaders spoke to young men with equal authority and acted as guest speakers some Sundays, as male ward leaders do in Young Women’s? What if ward councils included more women to represent half of the ward population? What if women could count and manage tithing and other funds? What if former presidents were always referred to as “President,” the same way a Bishop is? What if women had quorum titles beginning the year they turned 12, with specific authority and responsibilities valued and recognized by everyone? What if women led and presided over mixed-gender meetings?What if women representing the whole stakes came as authorities speak and represent the Stake Presidency?What if we had Stake Matriarchs?What if motherhood and fatherhood were viewed as equivalents, rather than motherhood and priesthood?

What if…

What if matriarchy was the equivalent of patriarchy?

Guest Post: An Unmarried Mormon Woman (Taylor’s Version)

Guest Post by Amanda Jacobsmeyer.  Amanda Jacobsmeyer is a chronically online Millennial living in New York City. A communications professional by day, Amanda is passionate about community building, live music and finding the world’s best hot chocolate.

Although I’m convinced there is not a single soul on either side of the veil that has not heard, in case you haven’t: global superstar Taylor Swift released the highly-anticipated re-recording of her 2012 album, Red, last week. While Red (Taylor’s Version) includes new recordings of the 20 tracks that were on the original 2012 release, Sister Swift also blessed us with 10 additional songs “From the Vault” – songs penned for the album that didn’t make the cut nine years ago.

As a 28-year-old woman, and a die-hard fan of Taylor since her first album hit my high school hallways, relating to her songwriting is not a new experience for me. I grew up with her – since she is just a few years older than me, her albums were released when I was at the age she wrote them. With tracks written by a 21-year-old a decade ago, though, I was expecting the Red (Taylor’s Version) listening experience to be nostalgic: listening to my old favorites, now ethically sourced, and gaining some new insight and potential future Instagram captions from the handful of new-to-us songs.

So imagine my surprise when, at 1 a.m. on Thursday night, I press play on one of the vault songs, “Nothing New”, and spend four minutes and nineteen seconds weeping. With a feature from the queen of Sad Girl Hours herself – Phoebe Bridgers – this shouldn’t have come as a huge shock, but it wasn’t just the haunting harmonies that were inspiring such emotion. Why did this song fill me with such palpable melancholy?

I listened to the song several more times with that same sadness in my chest before it dawned on me: somehow 22-year-old Taylor had captured exactly what it feels like to be an unmarried Mormon woman of a “certain age.”

The song starts with:

They tell you while you’re young
“Girls, go out and have your fun”
Then they hunt and slay the ones
Who actually do it

I went through the church youth program at an inflection point, when leaders were straying from pushing nothing but marriage and motherhood on young women to encouraging education and developing skills. Still, the underlying message was that the latter were to be “back up plans” to the former. Marriage and family were always what I was hoping for most, but without a willing second party, I moved forward with faith in the direction of an education and a career. These weren’t consolation prizes, they were just me living my life as fully as I could with the cards I was dealt. But culturally, the tendency is to blame the fact that I’m thriving in my career and enjoying things I’m passionate about for my lack of a husband, as if the two have to be mutually exclusive.

The song goes on:

Lord, what will become of me
Once I’ve lost my novelty?

In every ward I’ve ever been in, the women have outnumbered the men at least three to one. I’ve always found it hard to stand out in this sea of eligible bachelorettes, and it seems the older I get, the more overlooked I am. People assume there must be something wrong with me or I’m simply not interested in marriage.

I wake up in the middle of the night
It’s like I can feel time moving

The idea of time passing fills me with dread because I have grown up in a culture that has a very specific vision of what your life “should” look like at certain ages. It feels like if I don’t hit these milestones of marriage and children by 30, I haven’t actually accomplished anything – not at all true, but hard not to feel sometimes. Anxiety accompanies the recurring thought that every day past the age of 25 exponentially diminishes my opportunity for meaningful life partnership.

Sister Bridgers’ verse really does me in:

How long will it be cute
All this cryin’ in my room
Whеn you can’t blame it on my youth
And roll your eyes with affеction?
And my cheeks are growin’ tired
From turnin’ red and fakin’ smiles
Are we only bidin’ time
‘Til I lose your attention?

The conventional (read: usually misogynistic) wisdom on “how to land a man” only really works – if it works at all – when you’re in the stage of life that conventional wisdom says you should be getting married in. Women in their late 20s and 30s (and beyond) just don’t fit the “helpless girl in need of defending” role as well, because they’ve spent at least a decade fending for themselves at that point. And performing that particular brand of femininity is exhausting if it’s not authentic. But we’re conditioned to believe that if we don’t follow the script, ending up alone is our own doing.

How did I go from growin’ up
To breakin’ down

To me, one of the most frustrating things about reaching this stage of life is that I feel very much on the “breaking down” end of things, but as anyone with any experience in a non-university YSA ward can tell you, we are treated by leadership as if we are still “growing up” until we are married. Marriage is not just a marker of adulthood in Mormonism, it is the marker. So as grown-up and self-sufficient as I feel in my day-to-day life, I still feel (and am treated) as not quite grown.

I wonder if they’ll miss me
Once they drive me out

In a church where opportunities for leadership and progression for women are scant and usually reserved for women with husbands, there comes a point where those of us who aren’t married have to really question if there is a place for us. I’m not quite to this point yet, but I have watched so many faithful, community-building women reach the crossroads of deciding if they can live a fulfilling spiritual life in an environment that deprioritizes and even ignores their experiences. I, too, wonder if the church actually misses these women, and if so, why they are not doing more to keep them.

I know someday I’m gonna meet her
It’s a fever dream
The kind of radiance you only
Have at seventeen she’ll know the way
And then she’ll say she got the map from me
I’ll say I’m happy for her, then
I’ll cry myself to sleep

This bridge is at once hopeful and painful. On my mission in London I noticed that unmarried women in their 30s were the absolute backbone of their wards and stakes. As I’ve reached this stage of life myself, I reflect on their examples and take courage from them. I hope this “fever dream” Taylor describes of a young woman learning by her example that she is more than just her relationship to men can be true of me too, one day. When a brighter day for unmarried women in the church comes, though, I will still remember how difficult it is right now and cry for the unnecessary pain of the women who have never felt quite good enough because of their marital status.

To borrow a line from the song: “I know it’s sad, but this is what I think about.”

Come Follow Me: Doctrine and Covenants 137–138 “The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead”

The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead

In 1918, Joseph F. Smith had a vision. He witnessed an event that was previously unreported and unexplained in scripture:  Jesus Christ organizing missionary work in the Spirit World, during the time after his death and before his resurrection.

But behold, from among the righteous, he organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men; and thus was the gospel preached to the dead.

And the chosen messengers went forth to declare the acceptable day of the Lord and proclaim liberty to the captives who were bound, even unto all who would repent of their sins and receive the gospel.

Thus was the gospel preached to those who had died in their sins, without a knowledge of the truth, or in transgression, having rejected the prophets.

These were taught faith in God, repentance from sin, vicarious baptism for the remission of sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands,

And all other principles of the gospel that were necessary for them to know in order to qualify themselves that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

And so it was made known among the dead, both small and great, the unrighteous as well as the faithful, that redemption had been wrought through the sacrifice of the Son of God upon the cross.
D&C 138:30-35

Why is it important to understand that the work of salvation is being done on both sides of the veil?How do these verses strengthen your faith in the Savior’s Atonement?

Revelation does not happen in a vacuum. In this lesson, we will examine the circumstances leading to Joseph F. Smith’s Vision of the Redemption of the Dead in 1918 and its canonization 58 years later in 1976. We will investigate how circumstances affecting Joseph F. Smith personally, as well as circumstances affecting the world at large (including a global pandemic!) led Joseph F. Smith to seek inspiration on the topic, how new opportunities in the 1970s generated renewed interest in the 1918 revelation, and how the efforts of other people both inside and outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) opened doors for revelation.

Circumstances Surrounding the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead in 1918World War I (July 1914-November 1918) and the Spanish Flu Pandemic (February 1918-April 1920)

Masked BYU students in January 1919, during the Influenza pandemic Source: https://universe.byu.edu/2020/09/25/h...

The First World War was a true dragon-king event in terms of its vast historical consequences. As disastrous as the war was, its proximate impact in terms of lives lost was exceeded by that of the influenza pandemic that broke out in its final year.  …The Spanish flu killed an order of magnitude more Americans than died in combat in the war (53,402). Ironically, unlike most flu epidemics, but like the war that preceded and spread it, the influenza of 1918 disproportionately killed young adults. Out of 272,500 male influenza deaths in the United States, nearly 49% were aged 20 to 39, whereas only 18% were under five and 13% were over 50. The very young and very old were also (as usual) vulnerable, so that all countries for which age-specific death rates are available recorded a roughly W-shaped age distribution of mortality. Death was not caused by the influenza virus itself so much as by the body’s immunological reaction to the virus. Perversely, this meant that individuals with the strongest immune systems were more likely to die than those with weaker immune systems.
—Niall Ferguson,  Doom patrol: The lessons we failed to learn from past pandemics, October 25, 2021, Deseret News

Historian Niall Ferguson points out that pandemics such as the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic and the current Covid-19 pandemic reveal more about our societies:

A pandemic is made up of a new pathogen and the social networks that it attacks. We cannot understand the scale of the contagion by studying only the virus itself, because the virus will infect only as many people as social networks allow it to. At the same time, a catastrophe lays bare the societies and states that it strikes. It is a moment of truth, of revelation, exposing some as fragile, others as resilient, and others as “antifragile” — able not just to withstand disaster but to be strengthened by it.
—Niall Ferguson,  Doom patrol: The lessons we failed to learn from past pandemics, October 25, 2021, Deseret News

In what ways has the current pandemic revealed resilience or fragility in our societies?In what ways do you think our societies have been strengthened or weakened by the current pandemic?How can we strengthen each other during difficult times?April 6, 1916: Joseph F. Smith’s discusses the work of the deceased in General Conference

Joseph F. Smith

Joseph F. Smith was already pondering about the activities of the dead in the Spirit World long before the vision.  He spoke about his musings at General Conference two years earlier.

I feel quite confident that the eye of Joseph the Prophet, and of the martyrs of this dispensation, and of Brigham and John and Wilford, and those faithful men who were associated with them in their ministry upon the earth, are carefully guarding the interests of the Kingdom of God in which they labored and for which they strove during their mortal lives. I believe they are as deeply interested in our welfare today, if not with greater capacity, with far more interest behind the veil, than they were in the flesh. I believe they know more; I believe their minds have expanded beyond their comprehension in mortal life, and their interests are enlarged and expanded in the work of the Lord to which they gave their lives and their best service. …Sometimes the Lord expands our vision from this point of view and this side of the veil, that we feel and seem to realize that we can look beyond the thin veil which separates us from that other sphere.
—Joseph F. Smith, General Conference Address, April 6, 1916

Jan. 20, 1918 & Sept. 24, 1918: Deaths of Hyrum Mack Smith and Ida Elizabeth Bowman Smith

Hyrum Mack Smith

Ida Elizabeth Bowman Smith

On January 20, 1918, Hyrum Mack Smith, the oldest son of Joseph F. and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, died suddenly of appendicitis at the age of 45. His wife Ida Bowman Smith, a member of the Primary General Board, died eight months later due to complications of childbirth. They left five orphaned children. President Smith grieved deeply.

My soul is rent asunder. My heart is broken, and flutters for life! Oh my sweet son, my joy, my hope! . . . And now what can I do! Oh what can I do! My soul is rent, my heart is broken! Oh God, help me!
—Joseph F. Smith, January 1918, quoted in Robert L. Millet, The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead (D&C 138), Sperry Symposium Classics: The Doctrine and Covenants, BYU Religious Studies Center

At Hyrum Mack Smith’s funeral, Elder James E. Talmage gave this funeral address:

I read of the Lord Jesus Christ going, as soon as his spirit left his pierced and tortured body on the cross, to minister unto the spirits on the other side. . . . I cannot think of Hyrum M. Smith as being otherwise employed. I cannot conceive of him as being idle. I cannot think of him having no regard for those among whom he is called to associate. And where is he now? . . . He has gone to join the apostles who departed before him, to share with them in the work of declaring the glad message of redemption and salvation unto those who for lack of opportunity, or through neglect, failed to avail themselves of those wondrous and transcendent blessings upon the earth.”
—James E. Talmage, Funeral Address for Hyrum Mack Smith, January, 1918, quoted in Robert L. Millet, The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead (D&C 138), Sperry Symposium Classics: The Doctrine and Covenants, BYU Religious Studies Center

The scriptures Elder Talmage was referring to are found in 1 Peter 3:18-20:

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison
1 Peter 3:18-19

How might these experiences have prepared Joseph F. Smith to receive the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead?When we are coping with tragedies, what can we do to open doors to revelation?Oct. 3, 1918: Joseph F. Smith receives Vision of the Redemption of the Dead

Shortly after the death of Ida Bowman Smith, Joseph F. Smith was studying the same scriptures Elder Talmage had discussed at Hyrum Mack Smith’s funeral  when he had the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead.

On the third of October, in the year nineteen hundred and eighteen, I sat in my room pondering over the scriptures;

And reflecting upon the great atoning sacrifice that was made by the Son of God, for the redemption of the world;

And the great and wonderful love made manifest by the Father and the Son in the coming of the Redeemer into the world;

That through his atonement, and by obedience to the principles of the gospel, mankind might be saved.

While I was thus engaged, my mind reverted to the writings of the apostle Peter, to the primitive saints scattered abroad throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and other parts of Asia, where the gospel had been preached after the crucifixion of the Lord.

I opened the Bible and read the third and fourth chapters of the first epistle of Peter, and as I read I was greatly impressed, more than I had ever been before, with the following passages…

…As I pondered over these things which are written, the eyes of my understanding were opened, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me, and I saw the hosts of the dead, both small and great.
D&C 138: 1-6, 11

In his conference address the next day, he hinted about his experience, but chose not to disclose it yet:

As most of you, I suppose, are aware, I have been undergoing a siege of very serious illness for the last five months. It would be impossible for me, on this occasion, to occupy sufficient time to express the desires of my heart and my feelings, as I would desire to express them to you. …I will not, I dare not, attempt to enter upon many things that are resting upon my mind this morning, and I shall postpone until some future time, the Lord being willing, my attempt to tell you some of the things that are in my mind, and that dwell in my heart. I have not lived alone these five months. I have dwelt in the spirit of prayer, of supplication, of faith and of determination; and I have had my communication with the Spirit of the Lord continuously.
–Joseph F. Smith, General Conference Address, October 4, 1918

What was President Joseph F. Smith was doing when “the eyes of [his] understanding were opened”?How can we follow President Smith’s example?

Sometimes revelation comes even though we do not seek it. But more often, it comes because we diligently search and prepare for it.
—Come Follow Me for Individuals and Families: D&C:137-138

How might we diligently search and prepare for revelation?Oct. 30, 1918: Revelation endorsed by the Quorum of the Twelve

President Smith’s illness continued to progress and precluded him from sharing the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead publicly before his death. However, he wrote down what he had seen and sent his son, Joseph Fielding Smith, to share it with the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who endorsed it.  (See Robert L. Millet, The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead (D&C 138), Sperry Symposium Classics: The Doctrine and Covenants, BYU Religious Studies Center)

Nov. 5, 1918: Vision of the Redemption of the Dead shared with Susa Young Gates

Susa Young Gates  was one of very few people who Joseph F. Smith talked to about his vision before he died. She was a passionate advocate for women, promoting causes such as suffrage. She became interested in family history as well after this experience:

In 1902, returning from a meeting of the International Council of Women in Europe, Susa had become seriously ill. In London she sought a priesthood blessing from Elder Francis M. Lyman, then serving as president of the European Mission, and in that blessing he told her, “You shall live to perform temple work, and you shall do a greater work than you have ever done before.” This commission became a driving force in her life. “I had been interested in Temple work before,” she said, “but now I felt that I must do something more, something to help all the members of the Church.”
—Lisa Olsen Tait, Susa Young Gates and the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, Revelations in Context

Sister Gates followed through with this impression in a big way.

She wrote countless newspaper and magazine articles, taught class after class, and took the message on the road to many stakes and wards. She visited genealogical libraries in the eastern United States and England and corresponded with genealogists from many other countries, seeking greater knowledge and expertise. She served on the general board of the Relief Society, where she succeeded in having lessons on genealogy (most of which she also wrote) incorporated into the curriculum. She published a 600-page reference book on surnames and contributed frequently to a new magazine devoted to genealogical research.
—Lisa Olsen Tait, Susa Young Gates and the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, Revelations in Context

Other members of the Church struggled to feel Sister Gates’s enthusiasm for family history.

“I have had to take the part of the genealogical work against all others,” she wrote in one letter. She had barely succeeded in preserving it as part of the curriculum. At the October 1918 Relief Society conference, stake leaders reported that the genealogy lessons were too difficult. They suggested that the lessons be “simplified” and “emphasis placed on the spiritual rather than on the educational side of this study.”
—Lisa Olsen Tait, Susa Young Gates and the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, Revelations in Context

Sister Gates recorded her feelings after President Smith shared the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead with her.

How blest, oh how blest I am to have the privilege!” Susa wrote in her journal that night. “To be permitted to read a revelation before it was made public, to know the heavens are still opened.” Susa’s description of the vision highlighted the aspects she found most compelling: “In it he tells of his view of eternity; the Savior when He visited the spirits in prison—how His servants minister to them; he saw the prophet and all his associate brethren laboring in the prison houses; Mother Eve & her noble daughters engaged in the same holy cause!” Long an advocate for women’s causes, Susa rejoiced at the specific mention of women in the revelation, grateful “to have Eve and her daughters remembered.” And she rejoiced in the revelation’s affirmation of the work on behalf of the dead. “Above all,” she wrote, “to have this given at a time when our Temple work and workers and our genealogy need such encouragement. No words of mine can express my joy and gratitude.”
—Lisa Olsen Tait, Susa Young Gates and the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, Revelations in Context

How did Susa Young Gates’s work contribute to preparing the Church to receive the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead?Nov. 19, 1918: Death of Joseph F. Smith

Joseph F. Smith died of pneumonia on November 19, 1918, without ever sharing his vision publicly.  Because of the ongoing pandemic, his family held a small, private funeral, instead of the traditional public events held to memorialize presidents of the Church.

Nov. 30, 1918: Vision of the Redemption of the Dead is published

The text of the vision first appeared in the November 30 edition of the Deseret News, eleven days after the passing of President Smith. It was also printed in the December Improvement Era, and in January 1919 editions of the Relief Society Magazine—which was edited by Susa Young Gates, the Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, the Young Women’s Journal, and the Millennial Star. (See Robert L. Millet, The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead (D&C 138), Sperry Symposium Classics: The Doctrine and Covenants, BYU Religious Studies Center)

In the Relief Society Magazine, Susa Young Gates wrote:

Women are naturally comforted with the reference to our “glorious Mother Eve and many of her faithful daughters” referred to as assisting in the work of preparing the spirits of the dead to receive the Gospel. This is unusual — the mention of women’s labors on the Other Side — while the direct view of them associated with the ancient and modern prophets and elders confirms the noble standard of equality between the sexes which has always been a feature of this Church. The Vision’s principal message to this people is a clarion call for them to awake to the immediate necessity of looking after their dead. How happy are the members of the Relief Society in the remembrance of their recent great activities and studies in genealogy as the necessary adjunct to temple work. And beyond all, in what humility we thank our heavenly Father that the heavens are open, the vision is to his mouthpiece to whom he has declared such truths must come. What a marvelous close to the long and extraordinary labors of President Smith this vision marks. May the people, and especially our sisters, rise to the measure of fulness in response to this heavenly manifestation!
—Susa Young Gates, “In Memoriam: President Joseph F. Smith,” Relief Society Magazine, vol. 6, no. 1 (Jan. 1919)

How did Sister Gates encourage us to apply the doctrines found in the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead?What aspects of the vision resonated with Sister Gates?What aspects resonate with you?Circumstances Surrounding Canonization in 1976

From the time Joseph F. Smith received the revelation in 1918 until 1975, a duration of over half a century, the revelation was mentioned only three times in General Conference and never once quoted directly. (See Mary Jane Woodgar, From Obscurity to Scripture: Joseph F. Smith’s Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, You Shall Have My Word: Exploring the Text of the Doctrine and Covenants, BYU Religious Studies Center)

October 5, 1975: Elder Boyd K. Packer was the first person to quote Joseph F. Smith’s 1918 revelation in General Conference

On October 3, 1918, President Joseph F. Smith was pondering on the scriptures, including this one from Peter: “For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” (1 Pet. 4:6.)

There was opened to him a marvelous vision. In it he saw the concourses of the righteous. And he saw Christ ministering among them. Then he saw those who had not had the opportunity, and those who had not been valiant. And he saw the work for their redemption. And I quote his record of this vision:

“I perceived that the Lord went not in person among the wicked and the disobedient who had rejected the truth, to teach them; but behold, from among the righteous he organized his forces and appointed messengers, clothed with power and authority, and commissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in darkness, even to all the spirits of men. And thus was the gospel preached to the dead.” (“Vision of the Redemption of the Dead,” The Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, Jan. 1919, p. 3.) [D&C 138:29–30]

We have been authorized to perform baptisms vicariously so that when they hear the gospel preached and desire to accept it, that essential ordinance will have been performed.

…And so the question may be asked, “You mean you are out to provide baptism for all who have ever lived?”

And the answer is simply, “Yes.” For we have been commanded to do so.

“You mean for the entire human family? Why, that is impossible. If the preaching of the gospel to all who are living is a formidable challenge, then the vicarious work for all who have ever lived is impossible indeed.”

To that we say, “Perhaps, but we shall do it anyway.”
—Boyd K. Packer, October 5, 1975, The Redemption of the Dead

Why would the brethren ask us to perform a work that is apparently impossible?December 10, 1975: The LDS Church begins the Genealogical Department

Soon after Elder Packer’s talk, the brethren converted the Genealogical Society into an official church department.  Elder Boyd K. Packer made this address during the transition:

Now I’m appealing to you all to set your minds to the task of simplifying basic genealogical research and of streamlining, in every way possible, the process by which names come from members of the Church and are ultimately presented in the temple for ordinance work.
—Boyd K. Packer, Address to the Genealogical Society, November 18, 1975 Available in Mary Jane Woodgar, From Obscurity to Scripture: Joseph F. Smith’s Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, You Shall Have My Word: Exploring the Text of the Doctrine and Covenants, BYU Religious Studies Center

1975-1976: Personal computers enter the market

This call to action was made feasible by advances in technology happening at the same time. Before the 1970s, there was no such thing as a personal computer. The technology was developed in the 1970s, and two of the most successful personal computer companies were founded in the mid-1970s: Microsoft in April 1975 and  Apple in April 1976. (See Invention of the PC, History.com) With this new technology, rank-and-file members of the church could participate in genealogy, even if they did not have the unique talents of someone like Susa Young Gates.

As the vision became scripture, most Saints little understood that it would promote temple and genealogy work as never before. It appears that the revelation had not been canonized before because in 1976, hardly any genealogical technology existed, making the process impractical and tedious. After the revelation was accepted by the congregation, its doctrine became binding. The Saints had made a covenant to fulfill their obligation to save their dead as outlined in the vision of the redemption of the dead. General Authorities began to use section 138 on a more regular basis to better teach the Saints about this sacred responsibility.
—Mary Jane Woodgar, From Obscurity to Scripture: Joseph F. Smith’s Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, You Shall Have My Word: Exploring the Text of the Doctrine and Covenants, BYU Religious Studies Center

According to Sister Woodgar, why did the brethren wait until the 1970s to canonize the Vison of the Redemption of the Dead?What can we learn from this about how revelation is incorporated into the Church organization?April 3, 1976: Members of the Church voted to canonize Joseph F. Smith’s Vision of the Redemption of the Dead

During this new family history initiative, there was a renewed interest in Joseph F. Smith’s Vision of the Redemption of the Dead.

President Kimball and all the brethren thought it should be formally and officially recognized as scripture so that it would be quoted, used, and relied upon more than the case would have been if it had simply been published as heretofore in various books. By putting it in the Standard Works formally, it gets cross-referenced and is used to better advantage by the saints.
—Elder Bruce R. McConkie, October 5, 1983, available in Robert L. Millet, The Vision of the Redemption of the Dead (D&C 138), Sperry Symposium Classics: The Doctrine and Covenants, BYU Religious Studies Center

How did the brethren hope canonization of the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead would affect church members?In your experience as a member of the Church, have you seen these hopes fulfilled? Why or why not?

Canonization happened by sustaining vote.

President Kimball has asked me to read a very important resolution for your sustaining vote.

At a meeting of the Council of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve held in the Salt Lake Temple on March 25, 1976, approval was given to add to the Pearl of Great Price the two following revelations:

First, a vision of the celestial kingdom given to Joseph Smith the Prophet in the Kirtland Temple, on January 21, 1836, which deals with the salvation of those who die without a knowledge of the Gospel.

And second, a vision given to President Joseph F. Smith in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 3, 1918, showing the visit of the Lord Jesus Christ in the spirit world, and setting forth the doctrine of the redemption of the dead.

It is proposed that we sustain and approve this action and adopt these revelations as part of the standard works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

All those in favor manifest it. Those opposed, if any, by the same sign.

Thank you. President Kimball, the voting seems to be unanimous in the affirmative.
—President N. Eldon Tanner, General Conference Address, April 3, 1976

The reaction of church members to the canonization was understated.

I was surprised, and I think all of the Brethren were surprised, at how casually that announcement of two additions to the standard works was received by the Church. But we will live to sense the significance of it; we will tell our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, and we will record in our diaries, that we were on the earth and remember when that took place.
—Elder Boyd K. Packer, Teach the Scriptures, October 14, 1977

August 17, 1976: Release of Roots

[image error][image error]Only a few months later, on August 17, 1976, Alex Haley published his novel about the genealogy of an African-American family, Roots, and the reaction of the American public was not understated in any way. The bestselling book was almost immediately adapted as a television mini-series which aired in January 1977. The series finale was the most-watched live TV show of any aired up until that date, with more than half of the TVs in the United States of America tuned in to watch it. (see Ben Alpers, Alex Haley’s ROOTS and the History of the Seventies, June 24, 2014)

With the publication of Alex Haley’s book Roots in 197[6] and its dramatization as a television miniseries in January 1977, interest in family history increased nationally. A “genealogy mania” was sweeping the nation.
—Mary Jane Woodgar, From Obscurity to Scripture: Joseph F. Smith’s Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, You Shall Have My Word: Exploring the Text of the Doctrine and Covenants, BYU Religious Studies Center

Sister Bryndis Roberts described how the “genealogy mania” surrounding Roots affected her:

For me, like so many other people of African descent here in the United States, what started me on my genealogical journey was Roots. I was captivated by the miniseries. I wanted that moment in Roots when the James Earl Jones character exclaims, “I found you”…I wanted to be able to go back to whatever African nation my ancestors had come from. I wanted to be able to go to my tribe. I wanted to be able to find my village. I wanted someone to be able to identify my ancestors so that I could to say, “I found you you, African.”
—Bryndis Roberts, “Genealogy: Melaninated Style,” January 2017, Sunstone 

The experience of watching Roots as a college student led to Sister Roberts’ lifelong pursuit of family history.

How did the “genealogy mania” surrounding Roots contribute to the Church’s mission to redeem the dead?How do the efforts of people not of our faith contribute to achieving the work of the Church today?June 1979: Joseph F. Smith’s Vision was moved from the Pearl of Great Price to the D&C:138

This is where we find it today.