Exponent II's Blog, page 130

A blessing for when things fall apart

photo by becky bokern, unaltered, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I wrote this blessing for a friend earlier this summer, but it is for you if you need it too. It is written along the theme of Alice Walker’s Hard Times Require Furious Dancing.

You tried to plan against this moment
Where one or two fractures in your arrangements
Would not have created disaster.
But now you find
All the dominoes on the floor.
You are sitting in the wreckage of broken systems
Feeling like a personal failure.
These systems expect heroics from you
Regardless of your financial or emotional resources
As the norm.
The reality of these expectations is a cruel one,
Prone to slaps of violence when you are most vulnerable.

I bless you to remember
That while this disaster is yours
It is also not yours alone.

I bless you to remember
To pause
Take a breath
Hold a moment of stillness against the flustering anxiety.
Go find the music that speaks to your despair
Your hope
Turn it up so the neighbors can hear
And begin to move your body.
Move it with attention
Then vigor
Let your control go
As you dance your way through this moment.

To address the traumas of tomorrow
With anything approaching health
You must complete the stress cycles of today.
The demands that have brought you to this point
Have required everything.
So you dance.

If there is anger,
Let it guide your body.
If there are tears,
Welcome them into your steps and sways.

Your body will find its tiredness
A new stillness
When it is ready.

After the dancing,
May the wisdom of the body
Fill your mind with remembrances
Of your belovedness
Of your enoughness
Of your in-the-image-of-God-ness.
May you step back into the world
As a person who knows who she/they/he is.
Amen.

Why women are more burned out than men

We are all tired of COVID, but some of us are coping better than others. For the most part, those who are coping better are … men. Read here what the BBC has to say about this fact.

Does that sound like a racist? Yes and yes

Content Warning: I discuss, with some explicit contemporary quotes, the atrocities of the Spanish colonizers in the New World. Rape, violence

Tad Callister, a man who is not trained in history and has not produced any works of credible professional history, has once again weighed in on the history of the Americas.  This is scarcely surprising, as he seems to have decided to be the vanguard of LDS cultural warriors.  He recently published an unfortunately myopic piece Meridian Magazine in which he glorified Columbus.  His primary foe is a straw-man group called “revisionist historians.”  He does not actually provide any specific historians he wishes to counter, which means he is free to assert whatever he likes to disprove the claims of unidentified detractors. Along the way he indulges in cherry-picking evidence while ignoring context, thus becoming complicit in his own complaint of a “partial truth presented as the whole truth is an untruth.”

One of the difficulties with Callister’s approach is that he takes statements from primary and secondary documents at face value and without further context.  He begins by emphasizing the efforts of Ferdinand and Isabella to spread the Christian faith.  Casual readers might imagine something like friendly LDS missionaries chatting with non-Christians.  In reality in 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella expelled all Jews from Spain, giving them four months to take their stuff and leave, or convert to Christianity.  Those who fled did so impoverished, because their neighbors knew the Jews had to sell cheap or not at all – their exodus had a time limit.  Those who converted were soon deemed suspiciously not converted enough and were tortured in order to discover and denounce heretics. The Spanish inquisition is one of the vilest stains on the history of Christianity.

Similarly, Callister emphasizes the godly desire to finance a crusade to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple as Columbus’ primary goal.  Again, this suggests to LDS minds the gentle and pleasant Temple ground breaking of the present day.  However, the history of Crusades in Europe is closely tied to ethnic cleansing, pogroms, and other forms of anti-Semitic violence.  Financing a crusade by definition implies wiping out both the Muslim peoples who inhabited the Holy Land at the time, and the Jews for being Christ-killers. Most historians do not dwell on this favorably for reasons that should be obvious.

Callister claimed “Columbus did send some slaves to Spain but his motive was not nefarious.”  He then explains that in fact Columbus was just gathering up cannibals to send them to Spain to be better converted.  As he put it “what a noble sentiment!”  There is some evidence that suggests some Native peoples engaged in occasional acts of cannibalism as an act of violence against the enemy. But it is deliberately degrading to dismiss entire tribes as cannibals, as if that were a routine way of life and food source for them.  Second, as I’ve already mentioned, the Spanish methods of conversion in the 15th and 16th centuries involved torture and the threat of being burned alive if you didn’t convert.  Third, enslaving people is inherently nefarious.  Turning a person into a thing to be owned is morally disgusting and there is no excusing it.  Callister’s dismissive “some slaves” disguises the truth –  According to Michael de Cuneo, Columbus ordered 1500 men and women seized – 400 he let go, 500 were sent to Spain and another 600 were enslaved by Spanish men remaining on the island.  About 200 of the 500 sent to Spain died on the voyage and were thrown into the Ocean.[1]  

Callister’s attempt to justify slavery shows his own racist indifference to the perspective of Indigenous peoples.  I guarantee that the Carib and Arawak peoples he enslaved and exported did not find Columbus’ alleged motives in any way comforting.  Callister says that Columbus’ motives were “to civilize and save these indigenous natives.”  He claims that revisionist historians ignore this evidence of goodness.  He is incorrect.  Historians see the evidence. They just don’t see cultural imperialism, forcible conversion and brutal enslavement as evidence of goodness.  

Callister insists that Columbus engaged in slave trading only because he thought it would help in civilizing them and converting them.  This does not make Columbus look any better – “civilizing” people means trying to destroy their native culture, customs and language.  I’ve already noted what conversion meant in Spain at the time.  He claims “Columbus, who the revisionists accuse as a slave trader, never personally owned a slave.”  This detail is irrelevant to the accusation – being a slave trader means you sell people.  Being a slave owner means you own people.  Columbus not keeping slaves around does not absolve him of his complicity in the system of slavery.  At one point in the article Callister writes “does that sound like a racist?” and the answer, for both Callister’s article and for Columbus’ actions is a resounding yes.

Another account from Michael de Cuneo highlights this:  “I captured a very beautiful woman, whom the Lord Admiral [Columbus] gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked — as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought she had been brought up in a school for whores.”[2]  Columbus gave his crewman the woman, knowing full well what his crewman intended to do with his slave.  Dismissing Columbus’ complicity in enslavement as a well-intentioned attempt to invite conversion is unbelievably myopic.  If the reason they were sent to Spain was better conversion, how does one explain keeping so many slaves in Hispaniola? Or giving slaves to men as sexual outlets, if the Godly goal is to teach chastity?

Callister asks “why is that these trusted original sources – the personal diary of Columbus and the impartial testimonies of contemporary historians are so frequently in opposition to the conclusions of these revisionist historians?” The answer is of course that historians are trained to read sources critically searching for biases and inconsistencies.  Columbus’ journals are an important source, but that doesn’t mean everything he says in them is true.  He was conscious of others reading them at some point, and he was conscious of how he presented himself.  It was in his interest to frame the entire expedition as an act of Godliness, not greed.  That doesn’t mean he was actually a disinterested servant of God.  Contemporary historians who were present in the Americas also had an interest in making the natives look bad and to minimize the offenses of Spaniards.  That doesn’t mean the native people were all vicious cannibals and the Spaniards were violent only when attacked first. And indeed, though the Spanish authors had good reason to make their countrymen look good, in fact many accounts attest with disgust to unbelievable atrocities. Implying that the Spanish only counterattacked against violent natives is disingenuous and is not supported by the majority of the evidence.

Callister asserts that “Columbus brought the natives a much better way of life.”  He argues that the people he encountered already practiced forms of slavery or sexual abuse, and tribes were violent towards each other.  Columbus, he claims brought Christianity. “As a result cannibalism has been eradicated, slavery abolished, human sacrifices done away, major diseases minimized, women treated with greater respect, life expectancies extended, poverty reduced, and education made available to most. That is the true legacy of Columbus.”  This is an astonishing statement to make.  Firstly, cannibalism was never a keystone central practice of the peoples of the Americas.  Callister’s frequent references to it in this article serve to try to emphasize the horrifying savagery of native peoples, but it isn’t based in much fact and works only to demean Indigenous peoples.  Likewise human sacrifice was not widely practiced among native peoples.  

But let’s look at some other claims.  Now slavery has been abolished.  The Spaniards quickly realized that enslaving natives was impractical, because they kept dying of disease or running away.  So they started importing enslaved people from Africa, beginning the horrific legacy of slavery that still mars our society today. The Union winning the Civil War has nothing to do with Columbus. The existence of chattel slavery in the first place is closely tied to Columbus.  Now major diseases are minimized, no particular thanks to Christianity.  But Columbus and friends brought smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, malaria and cholera to which Native Americans had no immunity.  Of the estimated 250,000 Natives in Hispaniola, Columbus’ first stop in 1492, infectious diseases had killed 236,000 indigenous people by 1517 – nearly 95% of their population.  Between 1492 and 1600 about 90% of the population of the Americas – some 55 million people, died because of violence and these new pathogens.  Contrast this to the Black Death, which killed about 30% of Europeans. Saying that Columbus brought better health with him as part of his legacy is blindingly ignorant.

One might say that Columbus did not personally infect every one of those people, which is of course true.  But if we are going to attribute sweeping later effects like providing education as Columbus’ legacy, then we should also look honestly at the other side of the legacy.  The enslavement of millions of natives and Africans are a key part of his legacy.  The death by violence and disease from the very beginning of Columbian contact is part of his legacy.  The violence of conversion and the sexual exploitation that came both with the missions and the colonizers are part of that legacy.  

Whether Columbus personally engaged in every one of the atrocities committed by the colonizers is perhaps not the important question.  Columbus symbolizes the entire colonial project and the genocide of Natives.  We can and should study Columbus, and take into account what good motives or choices he may have had.  But as with statues of Robert E. Lee, or Thomas Jefferson, or any other problematic figure, you can study and be interested in a historical figure without giving him a dedicated holiday or monument that the descendants of his victims must observe.  Choosing to abandon observing Columbus day does not mean we stop teaching about Columbus or looking at what intentions of his may have been good.  But his legacy is traumatic enough to enough people that making a national holiday to celebrate him is a bad idea.

[1] Michael de Cuneo, who participated in Columbus’ second expedition to the Americas, quoted in  Laurence Bergreen Columbus: the Four Voyages. P. 196-197

[2] Ibid. 143

Brother Chad Comes To Visit

“May I meet with you before I meet the rest of your family? I’d like to make sure I know your goals and how to support you,” the new home teacher, Bro. Chad, asked my husband, Dan.

I should have known right then that we had a problem. Who the heck uses ‘may’ when talking to other adults? Like, seriously? 

Dan turned to me, “Bryn, what do you think?”

Bro. Chad interrupted (he was a Master Level Interrupter), looked straight at Dan and said, “I mean just you, Bro. Brody. Priesthood holder to Priesthood holder.” Bro. Brody. He actually called him Bro. Brody. We were the same age and he called him Bro. Brody.

Dan stared for a minute, processing, and said, “Bryn knows everything about our family. She’s our CEO, COO, and Head Scheduler. She should be part of the conversation.”

Bro. Chad didn’t even look at me. “I would like to meet with you privately as the head of the household.”

I think a snort escaped me. In fact, I’m pretty sure it did. Sometimes, snorts are sneaky things and they come out in spite of our attempts to hold them in. And if I’m being honest, I probably didn’t try to hold it in.

Not one to make things easy for my husband if I can laugh at him instead, I bowed my head and murmured, “I’ll just take the kids to Primary, then, while you two men work it out.” There was a heavy emphasis on the word ‘men.’ It was my shot across the bow. Bro. Chad didn’t flinch. 

After meeting with Dan, Bro. Chad sat the rest of us kids, oops, I mean the rest of the family down for the thoroughly prepared lesson. It ticked all of the boxes in the Perfect Home Teacher manual. He had an object lesson. He read scriptures. He testified–earnestly. But I forget exactly what he was trying to teach. Most sit-down-and-listen-to-men-speak lessons are entirely forgettable to me.

During the post-lesson adult chat, after the eye-rolling kids had been dismissed to play Polly Pockets and sneak cookies, I tried to draw Bro. Chad out, to see him as a person and, I think, to get him to see me as a person, too. But Bro. Chad failed. He didn’t look at me. Not just in the metaphysical sense, but in the literal sense. His eyes never registered me. Not a single time. When I politely asked about his wife and kids, he addressed his response to Dan. When I asked if they had been able to unpack after their recent move, he told Dan that his wife was taking care of unpacking now that the heavy stuff was in place.

Oh, for the love of…

Knowing that swearing in Spanish is one of my favorite hobbies, and throwing out a soft ball to give Bro. Chad a chance to include me in the conversation, Dan said, “Bryn served a mission in northern Spain. The two of you might like to compare notes on the language.” Bro. Chad didn’t even swing. Instead, he asked Dan to share his favorite spiritual experience from his mission. Which, by the way, was proof that he also didn’t see Dan, who has exactly zero spiritual experiences to share.

Bro. Chad waved me away as I offered the plate of Cowboy cookies I had made with my Grandmother’s recipe and which the children had all but demolished. Literally waved his hand in the ‘shoo, fly, don’t bother me’ way. 

I mean.

By the time I began to rage-clean the kitchen, Dan had taken to pointedly staring at the door. Bro. Chad finally left (after limp-fish shaking my hand without looking at me). He threatened to come back every month as I shut the door a little too close to his nose.

“What the heck?” I yelled, only I probably didn’t say ‘heck.’ “Not once, not a single time, did he look at me or address a comment to me. Never again. He isn’t coming back here.”

“Agreed. Do you want to tell him?”

“Oh, no. You’re the Priesthood holder. You fire him.”

After talking to the Elder’s Quorum President, not a bad guy as far as that goes, Dan handed the phone to me per the EQ Pres’s request. He listened politely, repeated what he heard me say, and sat for a minute, thinking.

And then he must have forgotten who he was talking to, because he said, “This might be a good opportunity for you to teach him how to do better. Will you share with Bro. Chad what he can improve on?” Oh, buddy. Don’t use a direct “will you” question with me. I see right through your Commitment Pattern.

I compared his EQ leadership to a cartoon character and then, kindly, let him know how he could do better. “It’s your job, not mine. He had a mother, and he has a wife, and you’re the EQ President. Between the 3 of you, figure it out. I’m not here for him to learn on. I’m here for him to serve, and he’s incapable of serving if he refuses to acknowledge my authority.”

I didn’t swear. Not even in Spanish. Which, I think, earned me a Celestial Gold Star.

I feel like I should add the disclaimer “not all home teachers.” In fact, I’ve had amazing home teachers who became some of my dearest friends. 

We lived in Cambridge without a car while I was pregnant. During that time, our home teacher and his wife magically showed up at our door every Sunday for months to drive us to church so I didn’t have to walk to the bus stop.

When our metal railing came out of the concrete steps and threatened to kill my elderly neighbor as she walked to our door for a visit, our home teacher welded down a new piece of metal. We now have the most stable handrail in the neighborhood and my neighbor visits without fear.

We had a home teacher who brought us homemade bread THAT HE MADE. Mmmmm, fresh bread. He also texts me on my birthday and it’s been 7 years since he was my teacher.

As I think about it, they all had one thing in common: they saw me. They served in real, tangible, much-needed, Christlike ways. And they did it without condescension, or preaching, or even referencing their Priesthood Authority. I’m not a super big fan of male authority, so that’s a gift they gave without even knowing it.

The new handbook mentions ministering a bit. I don’t know if we currently have a ministering brother, but it doesn’t really matter. The last one we had, the one who welded the railing, is the one I would call if we needed anything. I know he loves our family and, most of all, he hugs me every time he sees me. That, to me, says more about his ministry than Bro. Chad could hope to.

So Your Doctor Ordered a Breast MRI—What’s Next?

In honor breast cancer awareness month, I want to talk about the breast MRI screening. I am neither a medical professional nor a cancer survivor. This information is based on my experience of getting breast MRI screenings annually for the last five years. Please consult an appropriate medical professional about your personal medical questions or concerns.

Maybe you found a lump in your breast. Maybe you did a screening mammogram, and your doctor thinks an additional screening is necessary. Maybe like me, you have a genetic mutation like BRCA1+ or BRCA2+ that makes you extremely high risk for breast cancer, so you rotate bi-annual screening mammograms and breast MRIs. Whatever the reason, your doctor ordered a breast MRI, and you may be nervous.

There are articles that are good at explaining the basics of a Breast MRI that give important definitions, explanations, and tips such as checking your insurance coverage beforehand, but I’m here to metaphorically hold your hand and walk you through some of the information that’s not always included in these articles.

After your doctor submits the order you will need to schedule your MRI. My primary concern in scheduling is finding a time when I’ll have childcare options as I can’t bring my children to this appointment. I don’t have a gender preference for my technician, but if you have a preference, this is the time to state it. Even without my request, some schedulers have vocalized that they are looking for times when a female technician is available, so I assume it is a common request.

If you are hoping to have a support person come with you or if you’ll need assistance, check COVID protocols early. In pre-COVID days, I’ve seen patients with a support person in the general waiting room and sometimes in the dressing room. This person is not able to go in the MRI room with you.

At the facility you’ll likely have a check-in and registration process, followed by a wait. When you are called back, you’ll be taken to a changing room. You’ll need to remove all clothing from the waist up and any clothing with metal (like pants with a zipper). When I’ve worn leggings without metal, I’ve been allowed to keep those on. You can bring comfortable socks from home to wear to both keep your feet warmer and save you from walking the halls barefoot. You may be given two hospital robes—one to be worn with an opening in the front, one with the opening in the back. The robes are cute, so be sure to have your phone on selfie mode.

If you are having a breast MRI with contrast, a technician will insert an IV in your arm. If needles bother you, you probably already have a process to help you through. Whenever I get an IV, have blood drawn, or get a shot, I take a deep breath, look away, and think of my favorite ice cream flavor. A nurse used this trick on me in elementary school and it still helps decades later. My answer is the same—cookie dough ice cream (preferably Tillamook or Ben & Jerry’s).

Typically for an MRI, you lay on your back and are sent head first into the machine. Not so with the breast MRI. You will be in prone position—belly down, with your chest on a positioner that has openings for each breast. Before you get on the MRI table, you will be asked to remove the robe that opens to the back and unfasten the robe that opens to the front, exposing your chest. Once on the table, your tech will check and possibly physically reposition you so that your breast tissue is optimally aligned for the scan. You’ll likely be given ear plugs and possibly headphones with music options because the MRI machine is quite loud. You will be given a cord to hold that has a button to press if you need to stop the scan or talk to the technician through the two-way microphone in the machine. Once you are situated, you will be sent feet-first into the MRI tube.

MRI table set up for a breast scan

If you are claustrophobic or anxious to be in the MRI tube, talk to the doctor who ordered the scan about options for medication. I’m not claustrophobic, so I haven’t worried about this part. But this is an area I’d suggest you try to anticipate and advocate for your needs in advance—I’ve never been offered medication for the scan by a technician, but I’ve heard it’s possible with a prescription. Of course if you take some kind of sedative, you will need someone there to help you home.

The scan itself will take somewhere around 45 minutes. Your tech may communicate with you throughout the exam, sometimes asking you to hold or release your breath for certain images. Around half way through, the exam will pause so your technician can inject the contrast dye in your IV that was placed earlier. I typically experience a cold flushing sensation and a metallic taste in my mouth. (Your technician or doctor will likely discuss more serious side effects to watch for). Then you will continue the rest of the scan with the same loud noises and occasional instructions from the technician.

After lying still for so long, I have a hard time not falling asleep in the MRI machine. I, um, don’t recommend this. My falling asleep hasn’t ever disrupted the scan, but I wake up feeling very disoriented.

When the scan is over, the table will move out of the MRI tube. For me, getting up from the table is the most difficult part. After lying in pone position for 45 minutes or so with a plastic, padded bar between my breasts, both my lower back and sternum are sore. My sternum remains sore for a couple days after the scan.

Your technician isn’t allowed to discuss results with you and you should receive a call from your doctor’s office when results are available. The technician will remove your IV and direct you back to the dressing room. I generally take my time in this step. I get a drink of water, use the bathroom, and change slower than normal. It takes me 10-15 minutes after the scan to stop feeling disoriented. After that time, I mostly feel hungry.

Though there are a variety of reasons your doctor may order a breast MRI, none of them are because it is fun. Whether because of your own health risks or a concerning family health history, you may feel anxious about the scan. That’s okay. And if you are not anxious, that’s okay, too. Give yourself space to feel however you feel. And if it helps, try to remember that the scan doesn’t change what is happening in your body, it only gives you more information. (If that doesn’t help, just ignore it). And if you’ve been putting off getting a breast cancer screening, maybe consider scheduling an appointment this month.

No Room In The Inn

When I was a little girl growing up on the small Caribbean Island of Barbados, I always wondered what it would be like to be invisible.

As a tomboy growing up with a group of boys, I soon fell in love with wrestling. One of my favourite wrestlers John Cena’s tagline was “You can’t see me!” and in my little childhood brain I ate it up. Among friends at school, we would wave our hands and do our best John Cena impression before erupting into naive laughter.

Still, I didn’t truly discover what invisibility meant until I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Among a congregation of predominately Afro-Caribbean members, it was impossible to feel excluded. With fondness each Sunday, we connected our culture with the faith that had been restored in our hearts at our baptisms. The simplistic beauty of the gospel was all around us even if we lived the gospel differently. One could hear it in our prayers or in the way we sang with vigour in our voices. And at times, you could hear it in our disagreements and contentions.

Two years into my conversion, I visited friends in Utah following the death of my grandmother. At first, I believed in the magic of the gospel. I believed that having so much in common would make me just as visible as any other person. In my eyes, I thought that being a member would protect me from just being seen as some “convert from a place no-one knows”.

As time passed, I saw it as I became more vocal about mental health and the impact racism plays in the lives of persons of colour in the church.

I like to take myself back to Utah memories often. Not as a way to feel sorry for myself but to make peace with the valid feelings felt there.

One such memory occurred during Sacrament Meeting when a talk on family history excluded me from the narrative as everyone around me found their family members using Family Search in a jiffy. Although I’ve made peace that my life looks vastly different than most who have been members all their lives, as a woman of colour, such experiences make me wonder if there is room in the inn for persons of colour or are we simply residing in a space where we will be constantly invisible?

I remember fondly as I screamed with excitement as I was one of the only persons of colour speaking at a women’s conference a few months ago. I loved every moment of speaking and sharing nuggets of faith and resilience yet as I look back now, I see so few faces that look like mine in such forums. I see little to no representation that pushes women of colour to the forefront.

The Utah trip soon ended but the feelings of invisibility lingered long after I landed back home. I saw it as my voice as one of the few black LDS faith-based Instagram bloggers began to wane as persons preferred me to stay in my place instead of sharing new ways of seeing the gospel.

Instead, you find us sprinkled in like an afterthought…drowning in seas of whiteness.

Still, I’d like to think we’re slowly tottering along like a toddler learning to walk. We’ve seen a General Authority who is African American. We’ve seen his unconventional yet uplifting approach to speaking and sharing the gospel. I fondly seek his voice when Brother Johnson speaks during General Conference. For once, it finally feels like persons of colour especially black Latter-Day Saints have some voice and can feel somewhat involved in the gospel that seems to be made for everyone else other than them.

My views aren’t monolith. I believe that someone out there believes that we’re doing enough within the church and in our associated circles to fulfil the diversity quota. Some may even direct me back to how diverse our last General Conference back in April was.

And to that, I say that we need more.

We need more glass ceilings being broken .

We need more faces and voices and stories that aren’t cookie cutter.

We need more more amplification for those accented voices that tell deep and spiritually uplifting stories in their own ways.

Because if this gospel and church is for everyone…it’s time we see more faces that reflect that we are truly a worldwide church.

Invisible fridges and cooling cubbies: how kitchens have been designed for the rich

‘The history of kitchen cabinets and the appliances tucked in snugly between them is not pretty or seamless – and it’s still stewing.’ Photograph: Artem Perevozchikov/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Meg Conley, creator of homeculture, writes about the history of kitchen design and how that impacts the life and work of women for The Guardian.

“White communists, white socialists, white feminists, white capitalists and white supremacists were all hoping to engineer whole societies by designing the kitchen. Each saw kitchens as permanently fitted with women – they just disagreed over what that meant. All kept the footprint of patriarchal understanding and most anchored deep into racist foundations. None of their blueprints made room for the meaning of the work in the kitchen. Forget the meaning, they could hardly be bothered with the function.

It’s time to design the kitchen for the world we’ve engineered. Women have traditionally cooked in the kitchen. But they’ve wept and screamed there too. What work surface will bear our scratches best? Is there a line of cabinets deep enough to hold our grief?”

Read the entire post at The Guardian.

Why “Heavenly Parents” Isn’t Enough

Ever since I was a little girl, I lived in my grandparent’s home. My parents both lived there as well until they divorced when I was 15, and my dad moved out. It was not an in-law apartment kind of situation where I might see them for dinner here or there. They were fully involved in the lives of me and my siblings. My memories are infused with the joy they individually and collectively brought to my life.

I can picture my grandpa sitting at the table each morning with his slice of bread and butter (a staple at each and every meal!) always greeting me with, “Hello Tirza my dear!” I knew if I needed to go into his room at night I could find him quietly writing in his journal after he had washed a mountain of dishes. He fixed my bike tires too many times to count, and he was the one who taught me to check the oil in my car.

My grandma was no slouch when it came to projects and physical labor. Both of my grandparents loved building and worked together on countless projects, including roofing together when they were in their 80s.

But there were also so many things my grandma loved to do that didn’t involve my grandpa. She was the one who taught me how to bake bread, do my taxes, quilt, and play the piano. My grandpa wasn’t much for singing, but my grandma would always fill in the harmony. We would often gather around the piano to sing Broadway favorites or drive up to LA to catch a play.

Even now that my grandpa has passed away, it is hard to imagine them apart. Theirs was a seemingly magical marriage and on those occasions where I’d be up late and my grandpa wasn’t home yet, my grandma would be up waiting for him every time and excitedly go to the door when she’d hear his car pull in.

My grandparents were inseparable but separate. They each had their own interests and passions and I had a really good relationship with each of them. They were also of the generation where it was very common for mail to arrive addressed to Mrs. Sheldon L. Dickinson. As much as I love my grandpa, I can’t picture going through life and only speaking of him. “Oh how grateful I am he taught me how to bake bread!” Or, “Oh what lovely harmony he sings!”

I remember being very excited when I first heard General Authorities of the Church start using the term Heavenly Parents. It felt like they were finally acknowledging a Mother in Heaven. It felt like a step in the right direction. And now it doesn’t feel like enough. It feels incomplete to hear God almost exclusively referred to with male pronouns and only the occasional Heavenly Parents reference thrown in. It would feel really odd to sit around with my siblings reflecting on our childhood, exclusively talking about my grandpa with a few unpredictable grandparent references.

As Heavenly Mother has increasingly become a more important part of my life, it is more and more painful to see her erasure in the church. I did not watch General Conference this time, but I went through and did a search for mentions of Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother, and Heavenly Parents. Out of 39 talks there were 72 references to Heavenly Father and zero references to Heavenly Mother or Heavenly Parents. The more general term God, used over 300 times, was almost always in conjunction with male pronouns. The April 2021 general conference numbers are similar, with three total references to Heavenly Parents out of 35 talks and zero references to Heavenly Mother.

I know for many people, General Conference is uplifting and inspiring and there was a time in my life when it was for me as well. But now it feels like walking through a desert to not hear my Mother spoken of.

When a friend reached out and asked how I had enjoyed conference, I penned this poem:

“Follow Me” they said.
We will guide you through this barren land.
Do you see those mountains in the distance?
Stick to this path – do not stray!
Your future exaltation is green and lush.

But I cannot take another step.
I am dying now.
Words of my Father do not quench my thirst.

I no longer follow these rulers.
I trust my instincts
And search for wisdom.

I once believed we did not talk
Because we did not know.
But how can this be true?
God, Sophia, Asherah, Divine, Infinite, Unnameable,
All encompassing and everywhere.

I step off the desert path.
Sometimes a trickle. Sometimes a downpour.
My thirst quenched.
An oasis now.

One reason Heavenly Parents doesn’t feel right to me anymore, is because of the manner in which it ties male and female together, resulting in experiencing Heavenly Mother only through Heavenly Father. It might feel different if we ever spoke of her on her own, but since that’s typically not the case, she becomes a support person only, not a Goddess in her own right.

I also wonder what it is like for those on the margins to hear of God always male, married to a hidden wife. For me, a cis-het, married woman, I can only speak of the pain I feel to have Heavenly Mother erased in this way. I cannot speak for single members or those of the LGBTQ+ population, but I wonder, is talk of only Heavenly Parents enough? Does it bring hope that all will be figured out by a loving Mother and Father, or is it just one more way the church reinforces their heteronormative ideals?

In her poem Heavenly Mothers, Blaire Ostler, expands the notion of who God is.

I am a child of Gods.
I have a queer Mother,
and a straight Mother.
I have a bi Mother
and intersex Mother too.
I have two gay Fathers,
along with a trans Heavenly Father
and a trans Heavenly Mother.
I have non-binary Parents as well,
because we all have a place in the heavens.
If children grow up to be like their Parents,
I am no exception.

I love the idea of God encompassing all identities. I hope that one day when we hear of God spoken of at church and in our communities, we’ll hear pronouns and discussion that move us beyond a Heavenly Father and Heavenly Parents. I hope that our language and theology will reflect the beautiful diversity I believe is in heaven as it is on earth.

The Mountain of the Lord’s House

This past weekend was General Conference. One thing at conference that made me happy was something President Nelson said in his talk in the Sunday morning session. He specifically invited single people to receive their endowment, and he didn’t connect it to missionary service. This is a welcome change from past practice.

Oakland California Temple Bobjgalindo, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I’ll be dating myself with this, but back in my day, the age for women to serve missions was 21. The general practice at the time was that the endowment was reserved for prospective missionaries, people preparing for sealing, and people who were so old that there was little hope of ever marrying. When I was a teenager, my friend’s mother, who was divorced and in her late 30s or early 40s and had been a faithful member of the church her whole life, was finally allowed to receive her endowment after much pleading with church leaders.

When I turned 18, I felt the Spirit prompt me that it was time for me to receive my endowment. I approached my bishop about it and he said no. I had a limited-use recommend for doing baptisms, so it wasn’t a worthiness issue. I was saddened but powerless to do anything about it and put the desire aside. I was in the institute presidency in college, and I knew of many other faithful women (and at least one faithful man who was medically unable to serve a mission) who desired the endowment but who were unable to receive it due to singleness.

When I was 19, the spiritual prompting returned, more urgently than before. My bishop and stake president allowed me to receive my endowment that time around. A few months later, a letter from higher up circulated codifying the prior practice of reserving the endowment for people who are going on missions, marrying, or who are far into adulthood. I was grateful that I had slid in under the wire and was able to receive my temple ordinances, but I wept for all my sisters who lost bishop roulette and couldn’t receive theirs.

I’ve heard stories of women in their 20s who were unable to be sealed to their parents because their bishops wouldn’t allow them to be endowed because they were single – effectively separating them from their parents for eternity because they lacked a husband. I’ve heard stories of vastly different interpretations by bishops of how old constitutes “old enough” to give up on marriage and allow an endowment anyway.

Tying the endowment to mission or marriage had the effect of decreasing women’s access to temple ordinances much more than decreasing men’s access. When I was seeking my endowment, women were discouraged from serving missions. The women who did so anyway were stigmatized and judged for being unable to land a man.

So men could be endowed at 19 and women had to roll the dice. When the age of missionary service was lowered to 19 for women and more women served, that helped to increase access for women, but only for women whose life path involved missionary service. Women for whom God had other plans still lacked equal access.

I did end up serving a mission when I graduated from college, but I’m glad I had the chance to receive my endowment two years earlier. I had the chance to be a temple ordinance worker before my mission, which I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. Singles make up more than half the church, and I’m glad my fellow single siblings are being specifically invited to God’s house. I hope the temples are flooded with single people newly armed with God’s power.

Guest Post: Eight Years Later

Guest post by Lori.  Lori is a life-long member born and raised in the south. She currently teaches French, German, Latin and Speech/Debate to gifted highschoolers.

Eight years ago, on the first weekend of October, I got on a plane and flew to Utah to participate in the first Ordain Women action requesting permission as women to attend the Saturday evening session of general conference, which was then reserved only for male members of the church over the age of twelve. We were, of course, denied permission to attend. My youngest daughter was then 10 years ago.

Today as I write this, that youngest daughter is a freshman at BYU and a member of the BYU Women’s Chorus and will be singing in person in the Saturday evening session of general conference. As a result of COVID restrictions, the members of the choir will be the only audience members in the Conference Center. The bookending of these two events has given me reason to pause and contemplate what has happened in the last eight years and the differences between my experiences in the church and what my daughter’s will be.

I don’t remember when I started discussing ordination for women with my father, but I know that by the time I was a teenage, I knew that his opinion, formed by years of scripture study, was that there was no direct scriptural injunction against it and he believed that women would one day be full recipients of priesthood power and authority alongside men. I trusted his opinion and believed it would happen.

It has been a long time since I was a teenager. Waiting for society to change can be quite a patience tester. Each step forward must seem so benign that it is accepted while outcry and pushback to reverse the forward progress is limited. For those who are held back from achieving their full potential by this painfully slow progress, each little step is never enough and the outcries and pushback are painful. It is only with the blessing of extended time can we look back to see progress being made. We stand on the shoulders of many great women and men who came before us to trod this same path, working for change.

In September of 2012 I was part of a group of women who posted a document online entitled “All Are Alike Unto God”, requesting that LDS church leaders “thoughtfully consider and earnestly pray about the full integration of women”. This document also included several suggestions for interim institutional changes that would create a more equitable religious community that would not require ordination for women. As I read over this list, I am heartened by how many of these changes have been at least partially made and I can see a roadmap to interim steps to even more change.

I cannot claim to understand why some changes seem to take forever or why others happen overnight. I see the damage that is caused by discriminating policies for women, for racial minorities and the LGBTQ+ and I want it all fixed. Now. Instead, I can only measure progress. Not always forward progress, but over the course of time, generally forward progress.

Eight years ago I was denied entrance into the general conference session on Saturday evening. While the meeting was also broadcast widely, it went only to satellites at buildings where church leaders could control who entered the building to watch. In October of 2013, the first policy to change was to broadcast this meeting over the open worldwide networks (including TV and radio) that were used to broadcast all other sessions of conference. In 2018, the women’s meeting was made an official session of conference and began alternating with the men’s meeting on Saturday evening. This year, all gender limiting general conference meetings were eliminated and now all session are open to anyone who wants to attend.

Priesthood is now discussed in the LDS Church as priesthood power and priesthood authority and women are told that we have access to the same priesthood power as men. We are limited in our authority, especially to direct the affairs of the church. However, women are gaining entrance into more and more positions and meetings where we have influence over decisions about church policies, if not actual decision-making power in those meetings.

This isn’t enough and I will not quit discussing the need for improvement until all members’ voices, contributions, and leadership talents are given equal status, but I am also glad for the chance to look back to measure progress towards that goal. It gives me hope that more forward progress is yet to come.

My daughter isn’t yet ordained to the priesthood, yet I will enjoy watching her sit in the choir seats of the conference center, attending the Saturday evening session of general conference, knowing that eight years ago her mother was denied the opportunity to even enter the building.