Exponent II's Blog, page 15

How Reality T.V. Is Destroying The World

Less than 20 years ago, I was talking with friends about concerns for the state of the world. One friend asked us what we thought was the biggest threat to the country. 

I said, “Reality T.V.”

At this point, Reality TV had been around for years, and had become very popular for a while. I had never intentionally sat down to watch any of the shows. I had seen parts of some of them when I was staying at homes of friends or family who did watch, and that was enough to cause me great concern. 

In general, shows would be presented as being unscripted depictions of people in various situations, so the audience could get a realistic glimpse of what it was like for that particular group of people. At first I wondered if it was supposed to be a type of pop culture documentary.

But these shows were clearly nothing like the National Geographic or Jacques Cousteau or PBS history documentaries I had grown up with. 

The few glimpses of “Real Life”, or “Jersey Shore”, or “Real Housewives” made it clear to me that, even if there might not be a line by line script, there was an intended plot meant to promote outrage, and reaction. The more outrageous the behavior, the more fame for the character.

I saw people start to believe these characters were real, expressing their real selves, in real life. People who would not consider watching a soap opera because they would see it as a waste of time, were now looking forward to the next episode of whatever show they had followed for multiple seasons, which they would spend time discussing and speculating in the days between episodes. 

I had never watched The Apprentice, until I was staying with a friend during a visit out of state. The show had been on for several seasons. I had read a few things about Trump, and some failed businesses, and problems with racist policies at his properties. I appreciated the cameo of his first wife in the movie “The First Wive’s Club”. I did not see much reason to look to him for business advice, or any kind of example for life. It surprised me how much my friends were caught up in everything he did or said to the people who were falling over themselves to gain his approval. When I learned that Trump was behind much of shows in this reality TV genre, I was really concerned about how much impact this was having.

For several decades now, Reality TV has pushed the idea that…

Reality and truth is whatever the script says it is. And the script is whatever ideology junk food you want it to be.Misinformation and lying is crucial for survival. Don’t trust anyone.Mediocrity is something to celebrate if you are famous. And anyone on a reality show is famous.Outrageous behavior is a good enough reason for celebrity, even better than ability, or skill, or intelligence, or creating something.It doesn’t matter how horrible a character’s behavior is, as long as it gets viewers. If the character who betrays, or hurts, or lies, or manipulates the most, is the reason viewers tune in, they will be celebrated, and the victims will be tossed aside.Kindness, compassion, humility, making a difference – this is dismissed and minimized. These qualities might show up in a short term, minor character. Everyone functions in reaction mode. Nothing can move forward except in reaction to what someone has said or done. All cliffhangers are about what kind of reaction will cause another reaction, and who will react in what way that will get the most reactionary response. There is no action that is based on commitment, or integrity, or creativity. There is no one who is an agent who acts. All are objects who react, or who are acted upon so they can then know how to react. When all the discussion I heard from people who were following these shows centered around speculation on who would react in what way, I also saw that they were taking on functioning that way as well. 

This is why I began to see Reality TV as a threat to the country. This concern greatly intensified when I watched the unthinkable happen, and the person who gained the most from these reactionary, fake shows won the presidency.

He ran his administration as though it was a reality show.

Now, he has won it again. A frighteningly large portion of people continue to believe that the script he presents is what is real. And that ability, experience, education, making a difference, commitment to compassion, service, diversity, and creative action, is to be dismissed and eliminated. Nothing is done except in reaction to others. There is no responsibility, integrity or humility, no acknowledgement of damage, and absolutely no apology. The claims he makes are believed, even with no evidence. The more outrageous, the better. Mediocrity is celebrated, and promoted. Skill, experience, commitment is fired, removed, and sued.

When something takes over such a large part of society, it impacts everything. The culture of this country is not isolated, and this administration is impacting the world. I have hope in seeing leadership in other countries that are not willing to submit to this, who have the courage to be agents that act, not react. 

It has been interesting to see the influence of reality TV on church culture. It is a human thing to want to rely on someone else to tell you what is real, what is true, and what to do. It is human to want someone else to be responsible for what happens, and to give all loyalty to whatever leader you have chosen to follow. We are constantly looking for ways to return to the Garden, where we just did what we were told, and someone else was in charge. I have found it interesting to see ways some church members (not only LDS, but also other religions) struggle with dissonance when the rhetoric from this administration clearly conflicts with the rhetoric of their long held beliefs. Some step into the paradigm shift toward real agency, personal responsibility, and owning the power to create life (And yes, it is a significant shift). Others continue to cling to a place of no responsibility, a place of waiting to be told how to react. But they have switched who they see as deity. I see this kind of reactionary outrage function across the spectrum of faith and religion communities. Those who choose to leave a community of any kind (religious, political, family, business, ideological) do not automatically make that paradigm shift toward agency. Some take the reactionary function from one group to another, from one unquestioned leader to another.

I don’t know how much will be demolished by this reality TV administration. I don’t know how many bodies will be left in the wake before this authoritarian power grab is checked. I don’t know what it will take for people who are in position to exercise the courage to stand up to this regime. These are questions I ask when I see any of my communities do things that contradict their constitution. I continue to be an active agent in the face of it. 

Because there is something else that I consider the most harmful and threatening thing about Reality TV. It denies the overwhelming need for connection. All people are depicted and treated as competitors or tools to manipulate. All interactions are treated with suspicion, with a need to negotiate a deal where you win and the other loses. There is no real person except self. All else is seen as someone or something to use for selfish need or gratification. Everyone and everything is commodified. Any information that contradicts this ideology is dangerous, and must be eliminated. Any experience that denies it must be suppressed. 

This feeds the biggest challenges of human nature – that of needing to find barriers, and reasons to “other”, and that of functioning from a place of scarcity.

This defies the incomprehensible, mysterious, overwhelming need for human connection. The transformative power of divine love. It defies the invitation from God that all things which are most precious and endless will increase when given away. And They inspired us into new life, new existence by showing us. They gave away power, knowledge, experience, mercy, connection, compassion, presence, wisdom, love. And in doing so, there is enough for all, and to spare. 

Even in the midst of this unthinkable time, They are there. Weeping and mourning for the way we treat each other. Present and constantly inviting me to comfort and mourn and bear each other up. As I have often said – Jesus wants me for an activist.

Yes, I am horrified by how much more destructive the culture of Reality TV has become than what I saw as a threat almost 20 years ago. My experience with God tells me that creative power will be able to overwhelm destructive abuse of power. I don’t know what will finally be the “Amen” to the abusive authority of this regime, or how they will experience the pain of kicking against the pricks, but abusive power of force and destruction and denial of existence will not last. That is the case for any community. 

To resist a regime that denies and seeks to destroy the connecting power of one-ness can seem an overwhelming problem. But it is a problem worthy of an extraordinary life. That is a life worth creating.

Yeti Ads and Why the Exponent II Needs You

Parties. Dancing. Jazz. Wealth. These are a few of the words that come to mind when I ask people what they remember about reading The Great Gatsby. In the decades since I read this book, I still vividly remember billboards. Yes, billboards. This was the first time I became aware of the ubiquitousness of advertising. 

What does advertising have to do with the Exponent II? Well, we have grown to the point where we need money from our readers to pay hosting fees and website support contracts. Regular readers will notice that from mid-March to mid-May of this year we tried advertising as a way of raising revenue. While parameters were carefully set as to the categories of ads allowed, some readers ended up with ads for rollerblades and retirement planning while other readers ended with an ad for  — I joke not — a farting yeti. Worse still, some readers often had distinctly pornographic looking ads. The majority of ads were at odds with Exponent II values. Ads also ended up providing merely tens of dollars in revenue over two months which was only a quarter of the amount estimated before the ad trial. The types of ads, lower than estimated revenue, and, most important, concerns regarding the disruption to readers’ experience, mean that ads are not a feasible revenue source. 

This is why you are needed. Yes, you! Wondering why good storytelling deserves good infrastructure? Read Katie Lulow’s piece “From Mormon Pioneer Trail Diaries to Feminist Blog Posts: Finding My Voice.” Wondering why bother reading about complicated Mormon experiences? Read Candice Wendt’s piece “Why Bother Reading and Writing about Complicated Mormon Experiences?”

One thing I value most about Exponent II is community. Community is the glue that binds us together. It is why I read Exponent II, both the blog, comments, and magazine. Heather Sundhal and Katie Ludlow Rich discuss the importance of community over conformity in these podcasts about their fabulous book 50 Years of Exponent II. *Everyone* is welcome in the Exponent II community. Respect, kindness, and a willingness to listen to others is all that is required. No need to believe a certain way, act a certain way, dress a certain way, etc. This community is a place where I can sigh with relief. In May 2022, I attended my first bloggers retreat. I was nervous about meeting women in person. Would I be accepted? I was so, so tired after nearly a decade of living in a ward where conformity ruled. My daughters and I were shunned because they didn’t go to the same school as most ward members and I have graduate degrees and work professionally. (My husband was accepted just fine by the men.) So it was with trepidation that I arrived at Katie Ludlow Rich’s house and climbed into a minivan of women. My heart soon melted. We were, and are, at different places of belief, practice, and relationship to the church. That doesn’t matter at all. What matters is dialogue and community. I fiercely love this community of writers and readers. The posts, essays, and comments feed my soul. 

In the lonely time when the church is emphasizing individual covenants, the community of Exponent II matters now more than ever. Candice Wendt writes more about that in “The Insidious Exchange of Community for Covenants.” No matter the amount you donate, you are a contributing community member. Plus, you can sleep easy knowing that with proper tech support, you helped an Exponent II blogger to not have nightmares about the website. 

Click to make a tax deductible donation towards our $10,000 goal.

Sacred Music Sunday: With Wondering Awe

It might sound weird for the Sunday music feature to be a Christmas song in July, but I’ve had With Wondering Awe stuck in my head for over a month. I grew up in a place where it doesn’t snow, and rain is confined to the months of November through March. Rain means Christmas to me.

For over a decade now, I’ve lived somewhere where it still doesn’t snow, but the rainy season is July and August. Like clockwork, as soon as the monsoon hits, I want to drink hot chocolate and sing Christmas carols. The first time it happened, it wasn’t even a conscious decision. The rain came, and the songs started getting stuck in my head like ancient programming. It took me a week to figure out why my brain started serving them up in the middle of summer.

Whatever weather says Christmas to you, I hope you enjoy it!

The Paradox That Is Mormonism

I grew up loving my heritage. I am the offspring of Mormon pioneers from both my Mom and Dad’s side of the family. I (like many of you) had hard core ancestors that sacrificed and gave so much to this church. 

Learning at a young age to carry my baby across the plains at a ward Pioneer Day celebration.

Immigrants seeking a better life, more land, more work, enticed by promises made in this new religion. Immigrants…or colonizers…both are true.

I still like to tell people that my third great Grandpa Martin Hansen, who came over the ocean as a little boy from Denmark, discovered the Timponogos caves up American Fork Canyon in Utah.

But then I learned about the genocide the pioneers who settled here committed on the Timponogos Native Peoples and I felt gross inside. That beautiful Mount Timponogos, which many-a BYU or UVU college students love to hike, was named after its original occupants…a people and their history I was not fully aware of until a few years ago.

I loved reading the story of my third great Grandma Mary Ann Quinney. She heard older missionaries preaching in the park in England and went home to tell her family that she got baptized. They were aghast and upset that a young teen, under their care, did not seek their permission and were even more upset when she let them know she’d be boarding a boat to join the other members.

I thought she was so brave for leaving her family, crossing those plains, and cutting off her best friend’s toes that had been deadened by frostbite. I thought she was so faithful when she married into a polygamist relationship.

But then I learned about what my ancestors really thought of being in polygamist and polyandrous relationships. I read in other women’s journals what tactics of manipulation were used to secure their hand in marriage.

Look at us cute little kids culturally appropriating.

I finally came to grips with what had felt wrong for so many years, even when I tried to justify, it really was wrong. Making the story of my then, young teenage, grandma’s conversion story more troubling than I had seen before.

The paradox of it all! The good and the bad of what America is (and other colonizing countries and cultures for that matter), who its immigrants/pioneers are. What the Mormon, ahem, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is. Who my people are and what my people have done…and continue to do.

I started my research back in 2008 when sources were not as readily at my literal fingertips. But The Women’s Exponent II has been around since 1974.

The Women’s Exponent II Blog embodies the paradox of Mormonism so well. It points out what it loves about Mormonism and what this religion has given them past and present, but it also does not shy away from the disturbing details of what Mormonism is and the harm that it has done and continues to do. 

But just like any volunteer organization, we need help. Our blog costs money to run. We get charged high user fees when we get a lot of readers….and we love those readers! Another paradox within this Mormon sphere. We need to pay people to fix tech issues that constantly arise. 

We need donations to meet the demands of our readership and to be able to provide the content we love. If you have felt like the Exponent II Blog has provided you with what you need, please consider donating what you can. We promise that we won’t hide your donation in a shell company. Amen.

Please click here to donate and thank you for reading the blog!

Exponent website tech problems gave me nightmares, literally.

I served on the Exponent II board at a time when the Exponent blog was enjoying greater readership than ever before in its history—and as web traffic increased, the site began crashing every time a post went viral. As the de facto webmaster, I could usually restore the website with some sort of band-aid solution, but only temporarily, because more effective, long-term solutions required cash. And we didn’t have any.

One night, I dreamed a dream. I was working on the Exponent blog at my computer. The files morphed into actors and I was in the midst of a sci-fi movie. The characters were running for their lives as the website—now reworked into a glamorous ballroom instead of a computer screen—crashed. One by one the characters vanished into thin air. The heroine, movingly portrayed by Sally Field, tried to save them. She ran with her arms outstretched, her beautiful red silk dress flapping in the wind as she tried to catch the other characters and save them from impending doom but everyone disappeared before she could reach them. In the end, she was the only one left and she rolled into a little ball and wept.

Is this just a fake, photoshopped image of Sally Field carrying a copy of Exponent II magazine? Of course it is.

I woke up and immediately checked the site. I had put in many volunteer hours during the past several months, redesigning the website to better showcase this treasure trove of Mormon feminist thought. I had just added a new feature called “Our Bloggers Recommend” to highlight important posts from the blog and elsewhere. The very first post I added to the new menu was Rachel’s 2013 post, “What I first learned about our Heavenly Mother.” This previously buried post represents the best this blog has to offer; it is well-researched—groundbreaking, in fact—and spiritually uplifting. People noticed. Two mainstream Mormon news outlets linked to it, sharing its goodness with whole new audiences of people who would have never found it hidden in our archives. Soon it was viral.

And so the site crashed. I spent the better part of the day working with our server provider to get it up. They gave me several tasks to “pass on” to our “web developer.” We didn’t have a web developer! So I did those tasks myself—all day long—taking time away from my paid job and my four kids and my husband—who coincidentally, had just had a serious talk with me earlier that morning about how I needed to tell my colleagues at the Exponent that it was time to hire someone to do the tech work because my volunteer hours were getting out of hand.  This wasn’t the first time unpaid, emergency tech work at the Exponent had interrupted my day. With no reliable funding source, we couldn’t stop the outages.

So when that nightmare about the Exponent website crashing woke me up, I immediately grabbed my phone and checked the site. In spite of having even higher traffic numbers than the day before, it was up and running. It was just a nightmare. Everything was okay. I got dressed, dropped my kids off at school and went to work, where I checked the site one last time, just for reassurance.

It was down.

This time, our server provider found that someone was attacking the site. “By someone, do you mean an actual person or a virus?” I asked.

“An actual person. Or several.”

Our humble feminist blog needs funds to fend off the haters.

Trying to keep our under-resourced website online became a full-time job for me, competing for my time against my actual full-time job; my family; and even the Exponent itself! With so much of my time pulled into applying tech band-aids to the Exponent website, I had no time left to write Mormon feminist content. I almost quit Exponent II.

Then readers came to the rescue, donating enough money to cover desperately needed website upgrades. That was almost a decade ago. Since then, I’ve contributed ten years of Mormon feminist content that may have never been written if we hadn’t found the funds to fix the website. Some of those blog posts went viral. And yes, some of those viral blog posts crashed the website, because website maintenance isn’t the sort of thing you can do once, ten years ago, and never do again.

A viral Exponent II blog post should be something to celebrate. I want to shout, “Take that, patriarchy!” every time a post goes viral, instead of biting my fingernails and fretting about whether our overworked, underfunded website can handle the pressure of so many readers.

If you’ve appreciated any Exponent II blog posts over the past ten years, posts that may never have been written if readers hadn’t chipped in back then, please consider donating now. Better yet, set up a monthly donation, so we can keep fighting patriarchy together for another ten years and more. Keep Mormon feminist writers writing, instead of troubleshooting tech issues on a broken website. Save Exponent II’s volunteer bloggers from tech nightmares.  Click here to make a tax deductible donation. Thank you!

A Dim Light of Hope

This is a talk that will be given by Mimi in Sacrament Meeting tomorrow (July 27th, 2025) in Eugene, Oregon.

For this talk, Brother [NAME] gave me the topic titled “Having a Perfect Brightness of Hope.” 

However…I think my talk is titled something more along the lines of “My hope isn’t a perfect brightness, but I’m trying to hold on to some dim light over here.”

Perhaps “perfect brightness,” at least for me right now in my life, is out of reach. 

So, let me walk you through my dim light of hope. 

In February of this year, my family experienced one of the scariest and hardest things I’ve ever gone through. While I don’t want to go into details about the experience itself, I’ll just say that it left me with an incredible ache in my very being. I felt betrayed. Betrayed by friends. Betrayed by God. I lost trust. I lost trust in people. I lost trust in God. Incredible sadness was all-consuming. My eyes were like a leaky faucet and I couldn’t quite seem to turn off the tears.  

Five months later (and lots of therapy and self-introspection), I’m doing remarkably better. But, I can’t say that those feelings are gone. In fact, sometimes I still feel them raging through my mind, body, and spirit. Somedays I wonder if I’ll ever stop being so hurt. Sometimes I cry to God that I am angry and wish I could heal faster. Sometimes I cry to God that I want to be done believing in His existence. Sometimes I just cry to God with no words to say.

But the thing is, even when crying out to God with these intensely sad feelings, I realize I still have a glimmer of hope. I guess that hope is what brings me back: crying out to God.

Perhaps some of you today have felt the same types of feelings I described. Perhaps you have felt betrayed and lost trust. Perhaps you have wondered whether God betrayed you. Perhaps you have cried out to God in deep anger. Perhaps you have wondered whether you would ever be able to feel hope in your heart. 

My prayer is that today the Spirit might touch both you and me. My prayer today is that you and I might both feel a bit of God’s love as I speak. My prayer today is that we might both feel hope.

In the aftermath of the event my family experienced, the words I’ve heard over the pulpit so many times came into my head: “All is made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” But between tears and confusion and feelings of betrayal, rather than these words bringing me comfort, all I could think was “HOW? How is all made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ?”

I delved into a personal study of the scriptures and conference talks. And no matter what I read, I kept just asking “HOW? How is all made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ? Can Christ help me TODAY? Can Christ make things right in my LIFETIME? WHEN will I feel that all is made right? HOW  does this work?”

And the truth is, I don’t have an answer. And I don’t know that I’ll get an answer. And even if I did get an answer, I bet my answer would look and feel a bit different than an answer for someone else. Given the all-encompassing love that Christ has for each one of us individually, my guess is the way He heals and the way He makes things right through His Atonement is likely different depending on the individual. 

In preparation for this talk, I was rereading my study journal from March of this year – when I was still a leaky faucet of sadness. That day, I was painfully grappling with how Christ makes things right. In my journal, I copy/pasted a quote from a 2012 talk by Linda K. Burton (who was, at the time, the General Relief Society President). The quote said:

“A [woman] walking along a road fell into a pit so deep [she] could not climb out. No matter what [she] did, [she] could not get out by [herself]. The [woman] called for help and rejoiced when a kind passerby heard [her] and lowered a ladder down into the pit. This allowed [her] to climb out of the pit and regain [her] freedom. We are like the [woman] in the pit. Sinning is like falling into the pit, and we can’t get out by ourselves. Just as the kind passerby heard the [woman’s] cry for help, Heavenly Father sent his Only Begotten Son to provide the means of escape. Jesus Christ’s atonement could be compared to lowering a ladder into the pit; it gives us the means to climb out.” But the Savior does more than lower the ladder, He “comes down into the pit and makes it possible for us to use the ladder to escape.” “Just as the [woman] in the pit had to climb up the ladder, we must repent of our sins and obey the gospel principles and ordinances to climb out of our pit and make the Atonement work in our lives. Thus, after all we can do, the Atonement makes it possible for us to become worthy to return to Heavenly Father’s presence.” 

My notes about this quote were short. While I was in a time of deep pain and trying to find meaning, I simply wrote: “I like the idea of this. But what if my voice isn’t loud enough to call for help? And what if I’m not the one who got myself thrown into this pit anyway?”

Rereading it now, months later, I think I have some answers for myself. Mainly my answer to my previous self is: it doesn’t matter. I don’t think it matters if my voice isn’t loud enough to call for help. And I don’t think it matters how I got into the pit. I think Christ wants to help us get out of the pit no matter what. I think Christ can hear us even when we’re too tired or sick or hurt to truly call for help. I think Christ can hear us even when we feel the weight of the world pushing us further into this pit. I think Christ can hear us even when we want to give up. Christ is there for us. He is listening for us. 

Alma 7:12 says that Christ suffered for us so that he would know how to “succor his people.” Succor (as defined by Google dictionary) means: “give assistance or aid to.” Basically, Christ suffered for us so that he would know exactly how to help us and how to give us the help that we, on an individual level, need. 

I believe that no matter how far deep we are in that metaphorical pit that President Burton described and no matter how we fell or got pushed into that pit, Christ knows us as individuals and wants to help us out. He goes, as the Good Shepherd, looking for us, as lost sheep, (even if our cries aren’t very loud) and he wants us to feel some love in our hearts. He wants us to feel at least a dim light of hope. 

Christian Pastor Emily David described how Christ knows us personally and this personal relationship is what brings us hope. She said:

“Understanding the opportunity we have to know Jesus personally fills us with hope and joy. Each of us is invited into a unique relationship with Him. This relationship is not about mere rules or obligatory prayers; it’s about genuine connection. Jesus calls us into this relationship through compassion, love, and grace. He desires to meet us where we are and take us on a journey where we can know Him more deeply. When we open our hearts and invite Him in, we discover a loving Savior who cares for us intimately. This personal aspect of knowing Jesus means we can talk to Him about our joys, struggles, and everything in between. In turn, we gain insight, peace, and guidance through His wisdom and support.”

I love this quote because it touches on how personal hope might be for each of us. It can’t be a one-size-fits-all characteristic because we each are on a different journey and each have a different relationship with Christ. But he meets us on this journey – even if we feel like we’re at the bottom of a pit of despair – and journeys with us. He cares for us intimately on each step of this journey. 

I want to add my own thought that sometimes it might be too hard to feel His presence. Sometimes we might be in a darkness where we really do not feel His love. But I believe He is there in those times. I believe He waits patiently for us as we allow ourselves to be touched by him. I believe He cares in those darkest moments, even when we feel so alone. And maybe not even my belief is perfect. Maybe sometimes I just have a tiny dim light of hope that He is there. But I do hope and believe that He wants to help us through the darkest of times. 

One of the hymns that was recently added to the hymnbook, Gethsemane, feels particularly relevant to developing a relationship with Christ and feeling hope through Him. 

The songwriter, Melanie Hoffman, said that when she was writing this hymn she had wanted to think of a way to convey to children the power of what Christ did for us in Gethsemane. She said, ““I realized that even the youngest of children need to understand that Jesus suffered for them because He loves them. His atoning gift of love began in Gethsemane, continued on Calvary, and gloriously culminated at the empty tomb.” Though she wrote the song for children, the words touch my heart as I think of Christ’s personal love for me. The lyrics of the song go like this:

1.

Jesus climbed the hill to the Garden still; His steps were heavy and slow.

Love and a prayer took Him there to the place only He could go.

Gethsemane! Jesus loves me,

So He went willingly to Gethsemane.

2.

He felt all that was sad, wicked, or bad, all the pain we would ever know.

While His friends were asleep, He fought to keep His promise made long ago.

Gethsemane! Jesus loves me,

So He went willingly to Gethsemane.

The hardest thing that ever was done,

The greatest pain that ever was known,

The biggest battle that ever was won—

This was done by Jesus!

The fight was won by Jesus!

Gethsemane! Jesus loves me,

So He gave this gift to me in Gethsemane.

Gethsemane! Jesus loves me,

So He gives this gift to me from Gethsemane.

I hope that we each take these beautiful lyrics with us today and remember that Christ went willingly for me. He went willingly for you. He went willingly because of His personal love. And in that we can find hope. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Why Bother Reading and Writing about Complicated Mormon Experiences?

THIS POST IS PART OF AN ONGOING BLOG SERIES FOCUSED ON THE CURRENT EXPONENT II BLOG FUNDRAISER . PARTLY BECAUSE OF REASONS I EXPLAIN IN THIS ESSAY, I’M DONATING TO THE FUNDRAISER AND I HOPE YOU WILL TOO!

Why do Mormon feminists like me keep writing? And why does our audience keep coming back for more?

I’ve been thinking about this partly because people tend to scrutinize my motives and whether the effort is worth it. Some urge me to give up trying to bring problems to the Church’s attention or to change it. People have argued over the dinner table over whether it is a good I write things that criticize the Church. In some cases individuals have told me to “fix” my thoughts and feelings through adopting their perspectives. Others have unfriended me on social media to avoid seeing ideas that threatens their worldviews, sometimes complaining to my relatives about what I share.

Sometimes I question myself: Am I helping people or hurting them? Why do I have such an urge to write? And why should I continue to write about religion when the institutional church doesn’t listen?

In trying to answer these questions, I’ve been gleaning wisdom about why writing matters from one of my favorite novelists, Jonathan Franzen. In his essay “Why Bother?” he asks: Why should people bother to write? (and read?) He really wrestled with this question as a younger person trying to make sense of his desires and purpose. In this essay, I’ll draw mostly on thoughts from “Why Bother?” but also a bit from other essays in his collection How to Be Alone.

One of the concerns that troubled Franzen as a young writer is that serious social novels don’t make the impact they once did. Only a fraction of people invest time and effort in reading, especially more difficult works. Film and television have replaced the novel as the art most discussed and celebrated in public spaces. 

“Why am I bothering to write these books?” he asks himself. “I can’t pretend the mainstream will listen to the news I have to bring. I can’t pretend I’m subverting anything, because any reader capable of decoding my subversive messages does not need to hear them…I can’t stomach any kind of notion that serious fiction is good for us, because I don’t believe that everything that’s wrong with the world has a cure, and even if I did, what business would I, who feel like the sick one, have in offering it? It’s hard to consider literature a medicine, in any case, when reading it serves mainly to deepen your depressing estrangement from the mainstream; sooner or later the therapeutically minded reader will end up [treating] reading itself as the sickness” (How to Be Alone pg. 73).

As a subversive Mormon writer, I relate to the doubts and concerns he raises here. The audience who arguably most needs to hear what I have to say (Church admins) usually aren’t interested in learning from writers like me. Most of the people who take my work seriously already agree with many of my thoughts. Do they actually need it? And the things I write might easily increase alienation and dissonance; it’s not fun to see yet more of what is problematic. There are plenty of Mormons who label writers like me as spiritually unwell or focusing on all the wrong things, and we can’t offer much in the way of solutions to the various sources of pain or malaise we address.

So why write? 

When linguistic anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath researched the question What motivates people to write? she learned that the individuals most likely to grow up to be writers were those who turned to avid reading during childhood to find relief from loneliness and feelings of being different from others. These individuals found dialogue and community with authors and imagined worlds that relieved feelings of alienation or disconnection, and this continued as a habit in adulthood. As Heath explains, since “writing was the medium of communication within the community of childhood, it makes sense that when writers grow up they continue to find writing vital to their sense of connectedness” (77). 

In the context of teaching him about this pattern among writers, Heath told Jonathan Franzen: “You are a socially isolated individual who desperately wants to communicate with a substantive imaginary world.” While she was referring to writers in general, these words helped Franzen better understand his love of reading and writing with unexpected, joyful clarity. He hadn’t been pressured to read as a kid. He turned to books largely because he was a deep-thinking misfit who felt ill at ease with the state of things around him. His urge to write as an adult started with avid reading habits in childhood that met his needs for connection, exploration, and creating meaning (78). He realized that as an adult, he didn’t need writing to be a path to fame or status, a way to persuade and change others, or an instrument to fix societal ills for his vocation to be justifiable or meaningful. He could value it simply because it had long been his preferred, intuitive, and effective way of creating the conversations he wanted to have with and in the world. 

How many of us subversive Mormon writers learned to value the written word when we were younger because it empowered us while facing alienation, loneliness, or how we experienced things differently? This might have been due to family or church culture difficulties, our personalities, our mental health, or other factors. How many of us write simply because it is our preferred and seemingly native way of connecting and feeling alive? Our writing is not necessarily about motivations to fix things or to demonstrate we have some kind of superior knowledge or solution. It’s our proven way to create channels of expression and belonging in the face of being different or alone.

I count myself in the group of people whose writing started with turning to books as a child. I was socially anxious, sensitive and prone to depression. I seemed to experience so many things abominably differently than people around me. Starting around age 12, I spent big chunks of time reading classic novels and the scriptures and journaling in the evening. I didn’t think of myself as a writer (I actually hated writing for school because of the grading process and negative feedback); I just had an instinct that doing these things made me feel better and more normal. My writing today is absolutely a continuation of my preferred way of being as a girl. I’m a lifelong questioner, reader, and journaller. I can’t help being this way, it’s what I need to do to cope with life, and writing and reading are inextricably woven into my spirituality.

Writing also allows us to develop and maintain a sense of self and to resist oppressive circumstances, including those we face in religion. In response to the question why bother writing?, fellow author Don DeLillo advised Franzen: “Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals” (95-96). Even if literally no one were listening to us, and even if the Church were going to hell in a handbasket such that all hope of improvement were lost, independent Mormon writers would still be at work if only because this process empowers us to maintain and develop differentiated and thoughtful senses of self and personalized meanings. Writers at Exponent II work to neutralize the imbalance we suffer from due to conformity and submission being valued too highly in our religious culture.

We writers are also directly motivated by desires to respond to social and emotional needs caused by the world’s (and in our case, the Church’s) brokenness. Franzen discusses how the tech revolution, which involves ongoing planned obsolescence of both workers and machines and questionable values and objectives that directly hurt lives, is one major example of the kind of harm going on in the world that ensures he’ll always have interested readers and materials to work with. The tech movement leaves continual collateral damage behind it–including newly unemployed people, useless polluting waste, and mental health injuries (209). Our situation in the Mormon sphere is comparable. Someone needs to be there to help people process the detritus and suffering the institutional Church leaves in its wake as it evolves and changes direction over time, and members of our writing community take up this difficult work. As in the tech industry, people and programs end up being treated as unworthy or obsolete again and again over the course of time. The institution’s ongoing process of shedding, sifting and shifting without consulting members or granting them power to help decide its direction ensures that writers like me and communities like Exponent II will always be needed and wanted, and never out of material. We are like a clean up crew and emergency services working among those the Church hurts and abandons in its wake, even like spiritual care medics at times, however limited our reach and resources may be.

Why do we keep reading?

We read because sometimes there is no where else to turn to grapple with the problems we are affected by. Shirley Brice Heath found that those who read substantive literature did so because such works were “the only places where there was some civic, public hope of coming to grips with the ethical, philosophical and sociopolitical dimensions of life that were elsewhere treated so simplistically.” Such texts “refuse to give easy answers to the conflict, to paint things as black and white, good guys versus bad guys” (82). Exponent II readers are drawn to our space for some of the same reasons. We make space for questions and perspectives that defy oversimplified frameworks and rhetoric. Communities like ours are the only public venues where the most difficult dimensions of Mormonism and the LDS Church are acknowledged, held in tension, and examined without arriving at unsatisfying, or dualistic conclusions (such as X is all good/true/innocent or X is all bad/false/ill-intentioned). This works well at Exponent II partly because we accept, include, and value a wide a variety of voices and worldviews.

Sometimes reading helps us carry and make sense of our spiritual burdens in a way that religious institutions fail to do. Franzen writes that “Since religion lost its lock on the educated classes, writers and other artists have assumed extra pain to ease the burden for the rest of us, voluntarily shouldered some of the painful knowing in exchange for a shot at fame or immortality (or simply because they had no choice, it was their nature)…Men and women with especially sharp vision undertook to be the wardens of our discontent. They took the terror and ugliness and general lousiness of the world and returned it to the public as a gift: as works of anger or sadness, perhaps, but always of beauty too” (202). We value others’ writing because it takes ugly, painful, and chaotic experiences and reorder them into beautifully articulated thoughts, feelings, insights, narratives, etc. This writing is not just a complicator for people (though no doubt, it serves that purpose sometimes, which can be unpleasant, but is also a catalyst for learning and growth); it also helps them to process traumas, losses, and personal crises, to be empowered through exposure to new perspectives of their experiences, and to find emotional relief. Reading helps people learn to create meaning, identity, and beauty, in new contexts and stages of their lives.

Reading also offers validation that life and faith are unpredictable, something that is not adequately recognized in Church teachings and narratives. It’s a general pattern that people who’ve faced unpredictability are more likely to read the more complicated stories and material. As Franzen explains, “Therapists and ministers who counsel troubled people tend to read the hard stuff. So do people whose lives haven’t followed the course they were expected to: merchant caste Koreans who don’t become merchants, ghetto kids who go to college, openly gay men from conservative families, and women whose lives have turned out to be radically different from their mothers” (81). 

At Exponent II, we more often than not share stories and frameworks that deviate from the standard scripts that are usually upheld by the Church. We regularly affirm that life is not foreseeable or fair. Most of us who are involved have experienced religious and family outcomes we didn’t anticipate, and the community makes us feel accompanied and seen in this. It can also directly help us face ongoing challenges. In her research, Heath found that, “reading…impinges on the embedded circumstances in people’s lives in such a way that they have to deal with them. And, in so dealing, they come to see themselves as deeper and more capable of handling their inability to have a totally predictable life” (81-82). I believe that voices at Exponent II help others to handle the capriciousness of being human with keener insight, more acceptance, and more confidence.

Sometimes we also read in order to find stories and voices that are particularly relevant to personal circumstances and in which we can see ourselves and explore our inner experiences. Franzen describes how the novel Desperate Characters was unusually “coherent and deadly pertinent” to him when he read it after his divorce. In his words, the book “spoke directly to the ambiguities that I was experiencing…Was it a great thing or a horrible thing that my marriage was coming apart? And did the distress I was feeling derive from some internal sickness of the soul, or was it imposed on me by the sickness of society? That someone besides me had suffered from these ambiguities and had seen light on their far side…felt akin to an instance of religious grace” (57, 74). Exponent II readers have comparable experiences, especially while reading pieces that grapple with personal pain, loss, transition, dilemmas and ambivalence like Franzen did. Sometimes writing here is received, in Franzen’s words, like a religious grace–a compassionate and uncanny token of shared suffering and perplexity, an affirmation that these experiences have meaning worth exploring and even sharing.

So, what are communities of readers and writers about?

Franzen’s perspective is that “readers [and writers] aren’t necessarily “better” or “healthier” or conversely “sicker” than nonreaders.” Rather, “[w]e just happen to belong to a rather strange kind of community” (81). We are the people who need and want to hold deeper, more inclusive, more challenging and more open dialogues about the ongoing problems, questions and tensions that impact our world and lived experiences, in our case particularly with our faith tradition. Our writing and reading provides a sense of “having company in this great human experience” that we need as people who sometimes feel different and alone (83).

Sometimes we write because we can’t help it; reading and writing are intuitive to us and have been ingrained into our way of being in the world starting as early as young childhood. Readers and writers are critical thinkers and thrive on using imagination, drawing connections, and asserting our freedom to communicate and explore through the written word–in many cases it’s just who we are.

And in many cases, some of us probably we didn’t originally feel like writers and did not turn to books so much when we were younger, but we reach some point when we did come to feel different and alienated, and things we once repressed suddenly need to be said and seen in the open.

Collectively, we write because we know what it’s like to feel alone or to be hurt, we recognize life is unpredictable and not in our control, and we share our writing with others knowing we can form connections and community through this medium.

At Exponent II, we might not be fixing the world or the Church, and that might not even be the core point or motive much of the time (though I recognize activism may be an important part of what is going on). We’re forming communities that genuinely respond to peoples’ needs to connect, to discuss difficult and perspective-shifting experiences, and to use and develop their communicative capacities in satisfying and empowering ways.

We write and read to support and to be supported and to grow and be strengthened personally and collectively. Even one sentence can offer a refuge to us and to others. This is the power of honest, authentic writing. It’s a lot to hang on a few words in a blog post or magazine submission, but it seems to be working pretty well for us here.  

Personally, I’m very happy to be one of the many weirdoes whose preferred way of making sense of the world is the written word. And I’m grateful to have discovered Exponent II’s supportive and vibrant community of writers, thinkers, and enthusiastic readers and supporters.

Why donate to Exponent?

Are you part of our “strange community” of people who like to dig deeper into life’s questions through reading and writing? Have the words of Exponent II bloggers proven “deadly pertinent” in understanding your experience, helped you feel less alone, or helped you learn, heal, or grow? If yes, we are so thrilled we’ve been of service as writers. And we invite you to participate in our current blog fundraiser. Please consider making a donation that will go toward powering this blog. The blog is somewhat broken and does not meet our needs (this is very apparent from the backend). We need funds to hire professional tech assistance and to make upgrades. This grassroots community can only continue through the donations of community members who appreciate our work.

Click here to make a tax deductible donation. Thank you!

Feature image: this photo is a selfie I took in the small office in Montreal that I usually write in. I share the space with my composer/music producer teenage son. There is a lot of music playing, and sometimes I leave so he can record his voice. It is decorated with calendar cat art from France. The “fearless feminist Mormon writer” button I’m holding is one I designed myself and have sometimes worn on my backpack.

Seek This Jesus

This poem came to me as I sat, exasperated, thinking about all of the things people tell me about Jesus and God. It was born from a wrestle between what I have been told and what I have experienced. They say to seek this Jesus, but is He the Jesus I know?

“Seek This Jesus”1
But which Jesus?

The “God” who decrees that some sins are next to murder?2
Or the Jesus who says, “Go, and sin no more”3

The “God” who says that a testimony in Christ can defeat all mental illnesses?4
Or the Jesus who says, “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted?”5

The “God” who says that doubts, questions, and struggles are not welcome?6
Or the Jesus who says that a shepherd finding their lost sheep will “rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine who never went astray?”7

The “God” who says women cannot change the direction of a faith?8
Or the Jesus who said, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish?”9

The “God” who believes in hierarchy and status and authority?10
Or the Jesus who says, “The last shall be first”11 and “The kingdom of God is within you?”12

I seek the latter Jesus. The Jesus who so loved the world.
The Jesus who is the light of the world, not a bridegroom ready to spurn the world.
The Jesus who reaches out again and again, seeking the lost sheep.
The Jesus welcoming us home,
We the prodigal children, broken and bruised and ashamed, but still loved.
The Jesus who broke bread and blessed fishes and wept and prayed and listened and healed and loved.

I seek this Jesus.
The one who dwells in my heart.
Who listens to Monsterrat Caballé sing Puccini13 and weeps.
Who frosts a lemon cake and rejoices in the taste.
Who mourns with every woman denied the chance to be a mother
and every woman told motherhood is all she should want.
Who loves my nieces and nephews and wants to create a better world for them.
Who donates blood and hopes that it does something.
Who cries in therapy, because sometimes it is all so hard.
Who loves hugs and always wants the end of a conversation with dear ones to be
“I love you.”

I seek this Jesus.

I seek Him in the strangers on the airplane, tired and waspish.
I seek Him in the profile pictures of the strangers tossing insults in online forums.
I seek Him in the homeless man begging on the sidewalk.
I seek Him in the church members who shot a barb through my heart with their thoughtless words.
Though I seek Him, sometimes I do not find Him.
I continue to seek.

Other times, I find Him when I least expect it.
I find Him in my parents, who love me both perfectly and imperfectly each day.
I find Him in my husband, who listens and supports me, even when he does not understand.
I find Him in the man wearing a mask in a post office and handing me candy because I was nice enough to say hello. 14
I find Him in the friend who came to weep with me when I sat alone after my uncle died.
I find Him in my massage therapist who prays that her hands will be guided to heal my aches and pains.
I find Him in roses, reminding me of the beauty of the Earth.
I find Him when I act as an instrument to mourn and comfort and love.
I find Him when I feel the guilt of failing to mourn and comfort and love.
I find Him as he reminds me that despite my failures,
I am loved. I am good. I am everything to Him.

I seek this Jesus. I pray I can find Him.

Ether 12:41 ↩︎Ether Alma 39:6 ↩︎John 8:11 ↩︎My Young Women Leader to a friend struggling with depression ↩︎Matthew 5:4 ↩︎The ward that rejected my friend when her faith started to falter ↩︎Matthew 18:13 ↩︎Cynthia Winward asks, “In our church do women make even one decision that can’t be overruled by a man?” in What Women Don’t Get in Our Church ↩︎Matthew 15:28 ↩︎Priesthood Authority in the Family and the Church ↩︎Matthew 20:16 ↩︎Luke 17:21 ↩︎Her “Signore, ascolta” changed my life ↩︎2020 ↩︎

From Mormon Pioneer Trail Diaries to Feminist Blog Posts: Finding My Voice

Why I’m supporting the Exponent II Blog Fundraiser and hope you will too.

In January 2020, I submitted my first guest post to the Exponent II blog. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding. I hovered over the “send” button for far too long.

I’d been reading the blog since 2008 but had never dared to write for it myself.

The night before that post went live, I barely slept. I worried about fallout in my ward, with my family, or from strangers online. My fear was big. It was visceral. It was. . . sweaty. But I had reached a point where the pain of silence hurt more than the fear of speaking up.

At the time, I was a stay-at-home mom of four, slowly working on a dream to return to grad school and become a historian. Years earlier, I had worked as a research assistant on a project about the Mormon Trail, and the questions I encountered while reading pioneer trail diaries that summer stayed with me. They kept tugging at me, quietly but persistently asking to be followed. I had been reading Mormon history ever since and had begun research projects that might allow me to enter the conversation.

But sharing my own story and thoughts publicly? That still felt dangerous.

Why was I so afraid of my own voice?

Part of it was personal trauma—childhood experiences that taught me early on that writing honestly could have major consequences. Part of it was cultural: I had absorbed the stories of Mormon feminists who were disciplined or excommunicated for speaking out. And part of it was the pressure I felt to be the “faithful” one in my family, the one whose example might bring others back to church.

All of it lived not just in my mind, but in my body.

And yet I hit “send.” And the world didn’t end.

What happened? I received kind comments. I felt seen. I realized I could speak and survive. Even better? I could speak and find community.

That fear—the one so many of us carry—can silence important conversations before they even begin. But if we want our lives, our churches, and our world to be more equitable, those conversations have to happen.

Over the next year, I published more blog posts. Each one brought another wave of anxiety. But with each post, I chipped away at a silence that had shaped me for too long.

Then, at the end of 2020, two emails landed in my inbox the same week: one inviting me to become a permablogger for Exponent II, and another telling me my Mormon History Association proposal had been accepted.

That small act of clicking “send” changed the course of my life.

Since then, I’ve published in the Journal of Mormon History and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, co-authored Fifty Years of Exponent II with Heather Sundahl, and collaborated with writers and scholars I once only admired from afar. But the Exponent II blog is where it all started.

It gave me my first real platform. It helped me rebuild trust in my voice. It let me speak publicly without apology, just as it has done for so many others. Now the Exponent II blog needs your help.

Good storytelling deserves good infrastructure.

It’s easy to overlook tech work, because when it’s done right, you don’t notice it. But behind every readable blog post is a lot of invisible labor—site maintenance, updates, formatting, backups. When that infrastructure breaks, it’s not just inconvenient. It can stop a story from being told.

Our blog is powered by volunteers who give generously of their time and energy. But we’re at the point where the wheels are starting to wobble a little. We need professional help to manage the overlapping demands of our digital ecosystem—retreat registration, magazine subscriptions, blog publishing—and to take pressure off writers like me who are doing their best but aren’t trained in tech project management.

We will always be volunteer-led. But we don’t want to be a blog that breaks down like a handcart in the middle of Wyoming. We need funding to pay professionals who can help us do this work with sustainability and care.

If the blog has mattered to you, or if you believe in amplifying women’s and gender-expansive voices in faith spaces that haven’t always welcomed them, please consider donating.

We are a legacy project, more than fifty years strong. And like the pioneers we honor this time of year, we’re still moving forward, still carving paths, still making space.

Your support helps us build a digital home worthy of the voices it holds. Thank you for being part of this community. Thank you for reading, caring, and helping ensure our stories continue to be told.

Feature image credit: Photo by Stephen Hui on Unsplash

Help the Exponent II Blog Raise Funds to Improve Our Website!

While the Exponent II Blog is free to read, our hosting fees and website support contracts are not!

If you enjoy the blog, now is the time to help us do what we do, even better. We are currently hosting a fundraiser with the goal to raise $10,000 for the Exponent II website. All funds raised will help us improve our website design, user experience and operational efficiency. These investments will greatly benefit the thousands of readers of the Exponent II Blog and the digital version of Exponent II magazine.

Whether you donate $5 or $500, your contributions make an impact.

How to donate:

Donate through our website, please add “For the Website” in your donation note.Donate through our fundraisers on Facebook or  (then re-share the fundraisers on your social media!). Donate by shopping for Exponent II merch on our Bonfire store — including our new blog designs, with t-shirts, sweatshirts and tank tops!  Shop this tank top and more at our Bonfire store!

The Exponent II Blog launched in January 2006 in order to host discussions about important events and ideas in the world of Mormon feminism. The blog functions as a free and geographically expansive space where women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum can gather to share stories and offer support to one another in a spirit of trust.

The Exponent II Blog welcomes guest posts and comments, allowing readers to become authors and authors to become readers in a continuing conversation.

Thank you for your support!