Exponent II's Blog, page 180

The Eight Cow Wife: A Toxic Iconic Mormon Parable

The first time I remember seeing this film was at a ward party in the 1980s. I was a child and didn’t really understand it, but many of the messages seeped into my worldview and self concept. “Johnny Lingo” was made in 1969 and is steeped in racist, colonialist, and sexist ideas. The setting for the story is a small Polynesian island. The culture is misrepresented and appropriated for a morality tale. The people are presented as rather backward, simple, and mean-spirited. Their values are ridiculous. A white trader is the narrator that interprets the story for the white audience. I looked it up on imdb and found that it has 7 out of 10 stars. Appalling. This suggests to me that Mormon audiences are giving it high marks because it is familiar and they won’t look with their rational minds and see the problems with it. The fact that it was produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints interferes with their ability to reason. Many churchgoers will not dare criticize anything put out by the church. The story was written by Patricia McGerr, the screenplay by Claire Whitaker. I was disappointed to see that this misogynistic story was written by women, but not really surprised. Experience has shown me that women are the worst perpetuators of sexism.

[image error]

“You don’t know what it means to have a homely daughter,” says Moki, the ugly man talking with another man about striking a deal to sell his daughter as a wife. Wives are described as workers who mend the roof and fix supper. And apparently they must also be attractive, though men are allowed to be as ugly as they are and act even uglier.

Daughter Mahana is cringing, hiding in a tree. Her father threatens to bruise her to show everyone what a disobedient daughter she is. Never is his behavior questioned. He is free to berate and threaten violence against his daughter. He demands that she come down. Then at the bargaining he excuses her absence as ‘the industrious girl never stops working’.

The men sit and make an economic arrangement where a woman (Mahana) is bought and sold. Women are property to be exchanged by men. Johnny Lingo, the title character, has a reputation as a shrewd trader. People in the village anticipate he will bargain to get a wife for the lowest amount possible, ‘two hoofs and a tail’ is the joke. The entire village laughs when Mahana’s father asks for three cows. Then comes the plot twist—Johnny Lingo says that is not enough for Mahana and offers eight cows –higher than any price paid for a woman in the village. The wedding will be the next day, he will bring the cows. We hear that ‘with two or three cows a man can buy quite a decent wife on this island’ and ‘for 4 or 5 he can buy a superior one’. Women brag about how much their husbands paid for them. This sets up a dynamic where women are always judging themselves against each other.

Having heard about the bargaining, Mr. Harris (the white shopkeeper) thinks Johnny Lingo is vain – wanting people always and forever to remember that he paid eight cows for Mahana. Johnny Lingo exchanges a shell to Mr. Harris and orders a gold carved mirror as a wedding gift for Mahana. Johnny Lingo is shown as a man who knows the value of things. He knows that the shell he has is rare and valuable and knows what he wants for it.

Mahana thinks she’s being mocked but then the cows arrive, and she reluctantly exits the hut to join Johnny Lingo. At the wedding feast, boys tease “Johnny Lingo had a cow, trade it for an ugly wife. Johnny Lingo married now, he’ll be sorry all his life.” Mahana and Johnny Lingo leave in canoe for their honeymoon, they are gone for months.

Mr. Harris’s shop assistant says Mahana’s ugly face will break the glass of the mirror. Mr. Harris delivers mirror and is shocked to see a beautiful and gracious Mahana accompanying Johnny Lingo. “Your gift to me can be seen by all.” Johnny Lingo says to Mahana. So, apparently her physical beauty is her gift to him. She is sent to get water.

“She was always beautiful,” Johnny Lingo tells Mr. Harris. Duh! All of us in the audience can see that. But she was treated appallingly by her father. It never made sense that people were calling her ugly. “Think what it means for a woman to know what their husbands paid for them,” Johnny Lingo expounds. Mr. Harris admits misjudging Johnny Lingo, who was actually making Mahana happy. “The thing that matters most is what she thinks of herself. Now she knows she is worth more than any other woman on the island,” says Johnny Lingo. Interesting. Do women need to think they are more valuable than their peers to feel happy? It is strange that the moral of this story is supposed to be about what a woman thinks of herself. Actually it demonstrates that a woman should get her sense of her worth from the men in her life. Mahana thought she was ugly and was craven in her father’s household. With Johnny Lingo she held her head high and smiled and was well kempt because he showed her she was valuable.

implicit lessons taught about women

–          Women are valued primarily for appearance

–          Men set value of women as commodities

–          Worth not inherent, given by a man recognizing it in her

–          Woman needs lavish gifts for others to see her worthiness

–          Women must believe what they are told about themselves by the men in their lives (i.e. “Mahana you ugly”)

–          Men can treat women however they want. If they treat them well they will become beautiful

I’ve been noticing that a lot of my most uncomfortable deeply held beliefs about myself are reflected in this toxic messages in this film. I expected to feel valued by how my husband treated me. Although I didn’t expect him to pay for me, I expected to know that I was valued by getting gifts and being told I was special. My father told me so often that I was selfish, so I tried hard not to be. I took on the role of Mormon martyr mother, denying my own desires and self-sacrificing for my family—but I also became filled with resentment. I thought my husband had to see how hard I was working and be the one to reward me for/give me relief from my work. I was so angry that he never did those things. I was waiting to be an eight cow wife. This story of Johnny Lingo doesn’t show what a woman who recognizes her inherent value looks like. Is there any such story told in all of Mormonism? Can’t a woman who is treated badly still be valuable? Can a woman act with a sense of her own worth and ignore the men in her life? Can she let go of wanting others to convince her of her worth? Can she be her own hero?

Seeds of Faith: Eradicating the Roots and Shoots of Racism in Modern Mormonism

[image error]

Plant, seed, and soil symbolism abound in holy writ. Seeds of faith may start out small, like a mustard seed, and then swell, enlarge, sprout and become delicious. Seeds may fall on various terrains that are more or less hospitable to germination. Small faith may grow powerful enough to move mountains. In some fields, desired plants and weeds may grow up together and require sorting at the period of harvest.

As anciently as 300 B.C.E., the wild mustard plant was cultivated into a variety of other vegetables. In the days of Christ, wild mustard had been cultivated into kale, collard greens, and Chinese broccoli.  Today we also have cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, and other varieties of cruciferous vegetables – all originating from Wild Mustard! – thanks to centuries of work by ingenious farmers and horticulturists.

Likewise, the small mustard-seed-sized particles of faith held by Latter-day Saints can develop into a variety of uniquely cultivated and contrasting belief structures.  The seeds of faith that have been nurtured over time, given favorable terrain, and watered with ongoing attention will develop deep root systems and can grow to occupy significant space in the garden of belief.

In many cases, these seeds of faith are good seeds. When planted in nutrient-rich soil, and fed and watered with good intent, they can grow into plants that delight the senses, are delicious to the taste and very desirable.

Not all plants in the belief gardens of Latter-day Saints have grown from good seeds. Many bad seeds have been planted, tended, watered and have grown into huge, harmful, noxious multi-generational weeds.  In this period of harvest, and in the planting of new gardens of belief in the minds of young people, Latter-day Saints must do more than cut back these overgrown plants of bad faith, we must dig out the roots and burn the ground so no future generations of the same bad seeds can ever swell or sprout again.  We must water other good seeds to take over the ground in this place.

One seed of bad faith that has been watered and cultivated for over 100 years is the LDS racism of anti-blackness, colorism, and white superiority.  For decades, church leaders taught that people of African descent were unqualified for ordination to the priesthood or to receive saving ordinances in the temple, which simultaneously limited the state of their exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom with God, according to the doctrine of salvation taught at the time.  Members were also taught colorist beliefs about the skin tone of Indigenous Americans becoming lighter as they accepted the gospel and became more righteous. Generations of members received these teachings from their prophets, apostles and other revered leaders as God’s truth.  Each time these teachings were reinforced by additional leaders, the seed of bad faith was watered until millions of current church members and their generations of pioneer ancestors had been exposed to this cultivar of the exclusivity of a racist and “whites-only” heaven.  These teachings are a multi-generational poisonous plant in the garden of belief, grown from a seed of bad faith, and watered until they became strong, like unto other beliefs.

In her public facebook post describing  how seeds of bad-faith racism were watered by perpetuating racist teachings in printed church materials, Dr. LaShawn Williams states: “Folks with ‘faith like a mustard seed’ in the belief that The Book & The Brethren were right that dark skin is a curse are sitting next to you and leading music and teaching primary and serving missions. That seed has been watered.”

Church leaders were wrong to preach these exclusive policies as ever being doctrine from God. My parents and grandparents and yours were wrong to believe it. For decades and generations, the seeds of bad faith grew into institutional and individual racism like an invasive, choking vine with poisonous darts. Our ancestors had faith in the teachings of church leaders for many positive and uplifting messages, even faith in their saving ordinances, so when these same church leaders comingled teaching racist beliefs with other gospel principles, it may have been difficult for our ancestors to differentiate what teachings to believe and which to abandon. Some of our own white ancestors may have been those leaders who preached racist ideologies. It can be challenging to see leaders as nuanced individuals with some right ideas and some very wrong ideas. Many members want the security of believing that the church is led by always-inspired, nigh-infallible prophets and apostles. Unfortunately, seeing the church leaders and members as rightly justified in their racial biases only serves to wrongly cast God as a discriminating, racist being, a notion that is irreconcilable with the fundamental truth of God being no respecter of persons.

We cannot accept that LDS teachings were merely just a “product of their time” or that nobody with the power to change them “knew any better.” Some people at the time DID know better, and acted better (though not perfectly).  We observe in our sister-faith, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (now Community of Christ) how Joseph Smith III received revelation to ordain men of every race in 1865, and in 1866 passed a resolution stating, “the Author of Life and Salvation does not discriminate among his rational creatures on account of Colour neither does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.”

The Brighamite faction of the LDS church did not follow suit for more than 100 years, during which time the seeds of bad faith continued to stir up in the hearts of members around the world.

Thanks to the valuable work of Darius Gray and other members of the Genesis group, who advocated early-on for a reversal on the Priesthood and temple ban, the Official Declaration in 1978 to grant all priesthood and temple blessings without limitations to members of any ancestry was a crucial step in cutting back the overgrown racism that had run rampant in the belief gardens of the members. Church leaders began to backpedal their previously articulated folk doctrines and bad teachings by saying, “Forget everything that I have said” but neglected giving further instructions as to how to “unlearn” their previous teachings, as though small statements and pieces of paper were powerful enough to exterminate the plant that had such a tenacious generational grasp.  In his famed 1996 interview on 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace, President Hinckley said of LDS racism, “It’s behind us. Look, that’s behind us. Don’t worry about those little flicks of history.”

It has been 24 years since President Hinckley called instances of LDS racism the “little flicks of history” and yet, still today in 2020, we regularly see signs that the eradication of the institutional and individual racism of LDS members has not been fully carried out.  Racist interpretations of verses in the Book of Mormon were printed in church study materials this year, and official alternative explanations around the original text are still unsatisfactory.  Some BYU students today (who most likely would have been born post-1978) are still broadcasting their racist beliefs, evidence of bad seed cultivars that have been watered and grown over the course of their lives. Retired BYU Professor Randy Bott was still perpetuating racist folk doctrines in his courses at BYU and in media interviews as recently as 2012, and despite disavowals of his teachings by church PR, was not removed from his teaching position until voluntary retirement and his call as a senior couple missionary with his wife.

Diminishing the magnitude of lingering systemic institutional and individual anti-Black and Indigenous racism as a “little flick” of history does not support the urgency of how badly we need anti-racist leadership and correction in our LDS teachings and rhetoric today.  Minimizing the seriousness or depth of impact only serves to keep white members comfortable in their racial complacency and fragility.

Post-1978, what other strangleholds does this noxious vine of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism still have on the hearts of members? Without reconciliations or reparations for decades of faulty teachings, or official apologies to those marginalized by the policy as it stood, the Official Declaration does not work to cut out the roots or offshoots of protracted, multi-generational white supremacy peddled as God’s plan for His children.

In 2013, the Church published an essay about “Race and the Priesthood” – the first official acknowledgment that the ban was a product of “American racial culture” (i.e racism) and not “divine disfavor. The essay formally disavowed the past teachings which claimed doctrinal justifications for the ban. When asked for comments about issues that appear in LDS culture surrounding race, Church leaders and PR statements unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present. While these statements and documents are important components to a more racially literate membership, they do not go far enough to help individual members address or retrain their engrained racial biases. Many members are still unaware of the existence of the essay and continue to promote the now-disavowed racist teachings in lessons and public discourses, to the ongoing detriment of members of color in our wards. Those of us who are aware of a better way must raise our voices against such teachings at every utterance, and actively promote intentional examinations of internalized racial prejudice. We must approach our conversations about LDS racism with racial literacy and racial stamina and not recoil with ignorance and fragility.

Two notable women of mixed-race Latina heritage are bringing attention to the ways these poisonous policies affected the Mexican side of their families. April Carlson shared how the veins of white supremacy in her family culture led her parents and grandparents to deny having African ancestors in order to prevent their own priesthood and temple blessings from being withheld. Michelle Franzoni Thorley frequently posts on her Instagram account about how to overcome the challenges she encounters with family history work and intergenerational trauma due to white supremacy, and the reluctance of many of the Latino diaspora to investigate more into their family history.  She reminds her BIPOC followers that ALL the ancestors are worthy of claiming and remembering. These women are healing ministers, watering seeds of good faith and nurturing new cultivars of belief in the hearts of so many.  They are good ancestors for every future generation.

Church teachings about white supremacy and anti-Black/Indigenous racism were accepted as doctrine for so long, and whether we recognize it or not, these oppressive teachings impact the way we’ve been raised to see ourselves and others. It impacts how we may view worthiness, or how we perceive God’s favor. It may lead us to judge who qualifies for exaltation or determine who might be excluded from heaven. Even more insidious, we may believe ourselves stripped of racist beliefs and resist seeing our own errors or retained prejudices pointed out. These plants were watered and fertilized for more than a hundred years, passed down from leaders to grandparents to parents to children. Today’s iterations of these beliefs still harm Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color with aggressive and micro-aggressive words and displays of racism and fragility within the church by its own members. It is not our fault that this seed of bad faith was once planted in our garden, but it is up to us to exterminate and replace it with something much better.

Quoting again from Dr. Williams, she offers these reflections:

“ Can you identify, explore, discuss and articulate how your hearts and minds have changed from believing in racism as you were probably taught at Church? How did you get from what you were taught and who you were then, to what you teach today and who you are now? What were the experiences and confirmations from God that helped you let go of racist thinking in your holy text? Are you still struggling to let go of the racism? How can your ward help you? What work can y’all engage together?”

These suggestions of how to think, speak, and act in ways that break down the mountain of internalized racism built by generations of white-supremacist teachings will be much-needed water for good seeds. In the words of Jesus, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place: and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”  From seeds of good faith grow cultivars of new belief, removing mountains of prejudice.

May they ever be “seeds by faithful souls remembered, sown in tears and love and prayer.”

The errand of imagining is given to women.

[image error]Reading the book of Mormon is hard if you identify as a woman and/or if you care about gender representation.  It is a book written “for our day” – and in the sense of the truths therein, I believe that.  But it is also a book written by men, about men, for men.  The book tells of of male heroes performing masculinity in male contexts.  They are seers, bold adventurers, angels, hunters, prophets.  They are kings and warriors and missionaries.  They travel to unknown lands and conquer and plunder and sin and repent.  How they reproduced for 600 years is something of a mystery because women barely appear at all in the narrative.  Perhaps the noble Nephites sprang from spores.

The errand of imagining is given to women.  The scriptures tell us we should “liken the scriptures” unto ourselves – but imagining you’re a dude is much easier if you already identify as male.  Imagining you’re Nephi is at two removes for women – imagine you’re male.  Okay, not easy.  Now imagine you lived 200 years ago.  Okay, I did that. Now rinse and repeat for the next 500 pages.

I think it is fairly common knowledge that there are only six named females in the Book of Mormon: Eve, Sarah, Mary (references to the Bible, not actual personages who act); Sariah and Abish who appear as actors; and Isabel, whom we don’t meet but we hear about her harlotry.  That’s it.  But the work of imagining also includes other pronouns – him/her, she/he as well as gendered nouns: prophet/prophetess, mother/father, harlot, whore, virgin.

Where do the scriptures make the work of imagining easy for women, and where is it difficult? How often do I easily imagine myself as the heroine? How often do I easily see myself as the villain or victim? Numbers are deceptive in isolation – after all, having three named female actors would be excellent representation in a book that had only six characters overall.

I decided to do a little data collection. I’m ready to admit that my numbers might be a little off.  My main source was an online version of the Book of Mormon that allowed me to search by term, and then using the find tool to count how many times the word appeared.  For the list of male personages I looked at the Wikipedia entry for List of Book of Mormon people and counted.

Without further ado, let’s take a look.

Named people of the book of Mormon: This excludes folk who were actually Bible characters (Mary, Adam, Isaiah) and  were not in the Americas.

Male: 204

Female: 3

Well that’s not great.  Let’s look at broader terms.

———————————-

Father: 624 times

Mother: 46 times.

Wow! That’s a lot of mothers.  Is it? Remember the term often refers to the same mother.  Who, exactly? The good news: Sariah.  Mother of daughters of Ishmael. Mary. Honor father and mother.  Lord called from womb, bowels of mother.  Queens nursing mothers.  Mother earth.  Quotations of Isaiah. Mother olive tree. Mothers of stripling warriors.

On the down side: Mother Gentiles go to war against (the 13 colonies?). Abominable church is mother of harlots. Mother of abominations.  For your transgressions is your mother put away.  Mothers victims of disaster.

Hmmmmm.  Is my four year old or my two year old the abomination? Or both?  They’re both boys and the scriptures teach us that only girls can be harlots.

———————————-

Son: 712 times

Daughter: 101

On the plus/okay side: daughters if Ishmael.  Daughters shall be carried on shoulders.    Daughter of Gallim (quoting Isaiah).  Daughters at Benjamins speech.  Daughters of Christ.  Daughters not work on sabbath.  Daughters of God. Daughters become exceedingly fair and are numbered among the Nephites. Daughters begotten by lots of guys.

On the down side: Daughters of Laman and Lemuel warned about dark future. Cries of fair daughters of this people about sexual sins — so the daughters themselves aren’t bad, but are caught in adulterous and polygamous marriages. Captive daughter of Zion, haughty, wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, crown of head smitten with a scab. Filth of daughters of Zion. Daughters of people of Limhi mourn. Daughters led away captive.    Daughters sent forth to plead with Lamanites – human bait for mercy.  Daughters of Lamanites dancing and carried away in wilderness.  Ammon offered a daughter of Lamoni to wife — this is supposed to be a good thing, but probably not from the perspective of the girl being offered as a prize to the former shepherd from out of town.  Lamoni’s daughters mourn.  Daughters would have been spared and not buried in Moronihah if we had repented.  Daughters fair ones, how fallen.    Daughter of Jared plots and dances.  Daughters raped, tortured and eaten.  Let’s just reemphasize that last one.  The grand finale for the daughters of the Book of Mormon is sexual violation, torture, and cannibalism.

———————————-

Brother: 252 times

Sister: 1 time – Nephi’s sisters follow him.

———————————-

He – more than 1000 matches – my computer was unwilling to continue counting.

She – 61 times.

She [Mary] was fair and white. She is Zion.  She is an unnamed Ammonite Queen.  She is Abish.    She is the earth.  She is a sexy dancer who plots. she complained against my father. She is the whore of all the earth.  She is a ship that is lost. She is a vessel tossed on the waves. So half the time “she” isn’t even a person – she’s a boat or an abstraction or the embodiment of sin.  Neat.

———————————-

Him: 952 times

Her: 88 times

———————————-

Priest: 176 times

Priestess: Not found

———————————-

Prophet: 256 times

Prophetess: 1 time – a quotation of Isaiah.

———————————-

Virgin (male) — not found

Virgin (female) — 9 times

———————————-

A finale of gendered nouns:  Some nouns are only ever used to refer to a man or a woman, with no cross-gender equivalent.  The Savior, for example, has 67 different names used by various Book of Mormon authors.*  These include epithets like Redeemer, Savior, Shepherd, Mighty One of Israel, Lord Omnipotent, Great Mediator and God, to name just a few.  That is a beautiful and inspiring list the characteristics of a man who had no female analogue.  We all aspire to be like the Savior.  It might be just a little easier for someone who is a father on earth to see himself in someone who is called Father of Heaven and Earth, Eternal Father, Father and Son, a Son of God and Beloved Son.

What female-specific words do we have that have no male counterpart?

Harlot: 11 times

Whore: 8 times.

 

As a final exercise I decided to do a name search of my known female personages, along with an accompanying male personage, just to get a sense of how much space a related character takes up.  How many times were they mentioned by name?

Adam: 26 times

Eve: 3 times

———————————-

Abraham: 28 times

Sarah: 1 time

———————————-

Joseph (earthly father of Jesus): 0 times

Mary: 2 times

———————————-

Lehi: 142 times

Sariah: 4 times

———————————-

Ammon: 234 times (they were both missionaries who served the same people and participated in their conversion, hence putting them together as a pairing).

Abish: 1 time

———————————-

Corianton: 3 times

Isabel: 1 time

———————————-

I know that many, perhaps even most women who identify as LDS don’t have any issue with representation in the Book of Mormon.  They find it deeply meaningful in a personal way.  And that’s wonderful.  A huge part of me misses when I was there too.  But I’m not crazy for feeling like this book isn’t about me or for me from a narrative perspective.  I find reading the story to be alienating at best. At worst I feel erased, invisible or filthy, and wonder if that is how God sees me, or if that is my eternal destiny.  For me, the Book of Mormon is most meaningful in excerpts – when I read passages that teach true principles about our Savior.  There are passages of soaring beauty and eternal hope and pure doctrine.  The narrative aspect though?

 

Book of Mormon Stories that my teacher tells to me

Are about a lot of dudes and are not about me

Long ago some righteous men wrote down their history

And forgot to write down her / hers / she.

 

I don’t want to end on a totally sour note.  On a more practical level, does anyone have ideas about how to read or study the Book of Mormon without constantly being struck by the total absence of women? How can I still have a meaningful relationship with this book of scripture (and the Doctrine and Covenants, which is not better…) when I find it so alienating and diminishing? Help? Just read snippets? Stick to highlights? Read a companion book of study?  How can I teach this to my sons without reinforcing the message that only boys matter?

*https://byustudies.byu.edu/charts/44-...

Winners of the 2019 Art Scholarship: Hanna Choi

Last year, Exponent started an annual art scholarship for Mormon women of color. The goal of the scholarship continues to be to amplify the voices of LDS women artists of color by lending needed support for them to be able to continue to develop their art.

Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing the work and words of some of the recipients of that scholarship. These extraordinary women have the ability to seismically change the artistic language of the Church: imagine Come Follow Me manuals, Church members’ homes or Church building hallways full of their work. We’re grateful that they shared it with this community and look forward to announcing this year’s scholarship very soon. If you’d like to contribute to the fund for this year’s scholarship, please contact exponentiieditor AT gmail DOT com.

[image error]

Hanna Choi: A Korean artist blooming in Rexburg, Idaho!
I was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea until I came to BYU to study. I always loved art but I was afraid to try and pursue an art career. However, one day on my mission in South Korea, my 6-year-old investigator asked me to draw Thor. So, I drew it with a pencil and saw that it brought the biggest smile on her face. That day, with the simple incident, something has changed. I thought, ‘What am I doing with my gift? God gave me this precious gift. I could make a little girl smile. I should use it to brighten the world.’ Later when I returned from my mission, this thought helped me have courage and eventually led me to the application to the art program at BYU. In my last semester at BYU, I met my husband who was also from Korea and getting ready to apply to BYUI. After we got married, we moved to Rexburg where our new chapter began. Adjusting to married life was joyful but differnet, and in the midst of this new journey I have found the role of art in my life even more. As a wife and a future mother-to-be, I have been practicing and pursuing my own way of art to brighten the world a little more today. “Although thy beginning was small, but thy latter end should greatly increase.” (Job 8:7)

[image error]

My Work
My art statement is based on the Articles of Faith 1:13. I seek after anything virtuous, innocent, lovely, and pure. Especially I love to portrait motherhood, womenhood, babies, and purity. I love to draw and paint anything that makes the world a little brighter. I am pursuing realism and recently had an idea of combining realism and abstract art together. Both styles are beautiful and we need both. This will come with time in my artworks. One of my ultimate goals is to have my paintings in the temples (my husband who is studying Civil Engineering wants to build temples so it’s perfect!). I desire to be used as His tools when the right time comes. I believe this can come true if I keep improving myself with diligence and efforts.

[image error]

And thou shalt have treasure in Heaven

[image error]Image by Frantisek Krejci

“Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” Matthew 19:21 (KJV)

In December 2019 the news broke that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has amassed a fortune of at least $100 billion. Roger Clarke, head of Ensign Peak Advisors, which manages the investment holdings, told The Wall Street Journal that the reason why the amount of money, which comes from tithing dollars, was kept hush hush is because paying 10% of their income in the form of tithing is a commitment members make to the church and they never want members to feel as if they shouldn’t contribute. The whistle blower who leaked the information to the press has said that the church has indicated that the need for that amount of funds is for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

To me, hoarding $100 billion to be used at a later, unknown date, when there are human beings suffering here and now is, frankly, obscene. I’ve listened to all of the apologetic arguments of why a single entity needs that amount of money and none of them make any ethical or moral sense to me. Not when in my daily profession as a social worker I see so much suffering that can be solved with money, and in my opinion, should be solved with money by a church that claims to be headed by Jesus Christ. Here are just a few world issues that leading experts have said could be solved with $100 billion USD. To me these issues are more in line with Christ’s mission of giving to the poor and following Him, than money just sitting in an investment fund collecting interest.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that it would only cost $1 billion to eliminate trachoma world-wide. 200 million people are at risk of blindness caused by trachoma and 3.6 million of them need surgery to prevent the loss of eyesight. And it would be easy to eradicate it because trachoma is caused by bacteria that is treatable with antibiotics.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that it would only take $1.5 billion to eradicate polio. Although polio has been almost completely eradicated, there is still an endemic in 3 countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Researchers at Bentley University in Massachusetts believe that $8.5 billion would completely eradicate malaria. Malaria is a mosquito-borne illness that is still killing hundreds of thousands of people a year.
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations estimates that world hunger could be ended with just $30 billion. Just a cool $30 billion and all of the malnourished people in the entire world would have adequate nutrition.
According to WaterAid about 2.3 billion people don’t have a decent toilet and 844 million people don’t have access to clean water. Experts at the World bank estimate the cost of delivering universal safe drinking water and sanitation is estimated at $150 billion a year.
Experts have suggested that to end extreme poverty worldwide would cost $175 billion. Extreme poverty is defined in the most basic sense as having an income of less than $1.90 a day.

My favorite Scripture verses in the New Testament are in
Matthew 25. Verses 31 – 46 are known as the “Final Judgment” verses when Christ
will separate the sheep from the goats. The sheep are the righteous who treated
those who were the “least of these” like they would treat Christ, Himself.

“For I was hungry and you gave me
food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed
me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in
prison and you came to me.”

The goats are the unrighteous who did none of those things. They
deny those in need food, drink, fellowship, clothing, shelter, safety, warmth,
friendship. “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous
into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:46).

Greed takes so many forms and allowing people to suffer needlessly when you have the solution is the opposite of being a sheep to me. When the final judgment comes, I don’t want to stand before the Shepherd, my Savior, Jesus Christ, knowing that I was a goat who saw needs, who saw suffering, and gave only a little or did nothing at all. I wonder what Christ would think of people using his name to stockpile revenue in cash when they could end world hunger three times over. I’m sure there will be those who argue with me and will tell me all of the good acts of service the Church does, and I would never deny that they do. But it isn’t enough when the resources you have are so great. “To whom much is given, much is required.”

And this is what I find most reprehensible – To allow people to suffer the world over, to deny people temple recommends or help from church welfare UNLESS they pay their tithing, to coax good people who love Jesus Christ and just want to serve Him out of 10% or more of their income under threat of their eternal salvation, to tell poverty stricken people to pay their tithing before they buy food for their children, while sitting on a proverbial mountain of gold is greedy.

And greed will always be the moral character of a goat.

A Response to Barbara Gardner’s Women and Priesthood Theology

[image error]“Relief Society Healing” by Anthony Sweat

A friend recently sent me an interview of Barbara Gardner, author of The Priesthood Power of Women, and asked for my thoughts. I haven’t read the book, but I’m somewhat familiar with Barbara Gardner, and she is articulate and well-read. I really admire women who diligently work to carve out a space for themselves in theology/scripture/policy/practice that is largely written around men. I think it is a good and noble work, especially because it at least obliquely acknowledges that there is a problem (even if it sometimes misplaces the blame), it gets people thinking about creative ways to work around current policy to be more inclusive to women, and it initiates a conversation about something that has been taboo for too long. Apologetics like Gardner’s (and Sheri Dew’s and Valerie Cassler’s) were really comforting and helpful to me for a long time, and I think if they work for some people, that’s great. They don’t work for me anymore.

It’s important to give a disclaimer that I’m coming at this from a mindframe that is fundamentally at odds with Gardner’s: I don’t believe in divinely mandated gender roles, I don’t believe in a God who would set up a system where only men (or “key holders,” as Gardner calls them), are gatekeepers of power and authority, and I’m deeply allergic to authoritarian hierarchical power structures (so conversations about “who presides in this instance” are not only uninteresting to me, they’re incredibly off-putting, especially since the answer in church settings is nearly always “a man”). 

When members are told by Pres. Nelson or people like Barbara Gardner that women just need to study or speak up more or that bishops just need to be more prayerful about how to better utilize women, it’s incredibly disingenuous because the system is literally set up in a way that marginalizes women. We don’t have any books or talks pleading with men “we need your voices!” or telling leaders to find creative ways to better utilize men, and that’s because the system itself gives men a voice and lays out many ways for them to participate and be utilized in the leadership hierarchies of the church. 

Neylan McBaine’s Women at Church is full of suggestions for how to incorporate women into the male-centric handbook as-written, which I love. The problem, though, in my experience, is that priesthood leaders generally default to the most restrictive reading of the handbook, “just to be safe.” So even if they could theoretically interpret the handbook in a more generous way, they’ll be too uncomfortable to actually do it. There are obviously great leaders who genuinely try to put people before policy, but my experience has been that most leaders just aren’t comfortable violating tradition, even if it isn’t explicitly prohibited. 

I guess you could say that the problem there lies with individual bishops, which is what Gardner implicitly suggests, but is it really? There are 12 pages in Handbook 2 that specify every detail about performing each ordinance, and nowhere in those 12 pages are there ideas or allowances for how women can participate (with the recent exception of children and women now being allowed to witness). I contend that the problem lies, not with bishops just not asking the right questions or implementing their own creative ways to utilize women, but with the fact that the vast majority of our policies simply weren’t written with women in mind. If the prophet wanted women and young women to be better utilized, there are myriad ways the church could enact policies, effective immediately, that better utilize us. Asking bishops to prayerfully figure out their own ways to expand women’s roles in their ward needlessly sets up a situation of inconsistent leadership in a church that prides itself in consistency across congregations. Enacting policy that makes room for women on a church-wide level is the most practical and efficient solution. 

Regarding when a leader disregards a woman’s revelation or makes a call not in line with God’s will, Gardner said, “I believe that every person in the church will always be blessed by following the key holder in being obedient to the Lord regardless. We’ll just let the key holder take care of the judgment day.” I find statements like this that assume infallibility of leaders or that advocate obeying authority at the expense of listening to one’s God-given conscience to be dangerous and troubling. Following a leader when we know he’s wrong–whether it’s the bishop or the prophet–and expecting God will give us a pass because we were just doing what we were told even though we knew better–that is heresy. At least, it should be. 

Gardner implies that many women just don’t want to study/learn about their priesthood blessings/responsibilities, which is why there is such a lack of understanding of women’s priesthood roles. Aside from the fact that men have literally hundreds of pages of scripture and manuals and Conference talks about what their priesthood means and how to use it and women only have a few vague paragraphs in a handful of Conference talks, Gardner presents her conclusions she received through personal study and revelation as obvious fact that anyone else could “discover” if they just studied hard enough, like that there are two different structures of priesthood: hierarchical, which is used mostly by men to administrate the church, and patriarchal, which is exercised in families as husband and wife “preside” together (except that the husband actually presides, but in this case, inexplicably, “preside” doesn’t mean the same as “preside” means in the hierarchical priesthood, because in the hierarchical priesthood, a man with keys can overrule a woman by virtue of his authority, but in the patriarchal priesthood, a husband can’t do that to his wife, and if he does, “amen to his priesthood”). (Did you follow that? Because I’m not sure I did.)

It seems imprudent to blame women (or men) for not understanding these two different priesthood structures (that have never been taught or written about anywhere) or the two different definitions of “preside,” especially since the temple, for decades, made it clear that “preside” in a marriage context meant that women were to obey or hearken to their husbands. There has never been a disclaimer either in the temple or in Conference talks or lessons stating that covenant wasn’t literal, and dismissing women who believe God wants them to be submissive to their husbands because they accepted the temple at face value by saying they “misunderstood” what was explicitly taught there is a textbook example of gaslighting. 

I actually did recently study the responsibilities for various priesthood offices in the scriptures and in church handbooks, and here were my takeaways:

– There is no scriptural or doctrinal reason why women can’t pass, set up, or take down the sacrament

– There is no scriptural or doctrinal reason why women can’t hold their babies when they’re blessed or place their hands on their husband’s when blessing their children or giving voice while blessing their children

– There is no scriptural or doctrinal reason why women can’t serve in Sunday School presidencies, as ward mission leaders, as zone leaders or APs, as ushers during the sacrament or other meetings, or be in church buildings without a man, or conduct a baptismal service, or sit at the recommend desk in the temple, or pray in the temple, or, honestly, hold the priesthood [1] 

– There is 100 years of historical precedent for women blessing and anointing with oil (something I consider part of the restoration) which was arbitrarily taken away and has not been reinstated

– According to Dallin Oaks, women in the temple initiatory officiate ordinances using delegated priesthood keys. There is precedent for women to perform ordinances even without being ordained to the priesthood

At what point are we going to stop putting the blame on women for not studying or striving or speaking up enough or on bishops for not coloring outside the lines that have been clearly drawn for them and place it where it belongs, which is the way the church itself is structured? 

While I personally find many of Gardner’s ideas to be flawed, potentially harmful, gaslighting mental gymnastics that do not reflect my understanding of God or my lived experience in the church, I still am glad that she’s out there doing what she’s doing. Creating a more robust discussion about women’s roles in the church can only be a net positive, and since Gardner is doing that in a way that doesn’t feel threatening to the average member, so much the better. Perhaps Gardner’s brand of apologetics will help pave the way for other women’s theology that is less gender essentialist and submissive to authority.

[1] The scriptural basis for women’s exclusion from ordination, or a brief tangent I didn’t mean to go off on: Scripture specifies men are ordained to the priesthood, but there are countless other verses where we extrapolate “men” to mean “men and women,” and there are no verses saying women CAN’T hold the priesthood (and paltry few verses, especially in the D&C, mention women at all, yet we women still assume the bulk of those verses and promises apply to us even when they’re written in male gendered language), and there was a female deacon and a female apostle named in the New Testament, so I think scriptural justification for excluding women from the priesthood is scant at best.

Meeting Dallin and Kristen Oaks

[image error]

Okay fine, I technically didn’t MEET meet them, but in December I was at a VIP Christmas event for a place I volunteer. I went to the dessert table and was waiting behind an elderly gentleman who was filling his plate first. He moved to the right, I stepped next to him and picked up my plate, then he turned and smiled directly at me as he walked back to his table.

I blinked twice, then walked back to my husband and said, “I think Dallin H. Oaks is here.” I scanned the room and immediately saw a familiar female face at a table nearby and I whispered, “Yes, that was definitely him! I recognize his wife. She’s standing fifteen feet away from us.”

That was our exchange. He might not be blogging about it on his end like I am here, but oh well. We had a moment. 

And the moment was fine. Despite having a long and complicated one-sided relationship with him through years of tumultuous conference talks and disagreeable statements, in the moment, he actually seemed very friendly. And honestly, normal. He was smaller than I expected him to be, and apparently he likes dessert (as do I). His suit was very clean and lint free, so I don’t think he has pets. That’s what I took away from our time spent together.

The next morning I was thinking about him and his wife again, and I pulled up articles about the two of them and their courtship. (I read Kristen Oaks’ book “A Single Voice” about a decade ago, so I actually felt like I knew her life story better than his.) Most of what I read was fine. Elder Oaks lost his first wife (June) to cancer. She gave her blessing for him to remarry before passing away, even asking their daughters to ensure he found a good companion after she was gone. He carefully moved into courtship with Kristen, and as far as I can tell everyone is very happy with how it has worked out.

Then I found a 2013 interview on the Mormon Channel, with Sheri Dew interviewing them together. I listened to the interview while running errands, and honestly, most of it didn’t bother me. I’m glad they’re happy together. I’m glad they found each other. But there was this ONE PART that made me cringe. It was when they were asked to give advice to the younger generation that is courting and dating right now. I’ve transcribed the parts that bothered me the most, then added my own interpretation to explain why the advice rubbed me the wrong way. 

Elder Oaks, giving advice to young people of marriageable age: “I want to speak first from the standpoint of the men. I think we have too many men who feel they have to be established with a home, and a car, and a very secure job before they can ask someone to marry them. That was a different expectation in my generation. I can’t imagine how I could’ve gone where I went professionally without the support of a wife. I married when I was penniless, and I had a companion to help me, to challenge me and to give me a sense of responsibility about what I had to do, and I feel it’s a great sadness when a young man feels he has to acquire those material things before he acquires that eternal thing that will help him stay focused on what’s most important.”

MY INTERPRETATION: Men, the women are put here to help you, not hinder you! You will have a better career and a better life with a woman at home supporting you in everything you do. If you don’t have a wife cleaning your house, making your meals, running your errands, and taking care of your children for you – how are you going to find time to be a successful lawyer/doctor/business owner/whatever? You’re misunderstanding how it works, guys. Get a wife to HELP you skyrocket your career, not after you already have got it the hard way (without her). Her whole purpose is to be your helper, duh!

Next, Kristen Oaks speaks in the interview and says: “This is for young women right now, coming out of college…I think that women now are really worried about careers, and they feel they have to develop themselves, and I would just say to them, “Don’t get lost in that”. Because it’s awfully lonely when you’re 50, and all you have is your career – because I’ve done that.”

MY INTERPRETATION: Careers and “developing yourself” is not important for women. Spend your energy trying to get married! It’s better than anything else you can do with your life, even if you are confused and *think* you want to do something more. You’re wrong. Also, no men anywhere want a career woman for a wife.

Dallin H Oaks again, following up on what Kristen just said: “I think that as young women have been encouraged – properly, in my view, to get an education and make plans to support themselves, that many young men have seen the accomplishments of the women in such a way as to be frightened of them. And I think that a woman who has prepared herself properly needs to be careful that she can communicate to a young man the fact that she’s willing to put that career aside, to be a Latter-day Saint wife and mother, and she can take it up later. I’ve had many young men say, “I don’t think young women today are interested in being married. I can’t find anybody because they’re all committed to their careers, and that does stand in the way of marriage, and it frightens off shy young men, for whom we should feel so sorry.”

MY INTERPRETATION: Men are big babies, so women – please accommodate them. They aren’t the ones who need to change, you are. They can’t handle a woman whose educational and career accomplishments match or even exceed his own. So knock it off, women! Or at the very least, proactively reassure the men in your YSA wards that you will totally drop your job the second they get down on one knee. (Also, there’s absolutely no difference between starting a career right out of college and continuing throughout your adult life compared to picking it up 25 years after you graduated, once your youngest child has moved out. It’s easy, and it’s basically no different than what the men get to do with theirs.)

Sheri Dew now, asking about Elder Oaks’ law school days: “University of Chicago: your wife June used to talk about your schedule, which was just murderous, really – being gone from early in the morning until late at night…but it paid off! You became editor of the prestigious law review, you clerked for Chief Justice Warren, you came back and had a very distinguished law career.”

MY INTERPRETATION: Yes, it does sound like having a full time wife at home taking care of everything benefited you greatly. You literally had no other time for anything but your career, and you could focus on it 100 percent because someone else was at home packing you lunches and shopping for your toilet paper. I can understand why you are giving the advice that you just gave to the young men.

Now, was Elder Oaks just suffering and doing his part, enduring terrible long hours of drivel and hard work so that his wife could stay home and not be forced into employment? Well, Sheri Dew asked him next, “Did you like it (the law)? I mean, you obviously took to it.” He replied with emphasis, “I LOVED it. But I didn’t know I would love it. I had no experience. I just…started off as a graduate student, and I loved it, and I did well at it.”

What do I do with all of this? I’m 38, and I’m a stay at home mom. I followed the same advice they’re giving in this interview to not worry about a career and to do everything I could to just get married and become a mom. What if *I* had loved law school? Elder Oaks didn’t know he’d love it or be so good at it before he tried. If he had stunted his education and stopped working the minute his first child was born, his life would have been, I don’t know…like mine? Standing behind general authorities at the dessert table at a Christmas party, then writing about it on a blog?

I am much more inclined to take the advice of Kristen Oaks than Elder Oaks, because she actually is a woman, unlike him. I can understand her feelings of longing for a family and a companion at age 50, before she met him. But why did she direct her advice at the women only, telling us to be less educated and career focused so that men will want us? I wish she had said, “Men – stop being such dorks. You can marry an educated and successful woman who’s started a career already, and it won’t ruin your life. Yeesh.” Is she actually wishing she’d had a less successful career and much lower paycheck for the decades she was in the workforce as a single woman, because that might’ve given her a better chance at getting married quicker? Women should trade in an entire career worth of job satisfaction and a secure retirement fund for the hope of a man who may or may not ever appear in your future, in case he finds you too intimidating or busy? 

So while I didn’t formally “meet” Elder Oaks and his wife at the Christmas event, I feel like I know him and Kristen better than I ever did before we brushed shoulders – and man, was I ever disappointed in the relationship and life advice they gave me. Is that really the best they have to offer us? 

(You can listen to this interview in its entirety, with the section I transcribed from beginning about 27 minutes in:  https://youtu.be/iXkqqPbKiTw)

 

Book Review: The Book of Mormon for the Least of These

[image error]The Book of Mormon For the Least of These: 1 Nephi – Word of Mormon by Fatimah Salleh with Margaret Olsen Hemming

I devoted a good chunk of my life to reading and re-reading the Book of Mormon. My preferred method in my adult life was to read it very quickly, following a schedule I’d worked out when President Gordon B. Hinckley issued his challenge for LDS church members to read the book in 100 days. I enjoyed my Book of Mormon binge reads and the text grew with me as I worked my way through the church milestones of adult life.

I also remember the growing unease I felt as I stopped recycling the 100 day challenge and vowed instead to read the Book of Mormon slowly, just one chapter per day, and blog my way through it all. I didn’t make it far into the text before the racism, which I’d always and intentionally rushed through, glared at me day after day in a way that I could not avoid. This newfound discomfort with my beloved Book of Mormon was more than my faith could handle. I first read the Book of Mormon when I was 13, but I had to put it down at age 33. My heroic and prophetic Nephi had turned into an unreliable and bigoted narrator. Except for a few brave moments, I haven’t been able to pick it up again. The book of scripture I’d once loved, that had grown with me and helped me mark big shifts in my life and thinking about the gospel, left me feeling confused, betrayed, lost.

For the last seven years, I’ve wondered if the book could be redeemed or interpreted through a non-literal framework. I dreamed about an anti-racist or feminist commentary and about hearing the book through a more intersectional lens. I daresay that hope has been realized in a new book by Fatimah Salleh with Margaret Olsen Hemming: The Book of Mormon for the Least of These: 1 Nephi – Words of Mormon.

In the conclusion, the authors state that “Exegeting the Book of Mormon through a lens of social justice provides a salvific message that binds up the wounds of our faith community. The wisdom and strength of the Book of Mormon is an abundant feast, read and waiting for us to partake.” I have to agree with them and my experience with this commentary has been unexpectedly healing. I feel like this accessible and conversational book has re-enlivened my interested in the Book of Mormon by providing me with new tools and frameworks with which to interpret it. It is the book I will be gifting to friends and family members across the Restoration this year.

A social justice approach to the Book of Mormon, as described and used by Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Olsen Hemming, opens the text up to further analysis by asking us to use our scriptural imaginations to see the people that are not directly referenced in the text and to be continually curious about people and their relationships with power. In my experience, traditional readings of the Book of Mormon focus on connecting stories to the worst stereotypes of a demanding Old Testament God who insists upon unquestioning obedience. In this book, Fatimah and Margaret connect the stories to a loving God who can handle our questions and our own struggles with faith and doubt. They model curiosity about the text and hold the narrators accountable for their own bad decisions and bigotry, calling out violence, sexism, racism, anti-semitism, prosperity gospel, ideas about land possession, homophobia, classism, and abuses of power. Whether we believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon or see it as a collection of stories composed in the nineteenth century, Fatimah and Margaret invite us to use our scriptural imaginations to get curious about the text and open it up to bigger conversations about faith, community, and God.

If you’ve been wanting to pick up the Book of Mormon again but are afraid of what you will find there, if you are concerned that you will not be able to move beyond the God-in-a-small-box lessons you absorbed over a lifetime, make this book your companion and your guide.

Buy on Amazon

Salleh, Fatimah, and Margaret Olsen Hemming, The Book of Mormon For the Least of These: 1 Nephi – Words of Mormon, BCC Press, 2020.

Guest Post: Lovely War and Six Questions for Julie Berry

by Brooke Shirts[image error]

Library services for youth is my stock-in-trade, and while I love playing matchmaker with books and young readers, there’s also a special thrill when I find a young adult book with strong crossover appeal for adults. Julie Berry’s Lovely War is just that: a soaring story of the love and aspirations of young people, set amidst the horrors of World War I. It’s got the emotional immediacy that appeals to young readers, paired with the deep-dive historical details that adults lap up like cream.

As the Horn Book summarizes it:

When the Greek god of fire, Hephaestus, catches his wife Aphrodite, goddess of love, in 1942 Manhattan in a passionate affair with his brother Ares, god of war, Aphrodite defends her actions by showing the two gods what real love looks like. With pathos and wit, Aphrodite relates two intertwined love stories involving four mortals swept up in World War I. Eighteen-year-old Hazel Windicott meets nineteen-year-old James Alderidge when she’s playing piano at a parish dance in her London neighborhood a week before he’s set to report for military service in France. And it’s Hazel who introduces the other couple to each other: YMCA relief worker Colette Fournier, a Belgian orphan whose family was killed by the Germans, and ragtime/jazz musician Aubrey Edwards, an African American doughboy from Harlem. The four humans suffer great losses throughout the course of this saga, driving home Aphrodite’s eloquent point that everyone, human and god alike, is entitled to love and be loved, no matter his or her imperfections. Berry showcases her masterful storytelling ability . . .[s]he doesn’t shrink from addressing heavy-hitting and still-pertinent topics: racism, the horrors of war, women’s subjugated role in society. This poignant novel will make readers, by turns, laugh, cry, and swoon, but what Aphrodite offers most is hope: “Let them start their dreadful wars, let destruction rain down, and let plague sweep through, but I will still be here, doing my work, holding humankind together with love like this.”

In other words, this is catnip for almost all the readers I know. If you’re looking for a blind date with a book this Valentine’s Day, pick this one up; you won’t be disappointed.

In addition to starred reviews from pretty much every book critic around, Lovely War had the well-deserved fortune to be awarded the 2020 Golden Kite Award, which is bestowed by the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. To celebrate the book’s shiny new sticker, the Exponent blog gave me the opportunity to ask Julie a few questions about Lovely War, and writing in general.

One of the most distinctive features of Lovely War is its framing device — that this is a World War I story as told by the gods of the Greek pantheon, particularly Aphrodite. Why did you decide to structure the story this way?

I knew I wanted to write a WWI love story, but none of my attempts worked until I decided upon this means of storytelling. I realized at the outset that point of view was going to be my great challenge with this project. A romantic story demands a close, intimate point of view that can report on the lovers’ every thought and feeling. A war story, by contrast, demands a panoramic, epic view that can take in broad swathes of time and space, and large casts of characters. I struggled to reconcile the two into one coherent point of view. Then I thought, what if love, personified, and war, personified, were my narrators? Immediately it hit me that we already have love, personified, and war, personified, and they’re already secret lovers. Hot diggety. It was too good to pass up.

I loved all four of the different narratives we see through this story, but what really reeled me in was that of Aubrey Edwards, the fictional Black American musician who fought in the war as part of the real-life U.S. Army’s jazz band. I admit I knew next to nothing about Black soldiers during WWI, and especially not the Army-sponsored jazz bands. How did you stumble across this little-known part of history? What drew you toward it?

When I first set out to research World War I, I visited libraries and searched for historical narratives about the war. It was almost uncanny how often books about and mentions of the Harlem Hellfighters popped up. At first my focus was on European soldiers, so I passed over these references, but the relentlessness with which they appeared on my research radar finally made me take a closer look. Once I did, I knew the story of segregated African American army divisions needed to be part of the novel. I didn’t want to be complicit in producing yet another narrative of white heroism in a time of war without confronting the stain of violence and hatred upon the soul of white supremacist America.

Was it challenging to write a narrative from the perspective of a Black character?

I view the story of the Harlem Hellfighters as sacred territory, and their sacrifices and losses in the face of America’s violence and hatred as hallowed historical ground. Nothing less than my utmost effort would be worthy of such material. Even so, my utmost effort couldn’t be, in itself, enough. I can’t fully know what I don’t know, and I’ve never been Black, male, subject to racism, or a thousand other things that make up someone like Aubrey’s lived experiences, so I relied heavily on the input of several authenticity consultants who read the manuscript and gave crucial input.

I don’t believe the challenge of writing a character from a culture, race, or group other than your own is any harder than it’s ever been, not if your intention is to do it thoughtfully and well. What’s different now is that members of the groups depicted have a better-functioning megaphone, and more of the book world’s attention, in holding creators accountable for their words and their impact. This, appropriately, forces every artist to better their craft, to be more thorough in their research, and to be more disciplined in questioning their assumptions.

Were you ever concerned about finding a balance between the love stories vs. the realistic horrors of WWI?

The choice to use the gods as narrators was motivated by that very concern you’ve mentioned, about the balance between love stories and battle scenes. World War I was such a bleak, hideous monstrosity that I doubt it could be romanticized. At least, I didn’t feel I was doing so. In those parts of the novel, I felt I was writing a horror show.

When I write, I don’t think much about age-level questions or concerns. I try to tell the truth of an experience, to the best of my ability. I trust that if something needs adjustment, we can catch it in the revision phase. My general mode, though, is to place confidence in my readers and assume they’re ready to handle hard subjects. It helps that I’m writing books, not movies. Readers will paint their own pictures in their minds, which allows them to see only what they’re ready to see.

How do you manage to balance writing time with everything-else-in-life time?

Ugh. I don’t. My desk runneth over, as does my bureau, laundry hamper, junk drawer, closet, car… Every day feels like a scramble to try to fit in even a handful of the things that matter: family, fitness, friends, fun, devotions, service, piano, and work. Work happens nearly every day, and yet it never feels like sufficient progress; if I can touch two or three of the other things, I have to call it good enough. But I own it; this is a conscious choice I’m making, opting for a full, if hectic, life, rather than a calmer, more orderly one.

Do you have any advice for aspiring women writers?

Nobody else will fight to make this happen if you don’t, so give yourself permission to be a little bit fierce about claiming some time and resources for your writing life and progress. You deserve it; you need it; you matter as much as everyone else under your roof matters. (Fierce can still be diplomatic, and a team player, but fierce doesn’t tolerate needless martyrdom.)

Give yourself permission to write badly, to fail at first. It will take time to develop your voice and your skills. If your early efforts aren’t inspiring, it doesn’t mean you lack talent. We instinctively understand that it takes time to learn to walk, swim, ride a bike, and shoot a hoop, and we encourage our children to keep on trying, because we know they’ll get there if they persist. Then we write our first short story, realize it’s pretty weak, and decide we “don’t have it,” we were wrong when we thought we could be writers. I don’t even know where to start with that.

Beyond that: 1. Read all you can. 2. Write as often as you can. 3. Commit to the process of learning how to write better, to whatever extent you can. Find mentors. Read books on craft. But the best teachers will be steps 1 and 2.

Brooke Shirts is a retired youth services librarian and recent ly finished her tenure as the chair of the Puget Sound Council for the Review of Children’s & Young Adult Literature. She nearly began drooling on her laptop when she was given the chance to interview Julie, and thanks her mightily for her time!

The sealed book is opened!

[image error]

The Sealed Book

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) has announced that a new policy manual will be released on February 19th, 2020. And while an updated policy manual sounds like the most boring kind of news, this is exciting because for the first time, the complete policy manual will be available online for anyone to read.

I know! You’re thinking, I don’t want to read a policy manual. I can’t think of a worse way to spend my weekend.

Stay with me for a minute. I promise not to make you read it, but let’s talk about why it’s important that you can.

For decades, the manual was divided into two volumes, with the first volume, containing about half the policies that govern us as church members, only accessible to designated church leaders. And when I say “church leaders,” I am almost exclusively talking about men. At one point, I researched the numbers of men and women within the church with access to this sealed policy manual, and found that over 100,000 men had access, while only nine women within the entire worldwide church were allowed to read it. This lack of transparency meant that women had to rely on males with authority over them to accurately implement and disclose church policy, leaving women vulnerable in several situations that could intimately affect their lives.

For example, a woman could not read for herself the steps required to change her own marital status within the records of the church. If a woman was denied her request for a temple marriage or divorce, she could not know if her request was denied on the basis of policy or because of a local leader’s personal whims.

Church discipline policies were also hidden within the sealed book. If a priesthood leader overstepped his authority in punishing a woman, she could not know that he had crossed a line. Even in cases in which church policy was strictly observed, coming into a disciplinary council without knowledge of the rules and protocols added an extra layer of unnecessary trauma to the proceedings.

About five years ago, I completed a comprehensive analysis of the effects of church policy on women, using a bootlegged copy of the secret handbook as reference. After receiving my report, LDS church employees invited me to church headquarters to talk about my results. One of them asked me, of the many policies I had recommended changing in my report, where would I start? What would be the first change I would make?

I told them I would begin with transparency. A recurring problem within church policy is that policies are biased toward protecting men in power instead of the vulnerable people they serve. This bias is a natural result of only allowing men in power to participate in policymaking or even read the policies that result from the process.

Moreover, I added, this change would be a low hanging fruit. It would be easy, inexpensive, and quick to simply upload the policy manual to the website. It would be a giant step for women, completed within a few keystrokes.

The people I spoke with at church headquarters told me that going public with the manual was not simple at all. They said there were concerns that if the policies were accessible, the church would be held liable if local leaders were inconsistent in following them and did not grant church members the due process promised in policy.

Local leaders, who are unpaid and largely untrained, certainly are inconsistent in following church policy, but ironically, there was very little due process promised in the policies I read in that sealed book. At the time I read it, the manual gave almost unlimited power and protection to male priesthood leaders, often at the expense of women and other vulnerable people in their congregations.

A new commitment to transparency will be the first step toward combating this problem. In the past, a woman could not argue that a policy was unjust without disclosing that she had violated church rules by reading an illicitly distributed copy of the policy manual. Now that we have access, I hope that we will inundate church leaders with feedback about policies that affect our lives and demand change where change is needed.

Which brings me to one last point: if you do decide to explore that boring manual, you are likely to read policies that upset you. You might even wonder if the saying is true, “Ignorance is bliss.” You will read unwelcome advice and mandates from anonymous church policymakers and might wish you hadn’t known that the church had so many opinions about your private life.

Before you start browsing the newly public policy manual, I want to bear testimony to you that the policy manual was not written like the Ten Commandments, with God’s own finger. Like nearly every other policy manual, it was written by committees of mostly well-intentioned but flawed people who were limited by their own biases. Contrary to best practice, which calls for diverse and representative policymaking teams, these committees were probably exclusively male, and those men were largely homogeneous in age, race, nationality, sexual orientation and other demographics. Don’t feel obligated to overrule your own personal inspiration because some anonymous committee doesn’t like it.

But do consider raising your voice when you encounter a policy that needs a rewrite or a delete. The diverse perspectives of all us are exactly what the church needs. Now that we can see the book, we can work toward making it better.