Exponent II's Blog, page 187

The Other Side of Mary

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The Magnificat by James Tissot, courtesy of Brooklyn Museum

Last year, I was charged with planning the Christmas program of my local ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). (You can see my final script here.) As I studied the gospel of Luke, choosing scriptures to include in the program, I noticed verses that I couldn’t recall being included in any of the ward Christmas programs I have attended.

The Annunciation usually gets attention in LDS Christmas programs, as it should.

…The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth 

And the angel came in unto [Mary], and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. (Luke 1:26-29)

Mary is troubled—in what way?  Gabriel assumes she is scared and responds by saying, “Fear not.” (Luke 1:30)

But Mary’s first words after the angel tells her she will be the mother of Jesus were not the incoherent ramblings of someone quaking in fear, but a perfectly rationale logistical question, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” (Luke 1:34)

After the angel explains, Mary makes her decision:

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. (Luke 1:38)

Her choice is an act of bravery and strength, but it is also submissive, a trait that is too often stereotyped as feminine and inequitably mandated of women, not men.

However, if we continue reading that same chapter, we see Mary defying stereotypes as she gives a powerful sermon. Within other Christian faiths, this sermon is called the Magnificat and is a staple of Christmas programs. Within ours, it is often skipped.  

And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath [helped] his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;

As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever. (Luke 1:46-55)

This may be the longest discourse by a woman recorded in scripture. Mary calls out the proud and powerful, demonstrates her knowledge of doctrine and prophecy, and testifies with confidence. The Magnificat shows us another side of Mary, less submissive and meek, more bold. I included it in its entirety in my ward Christmas program.

I also included the prophet Anna, who met the Christ child long before the wise men did but somehow usually gets skipped. As I was studying Anna, Luke’s introduction of her stood out to me, and not in a good way:

And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. (Luke 2:36-37)

She was a prophet of God and over ninety years old and yet her ancient male peers felt it necessary to speculate about her sexual history? Could you imagine someone introducing an elderly male prophet like President Nelson by announcing how many years ago he had been a virgin?

For my program, I put ellipses in that part. Anna was a prophet who served God with fasting and prayer.  That is all we need to know. The chapel is not the place to fetishize about women’s sexual histories.

In accordance with the same principle, I excluded talk about Mary’s virginity, although her status as a virgin is often seen as integral to the nativity story in a way that Anna’s is not.

Christ coming to earth to save us from our sins is a miracle, whatever the sexual history of his mother. And there is so much more we can say about Mary than that.

Guest Post: Living in Silence

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By Blaire Ostler

I’ve never shared this experience publicly before, but with the most recent changes to the Handbook, also called the Policy of Silence (PoS), I feel compelled to write once again. The recent changes that explicitly and implicitly suggest that queer folks should be silent and blend into a cisnormative, heteronormative illusion will have significant and damaging consequences. I know because this is not the first time my church has asked me to live in silence.

Five years ago, in the fall of 2014, I was called into my bishop’s office. I was serving as the YW Personal Progress leader. I was no longer the Primary President, so the impromptu meeting in his office was unexpected. I went into the meeting innocently thinking he had some project or need in the ward that required my services. I was taught never to say “no” to a calling because it was God asking it of me, not the bishop. Drew and I were reliable resources for ward services and finances. When the bishop called, we came. Drew was the bishop’s secretary at the time and planned to be his next counselor, because the second counselor was moving.

When I entered the bishop’s office, I sat on the small chair awaiting my arrival. Bishop’s brow was heavy with concern as he placed clasped hands on an oversized oak desk. He had read what I had been talking about on social media and was worried about my views on gender and sexuality. I was informed there were multiple complaints from ward and stake members about what I was saying. Question after question, he searched for what went wrong. How could such a faithful sister from ward council become so misguided on LGBTQ+ and feminist issues?

I was not expecting him to ask me such personal and intimate questions about my beliefs, thoughts, and impressions. I was being interrogated. I didn’t know it at the time, but my bishop would later call other YW leaders and young women into his office to question them on whether or not they agree with my ideas on gender equality and LGBTQ+ inclusion. I was scared and taken off guard. It felt like a witch-hunt. Never once had I spoken about my views on gender and sexuality inside the walls of the church, especially in YW. I knew it meant I would lose my calling, not to mention social alienation and isolation. However, I naively thought I could talk about gender and sexual orientation outside the church without serious repercussions. I was wrong.

I was told I must stop talking about the acceptance of feminist and queer values on social media or anywhere else, other than the privacy of my own home. If I continued to talk about gender and sexuality online, there would be a formal disciplinary council to review my worthiness to enter the temple. I was then told this came from the Stake President himself, so any appeals to him would be met with the same response—be silent or lose your temple recommend.

I felt the tears well up in my eyes as my body began to shake. I was betrayed by the patriarchs who claimed to care about me, but equally distressing was the betrayal of the women in my ward who turned me in to the patriarchs.

I quickly left the bishop’s office and found my husband standing in the hallway. He saw my distress and handed me the keys to the car. He said, “Go. The kids and I will find a ride home.” He didn’t know what happened in the bishop’s office, but he knew me well enough to know I needed an escape. I was grateful for his intuition when I couldn’t speak.

I got in the car, drove home, and had my first panic attack. I didn’t even know what it was, because I had never experienced a panic attack before. I didn’t know for the next three years church-induced panic attacks would become a regular part of my Sunday worship. I felt like I was suffocating as I hyperventilated on the kitchen floor. The room spun as I felt a strong wave of nausea. My heartrate quickened uncontrollably and I though my heart might explode out of my chest. The skin on my face felt like it was on fire. If my heart didn’t kill me, I was certain I would burst into flames.

I had never felt so betrayed by my faith community, and I was not a stranger to betrayal. Not only was I being silenced at church, but my life outside of church as well. I couldn’t even talk with my friends from church without worrying about them turning me into my bishop or Stake President. However, that wasn’t even the worse part.

My bishop didn’t even know I was queer. He didn’t know that in all those Facebook posts I was talking about myself. I was threatened with having my temple recommend taken away just for talking about being accepting of LGBTQ+ Mormons. He didn’t know I was one of them. None of them knew, other than my husband.

I sat at home alone on the sofa traumatized. I wondered how much worse the meeting in the bishop’s office had been if he had known I was queer. My ward was not a safe place—not at sacrament meeting, ward activities, play groups, social activities with other moms, or even online. If they found out who I really was, I would surely be cut off from my faith community entirely. Before this experience, I thought about what a relief it might be to “come out” to my ward, but it was clear that would be a serious mistake.

I learned to live in silence. It was a survival mechanism that would take its toll on my mind, body, and soul. My church became a house of fear instead of a house of refuge. I didn’t know which of my friends I could trust so it was safest to distance myself from all of them. Though I faithfully attended all my meetings for the next year, I was utterly alone. Being silenced in such a traumatic way by my faith community contributed to my anxiety and eventually depression. Over the next year, I would become sad. Not just kind of sad, but very, very sad. The only way to cope with the sadness was to shut down and become despondent. A kind woman in our ward once described me as, “Sister Ostler? Oh yes, she’s that lovely, sad girl who always sits in the back of the room.” I suppose I wasn’t very good at hiding my sadness. Most meetings I sat in the back fighting the uncontrollable sobs that were constantly threatening to expose me—my sadness and queerness.

Forced silence was like living a slow death. I became paranoid and fearful—rightfully so. If I slipped up and said the wrong thing I could be brought into a formal disciplinary council. My anxiety got worse and worse, and even after we moved out of the state it followed me. Even in our new ward, I would go out to my car to have a private panic attack. I was afraid to been seen, to be exposed for who I really was. It was only after I left the pews that the panic attacks and anxiety would begin to subside. It didn’t matter how much I believed in Mormonism or how much I wanted to belong to my community, my body had an uncontrollable, negative reaction to being traumatically silenced in church. I tried desperately to belong, but knew I didn’t. How could I belong to the ward when they would never know who I was? It felt like I was slowly and steadily dying. In a way it felt like I was already dead, and the slow decay of my body was simply a biological formality.

The reason I share this very painful and personal experience is to show the damaging effects of forced or coerced silence at church. There is no doubt that my experience, coupled with a lifetime of queer shaming in church meeting houses, has contributed to anxiety, depression, and eventually suicide ideation—although that would come later. Eventually, death would feel more like a friend than foe.

There were so many times I wanted to ask my fellow Saints, “Was I not the woman who taught your children and daughters? Did I not serve you faithfully and give my time, talents, and means to my church? Did I not demonstrate my loyalty and commitment to you? I did what was asked. I followed procedure. Yet, once you got to know me—the real me—you rejected me. You threatened me, punished me, banished me, and asked me to live in silence, just so you could continue about your Sunday without confronting the fact that the woman sitting next to you is queer.”

The latest changes in the handbook are one more way my church has demonstrated that they don’t want me to exist. They want the illusion of cisgender, heterosexual congregations that nod and smile in total compliance. They are trying to erase queerness with silence.

Yet, the truth of the matter is I do exist and I will not be erased. I will not be silenced into submission. My Heavenly Parents gave me a voice for a reason and that reason is to spread the gospel of love. My voice has grown in the last five years, and I’m not afraid to admit that I have struggled with anxiety, depression, and suicide ideation. I am no longer afraid of who I am, what I have been through, and what these experiences have done to me. I’m not ashamed to say I was the victim of ecclesiastical and spiritual abuse, and abusers need to be held accountable for the damage they cause. The brethren need to be held accountable. I have been hurt deeply—even physically. Yes, I’m still healing, but I’ve also never been stronger and more committed to my moral compass. I won’t always do it right, but I will not stop speaking on the behalf of queer inclusion in my faith community no matter where I sit on Sunday.

 

Blaire Ostler is a philosopher specialized in queer studies, and is a leading voice at the intersection of queer, Mormon, and transhumanist thought. She is an author publishing her first book, “Queer Mormon Theology: An Introduction.” She is a board member of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, the Christian Transhumanist Association, and Sunstone. You can reach her at her website at BlaireOstler.com.

Subscription Raffle 12/19/19

Welcome to the 2019 Exponent II subscription drive! Every day, we are randomly selecting a name from the list of people who have subscribed or bo[image error]ught a gift subscription for someone else between November 26 – December 24. The item we are giving away tomorrow (for subscriptions purchased today) is a “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History” t-shirt from Left of Provo. You can subscribe at our online store here. Subscribing to Exponent II is the best way you can financially support our entire organization. Thank you for being a part of our community.

 

The Christmas Miracle

[image error]“The Changing Face of Jesus,” by artist Raymond Walker

The Christmas of 2013 was a Christmas that I will never
forget. It wasn’t because we finally splurged on the pre-lit tree, or were able
to get the really expensive presents for our kids, or we gifted ourselves with
some fancy trip. No. That was the Christmas I prepared my older two children
for a very small, humble Christmas, and reminded them that the most important
part of Christmas is that we were together as a family.

 Three months prior my husband had been laid off. We both searched for months for employment, lived off our savings, with me joking that we’d end up living in a van down by the river (I use humor to cope). Right before Thanksgiving I was looking at our quickly dwindling food supply and crying while considering putting groceries on our credit card once again, when my Relief Society president texted me. She had kept offering me help over the two months since my husband was laid off and I had always begged off. I am deeply uncomfortable for asking for or accepting help. On this day as I cried looking at my bank balance on my laptop, she texted me and said something along the lines of, “look Risa, I have a food order for the Bishop’s storehouse already signed by the Bishop for you, so what time am I coming over to help you fill this out?” It took me a whole hour to swallow my pride and text her back, finally relenting to her that I needed her help. There was no doubt in my mind, that me relenting to her was also relenting to God admitting that I couldn’t save my family on my own.

When Thanksgiving came, my mother-in-law asked us to bring our usual side dish to dinner and my husband had to tell her that we had just accepted a food order from the Bishop’s storehouse. Thanksgiving night we stayed later than everyone else helping to clean up. My wonderful mother-in-law handed us an envelope full of cash and told us that all of my husband’s siblings chipped in to help us out this Christmas. With that money we were able to make our mortgage payment for December and provide two small, modest gifts for our four children. And that was going to be enough for me because I was so grateful for what we had – a loving family willing to help pick us up when we were down.

 What I didn’t expect was the overwhelming generosity of my friends, family, and neighbors over the coming weeks. Bags of food were left on our porch. Envelopes full of money were slipped under our front door. On Christmas Eve we got a knock on our door as we were preparing to leave for the night for a family party. It was the Bishop of our ward and one of his counselors. They told us that they had Christmas gifts for our family. Our benefactors wished to remain anonymous so they asked him play Santa. I burst into tears and told him how everyone had been so kind and generous that I was speechless. After they left, my husband and I went to our room and held each other as we wept. When we returned home that night after our family party with our sleepy kids, we were met with another surprise. Our entire front porch was filled with gifts. We were able to get the kids to bed without seeing (our garage blocks the view of the porch) and snuck the gifts in after they had gone to bed.

 As my husband and I placed the gifts around the tree that night we were amazed at the abundance. Even in our fattest years we would never have been able to provide that many gifts for our kids. We again, sat down together and wept as we looked at the gifts. To me, it wasn’t about the material goods we were getting, it was the enormity of love and generosity my family received during that season. The next morning I pulled my two oldest aside and again prepared them for what was under the tree. Instead of the modest, small Christmas I told them they were getting, I told them about all the family, friends, and neighbors who loved them enough to make sure they had Christmas gifts. They both cried. My son, who was almost 10 years old at the time, told me he had a confession. He had gotten up in the middle of the night and snuck out to the living room to see the tree. In that moment when he saw the gifts he thought to himself, “is Santa real?” I told him that yes, the spirit of Santa, or more accurately the love of our Savior, is alive in the people who made sure we had a Christmas.

 It was so much fun watching my kids unwrap their presents because I had absolutely no idea what they were getting either! They got age appropriate toys, clothing, candy, and we got gift certificates to grocery stores and other places. My 5-year-old son exclaimed that every new toy was “everything he always wanted.” That Christmas I have never felt so loved, humbled, and grateful in my life.

A few short weeks later, my husband was finally hired at another company. I was able to find full-time work right after. Things back to normal, as much as they could, and we were once again able to pay our bills and did not end up living in a van down by the river. Friends and family even gave us money after Christmas to stay afloat until that first paycheck came.

However, we were forever changed as a family. To know how deeply you are loved is a gift. It gives you the strength to keep fighting on hard days. It gives you the courage to take risks. It gives you the humanity to serve others. There is not a Christmas that has passed since where I haven’t thought of the one in 2013 and cried in humility. I have spent the last six years trying to pay it forward. I don’t know if I ever really will be able to. It reminds me of the gift our Savior gave us – we didn’t earn it, we don’t deserve it, and yet his mercy and love is so expansive it has the power to change hearts, homes, and humanity.

 May every Christmas we remember the true miracle of Christmas. That because He lives and gave His life for us, we can have salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life.

Subscription Raffle 12/18/19

Welcome to the 2019 Exponent II subscription drive! Every day, we are randomly selecting a name from the list of people who have subscribed or bought a gift subscription for someone else between November 26 and December 24. The item we are giving away tomo [image error] rrow (for subscriptions purchased today) is a limited-edition print of “Headmistress Harpie” by Exponent II Art Editor Page Turner. The print is 8×10 inches and shrink wrapped on a foam core board, ready to show off in your favorite place.



You can subscribe at our online store her. Subscribing to Exponent II is the best way you can financially support our entire organization. Thank you for being a part of our community.

What Church Leaders Don’t Understand About the Power Dynamics in Worthiness Interviews

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Several years ago, I wrote a post on my personal blog that I thought was completely benign, but someone in my ward sent it to the bishop. That Sunday I had a temple recommend interview scheduled with a bishopric counselor, but when he pulled me out of Sunday School, he said I’d be seeing the bishop instead. When I entered his office, the bishop told me someone had sent him my blog post. He said he’d read it in depth multiple times. He asked me probing questions about my personal beliefs, then soliloquized at length about his own (completely undoctrinally supported) views.

The bishop sat behind an enormous solid oak desk, a framed portrait of Jesus just above his shoulder. I sat in a padded chair in the center of the open space in front of him, small and vulnerable. I shook and cried and struggled to speak as my heart raced and my throat constricted. It must have seemed to him that I was crying from guilt or sadness or the spirit, but the truth was that I felt completely violated and angry by this ambush, and I was terrified that this man who held spiritual power over me could decide that I was unworthy of a temple recommend, regardless of my own Spirit-confirmed convictions of my worthiness.

After 45 grueling minutes, the bishop decreed that he thought I was “just fine” to answer all the recommend questions “correctly,” and he signed my recommend, but the damage was done. The interview, which should have been about encouraging self-reflection to determine my own worthiness, became instead about me trying to prove myself worthy to this man with a different worldview than mine who was sitting in judgment of me.

I left his office white faced and shaking, tears still in my eyes. I promised myself that day that I would never again sit in an interview by myself with a priesthood leader, that I would never again give someone else the power to tell me whether I was worthy or not. And I haven’t.*

Yesterday, I read an article in the Salt Lake Tribune by Peggy Fletcher Stack about a missionary, Elder Smart, who was denied a temple recommend by his mission president. Smart had previously disclosed under questioning by the mission president that his mom is gay, that his family had left the church over the November policy about LGBTQ people, and that he supported gay marriage but would not express that support as a missionary. In the temple recommend interview, the mission president grilled Elder Smart about his views and ultimately decided he “didn’t feel comfortable” giving the young man a recommend.

Afterward, Smart cried in a restroom and wrote in his journal, “I felt horrible for my beliefs, horrible that I wasn’t considered temple-worthy. Just like crap.”

Regarding a conference call with his mission president and the stake president back home who’d given Smart his recommend just months before with no hesitation but now took the side of the mission president, Smart said in the article, “I felt like I was in a corner and they were beating me over the head with a bat, over and over. I felt I was not a good person for holding these beliefs. It made me think: Will this impact my salvation? Will I not be able to be sealed to my future family? I had fought so hard to be where I was comfortable and happy in the church and on my mission, and now I was being told that wasn’t good enough.”

A few days later, the mission president changed his mind, apologized, and said he would give Smart a recommend and that he wanted him to continue his missionary service. For Smart, though, it was too late. He couldn’t continue his mission after the trauma he’d experienced at the hand of his mission president, and he felt peace about his decision to end his missionary service.

His mission president stated for the article: “I love this good young man. During his time in the mission, I spent many hours with him seeking to understand and counsel with him. Details of those conversations are held in sacred confidence, but I can say (and I hope he would agree) that every effort was made to help him, and to find a way for him to serve as a missionary and hold a temple recommend.”

When I hear the point of view of priesthood leaders in these situations, I’m always shocked by how oblivious they are to the power dynamics at play and the real trauma they inflict. Elder Smart’s mission president saying he’s done everything he can to give him a recommend and get him to stay is gaslighting nonsense. It betrays how little he understands about the power he holds, how little he understands about how completely violating it is, how much it bends the spirit, when you know your worthiness before God, but someone you believe is God’s judge over you tells you that you’re not okay, that you’re not worthy, that you don’t measure up.

If you had asked my bishop for his perspective after that temple recommend interview, I’m certain he’d have said that he loved me, that his questions were motivated by concern for my well-being. He even said as much to me during the interview. But his probing and lecturing did not feel like love or concern. They felt violating, like I was being weighed without my consent on arbitrary scales of righteousness. I felt violated when my bishop said he “carefully” read through my blog post several times, not to understand my point of view, but to determine whether I was a threat, whether I was worthy. And despite his assertions that his questions were motivated by concern for me, I experienced trauma, self-doubt and lasting anxiety as a result of his clumsy interrogation.

Both my and Elder Smart’s priesthood leaders ultimately decided that we were worthy, but knowing the reality that it could have just as easily gone the other way (and did for awhile in Smart’s case) is traumatic. Like Elder Smart, I had no doubt going into that interview that I was good with God, that I had worked through my conflicts with church doctrine and policy in a way that kept me in line with worthiness standards and kept my integrity intact. To have my priesthood leader repeatedly question and disagree with that conviction caused me to doubt my ability to receive revelation, to doubt my relationship with God.

Going off script in interviews is damaging. Bishops, mission presidents, and all other priesthood leaders should never be the arbiters of someone else’s worthiness.

 

*For all subsequent bishopric interviews, I have either brought my husband in with me, requested meetings be done over the phone or in my home, or refused them altogether. I find the power differential at play in the bishop’s office particularly triggering, so I only agree to meetings on my own terms.

 

Subscription Raffle 12/17/19

[image error]Welcome to the 2019 Exponent II subscription drive! Every day, we are randomly selecting a name from the list of people who have subscribed or bought a gift subscription for someone else between November 26 – December 24. The item we are giving away tomorrow (for subscriptions purchased today) is a “Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History” t-shirt from Left of Provo. You can subscribe at our online store here. Subscribing to Exponent II is the best way you can financially support our entire organization. Thank you for being a part of our community.

 

No Cleavage Allowed in The Cultural Hall, Ladies

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I can’t believe this exists. Good Latter-day Saint women don’t wear tank tops!

I fell in love with group exercise classes thirteen years ago, after my first baby was born. I’d gone to classes at the local rec center before that, but never consistently enough to make friends and become a regular. As a new mom however, I discovered an exercise class taught by volunteer women at my church in the cultural hall. I went almost every day, because I could bring my baby and set him on the ground next to me and interact with other moms.

I outgrew that class once my baby started crawling and getting in the way of everything, and renewed my membership at the rec center, which offered daycare so that I could exercise without balancing him on my hip. I still remember that group of women with fondness, though. My husband was deployed, I didn’t know a thing about babies, and the days were long and isolating. Those women every morning filled an important role in my life right when I needed it.

Well over a decade later, I still love classes at the gym, and my favorite workout of any year was always the Turkey Jam – a two hour workout on Thanksgiving morning. Everyone was always in a particularly good mood and extra friendly on the morning of a holiday, and it’s just more fun than a regular day.

But my gym canceled holiday workouts indefinitely last year. I was so sad! I asked around for any other gyms that offer a similar pre-turkey workout, and a friend told me that she teaches Zumba at a church just 4 minutes from my house, and that they have a great Thanksgiving workout I could come to. I went, and she was right – it was awesome! There were probably 60+ women in the cultural hall together by the end, and they added me to their Facebook group and enthusiastically encouraged me to come anytime during the rest of the year to their free workouts during the week.

On Thanksgiving this year, I wanted to go join them again, and got online the night before to double check the address and make sure I remembered which church building it was at. As I opened up the announcement for this year’s workout, I caught something that I hadn’t noticed last year – a note that said “No tank tops, please!”

I only work out in tank tops. I know some people don’t mind sleeves, but I hate them. They make my armpits extra sweaty, and when running long distances they chafe and feel wet and gross against my skin. And maybe it’s partly in my head, but I feel so hot in them! Taking off that two inches of material on the top of my arms makes me feel so, so much better.

I wondered if this was a new rule, so I searched for “tank top” in the Facebook group and found multiple posts over the years of reminders that the stake presidency allows them to use the facilities for classes, but the rules are “no tank tops in the church”. I even found more specific instructions on what is permissible to wear in a post from last year:

“For those of you coming and bringing friends… please remember, like any activity held in the church, to follow church standards of dress. No tank tops or low cut t-shirts that show too much cleavage.

“Women should avoid short shorts…, and shirts that do not cover the stomach, and clothing that does not cover the shoulders or is low-cut in the front or the back.” (For the Strength of Youth)”

I remembered that the instructor last year had taken a group photo of many of the women, and searched the group for that photograph. There I was on the back row, smiling and totally oblivious to how out of place my blinding white shoulders were in this group.

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The offending shoulders (amidst a sea of pious sleeves) belong to me.

 

Everyone there handled my dress code violation perfectly, to be clear. Not a single person mentioned it and all I felt was welcoming arms. I didn’t even know I’d broken a rule. I’d almost come back the second year in another tank top actually!

I started to think to myself, “Man, I have to wear a t shirt tomorrow? I don’t even own one for working out in! This is such a dumb rule. These women are working out and teaching classes for free, bringing their babies and kids with them, providing friendship and drastically improving the mental and physical health of women in the stake, providing a fellow-shipping opportunity, and there aren’t even men in the dang building! And yet the stake president feels like it’s his duty to police how much of the upper arm flesh of these women is exposed to the cultural hall walls? No one is coming to a free church workout to show off their body and look sexy! I wear a tank top because it’s the appropriate clothing for the activity, not to break For The Strength of Youth standards (a dress code guideline for YOUTH, not mature adult women, and not supposed to be in reference to something like workout apparel anyway!). Why does a stake president need to be involved in these women’s workout classes in any way at all, other than to just say,  ‘Thank you!’?”

Those were the frustrated thoughts that were churning in my brain as I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning a little calmer, put on a t-shirt, and went over to enjoy the workout.

During class, I started thinking. Maybe I overreacted. This is a free class, in a free facility, and there’s nothing wrong with a private organization having a dress code and asking people to follow it – especially since hey, it’s free! I am not obligated to attend there. I can pay and go to different places that won’t mind a tank top at all, right?

But it still kept churning in my head and still didn’t feel right. I think I decided why. It’s the fact that it was the male leadership making the rules about women’s cleavage being forbidden, in a women’s class, in a program run entirely by volunteer women in the stake. If tank tops and shorts and cleavage are a concern in a church building, why couldn’t this message come from the stake relief society president instead of him? It feels weird, in the same way that it would feel weird if the stake relief society president went onto Facebook to inform the men playing late-night basketball games at the church that their shorts need to be loose enough that no one could see the shape of their male genitalia – especially if the men were playing basketball at a time of day when zero women were in the building. I’d start thinking, “Is the stake relief society president specifically going to their basketball games to observe and see if their shorts are too snug in the crotch? Or is she just assuming that some of the men will wear tight shorts, so she’s writing messages to all of the men to cover her bases, just in case? Doesn’t she worry about coming off as a little creepy lecturing the men of the stake about noticing their… *whispers*… penises?”

If there’s going to be a dress code at church events, fine. But I hereby issue a request to all stake presidencies of this worldwide church – please, PLEASE, delegate this responsibility to the female stake leaders. Don’t do it yourself ever again. And hey – thank you. I genuinely appreciate the free Thanksgiving workout facility! But for the other 364 days of the year, you’ll only ever find me sporting a tank top and yoga pants at the local gym, because I HATE SLEEVES WHILE EXERCISING. And I will, forever and ever, amen.

PS: I googled “Elder’s Quorum basketball games” just for fun after finishing this blog post. I found many, many YouTube videos of championship games filmed in Latter-day Saint cultural halls around the world. Interestingly, every single game had a number of boys and men wearing tank tops. So, is this a double standard? Or are all of these men doing the same thing I did a year ago at Thanksgiving, wearing tank tops without realizing it’s not allowed? What do we think?

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Subscription Raffle 12/16/19

[image error] Welcome to the 2019 Exponent II subscription drive! Every day, we are randomly selecting a name from the list of people who have subscribed or bought a gift subscription for someone else between November 26 and December 24. The item we are giving away tomorrow (for subscriptions purchased today) is an Exponent II tote from our most recent retreat.



You can subscribe at our online store her. Subscribing to Exponent II is the best way you can financially support our entire organization. Thank you for being a part of our community.

Light, and Dark

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Photo by Alysa Bajenaru on Unsplash

I love that we celebrate Christmas on December 25th. I know that some people disagree on whether it’s the actual month (let alone day) of Christ’s birth, but I love celebrating it right near the solstice.

In the northern hemisphere, December is the darkest time of the year. It feels appropriate, because Jesus was born in a dark time. He was born in a barn, in occupied land, as a minority, without any of the temporal power one would assume would be the birthright of God’s only begotten son.  Christ was thrown into a world already in turmoil, and expected to save it.  To quote Nadia Bolz-Weber,

“the world into which Christ was born was certainly not one of a Normal Rockwell painting. The world has never been that world. God did not enter the world of our nostalgic silent-night, snow-blanketed peace-on-earth sugar cookie suspended-reality of Christmas. God slipped into the vulnerability of skin and entered a world as violent and disturbing as our own.”

Every year, children around the world die on or around Christmas, and throughout the year. Despite all the holly jolly cheer, people are still getting divorced around Christmas, people are grieving loved ones lost around Christmas, people are lonely around Christmas, and people are tired and disillusioned and poor and abused around Christmas. Terrible things don’t stop happening just because there’s tinsel on trees. Sometimes it feels like, no matter how many advent candles we light, the darkness can’t be overcome.

Yet, in the southern hemisphere, Christmas happens around the brightest time of the year! For those in this hemisphere, Christmas is sunny, warm, and full of light. There are BBQs and beach trips instead of snowmen and sledding.  It feels equally appropriate to have Christmas in the brightest month, because the whole message of Christmas is that Christ overcame darkness and the world!  Around Christmas, people are often a little kinder, a little gentler, a little more generous. There is hope in the story and love shared in being together with family and friends. For some, it’s one of the few seasons they get to spend with their loved ones, and there’s an extra happiness that goes with it. And even as Jesus was born into “a world as violent and disturbing as our own,” he was also born into a loving family, with angels singing and shepherds greeting!  For many, Christmas is the very best and most joyous time of the whole year.

I love that we choose to celebrate Christ at a time when the world is at its extremes, when for some it’s the darkest of times, and for others it’s the brightest. I think it helps me remember that Jesus shows up in all of it – he doesn’t just come when things are balanced, or even – Christ comes when it’s extremely dark, Christ comes when it’s extremely light. He shows up in our brightest times and in our darkest times.

It’s also a reminder to me that, in the Christmas seasons that feel light, there are those who are experiencing it in the dark.  Christmas isn’t the same for everyone, and our feelings around it don’t always match how much light we’re seeing, either.  Sometimes it’s dark outside but your soul is full of joy, and sometimes it’s bright outside but dark inside your heart.  But, for me, having Christmas right around the solstice is a reminder that Christ is in the darkness and also in the light, and that we can seek him and find him in both.

There’s a temptation to wrap this up and say that no matter how dark things get, they will someday get lighter.  I think I believe that, and I certainly hope for it, but the beauty of Christmas is that it doesn’t require that we tie every single thing up in a pretty bow.  Christ was born into a messy world, and we have messy lives, and so it’s ok for things to just be messy and to sit in the mess as it is.  If your Christmas is dark, may you have those who will sit with you in your darkness until it hopefully gets lighter.  If it’s light, may you have those who will sit with you in the light, and may it continue.  Either way, Christ will be there, showing up in our messy world, in light, and in dark.