Exponent II's Blog, page 201

An Interfaith Dialogue among Mormon, Catholic, Muslim and Jewish Women on Women’s Equality Day

[image error]In this special Women’s Equality Day episode of the Religious Feminism interview series, the Religious Feminism Podcast teams up with the The Breaking Free Show for a joint episode, bringing in activists from a variety of faiths (some of whom are previous guests of the Religious Feminism Podcast) for an interfaith dialogue. Breaking Free Show host Marilyn Shannon proposed the joint episode during an interview with Religious Feminism Podcast host April Young Bennett. (You can view that episode here.) You can find episode notes for the Religious Feminism Podcast here at the Exponent website: http://www.the-exponent.com/tag/religious-feminism-podcast/

Women on the panel:

April Young Bennett, host of the Religious Feminism Podcast

Marilyn Shannon, host of the Breaking Free Show

Mary Dispenza, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Listen to another episode of the Religious Feminism Podcast featuring Mary here: Stopping Sexual Abuse by Ecclesiastical Leaders with Mary Dispenza and Judy Larson

Theresa Ann Yugar, Women’s Ordination Conference, Roman Catholic Women Priests

Listen to another episode of the Religious Feminism Podcast featuring Theresa here: Latina Feminist Theology with Theresa A. Yugar

Zahra Ayubi, Feminist Islamic Troublemakers of North America

Zahra Khan, Feminist Islamic Troublemakers of North America

Listen to another episode of the Religious Feminism Podcast featuring Zahra here: Feminist Islamic Troublemakers of North America with Shehnaz Haqqani and Zahra Khan

 

Video

View this episode on the Breaking Free Show.

 

View April Young Bennett’s first interview on the Breaking Free Show here, in which April and Marilyn decided to follow up with this interfaith dialogue.

Listen and subscribe for free below:

She Is. Like A River.

Experiencing Her while rafting the Salmon River, during the Holy Week of the Feminine Divine, July 22, 2019.

Some say,

Yes, she is there.

Protected

Silent

Fertile

Giving life only

In confinement.

Man-made confinement.

Un-named.

You must respect her.

Do not name her or speak of her.

Keep her

Protected

Silent

Confined.

I say,

She is.

Like a river

Flowing through the deep chasms,

Forming the canyons.

When all, even the air, is still,

Quiet.

She moves.

Always.

She is not silent.

Listen for the rippling, murmuring, roaring, crashing, pounding, calling, singing, dripping, churning.

On the raft, in the calm,

I hear Her.

The vibrations come up through my feet

As the rough approaches…

thump, thump…

thump-thump.

thump, Thump.

Thump, Thump.

Thump, Thump, Thump THUMP.

Wake up.

Listen.

There are things happening under the surface.

Look deep.

Look ahead.

She tells me the line to follow.

To move through the tearing wound.

When I resist

And fall,

She is there,

Still,

She carries me through.

She baptizes me,

Buries me in the water,

To birth me into new life,

Again and again.

She is deep and close.

Loud, rough, violent, calm, gentle, smooth, textured, powerful.

She is all color.

All sound.

All time.

And only now.

She is fluid.

Her path is alive, and Her own.

It shifts, moves, and belongs to me, the moment I look.

Then it breathes for another.

She is new each moment, to each being.

Nothing can confine her.

She is sensual.

Her curves, swells, ripples, eddies, falls, soft sand, hard rocks, swirling currents that pull, and hold me,

Call on all my senses –

See, hear, smell, taste, touch –

Feel her around me.

I catch my breath.

She says.

Breathe deeper.

Here is life.

Breathe it all in.

Here is air that has filled every life.

Here is water that is shared by all.

Here is the fruit, the knowledge, the wisdom.

She says.

Live deeper, with the opposition.

She says.

Ask. And ask again.

Will I love the deep breath more because, for a moment, I couldn’t breathe?

Will I love the warm wind more because I know the wet cold?

Will I love what is, because I mourn the loss of what was, and is gone?

Will I love all, because anything else is not love?

Because anything else is not You?

I am invited, held up, consumed, carried,

By Her…

She does not fix, or condemn, or agree with, or compel, or explain.

She is here, washing around me,

Teaching me life,

Just because I exist.

Because She sees me.

She says,

I am with you.

In the wound,

In the healing,

In the rough,

In the calm.

Listen for me.

Look for me.

Be this for each other.

See Me in each other.

You.

All…

Are a part of every drop.

Stone, grain, sound.

Your breathing is the breathing of all.

Breathe deep.

Let the river take you home.

Sacred Music Sunday: Come, We That Love the Lord

Come, We That Love the Lord is a short hymn by Isaac Watts. I rarely hear it sung in LDS services, but it’s lovely and I wish we would sing it more often.

The first time I remember hearing it was about six years ago. I was a brand new volunteer LDS chaplain at San Quentin Prison. It was my first week flying solo. We held services on Sunday evenings. Since the prison was an environment where the inmates had very little autonomy, I made it a point to give them as much freedom as possible at church. That included letting them pick the hymns.

[image error]San Quentin State Prison – Marin County, California, USA
Image Credit: Frank Schulenburg – CC BY-SA 4.0

We had CDs with the hymns on them, so we never lacked accompaniment. I asked someone to pick the opening hymn, and he said he wanted to sing Come, We That Love the Lord. I wasn’t familiar with it, but I handed out hymnals, queued up the CD, hit play, and started conducting the music.

I was immediately touched by the lyrics. “Come, we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known.” Here were people serving life sentences in prison, and they were singing about their love for the Lord and their joys.

Over the course of the year that I served as their chaplain, I got to know the men I ministered to. They truly did love the Lord. They had repented of their sins, which were grievous, and they had received forgiveness. This forgiveness gave them joy and peace even in a place that is rarely joyous or peaceful.

Just as they gathered in a dusty chapel library because of their love for the Lord, we, too, can gather with our fellow saints and share our love and joy. Jesus reminds us that wherever two or three are gathered in His name, He is in the midst of us.

A Woman’s Blessing for a New Friend

I first heard of women giving each other blessings over 10 years ago. A dear friend gave a short lesson about the history of the Relief Society at a special activity honoring the RS birthday in our ward. Since then I have learned a lot about the practice of women laying on hands and blessing each other in the early part of the restoration movement.

About 6 years ago I heard about modern women participating in blessing rituals with each other. I read about their stories and experienced a growing holy envy. A year and a half ago I first witnessed such blessings, and have seen them and participated peripherally on several occasions now. After having been through a complete faith deconstruction I am still searching for how these rituals pertain to me and my journey, but I feel they are beautiful and an important part of Mormon women reclaiming their spiritual authority that has been stripped by the institutional church.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to give a blessing to a new friend, but I passed. I let my anxiety get in the way of offering a sister my words of hope and comfort. I want to repent of that mistake now. As an introvert, I am much more comfortable speaking my heart in writing and hope it is not too late to remedy my shortcomings.

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Dear Sister,

I bless you in the name of friendship and the great connection existing between all living things in the circle of life. I bless you in the name of our shared history and future journeys of faith and fullness of experience. You shared with me about the breaking open of your heart and worldview, and it resonated with my own brokenness. And although we felt it, we were never really broken. Some things broke and fell away, but we were over-associating with those things, they were not what we thought. Underneath was a wholeness we didn’t know before. I bless you to embrace your own wholeness.

I bless you in your pain and anguish. I bless you in your joy and freedom. I bless you in the construction of a new life that you will be equal to the challenges and obstacles before you. I bless you in the changing relationships around you, that your heart will mend with time. That new friends and relationships will come to fill the holes.

I bless you that wherever you go, whatever path you choose for developing and growing your innate gifts and talents, you will carry with you a blossoming assurance of your innate worthiness. That you are loved and cradled by all that is. That you are valued for your unique contributions and the space you fill and in the lives of those you touch. You will continue to speak with authority and inspiration as you teach and advocate for others. You will find that your influence will continue to grow and you can effect meaningful changes as you strive to heal the world around you.

Sister, we come from a long line of pilgrims. There have always been those who step out into the unknown and embrace the challenges of the unfamiliar. They lend their strength to you.  When they felt broken and defeated, they let themselves be in that place. They let themselves heal. They stepped forward slowly when necessary, and boldly when ready. You will know when it is time for quiet and when it is time to extend yourself and your voice, and it will ring out and dance. You will do so in power as so many women before you. You will remember them and feel a connection to those who came before as well as those who support you now. Even when they are not close around you, there are many who offer love and support and cheer you on.

Go forward with my blessing and the blessings of other women who love you. In the name of holiness and peace, in the name of life and goodness may you walk and be buoyed up. Amen.

One of my values is to uplift and offer peace and love to others, and I don’t want to let myself and my insecurities get in the way of practicing these. Do you bless others around you? I grew up in a tradition that said my only opportunities for blessing were to clean and cook, to cool fevered brows, to wipe away tears, and to offer other physical service. I find it beautiful and meaningful to speak words of blessing and comfort. I am sad that I spent so many decades of my life being convinced that this tender experience was illicit for women. That only men should be allowed to speak for God. I can’t believe in a God who would deny this connecting experience for half his children based solely on their gender. Women have an innate love and connection for each other, let them give voice to their power and lift one another.

Affirming, inclusive resources about bodies and sex.

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By LMA

August 2019

These resources correspond to other posts I have written about my experiences as a single Mormon woman processing what I was taught about my body and sex, and my conscious decision to explore and nurture my sexual self.

In my search for high-quality, affirming, helpful, concrete information about sex and my body, I found these resources. They are organized below by (1) Online Resources, (2) Books, (3) TED Talks, and (4) Instagram Accounts.

Online Resources

Scarleteen: Sex Ed for the Real World

The Body Is Not An Apology

The Cherry Revolution

Books

S.E.X., second edition: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties by Heather Corinna

What You Really,
Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Guide to Sex and Safety by Jaclyn Friedman

The Body is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

Celebrating Vulva Diversity by Hilde Atalanta https://www.thevulvagallery.com/the-vulva-gallery-book/the-book

TED Talks

“A motion for masturbation — the naked truth” by Jane Langton

“Confidence and joy are the keys to a great sex life” by Emily Nagoski

“Women’s sexual pleasure: What are we so afraid of?” by Sofia Jawed-Wessel

“Owning Your Sexual Power” by Amy Jo Goddard

“What young women believe about their own sexual pleasure” by Peggy Orenstein

“Sex needs a new metaphor. Here’s one …” by Al Vernacchio

Scarleteen Article
Discussing This Metaphor: https://www.scarleteen.com/article/in_your_own_words/to_slide_or_to_slice_finding_a_positive_sexual_metaphor

Instagram Accounts

Note: Most of these accounts include body nudity and/or illustrations of body nudity (possibly in sexual context) for the sake of sexual education and sex and body positivity. A few of them (e.g., @rubyrare) are porn-positive and discuss feminist, ethically made and purchased pornography and its role in healthy sexual expression.  

@scarleteenorg – Scarleteen “Inclusive, comprehensive, and supportive sexuality/relationship info for teens & young adults” https://www.instagram.com/scarleteenorg/?hl=en

@cherryrevolution – The Cherry Revolution “Award nominated movement that aims to break society norms surrounding women, identity, & sexuality by making shameless pleasure a priority” https://www.instagram.com/cherryrevolution/?hl=en

@the.vulva.gallery – The Vulva Gallery “Celebrating vulva diversity! Created by @hildeatalanta” https://www.instagram.com/the.vulva.gallery/?hl=en

@pink_bits – Pink Bits “Illustrating the bits and shapes we’re told to hide” https://www.instagram.com/pink_bits/?hl=en

@rubyrare – Ruby Rare “Sex educator, artist, body positive crusader; bisexual non-monogamous vegan lady” https://www.instagram.com/rubyrare/?hl=en

@jadebeallphotography – Jade Beall “Truthful photographer & Body Activist since 2012” https://www.instagram.com/jadebeallphotography/?hl=en

@yourwelcomeclub – Illustrations by @hildeatalanta “Celebrating diversity one illustration at a time” https://www.instagram.com/yourewelcomeclub/?hl=en

@shrimpteenth – Sam’s Clam “Proud vulva owner, Drawing love, Not for everyone” https://www.instagram.com/shrimpteeth/?hl=en

@givingthetalk – Giving the Talk “Sex Ed for this Century: Empowering all ages, genders, & identities with fun, compassionate, medically-accurate info free of stigma & shame” https://www.instagram.com/givingthetalk/?hl=en

@sexelducation – Emily L. Depasse “Sexologist, Sex Educator, Future Sex Therapist; Redefining narratives around STIs + mental health” https://www.instagram.com/sexelducation/?hl=en

Heavenly Mother wants us to feel safety, comfort, and pleasure in our bodies – part 2.

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By LMA

August 2019

I wrote on the blog last fall how I feel about pleasure, safety, and exploring our sexual selves on our own or with others. I wrote that all of us are entitled to express our sexual desires and identities in whatever ways feel safest and most comforting to us, including not being sexual at all. The things that I wrote were by far the most provocative things I have ever written or said in public, and it took a lot of assertiveness, courage, and emotional resources to say them. I’d like to talk about some of those things again.

There was a recent thread on Twitter asking about the perspectives of Mormon and Mormon-adjacent people about masturbation and how they would choose to teach their children about these things. It took me several tries to be able to read the thread because I knew there would likely be ideas and information that would be triggering for me to read. There were some lovely and honest things that were said. One very brave person in particular spoke about their changing views on masturbation and pleasure, and how they even had to change the way they spoke about it to their child in order to correct some things they had previously taught them. This person is provocative and brave and lovely – they know who they are. Some of the helpful things that were discussed included masturbation as an important form of self-care, a form of comfort, a source of health benefits, and a part of healthy sexual development.

It was also clear from the comments the types of messages I had anticipated I might hear were very present. These comments demonstrated some of the contradictory information Mormon folk perpetuate about solo sexual activity and its perceived acceptability and status. Multiple people commented that they thought masturbating is okay “in moderation,” as long as the person doesn’t see sexual gratification as a solo activity, as long as no one can tell you’re masturbating when it’s happening (so it’s alright if you swallow all of your normal body noises while you’re being sexual?) and as long as it’s private. At the same time, the comments also said that masturbation can become “distractingly excessive,” an obsession, “an unhealthy way to run away from your problems,” a potential addiction, and more.

As I read through some
of these comments, I wondered, would people say sexual activities between a
cisgendered, heterosexual, married couple are okay “in moderation?”

Would people say sexual activities between a cisgendered, heterosexual, married couple are a potential addiction and “an unhealthy way to run away from your problems”?

Would people say these same types of statements if the self-care activity involved was a cozy nap or being in nature? (e.g., being in nature is okay, as long as it is in moderation?)

The answer is no, people wouldn’t dare police the sexual activities of a cisgendered, heterosexual, married couple, and they would never say these kinds of statements about other forms of self-care that aren’t culturally stigmatized like pleasure (but especially self-pleasure) is. Furthermore, these comments and ideas describe the deeply conflicted ways Mormon folk feel about our bodies, solo pleasure, being single, and sexuality in general.

These conflicting, intricate justifications about why masturbation or any other form of sexual activity is or is not okay are the exact reason I didn’t look for information about bodies or sex in Mormon or Mormon-adjacent sources or talk to a Mormon soul about my solo sex life for a very long time. When I made the conscious decision to allow myself the time and space to engage with and explore my sexual self, I was not interested in engaging in mental gymnastics about whether or not it was okay (e.g., it’s okay as long as it’s under X, Y, and Z circumstances). I had spent my entire life internalizing shame about my body and my sexual self that I was not going to engage in what to me was a subversive and revolutionary act engaging with the same system that placed that shame and confusion there in the first place. To me, it was either okay/ healthy/ healing/ good/ needed/ safe, or it wasn’t.

Because there was no one to really talk to and get information from, I started looking for high-quality, affirming, helpful, concrete information about sex and my body. It took some time to find the right information, but it was an absolute godsend finding the website “Scarleteen” and its accompanying manual, “S-E-X: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties” written by Heather Corinna. These inclusive resources were exactly the kind of information I was looking for. Both the website and the manual are geared towards and adolescents and emerging adults, but so much of it is applicable to people beyond those age groups, especially for those who received a lot of dogmatic, shame-based messages about sex, sexual identities, and our bodies, coupled with a lack of high-quality information about these things.

This process of learning and taking in information and unlearning shame and guilt about myself and my body took a long time and a lot of work in therapy. There were months of time when I would go to therapy and just cry the entire session because I felt so guilty and ashamed I was being sexual at all. I was raised in a home where I was not even allowed to hear basic information about sex or bodies as a single person, so how guilty must I be for actively facilitating my own pleasure?  Even though I felt so much guilt and shame because of what I had been taught, I felt competent, safe, and empowered exploring my sexual identity and self. As a trauma survivor, it was incredibly meaningful to be able to tune into and tend to my body’s physical and emotional needs in a way I never had before.

Another layer of this process was the way I perceived and felt toward my own body. I inhabit a fat body and use this term as a loving, neutral descriptor for my body. As a fat woman, I have been told many damaging things about my body by family members because the way my body existed was not preferred within my family of origin or society. This is a reflection of the deeply problematic and oppressive structures of fatphobia that exist. One of the lovely, unanticipated benefits of my conscious effort to process my sexual shame and engage with my sexual self was that for the first time in certain respects, I felt safe and at home in my body. I realized I could feel physical pleasure in my body, and that it was completely unrelated to my body size. A clitoris is a clitoris is a clitoris (or penis is a penis is a penis or any configuration of body parts), regardless of body size. Sure, maybe I had to move my soft tummy around a little bit, but because I had taken the time to understand and know my body intimately, I was able to feel safety and comfort and peace in that body. That was profoundly empowering and important for me.

I talk about this because the ways we teach about sexuality, sexual expression, and our bodies needs to change in our faith and in our society so that we can nurture, support, and facilitate the health, comfort, and pleasure of all of the many varied and wonderful intersections of sexual identities, desire, and expression people embody, including not having a desire for sex, as in the experiences of asexual (ace) folk. That starts with identifying and understanding what specific beliefs and values we were taught related to sex and our bodies so that we can make decisions about which beliefs and values are serving our self-care, emotional health, and physical experiences, and which aren’t. This process is so painful (and often ongoing), but worth every bit of effort for the comfort, safety, self-care, and self-understanding it facilitates.

What are the beliefs or
values about your body, your sexual self, or sex that you would like to give
up? What beliefs or values would you like to gain?

p.s. A list of high-quality, affirming, helpful, concrete resources I found, read, saw, and watched will be posted on the blog later today (August 23, 2019). Good resources about these things are a precious gift.

#hearLDSwomen: When I Asked a General Authority About the Temple Changes, He Told Me it Wasn’t Important and That It’s Dangerous to Doubt the Prophet

[image error]I had a general authority (70) come to my Young Single Adult ward just this past February. I was the Relief Society president in my ward and was invited to the stake leadership training.

My husband (then fiance) and I had some really strong, pending questions about the recent changes for women and the temple. I thought that maybe this GA could give me some insight. I approached this Elder after the leadership training and asked, making sure I was kind and respectful in my tone: “Do you know why the changes were made? Was it because of revelation or was it because of so many women who voiced their opinions? Or both? If that’s how God wanted it to be, why wasn’t it like that in the first place?”

Then this GA looked at me, and said (something along the lines of) “It’s dangerous to doubt the revelations given to the prophets and his apostles. We need to focus on things that are important. And that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ— Faith, Repentance, Baptism, The Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End. I appreciate your question.”

AND THAT WAS IT. I felt as though I was slapped in the face. He told me that changes in the temple are only “small details” that are unimportant. I felt as though he was calling me out for having doubts.

The next session of Stake Conference, I sat next to my fiancé and cried, and cried, and cried! My fiancé was SO mad at the GA’s response, that he walked up to the Elder and asked him the same questions that I did.

Almost word for word, this general authority said the same thing to my husband. “Don’t get caught up in the unimportant details.”

I felt like I was having a faith crisis.

– LP

 

After the temple changes I went to my bishop and asked if I could have a redo and get the new, better covenants.

He said that he figured I was probably grandmothered into the new ones.

When I expressed that I wanted to covenant with God instead of my husband, he said, “Well… your husband is kind of like an embryonic God!”

– Anonymous

 

The temple is the most blatantly sexist experience I’ve had in my life. Not only was I pressured into covenanting to my husband when he covenanted to God, I was ordained to be a Priestess to my husband when he was ordained a Priest to God, I wasn’t allowed to even pray without veiling my face first, I had to tell my husband my new name but wasn’t allowed to know his, my husband literally acted as the Lord taking me through the veil, and I covenanted to hearken to my husband when he covenanted to hearken to the Lord, but when I expressed my concerns about it I was COMPLETELY gaslighted by everyone I talked to. They said I must have heard wrong, or they don’t remember that, or their wife is fine with it so what’s my problem, or what kind of abuse did I suffer to make me not trust God, or I should stop thinking and just enjoy it. It was never even a possibility that the temple makes second class citizens out of women. Never a possibility that I, as a woman, paid attention and saw an actual problem.

– KR

 

The first time I went through the temple in 1975 I remember feeling a heavy weight pressing my head down when that covenant happened. My parents were temple workers and since it was a live session they were the witness couple, and often afterwards they were Adam & Eve or my dad was Satan a lot, so that part has been a good memory for me, but I never got over feeling pushed down every time I have gone since.

– LE

 

I am great with symbolism. Going through the temple was PAINFUL, and confusing. I honestly assumed that SURELY I didn’t understand it. Surely.

It took me over ten years to realize that I had understood, and wasn’t alone in my concerns.

– HHB

 

This was so much of my experience with the temple and the church at large. Surely I was just missing something deeper. Surely everyone else had already come to grips with these issues. Surely I was just behind. It took me years to realize that I wasn’t the problem.

– ST

 

The first time through the temple messed me up. My veil wasn’t see through at all. I felt completely shunned.

My aunt even asked me, as I was sobbing, if there was anything I needed to talk to the temple matron about. I later found out she meant to ask questions, but at the time it felt like she was accusing me of sinning and that I needed to go confess my sins. The whole thing was awful and I couldn’t even talk to anyone about it because one else had had a similar experience as me. They all thought I was being ridiculous.

– AM

 

Pro Tip: Recognize that how women experience the temple can differ greatly from how men experience the temple. Shaming and gaslighting women who talk about the recent temple changes is unhelpful. Validate and listen to women when they share their feelings about the temple.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. Has anything like this happened to you? Please share in the comments or submit your experience(s) to participate in the series.

“If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4:23)

 

Book Review: A New Constellation by Ashley Mae Hoiland

[image error]The heart does not know what it can hold until it is given the thing it must carry. I did not know I would love my children, or the ocean, or the purple flowers that bloom in our front yard tree, until they showed up for me, until I was asked to stoop down and take a piece of them into my heart. I imagine it is the same with things that are hard; I cannot dictate beforehand the ways they will contract and expand my universe until they show up at my front door unexpected. And then I will know they have traveled a long way to get here, that they have made plans to be here for this part of the journey, and that I must let them in. (p. 2)

Ashley Mae Hoiland’s A New Constellation: A Memoir About a Beginning is slim and unassuming–just 86 pages–and is the record of the author’s unexpected diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. The book records her musings, her emotions, and snapshots of her life in the early days of learning she had a chronic illness. Indeed, reading this book is like paging through a scrapbook; it is less clear narrative and more a time capsule of an intense and frightening and, somehow, beautiful time. It is also a love letter to the author’s body, a reworking of her relationship to it, an expansion of the understanding of what it means to be mortal, to be human.

I trust the work the body does, the hot tectonic shifting I can barely detect,

Breaking apart the only Pangea I ever knew

And trust it will re-arrange itself into something of a new history,

One that is mine to write.

(excerpt from the poem Diagnosis, p. 20)

I’ve read several memoirs, and while I generally enjoy the genre, Hoiland’s book had a different feel from anything else I’ve read. Part of that is the style: the non-linear method of storytelling, the collection of vignettes and narrative interspersed with poems, and part of that is that the book was written in real time during those first few weeks after her diagnosis. Hoiland was diagnosed with MS in December 2018, and this book was published in early April 2019, and the author’s closeness to these events imbue the writing with a sense of immediacy, vulnerability, and rawness that feel unique and poignant. There is no trite resolution, no insight gleaned from hindsight years after the fact, no reminiscences made sterile and clinical by the passage of time. It is a rare opportunity to witness such a crushing and formative moment in another person’s life, and Hoiland leads the reader through her journey with grace and grief, and the reader experiences with her the crushing bigness of overwhelm juxtaposed with small snapshots of everyday life, of moments that come like clockwork regardless of tragedy or timing.

The first morning we were in Utah for Christmas break, we woke up to the smell of cinnamon rolls my mom had made for us before she went to work at the hospital. When my whole body ached from the steroids, my own mother drew a hot bath with lavender and a candle on the ledge, and she folded my laundry and tucked a soft blanket around me in the early mornings. This is what mothers do, and it is what my soul searches for as well as my body. [….]

In my moment of trial, I am most interested in imagining female gods and female ancestors, and Mother Earth herself getting the news right along with me. [….] In the religion I know most intimately, I never heard mention of a Divine Female until I was in college, and even then, it felt blasphemous to say aloud. I had never considered Her or Her work. I’d talked about Her so little that she had no job, and no expectations, in my religious world view. When I finally began to imagine Her, I saw a wide open sky of possibilities. A Divine Mother could be anything, could do anything, that I needed Her to be and do. So now She sits quietly with me, Her spirit as calm as a forest, and holds me warm and close under her swan-like wing, the feathers sturdy and imperfect, discolored in places, but determined to hold me safe until the storm passes. (p. 43-45)

There are a few poems sprinkled throughout the text, all of them lovely, but the prose itself is lyrical and poetic, filled with rich imagery and emotion. Hoiland’s writing has an almost deceptively simple cadence to it, making it enjoyably readable and easy to follow, but as I read, I found myself every few pages reading a sentence or paragraph or phrase over again two or three times, letting the words sink in, feeling them wash over me.

This book being written and published as quickly as it was, it’s unsurprising that there are a couple of minor rough edges: a few typos, a metaphor or two that didn’t resonate with me. But this is almost part of the charm of the book, of the author’s attempts to put words to the unexplainable. Such an intimate look into this brief but heavily significant period of the author’s life is a gift. As she states in the blurb on the back cover of the book, “[This] is simply my experience, which I hope can reach out in some way and hold hands with what is hard and unexpected in your life, however small or large.”

The Forgotten Women Who Gave Us BYU

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These are the six polygamous wives of Abraham Owen Smoot (the man who saved BYU) – Margaret, Sarah, Emily, Diana, Anne and Caroline.

Four years ago in the fall of 2015, I attended the BYU Homecoming Spectacular featuring David Archuleta (who is not important to this story at all, but he was adorable and my favorite part of the night). As part of the evening’s events they honored a man named Abraham Owen Smoot, an important figure in church history and especially that of BYU (which he personally funded in a time of the institution’s financial crisis and consequently died penniless). His great great great great (I forgot how many greats) granddaughter is a singer and performed as well, right alongside the adorable David (and she was very good, too). Recently a news story was published questioning the wisdom of honoring this man so much without ever mentioning his complete life story – which includes the fact that he owned multiple slaves, was a vocal proponent of keeping slavery legal, and very instrumental in perpetuating the priesthood and temple ban on black members and making slavery legal in Utah. As a missionary he was asked to distribute literature for Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign in 1844, but wouldn’t because it was critical of slavery (yay, Joseph!).

One of his slaves named Tom was a particularly interesting situation, because this black man was also a baptized member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Not only was Abraham Smoot his slave master, he was also his bishop. It boggles the modern mind.

Luckily in 2019 we have figured out that hey, owning other people is WRONG. We can look back at his active campaigning to continue slavery and acknowledge that he was gravely mistaken. (And I suspect that Brother Smoot would agree and look with regret on those actions now if given the chance.) People are discussing what to do with his memory as this knowledge becomes more public. We don’t have to torch the campus building named after him, but you know, maybe we could put a plaque out front acknowledging the names of the slaves he owned who also dedicated their lives (against their will) to Smoot’s work, freeing him up to run the academy that later became BYU. I think this sounds totally reasonable. Let’s take ownership of the university savior’s history and mistakes, and honor those who have been erased from the story.

I didn’t know that Smoot was a slave owner at the Homecoming Spectacular in 2015, and yet I was deeply bothered by the evening dedicated to his honor for an entirely different reason. I had been intensely learning all about polygamy during the 12 months prior to this (from Joseph Smith’s polygamy up to modern day practices). In between performances by BYU groups they played a video montage of Abraham Smoot’s life, talking about his great faith and fortitude, and the trust placed in him by prophets such as Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff, and Brigham Young. The music to the video suddenly stopped after the short bio of his life and mentioned his wife for the very first time. It said that she didn’t like the desert they’d moved to, and that she “complained” about their circumstances. I rolled my eyes internally about the way she was described compared to him, because come on – all she did was complain, and he NEVER complained about anything? That seemed a little simplistic.

At another point in the video it quoted a letter he’d written to his wife. At the second mention of her, I decided to Google “Abraham Owen Smoot polygamy”, right there on my phone (we were on the very back row of the side section, so no one would’ve seen me). Turns out he had SIX wives, and 27 kids. Suddenly his first wife’s complaints make a lot of sense. Your husband brings you to the desert where you hardly have any food and your starving kids scavenge outside after dinner for anything else they can find to eat, while your husband gives all of your money to the school that would become BYU, goes away on missions, and when he’s around he still has multiple other women to spend time with and impregnate. *He* didn’t just die penniless to save BYU, so did all of his wives and their children. Abraham Owen Smoot was heavily in debt when he passed away, so I assume that financial burden passed on to his living wives. But who gets a Homecoming Spectacular with the adorable David Archuleta in his honor, and who doesn’t even get mentioned or named? Not his six wives, only him. If my children and I ever live alone and starve on the frontier so that future generations can have the option for quality, affordable education, I’d really appreciate them singing a song in my honor at some point, dang it.

David and the great great granddaughter were talking about how nothing they did tonight could have happened without Abraham – not the homecoming weekend, the Marriott Center, the performances, the school, nothing. I wondered what it would be like to be say, his 5th invisible and unnamed wife who spent most of her time raising kids alone while her husband spent time with the other wives or with the prophets, funneling all of their money into an institution of higher learning rather than his family.

I graduated from BYU. This guy impacted my life. But what about his wives? What about the supposed “equal” role that we women play in marriages and history? Why could they not even mention 5/6 of his wives, and only mention how the other one complained?

Long after everyone else in the audience had clapped and moved on to ballroom dance performances and the Jazz Band, I was still sitting there, fuming a little on behalf of the stories I knew were being ignored in order to promote a more whitewashed version of the polygamist man who saved our university. (Who might’ve been a genuinely swell guy (outside of his racism), but come on! It was too convenient that only one wife was even mentioned. Own up to your polygamous roots, BYU.)

Not only did Abraham Smoot do what he did with the help of enslaved blacks, he did it with the help of six women also largely missing from the public story. All of these people made BYU possible today! Let’s have a concert and honor all of them for once too, and stop erasing women’s contributions to our church by only praising the men they were associated with

(And hey, maybe name a few buildings at BYU after some faithful pioneer woman for a change. Below are some suggestions.)

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Margaret T. McMeans Smoot was the Abraham’s first wife. She was also the stake Relief President in a stake of almost 18,000 people. She was a leader and pioneer in her right.

 

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Sarah Gibbens Smoot was 15 years older than Abraham, and chose not to go west with him and the other wives. I saw her listed as an “ex-spouse” on another site, so I think perhaps their marriage was brief and ended with his leaving. I read about this family for several hours online, but was never able to find an image of her.

 

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Emily Hill Harris Smoot gave birth to AO Smoot’s first child (Albert), and was pregnant with him while crossing the plains. He tragically drowned in the Jordan River when he was only 16 years old. That makes my heart hurt for her.

 

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This is Diana Caroline Tanner Eldredge Smoot, the 4th wife. I found this letter written to her from Wilford Woodruff:
“Thou art the mother of many children.
Thy labors have been great in Zion.
Thou wilt stand in thy lot in the family organization in the Celestial World.
Wilford Woodruff”

 

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Anne Kristine Mauritzen Smoot (also went by Anna Kristina Morrison Smoot). She was born and converted in Norway, and served as the stake primary president in the same stake as Margaret, with almost 18,000 people.

 

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Try as I might, I couldn’t find a photo of the last wife, Hannah Caroline Rogers Smoot, nor could I find much information about her. Abraham Smoot was her third marriage.

 

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And finally, here is Abraham. Despite there being six wives and only one of him, his images online outnumber their images 100 times. His life is written about at great length, and they are generally mentioned only as passing details in his life. There’s an entire AO Smoot history foundation ran by his ancestors, but I was able to find only bits and pieces anywhere on the internet about his wives. His son (the senator Reed Smoot) is mentioned in much more detail than any of the women in his life. I wish we could change that.

A blessing for those who lost a loved one to suicide

[image error]CEMETERIE, Engesohde, Hannover, Germany, by x1klima

We tend to name God
With easy labels
Creator
Father
Mother
God is also a God of Exits
A witness to injustice
A divine companion in suffering
God-who-weeps
God-who-sits-with-us-in-our-grief
God who holds us in our life-and-death
God of messy complication
God of unyielding sadness.
Yes, I will address this blessing to
God who holds our collective pain and anger and loss
For ours is a wave of feelings
That will crash wherever they crash.
We seek a blessing of gentle patience
With ourselves as these waves break
In more and less powerful ways
In moments of inconvenience
When we are just trying to buy milk
And not make a scene at the register.
God, grant us love and forgiveness (eventually)
For everyone who will say
The exact wrong thing
To shame or dismiss our complicated grief
And God, this is likely to include everyone
So we will need a lot of it (eventually)
For the speakers of trite phrases
And inspirational quotes.
Just nothing will feel right or be right
Because it isn’t.
God, make your presence known
In this moment
And all of the other ones
When the feelings are bigger than our bodies.
Help us to sit in this private chaos
And not to burn all of our bridges.
Amen.