Exponent II's Blog, page 219

Guest Post: Why Don’t Women Help Pick the Bishop?

By Abby Maxwell Hansen

My ward got a brand new bishop this month. It happens every five years, and I’d known it was coming any day. I’d recently texted the old bishop’s wife and joked about how she’d see her husband for the first time in half a decade.

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The new bishopric was announced in Sacrament Meeting, like always. Extended family members of those men sat in the congregation, having traveled to see them sustained. They announced the change, and everyone had only a few seconds to process the names before deciding to raise their hands either in agreement or opposition. I don’t really know our new bishop like I knew the last one, but he seems very nice. I like his wife. Hopefully that means he’ll be a cool bishop, too.

I’ve thought a lot about the process of choosing the ward leadership for the upcoming years, and who was involved. My understanding is that it happens like this: the stake president counsels with the current bishopric, the high councilmen assigned to that ward, perhaps the Elder’s Quorum president or his own counselors who are familiar with the men in that ward, or any other priesthood leader he feels inspired to talk to. After that, he makes the decision a matter of personal contemplation and prayer, and decides who he wants to call. The number of women involved in this very important decision is zero. I don’t believe these callings come directly from God in a perfectly understood revelation, or that the stake president choosing can’t make a mistake. I think he does his best job to pick someone he thinks will lead the ward well and match up with the needs of ward. I live in Lehi, Utah – just up the road from where a currently serving bishop was arrested as part of human trafficking bust several weeks ago. If that’s not proof that stake presidents are doing their best but inevitably pick a bad apple sometimes, I don’t know what is.

In the aftermath of that bishop’s arrest, I realized that I have several female friends and acquaintances in his ward, former ward (before a recent split) and stake. Not everyone had a bad feeling about this particular bishop before he was caught, but two of the women said they did. One with a teenage daughter had been very clear that her girl could leave an interview at any time she felt the slightest bit uncomfortable with him. I wonder how different this whole affair might have played out if the women in the ward had been consulted for their opinion before calling this man to be the bishop. I’ve experienced situations in my life where a particular man gives many women around him a creepy feeling, but the men in charge seem oblivious. (There was a terribly creepy older man that I used to work with years ago. The male upper management had no idea he was a problem until the one female manager took our concerns about him up the ladder and he was reprimanded.)

So why don’t we consult with the female leadership in a ward for their ideas of who a good bishop would be? The presidents of the female led organizations likely have a different insight on potential bishopric candidates than what the men see alone. At an even lower bar, why doesn’t the stake president call at least these women in after he’s already picked the new bishop – but before extending the actual calling – and give them to opportunity confidentially voice any concerns or objections there?  The bishop will be the guy who picks the next president of the women’s organization in the ward, so why can’t the women (at the very, very least) have some sort of input on who the man will be that chooses their leaders, lessons and teachers for the next five years?

To be fair to the system, women do have the option of raising their hand in opposition when the stake president calls for a sustaining vote of the new bishop. That’s not nothing – but it almost is. Our church culture is so very opposed to opposing. A ward member might have literally a split second to decide if they’re going to raise their hand and make a very public declaration of non-support for the guy who is about to be running that ward for the next half-decade. Unless a ward member knows something extremely egregious about him, I don’t think anyone will ever raise their hand in that setting to vote in opposition. I was always told that the sustaining of leaders wasn’t so much for them (as God had already called them), but an opportunity for me to show my support of that new calling. I think that’s a pretty common interpretation in the church.

When that sustaining vote is called for, the male leaders in the ward have had days or weeks to thoughtfully contemplate the change in leadership, while the female leaders get a ten second warning before the vote. And if they’re sick, in the hall with a baby, or out of town – they may miss the opportunity to vote at all. And who wants to vote no without a very, very clear reason to do so (like, everybody missed that the guy was arrested for attempted rape last year)? At that point, the bishop has already been called and spent weeks training behind the scenes with the outgoing bishop, his family has flown in from Delaware to support him, and the stake president is standing at the pulpit declaring that God has specifically called this particular man to be the next leader of the ward. Is the church really genuinely asking for female input at that point, when the social pressure is so intense for women to agree with and sustain the decision that had long since been made already without them?

Next year we celebrate one hundred years of women voting in America. What I would like to see in my church now is real votes for women – not the false appearance of a sustaining vote that we have in place now. Change the policies so that women are consulted on everything that affects them and their lives – especially on who their ecclesiastical leaders will be.

#hearLDSwomen: My Bishop Asks My Husband for Permission Before Extending Me a Calling

[image error]I was not offered a calling without my husband in the room to give his consent, and then he was given callings without a chat with me.

– Sherry Andersen

 

I married when I was 32. The bishopric came over to give us their congratulations on our marriage. I was then asked to do a calling. But before he asked me, he asked permission from my husband of two weeks for me to have a church calling AND asked him if it was something I could do.

– Anonymous

 

I had a bishop who would always ask my husband if I could accept a calling before asking me, but my husband never needed my permission to accept his callings. Luckily for me, my husband always replied, “That’s not up to me. You’ll have to ask her.” Fortunately that was only one bishop. No other bishop I have had has operated that way.

– Anonymous

 

Shortly after we were married, a bishopric counselor in our new ward called my husband and asked if we’d speak in church. He asked my husband to tell me to speak for 10 minutes, and he asked my husband to close the meeting and speak for 15 minutes. I felt like a youth speaker.

– ElleK

 

My father was told several times that he wasn’t given bigger callings because my outspoken, feminist mother “wasn’t supportive enough”.

– Nancy K.

 

I have been issued and have accepted callings verbally, but because my bishop was unable to contact my husband, I was never set apart or fulfilled the callings because the bishop was unable to receive my husband’s permission for me to perform them.

– Anonymous

 

Pro Tip: Respect women as fully autonomous beings. Do not ask husbands for permission before extending callings to their wives. If you would like to extend a calling with both spouses present, ensure that you do this for callings for both men and women.

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)

The Intersection of Politics and Religion in the Utah Suffrage Movement with Katherine Kitterman

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Katherine Kitterman

In this episode of the Religious Feminism interview series, Katherine Kitterman, Historical Director for Better Days 2020, talks to us about how national concerns about religious issues in Utah Territory led to Utah women winning the right to vote 50 years before most other American women, losing that right and winning it back. We discuss how Utah women fought for (and against) the right to vote and how they partnered with suffrage leaders on the East Coast to work toward suffrage for all American women. You can find episode notes for the Religious Feminism Podcast here at the Exponent website: http://www.the-exponent.com/tag/religious-feminism-podcast/

Links to Connect and Learn More:

Better Days 2020

Women Making Utah History

Better Days 2020 on Facebook

Better Days 2020 on Instagram

Better Days 2020 on Twitter

Listen and subscribe for free below:

#hearLDSwomen: In My Ward, Women Give Just 20% of the Talks, so I Wrote to My Bishop

[image error]Over a year ago in my ward, I felt like there had been an abnormally long string of Sacrament Meetings where only men spoke. I wondered if maybe I was mistaken, so I checked the ward program spreadsheet and counted the number of adult male vs. female speakers we’d had in recent weeks. Men gave a whopping 80% of the talks and were almost exclusively the concluding speaker of each meeting. More than half of the time, there were no women speakers at all. So I sent an email:

 

Dear Bishopric:

I’ve noticed a trend in recent Sacrament Meetings that I’d like to bring to your attention.

Since July, there have been 12 Sundays with assigned speakers in Sacrament Meeting. Seven of those Sundays (58%) have had exclusively male speakers for the adult talks. No Sundays since July have featured only adult women speakers. This means that we have heard from 20 men and only 5 women in the past 4+ months. A man has also been the concluding speaker on each of these Sundays save one.

I realize not everyone notices or cares about things like this. I’m sure the scheduling was not malicious or deliberate. I am hesitant to send this email because it’s not my place to tell you how to run things.[1] But as a woman who has always been and will always be presided over by male leadership, I’m asking you to please notice things like this. Church leaders like to say that women’s voices are important, but when there are literally four adult male speakers for every one adult female speaker, and when there is frequently a long row of suits up on the stand without a single skirt, I sure don’t feel like that’s true.

I appreciate that you’re mixing things up by not just having married couples speak. I recognize that High Council Sundays often feature two men (though they’ve started bringing the female auxiliary presidents sometimes, which I’ve been thrilled about), so the speaker lineup hasn’t been entirely under your control, but I hope you’ll try to compensate for that with some all-female speaker lineups (that aren’t just the ward auxiliary presidencies, though I did enjoy those Sundays earlier this year).

You each have a lot on your plate, and I appreciate the sacrifices you make and the work you do. Thank you for your consideration.

 

My bishop responded, “Thank you for letting us know.”

For the next couple months, I noticed they were making an effort to include more women. One week, they even asked me and another woman to speak as the only adult speakers, and I was the concluding speaker. I was pleased about their efforts, but I still noticed some upsetting discrepancies. My husband spoke the week before I did, and he was invited in a text by a member of the bishopric and told to pick his own topic (which is standard operating procedure in my ward). When this same bishopric member called me the next week and asked me to speak, however, he gave me several topics to choose from and asked me what I thought about them. When I gave him noncommittal answers and said I’d probably incorporate a couple of those themes along with whatever I felt inspired to add, he continued to press me, wanting me to select a topic so he could approve it. He started giving me suggestions on how to write my talk (“When I write a talk, I usually look up my topic in the Topical Guide and see what scriptures I can find…”). I finally asked him whether he trusted me to speak at all. I told him that I knew how to write a talk, that I’m a very competent speaker, that I served a mission and was an MTC teacher. He seemed surprised and backpedaled uncomfortably.

My husband, who’d been listening to the conversation from the next room, commented afterward on how differently we’d been treated by the same man asking us to do the same task just one week apart. It was especially frustrating to me because between me and my husband, I am the stronger speaker, and I enjoy it more.

I just looked up the most recent few months of Sacrament Meeting speakers, and while the numbers are slightly better than they were when I wrote to my bishopric, women’s representation, at 33%, is still abysmal. Men spoke 20 times; women spoke 10 times. Men were the concluding speakers every Sunday except two.

On Sundays when we hear only from men, I often find myself counting the number of suits lined up like chess pieces on the stand. There’s generally the three men in the bishopric, three priests at the Sacrament table (and, after they sit down, a deacon who sits next to the bishop for no discernible reason), a visiting member of the stake presidency, and the two-three male speakers. Women’s absence is so tangible that it’s a wonder to me that no one finds it remarkable: women are absent on the ward level, they’re absent at the general level, and they’re absent in the temple liturgy.

When I don’t see myself represented at any level of church governance, what else can I conclude but that this is a church by men and for men?

– ElleK

 

Pro Tip: Pay attention to women’s representation in your ward. Notice how many male vs. female speakers there are in your meetings, in General Conference, in the temple ceremony. Ask yourself what you can do to elevate women’s voices.

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)

 

[1] I wrote more about this dynamic here.

#hearLDSwomen: In My Ward, Women Give Just 20% of the Talks

[image error]Over a year ago in my ward, I felt like there had been an abnormally long string of Sacrament Meetings where only men spoke. I wondered if maybe I was mistaken, so I checked the ward program spreadsheet and counted the number of adult male vs. female speakers we’d had in recent weeks. Men gave a whopping 80% of the talks and were almost exclusively the concluding speaker of each meeting. More than half of the time, there were no women speakers at all. So I sent an email:

 

Dear Bishopric:

I’ve noticed a trend in recent Sacrament Meetings that I’d like to bring to your attention.

Since July, there have been 12 Sundays with assigned speakers in Sacrament Meeting. Seven of those Sundays (58%) have had exclusively male speakers for the adult talks. No Sundays since July have featured only adult women speakers. This means that we have heard from 20 men and only 5 women in the past 4+ months. A man has also been the concluding speaker on each of these Sundays save one.

I realize not everyone notices or cares about things like this. I’m sure the scheduling was not malicious or deliberate. I am hesitant to send this email because it’s not my place to tell you how to run things. But as a woman who has always been and will always be presided over by male leadership, I’m asking you to please notice things like this. Church leaders like to say that women’s voices are important, but when there are literally four adult male speakers for every one adult female speaker, and when there is frequently a long row of suits up on the stand without a single skirt, I sure don’t feel like that’s true.

I appreciate that you’re mixing things up by not just having married couples speak. I recognize that High Council Sundays often feature two men (though they’ve started bringing the female auxiliary presidents sometimes, which I’ve been thrilled about), so the speaker lineup hasn’t been entirely under your control, but I hope you’ll try to compensate for that with some all-female speaker lineups (that aren’t just the ward auxiliary presidencies, though I did enjoy those Sundays earlier this year).

You each have a lot on your plate, and I appreciate the sacrifices you make and the work you do. Thank you for your consideration.

My bishop responded, “Thank you for letting us know.”

For the next couple months, I noticed they were making an effort to include more women. One week, they even asked me and another woman to speak as the only adult speakers, and I was the concluding speaker. I was pleased about their efforts, but I still noticed some upsetting discrepancies. My husband spoke the week before I did, and he was invited in a text by a member of the bishopric and told to pick his own topic (which is standard operating procedure in my ward). When this same bishopric member called me the next week and asked me to speak, however, he gave me several topics to choose from and asked me what I thought about them. When I gave him noncommittal answers and said I’d probably incorporate a couple of those themes along with whatever I felt inspired to add, he continued to press me, wanting me to select a topic so he could approve it. He started giving me suggestions on how to write my talk (“When I write a talk, I usually look up my topic in the Topical Guide and see what scriptures I can find…”). I finally asked him whether he trusted me to speak at all. I told him that I knew how to write a talk, that I’m a very competent speaker, that I served a mission and was an MTC teacher. He seemed surprised and backpedaled uncomfortably.

My husband, who’d been listening to the conversation from the next room, commented afterward on how differently we’d been treated by the same man asking us to do the same task just one week apart. It was especially frustrating to me because between me and my husband, I am the stronger speaker, and I enjoy it more.

I just looked up the most recent few months of Sacrament Meeting speakers, and while the numbers are slightly better than they were when I wrote to my bishopric, women’s representation, at 33%, is still abysmal. Men spoke 20 times; women spoke 10 times. Men were the concluding speakers every Sunday except two.

On Sundays when we hear only from men, I often find myself counting the number of suits lined up like chess pieces on the stand. There’s generally the three men in the bishopric, three priests at the Sacrament table (and, after they sit down, a deacon who sits next to the bishop for no discernible reason), a visiting member of the stake presidency, and the two-three male speakers. Women’s absence is so tangible that it’s a wonder to me that no one finds it remarkable: women are absent on the ward level, they’re absent at the general level, and they’re absent in the temple liturgy.

When I don’t see myself represented at any level of church governance, what else can I conclude but that this is a church by men and for men?

– ElleK

 

Pro Tip: Pay attention to women’s representation in your ward. Notice how many male vs. female speakers there are in your meetings, in General Conference, in the temple ceremony. Ask yourself what you can do to elevate women’s voices.

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)

LDS Women of Color Art Scholarship

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#hearLDSwomen: I’m Not Allowed to Speak in Sacrament Meeting Unless My Husband Speaks Too

[image error]In our old ward I went to the bishop and begged to have them find a calling for my husband. He is in law enforcement and is rarely able to go to church; compound that with a less than social personality, and I am my husband’s only social group. They said, “well, he isn’t ever at church.” I responded that I know there are callings that are not Sunday specific. I had three callings at the time. They finally called him to be the building cleaning coordinator. Guess who passed around the sign up sheet, who showed up most Saturdays to unlock and made sure the building got cleaned most of the time. But when I mentioned this reality, I was told, “well, you asked for him to have a calling.”

– Beez

 

We were trying to talk to our Bishop about me holding our baby for the blessing. During the conversation, where my husband mostly supported me by letting me talk, the bishop increasingly began addressing my husband over me. It was the hysterical woman trope come to life and it was ridiculous.

– Anonymous

 

My husband is not a member of the church and also abuses alcohol. We are both from a culture where Christian religion – any Christian denomination – is frowned upon. But my salvation is my business and I am following a path in a church I love with all my heart. And though I “understand” on some levels, I feel like chattel when told that I need his permission for ANYTHING. It makes me feel like I have no value and that my blessings are really to be withheld because an alcoholic jackhole doesn’t believe as I do.

– Kerry Hawk

 

In another ward, we were asked to give the standard “new people” talks in sacrament meeting. My husband declined, but when I expressed my interest, the counselor said, “We don’t really do that, we’ll have to see if there’s another time…” (which of course there wasn’t.)

– Christy C.

 

I’ve lived in my ward for over 8 years, most of it very active, but because my husband is never-Mormon I have never been asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting, even though they know I’m a very good speaker since I have been asked to put together many presentations for Relief Society and taught both Relief Society and Primary. Without a priesthood companion I obviously have nothing worthwhile to say to the whole congregation.

– Nancy K.

 

Pro Tip:

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)

Toxic Mormon Masculinity Series: Pressure to Provide

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As part of our Toxic Mormon Masculinit y series, we are featuring guest posts from men who share their experiences of operating within the masculinity culture unique to Mormonism. ( Introductory post here.)  We are happy to accept new submissions of guest posts to this series and welcome any of our male-identifying readers to share their perspectives. 

 

By Ziff 

I grew up in a large family. I’m second of seven siblings, so I had a front-row seat as a new sibling was added every year or two. But I grew up in Utah Valley in the 1980s, so my family wasn’t at all unusual. The other families in our ward, and my friends at school, were seeing their families expand just as quickly, or even more quickly. I’m sure it wasn’t until years later that I read this message stated explicitly in Mormon Doctrine, or some other such book, but it was clear to me from a young age that it’s a good and important thing to have a lot of kids.

Another norm that I grew up with was that fathers were employed and mothers were SAHMs. This probably isn’t surprising given how costly child care is when you have a large number of children, not to mention church teachings about how mothers shouldn’t be employed unless it was absolutely necessary. But like with large family size, this was a norm that I observed and understood long before I heard or read anything explicitly being said about it.

Given these two norms, then, it was pretty easy for me to work out what my calling as a Mormon male was: I needed to make a ton of money to afford the many children that my wife an I would inevitably have. Unfortunately for me, this was a huge source of anxiety. I knew that my parents worried a fair amount about money, and as a generally anxious kid to begin with, I was ready and waiting to have their worries leak onto me. This worry was exacerbated further by my inability to work out in my head how I was ever going to get a job at all, let alone a job that paid well enough to support a large family. I totally lacked self-confidence as a kid, and the whole complicated process of getting jobs and going to college to get better jobs just felt completely hopeless.

As a result of all this anxiety, whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told people I wanted to become a tramp. People generally took this response as a joke, but I was saying it at least semi-seriously to try to hold my worries at bay. I felt like if I set the bar for my life nice and low, nobody would be surprised when I ended up amounting to nothing. Also, I decided that I clearly was not going to be getting married, as getting married led inevitably to having lots of kids, and needing lots of money, and since I wasn’t going to be able to supply that, I figured it was best to just avoid the whole thing entirely. That way at least I’d be only letting myself down when I couldn’t ever find a job.

This is all interesting to reflect back on now, as I’m in middle age. I’ve been married for a couple of decades, we have kids (although only three, far below the Utah Valley norm of my youth), and I’ve even ended up being the primary provider for most of that time. So how did I get past my teenage wannabe tramp phase? Well, it turned out that I was able to get a few jobs and manage some school, and even more importantly, I found that marriage wasn’t all that easy for me to pass up. To my great fortune, though, when I explained to my wife-to-be about my anxieties about being the sole provider, she pointed out to me that it didn’t have to be that way. “We’re a team,” she told me, “and if we both need to work, we’ll both work.” This was a tremendous relief. And she backed her words up. Even as we started to have kids, she found ways to be employed that helped take the sole provider stress off of me. For this, I will be forever grateful to her.

So I’ve had the good fortune to be married to someone who has been willing to go against the cultural norm of man as sole provider. I’ve been lucky. Not all men are so lucky. I think we Mormons would be so much better off if we could discard this aspect of toxic Mormon masculinity, and just accept as the norm the idea that couples can work out for themselves which of them will be employed and how childcare will be handled. The church has taken a step toward this in (grudgingly) accepting that members are going to use birth control, and aren’t going to consult their bishops about it. I’m hoping for more steps in this direction in the future, like maybe walking back the language in the Family Proclamation about gender roles and just saying something like that it’s up to couples to work out how they want to handle employment and child care.

 

How has your partnership managed the balance of providing for a family vs. child care? Did you come to that decision together? Were you influenced by an outside narrative for how it must be done?  How has that balance changed over the course of your relationship? 

#hearLDSwomen: My Priesthood Leaders Identify With My Husband, Not Me

[image error]When I lived in a large city where leadership was hard to find, my ex and I both had stake callings – I was the stake Primary President and he was on the high council. After some marriage problems where my stake president actually told me to put my ex’s bags on the porch (because he regularly came home from work around 4 am), the stake president thought we maybe were too busy and needed a change.

So he released me. Not my ex. Me.
– Anonymous

 

I told my bishop “I’m having a hard time going to church, or even leaving my house, because I’m depressed.” He replied with “That must be really hard on your husband.”

What’s so crazy is that it took me several years to pinpoint why that bugged me. I actually replied with something like ‘ya, he’s really trying….’

Husband was abusive and greatly contributing to depression. It took me years to see his abuse as well.
– Danielle

 

My husband has never been very Church-active and regularly declines to participate. I quite often attend alone. As a newlywed in a student ward, I occasionally wasn’t given the sacrament because the tray was always handed to the men on the row.
– Christy C.

 

I also talked to a bishop once about struggles i was having. He decided he wouldn’t pay for therapy, not because we could afford it (we couldn’t) but because he thought I didn’t need it. I was feeling down and had no emotional support at all.
– Anonymous

 

 

Pro Tip: Recognize that you are likely to subconsciously relate to people who are like you. When you work with women, be aware of this bias and actively fight against it. See women as people first. See women.

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)

Guest Post: God’s Song Sings Within Me

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photo by Sasha Freemind

By Louise

My relationship with God is ever evolving. I allow it to grow and change and become whatever it is supposed to become. I relate to God through the earth, through tactile experiences with my children and husband, in sacred ways through meditation and music, and through appreciation of Their divine presence in my life.

My relationship with God started when I was a little girl. My cousin and I would attend our Marmar’s church. She would wet down and brush our hair into tight (hurting!) side pony tails. It was the late 80’s. All I really remember from that time is hearing my grandma sing. She smoked for so long that her vocal cords were not the greatest, but I could tell she was still singing in tune even if it was less beautiful—and truthfully to me it was beautiful. She sang her heart to God and taught me this: “It doesn’t matter how well we sing. We don’t sing for the people at church but so God can hear us.” She learned that from her dad who she said couldn’t sing at all but was the loudest singer at church.

Other than those few times we went to church with her, my family did not attend church. My parents had grown up in very orthodox ways and had decided that they would let us figure out God on our own. I was randomly drawn to churches that friends attended and had a couple of experiences that helped me know that something was there. I remember one night praying and asking if God was really there and if I was cared for. I had the strongest, warm feeling in my heart. Recalling that memory floats it to the surface. I even turned on my nightlight and in my diary wrote, “GOD IS REAL.”

In my late teens I did not have a relationship to God and didn’t care. I really wanted the time to delve into Wicca or Paganism because they always called to me but I did not have the time, and my egocentricity led me to focusing on myself and not a connection to God. I considered myself agnostic. I have found out that gnostic means seeker of truth, or knowing truth. Agnostic would be the opposite. I was not seeking anything. I was in fact feeling very depleted, depressed, and anxious about my life.

The first question I ever asked a pastor was at a daycare that I went to. I caught him in the hall and asked who God’s mother was. He told me, “God doesn’t have a mother.” I asked, “How can He not have a mother? Where did He come from then?” He responded, “He has just always been. He’s always existed.” That was not satisfying.

When I was 21 I joined an organized religion. When I brought this question up in this church, I learned that He does in fact have a mother, as we all do, and that He has a Wife. That was satisfying. It gave me some glimpse that I have an extra purpose that is not an appendage to a man. Over time I learned that we don’t really discuss this in our church. We don’t discuss much of anything that helps a woman understand her place in the eternities. I started feeling like I needed more of Her in my life and spirituality so that I could better understand who I was to become. My relationship to God seemed like it needed to be laid out in a very precise manner, otherwise it didn’t count as spirituality.

My meditative practice dwindled and even though I was praying to feel God’s love for me, to understand that I was still supported and loved, I was finding more and more teachings and quotes that made the cognitive dissonance so hard to bear. I had a couple of panic attacks late at night at the thought that God cared less about me because I am a woman. That God would actually allow and sanction the use of concubines (or slaves). That God would believe that I am better than those who were victimized because I live in a time and place that He does not sanction concubines (or slavery). How free I must feel now. Thank you God! But, the truth is, I am not better than a concubine or slave. I am not better than any woman who feels subservient to her husband, and God doesn’t feel that way either.

All of these emotions caused me to be so angry at God. Why was I angry? Because God chose to make a man before a woman (which is biologically impossible). And he made her after him because he couldn’t be alone (procreate his posterity). He chose to ask women to give more of their heart than their husbands had to in order to be more selfless in polygamous marriages. He chose to give women away as if that is possible. He chose to expect women to serve without complaint. He chose to give (mainly white) men power and authority over women (and other people on the earth). He chose to let us suffer. He chose to let me suffer. He kept Her hidden.

That sank in so deeply. My relationship with God that took years to build was crumbling. I was not feeling the presence of God even though I prayed constantly, was having faith, started meditating again, listened to mantra music, hymns, and songs of Christ almost daily, attended the temple, and was at church and took the sacrament consistently. I couldn’t comprehend that God would leave me in this place or even lead me to this place.

Then, I let Her in. I let my Mother into my life. I let Her into my spirituality. I prayed to Her. Over and over I asked to feel love. I felt assured that She was there for me, had always been there for me. I felt an assurance that my anger with God was not making Him angry with me. Of course God can see all of our life and the generations of ancestors that are living through us. He knew exactly what I was angry about. Generations of women in bondage. Generations of women feeling beat down, trodden, and incomplete. He let me mourn. He let me reach for my Mother because that did not take away from His status as God or His status as my Father.

Slowly, I reached a point of apology to Him. In that prayer I felt loved; I saw both my Father and Mother hug me as a united family. They blessed me and offered comfort and support. I knew I was on my own path and my way to Them was different than other people’s.

Although I had such a faith-promoting experience, it did not leave me any more supported during church. I still felt the sting of everything I saw that was wrong and hurtful. All the things that didn’t, and still don’t, ring true in my soul. After a huge shift happened physically for our family, I realized that what was still providing hurt in my life was church. God does not want me feeling hurt and spiritually wounded every week of my life.

God (She and He) want me happy. They want me to feel them deeply every moment of every day. They want my happiness to carry me into singing my own song and singing it loudly in my own way. God speaks to me through meditation, through the plants, within energy, through music, within my family, through my husband and children, through friendships, books, the zodiac, and technology. God sings to me through the ethers. They have been calling me in harmonious ways. Take what feels true, leave what doesn’t. It is all working to one great whole. That whole is a whole me. A woman who is strong, true, pure, holy, righteous, sexual, smart, cunning, bright, cheery, loud, zoned-in, chaotic, lunar, cyclical, loved, lovely, adventurous, beautiful, and enough. Right now, I am where God wants me to be. All my past steps have been stepping stones to now and as many stepping stones as are in my future will still lead me to God—and grace within Their harmonious song is what will guide my steps to my next stone.

 

Louise is a happy woman. She chooses to spend her time with her husband, children, with God, and learning.