Exponent II's Blog, page 23

Keys

Guest Post by Keely Richins

 

Unlocked

The men had the court, they didn’t have to say “please.”
After all, all worthy men have the keys.

Three days a week, the Stake President opened the door,
Early morning pickup ball, ‘Should we pray? What the hell for?’

What about the sisters? What about our ball?
But there’s no room on the schedule, no time at all.
Blocked.

Calls to the male scheduler, ‘This will take weeks!’
I counseled myself, ‘be basic, molded, meek.’
No time for you. Who will lock up?
Who will supervise? Who will clean up?

More weeks pass, call my Sister Presidents,
Talk to my Bishop, talk to my friends.
Alas, we got on the schedule, we put in the work!
I would have a calling, “Let no one shirk!”

Women had a Sports Coordinator, several days a week!
Success was felt-we did it-with almost no cheek!

“Let’s play!” I shout, the ball ready to serve,
‘Not so fast!’ Women must be organized,
a prayer had to be observed.

Then what did I learn, the next week after this hustle?
Men were awarded an additional day, without lifting a single muscle.

Well, we got what we wanted, isn’t that right?

Then why, oh why, was it such a fight?

I think it came down to who held the keys,
‘Oh you don’t want those, women, don’t be such a tease.’

 

Keely is a reader, runner, proud Utah native, Idaho backpacker, nightgown wearing millennial, friend, and rabbit-owner. She loves to laugh, be outside, and push herself outside of her comfort zone. She lives a thrilling life with a CPA and three kids in a home with a red door.

Into the Woods—Exponent II Retreat

Consider attending this year’s Exponent II Retreat on September 19-21, 2025, at the Barbara C. Harris Center in Greenfield, New Hampshire! Registrations opens May 3. Learn more here.

This essay was originally published in the Fall 2024 issue of Exponent II magazine.

On clear, chilly evenings at my home in Las Vegas, I sometimes revisit the memory of a late September night in the New Hampshire woods. I sense the moonlight like silver on my skin and, eyes closed, can almost feel the warmth of my friends flanking me. I breathe in deeply as my lungs recall our laughter, sharing of confidences, and releasing rage with collective feral screams at the stars.

That night was part of how I made peace with one of my biggest fears when I decided to step away from the Church: if I disentangle myself from Mormonism, will there be anything left of me?

* * *

I first encountered Exponent II around 2010. I read the Exponent blog for years as a budding feminist before daring to submit my first posts to both the blog and the magazine nearly simultaneously. Months later, I received my first issue of the magazine and experienced the thrill of seeing my name in physical print for the first time. Not long after, I became a permablogger and wrote for the blog monthly, eventually serving on the Exponent II Board as a blog rep and now as VP/secretary.

The first time I attended an Exponent retreat, I had never met any attendees in person. Always anxious to commit, I’d waffled back and forth for months before finally purchasing a slot from someone who could no longer attend and buying a last-minute plane ticket just two weeks beforehand.

The best cure for my social anxiety is to give it a job: if I can reframe my role as helper or leader rather than directionless attendee, I’m much more comfortable. So for each of the three years I’ve attended the retreat, I have led a small group discussion. The theme each time has been some version of how to create community and reclaim ritual outside of the Church. I brought no answers to our discussion groups because the questions are the very ones I’m currently grappling with. How can I establish meaningful rituals of my own without scaffolding from the Church? Where can I find community for my family if not in a ward?

Leading a small group discussion at the Exponent II Retreat, 2023

My second year at the retreat, at the end of our small group discussion, there was a communal hunger for participating in ritual in a way that felt meaningful to us. Someone had described a burning ritual for letting go, and all ten of us sat with the idea of it, feeling a thrill at the thought of doing something primal and a bit witchy, wild, and freeing. Someone else looked around at the group and said, “We should do it.” And then, in a more timid voice, “Can we do it?” Ten pairs of eyes fell on me, and though I had no more authority than what they gave me, I said yes.

We arranged to meet up late that night, after the scheduled retreat events, by the stone table in the amphitheater. It felt like an auspicious beginning as we set off down the trail, armed with permission and borrowed matches from the retreat center. We chatted as we walked along the path by the lake, our phone flashlights illuminating the ground immediately ahead, surrounded by trees painted in muted shades of charcoal by the watery light of the quarter moon. We laughed so hard that a couple of us had to stop and crouch to the ground, our legs crossed tightly to keep from peeing our pants.

Fire licked the pine needle-kindling in the firepit, and we warmed our hands as the flames grew stronger. Each of us took a pen and a ripped half sheet of paper and wrote something we wanted to let go of. We spoke one by one and shared the burdens that were holding us back. Tossing the crumpled papers into the flames, we watched them flare brightly for just a moment, then turn to ash on the breeze. We stated our collective intention — to move forward and open ourselves to love and curiosity—then sang songs in a circle around the fire. I couldn’t help but hold back a little when we howled—literally howled—our feminine wildness and pain at the stars, but I loosened the strictures of my own innate prudishness when someone expressed a desire to disrobe in the dark. A few of us left the warm firelight, stripped and stood naked on the shore of the moon-dappled lake, reclaiming our bodies and feeling alive and completely present in the chill autumn air. I lifted my arms and reached to the sky, bathed in light from far-flung galaxies, unashamed.

* * *

When I stopped regular church attendance, my social circle shrank considerably and then disappeared almost entirely a couple years later when the pandemic hit. My world and connections felt so much smaller without the friendly acquaintances of convenience I saw and chatted superficially with at church. I found myself wondering, if I died, where on earth would they hold the funeral, and who, apart from my family and handful of close friends, would even come?

At the retreat one year, Julie Hemming Savage said, “When I go into hard situations, I can visualize my sisters flanking behind me in silent strength and support.” The mental image this produced for me was powerful and comforting; at the risk of sounding macabre, I pictured my Exponent community at my funeral. I could imagine the bloggers on our email backlists making note of my death and my life. I could imagine them saying, “she was here” and “she was part of this” and “we will not forget her.”

My friends Amy, Katie, Natasha, and I at Walden Pond on our way to the Exponent II Retreat, 2024

I lost the bulk of my church community, but I gained a new community. While none of my Exponent friends live in my city, we connect in other ways and see each other when we can. We chat on Facebook, we comment on each others’ posts on the blog, we see each other at retreats, we touch base at virtual board meetings, we meet up on vacations, we monologue on the video app Marco Polo. When I go to Utah and have shows or concerts, my Exponent friends show up and support me. Once or twice a year, we sneak in a girls’ weekend and laugh and cry and confide and get way too little sleep. This community was the torch that lit the path through the darkest parts of my faith crisis.

Exponent II used to be based in Boston. Proximity was necessary for the work of publishing. But now, we’re spread throughout the country and the world, connected by the gossamer threads of Mormon feminism, advocacy, and friendship.

The questions I have brought with me to the retreat about meaningful ritual and community have largely been answered by my involvement with Exponent II. As I figure out who I am outside of the institutional Church, I feel the collective support of this community of friends and sisters buoying me up with their silent strength.

Sign up for the Exponent II monthly newsletter to stay updated with announcements and retreat registration information. As this blog series develops, read more blog posts about the Exponent II retreat.

We need to talk about Paul, part 1

The Sunday after I graduated from high school, I absconded from my youth Sunday school class and went to gospel doctrine. My father was the teacher, and as someone who loved studying and didn’t love manuals, it was a refreshing change from the rote lessons of youth classes.

Except for that one guy.

You know the guy: the one who is almost salivating to blame Eve in the Genesis discussions. The one who cannot wait to point out that Paul says that women aren’t supposed to speak in church.

Unfortunately, the words of the New Testament attributed to Paul do sound an awful lot like that “that guy.” And I hated “that guy”—justifiably, I still believe, since a lot of animosity toward women lives in those words. It’s taken more than 20 years, reading from three or four different Bible translations and getting a degree in religious studies to actually learn about Paul and realize that he wasn’t “that guy,” but rather, he was a guy whose words have been commodified and weaponized by the patriarchy, the ruling class, slaveholders and governments to give their deadly actions a sheen of “approved by God” instead of “done so I can grab and keep as much wealth and power as possible.”

I thought about this post for a while last month while on vacation in Turkey. Much of Paul’s missionary teachings run through Turkey, and I was especially eager to spend a day in Ephesus, where he spent time teaching and was the society to which the letter to the Ephesians is addressed. As I walked the marble streets and imagined the people of Roman times selling wares, exchanging information, worshipping their various gods, I thought about Paul—what I’d like to ask him, what I’d like to tell him, if he knows how sucker punched so many feel when they read his letters.

So. Let’s talk about Paul: Jew, Roman, possible Pharisee, founder of Christianity and overall complicated fellow—who probably didn’t even write the letter with his name on it that we now know as Ephesians.

Note: All scriptures are from the New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament.

Paul: What I didn’t know I didn’t know—an incomplete list

1. Only about half of the letters attributed to him were likely written by him, according to most scholars: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon and 1 Thessalonians. A couple of others (2 Thessalonians and Colossians) are up in the air. The rest almost certainly, or certainly, are not.

2. Paul never intended his letters to be compiled into book form. They were written to specific groups of people at specific times to address specific instances. Genuine letters shouldn’t be read as missionary tracts or general lessons: “A letter is one half of a dialogue or a substitute for an actual dialogue, in which the writer speaks to a person or persons as though they were present. … Letters are addressed to individuals or groups from whom the sender is separated by physical or social distance. One will misunderstand letters if one focuses only upon the ideas within them” (Pervo, 24, emphasis mine).

3. Paul is one of only two New Testament writers whose existence we know for sure. The mystic John of Patmos, who wrote Revelation, which is about the fall of the Roman Empire, is the other.

4. Paul had an ongoing feud with Peter and James. The latter two preached about law, while Paul taught grace. Paul believed that the law would become its own god and would supplant Jesus—that men would replace grace and faith with obedience to the law (Murphy-O’Connor, 153-4).

5. His name was almost certainly always Paul. Acts is the only place where “Saul” is found, and Acts is not a credible source on Paul. (It frequently contradicts his letters.) If both names were used, it was likely a difference of language: Saul is a Semitic name, where Paulus was Latin (Murphy-O’Connor, 42)

Paul: He-Man Woman Hater? It’s complicated.

I’m not going to include a list of things the Bible attributes to Paul that are intended to keep women silent, subservient and without agency. Those words don’t deserve to be aired in this space. We all know them. We’ve all been hurt by them.

The main street of Ephesus. Top photo: The library of Celsus in Ephesus, one of the best preserved Roman ruins in the world. Photos: Heidi Toth

In his book “Liberating Paul,” Neil Elliott tackles this question in depth. His first conclusion is that the worst of Paul’s words aren’t really Paul’s words; critical scholars by and large do not believe Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy and Titus are authentic writings but instead are pseudonymous. Those letters include the “most offensively patriarchal texts in the Pauline collection” (52).

“Given the evidence in the remaining genuine letters that Paul held a number of women church leaders in high esteem as his peers in apostolic ministry, the way seems open to regarding Paul as far more sympathetic with the experience and leadership of women than the canonical picture of Paul has suggested” (Elliott, 52).

Remaining in actual Paul letters is 1 Cor. 14:34-35: “… women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” And, yikes. That’s not good.

It also might not be Paul. The oldest manuscripts of what we call the New Testament are copies of copies of copies of copies, and revisers and editors and translators added and subtracted things to stick to the overall script. According to Elliott, many scholars suspect these verses were added in later by someone who was not Paul; there is “textual disturbance” in the manuscript tradition that point to those verses not being original (52-54).

But what about 1 Corinthians 7, which says some weird things about women and marriage—none exactly demeaning; right after he says a husband has authority over his wife’s body, he proclaims that a wife has authority over her husband’s body (v. 4). (He also says, “each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” One. Not more. Just the one.)

And then there’s 1 Cor. 11:2-16, in which Paul writes that the husband is the head of his wife (v. 3) and that a woman should not pray or prophecy with her head uncovered (v. 5). On the plus side, that verse suggests it’s fine for women to both pray and prophecy, seemingly in public because how would anyone know if she’s prophesying with bare hair in private? On the negative side—well, many of us have veiled our hair while approaching God, and many of us likely have strong feelings about that. I do. I shouldn’t have to cover my authentic self to approach the sacred.

There’s more in 1 Corinthians 11, including that woman was created from and for man (v. 8-9). It’s not great, no matter how generous I try to be. Elliott also tried to be generous: “Both these passages are notoriously difficult to interpret, particularly given their character as one half of a conversation … But aspects of 1 Corinthians 7 can be described as a ‘frontal assault on the patriarchal ethos of the age (Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza); and whatever else the discussion of head coverings in 11:2-16 is meant to accomplish, at any rate it clearly recognizes the authority (exousia) of charismatic women to lead the congregation in prayer and prophecy. If not a ‘feminist,’ Paul was clearly not the misogynist the Pauline tradition quickly made him” (203).

What else is authentic Pauline scripture?

Phoebe is named as a deacon of the church at Cenchrae, and Paul tells the Romans to “welcome here in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well” (Romans 16:1)

Prisca, or Priscilla: She and her husband, Aquila—her name comes first—work with Paul in his missionary efforts, and they “risked their necks for my life” (Romans 16:3)

Junia: She was in prison with Paul and was “prominent among the apostles” (Romans 16:7). I’ve heard attempts to read that as “apostles knew who she was.” Fine. I’m a writer and reader and I spend a lot of time with the English language, and the simplest, most logical way to read that statement is that Junia was not just an apostle, but she was in fact a well-known apostle among the apostles.

Apphia: She is greeted alongside two men in the opening verses of Philemon; the greeting includes “to the church in your house,” which presumes the house church is equally Apphia’s as the two men (Philemon 1:2).

Euodia and Syntyche: Two leaders in Philippian house-churches were having a disagreement; Paul urges the people to whom he is writing to “help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my coworkers” (Phil. 4:2-3).

Of course, far more men are named and addressed these letters. Paul wasn’t a feminist—certainly by our standards today, but not even in the way the scriptures portray Jesus to be. But there’s scriptural evidence that he worked with women, that he appointed women to be leaders, that he valued their opinions and efforts and contributions. Why would a man who relied on a woman missionary turn around and tell her to ask her husband? Why would a man founding a church that was upheld by wealthy women tell them not to speak in church—churches that were held in those women’s homes?

But there are things that being in Ephesus brought up. First, let’s talk about all of the other groups who have been harmed in the last 2,000 years because of words on a page that have been attributed to Paul.

Slavery, antisemitism and governmental abuse

In his 2021 book “Profaning Paul,” Cavan Concannon spends 200 pages examining in detail what wrongs Paul has been foundational to. Here’s a start: In 1740, evangelist George Whitefield used Christian teachings, including the writings of, or attributed to, Paul, to advance the cause of slavery. Other Christian missionaries helped forge the discourse of Protestant white supremacy that adapted with the slave system in the Americas (23).

Today, white Christian nationalists similarly wield the Bible against Black people, Christian and non-Christian alike. Concannon wrote: “As European colonizers invaded what for them were vast new territories, they brought missionaries and Bibles with them. These played the double role of justifying colonialism and explaining the peoples, practices, and cultures that the Europeans ‘discovered.’ … As Christian theologians confronted the new diversity of their colonial conquests, they reworked earlier epistemological and hermeneutical frameworks to invent ‘biblical’ histories for non-European peoples; undercut, demonize, and eradicate local textual and ritual traditions; and justify Europe’s national and religious superiority and its concomitant right to rule over new ‘barbarous’ Others” (35).

This isn’t just words being misused either; Paul is not innocent. I’ll talk more on this in the next section, but he set out to destroy the religions that were native to the areas where he preached. And he called it missionary work. Millennia later, his spiritual descendants used his words to destroy the native religions of what is now North and South America.

His words were also preached to enslaved people in the Americas, who were told that God “expected them to be obedient to the slavers and honest and hardworking in their labors. This god also expected them to stay slaves and not seek their own liberation “(Concannon, 82).

A short list of other instances of abuse, according to the author of “Liberating Paul,” include:

1 Thess. 2:14-15 was used to justify violence against Jews (4).

In 1637 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Anne Hutchinson was charged for violating 1 Tim. 2:12, which says that women shouldn’t preach in church (4).

Romans 13:1, which says to obey the government, was used in the Guatemalan civil war in the 1980s (verify) to convince the people to accept the military despite its myriad abuses, particularly of Indigenous Guatemalans (9). It was also used by the United States to justify its attacks on liberation theologists in Guatemalan churches, as Reagan-era leaders believed the appropriate use of the Christian church was to defend “private property and productive capitalism” (15-16).

That same verse in Romans stifled Christian opposition to Nazism and was used to promote enthusiasm for Hitler in ecclesiastical councils (13).

Oh wait, there’s more from Romans 13. Verses 1-7 were used in South Africa to defend apartheid; it was read as giving absolute, possibly even divine authority to the state (14).

Puritans relied on 1 Cor. 7:17 and 24, which says to be satisfied with one’s calling, and the commands of subordination in 1 Timothy and Ephesians to wives, slaves and children (11).

That’s … a lot. It’s one reason why context makes all the difference. Paul was preaching in Roman territory and trying to convert Romans and trying to not get into much trouble with the Roman government. He didn’t want to be seen as preaching the overthrow of the government. We shouldn’t read that two millennia later as a commandment to submit ourselves to an abusive, overreaching government. Nor should anyone has used the words of Paul—who not only was Jewish but was a Pharisee—to condemn Jews. His writings did not do that.

But someone’s writings could be read that way. That’s why we have to understand the origins the Bible better. This isn’t a book that God wrote, that’s perfect and untouched and holds the answers. It’s a series of dozens of writings, put down over the course of hundreds of years, copied and translated and revised and altered, then voted on at the Council of Nicaea, all by men in power. We need to understand the context and history. We need to understand the process of translation—that every translation is really the interpretation of the translator[s], who are fallible.

Paul—and Heidi—in Ephesus

Let’s return to Turkey. Ephesus, which is one of the best-preserved Roman heritage sites of its time, was home to one of the original Seven Wonders of the World: the temple of Artemis, the goddess who was protector of this once-great city. According to legend, the city was founded by the Amazons, the legendary race of woman warriors, and named for their queen, Ephasia. As other societies moved into the Artemis and the Amazon queen merged into Artemis Ephasia, a powerful, venerated goddess.

A statue of Artemis Ephasia in the Ephesus Archaeological Museum. She is not a mother–she famously swore off men, in fact–but she is often referred to as mother of the city because she is its protector. “Mother” was a title of respect in many cultures in the millennia before the New Testament.

 

Even before that—millennia before, in fact—the Mother Goddess was worshipped in the Ephesus area. Archaeologists have found statuettes of this goddess. Cybele of Anatolia was also worshipped in this area. This was a city and a region with a history of strong women and female leaders.

Ironically, Paul didn’t entirely or immediately destroy this legacy. Prisca and Aquila were the real founders of the church in Ephesus; Paul accompanied them initially but then left. The married couple spent years in Ephesus doing missionary work before he returned (Murphy-O’Connor, 171).

But Christianity, as a patriarchal religion, could not allow this goddess veneration to stand. It undercut the one true god narrative. There is a virtual reality experience at Ephesus; in the second room we are introduced to Paul, who is arguing with a disciple of Artemis. Paul chastises the other man, saying (according to my memory), “you worship a manmade God.” I stood there, stunned at the hubris. Maybe I would have felt differently had I lived in first-century CE Ephesus, but standing there in 2025, all I could think was, “And what is the Christian god if not a manmade god—a male god literally created by and for men to give them power over others, to fight their wars, to carry their prejudices and hatred?” I’ve come to believe that everyone on earth who believes worships a god of their own creation—one who looks like them, speaks like them, sees the world and others in it through their own eyes. It’s not always malicious; it’s just that God is too big for us to understand. So we make God small. We make God familiar. Comfortable.

But what do we do with Paul—writer of beautiful sermons on love and grace and writer of words that have been used to enslave, capture, demean, silence and kill? I’ll discuss that in Part 2 on Wednesday. In the meantime, this 2022 post on Heavenly Mother offers insight into Mormonism’s Mother Goddess, how she got lost and how we can find her again.

Bibliography

Concannon, Cavan W. “Profaning Paul.” The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2021.

Elliot, Neil. “Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle.” Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY 1994.

Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. “Paul: A Critical Life.” Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996.

Pervo, Richard I. “The Making of Paul: Constructions of the Apostle in Early Christianity.” Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2010.

Of Contradictions and Heartbreaks

Ever since I was an investigator, Elder Uchtdorf had always been my favorite speaker at General Conference. His words focused on love, welcoming invitations, and an acceptance of people’s differences. He seemed to be the advocate for the marginalized, the outcast, the lonely, and the broken hearted. I myself had felt welcomed by his talks.

His words paint a picture of a church that, though imperfect, still invites and welcomes all who desire to be there. He has admitted that leaders of the church have hurt people before, and when people choose to leave the fold, it is often much more complicated than we often portray it to be. Describing them as lazy or lacking faith doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head.

Yet, conference after conference, we hear contradictions. It is difficult to believe that Ucktdorf’s words represent the church when the prophet himself, President Nelson, used the words “lazy” and “lax disciples” to describe those who can’t exercise a particle of faith.

It is difficult to follow Ucktdorf’s invitation to “come, join with us,” when President Nelson says you should never take counsel from those who don’t believe exactly what the church teaches from over the pulpit.

Meanwhile, Elder Oaks is calling for more disciplinary counsels to take place in wards around the world. His words during April’s 2025 conference suggested that those who leave do so because of their own failings to keep up with scripture reading, prayer, and repentance. While they may say that the church isn’t meeting their needs, he says, they are simply lacking humility and trust in what the Lord has provided. While Uchtdorf can acknowledge that the church has hurt people before, and that those people have legitimate concerns, Elder Oaks seems to lack the humility to do so.

President Nelson has said, “Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions.” Yet, that is most of what I heard at April’s General Conference, mingled with the occasional inspirational message of love and acceptance. This mixture created a perplexing concoction, one that has left me utterly confused.

Sister Runia’s suggestion that “God forgives without shaming us, comparing us to anyone else, or scolding us” is in stark contrast to Elder Oaks’ talk, where he compares those prepared to meet God to those who are not prepared. He shames the youth and returned missionaries who don’t keep up with activities or who experience periods of inactivity. He shames adults who have chosen to depart from the church, describing all of the above as examples of people who are not prepared to meet God, suggesting that “we all know” these kinds of people.

Elder Uchtdorf’s declaration that our love for one another is how we show our discipleship, more than our covenants or priesthood power, was in opposition to Elder McCune’s admonition that true disciples make and keep covenants. He said these true disciples are connected to God and Jesus with a “special relationship and can experience their love and joy in a measure reserved for those who have made and kept covenants.” As if covenant keeping Latter-day Saints are closer to God and more blessed than anyone else in the world.

“Our ability to sense a full measure of God’s love,” Elder McCune continued, “or to continue in his love, is contingent upon our righteous desires and actions.” This feels at odds with Sister Runia’s words that our worth is never tied to our obedience. To continue in God’s love shouldn’t be contingent upon anything.

Elder Kearon’s emphasis on us – all of us – being beloved children of God; that God has omniscient love for us and has planned our every tomorrow, feels odd next to Elder Rasband’s slander toward “naysayers” of the church, suggesting that they are but “mere footnotes” in the church’s work. I guess we don’t always treat fellow children of God as if they really are children of God.

Elder Renlund said, “If we are wise, we receive the truth by accepting the gospel of Jesus Christ through priesthood ordinances and covenants.” I suppose those whose beliefs differ are not wise? He says this is important to prepare for the second coming. Meanwhile, President Nelson says charity and virtue are what is necessary to feel confidence before God. Certainly anyone who is charitable can feel confident before God, then, regardless of their beliefs. So why must we receive the “truth” of the gospel in order to prepare to meet God at the second coming?

The contradictions go on and on.

It feels like there are two different churches; the kind that Uchtdorf professes, and the kind that Oaks represents.

The church I joined was that of Uchtdorf’s. If I had heard these messages from the likes of Oaks, and the consistent slander from over the pulpit, it is likely that I would not be here, writing this right now. Because that is not a church I would have joined.

Now I’m left wondering: what kind of church did I join, exactly? One of love, acceptance, freedom, open arms, and expansiveness? Or one of shame, conformity, rejection, fear, and arrogance?

The church is likely a mixture of both. Unfortunately, you cannot guarantee that a bishop or relief society president or an apostle will be the former. It seems far more likely, based on my anecdotal experience and that of others, that they will embody the latter.

Yet here I am, unable to let go of the hope that I felt as an investigator, but overwhelmed and discouraged by the disappointment I feel as a member.

Only one thought stood out to me this General Conference: I don’t know what this church stands for. The mixed messaging is more than just confusing; it is unbearable to watch. I can’t help but think of the bible quote, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.”

What made this conference even more heartbreaking was Ucktdorf’s talk. Blogger Lavender so perfectly put my thoughts into words.

One of the few advocates who seemed to welcome me and so many others on the fringes, seems to have drawn a line in the sand of who exactly he thinks is welcome in this church. Long story short: it’s not someone like me.

His words, though not surprising to hear at conference, was surprising to hear from him.  Perhaps that was the biggest contradiction of all; Ucktdorf contradicting himself.

The hope I had felt as an investigator and as an early convert is nothing but faint smoke; the outcome of a flame that has lost its burning essence.

Perhaps Ucktdorf didn’t mean it. Maybe he didn’t realize the many “ifs” that he added to his talk. At the very least, he appears to be humble enough to acknowledge that maybe his words hurt some members, just like he admitted that other leaders have. Besides, there were a few redeeming talks by the likes of Kearon and Runia.

But is that enough? Will that be enough to make the church what I once thought it was?

Or was everything I knew a facade? The milk before meat, as some would say; the pretty words and loving gestures that cause us to join, only to be replaced with messages of shame, conformity, and submission to authority?

The latter is not the church that I joined. If the church isn’t what I thought it was, and if I am no longer welcome, I guess the only realistic option is to leave.

Or, we can stay and wait for the “ideal,” as Ucktdorf puts it.

How long, Elder Uchtdorf, should we be expected to wait?

How much ecclesiastical abuse, gender inequality, and silencing must we tolerate?

How much of ourselves – our very conscience – should we be expected to stuff down, ignore, and repress?

Elder Ucktdorf, how can we possibly stay when we are disinvited from church, disfellowshipped for speaking our own thoughts, or even excommunicated from our own communities?

We proudly display “Visitors Welcome” in front of our ward buildings, as if everyone is welcome in our church. There should be an asterisk beneath that says, “You are welcome to stay only if you eventually convert and believe everything that we teach. If you don’t, or if you share beliefs that we don’t care for, you’ll be asked to leave.”

This isn’t about waiting for an ideal; this is about realizing that the ideal will never be possible as long as the likes of Oaks is in charge. It will never change with leaders who refuse to acknowledge the institutional flaws that exist. It will never change as long as the leaders remain ignorant to what our true grievances are.

So, do we leave, or stay and advocate for some future ideal? Either way, all I’m left with are contradictions and heartbreaks.

Both do little to feed the soul.

Our Bloggers Recommend: Multiple bloggers on recent popular podcasts!

We love having our bloggers share their interesting perspectives and knowledge in other ways, such as recent podcasts At Last She Said It and Mormon Stories. Check out:

Linda Hamilton on At Last She Said It: Embracing Your Journey

Kaylee on At Last She Said It: The Spiritual Nature of All Things

Abby Maxwell Hansen and Katie Ludlow Rich on Mormon Stories Podcast: Why Mormon Women are Leaving the Church

April Young-Bennett, Nancy Ross, Katie Ludlow Rich and Abby Maxwell Hansen on Mormon Stories Podcast: Mormon Church Changes Garments for Women again, ep 2010.

 

Interpreting Dreams about Spiritual Transition and Growth

Awakening to the Significance of my Dreams

Recently, I had a vivid dream:

I’m on the top floor of a beautiful, tall house with lots of natural lighting doing self-care like journaling and yoga. I pull out a dish in the kitchen and notice a tiny fish swimming in it. I look away, and when I look again, the fish has grown rapidly and is now lying flat without water. I’m surprised and bewildered. What am I going to do with this fish? I don’t want anyone else to see it, but I want to keep it alive. I go out to the balcony and look for a pond. I see grass and puddles below. Maybe I should place the fish in a puddle, but this might not be enough water. 

The phone rings. It is a relative and their ministering companion from church. They want me to share what’s going on in my life. Their intention seems to be to restore me to old, inherited worldviews. I don’t want to tell them anything. I look at the clock and realize I’m late for work and say I have to leave.

I might have forgotten all about this dream were it not for my sister telling me about Jungian analyst James Hollis’s argument that dreams play an important role in mid-life spiritual transition. She shared examples of dreams discussed in his books in which beautiful experiences and efforts to tend to important things are disrupted by someone else’s demands that reminded me of my own dream.

I got curious about how paying more attention to my dreams might help me in my spiritual life. James Hollis writes:

“Several times each night, whether or not we pay attention, the psyche creates a dramatic, narrative reaction to what is happening in our lives and how it is viewed from a perspective larger than that of the ego. If we track these dramatized narratives over time and learn their language, we gain a vital source of wisdom not available to ordinary consciousness” (Living Between Worlds 25-26).

Hollis refers to the source of dream content as the “Self,” the soul, the unconscious, or the psyche. He suggests we can treat dream messages as coming from the natural world we are part of, the result of millions of years of evolution. What comes to the surface through dreams can show us what is awry in our lives. It can help us discern how to move forward during transition or crisis.

Based on decades of experience as a therapist, Hollis argues that dreams are especially valuable to pay attention to in the “second half” of life. During this time, many people go through periods of intense internal discomfort, experiencing strong desires for change and new paths that can be hard to know what to do with. This might hit you in your forties or any decade past then. 

Looking at our dreams can help us understand and process these experiences. It can help us recover from harmful, soul-confining conditioning we received growing up, including from the Church. As Hollis explains, when we are disconnected from “the Self,” or our deeper wisdom and desires, “we serve our complexes, wounds, and received cultural and familial messages instead of serving the intent of our soul.” He explains that “working with our dreams allows all of us to look within, to see the center of gravity shift from our many adaptations to the outer world to begin to trust that something within each of us knows what is right for us. Learning to trust that sorting process, to value that dialogue, and to risk relying on an internalized sense of authority is what restores our journey to us, bringing us back to our own souls” (Living Between Worlds pg. 26).

Tips for Remembering and Interpreting Dreams

I’m starting to use my dreams to help me in my spiritual sorting and growth process. I want to connect more with my internal sense of authority, learn to trust it more, and let it guide my life more.

After reading Hollis’s Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life and Living Between Worlds and some other resources about dreams, I’ve come to the conclusion that because dreams are so personal, there is no guidebook out there that can tell you what they mean. The meaning-making is work only you can do. New age religions might claim to have cracked the code on dream interpretation, but I’m leery of their confidence. Dream dictionaries can be helpful, but should be taken with a grain of salt because we internalize symbols and archetypes in unique ways. 

Here are a few principles some people use to remember and make sense of dreams I’ve personally found useful:

Dreams are usually about you and your internal life– your unconscious thoughts, spiritual desires, unacknowledged emotions, etc. People and things in the dream often symbolize aspects of you, the dreamer.Fostering an intention to remember your dreams can help you recall them, and writing them down in detail or recording your voice shortly after can be invaluable for interpreting them later.Dreams are often symbolic, whether through animals, colors, numbers, places/ spaces, or people from your life that may represent something else. Interpretation of the symbolism is up to you.Dreams have a restorative, healing function. As Hollis says, “nature does not waste energy” (Living Between Worlds pg. 25). Even if you’re not paying attention to them, dreams are likely benefitting your emotional and spiritual well-being (or at least that is their purpose), much like sleep restores the body.Dreams can help us see issues that are difficult to acknowledge in our waking lives. As Carl Jung theorized, they can provide insights about our spiritual journeys and how to move forward.When women meet male guides or other male figures in dreams, these can be understood as animus figures, or representations of a woman’s masculine side/traits. The animus is associated with exploration, assertiveness, intellectual pursuits, and activities women may not have had space or resources in their lives to reach their potential for. In men’s dreams, the anima (female guides or figures) can represent the unconscious female side. Anima symbolism is usually focused on emotional connection, sensitivity, empathy, and other qualities men may not have tended sufficiently to. This anima/ animus dream framework comes from Jung.Questions Dreams Might Help Us Address

In addition to these tips, here are a few questions for cultivating meaning and fulfillment in mid-life or the second half of life that dreams can help us grapple with and find clarity concerning. These come from James Hollis’s book Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life:

Where are you blocked by fear, stuck, rigid, or resistant to change?Where do you avoid conflict, especially conflicts concerning values, and therefore avoid living in fidelity with who you are?What ideas, habits, behavioral patterns are holding you back from taking a larger journey of the soul?Where do you avoid conflict, the necessary conflict of value, and therefore avoid living in fidelity with who you are?Where were your parents emotionally stuck, and how is this “stuckness” showing up in your life?What are you doing with the gifts life has given you that your soul longs to use and develop?Where are you still looking for permission to live your life?Where/ how do you need to grow up?What have you aways felt called toward, but feared to do?Dream Interpretation Examples from my life

Interpreting my Growing Fish/ Disruptive Phone Call Dream

This dream is about my spiritual growth and how others’ expectations are serving as an obstacle to it. The fact I’m up high up in a beautiful, sunny space doing self care suggests I have “ascended” to a greater level of spiritual awareness than I had in the past. The fish is another symbol of my spiritual growth, specifically how I’ve grown by expanding beyond old frameworks. This includes ways I have differentiated from others at Church and their expectations for me. In real life, I’ve been surprised by this growth and how rapidly I’ve outgrown beliefs I never thought would change for me. The dream suggests I feel unsafe letting others see or know about this growth and that I have some ambivalence about how my spirituality has changed. The fact I don’t have a proper place to maintain the fish or rather my growth and even kind of want to just get rid of it is a problem in my life. My newly expanded spirituality won’t thrive in a puddle. The dream encourages me to keep learning, expanding and taking risks in my spiritual life, and to not be ashamed of how I am changing. Water is often a symbol of the spiritual or mysterious side of life in dreams. I metaphorically need to build my fish a pond by deliberately strengthening the differentiated dimensions of my spiritual life, and the areas in which I am actually growing, however unexpected these may be.

Then there is a disruptive phone call that comes while I’m still trying to figure out what is best to do with the fish. The fact I don’t share anything suggests I might be more private about what is really going on for me spiritually than I’ve acknowledged even to myself. Being fearful of what others in the Church think could thwart my growth. The dream suggests I need to stop engaging such fears and “get to work” expanding and tending to my spirituality. Being late to work might represent a sense of how I’m behind where I’d like to be.

Animus-focused Dreams

I have dreams that seem to involve my animus, or the “male” side of me that is trying to grow, develop, and serve a more empowering role in my life. Like many women, I grew up conditioned to be pretty passive, submissive, and quiet about my thoughts and feelings. I spent a lot of time feeling controlled by others. Now I’m in a stage of life when my unconscious seems to be screaming it’s time to break out of this and become more assertive, autonomous, and more of a leader. Here are two examples of recent animus dreams:

Old Crush/ Healed Baby Boy/ RhoGAM Shot Dream

I’m in a church building. I run into the mom of a guy I had a crush on in high school. She tells me that Cameron and his wife are sitting in the chapel and that I should go say hi to him and catch up. I think to myself, yeah that could be okay, but he’s probably old and out of shape now and I’m not sure if Cameron would care to see me anyway. I enter the chapel. Cameron and his wife are looking good! They haven’t aged much and are dressed up nice. I walk right by them to the front of the chapel and then to the bathroom. I realize a medical service center is located just off the bathroom. A nurse asks me what I need and I tell her the name of a certain treatment. She shows me a newborn baby boy. His life was in danger but he has been receiving a treatment. At first it looks like his legs are deformed and almost non-existent, but suddenly, I see he has grown normal, healthy, kicking legs. He is making a full recovery. She says it’s time for my treatment. I tell her I think I need a RhoGAM shot.

I used to wonder why this particular old crush showed up in my dreams after so many years (always with me struggling to connect with him). I think it is because his personality and interests reminded me of my own growing up and my unconscious picked up on the idea of treating him as a projection of the masculine of me. The fact my crush hasn’t really aged in the dream seems to indicate my masculine side has vitality. (His wife being present could represent feminine strengths I’m working on). The fact I don’t connect with him suggests I’m still avoiding breaking out of old habits of passivity and avoidance. The baby in the medical center could also represent my animus. Starting at a very young age, my more assertive and adventurous side was threatened by others’ dominance over me and and I developed various maladaptive coping mechanisms to live with this. But I’m experiencing growth and improvements in my waking life to correct this as symbolized by the treatments the baby and I receive in the dream. The RhoGAM is an uncanny symbol. I received a RhoGAM shot 14 years ago in order to safely carry my son during pregnancy, so the shot represents something that literally allows me to carry and develop maleness inside of me. The shot seems to represents a process I am seeking to go through to heal emotionally from past suppression and to become a more balanced and whole person. This “treatment” in waking like likely has to do with my growing emotional and spiritual autonomy, and detaching from wanting or needing others’ approval, making decisions for myself, and not letting fears stop me from doing things I want to pursue.

Roasting a Goose Dream

My husband has given me an unusually large, dead goose to roast. I pluck its white feathers off. I am ambivalent about this task. I think preparing the goose will take so long it will go bad before it gets cooked. I remember I don’t even like gamey meat so I don’t know why I’m going along with this.

Suddenly, in place of the goose in the (large) roasting pan, it is one of my brothers-in-law! A very vocal, assertive, adventurous man about my age. Instead of plucking feathers, I am now absurdly plucking off his facial hair and preparing him to be roasted in the oven. He has purchased some kind of “roast yourself as a goose” kit that we’re using, and he is enthusiastically on board with this project. The kit comes with a metal latch that attaches to both sides of his mouth and seals it. He seems to think doing all of this means having a good meal himself rather than becoming food for others. 

Geese “flock together” and can be symbols of community and connection. I’m interpreting the goose as a symbol of patriarchal roles and relationships because roasting the goose is a project assigned to me by my dream husband as if he’s presiding over me like a boss. The brother-in-law can be seen as a symbol of the masculine part of myself, or my needs to become more assertive, spontaneous, and self-determining. Relationships, including those with male Church leaders and male relatives, are meant to be sustaining and life-bringing (like food), but when they are set up such that others call the shots for me, there isn’t much of anything in it for me. The goose transforming into my bro-in-law, a representation of my own masculine side, takes this point further: when men boss me around and consume my time and talents, I become food for others. My strengths are wasted and exploited, leaving me depleted and conned, or a “silly goose” (a phrase used frequently during my childhood).

At times I have tried to act happy about the workings of patriarchy, like the bro-in-law I’m roasting in the dream. I have even “bought” into the idea its best for me to let myself be subordinate to others (like how the person being roasted buys the kit himself). Absurdly, I have tried to believe I still get to eat the feast despite the reality that I feel used up and malnourished by the patriarchal systems I’ve been part of. 

We can see in the dream that these problems are enabled and worsened by the silence and passivity encouraged in patriarchy represented by the latch sealing my bro-in-law’s mouth closed. The dream invites me to speak up and resist. It also suggests that by going along with patriarchy, I have been emasculating myself, or stripping myself of my more assertive and bolder qualities in how I remove my bro-in-law’s beard. It reveals a truth I suppressed for many years: relationships with men in which I’m not respected as a true equal are simply not at all enticing to me. Such things are like a disgusting, oversized, dead goose that I shouldn’t be cooking for others anymore. The dream pleads with me to stop going along with such dynamics.

One Last Dream about Paths of Spiritual Differentiation

A Resort Dream

My family has gone on vacation to a lush tropical place and we’re staying in a nice resort. The interior is beautiful and we’re enjoying being there. I want to send some photos to extended family and friends, so I take some of my immediate family sitting in some of the spaces. But when I look at the photos, all the decor, plants and furnishings at the resort won’t show up. All I see is a black background, and my family gathered together on our couch at home in the center.

The fact my resort photos show up as an image of us connecting at home as if during a family home evening discussion seems to signal that the dream is really about my approach to teaching my kids about spirituality at home. My family being at the resort seems symbolic of the rest and beauty I’ve found through changing my approach with my kids. In recent years, I’ve switched to greater openness, flexibility, and respect for exploration and agency. I love the conversations I’m having with my kids. I love how I feel closer to them now than I did when I was anxious about them getting on board with Church.

The dream acknowledges that those outside my immediate family whom I might want to understand my experience might not be able to really see or appreciate it. This is why the resort won’t show up in photos I want to share with others; it’s just a mundane image with a black background. But this doesn’t ultimately matter very much or invalidate my experience, the goodness of which I’ve experienced for myself. To me, this dream suggests the need to recognize and accept that some other people won’t be able to give me validation or approval with how I’m raising my kids, or share my joy. The dream left me feeling encouraged to trust my own discernment and experience.

For another dream about spiritual transition from me, see “A Whale Dream,” a mini essay I published in ALSSI’s Say More.

I hope this post will encourage and help some readers to seek to notice, remember, and interpret their dreams and discover interesting insights about your spiritual growth and journeys! I’d love to hear about others’ impactful dreams or dream interpretations tips.

The Conversations I Wish I Could Have in Relief Society

It’s rare to find a book that invites you in as a fellow traveler. At Last She Said It: Honest Conversations about Faith, Church, and Everything in Between (Signature Books, 2025) by Susan Hinckley and Cynthia Winward does just that, offering readers a window into the heartfelt conversations of two women navigating the complexities of faith, church, and personal growth.

As someone who is deeply engaged in Exponent II history, I felt immediately at home in this book’s pages. It aligns perfectly with the mission of our community—centering thoughtful personal experience over polished expertise.

That should come as no surprise, as the most recent issue of Exponent II magazine was a collaboration with At Last She Said It. Exponent II participants have been guests on the podcast, including this recent conversation with blogger Linda Hamilton’s journey and this one about the spiritual nature of all things with blogger Kaylee. ALSSI listeners will find the style of the book familiar, but the essays invite listeners and readers to engage more deeply.
Susan and Cynthia don’t just ask difficult questions—they seem to ask the right ones to spark honest reflection. Their goal is simple yet profound: to challenge readers to think about familiar topics in new ways, even when that stretching feels uncomfortable. As they put it, “We call it ‘holy discomfort.’”

The questions they tackle aren’t new—a “feminist awakening” is a rite of passage for generations of Mormon women—but they are still vitally important. Can church leaders recognize that the Church is a patriarchy? What does nuanced church membership look like in practice? How do we reconcile the complexities of our spiritual journeys with the experiences and challenges of being women in the LDS faith? These are questions we’ve all likely asked ourselves, and yet, they remain difficult to answer in a way that respects our individuality and the diversity of perspectives along the spectrum of faith.

One of the more poignant reflections comes from the recognition that, historically, women in the Church have not had the institutional power to implement change for their own betterment. As the authors note, every positive change for women has been because a man decided to make it happen. This stark reality serves as an invitation for men in leadership to not only recognize the inequalities women face but to actively work toward changing them.

The book offers a blend of personal essays and candid conversation. Along with quotes from male and female church leaders, it is peppered with quotes from thinkers and writers who, like Beth Allison Barr, Rachel Held Evans, and Richard Rohr, offer new perspectives that challenge and inspire.

Perhaps most importantly, this book models the kinds of discussions we often wish to have but don’t always have the space for. It felt like a mix of the conversations I longed for in Relief Society and the conversations I actually do have on girls’ trips.

At Last She Said It, which comes out in May, is more than just a book; it’s a conversation, a challenge, and an invitation to explore what it means to be a woman of faith in a complex and changing world. If you’ve ever asked yourself questions like, “What is faith?” “What is repentance?” or “How do I reconcile my own experiences with church teachings?”—this book is for you.

*Disclosure: I received an advanced digital copy from Signature Books in exchange for an honest review.

Did Elder Uchtdorf’s Talk Include Me When He Said, “We Are One”?

As I listened to Elder Uchtdorf’s April 2025 General Conference talk, I was moved by his message of love—and the way he described how that love comes alive inside the rooms and hallways of an LDS church building. I’ve witnessed this love throughout my life. However, I felt like Uchtdorf spoke directly to me when he asked, “What should we do when the church feels like we don’t fit in?” I felt like I was included in this pronoun: we. He said, “You are not alone” and “we are one.” He said that all of the mistakes in the Book of Mormon are the “mistakes of men” and that God does not exclude. Those are men’s mistakes, he said. He talked about the power, not of the priesthood or covenants, but of gathering and kindness.

He talked about a choir of individuals, singing different parts and becoming one voice. He talked about the body of Christ, each part incredibly unique but moving as one. He talked about these things as if the lessons I taught and the conversations I had and the tears I shed for this church mattered. Dear, wonderful Uchtdorf spoke my language, telling me that I belong in this church. I was blessed into this church with a father’s blessing and baptized into it and tied into it with covenants and daily rituals– Uchtdorf made me believe for a moment that the church needed me and who I was. That all those times I’d been told to leave, told to be ashamed and quiet, told that I don’t belong were just evidence of my differences, not evidence that I didn’t belong . . . and then he said if. 

“If you obey . . .” he said, and “if you love God” as defined by the mistakes of men, and if you love this church the way it is and never want it to change, “then you belong here.”

And this broke my heart all over again. I don’t belong among the people and culture and covenants and stories that raised me. Sweet Uchtdorf, just like my Stake President and dear Relief Society sisters and bishop and friends, kindly told me that you don’t belong here. And I know I don’t, I know it’s unfair of me to ask them to change everything so their “one heart and one mind” includes me. I know that I am the cancer in the body of Christ, and maybe we are one, but nobody wants me here because I want to change the definition of God, I want to rewrite the scriptures, I want to face a different direction and sing a different song and not obey.

I have basal cell carcinoma on my face that’s spreading across my cheek, and I am having it cut out on Tuesday. This type of cancer is common and usually harmless, but it doesn’t belong in my body. While I will forever have a scar reminding me where it once lived, it’s best for these skin cells to leave my body. And I can’t help but understand that the church cuts me out because I want the church as it exists right now to change and die. 

LDS doctrine clearly states who and what I need to be to belong, and I am just not that. I don’t believe in a father god, I don’t believe that Joseph Smith received more revelation than Emma, I don’t believe that the spirit is a he, I don’t believe that the Book of Mormon is more true than Sue Monk Kidd’s Dance of the Dissident Daughter, I don’t believe in priesthood power, I don’t believe that prophets know more than other humans or that covenants are more important than principles . . . 

But I do believe in love– Uchtdorf and I are one in that. I believe in gathering and serving and studying texts. I believe in the power of rituals and miracles. I believe in listening to stories and believing other people’s experiences. I believe in healing and activism and this earth. I believe in kindness and friendship and change. I believe in so many things, just not the right ones to belong in this church.

I know I am not a “perfect fit for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” but I still wish I were. And this will always be a scar I carry.

To add to my friend ElleK’s beautiful post of what she wishes had been said at the 2025 General Conference, I wish Elder Uchtdorf would have said, If you can see the divine in your neighbor, if you can listen to people who believe differently than you, then you belong here. I wish he would have just said, Your love is enough.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

“Radical Kindness” Launch Party with Exponent II — this Thursday!

Join Exponent II and dozens of readers and contributors for our online launch party for the Spring 2025 issue of Exponent II magazine on Thursday, April 10th at 6 p.m. MT / 8 p.m. ET.

Register for the Zoom link here.

The deadline to subscribe to receive this issue with your subscription is April 30, 2025 — subscriptions starting at $20/year!

In this issue we asked contributors to tell us their stories of “radical kindness.” This issue delves beyond simplistic takes and showcases different lived experiences, putting them side-by-side in conversation.

Alongside an array of theology, prayers, poignant poems, artwork, and interviews with immigrant artists, “Tiny Kindnesses” are peppered throughout the issue. We curated these tiny stories in the spirit of Rachel Hunt’s work (@tinykindnesses) of recognizing, naming, witnessing, and documenting the many kindnesses that happen — even in the thick of stress and chaos. No intentional kindness is ever small.

Join us for a sneak peek of this outstanding issue and to honor all of our amazing contributors, including:

Oliver BlackRachel HuntAimee Evans HickmanEmily Fisher GrayAlixa BrobbeyEmily UpdegraffFleur Van WoerkomSandrakay DavisColleen SolomonNicole Sue TaylorCherie PedersenTrina CaudleHinckley A. Jones-SanpeiClaire BreedloveSandra HaertlingCindy BaldwinJenna RakuitaMelodie Jackson

And our artists:

Loralee J. NicolayM. Alice AbramsArleene Correa ValenciaRocio CisnerosAlejandra RamosCrystal Gonzalez CallisonAlex E. Reed ArtJessica JessopLili BriemAbbie CalhounAnne Mecham GregersonLovetta Reyes-CairoElizabeth Bishop WheatleyAlison Hill SpencerAnita Eralie SchleyCamille Wheatley

Our Bloggers Recommend: Heavenly Mother’s Role at Church

By Common Consent published a backlist discussion about Heavenly Mother. I found this conversation fascinating because my thoughts and feelings about her have changed so much over the last decade or two. Some of it is probably a “stages of life” thing, but reading this discussion is also getting me to consider how changes (or lack of changes) in the church also influence my perceptions.