Exponent II's Blog, page 238

The Sacredness of Doubt

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The Incredulity of St. Thomas by Caravaggio

Both of my parents were converts to the LDS Church, but my father was a zealous convert. On the way to school or church or the supermarket, he quizzed my brother, sister, and I on the fundamentals of Mormonism, for which there were right and wrong answers. My dad would ask “What is the priesthood?” and we would answer “the power of God.” My dad would ask “What is faith?” and we would answer “a belief in things we can’t see but we know are true.” I didn’t really know about doubt. We never talked about it.

As I grew up, it seemed like my faith community was telling me that the goal of faith was knowing, that believing was a precursor to spiritual knowledge. When people gave their testimonies, they often claimed that they knew spiritual things “beyond a shadow of a doubt.” If I believed in something, like God or Jesus or the Book of Mormon, that was fine, but it was better to claim that I knew it.  By saying that I knew something to was true, I felt a kind of strength in that thing. The goal seemed to be to strengthen belief by becoming rigid in my beliefs, as this would protect me from doubt, which seemed to be an undoing of faith.

I had various spiritual experiences in my youth and my community taught me how to interpret them. When I prayed to God to help find a misplaced My Little Pony, and then I found the pony, that meant that God was real and loved me. When I read the Book of Mormon and felt good when I prayed about it, it meant that the Book of Mormon was divinely inspired and gave a historical record of God’s people in the Americas. I was taught to make leaps of faith based on good feelings and claiming spiritual knowledge felt powerful, so I kept doing it.

I have always been a believer and a people pleaser, and so I made leaps of faith and worked to solidify my belief into knowledge so that it would never change. It was like my budding faith was like playdough, and if I let it dry out and didn’t to re-shape my faith, then it would harden and maybe even over the course of time it would turn into stone. It seemed to me like that was the goal: faith that was as hard and as immovable as a rock. 

Part of that faith was that if I did good things and tried to be a good person, God would reward me. In my mind, I was just amassing a really big pile of divine treats. Maybe I would get them in heaven or maybe they would materialize as blessings in this life, but I wanted those treats.

Another thing that I wanted was for my mom to get better. My mother was diagnosed with a serious mental illness when I was about five. She spent most of my childhood living in a mental health facility and I missed her terribly. I just wanted my mom at home. I prayed that she would get better every morning and every night and when we blessed the food as a family at every meal. Over the course of about eight years, there were thousands of prayers said by me and my family members for my mother’s health. At church, I heard many stories from lesson manuals indicating that if I wanted something good, and asked God for that good thing, and tried to be obedient to God, I would be granted that thing.

And one day, I was told that my mother was now healthy and that she was coming home to live with us. My prayers had been answered and we were relieved. It felt like a miracle.

She came home, but she was not better. Her mental health challenges created a lot of tension in my home. Ultimately that tension grew to be too much and one day, after five years of trying to make living at home work, something happened and my mother was in the hospital. Her life was in jeopardy. All of my training in God and faith told me that because of my prayers, because of my attempts to be a good person, God would reward me by not allowing my mother die. That my faith meant there would be a different outcome. That I could cash in my divine treat stash and God would intervene.

And then she died. My childhood faith was shattered. The rigidness, the brittleness of that faith did not serve me well in the aftermath of her death, and the stress of my situation caused that faith to break. Apparently God just did not work in the way that I had been lead to believe. There was no stash of divine treats to cash in during a moment of need. I still believed in God, but I came to realize that many things I believed were not real. My believing or claiming to know something didn’t make it real. The rigidness and ferventness of my faith didn’t make things things real. I didn’t get to control God through my faith. That wasn’t how things worked and that wasn’t God’s role in my life. I had been told that believing was good and that more belief, more “knowing” was better. Believing and knowing, on their own, had not served me well. 

I believed in many things that were not true, but I had not cultivated a doubt that would reveal those beliefs as false. I grew a faith that was too willing to take big leaps of belief, but not the doubt to question whether those leaps were a good idea, would serve me well.

I now imagine that like old Loony Toons cartoons, there is an angel and a devil on each shoulder, but instead of being an angel or a devil, there is my believing self, and my doubting self. Instead of one being good and the other bad, they are both necessary, and can exist in an ongoing tension that benefits me. I have come to understand that for me, it is important to cultivate doubt while growing in faith. Where my faith once looked like strong believing and knowing and amassing certainty, my new faith looks like seeking and doubt gives me the questions to move forward with faith.

I now see doubt has having many avatars:

Doubt is the Questioner.

Doubt is the Clarifier of Faith.

Doubt is the Idea Tester.

Doubt is the Balancer of Faith.

Doubt keeps my faith malleable and allows me to adapt my faith to my life experiences.

Doubt keeps my faith flexible and helps me change the shape of my faith as my understanding of God grows and changes.

Doubt helps me to seek faith in the places where my faith can grow and develop.

When my believing self is ready to take leaps of faith, my doubting self asks if the belief I am about to jump into is worth the time and effort of my commitment.

Doubt shows me that I do not have to believe something just because someone else believes it, or someone says I should.

Doubt teaches me that my faith does not need to be rigid to be valuable.

Doubt shows me that I can’t be certain about much, but that belief is enough.

Doubt shows me that I don’t need divine treats in a big pile in heaven, but that God’s presence in my life is enough.

And because I have cultivated doubt, I can trust in my faith in God.

Doubt is Sacred

Doubt is

The fourth theological virtue

Paul never named

(After faith, hope, and charity)

Doubt is

That pusher of

Spiritual journeys

That pothole in the road

Where my foot catches

And I find myself

Nose-deep in

The mud of belief

Surprised at the messiness of faith

Surprised at the mutability of faith

Surprised that up close

I can see

What is

What isn’t

Clearer than before

But with new questions

Whose answers I must now chase,

A tricky

Untrusting

Seeking

Holy hermit

Of a faith teacher.

An early version of this talk was given at Forward with Community, an online congregation for Latter-day Seekers sponsored by Community of Christ, on October 15, 2018.

#hearLDSwomen: New Bishopric Revoked Permission

[image error]Last year about this time, I was working with a group of primary children on a special musical number for Thanksgiving. I had jumped through the hoops to get a “non-canon” song approved, and it was lovely. Two weeks before Thanksgiving, a new bishopric was called. One of the counselors had a daughter who was singing with us, so he had heard the song. They called me three days later to tell me that they had all individually received revelation that this song was not to be sung in church, that it was “not to be heard at this time.” And I should prepare a new song with the kids in ten days’ time and ask the bishopric next year about this song because the timing might be right. Yeah . . . I’m not doing any of that. I fought them on it and they would not budge, so two months of prep got dumped and those kids’ hard work was wasted. Give me a freaking break. I haven’t worked on any music since and won’t until they are released. It’s ridiculous.

I’ve literally never been shaking with rage prior to this incident. It was so uncalled for and clearly so much flexing of new bishopric muscles. Unfortunately, I was also too new in the ward to really pitch a fit like I usually would have. I had to settle for just refusing to prep a new song (they got one of their wives to quickly teach the kids something anyway) and stepping away from involvement with music at all. Mind you, this whole thing was a completely volunteer effort because they refused to give me a calling when we moved in as soon as they found out I work full time.

It wasn’t even anything subversive or edgy or anything. They just DECIDED and then tried to tell me how it was really such a powerful experience as a new bishopric that they ALL felt prompted that it “wasn’t to be heard at this time.” I asked them why I or the ward music specialist would have been prompted to choose the song then, and all they did was email me back the chunk of the Handbook that says that they’re the bosses of Sacrament Meeting.

– Anonymous

 

Pro Tip: Give women the autonomy to fulfill their callings. Don’t overrule women’s prayerful decisions for their stewardships unless it’s absolutely necessary.

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: What’s in a Name? The Other Side of the Coin

[image error]By Brittney Hartley

When we watch history we see that the world is always working towards a golden mean, a middle way, or a balance of the force (depending on your beliefs and level of nerdiness). Under this Pendulum Theory history swings towards one direction, reaches a tipping point, and then returns towards the opposite direction. The “All You Need Is Love” generation has children that embrace “I am a Material Girl.” The rebellion against the British Empire leads to the weak government under the Articles of Confederation. After globalization movements, nationalism comes back with a vengeance. No political party stays in power too long before the pendulum starts to swing back. It’s the way of nature.

It is also the way of truth. One of the greatest things about studying scripture is delving into the world of opposites. For every “thou shalt” there is an exception. For every principle there is an opposing principle that balances it out. The challenge with reading scripture is engaging in the wrestle, not cherry picking our favorite side. Pacifists love the Anti-Nephi-Lehis and War Hawks love Captain Moroni. The point is to find the truth that lies in between. There’s a time to fight with passive nonaggression and a time to take up arms. There’s a time to be honest and a time to lie. There’s a time for bravery and a time for humility. As Joseph Smith puts it, “by proving contraries the truth is made manifest” (HC 6:248).

Even in our short history as a Church we can see some balancing out taking place under the direction of Russell M. Nelson. As one body we have a sense for when something is out of balance. We are a body of Christ. The spirit flows through us all, connecting us like an ecosystem that is constantly correcting itself. When we reached a tipping point with Home Teaching reports and lessons, the ministering program is ushered in. The pendulum that swung towards homogenization efforts of the correlation period is now giving way to loosening the reins of prescribed lessons. Two-hour-long church was received with rejoicing after our collective spiritual burnout from too many Church-centered activities. Unsatisfying accounts of our history led to a hunger from which came many changes including the Gospel Topics Essays. If the rumors and whispers are correct, there are many more pendulum shifts to come.

Now to my point. Whenever there is a backlash against a change in the Church, it is not always because it is wrong or it is evil. It is often because it is unbalanced. It is one side of the coin without a tipping of the hat to the other side. And as a social ecosystem there will be those who call it out. As I watched President Nelson’s announcement to focus on the full name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I didn’t hear a ton of rejoicing. Some took it as the Prophet’s counsel and that was that. But others had a strong negative reaction.

Whenever there is a reaction we can look for the other side of the coin. What principle is being underrepresented here? For Jesus really did say what he wanted his Church to be called: “For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (D&C 115:4). Nelson promised a pouring out of power as we call upon His name through our conversations by using the full name. But Jesus spoke of those who call upon His name another time in the scriptures. In Matthew 7:22-23 Jesus tells his disciples:

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

These people, members of “The Church” who called upon the proper name of God and even did good works in His name are cast out of his presence because their hearts are far from Him. If we continue Christ’s analogy, it also means that there are those who have not called Him by his name, who did not even carry His priesthood, or who would not recognize Him in heaven to which Christ would say, “Come here child, I know you and you know me. Inasmuch a ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me.”

My guess is that if President Nelson would have made the name correction and followed up with a focus on how we can better live up to that name, there would not have been such a negative reaction. If he would have said, we’re correcting our name and to better live up to it we’re making changes in the Church, there would have been absolute rejoicing. Both sides of the coin would have been represented and there would have been little to complain about. The name would have meant something, like Christ implies in Matthew 7. If the talk challenged us to exemplify Jesus in how we treat those in the margins of our own society we would have had both sides of the coin. We would have rallied together in bettering how we treat LGBT members, how we interview minors behind closed doors, how we could expand women’s voices, and how we could better reach out the poor and downtrodden. Those efforts, according to the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, are far more important than the right name.

My hope is that the focus of the right name will one day reach a tipping point and give yield to the opposing idea: Christlike actions from the Church are far more important than the name itself.

Brittney Hartley is a history teacher living in Eagle, Idaho with her husband and four children. She enjoys the rabbit hole of Mormon Philosophy and will have a book out soon called Mormon Philosophy Simplified through Kofford Books. Above all, she is a nerd.

#hearLDSwomen: Bishops Overstep Bounds When Counseling Women

[image error]My parents “adopted” my teen sister’s baby just to get the Bishop/LDS Family Services/the baby’s father off their back. The father was told he could go on a mission if he could convince my sister to have the baby adopted out. (My sister remained the baby’s mother in all but name, and she adopted her back officially a few years later.)

– Anonymous

 

A bishop (who is still currently serving) told me I needed to be a better Mormon wife so my husband wouldn’t abuse me. Then he asked me sexually explicit questions about things I did as a teenager right after I disclosed that I was being abused in my home. I was 34.

– Lesley

 

My absolute worst was a previous bishop telling me if I’d hearken to my husband he would feel better about himself and stop abusing me. And I believed him. It almost cost me my life until I finally had enough. Enough. The culture I came from will not be the one I give to my daughters. #NotOnMyWatch

– Rachel Coleman

 

Pro Tip: Listen to and empathize with the women in your care. Do not give marriage/family advice you are unqualified to give or ask prying questions about sexuality.

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)

Relief Society Lesson Plan: “Divine Discontent” by Michelle D. Craig

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Sister Craig, the First Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, starts her talk with an anecdote about being discontent. “When I was in elementary school, we walked home on a paved trail that wound back and forth up the side of a hill. There was another trail, unpaved, called the “boys’ trail.” The boys’ trail was a path in the dirt that went straight up the hill. It was shorter but much steeper. As a young girl, I knew I could walk up any trail the boys could. […] So every now and then, I would lag behind my group of friends on the paved trail, remove my shoes, and walk barefoot up the boys’ trail. I was trying to toughen up my feet.”

She didn’t like that the world told her she wasn’t capable of doing hard things because she was a girl. She says “I knew I was living in the latter days and that I would need to do hard things, as did the pioneers—and I wanted to be prepared.” Sister Craig knew as a child that life is full of hard things, especially as we try to listen to God. Just like Sister Craig, we all have an innate sense that we can do more and be more. She uses Elder Neal A Maxwell’s phrase “divine discontent” as an apt description of how our awareness of this gap makes us feel.

Ira Glass, the radio host, expresses this idea very clearly: “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

This quote is talking about creativity, but when we’re talking about being a disciple, becoming like God and Christ, we also have this sense both of our potential, and our inability to reach that potential right now in this moment. Discuss moments class members have noticed that potential or inadequacy.

As Emily Dickinson reminds us, “Forever – is composed of Nows –”, so unless we purposely step back, it kind of feels like we’ll always be at this exact measure of our potential, far short of where we want to be.

Sister Craig: “We yearn for greater personal capacity. We have these feelings because we are daughters and sons of God, born with the Light of Christ yet living in a fallen world. These feelings are God given and create an urgency to act.” This urgency, though, can quickly lead us towards anxiety. Sister Craig reminds us to value and appreciate the precious space of that gap, and to avoid the paralysing discouragement that can come from despairing about it. “Our discontent can become divine—or destructive.”

Ask the class for experiences when they’ve noticed that gap and either become discouraged or used it to fuel their personal growth — either in a religious or in a work/study setting.

Sister Craig noted “I have learned that when I wallow in thoughts of everything I am not, I do not progress and I find it much more difficult to feel and follow the Spirit.”

Do other women in your class have the same experience? What can we do when we find ourselves wallowing?

By accepting that we can’t reach our full potential in this life, we can honour those feelings of inadequacy and discontent as reminders of our values and priorities. Wanting to be better comes from a good part of us, that we need to love, cherish and gently care for. Ignoring it, by staying in our comfort zones, or by getting to work and cutting ourselves off from our feelings, can’t lead to the same degree of personal growth.

Sister Craig tells a story we probably all know, about a 14-year-old boy who wrote in his journal that “my mind became exceedingly distressed, for I became convicted of my sins, and … felt to mourn for my own sins and for the sins of the world.” But what happened when that teenager prayed for forgiveness and reassurance? He received the First Vision and the Gospel was restored to the Earth.

Sister Craig makes it clear to us that this religion that brings us together — among millions of others — came from a period of great unease and confusion.

But how can we know if the ideas that come to us from those feelings of discontent are really from the spirit or not? Sister Craig offers this story from Sister Bonnie D. Parkin, former Relief Society General President:

Susan … was a wonderful seamstress. President [Spencer W.] Kimball lived in [her] ward. One Sunday, Susan noticed that he had a new suit. Her father had recently … brought her some exquisite silk fabric. Susan thought that fabric would make a handsome tie to go with President Kimball’s new suit. So on Monday she made the tie. She wrapped it in tissue paper and walked up the block to President Kimball’s home.

On her way to the front door, she suddenly stopped and thought, ‘Who am I to make a tie for the prophet? He probably has plenty of them.’ Deciding she had made a mistake, she turned to leave.

“Just then Sister Kimball opened the front door and said, ‘Oh, Susan!’

Stumbling all over herself, Susan said, ‘I saw President Kimball in his new suit on Sunday. Dad just brought me some silk from New York … and so I made him a tie.’

Before Susan could continue, Sister Kimball stopped her, took hold of her shoulders, and said: ‘Susan, never suppress a generous thought.’

She explains in her talk: “Sometimes when I have an impression to do something for someone, I wonder if it was a prompting or just my own thoughts. But I am reminded that “that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.” Whether they are direct promptings or just impulses to help, a good deed is never wasted, for “charity never faileth”—and is never the wrong response.”

Encourage the class to share times that they weren’t sure a thought was a prompting or not, and how they handled it. Has anybody regretted following through on a generous thought? [This may lead to a discussion of how to balance competing needs/generous thoughts, or suggestions about how to develop an awareness of the good we can do: guide the discussion to meet the needs of your particular class.]

Another important point that Sister Craig brings up is that: “Divine discontent leads to humility, not to self-pity or the discouragement that comes from making comparisons in which we always come up short. Covenant-keeping women come in all sizes and shapes; their families, their life experiences, and their circumstances vary.” The divine part comes from comparing ourselves to our own potential, not to other people. Whether the result is pride or discouragement, judging others doesn’t help us to become more like God and Christ.

Ignoring our lack doesn’t help us to become like them either. “Jesus’s miracles often begin with a recognition of want, need, failure, or inadequacy. Remember the loaves and the fishes? Each of the Gospel writers tells how Jesus miraculously fed the thousands who followed Him.” When we fail to recognise our own inadequacy, there’s no room to accept Christ’s grace.

“Have you ever felt your talents and gifts were too small for the task ahead? I have. But you and I can give what we have to Christ, and He will multiply our efforts. What you have to offer is more than enough—even with your human frailties and weaknesses—if you rely on the grace of God.”

How can we learn to rely on grace? How can we avoid the temptation to only work on the “all we can do” part”?

The Plan of Salvation doesn’t have us scheduled to figure out Exaltation in this life. During the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5:48, Jesus says “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” In his repetition for the Nephites after his resurrection, in 3 Nephi 12:48, he teaches “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” He doesn’t claim the title of perfection for himself during his mortal probation. We can’t be perfect or fully perfected in this life, but we can stretch ourselves towards it, through the grace of God.

End the lesson with a testimony of grace, and a reminder to forgive ourselves and others for being imperfect.

Guest Post: Today, It Feels Like I Have No Place.

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By LMA

Today, it feels like I have no place.

I had to choose whether or not to go to a ward dinner after our meeting block. I have been taking a break from going to church for almost a year. I’ve only been to church a handful of times during this time period. At first, I thought I would have my quiet time away and then be ready to go back. After a while, I did go back a few times. It felt like people maybe thought I had had my necessary alone time, and now I’m ready to be back as myself again. I even thought maybe this means I’ll be more involved again, even if not at the same level I was before.

As time has progressed, it still doesn’t feel right to be fully involved and active in my faith. There is so much pain involved in being there. Being misunderstood and hearing people verbally discuss unhelpful stereotypes and misinformation is really difficult. Sometimes when I’m there, it feels like I’m somehow saying it’s okay the way our Church treats women and other vulnerable people (children, LGBTQ+ folk). Sometimes it feels like by being there, I’m saying that it’s okay for the Church to use their lawyers as a way to avoid legal and spiritual responsibility for wrongs done in the context of our faith. I don’t want to say any of that is okay, because it’s not.

Even if I were to be there, there’s only one dear friend who knows the kind of pain I’m talking about. Everyone else is primarily unaware or uninformed about the things that cause me and others so much pain (“Who is Joseph Bishop? I don’t know who that is” or “Somebody is trying to change the bishop’s interviews. What is the Church supposed to do, put cameras in the bishop’s office?”). These sources of pain are really important and a life-and-death situation for a lot of people. It’s so isolating to know most people don’t even know about it, or if I exert the emotional labor to explain, most don’t want to deal with what that really means about our faith.

Part of me really wanted to go to that dinner because I miss feeling a part of that community and those people. Being an active member of our Church has been such an important part of who I am. Now that I’m trying to figure out how I really feel about this, I feel really alone. They are having the dinner right now, and I’m alone at my house. I feel pretty sad about it, so I’ve tried to make my room cozy. There’s a vanilla candle and soft lamps on and I’m sitting in my bed, my cozy and safe place.

I am really proud of the fact that I think for myself, and I’m taking the time and effort and self-work and self-care to understand how I would like to relate to Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother, and my faith.

If someone like me were to read this, these are the things I would want someone to say:

You are so brave to try to understand yourself and what works best for you. That takes so much courage and softness and self-awareness and power.

You ALWAYS have a place inside yourself. No matter what others inside or outside of your faith think or say or do, you belong to yourself first and foremost.

If it feels good to you to think about it, know you belong to your Heavenly Mother. She is safe and good and soft and wants you to be as you are.

Institutions created or maintained by people are not designed to or always able to hold and understand human pain and complexity. You are more complex and beautiful and intricate beyond these structures.

These things bring me a little bit of peace. I hope we all can find a little more peace in our safe places, too.

 

LMA is PhD-holding boss lady that teaches child development to university students. She cares deeply about issues that affect women inside and outside of our Church.

#hearLDSwomen: Not Allowed to Use Church Building without Priesthood Holders Present

[image error]Our Relief Society can’t even go have a planning meeting at the church building without priesthood there. We have had to cancel overnight activities due to not being able to get men who are able to “come along.” I was told it’s so we can have a blessing or help if it’s needed. They always stayed in another room or a trailer if they came, so it definitely wasn’t to “supervise,” but I am still highly annoyed every time.

I also find it baffling that it’s perfectly fine and even expected for me/women to be home alone (gasp!) with children all day every day, but somehow  we’re not capable of taking care of ourselves on group outings.

– Anonymous

 

I served as counselor to a Relief Society president who stated we as sisters were never to be in the church building for any purpose if a priesthood holder was not on the premises.

– Suzanna Rickard Nope

 

I have often been at activities where some frail elderly man was there for our “protection” (because penis), and I often laughed to myself about that. Um yeah right dude.

– Sarah

 

Pro tip: Church Handbook 1, 8.3.5: “Priesthood leaders instruct members, especially women and youth, not to be alone in an unlocked church building.” So if a person is alone in a church building, regardless of gender, the doors should be locked. If more than one person is in the church building, regardless of gender, the doors do not need to be locked. There is no church policy that states there must be priesthood holders in the building while it is in use by 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)

Calling Ourselves Saints

leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (yes, that’s a mouthful) decided  we weren’t going to call ourselves Mormons anymore, I obediently stopped using the word Mormon and switched to the term “LDS” until the I’m a Mormon campaign, when I realized that the church style guide had changed again and I went along.

Coincidentally, this time around, just a few weeks before the announcement that we should quit calling ourselves “Mormons” again, and that even “LDS” is out now, I happened to study an article by presiding bishop Gérald Caussé  in which he said, “The definition of the Church might be derived from a passage in the Book of Mormon that states, ‘And they [meaning the Lord’s disciples] who were baptized in the name of Jesus were called the church of Christ.’ In other words, the Church is all about people.” (3 Nephi 26:21)

The Bible also uses the term “church” to describe people, not buildings. The word “church” comes from the Greek word ekklesia which is defined as “an assembly” or “called-out ones.”

That means that we are the church.

Once, when I was doing a television interview about Ordain Women activism, a reporter asked me to respond to  critics who believed we were harming the church.

I surprised myself when I instinctively said, “We are the church.” (KUTV, April 23, 2014)

The church isn’t its buildings, not even its headquarters. It is us. It is our responsibility. Thinking of the church this way helps me to realize the importance of each of us doing our part to make the church reflective of Christ, for whom the church (that’s us) is named. Are we building Zion? Or are we complacent?

[image error]When each of my children are baptized, I show them my name badge from my missionary service. It says the word, “Jesucristo” in bold letters. I tell them about how I felt an extra responsibility to reflect Christ’s love and do his work when I wore that badge, because I was literally wearing the name of Christ. However, I remind them, when we are baptized and confirmed as members of the church, we symbolically take upon us at that same name and carry that same responsibility.

Remembering that we are the church also helps me to understand the church’s flaws. With one great exception, people have never been perfect. In this sense, the oft repeated mantra, “The church is perfect but the people aren’t,” is a nonsense phrase. The church cannot be perfect because we are the church and we are not perfect.

We are not saints.

Even putting aside questions of whether the new style guide is practical (it’s not), I feel a great sense of trepidation about the instruction to refer to ourselves as, and expect others to call us, “Latter-day Saints.” I am no saint, and I don’t know any. Even if we sincerely aspire to become saints, can we expect people to call us that when we so obviously haven’t reached that goal?

I don’t know, but regardless, as I have pondered these questions, I have remembered the joy I felt at taking upon myself the name of Christ when I was baptized, and that same joy again when I literally pinned the name of Christ onto my chest as a missionary. It is unlikely that I will ever be worthy of that name. I doubt that I will ever achieve sainthood, but there can be joy in the attempt.

Guest Post: My Husband Is the Nurturer

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By Bryn

The October 2018 Women’s Session of General Conference certainly electrified me (not in a good way). As I went from deep unease to shaking a bit and wanting to cry, I’m not sure I can explain fully why I felt such a deep sense of wrongness as my being was continuously described to me as a natural nurturer, but I know it has something to do with my husband, the nurturer, who happened to be sitting right next to me during the session.

I married a man who was raised, at least for a time, by his single father. Becoming a father himself was one of his great ambitions. He expected to be a father, just like his dad had been a father to him. It was special, perhaps made more so by the passing of my husband’s father before we started having children.

Well, now we have children. Three, in fact. My husband used to toss his tie over his shoulder as he held a baby through sacrament meeting. He never once complained about holding a baby, managing bottles, diapers, and entertainment, but he didn’t enjoy getting spit up on his silk ties. He would hide out in hallways and unused classrooms as he rocked a little one to sleep. He packed the diaper bag and made a point of us choosing that diaper bag together. He wanted to feel comfortable, like it was HIS bag and MY bag, as we carried our babies around in public.

My husband is the chief night nurse of the house. Now that our children are mostly sleeping through the night, he does the late night feedings, the bathroom runs, and the early risers. He bears sleep deprivation better than I do and can usually get back to sleep faster, so it made sense for him to take on this role. Our children even go all the way around the bed to get to him, even though they have to pass me. They know their dad is their go-to 2 AM problem solver.

My husband asked for flex-time at work so he could be home in the late afternoon. He gets up early in the mornings so he can be home with time to make dinner or to take the kids out to play. My husband loves to cook and often makes the bulk of our dinners. With three young children still mostly at home and me working part-time from home, he often takes over in the afternoon by planning and making dinner while managing the kids so I can lock myself in the bedroom and finish my work. He doesn’t multi-task effortlessly, but he does it, the same as I do during the breakfast and lunch rush of my daytime activities.

My kids light up when my husband arrives home. They know it’s play time. He lays down on the floor and plays “Robot Dad,” “Chase,” and “Tackle.” They sit on his lap to play video games. They giggle, screech, and beam with joy. They go to the park so often with their dad that the kids christened our park bag, with toys and snacks, the “daddy bag.”

In the evening, my husband takes either the littlest one or the two big ones, while I take the other option, and reads a few bedtime books. He cuddles, hugs, kisses, and noses each child in the way that they love. They hug first, they give a kiss, and then they brush their noses together. He puts out the bedroom lights, shuts the door, and walks to the kitchen.

Now he’s going to prepare the older kids’ milk cups in the fridge, in the exact place and with the exact cups that they like, so they can get them out in the morning and buy us a few extra minutes of peace. He’ll wash the lunch box containers and set them out so I can pack them on preschool mornings. If it’s Sunday morning, he’ll be packing the sacrament activity bag with snacks, scrubbing a child’s hair with shampoo (he leaves the brushing to me because he is just. so. awkward. at it), and picking out Sunday clothes.

I could write an entirely different piece about the vital and unique ways I also nurture my family. I could write about our partnership and how we perceive our roles as equal providers, nurturers, and individuals who bring our unique skills and talents together to serve our family. But today, I think it’s just better to say, without a doubt, that our happiness as a family is deeply derived from the efforts of my husband, the nurturer, far more so than his efforts as a provider or leader.

What a shame it would be to limit him to presiding and providing. What a shame it is to ever limit anyone to one single role.

Bryn teaches online basic writing classes, studies rhetoric and writing, and keeps three little people going all in partnership with her awesome husband. Her greatest parenting trick is that she can now recite Little Blue Truck from memory.

Guest Post: Actions Speak Louder

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By Sara

When I was a young girl, I read in a book that “actions speak louder than words.”

I didn’t understand.

Actions are actions,

They cannot speak.

But now that I am grown, I finally understand.

I don’t want to hear that I am important in words alone.

Show me.

Listen to me.

No.

Not enough.

You need to hear me.

Really hear me.

And then,

Show me you heard.

Take action.

When I feel weak,

Go ahead,

Tell me that I can be strong.

But even better, give me a chance to exercise my strength.

Where can I shine?

Where can I soar?

Where can I use my particular gifts?

I will do my utmost.

I will give my everything.

I cannot do it all.

I know that.

That’s why you have gifts too.

Our gifts are not based on stereotypes.

Stereotypes cannot and do not tell the full story.

These gifts are *ours.*

Fully ours.

We cannot take credit,

They are, after all, gifts,

But we can wield them.

And so,

When I need your help,

Be there.

I will tell you that you are strong too.

You can lend me your strength.

You can do your utmost.

You can give your everything.

Together, we will harness our strength,

And become stronger than we ever imagined.

Tell me that I am powerful.

But this is not enough.

I need a place to exert my power.

A place where I could domineer if I wanted.

But would I?

I hope not.

I want to lift others,

To help them succeed.

But it would have to be

My choice.

My decision.

My desire.

Not because I was told to desire it.

But how can I make a good decision if I am not given a choice?

Will I ever be given the chance to know,

If I am capable?

At the moment,

your actions are screaming

I am not.

Sara is Community Health Education specialist who currently works as a mom to four zany kiddos. She enjoys reading, writing, and archery. She has a special affinity for anything lovely, whimsical, and bright.