Exponent II's Blog, page 243

#hearLDSwomen: Chastised for Following Revelation about Consecration

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Back in 2014, I watched a General Conference talk with my family—Elder Holland’s “Are We Not All Beggars?” The spirit of that talk galvanized my heart, and I felt prompted to create a consecration experiment for our family: we would give away 2014 things in five weeks, in an effort to bless others.

This was a really big deal for me, because I so often had felt like the Poor Project Family at church. (This is our budget: we have seven kids, we have enough to eat, we never vacation, we drive a ‘92 van.) I felt like my offerings were not enough. So this was a time for me to offer things to God and just accept what would happen.

It turned out to be an absolutely amazing experience. I shared it on Facebook because I felt shy about it at church, but my friends in the ward pushed me to try to bear a testimony about it, if not in Sacrament Meeting, at least in Relief Society. So I did.

Then, other women in my ward wanted to talk to me about it, and word got to some friends of friends in our neighboring stake, and a woman called me from a neighboring stake to talk to me about our five weeks of consecration, and she said she loved it. She asked me to come tell my story at the next Relief Society Tuesday evening meeting. I hesitantly agreed, and then prayed to know what to say, and started spending time putting a presentation together.

What happened next:

A bishop called me out of the blue, with an angry voice, demanding to know my full name, my temple worthiness (at the time, I had a temple recommend and was attending every week), and my bishop’s name and number.
The sister from the other stake called me. I could hardly understand her through her tears. She told me that when she’d submitted her idea for a Tuesday night Relief Society activity, her bishop was very angry that she’d planned that activity without his permission, and he had ripped her a new one. She wept to me that she was in some trouble with him, and that her bishop was now going to call my bishop, and that she probably shouldn’t speak to me anymore.
MY bishop called me into his office, and chastised me. He chastised me for talking to the woman from another stake; for upsetting her bishop enough that the bishop had to call him, my bishop, to determine my worthiness; and for speaking to anyone at all about this consecration thing.

He chastised me and told me that what I had been engaged in was a hobby and a distraction, but it wasn’t service. He explained that service is something you do that’s a duty determined by our church leaders and that you are extended a calling by the church leaders to do. Because my bishop did not sign off on this consecration challenge, it was NOT service, and I shouldn’t talk about it. He also told me I needed to serve the church more.

It was a couple of months after this, in early 2015, that I caught pneumonia, and couldn’t care for my seven children. When I asked him to release me from my two callings—telling him I’d been too sick for months to even feed my children—he took my temple recommend.

– Rebecca

 

Pro Tip: Poor people can follow the law of consecration. Trust women to fulfill their callings. Let women work together for their mutual benefit.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. If you would like to submit an experience, please do so here.

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

Sacred Music Sunday: God of the Women

Earlier this summer, I attended a small local feminist Catholic mass and one of the hymns we sang was Carolyn Winfrey Gillette’s God of the Women. It was extremely touching to sing this with the handful of people there. I’ve found this video on youtube so you can hear it, too.

Lyrics:

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Women of the Bible: Phoebe, photo by Avondale Pattillo UMC.
Used according to the CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license, no changes made

God of the women who answered your call,

Trusting your promises, giving their all,

Women like Sarah and Hannah and Ruth —

Give us their courage to live in your truth.

God of the women who walked Jesus’ Way,

Giving their resources, learning to pray,

Mary, Joanna, Susanna, and more —

May we give freely as they did before.

God of the women long put to the test,

Left out of stories, forgotten, oppressed,

Quietly asking: “Who smiled at my birth?” —

In Jesus’ dying you show us our worth.

God of the women who ran from the tomb,

Prayed with the others in that upper room,

Then felt your Spirit on Pentecost Day —

May we so gladly proclaim you today.

O God of Phoebe and ministers all,

May we be joyful in answering your call.

Give us the strength of your Spirit so near

That we may share in your ministry here.

That last verse would be particularly relevant if you are planning a sacrament meeting about the new ministering program.

Gillette has many great hymns at her site if you are looking for something outside of the usual choir standards for your ward, Relief Society, or Young Women choir. She lists which hymn tune which you might find at the back of an LDS hymnbook, or you can probably find in a google search.

#hearLDSwomen: Ostracised for Discussing the History of Relief Society, Shamed about Modesty

[image error]I’ve gotten berated for stating the history of women having the priesthood in RS and kindly sharing my hope and opinion that this would again be the case, and I was called into the bishop’s office for it. He told me I wasn’t going to make any friends saying things like that. He didn’t even argue the point about women in the priesthood, and I doubt he even knew the history, but he chose to shame me and scare me socially instead by saying women were going to circle the wagons to protect the sanctity of the priesthood when someone says something contrary like I did.

So essentially, he knew and encouraged women to turn on other women and sort of played this puppeteer role.

Conversely, I’ve sat in gospel doctrine principles (the one for new members or investigators) and heard a grown man say that the young women (teens) in the ward need to dress more modestly because it has an effect on the men. Not the boys, the men. He went on to say it was the young women’s responsibility to portray themselves modestly to prevent this from happening. I raised my hand to push back on that disgusting comment of course and said young women are not responsible for the thoughts of grown men and that they needed to take responsibility for their own thoughts. The teacher (a man) immediately cut me off and let the disgusting comment man have another chance to say his rebuttal about how modesty is an issue and we all need to help each the young women.

It was so awful. I still remember feeling like I was in some sort of weird social experiment and everyone was brainwashed. After that gospel principles class, the sister missionaries actually came up to me and thanked me for my comment and said this affects them all the time.

But they didn’t feel safe to say anything in class. And I can see why.

– Lesley

Pro Tip: Don’t encourage bullying or shaming, and don’t participate yourself.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. If you would like to submit an experience, please do so here.

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

Spirit of Power

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Jean Hélion (French, Couterne 1904–1987 Paris)

The following is an example of a submission for our Winter 2019 writing contest. You can find more details about the contest here. 

2 Timothy 1:7: For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

I paced my 13-foot-wide rowhouse from end-to-end, back and forth, exhausted. I had been carrying my nine-month-old son for hours as he screamed. There was nothing seriously wrong with him, just congestion that was making him uncomfortable and preventing sleep. I’d checked with the pediatrician and there was nothing to do but make him as comfortable as possible and wait for his body to fight off the virus. My arm muscles burned but the crying became worse whenever I sat down. So I paced.

My three-year-old daughter’s head moved back and forth with me as I paced. She was frustrated with the situation and clearly reaching her breaking point. I knew I would soon have two crying children on my hands and I felt like I might collapse when that happened. I felt incredibly helpless.

In my head, I reviewed who might help me. My husband was a medical resident and in the middle of a 30 hour shift. I wasn’t aware of who my visiting/home teachers were since they had never contacted us. We deeply loved our ward but it was one that barely had the resources to cover major crises of evictions and hospitalizations, and sometimes not even that. My family was too far away. My friends mostly lived on the other side of the city.  

As the list of resources seemed to drain away, they were replaced by a different list. Into my mind floated the words, “You are a woman of faith. Do not fear what you can do.”

Wrapping my arms around my son, I stated his full name and then said, “As your mother and as an endowed daughter of God, I give you a blessing. I bless your body to be healed and for you to find rest. May God’s peace be upon you.” Immediately, the crying subsided. My son gasped for air and then sighed, his body melting against mine. His arms draped over my shoulders, he gently patted my back and then rested his head against my shoulder. Within a few minutes, he was asleep.

As I pondered this moment over the following months, I made a promise to God. I had already been given the gift of power, love, and a sound mind. I would do my best to never again accept any cultural limitations of what I could or could not do in the service or search of the divine. I would not worry over whether my ministry was socially appropriate. I would not fear my own ability to act.

I believe that anything that narrows up our idea of what a person can or ought to do in an effort to serve God ought to be plucked up and cast out. Women, in particular, seem to sometimes fear that by acting in a way that has not been officially prescribed, they are doing something wrong. Given how tightly bound the role of women has been in the Church, this is understandable. But it is a tragedy. We do not need to fear the power of God that is within us.

I have participated in many blessings since first blessing my son. Every time, I have felt a little less afraid. Every time, I have felt more confident in the power of God that was given to me through endowment. Every time, I have felt God’s love pass through my hands. Every time, I have been grateful for a sound mind that could understand that prompting half a dozen years ago.

Submissions should be 700 – 2400 words and sent in Google Doc or Word for to exponentiieditor@gmail.com by October 15, 2018. The first place winner of the contest will receive a one-week stay at Anam Cara, a writers’ retreat center in Ireland owned by former Exponent II editor Sue Booth-Forbes. More information about the retreat center can be found at www.anamcararetreat.com.

#hearLDSwomen: “We don’t need you.”

 

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By Lynne

“I’d like to know why you don’t have a current temple recommend.”

I sat across from my bishop, stunned. This is not how I envisioned this meeting. As one of the few visible musicians in the ward, I was certain that I was going to be called to replace the ward choir director. I had already mentally rehearsed my speech about how I did music for a living six days a week, and how my current work situation wasn’t going to allow for me to take on another huge project. I was sure he would say ok, and I would go back to being the primary pianist, my forever and ever calling in the church.

The bishop had clearly not read my mental script.

For years I have struggled with my relationship with God, with the patriarchy in the temple ceremonies and in the church, with the PoX, with not getting answers to prayers, with church culture, practices, doctrine, with the never-ending checklist of “things you have to do to be a Good and Acceptable Mormon Woman.”

I tried to shut the conversation down with “I am struggling with several things regarding the church and the temple, and I have deliberately chosen not to hold a temple recommend right now. I’m not comfortable talking about it with you, but I will let you know and schedule an appointment with you if that changes.”

He refused to accept that as an answer, and finally, in a gesture, of good faith vulnerability, I told him. I struggle with my role as a woman, I struggle with the eternal destiny of women, it physically hurts me to be in the temple and covenant to my husband instead of God, and hear the holiest and highest thing I can aspire to as a woman is a queen and priestess to my husband. I spoke of my longing for Heavenly Mother, and how was I supposed to proceed as a woman in the church when no one knows or speaks of the eternal role of women? I related how I was trying to learn who I was as a woman, and who I was to God, outside of being someone’s wife or mother. I said, finally, that if it weren’t for my husband and my children, I would no longer be attending church.

He had no satisfying answers for me. Of course, there were the usual platitudes of “I love and respect women and they have an important role in the church,” and “Sometimes I think people need to be in the temple, even if they don’t feel ready” and “I don’t understand what you mean about wanting to understand your role as a woman outside of being a wife and a mother,” along with the admonitions to be grateful, read my scriptures and pray more. As our meeting concluded, he said to me, “Just don’t wait too long. You should be in the temple.”

Two months later, a text message: “Would you meet with a member of the bishopric on Tuesday evening?” Curiosity got the better of me, this time I found myself face to face with a counselor in the bishopric, a man I had never before spoken to.

“We’re going to release you as primary pianist,” he said, “we don’t need you in that calling anymore. And we don’t have another calling for you. We thought you could use a break for a while.”

Once again, I was shocked. There is not an abundance of musicians in the ward, and as any musician in the church can tell you, once you’re in a music calling, you don’t get released without a really good reason. He may as well have said “There’s not a place for you here. Even if you’re one of 2 or 3 people in the ward that can perform this calling. Even if the primary program is in a few weeks. You don’t have a temple recommend. We don’t want YOU.”

My suspicions about what had been decided behind closed doors was confirmed the next week, when a counselor in the Relief Society Presidency was called as primary pianist, leaving a hole in the RS Presidency, that still, weeks later, hasn’t been filled. The message from my ward leadership couldn’t be clearer:

“You didn’t accept the call to repentance. We gave you time to reconsider and come back, and you didn’t obey. You aren’t worthy, You aren’t wanted, You aren’t needed. Even in this, the most minor of callings, we cannot allow you to serve. We would rather have a hole in the Relief Society presidency and release you than have you behind the piano.”

Today, the new primary pianist got up and shared her testimony about how difficult it was for her to be released from the Relief Society and to accept the calling as primary pianist.

I have struggled for many years to keep my metaphorical shelf intact. This experience has left my shelf shattered with the pieces of my former testimony all over the floor.  Because either this bishopric decided that I wasn’t worthy to serve and released me as a form of soft discipline, or God himself decided that He was done with me in the church, all with the message, said clearly as day: “We don’t need you anymore.”

Forty years I have given my best efforts, my time, my husband, my children, my money, my emotional energy, everything I am to this church. Now that I question, doubt, even when the questioning and doubting is done in the assumed privacy of the bishop’s office, the church no longer needs me. Now that I don’t fit neatly into the box of the believing, faithful, Mormon woman, I might corrupt the primary children through incessant repetitions of “A Child’s Prayer.”

If I were to walk in the door of any Christian denomination and say “I would like to come to your services every week. I will give you 10% of my income and I’m happy to play the piano free of charge whenever you need me. But I’m struggling with my relationship with God and Jesus, can you still accept me?” I imagine that I would be welcomed with open arms.

Mormonism, we have to do better.

Jesus never said, “Come, Follow me, but only if you already have perfect faith.”

The scripture doesn’t say, “Come unto me, all you that are heavy laden and I will give you rest, but only if you’ve served honorably and faithfully, and you never express any doubt about the gospel or temple or church administration.”

I’m not angry, though I was.

I’m hopeful.

For years as I’ve struggled through my faith crisis, I have continually prayed and fasted with one purpose in mind: “Please let me know that I have a place here. A place in this ward, a place in this church. Please help me to know that I’m needed.”

Sometimes answers to prayers come in ways you don’t expect.

So now, I move forward. To seek answers, peace, a place to belong outside the four walls of Mormonism. I couldn’t be more excited.

 

Lynne is a musician and mother of five who spends her days managing the chaos of five children, laughing at the joke that is balancing career and motherhood, and dreaming of a novel and the beach.

Click here to read all the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. If you would like to submit an experience, please do so here.

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

My First Experience with Breastfeeding Discrimination #LetBabiesEat

[image error]When I was nursing my first baby, I spent some time visiting another state. One night, our hosts wanted me to go to a movie with them. Unfortunately, the nearest theater was over an hour away from their rural home. The round-trip drive plus the movie would take about five hours. There was simply no way my daughter could go without breastfeeding for that long.

The theater was dark, but when my baby needed to eat, I wore a nursing shawl just in case. I even moved away from my group to an empty part of the theater to ensure that I wouldn’t bother anyone.

While I was nursing,  a theater employee approached me and told me to leave the theater. She said there had been complaints about me.

“I’m covered,” I whispered.

“People can still hear it,” said the employee.

I looked down and strained to hear my daughter’s suckling sounds over the loudspeakers. I couldn’t hear any noise coming from my baby, but I could hear loud chomping noises from people eating popcorn throughout the theater.

I was new to motherhood and this was my first encounter with breastfeeding discrimination. In later years, I might have handled a situation like this by complaining to the manager. Maybe I would have received an apology and the go-ahead to care for my baby as I needed to, or at the least, my money back for the movie I was not permitted to watch.

At the time, I didn’t know what to do. Ashamed, I picked up my things and my baby and left the theater. I found no seating in the lobby and after what had already happened in the comparative privacy of the dark, I was afraid that I would be scolded again if I sat down on the floor to nurse in the lighted lobby, so I reluctantly fed my baby on the dirty restroom floor. Theater patrons stepped over me to come in and out of the bathroom stalls.

I now know that situations like this are commonplace.  Employees of theaters, restaurants, stores and other establishments that welcome the public will usually leave mothers alone as they feed their babies, but if a customer with a low tolerance for breastfeeding complains, they don’t know what to do. Sometimes, these untrained employees feel obligated to satisfy the complaining customer by harassing the mother and baby.

Frequently, such situations become public knowledge. More often than not, business owners respond to the bad press by immediately issuing a policy confirming that breastfeeding is allowed at their establishments wherever mothers and their babies are allowed to be.

More proactive business owners make such a policy before they find themselves in such an embarrassing situation. They train their employees so they know that when a customer complains about a breastfeeding mother, the correct response is, “I’m sorry if that bothers you, but breastfeeding is allowed here.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not one of these proactive organizations. Despite professed support for motherhood and families, no policy in support of breastfeeding is written on our books. Cases of breastfeeding discrimination at our churches have been publicized, but unlike organizations that respond swiftly to remedy the problem, the church continues to let local, male priesthood leaders, none of whom have ever lactated, discriminate against breastfeeding women and disrupt the necessary feeding of infants.

Church leaders, please create a policy in support of breastfeeding like those that already exist in so many other organizations. The restored Church of Jesus Christ should be capable of protecting women and children at least as well as a theater, a restaurant or a store.

If you haven’t already, please visit  Let Babies Eat , fill out the survey, and see what actions you can take to help improve the Latter-day Saint church experience for nursing women.

#hearLDSwomen: I Was Pressured to Accept a Calling

[image error]I was called to be a counselor in the stake Young Women presidency. I didn’t think I could or should fill that calling. I have MS and my energy and physical abilities are limited. But the stake president was certain that God wanted me to serve there. He was insistent, and I accepted the calling.

I did my best for two years but it was too much for me. I asked to be released. The stake president told me no, God wanted me to be there. For a few months I tried to have faith in his certainty even though I was exhausted.

I began to feel a total lack of autonomy. Why was I trusting a leader I barely knew to make decisions about what was best for me? I again asked to be released and was again told no. I went home devastated.

After praying about it, I knew what I needed to do. I told the stake president that I would fill my calling for one more month while he called my replacement. He was taken aback. He sputtered. He insisted he knew better than I, that God wanted me there. But I stood my ground and have never regretted it.

– Anonymous

 

A few weeks after I spoke in sacrament meeting about having postpartum depression, I got pulled aside by a bishopric member to get a calling. He asked for my husband to come with (my husband had gotten a calling a few weeks previously and I was not invited to that meeting; they also assigned us to speak in sacrament meeting without asking me). He asked me to serve in the primary, which is what I felt was the last thing I needed for my mental health. I expressed my concerns and he told me to think about it and get back to him. I felt like no one was listening even though I was trying very hard to express myself. I didn’t feel like that was ever going to change and I quit going to church a few weeks later.

– Hope

 

Pro tip: Trust women to know what they can or can’t handle, and respect their decisions regarding callings.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. If you would like to submit an experience, please do so here .

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

#hearLDSwomen: Released to Give Unwanted Break Because of Pregnancy

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I got released from my calling teaching the Young Women when I was seven months pregnant. I had only had the calling for four months. I argued with the bishopric first counselor on the phone for 20 minutes, telling him I didn’t want to be released. He said the bishop had decided since we had enough people to fill callings, he wanted to “give the pregnant women a break.” I told him I knew I looked like I was due any day (I get huge when I’m pregnant), but I still had more than two months before the baby was due, and I at least wanted to wait until then to be released. I told him it was very patronizing to make decisions to “help” pregnant women without asking the pregnant women what would be helpful. He released me anyway. (Another of the pregnant women–there were 3 of us due at the same time–had to have the whole Primary presidency go to bat for her to keep her in her calling another couple months until after the Primary Program because she’d worked so hard to teach the kids all the songs and wanted to see it through.)

Flash forward to present–2.5 years later–and our bishop (new bishop) is literally being killed by his calling: he’s had four major surgeries and more hospital stays with complications due to an autoimmune disorder that flares up with stress. His calling is obviously contributing to this stress as he’d never had serious problems before. He’s missed several months’ worth of Sundays and responsibilities. But will his priesthood leaders decide unilaterally that he needs to be released for his own good? Of course not.

– ElleK

 

Pro Tip: When deciding to release someone from a calling to give them a break, take their experience and wishes into account. If you would like to make policies to help women, consult with women before implementing them to make sure the policies are actually helpful.

Click here to read all of the stories in our #hearLDSwomen series. If you would like to submit an experience, please do so here.

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

Introducing #hearLDSwomen

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A couple weeks ago, there was a thread on the Exponent II Facebook group asking women to share instances when they felt silenced, inferior or invisible at church because of their gender. Within two hours, there were over 200 comments. Within 24 hours, there were over 900.

Nearly every Latter-day Saint woman, regardless of where she falls on the spectrum of orthodoxy, has had times when she felt voiceless, overruled, or underutilized at church. It’s true that every person feels this way in various settings at various times in their lives, but this is a systemic problem for women in the Church of Jesus Christ. Such experiences are often disregarded or categorized as random one-off events because it’s easy to blame one rogue bishop or to say that the gospel is perfect but the people aren’t. The fact is, the deck is stacked against women in the Church, and even with above and beyond herculean efforts by the most egalitarian of bishops, women are still marginalized by the way the Church itself is structured.

Women are uniquely susceptible to the phenomenon of leadership roulette. Men often have close connections or friendships with other men in leadership positions (or were once such leaders themselves) and thus generally have more recourse than women when they feel slighted at church. Men in leadership positions tend to back up other men in leadership positions, so the men in the limited chain of command a woman may access (bishop, stake president, and sometimes area seventy) are unlikely to intervene on her behalf.

Women don’t have any institutional power or authority in the Church except that which is given to them by men, and this power can also be stripped away by male leaders at any time and for any reason. Priesthood leaders in the church can completely dictate what a woman is or is not allowed to do in her calling, they can release her regardless of her preferences, they can withhold callings and opportunities even when her name is submitted by auxiliaries that want her, they can deny or revoke temple recommends for arbitrary reasons, they can unilaterally overrule decisions she makes in her calling according to her inspiration and stewardship, and they can choose whether or not to seek or implement women’s input for any issue. The Church’s Handbooks don’t condone all of this behavior, but many women have found that, even when the Church’s policies are flexible or on their side, bishops still refuse to budge. When push comes to shove, bishops and priesthood leaders are the final authority, regardless of whether they are in line with what general authorities or church policies say.

Many sins against women are of omission, not commission. Men in the Church don’t receive training that women’s voices and insight are essential (not just a nice bonus) in every aspect of church decision making, from who the next stake president (and bishop, and apostle) should be to the logistics of church meetings and events to the policies found in the Handbook they’re not allowed to read. Priesthood leaders, from the highest echelons in Salt Lake down to lay local leaders across the world, make decisions and policy with the intention of helping or honoring women without actually consulting women to see how they would like to be helped or honored. Often, policy and decisions are made by priesthood leaders without even considering how women will be affected because the lived experience of women is not represented in far too many councils and meetings. This system of benevolent patriarchy is patronizing at best and devastating at worst.

The Exponent is launching a series to document the small and large ways women in the Church are dismissed and unheard due to patriarchy. The series will show by sheer volume that the silencing, underutilizing and discrediting of women is a systemic problem in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. By giving space to these stories on this platform, we are adding to the comprehensive record of the hurts endured by women in the Church so that these testimonies will stand as a witness before God and man that these occurrences are not a blip here or there; they are the all too common result of a deeply-rooted and endemic flaw in the structure of our church.

These experiences span decades with most of them having occurred in the past few years. This is not a problem that is getting better. This is not a problem that is going to fix itself. Women’s experiences need to be heard before they can be believed, and they need to be believed before there can be meaningful change. The first step toward this goal is recording and sharing these stories. Only then can we achieve change going forward in policy and in practice.

In the words of Jesus Christ, whose name our church bears, “if any man have ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:23).

Call for submissions

We are now accepting submissions for the #hearLDSwomen series. Please submit your experience(s) here of a time you as a woman felt silenced, inferior or invisible at church. Submissions may be anywhere from a couple of sentences to several paragraphs in length.

Patriarchy

*content and language warning*

This is a piece I submitted to my university student magazine. Peeling off the layers from my previous patriarchal life has me in the happiest place I have ever been.

 

They said He would be coming soon. They said I needed to do lots of things or it would be a terrible day for me. They pulled out a scroll of rules that never seemed to end.

They told me lots of things, and I believed them.

You are meant to be a mother. You cannot be a selfish one, oh no, you must be a martyr of a mother. While you’re drowning in a sea of anxiety, bigotry and depression, you must not complain or get angry. Women are to be starched and pressed and well dressed, but mostly quiet.

They told me homosexuality was a sin. They told me the world was a bad place. We have the truth they said, and you do not need any more truth. Curiosity crumbled, because intellectuals were an enemy I could and should not learn from. Then they said, do not swear, do not defile your temple with tattoos, and do not have sex.

Next, it was do not show your shoulders. If you show your shoulders, they said, the young men won’t be able to keep themselves pure. I was left wondering if eleven year old me had somehow asked for the wandering fingers and erectness of my best friend’s father, and the boy at the caravan park pool. Was I irreversibly dirty now? With objects lessons of chewed gum, it seemed so. Virtue had left me. After I started kissing boys, the bishop asked me if I wanted to end up like my pregnant sister.

He is coming soon, they reminded me. Be a good little girl. Yet, they said His love was unconditional and all encompassing. Which was it? The rules kept coming.

Things started to change. My heart and mind awoke and the cracks were no longer left unseen. It’s a script that has always existed, I said.

I enrolled my children in day-care and began spending time with the dreaded intellectuals in university halls. Why did I feel God there, more? I laced my lips with colour, took selfies, and said fuck when I wanted. I gained more spirituality through intersectional feminism, and tore down bigotry. “Why are you so angry?” they would ask. I learnt I could derive pleasure from my own body and realised I didn’t just like boys, I liked girls, too.

Then I woke even further, because it was not just about me. I realised they stole languages and cultures and obliterated them with their “proper” ways to talk and be. If you were a person of colour, queer, disabled, mentally ill, low-income, the wrong religion, or a woman, you were not in their club, and they would try to divide you, lest you got too much power.

So I voted yes for marriage equality, I took off my religious garments, and I yelled as loudly as I could that things were not right. While we quibbled in church about the acceptable length of a skirt, there were people in our very own congregations being abused, and dying by suicide. There were people all over the world being raised as soldiers, while others were kept in camps if they tried to escape. Women were being raped, and sex trafficked. We, with privilege, refused to even discuss it, because being uncomfortable was bad. I started forcing them to be uncomfortable.

They yelled back, “you’re an enemy of the church!” They told me I was disrespecting God and didn’t belong in their heaven.

I cry with relief as I type.

Good, I said. I don’t want to be there. Your heaven is hell to me. Where do the queers go? I‘ll go there. Our parties will be better.