Exponent II's Blog, page 283

Surviving Excellence

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Today I received an invitation to Young Women in Excellence. There will be tables spread out in the gym with displays that represent something the girls have mastered or accomplished. There will be quilts and flutes, paintings and trophies. When you are Type B folk living in a Type A town, events like this are stressful. Not everyone’s talents are easy to display. Thankfully we remembered that my 15 year old took a lifeguard course this spring and can count that as her skill. She is indeed an excellent swimmer. I’m not exactly sure what to put on her corner of the table. A pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses? A whistle? A picture of David Hasslehoff? We’ll figure it out.

As I scramble to make sure she feels validated, I am relieved that there isn’t an equivalent in Relief Society. How awful if we had to put our lives on display! Can you imagine feeling like you had to make perfect meals, perfectly presented? Or have one’s house immaculate and on display, every throw pillow just so? But the worst would be for those with kids. Imagine how awful it would be to have to watch other, more together moms present their children as if they were always spot free and adorably dressed? And you in turn would need to orchestrate perfect pumpkin patch pix! You know where I’m going here because we do this. Every. Single. Day. With Instagram and Facebook, we live in a virtual World of Excellence. Instead of displays on tables in gyms, we watch it on our computers and phones. It is always with us.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I love celebrating the talents of the girls in my ward. Some of them have mad skills and I’m glad for an excuse to celebrate them. And I spend way too much time online obsessing over my adorable nieces and nephews and liking the gorgeous pork tenderloin with a balsamic glaze that my chef friend makes. While I get that it’s important to set goals, to work hard, to do one’s best, it can sometimes feel competitive and oppressive. Often we make the mistake of looking at the “displays” presented by others and believing that is the reality. I worry that some young women will look at the symbols of accomplishment and feel they fall short. I worry that young moms will mistake the inability to turn one’s toddler into a perfect accessory as a character flaw.

On my crazier days I want to send out invitations to a celebration of Full Grown Women of Mediocrity. Sister Gourmet might display the cheesecake where she accidentally used corn flakes instead of graham cracker crumbs for the crust. Mmmmm greasy…. Sister Hannah Andersen would show up with kids in tow, outfits mismatched and ill fitting. Sister Calm and Collected would confess to locking herself in the bathroom to eat chocolate while the Lords of the Flies rampage through the house. And Sister Scholar might admit that she Shmooped the last novel for book group because it was too boring to read.

The truth is, we all fall short. We have all been fools. No one gets through this life with total excellence. As someone whose flaws have tended to end up on display fairly frequently, I have tried to not just make peace with my screw ups, but to embrace them as the things that make me me. For example, there was a period when my family and the family of my BFF Denise kept getting lice. Like 3 times in one winter. It was a nightmare. The shame. The nitpicking. The itching. But instead of shaving our kids’ heads and pretending it was a fashion statement, we owned the hell out of it. We did research. We sent warning emails to other families. We taught a class on lice prevention and elimination. We freaking wrote a song about it. And now when someone in the ward thinks they or their kid may have the creepy crawlies, they know they can call me and I will come and comb through their hair, section at a time. Judgment free.

My kids are amazing and hilarious and everyone’s favorite babysitters. But they also have anxiety disorders and faith transitions and all sorts of other not fun things. And I am not ashamed. My hope is that the people who also find their realities are less than picture perfect know they can come to me and be embraced, as I have been by the women who were brave enough to let me see past the displays. I’m not saying we have to wear tee shirts that advertise our pain (“Four Miscarriages and Counting!!” or “Failed the Bar Exam”), but along with celebrating and displaying our triumphs, the Savior has taught me to see value in sharing our brokenness and pain. There is healing to be found in displaying our vulnerabilities.  To me, this is the embodiment of excellence.

Virtual Oasis (For When There’s Nothing To Say)

I generally describe myself as an idealistic realist. This character trait allows me to do what I do for a living–lobby for social justice and civil rights–and not go completely crazy. But I have to admit that the last several months have really taken it out of me and I feel uncharacteristically despondent about the sate of the world. I have lots of thoughts on what is happening but I’m struggling to articulate them so I thought that I would use the existing Exponent Blog tradition of the Virtual Oasis to share some profound (and not-so-profound) links. 

Close the Boyfriend Loophole. Especially relevant for today, Samantha Bee’s prescient segment on the number one predictor of mass shootings, domestic violence. “Abused women are the canary in the coal mine”.
One of the things I am increasingly worried about it the growing tribalism of our society. I believe one of the reasons for this is that our society is still segregated. Nikole Hannah-Jones recently received a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship for “chronicling the persistence of racial segregation in American society, particularly in education, and reshaping national conversations around education reform.” Her work is so important. Read it. Or listen to to this.
If you need some self-care after those heavy things, here is a worthwhile interview with Brene Brown that delves into her new book, “Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and The Courage to Stand Alone”.
This seems overdue: Women behind speculum redesign say we need gynecological tools designed by people with vaginas. So fascinating!
On Minimization as a Patriarchal Reflex. I am still thinking about how this blog post relates to my relationships with my husband, sons and colleagues but it feels like part of the answer.
It’s painful to acknowledge that we have to be careful about male feminist allies. I wish this wasn’t true, but once again, we are seeing that men who claim to be allies are often wolves.  And in case you think this isn’t a problem in our Mormon circles–it is.
Here’s a place to escape: Inside the Joyfully Deranged Kitchen of Amy Sedaris.
This twitter thread is a must read. We have to stop idealizing the Civil War. We have to confront history as it actually is.
Have you all noticed the increase in “editorial” modest clothing? This article from the NY Times style magazine, Modest Dressing, as Virtue,  was not at all what I was expecting but was so so interesting. Every choice made by women, even our clothing choices, are fraught with history, politics and cultural meaning. It’s exhausting.
Oh, and a note about the picture I chose. I visited Chicago with some dear friends this weekend and had the opportunity of going to the Art Institute of Chicago which I can’t recommend highly enough. This picture by Georgia O’Keefe, which is on display at the Art Institute, literally took my breath and stopped me in my tracks . It feels like what I’m searching for–a light to make the darkness go away. I needed to see that.

So, what are y’all thinking and reading about these day? Post away in the comments!

Religious Rituals Reinforcing Hierarchy

This semester I am teaching a religious studies class and am delving into the sociology of religion in way I never have before. During our week studying rituals, I was struck by this passage in our textbook.

“Emile Durkheim proposes that religious rituals reinforce the existing structures within a given society. If, for example, a social group holds that men are superior to women, then its ritual life will reinforce hierarchical gender roles. Rituals, and religious rituals in particular, function as a kind of social glue that holds society together by ensuring that members of the society accept their socially constructed roles as natural and God-given.”

I realize that not all of Durkheim’s theories hold up so well over time, but this particular description of the function of ritual in society struck me as insightful. It also made me think about the function of our own Mormon rituals in reinforcing hierarchy.

Of course, I’m thinking most particularly of the women’s hearken covenant in the temple. This covenant has haunted me since I first heard/experienced it almost two decades ago. It was profoundly painful because it was the first time I had explicitly experienced the outright, overt subordination of women to men in Mormonism. Sure, I knew all about men “presiding,” but while troubling, that didn’t have the powerful punch of the wording in this ritual. Here, in this most holy of places, I and other women were being told to ritually vow and assent to our own subordination. I was crushed. Never have I cried so hard.

That was nearly two decades ago, and I have spent countless hours since then grappling with the role of women in Mormonism. I tend to believe that Mormon leaders employ a dual discourse regarding women’s status. On the one hand they are equal partners, walking beside their husbands, equal decision makers in all things. On the other hand, they are subordinate partners to be presided over; they are to hearken unto their husbands in righteousness. Which discourse about women’s status has more weight? Which more fully represents the LDS understanding of gender roles? On my positive days, I lean toward the former. After all, in practice, most functional LDS marriages are egalitarian in their decision making (if not their role bifurcation). On other days, however, the crushing fact that women’s subordination is ritually reenacted, over and over and over again, within Mormonism’s most sacred space, leads me to believe that the latter holds more purchase in Mormon cosmology. Ritual, as Durkheim says, powerfully sacralizes the hierarchical social order and communicates to adherents that that social order is the will of God.

I know many, many Mormons believe that women are not and should not be of secondary status to men. But so many of these Mormons who have come to that conclusion have done so despite being sent a different message in the temple. Perhaps it’s time for our leaders to consider amending this ritual so that it better reflects the egalitarian discourse embraced by so many General Authorities, a discourse which has risen to prominence over the last several decades. Such a change would also reflect the day to day lived practice of many Mormons in happy egalitarian marriages. It would also reflect the conviction and experience of so many of my faithful Mormon sisters that they have direct relationships with God, and that they are directly responsible to God.

As feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether writes, there comes a time when old religious symbols or language no longer resonate, no longer carry the same meaning that they did for generations past. When that time comes, new symbols and new language must arise to replace the old, if the religion is to retain currency and impact in people’s lives. I think that time has come in Mormonism. Let the new symbols and language arise.

The Errand of Angels

[image error]General conference speakers have their own idioms that I’m sure longtime members have, on some level, noticed.  The speakers use the word “even” for emphasis in a way that I’ve never heard in colloquial English – “Our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ.”  They provide a brief synopsis of their point at the end of their talks, tagging on “is my prayer” even though ordinarily one might say “I pray that we’ll all find peace” rather than “that we may find peace is my humble prayer…”  General Conference speakers are notorious for shamelessly abusing the passive voice.  “Tears were shed, hearts were touched and lives were changed.”  Most of these peculiarities aren’t particularly bothersome, they just make it easier to do an impression of your favorite General Authority.  However, there is one tic that always makes me utter a loud “tsk!” and roll my eyes.  It is the propensity for men to refer to the women in their lives as “angels” – my angel mother, my angel wife.  Fantastic.  I’m glad she has a halo.  Meanwhile in my living room: Is that barf or poop on my shirt? Oh, it’s both!

Why does this bother me? It’s supposed to be a compliment! I feel irked because it puts women on a pedestal and implies an impossible standard of womanhood.  Angels are heavenly beings.  Angels don’t slam doors or yell or act in passive aggressive ways when they’re frustrated.  Angels “do whatsoever is gentle and human” but the implication is that to be human is to “cheer and to bless” rather than “to swear at the dishwasher and lock oneself in the bathroom with earplugs pretending the children are not home.”  I don’t personally know any women I’d describe as angelic, which is fortunate for them because I’d probably be a sour resentful witch about it if I did.

I have often thought that, in the unlikely event that one of my male relatives ever finds himself in a position of authority in the church, I never ever want him to refer to me as an angel.  It would erase my very real struggles and shortcomings, and how darn hard I have to work at everything.  I think I’m a good mom, but nurturing is a lot of miserable thankless work.  I don’t do it because it’s my angelic nature, I do because it’s needed and right and I care.

I was chatting about this with some friends the other day and we began reframing the narrative that women are angelic.  If the errand of angels is given to women, what does that mean?

Angels minister.  They teach and testify of Christ.  They prepare the way.  They cry repentance.

Angels call people out on their nonsense.  Angels rebuked Laman and Lemuel.  Angels thundered at Alma and the sons of Mosiah.

Angels know things about God and the Plan of Salvation that were hitherto unrevealed.  Gabriel came to Mary to explain about Jesus.  Angels explained to Mary Magdalene that Jesus was gone.  An Angel taught Nephi in visions.  Angels know truth through having a personal relationship with God.

Angels are fierce and formidable.  When Adam and Eve were cast out, an angel with a flaming sword was put in place to guard the way back.

An angelic woman is fierce, and wise, and tells it to you straight.  Angelic women can be brassy or sweet or both.  We can be outspoken or softspoken, so long as we’re speaking the truth without flinching.  Angelic women get orders from God and no one else, because angels are special witnesses of Christ.  So if you find yourself grinding your teeth when you’re asked to sing “As Sisters in Zion,” imagine every woman in your Relief Society wielding a flaming sword. This is the gift that as sisters we claim.

 

Read All About It

For three years of my childhood, ages 6-9, I lived in a rural county in Indiana. No one walked to school; everyone was bused. The 911 service was not set up; you had to directly call the police or the fire department if you needed them. My second grade classmates invited me to see the pigs they raised for the county fair and I even signed up for 4H myself, though we didn’t stay long enough for me to really get into the program

After last year’s US Presidential election, there was a lot of talk about the widening gulf between rural and urban America, so as a current an urbanite, I decided to make an effort to go out of my way to at least consume media that I wouldn’t otherwise see. I subscribed to a local county newspaper of my short-lived rural childhood experience.

The newspaper itself is mainly concerned about local happenings. It is rare for national or global events to show up in it except in letters to the editor. Dependable columns include high school sports, marriage licenses, obituaries, a police beat, and a pastor’s weekly column. There are ads on the side for St. Joseph’s Catholic Church Annual Turkey Dinner and Medicare Open Enrollment. [image error]Over the past year, bad news has included a house fire that killed a couple of young girls and a couple of local teen girls’ bodies being found dead and the police investigation into both crimes (the arson and the murders). I followed both of those stories for weeks/months as the community held vigils and fundraised for the families affected. The community’s excitement has extended to the new recycling plant being built nearby and the jobs it’ll create and praise has been to graduating students with scholarships and the local professional people who have been honored with rewards by Indiana professional organizations.

Reading this newspaper in my inbox every week has made me reflect on the news options in my current city. Yes, there is a lot of local news, but I don’t recall a ton about high school athletics or sewing drives for charity. While closely following another community, I’ve realized I’m not closely following my own. What are my local valedictorians up to? Where are the local blood drives? When is city council meeting and voting? It is so much easier to read about another place and imagine what it might be like to live there and ignore living in the place you are now.

This week I received an email asking me to continue my subscription after it expires at the end of this month. I’ll probably renew it and will have to find a good local-to-me newspaper to support as well. Local papers do a great service to our communities: keeping us together where we are.

Does your community have a local paper? Do you follow it?

The Greatest Commandment

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In Matthew 22:36-40 (New International Version) we are given the greatest commandment:

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

I love that Jesus immediately after stating that we are to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind has to clarify with a second commandment: Loving God = Loving neighbor= loving self. He knows our struggle to treat imperfect others and self with the love we strive to direct towards God.

Recently I spent the day at a retreat to address compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and the burnout common to helping and first responder professions. I was asked to reflect on what replenishes and restores balance for myself and others and spent hours discussing it with other helping professionals. Early in the day, a comment from a chaplain got me thinking about the divine imperative to love myself.

Afterwards, I began to apply what I learned and integrate it with my spiritual beliefs by color coding my to-do list and calendar into 1. Things I was doing for others (God and neighbors) and 2. Things I was doing for myself. As I began the exercise I anticipated that there might be some imbalance, but I was surprised to see the vast scale of the imbalance. I spend a lot more time on others versus the time I spend on self.  I began to wonder, what would it look like if I loved my neighbors (family, patients, co-workers, actual neighbors) in an investment of time equal to the measure of time I spend on self-care?

I started to review the good plans on my doing-for-others list and contemplate what I might cross out and replace with self-sustaining investment. This was incredibly difficult! I do not want to let go of any of the things I do for others. And I realized there is some unhealthy pride in my people pleasing ways. Saying no and backing out of commitments takes humility. It requires acknowledgment that I am human and limited. I do not have infinite resources of love, energy, or time. I am not the Savior. I am not perfect. I am not a limitless source of light and love with the capacity to atone, heal, or raise the dead. Obvious, right? But there is a self-righteous perfectionist within who relentlessly promotes the propaganda of imbalance and self-neglect. She thinks it is good and holy to sacrifice self for others with no sense of replenishing ratios or balance.

Finally, I reflected on the quality of care I provide in love for myself versus what it looks like when I am loving my neighbor. Most of the time I coded as self-care is basic care to sustain life; sleeping, eating, hygiene and then a bit of recreational mindless checking out time reading, on my phone, or watching TV. The time I spend on spiritually or emotionally nourishing and replenishing activities for myself is scarce. In reflecting on my love for others, the quality I deliver is much higher. More eye contact. More careful listening. More sitting with feelings in acceptance. I give much more than the basic blocks of life sustenance to others throughout my day. I am not the greatest at living the greatest commandment. My lived version is ” love your neighbor about ten times more than you love yourself.”

Looking around at my mostly Mormon community of friends and family I see that I am not the only one struggling to live up to this key element of the greatest commandment. Love yourself. Even the annoying and irritating bits. Love all of her. Unconditionally. Relentlessly.

What would it look like if I spent as much time and energy caring for myself as I do in caring for others? How would it feel?

I am going to try my best to find out.

My Ninety-Five Theses for Today’s Mormon Church

Today is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg (or maybe he didn’t? either way, that’s the cultural narrative). In doing so, he both posited things about the church that he felt were problematic, and welcomed debate about those issues. Almost inadvertently, he kicked off the Protestant Reformation.

I have neither the goal nor the desire to kick off any type of Mormon Reformation, but hoo-boy, do I have some grievances/ideas/theses about the Mormon church. Sometimes I feel like the policies and practices we have in place are actually stumbling blocks to creating Zion, rather than building blocks.  So, in the very-loosely-defined spirit of Luther (and possibly more in the spirit of Festivus’ Airing of Grievances), I present my Ninety-five Theses for the present-day Mormon Church.

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Church is too long. We need a two-hour block, and we need it now.
We need more snacks. I don’t care if this takes the form of a between-the-hours snack break or a monthly break the fast fellowshipping meal, or something else, but there should be an opportunity to break bread with one another and informally chat.
The nursery toys should be cleaned more often.
Relatedly, the nursery toys should be a budget priority. Our children need more than broken plastic cars and dolls that are missing arms.
Primary should be more active. Those kids have been (or will be) sitting through all of Sacrament meeting and possibly some classtime without moving. Let’s get those kids dancing and singing and moving their boogie-bodies.
Primary & nursery teachers are a gift to the ward, and should be treated as such. They need reliable backup lists and team-teachers when at all possible.
To quote a new convert I spoke with recently, “y’all’s hymns sound like we’re at a funeral every damn time.”  Let’s get the tempo up to where it needs to be, and let’s try to add some gusto in our singing.
Also, can we get some hymns that are more active and sound like praise?  I wouldn’t mind some moving and some clapping, too. Let’s pretend that we’re happy to be singing at church.
Don’t just show up at somebody’s house without calling!  Missionaries and well-meaning church leaders, I’m looking at you.  This has been aptly named “well-intentioned social terrorism” by leading experts and makes people less likely to fellowship with us, not more.  If you keep making appointments with people and they don’t show up… maybe that’s a hint that they don’t want to hang out with you, and that’s ok.  Also, don’t show up at somebody’s place of employment, or wait for another tenant of a building to go through the door so that you can get to a person’s front door without ringing a bell.  Again, if they don’t want to talk to you, then they probably have a good reason.  Don’t try all sorts of creative ways to trap them into a conversation.
Relatedly, when somebody sets a boundary, respect it.  If they say, “I don’t want visiting teachers right now,” don’t assign them visiting teachers who are just extra sneaky about visiting teaching.
Youth leaders should be trained in how to respond to and/or report issues of child abuse. Honestly, we all should, but especially youth leaders.
We have a proud cultural history of beards, and so any prohibition of beards on church-affiliated campuses or for temple workers needs to be abolished immediately.
Neckties are the pantyhose of men and should be culturally optional.
The Word of Wisdom is some good advice, and let’s get back to that.  A cup of coffee shouldn’t keep you out of the temple.
For the love of Pete, please dump the Boy Scouts.  And Cub Scouts.
Less meetings.  PEC and Ward Council should be merged and all leadership should attend the one meeting.
Make the priests properly wash their hands before preparing the Sacrament.  And enforce it.  I’m talking surgery-level scrubbing.
“Follow the Prophet” sounds like it’s a theme song for a cult.  Get rid of it.  Being in a minor key makes it even more terrible.
Stop interviewing teenagers behind closed doors without another person present.
Stop talking to minors about masturbating.  Also, adults.  Don’t talk to anybody about masturbating.  Why are we talking about masturbating at church?!
Let’s make the temple clothes for baptisms for the dead a little less see-through.
Have the girls help pass the Sacrament.  There is nothing in the scriptures that prohibits this, and passing the Sacrament tray around isn’t required to be a priesthood function.
Bring the Sacrament to the mother’s lounge.  If the Sacrament is the most important part of our Sunday service, it should be made available to all, including those feeding their babies.
Relatedly, those wards that only provide the Sacrament to those who are seated in the chapel because the people in the lobby didn’t get to church on time??  Stop that right now.  Limiting access to the Sacrament based on arrival time is high-level Pharisee nonsense.
Women’s garments should be sleeveless, or at least without that little bunch under the armpit, which is unnecessary and uncomfortable.
This one may be controversial, but get rid of the one-piece garments.  Just… no.
Stop the worship/emphasis on The Family™.  If you’re going to talk about defending the family, you’d better be talking about all families, not just the ones with cis-gendered, heterosexual parents who are married and who have 3+ children born in the covenant.  Families, as a social unit of primary support and love, are worth defending.  “The Family™” is code for being homophobic and it’s antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.
Relatedly, we have turned church leaders into idols that we worship.  Stop making a false equivalence between fallible humans who are called to positions of leadership/authority and Jesus.  They are not Jesus.  We worship Jesus, not them.  We are supposed to obey God and Jesus, not church leaders.  We have moved the center of our worship onto human beings who make mistakes and who see through a glass, darkly, and it belongs on God and Christ.  Full stop.
Women are not necks who turn heads.  We are people with our own necks and heads.  So are men.  We should work together in a collaborative and equal fashion.
Ordain women.
Change the temple language so that women are covenanting with God, not through their husbands.
Stop carpeting the walls.  Why do so many buildings have carpet running up the walls?  That carpet is itchy and scratchy and makes it very difficult for toddlers to walk against the walls, because it’s not pleasant to touch or hold on to.
I am all in favor of having ward members help clean the building, but if we could get professionals in to make sure that the bathrooms and kitchens are properly cleaned and sanitized every so often, that’d be great.
Please make the women’s session for women, and have it be either 12+ or 18+.  I feel like having the 8-12 year-olds really infantilizes the whole thing.  They’re children, and that’s ok. They don’t need to be there.
Let’s hear from more women in General Conference.  This would hopefully naturally happen should we ordain women (see Thesis 30) but black men have been ordained for almost 40 years and we still rarely hear from them. So, relatedly…
… make a concerted effort to have more diversity in leadership, and in talks during General Conference.  We should value the experiences of all people in this church from all demographic groups.
Either pad the pews, or make church shorter.  Some of us have tailbones that haven’t fully healed from multiplying and replenishing the earth, if you catch my drift, and have a hard time sitting on hard surfaces for that long.
Engage more with community groups and civic outreach.
Do more interfaith service work.  I want to see more Mormons starting soup kitchens and doing anti-poverty work.
I may be biased, but every ward should call a Ward Social Worker to help both the Bishop and Relief Society connect people with resources in the broader community.
More security for missionaries, especially those serving in high-crime communities, and especially women.  I know way too many women who have been sexually assaulted on their missions because they were asked to be places that were unsafe and known for being hostile to women.
Increase the budgets for congregations outside the US.  Wards in Mexico shouldn’t be receiving less money-per-person than wards in the US.
Fund fewer shopping malls.
Make the mother’s lounge more than an afterthought when planning buildings.  Nursing mothers deserve more space than the broom closet, separate spaces to change diapers (without stinking up the whole mother’s lounge), and comfortable chairs.
Put changing tables in all of the men’s restrooms.  Women aren’t the only people who change diapers.
More global hymns.  Less songs about Zion in the mountains and more songs celebrating the cultural diversity of the church membership.
Take the Star-Spangled Banner out of the hymnbook.  Also My Country ‘Tis of Thee and America the Beautiful.  And God Save the King (even though it’s been a Queen since forever).  It’s fine to be patriotic, but having those songs in the hymnbook smacks of nationalism and colonialism in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable.
Have a Gospel Essentials 2.0 Sunday School class.  Basically it would be a Sunday School class discussing the basic tenets of the gospel, but in a much deeper philosophical/theological way than in the normal class geared towards investigators.
The “Mission President’s Wife” needs an official title that makes her co-equal with her spouse.
Female missionaries should be called as District/Zone leaders, with authority and stewardship over both male and female missionaries.
Please remove the bit in the handbook about asking members to consult with their bishops before getting their tubes tied or a vasectomy.  Why on earth should a couple have to consult their ecclesiastical leader before making a choice about their reproductive health and family size?!  And what bishop really wants to sit down with a couple, only to have them say, “So, bishop, Jeff here is thinking about getting snipped and wants to hear your thoughts”?
Screen-print the garments instead of sewing in the symbols.  Children always pick the most inopportune time to ask, “Mom, what’s that on your nipple?” and it’s awkward for literally everyone.
Now, I can’t find a documented source for this one, but it’s my understanding that if a child is born through surrogacy, the child is sealed to the man whose sperm is used *and the surrogate mother* until the child is later sealed to the biological mother and the biological father in the temple.  WHAT NONSENSE IS THAT.  The uterus/vagina through which a child is grown/birthed should not matter more than the DNA used to create that child.  If this is true, that should change.  If not, please let me know because I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about this for a while.
BYU and other church-affiliated campuses should have coffee available as a courtesy to visiting and/or nonmember faculty and students.  And, honestly, if students want to drink it, I don’t think it’s a sin.  See Thesis #14.
Missionaries shouldn’t ask members to commit to finding “x” number of people for them to teach by a certain date.  Changing one’s spiritual beliefs and/or home is a big deal.  I’m not going to force that on my friends or family because you have a quota to fill.
Stop measuring the success of missionaries by how many people they teach and/or baptize.
Have missionaries do more service.  Maybe make lasting partnerships with organizations in your area, and commit to having a certain number of missionaries available to them for a certain number of hours per week (so that organizations can depend on that continuity).  “By their fruits ye shall know them!”  Let’s make sure we’re bearing good fruit.
Let missionaries call their parents more than twice per year.  I know that we want them to focus, but especially with lowering the mission age, many of these kids are away from home for the first time.  Let them call their moms or dads.  It might actually make them more effective as missionaries, not less.
Let sister missionaries wear pants whenever they want, especially if they’re serving in places where they’re riding bikes, or where there is a high incidence of mosquito-borne illnesses.
Let families plan their own baptismal services.  Let them invite the people they want and have people close to the individual being baptized speak.  I know that there are a lot of baptisms in the Wasatch Front, but turning them into assembly-line functions makes it less special for the people being baptized.  Let families celebrate this ordinance and rite of passage in a way that’s meaningful to them.
Get rid of the one-year temple penalty on civil marriages within the US (and some other countries, I think).  Let people plan their marriage and/or sealing in a way that best works for them and their families.
Open up sealing ceremonies to everyone, regardless of “worthiness.”  I don’t think we need to perform sealing ceremonies for everybody, but let family members and friends witness the ceremony and celebrate with their loved ones.
Allow cooking in the kitchens.  We could be teaching all sorts of skills in there if they weren’t for “warming only.”
Allow children of same-sex couples to be baptized.  What is this nonsense.  I can’t believe I even have to say that.
Relatedly, stop excommunicating married people in same-sex relationships.  Let them come to church, partake of the sacrament, and hold callings.  Hold them to the same standards that we hold heterosexual couples to, and encourage commitment, fidelity, and love.
Truthfully, I think there’s space to allow same-sex relationships to be sanctified and sealed in the temple.  Taylor Petrey’s “Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology” has some insight on this.
Amplify the fourth mission of the church: Care for the Poor and Needy.  Tackle it not just on a case-by-case level, but on a systemic level.
This has been improving in recent years, but broaden the catalog of “acceptable artwork” for church buildings.  Let’s see artwork that reflects the diversity of the membership.
Put pictures of female general leadership in the building, and not just in places where only women and children gather.
Call women into the Sunday School presidency and men into the Primary presidency.
Stop treating young single adults (or old single adults, for that matter) as not-fully-formed members of the Body of Christ.  Have them serve in positions of authority.  Don’t require their activities to be supervised by married members.  Trust them to make decisions as adults.
Use the buildings during the week.  Sure, there are probably insurance/liability issues, but other churches have found ways to work through them.  Hold literacy classes.  Help with childcare.  Provide pop-up food banks or shelters.  Let them be used for elections.  These buildings sit empty through 90% of the week, and could be used to do so much good in the community.
Model disagreement within church leadership.  I would love for members of the Quorum of the Twelve to give conference talks that disagree with one another, and to acknowledge that they disagree.  So much of our issue is thinking that there is one answer to every question, and that everybody needs to fall in line.  Instead, we need a multiplicity of viewpoints, of ways to think about different issues, and a dialogue on so many topics.  I know that the Quorum of the Twelve disagree with one another behind closed doors, but I would love to see them model a civil conversation of how to respectfully disagree and still be fully in line with church teachings. My hope is that this model would trickle down to provide much more substantive/interesting discussions in local church meetings.
Revamp the Sunday School curriculum so that the teacher’s manual is less of a call-and-response.  Acknowledge thorny issues in the manuals and provide a variety of ways to talk about/understand those issues.
Some wards still only allow men to be the final speakers in Sacrament meeting.  Stop it!  Women can speak last, too.
Create coming-of-age rituals for the girls in the church.  This could be corrected with ordaining women (see Thesis 30), but girls need to mark their maturation into adulthood and feel welcomed and needed by their congregation, too.  Give them responsibilities and ways to serve their ward community.
Call the female presidents of auxiliaries “President.”  Similarly, call the wives of mission presidents “President,” unless they get a better/co-equal title (see Thesis 49).  We should be talking about President Bingham and President Oscarson the same way we talk about President Nelson and President Callister.
Have women pray in General Conference.  Remember how we tried that and it was awesome?  What happened??
Have General Women’s Session alternate with General Priesthood Session every year in April/October.  DONE!
Teach about prominent women in the scriptures and church history.  Make sure the men and the women know about our spiritual forebearers.
Stop doing Trunk-or-Treats.  Unless you live somewhere that Halloween doesn’t otherwise exist, and you want to celebrate it for some reason, actually go out and trick or treat with your community instead of doing a quick grab in the church parking lot.
Have mothers hold their babies during baby blessings.
Encourage activities that are inclusive.  Fathers/Sons campout is great, unless you don’t have a father or you don’t have a son, or you have three brothers who all get to go camping but you’re stuck home.  I’m not saying that we can’t do activities that are just for certain groups, but examine the gendered makeup of these activities.  Are the boys always camping and the girls always doing crafts?  Maybe flip that script once or twice and have the girls go camping and the boys do crafts.  I promise it won’t cause the earth to stop spinning on its axis, and you might meet the needs of some people who are excluded from the traditional activities.
Please, please, please turn up the heat in the Chapel.  I swear the thermostats are exclusively set by people who are wearing suits.  Some of us women are wearing skirts and dresses and we are freezing.
Embrace our glorious theology of a Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine.  God isn’t just a He.  Change the YW theme to say “We are daughters of our Heavenly Parents, who love us, and we love them.”
Focus on people over numbers.  I know that it’s hard to measure outcomes and program success without quantitative data, but try to find innovative ways to determine whether your ward is healthy and functional beyond “percentage of adults with active temple recommends” and “percentage of households being home taught once per quarter.”
Allow wards to do special musical numbers that are outside the hymnal.  I’m not saying you just allow anything, but we hear “Consider the Lillies” all the time in Conference and that isn’t in there.  Some wards are pickier about this than others, but realize that not all uplifting music is in the hymnal.
Have less stuff run up through the RS President and Bishop.  I know that oversight is important because things really do go off the rails sometimes, but our poor Bishops and RS Presidents) are overworked.  Maybe the Bishop doesn’t have to sign off on the visiting teaching assignments, for example, and maybe the RS President doesn’t need to approve every activity.  Less micromanaging, more delegating.
Change youth standards to be more inward reflections than outward.  When talking about modesty, don’t just talk about what body parts need to covered, but talk about what it means to be modest in all of your thoughts and deeds.  When talking about the Word of Wisdom, talk less about what substances to eat/drink and more about what it means to treat your body with respect and have moderation in all things.  If we set less outward markers on what it means to be a righteous Latter-day Saint, we’re more likely to build an inner spiritual foundation that is based on principles instead of actions, and we’re also less likely to judge others who aren’t outwardly conforming.
Allow women to be sealed to more than one man in the temple, similar to how men can currently be sealed to more than one woman.  We do this after women are deceased anyways (after women die, you can seal them to any husbands she had during mortality) with the idea that God will sort it all out in the end.  I think we can be confident that God will sort it all out in the end if we do it in mortality, too, and it reduces unnecessary anguish to divorcees, widows, widowers, and their families.
No Sacrament meeting start times after 2pm.
I really love our lay ministry, but provide more training for Bishops and RS presidents.  I would love to see some sort of weekend training where new bishops/stake presidents/RS Presidents/maybe even auxiliary presidents get two days of serious, intensive leadership training.  I would love to see them talk about ministering, and about knowing when you are out of your depth and to refer out to professionals.
Temple films that reflect age and racial diversity in the people being portrayed.
Home teaching standards that are more similar to the new visiting teaching standards.  More ministry, less formality.  Serve people in the way they need/want to be served!
Put stained glass in the chapels.  We suffer from a tragic shortage of stained glass in our meetinghouses.

And that’s that!  What do you think?  What theses would you add?  Which would you remove?  What could make practiced Mormonism more like Zion to you?

When God moves (or when God says goodbye)

[image error]I was in a Safeway parking lot situating my wiggly one-year old into her car seat when I felt a sudden, overwhelming ache to find God again.

Two months later, I still can’t guess why my soul chose that unremarkable moment to break itself open again. Nothing about that grocery trip or the subsequent piling of everyone and everything into my hand-me-down van had been particularly inspiring or thought-provoking or otherwise unusual. My kids weren’t being particularly endearing or difficult. And as best as I can remember, I hadn’t heard anything on the news that morning or at church the day before that had left me feeling especially emotional or introspective.

Still, that’s when the empty place that God had once filled so easily and brilliantly decided to make itself known again, and not with a polite nudge but with broken, hollowed-out sobs that crashed through me until I was again filled with the familiar longing and despair I’d first met as a stunned Mormon girl in fresh-from-the-packages temple clothes.

Fortunately, I didn’t actually break down until I’d managed to finish buckling my younger daughter in and slide the side door shut, and because I’d parked in the back, I let myself cry for a minute before pulling it together enough to climb in, start my car, and send some Caspar Babypants through the back speakers so that my two backwards-facing girls were happy and I could spend the 7 minute drive home sitting with this painful, blessed ache that I’d thought I might never experience again.

It had always been painful to think back on the ease with which I’d once been able to experience God and then to puzzle over why that had all so abruptly ended. Months after the temple sent my spirit into chaos, I was still overcome with that contrast and unable to find a sufficient answer to the desperate What did I do wrong? that played on repeat in my heart and mind. Every so often I’d feel a quiet blip of divine reassurance, but then the ache would return, and eventually, despite returning again and again to the temple and to the places and words that in the past had so dependably connected me with the Divine, I honestly don’t think my body could take it anymore. I finally began to accept that something had changed and that for whatever reasons, I couldn’t go back. And eventually, I learned to care less and less that I had lost God.

I know that might sound cold or even blasphemous to some people, and that it might sound like a childish overreaction to others. It sounds like all of those things to me sometimes, too, but there it is nonetheless. And after a couple years of this profound sadness and confusion, apathy wasn’t just a welcome relief but the thing that allowed me to keep going through the religious motions. While I eventually began to attend the temple less and less, to the casual observer, my current activity in the church still looks pretty much like it did 5 years ago (except with a husband and two kids).

But then, after a year or so without feeling much of anything about God, the grocery store parking lot happened. This time, though, I was overcome not just with familiar heartbreak but with gratitude, because the loss of God was something I was apparently still capable of feeling.

 

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this experience or of the apathy I so easily slipped back into shortly thereafter.

 

Sometimes, I think that it was God’s way of saying goodbye, and that the profound gratitude I felt was there to provide closure in some way: to remind me to be thankful for the good times we had but that really, it’s time to let go and move on.

 

And at other times, I think that something within me was insisting that God is still out there somewhere and in some form, waiting patiently for me. That perhaps it’s like the beautiful analogy Pastor Alan Jamieson recently offered in an episode* of the “A Thoughtful Faith” podcast: that “it’s like God was sitting in a room with [us]… sitting in one corner of the room and speaking a particular language,” but then God “moves to a different corner of that room and starts to speak in a different language. And we are naturally looking to that same corner—the place we expect to see God—but he isn’t there anymore. And we’re listening for God, but we can’t hear him.”

 

Perhaps the message in that parking lot was that God misses me, too. That losing God doesn’t mean I’ve been abandoned, but that when God has moved, it is so that They can “[speak] to us in a new way so that our view and experiences of God can grow and get bigger.” The optimist in me hopes this latter option is true; that the Mother I especially sought and lost that day in the temple is still out there somewhere. But when I try to conceptualize the kind of courage it might take to find a God who seems to have moved, but who still so dependably seems to be found in the same places and the same words for almost everyone else I know and associate with, most of the time, I end up feeling unsure and exhausted and small, and indifference just works.

 

I’m not sure what that moment in a grocery story parking lot meant—whether God has bid me farewell or is waiting for me to take a leap of faith. Maybe it’s up to me to decide which it was.

 

 

 

 

*Listen here. The part that this quote is pulled from begins at about 35 min.

Parable of the Prodigal Daughter

There was a woman who had two daughters. The younger one begged for her share of the estate until her mother relented. Soon after, she left and squandered her wealth in wild living far from home. After she had spent all, conditions changed and she became needy. She hired herself out to a citizen of that country, who sent her to feed pigs. She was so hungry, she wanted to eat the scraps for the pigs. When she came to her senses, she thought about how well-fed her mother’s servants were and decided to return and be a servant in her mother’s house.

While she was still a long way off, her mother saw her and was filled with compassion for her; she ran to her daughter, threw her arms around her and kissed her. The daughter said to her, ‘Mother, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your daughter.’

But the mother said to her servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on her. Put a ring on her finger and sandals on her feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this daughter of mine was dead and is alive again; she was lost and is found.’

Meanwhile, the older daughter was working in the field. When she came near the house, she heard music and smelled the feast. So she called one of the servants and asked her what was going on. ‘Your sister has come,’ she replied, ‘and your mother has killed the fattened calf because she has her back safe and sound.’ The older sister became angry and refused to go in.

So her mother went out and pleaded with her. But she answered her mother, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this daughter of yours who has squandered your property comes home, you kill the fattened calf for her!’ ‘My daughter,’ the mother said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we should celebrate and be glad, because this sister of yours was dead and is alive again; she was lost and is found.

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This beautiful parable gives the story of the lost daughter from multiple viewpoints. The younger daughter herself realized the depths she had sunk to and regretted her choices. She trusted her mother’s character as generous and kind. She was willing to make herself a servant to receive a small part of the goodness of her mother. The mother, however was merciful and liberal with her and accepted her back as a daughter. She clothed her in the finest clothes and gave her a place of honor at a bounteous feast.

The older sister seems to be the focal point of this story. She is very resentful when she sees her sister has returned because she feels slighted that there is a party in her sister’s honor. The older sister never looked to their mother for mercy and unconditional love. She didn’t look at her sister in love and forgiveness, but in judgement and jealousy. She felt that she would earn her mother’s love by slaving away in the fields and working herself to the bone. She said ‘Look at all the work I’ve been doing to earn your gifts and you gave me not even a lousy goat. But my profligate sister is getting a big party with the best cow. You are so unfair Mother.’ By doing so, she never recognized the bounty and free gifts her mother was willing to give. She made herself a slave; her mother did not encourage this. She accused her mother of not even giving her small gifts, while also refusing to come to the feast and partake of the proffered feast. She didn’t trust her mother’s character or understand what her mother really wanted from her or for her. I’m convinced the Mother appreciated both of her daughters and wanted to celebrate the love she had for both of them, and their reunification, but the older daughter would not come to the party!

I wonder how often we, too, choose not to enjoy the free gifts our Heavenly Mother gives us.  How do we mistake how we should be living our lives and make ourselves slaves unnecessarily? How do we exclude ourselves from the party and get angry when other people are celebrated? How often do we judge whether someone is worthy of the blessings they seem to be getting or whether we ourselves might be a more worthy recipient of such gifts?

There have been times in my life when I have been caught up in proving my righteousness. The great heavenly checklist of good Mormon to-do’s was emphasized in church and by leaders around me, so I took it for my daily guide. I strove to mark off each item, though I ultimately found I fell short. Rather than turn to God’s grace, I instead buckled down and rolled up my sleeves and went to work. Temple work, genealogy, visiting teaching, baking bread, family night, daily scripture study with the family and on my own, trying to be uncomplaining, teaching my children, keeping things clean and orderly, paying tithing, etc. The list went on and on. Essentially, I was slaving away in the fields. For some reason I thought that was where God wanted me. I felt like I’d know when God was pleased and rewarding me. And that was a mistake. This focus also led me to became quite judgemental of others, which was flat-out wrong. When I chose to come unto and trust my Mother’s grace, I found I was also filled with grace.

God is the Mother in this parable. Both daughters get to choose whether to believe their own story about life or their mother’s. The younger daughter’s story was that she wanted the good life now, and didn’t want to work. She took all the good things her Mother gave her and partied hard. But eventually she came to the lowest low and decided to turn back to her mother. She didn’t expect much because she had already taken and wasted. Instead she was surprised by the joy and bounty of grace. She accepted that her Mother was somehow still willing to love her and came, though she felt unworthy, to the feast.

The older daughter was troubled, and cumbered about much serving. She stayed busily away in the fields and waited to hear what was happening from someone else rather than approach her mother and her mother’s feast. When she heard the good news, she still kept her distance. She felt that she was more deserving than her sister and didn’t trust her mother’s goodness. What would she have found if she came in to the celebration? I expect that her Mother would have embraced her, called for another robe, and celebrated all of them being together again. Her mother was willing to give her all the good things all along. She just hadn’t been willing to approach and accept them.

I suspect our Mother in Heaven doesn’t want us to be martyrs, sacrificing ourselves on the supposed altar of righteousness. Yes, she wants us to strive to be good, and to work hard, but not as slaves in the field — she also wants us to have joy and fulfillment, and particularly to come unto her and know her. Will you listen to your Mother in Heaven’s version of your story? Won’t She tell you all she has is yours? Won’t She also tell you it is okay to take time also to enjoy life, invest in yourself, and be merry with your friends? When you trust in her goodness I suspect it will be easier to love others as well and not be preoccupied with who is doing what. Won’t she tell you she loves you and has always been there ready with a celebratory feast in your honor?

On Aging: A Poem for My Daughters

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“You don’t look your age,” they say,

When I reveal that I’m forty-two.

But my body has begun to betray me.

Gray hair is just the beginning:

Reading glasses.

Body, back, and foot aches.

An elbow injury during pregnancy that refuses to heal.

I feel it on extreme weather days.

It balks at me when I lift my toddler or carry anything remotely heavy.

It reminds me that my body is not what it used to be.

That healing and wholeness are for the young.

Everything makes me tired.

My favorite part of the day:

My toddler’s nap time.

But that is on its way out.

I shudder to think how I will cope.

And now as I bow my head slightly

To read through the bottom of my newly-acquired bifocals,

I feel connected to the endless number of women who have been

Lucky enough to experience middle, and even old, age.

I hope this means that Wisdom is now my companion.

And that I’ll have the courage to

Grow old gracefully.

Showing my daughters, and myself,

That aging is a gift.

How I wish I could live long enough to cradle their tired faces and hold their

Aching hands as they ascend through middle age to their last day.

I would tell them they are as

Beautiful and valuable and cherished then

As they were on the day they were born.