Exponent II's Blog, page 34

Guest Post: On Blessings and Blessing

by Anonymous

I’m sitting here next to my mother.  She’s laying in a bed beside me, in the final stages of dying.  She’s sleeping, her breathing is shallow, and at this moment she looks peaceful.  She’s had a long and difficult decline, so this is not a tragedy at all, but it is filled with all kinds of feelings for me.

Yesterday while my mom’s dear cousin Evelyn and I were gathered around her bed as she slept, my older brother arrived.  He walked into her room and said, “I feel impressed to give her a blessing, specifically a blessing of release.”  When he announced that he wanted to give her a blessing, my first thought was “fine”… but the way he announced it made me bristle – it felt full of hubris and very patriarchal for him to walk into a room with three women and announce that.  

I didn’t think he would react well if I asked if I could put my hands on her head as well, so I quickly took my mom’s hands and placed one in her cousin’s hand and one in mine.  At least she could feel our presence as well as hear my brother’s voice.

His blessing was extremely orthodox. “You have kept your covenants.”  “You have attended the temple.”  “You have remained active in the church.” “You will be welcomed home, and you should feel released to go.” My mom was orthodox in many ways, but she was also a fierce ally to the marginalized, and she acknowledged that the institutional church had been a harmful experience for some of her kids and certainly to some of her grandkids — some of whom are queer and/or are choosing a different path than the institutional church.  Love for her family came first for her.  But I think she appreciated the blessing from my brother; orthodoxy was one way that she connected with him.  He is the oldest of her kids, and he feels a lot of pride in leading out in staying loyal to the Church.

I don’t mean to diminish the experience of this blessing for my brother or for my mom, but I really felt the patriarchal squeeze.  The whole event had an air of arrogance to me, and felt as much bitter as sweet — he announced it, he pronounced it, and he wanted to talk about it afterward.  It was hard.

That was yesterday. This morning, I arrived to find my mom in about the same state as when I left last night, still firmly on the path to transitioning to her next life.  She stirred a bit when they came in to freshen her up, and I sat beside her and rubbed her arms to help her relax.  

At that moment, I thought, “What is keeping me from putting my hands on her head, and blessing her from my heart?” 

Is it just what I had heard my whole life, that God only recognized the voices of men in a hands-on-head blessing? It was such a foreign thought — that this might be completely false, and that God would honor my voice just as much as that of my brother.  I felt sad that I was hesitant to push past that feeling and give her my blessing for fear of being wrong.  

If I were to do it, I thought, I would close the door to her room so that her aides or my brother would not stumble upon the scene . . . unlike when my brother felt free to perform his blessing in full view of — but without participation of or consultation with — the women in attendance, as we do in the church.  Such strange feelings.

So.

I closed the door, laid my hands on her head and began:

“Dear God, please let my mom hear this blessing from my heart . . . .” 

And I’m sure she did. And it was sweet, and I’m glad I did it.  

I don’t hate the patriarchy; maybe it serves a purpose in running the church. But I don’t think it’s the pattern our Heavenly Parents would use.  Whatever the rhetoric about “women have the same priesthood authority as men do in the church” — those are just words.  The truth is that patriarchy does privilege one gender over the other. Maybe we need to flex our muscles a bit more in helping our girls understand that they would not be struck down for placing their hands on their dying mother’s head to give her a daughter’s blessing.

And that they should be able to leave the door open when they do.

 

Anonymous describes herself in this way: I’m a lifelong Mormon woman and mother of four wonderful children including a queer daughter. I was raised and spent much of my adult life in orthodoxy and patriarchy; I now look beyond this and find meaning in focusing on the marginalized in our church and community. I love reading, sewing, quilting, cooking, and making a home our kids like to come home to once in a while.

Tensions with our Past Orthodox “Innies:” Thoughts in Dialogue with Severance

This post mentions details from Severance seasons one and two. Watch first to avoid spoilers! It is part 2 of yesterday’s post “Tensions with our Premortal “Outies:” Thoughts in Dialogue with Severance”

Another application of Severance to spiritual development in addition to yesterday’s post is relationships with our past selves who were “all in,” and not so perplexed by religious life.

In Severance, Lumon is not just a company; it is also a secular religious institution founded in 1865 by a man named Kier Eagan. It’s really very odd–the religion seems to be very secretive and esoteric. The “outies” don’t even seem to know the religious aspect exists, yet it is imposed on them as severed employees. Old company handbooks are treated like scripture. Wax figures of past CEOs are reminiscent of deities at a temple, and company events are glorified in paintings displayed around the office building. Kier religion is authoritarian and top-down. Severed workers are beholden to the teachings, objectives, and policies Kier established like teens at boarding school under a strict headmaster whether they like it or not. The purpose of this aspect of the story is in part to explore and critique something called “corporate Gnosticism,” a term for when select leaders within an organization act as if they possess special, secret knowledge that is essential to administer it.

Some severed workers are enthusiastic about Kier religion. Others are not, but all of the members of the “Macro-data Refinement” team the show focuses on have become subdued by the authority, punishments, and incentives of the company such that the religion controls their behavior and their lives at the beginning of season one.

Each team member, except Helly R., whose narrative arc as the rebellious, depressed newbie is different, undergoes a transformation comparable to a faith transition. Each takes on more of a more independent, differentiated status by exploring outside their office space and team, subverting supervisors’ authority, and finding an ingenious way to exit the Lumon building to experience life outside. 

Mark starts out as a submissive employee. Trips to the punitive “break-room” have conditioned him to be this way. He only seems to live for friendship, but his best friend at Lumon (Petie) has left the company in mysterious way. The unexpected appearance of a self-help book at the office leads Mark to develop an urge to to reframe everything about what it means to have a job and to start to rebel against his employers.

Dylan starts out very satiated by childish work prizes, such as erasers and Chinese finger traps. One day, the company awakens his innie self at home using a technique he didn’t know about. Just a few seconds receiving a hug from his outie’s young son leads him to become determined to know more about his life outside and to fight his employers for more rights.  

Irving is the most orthodox person on the team. He quotes passages of the company handbook regularly as a wisdom text and treats Lumon’s museum space, the “Perpetuity Wing” like a shrine. Irving falls in love with another severed employee and spends time with him against Lumon’s wishes. Supervisor Milchik punishes Irving by forcing his lover Burt into early retirement, essentially a death for a severed innie. Irving’s once zealous trust in the company suddenly dies.

These characters’ experiences are relevant to the question of how we relate to our past selves when we undergo shifts in our religious lives. I’m not saying the Church is an evil corporation, but I am suggesting that like Lumon, the Church tends to try to control adults as if they are in need of authoritative parenting. And like Lumon, it has tendencies to use fear tactics and questionable rewards to motivate and deter behaviors. When we watch these characters, many us of can relate to their experience of waking up to the fact that they don’t want a life that is dictated by others. And watching how Kier and the tradition he established are glorified and treated like a supreme paternal authority might remind us of our experiences in Mormonism–whether this amuses us, disturbs us, or both! Both were established by one young man in 1800s America after all. But honestly, it reminds me of how many religions glorify their founding stories and mythologies. In some ways, what is depicted more closely resembles approaches in Islam or Baha’i faith. Their founders inhabit a significantly higher spiritual space than we place Joseph Smith in.

I’m also not saying that the proper outcome of spiritual growth or a faith transition is necessarily leaving the church or fighting it as an institution, but I am suggesting spiritual growth requires seeking to learn about things as they really are, maturing emotionally, claiming the personal moral autonomy that is healthy for adults, and dealing with a whole lot of discomfort. If we want to grow, we can’t avoid these experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant. The growth experience I’m referring to here is about aligning with and tapping into our higher, fully developed adult selves whether we’re religious or not, participating in Church or not, not about achieving one kind of “right” outcome.

If you’re like me, you’ve faced moments of self-loathing or shame in relation to both your past and present selves after transitions in your faith and spirituality. We might feel embarrassed about how we used to be. Or have harsh feelings toward our current selves. Two iterations of ourselves wrestle together–one that on some level still identifies as a loyal “innie,” and one that is determined to grow despite risks.

How do the characters on Severance respond to their transitions? In a nutshell, they continue to grow, love and relationships become more important to them, and the possibility of living more fully opens to them. For the first time, Mark doesn’t just tolerate work but feels excited about it. Being awakened to his personal desires and agency makes what he already valued– friendship–even better than what it was before. While before as a boss, he literally read off the Lumon script, now he creates his own plans and becomes a true leader. Moving into season two, his confidence, courage, and closeness to others continues to grow. He explores even deeper into Lumon’s labyrinthian halls, pursues his own goals (such as finding Ms. Casey) rather than Lumon’s mandates, and even pursues personal joy through romance and intimacy with Helly.

Dylan becomes a more mature and courageous person. Once sheepish and fearful of any rules being broken, now he physical attacks Milchick in response to his abuses and endures great physical pains and personal risk to enable his teammates to experience the world outside by activating the “overtime contingency” function. In season two, things become conflicted for Dylan because Lumon hatches an scheme to control him through promising time with his outie’s family as rewards. They accept Dylan can’t be motivated by lame prizes anymore. This manipulation disrupts his collaboration with his team and his newfound confidence. He won’t help Irving search for a door to the outside, and meeting his wife isn’t all good. He learns from her that her husband has always struggled to hold down a job. Disappointed and surprised, Dylan makes a comment about his outie being a screw-up. Time will tell how Dylan continues to develop and whether he’ll continue to be partly controlled by Lumon!

Irving might have the most reason to be embarrassed of the past or to cling to it, but he doesn’t indulge this. Instead, in season one, he embraces his new-found independence and expanded range of emotions, dropping the things he doesn’t value anymore, and taking the things he does (his love of Burt, especially). Once the most conned by Lumon, Irving goes on to become the most discerning and daring of the characters, which we see develop more in season two. His shift of worldview has allowed him to really tap into his intelligence. Irving discovers that an exports hall with some kind of exit to the outside world exists somewhere close in Lumon’s halls based on paintings he saw in his outie’s house. It is Irving who sniffs out that Helena has deceitfully replaced Helly through noticing subtle changes in her personality and details that don’t line up in her false story about the outside world. He has the courage to immediately remedy this violating situation. He has become a sort of detective. Irving’s growth and learning also bring sorrow and despair. Losing Burt and learning that he appears to be happily coupled in the outside world has led to poor mental health and despair; love and romance are what his innie seems to have come to desire most.

Watching these characters as they grow and face challenges reminds me to move onward in my spiritual life without longing for the past, clinging to orthodoxy or the safety of submission, or showing contempt for my past selves. I want to be more like these characters in their moments of courage and growth than I have been in real life. They remind me that when we undergo major shifts and periods of growth, we need to exercise intentional self-compassion toward both our past “innie” selves and our current evolving selves. We need to leave the past behind and refrain from beating ourselves up.

When we “taste” the fruits of personal growth, we know that it’s is good for us and what we need; it is much like ideas suggested in the Adam and Eve story or Alma 32. The fruit is good and delicious or it’s not; we can know with confidence that we are growing and that this is good for our souls.

Becoming more knowledgeable, wiser, stronger, more loving, more mature people is exactly what we need. It can bring sorrow, greater vulnerability, and obstacles. But it can also bring incredible expansion, freedom, and joy. Our personal growth and learning to love are in my mind the most important reasons we’re here on earth. Watching Mark’s team reminds me to keep moving forward with confidence that I am indeed on the right path whenever I choose learning and personal growth over comfort, excessive security, or stagnation. There is no need to look back with longing or regret.

Severance also reminds me that one of the best things about personal emotional and spiritual growth is that it consistently enables us to connect more deeply with others and to collaborate with them more in our journeys. It is only after their transitions that the Macro-data Refinement team are able to become emotionally close and to really collaborate with one another about things they care about. At times, they create incredible synergy as they share with each other and brainstorm plans.

It’s really not fun or comfortable being a liminal member of the Church, but I wouldn’t trade the increased closeness I feel with others in my life or learning and growing together with others–esp. my siblings, and Mormon friends both in and out of the Church–for anything. Overall, the spiritual growth I’m experiencing is a healing and joyful path shared with others that feels like exactly what God intended for me all along. 

Sometimes I notice friends doubting their role and influence on others. Friends of mine often suffer from a sinking feeling of guilt, for example, if a friend or family member we’re close to or have supported becomes inactive, joins a different faith group, or leaves the Church. But we need not feel any guilt if we’ve been our honest selves, have shared good resources, and have respectfully supported others in making their own choices. Let go of the fears you are ruining things for others or affecting their lives for bad. We’re all in this together on a path of development and becoming strong and wiser people, making the choices that are best for ourselves. God knows it is complicated. And sometimes people really need to use their agency to differentiated religiously in order to keep growing in the ways that are right for them.

A couple final Thoughts about integrating the self

Ultimately, we don’t have two selves, each of us is one progressing whole who is worthy of love and compassion however we evolve as we gain experience. It’s okay that I embraced some black and white thinking in my teens and twenties and sometimes cared about pleasing authority figures back then. That was developmentally normal and understandable at the time. And it’s okay that I think and feel very differently today. I feel joy that I have progressed. There are things I loved about myself then, and there are things I love about myself now, and many of them are the same. 

I’m seeking to internalize the fact that my identity and spirituality as a human transcends and extends beyond my Mormon identity and upbringing in the Church. I had an experience recently when I saw myself as someone else who loves me would see me from the outside. I saw my spiritual strengths and gifts, I saw my openness toward and love for others, I saw the wisdom and skills I have gained. And I perceived distinctly that Mormonism didn’t “make” me and cannot be given full credit for who and what I am or what I am capable of, including spiritually (much as I do affirm that I feel I have benefitted from having it as a spiritual community, framework, and anchor to ground my life in). I felt so much peace about who I am in that moment, and I felt confident that however I will need to grow and evolve spiritually in the future, I am an undivided, whole self. I can trust my own discernment and intuitions about what is right for me, rather than feel scared that I will betray past or future iterations of myself. 

I’m very curious to see what kinds of experience characters in Severance season two may have as they may attempt to reintegrate themselves into one mind and one life. Marks’s arc suggests love will be the motivating factor of the risk of total integration. I really hope this will be a healing and incredible thing for them if it happens.

Tensions with our Premortal “Outies”: Thoughts in Dialogue with Severance

This post mentions some details from Severance (mostly season one, with one brief observation from season two). You may prefer to read after watching to avoid spoilers! 

A premortal “outie”

Latter-day Saint religion teaches that each human was an individual, conscious being before birth–that we had past selves in the spiritual realm and made decisions to be born on earth. Leaders have also taught that premortal performance plays a role in determining what kind of life and blessings we receive at birth. These teachings have been passed down to the young people of the Church through sacrament meeting talks, Sunday school lessons, and firesides. Personalized revelation about our premortal selves can be offered through priesthood blessings, esp. patriarchal blessings, which serve as a kind of life map.

I’m not interested here in addressing whether these ideas are literally true. They are mysterious possibilities they may or may not be affirmed by study and spiritual experience. But I’m curious about how these teachings impact our spiritual lives, including our sense of self, our relationships with God and others, and our overall well-being. 

I’ve been watching Severance (Apple TV). In this world, workers at a company called “Lumon” have opted into having a procedure done to their brains such that they have become “severed” into two separate selves: a “outie,” who lives at home, remembers their birth, family, and all their life prior to working at Lumon, and a new “innie” self who has no memories outside of what happens at work, and who is essentially stuck at the office, only experiencing hours spent at Lumon.

This serves as an interesting analogy for the two selves outlined in LDS teachings. Like the outie, the premortal self has a fuller range of memories, and makes a major decision that requires the mortal self to accomplish something arduous. Like the innie, the mortal self has no memory of having made this decision and their experiences are limited to what happens due to the decision.

There are benefits that can come with teachings about the premortal life or having an “outie,” esp. during our formative years. Trusting in these teachings, young people may enthusiastically say, There’s a reason I’m here, and I chose this! I’m special to God, and I had gifts and a personality even before I was born! Yet, do the benefits continue as we grow older and continue to spiritually develop?

Hazards of ulterior motives

I grew up with a strong sense of my premortal outie. She was hardcore and bold. She fought bravely on God’s side in the war in heaven. If you grew up LDS, you were likely told similar things about your premortal self. I don’t share these descriptors here to mock them. This view of myself helped me in many ways. In fact, it is one reason I became someone who has the courage to post on this blog. Yet, as a middle-aged person, I am concerned about how premortal merit may be used in the Church (whether intentionally or not) to influence behavior and beliefs. To me this seems like quite a hazard and easy trap to fall into.

In Severance, Lumon subdues workers by telling them flattering compliments about their outies. When Irving suffers from truth-telling nightmares about Lumon, he is administered a wellness treatment in which bizarre “facts” are read to him about his outside self that are designed to appeal to personal fantasy. “Your outie is an exemplary person,” wellness worker Ms. Casey explains as she introduces the treatment, “These facts should be very pleasing.” She goes to share: “Your outie is a friend to children, and to the elderly, and to the insane. Your outie is strong and helps someone lift a heavy object. Your outie attends many dances and is popular among the other attendees…A photo of your outie with a trophy was once in a newspaper. Your outie has no fear of buggers or knaves…Your outie is skilled at kissing and lovemaking.”

These things may or may not be true about outie Irving. The problem is that Lumon uses these claims about Irving’s outie to motivate him to do things their way. It’s also a red flag that many of the “facts” are inappropriately intimate; we sense that seduction rather than wellness is the true intention. These are things Irving should discover for himself rather than be told by his employer. The compliments are meant to distract him from his growing malaise, and to keep him in a stagnant, passive state of trust in the company.

We should be mindful of the danger of ulterior motives any time people try to tell us they know things about our spirits or premortal selves. Recently, I listened to something called “The Dream Interpretation Podcast” looking for support making sense of a dream. I became uncomfortable when I realized the hosts teach listeners that the content of their dreams provide strong evidence that they are reincarnating beings. They claim listeners’ specific dreams reveal very detailed things about their spirits, premortal pasts, and futures. They appear to do this without acknowledging listeners’ spiritual worldviews or making space for what others believe. I found the imposition of this very personal spiritual material boundary violating and paternalistic. How much are intriguing pre-life details divulged in hopes of selling courses, programs, and books?

It may very well be true that we lived with God before this life and that teaching this can help people, but if this concept is to be taught, motives should be conscious and pure. Shaping behavior or trying to cement religious loyalty through flattery, ego puffing, or creating a elite “in” group is not loving or edifying. Teachings should inspire awe and compassion for creation rather than pride or superiority. How much has premortal-based flattery at church slowed down growth and distracted us from the real spiritual work in our lives?

Any efforts to use premortal life as a persuasion tactic to convince children and converts that they fully opted into a Latter-day Saint life before birth are sketch. Like at Lumon, the message “you chose this path before you came here, but you just don’t remember,” proves unethical (see section below entitled, “Resenting and questioning our premortal outies’ choices“).

The flattery aimed at Irving works to keep Irving in a more child-like, dependent state for quite a while; he enters a very pleasurable state of mind during the wellness session. Yet eventually, dissonance with Lumon causes him to grow out of being satiated by fantasies about who he is on the outside world. We may experience something similar at Church as pressing issues in our personal lives make the importance of life before and after mortality fade into the background.

It is not necessarily an advantage to have an outie who was a boss

Another hazard of being taught your outie was a spiritual overachiever at Church is how this may be used to set high expectations. Was your outie super faithful, hardworking and brave? Even just to maintain who you are, you are expected to measure up to this, and this can feed perfectionism and self-criticism. To what degree have we been needlessly hard on ourselves due to trying to live up to the versions of ourselves described in patriarchal blessings or firesides we attended as teens? Have we resented or been jealous of our past iterations of ourselves that we have no memory of?

What if I’m a very different person from my outie?

What if it turns out we are radically different as humans than we were as spirits in the premortal life–if our personalities and behaviors changed in ways that made us almost unrecognizable? In Severance, innie Helly R. is a dramatically different person than her outie, and not in negative ways. At the beginning of season 2 (as far as I’ve gotten while writing this), Helena appears to be very intrigued by and jealous of Helly’s uninhibited ways. Her innie is free to develop her own values and personality without pressures from her dynastic, controlling family. Helly R., for example, spontaneously kisses her co-worker Mark as they go their separate ways on a daring adventure to the outside world. Helena watches this moment over and over as if she’s obsessed with this other version of herself. It’s like a soap opera about her alter-ego that feeds personal fantasy. Perhaps Helena has never loved someone the way Helly R. has learned to do.

I feel pretty different from my “outie” sometimes. While she seems to have been some kind of a fierce warrior, I am naturally shy and struggle with things like driving anxiety. And while she badly wanted to be born into the Church, I feel ambivalent about whether this same Church is really good for my soul as well as whether it actually cares about me, my development or my well-being. And ironically, the Church I’m in also doesn’t actually seem to like or tolerate women who are hardcore, brave, fighting spiritual warriors.

Yet is it possible that if my outie could see me now, she’s the one who would be impressed? Despite the fact that I may appear weaker or less confident about things than my outie, what makes sense to me at this point is that I am actually wiser, stronger, and more informed now than I was then. Theoretically speaking, we should be more developed people than we were in the premortal life because we’ve surmounted all kinds of things they didn’t have to face. Maybe we’re meant to become very different than we once were, and maybe sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to become so or to let go of the things we were told about our past selves. It’s unfortunate premortal narratives are so centered on a war between God’s children and the people coming to earth being the ones who won this. Is this really good for us to identify with? I’m not very interested in warring over religion or spiritual approaches, it feels like the real skill set I need and want is being a compassionate peacemaker.

Hazards of being taught we earned a Latter-day Saint Life in the premortal life

I grew up being taught that my premortal self’s valiance is the reason I was born into a family with the restored gospel. Today, I am troubled by the idea that I somehow earned a more advantageous life than others. Earning the blessing of being born in the Church seems equivalent with earning a middle class life in the US and all the social and economic privileges that comes with that. These ideas are conducive to feeling guilt and pity toward others instead of gratitude or love. It’s comparable to my least favorite aspect of Hindu thinking: a spiritually-based social caste system. The idea that superior performances in past lives lead to greater privilege, comfort, and choices here and now can lead to all kinds of social inequalities and vices to avoid.

A LDS meritocratic view of the premortal life implies God enhances inequity in the world–that God places weaker souls in circumstances in which they are even less likely to succeed, and gives yet more advantage to those already thriving. Like Adam Miller in Original Grace, I seek faith in a God who provides what is needed for healing and progression for all, rather than who doles out justice through assigning deprivation or suffering.

Resenting and questioning our premortal outies’ choices

Sometimes we might experience tensions with our outies’ choices to come to earth. This came to the forefront for me a few years ago when a child at my son’s school died in an accident. A familial wound awoke in me. My six-year-old aunt was killed by a speeding car in Utah in the 60s, and this chance event has created many painful ripples in my family. I became angry at God as I grappled with the realization that the same exact kind of event could easily happen to my own children. I didn’t feel capable of facing the grief that would follow such a death. I wanted to scream at God that I wanted out of this life, that I regretted my choice, and that this whole plan was manipulative. I wondered who that premortal self was to throw me into such a fragile and grief-filled world (I wrote this essay about spiritual experiences surrounding this for Wayfare). 

A comparable dilemma is portrayed in Severance season one. Newly severed worker Helly R. instantly becomes despairing in her new life, which presents her with very limiting conditions that she is not allowed to control. Helly R. asserts she shouldn’t have to live out the decisions of her “outie,” Helena, who never asked her consent. Helly makes a request to be released from her work at Lumon that her outie quickly denies. Helly threatens to cut her fingers off with a paper cutter and even attempts suicide, but Helena stays firm.

Helly doesn’t have a choice; she has to live with the situation she finds herself thrown into. Steven Peck has pointed out that Helly’s narrative arc calls LDS theology into question. Is it possible, he asks, that premortal decisions prove problematic or void since we couldn’t really understand what it would be like to experience earth life? “In coming to Earth under these conditions,” he writes, “has something manipulative and unsettling occurred?

Premortal frameworks are used to try to resolve the problem of evil and suffering in LDS thought. Opening the possibility that human spirits are co-eternal with God certainly is interesting when grappling with the problem of evil (the question of why evil exists/why God allows suffering). But to what extent do teachings about the premortal life only complicate such difficulties rather than resolve them? As Peck asks, what does it mean that God asks us to choose to be born on earth when we couldn’t know for ourselves what it would actually be like until we arrived?

It’s healthy to explore the fact we usually experience life as if we’ve been thrown into it

LDS premortal life frameworks tend to conceal and diminish the fact that practically speaking, we don’t experience life as if we chose to come here or ever lived before. We really can feel like we’ve been thrown here without choosing it, much like Helly R. when she begins her life splayed out on a conference room table, having no memory or sense of who she is. Recognizing this for myself is helping me work through my ambivalence and concerns about the things I was taught about the premortal life growing up.

Interesting questions and meanings can open up if we’re willing to embrace the fact that we experience life as if we find ourselves here by surprise whether we believe in a premortal life or not. Doing this might help us experience life more as a grace or mysterious gift rather than a burden or something we take we granted. It might also help us lower high expectations for ourselves and break down walls we’ve put up against others.

It would be healthier for everyone to make space for uncertainty about the premortal life at Church instead of encouraging young people to treat this as a crucial point or a point of pride. It is not necessarily an important part of the gospel to have faith in or focus on, and the hazards it brings are reason for caution. Ultimately, we don’t know much at all about what happened before this life and we have very few scriptures about it. If young people resonate with it and it genuinely helps them, great, but if they don’t, we should probably just not worry about it. We need to do a better job of making space at Church for people at Church to do their own personal meaning-making. Members of all ages should be given more space to explore and develop their spiritual identities and attributes themselves rather than having them fed or dictated to them.

Watch for part 2 tomorrow, “Tensions with our Past Orthodox ‘Innies’: Thoughts in Dialogue with Severance”

When God Speaks (Part 2)

In my last post, I wrote about ways we can decipher between harmful delusions and the voice of God. Since writing that post, I’ve thought more about ways that these spiritual delusions can cause harm, specifically when they give us a false sense of control over our life circumstances.

We’ve all heard the stories. A woman who feels like her family is incomplete with her 5 girls, gets pregnant again because she has a prompting that the next will be a boy, all to find out the 6th is also a girl. A sick family member is blessed that she will be healed through the power of the priesthood but she still dies. A family moves across the country because they are prompted they will find a good job there but they never do and end up moving back. 

These are the kinds of stories shared in general conference addresses and sacrament meeting talks framed not as failures of faith or misguided spiritual promptings, but as the opposite- an opportunity for humility and learning. And while that might be the case (I’m sure the people in these stories had to have humility to follow through with these promptings), I worry that we jump too quickly to the “make it make sense” stage and forget that there is real grief and real hardship when promptings don’t work out how we expected. 

The idea of a “spiritual prompting” adds weight to any given decision we might make. If I said to myself,  “I’m headed to the donut shop because I’m craving a chocolate donut with sprinkles” but it turned out the donut shop was out of sprinkles, I’d shrug my shoulders and say “oh well.” and move on with my day. But if I said to myself “I’m headed to the donut shop because the spirit told me to eat a chocolate donut with sprinkles”- now I have to reconcile the fact that the donut shop is out of sprinkles with the “prompting” I received. It adds an entire extra level of mental energy and processing- and grief. Because not only do I not get to eat a donut, now I have to figure out why God told me to get a donut when He must’ve known they didn’t have the sprinkles. 

There is grief and difficulty in the added loss of control promptings can bring. We can logically accept that we don’t control the gender of our baby or whether someone is healed, but when we believe that God has told us through the Spirit that things will turn out a specific way, it’s that much harder when they don’t. We are left to question “Did I interpret my prompting incorrectly?” or “Was there something else God needed me to learn from this?” or “Did I not have enough faith?” or  “How will this situation be perceived by others that know about this prompting?”  Having these kinds of questions on top of the grief and hardship we are already experiencing drains the mental energy we have available to cope with it all. 

My proposal to combat the added emotional weight that comes with unfulfilled promptings is to stop making life decisions based on what you believe God is telling you to do. This might seem like a radical take, but hear me out. Instead of making the decision based on the prompting and putting the weight of the decision on God, use the Spirit to help you take ownership over your own choice. Let the Spirit guide you to be confident, do your research, access your resources, and then make the well-informed, peace-driven choice and accept the consequences as they come. Take ownership of the choice as yours, an imperfect human, and use God and the Spirit as your supports to help you get through it. If the baby turns out to be a boy when you hoped for a girl, you can rest easy in the knowledge that you made the choice based on what felt best for you- God didn’t make that choice. If the job doesn’t work out, you can know that God still has your back regardless.

When we allow for the choice to be ours and not Gods’, we expand the Spirit’s opportunity to speak to us and help us through it. When we place the weight of the decision on the Spirit’s promptings, we set ourselves up for complicated questions, doubt, and difficult feelings about something that was never in our control to begin with. 

Here We Go Again: What Sustainable Political Action Looks Like for Me

I’m not saying it was a picnic from 2020-2024, but 2025 has reminded me how viscerally painful it is to watch the rule of law be dismantled from the top down. Here we go again with the lurch of unsettling, sickening news, the feeling that there is no floor, there is no ceiling, there is no common sense, there is no safety. Perhaps it’s worse this time around because I’ve learned how to pay attention, to see how quickly and silently harm can come to the most marginalized and vulnerable folks. 

There’s a fair amount of privilege in my life – white, middle class, employed, educated, homeowner, citizen. Although I am affected and will be affected by this madness, it isn’t me that feels the pinch first. 

In 2016, I felt disconnected and stuck. My own life circumstances, with infants and toddlers, were fully consuming. It was bewildering to try to figure out how to contact my representatives and to feel like any of that made a difference. I cared about what was happening, but let action fall to the wayside as my life carried me along. 

If the second Trump administration is going to mean anything to me now, it’s that I’m 8 years older, wiser, and capable. I can take sustainable action.    

On the day we received the news about the election, I marked the event by updating my seed storage for my garden. If we’re headed into economic turmoil or depression territory, at least I can grow some beans.  

On the day of the inauguration, I addressed some gaps in our emergency gear that had needed to be dealt with anyhow. We now have a few flashlights, and better yet, a solar powered and hand crank one that can also charge a cell phone. Well, it’s something.  

Next week, I’m double checking our water storage, such as it is. I honestly have no idea where my husband stored those jugs in the basement. 

All of these small actions don’t amount to much, but they bring me a small sense of control, of preparedness. If you are prepared, you won’t fear, right? Nope, I’m still plenty afraid, but I do know that survival is community, not a bunker.  

So I talk to my friends and my neighbors. We hug, we share, we connect, we commiserate. We pay attention to local politics. We sometimes fantasize what it would be like to take advantage of all those ex-pat offers in Europe. Maybe my best possible life is sheep farming on the Aran Islands? 

But then I need to go to work, or take the kids to karate and dance, or I’ve got a blog post to write and the deadline is getting frighteningly close. 

With that reality, I resurrected my old pal 5Calls on my phone. I’ve registered a few comments on local bills in my state legislature. I’ve made a few phone calls and left a few messages. A few minutes a day, a comment here, a call there, fit into my life.

I used to find it difficult to make these calls and send these messages. It was frustrating to feel I was throwing my time and effort into the void, without tangible return on investment. I didn’t know who to call or what to say. Now I know that every small action does make a difference. I don’t necessarily have to stress about saying the “right” thing. All I have to do is let my representatives know I care and I am watching and that I have a preference for or against the proposed bill or issue. If I have a specific personal experience with the issue, I share that too.

So what I do does matter, but I also have let go of the idea of ever seeing a return on the investment. Probably, most of the time, things won’t get better, but every once in a while, they will.

A state bill that would have further limited reproductive care in my state died in committee because thousands registered their stance against.

Against this one happy moment in the last two weeks, I have witnessed the anguished howl that seems to rise up from the ground itself, at outrage after outrage. Sometimes it is simply enough to see and name what we observe around ourselves. To simply say, this is happening.  

For me, the rule of law is crumbling. The president and his cabal are attempting to turn our nation into a Christian nationalist/technopoly/oligarchy something mess that will not serve the people or protect our freedoms. They are attempting to impose a world view that is limited and harmful and they don’t care what they break in the process. This is happening. 

And what can I do about it? 

Jess Piper, a popular activist also known as the Dirt Road Democrat, gave me what have become my marching orders for the duration, in a post on her Substack:  

“I know my power is limited at the federal level, but I can help stop awful federal mandates by gathering groups and opposing my state lawmakers implementing those awful mandates. 

This is our power. It’s local. Focus there. Pay attention everywhere, but fight at the local level. 

We still have power. 

Take care of the livestock and post in your social groups about the rise of a paramilitary group beholden to Trump. Order your garden seeds and keep a record of Nazi and fascist players in the government. Play with the grandkids and write a letter to the editor. Make supper and make a phone call to your Representative. 

Don’t look away and don’t give any official even one inch. 

Hold their feet to the fire while you handle your responsibilities.” 

 In light of the Ezell memo and an executive order by the current President of the United States sent on January 20th and the executive order of January 28th, and the many reports of harassment and harm that have become our new normal, the only way forward to me is to hold tightly to my people. Witness the atrocity, the anguish, the wrong, and be there for who I can, when I can. What we do in our local spheres of influence will make a difference.

Photo by Niklas Hamann on Unsplash

It Is Not Good that Humans Should Be Alone

In the beginning, God created the world and declared it good. The only thing that was declared to be not good was Adam’s aloneness. To alleviate Adam’s solitary state, God created Eve, and from then on, society declared coupledom to be compulsory and singleness to be pitiable or deviant.

I think that view is a misreading of the story. It wasn’t Adam’s lack of a spouse that was a problem. It was his lack of connection with another human. As a society, we assume that anyone who lacks a partner must, as a matter of course, be deeply lonely. This assumption dials itself up to 11 for the month of February, when a secular celebration of romantic love permeates the culture. However, there are many ways of being in community and many other kinds of love.

There’s the love between parent and child. I have parents, and some day, God-willing, I will have a child even if I don’t get a husband. I love my parents and they love me. I will fiercely love my child when he or she arrives. Even though my parents and I live hundreds of miles apart, we are a part of each other’s lives. I have a sibling, and we likewise share love and are a part of each other’s lives.

There’s the love between friends – our chosen family. Last night, one of my friends texted me out of the blue and invited me over to make dinner. We made soup, played with the dog, and watched a movie, all while chatting and getting caught up. The social connection filled my soul. I meet friends for movie nights, trivia nights, hikes, and dinner. I’ve also sat with them in the emergency room and in court. We’ve helped each other through hard times and celebrated the good times. I never lack for companionship when they’re around.

There’s the love between ward members. We refer to our wards as a “ward family”, and at their best, that’s what they can be. I had surgery a few months ago, and I needed someone to give me a ride home because I couldn’t drive after the anesthesia. A ward member got up at 5 AM to take me, and she made dinner for me so I wouldn’t have to figure out how to feed myself for a few days. I’ve taken casseroles to families who are welcoming a new baby or saying goodbye to someone.

Even going beyond the close relationships, we can experience connection with acquaintances. When I was in school, I frequented a bagel shop near my work. The clerk got to know my regular order, and when I returned after being gone for a few weeks, she mentioned that she had missed me and was glad I was okay. I know about the important events in the lives of my colleagues.

I imagine it’s easier to experience social consistent social connection when you share space with someone who has promised to stand by your side forever. But the extra effort it takes to nurture relationships outside of romance is well worth it. God is love, so maintaining loving friendships is a way to draw nearer to God.

The celestial room of the temple is described as being a taste of heaven. In the celestial room, we are surrounded by many different people with whom we have a variety of types of relationships. We are not alone. As much as I would welcome a spouse, I have a full and happy life, with many loved ones. I am not alone, and it is good.

Is it a beautiful revelation? Or spiritual abuse?

Is Doctrine and Covenants 25 a beautiful revelation from God for a woman struggling after the loss of her baby? Or is it an example of spiritual abuse from a spouse? Or is it a little bit of both? These are the questions swirling in my mind today.

In October 2024 General Conference, Emily Belle Freeman gave a talk where she explains how reading this scriptural passage changed her life. She describes imagining Emma Smith, a 26 year old worried about finances and her husband’s persecution and the loss of their first baby, trying to feel God’s love. She imagines that the revelation that came through the prophet to Emma (what is now Doctrine and Covenants 25) likely brought comfort to her during this hard time. Emily Belle Freeman describes it this way:

First, the Lord reminded Emma of her place in His plan, including who she was and whose she was—a daughter in His kingdom. She was invited to “walk in the paths of virtue,” a path that included ordinances that would unlock God’s power if Emma held on to her covenants.

Second, in her season of deep mourning, the Lord gave her purpose. Emma didn’t just have a front-row seat to the Restoration; she was an essential participant in the work taking place. She would be set apart “to expound scriptures, and to exhort the church.” Her time would “be given to writing, and to learning much.” Emma was given a sacred role to help prepare the Saints to worship; their songs unto the Lord would be received as prayers and “answered with a blessing upon their heads.”

Last, the Lord outlined a process of inward sanctification that would prepare Emma for exaltation. “Except thou do this,” the Lord explained to her, “where I am you cannot come.”

But when I opened up the passage in the Doctrine and Covenants and read the words myself, I didn’t have the same glowing feeling that Emily Belle Freeman clearly had. Instead, I worried. I imagined myself mourning and then having my husband receive guidance from God on my behalf. It just feels like it would be so sad to not receive my own personal revelation. Complicating that more is that some of the revelation that came in those verses sound like a husband’s way of making his wife obey. Here are the passages that were hardest for me to read and my thoughts to go along with them: 

Verse 3: Behold, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called. I wonder why it had to come out of her husband’s mouth that her sins were forgiven. Isn’t that between her and God and only mediated through Christ?

Verse 4: Murmur not because of the things which thou hast not seen, for they are withheld from thee and from the world, which is wisdom in me in a time to come. This feels like a husband and wife have been in disagreement on an issue for a while and the husband now says, “God said you need to stop complaining.” But if that’s the case, why couldn’t God tell Emma that directly? Why did God have to go through the husband that the disagreement was with?

Verse 5: And the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness. Though Emily Belle Freeman noted that it would have provided great comfort to Emma to be given a special assignment that was just for her, I wonder if it might have felt awkward to be told to do something for the sake of comforting your husband (while noting the need for meekness). This is especially complicated by the fact that it’s coming through that husband.

Verse 14: Continue in the spirit of meekness, and beware of pride. Let thy soul delight in thy husband, and the glory which shall come upon him. If I had a friend who came to me and said, “I’ve been struggling in my marriage, but I recently felt God telling me to let myself find more delight in my marriage,” I’d support that friend. But if I had a friend who came to me and said, “I’ve been struggling in my marriage, but my husband says God needs me to delight in my husband, so I guess I’m going to do that,” I’d worry about the safety of my friend. 

I guess if Emma truly believed that every word of Doctrine and Covenants 25 came directly from God, then I bet she agreed with Emily Belle Freeman’s take on it – this is a beautiful revelation. But if Emma was uncertain, this revelation may have been hard to hear. It may have felt manipulative and exploitative.

And I guess that’s the question for me too: Do I believe that every word of that revelation was from God? If I do, I can get behind Emily Belle Freeman’s talk. But if I think there might have been any interpretation from Joseph Smith while he was receiving the revelation, then it suddenly becomes a problematic scripture passage.

What do you think? Is Doctrine and Covenants 25:
A) A beautiful revelation from God for a woman struggling after the loss of her baby?
B) An example of spiritual abuse from a spouse? 
C) A little bit of both?

What is Church Like When Your Bishop is a Woman?

(Main image: This is me with Bishop Phyllis Speigel of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah . I’ve blogged about her before and I finally got to meet her this week! She has the same calling in Utah that Bishop Mariann Budde has in Washington DC, whose inaugural sermon Candice Wendt blogged about recently as an inspiration for Mormon feminists. (By the way – bishops in the Episcopal church are significantly higher in rank, responsibility and education than a bishop in an LDS ward – hence being invited to do things like participate in presidential inaugurations.)

When LDS people say it doesn’t bother them that women aren’t ordained, I know there’s a 99% chance they’ve never even attended a church that ordains women. Visiting other churches where women and girls are equal changed me forever. I can never go back.

During the Ordain Women movement of 2013/2014, the response from members of the LDS church was incredibly negative. The idea was so absurd that many of them actually found it offensive. Only men and boys could have the priesthood, they said. A woman couldn’t be a bishop. That would be like saying men could get pregnant and breastfeed babies!

At the time, I visited St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Provo – a church that’s been ordaining women since before I was born. It’s held a special place in my heart ever since.

There I spoke to women who explained attending an LDS baptism and how shocked they were to see all of the women on the sidelines while the men ran the entire show. Their biggest shock was when men who barely knew the child were invited to join the blessing circle while the mother herself was excluded.

They said it felt like stepping back in time. Upon explaining the experience to another member of their church, that woman slapped her hand on the table and asked incredulously, “And Mormon women just put up with all of that?!”

Additionally, one week per month at St Mary’s the children participated in giving the sacrament to the congregation. A mother of two girls said it was their favorite week and they both couldn’t wait until they were old enough to do it. She told me she couldn’t imagine telling her girls, “Oh, I’m sorry – only the boys get to do that.” She asked if the girls at my church complained a lot about being left out. 

I told her honestly that (at least for me) it had never occurred to me to be jealous because I’d associated passing the sacrament so much with maleness that my brain had never even considered it an option.

Being around Episcopalian women always makes my identity as a Mormon feminist feel so much less radical. Instead of being seen as a power hungry maniac, I’m just an admirable champion of basic women’s rights. 

(That’s me in the middle of Mother Dani Lee (the priest at St. Mary’s) and Bishop Speigel!)

The pictures in this post are all from a screening this week of the new documentary “The Philadelphia Eleven“, about the first eleven women ordained into the Episcopal Church in the 1970s. 

The film caught up with some of these now older women (this happened 50 years ago, the same year AND month Exponent II was formed – July 1974!) and told their story through both archived and new footage.

The women were hilarious and brave, and the men back then who vehemently opposed ordaining women (“They’re taking our authority from us!” they insisted, sounding a bit like angry children) made the film laugh out loud funny at times.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the film (which won’t be totally accurate, but as close as I can get from my memory):

About needing extra security at the church the day the women were ordained: “We had a bunch of Black Panthers and lesbians come give us extra protection!”

Describing being ordained despite so much anger and pushback: “I knew what we were doing was unequivocally right. It was dangerous, but the right thing to do.’

One woman watching herself on a show from the 70s with a particularly rude male priest said: “We had to learn how to have these conversations, you know… without socking people…”

Another female priest: “We were called man-hating dykes. Sister X was the first of us, when called a lesbian in public, to say, “Thank you!”, because she was in fact gay. Instead of “Oh, I’m straight, but I support my gay sisters”. No – just “thank you!” They didn’t know how to respond to that.”

Barbara Harris, the first female bishop, after being told she’d been voted as bishop: “I said, ‘I humbly accept’. And then I thought to myself, Oh crap! That’s not what you’re supposed to say. You’re supposed to say I’ll pray about it and get back to you.”

After the women were ordained by willing male bishops, people were enraged. One woman priest said, “It was as if we’d pricked an abscess, and now all of the pus and poison was running out freely.” 

The church put the male bishops who had ordained the female priests on trial, but not the women – because that would have recognized their ordinations as valid. One woman said, “It’s not the bishop on trial right now, it’s the sexism of the church that’s on trial!” She concluded it was all male ego.

As they reunited at the funeral for one of the women who’d passed away during filming, one said to another: “I was hoping you’d come in the purple high tops you used to wear under your robes.” In response: “They don’t fit anymore. I have bunions now.”

And finally, I want to share a quote from a man attending the screening in the audience. He was formerly LDS, and (if I heard correctly), had served as both a bishop and a stake president. 

He said, “I didn’t know what I was missing until I had female clergy in my life.”

I AGREE.

****

To any local Utah people who’d enjoy a field trip to a Sunday service led by the phenomenal Dani Lee, check it out at: https://stmarysprovo.org/

They have two service times (9 am and 11 am), and Easter would be a really fun time to visit! Hang out afterwards to meet the women during their fellowship hour, then join my St. Mary’s Fan Club because you’ll know personally how amazing it is to see ordained women in action.

Guest Post: How “Suffs” Songs Remind Me of Mormon Feminism

by MM

Suffs is a musical by Shaina Taub that just closed on Broadway. Beelee recently wrote a fantastic blog post about the history behind the show. I was similarly inspired by the musical and its many moments that echo recent Mormon feminist history and culture. 

Come with me on a listen-through of moments in the show that remind me of those events. I’ve linked to the Spotify recordings, so you can listen along (though you can easily find it on Apple Music or your preferred streaming service). 

“Let Mother Vote” 

As the show opens, Carrie Chapman Catt gives this speech encouraging men to “let Mother vote.” She talks about how women have already contributed so much to the country through the men to whom they have given birth. She believes a “kind” approach is the best way to handle the men. 

As I listen to this, I can’t help but think of J. Annette Dennis’ recent (infamous) talk “Accessing God’s Power Through Covenants.” The talk in itself could have been seen as monumental. She talked about Latter-Day Saint women having power and authority from God. This is something most Latter-Day Saints struggle to acknowledge. But, she also suggested that women may not need any more power, authority, or representation when she said, “There is no other religious organization in the world, that I know of, that has so broadly given power and authority to women.” This was met with significant pushback.

To me, the current Relief Society Presidency does fight for change for women, just slowly and kindly, with a smile, and it’s simply not enough for many women. Recent Relief Society presidencies have talked about divorce, infertility, working women, and abuse, all deep, important topics. The key is: are they saying it so sweetly (and so infrequently, given how little of a platform they are given), that the general Church population is not listening? 

“Ladies”

This is possibly my favorite number in the musical and my comfort song while driving home from a particularly patriarchy-ridden Sabbath service. Grace MacLean leans in perfectly to the villainy of benevolent sexism.

To most women outside of the Church, this song is purely humorous. Surely no one today would still say that women are too fragile to handle responsibility like voting, right? 

Well, here are a few comments I have seen in the last month regarding Heavenly Mother (a literal goddess). 

“Imagine having a spouse, and knowing that if because of your public identity, you will be slandered and berated and any awful thing that can be said about you will be said… Imagine how you’d feel knowing the same could be done to your spouse because of their relationship to you.” 

“I don’t want my heavenly mother getting mocked, hypersexualized, or blasphemed for the sake of being more known, but that’s just me lol. I believe God doesn’t bring her up more in order to preserve her sanctity.” 

This sure reminds me of President Wilson’s insistence that “ladies must be protected” from the “dangers” of politics and the right to vote. In fact, the insistence that women get everything they need through the power of their husband’s vote echoes many of the comments I have heard about how women have plenty of influence in the Church based on their ability to convince their husbands of things. (Heck, it was not that long ago that Mission President’s wives were not included as “Mission Presidents,” despite their full service and call). 

Here’s my re-write of the end of this song: 

If priesthood pollutes our ladies’ lives, I’m scared to say.

We’ll sacrifice virility and compromise fertility and threaten the stability of the family.

So ladies must be commanded, they require a man to manage their affairs.

We must keep them safe at home, afar from evil, far from greed.

We must keep them in our arms where their freedom’s guaranteed.

So why would ladies’ need the priesthood? 

We provide all that they need! 

“A Meeting With President Wilson”

At the beginning of the next number, President Wilson insists that (despite singing an entire song about how women do not need the right to vote), “this is the first [he’s] hearing of this.” 

This is quite reminiscent of President Gordon B. Hinckley’s interview with Larry King. In answer to the question of women’s ordination, President Hinckley said, “Well, they don’t hold the priesthood at the present time. It would take another revelation to bring that about. I don’t anticipate it. The women of the church are not complaining about it. They have their own organization, a very strong organization, 4 million plus members. I don’t know of another women’s organization in the world which does so much for women as does that, as this church has. They’re happy. They sit on boards and governance in the church. I don’t hear any complaints about it.” 

“Worth It”

This song speaks to me so personally (and probably many women). I admit that it took about 50 listens before I could make it to the end without bursting into sobs, because I feel that this song so richly encapsulates the female experience. 

When all of the other members of the ensemble ask “is it worth it?” at the end, you can picture each woman weighing the decision to have children so heavily. No matter what Alice Paul or any other woman chooses, the decision can be excruciating. Is it worth it to work? Is it worth it to have children? Is it worth it to make any sacrifice to make either of those things work? How can you bring children into a world (and a Church) where they will face heartbreak and discrimination for things they cannot control? 

As I listen to this song, I am drawn to the story of current Relief Society President Camille N. Johnson. President Johnson worked as a lawyer while raising her children, and she talks about that regularly as she encourages women to put God first in their lives. This caused quite a stir recently, as many women were able to do the math and realize that President Johnson was running a law practice while the prophet of the time was saying things like:

“Wives, come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, come home from the factory, the café. No career approaches in importance that of wife, homemaker, mother—cooking meals, washing dishes, making beds for one’s precious husband and children.”

“This Girl”

This may be a bit of a stretch, but sometimes I see President Camille N. Johnson as a Carrie Chapman Catt. She clearly does believe that women are capable of more than just stay at home motherhood, if they choose it. She talks about it, and made that choice when the prophet counseled against it. Yet, now, she “plays nice” and recommends following all of the advice the prophet gives. 

To me, this can feel like Carrie Chapman Catt insisting that staying nice is the way to make your voice heard and effect change. And, in truth, as you’ll see in the show, both are needed. Carrie Chapman Catt could not do it without Alice Paul, but Alice Paul needed Carrie Chapman Catt too. 

In moments like when thousands of women pushed back on President Johnson’s talk about her motherhood and work, I can imagine time stopping for her and her filling with a bit of rage at “[These] Girls” who do not see how much she has done and is still trying to do for them. 

“Wait My Turn”

This song is amazing and powerful. Alice Paul has been the hero of the show. She’s plucky and inspiring! But when she suggests that Ida B. Wells march in the back and “wait her turn” to fight for equal rights for black Americans, Wells does not hesitate to point out how deeply flawed that opinion is. 

Yet, as Kate Mower (@LatterdayLez) has pointed out, many Latter-Day Saint feminists fail to include their queer and BIPOC siblings in their fight for equality. Discussions about Heavenly Mother still often enforce gender roles and heteronormative expectations. Mower wrote, “If our feminism looks like trying to claim as much power as cishet white men… we are doing it wrong!” 

Additionally, Mower said, “Our devotion to Heavenly Mother is a cishet white supremacist problem. There’s no other way to slice it. And the fact that many Mormon feminists don’t even know why that is is exhausting to try and explain repeatedly. We need to be more creative and less transphobic in our recreation of divinity.” 

When I read those quotes, I stopped in my tracks. I realized that I had been part of the problem. In my desperation to have Heavenly Mother just acknowledged more, was I essentially asking my queer siblings to wait their turn? 

I still think we should talk more about Heavenly Mother more, but I now work much harder to educate myself on the struggles of my queer siblings and I encourage all of us to involve them and their needs in our fights for equity.

Nicole Sbitani recently published a blogpost for Exponent II calling on the Exponent II community to do more to take up DEI efforts. If you have not read it, check it out here. 

As we continue to fight for equity in the Church, let’s make sure we are fighting for equity for all of God’s children. 

“How Long”

SPOILER FOR THE SHOW IN THIS ONE

This song is devastating. It comes in the show when Inez Milholland dies while giving a speech urging people to fight for suffrage. She collapses while begging the question, “How long must women wait for liberty?” (This follows a struggle with anemia and infertility that she had kept hidden- and of course, this makes “Worth It” even more heart-wrenching). At the funeral, the suffragists gather together to remember Inez and they continue to ask, “How Long?” 

This is how I felt when Kate Holbrook passed. It’s how I felt again when Melissa Inouye passed away. These women were so formative for me. They were accepted by large swaths of the church and had books published at Deseret Book. Kate Holbrook’s At The Pulpit made women’s voices more easily searchable in the Gospel Library App. They also openly spoke and wrote about feminist issues. I saw them as inspirations for how to make change, boldly! 

When they passed on, I did not know how things could still change. Without these women with powerful voices at Deseret Book and women’s conferences, would our progress take two steps back or stop entirely? 

Like the women in the show, I realized there are more voices, and I realized that I had to keep amplifying the things these women said, if I wanted to see change. 

“The Young Are At the Gates”

When people could be arrested for speaking out against the US involvement in WWI and the President at the time, these brave suffragists picketed at the White House. 

As I listen to “The Young Are At the Gates,” I think of the Ordain Women movement. I think of the women who asked to be admitted to the General Priesthood Session of Conference in October, 2013 and who continued to fight for admittance. 

I think of Kate Kelly’s excommunication and the women who have continued to stand “at the gates,” demanding equality for women in the Church. 

I am reminded of every woman who participates in micro-feminisms to make changes today. I think of the next generation of young women, in their classy, bright pantsuits, walking into the chapel, demanding change. 

“Respectfully Yours, Dudley Malone”

Dudley Malone met Doris Stevens and she essentially converted him to the cause of suffrage. He had a position in the government at the time and resigned publicly to voice his support for women. You can read about it here, if you are interested. 

Dudley Malone represents all of the male allies who stand with women. He has a lot to learn at the beginning, but he puts in the work and supports the cause of women, at a personal cost. 

This reminds me of a video Jana Spangler shared of a Bishop in Missouri who resigned and shared over the pulpit that he was stepping down, because he could not in good conscience continue with the calling. 

Dudley also reminds me of every man who reads Exponent II, every man who speaks up for women at church, every man who stands up for women in Instagram comments, and every man who “does the work.” 

“A Letter from Harry’s Mother”

Grab your tissues. The deciding vote in the final state ratifying the 19th amendment was cast by Harry Burn. He changed his initial vote after reading a note from his mother telling him to “be a good boy and vote for suffrage.” 

While this does not connect to a specific moment in recent Church history in my mind, it does make me think of the work women are doing everyday with their children. Every teacher who says, “I don’t know” or “What do you think?” when asked why girls can’t pass the sacrament is planting seeds for future generations to make the change. 

Personally, I think of my grandmother, who worked on a farm and fought everyday for her children. She believed women had a place, and she encouraged me to chase my dreams. I carry on her torch today. 

“Keep Marching”

This song is the final call in the show to keep showing up, keep fighting, and keep working for change. The women of the show reflect on their work and everything they accomplished while they plead for us to “keep marching.” 

They say:

“We did not end injustice and neither will you

but still, we made strides, so we know you can too

make peace with our incomplete power and use it for good

’cause there’s so much to do.”

As I read about Eliza R. Snow, Jane Nyman, Kate Kelly, Maxine Hanks, Eugene England, Lavina Fielding Anderson, and all of the other changemakers in and out of the church, I remember that they may not have done it perfectly and they may not have “finished the fight,” but they made strides and leaps and baby steps that got us where we are today. 

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I encourage you to listen to the rest of the show! Share in your comments what moments in the show remind you of Mormon feminism. Who are the “Suffs” in your ward or on your feed? 

And, I leave you with this call to keep fighting in a way that stays true to you: 

“The gains will feel small and the losses too large

Keep marching, keep marching.

You’ll rarely agree with whoever’s in charge.

Keep marching, keep marching.

‘Cause your ancestors are all the proof you need

That progress is possible, not guaranteed;

It will only be made if we keep marching on.” 

 

MM is an opera singer and voice teacher in the Pacific Northwest. When not singing, she enjoys reading, cooking, and hanging out with her husband and their pet turtle.

My God

By Danielle Kemp Nelson

Danielle is a Utah-based wedding photographer and lifelong member of the church, who is constantly finding ways to use her Sociology degree in the pursuit of elucidating the nuances of the communities she finds herself in, and finding creative ways to amplify the voices and stories of those who need to be heard. She is currently working on a book of poems exploring her relationship with the members of the Godhead (Heavenly Mother included;).

My God

Maybe I get to choose

The god I worship

Maybe I don’t have to accept

All the things I was told

Maybe my god gets to be kind,

And merciful,

Playful, and understanding.

Maybe my God wants me to explore,

to be curious,

To learn, and to grow.

Maybe my god isn’t so scary

But rather prefers to wrap me up

In great big arms of love

Maybe my god understood the journey

I needed to take –

Maybe my god wrote it in the stars

Maybe my god’s love and mercy is

Bigger

Than all the questions

Maybe my god exists

In a liminal space,

And laughs at the silliness

Of the black and white boxes, and lines that we create for Them

Maybe my god is good

Maybe my god is a god worth worshipping, after all