Exponent II's Blog, page 6

The Darkest Timeline

It’s bleak. 

Faster, faster, faster the world turns and I cannot hold my center.  

Vicious violent attacks leave me bewildered, not because they are novel or because of their specific circumstances, but because of the sudden tension that exploded into my awareness from unexpected corners. Violence begets violence begets violence and hate enables hate.  

Information swirls around and I’m not sure what I do or don’t know. Who shot whom? Why? What are the implications? Can anyone be certain about anything anymore? 

And yet, there do seem to be some certainties. Some people are very, very sure they know exactly who to hate. Who to hurt. Who to blame. Who to demonize. 

I am not so sure.  

At the same time, there’s a funeral in my own extended family. Another irrevocable change, a shift because the circumstances are outside of our control. And mingled guilt and grief, because I’m attending via Zoom link from over 1000 miles away instead of traveling to be there in person.  

Then the passing of President Russell M. Nelson. Do I feel something? Is there even time to feel?  

Meanwhile the party in power in my state seems hell bent on decimating what I love, threatening my profession, my livelihood, my joy, the safety and health of friends and loved ones. The only metaphor that seems to fit is that we are dodging the bombs being lobbed at us from all sides. Surviving one blow only to immediately duck and dodge the next one. 

And then I make the most fundamental mistake of all in reading the news of the day. 

There’s no time to process. No time to feel. No gentle allowance of understanding and hope to creep in and light up the darkness. We run from crisis to crisis to crisis and yes, it’s bleak. 

In my comfortiest of comfort shows, the kind of thing I watch in the evening to both decompress and fully numb away the *waves at everything,* one of the ensemble characters becomes fixated on the idea of timelines, particularly that some timelines are darker than others.  

Like Abed, I do think we are clearly in the darkest of timelines. I shudder to imagine a darker one.   

The darkest timeline in Community is no stranger to gun violence, selfishness, blind hatred, intentional traumatizing. To combat the darkness, Abed cuts through the sense that things are about the worst they can be with his simple wisdom: 

“Chaos already dominates enough of our lives. The universe is an endless, raging sea of randomness. Our job isn’t to fight it, but to weather it together on the raft of life, held together by those few, rare, beautiful things that we know to be predictable…Us. It won’t matter what happens to us as long as we stay honest and accepting of each other’s flaws and virtues.” 

Here’s what I know to be true right now: 

For the space of a month to eight years, the Church will possibly be led by a well-known and particularly active transphobe who has before and theoretically will again reinforce homophobia and transphobia in the Church.  

For the space of three to an alarmingly unlimited number of years, my country will be held hostage by amoral, unqualified people who are intent on dismantling the idea that government exists to help and support the regular people, the marginalized, the poor, the ones who need justice to right past wrongs.  

For at least two years, one political ideology will have a majority in my state legislature and that free reign, unchecked, will have a further impact on the poor and the marginalized of my state. Already, some have to flee the impacts of their harmful decisions. 

When Abed recognizes he’s in the darkest timeline of his story, he decides if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. He invites his friends to also be evil. And he decides to do evil things, going on a rampage of his own, until another character, the ostensibly most morally grey character of the ensemble, makes this defusing speech: 

“…guys like me will tell you there’s no right or wrong, there’s no real truths…and as long as we all believe that, guys like me can never lose. Because the truth is, I’m lying when I say there is no truth. The truth is- the pathetically, stupidly, inconveniently obvious truth is- helping only ourselves is bad and helping each other is good. Now, I just wanted to get out of here, pass Biology and be a lawyer again instead of helping Shirley-that was bad. And my former colleague wanted so badly to keep his rich client happy that he just asked me to roll over in exchange for my old job. So, I guess we all walked in here pretty bad. But now Shirley’s gone good. Shirley’s helping me. It’s that easy: you just stop thinking about what’s good for you and start thinking about what’s good for someone else…and you can change the whole game with one move…” 

If I’m convincing you that Community should be on your list of comfort TV shows, then I’m going to consider this post as having put good into the world. 

If you’ve read this far and allowed me to lay my burdens down for a moment, that is a good I’ll appreciate wholeheartedly.  

Yes, it’s bleak. 

Yes, there’s good in the world. We humans, coming together, deciding to do good for each other.  

There’s still Mr. Roger’s “helpers” at work in the world.   

Good is slow. Good is helping others, so “pathetically, stupidly, inconveniently obvious.” Good is hoping that the one small thing you do, that moment you let caring for someone else guide your words and actions, will make a difference. 

“Only love, only love, even if it’s not enough,” sings First Aid Kit, whose album Stay Gold has been playing on repeat for me for months. 

I don’t know that we can escape, reverse, or weather the dark times. Jesus Christ taught me first that love is the sustaining force, the good we put out in the world perhaps especially when it’s still not enough. Perhaps He can make up the difference after all we can do.    

 Last week, I hauled my thrifted and re-purposed stash of craft tools to the library to hold a small craftivist evening activity. We took the prompt to envision the best future possible and then to stitch our dreams into fabric. 

Nobody finished in two hours, and nothing much really happened, because the purpose of this was to be slow, deliberate, and thoughtful. To let ourselves take the time to really feel, really think, really connect.  

Our words were kindness, unity, and community. That’s what we hope for. That’s what we want to build toward.  

It may not be enough, but that’s how I will weather the darkest timeline.  

Photo “Destruction Where Once Was Splendor” by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

A Woman Shall Lead Them – Flesh and Blood and Water: Emblems in the Tower

October 2025 – I wrote the blogpost below in April of 2025, after attending the Maundy Thursday service led by the Bishop of London, in the Old Chapel of the Tower of London. This week, Bishop Sarah Mullally has just been chosen to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. She is the first woman to fill this post. It is thrilling to see such an amazing person selected as leader of the Anglican Church. I have often thought about how she led the service I share in this blog post, and the deep impact it had on me. I share this again at this important time.

Link to the original post – https://exponentii.org/blog/flesh-and...

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Hours after arriving in London, I gathered with family and others by a side gate at the Tower of London. The site was empty of tourists as evening approached.

At 6:30, the guard opened the gate, and placed chapel passes on the wrists of the 20 of us waiting to enter.

We walked through the empty grounds as the setting sun reflected on the stone buildings. This was the golden hour. We entered the ancient fortress in the center courtyard and ascended the steps to the oldest room near the top of the oldest building of the Tower complex. We passed through the large armory, and a chamber where several clergy greeted us. Then they ushered us into the Old Chapel Royal, built a thousand years ago in the center of the high-walled Norman castle.

There were a few rows of small wooden pews. The stone walls rose in several levels of stone arches which surrounded the small nave. The only adornment was the altar, covered in fine white linen, on which were several large altar crosses and vessels for communion.

We stood as three clergy entered, led by the Bishop of London, the Right Honorable Dame Sarah Mullally. She wore a deep red robe. She stepped to the altar and draped a loose white robe over her shoulders. The other two clergy wore white robes.

One of the priests welcomed us, inviting us to follow the printed program, which would guide us in knowing when and how to respond, or join in singing. He said all were welcome to partake of the emblems of communion. He expressed appreciation for all of us coming to this Maundy Thursday service during this Holy Week, especially those of us visiting from far away Utah. He is friends with my sister, who has brought students and groups to services here for decades. I felt assured that all are invited to partake of the emblems. None are denied.

The small choir stood at the back of the chapel. Their voices were pure and piercing as they sang the Introit, Panis Angelicus to begin the service. The beautiful sound seemed to rise up behind us, then descend down upon us.

As they sang, Bishop Mullally sat in a chair in front of the altar, facing us. Before the first prayer, she removed the symbols of her office and station from her head and shoulders. She led the service in her simple robes of deep red and white.

I listened to the reading of the Lord’s Prayer, and thought of the countless people who, over the centuries, had come here to this chapel, to lead, or listen to services, sometimes out of duty, sometimes reluctantly, or desperately, or arrogantly. How many had come as I did that night – pleading and hungry for something that brought hope for grace, love and mercy in a world where harsh power, fear, violence, and threat of imprisonment was growing. This chapel had existed for a millennium. Just half the time since the extraordinary event in Gethsemane, when Christ revealed At-One-Ment. The experience of love so deep and complete, He became each of us, feeling what we feel, existing as we each exist, knowing us, aware of us with no barriers, no fear, so completely, with no expectation of reward or compensation. This is where His love led Him, to be one with us. All of us. Me.

My fear of what is happening in the world gripped me. Then, I listened again for what is there when I am present to it.

“I am with you. No matter where your journey leads. I am with you.”

Again, it breaks my heart…open. Overwhelmed, I had to remind myself to breathe.

I listened to the priest read the Summary of the Law.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ said: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord the God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

I read the response. . .

Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.

The choir sang Kyrie Eleison. Lord have mercy.

The service included a moving sermon from the Bishop. Then she placed a chair facing the altar, and set towels and a bowl of water on the floor in front of it. My sister, Jane was one of three women chosen to participate in this part of the service. She removed her shoes, and stepped forward to sit in the chair. The Bishop knelt before her, gently lifting first one, then the other foot into the bowl, washing her feet with water, tenderly tracing a cross where Christ’s wounds would have been, cradling her feet in a towel to wipe away the drops. Then she invited Jane to rise, and return to us.

During this ceremony, I looked at my sister, leaning forward in the chair, and the Bishop, in deep red and flowing white, kneeling and bending over the bowl of water, washing feet that might be tired and hurting. I closed my eyes and thought of the images I had recently seen of hundreds of men, stripped, heads shaven, sitting in rows on the cold stone floor of a prison in El Salvador, packed together so tightly it was hard to distinguish one from another. They leaned on each other, some so worn their heads fell to the side, unable to stay upright. I could not tell if the marks on them were bruises, or tattoos, or wounds, or blood. I opened my eyes and, for a moment, thought one of these men was sitting in the chair before the altar, leaning over the bowl as his tired, wounded feet were washed by gentle hands. The hands washing his feet were also wounded, pierced through the palm and wrist.

I pray for understanding.

Is this what You meant when You said, “I have graven you upon the palms of my hands.” And “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these…ye have done it unto me.”

Is everything I do vicarious? Everything I do impacts, in some way, everything and everyone.
Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.
When have I turned away from those who are suffering?
When have I added to someone’s wounds, or inflicted more?
Would I step in to shield someone, or to lift them and release them from prison?
What if I think I am helping, but it only makes it worse? How can I know?
The priest continued with reading to prepare for communion.

“Hear what comfortable words our Savior Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him.

Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.”

All were invited to the altar to kneel, one by one. We could extend our hands to receive the emblems of the body and blood of Christ. Or, if we preferred, we could hold our hands over our heart when kneeling, signaling a desire to receive a blessing from the Bishop. All individual needs were welcomed and fulfilled.

This service commemorated the institution begun at the Last Supper, as Christ offered physical nourishment to symbolize the transformative nourishment of his word to our very being. And as Christ showed us the Way, by kneeling and washing feet, and serving with great love.

“Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ…that we are very members incorporate of the mystical body of thy Son.

The Peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God.”

Receive these mysteries.
Members of the mystical body.
Peace which passeth all understanding.
I struggle with what I cannot explain. I want to know how it is done.
God invites me to experience that which is beyond language.
The final part of the service occurs after the last song, after the final prayer, after everything is spoken.
The clergy carefully strip the altar. All items, all linens are removed and put away.
The altar is bare.
We sit in silence for a moment. Then we gradually make our way out.
What is there on the empty altar for me?
What can I lay on the altar?
What do I grasp that keeps me from experiencing God?
What greater sin is there than my barriers to God’s love? To loving others? To hesitate because I need to know the right way to do this? How can I practice mercy when I can’t begin to describe how Your mercy overwhelms me?

First Woman as the New Archbishop of Canterbury

As a newly minted doctoral student in 2003, I remember my supervisor traveling in an armored van to take the Gospels of St. Augustine, a book in my college’s medieval manuscript collection, to Canterbury Cathedral for the Archbishop enthronement of Rowan Williams. 

The book was brought to England from Rome by St. Augustine of Canterbury in the year 595 as a missionary book from which to preach the gospel. St. Augustine later became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. 

My supervisor and the book processed down the long aisle of the cathedral and Williams kissed the book as part of the service. It all looked quite magnificent, even watching it on tv from a distance.

I was an active Mormon at that time in my life, and looked forward to teaching children in Primary every week. I enjoyed being part of the Cambridge Ward, where I felt welcomed and loved, where I met my husband, made many friends, and had many of my most cherished Mormon experiences with community.

While I have never been part of the Church of England, my mother (and generations before her) grew up Anglican in the United Kingdom. Though my mother often said that she and her sisters were not particularly loyal to the Church of England and attended whichever Protestant church had the best youth trips at any given time. 

There was something meaningful in this elaborate ceremony that connected the twenty-first century present to a more distant medieval and early Christian past. This was a new experience for me as a Mormon. I was envious of the pageantry that celebrated the long history of the church.

As a medieval art historian, I knew that Canterbury Cathedral was a place of pilgrimage, destructive fire, a famous murder, innovative architecture, and celebrated in literature. It carried its history into the present by electing new leaders to adapt to an ever-changing world.

This week I was surprised and overjoyed to hear that Sarah Mullally will be the first woman to become the Archbishop of Canterbury. This position is the head of the Anglican Communion and one of the world’s largest Christian denominations, with about 85 million members globally.

She will be the 106th person to hold that position. This is a big big deal. She has advocated for the inclusion of LGBT people within the church and is a self-described feminist and theological liberal.

Sarah Mullally came to ministry via a long career in nursing and healthcare leadership. It seems fitting that she will now tend to the wounds of a global church trying to hold itself together through deep division. 

Her installation is already being challenged by people within and outside of the church who have not been supportive of ordained women, but that is to be expected. 

I look forward to watching and experiencing these rituals, still from a distance, all over again. I look forward to being reminded that Christian faith is not something new and weird (though it can certainly be that), but old and mature and with enough room to hold both wisdom and folly, community and scandal, and hope in all its complexity.

Church ordinances don’t teach that sex and gender are inseparable

On September 19th, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints filed an amicus brief for the Supreme Court cases Bradley Little v. Lindsay Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. The brief argues against protecting transgender status as a quasi-suspect class. It expresses concerns that church members would be subjected to “legal and social stigma because their faith teaches that sex and gender are inseparable.” The church website defines gender as biological sex at birth. However, ordinance rituals (a central part of Latter Day Saint worship) use female-coded symbols to instruct about members’ relationships with the male figures of Jesus and Heavenly Father. Church ordinances can reveal God as a gender-expansive being.

Some church ordinances are: the sacrament (similar to the Eucharist in other Christian denominations), baptism, and the temple endowment. I will discuss female symbolism in each of these in turn.

The sacrament echoes the Last Supper, where bread and water are eaten in remembrance of Jesus’ body and blood. Jesus taught “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life” (John 6:54) This seemingly cannibalistic saying was difficult for ancient people, and continues to be difficult for some modern people as well. But what if we look past Jesus’ male gender? A woman gives her flesh to her baby to eat when she breastfeeds. The baby “drank” her blood when it was in her womb. These can be everyday experiences for a mother. What if Jesus is pictured as a mother nursing his baby? A baby uses nourishment from the mother to transform itself into a more developed being. Similarly, Christians are supposed to use nourishment from Christ’s teachings to transform themselves into more developed beings. Jesus gave himself a strongly female-coded role when asking his disciples to imagine their relationship to him.

Like many Christians, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints see baptism as a rebirth. The person who is baptized has their body completely immersed in water, just like a baby is completely immersed in water when they are in the womb. Scriptures in The Book of Mormon reiterate the necessity of baptism and a second, spiritual birth. Alma 5:14 says “And now behold, I ask of you…have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances?” In Mormon theology, “God” refers to three separate beings: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father and Son have tangible (presumably male) bodies of flesh and bones. The Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit and is referred to with male pronouns. This all-male godhead gives birth to new creatures who look like Him.

Temple ceremonies, such as the endowment, are held sacred by members of the Church. I will discuss a portion of the endowment ceremony in an abstract way, out of respect to the ceremony’s sacred nature. During the endowment, temple patrons enact a quest for further light and knowledge from the Father. At one point in the ceremony, a man representing the Lord holds hands with the patron. (The individual representing the Lord is never a woman.) The physical connection between the Lord and the temple patron forms a symbolic umbilical cord going through the navel. The Lord also tests the patron’s knowledge. They communicate verbally through symbols associated with nipples. The Father, a male, is symbolically breastfeeding the patron.

Each of these ordinances (the sacrament, baptism, and the endowment) contain strong birth imagery. In each of these ordinances it is a male god figure who gives birth to new life within the church member. The church teaches that God is gendered as a male, yet in church ordinances God symbolically gestates, births, and breastfeeds those who participate. How queer. Could God be trans? The God experienced through church ritual transcends gender constraints. God has trans characteristics, so trans folx can certainly have God’s image reflected in their countenances. God comprehends trans experiences. Jesus taught “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these…ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40)

Church ordinances present a male-gendered God forming relationships with humanity using symbols associated with biological females. With this perspective, it’s hard to understand how the Church can make a legal argument that their teachings require a faith that gender and biological sex are inseparable. The perspective shared in this post, that ordinances are filled with birth imagery, is not a commonly discussed way to interpret these ordinances. The cisgender men who lead the church do not have first-hand experience giving birth or nursing a baby. They will not notice or signify gendered symbolism in the same way others may. As with any organization, the leaders have a limited pool of experiences to draw from. When leadership is limited to a certain type of person, the collective understanding of the leadership (and therefore of the organization) is also limited.

The scriptures teach that God is no respecter of persons. Each human being is a child of God, capable of learning and growing in spiritual knowledge. Openly LGBTQ perspectives are absent from church leadership. Such perspectives would extend the Saints’ understanding of God. The church misses seeing spiritual truths when its group of visionaries excludes a broad spectrum human experience. Humanity misses gaining further light and knowledge when the voices of some groups are systematically filtered out. If everyone were included, the result would be not just the priesthood of God, but perfection.

Sarah Mullally will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury

Just a few days ago on the blog, Marina Capella asked “What if our next prophet was a woman?“, and discussed the lack of leadership training women in the church get compared to men. Today the news announced that Sarah Mullally will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury and will lead the Anglican Communion. She will be the first woman to ever hold the position. The Church of England began to ordain women in the ’90s. In the U.S., eleven women were ordained as Episcopal priests in the ’70s. (PBS has a great documentary about them.) Once women are ordained in a church, it can still take decades for women to reach the highest levels of leadership.

Confessions of a Ghost Story Lover

Trigger warning: this post refers to some scary story content, so if you are sensitive, please be advised!

I got hooked on listening to ghost stories and paranormal podcasts last October. Sometimes it’s all I want to listen to as I scrub toilets or prepare dinner. I don’t always feel clear as to why–I don’t really like being scared, and many of the stories are not pleasant to remember when going to bed. What makes ghost stories so appealing to me? In this post, I’ll gather my thoughts about why I find these stories both beneficial to my spirituality and fascinating.

Intellectual humility and openness to the spiritual dimension of life

Over time in every day life, I can start to feel apathetic about spiritual things. Ghost stories disrupt my cynicism and draw me into mystery. I enjoy how they invite me to take a break from the rational approach to life I use most of the time and my banal routines. They remind me that I don’t and can’t understand or know everything, and that when it comes to spiritual things, the jury is out; definitive conclusions are often not possible. The fact that many people people experience interesting things that we cannot fully explain makes spirituality appear more viable and relevant to me at times. And some stories sometimes pique my curiosity about faith and the spiritual realm. While I try not to use paranormal accounts as some kind of existential security blanket (such as, “I know with certainty that life continues after death because of ghost stories”), I like how stories invite me to stay open to spiritual possibilities.

Many supernatural stories give me chills and even a sense of awe and wonder, experiences that put us in touch with our spiritual sensibilities. They activate critical thinking in a fun way; it’s valuable to approach them with some skepticism. Some accounts can and should be explained away by sleep paralysis, drug use, intruders, etc. As we listen, it is healthy to ask, “is there another explanation?” Listeners like me often suspend belief until the story passes this test. Even then, we’ve got to recognize that believing something supernatural happened requires trust in the story teller and their capacities to make sense of what they experienced.

Paranormal stories sometimes even help us tap into unexpected relief and joy in the face of depressive thoughts, helping us exit ruts in our thinking and focus. Allen Simon shared about how he reached a point during his undergraduate years when all his reading and searching for truth as a student came to feel like a meaningless, banal drag. Then, he attended a retreat where religious scholars and social scientists discussed intriguing case studies of “near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, past life memories, and paranormal phenomena like precognition and ghost sightings.” Despite his skepticism, something clicked. He told himself, “I don’t care if these things are real or not…I’ve found my people. They’re the people who ask those questions about whether there’s more to life than the terrestrial [junk] I see around me on a day-to-day basis.” He loves how paranormal accounts invite us to ponder whether “these anomalous experiences are actually at the heart of who we are as humans,” or in other words, whether humans have a less understood, second spiritual dimension that makes life full of intriguing possibilities. I resonate with this!

A way to practice coping with anxiety and fear

Life tends to scare me, and intense movies and the news are often too much. Paranormal stories, which often scare me and give me exposure to frightening stuff I can’t control, seem to make me a bit more tolerant of the anxiety and fear I experience. Ghost stories have long been a way people process, share, and make meaning out of fears and even traumas. They also help us deal with death.

Affirmation of my own paranormal moments

Hearing a voice whispering in my ear when I was alone. A figure opening my bedroom door and peering at my sister when I wasn’t in there. My TV turning on to play strange music without any image three times during family prayer, then hearing a strange sound like a groan when I unplugged the TV. People telling me they can see my aura in real time. Hearing footsteps in my bedroom at night. Receiving messages in dreams from people beyond the veil when working on family history research. A missionary telling me she has discovered she has a gift to see spirits and receive messages from them to help others. I’ve experienced these small moments, and paranormal stories validate that these strange things are a shared experience that we can make meaning out of.

A unique, compelling narrative experience

Ghost stories sometimes put us in touch with the beauty of spiritual longing and possibilities of unexpected grace, connection, forgiveness, and healing. The accounts I like the most are intriguing and poignant and include some kind of mysterious reaching across a divide.

Unlike some podcasters, I’m not very interested in engaging ghost stories to explore what scares me or my irrational fears (I’m aware enough already for my liking). And I’m not interested in seeking haunted experiences. I also don’t like being pressured to believe or not believe, or when people treat settling whether something supernatural actually happened or not as the top priority when listening to stories. For me, this disrupts the enjoyment of stories that are fascinating on their own, no such commentary needed. The element of the stories I’m most interested is meaning.

Many of my favorite stories center on families and relationships. I love stories in which people are haunted or helped by members of their own family trees, and when there seems to be a deliberate attempt to address a familial or community issue. Sometimes, messages are communicated; secrets come out, or traumas are processed. Other good stories are more about families coming together to make sense of a shared unpleasant experience or problem with their home. Personally, I don’t love stories about spiritual evil rearing its head, although the way people fight and surmount dark forces can sometimes make for a great story (if this is for you, and your tolerance for scares is high, I recommend “Deliver Me from Evil” and “Shark Tooth Boy“. My favorite stories are usually about family struggle, (dis)connection, intergenerational relationships, and exploring relational meanings.

I admit such stories are rare. A lot of people claim to experience supernatural things that just seem random and weird that they can’t make much sense out of it. Some of these are more interesting than others. I do like how they lean into mystery and unknowns. Really good stories are the exception partly because even if something meaningful happens, it can be difficult, soul-searching work to respond to the experience and to tell it in a compelling way.

I like ghost stories for similar reasons as good literature. When they’re really good, they raise questions about what it means to be human, move me emotionally, make me think, and invite me to get in touch with my own feelings and spiritual longings.

The fact ghost stories are often told by the people who experienced them and have this mysterious supernatural, often even spiritual dimension give them a supercharged quality. A really good one can be oral storytelling on steroids. It’s the kind of real-life material that great literature draws inspiration from. 

Here are a few examples of what I consider to be moderately good to excellent stories. These come from the podcast Spooked, a team who puts care into commissioning and producing some great stories. I’ll just provide a teaser:

John Blake’s story performed during Spooked live Who is the spirit who sometimes comes to visit John at night, and who steals some of the birthday cards his grandparents sent him? 

“Sister sister”: Twin sisters have a friend who doesn’t speak who visits unexpectedly from time to time. In time, they notice things aren’t normal.

“Uncle Charlie”: Todd sees a photo of a relative at his grandmother’s house that makes him recall a long series of nighttime disruptions during his childhood.

“Piper from the Past”: Bagpiper Steve discovers that someone from history with a shared hobby wants to connect with him.

“These Boots are Made for Stalking”: A family experiences the same strange strange figure in their home without talking about it to each other for years.

“Isabelle”: Betsy is haunted by a girl who visits both her dreams and her bedroom at night. A family secret needs to surface.

“DEBRA” : An angry, possessive spirit criticizes a young mom as she cares for her new baby in the nursery. What the heck is going on?

I enjoy looking at ghost stories through an LDS lens

In LDS teachings, spirits don’t go to “heaven” after death. Instead, they await the second coming and the earth itself is the “spirit world” for everyone. Their relief and salvation is not yet complete, and there is no traditional heaven, hell or purgatory. LDS teachings suggest that some righteous spirits in the spirit world are more happy and peaceful and close to God (“spirit paradise”), while others who are less righteous are more troubled or in a dark place (“spirit prison”). 

Much of this framework for understanding what’s going on in the spirit world is a very decent match for many ghost stories, which collectively and individually suggest that the earth is full of spirits. Take for example, “Ghost Ride the Whip”, in which the narrator’s aunt is a magnet for spirits who want to connect with the world of the living, not just in certain places, but wherever she travels. Or consider “This Olde house” in which a single house in England seems to be inhabited by people from many generations across history. In some stories, a whole neighborhood appears to be haunted by people who once lived there.

Some ghosts bring comfort or assistance as if they are empowered, self-aware individuals in a spirit paradise. There are quite a few stories like this.

Others act angry or confused or share their traumatic experiences with living people. And in some stories, recognized deceased people who lived decent but challenging lives seem to become kind of insane and mean in the next life. One example of this is a story called “Mrs. Hagstrom”. When a family moves into a home, they feel pity for the woman who once lived there because they learn she suffered some painful traumas. They are shocked when they realize the house is haunted by her ghost and that she wants to scare and disrupt them. She even tries to push their youngest child down the stairs. In a similar story, “The Lady,” the spirit of a woman becomes cruel to a young girl living in her former house.

Sometimes the spirits of children seem isolated or distressed. In one account, three spirits who died as children seek refuge and love from a living mom. 

In many stories, not having a body doesn’t seem so great; this may line up decently with D&C 138:50. It’s hard to connect and communicate, and some spirits also don’t seem to realize they are dead or what’s going on. I heard a story in which a man’s spirit described going up to the sky hoping to go to heaven, but ending up disoriented about what the afterlife is about. Some spirits seem to have nothing to do. I heard one story about a depressed ghost who spent most of her time watching TV.

This less pleasant side of the spirit world raises tough questions. What does it mean that some spirits appear to be waiting a very long amount of time to receive the healing, direction, and help they need? Why do some decent people who lived hard lives and were even abused or abandoned seem to be lonely and suffering in the next life? Does everyone who appears to be in “spirit prison,” actually deserve to be there? What might we not understand about what is going on or limitations God may have to work with? I find these questions distressing, but worth pondering. I don’t like to think of spirits suffering, being alone, waiting listlessly for relief. I want faith that God is present in some way in the spirit world and already actively reaching out to and helping everyone who is willing to be reached, and certainly, some scriptures suggest that this is indeed the intention and plan (such as in D&C 138).

I am intrigued by stories that challenge my spiritual worldview

We Mormons seem pretty attached to the idea that human spirits match the form of our physical bodies, but this is not the case in every ghost story. In some stories it would appear as if this is rather fluid, even as if spirits choose the form they appear in. Take for example, Spooked’s episode about a ghost named Dod. The family who encountered him believed he was the spirit of a teddy-bear loving neighbor boy who died in a fire (whose last name was Dodd). He befriended their preschooler, appearing in the form of a white teddy bear. They theorized his disfiguring death impacted the way he showed up as a spirit–he had no distinct face, just a muzzle. There are also many stories about “mimics,” ill-intentioned spirits who seem to be able to change shape to imitate living people for brief moments.

In indigenous paranormal stories, the world of animal and human spirits is fluid and enmeshed in ways many of us Mormons might be uncomfortable with. For example, in one story, an Indigenous medicine worker recounts a terrifying, tall spirit in a feline/human hybrid shape he met when on call to help a troubled family. Another medicine man performs a successful exorcism on a teenage boy who has been cursed to be possessed by the spirit of a bull every night. Sometimes people encounter humanoid spirits who appear to serve as land guardians. I heard a story about a group of teenagers who were chased by guardians whose heads were attached directly to their bodies (no neck) in a tropical jungle. 

Greater fluidity in the spiritual realm can be found in other paranormal stories from across the globe. In a story that happened in China, an aunt claims her young nephew was possessed by the spirit of a fox after the family built their house on a fox habitat; a traditional medicine woman cures him. In the Filipino community, a tattooist removes spirits who sap the energy and stifle the emotional growth of the people they attach themselves to; the removal of these spirits is manifest, most humorously, through bloating and gas on the part of the tattooist (I’m not sure what to do with this!)

A Ukrainian-American family’s grandmother creates burlap Motanka guardian dolls that have power to protect a granddaughter from bad dreams and monsters. They hold brooms to sweep away evil. An American child staying the night for a sleepover sees the dolls move when she approaches them. This frightens her, but she is also cured for life of her night terrors. 

Meanwhile, a Russian family’s long-time household spirit, or domovoi, gets upset when furniture is moved in their old family home. To show its displeasure, it appears as a snake each night, scaring the adult sister. When her brother tries to take revenge for this by showing his anger, the domovoi destroys his ipad. The brother had thought the “domovoi” tradition was just irrational fiction, yet becomes a reluctant believer. 

An Italian-American teenager suddenly suffers from inexplicable health and mental issues. She can’t get out of bed, feel her legs, or remember anything. Desperate, her grandmother sends $3,000 dollars to an Italian witch coven, requesting a spell to break any possible curses. The girl suddenly recovers a couple months later on the exact day the coven promised the spell would reach her.

Whether you are willing to believe such stories literally is one thing, but it’s humbling to me to realize that for people who experience these things, they are likely just as real and worldview-affirming as a person from an Abrahamic faith being visited by the spirit of a deceased relative. And we can’t dismiss the plurality of experiences by saying these story tellers are tampering with things that are evil or should be treated as untouchable, that is not usually the case.

It’s intriguing to ponder whether the spiritual realm is more flexible, complex and multi-faith than we might think. To what extent do various spiritual practices and beliefs impact what develops or happens on a spiritual plane? Why does faith seem to be so powerful? How can a grandmother grant a doll power to cure nightmares? How does a spell created by strangers thousands of miles away heal someone of perplexing medical issues? Or how does a tattooist heal someone of their psychological ills? There are no priesthood keys or liturgical formalities going on here. Just folk spirituality and faith in rituals and forces that are not familiar to most of us.

This problem reminds me of something I remember reading in Stretching the Heavens. Eugene England was perplexed by how frequently Mormons experience divine interventions and miracles considering how small and esoteric a group we are. He gave his car a blessing to work again when facing an emergency; the car was miraculously repaired. He wasn’t even surprised because such things had been happening to him all of his life. How is it that so many cultures claim such a strong and powerful pull on the spiritual and divine realm all at once? What ties it all together? This line of thought doesn’t lead me to deconstruct Mormon spirituality, it invites me to expand what I’m open to and wonder where we’re too exclusionary toward peoples’ spiritual gifts and experiences or ignorant of of bigger picture realities. I feel invited into a space of greater theological openness and pluralism that fills me with wonder. As someone who does interfaith work, I find this helpful in my efforts to treat others as equals I can learn from.

Paranormal stories often affirm women’s spiritual power in ways that challenge LDS approaches to authority, spiritual gifts, and revelation. There are numerous stories in which women discover that they have spiritual gifts to see and/or communicate with people in the spirit world. In Where’s my Son, for example, a woman helps a spirit locate a son’s burial spot using newly discovered gifts. After that, she regularly takes up the task of helping others in the spirit world. How can Mormons grapple with the fact that some women have seer-like abilities to see and know spiritual things that others can’t? 

Another problem to ponder is that while paranormal experiences often line up with a person’s personal beliefs, there are many cases when they don’t! For example, tourists sometimes stumble on land guardians, such as Hawaii’s land-protecting spirits, the Huakaʻi Pō, or Nightmarchers. How and why do our various spiritual worlds collide and intersect? How is it possible for an atheist from the Western world, for example, to experience spiritual entities they have zero belief in or past conceptual exposure to? How can someone who doesn’t believe at all in their own families’ past folk or spiritual beliefs experience them in real time in the 21st century?

It’s interesting to notice parallels and differences across stories

Assuming ghost stories are true and that “ghosts” are the spirits of deceased humans (usually not something evil), what determines what spirits can and can’t do, or how they can show up in our world? Ghost stories constantly raise such questions. Spirits don’t have fleshy limbs, vocal chords or brains and we don’t know what exactly their “spiritual bodies” are capable of or what their experience is like. It’s all very mysterious. I love enjoying the mystery and seeing the patterns across experiences.

For example, multiple stories I’ve listened to report that ghosts’ lower bodies, especially their legs and feet fade into nothing. Is this why people draw ghosts with a tapering off shape where legs should be? Also, there are many cases in which the bodily form is all there, sometimes with great details in some places, but the faces just aren’t visible. Sometimes other body parts are invisible, such as eye balls (creepy). Sometimes a spirit appears as a dark mist or a shadow in a human shape instead.

Often spirits show up looking the way they were when they passed away (even down to wearing their funeral clothes), but not always. In one story, a woman who died in her 40s consistently appeared as a little girl. The extended family member living in the house she haunted learned she had become chronically ill in early adolescence and was appearing as the age she was when she was happiest. Sometimes, ghosts appear with physical wounds they suffered in life, and sometimes not. 

The question of whether and how much ghosts verbalize is interesting. In most stories, if they do speak, it is just a couple words or a sentence. Sometimes people report telepathic experiences. It is rare in stories for a spirit to talk at length. One exception is “Uncle Charlie,” the spirit of a man who died in WWII who sits on the bed of his nephew sharing detailed stories from his time at war. He stops talking if the boy told him to stop, but never directly converses. I have heard an occasional story in which people claim they have experienced conversations or even friendships with spirits. 

Some people report that they have received telephone calls from deceased loved ones. According to one story, a grandmother who had passed briefly called her granddaughter by phone every time it was the grandmother’s birthday. A man received several phone calls from a friend who died in a car accident. In another case, police responded to a phone call made from a locked bedroom where there was a separate phone line, but no telephone connected. I like the strangeness of these accounts.

Another area of divergence across stories is whether and how ghosts interact with the physical world. There are many stories in which ghosts don’t seem capable of manipulating physical things. The teller’s hand will pass through a ghost. There might be no physical disturbance. Yet there are also many stories in which ghosts touch or push people, make loud sounds such as foot steps, open doors, move objects, and climb into bed with people or sit on couches such that others feel it and it appears they have weight. In some cases, ghosts turn on TVs and light switches, or manipulate electricity and water. Do some ghosts learn to manipulate physical things while others don’t?

Many people report smells that come with ghosts– cigarettes and cigars, a perfume, a familiar smell from the past. It signals their presence. This doesn’t make any logical sense, but is intriguing.

There are also many strange and striking recurrences that people report in darker stories. I won’t go into these in detail, but a few of these are mimics/ dopplegangers, poltergeists, shadow people including figures of tall men wearing top hats, haunted dolls and other haunted objects (creepy), Skinwalkers, and cryptozoology (big foot, etc).

Final Thoughts

Ghost stories give me a lot of food for thought, keep me interested and engaged in what is sometimes rich and riveting storytelling, and make me feel a little more wonder about and connection to mysterious things. They raise questions about religious and spiritual topics I never would have thought of on my own and help me expand my worldview in a way I enjoy. Maybe you love ghost stories, but not for the same reasons as me, or you have thought about very different themes concerning them. I’d love to hear about it. If you’re looking to listen to scary stories this Spooky season, I hope you find some that speak to you and engage your spirituality!

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Images are from Canva premium, except for the Motanka dolls image, which comes from Wikimedia.

Talking About Agency

This blog post is based on a talk I gave in Sacrament meeting on August 31, 2025. I was given a prompt from the Doctrine and Covenants, which is a problem because I’ve been avoiding that book all year. However, I’m one of the weird people that actually likes public speaking so I was willing to engage with the D&C for the chance to speak in church.   

One thing about me is that I’m kind of a wannabe theologian. I love studying theology. Four years ago I joined a Ladies Bible Study group with a local church. I’ve attended Bible Study classes and special weekend retreats with that group. It has been really fun and informative. When I was attending I learned a lot of study techniques that help me get a lot more out of scripture. 

One of my favorite techniques is looking at a passage of scripture from four different view points. 

The first view point is to read the scriptureThe second is to think about what the scripture would have meant to the original audience.The third is to think about how the atonement impacts the meaning of the scripture. And the fourth is to think about how the scripture applies to you today. 

That last step should sound really familiar. In our church we are super good at running straight to “How does this scripture apply to me.” And there is nothing wrong with applying scriptures to our lives. But I’ve found that it’s helpful to do that step AFTER the other three steps. 

What I’m going to do today is take the scripture that was assigned to me and look at it from each of these view points and kind of show you how it works. Ideally we’d have thirty minutes or more to do this, but I’m going to try to make this work in ten. 

The first step is to Read the Scripture. And I know that sounds simple, but if you are like me it’s actually hard to read scriptures. My mind wanders, I zone out, or I get lost in all the thees, thous, and thines.

So here are some tips for how to help you focus as you read scripture. 

Read the passage multiple times over many days. As I was preparing for this talk I read this verse probably about 7 times. And I understood that verse much more on the 7th time than I did on the 1st time. Don’t just read the verse you are assigned, read the verses around it. Read the whole chapter. Read other verses that are about the same topic. If possible read a different translation.Before anyone freaks out about that, the church handbook says “Other editions of the Bible may be useful for personal or academic study.” (That from 38.8.40.1 if anyone cares to look it up.) Other translations of the Bible have been incredibly helpful for my personal study. When we went through the Old Testament three years ago I bought an English Standard Version Study Bible and that was a game changer for understanding the Old and New Testaments. All the thees thous and thines have been removed and the language is more modern. There are also fabulous footnotes. Next year I plan to buy another translation. I’m leaning toward the NRSV version, but I’m not sure yet.1I also have the Annotated Edition of the Book of Mormon. It’s all the same text, but it’s laid out so you can see the poetry and the dialog a lot easier. And it has really great footnotes. I love good footnotes.

So with all that in mind, let’s read the scripture that this whole talk is about. 

The scripture I was assigned to talk about is Doctrine and Covenants Section 93 verses 30-31. It reads

30. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. 

31. Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they received not the light. 

Are you still with me? I know it’s not the most exciting scripture at first glance. Basically it has to do with agency. And I’ll be honest I wasn’t very excited when I saw I was assigned to speak about agency. 

This would be a very short talk if I was going to skip right to “how does agency apply to my life today.” Because sometimes the concept of agency has been weaponized in my life. There’s kind of been this feeling of “well you have your agency to choose, but here’s the one choice we want you to make and you will regret every other choice.” And so, for me, agency got wrapped up in spiritual manipulation. 

Thankfully I have those other viewpoints I could use to view the concept of agency as I worked on this talk. And when I went through the other view points I was actually really happy with the things I discovered. 

One of the first things I did was read other scriptures about agency. And there are several in 2 Nephi Chapter 2 that are going to sound more familiar than the one from the Doctrine and Covenants. Verse 27 says “Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given until them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.” 

Now at first this scripture seems a little troubling too. I don’t like this kind of binary thinking where it’s either liberty and eternal life or it’s captivity and death. 

But this is where doing the second step of studying scriptures is really helpful. The second step is to look into what the scripture would have meant to the original audience. 

Agency would have been a RADICAL idea in Joseph Smith’s day. America was a protestant nation. Religious teachings were influenced by Martin Luther, Ulricht Zwingli, and John Calvin. Each of these men had slightly different takes on it, but they all believed in Predestination or the belief that some people were Elect. Basically they believed that God had already decided who would be damned and who would be saved. 

Here is a quote from John Calvin: “Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which he has determined in himself the destiny of every man. For they are not all created in the same condition, but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say, he is predestined to life or death.”2

Another example is the Westminster Confession which was approved by the English Parliament in 1648 and was brought to America by several different religious groups. Part of it says, “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death.” 3

Can you hear how different Lehi’s words are when he says,  “ . . . .And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life . . . . or to choose captivity and death . . . ”

So instead of this scripture being an example of rigid binary thinking it’s actually an example of a really expansive theology. All people are FREE TO CHOOSE life or death. God hasn’t already decided. We get to decide. 

This is also evident in D&C chapter 93 verse 30. “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.”

Now I know what you are probably thinking. You are thinking along the lines of “well that’s great, but what happens if we choose wrong? Captivity and Death are still options here.” 

And yes they are. But that’s where the third view point comes in. This is where we look at the scripture and think about how the atonement impacts the meaning of the scripture. 

And this is very evident in 2 Nephi. One verse back in 2 Nephi 26 we read: And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon . . . 

Thanks to the atonement of Jesus we have the freedom to make choices.

We don’t have time to get into atonement theology4 today so I’m just going to say that I hope you know, there is no choice you can make that puts you out of reach of the atonement of Jesus Christ or the love of our Heavenly Parents. You don’t have to earn their love. They are cheering for you and helping you along the way.

So even though these scriptures talk about things like captivity, death, and condemnation we know that each of those things can be overcome by the atonement. 

And now we make it to the final step of this little exercise. This is where we talk about what this scripture means to us today. 

I know we ran through that really fast. But I hope that you’ve been able to have some new thoughts about what agency means. I know that I came to a different feeling about the topic than I started with. 

So let’s go back to the original verse from Doctrine and Covenants 93. 

Verse 30 says: All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. 

With all the additional context we’ve learned about this scripture we can see that acting for ourselves is part of our very existence. 

[When I gave this talk in August I concluded it with a personal story about one of my children making a choice in how they engage with something to do with church. It was comfortable sharing it with my congregation because they all know and love this child. But since it contains some personal information about my child I don’t feel like sharing it here in this public blog post.]

To conclude this post I want to talk about agency in my own life – especially in the context of my current feelings toward the church.

My relationship with the church is complicated. I do enjoy being part of my church community, but there’s a lot of baggage with engaging with the institutional church.

Like I said in my actual talk, for me agency got all wrapped up in spiritual manipulation. Technically, I had a choice, but many things were presented as the one right choice, and everything else was BAD. There wasn’t a lot of room for thinking about what was good for my own situation.

Lately I’ve said that I’m on the “No Thank You Plan.” That means I’m allowed to say No Thank You to anything that I don’t feel is serving me spiritually. I’ve said No Thank You to attending Sunday School, to listening to most of General Conference, to holding a temple recommend, to going to Tithing Declaration, and to a few other things. It’s been very liberating to take back control of these decisions that were on autopilot for many years.

When I wrote this talk I was feeling pretty okay with where my choices had led me. I’d gone through a lot of doubt, but had landed in a place where I felt comfortable.

All that has changed now that it looks like Dallin H. Oaks will become the President of the church. I’m still sorting out my feelings about him becoming the president, but it’s put me back into a place of doubt and uncertainty. Can I continue to attend a church that is headed by a man that I can’t sustain? I don’t know.

It’s been helpful to revisit this talk about agency that I gave when I was in a different headspace. I know that whatever I choose for my relationship with the church going forward can be my choice. I don’t have to feel like there is a pre-determined outcome. I don’t have to feel like one wrong choice will send me straight to hell. I also know that I can take my time with this decision. I don’t have to march out of the church immediately, nor do I have to make the choice to stay forever.

I’m hoping that as we all navigate this season of change that we can remember to honor each person’s agency to make the decisions that are best for them.

I did end up buying an NRSV. I bought The New Interpreter’s Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version With the Apocrypha ↩︎I found this quote in The Moody Handbook of Theology by Paul Enns. This came from Chapter 30 on Reformation Theology. It’s on page 483 in the Revised and Expanded Edition. ↩︎This quote came from All Things New by Fiona and Terryl Givens. It was on page 48 in the chapter titled “Double Catastrophe.” ↩︎If you want to read more about Atonement Theory I HIGHLY recommend All Things New by Fiona and Terryl Givens. ↩︎

Guest Post: What if our next prophet was a woman?

Guest Post by Marina Capella

Saturday night the news broke that the President of the LDS Church had passed away. Within minutes, my social media feeds filled with the familiar rhythms of tributes, condolences, and speculation about what changes the next presidency under Oaks would bring. Would anything really change? And then, buried between the solemn posts and the predictable commentary, I saw a lighthearted remark: “I hope the next President of the church is a woman.”

It was meant as a joke. The laughing emojis beneath it confirmed that. And I laughed too—because of course, we all know how unlikely it is. But later that night, the comment stuck with me. I found myself turning it over in my mind, not as a joke, but as a thought experiment. What would happen if, against all odds, the next prophet were a woman?

At first, my instinctive response was: She would struggle. Not because women are less capable leaders. In fact, research in the corporate world often shows the opposite—that women in executive roles can be more effective, more collaborative, more resilient. I myself am a living testament to the ways women can step into leadership: years of medical training, then building a practice from scratch, and now pursuing an MBA to sharpen the tools needed to run a complex organization. I know what it takes to lead.

But I also know what it takes to grow into leadership. And therein lies the problem.

If a woman were suddenly called to preside over the LDS Church—a multinational corporation, a vast humanitarian arm, a religious community numbering in the millions—she would be stepping into the role without the scaffolding of experience that men in the church are given. Not because she lacked the intelligence, vision, or fortitude to succeed. But because the church has not given her the rungs of the ladder.

The Ladder Men Climb

For men in the LDS Church, the leadership path is long and predictable. It begins early, with ordination to the priesthood at age twelve. From there, they move through callings that layer responsibility upon responsibility: deacons quorum president, teachers quorum president, missionary, elders quorum president, bishopric counselor, bishop, stake presidency, regional authority, Seventy, Apostle. The ladder is nearly twenty steps tall. Each rung adds practice in decision-making, in managing people, in working with budgets and programs, in exercising authority.

By the time a man reaches the upper echelons of church leadership, he has had decades of institutional training in governance, discipline, and power. He has been mentored by other men, observed how decisions are made, and been trusted with progressively higher stakes. Even when his “day job” has nothing to do with administration, the church itself functions as a kind of parallel career ladder in leadership.

The Truncated Ladder for Women

Women in the church are not without opportunities to serve. They may be called as ward Relief Society, Primary, or Young Women’s presidents. Some move on to stake presidencies over those same auxiliaries. A very small number are invited into regional service roles, and an even smaller handful ascend to the highly visible—but short-term—positions in the General Relief Society or Primary presidencies.

These callings matter. They allow women to shape programs, mentor others, and occasionally speak to broader audiences. Yet even the most prominent of these roles come with built-in limitations. They are auxiliaries, not governing bodies. Their budgets are small, their scope of authority restricted, and their tenures typically brief compared to the decades-long careers of male apostles. Historically, even those few women who serve at “general” levels rotate out after only a handful of years, while men on the upper rungs of the priesthood ladder remain for life, consolidating experience and influence.

In other words, the ladder women climb has a few more steps than it may appear at first glance—but it is still dramatically shorter than the men’s. A woman may reach the top of her auxiliary, but she is still standing on the fifth rung of a twenty-rung system, with no pathway into the senior governing councils where real institutional power resides.

Leadership Denied, Potential Diminished

What frustrates me most is not the hypothetical struggle of this imagined future prophetess. What frustrates me is the waste.

I have no doubt there are women in the church today who could lead at the highest levels. They have the discernment, the faith, the organizational capacity. Many of them lead complex lives outside the church: managing companies, teaching at universities, directing nonprofits. But inside the church, their potential is stunted.

The institution systematically withholds the kinds of experiences that would prepare them for senior leadership. A woman may be a CEO in her weekday life, but in her ward she is asked to teach Sunbeams or bake funeral potatoes. Both forms of service are valuable—but only one builds the administrative muscles needed to run a global institution.

The irony is sharp: the very church that proclaims women as “equally valiant in the premortal realm” has constructed a mortal ladder that leaves them stranded halfway up.

What If the Rungs Existed?

Imagine, just for a moment, if the rungs were there. If women had been ordained alongside men. If they served missions with equal authority, returned home to lead wards and stakes, rotated through regional callings, and took their seats at the same tables of governance. By the time one of them was called as prophet, she would be ready. Not because she was inherently different from her male counterparts, but because she had been given the same decades of practice.

Exponent II has long given voice to women who imagine what the church could look like if it trusted its daughters with more than auxiliary roles. Again and again, we circle back to the truth: women are not lacking in capacity. We are lacking in opportunity. The failure is not ours. It is structural.

The Joke That Isn’t a Joke

So yes, the Facebook post was funny. “I hope the next President is a woman.” It was funny because it’s so implausible. But it’s also heartbreaking. Because the implausibility isn’t rooted in women’s weakness—it’s rooted in the institution’s refusal to prepare us for power.

That, perhaps, is the saddest part of the thought experiment. Not that a woman couldn’t lead, but that the church has spent nearly two centuries ensuring she would never be given the chance.

Climbing Without the Ladder

As for me, I continue to climb other ladders: medicine, entrepreneurship, nonprofit governance. In those spaces, women fight for every rung but at least the rungs exist. The work is hard, but the growth is real. And each time I stretch myself in those arenas, I feel both pride and grief. Pride at what I—and women like me—can do when given the chance. Grief at what might have been possible within the faith tradition that raised me, if only the ladder had been built tall enough for us too.

Marina is an integrative pediatrician with private practice in Salt Lake City, Utah and a national consulting business for pediatricians. Her natural ambition and feminist leanings always caused her to feel like a misfit in the LDS church, but it also forced her to rely primarily on her own inner spiritual guidance. She has largely stepped away from the church these days, but is grateful for the seeds of spirituality, community, and faith that it planted in her life.

Culture and Connection During Tragedy

Last Sunday, my social media feed was filled with across-the-spectrum Latter-day Saints mourning and processing the horrific events that occurred at a church building in Michigan. This attack occurred just hours after the announcement of the passing of a beloved LDS prophet, Russell M. Nelson. It was a dark, difficult day for many.

As I read posts by my various friends, family members, and LDS acquaintances on all of my social media platforms, I was struck by the similar threads that wound through each of their posts, the foundational grief, the shared horror, the visuals of the details that all of us could imagine must’ve been included in the event. 

“I can picture the floral couches, the mother wandering the halls with her toddler, or the late-comer who chose to sit in the foyer rather than disrupt the meeting.” One of my friends said. 

“My heart is breaking.” A distant family member posted. 

Some posts expressed hopelessness, powerlessness, frustration. Other posts echoed words of comfort, quotes from church leaders, hope for better times ahead. 

I have friends and family members who are staunchly, emphatically, and vocally exMormon. I have friends and family members who are active, fully believing, and fully integrated Latter-day Saints. And often these groups, on seemingly opposite, combative ends of a spectrum, come in conflict with one another. They come at their shared history with vastly differing beliefs and perspectives, and it can be difficult, at times, to feel there is any common ground at all. 

But common among all of the posts I saw on Sunday was shared religious culture and empathy.

Every Latter-day Saint on any end of the spectrum feels the depth of pain associated with our significant spaces being the target of unspeakable violence. Those who have left the church remember the hours and years they spent wandering those same halls, finding connection, maybe peace, maybe solace, even if they would not/ could not experience those same feelings now. They think of family members, friends, or kids who still attend and wonder at their safety.

Those who are active and believing attended church on Sunday with possibly more hurt, maybe fear, maybe less peace than they usually experience, knowing that one second to the next, a violent man with violent intentions could take it all away. 

Together, Latter-day Saints, regardless of activity, experienced the same sense of grief, horror, fear, and heartbreak.

In today’s culture of division and contention, it’s important for us to see the foundational connections between us all. The shared humanity, the shared history. We will disagree on how all of this violence should be approached and how it should be treated to get better. We will disagree on how the structures and doctrinal aspects of the religion feel, how they impact each of us. 

But on a day like Sunday, we can come back to our culture and connect over our roots. We can see each other, putting aside our differences, to offer a hug and care, to reach out, to feel a little less alone.

The beauty of acknowledging our shared culture, regardless of where we sit on the LDS spectrum, is connection. When tragedy strikes and the world feels so unsettling, connection is how we get through. It’s what brings us together and helps us find each other again. 

I hope that we’ll continue to allow space for any Mormon, exMormon, or Latter-day Saint to show up in our cultural spaces, not just during times of tragedy, but always. I hope we can continue to work towards healthier dialogues, common ground, and connection over our shared experiences and history.

It’s worth the work of continuing to build bridges over the divide to find the connection that’s possible there.

 

Vol. 45 No. 1 — Summer 2025

Cover Art

In Me
Acrylic and sewing patterns on canvas, 24 x 20 in.

Knowing you are a child of God can truly change the way you see yourself in the mirror. It gives you that boost of confidence when you need it. When I think of God, I feel found.

Avril Caron
avrilcaron.com | @avril.caron

Editorial Staff

Editor in Chief – Rachel Rueckert, Editor in Chief in Training – Millie Tullis
Managing Editor – Carol Ann Litster Young, Managing Editor in Training – Natasha Rogers
Art Editor – Rocio Cisneros
Layout Designer & Editor – Rosie Gochnour Serago
Fiction Editor – C. Chanel Earl
Blog Feature Editor – Natasha Rogers
Book Reviews Editor – Ynna Padilla
Poetry Editor – Abby Parcell
Women’s Theology Editor – Eliza Wells

Executive Board

President – Lori LeVar Pierce
Vice President & Secretary – Lindsay Denton
Treasurer – Jeanine Bean
Members – Julia Bernards, Carol Ann Litster Young, Jessica Grant Gray, Natasha Rogers, Rachel Rueckert, Rosie Gochnour Serago, Heather Sundahl, Melissa Tyler, Millie Tullis, Candice Wendt

Additional Staff

Proofreaders – Kami Coppins, Hannah Mortenson, Heather Oyler, Cherie Pedersen, Karen Rosenbaum
Readers Committee – Kif Augustine, Andee Bowden, Reagan Gillman, Eliza Handley, Brette Jones, Hinckley A. Jones-Sanpei, Jessica Mitton, Heather Oyler, Karen Rosenbaum, Tia Thomas
Author Editors – Kate Bennion, Reagan Gillman, Brette Jones, Natasha Rogers, Millie Tullis
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