Exponent II's Blog, page 6

Guest Post: Safe Spaces for Soft Bellies

Guest Post by Laura Karren Glasgow

At a recent Relief Society meeting several women referred approvingly to the idea that church is a “safe place.”  While no one took the time to explicitly define what was meant by “safe space,” the subtext of the discussion revealed a shared belief that within the church’s walls or within the church community, your beliefs will not be criticized or challenged as opposed to “out in the world” where gentiles and heretics abound and you may be critically questioned or judged negatively for your beliefs.

I agree that ideally no one should feel criticized or judged negatively in their religious space.  However, it has been my experience that while the stated expectation of a “safe space” is that it be free of probing questions or challenging ideas, what is actually demanded by the community norm is NO disagreement, NO difference of opinion, all agreement, all the time, all heads nodding.  This mindset dictates that the religious part of life be a comfortable retreat; a refuge from deliberation, difference of opinion, debate, or exploratory discussion; a veritable spa of validation.  Functionally, “safe space” means “echo chamber.”

In such an environment conformity and uniformity must be total and diversity absent.  A variety of expressed opinions would automatically cancel the “safe space” status.  To preserve the “safety” of the environment, any group member with a different opinion or experience must refrain from expressing their views and feelings, repress the hunger to recount their unique experiences and remain unrepresented.

In my own experience this is the choice that too many divergent-thinking or nuanced believers, especially women, make because when we speak up and express ourselves, space is not held for our dissimilar experiences and ideas.  The group leaders jump in to counter-testify and the teacher redirects the conversation away from our perceived messiness back to uncomplicated, shallower, safer waters.

Once in a (different) Relief Society meeting we were discussing the church’s teaching that life circumstances do not determine our worth or our capabilities. I mentioned that despite this teaching, as a female I often feel less-than in this church and that the sexism of the temple makes me feel decidedly like a 2nd class citizen.  I could see the panic rise in the Relief Society President’s face.  She raised her hand and passionately testified that she did NOT feel that way about the temple, that the temple is a beautiful place, and that we should go as often as possible.  In one stroke she (tried to) shut me down by counter-testifying and redirecting the conversation. More on this later.

In this type of space, a group member with a different opinion is negatively impacted whether she stays quiet or speaks up.  Chronic self-repression and exclusion deliver a silent payload of injury to a soul.  Alternatively, speaking up and being shut down delivers an equally destructive blow.  This kind of “safe space” is only safe for the conforming thinkers of the group.

While pondering on this idea I happened to look over at my dog, Clover, whose furry white belly I’ve unscrupulously exploited for a photo to accompany this post.  She was sleeping on her back, all four paws relaxed and floppy in the air.  When I see Clover asleep in this position I know she must be feeling safe enough to expose her unguarded, vulnerable, soft belly to the world.  (Either that or she’s asking for belly rubs like the shameless beggar she is.)

If church were truly a safe space, ALL members of the group would be able to expose their vulnerable “bellies” to the group instead of having to hide them. ALL members would be able to express an opinion and have it respectfully received by the group even if they don’t agree or have had a different experience.  In a universally safe place we would be free to express our real selves, our real opinions, and our real experiences knowing that in the worst case, space will be made for us and best case, curiosity will piqued and follow-up questions asked.  Such a space would allow for genuine, and sometimes hard questions to be asked.  It would allow group members to safely expose a lack of knowledge or the culturally-approved certainty about church teachings.  What makes a safe space isn’t WHAT we say but HOW we are treated when we say it.

Safety does not lie in uniformity of opinion but rather in unity of love, respect, and gentle handling.  Father Joseph Yoo said unity is “not about agreement.  It’s about commitment.  It’s about holding space for differences without letting go of each other.”  Our identity is often so tied up in our religion that it can be hard not to take a difference of opinion as a personal attack.   I think that’s what happened with my Relief Society President.  Fortunately for me, I was the teacher that day so she couldn’t shut me down without making a very big, very memorable scene.  I tried to do what Father Yoo described: I made space for her experience AND mine.  I acknowledged her feelings as valid AND mine.  I expressed a hope that we could be mutually curious about each other’s conflicting experience and both learn something new and be the better for it.

We will move a little closer to a beloved Zion community when we exchange some of our certainty for curiosity.  We will create safe spaces for EVERYONE’s soft vulnerable bellies when we learn to see diversity, not as a threat,  but as an intriguing opportunity to learn something new.

“We don’t need a church that all looks the same.       We need a church that dares to love like Jesus.”

– Father Joseph Yoo

Reader, traveler, feminist, and a huge fan-girl of Jesus Christ. Laura works as the Programs Coordinator for a charity that serves refugee and immigrant children and is also a French language tutor.

Guest Post: Following Eve and Reclaiming the Gift of Garments

Guest Post by Kaylin Hamilton Conradt

I bought a pair of shorts last week, and they came in the mail yesterday. They are definitely not long enough to cover my garments, so I didn’t wear them (the garments). And when I walked around the house, showing a lot more skin that I am generally used to, I was struck by a thought:

These are just my legs.

And then I was hit by a wave of sadness for all the years I spent thinking something else:

It’s okay that I can’t wear shorts that hit above my knee, I don’t look good in them anyway.

Or:

Being modest is easy for me. Because I’m bigger, that type of clothing doesn’t appeal to me anyway.

Or:

It’s just not meant for me. My body isn’t good enough for it.

—

I have thought a lot about garments recently, as I walk through the 98% humidity and 91 degree weather—sans garments. (Sans temple covenants? Sans integrity, some might say?)

As I’ve walked around without my garments, I’ve thought more about Mother Eve, walking through her garden, tending it with care, nurturing every living flower, without clothing and without shame.

And when Eve made the courageous choice to partake of the fruit—because one thing the serpent spoke was true: there was no other way, but I digress…

When Eve began walking the unknown path of bearing children (i.e. multiply and replenish the Earth), she was met with Parents who loved her enough to clothe her. Not because her nakedness was obscene or appalling or shameful to them, but because they loved her enough to see that she was uncomfortable and then fix the problem.

Eve wanted to be clothed. And her parents gave her the gift of the garment to protect her and help her feel comfortable. And yes, to remind her of Them and of the things she could do to create a happy life for her family and herself. Things like:

Feeding ourselves spiritually and often,Listening for our Parents’ voices,Choosing the best path, and—Remembering our Savior and brother (who loves us) along the way.

To remind her of promises made to her parents? Yes. But also to serve her and protect her and keep her comfortable in a world of insects and blood and bad weather.

Why has our culture taken such a sacred gift and made it into something so unkind to women? Prescriptive. Controlling.

Why does our common rhetoric in the church take this personal reminder of the things we have promised to our parents (who love us, remember), and made it into a way to shame women into wearing the “right” kind of clothing?

—

The day I made covenants with God was incredibly happy for me, but only because I made promises of my own free will, with no fiancé or mission call demanding I do so. I walked in with a desire to follow God and that was enough.

That has always been enough.

To this day, my garments remain a symbol of freedom to me, but only because I refuse to let anyone else dictate the rules of engagement with my Heavenly Parents. Trust me, it hasn’t been an easy process. I continually have to wrestle back my agency regarding when, where, and how I engage with this symbol, especially as general authorities have begun offering more and more prescriptive “counsel”.

But on the hardest days, I remind myself: It was never about how much of Eve was covered or for how long. The garment was a gift of emotional and physical comfort from her loving parents. And as a daughter of Eve, I claim the right to that comfort and reject a compliance-only mindset. I retain the privilege of wearing the garment for what it truly is: a gift of heavenly love.

Kaylin is an Alaskan kid at heart who has (somehow) found happiness in the humidity of Virginia. She is an educator, artist, writer, but most often lately—caretaker to the best littles around. On Sundays, she can most often be found sneaking in to sing primary songs.

The Idolatry of Temple Worship

Temples. That one word stirs up a mixture of emotion in  my stomach. As a parent of a young adult, the temple has been on my mind often lately; it’s often a topic of conversation with my daughter. During this time of emerging adulthood, I want her to build upon the sense of self she developed during adolescence as she tackles this time of transition that is critical to psychological health, social connection, and brain development. The temple looms large on the horizon. For females, the past covenant to obey which was changed to hearken, can teach submission to the point of identity erasure. While this language has been removed, females still do not covenant directly with God but instead covenant in the new and everlasting covenant i.e. polygamy. This along with the word preside added to the sealing ceremony, places females in what I see as a ‘one-down’ position. This is not what I want for my daughter. 

Thinking about this has led me to evaluate the current role of temples in the church. Here are some conclusions I reached:

Money. Temples are ‘pay to play.’ It is quite uncomfortable for me to say this. The church does not need tithing money. Yet members are still instructed to pay tithing even when they can’t afford food. I grew up the oldest of a large family. I qualified for reduced lunch until my junior year of high school. There was a time when I was about ten years old that I remember being really hungry for an apple. I wanted a piece of fresh fruit so badly. Yet I know that my parents strictly observed the church’s instruction to pay tithing on their gross income. Most of childhood years were spent in the 80s in a small town in Wisconsin. This was a time when people were expected to pay tithing and contribute to the ward budget. I remember a large elephant poster in the church foyer with the words ‘help us take a chunk out of the ward budget.’ What kind of church expects parents to have their children go hungry in order to be with them in the next life? Division. There no longer seems to be a rationale for where temples are built and access creates class divisions in wards. My parents, unlike four of their six children, are still active in the church and have been temple workers for years. They live in Utah and even in a place with a high density of members, there is a shortage of temple workers. Meanwhile, my daughter lives in the capital of a country in Europe where the temple, depending on the mode of transportation used, is a 4 to 8 hour trip one way. Those who can afford to attend talk about it and in the times I have visited her ward, I sense some tension around the temple. Loss of Community. The focus on individual temple covenants is coming at a cost of creating community. I can’t stop thinking about Candice Wendt’s piece The Insidious Exchange of Community for Covenants.  The Book of Mormon directed church members to meet together often. It didn’t tell them to go to temple often. Five years ago I completed a trauma focused masters degree in education. One of my professors said that we are harmed in relationships and we can also be healed in relationships. People need healing and connection. We very much need community. Embodied ritual. The temple provides a place for embodied ritual. LDS church services are not participatory like a Catholic mass and we don’t have rituals like lighting Shabbat candles every Friday evening. Rituals are important and can be grounding. However, instead of focusing on how ritual can help us now, talk about  temples focuses with fear on the afterlife with phrases like ‘no empty chairs.’

Emerging from this evaluation is this question: Have temples turned into idols? 

Is there an excessive level of attention and veneration of the temple that it has replaced a focus on loving God and our neighbor? Is there so much focus on the covenant path that the church, like the people who built the Tower of Babel, try to control the environment so people live in conformity instead of discovering the life path God calls them into for their own personal growth? 

Right now, I don’t have complete answers. I do have concerns about the current dialogue around temples. I am not convinced that the current emphasis on temples helps adolescents grow into healthy adults. I am concerned that the current dialogue around temples is idolatrous. 

Thoughts? What do you see?

How Reality T.V. Is Destroying The World

Less than 20 years ago, I was talking with friends about concerns for the state of the world. One friend asked us what we thought was the biggest threat to the country. 

I said, “Reality T.V.”

At this point, Reality TV had been around for years, and had become very popular for a while. I had never intentionally sat down to watch any of the shows. I had seen parts of some of them when I was staying at homes of friends or family who did watch, and that was enough to cause me great concern. 

In general, shows would be presented as being unscripted depictions of people in various situations, so the audience could get a realistic glimpse of what it was like for that particular group of people. At first I wondered if it was supposed to be a type of pop culture documentary.

But these shows were clearly nothing like the National Geographic or Jacques Cousteau or PBS history documentaries I had grown up with. 

The few glimpses of “Real Life”, or “Jersey Shore”, or “Real Housewives” made it clear to me that, even if there might not be a line by line script, there was an intended plot meant to promote outrage, and reaction. The more outrageous the behavior, the more fame for the character.

I saw people start to believe these characters were real, expressing their real selves, in real life. People who would not consider watching a soap opera because they would see it as a waste of time, were now looking forward to the next episode of whatever show they had followed for multiple seasons, which they would spend time discussing and speculating in the days between episodes. 

I had never watched The Apprentice, until I was staying with a friend during a visit out of state. The show had been on for several seasons. I had read a few things about Trump, and some failed businesses, and problems with racist policies at his properties. I appreciated the cameo of his first wife in the movie “The First Wive’s Club”. I did not see much reason to look to him for business advice, or any kind of example for life. It surprised me how much my friends were caught up in everything he did or said to the people who were falling over themselves to gain his approval. When I learned that Trump was behind much of shows in this reality TV genre, I was really concerned about how much impact this was having.

For several decades now, Reality TV has pushed the idea that…

Reality and truth is whatever the script says it is. And the script is whatever ideology junk food you want it to be.Misinformation and lying is crucial for survival. Don’t trust anyone.Mediocrity is something to celebrate if you are famous. And anyone on a reality show is famous.Outrageous behavior is a good enough reason for celebrity, even better than ability, or skill, or intelligence, or creating something.It doesn’t matter how horrible a character’s behavior is, as long as it gets viewers. If the character who betrays, or hurts, or lies, or manipulates the most, is the reason viewers tune in, they will be celebrated, and the victims will be tossed aside.Kindness, compassion, humility, making a difference – this is dismissed and minimized. These qualities might show up in a short term, minor character. Everyone functions in reaction mode. Nothing can move forward except in reaction to what someone has said or done. All cliffhangers are about what kind of reaction will cause another reaction, and who will react in what way that will get the most reactionary response. There is no action that is based on commitment, or integrity, or creativity. There is no one who is an agent who acts. All are objects who react, or who are acted upon so they can then know how to react. When all the discussion I heard from people who were following these shows centered around speculation on who would react in what way, I also saw that they were taking on functioning that way as well. 

This is why I began to see Reality TV as a threat to the country. This concern greatly intensified when I watched the unthinkable happen, and the person who gained the most from these reactionary, fake shows won the presidency.

He ran his administration as though it was a reality show.

Now, he has won it again. A frighteningly large portion of people continue to believe that the script he presents is what is real. And that ability, experience, education, making a difference, commitment to compassion, service, diversity, and creative action, is to be dismissed and eliminated. Nothing is done except in reaction to others. There is no responsibility, integrity or humility, no acknowledgement of damage, and absolutely no apology. The claims he makes are believed, even with no evidence. The more outrageous, the better. Mediocrity is celebrated, and promoted. Skill, experience, commitment is fired, removed, and sued.

When something takes over such a large part of society, it impacts everything. The culture of this country is not isolated, and this administration is impacting the world. I have hope in seeing leadership in other countries that are not willing to submit to this, who have the courage to be agents that act, not react. 

It has been interesting to see the influence of reality TV on church culture. It is a human thing to want to rely on someone else to tell you what is real, what is true, and what to do. It is human to want someone else to be responsible for what happens, and to give all loyalty to whatever leader you have chosen to follow. We are constantly looking for ways to return to the Garden, where we just did what we were told, and someone else was in charge. I have found it interesting to see ways some church members (not only LDS, but also other religions) struggle with dissonance when the rhetoric from this administration clearly conflicts with the rhetoric of their long held beliefs. Some step into the paradigm shift toward real agency, personal responsibility, and owning the power to create life (And yes, it is a significant shift). Others continue to cling to a place of no responsibility, a place of waiting to be told how to react. But they have switched who they see as deity. I see this kind of reactionary outrage function across the spectrum of faith and religion communities. Those who choose to leave a community of any kind (religious, political, family, business, ideological) do not automatically make that paradigm shift toward agency. Some take the reactionary function from one group to another, from one unquestioned leader to another.

I don’t know how much will be demolished by this reality TV administration. I don’t know how many bodies will be left in the wake before this authoritarian power grab is checked. I don’t know what it will take for people who are in position to exercise the courage to stand up to this regime. These are questions I ask when I see any of my communities do things that contradict their constitution. I continue to be an active agent in the face of it. 

Because there is something else that I consider the most harmful and threatening thing about Reality TV. It denies the overwhelming need for connection. All people are depicted and treated as competitors or tools to manipulate. All interactions are treated with suspicion, with a need to negotiate a deal where you win and the other loses. There is no real person except self. All else is seen as someone or something to use for selfish need or gratification. Everyone and everything is commodified. Any information that contradicts this ideology is dangerous, and must be eliminated. Any experience that denies it must be suppressed. 

This feeds the biggest challenges of human nature – that of needing to find barriers, and reasons to “other”, and that of functioning from a place of scarcity.

This defies the incomprehensible, mysterious, overwhelming need for human connection. The transformative power of divine love. It defies the invitation from God that all things which are most precious and endless will increase when given away. And They inspired us into new life, new existence by showing us. They gave away power, knowledge, experience, mercy, connection, compassion, presence, wisdom, love. And in doing so, there is enough for all, and to spare. 

Even in the midst of this unthinkable time, They are there. Weeping and mourning for the way we treat each other. Present and constantly inviting me to comfort and mourn and bear each other up. As I have often said – Jesus wants me for an activist.

Yes, I am horrified by how much more destructive the culture of Reality TV has become than what I saw as a threat almost 20 years ago. My experience with God tells me that creative power will be able to overwhelm destructive abuse of power. I don’t know what will finally be the “Amen” to the abusive authority of this regime, or how they will experience the pain of kicking against the pricks, but abusive power of force and destruction and denial of existence will not last. That is the case for any community. 

To resist a regime that denies and seeks to destroy the connecting power of one-ness can seem an overwhelming problem. But it is a problem worthy of an extraordinary life. That is a life worth creating.

Yeti Ads and Why the Exponent II Needs You

Parties. Dancing. Jazz. Wealth. These are a few of the words that come to mind when I ask people what they remember about reading The Great Gatsby. In the decades since I read this book, I still vividly remember billboards. Yes, billboards. This was the first time I became aware of the ubiquitousness of advertising. 

What does advertising have to do with the Exponent II? Well, we have grown to the point where we need money from our readers to pay hosting fees and website support contracts. Regular readers will notice that from mid-March to mid-May of this year we tried advertising as a way of raising revenue. While parameters were carefully set as to the categories of ads allowed, some readers ended up with ads for rollerblades and retirement planning while other readers ended with an ad for  — I joke not — a farting yeti. Worse still, some readers often had distinctly pornographic looking ads. The majority of ads were at odds with Exponent II values. Ads also ended up providing merely tens of dollars in revenue over two months which was only a quarter of the amount estimated before the ad trial. The types of ads, lower than estimated revenue, and, most important, concerns regarding the disruption to readers’ experience, mean that ads are not a feasible revenue source. 

This is why you are needed. Yes, you! Wondering why good storytelling deserves good infrastructure? Read Katie Lulow’s piece “From Mormon Pioneer Trail Diaries to Feminist Blog Posts: Finding My Voice.” Wondering why bother reading about complicated Mormon experiences? Read Candice Wendt’s piece “Why Bother Reading and Writing about Complicated Mormon Experiences?”

One thing I value most about Exponent II is community. Community is the glue that binds us together. It is why I read Exponent II, both the blog, comments, and magazine. Heather Sundhal and Katie Ludlow Rich discuss the importance of community over conformity in these podcasts about their fabulous book 50 Years of Exponent II. *Everyone* is welcome in the Exponent II community. Respect, kindness, and a willingness to listen to others is all that is required. No need to believe a certain way, act a certain way, dress a certain way, etc. This community is a place where I can sigh with relief. In May 2022, I attended my first bloggers retreat. I was nervous about meeting women in person. Would I be accepted? I was so, so tired after nearly a decade of living in a ward where conformity ruled. My daughters and I were shunned because they didn’t go to the same school as most ward members and I have graduate degrees and work professionally. (My husband was accepted just fine by the men.) So it was with trepidation that I arrived at Katie Ludlow Rich’s house and climbed into a minivan of women. My heart soon melted. We were, and are, at different places of belief, practice, and relationship to the church. That doesn’t matter at all. What matters is dialogue and community. I fiercely love this community of writers and readers. The posts, essays, and comments feed my soul. 

In the lonely time when the church is emphasizing individual covenants, the community of Exponent II matters now more than ever. Candice Wendt writes more about that in “The Insidious Exchange of Community for Covenants.” No matter the amount you donate, you are a contributing community member. Plus, you can sleep easy knowing that with proper tech support, you helped an Exponent II blogger to not have nightmares about the website. 

Click to make a tax deductible donation towards our $10,000 goal.

Sacred Music Sunday: With Wondering Awe

It might sound weird for the Sunday music feature to be a Christmas song in July, but I’ve had With Wondering Awe stuck in my head for over a month. I grew up in a place where it doesn’t snow, and rain is confined to the months of November through March. Rain means Christmas to me.

For over a decade now, I’ve lived somewhere where it still doesn’t snow, but the rainy season is July and August. Like clockwork, as soon as the monsoon hits, I want to drink hot chocolate and sing Christmas carols. The first time it happened, it wasn’t even a conscious decision. The rain came, and the songs started getting stuck in my head like ancient programming. It took me a week to figure out why my brain started serving them up in the middle of summer.

Whatever weather says Christmas to you, I hope you enjoy it!

The Paradox That Is Mormonism

I grew up loving my heritage. I am the offspring of Mormon pioneers from both my Mom and Dad’s side of the family. I (like many of you) had hard core ancestors that sacrificed and gave so much to this church. 

Learning at a young age to carry my baby across the plains at a ward Pioneer Day celebration.

Immigrants seeking a better life, more land, more work, enticed by promises made in this new religion. Immigrants…or colonizers…both are true.

I still like to tell people that my third great Grandpa Martin Hansen, who came over the ocean as a little boy from Denmark, discovered the Timponogos caves up American Fork Canyon in Utah.

But then I learned about the genocide the pioneers who settled here committed on the Timponogos Native Peoples and I felt gross inside. That beautiful Mount Timponogos, which many-a BYU or UVU college students love to hike, was named after its original occupants…a people and their history I was not fully aware of until a few years ago.

I loved reading the story of my third great Grandma Mary Ann Quinney. She heard older missionaries preaching in the park in England and went home to tell her family that she got baptized. They were aghast and upset that a young teen, under their care, did not seek their permission and were even more upset when she let them know she’d be boarding a boat to join the other members.

I thought she was so brave for leaving her family, crossing those plains, and cutting off her best friend’s toes that had been deadened by frostbite. I thought she was so faithful when she married into a polygamist relationship.

But then I learned about what my ancestors really thought of being in polygamist and polyandrous relationships. I read in other women’s journals what tactics of manipulation were used to secure their hand in marriage.

Look at us cute little kids culturally appropriating.

I finally came to grips with what had felt wrong for so many years, even when I tried to justify, it really was wrong. Making the story of my then, young teenage, grandma’s conversion story more troubling than I had seen before.

The paradox of it all! The good and the bad of what America is (and other colonizing countries and cultures for that matter), who its immigrants/pioneers are. What the Mormon, ahem, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is. Who my people are and what my people have done…and continue to do.

I started my research back in 2008 when sources were not as readily at my literal fingertips. But The Women’s Exponent II has been around since 1974.

The Women’s Exponent II Blog embodies the paradox of Mormonism so well. It points out what it loves about Mormonism and what this religion has given them past and present, but it also does not shy away from the disturbing details of what Mormonism is and the harm that it has done and continues to do. 

But just like any volunteer organization, we need help. Our blog costs money to run. We get charged high user fees when we get a lot of readers….and we love those readers! Another paradox within this Mormon sphere. We need to pay people to fix tech issues that constantly arise. 

We need donations to meet the demands of our readership and to be able to provide the content we love. If you have felt like the Exponent II Blog has provided you with what you need, please consider donating what you can. We promise that we won’t hide your donation in a shell company. Amen.

Please click here to donate and thank you for reading the blog!

Exponent website tech problems gave me nightmares, literally.

I served on the Exponent II board at a time when the Exponent blog was enjoying greater readership than ever before in its history—and as web traffic increased, the site began crashing every time a post went viral. As the de facto webmaster, I could usually restore the website with some sort of band-aid solution, but only temporarily, because more effective, long-term solutions required cash. And we didn’t have any.

One night, I dreamed a dream. I was working on the Exponent blog at my computer. The files morphed into actors and I was in the midst of a sci-fi movie. The characters were running for their lives as the website—now reworked into a glamorous ballroom instead of a computer screen—crashed. One by one the characters vanished into thin air. The heroine, movingly portrayed by Sally Field, tried to save them. She ran with her arms outstretched, her beautiful red silk dress flapping in the wind as she tried to catch the other characters and save them from impending doom but everyone disappeared before she could reach them. In the end, she was the only one left and she rolled into a little ball and wept.

Is this just a fake, photoshopped image of Sally Field carrying a copy of Exponent II magazine? Of course it is.

I woke up and immediately checked the site. I had put in many volunteer hours during the past several months, redesigning the website to better showcase this treasure trove of Mormon feminist thought. I had just added a new feature called “Our Bloggers Recommend” to highlight important posts from the blog and elsewhere. The very first post I added to the new menu was Rachel’s 2013 post, “What I first learned about our Heavenly Mother.” This previously buried post represents the best this blog has to offer; it is well-researched—groundbreaking, in fact—and spiritually uplifting. People noticed. Two mainstream Mormon news outlets linked to it, sharing its goodness with whole new audiences of people who would have never found it hidden in our archives. Soon it was viral.

And so the site crashed. I spent the better part of the day working with our server provider to get it up. They gave me several tasks to “pass on” to our “web developer.” We didn’t have a web developer! So I did those tasks myself—all day long—taking time away from my paid job and my four kids and my husband—who coincidentally, had just had a serious talk with me earlier that morning about how I needed to tell my colleagues at the Exponent that it was time to hire someone to do the tech work because my volunteer hours were getting out of hand.  This wasn’t the first time unpaid, emergency tech work at the Exponent had interrupted my day. With no reliable funding source, we couldn’t stop the outages.

So when that nightmare about the Exponent website crashing woke me up, I immediately grabbed my phone and checked the site. In spite of having even higher traffic numbers than the day before, it was up and running. It was just a nightmare. Everything was okay. I got dressed, dropped my kids off at school and went to work, where I checked the site one last time, just for reassurance.

It was down.

This time, our server provider found that someone was attacking the site. “By someone, do you mean an actual person or a virus?” I asked.

“An actual person. Or several.”

Our humble feminist blog needs funds to fend off the haters.

Trying to keep our under-resourced website online became a full-time job for me, competing for my time against my actual full-time job; my family; and even the Exponent itself! With so much of my time pulled into applying tech band-aids to the Exponent website, I had no time left to write Mormon feminist content. I almost quit Exponent II.

Then readers came to the rescue, donating enough money to cover desperately needed website upgrades. That was almost a decade ago. Since then, I’ve contributed ten years of Mormon feminist content that may have never been written if we hadn’t found the funds to fix the website. Some of those blog posts went viral. And yes, some of those viral blog posts crashed the website, because website maintenance isn’t the sort of thing you can do once, ten years ago, and never do again.

A viral Exponent II blog post should be something to celebrate. I want to shout, “Take that, patriarchy!” every time a post goes viral, instead of biting my fingernails and fretting about whether our overworked, underfunded website can handle the pressure of so many readers.

If you’ve appreciated any Exponent II blog posts over the past ten years, posts that may never have been written if readers hadn’t chipped in back then, please consider donating now. Better yet, set up a monthly donation, so we can keep fighting patriarchy together for another ten years and more. Keep Mormon feminist writers writing, instead of troubleshooting tech issues on a broken website. Save Exponent II’s volunteer bloggers from tech nightmares.  Click here to make a tax deductible donation. Thank you!

A Dim Light of Hope

This is a talk that will be given by Mimi in Sacrament Meeting tomorrow (July 27th, 2025) in Eugene, Oregon.

For this talk, Brother [NAME] gave me the topic titled “Having a Perfect Brightness of Hope.” 

However…I think my talk is titled something more along the lines of “My hope isn’t a perfect brightness, but I’m trying to hold on to some dim light over here.”

Perhaps “perfect brightness,” at least for me right now in my life, is out of reach. 

So, let me walk you through my dim light of hope. 

In February of this year, my family experienced one of the scariest and hardest things I’ve ever gone through. While I don’t want to go into details about the experience itself, I’ll just say that it left me with an incredible ache in my very being. I felt betrayed. Betrayed by friends. Betrayed by God. I lost trust. I lost trust in people. I lost trust in God. Incredible sadness was all-consuming. My eyes were like a leaky faucet and I couldn’t quite seem to turn off the tears.  

Five months later (and lots of therapy and self-introspection), I’m doing remarkably better. But, I can’t say that those feelings are gone. In fact, sometimes I still feel them raging through my mind, body, and spirit. Somedays I wonder if I’ll ever stop being so hurt. Sometimes I cry to God that I am angry and wish I could heal faster. Sometimes I cry to God that I want to be done believing in His existence. Sometimes I just cry to God with no words to say.

But the thing is, even when crying out to God with these intensely sad feelings, I realize I still have a glimmer of hope. I guess that hope is what brings me back: crying out to God.

Perhaps some of you today have felt the same types of feelings I described. Perhaps you have felt betrayed and lost trust. Perhaps you have wondered whether God betrayed you. Perhaps you have cried out to God in deep anger. Perhaps you have wondered whether you would ever be able to feel hope in your heart. 

My prayer is that today the Spirit might touch both you and me. My prayer today is that you and I might both feel a bit of God’s love as I speak. My prayer today is that we might both feel hope.

In the aftermath of the event my family experienced, the words I’ve heard over the pulpit so many times came into my head: “All is made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” But between tears and confusion and feelings of betrayal, rather than these words bringing me comfort, all I could think was “HOW? How is all made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ?”

I delved into a personal study of the scriptures and conference talks. And no matter what I read, I kept just asking “HOW? How is all made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ? Can Christ help me TODAY? Can Christ make things right in my LIFETIME? WHEN will I feel that all is made right? HOW  does this work?”

And the truth is, I don’t have an answer. And I don’t know that I’ll get an answer. And even if I did get an answer, I bet my answer would look and feel a bit different than an answer for someone else. Given the all-encompassing love that Christ has for each one of us individually, my guess is the way He heals and the way He makes things right through His Atonement is likely different depending on the individual. 

In preparation for this talk, I was rereading my study journal from March of this year – when I was still a leaky faucet of sadness. That day, I was painfully grappling with how Christ makes things right. In my journal, I copy/pasted a quote from a 2012 talk by Linda K. Burton (who was, at the time, the General Relief Society President). The quote said:

“A [woman] walking along a road fell into a pit so deep [she] could not climb out. No matter what [she] did, [she] could not get out by [herself]. The [woman] called for help and rejoiced when a kind passerby heard [her] and lowered a ladder down into the pit. This allowed [her] to climb out of the pit and regain [her] freedom. We are like the [woman] in the pit. Sinning is like falling into the pit, and we can’t get out by ourselves. Just as the kind passerby heard the [woman’s] cry for help, Heavenly Father sent his Only Begotten Son to provide the means of escape. Jesus Christ’s atonement could be compared to lowering a ladder into the pit; it gives us the means to climb out.” But the Savior does more than lower the ladder, He “comes down into the pit and makes it possible for us to use the ladder to escape.” “Just as the [woman] in the pit had to climb up the ladder, we must repent of our sins and obey the gospel principles and ordinances to climb out of our pit and make the Atonement work in our lives. Thus, after all we can do, the Atonement makes it possible for us to become worthy to return to Heavenly Father’s presence.” 

My notes about this quote were short. While I was in a time of deep pain and trying to find meaning, I simply wrote: “I like the idea of this. But what if my voice isn’t loud enough to call for help? And what if I’m not the one who got myself thrown into this pit anyway?”

Rereading it now, months later, I think I have some answers for myself. Mainly my answer to my previous self is: it doesn’t matter. I don’t think it matters if my voice isn’t loud enough to call for help. And I don’t think it matters how I got into the pit. I think Christ wants to help us get out of the pit no matter what. I think Christ can hear us even when we’re too tired or sick or hurt to truly call for help. I think Christ can hear us even when we feel the weight of the world pushing us further into this pit. I think Christ can hear us even when we want to give up. Christ is there for us. He is listening for us. 

Alma 7:12 says that Christ suffered for us so that he would know how to “succor his people.” Succor (as defined by Google dictionary) means: “give assistance or aid to.” Basically, Christ suffered for us so that he would know exactly how to help us and how to give us the help that we, on an individual level, need. 

I believe that no matter how far deep we are in that metaphorical pit that President Burton described and no matter how we fell or got pushed into that pit, Christ knows us as individuals and wants to help us out. He goes, as the Good Shepherd, looking for us, as lost sheep, (even if our cries aren’t very loud) and he wants us to feel some love in our hearts. He wants us to feel at least a dim light of hope. 

Christian Pastor Emily David described how Christ knows us personally and this personal relationship is what brings us hope. She said:

“Understanding the opportunity we have to know Jesus personally fills us with hope and joy. Each of us is invited into a unique relationship with Him. This relationship is not about mere rules or obligatory prayers; it’s about genuine connection. Jesus calls us into this relationship through compassion, love, and grace. He desires to meet us where we are and take us on a journey where we can know Him more deeply. When we open our hearts and invite Him in, we discover a loving Savior who cares for us intimately. This personal aspect of knowing Jesus means we can talk to Him about our joys, struggles, and everything in between. In turn, we gain insight, peace, and guidance through His wisdom and support.”

I love this quote because it touches on how personal hope might be for each of us. It can’t be a one-size-fits-all characteristic because we each are on a different journey and each have a different relationship with Christ. But he meets us on this journey – even if we feel like we’re at the bottom of a pit of despair – and journeys with us. He cares for us intimately on each step of this journey. 

I want to add my own thought that sometimes it might be too hard to feel His presence. Sometimes we might be in a darkness where we really do not feel His love. But I believe He is there in those times. I believe He waits patiently for us as we allow ourselves to be touched by him. I believe He cares in those darkest moments, even when we feel so alone. And maybe not even my belief is perfect. Maybe sometimes I just have a tiny dim light of hope that He is there. But I do hope and believe that He wants to help us through the darkest of times. 

One of the hymns that was recently added to the hymnbook, Gethsemane, feels particularly relevant to developing a relationship with Christ and feeling hope through Him. 

The songwriter, Melanie Hoffman, said that when she was writing this hymn she had wanted to think of a way to convey to children the power of what Christ did for us in Gethsemane. She said, ““I realized that even the youngest of children need to understand that Jesus suffered for them because He loves them. His atoning gift of love began in Gethsemane, continued on Calvary, and gloriously culminated at the empty tomb.” Though she wrote the song for children, the words touch my heart as I think of Christ’s personal love for me. The lyrics of the song go like this:

1.

Jesus climbed the hill to the Garden still; His steps were heavy and slow.

Love and a prayer took Him there to the place only He could go.

Gethsemane! Jesus loves me,

So He went willingly to Gethsemane.

2.

He felt all that was sad, wicked, or bad, all the pain we would ever know.

While His friends were asleep, He fought to keep His promise made long ago.

Gethsemane! Jesus loves me,

So He went willingly to Gethsemane.

The hardest thing that ever was done,

The greatest pain that ever was known,

The biggest battle that ever was won—

This was done by Jesus!

The fight was won by Jesus!

Gethsemane! Jesus loves me,

So He gave this gift to me in Gethsemane.

Gethsemane! Jesus loves me,

So He gives this gift to me from Gethsemane.

I hope that we each take these beautiful lyrics with us today and remember that Christ went willingly for me. He went willingly for you. He went willingly because of His personal love. And in that we can find hope. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Why Bother Reading and Writing about Complicated Mormon Experiences?

THIS POST IS PART OF AN ONGOING BLOG SERIES FOCUSED ON THE CURRENT EXPONENT II BLOG FUNDRAISER . PARTLY BECAUSE OF REASONS I EXPLAIN IN THIS ESSAY, I’M DONATING TO THE FUNDRAISER AND I HOPE YOU WILL TOO!

Why do Mormon feminists like me keep writing? And why does our audience keep coming back for more?

I’ve been thinking about this partly because people tend to scrutinize my motives and whether the effort is worth it. Some urge me to give up trying to bring problems to the Church’s attention or to change it. People have argued over the dinner table over whether it is a good I write things that criticize the Church. In some cases individuals have told me to “fix” my thoughts and feelings through adopting their perspectives. Others have unfriended me on social media to avoid seeing ideas that threatens their worldviews, sometimes complaining to my relatives about what I share.

Sometimes I question myself: Am I helping people or hurting them? Why do I have such an urge to write? And why should I continue to write about religion when the institutional church doesn’t listen?

In trying to answer these questions, I’ve been gleaning wisdom about why writing matters from one of my favorite novelists, Jonathan Franzen. In his essay “Why Bother?” he asks: Why should people bother to write? (and read?) He really wrestled with this question as a younger person trying to make sense of his desires and purpose. In this essay, I’ll draw mostly on thoughts from “Why Bother?” but also a bit from other essays in his collection How to Be Alone.

One of the concerns that troubled Franzen as a young writer is that serious social novels don’t make the impact they once did. Only a fraction of people invest time and effort in reading, especially more difficult works. Film and television have replaced the novel as the art most discussed and celebrated in public spaces. 

“Why am I bothering to write these books?” he asks himself. “I can’t pretend the mainstream will listen to the news I have to bring. I can’t pretend I’m subverting anything, because any reader capable of decoding my subversive messages does not need to hear them…I can’t stomach any kind of notion that serious fiction is good for us, because I don’t believe that everything that’s wrong with the world has a cure, and even if I did, what business would I, who feel like the sick one, have in offering it? It’s hard to consider literature a medicine, in any case, when reading it serves mainly to deepen your depressing estrangement from the mainstream; sooner or later the therapeutically minded reader will end up [treating] reading itself as the sickness” (How to Be Alone pg. 73).

As a subversive Mormon writer, I relate to the doubts and concerns he raises here. The audience who arguably most needs to hear what I have to say (Church admins) usually aren’t interested in learning from writers like me. Most of the people who take my work seriously already agree with many of my thoughts. Do they actually need it? And the things I write might easily increase alienation and dissonance; it’s not fun to see yet more of what is problematic. There are plenty of Mormons who label writers like me as spiritually unwell or focusing on all the wrong things, and we can’t offer much in the way of solutions to the various sources of pain or malaise we address.

So why write? 

When linguistic anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath researched the question What motivates people to write? she learned that the individuals most likely to grow up to be writers were those who turned to avid reading during childhood to find relief from loneliness and feelings of being different from others. These individuals found dialogue and community with authors and imagined worlds that relieved feelings of alienation or disconnection, and this continued as a habit in adulthood. As Heath explains, since “writing was the medium of communication within the community of childhood, it makes sense that when writers grow up they continue to find writing vital to their sense of connectedness” (77). 

In the context of teaching him about this pattern among writers, Heath told Jonathan Franzen: “You are a socially isolated individual who desperately wants to communicate with a substantive imaginary world.” While she was referring to writers in general, these words helped Franzen better understand his love of reading and writing with unexpected, joyful clarity. He hadn’t been pressured to read as a kid. He turned to books largely because he was a deep-thinking misfit who felt ill at ease with the state of things around him. His urge to write as an adult started with avid reading habits in childhood that met his needs for connection, exploration, and creating meaning (78). He realized that as an adult, he didn’t need writing to be a path to fame or status, a way to persuade and change others, or an instrument to fix societal ills for his vocation to be justifiable or meaningful. He could value it simply because it had long been his preferred, intuitive, and effective way of creating the conversations he wanted to have with and in the world. 

How many of us subversive Mormon writers learned to value the written word when we were younger because it empowered us while facing alienation, loneliness, or how we experienced things differently? This might have been due to family or church culture difficulties, our personalities, our mental health, or other factors. How many of us write simply because it is our preferred and seemingly native way of connecting and feeling alive? Our writing is not necessarily about motivations to fix things or to demonstrate we have some kind of superior knowledge or solution. It’s our proven way to create channels of expression and belonging in the face of being different or alone.

I count myself in the group of people whose writing started with turning to books as a child. I was socially anxious, sensitive and prone to depression. I seemed to experience so many things abominably differently than people around me. Starting around age 12, I spent big chunks of time reading classic novels and the scriptures and journaling in the evening. I didn’t think of myself as a writer (I actually hated writing for school because of the grading process and negative feedback); I just had an instinct that doing these things made me feel better and more normal. My writing today is absolutely a continuation of my preferred way of being as a girl. I’m a lifelong questioner, reader, and journaller. I can’t help being this way, it’s what I need to do to cope with life, and writing and reading are inextricably woven into my spirituality.

Writing also allows us to develop and maintain a sense of self and to resist oppressive circumstances, including those we face in religion. In response to the question why bother writing?, fellow author Don DeLillo advised Franzen: “Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals” (95-96). Even if literally no one were listening to us, and even if the Church were going to hell in a handbasket such that all hope of improvement were lost, independent Mormon writers would still be at work if only because this process empowers us to maintain and develop differentiated and thoughtful senses of self and personalized meanings. Writers at Exponent II work to neutralize the imbalance we suffer from due to conformity and submission being valued too highly in our religious culture.

We writers are also directly motivated by desires to respond to social and emotional needs caused by the world’s (and in our case, the Church’s) brokenness. Franzen discusses how the tech revolution, which involves ongoing planned obsolescence of both workers and machines and questionable values and objectives that directly hurt lives, is one major example of the kind of harm going on in the world that ensures he’ll always have interested readers and materials to work with. The tech movement leaves continual collateral damage behind it–including newly unemployed people, useless polluting waste, and mental health injuries (209). Our situation in the Mormon sphere is comparable. Someone needs to be there to help people process the detritus and suffering the institutional Church leaves in its wake as it evolves and changes direction over time, and members of our writing community take up this difficult work. As in the tech industry, people and programs end up being treated as unworthy or obsolete again and again over the course of time. The institution’s ongoing process of shedding, sifting and shifting without consulting members or granting them power to help decide its direction ensures that writers like me and communities like Exponent II will always be needed and wanted, and never out of material. We are like a clean up crew and emergency services working among those the Church hurts and abandons in its wake, even like spiritual care medics at times, however limited our reach and resources may be.

Why do we keep reading?

We read because sometimes there is no where else to turn to grapple with the problems we are affected by. Shirley Brice Heath found that those who read substantive literature did so because such works were “the only places where there was some civic, public hope of coming to grips with the ethical, philosophical and sociopolitical dimensions of life that were elsewhere treated so simplistically.” Such texts “refuse to give easy answers to the conflict, to paint things as black and white, good guys versus bad guys” (82). Exponent II readers are drawn to our space for some of the same reasons. We make space for questions and perspectives that defy oversimplified frameworks and rhetoric. Communities like ours are the only public venues where the most difficult dimensions of Mormonism and the LDS Church are acknowledged, held in tension, and examined without arriving at unsatisfying, or dualistic conclusions (such as X is all good/true/innocent or X is all bad/false/ill-intentioned). This works well at Exponent II partly because we accept, include, and value a wide a variety of voices and worldviews.

Sometimes reading helps us carry and make sense of our spiritual burdens in a way that religious institutions fail to do. Franzen writes that “Since religion lost its lock on the educated classes, writers and other artists have assumed extra pain to ease the burden for the rest of us, voluntarily shouldered some of the painful knowing in exchange for a shot at fame or immortality (or simply because they had no choice, it was their nature)…Men and women with especially sharp vision undertook to be the wardens of our discontent. They took the terror and ugliness and general lousiness of the world and returned it to the public as a gift: as works of anger or sadness, perhaps, but always of beauty too” (202). We value others’ writing because it takes ugly, painful, and chaotic experiences and reorder them into beautifully articulated thoughts, feelings, insights, narratives, etc. This writing is not just a complicator for people (though no doubt, it serves that purpose sometimes, which can be unpleasant, but is also a catalyst for learning and growth); it also helps them to process traumas, losses, and personal crises, to be empowered through exposure to new perspectives of their experiences, and to find emotional relief. Reading helps people learn to create meaning, identity, and beauty, in new contexts and stages of their lives.

Reading also offers validation that life and faith are unpredictable, something that is not adequately recognized in Church teachings and narratives. It’s a general pattern that people who’ve faced unpredictability are more likely to read the more complicated stories and material. As Franzen explains, “Therapists and ministers who counsel troubled people tend to read the hard stuff. So do people whose lives haven’t followed the course they were expected to: merchant caste Koreans who don’t become merchants, ghetto kids who go to college, openly gay men from conservative families, and women whose lives have turned out to be radically different from their mothers” (81). 

At Exponent II, we more often than not share stories and frameworks that deviate from the standard scripts that are usually upheld by the Church. We regularly affirm that life is not foreseeable or fair. Most of us who are involved have experienced religious and family outcomes we didn’t anticipate, and the community makes us feel accompanied and seen in this. It can also directly help us face ongoing challenges. In her research, Heath found that, “reading…impinges on the embedded circumstances in people’s lives in such a way that they have to deal with them. And, in so dealing, they come to see themselves as deeper and more capable of handling their inability to have a totally predictable life” (81-82). I believe that voices at Exponent II help others to handle the capriciousness of being human with keener insight, more acceptance, and more confidence.

Sometimes we also read in order to find stories and voices that are particularly relevant to personal circumstances and in which we can see ourselves and explore our inner experiences. Franzen describes how the novel Desperate Characters was unusually “coherent and deadly pertinent” to him when he read it after his divorce. In his words, the book “spoke directly to the ambiguities that I was experiencing…Was it a great thing or a horrible thing that my marriage was coming apart? And did the distress I was feeling derive from some internal sickness of the soul, or was it imposed on me by the sickness of society? That someone besides me had suffered from these ambiguities and had seen light on their far side…felt akin to an instance of religious grace” (57, 74). Exponent II readers have comparable experiences, especially while reading pieces that grapple with personal pain, loss, transition, dilemmas and ambivalence like Franzen did. Sometimes writing here is received, in Franzen’s words, like a religious grace–a compassionate and uncanny token of shared suffering and perplexity, an affirmation that these experiences have meaning worth exploring and even sharing.

So, what are communities of readers and writers about?

Franzen’s perspective is that “readers [and writers] aren’t necessarily “better” or “healthier” or conversely “sicker” than nonreaders.” Rather, “[w]e just happen to belong to a rather strange kind of community” (81). We are the people who need and want to hold deeper, more inclusive, more challenging and more open dialogues about the ongoing problems, questions and tensions that impact our world and lived experiences, in our case particularly with our faith tradition. Our writing and reading provides a sense of “having company in this great human experience” that we need as people who sometimes feel different and alone (83).

Sometimes we write because we can’t help it; reading and writing are intuitive to us and have been ingrained into our way of being in the world starting as early as young childhood. Readers and writers are critical thinkers and thrive on using imagination, drawing connections, and asserting our freedom to communicate and explore through the written word–in many cases it’s just who we are.

And in many cases, some of us probably we didn’t originally feel like writers and did not turn to books so much when we were younger, but we reach some point when we did come to feel different and alienated, and things we once repressed suddenly need to be said and seen in the open.

Collectively, we write because we know what it’s like to feel alone or to be hurt, we recognize life is unpredictable and not in our control, and we share our writing with others knowing we can form connections and community through this medium.

At Exponent II, we might not be fixing the world or the Church, and that might not even be the core point or motive much of the time (though I recognize activism may be an important part of what is going on). We’re forming communities that genuinely respond to peoples’ needs to connect, to discuss difficult and perspective-shifting experiences, and to use and develop their communicative capacities in satisfying and empowering ways.

We write and read to support and to be supported and to grow and be strengthened personally and collectively. Even one sentence can offer a refuge to us and to others. This is the power of honest, authentic writing. It’s a lot to hang on a few words in a blog post or magazine submission, but it seems to be working pretty well for us here.  

Personally, I’m very happy to be one of the many weirdoes whose preferred way of making sense of the world is the written word. And I’m grateful to have discovered Exponent II’s supportive and vibrant community of writers, thinkers, and enthusiastic readers and supporters.

Why donate to Exponent?

Are you part of our “strange community” of people who like to dig deeper into life’s questions through reading and writing? Have the words of Exponent II bloggers proven “deadly pertinent” in understanding your experience, helped you feel less alone, or helped you learn, heal, or grow? If yes, we are so thrilled we’ve been of service as writers. And we invite you to participate in our current blog fundraiser. Please consider making a donation that will go toward powering this blog. The blog is somewhat broken and does not meet our needs (this is very apparent from the backend). We need funds to hire professional tech assistance and to make upgrades. This grassroots community can only continue through the donations of community members who appreciate our work.

Click here to make a tax deductible donation. Thank you!

Feature image: this photo is a selfie I took in the small office in Montreal that I usually write in. I share the space with my composer/music producer teenage son. There is a lot of music playing, and sometimes I leave so he can record his voice. It is decorated with calendar cat art from France. The “fearless feminist Mormon writer” button I’m holding is one I designed myself and have sometimes worn on my backpack.