Exponent II's Blog, page 76

“Moonlight Catfish” by Melodie Jackson

Step 1. Heat 1 ½ cups of oil in a pan to around 350 ° F. Preferably use an oil with a high smoke point like canola or grapeseed. My kitchen smoldered slowly. The cast-iron skillet left a crescent moon shape uncovered on the scarlet burner. I instinctively grabbed the handle and moved it to […] To access this post, you must purchase Subscription – Digital, , Subscription – Print + Digital, United States, Gift an Exponent II Magazine Subscription – Year-Long Gift Digital Only, or Gift an Exponent II Magazine Subscription – Automatic Annual Renewal Digital Only, .

Let It Begin With Dissent

There’s a story in my family. My grandma has told it time and time again. Shortly after she and my grandpa were married, she wanted to pull him into an argument. He stopped her short, stared her right in the eye, and proclaimed, “We will not fight in this family!” 

I’ve always laughed at this story – especially having grown up living with my grandparents and knowing that my grandma is no cowering lamb. She is feisty and opinionated. And yet… the no-fighting script ruled the day. “Contention is of the devil,” was the unwritten motto of our family. 

I was recently relaying this family history to some friends after a visit home evoked this infamous story yet again. My friend mentioned having heard Elder Ballard share a similar story in no less than three talks she went to while at BYU-I. I wonder if Elder Ballard and my grandpa were at the same devotional when a male authority gave them advice to never argue with their wives. (They were both married in 1951 – I could start my search with general conference talks of that year!)

I don’t know what kind of relationship Elder Ballard had with his wife, Barbara Bowen, but to teenage me, reeling from my parent’s divorce, my grandparents’ union was nothing short of perfect. My grandpa was a kind and patient man who cheered my grandma on in her unquenchable thirst for life. 

But what if my grandpa had not been kind? What if he did not listen? When a person declares: “We will not fight!” who suffers the most from the restriction to raise dissent? When women aren’t on equal ground to begin with, lacking the same positions and authority as men in LDS practice, is it healthy to also demand that women keep the peace?

The author with her siblings.

I’m learning how to better live with conflict. I’m trying to teach my children the importance of owning their voice and speaking up in the face of injustice. Growing up there was so much negative connotation surrounding anger, contention and arguing. I didn’t learn how anger is a tool of our body to protest when something is wrong. 

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me… was sung with the understanding that you could have inner peace – by choosing to be happy. By choosing not to complain. But true peace isn’t the absence of conflict. I love the way Martin Luther King Jr. described peace in one of his sermons. It came after Autherine Lucy, the first African-American student to attend the University of Alabama, was threatened and mobbed by white students and asked to leave campus. King’s sermon was in response to someone suggesting that the bus boycott was destroying race relations.

This is the type of peace that is obnoxious. It is the type of peace that stinks in the nostrils of the almighty God.

King went on to interpret what Jesus meant in Matt. 10:34-36, then described what kind of peace he didn’t want:

If peace means this, I don’t want peace:
If peace means accepting second class citizenship I don’t want it.
If peace means keeping my mouth shut in the midst of injustice and evil, I don’t want it.
If peace means being complacently adjusted to a deadening status quo, I don’t want peace.
If peace means a willingness to be exploited economically, dominated politically, humiliated and segregated, I don’t want peace.

When I sing, Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me, I want it to begin by listening to those who have been silenced.

“When Peace Becomes Obnoxious” Sermon delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. Mar. 18, 1956, Montgomery, Alabama

“The Trench Coat of Multiple Colors” by Allison Hong Merrill

How did she feel when she wore it, a child born in 2007 wearing a trench coat made in 1987? Did she wear it to not look like herself? Did she also wear it for Halloween? Or for a school play? For a photoshoot? For a dress-up party? Where could I find her? To access this post, you must purchase Subscription – Digital, , Subscription – Print + Digital, United States, Gift an Exponent II Magazine Subscription – Year-Long Gift Digital Only, or Gift an Exponent II Magazine Subscription – Automatic Annual Renewal Digital Only, .

“Turning the Corner” by Liz Busby

It’s the part of Christmas break where cooking becomes difficult because all of my children are sleeping with the mixing bowls. Even though they haven’t thrown up since last week, the bowl’s silvery presence comforts them with some semblance of control over what is clearly beyond all of us. I’m hesitant to retrieve them. I […] To access this post, you must purchase Subscription – Digital, , Subscription – Print + Digital, United States, Gift an Exponent II Magazine Subscription – Year-Long Gift Digital Only, or Gift an Exponent II Magazine Subscription – Automatic Annual Renewal Digital Only, .

The Notable Absence of Birth in Christmas

For me, the celebration of Christ’s birth is inseparable from the rising panic of progressing labor, the ever-tightening of contractions as the clock winds down to transition, the impending delivery that is coming, ready or not. Thoughts of Mary bring me back to moments of pushing, involuntary thrashing, gushing waters, blood, and a squalling newborn, slippery and covered in vernix. That first Christmas birth, scary and far from home, echoes in the recesses of my mind every time I hear about a birth in desperate circumstances: a war zone. The back of a taxi. A prison. 

I’m not saying there’s not beauty and power in the work of birth, because of course there is: in the few days after my first child was born, I felt like a badass who could do anything. It was a serious high. But there were unexpected and unsettling experiences with my body, too, like all of the unpleasant smells emanating from me: the musk of lochia, the tang of sour milk, the shockingly strong BO. I worried about whether I was normal  when I passed blood clots that were dark, gelatinous golf balls and when I reflexively kneaded the loose dough of my stomach, wondering if my skin would ever again feel non-alien to my own hands. These are the things, mostly unshared, that many women experience after birth. Did Mary experience them, too?

As with most stories passed down through history (and far too many stories recorded even today), the female parts of the Nativity are largely absent. The birth aspect of Jesus’ birth is completely sanitized, wiped clean by generations of male religious leaders, many of whom never even married, let alone became fathers, and viewed women’s bodies as foreign at best and disgusting at worst. And so when I read the euphemistic “And she brought forth her first born son,” all I can do is fill in the gaps with my own experience, my own emotions, my own body.

I think about Mary, the lone female in each Nativity set, surrounded by male shepherds, male wisemen, even male angels, and I think, did God not care to send messengers to tell women about the birth of Mary’s son? Or, far more likely, was Mary tended to by midwives and female relatives, visited by female shepherds, cared for by women bringing food and necessities as they have done and will do forever and ever, amen, and we just don’t know about them because even scripture (too often, especially scripture) erases the lived experiences of women?

When I think about Jesus, I think about women: those he interacted with, the harm done in his name to women in the past and present, and what his message could potentially mean for women today and in the future. I think about the captive being set free and about the last being first. If I could write my own book of Lamentations, these words would groan from the depths of my being, not unlike the half yell, half moan that labor drew from me: How long, O Lord, before women in this world–in our governments, in our healthcare systems, in our churches–will be seen as much “fully human” as men are? How long until women and their bodies belong to themselves and not the men who rule over them, whether as husbands or fathers or legislators or priests; how long until all spaces and roles, including those of speaking and serving in your name, are open to all; how long until women no longer face harassment and violence and discrimination and death just because they are women?

If we cannot talk honestly about the truth of birth, whether Jesus’ or any other baby’s, and if we continue to erase and dismiss the lived experience of women and center the lives and bodies of men, how can we ever view Mary, or any woman, as fully human? In the words of Kaitlyn Shetler’s poem, below, “sometimes I wonder if this is all too vulgar to ask in a church full of men without milk stains on their shirts or coconut oil on their breasts preaching from pulpits off limits to the mother of god.”

Sometimes I Wonder
By Kaitlyn Shetler

sometimes i wonder
if mary breastfed jesus
if she cried out when he bit her
or if she sobbed when he would not latch

and sometimes i wonder
if this is all too vulgar
to ask in a church
full of men
without milk stains on their shirts
or coconut oil on their breasts
preaching from pulpits off limits to the mother of god

but then i think of feeding jesus
birthing jesus
the expulsion of blood
and smell of sweat
the salt of a mother’s tears
onto the soft head of the salt of the earth
feeling lonely
and tired
hungry
annoyed
overwhelmed
Loving

and i think
if the vulgarity of birth is not
honestly preached
by men who carry power but not burden
who carry privilege but not labor
who carry authority but not submission
then it should not be preached at all

because the real scandal of the birth of god
lies in the cracked nipples of a
14 year old
and not in the sermons of ministers
who say women
are too delicate
to lead

Discovering Advent

The first time I heard about Advent candles was from a comedian. I followed the blog of a writer who was Catholic and she talked about how her Advent candles melted into hideous shapes in the heat of the attic in her home in Texas. 

The resulting pictures were hilarious. (You can see a repost of the pictures here.) I had a good laugh, but also had to google Advent candles. What was this tradition she was talking about?

I vaguely knew what Advent was. When I was a child my family had a fun little Advent calendar with daily ornaments for a little tree. My own children always looked forward to the chocolate Advent calendars their grandma gave them each year. I knew that Advent was the countdown to Christmas. As I googled I learned that Advent didn’t start on December 1st. It started the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day. I learned that Catholics often light four candles during Advent. One on each Sunday.

I learned that some people light the candles in a straight line and have elaborate holders in that layout. Those were pretty, but my eyes were drawn to the pictures of Advent Wreaths. The wreaths were made of evergreen to symbolize continuous life. The four candles were spaced around the wreath. 

The tradition sounded lovely and I started to think about buying an Advent wreath and starting to light the candles with my own family. However, it took me a few years to do that. I was a little worried about religious cultural appropriation. Was it okay for an LDS family to start doing an Advent Wreath? I was also forgetful. I’d always forget that I wanted an Advent wreath until we got the Christmas decorations out on December 1st. By that point Advent would already have started. I’d tell myself that maybe I’d buy a wreath before Advent the next year. Then I’d forget again and the cycle would continue. 

Two years ago I went to a friend’s house during December. She had an Advent wreath on her dining room table. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It was so pretty. I’d assumed that Advent wreaths were just a Catholic thing. My friend was more of an Evangelical Christian. I realized that Advent wreaths were a broader tradition than I thought. I stopped worrying about religious cultural appropriation after I saw the wreath on her table. 

I also realized that I wanted one – and I didn’t care if it was “too late” this year. I ordered a wreath online. It arrived in time for the last Sunday of Advent. The traditional colors of Advent Candles are purple and rose. I couldn’t find any candles those colors at the store that late in the season so I just bought a pack of four white candles. 

That Sunday my husband and I gathered our four children around the dining room table. We set out the wreath and added the candles. My children took turns lighting candles while I explained the meaning behind each candle. Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. 

I think my children liked the fire more than they enjoyed the symbolism. But I felt like we were off to a good start. 

The next year I was able to find candles in the right colors and we lit the first candle on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. My children were very interested in why purple and pink were Christmas colors. I explained that purple is the color of royalty and Jesus is a King. The pink candle, which is really called rose, has to do with the liturgical calendar. The third Sunday was about Joy and Rose is the color associated with Joy. I told them if we went to a Catholic church on the third Sunday of Advent all the priests would be wearing rose colored robes. It felt good to be tapping into these deep Christian Traditions. 

I think that sense of tradition is what appealed to me about celebrating Advent with a wreath and candles. Advent wreaths originated in Germany and were used by both Catholics and Lutherans to count down to Christmas. My mother’s family was Lutheran for generations until she and her mom converted to the LDS church. My ancestors were in Poland which is close to Germany. I wondered if my ancestors lit Advent Wreaths. Was I returning to a tradition that had been lost in my family?    

Even if this wasn’t a long lost family tradition I still liked the sense of history in the ritual of lighting candles that have their symbolism in the liturgical year. I liked knowing that many other Christians throughout history had lit candles in their homes and paused to contemplate Jesus coming into the world bringing Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.

I felt like my own church hadn’t given me very meaningful Christmas traditions. The Light the World Initiative had been going on for several years, but I’d never been able to get into it. The calendars and lists of suggestions for things to do each day to participate in Light the World just left me feeling overwhelmed. Lately, there had been a big push for the Giving Machine vending machines popping up though out the US. The concept of the Giving Machines was fine, but I felt like the church already expected it’s member to be Giving Machines. Did we really need another way to give?

I was looking for something deeper and more introspective. Less about service and more about contemplation. Taking time to mark each week of Advent was a beautiful way to pause and think about what it really meant to anticipate Jesus. The wreath is a good reminder of what this busy season is really about. I like the way that the candles start out the same height, but become stair stepped as the month goes on. It’s a visual representation of moving through time.

I’m still new to this Advent thing so every year I forget which word goes with each week. This year I wrote the words on our wall calendar so I could keep track. My son loves to read over the calendar so he was the first to notice the words. It was sweet to hear him say things like, “This week is Hope. Next week is Peace. Then it’s Joy. And Christmas Eve is Love.” Throughout the week he’ll remind me thinks like, “This week is Joy.”

When it comes time to light the candles my kids still seem a bit more focused on the fire then the actual meaning behind the candles. But we are making progress. There have been beautiful moments this year. 

When we lit the Hope candle I talked about how people hoped the Messiah would come for generations. I told the kids that their hope for Christmas Presents could remind them of how it feels to hope for a Savior.  

When we lit the Peace candle we talked about ways to feel peace that week – even though it was going to be a very busy week. My daughter suggested we find a night where we could just relax and listen to Christmas music in the living room. I liked that suggestion so much I was actually able to find two nights we could do that.  

Last Sunday we lit the Joy candle. We talked about things that bring us joy and how Jesus can bring us joy. Then we talked about ways we can bring joy to others. Most of them were small, but one of them was bigger. My family helped a friend clean up from a large Christmas event that she hosts every year. She was so grateful about our offer to help. She really appreciated the work we did. My children saw that seemingly small acts of service can bring people joy.

We should light the candle symbolizing Love this Sunday. That happens to be Christmas Eve. My husband’s family always has a big party on Christmas Eve. Right now my family is trying to decide if we will just light the candle earlier in the week or if we will bring the wreath and candles to the Christmas Eve Party to introduce this tradition to the whole family. Either way I’m looking forward to pausing for a moment to talk about love with my children. 

My knowledge of Advent candles and wreaths may have started out with a laugh over melted candles. But it’s turned into something more. It’s connected me to broader Christianity, helped me pause during this busy season, and given me lovely moments with my family. I look forward to Sunday nights when we will sit in the glow of the candles and talk about our love for Jesus and our anticipation of celebrating his birth on Christmas.

What about you? Do you have any new traditions that you’ve started with your family? What do you do? Why do you like these new traditions?

This is my Advent Wreath. I’m so glad I finally decided to do this tradition.

What the Temple Actually Taught Me

 

I’m 42. Exactly half a lifetime ago this week (when I was 21), I went through the temple for the first time. I was promised it would be a place of learning and instruction. Even prophets would say things like, “I learn something new every time I go!”, so I was super excited to become the smartest person on the planet by learning everything it had to offer me. Unfortunately, the temple fell very short of my expectations. If this happened to you as well, read on.

Right before this endowment anniversary, I sat down and made a list of things the temple actually taught me. Because the temple is supposed to be heaven on earth (and the place God resides when he comes to visit us), I assumed that the way things are done in the temple is the most perfect way to do them.

Here’s what I learned:

Being very bland is the very best. Everybody in the temple looks the same and acts the same. There’s no personality, no expression, no decision making, no individuality, and no autonomy. That’s heaven.
Don’t smile too much, because being serious is always better. Solemnity, even if something absolutely hilarious happens, is required of everyone. Loud laughter is one of the very worst things you can do (but you’ll only know this if you received your endowment before 2023).
You will watch a special temple movie or slideshow. The best media to consume is whatever the church produces for you – even if it’s long, boring and poorly written. If you aren’t clear on why you should watch this film, it doesn’t matter. Just pay attention because the church says it’s important.
You never have to make any decisions about anything on your own. Everything you do and every single step you’ll take is pre-determined for you (just like in real life). Walk in, hand the guy your recommend, go this way, change into a special outfit, tuck that mysterious envelope under your arm, a lady will gesture with her hands like, “go this way” (so you will), walk to the chapel, sit on this bench and wait until they tell you to move again, etc, etc. Everything you do is dictated for you exactly, and there is no room for variation – even on small things that seem like they shouldn’t matter.
You don’t even have to think what you’ll say – just say what they tell you to say, whenever they tell you to say it. You don’t need to have any of your own thoughts or words – just repeat after them. (And if you get even a single word wrong they’ll make you go back and do it again until you get it exactly like they wanted.)
The ideal music is really bland, muffled organ music because having fun, even musically, is less righteous.
Never, ever, talk about the stuff you learn inside the temple when you’re outside the temple. (Also, there is no time set aside for talking inside the temple, so you’ll just never talk about it.) You promise this more than you promise anything else, so if you have weird feelings just stuff them way, way down deep inside and never reveal to anyone how you feel.
The stuff you learn in the temple is so amazing it will blow your mind – but if it doesn’t, it’s just because you don’t understand it yet. (And definitely non-members can’t understand how amazing it is, so never read their comments below the hidden camera temple videos on YouTube.)
In the temple, women mostly don’t exist, and if they do, they shouldn’t talk much. (Except for Eve, until she got kicked out of the garden and never spoke again.) Heavenly Mother doesn’t exist, and women are unnecessary for creating humans. Men get together and use their penis powers to create life.
Only Satan tells you the truth and helps you with the plan that leads to your salvation. You’ll have to figure out which of God’s commandments are for real, and which ones he actually wants you to break. The Holy Ghost won’t tell you. Wait for Satan to show up and explain things instead.
The very most holy way to pray to God requires that any women in the room hide their faces because of unexplained reasons, but do it anyway. (I know this changed in 2019. I also know they never explain a thing when they change stuff.)
There is always a man who has the most authority in the room. Figure out who he is and pay total attention to him. He’s going to be at the front and have a look of authority on his face. (Also, his wife will be close to him, looking sweet but never talking and in charge of nothing.)
The way to get into heaven is to do a kind of repeat-after-me poem that you don’t even have to remember because the lady at the veil will just remind you.
To get past the Celestial Kingdom guards there are handshakes you’ll need to know, some other things (I assumed) that you did with your hands to remind you of the handshakes, and absolutely none of these things will make you feel anything at all. They’ll just exist and have no point to them. So the most important things that you’ll ever do (and most sacred of all secrets) that the Lord of the universe requires you to do to get into heaven, are meaningless and rote. Get used to that.
Girls should not sit near the priesthood because we are distracting and would probably give them bad thoughts even in very weird and non-flattering outfits.
No matter what happens or how you feel about it, you must always act like it’s totally normal and fine if everyone else is doing it. Go along with the crowd at all costs.
Even if you’ve tried to make the temple a good experience 500 times and you still don’t like it – just keep going. The only reason you don’t love it yet is because you haven’t done it enough times.
The smartest and most important people ever born on earth have been waiting for thousands of years for a housewife in Utah to watch a movie about the creation so they can finally be with God.
Literally every book, institute class or temple prep lesson will explain absolutely nothing to you about the temple. If you try to bring this up people give you awkward looks like you’re probably only asking because you want to sell drugs. Being confused is bad.
The whole thing will look like you’re in a cult but it isn’t because they said it’s not.
Everyone should talk very monotone. Even more ideally, just pump an intercom monotone voice into meetings so there’s no chance for deviation or personality or mistakes. God hates mistakes. He’s autistic.
All rules of modesty and touching go out the window in the temple. You’ll get naked under a sheet and a lady you’ve never met will reach under and rub oil on random naked body parts with zero warning. Adam and Eve are naked. You will hold hands with strange men at the veil and in the prayer circle. In the prayer circle some man will rest his large arm on your small shoulder for way too long, and since you’re too short to do it with your own arm to the man on the other side of you, you’ll have to press your arm against his lower body to rest it from getting too tired to stay up. (When you’re younger and doing baptisms and confirmations, men will put their big arms all over your wet back, hug you, and press their heavy hands onto your head and tiny shoulders. You’ll also have to walk in front of everyone in a clingy wet jumpsuit.)
If a creepy old dude who came without a wife wants to join the prayer circle, it’s the responsibility of a young woman there by herself to join him rather than just making him sit back down.
Group chanting is the real way to pray. (Also, don’t kneel to pray in the traditional way in the celestial room or they’ll stop you immediately.) Praying has to be in the circle group or silently in your head. No exceptions.
Everybody gets a new name that is apparently top secret and also meaningless for the men, but the only way a woman can get resurrected.
The covenants that future people will make in the temple might change, but there’s going to be no explanation as to whether you are held to the original covenants that you made, or if your covenants are upgraded to the new ones.
You don’t need any preparation for what covenants you’re about to promise to do for ETERNITY (so a billion times a billion years, plus billions more). Hearing them on the spot as a teenager with no explanation or Q & A period is valid because whatever the church asks you to promise to do is always going to make you happy, so just bow your head and say yes.
Your marital status matters a lot. Even if you aren’t married, you’re going to covenant to obey your husband and everyone will just totally ignore the fact that single people exist.
Surprisingly, you don’t promise to do any stuff like “be kind to others” or “feed hungry people”. Instead God is just really concerned that you promise to never say anything bad about his church leaders or laugh too much.
Satan tells everybody that he has “power and priesthoods” in the temple. The women still don’t, though!
Absolutely nothing makes sense, but it doesn’t matter! It for sure makes sense to people who are older and more spiritual than you, but don’t ask them how because you’re not supposed to talk about the temple outside of the temple where you’ll actually see those wise people.

This list could go on forever, so feel free to add your own ideas in the comments.

Looking back, the first half of my life was spent waiting to go to the temple, and the second half has been spent trying to process what happened to me there. I was traumatized by my experience, but I didn’t realize that when it happened. If I’d been mugged on the street at the same age, it would have been much easier to realize it was a traumatic event and seek help for the lingering fear I felt. With the temple though, I was like, “That was extremely uncomfortable. Maybe I just need to be mugged a bunch more times and it’ll get better!” Everyone around me kept telling me how much they loved being mugged, and that maybe signing up as a volunteer to mug more people would help me enjoy the experience more.

I’m writing this for any girl half my age, going through the temple for the first time in 2023. Some of the experiences are different now, but hey – if you don’t love the temple, you aren’t crazy, you aren’t lacking the spirit, and you aren’t wrong.

I’ve written about the temple other times as well:

Heavenly Mother and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Temple Open House – Exponent II
It’s Okay To Not Love the Temple – Exponent II
Breaking Our Silence About the Temple – Exponent I

 

When Patriarchy is Good Enough

I remember the first time a woman asked me if I really understood what an awesome husband I have. In her experience, men abused substances, men left, men took no responsibility, and men didn’t honor women. In contrast, my husband was there, really there, leading, taking his role of husband and father seriously. The obvious difference that stood out about him: His participation in the Mormon Church.

Over the years, I’ve watched missionaries convert men who came into the church building in dirty jeans and scuffed boots, carrying the permanent scent of cigarettes. After baptism, they transformed into clean-cut guys wearing a modest suit, free of cigarettes, and adorned with purpose, leadership, and responsibility. Some men are literally baptized one week, made a deacon the next, then ordained as priests the week after. They gain more institutional authority in a couple of weeks than a woman can in her lifetime.

Boys from a young age can embrace their calling in life and begin preparing for a clear future that promises leadership, respect, and even reverence. At twelve, a boy begins his journey into an elite experience, where his presence is necessary and his role admired. He’ll be credited for being a better man, best in some ways. Any societal or personal costs that come with this type of manhood will be discredited, undermined, bartered, and ignored.

And, truly, who doesn’t want boys and men to have purpose, potential, and authority? Who would deny this of their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers? What woman would choose less for men and, consequently, less for herself?

While I understand, and sometimes internalize, these arguments, I can’t help but ask, “Why are there only two options for men?” Do we have to settle for patriarchy and its negative impacts on women, children, and – yes – even men because it’s the best we can do? When it comes to encouraging men to be great, must we settle between the greater of two evils?

Unfortunately, faced with this question, many answer “yes.” Some say they wouldn’t mind change; they’d even support it. What they will not do is jeopardize what is good enough in response for something that is ultimately better for all, but less exclusive and clearly beneficial for some.

And, for me, this good enough, this acceptance of less for women, of internalized misogyny, of rigid ideas that diminish and exclude, this idea of the best we can do, is something I can no longer accept. This is the truth that darkens everything in my faith tradition and breaks my heart anew every Sunday if I’m not careful to protect it.

It’s ironic, then, that I see that same faith tradition as creating the me that refuses to accept good enough.

Christmas Traditions and the Rhythms of Life

Every December, I imagine missionaries breaking river ice below a midnight moon in Switzerland, making space in the frozen current for my great-great-grandmother to push her fully clothed body into the water before immersing it entirely. The baptism happened at night because Swiss culture was “vigorously anti-Mormon” and viewed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a “grotesque religious conglomerate” (Swiss Mission Manuscript). 

Unfortunately, performing the baptismal ritual under cover of a dark winter night did not protect her and her family from the severe persecution that followed. My great-great-grandmother Emma, abandoned by friends, and her husband, fired from his prestigious career at the cement factory, were forced from their country. Emma left her mother’s grave, siblings she promised to raise, and her ancestral home when she journeyed, pregnant and with five young children, from her Swiss Alps to the deserts of Rexburg, Idaho. 

My great-great-grandmother Emma is largely lost to me. She never learned to speak English and never kept a written record. All I have are a few sentences her son wrote in a language she never spoke. There is a sentence about Swiss Christmases celebrated in an old log cabin; Emma carried her family’s traditions to a foreign land and brought familiar Christmas moments to her children during a difficult transition in Idaho. However, those traditions died a few years later when persecution forced Emma to bury her “German customs” and conform to the strict Puritan traditions of her neighbors. The sentence eludes to rich traditions but ends abruptly.

As Christmas draws near, I long for the traditions of my great-great-grandmother and her Swiss-German family and ache for the stories I’ll never know. Did she believe in those whimsical faeries that hid in the forests of Europe? Did she dress as a Tschäggättä with a wooden mask, animal skins covering her small body, and a bell tied around her waist as she chased her children, hugging them in the snow? Did she know that when she relinquished her Mother’s traditions, she buried pieces of herself as well? 

Little by little, this woman gave up everything she was for the traditions of Mormonism.

She stepped into a freezing river that tore her away from her country’s beliefs and language until there was nothing left except Mormonism. The precious traditions of my Mothers were never passed down to me. I imagine Emma cutting pieces of herself off every time they asked – her Swissness, her stories, her feminine rhythms, her magic, her opinions – and then dropping those pieces of herself in the graves with the babies she buried. 

I feel my great-great-grandmother’s wounds in my body and her longing for home in my blood. 

I long to know her traditions because my own are changing, grasping for anything feminine and natural and ancient. Maybe she held the magic that I am looking for; maybe knowing her traditions would explain the whispering trees, crackling fire, and silent snow that call for me to dance in a world that glares at dancing. Is this the magic that pulled her into the frozen river over a hundred years ago?

Recently, I read that Pythagoras, the Greek Philosopher, believed that “the solar system emitted perfectly harmonious sounds that are the origins of the rhythms of life.” This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. It suggests that life and death are songs emitted from the solar system. I love to imagine my great-great-grandmother as a note in a harmonious sound created by the universe, one I can still feel the vibrations of. This means that her life matters still; her death harmonizes with my life. 

Maybe that’s why I feel the rhythms of my great-great-grandmother’s life pulling me toward her silence. I notice that this silence has something in it, something substantial that makes me long for her traditions; after all, traditions unite us in rhythm with the universe. Maybe that’s why a woman’s life cycle ebbs and flows – like an orbit – coming and going, dancing and swelling like the sound waves of a symphony. And maybe this music runs so deep through time and space that not even death can take it away. 

The tragedy of neighbors persecuting Emma and her family everywhere she went, forcing her to choose between conforming and abandoning her traditions cannot be overstated. But maybe the unrecorded traditions still dance inside of me, in my blood. Emma amputated herself from her culture and history, transplanting her family into Mormonism, but she couldn’t cut herself out of the rhythms of life that dance timelessly through my flesh.

I will always grieve for Emma’s suffering and wonder what she gave up to be Mormon, but each December, I will think of her, and this Christmas, I will dance in time with the perfectly harmonious sounds of the solar system and recognize how my great-great-grandmother’s life and death miraculously created the rhythms of my life.

Photo by Mike Kotsch on Unsplash

Photo by Tevin Trinh on Unsplash

Guest Post: Missing the Plain and Precious Truths Right Before Our Eyes–Prophecy of Heavenly Mother and Women

by Naomi Swan

Have you ever not seen what was right in front of you? What made you not see it? Back in college, I dated this guy whom I got really close to very quickly. But in the course of things, we decided that we were not right for each other and became close friends instead. We set each other up on dates and talked after some of those dates. After a weekend trip together, we separately realized we were actually truly in love. However, I resisted this notion, fearing he didn’t feel the same way, and was about to leave the friendship altogether. What made me not see that he was in love too? Was it fear that our decision had already been made and couldn’t change? Did I just think I knew something I didn’t, and was closing myself off to further understanding? These fears and assumptions blinded me until I opened myself to the possibility that he was in love, too.

Sometimes we look beyond the mark, thinking we already know the truth of the situation, expecting something different than what is. Those that lived in Christ’s time are described in Jacob 4:14 as looking beyond the mark because they did not see Christ for who he was as the Messiah. Their assumption that they knew how He would present himself blinded them from seeing him in the way that he actually came. They led, taught and reacted as though they knew something they actually didn’t.

Could the church be looking beyond the mark, when it comes to our Heavenly Mother? Prophets have prophesied that women will have revelations and prophecies(1). Yet when those revelations and prophecies are brought forward, how does the church respond? What women’s revelations and prophecies are we seeing at the forefront? It seems that there is blindness to these because the church could be looking beyond the mark, assuming that all revelation comes through the president of the church, when scripture indicates otherwise. “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh… and your daughters shall prophesy”(2). This could only be significant to mention if it refers to prophecy that can bless others on a wider spectrum, since there have always been women who have had the gift of prophecy(3). Moses said, “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!”(4)

Many women have attempted to offer their revelations and prophecies to help the church, yet we receive push-back and blame (stonewalling(5) and gaslighting(6)) for thinking that we could possibly be in a position to offer such gifts. I am one of the many who has offered a letter to the church regarding my own revelation of Heavenly Mother. It felt like hitting an iron wall that I never would penetrate. It hurt deeply to be so rejected for having received revelation as a result of applying church doctrine in my life. Gaslighted for believing scripture that says I could have such revelation. Gaslighted for believing in my own revelation which the church taught me to receive. Stonewalled and shut down by a policy that prevents the prophet from receiving letters from mere members.

Paul taught that we are all the body of Christ and each has a gift that can profit the whole(7). Joseph Smith also reiterated this in Doctrine and Covenants(8). For our gifts to come together, leaders also need to be open to receive the gifts of the members. We are all the body of Christ. If leaders are blind to the gifts of the members, thinking they already know how the Lord will accomplish His work, they miss out on the fullness of revelation. Openness to possibilities opens us to revelation, just as Joseph Smith had to open his mind to the possibility that God would speak to him.

After spending much energy praying with an open mind to the possibility that there could be scripture that would teach of our Heavenly Mother and therefore teach more about women, I received a revelatory dream of Christ. I have had much experience with revelatory dreams. They increase my faith and have shown confirmable truth. In connection to this dream, understanding of certain scriptures came to me. They clarify the need for women’s revelation in the last days, the need for Heavenly Mother, and confirm the truth that women’s gifts are crucial to our knowledge and wellbeing. From my impressions, the following prophecy of Isaiah’s could be added to the prophecies that indicate that women have a greater role than patriarchy would assume. Here are my impressions…

Isaiah 32:9-12
Verse 9. “Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech.” He calls women to awareness of their stewardship.

Verse 10. “Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come.”

“Many days and years shall ye be troubled” — Speaking of the oppression of women and their gifts for centuries, living under men’s definition of who they are, culturally and religiously.“Ye careless women” — He refers to us as careless because it has gone on for too long.“For the vintage shall fail” — “Vintage” refers to the past. The old ways regarding women will no longer work, such as how patriarchy has defined roles of women. They will fail.“The gathering shall not come” — This brings to mind the prophecy of President Spencer W. Kimball that says that women and their families will come to the church in large numbers from the influence of righteous women who are articulate in their lives and beliefs(9). Saying that it shall not come, tells me that if we do not rise up and change the old ways, other women will not be drawn to the church in great numbers as prophesied, and the gathering will not happen.

Verse 11. “Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.”

“Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones” — It is crucial that we be aware and not be at ease with the way things are and have been. This would be careless to believe that this is what God intends.“Strip you, and make you bare” — Our feelings, our sufferings, our yearnings, our impressions, and especially our revelations regarding the change that is needed from the old ways must be made known, and for that to happen, they MUST be valued. According to Isaiah, our insights and inspiration are crucial to the change that is needed.“Gird sackcloth upon your loins” — “Sackcloth” signifies mourning. “Loins” signifies our gender. Put with previous verses would mean to mourn for those women who have suffered the troubles of oppression to any degree. With sackcloth, say good-bye to the old ways. Putting sackcloth over our loins speaks to me of reproductive organs, which can refer to the misuse and distorted view of women throughout time being used and subordinated largely for sex, reproduction, and service, rather than fully respecting them as whole beings bearing spiritual gifts to contribute with equal weight to our brothers.

Verse 12 is where I felt that Isaiah further clarifies our stewardship, why women have been oppressed and what will heal that oppression and restore balance. He seemed to be very poignant in its importance so far.

Verse 12. “They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.”

“Teats” expresses woman or Mother, and the perfectly-tailored nourishment we need from Her(10).To “lament for the teats” of our Mother in Heaven is to regret that she was lost from our remembrance and to have great yearning to bring Her back.“Pleasant fields” indicates that comfort and peace are available in the bosom of our Mother in Heaven. She can subdue the inner suffering and replace it with pleasantness. This is much like how an infant feels in the bosom of its mother. We should not fear this, but rather seek it.“Fruitful vine” indicates there are great blessings available in coming to our Mother. I believe that one of the greatest fruits will be to know our Mother and therefore know Her daughters better. I observe and experience that we women need desperately to know ourselves through our Mother God. Gaining this knowledge will bring back the balance that was lost, overcoming oppressive ways held over from the past (“vintage shall fail”) and put us in pleasant fields. The femininity and masculinity in us all has been damaged by imbalance in our view of God. Mother God is key to knowing and healing who we all are.

So Isaiah has clarified the problem and the stewardship to heal it. Jacob 5, the allegory of the Olive Tree, is the second scripture passage I was led to. I have felt particular impressions of how the Lord is doing this work. It works together with Isaiah 32. Here is a summary of my impressions…

Jacob 5:48
“Is it not the loftiness of thy vineyard– have not the branches thereof overcome the roots which are good? And because the branches have overcome the roots thereof, behold they grew faster than the strength of the roots, taking strength unto themselves.” The branches are the members. Many are not feeling fully fed and leave because we are not receiving of our full root system, which is our Mother and Father God. Mother is left out. They, together make up our roots, but we must receive from them both to be fully nourished. Therefore, we are suffering. Christ is the trunk through which we can receive that connection and nourishment.

The whole tree represents the church. In order to save the tree, or the church, the Lord of the vineyard takes branches of the tree, or members, and puts them where He can nourish them individually. This is a step in His overall plan to save the tree. Jacob 5:13 “And these will I place in the nethermost part of my vineyard… and I do it that I may preserve unto myself the natural branches of the tree; and also, that I may lay up fruit thereof against the season…” Isaiah 32 connects to these verses. These branches that the Lord is nourishing separately are (primarily) women of whom Isaiah speaks. They “lament for the teats” and are reaching more deeply through Christ, the trunk, and are receiving their Mother roots. They are being drawn to Her and Christ is nourishing them with revelations, visions, dreams, impressions and vital experiences regarding our Mother. These are the fruits that Christ is ”laying up for a season” to bring into the Mother tree. These fruits bring with them the rest of the root system, which is our Mother in Heaven.

Just as I needed to put down my assumptions to recognize the true love in front of me, and his love for me, the church may benefit from doing the same. If they choose to let go of their assumptions, I have no doubt that they will discover that women have a far greater role in life, in the church, and in heaven than they currently teach and practice.

Footnotes:
1. Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17-18
2. Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17-18
3. Micah 6:4, Ex 15:20, Acts 21:9, Judges 4:4, 2 Chron 34:22, Isaiah 8:3
4. Numbers 11:29
5. Stonewalling – to stop a discussion from developing by refusing to answer questions or by talking in such a way that you prevent other people from giving their opinions, Cambridge Dictionary
6. Gaslighting – make the victim think their emotional credibility or memory is flawed — thereby making the victim distrust themselves and rely more on the person who’s gaslighting them, Vanessa Kennedy, director of psych. at Driftwood Recovery, Texas; (CNN Health).
Research suggests that gaslighting behaviors can be rooted in gender and social inequalities. …relationships where there’s a power imbalance. …(They) may be purposely trying to make you feel like everything is your fault., Psych Central.
7. 1Cor 12
8. D&C 46:12
9. Pres Spencer W Kimball, “The Roles of Righteous Women.” Ensign, Nov.1979, 103-4
10. Health Children Project CLC intensive training, 2019 – breastmilk is tailored to gender, prematurity, season, & time of day

Naomi Swan is a gentle heart who loves God and people. A heart-to-heart, family, friends, the arts, nature, and something new to explore fill her soul. She has a great desire to help women know themselves.