The Reason for the Season

Of course, the title and the timing probably make you think this is a Christmas post. But it isn't really your typical post about a newborn babe, mangers, donkeys, and a virgin mother. The Church's video A Savior is Born covers that with far better artistry than I could.

But I feel the urge to write something very different. When I was searching for a title, this is the one that came to me. And maybe, in some ways, it's more Christmas-appropriate than I intended. It is certainly exposing a huge part of myself, which is a frightening thing, especially given everything. I'm going to talk about sin, and its consequences. I'm going to talk about imperfection, and the desperate hunger to be perfect in order to be loved. I'm going to talk about learning to accept the Atonement in the midst of sin and imperfection. And I'm going to talk about forgiveness.

Many years ago—I can't remember if it was before or after my life took a drastic turn—I prayed for charity. It's kind of a joke that if you pray for an increase in faith, patience, charity, or some other Godly virtue, you are setting yourself up for disaster. But when I finally knelt down and prayed for charity, I knew exactly what I was doing. I had been prompted by the Spirit to learn charity for some time. Even my patriarchal blessing commanded me to overcome selfishness. I had studied, read about Abinadi, Nephi, Abraham, Noah. I had pored over the words of Paul. It had struck deeply into my heart: "[if I] have not charity, I am nothing."

I didn't want to be nothing.

The Priesthood

I love life. I love the smell of rain, the feel of my daughter's hair on my face as she cuddles into my shoulder. I love the ability to create, to make things better than I found them. I love watching people struggle and move forward with faith. I love being there for people, being someone they can talk to and want hugs from. I love watching things grow, the changing colors of the mountains, the sting of cold air and languid exhaustion after a day of hard work.

But, at the same time, I don't handle life very well. And a fews weeks ago, I was struggling with something very deep and personal which I will not get into here. But as I prayed and struggled, I kept feeling this urge to get a priesthood blessing.

I have good home teachers, a great man. I have a father who lives not too far away. I work in a building stuffed full with men who hold the priesthood. But I realized I had no one I could ask for a blessing. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

The Fire of Faith

This post addresses my thoughts regarding, not only the recent policy clarifications in Handbook 1, but the overall nature of the doctrine of Christ, our place within it, and what we can expect as disciples of the Sacrificed God.

It is not meant to be kind, or empathetic, or consoling. It is an exploration of Christ's doctrine as I understand it. I hope it can help someone, even though I expect it will be harsh in places.

In watching (mostly) the discussions going on about the policy changes, one thing is clear. So very, very few of us understand doctrine. I'm not claiming to any special understanding, but I have studied the scriptures long and hard, pondered them, and applied them to times in my life that nearly broke me. So I do know a few things about struggling to reconcile my life with God's word and the policies of the Church. I'm going to get a bit personal here, in the hopes that my experiences can inspire someone to seek understanding, rather than justice.

How I Stay

It's not exactly a secret that, while I defend the Church online, I often struggle with it personally. I am a divorced, still and probably endlessly single mom. I am an opinionated and outspoken female. I am great at acquaintance-friendship, but struggle mightily trying to find the real thing. My schedule means that I say "no" far more than I should, if I were a "good Mormon woman."

A Glorious World

When I was no more than seven, I remember gently removing the shed skin of cicadas from the slat-wood fence in my parents' backyard. We would gather roly poly bugs and watch them curl and uncurl. One of my greatest ambitions was to find a queen fire ant, so I could have my own colony. I kept a careful eye on the date tree in our front yard, finding out that coconut trees and date trees were very different things.

I asked millions of questions, and stored the answers in the back of my mind. I climbed olive trees and dreamt of dinosaurs flying overhead. I read every book I could get my hands on, immersing myself in the stars, in the layers of the earth, in learning about peach trees and honey bees.

When we visited my grandparents, I followed one around and fed his calves and goats. The other taught me about herbs and roses. I learned that spiders love grape arbors, and that dog food doesn't taste good.

Later, I looked into the maw of a dormant volcano, smelled the sulfur pits, watched humpbacks dive on the horizon. I gathered and preserved sea urchin, learned about man o' war jellyfish, and how to pick blackberries with minimal scratches. Everywhere I lived, there were new explorations and always, always more to learn. What I could not learn by experience, I learned from books. Sometimes, I feel as though I have lived dozens of lives in my short years here.

Female Ordination: How to Stop Hurting

This is not my typical feel-good, soft post. I'm going to say something very harsh here. I am truly sorry to further wound those who are already in pain. But I have been wrapped up in a cycle of pain regarding the Church myself, and from that position I feel that I need to speak up, say what I need to say, even if I'm not loved for it.

You're looking for justification for women not having the priesthood. You think that, if the Church doesn't ordain women, there has to be a reason, even if that reason is just because God says so. You are frustrated and upset because you haven't gotten a "clear answer" that satisfied you. You don't feel valuable in the Church because you're not getting the answer you want.

And that is why you are missing the entire point. Because you assume that the prophets and/or God have to answer to you, give you what you want how you want it, you are causing yourself nearly unbearable pain. The justification, the only answer that you're going to get is that the leadership hasn't implemented it. Full stop.

The reason you don't understand the prophets' actions, or the stance of those who follow them is because your underlying assumptions have already taken you to a mode of thinking that is incapable of comprehending them. Take a step back from your assumptions for a moment—I know it is very, very painful and difficult, but try.

One Woman's Mormon Temple Experience

It breaks my heart to see so many people struggling in the wake of excommunication. It is like a sea of disquiet. I know I can help one soul at a time, but right now the pain is overwashing anything I could do, so I'm mostly just listening.

There is so much discourse about women's terrible temple experiences, how the endowment ceremony hurts them, how it keeps them unable to understand their place and who they are as women. Right now all the stories seem to be about how unequal and terrible it is. But I believe in the power of stories. Parts of my story can only be shared one-on-one, in person, when moved by the Spirit. But right now I feel constrained to share something publicly. Maybe seeing how I process my temple experience can help someone else who is trying to understand.

What it Means to Repent in the Face of Excommunication

I have never been called before a disciplinary council. But on my mission, I experienced something similar. Near the end of my mission, my mission president was released and a new one was called. My first mission president had incredible perception by the Spirit. He allowed me to be the kind of missionary I was drawn to be, even though it caused considerable upheaval and confusion among the ranks of the elders called to lead me in my work.

I remember going to interviews with him, which happened once every six weeks, nervous that I was going to be called on the carpet for the disagreements about how to conduct missionary work I had been having with my leaders. Every new set of leaders in every place I was moved (and it was frequent, at the beginning of my mission) was a new battle. They were called to report numbers of baptisms and lessons taught. I was inclined more to concentrating on the people I came in contact with, feeling strongly that counting numbers was not going to be effective in the area I served.

"It's Personal"

Like everyone who wants to do better, be better, I sometimes struggle with my relationship with divinity. I have been amply blessed in a myriad little ways. Nothing major, until recently, but repeated small nudges to say something or check on something that ended up saving me just enough to keep me sane. Some days, it has felt like I'm barely holding on with torn and bloody fingernails, but have been touched with just enough extra energy to keep holding on. It is like I'm part of a vast chorus where, hoarse and broken, my voice does far more to create dissonance than beauty.

Recently, the hand of the Lord has been much more obvious. For the last month or so, I have been attending a ward temporarily while I am in transition from one house to another. This ward has several women who are going through divorce. As I've learned of them, and heard some of them speak, I felt prompted to bear my testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting.

This was a difficult proposition because my testimony, as I have said before, is not smooth and pretty, cut to show light and sparkle. It is cracked, crazed, with deep inclusions. It's a bit off-color. The deliverance I've prayed for over the last several years has been slow in coming. Most days are beautiful, but I still sometimes crack under certain types of pressure which I feel ought to be long gone. I'm still triggered, sometimes, over silly things.

I've been in a liminal state for some time, but it is a liminal state where I feel unseen things are happening, that I am being pruned and developed for some specific purpose. I am changing in ways I can't quite see, let alone quantify. I have started several drafts for blog posts but never finished them. I find myself with few comments to make on others' posts. Whatever changes I'm going through don't fit labels easily. I am becoming, but I'm not becoming anything.

To Those Who Know Joseph

“We both belong to the race that knows Joseph, as Cornelia Bryant would say.”

“The race that knows Joseph?” puzzled Anne.

“Yes. Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds– the race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t. If a person sorter sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about things, and the same taste in jokes–why, then he belongs to the race that knows Joseph.”

“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her.

“It’s what I used to call–and still call in quotation marks `kindred spirits.’”

“Jest so–jest so,” agreed Captain Jim. “We’re it, whatever it is. When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I, `Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.’ And mighty glad I was, for if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each other’s company. The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth, I reckon.”

—Anne's House of Dreams, Lucy Maude Montgomery

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Do you ever meet people who just instantly click with you? It's like you've known them before, even though you have just met. Rarely, I have. It is a wonderful feeling, like you resonate at the same wavelength.

One of my companions was just that sort of friend. From the first hour we met, we were instant friends. We saw missionary work the same way, we were both a bit older, and we were able to pour our hearts into our work and have fun doing it. It really helped a particularly stressful time, and gave me the confidence to be the kind of missionary I felt called to be, even though it was almost the opposite of what I was being taught to be.

Female Ordination and the Church: Another Way

I am one who has struggled mightily with female roles in the Church and in eternity, yet I have a VERY hard time being sympathetic to Ordain Women as a movement. Most individuals who have aligned themselves with that group, I sympathize and even empathize with. I have gone to the mattresses on many of those same issues many times. I am not known for my reticence in speaking up.

There is nothing new about Ordain Women. They have organized together in direct, open, and unapologetic opposition to the Church. I'm not going to pick apart their claims to faithfulness and belief in priesthood authority while publicly opposing that authority. There is really no need, it's obvious enough. I also have no doubt that there are well-meaning people caught up in the smoke and mirrors. But I personally don't have a very long rope when it comes to that brand of deception, conscious or not. I'm all too well acquainted with it.

Explaining the Importance of Marriage and Family

The last two Sundays, I substitute taught the 12-13 year old Sunday School class. These are the same children I taught a couple of years ago. Perhaps because the universe (or God) has a sense of humor, this time around I taught preparing to receive temple ordinances, and how to explain the importance of marriage and family to others.

The temple has been very rough for me since my divorce. It used to be the only place I felt at home, but having lost some of the covenants I made is especially painful when I attend the temple. Maybe it's ironic, having a divorced woman—and one who chose to file, no less—teach preparation for the temple and the importance of marriage and family. After all, from the outside, it could easily be said that I did not honor my covenants in the temple, and that I obviously don't value marriage or family all that much, since I gave them up. In many ways, it was a little humiliating to stand before these twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys and girls, as yet largely untouched by the pain of sacrifice and loss, and try to teach them something for which I'm a very shaky example.

A Call to Repentance: Pants

Okay, ENOUGH. Multiple times, I have been stopped from commenting in any way on those threads which are promoting this Wear Pants to Church day.

But here, on this, I feel empowered to speak.

If people want to wear pants to Church, if they want to co-opt the sacrament meeting for their own agenda, that is their prerogative. So long as they are not interfering with you actually partaking and blessing the sacrament, LET THEM WEAR PANTS. It is a total non-issue.

If you consider yourself a disciple of Christ, if you want to be faithful and exhibit His presence here on earth, if you want His light to shine from your countenance, please, PLEASE stop attacking the people of this movement!

Of course it isn't about pants. Of course the entire movement is a subtle trap, with no winners, only victims. Please don't add to it. Please let it go. It isn't important. It doesn't matter.

What does matter is you allowing your fear, discomfort, anger at the people of this movement to keep you from recognizing them as your Sisters and Brothers. I beg you, please pray for the Spirit to guide you. Please let Him into your hearts on this matter.

Because what you're doing isn't helping. It's only buying in to the Adversary's plan with all this. I can't beg you enough to cease from contention.

Read 3 Nephi 11 and D&C 10. Ponder them, amend your behavior after the pattern they teach. This is your opportunity to invite the Spirit and show forth the Love of Christ. Don't let it pass.

A Turbulent Heart

“The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.” —Blaise Pascall

There are times in a person's life when she is presented with opportunities to look at herself and find herself wanting. I am naturally very hard on myself. Growing up, I somehow learned that my worth was directly linked to perfection. It seems that relationships are the greatest of these opportunities.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to live with my sister after her graduation from high school. We had not been the best of friends growing up. She was favored, and I was a truculent and sullen child. We did not have the enmity that many siblings cultivate, but we were jealous of each other for different reasons. I like to think that in the course of living together, and the trouble that we both experienced at the time, we learned to forgive and accept each other and ourselves a little bit more.

When I served my mission, I had close relationships with a few of my companions. One in particular, I think of as a sister. We had very similar outlooks on missionary work, and life in general. We both hated mushrooms (a good basis for any lasting friendship.) Most of all, she gave me confidence in myself and my unique brand of missionary work, which did not mesh well with the general missionary structure. Her influence started my feet down a long path which would eventually lead to me forgiving myself of my faults, no small task.

Pure Religion

I have been pondering the next step in my discipleship for some time. Now that my healing is as complete as I can expect it to be in this stage of my life, I feel a tender, growing urge to be for others what the Savior and others were for me when I needed it. In studying the scriptures, it is undeniable that the purpose of every disciple of Christ is to serve His children. But I have a problem. I'm a deeply selfish, self-centered person.

To Become a Priestess

“And, finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers.”
—Abraham, on becoming a priest; Abraham 1:2

I rocked, helplessly alone in a house as silent as a house can be in the middle of the city. A faint pool of streetlight fell over the face of my restless ten month old. Her fevered body could only find rest in my arms until the Tylenol soothed her symptoms. Even though there was no one to see, I furiously held back tears. It was 2 a.m. and I wasn’t going to call a house in the middle of the night to try to find some priesthood holder to wrest himself out of bed to give my daughter a blessing. So, instead, I offered a pleading prayer of faith.

The Ninth Day: The Temple

"On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
nine ladies dancing."

The temple is a tangle of emotions for a great many people. I didn't used to understand the issues. My first experiences with the temple were beautiful in their simplicity. There were no surprises for me. I had been well prepared by my bishop and my roommate.

When I made the covenants surrounding the endowment, a world of peace and love was opened to me. Finally, I felt I was in a place I belonged.

The covenants of marriage were no less glorious. I made those covenants with determination and love. I dedicated my heart, mind, and soul to my husband. I was not a perfect wife by any means, but I gave everything I had to making the marriage work, to trying to bring happiness to my husband.

Then came the time when I realized that those very intentions conflicted. I could no longer keep all the covenants I made, but I had to choose between dedication and love to my husband and dedication and love to my God.

The Eighth Day: Power Through Service

"On the eighth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
eight maids a-milking."

I know I am in a transition time, a time when the price for what I want is still being paid. As hard as that is sometimes, it is also a beautiful and glorious place to be.

Watching my very young daughters learn to process very advanced life lessons has been humbling. They both have amazing capacity to determine truth and error, to see through illusions and lies, and value the good and true, even when their friends and others try to direct them otherwise. Of all the roles I carry right now, the one that matters more than all others is that of mother.

Oh, I know there are a great many people who see motherhood differently. It is quite popular right now to talk about how hard it is, how thankless. It seems that half the world despises it for those things and the other half wallows in it for them. But I see the difficulty itself as fun, paradigm-shifting and therefore painful, yes, but also wondrous fun.

The Third Day: Courage

"On the third day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
three French hens."

The third day is courage. When I used to think of courage, I imagined a shining knight on his battle-ready steed, charging in to fight a dragon. Now, I realize that true courage rarely shines or makes loud sounds; it is found in the small things. For some people, courage is smiling at their children as they tell them their cancer gives them only a few more months of life. For some, it is speaking an unpopular truth.

Courage for me has become quite complicated.

Surviving Domestic Violence

I have had much opportunity over the past six months to face again various emotional wounds that I sustained in my marriage. It seems that every facet of my life is offering the chance to test the limits of my healing. I have been disappointed with my inability to easily shake off the frustration and the fear that these challenges bring. I'm perfectly fine 99% of the time, but then something comes up that triggers all the old muck, and I feel like I've made no progress at all.

But as I have prayed about this and discussed it with two friends patient enough to listen to me, the Lord has shown me that I AM over it. I AM healed. I'm just going through the physical therapy part of my recovery. When something happens to stir up the muck at the bottom of my clear and placid pool, I realize that the muck is less and less each time. It settles more quickly. The twinges of pain from my healing emotional bones are becoming less, and they fade much more swiftly.

That is something to celebrate!