Child Abuse and the New Training Module

The new training for leadership of youth isn't great, but it's not terrible. A few thoughts I had while taking it:

This is really good:

"Coercion can occur when a leader compels a child using religious language or authority to imply a spiritual obligation or duty, permission, sanction, punishment, justification, intimidation, or threat. This is contrary to the Savior’s teaching that individuals should lead “only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:41)."

However, I think we need to be more explicit about when someone invokes someone else's authority to justify what they say. Judging someone as not following the prophet because they make choices that don't align with whatever trendy program or catch phrase is most recent is abhorrent, and falls solidly under this category. 

Is "Violence" Really the Right Word?

He sat across from me, behind a desk. He was soft-spoken, the quintessential shy guy in the corner. When he asked me that question, "Is 'violence' really the right word? Doesn't that water down the word 'violence'?" I had been trying to explain to him why I—why people like me—so often felt that the church was not for us.

He knew from a previous discussion I had with him that I had been struggling with the changes in the Church. The efforts to pull back from the burden the church places on people have left many of us at the edges feeling even more adrift and on our own than we already did. 

I had stumbled over trying to explain how the things we teach at church conflict with our lived experience, when the pinnacle of church attendance—being sealed to a spouse for all eternity—was one of the sharpest tools in our abusers' box, and the promise of trying again brings feelings of fear and inadequacy rather than peace and hope. 

Living with both fear and faith....

I lived in an almost constant state of fear for years. October is a hard month for me, not only because it was one of the incidents that I experienced, (I am reminded every time I see a fog machine,) but because it is National Domestic Violence month.

Every year, I consider wearing purple on the day of the month that he left me. I only did it once. A tiny, purple ribbon. The truth is, I don't want to dwell on what happened in the past. I don't want to be reminded. It's not really a part of my life any more. And I certainly don't want to talk about it.

But I don't have much choice about being reminded, so I choose to talk so that other people can feel a little less alone. And still more can catch a glimpse of a world I hope they never have to truly understand, no matter how much I long for understanding.

Getting out of my relationship didn't help the fear. It honed it. As with most abusive people, the loss of control made him truly rage. And that rage echoes through the years. He simply can't let it go completely, and focus on his new wife and his kids. But it's okay. Every time he tries something new, he loses a little more power. So rather than focusing on that, I want to talk about hope and faith in the midst of fear.

We all have had cause to fear. Fear not being good enough. Fear judgment. Fear loss of blessings if people knew what we were really like. Fear being alone. Fear loss of children, spiritually or physically. Fear the loss of our spouse, of being looked down on by our neighbors. Fear of not being right. Fear of sickness or death.

And often, you hear that fear cannot exist where there is faith. But it can.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ brings joy, but it is not always the type of joy that led the sons of God to shout and all the morning stars to sing. Sometimes it's a quiet joy, the joy that comes from knowing that there is someone out there, an omniscient being, an omni-benevolent God, who knows you, knows your sorrows, and is willing to sorrow with you, even if that sorrow is temporary. He doesn't tell us to buck up and get over it. He weeps along with us.

I often picture that, when I mourn with no one to hear, knowing that my mourning is really kind of stupid, after all. My kids will be fine. They are learning, in spades, to distinguish between truth and error. That's exactly what we're here for.

To me, faith is not dressed in white, holding a candle, with softly flowing hair. Faith is battle-scarred, dressed in filthy fatigues, mustering just one more smile, one more act of charity, one more attempt to drag our fellow soldiers out of harm's way. Faith makes mistakes, but keeps trying because she knows in whom she has trusted.

I can't see even the next step in front of me, and I've lived that way for years. But I keep walking, because I'd rather fall while trying to serve my God than stand still and wait for a rescue that may never come.

So for me, as hard as it is, October is a time of faith. I don't know what eternity holds. There isn't much hope in what we know so far, for me. But I know God. I know my Savior. And I choose to keep walking, whether or not I wear a purple ribbon.

"You have no power over me!"

When I was in kindergarten, I used to go to the principal’s office to read TIME magazine to him. Occasionally, he would ask me what a specific word meant. I remember being worried I wouldn’t explain it correctly, that I would be wrong. That summer, I spent weeks wrestling with math, sometimes literally banging my head on the desk in order to catch up enough to enter 2nd grade.

My mom was an early childhood educator, and my dad was a social worker. It was the early 80s, a time for child psychology. I was born with some natural intelligence, but my parents trained and honed it. I was in the Gifted classes. I was told how unique and special I was. How I was smart. I was raised to believe I could solve any problem, accomplish anything if I put my mind to it.

As I got older, I went to college, graduated in veterinary science, became a web designer, served a mission for my church, came home, and met a man.

He was not of my faith, and I was only interested in dating people who believed as I did. He said that something had been missing from his life. He wanted the family life, the life of faith. He wanted to have the relationship with God I had. He listened to the missionaries in my home, and was eventually baptized into my church.

Everyone in my ward said how cute we were together. When, the night before I moved away, he floundered over asking me to marry him, I said yes before he finished his sentence. I had prayed about it. I thought it was right.

Love and Lies

"Without [honesty], there can be no salvation."
—Honesty, a Principle of Salvation by Mark E. Petersen

"Everyone lies sometimes. I never understood why liars were treated the same in scriptures as murderers and adulterers until I met [one]. Now I understand."
—Unattributed

What is the difference between someone who tells a lie and a liar? Neither are good, but until I spent many sleepless nights trying to come to terms with the truth of my marriage, I had no idea there even was a difference.

But since my education in the school of hard knocks, I've learned to see the threads of deception which weave themselves through the fabric of our culture, our lives, and our very identities. We lie to ourselves constantly. Sometimes, we try to avoid hurting someone, and sometimes we are simply trying to cover our own weaknesses.

But there are people who have willingly and earnestly immersed themselves in lies to the point where they are nothing else. All their relationships are false, because they are built on lies. They live in a constant state of brazen insecurity, as they layer one lie upon another until they convince themselves that they are good people. And the hardest part to understand is that these people are everywhere. To an extent, they are even us.

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.

Seeing Through A Stone

To me, the Church's release of photographs of one of Joseph's seer stones falls under the category of only "mildly interesting." But thinking about that and hearing others' thoughts about it has coalesced some rather unrelated thoughts.

Relationship Entitlement in a Mormon World

What are your thoughts on this?

How does it fit into an LDS view of eternal marriage?
What recourse does a Mormon woman (or man) have in an abusive marriage?
What can we do to change our understanding of marriage?
What should we do?

I'll post my thoughts in the future, but first I want to hear what you think. Email me if your comments are too personal to post publicly. I promise I won't reproduce or quote them without your permission.

#BecauseofHim

For me, the Church's campaign Because of Him immediately evoked Kelly Clarkson's song "Because of You" which perfectly captures every ounce of my fear that my choices will affect how my children see themselves. I'm busy. I don't always give them the time I wish I could when so often I'm struggling just to keep a livably clean house and cry only when they can't hear me.

"Because Of You"

I will not make the same mistakes that you did.
I will not let myself
cause my heart so much misery.
I will not break the way you did.
You fell so hard.
I've learned the hard way
to never let it get that far.

One of the main reasons I decided to divorce was for them, because I saw that I could never be a good mother while I was scrambling to figure out how to be an acceptable wife. I saw that I couldn't serve two masters: my God and my husband. Not when one was trying his hardest to keep me from becoming anything but what he wanted me to be for himself. Trying to climb out of the emotional hole I found myself in has been hard. I have a hard time wanting to let myself love again because it makes me and my children vulnerable.

Laugh With Me

Sometimes it is worthwhile to call out bullies, even relatively harmless internet bullies. So, since this particular bully finds himself unable to allow the entirety of this exchange to post on By Common Consent, I post it here, if for no other reason than to show that he doesn't intimidate me. In fact, I find the whole thing pretty funny.

My comment was made on a thread unfavorably comparing Mormon service to Pentecostal service. Normally, I skim over those kinds of posts but don't bother commenting because they are all too common and all too typical. But this one had a really good message, I thought, behind the dig at the Mormons and how we aren't good enough. It was contrasting service as a duty and ministry, which I feel is a powerful and poignant lesson. Unfortunately, because of the way it was framed, it almost immediately devolved to the plebeian and predictable critique of Mormons and how we're not charitable enough. Because of the good message, I thought I might say as much and counteract the trend by mentioning that Utah is known for generosity.

Dear Men: You’re Breaking Our Hearts

I don’t know if what I’m going to write represents more than just me. Maybe I’m alone in feeling this way, but it doesn’t matter. I need to write this for me. Maybe it will let me move past one more barrier of anger and pain. And maybe, if I’m not alone, it will make a difference for someone.

If you were to meet me in person, you would never guess that I have a deep hollow wellspring of pain. And when you read these words online, if you know my previous writings, you could probably chalk that pain up to my divorce. But you would be wrong. My ex-husband is just one data point on a vast continuum of experience. It isn’t my ex. It’s you, men of the Priesthood.

When I was a teenager and watched the boys around me turn into men, I noticed how they looked at girls. Because I was a bit of a tomboy, I also heard it. There may be women out there who don’t get it, but I think they are few. You think that looking at female bodies, those little “jokes” about “wanting some of that,” go unheard, but they don’t. We seem to ignore them, but they stick.

If you’re a good guy, you’re probably saying to yourself right now “at least I’m not one of those scummy guys who only value women for their looks.” But it’s not just the so-called scums. It’s our brothers, fathers, sons, priesthood leaders. Look at this bishop in the LDS church, teaching women that they exist to be beautiful. If it were only the scummy men, it wouldn’t hurt so much. But it’s our priesthood leaders, those who have made covenants to represent the Father.

The Seth Smith Viral Marriage Post

An email to Matt Walsh, after his response to Seth Smith's viral post:

---

I have occasionally read your blog posts, and mostly agreed with you. But I wanted to share a different perspective on that viral blog post by Seth Smith. I don't exactly disagree with him, but I don't exactly agree, either. I hope you consider what I'm trying to say.

See, I used to believe exactly what Seth Smith wrote about marriage, which is how I lost myself to an abusive marriage. I'm LDS, too. I take the scriptures very seriously. When I made a covenant with my God in His temple, my future-ex-spouse across the altar, I meant every word. I was prepared to give all I had to him. And I did. Piece by piece until there was nothing left. I'm not going to tell you my whole story, but I'm going to try to share part of it in an attempt to illustrate what I mean.

Cultural Violence in a Mormon Setting

In working through the emotional sludge pit after finding myself in a marriage fraught with violence, I have developed a keen awareness of patterns of behavior and modes of thought that open the door to violence. Over time, I have realized that these red flags do not define domestic violence, nor guarantee it. But they do nurture it. The biggest red flag of them all is objectification of the opposite gender.

Objectification is very hard to define for someone who has never learned to see it. For one thing, it is almost necessary to objectify to a point. It is such a common thread of life, we hardly notice it. If we were to see each and every person we pass in our lives as a person, we could easily go insane. It's just too much to process the real needs, motivations, and basic humanity of everyone all at once. Our brain filters the influx of information to our conscious mind, and with people this means we don't always see them as more than a prop in our life. Because it is necessary to a point, the difference between necessary and inappropriate objectification is sometimes difficult to parse.

Healing Through Repeat Trauma

When I first created and named this blog, I didn't know it would be so prophetic. Then, I only chose this name because it fit my screen name, and I loved the parable of the houses built upon sand and rock. Since then, my house has truly been buffeted by storms I did not imagine at the time. There have been times that I was sure that my foundations would crumble. I could feel some sands upon which my life had been built washing away from under me. There have been times I've clung desperately to the rock that was left, sobbing for help. Some of those times, there was someone to help. Many of them, there was no one.

After the night my ex-husband left for the final time, I had symptoms of post traumatic stress. For days, I got no sleep and for weeks I got very little. Someone would use a word, or I'd see an object that was involved that night, and the world would skip ahead. To others, I would cease to respond for a few seconds as my mind blanked out. Certain interactions, especially those involving any kind of conflict, no matter how mild, would leave me trembling for hours. I'd get flashbacks. And that is only a few of the things that had suddenly become a part of my life for months and years.

Damaged Goods

Elizabeth Smart recently commented on the evil of teaching people that their worth is tied up in their sexual inexperience. I agree wholeheartedly with her. Of course, "teh interwebs" has glommed onto her words and twisted them to attack the Church. Which is all really quite boring to me, same story different details. Except for one thing.

I have been a victim, too.

I have written before why I stayed in my marriage. When I was married, I felt like the least wind could shatter me. I was constantly worried about what I said and did. I would hang up with friends and family as soon as my husband was due home because I wanted him to feel my love and attention. I would do activities only after they had been suggested by my spouse, because I wanted to be available for him. I endured two years of torture because I wanted him to be satisfied and pleased. I watched our money drain out like water through a sieve, and felt guilty that I wasted money if I bought something for the house. I went to counseling in hopes that I could be fixed so that the "communication issues" in my marriage could be resolved. But nothing I did made him feel loved. No changes I made helped me communicate with him. Things only got worse the more I tried. Eventually, the marriage deteriorated. I ended it only at the strong promptings and counsel of the Lord, and to protect my ex-husband and my children.

The news can give people a wrong idea about domestic violence. Only the most egregious and horrifying stories hit the news. But once someone has been injured or killed, the entirety of the work of abuse has already been wrought. Abuse isn't first about being hurt. If it was, anyone would get out. But abuse is first about duty, love, obligation, about feeling like if only you worked a little harder, did a little better, things would change. It is an emotional landscape which is carefully terraformed by the abuser. And it works best on loving people who try to be selfless.

For this reason, I keep chewing over the discussion surrounding Elizabeth's comments. You see, I believe that I'm damaged goods, too. It's not something that counseling can help me with. Because it isn't in my mind or reason. It's in my heart and experience. They are a lot harder to convince. Especially after I've tried to convince myself time and time again, only to fail.

Modesty: What's Your Policy?

Sure, hemlines are in the right
place. But is it modest?

You can't be modest and fashionable.

...

Now that the screams of protest have hopefully faded a bit, I'm going to share a few thoughts that I have been mulling around over the last several months.

I have a daughter about six years old. Despite my initial attempts to keep Barbie out of the house, after I decided to change my tactics and let the dolls into the home, she has developed a fascination with Barbies. I have also purchased several Barbie movies, which both of my daughters love. They're not as bad as you'd think. But, predictably, fashion plays a part in all of the stories. Several months ago, she expressed a desire to be a fashionista/model/rock star when she grows up. (The exact title changes, but the idea is the same.) I had a problem with this, but couldn't put my finger on exactly why. At first.

Who wants to waste time
tugging at hemlines?

When I was a teen I rolled my skirt tops like most girls whose parents didn't let them wear whatever they wanted, but relatively speaking I have always been fairly modest and largely unconcerned with fashion. As long as the colors don't clash and the clothes are comfortable, I'm good. It hasn't hurt that I have never been anything close to runway model material, nor that I always had tomboy tendencies. I rarely have a desire to wear anything that requires maintenance. Never having really challenged the LDS standards of modesty, I didn't have an informed testimony of it, just a trusting one. Knowing I'd have to present a good case to my daughters, I decided it was about time I developed one.

Enter Beauty Redefined. Lindsay and Lexie, the founders of BR, conducted a training study in which I volunteered to take part. I wanted to gain some tools to teach my daughters to love their bodies for what they can do, not for what they look like. And I wasn't sure how. The principles of BR are values that I have gravitated towards over the years. I didn't think it would change how I feel about the objectification problem, or that participating in the study would impact me as much as it has.

A Wounded Heart

There was a time when I loved discussion. There was nothing I liked better than mulling over an idea in an environment of healthy opposition. But something has happened to me over the last year. My care is broken, and I'm not sure why.

Perhaps it is because people seem so bent on proving other people wrong. It's not about exchanging ideas or sharing a different perspective. It's about passion. Whoever yells the loudest and can get the most friends rallied to their cause wins.

I thought it was stupid in grade school when mutual nemeses started lunchtime fights, and it hasn't gotten any more attractive in full grown adults. I think that's a big part of why I haven't been participating in blogging much any more. I don't comment nearly as much, I don't even write that much. I'm just over it.

Why I Talk About Abuse

Most of the time, people don't want to talk or think about abuse. As soon as you use the A word, you can expect a shutter to come down behind their eyes. People are afraid of it. They think there is something wrong with you because you have been a victim in the past. They think there is something wrong with you because you haven't kept your mouth shut about it. They think you must be filled with anger or hate, or you wouldn't tell people the things that someone has done to you.

And I hate talking about it. I am tired of the uncomfortable silences when I admit to what I have lived through. I'm tired of people immediately doubting my word the moment I open my mouth about it. I have been threatened for what I say here. I have been attacked for not being silent. And I hate thinking about something that really isn't a significant part of my life any more. When it comes right down it it, if it were just about me, I'd move on and never think about it again. But it isn't just about me. It's about the 200 women who have been assaulted or beaten while I wrote this blog post.

Why 9/11 Isn't Such a Big Deal

I'll start with the disclaimers. 9/11 is a big deal. Roughly 3000 people died quickly while people watched on camera in a way that was shocking for most of the world. People's husbands, fathers, etc. died when they had every expectation of returning home that evening. That is heart rending, and I respect that.

But I can't help but notice that everyone else seems a great deal more affected by it than I was. So, I've been trying to analyze why my heart and mind is relatively unscathed by 9/11, outside of the obvious reason that no one I know personally was killed.

Apostasy and the Commandment to Forgive, Part 3

Apostasy and the Commandment to Forgive, Part 2

Jesus explains in Matthew 18:15-18 the process of what to do if one of Christ's disciples (ostensibly a member of the Church) should trespass against you. First, you should discuss it with him, then if he does not listen, involve the church, and then if he does not listen to the church he is no longer your brother in the gospel (v. 17). I believe this means that you still treat him with respect, but no longer trust him to behave as a disciple should behave. The Lord also gives the church the power to "bind and loose". In context, this would seem to mean that the church has power over membership covenants.

Peter then asks how often a person should be forgiven. Christ says, essentially, that we are to forgive ALL debts we hold against someone because we are debtors to Him.

Which brings me to a very personal illumination of forgiveness.