Zelophehad's Daughters

Thanks to my fabulous RS president, my ward had an RS-centric sacrament meeting last Sunday, to observe the Relief Society birthday. I gave one of the talks, and several people requested that I blog it–so here it is. (This is a longer version of the talk I actually gave, since I was trying not to go over on time.)

I had a lot of fun thinking about this talk, because once I started making a list, I realized just how many women have inspired me and influenced both my faith and the way I see the world. To name just a few: Eliza R. Snow, arguably the first female theologian in the church, whose poem that became our hymn “O My Father” presented the doctrine of Heavenly Mother. As a theologian, I find that an encouraging precedent.¹ Or Pulitzer Prize-winner Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who gives me hope that I can integrate various aspects of who I am when she writes “I am a Mormon. And a feminist. As a daughter of God, I claim the right to all my gifts.”² Or Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson, whose book She Who Is has made me seriously think about the importance of the divine feminine.³. Or Deborah of the Old Testament, who served as both a prophetess and a judge. Or poet and essayist Kathleen Norris, whose thoughtful writings about faith have left me with much to ponder.⁴ But for this talk, since you probably would prefer I didn’t go on for hours, I will limit myself to a few particular women.

Read More

1. I am grateful to Deidre Green for this observation. [↩]
2. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Border Crossings,” All God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich & Emma Lou Thayne (Salt Lake: Aspen Books, 1995), 198. [↩]
3. Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992 [↩]
4. Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998). [↩]

Just in case you haven’t seen it yet:

For Mormons yearning to see women take on more visible roles in their religion, their prayers have been answered:

The Salt Lake Tribune has learned that LDS women are scheduled, as of now, to offer invocations or benedictions at next month’s General Conference — an apparent first in the faith’s 183-year history.

Read more here.

I was in an anthropology class, studying Jewish ritual observances of the Sabbath, when the instructor asked a simple question: Why does the Jewish Sabbath begin at sunset instead of sunrise? It caught me up short. I had no idea.

It’s from Genesis, he explained, from the creation narrative. Look at the wording of the account of each day: Read More

One of the warnings I heard frequently as a teenager was not to be in an environment which would drive away the Spirit. Inappropriate movies, inappropriate music, friends behaving badly—hang around with any of them, and the Holy Ghost would take off in the other direction. (Also, rumor had it that the Holy Ghost went to bed at midnight, which was why we should be home by then, too.) But when I think about this idea now, I’m a bit confused by it. If the Holy Ghost can’t be in the presence of anything impure or remotely tainted by sin, it’s not going to be much help to us bumbling, imperfect mortals. And if it’s true that it’s most prone to leave in spiritually toxic situations, it seems that it disappears exactly at the time we need it the most. Read More

Once upon a time there was an elderly woman who continually checked her mailbox. Every day, she was disappointed that she failed to get any mail (despite the fact that her mailbox was three times as big as the one next to it.) Finally, one day, she got a letter. But alas, the shock of it killed her. Read More

This is the question I asked last week in Relief Society. Read More

As Mormons (in fact, as Christians), we’re asked all the time to resist worldly beliefs, worldly ideologies, worldly practices, worldly what-have-you, in favor of the transcendent, absolute truth of the gospel. “Worldly” here, of course, stands for local culture with its array of conventional cultural practices that may be more or less dissonant with gospel principles. So, for example, American culture says (wherever you locate the “voice” of American culture, which is clearly not univocal) that sexual activity is fine in a number of different situations and relationships; the Church says, nope, only marriage. American culture (or some segments of it) says, get ahead and make lots of money and buy stuff and you’ll be happy; the gospel suggests we focus on family and relationships instead. American culture (in the voice of Dale Cooper) says coffee is a-okay; the Church says, we have revelation to the contrary, have some Ovaltine. Read More

When I blog about my experiences with depression, I frequently have people ask me how they can help those in their lives who are struggling with this illness. I’m always a little hesitant to answer the question, because people’s needs can vary widely. But I figured I’d list some of what I’ve personally found helpful, and less helpful, in my own experience.

Read More

A few years ago, a friend of mine from Israel came to church with me. He was curious about Mormonism, and he happened to come on – you guessed it – a Fast Sunday. I prepared him ahead of time for the likelihood of congregants offering unusual personal stories from the pulpit, thinking that by doing so I was covering most of my bases. It ended up being a pleasant enough meeting, mostly filled with streams of little kids getting up and being cute in front of the microphone. I felt a certain amount of relief heading into Sunday School for the second hour.

This was a large, well-attended ward in Utah County. The Sunday School was packed, and it was clear from the lack of a set time for visitor introductions that few visitors came. No one knew there was a non-Mormon in their midst. And then the Sunday School teacher, an older gentleman, began to talk about the Holy Land and the Last Days. Read More

Last summer, I posted about some of the mental health-related challenges that I’d been facing in the previous year. It’s been about six months since I wrote that post, and I thought it would be interesting to write about some of the things that have happened since then.

I saw my psychiatrist a few days ago. He’s new, and we’re still getting to know each other. We agreed that I’m doing pretty well and there’s no need to tinker with my meds right now. I said, as I always do, that I’m still not convinced that I need to take them, and that I want to have another “me” who’s not on meds to be a control group, so that we can determine whether or not they are actually doing anything. He said we could do a double-blind study in which neither of us knew whether the meds were placebos, and see what happened. Except that he doubted we would get approval from the Human Subjects Research Board. I had to laugh. It’s always nice when mental health professionals have a sense of humor, and actually talk to you instead of lecturing. Read More

As I said in response to Galdralag’s post, my mission was a very positive experience overall, a sea change in my spiritual life. (It was also hard and unremitting, as missions are wont to be, and I’d never want to go through the daily proselyting slog again.) But in spite of my own positive experience I feel a little terror when I think about my children serving missions. I know people whose missions inflicted lasting damage on them–spiritually, emotionally, socially, even physically. I’m acquainted with a couple of men whose missions destroyed their testimonies, and more than a couple of men and women who endured emotionally abusive companions. Read More

1) What is your current occupation?

2) What would be your dream job?

I’ve been thinking lately about some of the challenges of blogging. (Millennial Star recently had a really interesting discussion about Bloggernacle dynamics here, and I’ve also been thinking about some of the issues regarding audience  that Eve raised several years ago in this post. Additionally, T&S recently had a conversation about the boundaries of the “Bloggernacle”, and its relationship to LDS blogs more generally.) And one particular question I’ve been contemplating goes back to a much-debated question: what are the issues at stake when we publicly discuss more difficult aspects of the church? (As long as I’m linking, I’m pretty sure that Kaimi had a post several years ago, which I can’t seem to find, on the question of whether we should ever say anything negative about the church when non-members might be listening.) Read More

A few days ago one of our readers, a 20-year-old college student and feminist who is considering serving a mission, sent in some questions about feminism and missionary service. With her permission I’m posting them here for you, our excellent readers, to weigh in on:

1. Did you know you were feminist/ have feminist beliefs before the mission?
2. Were you aware of the apparent disjoint between those views and the teachings of the church? If so, how did that impact your decision to go on a mission? Read More

Unintentional sexism/homophobia/racism is still sexism/homophobia/racism.

Well-meaning sexism/homophobia/racism is still sexism/homophobia/racism.

Misguided sexism/homophobia/racism is still sexism/homophobia/racism.

Ignorant sexism/homophobia/racism is still sexism/homophobia/racism

Just because something is unintentional, well-meaning, misguided, or stemming from ignorance doesn’t mean that it’s okay.