In Parenting, Personal Narratives

The Joy of Being “Not Pregnant”*

Author VadaPosted on 17 Comments

Last August I started a post entitled “Enjoyment and Productivity, or, The Adventures of Supermom.” I was celebrating the fact that I was writing quite a bit, and loving it. But not only was a writing a lot, I was doing better about keeping up with all of the other things I was supposed to be doing as well. My house was cleaner than ever, I cooked more dinners, I was more pleasant with my kids and I played with them more. Life was great. I posited that perhaps I was so productive overall because I was doing something I loved and was enjoying myself, and that made me happier and better able to deal with all of the other things as well.

The reason I never finished that post is that a few days after I started it I found out I was pregnant. Read More

In Personal Narratives, Sports

My Trouble with Spectator Sports

Author ZiffPosted on 33 Comments

On April 29th, the San Antonio Spurs beat the Phoenix Suns and dismissed them from the NBA playoffs. I’ve been a passionate fan of the Suns for several years, and I was hugely disappointed that they hardly put up a fight, losing this first round series, 4-1. I watched parts of the series, but not all of it. It wasn’t for lack of interest that I didn’t watch it all, though. It was that I couldn’t bear to watch my team play badly or see the Spurs or their fans rejoicing. In the deciding game of the series, for example, I turned the TV off when, with under a minute to play and the Suns down one point, Boris Diaw got the ball in the low post and then turned and threw a cross-court pass to . . . nobody, and the ball went out of bounds. The fans in San Antonio went crazy and I felt sick. So I turned the game off. I was happy to miss the agonizing final seconds.

But what if the Suns had won? Would I have kicked myself for giving up too early? Read More

In Priesthood, Ritual

Unfulfilled Priesthood Blessings, and the Power of Religious Ritual

Author LynnettePosted on 36 Comments

A recurrent problem in Mormonism is that of how to make sense of patriarchal blessings which make promises that don’t come to pass, or are even just plain wacky. (For some recent bloggernacle discussion of the issue, see here and here.) One common explanation when this happens is to interpret it as a communications breakdown, so to speak; perhaps the patriarch has simply misinterpreted the will of God, and pronounced blessings which reflect more of his own biases and expectations than genuine inspiration. Given that these blessings are mediated through fallible human beings, it’s inevitable that they’re going to have flaws at times. Read More

In Church Life, Parenthood

On Ignorance and Offense (includes FREE Bonus Discussion of Infertility!)

Author EvePosted on 25 Comments

Patricia’s excellent series of posts about her experiences with her daughter Mattea over at T&S have got me thinking again about ignorance and offense. I don’t want to presume to compare Patricia’s experiences (which she rightly terms “unbelievable”) with my own, but I suspect all of us have experienced the hurt and frustration of blithely presumptuous, well-meaning drive-by comments on our lives, sometimes in church settings, sometimes from fallible church leaders. I imagine all of us have endured remarks that stick in our craws that we struggle to forgive and to eject from our souls. To start this post off I’ll reflect on a few such remarks in my own life. Then I’ll try to put those remarks in some sort of meaningful context. Read More

In Gender Issues, Heaven

Can Women Be Exalted?

Author LynnettePosted on 79 Comments

One of the questions which came up in my post last fall about my reservations concerning the doctrine of Heavenly Mother was that of female exaltation more generally. It’s an issue that’s been at the back of my mind ever since. The discussion on my recent poll about the Celestial Kingdom inspired me to re-visit the topic, and attempt to sort out what thoughts on the subject I have thus far. Read More

In Theology

God’s Ways Are Not Our Ways

Author SeraphinePosted on 27 Comments

This post was inspired by the CK debate happening here.

I’ll confess that I find a certain amount of comfort in the idea that God is in some ways a different kind of being than we are. Humans, for all their beauty, are kind of messed up sometimes, and I love the idea that there is a being out there who is perfect and “good” and who doesn’t have the same kind of imperfections as the rest of us. I also love scriptures such as Moses 7:33–the moment when Enoch asks God why he weeps, He responds, “And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood.” The idea that there is a perfectly loving and good being who weeps at the cruelty that we inflict on one another appeals to me. Read More

In Church Policy, GA's

Something Different in the First Presidency Letter?

Author ZiffPosted on 35 Comments

Yesterday a letter from the First Presidency was read in my ward’s sacrament meeting. It sounded like the standard letter that’s sent every so often asking members to please not write to Salt Lake about our concerns but instead to talk to our bishops or branch presidents.

But at the end I thought I heard something different from what these letters usually sound like. There was a bit where I think they said if you have a question or concern that your stake/district/mission president agrees might be helpful to bring up to the general leadership of the Church, your president can write about it to them on your behalf. Read More

In Heaven, Polls

Do You Want to Go to the Celestial Kingdom?

Author LynnettePosted on 102 Comments

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I have to admit that I’ve never been all that enthusiastic about the Celestial Kingdom. As a kid, I think I imagined it being like church all the time–not exactly an inspirational thought. And I find the scriptural descriptions of it to be rather off-putting. Streets of gold? Glory, thrones, and dominions? If a sign-up sheet describing a field trip to such a locale came around Relief Society, I’d probably decline. Read More

In Gender Issues

When Objects Attack!: Struggling with Domesticity

Author SeraphinePosted on 6 Comments

When I’m living on my own, my house is very often a disaster. I only have a limited amount of time and energy, and for me, making sure that I fulfill my teaching and other life responsibilities is more important than whether or not my house is in order. No one except my fiance and family is allowed to visit my house, and I go through cycles of feeling bad or guilty about truly how much of a disaster my house can be at times (I generally cycle from mildly remorseful to downright mortified).

But this is not (entirely) a post about my housecleaning guilt. Read More

In Blogging

The Challenge of Finishing Posts

Author LynnettePosted on 23 Comments

Those who read ZD regularly have doubtless noticed that we’re not always the best at consistently publishing new material. This is probably due to a number of life factors, such as family, work, and academic obligations, or the need to watch entire seasons of television shows from Netflix. But whatever else may lie behind our periodic post droughts, the problem does not seem to be a lack of ideas. The following is a recent screenshot (posted with the permission of my co-bloggers) of the ZD queue: Read More

In Autism, Parenting

World Autism Day

Author VadaPosted on 8 Comments

When it rains, it pours. I’d just like to apologize to my fellow bloggers for putting up a third post today, and encourage you to scroll down and read their wonderful posts as well. 🙂

Today, April 2, is the first world autism awareness day. Many people are doing walks or other fundraisers for autism, and many news organizations are taking part by telling stories of autism and discussing what autism really is and means. I, of course, decided to celebrate world autism awareness day by blogging about it. Well, really, I celebrated world autism day by going to an ob appointment, trying to get my drivers license switched, trying to get poop out of the carpet, cleaning up a lot of throw-up, and going to cub scouts. But none of that has anything to do with autism, so I decided I better at least blog about it before the day was over. Read More

In Snoofs

Please Don’t Feed the Snoofs: An Anti-Paternalistic Screed

Author EvePosted on 18 Comments

A couple of years ago, in the middle of an intense, protracted, hilarity-inflected conversation, my sister Kiskilili invented the term “snoof” to designate the imaginary beings sometimes posited mid-argument to bolster the claim that ________* is harmful. The snoof-positer isn’t herself harmed by ________. She’s too intelligent, too intellectually sophisticated to be hurt by ________ personally. But she just knows there are snoofs out there–hordes of interchangeably childlike people who aren’t quite as bright or worldly-wise as she is. These poor snoofs are earnest, blank souls, liable to be utterly confounded by the first deviation from the sacred orthodoxy of ________ they encounter. Read More

In Fun, Presiding

Renouncing the Philosophies of Women, Mingled With Scripture

Author ZDPosted on 87 Comments

We at ZD are pleased to announce that we’ve made a surprising and delightful discovery: our radiant inner femininity is a true blessing to the world, and, in light of this ephiphany, we’ve begun embracing our divine gender roles in earnest. We’ve long felt there was something sadly lacking in our lives, and we’ve found it in the most surpising of places: patriarchal authority. We feel strongly (and the men in our lives concur) that there’s no more reason to worry our pretty little heads over things of the world, so the single among us are moving back in with our fathers where we can hone our skills as full-time homemakers and practice submitting to male jurisdiction, “learn[ing] in silence with all subjection,” while the wives on our site have committed themselves to renewed effort in surrendering to the presiding wills of our husbands. Read More

In Gender Issues

Guest Post: How Mormon Women Negotiate Contradiction

Author GuestPosted on 29 Comments

The following is by Katya’s friend Nocturne, who is gathering information for a paper she’s writing, as explained below. We’re hoping her questions will generate insightful reflections upon personal experience and lively discussion. If you would like to respond to her questions privately, we’d encourage you to send your answers to “info at zelophehadsdaughters dot com” and we will happily pass them on to her.

Sex, in the biological sense, is the irreducible raw material upon which the social construction of gender is built. The Mormon meaning of gender and gender roles is inextricable from the history of power differential between genders. I am writing a paper on the contradictions that women in the church either have to accept or dismiss, explain away and legitimize or fight against. As women in the church, we are presented with contradictions: on one hand, we are taught that we have agency to act as you feel right, told to get educations, expected to be self-reliant, and held to high spiritual and intellectual standards, but, simultaneously, the church creates the expectation (and, maybe, manipulation) of only choosing one route: married, stay-at-home housewife, mother. Read More

In Belief, Personal Narratives

To Some It Is Given: Knowledge, Doubt, Mercy

Author EvePosted on 24 Comments

Today’s thread over at BCC arguing that the loss of faith is ultimately a choice included a comment that wrenched my heart.

Subsequent discussion made reference to a passage in D&C 46 that has haunted me for most of my life, particularly these strange words:

To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world.
To others it is given to believe on their words, that they might also have eternal life if they continue faithful. Read More

In Repentance

Repentance as a Response

Author LynnettePosted on 11 Comments

One way of conceptualizing repentance is as a series of actions which, if performed with sincerity, lead to the divine response of forgiveness. We recognize that we have erred, fallen short, gone astray, and we go through a number of steps in an effort to make things right again—we confess our guilt, we do what we can to make restitution for our wrongs, we commit to doing better in the future. And once we have worked through these steps, we find that God is graciously willing to forgive, to take us back. Read More