What Makes a Holy Land?

My grandfather was killed in a hit and run accident in 1978.

His mother and sister struggled with life after that. They decided to go on a trip across the United States together to get away from things for a while.

I discovered this trip when I was going through photo albums and suddenly saw a place I recognized.

 

Temple Square.

They went to many places during that trip. But there was something truly special to me that, in one of the worst seasons of their lives, they ended up at the temple.

I served part of my mission at Temple Square. I was waiting for a visa to Brazil that I began to think was never coming. I had a truly horrendous time in the MTC babysitting a district of Elders who spent weeks on end bullying me and tearing down my self-esteem. I was told directly by someone, I forget who now, that I was being sent there to recover. And when I realized that the mission had no young Elders in it at all, that it was only Sisters and senior couples, I came to appreciate what that meant.

I had so many wild interactions there with so many people. Some of them were strange, like the guy who viewed the Book of Mormon as proof of alien interactions with humans. There were moments of heartbreak, like the woman who was in tears at the Christus statue who attacked us when we checked in on her. There were moments of pure delight, like when an LDS family with two young daughters came to that same Christus statue. The oldest girl, no older than 4 or 5, squealed "JESUS" and ran to the Savior's feet, little sister in tow. Whenever I hear someone mention the teaching to become as a little child, she is exactly who I think of.

There were also moments that were meant solely for me, like when I met the first Sister to ever be called to the Boston mission I had hoped to go to to wait for my visa. Boston has a large Brazilian population, many of whom are members of the Church. I had begged in prayer to be sent there and was told by other people it wouldn't happen because "Sisters don't go there." I had an entire conversation with the woman who was going to be that change. It seemed cruel to me at the time, dangling the carrot of something I wanted right in front of my face. In time, I've realized it was so I would remember that God does miracles and is aware of the desires of my heart, even if it means I don't get what I want. Someone needed to exercise enough faith to push that door open for women. I put my full weight behind it, and I can be just as proud that it opened for someone else.

But some of my favorite people I met there were people who just made me laugh. I met a Jewish convert from New York who told us his conversion story, how what drew him in was the Plan of Salvation. He summarized it in a New York accent in a voice I can still hear in my mind: "So you're a god, eventually. But can you pay RENT?!"

One of my favorite people I met was a Scottish convert named Agnes who was doing the Mormon trail across the US, beginning in New England and ending in Utah. She was a much older woman and told us all about her pilgrimage, and how she had cuddled with the oxen at the baptismal font in the Manhattan New York Temple. (I've been there. You enter into the baptistry on face level with them, or did the last time I was there.) She shared her testimony with us, and I'll never forget what she said.

She explained that the story of Joseph Smith was really hard to get her mind around. It truly is an insane set of asks: angels, gold plates, polygamy, and all the rest. She talked about how she came to accept it—not through any kind of empirical evidence or proof, but through faith and what that looked like.

For her, it was the recognition that being LDS was the best way she had ever encountered to live an excellent life. She said that the worst case scenario she could imagine is one where God would say to her, "You know that whole business with Joseph Smith was a load of crock, right? But you lived such a good life, I have to let you in anyway."

That has always stayed with me. Agnes was one of many people who came to the Square looking for something. I saw people come there looking for faith, or a fight, and truly everything in between. And it's only now that I'm older and wiser that I see something clearly now that I couldn't see then.

Agnes didn't need to come to Temple Square to find faith. She already had a tremendous amount of faith. She, and many others, were looking for conviction. I was at Temple Square long enough to learn you don't get that from a place. While a place like Temple Square can illuminate the possibilities for conviction through the lens of history, it doesn't bestow that conviction through contact or proximity alone. Conviction is made from the materials of your own life and your own choices. Your will, how firmly you place yourself into an immovable and unyielding position, is the measure of your convictions. It comes from within.

Faith is the decision to believe in what you cannot see, and what cannot be proven objectively. That never goes away. Nothing we experience in life, no place we ever visit, will create a shortcut under, over, or around that decision to believe, to trust in God. Faith, at its core, is a decision. The ability to continue making that decision over and over again, under all species of hardship and opposition, is conviction.

Where Jesus walked is nowhere near as important as how Jesus walked, and with whom. The same is true for all of us. Our walk with God might never take us anywhere near a temple because of where God has called us to go. But we are the holiest dwelling places of God on earth—not any of the buildings we've made.

Being a holy place of living faith wherever I am, whatever my circumstances may be, is what it means to be the temple of God. Worshiping God, no matter what places I can or cannot enter. There is more than one way to access a temple. One way is to enter a place that people invite God to dwell. The other is to become that place. There can be no separation from God where communion never ceases. It is the refuge that is unassailable by others for as long as the person wills it so. The torch within will not go out.

The temple is not special because it has some holy essence that springs forth out of nothing, to passively be absorbed by others. The temple is special because it directs people to Jesus Christ, who is the giver of healing and peace. The temple is just a building. It's Jesus Christ that is the true power behind it all, whose objective is to make you, me, and every person you know the holiest creature you've ever beheld. 

We are the end goal. We always have been. We always will be.

Every time I see these pictures, it makes me realize that God saw my entire life from the beginning. He has always had a plan for me, my life, and the lives of my family. He knew at the time these pictures were taken, when my mother was still a child, that I would end up at Temple Square myself some day.

 

And bring others in my mother's family with me.

On Elder Renlund's Stethoscope

Having witnessed the outcry that followed this talk, the fact that Elder Renlund's reaction to his wife putting his stethoscope into a shadow box is such a surprise makes me think a lot of folks having those reactions haven't worked with many doctors.

 

In the time I spent working as a nurse in veterinary medicine, I worked with six different doctors as their nurse, in both exam rooms and in surgery. Doctors are some of the most neurotic, chronically particular people you could ever work with.

As a nurse, my job was to anticipate the needs of doctors and bring them the things before they would ask for them. To do that, it often meant knowing where they left their stuff, going and collecting it, and bringing it back to them. Or knowing exactly where their stuff was and leaving it there. Which was the right choice depended entirely on the doctor and their preferences.

Stethoscopes, otoscopes, charts, pens, medicines, the list goes on forever. It was my job to know where they were at all times and make them instantly accessible at a moment's notice. It's the most important skill a nurse ever learns, and it's a thing that can't really be taught. The better you get at it, the harder it becomes for anyone else to ever take your place. There is no other relationship like the wavelength of a doctor and a nurse who have been working together for many years, the way they can communicate without even having to speak.

There are doctors whose stethoscopes you just don't touch. I worked for doctors whose stethoscopes I never touched. I worked for other doctors whose stethoscopes I repeatedly took back to their desks a half a dozen times every day. Doctors having access to people who are paid to be attuned to their needs and preferences like this breaks their ability to be normal with other people where this relationship doesn't exist.

As soon as I read details of the story about his wife putting his stethoscope into a shadow box without asking first, I winced immediately and thought to myself "that was a mistake." But I would think that because I was a good nurse. 

Sometimes, you do things for your spouse in a desire to help or to make them happy that just falls flat because you didn't understand them or the situation well enough to know how to help them. My husband is an engineer and a tinkerer. I don't touch or move any of his things without asking first because I don't know what I could be interrupting, what I might break or lose. And I also learned that lesson by making that mistake. 

To view this story as a public shaming of Sister Renlund presupposes that what she did was a moral failure of some kind, that Elder Renlund presented it as a moral failure when it was a misunderstanding at best. If you've managed to be married for any appreciable amount of time without having what you intended to be a nice gesture go completely wrong... I dunno, tell us your secret? Because I'm confident that's not the life the rest of us are living.

 

My husband and I celebrated our tenth anniversary this year. There are still things about him that baffle me entirely. Eternity scared me at an earlier stage of my life because it seemed like it would get boring eventually. The idea that decades from now I could still be just as baffled by something he does is an exciting prospect, if I'm honest. There's no room for boredom when you marry an engineer. That's what I've gathered so far.

P.S. In case Sister Renlund somehow sees this: you're a saint and an angel for being married to a doctor. I could never and I'm endlessly amazed by those who can!

 

[The follow-up posts two days later after extensive conversation with many different perspectives.]

 

I get that we've landed on "avoid telling public stories about a spouse's mistakes without making it crystal clear that they've okayed everything you're going to say." But I'm still concerned how many of you are fine touching your spouse's stuff without asking.

 

Maybe it's because my marriage includes at least one ADHD weirdo with no object permanence, as well as a large collection of all manner of hobbies. But the fastest (and pretty much the only) way to start a fight in my house is to move something without giving a heads up.

 

My husband sews. I know not to use his fabric scissors for anything other than fabric. He works on mechanical watches. I don't move any of those projects at all because the pieces on some of them are smaller than you can possibly imagine.

 

I knit. He knows to be extremely careful about moving any knitting projects because if he drops even a single stitch, my reaction will be angry, immediate, and disproportional to the situation.

 

Don't create a household where it's normal for anyone in it to assign ongoing value or utility to other people's stuff, where it can disappear without their consent. It's not a good way to show respect for the people you love. I say that as someone who grew up in such a house. The stress I still feel in my body when I can't find something, the sheer panic from having things I treasured disappear, has never left me.

 

This is not how you make for a responsible adult who "knows better than to just leave their things around." It's how you make yourself unsafe to someone you care about, who will never fully feel safe in your presence because you don't respect the things they care about.

 

Respecting my husband's possessions isn't patriarchy. It's the courtesy we each would show to any other person if we were left unattended with their belongings. 

 

The idea that this somehow disappears because we're married to each other is just...

 

Bring that one up in therapy.   

Missionaries didn't break my relationship with my family. Life did.

As a convert whose baptism and membership in the Church was the subject of a lot of strife between me and my immediate family, it's hard not to see myself in this essay that was published over on Exponent II. There was a giant part of me that wanted to respond to Abby Maxwell Hansen and share what I've learned from being in her convert mother's shoes. But the longer I thought about it, the more I realized all my thoughts on that subject were never going to fit into a comment. So instead, I'm putting them here.

To provide some context, I'm from a poor family full of untreated mental illness and addiction. The only goal and dream I'd ever had for my future was to leave my hometown on the East Coast (and by extension, my family), to build a healthier and more stable life for myself somewhere, anywhere else.

I joined the Church in high school at sixteen years old. It didn't take me long to realize it would be my ticket out of my situation. I chose to go to college at BYU in Utah, served a mission in Brazil, got married in the temple, and later ended up moving to Idaho with my husband. I've spent more of my adult life away from my family than I've spent near them.

That was not an accident. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a negative, unwanted consequence of joining the Church. The separation itself was a deliberate choice I made, which I don't regret in any way.

I say with my entire chest that the Church and its members are an essential part of why I didn't end up being a statistic of poverty, addiction, abuse, and incarceration. The Church is in no way responsible for destroying my relationships with my family. I'm sure that's not how some of them see it, but here's the thing. When two family members desire to maintain contact (or reconnect) across physical distance, they will do so. If they don't, there are other reasons for that which membership in the Church doesn't create.

Baptism and temple marriage weren't the reasons my relationships with my family were strained. All my church membership did was reveal the preexisting fractures that were already there, and would've existed regardless of whether I'd ever been baptized or not. I still would've moved away. I would've maintained the same separations from family members with whom I have zero contact at this point. All the Church did was give me the options and resources to build that life for myself. The Church gave me what I needed to start over in a totally new place without family support. Which is great, because there was absolutely no reality in which my relationship with my family was ever going to be any different.

There was no version of my life with a happy extended family OP is describing, with enough mutual respect and restraint to have that kind of closeness. For that kind of closeness to exist, people on both ends of a relationship have to be willing to put in that work. If they wanted to, they would. If they didn't, it's because they didn't want to. And I can tell y'all from personal experience: if it's been decades and a family hasn't moved on from "you're in a cult" and "you have a coffee pot," the fractures go deeper than that, no matter what anybody says.

I don't have children who can misinterpret and blame my personal and religious choices on missionaries. It wouldn't matter if I did because my branch didn't have missionaries. I joined the Church with the support of church members who found me, taught me the discussions, and baptized me. It was what I wanted and they were the only ones available. But know this: you could get rid of missionaries entirely and it wouldn't stop people from finding the Church and being baptized. I'm living proof of that. And as long as people continue to be baptized, there will always be familial strife that will become wrapped up in that decision. Even if it didn't start there.

Imagining an alternative timeline in which family members don't join the Church and consequently end up with better lives and closer families is an exercise in fiction. The opportunity cost of choosing This and not That deals entirely in an unknowable hypothetical, which isn't enough of a foundation to go assigning blame to anyone. Especially when the hypothetical is predicated on people making choices against their own best interests when it comes to going low or no contact with their own families. As someone who has made, and is still making that decision, I can't fault anyone who does so looking for peace in their own lives. The idea that they could've tried harder, done things differently, or prioritized themselves less to maintain those familial relationships is wishful thinking at best, and dangerously delusional at worst.

The idea that missionaries walk around bumping into walls and causing generational trauma all by themselves? That's attributing way too much of what a family's dynamic already is on innocent bystanders who don't have the power or support necessary to force anyone to do anything. Instead, it's worth considering that infrequent, lukewarm, awkward family visits are (perhaps) the best of all possible worlds.

[And as an aside: Can we stop advocating for the Church to get involved in the United State's broken healthcare system by forming their own hospitals and medical clinics? 

Any unmarried woman who has had BYU's insurance and health care can tell you why that's a bad idea. Enough people have already had their access to medication and treatment curtailed in the name of "religious freedom." In my experience, the doctors at BYU's student health center don't even bother diagnosing or treating conditions like PCOS because hormone therapy (i.e. birth control) is part of the treatment for it. And even if they did prescribe it, the student health insurance wouldn't pay for it because they view it solely as contraception, not hormone therapy. 

Low income and under served populations deserve real, inclusive, comprehensive healthcare. That's not what they would get if the Church was sponsoring it.]

Becoming Found Family within the Church

Growing up in an unstable home environment with parents who struggled with a host of issues that included poverty, addiction, alcoholism, domestic violence, and racial violence, one of the skills I learned early on in my life is gathering and assembling found family. I had so many adopted mothers, tied to so many different communities who cared for and about me.

The reason I made it out of poverty and avoided becoming a statistic was because of the support and mentoring I received from people who were my chosen family, rather than being limited to the support my biological family could provide.

While the Church is not the only group capable of forming these kinds of relationships, it's especially important for members of the Church to know how to do this, and know the meaningful distinction between found family and "ward family" or "church family."

Let's start off by talking about that distinction.

 

Not All Church Family is Found Family

I've been in the Church as a convert for almost seventeen years now. I joined as a teenager, the only member in my family. I've been in enough congregations to know the difference between ward family and found family.

Ward family is conditional. It exists within the shared identity of being members of the Church, and therefore only fully extends to members of the Church. Those who aren't members and are unlikely to ever become members, or who were formerly members and are no longer fully engaged with the Church, are often seen as being unworthy or undeserving of that network of help and loving care. The reason for this is because with church membership comes the expectation of reciprocation. In this line of thinking, the church member will pay it forward at a future time through ongoing service through the Church. The issue is not that people are receiving benefits to which they have not previously contributed. Rather, it's the boundary setting that happens with those who have no intentions of paying it forward through the same network of finite resources.

Church family also often centers around the formal administration overseen by local leadership on the ward council. It may or may not be facilitated through delegated assignments, volunteered service, or shared resources extended through church social networks. Because no one person has total control over this council and the causes it chooses to undertake and how, the help that is given through it is shaped by the personal beliefs and life experiences of many different people. Because of that, mileage and results will vary wildly based on geographic location and the cultures (and politics) of the surrounding areas.

Anyone who is familiar with the concept of found family, or comes into the church with the expectation that church family will function like found family, is going to be confused by what they see happening in many places. And because it's important for church members to understand the difference, to be willing and capable of doing both kinds of giving, this comes with acknowledging those differences honestly.

Found Family is Unconditional

Found family is an ongoing, personal relationship between individuals that isn't bound by shared identity, social networks, or life experiences. It's a much closer relationship than a casual acquaintance at Church. It's a friendship where a person is fully integrated into a family's embrace as one of their own. The exchange of love and gratitude is mutual, flows in both directions, and exists solely within the individual family. There's no expectation for anyone else outside of that relationship to be benefiting from it. So while two different communities may be coming together and sharing in a mutual space with one another, there is no expectation that their communities will directly benefit from that exchange.

For example, if an LDS family decided to sponsor a family of refugees and developed a found family relationship with them, there would be no expectation for the refugee family to join the Church. If an LDS family took in a queer person who was also a former member of the Church, there would be no expectation for them to come back to church because of that association, or in exchange for resources. The relationship itself is the reward, not anything monetary or otherwise valuable that the relationship could be used for.

Found family relationships often materialize spontaneously through already existing friendships. But through my own reflection, I'm realizing they exist when people create space in their families, their homes, and their lives for those relationships to materialize.  It's one where the jump has been made together from acquaintance or casual friendship to actual family. Those relationships are grown, nourished, and are sincerely cherished on both sides.

Not every relationship in the Church should be one of found family. I'm not suggesting it should be. But recognizing the ways that God works through found family is an important one for people of faith to understand and embrace. There is a kind of good that only be accomplished through found family relationships and in no other way, including by the a church or ward family. There are families who have space in their lives at different seasons to create found family relationships, and some who don't. It's important to be able to assess situations impartially and to understand which is needed.

In Psalms 68:6, David taught that "God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains." I've seen that ministry work through my own life in the Church. The trajectory of my life changed completely because members of the Church facilitated both found family and church family relationships. Knowing how to do both is good discipleship and allows those who belief in Christ to follow his example in moments where it can do the greatest good.

The Harm of Perfectionism in LDS Parenting

There are few subjects I find more exhausting than LDS parents who decide, while their children are still young, to go to war with the very notion of those children ever having any real autonomy of their own. I've seen and heard parents in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints concoct the terms by which their children will lose everything from holiday participation to financial support if their children don't grow into the exact adults they want their children to become.

It's one thing when these people express these expectations of their children in their own home, or even in church settings where they're bound to find some amount of like-minded support. It's another when they're bold enough to outline their plans for anyone on the internet to see.

Which is what Matthew P. Watkins, an LDS blogger and podcast creator decided to do, using his four year old daughter as the character in the scenario he's concocting.

There are plenty of people in the world who can explain why what Matthew P. Watkins is saying isn't as loving or mature of an approach as he thinks it is. Several people, including those outside the Church, already have. But because this is a Mormon parent whose thinking is carefully constructed on the foundations of LDS beliefs on marriage and family, I won't use that approach. I think it's important to refute the approach he's defending and advocating with the language of the faith he believes in. That way, those who might be tempted to adopt it in their own families will understand why it's the wrong approach to be using.

What qualifies me to tell Watkins and those who think like him that this kind of parenting is trash? Because I'm just a convert who has spent an inordinate amount of my own time in the Church explaining to parents that this kind of behavior is abusive. It relies on coercion as a teaching tactic, which God has condemned. And at the time God was condemning it in the scriptures, he wasn't talking about all the non-Mormon parents out in The World. He was talking about people like Matthew Watkins.

One of the most oft-quoted scriptures in any LDS setting is from D&C 121:34-46, which most church members recognize as the "unrighteous dominion" section. It's where God defines, in plain language, what religious abuse is and outlines for members of the Church what they should be doing instead.

Persuasion. Long-suffering. Gentleness. Meekness. Love unfeigned. This is the kind of spiritual leadership and parenting God teaches should be happening within the Church.

Sometimes, I just want to sit these parents down, slap these verses down in front of them, and say "Point to which one you think means coercion, force, manipulation, and ongoing punishment into adulthood." Because honestly, if they've reached adulthood in the Church while thinking this is the behavior God has given them license to engage in, I have to think it's because their problem is one of scriptural literacy.

But like anyone else who has served in the Church as a Sunday School teacher as many times as I have, I can already hear the defensive response I would get back from such a maneuver.

"But Sister Collins. What about reproving betimes with sharpness?"

That's another part of the section I've linked to above. That's the part of that section LDS parents use in their moral licensing to believe they get to reject whoever I want, however they want, with no filter, tact, or respect for anyone's boundaries.

But like I said before: I've clocked so many parents like this already. I already know how to respond.

"How exactly do you think you're going to act like that, then show an increase of love afterwards? Hmm? How? You can't. Because you've already proven your faithfulness isn't stronger than death. Your faithfulness to your children is non-existent when you treat them like this." 

When LDS parents treat random people at church with more kindness, tolerance, and respect than their own children, just because of ideological similarities and reputation curation, that's the definition of hypocrisy. That's not what being a good parent looks like. It's not even what being a good person looks like, to say nothing of being a good Christian.

And the thing is, it doesn't matter that I think that. What matters is when children see their parents doing this and come to that conclusion on their own. Whether parents like it or not, their children will grow up and begin passing their own judgment on their parents as representations of the principles and values they've attempted to teach. Once those children start seeing and recognizing the hypocrisy in their parents' discipleship, the disconnect between how their parents behave towards them and what Jesus taught, they lose all moral authority in the eyes of their children.

The most glaring form of this hypocrisy is centered on the temple. Many LDS families use the standards for entering the temple as a justification to distance themselves from anyone and everything that deviates from that standard. The trouble with that, of course, is that a family's home is NOT a temple. Ostracizing and showing favoritism based on religious devotion is deeply inappropriate. It's exactly the kind of self-righteous behavior Jesus taught against when he was on earth.

You don't have to take my word on that. It's in the Sermon on the Mount. God never intended for Latter-day Saints to only surround themselves with people who think and act exactly like they do.

Matt. 5:46-48

When God commanded us to "be perfect," it was only in the grace we show to others when they fall short of our expectations. This graciousness, not the performance of outward observances of law, is what make God perfect. It's the only way to become like our Heavenly Parents, and to receive that same quality of mercy from them.

I have given this same warning over and over again to these kinds of parents. They rarely listen. They don't even begin to see the wisdom in what I've told them until it is far too late to change the outcome. The damage they do to their relationships with their children becomes the teacher they have to learn the lesson from.

"If your temple cosplay is more important to you than having a relationship with your adult children, I have news for you: you won't have a relationship with them. Or their spouses. Or your grandchildren. That's the road you're walking on, and that's where it leads. And when you arrive at that place, the only person you will have to blame is yourself."

It's Christmas. Read the room.

I don't know who in the Church Office Building needs to hear this. But there is no amount of messaging you can come up with that will make me ever want to study the Family Proclamation. Not in December or at any other time.

 

My parents were (and are) a burgoo of abuse, neglect, and untreated mental illnesses. They systematically destroyed each other and themselves with every terrible impulse belonging to the human mind. My mother is the only one left, and she has lost her entire grip on reality.

With what she has left of her mental facilities, she causes pain and chaos everywhere she goes. She terrifies my entire family because there is no limit to what she won't do to hurt other people. She has threatened me and my husband already. She has no place in my life now.

The week the Church was focused on the Family Proclamation, I was trying to figure out how to put a carrier block in place so my mother can't leave me voicemail anymore. Why? Because she treats my voicemail like a dumpster for all her worst thoughts and impulses towards me.

My Christmas season isn't about her. It doesn't include her. To the extent that I can, I spend as much of my waking life forgetting she exists as I possibly can.

I dedicate myself and my faith to a life well-lived, in which she has no part because she has no respect for me. 

I don't deserve to listen to others who have families who are healthier than mine talk about how their families are ordained of God. I don't deserve to be reminded that the only way my family is reflected in the Family Proclamation is the promise of divine retribution for the abusive and negligent. Not at Christmas. Not at any other time.

But if we're going to have conversations about the Family Proclamation, polygamy, racism, and denominationalism, as reflected in the Articles of Faith... Maybe don't do it at the darkest time of the year when the rest of the Christian world celebrates Christmas?!

And if planning the annual calendar of lessons so the Articles of Faith, Official Declarations 1 and 2, and the Family Proclamation don't fall in December is too hard, maybe stop basing our liturgical calendar on the order in which things were published in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Also, the Living Christ is literally right there! 

 Just dedicate the entire month of December to studying it every year. 

This isn't hard. 

Why are you making it hard?

Why "No" Needs to Become a Complete Sentence in the Church

I remember the "What am I doing to myself?" moment the last time I got talked into going to girl's camp after I initially said "No."

I had the undeniable prompting that I needed to leave, drove home in the dark on terrifying mountain roads in rural Idaho. At one point, a bat flew right into my windshield and scared me half to death. 

I didn't get home until 1 a.m.

My mother-in-law was actively deteriorating from either Lewy Body or vascular dementia. She ended up falling on the floor the next morning. She would've been stuck like that for hours had I not come home early from girl's camp.

I still haven't recovered from how angry I was at that entire situation.

Just once, I want a man in the Church to hear me say "No" to something and just say "OK."

Happy Pride to All Those Who Celebrate🏳️‍🌈

My baby sister (who is a grown adult) came out as bisexual this week on Facebook. She announced it by showing off her Pride swag from Starbucks. 

I'm simultaneously proud of her and secretly contemplating re-entering the cesspool of Facebook to destroy anyone who even looks at her wrong. She told me to stop being so overbearingly maternal towards her. She's 27. I'm trying, but I can't help it. She'll always be the Rugrat I fed macaroni and cheese to because no one else was going to do it.

Part of why she feels safe enough to do this now is because she's in a stable environment, surrounded by people who love her unconditionally. That's what every person deserves. This is what any God worth worshiping expects us all to be.

You don't know how to respond when someone comes out to you, especially in your family? Love them first. Love them always. Love them forever.

 

You don't want to feel conflicted about choosing that reaction for the people who matter to you when they come out? Then don't. It's that simple. Don't let anyone else come between you and interfere with that choice. That's not their place. It will never be their place.

 

The Church's appropriate place in this situation is to teach me how to love her the way she needs me to right now, the way Jesus does. That's how they can be supportive of the families God has ordained. Not abuse, condemnation, criticism, or rejection.

 

Anyone telling you to reject or condemn the people you love because of sexual orientation is not your friend. They don't care about you. They care about themselves and what other people think of them. They'd turn on you for a Klondike bar. Mark my words.

 

Anyway. I had rainbows trapped inside of me and had to get them out, or I was gonna explode and get them everywhere. 

 

🌈Happy Pride!🏳️‍🌈

Being "One Flesh" at Church

In light of Harry and Meghan's interview with Oprah, it got me thinking about my temple recommend interview yesterday. What I loved about it was seeing two people love and prioritize each other over an institution that doesn't know how to love or care for them at all.

To have that when your relationship is connected to an institution that feels it has a claim on you is a beautiful thing. It involves saying "no" and facing fears so many times. Being willing to be punished because you won't kiss the ring.

Yesterday, I was honest about my concerns on so many subjects during my temple recommend interview. I was told those concerns were not nearly as important as my performance and presence in person at church, even when it contradicts the decision my husband and I made together to continue socially distancing. This isn't the first time someone from the institutional church has tried to come between me and my husband. It won't be the last. We learned from the very beginning, before we were ever even married, not to give anyone outside our marriage space to do this. Not even the Church.

So when I see Harry and Meghan talking about an institution using this same tactic against them, I know what that's like. I know how it feels. There are lessons our institution can learn from this, how toxic it is when this is what we tolerate in our marriages from someone else.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, especially for those from my current ward watching me. My husband and I are a united front. We make our decisions together. A "no" from me is in equal force a "no" from him. You won't use us against each other, so don't try. If you talk about me behind my back or try to conspire with him to get what you want out of me, I will know because he will tell me. He always has. He always will. 

That shouldn't surprise you. It's what a loving, loyal family looks like. It's what you taught him to be.

My friends who stay, this is some of my distilled wisdom from my oil lamp to yours. Don't believe the myth that allowing outside forces to interfere in your marriage will somehow strengthen it, especially when the one doing it is the Church. 

 

"One flesh" doesn't include them.

It Doesn't Always Get Better

This is my first Christmas without my mother: not because she's dead, but because she's lost her mind and decided she cares more about enabling fascism than she does about her own family. It's on my mind, hence the dream.

I woke up this morning from one of those terrible dreams where you end up back in high school. I had to move back in with my mother and repeat my senior year at 30 years old, because dream logic.

 

All of the sudden, Will Smith was there. He sat there watching the dysfunctionalism that has always existed between me and my mother. He looked right at me and asked me the most important question I think I've ever been asked:

"What are you holding out for that you keep hoping she's going to give you?"

 

I have paid so much money to therapists over the years who couldn't even do that. You know what, Will Smith? You're absolutely right.

 

Even when I say I don't care, that I've "made my peace" with situations in my family that is never going to change, part of the reason I keep engaging is out of the misplaced hope that things will change. 

 

Why? 

 

Because there's something I'm still holding out for. An apology. Acceptance. The smallest return on all the emotional capital that I've invested in her over the years. But she isn't the one keeping me there. I am. All the things I'm waiting for are never coming. I know that. I can see that now. My hope is misplaced.

 

If that's you too, give yourself the gift of letting go of the situations and relationships in your life that are consuming your time and energy that are never going to change. Take your precious hope and start investing it in someone or something else. 

And mom, if you're reading this somehow. The least you can do is call and talk to your own mother, who has done nothing but try to help you, so she stops asking me if I've heard from you or not. I've been consoling her for months now. There's my Christmas gift to you this year.

The "Cult" Thing

Because it's going to come up at some point: I don't think the Church is a cult. I do think the way many in the Church create and enforce their family cultures is cult-like though. I have met families in the Church who would absolutely meet the criteria for being a cult. It's something we don't talk about or address openly enough, which allows unhealthy behaviors to fester and spread.

 

I don't have family in the Church. It's me and my husband at this point. That's it. No in-laws. No racist uncles. No parents giving me a hard time about not going to church. No side-eye aunties. No cousins, siblings, or neighbors ratting me out. I deal with none of that.

For something to be a cult, the standards of control, dehumanization, and humiliation need to be universal. I don't think the Church qualifies for that because as an organization, it's not monolithic in how people are treated, either in good ways or bad ways. This is where the entire idea of bishop/leadership roulette comes from: the fact that we're all having drastically different experiences based on many different factors, primarily geography and the family cultures within a particular unit.

Does the toxicity in families still significantly overlap with how many people experience the Church? Absolutely. From the items leaders believe they're supposed to prioritize to the methods they use, we underestimate how much impact their own family cultures have had on shaping their approach. From what I've seen and heard in discussions surrounding leadership selection, being called to a leadership position is viewed by many as an endorsement of their family culture and an invitation to incorporate it into their ministries. In fact, I would argue that there is an unwritten cultural expectation where lay leaders think that this is part of what their calling is supposed to do. 

What it means to be a member of the Church, in the units where these members preside, becomes defined by and inseparable from being an acceptable member of their own families.

I've met a lot of families in the Church. My favorite ones are always the chill ones who respect everyone for who they are and mind their own business. The ones who don't view deviations from their own approaches as a sin or some kind of personal insult. That's the kind of church member I'm trying to be, largely because I've had some really great examples of what that looks like.

The ones who are petty, dishonest, toxic, abusive, controlling, manipulative, authoritative, and who use religion as a means to forcibly produce compliance and conformity to a single ideal, under threat of being shunned? That's not inherent to the Church, friends. It originates in families, who then bring that behavior into the Church.

Now here's the bitter pill for those who are unprepared to accept that anyone in the Church doesn't have a cultish experience by default. Just because I go to church with your family doesn't make me the same as them. That they gaslight, manipulate, disrespect, and dehumanize doesn't mean that is a guaranteed, standard behavior for every member of the Church. Those who refuse to engage in such behavior also can't fix those who do, no matter how much they may want to. We can use church settings to challenge and invite people to change. We can present different points of view and set positive examples. We can advocate for less toxic approaches in family life. But ultimately, the choice and responsibility to apply a different approach belongs to each individual. No one else can do it for them.

I've been doing this work within the Church for many years, particularly in youth programs with parents who struggle to adapt their parenting to having teenagers.What I've learned from it is that people who want to be horrible will find a way to go about doing that and justifying it to themselves, independent of what anyone in the Church says or does. There is no magic super power to make people do the right thing. Not in Christianity. Not in any religion. You cannot force people to do the right thing against their will. God doesn't have that power, and neither do the rest of us.

I will never understand what it's like to grow up in a family who cares so much about getting into heaven, they will browbeat the people closest to them for doing anything (including the innocuous) to "jeopardize" it. It's not an experience I have in common with folks who can. And that, precisely, is my point.

 

When there is abusive behavior in LDS families, it leads to abusive behavior within the Church. It won't be possible to eradicate the cult-like behavior from the Church until we acknowledge their source. It will happen when we are able to stop mistaking the toxic cultures of individual families with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prioritizing the Elderly in our COVID-19 Precautions

Look y'all. I wasn't trying to have a repeat of when y'all told me I was overreacting when I said to get masks at the end of February because asymptomatic spread was the real threat. I had no intentions of coming back onto Twitter until after the election.

I'm here only because I have something to say that's important enough to me that I want it to be heard and remembered in this moment. And if you think it's an overreaction, realize I don't care because you are not at the heart of what I'm going to say.

If you have an elderly person in your life who lives in a senior community of any kind—nursing home, long term care, independent senior housing—now is the time to call them. Show them that you care, that you're thinking of them. Tell them you love them.

I realize you're probably busy with all the balls you have up in the air with your own life. Especially if you have other people you're already taking care of. Compassion fatigue is real. Believe me, I've had it. I understand it. Do what you can to take care of yourself. But if you're not already taking time to spend with the elderly members of your family in whatever way that is possible, you need to start now. Don't make excuses. Don't assume you have more time. Do it now.

I have a grandmother in her 70s living in a senior apartment community in the Baltimore suburbs. This woman means the world to me. She kept us alive after my mom left my father and had to raise two kids with no child support. She bought my Christmas presents more than once. She bought my school clothes. She was the one source of stability, normalcy, and unconditional love in my life when I was young. I love that woman more than I have the ability to put into words. She lives in my tenderest heart.

The political forces in this country, specifically within the Republican party and various conservative movements, are playing fast and loose with her life. They don't care if she lives or dies, as long as they can continue exploiting people around her to make money.

My cousins and I had a group video chat with her on Facebook last night. My grandmother isn't comfortable with that technology. She has four Facebook pages because she keeps losing her passwords. But she tries because she loves her grandchildren that much. Her smile at seeing us all together like that, the one thing that makes her truly happy, allowed me forget all of that for a moment. As she has laid aside so much for me, I tried to do the same for her. To do my part to give her a good experience.

The thought that any conversation with her could be my last is never far from my thoughts. The anguish that causes me is profound. There's nothing I can do to protect her. And because of her health issues, I have zero hope that she would recover if she became infected.

As much as it hurts me to say this, I am preparing to say goodbye if it comes to that. It cleaves my heart in two to say it, especially because I know I wouldn't be able to go to her funeral. One of the most important people in my life. My Mom Mom. A life without her in it.

Not everyone has that kind of relationship with their grandparents. I understand that. But to care is a choice, and it's a choice you can make at any time. Consider yourself. Should you care more than you do? Should you show that care more? Then start today.

And for the love of all that is good and sacred in this world, wear a mask when you're out in public. Correctly, please. Cover your nose. Tight seal around the edges. Wash your hands. Cover your mouth when you cough. 

 

I live in Idaho, a state that is loosening restrictions. I have been disgusted to see the number old people here who are not taking this seriously at all. No masks, or masks worn incorrectly. Not covering coughs or sneezes. Not keeping six feet of distance in crowded places.

 

I will continue wearing masks and talking all the same precautions I did before. I am treating this like nothing has changed, because it hasn't. I am proceeding like I have my grandmother's life, the lives of so many grandmother's, in my hands. Why? Because I do.

 

If you're not going through this situation like the life of someone you care about depends on you doing the right thing, you need to start. And if you're not taking the time to express that love to the people in your life, do it now before it may be too late 

Having Healthier Conversations about Fertility in the Church

If you're Mormon or Mormon adjacent, never underestimate how important it is to have healthy conversations about fertility with your kids.

I've known since I was a teenager that I would have fertility issues. My PCOS was still undiagnosed at that time, but the symptoms were already affecting my health. I suspected something might be up. Then it came up one day as I was studying my patriarchal blessing. As a result, I've known from the time I was 16 years old that I would have fertility issues.

I went through my Young Women lessons and my BYU dating experience already knowing this about myself. I dreaded the thought of getting married because I knew anyone who married me would probably miss out on parenthood. Thinking back over that point in my life, there was one person who had an open conversation with me about infertility that prepared me to be an infertile woman in the Church.

It wasn't a general authority, a bishop, a doctor, or a parent.

It was a girl from my freshman ward.

Her sister was already married and also in a student ward. She told me how her sister hadn't been able to get pregnant while she watched everyone else around her have babies. "She goes to church and listens to people go on and on in testimony meeting about how grateful they are that Heavenly Father trusts them with his children," she was explaining to me. "And she just sits there in silence thinking 'What's wrong with me? When is God going to trust me enough to parent?'"

Those words didn't fix my problem. But they prepared me to live in a community that has no healthy, compassionate discourse surrounding infertility and reproductive health. It prepared me to be bullied and misunderstood by the people in my own church.

Fast forward several years. I'm in my bishop's office. I asked him for a blessing because leaving my PCOS untreated for the sake of trying to conceive was unbearable. I'd spent my whole life being sick, and I wanted to know what it felt like to get better. To be normal. I wasn't willing to live on frustrated hopes anymore for something that wasn't going to happen. God was either going to cure my PCOS and allow me to conceive, or I was done giving any more of myself to the prospect of having kids.

Did I give God an ultimatum?

Yes, I did.

That blessing was the day I demanded a response from God because I needed one. And I got one. It was the same answer he'd been giving to me since I was 16 years old. Nothing had changed.

So, I let go of any hope or expectation that I would ever have kids. I stopped living my life in constant anguish over what I didn't and couldn't have. I started rebuilding and redefining happiness out of different materials than everyone else.

And you know what? There has never been a shortage of people in the Church who have found all kinds of reasons and occasions to tell me my life is wrong. That I'm doing happiness wrong. That my life should look more like theirs, that I should explain to them why it's different.

I tried so hard for so long to find happiness in the Church as a childless person. As a woman whose worth comes myself rather than external circumstances and conformity to everyone else's expectations. I tried until I had nothing left to give.

Being at Church felt like being held underwater. The environment wasn't made for me. To be in it, I had to hold my breath and find snatches of oxygen wherever I could. Take a gulp of air, serve in Primary. Take a gulp of air, sub in Nursery. Take a gulp of air, teach Young Women. A babysitter. That's what I felt like. A babysitter for other people's kids. Those were the jobs I was given to do because that's how the Church sees me as a women. Good to be a babysitter and not much else.

Part of why I served in the temple as an ordinance worker was because it was one of the few spaces in the Church where I wouldn't have to see any children. Even then, the workers and patrons were constantly asking me "Why are you a temple worker?" (i.e. Where are your kids?)

"How often could you have possibly been asked that question? Surely you're exaggerating."

My record was three times in one shift. I got good at pretending it didn't hurt, but that day I went home early and cried.

The idea of a compassionate, empathetic God is comforting. It does not, however, make it easier to live and worship among people who are, as a collective, very bad at this. You reach a point where you get tired of shedding tears because the people around you keep hurting you.

So, do we need Young Men and Young Women lessons on infertility and reproductive health? Yes. Because without them, they will grow into one of two kinds of adults:

• The adults who hurt people because they don't know any better.
• The adults who get kicked in the teeth when infertility happens to them.

If you never talk to your kids about the fact that infertility is normal and something that can happen to them, even when they "do everything right," you will send them into the experience thinking they did something wrong and it's their fault.
Infertility is not a personal failure. It's not a punishment. It's not a curse. It's not a reason for people to babysit your kids, or to have more responsibilities at church. It's not your narrative. You don't get to assign meaning and value to it.

For me in my life, I decided that infertility was a blessing. A gift. The road less traveled. The opportunity to lay aside everything old and ill-fitting from the way I saw God and the world around me. Infertility has given me freedom and independence from the constraints I would have as a parent. My time belongs to me, and I get the rare gift of deciding for myself how I want to spend it.

If someone, just one person, had been able to talk about infertility as an opportunity instead of a tragedy, the last ten years of my life could've been so different. 

Infertile people deserve that in all their interactions, but especially at church.

ALL Families are Ordained of God, Not Just Yours

My family isn't anything like what Mormons would consider to be the ideal family. The way we talk about families as these loving places of safety, let alone the literal manifestation of God's providence? That's not my family's narrative. It never has been. 

 It has made me think a lot about what we could say and do differently to avoid making people feel excluded, or like God somehow made a mistake with their family. 

One thing that will help with this is to get rid of blanket statements that lump all families together. Never assume the person in front of you at church has had a life anything like yours. "We all understand" or "we all know" or "anyone in this room" statements have got to go.

Another is for those with loving families to be more aware of how they talk about their families in our meetings. I don't have a problem with people who come from loving, functional households expressing the love and gratitude they feel for their families. But no family in the Church is more valuable than any other, and a relationship with the Church doesn't guarantee that family won't still be dysfunctional. Dysfunctional families don't get that way because the people in them have done anything wrong, or are guilty of some glaring moral failure that has disqualified them from God's love. That's not how divine love and moral agency works.

I come from three generations of divorced women who have survived every kind of challenge imaginable. The women in my family are the strongest women I have ever known. They are not failures. They have triumphed over human suffering with courage, grace, and grit. Anyone would be privileged to know them. 

I've heard people thank God for allowing them to be born into families with the restored gospel. I've heard them refer to their parents and family members as the choicest spirits of heaven. But members of the church don't have a monopoly on that. I'm grateful I was born into a family that isn't part of the church. I'm grateful for the choice spirits Heavenly Father has sent to my family, to heal generations of pain and suffering. They were also called and chosen to do a great work, one that many members of the Church would never volunteer for.

 

I'm grateful that God cares enough about my family to reclaim and redeem them, with the exact vision to make us equal in stature to any other person born in the covenant. I'm grateful that Christ sees no ultimate difference between me and anyone else.

 

My family may not be perfect. But that family has given me my grandmother, who is the most Christ-like person I have ever known. I wouldn't trade her for the most perfect of all functional Mormon families that has ever existed. She doesn't just love people when it is easy, when people do what is right. She has loved people through the worst they could do to themselves and to those she loves. She doesn't judge. She never takes their pictures down in her house. The way I see it, the Church can only reward her. There's nothing they could do to improve her incredible soul.

 

God doesn't give us the families we "deserve" or "earn." He gives us the families where we can do the most good and grow the most through our associations with them. For most of the human race, that means being born outside of the Church. That is not a mistake or misfortune. It's the wisdom of God, who ultimately doesn't need his children to be born into a single religious community to have meaningful relationships with them.