I’ve never understood the concept of the Angry God. I suppose that’s been a function of my religious privilege. Normally, I dislike the word “privilege” because it strikes me as a term progressives wield like a Bowie knife in a bear fight they bring on for the fur alone. But I’ll borrow it here because the term has successfully taken on a meaning that combines arrogance with naiveté. The term suits me because I have been both arrogant and naive in the practice of my faith. After all, my God has loved me: I found Him; I’ve obeyed Him, honored Him, and served Him. [Arrogance.] And I see His love in the blessings He gives me: I have an amazing family, a beautiful home, vehicles to drive, and friends galore. [Naiveté.] Continue reading “The Angry God, the Excommunication, and the Rest of Us”
Category: Inclusion
On Kate Kelly’s Summons to a Church Court: An Epistle to the Saints
This morning, I awoke in our cabin, nestled in the piney woods of east Texas, and found, on the floor, the same beautiful black and blue butterfly that had, only yesterday, fluttered by me each time I stepped outside to enjoy the natural world. Somehow, she is trapped inside this morning, motionless, with her wings outspread in the attempt to camouflage against a maple-colored plank floor that will have none of it. I know from the experience of capturing butterflies in my childhood that if I touch her wings, I condemn her. Instead, I find a piece of paper and lay it before her. Although it doesn’t seem natural to her, the butterfly steps onto the paper and I carry her outside, where she flutters back into the trees.
I love symbols. I look for them all the time. As I have struggled to come to terms with the pending disciplinary action against leading LDS feminist Kate Kelly, I couldn’t help but find an imperfect symbol of her predicament in this butterfly. Continue reading “On Kate Kelly’s Summons to a Church Court: An Epistle to the Saints”
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Love is a Behavior: A Conservative Mormon Reminder to Love our LGBT Community
I am a Texan, a conservative, a practicing Mormon, and an ally of the LGBT community. Two recent events have unfolded in my peripheral vision that have struck an emotional, intellectual and spiritual chord in me, leaving me both disheartened and heartened.
First, Texas Republicans held their 2014 state convention in Fort Worth, a process that establishes the party’s platform plank by plank. One of those planks will include language that rejects homosexual relationships as legitimate or valuable to society. The plank will also specifically support reparative therapy, an odd inclusion but for California and New Jersey’s recent outlawing of such therapy for minors. The fiscally conservative group, Log Cabin Republicans of Texas (who were denied booth space at the convention), optimistically finds progress in the party’s compromise to drop from the platform the words “homosexuality tears at the fabric of society.” I appreciate their optimism and patience, but feel sorrow over the party’s rejection of the skills, talent, and voting power that could potentially follow once Republicans open their arms to conservative-minded members of the LGBT community. Although supporters of the anti-gay, supposedly “pro-family” plank of the Texas Republican party will argue their stance is a godly one, I find it not only uninspired but judgmental, self-righteous, and crippling to the foundational fiscal messages of conservatism.
The second event that has moved me (this time, positively) was seeing the 400-450 strong delegation of Mormons Building Bridges marching in the Salt Lake City Pride Parade. Families came with their small 
children. Faithful members who have served at all local levels of leadership put their best foot forward in support of love and inclusion. Continue reading “Love is a Behavior: A Conservative Mormon Reminder to Love our LGBT Community”
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Seven Little Stories of Me
Story 1: I gained my testimony at the age of 14, was baptized exactly one week before my 17th birthday, and entered Relief Society the Sunday following my 18th birthday. I couldn’t wait to get out of the Young Women organization and its non-stop lessons on what I should wear and who I should date and marry. I chomped at the bit to get into adult classes where intelligent things would be discussed. (Stop laughing.) Continue reading “Seven Little Stories of Me”
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The Right and Left of Mormonism; or How Can You Think That Way?
Newsflash: I am a conservative Mormon … with an abundance of friends who are liberal Mormons, thanks largely to my connections in the Mormon literary and academic worlds. A few weeks back, a friend from my ward and I were enjoying an early not-quite-spring-yet afternoon in a north Texas park when I told her just that, that I have many practicing LDS friends who are liberal in their thinking. Hers palms landed on the picnic table. She leaned toward me, and, with her head shaking, said, “See … I don’t get that. How can anyone be faithful LDS and be a Democrat?” Continue reading “The Right and Left of Mormonism; or How Can You Think That Way?”
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Perspective and the Ordain Women “Problem”
I decided that, once the public action taken by Ordain Women (OW) at the April 2014 Priesthood session of General Conference was accomplished, I’d stay silent about the event. I figured there would be enough people talking about them and probably not enough people listening to them. In the aftermath, I read some very moving posts written by the OW sisters and their male supporters. Surprisingly, during and immediately after General Conference, my Facebook feed was almost absent of OW bashing. I was pleased.
However, about a week after the Priesthood session, a guest post from The Millennial Star, titled “Ordain Women: thanks for nothing” (sic), began appearing in my feed. I looked away the first few times it appeared, but its recurrence demanded I pay it some attention. Everything about that post stood in stark contrast to the things I’d read by OW supporters. It was angry when OW posts were reflective, jubilant, and sad. It was rude when OW posts seemed to go out of their way to forgive. And it was illogical, making claims about OW that were not recognizable to me and assumptions that should have been put on the Naughty Bench rather than online. But I haven’t an interest in discussing, much less debunking, the guest post. Read it here if you haven’t. Instead, I’d like to don my fiction writer/editor’s cap and discuss the difference between point of view (POV) and perspective, why and how that knowledge can help us, and what perspective has to do with the Ordain Women “problem.” Continue reading “Perspective and the Ordain Women “Problem””
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Doubt, Mormon Women Stand, and Traction
I was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in early December of 1978, six months after the church lifted the ban prohibiting black men from ordination and one week before my 17th birthday. Oddly, two years earlier the ban was, in large measure, what led me to scrutinize the Church. As an eighth grader, I was so upset to learn that a church would blatantly discriminate that I spent several lunch periods boring my friend and fellow Catholic, the bespeckled and knock-kneed Maria Campagne, with my tirades. The ban put the “Mormon Church” on my radar screen and, shock of shocks, in no time I was trembling under the weight of a newly-found, but solid, testimony. Continue reading “Doubt, Mormon Women Stand, and Traction”
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The Parable of Convict Lake
Lucky me, I spent my honeymoon trout fishing.
It was August of 1986, a miserably hot summer, even in the Sierras. My new husband and I had opted out of a Hawaiian honeymoon in favor of a cash gift, so we spent the post-nuptial week at my parents’ condo in Mammoth Lakes, California. Today, Mammoth Lakes hops with summer activity, but not so much then. Mostly we fished. My father, an avid angler, had advised us to hit the beautiful St. Mary’s Lake, but I confused its location with another and inadvertently directed my fledgling husband to one of the ugliest lakes known to man. Or so I thought at the time. Convict Lake. Continue reading “The Parable of Convict Lake”
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HEADLINE: Ordain Women Shoots Self in Foot
Last week I composed a few words (read here) asking the Mormon faithful to look at LDS feminism and, specifically, the Ordain Women movement through a more measured and Christ-like lens. The response was, not surprisingly, a mixed bag. Happily, many took to heart the “make love, not war” message. Regardless, I spent much more of last week immersed in the discussion of female ordination than I could have predicted. When a friend pointed me to the recent Feminist Mormon Housewife podcast with Kate Kelly, founder of Ordain Women, I listened to about 30 minutes of the two hour discussion before my Internet glitched and that was that. So, admittedly, I haven’t ingested the entire interview, but I listened long enough to hear Kelly explain that OW’s public action at the Priesthood Session of April’s General Conference is intended to “communicate to the leaders of the church and to the Lord” that his daughters are, essentially, ready and waiting to be given the blessing of the priesthood. And I thought, “Sister Kelly, that ain’t gonna work.” Continue reading “HEADLINE: Ordain Women Shoots Self in Foot”
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What My Pants and I Are Really Saying
I find it funny that Mormon women have to organize a special day to wear pants to church. For so many reasons. But there it is. Just like a beard worn in the 1960’s or double-pierced ears in the 1990’s, the wearing of pants by women–at least in a formal church setting–signaled rebellion. To some Mormons, that is–the kind who may be a little too comfortable in their uncomfortable white shirt/tie combo or control top pantyhose. Regardless, LDS women, as a group, never followed the wider culture by adapting what they wear to church to reflect the fashion shift from skirts to pants. Continue reading “What My Pants and I Are Really Saying”
Life Outside The Book of Mormon Belt 