Being Able to Help Others Understand.

I probably would have taken more English in school if I had known that I might influence even a small portion of the population through writing. My mother had her Masters in English, and being the kind of English prodigy I was through elementary school, the skill quickly atrophied when I learned that I actually had to work at it to get any better. So I will fly in the face of literary and editorial snobs and use grammar and run-on sentences to please myself and to be able to get any effing idea across that I want. My circumlocution is certainly not deliberate, but it is the product of my laziness in the face of education. That being said, I do have a reason for this apology. I believe the subject that I am about to breach deserves more clarity and delicacy than I am able to communicate through this medium. THAT being said:


Women Ordination.


BOOM!

Ok, so you don't even know whether I'm for or against it and if you're anything like me, you're desperately hoping that I'm about to confirm and possibly develop new revelations for you that help you feel more secure in whichever opinion you hold. Obviously I want to keep your attention to the very end so maybe I won't reveal anything groundbreaking until the very end! No, I will not do this thing, because I feel that is very manipulative and even though I read all three books in the Maze Runner series, I still resent the fact that the author used this coercive device to get me to read the whole damn thing.

Ahem.

I am completely on the fence about the Women Ordination movement. Six months ago I knew where I stood. I was against it. I felt that a bunch of feminists wanted recognition and to win something so they got together and decided that if they finally were able to have the Priesthood, then they would feel like valid beings of the Mormon population. "What changed?" you might ask. First, let me drag you into one of my famous asides and explain the difference between something changing and something connecting.

So because I almost had enough credits from sewing classes to complete a 2nd Major in Home and Family Living, I decided to go for it. This lead me to take a child development class where I learned how the brain is basically a never ending puzzle/lego tower. Something is perceived (lego piece), a symbol is assigned to that perception(another lego piece), *click* they go together. So you kind of have all these little dual groupings of legos floating around your brain and then suddenly you see how one little dual grouping would actually fit pretty nice with another dual grouping. Well, new information keeps either adding onto that bigger group developing into your world view, or it just hangs out until it find something to latch onto. Once in awhile, you might realize that a piece that you thought fit perfectly before, actually fits better somewhere else, or that one piece isn't allowing you to add anything more to your lego-world-view-tower. That is unacceptable so you cast of the misfit information back into your brain soup and wait for it to become pertinent again.

I have recently become immediately conscious of large gap that I karate chopped out of my lego tower located in the "belief" sector of my world view. It really sucks because I had a lot of really nice fitting pieces all around that place, but there were concerns that were making me very unhappy; certain pieces weren't quite lining up.

A big issue that I am dealing with is the marginalization of women in the church. I don't care what you say, its true, its there and I will punch everyone in the face if they disagree with me (like if one person disagrees, everybody is getting punched. Do you really want to be the one who triggers that?). Of course there are certain levels of this, and at some point you can't always be focusing on this inequality because you have to like, keep living your life and your faith and stuff. But I have had seriously hurtful interactions with church leaders which I believe would have been different if I had been able to counsel with another woman.

Ryan, my husband, suggested that mothers are the male equivalent to the bishop's role as being a "Judge in Israel". Our mothers judge us, and rightly so. They judge how to teach and to guide us and try to discipline only in order to reach our full potential. Same responsibility that our bishops do. Only one catch, my mother is dead. And when it comes to questions about my role as a daughter of God and especially sexuality, why would I ever want to seek counsel from some middle-aged dude?

Do men truly understand body shaming through modestly talks? Do they truly understand the humiliation of talking about sexual sins or even the subject of chastity with a person of the opposite sex from a young age? I believe that this can and has traumatized many women leaving them guarded and programmed to believe that men have the power to condemn or liberate when it comes to sex.

And what happens when that great ability, the "Right to Bear Children", is not available? Although some men may be impotent, they would never be denied the Priesthood because it "wasn't available". And yes, Motherhood is more than just having kids, blah blah blah, but still, empathy goes a much further way with healing in these instances than does sympathy and a call for a can-do attitude.

So maybe I'm not asking for women to be ordained, but I think that maybe the home shouldn't be the only place that motherhood should have the power to judge, heal and lead. I want to feel some power or voice in the way that I am spiritually governed by mortals. If being able to give blessings or helping to make big decisions when it comes to the welfare of the churches female members means they must be allowed to hold and practice the priesthood, I would be ready for that change. Can the same be said for the male members if the Lord decided it was time to reinstate these practices?

I absolutely subscribe to the teaching that the Lord does everything in His own time and that we cannot always know the answers or we wouldn't require faith (see post "How to Stay Inside Your Own Head"). Perhaps we are the Hebrews come out of Egypt who are not ready for the higher law. I understand that, and I can be patient. But I am also sad. I feel separate because of my gender and I attribute many of these feelings to my cultural upbringing. I still hope to find answers and maybe writing about these things will resonate with someone else and we can work collectively to find them. I want to reconcile my hurt with the promise of happiness if I stay faithful to the church. I hope that I do not have to wait a lifetime.

But knowing my luck, I probably will.

The Modern Day Woman

I wrote this back in December and just came upon it now at an important juncture in my life and my faith. I think I didn't post it then because I felt my thoughts weren't entirely formed and I obviously didn't have any answers. My next entry may...


December 29th, 2013:

I have problems. Mostly problems of conscience. I know many, many women have written about this subject and I doubt there's anything new that I could add to it. I do suppose, however, that nobody has my exact perspective maybe adding to the depth of the kinds of women who have this problem will be expanded...

A woman having it all sounds too good to be true. It is, only because anyone "having it all" is virtually impossible too, even men! Why can't we focus on people having enough, because having it all sounds so exhausting I just fell asleep at the keyboard....which I love to use 'cause of the click-click-clicking my fingers and fingernails make....I digress.

 If you are looking for citations you will not find them as I am in the opinion business and not the fact business so I'm sorry to those of you who cannot in good conscience quote my wise musings without a reference standing behind it. Here's the deal. I don't think women have always been subjugated. I remember growing up asking whether or not we had a Heavenly Mother as well and my parents teaching me that her name was kept sacred from us so that we would not use it in vain the way "Oh my g*d" is used like every ten seconds nowadays. I still struggle understanding why we can't know Her better to this day, I mean, it seemed to me then and sometimes still today that She is not important enough for us to know her.

When perusing FB earlier, I came upon an article discussing new evidence that Jesus had a wife. In the LDS church many of us believe that Christ was married in order to fulfill a covenant that we all must enter into in order to receive eternal exaltation. (Want more info about that? I can give your info to two teenagers in church gear.) But why are we just getting information about that now? Where did all that information go about the wife of Jesus? Again, it was probably lost and "forgotten" in order to guard her from negative attention. But it is difficult to feel important when one is not known.

I'm sure that Heavenly Father wants us all to feel important so that our thoughts will be validated and our actions hailed as awesome. It is SO hard not to want this thing. But let me tell you what, the women I most admire are the ones who are usually quiet and who endure. They don't care about how many hits they get on their blogosphere or how many hearts an instagram photo gets. They already know who they are and what they want. They are the ones who steadily push forward in pursuit of their passions and find meaning in what they do because their actions are meaningful.

Now lets talk about kids. I am actually slightly ambivalent about having them (not that I have a choice right now). I do want them, but then I go to church and others' noisy, sticky, homely children make me think again. BUT, then I hold a sleepy newborn and its like, yup, this is what I'm supposed to do. Here's the thing that terrifies me the most, I feel that women aren't striving to "have it all" I think they're demanded to "do it all" as in have every single responsibility ever. Breadwinner, baby oven, snot-nose cleaner, amazing blogress, fitness model, culinary artiste, creative genius, financial accountant....its totally obnoxious.

Women who are projected to have this lifestyle I don't believe in. Like Santa, this woman is a myth. There is NO WAY you have everything you want. I have seen (and judged!) women who seem to have this perfect life and I'm like, what is missing, what will the consequences be later on when the children realize they didn't get the same amount of attention that other kids did? On the flip side I've seen stay-at-home mothers who need to get a frickin' life and stop coddling their future off-spring into douches or helpless little beings that douches prey upon. There is a 3rd subset of women who are forced into one choice or the other (career or SAHM) out of economic necessity and the grass is certainly always greener on the other side.

So what's the solution?