"Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. " Golda Meir

This summer it will be five years since we moved into our little brick house. Yes, five. I remember giddily coming over before we were married, sweeping dusty wood floors and scrubbing every surface,  trying to imagine how we'd fill these bare rooms. (Now the struggle is keeping them as bare as we want) There was a little thrill each time I'd turn the key and think Here I go into my house! So very grown up.

But never did I think that we would stay here for more than a year or two. Nope. We had plans to be abroad, trying out new corners of the earth, eating new fruits and making our brains function in unknown languages. I pictured myself teaching at a little school, maybe having kids if I was so lucky, but either way I knew and know that there is something in me that comes alive when I am somewhere unfamiliar and new. And that there is just so much out there and my life will not last long enough to experience even a small portion of it.

So sometimes, sweeping these floors (for the twelfth time that day) with a little less excitement than I did our first summer, I think about all the why's and how we are still here. Teaching, masters degrees, pregnancies, dream jobs, music, family. The gratitude for what we have here, because we are still here is real. We have been truly blessed.  But the feeling that we need to go will not leave. We've set a goal for one year from now. And it feels much too far away.

"I am my problem. I am also my solution."

Sometimes little snippets of language have a way of getting inside me and reappearing in my head without being consciously called forth. Those two sentences have been that this week for me, as I think about ideal versions of myself and where I am right now.  I've been trying to make more thoughtful choices, and realizing that you make most every choice twice. Once when you actually make it, then again when you either regret it or get a sense of pride/accomplishment/satisfaction out of it. It's been helping me to think first how I'll feel about myself during the after part. Not trying to judge the choice as good or bad, but more on how you'll feel about yourself for having made it, and why.

The idea of loving yourself, loving your life, isn't just something you can say with a smiling face and it becomes true. You have to love who you are choosing to be, how far you have come, how you are choosing to spend your time and interact with those around you. I feel like I can only honestly love myself when I love who I am, choice by choice.

So. I'm working on it. And hopefully in another five years we will 1) not still be in this house 2) but even if we are, I will be much closer to being and doing the goals I wrote down in my journal today. And love myself for it.

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” 
― Walt Whitman

abril

The last two weeks were made up of Great Salt Lake camping, front door peeing into your mom's shoe, fuzzy early morning jammie get togethers, haystack surfing, climbing with cupcakes, truck driving at the farmhouse, fresh (poopy) eggs, and shaggy buffalo.

 

one more little trip

I know. Enough is enough. But Matt and Julie just shared these pictures with us today, and they brought back so many memories. Seemed too good not to share. I mean, they caught an image of our hired driver (Xiao Wang) in the river he'd just jumped off a cliff into and caught a fish with his bare hands. As well as Karaoke, Anna baby, recording, and food.

All images by tigerinajar ---aka the fantastic, the brave, the deservingly successful Julie and Matt Walker.

"I believe in women." emmeline b wells

I am a Mormon feminist. Surprise!

It shouldn't be, but often is, a surprise to many that those two words could be set side by side to describe the same person. Some members of the modern church hear feminist and a voice inside screams apostate!! While at the same time many, if not most feminists believe that no one who remains inside a faith tradition so steeped in patriarchy in both doctrine and culture should dare call themselves a feminist.

Well here I am. I exist. Still learning and deciding what it means to me to be myself and a woman and a Mormon. The love and faith and generations of DNA that called me into existence believed in God, and so do I. When I look for my potential, my purpose, and my guide as a follower of Christ, I gain courage and endless inspiration  reading about my strong and diverse sisters who also believed; biblical, pioneer, and modern. My head and heart are filled with their stories, and I feel humbled to follow after.

Jesus's treatment of women was against cultural norms. He seemed to be able to see women in a different way than most. But the history of Christianity has for many reasons not been so kind to women. What we have in the Bible was written by men, and so edited and recast that it is hard to see in it what and how ancient women were really regarded, be it Deity or mortal. The early days of Mormonism, while filled with incredibly difficult things for me to understand regarding women, was also proudly the home of radically positive and expansive ideas concerning the role of women in society, the value and wisdom of mother Eve and her daughters (quite possibly THE most positive paradigm-altering teachings thus presented to Christianity), and the ability for women to rise to any occasion, calling, or requirement given them. Early Mormon women were practical, faithful, resilient, and quick to defend and fight for the rights and comforts of their sisters. They fought for the vote, presided over their own meetings, and ministered mightily one to another.

Then something happened.

These Mormon women who gave blessings of healing to their sisters were asked to stop. The structure of the institution re and re organized, and all things ultimately became correlated, consolidated,  and presided over by men. The knowledge of their worth and ability was not lessened, but the type and scope of their function within the church, was.

Mormon women are not oppressed, discounted, and miserable, as a whole.  Do not believe that for one second if you read it (and you may) in some article someday about Mormonism. They perform within the church and in their own lives incredible feats of service, compassion, balance, and love. I have been blessed my whole life by these complicated wonderful creatures. But they are simply not equally involved in leadership, ritual, or ministry.

A few bright blouses amid a sea of black suits stares at us from the stand every general conference, our highest levels of leadership. Shrunk down to a more local level, the ratios are slightly better, but no women in any Stake Presidency, High Council, or Bishopric, means that in every council meeting, women are far outnumbered, and in general the outnumbered feel less inclined to talk, disagree, or offer unsolicited advice. (With the exception of some very vocal and opinionated R.S. presidents.) The thing is, the men in these positions are most always wonderful, humble, and hard working. It is the structure than needs shifting. Without more women's voices, the true needs of half the members are not as likely to be understood or therefore met.

Young Women (besides feeling awkward having to discuss very personal matters alone in private meetings with their Bishop--poor bishop too!) start to see and feel they play a lesser role in their church, both as 12-18 year olds and as future women. They and we are constantly told by our leaders that we are wonderful, beautiful, important, valiant, and virtuous. But I would love to be told instead "We understand it is difficult. You are not all perfectly faithful, strong, or loving.  That doesn't make you less womanly or less Mormon. Things don't always make sense. We're seeking to understand more about our Mother in Heaven and what role we can prepare ourselves for and how. Let us work together to be better and understand more".

How I ache to know more of my Heavenly Mother. How I wish the scriptures, the conference Ensign, my head, were filled with gospel teachings of women in near equal part to men.

I want it to be better, and believe it can. The one most hopeful hope I hold is that from all I have felt, God sees me as an equal to my brothers, even if our role down here is yet to be fully revealed or recorded. I believe the church was established to help us become. It is there to support us in our individual journeys to becoming better and growing our faith. Things are changing. And, good news! Mormonism was founded on and believes in asking, in changing, and in restoring truth as quickly as we are ready to receive it.

Here is a bit of pre-conference reading, if you have the time. In regards to women and the priesthood.

On asking

On loving

On change

Interview with Cheiko Okazki (former counselor in the general R.S. presidency)

"It is the opinion of many who are wise and learned that woman’s mission upon the earth is maternity, with its minor details, its accompanying cares and anxieties, and needful exigencies; that these fill the measure of her creation; and when this is done, she should with becoming matronly dignity, retire from the sphere of active life and gracefully welcome old age. … That motherhood brings into a woman’s life a richness, zest and tone that nothing else ever can I gladly grant you, but that her usefulness ends there, or that she has no other individual interests to serve I cannot so readily concede."

Emmeline B. Wells, 1875