Cultural taboos and prohibitions can feel etched in stone for many Latter-day Saint women. Even in things so personal as what to wear to church, we may feel little room to deviate from what’s expected. In Episode 127, Cynthia and Susan discuss choices they each make that are counter to the cultural norm. They’re small things, but in a church where it can feel like there are no small things, learning to ignore raised eyebrows and give yourself permission can pay big mental and spiritual dividends.

Notes & Quotes:
Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo, by Michael G. Reed
Lifted Up upon the Cross, by Jeffrey R. Holland, 10/2022
The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe, by Richard Rohr
Why do women still have to wear dresses or skirts in all our meetings?, Church website
A Sense of the Sacred, by D. Todd Christofferson, 11/7/2004
Remembering ‘Wear Pants to Church,‘ Salt Lake Tribune, 12/15/2022
Latter-day Saint women rejoice. They now can wear slacks on their missions, and NOT just to dodge mosquitoes, Salt Lake Tribune, 12/20/2018
Paid parental leave, pantsuits for women, colored shirts for men — those changes are coming for Mormon church employees, Salt Lake Tribune, 7/7/2017

“…we remind ourselves that President Gordon B. Hinckley once taught, ‘The lives of our people must [be] … the symbol of our [faith].’ […] [This] bring[s] me to what may be the most important of all scriptural references to the cross. It has nothing to do with pendants or jewelry, with steeples or signposts. It has to do, rather, with the rock-ribbed integrity and stiff moral backbone that Christians should bring to the call Jesus has given to every one of His disciples. In every land and age, He has said to us all, ‘If any man [or woman] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’
This speaks of the crosses we bear rather than the ones we wear. To be a follower of Jesus Christ, one must sometimes carry a burden—your own or someone else’s—and go where sacrifice is required and suffering is inevitable.” — Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

“The God we’ve been presenting people with is just too small and too stingy for a big-hearted person to trust or to love back.” — Richard Rohr, Universal Christ p. 50

“The cross isn’t just a singular event. It’s a statement from God that reality has a cruciform pattern. Jesus was killed in a collision of cross-purposes, conflicting interests, and half-truths, caught between the demands of an empire and the religious establishment of his day. The cross was the price Jesus paid for living in a ‘mixed’ world, which is both human and divine, simultaneously broken and utterly whole. He hung between a good thief and a bad thief, between heaven and earth, inside of both humanity and divinity, a male body with a feminine soul, utterly whole and yet utterly disfigured—all the primary opposites.
In so doing, Jesus demonstrated that Reality is not meaningless and absurd, even if it isn’t always perfectly logical or consistent. Reality, we know, is always filled with contradictions, what St. Bonaventure and others called the “coincidence of opposites. […]
We are indeed saved by the cross—more than we realize. The people who hold the contradictions and resolve them in themselves are the saviors of the world. They are the only real agents of transformation, reconciliation, and newness.” — Richard Rohr, Universal Christ pp. 146-7

 “Embrace it all in me. I am yourself. I am all of creation. I am everybody and everything.”
— Richard Rohr, Universal Christ p. 155

“Dressing appropriately is less about what our clothing looks like and more about what it means. While other clothing may still be perfectly modest, classy, or professional, women are counseled to wear dresses to promote a certain spirit of reverence. Dresses are generally reserved for special occasions. Modest, simple dresses show respect and invite the Spirit by how they affect our attitudes.
Similarly, men do not wear just a nice shirt and slacks to church. They wear dress shirts, ties, and dress pants. This is to show a spirit of reverence that is not communicated by more casual clothing. Missionaries and temple workers are also asked to follow certain dress standards to show respect for their callings and set a certain tone about their work.
Elder D. Todd Christofferson recently addressed this issue: “It is really not about us. Acting and dressing in a way to honor sacred events and places is about God.” — Church websit