by Susan Hinckley

I don’t know where or when I learned that I would need to do things to earn love.

I can’t pin it down—it seems like knowledge I was born with. In this kind of paradigm, Being Better = More Love, so from a young age I started trying to be the best at everything.

I tried to please teachers, parents, friends. I tried to be popular (not much success there), win awards (more there, but spoiler: awards don’t make you feel loved, they just make you worry about how you’ll top it next time). I got voted “best dressed” one year in school, “best smile” another. Sure I’m still secretly riding high from those Jr. High titles—let’s be honest—but I didn’t really believe either one of them. Still don’t. “Awkward” and “not quite fill-in-the-blank enough” are the designations I assigned myself in school, and those are the ones that stuck.

Religion made sense to me, because it was a scheme to earn God’s love by becoming very very good, and hopefully even perfect. Religion also taught me I was not naturally good, not inherently worthy, not a beloved child in any way I could feel or believe. It was confusing—church told me God loved me out of one side of its mouth while insisting God couldn’t stand me the way I am out of the other.

I honestly thought that the point of Christianity was transcending my humanity, that the ‘good news’ was we don’t have to be what we are—and what we are is fundamentally not okay—because Jesus can fix it! It was based on someone who was better than anyone else who ever lived on this planet: who resisted all temptation, performed miracles, walked on water, then punctuated his example with the heretofore unimaginable trick of resurrection, literally transcending his mortality.

I certainly didn’t absorb the idea that my humanness was one of the essential things about me. That it was key to connection, or the pathway to love.

It would never have occurred to me that humanness was the mirror in which I could glimpse Divinity.1

The day I met God—and let me explain what that means: it means one day I met the understanding that I actually am okay, beloved even, and always have been, as is—was like going around a corner and finding myself in a completely different world. A world I was not only allowed but meant to love, full of humans like me who were also beloved. Once I turned that corner, it disappeared. There could be no going back.

The Rev. Jacqui Lewis writes, “What if the goal of our lives of faith is to have this revelation: The only way to love God is to love yourself so you can love the world?”2 The first 50 years of my life, I wouldn’t have known what to do with that sentence. It would have sounded nice, but love of self simply wasn’t in my wheelhouse.

Loving the world came very naturally, but was mostly something I kept quiet around other Latter-day Saints. The idea that I had sensed God’s presence much more regularly in places other than church would have required some explanation. An ongoing negative narrative about it left me conflicted and confused by my private affection for the world, quietly confirming a deep fear: that for some reason I could neither understand nor control, my faith must be faulty or deficient.

I’d always secretly been on the side of people. I loved the things we did and invented and said and wrote and made. I remember coming home from a movie once, overwhelmed by the beauty of its complex portrayal of relationships between deeply flawed characters—something about their interactions had pulled up a chair for me, assured me it was okay to sit down in my own life, that I deserved to be comfortable. I said something about this to my father-in-law—so often a reassuring light in my church life—and he responded a bit disapprovingly that for him, the movie was too humanistic.

Well, yes … exactly.

Carmen Acevedo Butcher teaches that, “Being spiritual is much easier than being human.” This simple framing stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard her say it. Rarely has anything explained myself to me in such a simple and profound way. For me, being a Latter-day Saint made being human feel like a tricky proposition. It set up an adversarial relationship between me and myself, between me and God, and as I think about it now, between me and every other human. It made me jump hurdles for love, placed rules around the love I was allowed to feel myself and express for others. This fueled a deep-rooted loneliness and distrust of all of it, setting me up for a true crisis when the wheels of my religious life suddenly flew off.

If religion could no longer be my conduit for seeking connection with God, would I have to just give up on the whole relationship? Even though church hadn’t really gotten me the feelings or insights I was seeking, I’d dug in hopefully, because I didn’t know there could be any legit god-connection outside it.

Christianity has not rewarded a fully-embodied spirituality. If people can know The Source in their bones, why do they need the church? So the church is invested in keeping us separated from the truth of our own bones and hearts and humanity.

Reimagining Christianity for me would involve beginning with the full acceptance of the human experience. Jesus was, after all, a person—no matter what else he may have been. But it’s not for his humanness that we are taught to emulate him—it is for having been better than we are. No wonder I learned to show up at church with only small portions of myself visible. No wonder I was taught that the natural Susan was an enemy to God. No wonder I internalized shame for my own most human parts, even though it is through that common thread that I am connected to all my siblings. How could I love the thing I had not been taught to reverence? How could I believe God loved me if I had not been taught to love myself?

So one of the biggest things that happened for me the day I suddenly realized I was beloved was that I no longer needed an intervention. Not an atonement, at least not in the way I’d been taught to think about it.3 Not a card to certify my worthiness, nor a priesthood holder who could do essential things that filled requirements I couldn’t fill myself.

For the first time in my life, nothing at all between me and love.

It was a slippery slope, too. One minute after being granted Divine permission to love myself as I am, I realized it put my neighbor in a new light as well. I felt suddenly equipped with compassion, understanding, desire, acceptance, willingness, patience—a whole lot of things I’d never known exactly how or when to use. Love had been obscured by layers of fine print, prerequisites and conditions. As they fell away, I could see the thing underneath was actually easy to pick up and light to carry.

This also meant that rather than a conduit for connection to a god out there somewhere, church might become a conduit for connection with other people. A love lab, where I could grow in self-knowledge and understanding while I learn what it means to live the great commandment, to internalize the one thing we were sent here to really know.

Jesus didn’t come to teach us how to get out of being human, but to show us how to love while we are.

An idea expressed by Rabbi Donniel Hartman4 describes the Jesus I think of when I read his teachings and experiences: “A life of faith isn’t just about walking with God, but how one walks with humanity.” I think that’s about how I walk with my own humanity, in addition to how I walk with everyone else.

“My deepest me is God!” declared St. Catherine of Genoa.5 This means the thing at my center can’t be sin, or shortcoming. In such a view, there can be no deficiency in being human, only divinity. Feeling God’s love is just—feeling love.

I become the pebble in the pond from which all the circles radiate. God’s love originates in me. I never need to be instructed in it, or go someplace holy to experience it, or put myself in the right mindset or soul-set to receive it. The concept of qualifying for it feels as nonsensical as earning my breath.

I talk a lot about a God of relationship, and as I check in with myself about what that phrase means or looks or feels like for me today, the first word that bubbles up is simply connection: humans and all creation, with and within each other, one living whole. I’m trying to learn to stay awake to this world as much as I can: aware of each moment and my place in it, fully inhabiting—committed to and content with—my part.

“Love yourself,” explains Jacqui Lewis. If that sounds simple, the rest of her sentence blows it out to engulf everything else I know now or may ever learn: “—so you can love the other, so you can love the world.” I may have gotten a late start, but I’m willing to work on this for the rest of my life.

Susan Hinckley

As the self-proclaimed Grace Peddlers1, we always love getting feedback from our listeners about podcast topics. We received an email from a podcast listener named Carol who spotted grace out in the wild, okay she actually spotted it in academia, and we wanted to share a bit of it with you all—

How amazing is it that the data from a Brigham Young University study2 is supporting grace? I don’t love the phrase ‘healthy perfectionism’, but I can appreciate the distinction the researcher is trying to make.

After receiving Carol’s email, I read the article she sent in BYU Studies. Basically, researchers found that religion itself is not the primary cause of toxic perfectionism; rather, it is the manner in which we engage with religious standards. The harmful effects of perfectionism can be mitigated if our teachers, parents, and church leaders can foster in us an intrinsic motivation and a grace-based understanding of faith.

Yikes! That seems like a really tall order, especially in a church that struggled to teach me anything about grace. And I’m not alone! I remember years ago reading a BYU Magazine article by Sheri Dew about grace3. She admits grace wasn’t fostered in her or a friend either—

“Her e-mail led me to ask another friend what she wished she understood about grace. ‘To tell you the truth,’ she said, ‘TV evangelists have wrecked that word for me. I almost feel disloyal to the restored gospel even talking about grace. I mean, do we believe in grace?’”

I had to go on my own Grace Journey. And after that long and painful search, I am determined to continue to peddle grace to anyone who will listen. Maybe someday we will believe our own Jesus-y stuff about grace.

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As part of our 250th anniversary observance, U.S. Latter-day Saints are invited to participate in a unified fast on July 5th “to express gratitude for religious liberty and to pray that it be strengthened throughout the world."1

Our 11th Article of Faith says:

I believe in religious freedom and wonder why our leaders don’t get a little more specific about what they’re thinking of when they use that phrase. The fact that they don’t leaves room for me to engage with it for myself, and I’m going to take full advantage of that precious mental space.

First, I’m going to call out the fact that when Joseph Smith penned this article, he should have said “people,” but I’ll overlook that and just remind us all that “men” doesn’t really mean “everyone,” and words matter. In 2026, I think we could consider updating language where it would be easy to do so, to reflect current usage and culture.

Secondly, I hope all church members recognize that in order to be real, any religious liberty you publicly proclaim being devoted to must exist for YOU as a Latter-day Saint—inside the Church—as well as for everyone outside it.

Need to change the way you think or talk about God? A She perhaps? A They?

Need to pray using different words? Maybe even completely different practices?

Need to start coming at scriptural interpretation a bit more broadly, and a bit less literally?

Need to ask big questions about stuff, and maybe stop focusing so much on having the answers?

Need to talk about whatever you struggle with…out loud?

Not a comprehensive list of possibilities of course, but I hope you’ll feel at liberty to change, adapt, and grow in your religious and spiritual life in any way your relationships and experiences may call you to do so. Why wouldn’t we take Joseph at his word, secure in the idea that being LDS need not prohibit us from worshiping how, where, or what we may, and according to the dictates of our own conscience?

There are things in our culture and history that make religious liberty a naturally resonant topic for Latter-day Saints. I think we’re generally pretty insistent on it for ourselves as a church, and therefore invested in defending it for others.

Allowing all people to find meaning and connection however and wherever they may is a worthwhile goal. Can you love people enough to give them space to express what matters to them, and why it does? Can you get out of the way to let them figure that out for themselves?

What about in a Relief Society lesson?

I wish I’d felt more freedom to think, reason, feel, believe differently, and ask questions throughout my life as a Latter-day Saint—you know, the things humans need to grow and develop spiritually. I’ve been in these pews and classrooms for well over half a century, and if we’re going to make noise about religious liberty as a church, from here on out my noise as a member is going to focus on defending our diversity of thoughts, ideas, spiritual needs and practices from the tyranny of ourselves.

It’s an interesting focus for a fast—I think we generally reach for a fast when we’re hoping to get God’s attention, and in this case we really only need to get the attention of ourselves and the people around us. After all, God doesn’t vote. God also doesn’t keep people in boxes, but some of us are prone to keeping ourselves and everyone else—including Them—in one.

Wishing you a happy July 4th, however, wherever, or whatever you may be celebrating.

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I was watching the news last night with sadness and a deeply unsettled feeling as they continued to pull people—some still alive!—from the rubble in Venezuela following last week’s earthquakes. The coverage highlighted the story of a man buried under the rubble of two buildings, apparently protected by the small parking booth where he was working in an underground garage when the world came down. But it’s rescue-Jenga—they can’t figure out how they can get to him when any piece they pull might lead to further collapse. His wife watches nearby, taking small comfort in the fact that, 6 days in, the rescuers have finally been able to get water to him.

As I tried to put myself in her shoes—and couldn’t, really—I thought about the many thousands of collapses happening every minute of every day on this precarious earth of ours. We’re forced to walk a bridge, and there’s no getting off it. But it’s an unreliable bridge: every now and then, often without warning, it just…collapses. We try to avoid looking down, distracting ourselves in every way we can from the chasm. But there it is.

Learning to embrace that reality has become key to my peace and well-being. If that sounds nonsensical, let me explain. I’m not perfect—I over-scroll and over-eat and over-spend to distract myself all day every day. I take too many pills, probably exercise more than I need to, hoping to stave off the inevitable. I’m definitely still learning and will need more practice.

But the peace-giving shift for me is that I finally understand: if no one deserves a tragedy, how can anyone deserve a blessing? I can't deserve a blessing any more than I can deserve a mountain or a baby or a giraffe or the tree growing outside my window.

I can ask for blessing, love for it, live for it, try to stay present to it in my own life and help the people around me feel and find it too. Asking for blessing is really just begging a little reassurance from God, a glimpse of divine love, and Jesus showed me how to manifest that love in the world. I have a choice whether to make this unreliable place a little easier for everyone I meet, or not.

But I will never be more deserving than every person in Venezuela, or anywhere else. May I never forget it.

On the day this bridge gives way beneath my feet—it will, I’ve been watching other people fly off the edge my entire life—it is only love that will sustain me. Only the portion of grace I am willing to give as freely as I hope to receive it that can make me okay, when everything in the world is not. For as long as it took me to write this, anyway, it is enough.

Note: More from James Finley here.

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One of the hallmarks of a Big Idea is that there's always more to say about it! In bonus Episode 269, Cynthia and Susan have conversations with 3 women from the ALSSI community—Lisa, Brooke, and Michelle—exploring a few ideas they had in response to Season 11 topics.

Notes & Quotes:

ALSSI Ep. 257: Big Ideas | The Beatitudes
ALSSI Ep. 260: Big Ideas | Letting Go
ALSSI Ep. 262: Big Ideas | Confirmation Bias
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, by Gregory Boyle
Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, by Gregory Boyle
Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times, by Gregory Boyle
An Early Resurrection: Life in Christ before You Die, by Adam S. Miller
Does Religion Still Matter? Nadia Bolz-Weber on Faith & Forgiveness, Rainn Wilson with Nadia Bolz-Weber, Soul Boom podcast
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, by Richard Rohr

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We posted this snarky bingo card on social media but I had a few more things to say about women and priesthood.

Way back on Episode 97, Christ Chose Women, we talked about David Bednar’s 2022 comments at the National Press Club Luncheon. (Watch his body language as he answers the questions….nervous much?) When asked about whether we would ever have a woman prophet he said:

“We follow the pattern of the ancient church. … The pattern anciently was that the apostles were men.”

We had plenty to say about his response on the episode, but let’s just accept for now that it is true, that at the highest levels of governance Jesus wants only men to be apostles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Fine. But why can’t we be bishops? If the reporter had asked him that question instead, what scripture—or “pattern”—from Jesus’s life and ministry would Bednar quote to support the Church’s ban on women clergy at the local level? What do you think? Because I can find nothing. Nada.

Cynthia Winward

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Hello Summer Vacation!

We did it! Season 11 is done! Our season of ‘Big Ideas’ and the ‘What Do You Say?’ episodes have been boxed up and packed away. Our summer break has started but already we’ve been texting each other all the projects we’ve been up to—painting, organizing, and family events. So I guess we’re on podcast break, but not life break. That train always seems to be flying full speed ahead.

We will be back in a couple months, but here are a few ways to still connect with us during the summer—

Upcoming:

July ? - Ep. 269 - July Bonus

Jul.10 - Friday Live Chat | 10:00 Mtn (canceled)

Jul.16 - ALSRI Book Club, 7:00 pm Mtn

Jul. 21 - ALSSI Live Event, Salt Lake City 🥳

Aug ? - Ep.270 - August Bonus

We won’t be having any Friday Chats on Zoom for July, but we will still be around for our robust chat room on the Substack app. To avoid trolls, we keep it behind a paywall, but please, shoot us an email if you’d like access but can’t swing a paid subscription right now. Zero questions. Community is everything!

Live Event! —

We still have room for you! (register here)

An Evening with At Last She Said It
Tuesday, July 21, $25
Time: 7:00 - 9:00 pm
3301 E Louise Ave, Salt Lake City, UT

We’re going to pack in a bit of fun in just two hours. Both of us will speak, then we will all get to play ‘What do You Say?’ And of course, we will have cake and some merch. All are welcome—guys, gals, and non-binary pals!

Come to our virtual book club!

Who doesn’t love good fiction in the summer? Our summer book club meeting will be here in a matter of weeks. Attendees voted at the last meeting, and Lilith, by Nikki Marmery, is our next selection for July’s discussion.

Whether or not you get a chance to read the book, we hope you’ll plan to join us for the conversation!

Stay cool!

Many thanks for all the support you send our way—emails, voicemails, chats here on Substack, and financial support. We truly feel nourished and strengthened. :)

Happy Summer!

Cynthia, Susan,
and the ALSSI Team

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A Wrinkle In Time and How NOT to Build Zion

by Mara

In this essay I will address the building of Zion, how we may

be thinking about it in a flawed way, and how we can think about it instead. I will focus on the qualification “of one heart and one mind”—the principle of unity.

The scripture I just quoted in Moses is a description of the city of Enoch, and it could be argued that the description is unique to just that city. It is commonly used as a description in the church, however, as the kind of society we should be working for, since prophecies claim that Zion, the New Jerusalem, will be built in the last days, and we are also members of Zion inasmuch as we are members of stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In addition, the scripture says the people were called Zion “because they were of one heart and one mind,” implying that Zion is a title bestowed on people who meet those qualifications and not just the people of Enoch. I feel it is therefore appropriate here to discuss the building of Zion as something that we can all work towards.

At this point you might be wondering about why I called this piece “How NOT to build Zion.” In addition to being an attention-grabber, this title shows that most of this essay will focus on how this scripture can be misinterpreted and how we can read it instead.

The idea of being “of one heart and one mind” can be interpreted in more than one way, and I would like to discuss one way this could be interpreted that I am going to argue is incorrect—that everyone feels, thinks, and acts exactly the same.

This is not a completely unreasonable way to understand the scripture, since other scriptures tell us,

“I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one, ye are not mine.” (D&C 38:27)

and

“I beseech you that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together.” (1 Corinthians 1:10)

However, if the idea of “one heart and one mind” is applied irresponsibly, it may be interpreted to mean that we give up our agency and individuality and all become exactly the same. I argue that sameness is undesirable as a quality in Zion, while unity can be built another way.

In the well-known book “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle, the characters Meg and Charles Wallace visit a planet called Camazotz where everyone behaves exactly the same because they are controlled by a totalitarian mind called IT that does not tolerate any deviation. When they first enter the town, they view a residential neighborhood that seems to be like a pleasant place at first but they soon discover there is a difference from what they are used to.

Meg and Charles Wallace continue into town and discover that these children and mothers, along with other inhabitants of the town, are under the strict control of the being IT, which uses fear and intimidation to make everything perfect. The effect is absolutely chilling: everything on the planet works perfectly because IT wills it so. IT tells the children:

The effect is quite chilling. IT’s words remind me of the arguments made by Lucifer during the council in heaven:

“Behold, here am I, send me, I will be they son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.” (Moses 4: 1)

We might often feel that the Church is teaching that everyone must be exactly the same; we certainly do have a lot of commandments and “rules” that we expect people to follow in order to be considered a “good” member. But in fact the scriptures have taught us that it is only in diversity, not sameness, that we will be able to build things properly.

Consider the teachings in 1 Corinthians 12, which compares the followers of Christ to a human body:

“If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now they are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” (1 Corinthians 12: 17-21)

The author explains clearly here why sameness is not only not unifying but also not useful. “And if they were one member, where were the body?” In other words, if all the people of Christ were hands, exactly as the same as each other, we would not have a unified body, but only a collection of disembodied hands. And since each of the hands was exactly the same, the body would receive no additional functionality by joining two or more of the hands together. So they are separated and each hand has only the functionality it brought to the situation.

When the people of Christ are different types of body parts, however, the body is able to be unified: “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body.” The parts make a body together and complement each other as members of the body. In addition, each part in this diverse body has access to the utility of the other parts of the body: the eye cannot hear, and the ear cannot smell. But by being part of a great body with the other members, each body part has access to the functionality of the whole body and contributes to that greater functionality.

Discussions of spiritual gifts in the scriptures also point out that diversity is needed for increased functionality as a unified church:

“And again, I exhort you, my brethren, that ye deny not the gifts of God… And there are different ways that these gifts are administered; but it is the same God who worketh all in all; and they are given by the manifestations of the Spirit of God unto men, to profit them.” (Moroni 10: 8)

They are given by the Spirit to profit them as a whole, not just one particular member. Therefore, the collective, unified body has access to all of the spiritual gifts, increasing its abilities in comparison to one member.

In short, Zion is not Zion in spite of diversity, but because of diversity. Those members of the church who feel they are different are just what the church needs, and the church as a whole suffers when they choose not to be part of us.

What does it mean then to be “of one heart and one mind?” How can we then understand these scriptures without understanding them to be talking about complete sameness? Consider these descriptions of the kind of mind and heart we should have:

“...Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

“...that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;” (Phillipians 1:27)

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:” (Hebrews 8:10)

“And ye will not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably…” (Mosiah 4:13)

“Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind;” (D&C 64:34)

“Blessed are the pure in heart…” (Matthew 5:8)

“And ye shall offer for a sacrifice… a broken heart and a contrite spirit…” (3 Nephi 9:20)

We can bring minds that are full of love, striving, peaceful, and willing to make covenants with the Lord, and hearts that are loving, contrite and pure. These are the characteristics that will unify us in a way that we are not all the same like servants of a controlling IT-like mind, but that we can benefit from each other’s differences.

Checking Boxes

by Marlee Bedke

Letting the Fields Lie Fallow

by Brooke RaNae Palmer

I live in Southeastern Idaho, just over the Utah border in

the first Idaho community settled by Mormon pioneers. When they arrived, the land was thick with sagebrush—wild, dry, and unpromising. What transformed it into farmland was not just effort, but an irrigation system.

To catch the spring snowmelt, they excavated reservoirs with horse teams and cast iron implements, carved canals and ditches with hand tools, and relied on gravity to carry water across hundreds of acres. It was a carefully planned feat of engineering.

Presently there are 5 canal companies and 13 reservoirs in Franklin County, and many of the ditches and canals have been encased in pipe and buried in the ground, and by-and-large, it is still gravity that sends the water where it needs to go. For more than a century, water has moved because it has been guided to move, again and again, in a carefully maintained system.

This irrigation infrastructure has shaped the land, and it shaped the people who lived on it—teaching them to produce, to maximize, to make the desert yield. Over time, farming became the dominant industry here, and with it came a rhythm: plow, sew, water, grow, harvest, repeat.

Despite improving the rate of crop production, on-demand irrigation isn’t always positive. Constant farming also depletes the ground of minerals and nutrients, which then are usually replaced with another man-made innovation: chemical fertilizers. (But that’s a subject for another day.)

As you travel north, there are “dry farm,” areas where irrigation is not able to reach. The land is too far from the reservoirs, or it is too hilly for the gravity flow to be able to work. So, these farmers have learned to farm in a different way. Some years these fields lie fallow. To a passerby, they look abandoned: overgrown with weeds, marked by washouts where snowmelt has pooled and receded. They do not appear productive. They do not appear tended.

And yet, this too is a deliberate practice because through this period of rest, the soil is able to gather moisture deep into the ground. The weeds, when eventually turned under, become nourishment. When the field is planted again—often with hardy wheat—it draws on what has been quietly stored below the surface. The crop is able to grow without being dependent on a man-made watering system. It can even grow through a summer that gets very little rain because the moisture has been allowed to accumulate in the earth. It may yield less than irrigated land, but it yields enough. It survives.

I can guarantee that over the past 165 years, these stewards of the land have tried to come up with a way to get onto an irrigated system. It’s not for lack of ingenuity, or money, or will power. It would take a seismic shift in the landscape for something like that to happen.

On the other hand, there are thousands of acres watered by man-made irrigation, and so they’re able to produce more varied and abundant crops. They are not as limited by the amount of water that is provided by rainfall. On irrigated land, a farmer can sometimes get up to four cuttings of hay, compared to two on a dry farm.

Growing up in the church, in a community that was predominately LDS, I was part of a man-made irrigated system. I was watered consistently and thoroughly. As a child I grew both homemaking and leadership skills. As a young woman I produced a temple marriage and raised 4 wonderful children. As a member of my ward, I was a steward of Primary children, YW and YM, and Relief Society sisters. And like the irrigated fields around me, I was taught—implicitly and explicitly—to produce, produce, produce.

But then the unthinkable happened, I experienced a huge seismic shift, one that had been building up for years. There had been tremors, but I ignored them in favor of producing. This shift threw me off of the irrigation system that had been the framework of my life.

All of a sudden, the pipes that led out of my reservoir were fractured, the flow disrupted, and I learned that systems, even sustaining ones, can break if they become too rigid and confining.

I tried to limp along, doing the same things I’d always done, tried to grow the same crops, followed the same patterns, expected the same results, but without the constant water, my output shriveled up. I found myself exhausted, unable to sustain what once felt natural. I tried to get back on the system, but returning to the old system was not an option; it no longer felt like nourishment. It felt contaminated.

What I did not realize, at first, was that I was being invited into a different method of growing—the kind practiced by dry farmers, a season of fallowness, completely reliant on mother nature.

Having observed many fallow fields over the years, I knew during this phase of fallow-ness the field would be ugly. There would be weeds growing in it. There would be washouts from melt-off and rain. My neighbors might drive by and wonder what happened to my beautifully cultivated field and why I was letting it run to ruin now.

I am learning how to let a field lie fallow. I know my field doesn’t have to look perfect, or even pretty.

However, I don’t have to rely solely on my own observations as I employ this technique. This, too, has roots in my inheritance, I have dry farming in my genetic code. Not only do I have Mormon pioneers on one side of the family, but I also come from Volga German stock. In 1762 Catherine the Great invited immigrants to settle in Russia. Many Hessian Germans formed a community on the banks of the Volga River and there they developed agricultural practices shaped by scarcity and resilience: crop rotation, soil stewardship, and the intentional leaving of land unplanted. They became some of the most important wheat growers in the empire.

However, their history, too, is marked by disruption. By the late 19^th century there had been many seismic shifts in Russian politics and eventually many of the Volga Germans emigrated to the United States. Carrying their knowledge with them to the mid-west and western states, they grew a variety of crops: rye, potatoes, sunflowers, sugar beets and the red wheat with which we are all familiar. Adaptation was not optional; it was survival. Long before any Mormon Utahans were farming, the Volga Germans had been using innovative farming techniques, including allowing a field to lay fallow. They understood that in order to get the best production out a piece of ground, they needed to let it rest, to gather moisture and nutrients.

If the Mormon pioneers taught me how to build systems, the Volga Germans remind me how to live when those systems fail. If you Google “Volga Germans” you will see that they are known for their tenacious work ethic. If you read between the lines, you will also notice that they are farmers who understood the necessity of rest and were remarkably versatile. And while I applaud my Mormon ancestors for their tenacity and work ethic, I feel like those of us in the Mormon belt may have lost the versatility that we once had. Instead, we are relying too much on man-made irrigation to produce, produce, produce.

Now after this seismic shift in my own life, I am going to hearken back to my German roots, where a season of fallowness isn’t a liability, it isn’t unacceptable, but is counted as necessary. I am learning how to let a field lie fallow. I know my field doesn’t have to look perfect, or even pretty. It’s okay that it’s filled with weeds—unanswered questions, unfinished thoughts, grief that surfaces unpredictably. There are washouts, places where old structures have collapsed under the weight of change. From the outside, it might appear neglected, as though I have stepped away from responsibility or purpose. To be fallow is to remain present without forcing growth. It is to trust that something is happening beneath the surface, even when it cannot be measured or displayed.

This season is sustaining me in ways I could not have anticipated. It has loosened my dependence on constant production. It has reconnected me to something more elemental—something like the slow accumulation of moisture in the soil, unseen but essential. At some point, in a season when I’m strong enough, or feel good enough, or when I’ve finally figure something out, I’ll just plow everything under and those weeds will be part of the nourishment of the soil. I do not know yet what I will plant when this season ends. I suspect it will be something different from what I grew before—something that can reach deeper, something less dependent on carefully controlled systems, one that isn’t common in this LDS soil. A crop that doesn’t leave me burned-out or reliant on anything man-made.

For now, it is enough to tend this field as it is. To let the field lie fallow. To trust the work of rest. To believe that meaning, like water, does not always arrive on command—but can still be gathered, held, and, in time, made to nourish what comes next.

Women Who Understand

by Lisa Fluckiger

A Vision of Living Thread

by Jessie Santa Maria Whittaker

And it came to pass that I beheld a land covered in mist, and many

voices were heard within it, speaking commandments and judgments to the travelers who walked there.

And the mist was thick at times, heavy with the weight of words and expectations, pressing upon the shoulders of those who passed. And at other times it parted, letting light spill gently upon the path of the traveler.

And I saw a rod of iron stretching across the land, straight and unbending, and many did cling unto it with great effort. And the rod did ascend upward unto a great building that stood high above the earth.

And the building was filled with people who looked down from lofty windows and balconies. They spoke with certainty and mocked the travelers in the mist. And though the building appeared magnificent, I perceived that it had no foundation beneath it.

And near the rod I beheld a young girl who had just loosed her hands from the iron. She looked upon the building with troubled eyes, for she knew it was not her home, yet she feared to depart from the path she had been taught.

And as I watched, a thread of gold came gently into my hands. It was soft and living, and it moved with me as I walked.

And I perceived that the thread grew brighter when I walked in compassion, and dimmed when I walked in fear, yet it did not depart from me.

And I beheld that there were many such threads moving through the mist in every direction. Some crossed and some parted, yet all were woven together into a great tapestry that stretched across the earth.

And I saw that the tapestry was not yet complete, for new threads were continually being woven into it by the lives of those who walked the earth.

And following the thread, I came unto a tree whose beauty was beyond all that I had known. And the fruit thereof filled my soul with a great and quiet love, sweet and comforting to taste.

And I beheld that the roots of the tree reached deep into the earth and drew life from hidden waters beneath the world, even from living springs that did not fail.

And the branches spread wide as though to gather all who hungered for its fruit.

And I saw that the trunk of the tree opened as a doorway, and beyond it was a garden where light and shadow dwelt together, and the light made the shadows gentle.

And I turned again and saw the young girl standing in the mist, and I went unto her and held her with compassion, for I knew her burdens and her longing for goodness.

And as we stood beneath the tree, I perceived that the light which shone there had also been within us from the beginning, a spark of the divine entrusted to our care.

And the golden threads continued to move through the world, weaving the journeys of many souls together.

And I knew then that the journey toward God was not a single road to be followed, but a living weaving of souls learning, stumbling, and shining together.

And I bore record that the love which grew from that tree was the true guide of the soul; and whosoever walked in that love need not fear the mist, for the light within them would ever lead them onward.

Contributors:

Mara

Marlee Bedke

Marlee is a “stretchy saint” that’s doing her best to find her place and voice at church. She’s become the girl that shocks her southern Utah ward by holding her daughter during her baby blessing, wearing a rainbow bracelet, finding God outside the normal Primary answers, and sharing “liberal” things on social media. She’s lucky to be married to her best friend, and they lead their home and 2 young kids as equal partners. She’s a mindful yoga teacher, a daycare supervisor, an amateur gardener, a proud firefighter wife, a sourdough baker, a hiker, a Krispy Kreme fanatic and an avid reader.

Brooke RaNae Palmer

Brooke is a big thinker, voracious reader, stained glass enthusiast, and heavy metal headbanger, in addition to being a loving nana, mother of 4, happy farm wife and badass homemaker.

Lisa Fluckiger

Lisa is a second year grad student in Chadron State College's Clinical Mental Health Counseling MAE program. Her most recent work has been providing SEL education and support for middle school students. Long ago at BYU, Lisa earned a BA degree in chemistry and then a master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction, with an emphasis in the inclusive classroom. Her family owns a small artisan bakery in the small town where they live, and it is a place where their daughter, Eleanor, can have meaningful work and continue to participate in the community. Totally her husband's dream, and she is all for it! In addition to studying mental health, Lisa is loving life beyond church, running with her dogs, yoga, and writing. Also Netflix.

Jessie Santa Maria Whittaker

Therapist, writer, professional meaning-maker, wife, and momma. Jessie sits with big feelings, sacred questions, and nervous systems that have had a rough day—or life. She is a lover of Christmas magic, messy faith, honest stories, and the brave work of becoming fully human.

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One of the hallmarks of a big idea is that it's connected to so many others. In Episode 268, Susan and Cynthia revisit the Big Idea episodes that formed the theme of ALSSI Season 11. After discussing these topics, If there's one thing we're sure of it's that we only scratched the surface.

Notes & Quotes:
Jim Palmer on Facebook
Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times, by Gregory Boyle
Healing Acts of Connection, Center for Action and Contemplation, 3/11/2026
Seeing the Underside and Seeing God: Tattoos, Tradition, and Grace, On Being podcast, Krista Tippet with Nadia Bolz-Weber, 10/23/2014
Sanctification Explained Simply, by Bryan Schneider, Gentle Reformation, 8/21/2024
Keep Trying, by Marvin J. Ashton, Liahona Magazine, 08/2018
What If Prayer Isn’t What You Think It Is?, Kate Bowler with Malcolm Guite, Everything Happens podcast
Mike Petrow: The Path of Descent, Faith Matters podcast, 3/23/2025
Sabbath As Resistance, Ruth Haley Barton with Cole Arthur Riley, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership podcast, Season 17 Ep. 3

“The pattern is so obvious that it is almost invisible. The religion a person considers sacred truth is usually the religion of their family, culture, geography, and historical inheritance. Most people do not arrive at their religious worldview after a comprehensive investigation of the world’s competing claims about ultimate reality. They do not spend years objectively evaluating every major religious tradition, philosophical system, and metaphysical framework before reaching a carefully reasoned conclusion. They inherit a story. They are born into a language, a culture, a community, and a set of assumptions that become the lens through which reality itself is interpreted. This does not mean their beliefs are false. It means their beliefs are situated. The problem begins when people forget this. Religious certainty often presents itself as though it emerged from pure reason, divine selection, or unique spiritual insight. Yet if most of us had been born somewhere else, to different parents, speaking a different language, we would likely be defending an entirely different set of convictions with equal confidence. The beliefs that feel self-evident to us frequently owe as much to circumstance as they do to careful examination.” —Jim Palmer

“Sin is an old world map.” —Gregory Boyle

“Is the love of God looking down on a sinful world in need of salvation, or does our God see a broken world in pain and in need of healing?” —Gregory Boyle

“The movement we made in the last century of not calling addiction sin, but calling it a disease, I think was a major movement. There’s very little freedom when we sin. Very little freedom. We cannot not do it. Virtue is an ultimately free action. Sin is when you’re most unfree.” —Richard Rohr

“I loved the emphasis on grace, the fact that God always is coming to us. There’s nothing we do to make our way to God. God is continually coming to us and interrupting our lives and wanting to be known.” —Nadia Bolz-Weber

“There is a danger in sanctification—a false pride that can creep in. [...] This often happens when people see sanctification as a stairway upwards. They imagine that they were saved at a certain point, and as they climb the stairs of holiness, they become increasingly aware of their progress. They feel they’re getting better and better, seemingly ascending into heaven. Their self-perception becomes one of self-improvement. [...] I am convinced that this is the exact opposite of how the Spirit works to sanctify us. Sanctification isn’t a stairway upwards to higher and higher rungs of holiness. No, sanctification is a downward soul work. Now imagine a different picture: Stairs descending downward, spiraling deeper through the heart.” —Bryan Schneider

"To become a winner in the race for eternal life requires effort—constant work, striving, and enduring well with God’s help." —Marvin J. Ashton

“We develop a story or system in our minds and whatever doesn’t fit, our brains exclude it because we only want to judge new information based on the information we already have that we’re comfortable with. And so, our old information and our old trusted authorities create a screen.” —Brain McLaren

“Community bias, it's almost impossible to see what our community doesn't see, or what our community doesn't want us to see. You could think of this as a community confirmation bias, and our identity is wrapped up with the community we belong in, and it's very hard for us to accept some ideas if they will put us out of sync with our community because that will rob from us our secure social location or identity.” —Brian McLaren

“If I were to say people can't see what they can't see, that's true, but it's not the whole truth. They can't see what they can't see until someone helps them see it, or maybe a new life experience comes along that helps them see it.” —Brian McLaren

”Reason is the natural organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning.” —C.S. Lewis (via Malcom Guite)

“When we don't understand it and it doesn't make sense, it can be an invitation to think more deeply and look for a meaning worthy of a god we believe in, a god of love.” —Mike Petrow

“It’s the audacity to face the demands of this world and proclaim, ‘We will not be owned.’” —Cole Arthur Riley

“When we practice Sabbath we are saying to this world, ‘You do not own me. I am not owned by your values, I am not owned by your schedule, I am not owned by your consumerism, I am not owned by somebody else’s priorities for me. On this day, I am not owned by anyone else but God Himself or Herself. I am proclaiming where I belong [and] who I belong to.” —Ruth Haley Barton

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An Evening with At Last She Said It
Tuesday, July 21
7:00 - 9:00 pm
3301 E Louise Ave
Millcreek, UT 84109

Bring a friend, and/or come make a bunch of new ones!
Plan on a short presentation from Cynthia and Susan, followed by plenty of time to get to know (and enjoy cake with!) members of the ALSSI community.

Seats are limited—register by clicking this link today!

(Please do us a favor and share this email with someone you know who might like info about the gathering.)

See you soon!

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“All real living is meeting.”

So says Martin Buber, and if you don’t know his work but his name sounds familiar, it may be because I touched briefly on his ideas contrasting trust in vs. belief that in our recent episode about Myth.

I’m starting with him here because that line sits at the heart of Susan’s Presence Project, aka Summer 2026. The best way for me to really accomplish a thing is to find an alliterative title for whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing—surely that’s 90% of the work, isn’t it?

This approach would undoubtedly explain a lot about my life, especially if you looked in my closets. Let’s just say I’m a better starter than finisher, but I’m really gifted at making it Sound Like I’m Doing Something.

Look, I want to become a master of presence, with a deep grasp of the Fundamental Meaning Underlying All Things, including this moment right now.

And this one.

Read more

In Episode 267, Susan and Cynthia ask Jen, Jessie, and Anne, What Do You Say? It’s the fifth installment of ALSSI’s series of episodes involving questions, answers, and the wide-ranging conversations they inspire among Latter-day Saint women.

Notes & Quotes:
Hear our previous conversation with Jen Dille on ALSSI Ep. 233
Hear more from Anne Pimentel on ALSSI Ep. 192 and Ep. 214
Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion, by Pema Chödrön, Emily Hilburn Sell (Editor)
Brené Brown on How to Reckon with Emotion and Change Your Narrative, by Brené Brown, O, The Oprah Magazine, 9/2015

“Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?” —Pema Chödrön

“We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment—over and over again.” —Pema Chödrön, (p. 7 Kindle)

“Steve opened the refrigerator and sighed. ‘We have no groceries. Not even lunch meat.’ I shot back, ‘I'm doing the best I can. You can shop, too!’ ‘I know,’ he said in a measured voice. ‘I do it every week. What's going on?’ I knew exactly what was going on: I had turned his comment into a story about how I'm a disorganized, unreliable partner and mother. I apologized and started my next sentence with the phrase that's become a lifesaver in my marriage, parenting and professional life: ‘The story I'm making up is that you were blaming me for not having groceries, that I was screwing up.’ Steve said, ‘No, I was going to shop yesterday, but I didn't have time. I'm not blaming you. I'm hungry.’” —Brené Brown

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Many thanks to listener Rebecca Graham for her work in transcribing this episode!

This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:

Listen to Episode 267

Anne Pimentel: I think that when people have an expansive faith experience, to the outside, to the maybe orthodox member, it looks like they’re falling away.

CW: Yeah.

AP: And people may think that about me right now as I’m expanding and changing how I approach church, but what they may not understand is that I have never felt closer to God than I do right now, and my relationship is deeper and more enriching than it ever has been.

And so we have this fear of changing how we do church, but I think that when you really dig deep into it, it is such a beautiful deepening experience.

_____

CW: Hi, I’m Cynthia Winward.

SH: And I’m Susan Hinkley.

CW: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today’s episode is “What Do You Say? Three Conversations About Holy Envy, Uncertainty, and Forgiving Yourself.” Hello, Susan.

SH: Hello, Cynthia. I’m looking forward to these conversations today, but can I take a second for housekeeping before we start?

CW: Please.

SH: I wanted to let listeners know that this is our second to last episode of our regular season episodes for Season 11. We’ll have one more next week, and then we’re going on summer vacation, Cynthia.

CW: Summer vacation.

SH: But there will be more ... We haven’t finished with all of our “What Do You Say?” interviews yet, and so there will be some “What Do You Say?” dessert over the summer, and-

CW: Nice

SH: And that will show up in the form of a bonus episode. And then we will have a few other bonuses, and we hope that people will hang with us for the bonuses and come back with us when we resume in early fall, I guess. Late summer, early fall.

CW: Mhmm!

SH: Yeah. Not gonna pin any dates down on that yet. I also wanted to thank the listeners. We … People may have noticed we’ve had a little bit of a mini pledge drive going on here. And I wanted to thank people for their generosity in all the ways that they have supported the podcast, but particularly at this time, financially. We have appreciated that, and so thank you to everyone who has donated, who has helped us out with a paid subscription on Substack.

And I just wanna give people a reminder that even if we stop talking about that, you can keep thinking about it.

CW: [laughing]

SH: And we’re happy to have your support any time that you can afford to kick a dollar our way. And also a reminder that we are a 501[c][3], and so if people will hit the donate button on our website to make a donation, those are tax-deductible. A paid subscription to our Substack actually is not tax-deductible, so that’s something else people may wanna consider when they’re figuring out the best way to support the podcast.

CW: Nice! Good housekeeping. Alright. Are we ready?

SH: Yeah, let’s get to the good stuff.

CW: All right. Let’s get to our three conversations, and then I’ll meet you back here for Contemplation Corner. How’s that?

SH: Perfect.
_____

SH: Oh, Cynthia, here’s one we’ve been looking forward to. We’ve got Jen Dilley with us to play today. Hi, Jen.

CW: Yay.

JD: Hey, Susan and Cynthia. I’m so excited for this. Woo-woo!

SH: We’re gonna start out with a question from our memories category. Would you like question one, two, or three?

JD: Let’s go two.

SH: Was there a big churchy question you were obsessed with as a kid, and who, if anyone, did you feel free to ask about it?

JD: Okay. I would say my answer to a big churchy question was probably closer to a big churchy topic, which was the temple. And I loved it when I was growing up because it was the temple and not kind of how we talk about it now as, like, the covenant path.

CW: Oh.

JD: So I still remember it, like, where I was sitting in the primary room when we learned the song “I Love to See the Temple.” And I just had such warm, fuzzy feelings in my heart and just kept thinking, like, “Man, how can I get there?” And I feel like my young women’s leaders did such a good job of really emphasizing, “you really need to get married in the temple.” And looking back, I realize, like, it did feel like they kind of drummed it into our head for how important it was.

CW: Mhmm.

JD: But it felt okay. You know, it didn’t feel like “covenant path” nowadays where it’s, like, the only thing we could talk about it. They talked about it in, like, fun and creative ways, and they also talked about, like, how can you prepare for the temple as a really exciting thing.

And so I do remember feeling like right before I was gonna go to the temple, I just wanted to read all the scriptures, go to the temple, and then read all the scriptures again and see how I could relate to the scriptures differently because I’d been to the temple.

CW: Ahh.

JD: And so I do remember, like, going through the temple and being like, [00:05:00] huh, okay, yeah, that wasn’t really what I thought

CW: Right?

JD: [laughing] As like, probably all of us did. But I really appreciated that I could talk to my dad about it. And I remember talking to my mom about it as well, but my dad was probably like my primary go-to person because my dad was a convert and,like, he joined the church when he was 19, and so he had really studied it out, whereas my mom was a lifelong member.

And so she was just kinda like, “Yeah, it’s so special, it’s so great,” whereas my dad would be like, “The history of the temple came from the Old Testament” and would kind of go through it with me. So yeah, just how to prepare for the temple. It was a big, big focus in a very happy way.

SH: And did you feel like you were well-prepared? Like, did you get adequate preparation,

JD: [laughing] Not at all.

SH: Okay. [laughing] Say more.

JD: I do remember going to temple prep and just smiling and nodding and being like, “Okay, but when are we really gonna talk about like-

CW: Yes

JD: ... what the temple is-

CW: Right

JD: ... and what we do? It was all these like, you know, I can still remember the Boyd K. Packer little pamphlet, “The Holy Temple.”And reading it through and just being like, “Okay, where’s the page when they’re actually gonna, like, talk about what we do?”

CW: The ceremony.

JD: The ceremony and what I promise. And so when our kids were getting ready to go to the temple, like, we sat them down and were like, “After you walk through the door, then you’re gonna go here, and then you’re gonna do this.” And we told them, like, step by step, and they were so funny. They were “yeah, okay, whatever. It’s gonna be fine.” And I was like-

CW: Nice

JD: ... “No, I want you to know…so I want you to know”

SH: [laughing]

JD: ... like every step of what you’re doing.

CW: Yes.

JD: And what you’re promising

SH: Oh, amazing actually. Nobody did that with me, Jen

CW: Uh-huh.

JD: I know. I know. It was a different time, you know? Like, I’m not saying we’re old, Susan, but for us, you know, like, temple prep was just like, “Yeah, read the Boyd K. Packer pamphlet and come with questions.”

SH: That’s what it was.

JD: That’s what it was, right? And we can’t talk about anything.

SH: Right.

JD: But it’s not secret, it’s sacred, and-

SH: And also secret.

[all laughing]

JD: Yeah.

CW: Oh my gosh, I wanna have a whole episode about the temple with Jen, but we will move on.

JD: K.

CW: We will move on. Okay, from insights, would you like one, two, or three?

JD: Let’s go with three.

CW: I love this question so much. What gives you holy envy?

JD: Ah, so many things. Lately, I’ve been seeing that Pope Leo has been making social media posts, and just media in general, about how he’s praying for peace and not war. And I feel like that is such a brave thing to do right now, and he’s definitely taking heat for that, because there is a certain segment of Christianity that’s like, “What are you talking about?” Like- “This is fine. We just follow our president.”

CW: Mhmm.

JD: And I’m really grateful for the leadership of Pope Leo to say, “I feel like I’m speaking God’s message with this,” and it feels like he’s being very prophetic. I also appreciate that-

CW: Yes

JD: ... the Episcopal bishops also made a video, I think it’s been a few weeks now just saying-

CW: I saw that

JD: Yeah, just saying, “Hey we’re concerned about what’s going on in our country.” And I loved that they stated like, “Here’s our values. Here’s why we’re concerned.” And they were values that I feel like everyone can rally around. So I think in this moment, I’m really craving church leaders who will speak up and say what Jesus actually said and-

CW: Mm. hm hm hm.

JD: ... And use it for good. And a little sub-theme to that, I also have holy envy for people observing Lent because as, when we’re recording this, you know, people are in Lent, and I feel like our church is kind of in that baby stage of trying to figure out what to do around Easter.

SH: Right, right.

JD: Where, you know, we’re talking about it more, it’s so great, and they’re saying, “You should do some stuff.” And I’m kinda like, “What should I do? Do I observe Lent? Do I give something up for Lent? I don’t really understand it. Where should I look to find out more?”

CW: Yeah

JD: ... so, yeah. Trying to learn more about how to observe Easter and these traditional Christian holidays that really are part of our heritage as Christians.

CW: Okay, I really love, Jen, that you used the word craving when you were talking about this holy envy that you have for other clergy of, you know, Pope Leo and Episcopal leaders, because as you were talking, I was thinking to myself, “Yes, please, I will take two helpings of that on my plate.”

JD: [laughing]

CW: So apparently I [00:10:00] am craving that as well. So everything you said ditto. I’m craving that so much-

JD: Awesome ...

SH: What you didn’t say is why you might be craving that.

CW: Ooh, that’s a dangerous follow-up, Susan.

[all laughing]

JD: Do you want me to spell that out?

CW: Are you insinuating she’s lacking something in Mormonism?

SH: I’m just saying this is “At Last She Said It,” and I wanna hear the quiet part out loud right now.

[everyone continues to laugh]

JD: Alright. Alright. I will say it. Our church has been very silent, and it is breaking my heart because I do feel like with what’s happening, there is a moral issue of what’s going wrong. And I understand that it’s very difficult for church leaders. I feel like during COVID they found out what it’s like to take a stand on a political issue.

SH: Right.

JD: You know, when they said, “Hey, wear masks, get vaccinated,” and they got a lot of pushback for that. And so I understand it feels tricky, and I feel like we are in a situation where this is no longer just party politics. Like, this is a moral issue when we’re seeing, like, the rule of law and democracy- being openly violated. This is a problem that has moral implications, and it’s not just, like, what’s the letter behind the people’s name who you vote for. It’s a lot bigger than that.

CW: I said to Susan recently, because everything you’re talking about, Jen, I’m like, “This is the Jesus work, and shouldn’t we always be taking a stand on the Jesus work?” And so I said to Susan, “Whose name is on our building? It’s Jesus’ name, not Joseph Smith’s.” Because all I feel like I hear is people leaning on Joseph Smith, on The Articles of Faith, right? We believe in obeying the laws, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, “Okay, that’s all great and good, but his name isn’t on our building. It’s Jesus’.” So I feel like that should take precedence over the laws, but what do I know?

JD: Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you, I just read a book about Bonhoeffer, who was a pastor in Germany in the 1930s.

SH: Right.

JD: Yeah, you’re familiar with him. And he got really frustrated that churches were just falling in line with their leadership, and he felt to speak out, and he paid for it with his life. And I read that book to see what the similarities are between then and now. And there are some really disturbing similarities-

CW: Mhmm.

JD: ... of church leaders right now just falling in line behind some really immoral action and it’s very sobering, so. And I was speaking with someone who I’m very close with, and I said, “Are you disappointed that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not taken a stand and come out publicly and made a statement?” And they said, “Well, in order to be disappointed, I would have to have expectations that they would.” And I said, “Do you really wanna be in a church where you have zero expectations-

SH: Ah

JD: ... of them taking a moral stand?”

SH: Right.

CW: Fair question

JD: And that got them thinking.

CW: Wow. Ooh, okay. Interesting.

SH: Now, aren’t you glad I asked that risky follow-up, Cynthia? [laughing]

CW: Yes. Oh, 100%. I had to. You can edit all that out. I think of that as well.

SH: I knew she would not disappoint us. Okay. Would you like-- We are in beliefs now. Would you like question one, two, or three?

JD: Okay, let’s go one.

SH: Was there a bedrock truth in your life that you found out wasn’t true?

JD: Yes. The bedrock truth that I found wasn’t true is, I grew up hearing that Heavenly Mother was too sacred to talk about. And when I found out that came from an institute teacher in California-

CW: Right. Right

JD:... and that wasn’t anything that the brethren ever said-

SH: Right.

JD: I just, that was a rage-y day, just feeling like, “Well, wait, if that’s not true, then why aren’t we talking about her more?” And- ... why can’t we platform her, and what- what’s the risk of having her featured and highlighted more?

CW: Mhmm.

SH: Love that answer. And, like, how did these things used to spread? This is what I wanna know.

CW: Before the internet, you mean? [laughing]

SH: I guess. We’re talking, there’s no internet, so some rando institute teacher comes up with this, and then suddenly it takes over all of the conversation for the next however many decades. Well, it means that people were ready and willing to pick that up and run with it.

JD: Yeah, I think you’re exactly right, is, we’re all kind of looking for an explanation of, like- ... how can my brain make sense of this?

SH: Right.

JD: And yeah, but the problem is it plays into this docile view of a little timid woman in the corner.

CW: Ugh.

JD: Like, and I’m sorry, that is not Heavenly Mother. [00:15:00]

SH: It has not served us well. That’s absolutely true, in- on any level that I can think of, you know?

CW: I always find it fascinating when people say, “Well, we don’t talk about Heavenly Mother ‘cause we don’t know anything about her.” And I’m like, “Well, let’s be honest. What do we know about God, the Eternal Father? Zero.”

SH: Right.

CW: Like, the only thing we know, I mean, the scriptures say if... I think Jesus says, you know, “If you know me, you know the Father.” And so I’m like, “Okay, that’s literally all we know then, so wouldn’t the same be true if you know Jesus, you know the Mother?”

JD: Right. Exactly.

CW: That’s just my question.

JD: Exactly. And I’ve heard that another reason given is like, “Oh, well, if you look at the Lord’s Prayer, it starts out, ‘Our Father...’ “ And then, you know, continues on. And I recently learned from a Christian historian, they said rabbis would give their parishioners prayers as kind of a template to kind of get them going.

Like, “Hey, here’s a little something-

CW: Mm

JD: ... that you can recite, and this kind of gets you going down the path of prayer.” And so it was very common for rabbis to be sharing just a simple templated prayer to their parishioners. But then they were saying that doesn’t mean that every single prayer after that had to be only that prayer based on that prayer, that prayer-

SH: Right

JD: That prayer template was perfect. And so I just think could we maybe, like, open our minds a little bit on this topic?

CW: Could we open our minds a little? Yes.

JD: Yeah.

CW: Yes.

JD: And if we don’t know, how about we, we could ask for further light and knowledge. Oh, well

CW: Now we’re talking crazy. And a church that has prophetic revelation as its backbone, one would think, right?

SH: Okay. But also in a church that has polygamy as, I mean, maybe not its backbone, but one of its foundational bones

CW: Ohhh Susan

SH: ... do not ask questions to which you do not wanna know the answer. Right?

CW: Ouch.

SH: Ouch. Sorry, had to wreck it.

CW: It’s good that you did.

SH: Oh, so much fun. Thank you, Jen.

JD: Yes.Thank you both.

_____

CW: Alright. Well, we’re excited to have Jessie Santamaria Whittaker here with us. Best name ever.

SH: Hello, Jessie.

JSW: Thank you. It’s nice to be here.

CW: Ah, you play such an important role in our Substack chat, so we are so glad that we get to talk to you. So I am going to start out with the memories category, and you get to choose one, two, or three.

JSW: I’m probably gonna choose two every time ‘cause that’s my favorite number.

CW: Okay. Let’s just do it. Okay. Your question is: What’s the biggest sacrifice you’ve ever made?

JSW: I don’t- I’m not sure how to answer this one, to be honest. Are we thinking sacrifice in a good way or sacrifice in a bad way? [laughing]

CW: You decide.

SH: We’re not thinking at all. Only you think. [laughing]

CW: Yeah ... I don’t wanna put a label on it. You decide.

JSW: When I hear the word sacrifice, I do tend to think of a negative connotation.

CW: I can see that, yeah.

JSW: I think for a lot, yeah, for a lot of years, I sacrificed just myself, like who I am and honestly, the person I think God wants me to be because I was so concerned with being who everyone else said God wanted me to be.

CW: Mm.

JSW: Yeah. It’s really been, like, probably since COVID that I have really been like, no, I deserve to be myself and to feel joy and contentment and live authentically and wholeheartedly and do what I feel is right.

SH: Do you feel like this is, like, a natural progression as you’ve gotten older? Or have, you know, life circumstances shifted to help you come to this? Or, do you have any insight on why that’s changing for you?

JSW: Well, church has always been really, really hard for me. When I was very young, I had an experience where I realized that there was evil in the world. And that the evil was not this arbitrary, like, random, can’t see Satan, right? Like-

SH: Oh ...

JSW: ...that the evil was inflicted by other people. Like, I’ve always just felt very sensitive to other people’s pain, to their suffering. Because I was so consumed with trying to be who other people wanted me to be, I ended up in a lot of situations that weren’t healthy for myself. And- and so it just, like, came to a point where I finally was like, “This can’t be what endure to the end means.”

CW: Wow.

JSW: This can’t, like, this can’t be what God [00:20:00] wants for me. Like, my whole life I’ve heard, “God loves you. You have divine nature and individual worth,” and all of this stuff, but I came to this point where I was like, “I can’t even look in the mirror and say I love myself.” And that was a really scary and hard realization for me, because I was like, “If I can’t love myself, how am I supposed to love the people around me?”

CW: That’s insightful. Yeah.

JSW: Yeah, that was ... I think that was probably the breaking point where I, yeah, I just, I had to choose myself.

CW: That’s a hard-fought lesson, Jessi. Thank you for sharing that. Alright.

SH: All right. Insights. And just so you know, these are totally random. Do you still want number two?

JSW: Sure do.

CW: [laughing]

SH: Okay, here it comes. Is there anything you feel like you’re constantly chasing as an LDS woman?

JSW: So it probably was in November, December of this last year. I had, like, an ugly cry breakdown in my boys’ room. I was racked with grief because I had this realization working as a therapist that, like, at least in this lifetime, there is no, “I am fixed. I am healed.” And I don’t necessarily believe that I will ever reach that point, even if the eternities are real. And so, like, my whole life, I’ve been chasing this peace that I’ve been promised.

CW: Mm.

JSW: And this, like, Jesus can fix it. He can heal you. Everything is gonna be okay, and I don’t know that’s true anymore. Because even though I’m in a place where I understand myself better, I know how to manage my emotions and my thoughts and my beliefs better than ever before, I still struggle with everything I’ve always struggled with.

CW: You’re still you.

JSW: Yeah, just this idea that, like, like, why am I chasing...Well, and I think, too, the other part that goes with it is, I was chasing the idea of peace that has been taught, right?

CW: Yes.

JSW: And I had to recognize that peace actually looks and feels different than I thought it did.

SH: Mm.

CW: Nice.

SH: So maybe, I could be totally drawing the wrong conclusion here, but maybe you already had something, or you could access something that you didn’t realize was peace?

JSW: Yeah. For me, I actually find a great deal of peace and comfort in uncertainty. Which is, like, wild, because me a year ago saying that, I would’ve been like, “You are crazy.” Like, “There’s no way,” especially having OCD as, like, the”what if disease” is what I call it.

SH: Right.

JSW: It’s- doubt consumes me. And I’ve been running away from that for a long time, and when I finally stopped running from it and I turned around and I decided I was gonna embrace it, it was like, oh, life is still hard, but this actually feels manageable.

CW: Wow. That’s pretty amazing, Jessi. I think to go from, as your label, the “what if disease,” I like that, to accepting uncertainty. I mean, I’m sure it rears its ugly head still here and there, right? Because you’re still you.

JSW: Yep. 100%.

CW: But to have maybe the tools to probably work through that, that’s kind of big.

JSW: Yeah. It really has been life-changing.

CW: Wow.

SH: I’m also trying to imagine a church experience in which uncertainty can be peace. I’m pretty sure you’ve never had that lesson at church.

JSW: No, never.

SH: [laughing] I don’t think church gave that to you.

JSW: Not even once.

CW: Don’t hold your breath. [laughing]

SH: No, not gonna happen. But that’s, I love the way that you described that. My mom also, by the way, has always called it “the what ifs,” so.

CW: Really? Yeah.

SH: It’s a very apt description, in my experience.

CW: Yeah.

SH: Love it.

CW: All right, well let’s get another three cards. These are in beliefs, Jessi, so-

JSW: Okay.

CW: Susan’s favorite category.

SH: Okay. It’s not my favorite category.

CW: I know, I’m teasing you.

SH: You don’t have to answer it.

CW: You don’t have to answer it, so it’s your favorite now.

SH: Nope. [laughing]

CW: Okay, Miss Jessie, has your idea of what it means to be a good person changed?

JSW: I don’t know that it’s changed really. I think for a long time I thought that my idea of a good person was wrong because that’s not what other people said a good person was. But, like, if I really look back on my life and I really think about, this is what I see as a good person, and these are the people that stand out to me as Christ-like and truly living the gospel how I understand it- I think I’ve always known deep down what a good person is and how they show up in life. So I don’t necessarily think that how I see it has changed. I think I [00:25:00] just stopped telling myself that how I saw it was wrong.

CW: Mm. So maybe it was uncover...if it hasn’t really changed, then maybe you just

JSW: I actually like that you said uncovered, or you were going to say uncovered.

CW: Yeah.

JSW: I recently had this thought about bearing a testimony, right? And bear as in B-E-A-R. Like, that’s what we’re taught to do. We’re taught to bear it, and it’s like this image of strength and standing up. And then I thought, “What if I bared my testimony- ... as in B-A-R-E?”

SH: Right.

JSW: Instead of the other.

CW: Mm.

JSW: What if I uncovered it and I showed people how simple it could be and-

CW: Wow

JSW: ... how we don’t have to have the knowledge, the “I know” or the certainty or the whatever it is that’s put out there. Like, what if I bared it and I uncovered it and I let people see who I am? And I think that’s really been part of my journey is the uncovering and the, I’m not gonna hide anymore.

SH: And how’s that going for you? I mean, I say that in a kind of flip way, but I actually, like, mean it. Like, really... How’s that been?

JSW: I think it’s been good. Like I said, life isn’t magically easier now that I am living this way, but somehow I have found the people that I needed to find. I have found community. I have changed my core beliefs towards myself and recognize that I do have value, and that maybe there is, even if it’s only one person that I can help touch with my story or the things that I’ve learned or whatever I’ve been through, that will have been enough. Because even when I thought God had abandoned me and that I wasn’t worth it, like, I was always trying to do the next right thing, you know?

SH: Right.

JSW: And now I can look back and go, “You know, I don’t actually think God ever abandoned me. I think God was witnessing where I was and giving me-

CW: Wow

JSW: ... the space I needed to make my next decision.”

CW: That sounds so incredibly beautiful to go from a feeling of abandonment to God was witnessing.

Okay, Susan, I knew this was gonna be the problem doing these kinds of episodes because-

SH: I know, that is a really beautiful image.

CW: Well, I know, but I feel like we can’t- I’m gonna be thinking about it. We can’t leave this at a 15-minute interview.

SH: Right?

CW: And yet we’re going to have to, because now I wanna talk to Jessie for a full hour about that concept. Maybe we will another time.

SH: Cynthia, this whole thing is just, like, a thinly disguised way for us to find new podcast guests. Don’t know if you figured that out yet. Duh.

CW: Maybe [laughing]

CW: Oh my gosh. That’s a lot of... that’s hard. Again, that’s hard-fought wisdom, isn’t it?

JSW: Yeah.

CW: I bet.

SH: Yeah.

JSW: It’s... There’s been a lot of wrestling. Like, true wrestling and yet I wouldn’t change any of it despite the challenges, and, you know, the tears, and the hardships, and I wouldn’t change any of it. Because I truly believe it allows me to approach life and my career the way that I do. And witnessing when people need to be witnessed.

SH: Yeah. Those are some beautiful answers. Cynthia and I are gonna be talking about that after we hang up.

CW: Yeah.

SH: Thank you so much, Jessie.

JSW: Yeah. Of course. Thank you. I appreciate it so much.

_____

CW: Okay, we have Anne Pimentel with us. Welcome, Anne.

SH: Hi, Anne.

AP: Hi, thanks for having me.

CW: Ooh, we’re so glad to get to know you a little bit better. Okay, from our memories category, would you like one, two, or three?

AP: Let’s go with number one.

CW: What’s been your favorite decade of your life so far, and why?

AP: Oh, dear. I would have to say this decade that I am in right now.

CW: Mmm!

AP: And that is actually hard for me to say because I do feel like I am having a lot of ouchy moments right now and growing a lot and struggling with things. But the growth that I have had in this decade of life is above anything I’ve ever done before. And I feel like I’m more authentically me and more understanding of who I am and what I’m meant to do and how I’m supposed to move through this world [00:30:00] right now. And so I just feel so much more sure of myself than I ever have.

CW: Well, then I’m glad we asked the question the way we did, was “what’s been your favorite decade,” not easiest or [laughing]

AP: Yeah ...

CW: cause it doesn’t sound like-

AP: It’s definitely not this one if it was easiest.

CW: This one hasn’t been the cakewalk, huh?

AP: No. No, but that’s where the growth happens, and so that’s a good thing.

CW: Yeah. Dang it.

SH: Well, that’s really interesting to me that you’d say that because I don’t know if I... I don’t know where I wrote about it or talked about it. It might be in our book, but I talked about my 50s being my favorite decade. I think it was. I think it was in our book. Even though all of these really difficult and awful things happened in my 50s, if there was a decade I’d go back and do again, that’s really the only one I can think of that I would.

CW: Hm.

SH: And so I’ve thought a lot about why- how my favorite decade could be, like, the hardest- in some ways. The kind of hard that it was, I guess, and it’s because it was grow-y. It’s exactly what you said, so thank you. You just explained that to me. Can I ask just a follow-up?

AP: Yeah.

SH: What’s your least favorite decade of your life? [laughing]

AP: It’s hard because I wouldn’t say that any decade has complete bad aspects to it. You know? Everything has had bits of good and... I mean, I would say, like, as a teenager, I loved my friend aspect of my life. I played volleyball in high school. I had the best girlfriends. We just had a great time, but my relationship with my mom was strained sometimes, and I didn’t really wanna be around my family. And I was, I’m the youngest, and so my sisters had all moved away, and I was just with my parents and that was hard. But I wouldn’t say that decade was bad or my worst. It just was, I don’t know, I just kind of floated through it with a focus on friends... which is a good thing sometimes.

SH: Yeah.

CW: Plus, who wants to relive their teenage years anyway? Even if it was your favorite, as in the easiest, bestest, everything.

SH: You know what? If you’re someone who wants to relive their teenage years, I don’t like that person because it probably means ... they were like the homecoming queen [laughing] or they were like-

CW: Yes

SH: ... who knows what they were doing, but it didn’t resemble my life.

AP: Yeah. That was not my experience.

SH: All right, Anne, let’s talk about insights. Would you like question one, two, or three?

AP: Let’s go three this time.

SH: When have you had to forgive yourself for something?

AP: These are deep questions.

CW: Yes ma’am, they are.

AP: I can think of one big experience where I just did not handle the conversation well, and I went to an extreme emotional response mixed with anger, like sadness and anger mixed together. And I didn’t take what was being said, which was meant to be constructive criticism, and I didn’t take it that way, and I just got super offended and angry. Looking back on that situation, it was with a woman in my ward. I wish that I had just listened more and I didn’t have to take what she was saying because I don’t agree with what she was saying.

I didn’t have to take what she was saying personally... but I could have just let her say her piece and then moved on, and instead it turned into this big explosive experience. And so I’ve had to forgive myself for how I’ve interacted with her specifically. But I think that those human interactions get messy quick. They have that possibility. And I wanna do better with that, and so maybe that’s why I feel like I’ve had to forgive myself when I don’t do how I feel I should do.

CW: Okay, I have a follow-up because this sounds oh-so-familiar to myself. So was your overreaction because you felt like you were being misunderstood in that moment? She was characterizing you as A when you’re like, “No, I’m B,” or was it just the facts were wrong and you just needed to set her straight? I don’t know.

AP: A little of both.

CW: Okay.

AP: I feel like she definitely was not understanding where I was coming from, and I thought that we were on the same page in a lot of ways. And so to have her say what she did about me, which was also riddled with lies and kind of falsehoods that she had fabricated-

CW: Oh, yeah

AP: That didn’t feel good.

CW: And so looking back, you wish now you had just, “Okay,” she said her piece, shrug your shoulders, and walk away?

AP: Yeah. I understand now more that people can have their story that they’re telling themselves of a situation.

CW: Ah.

AP: And I didn’t need to carry the weight of what her story was.

SH: Wow.

AP: And so I think that is a skill that I’ve tried to learn, to be able to just have a person tell me what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling and I [00:35:00] can just-- I can hold that they’re thinking that, but I don’t have to have it weigh me down and affect me emotionally in the same way that I used to.

CW: That’s hard stuff, isn’t it? Dang it.

AP: It is. And I mean, I’m not good at it.

SH: But- I was gonna ask actually if you feel like as a result of that experience you got better at something. Did you learn something from it? I mean, you know, that has had an impact?

AP: Well, definitely in the way that I interact with my husband. Like, we will tell each other, “the story I’m telling myself is X.” And, you know, and that’s a good way to kinda diffuse a situation-

SH: Yeah.

AP: ... And not blame somebody. But what I’m telling myself is this, how are you seeing it? What is your story?

SH: Right. Right. I love that. That’s a good tool.

CW: I learned that from Brene Brown as well, and it’s so good, right? Yeah. “The story I’m telling myself” dot dot dot, so.

AP: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve heard her say that.

CW: Awesome. All right. From beliefs, would you like one, two, or three?

AP: Let’s do two.

CW: When do you feel closest to God or the divine?

AP: I am, so we’re all doing the Living School together.

SH: Right.

AP: And it’s a wonderful, expansive understanding of what spirituality is and who God is. And one of the things that I’ve loved is that they say that the Living School is your life. And I feel that that extends to being in God’s presence or feeling God, and that is just my life. I have goodness and godness in me, and everything I do, everything I see, everyone I interact with also is a creation of our heavenly parents. And so I can acknowledge and see and feel God in them. And so I don’t know that I need a specific set-aside time or place to feel God or to-

CW: Right

AP: ... you know, be in communion with God. But I’m working to just have that be a more constant experience or feeling in my life.

SH: Okay, can I ask you a follow-up question?

AP: Yes.

SH: I’m curious to know, I have moved in the same direction myself, so I really resonate with what you’re saying, and I’m curious to know, like, how much is this orientation toward God and toward experiencing God just sort of, part of who you are? Like, did Mor- would Mormonism have gotten you there or did it? Or is this something that represents a pretty big change in how you think about God and how you think about experiencing God and what that means?

AP: Yeah, I think this is a huge change. Like a left turn off the path of what-

SH: Okay

AP: …what I was taught in Mormonism.

CW: Okay.

AP: I feel like within Mormonism, you are taught, you know, go to the temple to be closest to God or go you know, when you’re fasting or when you’re praying or when you’re reading your scriptures and, you know, all of those things. And whether I do those things or not, I’ve realized that God is bigger than just that. And those things can have beautiful meaning for people and in different times in my life, but I don’t want to be confined to just that to connect with God.

SH: Right,

AP: And that feels very different from Mormonism.

CW: I really like that you use the word “confined” because that describes my situation exactly. I very much felt confined before, that, like, these were the acceptable ways to feel close to the divine, and now it looks much different, and it’s more accessible, so therefore it can happen all day every day

AP: Mhmm

CW: As opposed to what you’re describing, like these specific moments of, like, going to the temple or fasting. So, agreed, agreed.

AP: Yeah I feel that you know, when, like I said, we were told these specific things helped us to feel closer to God.

SH: Right.

AP: Now as I’m, like, as I think of who my heavenly parents are and what are their characteristics and, you know, what do they do? You know, one of them for me is that Heavenly Mother is a creator. And so when I am creating, when I’m doing things, whether that’s, you know, helping my kids with something or doing my beadwork or cooking or designing something or, you know, painting my house, whatever it is, I can feel-

CW: Yeah

AP: ... connected to her in that time and so there, it just is so much bigger and more enriching. I think that when people have an expansive faith experience, to the outside, to the maybe orthodox member, it looks like they’re falling away.

CW: Yeah.

AP: And people may think that about me right now as I’m expanding and changing how I approach church, but what they may not understand is that I have never felt closer to God- than I do right now.

CW: [whispering] Yeah.

AP: And my relationship is deeper and more enriching than it ever has been. And so we have this fear of changing how we do church, but I think that when you really dig deep into it, it is such a beautiful, deepening [00:40:00] experience.

CW: There was a video that came out recently that a lot of people have been sharing on social media, and I believe it’s the General Relief Society leaders, and they’re saying, ”life’s going to be really hard, but you can do it with Jesus in the church or without him out of the church.”

And I’m like, wow, that is so binary. And so just like what you just said, Anne, is that from the outside, people might think you’re, “falling away,” whereas you’ve just said you’ve never felt closer to God. And so I feel like if I could wave my magic wand, I would get rid of that binary-ness that we are so embedded with in our church that, you know, Jesus is in the church, and outside of the church you’re alone and you’re without divine help.

SH: Right.

CW: Ugh.

AP: Well, and I think that puts such a sad twist on, like, all religions if you’re thinking that people that are outside of our church-

SW: Right. Right

AP: ... can’t connect with God, can’t connect with Jesus, and are just lost souls. I think that we’re missing out on so much beauty that these people in other religions have and can teach us.

SH: Right. Well, I think it also is really limiting. I also love the word “confining” that you used. I think it’s so limiting. Like, I don’t remember whose quote it was. In one of our temple episodes, we read a quote about how “your time in the temple will be the pinnacle of your spiritual life” or something. It was a word like that. And I thought to myself, okay, that was just never going to be the case for me, which made me think, well, “I’m doing all of this wrong, obviously.”

CW: Right.

SH: I’m not experiencing what they said I would experience at the times that they think I should be experiencing it. And so, it would’ve been pretty easy for me to actually walk away from pursuing any kind of relationship with God because I had spent my life doing the things that I thought I was supposed to do to pursue that, and not gotten the results that I was promised.

And so therefore, why would I think there was gonna be any chance of me doing that, doing my own thing, right? Or going at it in different ways than they were saying. And so I feel like we really do with that kind of binary, we really do set people up to fail

AP: Mhmm

SH: In their spiritual lives if it doesn’t fit, you know, exactly within the confines of what they have defined as being the way to find God.

AP: Yeah. And it sets people up, like you’re saying, to fail even with if that means scrupulosity or,

SH: Exactly. There are all kinds of things failing can mean. It absolutely is a spectrum of disappointments and missed connections and all of those things.

AP: Yeah.

CW: Thank you, Anne.

SH: Thanks, Anne.

CW: This has been lovely.

AP: Yeah, this is fun.

_____

CW: All right, Susan. Jen Dilley, it was so lovely to have her back on the podcast. We sure loved her conversation, our conversation we had with her, I don’t know, was it a year or two ago? By, I don’t even remember how long it’s been since-

SH: I don’t either but I’ll link to it in the show notes, Cynthia.[laughing]

CW: Yes.

SH: So our listeners can find it there. Any opportunity to have a conversation with Jen is a good opportunity.

CW: Yeah.

SH: So let’s talk about what we talked about.

CW: Right. Well, what stood out to me with Jen that I wanted to chat about with you for a little bit is, and maybe just ‘cause it’s personal, so it’s just, like, she is craving our church leaders speaking up about the whole mess that the world is in right now.

SH: Mhmm.

CW: And I feel that deeply as well. And I don’t know, Susan, it just…tell me if this is fair or unfair. Like, the church seems to want to keep a particular segment of our church membership very happy. And so, is that why they’re not speaking out about the absolute dumpster fire that’s happening in our country right now?

I don’t know. I mean, here was kind of a parallel for me, was during the temple and priesthood ban on members of African descent, like, “white members need,” I’m putting that in air quotes there, they “needed segregation,” meaning racism…Their need for segregation was prioritized over blessings for Black members.

And so post-COVID, it feels like to me, we now prioritize…there is a segment of our church that is Christian nationalist. I don’t know. I don’t even wanna say we’re prioritizing, like, gosh, I’m so sorry I’m getting political here, but this is a moral issue, Susan. Yeah, there’s,

SH: There’s, agreed, but I think this is a complicated conversation, so yeah, continue and then I’m gonna weigh in.

CW: Well, just I mean, I [00:45:00] wanted to be specific about saying, like, this is a Christian nationalist problem of whom, of which we have a few, a lot, I don’t know, Christian nationalists in our church ‘cause I don’t even wanna say, like, “Republican” because I have so many good friends who are Republicans, and they are devastated at what is going on at their party’s embrace of this morally bankrupt person leading our country whose name I won’t even say. So I don’t know. I’m with Jen. She’s craving our leaders speaking up and so am I, and it’s just not happening.

SH: Yeah. No, I feel that deeply. I agree, and I was so glad that Jen brought it up so that we could bring it up. The reason that I was thinking it’s complicated is that my own idea about how I would respond to this actually sort of morphed while you were talking. And so I’m gonna say more about that, because when you put it in the context of the priesthood ban and you were saying they were prioritizing white members’ “need” for segregation- I really wish that I knew if it wasn’t just some people in high leadership prioritizing their own racism.

CW: Ohh.

SH: If you see what I’m saying. Maybe they weren’t even thinking about the effect on members because it was so deeply ingrained for them-

CW: Yeah

SH: …that they didn’t even have to think that far out.

CW: Yeah.

SH: And then it gets complicated to me when you move that forward, gosh, however many years are we talking? 50 years later, and we have COVID come along and we see this, you know, you used one to give context to the other. And the thing is, that’s a case where I think we had a doctor at the head of the church, so I think he was going to prioritize his medical responsibility that he felt toward people in that situation. I think that it never occurred to many people, and I mean, I say that because it honestly never occurred to me that this health crisis would break down along political lines-

CW: Right

SH: ... to the degree that it did. And so I’m not sure that they really thought about that. And so they spoke out, and then it was kind of, I was gonna say a fiasco because it didn’t go well for them, but I’m not sure even how they perceived that or how most members perceived it. I just know I’d never seen anything like it in my lifetime...the kind of backlash that they received for that.

And so that brings us forward to what’s going on in the country today where some religious leaders are speaking out. Ours are not, and yet we have listeners who have pointed out to us, we just had a whole general conference where they did nothing but speak out about this, right? So members are hearing messages differently, perceiving messages differently.

You and I and Jen feel like they’re not saying the things that we want them to be saying. I think some members feel like they are handling this in the way that they would want and expect them to. And I just feel like that whole experience around COVID totally muddied the water-

CW: 100%

SH: ... for leaders about what they should, the way that they should handle this. That’s just what I think, from the cheap seats.

CW: Well, from the cheap seats, it breaks my heart that we can’t just do what is right and let the consequence follow.

SH: 100% agree.

SH: ‘Cause I have no doubt that if the church spoke out about what’s going on right now, that it would really tick off a huge segment. And you know what? Too bad.

SH: Agree.

CW: Too bad.

SH: And then this gets to a lot of underlying questions, like what’s really important? What do they perceive as their job as leaders of the church?

CW: Right.

SH: Is that to offer pastoral care to the members? Is that to offer moral guidance to the world, like to serve as a prophetic beacon, you know, to the world on moral questions? And so I think it’s a pretty complicated soup actually that they’re trying to wade through in making these decisions. But I guess for me, in my heart, I wish that there was really only one question, and that is, “what would Jesus want us to say in this moment?”

CW: Nice. Yeah. I’m with you.

SH: Also, I’m really glad I’m not a leader. I think that about once a day in my life. I think if there was nothing-

CW: That’s really what you think?

SH: Oh, I think it all the time. That I do not wanna be a leader of this church.

CW: I think all the time, if I were queen for a day, oh no no no, Susan. You need to turn that frown upside down and be like, “If I were queen for a day, the world would be perfect.” [laughing]

SH: Oh, well I mean, I’m not saying that I don’t think my ideas are better than everyone else’s. Of course I do, Cynthia. [laughing]

CW: Okay. Okay. Whew.

SH: That’s why I have a podcast. Every podcaster thinks their ideas are better-

CW: Thank goodness

SH: ... than everyone else’s. It’s not that. I just wouldn’t want to have to be, I wouldn’t wanna have to be wading through the morass that I feel like they are and trying to make these decisions. I’m old. I’m tired. I don’t know. I don’t know what I would, I mean, I [00:50:00] understand some of the political, and I don’t mean that in like the two-party United States way. I mean political in the larger sort of meaning, the political decisions that they have to make.

But Jesus didn’t care about that. Jesus did not he didn’t care about the political considerations of the words that rolled out of his mouth, clearly-

CW: Thank goodness ...

SH: …as I perceive him anyway.

CW: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, I have one more thing to say about our conversation with Jen Dilley, and it’ll take me a minute to make my point. I promise I’ll get there. But we had a recent episode with a voicemail at the end where she was pontificating that she had a conversation with her Relief Society president, and the Relief Society president was worried with the recent changes that women could be Sunday school presidents now, that men would no longer feel needed.

SH: Mhmm.

CW: And I’m just thinking, why do we always center men? Is that why, getting back to Jen’s conversation, is that why we center Heavenly Father only? Because Susan, you said, “it has not served us well on any level.” I believe that’s exactly what you said in the conversation.

SH: Yes, that sounds like me. [laughing]

CW: Okay, but I’m gonna also... I’m gonna quote another Hinckley. I’m gonna quote your mama.

SH: Okay. You’ve told me before that when your mom might hear, I don’t know, people being a little ridiculous, she says-

SH: Oh, no. It’s just my dad

CW: ... oh. It’s if my mom hears my dad, Cynthia. [laughing]

CW: Oh, it’s when your mom-

SH: Whatever my dad says

CW: Then your mom likes to add a PS, and she says, “In your opinion.” [laughing]

SH: Right, “In your opinion.”

CW: It’s so good.

SH: And she often emphasizes it with her finger. “In your opinion.”

CW: She’s wagging her finger as she says, “In your opinion,” right? Well, because I do think it served a purpose. Or I’m not sure if I’m talking just about the Sunday school presidency or if I’m just talking about God now or maybe both, but I think it served a purpose to center men, to center God as only male.

I mean, do we even acknowledge that Heavenly Mother is a god? Like, have we actually? We just say she’s married to Heavenly Father- I don’t even know actually what we say. We acknowledge we have a Heavenly Mother, but I don’t-

SH: We have a Heavenly Mother. But that’s it. I think that’s what we say. Yeah, I think that’s the limit of what we say, really, as I think about it. Okay. I am going to say that I care about specific words, and I said, “it has not served us well.” And so I think serving a purpose, which is the way that you framed it- is not the same as serving us well.

CW: Correct.

SH: And that is also in my opinion, Cynthia.

CW: In your opinion. I should just start adding that to everything I say.

SH: I should just start adding that to everything I say. But what I mean by that, it hasn’t served us well to center men, is that I don’t believe it has been to the betterment of any segment in our church. I mean, certainly not women. That we, that’s what this whole podcast is about. Not young women or girls, but also not men, young men, or boys.

CW: For sure.

SH: ... because yeah, when females are never centered, even and actually maybe especially is the right word in divinity, so going back to the idea of Heavenly Mother, then everyone’s vision is skewed. We’re looking through one lens, right? And that affects not only the female experience, but it spills over onto gender roles generally as they’re perceived by both sexes-

CW: Mhmm.

SH: By members of our church. And so then that, as we’ve talked about 1,000 times, creates this widening disconnect with what many of us, and definitely the younger generations in the church are seeing and experiencing in the larger world. It’s like the chasm just kind of keeps getting bigger around that.

And so I feel like we’ve done a disservice across many generations with this, but now we’re continuing to actively perpetuate that disservice into the future on our youth and children by continuing to not center women ever, really.

CW: Mic drop.

SH: Yeah. But I think that a lot of members would say, “Oh, no, women are definitely centered because they’re revered and loved” and “we love the women, Cynthia. We love the women.”

CW: We love the women. Well, and we all have said a million times, “Keep your patronizing pedestal and give me equality instead.” But anyway- moving on. What do you wanna say about Jen’s, our conversation with Jen before we move on?

SH: There was a sentence in our conversation with Jen, not a question I guess, that I have not stopped thinking about, and that was-

CW: Oh, okay

SH: …”do you want to be in a church where you have zero expectations?”

CW: [laughing]

SH: I mean, that just landed with a thud, and it’s just, like, still sitting in the middle of my mental room. And I think the reason is because giving up all expectations is really kind of foundational, I guess, to how I’ve made peace with a lot of things in the church.

CW: Okay, so you’re saying that resonates with [00:55:00] you. You have given up all expectations-

SH: I have. I had to. I had to.

CW: Okay, go on.

SH: I can’t go to church on Sunday and have a lot of expectations for things that are just going to disappoint me. That just does not work for me. That does not serve me. So giving those away was actually pretty easy for me.

But Jen’s question made me really pause and wonder, like, if we can’t have expectations for the people that we consider to be moral leaders, I mean, talking about our leadership- if we can’t have expectations of them, then what is the point of having moral leaders?

CW: Mhmm [snickers]

SH: Doesn’t that position come with inherent expectations? And so to give all of those away, well, let me just say I’m really glad to have the opportunity to reexamine that tactic because it’s worked for me personally on a lot of levels, but I feel like it’s deeply flawed on some larger levels, and so I gotta think more about that for me.

CW: Okay, so in a way, Jen, when she said that line, held up a mirror to you, and you-

SH: Absolutely. Yes.

CW: And you didn’t like what you saw looking back.

SH: 100%. And it’s not necessarily that I didn’t like what I saw. It’s the first time I had questioned that. I hadn’t really thought about, okay, on the flip side, this has another effect, and so Jen caused me to confront that. There’s one more thing I wanted to visit, just one tiny thought I wanted to visit from our conversation with Jen before we move on, and that is the idea of sacred versus secret.

CW: [laughing] I’m sorry, share it.

SH: Can we just talk about that for a minute?

CW: Okay, go ahead.

SH: I feel like so many secrets hide behind the word sacred in our church. It’s like the perfect disguise for things because no one dares to question something if you slap the label “sacred.” It’s like it’s too sacred to talk about. It’s a word that grants total immunity among church members, I feel like.

CW: I total- can I bring up your visual of the velvet ropes? Like I think when we call something-

SH: Yeah, it’s the ultimate velvet rope.

CW: Yeah ... yeah when we call something sacred, we put it behind a velvet rope. “Do not cross this rope. Do not touch it. Stay behind it.”

SH: Yeah. I was thinking about this because we had, we’ve had, I’ve noticed in our Substack chat and other places online that there have been a portion of members whose minds have recently been blown by a video about this, that was talking about the second anointing. Do you know what I’m referring to?

CW: Mhmm.

SH: Okay. So they’re talking, suddenly they’re talking about the second anointing, which is something that I think a lot of members knew or have known nothing about. I mean, I, we still don’t know very much about it at all because it’s too sacred, Cynthia. It’s Holy of Holies, literally, so sacred. [laughing] It’s just so sacred that it’s never been talked about among or to the general membership of the church. Well, like, to me, that looks an awful lot like a secret practice.

CW: Yeah.

SH: It may or may not be sacred. Whatever, you know, maybe it is. I can’t judge that. It can’t be sacred to me because I know nothing about it.

CW: Right.

SH: But it is definitely secret.

CW: Good point.

SH: And I feel like with Heavenly Mother, this is just the obfuscation that never ends. She’s too sacred to talk about, and therefore we’re not even gonna ask for further light and knowledge on this subject, right? Because it’s arrogant of us to ask-

CW: That’s right

SH: …about something that’s obviously- Arrogance is the word. ... So sacred that we have very little information about it.

CW: Ah.

SH: Well, I’m gonna call BS on that whole sacred versus secret thing. I think things can be both sacred and secret, but the fact that something is sacred is not a justification for keeping it secret.

CW: Well said.

_____

Alright. Let’s talk for a few minutes about what we learned from Jessie.

SH: I just love Jessie. Can I just say that?

CW: Love, love Jessie. Please, Jessie, come back on. We will contact you in the fall ‘cause I’ll tell you why in a minute, but go ahead.

SH: I was thinking the first question that we asked Jessie was about sacrifice, right? And I was just thinking when I listened to her talk that I’m guessing that there would be a pretty bright line in our church right down the middle of the pews between women who think that sacrifice comes with negative connotations, which I think is what she said about how she felt about it, versus women who think that sacrifice is virtuous.

And if you went a little deeper on that question and you asked how many women feel like they have sacrificed their self as a result of being Latter-day Saint- because that’s what Jessie talked about. She’s like, “I had sacrificed who I am,” so you know, she didn’t really know herself. I mean, I, this was so resonant to me because this was so my experience.

CW: Yeah.

SH: This was so my [01:00:00] experience in the church of just having, trying to be two people because I had the person that I knew I was, but then also my church self. And so I-

CW: Wow

SH:... sacrificed that first one in order to be able to fit in the second one, and that one always had to get privileged. And so I think things would get very uncomfortable if you started really poking around a Relief Society room with that question. ‘Cause I think a lot of women would never have identified that they had engaged in that kind of self-silencing. Anyway, I’m just really glad that Jessie brought it up, and glad that she has, you know, seen that for what it is and been able to, I guess, claw that sacrifice back for herself in the ways that I have also.

CW: Yeah. Good stuff. Well, I have a couple things. I have a lot of things, actually, more than a couple things I’ve wanted to talk about as a result of our conversation with Jessie. But we’re short on time, so I’m just gonna make one point, which is, oh my gosh, this so completely resonated with me. I mean, I would love to explore the idea more, maybe next season, Susan, maybe with Jessie, that Jesus doesn’t fix everything. Because like Jessie, that is what I was taught, was that Jesus heals your wounds he will make it all better. He will dry every tear, and yet that hasn’t been the case for me either.

And so when Jessie said, like, she had this ugly cry moment in her son’s bedroom, realizing in this life she, there is no, “I am fixed.” That just really, really touched me, and I don’t even know that I have been brave enough to articulate, ‘cause I don’t know that I’m ready to articulate how I feel about Jesus fixing everything, like Jesus being the Savior.

I mean, the only thing I’ve alluded to before on the pod is saying I have, “I feel solidarity when I’m in suffering.” But I think I’ve been careful about not saying, like, I felt healed-

SH: Right, right

CW: … through the atonement. I have more to say another time, but I was just really glad that she brought that up. I thought it was really brave.

SH: It was so brave. And what really struck me about that story was she went one step further and said she didn’t think she would ever reach that point where-

CW: Yes

SH: … She was healed. You know, even if, I think the phrase was quote, “The eternities are real,” right?

CW: Yes.

SH: I resonated with that so deeply as well.

CW: I knew you would.

SH: Yeah, because, well, you’ve heard me say before, I wouldn’t know what it would look like to be a perfected me in the eternities. What, who even is that? Why do I wanna be that person? But so giving that away, that idea of things being fixed has actually brought me peace.

But it also occurred to me that this is a problem in wider Christianity generally, this idea that Jesus fixes everything, and what you do with that in a world where clearly nothing is fixed.

CW: Okay. I was gonna skip the part about uncertainty when Jessie talked about it, but it’s in our title, so I just wanna nod to it once again. I think even in a conversation talking about peace and comfort, even uncertainty comes into that convo. So I love when she said, like, doubt used to consume her, but now she felt a lot of peace in that uncertainty, and I was like yes yes yes.

SH: I never wanna skip talking about uncertainty because I think it’s the key to so many things about this life. I’m reading right now Pema Chödrön’s book, “Comfortable With Uncertainty,” which is one of her most foundational books. I don’t know how I hadn’t read it yet.

CW: I haven’t either.

SH: But she poses the question at the beginning of that book, “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?” Well, I mean, I was choosing to live and die in fear for about, you know, 50 years. But I hadn’t really ever considered that the expectation that Jesus would fix everything might be a way of cushioning ourselves from relating to life directly.

CW: Wow.

SH: It’s like something that we do instead of growing up and getting comfortable in the reality of life. And I’m just gonna share one quick quote from the book with you where she says, “We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment over and over again.” And this is me redirecting myself to presence 7,000 times a day right now, and it never sticks. But I’m gonna keep doing it.

CW: Beautiful.

SH: Because I do think that’s where the peace is.

_____

CW: Alright. Anne Pimentel has been on the pod a couple of times, so we will link to her episodes as well. But what do you wanna say about Miss Anne? Anne with an E coming back on.

SH: Anne with an E. Okay, I love Anne’s take on things, too. Cynthia, our listeners are so [01:05:00] smart. I’m not sure why we have the podcast, because every time we have a guest on and I hear them speak, I’m like, “Dang it. Why didn’t I ever think of that?” But I loved where she was talking about forgiving herself in a situation that she’d been through, and she framed it with this sentence: “I didn’t need to carry the weight of what her story about the situation was.”

CW: Mm.

SH: And I love that line so much because carrying the weight of other people’s stories about things, carrying the weight of the story that the church was telling me about things, and carrying the weight to be you know, fully honest, carrying the weight of my own story that I have been telling myself about things, like, that is a lot of weight.

And when you strip story away from that, when story becomes the launching pad, right, like we said in an earlier episode this season, when story becomes the launching pad instead of the landing place man, you just shed a lot of dead weight.

CW: Yeah. Yeah, I loved when she talked about, you know, “The story I’m telling myself is,” and my antenna immediately went up, Brene Brown-

SH: Right, right

CW: …because that’s where I read it in, I don’t know if that’s where Anne read it, but I read it in Brene Brown’s book, Rising Strong. And it’s interesting because hearing Anne say, like she does that with her husband now, “The story I’m telling myself is da da da,” I’m like, okay, why haven’t I done that with my husband?

Like, I only say it, like internally to myself, like when I start- ... you know, making up all these ways of, “You hurt me, and this is what they were trying, you know, they meant to hurt me,” you know? I only tell that to myself, but I’m gonna actually have a conversation with my husband, and I’m gonna say, “I’m going to start saying this now,” ‘cause I think Anne is so wise to approach difficult conversations with her husband by saying, you know, “The story I’m telling myself is,” which, you know, is basically saying, my perspective on things is, or how I absorbed it is, or whatever.

So, thank you, Anne. I’m going to incorporate that as well. But I just wanted to give a nod to Brene Brown. In an interview, or in an article she wrote for Oprah Magazine about that, she said, her husband Steve, one day he opened the refrigerator and he sighed and he said, “We have no groceries, not even lunch meat.”

And this is a direct quote from Brene. She said, “I shot back, ‘I’m doing the best I can. You can shop, too.’ ‘I know,’ he said in a measured tone. ‘I do it every week. What’s going on?’” She says, “I knew exactly what was going on. I had turned his comment into a story about how I’m a disorganized, unreliable partner and mother.

I apologized and started my next sentence with the phrase that’s become a lifesaver in my marriage, parenting, and professional life. ‘The story I’m making up is that you were blaming me for not having groceries, that I was screwing up.’” Steve said, “No, I was gonna shop yesterday, but I didn’t have time. I’m not blaming you, I’m hungry.”

I’m gonna link to the full article because every sentence of that article is unbelievable. But I am committing to you right now, Susan, I am actually going to start saying it out loud to the people I love, not just inside my own head.

SH: I am willing to give that a shot also. And so yeah, I’ll check in with you and see how this goes. I’m really interested to try it, and the thing that I love the most about the way Brené Brown phrases it in that quote is that she says, “The story I’m making up.”

CW: Yes.

SH: Right? Because oh man, that is me making up this narration all the time-

CW: Sure

SH: ... about everything in the world, right?

CW: We all do.

SH: But it’s but made up. It’s made up, Cynthia. It’s wholly made up. Oh, gosh. The thing that I was thinking about is that I love that Anne said, and maybe it’s because it’s personal. She mentioned we’re all doing The Living School, and that their motto is kind of the curriculum of “The Living School is your life”. But she used it to frame the sort of journey to, I guess, maybe rediscovering God or how you encounter God, changing your expectations maybe about how you encounter God, that actually your whole life is the-

CW: Yes

SH: …is the means for that. Yes. Yeah. Not just the “spiritual things” that you do or, you know, religious practices that you engage in, and I just loved her whole expansive take on that.

CW: I think everything changes when you realize the curriculum for everything that’s meaningful in your life is simply your-

SH: Your life.

CW: … life. You know, ‘cause Anne talked about, you know, finding God in the everyday moments as opposed to just in the sacred spaces that our church leaders tell us are, “These are the sacred spaces. This is where you will feel closest to God.” And it’s like, well, maybe for some, but we need to be open to when that’s not working, figuring out what will work for [01:10:00] us. And personally, the curriculum of my life is where I have found sacredness and holiness, just the everyday.

SH: I mean, yes, and just hearing you say that made me think the curriculum of your life is also what has blown the lid off everything.

CW: Yes.

SH: And so our life is a pretty good teacher and a pretty good workshop-

CW: Yes

SH: … and a pretty good laboratory if we allow it. It’s a pretty good curriculum if we allow it to be so. But was there anything in your life as a Latter-day Saint that made you believe that your life was really the place where all of this was supposed to be worked out? That it was, like, the ultimate vehicle for you? Like, I felt like the church was supposed to be the ultimate vehicle for what I learned how to be with God.

CW: Right. I think it’s pretty explicit. Yeah. I think so.

SH: Well, it changes everything-

CW: It changes everything when your life becomes the curriculum for all of the beautiful, sacred moments that there are, that abound.

SH: I cannot thank these women enough, as always, Cynthia.

CW: Can’t thank them enough. This was lovely. Thanks for showing up and contemplating a few things with me, Susan.

SH: Absolutely, my pleasure.

_____

Voicemail 1: Hey, Cynthia and Susan. I’m just listening to episode 156, “What About Consent?” And you guys talk a lot about agency, and that’s something that I was really wrapped up with in my upbringing in the church. But in my returning to activity and my personal study of the doctrine, separate from opinion of leaders or members, I understand agency to be simply our ability to choose.

I don’t know why culturally we’ve conflated it into something larger than that, but in everything scripturally and doctrinally that I can find, that’s simply what it is. I think people conflate it too often with the concept of free will, which is simply meaning that we have lives that are not predetermined or predestined to be or end a certain way.

And I think that free will and our ability to choose or agency go hand-in-hand and are essential in the plan of salvation, and nothing in the plan of salvation works if we do not simply have the ability to choose and free will. And I think that LDS members need to start to understand that is the doctrine, not this weird cultural odd understanding that we’ve come to gain of agency.

_____

Voicemail 2: Hello Cynthia and Susan. I just listened to your episode 258, your rage cast potpourri. I have not been practicing for about 12 years, for a while now, but I love listening to your podcast because most of my family, the majority of my family are still active, so I like to kind of keep a pulse on what’s going on.

And also, honestly, I really miss going to church. There are so many things I have issues with, and so it would be hard for me to go back to church, but I do miss church, and so I appreciate your guys’ podcast ‘cause it kind of gives me the churchy vibe without being too crazy. Anyway, so very much appreciate you guys.

With regards to that episode specifically speaking to the comments from men about women and the priesthood, what I don’t understand is why men aren’t more insulted by the thought that they are so unspecial and they’re such scoundrels and they have nothing to offer the world, and so they have to be given the priesthood in order to be as good as women.

Like, why are men okay with that? Why aren’t they insulted by that idea? I don’t know. It’s so bizarre to me. Thank you so much for all you do. Bye.

_____

CW: Susan, I just realized my window’s open a little and I heard an airplane. You probably did too. Let me close it. Sorry. I’m the weak link today.

SH: There’s your blooper for the end of this call.

CW: There’s my blooper. And the wind chimes too. Serenity now. Hit the wind chimes. Serenity now. Okay. Sorry, let me calm down. All right.

_____

SH: So, like you just take all the time you need.

CW: Yep.

JD: You both are so amazing. That’s incredible.

CW: No, I got Hershey Kisses here. I’m fine, so. Okay.

_____

SH: Let me just get my head together. I was just thinking, “What’s wrong with this?” Okay. Let me get my head together here.

_____

CW: Okay, I’m gonna skip that next section.

SH: Are you? Okay, but uncertainty is in the title. Oh, damn it. We can’t skip that. We could skip the other one, but we can’t skip that one. Oh, shoot. [01:15:00]

CW: What was I thinking? You’re right. Okay. All right. Let me get us there.

CW: Thanks. All right. Let’s hit stop.

_____

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Author’s note

I am a cisgender, heterosexual female with privilege and bias. In this essay I am speaking through my heteronormative lens which is inherently flawed. I am trying to cultivate a space of love, acceptance and safety, but I am not part of the queer community. As much as I try to understand, their experiences are not my experiences. The only way to truly learn about queer experiences is to talk to queer individuals. Hearing their lived experience is essential to the work of allyship. Please, do the work to create a safe space for your LGBTQ+ loved ones.

by Blakelee Ellis

TW: homophobia, suicide

In October 2019 President Dallin H. Oaks addressed the

women of the church during the women’s session of general conference. I was at a stake center with several of my sisters-in-law and my mother-in-law and I just couldn’t stop crying. President Oaks greeted the sisters as a “divinely assigned guardian of the eternal family,” and talked about the implications the doctrine of eternal marriage has for LGBTQ+ individuals. He said,

The work of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is ultimately concerned with preparing the children of God for the celestial kingdom, and most particularly for its highest glory, exaltation or eternal life. That highest destiny is possible only through marriage for eternity…

…That is the destiny we desire for all we love. Because of that love, we cannot let our love supersede the commandments and the plan and work of God, which we know will bring those we love their greatest happiness.

But there are many we love, including some who have the restored gospel, who do not believe in or choose not to follow God’s commandments about marriage and the law of chastity. What about them?

God’s doctrine shows that all of us are His children and that He has created us to have joy. Modern revelation teaches that God has provided a plan for a mortal experience in which all can choose obedience to seek His highest blessings or make choices that lead to one of the less glorious kingdoms.

I went home after the session and sobbed to my husband. He was admittedly confused because these topics had never generated such angst in me before. In the decade we had been married, I had always accepted my siblings, but “known” that they were not living the way God wanted them to and there would be eternal consequences. So this meltdown over what President Oaks had said was very uncharacteristic for me. As I cried, I distinctly remember asking my husband, “You believe all this is true, right? This church. You think it’s true, right? Because my heart is broken and it doesn’t feel true.”

President Oaks hadn’t said anything new about the LGBTQ+ community or eternal marriage or the law of chastity. Nothing about the doctrine had changed, but my heart had.

I had just been a part of my sister’s wedding to her wife a few weeks earlier. I stood by while they pledged to love and care for each other and it didn’t seem any less godly or sacred just because it was two women. How could someone as loving, as kind, as caring as my sister receive less of God’s glory simply because she loved a woman instead of a man? Did I really believe in a Heavenly Father that would withhold love, the greatest of happiness, all his glory because two women loved each other?

The metaphorical shelf that held all of my questions about the church and it’s teachings broke and my soul was left agonizing in the rubble. It marked the beginning of so many hours examining my beliefs about the nature of God and everything I thought I knew. I had let church leaders and doctrine form my opinions about God’s plan for LGBTQ+ individuals. I listened while these white, cisgender, heterosexual men told me about the queer community and how God felt about them. Just like I listened while they told me what it meant to be a woman of God.

Everything changed for me when I stopped being told ABOUT the queer community and started actually listening TO the queer community.

I listened while brave individuals talked about reconciling their sexuality with their own beliefs in God and what it meant to be queer. It changed me. Rather than try to tell you ABOUT what some of the queer community has said, I’d encourage you to listen TO the queer community.

Looking for a place to start? Check out our own episodes with Meghan Decker and Colette Dalton. Don’t miss all the additional resources listed at the end of the essay.

June is Pride month for the LGBTQ+ community and many wonder why the queer community needs a month dedicated to celebration and pride. Ben Schilaty, my friend and openly gay Latter-day Saint, recently said this:

Even though I am not queer, I’ve had my own pride awakening.

Pride that I have a gay brother and gay sister.

Pride that I know that God loves them as they are.

Pride that I am an ally.

Pride that I will navigate the uncomfortable space that being a member and being an ally creates.

Since my faith deconstruction, one of the main reasons I continue to go to church is my pride and queer allyship. I wear rainbow pins so the closeted adults in my ward know I’m a safe space. I carry a rainbow bag every week so the youth know there is someone at church that supports them just as they are. I wear a rainbow dress to church to let everyone know that we have to fight for and with our queer loved ones to dismantle systems of oppression. Queer folks are tired! They need allies to help share this load, but not steal the microphone.

I believe allyship is a divine calling and in the current political climate, it is important to be vocal about our support for the LGBTQ+ community, especially at our places of worship. This past Sunday, in his weekly email, Into The Gray, Reverend Benjamin Cremer wrote:

I believe the nature of God is one of deep love and grace. Listening to the queer community helped me, in part, form that belief. That is the image of God I believe we, as Latter-day Saint allies, need to reflect to the world and specifically to our fellow church members. Current church doctrine and policies continue to alienate and wound our queer church members, particularly those in the transgender community.

In Jeremiah 23, there is a sobering echo of how the church treats its queer members:

1 Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord.

2 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord.

In 2016, “Dialogue Journal” published research that suggested that suicide rates among Utah teens doubled corresponding to an increased rhetoric by the LDS church against same sex marriage. The church’s increased media focus against same sex marriage came after policy changes were released in November 2015. The same article says that there are protective effects against suicide when people belong to a religious community and it’s no secret that LGBTQ+ people leave the church or are invited to leave at very high rates.

“It can thus be inferred that LGBTQ people are placed at higher risk when they feel unwelcome in their religious communities and end up losing the protection of religious involvement…it may seem counterintuitive that when individuals chose to leave their religion in order to experience more self-acceptance that they inadvertently experience more risk for suicide.”

I will acknowledge that individual views of the members and church culture are ever changing. This research is a decade old and perhaps the research would show something different now.

We are failing the LGBTQ+ community. They are leaving. They are dying. In a moment of tender vulnerability, queer member Charlie Bird said, “You are killing us.” We must do better. Christ is asking us to do better. Christ reached out to the marginalized and misunderstood. He gave them safety and community. Again, in Jeremiah:

3 I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number.

4 I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord.

I believe God—through us, through allyship—is the answer. Our queer members have much they can teach us about Christ-like love, acceptance, and patience. They are forced to cultivate these things within themselves simply because of who they are and the world they live in. The queer community has so much to teach us and we are missing out on their unique understanding of divine love. Jess Payne, creator and owner of Terra and Sage, once told me:

We will be tempted to ask, “How can I keep my queer loved ones in the church?” However, I think a more loving and appropriate question to ask is, “Is it safe for my queer loved ones to stay in the church?” For the queer loved ones in my life, the current church environment is not safe for them. I am being my best as an ally when I understand and help them enforce their boundaries. We miss the mark in forcing our loved ones OR ourselves into emotionally, and sometimes physically, unsafe places. Church is not for everyone.

While not all queer members will stay in the church, I believe Christ is asking us to cultivate safe places of worship for everyone. We do this best when we are a loving witness to one another’s stories. We do not need to fix or rescue anything or anyone. We do not need to judge or control or coerce anything. If you are unsure of how to create a safe space in your own church, Ben wrote a recent blog post with great advice:

If you really want to be an ally, go learn about LGBTQ+ members and talk to THEM. Ask your loved ones, “Can you tell me a bit more about what that has been like for you?” You’ll be amazed at what you can learn and how you can grow.

You’ll be amazed at the safety you can provide.

In Memoriam

This issue is dedicated to my friend, Care Hansen, who died by suicide in 2023.

Care, thank you for your example of boundless love and tenacity.

Want to learn more? Here are some of the author’s favorite resources to start (or continue) on your allyship journey:

1- Tender Leaves of Hope: Finding Belonging as LGBTQ Latter Day Saint Women by Meghan Decker

2- Queer Mormon Theology by Blaire Ostler

3- A Walk in My Shoes: Questions I’m Often Asked as a Gay Latter Day Saint by Ben Schilaty

4- Without the Mask: Coming Out and Coming into God’s Light by Charlie Bird

5- Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism by Taylor Petrey

6- Gay Rights and the Mormon Church: Intended Actions, Unintended Consequences by Greg Prince

7- Listen, Learn, and Love: Embracing LGBTQ Latter Day Saints by Richard Ostler

8- That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith and Family by Thomas Christofferson

Need an audio format? These podcasts are great:

1- All Out In the Open (formally Questions from the Closet) by Ben Schilaty and Charlie Bird

2- Lift and Love by Allison Dayton

3- Listen, Learn and Love by Richard Ostler

4- Called to Queer by Collene Dalton and Kate Mower

Want to lend support? Here are some great organizations that are mostly Utah based:

1- Raynbow Collective

2- Color the Campus

3- Cougar Pride Center

4- Encircle

5- Equality Utah

6- The OUT Foundation

7- The Trevor Project

The ALSSI community keeps growing, thanks to your support. Please keep spreading the word! Be sure to check out our chat community—a benefit of your paid subscription. If you have something to say, send us a voicemail, start a thread…or send us a piece for a future Say More!

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What would a generative day—one that might throw off energy into the rest of your life—look like? In Episode 266, Susan and Cynthia take on the concept of Sabbath. It’s a conversation about abundance, rhythm, letting go, and what it means to rest. Also about not needing to earn or prove anything,
liberation, eradicating oppression, and some of the ways Latter-day Saints may
think too narrowly when approaching this expansive idea.

Notes & Quotes:

4th Commandment: Remember the Sabbath, The Bible Project podcast, The 10 Commandments | Episode 7, 5/4/2026
The Gospel Economy, Center for Action and Contemplation, 11/24/2019
Our Unforming: De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation, by Cindy S. Lee
Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, by Walter Brueggemann
How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers―and Why That’s Great News, by Peter Enns
Finding Freedom Through Sabbath Resistance, by Ruth Haley Barton, Transforming Center
Liberation Keeps the Sabbath Holy (A Homily), by David Roberts, Patheos, 10/21/2016
You Need to Be Bored. Here’s Why., by Arthur C. Brooks, Harvard Business Review, 10/28/2025
A Sermon On No Time to Rest And Also No Jetpacks, by Nadia Bolz-Weber, Patheos, 10/20/2015
The Sabbath is a Delight, by Russell M. Nelson, 4/2015
The Power of Ideas: Words of Faith and Wisdom, by Jonathan Sacks
How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living, by Rob Bell
Dark Night of the Soul | St. John of the Cross, translated by Mirabai Starr

“Capitalism…is based on quid pro quo, reward and punishment thinking, and a retributive notion of justice. This much service or this much product requires this much payment or this much reward. It soon becomes the entire (and I do mean entire!) frame for all of life, our fundamental relationships (even marriage and children), basic self-image (“I deserve; you owe me; or I will be good and generous if it helps me, too”), and a faulty foundation for our relationship with God.” —Richard Rohr

“We cannot rest well unless we unform our distorted practices of work. We also cannot truly find rest as individuals until all in the community can also find rest. In the Old Testament Scriptures, the commandment to keep the Sabbath was not just an order to rest. Rather, the Sabbath establishes a liberative spiritual practice to address our unjust and unethical systems of work.” —Cindy S. Lee

“The fourth commandment is the most difficult and the most urgent of the commandments in our society . . . because it defies the most elemental requirements of a commodity-propelled society specializing in control and entertainment, bread and circuses . . . along with anxiety and violence.” —Walter Brueggeman

“Laws don’t stand still for long.” —Peter Enns

“By instituting the sabbath, God intervened in human history to make right something that had gone terribly wrong and re-established a pattern present in creation that had been tragically lost. In the Exodus narrative, the God who is free to rest on the seventh day is calling the people God loves to participate in his freedom by embedding it in their national identity.” —Ruth Haley Barton

“Jesus … defines the Sabbath through the lens of liberation, the liberating center of our lives by which we should define all our other days. In other words, he doesn’t want the Sabbath to just be part of our week. He wants it to be part of us.
Jesus isn’t afraid of work creeping into the Sabbath. He’s afraid of the Sabbath never creeping into our daily work.” —David Roberts

“A Harvard Business School survey showed that professionals spend on average almost 90 hours a week ‘on work,’ either at work, actively monitoring work out of the office or remaining accessible at a moment’s notice for work purposes.
It’s exhausting to the human spirit and makes it difficult to practice the Sabbath and without Sabbath rest, it becomes hard to see our true identity isn’t in what we do and what we produce, but in how much we are loved by God; that our worth isn’t in our successes and accomplishments but in our belovedness.” —David Roberts

“If you aren’t resting, you are a slave to something.” —Adele Calhoun

“Let’s contrast this “meritocracy,” punishment/reward economy—basic capitalism which we in the United States all drink in with our mother’s milk—with what Jesus presents, which I’m going to call a gift economy. In a gift economy, there is no equivalence between what we give and how much we get. Now I know we’re all squirming. We don’t like it, because we feel we’ve worked hard to get to our wonderful middle-class positions or wherever we are. [...] But until we begin to live in the kingdom of God instead of the kingdoms of this world, we think, as most Christians do, exactly like the world. We like the world of seemingly logical equations. Basically, to understand the Gospel in its purity and in its transformative power, we have to stop counting, measuring, and weighing. We have to stop saying “I deserve” and deciding who does not deserve. None of us “deserve”! Can we do that? It’s pretty hard . . . unless we’ve experienced infinite mercy and realize that it’s all a gift.” —Richard Rohr

“When we add ‘get more rest and take Sabbath seriously’ to our to-do list, we might be tempted to think of it as nothing more than a scheme to fuel us back up just so we can do more work; after all, it is our work that is so very important since that’s the thing that justifies our existence. And the world really needs us. But the wise Rabbi Abraham Heschel reminds us that Sabbath rest is actually about stopping long enough to see that God’s redeeming work in the world goes on with or without us.” —Nadia Bolz-Weber

“In letting go, we acknowledge what we can't do—and what we need God to do. Rabbi Abraham Heschel writes, ‘Rest on the Sabbath as if all your work were done.' Rest is knowing we've done what we could do this week, and now we need to receive grace. Rest is the center and heart of our work because it acknowledges that in the end, no matter how hard we work, we continue to be dependent on the grace of God.” —Cindy S. Lee

“Not pursuing your ‘own pleasure’ on the Sabbath requires self-discipline. You may have to deny yourself of something you might like. If you choose to delight yourself in the Lord, you will not permit yourself to treat it as any other day. Routine and recreational activities can be done some other time.” —Russell M Nelson

“The issue is not that people aren't taking their faith seriously; they're just exhausted. An event-based church, dependent on attending programs and volunteering, becomes just another job to juggle with our work lives and family responsibilities. The rhythms of the church don't match the rhythms of people's lives. Churches aren't known as places of rest; instead, we are just as busy in the church as we are at work. People burning out from never-ending church events indicates there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of Sabbath.” —Cindy S. Lee

“In Judaism we have the Sabbath, a dedicated day of stillness each week, where we make space for all the things that are important but not urgent. Not every culture has a Sabbath, but life without dedicated time for renewal, like a life without exercise or music or a sense of humour, is a lesser life.” —Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, (pp. 122-3)

“In the Scriptures, work and rest are not opposites. Together, they create a cyclical rhythm, a continual embodied movement of unforming and re-forming. As we enter into rest, we unform through practices of letting go. We then experience a holy rest through the practice of stopping. When it is time to work again, we carry our holy rest into our work. Rest is the center of this rhythm, and work flows in and out of our rest.” —Cindy S. Lee

“I myself have only 2 speeds: go and stop. But when I stop it’s not like I’m resting, I’m just collapsing because I can’t go anymore. And I don’t think that’s what sacred rest means. I think that maybe we’ve made an idol of multi-tasking and hyper-activity.” —Nadia Bolz-Weber

“Sabbath forces you to listen to your life. Sabbath is a day when you are fully present to your pain, your stress, your worry, your fear. Sabbath is when you let whatever you’ve pushed down rise to the surface. Sabbath is a day when things that are broken get fixed, when things within you that have torn are mended.” —Rob Bell, (p. 172)

“It is an initially reluctant dropping down into the emptiness and an ultimate experience of peace when we stop doing and rediscover simple being. It is the Sabbath of the soul when we heed the call to cease creating and remember that we are Created.” —Mirabai Starr, (Intro)

“When we spend a day being fully present, we quickly discover how much of the rest of our lives we aren’t fully present.” —Rob Bell (p. 169)

“The rest of the Shepherd who makes you lay down in green pastures is not about time off from work, it’s about time off from all forms of worthiness. … Sacred rest is a break from the am-I-productive-enough, lovable enough, safe enough, thin enough, rich enough, strong enough-worthiness system we live under. The sacred rest that is yours never comes from being worthy. It never comes through adopting the right kind and the right amount and the right quality of spiritual practices (although if those bring you a sense of well-being then by all means don’t set them aside) the rest that is yours and mine comes from the promise of the Gospel: that Jesus came to save sinners, that Jesus came to heal and love and save the sin-sick and the over-functioning, that Jesus came to give rest to the weary, and the restless, to give rest to harried housewives and overworked social workers and mildly depressed executives. So rest. Resting knowing that you are justified, not by your busyness, but by grace through faith. Rest in the knowledge of how madly God loves you. Not because of who you are, but because of who God is. Rest in that. Not because you should. But because you can.” —Nadia Bolz-Weber

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Many thanks to listener Amanda Davis for her work in transcribing this episode!

This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:

Listen to Episode 266

CW: And so more and more I’m just looking for these, like, quiet disruptors of my work or productivity: scrolling, whatever. And I don’t know how I feel about Sabbath as an entire day. Again, laws don’t stand still, Right? But I do know that I’m actively working on Sabbath moments.

SH: Love that idea. Sabbath moments. Yes! I can get behind that.

CW: Hello, I’m Cynthia Winiward.

SH: And I’m Susan Hinkley.

CW: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today’s episode is Big Ideas: Sabbath.

SH: Ooh, Cynthia, I’m nervous for this one.

CW: You should be–you made all the notes, so-

SH: I know.

CW: If it’s a flop, you blame yourself.

SH: It’s not that I necessarily worry about being a flop. It’s that I feel… man. I was gonna say I feel like a hypocrite having this conversation, but that’s not even strong enough of a word. I feel... like a fraud. This is a fraudulent episode of At Last She Said It. And I’m gonna say more about why that is in a minute.

So. And I feel about approaching this one like you felt about approaching myth. Like you were a little bit, you had some trepidation…

CW: Oh, good.

SH: ... about that because you didn’t feel like it was in your wheelhouse necessarily, right? You were kind of, yeah it, that’s how I’m, that’s how I am in this conversation.

But also, I am the one who begged to have this conversation, so, it’s all on me. I wanna start right at the beginning by saying that however you feel about Sabbath, however you keep using air quotes, “The Sabbath,” or don’t, whatever your experience with Sabbath is, this episode is not to be prescriptive, not to say one way of doing the Sabbath is better than another. Nothing like that.

We’re interested in the concept of Sabbath, and so even if you saw the title Sabbath and said, “Ew, no, I don’t think so. I’m not listening to that,” I hope you’ll hang with us because there are interesting things, I think, in this, about this big idea. I didn’t know it was a big idea. Who knew- first of all? Let’s just start right there.

CW: Well, can I ask you, Susan, What triggered you wanting to have this episode? ‘Cause it’s been months now since you told me, “Let’s do an episode on Sabbath,” so I don’t remember.

SH: Well, it was actually-

CW: Do you remember what it was?

SH: Yeah, I do. I know exactly what it was. It started with a piece that we were assigned to read for The Living School, and I read it, and suddenly my mind was exploding ‘cause I could see–I could glimpse that this is a big idea, and I never really understood the scope of it, the intent of it, everything that the original law encompassed, all those things. I had no idea about so much that goes along with the idea of Sabbath, and so, my mind was blown. I wanted more.

I read that piece and I said, “Oh, I want that. Wait a minute. I want that. I didn’t know that was a thing. That’s what I want.” And so I decided to start diving on it.

CW: I love that and I feel like so many of our Big Idea episodes this season (by the way, this is our last), so I’m kind of excited to have our last Big Ideas episode on Sabbath. But so many of our Big Idea episodes have come about because it was something like you just described. Like, you were like, “Wait a minute. I want that. Let’s talk about that.” Best kind of conversation to have.

SH: Hopefully I can sell it because honestly, if I opened

the podcast and saw that it was about Sabbath, I would. Everything in me would resist.

CW: Yes, it would.

SH: It would resist. So hopefully, we’ll see. We’ll see how well I do selling the concept. Okay, so why a conversation about Sabbath? Let’s just start right there. First of all, Cynthia, I’m tired.

Oh. I am so, so, so tired. I’m tired in a place that I didn’t really realize existed, if that makes sense.

CW: It does.

SH: And it has to do with a lot of things, you know, the political climate. I think like being in my 60s, my body is kind of physically, let’s admit it, it’s on the downhill. And some things are starting to catch up with me.

I’m just mentally tired. I’ve been in a very transitional faith space for over, well over a decade now. I’m tired.

CW: Yeah. I feel this deeply.

SH: And I have a feeling that you feel the same.

So that’s the first thing. I’m ready for a rest, so I wanna talk about rest.

And then also Sabbath is just so much more than I ever realized, like I said earlier, and I’m gonna give all the spoilers right now about what we’re gonna be talking about, okay? It’s about remembering what God has done, about trusting abundance. It’s about rhythm. It’s about letting go. It’s about a promise of rest.

It’s about not needing to earn or prove anything. Oh. It’s even about liberation and [00:05:00] eradicating oppression. Who knew that all of those things were in Sabbath? I had no idea.

And then also, as you know, my path has become one of kind of reawakening, reclaiming, and reinventing spiritual things for myself.

Concepts like prayer that I’ve had my whole life I’ve had to knock down to the ground and rebuild because I never felt like my spiritual life belonged to me, right? It came to me fully formed. And so I didn’t really feel ownership over it. And I saw Sabbath as something that I had potentially completely misunderstood and underestimated what I could do if I internalized it and made it my own.

Like, what would Sabbath look like for me? I had no idea about that, and so I’ve kind of wanted to find out. And I really think we are allowed to talk about things that are further down the path from where we are right now.

CW: Oh, totally.

SH: Like, I think we’re allowed to talk about stuff that we haven’t figured out, ways we wanna grow, you know, things that we can only glimpse from here.

In fact, I would say that this podcast is about 90% those conversations.

CW: I was just gonna say, “:confession time!”

SH: We, we talk in the direction that we wanna move, and so this is one of those conversations.

Okay, you know from being in conversation with me for six plus years that I’ve always hated Sunday. Hated it. Spent half the week being relieved that it was over, and I spent the other half dreading it, and that is just the truth.

I grew up knowing Sunday as a day of “We don’ts.” That’s really all it was for me. It felt like a day, to me, of somehow trying to prove our piety. Like, what other reason could there be for being made to keep your dress on all day or for denying yourself of even the, your most regular pleasures?

You know, the other kids in the neighborhood could play outside. I couldn’t play outside. Well, you know, what could the point of that be than proving how holy we were?

And that didn’t do much for me. But I love the idea of a day of presence. Of a day of being without producing.

Like, what would a generative day, a day that could actually throw energy into the rest of my life look like?

Sunday has never been that to me. Sunday was a draining day. I’m an introvert–church was hard. It was tons of work. I mean, there are just all these reasons that–

CW: You were a mother.

SH: Yeah. Personally, Sunday was a drain. But a generative day, yeah, I want that in my life.

So engaging with the idea of Sabbath really is an opportunity for me to understand where I’ve been and think about whether it’s possible that a thing that has never had any resonance for me whatsoever could be reconceptualized and reincorporated. I mean, can I do with Sabbath what I did with prayer? I don’t know, but I want to try.

CW: And are you serious? You really don’t know? Like, you’re–you don’t know…

SH: I don’t know! I mean, I guess my tendency so far in my life has been more to just throw the concept out. And I had never thrown prayer out, right? I kept a place for prayer in my life. I didn’t really keep a place for Sabbath in my life, if I’m honest. So do I wanna make a place for something I’d gotten rid of? That’s a really great question.

CW: Yeah.

SH: The Center for Action and Contemplation describes the Sabbath as, quote, “A practice to tend the fire within.”

CW: What?

SH: I know.

CW: Are you serious? That’s crazy!

SH: It’s beautiful.

CW: It’s beautiful, but come on. “A practice to tend the fire within?” I mean, that sounds crazy to me as a lifelong Latter-day Saint, and also, yes, please. Like-

SH: Right, right ...

CW: It’s your spiritual life, my spiritual life; it’s personal now. It’s an inside job, and it’s really all that I’m interested in anymore, is the within part. Like, I’m just done.

You started out by saying you’re tired. I’m tired and I’m done, Susan. Done doing things for external reasons.

SH: Right.

CW: So I’m really glad we’re talking about this because, like you, do I even care about Sabbath? I mean, I can’t think of a topic in our church that we make smaller than Sabbath. Like you said, it’s all the “don’ts.”

SH: Right,

CW: And it was the same way for me growing up as well. And if I were on, like, a rapid fire panel where they were just throwing out questions at me and they asked me, you know, “Describe the Sabbath,” all I would have to say were the “don’ts.”

I mean, if I thought about it long enough, of course, I would come up with more intelligent answers, but for the most part, it would be like, “Don’t go shopping. Don’t go out to eat. Don’t play with my friends on the street. Don’t watch TV,” or, you know, whatever. So I don’t know. This is really tough stuff.

Like, I kind of already have asked you the question of, have [00:10:00] you been able to reconceptualize and reincorporate what Sabbath means. And I think you already said no.

SH: Absolutely not.

CW: But you want to discuss that because, truly, I have not either, and that’s why I’m eager to talk about this.

Because unlike our myth episode, which I felt really deeply invested in, I am going to confess that I’m not sure I want to make Sabbath a big idea.

SH: Okay.

CW: But I want to explore it, and so maybe exploring it is the big idea part. Let’s go with that. I wanna talk about it. I wanna dip my toe back in to test the temperature of the water, even though I feel like I’ve already defined a lot of those dos and don’ts.

SH: Yeah. Same.

CW:. Ahem, I go out to eat a lot on Sunday. It’s really fun, Susan.

Sh: It’s the best, Cynthia!

CW: It’s really great1

SH: Who knew?

CW: You know what the funnest part is living in Utah County in Mormon Mecca, is when I go out to eat, I see everybody there in their, white shirts and ties and dresses, and I was like, “Wait, what? This was an option the whole time?”

SH: People were doing this the whole time.

CW: People were. Where was the memo? I did not know that people leave church and immediately go to Cafe Rio. Did not know that, you know?

SH: So funny.

CW: Anyway, so, even though, like, I’ve already redefined a lot of that for me, what I will do and don’t, my redefining so far hasn’t really made it big, expansive, and growing.

And that’s okay. Maybe I’m still, like, in the deconstructing Sabbath part.

SH: Okay.

CW: I don’t know.

SH: Okay. Interesting. I feel like I deconstructed Sabbath and then made absolutely no effort to do any kind of-

CW: Same ...

SH: reclaiming or reconstruction. So let’s talk about it. We’ll see if we want to.

Maybe we’ll return and report next season. Who knows?

CW: Maybe.

SH: Or maybe we’ll say, “Hey, nothing changed.”

CW; Maybe. Maybe.

SH: Still not for me. But at least understanding some of the history behind Sabbath and stuff like that was pretty mind-blowing for me. I learned stuff I never knew, and so I’m happy to share that information, and our listeners can decide for themselves whether they wanna take it and run with it, or whether it’s not gonna change a single thing they ever thought about it.

CW: Yeah.

SH: So let’s do it.

CW: I like that.

SH: We gotta– we’re gonna go so fast because we have like, 15 pages of notes here. It’s ridiculous. Okay?

If we’re gonna start a big conversation about Sabbath, we have to begin with our relationship to work. Like, what is our relationship to work, and where did we get our ideas about that?

Puritans viewed labor as a divine calling. Now, just-

CW: Of course they did.

SH: Put that in the context of everything you know about being a Latter-day Saint. Are you surprised? Of course you’re not. You did your job and everything else to glorify God as a Puritan. So work was perceived as virtuous for its own sake, right?

Through work, we could fulfill God’s purposes, and we could get rich too. Bonus. Okay?

You’ve maybe heard a phrase, “the Protestant work ethic.” Yes?

CW: Yes.

SH: Yes. That actually came to us via German sociologist Max Weber in 1905, and the “Protestant work ethic” is a framing of work not just as a necessity, but as our spiritual duty and a core component of our moral identity.

Okay? Our moral identity, actually as Puritan descendants, is framed around work.

CW: I totally believe this

SH: This, of course, helped to set the stage for the development of capitalism. Okay? But however, capitalism (didn’t see that coming) has come with some problems, right?

CW: Just a few.

SH: It’s come with problems.

Well, I mean, think about it. If you walked into a Mormon church and started an attack on capitalism, I think people would rise to defend that with as much vigor as they would defend any gospel principle.

CW: Yes.

SH: I really do. I really do believe that. Like, we-- this stuff is in our DNA somehow. So Richard Rohr knows that about us and every other Christian, and he has a lot to say about it.

And this is from something called “The Gospel Economy,” and he says this: “Capitalism is based on quid pro quo reward and punishment thinking and a retributive notion of justice. This much service or this much product requires this much payment or this much reward. It soon becomes the entire, and I do mean entire, frame for all of life, our fundamental relationships, even marriage and children, our basic self-image, ‘I deserve, you owe me,’ or, ‘I will be good and generous if it helps me, too,’ and a faulty foundation for our relationship with God.”

CW: Ooh.

SH: I know.

CW: Faulty foundation.

SH: Harsh words, but it rings true to me. I’m gonna motor right on because we’re gonna get to, I think, some of why this rings so true. But anyway, glorifying work makes us prone to all kinds of problems. It makes us prone to [00:15:00] being caught up in anxiety, performance, perfection.

I feel like people will sacrifice almost anything: their health, their well-being, their relationships, for the sake of their commitment to work.

CW: Yes.

SH: Yes. I’ve seen it time and again.

I lived for years with a man who was largely married to his job, and there were many good reasons for that and reasons why that happened.

CW: Right.

SH: But I mean, it, it really was… His career really was the center around which so much turned in my life and in our family life. Because it was, like, built on it. It was built there.

CW: Sounds familiar.

SH: Yeah, I have a feeling maybe it does, and I think a lot of women right now are maybe going, “Yes, this sounds familiar.”

And I think maybe mothers are-- this could be just a totally gross generalization– but I think mothers may be less prone to building everything around a career because I think once you have children, you-- women don’t have that luxury sometimes-

CW: I think that’s fair.

SH: …in the same way, and I say that with some trepidation and realizing all the limitations of what I just said, but I also think there’s a kernel of truth there.

____________________________________________

We become cogs, basically, in this corrupt economic system that runs on constant greed and production. Does that sound fair?

CW: I mean, if you’re gonna use the word cogs to describe us humans in this system, that’s ouchie already, and yet, yes, this sounds sadly true.

SH: I mean, I feel that way in the United States.

I feel like the people are kind of regarded as cogs in the economic system. I really do think that’s what it’s built on.

SH: Okay this quote comes from Cindy S. Lee from a piece called “Our Unforming,” and this is the piece that started it all for me with Sabbath that came to me via the CAC. And she says this: “We cannot rest well unless we unform our distorted practices of work. We also cannot truly find rest as individuals until all in the community can also find rest. In the Old Testament scriptures, the commandment to keep the Sabbath was not just an order to rest. Rather, the Sabbath establishes a liberative spiritual practice to address our unjust and unethical systems of work.”

CW: Oh, man. Okay, it’s all coming back to me now because I remember when we were studying this and you just kept texting me about this article that we had read. So it’s coming back to me.

SH: That sounds like something I’d do.

CW: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I love the idea of what she’s talking about. I love the idea of addressing the unjust and unethical systems in a convo about the Sabbath. I mean, I recently heard Scott Galloway, who’s a big podcaster, a professor at NYU. He said that in America, the sky is the limit for earning potential, but that our safety net is a concrete floor with spikes in it. And I was like, “That is the truest thing I have ever heard about living in America, especially right now, I feel like, in late-stage capitalism. But anyway.

SH: It’s just getting worse.

CW: Yeah. Yeah, it’s just getting worse. And so basically, like all the people that Jesus was worried about, the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the immigrants, like they all fall through. And this is just me speaking as an American seeing what’s going on in society, like they all fall through that flimsy, held together with safety pins safety net. Like people are just falling through left and right

SH: Oh yeah, a lot of them are living on those spikes. They’re living on that spiky concrete floor while the rest of us are working so hard doing everything we can to keep ourselves above-

CW: Above ...

SH: those spikes.

CW: The concrete spiky floor.

SH: Right?

CW: Yeah. Yeah.

SH: Ooh, ouch. Ouch.

CW: Yeah.

SH: If you’re gonna have a conversation about Sabbath.. If you’re gonna talk about myth, you go to Joseph Campbell; if you’re gonna talk about Sabbath, you’re gonna go to theologian Walter Brueggemann.

He’s done a lot of work on this, and the first thing I did was buy his famous book about it and read it.

So he builds it around this idea that our unhealthy relationships to work are like the system of slavery in Egypt. People are viewed as machines to increase the wealth of those in power, and there is no rest for anyone in this kind of system.

CW: Oh.

SH: And he says this: “The Fourth Commandment is the most difficult and the most urgent of the commandments in our society because it defies the most elemental requirements of a commodity-propelled society specializing in control and entertainment, bread and circuses, along with anxiety and violence.”

CW: Wow.

SH: So for the Israelites, the Sabbath law came in to break the system and to do like a hard reset after they were freed from Egypt.

For us, the Sabbath can break the cycle in a similar [00:20:00] way by forcing us to stop continually trying to do more and gain more.

CW: That’s a tall order.

SH: It’s a tall order. We’re forced off the hamster wheel for at least 15 seconds.

And it’s hard to see the hamster wheel when you’re on it, right? But when you get off-

CW: Yeah.

SH: Then I think you have a view of what the poor hamsters who are still on there are doing that maybe you didn’t have when you were running the race.

CW: Yeah. Okay, before we leave this section where you started out asking the question, “What is our relationship to work?” I kinda wanna jump in and say I was thinking of Pete Enns, and I feel like I’ve quoted his book, How the Bible Actually Works several times on our most recent episodes, just because I had decided to dive back into it and reread it again. And he has this section in the book called “Laws Don’t Stand Still for Long.”

And so when you ask, “What’s our relationship to work?” I think it’s worth comparing what was work, you know, for a Mesopotamian group of people during the Bronze Age like? What is work for me, a modern person in the 21st century. I mean, you don’t even have to go back to the Bronze Age. Like, just go back to, you know, 100, maybe 150 years ago, right?

SH: Exactly.

CW: Before electricity.

SH: Yeah. Right.

CW: People, before we had electricity, people stopped working when the sun set.

But you and I, everyone listening, we all have access to bright light 24/7, and so I think the law of the Sabbath probably should change as well. These laws don’t stand still for long. What in your life, Susan, has ever stood still? So I think applying wisdom liberally, which is the whole point of Pete Enns’ book, How the Bible Actually Works, I think applying that wisdom liberally is really crucial when considering whether anything biblical is applicable to our modern lives.

And I know that sounds like I’m kicking the Sabbath to the garbage can, like, “Eh, it’s not applicable.” It’s not. I just really strongly resonate with that idea that laws don’t stand still. And I am going to need to reframe Sabbath for me. And more on that in a little bit, but I just wanted to kinda jump in and answer your question of-

Sh: Yeah. No, it’s such a good point. It’s such a good point, I think. And as you’re making that point, I’m thinking, “Well, I haven’t stood still, so of course the law needs to change for me.”

CW: Yes.

SH: Because I have changed.

CW: Yeah.

SH: So my approach to everything (so much more to say on that) is changing.

CW: Go on. Go on.

SH: Yeah. Okay. Okay, I wanna stop here and I’m gonna go through it fast ‘cause there’s so much information, and there are all kinds of good places I’m gonna link to at least one podcast in the notes where you could really get a great overview of this that I don’t have time to really give all the context of in this conversation.

But there’s so much Sabbath history, like where we get the law and what the original law was about, all that kinda stuff, so I wanna talk about that.

Mosaic law regarding Shabbat, which is what the Sabbath was called, Shabbat, which was Saturday, right?

CW: Yes.

SH: Well, which still is Saturday. It was about physical rest. It was about refraining from work.

But early Christians, and I’m talking early, like as early as 115 AD, so, the New Testament is pretty young still at this point, right?

CW: Yeah.

SH: They began celebrating the Lord’s Day, is what they called it, on Sunday. And that was different from Shabbat. That was a day celebrating resurrection and emphasizing spiritual rest-

CW: Yeah

SH: or resting God. So-

CW: That’s a good distinction.

SH: Yeah. Two different concepts there. And for a time, some early Christian Jews making the transition into Christianity observed both days.

CW: Really?

SH: Which I think might be where we get our weekend. Because if you think of the Jewish Sabbath starting-

CW: Okay.

SH: Friday night, right? And then you’ve got Friday night to Saturday night, and then you’ve got to Sunday night. Because, you know, do you ever feel like on Sunday night things start to pick up again for the week? It’s like-

CW: Always

SH:... getting the kids ready to go to school, right, all of that. It’s like, “The weekend’s over, guys.” “The fun’s over,” ... on Sunday night. Well, I think it’s, I think we see a natural rhythm to that, how that developed when we consider the history of how this came into practice. And Christians have focused on Sunday, of course, because Constantine decreed Sunday to be a day of physical and spiritual rest in 321 AD.

So he kind of married the two into one day and said, “This is the official one.”

CW: Interesting. That’s how it was systematized then.

SH: That’s how it was systematized. Okay. But if you’re reading Paul in the New Testament, Paul has the part where he says, “Whether you do it on Saturday or whether you do it on Sunday, whatever day you do it on, don’t judge each other for however you practice this.”

So they were straddling a time where [00:25:00] it was probably kind of rocky, I would imagine. I would imagine people had strong opinions about what celebrating the Sabbath really meant.

Sabbath has been with us from the very beginning, and I mean Genesis. It starts right there because we hear that God created everything in six days, and then on the seventh day, God rested.

And there’s, gosh, so much that I could say about that, so I hope if people are interested in some of this history, they’ll do some looking into it because there’s a lot of nuance, that it adds to the law as it initially came to us. The law is rolled out twice in the Old Testament, so we get it first in Exodus 20, verses 8-11. And the Exodus version grounds the Sabbath in those seven days of creation, in that pattern that we see introduced in Genesis. And Shabbat, the word Shabbat actually means stopping or to stop. That’s what the word translates to.

CW: That was crazy learning that. Crazy. I had no idea.

SH: Yeah,

CW: No idea.

SH: So the Sabbath is tied to the creation story, is about kind of a cosmic rest period after a period of intense work and creativity: Creation. On the seventh day, God rested and hallowed that day. God sanctified that day at that point.

CW: Okay, in the podcast that you’re referring to that you shared with me, thank you, so I learned all of this alongside you. It was really interesting. As they were talking about the Sabbath and about the creation and God resting on the seventh day, I thought, “Here we go again, Susan. Aha. Hebrew poetry.” Because we’re recording this episode on the heels of our Big Ideas myth episode.

SH: Right.

CW: And I found it really interesting to learn that there are three lines of the creation poem, narrative myth, whatever we’re calling it, that have the word seven in them, and then each of those lines that has the word seven has seven words in them.

So I mean, in Hebrew, right? And so I’m like, “Oh my gosh.”

SH: It’s so amazing.

CW: It is like this is such- It’s so cool ... poetry, right? You think about like a haiku poem, and you think about how that is structured.

SH: Right, right.

CW: And it has to have this many words and this many lines, and it was the same in the creation story and of course, using the number seven, so just amazing stuff.

So I once again proclaim again that I like looking at the Bible as Hebrew poetry now, and it gives it so much more depth and meaning.

SH: And this is part of the-

CW: Just had to throw that in.

SH: No, it’s so good because this is part of why I say, all of this was really meant to establish rhythm.

CW: Rhythm.

SH: This is about a rhythm of life, a rhythm of creation.

The, actually the seventh day never ends. You see the other days end in Genesis. Right. The seventh day doesn’t, right? So we’re still in the seventh day, and we’re heading toward this period of cosmic rest for everyone and everything, but it hasn’t been realized yet. So like, yeah, it’s so poetic, and the way that they lay it out just reinforces that rhythmic sort of element of it.

CW: Love it. Love it.

SH: So cool.

Okay. Deuteronomy, it’s phrased largely the same, but then we get something different at the end, and so this is Deuteronomy 5, verses 12 through 15, and Deuteronomy grounds the Sabbath in the liberation of God’s people from Egypt. So Sabbath functions as sort of a weekly Independence Day.

It’s this time when Israel is supposed to set aside sacred time to remember that they were once under the oppression of Pharaoh.

Ruth Haley Barton, who is a spiritual director and seminary educator says this in a piece called “Finding Freedom Through Sabbath Resistance.” I’m gonna link all of these amazing pieces and people can go and read them.

But she says this: “By instituting the Sabbath, God intervened in human history to make right something that had gone terribly wrong, and reestablished a pattern present in creation that had been tragically lost.” Because the slaves in Egypt were made to work 24/7.

CW: Yeah

SH: This is what she’s talking about here. We’ve lost the rhythm, right?

In the Exodus narrative, the God who is free to rest on the seventh day is calling the people God loves to participate in His freedom by embedding it in their national identity.

CW: So good.

SH: So cool. Okay, and then in Leviticus 25, things get really crazy because we get the–completely wild, to me–Sabbath year in verses 1 through 7.

CW: I had no idea.

SH: And then we get the Sabbath jubilee. I had no idea either. Actually, I think Rob Bell blew my mind with this some years ago, but I hadn’t really taken time to find out what it was about. So, that’s verses 8 through 55, we get the Sabbath jubilee.

Okay, in the Sabbath year, which happens every seven years, the land rests [00:30:00] and remains unharvested, so you don’t get to plant anything or take anything that grows.

And can you imagine? Can you imagine?

CW: Nope.

SH: No. I can’t either. What do you do the rest of the time? I’m totally silent about this.

The rest of the time... Yeah, I know. It would, like, the degree of…. Well, the way that this points to God’s abundance, I guess, is staggering to me. You’re being made to trust in the abundance of the earth.

CW: So good ...

SH: Through this kind of law, and it’s so good, and I can’t really think of anything like it.

It would be like if on Sunday, on the Sabbath, Latter-day Saints sat back and expected the meal to materialize for them. Which is, like, absolutely the opposite, in my experience.

CW: Okay, Susan, I love that you actually chose that example because as two women who have spent our whole adult lives preparing big meals on Sunday for families, like, that’s, like, the penultimate thing you can, I can think of It is. Like, someone serve me a meal? What? What?

SH: Yeah. I know.

CW: It’s so funny to me. Hence why I go out to eat on Sunday ‘cause someone else has to make me the meal, and that’s-

SH: Same ... the only way it’s gonna happen. Like, finally I’m getting my payback. Finally leaning into the abundance. Of course, that’s the abundance of other people’s work. That’s a problem we have we have-

CW: Right.

SH: Okay ... plenty we can talk about that. But anyway, yes.

CW: Move on. I hear you.

SH: Okay, so, that’s what happened in the seven years.

Okay, the Sabbath jubilee year, which comes on the 50th year, so you go through seven of those cycles Right? You get to the 49th year. The next year, Sabbath Jubilee, the land rests and remains unharvested, and all the slaves get freed.

And ancestral property and lands that have been sold in those 50 years revert to their original owners.

It’s like a total reset. Debts get forgiven, right? It’s like liberty, rest, and restoration.

CW: Yeah.

SH: And so we’re gonna come back to those later. Like, can you imagine a total societal reset every 50 years? I mean, I think we’re ripe for one right now.

CW: Yeah.

SH: It’s been more than 50 years, and I think we’re ripe.

CW: Susan,

SH: I think you- ... I had no idea about this stuff.

CW: Oh, how many times a week do you text me and you say, “Can we hit a pause button? Where is the pause button right now?”

SH: Exactly! I want the giant cosmic pause button.

Okay, so that’s the Old Testament Sabbath law, which is, you know, where it’s introduced to us.

In the New Testament the teachings of Jesus and Paul both emphasize the Sabbath. It’s mentioned over 50 times. And by the way, any time they’re talking about Sabbath in the Bible, they’re referring to Shabbat.

CW: Yes.

SH: Friday sunset to Saturday eve, right?

________________________________________

SH: Jesus, does Jesus keep the Sabbath? Did he have a lot of respect for that? Well, I mean, I guess it depends on who you ask because.

CW: Depends on who you ask.

SH: We see Jesus heal more than once on the Sabbath.

What that is about actually, is breaking the bonds of captivity. This is a liberation. This is Jesus demonstrating liberation.

CW: Love it.

SH: Healing someone is liberating them, right? And so he’s telling the Pharisees basically, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.”

CW: Best scripture ever.

SH: And that means, like, this is a law that can be customized. It’s for you to put to work in your life.

David Roberts, who is a progressive Christian writer on the staff of Patheos has a piece called “Liberation Keeps the Sabbath Holy,” and this is what he says about that: “Jesus defines the Sabbath through the lens of liberation, the liberating center of our lives by which we should define all our other days.”

In other words, he doesn’t want the Sabbath to just be part of our week. He wants it to be part of us. “Jesus isn’t afraid of work creeping into the Sabbath. He is afraid of the Sabbath never creeping into our daily work.”

CW: That is it.

SH: That’s it.

CW: That is the perfect redefinition of, well, not redefinition, explanation of the Sabbath being made for us. And I think, I don’t know, how much has that scripture meant to you, Susan, that the Sabbath was made for us, not us for the Sabbath? Like especially if someone-

SH: Honestly never thought anything much about it until now.

CW:Oh, really? What?

SH: Yeah.

CW: Okay. Okay, well then this is where we’re different because I- that scripture has meant so much to me as I have redefined my faith life and what I’m you know, the dos and the don’ts and what I’m gonna change, and all of that. Like that has been the most meaningful scripture for me, and I do mean meaningful as in like filled with meaning in reassembling my faith. Like I use that verbiage for all kinds of LDS things. Like the temple is made for us.

We are not made for the temple. Or like the Word of Wisdom was made for me. I was not made for the Word of Wisdom. Do you know what I mean? [00:35:00]

SH: Wow. Yes. Yes.

CW: I have been asking myself, I have been just tossing in new words into that scripture about the Sabbath for myself for years as I’ve been redefining a lot of this..

SH: How come I did not feel... How come I didn’t ever see that?

CW: I don’t know. I should have been texting you about that, you know?

SH: Yes, you should have.

CW: But it has been super meaningful for me, and I mean even for folks who are not religious or not even sure if they wanna be religious anymore, like how much are we hearing in society about a secular Sabbath?

I’m thinking of the author Jonathan Haidt. He is constantly going on podcasts and writing books and advocating for structured technology fasts, right? Like making a day here and there different than the other days. And I think this goes back to redefining the law because now we have these little computers in our pockets that go everywhere with us, and is that really healthy to have access to that?

SH: Right. Well.

CW: So, so yeah, once again, the Sabbath was made for us. And we get to define What is meaningful to us on those days, on that day.

SH: That might be like the most transformational thinking of this whole conversation, actually.

CW: Oh! Okay!

SH: I think really leaning into that scripture can give you permission maybe, I guess, to do whatever you need- CW: Yes, it’s permission giving!

SH: to do with this. It’s permission giving.

CW: 100%.

SH: Straight from Jesus’ mouth. Yep,

CW: Yep.

SH: Okay. We’re so short on time, but I wanna talk for a second about Sabbath as liberation theology.

CW: Oh,

SH: We have to. Because like we talked about the Beatitudes as liberation theology, who knew? But the law as couched in the memory of slavery, which was the second way that it was given to us, was about a break from making bricks for Pharaoh.

But it wasn’t just about that. It was about the idea that no one needs to be making bricks for Pharaoh.

CW: Nobody.

SH: So Sabbath was not really about the individual, it was about changing the economic engines that were driving society and sort of our entire societal relationship to work, and good luck rooting work out of the Puritans.

I think that was a tall order. But imagine thinking of our modern-day Sabbath as resistance, as weekly resistance against economic exploitation, against consumerism, against internalized oppression. I mean, I love the idea of rest as political action and spiritual resistance.

CW: Just love it.

SH: Dismantling systems that equate work with productivity.

Okay, the last one is Sabbath as disruptor. Sabbath disrupts the idolization of our work and our ego connection to it, which I think is huge. We are what we do. What happens when you’re at a cocktail party, someone says to you, “So what do you do?”

CW: What do you do?

SH: That’s just where it all focuses. It reminds us to depend on God as our source of life rather than on our own efforts. Adele Calhoun, who’s a pastor, says, “If you aren’t resting, you are a slave to something.”

CW: Oh, gosh. Preach!

SH: Preach.

CW: I just really love this idea of Sabbath as disruptor, and this is maybe what I’m going to take for my takeaway for the episode. Because I’ve been working on it so hard already, so maybe it’s just more of the same for me. But I think I told you before, maybe even said it here on the podcast, I think that I’ve been trying really hard to just let myself be bored instead of grabbing my phone, like in doctor’s offices and such. And I got this idea from Arthur Brooks, right? He’s on this whole kick of writing all these books about happiness and how we measure happiness and things like that. And so, you know, I’ll sit in the doctor’s office and instead of grabbing my phone, I’m in the optometrist, it’s dark, you know, ‘cause they dilated my eyes, and-

SH: Right

CW: I’m just sitting there bored and thinking and breathing. And so more and more, I’m just looking for these quiet disruptors of my work or productivity, scrolling, whatever. And I don’t know how I feel about Sabbath as an entire day. Again, laws don’t stand still.

SH: Right.

CW: But I do know that I’m actively working on Sabbath moments.

SH: Love that idea, Sabbath moments. Okay. Yes. Well, like I can get behind that.

CW: Exactly. This is kind of the whole thing about meditation. That’s really all it is disrupting to try to, like, get back to what really matters. And so. I’m doing little things, Susan. Like, when I’m reading novels, I’m only reading them in paperback. I’m not reading them on an iPad, a Kindle. I’m not reading on my laptop, whatever.

I stopped wearing my Apple Watch because I’m sick of all the productivity, “Here, you haven’t got your steps in.”

“Oh, shut up.” I’m sick of all the productivity.

SH: Don’t start with me.

CW: Don’t start with me today, you know? So yes, my Apple Watch is uncharged in a drawer, been there for months. I leave [00:40:00] my phone in another room.

And it’s just been so interesting to read all the research about this from all the smart people out there who have data on it. And they’re talking about the importance of boredom and why it’s important, because that disrupts the default mode network.

Being bored makes us think about things that might be kind of uncomfortable. I mean, right, Susan. Spoiler: that’s why you and I reach for our phone. It’s because we don’t wanna sit there and be uncomfortable and alone with our thoughts. So I’ve just been trying so hard to embrace the disruptive part of Sabbath.

I wasn’t calling it that, but I’m gonna start calling it now, these disruptive Sabbath moments, and embrace the boredom.

SH: I think we absolutely get credit for things we’re already doing. So go ahead and relabel your disruption behavior as Sabbath behavior.

CW: Yeah.

SH: You know? It can add, like, more nuance and context really, to more meaning to what you’re doing, but what you were already doing, because it was feeding you.

CW: Well, and this is how bad it is, and I totally believe this even though I was surprised when I heard this data. They put a bunch of people in a room alone, nothing with them, and they said, “Okay, sit here for 15 minutes alone doing nothing, or you could push this button that will give you an electric shock.”

SH: Did they start shocking themselves?

CW: Yes.

SH: Get out.

CW: People, they didn’t say how many, but there were some people, this is all from Arthur Brooks. There were some people that actually preferred to push the button and shock themselves rather than be alone with their thoughts.

SH: That is really something.

CW: I know. I know.

SH: I believe that. So yes. I have no trouble believing that at all.

CW: No trouble believing it.

SH:That’s crazy. Oh, wow.

_________________________________

SH: Okay, here’s where we’re gonna turn toward our church specifically for a minute.

CW: Oh, good.

SH: I’m rubbing my hands together. Even church, where the idea of Sabbath originates for us, reinforces an unhealthy relationship to work.

CW: Oh, say more, Susan.

SH: Cynthia, could Latter-day Saints even remake our relationship to work? Is that even possible? This is an uphill, because I think that would be as hard as getting Latter-day Saints to accept grace.

CW: That’s a really good parallel.

SH: We would really be swimming against the current on this, I think.

Richard Rohr has more to say about that in “The Gospel Economy,” and he says, “Let’s contrast this meritocracy, this punishment and reward economy, basic capitalism, which we in the United States all drink in with our mother’s milk, with what Jesus presents, which I’m going to call a gift economy. In a gift economy, there is no equivalence between what we give and how much we get. Now, I know we’re all squirming. We don’t like it because we feel we’ve worked hard to get to our wonderful middle-class positions or wherever we are. But until we begin to live in the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdoms of this world, we think, as most Christians do, exactly like the world.”

“We like the world of seemingly logical equations. Basically, to understand the gospel in its purity and in its transformative power, we have to stop counting, measuring, and weighing. We have to stop saying, ‘I deserve,’ and deciding who does not deserve. None of us deserve. Can we do that? It’s pretty hard unless we’ve experienced infinite mercy and realize that it’s all a gift.”

CW: I just… I know Richard Rohr’s a Catholic, but come on, that’s the most Mormony quote ever in this whole episode. I mean, I’m trying to imagine what life would be like if I lived in the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of this world, like a place where rest wasn’t earned.

SH: I mean, we have the idea of Zion that we nod to.

CW: Is that what Zion is, Susan?

SH: I think Zion would be equalized work, and I think that it would be spiritual rest and probably also physical. I think it–yes. I mean,I think it is. I think that’s what he’s talking about. I think living in the Kingdom of God means living in Zion, doesn’t it?

CW: Okay. I mean, yeah, but I just, until you said that-

SH: We don’t believe it right now. We don’t believe it.

CW: No, we don’t believe our own stuff, for sure. No. I mean, I just–

SH: We don’t believe there’s a Zion, Cynthia.

CW: Silly us.

SH: That’s crazy talk.

CW: I just read an article this morning. Okay, truthfully, I’m sitting at breakfast with my husband. He read the article to me out loud, which is pretty much the same thing. But he was reading a story, tragically, about a general authority who just passed away unexpectedly, and they were quoting his son at the funeral, and he said something about, like, “My dad hasn’t been released. He’s still doing missionary work.”

And I thought,“Oh my goodness, even in death, which one could argue is like the ultimate kingdom of God, even though [00:45:00] Jesus said the kingdom of God is here and now. Like even in death, we focus on work like that.” And I’m not gonna take anything away from somebody in their moment of grief. If that’s what gives him comfort, knowing that his dad is on the other side working, okay.

But it blew me away because- work is what gives us peace in death? Really?

SH: I’m not sure that I’ve heard Latter-day Saints talk that much about peace in death or rest. What I’ve heard my whole life is Latter-day Saints talk about how our work continues on the other side of the veil.

Yeah. This is what I’ve heard Latter-day Saints talk about, that our work continues. We get there and we’re gonna be doing missionary work. That’s exactly what I’ve heard.

CW: Oh my gosh.

SH: So I think that is a very LDS idea about what happens in God’s kingdom, I guess. But anyway-

CW: Yeah ...

SH: Richard Rohr disagrees, and I would love to side with Richard Rohr on this one.

Okay, the question becomes, Cynthia, how much work do we owe God? I’ve told you before about my stake presidency member explaining to me one night that we should go to bed every night, quote, “completely worn out in the service of the Lord.”

Oh. Nadia Bolz-Weber has something to say about this. “When we add ‘Get more rest and take Sabbath seriously’ to our to-do list, we might be tempted to think of it as nothing more than a scheme to fuel us back up just so we can do more work. After all, it is our work that is so very important since that’s the thing that justifies our existence, and the world really needs us.”

“But the wise Rabbi Abraham Heschel reminds us that Sabbath rest is actually about stopping long enough to see that God’s redeeming work in the world goes on with or without us.”

CW: Oh my goodness.

SH: We are not responsible to do all of God’s work in the world, Cynthia.

CW: That’s gonna be my second takeaway from this episode. That’s amazing.

SH: That’s a hard one for Latter-day Saints because we build temples specifically to do God’s work in the world, right? I mean, we very specifically connect those dots that we’re doing God’s work, so that’s tough.

SH: Okay, back to Cindy S. Lee, who is my original mind blower on the Sabbath.

She says this: “In letting go, we acknowledge what we can’t do and what we need God to do. Rabbi Abraham Heschel writes, ‘Rest on the Sabbath as if all your work were done.’ Rest is knowing we’ve done what we could do this week, and now we need to receive grace. Rest is the center and heart of our work because it acknowledges that in the end, no matter how hard we work, we continue to be dependent on the grace of God.”

CW: Yes.

SH: This is why I brought grace into it earlier. Because I think they’re very much the same kind of thinking, this idea that we have to, we owe it to God to earn, do, produce, you know, everything that we can.

CW: Okay, but that, Susan, for us as Latter-day Saints is such a total paradigm shift.

SH: Oh, total.

CW: I’m not sure it’s possible. Like rest as refuel, versus rest to view God’s ongoing grace.

SH: Exactly.

CW: That is huge.

SH: It’s huge. That is really huge. And yes- I’m gonna keep talking about it because there is more. As a younger LDS woman, a young mother, you know, with a house full of children the Sunday day of rest often included getting the kids ready for church with extra curling of hair and pressing dresses and stuff like that.

Starting Sunday dinner by prepping in advance, often the day or night before and having to shop for it and, you know, all of those things. Getting everyone to church. My husband also often had callings that took him away on Sundays. So getting everyone to church, teaching a class when I get there or leading a choir or performing a speaking assignment, right?

Going to extra meetings after if I’m in a presidency or whatever, we’d have a meeting after. Going to firesides later. Going home to finish preparing the largest meal of the week, cleaning up. Oh, okay. And I mean, where was the rest, Cynthia? Where was the rest? So it’s like, I feel like it’s easy to see where my LDS view and dread of Sabbath came from.

CW: Absolutely.

SH: I went looking a little bit on the church website to see what some of the official messaging was, and I pulled a quote from Russell M. Nelson from a talk called “The Sabbath Is a Delight,” which I thought, “Is he being ironic?” But no, he wasn’t.

But this quote explained a lot to me, and here’s what it said: “How can you ensure that your behavior on the Sabbath will lead to joy and rejoicing? In addition to your going to church, partaking of the sacrament, and being diligent in your specific call to serve, what other activities would help to make the Sabbath a delight for you?” And then he goes on to mention teaching your family the gospel, doing family history, rendering [00:50:00] service to others. He compares the Sabbath to tithing. It’s what we owe to God.

CW: Wow.

SH: So with tithing, we consecrate our money, and with the Sabbath, we consecrate our time back to God. And then he says this: “Not pursuing your own pleasure on the Sabbath requires self-discipline. You may have to deny yourself of something you might like. If you choose to delight yourself in the Lord, you will not permit yourself to treat it as any other day. Routine and recreational activities can be done some other time.”

CW: Susan, I just have to point out really quickly that I think there is a gender difference here and especially with Russell M. Nelson having been a man who was born in the 1920s, right? Like he came from a totally different structure where maybe the Sabbath could be a delight for him. But come on, where is the delight in that whole list you just read a few minutes ago?

SH: That’s what I felt. And, like, specifically denying yourself of things that might bring you pleasure. That is not the definition of a generative day for me.

CW: No. It kinda is opposite of what you were just, what we were talking about a minute ago about grace. Right. Like, this is like the total opposite antithesis of grace.

SH: And it comes directly from the highest levels-

CW: Yes

SH: ... of church teachings. So there, there’s a reason that I grew up trying to divorce myself from the Sabbath instead of trying to embrace it. And this is why I didn’t want it. I didn’t want what he was describing.

SH: Cindy Lee has something to say about this, and she says, “The issue is not that people aren’t taking their faith seriously. They’re just exhausted.”

CW: Ding, ding, ding!

SH: “An event-based church dependent on attending programs and volunteering becomes just another job to juggle with our work lives and family responsibilities.

The rhythms of the church don’t match the rhythms of people’s lives. Churches aren’t known as places of rest. Instead, we are just as busy in the church as we are at work.”

SH: “People burning out from never-ending church events indicates there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of Sabbath.”

CW: Okay, that makes me think, do you remember a few years ago when the church announced, we’re gonna start limiting extra Sunday meetings?

SH: I do.

CW: Okay, so it wasn’t just my area. This was a church-wide thing, right?

SH: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s part of why we cut the schedule back to two hours instead of three hours.

CW: Okay, but how’s that going? ‘Cause I feel like that sure fizzled fast. Like, I think collectively we are aware that there’s a problem, like that Cindy Lee quote that you just read. We’re aware there’s a problem, but I just think the tractor beam pulling us back into productivity is just too strong.

Like, our mascot is the worker bee, and that’s real, and I don’t know. I felt like there was a real concerted effort for a while to limit Sunday meetings, and then I feel like we just fell right back into old ruts.

SH: Yep. Totally agree. Totally agree. They get announced all the time. I hear them all the time announced in my ward announcements, “There will be a fireside for parents of children 12 to 18. There will be- ... seminary graduation. There will...” I mean, it’s just–

CW: There’s mission prep classes.

SH: There’s always something.

CW: Yes. Yes. Always.

SH: Exactly. There’s always something, and that’s hard to give up.

And also when they cut the church schedule, they didn’t say, “Go home and do whatever you need to do to rest and refuel yourself and your loved ones.” They said “This gives you more time to teach the gospel at home.”

CW: Right. Come Follow Me.

SH: It’s crazy.

____________________________

SH: Okay, now I wanna shift and talk for a minute about how Sabbath can introduce a regular practice of letting go. You and I had our Big Ideas episode about letting go, and we’ve talked a lot about practices this season, I think because both you and I are trying to figure out ways to incorporate some of these things into our lives, and that sometimes requires practice, right?

So let’s talk about that here. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, one of my absolute favorite thinkers in these matters of faith, says, “In Judaism, we have the Sabbath, a dedicated day of stillness each week, where we make space for all the things that are important but not urgent. Not every culture has a Sabbath, but life without dedicated time for renewal, like a life without exercise or music or a sense of humor, is a lesser life.”

Okay, so day-to-day life is about production and progress and gain. I think that we can all agree that that’s what it’s been about for most of us. Whether we want it to or not, right?

CW: Exactly.

SH: I mean, that’s just what our days are about. Rest is about letting go. And Cindy Lee says this: “In the scriptures, work and rest are not opposites. Together they create a cyclical rhythm, a continual embodied movement of unforming and reforming. As we enter into rest, we unform through [00:55:00] practices of letting go. We then experience a holy rest through the practice of stopping. When it is time to work again, we carry our holy rest into our work. Rest is the center of this rhythm, and work flows in and out of our rest.”

CW: Wow.

SH: That is the paragraph that I read in her piece that made me say, “I want that.”

CW: You want this. Right here.

SH: I want rest to become the center, and I feel like that’s a direct opposite of the way my life as I’ve known it so far, has been structured.

CW: I mean, the idea of rest being the default and work flowing in and out.

SH: Yeah.

CW: I don’t know.

SH: I don’t know either.

CW: What would that even look like?

SH: It’s huge. But I love it. I don’t know.

CW:I love it too.

SH:Something in my soul craves it. Something in my soul understands it as being deeply true, even if I don’t know how to practice it in my life. She goes on to explain that we get part of this wrong, like we have made work the center of the weekly rhythm, right, not rest.

So our identities are tied to our work. They’re tied to our doing rather than to our being. And that is why things like learning presence has had to become a practice for me because I don’t know how to just be.

I have never learned how to do that. Instead, we have this world where even our families revolve around our work, and then our society, it leaks over onto everything because our society has become set up to abuse workers, basically.

Employers are gonna take every possible thing that they can get from you, right? And then we never get rest even when we take a day off because we’re thinking about work instead of being present to our rest. We never practice letting go.

Nadia Bolz-Weber in a sermon on “NoTime to Rest,” says this: “I myself have only two speeds, go and stop. But when I stop, it’s not like I’m resting. I’m just collapsing because I can’t go anymore, and I don’t think that’s what sacred rest means. I think that maybe we’ve made an idol of multitasking and hyperactivity.”

CW: Okay, Susan. If you ever get assigned to give a lesson or a talk on the Sabbath, promise me you read that quote.

Promise me. Because that is just so bananas, so antithetical to everything I’ve been taught as a Latter-day Saint. I mean, it just rings deeply true, right? How can Sabbath be a day of rest when really we’re just collapsing because we can’t go anymore?

SH: Right. That’s not rest.

CW: That’s not rest.

SH: That’s not the same as rest.

CW: Not the same.

SH: A rest-centered rhythm as I think about what that could look like and how it might function, could be an antidote maybe to some of the effects of living immersed in this soup that we swim in of competition and scarcity and consumption and striving and abuse and greed and, like, all of the ills, all of society’s ills that you can think of.

If I could get to a rest-centered rhythm, I feel like that would-- I don’t know how much of it could undo, but it could at least, it could be an antidote. It could help undo the effects, I guess, maybe, of some of those things, ‘cause you’re never gonna get rid of all those things.

CW: You’re not.

SH: This is the world we live in. It’s the world I’m gonna live in till I die. Nothing is gonna change that much, you know, in the next 20 or 30 years.

I picked up a book by Rob Bell that I was reading along one day having no idea that it had anything in the Sabbath, anything in it about the Sabbath, and then I turned the page, and here’s a chapter called “Sabbath,” and I went, “No, Rob, no.”

I was liking this book. I don’t wanna read about the Sabbath. But by the time I finished that chapter, I was like, “Yes, Rob, yes, I want this.” He described how he and his wife decided that they might want to try incorporating Sabbath into their lives, and how it was kind of a disaster in the beginning. It didn’t go well for them, and that’s because they had absolutely no idea how to be. And when they had no idea how to do it, it drained them to be trying to do it.

It was not a generative practice for them. It was an exhausting practice trying to do something that they didn’t have any idea how to do. But he talked about taking time to actually be present, and it reminds me of when you were talking about being bored. He started-- He talked about some of the things that started to come up for them, and that leaning into those things that were coming up actually started to give them an entryway, an access point to the gifts of what Sabbath could be.

And so this is just a quote from that chapter. He says, “Sabbath forces you to listen to your life. Sabbath is a day when you are fully present to your pain, your stress, your worry, your fear. Sabbath is when you let whatever you’ve pushed down rise to the surface. Sabbath is a day when things that are broken get fixed, [01:00:00] when things within you that have torn are mended.”

CW: Okay, Susan, just hearing that quote in context of what you just said about how your initial was like, “Skip this chapter,” but then of course it’s Rob Bell, so you knew he would have something good to say.

SH: Right. You read it anyway.

CW: Like, yeah, you read it anyway. Makes me think, okay, did you love that because you have Sabbath trauma? It sounds like Rob Bell had Sabbath trauma and–

SH: Oh, I think he did. But, like, as a pastor for years, as someone who spent his life building a church, how would you not have Sabbath trauma?

You totally would.

CW: Oh, I totally remember reading in one of his books,, when he had an absolute mental breakdown, like he was crying in a closet on the floor. It was either before-

SH: Fetal position

CW: ... or after a sermon. Yeah, he’s in the fetal position.

SH: Yep. Yep.

CW: So yes, he totally gets it, and I love that he is in this. Just this one paragraph here, and I read this book, but it’s been a few years, how he’s trying to reframe Sabbath as well.

So we’re not alone.

SH: No. We’re not alone, and that’s kind of what I have seen again and again as I prepared for this conversation. And just knowing that has been healing for me. Like, okay, I’m not the only person who hasn’t known what to do with this, hasn’t wanted to do anything with it, and, you know, all of that, who didn’t grasp what God was trying to do, I think in, when this rhythm was conceived.

SH: Okay, Cynthia, let’s talk about “How can rest become holy?” Like, how could we learn to see rest as virtuous for its own sake?

CW: Yes, please.

SH: Isn’t it ironic that in Jesus’ religion, we don’t see rest as inherently worthy? I mean-

CW: It’s not just ironic, it’s sad.

SH: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

What did we miss?

CW: What did we miss?

SH: In those verses? I think that we think of scriptures like that the exact same way that we think of being saved by grace, that Jesus meant after all we can do.

Like, he didn’t say it, but that’s the quiet part.

CW: That’s the quiet part.

SH: Which we mistakenly interpret as after we’ve already done everything that we possibly can do and we’re going to bed exhausted in the service of the Lord, right?

Cw: Right, right.

SH: I think that’s exactly what people don’t say out loud, but what they tack on when they read those verses.

CW: That’s so sad.

SH: We see Jesus remove himself and rest repeatedly in the New Testament.

CW: Yeah. Boy, we missed it, didn’t we? We really missed it there.

Sh: We missed it.

CW: I mean, this is why I think learning to meditate, and by meditate I mean, like, being quiet, being still, being bored, has really been so hard for me because I 100% absorbed the, I don’t know, “it doesn’t have any value unless I can measure it” work ethic.

I mean, for crying out loud, I majored in business management with an emphasis in financial services, which is all about-

SH: You were literally trained for this, Cynthia.

CW: Literally trained to measure things, particularly money.

SH: Right.

CW: And I’m glad it’s not just me, that even you, an English major, also absorbed that “If it can’t be measured, it doesn’t have any value; it doesn’t count” work ethic. Yeah.

Sh: It doesn’t mean anything. Right.

CW: Gross. Gross. Really gross. Like, who gets…

CW: Who... I mean, okay, and here’s... I mean, and this is kind of what we’ve been talking about the whole time, but I’m just gonna kind of put a fine point on it here. Like, who gets to define rest and worship?

SH: Well, that’s a great question.

CW: I mean-

SH: That’s a really great question.

CW: Okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go in the way back machine here and tell you about two different roommates I had. One roommate, we’re freshmen, it’s our first semester at BYU. I’m sitting on my bed, it’s Sunday, I’m listening to, I don’t know, the radio, a CD, or whatever, and she comes in and physically turns off my radio and said, “This is not Sunday music.”

SH: Of course she did.

CW: And I was like, “My mother is 600 miles away. You are not her.” You know? So I was, like, totally ticked about that, okay?

Second roommate, ‘cause this poor roommate went home sick and had to have surgery at the end of the semester. So the roommate who took her place, we would get into–neither of us had a car–but sometimes she would borrow her sister’s car, and we would get out of church, get in the car, and we would drive around the hills in Provo, and we would blast music, not churchy music. And it just felt like the most worshipful thing to be with my friend who I love, who I still love, and I actually sent this message to her on her birthday in February.

That’s been my thing, is I, like, text a friend a favorite memory I have of them, and I said, “My favorite memory of you is driving around Provo after church blasting our music,” and her saying out loud to me, “How could people think this isn’t worshipful?”

Like, she’s there, [01:05:00] we’re friends, the windows are down, the breeze is blowing in.

Like, one experience, the experience with roommate number one felt very limiting to me. First of all, nobody likes being bossed around.

SH: Right, right.

CW: Second of all, the second roommate experience felt very expansive. Like, she was describing this, like, expansive moment as we were together riding around on a Sunday afternoon listening to I don’t know, something like Depeche Mode really loud on the radio. So I don’t know.

SH: Love it. No, love it.

CW: Just a contrast in experiences there.

SH: Absolutely, and I testify that this difference that you have pointed out between these two roommates is true because this has been my experience as during my life I have found things that reset me and gave me glimpses, I guess, of a kind of oh joy, I hate to use that word, of something–something larger, I guess, that I, some feeling I wanted in my life and didn’t have. Like, I’ve found practices like that, none of them, none of which would’ve been deemed appropriate on the Sabbath Day by many members. So, like, who gets to define this?

CW: Who gets to define it?

SH: That is the question. Yeah and I hope we leave our listeners thinking about that question because–spoiler–you get to define it.

CW: Spoiler.

SH: You do. You do. The Sabbath was made for you

___________________

SH: Okay, in addition to physical rest, we need psychic rest from striving and anxiety. We need an intentional time to reconnect with God or with our deepest selves or, you know, whatever it is that we’re reaching to connect with in our lives. And who could say anything better about this than Mirabai Star?

And she says, “It is an initially reluctant dropping down into the emptiness and an ultimate experience of peace when we stop doing and rediscover simple being. It is the Sabbath of the soul when we heed the call to cease creating and remember that we are created.”

CW: Okay, can I add a subtitle? Our episode title is Big Ideas Sabbath: Rediscovering Simply Being.

SH: Oh, so good. Yes, that’s exactly it. Yeah, she nailed it. I think that’s exactly it.

CW: She nailed it.

SH: Yeah, that’s the whole “consider the lilies” thing. They were created. This is what Jesus is saying. God has done this work already for you. Why are you working? It’s been done.

And then one more line from Rob Bell, “When we spend a day being fully present, we quickly discover how much of the rest of our lives we aren’t fully present.”

And I think that’s what you’ve discovered, like sitting in a doctor’s office being bored.

It probably has had your attention like, “Oh, wow, I don’t do this very often.”

I don’t pay attention to all these thoughts very often. Okay. I mean, I don’t know what any of this would look like. I was trying to think of what spiritual practices of rest and attention could be and I think that they would need to be things for our minds and things for our spirits and things for our bodies, and I think that we could probably all come up with ideas in all of those categories, and we would also know which of those categories we were most hungry for.

CW: I think so.

SH: Like where we really needed the rest. Yes. And so, like, I would encourage people, if you wanna start thinking about Sabbaths, to think about some of what that might be.

Like for years, I got the side eye from my family and from other church friends that I went for runs. I know I’ve talked about this before.

CW: Yes.

SH: I called them praise runs. You could find me running up the street on Sunday morning with tears streaming down my face, listening to music that absolutely was not Sunday music–it was running music–but having a spiritual experience.

CW: Love it

SH: It was working on my body, it was working on my spirit, it was freeing my mind.

It was like everything that I needed.

So, anyway, women, you have the ability to figure this out if you want it, and it is gonna look different for everyone.

All right, I wanna give the last word to Nadia Bolz-Weber. Will you read it for us?

CW: You bet. Oh my gosh, I’m glad we’re giving her the last word. I think we gave her the last word on our myth episode as well.

SH: We did a couple... Yeah, we did.

CW: So, okay.

SH: ‘Cause she’s so good, Cynthia.

CW: I know. She’s so good. Okay, she says, “The rest of the shepherd who makes you lay down in green pastures is not about time off from work. It’s about time off from all forms of worthiness.”

“Sacred rest is a break from the am I productive enough, lovable enough, safe enough, thin enough, rich enough, strong enough worthiness system we live under. The sacred rest that is yours never comes from being worthy. It never comes through adopting the right kind and the right amount and the right quality of spiritual practices, although if those bring you a sense of wellbeing, then by all means don’t set them aside.

“The rest that is yours and mine comes from the promise of the gospel that [01:10:00] Jesus came to save sinners, that Jesus came to heal and love and save the sin sick and the over-functioning, that Jesus came to give rest to the weary and the restless, to give rest to harried housewives and overworked social workers and mildly depressed executives.

“So rest. Rest knowing that you are justified not by your busyness, but by grace through faith. Rest in the knowledge of how madly God loves you, not because of who you are, but because of who God is. Rest in that, not because you should, but because you can.”

SH: Thank you.

CW: Moment of silence for that.

SH: Thank you. So good.

CW: Thank you. Yes.

SH: Thank you. Yes I can’t wait to continue thinking about this subject from the perspective of Sabbath because I can.

CW: I really think, Susan, we’re gonna have to revisit this in six months. I want to know, ‘cause I really do wanna know in six months if this really had resonance for you, or if it was just fun to talk about. So to be continued?

SH: To be continued. Thank you.

CW: Thanks.

_________________________________

Voicemail 1: Hey, Cynthia and Susan. It’s Lynn. I’ve been listening to some of your older episodes in between your newer episodes releasing, and I was listening to one of your revisits of the topic of what women don’t get, and it just made me think a bit more about priesthood ordination and authority through priesthood keys.

And I was talking to my husband about it, and I told him that if I ever had the opportunity to speak one-on-one with a general authority, I would just genuinely ask what it is that makes priesthood necessarily... well, priesthood ordination and authority through keys necessarily exclusive to the male gender.

Because as far as I understood it through all of my study and research there was nothing inherently about priesthood ordination and authority through keys that requires the holder to be male. And my husband kind of just sat there and thought about it for a moment and said, “You know what? You’re right.

I don’t think there is any reason why it’s exclusive.” And so I told him, “Well, if it’s, if there’s no reason for it to be exclusive, then why can’t it be inclusive?” And he thought about it and he said, “You know, I never thought about that.” And I just, I’m so grateful that I am one of the lucky few that has a husband who’s willing to listen to me when I talk about things like that, and he doesn’t immediately assume that I’m, like, leaving the church or something.

So just fun things to think about from you guys.

Voicemail 2: Hi, Cynthia and Susan. I listened to your podcast last week where you were raging, and I really loved it. And then later on in the week, I had a conversation with the Relief Society president in our ward, and she mentioned multiple women talking to her about how they were worried that with the change in Sunday school presidencies, men were going to feel even more not needed in church.

And I just had to laugh because what do you mean men aren’t needed in church? Literally, the church is run by men. They only make wards based on how many men are in the area. And I just I don’t I don’t understand. And it’s not even, like, a guarantee that women are going to get that calling in the first place.

And I think the men will be fine. I really think they should be fine here.

______________________________

SH: Oh, wait. Oh, no, this is you. Sorry. Go for it. Oh, yeah.

CW: It was just me.

____________________________________

SH: Yep. I’m going to skip. We’re running so short on time that I’m gonna skip.

CW: Are we? We’re at 40 minutes.

____________________________________

SH: Rabbi Abraham Sesil... I can’t pronounce that

____________________________________

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Hello!

We’re sliding toward the end of Season 11, and we hope you’ve enjoyed our discussions about Big Ideas. Our summer break will arrive just in time to give you an opportunity to pick up any episodes you missed! We’re looking forward to some down time to refuel and plan our next moves. If you’re wondering whether there will be a Season 12 … the answer is yes! No precise date yet for when regular episodes resume, but watch this space for updates and bonuses over the summer.

In the meantime, here are a few items to keep in mind—

Upcoming:

6/2 Ep. 266: Big Ideas | Sabbath—No matter how you mark the day (or don’t), we hope you’ll enjoy exploring this concept with us!

6/4 Say More | Blakelee Edition

6/9 Ep. 267: What Do You Say | Listener Edition 4

6/11 Worthy Stuff | Susan Edition

6/12 Friday Live Chat | 10:00 am Mtn

6/16 Ep. 268: Season 11 Wrap | We’ll revisit a few of this season’s episodes and ideas … in conversation with some of you!

6/18 Say More: At Last She Writes It | 2

6/19 Friday Live Chat | 10:00 am Mtn

6/25 ALSSI News

Looking ahead:

7/10 Friday Live Chat | 10:00 Mtn

7/16 ALSRI Book Club, 7:00 pm Mtn

7/21 ALSSI Live Event, Salt Lake City 🥳

One more shout-out for our Substack Chat:

What’s our Substack chat? It’s a dedicated conversation space for paid subscribers—full of amazing ALSSIers—where we talk about everything. Our chat is available 24/7! We’d love to add you to the group—you can find info about subscribing here. (A paid subscription is also a great way to support the podcast!)

Two Fridays per month, we host a Live Chat on Zoom. We talk about episodes and/or other timely topics. These conversations are recorded for chat members to enjoy later if you’re unable to join us.

Questions?
Want the community, but can’t afford to subscribe?
Send us an email at atlastshesaidit@gmail.com and Katie will hook you up, no explanations required!

Now … about that Live Event—

This time we’re planning something a little different from our previous events—C & S will do some of the talking, but mostly we want everyone to come prepared for an evening of cake and conversation! There’ll be plenty of time for catching up with old friends and making new ones (hint: we’ll be playing What Do You Say).

Watch for registration info to hit your inbox about 2 weeks from now.

And what about At Last She Read It?

Our summer book club meeting will be here before you know it! Attendees voted at the last meeting, and Lilith, by Nikki Marmery, is our next selection for July’s discussion.

From Goodreads: “Lilith is the story of the first woman, who was expelled from Paradise for disobedience. In this retelling of the Hebrew myth that justified and explained woman’s subjection to man, Lilith will have her revenge—however long it takes. In the Garden of Eden, at the beginning of time, an outrageous lie is born: that women are inferior.”

Whether or not you get a chance to read the book, we hope you’ll plan to join us for the conversation!

Many thanks!

We asked for donations, and you came through! No surprise—this community rocks!—but as always we’re humbled by the generous response. A thousand thanks for every form of support you provide the ALSSI project. We hope we return the favor by providing something you need, whether through the podcast, the voices of Say More, or the online conversations.

Happy Summer!

Warmly—or hotly, depending on where this finds you, ☀️
Cynthia, Susan,
and the ALSSI Team

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Vocation at its deepest level is “something I can’t not do, for reasons I’m unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself, but are nonetheless compelling.” This description from Parker Palmer frames the journey of chaplain Jenny Richards. She says, “If there is an openness to life, then I think vocation is where we meet our desires and our love of God. They meet, and if I think it’s something I can’t not do, that’s very compelling. And it’s terrifying.” In Episode 265, Jenny joins Cynthia and Susan for a conversation about the remarkable path she’s walking, and how she came to be on it.

Notes & Quotes:

Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in Utah: https://www.ecsutah.org/aboutcpe
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, by Parker J. Palmer
This is Why I Find Pema Chodron So Essential, Pema Chodron with Ezra Klein, The Ezra Klein Show
Women’s Uncommon Prayers: Our Lives Revealed, Nurtured, Celebrated, by Elizabeth Geitz

"My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.” —Anne Lamott

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” —Parker Palmer

Vocation at its deepest level is, "This is something I can't not do, for reasons I'm unable to explain to anyone else and don't fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling.” —Parker Palmer

Power
“When she learned that she
Didn’t have to plug into
Someone or something
Like a toaster into a wall

When she learned that she
Was a windmill and had only
To raise her arms
To catch the universal whisper
And turn
turn
turn

She moved.

Oh, she moved.
And her dance was a marvel.”
—Carol Lynn Pearson

For Women
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: Awaken us with your Holy Spirit,
and preserve us from the temptation to stay comfortably asleep;
encourage us to proclaim our authenticity,
and preserve us from a false accommodation to the world;
breathe into us your breath of life, stir us up into activity,
and preserve us from the inertia that leads to complicity in our own
oppression;
open our eyes to the promises in creation, open our hearts to the love and example of Jesus, open our ears to the persistent whisperings of the Holy Spirit, and preserve us from a sense-deadened existence;
give us the confidence to engage technology
and preserve us from regarding it with fear or with too much trust;
remind us that we are made in your image, that we, too, are creators, lovers, decision makers;
instill in us the pride of our heritage,
and preserve us from excessive, crippling humility.
Above all, gracious God,
give us the grace to hear your word to us and the courage to claim and act on that inner authority; preserve us from the tyranny of the external authority that comes from the world.
Amen.
—The Reverend Margaret Cunningham (from A New Zealand prayer book)

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Many thanks to listener Annie Colón for her work in transcribing this episode!

This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:

Listen to Episode 265

JR: I also want to just include that when we spoke of the divine rescuer, I felt like I was hitting the limits of what was possible within our faith tradition. This call to chaplaincy has also opened this ability that is rare for a woman in the church to offer spiritual counsel to men. And as a chaplain, there is this sense of anonymity.

I’m not a therapist that’s going to follow up with further visits, and I’m not clergy, but I’m someone that can represent a spiritual authority and a space in which men and women have both confessed and had me hold space with them in their existential worries and fears. And LDS men, non-LDS men, men of no faith, I have encountered all of these types of individuals that need a spiritual authority to talk them through things.

And that’s a rare opportunity for an LDS woman.

SH: Hello, I’m Susan Hinkley.

CW: And I’m Cynthia Winward.

SH: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today’s episode is Let Your Life Speak, a conversation with Jenny Richards. Hello, Jenny.

JR: Hi, Susan and Cynthia.

CW: Welcome. We’re so glad to have you.

JR: Thank you.

SH: Yeah, we’re pretty excited for this conversation, and our listeners are soon going to understand why we are so excited because it’s gonna be awesome.

CW: Yes. Yes.

SH: But we want to start by letting you take a minute or two just to give us a little introduction, maybe something to give some context to why we’re having this conversation today and let our listeners know anything about yourself that you would like them to know.

JR: All right. Well, thank you for having me on. I have been an avid listener for all six years.

CW: Wow.

JR: And you’ve been companions along my own journey, which we’ll talk about a little bit today. So I am coming to you from the hub, Salt Lake City. And I am currently a hospital chaplain intern, and we’ll talk a little bit about the road that has led me there.

But I grew up right here in Salt Lake. My musical pursuits held me for my first half of life. I did an undergrad and a master’s at Juilliard in piano.

SH: Wow.

JR: I married my high school sweetheart, and we moved to New York to start our marriage, which is highly recommended. We have lived on the East Coast for about 13 years as he was doing medical school and residency, and I was keeping the lights on, teaching piano, and playing gigs.

We have four kids. We have two sons, two daughters, exceptional humans, all on their own journeys.

And I would say that there are moments in life that open you up to new understanding, new direction, and expansion of faith. And I’ve had several of those that we can talk about. But, I continue to pursue greater knowledge, greater understanding.

I went back to school and got a master’s in Theological Studies at the Franciscan School of Theology. and in a crazy pivot, I am about to start at Duke Divinity School this fall-

SH: Wow!

JR: for an M.Div. So, life is so weird. Maybe the last thing I’ll say in an introduction is I really have this obsession with inflatable dinosaur costumes.

And any chance, any chance I have to either wear one or encourage my loved ones to wear one, it is the ultimate source of joy in my life.

CW: This just gives me the best visual in my head right now of -

SH: That’s pretty good.

CW: Like-

SH: That’s pretty good ...

CW: how many people go to Juilliard and are obsessed with dinosaur costumes?

I just, I’m guessing it’s really small. I mean,

SH: I think one.

CW: One?

SH: I think one. That’s my guess.

JR: I’ve told my friends, and the circle keeps getting bigger, that if you love me, you will wear an inflatable costume at my funeral. Please. This is not a joke. And it doesn’t have to be a dinosaur, but that would be posthumously my most beloved moment.

SH: That’d be the best funeral ever, huh?

JR: Yes. So please spread that far and wide. I’m not kidding.

CW: Okay. Okay.

SH: Oh, well, life may be weird, Jenny, but your life sounds amazing to me. And I just wanna be your friend.

JR: Aw.

SH: So I’m so excited for this conversation. Cynthia’s gonna take us through the discussion today, so I’m just gonna turn it over to you two.

Take it away.

CW: Well, we’ve had a couple conversations before recording this episode. You wanted to make sure we were kind of on the same path, like what do you think your listeners need to hear, and that kind of a thing. And as you and I talked through text or on the phone, like, I just kind of pictured Jenny going from like, lily pad to lily pad.

And I just kind of loved this visual of a Latter-day Saint woman saying, “This is where I’m called to be right now,” and then pivoting and saying, “Jump to the next lily pad. This is where I’m called to be.” So I think that’s what Susan and I just wanna hear about today. We wanna hear about all your lily pad stops.

So maybe I [00:05:00] can start with this question, which is how would you describe each next spiritual step that you have taken in your life? Would you say you felt God calling you? Were you just following your energy? Or I mean, curiosity took you to them. I mean, we would just love to hear how you would frame each one of those next steps.

JR: It’s so interesting the way I think God works in each of us, and I do believe that there is, there’s spiritual energy coming in and out of us all the time.

I like the concept of vocation, which we don’t talk a lot about in our faith tradition. I think we get callings-

SH: Right

JR: which are assignments that are offered from a man in authority, and you can say yes, and sometimes, as we’re coming to understand, you actually can say no.

But the idea of a call, I think, is a larger Christian term, which is something between you and God.

CW: Yeah.

JR: And the call, the vocation I like Parker Palmer’s a Quaker, a writer, and theologian who I deeply love. I know he’s come up on the podcast.

CW: Yes. Yes.

JR: And he describes vocation. He says, “Vocation at its deepest level is this is something I can’t not do, for reasons I’m unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself, but are nonetheless compelling.”

And I think that if there is an openness to life then I think vocation is where we meet our desires and our love of God. They meet, you know, and it’s-- if I think it’s something I can’t not do, that’s very compelling.

SH: Right.

JR: And it’s terrifying.

So the call to chaplaincy, which I do feel was a call, and a call in the sense that God spoke forth and breathed into my life.

It came at a period of my life that I was feeling so much tension as a woman in the church. I was serving as a Relief Society President. I was trying to expand the borders of Zion, and this it’s heavy work. It’s heavy lifting. It comes at a cost, as you both well know.

And I was experiencing a season of real desolation spiritually.

I felt that there was a lot of scrutiny about my desire to expand the tent.

I wondered if I could continue to serve in that role and in the church. I just felt very shackled and discouraged, and I remember being in a real space of spiritual pain. And this sounds a little woo-woo, but I know we like woo-woo here.

CW: Yes.

JR: But I was at my kitchen counter reading. It was late at night. My family was in bed. I really was weighed down, and I had this sort of energy arise in me with a word that was chaplaincy.

JR: And it was just sitting there in my mind, almost like written. And I was stunned because it didn’t have any precursor.

There wasn’t any-- like, it wasn’t on my mind. It wasn’t something I was thinking about or studying or researching. And along with that directive was, “Start now.”

And I slept on it, and I couldn’t shrug it. It wasn’t like- ... “Oh, that was weird.”

SH: Right.

JR: “Wow, I must have been really tired last night.” It was this energy that was relentless, and with that came, “You have to go back to school.”

So I began in earnest researching what is chaplaincy, what does that look like? Where would I go to school? Why am I doing this? This has nothing to do with the bingo card that I have been so neatly given.

SH: Right.

JR: But it was relentless, and so the pursuit ensued, and I have been changed forever by this call.

CW: So when was that? Like timeline, how long ago was the-

JR: Sure

CW: chaplaincy vision?

JR: Yeah, the chaplaincy vision was November of 2022.

CW: Okay.

JR: I also had a strange experience, and I’ll back you up just a little bit. My husband Nate and I went to Italy in 2018. It was our 20th anniversary. We were excited. We were on this great trip.

We went to Assisi. I feel very lucky to be able to do that. In Assisi, we learn about St. Francis.

SH: Right.

JR: Right? He’s the guy. But there’s another saint up there in Assisi named Clare, who I never had heard of till I was walking the cobblestone streets of Assisi.

And we went into her, the nave of the chapel that’s dedicated to her, and I felt, again, this compelling force saying, “Learn of her.”

And I fell to my knees, and a little Mormon girl does not venerate saints. Like that’s never been in my repertoire.

SH: Right.

JR: But I felt this connection to St. Clare That held me, and I went home and looked up everything I could and bought every book I could find on Amazon about St. Clare.

Who is this woman? She was St. Francis’s partner and visionary and companion. Why do we not know of her? Who is this woman? And so in this fast-forward to this space where I’m listening to the Spirit [00:10:00] tell me, “You have to go back to school,” I’m researching online programs. I can’t move. I have young kids.

And I was looking at Loyola, I was looking at a program in Denver, and then I woke up one night with the strangest phrase in my mind: St. Clare, San Diego, two times. St. Clare, San Diego. And it’s 3:00 AM, and I’m like, “What the heck is this?” So I’m like, “I wonder, I wonder if there’s, like, a Franciscan program or something,” and I Google Franciscan Theology school United States, San Diego, University of San Diego.

CW: Nice.

JR: Google online masters. Oh, they have an online degree. And it was like, well, the search is over. That’s what I gotta do. And it’s so weird. It’s just so weird, but I really feel and I’m convicted that this was God speaking into my life and saying, “You know what? This is a divine rescue, and this is a way you’re going to be able to expand your ability to minister and love and care, and you’re not gonna have this ceiling on you that has felt so restrictive.”

CW: And was it a divine rescue? Like, in that moment where you were having so much turmoil being a Relief Society President and feeling... What was the word? I don’t wanna say shackled. I don’t remember what was the word you-

JR: Oh, no, I did say shackled. Just-

CW: Okay, you did. Okay.

JR: Yeah.

CW: So, so did it feel like the divine rescue then?

Like, as you went through the program?

JR: Yes.

CW: It healed-

JR: Oh, 100% ...

CW: it healed you from-

JR: It healed me. And, you know, I continued to serve as a Relief Society president while I was a student at FST.

SH: Wow.

JR: And so I had these two... And I want to be clear that my service in that calling was exquisitely life-changing. To walk with women in pain- to be able to sort of move with authority, even in the ways that we’re prescribed was still such a gift to the women in my ward and to myself.

CW: I bet.

JR: But so, so to be carrying that and then also be a Catholic theology student- It made for some probably interesting lessons and, but it expanded me.

Susan, you’ve talked about the box that-

SH: Right ...

JR: the God box. Oh, it blew that God box so far wide open. I had new language. I had new understanding. I had new, a new sense of the world and how to even make words for theology terms.

CW: Wow.

JR: I was introduced to a pronoun-less God.

SH: Yes.

JR: God’s self. I can’t go back.

I can’t go back to a pronouned God because it’s bigger, you know? So it was a, it was a divine rescue, and I continue to just be breathless with gratitude to God for this.

And, you know, we had classes like intercultural theology where you learn how the gospel lands to a Black woman and who’s experienced slavery in her genes and still lives in Africa.

Like, what does the gospel look like to her?

CW: Yeah.

JR: What does the gospel look like to someone who’s queer? Like, how does it land? How does it land for a woman? How does it land for a disabled person?

But even to just have the language to say, “Your social location is this, and here is some increased understanding of how the gospel might land for someone who has a very different social location than me,” you know?

Feminist theology, I had no idea that existed.

CW: Right.

JR: Liberation theology, I was like, “Yes, there is language to what I feel.”

SH: Right.

JR: Restorative justice, like all of these terms were never part of my-

SH: Sure ...

JR: my language. The incarnation, that was new.

SH: Right?

JR: And Franciscans believed that-- And we had this whole fascinating discussion in our cohort about did Christ come because of sin?

Was Christ plan B to come if we messed up? Or was the world created for love and in love, and would Christ have come even if there wasn’t original sin? And there’s, you know, there’s schools of thought for both, but I love the ability to wrestle and wonder and say, “Gosh.”

CW: Yeah.

JR: “Whoa.”

SH: Right.

JR: What if the earth was created for love and in love, and not as a rescue from sin in any way?

Like, it’s just-- I don’t think that contradicts our doctrine, it just expands the-

CW: Yeah

JR: the wonder. So lots to think about, and I think probably the highlight of my experience doing that master’s of theology was this border pilgrimage I was able to go on. This was five days after the CBP One app was shut down.

And I went with eight other students, and we were able to kind of go past the border and into the depths of where these migrants were staying in shelters. You know, usually you, you pop over to Tijuana, get a souvenir and come back.

SH: Right.

JR: But this was like we were taken by guides that know the terrain, and I witnessed such [00:15:00] suffering. I was not okay.

And I needed to not be okay so that this will propel me into action for the rest of my life.

And to see the devastation and the excruciating unfairness, to use one of our own terms from Elder Renlund, the excruciating unfairness of families who had been waiting patiently for their legal appointment to come through, and it was obliterated.

CW: Yeah.

JR: So that was sort of the most engaged human work because I got to be there. And then, you know, at night we would talk about liberation theology and restorative justice and what this looks like theologically, and where is Christ showing up for the migrant right now, right here in this pain?

CW: Yeah.

JR: And what is our role? Which is to witness.

You know? Which is the work of chaplaincy, too. You don’t fix anything.

SH: Right.

JR: So yeah, I do consider it a... all of it is such a gift, and all of it is something I cannot not do.

SH: Can I ask you kind of a small question? I mean, I really hate to even ask this question, but I’m gonna ask it because I know as a Mormon woman where I come from and I think where a lot of our listeners come from.

And so I can’t help but be curious about your husband in relation to all of this, because not every woman would feel the freedom to pursue the things that you have pursued. And so the fact that he followed you to the East Coast to Juilliard and you were doing your thing, like tells me something at the outset about your relationship and the way that you both came into it.

But could you just tell me a little bit about what it’s like for him to be married to you, to this calling?

JR: I, yes, I’m so glad you asked, and I’m so glad to have the opportunity to tell you about him for a moment. And I realize with full heart that this is not the type of relationship that many women in faith expansion journeys-

SH: Right

JR: get to have. But he-

SH: Right

JR: is, he is my companion on the journey.

CW: Yeah.

JR: We are expanding together. And he’s such a contemplative. He’s such a mystic. He- If anything, he propels me- And invites me to think differently and bigger and dream and imagine, which I think is a spiritual practice. To imagine what is possible is a very spiritual act.

SH: Oh, could we have a whole conversation about that? Come back.

CW: I knew you were gonna say that, Susan. I knew it.

JR: Oh my gosh.

SH: So exciting.

JR: Oh. And he, I think he just says, “Dream big, and let me go with you.” I mean, I have a couple of books that I loved so much from my studies at FST, and I would read them, and then he would read them, and we have both of our notes.

What, where he was pulling stuff and I was pulling stuff and, you know, we talk about it. This is our Roman Empire, you guys.

SH: Okay.

JR: It’s a communal Roman Empire. Faith and growth and evolution and expansion is our bread and butter. Like, that’s what we talk, dream, and breathe together.

SH: Beautiful.

JR: So. It is beautiful, and I recognize that this is a privilege.

So he is great, and he sits with wonder with me in what life has for both of us. And I hope my kids will inherit this sense of wonder and sense of permission to dream.

CW: I love that you asked that question, Susan.

Like you said, you hate to even ask it, and yet I’m sure we have plenty of listeners listening right now thinking, like you said, Susan, this sounds like a small question, but for so many it is their reality that maybe they are feeling drawn to these different spaces of learning and growth and yet that would be really difficult for a lot of women to be able to-

JR: Yes

CW: to go on a similar journey. So I do think it is worth mentioning and

JR: Yes.

SH: It would be threatening to some of the

CW: Yes

SH: people in the closest relationships of their lives.

CW: Right.

SH: It might

CW: Yeah

SH: freak their parents out. It might freak their best friend out,

JR: Right

SH: you know, all of those things. Unfortunately.

JR: I agree. I agree, and I hold space and care for that.

And I also hope that it won’t stop women from imagining what is possible.

CW: Yeah.

SH: Yeah.

JR: I just think there will never be change if we can’t imagine it first.

SH: Can I get that on a T-shirt? There will never be change if we can’t imagine it first.

I want that printed on my church bag. I’m going to wear it on my chest

CW: That sounds good

SH: every time I step in a ward

CW: Yeah

SH: building from now on.

JR: Yeah. I mean, think of MLK, like, “I have a dream.”

SH: Right.

JR: He didn’t even get to see that fulfilled, but if he didn’t dream it and say it, where would we be?

SH: Right.

JR: So, and again, we may just be planting seeds with our dreams right now.

We may just be saying to our daughters and those that come after us, “Psst, look what’s possible.”

SH: Right.

JR: And I mean, if that’s not the most holy work someone can do, I don’t know what is.[00:20:00]

CW: Okay, Jenny, you’ve mentioned that you felt a call to chaplaincy, and tell us anything you want to share with us about that and what you have learned, what we can learn from you about being a chaplain. I guess my first question is like, are you specifically an LDS chaplain? I don’t quite understand how that works.

So tell me how that works and then go from there, please.

JR: Sure. Okay, so as a chaplain, you don’t-- If you’re a good chaplain, you don’t come in with your faith tradition proudly displayed. You come in as an accompaniment to wherever people are, on whatever faith journey, or no faith. I think the word spiritual caregiver is rising up as an alternative to chaplain because sometimes there’s religious overtones to the word chaplain.

SH: To chaplain.

JR: And people will think-

CW: Oh, yeah

JR: Oh, you’re, I mean, patients will tease me like, “Are you here to do last rites?”

SH: Right.

JR: Or like, “Oh, I don’t talk about religion.” And truly the role of chaplain came from religious clergy that were in the military. That’s where it originated.

CW: Right.

JR: But I think as we evolve and society evolves, the need for spiritual care can be a lot more inclusive of a term, spiritual caregiver, than chaplain. And so when you asked am I an LDS chaplain? I am an LDS woman who is a chaplain.

CW: Okay. I didn’t know if that meant like-

JR: Yes.

CW: I guess my question was does that mean someone has to sponsor you, a religion?

JR: Yes.

CW: And so does that was my question was, does-

JR: Yes

CW: the LDS Church sponsor you or someone else?

JR: Yes. So it depends on what you do, but if you’re going to be, let’s say, a board-certified hospital chaplain, military chaplain, prison chaplain, you have to have an endorsing body.

CW: Endorsement. Okay. That was the word I was-

JR: Yes. And for many denominations, it’s an ordination. You’re ordained by

SH: Okay

JR: in the LDS, in our tradition, male chaplains must hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, so they must be ordained and endorsed.

CW: Okay.

JR: Female LDS chaplains are endorsed.

CW: Gotcha. Gotcha.

SH: Okay.

JR: And we’ll just let that sit there.

CW: Yeah.

JR: And so the process of endorsement is extensive, and I’m in the middle of that now.

CW: Okay.

JR: There’s interviews, there’s psychological testing, there’s essay form, essay type responses to questions that you fill out, and then there is requirements to maintain that endorsement. Yearly interviews with stake president and bishop.

CW: Oh. Interesting.

JR: quarterly reports. Yeah, and I’m walking down this path, again, just “God, lead this next step.”

There are other ways to be endorsed, and there are also positions as chaplains that don’t require endorsement. So it’s not a have to.

CW: Okay.

JR: It just depends on what you want and where you want to be hired and how you want to work.

I mean there are volunteer hospice chaplains that don’t require a lot of training, but I had this sense that if I’m gonna do this, I want to get the best training possible so that my options can be bigger.

SH: Right.

JR: And my ability to give care can be more refined, you know? So one of the pieces of chaplaincy, and this is an important piece, is called clinical pastoral education.

And this is a type of learning. It’s clinical and in class, 400 hour units are what you accrue. This is a requirement for most Christian denominations for ordination. So I saw in my experience of doing CPE a lot of women that came through doing this unit not to become chaplains, but as a piece of their required ordination process.

SH: Right.

JR: Talk about mind-blowing, guys.

CW: I’m just sitting here blowing my mind myself thinking-

JR: Yeah

CW: “What if we required this-

JR: Yes.

CW: of our own clergy in our church?” We’ll just leave that there.

JR: Well, I often have felt, and this has been spoken to me too, every person on the earth would benefit from a unit of CPE.

Not only because it helps you to minister to others in a more thoughtful and trauma-informed way, but you have to look at yourself. Shadow work is huge.

SH: Oh

CW: Yes.

JR: I know that’s come up in the podcast. That is a lot of the work of CPE. And it’s an academic study, too. I mean, you’re doing shadow work, but you’re also learning the psychology of spiritual care, trauma-informed principles, a theological grounding.

It’s very unique. It’s not therapy. It’s not school. But you do-- let me tell you one more piece of this because I think your listeners might think this is interesting. One of the requirements during CPE is to write up these extensive papers called verbatims. So you take an encounter with a patient, and if it holds energy, if you really flubbed it or maybe it went really well or maybe they disclosed something really important or really terrible or tender, any form of energetic visit you can write up as a verbatim and you write it like a script.

P1, C1, patient two, chaplain two.

Everything that you can remember to the best of your ability that you said or did and what the patient said or did and anyone else in the visit, what they [00:25:00] said or did. And then in italics, you write everything that goes on internally.

CW: Wow.

JR: “Oh, this brought up a lot of fear for me.”

“Oh, this took me back to when I was little and my dad, you know, was in pain.”

Or, “Oh this is really erupting inside of me because my political leanings are so different,” but-- and everything you’re thinking, you’ve gotta write it down.

And so you bring this script, and then they have maybe eight or nine different points that you reflect on theologically, socially, ethically.

You know, where were your strengths? Where were your weaknesses? What’s the patient’s copings? What are their resources? You know, you have to reflect extensively. And you bring this paper to your group, and you pick someone to play you and someone to play the patient-

SH: Oh

JR: and they read it to you like a play.

CW: Wow.

JR: And you read your own thoughts, but it is the most self-scrutinizing.

CW: I was gonna say this is ouchie.

JR: It’s ouchie. It’s ouchie, but it’s so refining because it helps you to say, “Oh my gosh, this is something I do by default.”

SH: Right.

JR: And I’ll tell you one of my defaults. I don’t like silence. I am learning to expand my ability to tolerate silence, and I think a lot of that has been culturally programmed in me.

We’re thinkies. We think and we talk, but we don’t know how to sit with-

CW: Correct.

JR: And so I’ve noticed that if I’m uncomfortable, I will rescue the silence by asking a question or trying to make some, you know, meaningful statement. But what I’ve learned through my group work is: stop rescuing the silence.

What gifts can come if you just wait. So you know what? It brings forth some learning that I really really wish all clergy, our bishops and stake presidents could do. It would be so beneficial to the people and to themselves.

CW: I’ll never forget the first time we, I, don’t know about you, Susan, but I had heard about CPE training when we had Sue Bergen-

SH: Yes.

CW: who was also a chaplain. We had her on the podcast several years ago. And as she was describing what that training was, my mind was just blown, and I thought, this is, in my opinion, almost irresponsible that we don’t require any-

SH: Anything

CW: anything of our clergy in our church. It’s not fair to our clergy who are put in these really difficult situations that they’re not trained for, and it’s not fair to the parishioners. Like…

JR: Right. Right. I have a dream, this is one of my dreams, that at some point, even if we can’t offer CPE, there could be a stake chaplain.

CW: Yes.

SH: Yes.

JR: Who ministers not only to the people, but to the leaders.

You know? Someone to come to when things are heavy, and not to fix, but to sit with and explore and reflect, and I feel like leaders need chaplains.

And I was told by one of my mentors that, and this is religious overtone, which I have to walk gently around, but he said, “The staff of the hospital are your parishioners. The patients are the visitors.”

The care for the staff is fundamental to a chaplain’s work. I mean, think of the physician that’s just lost a patient-

SH: Right

JR: and he slides down the floor in the hospital hallway or in the break room and tries to recover, and then has to go out and perform another surgery.

SH: Right.

JR: Where’s the spiritual care for that person?

CW: Yeah.

JR: And that’s our church leaders, in a sense are physicians, but who’s caring for them?

So I have dreams.

One can dream, right?

And yeah, a CPE unit. I just, I would love it if a bishop were called and sustained, and the congregation knew that for the next six months, that bishop was training.

CW: Yes.

SH: Was training. Right.

JR: Was doing a unit of CPE or getting psychological training or learning about suicide.

SH: Right.

JR: And in that sustaining from the congregation, we wait for that. And that is, like, imperative to me, and I long for that.

Seeing women passing through as they were being prepared to be ordained in the Episcopal or Presbyterian-

SH: Right

JR: or Unitarian, oh my gosh.

CW: Yeah, what was that like?

JR: Holy envy. Well-

SH: Right. Right ...

JR: here’s the problem. I felt first just stunned and overwhelmed with wonder, and then this tiny little seed started to develop inside of me like, “What if? What if?”

“What if?” And I had another little seed given to me, and this is an incredibly holy experience that I share with care, but in the hospital they have a chapel service, and my chaplain mentor was an ordained Episcopal priest. And she said, “Jenny, I want to give you an opportunity if you feel like you can take it.”

She said, “The elements have been consecrated by an Episcopal priest. This is an open table. Would you like to lead the communion service?” She said, “I know you’re a Latter-day Saint. I’m giving you my permission. [00:30:00] If you feel that you can do this, I think it’s completely up to you, but I think it’s fine.” And I did it.

CW: Mmm.

JR: I did it. And I cannot tell you what it was like to offer a prayer over those elements. I couldn’t get through it the first time. I just wept.

CW: I bet. I bet.

JR: I wept.

SH: Right.

JR: And I have a fellow chaplain colleague who was an incredible LDS man, and he said, “I will be there to partake-

CW: Wow

JR: because I want to be served the bread and the water by an LDS woman.”

CW: Wow.

JR: And he wept, and I wept. And just to have his support it was this sentinel experience that both broke my heart and just filled it, you know? And I know that this is, you know, walking a fine line between permission and rebellion, I guess.

SH: Right.

JR: But it felt very holy. It felt very responsible. I was very intentional. I had permission. So I’m just gonna let that sit there, but it was an incredible experience to say, “Oh my gosh, this is how it feels.”

And I knew that it was fully endorsed by God.

It was almost like God saying, “Psst, look. Look.”

CW: Wow.

JR: “Look what’s possible.”

CW: What I love about this story, Jenny, is that you got to experience this, but I love the element of your male friend who said, “I want to be there and partake.” And I think that’s something I forget a lot. I see my own wounds of patriarchy in our church.

I just had lunch with a good friend recently, and I think she supports the way the church is right now. I’m not always brave enough to you know, ask, “Do you want a female bishop?” You know? But I said to her, I said, “I think I’ve accepted now that in my 50s, in my lifetime, I will never have a woman bishop.”

JR: Right.

CW: And to her credit, she just sat there with me and sat with that. So hearing this tender story of yours, it really is touching. Thank you.

JR: Oh I’m happy to share it, and I, again, I walk with care and I recognize that as a chaplain, that was afforded me, and yet I would not be able to do that in a sacrament meeting.

CW: Correct.

SH: Right.

JR: So I also want to just include that when we spoke of the divine rescuer, I felt like I was hitting the limits of what was possible within our faith tradition. This call to chaplaincy has also opened this ability that is rare for a woman in the church to offer spiritual counsel to men.

And as a chaplain, there is this sense of anonymity. I’m not a therapist that’s gonna follow up with further visits, and I’m not clergy, but I’m someone that can represent a spiritual authority and a space in which men and women have both confessed and had me hold space with them in their existential worries and fears.

And LDS men, non-LDS men, men of no faith- I have encountered all of these types of individuals that need a spiritual authority to talk them through things. And that’s a rare opportunity for an LDS woman.

SH: Right.

CW: Yeah.

JR: I remember sitting with a former Stake President who was in agony that he wasn’t worthy as he prepared to leave this life.

CW: Oh my gosh.

JR: And that is an odd and really breathtaking gift to be able to sit with someone like that and say, “Of course you’re worthy. Of course you’re beloved.” You have done the best you can,” and really reassure him that, I mean, he felt like all the T’s weren’t crossed and I’s weren’t dotted, and I said, “God doesn’t care.”

And just to be able to say that to someone like that-

SH: Yeah

JR: I recognize in the moment what a gift. So in that sense, I do feel a divine rescue. Like, take this step and let yourself expand, and let yourself claim your own spiritual authority, because it comes directly from God. And if women can learn, we don’t need an intermediary.

SH: Right. We just have to claim it.

JR: We have to claim it.

SH: The gift is there waiting.

JR: Right. Right.

SH: We just have to claim it.

JR: We have to claim it, and we can claim it, and we don’t have to ask permission to claim it.

SH: Right.

JR: And we don’t have to ask, and we can do these things in our own way. Like, I think of Barbara Brown Taylor, I think, who said, like, “Blessings can be abundant and scattered.”

I might be wrong on that source, so.

But the way we give blessings can be the way we choose to give blessings.

And for me as a chaplain, it’s what the patient needs. I’ve held hands with a Catholic patient, and I’m not a priest, but she asked for a blessing.

And I blessed her. [00:35:00] I’ve laid my hands on a patient who had deceased alone and had no family, and I blessed her.

CW: Wow.

JR: And I don’t feel that anything prevented me from blessing.

CW: Right.

SH: Right.

JR: And it can look like holding someone’s hand and uttering and pronouncing a blessing.

And I think we can do this. God says yes.

So it’s been a incredible journey.

SH: Wow.

CW: I love hearing all of this about your chaplaincy work, and it’s just been over the last few years, right?

Like, this is-

JR: Right

CW: this has

JR: Right. I’m in my my third unit of CPE I’m doing right now, and I’m working on an oncology floor exclusively, and that is its own-

CW: I was gonna say.

JR: theology right there.

CW: Yeah.

SH: I’m sure.

JR: And I just, I walk gently and I walk slowly and bow often, as Mary Oliver says.

CW: Yeah. Yeah.

JR: And you don’t fix. Someone said to me once, a really wonderful chaplain said, “We’re used to saying, ‘Don’t just stand there. Say something.’”

SH: Right.

JR: But for a chaplain, it’s, “Don’t just say something, stand there.” “Stand there.”

CW: Nice.

JR: Just stand there. Just be there.

SH: Be there. Oh, so hard though.

JR: It’s so hard.

SH: That sounds like it should be easy, but so hard.

JR: So hard. In fact,

JR: I think, Go ahead, sorry.

SH: I don’t even wanna talk, Jenny, because I don’t want you to stop talking, but- I would, just as you say that, you know, I have a daughter who’s going through a really horrendous divorce, and she just needs to call me and vent from time to time.

She just calls me, and the floodgates open, and it all pours out, and I want to fix it so badly, or say something.

JR: Ugh.

SH: And I just have to stop myself over and over and over and over again in those conversations, and I don’t know what to say, and I feel like a failure mother because there is nothing to say.

There is nothing that I can offer to fix any of this.

And I’m really in the wrestle with this right now.

JR: So, it’s so hard. Susan, I honor you, and I think of Jesus, though, who could fix it, and Jesus wept.

SH: Right.

JR: He sat with Lazarus, and he didn’t fix it. Right. Because right then Lazarus’ family needed a witness

to say, “I see that you are hurting, and I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

And he wept.

So I often think of that. Like, Jesus didn’t always swoop in to fix things, even though he could. He wept. And I think you’re offering your daughter a really holy care.By just walking with her in the horrors, and it sounds so hard.

SH: I feel like she wishes I would fix it also.

JR: Yeah.

SH: But you know what? Maybe, I mean, maybe not. Maybe I’m not

JR: Yeah

SH: failing her in the ways that I think I am.

JR: No.

SH: I really don’t know. I really don’t know, but I wish, I just wish I had more, I guess.

JR: Well, and to see her suffer has got to weigh heavily on your heart.

SH: It does. It does.

JR: Yeah.

CW: OK, Jenny, what, because we’re friends, we’ve had a couple conversations where you have talked about the clergy women in your own life here in Utah, actually. And so I would just love to hear some stories. I would love to hear you talk about women clergy in your life and what you have learned from them and anything you want to say about your associations with them.

JR: Sure. Sure. So I will tell you that I am straddling the tension, which is beautiful, holy tension, but man, it’s hard, of attending two denominations each week and fully committing myself in both places. I’ve been attending a Presbyterian church for 18 months, and there are rich, I’m sure you both know, gifts to be a stranger in a new place-

SH: Yeah

JR: and to experience maybe a shift in activity level and hold the responses that are complicated and uncomfortable.

And I want to say I’m fully active in both, but my attendance has shifted so much as I’m trying to straddle different services on Sundays.

SH: Right.

CW: Yeah.

JR: And my kids come with me, but my husband comes with me. We do both. It is such a curriculum.

But what I have seen in the clergy, the female clergy that I’ve interacted with, is this spacious ability to claim their spiritual sovereignty. It is so incredible to witness. These women are the products of many generations of women who came before them, who planted the seeds, who plowed the ground, who cried tears, who fought, who wrestled, who suffered, who pleaded, who dreamed, and so these women get to reap.

So we’re planting now in our tradition. We’re planting.

CW: Yeah.

JR: I wanna share a couple of [00:40:00] things. I was asked to preach at the Presbyterian church I’ve been attending for a Utah Presbyterian women’s service, and this scared me to death, and I knew I had to say yes.

Because preaching is a little different than speaking in sacrament meeting.

SH: Right.

JR: It’s a different event. But I ended up speaking and preaching about the women who had come before us and the first ordained women in the Presbyterian church.

SH: Oh, wow.

JR: And I have a couple quotes that are just so energetic. So the very first ordained Presbyterian woman’s name was Margaret Towner.

She was ordained in the ‘50s, and she was told by the man who ordained her, listen to this guys, “Be the shepherd and not the pet lamb.” Ok. Got it.

SH: It’s almost like-

JR: That says so much.

SH: he knew what would happen. It’s almost like he knew the setup she was going into, isn’t it?

CW: Almost.

JR: Yep. “Be the shepherd and not the pet lamb,” and she was a shepherd. She was a powerhouse. I remember reading that Life Magazine did a full spread on her ordination because it was such a watershed moment-

SH: Right

JR: for equality.

CW: Wow.

JR: And then maybe 20 years later, the first African American woman was ordained.

Her name was Katie Cannon, and my favorite description of her from a friend was a demon slayer. She was a mighty woman. And she said, in her words, she says, “Do the work your soul must have.” And it makes me ask myself, what is the work my soul must have?

CW: That’s good.

JR: And I am at my core a liberation theologian.

The work my soul must have is the work of liberation.

SH: Right.

JR: And whether that’s the migrant, whether it’s LGBTQ, whether it’s women, but liberating the oppressed I think is the work my soul must have.

CW: Yeah.

JR: And how that’s gonna live out I look to God.

CW: Yeah.

JR: I also have a beautiful friendship with a woman named Luana Uvuale, and she is an LDS woman who made the pivot to become ordained in the Presbyterian Church, and she lives now in Hawaii, and she’s been a torchbearer for me.

I’ve only met her once, but we’ve had deep conversations on the phone maybe a dozen times. And every time I seek her help, she comes with this spaciousness And just wants me to take my journey my own way, but also has advice that I lean on. And one of the things she said to me that has stayed with me is, “When a door opens, you say yes.”

You watch for those doors, and when one opens, you say “yes”.

She’s a torchbearer. She really is, and she has such deep compassion for her native tongue, her native culture. She said half her ward came to her ordination when she was ordained-

CW: Really?

SH: Wow

JR: in the Presbyterian Church.

Yep. She did it well. She said, “I left the church slowly slowly slowlywith a lot of love.”

CW: Wow.

JR: And I don’t know what my journey holds, but I feel the spaciousness in that.

SH: Yeah.

CW: Yeah

JR: There’s no animosity, there’s no bitterness. It’s just loving, and it was a loving pivot that she felt called to because a door opened and she said yes. Interesting.

CW: Very interesting.

JR: I can’t shake the common thread of this confidence that ordained women have in themselves spiritually. Spiritual confidence.

SH: Right.

JR: I hope to emulate that in wherever I move through the world. Can I embody spiritual confidence?

CW: Wow. I know for so many women who newly land in the “At Last She Said It” space, spiritual confidence is an aspiration, is wishful thinking.

Anyway, it’s just really beautiful to think of spiritual confidence and how that really can become part of the second half of life for so many women.

JR: Yes.

SH: Yeah.

JR: And maybe it takes living out your experience in your first half of life-

CW: 100%

JR: box, you know?

SH: Right.

JR: And I think with confidence, I also want to say sovereignty.

CW: Yes.

JR: That you are governed by yourself.

SH: Right.

JR: And you can look to God as your guide, but also to yourself.

CW: Yes.

JR: That’s such a developmental need that we all have, I think, but it’s not lived out.

SH: Yeah.

CW: Totally agree.

SH: And I think for women, as you mentioned, when they come into the “At Last She Said It” space, Cynthia, I have perceived that a lot of women land here and are willing to walk here with us for a minute, not because they feel that spiritual confidence themselves yet, but I think that sometimes they have sensed a glimmer.

Like they have-

CW: Yep

SH: glimpsed a possibility for themselves that they didn’t really know existed-

JR: Yes

SH: before. And once that-

JR: Yes

SH: light comes in, they wanna follow it. It’s just-

JR: Yes

SH: it’s natural, right?

JR: Yes.

SH: It’s natural for us to wanna lean into [00:45:00] this spiritual autonomy.

JR: Yeah, autonomy.

SH: And so when you first have the thought, “Is it possible?” It’s really hard for that particular toothpaste to go back in the tube. Extinguishing that glimpse, I think is really hard, and some women sit with the glimpse for years before they feel empowered to take any kind of step in any direction. But it’s just been interesting watching women over these six years and interacting with so many women.

JR: Yeah.

SH: This process seems to play out again and again and again, and I think it’s because we come from a tradition where women have not felt that power over their own spiritual lives.

CW: That sovereignty.

JR: Yeah. I would just say pay attention to the glimmer.

SH: Yeah.

JR: Pay attention. Stop.

CW: Yep.

JR: Write it down. Sit with it. Breathe with it. The glimmers are the inbreaking of God’s voice, I think.

SH: Yeah.

CW: Totally agree.

JR: That is personal revelation. It comes in glimmers and glimpses and whispers and dreams, and it matters so much.

I think God interrupts us, but sometimes we’re too busy or too scared.

But the glimmers are an interruption.

SH: Right. Right. I mean, or can be if we-

JR: They can be

SH: if we will allow them to be. But we build a pretty a pretty good wall around that stuff. I heard, I was hearing an interview with Pema Chödrön the other day, and she was talking about in, I don’t remember, one of her, one of her Buddhist teachers had covered a window with black plastic and then talked about putting a pinhole in that black plastic and the light that came through. And the idea was, the metaphor is that there was so much behind that tiny pinhole of light.

JR: Wow. Wow.

SH: And that’s what those glimmers are for an LDS woman.

JR: Wow.

SH: We’re sitting behind the black plastic, and when something pokes it with a pin, suddenly we sense that there is something else back there-

JR: Oh my gosh.

SH: that we’ve never even imagined.

JR: Oh my gosh. This reminds me of a quote by her name is Arundhati Roy. She’s an Indian author.

SH: Yes.

JR: She says, “Listen for the life signs of new possibility. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.”

SH: Yeah.

JR: “On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” It’s that little glimmer of light. Like, there’s so much behind it.

And I know we’re talking to the ideal, but I think again and again, it’s the glimmers that are gonna grow us.

SH: Save us.

CW: Well, and I think that’s part of the imagination you were talking about in the beginning of this conversation. Like, we need to be able to imagine the ideal.

Whether or not that can always come into practice is different, but I think imagining beyond what we think is even possible is part of that journey.

JR: Yes. And part of that just means being willing to really listen deep-

CW: Listen deep

JR: to the voice of your own soul.

CW: Yeah. Yeah

JR: The music of your own spirit”-

CW: Yeah

JR: John O’Donohue says, “the music.”

SH: Beautiful.

CW: All right, Jenny, what advice do you have for women who feel called to spiritual or pastoral service, but maybe our church simply doesn’t provide those opportunities for women? I mean, we’d love-- I’d love to hear some practical ideas.

SH: Asking for a friend. Oh, yes.

CW: Asking for Susan.

JR: Well, I think it starts with, again, back to your own call, and I don’t mean a church calling.

CW: Yes.

SH: Right.

JR: It’s your call. So you have to listen for that call, and I think part of that is getting quiet, I think writing a prayer. But coming to understand what is it that your soul can’t not do.

And yeah, it may not be possible, but if you can articulate what it is that you wish you could do, then practical things may fall into place.

And I would recommend if you’re feeling called to ministry, explore CPE. Start there.

Get into a CPE program. There’s one in Utah that’s in person and many that are online.

CW: Mmkay.

JR: And you have to secure a clinical placement site. Maybe you’re gonna be working in a homeless shelter and doing CPE and learning how to minister with-

SH: Right

JR: with intention, with skills. So I’d say first articulate, second explore, and maybe third trust. Trust yourself. And I know that’s not practical, it’s idealistic, but do it. You know, claim it. I have this Carol Lynn Pearson poem that I don’t think gets nearly enough airtime that I’d love to share, and then a blessing to offer to all women, not my own, but written by another woman.

CW: Okay.

JR: The Carol Lynn Pearson poem is called “Power,” and I love it, and this is my [00:50:00] encouragement to all women who feel that they could do or be more in the church or in ministry. The poem says, “When she learned that she didn’t have to plug in to someone or something like a toaster into a wall. When she learned that she was a windmill and she had only to raise her arms to catch the universal whisper and turn, turn, turn.

She moved. Oh, she moved, and her dance was a marvel.”

CW: Oh my gosh.

SH: Beautiful.

JR: It’s just an invitation to dream. And it’s holy work, you know?

CW: It is holy work. It really is.

JR: Yeah. What is it that you’re thinking about pursuing or starting or quitting or making or finishing or embracing? You can name it.

Can I read this blessing that’s just so beautiful?

SH: Oh, would you please?

CW: Please.

JR: This is written by the Reverend Margaret Cunningham, and it was spoken in New Zealand, and it’s part of “The Women’s Book of Uncommon Prayer,” which is worth a link, and-

CW: We will link to it

JR: I think your listeners will love it.

All right. Here’s a blessing for women: Eternal Spirit, Earth Maker, pain bearer, life giver, source of all that is and all that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, loving God in whom is heaven, awaken us with your Holy Spirit and preserve us from the temptation to stay comfortably asleep.

Encourage us to proclaim our authenticity and preserve us from a false accommodation to the world. Breathe into us your breath of life. Stir us up into activity and preserve us from the inertia that leads to complicity in our own oppression. Open our eyes to the promises in creation. Open our hearts to the love and example of Jesus.

Open our ears to the persistent whispering of the Holy Spirit, and preserve us from a sense-deadened existence. Remind us that we are made in your image, that we too are creators, lovers, decision-makers. Instill in us the pride of our heritage and preserve us from excessive, crippling humility. Above all, gracious God, give us the grace to hear your word to us and the courage to claim and act on that inner authority.

Preserve us from the tyranny of the external authority that comes from the world.

Amen.

CW: Amen. Well, I kinda wanna just end on that beautiful prayer you just read, Jenny, but we have a few minutes left, so we would love to hear your take on our title today. I don’t know, a lot of our listeners may not know, when it’s just Susan and I, we’ll go back and forth with our title.

When we have a guest, we like to have her input, and so Jenny had lots of choices, and the one that she chose, and Susan and I were like yes, yes was that title we already said, which is “Let Your Life Speak.” So go ahead and speak to that for a few minutes in our last few minutes here.

JR: Sure. Of course. So Parker Palmer is the Quaker author and theologian that I like so much, and he has a book that’s called “Let Your Life Speak.”

I highly recommend it, and it’s looking for the voice of vocation, and he talks about a lot of principles of discernment and how to find your vocation, to find that thing that you can’t not do.

JR: And so I loved that title. It really helped me when I first read the book, sort of frame what was happening already inside of me ‘cause I read it as part of my degree and realized, oh, my life is speaking in a way that I couldn’t even articulate, but God sort of breathed into me this vocation. And I think one of his other quotes that speaks to this principle is he says, “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”

CW: Yes.

JR: And again that’s the imagination. Like, who am I? What is possible? What do I actually want? What am I actually capable of and what do I wish I were capable of? Start there. You know, that’s letting your life speak instead of letting your life be dictated by somebody else. So I really liked that title, and I hope my life can speak to the work my soul must do.

CW: Beautiful.

SH: Beautiful.

CW: Jenny, this has been a great conversation. I’m sad it’s only an hour. I want it to be five hours, but hopefully you’ll just come back on the podcast and talk more about all these amazing things that you’ve just introduced us to today. Any last quote that you want to read? Any final message before we sign off?

JR: Just gratitude. Gratitude for the courageous space you’re both in, that you provide for so many women to find rest in their searching and in their expanding and in their tension. You’re really doing good work. Thank you so much.

CW: Well, thank you for this [00:55:00] conversation.

SH: Such a gift.

Voicemail 1: Hey, I am going to remain anonymous because I don’t know if I’m sharing trade secrets here. But I work at a campus Institute, and I just listened to your episode on Shibboleths, and you guys were talking about white shirts, particularly in church meetings. But I want you guys to know that at my campus institute, the faculty are being encouraged to wear colored shirts.

Not dark, they definitely wanna keep it light, but they can even wear, like, campus button-downs. And they do that because our data that we’ve polled from our students has shown that, like, colored shirts are more welcoming, and so that’s the intention behind it. And 100% when faculty are meeting with, like, upper management or anyone from the church office building, they wear a white button-down suit coat.

But it is interesting. I think there is a change happening.

Voicemail 2: Hi, my name is Peter. I’m from California, and I just wanted to first of all say that I really appreciate your podcast. It has helped me keep my sanity in the last year or two as I’ve gone through some faith journeys and faith transitions and things like that.

I also just wanted to let you know that this morning I subbed for seminary, and the lesson was about finding truths in the scriptures, and I used your wonderful example of the Shibboleth story from Judges, and I talked to the kids about how we can use such silly things to judge other people and how that is not a good way to be.

We talked about it for quite a while. The kids were really fascinated by the story. I just wanted to let you know that you had a hand in a seminary lesson this morning. Keep up the good work. It is really making a difference.

JR: That sounded kinda dumb. Maybe edit that out. Should I try that again?

CW: You can say what you want over again however you want.

SH: Don’t forget our website. Go to atlastshesaidit.org to find all our Substack content. While there, you can contact our team, leave us a voicemail, register for events, subscribe, or make a tax-deductible donation. Paid subscribers get extra stuff, including ongoing community chats and live chats with us.

Remember, your support keeps the podcast ad-free. Thanks for listening.

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Spiritual Blocks

by Mary Cox

the audio included with this piece is a direct audio recording from when the talk was given

The last time I spoke in church, I talked about how

I was rebuilding my spiritual tower. Some might call that deconstruction. Some might call that faith expansion. Some might call is a faith journey or a faith crisis. Whatever you want to call it is up to you. I call it my spiritual tower. Since then, I have been listening to my heart and depending not on certainty, but on agency and trust in my own relationship with my God Parents. I’ve had the gift of using doubt as a guide and defining faith as flexible. The process of rebuilding my spiritual tower is a journey that is messy, complicated, frustrating, but it’s also so, so beautiful. I want to talk about 4 of my 5 foundational blocks in my spiritual tower: mercy, grace, love, and Jesus. It’s all I really have, and it’s enough.

Because music means something to me and because it’s how I feel the God power inside of me, I’m going to use it today as I talk.

Bryan Stevenson, author of “Just Mercy” states that, “Mercy is not earned. Mercy is not passive. Mercy is necessary. Mercy begins with recognizing a shared humanity with every human on the earth.” That is the difficult part, isn’t it?

But mercy is only mercy without judgment attached to it in any way. As Bryan Stevenson says, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” Let mercy guide us as we strive to be with our fellow humans in “our one wild and precious life.”

I think we often misunderstand grace. Some might not even really believe that grace has the power to heal, the power to save. Grace is so powerful. Grace is an amazing gift from our God Parents that to me says, “We love you. We know this is complicated. We trust your path.” Like the song says, Grace is amazing. It covers our self-inflicted pain, when others hurt us, when we are burdened, and when our patterns of behavior harm others. Grace will lead us to a place where we can find ourselves, settle into presence, and breathe knowing we can keep moving forward. Grace tells us we are enough.

I could sing a thousand songs about love, but instead, I used my voice to write a poem…

In Jesus’ own words: “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart… AND Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This scripture really has three parts. The first is to love our God Parents—they don’t require our love to be ok—they don’t NEED us to do that. This makes it so much easier to practice love by loving them and it’s such a gift. Figure it out on us, they said—we can take the messiness and the complicated parts. We won’t be hurt by any love you can or can’t show. Try on love. Give love. Practice love. In my mind, the practice of this love is to teach us how to do the next part of the commandment—love your neighbor.

Honestly, we aren’t really doing this well as a whole of society. We just aren’t. I think it’s because we truly fail to SEE our neighbor. But if we, as members of this church, believe our own stuff, it shouldn’t be that tricky. It’s pretty clear, “ALL are alike unto God—black and white, bond and free, male and female; Jew and Gentile.” There is nothing I can say here today that can persuade you to look at that scripture, “ALL are alike unto God,” add the “love your neighbor” part, and simply—do better. Love for your neighbor, whomever that may be, has to come from YOUR soul, YOUR heart.

The third part is “as yourself.” We never talk about this part. We skip over it as though it’s not a vital part of the commandment. WHY? You matter to our God Parents. You need to matter to yourself. I have myself as part of the 5 blocks of my spiritual tower. How can we really build the types of relationships we need here on earth without first recognizing the importance of ourselves? I choose to love myself as messy, complicated, doubtful, uncertain, worthy, and enough. I believe it might be too difficult to love your God Parents and your neighbors if you don’t love yourself first.

I just don’t think Jesus asks us to hustle for our worth or hustle for love. “Come unto me. Learn of me. Rest in me,” He said. That’s His request—without hustle. He also doesn’t require perfection of any sort, nor is there a demand to be happy. Weary, worn, and sad, it says—Jesus wants us that way too. It’s enough for Him.

Here are a couple of questions to ponder: Does your spiritual tower have enough blocks? What might be missing? Does your tower have too many blocks? Are there blocks that don’t really belong to you—that might have been borrowed from your childhood or a parent? What if you gave yourself permission to use your full agency and truly listen to your heart—could you remove a block or two that was no longer part of your belief system or might actually be harming you? If you looked at faith as flexible and at certainty as not necessary, could you move a few of the blocks around, rename a few, and rebuild a foundation that felt more sure and sturdy for you?

I believe that building your spiritual tower is not something that is ever a finished product. We don’t have that kind of control over our lives. And honestly, the gift of agency tells us that we will have the privilege of continuing to shift, change, and grow for eternity. Of course we will. Plants adapt to the weather. Animals rebuild homes in new habitats. Adult development in physical, psychological, and faith-based ways have stages that we will continue to move through for the rest of our lives. Change is natural. Growth is good.

I choose the block of mercy because mercy is how to truly see others. I choose to believe wholeheartedly in a grace that tells me I am enough. I choose love, because love is the answer. In love—I choose myself because I matter most. The block of Jesus is my example of how I actually do mercy, grace, and love in “my one wild and precious life.”**

**Editor’s note: Mary introduced us to her concept of a spiritual block tower in ALSSI Ep. 180, and those insightful words found their way into our permanent lexicon. If you missed this conversation, here’s a reminder to check it out. Thanks again, Mary! —S.

Different Paths

by Amy Call

Finding The Divine Outdoors in Nature

by Maddie Victoria

I had an experience on a trip to the Middle East

a few years ago. I often revisit that experience as I go through my faith journey and deconstruction. My experience is as follows.

I was in the Wadi Rum Desert in the country of Jordan with the warmth of the sun beating down on me, riding a camel as I was looking around and taking in the beauty of red sand and red peaks and cliffs that arose up around me. I felt that the same being that created these red rock cliffs, peaks and red sand is the same being that made me and took the time to provide me a world that I can explore and learn and grow in, and thrive in as the woman that I am. Even if it took me 20+ years to find myself as a woman. I learned that every experience, thought and question I have had shown me that I am enough and that I am worth it even if the world around me doesn’t think I am worth it because of who I am and the past life that I have lived.

Knowing that being in nature and outside is my sanctuary where I can commune with my Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father is so healing to me. I see my Heavenly Parents more outside and in nature than I do in a brick-and-mortar building.

Nature and being outdoors ground me and connect me to the earth and the love that I have experienced time and time again as I open myself up to seek answers and guidance from my Heavenly Parents. They are patient with me when I don’t get it the first, second, third time, or however many times it takes me to realize what They are trying to tell me or show me. Sometimes all I need to do is look up and notice the beautiful world that is around me. Sometimes it is as simple as seeing the Northern Lights with my own eyes in the middle of the Salt Lake Valley.

Proverbs 3:5-6 is a verse of scripture that I hold near and dear to my heart:

I am more at peace with where I am as a person, and with my faith. I feel like my deconstruction from the Church will be an ongoing process since it is intertwined with me because of where I live in the world and that I was an all-in member for so long. It isn’t easy being a member of the church who is in a marginalized community. To be honest, it can be scary but all I have to do is look up and be willing to open myself to hear what I need to hear when I need to hear it.

Creativity and Worship—A Cancer Survivor’s Story

by Ruby Harris

When I was twelve, my parents woke me in the middle of the night

and told me through tears that my lab results were back: I had leukemia. We had to go to Primary Children’s hospital right away. My life turned upside down in an instant. My upcoming math test and band concert didn’t matter anymore. Now my only goal was to survive.

I was thrown into a world of procedures, pills, and waiting rooms. Chemotherapy was effective, but at a high cost. It took three years of my life and gave me a bone condition that made my ankle joints collapse. The year after I finished treatment I had four reparative ankle surgeries.

I’m 17 now and cancer free!! The effects of the chemo are long term, so I use a wheelchair when I’m out and about to minimize my chronic pain. I’m really happy with where I’m at now! I’m able to devote more energy to my art and spend more time with my loved ones, which has been a huge blessing. Over the years, I’ve turned to art again and again to find peace and healing from my struggles.

One of my spiritual gifts is visualization. In some of the darkest times in my life, comforting spiritual images came into my mind: me leaning on Christ to walk; Jesus washing my swollen scarred feet with His scarred hands. I treasured these revelations because they felt so personal and tailored to me. It was one of my favorite ways to “Hear Him.”

It wasn’t until this year that I understood them, however. I had just experienced some traumatic religious experiences and deep spiritual manipulation. The pain was excruciating and all consuming. I had numbed my spiritual intuition to “keep the peace” and I didn’t know how to get it back. I felt powerless and forgotten.

Then, I listened to a podcast episode about the Divine Feminine (by the In Her Image podcast, I highly recommend it). It changed my life. The world opened up to me and I finally felt free. Embracing Heavenly Mother helped me reclaim my agency. The day after I learned about Her, I started having beautiful images come to my mind multiple times a day, and they were all depicting Heavenly Mother. I realized that they weren’t how I “Hear Him” but actually how I “Hear Her.” I was so touched that even before I knew who She was, She was reaching out and comforting me. Now that I was aware of Her presence, I felt like She was calling me to create—so, I did.

It changed my life and how I worship. Art helped me to heal the deep spiritual wounds inflicted upon me. I drew Heavenly Mother’s comfort and support, and depicted Her in a variety of ways so that everyone could see themselves in Her. I try to push past beauty standards by showing the glory and divinity of an unfiltered body. Through this journey, I felt more of Her love and influence in my life. As I grow into a more independent phase of my life, I look forward to depicting that She is more than just someone to take care of children for eternity. She is a goddess.

Our Heavenly Parents are the ultimate creators. If we are truly to become like Them, then we must also learn to create. Parenthood is a beautiful way the gospel celebrates creation, but it can be so much broader than that. For those who aren’t in a parenting stage of their lives and for those who never will be, creation is still an option for them. I personally lean into this through painting, sketching, and singing, but there is no “right” way to be creative. You could garden, you could host events, you could write, you could fix cars, you could bake, you could sew, you could serve, you could connect, you could heal. Creativity is accessible to everyone. It is literally in our DNA.

I believe that all of those examples could bring someone closer to God. Intentionality in creation is what makes it a spiritual process, not the finished product. I incorporate this into my art practice through ritual. Every time I sit down to draw or paint something, I say a prayer that They will guide my hands. Then I put on my favorite lotion and my playlist of songs that remind me of the Divine Feminine. This has turned art-making into my favorite form of worship. Even the interests that we view as secular can be expanded and magnified if we invite God in.

I think that agency is a concept more similar to creativity than we realize. If we truly believe that our agency increases as we become more like our Heavenly Parents, then it has to be more than just choosing between the covenant path and the adversary. Creativity has been my favorite way to expand my agency. I get to make decisions that shape how my art comes into the world. It is incredibly empowering and has deepened confidence in myself and God.

Creativity is a beautiful form of expression, release, and growth. I know it can be intimidating at first, but I invite you to try out some form of spiritual creativity and just see how it goes. The quality of the finished product doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you feel making it. You could start out with coloring in a coloring book and your experience can be just as profound.

Heaven’s Lost and Found

by Carly Carter

The Powerful Influence of My Heavenly Mother

by Stephanie Snell Povey

One evening in the fall of 1996, I returned home

from the hospital having had another dilation and curettage (D&C) after losing my third baby in five years. Bravely I tried to resign myself to be happy and content with the two beautiful daughters my husband and I had been blessed with. Yet, I felt a constant sense there was one more child for us. Many doubts and negative thoughts ran through my mind during this period of time.

“I must not understand how to receive inspiration from God.”

“The spirit of my unborn child must not want to come to our family.”

And the most destructive of all,

“God is withholding this blessing because He doesn’t trust me with any more children!”

One particularly discouraging day after reading a conference talk about how Heavenly Father knows every burden and trial we will have to endure, I found myself saying right out loud, “How can Heavenly Father really understand what I’m going through? He is a man and has never gone through this!” My sharpness shocked me! Did those blasphemous words really come out of my mouth? I felt guilty about my thoughts and unworthy to pray.

A few days later a friend and her husband came to see me and bring a meal. We visited for a while, then as they prepared to leave, they asked if I would like a blessing?

I don’t recall everything that was said in that blessing, but a powerful promise was given that changed my life. “Rest assured your Heavenly Parents are aware of you and your Heavenly Mother understands what you are going through.” Immediately I knew this was exactly what I needed to hear, and the spirit witnessed to me, “I have a Heavenly Mother and I am created in Her image. She understands everything I will ever go through!”

The veil thinned that day and my mind expanded. “Could it be,” I pondered, “that throughout the course of my many life experiences—as a confused nine year old girl, a discouraged teenage young woman, a homesick sister missionary, and a sometimes overwhelmed wife and mother—that the strength, inspiration and comfort came from both of my Heavenly Parents?”

The answer is YES!

The fact that we do not pray to Mother in Heaven in no way discredits Her position. Just as adoring and appreciating Her is in no way diminishing the love and appreciation I feel for my Father in Heaven.

As I have studied and prayed, I can only conclude that God consists of an exalted man and an exalted woman.

We have learned things about God our Eternal Mother, but there is still so much to know.

Questions such as:

• Why don’t we hear more about Mother in Heaven from our current leaders?

• Am I alone in my yearning for more understanding of the Divine Feminine?

President Russell M. Nelson has stated that the restoration has only begun and that it is our responsibility to receive revelation and guidance for our lives. This leads me to believe that as we long to know more of our glorious Mother in Heaven, ancient knowledge will be returned and restored to us.

Great peace comes to me when I pray daily, always addressing God the Father, yet visualizing both of my Heavenly Parents listening to me as I kneel before Them and pour out my heart. These are among the most insightful conversations imaginable.

I must not let feelings of doubt, inferiority or inequality discourage me. Great hope and encouragement come when I remember who I am and where I came from. Heavenly Mother is a goddess and a priestess. She is a perfect, glorified being and I am Her apprentice. My greatest aspiration is to become like Her someday.

I was correct in sensing there was one more child to join our family. In 1999 in a miraculous way, I gave birth to our youngest daughter. My earthly parents were serving a mission in the Philippines at the time and were not able to be with me, but I felt the presence of my Heavenly Parents and especially my Mother in Heaven.

I know my Heavenly Mother lives. What comfort this knowledge gives.

Say More: At Last She Writes It is thrilled to continue a series called, “Faith in Focus: ADHD and the Mormon Mind,” by Brittney Walker.

This series explores how ADHD shapes the faith experience for women raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from the early moralization of difference, to the exhaustion of trying to measure up, to the courage of rebuilding identity after leaving. Each essay stands alone but together they trace the arc from misunderstanding to self-understanding.

The goal isn’t to critique the church, but to name what so many women feel but can’t articulate: that our struggles aren’t spiritual defects. They are neurological differences met with impossible expectations.

The following essay, “Rebuilding with a Different Brain” is the fourth and final installment of the series. Many thanks to Brittney for her time and generosity in allowing ALSSI to publish this series

Rebuilding with a Different Brain

by Brittney Walker

For a while, I was living two lives at the same time.

I wasn’t intending to deceive. I had started building a new life while the old life was still running in the background … fully operational, demanding everything it had always demanded. New job, new thinking, ideas I had been quietly circling for years. Coexisting with the old.

I didn’t notice it at first. I was too busy. New versions of myself I was tentatively trying on. The way you try on something in a dressing room and keep the tags on, just in case.

But underneath all of that, I was aiming for Perfect Mormon Mother. Perfect Wife. Supportive Friend. Still showing up to every obligation. Managing every expectation. Performing every role that had been assigned to me before I ever asked myself whether I wanted any of it. Nobody asked me to keep doing it. I just kept doing it. Dropping it would mean something. If I couldn’t do it all, there was a ready explanation waiting. I didn’t have the Spirit anymore. I was being led away. I had turned my back on God. The dropped ball. The exhaustion. The dinner I failed to make. Those would be the evidence.

So I didn’t drop anything.

I just ran faster.

Always out of breath. Always behind. Standing in front of a wall of arrows pointing in every direction at once. Knowing I needed to move but unable to choose because I needed to do all of them simultaneously. I performed my way through the days and collapsed at night. Performed. Collapsed. Performed. Collapsed.

It took me a long time to understand what was actually happening. Not a faith crisis. Not even an ADHD crisis.

A cognitive load crisis.

Here is something nobody tells you when you start loosening your grip on belief, whether you leave the church entirely or simply begin doing the quiet internal work of separating what’s yours from what was handed to you:

The structure was doing more work than you knew.

Not just the Wednesday night activities, or the Sunday schedule. Or the calling that filled your calendar and gave you a clear answer for what a good person does with her time. All of that, yes. But also something more fundamental. Something that was running so deep you couldn’t see it until it started to disappear.

The church was running your executive function.

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) handles those when the church doesn’t. Decisions. Direction. Identity. It answers the questions that feel small but aren’t: what do I do next, what matters here, who am I in this moment, what does a good life look like. Every human gets a limited amount of juice to their PFC each day. We spend it and then it’s gone, and the next day we start again.

Inside a high-demand religious system, enormous amounts of that work are already done for you before you wake up. Your identity is handed to you. Your schedule. Your values have been ranked. Your future is mapped out. The decisions that remain are small, because the architecture of your life has already been decided.

This isn’t a small thing. It’s an enormous cognitive gift, even when it comes wrapped in control.

When that system loosens, when you start questioning, leaving, or simply deciding to take what works and release what doesn’t, all of that outsourced cognitive work suddenly comes home. The decisions that were already made are now unmade. The schedule that had a shape has to be rebuilt from scratch.

And most of us have no idea that this transfer is happening.

We just know we’re exhausted. Frozen. Unable to move forward in ways that feel disproportionate to what’s actually in front of us. We stare at an ordinary decision and feel paralyzed. We have more freedom than we’ve ever had and less ability to use it than we expected.

We think something is wrong with us.

Nothing is wrong with us.

We are simply running a cognitive load we were never trained to carry. For the first time. Without warning.

For those of us with ADHD, this hits harder.

ADHD is, at its core, an executive function condition. It affects initiation, prioritization, working memory, follow-through. All the systems that generate structure from the inside. The systems that build direction out of nothing. When you have ADHD and you also grew up inside a religious structure that was doing all of this work for you, you probably made it to adulthood without ever fully developing those muscles. The external structure compensated. You showed up. You performed. You even thrived. Because the scaffolding was already there.

And then the scaffolding was gone.

This is the part that goes unnamed in almost every conversation about leaving. The grief, yes. People talk about the grief. The community, the future you thought you were building. That loss is real and it deserves the space it takes up. But underneath it, quieter and more confusing, is this:

You’re the one running it now. You’ve never done it before.

And you don’t know how yet.

That’s not failure. It’s not evidence that leaving was wrong, or that you should go back. It’s a skills gap. A structural one. It has a name and it has a solution and it is not a reflection of your character or your potential.

The scaffolding can be rebuilt.

Not the old scaffolding. Not the borrowed structure that belonged to a system. The version of yourself you were handed before you knew you got a choice.

New scaffolding. Built around you.

When I started learning about this, really learning, not just trying harder, I understood for the first time why every productivity system I had ever tried eventually fell apart. The Franklin Covey binder. The hour-by-hour planner. The Notion dashboard I built with color-coded categories and sub-pages and a view for everything. I would set them up with enormous relief, that feeling of finally having it together, and then stop using them within two weeks (*ahem,* hours).

I thought the problem was discipline. It wasn’t.

The problem was that those systems were designed for a different nervous system. They assumed consistent energy. Linear motivation. The ability to hold a routine steady across days that don’t feel the same. Bodies that don’t feel the same. Circumstances that shift.

My brain doesn’t work that way. Maybe yours doesn’t either.

What actually works, what I have watched work in my own life and in the lives of people I work with, is scaffolding that starts with the body instead of the calendar. Small structures. Sensory cues. Short time containers that reduce ambiguity without requiring endurance. Environmental reminders instead of memory. Relational support instead of isolation and willpower.

The specifics matter less than the principle. Scaffolding is external support that carries cognitive load so your brain doesn’t have to. And this time, unlike the last time, you get to decide what it looks like.

You get to build it around the brain you actually have. The actual, specific brain that’s in your head. Not the one someone else says you should have.

There will be grief in this process. Sometimes people expect the practical part to feel purely practical, and then the grief shows up and it’s disorienting.

You are allowed to grieve the community. The version of yourself who knew who she was without having to figure it out. You are allowed to grieve the simplicity. Even when the simplicity was coercive. Both things are true simultaneously, the harm and the loss, and you don’t have to choose which one to feel.

But grief is not the end of the story.

After the grief, there is something most people didn’t expect: a life that actually fits. Relationships that don’t require you to be smaller. Time that belongs to you. A structure built around your actual values and your actual brain. Not inherited. Not imposed. Not conditional on whether you show up correctly.

That’s not nothing.

For a lot of us, it’s the first time.

Contributors:

Mary Cox

I wear so many hats! My favorite one is the Mary Hat where I get to spend my time relearning about my Self without the lens of systemic expectation and obligation warping my view. I am a musician. I love that my music can be a bridge builder between human souls. I am the mother of four queer children whom I wholly love and I have learned so much from them. I just completed a Bachelor degree in Behavioral Health Sciences at 56, and I am so proud of myself. I live in Mesa, AZ with my amazing husband who is learning and shifting alongside me.

Amy Call

Maddie Victoria

I am an amateur wildlife photographer and I love outdoor activities.

Ruby Harris

I am a Christian artist and cancer survivor.

Carly Carter

I am a paraeducator, mother, and writer who has spent years navigating the tension between deep love for my LDS faith and the feeling of not fully belonging within it. My writing explores faith, identity, longing, and the pull to remain connected even while wrestling with difficult questions.

Stephanie Snell Povey

I am a firm believer that women and girls, men and boys should, without ridicule and shame, have the same rights and opportunities to learn, expand their talents and follow their passions. My best friend and partner for 42 years is husband Reed. Together we have three incredible daughters that have taught us so many things and brought us great joy. I am a lover of many activities, mostly of the outdoor nature, that involve moving my body and enjoying the sun.

I am a retired educator and author of the book, “You Can’t Play, You’re a Girl.” A memoir of my younger years before the passing of Title IX in 1972.

Above all, I am trying my best to be a disciple of Jesus and an apprentice to Divine Parents whom I aspire to become like some day.

Brittney Walker

I am an ADHD coach and writer living in Arizona with my husband and a lively household including six sons, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson. I spent many years trying to be reverent, organized, and less distracting, and now I write about executive function, faith, deconstruction, and rebuilding identity with a different kind of brain. My work explores neurodivergence, belonging, and the slow process of learning to trust yourself. You can find more of my writing at exmoadhdcoach.substack.com

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