ALSSI Newsletter
June 2024
Happy Summer!
We hope our newsletter finds you enjoying the goodness of the season! Today we’re bringing you a message from Susan, a few announcements and reminders, and a perfect summer recipe from Cynthia:
Recently I spent the day at my sister’s house, poring over
the last few boxes containing mementos of my mother’s life. She went into assisted living two summers ago, and at the time she said the boxes should go in the trash, but unsure what was in them, my sister couldn’t bear to toss them without going through them first. As we looked through my mom’s school work, old yearbooks, wedding keepsakes, and newspaper clippings heralding her many accomplishments, we got new glimpses into parts of her life that weren’t about us. We spent a memorable afternoon tracing the trajectory from the girl she’d been to the woman she became.
One of the boxes contained this booklet. It’s a Bee Hive manual, dated 1946, with her name pencilled in careful cursive on the front, a ‘personal progress’ book from which girls earned “honor badges.” Loose notes stuck between the pages track her progress in that same cursive, a snapshot of one young girl’s specific time and place within Mormonism.
In our recent conversation with Candice Wendt about things the Church has stripped away and what those losses may cost, I referenced this book. It feels slightly closer to what I experienced as a girl at church than anything my daughters did, but still very foreign. This program was obviously designed to provide girls with a direct corollary to scouting. By the time I was a Beehive, it had already disappeared. The boys my age were off on adventures, while the girls made babysitting kits, baked brownies, learned to sew, and had makeover nights. Personal Progress hadn’t started yet, and when it did in 1978 it had little in common with the Scouting program and was more closely aligned with Duty to God. The stated purpose of Personal Progress was to help each YW:
Strengthen her testimony of Jesus Christ
Strengthen her present and future families
Prepare to be worthy to make and keep sacred temple covenants
Prepare for her future roles and responsibilities
These are worthy goals, but feel distinctly churchy in a way my mom’s Bee Hive manual doesn’t at all.
The introduction says this:
"Welcome, Bee Hive Girl! Happy adventures await you. You are to be a member of the Bee Hive Girls’ Organization which is a department of the Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“One of the interesting things you will soon learn is the romantic story of the life of the bee. You will learn most of the secrets of the hive and will find that the bee has many lessons to teach you. The Bee Hive Girls’ program has been developed around the symbolism of the beehive and the more you come to understand its mysteries, the more fascinating will be your Bee Hive work. With Maeterlinck, you will discover a ‘Little City abounding in faith and mystery and hope.’
“This organization has been planned to help you find the many, many happy hours which belong to girlhood. You will discover a multitude of new ways of having fun. You will explore new fields of knowledge. You will see a new world. How often someone says, ‘Let’s go places and see things.’ Bee Hive girls not only go places but they do see things. Trees, flowers, and birds become their friends because they learn to call them by their first names. They know the stories of the stars; they feel the magic of the camp fire. Through happy associations with Bee Keepers, by enduring friendships, girlhood indeed becomes enriched.
“A Bee Hive girl prepares to be helpful to those about her, to be of service in her home, church, and community. So you will have interesting experiences in learning the many secrets of the truly happy home; how to preserve health, and give first aid to the injured; and how to bring joy to yourself and others through singing, dancing, playing and storytelling.”
As a church, I believe we could benefit from some of these old ideas.
I love the comparison to the beehive. Not because we must work ourselves to death, but because I like imagining the church community as a “Little City abounding in faith and mystery and hope.” (Basically my dream church!)
I love being encouraged to go places and see—really SEE—things. To feel at home, calling the world and everything in it by its first name.
I love the idea of saints—young and older—finding and sharing joy through singing, dancing, playing, and storytelling! When it comes to church, from that list we’re basically down to just singing now, which we’ve whittled to 4 hymns at most, often more dirge-like than rejoicing. And our storytelling is mainly recirculated General Conference talks, in which leaders often quote each other from similar talks.
While most of our church narrative directs members’ attention toward self improvement in preparation for some next world, this little book points to greater appreciation for what it means to be rooted and growing in this one. It feels to me like everything in this vintage manual looks out and around, affirming life here and now.
I find myself with holy envy for a church—ours! this one!— that apparently used to exist, but has little in common with my experience now. If the name on the door wasn’t the same, I’d wonder whether I took a wrong turn one Sunday 40 years ago and have been wandering the halls of someone else’s building ever since.
My experience may not be yours, but I’m trying hard to tell more of my truth as I get older, without worrying so much about who agrees. Speaking of which, here’s something else I love-LOVE from the old manual:
Love Truth:
"Is it true? Apply this test to all you see and all you hear. Speak only the truth; seek for truth; live by the truth you find. Then when you have proved its worth, help others to share its joy. Never be satisfied with anything less than the truth nor change it to win the favor of others.”
Today’s YW motto is fine, but how I wish our girls would recite this on Sunday! If they taught the mandate to apply my own truth-test to everything I see and hear and then live by the truth I find when I was in YW, I guess I was absent that week. I knew it somehow, but I don’t feel like I learned it at church. In fact, it feels radical to me to advocate this approach out loud.
I taught it to my daughters, but my teaching was not backed up for them at church either, so I don’t think they believed me. They felt like they had to go elsewhere to pursue, express, and live their truth.
Did I absorb it from my mom? Perhaps—this book exists so I have it in writing that personal-truth-seeking was once the party line, and she learned it. Seeing it so clearly spelled out makes me even more determined to hone my personal truth-finding and truth-telling skills. When I’m done with my life, this is one honor badge I intend to have earned.
— Susan
Upcoming:
We hope you’re enjoying the conversations on ALSSI chat as much as we are! There’s great support on tap there, whenever you need it. All subscribers can participate in most chats, and paid subscribers can start threads of their own. Women are telling us it’s kinda like the Relief Society they’ve been waiting for! On Fridays, C&S host chats about each week’s episode, or other topics du jour. If you haven’t had a chance yet, check it out here!
Also, planning is well underway for our Fall Gathering! This year’s event will be held at the Union Building on the University of Utah campus. Put it on your calendar now, and watch for more details and registration coming soon!
Lastly, there’s a quote at the end of this week’s episode from Brian McLaren’s book, Faith After Doubt, a perfect setup for everyone to start reading it, if you haven’t yet … in preparation for our next book club meeting!
Did you know?
Season 8 transcripts are available on Substack. Click Transcripts in the menu bar and you’ll find them, thanks to the efforts of our amazing volunteers (you know who you are…thank you!)
Also, just a heads up: a remodel is underway. We’re in the process of transferring everything from our current website to Substack—when we’re finished, our old web address will take you to the new destination, so you won’t need to change a thing! We just want you to know what’s happening so if you run into a little glitchy construction dust somewhere along the way, you’ll understand. Thanks for your patience! We’re excited about the change, and hope the new site will make it easier for you to find specific episodes, or whatever else you’re looking for when you visit our site.
Now dessert…
because some things are worth being in the kitchen for, even in June!
Cynthia’s Strawberry (or any fruit) Shortcakes
I taught my kids to cook and bake from the Williams-Sonoma kids cookbooks. This recipe, originally a buttermilk biscuit recipe, is still a favorite of our family even though they’re all grown. The picture above has strawberries and raspberries. In August, I’ll use peaches. —Cynthia
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
5 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold butter, cut into chunks
1 cup buttermilk
Topping
1 egg, whisked with splash of water
Turbinado sugar (or regular sugar)
Preheat oven to 400°F. In a bowl, using a wooden spoon, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Or use your food processor for the fastest option.
Scatter the butter over the flour mixture. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender or 2 table knives. (Or pulse 10-15 times with food processor.) The mixture is ready when it looks like coarse crumbs with small pieces of butter still visible.
Add the buttermilk and stir gently with the wooden spoon until the mixture starts to clump together. (If using a food processor, dump flour mixture into a mixing bowl and then stir in the buttermilk.)
Sprinkle counter with flour. Dump the shaggy dough onto it and gently press it into a rough, thick oval. Cut out the shortcakes with a large biscuit cutter. Spacing the biscuits about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Gather up the scraps, gently press together and cut out more biscuits. Brush the shortcakes with the egg mixture, then sprinkle with sugar. Bake until puffed and golden brown, 12 to 18 minutes. Makes 6 large shortcakes.
Once cool, serve with sweetened sliced fruit and homemade whipped cream.
That’s it for this month!
Season 8 will run through August. Thanks for taking us with you on your summer adventures—we have some great conversations coming up! And as always, thanks for listening … reading … contributing to the conversation … and all the ways you support the ALSSI project. Stay cool! 😎
Cynthia, Susan,
and the ALSSI Team
I’m 76. When I was going through MY mother’s boxes two years ago I came across RS lessons focused on Shakespeare! They also had a series of literature lessons called Out of the Best Books. Later I remember teaching Cultural Refinement lessons in RS in which we studied the cultures of other countries around the world. Those were coupled with Home and Family lessons that taught practical skills. We only had one “Spiritual Living” lesson a month. Those lessons are just some of the ways the church changed. I miss the church of my younger days.
"Never be satisfied with anything less than the truth nor change it to win the favor of others."
Now THAT is a motto I can get behind!!! What HAPPENED to this version of church?!? And how can we get it back (if we even can...)??? This is so different than, "Seek out only church-approved sources," and "Even if your conscience tells you otherwise, defer your judgement to The Brethren because their answers are the correct ones."