Episode 232 (Transcript): Let's Talk About Sanctuary
Episode Transcript
Many thanks to listener Adrianna Colon 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:
SH: I think moments is a really pivotal word in that idea, because I don't know about you but like for me, everything that I have about God, I only have in moments,
CW: Yes. Fleeting moments,
SH: And I can point to, you know, some, yeah. Fleeting moments. I glimpse things occasionally or feel 'em, or experience them in fleeting moments sometimes before I even realize what, what's happening.
Oh, the moment's gone, you know, before I can even get myself around it. It's these moments and so like maybe the idea of creating sanctuary for myself wouldn't even really be a sustainable thing. Maybe the goal becomes creating moments of sanctuary
CW: That we take with us everywhere.
SH: If I can have moments.Yeah. That we take, that we just put in our pocket and continue to carry with us and then we can lean on them.
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. In the title of today's episode is Let's Talk About Sanctuary.
SH: Sanctuary. I am so excited for this conversation, Cynthia.
CW: I know you're excited and this was totally your idea, so I really hope that the reason that you wanted to talk about this comes through loud and clear, right?
Because
SH:I hope so too.
CW: Yeah. It left me scratching my head for a minute, but then the more you explained it to me, I was like, yes. Yes! So why don't you go ahead and introduce where we're gonna go today with this.
SH: Well, I wanna start with a quote that we have used on the podcast before. I think that you have read it at least once on the podcast, so it'll probably be really familiar to our listeners.
It's from Rachel Held Evans in her book, Searching for Sunday, and it says this, “Imagine if every church became a place where everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable. Imagine if every church became a place where we told one another the truth. We might just create sanctuary.”
CW: That might be her most famous quote, don't you think?
Like, I see it everywhere.
SH: I see it everywhere too. So, I mean, it's, I feel like, oh, sanctuary, hardly an original idea anymore. Rachel Held Evans put it out there for all of us, and you know, we've been talking about it ever since. I think because for people it speaks to something that they're hungry for.
So that quote has deep resonance, I think, for a lot of people in religious spaces. And the reason that it came to me, I was out on a walk listening to Sarah Bessey actually on a podcast that I don't normally listen to. I was playing podcast roulette that day, as I sometimes do. And so this just came up.
It was a podcast I'd never heard before, but Sarah Bessey was having a conversation and she was telling a story about her involvement with the Evolving Faith organization. And after Rachel Held Evans had passed away, it kind of running that fell to Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu. And so she was telling me about a conversation that she had with Jeff, and she had said she was thinking about the goals of creating a safe space. And how she told it was that Jeff Chu said to her, creating a safe space isn't really our job.
We can't really do that for people. What we actually need to focus on is creating sanctuary. And as soon as I heard that come out of her mouth, at first I thought, well, now wait a minute. What's the difference between those two things? Right? And what is she really saying?
CW: Right?
SH: But then within about 30 seconds, I just had this avalanche of thoughts and ideas about it, especially as it applied specifically to what we're doing here at ALSSI.
And so I was one of those cases where I was texting you frantically.
CW: You were.
SH: Saying, oh my gosh, I have an idea. So anyway, I started thinking about looking towards sanctuary more than safety. And I'm just transcribed part of what she said in that podcast, so I wanna read that to you. And she said, “where people feel loved allowed to be in process. Don't have to have all the answers yet, where you feel a sense of belonging and permission, but also even of joy. That's one of the things people lose in all this is their reclamation of joy, happiness, loving themselves, loving each other, loving their lives. What does it mean to create that kind of respite or feast in the wilderness for people, even if it's just a short period of time and then they move on to wherever their journey takes them next.”
And to me it was a giant light bulb of, that's it! That's it. I feel like people come to ALSSI [00:05:00] hungry. For that kind of space, right? Because it's really a place of transition. If you're not in any kind of transition, when you start listening to this podcast, unfortunately, I found that very often you start to see and think about things that you haven't before. And you can find yourself in a liminal space pretty quickly, which is a great thing.
But it comes with lots of feelings, right? It comes with a lot of feelings.
CW: Right. It's a great thing, but it's a hard thing. And like we've said before, everybody wants change, or everybody wants transformation. Nobody wants change, right? Like it, it just falls into all of that. Sometimes I picture ALSSI like we're a train station.
The train or the subway or whatever stops and people have a few minutes, or maybe they buy themselves a croissant or a beverage or you know, just a place to rest. Before they go back on their journey.
SH: Yeah.
CW: Wherever that may might be. So, and that kind of seems to come through in what you just read, but it's interesting because when you were texting me frantically about sanctuary, I saw what you were getting at.
But also I started scratching my head a little bit because I feel like it isn't a very LDS specific word.
SH: Right.
CW: Do you feel that way?
SH: Absolutely. Not a word that we use at all.
CW: But obviously to other denominations like where Rachel Held Evans came from, and Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu, like, they're more comfortable using that word because it has a lot more meaning for them.
I mean, sanctuary in their churches is kind of synonymous with chapel,
SH: right.
CW: Like with the chapel, I mean, not really. It's like a specific area of the chapel, like up around the altar. But other churches, chapels are different from our chapels in that theirs can become a type of sanctuary. Like think about it, they are open during the day. Ours are not. How many times on vacation, Susan, have you been to a city? I'm thinking specifically Santa Fe. Right?
SH: Right.
CW: The first time I went to Santa Fe, gorgeous old chapels, you can just walk in. You can light a candle. You can sit on a bench, you can kneel on a bench, you can pray.
Whereas like our chapels are just, where meetings are held on a Sunday, they're not really open during the week. Definitely not open to the public.
SH: Right.
CW: So like sanctuary as a literal place or a metaphorical place, it can be a refuge for all. Hopefully it's open to all, it's open to the public.
And I mean, I think the closest thing we might have, I think a lot of people listening might be like, well, that's what the temple is to me. I can sit in the temple and I can pray and think, but the temples aren't open to all.
SH: Right. Right.
CW: So a little bit of a difference there.
SH: No, a huge difference in my opinion.
CW: Yeah. Well, okay. You're right. A huge difference. A huge difference. So I went to like lds.org and I tried to do some searches on Sanctuary, and it wasn't very helpful.
SH: I was gonna say, how'd that go for you, Cynthia?
CW: It was like creating a sanctuary from the wicked world. And I was like, oh, geez.
SH: Oh, like our homes are a sanctuary. Yeah.
CW: I know. I know. Respect for church buildings, you know, taking care of 'em, keeping them clean, whatever. And I, so anyway. I feel better, I guess is what I'm trying to say about being ignorant on this topic, because it's not really a Mormon word.
SH: Right.
CW: But Susan, if you Google “creating sanctuary”, there are authors out there who have written books with that very title, and I think this is very telling what the topics are.
Like one of 'em was focused on helping childhood trauma survivors, so offering them a sanctuary.
SH: Right.
CW: Another was about like creating stronger connections through nature, through like your gardens, your outdoor spaces that you could create. And so what both of those seemed to have in common to me was they parallel the kind of “light a candle say a prayer definition of like sanctuary spaces”, if that makes sense.
SH: No definitely. Definitely. And it sort of gets to everything that we wanna talk about today. The different kinds of sanctuary and what that might mean as it applies to the ALSSI space specifically. I was kind of thinking about our evolution is where this topic started evolving in my own head.
And I was thinking how personally [00:10:00] you and I have, I would say definitely evolved since we started this project. We have people say to us all the time, oh, you know, you've changed quite a bit from your first episodes. And I think that's true. I don't go back and listen to our very first episodes, but I should probably do that because I think it would probably make me smile and maybe laugh outright in some ways,
CW: Maybe face palm?
SH: you know. Yeah there's definitely been an evolution, but I feel like our listeners have evolved also. And you and I always say, you know, we've never worked for the church. We have never had the explicit goal of helping people “stay” using air quotes there. But it has been our goal to be able to continue in conversation with the more Orthodox church members.
And that's because we feel like that's where our conversations can maybe do the most good. Not necessarily toward helping the organization change, obviously, but toward helping people's experience within the organization improve a little bit. So we like to talk to the more Orthodox members.
That's kind of our editorial slant, or has been. And I feel like to do that within our LDS culture requires some concessions on topics and on how we discuss them. It's not necessarily that our goal has changed because it hasn't, but our audience, I feel like has expanded and broadened. In the time that we've been talking.
We have a lot of women
CW: agreed.
SH: across the spectrum of belief and engagement with the church.
And so talking to all of them, all of the listeners can sometimes be kind of hard. In the season of change, I thought that it might be worth talking about our goals for this community where we stand right now. You know, why we exist and what we really want to provide in continuing this podcast.
And the best catchall that I really was able to come up with is sanctuary. I knew it when I heard it as soon as it came out of her mouth. It just defined what I'm looking for myself and the gift that I would like to give to our listeners.
CW: Well, as soon as you were texting me about this, even though I still had a few questions that made me scratch my head, I also knew like deep in my bones. Like, yes, that's what we've been doing. I hope that we've been doing, and as a self-proclaimed talker, the number one thing that still surprises me in this community is how many women are not talkers about this? How many women have never said a single word about their changing beliefs to anyone?
Their spouse, their adult children, their own parents. Nevermind like even telling like their ward leadership. Like they've told no one and they keep living their very orthodox lives. I mean, I guess technically they're very ortho pracs lives. 'Cause in practice everything is the same. It's inside things are different.
Do you remember when we had C.A. Larson on one time and she, or was it us? I don't remember. We used that acronym. PIMO. PIMO physically in mentally out.
SH: Right.
CW: And I was surprised how much feedback we got after that episode. People were like, yes, finally there's a word for who I am.
SH: Yes.
CW: And I'm like, you're a Relief Society President.
Like, that just blew me away how many people resonated with that term. And so I love thinking of us offering sanctuary to people all along the belief spectrum the action spectrum, you know, the ortho-prac’s, the Orthodox, whatever. And so, like you, Susan, you can tell a lot by my Google history and the things that I have to search out.
And so when I searched out “sanctuary”, it gave me a bunch of synonyms and one of them was Oasis. Isn't that a good one?
SH: That's a good one.
CW: And I can't help but picture like the cartoons of my youth, all the Loony Tunes cartoons where
SH: Right.
CW: You know, you think of an oasis that the little character is in the desert and they're starting to go a little bit crazy.
Is it a mirage they see? Is that real? Is there really a puddle of water or a lake or whatever under a shady palm tree? And so it just reminds me like that's what we're trying to do. Like people are in this hard desert-y space and they need a cool drink of water. And like I said before, like some of the people that will say like, I'm physically in, mentally out, like they could be Relief Society Presidents.
We get letters from men who are counselors in bishoprics.
SH: Yes.
CW: We even get letters from people who are temple workers.
SH: Yes.
CW: Who maybe have taken a new twist on their temple service as a result of their faith changing. And they need an oasis too. It's not just like the edgy people hanging on by a thread.
SH: Right.
CW: Everyone needs an oasis for their parched throat in their hot desert. So I think our podcast and other spaces like this, we're definitely not the only ones.
SH: Right, right.
CW: Are allowing that to happen, to have that freedom of thought. And isn't freedom of thought part of sanctuary?
SH: I think so, yeah. I think so.
Freedom of thought and freedom to feel deeply okay about whatever it is that you are thinking. And having the ability to express that freedom of expression, also.
CW: Yeah. Yeah. The expression, I think is a big part of that.
SH: Permission, a place of permission, I guess is what I would think of.
CW: Permission. I know we're gonna talk more in a little bit about creating sanctuary for ourselves, so, so more on that soon. But can I just say, I'm really [00:15:00] proud of us though too, like. Can we make t-shirts? Susan, with our ALSSI Lips logo that say, creating sanctuary since 2020.
Would that be tooting our horn too much? I mean, I like that t-shirt better than the one I think in our snarky moments, we say to each other, serving up comforting doctrines since 2020.
SH: Yeah, I may or may not have come up with that slogan myself, Cynthia. Apologies.
CW: Yes, you did.
SH: I do feel like yours is a much more evolved slogan. Let's adopt that going forward.
CW: Well, thank you.
SH: Okay, so let's talk about sanctuary. What it is, a place of refuge, a holy or sacred place. A place that provides shelter or protection. And I feel like safety, the safety aspect of it emphasizes the absence of harm. But sanctuary is a bit broader word to me. It emphasizes the refuge, protection, and the sense of peace and security.
So to me, sanctuary comes with this stronger emotional connotation than safety does. It suggests a place of comfort and emotional wellbeing rather than just the absence of harm. Does that make sense?
CW: That does make sense. And that makes me think, so maybe safety is like the low bar, like at the very
SH: right. Right
CW: At the very basis of it all. Like, can we please just have, offer a safe environment? And then sanctuary is like safety plus? Safety plus all those other things that you just mentioned: refuge, protection. I would add in Oasis, right?
SH: I think safety plus. Yeah. I think safety plus is the right way to think about it.
I think probably what Jeff Chu was saying, and I don't wanna put thoughts or words on him, but was not that safety is thinking of it wrong so much as you're not thinking big enough. Right? You're not thinking broad enough. And so that's what I've come to think of as I have worked through all of this in my head.
Sanctuary is more than safe space. I think of it as generative space. I think of it as restore and repair space. I think about it as remember space. And when I say, re-member, I'm gonna put a hyphen in there because it, I mean, yes, reflection on what has gone before on where you have been, you know, and where you are now, which you're remembering, but also putting back together, re-membering, you know, we may feel torn from the body of Christ when we move into a space where the wheels have come off for some reason in our church life.
But spiritual sanctuary to me, would provide a space to re-member ourselves into that wholeness. That we're looking for and that we may feel like we've lost. I was thinking about I call it my “room of her own period”. It was, there's this line of demarcation in my life where there's the, before I had my own space in my house, and there's the after. Like for years. Okay I worked as a maker and a creator and an artist for so many years. And in all the first years, the years of young children for quite a long time all of my stuff had to be portable. Like I had to be able to load it all into a tote and get it off the dining room table or, you know, off the couch in the family room or wherever I was working.
I was always working on stolen space, like it's space that I had to carve out. And then there came a day when I was able to have a room in my own house.
CW: Nice
SH: Where I could keep all of my stuff out all the time and go there, physically remove myself to that place and do my creative, my generative work there.
And it really did change my life.
CW: I bet
SH: It was sanctuary in my own house. It's the most physical representation I can think of. And now I'm at this place in my life where I've had my own physical space for so many years. I don't think about that so much, but what's new to me now is that I have my own spiritual space.
I've had this blossoming to be myself in my own life and in my own spiritual life in ways that I had never had before. And it's the same kind of line of demarcation for me, like moving into my own spiritual authority. Very much parallels having moved into my own physical space at an earlier time in my life.
CW: That is a fantastic metaphor. I love that so much, mainly because I feel like if someone didn't know who Susan Hinkley was and they didn't know anything about you, and that was the first thing they had ever heard you talk about spiritually, they would be like, oh, I totally get that immediately.
Because who doesn't understand what it means to have their own physical space?
SH: Right. Right.
CW: And then to liken that to your own spiritual [00:20:00] space where you can take refuge, comfort oasis, like, that's really good, Susan. Good job. I like it.
SH: Well, I mean, I hope that people can relate to that. I thought you might be able to, as you record, sitting in your sewing room, right?
CW: Yes.
SH: I love knowing that. I really do.
CW: Yes.
SH: I love knowing that because I feel like many women can probably relate to that metaphor of just needing something that's their own and just theirs. Yeah. So that hopefully that can be your spiritual life.
CW: Right. In a world where I feel like so many women I mean they're sharing their lunch with small children, right?
They're sharing their beds with small children. Like everything
SH: Absolutely.
CW: Is in a shared space. So I have no doubt that metaphor will land on so many, like, aha, that's it.
SH: All right. Well, let's talk about two kinds of sanctuary, because I'm hoping that for the members of the ALSSI community our podcast can play a role in both kinds.
So the first one I wanna talk about is creating sanctuary for others. And I'm gonna start right here with another quote from Sarah Bessey. Yeah, we're leaning really hard on Sarah today, and we're gonna also lean on Rachel later. And I can't think of two better women's voices to lean on. But she said this, “You don't love God or people better by pretending to be less human than you are.”
CW: Wow.
SH: And I think that why that line is so powerful to me is that just in being human, just in that shared humanness, you do provide sanctuary for others. It's the kind of spiritual sanctuary that I never really felt like I got in my whole life in church. Because I spent my life in church absorbing the message that I should not only be less human than I am, but that in order to fit in to my religious community, it was important to project the image of being less human.
Like I need to not look as messy as I feel inside, right? So I felt bad about feeling so messy inside, but for sure I was not gonna look messy in front of the other people in the pews. And that is a lot of pressure and a way to feel like you have no space in your own being.
CW: And you've used - can I reference another Susan metaphor that you've used before?
You’ve talked about how you had, or you felt like at least you had to shave off parts of yourself to fit in, and I think that's kind of what you're saying right now about
SH: Yeah. Definitely.
CW: being less human. And I think Brene Brown would have a lot to say about this topic, right? The belonging versus fitting in, like the fitting in was you shaving off parts of yourself, right?
Ouch.
SH: Ouch. But I guess when I think about sanctuary, I think about a space that can accommodate my whole self.
CW: Yes.
SH: Because that feels like an exhale to me.That's an exhale,
You know, a faith journey, at least in my experience, can be a very lonely place. And I'm going to reference a quote here from Rachel Held Evans again in Searching for Sunday, and she said, “There are recovery programs for people grieving the loss of a parent, sibling, or spouse. You can buy books on how to cope with the death of a beloved pet or work through the anguish of a miscarriage. We speak openly with one another about the bereavement that can accompany a layoff, a move, a diagnosis, or a dream deferred. But no one really teaches you how to grieve the loss of your faith or the loss of your faith as it once was. You're on your own for that.”
So, so true to my own experience. And there are a lot of reasons for that I feel like.
First thing I thought of was shifting friendships and relationships. I think we all know what this is like, unfortunately. I mean, there may be some Latter Day Saints who would move into shifty faith space and not experience any feelings.
CW: Right.
SH: Like it's affecting their friendships or relationships.
But I think that would be the minority of experiences, the people close to us, just let's be honest, don't always react in welcoming ways when we start to talk about this stuff.
CW: Right. And you and I know firsthand about that and this isn't the Air Your Dirty Laundry podcast, right? So you and I have never named specific people in our lives, but I think our listeners do know that you and I have had shifty relationships since we started this project. Like so many of our own listeners, they
SH: Right.
CW: You and I have paid a price for saying it at last. But I kind of wanna Mormonize that quote that you just read from Rachel Held Evans.
SH: Please do.
CW: Can I just take
SH: Yes.
CW: That [00:25:00] last sentence.
“But no one really brings you a casserole when you have the loss of your faith or the loss of your faith as it once was. You're on your own for that.” And I remember specifically, and I've talked about this before, when I was in that dark pit scratching to get out and I'm still showing up with my plastic smile at church and they were having signups for so and so who had a baby or so and so who had a surgery.
And I remember just like bowing my head crying, saying, where's my casserole? But we don't offer casseroles to people who lose their faith or lose something that's related to their faith. For me, it was a complete loss of trust in the organization of the church. And I didn't know how to deal with that.
SH: Yeah. You can find yourself suddenly feeling very alone in a room that you didn't use to feel alone in. The same people are there.
CW: Ding ding. That was me.
SH: It's the feeling that has changed. I'm so sorry. Well, that brings me to the next thing I thought of in this, in the loneliness column. And that is perceived differences.
It's like a personal sense that you have of being different in social settings or at church. And that is a profoundly lonely feeling to me. Like you might feel out of sync or like you can't fully relate to the people who haven't had this kind of experience. And sometimes like I sit in a lesson or a sacrament meeting talk and I think like.
Really, who cares about this stuff? I shouldn't admit that out loud, but I think like, did I really used to care about this? I think we mentioned on an episode recently where your husband, Paul, was in a lesson about the three degrees of glory and he was having an experience like this. Right?
This happens to me now because sometimes church just feels like such a small God conversation to me. And I just really don't live in that place anymore. And there are a lot of ways to deal with this, I think, and to be totally honest, like sometimes I have energy for it and sometimes I just don't.
CW: same.
SH: So there's my honest confession.
CW: You and me. Fist bump.
SH: Oh, the next thing I thought of for loneliness is personal growth. Because I feel like the spiritual growth process can feel really isolating sometimes. Like you're on a solitary path. And sometimes you might wanna be more solitary.
Like, I had a lot of thinking and a lot of things to work out when I started my nightly vespering. Right? I liked being alone. That's why I went to the park at night, to be honest, is because there weren't other people on the path, you know? Nobody was there and I could just do that walk by myself.
I wanted that feeling of being solitary. It's like, it somehow helped me focus my thoughts and really try and figure out what was going on with me. But it can feel lonely also.
CW: It can feel lonely. And for someone like me who is the talker and the extrovert, it felt extra lonely. But I am pretty sure Rachel Held Evans is like the second person I found after Richard Rohr that helped me feel less alone.
The personal growth was going up and the less alone was going down. Because, I know I've said this before, like as I'm reading, Searching for Sunday, I'm flipping to the cover. I keep looking for the subtitle saying, you know, My Mormon Life or something, you know? And I was, because she sounded so Mormon and it's like, aha.
Aha! Plenty of other Christians have gone through this. And so that erased a lot of the isolating part for me, seeing our Christian kin going through the same thing.
SH: Yeah. Now, that's a really good point actually. I had that experience too, but I didn't really know where to look for that when it started.
I hadn't really ever spent time reading other religious writers outside of Mormonism, right? So I didn't realize that we're part of this whole broad world of spiritual journeying. I just thought I was alone. And then the last thing I thought of about loneliness was that sometimes you're dealing with really hard stuff when things kind of start to unravel, you know, doubt, questioning, spiritual nothingness that sometimes descends on people when they're going through this.
It can create new feelings of loneliness and disconnection even from God.
CW: Oh, for sure.
SH: Like the God you used to have a relationship with now feels far away or perhaps gone altogether. For me personally, like the hardest part of all this for me was not realizing that I didn't know if there was a God.
I mean, that was pretty astonishing when it
CW: Yeah. Yeah.
SH: Happened to me and I realized I really had no idea, but it was realizing that I didn't know whether or not I cared one way or the other. That was the hard part for me. The things I thought really were deeply [00:30:00] meaningful to me. Eh, I wasn't sure that they really mattered anymore to me at all.
And that is feeling incredibly unmoored from everything that you've known.
CW: That's, that is scary, Susan.
SH: Yeah, it was. That was the really scary thing to me. So that's, I mean, that's about as hard stuff as it really gets.
CW: Yes.
SH: I was sorting through very foundational things to my whole sense of place and self in the universe, all of it.
And it's hard to have an experience that feels more isolating than that. I was thinking about one of our favorite scriptures that we have referenced many times on this podcast, but we haven't used it in specifically this way, and it's 1 Corinthians 3: 16-17, “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple.”
And the reason it comes into this conversation is for me, is that I didn't realize, or if I did ever know, I had forgotten that in those verses, the Greek word for you that they're using is plural.
So we're not talking about your body as a temple necessarily. We're talking about you as a group of people, as followers of Jesus, you’re God's temple. And so to me that says that as followers of Jesus, we're actually collectively charged with creating sacred space for ourselves and others. We are meant to together be the sanctuary for people.
CW: Yeah.
SH: So that made me think like what would a church or any kind of community, what would a community look like that was actually living up to that charge?
CW: That's next level.
SH: That is next level.
CW: Oh my goodness.
SH: So let's go there. Let's go next level.
CW: Okay. Okay.
SH: Okay. So what would such a group look like?
That's what we're gonna talk about. Okay. Okay. So let's start with sanctuary as a place of safety and belonging. So here's my question for you: should church be a place of comfort and conformity or a place that embraces vulnerability and authenticity?
CW: I feel like that goes right back to the Rachel Held Evans quote that you started out with.
What If Church wasn't a place?
SH: Right.
CW: I don't have it right in front of me. Right? You know, comfort and safety or whatever, but a place of sanctuary where everyone could be themselves..
SH: Yeah. But I feel like my church experience definitely has prioritized comfort and conformity.
CW: Absolutely. I've told the story before where
SH: you've told the story, so tell it.
CW: I've told the story before where, you know, I was. Let's just say it complaining, or maybe I'll say it better this way. I was giving feedback to my bishop saying, you know, I don't come to church to just be comforted and conform and all that. And he said, yeah, but Cynthia, I'm a bishop to a whole ward, and there are a lot of people that come to church to play softball, not hardball.
I mean, he's not wrong. But also I'm like, okay, but that's not serving me. I need to talk about the hard things now.
SH: Yeah.
CW: Dang it.
SH: He definitely has a point. And
CW: Yeah.
SH: Because I don't wanna go to church to make other people uncomfortable either. So in a way, I don't really like the word comfort, necessarily.
CW: Okay.
SH: I'm uncomfortable with the word comfort in this context, but I guess what I'm thinking about, not emotional comfort so much as complacency maybe.
CW: That's it.
SH: You know, of being, nothing is required or not much emotional work is asked of you at church.
CW: Yes.
SH: Not even much brain work.
So it's a kind of sleepy comfort and I'm not sure that's really what I wanna give people at church either. I want church to be a place where we feel spiritually awake, enlivened. Energized. And so comfort. You know, I always think of that, and I don't remember whose talk it was the oh, the grandmothers of San Pete County.
That was talked about I don't know, sometime in the past decade,
CW: The Richard Bushman quote.
SH: Maybe that's what, maybe that's where it is. Maybe it's Richard Bushman. We're slow to enact any changes or introduce very thinky ideas sometimes because we're protecting the grandmothers in San Pete County.
We don't wanna rock their world. Right?
But could we wake them up that might be different than confronting them?
CW: Well, I actually think comfort is the right word, Susan. 'Cause here's my question for you. Is vulnerability and authenticity comfortable to you?
SH: No.
CW: Well, there you go then.
SH: My own isn't, and no one else's is either, I mean,
CW: No! I'm not comfortable when I'm being vulnerable in church and saying hard things. You know, my little voice is even shaking sometimes.
SH: Right.
CW: So, right. So I do think comfort [00:35:00] is actually the right word. I don't think that church needs to be a comfortable place. I mean, I understand what you're saying.
We're kind of using semantics here a little bit to
SH: Right, right.
CW: Dice up these words.
SH: Okay. I guess I don't want it to feel like a confrontational place, but
CW: There you go. Okay.
SH: I do want it to feel awake and alive. So, yeah. I guess comfort can have a lot of different connotations and so in some, it works for me well, and in some it doesn't. How about a place, let's rephrase it. How about a place where everyone, regardless of their background or beliefs, could feel welcome and accepted? Like what would that look like?
CW: Yes.
SH: I don't think we're there. CW: No.
SH: No, so what I came up with was sanctuary would be a church where members could be honest about their wrestles and find support from others.
That would feel like the exhale to me.
CW: That would feel like the exhale. And that really is next level. I just keep thinking that 'cause I'm like, this is crazy talk Susan. What are you talking about? you think everybody at church could be honest? and that could be okay? and that people could wrestle out loud? and that could be okay?
Ah.
SH: And yet we call ourselves a true church. Cynthia, where's the truth?
CW: There you go.
SH: Where is the truth?
CW: At last she said it. Yes, a true church would have to be a place where people could wrestle. But there's this great quote from Diana Butler Bass. I'm reading her book, Christianity After Religion, the End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening.
And Wowee wow wow. But she has this line in there - she has a whole section actually where she's talking about belonging. And here's one line she said “To belong is to be. For belonging is ultimately a question of identity. Who am I?” To belong is to be. And I just think, how could we ask people to show up at a true church?
Like you were just saying, if they couldn't just be. Be themselves.
SH: Man, you've just gotten right to the heart of all of it with that line.
Alright. Next thing I thought of was sanctuary as a place of radical welcome. So wouldn't sanctuary need to extend to those who have been hurt or excluded by the church?
CW: Maybe especially to them
SH: Especially.
CW: Yeah.
SH: Wouldn't it advocate for and reach out to marginalized groups? including LGBTQ, you know, POC and those who have experienced trauma.
I think that if we were living up to that scripture, we would have to expand the reach of our arms in those ways. I'm gonna say sanctuary would be a church that offers a welcoming embrace to all, regardless of their past or present circumstances.
CW: I know, Susan, that you like to moonlight at Episcopal churches and sometimes I do as well.
And here in Provo, the Episcopal church is St. Mary's. I can't tell you. Well, I know I've told you, 'cause I've texted you how many times I've gone to the church and, I really do mean this in the nicest way, listeners, it's the island of misfit Mormon toys. You know, like the people that have gone there to heal from their wounds in our church.
SH: Right.
CW: I have a lot of feelings about that.
SH: Right.
CW: A lot. If we're going to say that Sanctuary is a church that offers a welcoming embrace to All capital A-ll “All”, then everyone should be able to come to our church and heal. And obviously there are people who don't feel that way, hence they need to go to other churches.
You titled this section, you know, “radical welcome” and I don't think we can really talk about the radicalness of sanctuary if we're not gonna talk about the radicalness of Jesus. So let's go there for a minute. You started reading that scripture in Corinthians about temple,
SH: Right.
CW: And how it should be for all. And in ancient Israel, the temple represented God's presence with the Israelites. The temple was their ultimate big deal, right? And it's where God appeared once a year in the Holy of Holies, on the day of Atonement, also called Yom Kippur. It's where sins were forgiven.
And then comes along this radical guy named Jesus, who overturns tables in the temple and the Jewish authorities ask him, who gave you that right? And then Jesus gives the prophecy saying, look, go ahead. Go ahead and destroy this temple and I'll raise it back in three days. Go ahead. And he is talking about his body.
Jesus is now the temple. No more money changers, no more sacrificing animals. [00:40:00] He is the temple. About this, Pete Enns, he said in his book How the Bible Actually Works; he said, “The really central point in all this is that the biblically rooted tradition of a holy sanctuary for God shifts from a structure to a person, and then that person's followers.”
So just like what you were saying about us being the temple, “That sort of thinking only came about because the circumstances demanded it. Jesus inspired a major midcourse change in direction. What eventually became Christianity began as a Jewish sect. A sect that stretched the boundaries of Judaism to its limit. Eventually, like Jesus' wineskins, it stretched those boundaries too far,” hence his radicalness.
SH: Wow.
CW: I know. I hadn't really thought of that. Now I'm going to always connect those verses in Corinthians with Jesus. Saying, go ahead and tear down this temple. I'm the temple. And then he enlists us as his disciples to also be the temple.
So when you ask like, wouldn't sanctuary need to extend to those who've been hurt or excluded? Yes! And I think that's exactly the whole mission of Jesus is to become a holy sanctuary. And Richard Rohr has this great quote where he says, “Jesus is both sanctuary and stumbling stone”. So I think that's the part there, where it's not about just comfort. Right?
SH: Right, right.
CW: But then Jesus invites us to be sanctuary as well, to offer that radical welcome-ness to everyone. This is next next level. Do you know what I mean? Like I am barely at this point where I am in my brain able to understand this.
SH: Right.
CW: But it feels deeply true to me.
SH: To me too. And I'm, oh, it's sort of crystallizing for me this conversation I've been having in my own head for a couple of years now, but where I look at our church and I think, where does this all end?
You know, where is this going? And so when you say that, you know, what became Christianity started as this sect in Judaism, that stretched things too far. So it could no longer be held there.
You know, I don't ever wanna see a splinter in the church. I love, but I gotta be honest when I say sometimes I don't really know where this is going because I feel like the wineskin of our church is not holding a lot of people right now.
CW: Yeah.
SH: Who want it to be more.
CW: I think that's a fair question. I don't have an answer to that,
SH: I don't either.
CW: but I'm gonna be thinking on that.
SH: I have no answer, but I think about it a lot because I just don't know where the future goes. I'm not a prophet Cynthia.
CW: Right, right. We're just thinking out loud.
SH: You and I had an interesting experience. At least it had my attention. I don't know if you and I talked about it, but twice during our book tour time, we went to see Nadia Bolz-Weber at a Presbyterian church in Salt Lake City. And then we did attend an Episcopal service as well during those few weeks that we spent a lot of time together. And in both of those places we were recognized. By other Mormons who were there. And so that tells me something.
CW: I hadn't thought about that, Susan.
SH: That tells me something. What are people looking for? And I mean, I think they're looking for sanctuary of a kind that they're not finding in our church.
They're still looking in other sacred spaces. Like so they're hungry for a really specific thing. Right? As I know that I am. Why do you think I moonlight with the Episcopalians? That's why. I'm hungry for church. But more church. Different church. Bigger church. I don't know. Something. Something.
CW: I hadn't thought about that before.
That's a really good point. The fact that we are recognized in Presbyterian, in Episcopal churches says that there are other people there looking for sanctuary.
SH: Right. And I mean, it just goes to what you talk about with the Episcopal congregation in Provo. It's full of Mormons. Much to think on there. No answers.
Only more questions.
CW: Yeah.
SH: Let's talk about sanctuary as a place of truth telling. Okay. Shouldn't church include open and honest conversations about faith doubt and the challenges of living as Latter Day Saints in the modern world? Like what better places there to talk about those kinds of things? Where do we want our kids talking about those kinds of things, if not within the walls of our church?
Shouldn't members be allowed and even encouraged? I'm gonna underline, encouraged. Shouldn't we be encouraged to speak our truths even when those truths might be uncomfortable or challenge the established cultural norms? In a true church shouldn't we speak truth?
CW: I mean, I'm just laughing, Susan, because allowing is one thing, but encouraging. If you're gonna underline encouraging, that just makes me laugh.
SH: Oh, I'm just talking crazy talk, Cynthia.
CW: That's just me being snarky. Well, I know[00:45:00]
SH: I'm talking crazy. Mormon's having a conversation about sanctuary to begin with is talking crazy talk, isn't it?
CW: Right, right. The hubris of this whole combo.
SH: We just should have said that right in the beginning. Okay. But I'm gonna summarize this truth telling idea by saying sanctuary would be a church where members could individually grow in their faith (radical word there grow) in their faith through learning together and working to understand each other in our diversity of experiences.
Okay, let's shift gears here. Let's talk about creating sanctuary for ourselves.
CW: Okay.
SH: It makes sense to me that, you know, if we can provide sanctuary for others, then we can also create it for, or I don't know if that's right, we can create it within ourselves. I love the lines from this poet, her name is Sheniz Janmohamed, who I really probably did a bad job of that Sheniz Janmohamed, with my apologies.
But the line say this, “There are many ways to hold sanctuary. May I be one of them?”
CW: That's a good mantra.
SH: I feel like creating personal sanctuary means asking ourselves what we need in the moment. Like what do you do when you feel spiritually or emotionally vulnerable? Well, you go hear Nadia Bolz-Weber at the Presbyterian church clearly.
But remember, sanctuary is sacred space literal or metaphorical. It's shared or entirely personal, right? It can be all of those things. I was thinking about how for some, personal spiritual experience may provide sanctuary to which they can return when things get hard. And this has been the case for me personally.
CW: Same.
SH: Yeah. I hear a lot of people who move into this space and then they really don't know what to make of their spiritual experiences that they've had. They don't know. Do they have to give those away? They might put 'em on some kind of new shelf. That stuff can be really hard to reckon with. But for me, those experiences I've had have remained a sanctuary even when my understanding of them has shifted maybe or changed or the ways that I think about them. The sanctuary remained.
I was thinking about Psalm 46. “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, will not we fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled.
Though the mountain shake with the swelling thereof, be still and know that I am God.” That's something that I continue. I love that line. I know Kajsa mentioned that line in the conversation that we had.
CW: Yes.
SH: That it continues to provide some spiritual sanctuary for her. It does for me as well.
The idea that I can just be still and know or not know, whatever, because the whole thing is in someone's hands bigger than mine, whether I understand 'em or not.
CW: I'm thinking as you're talking about creating sanctuary within ourselves and how when people maybe have a faith change, whether they leave the church or not, and they start to wonder, you know, how do I sort those previous experiences?
Do I get to take them with me? Kind of a thing like Kajsa did talk about, and it reminds me also of our recent conversation we had with Jody England Hansen, where she talked about God moments.
SH: Yes.
CW: And how she said like a God moment for her was realizing that all the things that matter, when you give them away, they come back to you more and more and more.
And I'm thinking if that isn't creating sanctuary for yourself, I don't know what is. To just have those moments with God where you're like, ah, I finally get it. I finally get what you've been trying to teach me about mercy and forgiveness and all these things that Jody was talking about.
SH: Right. I think “moments” is a really pivotal word in that idea, because
CW: Me too.
SH: I don't know about you, but for me, everything that I have about God, I only have in moments.
CW: Yes. Fleeting moments.
SH: Yeah. Fleeting moments. I glimpse things occasionally, or feel 'em, or experience them in fleeting moments. Sometimes before I even realize what's happening.
CW: Oh, almost always.
SH: The moment's gone, you know, before I can even get myself around it. It's these moments and so like, maybe the idea of creating sanctuary for myself wouldn't even really be a sustainable thing. Maybe the goal becomes creating moments of sanctuary.
CW: That we take with us everywhere.
SH: If I can have moments that we take, that we just put in our pocket
CW: Put in your pocket
SH: and continue to carry with us, and then we can lean on them when we need them. But don't think we're gonna always, I'm not gonna live in the exhale, Cynthia. No one lives in the exhale.
I would love to figure that out. [00:50:00] I maybe Thomas McConkie does. I don't know, but I don't. So yeah.
I was thinking about how like I was talking about the beginning, getting my own, you know, physical space was this line of demarcation in my life. I was thinking about how you could create an actual space.
I remember talking to a woman who had come into a support group online that I was in years ago, and she had made a prayer closet. She said we had a closet that I was able to kind of clear out. And so I put stuff in there I love. I put some art on the walls that I love. I put a comfy pillow, you know, I put a candle that I love how it smelled, and it was like a tiny tiny place that I could go.
I literally go to my closet to pray or to sort through this spiritual stuff. And I just love that. An actual space really might be helpful for some people. And then if that's not your thing or you can't do it, then I think maybe you could do things that feed you, whatever that might be.
Being fed in whatever way you're hungry for can provide mental and emotional and spiritual relief. Honestly, this is why I moonlight with the Episcopalians. I find something there that I haven't really experienced or that I'm not currently experiencing in my church life. So I go there occasionally.
I don't need to worship with them every Sunday. I just go there sometimes. Right? And I get a little shot of something that gives me some spiritual relief. And then I'm good again for a while.
CW: Well, and it's nice to enter places like that. Literal places, like in other churches or even online, like I know the Washington National Cathedral, their sermons that they have.
We just referenced them on our empathy episode. Like so many of these places are important, as they offer a sanctuary because we feel less alone. I'm speaking for myself here. Like sometimes it's really hard to show up at church so often, and the lesson I keep telling myself over and over is see the humanity of this person, Cynthia, just see their humanity because what they're saying is resonating with me 0%. So sometimes it's really nice to show up and hear people in sacred spaces that resonate with me more than 0%, if that makes sense.
SH: It does make sense.
CW: I need that.
SH: I love that idea of see the humanity of this person though, because that's where this whole conversation started was with Sarah Bessey saying that you can't provide sanctuary for people by being less human than you are.
I feel like that place of humanity where we can meet literally anyone, no matter what someone is saying. There is a space somewhere that you both meet in your common humanity. Regardless of ideas or anything else. I feel like that's a really good tool for engaging at church if church is feeling hard and not like sanctuary to you.
CW: Well, it's kind of sometimes all I have lately.
SH: It's a lot. I mean, I feel like it's a lot.
CW: It's a lot. It's a hard time right now.
SH: But it's hard.
CW: It is. It’s so hard.
SH: It’s so hard. And again, some days I have energy for it. Some days.
CW: Exactly.
SH: I don't care about your humanity like you gonna be around you right now.
CW: Exactly.
SH: Oh gosh. And so as we're talking about people, I just also want to say that finding your people can provide refuge wherever that is, even just online. You know, the space might just be virtual, but the relationships and support can become very real. And I am the poster child for this.
Online support saved my life. It became literal sanctuary for me for quite a number of years.
CW: And you and I are exhibit A. We are friends because of online support.
SH: Right. Absolutely.
CW: So, there you go. Well, can we wrap up this section talking about becoming sanctuary for ourselves with a quote from Father Greg Boyle, who has, gosh, he's become one of my true mentors, I think, in this space right now.
He wrote in his book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship he said, and he calls the young men that he works with; it's called Homeboy Industry, right? So he, all the young men, the former gang members, he calls 'em homeboys, and the quote goes like this, “Homeboy wants to provide a sanctuary for homies until they become the sanctuary they sought here.
It is in that setting that we are able to calibrate our hearts and point them in the direction of the welcoming embrace. Here we make a decision to live in each other's hearts. After all, we are all just looking for a home for our hearts. As Dorothy Day writes, we have all known the long loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with [00:55:00] community.”
SH: Gorgeous. I love in that first line that he says, we wanna provide a sanctuary for people until they become the sanctuary they sought here.
CW: Yep.
SH: That is it.
CW: That is it.
SH: So good. Okay well thanks for showing up for a conversation that you weren't really sure how to have or that you wanted to have Cynthia, I really do appreciate that. Because for me,
CW: I have loved it all.
SH: It's been a great exercise thinking through this concept of sanctuary. And I think we should leave it where we began, which is with Rachel Held Evans. But this quote actually is not from Rachel Held Evans. It's from a woman named Reverend Elizabeth Henry, who is a clergy woman in the United Methodist Church.
And she is writing about Rachel Held Evans. But I love the way that she sort of sums up what we're talking about and she says this: “Evans curated a community of people who felt that something was missing in the ways they had been doing church. People with too many questions, people with the wrong convictions, people who loved in ways that were against the rules, and people that were somehow made to feel too much or too little in their churches found a home with Rachel, both in her own writings and among the people she drew together. She was a magnet for anyone who felt that there was something more beneath the surface of their faith, particularly those who had been harshly reprimanded for pulling back the corner of the carpet in their own sanctuaries.
Rachel became a bridge for so many who felt isolated or alienated by their church homes for any number of reasons. Reaching out first through sharing her own stories of the deconstruction and eventual reconstruction of her faith, and then by lifting up the voices of those who are so often ignored in mainstream conversations about faith and church and spirituality.
This is Rachel's legacy, or at least part of it. Those who were afraid found safety. Those who were confused and distressed were granted peace. Those who were alienated from religion became a fresh and loving faith community to one another.”
CW: Wow.
SH: Amen.
CW: Amen. That is creating sanctuary.
SH: That's creating sanctuary and going forward that's my goal withALSSI and all the interactions I have here.
CW: A good goal. Thank you, Susan.
SH: Thanks, Cynthia.
Voicemail 1: Hi. I am responding to episode 229 What about empathy? Four years ago when my oldest graduated from high school, our Stake President was conducting exit interviews with all of the graduating seniors. In the course of my daughter's interview, she expressed to him that she was uncomfortable with the church's position on the LGBTQ+ community.
He told her that she was entitled to that opinion, but that if she loved and supported them too much, it would be a disservice to the very people she was trying to love. He said she would actually violate both the first and second great commandments because she would be supporting ideas and behavior that are not compatible with God's work of exalting His children.
That was the first time I'd heard the sin of empathy articulated by a church leader. That man is now an area authority.
Voicemail 2: Hi, Susan and Cynthia. I really love the most recent episode on empathy and appreciated the careful way you approached current political issues. The current administration shows us the opposite of empathy and even attacks those who defend it. Shutting down DEI programs is a perfect example. DEI Initiatives teach people to identify their own biases, to see and listen to those different from them, and to show respect.
I'll never forget a two day DEI and implicit bias conference that taught me more about being empathic and even Christ-like than 40 years in the church ever did. The difference is that in many secular spaces, empathy isn't just preached about. It's actually taught and practiced in concrete ways. Skills like listening, respecting, and honoring people who are different.
That was rarely modeled for me in the church, which often approached diversity with a sense of superiority because we believed we had the Truth with a capital T, and everyone else around us was lost. Thank you so much for all that you do. Keep it up.
CW: Don't forget, we have a website atlastshesaidit.org.
That's where you can find all of our content. You can contact our team, send us a voicemail, find transcripts, buy our book, subscribe to our substack, or make a tax- deductible donation. Paid subscribers get extra stuff including access to our community chats, and also Zoom events with us. Remember, your support keeps the podcast ad free.
Thanks for [01:00:00] listening.