Episode 233 (Transcript): Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Jen Dille
Episode Transcript
Many thanks to listener Anne Totten 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:
JD: You two have helped me so much. Like I know there was a season or two where you were like, ladies, find your voice. Listen to your inner knowing. And I remember having my headphones on and listening and feeling so small and so underdeveloped and in my head I’d kind of have a conversation with you and be like okay.
I can do it. I’ll listen to myself. Wait, could you just say that one more time? Could you say it like a thousand more times? Because I needed to hear it like a million times to have permission because I really needed a permission slip to dismantle the good girl voices in my head.
CW: Hello, I’m Cynthia Winward. And I’m Susan Hinkley. And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today’s episode is Embracing Your Journey: A Conversation with Jen Dille. Welcome, Jen.
SH: Hi, Jen!
JD: Hi. Thank you. I’m so excited to be here with both of you.
CW: Well, Jen, we’re so excited to have you today. We’re excited to hear more about your journey. In many ways, I feel like Susan and I have interacted with you a lot lately, and we’ll get to that. But also I feel like we don’t know you terribly well, so I know Susan and I have said to each other, I am so excited ‘cause it’s like Christmas for us. We have no idea what packages we’re going to unwrap today with Jen.
SH: Exactly.
CW: So, yeah, we’re super excited. Thanks again for being here with us.
JD: Oh, thanks for having me. This is gonna be a treat.
CW: Well, Susan is going to lead our conversation today, so go ahead, Susan.
SH: All right. My pleasure. So, Jen, we have sort of retooled our questions that we usually use for these episodes, and you are the first one trying out the new set of questions.
So, we’re excited about that, but we wanna start where these interviews usually start, and that is with the beginning, kind of how it all started for you. Could you give us a sort of quick snapshot of your life as a Latter-day Saint?
JD: Yes. Thank you. This was really helpful for me to kind of go back to the foundation.
So I grew up in Mesa, Arizona. I was raised in the same ward my whole life, and I feel like I managed to find a way to be on the edge of inside and mainstream kind of all at the same time.
CW: Wow.
JD: So my dad was a convert, the only member in his family, and my mom traces back to Pioneer stock. So when my grandparents on my dad’s side came over for dinner, they brought their little martini kit to mix their own drinks.
And when they came into town, we would go out to eat on Sunday, which was normally very against the rules.
So my parents were like, “Well, here’s an exception to the rules.” And I was like, “An exception? What?” And whereas on my mom’s side my grandma wrote the primary song, “Our Primary Colors.”
CW/SH: Oh!
JD: And that is a little fun fact. And my grandfather was a patriarch, so just, you know, very dyed-in-the-wool, true-blue Mormon.
SH: Uh huh.
CW: Right.
JD: So yeah, having both of these influences on me, I feel really helped me just be comfortable with nuance at a pretty young age. So, when I grew up I went to BYU. I wanted to go on a mission, but I got married young, like real young. Which, for those true fans–
SH: It happens.
[laughter]
JD: Yes, I was gonna say! –Who know all the At Last She Said It trivia, it was one year older than Susan was when she got married.
SH: Congratulations on that!
[laughter]
JD: Thank you. Thank you. So I like to say, well, I was almost a junior in college when I got married, so I tried to have a sense of humor about like these cheesy things I was doing where I would have to eat my words.
Like when we were at BYU, we lived in Wymount Terrace, which was called “The Rabbit Hutches” at the time, I don’t know if you remember that. Yeah. Yeah. So my active rebellion was to not have kids while we were there because I had a good long season where I didn’t wanna have kids. So we actually waited four years before we had our first child.
SH: Wow.
JD: Yeah, I know–woah!
CW: Which sounds very normal,
SH: Yeah!
JD: Yeah, it does.
CW: And also crazy! How dare you? Right?
[laughter]
JD: Right! Like, whoa. Yeah. Started to get the question. So yeah. So once we had kids, we had four kids. I love my kids. We moved to Gilbert, Arizona and eventually needed to buy a Suburban as one [00:05:00] does. And I got a personalized license plate that said “Cheesy” because I’m like, well, if I’m driving less than a quarter mile to my church parking lot, that is also full of Suburbans, in Suburbia, like, let’s just poke fun at this.
[laughter]
CW: I love knowing that.
JD: Yeah! So, I mean, we were highly involved, busy serving. I wanted a career, but I kept praying and just felt like I got a “no” answer, and I really did believe that was the answer for me, like not just programming. So I taught piano for 15 years. So, yeah.
One way that we were on the edge was that my husband and I are Democrats and actually had a friend in our ward ask to our faces like, “So as a Democrat, how do you hold a temple recommend?”
CW: Oh!
SH: Oh right, that’s real.
JD: Yes. She was completely sincere.
CW: Wow!
JD: Yes. Yes. And some of our family lore is, there’s a story that when our oldest son got married, he took his new wife to this party with friends that he had grown up with in the ward.
And as he is driving there, he’s telling her like, “Hey, just to give you kind of a frame of reference for my family, like when we were growing up, people would be like, ‘Oh, those Dilles. They’re Democrats!’” (and like hand to mouth, you know, whisper.) And it was so funny because as they went into the party and they were talking, one of the friends did say, “You know, growing up we would always say, oh, those Dilles, they’re Democrats.”
And it was like the exact same whisper, the exact same gesture of like hand to mouth, you know? I was like, yeah we knew how we were viewed. And the funny thing to me is that several of his friends are now very progressive and have less of their parents’ conservatism.
CW: That is just not a shocking story at all to believe when you’re a Latter-day Saint. I wish it were shocking, but it’s not.
SH: I mean, especially in Arizona, so…
[laughter]
JD: Yes, and especially in Gilbert. Yep. It’s true. Yeah.
SH: So you were living the stereotype, basically.
JD: Yes. Living the Mormon suburban mom dream. Yeah.
CW: I love it.
[laughter]
JD: Yeah. And I mean, it’s a great life. So another way that I was on the edge is I feel like I was always a feminist, especially in college, and I’ve really tried to pinpoint kind of the origin awakening, but it just felt like it was always there.
And when we moved to Gilbert, I became friends with a woman named Meredith, who is still one of my very closest friends. And when she moved in, I remember hearing about her like, whoa. She wears pants to church and she’s part of this Ordain Women movement. And this was before wearing pants was cool.
And you know, a lot of people were doing it. So I go over to her house and I was so proud to be able to say like, I’m a feminist too. And so as we’re talking, and she was telling me all these things she’s doing, she was like, “Well, why aren’t you angry about what’s going on?” And I had littles at the time, so my tone was probably like, oh, sweetie. I was like, I don’t have time for rage. Because I feel like, you know, it’s almost not fair that feminists get branded as ragey, but it does take a certain amount of energy to do something about it as both of you know.
SH: Right, right.
CW: Yes. So I have a question for you already, Jen.
JD: Yes. Great.
CW: So you know quite a bit about Susan and how Susan always felt. I mean, Susan also came from a progressive Democrat family, but Susan has said she’s never really felt like she fit into the church. I’m not sure if that’s related to your politics. That might be part of it, Susan, I shouldn’t be speaking for you, but did you feel the same, Jen? Like, when people would whisper, “Those Dellys are Democrats,” like, was that something you were proud of? Was it hurtful? Like, why do people talk about us this way? I’m just curious how you felt about that. Did it contribute to not fitting in, or you always did feel like you fit in?
JD: That’s such a good question and I feel like it’s kind of a varied answer. I mean, a lot of times, especially in 2008 when Obama was elected, we felt really proud of being different and like, look, we’re aligned with this president and this good man, like, this is exciting. And then there were other times where I felt like in the ward there was a certain part of, okay, well, we’re probably never gonna completely fit in. And again, you know, that’s just my perception. I don’t know how real that was.
CW: Sure.
JD: I think most, I would say probably most people [00:10:00] would just kind of laugh about it. Like our Obama sign did get toilet papered, but it was all in jest and good humor. But it was still kinda like, yeah, you’re the only one in the ward with an Obama sign.
CW: Interesting. Okay, thank you.
SH: And did you have feelings about that? Because— well, I guess maybe I’ll couch this in my own feelings—I also was living the stereotype, and yet I felt like I didn’t fit in in some really foundational ways. And for me, that caused a lot of unease, I guess. I had a lot of feelings about that. And I’m wondering if there was a tension in any of that for you, or if you sort of were able to take that in stride better than maybe I did.
JD: Yeah, I don’t know. You know, I guess I haven’t thought about it and maybe I need to explore that deeper.
SH: It could make you start a podcast, so don’t explore it too deeply. It might take over your life.
[laughter]
JD: Yeah, great question though. I’m not sure. Yeah.
CW: Interesting.
JD: Okay. And then one way that we were mainstream and felt included was through our callings.
I mean, I taught gospel doctrine. I was in the stake, young women’s presidency. I taught stake adult religion for three years with a woman who had just come off of being a mission leader. And I hesitate to share that because I don’t like the “calling resume” culture. But I do just wanna show that deconstruction doesn’t just happen to lazy learners, which I know you just, you talked this season with Abby Maxwell Hanson about, and I just wanna echo that.
CW: Nice.
JD: Like it’s often the most true-blue Mormons and the people who are all in who have this experience. So right now, two of my friends who used to be Stake Relief Society Presidents are very nuanced and have talked with me about being kind of on the edge of leaving. And I did just wanna be clear, like, I have not left the church.
I do still attend, I hold a calling and I’ve thought a lot about this. It’s mainly because I need to be around people who see things differently than I do.
CW: Agreed.
SH: If you don’t mind sharing, I don’t know what ages your kids are, but are your kids still actively involved in the church, or not really?
JD: Yes. My oldest is 30 so they range from 30 to 22 and yeah, they are all still active.
SH: Okay.
JD: I would say they’re all nuanced. They’re able to talk about different ideas and we have a lot of really interesting discussions about things that happen.
CW: Oh, I bet.
JD: Yeah.
SH: Okay. Thanks. That just gives me a little more context for my next question because it’s not gonna be what happened to me, obviously, it’s gonna be something different. What changed, if anything? Was there a time when things started to shift for you that you can really point to? Or maybe not, maybe it’s just sort of always been this evolving faith?
JD: Great question. I love this question. There are some events that I can point to.
So I feel like part of my expansion started around 2016-17. Like I can look and go, “oh, the stage was being set.” ‘cause I started to realize my world was very insular. I mean, it basically was just like my ward, stake, maybe a few stakes around the high school where we live, but like socially, all of our friends were in our ward or stake.
Business wise, I’m teaching piano and as my kids are getting older, I am starting to get more project management type jobs with LDS people who live in my area. And, you know, if somebody had said, “oh, let’s get a spiritual book,” I would say, oh yeah, let’s hop in the car and drive to Deseret Book.
Like just everything was, you know, my ward and stake. And I really started to feel called to be more in my community. So my daughter, my oldest daughter, was a senior at the time, so she and her best friend and I got a license for and created TEDx Gilbert. Which was an event. Yeah. We planned three events.
We met some amazing people and I started to feel like, whoa, I’m out in the world. You know what I mean?
CW: Yes, we do!
SH: Yeah. But I mean, that is really impressive and I greatly admire that. I mean, did it feel like you were doing something pretty radical?
JD: It did. It felt like, whoa, I’m not even like, emailing my Relief Society list to be like, “Who wants to help me with this?”
Like, I’m going out into the community to do this. I also started a group called Gilbert Belongs with a friend who is Black, when we were talking about racial issues at the time when George [00:15:00] Floyd was murdered, and I realized, like, these groups where we’re talking about ideas, this is like a huge source of vitality for me.
So when my shelves started to break, it was with my oldest daughter’s mission experience. She was serving in a very remote part of the world with islands that were very hard to access even during good times and COVID hit. So it’s a very long story, but essentially she was stuck for two and a half months and not just like, stuck, but thinking, oh, in the next two to three days we’re gonna pack everything up.
And they would get instructions like, “clean your apartment, say bye to the members, you’re going home.” And then that same day would be like, “oh, we didn’t get the right signatures from the government, so get back to work.” So there were just several things that happened that caused big-T trauma for her and the other missionaries who were there.
And I started to realize as I’m hearing all these things from her that are going on: there were no women in the room where these decisions were being made about these missionaries.
CW: Wow. Wow.
JD: You have the mission president, you have the area authorities, you have an Apostle, zero women. And that just really bothered me.
And it’s not even that I’m saying women need to rule the world, it needed to be all women—I’m not saying that.
CW: Right, right.
JD: They just need partnership and cooperation and just influence—their voices in the room.
CW: Did it bother your daughter, or was this just quietly going on inside of you as you’re observing your daughter’s situation?
JD: Great question. Yeah. I’m not good at being quiet.
CW: Yes!
JD: So, I mean, it was hard for her, because she knew what this was starting to cause. So that was another layer of, you know, pressure on her.
CW: Gotcha. Yeah.
JD: So I mean, I feel like she’s always been nuanced, so maybe this added some more nuance, but yeah.
Yeah, this definitely was like my second feminist awakening, you could say. And then, you know, my eyes start opening to like, wait a second. It’s not okay that there’s only three women speaking in General Conference, and never being able to make the final decision or be in the room where stuff is happening.
So yeah. And that’s just kind of classic to the deconstruction experience: having like, a disruption that just kicks things off.
CW: That’s quite a disruption—COVID, but all the tentacles that COVID sent out into the world, right? Like I don’t think church leaders were probably expecting to see just how many tentacles that that sent out into our church community. And like, you’ve heard us talk before about single women at home who couldn’t have the sacrament, right? And how that was a shelf crasher, not just for them, but for those of us who were watching, going, wait, what? Susan, I think you’ve said before on the podcast, “I never would’ve thought this is the one thing that would disappear, was the sacrament.”
And yet here you are, Jen, talking about watching just all men in the room make decisions and you weren’t okay with that. So it can be anything, you know? It can be anything.
JD: Yeah, that’s true.
SH: It also has my attention about this experience, that it was something happening to your daughter that really opened your eyes to this, right? And you probably felt pretty powerless as a mother on the sidelines of someone else’s mission. That’s a really hard position to be in. First of all, anything you say is going to impact your daughter’s experience that she’s having, so you don’t wanna interfere with that. Right? But you also have no power, really, to affect change in what’s happening to her.
And so maybe it was the first time ever that you had stepped outside the church experience and been looking at it—it’s like you’re watching a little diorama of someone else’s church experience and you’re suddenly seeing things that you haven’t really thought about before. Does that sound like an accurate description?
JD: It sounds like you just nailed it and lived through it with me because yes, that was exactly it, of just feeling powerless to be able to do anything. And again, it’s not that I needed them to do it just the way I wanted it, but it’s like, “Hey, could we have a conversation about what’s going on here?”
And just. Yeah. Nothing, no avenue. So, yes, you know, you all talk about this all the time, which I appreciate. So fast forward a year, we finally get my daughter home. She goes back up to school a year later, about five to seven of her friends who have also come home from missions come out as gay or bi around the same time.
And my reaction is, “What’s this fad that’s going on that all your friends are coming out as gay or bi?” It still pains me to say that, [00:20:00] because that’s not a great thing to say. And my daughter was like, “Mom you can’t say that!” And I was like, “Okay, I don’t know. Like, what’s going on? What should I say? Like, can you please teach me or tutor me on what is proper to react this way about?” And she was so funny. She was kinda like, “I don’t know, but I’ve heard there’s this really great podcast, it’s called Questions From the Closet. Just go listen to it and you figure this out.” So I was driving home from Utah to Arizona and listening to Ben and Charlie, and it was right at the end of season one.
And I still remember where I was on the road and they were saying, “Oh, you know, we really need to just take a little break. We’re gonna wrap up season one. We just need to get organized.” And I remember feeling prompted: you need to organize for them. And I was like, oh, okay, cool.
So I came home, emailed them. Ben Schilaty called me the next day and I started volunteering for them to help plan the live events. And I feel like even more importantly, I started listening to their podcast because Ben taught me that having proximity to these stories of people’s experience really matters.
And I realized how many assumptions I had about LGBTQ people, especially in the church. Like, “oh, it’s a choice.” And then you listen to hundreds of stories of dedicated people—often the most dedicated people, because they’re trying so hard to stay good with God. And my assumptions just started to dissolve.
Then I started to see, oh, who else is on the margins? It’s LGBTQ people.
So six months after that, my daughter’s seminary teacher, Claire Dalton, came out as gay on Facebook. And so I reached out to her and I was like, “Hey, I really hope that you feel the love of the community and you know, we support you.” She was just like, “well, actually…” So I was like, “okay, come over for dinner.” It was great timing because Ben Schilaty was coming over for dinner that weekend.
So we brought them all together and had a great conversation and Claire and I, very long story short, started doing ally nights, which we’re still doing now almost four years later. And that’s where we meet once a month and we basically hand a microphone to an LDS LGBTQ person—and when I say LDS, it doesn’t mean they have to be active, you know? Anyone—and just listen. We just listen and it’s so powerful. And some months we have 40 people. Some months we’ve had as many as 70 people. And we just gather in a home and we just listen to people’s stories.
CW: Wow.
SH: Amazing.
CW: And look at all that!
SH: Look, that could change everything!
CW: That’s what I’m just thinking, Susan, right? Just having one person saying, “Hey, let’s do something about this,” and you can. And no one has to assign you that calling, right? You assign it to yourself.
JD: Yes, a hundred percent. We didn’t need to ask for permission. We do it in a home and I don’t even have a Facebook group for it.
We just have an email list and I’ll just send out like, “Hey, here’s what we’re doing.” Some months, I don’t even make a little cute Canva invitation. It’s just text only, “Come. Here’s who’s talking. They’re gonna be amazing.” So, very simple. So yeah, I feel like I started to get a greater and greater awareness of all of these issues of women being left out of the room, and LGBTQ people being made to feel less than, and race issues.
And I started to get blown into a very full deconstruction and my spiritual life felt like a mess. I mean, I feel like there’s so many metaphors in this space of the shelf breaking. For me, it felt like a hurricane. I’ve also said like, oh, there’s another nail in the coffin or flames being lit, whatever you wanna call it.
I just started questioning, how could the Godhead— and when I say Godhead, I mean Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost—how could they allow their children to be treated this way in their church? It just feels like the things that are happening just aren’t right. And so I started questioning, do I need to leave? Because this doesn’t feel right.
CW: Wow. You went straight to the big question then.
JD: Yes, I did.
CW: Wow.
JD: So luckily I found Brian McLaren—he was a guest on the Faith Matters podcast.
CW: Yes.
JD: He [00:25:00] has a book called Faith After Doubt. I know you’ve quoted from him multiple times, and learning about the four stages of simplicity, complexity, perplexity, and harmony. I mean, there’s lots of different frameworks, but he’s kind of got it down to four and just even learning like, wait, this is happening in other churches?
CW: Right? Yep.
JD: Yeah, so he introduced me to Richard Rohr, who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation, and they talk about how deconstruction is actually very common in the second half of life, and I know Thomas McConkie talks about this, and he’s added in studying human development and this is very normal and this does not need to be a crisis.
SH: Ain’t nobody talking about that in our church.
JD: Yes. Yes, exactly.
CW: When you learned that, Jen, that, “oh, this is very common for people to go through of all religions,” right— For me, when I learned that it was very peace-giving. It really helped me just say, oh, this is just a part of human development. Did it do the same for you?
JD: Yes. It was so validating, even to just know, I’m not crazy, I’m not alone. This is just part of the human experience. I really, there were times, and I’ll get into this in just a bit, where I felt like I was doing something wrong. Like, oh, this is bad. I need to repent of these feelings I’m having and such. And yeah, I realized, and for me it wasn’t even as much a faith crisis as it was a trust shift in the institution of the LDS church.
CW: Yes!
JD: I still love the doctrine (I should say most of it). But there just started to be like, this cognitive dissonance between our doctrine and our practice, and that just became deafening to me because as you say, we don’t believe our own stuff.
SH: So my question is, while this is going on, did you feel at liberty to talk about this? We talk to a lot of women who go through this deconstruction. They feel like they have to do it in secret.
JD: Oh yes.
SH: Like I was doing it myself in secret for quite a long time before I’d started knowing I had to say something.
So did you feel like you were able to talk to the people around you or where did you find support during this time?
JD: Yeah. At first I just really kept it to myself and I mean, I would talk with my husband. I tried to carefully tell my children and then, I mean, I feel like—and you two know—you start to learn really quickly, like, who you trust, who can be okay with this information that I’m giving. So just kind of very gradually I might drop like, “huh, I really had a hard time with that General Conference talk” and just even saying stuff like that, boy, waters parted. And there were people who were like, “yep, I get it.” And other people who were like, “what are you even talking about?” Like, yeah, like literally did not understand what I was saying. So, that was fascinating. I feel like I also started learning more about like, systems, and the church as a system and group dynamics and the church and our culture as a group and just learning that a lot of the dynamics that we have in our culture are not, they’re not healthy. And once you start seeing that, you go, oh, okay there’s a lot of things that we can and work on and improve on. And so I feel like I was like, yeah, starting to talk to people, starting to learn more. And then I would have these times of like kind of shrinking back in, and these stages of faith became so real to me that they felt like a physical place. And I, as I’m in complexity and perplexity, I would just have these times where I would cry and cry and just beg the Godhead, like, “please just let me go back. Like, can we just put the genie back in the bottle? Can we just forget all this happened?”
And even though I was probably never in like, true simple faith, I just wanted to go back to a simpler time. And my husband was so patient with me as I was just like, “I just wanna go back. I just wanna go back so bad.” Because I wanted to be good. I wanted to be a good girl. And when you start taking away the structure of the institution of what you’ve believed in, you’re like, wait, How do I know if I’m good? Like, what are the metrics anymore? And so—
CW: Oh my gosh, I was addicted to being the good girl. I don’t know if you would describe it as an addiction, but I was. And like you say, where is the line? Then what’s the metric for being quote, unquote, “good”—you know, like, however we’re gonna define that—where is that [00:30:00] now?
JD: Okay. Because yeah, when your checklist is gone, you’re just like, wait it’s so disorienting. That’s part of what’s so hard about it. So you can probably hear like, I’m a hot mess during this time, and so I’m like, I need professional help. So luckily, listening to the two of you, I was introduced to Jana Spangler, and so I sought her out directly and I was like, I don’t care how long her waiting list is—she’s been on your podcast several times—I was like, I am waiting for Jana.
And she was so instrumental in helping me heal, helping me realize what’s going on, that if I think I’m fine and I’m walking into like, Mother’s Day Relief Society gathering the second hour, and I feel like I’m gonna throw up, and I’m sweating profusely and I’m looking at the exit signs for how I can get out—I may think I’m fine, like, “oh, I’m fine going, this isn’t a big deal.” But my body’s trying to tell me like, “sweetie, you’re actually not fine right now.” This was a revelation to me from Jana. So I also realized that I needed a community where I could talk about it because yeah, I had certain friends that I could talk to about little bits and pieces, but I also didn’t wanna burden them. I don’t wanna be like ripping their testimony apart. And so I was like, all right, I gotta get more help.
So I joined a latter day struggles group with Valerie and Nathan Hamaker. And that was instrumental, again, to my healing, to having community, to having a safe place to just go and be like, “well, I got super triggered at church today, let me tell you all about it.” So that was very helpful. And then once I start getting these tools and this knowledge, then I’m on fire. So then I start my era of going to talk to ward and stake leaders, So I’m like running to them going, Hey guys, there’s this thing called stages of faith. We gotta be talking about this. Like—you’re seeing, Susan—
SH/CW: [laughing]
JD: Like, can we do a fifth Sunday lesson? Can we have an extra Sunday school class?
CW: [laughing] Oh, I love it.
JD: And they’re like, “oh I don’t think that’s in the handbook.” Just going— like, you guys, we’ve gotta start talking about this ‘cause this is normal. And it happens to people and let’s not just like, smush it under a rug.
So I started realizing how many times I’ve gone to ward and stake leaders. Like, Meredith—this friend who I was talking about, who was like the OG feminist—we went to the state president and talked about women’s issues, like, “Hey, we need some more representation because there’s Sundays where I’m walking into my ward and there are between 14 and 19 males up in the front, if you start counting, like, preparing the sacrament, and our organist is male,” and Yeah. So I’m like, “can you understand what that would feel like for us?” In my ward, it’s not unusual to have all male speakers, and it got to a point where when I would tell the bishopric, like, “have you guys noticed this?”
And they’re like, “No. We ask plenty of women.” Well, I started tracking it on a spreadsheet, and over like, three years—
CW: I do the same.
JD: Okay! I love it!
[laughing]
My ward’s about two to one male to female. What’s your ward?
CW: I don’t even remember what it was.
JD: Okay, okay.
CW: I think I did it for like, high counselors because the high counselors would only bring men with them as their companion speakers and it did not go well when I turned in that list, they were not happy that someone was keeping track.
JD: Yeah. Same. I’m kinda like, “the data doesn’t lie, guys,” like, this is what we’re dealing with.
So, yeah. Then I had another round of going to talk to ward and stake leaders about LGBTQ issues because I was like, “Hey, at the very least could you have the teachers— like, can we train teachers not to, like, if they’re bringing up LGBTQ people to not say like, ‘oh, those people.’ Because if you look at the research, Pew Research shows like about 7% of the population identifies as something other than straight.”
I’ve seen other studies that have it as high as 22%. So I’m like, if you look at your average ward—we’re talking like 30 to 60 people just on average. And I even went to my ward and stake female organization leaders, so Relief Society, Primary, Young Women’s, and I’m just like, “please, can we start talking about this stuff?”
And a lot of them were like, “oh I never thought about it that way.” I was like, “right. That’s why I’m here.” So I would say the time we got the biggest response was when the trans policy changed. [00:35:00] We went straight to our stake presidency and we’re like, “Hey, we have some ideas on what the need of our trans population in our stake is. Like, can we talk about this?” And so, they did eventually change one of the bathrooms in our stake center to be an all gender bathroom.
SH: Oh, wow. You do things, Jen! You do things. I think this is remarkable. You know, I was trying to think about shifting the conversation into how, you know, kind of post-stepping onto this evolutionary faith path that you have been on—like intentionally stepping onto it—you were navigating—but I already am seeing the answer to that—you’re navigating it very actively. Like you really grabbed hold of this thing and started doing things with it. And one question that occurs to me from that is, have there been benefits in your church life from doing that?
Like, you know, in my experience as a latter day saint, if I show up in my state president’s office enough (it would never happen. But if it were to happen), I would get a reputation, you know, I feel like sometimes my cred in my ward would take a ding every time I did that. So have you felt like there have been effects from that for you? Or have you had just a good experience with it?
JD: You know, Meredith and I have agreed that our ward is amazing and people are understanding. I do feel like probably both of us now, you know, at first it was her who, you know, had a reputation for being a firebrand, and I hopefully have joined her in that reputation.
CW: Yeah!
JD: And I have thought, and I’ve told my husband like, oh, you’ll never be in the bishopric again. (Like, I mean, he was.) and I will never hold stake callings again. So I definitely feel— (and that’s fine. And that’s, I’m not trying to win callings, you know, so that’s fine)
SH: Yeah.
JD: But I do feel like, It probably goes back to, you know, the whisper of like, “oh yeah, there’s the Dellys,” you know? Like, “they say things,” so, yeah. I don’t know. I am to the point being a perimenopausal woman where I’m trying to not care.
CW: Yes.
JD: You know, and most days I don’t, but there are some days where I’m kinda like, oof, yeah.
CW: I mean, it does hurt when being the good girl for me, it really did hurt. And it took me quite a few years to get over, like, like you said, I will never be in certain callings again. And in the church’s defense, like I get it, like you need someone to tow the party line. And so you can’t put a woman in young women’s who’s gonna tell the girls like, “patriarchy is nonsense.” Do you know what I mean?
SH/JD: [laughing]
CW: So, I mean, I chose to speak up and I don’t get to choose the consequences. And those were the consequences—like, yeah, you won’t get to do certain things anymore. And like you said, that’s okay, especially as we get older, right? Like I am serving out in the community in other ways. I don’t need to be needed in my ward.
JD: Yes. And I think, I mean, you nailed that a hundred percent because I feel like-–and from what I’m hearing from you—it sounds like that was a process. Like you can’t just one day decide, yep. I’m not gonna care about being a good girl anymore. You know? Like you have to strip away the programming.
CW: Yep.
JD: And it’s two steps forward, one step back, you know?
CW: A hundred percent.
JD: Yeah. So I feel you on that, Cynthia. Completely.
SH: Yeah. And it’s hard because as a latter day saint, we’re programmed to wanna contribute or to be contributors in the ward. And also as human beings, we want to be contributors, you know, to any community that we’re in.
So when you move to that place speaking personally, it’s been hard for me. It’s hard for me to feel as invested in my ward when I’m not serving in any kind of calling that is central to the ward’s functioning. Every time that my husband or I get asked to speak or say the prayer these days we both say, “whew, we’re not on that list yet.” It comes as a very real relief to us that we’re still allowed to speak and pray. But I think how sad actually, that that’s the measure. Do I feel enough a part of my ward to be allowed to speak and pray among these brothers and sisters of my faith community? But that’s real.
JD: That is so valid because we are wired to want to belong. And so if we’re feeling those threats of like, ooh, am I getting messages of, well now I’m on the outside and now I can’t be here and now I can’t participate. I mean that, that’s not safe. That’s not safety. And what I’ve loved about what the two of you have done is you found a space to contribute.
And you have contributed so much to so many of us women who you are not seeing, but you are impacting us. So deeply. So I [00:40:00] love that you’ve carved this whole space where you are contributors, but then I imagine that’s gotta feel so strange when you walk into church and people probably don’t really know what you’re doing. It’s like you’re not appreciated for who you are.
SH: It’s called giving yourself a calling. And it sounds to me like you know a lot about that, Jen.
[laughter]
JD: Yes. Yeah, it’s true. So, yeah, just kind of to wrap up that whole era of that part of my life, I felt like hits would keep coming.
Like, I got professional help and I feel like, okay, I got this. I’m doing things, like I’m good, I’m gonna just lower my expectations of what’s happening with church culture and the institution, and then these hits would keep coming, like Elder Holland’s musket fire talk at BYU. And the Heavenly Mother talk of we shouldn’t speculate, and other General Conference talks that were deeply upsetting to me, and the SEC financial secrets and the trans policy, these were each massively disruptive to me.
As much as I would try to steel myself like, nope, I’m not gonna let that get me so upset again. I’m gonna stay regulated. It’s just very alarming behavior to me on the part of the institution and just sensing this massive fear and retrenchment in the institution and knowing, like we referred to before, like there’s nothing I can do about it.
So like I talk with my support group and our community and we just mourn and weep together and basically, and listen to you. And it feels like that’s about all we can do at this point.
CW: I know for me, I had to start limiting my involvement with the organization, maybe how much I looked up to leaders, that kind of a thing. Do you know what I mean? Because Yeah. Every talk or interaction that you just mentioned, like yeah, me too. And so it’s like, okay, I can’t control them, so all I can control is me. So I have found over the last few years, like I’ve slowly, like, I mean, I attend church, but I’ve started disengaging in many different ways.
And one of them I’ve talked about before on the podcast, like I don’t watch General Conference live anymore. I just had to do certain things for my own mental wellbeing to put another layer of separation between me and the organization. ‘Cause it’s hard when they’re, you know, when you have musket fire talks, to not have that just crush your little soul.
So it’s like, okay, I need to stop giving so much heed to their words, if that makes sense.
Or putting myself in a position to hear their words even sometimes, so.
JD: Right. ‘cause I feel like you nailed it. Like the thing that you can control is your exposure. And so that’s definitely one thing I learned is okay, I get to control my level of interaction and the amount of attention that I pay. And when it starts to feel not safe, then maybe it’s time for a sabbatical. And that’s just so helpful to even know that you can have control over the amount of exposure. To me, that’s been huge.
CW: Well, and I love something you said earlier. You were talking about the Mother’s Day activity or something and looking for the exit.
But I’m thinking that you were looking for a literal exit, maybe, how to get out of the room. But how many of us sometimes need that metaphorical exit to limit our exposure to things that are damaging to our soul?
SH: Right.
JD: Yeah, exactly.
CW: Which is so hard to even admit. ‘cause I have loved this church. I’ve given my life to it. And to have to start setting boundaries with it was really hard.
JD: Cynthia, I feel the same. Yeah. And that is an interesting way to think of setting boundaries with an institution. But it’s really true. It’s a great way to say it.
SH: Well, I mean, we should have always been doing that, I think—we should have always known how to set boundaries with an institution. But I certainly did not come into my adulthood equipped with the tools to do that. I had to forge those tools for myself.
JD: Right. Because if it’s not modeled or ever discussed, then like, yeah, we don’t innately know how to do that. So that’s why it’s so great to have you two talking about these issues to model. Like, hey, let’s at least have a conversation about this.
SH: Yeah.
CW: Right. Well, and I wanna go back to something you said earlier too, how you, when you went to your stake leaders and said, can we talk about stages of faith? And they were like, no, it’s not in the handbook. But I’m sitting here thinking like, would that be— of course you and I think that would be beneficial to teach people, like, I’m not going crazy, like this is a normal part of human development. But also like, if the organization starts giving [00:45:00] permission to people to feel all these things, like is that just pandemonium in their mind?
Like, what’s, you know, what’s next? So I’m with you. I wish we could get the word out about stages of faith. And it’s just not gonna ever happen through the institution. I don’t know. I’m gonna be thinking about that one for a long time. That’s something I never said to my leaders before was, let’s talk about this.
‘cause like you, I talked about LGBTQ issues, women’s issues, never once brought up stages of faith. That was brilliant. And also, I’m sorry they shot you down.
JD: Right. Well, and I feel like they do have pandemonium right now.
CW: Yes!
JD: Like, in my view, the pandemonium is there. It’s just, oh let’s just not talk about that. Like, let’s not deal with that.
CW: Good. You’re right.
JD: That’s just my opinion.
CW: No, you’re right. We all, we are in the pandemonium. And they are just—
JD: Yeah, I go to church and yeah. The other women my age who are TBM, they’re just like, why is it that everybody’s leaving the church now and la la la and I’m like sitting there quietly, you know, with my mouth shut.
But I’m like, yeah, it’s a great question. Why do you think? Like, could we talk about this in gospel doctrine? Like, what a concept.
SH: Well, and yet I feel like really things like the stages of faith are not really the organization’s job, if that makes sense. That’s not really what organizations do, right? That belongs in the personal growth side of life. And so the problem comes when you have these people who experience a major transition like that, and they’ve come to understand the stages of faith and they’re engaging differently in these things, but the organization is stuck in one place. So now we have a bunch of people who are trying to navigate within an organization that really no longer serves them in many ways; it’s not designed for them. And so if I were going to wanna see changes in the church, it wouldn’t necessarily be that I’m looking for a church that is where I am, if that makes sense because I think that’s a natural life process that has to happen to someone. The organization is never gonna be able to gift that to me.
It wouldn’t be the same if they did, right? It wouldn’t be my faith, it would be the same way it is now except doing something different. But what I do need from them is an organization that allows space for the members to grow and change and engage in this fundamental life process. And that’s what I’m not seeing.
And I feel like that is something that the organization could address. They could adapt in ways that would make it more nourishing, I guess, no matter where you are in this.
JD: Yes. A hundred percent. Yes. And that is one thing that I learned, like when I was saying I started learning more about systems and groups—well, a system and institution. Its only job is to preserve its own existence.
SH: Exactly. Power protects itself.
JD: Of course! It’s not gonna be like, “let’s broaden your thinking. There’s more out there than just us.”
SH: “You don’t need us!”
[laughter]
No, they’re gonna say, “we’re the best. We’re your only source for hope. And you better come to us, or you’re screwed.”
SH: Yeah. It’s their job. Yeah.
JD: Exactly.
CW: So true.
JD: But I’m with you on, they could make space. There could— and I’ll get into that more later. Yeah. There’s room for nuance. We can do it. But we’re not currently, so.
JD: So I did wanna hit professionally because this starts to play into it. During the pandemic I became a project manager at a software agency, and then long story short, needed to leave. And now I work at the Center for Action and Contemplation that Richard Rohr started. And I’m a project manager. Yeah, it’s amazing. And it really has been instrumental in opening my eyes to the abundance of truth that is available to us in wisdom literature.
Like there are mystics, which sounds like a very fancy word—It just means people who have had experience with God and early saints, like St. John of the Cross, who I know you’ve mentioned. And just writers who have a lot to teach us and I feel like we have a lot to learn and I just really appreciate how you two would quote Barbara Brown Taylor and Rob Bell, and I was like, wait, I don’t think they’re general authorities like, I need to go like— isn’t that so sad?
SH: They should be.
CW: They should be, yeah!
JD: [laughter] Fair enough. I’m just like, I haven’t heard of them. Huh. So, yeah, I feel like I’ve really been able to become my own authority and you two have helped me so much. Like, I know there was a season or two where you were like,[00:50:00]
“Ladies, find your voice. Listen to your inner knowing.” And I remember having my headphones on and listening and feeling so small and so underdeveloped, and in my head I’d kind of have a conversation with you and be like okay. I can do it. I’ll listen to myself. Wait, can, could you just say that one more time? Could you say it like a thousand more times?
CW: Wow.
JD: ‘Cause I needed to hear it like a million times to have permission because I really needed a permission slip to dismantle the good girl voices in my head.
SH: Wow.
JD: So I appreciate all the times you’ve said it.
SH: I saw exhibit A for this morning online in a Facebook group where a woman—I mean, it was a group that discusses matters of faith like this—And the woman said, “how do I know what I believe?” This is what she said. “How can I find out what I believe?” And I thought, oh sweetie, where to start? But you can start by listening to yourself. And I know you don’t know how to do that, you know? So what she’s really asking is, Hey, I don’t really know if I have permission to do this, or necessarily even how to start.
JD: Yes.
SH: And that just told me everything about how some Latter-day Saint women land in this space. I thought, well, there it is, you know? How do I know what I believe?
JD: Yeah. Because what are they telling me that I believe? And listening to you and reading from a much broader repertoire of books, I started to realize like, oh yeah I am in charge of my own growth and I can figure this out.
And that sounds small, but that has changed so many things for me because before—like, my spiritual growth for a year would be reliant on like, well, what’s the curriculum? What are we studying in gospel doctrine that year? Well, then that’s where I’m gonna be growing. And now it’s like, oh, I talk with the Godhead about what do I need to be learning?
And I now have this very broad variety of spiritual guides who are helping me with it. And also realizing, like I mentioned before, I just wanted to be good so badly. Well, I also realized that was very threatening and the thought of not being good—Like, I was probably borderline scrupulosity and like my mom and grandma were clinically OCD (not just the jokey fun OCD) and I needed to deal with my shadow work. And for those who aren’t familiar with that, Carl Jung, who’s a psychologist, talks about like, the shadow is the parts of us that we just really don’t wanna deal with, like, the less desirable parts of us.
Like before I would’ve said, “our sinful parts.” And just realizing that, yeah, I have good parts and I have parts that I need to work on. And like when we say, oh, let’s bring our whole self, like, we don’t mean whole in the sense of like, oh yeah, we were sinful, but then we got better and now we’re good.
SH: Right.
JD: It’s like, no, how about the whole combo plate of who I am—all these parts. Like, I’m good and I’m messy and I’m unhealed and there’s parts of me that are really lame and like, that’s okay. That’s just part of being messy and it doesn’t have to be frightening.
CW: Yeah. It sounds like for you, getting rid of some of that perfection mentality to bring, you know, the whole plate, right, all parts of you to the table—good, bad—well, not labeling them good and bad, right? Just exactly
JD: Exactly.
CW: See? I even fell back on my words on the programming and conditioning!
JD: Yep. Exactly. Yeah. It’s also been really big for me to recognize where my receiving language with the Godhead has changed because I feel like, just like the people around the time of the Tower of Babel had their language changed, mine has.
And Susan, you speak to this in the book, so I wanted to quote you to you.
SH: Oh boy.
JD: It’s in the chapter called “In Search of a Larger God,” and it was just so resonant to me when you were talking about deconstruction. You say,
“I’ve had to learn new words, try new ways of listening. I’ve had to search new scriptures, say new prayers. Dare to ask different questions than the one I’ve asked before. I’ve had to clear space for myself to allow growth in the places I’ve kept small. The secret to finding a larger God may be looking everywhere all the time. Accepting that the whole world is a holy place and being ready to take off my shoes and stand, allowing God to exist in even the most mundane or imperfect moments.”
And if I could share just a little more, your poem called “Babel” was stunning. So I’m gonna read it to [00:55:00] you.
“God speaks to us in any language we can understand. God in birds, in trees, in wind, tall grass, its whisper in its bend. God in pie if it’s the kind my grandma made. God in the dishwater, slipping through her hands after we were filled. God in the suds and in the song she hummed, listen.
SH: You’re gonna make me cry. I’ve never had anyone read my poetry before to me. So that’s an amazing gift you give me. Thank you, Jen.
JD: You’re welcome.
CW: It’s a beautiful poem. I’m so glad it ended up in our book and I am not surprised it touched you, Jen. ‘Cause it touches me too when I think about that poem that Susan read on the podcast several years ago, and it stayed with me as well, Susan.
SH: Thank you friends.
CW: Like, just being able to expand God. I felt like for me it was like 80% of the problem with my connection to God.
SH. Same. Same.
JD: Yep. Yep. And it’s true. It’s just so resonant that once you start opening, once that genie’s out of the bottle, like you really can’t go back because it does feel like, oh, that was small, and now I just have a taste of who God can be and how I can connect with Them, and it’s just so powerful.
I feel like one thing that the poem “Babel” helped me put a finger on is that I had these pillars in my TBM days of prayer, scripture study, temple. And now I feel like I have these parallel pillars of meditation, and wisdom literature (which does include the Bible for me), and allyship.
And because my relationship with the temple has changed, and I know both of you have spoken to this, I used to love going to the temple and I would go a lot of times weekly and I memorized the initiatories. And during the pandemic I would go sit in the parking lot and just dream of being back inside.
And even once I started deconstructing, I still attended. And then it’s just become so difficult for me to have so much emphasis in General Conference, in the Sunday lessons. And it feels like every single meeting is on temple attendance and how to wear your garments and the covenant path language.
And I felt like I had my own beautiful relationship with the temple and garments and my personal path. And now that they started like, just drilling it in with that fear and retrenchment, I just felt like I was robbed of the freedom to manage my own relationship because it just felt like whatever I was doing just wasn’t enough.
SH: Oh wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that, that goes right through me.
JD: Thanks. And I had this experience that was like a gut punch with my relationship with the temple. So I’m working full time, I’ve got limited time and that’s weird ‘cause I used to volunteer. A lot. And so it was a huge adjustment and so signups going around Relief Society like, “Hey, can people help out with a sister in our ward who had a lot of unique medical problems that required care?”
And so I pull up my calendar to see like, oh, can I sign up to help? I literally had one free evening that week and I had already made an appointment to go to the temple and I was like, wait a second—because I went ahead and I went to the temple and I didn’t sign up—and I was like, I just prioritized the dead over the living.
And I’ve realized there are so many living people who are bleeding and suffering literally and figuratively. And so right now I’m just feeling like, who needs my time? And I’ve talked about it with the Godhead, and I am not feeling a big tug to the dead right now because there’s so many places where I’m seeing dire needs of people.
Like right now I’m focusing on my allyship and I’m on the planning board for this youth conference for LGBTQ youth and their friends and allies called Belong. And I’m doing ally nights with Claire, and I just feel like this is where I’m called to be, not necessarily in the temple right now.
JD: You know, and reflecting back on this journey and we’ve hit it several times, like just that, that feeling of, I just wanna be good recognizing that there’s just a tightness that comes from not feeling good enough. And like you both have talked about, doing that hustle and going through this, whatever you wanna call it, faith journey, deconstruction, I’ve just found so much spaciousness in not being worried if I’m good enough [01:00:00] and thinking of new ideas and just not feeling threatened by them. Because Jim Finley talks about how you can’t ever argue with a mystic because they’re just talking about their experiences and they’re not gonna fight with you over dogma.
SH: Oh!
JD: You know, and I dream of a time where we can just each have our own experience. And just be okay with that and not be scared or threatened of that.
CW: I would love it for all of us to get to that point where it’s not about dogma, that we’re just sharing our personal experience. That…I’m gonna be thinking about that.
SH: Well, I think that could be the shift actually. I mean, you just articulated it. That could be the shift in the Church as I experience it, that could accommodate people wherever they are on the path. If we moved to a place of being able to embrace and accommodate people’s own experiences of this stuff.
Whereas right now, I feel like if you make a comment at church, it needs to fit within very specific parameters. You know, we even do have very specific guidelines for bearing your testimony, but just having a place where people could show up and talk about the God experience whatever that is being for them is something that maybe could exist. We could stretch and grow in that way as an organization and as a community. I think that’s not outside the realm of possibility.
JD: Totally. Yeah, because I’ve been very struck what you both are talking about. Let’s find other ways to be an LDS person, to be a Mormon woman, whatever you wanna call it like that’s what I want. Like this last year I got two tattoos and yes, they were acts of reclaiming my body and that I could change my mind because I used to think that tattoos well we’re evil, but then also maybe kind of stupid. And now I find them beautiful. Like there’s such a great way to strike up a conversation with someone.
But every Sunday you better believe I’m wearing my wristwatch over my tattoo because I’m just not ready to share this with everybody. But yeah, if we could find other ways to be LDS and still come together, that’s the dream.
SH: Beautiful.
CW: I share that dream.
SH: Yeah. Well, Jen, this has been an amazing conversation and we’re coming to the end of our time. I’m gonna ask you something that makes some people itchy, so I don’t know how you’re gonna feel about it, but do you have any advice, do you have any advice for women who might be looking for a way to step more fully into their own journey?
JD: Oh, yes, I do. This question doesn’t make me itchy at all. It’s like the most non-wool question ever. (I was just reading Susan, about your relationship with wool, so, yeah.)
CW: Yeah. Truth.
JD: This is like a soft knit cotton for me.
SH: Beautiful. Lay it on us.
JD: Yeah. I was able to find a quote by the poet Rainier Maria Rilke—A lot of times they’re just referred to as Rilke—So this quote just like the first time I heard it, I cried because I was like, wait, what? Somebody understands this. So my advice is Rilke:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
SH: So good.
JD: We love Rilke
CW: Rilke always says it best.
SH: Yes, we do.
CW: You can’t go wrong.
JD: Yeah. Yeah.
CW: Jen, can I butt in and give some advice? ‘cause I don’t know if you’re gonna say it, but I think since you work for the Center for Action and Contemplation, everybody should sign up for their daily meditations. They come to your email and they take two minutes to read and they feed my soul so much when maybe I don’t have time to do anything else.
SH: Same.
CW: So that’s my advice on behalf of Jen, who is an employee of the CAC, to do that.
Yes. Well, can we just have you say it? You said it so beautifully.
CW: Well, I just said it, so there you go.
[laughter]
CW: we’ll link to them. If people are like, wait, what? We’ll link to them in our show notes.
SH: Okay, Jen, we’ve arrived at the moment for the last question, and I’m dying to hear your answer. What do you know? What is one thing that you know right now today?
JD: Well, thanks for this question. ‘Cause this was really fun to think about and my answer actually makes me giggle, so I hope it makes you and others giggle as well.
I know that we can’t hurt Jesus’s feelings. And let me explain [01:05:00] what I mean by that. So, sometimes when I try to measure if what I’m doing is wrong, like when I had to wrestle with like, “hey, I don’t think I’m gonna attend the temple very often right now. Like, is that a problem for you? Like, am I hurting your feelings by not going?”
And I feel like the reaction I got was like laughter, not like the mocking laughter, but just like giggles. I just get this impression of like. “Sweetie. Seriously? Like you, you’re joking. Right? Because we trust you. So you can trust you too.” So it doesn’t mean I get to do whatever I want, but we’re just gonna have a conversation about it, me and the Godhead,
SH: That might be my favorite answer I’ve ever heard to that question.
CW: I know!
SH: It’s so good.
CW: “You can’t hurt Jesus’ feelings.” Nice. Maybe that’s your next tattoo, Jen,
JD: Oh, that is such a fun—yeah!
SH: Well, Jen Dille, thank you so much. What a pleasure. You’re a gift.
CW: Thank you.
JD: Thank you both. This has been so fun to talk together. Just appreciate you so much.
Voicemail 1: I just wanted to share an aha moment I had while reading the At Last She Said It Book, the section under “Blessings.” Most of my life, that word has been used in the context of what I now see as prosperity gospel. And I realize that the word that I think more accurately should be used there is privilege.
Now if you say that I am so privileged to have this and this, it just isn’t going to sound good. And so we have sanitized it by inserting the word blessing in there. But now I have to think now, am I actually blessed or am I just privileged?
[beep]
Voicemail 2: Hi. I was just listening to your episode about the Male Gaze and you mentioned, you know, looking at the verse before for context, and I recently had an experience where I was looking at Gospel Topic essays for Mother in Heaven and studying Elder Redlands talk and then Elder Hinkley’s or Gordon B. Hinkley’s talk in 1991 or whatever where it talks about Mother in Heaven and they all reference this scripture when they say, we pray to our Father in Heaven, and it’s in Third Nephi. So I read that scripture and then just like the next verse, it’s still talking to the same audience and saying, wives and children. And I thought, if we’re gonna care about the gendered language and cite that as important in this verse, then the next verse, gendered language is just as important.
And women in our church aren’t allowed to marry women, so women don’t have wives. So these scriptures are specifically speaking to men about praying to a father. So then what does that mean for me as a woman? It’s not telling me to pray to a father… Anyways, just something kicking around my head and wanted to share.
[beep]
JD: I do have a little more to say. And I quote your book, so you probably wanna—
SH: Your check is in the mail, Jen.
[laughter]
JD: Thank you. Yes, I’ll try to go fast. Okay.
[beep]
SH: I had a stake president who used to just introduce himself as Rob.
CW: Oh, nice.
SH: He would stand up at the mic and he would say, “I’m Rob and I’m in charge of this stake conference, for anyone who’s visiting—”
CW: More of that.
JD: Please.
SH: “I’m Rob,” and I would think, man, could we just get more? No initials even. Not even his initials. Which is crazy.
CW: Oh, that’s beautiful.
[laughter]
SH: Okay. Alright. Are we ready for the last question?
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