Episode 254 (Transcript): Big Ideas | Piety
Episode Transcript
Many thanks to listener Christine Fitz 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:
CW: We make good things happen in our lives. We make God bless us; we bind God. So yeah, I think piety gives us a false sense of control.
SH: Well, it certainly did me, and I didn’t only just think I could control myself, I thought I could control other people, too, through my goodness.
CW: Oh, for sure!
SH: My goodness was all about control, which was probably the most damaging thing about my goodness - reckoning with the idea that I have to give up control in order to actually have faith.
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CW: Hello, I’m Cynthia Winward.
SH: And I’m Susan Hinkley.
CW: And this is At Last She Said It. We’re women of faith discussing complicated things. The title of today’s episode is “Big Ideas: Piety”.
SH: Piety, Cynthia! Why are we talking about piety?
CW: Oh my goodness. Why are we talking about piety? Because… I’m just gonna turn that over to you because you jumpstarted this episode with the notes. So why are we talking about piety?
SH: Well, it’s really interesting because when I started the notes… the first line on my notes is why are we… I remember this came up in a text convo, but what were we talking about? I don’t remember. But then since then, I have re-listened to our sin episode and realized that we had piety sprinkled all over in that conversation.
CW: Yeah, we did.
SH: And so I think that’s probably why it was front of mind for me whenever it came up next that made me sit down and start on these notes. So, the thing about the “big ideas” theme is that (and I’m already starting to see this) I think they’re all kind of related. It’s like one “big idea” leads to the next, if you see what I mean.
CW: Yes, that’s what I’ve noticed.
SH: They’re kindof connected in some way. So maybe all of them actually point to one really really “big idea”. I don’t know, but I felt like piety was a spoke in this wheel. And so when we started talking about belief and we started talking about sin, and I’m like, “You know what? I think piety has a place in this conversation.”
CW: A hundred percent.
SH: So that’s why we’re doing it. One of my more cynical observations that I have made in writing, and I think probably on this mic over the years - I think many Latter-day Saints are more interested in looking like good Latter-day Saints than they are in actually being good people, or at least as interested in that, you know?
And I’m not sure that it’s even a conscious thing. I think it’s sort of bred into us that it’s really really important to avoid the appearance of evil, right? We like to look like we’re doing Mormon-ing right.
CW: I mean, we kind of have a whole… Mormons have a whole look and people outside our religion know what that look is, right? People within know - you can spot the other Mormons at Disneyland, right?
SH: Right. Absolutely.
CW: And then the caricatures, the Saturday Night Live skits - I’ve seen all of them about Mormons and they all point to like our clean cut look, so I definitely think you’re right that we care about it as much as actually being good - looking pious. Looking good.
SH: Yep. I’m afraid that that is true. Okay, I have two really quick anecdotes to set up this conversation. And the first was when I was living in Seattle and I went out in my yard. I don’t even know why - maybe get my mail or something.
I just went out my front door, into my front yard. And a minute later, my next door neighbor (who was a member of the church) comes barreling out her front door, runs across the driveway to me, and she stopped and she said, “Oh, thank goodness! I thought you were smoking!” I had a lollipop in my mouth, Cynthia. I had a white like sucker stick in my mouth…
CW: Thank goodness! [laughter]
SH: …because I was sucking a lollipop, okay?
CW: Oh my goodness!
SH: It took her one second to land on my doorstep because she thought I was smoking. So I’m just gonna drop that one there first. That’s anecdote number one. Number two is that I had words with my mom at some point, and my mom and I like… we’re… my whole family, we’re not really fighting people. I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve had fight-y conversations with my mom. In my whole life.
CW: Like, elevated volume?
SH: Not necessarily elevated volume, but like we were really arguing about something or angry about something.
So I don’t even remember what this was about. I was either late teens, I may already have been married (if I was, it was early on). But my mom said to me, “Well, you’re Miss Lily White and Pure!” And when she called me Miss Lily White and Pure, it just went straight somewhere so deep because [00:05:00] nobody knows… who knows your faults better than your own mom?
Like, nobody. My mom knows me, man. She knows all the dirt, she knows all of the… she knows who I am. And so to hear her say that, it was very clear that she also knew about me that it really mattered to me: looking good. I like to look good. I like to look lily, white, and pure. I like to always come out looking good in the conversation, in whatever.
