Episode 265 (Transcript): Let Your Life Speak | A Conversation with Jenny Richards
Episode Transcript
Many thanks to listener Annie Colón for her work in transcribing this episode!
This episode can be found on any podcast app or can be listened to here on our website as well. All the notes and resources we cited in the episode are found at this link as well:
JR: I also want to just include that when we spoke of the divine rescuer, I felt like I was hitting the limits of what was possible within our faith tradition. This call to chaplaincy has also opened this ability that is rare for a woman in the church to offer spiritual counsel to men. And as a chaplain, there is this sense of anonymity.
I’m not a therapist that’s going to follow up with further visits, and I’m not clergy, but I’m someone that can represent a spiritual authority and a space in which men and women have both confessed and had me hold space with them in their existential worries and fears. And LDS men, non-LDS men, men of no faith, I have encountered all of these types of individuals that need a spiritual authority to talk them through things.
And that’s a rare opportunity for an LDS woman.
SH: Hello, I’m Susan Hinkley.
CW: And I’m Cynthia Winward.
SH: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today’s episode is Let Your Life Speak, a conversation with Jenny Richards. Hello, Jenny.
JR: Hi, Susan and Cynthia.
CW: Welcome. We’re so glad to have you.
JR: Thank you.
SH: Yeah, we’re pretty excited for this conversation, and our listeners are soon going to understand why we are so excited because it’s gonna be awesome.
CW: Yes. Yes.
SH: But we want to start by letting you take a minute or two just to give us a little introduction, maybe something to give some context to why we’re having this conversation today and let our listeners know anything about yourself that you would like them to know.
JR: All right. Well, thank you for having me on. I have been an avid listener for all six years.
CW: Wow.
JR: And you’ve been companions along my own journey, which we’ll talk about a little bit today. So I am coming to you from the hub, Salt Lake City. And I am currently a hospital chaplain intern, and we’ll talk a little bit about the road that has led me there.
But I grew up right here in Salt Lake. My musical pursuits held me for my first half of life. I did an undergrad and a master’s at Juilliard in piano.
SH: Wow.
JR: I married my high school sweetheart, and we moved to New York to start our marriage, which is highly recommended. We have lived on the East Coast for about 13 years as he was doing medical school and residency, and I was keeping the lights on, teaching piano, and playing gigs.
We have four kids. We have two sons, two daughters, exceptional humans, all on their own journeys.
And I would say that there are moments in life that open you up to new understanding, new direction, and expansion of faith. And I’ve had several of those that we can talk about. But, I continue to pursue greater knowledge, greater understanding.
I went back to school and got a master’s in Theological Studies at the Franciscan School of Theology. and in a crazy pivot, I am about to start at Duke Divinity School this fall-
SH: Wow!
JR: for an M.Div. So, life is so weird. Maybe the last thing I’ll say in an introduction is I really have this obsession with inflatable dinosaur costumes.
And any chance, any chance I have to either wear one or encourage my loved ones to wear one, it is the ultimate source of joy in my life.
CW: This just gives me the best visual in my head right now of -
SH: That’s pretty good.
CW: Like-
SH: That’s pretty good ...
CW: how many people go to Juilliard and are obsessed with dinosaur costumes?
I just, I’m guessing it’s really small. I mean,
SH: I think one.
CW: One?
SH: I think one. That’s my guess.
JR: I’ve told my friends, and the circle keeps getting bigger, that if you love me, you will wear an inflatable costume at my funeral. Please. This is not a joke. And it doesn’t have to be a dinosaur, but that would be posthumously my most beloved moment.
SH: That’d be the best funeral ever, huh?
JR: Yes. So please spread that far and wide. I’m not kidding.
CW: Okay. Okay.
SH: Oh, well, life may be weird, Jenny, but your life sounds amazing to me. And I just wanna be your friend.
JR: Aw.
SH: So I’m so excited for this conversation. Cynthia’s gonna take us through the discussion today, so I’m just gonna turn it over to you two.
Take it away.
CW: Well, we’ve had a couple conversations before recording this episode. You wanted to make sure we were kind of on the same path, like what do you think your listeners need to hear, and that kind of a thing. And as you and I talked through text or on the phone, like, I just kind of pictured Jenny going from like, lily pad to lily pad.
And I just kind of loved this visual of a Latter-day Saint woman saying, “This is where I’m called to be right now,” and then pivoting and saying, “Jump to the next lily pad. This is where I’m called to be.” So I think that’s what Susan and I just wanna hear about today. We wanna hear about all your lily pad stops.
So maybe I [00:05:00] can start with this question, which is how would you describe each next spiritual step that you have taken in your life? Would you say you felt God calling you? Were you just following your energy? Or I mean, curiosity took you to them. I mean, we would just love to hear how you would frame each one of those next steps.
JR: It’s so interesting the way I think God works in each of us, and I do believe that there is, there’s spiritual energy coming in and out of us all the time.
I like the concept of vocation, which we don’t talk a lot about in our faith tradition. I think we get callings-
SH: Right
JR: which are assignments that are offered from a man in authority, and you can say yes, and sometimes, as we’re coming to understand, you actually can say no.
But the idea of a call, I think, is a larger Christian term, which is something between you and God.
CW: Yeah.
JR: And the call, the vocation I like Parker Palmer’s a Quaker, a writer, and theologian who I deeply love. I know he’s come up on the podcast.
CW: Yes. Yes.
JR: And he describes vocation. He says, “Vocation at its deepest level is this is something I can’t not do, for reasons I’m unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself, but are nonetheless compelling.”
And I think that if there is an openness to life then I think vocation is where we meet our desires and our love of God. They meet, you know, and it’s-- if I think it’s something I can’t not do, that’s very compelling.
SH: Right.
JR: And it’s terrifying.
So the call to chaplaincy, which I do feel was a call, and a call in the sense that God spoke forth and breathed into my life.
It came at a period of my life that I was feeling so much tension as a woman in the church. I was serving as a Relief Society President. I was trying to expand the borders of Zion, and this it’s heavy work. It’s heavy lifting. It comes at a cost, as you both well know.
And I was experiencing a season of real desolation spiritually.
I felt that there was a lot of scrutiny about my desire to expand the tent.
I wondered if I could continue to serve in that role and in the church. I just felt very shackled and discouraged, and I remember being in a real space of spiritual pain. And this sounds a little woo-woo, but I know we like woo-woo here.
CW: Yes.
JR: But I was at my kitchen counter reading. It was late at night. My family was in bed. I really was weighed down, and I had this sort of energy arise in me with a word that was chaplaincy.
JR: And it was just sitting there in my mind, almost like written. And I was stunned because it didn’t have any precursor.
There wasn’t any-- like, it wasn’t on my mind. It wasn’t something I was thinking about or studying or researching. And along with that directive was, “Start now.”
And I slept on it, and I couldn’t shrug it. It wasn’t like- ... “Oh, that was weird.”
SH: Right.
JR: “Wow, I must have been really tired last night.” It was this energy that was relentless, and with that came, “You have to go back to school.”
So I began in earnest researching what is chaplaincy, what does that look like? Where would I go to school? Why am I doing this? This has nothing to do with the bingo card that I have been so neatly given.
SH: Right.
JR: But it was relentless, and so the pursuit ensued, and I have been changed forever by this call.
CW: So when was that? Like timeline, how long ago was the-
JR: Sure
CW: chaplaincy vision?
JR: Yeah, the chaplaincy vision was November of 2022.
CW: Okay.
JR: I also had a strange experience, and I’ll back you up just a little bit. My husband Nate and I went to Italy in 2018. It was our 20th anniversary. We were excited. We were on this great trip.
We went to Assisi. I feel very lucky to be able to do that. In Assisi, we learn about St. Francis.
SH: Right.
JR: Right? He’s the guy. But there’s another saint up there in Assisi named Clare, who I never had heard of till I was walking the cobblestone streets of Assisi.
And we went into her, the nave of the chapel that’s dedicated to her, and I felt, again, this compelling force saying, “Learn of her.”
And I fell to my knees, and a little Mormon girl does not venerate saints. Like that’s never been in my repertoire.
SH: Right.
JR: But I felt this connection to St. Clare That held me, and I went home and looked up everything I could and bought every book I could find on Amazon about St. Clare.
Who is this woman? She was St. Francis’s partner and visionary and companion. Why do we not know of her? Who is this woman? And so in this fast-forward to this space where I’m listening to the Spirit [00:10:00] tell me, “You have to go back to school,” I’m researching online programs. I can’t move. I have young kids.
And I was looking at Loyola, I was looking at a program in Denver, and then I woke up one night with the strangest phrase in my mind: St. Clare, San Diego, two times. St. Clare, San Diego. And it’s 3:00 AM, and I’m like, “What the heck is this?” So I’m like, “I wonder, I wonder if there’s, like, a Franciscan program or something,” and I Google Franciscan Theology school United States, San Diego, University of San Diego.
CW: Nice.
JR: Google online masters. Oh, they have an online degree. And it was like, well, the search is over. That’s what I gotta do. And it’s so weird. It’s just so weird, but I really feel and I’m convicted that this was God speaking into my life and saying, “You know what? This is a divine rescue, and this is a way you’re going to be able to expand your ability to minister and love and care, and you’re not gonna have this ceiling on you that has felt so restrictive.”
CW: And was it a divine rescue? Like, in that moment where you were having so much turmoil being a Relief Society President and feeling... What was the word? I don’t wanna say shackled. I don’t remember what was the word you-
JR: Oh, no, I did say shackled. Just-
CW: Okay, you did. Okay.
JR: Yeah.
CW: So, so did it feel like the divine rescue then?
Like, as you went through the program?
JR: Yes.
CW: It healed-
JR: Oh, 100% ...
CW: it healed you from-
JR: It healed me. And, you know, I continued to serve as a Relief Society president while I was a student at FST.
SH: Wow.
JR: And so I had these two... And I want to be clear that my service in that calling was exquisitely life-changing. To walk with women in pain- to be able to sort of move with authority, even in the ways that we’re prescribed was still such a gift to the women in my ward and to myself.
CW: I bet.
JR: But so, so to be carrying that and then also be a Catholic theology student- It made for some probably interesting lessons and, but it expanded me.
Susan, you’ve talked about the box that-
SH: Right ...
JR: the God box. Oh, it blew that God box so far wide open. I had new language. I had new understanding. I had new, a new sense of the world and how to even make words for theology terms.
CW: Wow.
JR: I was introduced to a pronoun-less God.
SH: Yes.
JR: God’s self. I can’t go back.
I can’t go back to a pronouned God because it’s bigger, you know? So it was a, it was a divine rescue, and I continue to just be breathless with gratitude to God for this.
And, you know, we had classes like intercultural theology where you learn how the gospel lands to a Black woman and who’s experienced slavery in her genes and still lives in Africa.
Like, what does the gospel look like to her?
CW: Yeah.
JR: What does the gospel look like to someone who’s queer? Like, how does it land? How does it land for a woman? How does it land for a disabled person?
But even to just have the language to say, “Your social location is this, and here is some increased understanding of how the gospel might land for someone who has a very different social location than me,” you know?
Feminist theology, I had no idea that existed.
CW: Right.
JR: Liberation theology, I was like, “Yes, there is language to what I feel.”
SH: Right.
JR: Restorative justice, like all of these terms were never part of my-
SH: Sure ...
JR: my language. The incarnation, that was new.
SH: Right?
JR: And Franciscans believed that-- And we had this whole fascinating discussion in our cohort about did Christ come because of sin?
Was Christ plan B to come if we messed up? Or was the world created for love and in love, and would Christ have come even if there wasn’t original sin? And there’s, you know, there’s schools of thought for both, but I love the ability to wrestle and wonder and say, “Gosh.”
CW: Yeah.
JR: “Whoa.”
SH: Right.
JR: What if the earth was created for love and in love, and not as a rescue from sin in any way?
Like, it’s just-- I don’t think that contradicts our doctrine, it just expands the-
CW: Yeah
JR: the wonder. So lots to think about, and I think probably the highlight of my experience doing that master’s of theology was this border pilgrimage I was able to go on. This was five days after the CBP One app was shut down.
And I went with eight other students, and we were able to kind of go past the border and into the depths of where these migrants were staying in shelters. You know, usually you, you pop over to Tijuana, get a souvenir and come back.
SH: Right.
JR: But this was like we were taken by guides that know the terrain, and I witnessed such [00:15:00] suffering. I was not okay.
And I needed to not be okay so that this will propel me into action for the rest of my life.
And to see the devastation and the excruciating unfairness, to use one of our own terms from Elder Renlund, the excruciating unfairness of families who had been waiting patiently for their legal appointment to come through, and it was obliterated.
CW: Yeah.
JR: So that was sort of the most engaged human work because I got to be there. And then, you know, at night we would talk about liberation theology and restorative justice and what this looks like theologically, and where is Christ showing up for the migrant right now, right here in this pain?
CW: Yeah.
JR: And what is our role? Which is to witness.
You know? Which is the work of chaplaincy, too. You don’t fix anything.
SH: Right.
JR: So yeah, I do consider it a... all of it is such a gift, and all of it is something I cannot not do.
SH: Can I ask you kind of a small question? I mean, I really hate to even ask this question, but I’m gonna ask it because I know as a Mormon woman where I come from and I think where a lot of our listeners come from.
And so I can’t help but be curious about your husband in relation to all of this, because not every woman would feel the freedom to pursue the things that you have pursued. And so the fact that he followed you to the East Coast to Juilliard and you were doing your thing, like tells me something at the outset about your relationship and the way that you both came into it.
But could you just tell me a little bit about what it’s like for him to be married to you, to this calling?
JR: I, yes, I’m so glad you asked, and I’m so glad to have the opportunity to tell you about him for a moment. And I realize with full heart that this is not the type of relationship that many women in faith expansion journeys-
SH: Right
JR: get to have. But he-
SH: Right
JR: is, he is my companion on the journey.
CW: Yeah.
JR: We are expanding together. And he’s such a contemplative. He’s such a mystic. He- If anything, he propels me- And invites me to think differently and bigger and dream and imagine, which I think is a spiritual practice. To imagine what is possible is a very spiritual act.
SH: Oh, could we have a whole conversation about that? Come back.
CW: I knew you were gonna say that, Susan. I knew it.
JR: Oh my gosh.
SH: So exciting.
JR: Oh. And he, I think he just says, “Dream big, and let me go with you.” I mean, I have a couple of books that I loved so much from my studies at FST, and I would read them, and then he would read them, and we have both of our notes.
What, where he was pulling stuff and I was pulling stuff and, you know, we talk about it. This is our Roman Empire, you guys.
SH: Okay.
JR: It’s a communal Roman Empire. Faith and growth and evolution and expansion is our bread and butter. Like, that’s what we talk, dream, and breathe together.
SH: Beautiful.
JR: So. It is beautiful, and I recognize that this is a privilege.
So he is great, and he sits with wonder with me in what life has for both of us. And I hope my kids will inherit this sense of wonder and sense of permission to dream.
CW: I love that you asked that question, Susan.
Like you said, you hate to even ask it, and yet I’m sure we have plenty of listeners listening right now thinking, like you said, Susan, this sounds like a small question, but for so many it is their reality that maybe they are feeling drawn to these different spaces of learning and growth and yet that would be really difficult for a lot of women to be able to-
JR: Yes
CW: to go on a similar journey. So I do think it is worth mentioning and
JR: Yes.
SH: It would be threatening to some of the
CW: Yes
SH: people in the closest relationships of their lives.
CW: Right.
SH: It might
CW: Yeah
SH: freak their parents out. It might freak their best friend out,
JR: Right
SH: you know, all of those things. Unfortunately.
JR: I agree. I agree, and I hold space and care for that.
And I also hope that it won’t stop women from imagining what is possible.
CW: Yeah.
SH: Yeah.
JR: I just think there will never be change if we can’t imagine it first.
SH: Can I get that on a T-shirt? There will never be change if we can’t imagine it first.
I want that printed on my church bag. I’m going to wear it on my chest
CW: That sounds good
SH: every time I step in a ward
CW: Yeah
SH: building from now on.
JR: Yeah. I mean, think of MLK, like, “I have a dream.”
SH: Right.
JR: He didn’t even get to see that fulfilled, but if he didn’t dream it and say it, where would we be?
SH: Right.
JR: So, and again, we may just be planting seeds with our dreams right now.
We may just be saying to our daughters and those that come after us, “Psst, look what’s possible.”
SH: Right.
JR: And I mean, if that’s not the most holy work someone can do, I don’t know what is.[00:20:00]
CW: Okay, Jenny, you’ve mentioned that you felt a call to chaplaincy, and tell us anything you want to share with us about that and what you have learned, what we can learn from you about being a chaplain. I guess my first question is like, are you specifically an LDS chaplain? I don’t quite understand how that works.
So tell me how that works and then go from there, please.
JR: Sure. Okay, so as a chaplain, you don’t-- If you’re a good chaplain, you don’t come in with your faith tradition proudly displayed. You come in as an accompaniment to wherever people are, on whatever faith journey, or no faith. I think the word spiritual caregiver is rising up as an alternative to chaplain because sometimes there’s religious overtones to the word chaplain.
SH: To chaplain.
JR: And people will think-
CW: Oh, yeah
JR: Oh, you’re, I mean, patients will tease me like, “Are you here to do last rites?”
SH: Right.
JR: Or like, “Oh, I don’t talk about religion.” And truly the role of chaplain came from religious clergy that were in the military. That’s where it originated.
CW: Right.
JR: But I think as we evolve and society evolves, the need for spiritual care can be a lot more inclusive of a term, spiritual caregiver, than chaplain. And so when you asked am I an LDS chaplain? I am an LDS woman who is a chaplain.
CW: Okay. I didn’t know if that meant like-
JR: Yes.
CW: I guess my question was does that mean someone has to sponsor you, a religion?
JR: Yes.
CW: And so does that was my question was, does-
JR: Yes
CW: the LDS Church sponsor you or someone else?
JR: Yes. So it depends on what you do, but if you’re going to be, let’s say, a board-certified hospital chaplain, military chaplain, prison chaplain, you have to have an endorsing body.
CW: Endorsement. Okay. That was the word I was-
JR: Yes. And for many denominations, it’s an ordination. You’re ordained by
SH: Okay
JR: in the LDS, in our tradition, male chaplains must hold the Melchizedek Priesthood, so they must be ordained and endorsed.
CW: Okay.
JR: Female LDS chaplains are endorsed.
CW: Gotcha. Gotcha.
SH: Okay.
JR: And we’ll just let that sit there.
CW: Yeah.
JR: And so the process of endorsement is extensive, and I’m in the middle of that now.
CW: Okay.
JR: There’s interviews, there’s psychological testing, there’s essay form, essay type responses to questions that you fill out, and then there is requirements to maintain that endorsement. Yearly interviews with stake president and bishop.
CW: Oh. Interesting.
JR: quarterly reports. Yeah, and I’m walking down this path, again, just “God, lead this next step.”
There are other ways to be endorsed, and there are also positions as chaplains that don’t require endorsement. So it’s not a have to.
CW: Okay.
JR: It just depends on what you want and where you want to be hired and how you want to work.
I mean there are volunteer hospice chaplains that don’t require a lot of training, but I had this sense that if I’m gonna do this, I want to get the best training possible so that my options can be bigger.
SH: Right.
JR: And my ability to give care can be more refined, you know? So one of the pieces of chaplaincy, and this is an important piece, is called clinical pastoral education.
And this is a type of learning. It’s clinical and in class, 400 hour units are what you accrue. This is a requirement for most Christian denominations for ordination. So I saw in my experience of doing CPE a lot of women that came through doing this unit not to become chaplains, but as a piece of their required ordination process.
SH: Right.
JR: Talk about mind-blowing, guys.
CW: I’m just sitting here blowing my mind myself thinking-
JR: Yeah
CW: “What if we required this-
JR: Yes.
CW: of our own clergy in our church?” We’ll just leave that there.
JR: Well, I often have felt, and this has been spoken to me too, every person on the earth would benefit from a unit of CPE.
Not only because it helps you to minister to others in a more thoughtful and trauma-informed way, but you have to look at yourself. Shadow work is huge.
SH: Oh
CW: Yes.
JR: I know that’s come up in the podcast. That is a lot of the work of CPE. And it’s an academic study, too. I mean, you’re doing shadow work, but you’re also learning the psychology of spiritual care, trauma-informed principles, a theological grounding.
It’s very unique. It’s not therapy. It’s not school. But you do-- let me tell you one more piece of this because I think your listeners might think this is interesting. One of the requirements during CPE is to write up these extensive papers called verbatims. So you take an encounter with a patient, and if it holds energy, if you really flubbed it or maybe it went really well or maybe they disclosed something really important or really terrible or tender, any form of energetic visit you can write up as a verbatim and you write it like a script.
P1, C1, patient two, chaplain two.
Everything that you can remember to the best of your ability that you said or did and what the patient said or did and anyone else in the visit, what they [00:25:00] said or did. And then in italics, you write everything that goes on internally.
CW: Wow.
JR: “Oh, this brought up a lot of fear for me.”
“Oh, this took me back to when I was little and my dad, you know, was in pain.”
Or, “Oh this is really erupting inside of me because my political leanings are so different,” but-- and everything you’re thinking, you’ve gotta write it down.
And so you bring this script, and then they have maybe eight or nine different points that you reflect on theologically, socially, ethically.
You know, where were your strengths? Where were your weaknesses? What’s the patient’s copings? What are their resources? You know, you have to reflect extensively. And you bring this paper to your group, and you pick someone to play you and someone to play the patient-
SH: Oh
JR: and they read it to you like a play.
CW: Wow.
JR: And you read your own thoughts, but it is the most self-scrutinizing.
CW: I was gonna say this is ouchie.
JR: It’s ouchie. It’s ouchie, but it’s so refining because it helps you to say, “Oh my gosh, this is something I do by default.”
SH: Right.
JR: And I’ll tell you one of my defaults. I don’t like silence. I am learning to expand my ability to tolerate silence, and I think a lot of that has been culturally programmed in me.
We’re thinkies. We think and we talk, but we don’t know how to sit with-
CW: Correct.
JR: And so I’ve noticed that if I’m uncomfortable, I will rescue the silence by asking a question or trying to make some, you know, meaningful statement. But what I’ve learned through my group work is: stop rescuing the silence.
What gifts can come if you just wait. So you know what? It brings forth some learning that I really really wish all clergy, our bishops and stake presidents could do. It would be so beneficial to the people and to themselves.
CW: I’ll never forget the first time we, I, don’t know about you, Susan, but I had heard about CPE training when we had Sue Bergen-
SH: Yes.
CW: who was also a chaplain. We had her on the podcast several years ago. And as she was describing what that training was, my mind was just blown, and I thought, this is, in my opinion, almost irresponsible that we don’t require any-
SH: Anything
CW: anything of our clergy in our church. It’s not fair to our clergy who are put in these really difficult situations that they’re not trained for, and it’s not fair to the parishioners. Like…
JR: Right. Right. I have a dream, this is one of my dreams, that at some point, even if we can’t offer CPE, there could be a stake chaplain.
CW: Yes.
SH: Yes.
JR: Who ministers not only to the people, but to the leaders.
You know? Someone to come to when things are heavy, and not to fix, but to sit with and explore and reflect, and I feel like leaders need chaplains.
And I was told by one of my mentors that, and this is religious overtone, which I have to walk gently around, but he said, “The staff of the hospital are your parishioners. The patients are the visitors.”
The care for the staff is fundamental to a chaplain’s work. I mean, think of the physician that’s just lost a patient-
SH: Right
JR: and he slides down the floor in the hospital hallway or in the break room and tries to recover, and then has to go out and perform another surgery.
SH: Right.
JR: Where’s the spiritual care for that person?
CW: Yeah.
JR: And that’s our church leaders, in a sense are physicians, but who’s caring for them?
So I have dreams.
One can dream, right?
And yeah, a CPE unit. I just, I would love it if a bishop were called and sustained, and the congregation knew that for the next six months, that bishop was training.
CW: Yes.
SH: Was training. Right.
JR: Was doing a unit of CPE or getting psychological training or learning about suicide.
SH: Right.
JR: And in that sustaining from the congregation, we wait for that. And that is, like, imperative to me, and I long for that.
Seeing women passing through as they were being prepared to be ordained in the Episcopal or Presbyterian-
SH: Right
JR: or Unitarian, oh my gosh.
CW: Yeah, what was that like?
JR: Holy envy. Well-
SH: Right. Right ...
JR: here’s the problem. I felt first just stunned and overwhelmed with wonder, and then this tiny little seed started to develop inside of me like, “What if? What if?”
“What if?” And I had another little seed given to me, and this is an incredibly holy experience that I share with care, but in the hospital they have a chapel service, and my chaplain mentor was an ordained Episcopal priest. And she said, “Jenny, I want to give you an opportunity if you feel like you can take it.”
She said, “The elements have been consecrated by an Episcopal priest. This is an open table. Would you like to lead the communion service?” She said, “I know you’re a Latter-day Saint. I’m giving you my permission. [00:30:00] If you feel that you can do this, I think it’s completely up to you, but I think it’s fine.” And I did it.
CW: Mmm.
JR: I did it. And I cannot tell you what it was like to offer a prayer over those elements. I couldn’t get through it the first time. I just wept.
CW: I bet. I bet.
JR: I wept.
SH: Right.
JR: And I have a fellow chaplain colleague who was an incredible LDS man, and he said, “I will be there to partake-
CW: Wow
JR: because I want to be served the bread and the water by an LDS woman.”
CW: Wow.
JR: And he wept, and I wept. And just to have his support it was this sentinel experience that both broke my heart and just filled it, you know? And I know that this is, you know, walking a fine line between permission and rebellion, I guess.
SH: Right.
JR: But it felt very holy. It felt very responsible. I was very intentional. I had permission. So I’m just gonna let that sit there, but it was an incredible experience to say, “Oh my gosh, this is how it feels.”
And I knew that it was fully endorsed by God.
It was almost like God saying, “Psst, look. Look.”
CW: Wow.
JR: “Look what’s possible.”
CW: What I love about this story, Jenny, is that you got to experience this, but I love the element of your male friend who said, “I want to be there and partake.” And I think that’s something I forget a lot. I see my own wounds of patriarchy in our church.
I just had lunch with a good friend recently, and I think she supports the way the church is right now. I’m not always brave enough to you know, ask, “Do you want a female bishop?” You know? But I said to her, I said, “I think I’ve accepted now that in my 50s, in my lifetime, I will never have a woman bishop.”
JR: Right.
CW: And to her credit, she just sat there with me and sat with that. So hearing this tender story of yours, it really is touching. Thank you.
JR: Oh I’m happy to share it, and I, again, I walk with care and I recognize that as a chaplain, that was afforded me, and yet I would not be able to do that in a sacrament meeting.
CW: Correct.
SH: Right.
JR: So I also want to just include that when we spoke of the divine rescuer, I felt like I was hitting the limits of what was possible within our faith tradition. This call to chaplaincy has also opened this ability that is rare for a woman in the church to offer spiritual counsel to men.
And as a chaplain, there is this sense of anonymity. I’m not a therapist that’s gonna follow up with further visits, and I’m not clergy, but I’m someone that can represent a spiritual authority and a space in which men and women have both confessed and had me hold space with them in their existential worries and fears.
And LDS men, non-LDS men, men of no faith- I have encountered all of these types of individuals that need a spiritual authority to talk them through things. And that’s a rare opportunity for an LDS woman.
SH: Right.
CW: Yeah.
JR: I remember sitting with a former Stake President who was in agony that he wasn’t worthy as he prepared to leave this life.
CW: Oh my gosh.
JR: And that is an odd and really breathtaking gift to be able to sit with someone like that and say, “Of course you’re worthy. Of course you’re beloved.” You have done the best you can,” and really reassure him that, I mean, he felt like all the T’s weren’t crossed and I’s weren’t dotted, and I said, “God doesn’t care.”
And just to be able to say that to someone like that-
SH: Yeah
JR: I recognize in the moment what a gift. So in that sense, I do feel a divine rescue. Like, take this step and let yourself expand, and let yourself claim your own spiritual authority, because it comes directly from God. And if women can learn, we don’t need an intermediary.
SH: Right. We just have to claim it.
JR: We have to claim it.
SH: The gift is there waiting.
JR: Right. Right.
SH: We just have to claim it.
JR: We have to claim it, and we can claim it, and we don’t have to ask permission to claim it.
SH: Right.
JR: And we don’t have to ask, and we can do these things in our own way. Like, I think of Barbara Brown Taylor, I think, who said, like, “Blessings can be abundant and scattered.”
I might be wrong on that source, so.
But the way we give blessings can be the way we choose to give blessings.
And for me as a chaplain, it’s what the patient needs. I’ve held hands with a Catholic patient, and I’m not a priest, but she asked for a blessing.
And I blessed her. [00:35:00] I’ve laid my hands on a patient who had deceased alone and had no family, and I blessed her.
CW: Wow.
JR: And I don’t feel that anything prevented me from blessing.
CW: Right.
SH: Right.
JR: And it can look like holding someone’s hand and uttering and pronouncing a blessing.
And I think we can do this. God says yes.
So it’s been a incredible journey.
SH: Wow.
CW: I love hearing all of this about your chaplaincy work, and it’s just been over the last few years, right?
Like, this is-
JR: Right
CW: this has
JR: Right. I’m in my my third unit of CPE I’m doing right now, and I’m working on an oncology floor exclusively, and that is its own-
CW: I was gonna say.
JR: theology right there.
CW: Yeah.
SH: I’m sure.
JR: And I just, I walk gently and I walk slowly and bow often, as Mary Oliver says.
CW: Yeah. Yeah.
JR: And you don’t fix. Someone said to me once, a really wonderful chaplain said, “We’re used to saying, ‘Don’t just stand there. Say something.’”
SH: Right.
JR: But for a chaplain, it’s, “Don’t just say something, stand there.” “Stand there.”
CW: Nice.
JR: Just stand there. Just be there.
SH: Be there. Oh, so hard though.
JR: It’s so hard.
SH: That sounds like it should be easy, but so hard.
JR: So hard. In fact,
JR: I think, Go ahead, sorry.
SH: I don’t even wanna talk, Jenny, because I don’t want you to stop talking, but- I would, just as you say that, you know, I have a daughter who’s going through a really horrendous divorce, and she just needs to call me and vent from time to time.
She just calls me, and the floodgates open, and it all pours out, and I want to fix it so badly, or say something.
JR: Ugh.
SH: And I just have to stop myself over and over and over and over again in those conversations, and I don’t know what to say, and I feel like a failure mother because there is nothing to say.
There is nothing that I can offer to fix any of this.
And I’m really in the wrestle with this right now.
JR: So, it’s so hard. Susan, I honor you, and I think of Jesus, though, who could fix it, and Jesus wept.
SH: Right.
JR: He sat with Lazarus, and he didn’t fix it. Right. Because right then Lazarus’ family needed a witness
to say, “I see that you are hurting, and I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
And he wept.
So I often think of that. Like, Jesus didn’t always swoop in to fix things, even though he could. He wept. And I think you’re offering your daughter a really holy care.By just walking with her in the horrors, and it sounds so hard.
SH: I feel like she wishes I would fix it also.
JR: Yeah.
SH: But you know what? Maybe, I mean, maybe not. Maybe I’m not
JR: Yeah
SH: failing her in the ways that I think I am.
JR: No.
SH: I really don’t know. I really don’t know, but I wish, I just wish I had more, I guess.
JR: Well, and to see her suffer has got to weigh heavily on your heart.
SH: It does. It does.
JR: Yeah.
CW: OK, Jenny, what, because we’re friends, we’ve had a couple conversations where you have talked about the clergy women in your own life here in Utah, actually. And so I would just love to hear some stories. I would love to hear you talk about women clergy in your life and what you have learned from them and anything you want to say about your associations with them.
JR: Sure. Sure. So I will tell you that I am straddling the tension, which is beautiful, holy tension, but man, it’s hard, of attending two denominations each week and fully committing myself in both places. I’ve been attending a Presbyterian church for 18 months, and there are rich, I’m sure you both know, gifts to be a stranger in a new place-
SH: Yeah
JR: and to experience maybe a shift in activity level and hold the responses that are complicated and uncomfortable.
And I want to say I’m fully active in both, but my attendance has shifted so much as I’m trying to straddle different services on Sundays.
SH: Right.
CW: Yeah.
JR: And my kids come with me, but my husband comes with me. We do both. It is such a curriculum.
But what I have seen in the clergy, the female clergy that I’ve interacted with, is this spacious ability to claim their spiritual sovereignty. It is so incredible to witness. These women are the products of many generations of women who came before them, who planted the seeds, who plowed the ground, who cried tears, who fought, who wrestled, who suffered, who pleaded, who dreamed, and so these women get to reap.
So we’re planting now in our tradition. We’re planting.
CW: Yeah.
JR: I wanna share a couple of [00:40:00] things. I was asked to preach at the Presbyterian church I’ve been attending for a Utah Presbyterian women’s service, and this scared me to death, and I knew I had to say yes.
Because preaching is a little different than speaking in sacrament meeting.
SH: Right.
JR: It’s a different event. But I ended up speaking and preaching about the women who had come before us and the first ordained women in the Presbyterian church.
SH: Oh, wow.
JR: And I have a couple quotes that are just so energetic. So the very first ordained Presbyterian woman’s name was Margaret Towner.
She was ordained in the ‘50s, and she was told by the man who ordained her, listen to this guys, “Be the shepherd and not the pet lamb.” Ok. Got it.
SH: It’s almost like-
JR: That says so much.
SH: he knew what would happen. It’s almost like he knew the setup she was going into, isn’t it?
CW: Almost.
JR: Yep. “Be the shepherd and not the pet lamb,” and she was a shepherd. She was a powerhouse. I remember reading that Life Magazine did a full spread on her ordination because it was such a watershed moment-
SH: Right
JR: for equality.
CW: Wow.
JR: And then maybe 20 years later, the first African American woman was ordained.
Her name was Katie Cannon, and my favorite description of her from a friend was a demon slayer. She was a mighty woman. And she said, in her words, she says, “Do the work your soul must have.” And it makes me ask myself, what is the work my soul must have?
CW: That’s good.
JR: And I am at my core a liberation theologian.
The work my soul must have is the work of liberation.
SH: Right.
JR: And whether that’s the migrant, whether it’s LGBTQ, whether it’s women, but liberating the oppressed I think is the work my soul must have.
CW: Yeah.
JR: And how that’s gonna live out I look to God.
CW: Yeah.
JR: I also have a beautiful friendship with a woman named Luana Uvuale, and she is an LDS woman who made the pivot to become ordained in the Presbyterian Church, and she lives now in Hawaii, and she’s been a torchbearer for me.
I’ve only met her once, but we’ve had deep conversations on the phone maybe a dozen times. And every time I seek her help, she comes with this spaciousness And just wants me to take my journey my own way, but also has advice that I lean on. And one of the things she said to me that has stayed with me is, “When a door opens, you say yes.”
You watch for those doors, and when one opens, you say “yes”.
She’s a torchbearer. She really is, and she has such deep compassion for her native tongue, her native culture. She said half her ward came to her ordination when she was ordained-
CW: Really?
SH: Wow
JR: in the Presbyterian Church.
Yep. She did it well. She said, “I left the church slowly slowly slowlywith a lot of love.”
CW: Wow.
JR: And I don’t know what my journey holds, but I feel the spaciousness in that.
SH: Yeah.
CW: Yeah
JR: There’s no animosity, there’s no bitterness. It’s just loving, and it was a loving pivot that she felt called to because a door opened and she said yes. Interesting.
CW: Very interesting.
JR: I can’t shake the common thread of this confidence that ordained women have in themselves spiritually. Spiritual confidence.
SH: Right.
JR: I hope to emulate that in wherever I move through the world. Can I embody spiritual confidence?
CW: Wow. I know for so many women who newly land in the “At Last She Said It” space, spiritual confidence is an aspiration, is wishful thinking.
Anyway, it’s just really beautiful to think of spiritual confidence and how that really can become part of the second half of life for so many women.
JR: Yes.
SH: Yeah.
JR: And maybe it takes living out your experience in your first half of life-
CW: 100%
JR: box, you know?
SH: Right.
JR: And I think with confidence, I also want to say sovereignty.
CW: Yes.
JR: That you are governed by yourself.
SH: Right.
JR: And you can look to God as your guide, but also to yourself.
CW: Yes.
JR: That’s such a developmental need that we all have, I think, but it’s not lived out.
SH: Yeah.
CW: Totally agree.
SH: And I think for women, as you mentioned, when they come into the “At Last She Said It” space, Cynthia, I have perceived that a lot of women land here and are willing to walk here with us for a minute, not because they feel that spiritual confidence themselves yet, but I think that sometimes they have sensed a glimmer.
Like they have-
CW: Yep
SH: glimpsed a possibility for themselves that they didn’t really know existed-
JR: Yes
SH: before. And once that-
JR: Yes
SH: light comes in, they wanna follow it. It’s just-
JR: Yes
SH: it’s natural, right?
JR: Yes.
SH: It’s natural for us to wanna lean into [00:45:00] this spiritual autonomy.
JR: Yeah, autonomy.
SH: And so when you first have the thought, “Is it possible?” It’s really hard for that particular toothpaste to go back in the tube. Extinguishing that glimpse, I think is really hard, and some women sit with the glimpse for years before they feel empowered to take any kind of step in any direction. But it’s just been interesting watching women over these six years and interacting with so many women.
JR: Yeah.
SH: This process seems to play out again and again and again, and I think it’s because we come from a tradition where women have not felt that power over their own spiritual lives.
CW: That sovereignty.
JR: Yeah. I would just say pay attention to the glimmer.
SH: Yeah.
JR: Pay attention. Stop.
CW: Yep.
JR: Write it down. Sit with it. Breathe with it. The glimmers are the inbreaking of God’s voice, I think.
SH: Yeah.
CW: Totally agree.
JR: That is personal revelation. It comes in glimmers and glimpses and whispers and dreams, and it matters so much.
I think God interrupts us, but sometimes we’re too busy or too scared.
But the glimmers are an interruption.
SH: Right. Right. I mean, or can be if we-
JR: They can be
SH: if we will allow them to be. But we build a pretty a pretty good wall around that stuff. I heard, I was hearing an interview with Pema Chödrön the other day, and she was talking about in, I don’t remember, one of her, one of her Buddhist teachers had covered a window with black plastic and then talked about putting a pinhole in that black plastic and the light that came through. And the idea was, the metaphor is that there was so much behind that tiny pinhole of light.
JR: Wow. Wow.
SH: And that’s what those glimmers are for an LDS woman.
JR: Wow.
SH: We’re sitting behind the black plastic, and when something pokes it with a pin, suddenly we sense that there is something else back there-
JR: Oh my gosh.
SH: that we’ve never even imagined.
JR: Oh my gosh. This reminds me of a quote by her name is Arundhati Roy. She’s an Indian author.
SH: Yes.
JR: She says, “Listen for the life signs of new possibility. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.”
SH: Yeah.
JR: “On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” It’s that little glimmer of light. Like, there’s so much behind it.
And I know we’re talking to the ideal, but I think again and again, it’s the glimmers that are gonna grow us.
SH: Save us.
CW: Well, and I think that’s part of the imagination you were talking about in the beginning of this conversation. Like, we need to be able to imagine the ideal.
Whether or not that can always come into practice is different, but I think imagining beyond what we think is even possible is part of that journey.
JR: Yes. And part of that just means being willing to really listen deep-
CW: Listen deep
JR: to the voice of your own soul.
CW: Yeah. Yeah
JR: The music of your own spirit”-
CW: Yeah
JR: John O’Donohue says, “the music.”
SH: Beautiful.
CW: All right, Jenny, what advice do you have for women who feel called to spiritual or pastoral service, but maybe our church simply doesn’t provide those opportunities for women? I mean, we’d love-- I’d love to hear some practical ideas.
SH: Asking for a friend. Oh, yes.
CW: Asking for Susan.
JR: Well, I think it starts with, again, back to your own call, and I don’t mean a church calling.
CW: Yes.
SH: Right.
JR: It’s your call. So you have to listen for that call, and I think part of that is getting quiet, I think writing a prayer. But coming to understand what is it that your soul can’t not do.
And yeah, it may not be possible, but if you can articulate what it is that you wish you could do, then practical things may fall into place.
And I would recommend if you’re feeling called to ministry, explore CPE. Start there.
Get into a CPE program. There’s one in Utah that’s in person and many that are online.
CW: Mmkay.
JR: And you have to secure a clinical placement site. Maybe you’re gonna be working in a homeless shelter and doing CPE and learning how to minister with-
SH: Right
JR: with intention, with skills. So I’d say first articulate, second explore, and maybe third trust. Trust yourself. And I know that’s not practical, it’s idealistic, but do it. You know, claim it. I have this Carol Lynn Pearson poem that I don’t think gets nearly enough airtime that I’d love to share, and then a blessing to offer to all women, not my own, but written by another woman.
CW: Okay.
JR: The Carol Lynn Pearson poem is called “Power,” and I love it, and this is my [00:50:00] encouragement to all women who feel that they could do or be more in the church or in ministry. The poem says, “When she learned that she didn’t have to plug in to someone or something like a toaster into a wall. When she learned that she was a windmill and she had only to raise her arms to catch the universal whisper and turn, turn, turn.
She moved. Oh, she moved, and her dance was a marvel.”
CW: Oh my gosh.
SH: Beautiful.
JR: It’s just an invitation to dream. And it’s holy work, you know?
CW: It is holy work. It really is.
JR: Yeah. What is it that you’re thinking about pursuing or starting or quitting or making or finishing or embracing? You can name it.
Can I read this blessing that’s just so beautiful?
SH: Oh, would you please?
CW: Please.
JR: This is written by the Reverend Margaret Cunningham, and it was spoken in New Zealand, and it’s part of “The Women’s Book of Uncommon Prayer,” which is worth a link, and-
CW: We will link to it
JR: I think your listeners will love it.
All right. Here’s a blessing for women: Eternal Spirit, Earth Maker, pain bearer, life giver, source of all that is and all that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, loving God in whom is heaven, awaken us with your Holy Spirit and preserve us from the temptation to stay comfortably asleep.
Encourage us to proclaim our authenticity and preserve us from a false accommodation to the world. Breathe into us your breath of life. Stir us up into activity and preserve us from the inertia that leads to complicity in our own oppression. Open our eyes to the promises in creation. Open our hearts to the love and example of Jesus.
Open our ears to the persistent whispering of the Holy Spirit, and preserve us from a sense-deadened existence. Remind us that we are made in your image, that we too are creators, lovers, decision-makers. Instill in us the pride of our heritage and preserve us from excessive, crippling humility. Above all, gracious God, give us the grace to hear your word to us and the courage to claim and act on that inner authority.
Preserve us from the tyranny of the external authority that comes from the world.
Amen.
CW: Amen. Well, I kinda wanna just end on that beautiful prayer you just read, Jenny, but we have a few minutes left, so we would love to hear your take on our title today. I don’t know, a lot of our listeners may not know, when it’s just Susan and I, we’ll go back and forth with our title.
When we have a guest, we like to have her input, and so Jenny had lots of choices, and the one that she chose, and Susan and I were like yes, yes was that title we already said, which is “Let Your Life Speak.” So go ahead and speak to that for a few minutes in our last few minutes here.
JR: Sure. Of course. So Parker Palmer is the Quaker author and theologian that I like so much, and he has a book that’s called “Let Your Life Speak.”
I highly recommend it, and it’s looking for the voice of vocation, and he talks about a lot of principles of discernment and how to find your vocation, to find that thing that you can’t not do.
JR: And so I loved that title. It really helped me when I first read the book, sort of frame what was happening already inside of me ‘cause I read it as part of my degree and realized, oh, my life is speaking in a way that I couldn’t even articulate, but God sort of breathed into me this vocation. And I think one of his other quotes that speaks to this principle is he says, “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”
CW: Yes.
JR: And again that’s the imagination. Like, who am I? What is possible? What do I actually want? What am I actually capable of and what do I wish I were capable of? Start there. You know, that’s letting your life speak instead of letting your life be dictated by somebody else. So I really liked that title, and I hope my life can speak to the work my soul must do.
CW: Beautiful.
SH: Beautiful.
CW: Jenny, this has been a great conversation. I’m sad it’s only an hour. I want it to be five hours, but hopefully you’ll just come back on the podcast and talk more about all these amazing things that you’ve just introduced us to today. Any last quote that you want to read? Any final message before we sign off?
JR: Just gratitude. Gratitude for the courageous space you’re both in, that you provide for so many women to find rest in their searching and in their expanding and in their tension. You’re really doing good work. Thank you so much.
CW: Well, thank you for this [00:55:00] conversation.
SH: Such a gift.
Voicemail 1: Hey, I am going to remain anonymous because I don’t know if I’m sharing trade secrets here. But I work at a campus Institute, and I just listened to your episode on Shibboleths, and you guys were talking about white shirts, particularly in church meetings. But I want you guys to know that at my campus institute, the faculty are being encouraged to wear colored shirts.
Not dark, they definitely wanna keep it light, but they can even wear, like, campus button-downs. And they do that because our data that we’ve polled from our students has shown that, like, colored shirts are more welcoming, and so that’s the intention behind it. And 100% when faculty are meeting with, like, upper management or anyone from the church office building, they wear a white button-down suit coat.
But it is interesting. I think there is a change happening.
Voicemail 2: Hi, my name is Peter. I’m from California, and I just wanted to first of all say that I really appreciate your podcast. It has helped me keep my sanity in the last year or two as I’ve gone through some faith journeys and faith transitions and things like that.
I also just wanted to let you know that this morning I subbed for seminary, and the lesson was about finding truths in the scriptures, and I used your wonderful example of the Shibboleth story from Judges, and I talked to the kids about how we can use such silly things to judge other people and how that is not a good way to be.
We talked about it for quite a while. The kids were really fascinated by the story. I just wanted to let you know that you had a hand in a seminary lesson this morning. Keep up the good work. It is really making a difference.
JR: That sounded kinda dumb. Maybe edit that out. Should I try that again?
CW: You can say what you want over again however you want.
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