Dispatches from Purgatory (Experiences from the YSA ward)
by Natalie Tanner
It’s been interesting to be in a state that has always been described to me as a purgatory:
being 25 years old in a YSA ward. It’s infantilizing, yet I am deeply aware this is the most equality I’ve experienced as a member of the church.
Our weekly FHE activities echo of Mutual activities and often follow the same structure and guidelines. Sometimes it feels difficult to have adult conversations when watching a Disney movie and cutting out paper hearts. Of course, it’s ladies at the helm of these activities. They organize and announce each activity. Each one is clearly thoughtful, even if it’s leaning childish. It resembles equal representation, even if it still neatly falls into an approved gender stereotype.
Things tend to run a little silly in YSA wards. Some of it is inevitable: there’s a huge difference between an 18-year-old and a 25-year-old. I am happy that there are activities for everyone. But there is a moment when the FHE committee announces that we will be playing Where’s Waldo at the mall when you realize you can’t be caught playing this without any kids being involved. It could maybe be fun. But even if it is, I can’t imagine telling my coworkers about it.
In my almost ten years of purgatory, only twice has there been an equal amount of men and women in the ward. As a result, women are included a little more in the decisions than in a regular family ward to compensate for greater disparity. I have to swallow the internal unrest about the existence of these non-essential and YSA specific callings (FHE coordinators, ward activity chairs, etc.) being the only times women get equal seating.
It’s both patronizing and refreshing. Sometimes it even feels safe.
As some may not be aware: YSA men are now allowed to serve in YSA bishoprics and high council. It’s nice to see that Church leadership have realized that unmarried men have been unfairly shut out of the decision making and have rectified the situation. Now, instead of a married, older man asking me questions about my sexual activity, it’s a peer whom I will see later at the afore-mentioned activities.
On the other hand, we rarely have men interrupting our Relief Society meetings or activities. Luckily, we have the bishoprics’ wives around to keep us in line. It’s both patronizing and refreshing. Sometimes it even feels safe.
The sacrament program is its own unique experience: almost always equally represented across genders, but with a surprising age component. In my experience, the youngest people and RMs are the favored speakers. This has been a consistent observation—most of the difficult trials being shared over the pulpit include a roommate not doing her dishes or family members only having an hour to talk on P. Day. I choose not to engage with the thought that speakers are chosen based on their youth (i.e. date-ability) and not the spiritual value they bring to the meeting.
The hardest thing to navigate is the older bishopric members genuinely rooting for me and my career as I pursue an advanced degree. They are so proud of me and are willing to open doors wherever I need them. They are usually wealthy, respected, and established in the community. But I will never sit up on the stand with them, despite my advanced education. The highest rank I can achieve is in a YSA is Relief Society president—unless someone puts a ring on my hand. And there are subtle warnings (even from these dear, encouraging father figures) that my ambition and level of education is likely slowing that process down. It might even prevent me from ever leaving this purgatory.
There is a general assumption with every activity and meeting that this is supposed to end with young people getting married. The message was loudly overt in college but has been rolled back in every subsequent, non-college ward. We know that the underlying purpose of YSAs is to get people married, but now there is almost a stronger emphasis on unity and friendship. Heaven help the couple that breaks up and ruins the vibe at church the next day.
Meanwhile, the single girls (especially post college) are pitied for their marital status, so there is almost never an admonition from priesthood authority.
The boys get talked down to fairly regularly, if not by the bishopric, then by general or regional authorities about dating. They specifically get called out in stake conferences and devotionals. They are told to be more proactive and to stop the selfishness. There is no excuse in the world good enough for their single state. Meanwhile, the single girls (especially post college) are pitied for their marital status, so there is almost never an admonition from priesthood authority.
On the weekdays, I learn about complex systems and concepts at school. Through my internship after school, I am making a difference the way I always dreamed of. Yet on the weekends, I am subject to boys talking down to me because I don’t know where Ammon shows up in the Book of Mormon. I am supposed to be impressed with mission stories from 27-year-olds and their knowledge of foreign languages. Just like in high school, I am supposed to say yes to every date, but now have to deal with angry confrontations because I led someone on.
I’ll admit it: I am used to being awarded a high level of respect and prestige because of my field of study. It’s a little jarring that, on Sundays, the only way I can achieve the highest level of respect is through my party planning skills. Then again, maybe it isn’t a totally gendered situation. After all, a YSA ward is just an endless string of parties in purgatory.
Whole
by Stacy Henrie
When Symbols Stop Being Useful: Accessing Divinity Beyond Religious Rituals
by Lydia
I wear a cross necklace every day right now.
It's a simple gold cross on a cheap chain from Amazon, but I find myself touching it throughout the day, when I'm seeking a reminder of the physicality and reality of the things I believe.
I felt strangely compelled to seek out a cross necklace recently. It felt important, significant in some way I couldn’t articulate at the time. Now I wonder if I was seeking some less loaded version of the temple garment: a physical reminder of the relationship I'm trying to have with God.
I went through the temple at age eighteen, in March 2020. The weekend after that nearly every temple in the country closed, and the path that led me to the temple was a complicated one and a story for another time, but suffice it to say it was an inspired path. I wore the garment faithfully (based on the guidance given at the time, which was looser than current guidelines), but felt empowered to seek out inspiration from God in how I wore it.
I stopped wearing the garment six months ago, but I didn’t really plan to. I've been in a nuanced space with the Church for several years, since before I went through the temple, but only in the last six months has my deconstruction really started accelerating. I had come out as bisexual to my family and then on Instagram last June, and there was an increasing dissonance in me as I started to grapple with the reality that I was wearing the garment as I had covenanted to in the temple, a temple I would be shut out from if I chose to live the life that felt fulfilling and joyful to me, which I came to know would someday involve marriage to a woman. That said, I was still holding on to that part of my life, and not ready at first to face the social stigma of not wearing the garment. But one day that stopped being a good enough reason to wear them. I looked at those white garments and I knew I couldn't put them back on, and beyond that I knew that chapter of my life was closed.
This space was not designed for me, and in fact it was designed specifically to justify and confirm a view of humanity that erases my existence.
Something I'm still reconciling is how my temple experiences, while often frustrating and invalidating, were occasionally transcendent and beautiful. Some of my most spiritual experiences have happened inside the temple. But that has had more to do with the spiritual life I've cultivated for myself than with the actual temple ordinances, which I have always found painful, especially after coming out. As a woman I'm already a subplot and an afterthought to the central plot of the temple endowment story, which centers the experiences and actions of men, and as a queer woman I am invisible. This space was not designed for me, and in fact it was designed specifically to justify and confirm a view of humanity that erases my existence.
Yet I was led to the temple. The experiences that took me there were inspired, in a way I haven't often experienced, and it was a necessary part of my life. Similarly, the temple garment was never something I enjoyed wearing, but I always felt that God and I were on the same page in that regard—that while the clothing itself might just be clothing and hold no special personal meaning for me, the principle or value behind it was worthwhile and God appreciated what I was giving up.
My journey now demands a new self efficacy and autonomy. It's not enough anymore to stay in the flow of the Church, comfortably pulled along by the current. And the process of defining my spiritual life has demanded that I separate values from rituals, in order to decide what really matters to me. While the garment is uncomfortable and laden with history and sexism and the implication that women’s bodies are dirty and not to be seen, the value behind it—keeping Jesus and your relationship to him close to you always—is one I find beautiful. So I wear a cross necklace every day, and it's more meaningful and beautiful than wearing the garment ever was. Because it was something I chose, because I don't have to wear it forever, and because it wasn't prescribed for me by men as a visual cue of my “worthiness” or conformity to the structure of patriarchy.
If there is a valid and genuinely divine origin to the temple garment, beyond a patriarchal desire to police people’s bodies and sexuality, I believe it’s rooted in the same invitation given with the sacrament, which is to live in such a way that Jesus is visible and present in every simple moment and ritual of life. To choose to orient every experience against the divine, and appreciate the simple, inherent spirituality of a present and mindful life.
I’m intrigued by the invitation Jesus gave at the last supper, and in my wonderings and ponderings on what he meant and what we really believe about the sacrament and garments and religious symbols, I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re perhaps missing the greater meaning behind symbols and rituals like the sacrament and the temple garment in our earnest but occasionally misplaced desire to follow every letter of what Jesus said (that said, nowhere did Jesus specifically institute a holy garment, but that’s material for a whole different essay).
When Jesus instituted the sacrament, his instruction was the following:
“And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.” (Luke, 22:19-20)
This do in remembrance of me. I’m no theologian, but Jesus preached a grounded gospel, one rooted in connectedness and love and shifted away from a focus on ritual and rote obedience. Is it possible that when he told us to do this in remembrance of him, he meant the act of gathering, of eating together and speaking of him and his gospel? Is is possible that when we focus on the word-perfect prayer and symbolically broken bread we lose the beautiful simplicity of how it feels to be connected to each other and to him, remembering him in the daily act of eating our bread together?
There is no inherent spirituality in the white shirt and shorts and no salvific power in the bread and water, but there is in Jesus.
He promised that where two or three are gathered together in his name, he would be there too. It seems that the gathering, the intentional and mindful act of being together and awake to each other and our shared love for Jesus, is what makes it spiritual. This do in remembrance of me, he tells us. Stay close to each other. Remember each other, and when you remember each other remember me. Let me be in everything you do, let me be the thing that binds you together in ties of love and shared belief. I will be with you always, if you remember me in the simple moments of life that we once shared. If you pay attention, you’ll find me there.
Because it’s not about the bread and water. It’s about Jesus. And it’s not about the stretch cotton fabric or the mesh and the stitched symbols versus the printed symbols, it’s about remembering that we’re tied to him. Jacob taught that the law without Jesus is dead, that no rite or ritual done perfectly has any spiritual power without the intention behind it to find Jesus in it. To live Jesus’ gospel demands a mindfulness that lies at the heart of every ritual we do, and unifies us with every other good person trying to be connected to a higher power. There is no inherent spirituality in the white shirt and shorts and no salvific power in the bread and water, but there is in Jesus.
The symbol is a gateway, and in achieving the mindfulness that a symbol like a holy garment or the sacrament invites we transcend it, and realize that it was never about the symbol at all, but who it points to. The divinity I encountered in the temple can be real even as the temple ordinance itself can be patriarchal and damaging, because the temple was only ever there to (imperfectly) point to that divinity, and as a symbol its value is different for each one of us.
The irony is that in wearing the temple garment I was getting farther away from that mindfulness, because I was getting caught up in the cultural layers around the temple garment: the social value it gave me to wear it, the subtle reminder of default maleness in the way it’s not designed for female bodies, the apart-ness and superiority I felt compared to the rest of humanity because I had been through the temple. In letting go of the garment and the temple I held on to what has been meaningful and beautiful for me in religion, which is the connection to God and commitment to seek Them in every aspect of my life. I could not do that while wearing an article of clothing designed for and by men, with all the cultural implications it carried, but not wearing it changes nothing about my relationship to God. My connection to God is intact outside of the symbols I choose to represent it with.
That’s not to say it can’t be a powerful and beautiful symbol for people who still do choose to wear the garment. My parents are orthodox in every sense, and for them exact obedience has yielded a deep and beautiful faith that they treasure. Because again, it’s not about the symbol, it’s about the value behind it, and if the garment (or any religious symbol) is not inherently meaningful and spiritual, it’s also not inherently bad. It’s just neutral, because Jesus is good and it’s always been about Jesus. The conduit matters less than the connection it facilitates. Because I’m not a follower of garments or bread presented on a small white tray, I’m a follower of Jesus.
Faith Transition
by Jessica Nielson
*Note from the author
The picture I one took in one of MY holy places. It was from apple tree pruning after the blossoms had already opened. I accidentally waited longer than you’re supposed to to prune, but I might do it on purpose from now on! Being high up in our tree surrounded by that much beauty, with the scent of the blossoms, constant soft buzzing of honeybees, and the mountains in view was as spiritual as anywhere else I’ve ever been.
The Women Never Left
by Nicole Slater
Contributors:
Natalie Tanner
I grew up in small town Idaho in a large family. I am now working my way through law school, with a focus on criminal/family law. Raised on The Simpsons, you’ll find me bingeing cartoons or reading fiction on the weekdays and swing dancing on the weekends.
Stacy Henrie
Stacy is a published fiction author with a degree in public relations who, in another lifetime, would have likely been a pastor, a portrait painter, or an interior decorator. She loves being in nature, hiking, writing, reading, doing creative projects, watching great movies, and laughing with her husband and three teen/adult kids.
Lydia
Lydia is a daughter, sister, student, and scientist. She grew up writing, reading, and hiking in Seattle, and came out as bisexual last June. She is about to graduate with her Master's degree in microbiology, but loves to write poetry and paint when she has the time. She considers herself a feminist, a follower of Jesus, and a deeply spiritual person, and finds spiritual beauty and fulfillment in many places and traditions. You can read more of her writing on the blog she recently started with her sister called Prodigal Daughters, found here.
Jessica Nielson
Nicole Slater
I am a creator, a wife, and a mother of three who lives in New Mexico. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Communications and freelance occasionally in Graphic Design and Photography. My free time is almost always spent reading.
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"Oh my, that's good!", I heard myself saying five times. I look forward to this email more than any other. Thanks for the contributors and sharing their experiences and discoveries. And thank you for providing me the opportunity to learn from those "who never left".
Lydia, you essay meant so much to mean and I really needed it right now. Thank you! ❤️