Say More: At Last She Writes It

No. 12 | March 2024

photo by Blakelee Ellis

Taking Communion from a Woman was a Crucial Event in my Life

by Kameron Abilla

I grew up in a church where women cannot hold

legitimate positions of power. No woman at any organizational level can make decisions that affect the congregation without getting approval from a man. This summer I realized I’d never been given communion/sacrament from a woman, but in many other sects, that is a reality. I work for the chaplain’s office at my school and asked my boss for a list of churches in the area where women were in charge. Thus began a summer project! I visited five meetinghouses in my town where women were the pastors/reverends. These instances were also my first time in Protestant congregations. Despite having loved visiting different churches in my life, I had limited experience with other Christian traditions besides Mormonism and Catholicism.

But, I have always been really interested in religion. I took World Religions in high school the first year they offered it. I especially loved learning about Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. I took a World Religions course again in college, and appreciated how my professor had us study each religion from the viewpoint of the women who practiced them. I passed multiple classes on Judaism and Islam in college, and a myriad of classes on Mormonism. Most importantly, my anthropology courses, which is what my bachelor’s degree is in, touched on all aspects of religion.

I’ve lived out my interest in religion by asking questions, reading books, and visiting other religious spaces. When I lived in Mexico serving an LDS mission, I enjoyed talking with our neighbors who practiced Santería and seeing their altars in each room. I also loved our friends who worshipped La Santa Muerte, the personification of death. The Hindu temple in my hometown has fed me multiple times, and I love to visit temples wherever I travel. My current job in the chaplain’s office at my school is as an interfaith assistant, and I’ve adored talking and getting to know the Protestant Reverend, Jewish Rabbi, Muslim Imam, and Catholic Priest there.

Why have I neglected to learn more about Christianity as a whole? Maybe we are less interested in what we know, and I already belonged to a Christian church, a church which believes itself to be the only true church on the face of the earth. I may have assumed other Christian churches were too similar to need to investigate further. But I know each one is its own world.

In my journey to seek sacrament from a woman, I first went to my nearest Episcopal church. The Reverend began her sermon with an anecdote of her riding her motorcycle in Seattle. Through her robe, I saw sleeves of tattoos. She quoted Richard Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault, acknowledged the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder and mentioned how “we must dismantle oppressive systems.” Then I walked up to the front, knelt, and she gave me a little wafer. The sermon made me cry. If I am ever in any church at all, these are the things I want to hear.

Next was my local Lutheran church. The Pastor wore a stole with the pride flag on it and mentioned how much members of the church had enjoyed the Pride festival the night before, where they’d had a booth. I wrote down a few quotes from her message, including, “You cannot make God stop loving you. You cannot make God stop loving the person you despise the most.” She read a poem that told of how there are really only two religions in the world: the religion of being right and the religion of being loving. She prayed for specific nations in the world, all of creation, and the eradication of racial hatred. Then I walked up and took a wafer.

At the Methodist church, the Reverend spoke and said, "I hope you know that whoever you are, you are welcome here and are loved beyond your wildest imagination.” There were only women on the stand. They read a children’s book about Juneteenth and we sang Lift Up Every Voice and Sing. The Reverend preached that the rhythm of discipleship is to venture out into the world and circle back again, citing the story of Bilbo Baggins and Frodo as examples. There was no communion or ritual in this congregation, but they did pray for Juneteenth, people in Russia, Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, migrants who died recently in Greece, and said, “We grieve acts of violence against our LGBTQ siblings in a society increasingly hostile to them.”

With my local Presbyterians, the Reverend told the story of the Eunuch in Acts 8 in a way I’d never heard and I loved it. I attended this congregation during extremely hot days and she said to be mindful of our friends and neighbors, to check in on them. That “sometimes we take for granted what we have to accommodate the elements and there's so many [folks] who don't have [those options].” They prayed for LGBTQ folks and asked for volunteers to help them build affordable housing out of an old building they own.

Finally, a United Church of Christ service, the visiting Pastor being a Black woman. The bulletin had 5-minute Sabbath ideas listed and one idea was to read Mary Oliver, an all-time favorite poet of mine. There was a pause to acknowledge the church is sacred space though it “is not the ground we created but the land that was occupied for centuries by people who went by the name of Tongva and Gabrielino.” That “this land was not given freely but seeded in strife. We pause to remember to be grateful and renew our commitment to justice.” The Pastor then retold the story of Samson in Judges and talked about shadow personalities. She said that our shadow personality is what we hide from the world. What do we keep in the shadows? She quoted Rumi,

Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.

“What promises have you made that you have broken not once, but a thousand times? What does the underbelly of your existence say?” The Pastor reminded the congregation that “tough, protected animals all have soft underbellies and use armor to protect the underbelly. The most vulnerable part of you might be the key to what happens in your future.” Then, when we said the Lord’s Prayer, there was a written option to call God “Mother.”

“I often went to Catholic mass or Eucharist at the Episcopal church, nourished by the symbol and power of this profound feeding ritual. It never occurred to me how odd it was that women, who have presided over the domain of food and feeding for thousands of years, were historically and routinely barred from presiding over it in a spiritual context. and when the priest held out the host and said, ‘This is my body, given for you,’ not once did I recognize that it is women in the act of breastfeeding who most truly embody those words and who are also most excluded from ritually saying them.”
— Sue Monk Kidd, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine

The hosts of my favorite podcast talk about how church is often the last place in our culture where a young girl or grown woman is told she can’t do something because of her sex/gender. That is not going to work out well for churches if they want to last. I really enjoyed visiting these spaces who’ve broken out of that. It was an exercise of weighing on one hand what I grew up with and on the other what each new tradition offers and teaches. Being the religion nerd/anthropologist that I am, I’ve continued to explore nearby churches and truly enjoy it. Just in the last week, I attended Friday Shabbat services, a lecture on moving beyond the gender binary for God with a queer affirming Christian group at my school, an LDS service, and went to Mass.

In all my exploring, did I feel at home in any of them? No, but I felt at home in all of them.

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Rebirth of My Dreams at 40

by Candice Wendt

I used to fantasize about speaking in General Conference

when I was a little girl. I could picture myself up there in a pink suit and that billowy scarf that I still haven’t figured out how to tie. I sensed I would have things to say, and I wanted to do that in the church I loved on a big scale. 

I’m turning 40 this year, and it feels like everything has suddenly rapidly changed.

Over the past couple years, two things have happened to dash my old dreams of leadership.

One, men my age and younger now make up the majority of my local leaders. This has forced me to face the reality that I’ll never be the one up there giving official spiritual care and guidance, or speaking with any kind of authority about my vision and insights. 

With them being my age, the distance between me and leaders has shortened, and it feels more obvious that men are not more qualified than women for these roles. They are not bad men, it’s a matter of me being in a new space for examining our system and its underlying assumptions.

These men are often very earnest. There are instances in which I feel truly seen and respected, such as when I met for a temple interview recently and was touched hearing a leader I consider a friend pray for my spiritual life to flourish. Yet, because they so carefully follow the Church’s protocols and traditions, they often treat me as if they have authority over me and know the things of God better than I do. One leader was subbing in Sunday school and brought up a story about how much pain he has felt about polygamy and how at one point it kept him from wanting to do missionary work. I felt for him. After the lesson, I told him I’ve received my own personal revelation from God that polygamy was never inspired or good, and that I feel this is a legitimate direction for anyone who feels the need to let it go while still continuing to uphold all the beautiful and supportive things Joseph Smith revealed. He ignored what I said and asserted that I can trust that someday God will reveal why polygamy needed to happen. Another leader responded by correcting me without listening or validating when I suggested he delegate some of the one-on-one discussions he wanted to have with my daughter to the Young Women’s president since she had an anxiety attack every time he invited her to meet with him.

Two, as I approach middle age, I have come to spend a significant chunk of my time tending to an unofficial ministering list, a network of connections who are struggling with unfair and perplexing things in their religious lives.

Two years ago in January, three people around me needed urgent support: one woman who finally felt safe to discuss how she had been going through a long and painful crisis of faith that started decades before when one of her mentors told her details about how Joseph Smith mistreated women though his secret polygamous and polyandrous teachings and lifestyle. The church’s unexamined version of the story made her feel perplexed  and betrayed as someone keenly aware (from both personal experience and study) of the psychology of compulsive behaviors, partner betrayal, and domestic abuse. As we dialogued about this, for the first time in my entire life, the Spirit bore witness to me of something about polygamy: it was never from God, and there were women around me who knew more than male leaders about polygamy’s true origins and nature due to their personal knowledge of certain emotional and relational sickness some men struggle with.

Another woman’s son had recently come out as queer and left church and she had lost much of her trust in Church leadership. She was pained thinking of the years her son spent feeling unseen and shamed at church during lessons that pertained to sexuality while she didn’t know about the harm going on. We grieved together after she told me the story of the suicide of a young LDS gay boy in her neighborhood. Supporting her in her experience inspired me to start taking full responsibility for my own beliefs about and engagement with queer rights and well-being in our church. For the first time, I saw that an ongoing legacy of homophobic and spiritually abusive policies puts every family in our church at risk of the worst kinds of harm and tragic loss. When I think of it I feel God’s hot sorrowful tear falling on my head. 

Third, a teenager opened up to me about how church often felt like a place of control, shaming and guilt, and was not a place she could picture herself in the future as an adult. I came to realize the faith legacy I cherished was something many contemporary teens sometimes felt wounded by and deeply conflicted about for legitimate reasons. I felt supported by God in letting go of the heavy manipulative pressure I’d lived under my whole life to do whatever it took to ensure my own kids continue in the faith.  

These three women invited me to look more carefully at the bigger picture as I sat with them in their pain. More women with things to talk about have continued to speak up to me; I imagine this will continue all my life. 

These conversations are sacred. I’m grateful for the spiritual growth and closeness to God I’ve experienced through them. I’m so grateful to these women for speaking up and trusting me. I’m grateful I’m learning to claim a much greater sense of responsibility for my own spiritual life.

This role I am called on to play has been the main thing that has shifted my sense of my future roles and callings in the Church. It is the precise thing that has led me to reframe the Church as partially struggling and spiritually harmful rather than fully thriving and healthy (though I still find I and so many others sincerely need and desire the faith and spirituality it provides in our lives, and I still find myself choosing to be devout).

I have come to perceive that rather than facing our most difficult challenges head on with courageous, compassionate leadership, rather than tending to the spiritual, mental and emotional well-being of women and children, Church leadership had left the most difficult, complex and harrowing work—the dirtiest and more mind boggling and heart rending work—for me to figure out on my own and in private as an ordinary female member. I look around and see I am part of a vast clean up crew of women of all ages who are sorting, scrubbing, and trying to make sense of the dregs at the bottom that have poisoned and hurt so many members.

I have come to see that throughout our history, leaders have failed to keep women’s well-being at heart. They have ignored many of our emotional and spiritual needs, shut off their ears when complaints arise, and left us to spiritually fend for ourselves in the face of the Church’s inconsistencies, injustices, and festering wounds. There is no true accountability on the part of leaders and no input invited or truly received even when given. The buck stops only at us women tending to all the spiritual and emotional needs in the private make-shift spiritual care centers we set up. In the Victorian times in which the Church was forged, this was somewhat understandable, but in the 21st century, a time of gender equality increasing liberation and empowerment for women, as well as all kinds of new knowledge and research concerning psychological and spiritual well-being, it’s simply inexcusable. 

The fantasy of spiritual leadership I loved during my childhood is not gone, just transformed. I now see the work ahead of me as an ongoing, complex struggle. As difficult as rocket science and as delicate as restoring a struggling ecosystem. I envision myself as a spiritual healer working to bring relief as I write and as I minister to women one on one. I dream of writing a book that reframes the origins of LDS polygamy from the perspective of women who’ve lived through partner betrayal. I dream of small things like helping others shift their values a bit when they see my “Protect Queer Kids” button. I dream of being someone who helps LDS spirituality shine as compelling, dignifying and life-giving to youth in my communities rather than something guilt and shame-inducing. I dream of helping others experience productive discomfort that leads to spiritually expansive learning experiences.

It’s not the dream or role I ever would have chosen—or even could’ve imagined—as a younger person, but honestly, it’s the one I feel God has always intended for me and a much more interesting and intelligent one.

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photo by Blakelee Ellis

Untitled

by Keaven Taylor Neely

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photo by Blakelee Ellis

Joseph’s Walls

by Ashleigh Gentry Davis

Though I had loving relationships available to me

from the minute I was born, accepting the risk of vulnerability has always been a hurdle for me, even with the people who love me most. Maybe I developed my “hard shell,” as my husband calls it, during volatile days and nights at home when my father’s OCD attacks burst through the walls I hid behind. Throughout my childhood, and through desperate attempts to control something in his life, I often felt that I lost control of mine. I became eagerly accustomed to walking on eggshells and very in tune with where to step to keep the peace.

Walls

My father operated within ever-condensing walls of mental illness for years, just trying to survive by controlling anything he could to feel some relief from the panic inside. He believed he could fend off the illness through climbing mountains every Saturday and keeping the house clean. But as soon as the phone rang to put a dent in his plans, he lost his mental strength. He fought a cyclical battle, trapped by self-judgements and stigmas that accompanied mental illness. To my knowledge, he never tried to heal the harmful cycles by confronting the thoughts themselves because his impulses never told him to. Just make sure you get out of the house before the phone rings next time, then everything will be ok. And this is how it went for 28 years.

Often, in the context of my Latter-day Saint faith, I find members operate within similar walls. Instead of mental illness, however, we try to operate within walls of authority to keep the peace with God, prophets, scripture, and each other. We build walls of belief all around us, define them with certainty, and then try to fit our revelations within them. But when these revelations hurt us, we think dealing with the pain is the answer. We deal with the pain in many ways: prayer, repentance, service, temple work, tithing, etc. Submission. Control.

As a child and then teenager, I dealt with the pain in our home much the same. Submission: If I say yes to a hike every time my father insists, he will be happy. Then we can be a happy family. 

We never looked for a way out of the cycle of control because it worked; actually, it gave the illusion that it worked. I said yes to hiking and hurried my contrary sister into her room, where I bribed her with hamburgers and milkshakes in return for her peaceful cooperation. And yes, the peace was real and lasting, at least for the day.

That was how my relationship with my church evolved as well. When something from the pulpit felt wrong, I never considered the message to be the problem. Instead I dealt with the pain while caught in the balance of submission and control.

My first question

As a young college student, I faced some existential pain as a group of young, Latter-day Saint friends confronted me with knowledge about our polygamist past and future. Our past I knew little about, but my prescribed future came as a shock. Every romantic hope I ever had died as I learned about the revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 132. I would be forced to live in eternal polygamy if I wanted to become exalted to the highest degree of heaven. But, not to worry. Once I was on the other side, I would be much more enlightened and, therefore, delighted to invite any number of women to my marriage. I tried to argue that they were wrong, but lost my case repeatedly. The night ended, but I couldn’t sleep. Tears of anger from their suffocating assertions weighed on my mind for months as I searched for answers to my new and urgent question: how can I ever be happy in a heaven like this?

Submission

The following summer, I visited home and enrolled in a night institute class. I don’t remember anything about the class except for one experience. Sitting in a room full of young people like myself, I heard a girl comment that she had visited Prince Edward Island at the beginning of the summer to celebrate her graduation. I felt instantly jealous. Anne of Green Gables was such a staple for me while growing up that, I admit, I felt a bit territorial of the books and the films. I longed deeply to visit Prince Edward Island and, to this day, refuse to call it P.E.I. because it sounds so plain, and Anne would never have uttered such an acronym. I took note of the bitterness I suddenly felt toward my undeserving classmate and decided to get introspective about this new jealousy. I thought a little prayer and subsequently had an epiphany. There, I pictured my three younger sisters. My sisters and I had always been close, and I felt incredibly protective of their happiness as the oldest sibling. I would do anything, be anything for them. I would never be jealous of them if they were to have the chance to visit this destination of my childhood dreams. I would feel so happy for them. As I looked at this girl in the front row and imagined that she was my sister, the jealousy faded, and I felt truly happy for her experience. Simultaneously, I knew the answer to my first question. That’s how I’ll be happy in heaven. I’ll share it with my sisters.

Control

I had done it successfully once again. I had managed the pain within my walls of belief for a time, but just as I learned with my father’s mental walls, they just kept closing in tighter. I turned to another form of dealing with pain. Instead of submitting, I attempted to control. So, seven years later, I told my husband-to-be my conditions: I would marry him for now, but if he ever got resealed, I was done. "I don’t know how heaven works, but I swear I’ll find a way," I said. 

However, nothing helped for more than a sliver of time, and my anger only grew worse as I grasped at lifelines within the walls of polygamy. Then, the walls closed even tighter. My husband and I became parents. This new role of mine turned out to be the catalyst for transformation as I spiraled into a mental nosedive I was unprepared for. 

Cutting a door

My struggle was my own, but I quickly noticed familiar themes from my childhood, and I had resources that my father didn't. I utilized medication and three different therapists. I made progress slowly as we raised our daughter and had another, but the pain was still there. Then, one day, I got new information. After 28 years of dealing with the walls, I read an article about the many faces of OCD, and my life suddenly made sense. I looked up a therapist trained in cognitive-behavioral therapy and started confronting the walls that plagued me: I didn’t need to reconcile my life to obsessive thoughts anymore. It was the thoughts themselves that were lying to me. 

As I broke down the mental walls, I also found immense healing in confronting my spiritual beliefs that were causing me pain. I no longer needed to reconcile my beliefs to voices of authority. I could ask my own questions. Then, one day, after avoiding it for so long, I opened my gospel app again to Doctrine and Covenants 132. But this time, I didn’t fear what I would find. This time, I saw the wall for what it was and cut myself a door. There, in the first verse, I saw a different Joseph than I ever had before, a Joseph with walls: Walls of authority from prophets and authority from the Bible. Walls of fear for his eternal judgments and walls of a merciful yet untempered god. I saw his question that inquired "wherein... the Lord justified [his] servants...as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines" and wondered what revelation the young Joseph might have come upon if he had seen through his walls of belief and changed his question by just one word. So, in place of perpetuating the same walls we've built around our revelations for two centuries, I changed my question. For many of us who have felt the pain of polygamy or passed it on, there may be a time to revisit the question and consider this: It may not be a matter of why God commanded Joseph to restore polygamy, but if.

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Illustration by LMFCV

Kite Strings

by Gloria Lowther Hartley

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The setting was a luncheon the week of our grandmother's funeral. I sat at a table with several sisters-in-law and a young adult nephew. Somehow we landed on the terribly taboo topic of abortion. I voiced my thoughts and my nephew with all his 20-year-old patriarchal prowess put me in my place. Unbeknownst to me yet another nephew, of the tender age of 11, stood just behind me and heard my scandalous pronouncements on this adult topic.

Later in the day my sister, mother of the 11-year-old, demanded an apology from me. She was hurt that I, who had always been so sweet, had said these things in front of her son. She asked that I apologize to her. I told her I was sorry that her son had overheard an adult conversation but that I was not ashamed of having an adult conversation with other adults. And with that I upended a lifelong dynamic.

My mother approached me begging me to take the place of the fixer and the peacemaker. "Make this right," she pleaded. But I knew that in my mid-thirties I was far too old to be playing the part of the obedient daughter and compliant sister any longer. I could no longer be the infantilized version of myself they were comfortable with. And I know it sounds strange but this "NO" which had been trapped in my throat for too many years escaped like a battle cry for love. Deeper love, truer love, a love where there was room for us to all show up in our wholeness. To say things. It took a year for the love of that "NO" to distill over us, but it did and it has. 

— Amandalynn

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Say More is excited to begin featuring artwork from LDS women.

Benevolent, by Randi Fuller

Wounds of the soul necessitate both words and a witness. Despite my love for language, I often find myself incapable of expressing the profound emotions and experiences that demand processing and healing. My journey into art stemmed from the need to find an outlet for expressing what words could not convey and to bear witness to experiences, both personal and shared, that deeply impacted me. Through sharing my art, I not only offer my witness but also convey images that transcend language, resonating deeply with those who encounter them. My hope is that Benevolent serves as medicine for those with whom this work resonates.

— Randi

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Contributors:

Kameron Abilla

Kameron Abilla is a student at Claremont Graduate University getting a master's in gender studies. You can read more from Kameron on her own Substack.

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Candice Wendt

Candice Wendt works at McGill University's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and is a contributing editor at Wayfare Magazine. She struggles with being human and can't eat dairy ice cream anymore. She has never had a dog, but dogs' enthusiasm for life give her hope for humanity.

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Ashleigh Gentry Davis

Ashleigh lives in Utah and loves hiking and traveling with her family. She and her husband are excited to work at a scout camp this summer with their three kids ages 4, 2, and 9 months. She loves songwriting, listening to unapologetic faith podcasts, and stirring up a little water when the moment feels right. 

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Gloria Hartley

Gloria (she/her) has spent most of her life in the Midwest, where she currently lives with her spouse and two kids. She is honored to work for an incredible library on wheels, and gets to spend her other working hours in early childhood music education. She'd like you to know, that even if it feels scary, it doesn't mean you're falling; what if... just maybe....you might be flying. 

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Randi Fuller

Randi Fuller is an artist and entrepreneur dedicated to creating sanctuaries. By day, she specializes in Evidence Based Design Psychology, crafting functional and inspiring spaces for clients at her flooring and remodeling business. At night, after tucking her three children into bed, she channels her passion into her art. Follow her artistic journey on Instagram @thesanctuarycreatress.

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