first fig

my candle burns at both ends…
November 19, 2008

Reasons why I love mr. mraynes

(In no particular order or importance)

  1. He lets me call him mr. mraynes.
  2. He never complains that I legally changed my name to his name but continue to use my maiden name for just about everything.
  3. He likes my nose, even though he agrees that Adam Banghert had a point when he called me “butt nose” in the 7th grade.
  4. He loves babies. I cringe a little each time he pinches Baby Valkyrie’s cheeks, sticks his finger in her mouth to feel her gums or kisses her to the point where she can’t breathe and starts crying, but I think his love for babies is really cute.
  5. He doesn’t believe in gender roles.
  6. He loves to snuggle and likes it best when I snuggle into his bum.
  7. He is single-minded and incredibly persistent.
  8. His sperm makes really cute babies.
  9. He supports me in all of my pursuits…except for the art projects I do with Baby Monster, he hates those.
  10. He lets me rail against “the patriarchy” and never gets offended.
  11. He tells me he loves me at least 50 times a day.
  12. He makes me think.
  13. He puts up with my neuroses.
  14. He makes me feel warm inside.
  15. He has allowed me to love more fully and deeply than I ever knew was possible.

I love you, darling. Happy Anniversary.

3 Comments
November 4, 2008

America

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair’d in the adamant of Time.

~Walt Whitman

1 Comment
November 3, 2008

The Grand Tapestry

This is the sacrament talk I gave in my ward two weeks ago. I quoted from Chieko Okazaki, Joan Chittister’s Called to Question and Valerie Hudson’s Women in Eternity, Women in Zion but because I wrote it as a sermon, I did not include citations. I hope you enjoy it.

A wise woman once said that “vision is the ability to realize that the truth is always larger than the partial present.” It is easy to become enmeshed in the partial present, to be so concerned with our daily existence, that we forget that our lives serve a greater purpose and is part of a grander whole. Indeed, it is hubris to believe that we live our lives purely for our own sake, for we are all interconnected in the great plan of God. This plan connects us with every other spirit and intelligence in the universe. It connects us with God and makes the atonement of Jesus Christ operational on our behalf.

The plan of salvation is like a grand tapestry. Each of us is a small thread in this tapestry; intersecting, connecting, separating and intersecting again. Moving from color to color, dark to light. We may not know what contribution our small thread makes to the great tapestry. We may not understand the pattern that our lives make, but God does. It is God’s plan that incorporates and connects us all. It is that plan that will bring us eternal happiness.

As Moses 1:39 tells us, God’s purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. No matter the time period and regardless of the culture into which a spirit is born, every life is infinitely precious because God’s purpose extends to every individual. In the pre-mortal existence, our intelligences were organized into individual spirits and we became the children of our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. In our primeval childhood, we were nurtured by the side of God. We grew and developed and desired to progress further. We desired the opportunity to discern good from evil; to prove to our Heavenly Parents our ability to become like them and live as exalted beings in their presence forever.

And so, in their great love, they came up with a plan that would insure our happiness and immortality. Each spirit child would have to leave the presence of God for a time. In order to fully prove ourselves, it would be necessary to withhold the recollection of our former friends and birth. As we sojourned through mortality, we would make choices based on our discernment of good and evil. Our Heavenly Parents knew the mortal weakness each of us would suffer, and so in their mercy, they provided us with a Savior. Because he first loved us, he desired to be the propitiation for the sins we would inevitably commit. Our older brother would be the door through which, if we entered, we would be saved.

We are told that at hearing this plan, the hosts of heaven rejoiced. Two-thirds of God’s children happily chose this plan. All of us are here in mortality because we chose the plan. Everybody who has ever been born, or ever will be born, chose God’s plan of happiness. This fact should be a source of great hope and confidence to us. We all trusted God. We all loved the Savior. We were willing to take the frightening risks of mortality because we desired to be like them. We assumed the burden of freedom because we loved Christ so much. And he assumed the burden of being our Savior because he loved us so much. Before we were born, then, we had become part of a web of love, part of the grand tapestry that is the plan of salvation.

The tapestry begins with the creation of the Earth. In order for the plan to commence, a place for mortal existence had to be created. As Moses 1:4 tells us: “And the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth.” A great Mormon poetess beautifully captures the primordial event in her “Song of Creation”:

Who made the world, my child?
Father made the rain
silver and forever
Mother’s hand
drew riverbeds and hollowed seas,
drew riverbeds and hollowed seas
to bring the rain home

Father bridled winds, my child,
to keep the world new.
Mother clashed
fire free from stones
and breathed it strong and dancing,
and breathed it strong and dancing
the color of her hair.

He armed the thunderclouds
rolled out of heaven;
Her fingers flickered
hummingbirds
weaving the delicate white snow,
weaving the delicate white snow
a waterfall of flowers

And if you live long, my child
you’ll see snow burst
from thunderclouds
and lightning in the snow;
listen to Mother and Father laughing,
listen to Mother and Father laughing
behind the locked door.

~Linda Sillitoe

The first chapter of Moses tells us how the gods created the world; first organizing matter to create the bedrock that would form the hills everlasting. Then the gods divided darkness from light, creating the satellites of the sun, moon and stars in the heavens. The gods formed seas and fountains and then decorated the new earth with flower, fish, bush and beast. But their crowning achievement came in the creation of humankind; a man and a woman, fashioned in their own image.

Adam and Eve were the first to come to this earth, though the Garden of Eden was a transitional and paradoxical existence. They had the veil drawn over their eyes and yet, they walked and talked with god. Adam and Eve lived in a state of innocence; they could not sin, they could not die but they also could not progress. They were given two commandments; the first was not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the second was to multiply and replenish the earth. But they were given the gift of choice, the first gift of heaven, to choose whether or not they would keep the commandments of God. This is where the beauty of God’s plan was manifest for it is not in God’s nature to expel his children from his presence. And so he designed a plan that would allow Adam and Eve the ability to choose for themselves whether they would progress or remain in a state of innocence.

As we all know, Adam and Eve fell that men might be. Throughout the ages, our first parents have been criticized for breaking the commandment of God. But the restored knowledge of the plan of salvation has given us the vision and understanding to know that their transgression was essential to the progression of all men and women.

Though underestimated and vilified throughout history, Eve understood the greater vision of God: that man must be that they might have joy. Her statement in Moses 5:11 is perhaps the most doctrinally profound in all of scripture. “And Eve…heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.” Eve knew that it was the perpetuation of life, the continuation of the plan of salvation that would bring true happiness not only to herself, but to all her children. And so Eve became the first agent of light, providing the way for God’s children to receive bodies and progress to immortality.

All members of the human race must enter mortality through birth. Those of us who accepted the plan were permitted to pass through the veil that shrouds mortal life. We know women play an important role in the passage through the veil; they escort every soul through the veil, even the soul of the Savior of mankind. In a sense, they serve as the gatekeepers to our mortal world. Presiding over those who pass through the first veil, they clothe each traveler with a physical body and introduce them into mortality and agency through personal suffering and sacrifice.

This is something that I have had occasion to think a lot about recently. My own experience with the birth of my two children has been sacred and I have reflected often on the power there is in bringing life into the world. There is a point during labor where one leaves the mortal realm and is caught between life and death; it is in this sacred realm that the veil is at its thinnest. As I labored with my beloved children, I could feel a godly presence, not only sustaining me through the pain but entrusting me with the lives of two precious children, charging me to nurture them and bring them back to light.

As latter-day saints, we have been given the vision to understand that it is our families that unite and exalt us. When a man and a woman marry, they are committing to life, to love, and the perpetuation of life and love. Their mutual love for each other, unites them in a sacred cause, the perpetuation of love and life in their posterity. Both men and woman are creators of new life. Both have an obligation to nurture that life. Men help in the nurturing and loving of new life, just as women do. Parents have the responsibility to teach those to whom they give life, that there is light and love in this world, and to seek it. In this way, young souls are prepared to recognize and be receptive to the fullness of the Word of God. Women and men jointly teach their children goodness so that they might return to the presence of God.

It is, of course, up to us children to follow the light that our parents have introduced us to. Mortality is designed as part of the gospel plan to bring us mingled experiences with good and evil; that we may learn from experience to make wise choices. And many of these experiences are painful because we fail. We know ourselves to be weak. We stumble along, being less than we can be, never living up to our own standards, let alone anyone else’s. We try to obey the laws of God. The more our actions are in accordance with those laws, the more blessed and God-like we will be. If we choose, if we even desire to choose, if we even hope for the desire to choose, we set in motion the powerful forces for life that are led by Jesus Christ himself. He responds to those tender tendrils of crippled life with the force and energy that will bring them to flowering. Listen to these promises of love and yearning desire for us. Feel the hope they bring that with Him we can overcome the world. “[I] am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for [his] sheep.”

A true vision of the plan, one that does not see the tapestry as a single finished point, gives us the right to grow, to progress. It implies not only a God who made us, but a God who is with us, in us, and in everything around us. Whoever we are, whatever we are, this God knows us, understands us, walks with us to the melting point where what we are and what God is become one.

We are God’s children and God knows our greatest potential is to live as He does. We know why we are here. We have been given a vision of the great tapestry, the plan of salvation, through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We may not know what contribution our small thread makes to that tapestry. We may never know how far the effects of our service will reach. By our good works we magnify what is mighty in us all, one step at a time, one day at a time. We can never afford to be cruel or indifferent or ungenerous, because we are all connected, even if it is in a pattern that only God sees. We are all part of the pattern; black, white, brown, male or female. We are all connected in the merciful plan of our Heavenly Parents and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

May we all have the vision to know the full truth of this plan.

1 Comment
October 22, 2008

A Lullaby in the New Year

One week is not too soon to learn a very
early language; for your spine to be aware
that a rocking chair means comfort and your wary
nerves want sleep. Nothing will disappear,
forsaking you to vast, fluorescent air
your fists and feet can’t pummel. You shudder
at my kiss, a random bother in your hair.
I tell you this, my loud and little daughter,
you have now all there is: familiar dark,
a blanket’s wings without, warm milk within,
balanced with your head in my hand’s cup
in a second cradle of flesh and sound. We rock
and still you rage. I kiss your hair again.
All right, I whisper, accept, accept and sleep.

~Linda Sillitoe

1 Comment
October 16, 2008

The Price I Ask

There are very few things in this world that I feel more passionately about than pregnancy and childbirth. My own experience with both have been so emotive, terrifying, joyous and overwhelming; rarely have I felt more powerful and vulnerable than when I am pregnant or giving birth. These have been transcendent experiences for me. I am a better person for going through the indignities of being pregnant and giving life to two beautiful children. I am a better person because pregnancy and birth require sacrifice.

Obviously the sacrifice of the physical body is necessary when pregnant. A woman has no choice but to share food and nutrients with the growing child. Often times that foetus acts like a parasite, leeching calcium from your bones and, in my case, stealing the hormone that makes my body run normally. As that baby grows, you helplessly watch your body contort and balloon into a shape that is so unrecognizable that you cannot help but question whether it is your reflection you see in the mirror. Then, of course, there are the hormones. The hormones that make it difficult to string together a coherent sentence. The hormones that create bone-deep weariness. The hormones that make you question the intentions of every one around you, including those who love you the most.

But perhaps it is the smallest indignities that hurt the most. Like not being able to tie your shoes or the constant heartburn. Like having to say no to the piece of chocolate cake you want so badly because of the gestational diabetes that make your babies gigantic. Like not being able to get out of bed without assistance or having your back ache so badly that it brings tears to your eyes. Like being unable able to pick up your oldest child and hold him close to you. Like foregoing sex with the father of your children and the man you love more than anything because you are so big that he can’t get within arm’s length of you.

This doesn’t even take into account what happens during birth. Nobody tells you about the doctors that treat you like a mentally challenged child. You are legs are forced back to your ears, exposing your most vulnerable parts to the cold air and the stares of anybody who passes by. Nobody talks about the blood and the shit, the fluid that comes erupting from you like Vesuvius. You don’t know desperation until you have felt the crowning of your baby’s head ripping apart your most delicate tissue. And then when it’s all over there is the stab in the leg, the pushing, the stitching and the weeks of bleeding to look forward to. And I will do it all again.

I will do it again because the sacrifice is worth it. It is worth it to me to bring children into the world who will know what true love is. I sacrifice my body, my mind, my dignity, my free will so that a few spirits will know light and truth. It is a sacrifice I freely give to my children, my husband and my heavenly parents. It is not a sacrifice, however, that I give freely to world. The price I ask for re-populating our society with decent citizens is for the society that I willingly contribute my time, money and resources to respect the sacrifice I make.

I have a few dreams in which this respect could take form: free maternity health care, paid maternity leave, and I’m talking French style 3 year paid maternity leave, flex time, affordable daycare. But today, I’ll settle on just one…Respect my life.

I took it for granted that most Americans, most politicians, even the Mormon church agreed that the life of a pregnant mother is of value and should be protected at all costs, even if that cost comes at the expense of the child she is carrying. I am hopeful that this is the case but it scares me that a man who could be elected president of the United States could on national television say that exceptions for a woman’s “health”, are an extreme pro-abortion position. As a childbearing woman, to have concerns about my health so openly and condescendingly sneered at, was beyond horrifying.

So to John McCain and all those who believe like him, I have this to say:

My life is of value. My health is of value. This is personal to me. I am not part of an extreme pro-abortion conspiracy to murder all the unborn children that take up residence in my womb. I am a wife and a mother. A woman who cares for society’s outcasts and comforts the abused. I am a woman who has served my country bravely, just like you have, sir. I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death twice to bring children into this world. Children who will love their country and protect her freedoms. Children who will be part of the next generation of American goodness. We have both sacrificed for our country, sir and though you may not believe it, our sacrifices are equal. Just like the value of our lives are equal. I respect the sacrifice you made for this country. And now I ask the same respect from you.

7 Comments
October 6, 2008

A Tale of Two Births


Cross posted at Exponent II

I just gave birth to my second child and it was an experience entirely different than the one I had previously or what I expected. I suppose the mechanics were the same, I gave birth vaginally without the use of anesthetics and yet it seemed to me that I lost something indescribable in the second birth and I am mourning that loss. You see, I am one of those women who believes that there is real power in the birth process; that there is something other worldly and divine in trying to give life to another being. In my first meeting with the midwife who would deliver my son, she asked why I wanted to birth outside the mainstream medical model for my first pregnancy. I had several good answers for this including a skepticism of male dominated, Western medicine and a fascination with the history and marginalization of midwifery. But my desire for a “natural” birth went further than this to something I couldn’t quite articulate. I wanted to connect with women throughout the past and present, to touch the divine within myself and to know the power of creation. Something within me knew that I could best achieve this as I labored to give life to my child.
I have given birth twice in the past year and a half; both births were wonderful experiences where I was, at least briefly, able to obtain the above desire. But the births were dramatically affected by my choice in medical providers. I believe that labor and birth are inherently feminist issues because of the choice, or lack of choice, that the experience provides laboring women. Indeed, the increase in knowledge and choices for pregnant women was one of the earliest successes of the women’s movement. There was a huge paradigm shift during the 1970’s and 80’s that rejected the old model of restraining and knocking women out, effectively making them passive participants in the birth of their children. Instead, women demanded a greater role in the birthing process and wanted some choice in what happened to their bodies.
As a woman in her childbearing years, I am grateful for the increased choice I have when it comes to my maternity care. What I didn’t understand before giving birth though, was the impact these choices had on the experience I wanted for myself and my child. So as a public service (I promise I’m not trying to navel gaze here, although I won’t stop you from commenting on how brave, strong and skinny I am), I thought I would share my birth experiences. Please take them for what they are, my experience. What worked best for me will not be best for all women.
I have never felt more powerful than when I gave birth to my son, Baby Monster. I chose to deliver outside of a hospital at a free standing birth center in the Phoenix area. I had a midwife and a nurse who gently guided me through my twenty-one hour labor with a variety of techniques used by midwives for centuries. I felt a powerful connection with the women assisting me and to my foremothers who had birthed me and all humankind. As I transitioned to the last stage of labor, I entered into a dream-like place somewhere between mortality and death. At that moment I connected with the divine, a connection that supported me through the three hours of pushing it took to give life to my son. When it was all over, I not only had a beautiful baby but the knowledge that I had converged with something greater than myself.
When I got pregnant again, I was devastated to learn that my birth center had closed due to the sky-rocketing insurance rates midwives are charged. A homebirth was not something I felt comfortable with so I turned to the OB/Gyn that I had gone to for my annual pap smear. I had picked him because he was the first OB in my HMO directory to have an open appointment. I figured that since I already given birth, I could be assertive enough to stand up for the kind of birth I wanted. Unfortunately, I felt that there was always a power struggle between me and my doctor as to who controlled my pregnancy, birth and body. Due to gestational diabetes, early in my pregnancy the doctor informed me that he would induce my labor if he felt the baby was too big. Baby Monster had been ten pounds so I was not afraid to have a large baby but I stuck to a low-carb diet so as to prevent a medical induction. Despite my best efforts, when it came time for the ultrasound to determine the baby’s size, she was big and so the doctor scheduled my induction without my input or consent.
In an effort to regain some control, I induced myself using my trusty breast pump the evening before the scheduled induction. This labor was much more solitary than the first; I labored mostly alone with my husband and mother-in-law asleep nearby. My labor was short and intense, almost primal. I listened to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Wagner’s Immolation of Brunhilde as I worked through each surge. Once again I entered that dreamland and felt the power of creation. I felt myself transition into the last stage of labor and knew I had to get to the hospital quickly. At this point I lost my connection with the dreamland and was never fully able to regain it. It seemed as I went through the process of registering and being checked, I stood at the doorway of that sacred place, looking in but not entering. The triage nurse panicked when she realized I was dilated to a nine and was about to have a baby. The doctor arrived just in time to demand I be given an IV, which of course didn’t take on either arm but effectively kept me from re-entering the dreamland of labor. Ten minutes later, Baby Valkyrie was born.
I am grateful to have had both experiences because of what I learnt from each one. Most importantly, I am grateful for the healthy baby at the end. Both the alternative and traditional experiences had their upside and downside. For example, my midwife was so easy going that she forgot to give me the gestational diabetes test which probably led to the size of my son and made the labor harder both on me and the Baby Monster. My OB/Gyn was very attentive to detail and I had an easier pregnancy and labor because of it. Assuming there are no complications, there is not a right way or a wrong way to birth as long as the woman is comfortable with the choices she is making. This is where I went wrong; I was never fully comfortable with the traditional medical model of birthing. I lost so much power in trying to fight my doctor that I was unable to regain it when I most needed it. So I guess my advice is, know what you want and then be true to that desire.
1 Comment
August 12, 2008

What Mary Kay Women Know

I sat through a two hour Mary Kay sales pitch a couple of Saturdays ago. This is not my usual choice of weekend activities but I was cajoled into going under false pretenses. You see, I have been living in the wonderful world of bridedom this summer. My younger sister got married three weeks ago and I had forgotten just how exploited this particular population is. (Watch this video, I promise it will make your day). My sister “won” a free pampering session for ten people through one of those horrible bridal registries and invited me and our younger sister to go get a free facial and massage. Despite all of my feminist rantings about the superficiality of the beauty industry, I am not one to turn down a massage, especially at eight-months pregnant. So Saturday found me kissing my husband and baby monster goodbye and happily skipping away to join my sisters for a morning of pampering and relaxation.

I’m not sure what tipped us off first, maybe it was the “Think Pink” slogans plastered on the walls or the huge bouquets of frothy, pink tissue paper flowers that decorated the entire room but we quickly figured out that we had walked straight into a pink-colored Mary Kay trap. There was no facial or massage to look forward to, just a two hour presentation on the joys of being a Mary Kay consultant. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did have the “opportunity” to exfoliate half of my face with the dollop of microderm abrasion cream they gave me and massage some night time lotion into my hand so I guess Mary Kay played us fair.)

As I sat there listening about the wonders of pink Cadillacs and the free, over-sized gold jewelry, I couldn’t help but compare the Mary Kay culture with the culture of women in the Mormon church. Of course there were the obvious comparison like the tacky floral arrangements and centerpieces, the be-ribboned favors and the smell of synthetic sugar and spice that hits you right in the face. But the deeper similarities went to the language used and the assumptions of what an ideal woman is. I swear the keynote speaker gave the Mary Kay version of President Julie Beck’s “Mothers Who Know” speech. I took some notes and thought that I’d share them here.

  • Mary Kay women understand how important things like food, free stuff and fun activities are.
  • Mary Kay women know that appearences are important and always take time to look presentable.
  • Mary Kay women understand that their priorities have always been God first, family second and career third.
  • Mary Kay women know that if they have their priorities straight, they will be rewarded with beautiful homes, nice cars, expensive jewelry and good kids.
    Mary Kay women understand that because they know their priorites, other women’s children (read working women’s children) will call them mom and other women will be jealous of the magical life Mary Kay women lead.

Before some of you get too offended and start cursing my name, I deeply respect the mission of Mary Kay to help women have a career and feel good about themselves. I believe that all women want to belong to a group and have their choices validated. I was amazed when the Mary Kay consultants talked about how they appreciated their organizations focus on helping women achieve their priorites and become their best selves. These women became emotional when talking about the wonderful women they met through their work and how they would drop everything to help a sister consultant. I hear this same sentiment expressed every week in my Relief Society, and yet there are thousands of women who hate Relief Society and find being a Mormon woman exquisitely painful.

Mary Kay and the Relief Society are not that fundamentally different; both organizations exist to create a space for women in male-dominated institutions. So why is it that one group has a much higher satisfaction rate than the other? I believe the difference lies in choices. If I choose to be a Mary Kay consultant, I am choosing the culture of Mary Kay. If I don’t like pink cadillacs, flashy jewelry and talking about make-up then I can choose a different career. Mary Kay women know that their choices will be supported because they have surrounded themselves with women who have made similar choices.

The same is not necessarily true for Mormon women; I may choose to be a faithful member of the church but I may not want to choose the culture of the Mormon church. I may not want to hear the overblown rhetoric about motherhood but if I want to go to my church meetings and interact with my fellow latter-day saints, then there is really no escaping it. This can be an incredibly isolating place for a woman to be and it behooves us as sisters and Christians to be sympathetic of that.

The controversy over President Beck’s “Mothers Who Know” talk is the perfect example of this. Many women, both liberal and conservative, were hurt by this talk, not because they necessarily disagreed with Julie Beck’s actual words but were pained by the implication of what those words meant to them. The latest “firestorm” at the Sunstone Symposium only proves further how deep the wounds are and how many have been wounded. The uproar that has ensued over the past ten months has left many scratching their heads and wondering why this talk? How is it any different from what has been said over the past thirty years?

Might I suggest that it is because the rhetoric of ideal womanhood and motherhood is no longer effective in a worldwide and rapidly progressing church. From what I understand, women outside of the United States don’t get what all the fuss is about because they found the talk benign at best, irrelevant at worst. American women, however, have spent years fighting the Mommy Wars. The frontlines have been populated by members of traditional churches such as the Mormon church and women have been their best warriors. Both sides have exploited their women until there was nothing left to battle over and an uneasy cease-fire was called.

For Mormon women, that cease-fire was broken by President Beck. But instead of turning their ammuntion on the enemy, women turned their guilt and self-doubt on themselves. How many stories have we read of faithful women breaking out into tears because their deepest and most vulnerable fears were confirmed by the very woman who was supposed to be representing them? In the pain and anguish, some women have lashed out indiscriminately at women who should be their sisters and allies in the hope of validating their choices to a God who apparently sees nothing but their success as a mother.

A new war of ideas is needed, one that will ensure the unity of Mormon women. So this is my battle cry, the one that I hope provides me with an organization that I can fully choose:
It is time that church leaders and lay members alike retire the old motherhood rhetoric and refocus our efforts on what will make us all better children of God…becoming disciples of Jesus Christ. No one–no one–is excluded from the call of Jesus to “Come follow me.” Not the working mother or the over-run stay at home mom. Jesus asks all of us, whether we are single or married, uneducated or educated, feminist or not, to be his disciples. He wants us to serve the poor and disenfranchised, to stand up against injustice in the world and demand that someone pay attention. We must love as God loves or we cannot call ourselves true disciples of Christ. That means we cannot judge other women on their mothering choices and expect to hit the mark of becoming perfect, even as our Savior is perfect. When we as individuals and a combined church focus on true discipleship–for all women and men–rather than perfectly-ironed white shirts and missionary haircuts, then we can claim the privelege of building up the Church of Christ and the Kingdom of God.

3 Comments
July 7, 2008

House of Dead Dogs: A Comedy

Scene: A mother nervously approaches a strange house where she will be dropping her Baby Monster off for a few hours while she and her husband attend a wedding. The mother nervously rings the doorbell and waits. A slightly frazzled looking woman answers the door and ushers the mother and the Baby Monster into her home. Trying to ease the awkwardness, the mother introduces herself and the Baby Monster, thanks the woman for watching her child and assures the woman that the Baby Monster is the sweetest baby that ever walked the earth. At this point, the Baby Monster yelps with delight and runs into the living room. The mother follows behind to see what he is so excited about and notices the rear end of a dog sticking out from underneath a sheet. Baby Monster is jumping up and down and pointing to the dog.

Mother: Oh look, Baby Monster, it’s a puppy! You love puppies!

Baby Monster: Dawk! Dawk! (More jumping and pointing).

Mother: I know, you love dogs!

Frazzled-Looking Woman: Yeah, the dog is dead.

Stunned silence. A teary, fourteen year old girl removes the sheet to reveal a stiff dog, spread-eagle on the floor. More stunned silence.

Mother: I am…so…sorry.

Frazzled-Looking Woman: Yes, she died in the middle of the night. We’re not quite sure what to do with her.

Baby Monster runs over and hits the dog which, to his credit, is his way of petting animals but is, nevertheless, incredibly inappropriate for the situation. The mother ushers her Baby Monster to the other side of the room. Mother wonders what the proper etiquette is in this situation and whether she should leave her baby at a home where they allow dead dogs to lay on the living room floor for hours at a time.

Mother: Well, I should be back around 3:00 to pick Baby Monster up. Mother mumbles something about being sorry again. Um…Ok…I guess I’ll see you later. Um…Bye.

End of Scene

6 Comments
June 19, 2008

Night Dances For My Daughter

I haven’t wanted to keep up with my blog recently. It is too hot outside to think clearly and it’s all I can do to keep my head from exploding because of my pregnancy hormones. So I have decided that instead of letting my blog die, I will post poems or songs that have some meaning in my life.

Today I have been thinking about The Night Dances by Sylvia Plath. Maybe it’s cliche to like Sylvia Plath and be a feminist but I really do love her poetry. I love all of her work, not just her most famous feminist poems Daddy and Lady Lazurus.

Anyway, I have been thinking about Night Dances because this poem paints the way I imagine my daughter to be. As I feel her leap and spiral in my uterus, I hope that she will be like a comet, lighting up the dark world around her.

The Night Dances

A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!

And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics?

Such pure leaps and spirals —-
Surely they travel

The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift

Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.

Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,

and the tiger, embellishing itself —-
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.

The comets
Have such a space to cross,

Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off —-

Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling

Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given

These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes

Six sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair

Touching and melting.
Nowhere.

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May 1, 2008

How a Feminist Falls in Love

I have been asked on more than one occasion how I managed to fall in love. I think when people ask this question, they’re not so much making a statement on my personality qualities but rather my general cynicism towards patriarchal institutions such as marriage. I think it is a fair question so I thought I would share the moment my feminist self fell in love.

I was a full blown feminist well before I met my husband. I had plans of going to Oxford, studying women’s history and becoming a brilliant academic. Falling in love was not in my life plan. I won’t bore you with the nitty-gritty details of our courtship; it involves a lot of flakiness on my part, a hero’s share of patience by DH and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Suffice it to say, I knew by the second date that DH was perfect and I spent the next five months trying unsuccessfully to get rid of him.

An effective tactic that I often used to scare away BYU boys was going on frequent feminist rants. It was always amazing to me that as soon as I started talking about equality and how Jesus was a feminist the conversation/date/relationship was over.

I tried doing this to DH but he agreed with me and found my thoughts refreshing. When my soft feminism didn’t work, I pulled out my pro-choice, socialist, anti-patriarchy stump speeches hoping that would do the trick but DH only found me more fascinating and invigorating.

In May of 2005, we went to go see three one act plays about Mormon women performed at BYU. During the intermission I was flipping through the program and noticed an advertisement for one of the local jewelry stores in the Provo area. It was your typical engagement ring ad, a flaxen haired beauty with a dreamy look in her eyes bathed in warm light. What got me was the caption, “Show her how much you really love her.” Of course, the only way to show the girl of your dreams that you really love her is to buy a 3 ct. princess cut diamond ring.

This presented the perfect opportunity for me to make some comments about the materialistic nature of the marriage market which, of course, morphed into a tirade about the misogynistic symbolism of heterosexual marriage. It went something like this:

“The engagement ring is the western world’s answer to a bride price. It symbolically says that a man has paid a price for a woman and that she now belongs to him. The ring is a symbol of ownership and objectification that women wear to proclaim that they belong to somebody. With that ring, a man has bought a woman’s body, her sexuality, reproduction and domestic labor. It is blood money that requires women to give up their individuality and become domestic and sexual servants.”

Without missing a beat, DH looked at me and said, “Oh M*, that is ridiculous!”

Usually DH would nod in agreement or ignore my more militant feminist snipes but this time he proceeded to give me his perfectly reasonable and romantic view of the engagement ring, something he saw as a gift of love, freely given.

I was delighted by his response; not because I necessarily agreed with him but because he hadn’t let me walk all over him. I had had other boyfriends who always acquiesced to my opinions or, even worse, thought that my opinions weren’t worth having a conversation about. I didn’t want to be in a relationship where I was placed on a pedestal for my intellect or divine womanhood. Likewise, I didn’t want to be with a man who thought my ideas were silly and not worth responding to. I knew that with DH, we might not always agree but he respected me enough as a person to engage with me as an equal.

When I look back at our courtship, I always pinpoint this moment as the one that made me fall in love. I was looking for a man that I could be equals with; three years later, I know I made the right choice.

As for engagement rings, I still think that they are a type of bride price but my opinion has moderated somewhat. Did I get an engagement ring when the time came? Yep…but it was also my wedding band which is a symbol I can totally get behind.

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