Last week in sacrament meeting a dad sat in the pew in front of us with his three daughters. I was impressed that the girls were so quiet, and a few minutes into the service I leaned forward and saw that the youngest (age two) was playing a game on an iPhone and the oldest was drawing pictures on an iPad. I did a double-take at the whole situation, and I’m not sure if it was because it felt like the older kid had just booted up her laptop in sacrament meeting or if it was a frisson of jealousy that the first time I saw an iPad with my own two eyes it was in the hands of an eight-year-old (who happened, unlike me, to have the wifi password to the stake center). It also felt a little bit ironic because the speaker was talking about the dangers of technology.

I’m no technophobe. My husband pulled out his blackberry right after the sacrament to check a score on the NBA playoff game, and I’ve spent many an enjoyable Sunday School texting back and forth with a friend about everything but the lesson.  I’ve also spent the last ten years entertaining my kids (and yes, feeding them too) during sacrament meeting. As the girls in front of us sat quietly engaged with their mobile devices, my own preschooler was loudly ripping velcro figures from her “quiet” folder game and my other three were completely engrossed in whatever they were drawing on their paper pads. I don’t think we should automatically dismiss things like iPhones or iPads in the hands of our kids, but I also have a hard time figuring out what the appropriate parameters are for myself and my family. What are your personal rules and why?

You can read Part 1 and Part 2 here.

This post was hard to write. Part of it is that the story is evolving and is not yet resolved, part of it is that I don’t want to sound like I am badmouthing my DH (I am not - I love and respect him), and part of it is that people I know in real life read this blog (hi mom!). But, I am nothing else if not honest, and one of my purposes in blogging is to share my life as it is - warts and all - in hopes that it will help someone else or at least let them know that they are not alone in what often feels like a world of perfect Mormon women, marriages, families.

In Part 1, I shared that one of the reasons I wanted to read “Fascinating Womanhood” by Helen Andelin is that I have been feeling a little on the “neglected, unhappy and disappointed” side lately, and Andelin promises to correct that:

Why is it that one woman is happy, honored, and loved, and another - no less attractive, no less admirable, no less loveable - is neglected, unhappy and disappointed? Fascinating Womanhood explains why and offers every woman an opportunity to learn the art of winning her man’s complete love and adoration.

I don’t know that I would give it that much credit, but I do have to admit that the book has helped me. Here is my story. (more…)

See the previous discussion on this topic here.

Some individual points we found interesting this time around:

Stephanieeeeee –

1.  At last, a concise, easy-to-read summary of the various waves of feminism! Not that I’ll remember the particulars, but at least I know where to go to jog my memory.

2.  Maxine Hanks thesis statement seems to be, “Men are running this Church wrong, and we women need to fix it! Right now!” Her approach isn’t subtle. Even I, a fairly liberal individual often uncomfortable belonging to a patriarchal church, was somewhat taken aback by Hanks’ strident tone. This book is only going to alienate women that have never had problems with the Church.

3.  Hanks had to know this was going to ruffle some feathers. I think she was probably the person least surprised by her excommunication. I’d wager that writing this book with this tone was a calculated step in a bigger plan. (more…)

I live in a very red state. Almost all my relatives and friends are conservative. Some, who know me really well, know I lean left. I have never denied it, but I don’t shove it in peoples faces or make a big deal about it, either.

Recently, a situation came up where I had to let everyone know just where I stood. (more…)

I married a giant nerd. A giant nerd who loves superheroes.

Mr. Kelly’s life has made me very appreciative of Superman and his didactic ways. He grew up with parents that made sure he got fed and didn’t kill/get killed by his brother. But moral teachings and character building were pretty much beyond the scope of their interactions. He never attended any type of church, was never more than lightly invested in his schooling, and had a lot of unsupervised time to get into trouble while the old folks were, uh….. we’ll just say, reliving their hippy days. I started to fall in love with him when I realized that he is a really good person, and that he seemed to have become so without any formal guidance. For an overly-analytical, obsessively introspective, worrisome person like me, that’s miraculous. He’s good because he just is.

But, as he’s explained to me, he didn’t become such a straight-up guy because he’s some sort of superhuman. Nope. He became a straight-up guy because the superhumans he looked up to told him to. See the difference? (more…)

Today is my first day of class. The last time I was on the student side of a classroom, I was nine months pregnant with my first baby. He’ll be ten next week. So yeah, I’m nervous. Last time I did this, I was juggling a full-time job and a part-time graduate program and I often felt stretched to the limits of my resources.

The first time around, I had to write term papers on business trips. This time, I have to figure out how to make sure the academic, emotional and social lives of my kids run smoothly from sixty miles away.

This Tuesday, the complications are starting off with a bang. My eight-year-old doesn’t normally take dance on Tuesdays, but this week, she’s required to be at the dance studio for pictures, fully made up, hair plastered into a bun, with her costume on, an hour before my class ends. I wracked my brain for all of the possible ways to get her made up and over there, without missing my first day. Could I ask my neighbor? Could my teenage babysitter get her makeup on her? Would my visiting teacher drive her? I thought of all of the women in my “village” and realized that I’d have to mobilize several of them to take my place.

Then I had a brainstorm. I went into the family room, where my husband was engrossed in a basketball game and said, “Hey, how do you think we should solve this?” Within 30 seconds, he figured out a solution– one that involves him coming home to get her where she needs to be (after the babysitter slaps some makeup on her), not the women in my village.

It was a revelation. It’s at least partly my fault that I carry so much of the parenting burden. Yeah, he has an unusually light day at work today, one that allows him to break away for an hour, but I often forget to rely on him, and spend lots of my mental energies trying to figure out how I can work everything out, all by myself. I like to play the martyr sometimes, but if I just asked him, my partner, my husband, to lend a hand, both of our lives would be better.

First day of school– lesson learned.

“What does that have to do with anything?” I whispered to Luv after the MC introduced a woman speaker with that praise.

“I was wondering the same thing,” she shrugged.

No comment was made about the appearance of any of the men who were introduced, only their skills and accomplishments. Nor did the MC neglect the woman’s considerable achievements. But I found it a bit disturbing that he felt it necessary to praise her for her looks.  There are times and places in which it is appropriate to compliment someone’s appearance, but a professional or political event does not seem to me to be one of them. I suspect that it simply reinforces the notion that, whatever else she may have to contribute, her appearance is among her most valuable assets. It is another form of objectification.

So why do we still see this focus on appearance and attractiveness in the political and professional worlds? Am I being too politically correct–do you appreciate compliments on your appearance in any scenario?

So I have this little quibble lately where I’m only comfortable praying to my Heavenly Parents, instead of praying to just Heavenly Father and excluding Heavenly Mother. I wrote about it, and my experience doing so publicly, here. Well, yesterday, I was again asked to say the prayer in Relief Society.

Actually, I and the woman sitting next to me were asked to give the prayers. We said yes, and I said, “But, just so you know, I only pray to my Heavenly Parents, not just Heavenly Father, so if that’s cool with you, l’d love to say the prayer.”

She looked a little taken aback, but was very polite, and said she thought that was just fine.

Then she went to the front of the room and started talking with the other members of the RS Presidency. I saw them talking with their heads together and glancing at me. Then, a few minutes later, she walked back over and said, “Oh, I didn’t realize that they had already asked someone to say the opening prayer, so you don’t have to.” Meanwhile, the woman sitting next to me hung onto her closing prayer duties.

Yeah. I guess I crossed the line. But at least they all know now that I’m a heretic.

As per fMhLisa’s request, and she can be refused nothing, Wednesday of this week, we’ll be posting a review and re-discussion on the preface, introduction, and prologue of Women and Authority:  Re-emerging Mormon Feminism, edited by Maxine Hanks, and we’ll continue posting and discussing one chapter each week until at least August, giving everyone wanting to participate (probably only one or two of you, and you’re probably related to us) plenty of time to read them individually. That’s the plan anyway.  We reserve the right to stall and make it last much, much longer though…

See the sidebar for the first six chapters discussed in 2006-2007, posted most excellently by the Miss HeatherP.  Her seven discussions offer up wonderful overviews of each of those chapters, including the introduction, and we won’t do that again here.   Mainly we’ll offer our own humble insight and what we personally learned from each section, and hope others interested will do the same.  A link is also included to the entire book for those wanting to read along with us.

We’re curious if four years will mean a changing of opinions, including completely new ones on the last twelve or so chapters of the book.  Will it show that Mormon feminism does truly evolve with time and space, or are the issues ever the same as they ever were?  We shall see, but for good or bad, we’re finishing this time! And try to remember that we aren’t scholars, just regular women trying to increase our knowledge and find our way through the sometimes murky, sometimes brackish waters towards some personal truth for ourselves.  Feel free to join us. 

fMhLisa’s loyal bookish sort of minions – Stephanieeeeeee and Lula   

I was breastfeeding my baby in the nursing lounge during Sunday School today when I heard a woman’s voice coming from the bathroom. She was teaching someone how to walk:

Start with your toes and put your weight on the ball of your foot. Your heel never touches the ground. But you don’t want it to look like you are trying to walk without your heel touching, so you don’t lift your heel out of your shoe. You have to keep your heel in your shoe.

This went on for about five minutes (or longer - pretty much the whole time I was nursing). The person she was instructing (who never said a word) obviously wasn’t doing it right because the woman continued to correct her with, “Stay on the ball of your foot! No, don’t let your heel touch the ground!”

I was starting to get curious about why walking this way was so important. Was it for marching band? Ballroom dance? Who walks on their tip-toes?

That’s when she concluded with:

And that’s how to walk when you are at church.

(more…)

About six months ago, I sat through our ward’s primary program, came home filled with righteous indignation, and wrote a post about all the ways the program seemed to marginalize women and part-member families and kids who don’t like to get up and perform. I was recently called to the primary presidency in my ward, and assigned to, you guessed it, head up the annual sacrament meeting program this year. Ha!

So I need help. Big help. I know that you won’t be there to wrangle 70 kids on the stage with me for the month of September, but I thought you might be able to tell me what you’d like to see and what you’d like not to see, in a perfect primary program kind of world. Well, perfect within the bounds of these parameters: (more…)

One night on a Philadelphia street, I met a woman who changed my life in a 45-second interaction.

An interesting thing about living in big cities like Philly is that it’s hard to ignore the world’s problems. When you walk outside and see amputees and mentally ill people begging for food, you can’t just ignore them and think you live in a perfect world. Often, in coming up with an explanation for the problems we see, we like to create a difference between ourselves and a person in need. I am housed, fed, and warm. You are homeless, hungry, and cold. It’s comforting to think that this is because I am good and made wise decisions and you are somehow deficient and made poor decisions.

It’s unnerving when one brief moment can shatter those comfortable explanations and force us out of our sheltered perspective.

My mother is a drug addict. (more…)

I am a baby boomer. My sister says that makes us cool. She quotes Dennis Hopper who claims our generation invented cool. Actually, she thinks she invented it, and I’m not inclined to disagree.

Being cool was really important to me. My version of cool, of course.

When I was young, I equated being classy with a certain persona that was kind of stodgy, bland, and benign.

I have adjusted my perception since then. I still like cool, and so that is infused with my new interpretation of classy.

That is all good, but now I have noticed that a lot of people really lack class– and that is starting to bug me. At first I wondered if it was because I was getting older, but then I found out my daughter thinks the same way– significant in and of itself, but that’s another post.:D

Back in the day, we thought Audrey Hepburn– an actress of my generation– was our prime example. I never really wanted to be like her. I rejected the subservient image I got from her.  Now I can see that the problem with her was that she was a construct of a male dominated industry. And I am not putting down Audrey Hepburn, she was just doing her job, one does have to wonder what that job really was, but then– hey, that, too is another post.

I now realize that you can be both classy and strong. Classy is intelligence and education. Classy includes a sense of humor.

I think we can decide to be classy on our own terms, but classy non-the-less. And not just women, but men. I think classy would bring back some civility that is sorely lacking today. Our elected officials throw tantrums when they don’t get their own way. People get there own reality shows if they are willing  to act in the most undignified way.

Classy also represents integrity to me, and I think it comes from deep inside and is hard to fake. I don’t think it means we should just be polite and never disagree. Classy people stick up for themselves.  But they are not right fighters, they simply fight for the right as they see it. They do not have to get in the last word. That latter one is hard for me.

But I will keep working on it because I really, really want to be classy–as long as I’m not stodgy, bland or benign.

I

Earth Day is kinda like Eco New Year for me, and while I’m having a hard time coming up with some clever idea for a post, I wanted to at least do the whole renew and commit to earth-friendly living. What I’m doing, what I want to add to my lifestyle–my eco resolutions.

But before I do that, I just want to say to those who think we tree huggers are being (artificially or otherwise) all altruistic to nature and not humans–I say that we are not separate from our environment and the creatures who share it from us. When we do things–pass laws against pollution, protect habitats, restrict the toxic activities of various industries, and encourage eco friendly habits–it’s not to be the stupid green police, making you feel guilty about enjoying your convenient, happy life. It’s because we value human life, happiness, and welfare AS MUCH (if not more) than habitats and polar bears. When we overuse pesticides, we make people sick. We also make bees sick, who die, who don’t pollinate a large section of our food supply, which leaves us hungry. And leaves the animals who live off it hungry, which reduces the number of animals we can eat or get dairy from, which further reduces our food supply, which leaves us hungrier. Same with air pollution and recycling and protecting habitats and reducing our plastic consumption and eating organic and all that other stuff.

The point is: when we protect the health of the environment, we protect human health. It can be a win-win solution, even though there may be some transitional pain as we move away from destructive habits and practices and move to more sustainable and compassionate habits and practices.

We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.

(more…)

VICTORY

You’ll win a great one, they all told her.
Never settle for a regular,
what with your looks,
and your brains,
and your hair,
and your family. (more…)

We all know the spiel: You’ve gotta get a degree. These days, a high school diploma isn’t worth crap. An associate’s degree doesn’t really even count as college, right? You’ve got to get a BA or BS, and it better be in something practical, or you can just start memorizing that Food Stamps form.

The push to get an education is overwhelming in our nation. And it’s great for those for whom it is a possibility. (I’m not going to get into an analysis here of how it reinforces class differences between groups that have different levels of access to higher education.) I really really believe in learning and knowledge. School is amazing, and it teaches you so much. Not just about the subject material, but about thinking, and learning, and living.

But at what point does our focus on it start to hamper instead of help us? (more…)

Many years ago, my therapist, who was also a Bishop, talked about the pressures put on us at church. “Rainman”, the movie, had just recently been released so everyone was aware of savants.

The therapist said the idea of savants could be related to church. When you wanted a lesson taught about gardening you got the best gardener in the ward to teach it. When you wanted a lesson on food storage, you got the best example, you know, the one person in the ward who could probably feed the whole ward for a year from her perfectly organized, temperature-controlled store room.  Scripture study, you guessed it, best scripturalist  in the ward. We hear these great speakers, then we go home and think we can do what ever they inspired us to do……all of them……at once.

He said it made more sense to pick one or two things to do well and only do the other things adequately; if at all.

I don’t fault the leaders who pick the speakers, it only makes sense to go to the experts. But, maybe we need a disclaimer at the beginning of the lessons.

I have heard talks that address this very thing, especially on food storage, telling us that we should just take baby steps. Now I like the whole baby steps thing, but it can still make you think you have to use those baby steps towards that perfect.. I also like the idea of a time for every season. Some things in life don’t even need to be tackled at certain times, depending on what season of your life you are in.

But even that can make us feel we must, at some time, be perfect in each area.

How do you decide what is the most important things to do perfectly and what things don’t need to be done so well. Oh, easy you say, obey the commandments. But, let’s face it in our church everything is some sort of a commandment. Now you’re back at square one. If you tend towards obsessive behavior you’re in some big trouble. The only thing I can think to do is make a list and arrange it in order, or put A’s by the most important, and B’s by the next, etc. Would the lists be the same for all faithful Mormons? Should they be?

I’ve been doing my very best to confuse the internets about who I actually am. As people around here know, my online moniker has changed from Natalie K. (ditched because there were altogether too many Natalies, and it was just too confusing) to Hammie (ditched because it was too reminiscent of certain unpleasant animals) to nat kelly (picked because it resembles Nat Turner, who was a-w-e-s-o-m-e). I know it’s probably annoying to keep up, but I appreciate what it demonstrates about identity on the internet: It is flexible, temporary, and ultimately, pretty anonymous. A change in a name can symbolize a change in a person’s thoughts or ideas. I can tell you who I am just by giving you my name.

In real life, names aren’t so simple. (more…)

For those just tuning in, my family is the poster family for mental illness.

A recent comment about a delayed diagnosis of depression made me think about all that lead up to the discovery of our mutual diagnosis. The diagnosis (help with plural needed here) each came separately, incorrectly at first, and with many painful years in limbo, while they figured it out. Still figuring it out for some.

This is a list of one of our “rap sheets”. This is my middle child. She  is now 35. She was the easiest baby I have ever seen. Smiled early and never stopped till she was 2. Then, she started not being so easy. She has been diagnosed with the following, one after the other not all at once, ADHD, learning disabilities, childhood depression, bi-polar 11, PTSD, OCD, and social anxiety. Then just a few years ago, after the bi-polar was finally under control, we discovered she has Aspergers as well. With each new diagnosis, some of the prior labels were changed, as doctors now felt they were part of the new diagnosis.

And this is just one of the five, albeit the most severe.

The illness were hard, but the stigma was worse.

And as bad as they were in the society at large, they were harder within the church.

There is less stigma now, but I wonder what our new “stigma” problems are? What are we being insensitive to now that is making someones life journey harder than it would have to be.  Aren’t our Christ like attitudes supposed to make us less likely to cause pain, than more?

fMh is pleased to announce its newest addition. nat kelly has been making comments and contributing regular guest posts for a while now so it only seems natural to make her a permanent resident ’round here.

She likes to tease and claim she’s a Pinko but really, I think she’s just a Socialist. (more…)

This quote from Eckhart Tolle intrigues me. It is from his book, “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose”.

Beyond the realm of simple and verifiable facts, the certainty that “I am right; you are wrong” is a dangerous thing in personal relationships as well as in interactions between nations, tribes, religions, and so on.

He goes on to say that:

“I am right, and you are wrong” is one of the ways in which ego strengthens itself, if making yourself right and others wrong is a mental dysfunction that perpetuates separation and conflict between human beings, does that mean there is no right or wrong behavior, action or belief?

He says

“You can use them (religions) in the service of the ego or you can use them in the service of Truth. If you believe only your religion is true you are using it in the service of ego. Used in such a way, religion becomes ideology and creates an illusory sense of superiority as well as division and conflict…….In the service of Truth, religions represent signposts or maps left behind by awakened humans to assist you in spiritual awakenings…..

I am curious as to what thoughts you all have on this.

We have as our ideal in the church, the stay at home mom. There are subtle and not so subtle promptings from leaders that discourage success outside of hearth and home. That is a problem for many women who want more, but on the flip side of the this attitude, is the unspoken edict that mothers who choose the ideal must then be the best mothers on earth. There is also an implication in our instruction from pulpit and written word, that if we are righteous enough we will become that kind of mother. We kind of get the idea that parenting super powers will be ours if we are righteous enough.

Failure on the home front in our religion is failure on so many levels. Our failure has eternal consequences– but no pressure. So, what happens when all our eggs are in that basket, the one woven out of a belief that we can be that Mormon mom? (more…)

I’m not a gardener, but I wish I were. The best I’ll do this year is some pots of herbs on my windowsill, unless I’m struck by a fit of motivation and manage to get a row of berry bushes planted against my back fence. Many of my neighbors garden, and the men in my ward have a very manly pumpkin growing contest each year. Lately, when I get up in the mornings and look in windows as I run by (an evil little habit of mine), I see florescent bars of light stretched across kitchen tables, with seedlings sprouting up everywhere.

I can imagine that if I were a gardener, this would be my favorite time of the year– nurturing little seedlings, full of hope for the season. The bugs and the weeds haven’t hit yet. The tomatoes haven’t frozen. The zucchini population is still under control.

Gardeners (and gardening aspirants)– what are you growing this year? How’s it going so far?

I am excited to announce that IdahoGma will be spending the next two weeks as our Guest Poster.

I know many of you lover her comments (I do!) so I thought you’d love to how she views the world. Here’s how she describes herself:

I am a Mormon, married 40 years. I have 5 adult children and three grandchildren. I was very active most of the time I was raising my kids. I am active again after a 3 year inactive status. Have had brief periods of inactivity off and on. All seven of us have been diagnosed with some form of mental illness. I love to garden, write, read and learn anything. I have no tolerance for boredom. I am a moderate democrat and have decided that because of my many questions and problems with my faith in the church, I am possibly, a moderate Mormon. I kind of believe some stuff and not others. I stay home and am a caregiver to my disabled daughter

Neither Luv nor I are phone people. I just don’t connect to people over the phone. Even when we’re on the line with each other, I’m typically terse and distant. We all but play chicken about answering calls.

“My hands are messy.”

“It’s probably your mom. She usually calls around this time.”

“No, Paul said he would be calling for you this week. It’s him. I’m not answering it.”

Lately, things have gotten even worse. We’ve used the do-not-call registry to evade sales calls, and have somehow dodged any surveys for the last few years (knock on wood). But to our dismay, the charity calls are ramping up. (more…)

By: EAH

A recent development that seems a small but significant thing has happened in our stake and I was hoping for some advice.

The presidency is going to announce soon that there will no longer be any food allowed in the chapel - no cheerios, goldfish, snacks for pregnant moms, nothing. (more…)

I’m writing out here on my back porch this afternoon because I had some time fall into my hands unexpectedly. A few weeks ago my husband and I decided that if we were ever going to get a swing set for our kids, this would be the year to do it. In another year or two, the older ones will be too old to enjoy it, and since we’re far more relaxed parents with our younger two than our older two, I reasoned that we’d never get around to doing it at all if we were going to do it only for the preschoolers. So we ordered a big metal monstrosity and it got delivered last weekend. The reviews from Costco suggested that it would take one person four to eight hours to build it, but either those people work days as professional playground installers or they’d drunk so much beer in the process that they lost track of time. We’ve put in at least 20 woman and man hours on the project since Saturday (not counting the time we spent digging out a garden box, fixing sprinkler pipes, laying sod and other stuff we didn’t anticipate a month ago when we sat in bed together and looked at play sets). I had planned to put in a few hours working on the clubhouse this afternoon, but the holes don’t match up exactly right, and I can’t do it by myself. As much as I’m a whiz with an Allen wrench and diagrammatic directions, I’m not so good when it comes to brute force. I need a man, or at least another woman, preferably one who doesn’t ignore her strength training like I do. (more…)

Last night I was looking through the archives and I it really struck me that how much more often I used to just be all chatty about my life n’ stuff. The tone of the blog has changed a lot since then, it’s become a lot less about me and a lot more about the community, and I think that’s a good thing (well mostly, let’s face it, in the perfect world everything would be about me).

But this is a community that changes a lot on a regular basis, people come and people go.  It’s really common for new readers and commenter to be really enthusiastic as you work through the issues that have been bottled up for a while, sorta a new love who you can’t pull yourself away from, and then your needs change, the relationship matures, and your relationship with the blog changes too. Maybe you just drop by once in a while to check in, but the compulsion to read everything all day every day dwindles.  I know that was true for me.

So as things change for each of us, I sometimes find myself wanting a chance to discuss whatever, no pressure, just chat like the old days.

So if you’re one of those serious minded sorts with no time for this sort of thing, by all means skip this post, otherwise I’m going to be chatty and ya’ll can be chatty back, and we’ll build relationships and it’ll be lovely.   (more…)

Okay, so no one emailed me about joining the discussion the week before last, though several people expressed disappointment that the scheduling didn’t work for them. Who’s interested in trying again, this time by email? I’ll set up a Google group just for the conversation, we can talk about the book over two or three days as we have time (I’d strongly prefer a weekend), and then I can take the email transcript and post it here.

If you’d like to participate, here’s the Google Group link; you should be able to request an invitation, which I’ll confirm.

-Taryn

My sweet husband Bear has had the worst luck with jobs. Long story for another time, but through absolutely no fault of his own he’s on his fifth company in as many years. Every move he’s made was absolutely the right move to make, he’s never been fired or underperformed, we’ve just had ridiculous luck. Companies sell, startups tank, blah blah blah, every day for the last three years he’s gone to work worried he’d be let go by the end of the day.

Knowing that our current place wasn’t any more stable than the one that came before it, we’ve been searching and searching for a better opportunity and not having a ton of luck.

Then a few months ago I was called as the YW President. Because we wanted to see it that way, we immediately thought, “Well this must mean Heavenly Father wants us here. Something will turn up!”

About a month ago Bear’s working situation became completely untenable. We couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He had to leave before he was forced to deal with consequences, not of his making, that would effect his career forever. Luckily we had an offer waiting for us at the end of a phone call, but it means we have to move from San Diego to Modesto, and go back to a former company.  And it means I will have been YW President for a grand total of four months.

It’s been pretty amazing how every single thing we’ve tried to stay has fallen through, but every single thing has just fallen into place to leave. We’ve got perfect renters, we found a good rental in Modesto, the company’s paying for movers, this new job is going to be amazing, and we even get to move right back into the ward we left three years ago. As moves go, it’s been pretty easy.

I take personal revelation extremely seriously, and I’ve since had several, much clearer, manifestations - as opposed to my lazy assumption - that tell me we’re headed in the right direction, but this is always a problem in striving to communicate with the divine. We are bound by our puny human brains, our desires, our experiences, that so often cloud the message we’re trying to receive.

How have you all learned to differentiate between what you want to hear and what is being said?

I was at the library when I overheard a woman proclaiming that she only reads young adult books because there is almost always something in adult books that makes “the spirit leave”.

I don’t want to be getting all judgey about a person’s spiritual or religious choices, cause I know this funny path we call life takes us is lots of different (and yet sill good) directions. She may have very good reasons for her choice. But I will admit that there is a judgey part of me that finds that woman’s attitude both shallow and disturbing. So there.

I myself very much believe in this phenomena we Mormons call “the spirit leaving”, I think we’d be pretty stupid to tell ourselves “oh just ignore that feeling, schnookums, it doesn’t mean anything.” Nope, it means something, by all means listen.

But here’s the problem, if you start with the assumption that “what it means” is that hearing anything that makes you uncomfortable, anything that doesn’t mesh with your preconceived notions of the world, anything that challenges and/or frightens you must be “bad” (it drives away the spirit) simply because it feels troublesome, well then, you’re limiting yourself to a very small lametasticly-you-centered myopic view of the universe. (more…)