The Fringes of Faith

I have a confession to make.  (Well, several, actually, but this one in particular is specific to my lifelong membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.) I haven't worn garments in a very long time.  (For those of you who don't know what that means, garments are religious clothing that active adult members of our church wear under their regular clothing when they have made specific covenants in our temples. They are to be worn at all times, except for activities like swimming. The garment is symbolic in many ways, and is supposed to be an "outward expression of an inward commitment" to Christ.) I started wearing garments in 2009, the day I married my wonderful husband, and I wore them constantly until my third trimester with my now five-year-old daughter. During pregnancy, the extra layer of clothing started to create a bit of claustrophobia in me. For the next two years, back-to-back pregnancies and breastfeeding became my physical focus, and garm...

 I've always been really great at word vomit. I don't like hiding my figurative dirty laundry (but you bet your boots when you come to my house I'm hiding ALLLLLL the literal stuff). I don't ever want anyone to be afraid to open up about their true feelings. I want to see who you really are. So...when I have something to say, I say it, and I hope that my candor allows other people to feel safe and not judged when they're with me (and I hope that it comes out the way it was intended, because sometimes I suck with words) .  At first, when I started opening up to people about the changes in my beliefs, it was easy to see the support from people around me. To my face, no one tried to convince me that I was wrong (though on social media I was definitely called "apostate" several times) and for the most part, everyone just treated me like I belonged anyway. I loved that. It meant that other people would feel safe showing their differences too. I felt wanted and ...

I dream in symbolism. It's crazy. My dreams are always super vivid, and they always have deeper meaning than what's obvious within them. If I'm thinking about anything more than a few seconds throughout the day, you can almost bet I'm dreaming about it that night.  Last night was no different.  I dreamt I was in church. Just a regular weekly Sunday school class in the Young Women's room, combined with Relief Society and young women. White walls, blue carpet that looks like ants crawling around if you stare at it too long (if you don't know what I'm talking about...try it). There were no men in this room.  It was just like any other ward I'd ever been to. Everyone was dressed in church dresses, hair and makeup perfect...the works...when a couple of younger ladies walked in, announcing themselves as visitors. For the most part, the women in the room were welcoming at first, but as these two newcomers began speaking, their appearances started to change.  At...

There's hurt pounding in my heart today. And it's LOUD. I remember the moment I first realized that "church leadership" didn't mean the same thing to everyone as it did to me. I was 8 years old. A friend of mine and I were being teased by some bratty kid in the halls of the church, and I loudly declared to him, "You better knock it off. HER dad is the BISHOP." The kid looked at me with his eyebrows high and said, "So what?" It floored me. It had never occurred to me that a bishop's authority wasn't THE authority to everyone around me. The audacity of this kid to question what could happen if he treated the bishop's daughter with disrespect!  As I grew, that respect I had for bishops only grew. I revered them. I feared them. Stake Presidents? They may has well have been the presidents of countries.  General Authorities? Well, they were pretty much Gods themselves! As I grew up, I would defend those priesthood leaders with every ounce...

I want to burn the church handbook. Hear me out. I'm in several LDS moms groups on social media. The topics that come up vary from simple things like baby name ideas all the way up to the real traumatizing stuff that most women post anonymously. Almost daily though, I read posts about women asking questions similar to "what does the church think about this...?" First...can we focus on the fact that "the church" is an organization, and not a living, breathing person?  And...I don't know...maybe for the sake of just being argumentative, can we also focus on the fact that "the church" is also not God?  The handbook changes constantly, based on opinions of (mostly rich white) men who run an organization that includes people from all over the world. People who believe in different things. People who follow different customs and cultures. People "the church" doesn't know from Adam.  The men who write the handbook don't have a clear unde...

 I had an epiphany at church on Sunday. Something that I'm ashamed to say I have never thought of in my 37 years on this earth. You know that scripture? The one every Christian knows and loves?  "For God so loved the world...He gave His only begotten son..." Do you realize that the Son in that scripture had TWO parents who loved us so much they sent Him here? Think about that for a second. We're always mentioning how we have a loving Father in Heaven who sent His son here, but not once have I ever thought about how difficult it must have been for our MOTHER in Heaven to send Her son to the earth to go through what He went through.  As a mother myself, I've never truly been able to identify with the thought of only Christ's father sending him to be our Savior. But the thought of his MOTHER...well that changes everything for me. At church on Sunday, we were asked to focus on one specific person who we love so much we would do anything for. It was obvious who I w...