RE Feminism: Sister Oscarson, Kate Kelly, and Small, Tired Me.

I’m sad about this Kate Kelly thing.

It is hard to be a moderate feminist in the church. Some people tell me I shouldn’t label myself. A long time ago I wrote a post about why I call myself a feminist.

I feel like moderate feminists are in a tough spot right now, because of Kate Kelly and Ordain Women and other movements that basically sideline more moderate views. I feel like I have been called a lot of things lately by these more extreme feminist elements in the church—oppressed, ignorant. Uneducated. Unaware of church history, etc. All those things are inaccurate. Up until a couple of years ago, I participated occasionally in a large, well-known forum where women from the church gathered to discuss women's issues. I liked about 30% of what I read there, struggled with 30% and got sick of the drama that was the other 40%. I left that group when someone told me how wrong it was that I had so many children and that I must not know how to use birth control. (I don’t think anybody who says that truly realizes what they’re saying. Which of my children are you saying I should wish I don’t have?)

And so it is hard to find opportunities to discuss these things that are so important to me (how to help women worldwide, help for the spouses of pornography addicts (often women), help for women who are abuse victims, help for women who struggle with eating disorders, how to prevent these sorts of things from happening to the rising generation of young women, who I love with all my heart) among the general population of the church, without being sidelined and labeled as an extremist myself.

I think it’s hard to be a moderate anything these days.

I feel badly for Kate Kelly.I feel badly for all the women who are struggling because of this, feeling small, like they can’t speak up and be heard. That frustrates me. You CAN speak up and be heard. You CAN have opinions. As Kate Kelly’s bishop said (in the private letter provided so willingly to the media) the problem is not how you feel, what you wonder about, what you wish could happen, or your own answers to prayers and personal revelation you feel you’ve had. The problem is when you start telling people that your opinions are the right ones. When you start ridiculing others for disagreeing with you. When you start to accuse people because they aren’t giving you exactly what you want, right now, and you start talking to others about why this is a bad thing and stirring up peoples' doubts, fears, and pain to gain followers for a cause you've adopted in opposition to those who are actually in charge of figuring these things out church-wide. Personal revelation: that's yours. Revelation for the church? It'd be chaos if everybody decided suddenly they could receive revelation for the church.

In the wake of all this, I feel like things have gotten disingenuous. Sorry. I know that I’m judging. But I feel like some of the actions—providing everything to the press, not going to your own disciplinary counsel and instead submitting hundreds of letters from “followers” and a legal brief detailing exactly why church discipline doesn’t stand up to some sort of contract concocted by someone who’s read some version of the church handbook and extrapolated to create “rules” nobody has agreed to—show that a person isn’t much interested in remaining. It shows that you're finding plenty of support and fellowship from followers, and that is what is important to you. I might be wildly wrong, but that is what I feel burdened by, reading all this stuff.

I guess I’m mostly frustrated with a phenomenon, not a particular person. In short: NO I don’t want the priesthood. And I am fine with how the church is structured, I believe it is inspired, and I do my level best to manage my own heartbreak and pain over very real events that have damaged my trust in priesthood holders. And that does not make me ignorant, oppressed, or uninformed. I have had too many experiences with priesthood that are significant and real to not have a testimony of it. I have had answers to prayers that are unequivocal. That is where I’m at.

I’m OK with where you’re at, wherever that is—extreme on either side, moderate, or even ambivalent or not needing an answer. And what I wish: that we could all be ok with where we’re all at, and not judge each other. From any side. When I choose friends, I don’t look for a set of beliefs that match mine. I look for genuine people who are compassionate. I do enjoy certain traits: people who work hard, people who don’t complain, people who are open-minded. But those aren’t requirements for my friendship. I enjoy people, period.

I feel like this whole thing with Kate Kelly had been very hard and painful to watch. And I hope the aftereffects don’t make life harder for people who question. Because we need questioners in our church. Questions are how you get a testimony. If you have nothing to bring to God, you can’t get any answers in return.
I also hope the aftereffects don’t make life harder for people who willingly obey. Because it is no less hard for us—those journeys of testimony. We’ve had struggles, too. We’ve had our moments of wanting to give up. We’re not ignorant or uniformed, and we’re not close-minded.

This video by Sister Oscarson, our General Young Women president,exemplifies to me how we should act toward each other, no matter what our beliefs and circumstances are, no matter what sort of testimony we have. No matter what our standing is with the church (or outside the church. This isn’t just about church members, it’s about EVERYONE.)

Greenhouse Update & You Aren't What People Say You Are (redux)

I put up a post yesterday that I soon afterward took down. It detailed some struggles I've been having lately. I took it down because I worried that, even with making things vague, it'd end up being spread around and someone would find out and be upset, or others would assume I wrote about them. But I do want to repost one thing from what I posted, and that is, you can only control what you give, not what people take. You can do your absolute best to convey love, kindness, sincerity and someone could still take offense, if they choose to.

I am a kind, generous, creative, fun, nice, intelligent, loyal and good person. Nothing that somebody does, or says about me, will change that. The end.

Ok. Anyway. The greenhouse stuff is starting up again. Now that the ground is thawed, we can work on mortaring our cinderblocks. Jeffrey borrowed a cement drill from a nice ward member and put in rebar, and we're stacking the cinderblocks and mortaring. We're hoping to have the whole south side done, and the east side dug up, by the time our friends Dave and Courtney get here on Fourth of July weekend, and then Dave and Jeff can have some fun guy time putting together the east wall, which is smaller and hopefully will go faster because Jeff will have a routine down.

After that, we'll be doing outside insulation and the plan right now is cement-board siding, though I need to look into that more... I'm not sure if i like it or not. Jeff's really great at building things well, functional. I'm the one who's a bit more picky about appearance. I don't want a utilitarian greenhouse, I want a *beautiful* greenhouse. Suggestions for siding are welcome. Our house is currently light grey and white.


After that, we'll be able to (yay :) :) ) start on the INSIDE. Setting up watering first, I think. Then the floor, which will be landscape fabric covered with flagstone& swept, pressed sand. We have a ton of white flagstones lying around; we're repurposing them for inside the greenhouse (and, eventually, a walkway around the greenhouse and a patio).

After the floor is in, we can get going on square foot beds. And a greens tower (lettuces, kale, spinach, collards and dandelions) (yes, dandelions) and an herb tower. And also starting to grow cool mosses and creeping thymes in between the flagstones.


So that's where we are right now. We generally have about four hours of time on Saturdays that we can use for projects. Lately it's been completely eaten up in getting our ginormous jungle mown. So Jeff may need to take a day off work to finish the greenhouse. We spent the last three Saturdays getting all of the acre we call yard so it's inches-long stubble instead of a frenzy of dandelions and bushy alfalfa, but you know, weeds grow. We'll have to start again next Saturday.

2000 word update

I am doing ok with my 2000 word goal, except for a couple things: when the kids are sick, it all goes out the window. Also, DavyJones is keeping me up at night and there have been a few mornings where I just couldn't manage it. And... Saturdays have fallen off the table. Now that it's summer. I forget how insanely busy Saturdays are during summer. Especially with the yard, and play practices, and other summer activities... and finishing the greenhouse. Which I will post about soon.

Still, right now I'm at 96,000 words with my LDS contemporary novel, and about 85,000 words of my fantasy. The LDS novel is almost finished. I can feel it winding to a close. The fantasy... maybe we're at the halfway point. I was right--it is an epic fantasy. Hooooow to get an agent to read it, when it's my first book? I guess I have to market to agents who deal in epic fantasy? Are there such things for people other than Robert Jordan?


Anyway. Thoughts. You could send some my direction, too... I'd welcome input.