I love this lesson series. I love the different approaches different writers take, and the insights they have  that I’d miss on my own. Most of all, I love that it exists. So of course the first place I went to prepare for teaching this lesson was EmilyCC’s post on the introduction to the Lorenzo Snow manual. She listed some great references, so I started reading.

And I kept reading. And kept reading. Here’s the bottom line: Lorenzo Snow was fascinating. I had a great reaction from my lesson today, and even though I’ll bet you’ve all covered this part of the manual in your Relief Society lessons already, I want to share my notes just because I’m so in awe of the man. (Just please remember that they’re notes, and if you rudely point out grammatical or style errors I will send my peeps after you.)

Read More

I am a biological anthropologist and one of my favorite classes to teach is about modern human variation. I ask my undergraduates to line up in front of the class according to their height. They have done this since kindergarten and so it is fairly easy and banal. Then I give them other categories (with the caveat that they are free to opt out at any time), such as: skin color, eye color, hairiness, weight, intelligence, gender, sexuality, and attractiveness. As the categories progress the line-ups get more difficult to make. Students start opting out and becoming very uncomfortable. I have yet to have a class line-up according to attractiveness.

The whole point of this exercise is to make students aware of the interaction between culture and biology. Despite all of those categories being definable as “biological” the social and cultural presumptions about race, body size, gender, sexuality, intelligence and attractiveness lend an emotional weight to these traits that height or eye-color does not have. Afterwards, we always have an enlightening discussion about human variation and culture. Why is it socially inappropriate to line-up by some variables and others not? How much of what we think is biological is really culturally constructed? Why and how do moral notions of good/bad get attached to some traits and not others? I explain that the often illusive concept of culture can be understood as all the extra baggage attached to the latter categories.

I cannot help but wonder if this exercise can be applied in other settings. Join me in a mental experiment to conduct a virtual Mormon women’s line-up.

Read More

“Good is what you do, not how you are.” Or, so says the clever answer that some misguided sticklers for grammar might offer when “I’m good” is offered as a response to the question “How are you?” (Supposedly ‘well’ is the better word to use.)
While this may not be strictly accurate in the context of grammar, I think that it is accurate in the context of morality in general.

Read More

Some of my fondest Christmas memories take me back to when I was an elder in a black church. When I preached, folks not only listened, they shouted hallelujah and amen! When we shared the Christmas story together everyone called out “Praise the Lord!” and clapped their hands.

Read More

Senator Barack Obama’s recent speech addressing the issue of race has once more excited a flurry of discussion around the topic. People’s reactions vary, but I’m not asking for responses to his speech specifically. NPR’s Talk of the Nation invited guests to discuss “How Do Americans Talk about Race?” which I found informative and even hopeful. I think their discussion was realistic by acknowledging lingering issues, but also optimistic in looking for opportunities to learn and progress.

So, what I want to know, is how we can continue to improve relations, to encourage understanding, and to promote unity. In my own experience, I grew up in an overwhelmingly white area. Racism seemed to be a problem of far away lands like, the south. However, I was aware of a strange divide with the issue of blacks and the priesthood, but, once again, it seemed to be far removed from my own personal experience. I have also met resistance in talking about these issues within any kind of religious context, including institute classes. “This is not the right venue to have this discussion.” So, in the spirit of seeking a venue…

Robert Jensen, one of NPR’s guests, mentioned the hesitancy of white people to even discuss race because of the fear of being called on ingrained racial attitudes. I closely relate to this sentiment. My own personal approach has been to avoid any conversation that calls out inequalities between myself and someone of a different race. I didn’t want to be seen as ignorant or racist, but I also don’t want to avoid the conversation and dismiss legitimate concerns.

My first personal experience with race issues was with my first college boyfriend, who was black. I had my mother tell me that my grandparents would not accept him. The end of the relationship was also awkward because he wanted to blame its end on outside influences on me. It was really the moment I began to see my own ingrained racial attitudes, and those of the people closest to me.

More recent experiences are small and sometimes I wonder if they are worth marking. I made fajitas for my friends one Sunday, and someone complimented me on my cooking. Without thinking, I told him he should thank his ancestors. He has Mexican heritage, and I did not expect him to react as he did. He seemed to take offense, and I was a little taken aback. I was trying to give credit where it was due, and be grateful to Mexicans for corn tortillas, the same way I thank the Japanese for sushi, the Danes for Havarti cheese, and the French for their use of butter. (I could go on about world cuisine, but that’s another post.) My friend did not stay offended for more than two seconds, and in the grand scheme of things, that moment was not a defining one, but it just reminded me that people I am close to still feel racial tension.

I can only speak of my own experience, and I would say that it is overwhelmingly positive. I truly don’t want to paint my personal experience in a negative light. I suppose I highlight those types of experiences because I don’t know what to do with them. I have many friends with diverse backgrounds, and I love to gain insight from people with different world views from mine.

Another NPR guest noted that the younger generation no longer sees the racial gap in the same way, and I honestly hope that is true. Obama’s attitude also seems to reflect this view. In my own world view, I sincerely try to see people one individual at a time, and hope that I will be more solution than problem.

Read More

Following the appearance of the Wise Men in Israel, King Herod decreed that all male children under the age of two must be killed. Prior to this directive, Jesus’ adoptive father, Joseph, had been warned by an angel to flee Israel with Mary and the young boy Jesus. The Holy Family thus became immigrants, walking southward through the rocky terrain of Palestine until they reached the land of Egypt.While the scriptural canon provides no concrete details regarding the journey or the family’s stay in this foreign land, one can imagine the privation, hardship, and uncertainty that must have accompanied such an undertaking. Mary, herself still an adolescent, and Joseph, her young husband, likely sorrowed over the extended separation from their families, friends, and familiar food and customs. As they appear to have left Israel with little notice, they were probably unable to make plans for earning a livelihood, obtaining housing, or other necessities of life. I like to imagine our Heavenly Parents guiding Mary and Joseph through the Holy Spirit, illuminating their minds as to where they could safely camp for the night, how to make their limited rations stretch until Joseph could begin his own planting or start working for another household, and whom they should approach for assistance in the interim.

Although it is not known how long the young family remained in Egypt, it is reasonable to conjecture that Jesus’ childhood experience as a refugee in a foreign land informed his great sermon on charity:

“For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in. . . .Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? . . . Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (St. Matthew 25: 35-40)

It is my belief that, like the Holy Family, God at times inspires women and men to migrate to other nations so that they might fulfill God’s purposes in those lands. With anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. at an all-time high, perhaps as we approach this Christmas season we might all take a moment or two to reflect on the experience of not only the Baby Jesus, but the Immigrant Jesus, as well.

Lesesne Wells, “The Flight Into Egypt,” oil on canvas, 1930.

Read More