Buche de Noel (with a bite eaten)

Originally uploaded by clyde_curtis

by EmilyCC

On my own blog, I have a running series called, “Scenes from a Marriage” where I post the more entertaining conversations my husband and I have.

For Christmas, DH got me a cooking class at a local kitchen store so I could learn how to make a Buche de Noel (a French yule log with sponge cake, Grand Marnier chocolate mouse, chocolate buttercream frosting, and merengiue mushrooms). To give you an idea of the complexity of this recipe, know that the class was two hours long and the only thing we actually made was the sponge cake. Everything else had to be done beforehand or else we would have been there for about 6 hours.

With that background in mind…
Emily: Nate, did you see the Buche de Noel I made?

Nate: No, I didn’t see it yet.

Emily: (opens the box in the fridge and immediately begins hitting Nate) WHY DID YOU TAKE A BITE OUT OF IT?! IT’S FOR CHRISTMAS EVE TOMORROW!

Nate: I didn’t take a bite out of it!

Emily: Oh…I guess it got damaged on the drive home.

(later)
Nate: Ok, I did take a bite, but it was just because I thought you didn’t make it right because it looks so funny. Or, I thought it might have gotten messed up on the drive home. Because, really, is that what it’s supposed to look like?

Emily: Um…that’s exactly how it’s supposed to look

Nate: Well, I took the bite out so I figured at least I could tell you it tasted good when you came to me all upset about how it didn’t turn out.

Do you have cherished Christmas memories like this one?

the maelstrom of my mind
Originally uploaded by onkel_wart

Brett DeLange
Boise, Idaho
Volume 11, No. 3 (Spring 1985)

…Maelstroms are powerful whirlpools that suck in objects within its radius. It was a maelstrom in the climactic chapter of Moby Dick that enveloped and destroyed Captain Ahab and his chip. I believe that the term maelstrom can also be used to describe the powerful currents of social and cultural practices in which we grow up and live, which envelop us and shape—to varying degrees—the values, perceptions, and mores upon which we make our decisions…

…The Book of Mormon is replete with references to the “traditions of their fathers” as the cause by which the Lamanites of different Book of Mormon eras were kept from enjoying all the blessings of the gospel. At one point in time Jacob, in castigating his people for their sins and rebellion, told them that the Lamanites were actually living better lives than the Nephites and that the only reason the Lamanites did not have the gospel fullness was because of the traditions of their fathers. (Jacob 3:5-7)

What about today, then? Are there “traditions of our fathers” by which we are prevented from enjoying the fullness of the gospel? For me the answer is a painful yes, and that is the maelstrom in which I feel that I am swirling.

My maelstrom—and I think we each have different maelstroms with differing degrees of impact and scope—is difficult to articulate. Some parts of it I like: the conditioning to pray and to choose to go on a mission while I was young, which set the stage by which I could discover the joy of revelation and service; the need for humility and patience; the importance of integrity and perspective. There are other parts, however, that I do not like and which I struggle today—“traditions of my fathers” that, having once become ingrained in me, are difficult not only to recognize as shaping elements of my life but also as something that can be changed. Furthermore, I am learning that once I do recognize these conceptions and beliefs as untrue it is hard to expunge them.

For example, to some degree because of the cultural conditioning I have received, I struggle with the roles of men and women, mothers and fathers, priesthood and sisterhood in the gospel context. I am only now discovering that I should be more concerned with responsibility than role and that the rigidness by which I had previously pigeonholed each category and its corresponding duties was wrong. I am discovering a flexibility with respect to being a father, husband, and priesthood holder that is liberating, invigorating, and integrating—intertwined, if you will, with Janna, my wife.

My discoveries are not easy; it is hard to give up what you thought was so much a part of you, and it is hard to accept that what you thought was so much a part of you is really nothing more than an alienating “tradition,” a “way-of-life” wall that is separating you from a more complete joy.

What then to make of all this? I am discovering that the struggle to shuck off that which is not founded in taught and the effort involved in incorporating that which is truth is what gives meaning to life. It is the battle of soul—the opposition with which I am confronted—that defines me. I do not rejoice in the untruths that form part of my character—some of which are the product of my maelstrom—but I do rejoice in the power to change, in the opportunity to become more a product of conscious choice than socio-cultural conditioning, and in the light that God bestows upon us as we seek for truth.

For me, a first step in incorporating that which is “virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy” is to recognize the forces that have shaped me—knowingly or unknowingly. I have to reject that which is inconsistent with the gospel as it has been restored, while incorporating that which is consistent. This can be a demanding task because it involves a heightened awareness of what one believes and why.

Second, it is essential to recognize that the creation of the real “me”—the construction of who I am by the making of conscious choices—is a process that involves struggle, conflict, prayer, humility, and time. It is not something that can be reduced to a “checklist” approach.
Finally, it is imperative to remember that acquiescing to our environment does not make us less accountable for who we are. Feelings and acts of bigotry, sexism, or materialism that are the result of the “traditions of our fathers” rather than the result of some conscious choice to be that way does not make the wrongness of such behavior less egregious, nor the command to become like Christ less compelling.

Thus, we cannot avoid our maelstroms. Doing nothing about them is as much a choice as beginning the process—a process of “purification,” a process of confronting individual challenges and proportions, and ultimately, if pursued persistently, a process that will enable each of us to become masters of our own maelstroms.

I thought this piece was appropriate for a new year as we resolve to change things in our lives.  What “traditions” are you resolving to change?–EmilyCC

by mraynes

mr. mraynes and I are opera geeks.  I spent the first years of my college career training to be an opera singer; mr. mraynes has spent the majority of his doctoral program immersed in opera scores, learning how to conduct them.  Where a lot of couples have a song taken from pop culture, our song was “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde.  Every major moment in our relationship is connected to an aria or opera.  Dating…Cosi Fan Tutte.  Falling in love… “Liebestod” .  Engagement…Turandot.  Marriage… “Morgen” .  Birth of Baby Monster… “Song to the Moon” .  Birth of Baby Valkyrie…Brunhilde’s Immolation.  (Sorry, I couldn’t resist sharing these moments with you.)

And so it should not have surprised me that the first thing mr. mraynes said to me after getting an IUD was, “Ahh, die frau ohne schatten,” meaning ”the woman without a shadow.”  Now for those not familiar with the Strauss opera, Die Frau Ohne Schatten is a fairytale of love blessed through the birth of a child.  As lovely as this sounds and despite the absolutely breathtaking music, this opera is a feminist’s nightmare.  You see, a woman without a shadow is a woman who can’t have children…making her not a real woman and therefore, not human.  Throw in a little domestic violence and the belief that women are chattel and you have three hours of anti-woman fun.

At the beginning of the opera we learn that the Emperor of the Southeastern Islands will be turned to stone unless is wife, the daughter of the King of spirits, becomes human and gains a shadow.  Of course, it is hard to feel sorry for the Emperor when we learn that he captured the Empress and believes that she is “for my soul and for my eyes and for my hands and for my heart.  She is the booty of all booty without end.”  Despite being captured and married against her will, the Empress goes in search of a shadow so her husband won’t be petrified.  The Empress and her nurse meet a human woman who resents her life as a domestic slave to her husband and doesn’t want to be a mother because she fears children will further enslave her.  Long story short, the nurse convinces the woman to sell her shadow to the Empress.  When the woman’s husband finds out, he threatens to kill her because without her shadow, without the ability to bear children, she is useless to him.  Luckily for the wife, the Empress refuses the shadow, saying she will not save her husband at the expense of another man’s happiness.  This act of self-sacrifice allows the Empress to gain her own shadow.  The opera ends with the two couples united and fertile, singing the praises of their humanity.

As a feminist, there is so much in this opera that I find objectionable.  I resent the belief that my only value as a woman lies in my ability to bear children.  This belief can be found around the world in almost every culture.  Historically, women have not been allowed to become fully actualized individuals, not allowed to explore the things that would bring them the most happiness.  Instead women are forced into a lifestyle they wouldn’t necessarily choose.  For women who can’t have children, there is the feeling of failure on top of the overwhelming sorrow that comes along with infertility.  Women who are childless, whether by choice or not, are often seen as dangerous and are at increased risk for emotional and physical violence.

Of course, the pendulum can swing too far the other way as well.  In cultures where maternity is glorified, female subordination often goes hand in hand.  The idea of the angel in the home, while romantic, only serves to infantilize women and take away their ability to be agents unto themselves.  A doll’s house existence is no existence.

Second wave feminists worked hard to give women like me the choice to become mothers and also follow our dreams of self-fulfillment.  But socialization dies hard.  When mr. mraynesreferred to my shadowless status, I felt guilty.  I cried while the IUD was being implanted.  Even now, when I think about that small piece of plastic floating around in my uterus I have to fight off the urge to reach inside and yank it out.  I admit that I have felt like less of a woman knowing that my fertility is compromised.  Intellectually I know this is ridiculous and I am ashamed of myself.  I have no right to feel this way.  I have two babies and though I have chosen to see them as the crowning achievement of my life, I don’t want my choice perverted by some outdated notion that my worth lies exclusively in the fruitfulness of my womb.  Getting an IUD was absolutely the right thing to do; it was right for my marriage, for my children, for our current financial and life situation and for my own state of mind.

And yet…I am haunted by my shadow.

I fear that in sharing this, I have been insensitive…like I said before, I have no right to this feeling.  I am also aware that I may be alone in my feelings or that I have been driven crazy by lack of sleep and an increase in hormones.  My only purpose is to honestly examine how cultural expectations effect women’s feelings of worth.  So, do any of you feel your worth tied inextricably to your fertility? 

by Caroline

For the past few decades, several feminist scholars of religion have worked hard to create space for female agency and empowerment within their respective traditions. These are women scholars who are dedicated to their religions and want to work within them to reject ideas about female subordination. In studying some of these scholars this last semester, I’ve seen some common strategies they’ve used to tackle problematic scriptures that have been used to subjugate women.

Common Strategies:

a) reject culturally biased misogynistic ideas that do not originate in sacred scripture (thus a Muslim feminist scholar would reject all stories about Eve’s secondary status which have crept into Islam from Christianity, since the Qur’an shows males and females created equally and simultaneously.) 

b) challenge readings of problematic scriptures by reinterpreting and redirecting focus onto the stated duty of men/husbands, rather than just focusing on the duty of women/wives (A Muslim scholar, Hassan*, in the Qur’anic verse that is traditionally translated, ““Men are the managers of the affairs of women … Virtuous women are, therefore, obedient.” goes back to the original language and reinterprets ‘managers’ as ‘breadwinners’ and ‘obedient’ as ‘capable of baring children’ – still stratified gender roles, but removes the hierarchy.)

c) Limit or expand these interpretations of separate gender roles in ways that give women as much agency and empowerment as possible. (In a Qur’anic verse that seems to give husbands the right to confine or beat disobedient wives, Hassan argues that the injunction is given to the community – only in a time of mass rebellion by women can community leaders come together to discipline women.)

d) Justify separate gender roles, not in moral differences between the sexes, but in pure biology.

Personally, I’m willing to reject as culture a lot of things considered ‘scriptural’, so I’m not so bound up in trying to defend passages in scriptures that I find misogynistic. I doubt I’m alone - I think a lot of Mormons are pretty comfortable writing off various scriptures for various reasons. But I think the practice of trying to work within our religious framework to create feminist space is a good one, so I was wondering if we could apply these feminist strategies to Mormonism. 

a) What are the cultural (non-scriptural, folk doctrine) ideas about women within Mormonism that are used to limit us? For me, the most bothersome ideas are justifications for women not having priesthood. I don’t recall anything scriptural that outright forbids women from being ordained. Along those same lines, ideas about women being better than men, and therefore not ‘needing’ the priesthood are problematic to me. Also, ideas about men being the final decision makers in the home annoy me.

b) Challenge the readings of problematic scriptures. What are our most problematic scriptures? For me, it’s easy to write Paul off as a man speaking within his cultural time when it comes to women, so I’m not particularly bothered by the ‘man is the head of the women’ stuff. He loses credibility in my eyes when it comes to gender issues when he talks about how women shouldn’t speak in church or wear gold. There is the Eve story which does seem to place women in a subjugated position, but that can be interpreted as a natural consequence of the fall, not as how God would want it to be. (Though the problematic temple covenant on obedience complicates that interpretation.)  And overall, Mormons are pretty kind in their estimation of Eve. So what’s left? For me it’s probably The Proclamation – which is recent and therefore, with the Mormon belief in continuing revelation, harder to write off - and its injunction for men to preside in the home. Is there a way to reinterpret that in a way that doesn’t limit my personhood and demean me as a woman? I haven’t figured that out, but I do think it is helpful to focus on the description of the duty of the husband, just as Hassan suggests. In Mormondom, the man may ‘preside’ but it’s pictured as being somewhat benign, (love, equal partnership, etc.).

c) Limit the interpretations of the gender roles: If we are going to take the ‘preside’ stuff seriously, I think it is fruitful to limit that to within the context of marriage, where two people can work out what that means as ‘equal partners.’ Don’t expand it to the community. Don’t think of it as if every man presides over every woman. (Which I don’t think we Mormons often do – though I do sense that some Mormon women think they should listen to/obey Mormon men in general as priesthood holders/leaders.)

d) Justify differentiation of gender roles in pure biology. I’m not sure where Mormons come down on that one. I think when it comes to the homemaker/breadwinner stratification, that is often argued in terms of biology, but it is also argued in terms of natural instincts and inherent talents. And as for the priesthood holder/non-priesthood holder stratification, I’ve never heard anyone base that in biology.  

What do you think are the most problematic Mormon ideas/scriptures about women? Do you see these strategies as being at all helpful? Or is it just too limiting to take seriously passages written about gender roles within a particular cultural context?
 

*Riffat Hassan. “Muslim Women and Post-Patriarchal Islam.”

Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning

by Anna Tueller
Somerville, Massachusetts
Originally Published in Exponent II, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Summer 1986)

Fasting had always been a window-cleaner that allowed me, at least for occasional moments, to see through the glass a little less darkly. It was a key that I trusted and used to open, however slightly, the spiritual dimension when I needed to be comforted, assured, renewed, or enlightened. I loved Fast Sundays; my hair was always a little bit cleaner; my skin more radiant; my dress more pristine; my voice more melodious. I depended on that monthly spring-cleaning and trusted that if I would do my twenty-four hour vigil, my windows would be cleaned, that the light would shine through more brightly. My testimony was born and grew in those adolescent years as I participated in the spiritual communion of testimony meetings, and I learned very early that I needed to belong to a spiritual community. I went to those meetings and was fed. I found peace, joy, community, and truth. When the meeting was not a spiritual feast, it was because I had not properly kept my vigil.

Fast Sundays ceased to be so simple many years ago. Instead of the peace, joy, and light that I had learned to expect, I usually felt cynicism, outrage, disillusionment, and loneliness. I despaired at my continuing failure to make work the key that had served me so well. Fasting had become more associated with migraine headaches than magical Windex. The acceptance in a community that had once come to me so easily now seemed to be denied. I continued to assume, however, that I was failing to use the tool correctly. If I had only fasted more rigorously, or prayed more fervently, or taken the sacrament more thoughtfully, or behaved more charitably, the heavens would have opened for me. Often I would go to church, fully-fasted, eager to be fed, only to leave hungry, to return, once again, to a self-examination of my sins, my failures, my inadequacies that were keeping me from communion. Instead of becoming more at harmony with my spiritual community on Fast Sundays, I became more alienated.

In addition, the issues of being single in a married Church, female in a male Church, and doubting in a believing Church were more immediate on Fast Sunday than at any other time, and fasting—my magic key—only seemed to exacerbate my disillusionment. When I attended testimony meeting, spiritually prepared for it, I listened more attentively, felt more keenly, and as a consequence, hurt more deeply. I didn’t belong. I didn’t believe. Fasting, as always, made me more vulnerable, but instead of opening me up to joy, I was opened to pain. Eventually I became less willing to suffer on a monthly basis and would often avoid vulnerability and opt for oblivion.

This alienation was especially true during this past year when I moved into a ward that was predominantly married student couples with one-going0on-two children. For months, I attended meetings and felt rejected. The women seemed to look at me suspiciously, and the men looked right through me. I became more and more willing to fade into the woodwork, to become on of the women who just disappeared.

Until two months ago. As Fast Sunday approached, I yearned for one last chance to recapture my joy in fasting, and I was going to knock until I was answered, seek until I found. I had somehow shed my cynicism of the previous years, and I was the young adolescent again preparing for Fast Sunday.

I spend Saturday alone, in fasting and prayer, and on Sunday morning I walked to Church on a beautiful Boston midwinter spring day. It had snowed the night before, and my footsteps were the first as I walked along Massachusetts Avenue and across the Cambridge Common. I sang as I walked. I particularly remember my rousing chorus of “As the Dew From Heaven Distilling.” My voice was more melodious; my hair was cleaner; my skin more radiant; my dress more pristine. I stopped at the statue I have come to love that is hidden behind the Episcopal Church on Brattle Street and looked at the figure pleading with heaven and repeated to myself: “We shall not cease from exploration/And at the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.”

As I entered the chapel, I felt as though I had come home. Every person I greeted looked lovely to me. I wanted to hug all the children, embrace my brothers and sisters, and commune completely with them. The opening song, the prayer, the sacrament were all precious to me in the way that only once-forgotten familiar things can be precious.

And then the meeting began. Two babies were blessed, and the mothers were the first to rise and share their joy with the congregation. And then a third sister rose to tell the story of how she had to grab her two children and evacuate her apartment the previous night because of a first in the next building. She wept, and I was weeping with her as she spoke about taking only what was most precious with her, her children, from the building. And, then she said, “I know that the only way we can know of God’s love in this world is by having children of our own.”

The pain I felt was immediate and demanding. I realize now that it went away beyond the temporal circumstance of fast meeting. I looked around the congregation and saw the woman who had recently lost her first child to birth defects; I saw the sisters who had adopted children; I saw and numbered myself among the singly women; I saw the couples who weren’t able to have children. I was moved, more compellingly than I had even been in my adolescent zeal, to bear my testimony, and I was convinced that the words were given to me. I have gone over and over what I said in an attempt to analyze and dissect, but I can’t deny and refuse to dismiss the conviction that I had been told to speak, that the heavens opened, albeit painfully. I remember saying that I had to believe that we can know God’s love in many ways, that it is difficult to see life through any vision but our own, but we had to try, and that I knew and had felt God’s love.

The woman whose testimony I had followed left the chapel, hurt and angry. And the meeting proceeded painfully as person after person rose to defend the sanctity of the nuclear family. I don’t recall much; I was hurting too badly. The same door that at one time had united me to my spiritual community now seemed to separate me from it. The compulsion to speak was so familiar, and yet so foreign because it no longer opened portals of joy and communion; rather, it seemed to underline my separation and liminality.

My faith in fasting is stronger than it has ever been. That key is still available to me. While fasting I become spiritually vulnerable and sensitive in ways that I experience at no other time. After this experience, I couldn’t, wouldn’t, as I had done in the past, look for excuses that I had failed to prepare myself; the familiarity and rightness of the experience were too immediate. I had to accept that the heavens had opened, that I had sought and I had found, that the spirit can bear witness to error as powerfully as it ever bears witness to truth. It is not a failure in me that makes me most vulnerable to certain explosive issues when I am fasting. The issues are real; they constitute a large part of my spiritual life right now, and the spirit can bear witness to their validity. If a spiritual acknowledgment of their veracity brings pain rather than joy, I do not have to dismiss the experience.

If the blessings are not immediate, they are no less real. During the two months since that meeting, the ward has changed for me. Slowly and painfully, the doors have opened. I have talked with the sister whom I hurt and how hurt me, and we are careful friends. In Relief Society, I hear a new sensitivity to issues of single sisters, and my home teachers now talk to me instead of at me. If I once experienced fasting in joy, I now do so in fear, but certainly joy and fear are both time-honored emotions with which to approach deity.

by Dora

So, there I was, in a bookstore, shopping for Christmas presents. I hadn’t planned on being there that night. Or even making books the theme for my Christmas giving this year, for that matter. But I was waiting for the rest of my dinner party to arrive, and the shop was a calm respite from the noisy restaurant next door.

I’ve always been a bit of a bibliophile. I don’t remember many toys from my childhood, but I remember the books I read and loved. Most of my childhood summers were spent delving over books from the local library. Myopia seems to run in my family, but l maintain that our glasses are simply outer manifestations of our love for reading. Even now, it’s rare that I am anywhere without a book on hand.

Back to the bookstore. I’d found a couple of good matches, and was just wandering around, killing time, when I found myself in the C section of the fiction department. As usual, I checked to see if one of my favorite books was in stock. It was. I picked it up for the sheer pleasure of flipping through a couple of pages. And then I couldn’t stop. My phone started buzzing, and I knew that my party had arrived for dinner, and yet I couldn’t put the book down. So I bought it, for myself, for the third time.

My friend Perky introduced me to this book a number of years ago. She loaned me her copy, and I devoured it in a number of hours. It wasn’t long, and the reading was easy, but the beauty of the story, and the simplicity of the writing brought me to tears. At that point, I knew that I would have to possess my own copy. I returned Perky’s copy, and bought a handful … one for myself, and several to give to especially good friends of mine. Because, really, that’s what I like to do with books that touch me as deeply as good friends often do. I gave away all the copies but one, which I reread and made notes in.

Over the years, I lent the book out to several other friends. And in the process, it was lost. I hope that somewhere it is giving someone joy. As for myself, I decided that I wanted to get a hard cover copy, which is what I like to do with books I love. After a few years, I found one on-line that seemed perfect: an older edition, with a beautiful cover, that was only gently used. I purchased the book for the second time. Sadly, it never came. Lost in the mail, perhaps? I got my refund from the bookseller, but was never reconciled to the loss of the book I’d wanted. I never was able to find a hardbound copy, despite checking in every used bookstore I visit.

So, there I was, entering the restaurant, with my third copy of this book, and a glow about my person. Returned home after dinner, and read the book again before going to sleep. Yes, it’s still as good as I remembered. Yes, I’m still glad I bought it, despite having paid full price. The simplicity and beauty of the message still resonate strongly with my soul, and inspires me to be  more hopeful and charitable.

What are the non-scriptural books that you love? The ones that you must keep a copy of? The ones that have changed you and helped you grow? The ones that you can’t help but share with others? How did you come across it? Why do you love it so?

PS: The book I’ve been writing about is By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept, by Paulo Coelho. Like Coelho’s other works, it is fiction, but is sometimes placed in the philosophy section of used bookstores.  One passage that brings me a lot of joy …

You have to take risks, he said. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

Every day, God gives us the sun – and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived that moment, that it doesn’t exist – that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting out front-door key in the lock, it may be hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moments exists – a moment when all the powers of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.

Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment helps us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments – but all of this is transitory; it leavds no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.

by G

Two dinner-time conversations at family gatherings:

dinner number one; the patriarch of the family loudly bemoans the women in the stake who are dumb enough, deceived enough, lacking-in-the-spirit enough to get those “disgusting breast implants.”

dinner number two; the same patriarch, in discussing Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction loudly scoffs at how stupid Janet must be to think that anyone would want to see her “old ugly shriveled up 40 yr old breasts.”

Talk about your lose lose situation.

The way the ladies in my family resolve this dilemma breaks down by generation. The women 40 and over (my mother and aunts) chose to embrace (or endure with relative good humor) “old and shriveled up”. In fact, one dear aunt for her 50th birthday gave her boobs ‘a gift’ by refusing to wear a bra the entire day. The women in their 20’s and 30’s (my sisters and SILs) are, almost without exception, making arrangements to have augmentation, not giving a darn about some old guy’s assessment of their spiritual/mental capacity.

Me? My dirty little secret (well, not now) is that I do harbor a hidden curiosity about what a scalpel and a tiny bit of silicon (or saline) could do for me; I’m not entirely impervious to comments about “old ugly and shriveled up.” (And I am much closer to 40 than I am to 20). But… have you SEEN breast implant surgery? I saw one on the Health Channel once a while back and I still get the willies thinking about it- the graphic slicing and dicing of such a sensitive body region (Naomi Wolf refers to it “sexual mutilation”). I’m much more inclined to get a nipple ring thank you very much. Less blood, shorter healing time.

Which makes me wonder: I know the injunction against extra piercings is an official from-the-pulpit edict. But what about breast implants? Have church leaders spoken out against elective cosmetic surgery in a similar way? (I’m too lazy to search this out for myself, so if you have a link, please share it.) I know a lot of LDS women do get augmentation and don’t feel conflicted about it at all, whereas a second stud in the ear (don’t even mention the nipple)~ No way!

But mostly I just wonder what it is that goes on inside the head of that dear patriarch, the beloved head of my family, when he makes such comments as the aforementioned ones. The underlying sentiment in both statements is one of disgust, an abhorrence for a woman’s breasts (or at least for breasts that aren’t naturally young and plump).   Maybe he really is grossed out by them.  Or perhaps it is his way of trying to circumvent his own normal (natural man?) response to women’s breasts, to be above any perceived sexual impurity by taking an internalized guilt and projected it outward as a defense? I don’t know.

It is all just a mess of mixed messages.

painting by Kathy Farabi

by Caroline

For centuries in the Western world self-sacrifice, as opposed to self-love, has been viewed as an ethical virtue. In serving and loving others, the traditional argument goes, one acts selflessly against the interests of oneself. Feminist scholars of religion and ethics have questioned this self-sacrifice/selfishness dichotomy, however. They argue that loving and caring for others can go hand in hand with understanding and loving oneself.

I’ve been learning about this in my women’s studies in religion class. It’s fascinating because it takes this traditional Christian virtue and turns it on its head. Sara Hoagland, author of Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Values, especially questions the virtue of self-sacrifice, since she argues that it’s generally the less powerful individual, group, or party that is encouraged to self-sacrifice for the good of the stronger party. Thus, she sees women traditionally being the ones to sacrifice their own interests, dreams and projects for the men (and children) of their lives. The result of this, she finds, is that women don’t have a distinct sense of themselves and try to live their lives through others. Also, they have to employ unsavory methods to carve out spaces of power. They use manipulation, control, etc. to try to encourage the men and children of their lives to act in ways they want them to. Thus they impede the agency of others.

Self-sacrificers also, Hoagland argues, are impeded in becoming full agents themselves. This was an interesting quote from her about the way that self-sacrifice is actually in some sense selfish. She states, “For if I disregard my own interests, I can live through someone else’s choices, enjoying the fruits of their power if they are successful, for example, while if they fail, not being responsible for failure but only for bad choice. So I’m selfish in not taking my own risks.” Hoagland argues that cowardliness can lie behind a life of self-sacrifice, as a person lives through others rather than living for herself, and ultimately, foists the task of caring for herself onto someone else, becoming a burden, and once again, selfish. A person who lives a life without taking personal risks, Hoagland argues, is not maturing into a full agent and achieving full personhood. [Personally, I'm sympathetic to this argument about taking risks, but I am uncomfortable with saying that a woman who has decided to split up duties along a traditional gender lines is necessarily selfish or a burden to her family (if that's what Hoagland was implying). I think that can be a legit choice that can foster personal agency and creation in its own way.]

She also cautions against self-sacrifice because she sees it too often leading to burn-out, where individuals give themselves so fully to a project or person that they are devastated when things don’t work out in the way they envisioned.

Rather than self-sacrifice, Hoagland proposes that we embrace a new ethic – that of self-understanding.  Self- understanding will help people understand how to engage and love and help others, without sacrificing a person’s core goals and dreams. Self-understanding will lead a person to know that by pursuing her own dreams and goals, she inspires those around her to do the same. Self-understanding helps a person maintain healthy boundaries between self and other, while at the same time understanding the interconnectedness of society and the importance of engagement with others. Self-understanding leads a person to understand that her actions are deliberate choices to engage which benefits both self and other. She says that when a person chooses to devote some time to helping a friend, she is not-self-sacrificing. Rather, “Such choices are matters of focus, not sacrifice. That I attend certain things and not others, that I focus here and not there, is part of how I create value. Far from sacrificing myself, or part of myself, I am creating.” 

I find Hoagland’s discussion of the dangers of self-sacrifice compelling, and I think her argument is pretty balanced. (Other than my discomfort with the implication that not working is necessarily selfish.) On the one hand, her points about living one’s life through others, refusing to take personal risks, and possibly controlling others because of an inadequate sense of boundaries sound like reasonable risks of extreme types of self-sacrifice. On the other hand, her points about the importance of engaging and helping others, not as sacrifice, but as acts of choice, engagement, and creation as a way to create value is a persuasive reframing of the issue for me.

What are your thoughts on self-sacrifice? Do you embrace the concept completely as a Christian? Or just to the extent that others around you are also self-sacrificing? What are the pros and cons of self-sacrifice that you have personally experienced? How do you like Hoagland’s reframing of the idea of helping others as creation?

by Amelia

i’ve been told i would marry so many times that i couldn’t count them.  and that i would have children.  in lesson after lesson—as a sort of formula: live your life correctly and god will bless you (and we all know that, for a woman, marriage and children is the greatest blessing).  it’s never that explicit, but it’s there nonetheless.  i’ve also been told that i would marry and have children in priesthood blessings.  many blessings.  starting when i was an infant and moving through every significant moment of my life and quite a few ordinary moments.

at this moment, i don’t think i will marry and have children.  it’s not that i’m convinced it won’t happen; it’s more that i’m not convinced it will happen.  which leaves me with this—what my life is in this moment, with no promises of what it can be beyond that.

i’ve been thinking about this.  not so much in terms of the fact that i’m not married with children at a point in my life when i fully expected i would be.  instead, i’ve been thinking about the idea of living a teleological life—an ends-driven life.  and of how to stop living an ends-driven life.  this is something i dislike intensely about Mormonism—its tendency to focus attention so fully on accomplishing specific ends.  getting married.  getting married in the temple.  being married with children.  having enough children.  having those children behave well.  having children remain active in the church.  having children serve missions.  having all of one’s children get married in the temple.  have you noticed how it’s never enough?  these ends have ways of swelling? of building on themselves?

it may not all be conscious and most of them would certainly not be held up as ‘official’ goals that must be reached in order to be ’spiritual.’  but i defy anyone to tell me that mormon culture does not measure spirituality based on such milestones (among many others).  and then there’s the fact that our doctrine is also teleological.  it’s about achieving certain ends—getting to the celestial kingdom.  becoming like god.  eternal progression.  the list could go on.

i’m sick of living this way.  of always thinking forward to when i’ll reach the next goal.  of valuing myself and my life in terms of whether i’ve reached certain goals.  and if i’ve done so on a reasonable timeline.  i can hear the objections.  ‘but Amelia, that’s not how you’re supposed to interpret these teachings! you’re not meant to use them to judge yourself!’  i know that’s the official line.  but i disagree.  any ends-driven teaching is, by definition, meant to result in an adherent measuring herself against that goal.  i’m done measuring myself.  (well, i should qualify: i’m done doing it consciously.  i’m sure it will take me more time to accomplish it than saying ‘i’m done’ since i’m convinced it’s a deeply ingrained thought process.)

so how do i want to live instead?  i want to live in this moment.  i want to see the beauty in my world now.  i want to recognize the value in my life as it is.  right now.  i don’t want this in some misguided effort to ‘eat, drink, and be merry.’  for some reason mormons (among other Christians, i’m sure) think that anytime someone says they want to live in the now and for this moment, it’s because the person is lacking.  they want short term pleasure rather than long term joy.  they seek insubstantial gratification rather than true accomplishment.  nothing could be further from the truth.  i want joy.  i want beauty.  i want every good thing.  i want to love the people i encounter the way christ teaches us to love.  and i think i will find these things if i stop spending so much time thinking about where i should be and where i hope to be and instead embrace where i am.

by Zenaida

Stake Conference:

The Stake President’s message this time was mainly about the Energy Drink “epidemic.” He began by reminding us that the Ensign is scripture. Then encouraged us to go home and read the article on energy drinks with our children.

First, let me say a couple of things:

I like the article. It is written by an MD who works at a family practice and volunteers at the MTC. The graphics are a bit neon, drugs-are-scary kind of graphics, but the chart that shows caffeine levels is informative, and the pictures of spiders on caffeine is very cool.

I agree that energy drinks are an inappropriate staple in anyone’s diet, and from what I can tell, the fad among teenagers and college students is damaging.

Next, my questions:

Is Ensign scripture? How much? Is every poem that Pres. Monson quotes, or every anecdotal story told scripture? Is it only the First Presidency messages, or is Shari Phippen’s inspiring story also scripture? Does this elevate her to the level of prophetess? Does one have to be a prophet to write scripture, or is there a difference between prophetic writing and scripture? Is our RS/PH manual scripture, or only the documents added to the offical canon (Official Declarations/Proclomations)?

Is the church responsible for the well-being of its members, including public health anouncements? The Word of Wisdom would seem to suggest so. Why do we restrict such anouncements to behavioral issues, and is this article an argument for including energy drinks in the prohibitions found in the WoW?

Almost every definition of scripture that I have seen includes mention of the Bible. It is most often a collection of sacred writings associate with a religion (most often Christianity). There is only one from Webster’s that defines scripture as: “1. Anything written; a writing; a document; an inscription.”

Image found here.