After being inspired by a TED talk and a mock film festival at my ad agency, I decided to record a second a day out of my life for a limited time. I began on March 20th, 2013, and decided to end after recording sixty days, or sixty seconds worth of film. These are mostly just random moments, but I believe personal history is valid, and this became a kind of video journal project. So much had happened in the previous year: a new job for my husband, followed by a new job for me, a new house for our family, our son starting therapeutic school, and the passing of my father. I began to realize that our lives are made up of these big milestones that sometimes sneak up on us without our realizing how one thing leads to another and suddenly you’re dealing with nearly a whole new life for your family. But that life is also made up of tiny moments of simple beauty and the mundane.

It may or may not be apparent, but this project includes film some milestone events, including:

• A clean MRI for my son with epilepsy, followed by a clean EEG, allowing us to begin to taper medication he’s had since infancy
• A sisterhood ceremony after the unexpected death of a friend I knew through Mormon feminist circles
• Meeting my newborn niece for the first time
• The last days of my time at my ad agency job, as I begin a new job next week with more work-from-home flexibility

I am one of those lucky people who, along with 60,000 of my fellow fans, will be attending one of the three nights of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert next week. This is a family tradition, starting from when I was old enough (8 years old) to attend the concerts with my father. My mom sang in the ‘MoTab’ for twenty years, from the time I was six until I was twenty-six, and this 15-20 hour week commitment on her part has my dad saying he was a “bishop’s wife” for twenty years. In fact, my mother’s singing in the choir was one of the best feminist examples I could have had growing up in my very traditional family, an example where my stay-at-home mother shared her non-maternal talents outside the home, and where my sole-provider father cared for all the children, tucking us into bed on weekly rehearsal nights (every Thursday, many Tuesdays, and more when they were planning for an event, tour, or recording a CD), and getting us up and ready for Church early on Sunday mornings. Annual choir tours were three weeks long, with my mom, and sometimes my father, leaving for Australia, Hawaii, Eastern (then-communist) Europe, Western Europe, the Southern US states, and many more places to be missionaries for the Church through music.

I love the Choir. I love each director and what he brought to the Choir. How I used to thrill when the men of the choir would file into the Tabernacle, singing in unison, “Oh Come, Oh Come Emanuel.” The Christmas concert has changed a lot over the years. The Orchestra at Temple Square has been added, much to my delight. Having the Christmas concert at the Conference Center has allowed it to become more pageant-like, with dancers and special guest singers and narrators, generating DVD sales and bringing tens of thousands to the concerts, although with over 1 million ticket requests, most who register in the free online ticket lottery come away disappointed.

As proud as I am to have watched my mother participate and give service in this way, there is one part of her career that I don’t remember fondly.

Last week I read an obituary for Martin D. Ginsburg, the husband of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Several things struck me about this obituary; first, he was referred to as a “Supreme Court Spouse”. How many men are known for their wives, let alone referred to as the spouse of an important woman in the title of their own obituary?

But more striking is the kind of man Mr. Ginsburg was. Justice Ginsburg described her husband as “the only young man I dated who cared that I had a brain.” Early in the marriage, Mr. Ginsburg took over the cooking responsibilities when it became apparent that Justice Ginsburg had no interest in it.

The foundation of their relationship, they both said, was mutual respect and equality — and a willingness to share domestic duties.

Both Justice Ginsburg and Mr. Ginsburg made significant sacrifices in their personal and professional lives to accommodate the dreams of the other. Along with the two influential careers they both had, they raised two children and were happily married for 56 years.

Mr. Ginsburg said he was proud of his wife’s accomplishments and had no regrets about the compromises they made for each other.

“I have been supportive of my wife since the beginning of time, and she has been supportive of me,” Mr. Ginsburg told the Times in 1993. “It’s not sacrifice; it’s family.”

Reading this obituary made me hopeful; it’s proof that it is possible for both partners to to fulfill their individual dreams and still have a happy and functional home life. But it also made me a little sad that this kind of relationship seems so radical in the Mormon world-view and that LDS men like Martin Ginsburg seem so rare. I truly believe that if any culture should be producing men like Martin Ginsburg, it should be the Mormons.

I say this for a couple of reasons. Mormons are upwardly mobile people. Education and self-reliance are middle class virtues that our leaders emphasize on a frequent basis. As a result, a majority of the American membership fall somewhere within in this socio-economic class. LDS men are likely to pick careers in business or law because these professions allow for the support of a family.

More importantly, however, is the emphasis on family that is so integral to our religion and culture. The general authorities are constantly encouraging men to take an active role in their families. In the last two decades the rhetoric has changed to allow for the blurring of gender role lines. Mormon men are now told to do housework and change diapers, they are told that there is no domestic duty that is below them. And, of course, there is all that equal partnership rhetoric.

So this brings me back to my question, why aren’t there more Mormon men like Martin D. Ginsburg? Our culture is similar to the culture of the 1950′s that he came of age in. It’s not a question of socio-economic background since many Mormon men come from this same background. And if anything, Mormon men have an advantage in the equal partnership thing because of the directive placed on them by leaders of the church.

Can it be that the spiritual patriarchy that our religion practices is much more difficult to un-socialize than the secular patriarchy that Mr. Ginsburg would have grown up with in the 1940′s and 50′s? Does our schizophrenic emphasis on male presiding and priesthood power negate the good  of the equal partnership rhetoric?

I do think patriarchy is the culprit here but I’m not sure we can place the blame solely on the men of the church. When I was thinking about this problem I asked mr. mraynes why he thought there weren’t more Mormon Martin Ginsburgs? His response, there are plenty of Mormon men like Mr. Ginsburg, they just haven’t been encouraged to bloom by their wives.

mr. mraynes is a great example of this phenomenon. He grew up in a home and a church environment where equal partnership was combined with benevolent patriarchy. In fact, the patriarchy was so subtle  that he didn’t even recognize its existence until I came along. Had I been a more traditional woman, one who wanted a husband to provide and preside, that is exactly the kind of man he would have been. But I am not a traditional woman and I have demanded full equality. Our marriage looks a lot like the Ginsburg marriage and mr. mraynes has been perfectly willing to sacrifice so that we could achieve this. He believes, as Mr. Ginsburg believed, that “it’s not sacrifice; it’s family.”

I think mr. mraynes is probably right, most Mormon men would step up if their wives expressed a desire to pursue their interests outside of the home and emphasized the need to equally share domestic responsibilities. This leaves us, however, with the bleak reality that Mormon women have no use for men like Martin Ginsburg.

by mraynes

I was introduced recently to the work of up-and-coming Tel Aviv street artist, Know Hope. I don’t know that much about street art but I was deeply touched by his simple and profound messages of hope and love, especially in a city that knows so little of both. But it was his name that stopped me short; know and hope are two words that don’t naturally fit together for me.

The verb “know” means to be certain of the truth or factuality of a subject. “Hope” means to desire with anticipation. Perhaps it is because of my Mormon education that I see these two words as a contradiction.

When I think of the word “know”, I think of fast and testimony meeting: “I know the church is true…with every fiber of my being…without a shadow of a doubt.”

When I think of “hope”, I think of Alma 32:21: “And now as I said concerning faith–faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.”

The distinction is important to me. I have always been a little embarrassed of my lack of knowledge. In a church that places so much importance on personal revelation and truth, my seeming inability to get either has been deeply troubling. Despite my sincere efforts, the hours of fasting and scripture study, the strict obedience and the tearful pleadings with the Lord, I have never received a personal witness of the truthfulness of the gospel, or of Joseph Smith or of the Book of Mormon. I never even got an answer to whether mr. mraynes was the right man to marry. (I hope I made the right choice.)

Instead, my mind is often drawn to D&C 46: 13-14: “To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world. To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful.”

I do know that Jesus Christ is my Savior so I extend these verses to the answers I don’t have. I have accepted that for the time being, it is not for me to know. I believe that my belief is a spiritual gift. In fact, I believe that the with-holding of answers has been a tender mercy. My heavenly parents know me well enough to know that I could not and can not understand a dogmatic god and so I have not been allowed to be dogmatic myself. I am comfortable in Mormonism and if I knew, really knew, that the church was true I’m not sure that my eyes would be open to the things that could make it better. Not knowing has allowed me to be more charitable with those who struggle with their faith…to see shades of grey and interpret the gospel in a way that strengthens my relationship with God.

In not taking for granted that all choices by fallible men are divinely inspired, I have been allowed to ask questions that are scary and painful and viewed by some as “not useful.” I have asked why God allows horrible things to happen to innocent people. Why do the strong prey upon the weak? I have asked why God allows half of humanity to be routinely oppressed, violated and silenced. If women are equal to men, why can’t they have the priesthood or preside?  I ask why God would allow His church to sanction polygamy, racism and homophobia. And seriously, God, who’s idea was it to make the entrance age for nursery 18 months?

…I haven’t received any answers. But I continue to keep my covenants, fulfill my callings, attend church every week and go to the temple. I teach my children about God and maintain my relationship with my heavenly parents. I try not to let the wound of unanswered questions fester. I do all of this because I love God, because I am stubborn and because I have theories and ideas that work for me. That I can believe in. That I can hope for.

All of this is a long way of saying that just because some of us have questions it doesn’t mean that we are hostile to the church…or to the prophet…or to those who are generally satisfied and know that all of it is true. We just haven’t received the same answers. And that can be a blessing in and of itself. It can be the way that each of us knows hope.

by mr.mraynes

My first guest post was principally intended as an exposition of music’s role in spirituality and my own feelings about its potential to affect all of us. Now my aim is to explore some more specific issues regarding the Church’s complicated relationship with the art form.

First, let us note that music has always been an important component of worship in western religion and that church leaders have long viewed it with mistrust. One historical example: In the Counterreformation, as the Catholic Church struggled against the burgeoning Protestant movement, the Council of Trent convened to discuss changes that would bring back conservatives that had left because of the Church’s perceived decadence. Among the topics they discussed was whether liturgical music had become too ornate and complex and obscured sacred texts in their services. They worried congregations were beginning to focus their worship on the music itself rather than the message of the mass’s words. An oft-related legend (now considered spurious) is that Cardinal Borromeo, upon hearing the composer Palastrina’s new Pope Marcellus Mass, was so struck with its simplicity and purity of expression that he influenced the Council to pull back from its initially stringent regulations on church music.

Our own church’s conflicted attitude toward music is remarkably similar.