March 2018

This month I marched with over 1000 former and current members of the LDS faith against the practice of one on one Bishop worthiness interviews. For reference, worthiness interviews begin around the age of 12 for most members, and are continued throughout the lifespan as "preparing" to attend Temple ceremonies.

The speakers of the event included a female protestant pastor and survivor or sexual abuse during her youth interviews in the church, the regional director of SNAP (Survivor Network Against Pastoral Rape), an LDS sex therapists who has worked with dozens of survivors of sexual abuse in the church, and a Sexologist who calls the abuse occurring in the church "psychosexual abuse."  Behind them, stood 6-10 silent individuals that I assume could not muster the words to tell their stories, but whose rage and courage were loud and clear. I stood in the crowd, a lump in my throat, my chest burning.  A man holding a sign began to weep as the speakers condemned the shame that is literally killing children in the LDS church. He later shared he had considered suicide as a teenager due to the shaming of a Bishop against him for masturbation as a teenager. In Utah the teen suicide rate is 4x the national average. A mother wrapped herself around her young adult daughter, sitting and holding back tears from her wheelchair, whose sign read, "I'm done with being silent." I walked alongside a man whose sister had taken her own life as an adult, unable to cope anymore with the repercussions of being sexually abused by her Bishop as a child.

My experiences with worthiness interviews began at age 12, and culminated in the most absurd shaming and victim blaming when I was 19. It was surreal to be surrounded by people who knew the pain. Every story I heard was uniquely horrifying, and somehow braided with very similarly twisted threads: of abusing power, obsessive and voyeuristic focus on youth's natural desire to pleasure themselves, shaming sexual desire, blaming and silencing survivors who come with reports of outside sexual abuse, and grave nightmares of sexual assault, all behind these Bishop's doors.  I am beyond my potential to feel the amount of grief and shame that has taken lives, and has been silently crushing so many individuals, and little ones that have been victimized by this practice.

From an (exclusively  male) clergy that draws much of its message from the old and  new testament, it is ironic they dangle a promise of worth and peace as bait for union with god, and "cause any of these little ones to stumble in coming to Jesus," since if you follow the same verse "it would be better for a millstone to be strung around their necks and they be drowned into the sea."  That was definitely a paraphrase for which I do not care to approach a bible to check, but you understand.

In a place where some will never question the teachings of their leaders, it was a powerful moment, to be with a group in such solidarity, marching five blocks through SLC,  to the thallic building that is the church headquarters, roaring with signs.

Riot = Not Quiet

"Both love and democracy depend on voice---having a voice and also the resonance that makes it possible to speak and be heard." 

~Carol Gilligan~

Ramona Quimby

Sonnet to Orpheus II, 29

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space

around you.

Let this darkness be a bell tower

and you the bell. As you ring.

what batters you becomes your strength.

Move back and forth into the change.

What is it like, such intensity of pain?

If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,

be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,

say to the silent earth: I flow.

To the rushing water, speak: I am. 

-Rainer Maria Rilke

A woman with a mind

"We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light."

Saint Hildegard of Bingen, German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath.

Scrub Pine

Top of Spruce Pine, 1938, Samuel P. Adams

I have yet to put words to the way the Scrub Pine forests reached for me when I moved to Florida. There are not a variety of trees in these parts but I do love these creatures, from the large flaky bark to their long leaves. They are unassuming trees, and survive in dry conditions.  Florida is desert like really, despite its summer rain. The landscape is flat, the karst spreads beneath, its pores once pumping with spring water. I do miss finding rocks and boulders on the ground, but I have found the absence of the familiar makes space for a kind of living I need. When you question everything, there is so much you can learn. 

A Litany for Survival
Audre Lorde

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours:
For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak
we are afraid our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

Grandma Ruth

Grandma Ruth was my stepfather's mother and a sweet, devout, modest woman.  She was a daughter of sturdy mormon pioneers. She worked for years on the first floor of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum, her desk tucked in a corner next to an old mantal and beneath an oversized antique painting of Joseph Smith. She loved a yappy dog for thirteen years, named Clementine, who died more than a decade ago but whom she referred to continuously in her final year of life. On occasion she would call me in Florida and marvel at how much I had moved and travelled. I tried to see her one last time to say goodbye this fall, booked a ticket to Salt Lake City and she was already gone. I always liked the way my stepfather talked about her, and to her. There was a kindness about her even if she was simple. She married once and lost, and lived the rest of her life single.  She was a quiet presence in my life, even if not physically, I always felt her in the world.  Her leaving has been a reminder to me about death, that thing that once pummeled me but for the most part has just flicked me in the eye once in a while.  I have lost family members over the years to anger,  to prison time, to broken and unrepairable trust. To grieve someone who lives really is a terrible thing.  But to lay someone down to death is a natural experience, one of loss and it's finality a reminder that life is a gift, that love is all tied up in it's string.