Discouraged

My heart is hurting today. What the the Kate Kelly disciplinary hearing and the recent media attention, I've been thinking a lot about whether people like me really fit in the church.

I've read/heard the criticism from some members of the church that they feel like the members of OW and their supporters are inevitably in for heartache if the answer to their question is no, women can't receive the priesthood. What people who say that don't understand is that all feminists feel that heartache anyway (regardless of their feelings about the ordination of women), every time they go to church and everything's just the same.

I recently read THIS ESSAY, in response to the Mormon Priestess essay and it gave me a lot of hope and encouragement. It was a feeling that has become familiar to me over years of seeking, struggling, questioning, discussing these types of issues. Every once in a while, you find a golden nugget of someone who just GETS it. Their testimony buoys yours up with hopes of a future in which the power structure of the church might be more accessible to women, or one in which women might know more about their eternal destiny and their Mother. Every once in a while I find someone/something that helps me believe that that sort of paradigm shifting revelation is just around the corner. Valerie Hudson's book was like that for me. The All Are Alike list was like that for me. Conversations with certain people were like that for me.

But then comes the inevitable buzzkill. You go to church and it's men in front, men in charge, men deciding everything for everyone, it's lessons about husbands presiding in the home, it's archaic comments about gender roles, it's the glaring sexism in the temple ceremonies and people talking about how wonderful it is and sometimes I just feel like I'm banging my head against the wall.

I wonder why these things haven't changed. Why don't they change? Maybe God likes it the way it is, maybe He doesn't. What hurts is that people don't want them to. People like it the way it is. People don't even see the problem with it, or they refuse to.

What hurts is that the people around me don't even see the need for the the revelations that could help women in the church feel more empowered, visible, vocal. They don't even want more knowledge about the eternal destiny of women and their Mother in Heaven. They don't care. And that realization is what makes me feel like an outsider in my own church.

Comments

  1. Katie ChorakJune 24, 2014 at 11:30 AM

    You're perspective does make sense to me and I care! I would gladly see things changed, and have wondered about the silence about the female aspect of God. I don't know if the church will change, but I'm with you. Love you!

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