Happy Easter

I love Easter.  I love the emphasis on Jesus Christ, and I love the Hope that seems to permeate everything around this time.  Hope is one of my favorite words.  I used to have a ring that said Hope on it, but sadly I lost it.  It was a constant reminder to have Hope and to trust Christ, the source of all hope.

I am always struck by how often Hope is mentioned in the scriptures.  One of my favorite scriptures about Hope is this one:


Moroni 10:20 Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity.

It makes sense of a rather abstract concept in a way my logical brain can understand.  We have to have faith, a belief in things that are hoped for but not seen, in God and Christ.  Therefore, if we have Faith we also have Hope: Hope that the Atonement can heal us and make us whole, Hope that God loves us and will take care of us, Hope that the good and divine in our Brothers and Sisters will win out in the end.  And if we Hope and believe all that, the natural consequence will be an increase in the Charity we show to others.  

That, more than anything, is what the example of Jesus teaches me.   Jesus showed endless Charity to those around him while he was on earth, and shows endless Charity to us now. Charity is the pure Love of Christ - God is all about Love.  As we strive to become more like God and his Son, unconditionally Loving others is the most important quality we can foster; everything else follows naturally from that Love.  If we don't have Hope, and allow ourselves to get discouraged and disheartened, our ability to Love will be greatly hindered.

I don't want to sound preachy...I need to work more on this than anyone, and this post is more a reminder for me than anything else.  But I hope that today, on the day of Christ's resurrection, we can take a moment to remember Hope and all that entails.

Romans 15:13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

Bubbles

I recently discovered that you can watch Shark Week on Netflix.  As if I didn't have enough procrastination time suckers to tempt me!  I've been watching it today while I study for my Statistics midterm, and not going to lie, it is making me consider a change of career.  Maybe I should go be a marine biologist...no cause that takes a lot of school too.  Maybe I should just go be a beach bum/dive master at some exotic resort...no, I don't have enough dive experience yet...I guess I'll stay in grad school.

But I do think the ocean is pretty cool.  And I do want to dive more.  It has been a year since I went last, and I have never been anywhere with stuff to see.  (There aren't many reefs in the rocky mountains.)  Here are the top ten animals I want to see and swim with:

10.  Seals: They are so funny!

9. Manta Rays: they can have wing-spans as big as 20 feet and the way they move is so pretty.

8. Dolphins...obviously.

7.  Octopi:  They are very, very smart.  They learn new skills super quickly.  They are some of the best animals in the world at camouflage; even the texture of their skin changes.

6.  A blue tang fish, which is commonly known as Dory:  Also, a clown fish.  As dorky as it sounds, I want to be able to say that I just kept swimming and found Nemo.

5.  Manatees:  They just look so sweet!

4.  Sea turtles:  I have a soft spot in my heart for turtles.  My brother had a red-eared turtle from the time I can remember.

3.  Seahorses: I did a report on these in elementary school and have wanted to see a real one ever since.

2.  Sea anemones:  they look like something you would see in outer space.

1.  Whale sharks!  These are sooo cool!  They are the biggest fish in the world.  Like gigantic underwater vacuums, they suck huge amounts of water (and small fish and plankton along with it) into their bellies.  They are really smart and really docile.

My Desk: A History

I love my desk.  It is made out of wood (I'm not sure what kind). It is about four feet tall, with three deep drawers.  The top folds down to provide a work space, and folds up to hide how messy your work space has become.  There are four compartments inside.  Right now they hold a stapler, tape, a pencil sharpener, a tin with Disney princesses on the outside and pens on the inside, a calculator, scissors, a tide-to-go pen, my checkbook, paperclips, various bills to be paid, tons of post-it notes, half a pack of virginia slims, and a cabl...wait...

Yes, you read that correctly.  I have half a pack of virginia slim cigarettes in my desk.  And let me tell you why.

I inherited my desk from my Great Grannie Helen. The cigarettes were in the desk when she died and none of us have had the inclination to throw them away.  They just kind of belong there.

She was pretty awesome.  She is my dad's mom's mom.  She was born in 1920 in Yuba City, California. She was a single mom for a large chunk of time, no small task in the '40s and '50s. But I obviously did not know her then.

My memories of her are from much later in her life, especially after she moved to Utah.  She lived most of her life in the San Francisco bay area, so she never had to learn how to drive.  I would go with my Grannie or my mom to take her to get groceries.  Afterwards, we would go to The Olive Garden for soup, salad and breadsticks.  Inevitably we would end with a piece of lemon cake.  If you haven't tried it, you really should.  It is delicious, and I can never go to The Olive Garden or eat a piece of that cake with out thinking of her.

She liked to read.  We had that in common.  She read the paper every morning.

She liked nice things (we also had that in common)...cashmere sweaters, good china, fancy watches.  For some reason I remember her always having cool watches.

She liked things a certain way: she always bought Golden Toe socks, always smoked virginia slims, and almost always had a Vodka martini with olives before dinner.

I asked her once why she liked martinis so much.  She said she didn't like them, that they were disgusting.  So I asked her why she kept drinking them.  She said that it was just what people did.

She was big on thank you notes.  Sending thank you cards was important: it was what was polite, and it was what showed that you had class.  In fact, writing in general was a thing for her.  She always sent me birthday cards.  I didn't know this till recently, but she made a point of writing to my mom every time my dad was out of town (which was a lot).  She also kept journals.  The bad news about that is that she burned most of them before she died.

She smoked for most of her life, always virginia slims.  Even after she got sick and was told to quit by her doctors...and her family...she would bribe the handy-man to buy her virginia slims.

I used to think the smoking made her lips lopsided because she held her cigarettes on the right side of her mouth, and when she would smile, she smiled more with the right side than the left.  (I don't think that was it though; I noticed the other day that I do the same thing.)  She had a great smile.

                   

My Feminist Debut

You all are probably tired of reading about my experiences with faith lately.  But, sorry, I don't write this blog for you! (That's only half true...it is for you, but it is also a space for me to work out my thoughts :).)  Besides that, it has really been on my mind a lot lately.  I'm not sure why; as part of life, I guess we all go through periods of reflection and 'working things out.'

Right now, one of the things I have been working on sorting out is the way women are treated in the LDS church.  I really like the church's words about women: women are daughters of Heavenly Parents with the potential to become Divine themselves.  Women and men are meant to be partners in this life and the next, working together to better themselves, each other, and the world around them.  Men and women have complimentary and equally valuable innate abilities.

However, each of these teachings can be twisted into something misogynistic and terrible.  A women's greatest value comes from her role as mothers: what message does this send to women who can't have children?  Men preside over their wives and families with priesthood authority: this makes it so easy for men to abuse their priesthood...and their wives, whether physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Women and men have specific roles they must fill and if they don't fit the mold, there is something wrong with them: God made us different for a reason.  Why should we erase that by forcing round pegs in to square holes? (These are just a few examples - I could go on.)

Systemically, I've seen these misinterpretations be employed both unintentionally, and for self serving reasons; I've seen them be the result of ignorance and thoughtlessness; I've seen them be transmitted, sometimes innocently sometimes consciously, from generation to generation.  I've been feeling more and more that it is important to acknowledge that they exist and to address them head on, rather than sweeping the issue under the rug like it has been for so long.

As an individual, I am tired of being shushed when I bring up these kinds of issues.  Too often, I have been told that I need to be more faithful, or if only I truly understood my role as a woman, I wouldn't ask such 'impertinent' questions.  I find this very patronizing. Don't assume that I am on some kind of lower spiritual plane because I ask, don't equate being curious with being weak, and do not equate unquestioning obedience with being strong.

So when one of the writers over at The Exponent II, a blog for Mormon Feminists, invited me to write a guest post I decided to do it.  It is kind of scary for me to be this open about my struggles.  It is making me feel really vulnerable.  Please understand, I am in the middle of a process here.  I am still a practicing Mormon - I have not lost faith in the Church or in God.  In fact, the opposite is true.  I have enough faith in the Church to stick with it in spite of some personal conflicts.  I just wanted to put my questions out there to get some different perspectives, and see what other people think.

And I want other people who might be having the same struggles to know that they are not alone.  Too often, we dismiss people's concerns when we don't share them.  Just because you don't have a problem with something doesn't mean no one else does either.  It also doesn't make their concern less valid.  Just because some one asks questions and looks at their belief system critically does not mean they are giving it up.  It gets frustrating sometimes, and it can be disorienting and scary, but I have always come out the other side with a firmer grasp on what I believe and why.

If you want to read my Exponent post, you can check it out here: Learning a Lesson