Two years ago, when I was writing a book about my own life as a Mormon, of which I am an authority, I was filled with anxieties about not being good enough, not smart enough, and on and on.  My wise editor, Blair Hodges, was patient and listened for many weeks and then one day he said a line that has changed everything for me.  He said, “Listen, no one else is going to take you seriously until you take yourself seriously.” The doors swung wide open. 

I have looked back on that experience so often and wondered why it was that I felt so much insecurity about asserting my voice.  Not my voice as part of a chorus of other voices, or one that had offered ideas to someone else, not my voice as an influence, but my voice, as a stand alone entity.  In the two years since, I’ve realized that my panic was much in part because my voice had never been taken seriously up to that point in my life.  In church spaces I had never been in charge.  I had never had a platform that was solely and authoritatively mine in which to speak. Particularly one in which both genders recognized that a female was in charge.  Even though in theory I had been given freedom and power to use my voice within the church, in practice, I had not. [Read more…]

I remember once, as a teenager, asking my dad how he stayed in the church back when the church wouldn’t allow black members to hold the priesthood or attend the temple. I was probably 16 or 17, because I’m pretty sure I was driving. I don’t think I was asking an accusatory question, though I was 16 or 17, so who knows. And I don’t remember how my dad responded.

I do remember, though, that his response was complicated, both a bearing of testimony and an acknowledgement that the pre-1978 racial policies of the church were bad. It was messier than the black and white world a teenager craves. [Read more…]