Oh, yes....sometimes I just don't know when to stop talking but I'm going to say what I think about this Pant Sunday and then I'll be quiet. Well....for now, anyhow!!
So....Somewhere around 1976, I mailed some poems to the Ensign. I'd written a few little heartfelt sentiments about adoption. Actually they were written to the birth mother of one of my boys. I was so desirous to write and find an outlet to express my feelings. I was plagued with doubts of my ability to do so but decided to be brave and send them after having sent a query to the Church magazine.
Sometime later I received a letter from Lavina Fielding (Associate Editor of the Ensign). She explained that they had so much poetry coming in and while she really liked what I had written, it would take a very long time before it would be used and she explained the process of how it is done.
She encouraged me to share my writing and felt that a good venue for me would be 2 sources and she enclosed one of each...Sunstone magazine and The Exponent in newspaper format. Sunstone Magazine was only a couple of years old having started in 1974. The Exponent is still in existence today and it looks like they have gone modern and have a blog. When I checked it out last night I see they are on board with the Pants for Sunday drive .... here
I have not looked at either in years. When I received my copies of both publications I was so excited and yes, flattered that the Associate Editor of the Church magazine, felt I should use these to share my feelings about the Gospel and my take on life. BUT when I read them I was unimpressed and disillusioned and shocked. It came across to me as disgruntled, dissatisfied, discontented women. Women that were frustrated and felt the Church was a good ol' boy club, women did not receive their fair share etc. etc. Their voices to me were strident. Discord. Not how I felt. At all.
I had none of those desires to try to remedy the situation by lending my voice, my association, to something that did not represent the core of who I was/am.
Responding to Sister Fielding's kind and generous guidance and saying Thanks but no thanks, somehow or other opened a dialogue between the two of us.
At that time in my life I was on overload and doing way to many Church callings in our small Branch. Our daughter especially had struggles with it. One day I was driving down the road and saw a non-member, all peaceful looking, serenely sitting by her porch step petting a goat! I felt I had the Gospel but no peace and she had peace and no Gospel. I was learning what every woman in the world has to learn at some time or other....how to balance the best you can and stay sane and feel the peace the Gospel can bring into our lives.
Sister Fielding and I talked about this. She said she was writing an Ensign article and she'd like me to share what I'd learned PLUS she wanted to mail me her manuscript, asked me to read it and give her my thoughts.
It arrived in the mail. I read it. Made my notes and sent it back.
So....Somewhere around 1976, I mailed some poems to the Ensign. I'd written a few little heartfelt sentiments about adoption. Actually they were written to the birth mother of one of my boys. I was so desirous to write and find an outlet to express my feelings. I was plagued with doubts of my ability to do so but decided to be brave and send them after having sent a query to the Church magazine.
Sometime later I received a letter from Lavina Fielding (Associate Editor of the Ensign). She explained that they had so much poetry coming in and while she really liked what I had written, it would take a very long time before it would be used and she explained the process of how it is done.
She encouraged me to share my writing and felt that a good venue for me would be 2 sources and she enclosed one of each...Sunstone magazine and The Exponent in newspaper format. Sunstone Magazine was only a couple of years old having started in 1974. The Exponent is still in existence today and it looks like they have gone modern and have a blog. When I checked it out last night I see they are on board with the Pants for Sunday drive .... here
I have not looked at either in years. When I received my copies of both publications I was so excited and yes, flattered that the Associate Editor of the Church magazine, felt I should use these to share my feelings about the Gospel and my take on life. BUT when I read them I was unimpressed and disillusioned and shocked. It came across to me as disgruntled, dissatisfied, discontented women. Women that were frustrated and felt the Church was a good ol' boy club, women did not receive their fair share etc. etc. Their voices to me were strident. Discord. Not how I felt. At all.
I had none of those desires to try to remedy the situation by lending my voice, my association, to something that did not represent the core of who I was/am.
Responding to Sister Fielding's kind and generous guidance and saying Thanks but no thanks, somehow or other opened a dialogue between the two of us.
At that time in my life I was on overload and doing way to many Church callings in our small Branch. Our daughter especially had struggles with it. One day I was driving down the road and saw a non-member, all peaceful looking, serenely sitting by her porch step petting a goat! I felt I had the Gospel but no peace and she had peace and no Gospel. I was learning what every woman in the world has to learn at some time or other....how to balance the best you can and stay sane and feel the peace the Gospel can bring into our lives.
Sister Fielding and I talked about this. She said she was writing an Ensign article and she'd like me to share what I'd learned PLUS she wanted to mail me her manuscript, asked me to read it and give her my thoughts.
It arrived in the mail. I read it. Made my notes and sent it back.
PROBLEMS, SOLUTIONS: BEING A LATTER-DAY SAINT WOMAN TODAY by Lavina Fielding (associate Editor) March 1976
here
(this is my paragraph or two included in the above article)
*******************************************
One convert in Alaska who had four or five major Church responsibilities in addition to being the wife of a branch president and mother of five, shares her own feelings and personal solution:
(this is my paragraph or two included in the above article)
*******************************************
One convert in Alaska who had four or five major Church responsibilities in addition to being the wife of a branch president and mother of five, shares her own feelings and personal solution:
“Others didn’t seem to feel their home life was going downhill because of Church jobs. I knew mine was. Others didn’t seem to be bothered by the pressure. I was. But I also felt that any home problems were my fault because I wasn’t doing my Church job well enough to merit the Lord’s blessing. I’d determine to try harder.”
This cycle of guilty effort and exhausted frustration finally brought her, not to a breakdown, but to a breakthrough.
“That weekend, though I’d prayed many times before, I finally heard an answer. There is a difference between an inspired calling and a divine calling. Inspired callings are made through an instrument of the Lord and are essential to an individual’s growth, but they are all temporary. A divine calling is eternal in duration and was made by the Lord himself. I wasn’t sustained at sacrament meeting to be a wife. I wasn’t set apart to motherhood. The Spirit bore witness to me at my marriage and at the birth of my children that this call was in effect.” She discussed her feelings with her husband and now has Church assignments that she feels are “tailored to my family’s needs.”
She adds, “And my children were thrilled.”
***********************************************************
A couple of years later, 1978 was the Equal Rights Amendment battle. To me this wasn't about LDS women against LDS women so I didn't feel the conflict that perhaps some did. I blogged before about my friend and I having a garage sale, taking the funds and flying to SLC to attend workshops etc. on what this really meant. It was more about unity of the women. At least that is what I remember.
*************************************************************************
Fast forward 7 years from 1976 to 1983, to my first contact with Sister Fielding and she has been excommunicated at this point. Along with several others. Intellectuals all. Brilliant minds and talents and abilities. Most had generations of LDS ancestors.
Last night I googled her name and I have no idea what she is doing now and didn't keep searching but the article I found from 2003, showed that she had married . well, just read this dab of info...
***********************************************************
A couple of years later, 1978 was the Equal Rights Amendment battle. To me this wasn't about LDS women against LDS women so I didn't feel the conflict that perhaps some did. I blogged before about my friend and I having a garage sale, taking the funds and flying to SLC to attend workshops etc. on what this really meant. It was more about unity of the women. At least that is what I remember.
*************************************************************************
Fast forward 7 years from 1976 to 1983, to my first contact with Sister Fielding and she has been excommunicated at this point. Along with several others. Intellectuals all. Brilliant minds and talents and abilities. Most had generations of LDS ancestors.
Last night I googled her name and I have no idea what she is doing now and didn't keep searching but the article I found from 2003, showed that she had married . well, just read this dab of info...
Lavina Fielding Anderson, excommunicated for publishing a list of attacks on intellectuals by LDS leaders, has compared herself to a coin perched precariously on its edge, vulnerable to toppling one way or the other.
"That's the space I've claimed for myself," said Anderson, a writer and researcher who once worked for the church's official magazines. "I'm not in, but I won't be out, either. It's a balancing act every day."
Lavina Fielding Anderson knew a month before her excommunication that she would be punished for publicly exposing the church's harsh dealings with intellectuals over the years.
She wondered what it would this do to her 12-year-old son, Christian, her husband, Paul, and their parents, brothers and sisters, all of whom were active, temple-going members of the church. Were the issues really that important? Was she acting out of love or out of pride and pique?
Anderson felt then and continues to feel that it was the right thing to do. She also decided to live a completely Mormon lifestyle within the limitations imposed on her. She still attends church every Sunday.
"I wasn't sure I could live it out, week by week," Anderson said Thursday. "It's a blessing of a magnitude that I cannot even begin to express that I've been able to -- so far."
In the past decade, she has come to believe she has a distinct "calling" in the Mormon kingdom (not the church) to "do" church vicariously for all those who no longer feel safe or welcome in their own wards.
"Just showing up, Sunday after Sunday, means I'm bearing a testimony of presence, even when I can't bear any other kind of testimony," she said.
She has learned to partake of the sacrament spiritually while being forbidden to partake physically. She discovered in the LDS Handbook of Instructions that nonmembers can be asked to play the piano for Relief Society so she approached the bishop who gave permission to have her accompany the hymns as "an uncalled but permanent substitute."
I also found this sentence in another article about her....
Anderson remains as active in the LDS Church as her excommunicant status allows; she has been described as exemplary of an emerging "church in exile" composed of faithful excommunicants.
It's not about the Pants.
here
I will post one more time on this subject beyond what I just posted. JabberWockey=me!!. Are purging and posting synonyms!???? I've taken up so much of your time but I still want to say a bit more.
It's not about the Pants.
here
I will post one more time on this subject beyond what I just posted. JabberWockey=me!!. Are purging and posting synonyms!???? I've taken up so much of your time but I still want to say a bit more.
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