Welcoming the New Girl

I am remiss that I did not post this here earlier but it has come up in recent days. I heard that there is going to be a gathering of LDS women to talk about ways to plan and execute a blessing ceremony like the one I did and then the topic came up again over at the Exponent about ways that LDS women can be priestesses in their homes and lives. Here on my blog I tell a more personal journey to priestesshood that is separate from the church. The opportunity to welcoming a my new baby girl into my family was one of the first I've had since I started walking that path.

Originally, her blessing party was supposed to happen with her still inside me and it was going to be a mother's blessing for me in preparation to childbirth. Alas, she was born a little earlier than I anticipated. I was pleased to still have the party and with the help of some wonderful friends, I did very little in preparation for it (i.e. I showered and fed a baby, and made a phone call or two to order things for the party).

The prayer circle was so touching that I wanted a way to record it and share the words spoken with Elizabeth as she grew up. Click on the link below to view the book I look forward to sharing it with her as she grows older.

Welcoming the New Girl: a Photo Book and Slideshow




Thank you for being a part of welcoming my newest daughter as a reader of my blog. I hope you will add a hope/prayer/blessing/wish for her in the comments.

Turn Up the Volume: Adjusting Sound Levels in Temple Phraseology

I sat next to my mother in the instruction room as I escorted her through the temple for the first time and listened to the assistant to the matron say, “Some women are put off by the phrasing ‘queen and priestess unto your husband’.”

That was the closest thing to validation of a major feminist objection to LDS temple rites that I had ever heard from an official source. It felt good for this feminist, I will admit.

I joined the church in 2001 as a senior in high school and spent the next 10 years with the hope of converting my widowed mother so my fairy tale could come true. I dreamed of the day when she would be sealed to my deceased father in the temple and I would be sealed to them. I was heartbroken when I stood in the undedicated sealing room of the Sacramento temple with my mother in 2006. By that time, I had given up on her joining the church in my lifetime and had become resigned to performing her temple ordinances for her after her death. At least I had her permission for that.

After my own feminist awakening during which I broke from orthodoxy, I understood better than ever before some of the reasons why she showed little interest in being affiliated with the LDS church. During what I call my crisis of culture, I turned to my mother and she consoled me when I discovered that LDS women had once enjoyed the freedom of anointing and blessing others. She heard my anger and frustration at the sense of betrayal I felt when I learned that Goddess-loving feminists had been excommunicated for writing and speaking about Mother in Heaven.

At that time, I would have been more likely to guess that I would encounter church discipline before I saw the day of her baptism.

Interestingly, it was partly my culture crisis that led her to seriously entertain thoughts of being baptized LDS. Through organizations like WAVE, Sunstone and Mormon Stories she encountered Mormons like her—feminist, liberal and non-literal believers.  Along with me, she also encountered Dialogue, The Exponent II, Daughters of Mormonism and Feminist Mormon Housewives.  She saw me flourish in a way she had never seen before. In May of last year she was baptized. In preparation for the temple she read Packer’s The Holy Temple and the temple prep manual and also Maxine Hank’s Women and Authority.

As her date of eligibility to attend the temple approached, I had no idea how I would help her prepare or how I was even supposed to feel. With my awareness of the troublesome parts of the temple, I vacillated between warning her about what she would find objectionable there and letting her discover things for herself.

And yet, we still found ourselves sitting side by side in the temple as she pondered her initiatory. The assistant to the matron gave us pause. Her statement was more than I had ever hoped to hear regarding the troublesome subordination of women under their husbands. The matron then went on to stress the supreme importance of women having a strong personal relationship with God.

As she spoke, it was like she was showing me a control panel with levers to adjust sound levels. Language does not come with scales illustrating how certain phrases are more important than others. If the words of the temple were laid down likes tracks of a song, I began to sense that “unto your husband” would be laid down much softer in volume than “hearken to the counsel of God.”

To our ears, it sounds as if the phrases are equal in importance or maybe that hearkening to one’s husband is more important because it is stated first. Maybe it follows the academic tradition of the most important being placed last and the emphasis is really on our relationship with our heavenly parents.  Perhaps the phrasing implies that hearkening to one’s spouse is just as important as hearkening to God. In any case, the statements themselves seem to indicate that it is very much open to personal interpretation when determining the relationship between the two.

I went through the rest of the session thinking of the sound volumes on each phrase and thinking that my responsibility was to remember the primacy of my personal relationship with divinity.

I still wish to someday hear men counseled in the temple to hearken to their wives. Until then, the personal nature of temple attendance allows each person in attendance to determine how loud certain tracks will be when laid down for the final cut. I cannot all together reject outright the value of being a team player and counseling with my husband, but I can choose for myself how loudly I will hear it when I play the message of the temple in my mind.

Thanks to the wise counsel of a temple matron, I choose to turn up the volume of the counsel and direction of God so that the Holy Spirit will be my guide.

Thoughts on Honoring Female Life Stages

(copied and pasted from a Sisters Speak question over at Exponent)

"Lately I have been pondering women’s life cycles and how each phase of a woman’s life can be related to ceremony and celebration. I’ve been exploring traditions from other cultures and religions and toying with the creation of some of my own. Since I have two small daughters (one just born earlier this week), I recognize the opportunity to honor their life stages as they grow up and to think of ways to honor the life stages that I will continue through. Brainstorming is always fun because the world is wide open. I had planned what I had hoped would be a beautiful mother’s blessing ceremony at the end of my pregnancy but my daughter surprised me by showing up two weeks before the party!

I had planned for one of my wise woman friends to lead a circle of women in a prayer circle where each person would have an opportunity to state their hopes/wishes/positive visualization/affirmation for a healthy birth and strong transition to motherhood. The party was going to get started with henna and I was going to have my belly painted with henna as well. Plans have changed but I am still planning on having the party, just with my daughter outside rather than in.

Instead of the blessing ceremony on my pregnancy, now the focus has shifted to a presentation of my daughter to her circle of wise women. My plan is to present her, introduce her through describing her ancestresses (complete with matriarchal lineage!) and then write down the blessings/wishes/hopes/dreams/wisdom that each person in the circle wishes to impart to her. Having this type of a ceremony helps me not resent the patriarchal presenation and blessing that she’ll experience with her name and a blessing ceremony done by my husband and his circle of men. I’m happy to have both done in this way and appreciate the balance it provides. I’m not feeling troubled about separate but equal because I recognize just how good it feels to be surrounded by women at various times.

That ceremony is what is in the works for now, but I’m looking forward to the time when I can honor the next life stages of my daughters. I’m thinking of doing a variation of the Child Woman Crone ceremony done by traditional Mexican cultures when my daughter is preparing for baptism. Maybe it could include presenting her to Mother in Heaven with encouragement to seek her as she covenants to seek Father through her baptism. Then there’s menarche, another opportunity to honor female life transitions. Next a coming of age as an older teenager, then something in prepartion for marriage. I’m looking forward to bringing back my ideas from the mother’s blessing I had planned for myself and coordinate that for my daughters and daughters in law. It seems so much better than the conventional baby shower.

For myself, I might just be able to have another mother’s blessing or two before I’m done bearing children and I will participate in the role of woman in my daughter’s Child Woman Crone ceremony. We’ll also be able to honor my mother in that as well."

The last couple of years have brought the development of a circle of women in my life who offer so many blessings to me. I feel connected to my gender in a way that I never felt growing up and there are times when I yearn for my wise women to offer their experience, guidance and support. My daughter's birth just recently was one example of a time where it felt so good to be surrounded by some of my wise women. My midwife and her two assistants (who also my colleagues) were present along with my mother. My husband was present and it just felt so good to chat and laugh between contractions and to hear their reassurance and be supported by them when it was needed. There have to be more opportunities to experience that connection and to have female spirituality existing in harmony with spirituality mediated by men. Maybe the day will come when church culture will not be primarily patriarchal, yet even then, there will be times when women surrounded by women will be what feels right.

Following up with "What I Wish I Heard"

After a few months of following the "What I Wish I Heard" format, I found that I was able to move away from it. Even my readers noticed that after a while, I often started saying what I wished I was hearing and so I found that I didn't need to take notes anymore or feel like my viewpoint wasn't welcomed. I think it helps that I found a way to take emotion out of my responses and offer a more observational perspective. I try to indentify and be prepared for each opportunity to state the "minority view" just so it is present and acknowledged. I often speak in the third person talking about issues or people I am aware of and not from my own experience. Sometimes its a matter of picking and choosing what I will take the risk to respond to but my general rule is to try to respond at every opportunity where I can bring in a perspective that I know is often missing from church meetings.

For example, there was a lesson on the temple one day and the question was asked, "What makes it hard for us to go to the temple sometimes?" I saw that as an opportunity to say, "I know for some women its a challenge to attend the temple where they are taught things that that make them feel they are second class citizens to God and make them question whether they can directly convenant and relate to God." I didn't say it was my struggle. I didn't say how I felt about it. I didn't say I disagreed with these women, I just brough their perspective in. Of course, that's not the answer the teacher was looking for and she had NO clue how to respond, but the Stake President was present and I heard him murmur, "Those are good points."

I try to take every opportunity I can to present thoughts like that. I guess I consider myself the voice of the marginalized and disenfranchised in the church. I kick myself when I miss opportunities too. The other week, the lesson was on "the scriptures are true." The teacher asked the question "Do we all agree here that the scriptures are true?" That was my opportunity to speak up and say "When we say true, what do you mean?? Do you mean that the Book of Mormon is truly a book of scripture to guide and direct our lives or that everything in it is a factual historical record? And how important is it for the Book of Mormon to be a factual historical record? I know many people who are troubled with issues with historicity and that makes them question the spiritual truths in the book as well. For me, I can safely say that I believe the Book of Mormon to truly be a book of scripture but I can't quite as confidently say its a historical record."

I would love to see a day when more people in the church feel safe to speak in that manner and respectfully address the issues that people really struggle with. I try to be the voice for single women in the church, women/people who have experienced postpartum depression, mental illness, people who have experienced faith crises, struggles with doctrine, people who have a more liberal view of the gospel, etc. It definitely make church more interesting and at this point, my RS has no idea what I'm going to be saying next. Its fun.

I just started experimenting with what I can get away with in Gospel Doctrine. For the first year in my ward, I attended Gospel Essentials with my mother since she was an investigating/new member. When she had gone through the whole book once, she graduated to Gospel Doctrine. We only attended that class a couple of times before she started the Temple Prep class so I will have to get back to Gospel Doctrine in a few months.

One recent experience in Gospel Doctrine I did not feel comfortable expressing my view. Mostly because it was highly critical of church practice and I was unable to edit my emotions out of my comment. The topic was caring for the poor or the needy. That's a big frustration of mine that I have a testimony of tithing but I do disagree with the church practices in how tithing money is used and how little actually goes to relieving poverty. At that time, the healthiest response I could make was to write out my thoughts into my iPad notes and share it with my mother who was sitting next to me. A couple of times, I have done that and she and I have typed notes back and forth to one another. I do this in order to make sure that responses are respectful and not emotional in nature because that's when people are much more prone to act defensively and emotionally. I just don't want that drama.

The only place that I don't feel like there is a forum to represent minority view is in sacrament meeting. It usually takes me an entire fast and testimony meeting to outline my thoughts and I'm often too late to get it before the end, but I do have the opportunity once a month to do so. I'm trying to prepare myself before hand to be ready for testimony meeting so I don't keep miss the opportunity. I will say that I'm itching for an opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting again but until then I rely on the counsel given by President Eyring's father. He tells this story in his book "To Draw Closer to God:"

“Years ago I was sitting in a sacrament meeting with my father. He seemed to be enjoying what I thought was a dull talk, given by a member of the stake high council. I watched my father, and to my amazement his face was beaming as the speaker droned on. I kept stealing looks back at him, and sure enough, through the whole thing he had this beatific smile.”

“Our home was near enough to the ward meetinghouse that we walked home. I remember walking with my father on the shoulder of the road, which at that time wasn’t paved. I kicked a stone ahead of me as I plotted what I would do next. I finally got up enough courage to ask him what he thought of the meeting. He said it was wonderful.”

“Now I really had a problem. My father had a wonderful sense of humor, but you didn’t want to push it too far. I was puzzled. I was trying to summon up enough courage to ask him how I could have such a different opinion of that meeting and that speaker.”

“Like all good fathers, he must have read my mind, because he started to laugh. He said: “Hal, let me tell you something. Since I was a very young man, I have taught myself to do something in a church meeting. When the speaker begins, I listen carefully and ask myself what it is he is trying to say. Then, once I think I know what he is trying to accomplish, I give myself a sermon on that subject.” He let that sink in for a moment as we walked along. Then, with that special self-deprecating chuckle of his, he said, “Hal, since then I have never been to a bad meeting.”

I've been doing just that lately and I find that I really enjoy sacrament meeting. I believe its worthwhile to write down those thoughts and blog them. You might see those posts showing up here...

The new Mormon Women healers

I am getting to know some LDS women in my area who sell essential oils through one of those pyramid schemes. I signed up too as a product consultant so I could benefit from the classes, wholesale discounts, and the possibility that I might be able to passively make some money through online marketing. So if you want to buy some essential oils from me, you can shop from my blog: Descent into Motherhood and click on the DoTerra logo on the right sidebar or use this link. I'll be posting at Descent about the cool things I learn.

 

The ladies I've met are so kind and loving. We have connected on that plane where we are all women trying to be  healers to our family and we are working together and supporting one another as we learn, trading tips, information etc.

I've been really concerned with my daughter's health due to a probable staph infection that is causing legions and sores on her skin. I'm waiting for the lab culture to come back from the doctor and in the meantime I have been treating at home with herbs and essential oils. I talked to the ladies by phone who were both willing to come to my house with their oils to administer to my daughter.

Its really cool to be learning about these essential oils because I feel like I am truly anointing my children with oils that do have the power to heal and bless them. To have LDS women willing to come over to do the same with oils that I don't possess really reminded me of the glory days when that was common practice. Even though it is a pyramid scheme, this is the beauty that is coming out of it. I feel blessed and hope that their vision of a "Healer in Every Home" can be realized.

The essential oils have been working really well too, so much that my husband has been impressed and encouraged me to continue using them. In a blessing that he gave our daughter tonight, he said something to the effect of "your mother is doing wonderfully taking care of you." That was just the bit of encouragement that I really appreciated hearing.

 

It has been through the use of essential oils and finally learning how to use them that I've been able to understand the ancient practice of anointing. I didn't know that oils for healing where used by anointing the feet though I was familiar with the passages in the New Testament where this was done (Mark 6:13, John 12:3). I just didn't know that it was connected to herbalism and healing. Call me ignorant but I'm so glad to have learned that anointing is not just a religious practice but also ties in with health and healing. Natural healers have continued these practices and LDS women in the early church were not only familar with the practice but incorporated it into their religious practices as well. 

 

I am wistful for those days and sad that there is no longer a stake or ward calling for a woman to be a midwife and visiting teachers do not offer special pregnancy blessings or these types of house calls for the healing of the sick and afflicted. I don't feel much hope that this will change through means of church policy which is in part why I am so gratified to see this sort of thing happening outside church channels but still within the LDS community. One effort that I can working on is to form a directory of LDS doulas, midwives and childbirth educators so that LDS women can find LDS birth workers in their area if they are so drawn to it. I have hopes that Mormon blessingways will become common, that prayer and priesthood will become a normal part of LDS births while at the same time protecting the sacred space of birth for mother and baby and ensuring healthier births that can help LDS women maximize their fertility since so many aim for large families. That will be hosted as a project at LDS WAVE and is coming soon. 

 

Maybe the day is coming where LDS women will reconnect with their Mormon legacy of women as healers and it will be through companies like DoTerra and the services of LDS women as birth workers. I hope so. I hope I can be apart of it. Already, I'm well on my way through being a product consultant and midwifery student. 

Lingering Questions

I just finished reading the newest work of Mormon scholarship on women administerring blessings in the early church written by Johnathan Stapley and Kristine Wright. Its surprisingly long-85 pages- most of which chronicles examples of women giving blessings between the 1830s and 1940s. The purpose of the article was actually to trace the changing views on the practice overtime and map how the practice was discontinued. Now that I have read it, I see a few places in which questions remain and I believe are worthy of further investigation.

A few questions that are lingering for me:

The 1949 statement of Joseph F. Smith did not actually prohibit the blessing and annointing of women during pregnancy (which was the only remaining allowable activity left to women of the church), so how and why then did it actually get discontinued? Where are the statements discouraging, rebuking, and correcting those who continued the practice? And if those statements do not exist, what then is keeping women of the church from continuing to give blessings to pregnant women?

What were the reactions of women of the church to the gradual restrictions placed on their religious practice of healing? Was there upset? Disappointment? Dissent?

The authors briefly refute the D. Michael Quinn claim that there is evidence supporting the idea that women were ordained to the priesthood but do not cite a more indepth refutation. Is there a scholarly work that does argue against Quinn's thesis?

Also missing from the article is the So What? An answer to the question, What do this mean for us now as Latter-day Saints? Is it enough to be comforted by knowledge of this heritage (e.g. that somehow knowing that women used to collaborate in the blessings of women, and the sick and afflicted makes us equal)? Ought there to be an effort to reclaim this privilege? What are the thoughts and feelings of LDS women to this knowledge? What is their response to the practice being phased out?

I will likely come back and write my more personal thoughts on this topic but for now I needed to get these questions down.

Not in the Lord's program

A couple of people have brought this quote from President Hinckley to my attention over the last few days and I have been seriously pondering it. Especially interesting to me was how it could be contrasted with the interview he gave with David Random with ABC Australia news in 1997.


In both statements (on Mormon.org and interview with David Ransom), he says essentially the same thing "Women do not hold the priesthood because the Lord has put it that way. It is part of His program." However, one of the statements is much more definitive than the other. When asked by Ransom, if that could change, President Hinckley said that it could change but that it hasn't and won't because "there is no agitation for that."

My view is basically that in the quote published on Mormon.org, though he did not go onto state that the policy of women receiving the priesthood is subject to change, he could have. In a way, it does a disservice to the women of the church and those who care about equality for him to leave it like its a firm degree of God that women do not have the priesthood. In fact, there is no recorded revelation in the scriptures that says that only men are supposed to hold the priesthood. In my understanding of the doctrine, the scriptures are silent on that aspect of the priesthood.

Of course, him being prophet, he could have personally received a revelation saying that it was not God's will for women to hold the priesthood. Three problems though if that is the case: he did not ever clearly communicate this to the general membership of the church; he elsewhere mentioned that a revelation could be given that would change it (implying that a revelation did not set the policy in place originally); and any inspiration he had pertaining to women and the priesthood may have been applicable in that time but could be subject to change when revealed by the Lord that the time is right. For these reasons, I think its safe to say that the statement on Mormon.org is not authoritatively saying that it is God's will that women should not hold the priesthood. In any case, I highly doubt that he gave the matter serious attention and ever prayed to know if the current policy was God's will or not. I personally belief if he had asked, he would have received a very different answer (and the fact that he says a revelation could be received leads me to believe that he never did ask).

President Hinckley may not have been aware of the history of women and the priesthood. It would not surprise me that he hadn't read deeply into church history on that topic so he would not have known that Joseph Smith and many early Saints believed that women receive the priesthood (that is in the D. Michael Quinn chapter for quick reference).

It seems that the reasoning he is using in that statement follows like this: if women do not have the priesthood, then it must be because God revealed it to someone along the way that they are not supposed to. Because women do not have the priesthood, it must mean that God does not want them to." However, we both know how revelation works. People and prophets do not receive revelation by it coming out of the sky, but they must seek to know it. If no one ever received a revelation saying specifically that women cannot have the priesthood, then it has not been recorded and it is not contained within our scriptures. Many people speculate the reason women didn't receive the priesthood is due to cultural values of the time (though we have recorded in the Old and New Testaments instances of women as prophetesses and priestesses whether this was through the Melchizedek priesthood or not).

This is one of those cases where personal vs hierarchical revelation becomes tricky. What if Heavenly Father were to recognize that its important for a person's spiritual health to know specifically whether it is God's will for women to have the priesthood or not? Would HF reveal to a member of the church personally one way or the other? If He did, would that be different or the same as a person receiving revelation for the church or is it just for personal knowledge? Are there other examples of things that people can learn through the Spirit that may not be revealed to the leaders of the church but they can know for themselves?

I have my ideas but I want to hear yours.

Let's see if this works

There has been a great deal of debate recently among Mormons on the topic of women and the priesthood. I see basically three camps: people who think it is heresy to ask the prophets to receive a revelation, people who think its perfectly appropriate for members of the church for ask for the prophets to receive and revelation and people who do not care at all.

I count myself as one of those who do not think its inappropriate for members of the church to ask for the leaders to consult with God on a topic of particular interest, though if you read this conversation on my facebook page, you'll see many who disagree with me.

One of my friends linked to the page on Mormon.org that really got me thinking. In the past I had shied away from the question about women and the priesthood for my Mormon.org profile. I didn't feel I had a cohesive answer, but after learning about this conversation between President Hinckley (our former prophet who died in 2008) and an Australian interviewer, I felt like I had something I could finally say that didn't seem to conflict with this statement shared on Mormon.org.

Below is the answer I submitted to my Mormon.org profile. I don't know if it will be approved so I'll just wait and see. I hope it doesn't meet the fate of another answer that I attempted to post to my profile (it wasn't censored but it was withheld due to a glitch). If it is approved however, I at least will have a point of reference to say that "Look, my views aren't considered false doctrine! I have the official stamp of approval from Mormon.org!"

One of the reasons why women do not hold the priesthood in the Mormon Church is because, as President Hinckley said in an interview with an Australian reporter is that "there is no agitation for that." He seems to imply that if the members of the church were interested in women being ordained to the priesthood that a number of them ought to approach the leaders of the church expressing their interest. One faithful Mormon created a website where Mormons and non-Mormons can express their interest in women of the Mormon Church receiving the priesthood. The URL for that site is: www.agitatingfaithfully.org. If the leaders take the communication seriously, they have the opportunity to show the world that the Mormon church continues to receive revelation and that the church can change its practices as it better learns the mind and will of God. It would be up to the prophet and apostles of the church to counsel and pray together on the topic of women receiving the priesthood. If they can all agree that God is telling them to extend the priesthood to women, they will share that revelation with the church and the world. It may be that God does have a reason for women not to receive that priesthood and Mormons do believe that God can reveal his reasons through the prophet.

Until that time, Mormon women have many opportunities to serve within the church. The Relief Society is known as the biggest women's organization in the world and in each local congregation there is a leader or president of the Relief Society among the women of that congregation. There is a Relief Society presidency that oversees a small number of local congregation's Relief Society as well as a presidency that oversees all of the Relief Societies in local congregations throughout the world. The women of the church oversee the youth education program (Primary) of the church as well as the young women's education program. They are actively involved in family history, temple work, emergency preparedness, and humanitarian work in local congregations and throughout the world. Each woman of the church has many opportunities to serve the members of her congregation and local area and all members of the church are encouraged to be involved in volunteer organizations in their communities as well. Mormon women also serve as teachers in Sunday School and in worship services where they have the opportunity to teach all members of the church.

As you can see, there are many ways that women can be leaders in the church. They play an active role in keeping the church going and meeting the needs of all the members of the church even without the priesthood in addition to their work as very involved mothers (generally). Some argue that because of this women do not need the priesthood for these reasons.

There's a chance that the URL won't make it through which is fine. I can edit it that out, but for those who are not Mormon and care about gender issues, it may be very useful for them to see directly the effort that is being made by members of the church.I'm interested to see what will happen and how the reviewers at Mormon.org will handle it.

If ever there was a time...

If ever there was a time for a Mormon woman to give her husband a healing blessing it would be now, as I listen to my husband weeze, cough and struggle to catch his breath as he battles pneumonia.

Why is it that Mormon women are not allowed to give priesthood blessings?

That's a whole long and debatable thing, but the story that I have pieced together is this:

At the time of the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ, the Prophet Joseph Smith taught the women of the church to laying their hands on the heads of their loved ones and bless them with healing. The women were well known for their faith and the miraculous ministrations that they were able to share with others (1). As the church grew, and after the Prophet died, members of the church began to question, if they were so special, being the Lord's anointed and members of God's church on the earth, why were people of other religions able to bless people with healing and health? If Mormons weren't special in being able to heal, then what made them special and different? How did they/were they going to stand apart from the rest of Christendom? The answer that members of the church came up with was Priesthood. (2) Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the priesthood (the authority granted by God, restored through the Prophet, to act in God's name on the earth). Wait a minute, do women have the priesthood? Well, the men do at least. Because of the dubious nature of women's priesthood status, women began to be uncomfortable giving blessings of healing. By 1946, the practice ended completely when the leaders of the Relief Society were told it was no longer approved “for sisters to wash and anoint other sisters."(3)

I'm not making this up and if you are interested to read where I have learned these ideas, I refer you to:
1) A Gift Given, A Gift Taken Away by Linda King Newell
2) Female Ritual Healing and Mormonism (Podcast with J. Stapley at By Common Consent)
3) Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843 by D. Michael Quinn

Hearing my husband suffer is almost enough to make me get over my fear of using priesthood authority improperly and bless my husband as the women of old did. In the name of Jesus Christ without invoking any priesthood authority.

That begs, the question: do I want the priesthood?

No, not especially. But I would like to be able to minister spiritually to my husband and children when sick. I find it upsetting that women of the church were once able to give blessings to their loved ones and they are no longer allowed. In my understanding of things, there was no revelation taking this privilege away. And its very upsetting to me that such a drastic change could take place in the church without revelation. If that is the case, and it is not the will of God to withhold that right from women, then why can't women return to giving blessings?

The obvious answer is that there is enough belief in the church that it is the will of God that any woman who did so would be both in open rebellion to God and the leaders of the church and therefore subject to church discipline and risk placing her eternal salvation in jeopardy.

And that's exactly what it feels like: jeopardy. Either I do what I feel is right for my family and risk my standing in the church or I protect my church status by withholding a known remedy from my loved ones.

I'm tired of it. I only want to care about what is right in the eyes of God and stop caring about the eyes of man.

The D. Michael Quinn Challenge

After finishing reading the book Women and Authority, I created a challenge for myself: go to the temple and listen carefully for wording that I had heard many times before but not with this new awareness of women's history in the church.

One of the chapters from the book that was most affecting for me was D. Michael Quinn's "Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843" where I was impressed by the sources he cited showing clearly that Joseph Smith and other early church leaders believed that women were given the priesthood through the endowment. It was unclear however where in the endowment this could be traced to. One of the clues that I took to heart was that there was a belief that women were anointed and thereby received the priesthood. Anointing only occur in the initiatory ceremony, not in the presentation of the endowment itself.

Thus, my specific challenge. Go to the temple, participate in initiatories and listen carefully to the wording of the anointing as well as the entire recitation. This morning, I had a chance to do that. We had planned to go, do an initiatory and then an endowment session so I could take in the whole thing in the context of this question in my mind. Through an unfortunate series of wrong turns and time constraints however, we only had time for a set of initiatories. That turned out to be for the best because it was only after hearing the ceremony repeated a few times did I clue in on the phrases that were applicable to my question.

The anointing offered no clue so I listened carefully for instances of the word priesthood in connection with women. The only time that appeared together was in the authorizing of the garment as a sacred article of clothing and this is referred to being clothed in the garments of the Holy Priesthood. I prayed to know if this wording (though not understanding specifically what it meant) was the indication that women were granted the priesthood through the temple ceremonies. I cannot deny the Spirit I felt confirming that to be true.

I should also say here that the time prior that I went to the temple and participated in an endowment session, I remember at one point having the distinct impression from the Spirit that because I had progressed through the stages of the endowment that somehow through that process, I possessed the priesthood in some manner. This was even before I read Quinn's chapter on women and the priesthood so before the idea was externally planted that women were given the priesthood through the temple ceremonies.

I don't understand it how it works but I have tried throughout this process to pray and ask specific and clear questions always being willing to accept any answer I was to be given. I don't understand all the implications of this and have many more questions. Was perhaps the wording changed over the last 180 years so more specific phrases referring to priesthood being removed from the women's initiatory? If yes, what did it used to say? And how does it work that women are conferred the priesthood if they are ordained after the order of Melchelizdek?

I was able to learn more about the men's initiatory process from my husband who described the point in time when names needing proxy are ordained to the priesthood and that process is obviously missing from the women's ceremony.

Its obvious that I may not ever understand more beyond the point where I currently am now, but at the same time for years, I said the same thing about where I was then. Who knows what further information or understanding may come to me as I continue this study and seeking? I will continue faithful, relying on prayer and having a much greater appreciation and desire to have the spirit of discernment which will help me to know between truth and error.

There will be many who believe I am in error and I'm scared as to what that might mean for me socially in the church. And yet, if I know if I were to deny the lessons from the Spirit that I have received in the last few months, I would also have to deny the Spirit confirmations that convinced me of the truthfulness of the gospel, that told me that my husband was the right man for me to marry, that told me it was God's will (or he was supportive) of me attending graduate school, or going to BYU, or any of the other many times the Spirit has testified to me of truth.

I do know however that I can't do much with this knowledge. If anything is meant to change in church policy, I must be patient for it and not push for anything or even recognition or corroboration that what I have been told is true. That's okay. That's the way it works on doctrine that hasn't been revealed through the proper channels. People can pray and know and its perfectly fine to believe whatever they are going to believe as long as they don't go out trying to convert people to their understanding. I'm concerned even by publicly saying this on my blog.

A compelling reason LDS women shouldn't want the priesthood?

I am not to the point of thinking that LDS women should have the priesthood. I do however find reading critical analyses on it interesting. The most recent analysis I've read is "Why Shouldn't Mormon Women Want this Priesthood?" by Marian Yeates.

I wish I could sit down and have a conversation with her regarding her thoughts. I even did an online search for her to find if her contact information was online, but no such luck.

Through an analysis of history and making comparisons to other times when women have been allowed to participate in a male dominated system, she gave some insight into what it could be like if LDS women were to be granted the priesthood. Drawing on the parallel to women in 20th century America getting the right to vote, Yeates said,

Women won the vote in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment. No one can deny that this was a tremendous victory after seventy-two years of struggle. Yet without being a female-based social vehicle, the vote itself has done little to change the material condition of women over the long term. ...The advantage of the incorporation strategy as it applied to suffrage was that it allowed women to gain access to existing political power. The disadvantage was that once incorporated into the male system, women became part of that system and so have had difficult establishing their interests as separate or different from men's.

In describing women's accomplishments in politics between the time they achieved the right to vote and the time the article was published (1989), she points out "the dream of women voting as a block strong enough to inform the American political process remains an empty promise seventy-years after winning the vote."

Marian Yeates believes that the same would happen if women in the LDS Church were allowed to minister in the priesthood: that it would take a very long time for any significant changes to be made into policy and administration, if it ever would happen.

This is where I would like to question Sister Yeates. Since 1989, American has seen a sharp increase in the number of publicly elected women to office. Perhaps now, another 20 years after she lamented the lack of influence of women on the political process, does she see that fruits of women making substantive inroads in the male dominated system? Is it a matter of 90 years being required instead of 70? If the same thing were to happen is what we see now in the American government, would that patience and long-suffering yield the results that she hopes would have come sooner? Does having to wait that long negate the fulfillment of that success?

The warning is there to LDS women who think that ordination to the priesthood is their intended goal, though you may obtain the office are you prepared to patiently and doggedly work for substantive improvement in the way things are run?

Sister Yeates also offers an alternative option for women wishing for greater involvement, influence and say over how the church is administered. Though she does not make the parallel, I think what she may have in mind matches the way in which the Relief Society was originally organized as a separate but complementary auxiliary of the church which was almost entirely administered by the women of the church. This too I would ask Sister Yeates if this is what she was intending to suggest because she did not specifically state this as a parallel.

I really am enjoying learning about the different perspectives of women and the priesthood. I especially enjoy learning about projections of what might occur if it were to occur. So often, I feel that people think that an intended outcome is a foregone conclusion, that of course the desired outcome is going to be achieved, and little thought is given to the unintended consequences. The collateral damage can often be worse than the ailment that originally afflicted. It seems prudent to comprehensively view the possibilities that could result from an action so one is making a truly informed choice. I would like to see the general membership and leadership of the church to be open-minded and patient enough to entertain these different perspectives so the best decision with minimal unintended consequences can occur.

And now I'm off to read D. Michael Quinn's article "Mormon Women Have Had the Priesthood Since 1843."