Beyond the wall

Eleven months since I last posted. I didn't realize it had been so long. Time certainly does fly. Well. Where are we now?

A lot has changed. I'm 34, still unmarried, and I really DGAF. I consider myself Mormon almost exclusively in a historical sense; I was raised/grew up Mormon, but I have moved away from it now. I went to church with my Dad for Easter; he came out and took me to our home ward. It was... different. Very different. We both felt it. The feeling of home was gone for both of us, though perhaps for different reasons. For him, the people had changed, the spirit of the Ward had changed, his connection to it had diminished. That had to be difficult for him to see, seeing as he had been Bishop to many of the people still there. The Ward is barely more than a branch now. It's sad. I felt that, too, and the lack of the fellow-feeling from my youth. But more than that, I was no longer connected to the doctrines being taught. I was no longer attached to the church. I was happy to see some of the people, to touch base, but little else. I now try to schedule my visits to see my family so that I'm not around or I have to leave on Sunday. To say my heart isn't in it is an understatement. I don't even really care enough to remove my name from the rolls.

I've evolved a lot as a person, an adult, and a woman in these past three months. A semi-chance run-in with a friend revealed that she had been ex'd for unrepentant pre-marital sex. This is a woman I looked up to as a member of the church, one of the ones I hid my departure from so I wouldn't have to face her questions, and SUDDENLY... she was a full two or three steps ahead of me! Sexually active and independent, no longer a member, drinking, etc. All manner of "worldly" delights! I made a decision, right there. I would do three things before my 35th birthday: 1)get drunk, 2) try pot, and 3)have sex. I set out to finally commit some sins worthy of discipline, if I ever bothered to make them known to a Bishop. No more "well, your feminist, Paganish ways are weird, buuuuuuuut not technically counter to doctrine" wishy-washiness. GO FOR THE GOLD!

And I did. As of this past weekend, I have checked all three off my list. Granted, I haven't been truly drunk, but I've been good and tipsy and I appreciate whiskey and absinthe. (Wine? Ehhhh, sometimes. I like the idea more than the thing. Beer? Blugh.) But I tried pot (THE TASTE OMG WHYYYYY) and I am absolutely delighted by the joys of sex. I've started studying tantra with a friend who has practiced it most of her life, and it has become a part of my spiritual practice and path. I have every intention of following that path to become a tantric priestess and I-don't-know-where-else and loving it. My first lover became jealous when he learned about my second lover, and he is no longer in the picture. I do need to make contact with him, though, and settle things, so that it isn't awkward if/when we run into each other at events in the future. My second lover is currently my only lover, though not for lack of trying. He has become a fast friend and confidant, though, and a very important person to me for more reasons than amazing sex. He has introduced me to some positively fabulous ways to play, and I can honestly say that his presence has altered the trajectory of my life. Funnily enough, both of these men have ties to the church: #1 used to be a member and #2's parents attend my home ward. I know their names and faces and they know my Dad and he likes them a lot and holy shit, if they had any idea of what their son and I get up to in the bedroom... I'm not sure I could ever show my face in that Ward, even if I wanted to.

There has been a bit of a dust-up of late (that I have seen) with the release of Carol Lynn Pearson's new book The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy about how much Mormons haaaaate polygamy. I don't know anymore if I just never thought about it all that much or if I really trusted that God would figure it out in the eternities, but I don't recall being super distressed by polygamy until after I started leaving the church. I always assumed that--as I was promised in my Patriarchal Blessing--I would fall in love with one man, be sealed to him, and we would have a family. It's funny to me now that I'm exploring polyamory/non-monogamy outside of a Mormon context. I may never marry. I may never have children. I can't decide lately if that bothers me or not (although I do hear my biological clock ticking a little louder now.) There's a part of me that says I should resist this path because of that ghost of eternal polygamy. But now it's not that... if I don't marry in this life I will be shuffled into a marriage with a possible stranger and his other wives so I can get into the Celestial Kingdom and become a (silenced) goddess (or, best case scenario, fall in love in the afterlife and be sealed to one man and no one else will be involved. Or, I maybe get to be the First Wife.) It's... I'm alive now, living my life now, and I'm choosing to explore myself and whatever depths and breadth of this Love/Relationship "thing" that I can reach in this precious lifetime I'm given that could end tomorrow, and I'm not intentionally limiting myself to one man to do it with. It is my choice, freely made and honestly consented to. It's the choice most LDS women are denied, whether they want it or not. Someday, I may be monogamous. I may marry, I may bear a child. For now, the crushing pain, uncertainty and angst is greatly diminished.

One remaining difficulty is the realization that I don't... not believe in the Mormon God/Elohim. I'm not yet sure what to do with that. A being or beings of tremendous power, to whom I felt close before, whose love, care, and presence I have felt on many occasions, who has/have protected and guided me over the years. I still know this entity, but it feels like knowing an emotionally abusive, codependent, manipulative parent, and I'm not sure what to do with that. A part of me would like to reestablish the connection, and another part is repulsed by the thought. I don't know what to do with that yet. I suppose I'll figure it out someday. Until then, I'm going to keep sinning and trusting that if, indeed, this God is loving and merciful, He/She/They know that my greater joy is outside of the boundaries their (supposed?) representatives have laid out and that is okay. And if I'm wrong, well, maybe eternity was going to suck no matter what I did, so I should enjoy this time now.

I don't have much more to say than that. I don't know much many more posts I'll have here, honestly. The years will tell, but I'm out of Eden. I'm beyond the wall and I don't plan to come back. Even if I did, it wouldn't be the "paradise" it was before.

I think Eve would understand.

Just another pilgrim out of Eden

It's been over two years since my last post. I feel like I have a lot to say and my thoughts are so many that it's difficult to organize them. With it being so long, too, I feel that many things I could say no longer really need to be said. Their time came and went in the off-blog world, and I'm past them. They're no relevant or topical anymore. I guess that shortens the list of things to say.

That said, I guess it's well enough to say that I'm entirely inactive to the Church, and in fact nearly deactivated. I've given quite a bit of thought over the past two years to removing my name from the records of the Church, and nearly decided to go that route. I feel no desire to be part of the LDS Church in anything more than name, so why not remove the name? It's mostly for my family, I admit. I don't want to hurt them that way, to remove what they see as the only viable way we can be together for eternity. I guess I hold out hope, too, that even in a Church I now view as fallen and out of touch with its membership and the world at large--even apostate to itself and unled by prophetic means--the core doctrines of eternal progression and family ties are actually true and that by keeping my foot in the door, maybe I can be set up with a ministering angel gig or something. I better be an angel of death, justice, or something else kickass.

Right, so, I'm not married. I'm 33, well on my way to 34, and we all know that a spinster over 30 is functionally little more than free labor/babysitting and an object of pity in the Church of The Family of Latter Day Gender Roles. Yes, I am bitter. I am bitter than my community has harped so long and hard on its vision of The Family™--One man, one woman, sealed at a young age in the temple so they can have a scad of babies who will never be anything but straight, temple worthy, and mission serving (unless the wife dies, then the man can have a second eternal wife, but not vice versa!)--that it shoves out and even kills those who don't fit the mold. And I don't fit the mold. I'm fat, I'm feminist, I'm single, I'm a belly dancer, I can swear like a sailor, I love dirty jokes, I have one tattoo and want more and piercings, I don't want more than one child, I love being naked and doing rituals and dancing in the moonlight and studying herbs and goddesses and I just have a really hard time imagining myself cramming into the mold ever again or wanted a man who fits in it. I hate the mold. I'm NOT the mold, I don't fit it, and I refuse to be converted to it. Of all the things I could want out of the Church, it's to be converted again and again to the radical, socialist-ish, loving, healing, just and merciful ways of Jesus the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. If I'm to be a sheep of the Good Shepherd, I will do so with orange paisley wool. He doesn't care. Who does care is a committee of fifteen retired, married, white men in Utah and their subordinates. Who does care is a congregation of local ward and stake members.

I hear too much about The Family at church, a Family I don't possess except as a child within one and thus I feel like Less. I hear too much about patriotism for the United States, and focus on the laws and actions of men bringing on the end times. I hear too much about how The Gays are going to ruin society. (They haven't managed to tear it down in the 5,000 or so years since Leviticus was written, but straight folk have done a bang up job of it multiple times!) I don't hear enough about compassion, mercy, love, kindness, charity. I don't hear enough about making sure the relationships I'm in are healthy, or how to healthily extract myself from ones that can't be transformed or whose seasons have simply passed. I hear too much about politics, with the overwhelming majority not being views with which I sympathize at all, and I just don't have the energy anymore to fight for a place at a table where I don't feel welcome.

Some would say that all are invited to the feast. That is true. Jesus extends an open invitation to all who wish to sit and partake. However, if you think that all are welcomed to sit beside any other feasters, you have clearly never been to a high school cafeteria. Each table has a code of whom is welcome to sit there, whom the community feels is safe. I feel like I started out sitting in the middle of the Mormon table. I was safe, ensconced, welcome, happy. It all felt familiar, I was with my friends, my teachers looked at me with approval, etc. As I went back for another plate year after year, though, I found myself slowly migrating toward the end of the table. I was still among friends and compatriots, but the faces started changing, the tone of conversation changed, and I learned things about the people who had sat here before us, things that were both good and bad. But these people were still at the table, more or less. Time and again, plate after plate, I kept migrating out to the more sparsely seated fringes. Sometimes it was something one of the core people said or did. Sometimes it was new information. Sometimes it was taking a jaunt to another table for a plate and getting the side-eye when I returned. Sometimes it was just that I didn't feel like fighting for a closer spot. The content of my plate changed, too, to more complex foods and the deconstruction of many of the simple foods I'd grown up on. It all contributed to drift, and I find myself now barely sitting at the table at all. I often eat while standing, leaning a hip against the table. Occasionally I chat with those still sitting. Sometimes I talk to people at other tables, or sit with them.

Metaphor aside, I still consider myself mostly Mormon. I guess I'm a Jack Mormon now. I don't go to meetings or wear my garments or pay tithes and offerings to the Church, and I'm realistic about the Church's faults and failings without (usually) being antagonistic. However, I don't villainize my fellow Saints because I know them. I know them to be generally good people doing what they believe is right, even if the ways they do it or see it feel wrong, dishonest, or abusive to me. I was right there with them five or more years ago. I gave a prayer of thanks with one breath when Elder Packard passed, and a prayer for for comfort to those who love him with the next. Sometimes I wish I had no problems with the Church so I could get some financial help from my Bishop, but faking it for money is against my personal creed.

My Dad called last night to say he and my sister and BIL were going to the temple today to do sealings for his grandparents, parents, and himself to his parents. I was genuinely happy for them because as problematic as I find the temple these days, I still hope that I can be with my family forever. He said they'd miss me since I couldn't be there, seeing as I don't have a recommend, and he started asking questions like if I'd been to my new ward, if the missionaries had contacted me (apparently he took it on himself to send my new address to my old ward to transfer my records... thanks, weird Mormon boundary issues...) and said he wished he was here to help get me back in. I asked him what he thought he could do, and he said he could at least take me to church, and... I had to say I wasn't interested. That conversation was a long time coming... He wants to love me back into activity, but he doesn't really understand that that's not the problem.

It's not the love of the people who love me that's lacking. It's that a lot of the story no longer makes sense to me. It's that I feel like the Qof12 and the First Presidency are no more inspired than any other group of 15 smart men of prayer, and I can't remember the last truly prophetic thing to come out of a Prophet in my lifetime. It's that the Church functionally worships the Family more than Jesus, even going as far as having Apostles declare that marriage is the purpose for the Plan of Salvation.

NOPE!

I'm looking at you, Russel M. Nelson.

It's that women just got added to ruling councils in the Church two seconds ago and I felt no joy or sense of progress. It's the consistent resistance to effecting real change in listening to the concerns of women and treating them as an equal part of the Church. It's the refusal to seek for God the Mother. It's the falling back on ancient scripture to justify not continuing revelation with regards to women and the Priesthood in spite of modern historical precedent that Joseph Smith intended women to participate in it. It's the legitimizing of ancient scriptures that prescribe violence to justify homosexuality as a sin. (No one but Packerites talks about that in the LDS Church, but those scriptures that say "this is wrong" also say "and therefore kill them." Talk about cherry-picking! But thank Gods for cherry-picking. Then again, the epidemic of LGBT LDS youth who are committing suicide... It's kind of still happening, and the Church is doing nothing--or not enough--to stop it. Our own are dying because we're making them miserable, and... nothing. /endrant) It's Correlation and the dehydrating effect is has had on the holy life of the Church and its members. It's the GIANT MALL in SLC paid for by the Church, regardless of where the money came from. And speaking of money, it's the lack of transparency in how tithes and offerings are used, the demand of trust for the corporation of the Church, the pressure on low-income individuals to still give their two mites, when the Romneys of the world give less than a 10% tithe (and there's the offerings on top of that?), and the change to the tithing slip that basically says "you can tell us where you want your offerings to be used, but we're not going to be held to that." It's the fact that missionary culture is structured to breed codependence, obedience, and abuse. It's that I spent my entire Young Women's experience dreaming of my future/hypothetical husband's desirable traits and weeding out non-virgins from the pool of potentials and never spending more than two seconds thinking about healthy communication or relationship dynamics or how to recognize red flags. It's that our great scriptural hero, Nephi, was kind of a white-washing jerk that I'm pretty sure most people would find unbearable and a narrator of dubious reliability, and Laman and Lemuel's reactions were not that extraordinary in context! It's that part of the BoM is interpreted to mean that fornication is next to murder and alllllllllllll the spiritual and emotional problems that causes. It's the problematic nature of LDS polygamy and marriage and the temple in general as outlined in the Doctrine & Covenants that disenfranchises women and makes men their intermediaries with God instead of Jesus. It's that the things that are actually wrong within the world of the Church is so much more insidious than the supposed Satan worship and blood sacrifice lies that some Antis throw at us.

I believe in Jesus, I believe in God, I believe in Goddess, I believe in the Spirit, I believe in a lot of the Gospel doctrine I've been taught, and I still hope for a lot of what I even question. Mormonism is still my primary spiritual context, even when I really have a deep affection for bits of various Pagan traditions. I just... can't... subject myself to all of this other crap. It's not good for me. It hurts me rather than helps me grow. And that really sucks. I wish it wasn't that way. I don't want it to be that way, but I have to be realistic about myself and where I am and who I am and how I feel, instead of performing a spiritual lie for the comfort of my loved ones. That serves no one, least of all me, and if there's one thing that I've been slowly but surely learning the value of the past few years, it's to demand that the relationship I have with my beliefs is mutually beneficial. They must serve me as much as I serve them. Isn't that the essence of covenant? I served mainstream LDS doctrines for three decades, and I'm waiting for them to return the favor. Until then, I'm stepping out of Eden into the wider, brighter, "dark and dreary world."

Adjusting

Funny thing, this.

Ever since a few days before the anniversary, I feel like I've adjusted.  I've become an adult with only one living parent.  It's just been me and Dad and my siblings for a year.  I'm no longer counting the months; now it's "over a year ago" or "last year."  Next you it will be "two years ago."  In time it'll be, "when I was thirty" perhaps because I can't smoothly calculate how long it has been.  I'm now free to make "big changes" per the recommendations of Hospice's bereavement team suggestions.  All of the "firsts" have been hit, as far as annual events.  The world has moved on and though I'll always miss her, I'm ready to, as well.  I feel that I've adjusted.

Grief isn't really linear and there will undoubtedly still be times of soul-crushing sorrow and angst, especially if/when I get married and have babies.  But--for the moment--I feel that I'm "used to it" now.  I feel that I've adjusted.  I feel free to carry on and my motivation is returning.

I lost my cats.  I lost my Mom.  I may soon lose my Grandparents.  Dad still has a statistically higher probability of dying in the next year, but please God forbid.  My business is doing better than it ever has.  I just paid off a major debt, and that gives me hope for the rest of them, and my ability to climb out of personal poverty in the next year or two, maybe!  All of this, without my Mom.  It makes me sad... but I'm okay.  That's how it goes.  She is not gone, she just isn't here.

Moving on.

She went into her glory

Dear readers,

This post is not going to be for everyone.  This is an account of my memories of my Mother's passing.  It is mostly for my own benefit, my own record, so that I can remember and have it available, but you are welcome to read.  It's somewhat graphic at the end (not gory, just detailed) and may be upsetting or triggering.  Don't feel like you -need- to read it, but you are welcome to do so.  Thank you for your love and support in the past year.  Peace be unto you and unto us all.

======================

One year ago was a busy day.  We'd held Mother's Day a little on the fly just the Sunday before because we weren't sure she would make it the remaining three weeks.  My sister and our second-oldest brother and his husband were able to join us, with our oldest brother calling in from back East.  Mom was still fairly lucid so she could see and hear from all her kids, though she wasn't able to come upstairs and join us.  I had bought a book just the day before, and read a little bit that night, hoping that I would have time to delve further into its insights and make this time easier for everyone.

My sister and her family had come again on Wednesday afternoon because we knew that time was shrinking rapidly.  Mom's frailty seemed to advance at an increasing rate, with her able to move around the house with help one day to barely able to move to her own bathroom the next: from mostly lucid to barely communicating in just a few days.  It was as though she saw the end in sight and was willing herself toward it.   None of us could deny it of her; she had earned it.

Mom's Hospice nurse came in the mid-morning.  I helped her to move Mom in the bed that was the only place she remained, helped her be in as comfortable a position as possible.  She showed no signs of leaving us immediately and her nurse said it would probably be a few days.  There were discussions of how often the bathing lady would need to come, who was coming for the very first time that day because it was the first time she would be needed since Mom could no longer get to the shower.  My nephews and baby niece came to say good-bye about half past noon, since my brother-in-law had to take them home for one of the boys' practices that night.  They planned to come back on Saturday.  My sister stayed behind with us.

When the bath lady came about an hour later my sister and I helped her.  We worked together, washing her body and her hair. Mom seemed mostly insensible to it, not really reacting much at all.  We were nearly done, we just needed to turn her to wash her back.  I lifted the towel we had placed under her to roll her toward me and her head and shoulders fell off the foam wedge where she lied.  Her eyes popped wide open and she gasped!  The sudden shift in her position and orientation had jarred her body into a panic of gasping, even when we rolled her back into place.  We waited and watched for her breathing to calm, a process that took about forty minutes.

When her breathing relaxed, Dad took a minute to go return a call he'd gotten shortly before.  My sister and the lady remained in the room with Mom as her breathing continued to slow.  Her nurse had spoken before of a rattling sort of breath; sometimes it signified the end, sometimes it could last for days.  When we heard it, I spun around and yelled "DAD!  COME!"  He hung up the phone and got back into the room just in time to sit beside her and hold her hand as her breathing slowed to its final.  He checked her pulse and told us she was gone.

The peace that entered the room at that time was profound and unexpected in its depth.  We gathered by her bedside to say good-bye, and I felt the presence of her spirit beside me, and I felt her take my hand, which closed on its own.  The feel of her in the room lingered for a minute or two before fading away, leaving solace and sorrow in her wake.

YAAAAAY!

A beautiful, loving prayer by Sister Jean A. Stevens, the first woman to pray in General Conference in recorded history!  Following wonderful, Jesus-full talks by George A Cardon and Henry B. Eyring, it was a wonderful cap to this morning's session, and balm upon my irritation over intolerance, "stolen" virtue and chastity, gender roles, and vacuuming.

<3

*ponders*

*contemplates the nitty gritty, down-to-earth realities of the events of the resurrection*

... *starts typing*

Jena's in a midrash mood!  Stay tuned!

Mother Fast is still going, I promise

I often describe an event earlier in my life as having "taken the wind out of my sails".  It was a heart-breaking incident that caused me to lose all forward momentum in my life and toward a goal.  I redirected my course and found what I needed, more than I had imagined, and for that I'm grateful virtually every day.  Still, I lost propulsion, lost power.

Looking at the past year of my life and the deceleration I've experienced again in areas I'm passionate about, I wonder if things haven't so much "taken the wind out of my sails" as "blown holes" in them.  The storms of life have ripped holes in my sails and made it difficult to make headway and steer where I want to go.   The Mother Fast has been one of the things that has suffered, I'm afraid.  Mothers have been a difficult subject for me for obvious reasons.

I have this stubborn pride thing where I don't like my motives to be... apparent... or guessable.  I don't like to be predictable.  I might fail at it, but I don't like it.  And I really hate it when I think someone might look down on me for it.  So, when I entered a time of Mothering crisis and grief in my personal life, I didn't want anyone to stumble on this venture and go "Stupid girl, she just misses her Mom and she's trying to replace her with Heavenly Mother.  Her personal struggle isn't a good enough reason to try and change the way the Church works!"

Mothers are a big thing for me, you see.  My first one gave me up for reasons unknown to me, except that a divorce was involved.  I was cared for by a foster mother for a short time before I came to my real mother.  And I grew up knowing of a Heavenly Mother, but knowing very little about her... kind of like my birth mother.  I ached for years to become a mother of many myself, and I surrounded myself with fertility and pregnancy and birth in order to be around and serve mothers.  I have mothered countless friends.  Even now, when I look at children and sometimes wonder if I really want to take that challenge on, I mainly question whether I'd really make a good mother, or if I'm too exhausted from caring for adults to have much left to dedicate to children.  Mothering matters to me, tremendously.  I don't want some monstrous, heartless, "well-meaning", self-righteous internet troll to come stamping up to the walls of my Mother shrine and graffitiing it with judgment and a conservative attitude toward upholding the traditions of patriarchy.

So I've hidden in my silence and floundered in the hurricane of my grief and confusion, the chaos that has enveloped my life for the past twelve months.  I've failed to fast so many times out of forgetfulness or neglect or just not feeling up to withholding whatever form of nourishment sustained me.  I've felt like a failure, like I wasn't doing my part in the struggle for equality and balance and hope for a better future.  I've had to be very compassionate with myself.

I'm not saying I'm ready to go roaring in, banners high, sails mended and billowing in the wind.  But I'm here, as battered by the storms as I am.  I still love my Mothers.  I need Mothers in my house, above and below, and I miss them in their absence.  Hopefully tomorrow, I'll be strong enough to fast, again.

Rumor has it women will be praying in General Conference.  That, too, gives me hope. :)