Tomorrow's Memories

With the headlines on infinite bloody repeat, it has been a summer of shocking sectarian violence (Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Burma, China), on top of no-longer-shocking violence in US homes and streets. Add to it the doomsday reports of arctic methane, ebola, wildfires, etcetera, and it seems the only sane thing to do is unplug. After a futile debate on Facebook, I wonder what use am I to the suffering? Why am I even talking about this?

Yes, I need to unplug.

I need to close the digital firehose and open the garden hose, and tend to my tomatoes, where drones are honey bees and there are actual fruit to my labors. Or go jump in a lake, or pet the dog for a really long time, or rock a baby to sleep. I do wish I had a baby to rock! Please young families, move to Seattle and let me babysit. Seriously.

I need to fill the well.

Some former Laestadians are at Finnfest and Siidastallan in Minneapolis this weekend (I hope you get the chance to gather around a campfire). I'll be camping with my family and treasuring the few years we have before college and adulthood spins our kids off into other orbits. There's a full "super" moon on Sunday and a Perseid shower peaking on Tuesday. Better than Christmas gifts.

Several readers here are struggling with the church's grip on their lives. I talked recently to a 14 year old and a 70 year old, both of whom need encouragement. Thanks to longtime contributor Old Ap for posting the following advice, which I think both of them will find useful. If you have additional insights, please share them below.

"My 'cure' for Laestadian-induced bitterness is as follows:

1. Honestly admit how the person/parents/events/church affected you focusing on the bad but also realizing that there was some good, too. Maybe not much but some. Admit to the damage!
2. Admit to yourself how you were compelled to act out and/or adopt beliefs/indoctrination that you intuitively knew were wrong.
3. Realize how your personal aspirations were trampled on by the group's norms.
4. Acknowledge how the 'fear of God' was used as a weapon against you for control purposes and that it may have included emotional, sexual, verbal and physical abuse.
5. Acknowledge how so-called 'religious people' acted in wicked ways behind a facade of goodness to suppress a person's individuality.
6. Understand that the past did in fact shape you but that it was in ways that you are not now happy with. 

"Once a person has gotten to the roots, one should also realize that one NOW HAS A CHOICE about one's future life's pathway. Laestadianism seems to rob people of their internal gyroscope. We all have a chance to remake ourselves and claim or re-claim our internal sense of being. Start making positive life plans for oneself and start taking concrete steps to map out a life that is meaningful to you. The only person MAKING you stay is you." (Old Ap)

Shalom, friends.

Race and Gender

Will Mormon women change the church from within? Mormonism is vastly larger than Laestadianism, but there are many parallels, and when I heard this story on the radio, I felt a surge of hope for people of all religions who are working within to push for humanitarian reform. 

Earlier this week Kate Kelly, the founder of a group advocating for women to be ordained into the Mormon priesthood, was excommunicated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for apostasy.

“For Mormons it’s really the equivalent of spiritual death,” said Natalie Kelly, a Seattle-based member of that group, Ordain Women. She is not related to Kate Kelly.

She explained to KUOW’s David Hyde onThe Record that to be excommunicated from the church means that a person is stripped of the blessings of the church and the sealing covenant that Mormons believe allow a person to live with his or her family after death – a central tenet of the religion.

Apostasy, Natalie Kelly said, is believing in false teachings or falling away from the church. In the case of Kate Kelly’s excommunication, she said the decision about whether a woman seeking equality was apostasy was made entirely by a group of men. Women are never allowed into the disciplinary process of the church because they do not have priesthood.

Priesthood is essential for taking part in the administration of the church, including budget decisions, rituals such as baptisms and blessings, and speaking at church.
“So when women are excluded from the priesthood that means they are excluded from the entire decision-making of the church from the very top, down to the bottom. Every woman’s decision is always subject to a man’s approval,” Natalie Kelly said.

Ordained men of the church also influence the curriculum taught.

"You might have lessons for teenage girls about chastity teaching that a girl that has been sexually assaulted is ‘like a licked cupcake,’" Natalie Kelly explained.

“There’s an incredible emphasis on women’s modesty, covering women’s bodies, that women’s bodies are a source of temptation for men – and it’s all driven around a male-centric view of the world because men are the people in charge making all of these decisions.”

Natalie Kelly said that the role of women in the Mormon religion has decreased since the church’s founding in the early 19th century, when women had more ritual authority. She said even in Seattle, where Mormons are often more progressive about issues such as female ordination and gay marriage, the church leadership still receives instructions from Salt Lake City.

But she thinks that the church, which until 1978 would not allow the ordination of blacks, will evolve to include women more.

“I absolutely believe that women will be ordained into the priesthood someday,” she said. “There’s no way my children’s generation is going to pass without that happening. And I think that when that day comes, the excommunication of Kate Kelly and other feminists in previous generations that have been excommunicated is going to haunt the church in the same way that previous priesthood restrictions currently haunt the church.”

What do you think? What changes do you think you'll see in your lifetime?

Greta's Story

I want to thank "Greta" for sharing her story. Please consider telling yours.

IF IT'S NOT OKAY

My father was not originally from the church, but joined later on. He was controlling, he was arrogant, he was opinionated, and all of it fit within the ideal that the OALC sets. I went to high school desperate to fit in with the OALC youth, but just couldn't. Among other things, they were racist, they were rude, they were so concerned with materialistic items and who was dating whom that it made me nauseous—nobody cared about doing anything besides sitting in the Fred Meyer parking lot and smoking a cigarette (or five). It was so frustrating that at the age of sixteen, even though I was terrified to my core, I refused to go to church.

 . . . even though I was abused at home and terrified to my core, I refused to go to church.

Of course, there was fallout. There were a lot of talks with my parents, who were disappointed. Then there were the meetings with the preachers, several of whom told me that my desire to play sports and to go to college was foolish, and that I should focus on being a good helpmate for my future husband who would, as one put it, "just be paying off your college debts while you raised the children anyway. Why would you want to put a good man through unnecessary debt?"

But the most important thing about my story—and what I desperately want people to know—is that after I left, I went to college. I graduated, and am now a professional making good money at a job I love. 

The struggle is unimaginable when you are going through it and there is a depth of pain that is almost unbearable. You feel like a failure because you couldn't fit in, you feel embarrassed of yourself and your desires, but the truth is, you were just strong enough to stand up for yourself when what you knew what happening was wrong. 

You saw a group that was fervently bent on a religious ideology that was fundamentally wrong in the way that it was executed and you chose not to stand for it. Instead of standing for constant judgement and rigid rules that somehow dictate whether or not you will be saved, you realized that there was a way to live life with love in your heart for everybody. It is terrifying to leave something that was completely your way of life, but now the choice is up to you. 

. . . you realized that there was a way to live life with love in your heart for everybody. 

I chose to go to college and get a degree. I chose to get engaged to a wonderful man. I chose to be a nondenominational Christian and have never been stronger spiritually. I realized the joy that going to a really good movie can bring. The overwhelming amount of choices you can make is amazing, and though daunting at first, soon you realize that your life is your own. 

You can be free of abuse, you can create the life that feels good for you, and you can still be a Christian. The poisonous lie that exists in the OALC that that church is the one way to get to Heaven is just that, a lie. It can be difficult to realize that those you thought were your family and friends will not recognize you and will still be believing that lie but understand this: they cling to it because they were too weak to see that there is good in all people, not just the OALC, and the word of God is good, no matter what Christian denomination you might be.

Learn to live free, and remember: "If it's not okay, it's not the end."

***

Why We Need to Tell Our Stories

Recently I was asked why I remain interested in Laestadianism, with the implication that I should have "moved on" from my quirky upbringing, as it has so little relevance to my life now. I found this TED video relevant to that question. It is by forging meaning out of our struggles that we make sense of our lives, and by telling our stories that we give permission to others to live authentically. 

"Oppression breeds the power to oppose it, and I gradually understood that as the cornerstone of identity."

"It took identity to rescue me from sadness. The gay rights movement posits a world in which my aberrances are a victory. Identity politics always works on two fronts: to give pride to people who have a given condition or characteristic, and to cause the outside world to treat such people more gently and more kindly. Those are two totally separate enterprises, but progress in each sphere reverberates in the other. Identity politics can be narcissistic.People extol a difference only because it's theirs. People narrow the world and function in discrete groups without empathy for one another. But properly understood and wisely practiced, identity politics should expand our idea of what it is to be human. Identity itself should be not a smug label or a gold medal but a revolution."

The Right to Education

Growing up, Helena Lucia didn't realize a science technology career was an option for a woman.

But on Saturday Lucia, 38, will receive her Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from Washington State University Vancouver. She's one of 915 students who will participate at WSU Vancouver's commencement exercises.

Lucia is the recipient of the Chancellor's Award for Student Achievement in recognition of her love of learning, overcoming barriers in pursuit of academic goals, leadership potential and involvement in campus life.

What do you think of when I say "education rights for girls"? Malala Yousafzai, the teenage human rights activist who nearly paid with her life for going to school? The Nigerian schoolgirls, whose kidnappers' name Boko Haram means "Western education is a sin"? 

Please read this article about my friend Helena, a single mother of four who is graduating this Saturday with a degree in Computer Science and launching what promises to be a rewarding career. I am so proud of Helena, and hope every young woman in the newspaper's territory, which is home to so many OALC families, reads this article. While the journalist chose not to mention Helena's upbringing, the biggest obstacle she faced was a cultural inheritance and indoctrination in dependency and self-denial.  (In conservative OALC families like mine, those of us who desired higher education had to go it alone, without emotional or financial support, and often with active disapproval and shunning. The only sanctioned choice was marriage and childbearing. Pretty much like some conservative Muslims in the news!)

I met Helena through this website seven years ago, and it has been a privilege to become her friend and watch her nurture the genderless qualities of courage, curiosity, and imagination, not only for herself but her wonderful children.

May she continue to inspire and support girls seeking an education. And may the kidnapped girls be quickly rescued, reunited with their grieving families, and allowed the self-determination that makes us fully free and human.