Candice, this line is so true! “Victorian times in which the Church was forged, this was somewhat understandable, but in the 21st century, a time of gender equality increasing liberation and empowerment for women, as well as all kinds of new knowledge and research concerning psychological and spiritual well-being, it’s simply inexcusable.”
As I’ve been healing from all the harmful messages I just can’t unsee it anymore!
I really resonate with Ashleigh's story about jealousy about hearing about another girl's visit to Prince Edward Island (partly because I still have this kind of experience all the time when others experience things/places that I love and that feel sacred and personal, I actually had an experience when my husband visited Prince Edward Island for a work thing and I felt jealous!) I felt a lot of spiritual dread/fear starting during childhood due to eternal polygamy, and I used similar thoughts to try to feel better. Sometimes if I had a really close female friend I would think, “if we were together in heaven, it wouldn't be so bad!” I remember some women saying that out of pity they would be willing to share their husbands with the poor women they cared about that didn't marry. Other times I justified it by the idea that God wanted me to have the polygamous male grandfathers I have because they were just so darn faithful and had such strong testimonies, supposedly more than the other men who didn't get to marry a bunch of women.
One of my mentors tried to justify polygamy to me when I was about 9 when I brought up my anger about it. She said that men really need to be with a lot of women, and women can only be in love with one man, so this is why polygamy is the right way and how God lives. She gave me no empathy for the pain I was feeling. This was a really awful thing to teach a 9 year old and it hurt my sense of self-worth—I was worth less than a man, and God didn’t seem to care about my needs and desires at all. In my thirties, I realized this mentor was married to someone with ongoing compulsive sexual behaviors that probably left her feeling betrayed a lot of the time. I think she was trying to make sense of growing up in a very pro-polygamy family with pioneer roots and then having a husband with an unwanted porn habit that hurt her. For me, all this points back again like Ashleigh’s essay to the intersection of emotional/mental illness and polygamy as it plays out in girls and women’s lives today, and to emotional illness as the true root of Joseph’s unhealthy lifestyle. In my thirties, I read psychology researcher Sue Johnson’s books and learned that all the ideas that men are naturally polyamorous or have needs to be with multiple women that are psychologically legit. and healthy is a big load of bullshit. Committed monogamous relationships are what are most fulfilling and optimal emotionally, sexually and spiritually for both women and men. Both women and men experience extra marital desire and affairs, and for both, affairs are driven by loneliness when the marital attachment is damaged somehow.
Candice - this line resonated with me completely - I felt it in my soul -- "I look around and see I am part of a vast clean up crew of women of all ages who are sorting, scrubbing, and trying to make sense of the dregs at the bottom that have poisoned and hurt so many members." Goodness - I could cry just thinking about the women I know who think they have to keep hustling and grinding to prove their worth and value. They believe THEY are the dregs and can be no better!! Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece and creating a visual that speaks so clearly to me.
Randi, your Benevolent piece had so much meaning for me. And the title hit home.
The poetry gave me goosebumps! And reading your essays, I really resonated with finding healing in the good that other religions are offering, and in discovering a more evolved, mature calling for myself than I ever pictured. Loving this community so much!
Kameron…. My experiences have been in line with yours… did I feel at home in any of them no. I felt at home and all of them. Absolutely. Each and every time.
So beautiful ladies! I am in awe of all the religions out there. What a gift to visit so many. And I have often wondered how tied in mental illness is with religion. I too think Joseph was dealing with some kind. It doesn’t excuse his actions, but it allows a gateway for me to exercise empathy.
What a wonderful issue. Kameron, I love how you shared your visits to communities with female leaders and who are more mindful and loving toward queer communities and racialized people. This is a beautiful piece. And Ashleigh, this piece is amazing. I love how you courageously shared about your dad's mental illness, how it affected you and how your realized there were comparable patterns in your religious experience. So many of us probably have similar dynamics where mental illness in our families plays with what's going on with faith, I know I do. It's so important to discuss this. I'm 1000% percent on board with discarding polygamy as a non-divine mistake but still trusting in the good things Joseph recorded and did according to our own discernment and what the spirit testifies of. Once thing that makes me feel supported in this is that when I look at inspired historical figures apart from Joseph Smith with great minds and hearts, I see that many of them made the mistake of deceiving themselves and justifying betraying their partners and being with multiple women or abusing women. I'm including both spiritual leaders and great writers here. Thomas Hardy, Martin Luther King Jr., Karl Barth, the prophet Mohamed, Charles Dickens, Gandhi, and many others. Many of these men eventually saw what they did as tragedy and a blight on their lives, there is some evidence that even Joseph Smith came to this conclusion (see https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-psychology-of-religious-genius-joseph-smith-and-the-origins-of-new-religious-movements/) When I read Mormon Enigma (the definitive scholarly biography of Emma Smith written by two women), it's clear to me that what was going on was very psychologically unhealthy and abusive, yet also at the same time, that the earlier experiences Joseph had were authentic and he was honest about them. Larry Foster, an expert in Joseph Smith's polygamy says he doesn't think even Joseph himself understood what was going on and what his true motivation was. If you ask me, he was probably emotionally and relationally sick and had an intimacy disorder. People can develop compulsive behaviors driven by self-deception due to their psychological wounds. He didn't face his shadow, and neither have we as a people. None of this would mean he couldn't have been a prophet.
Related to my essay in this issue, I recently put a post online that discusses self-deception and compulsive and abusive behavior as an alternative (compassionate and faithful) explanation for Joseph Smith's polygamy if anyone is interested: https://beautyforashesldsblog.wordpress.com/2024/03/30/i-believe-joseph-was-a-prophet-and-seer-but-also-sexually-broken/
Candice, this line is so true! “Victorian times in which the Church was forged, this was somewhat understandable, but in the 21st century, a time of gender equality increasing liberation and empowerment for women, as well as all kinds of new knowledge and research concerning psychological and spiritual well-being, it’s simply inexcusable.”
As I’ve been healing from all the harmful messages I just can’t unsee it anymore!
I really resonate with Ashleigh's story about jealousy about hearing about another girl's visit to Prince Edward Island (partly because I still have this kind of experience all the time when others experience things/places that I love and that feel sacred and personal, I actually had an experience when my husband visited Prince Edward Island for a work thing and I felt jealous!) I felt a lot of spiritual dread/fear starting during childhood due to eternal polygamy, and I used similar thoughts to try to feel better. Sometimes if I had a really close female friend I would think, “if we were together in heaven, it wouldn't be so bad!” I remember some women saying that out of pity they would be willing to share their husbands with the poor women they cared about that didn't marry. Other times I justified it by the idea that God wanted me to have the polygamous male grandfathers I have because they were just so darn faithful and had such strong testimonies, supposedly more than the other men who didn't get to marry a bunch of women.
One of my mentors tried to justify polygamy to me when I was about 9 when I brought up my anger about it. She said that men really need to be with a lot of women, and women can only be in love with one man, so this is why polygamy is the right way and how God lives. She gave me no empathy for the pain I was feeling. This was a really awful thing to teach a 9 year old and it hurt my sense of self-worth—I was worth less than a man, and God didn’t seem to care about my needs and desires at all. In my thirties, I realized this mentor was married to someone with ongoing compulsive sexual behaviors that probably left her feeling betrayed a lot of the time. I think she was trying to make sense of growing up in a very pro-polygamy family with pioneer roots and then having a husband with an unwanted porn habit that hurt her. For me, all this points back again like Ashleigh’s essay to the intersection of emotional/mental illness and polygamy as it plays out in girls and women’s lives today, and to emotional illness as the true root of Joseph’s unhealthy lifestyle. In my thirties, I read psychology researcher Sue Johnson’s books and learned that all the ideas that men are naturally polyamorous or have needs to be with multiple women that are psychologically legit. and healthy is a big load of bullshit. Committed monogamous relationships are what are most fulfilling and optimal emotionally, sexually and spiritually for both women and men. Both women and men experience extra marital desire and affairs, and for both, affairs are driven by loneliness when the marital attachment is damaged somehow.
Candice - this line resonated with me completely - I felt it in my soul -- "I look around and see I am part of a vast clean up crew of women of all ages who are sorting, scrubbing, and trying to make sense of the dregs at the bottom that have poisoned and hurt so many members." Goodness - I could cry just thinking about the women I know who think they have to keep hustling and grinding to prove their worth and value. They believe THEY are the dregs and can be no better!! Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece and creating a visual that speaks so clearly to me.
Someone called me today to say that Gloria's poem esp. the last line made her cry, she felt very seen by this poem. So do I! So beautiful.
Gloria, i don't think I had ever heard that line before, that it is the string that keeps the kite flying. Ouch.
Your last line, "could I fly' gave me the chills. You can! I can! We can! People aren't kites!
thank you. xoxo
Randi, your art piece leaves me with a lump in my throat!.
Randi, your Benevolent piece had so much meaning for me. And the title hit home.
The poetry gave me goosebumps! And reading your essays, I really resonated with finding healing in the good that other religions are offering, and in discovering a more evolved, mature calling for myself than I ever pictured. Loving this community so much!
Kameron…. My experiences have been in line with yours… did I feel at home in any of them no. I felt at home and all of them. Absolutely. Each and every time.
Kim F
Loved this issue. Thank you for all of it!
Thank you for sharing my piece and for anyone reading it :) grateful for be in community with you!
So beautiful ladies! I am in awe of all the religions out there. What a gift to visit so many. And I have often wondered how tied in mental illness is with religion. I too think Joseph was dealing with some kind. It doesn’t excuse his actions, but it allows a gateway for me to exercise empathy.
What a wonderful issue. Kameron, I love how you shared your visits to communities with female leaders and who are more mindful and loving toward queer communities and racialized people. This is a beautiful piece. And Ashleigh, this piece is amazing. I love how you courageously shared about your dad's mental illness, how it affected you and how your realized there were comparable patterns in your religious experience. So many of us probably have similar dynamics where mental illness in our families plays with what's going on with faith, I know I do. It's so important to discuss this. I'm 1000% percent on board with discarding polygamy as a non-divine mistake but still trusting in the good things Joseph recorded and did according to our own discernment and what the spirit testifies of. Once thing that makes me feel supported in this is that when I look at inspired historical figures apart from Joseph Smith with great minds and hearts, I see that many of them made the mistake of deceiving themselves and justifying betraying their partners and being with multiple women or abusing women. I'm including both spiritual leaders and great writers here. Thomas Hardy, Martin Luther King Jr., Karl Barth, the prophet Mohamed, Charles Dickens, Gandhi, and many others. Many of these men eventually saw what they did as tragedy and a blight on their lives, there is some evidence that even Joseph Smith came to this conclusion (see https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-psychology-of-religious-genius-joseph-smith-and-the-origins-of-new-religious-movements/) When I read Mormon Enigma (the definitive scholarly biography of Emma Smith written by two women), it's clear to me that what was going on was very psychologically unhealthy and abusive, yet also at the same time, that the earlier experiences Joseph had were authentic and he was honest about them. Larry Foster, an expert in Joseph Smith's polygamy says he doesn't think even Joseph himself understood what was going on and what his true motivation was. If you ask me, he was probably emotionally and relationally sick and had an intimacy disorder. People can develop compulsive behaviors driven by self-deception due to their psychological wounds. He didn't face his shadow, and neither have we as a people. None of this would mean he couldn't have been a prophet.