No Title

Well, this is starting to get embarrassing--the only times I've posted here in the last couple of months have been to advertise my posts over at Segullah. This is no different. If you want to read what I'm thinking, you'll have to go here.

Maybe someday I'll start posting more. (Like, maybe a month from now when the semester ends). In the meantime, this is what you get!

Languishing

I can see I've been neglecting this blog. (My excuse: insanely busy semester.) But I have been writing. Just not here. Today, though, you can find me over here.

anger management

I've shared part of this story elsewhere, but yesterday I had a sort of dramatic confrontation with one of the less pleasant portions of myself: the quick-tempered mom who sometimes (more than she likes) yells at her kids.

Here's what happened: Yesterday morning we spent the morning doing yard work (my husband) and cleaning the storage room (mostly me--although everyone else helped put stuff back once I was done cleaning). It hadn't ever really been arranged--we just put our food storage in around whatever boxes were left down there from moving in. All that's changed now: everything is neatly arranged by type.

The process wasn't entirely painless, however. My four-year-old offered to help me move things off the shelf, and, without thinking to give him any instructions, I agreed. Not two minutes later, he came out to where I was arranging things on the floor outside the storage room, holding a big glass jar of grape jelly. "Uh oh," he said, "Mommy, I just dropped a jar of jam." (I had had two big glass jars.)

While I may sound calm recounting this, I'm afraid I wasn't very happy at the time. I ordered the kids out of the storage room, and set about cleaning up the mess. Glass and jelly make a pretty awful combination--one I hope I don't have to repeat anytime soon!

The other calamity of the morning was mostly Evelyn's doing. I was trying to rearrange a couple of shelves and the kids were just outside the storage room, where almost everything that had been on the shelves was reposing. I heard Andrew say that Evelyn wanted a popsicle--I responded (somewhat absently) that she couldn't have one now; maybe when we were done. I assumed the subject was dropped, but I continued to hear vague murmurings of popsicles, and I suddenly remembered that an open box of otter pops (not yet frozen) was one of the things on the floor by the kids. I dashed out just in time to see Evelyn spraying green juice all over her skirt (and the carpet) as she tried to open her "popsicle" for herself. (Andrew also had a partially opened otter pop, but his hadn't spilled as much). And yes, for the second time in two hours, I found myself yelling at my children.

I don't want to be this mom. I had thought, when I reached maturity and stopped fighting with my sister, that I had finally managed to overcome my temper. Having children has taught me otherwise.

However, I don't think I'm alone. I remember reading a NYT article last fall, which suggests that this new generation of parents (the ones who are hyper conscious about their children's involvement in a variety of activities, who would *never* think to spank their kids, who carefully monitor their children's health) are, ironically, a generation that yells.

I read some of the comments--some noted that the article resonated with them. A few (the ones that stuck in my head) suggested that only people with a limited vocabulary would yell at their children. As a woman with a PhD in English and a reasonably large vocabulary, I'm more inclined to agree with the other commenters who felt that this particular individual probably didn't have children.

Still, knowing that I'm not alone doesn't exactly make me feel better about the fact that I do, sometimes, yell at my children. And I feel like those moments undo all the hard work I put into the other 90-95% of my parenting, when I try to be calm, reasoned, and rational (not all things that come easily to me, appearances to the contrary). Certainly, I'd rather yell than lash out physically, but there has to be a better option. Help?

Failure of Imagination

My son, this morning, protested getting ready for church (as he often does). He finally burst out, "I hate church! I don't want to go!" After running several responses quickly through my head, I settled on, "I'm sorry to hear that. But why do you think we go to church? Who wants us to be there?"

Grudgingly, he muttered, "Heavenly Father" (which is what we've told him in the past). Trying to be encouraging, I said, "That's right. Heavenly Father wants us to go to church."

To which my son (he's four) responded, "But he's not even there! He doesn't even live here."

For a child who's generally so imaginative, I had a hard time getting him to understand how an omniscient God can still be aware of what we do, even if he's not physically present.

And I realized, too, that I'm also guilty of imaginative failures when it comes to spiritual things. For one thing, I've been thinking lately of the concept of Heaven--not the misty place in the sky where we all rest on clouds and play harps (I certainly hope Heaven isn't really like that!), but a place where we interact with others we love in ways that are similar to the social circles we enjoy here. But I find myself drawing a blank when I try to think of how arts (particularly literary arts) translate into that sphere. I certainly believe we will take the best of us with us--that includes our artistic gifts--but what would a novel, or a poem, or a play look like without the central conflicts and tensions that define life in an imperfect world? At the same time, it seems fundamentally contradictory to suppose that anything in heaven could be *less* than something here. I can only suppose that my imagination isn't up to the task.

Post script to my last post

A good friend of mine posted recently at Segullah about an experience she had at an interview at BYU, where the interviewer asked her how she balanced feminism with being a Mormon woman. She responded that, while she enjoyed reading feminist theory, her first identity was as a Mormon woman, and she tried to see everything--including feminism, through that lens.

Her comment was a useful reminder, for me, that when I experience those moments of dissonance, it's important that I remind myself which of many identities carved out for me is the identity that I choose--and then to see myself through that identity. To borrow the example my friend used, it's more important that I use the lens of my faith to view outsiders, than to use outsiders' views to view my faith.

Double-consciousness

I should note that I'm somewhat uneasy about borrowing my title from W. E. B. DuBois--certainly my own experience with a sense of dual vision was nowhere near as difficult as the racial issues he tackled in his work. Having said that, I find his concept-- “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity” ("Of Our Spiritual Strivings," p. 2)--a useful way of describing how I've felt on occasion.

I think that, on some level, many of us feel this conflict--whether it's as a country dweller temporarily seeing himself or herself through the condescending eyes of some urbanite (or vice versa), those of us who are a little more self-aware can't help but experience that unsettling moment of double vision, when we see ourselves both through the self-affirming vision of our own world-view and through the devaluing lens of someone else.

I've struggled with this dual vision on multiple occasions--as a religiously faithful woman in academia, recognizing the skepticism that most of my peers held for my religious views (and once even sitting silent in a seminar where one of my colleagues, a former member of my faith, held out for a good fifteen or twenty-minutes on the doctrinal and cultural failings of my church); but also as an academic in an audience of devout religious folks, fighting my own skepticism.

I am a woman, and I happen to be Mormon, two overlapping identities that make this sense of double-consciousness particularly acute for me. As a Mormon woman, I've never felt particularly oppressed by my faith (in fact, I'm more often liberated by the religious sensitivity it has wrought in me), but I can't help being aware that most people, looking at the male-dominated hierarchy of our church, believe that it denies "equality" to women. (However, I also can't help feeling that it takes a certain kind of annoying sense of cultural superiority to tell people that their own culture "oppresses" them, when they are far from feeling that kind of oppression.) And while I admit I do wonder why God designated the priesthood for men, I have enough faith in my faith to let it rest at that for now (after all, God doesn't often explain his reasoning until after the fact--witness Abraham and Isaac, for one). Nor do I feel any less loved, or any less capable because of the organizational structure of my faith. Nothing in this organizational structure changes my essential relationship with God.

Having said all this, I have to admit it's still hard when I'm confronted with the reality that many people would think me delusional, weak, ignorant--any variation of a cooperative victim--for believing as I do. There was an interesting article in the SLTribune recently on the resurgence of Mormon feminism. I enjoyed the article (I know some of the women interviewed) and then I made the mistake of reading some of the comments. These comments don't change my faith, but they do serve as a (useful?) reminder that not everyone in my community agrees with me. And while disagreements have a fundamental part in the classical invitation to rhetoric (our differences create the problems that rhetoric seeks to resolve), that doesn't make them comfortable. Nor do I necessarily enjoy that moment of double-vision--although I do appreciate the clarity it forces on me afterward as I evaluate (inevitably) which of these visions is truer to my sense of self.

As another example, on occasion I've found myself struggling with my sense that I need to be home with my children and a personal desire (admittedly selfish and probably vain) for academic glories and more public recognition. Within my faith, women are encouraged to provide for the primary nurture of their children--often this means staying home, particularly while children are young (to be fair, both mothers and fathers are encouraged to make children their priority). But it also means that sometimes--and in my view, unfortunately--women are judged (sometimes severely) for *not* staying home with their children, unless the situation is clearly one of dire necessity--and even then some less generous souls seem to think that the direness of the situation may be a result of too little faith. (Let me make it clear that I do not think such uncharitable attitudes have anything to do with the spirit of true religion--but they have everything to do with our human failures). Sometimes, then, in trying to find my own balancing act between caring for my children and making some time for my own interests, I find myself caught in a kind of triple vision: my own vision (which tells me I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have), the vision of less charitable members of my faith who think I shouldn't be working outside the home at all, and the vision of those outside (and, admittedly, sometimes even in my faith) who believe that a woman's career should take precedence to other interests (and again, I admit that this spectrum is more polarizing than the reality probably is).

I think such dissonance can sometimes be a good thing--it keeps me from becoming too complacent, it reminds me that others have that "equivalent centre of self," and it forces me to continually articulate for myself what it is I believe in and why. That doesn't always mean that I like it (or accept it gracefully). But this kind of cognitive dissonance also gives me a great deal of hope in one of my interpretations of Paul: "now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Cor. 13:12)--that is, if now my image of myself is fractured, one day I will see myself clearly, as God sees me. In the meantime, I strive mostly for imperfect glimpses of that self.

What about you? What kind of cultural dissonances bring that sense of double-consciousness for you? How do you resolve (or live with, or otherwise harmonize with) that sense of dissonance?

Paradoxes of faith

An acquaintance recently posed an interesting question about the paradoxes we encounter in our faith. I'm sure that paradoxes are a common part of most faiths--but they seem to be an intrinsic part of Mormon faith, in particular. (Terryl Givens, a professor of English at the University of Richmond and a faithful member of the LDS church, has even written a book on this, People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture.)

One paradox: Balancing faith with submission. For instance, we're encouraged to have faith to move a mountain (or to exercise faith sufficient for healing), but we're also told that we should submit to God's will. How can we at once exercise faith in healing, for example, while submitting to God's will that an individual not be healed? (Personally, I think we negotiate this particular paradox by trying to listen carefully to the Spirit--we need to have faith, yes, but we need to also try to be sensitive as to how we should exercise that faith. Not, of course, that this makes it easy).

Another paradox--and one that I've been thinking of quite a bit recently, is the tension between standing up for your own values and still allowing others agency. One of our articles of faith maintains that we believe in the right of worshipping God according to the dictates of our own consciences--and that we allow others that same privilege. And as members of our faith, we are encouraged to stand up for the values (particularly moral ones) that we believe in--but how do we both uphold a particular value (for instance, the sanctity of life, or moral purity outside of marriage) and still allow others to act according to their own belief systems, which might include behaviors that violate our beliefs? How can we be both accepting of others and still maintain firm moral standards? This is one that I'm still working out for myself.

What about you--what are some paradoxes you find yourself confronted with in your own (or others') practices of faith?