Short Lessons on Mormon Feminism

          So I liked THIS article on Mormon Feminism in City Weekly and not just because I was quoted in it, or because my friend wrote it. But I have some thoughts on some things, as one does. Here they are:


1. I agree with the premise of Ordain Women. I think the church should move toward full-equality yesterday and I think it is a good thing to ask for female ordination directly.

I also think small victories and gradual changes in thought dynamics should be celebrated, because life is short and celebrate what you can. I think the two strains of activism need and thrive off each other in positive ways. We don't need to create artificial divisions in the Mormon Feminist movement, for instance, suggesting that you either support small, gradual changes OR you only advocate for full and complete equality. Welcome to 2013, you can have both. This is feminism vs. patriarchy, not feminism A versus feminism B. I can say this now because I used to think this way, and I realized it was wrong.

(I'm not suggesting that was what Kate Kelly meant, but it is an argument I hear frequently, and I don't agree with it.) 


2. I admire Laurel Thatcher Ulrich immensely. I grew up reading Ulrich, and her works shaped my perspective in many ways. So naturally I was a little put-off by her dismissive response to the current strain of Mormon Feminists:

"I don’t think many of the Mormon feminists I know worry much about what they wear to church on Sunday or even whether women pray in General Conference."

Maybe you need to get to know some more Mormon Feminists, Ms. Ulrich. I run a facebook group of about 800 of them who care very deeply about what they wore to church on December 16th. Their feelings are just as important and valid as yours. 

I also refuse to accept that a person who won the Pulitzer Prize doesn't understand the significance of visual imagery (It wasn't about what we wear to church, and everyone, including Ulrich knows it,) or the significance of seeing a woman in a leadership position for the first time in our well-behaved history.

In regards to this quote from the article: "Ulrich knows feminists who are “lawyers, college professors, CEOs, politicians.” These women “raise their voices often and well in local settings where they are usually heard,” she says, adding that they “are too busy trying to make a difference in areas where they have significant responsibility to worry a lot about what is happening in SLC.”

I think it is wonderful that there are female, feminist "lawyers, college professors, CEOs, and politicians" who have avenues in which to express themselves and change the world. But there are also Stay-At-Home Moms and teenagers and college students, and under-employed writers and artists and dreamers who also need to have their voices heard. For those people, Wear Pants to Church Day afforded them the right to express their views in a small and meaningful way. I think it is disrespectful to those men and women to suggest that the only place to be a feminist is the work-force. I also think it is strange that Ulrich wouldn't include church as a place where women "can make a difference." 

I also respectfully reject the idea that it is somehow superior not to "worry about" things that seem "beneath you,"  or which happen in SLC. I believe our Heavenly Father is a feminist. I believe our Heavenly Mother is a feminist. I believe Jesus is a feminist. The same Jesus who counts the hairs on my head and watches sparrows fall worries about what happens in SLC. Small people, and small things, matter. Our Heavenly Family celebrates the victories of both CEOS and young mothers who dressed their baby girl in pants back in December. 

There is also something deeply important about having your voice heard at home. I'm a teacher, I have a wonderful career that I value, and where I feel my voice is heard and appreciated. Not just with my students, but with my colleagues as well. 

But I wanted to hear my voice heard at home. For all of my life, the LDS chapel has been my spiritual home. It is where I was raised to talk to God. I may move away from home, explore new avenues, and talk to God in numerous other places, but for me, wearing Pants to church was a test of the old adage, "you can never go home again." I wanted to know that if I went to church as my true self, my wandering-hearted, angry feminist self, if God would still hear me. Turns out God was listening. 

Which, in the end, means I guess it shouldn't matter (and I will repeat this to myself over and over until I believe it,) if a childhood idol dismisses my actions as less than those of a CEO or politician. It was never about making history anyways. 

daughter, believe me

This poem is a High School English class staple, (Extended metaphors!Enjambment!) but I love it anyway. It is also a perfect poem for father's day. 

First Lesson

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you. 

Philip Booth

One of the most surprisingly heart-breaking moments of my life was realizing that someday Clara will grow up and join me on this long thrash called life. There will be moments where she feels tempted to stop looking at the gulls and try the dead man's float. It hurts to realize that someday I won't be able to hold her as she floats. Luckily, she has a kind dad who will teach her to lie gently and wide to the light-year stars. I'm lucky he is here too.

providers and homemakers

          disclaimer: I'm talking about life choices that work for me, and my family. I recognize the validity of many life choices for many different families, including those incorporating "traditional" gender roles or work/life arrangements.

             I made dinner tonight. Nothing to clap your hands about, but it was edible and mostly healthy, and when we sat down to eat, I exclaimed, "Look! We are eating dinner like a real family!" I know, I know, I'm lame. This dinner was approximately the 28th meal I've made in 6 years of marriage. It is probably the 19th meal that was actually tasty.Not that I'm counting. (Of course I'm counting, I'm obsessive compulsive about numbers.)

           In my defense, I'm married to a man who enjoys cooking, and it made sense for him to be the meal-provider in the first few years of our marriage. He had flexible work hours, he liked it, it worked for us. But in the last few months, his work has become increasingly demanding, and with me working part-time, it made sense for me to bite the bullet and learn that my husband wasn't playing a trick on me when he sent me to the store for white pepper. White pepper is a thing. Shallots look like onions. Things bake differently at different altitudes. Flour and powdered sugar look the same, but are not the same, so maybe taste test first if you are an idiot.

            Tonight was my best dinner yet, and I felt stupidly proud about it. I felt really happy to provide food for my family. I wondered if this is what women felt when they talked rapturously about the joys of "homemaking." You make something nice for the people you love and it makes you feel proud and happy.

           I'm not going to lie, it also felt really good to be successful at something traditionally "feminine." I made dinner! I'm practically June Cleaver! In many ways, I am not great at the "girl" thing. I don't wear make-up frequently. I hate my hips and boobs because it means I can't wear the androgynous clothing that looks so effing amazing on "boyish" figures. My hair sucks a lot of the time. Beauty magazines confuse me. I know those are stereotypes, and not truly "girl" or "female" things, but I live in a culture that values those things, and I can't help feel defective sometimes when I don't measure up. But I cooked dinner, so I'm not a complete girl failure, right?

            I realize though, that the feelings of pride, the feeling of happiness that stems from providing something for my family is something I've felt frequently the last few years. I feel the same thing when my husband breaks his hand during ward ball, and the surgery to wrap his bones in titanium wire is covered by my health insurance. I might not make much as a teacher, but my insurance is good, and has been invaluable to our family, since Spouseman is self-employed. When Clara needs antibiotics, or I need a C-section, I don't have to worry about where the money will come from.

            Similarly, when Spouseman has a slow month at work, I take pride in the stability my income provides us. Every year when I sign my intent-to-return form at school, I am guaranteeing my family one more year of stable income. (Unless I sleep with a teen or something. Cross your fingers THAT doesn't happen.) You can say it is superficial or silly of me to need the validation of a paycheck for my hard work (Shouldn't the kisses and hugs from your child be enough you say?) but I love knowing that I help contribute financially to my household. It makes me feel like a good parent, the same way feeding my daughter home-made enchiladas with broccoli tonight made me feel happy and proud.

            This is why I get so annoyed when people suggest that men and women are inherently better at certain life-functions. I'm not saying men and women are the same, so put your biology book down and spare me the "men are physically stronger" and designed to work outside the home lecture. My annoyance lies with the idea that men are men, so they do xyz, and women are women, so they do abc. Throw a line about how archaic and grossly-oversimplified gender roles are somehow "divine" and I'll have a hard time controlling my eye-rolls.

             Some people would like me, at this point, to say that I may be a great provider, but it's because I'm not very nurturing. That I really am a failure at the "girl thing" that is being a mother. That isn't true. I'm a great nurturer. Like any parent, I'm flawed, but not only do I love my child, but I am good at translating that love into caring for her emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being. But I'm not a great "nurturer" because I'm a mother, or a weirdo who doesn't recognize my divine role when I provide financially for my family. Working and parenting aren't gender roles: they are people roles, and anyone can be good at them, or alternately, suck royally and raise a psychopath.

             Awhile ago, my friend pinned this C.S. Lewis quote: "The homemaker is has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only...to support the ultimate career." I didn't like this quote. Mostly because I don't like C.S. Lewis, (I know, I know!) but also because it seemed like something I would read on some mommy-war internet forum, in which the working moms and stay-at-homers battle it out to the benefit of no one.

            But after thinking about it for awhile, realizing I didn't like it because I didn't think I could claim the title of "homemaker." And I want all the things. It made me mad I couldn't be a "homemaker." I mean, I signed a contract to go back to work full-time next year, didn't I? But then I realized that if "traditional" gender roles are antiquated, this word, this "homemaker" thing is probably due for a revamp too.

           I'm a homemaker. I'm a homemaker in the most literal sense, because my income pays for stuff in our home, sometimes including our home.  I'm a homemaker in an emotional sense: my income allows my husband to recognize his dream of starting and growing a business from scratch. We are both happy and fulfilled in our careers (but also sometimes very tired,) and what could be more important in the creation of a home than filling it with happy people? Our daughter is happy and healthy and thriving, and we couldn't imagine our family without her. She is a homemaker too. *

            Even when I'm at work, I'm  homemaker. My work, like everyone's work, influences the world around me, I'm part of my student's homes, and my husband helps build companies that sell the goods and products in your homes. Homemaker. Something no one told me about work-life balance is that work and life are not two separate things to manage. They are two things that have to work together to be successful.

          So yes, C.S. Lewis, even though I think you were occasionally a dickalope, (Did you have to ruin Mere Christianity with that bit about how women shouldn't be allowed to work because they would just gossip and back-stab each other too much?) you might be on to something. My ability to make a home, through my work, through my parenting, through my relationship with my Spouse: it's the ultimate career. But I couldn't do it without Dan, both of us, providing and nurturing and mother-effing homemaking together. 



*This is not to say we don't sometimes screw up, or that I don't come home so tired from teaching that the idea of taking care of Clara until bed-time makes me want to throw-up, or that everything is perfect. Perfect doesn't exist, good-enough and mostly happy does.



         



     






       

who made the world?

              A few weeks ago I went with some friends to see The Righteous and Very Real Housewives of Utah County up at the Blessed U. I liked some parts of it, and not other parts of it. It is still very hard for me to watch people, even fictional people, wrestle with a faith transition. I felt like I was looking at myself in a mirror after a sleepless night. Puffy eyes and smeared mascara: me, before I've put my "people face" on.All the raw energy and feelings, love and pain mixing together in ways I'm too familiar with recently.

            After the play we chatted with some of the cast a bit, and we discussed faith transitions, and the happiness that comes from living an honest and authentic life. Someone (and I'm sad to say I don't remember who,) reminded me "You only live once. It would be a shame to live that one life unhappy."

         Recently, I've described the reaction from people who knew me when I was active with the old cliche "death by a thousand paper cuts." When you live your faith very publicly, as I have, you are often blessed with an amazing support system. But it is also inevitable that everyone who knew your old self, and who continue to believe the things you no longer believe, will hurt you. Often unintentionally. Small comments that you recognize because you used to say them yourself. Veiled judgement and blame that hurts, but is justified as "bearing testimony" and speaking the "truth."

  A few months ago, I wrote a sort of flippant post on what not to say to your Apostate friend, and if I ever wrote that again, I'd probably just say: "Nothing. Say nothing. Unless it is really nice. Because a questioning Mormon has 99 problems but a bitchy comment from your old Young Women's leader (or your grandma, or your friend from college, or your ex boyfriend, or......) ain't one."

But I only live once, and it would be a shame to live that one life unhappy. And while I'll openly admit that I'm probably at capacity for paper cuts, I'm not dead yet. Which allows me to decide how to live this one life. I can live being hurt by the comment made by a relative at my sister's wedding. I can berate myself for the mistakes I've made as I've lived my one life. I can focus on the tiny injustices brought against me, or I can just live.

A few years ago my sister read this Mary Oliver poem at her high school graduation. And I've been thinking of the closing lines recently, as a reminder to keep living this life happy. Because it really is beautiful, faith transitions, smeared mascara faces, weddings, family, all of it is beautiful, and all of it is part of my one life.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to knell down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?



To be honest, I don't know how to pay attention, or how to fall down in the grass. What is it like to be idle and blessed? I still don't know how to stroll through the fields.

But I would like to learn.

That's what I plan to do with my one wild and precious life.









PS: Sometimes I get emails asking me where I find my poems. This one is an old favorite, but I found the text on the Poetry 180 website.  Poetry 180 provides "a poem a day for American high schools," and is a cool resource for teachers and poetry enthusiasts alike.

I'm taking back apostate.

One of my favorite things to do is mess around with words. I especially like to turn nouns into verbs. When we run out of food at our house, I tell Spouseman we are "Grapes of Wrath-ing it." I also like making up words, "dickalope" being my crowning achievement in made-up words.

English teachers always talk about word choice, and words having power, and that's true, but it also isn't true. It isn't the words that have power, it's the intent and the meaning behind the words. Words can mean whatever you want. Some meanings just happen to be more powerful than others.

Another hobby of mine is taking words with definitions don't fit my purposes and bastardizing them until they do. For instance, my Dad is always defending this awful relative* who everyone hates (because he is mean and enjoys his meanness,) so whenever he starts in on how Relative X isn't so bad, I yell HOLOCAUST DENIER, because in my mind, justifying the behavior of Relative X is like denying the holocaust: only crazy people do it.

(For the record, I like manipulating language in really offensive ways, if you haven't noticed already. Hi. Welcome to my blog.)

When the whole THING happened (hint: I suggested some people wear a type of clothing to a religious service and the shit hit the fan,) a lot of people scoured my blog to find evidence of what a terrible person I am.

Um, I didn't make that really hard. Not because I am a terrible person, because I'm not, I'm actually a very good person, but because I try not to pretend to be better than I am when I write. It is one of the truly good things I think I do with this blog, so I am owning it: I'm a flawed person with lots of questions, and I think God is okay with that.

 But in Mormon-land, showing flaws is like breaking the first rule of Fight Club. We aren't supposed to talk about how we swear or have doubts, or how we make mistakes. So if your parameters for "good person" are narrow, some-what arbitrary, and sometimes down-right Pharisaical, I'm probably not going to make your cut of "who gets into heaven." Too bad you're not in charge.

One of the things people found offensive when they read my blog was my self-identification as "Apostate."

"She is secretly plotting to lure in Mormons with her evil pants and destroy the church! She even admits she's APOSTATE! She weighs the same as a duck!"

Yep. I self-identify as Apostate sometimes.

I've been blogging about religion for six years. When I was a true-believing, active, faithful-in-every-way Mormon, I got called apostate for being a baby-murdering Democrat. When I was a questioning Mormon who believed in Gay Marriage I got called an Apostate. When I talked about how art and literature brought me closer to the divine...you guessed it, Apostate.

I realized it didn't matter what I did, someone was going to call me Apostate, so I just decided to own the term, and give it a meaning that works for me. This worked really well for Henri Matisse and the Fauvists, Monet and the Impressionists, and unfortunately, the Tea Party.

When I call myself Apostate, I mean that I have apostatized from many ideas from my youth. The dictionary definition says that "apostates" "abandon a belief or principle," so I didn't even have to work my word-bastardizing magic too much to make it work.

I've apostatized from the idea that questions indicate a lack of faith. I've apostatized from the idea that we can be "too tolerant" and fall into "tolerance traps." I've apostatized from that idea because I'm a parent, a spouse, a sister, a friend, and a daughter and I know you cannot love "too much" or care "too much" about other people. I've apostatized from the belief that little girls are somehow sexual beings who need to be taught about modesty because they will "need to practice how to dress appropriately when they are older." They will also need to learn how to do Calculus, but I'm not going to buy my-one-year- old a graphing calculator.

I've apostatized from a God who keeps score based on ritual alone, and a God who insists on blind devotion to fallible men. I've apostatized from Patriarchy and the mental gymnastics that tell me Patriarchal institutions are gender neutral. I've apostatized from a pedestal that claims my worth is all in my uterus. I've apostatized from sitting three hours in uncomfortable chairs when I can't feel God there under-neath all the presiding and fear.


I haven't apostatized from grace. I haven't given up hope in the divine, whether we find it in the cosmos or in our souls. I haven't apostatized from hope that religious tradition I grew up in will someday be better. It irritates the hell out of some of my truly agnostic friends, but I haven't apostatized from a God who speaks to their children, or a Son who walked on water to rescue the doubter.  I haven't apostatized from the idea that the best way to protect my daughter doesn't involve covering her shoulders, but teaching her about the nuances of rape culture, because Elizabeth Smart was wearing long-sleeved pajamas and pants when she was kid-napped.

 I believe all things, I hope all things, I will endure many things, except not Polygamy because that's crazy.

So there you have it. There is no food in my fridge, we are grapesofwrathingit. I sort of think Brigham Young was a dickalope. My Dad knows the Holocaust happened, but he has really bad judgement in certain relatives, and I am an Apostate.




*not a close relative, just a super creepy one.

Bergeron Equality

I love teaching "Harrison Bergeron," Vonnegut's short-story featuring a dystopia which achieves "equality" by making everyone "the same." Smart people wear devices that chime loudly in their ears, preventing them from thinking clearly, and preventing the less intelligent from  "feeling bad" for not being able to achieve the same intellectual heights.

Beautiful women wear masks, because biologically, some women will never be as beautiful, and it is unfair. The most skilled ballerinas dance with chains and weights, forced to maintain the same degree of clumsiness as their peers.

Rebel Harrison tries to overthrow the system by removing all his man-made handicaps, and likewise "freeing" a beautiful and skilled ballerina. Together, they dance on a televised performance, temporarily proving the beauty of diversity before being shot down by the Handicapper General.

Harrison Bergeron always elicits an interesting discussion from my students on what equality is, and what is looks like in real-world application. Some students decide that equality is bad, because "equality means everyone has to be the same."

I usually use this as an opportunity to talk about how I try and incorporate equality in my own classroom. My average class size is 32. (It's obscene.) In any given class, a few students show a propensity for intellectual greatness. They are probably smarter than me. The majority of students are what I call "average-bright." They are smart and capable...just like "everyone" else, including me. I also work with students who struggle on various levels. Some are very smart, but work with learning disabilities that cause them to process information differently. I would not label any of my students as "dumb," but they are all very different.

So how do I teach the same thing to 32 individuals with different needs, and how do I grade their individual progress in a way that is fair?

Choice.

For most major assignments and class discussion, I provide choices for how a student proves academic growth. I try and make sure there is a choice for most major learning styles, and ability levels. For example, some students will write a formal academic essay arguing a point central to the novel. Others will write and perform a speech. Some will create multi-media presentations. Others will create original art or poetry.

I try and help each student identify the best choice for their learning needs. But the standard is always the same: Show me what you know about X. As the year goes on, I encourage them to try new choices, and adapt their assignments accordingly. But, they are all learning "the same" thing. The standard is the "same," but differentiated (education word!) to who they are. None of my students are the same, but I'd like to think I work with them as equals.

With the Mormon community's renewed interest in discussing female ordination, the one argument I hear over and over again from naysayers involves some variation on the "Men and women are different! They don't have to be the same to be equal!" theme. There is a lot of Valerie Hudson tossed around (that's a whole other post,) and by the end, I am supposed to accept that because men and women are different, I cannot expect them to hold the same privileges, or Priesthood.

The same naysayers also offer this stunning intellectual insight: Men can't have babies. "Maybe we should start a movement for men to get pregnant!" It would be unfair to both sexes to give women the Priesthood when we can never give the equivalent to men. Except we can. It's called Fatherhood. And yes, I understand that carrying and giving birth to a baby is different than providing sperm. But if men and women are to be equal partners in parenthood, despite biological differences, is it so illogical to make them equal partners in Priesthood, despite those same biological differences?

Of course men and women are different.

But the funny thing about people who rail against gender equality in the church, who claim men are women are just so different and therefore must maintain separate roles, is they actually want men and women to be the same. They are the Handicapper Generals of the church, attaching chains to the legs of any woman skilled enough to both nurture and provide, and chiming loudly in the ears of any man who dares to see beyond his role to "preside" in the home.

According to the current model, all men will want and hold the Priesthood the same way, and all women will produce and care-for children the same way. Their argument, "men and women are equal with different roles" really means "all men are the same as all other men, and all women are the same as other women."

But if men hold Priesthood because women have uteri, what happens to the woman who cannot have children? Can she have the Priesthood, because, just like her male peers, she "can't have babies?" Should we stop giving men the Priesthood until they have children, because women don't get their "thing" until the sperm hits the egg? I mean, if things are already equal in patriarchy land, what do we do when different men and women don't fit the same roles?

Men and women aren't different because of their genitals or their internal organs, men and women are different because people are different.  I am not the same woman as my sister, mother, or daughter. I am not the same individual as my husband, father, co-worker, or friend.

Just as in my classroom, equality in the LDS church doesn't mean making everyone the same. It means giving everyone access to the same standard (Show me what you know about X,) and allowing everyone to achieve that standard in ways best suited to their individual needs.

In a Mormon context, the standard we are all striving for is the same: Be more like Jesus. But the way we get there, the way we show our learning, doesn't involve two assignments determined solely on gender. Instead of assigning the same two paper topics to all the students, imagine a world where women could become more like Jesus by offering a poetic Mother's Priesthood blessing to her sick child. Imagine fathers learning how to nurture their own children, not just "babysit" them while Mom is at Enrichment. Imagine all the original art and poetry we could create by offering the Priesthood to all members.

We wouldn't make men and women the same. We would recognize men and women for what they really are: Individuals capable of eternal progression beyond their physical anatomy.


In "Harrison Bergeron" beautiful people wear masks, so as not to remind others of what they do not possess.  Smart people go slowly insane from the constant ringing in their ears. As followers of Christ, what are we masking, and who are we driving slowly insane each time we claim our anatomy as our destiny? More importantly, who do we shoot down as apostates for daring to dance a little differently than before?

Good Friday

A story about Resurrection:

A few months ago I found myself vising the Getty Museum. This trip to Los Angeles was the first time I ever spent more than 6 hours away from my child, and I reveled in the luxury of feeling absolutely alone as I wandered through the museum, listening only to the audio-guide.

I've always maintained a special relationship with art museums. Even in the days of  full religious belief, I found myself turning to art, and the museums that held them, as sanctuaries from my every day world. In my early twenties, seeking therapy for general anxiety and depression, a therapist asked me to imagined my "safe place." It should surprise no one who knows me that I immediately imagined myself in London's National Gallery, surrounded by jewel-tone walls and beautiful art.

Two days before my wedding, which were happy, but busy days, I didn't find myself visiting the temple, like so many other Mormon brides. I found myself at the University of Utah's MOMA. There was a Brian Kershisnik show on display, and Dan and I wandered through the rooms, breathing slowly for the first time in weeks. Everything was going to be fine.




I've experienced more spirituality in art museums than I ever knew at church. Especially more spiritual than anything I ever felt in the temple. Not that churches and temples can't be beautiful, or spiritual, but for me, all those feelings I was supposed to feel at church, I felt when I looked at art. I can feel the art in a way I never felt my Mormonism.

I see myself in the images. In London, the National Gallery has a room filled with Annunciation paintings. (Annunciation paintings depict the moment Gabriel tells Mary she will have the Christ child.) In Duccio's painting, Mary looks afraid, stepping back from the angel Gabriel, hand over her heart, almost dropping her book.

I spend a lot of time feeling like Mary. Afraid of a God who I'm not sure knows or understands my heart. As a person who plans, and plans, and plans some more, I never could trust the Annunciation paintings in which Mary accepts the news of an unplanned divine pregnancy with serenity and grace. I've yet to accept nearly any message I hear in church with serenity and grace, after all.




But I didn't learn to relate to Mary in church. I learned empathy and love for my fellow sister and mother in an art Museum.

Likewise, I made pilgrimage to three cities and three countries to see replications of this statue by Rodin:

These are the Burghers, or city-leaders, of Calais. During the Hundred Years' War, Calais was under siege by the English. The Burghers willingly offered themselves for execution if the English would spare their starving city.They came forward, some with the noose already around their neck, in a supreme act of selflessness and devotion.

I love their faces. I travel just too look at their faces. Some show despair, some resignation, some anger, but I always feel both more human and more divine looking at their faces, feeling what humanity can accomplish when we allow ourselves to become just a little more selfless.



If art museums are my temples and churches, these statues and paintings are my saviors, redeeming me and reminding me that even imperfect humans are capable of wonderful things. I can't look at the Burghers without my heart pounding through my chest, every part of my soul telling me that this, whatever this is, this is truth.

There is one similarity to my religious life and my life as an amateur art historian: I sometimes grow lazy in my devotion. So as I walked through the Getty, seeing my old friends again (El Greco, Giacometti,) I took time to feel the sense of peace settle into my soul. Did you know that all art museums somehow smell the same? They smell like nothingness. Not food, or car exhaust, or even people. Just air. Art museums always smell pure, like breathing inside one will automatically make you smarter and kinder.

At one point in the audio tour, the speaker described his favorite Cezanne painting. Unlike the other art historians and experts discussing the pieces, this man was an artist, and I could hear the emotion in his voice when he described Cezanne's work, his voice breaking as he declared, "I need Cezanne like some folks need God."

I need art like some folks need God.

I need to stand in a space dedicated to human achievement, for all the good humanity can do in spite of all the awful pain and destruction. Because every time I visit an art museum, I'm ressurected. While most days I wear the robes of pain and cynicism, after a day in the Getty, I leave those feelings neatly folded in a marble tomb. I leave, choking down the heart that threatens to pound through my chest, because for one moment, I believe again that people are mostly good. We are flawed, and we get scared, and we bury our head in our hands, but we are good.

It is no surprise that in the same year I moved away from the orthodoxy of my religion, I taught my first humanities class. That class saved my life, as every morning I followed the advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson and made "my own bible." But instead of collecting "all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet," I collected art. I found peace with my prophets and prophetesses, my Van Goghs and Kahlos, and brought myself slowly back to life in the temple of my classroom.


Photo credits:

National Gallery: mine (hence the lack of professional quality.)

Brian Kershisnik: Meyer Gallery

Annunciation: Here

Burghers: mine

Burgher: Jeff Kubina