Vol. 40 No. 1 – Summer 2020
This magazine issue offers several different paths we might follow in keeping up our Mormon tradition of active service and hard work for a good cause.
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This magazine issue offers several different paths we might follow in keeping up our Mormon tradition of active service and hard work for a good cause.
We started planning this issue of Exponent II Magazine in the early months of 2020, intending to highlight and celebrate the long history of public
“Most of my experiences of racism have been from members of the [LDS] Church. When I have expressed my pain and concerns, I am often gaslighted by members of my faith. Though the gospel supports inclusivity, the culture of the Church and often members do not act in unison with these teachings. The painful history of racism of the Church has affected so many people and still does today, whether they are members or not. I do not believe anyone should have to endure racism within the walls where they worship. It is often hard to grow spiritually in such […]
They say that heaven is a pure white fruit, And I must pass through darkness to get there. Some days what they mean is that I must pass through life in this dark body before inheriting one of theirs. I think I tasted heaven once, but it wasn’t entirely sweet. First, I walked a lonely path, on my head a crown of curly thorns. Someone handed me a map to guide me there, But the iron burned me and called me cursed. When I dreamt of arriving at the pearly gate, I was reminded that It had been locked for […]
Until this spring, I had never been to a protest. My mother said she regretted joining the only protest she ever participated in- the 1989 protest against the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Hong Kong. She was turning 25. I am 25. She said she was too naive then, too wrapped up in her feelings and manipulated by the voices around her. She said that protesting is not what good citizens or good members of the Church do. She would recite the 12th Article of Faith perfectly in Cantonese: “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, […]
At a Public Affairs Denver Area Coordinating Council meeting in 2015, the area media coordinator shared a document he had prepared to educate local opinion leaders about Mormons in advance of a new temple. He was looking for input. One of the “Did you know?” points on this document was that LDS women have an equal presence in church leadership and jobs. I raised my hand. “I can understand what you’re trying to do here,” I explained, “but this is terribly disingenuous.” And it was. I don’t know the numbers of how many women have a calling in the LDS […]
My daughter asked for WhiteOut to line edit someone else’s Proclamation of what she should be should be. It’s not a luxury I afforded myself, while I was penning love letters to what I didn’t think I could have, trusting my hope in the crannies, seeing soil instead of stone, a ladder instead of bars. She’s painted clouds across my broken altar, a blizzard that would have frozen her out if I had been the one with the correcting fluid. I almost took it back, the little bottle with its paintbrush, the wrinkling drying paper, opaque gasps among dead black […]
This sacrament talk was given on August 19, 2018 in the Lynnfield Ward in Massachusetts. I went to a small liberal arts school for an obscure graduate degree in something I enjoyed; it was expensive with little external funding. At the beginning of my second semester, two women in the year above me started planning a charity event. Great, I thought, a chance to give back to the community and stretch my acting legs a little more. Imagine my shock then when it turned out it was a fundraising event for the graduate students. They were trying to raise a few […]
I had sworn after I graduated from BYU that I would move far, far away from Utah and never return. Part of my reluctance about living in Utah was that I was so similar to the majority of the people in the state: white, Mormon, and descended from pioneers. I was certain that I would stagnate in a place where I wasn’t exposed to things outside what I already knew. But there I was — 32 years old, single (doubting that there even existed a person I could be happily married to), and starting a new life back in the […]
Three women in an upstairs bathroom; squinting at their lives in early morning light. Death’s wife smells of Vaseline; her bad hip keeps her from sweeping the floor. Divorce has painted her nails green for growth or envy; she holds back the hair of Abandonment, who grimaces over her belly and vomits again in the sink. (Photo by Paul Blenkhorn on Unsplash)
Exponent II provides feminist forums for women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum to share their diverse life experiences in an atmosphere of trust and acceptance. Through these exchanges, we strive to create a community to better understand and support each other.