Naismith is not a “Mr.”…just so you know Julie. *g*

Ardis feels a lot of deep pain because of things in her life she cannot control, and Naismith feels her own deep pain. Sometimes instead of bearing one another’s burdens and learning from another person’s perspective, when we’re hurting and we feel like someone is poking sticks at us, we snarl and fight back. I’d like to think that both women are smart enough to look past the remarks on both sides and cut each other some slack with forgiving hearts.

Something I’ve noticed, that perhaps we can all work on, is trying to be more honest about how we represent others. So often these days it seems that many people simply cannot take anyone’s words at face value or trust that some people actually do mean exactly what they say. Period. Why do people literally act like they have the ability (and the stewardship) to read the speaker’s mind or probe their souls, accurately determine what deep, dark motivations lurk where they cannot be observed, and then inform anyone who will listen that what the speaker SAID is not what they MEANT. The scriptures call misrepresenting others bearing false witness, and when we ignore this commandment, it is our own mistaken assumptions, and the images we create in our own heads, that make us angry-not what was actually said.

The pure and ennobling principles of the gospel must be spoken. Sometimes they can be softened, sometimes they can’t. They cannot be diluted or changed simply because they make us uncomfortable or reveal areas in our personal lives that we have neglected. Part of their purpose is to DO exactly that, alert us that something is broken or undone so we can fix it and move forward. One of the hardest truths I’ve ever had to embrace is this: With extremely rare exception, where I am (emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially) at any given time in my adult life is the direct result of the choices I have made or am making.

They wish.

I also have a daughter-in-law who has two children and is also a database manager for a medium size company. She has a BA and has considered pursuing an MA. Both of them are very organized, in their own ways. Both of them are teachers in their wards’ young women program. As far as I can tell, neither resents nor is jealous of the other, and neither was distressed in any way by Julie Beck’s talk or its transcribed version in the Ensign.

I know both of them have heard criticism of their lives from other LDS women. My daugher gets it from women who tell her she has too many children and should work outside the home. My daughter-in-law hears it from women who tell her she should be a stay-at-home mom (she in fact would love it if my son earned enough to replace the net income that is produced by her work).

I have always been mystified by the extent to which many women are more harsh in their judgments of self and of others than men are. My observation is that those who are most critical of others are not very self-critical. Somehow the whole cultural custom that American society has about allowing women to talk about and to each other in a critical fashion is not something that men (thank goodness) have adopted. We criticise each other in the context of specific accountability, either in Church or at work, but men do not feel they have any kind of default charter to tell off another guy about how to run his life or career or family. In many of the posts on timesandseasons.org, the topic is the contrast between the core Gospel and the cultural practices that are often attached to the Gospel on the outside, but are not really part of it. I would like to suggest that the hypercriticality of women toward themselves and others (including sometimes their husbands and children) is one of those cultural artifacts that needs to be excised from the lives of LDS women. Being criticism-prone is clearly related to the problems about body image that generate travesties like anorexia and bulemia.

Certainly we all need to spend time on self-reflection about where we stand compared to God’s expectation for us. That is one of the functions of the Sacrament. At the same time, if we don’t understand the function of God’s grace and charity towards us, and his expectation that we will have similar grace and charity toward others, we can get caught up into a Pharisee-like contest of perfectionism that no one can honestly win. The great teaching of Ether 12:27 is that we ALL have seriously weaknesses, and that the only way we overcome them is NOT through gritting our teeth and becoming Rambo Christian, but through utter humility and dependence on God’s love and grace and forgiveness. The meaning of 2 Nephi 25:23 is not that we don’t merit God’s grace until we have expended all our own resources, but rather that when we are striving to do what God wants us to do, while seeking God’s help, it is God’s ongoing grace that helps us to accomplish the things he commands us to do (1 Nephi 3:7).

All of the things that Sister Beck asks Mormon Mothers to strive for are things that, almost by definition, are impossible through human effort and skill alone, and only can be accomplished by full humble cooperation with and dependence upon God. We deserve neither condemnation for being inadequate nor praise for being accomplished. We do deserve love and mutual forgiveness, because in forgiving us, God has given us the capacity to forgive others, as well as ourselves.

Traditional Christianity often condemns Eve for placing us in the predicament of having children in such a faulty society. The Restored Gospel teaches us that Eve herself rejoiced in the difficult work of having a family because she had perspective on how Christ would help her life to be fruitful in the long run. Yes, many of the rewards are in the future, but seeing that vision should transform so many mundane things we experience with an illumination of their true eternal significance, just as we should see our screaming children as precious sons and daughters of God who, like us, suffer from limited understanding and poor impulse control. God forgives us of so much; can we not forgive our own children?

This is undoubtedly the case! And hooray for Janet for making several cogent points even as she was on the verge of hospitalization. I can attest that what she said on the panel is absolutely true: her 15-month-old (Muffin) is a cherub. (Best of luck at the doctor’s office.)