Introducing Tresa Edmunds

Part 1 of 5 · Ep. 217

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories Podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org. Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. I'm very excited to have you with us today and I'm very excited to have with me a very special guest. Her name is Tresa Edmonds. Theresa is a blogger at Feminist Mormon Housewives. She blogs under the name Reese Dixon. She writes for the Guardian uk, which is a newspaper in the uk, I believe, and we'll have her talk about that in a second. She blogs at her own blog. Theresa, tell us the URL of your blog. That's reesdickson.com reesdickson.com and a lot of that's around crafts and homemaking type stuff. Is that right?

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:04] Yep. Parenting.

John Dehlin [00:01:06] Parenting. But also she has written an article or two for Patheos. She is a co blogger at Beginnings New, which will beginnings new.blogspot.com, which is a resource for young women instructors. And she is a co founder of wave, which is Women Advocating for Voice Inequality, which was established to advance the cause of gender equality within the LDS Church. And basically, Tresa is really well known as being sort of viewed as a 21st century modern Mormon feminist. She's written a lot about feminism, but that's not all we're going to be talking about today. We're also going to be talking about her childhood, her story. We're going to be talking about abuse, infertility, raising a disabled child, you know, the young women's program and many, many things that touch, you know, women in the LDS Church. But you can't touch women in the LDS Church without touching men. So it's basically pretty comprehensive.

Tresa Edmunds [00:02:07] So it'll be a whole lot of too much information.

John Dehlin [00:02:11] Yeah. But Tresa, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Tresa Edmunds [00:02:14] Thank you very much. I'm very honored to be here.

John Dehlin [00:02:17] Yeah, well, I, so I read, I read what I could, you know, some of your posts and your background. And in some ways it almost seemed like too terrible to be true. Kind of the opposite of too good to be true. I mean, you've had a really hard life, you know.

Tresa Edmunds [00:02:35] I know, right? Like, I actually have a really dark sense of humor because you can't help but have one coming out of what I come from. And so I was thinking about, as I was thinking about this interview, I was thinking, like, your listeners might think I'm a little bit cuckoo because I have gotten to the point where I kind of find it all Hilarious. Because it is so absurd.

John Dehlin [00:02:59] Well, that sounds. As a psychology graduate student, that sounds healthy.

Tresa Edmunds [00:03:04] Oh, good.

John Dehlin [00:03:07] But. Well, we have a whole lot to cover and to talk about today, but in the typical Mormon stories fashion, I think we're gonna spend a great deal of time just digging into your story before I start throwing out some of the questions from our listeners and from my own pocketbook. So before we really launch. Well, my metaphorical pocketbook. So let's. If it's all right, let's just jump right in, Tresa, and tell us about your fascinating childhood.

Growing Up in a Difficult Household

Tresa Edmunds [00:03:42] Fascinating childhood. Well, let's see. Give me something to say here.

John Dehlin [00:03:55] So you.

Tresa Edmunds [00:03:56] You were born in a small town in Idaho?

John Dehlin [00:03:59] Okay.

Tresa Edmunds [00:04:00] I actually, I was born in Twin Falls, Idaho, but I left there when I was 2. We moved pretty much every year of my life until I left home. So I really don't have a hometown. I spent a lot of time in the western Washington, greater Seattle area. My parents lived in Snohomish for, I don't know, six or seven years, maybe longer. But I still, you know, had different schools, different wards, blah, blah, blah, every year. So it was pretty darn unsettled. Did you ask a question while I was.

John Dehlin [00:04:44] No, no, no, no.

Tresa Edmunds [00:04:48] Yeah. So what else? My parents are both nominally Mormon, but it's a pretty generous description, I suppose. The church was really not practiced in our home by any stretch that I think anybody would recognize. We went to church often enough for, like, to kind of keep the home teachers at bay. And when one of my parents wanted to be the more righteous one in the next argument, then they'd take us to church. But really, we were pretty pretty much inactive, at least partially inactive for most of my life. By the time I got to. By the time I got to the young women's program, I had a. Shockingly, it was just shocking how little I knew. Like, in fact, I didn't even know what Joseph Smith's role in bringing forth the Book of Mormon was. I didn't know the name of the prophet, so I had no understanding, but I did still so define as Mormon. And I got a lot of bullying at school, like, even in elementary school for being Mormon. And I was so ferociously defensive of, you know, my faith, even if I had no idea what that faith really meant at all.

John Dehlin [00:06:19] Right. And there wasn't a lot of harmony in the home, I take it.

Tresa Edmunds [00:06:25] No, no, not so much. Yeah. My parents. I say my parents were physically and emotionally and spiritually abusive. And then I have also in my life been sexually abused. So it was A really unhappy home, very tumultuous. We often say that my siblings and I often say that my parents didn't so much have a marriage, so much as a 25 year long divorce and full of just so much, just drama and craziness and unhealthiness and oh gosh, yeah, it's exhausting even to think about, even as an adult. Yeah, a lot of dysfunction. Like for one example, my dad was a big hunter and owned a lot of guns. And my mom would. We would be away for efy and my mom would call us at efy, which is actually, at least back then, I don't know what it's like now. Back then it was quite complicated to get ahold of a kid at EFY and she would call us up and say, you know, like in tears about how terrified she was and how she was having her friend take all the guns out of the house and all this. I mean, I'm not one to defend my dad, but I think that was a bit overblown. My mom just had her own issues, but there was just so much of this inappropriate drama, inappropriate sharing with us kids that yeah, there was no safety. Our home was not a place of safety or of peace.

John Dehlin [00:08:08] What was your relationship with your mom and dad individually like?

Tresa Edmunds [00:08:15] My mom, well, you know, like any kid, I so desperately wanted my parents to love me. And I am the middle child and I am so very much the middle child. And I was always really great at school and really just tried to achieve, to just be the overachiever to get their approval. And my mom, how do I explain? She was just kind of narcissistic, just very much about herself and her medical problems and the medical problems that she thought we would have and, you know, very attention seeking behavior and, and just could not stand to be disagreed with or reasoned with. I mean, she would just get really emotional and rageful and then just disappear. She worked as a nurse and she would work nights and so when she was there she was just this whirlwind of emotion and then she would be gone either sleeping or working or. And then, you know, so we would all just try to scurry just out of the way. She could just be very exhausting. My dad was the more violent of the two. My mom was much more emotionally abusive. My dad was the more violent, provoked usually by my mom. But he was very mercurial. You know, one minute he would just be the greatest love and you just felt like he hung the moon and the next minute he would be terrifying and so Sometimes we got along really great. And in fact, I remember one time he said to me, he said, now that I'm a parent, I'm just hearing this with whole new ears. But he said to me, you know, Tresa, parents are supposed to love their children, but they don't have to like them. And I actually like you. I just went, thanks, dad. But we did have a lot in common. In fact, I have this MacGyver streak that is strong within me that if I can make it myself, even if it would be smarter and cheaper and less time consuming to buy it, it doesn't matter, I will still make it myself. And I got that 100% from him. Very bittersweet with him, with my mom, it was. Well, my mom was beautiful and charming and you know, there was so much I admired in her too, but far more devastating.

John Dehlin [00:11:07] Right. Well, that's. I mean, childhood is hard enough to have a really dysfunctional home and really rocky relationships with your parents. Well, did they. Do you have some of the sweet memories as well, or is it just not really

Tresa Edmunds [00:11:34] terrible? No, no. And what's sweet to me is when I say them out loud, it's often like the reaction I get is people going, oh, honey, you know, I'm like, no, that's one of the good ones. And it, that doesn't quite translate.

John Dehlin [00:11:57] So, I mean, this is probably as good of a time as any. What? So you, you mentioned physical and emotional abuse. That's probably got to be pretty terrible to experience as a child. I mean, you're, you're kind of talking about it in a. Oh, you know, in a light hearted way. Partly, probably because.

Tresa Edmunds [00:12:19] Defense mechanism.

John Dehlin [00:12:21] No, no, no. And I'm not attacking you or judging you.

Tresa Edmunds [00:12:23] I'm joking. I'm joking.

John Dehlin [00:12:25] Yeah, but I mean, that's terrible. That's got to be terrible as a kid.

Tresa Edmunds [00:12:29] Well, you know, honestly, I was horribly depressed as a kid. I mean, horribly depressed like to the point where my, my mom, who was a nurse would medicate me and I'm not any. She had her own ideas on what that meant that I don't still to stay really understand. But I was so horribly depressed. I just knew that something was not right. But when you grow up in a house like that, you really don't have any tools to recognize that there's a different way it could be. I mean, that's just your, that's what your baseline normal is set at. And so it took a long time of awakening and it wasn't honestly fully until I got to BYU and got away. From that entirely that I really started to recognize. Oh, you mean not everybody grows up this way. I mean, there were still obvious. I mean, I left home at 16, so obviously that's not normal. And I did know there were some not normal things, but that's how we would discuss it. Like, to this day, I'm actually the only one of my siblings who will use that dreaded a word of abuse. The rest of my siblings say that's not normal or that shouldn't have happened, but they really won't take the step to name it because that does come at a price. I mean, I just knew I wasn't happy. I just knew that things were hard, but I couldn't articulate it any further than that. I knew I was afraid, but I couldn't articulate any further.

Coping With Childhood Abuse Through the Church

John Dehlin [00:14:05] So how did you cope with. With the abuse?

Tresa Edmunds [00:14:10] I really retreated into school, I retreated into books, and I really retreated into the church. I mean, once I. Once I got to be about 12 years old, I have an older brother who went on a mission about then, and I just idolized him, and the church was very important to him. And so I kind of dove into it with both feet because it was what my big brother was doing. And it was this weird, twisted form of rebellion because it was something my parents really weren't doing. And I had some really tender, really sweet experiences with the spirit just helping me to get through those times. And leaders. Most the experience I had with the church addressing the abuse was complicated. But I did have a couple of leaders who had the courage to just kind of pull me aside and say, I think something might not be normal. Because even that, you know, nobody wants to toss around the term abuse. It's so scandalous. And so even my, you know, my leaders wouldn't say, are you being abused? But they would say, are things not quite. Quite normal? And just kind of give me little pep talks. And that was tremendously encouraging to me. And when I did finally leave home at 16, when I finally got out of there at 16, then I moved in with a former young women's leader who into a different stake. So the church was really supportive to me in many ways, although. And it just. It comes down so much to the individuals who were in charge, because then I also had a bishop who flat out refused to believe us. As. When we as kids would kind of test the waters and say, this is something that's happening in our house, they would just say, no, you're just, you know, you're just rotten teenagers. You just can't get along with your parents. And we would get a lot of lectures like that, especially as my, my sisters would kind of act out. And then the leaders would just say, oh, your poor mother who has to deal with all you rotten kids. And it doesn't hurt that my parents are both beautiful and charming and smart and can put on the great face. And my mom loved to play the martyr role and sigh about, oh, she's so worried about us rotting kids. So there we would get. I mean, I got a lot of lectures about how I needed to be kinder to my parents and I needed to be more obedient to my parents from people who probably should have seen something. I don't, especially now that I'm a young women's leader. I don't envy, I mean, anybody. That's an incredibly difficult position to be in, to kind of barge into a family drama like that. But there's a lot of steps that can happen in between saying you rotten kids need to be obedient to your parents and calling child protective services. And I wish that they had fallen somewhere else in the middle there.

John Dehlin [00:17:28] Right. So on the one hand, the church maybe didn't come through for you like you would have liked, but on the other hand, sounds like you really clung to the church and it was a really important lifeline for you. Right?

Tresa Edmunds [00:17:41] Yeah. And maybe it'd be useful to make that differentiation between the gospel and the church because it was the pure doctrine, it was the gospel that I really clung to and it was some untrained, ill equipped leaders who made things more difficult.

John Dehlin [00:18:02] Right, right. And then you mentioned some. I think I remember reading about some important spiritual, formative experiences that you had during this time. Is that right?

Tresa Edmunds [00:18:14] Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:15] Talk about those for a minute. To the extent that you.

Tresa Edmunds [00:18:20] Well, it was looking back and especially as I've gotten older and I've had more in depth conversations with other people and their faith journeys, I come to recognize what a unique experience it was because it was something that I, it was my normal. I had nothing to compare it to. But I got really, you know, as I was getting more involved with church and I was really embarrassed by. It was a temple recommend interview where I realized I didn't even know the prophet's name. And I was so embarrassed by that, especially given all those years of crap I had taken for being Mormon. And I couldn't even play. I didn't even know what I was defending. I just dove headfirst into a study of the gospel and I read all the standard works. And I, I was that totally annoying kid who comes home from efy like doesn't want to listen to anything but church music, doesn't want to read anything but church books. I was that kid, I was that over earnest. Just oh, oh, looking back, I just want to pet my 12 year old me. Like had no idea what was coming. But I just one thing that was really important to me and I haven't spoken about this a ton, it is something that I tend to keep a little bit more to myself. But when I read in the Doctrine and Covenants the section, it's falling out of my head now, 80 something maybe. But anyway, the section about spiritual gifts and then found it in the New Testament and found it in the Book of Mormon. It was so important to me that the gift of revelation was available because going to all these young women's classes and going to EFY and girls camp and totally immersing myself in the church, I got so many messages of temple marriage and eternal families. And when you come from a family like mine, that's really not something to be happy about. And there was. And so as I was reading about that and it caused me such great grief that I couldn't go to my father for a priesthood blessing like my friends would do for theirs. And when I read those passages I thought, well, the gift of revelation is just as good as a priesthood blessing, so I want that. And so much of my spiritual education was kind of self taught in so many ways that I didn't know I maybe shouldn't have done that. I would probably, I think if I had told a leader I might have been discouraged about hubris or something that you just don't claim those things. But I really didn't know any different. And I felt the need so keenly that I just said heavenly Father, I need this. And you say right here that I can have it, so yes, please. And I have felt that gift so intensely in my life, so intensely. And I felt like I was just so privileged to have this private little instruction time with the Spirit and so many beautiful experiences, some that really are too sacred to share. But one that really touched me was, you know, I was kneeling in prayer and I'm pouring my little earnest teenage heart out and just sharing all this grief about this family that I come from and how desperately I wanted a family like the one on the COVID of the family home evening manual and how much my heart just ached that that was not my experience. And, and I felt the Spirit come to me so strongly and I Felt this understanding come to me that this was not my only chance at a family, and that one day I would be grown and I would have my own family and I could make that family be my eternal family. And I was just kind of like, oh, okay, I feel better. Thanks, Heavenly Father. And as an adult understanding how rare those experiences are, I marvel at that. And those kinds of experiences weren't rare for me back then. They have become, you know, I still feel the spirit with me very intensely. And I. Well, we can get that to that part later. But there have been times in my life where that was not the case. But back then I felt those kinds of experiences so frequently that I. I didn't realize how rare they were, how special they were. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:12] And simultaneous to this, was there a budding feminist inside?

Tresa Edmunds [00:23:20] There has always been a feminist in me. I'm just a mouthy broad, John, can't help it. And I was just so annoying even as a youngster. Just had this innate thirst for equality in me and I could not be denied. And I remember being deeply offended as, I mean, I couldn't have been older than, let's see, I was still in Colorado, so I couldn't have been older than first grade. And I remember being deeply upset at the boys on the playground who would say that girls were. Girls were inferior to boys. And I would at, you know, at six. Oh gosh, it's embarrassing to think about at six years old, like, try to have a debate and say, but, but your argument does not hold water. And meanwhile they're like just being a six year old and I'm being this, you know, humorless feminist. And yeah, it's just, it's. It was always, it was just always, always a part of my fundamental nature. But during my years of intense religiosity, I really tried to squelch that I was not entirely successful. And I think that if you talk to somebody who knew me back then, they would say, oh, she was. That's how she was then too. But I did get it in my head like nearly everybody does when they go through the young Women's program, unless they are surrounded by incredible influences to counteract that. I got this vision in my head that there was this one way to be a good Mormon woman, and that included making jam and quilting and making your own bread and not working and, you know, not having a ton of, you know, aspirations aside from the home. And so I really tried with all of that annoying earnestness to reroute my focus to being this good Mormon woman. And I think that in my case, the fact that my mom did work at a time when it wasn't super common and coupled with the shame that I carried from my family being so different and abusive, I was really ashamed. I felt like I was being denied this education of how to be this good Mormon woman and do all these things that I was supposed to be doing. And so there were these two halves of me that were decidedly in battle, and I couldn't decide where each piece fit. I just knew that with all my heart I wanted to be a good Mormon woman. And I believed that that meant I. I shouldn't get too much education. Because, you know, it was the 80s. It was before Gordon B. Hinckley.

John Dehlin [00:26:27] Right.

Tresa Edmunds [00:26:28] I felt like I shouldn't have any aspirations to work outside the home. I felt like I needed to just, you know, strictly focus on homemaking and deny everything else. And yet every time I opened my mouth, out popped this overtly feminist statement that I just could not. I just could not bridle. So I just had no idea how to make these pieces live together. It was just a puzzled mess.

Early Feminism, Marriage, and Leaving BYU

John Dehlin [00:26:53] And did you ever. So you sort of felt pushed or, you know, you felt like you were nurtured into the traditional women roles, female roles, by the church. Did you ever feel or experience condemnation against equality and feminist views? Did you ever think of the church as anti feminist or feel shamed about your feminism or your feminist leanings back then?

Tresa Edmunds [00:27:25] You know, it's hard for me to differentiate what was cultural and what was because of my family, because it was so tied in together, particularly because I had a working mom and because I had a neglectful working mom. I don't know how much of it was a reaction to her and how much of it was a reaction to the messages I was getting at church, you know, my pining after. In fact, there's this one woman I have in my head. Her name was Donna Hawkes. And I was friends with her daughter. And I would go to her house and she would grind her own wheat and make her own syrup and the whole nine yards. And I would just pine after being like Donna Hawkes. And I don't know if that's because I just wanted to be nurtured. If I just was so desperate for someone to love me or if it was because, you know, I would also go to young women's and hear these stories, and hear these stories about how important it is to have a freshly made bed and bread with jam on it to serve your children. I mean, those are actually Quotes I'm paraphrasing from general authorities and kind of

John Dehlin [00:28:34] like the Judah the Sister Beck. You know what. What Women. Women who know or whatever kind of

Tresa Edmunds [00:28:40] that were actually Kimball, I think.

John Dehlin [00:28:45] Yeah, yeah, I know.

Tresa Edmunds [00:28:46] At least the bread and jam is Kimball. I want to say the freshly made bed is him, too, but I might have that wrong. Yeah, so.

John Dehlin [00:28:54] But that whole. Yeah, that mindset. Yeah, it's neatly combed children with tablecloths and an apron.

Tresa Edmunds [00:29:05] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:29:06] Perfect hair.

Tresa Edmunds [00:29:06] Healing the world through the power of a homemade snack at the end of a school day.

John Dehlin [00:29:11] Right, right. Okay. But never feeling ashamed or hearing the word feminism condemned openly.

Tresa Edmunds [00:29:22] I don't know that I ever heard feminists condemned. I certainly felt personally condemned. And maybe that's another thing, is I was just so internalizing all the shame back then that when I would open my mouth and out would pop some overtly feminist statement, I would always receive pushback. But back then, I really interpreted that to be my brassiness and not my. And not necessarily the content of what I was saying as an adult. I think there's probably a bit of both to that. And it is kind of shocking to me what the teasing was allowed to get away with. Like, there were some boys in my seminary class who were teasing me. It was obviously that they were teasing, but they would say these horrifically sexist things just to get a rise, you know, I mean, just. I can't remember the exact joke, but something about what you do with the dishwasher. What do you do when the dishwasher's broken and something like you beat her and put her back in the kitchen or something like that, you know?

John Dehlin [00:30:31] Slapper.

Tresa Edmunds [00:30:32] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So a hilarious joke having to do with spousal abuse and antiquated gender roles and that, you know, when I would get upset, then even the teacher would be like, oh, you. You know, Teres, you're the problem here. Not these horribly sexist things that are being tossed about.

John Dehlin [00:30:53] Right. Okay. Okay. So that gives us a bit of a sense of your childhood. I'm sure it's not anywhere near comprehensive in terms of what we could talk about, but tell us about your, I guess, your break from your family and what came after that.

Tresa Edmunds [00:31:13] Well, this is where it gets really soap opera y. But I promise this is all true. I really loved school and felt very, very much at home there. I have two sisters that bookend me, and they are both very bright, very talented, but neither one of them enjoyed being a traditional student. And my younger sister, she's a year and a Half younger than me. And she had had year after year of just, I mean, horrible grades, just fighting with teachers, blah, blah, blah. So my mom found this alternative school called Benjamin Franklin Academy. And it was about a half an hour away from our house. And she told. I was 15 at the time, and she told me that if I would drop out of school after the end of my freshman year, then she would buy me a car so that I could drive my sister to this alternative school. Okay, and the car, mind you, we are not talking. We are talking barely able to drive off the junkyard, bought it for $200 kind of a car. Okay, I'm saying car in air quotes here. That I was selling my. That was my mess of pottage was a $200 car. But I did recognize that that was my opportunity. That was the only chance I was going to get. And so I took it. And I dropped out of school after my freshman year, and we started going to Benjamin Franklin Academy, which I believe is still in existence. And everyone I met there was incredibly wonderful. I mean, wonderful, wonderful people. And some of the people who had the guts to say, are you okay at home? I'm worried about you, were there. I mean, they were life changing, the people that I met there. The school itself, looking back, was pretty darn scary. It was one of those, like the curriculum written by the founder kind of schools, with an extremely heavy emphasis on history and little emphasis on much of anything else. And so I went there for a year and then graduated in air quotes because it wasn't accredited or anything. I earned a certificate. And then I was increasingly unhappy at home. I mean, I was so depressed. And I was just really reaching this crisis point. And there were people around me, people that ran this school, people who were former young women's leaders who were really worried about me and the direction I was headed and said, you've got to get out. And one of my young women's leaders said, I need a nanny. Wink, wink, why don't you come and live with me for a while? And so I did. And the only reason my mom let me go, she was really fighting it for a long time. She did not want to lose face in that manner. But the only reason she let me go is because my sister had just gotten married and wanted to move home, and they needed some space in the house. And so that was my window of opportunity, right? So I jumped on that and I moved out and I got my ged and I started putting myself through Edmonds Community College, which, it's a funny Little bit of foreshadowing, right? Why is that my last name? John.

John Dehlin [00:34:56] Oh, duh, gotcha. I'm with you. I'm slow, I'm sick. Can I blame it on my cold?

Tresa Edmunds [00:35:09] I'm sure you're heavily medicated. I'll blame it on the night.

John Dehlin [00:35:14] No, I can't blame it on the medication. Oh. Anyway, so you put yourself through college.

Tresa Edmunds [00:35:26] Yeah. So 16. Went to community college during that time. What's that?

John Dehlin [00:35:33] That's young.

Tresa Edmunds [00:35:35] Yeah. Yeah, it felt like it and didn't feel like it. You know, I felt so mature. But then would just come up again. Like I would get myself in these ridiculous scrapes where I just felt my youth so keen. Like ended up, you know, alone in a car with some strange guy and just went, I'm not old enough for this. I need to be taken home. But the young woman's. I mean, she was my young woman leader. Was doing me such a tremendous gift. And I can only imagine the stress that put on her family. She had two small children, one of whom had great needs. And, you know, she was only like 25 at the time herself. And so there did come a time when she had to ask me to leave. And I was probably. Maybe I was 17 by this point, probably not. But I didn't want to go home because obviously that was an unpleasant place to be and I couldn't afford to move anyplace else because I was going to school full time and putting myself through. So I had that $200 car and so I lived in that for a while so that I could finish my associate's degree at Edmonds Community College. And I would. I worked like three jobs. I worked at Red Robin and I answered phones and I cleaned houses and I would crash it on friends couches or in people's backyards and kept bagels and orange juice in my glove box. And eventually I got myself through school. And then once I. Once it was time for me to transfer to a four year university,

John Dehlin [00:37:14] I

Tresa Edmunds [00:37:14] was still so earnest. I was really terrified by the world. You know, all those stories about how scary the world is out there. And I ate all that stuff up with a spoon. And so I was really terrified by the thought of going to a secular university. I thought it would just be like entering a lion's den. So I. I applied to go to byu and I didn't even apply to any other school that was like it was BYU or nothing.

John Dehlin [00:37:49] Of course.

Tresa Edmunds [00:37:50] Yeah, well. And oh, I was such a dip.

John Dehlin [00:37:56] Hey, that was me. What are you talking about?

Tresa Edmunds [00:37:59] No, Just you wait, John. Here's how I was a dip. I read Tennis Shoes. Among many fights, I read that BYU had been dedicated to the Lord. And so I thought, oh, here's my chance to go to school at the temple. Just be like, going to the temple every day, and I will be embraced by my people. And, you know, all these hardships I have gone through before will fall away from me, and I will be coming to Zion, and it will be a new day.

John Dehlin [00:38:31] Yeah, exactly.

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:32] That's BYU haven't.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] Oh. Oh, it didn't work out for you?

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:37] It didn't quite work out.

John Dehlin [00:38:38] Okay.

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:39] No, No. A bit of a culture shock, to say the least. You know, feel free to jump in. I'm. I know we have a lot to discuss, so I'm kind of going through this in a hurry, but if, you know, stop me and ask any questions. But.

John Dehlin [00:38:53] No, that's good.

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:55] Yeah. So I went down to BYU and I got a job working in the religion department. And I thought I was going to be an EFY speaker. I thought I was gonna, you know, dedicate my whole life and, you know, which I think I did end up doing, but not at all in the way I imagined when I was 18. And excuse me, but that's where I really started to understand the depth of how different my life was from everybody else's, because I lit my roommates, my sweet, sweet roommates, who I am still friends with and love to this day, would call me CK for sure, which stood for Conversation Killer, because it was said with love. But it was because we'd all be sitting around, you know, as you do in those BYU apartments where everybody's just piled in and every nook and cranny and everybody's telling all these ridiculous stories of all the scrapes they got into. And. And then it would be my turn, and I'd tell some story about, you know, the. Pick a topic, you know, some ridiculous story from my life, just thinking, isn't that hilarious? And everybody would just look at me like, oh, honey. You know, like that reaction I'm so familiar with nowadays. Like that, you know, hand on the knee, like, oh, that's. That's not. That's not normal, Tresa. Like, I had to be kind of taught. Like, that's not a story you share in Company, Tresa. I guess the room would be laughing, and then it would get to my story, and everybody would just go, oh, just pity. Yeah. So that was a bigger adjustment to come.

John Dehlin [00:40:46] So. So you were basically realizing that your upbringing was. Was not normal and unhealthy yeah.

Tresa Edmunds [00:40:54] Yeah. A little bit different. Yeah. And I had some really great friends who, like my. My one roommate, Brooke, lived in Orem, her parents lived in Orem. And so she would take me on their family vacations. She would take me to their house for conference and Sunday dinners. And I knew all her siblings and I got to see how a family operated. And it was. I felt like an anthropologist. Like it was so remarkably different than anything I had ever experienced before. And so I expected to come to BYU and have. And just be able to shed my former life like a coat. And instead I found myself just getting angrier and sadder because it really all started to sink in just how different things were, just how wrong. Which, you know, before, like, my parents were very good about coaching us to keep things private, to keep things isolated. They would tell us stories about, you know, how overreaching cp, Child Protective Services cps would be and how hysterical they could be and how they would just snatch people's children in the night and how we couldn't even tell our. I remember vividly, I must have been in kindergarten because he was having a lesson on how to use the phone and how to call 911. And my parents, when I got home and told them what I learned that day, my parents told me that I should never tell anybody that we spank in our house, wink, wink. Because some people got really high strung about that kind of thing and they just couldn't understand and, you know, they could just totally overreact. And so, you know, even from that young of an age, they were saying, you know, don't, don't talk about this. This is normal. Other people don't get us. This is our normal. And once I got to BYU and I was old enough to kind of look back on that kind of thing and recognize how disturbing that is and hold it up against somebody else's example and just see how it did not. It did not match. Then that's when I recognized I had a whole lot of work to do to get myself ready to make this second eternal family that I had been promised.

John Dehlin [00:43:15] Yeah. Because in some ways this sounds like a gift, that you had a horrible upbringing, but you didn't quite, totally know it.

Tresa Edmunds [00:43:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:27] So that sounds good, right?

Tresa Edmunds [00:43:30] Well, I am glossing over all the days and nights and nights of intense depression and intense loneliness and this gut deep sense that something was very, very wrong. So once I got to byu, it's like I was finally able to recognize, like, to put a framework around it and then to be Able to start doing something about it, which of course, involved therapy and a lot of education. But prior to that, I mean, I have, of course, these emo journals of my teenage hood, complaining about my parents and just, you know, pouring my heart out. And I sure poured my heart out in prayer and in desperation and had all these sweet experiences with the spirit. Spirit. So I just couldn't articulate it. I just had this deep sense of shame, this deep sense of depression and unhappiness, this deep, deep sorrow. But I could not put a finger on it at all. It was just this cloud that hung with me that I couldn't even begin to address because it was so all encompassing in my life.

Friendships, Peer Groups, and the September Six

John Dehlin [00:44:54] Did you have. Did you have close friends or strong peer groups?

Tresa Edmunds [00:44:57] No, no, not at all. Well, and moving every year made a big impact. Like I said, my parents were very savvy, very, very savvy on keeping this all. Like, none of us ever had to go to the emergency room. We never had to, you know, hide broken arms. They were very, very savvy. And they had a lot of rules about, you know, we couldn't have friends over, especially if my dad was the only one home. We could never have friends over then. We couldn't. They were very particular about letting us go places. So, no, it was very, very lonely. I mean, I had friends that I would sit with at school and I had friends that I would talk to at church, but there was really very, very little socialization outside of that and almost no socialization within the walls of our home. You know, I had friends, especially as I got older, that I would spend a lot of time with their families, but they would almost never come to our house.

John Dehlin [00:45:54] Right, right. So BYU is the first time you could really socialize?

Tresa Edmunds [00:46:00] Yeah, it was the first time I could socialize and especially away from the influence of my parents, because when I was younger, you know, any steps I might take in that direction, because, you know, I would have some great family friends. The tunnels were a great, great family friends that we had and was just a wonderful example and so inclusive of me and my sister. But then we'd go home and my charming, beautiful, very savvy and manipulative parents would kind of undo any glimmers of education we might have gotten from somebody else. You know, they would just kind of wrap us back up in that. That world. So, yeah, we couldn't get very far as long as we had that. That influence. And so once I got away from that influence once and for all and was in the position to look at other families. Because when I wasn't spending a lot of time with other people's families when I was working three jobs, living in my car, so there at byu, I had, like, the two pieces together where I was away from their influence and I got to witness other families. And so it was like, you know, plugging in a socket. It finally made things start to come together for me.

John Dehlin [00:47:14] Right, right. Okay. And so things start making sense for you. You start under.

Tresa Edmunds [00:47:20] Now you understand the depression a lot less sense because I. At first, I had to just go into an extremely dark place as I really started to wrap my brain around everything. And there was a lot that we. That we. How do I want to say this? As my siblings and I would compare notes, a lot of us would come up with different determinations, you know, and like I said, to this day, my siblings are not comfortable thinking of themselves as abuse survivors. And they would give me a lot of grief for being melodramatic or not having a sense of humor or taking things too personally. And so, you know, as we would try to, like, put the pieces together and compare notes and try to, you know, reclaim these memories from an adult point of view and reinterpret things from an adult point of view. Got a whole lot worse. A whole lot worse before things got better. I mean, like, oh, like major psychological help, eating disorders, depression, like, so much worse before it got better. But it did get better. But how it got better. Well, let's just dive right into that, why don't we? Because that's another interesting story. So I met my now husband there at byu, and by this time, we can go back and get into this a little bit later. But I was co chair of Voice, the feminist club at byu. And in my dark place, I was trying so strongly to send the signal that I was off the dating market, that I was, like, cutting my hair all weird ways and dyeing at every weird color BYU would let me get away with, which essentially boiled down to, like, a really ugly orange. Like, and, you know, just really trying to, like, you know, push, push, push people away. And then I met Jared. Jared, who played football there at BYU and is just this big, lovable hunk. And as my friend Joanna says, it was a match that could have only been made at byu, because here you have this co chair of Voice and a BYU football player. What can I say? It's byu. I couldn't pass it up.

John Dehlin [00:50:12] What years was this approximately?

Tresa Edmunds [00:50:14] Let's see, this would have been 90. Well, we started dating in what, 99. Yes. First thing in 99, January 99 is when we started dating.

John Dehlin [00:50:26] So Voice was still around in 99?

Tresa Edmunds [00:50:29] Yeah, well, a version of was very, very sad. It was very toothless and we barely got an academic advisor and they wouldn't let us do any. Anything, I mean, anything. The Clothesline project, which is just the most amazing art installation and was really formative to me in my own journey, healing from abuse. It's this project where abuse survivors will create a T shirt. They'll create some kind of an artwork, art therapy on a T shirt and then they will hang these T shirts from Clothesline and in a public square as a way of like airing the dirty laundry that this abuse happens in this community. And they wouldn't let that happen on BYU campus. There was actually a big scandal with it the year before I got there where President Bateman was like tearing the stuff down himself. So that had to happen on uvsc. Then it was UVSC campus. And basically it was, by the time I was done with it, it was basically about 12 of us sitting around in a room and begging somebody to come and give a lecture. And there, you know, there was one lady who came and did a meditation and another lady who came and did somebody from the community that talked about rape. But it was like we couldn't do. There was never a big scale demonstration like in the good old days of Voice, you know.

John Dehlin [00:52:09] Yeah. So. So obviously I was there when Joyner Brooks was there and I left in 93. That's when. Right after all the professors were discontinued and September 6th, were you aware of people like Cecilia Farr and Gail Houston and.

Tresa Edmunds [00:52:30] Not at all.

John Dehlin [00:52:31] Tomi Ann Roberts.

Tresa Edmunds [00:52:33] Completely ignorant.

John Dehlin [00:52:34] Eugene England.

Tresa Edmunds [00:52:36] No, not a clue.

John Dehlin [00:52:37] See now I just, can, I just, I just have to, I'm trying not to comment, but isn't that amazing that in the span of five to six years, something that was so overwhelmingly palpable and relevant can be completely forgotten?

Tresa Edmunds [00:52:54] Well, and it's also, I mean maybe it wasn't entirely. Maybe it was, but I was like a self taught Mormon. I was a homeschooled Mormon. So I had that grew up in Washington state. So I really knew hardly anything about some of these cultural issues in the church. I had no idea about the September 6th. Well, I will say I had heard vague rumors. The one bit of pushback I suppose you could say I got in my early feminism was somebody warning me that, that I had to be a little bit careful because down that road led, you know, lie apostasy and referenced groups in salt Lake that would get together and hold prayer ceremonies to Heavenly Mother. And looking back, it was like a telephone, a twisted telephone version of the September 6th that they were talking about. But of course, none of those things happened. And.

John Dehlin [00:53:57] No, wait, I wouldn't go that far, actually.

Tresa Edmunds [00:53:59] Well. Well, not in the version that I was having. That this. You know, these. Yeah, they made it sound like this coven. There were no covens, I think we can safely say that much. So, yeah, I was. I was completely outside of that whole world. And even, you know, when I got the job in the religion department, I would be there rubbing shoulders with people that my brother, you know, my example in this Mormon world, when he would hear about some of the people that I would be talking with, he would have that. That idolization that we have of, you know, church leaders that. And for many of us, you know, as we're taught, it goes that hero worship doesn't just stop at the 12, you know, it goes all the way down. And so the man that I worked for was the son of a former 70. And even, you know, that hero worship in my world even extended to him. And when my. When my. My brother had to introduce these concepts to me, when he was like, don't you know who his father is? And don't you know who his father is? And I had no clue. I was right. I just knew the scriptures. That's all I knew.

John Dehlin [00:55:11] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you weren't plugged into Dialogue and Sunstone and all that stuff?

Tresa Edmunds [00:55:18] You know, a shocking admission. I only became a Sunstone subscriber last year.

John Dehlin [00:55:25] Yeah, right.

Tresa Edmunds [00:55:25] Yeah. Didn't know any of it.

John Dehlin [00:55:28] Okay, okay. That's totally understandable. But it's amazing how an entire culture can. I mean, I learned this when I listened to a gift given, a gift taken away, and learned about women performing healing rituals, that something that can be just so central to a large group of people can be forgotten in the space of five, 10 years.

Tresa Edmunds [00:55:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:51] That's amazing. Okay, so were you frustrated? Who'd you blame for the Voice, for the feebleness of voice? Who'd you blame?

Tresa Edmunds [00:56:02] Well, I was so new, I didn't even know. I mean, I was so. I was so new. And I remember one event where we listened to a speech from some of the earlier Voice members where they would talk about their frustration and some of these events that had happened. And so listening to them, you know, I wanted to blame church. I mean, I shouldn't say. Sorry, that was a misstatement. I wanted to blame school leadership. But we were just so beaten down. I mean, I would make suggestions. In fact, one of the reasons that I can say I was a co chair of Voice is because there was no chair. Like nobody wanted to be the president of voice. And so we all just kind of tried to do some kind of a council system. There was just, I think that it had, it had just. The teeth had just been kicked out of it. But I was so ignorant of the history and I was. And the politics, I was just like, come on you guys, what's the problem? Like this eager puppy, like, let's do this thing. Not even having two clues about, you know, this battle weary group that I was walking into.

John Dehlin [00:57:21] Right. And did you, did you blame Merrill Bateman at all? Was he a bit of a boogeyman for you?

Tresa Edmunds [00:57:27] Yeah, yeah, he was. I tried really hard to, you know, be compassionate, but. But when you talk to some of the people who participated in Voice during his tenure, it's really difficult to come away with a charitable interpretation of his actions.

John Dehlin [00:57:46] Yeah, I interviewed Bill Bradshaw just a couple weeks ago, and he's such a delightful man and he really wanted to talk about Merrill Bateman. I, you know, I had no idea he felt so strongly about it, so. Interesting. So how did, how did you wrap up your BYU experience then?

Meeting Her Husband and Navigating Depression

Tresa Edmunds [00:58:05] Well, so I met. I met my husband Jared, my now husband Jared. And as we started, you know, getting closer and I should say, I took myself so firmly off the market. In all of those years of depression and anxiety and eating disorders and blah, blah, blah, all of those dark years, I actually had not kissed anybody. And so I had completely no physical relationship whatsoever. I completely shut the. Off that area of my life. And so as we're getting more serious in our relationship, obviously I decide I want to start kissing this guy I like. And that brought up a whole new raft of experiences that I was unaware of that were waiting for me as soon as I scratched the surface of that depression. Oh, look at this. And so I was. I used to go on a. I lived at the brownstone and so. Which is on 9 East. It's like right next to that Seven Peaks Water Park. And so there was this nice big loop I could walk around. And I loved to go on walks at night because it made me feel so dangerous. And so I was walking out there in the mean streets of Provo and. And just like saying a prayer and pouring my heart out again to my heavenly father and just saying, you know, I thought that my time at BYU was going to be my reward, that I thought I was a Good and faithful servant. Like, why is this getting so much harder? And why can I suddenly not even bring myself to allow this man that I think I'm growing to love? Why can't I let him even hug me? How come when he touches me a certain way, I want to climb out the window? Like, I, this can't be right. And so, you know, the spirit whispered to me, go and get help. Go and talk to somebody. And so I went to free counseling services down at the Wilkie center, and.

John Dehlin [01:00:25] Right.

Tresa Edmunds [01:00:25] And they kind of did their initial intake and had me meet up with some guy working on his master's or something. And he was a terrible therapist. He was shockingly bad. But, like, when I told him, I'm having this disordered eating and I really want to be healthy and address this, he said, well, you don't look like you're wasting away, so I don't think we need to worry about it yet. Not a good response. Just a little tip. File that away for you.

John Dehlin [01:00:58] Sure, sure, sure.

Tresa Edmunds [01:00:59] Your future practice. Not a good response. Not a good response to dare a young girl to work harder at her eating disorder. So when I started talking to him about my family, I have a much younger sister. She's 10 years younger than me, and she was still living at home with my parents. And at this time, I was still not comfortable categorizing my childhood as abusive because, like I said, my parents were so savvy. And I kind of bought into this very, very common abuse survivor mentality that if you're not being. If your bones aren't being broken, if you don't have to lie about burn marks or bruises, if you don't have to go to the emergency room, then it doesn't count as abuse. And that's what I believed, which, of course, is fundamentally wrong on every level. That is wrong. And so as I'm telling him about my life, he said, you know, I would categorize your childhood as abusive. And I immediately felt guilty that I had told the story wrong, that I had, you know, been melodramatic. I had shown my poor sense of humor all these things that my family would say about me that I was. I had overstated things and I hadn't been honest somehow. And so what he told me is, you know, he said, I have a reason to believe that if there was abuse in your case, then we have reason to be worried about your sister who still lives at home. And I am a state mandated reporter. And so I have to get this turned into child protective services. Right which of course, you know, is all true. But the part that he got wrong is he said, you know, since I am a state mandated reporter, I can't hear about this abuse without it being turned in. So either you call child protective services and turn your parents into the cops, or else I can't see you anymore. Which is not the right response. Kind of holding my mental health services, blackmail, blackmailing me to turn my own parents into the cops. But of course I didn't know any of that. You know, I'm not, I wasn't, I'm still not a therapist. And it was my first experience of therapy, so I didn't know any different. And I, he just said, you know, you think about it, you come back and we'll, we'll, you know, take it from there. And so I was, I'm sure you can imagine, an absolute wreck. And, but I really, I really felt like I was falling in love with this man. And I so desperately wanted my eternal family. And I knew that I was not going to be able to have that carrying all of this ugliness that I have that I had been carrying. I knew that I needed help. I needed someone to, to help me. And if the only way that he was going to help me. And of course I had no health insurance, I had no cash, I was putting myself through byu There was, it was these mental health services or it was nothing. And so I said, you know, okay, I'll do it. And so when I went to his office the next week, he dialed the number for Child protective Services and I told them everything. And they opened a case file on my, on my parents. And it was unbelievably traumatic for me, but in a twisted backwards kind of way, it was also very validating because, you know, my own family still said that, still says that I had gone too far. And so for mental health professionals, for law enforcement professionals to take me so seriously to open a case file, because, you know, for people unfamiliar with the process, you don't call the number up and then they come and automatically take your children away. That is not how it works. There are so many layers of social workers that have to be concerned before you ever even get a home visit. And so the fact that my case got through layer after layer after layer of law enforcement and social worker to the point where they did do a home visit. And in fact, the only reason they stopped the investigation was when my father moved out of the house. And they felt that the immediate threat to my younger sister was gone, so they stopped investigating. But that was what it took to stop the investigation, which was incredibly, incredibly validating to me because nobody believed me. My bishops didn't believe me. My siblings didn't believe me. But these professionals, people who were more attuned to recognize abuse and false alarms than anybody, they took me seriously. And that was. I never went back to that therapist after that. It was so traumatic to me. I think I just instinctually finally caught on that that was not helpful. He was not helpful.

John Dehlin [01:06:20] Yeah. Well, let me just. Let me just jump in and say a couple of things. One. One is just that, you know, as you said, a mental health professional, by law, at least in Utah, has to call Child protective services or whatever they're called here in Utah. But. But it should be them that call, not you, obviously. And so. But I do have to say that I have a couple. I know of a couple therapists that I have very, very high regard for. I interact with them professionally at the BOE Counseling center now. So I don't. I don't want people to think that they're gonna have a horrible experience necessarily, by going there.

Tresa Edmunds [01:06:57] Thank you for saying that.

John Dehlin [01:06:58] Well, I'm not. I'm not trying to reprimand you. I just.

Tresa Edmunds [01:07:00] No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm. I'm really. Because I did. That was not the only therapist I met with there. That was just the therapist I ended up being assigned to. And every other therapist I talked to I felt so comfortable with, and I had great experiences with, and they gave me little bits of knowledge that I still carry with me. But that particular therapist was. He had some more to learn. I hope that he has learned it since.

John Dehlin [01:07:21] No, sure, sure. And, I mean, there. There are a couple therapists there that I would send my own children to without a question. So I just. If anybody is at BYU and struggling, you know, let me know, and I can tell you who to call. So.

Tresa Edmunds [01:07:33] And, oh, my gosh, they were better. They were better than what I had, so.

John Dehlin [01:07:37] Right, right. It's free. Like you said, it's free. That's a neat service.

Tresa Edmunds [01:07:41] Free service. My goodness. I. I took it, and I'm grateful for it.

John Dehlin [01:07:44] But also, you know, I felt like I. You know, my very first podcast was about my mission experience. And this really comes up every episode. But I had. I had what I felt was this terribly, well, wonderful, but also just real abusive kind of mission experience. And I came home and, like, when I told people the stories, they looked at me, and they just. They wouldn't believe it. They're like, no, you're you're being melodramatic. You're kind of making this up. You're, you're either narcissistic or you're, you know, you're, you're creating this, this couldn't happen. This sounds like something out of a comic book or a horror movie, but what's that about? And how do you, how do you process that? It's got to be disorienting to have to not only endure a lot of that.

Tresa Edmunds [01:08:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:36] But then, but then to question yourself and to feel like everybody else disbelieves you.

Tresa Edmunds [01:08:42] Well, and on top of that, I mean, this is at the, like, I spent the most of my time growing up in Seattle in the height of the whole recovered memory debates. And there are some of these issues of my childhood. I've just had to come to accept the fact that I'm never going to fully understand. I'm never going to have access to, you know, follow up on every suspicion. And so I'm. Not only am I being doubted from the outside, but I'm doubting my own memories, my own interpretations. I don't know what I can trust and what I can't because every time you turn on the news, it's, you know, recovered memories are, you know, putting people in jail. And then every recovered memory is false. And there's, you know, it was just such an incredibly confusing, confusing time. And I think it's, I've just had, I've just had to learn to incorporate it as a standard reaction. It doesn't bother me much anymore. In fact, my in laws have still had the hardest time accepting what my family is like. And when I tell them stories, it's not like they, it's not like they don't believe me. It's like they have no, they have no box in their brain to put that in. Like, it is so far removed from their experience. You know, like their experience is that parents love their children like the end of story. And so they cannot, they cannot fathom a circumstance where parents would behave in this manner. And so, and because my in laws are great and they love me, they, they just kind of struggle to understand that. But for so many other people, the answer is, well, she just must be lying or she just must be making things up. And it was that unfortunate mistake by the therapist that really kind of put that to rest for me for once and for all. Because once I had that professional validation, even with just what I could guarantee in my memory, even the memories that were crystal clear as a bell, even just telling them those there was enough for them to be concerned about, to investigate, let alone all of the vague things I can't quite wrap my mind around because I was, you know, four years old. Even leaving all that aside, there was still enough for them to be concerned, which I felt like I had this seal of approval, you know, like I was sanctioned by the state to say, like I can now officially say I am an abused child because the the state has given me that license.

John Dehlin [01:11:24] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your Ward Bulletin and Ward mail newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixon.com that's sky with an E S K Y E pixton.com thank you.

Tresa Edmunds [01:12:18] The sun gone down.

Processing Parental Abuse and Finding Healing

Part 2 of 5 · Ep. 218

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories Podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org.

John Dehlin [00:00:18] So, Tresa, after you're able to process a lot of the childhood memories and the abuse and come to terms, you know, and as BYU is wrapping up, what led to the next phase in life for you?

Tresa Edmunds [00:00:34] Well, just as I was finishing my degree, I finally got the guts up to get married to Jared. And that shortly after my wedding, in part because of the catastrophe that my parents inflicted upon my wedding, including a funny story, my mom wearing the same dress as me to my wedding.

John Dehlin [00:01:02] Holy moly. That's like some out of the movies.

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:05] I know, right? I know, I know. She was an hour late to my temple ceremony, and then she showed up at the reception wearing the same dress as me.

John Dehlin [00:01:16] Oh, yeah.

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:21] And there's a whole. Oh, there's. That's just the part that's funny. So after that, you know, and I should backtrack and say that obviously, with my turning your parents into the cops will tend to strain your relationship with them.

John Dehlin [00:01:37] Yeah.

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:37] And so there were some pretty massive, massive consequences for that. My parents got divorced finally, shortly after.

John Dehlin [00:01:50] Real quick, real quick. Does Child Protective Services tell your parents that you were the one who told on them?

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:56] Theoretically, it's anonymous, but I got. I had been exploring these issues with my siblings. You know, we were trying to compare notes, and we actually ended up. Because we were all concerned about my much younger sister, we ended up holding a fast and asked that whatever memories we might need to recover would be revealed to us in a way that we could protect my younger sister if it came to that. So my siblings were all very aware because they were at the time dealing with the two that I was dealing with. This. So theoretically, it was supposed to be anonymous, but it was not terribly hard to figure out. And once they did figure it out, my. My parents would both call me. My mom would try to get me to tell her exactly what I said in just incredibly manipulative manners, like leveraging my concern for my sister to try to get this information out of me, when really what she wanted to do was have her friends call Child Protective Services with the same information to bolster her divorce case.

John Dehlin [00:03:03] And then, oh, wow.

Tresa Edmunds [00:03:05] My dad would call me to try to talk me out of it and to try to convince me that it, you know, who gets to decide what is abuse and what isn't, if it's the victim, then how is that fair? They just might not. They just might not have a Sense of humor. They just might not get the joke. You know, like, how is that fair to the abuser, really? And, you know, just trying to, like, you know, know, create this Venn diagram where I could see his point of view and. And, you know, recant. So it was just. And this was, you know, all while I'm trying to go to school and working and putting myself through college, I paid my own way. And so it was incredibly stressful. And so I kept trying. I really kept trying. And in fact, I should say that going back to my religious life, in dealing with all of this, I was extremely torn with how to deal with my parents on a personal level. You know, I, of course, have sung all the verses of Love at Home and has all been drilled into me of the importance of that family. And I did not want to give up on that. I felt that burden. I felt that need to drag my family towards righteousness by setting a powerful enough example for them. And so I was incredibly torn because keeping a relationship with them was so costly, so very, very costly.

John Dehlin [00:04:50] But.

Tresa Edmunds [00:04:50] But it just felt so darn un Mormon to do anything different, you know, it just felt like, well, have they. You know, what is it, 70 times 7? I remember it once in seminary, even doing the math on that once. What is that verse in Doctrine and Covenants, when they say 70 times 70, that you're, you know, that's how many times somebody is supposed to wrong you before, you know, you give up on them. And I even. I did the math there in seminary once and tried to think if I had reached it yet or not. And so I was so torn, you know, how do I continue to forgive and forgive and forgive and set this example when they are just such a destructive, toxic influence in my life? And so working in the religion department, you know, I would ask all of my friends there, you know, I mean, those professors were so lovely and such sweet little men, and they would just take such an interest in me and were so kind to me. And, you know, I would talk to all of them and say, you know, ask for counsel and ask for blessings. And they were. That was just a wonderful, wonderful experience. And, you know, it was such a horrible position I was putting them in because they're not counselors, they're not professional counselors, they're not psychologists. And I. I was asking them something that was far outside of their experience as Doctrine and Covenants scholars, but I just revered them so much and was so desperate for somebody to give me the tools to know what to do, to be both A good obedient Mormon and deal with this horrible, destructive influence in my life. And so everyone I would talk to would just give me really the only answer you could give in that situation. You know, knowing so little about the circumstances. And that's, you know, just keep trying to forgive, set a good example, just do what you can, you know, listen to the spirit. Which was not bad advice. It just was given the depths of my circumstances was not tremendously applicable to any other 18 year old who wasn't getting along with their family. It's the best possible advice, but not, you know, not quite so much with, when you're dealing with these issues. So finally I had a special relationship with, with. Well, I wonder if you would appreciate me saying his name. Well, I'll just go. I had a special relationship with Reed Benson, sure is notorious for having an extremely conservative, extremely hardline opinion, such a hard line opinion. It's as if his opinion is his doctrine on some issues, you know, but he just took a special interest in me and he would tease me about how I was destroying my looks by dyeing my hair all these ridiculous colors. And he was just very, very kind to me. And so when I had exhausted all these people that I thought would give me the answer I wanted, I thought, well, okay, I'll go to Reed Benson and he'll tell me to suck it up and be brave and do what I know is right and you know, be kind to my parents and you know, then I just won't have any more excuses and I'll just have to do it. And so I went to him and I told him the story. And by this point I had, I had already turned my parents in and he gave me. Oh, I'm getting all emotional just thinking about it. He gave me maybe the single greatest gift. Oh, darn, I was not expecting this. He gave me maybe the single greatest gift ever had in my life. And it's even more shocking to me because of who it came from. But he heard my story and he was very compassionate with me and had his hand on my hand and just listened to everything I had to say. And then he asked me if I had ever put my parents names on the prayer roll and I hadn't been to the temple, so I didn't know anything about this. And so he pulled down the, the yellow pages and he showed me how there was a special hotline just for the prayer roll and that anybody could call up. And so he dialed the number and I, I spoke to the sweet little old lady and, and she took the names down and had told me, have a nice day. And. And then, you know, I kind of took a deep breath, and I was like, okay, I'm ready for this lecture. I'm ready to be called to task, and, you know, upgraded. And instead he pulled out his scriptures and. And he opened to second Nephi, where the Lord told Nephi to flee into the wilderness. And he had me read this scripture. And then he just kind of looked at me like. He didn't say, okay, that's what, you know, he. He. He was wise enough to not say, like, this is what I think you should do, because of course, that would have been inappropriate. But he. He gave me the precedent, which is what I had been aching for. He gave me the precedent to say that you can be a righteous person, you can be a good Mormon and protect yourself and not have these relationships. And he said to me that these eternal relationships we're supposed to have, they're not supposed to be a burden. They're not supposed to be a punishment. They are supposed to be a blessing. And if it is not that, then follow the Spirit. What his advice was. But by showing me this part of the scriptures, he gave me the precedent to listen when the Spirit was telling me, break that relationship. Get them out of your life. They are not healthy for you. And I was not expecting it from that source. Like I said, I was expecting a good, hard lecture. But he didn't. He gave me the precedent. And it took me a few more months. You know, with this marriage looming, I really was hoping that maybe we could pull it together, have this great moment, and. Didn't work out that way. Turned into a big disaster. And my mom would call me, like, almost every day after the wedding to complain about how horribly I had treated her. And I finally said to her, you know, I just can't talk to you anymore. And It's. It's been 11 years since then, and I haven't spoken to either of my parents.

John Dehlin [00:11:25] To either of your parents?

Tresa Edmunds [00:11:26] No, they've reached out a couple of times, and I still talk to my siblings, and I keep an ear close to the ground, and I have a couple of markers I'm looking for, and if they could ever reach those markers, then I would be open, but we haven't gotten there yet.

John Dehlin [00:11:46] Do you think they know what the markers are?

Tresa Edmunds [00:11:48] I've told them they might think they don't, because that's how they, you know, that's. That would be typical behavior for them. But I. Especially with my dad, because, like, I Said I got along the best naturally, with him. And so he's actually the one I held out the most hope for. And I have told him, you know, and in some ways, it's been 15 years since I lived with them. That's, you know, that's a really long time. They've both gone on and married other people. They live very different lives now, so I'm sympathetic to this response. And my dad just kind of wanted a clean slate, and my siblings were all able to grant him that, and they all have great relationships with him now, and he has a wife that, by all accounts is just wonderful and is living a good and happy life. And. But. And I. I can't grant him the clean slate. It was so costly to me to be the family whistleblower. I just need to hear, like, you weren't being melodramatic. That's all I need to hear. And, you know, until that can come, until somebody can say, you know, you weren't wrong, they could even be that passive, then I just can't go forward with him.

John Dehlin [00:13:10] You need to feel validated, basically.

Tresa Edmunds [00:13:12] Yeah. Yeah. That was just such a horrible, horrible time. And I took such a bullet for my family. I mean, everybody got so much healthier. My siblings got so much healthier. They have such healthy relationships with each other and with my parents after that time that I was the one able to say this is wrong, and, yeah, that I paid such a hefty price that I just. Yeah, I just need to hear, like, we see you basically, and, you know, maybe. Maybe things could change, but that doesn't seem to be coming. So.

John Dehlin [00:13:52] So I. I've read a little bit, and maybe we've talked a little bit about on the podcast about, you know, the phenomenon that you kind of referred to, the recovered memory kind of thing. And I'm thinking that there's a lot of my audience where if they. If they hear that or if they think that that's kind of what's. What's foundational for your story, that they're going to bring a lot of skepticism, not that you care or need validation from them, but I, you know, I want your story to have as much impact as it can, to the extent that it can do good. And so there's a lot of people who are going to just say, or recovered memories. And I'm not saying that you relied on that, but you mentioned it a little bit. And I'm just curious if you've read about that kind of phenomenon and how by many, it's been debunked and is kind of dismissed. What are your feelings and thoughts about that whole situation?

Tresa Edmunds [00:14:53] Feelings and thoughts are very complicated, like the issue itself. Because, you know, I was right there for. When it was such a panic, you know, there in Washington when there was a. There was a landmark case where there was some. A church. The specifics are falling out of my brain. But there was a church or a daycare or something that. Yeah, I remember that with Satan worshiping and, you know, all this sexual abuse area.

John Dehlin [00:15:18] Yeah,

Tresa Edmunds [00:15:21] so it was. It was so. And I was skeptical even then as it was happening, people were skeptical. So that was definitely informing of me. And as I mentioned, when I was starting to open up about this, I was very afraid that I was portraying things as inaccurate. And so when I did file the report with cps, that was all on verifiable, you know, crystal clear memories that I have no confusion about that have never been forgotten or recovered or anything like that, and that was enough for them to take action. There is a whole host of other issues that are unresolved for me and that I don't know if they will ever be resolved because the. Because I do. And I've actually worked with some therapists since who deal with ritual abuse and incredibly devastating, I mean, torture, like abuse that the average person can't even imagine. You know, just horrible, horrible things that literally make people develop alters and splits and, you know, like really devastating stuff. So people are skeptical of recovered memory, of course, because of the precedent of how it's been used. But it's. But it is, you know, an actual fact in many cases. In my own case, I just think I was probably too young to really comprehend. And so I don't think that there are really memories I'm going to suddenly uncover one day. I think that I just need to. And I have just accepted that I'm going to have this gray area of my life that I'm not going to be able to come to a resolution with that I'm. I'm not going to be able to, like, chronologically lay out with dates and times. I'm just going to know that there was this darkness in my past that I really won't be able to give form to.

John Dehlin [00:17:21] And, you know, somebody who's uninformed would just say, well, if you don't remember it, it didn't exist. What is it? What is it that. Is it feelings? Is it trying to explain the sadness and the depression or the reaction you had to your.

Tresa Edmunds [00:17:38] It definitely manifests these emotions, you know, just like when, you know, we were saying before, I really had the framework of understanding that my family was abusive, the emotions were there, but there are, like, bits of pieces, fragments, little things I can't explain. There are some behaviors that. I evidenced that. There are some memories that I have that are crystal clear of behaviors that I should not have known about or that I should not at a very, very, very young age. I should not have been aware of these subjects when I was aware of them. Which leads to this big question mark of, okay, well, then how was I aware of them? And so there are, like, little breadcrumbs like that, you know, little physical reactions in certain environments. Like, I was mentioning how when I was just trying to develop this physical relationship with my husband, how all of a sudden a certain kind of a touch would just freak me out. You know, just like a hand on the back of my neck. And all of a sudden I'm this, you know, hysterical, like, adrenaline pumping, you know, hyperventilating wreck. So. So it's a big puzzle. It's a big puzzle. There's, like, breadcrumbs of memories. There's this intense physical reaction to certain stimulus. There's this unexplained emotional baggage. And put all together, it's a bunch of circumstantial evidence for a crime I can't quite describe.

John Dehlin [00:19:19] Right. And I just have to tell you that I've just. In the small time that I've been in the field of psychology, I've heard stories that would make our listeners react in very nauseous and unpleasant ways about what parents can do to children. And so I'm not one to dismiss this stuff lightly as what is possible between a parent and a child, even a child as young as two or three. So, anyway, I come with these questions not to try and challenge you or dismiss you, but just to bring up some of the things that some of my more skeptical listeners are probably gonna think and just have you explain it. Because, you know, some of these things just can't ever really be conclusively, you know, solved. But I think understanding gets us farther than dismissing so.

Tresa Edmunds [00:20:13] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:20:16] All right. So that kind of. So you. You win a husband and you lose the rest. You know, you lose your parents, basically,

Tresa Edmunds [00:20:25] just as it should be. Right. And then isn't that what Jesus tells us?

John Dehlin [00:20:29] Right. And then life. And then life is peaches and cream from then on.

Tresa Edmunds [00:20:35] Right, right. Never had another problem in my whole life.

John Dehlin [00:20:37] No, I mean, I'm reading your. I'm reading your story, and I'm like, It almost gets worse in some ways.

Tresa Edmunds [00:20:43] I know. Give the girl a break. Right? We. We often joke in our house that we are job double or nothing.

John Dehlin [00:20:51] Yeah. And. And we'd say, oh, you know, someone might be inclined to say, oh, she's just melodramatic, or bringing this on herself, but these aren't things you can.

Tresa Edmunds [00:21:00] Right.

John Dehlin [00:21:00] These aren't psychosomatic things, so.

Tresa Edmunds [00:21:02] Yeah, exactly. I'm not. I'm not, like, dating bad men or getting myself addicted to drugs. Like, these are just things that get sent my way that I really don't get to choose.

Marriage, Feminist Reawakening, and Infertility

John Dehlin [00:21:13] Well, so take us through just some of the phases of your marriage and how some of those tougher things in your family maybe led to a bit of a feminist reawakening for you.

Tresa Edmunds [00:21:26] Well, during those early days of my marriage, I do have to say, for all of the other garbage in my life, I have been given a tremendous marriage, like one of those really gross, schmoopy, whoopy kind of marriages, and just have. That has just been my rock. So while we have gone through ridiculous amount of junk together, it's really cemented us. And so that really has been an incredible foundation for me. But in those. Those early years of marriage, you know, like I said, I had no training of all of these ways that I felt like a good Mormon woman should be. And I had this really strong feminist bent. But once I got married, you know, I stopped participating in Voice. I felt on some subconscious level, and I didn't even. It honestly wasn't even until this year in a conversation I was having with some friends of mine from Exponent 2, that I kind of put these pieces together because it was also very much a subconscious thing for me. But it was almost as if I felt like, okay, well, that was what I could accomplish when I was single. But now I'm putting that away for my Mormon married lady time. And I stopped participating in Voice. I started dyeing my hair regular colors. Well, actually, I stopped dyeing my hair altogether. I took my piercings out and covered up the tattoo and stopped wearing my combat boots everywhere I went. And I actually, for Utah residents, I should say that my aunt Liz, it's my husband's aunt, but she and I are very close. She's the food nanny. If you ever see her on BYUtv, she is just a light. And she really set me on this path to where I am today, where I really had this, like, just kind of a backlash against some of these domestic arts because I went through these phases where I wanted that. So Desperately. I wanted to be this good Mormon woman who could do all these things. But then I felt like, oh, but I'm way too cool and enlightened for any of that. You know, like, I'm this feminist. I don't. I don't can. And. And then once I got married, you know, I did kind of put my feminist self in the closet. But then I also got to meet Jared's Aunt Liz, and she really taught me how being a homemaker can really be an art form. And she is this amazing chef and takes such joy in the homemaking. And so from her, I just took every recipe in her house. The recipes that she's now sharing on the show are the ones I've been using for the past 10 years, because she really taught me how to cook and helped me to see how I could begin to incorporate this cooking and crafting and homemaking in with this closeted little feminist self that I had. So that was all in the early years. And then I was really terrified to have children, like many, many, many, many, many abuse survivors, absolutely convinced I was going to just be a lousy mom at best, abusive at worst. And then, I mean, this was a fear that really plagued me, particularly through my teenage years, ironically, when I had no business thinking about these kinds of things, because so much of the young women's program is preparation for motherhood. And every time we would have a discussion about that, I would just feel this script, this shame come upon me in the script play in my head about how horrible I was going to be and how dark this background of mine was, and I was going to be inflicting this on some poor, innocent child. And so I was extremely conflicted. But once I was in this incredibly happy, blissful marriage and down this path to discovering a way that I could incorporate the two parts of me, this closeted feminist, with this earnest homemaker, and find a way to meet in the middle. I started to see that maybe there was a way it could happen. And then I got pregnant and lost it extremely early in the pregnancy. But just having to face that made me suddenly say, okay, I can do this. And so we started trying to have children, and eight years later, we finally got one.

John Dehlin [00:26:33] Whoa. Eight years.

John Dehlin [00:26:36] Eight.

Tresa Edmunds [00:26:36] Yeah, eight years. Eight years. And we. Oh, golly. Eight long years.

John Dehlin [00:26:43] Give us like a. Give us a three minute overview of what it's like to be infertile in the church. I mean, in and of itself, it's hard in the church.

Tresa Edmunds [00:26:53] I think it would be three minutes of me, like, silently screaming into the microphone. That would be my three minute nutshell version. Oh, it's horrible. Oh, my gosh, it's horrible. I actually, I mean, I have heard of some nightmare experiences. And I know one woman who has had people come to her and suggest that she must have a sin she has not repented of, and that's why she can't have children, is because she's unworthy and she needs to fess up and then maybe she'll get to have children. I mean, I can't imagine anything more offensive. I mean, it just makes me. Yeah, I can barely even stay in my seat thinking about it. I didn't have any of those experiences, but I did have this. Oh, once again, this deep sense of shame. I mean, as if it's not enough shame to carry that. You know, I had this horribly unhappy childhood. I don't share any of these same experiences that so many of my Mormon peers share. I can't tell stories about, you know, Pioneer Day. I don't have any of those kinds of stories. I have stories about, like, oh, dysfunction. I have stories about dysfunction. And so I carry the shame from that. I carry this major shame from not talking to my parents. That is such a major taboo. I mean, it's really taboo in our larger American culture. But in Mormon culture, oh, my goodness, like admitting that you don't talk to your parents, I mean, you might as well say you like child porn in some circles. I mean, it's like there are some people who just can't think of anything more unnatural and uncharitable, and they just. Yeah, they just can't imagine that. So I have these, these two taboos, these two shames on me. And then I get this additional shame of once again being an outsider, once again being a square peg and feeling so rejected, feeling so eternally rejected. And these years, my communion with the spirit was not. It was not Kirkland, it was Nauvoo.

John Dehlin [00:29:10] And

Tresa Edmunds [00:29:13] there were so many times when I just felt like the heavens were closed to me. And so I felt. I didn't feel those manifestations of the spirit that I felt in my younger years. And I felt like my. My children to be, were rejecting me by refusing. I mean, of course I'm saying this out loud and I recognize how irrational it is, but, you know, you're just so desperate for something to grab onto because there is just no, there is no explanation. There is none. And so you tell yourself that, you know, you need to pray harder, you need to read your scriptures more, you need to eliminate wheat from your diet, eliminate sugar from your d. I mean, do yoga and acupuncture and, you know, all these. Do more genealogy, whatever we can do to compel these children to come to us. And of course that's ridiculous. Of course it is. But when you're just that emotional and that vulnerable that you just. You're just so desperate. And I really felt like this was proof that I was going to be a crappy mom, that the specter of the abuse in my past was going to be too damaging, and that I was not granted children because of it. You know, I mean, of course that's ridiculous, of course, but, you know, it's just so unsatisfying. And even the people who are well meaning, you know, the people who are trying to be kind, are still saying things that make you different, that are unsatisfying. You know, the. You know, you're a mother to the ward and, you know, I'm sure you'll. You'll have your special babies in heaven. And all these. These things, they so mean to be comforting, but they are so. They're very bitter pills. They're. They're not comforting in the slightest. And. And then you go to Relief Society and you get lesson after lesson after lesson geared towards motherhood and how it is the fullest expression of our divinity and really the only divine role women have on the earth is motherhood. And, you know, you are shut out from that. It's just such. It is such a thorough rejection on all sides.

John Dehlin [00:31:37] And then what's it like just forgetting the church? Just between a husband and a wife trying to hold a baby?

Tresa Edmunds [00:31:43] Oh, my gosh. Well, in some sense, we actually are lucky because. And I should add a little disclaimer here, because when I start talking about this, guys in particular get very, very squirmy. And so I should say that my husband is completely open about discussing all of these things. He's very frank and very brave. And so everything that I'm about to say has his endorsement to be shared. But we both have our own factors. He has low motility and low count, and I have a very, very aggressive case of endometriosis. And so in our case, we were lucky because we kind of felt like we were in on it together. But I have known a lot of relationships that end in divorce, because once you find the cause so that you can hopefully treat it, then whoever's biology is preventing children carries this burden of blame and shame and sorrow. And, you know, in a good relationship, then of course, the other partner would be Doing what they could to take that away and to be supportive of their spouse. But when you are denied something that you want so desperately for yourself, when you want something that is supposed to be the measure of your creation, your divine role, your purpose for being here, it would take an absolute saint to not occasionally entertain thoughts of, you know, if only I had married somebody else. You know, the pain is so personal at the same time that it's. That you're in it together. And so for partners, where, you know, the biology is the conflict on one side, but not the other, it's a tremendous, tremendous burden. And the stats are incredibly depressing about depression, about divorce. It's, like, right up there in, like, one of the five biggest deal breakers, I think. Oh, I might be quoting this incorrectly, but I think I remember that. I remember reading someplace that infertility is a greater factor for divorces than even cheating is, like, weighted for proportions in the population, you know, it's devastating. Because of our circumstances, we really did feel like a team, and we did both bring our own issues to the table. And my condition progressed to the point where for many of those years, we couldn't even address fertility because my own health was such a greater problem, where I was bedridden for several years because my endometriosis was so, so bad, and we did not have adequate medical care to treat it properly. And so I would just be on pain pills, you know, every moment of my life, and barely able to function. And so during those years, obviously, we weren't terribly. You know, of course, we never stopped wanting children, but that. That really stopped even becoming an option while I was so desperately ill. And then that was all those years there was illness, and then the drug therapy to treat the illness, which put me in chemical menopause, and then miscarriages and just an incredibly rocky, heartbreaking journey. But there were also so many moments of. Of beauty. I mean, it was really during. It was during those years of infertility that I really came to understand the beauty of my Relief Society sisters, this Mormon community that I had. It was maybe the first time that I really felt like I could start to belong in a community because, you know, people could not understand the abuse. They couldn't wrap their minds around it, and it felt so inappropriate for them to even deal with. But everybody could recognize this longing for a child, and that was such a righteous desire that people could so support. The ward that I'm living in now, we've just moved back into. We lived in it a few years before, and when I got pregnant in this ward. It was like the ward child. And then I ended up losing that pregnancy just after we moved away. And so we were in a whole different region of the state. We moved from Northern California to Southern California, and that pregnancy ended in miscarriage. And we received just this outpouring of love, just flowers and cards and just devotion from our faraway ward family, because I just. It's like once I broke the silence of my abuse, I just have. I've lost the seal. I've blown the door off the hinges, and there's no. There's no keeping things to myself anymore. And so I've always been open about my struggles with infertility, and people have just risen up to meet me and embraced me and supported that and just shown me such incredible service and support that have really been beautiful in the midst of all the tragedy.

John Dehlin [00:37:40] Right? Yeah. And so the ward community really steps up, but at the same time, there's a bit of a spiritual distance. That probably felt a lot different than the spiritual closeness that you referred to in your childhood, huh?

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:01] Yeah, absolutely. And I should say the ward steps up because I just, like, showed them my broken heart. You know, not everybody has the lack of boundaries that I do, and not everybody can bring themselves to be so vulnerable. And so, you know, not every ward, I think, would know what to do or when to act. But because I couldn't help myself from over sharing, you know, they really did embrace me, and so they kind of stepped up to give me that peace and the comfort that I wasn't feeling during those years from the spirit. You know, all of those tender ministrations I had as a childhood, that incredibly intimate communion I had with the spirit, it all went quiet during those years. And, yeah, I really felt. I felt isolated. I really felt on my own, spiritually speaking, during that time.

John Dehlin [00:39:07] That's got to be hard.

Tresa Edmunds [00:39:09] Yeah, yeah, it really, really was. It really. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:17] And there's questions. I'm dying to ask you about that, but I'm going to hold off on asking you about those because they're going to come in kind of the Q and A section. So how does this struggle with infertility? And then you also had a son that was born with a disability, is that right? Talk about that for a bit.

Tresa Edmunds [00:39:42] Yeah. My son, Atticus, he was born in 2008. He's just about to turn three years old. And after so eight years of infertility, this pregnancy finally sticks, and everything was going fine until it wasn't, and yada, yada, yada. I nearly died and I end up strapped to the hospital table because they were so worried I was going to have a seizure at any moment and, you know, fading out of consciousness there on the table and like, you know, willing myself back to, oh, livelihood. And so my, my son was born through dramatic, because what else is to be expected from this life in dramatic fashion? Emergency C section at 28 weeks.

John Dehlin [00:40:38] And that's early, right?

Tresa Edmunds [00:40:40] They're normally born at 40, so that's a full term premature. He was, I think that like 26 is a common benchmark for the child being able to survive. I mean, they have survived younger, but 20, 26 is as early as you can hope count on, I guess, the way you could say it. So, yeah, extremely early. And because my own case was such an emergency, a lot of times if a baby starts to come that early, they can take steps to make the, to prepare the baby and they can give them steroids and that kind of thing. But my own case was so dramatic and so urgent that it was literally came within moments of both of us dying. And so the lungs are the last thing to develop. And so when he was born, he could not breathe, had collapsed lungs, and at some point he ended up staying in the hospital for three full months. He was actually discharged from the hospital on his expected due date. And at some point during his stay, he had a lack of oxygen to his brain and develop as a consequence of that. He has cerebral palsy. There are varying degrees of cerebral palsy. And so a lot of times when I say he has cerebral palsy, people's imagination immediately thinks of a boy that they knew in high school or something who was in a wheelchair and his hands were crippled and tight up next to his chest and his head was lopsided and drooling and that kind of thing. And he won't be that boy. His is not that severe. They originally suspected that he wouldn't walk, but he wears braces now and he wants it really bad. I think he's going to live a pretty normal life. He's just a really, really determined little kid.

John Dehlin [00:42:49] And his cognitive, sometimes cerebral palsy people, cerebral palsy have actually higher than average IQs, I've heard.

Tresa Edmunds [00:42:59] Well, I don't know. I know a lot of times the brain damage that causes a cerebral palsy will progress. It will be extensive enough that it will impact cognitive development, and that's in about 25% of cases where they will be mentally retarded. In Addie's case, he appears to be sharp as a tack and he will just sing his little heart out. He knows all his little primary songs and he can sit there and recite Elmo and Yo Gabba Gabba and he just seems like he's going to do it all. He's a great look.

John Dehlin [00:43:37] Well, that's great. I guess there's some silver lining to that.

Tresa Edmunds [00:43:43] Yeah, I tell moms all the time, like when they start to give me the little cocked head and the pity glances and oh, I don't know how you do it. I just say, you know, I have a three year old boy and guess what? I can leave the room and I don't have to worry about what it's going to look like when I come back. I haven't had to baby proof. I don't have to worry about. You know, there are some definite blessings to having.

John Dehlin [00:44:07] Just because he's not as mobile. Because he's not as mobile.

Tresa Edmunds [00:44:10] Because he's not mobile. Exactly. He can crawl, but he's not tearing around the house. And you know, in future years we'll address that when. Well, I mean, we're addressing it now. I don't mean to be. To sound so flippant about it. We do quite a lot of therapy. But yeah, I'm just looking for those silver linings anywhere I can find them.

John Dehlin [00:44:30] Sure. Well, so before we jump into feminism, let's just kind of maybe wrap up this section with just a couple questions. Like I'll ask the. Maybe the, I don't know, not cynical, but also more cynical question first. It's like, okay, you've had all this hard stuff happen. It's like it's almost so overwhelming that one could almost become numb. It's like, okay, then another major thing and then another major thing. But that's contrasted by your almost lightheartedness as you talk about it. And I think in our first three minutes you said that there's a bit of a mechanism or some defense going on there, but talk a little bit more about that, about. About how you can have such tragic things happen without just falling apart talking about it. Is that a healthy thing or is that an unhealthy thing?

Working Through Suffering and Distance From God

Tresa Edmunds [00:45:32] I don't know that it is entirely healthy. Well, you know, if I knew a way to. To make it stop, I would. I would love to find that if. And I mean when I.

John Dehlin [00:45:49] What do you mean make it stop? The bad things happening.

Tresa Edmunds [00:45:51] Like if there was a way to not get out of bed and make that happen. Like to just close your eyes and say, okay, punch my ticket, Lord, I'm done. I would have loved to have found that years ago. But whether you like it or not, I think, and this is a whole aspect of the story that has been too tedious to even get into. But even in all of these infertility years, we've had some major job issues. One culminating on, I think it's safe to say the worst day ever. When we come home from the hospital, we get the official diagnosis that Atticus has cerebral palsy. And then on that same day, my husband's company sells the building that he runs and he's out of a job. So child is disabled. Lose your job same day. If I knew a way to just lay down and have that work, somehow have that be effective, I would have done it on that day. But whether you like it or not, your lungs keep moving, and whether you like it or not, you wake up in the morning. And so I don't know, maybe it's that pioneer heritage, if you just make do and you get by. And the way that I have found to do that is a great deal through humor. Not just in my own dark, twisted sense of absurdity about my own life, but, you know, I'm a huge comedy nerd. I mean, like, I just spent the day after Thanksgiving at a 12 hour overnight comedy marathon to raise money for this really great charity called Smile Train. So I'm pretty hardcore about my Cliff palates. Right, for cleft palates. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. So 12 hour marathon of stand up comedy. And so I'm not an amateur that I was in the audience for, obviously. And so that is something that is really a coping thing for me, just as an escapist thing, but also seeing the absurdity. And I think that it is. I think it would be dishonest to say that it isn't a defense mechanism as well. I mean, me recognizing the humor and the absurdity is a whole lot better. Like me laughing and allowing other people to laugh at how ridiculous this is. Recognizing the ridiculousness of it is so much more preferable to me than the cocked heads and the clasped hands and the, oh, honey, you know that I can't stand that. I can't stand the pity and the, you know, the clucking of the tongues. Ugh. I want none of that, you know, laugh with me, you know, or just go away because I just find all of it so completely unproductive. I think that's, you know, I'm almost like militaristic in how I approach some of the. These things that by now, you know, you're right. It is numbing. And there are periods where you're just like, it can almost be a blessing because you're like, well, I'm already knocked flat. I haven't even found the energy to get up, so what's one more wave? You know, Like, I'm already down here. You might as well get it all over with now. But it becomes so. It's like, I want to solve the problem and I want to solve it now. You know, I can't bear to dwell. I can't bear to have pity parties because. Because they're so unproductive. And what is productive for me is finding humor. If I can't find humor, I'll go listen to something funny. I'll go, you know, listen to my stand up comedy podcasts or go take in a show or something like that. Distract myself somehow because all of the grieving, the sackcloth and ashes, that doesn't, it doesn't lift my spirits. It doesn't get me moving. It doesn't solve the problem. And so I just don't have the luxury of that. I guess that's how I feel. And I know that sounds so harsh to people who run their lives in a different way. I recognize the validity of other options, but for me, I just feel like I don't have time to grieve because the next time thing is around the corner and I got to take my laughs while I can get them.

John Dehlin [00:50:18] Right. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I'm just, just studying psychology a bit. It's. It's interesting the tricks that the mind can play on us by, by catastrophizing and dramaticizing, if that's even a word, you know, life events. And I'm not, I'm not saying I'm not trying to minimize terrible things, but as I read more and learn more about healthy ways to respond to life situations, it's much more healthy, as I understand it, to pay attention to what actually happens day to day in your life experience than to get caught up in, in how terrible and how unfair a situation is. If you believe what your brain feeds you and what your emotions feed you, then you're going to be bound up in ways that you can't imagine, even with issues that are very trivial.

Tresa Edmunds [00:51:27] Oh, absolutely. And I think that's part of why, I mean, I worry that maybe I'm even coming across as a little hysterical to your listeners because I don't normally, you know, I'm not normally so flippant, and I do recognize the gravity of what I'm talking about. But Part of why it does strike me as so hilarious and so absurd is because I really don't think about this stuff every day. You know, you're exactly right. Like, before this, I was thinking about work, and I was thinking about the preparations I have to make for Christmas, and I'm thinking about my son. And I. You know, I really don't spend an inordinate amount of time in my day thinking about how I'm this poor, abused child. And so when I do start telling these stories, it's like I'm hearing them for the first time in a long time. And it's like I'm being struck with it all over again, like, how absurd it really all is, you know, But I. And I also think that part of my whole, like, obsession with productivity, my obsession with, like, you know, sucking the lesson out of the tragedy and getting rid of everything else, I find it to be so. I mean, this is so, you know, trite, but it really is tremendously character building if you allow it to be. And so I do feel like it has made me a much deeper person, a much more charitable and compassionate person. And I would much rather be that than have the. The alternative, which I have this friend who has also experienced a great deal of hardship in her life. And she was telling me about a relief society that she was in one time, and the teacher was going on about hardship and adversity and telling the story about the worst thing that had ever happened in her life. And it was when she was in elementary school and she had this bike that she really loved, and her bike had been stolen. And the teacher is tearing up telling the story of her beloved bike being stolen and how heartbreaking it was for her. And my friend, who had experienced just incredible, incredible hardship, she just kind of looked over at me like, are you hearing this? This is the hardest thing you've ever had. And when we talked about it later, it's become like a catchphrase with us where it's like, anytime we find somebody who maybe just doesn't have a charitable view of the world or doesn't have an understanding of a lot of the world, we just kind of look at each other and go, oh, bless her heart. She's just only had her bike stol. She just hasn't learned these same lessons in that same way. So, you know, I would much rather be somebody who, you know, has learned these lessons and can reach out to all these people with a great understanding. And, you know, it served me incredibly well working in young women's because All I have to do is flash my tattoo and all of a sudden all the rebel girls are like, oh, she's one of us. And, you know, I can reach out to all these people, you know, with one foot out the door or who also feel like square pegs, because I have this, this fringe life of my own in a way that the, the sweethearted ladies who have only had their bike stolen, they just can't even comprehend.

John Dehlin [00:54:49] Right, right. And. And let's just, let's just close maybe this section by having you talk about how you have worked through the distance you felt from God during this continual piling on of adversity, how you've made sense of that and come to terms with it.

Tresa Edmunds [00:55:17] Well, one thing that was actually really instructive for me is an exceptional book that I'm going to get the title wrong. I always get it confused with the Stephen Robinson book, but it's not the Stephen Robinson book, it's by Bruce C. Hafen. It's a wonderful book called the Broken Heart, the Believing Heart. There's a series, the Broken Heart, the Believing Heart and the Belonging Heart is the series. And I can't remember what the first one in the series is, but anyway, it's one of my very favorite books on the Atonement. The whole series is worth reading. But he talks about, in fact, I alluded to it earlier, he talks about how.

John Dehlin [00:56:01] Well, there's Covenant Hearts.

Tresa Edmunds [00:56:03] What's that?

John Dehlin [00:56:03] Covenant Hearts. Is that part of the series?

Tresa Edmunds [00:56:06] Oh, I don't know. I think they're all bees.

John Dehlin [00:56:07] Okay, okay.

Tresa Edmunds [00:56:08] But I could have that wrong or that might be a follow up. Anyway, so he says he's drawing this analogy to our spiritual journeys and how there are the times of quiet and how that's for a purpose. And he gives a little snippet of the history of the pioneers there in Kirkland and talks about this Mormon Pentecost and, you know, angels visiting the temple and people speaking in tongues and this, you know, the Book of Mormon and the Church organized and just this, you know, the heavens just showering down upon the earth and then they move to Nauvoo and their prophet is martyred and they barely get the temple built before they leave town. And there are no heavenly manifestations. And he kind of uses this as an analogy to explain a common route our faith journeys can take. And it was, when I read this, it just was such a light bulb for me because I felt like that was exactly what my experience had been, that I had this Pentecost in my own life. That I had this intense outpouring of the spirit, this intense period of spiritual gifts and blessings and visions, and just this incredibly intense period to give me a foundation. Because I didn't have one. I didn't have one. And to give me the strength that I did need to rely on. I mean, I think as I've come to realize how rare those experiences were, I've also come to realize how rare this ridiculous life I've led is. And how I really was given some pretty amazing experiences I believe really helped me get through all of these horrific experiences. But then there was also that period where the spirit did withdraw. This, this dark, dark period of, you know, the dark night of the soul or. And I did feel so isolated. But I also feel like that was an incredibly proving period in my faith journey because, you know, during all those years of infertility, I sure could have used some of those major outpourings that I had in years earlier. But not having them forced me to develop a much more independent faith, develop a much more mature faith that I could. It allowed me to rely on my own strength, or maybe I should say find my own strength, you know, to not have to rely on either church leaders or revelation for every single decision or action or movement of mine. You know, of course it certainly informs and guides me, but you know, there's. We are each of us working out our own salvation. And I don't think it's very godly behavior to just be obedient at the exclusion of everything else. I don't think that really trains us for our responsibilities in the next life. You know, of course I do believe obedience is important and has its place. And I'm certainly not advocating for a complete abolition of commandments or anything, but having to discover that self reliance and still cling to what I had experienced. I think that I'm not sure if I'm articulating this. Well, it did just make me. It made me independent in my faith and confidence in a way, in my personal faith.

John Dehlin [01:00:31] Yeah, no, you feel grateful for the experiences you had as a child. They bolster you. And now you feel like you're learning some self reliance and independence.

Tresa Edmunds [01:00:45] Well, and I feel like the heavens have since been open and we can get into that. I think that we can discuss that as we talk about my future direction. But I feel like I'm out of that valley in my faith journey. I feel like I've gotten through that period and the heavens have opened back up to me. And I feel intense revelation again in this period of my life intense revelation and I feel the spirit intensely again. But I do feel like there was this proving period that I had to get through. There were lessons that I had to get through. And I feel like, you know, I am a devout member, I am a temple recommend holding, dedicated, devout member while also recognizing so many of the issues that you talk about here on Mormon Stories. And so having this, that period, I think, almost trained me to become a vessel that I hope the Lord can use, that I can be somehow a productive servant because I can rely on these experiences of the Spirit that were my foundation. And then I have this layer of independence and confidence that give me the strength to act without being compelled, I think. And then, yeah, I think that's how I describe it. Yeah, it gives me the independence and the confidence to not feel compelled in all things. And now I'm entering this new period where I do feel this revelation leading me to new work. And I feel like without that period of quiet, I don't know that I would have at all felt up to the task of what I'm doing now. But because I was able to develop this intense, just refined steel core, I can put it to work now for my new efforts.

John Dehlin [01:03:09] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your Ward Bulletin and ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixton.com that's sky with an e s k y e pixton.com thank you.

Tresa Edmunds [01:04:02] The sun gone down.

The Mormon Feminist Renaissance

Part 3 of 5 · Ep. 219

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org. Well, Tresa, now I think. I think the past couple hours have given us a really good framing for what I think represents the vast majority of the questions that I received on my blog in preparation for this interview. And maybe that's, you know, partly due to how I phrased and introduced you when I advertised my interview. But, you know, tell us, tell us how these experiences in your life led to this feminist awakening, where you go from sort of putting feminism in the closet and doing the mommy thing to, you know, sort of breaking out in 2010 as being viewed as sort of maybe a leader for the next generation of Mormon women and feminism, along with people like Lisa Butterworth and Joanna Brooks and Elizabeth Calvert Smith and others who are right there.

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:19] All your friends that.

John Dehlin [00:01:20] All your friends that. Yeah, yeah. So what led to the awakening? Reawakening.

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:26] The reawakening. Well, if you're not up on all the different waves of feminism, this might seem ironic, but I think what really got me back into feminism was both my. My efforts at homemaking and my years of infertility. I think, for one thing, when I say my years of infertility, it's because that intense loneliness and all of those years of chronic illness that I experienced had me spending a lot of time online. And so I have been participating on one level or another at FMH or feminist Mormon housewives since the very beginning, usually as like a years, years of commenting and then, you know, now as a perma. So having that. And I can't even remember how I found it now, but having that community has really, you know, just blown the doors off that closet I tried to keep my feminine self in, but it was. It was also my cross crafting. And, you know, I think that's the part that people might find ironic if they have a second wave view of what feminism is. But, you know, I've worked for several years as a craft designer, and that's what the main thing I focus on my blog, you know, parenting and crafting and cooking and all of those kinds of things. And it's something that my interest came partly because of my dad, who I explained was like this, you know, MacGyver, and had to figure everything out and make it all himself. And another part was that intense desire to be this great Mormon lady and know how to do all these things. And so. But when I was at college and thinking I was too cool for this kind of thing. I would try to keep it quiet, but I apparently was unsuccessful because, like, my roommates remember me, you know, crafting all the time, even though I don't remember. Obviously they did, but I don't remember. Like, I just did not define myself that way at all. It was so not something that I considered myself doing. But as I got more and more into it and professionally into it, I really developed a much stronger appreciation. And then reading the Midwives Tale, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's book, the Midwife's Tale, gave me a really great grounding in the history of these things, considered like, the domestic arts. You know, she talks in her book a lot about, you know, the weaving and all these textile arts. And it was something that I had always kind of known in the back of my head. Of course, you know, we have this great Mormon heritage of the handicrafts and that kind of thing. But I was never really, you know, my mom did not quilt. I never felt connected to that Mormon heritage. It was something I wanted to put on like a dilettante and. And pass as a good Mormon lady. It wasn't something that I felt at all was a genuine part of. Of my heritage. It was just something I wanted. And so as I got. Got more and more into it, you know, in the. In the 90s in particular, but even earlier, early 2000s and on, you started seeing this big do it yourself movement that's very much a part of modern feminism. That's third wave feminism. And now, of course, we have Etsy, which is an online marketplace for handmade items. And all of these in Bust magazine, this very mainstream feminist magazine, they have craft projects in it. Now it's absolutely considered, you know, a feminist thing to do, to knit, whereas, you know, in the 80s and early 90s, it was not considered that way at all, which was why I was kind of trying to hide my. My crafty bent. But that getting into that community, like, it got so popular, in fact, that you. You go to some of these craft fairs and you don't see, like, if you. I mean, maybe some craft fairs, you'd still see grandmas selling doilies or something. But most of the craft fairs you go to now, you're going to see girls who look like they were playing roller derby the day before, you know, with, like, sleeves of tattoos and the combat boots and the whole bit. And it's such an overtly feminist act now. And so it became a way of, like, combining those two halves of myself, the part that wanted to be this good Mormon lady with this feminist. And the answer of combining that and creating this authentic whole self was through connecting to this heritage that I was kind of adopting of this maker of stuff.

John Dehlin [00:06:35] Right, so crafts. Yeah. So crafts played an important role.

Tresa Edmunds [00:06:41] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:06:43] A lot of people wouldn't make that connection.

Tresa Edmunds [00:06:45] I know. Like I said, you know, if your understanding of feminism stops at second wave feminism, then it would seem like the very opposite of what would be true. But it's modern feminism. It's a totally different animal in many ways. And it's considered such a point of pride to be self sufficient, to be artistic, to be. To be knowledgeable, to have these skills to connect to the heritage of art, craft, of the women that came before us, these women who were so limited in their options that they had no other outlets for expression beyond something that could be put to use. I mean, I'll get on my soapbox, so feel free to stop me at any time. But historically, what has been the dividing line between what is art and what is craft is if it can be used, if it's functional. And with very few exceptions, like maybe metalwork and woodworking, almost everything else is strictly within the traditionally feminine sphere, you know, and so all of the, you know, the quilt making, the rug making, the embroidery, you know, all of those things, the knitting, these are all things that are functional. And because women were limited not only by options, but also by their time and what they were expected to do, they couldn't have these artistic outlets unless it also served a purpose. And so their outlet was the quilts, it was the knitting, it was the embroidered decorative objects for the home. There were periods of history where women were forbidden from, you know, being sculptors or painters or, you know, participating in the fine arts. So this, as a woman, is our artistic heritage. And there was. There was the sad period where these skills were so looked down upon and nearly lost because women thought of it as celebrating the cage we were kept in, you know, But I think now it's something that I really love, and I'm really proud that now we recognize what these women were able to do despite their limitations. And I derive intense power from being a part of that heritage.

John Dehlin [00:09:14] That's inspirational. It's not where I expected you to go with the question, but it's really good. So first wave feminism just. I'm trying to remember, I did an episode on this a while back with Stephanie Snyder. But first wave feminism is like, give women the vote back in the 1800s. Second wave feminism is like, era movement. Is that right? All the stuff leading up to the ERA movement. And then third wave feminism is sort of what's come in the modern day, sort of a resettling and a synthesis of not just necessarily demanding that women become like men, but women almost re embracing the femininity while still demanding equality. Is that right?

Third Wave Feminism and Mormon Women

Tresa Edmunds [00:09:58] Yeah, yeah. It's almost a. In some ways, it's an addressing of. It's an addressing of issues that came up in the second wave, you know, some unintended consequences, like these backlashes. And so the third wave, you know, it's much more about celebrating options and celebrating choices and having whatever that choice be. Be respected. And so when. Whereas in the second wave, there might have been some backlash against women who felt called to stay at home, now that's a completely legitimate feminist option as long as it's freely chosen.

John Dehlin [00:10:37] Yeah. So it's almost about the function of the choice. What's behind the choice or the freedom behind the choice. Yeah, the freedom behind the choice. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So. But still being, you know, being someone who has tried to sort of bring stories to light and foster open discussion around. Originally it was history and then culture. And I've done a lot recently on gay issues and homosexuality issue. I know that there's always this intense. Well, for me, there was just this intense fear about moving from just being a person who reads and observes to someone who tries to become an advocate or an instigator of conversation or, heaven forbid, someone who actually wants to try and instigate some type of change or progress. That's like a whole different world. So tell us how you go from feeling comfortable again and re embracing your feminism to now wanting to write about criticisms of maybe a general conference talk, you know, in a London newspaper? Because that's a whole different level, right?

Tresa Edmunds [00:12:06] It is, it is. It really is. Well, let's see. I think that to me, it was the. It just made sense as the next step, you know, I mean, like every blog, but especially we see this a lot at feminist Mormon housewives, where people will say, you know, well, this is really nice. I'm glad that you all feel better for talking about these things, but what are you doing? And the people who say that are just. They just have no understanding of the history of feminism in the church, for one thing, Just none. And of course, aren't doing anything about it themselves. But as a person who, you know, expects a lot of myself, you know, like I was saying, you know, I have this. That's one of my coping things, is like just, you know, keep moving and do more and you know, don't stop and have a pity party. You just get things done. And so I do expect a lot of myself. And so when those types of comments come, I recognize that the person making them, that's not an external discussion, so it's not their place to say, but it is a discussion worth having internally. And so I just felt like. And I was not at all alone. This was happening to a lot of us around the blogger knackle and beyond. I just felt like the time was right and I found myself with these opportunities that were coming into my lap. And I did still feel terrified about the consequences because as you've covered here at Mormon Stories, there have been a lot of consequences, some extremely real consequences for women who have addressed the issue of feminism in the church. And I think that having the blogs has been a great way to kind of dip your toes in the water until you get used to the temperature, because, you know, we can start to have these public discussions about, you know, one issue, and then the next issue is maybe a little more dangerous, and then the issue of that is a little more dangerous. And as we get more and more comfortable, you know, it's not so hard to have those discussions anymore. And so with that tempering happening and then feeling this internal discussion to, you know, to do something, to take it outside the blogs, you know, not that I don't recognize the blogs as serving an incredibly valuable experience because I really. There's not enough you could say about the value of community and education that the blogs do. And I would fight anybody who tried to say different, but I did wonder if there was more we could do to reach people who weren't in the blogger knuckle and a lot of other people were having the same issues. And then this also was happening at the same period of my life when, when, like I was saying before, suddenly the heavens opened again. And, you know, I had these years of feeling like my prayers were falling on deaf ears. And then all of a sudden, this lightness came back into my life and I just feel so called to this work. I feel sort sanctioned by heaven. I mean, I have had experiences that are very sacred to me and very recent. So I don't know that I'm comfortable sharing them, but are so intense that I just have no more room for fear. And in fact, I did have one experience where as I was praying and trying to decide how involved I wanted to get, or do I use a pseudonym? Do I put my real name out there? What do I want to do? And the spirit Whispered to me, you know, God did not give you the spirit of fear. Like, I, I feel called to this work by God himself. And so I really don't feel that there's a lot for me to be afraid of. As long as I, as long as I keep that call in sight, you know, if I allow my own desires or prejudices to take me off in a different direction than, you know, maybe then I would have something to worry about. But I think as long as I am trying to do right by this, by this calling, then there really isn't anything for me to fear.

John Dehlin [00:17:01] Right. But at the same time, you're probably more aware than I am of the history that comes before you of, you know, Maxine Hanks and Margaret Toscano and, you know, just the sort of people who are, who have been cast aside, who probably, you know, I, I'm, you know, it's been just the past five, six years where I've started to really try to learn about and understand feminism. But one thing that really became clear to me a couple years ago as I started digging into this is that these women didn't start who've been cast aside as just angry, bitter, bra burning feminists. These were women who were sincere. These were women who were still believers, many of them. These were women who read the history of the church and became inspired by how empowered women seemed to be in the 19th century within the church. And you could almost call them fundamentalists in the sense that they were trying just to say, at least get us back to where we were 100 years ago.

Tresa Edmunds [00:18:29] Yeah. And, you know, a lot of these women I count as my friends now, you know, and I've had conversations with, with Maxine Hanks in particular, who is very supportive of WAVE and said, you know, when we started out, that's what we were trying to be was this totally faithful, totally devout, work from within kind of people. And that's just not how, that's just not the reaction that they, they got. And so I do feel like because of those women that I admire and that I learn from, I have the luxury of going forward without the fear because I really, and who knows, maybe history will prove me naive, but I really can't imagine in this PR savvy church in the day of the Internet when you have people like Joanna and Brooks and Holly Welker and Jana Rice writing for a mainstream public audience that goes far beyond Salt Lake City. I just can't imagine the church making the same choices today that they, that they would have, you know, that they did even, you know, such a short time ago. And even if they were tempted to go that route, because we have Maxine Hanks and Lavina and Margaret Toscano and Janice Allred, because we have these women that have proven the boundary, I can follow their example. They have shown me exactly where I can go to be safe and productive. And because I'm not the first that the church has to react to, I'm automatically not going to be the most extreme. I think that generation of Mormon feminists, because they were the first to be so overt in such a very long time, it was almost as if the church had no extremists to rate them against. So they became the extremists. They were viewed as the extremists. And so with that level defined, they are providing someone like me the safety of not being viewed that way.

John Dehlin [00:20:56] Wow. But that's kind of heavy when you think about it, because it means they paid a really big price.

Tresa Edmunds [00:21:02] They absolutely paid a big price. And it's one that I personally feel the need to recognize and revere.

John Dehlin [00:21:11] Yeah. Because it would be easy to say, we're 21st century Mormon feminists. We're not going to do things the old way. We're not going to be all angry and bitter like those women in the 80s were and sort of even condemn their tactics. It'd be really easy to do that, wouldn't it?

Tresa Edmunds [00:21:33] It's extremely easy. But I think that people who. Who came to that temptation don't know these women, for one thing, and don't understand that they're really not how they have been portrayed and don't understand what those tactics were. I mean, the tactics they were using was writing and publishing. How is that any different than what I'm doing? But it was. It was because they were the ones who had to take the bullet by being the ones who were out in front.

John Dehlin [00:22:11] Right. So what are you trying to do? What's wave and what are your goals? What is your stance? What is your approach? What are your objectives?

Tresa Edmunds [00:22:28] Wave. I'm really, really proud of it. It's run by some really exceptional people. And WAVE stands for women Advocating for voice and Equality. And every member of the board is a devout member of the church and is committed to the gospel. And we are not critics of the church. We view this as our. Our effort to build up the kingdom, to sustain our leaders by offering them the talents that we have, the experiences that we've had, the perspectives that we have. You know, we recognize that there are a lot of things that could be changed in how the church operates that have nothing to do with what has come to be kind of the deal breaker, which is the ordination of women to this male only priesthood. And each member on the board has their own personal feeling about that. But WAVE does not take a stance. We're not even addressing that because there are so many things that could change before that happens. When the priesthood ban for black men was lifted, it did not end racism in the church. You know, there's a lot that could happen before we ever get to that debate. And there's such a need for women that it just doesn't strike me as an extremely productive debate to start having. Because for one, you know, like I keep saying, there are a lot of problems that needed to be addressed. And if we make that the hill that we die on, then that's, that's going to be the only thing anybody ever hears of. Like we won't be seen as effective or as helpful or, you know, it's just, that's the deal breaker. And I think that's a lesson that we learned from the previous generation. You know, for them, there were a whole lot of other issues beyond female ordination, but bringing that up made the church just go, absolutely not and stop listening. And there's so much that we want to see that we want to keep that conversation going as long as possible before even bringing up that whole divisive hornet's nest. But in the meantime, first of all, there's a lot of policies that already exist that local leaders need to know about, be empowered about, that women need to feel confident in expressing and being heard. And that's nothing that Salt Lake needs to change. Especially at this most recent leadership conference was incredibly exciting to a lot of us because of how prominent, relatively, of course, when compared to, you know, the previous role, how prominent the role of women was and how encouraged women were to speak up and how encouraged men were to listen and how important that was. And I find that incredibly exciting. I really do believe that the brethren are aware of how women are being affected. For one thing, the statistics alone are shocking. And I think they're trying to work out how to resolve that. And so we hope that we could

John Dehlin [00:26:15] talk about those statistics a bit. Just. I can too. But is there anything you want to share?

Why Women Are Leaving the Church

Tresa Edmunds [00:26:19] Well, the one that I hear the most is young adult women are leaving the church. The rate is 80%.

John Dehlin [00:26:27] So women in the US in their 20s. Yeah, 80% are inactive.

Tresa Edmunds [00:26:32] 80%.

John Dehlin [00:26:32] Is that what you've heard?

Tresa Edmunds [00:26:34] That's what I've heard, yeah. And I think that there's another. I haven't heard strict statistics about it, but based on my own observations and anecdotal evidence, I feel like there's gotta be another valley in the mid-30s, maybe like, once the youngest hits school or something like that. Because that's when I really start to see people have their feminist awakenings and start to ask some questions that they might not have been comfortable asking five years ago. Because when we place such a heavy emphasis on marriage and motherhood being the final expression of a woman's divinity, well, once that child enters school and you have all this extra time on your hands, then so many women are going, well, now what? And so I feel like there's another key point there. You know, we've got this period in our 20s, especially if women aren't having. Getting married and having children right away, where there's this massive void in the theology for women, where we are so rarely taught as individual agents, as individuals working at our own salvation. There's. Everything we are taught is anchored back to this marriage and motherhood. So prior to that, there's this gaping hole where there's this completely unresolved, invisible role. There's just nothing there for women. Once they leave young women and before they start having children, then after that child enters school, when the demands on their time become a little bit less, or at least a little less urgent maybe then there again, the women have to deal with like, okay, well, I did that part. I'm doing that part. There's more to me now. What? And there's again this big empty chasm of no answer, you know, and instead it's just, you know, marriage and motherhood are great. Marriage and motherhood, great. Marriage, motherhood, great. And I agree. I mean, I'm married, I'm a mom, and I fought really, really hard to become a mom. And so I absolutely think that marriage and motherhood are great and important and divine. But we. I don't know if we have ever heard exactly why. You know, when we get a talk about motherhood, it's, motherhood is important. Motherhood is important, motherhood is important. But there's no meat there. There's no doctrine there. It's instead this circular logic about how important it is to raise up the next generation, who will raise up the next generation? Who will raise up the next generation? Who will raise up the next generation. And we don't talk about our own progress as women, as, you know, people on this path of eternal progression, of agents working out our own salvation and, you know, along with our family. And I wish that we could kind of reframe it so that marriage and motherhood became a part of our eternal progression instead of how we so often speak about it as the culmination of our.

John Dehlin [00:29:52] Or even equivalent equivalence.

Tresa Edmunds [00:29:53] Exactly. Yeah, yeah,

John Dehlin [00:29:57] yeah. Okay. So trying to. Trying to enhance how we talk about the purpose of being a woman and the function.

Tresa Edmunds [00:30:08] Right, right. And so to educate. We hope to have this conversation both ways, you know, to encourage local leadership to enact the policies that already exist, especially since this leadership conference, you know, to encourage men. Because, you know, I have had very few church leaders that I felt were inept or bad. Almost every single person I have worked with over the course of my entire life has been so good and so dedicated and so righteous. And so they just. It's not that they don't want to. It's just that sometimes they need to be shown how. And there are. There are policies that exist that they can just be shown or they can. You know, we can encourage women to tell them and that. It might seem so fundamental, but it's actually pretty. It can be pretty terrifying for a woman who has been taught her whole life this deference for the priesthood and this obedience to get the guts up to go to her bishop or her stake president and say, here's a problem. I see. Here's a solution. I might suggest that takes serious guts for a woman, depending on the role models that she's had around her, that could be a real break from the training that she's received. And so, you know, we want to be a community that can encourage that kind of learning from each other and communicating together and then also communicating with our leaders in Salt Lake to say, you know, this is something that we see. You know, here is our experience. You know, let us help you make your decisions by. Or, you know, that sounds even far more aggrandizing than we are. Let us just aid you by providing you the information so that you can make your own decision, but at least be a source to communicate because, you know, there are very few pathways to get those messages, at least for women. And so we just hope that we can be a resource.

Mormon Feminist Projects and Advocacy Work

John Dehlin [00:32:30] Okay. Any other major goals or approaches your ambitions before I maybe start asking some

Tresa Edmunds [00:32:42] questions about all that for wave, or for me personally? Well, for wave, the one project that we're working on that I'm personally really excited about is our Words of Wisdom project. And what we're doing is we are gathering quotes from our female church leaders because the lesson Manuals are extremely low on quotes from our female general auxiliary leaders. And we believe that if we have access to these quotes, if we revere these women as the leaders that they are, that they have been, that we rely on their teachings in our lessons, that it will allow all of us, men and women, to view women as capable of teaching these doctrines. This theology of seeing women as leaders, of taking their voices seriously. And then that goes back to that community and education that we're hoping for, is teaching women to take their own voices to seriously by seeing these women as role models. And so we want to gather all these quotes and put together like gift books. Or maybe eventually down the road, we hope to do an ipod app so that as somebody sitting in Sunday school, you have a lesson on faith, you can flip to your little ipod selection and say, Belle Spafford actually had something to say about that and use that in the lesson preparations to include more of a female voice in our teaching.

John Dehlin [00:34:30] Yeah, I mean, that'd be. It kills me. It kills me to see the lack of authoritative quotations from women in our manuals. I mean, it just kills me.

Tresa Edmunds [00:34:43] Yeah, yeah. So we're working on that.

John Dehlin [00:34:46] Yeah, that's fantastic. And then also there's the project that I referred to at the very beginning about the young women's manual and course preparation. Is that part of Wave?

Tresa Edmunds [00:35:05] No, no, that's another one of my blogging endeavors. That's Beginnings New. It's another blog in the blogger NACL that I joined that with my friend. Her online handle is Jeans. I don't know if she wants me outing her here, but we actually met through feminist Mormon housewives. I wasn't a permit there. We met in a comment section and we were both just incredibly concerned with the young women's manuals. And I've actually served in young women's my entire adult life. I'm on my seventh or eighth year now. And. And so we started that blog to kind of address, you know, there's a lot of great sites out there if you want, like handouts or cute ideas for new beginnings or girls camp or something. But we really didn't, you know, Jeans. When she started this blog, she really didn't find a source for people who really wanted to wrestle with the lesson manuals or the deep substantive issues of teaching in young women's. And so she started that and I joined her shortly after because it's something that been so passionate about, not only because of how formative my own young women's experience has been and how you Know, in all of that young earnestness, I really expected to dedicate my life to working in the church. And I have ended up doing so in different, you know, not being an EFY speaker as I thought. But, you know, but it's something that I'm so passionate about and I feel such a, a need to pay back for all of the young women's leaders that have shaped me. So it's something I'm really happy to participate in and something I'm really passionate about because the manuals that we're using are. You know, I really love this gospel and I really love this church and I strive very hard to not be critical. But if I was going to go money changers in the temple about anything, it would be those young women's manuals. And I. They get me angry. They do. And I think that I have one friend who calls them spiritual violence and I think she's right. I mean they're, I think we're going to have to answer for them.

John Dehlin [00:37:24] That's really heavy.

Tresa Edmunds [00:37:26] I know, I know. I told you here I'm talking about all of these spiritual manifestations and then I just cut right to it. But here's why I say that, because I have spent the last eight years teaching from these manuals and I am intimately acquainted with them. And I know that there are lessons that tell stories about date rape being a natural consequence of taking a sip of beer. And there are stories that tell girls that they need to be forgiving of their drunk and abusive fathers. And there are stories that tell girls about 12 year old heroin addicts and prostitutes.

John Dehlin [00:38:02] And are you, are you, is this hyperbole or.

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:06] No, no, I can quote you chapter and verse every single one of these examples I'm giving you. See, I'm getting all angry. See, I warned you. One of these examples I'm giving you are in our current manuals that we are teaching from.

John Dehlin [00:38:18] Holy moly. Yeah, actually my wife has told me about these manuals and she shares your frustration. So I'm baiting you a little bit just to help make the point.

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:27] But yeah, yeah, I mean, like I said, this is the one issue that just makes me see red because I think we're going to have to answer for some of the teachings that we've given to these girls. I mean, this fetishizing of modesty and chastity to a degree that is so damaging as they go forward and attempt to have a healthy marital sexual relationship the way we, we degrade. I mean, there are many lessons that degrade people of other faiths that degrade interfaith marriages or divorced family, you know, families of divorce. And I mean, just really shocking stuff. I mean, these are the same. These manuals have been largely untouched since the 70s. So you can just imagine. And there's an extreme millennialism to them. There's a very strong anti feminist bent, including one quote that comes directly from an anti era pamphlet. They're very much a product of their time, you know, the 70s and 80s, so very cold war, lots of exceptionalism and, and so thoroughly out of touch with this generation of young women. I mean there's, there's. These manuals have not been touched in any degree since the Internet came to prominence. So just imagine what a cultural sea change we have experienced since then. And there is nothing about that reflected in these manuals. No discussion of pornography or Internet safety or anything. They still have lessons about group dating when we have swung so far to the other degree that now the problem is that nobody's coupling off and therefore not getting married until their late 20s. So they're just, oh golly, they're just so unfortunate.

John Dehlin [00:40:42] Or the other extreme is they're engaging in oral and anal sex, you know. You know, and group dating is, oh my gosh, really far from what it is.

Tresa Edmunds [00:40:51] These manuals still talk about petting. Do you think they address oral or anal sex? Give me a break. No way. They can't even be frank about, you know, touching boobs. How on earth would they address those kinds of issues? There's no way. And so we have this whole generation of girls who we are at best giving milk. And meanwhile, if we're not outright damaging them by telling them the stories about repenting of date rape and submitting to an abusive father and these other gems, the 12 year old heroin addicts. If we're not terrifying them about what the world is like and convincing them that, you know, these abuses they might suffer are their own fault, then at best we're giving them a shallow interpretation of the gospel. That's the most charitable version of those manuals that I could come up with. At best, we're giving them milk. And meanwhile they go out into a world that is not, is not terrifying in the way we so often speak of it. You know, there are so many good people out there. They can have friends that are not of their faith who will share their values, but there are also people who are telling them things that, you know, our generation even didn't have to deal with until we were full grown adults. You know, there are 12 year olds. Okay. I have had a 12 year old who, well, actually I think she was 13 when she got pregnant. One of my beehives. Meanwhile, in that same group, when I tried to teach a lesson that was very frank about chastity, in that I actually said masturbation and oral sex, I had people express deep concern that I was discussing that kind of stuff with such young girls because a parent sees their 12 year old and they see a kid, but that's not what it's like when they go to school. When they go to school, they see a whole lot more than any parent really wants to consider. And so while on one hand I've got parents saying don't talk about that kind of stuff with my babies, on the other hand, then we send them off to school where they see just, I mean, just ridiculousness. I mean, things that people never had to face before. And we're not giving them the meat of the gospel that they need to be successful.

John Dehlin [00:43:37] Right? Yeah. And we've covered this a bit that we talk extensively. There's a stigma against masturbation when we're not even willing to talk about what it is and define it.

Tresa Edmunds [00:43:49] Oh, exactly. There was one time where I was teaching a lesson and I talked about masturbation and one of the girls, I had this great relationship with these girls and they felt really comfortable with me. So one of the girls goes, what is that? I don't know what that means. And so I go, oh sure, you've probably just heard it referred to as jacking off. And then I go back to the rest of the lesson and I was really holy moly. And this was on Sunday at church. But you know, I feel like this is part of my stewardship that I take very, very seriously. If me worrying about being polite is going to cause this girl to make mistakes that will affect her eternal salvation, then that is condemnation on my soul. And so I will take the other leaders back, blushing in the background. I will take the other parent thinking I'm being inappropriate. I couldn't care less about that as long as I can speak in terms that that girl will understand so that she can be armed with the information she needs to make these choices we're demanding them to make.

John Dehlin [00:44:52] Right? Yeah, yeah. It's important. And it's obviously, I'm sure you can empathize with the leaders who necessarily see it essential to the gospel to explain masturbation. Right? I mean, you probably share that. You probably share.

Tresa Edmunds [00:45:10] I can certainly understand your embarrassment. And the first couple of times I had to say it were terribly embarrassing. But it's. You know, that is something that I've written about on Beginnings New, where I say, if you have to teach a chastity lesson, then practice saying these words, because if you can't even say the words out loud, then the girls are not going to see you as credible. They're not going to see you as somebody who knows what they're talking about. And so if they have a question or if they have made a mistake and need to talk to somebody about it, why would they choose you if you can't even say the word sex? You know, instead, they'll either keep it to themselves or they'll make a mistake or they'll end up further down that path. But they need to know that these things can be addressed and they don't have to be shameful. And their salvation and repentance is far more important than a little embarrassment.

John Dehlin [00:46:08] Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's important. It's tricky, but I'm glad you're talking about it. Okay, so I'm, I'm, I'm dying. I'm itching to get to the lightning round. But so, so we've talked about, we've talked about Wave, we've talked about your blogging at Feminist Mormon Housewives. We've talked about Beginnings New. The Right. How do you see the writing that you're doing, like, for the Guardian? Like, you know, some of the articles that you've written, specifically this most recent one that was entitled Mormon Church Has Set Back Progress on homosexuality. Like 279 comments. This is in London. I imagine we could have a whole hour on what the response was to that article.

Tresa Edmunds [00:47:06] Well, let me first just say that headline was an editorial decision. I had nothing to do with that headline. Of course, if you read the piece I wrote, it's not at all as condemning as that headline would lead you to believe, but it has been incredibly interesting and challenging and stretching because the Guardian is a really massive paper. A lot of us in the States aren't super familiar with it, but it's. But outside of the States, it gets read a whole lot.

John Dehlin [00:47:43] What's it comparable to? Is it like the USA Today of the uk Is it like the Wall Street Journal? It's like the New York Times.

Tresa Edmunds [00:47:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:50] So it's educated, sophisticated people and very liberal.

Tresa Edmunds [00:47:54] It has a very liberal bent, which I don't mean to say is the New York Times. Circulation wise, it's equivalent with New York Times, but it is very liberal.

John Dehlin [00:48:03] And do you know if your writings go in Print or are they just on the web?

Tresa Edmunds [00:48:07] I believe they're on the web. They're just on the web, yeah. I don't believe.

John Dehlin [00:48:09] Not in print.

Tresa Edmunds [00:48:10] They're not in print, yeah. But it's been a real trial by fire because every piece that I've written, people will respond and be like, oh, you poor baby. Those comments. Because I have heard from my non American friends how. I guess I should be more specific and say for my European friends how secular society can be there. But I really did not appreciate that until I started writing for the Guardian. Holy cow. Yeah, they're not kidding. And it has been incredibly challenging for me as somebody who is a devout member, because I'm not a critic of the church in the classical literary sense. Critic of the church, and I'm also not a critic of the church in the vernacular sense. So it all very personal. And I do feel like I'm a liberal person. So I thought that it would, you know, I define myself politically that way as well. And so I felt like it would be, you know, a little more of a fit than I. Than it has proven to be, because, oh, my goodness, if I try to fudge a fact, if I try to ignore a bit of our history, if I were to try and be anything less than 100% transparent and up front, then my feet will get so held to the fire. There is. I have to prepare that as if I am preparing for court. Because by whom?

John Dehlin [00:49:50] Who's holding your feet to the fire?

Tresa Edmunds [00:49:52] Okay, by the commenters. Because part of the gig is to participate in the comments. So unlike a lot of newspaper positions, they get to write their thing and then just close their eyes and not have anything to do with the comments, but I actually have to get in there and discuss it as part of the job. And so if I were to just try to pretend that polygamy stopped at the first manifesto or that there's no vestiges of polygamy today, then I will get called out on that fast and ripped to shreds. And so I have had to really articulate a lot of things that have kind of been on the shelf for me, things that. Because I've had so many of these foundational, numinous experiences that I rely on, a lot of the things that really grieve. A lot of other people don't cause me that same depth of grief, even while I recognize the problems they can present. But when I write for the Guardian, I have to just dig right in. I don't have that same luxury of just Ignoring it or not letting it trouble me. And so I have really had to take a deep breath and dive right in. But what's been funny is while on some level I feel like I have been so far out on a limb, I have also gotten comments from other people thinking that this is some like, really PR savvy extension of the Mormon.org campaign. Like, there have been some people who've suggested that I'm a plant. That I really find hilarious because I have felt like I've really put myself so far out there. So I guess there's just, you know, there's no accounting for help.

John Dehlin [00:51:50] No, you, you kind of get beat up by both sides. It's, it's actually kind of thankless because it's like the church is going to thank you for writing that article.

Tresa Edmunds [00:51:58] Well, it's, it's really funny because obviously, you know, I haven't heard from Salt Lake or anything, but I have heard from British saints who have contacted me and said, you know, like one guy, I thought this was hilarious because it was, I think it was my piece on feminism. And somebody said to me that it was the best missionary work he's seen outside of a suit. And I just thought like, wow, you know, like that. I mean, I appreciated the compliment, but at the same time I just went, that is a great example of how culture blind I was being that. I thought like, oh, I'm being such a rebel by putting this so far out there. And meanwhile, you know, people outside of the US are just thinking like, you know, oh, this is so, you know, completely orthodox in so many ways. So that's great. You know, I don't know, maybe I'm seen as this totally liberal heretic in certain segments of the US but they love me in Britain.

John Dehlin [00:53:07] No, I can totally see that because you make the church, I mean, they're very liberal and progressive over there and you make the church look a little more in tuned with the 21st century. Well, let's hope, you know, okay, there are at least some plugged in Mormons out there. I mean, to them from their perspective. Right.

Tresa Edmunds [00:53:30] Well, and it's funny because as I've done the pieces, the first one, I mean, people were just like, why are we even discussing this? Mormonism is a culture. And the second one, and what I thought was really so endearing was in a twisted sort of way was so many people were saying, you know, I'm baffled by Tresa. She seems intelligent and yet she's a Mormon, you know, so like that was expressed so many times I just got the biggest kick out of that because, like I said, I had no appreciation of how secular that audience was. And so it was, it was really funny to me to be able to say, like, you know, we're not a cult. And then as the conversations have gone on just in the comments there at the Guardian, this liberal paper, you know, people have at least shown an openness to have the discussion, which I thought was, you know, who knows, maybe my rebel effort might lead to something. Maybe I'll be a net gain.

John Dehlin [00:54:36] Well, let's hope. It sure is exciting to see all the things that you and your sisters are doing, that's for sure.

Tresa Edmunds [00:54:44] Yeah. Yeah. It's not just me. There's a whole lot of us out there.

John Dehlin [00:54:47] There are. There are. For sure. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your ward bulletin and ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixton.com that's sky with an e. S k y e pixton. Com. Thank you.

Tresa Edmunds [00:55:44] The sun gone down.

Part 4 of 5 · Ep. 220

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org.

John Dehlin [00:00:17] All right, Tresa. Well, you've survived three hours on Mormon Stories. You've done great. I really appreciate everything. I think a lot of my listeners are really going to appreciate this perspective. And now we come to kind of the final hour, which, you know, I've started calling the lightning round, just because I've got a ton of questions just of my own and that I know listeners have written in that I thought I would. That I kind of ask you. Is that.

Lightning Round on Faith and Doctrine

Tresa Edmunds [00:00:45] All right, I'm ready.

John Dehlin [00:00:48] Okay. And I'm going to begin. I'm going to do something a little bit different because I always end with the epistemological questions. But I. You know, those are getting tiresome, but I don't want to totally ignore them, so I'm going to just start with them. But, you know, it doesn't have to be some big dramatic thing. So what I. What I kind of want to do now is, is just, you know, rifle off a lot of these questions, and I've got so many that you don't need to feel like you need to dig deep, necessarily into any of them, unless you really feel compelled to. Short answers are fine. So I guess my first question is, you know, along this epistemological line, I think it's a big. A big wide world out there. Mormons represent less than one half of 1% of the world's population. There's a lot of more serious things going on in the world than what's in the Mormon Young Women's Manual. There's genocide. If you read. What is it, Half the sky. What is the book?

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:58] Half the sky.

John Dehlin [00:01:59] I mean, you just realize that the atrocities going on in the world are just so big that if you have a consciousness about the world, you know, whether Mormon women get the priesthood, which is something you're not advocating for. But all these things that even the September 6th people fought and were punished for can. Can seem so trivial. So how. How do you deal as someone who, you know, sort of claims to be a true believing, devout Mormon? How do you. How do you reconcile sort of the exclusive truth claims of the church, the one true church kind of thing, with the fact that we're so puny on a global scale?

Tresa Edmunds [00:02:47] I guess the short answer is that I really don't. I personally don't say anymore, this is the one true church. I do say, this is my true church. This is where the Lord Wants me. But I think that exactly what you said. When you have a consciousness about the world, when you have a consciousness about history, it's really difficult to hang on to this concept that we're the only game in town. And especially if you are experienced with other people out in the world, not of our faith, you know, you will find a lot of people who share our values, who are great people, who dedicate their lives to service, who dedicate their lives to their families, who, you know, who even sometimes look and act and smell like a Mormon in every way other than their baptismal status. It really doesn't make a ton of sense to me, me that, you know, exactly like you said, you know, we're so puny, we're so limited, not just geographically, not just historically, you know, but in our cultural applications. I just. It's one thing in my early foundational experiences. It's what the whole core of my testimony is founded on, is how God loves his children. And I just can't believe in a God who is such a bookkeeper, who needs all this red tape to get back to him. That just doesn't make sense to me.

John Dehlin [00:04:45] But then that's a very different message than probably what's reinforced in. In the average testimony meeting or what's enforced in General Conference. Do you ever feel that dissonance of. You feel more universalistic, more Unitarian in your outlook, but you have to. If you go to church every Sunday and there have been lots of questions about how do you deal with church, you're going to face a constant onslaught of exclusivity, you know, and sort of, you know, a bit of a. Relegating the rest of the world to secondary status by some, I think.

Tresa Edmunds [00:05:25] I would say I may be a Universalist in my. Or a Unitarian in my respect for other faiths, but in my own personal approach and religious practice and devotion, is exclusively Mormon. I am very Mormon, except for my love of gospel music. That's maybe my one little personal, personal bit of universalism. But I think when I hear that stuff, you know, depending on my frame of mind, I might roll my eyes or I might just try to think of it very individualistic. Like, as I said, I do believe this is my true church. I believe this is where God wants me. Me. And so it's very easy for me to reframe all of those discussions as just being an expression of following

John Dehlin [00:06:25] the

Tresa Edmunds [00:06:26] path that the Lord has for me instead of the path he has for all of humanity.

John Dehlin [00:06:33] Right, okay. And that's kind of how you reframe it. And so to your view on God. I was listening to a podcast this morning, actually, and, you know, the discussion was about Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. And, you know, obviously polygamy is something we'll get to, but what struck me from the podcast was sort of the, you know, they read some of the scriptures that are in the dnc, and it's not even about polygamy. I'll just read a couple verses. So this is like D and C, 132. We'll start with verse 62. And if he have 10 virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him, therefore he is justified. But if one or either of the 10 virgins after she is espoused shall be with another man, she has committed adultery and shall be destroyed. For they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth according to my commandment and to fulfill the promise which was given by my father, blah, blah, blah. The comment that was made in this podcast, which I thought was insightful, wasn't that how outrageous it is that polygamy is being, you know, advanced here. It's more that women are being discussed like property, like chattel, like property. It's like, oh, well, if the woman does this, she'll be given over here, and if the man isn't good, the woman will be back given over here. And yeah, it's just. But the problem is, if you're. If you're within a believing Mormon worldview, this is God talking.

Tresa Edmunds [00:08:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:28] So, like, it starts at the very top. This, this thing that you're outraged about. The young women's manuals, the treatment of women, the. The September six and. And feminism. You know, it starts at the very top. Unless you, Unless you want to, like, strike out a huge, you know, a significant portion of the old New Testaments and the Book of Mormon, which mentions like, five women by name, and the Doctrine and Covenants, you know, which has stuff like this. So, like, like, I mean, you either have to, like, blow off the scriptures and re. And say, well, this isn't God. This is man. This is the errors of men creeping in. But once you start taking God's scriptures and dismissing large swaths of them, then you're like, creating your own religion. So how do you, how do you navigate those two poles?

Tresa Edmunds [00:09:28] I would say I probably err on the side of dismissal if I was going to err. You know, I, I find a lot in section 132 offensive before you get to polygamy as well. One, as. As an infertile woman, I feel an intense kinship with my single sisters. And so this, you know, in 132, there's discussion of them getting to be angels, you know, that I just find so. Oh, just can't even put words to it, obviously. So I do, particularly when it comes to section 132, I do probably tend to err on the side of dismissal. But I think it goes back to, you know, what I've been saying all along, that this core, for me, testimony comes so down to this individual relationship that I have with God and with Jesus Christ. And so when I read the scriptures, and not just when I read the scriptures, when I listen to conference, when I talk with my local leaders, when every interaction I have with the gospel is measured up against that relationship, and if something doesn't fit, then that's what gets cast out. And so, you know, you could accuse me of forming my own religion if, you know, if the shoe fits, I suppose I have to wear it. But it also seems so fundamentally within the Mormon model to me to have this. It's one thing that continues to appeal to me about Mormonism is having this sort of check and balance between the authoritarian and the personal revelation and the errors of men is something that has bothered me less and less as I've gotten older and made more and more of my own mistakes and experienced more and more how revelation works in my own life. Because while, as I shared throughout this podcast, I have experienced a lot of revelation in my life, and yet none of it was explicit. As far as you know, this is step one, this is step two. These are the words that you should say. None of it kept me from doing something stupid. None of it suddenly made me overcome character flaws or prejudices or misunderstandings. You know, it was all a fundamental education as I progressed. And so having that model in my own life helps me to be charitable towards other leaders. And so when I say, well, these are the errors of men, I don't feel like that's an insult. I don't feel like that's a failing or a character flaw. I feel like that's a fact. You know, that's to be expected. And it's something that I kind of grieved since I went through my own period of intense hero worship during those BYU years and kind of came crashing down to earth as some of those leaders became human in my eyes. It's something that I really. I really fear how we do that to our leaders, I fear this cult of personality that sometimes certain leaders might encourage or play into and sometimes we thrust upon them because I think it's damaging to all of us. It's damaging to them because we are not allowing them their own opportunities for progression which would include the occasional total screw up. And we're not accepting of this very merciful role model that we each have. I mean, we teach each other. The whole beauty in Joseph Smith being this barely literate 14 year old farm boy is that God is no respecter of persons and he can use small and simple things to bring forth his great kingdom. And then we completely forget that lesson as we set forth in deifying Joseph Smith and every leader who has followed him, when the whole point of Joseph is that, and for that matter, every prophet in the Old Testament, our whole scriptures are so replete with this lesson that we refuse to learn that, you know, even the best of us are still sometimes not that great. And yet the Lord in his grace and mercy will work with us anyway. And so all of that to say that I don't, it doesn't do my testimony any violence to say, well, that was obviously a screw up because heaven knows I can say that about myself. So I feel like that is just part of the plan of salvation that we really need to pay closer attention to.

John Dehlin [00:14:56] Okay, that's a valuable explanation. I know there are going to be people who derive strength from that perspective. What keeps you from. There's a scripture or some quote somewhere that basically says God is not an author of confusion. What keeps you from saying, great, he allows men to screw up. What keeps you from saying, well, God's the screw up? Like, why are you allowing all this craziness in your scriptures, your leaders to give people the impression that they sometimes are, you know, more, more inspired than they really might be, that the scriptures should be taken more literally than they really should. Like, what keeps you from laying that blame squarely at God's feet?

Tresa Edmunds [00:15:43] Well, because of, because of my foundational relationship for one, because that's just not the God that I know. And also because, you know, and maybe, you know, this is something that's actually just occurring to me as I'm speaking because for so long having abusive parents has, it has affected my relationship with, with God. And you know, I've often heard it said that, you know, the counsel to fathers saying that, you know, the relationship you have with your children is how your children will understand God or something like that, you know, and in fact, despite, you know, this might put A knock in my feminist cred. But until extremely recent. Well, until my son was born, I really didn't have this deep, deep yearning for my heavenly mother as so many of my feminist sisters have. That's a major, major issue for them. It really wasn't for me. And I think a lot of that had to do with. Because I really didn't want a relationship with my earthly mother. So I didn't have this idea of a nurturing, divine being. But I also wonder if having such deeply flawed parents, you know, maybe again, there's a hidden silver lining in there, in that, you know, I don't. I have these low standards. I guess that's one way of putting it.

John Dehlin [00:17:12] Low standards for God Almighty.

Tresa Edmunds [00:17:17] Obviously, that's a very ridiculous way of putting it. But I do think that. I guess I have a sympathy. I have a sympathy towards deeply flawed people. And so, because, you know, like we've been discussing that, you know, some people just cannot understand abuse because they have no framework, they have no experience whatsoever to draw on to wrap their mind around that. You know, I think it can be the same for church leaders. If you have not known somebody who has screwed up on the level that somebody might accuse a general authority, say, of doing, or Joseph Smith of doing, then you might hold these people up to standards that they can't meet. But because I actually do have that framework, I have known people who were so deeply, fundamentally flawed, then it's a lot easier for me to say, well, of course people are that way. I hope I'm making that clear. Not that I'm saying that general authorities are like my abusive parents, but just that. Because I have that understanding that people really can do some pretty awful things. That when I see somebody make a big mistake, it doesn't seem as shocking to me because I've seen the extreme of what people are capable of. Does that make any sense at all?

Concepts of God and Spiritual Experience

John Dehlin [00:18:45] Yeah, but are you also, since the question was more about God, are you. I've heard some people describe kind of the big G God and the little G God. The big G God being omnipotent, omnipresent, omniperfect, whatever. The little G God being a God who's trying to try to figure his way through all this, too, and probably needs our help and maybe is going to even make some mistakes along the way. Do you.

Tresa Edmunds [00:19:11] I mean, I would say my understanding of God is probably the little G God that I think that I would refer to as the big G God, if that makes sense. And I think that's very in fitting with our Mormon cosmology, with our understanding of where God came from and our eternal role and this idea of eternal progression. Kaimi, I remember, wrote a really wonderful post on. I think it was Times and Seasons where he shared an experience of his own parenting and kind of projected that as if. What if that was how God operates? It's something that really struck me because it did seem to fit so much with our idea of this eternal family and our Heavenly Father and this eternal progression. It doesn't seem at all outside of the realm of what I have been taught or what I believe to be true, That God is still progressing. Even though when I hear the phrase God is not the author of confusion, I don't interpret that to mean that any confusion would mean that there is no God. I interpret that to mean that the confusion comes from man. But. But I also don't think that this idea of an omniscient, omnipotent God is very much in keeping with our Mormon doctrine. I think that that's kind of something that we've inherited from our religious brothers, but it doesn't seem to be in keeping, really, with our unique cosmology, to me.

John Dehlin [00:21:04] Yeah. Okay. So. So it kind of is a little G God, a little bit.

Tresa Edmunds [00:21:11] Well, in the way that you've described it. But I wouldn't refer to it as little G God. I mean, he is still my God and my Heavenly Father and all of the ways that I would revere him.

John Dehlin [00:21:22] Yeah. And I don't mean in any disrespect. I'm just, you know.

John Dehlin [00:21:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:26] Just trying to parse through that. Okay, Right. So one more quick question about epistemology. A lot of people who go through the crisis of faith, there's a lot of people who wrote, how do you still believe? You know what I mean? And there's a lot of people who, when they go through their crisis of faith and they end up leaving the church, they still have to deal with the same type of spiritual experiences

John Dehlin [00:21:52] that

John Dehlin [00:21:53] they had, just like you did. And what they often end up doing is just kind of reinterpreting them. They were conditioned. They had emotional experiences, you know, because of trauma or because of hormones or youth or situations. You know, they sort of paired the religious doctrine with the hormones and feelings and that caused dreams or visions or, you know, inspiration that they then interpreted in a certain way, often because the church sort of conditioned them to interpret them in the specific way. And, you know, what they end up doing is sort of saying, well, that was just emotion. And that really wasn't a spiritual experience. And now I see things a lot more clearly now that I'm not so wrapped up in the conditioning. What's kept you from going there in your harder moments?

Tresa Edmunds [00:22:52] I don't know, maybe the. I don't know, maybe the quantity, maybe the quality of certain experiences because they have been plentiful and they have been intense. And I have joked to atheist friends that either these experiences have happened or I am mentally ill in a very functional way. And, you know, I'm parentally flippant. Of course, I think we've picked up on that by now. But. But, you know, I do feel like I'm a big fan of science and I feel some obligation to kind of own that. That if it, you know, I don't know, if it's all dust when I leave this mortal coil, then I will be shocked because while I do feel the need to respect all of that, you know, knowledge and information we're gathering, I'm a big fan of this whole, like, kind of Mormon version of the intelligent design with the whole this is. This is how God communicates through hormones and all of that. So. So I do. I am respectful of the science. I am interested and intrigued by the science. But. But I do incorporate it kind of into my. Into my faith. And I guess what's. I guess what's kept me from completely just abandoning faith in favor of the science is. I guess it just does come back down to the intensity of those experiences and what the results of some of those experiences have been. I mean, it's hard because I've been so intentionally vague about them, but some of them were so powerful. That. Boy. Yeah, I would really. It would come down to, like, a mental illness or leaving the church. You know, if I left the church, I would be concerned about my sanity because some of these experiences have been. Have been that profound to me.

John Dehlin [00:25:00] So it would border on delusional schizophrenic if you were to.

Tresa Edmunds [00:25:04] Exactly, exactly. And I'd have to start believing in psychicness because some of these. Psychicness is that anyway. Because some of these things have. Well, this starts to get a little magical so far out of context. But some of these things have been incredibly specific. I'll just leave it at that. Some of these things have been so incredibly specific that I would have to start believing that if it wasn't faith, then I'd have to be psychic, which would be a whole different type of faith. And so it seems like the same difference almost to me.

John Dehlin [00:25:39] Okay. No, that's Good. So one of my favorite interviews was with Albert Peck, one of the long running editors of Sunstone magazine. And he tells this beautiful story about how he somehow was able to get an interview, an audience with Gordon B. Hinckley. This was before he was president of the church. But while, as I remember correctly, while he was kind of running the church because the leaders were kind of invalid at the time, behind the scenes. And his basic comment to Albert Peck, who had the same belief that you show the same idealism, you know, really hopeful and believing, tender idealism, President Hinckley said to him, who called you to this? You know, the way Albert interpreted it was, what makes you think that you have any keys or authority that God would speak to you before he would speak to us? And, you know, it was so outside the channels.

Tresa Edmunds [00:26:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:57] And if God, you know, from the leader's perspective, if God wanted women to be at the table, he would have put them there. And, you know, he's called men into the quorum of the 12 and into the First Presidency and into the 70s, into the auxiliaries, you know, or whatever. And, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll seek your help when we want it.

Tresa Edmunds [00:27:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:25] And so, like, how do you reconcile that?

Tresa Edmunds [00:27:31] Well, the first thing I would say if President Hinckley, beloved President Hinckley, were to have asked me who called you, I would have said the Lord, because that's really how I view it. I really feel very strongly that this is a calling directly from him. And I would be able to claim that to President Monson if he called me up tomorrow. And I would be sure. And then also follow up by emailing him Todd Compton's essay on non hierarchical revelation to support my case. But then I also, You know, I feel like there actually is precedent in the history of the church. Like, for example, the Genesis Group is something that we were very aware of as we were founding WAVE and kept very much at the foremost of our thoughts.

John Dehlin [00:28:34] Tell our listeners about that group. I know what it is, but just tell our group.

Tresa Edmunds [00:28:38] Well, the Genesis Group was a group that was founded under the Office of the First Presidency after they were approached by several prominent leaders of the Black Mormon population to address the needs of Black Saints. And there's actually a lot of similarities during that time and this time that make me tremendously hopeful, most notable being the issue of retention. In Margaret Young and Darius Gray's documentary, Nobody Knows the Untold Story of Black Mormons Black Saints, they make it very clear what a major problem retention was among black Saints, as well as other factors such as growth of the church and other areas of the world. But specifically, the Genesis Group was founded to address the retention of black Mormons. And, you know, this was ultimately sanctioned by the First Presidency, but it was begun outside of those offices by deeply concerned members of the church. And so while I don't exactly, you know, it's not like I'm holding my breath waiting for the phone call, you know, from Salt Lake, but we have actually seen some very positive signs. You know, we have been in contact not with any general authorities currently serving, but we have spoken to people it would be prudent to not discuss. But there are some very positive signs that things aren't being. That our tone is being interpreted in the way that we're intending, which is one of assistance. You know, if somebody were to take exception to us, then you know that there's also precedent for that. So I wouldn't be horribly surprised. But I do think that there is some weight on our side of things as well.

Excommunication, Activism, and Building Community

John Dehlin [00:30:42] Okay, so that was going to be my next question. What makes you think you're anything more than just a dog barking at a train?

Tresa Edmunds [00:30:54] Well, maybe I'm not. I don't know. I guess history will be the judge of that, but I think that my conscience wouldn't allow me to keep silent. And so if nothing else, I'm a dog with clear conscience.

John Dehlin [00:31:14] A yapping dog with a clear conscience.

Tresa Edmunds [00:31:17] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:31:20] All right.

Tresa Edmunds [00:31:21] Well, there actually have been some really positive signs that I wish that I could speak more about, but I don't think it would be very wise to do so. But there have been some. Some really hopeful, exciting signs.

John Dehlin [00:31:38] Yeah. And I guess the fruits of that we won't know for sometime.

Tresa Edmunds [00:31:47] Yeah, probably.

John Dehlin [00:31:50] So you're trying to take a very political, diplomatic, strategic approach to this.

Tresa Edmunds [00:31:55] Absolutely, absolutely. I think I've said once or twice that I personally am willing to sacrifice just about everything on the altar of effectiveness. So if, you know, if it means that I need to look like a wishy washy feminist in some people's eyes, I really could not care less as long as it means that the conversation stays open. If I look like a heretic in other people's, I really could not care less as long as it means that the conversation is still happening. If the job is getting done, if the discussion is happening, then that's what I care about. And if I have to sacrifice personal reputation, credit, ego, I'm happy to do it. And honestly, you can't embark on an effort like this and be aware of the history and not address the concern of excommunication. I mean, it would just be naive and ignorant. And I have. And if, in following what I believe is this calling the Lord has for me to do, if it means that at some point I have to sacrifice my membership, well, I wouldn't be the first. And if. If that's what the Lord would require me to do, then I'm willing to follow that spirit. I really don't expect that. I think that would be pretty far out there, but I do think it has to cross your mind or you're just silly.

John Dehlin [00:33:29] Yeah. It's interesting to hear that you've thought about that, because I think about that every day, literally. But no one's ever. I mean, really, I'm five years in and I've never been approached. I've never been harassed. You know, a bishop. I once had the bishop call me in, but it was a very constructive and healthy conversation that left with him telling me he felt like what I was doing is inspired. So, I mean, it's totally mind boggling, the disparity between the paranoia and what the actual data show.

Tresa Edmunds [00:34:06] Absolutely. I mean, I have had so many people, you know, express fear for my membership, and in reality, you know, I'm totally out. Everybody in my ward knows, you know, I am out there and I haven't faced any reprisal. And in fact, like I keep, you know, vaguely alluding to there. There have been context with. Yeah. Trying to decide how far out there I want to go. There have been some. Well, one thing I will say is that I was just asked for a response on an article from Deseret News. And so given their recent change in editorial position, the fact that Deseret News was contacting Wave for a comment, I actually interpret it as a really great sign because they are so. They're so very much in keeping with the position of the Church. Not that I'm viewing that as an endorsement. Of course not. But I am saying that, you know, if somebody that in line with the position of the church is accepting of wave, then that's a really great sign.

John Dehlin [00:35:21] Yeah, sure. I mean, I can see that. But I'm reminded, and I'm not doubting you. I'm just, you know, sharing with you some of the thoughts that come to my mind as someone who's tried to do a little bit of what you're doing in a different way. But I remember my interview with Margaret Toscano, and she talks about. She talks about. She makes this analogy of Sitting in the back of a car and it starts to heat up, and you quietly say, can you turn on the air conditioner? Can you roll down the windows? Excuse me, can somebody listen? And, you know, this is basically when I was challenging her about the tactics, and she basically said, you can only sit in a hot room for so long and quietly ask that something be done about it before you start raising your voice and raising your voice. And in the end, and by the end, you feel, like, the desire, like, you have to scream because that's the only way someone's going to listen to you. How long can you go getting a nibble and a sliver here and there before you start feeling impatient and frustrated?

Tresa Edmunds [00:36:42] Well, I don't know. I guess we'll see. But I am very aware of the benefit that I have thanks to Margaret Toscano. I mean, to stretch her analogy to the breaking point. You know, if she was in the back of that car and then screamed until somebody, you know, refused to listen, it's almost like having this previous generation that has gone before us. It's like somebody sitting in that back of that car, like, broke a window. And now whoever's driving is going to be a little more attentive to whoever they're driving around. So I think that now that I've thoroughly tortured that metaphor, I really do. I really do think times have changed, and the leadership is very different. The culture is extremely different. We have the benefit of the Internet, which is. And that cannot be overstated, what a powerful force that is. And so it's a very different world. And so if nothing else, if nothing else, like, if I keep just beating my head against this wall and getting nowhere, I at least have this community of my sisters that this previous generation, there were only a handful of them. And if they weren't in Boston or Utah or Arizona, then they were on their own here. If I have a disappointing encounter or a setback, I can go onto Feminist Mormon Housewives. I can go to exponent 2. I can go to Zloth Has Daughters, and I have this sisterhood that can embrace me and buoy me up and then, you know, push me back out there into the ring.

John Dehlin [00:38:37] Right? Yeah. That is nice. I mean, how many women do you think are plugged in to what you're doing? Do you have a sense? Do you even have a guess at. Is it a thousand? Is it 2000?

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:53] You have to be more specific to Wave or Beginnings New or Feminist Mormon Housewives?

John Dehlin [00:38:58] Yeah, all that, everything.

Tresa Edmunds [00:39:01] Thousands. I mean, Feminist Mormon Housewives has Quite a red readership. I'm not even sure entirely of the number, but it's thousands.

John Dehlin [00:39:10] So, Mike, maybe 5,000, right?

Tresa Edmunds [00:39:13] I think it's even more than that. Yeah, I think it's even more than that.

John Dehlin [00:39:20] I haven't checked, so approaching 10 maybe? Approaching 10,000 maybe.

Tresa Edmunds [00:39:24] Beats me. Like I said, I haven't checked the stats in a long time, but I know it's quite big. Whenever we marshal our resources for fundraising efforts or something like that, it's. We get a lot of support. There's a lot of us united together. And that's just the ones that are really comfortable defining themselves as feminists, which there are a whole lot of people who for one reason or another, don't like the label, aren't comfortable with the label, aren't accepting of what they view as the entire feminist platform, but who are still deeply concerned with the position of women in the church. And there are thousands and thousands more of those. In fact, my own mother in law, who's very, very conservative, you know, every time I see her, she loves to tell me what Glenn Beck is saying lately. And you know, she and I have disagreed about a lot over the years, but she has become one of my biggest supporters in these kinds of efforts because she taught seminary for, I think, 11 or 12 years. She's deeply concerned with the youth, sees what they're up against, sees the attrition rate, and recognizes that something needs to be done for the health of the church, for the health of these people whose spiritual needs were not meeting for the work of the Lord. You know, we're obviously not, you know, we're not meeting that challenge. And there are a lot of women who recognize that aspect that would really not get on board with a lot of the other feminist issues. And I think that's what waves audience is in addition to the feminists, is that those people who are concerned with women and really don't care about the politics of everything else, but they are concerned about the women of the church.

John Dehlin [00:41:24] Right, Right. I kind of have this impression that the blogger knuckles really kind of insular. Mm. And yeah. And I've often thought about, how do you. How do you take something much bigger than that? How do you, how do you reach 50,000 or 100,000 instead of just, you know, 10,000 at the most.

Tresa Edmunds [00:41:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:53] Have you thought about that? Like all these women who don't like the term feminist, who, who don't want to be associated with anything scary, who maybe are pretty happy in the church, but they definitely don't want to, you know, they want to stay with trusted sources, even approved sources. Have you spent any time thinking about how to go from 10,000 to 100,000?

Tresa Edmunds [00:42:19] I haven't. You know, I think you're right. The blogger Naco is pretty insular because it's this segment of the population that is Internet savvy. And then you divide that down to a segment of the Internet savvy people who care to debate Mormon issues. And then you have to boil that down even further if you want to talk about which blog they're attending, like Feminist Mormon Housewives or Beginnings New or one of the others. And so, you know, population wise, it is a pretty small market, but every once in a while you'll find an outlier. And Feminist Mormon Housewife sees this a lot because of its Google ability. For one thing, that title shows up all over the place. And so like I was at a young woman's presidency meeting in my current ward and I mentioned something about being a feminist and she goes, hey, have you guys seen that blog Feminist Mormon Housewives? And this is, you know, she's not a participant in the blogger nackle, but she found that because it is, it's very Googleable. And then I noticed the same thing happens with Exponent 2. They have a great series on lesson helps for the Relief Society lessons. So they get a huge different segment of the population that is just looking for help on the lessons. And of course, we see the same thing at Beginnings New. Our audience at Beginnings New, there's very little crossover to a lot of the other sites because it's just people who are seeking help on the young women's stuff. And then my own blog, I get a fair bit of traffic and there's very little crossover between the blogger and Acalopia. It's almost a totally different audience. So there is work to kind of expand those niches. And Wave has seen some really wonderful support from different groups with their own audiences to try to expand that. But then I think as long as you only have an online presence, you are going to be limited to only the Internet savvy people. And so, like, one way Wave is trying to address that is with the Words of Wisdom Project. When we get these, we want to do the gift editions of the books and hopefully when we compile it, we could even get it to a price point or maybe through donations we could get it to a price point where when Mother's Day rolls around, then bishops can give this out instead of a sad little pansy or something, you know, and that could Reach, you know, all those other people. And that's one area where I still work a lot in my crafting is because I really do want to kind of anchor myself to that mainstream audience. So there's work that I've been doing still kind of looking for a home, looking for an audience about, you know, crafting for the Young Women's Project, Personal Progress Program and things like that that can be more approachable for a different audience, but kind of draw people into this world.

John Dehlin [00:45:30] Okay, well, I want to just. You've probably already thought about this more than I have, but I think that video and audio multimedia, along with text, are real unchartered territory. So, I mean, I think I've emailed a lot of you and said, I'll even help you guys start a podcast. But you'd be surprised at the numbers of people you can reach through some type of regularly scheduled audio programming. And I hope you guys will consider that. And if you ever want help with that, let me know.

Tresa Edmunds [00:46:05] That's good to know. I actually haven't thought about that at all because I'm not a video or audio person. But file that away and give that some thought.

John Dehlin [00:46:12] There's a lot of people who just won't. Won't want to sit and read stuff or have the sort of banter or the insider baseball that happens on some of those blogs and all the insider jokes, but they commute to work and they wash the dishes or mow the lawn or exercise, and they have an ipod. And if they had something compelling to listen to, they'd be very motivated to spend that time learning instead of listening to music. So, anyway, something to think about. Let's turn to sort of the practical. How do you cope with church? The church experience. And then I'm going to talk about raising your children and young women.

John Dehlin [00:47:04] So,

John Dehlin [00:47:08] you know, there are a lot of women who have left the church who just say, I can't do it. It's too hard. You're asking me to do too much. First of all, I feel unethical. I feel like the church isn't what it claims to be. The church, the Brethren, haven't lived up to the sort of status that they want to hold. The church has an abysmal record when it comes to equality. And so for me to stay in is just to be complicit in the lie. But even if I could get over, if I could find some nuancey way to dismiss half of the scriptures and discount the brethren heavily and, you know, transform my God to a little G God, I've still got to deal with the day to day, you know, subservient seeing men on the stand, all the brethren are white males and all the messages that get conveyed, it's just too much, right? How do you, how in the world do you offer, what do you tell these women who have either left or on the precipice of leaving? How do you make the case that staying is worth the pain?

Tresa Edmunds [00:48:15] I, I don't know that it is in every situation. I mean, I think that I'm, I'm one that sees value in a faith journey leading you away to come back. And you know, that the story isn't done by deciding to, you know, stop attending. And so, you know, so I don't, I don't think it's always worth hanging around, especially depending on your local circumstances because that varies so wildly. And you know, if you have a really authoritarian or downright abusive local leader, then I don't know that it's worth it at all. I think that, I really don't think that I could at all honestly argue for a case to stay in the church that was not founded on a witness of the spirit. And I just don't, I personally don't. But I'm so biased because I don't have the family pressures. I really don't see a lot of value in staying if there isn't some sort of, on some level, some kind of a spiritual confirmation, if it's not like believing everything wholesale, at least, like I keep referencing that, this foundational relationship that is, that is everything to me, you know, as long as I have that and that is still leading me to stay, then I'm there. But if you don't have that, I don't always see what the value is in forcing it if it causes spiritual pain. I do think that there, there is a lot, a lot, a lot of value that can come from women learning how to say no. You know, the subservient comment you made is really what's making me think about this because I think that a lot of women, you know, I've heard this loads of times. You know, when, whenever I do have a discussion with somebody about women having the priesthood, then it comes up in every conversation at some point. Well, why would I want that? I've got enough to do already. And you know, women are, are socialized to be such pleasers to not say no, to just do it all. And, and we have to learn how to stand up for our boundaries and to say no and to not just be these servants with nothing else to offer. So I think that can erase a little bit of the bitterness, at least. If you're feeling abused because of all you're giving and you're not feeling like you're getting a lot back, then, of course, how could it be worth your time? So at least don't let yourself feel abused. But, yeah, it comes to that confirmation by the spirit, if that is missing, then there's really not much else I could say. I just don't think that it's worth faking.

John Dehlin [00:51:54] Right, right. Are you making the argument that kind of. The weightlifting argument that it's painful, but it builds muscles that. That you can become stronger individually by facing the difficulties?

Tresa Edmunds [00:52:07] Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think that's like my whole life has been predicated upon that argument. And even in my, you know, I have certainly gone through those years, you know, as we've discussed, where I didn't feel the spirit walking with me every day. So I'm certainly not advocating that, you know, if you don't get your prayers answered the way you want to, then hit the bricks. But I have spoken to such. So many people who feel such intense grief and such intense pain in the midst of their faith crisis who, you know, aren't getting anything in return. And I just don't see the purpose behind that. But I do find intense purpose and in kind of leaning into that and exploring that, you know, and if, if, if that takes you out of the church for a season, you know, don't do anything you'll regret, and then, you know, we'll see, we'll catch you on the other side. But. But I don't feel like that there's much to be gained from the dishonesty, I think, you know, like keeping up appearances. I don't think there's much to be gained from that. I think there is a whole lot to be gained. The weightlifter argument is a great analogy of leaning into the doubt, Leaning into the. And like Christine Haglin told me something once that I think is really great that she got from her dad is like, that the answer to, oh, I'm going to so butcher it. Something like the solution to information is more information. So that if a faith crisis is predicated upon some discovery that causes great pain, well, the answer is to lean into that rather than to just allow that to fester or become bitter or a barrier. You know, I hope that made some sense.

John Dehlin [00:54:18] Sure, sure. There are a lot.

John Dehlin [00:54:25] There are a lot.

John Dehlin [00:54:26] There was a comment about. Well, I guess. I guess it Seems like you feel called to this and you want to, you want to sort of organize a little bit. There's a little bit of an organizer feeling that I get that you want to, you want to kind of, I don't know, do you want to awaken? Do you want to kind of build a large. Well, you know, just. Yeah. Do you want, I mean, so there's a lot of women who wrote and said, I'm happy, I'm fine, I don't want the priesthood, I don't, I don't care that white men control the church. I, I was raised, I feel empowered. My husband and I are different. I don't want his job and there's no problem. What's the problem? And they don't like the word feminism. They're turned off by it. So like, they're like, Tresa, you're trying to fix something that isn't broken for us.

Tresa Edmunds [00:55:25] Right.

John Dehlin [00:55:25] What do you say to them?

Tresa Edmunds [00:55:27] I say, well, that's lovely for you, but it really goes back to my experiences with abuse. You know, your lovely childhood does not negate my abusive childhood. Your positive experience with a male only priesthood does not negate my negative experiences with a male only priesthood. And if you're happy as a clam, I could not be happier for you. But that does not mean that a problem does not exist. And I hear that argument constantly being at FMH as long as I have. And it really does frustrate me because it's, you can't, I don't think you can talk somebody into feeling valued. You have to show them that. And if there are women who are not shown that they are valued because, and you can lay the blame for that anywhere you want to, whether it's at the doctrine, at aberrant local leaders, whatever. If there are women who are not shown that they are valued, then they won't feel valued. And if these women have been shown that they've been valued through good husbands, good fathers, good bishops, that's wonderful. And I don't deny that that can happen. But, but that doesn't mean that their experience is universal. And I don't know, maybe they feel like that's what other women are trying to claim is that their experience hasn't happened. But when I hear people making that argument, it does make me a little bit frustrated because for myself, I know what my own intentions are and it's not to negate somebody else's intention experience. If, if I succeed at that intentions and you know, is another story. And so it does, it does get Frustrating that I just want to say, you know, well, but I'm here. You're looking at me, you know, so obviously this is a. This is a reality.

John Dehlin [00:57:41] Right, Right. But I mean, what if they came back and said, look, you know, okay, so, you know, someone's on an airplane and they lose their luggage, you know, you know, every five airplane flights, someone loses their luggage. You don't, like, picket the whole airline. And, you know, you stand up and yell in the, in the, you know, during people's planes complaining. You know, you just, okay, you had a bad experience and you go deal with it individually, but you don't need to. To try and deal with the system. The system works. The System works for 80, 90% of the women. That's why they're there. And so, like, why are you trying to make big changes around the exceptions? Why don't you just trust the brethren, trust God, let them lead the church, don't steady the ark. And, yeah, you had a crappy experience, but you're in the minority and, you know, don't, you know, don't disturb the pleasant, happy majority with, you know, with your unfortunate aberrations.

Tresa Edmunds [00:58:57] You know, I think that's exactly how Christ himself would have said it. Obviously, it's, I think he would say, a little bit different about the 90 and 9. But to go back to your plain analogy, I think what's worth examining is even if it is just five people here and there who are losing their luggage, what is the cause of that luggage being lost? Is it poorly trained baggage handlers? Which, when it comes down to it, is a lot of the problem for women's negative experiences with the Gospel is poorly trained or under qualified or inept local leadership. In which case we could ask the. I'm just on a roll with torturing these metaphors. We could ask the airline to provide better training to their baggage handlers, and it really would not affect anybody else's experience. You know, if the problem is that, you know, it's a. It's a. It truly is a fluke thing, then that's fine. Address each fluke as it happens. But I don't know that that's the case. I think that there are. If the problem is systemic, which I think it can. There are cases to be made on certain issues that it absolutely is because it so frequently pops up in areas from one end of the world to the other, then it absolutely needs to be addressed at the top, particularly in issues like, say, the temple ceremony, which has been changed multiple times since it was first Revealed the aberrant local leadership has not one single thing to do with that. Nobody can make changes or claim any authority over that other than the brethren themselves. And so there is absolutely precedent for that changing, and they're the ones who would have to be the ones to change it. So it really does. It seems only logical to me.

John Dehlin [01:01:17] And if you don't mind, I'd like to even extend your analogies, jump back on your side and extend the analogy a little bit further.

Tresa Edmunds [01:01:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:25] With the temple ceremony, you know, sometimes, you know, people who are trying to help effect change are called onto the carpet for making things worse or delaying progress by trying to make change. And, you know, they say, tell me one example where, you know, someone really making a stink has ever helped make progress. And the temple ceremony is a perfect example. If you don't draw the dots and make connections between the book and the movie. The God Makers and the changes in the temple ceremony are kind of crazy because that was a national phenomenon that affected multiple states, that affected the missionary effort, where the most heinous parts of the temple ceremony were broadcasted front and center starting in the late 70s, moving into the early 80s. That really highlighted some stuff that was just deeply disturbing that all the members were scared to talk about. And people can say there was no connection between the God makers and those changes, but I think there probably were

Tresa Edmunds [01:02:42] connections, and there's a lot more than that. I mean, history has shown a whole lot of movement because of activism regarding the priesthood ban. There was all these women's issues like birth control, working women, oral sex. There's a ton of precedent for grassroots, the word of Wisdom, for crying out loud. There's so much precedent for this model of asking the questions. The entire Doctrine and Covenants, for goodness sakes, is somebody asking Joseph a question and then Joseph asking the Lord a question. So I really don't get why it would be so scandalous for so many of us who still have questions to go to our prophets and ask the question and wait for the answer. That's kind of the model of all of our scriptures, right?

John Dehlin [01:03:48] Yep. Yeah. So. So activists take heart, right?

Tresa Edmunds [01:03:54] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:03:57] Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your ward bulletin and ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixton.com that's sky with an E. S, K, Y, E Pixton. Com. Thank you.

Women, Priesthood, and the Family Proclamation

Part 5 of 5 · Ep. 221

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories podcast takes a ton of work and depends solely upon listener support to keep this program alive. Please consider a donation today@mormonstories.org. How do you, how do you safely raise. You don't even have a young woman as a daughter yet. I do. I have two young women's right now. How do you safely raise them in the young women's program where they're, where they're subjected to these manuals and to maybe sometimes poorly trained leaders?

Tresa Edmunds [00:00:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:00:41] How do you inoculate them or protect them or, you know, how do you risk that? I've had people just say, I'm not going to risk this. Yeah, you know, it's, it's. Yeah, they look up on the wall and it's a white male first presidency. They look at God and it's a white male God. And the boys get all these encouragements and nurturing, and the women are macrame and. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:13] That's right. Think about who you're talking to.

John Dehlin [00:01:15] No, I'm kidding. But I did that on purpose, actually. But, but, you know, like, I'm not going to subject them. It's like torture. It's like choosing abuse for your child. I'm not going to stand for it. Like, what would you say on how to do that successfully?

Tresa Edmunds [00:01:33] I would say, first of all, that parents have a lot more power than they sometimes realize. I mean, having worked in young women's as long as I have and having been in so many presidency meetings where leaders were lamenting because of how unsupportive the parents were, I was making air quotes there how unsupportive the parents were to how they wanted to run the program. Parents can be a serious monkey wrench in the life of a young women's leader. Not that I'm advocating that by any means, but I would say, you know, to these parents, you fear you spend a whole lot more time with your child than we ever will and have a whole lot more power and authority than you realize. So take heart there. For one thing, I would also say that you should read the manuals. I mean, they're available on lds.org for anybody to read and talk with your girls about what they're hearing. You know, some young women's leaders teach straight from the manuals. A lot of them, I would probably bet most of them don't, or at least deviate here and there because it's pretty close to universally accepted that they're heinous. Yeah. I mean, in every presidency, I'VE been in for the last eight years. We have talked openly about how lack. I mean, we might not have been as bold as I have been speaking with you today, but we have just kind of said, oh, these manuals, eh? And so the leaders aren't exactly fans of them either and will take steps to avoid the worst of it if they're aware. And you can always have a discussion with your leader and say, you know, I know how hard those manuals are, but they're so dated. And I, you know, like, be a team member, position yourself as a team member. And this is especially. Here's a great tip for activities. If you are the type of parent who cringes at every makeover, plan your future wedding, develop hope chest type activity, then if you were to go to your presidency and say, here's something I know how to do, can I teach it to your young women, I would bet serious money that the president would just slobber all over you and say, okay, yes, please, can you do it tomorrow? Because there is such a shortage of ideas, there's such a shortage of hands to go around. There's such a shortage of support. So, you know, if you, if you have deep concerns about the type of activities you're having, jump in. You know, be helpful. You know, position yourself as a teammate instead of a critic or antagonistic. Because these leaders do have such a big job and they are so overworked that, you know, being critical of the messages that they're sending is, is just going to be one more thing for them to stress about. But saying this is something that we're concerned about in our, say, body image is something that I've had to deal with with young women before. And I have had young women's parents come to me and say, this is a problem with our daughter. And actually, I've had both extremes. A girl who was suddenly gaining a lot of weight and having a hard time with that, and girls with eating disorders. And both times I've had parents come to me and say, this is a real problem we're dealing with in our family. Can you please be sensitive and keep this in mind when you teach modesty lessons, when you teach media lessons, when you teach chastity lessons, can you be sensitive? And the leaders, if they have a brain in their heads, which some people can't handle, the flexibility, it's just a fact. But, you know, if armed with information, then almost all of your young women's leaders will do what is in their power to help. So I think that while I am certainly not going to try to make the case that there aren't problems in how the young women's program is implemented, particularly in relation to the young men's program. I think it is a net gain in the lives of these girls. If they're surrounded by leaders who really love them and care about them, then a lot of the other messages can be undone or explained in a context that the girls can understand. And it's just so valuable to have. Like speaking from my own experience, I really cannot overstate the tremendous value that I found in having an adult care about me who was not obligated by law, who was not being paid, but just somebody who was there because they. They felt this. This religious calling, and as a result, loved me and was interested in me and took care of me. That is such a tremendous positive force in the life of a teenage girl who is dealing with so much that a lot of the other wackiness can be mitigated.

John Dehlin [00:07:15] Right. No, I think that's what keeps people coming back. I mean, really is the social and cultural aspects of Mormonism can be profoundly positive and they can go terribly wrong. But there's a reason why people stay in the church in spite of all the information that could lead them out. And it's got to be social. I mean, you talk about spiritual, and I think that's significant, but I think the social component is profound.

Tresa Edmunds [00:07:50] Right. Yeah. I don't think it can be ignored, that's for certain.

John Dehlin [00:07:54] Yeah. Yep. Okay. What do you think about the proclamation of the family? I'm just curious.

Tresa Edmunds [00:08:08] Oh, I find it a total mixed bag in some ways, and maybe that's the point of it, because in some ways, there's actually a lot that someone like me can use to back up my positions. The flexibility, the equal partners. And there's a lot that someone like me can kind of be grieved at, such as the strict gender roles and the mother being the major nurturer and that kind of thing. So, I don't know. I was in the camp that was a little bit relieved that it was. In the revisions to President Packer's talk, it was not referred to as doctrine or revelation. I can't remember the exact term.

John Dehlin [00:09:07] Right. They backtracked.

Tresa Edmunds [00:09:09] Yeah. Yeah. So I was a little relieved because I think that.

John Dehlin [00:09:14] What don't you like about it?

Tresa Edmunds [00:09:17] Well, like I said, the strict gender roles, you know, the man is the provider, the woman is the nurturer. The implications for. Not just gays, but, I mean, intersex and all these other Identities on the grand tapestry of humanity. What else? Off the top of my head, I don't have it in front of me, so I'm trying to.

John Dehlin [00:09:47] No, it's all right. It's all right.

Tresa Edmunds [00:09:49] But I have often, often referred to that, those two little bright spots that are like my little clauses that I quote incessantly whenever I find somebody disagreeing with one of my positions, and that's the equal partners and the flexibility, and those are my little loopholes. So at least we do have that, which in a way, is a little bit revolutionary. So, I don't know. Like I said, it's a mixed bag because prior to that equal partner and individual adaptation language, we had nothing even close to resembling that. So that language, really. It really was revolutionary. Of course, it comes with a whole lot of other stuff surrounding it, but it's, you know, it's a little nugget of something.

John Dehlin [00:10:50] Right. But overall, you would not like to see that canonized, probably.

Tresa Edmunds [00:10:56] Well, yeah, if for nothing else for the sake of clarity, because it is a very contradictory document by having those two little nuggets of something and then having it surrounded by such hardline gender roles, it is contradictory in a lot of ways. And so if for no other reason than at least so that we could not have incessant debates in Sunday school about what that meaning is, what it

John Dehlin [00:11:25] means to preside in a relationship of equals.

Tresa Edmunds [00:11:27] Exactly, Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:11:31] I borrowed that line, by the way. That's not original. So. Okay, so I'm gonna. I'll just. These can be really quick. But do you hope for a day where, you know, there's a revelation that women get the priesthood? I know you're not calling for that, right? Do you hope for it?

Tresa Edmunds [00:11:57] Personally, I think the Lord has a lot more for his daughters. I don't know if it would just be extending the priesthood as we now understand it to women, if there would be a separate priestess hood. And of course, the only way that that priestess hood could live up to my hopes is if we suddenly found ourselves with a whole, whole lot more revelation about Heavenly Mother and what her role is. Because as it stands, it would be such a separate but unequal thing. It would be like if they were to say, okay, you have a priestesshood, and the first duty of priestesshood is to make the home. So get to work. You know, things really wouldn't change very much. But I don't presume to know exactly what it is that the Lord has in store for us. I just believe very fervently that. And I think the temple shows us this clearly, that there is a lot more awaiting his daughters. And I'm hopeful for that day when that's revealed.

John Dehlin [00:13:09] Okay, so you are hopeful for some revelation that fundamentally sort of brings Mother in Heaven back into our consciousness and fleshes out a more substantive role for women in the church.

Tresa Edmunds [00:13:28] Yes, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:31] But it doesn't have to be, you know, do what the men have been doing. It could be something more rich and distinctive.

Tresa Edmunds [00:13:39] Right. And that's actually a subject of a lot of debate among Mormon feminists is, you know, do we just want what the men have, or is this. There's this intrinsic femaleness that we can't quite define or explain, but we have some kind of an understanding of as we tap into these, you know, as we give birth and breastfeed and tap into these maternal expressions of our biology in this expression of the divinity of creation and all of that. It's a whole lot of theology that needs to be worked out, I think, and I don't think that we can work that out without understanding more about Heavenly Mother.

John Dehlin [00:14:28] A lot of the critics of the church kind of say, what happened to revelation? Like, okay, Joseph got a lot of it, and maybe a little bit trickled out after that, mostly in the form of, you know, publishing revelations that weren't previously published. But there's been a couple proclamations. But a lot of them were, you know, they seem to be more due to legal pressure, like, right, where's the revelation? Basically, that's gonna. That's gonna require the church to hop back on the. The revelation wagon in a very different way, because polygamy was basically buckling under the pressure of the feds. And I think most thoughtful Mormons now look at the black revelation as either a reversal of bad policy or a response to just the realities of the 20th century. But what you're talking about, I guess it could be that, you know, someday, like, it's always crazy how, like, blacks and gays are gonna get their day before the women.

Tresa Edmunds [00:15:42] Well, there's a lot of precedent for that, John.

John Dehlin [00:15:44] I know, I know, I know, I know. The vote and everything else. Right.

Tresa Edmunds [00:15:50] It would not be the first time, and it probably won't be the last.

John Dehlin [00:15:54] It's kind of crazy when you think about it, though.

Tresa Edmunds [00:15:56] Yeah. Crazy, but not surprising.

John Dehlin [00:15:59] Yeah, but I mean, you're. You're basically, this is going to be different. This is going to be asking the brethren to step back on the revelation bandwagon. Because right now, revelation is like, don't go into debt. Don't look at porn. Like, if you think about whatever the messages that are being sent, it's just very. You could get it from Dr. Phil or Oprah. Really? Yeah, but this is a whole different ball of wax, right?

Tresa Edmunds [00:16:25] Well, maybe. I mean, or it could be a revision of lesson manuals and a couple, you know, reinsertion of a couple quotes here and there, a subtle reprioritization of other teachings there, and, you know, a few more mentions in one conference, after another conference, after another conference. And before you know it, you know, the doctrine of Heavenly Mother is prominent again. And so, you know, it would be lovely if we could have, you know, doctrine covenant, section 130, whatever, 160, I don't even know. But. But, you know, it would. It would be a pretty big step outside of precedent or at least recent precedent for that to happen. I think it's much more likely that, you know, we'd get another subtle change in the temple ceremony. We'd get another little subtle change here, and. And then one day we'll look around and go, oh, where did this come from? You know?

John Dehlin [00:17:26] Right. But, I mean, I understand that that's the way it's going to work on many levels, but. Yeah, but the type of clarification and I don't know, re enthronement or something that you're talking about is going to be much more substantive than just because I don't think. I don't know. I don't know. Is the theology there from Nauvoo to tell women their divine role and their new place in the church? Maybe it is.

Tresa Edmunds [00:17:57] Well, you know, I'm certainly not the expert on that topic, but I know many people feel like the doctrine exists in our temple ceremony, the one we're currently practicing. And I think there is, you know, like I said, I'm hardly an expert, but I do think that there's quite a case that could be made for what does exist from Nauvoo. I think in my dream scenario, then we would have a big day with a big announcement and leaving no room for doubt, leaving no room for debate. That would make me incredibly happy. But given recent history, most recently our leadership training conference, where there was, again, this subtle shift in organizational structure that allowed more room for women. And so that might be how it continues to reshuffle until. The bureaucracy of how the church hierarchy is structured is somewhat separated from the power of the priesthood as used in ordinances, that I think is likely, given the course that we're on. But if a big revelation did come, that would be A pretty joyous day.

John Dehlin [00:19:30] Yeah. I just want to refer our listeners to a Sunstone rebroadcast that I published called A Gift Given, A Gift Taken Away, where they talk about how women were able to participate in the laying on of hands for healing and how they were engaging in washings and anointings very much like the temple ceremony in preparation for childbirth. That is such an important piece of history that most people just don't know anything about. That's a wonderful thing that we wouldn't have to really have a revelation to be able to go back to, because that precedent is so significant and beautiful.

Tresa Edmunds [00:20:18] Oh, there's so much like that. There is so much that exists that we just need to publicize and educate and go back to that would make such a dramatic difference in the lived experience of women in the church.

John Dehlin [00:20:36] Yeah. I also remember Carolyn Pearson's comment about how we could have been on the forefront with this Mother in Heaven concept. We could have been leading the world in putting women maybe in a healthier place, and somehow that slipped by. That opportunity slipped us by.

Tresa Edmunds [00:20:56] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I used to talk with all of my pagan friends about how, you know, we. Oh, we believe in a female divinity and, you know, as kind of brag about this cachet, but. And then, you know, to talk about Heavenly Mother at Sunday school instantly makes people kind of, you know, recoil as if you're doing something so naughty. So, yeah, it's. It's tremendously. I'm just starting to. I think it was actually once I became a mother because, you know, as I mentioned, my own history with my mom made me not really feel compelled to explore that relationship. But once I became a mother myself and recognize the role I play in my son's life, it really did refocus my thoughts towards Heavenly Mother in a way that had never resonated with me before. And it does make me sad that this is so much knowledge that is being taken away from us. I mean, it's almost. There are times when I sit back and it's like I feel like I am watching the Book of Mormon unfold before my eyes on this particular issue, when we are given light and knowledge and it's slowly being taken away from us because we're not using what we've been given.

John Dehlin [00:22:21] Right. Yeah, we're kind of not progressing. We're regressing a little bit, but hopefully. It sounds like maybe the pendulum's swinging back.

Tresa Edmunds [00:22:32] I hope so. I think there's a whole lot to. To let us feel hopeful about that.

John Dehlin [00:22:37] Right. I've kind of touched on this already, but I'm just going to ask it again in even a more direct way. You know, feminists were famously labeled as one of the three great enemies to the church just what, 20 years ago. You know, it's the brethren who have been in charge, and it's the brethren who have sort of been at the helm of this, you know, regressing instead of progressing. Some would argue the system is broken. The brethren aren't worthy of your patience. They're not worthy of negotiation. You know, there needs to be a strike where everybody leaves and just holds out until fundamental power structures get redesigned. You know, how can you make the case to somebody that the current system and the current leadership are even worthy of our patience and negotiation and subtle patient nudgings?

Tresa Edmunds [00:23:49] Well, I have had that argument made to me before that if all the women of the church would just lay their work down and walk out, then women would have the priesthood the next Sunday. And I just find that naive because. I don't think that people recognize how costly that is, how much women would be sacrificing and how few women really articulate their pain or frustration in that manner. And it certainly wouldn't be effective. I mean, when has the church ever bowed to pressure? I mean, they just dig their heels in. That's just not how it works. As far as the brethren not being worthy of our patience, that is a statement I take exception to. I can't help. I mean, I. They have a burden, a duty that, I mean, certainly comes with plenty of privilege, but is also such a massive undertaking. I certainly don't want that job. I think any right thinking person wouldn't want that job. I think that the fact that they are willing to do the job, to serve, that they are dedicating their life to the church and to this gospel. They make so many of the sacrifices that they make. I mean, like I said, there is, of course, some privilege. But think about the schedules they have, the traveling they have, the toll that their whole family has to sacrifice. And so I think their willingness to dedicate their lives in service warrants. Warrants the patience. I don't think that's worthy of being ignored. You know, that that is a really massive, massive job that they're taking on their shoulders. And they make a lot of sacrifices that I don't know are always worth the privilege of, you know, the adoration and other things that they get. I don't think that leaves them immune from criticism by any stretch, but I certainly think that they are worthy of our charity.

John Dehlin [00:26:23] And yet some people are going to listen to what you just said and say, you're making excuses, you're complicit, you're enabling by saying, oh, these poor men, they're in total control and have total power, but let's have sympathy for them. They have really hard jobs. It's hard to have total power and control. It's really difficult to have all the cards and all the money and all the decisions. It's a burden. I wouldn't want that burden.

Tresa Edmunds [00:26:59] If I thought that's how they thought of it, then I would agree with that fictional person saying that I'm enabling them. But I don't. And you know, accuse me of naivety if you must, but I really don't think that they think of it or at least that they all think of it as having all the power or, you know, being so in charge. You know, I see such service and such sacrifice that and often, you know, expressions of humility that make whatever accusations of, you know, arrogance or power, hunger or whatever that at least temper that. So I really just can't think of them as these, you know, oh, we're the ones, you know, we're the puppet masters, you know, we're controlling everything. I don't think that's how they think of it. I think that, you know, for better or for worse, they're doing their best to lead as the Lord would have them lead. And whether they are successful at that all the time or not, you know, that can be debated. But whether they are attempting to do that or not, I don't think. Well, obviously some people do deny it, but I cannot deny it.

John Dehlin [00:28:26] Right, right. And this may be maybe my last hard question and the hardest question of all. But I ask because I think maybe you're going to be able to give an answer that's going to help some people. But, you know, I do know some people who have suffered abuse in their lives as Mormon women. And, you know, maybe it was by a bishop or by their dad or whatever. And it took them a while, but at some point they drew a very clear connection between the abuse they suffered and the church hierarchy. And they basically came to see the church leadership as abusive, as heinously abusive in their own way, whether it's with good intentions or with, you know, you could probably find an abusive father who really felt like he was doing his daughters a favor. Like, who felt like from his perspective that was love. And so you could say, yeah, they're not sitting there. Haha, I'm Gonna abuse. But, you know, in their approach and in their twisted sort of way, this is how they show love or this is how they conceptualize things. You know, what's. When other people have sort of drawn those lines and made those connections and then, you know, cast upon the leadership all those triggers from their own instances of abuse. What's kept you from going there other than those formative spiritual experiences?

Tresa Edmunds [00:30:07] Well, if that's the. The line that an abuse survivor draws for themselves, then I would never dream of denying that. And I think that that is kind of where my attitude towards other faiths was formed, is recognizing that this church, it just cannot meet the needs of every person. It just cannot meet the needs of every person. And if you have gone through some of these experiences, then it's. Then the way this church is structured and organized, it's just not going to meet your needs, period. And so that brings me back to that whole, this is my true church, but doesn't mean that it's everyone's true church. And so if a woman needs to leave because of the authoritarian structure of the church, then I will give her a hug and hold the door open for her and wish her, you know, best. Best wishes for myself that it's never been a trigger in that way for me. So I don't know. I don't know what has. I don't know what has kept me from it. I think, you know, having the foundation I do probably makes a big difference because from the very beginning, and, you know, my being kind of the homesteady Mormon that I described my teenage years being, I really was never given this vision of the gospel of total deference to priesthood authority or total obedience. You know, my parents certainly weren't teaching me that, and I was doing all this independent study and, you know, the messages that I might have gotten in that direction along young in young women's were certainly counteracted with all the other experiences that I was having personally. So that just hasn't been how my experience has manifested. But it is a very real and common reaction, particularly if the abuser is a man in authority position. And I just think that the. I wish the church would offer more resources to abuse victims, and I certainly wish that there could be some changes and sensitivities that could make some things easier, particularly in the confession process or the discipline process. You know, if a woman is an abuse survivor and has to confess, that is just an incredibly, incredibly difficult experience to have to go alone in a room, particularly if she's a sexual assault survivor. Oh, My goodness, to have to go alone in a room with a man who's an authority figure and discuss sex graphically is intensely challenging. And so I desperately wish with all my heart that we could train, especially that we could train bishops to recognize date rape. If nothing else, please, could we have a discussion with our bishops about what date rape looks like? Because we've seen countless women on FMH who have been forced to repent for their date rape. And just some training that could make things easier for a woman who has been through abuse or assault to be more comfortable for people to be in leadership positions, to be more sensitive to their needs. For even a hotline. Oh, I wish there was some kind of a hotline for abuse. I mean, we haven't had as many of the abuse scandals in our faith as we have, you know, other churches have seen, but they exist. And, you know, there are. I have spoken to loads of women who have been victimized by bishops, by, you know, their little brother's, you know, scout leader or young men's leader, you know, in a back room at an activity night. And if you were a teenage girl and something like this happened, you know, what are your recourses? Like, do you say if your bishop was the one who assaulted you? And that might sound like crazy talk, if this whole discussion of abuse is new to you, but it has happened, it does happen, then maybe you could tell the stake president, if you even were comfortable with your stake president, but your stake president works with that bishop, you know, all the time. They're probably friends, you know, the chances are very good that he is going to be lenient, maybe not believe you, maybe think the bishop was seduced, and that's your only resource, you know, unless you want to launch a criminal case and investigation, which many sexual assault victims do not want to do. So if the church could just offer some kind of a hotline so that that process could be circumvented and there could be some kind of external process, I think that would be incredibly valuable. Those two things, I think, educate bishops on date rape, provide a hotline, I think would make a tremendous difference in how. Particularly sexually assault sexual assault survivors, but all obese survivors, period. But particularly sexual assault survivors, we're able to navigate going forward in a positive direction with the church.

John Dehlin [00:36:00] Gotcha. Okay. I appreciate that. I think that's going to be helpful. Okay, real quick. List some inspirations that guide your life.

Feminist Inspirations and Closing Reflections

Tresa Edmunds [00:36:16] Individuals. People.

John Dehlin [00:36:17] Yeah, yeah, people.

Tresa Edmunds [00:36:19] People. Oh, golly. Oh, there's so many. Oh, my goodness. I have just had this Incredible year where I have, through one lucky coincidence after the other, gotten to meet nearly every one of my Mormon feminist heroes. I think the only one left I have yet to meet is Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. But, you know, I. And they are all such tremendous inspirations to me on such different ways. I mean, Carolyn Pearson is a major, major one for me. Major. Specifically because of how she has managed to navigate, you know, being faithful as well as being an advocate and being so intensely authentic the whole time. Margaret Toscano and I have gotten friendly over this year. She's a great friend and she's wonderful. Judy Dushku is a new friend of mine that I'm involved with in this new charity and she. Oh, just one of the warmest people I've ever met. Joanna Brooks. Oh, my goodness, the support that that woman is to me, she is spectacular. I mean, it's almost embarrassing to start going down this path. There are so many, I mean, you know, my friends at FMH and the women of Exponent too, I feel the need to give a special shout out to because they have been so intensely warm and inclusive of me and so supportive of me in an area where, you know, on the blogger nackle things because it's blogs, we're all competing for the same audience. You know, there can sometimes be friendly rivalries and there is just not that at all. You know, Zelaf has daughters too. I mean, there's just been this incredibly warm embracing sisterhood and brotherhood, including Zipf. So that I derive so much strength and inspiration from. From that and this, this communion of. Of men and women working on this. This. Cause like, yeah, it just really feeds me. I've left out so many people.

John Dehlin [00:38:26] I mean, sure, sure.

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:27] Embarrassing my sisters, that wave. Oh my goodness, I could never forget them. That is just such a tremendous force for me.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] Sure, sure. And how about, you know, let's just say you had to give one, one or two books for somebody who like, hated the word feminist yesterday, but now, now you're like, oh, okay, I'm open. What should they read? A book or two.

Tresa Edmunds [00:38:51] Women in Authority is. Is really pretty important stuff and despite its reputation, is actually, you know, pretty dang doctrinally sound pretty tame.

John Dehlin [00:39:04] And that's by Maxine Hanks, edited that.

Tresa Edmunds [00:39:06] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:39:07] But there are a bunch of different. And it's actually free online, if I understand it. Is that right?

Tresa Edmunds [00:39:11] Yeah, yeah. Signature Books has it free online.

John Dehlin [00:39:13] Yeah.

Tresa Edmunds [00:39:15] Oh, dear. Let me think. What's another one? I would say probably something by the current wave of secular feminists. Would be really good. One important one that arguably ushered in this third wave of feminism is Naomi Wolf. I really admire Naomi Wolf. Her book the Beauty Myth is really an important book. But there are so many new ones. There's Full Frontal Feminism or Manifesta. You could just, yeah, Google either one of those. You'll find this. Or go to Jezebel.com, for crying out loud. And you'd find, you know, this whole new crop of secular feminists that can kind of give a different impression. I think a lot of the Mormons I talk to, their interpretation of feminism really stops in at the defeat of era. Of the era. And so there's been so much that's happened in the world since then. So I would say start there, read up on this whole new wave, because it's very different from the feminism that we often talk about at church.

John Dehlin [00:40:39] Gotcha. All right, so let's just have you end by. If you want to share some thoughts about hope or your faith, your vision, if you want to tell us that you've seen the mountaintop, and I know you want to talk a little bit about the work you're doing with Judy, even though you've mentioned it, let's just say this is your final chance to leave some parting words for our audience. If you want to call it a testimony, you can.

Tresa Edmunds [00:41:12] Oh, my goodness, the pressure. I feel like I'm writing my own eulogy or something. Parting words. I just. Let me think. What. What do I want to say that I haven't already beaten into the ground?

John Dehlin [00:41:32] No, let's say there's, you know, there are people who have left who, who. Who may not be coming back anytime soon.

Tresa Edmunds [00:41:38] Right.

John Dehlin [00:41:39] And there's people who are never going to listen and never going to read, and they're just happy. But there probably are people who are right there, still associated, but starting to feel like the cost may be too high or that it's just not worth it. Is there anything that you could say as a final encouragement to say that you can do this or stick around to make someone to not. Not just go the way of the 80% and just. And just abandon it?

Tresa Edmunds [00:42:22] Well, I guess first of all, I would say how important I have found it to individualize my faith. And it's involved a total recontextualization. And it was really Prop 8, you know, I'm a Californian, and so it was really Prop 8 that. That forced me to. I mean, I've always had a pretty independent faith. I think you can see that thread as we've talked over the last few hours. But Prop 8 is what really forced me to just kind of completely individualize. You know, I still get so much from the church, not just socially, but I do get so much. I love the ordinances. I love, you know, the ritual. I love the community. I love the. So much of the. I mean, I love the pure doctrine, the true pure doctrine I love. And everything else, I just shrug off. Because once I succeeded in individualizing my faith by. By relying so heavily on this personal relationship that I've been talking about, so heavily on this personal revelation and this personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ, and when I say that I am including those years where I didn't feel like the prayers were constantly answered, but relying on that foundation, whether that was those early experiences or even in some of the hardest times, even just the hope that those days would return

John Dehlin [00:44:10] by

Tresa Edmunds [00:44:11] making that the core of my faith, then if something kooky comes from some 70s remarks at BYU or whatever, then I can shrug it off. And it's really not a whole lot more different to me than if, you know, my relief president said something kooky. Because while I definitely revere those men as teachers and leaders and servants, my faith is not dependent on them. You know, my faith is individual. And so I can take what's good and shrug off the bad and keep working towards the better, I think. And the other thing that I would say, and this is what I always teach my young women, is that there is no one right way to be a Mormon woman. And when I say that to these girls, you can just see, like, the scales fall from their eyes and they just brighten and they just beam because they are aching for someone to tell them that they don't have to fit in some prescribed box. And I think that as adults, you know, if nobody told us that before, we still carry that somewhere with us, that. That shame that we're not. That we don't make jam, or, you know, we're. We're not running marathons, or that we're not, you know, whatever our hero in our ward is doing, but that there is no one right way, and that our Heavenly Father has given us each gifts and expects us to use them. And for me, I have learned that those gifts include a heart and a brain and a voice, and he expects me to use them. And so, you know, while I will never say a bad word about my crafting and I make a mean jam, but I don't feel like that's the measure of my creation as much as I do value those things. I think what's far more important is how I have recognized the gifts I've been given and how I'm using the gifts that I've been given in whatever shape that mind might take for me.

John Dehlin [00:46:44] Wonderful. Well, thank you, Tresa. Before we part, why don't you give a quick plug for Tharsh Gulu Tharshgulu.

Tresa Edmunds [00:46:56] This latest endeavor I've jumped into with both feet. It was founded by Judy Dushku, who is this exceptional Mormon feminist of the old school and one of the Original founders of Exponent2. She is a longtime professor of. I believe her official discipline is international development. But I could have that wrong because I am so not from that world. But she has started a charity called Tharch Gulu. And what happened is she taught a class on Uganda, and she chose that country because it was a British colony, and therefore all of their literature was in English. So she had plenty to teach the class on. And at the end of the semester, they traveled there, and what they found was just such desperate, desperate need. And it's a region of the world that has experienced a lot of the same tragedy that Darfur has. So Darfur has gotten a lot of press and attention, and, you know, listeners will probably hear that and recognize, you know, the horrors that's happened there with the child soldiers and sex slaves and this dictator and just these horrifying, horrifying events that these people have lived through during this conflict. And so Uganda, it's the same thing. It's child soldiers, it's sex slaves. These rebels would go into a village and slaughter everyone and kidnap the children and put them to war. And the women would have to be used as not just child soldiers, but also camp slaves. And then at night, sex slaves. And the dictator, Joseph Kony, is now out of the region, but. But he's left behind this entirely traumatized population. And there is just devastating poverty and devastating need. And so it's a really exciting opportunity to get involved in something. I'll be going in July on a trip to Uganda to build houses, and we'll be needing to do a lot of fundraising for that. We're working on building a center there. So we'll need. Right now we're fundraising to buy the land, and we'll build a center so that we have a place where visiting therapists, like art therapy, and we want to do some film work to use therapy and sports therapy and all these different avenues. People can come to this center because right now they have nothing. They meet under trees, and these women who have been so victimized. I mean, there were women who were kidnapped at 10 years old and used as child soldiers, forced to kill their own families first so that they would have no one to come back to, so that they would be ostracized and forced to stay with the army. So they're forced to kill their own families, and then at 10 years old, they are raped repeatedly. I mean, just the worst horrors that humanity can inflict on each other is what's happening in this region. And it's not getting a ton of attention yet. So, like I said, I'll be going in July, and this trip we'll be doing house building and laying a lot of groundwork. But we've got a lot of exciting goals and plans, and we want to, along with building the center, really develop a holistic program so that the. These women can not only go through, have some access to some therapy to heal from these trauma, but to gain some kind of education. I mean, these women were not able to go to school. They missed their entire childhood. Many of them aren't literate, don't have numeracy. And so we could provide that kind of an education as well as training in some. Some skills and providing some help in that way, too. So it's kind of a culmination for me of all of these different aspects that I've worked through in my life. These women who have been so deeply traumatized by this abuse that they've experienced, and then aiding these women and these children. One of the groups that we want to work with is actually the branch there in Gulu, the LDS branch. And we are our people, our Mormon people are not immune. There are Mormon former child soldiers. And when I think about that, I actually get quite emotional because I think that this is such an integral part of our baptismal covenants. When we take that sacrament every week, we are pledging to bear another, bear each other's burdens, and comfort those who need comfort. And, you know, who better, who needs it more desperately than these people in this region of the world that is so destitute and in so much need? So it's something that I'm really passionate about and really excited for the opportunity to work towards aiding our sisters in this different part of the world and bearing these burdens.

John Dehlin [00:52:48] That sounds beautiful. I've put up some links to some of these websites of yours and of others up on my blog, so I won't have you repeat them all, but I'll just say, teresa, thank you so much for coming on. I find a lot of refreshing, exciting things. And I'm really, I'm rooting for you.

Tresa Edmunds [00:53:14] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:53:15] And I'll just tell all my listeners to check you out at Femism Housewives at the Guardian on your own blog, Reese dixon.com you know, ldswave.org, beginningsnew.blogspot.com I guess I went ahead and listed them and we'll put the link to Tharch Gulu as well. So thanks for coming on Mormon Stories.

Tresa Edmunds [00:53:40] All right. Thanks for having me. It's been a great talk.

John Dehlin [00:53:43] All right. Take care. Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. To comment on this episode or to provide feedback, please check us out@mormonstories.org if you want to help keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider either making a financial contribution or spreading the word about this episode through your blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, family newsletter, or through your Ward Bulletin and ward newsletter. Just kidding about those last two. Music on this episode was provided by Clayton and Sky Pixton. Check them out@claytonpixton.com or skypixton.com that's sky with an E S K Y E pixton.com thank you,

Tresa Edmunds [00:54:27] Sam.

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