Introduction and Welcome

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 112

Guest [00:00:13] When I was a boy, each week on Sunday we would go to church, pay attention to the priest. He would read the holy word and consecrate the holy bread and everyone would need feeling bow. Today the only difference is everything is holy now. Everything, everything, everything is holy now. When I was in school we will learn about the time.

John Dehlin [00:01:02] This is Mormon Stories. I'm John Dehlin. Joanna Brooks grew up in a conservative Mormon home among the last great orange groves of Orange County, California. She attended Brigham Young University and received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her first book, American Religion and the Rise of African American and Native American Literatures Women, was awarded the Modern Language Association William Sanders Scarborough Prize. Brooks has also received awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson foundation and the American Philosophical Society for her scholarship on religion and American culture. Her writing about contemporary Mormonism has been published in Religion Dispatches, Killing the Buddha, Sunstone and Dialogue and featured in the New York Times and on National Public Radio's Radio West.

John Dehlin [00:01:56] She's also published award winning poetry, fiction and nonfiction in literary journals such as Help Me Out Here, Joanna Zizava Zizava and Blue Mesa review. In 2009, she was awarded a residency at the Hedgebrook Women Writers Retreat to work on a memoir about growing up Mormon. She lives in San Diego with her husband, two children and an adopted res dog named Mosi Mosi Mosi. Joanna Brooks, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Joanna Brooks [00:02:25] John It's a pleasure and an honor to be here on Mormon Stories 2.0.

John Dehlin [00:02:30] Thank you. Well, When I attended BYU, I got home from my mission around 1990, and when I arrived and started getting into the groove, I started hearing these rumblings, these rumblings of, you know, concerns about academic freedom, about feminism, about just all sorts of, you know, even pro choice kind of rallies. And the names Joanna Brooks and Brian Waterman sort of always seemed to surface. Now at the time I was sort of just this shell shocked, you know, return missionary who's trying to come to grips with the tough mission experience and still sort of clinging to my Bruce R. McConkie and Joseph Fielding Smith sort of orthodox doctrinal upbringing, were making all these waves.

John Dehlin [00:03:29] And so that is sort of how I came to first hear the name Joanna Brooks. But Joanna Brooks was a student at BYU while I was there and did some amazing things at a very young age and has continued to do amazing things ever since. So Joanna, that's really sweet of you. Oh, thank you. Well, thank you very much. Well, that's sort of a little context for maybe a part of what we're going to talk about today.

Joanna Brooks on Her Mormon Childhood

John Dehlin [00:04:00] So, Joanna, before we actually dive into the BYU days a little bit, I thought it might make sense to back up and have you talk about your upbringing in the church. And the first question that came to my mind is what type of experience growing up would lead to a BYU student being such an activist, such a strong activist at such a young age. So take us back in the time machine and tell us about your Mormon upbringing, whatever you want to tell us, and how that led to sort of those first inklings of activism at byu.

Joanna Brooks [00:04:44] Goodness gracious, I don't know if I know. Well, I'll try to answer that question. But I, you know, I grew up. My mother's. Well, it's easy to start with my parents and talk about my family. How Mormon is that? Let's talk about my genealogy.

John Dehlin [00:05:01] That's all right. That's all right.

Joanna Brooks [00:05:03] You know, my mom's mom, who I was very close to, was born and raised in Garland from, you know, pioneer stock family. They converted in England in the 1850s and come across. Her father's side of the family were among the founders of Lehigh. They had a dugout out there.

Joanna Brooks [00:05:22] Dorton was the family name. And her mother's side of the family were early settlers in Samaria and Malada, Idaho. So, you know, deep pioneer roots on that side, although not entirely traditional. She left Salt Lake during kind of middle to the end of the Depression and came to Los Angeles, where she met my grandfather, who wasn't lds, and married him. And then my mom grew up in a southeast LA suburban. My dad also grew up in a southeast LA suburb. His family were Okies, basically. And my grandmother had, I mean, basically the family had come into contact with Mormonism while picking cotton in Arizona in the 1920s in Gilbert area, and then moved out west to Los Angeles.

Joanna Brooks [00:06:08] And so my parents met at a steak dance, a young adult dance, right after my dad had gotten home from his mission and, you know, went to BYU together, fell in love, moved back to Southern California and, you know, although neither of them had come from what you might call truly orthodox Mormon homes, they committed their entire lives to raising us in, you know, the most observant and devout of Mormon ways. And so, you know, I grew up, you know, you know, my dad was a bishop, you know, went to primary, the whole, you know, seminary, the whole, the whole nine yards. We would reenact Mormon Battalion trek, you know, hikes in San Diego on Mormon Battalion Day every year.

Joanna Brooks [00:06:55] You know, I mean, we would do, we did it I went to Utah every summer. We did our genealogy, food storage, yada, yada, yada, yada, whole nine yards.

John Dehlin [00:07:03] Even dance festivals, right?

Guest [00:07:04] Oh,

Joanna Brooks [00:07:07] one of the happiest moments of my Mormon youth. No, I mean really dance festivals, girls camp, personal progress. Loved it, Loved it. And loved being LDS and, you know, and from the time I was a child, like, my faith meant everything to me. Meant everything to me. And I had, from when I was very little, like, very strong spiritual experiences. And, you know, a lot of them for me, from the time I was very young, I had some really powerful dreams where I had experiences where I felt really close to God, from the time I was really young and just made such a deep imprint on me.

Joanna Brooks [00:07:46] And also all the good things the church teaches about caring for one another and basic Christian values too, about caring for the poor and being prepared. Deep impressions on me. And then finally, I think, too, growing up in the 70s, and I think I was sort of alert to some of the. It was the Cold War, right? So it was sort of end times consciousness on the front of my head. And, you know, my mom has told me about this one story when I was like 6 years old and we were chatting in the kitchen and, you know, and I said to her, mom, is it true that when Jesus comes back, he's gonna, you know, he's gonna take away all the pollution and people are gonna stop saying bad words to be kind to each other?

Joanna Brooks [00:08:27] And she said, yes, honey, it's true. And, you know, and I started crying. And so I think from the time I was really little, a really big part of my faith. And there you can hear my own daughter in the background.

John Dehlin [00:08:40] We're keeping it real.

Joanna Brooks [00:08:41] We're keeping it real. That's what four years old sounds like. You know, I think from the time I was very, very young, a huge component of my own faith was this hunger for a better world. You know, was a hunger for a world where there was more kindness, a hunger for a world where there was more justice.

Joanna Brooks [00:09:04] And a deep faith that it was God's intention to. That wounds be healed. Right. In the long term. And I think that was just a core component of my faith, that deep hunger for healing in a world that from when I was little, I knew had some brokenness to was the 1970s pollution, right? That was your teaching. So anyway, I don't think that ever left me and my faith and being Mormon and socializing with Mormon kids, that remained the core defining facet of who I was all through high school. I mean, I remember really Vividly starting high school and kind of my non LDS friends kind of taking one route and I just kind of consciously knew I had to go another route.

Joanna Brooks [00:09:51] I couldn't, I didn't feel like I could associate anymore since they were starting to, you know, sow their wild oats. And that was just not something I could do. So like, again, like my faith meant everything to me and I often felt fairly alone, even though I ran with this wonderful gang of Mormon kids in Orange County. I mean, I love the kids I grew up with, you know, some of the most, like genuine, fun, sweet young men and young women, you know, and caused all kinds of trouble, you know, like in the best warm way, you know, burning couches. My brother's friends burned the couches.

Joanna Brooks [00:10:23] Like, you know, what did we do? I mean, we ice blocked down grassy hills in like new housing developments and got chased by the police. What the police were doing that they had time to chase kids riding ice blocks down grassy hills. It's a different world. Anyway, so I looked from when I was as young as I could remember, I really looked forward. I mean, I couldn't wait to go to byu. I was so excited to go to BYU because I really had this feeling that when I went to BYU I would be, I would finally be understood. I would be among people who would get me finally instead of kind of feeling like this religious minority with this kind of worldview that I could barely explain to other people because that's how we carry our faith in Mormonism.

Joanna Brooks [00:11:14] Oftentimes, especially when we're young, it's so close to our heart. It's so hard to explain the incredibly intense and tender feelings and experiences that congregate around our Mormonism. You know, that I would go to space, I'd be understood, and you know, I would meet the one.

Activism and Academic Freedom at BYU

John Dehlin [00:11:34] Now let me ask, so in parallel to that, were you reading Martin Luther King? Were you studying the hippies of the early 70s? I mean, was there any, you know, activists sort of seedlings that were sprouting in parallel during high school?

Joanna Brooks [00:11:55] I mean. Oh, so funny. When I was in fourth grade, I chose to do my term paper on the Equal Rights Amendment. And it was 1980. 81. Right. And so it was the height of the church's involvement in anti era politics. So of course, you know, I'm nine and I have this sense that this era is really interesting.

John Dehlin [00:12:20] Right, right.

Joanna Brooks [00:12:21] But I have access to no information from my term paper except for this array of Phyllis Schlafly eagle form pamphlets that my mother has collected. So I remember sitting down at the kitchen table with her and like researching my term paper on the ERA through Phyllis Schlafly.

Joanna Brooks [00:12:44] I mean, so I think when I got to high school, I think I got some access to like Thoreau. I think I still own the copy of Civil Disobedience I purchased when I was like a junior in high school. That was underlined with all these goofy happy faces in the margin.

Joanna Brooks [00:13:02] Who puts happy faces in the margin of throw a 16 year old girl in Orange County. Right. So there are glimmers. I had such strong feelings. I wrote for the school paper too and had this big voice that would come out and I would get in trouble for sometimes, but I didn't have like the dots connected and the resources to kind of articulate. There were Democrats where I lived. I mean, you know, not even the Jewish folks I grew up around were Democrats.

Guest [00:13:28] Really.

Joanna Brooks [00:13:28] It was like Orange County, California, Republican Valhalla, you know, so I just had no name for what I was.

John Dehlin [00:13:37] So you did not go to BYU with Malcolm X on your tongue?

Joanna Brooks [00:13:41] No. Although, you know, although I knew I was different because I had grown up, you know, kind of at the edge of the Book of Mormon Bell, you know, I didn't grow up, you know, Idaho, Utah have more exposure to difference and you know, to people of color maybe just a little bit more. So I had some sense of a difference. But I didn't come with like, you know, my parents did not read Sunstone. You know, we were church news people who voted Republican and collected Phyllis Schafly Eagle form pamphlets. That's who we were.

John Dehlin [00:14:12] And what about like, you know, had you heard of Sunstone? Had you heard of Michael Quinn? Had you heard of Fawn Brody? You know, had you done any study into the history at all? No. No. Oh wow.

Joanna Brooks [00:14:26] No, no, no. I didn't even know it existed.

John Dehlin [00:14:28] Oh my goodness.

Joanna Brooks [00:14:28] I didn't even know it existed. I had no clue. On the shelves of my folks house were Cleon Skousen and the Journal of Discourses. I am not kidding. And a collection of National Geographic picture books. Okay, you know, like none of it.

John Dehlin [00:14:42] Okay, so here's the question. What happened?

Joanna Brooks [00:14:48] That's why I don't know how to answer you.

John Dehlin [00:14:52] Okay, so you're a freshman, you go to byu. What led to you leading, you know, you know, academic freedom marches, you know, on campus?

Joanna Brooks [00:15:02] Well, here's, I mean, here's the thing. Imagine this. I was a freshman and during orientation, I mean, mind you, I had this kind of noumenal consciousness and just this kind Of I guess just a really empathetic disposition. It's just who I am as a person. Right. So this had been carrying around. And also I think growing up being like a young woman in Orange county in a very conservative culture that really didn't value brainy girls, like brainy girls and brainy Mormon girls who did not party. So useless.

Joanna Brooks [00:15:33] So useless. I mean, I remember looking up on the wall of my, like, high school about the pictures of the ASB presidents. There hadn't been a female ASB student body president in the entire history of my high school. Girls like me were useless.

Joanna Brooks [00:15:46] And I got, you know, I got different messages at church that, you know, yeah, I did have a leadership role and that, you know, so anyway, so I was a woman and was self conscious about being a brain young woman.

Joanna Brooks [00:15:59] And I was a terrifically empathetic young person. Okay, So I get to BYU during freshman orientation, just as kind of a routine part of my little freshman interest group orientation. We were conducted into this classroom in the basement of the JKHB and introduced to this professor was going to kind of give us a little, the only intellectual dose of our orientation, in addition to the eating ice cream malts and hiking to the Y, all of which was awesome.

Joanna Brooks [00:16:30] But it was Eugene England, right? And he looks at us and he takes out the Book of Mormon and he takes us description in Second Nephi, where it says, all are like unto God, you know, male and female, black and white, bond and free. And he says, so what do you think this means? And it was just like a door opened up in my heart, you know, just like a door opened up and just, you know, I credit Mormon culture with so much of my intellectual curiosity as a person, you know, like being taught to really seek out the nature of reality, even in these really challenging, fascinating ways.

Joanna Brooks [00:17:09] Like Joseph Smith frames it in the Doctrine and Covenants. And it was one of those moments like, wow, just the world became Technicolor and this. I stepped into just the smallest circle of this Mormon intellectual liberal world that was really beginning to emerge, you know, in the late 80s and early 90s as a public culture at BYU. You know, I mean, there'd been a long Mormon liberal tradition, of course, but I think there was something special happening in the late 80s and early 90s. And I arrived just in time, you know, to see the BYU self consciously hire feminists, you know, self consciously hiring declared feminist literary theorists, right?

Joanna Brooks [00:17:57] And, you know, and postmodernists and, you know, and this experiment happening. I remember when I was recruited, I went To BYU on a Benson scholarship, you know, and I remember when they said, oh, come, it's a good place for you. Come. We're changing. It's become so much more competitive to get in. And we're, we're really recruiting faculty that are really pursuing all these kind of interesting.

Joanna Brooks [00:18:20] And that moment was really flowering when I got there. And it was the first time I'd ever tasted it and it was so delicious.

John Dehlin [00:18:27] So you're recruited by Eugene England?

Joanna Brooks [00:18:31] Well, I first met Eugene after I was there as a freshman. They'd gotten me without Eugene England.

John Dehlin [00:18:39] But no, I meant into the dark side. I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. So, okay, so I don't know, like, were you on the Student Review?

Joanna Brooks [00:18:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:55] Okay, so tell, tell our listeners. Believe it or not, I guarantee you 80% of our listeners have no idea what the Student Review even was. So describe it if you can.

Joanna Brooks [00:19:06] Long live the Student Review. Okay, so it was the other paper, right? There was the Daily Universe, which was the. On campus. Forgive me, I know there's some universe. It was the lab paper, right, where you were getting trained to write for the ap, you know, and you know, it covered the news of the campus and the community. But then there was the Student Review, which was everything else. It was student run by geniuses like BJ Fogg, Eric Schulzky. Like geniuses who somehow in their spare time as college students managed to recruit enough advertising to pay for a weekly newspaper that was somewhere between 12 and 24 pages.

Joanna Brooks [00:19:52] For a few years we had it going in full color that published features on features on BYU life related issues, but also like kind of standard Mormon intellectual fair. It was like Sunstone Jr. And there was a humor section and there was kind of an opinion section and a news section and cultural events section, a calendar. I mean, the Student Review was one of the very, very first newspapers to cover the Sundance Film Festival when it was just a baby, baby event up the canyon, you know, I mean, so it was this marvelous gathering. You know, we would hold recruitment meetings in the Honors Building.

Joanna Brooks [00:20:28] So it became like the magnet for all of the geeky brainy kids who came from their small towns in, you know, Northern Arizona, you know, and felt not understood until they found all the other geeky Mormon kids who were worshiping Gene England. And that's where I met Brian.

John Dehlin [00:20:45] That's where you met Brian?

Joanna Brooks [00:20:46] Oh, that's where I met everybody.

John Dehlin [00:20:48] And you guys recruited in the Maeser Building?

Joanna Brooks [00:20:51] Oh, yeah, absolutely. We held recruitment meetings right there in the Honors Building.

John Dehlin [00:20:56] And how did the administration view the student review?

Joanna Brooks [00:21:01] Well, you know, a lot of things happened in the honors building that were not happening other places. It's all this bad, brainy kids, you know, I mean, from benign, you know, benign neglect, you know, just outright ignoring it to. Once, though we, the grounds crew once confiscated our entire print run and started throwing it into the furnaces at, like, the physical plant on the southeast edge of campus. Until Jesse Curtis, who some of you might be a name familiar to some of your listeners, who was our distribution guy, went and physically, like, charged into the physical plant and pulled bundles of papers, like, out of the furnace, out of the incinerator.

John Dehlin [00:21:46] So was it, like, secret? Who was running it? I mean, did you put your names, you know.

Joanna Brooks [00:21:51] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:52] Okay, so. And you didn't get kicked out of the university for doing it? No, no.

Joanna Brooks [00:21:56] I mean. And that's the thing. I mean, I think, you know, it really didn't take much at BYU to kind of mark something as outsider, you know. I mean, just the fact that we weren't the company brand of newspaper meant that we weren't dangerous, right? So, I mean, and some of it, like, for a year or two, I ran the humor section, and it was. I mean, it was hilarious and fun and totally sweet and benign. I mean, we weren't always looking for controversy. We were just looking for fun. You know, we would do things like find ways to sneak into campus building and spend the night or, like, you know, like, find our way into the steam tunnels under campus. And, you know, I mean, we were just like geeky kids who wanted more fun than, like, let's have some chips and salsa and watch the Little Mermaid again at your apartment.

John Dehlin [00:22:47] So it wasn't, like, you know, forbidden. It wasn't like something that, you know, the administrators would have come after you for. It was just something that wasn't official, that had to kind of be underground and that. Did you. You tried to distribute on campus, right?

Joanna Brooks [00:23:03] We weren't allowed to distribute on campus, but whatever. All you had to do is drop a stack in the library. You know, I mean, it was. You know what? It's a big campus. What they gonna do, right?

John Dehlin [00:23:14] Were there any articles that. That got people in trouble? Give us an example of a row or two that maybe the student review caused.

Joanna Brooks [00:23:23] Two that come to mind right away. My freshman year, right, when I started writing for the paper, I was a freshman in the dorms, and I'd written for my school paper back at home. And I knew I was a writerly type, you know, and so I went. I remember walking to my first student review meeting so vividly. Anyway, and I had written this paper about standards, and, you know, standards was kind of creepy. When I was a freshman at byu, you know, the office of the honor code enforcement, you know, and there were kind of weird vigilante forces. I had some friends who had some bad run ins with standards, you know, and dorm mothers spying on people and turning them into standards, and, you know, roommates being encouraged to spy on roommates and turn them into standards.

Joanna Brooks [00:24:08] And it creeped me out, you know, and so I don't even remember what was in it, but I wrote this sort of expose of standards, you know, in which I talked about how, you know, there was this kind of, you know, recruiting of information about other students that standards was doing that was subject could be abused, you know, and that was kind of introducing a weird, creepy atmosphere.

Joanna Brooks [00:24:32] And that didn't go over very well. When my dorm mother confronted me one night, it was like. I remember this. It was like, early in the morning. I was finals or something. I was buying a candy bar in the basement. Stover hall at Helaman Halls. And I gorm in my jammies, right? And my dorm mother comes out and says, you're here on a scholarship. How dare you write those things about this university?

Joanna Brooks [00:24:55] And I'm standing there. I'm like, 18. I'm not trying to hurt anybody. I just have this big, geeky brain, sort of a civil liberties penchant and a fierce pen, right? And I felt awful. I felt sad. But I also felt angry. I'm like, you know, I didn't. I wasn't. I didn't say anything to her. I just kind of went back to my room. But I was like, you know, you're 60 years old. I'm 18.

Joanna Brooks [00:25:20] Why do you think I'm gonna wreck the church? I just don't think that roommates should be encouraged to rat out roommates who are having, like, behavioral difficulties, you know, like.

John Dehlin [00:25:33] Right. Well, something comes to mind. Like, I'm thinking about my state of mind when I'm a freshman at byu, and, you know, the last thing I would have wanted to do is to make waves or challenge authority. Like, for me, BYU administration was, you know, pretty much like being a general authority, which was pretty much like being, you know, an apostle of God. And so, like, I would never have been as bold, and I would have been feeling this sort of gnawing guilt or loss of the spirit as I would have interpreted back then. But just these feelings of cognitive dissonance and of being rebellious and all the things that the scriptures would speak out against. Were you experiencing any of that? I mean, did you ever feel like, hey, I'm not supporting my leaders and, and following the Holy Ghost and you know, however you would have framed it as a believing Mormon?

Joanna Brooks [00:26:32] Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, the first thing comes to mind, this sounds so goofy is. I mean, I guess it came from having a lot of bad seminary teachers who were sent by church educational systems. You know, like I, you know, somewhere along the way I must have. And it may have just been being sort of a prideful, I don't know, I mean, you know, somewhere along the way I learned that, you know, just because people who worked for church education systems said or did something that wasn't gospel, you know, and that there were some basic principles about dignity and respect and privacy that deserve to be honored.

Joanna Brooks [00:27:17] But I would never been able to articulate that back then. You know, maybe I was just an exceptionally hard headed kid. I mean, but at the same time, I did feel shame. I did feel shame. I absolutely felt shame. I felt sad. I didn't want to be bad.

Joanna Brooks [00:27:32] I didn't want to be bad at all. I just like observed some things that I thought were potentially damaging. I mean, it had come from friends of mine who'd come to BYU who had been having some struggles and were kind of hurt. We're trying to do the right thing, right? But it got caught in a bad moment and suddenly their whole education, their whole ability to stay at BYU was on the line and that just wasn't right to me.

John Dehlin [00:27:54] So did you feel like your religious sensibilities were actually informing your activism? Like where was your heart?

Joanna Brooks [00:28:01] I think what it was, and I would have never been able to articulate this at the time was I had friends who were struggling and had made some mistakes and got caught at this very vulnerable time and you know, hurt by an institution that thought it had their best interest at heart. And I really hated to see people who were vulnerable or struggling being made to feel bad, you know, that, that really upset me. I thought that was wrong. And I think that's kind of, if there's a consistent thread to it all, you know, it's that kind of fierce compassion that informed it.

John Dehlin [00:28:45] Did you feel like your testimony of or your perception of what Jesus or the Savior was or is like was sort of the backbone or informed that,

Joanna Brooks [00:28:56] you know, I wouldn't have thought of it. I would not have thought of it in that way. I think for me it was more like Mormonism should be a place where we can come home to each other. Right. You know, and these folks have made it here and like, we should be safe with one another. We should be loving to one another. You know, people are human and they're gonna have mistakes and there's. Their vulnerability is part of their, you know, it's part of their spiritual story. And why are people being put on the spot and kind of, you know, young people too. Why are people being targeted when they're struggling? That's not right.

John Dehlin [00:29:41] Right.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:42] That's just not. That's not what a spiritual. That's not what this should be. We should be a home to one another. You know, they're not a threat to these people. Aren't a threat, you know, and that leads, I think, to the second big row at Student Review that I personally was involved in was, you know, my sophomore year, I was the editor of the focus section. We did like issues oriented stuff and we did a whole issue on homosexuality. And this was 1990.

John Dehlin [00:30:08] Was John Hammer part of that?

Joanna Brooks [00:30:10] John was our layout guy, so he didn't write any copy. But, you know, I mean, look, you know, there were gay folks working at the Student Review. Now, they weren't out to themselves, you know, they weren't out to anybody. They were college. They were Mormon college students, geeky, smart Mormon college students coming to terms with who they were. But there were folks there who have subsequently come out, you know, and so we did a whole issue on homosexuality.

John Dehlin [00:30:37] Okay, wait, so I'm trying. Like, in what year were you a freshman?

Joanna Brooks [00:30:42] I was a freshman. 89. 90. And so it was during 90, 91, we had a whole issue.

John Dehlin [00:30:47] Okay. So, you know, I'm trying to think about where I was in 87 or 88 or 90, you know, as a freshman or sophomore, my mind was not in a place of empathy for homosexuality. I mean, you know, that. The AIDS thing and Magic Johnson and, you know, it was just like, it was not post Ellen, post Rosie, America. I mean, and so within Mormon America, you just didn't go there. I mean, that was just like evil perverted stuff. So, like, what would have made you guys want to touch that issue back then? Like, were there personal. Were there like people you knew, friends you had?

Joanna Brooks [00:31:26] You know, there were stories that I had heard that, you know, again, like some part. I mean, some were meeting people, one or two people who alluded that this was something they were wrestling with, right, at byu, you know, and, you know, again, only in the most indirect of ways and just Because I was kind of.

Joanna Brooks [00:31:51] Could I kind of pick up and then we could kind of communicate about. This was something people were struggling with, you know, and we'd all read the Miracle of Forgiveness. You know, we'd all knew that, according to, you know, beloved prophet Spencer Kimball, who is like my favorite, you know, that homosexuality was just an expression of degradation and the next step was bestiality, you know, and.

Joanna Brooks [00:32:16] And kind of sitting with that profound discomfort that these surfaces rubbing together caused and saying, okay, here is beloved prophet. Here are these real lives. And then beginning to hear also stories that, you know, BYU hadn't been involved in, you know, the electroshock treatments.

Joanna Brooks [00:32:37] This was circulating. This was kind of circulating in the ether at the time. And so watching these surfaces come together, a culture I loved, a prophet I loved and people that I loved, and finding a very cruel interface between them, really, you know, that. That was where I seemed. That's where a lot of my kind of concerns seemed to emanate from.

The BYU Student Review and LGBTQ Advocacy

John Dehlin [00:33:02] So, I'm sorry, I just have to follow up. So you didn't have, like, a best friend or a brother who. Who was gay, and you had these intimate talks with them where you saw. Heartbroken they were, and how they tried to fight it. I mean, that's how I gained empathy. I had extensive talks with people who were gay and felt the pain and the sadness and then was activated or mobilized. You're saying that just through abstract, sort of. Sort of just like infinite, inferential conversations, you developed a deep sense of empathy for the conflict there?

Joanna Brooks [00:33:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:41] That's amazing. I'm serious. I can't do the math. Like, you're, like, 20 years ahead of me when you're. When you're 19.

Joanna Brooks [00:33:49] No. And this is why I've been such a terrific pain to all my poor family and people. What happened? I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:33:59] That's amazing.

Joanna Brooks [00:33:59] Okay, I'm not 20. I don't know if I'm 20, 20 years ahead. I just. And I don't know if there was something in me. I still don't know if there was something in me that was attracted to conflict like that. But it came out of an empathetic place. It was just like. No. I didn't know anyone who was gay at all. I mean, very inferentially. Maybe someone who might have been thinking about coming out on the student review staff might have winked. You know, I mean, alluded to this whole world of experience. And then I just began to pick up and put pieces together and realize that, yeah, this was a really Sore place to be. And again, the Mormonism I loved and treasured was the one we all got to come home to one another.

John Dehlin [00:34:43] Yeah. So what happened when that issue got published?

Joanna Brooks [00:34:49] Oh, heck, no one got in trouble particularly, but it kind of. It cemented the reputation of the Review as a place where these kind of marginal topics would be talked about. And I know some members of the Review staff were really worried about that because it was so perilous to be labeled outsider. I mean, it was one thing to be outsider, funny, you know, it was another thing to be outsider. Searching, probing, sort of controversial. And folks were just concerned we were going to get our advertisement unfold and we would cease to exist. So I think there was some internal concern. I mean, I know there was internal concern at the Review.

Joanna Brooks [00:35:30] And so I stepped away from the focus section after a year on deck there and became editor in chief and just kind of went to the humor section and kind of took myself out of that mix and let other people set the tone for a while. Because it was clear to all of us by 91, 92 that whatever kind of glass nose moment or whatever kind of expansive experiment BYU had embarked on in the late 80s with recruiting faculty with more liberal perspectives, that the tide was turning and it was turning from the top down, and it was increasingly dangerous to be marginal at byu.

John Dehlin [00:36:12] Let's talk about that time. Did you ever have a class from Cecilia for.

Joanna Brooks [00:36:16] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:17] Or Gail Houston?

Joanna Brooks [00:36:19] Not with Gail, but Cecilia, Absolutely. I remember clear as day, sitting in, you know, 60 person auditorium in the JKHB and taking her Contemporary Literary Theory class and Reading Theory. And then she convened. We called it Feminist Home Evening. We would meet Monday, we would meet Monday nights, and we did a reading group. And I read all the feminist classics with a small group of students, some of whom were MA students, some of whom were undergrads. And Susan Howe was also a big influence on me. I remember she gave me my. She lent me a book of contemporary feminist theory, you know, and Gloria Cronin, too, was an influence on me.

John Dehlin [00:37:06] So were you part of Voice?

Joanna Brooks [00:37:08] Not for a long time. I had a hang up about calling myself a feminist. It's crazy, but I did. I finally crossed over the dark side.

Cecilia Farr's Dismissal and Campus Unrest

John Dehlin [00:37:19] So people have no idea why we're talking about Cecilia Farr, let alone who she is. So who is. So tell us a little bit about Cecilia Farr. And if you can remember a couple crazy things she said or did just to give people a flavor for who she was.

Joanna Brooks [00:37:35] Yeah, she was. She was a very Very convert to the church. Born and raised in working class Pennsylvania. So already, you know, when she walked in, you know, when she walked into a room, her whole manner of bearing, like, just kind of collided with Book of Mormon belt, you know, sensibility.

John Dehlin [00:37:56] She was powerful. She was a powerful presence.

Joanna Brooks [00:37:59] Yeah, she was. Oh, she was just like, short, you know, descendant of Slovak, like, tough, you know, rode her mountain bike, didn't speak with the lilt, didn't, you know, didn't do the preciatecha, didn't like. She was not from cultural Mormonism. She converted because of the powerful spiritual experiences she'd had and in part because the huge feminist kernels in Mormon theology.

Guest [00:38:23] Right.

Joanna Brooks [00:38:24] You know, so here she comes. She is one of the brightest doctoral students to come out of Michigan State. You know, and I've heard this from other people in the field. Oh, she was the smartest in the class. Right. And BYU recruited her and hired her as a feminist literary theory. That was her profile.

John Dehlin [00:38:40] Unbelievable.

Joanna Brooks [00:38:41] They knew what they were getting.

Guest [00:38:42] They knew.

John Dehlin [00:38:43] Unbelievable.

Joanna Brooks [00:38:45] She came as a feminist.

John Dehlin [00:38:47] Oh, my gosh.

Joanna Brooks [00:38:48] Yeah. No, and she arrived right about the same time I did and taught, you know, women's literature, taught literary theory, taught American literature. And she wasn't the only one. There were other women in the department who were teaching women's literature, feminist literary theory.

Joanna Brooks [00:39:08] And by her third year review, which was right at the time of my graduation in 93, the university decided not to review her contract. And, you know, the reasons they gave were not in line with the evidence. The American association of University Professors did their own inquiry into the whole thing and lots of documentation compiled. And I mean, really, you know, some of the things it boiled down to that we knew were kind of sticking points where, you know, she'd given a pro choice speech at a NOW rally in some Salt Lake City, you know, and, you know, some of her.

Joanna Brooks [00:39:50] She was also kind of accused of leading so many of us astray. You know, VOICE had done some. Voice, which was the, you know, a feminist women's group at byu. They met in like a space in the Kennedy Center. Really, I mean, we had done voice, had done some excellent activism, you know, one night, one.

Joanna Brooks [00:40:13] One time when the universe had run a story about increasing threats of assault around campus late at night. And then someone had put out the policy recommendation that young women should be curfewed after certain hours to be protected. Well, Voice responded by stealing BYU letterhead and typing up an official looking announcement saying that no, all young men will be under curfew and we'll have to call their Relief Society president to get an escort home. So the dangerous creatures want to be. Not that like. Right. Flipping the script. Right. Who should live under a climate of restricted movement. Right. Always the victims. Right. I mean, this stuff was crazy.

Joanna Brooks [00:40:56] There was. Take Back the Night in Provo. We marched down center street in Provo. Take back the night. 92, 93. I mean, there had never been anything like this before. And it was associated with Cecilia. They credited it. Not to this, really. They didn't credit it to the students. They kind of pinned it on Cecilia. And she was not renewed at her third year review, which caused a big uproar. Not only it was a national case, it wasn't just to be white. The story of Cecilia made national.

John Dehlin [00:41:28] Yeah, I was reading that the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote about it two times.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:32] Oh, absolutely. We were on npr. I mean, it was not a small thing.

John Dehlin [00:41:36] Yeah, it was huge. And it wasn't just Cecilia. There was David Knowlton.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:40] David Knowlton, Yeah. And that year when Cecilia. I remember being at a speak out again in the Maeser Building, and I remember 10. I mean, we were counting how many women faculty were leaving that year because they knew the tide was turning. I mean, for many different reasons. Tomi M. Roberts from Psych, who was from Psychology, who was not LDS and also hired as a feminist. She announced that she was taking another job. I think that was the year Martha Bradley left. I think Kyle Miller. Yeah, we were counting on our fingers the number of feminist and pro feminist men faculty who were leaving because everyone knew the tide was turning. Whatever expansive moment, you know, that the university had embarked on, it had decided by 92, 93 that needed to end.

John Dehlin [00:42:38] And that year, 1993, doesn't just invoke BYU memories. I mean, that's obviously.

Joanna Brooks [00:42:45] That's the big year.

John Dehlin [00:42:46] That's the big year of the September

Joanna Brooks [00:42:48] 6th and ending three great dangers speech.

John Dehlin [00:42:51] Right, right.

Joanna Brooks [00:42:55] It was a great year to turn 21.

John Dehlin [00:42:58] That's so crazy. Oh, what a life. By the age of 21.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:04] We didn't even talk about the Gulf War and how that felt at byu. That was hilarious.

John Dehlin [00:43:09] So wasn't Eugene England leading war protests?

Joanna Brooks [00:43:12] Gene wasn't. There were teach ins. Hugh Nibley spoke at a teach in. I remember seeing Hugh Nibley speak in a teach in about how if the Book of Mormon proves nothing else, it proves that war is completely wasteful and destructive. So stop warmongering and read the Book of Mormon and marched off stage.

John Dehlin [00:43:29] So awesome. What's a teach in?

Joanna Brooks [00:43:32] A teach in is when you get About a dozen professors together. And this was in the Varsity Theater. Hugh Nibbley in the Varsity Theater. Preaching is the Gulf War. Yes, it happened. You know, when you get, like, a bunch of professors and they all kind of speak for from their bases of expertise, kind of informed responses to a controversial political happening. So, yeah, no, again, I had decided to be against the Gulf War in the most propositional and abstract of ways. And I remember walking to school in the cold in this little dress I had sewn by myself that I was really proud of because I'm a homemaker. Hello, Cam Crafter. And having folks from my ward drive by and, like, yell out the window of the car, you're an Antichrist. I'm like, okay, great. So anyway, that's just a side story, but 21, 1993. Let's go back.

John Dehlin [00:44:24] So, student review, you know, feminism, Cecelia Farr stuff, war stuff. Was there any other major blocks of experiences or memories that. That you think of when you reflect back on byu?

Joanna Brooks [00:44:41] We just had a lot of fun. I mean, as painful as it was, like, what an extraordinary time to be there. I mean, I would have never have encountered. I mean, I saw Carolyn Pearson perform Motherboard of the Morning at byu. You know, I met, you know, lifelong friends, important, important Mormon intellectual figures like Jean England. Like, what a treat to be there. As difficult as it was, it was just a beautiful place and an important moment. I mean, one that's taken me 15 years to process and kind of like. Or more, you know, to kind of figure out. But so much fun with smart Mormon kids.

John Dehlin [00:45:17] It's one of the most magical times BYU probably ever have. I mean, I'm biased, but that's how I look at it.

Joanna Brooks [00:45:23] Yeah. Yeah, we ruled, John.

John Dehlin [00:45:26] Well, I was just a bystander. I was just. I was living vicariously. I was a bystander. No, I was like, who's this Joanne Brooks I know? So in parallel to all this at byu, were you. Were you having doubts or questions about your own faith or testimony?

Joanna Brooks [00:45:47] No, I mean about my worthiness, about my right to belong to Mormonism, about my place in it all. You know, I mean, I remember sitting in one of the science buildings with one of my roommates, who. I mean, by the end of byu, I had a gay roommate. Not after. Long after. Kind of the student review issue.

Joanna Brooks [00:46:10] And, like, having some. They recruit the leadership for the wards from the local stakes and wards in Provo, and sometimes they kind of dig deep and some guy had given a less than satisfactory sacrament reading talk that left us all feeling fairly deflated about being Mormon. And, you know, and I took my roommate, my gay roommate outside and I just said to her, just ignore that. You know, Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother, Jesus. That's it. Ignore that. Ignore that. You know, like I just, you know, my deep. My deep tender feelings for, you know, those kind of central aspects of faith, they never changed.

John Dehlin [00:46:51] Really?

Joanna Brooks [00:46:52] No.

John Dehlin [00:46:53] And was there a point where you.

Joanna Brooks [00:46:55] My chewy center. My soft, chewy, gooey center.

John Dehlin [00:46:59] Was there ever a point where you dug into the history and learned all the polyandry and peep stones and all that?

Joanna Brooks [00:47:04] No, it didn't bug me. I kind of came across it, but it didn't bother me.

John Dehlin [00:47:09] Really.

Joanna Brooks [00:47:10] No, it was cool. I was okay with religions having particular forms, even if they were odd ones. Right. You know, like every religion's got weirdness. It's okay. I mean, polygamy, yeah, that's a whole other story. But no.

John Dehlin [00:47:30] Wow. So I read in the Sunstone article, or I looked you up, that at some point you actually sent your diploma back to BYU in protest. Is that right?

Joanna Brooks [00:47:45] Yeah. I was gonna say we just about left the BYU chapter without mentioning that. Yeah, there was, right after the firings, there was a press conference at the old Seven Peaks Hotel.

John Dehlin [00:47:54] I was there. I was there, actually.

Joanna Brooks [00:47:55] You were there?

John Dehlin [00:47:56] I was there.

Joanna Brooks [00:47:57] So was I. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and David Knowlton spoke and Cecilia spoke.

John Dehlin [00:48:05] I remember Paul Toscano being there. Right, yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:48:08] See, I didn't know who was at that point.

John Dehlin [00:48:10] Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Joanna Brooks [00:48:12] No, no, it's good. Let's reminisce together. It's good. You know, and I, you know, and Brian spoke. Brian Waterman, a dear friend of mine, you know, still to this day spoke. And you know, and I spoke and I somewhere I have it written down, so what I said. But I remember really clearly that I, you know, I knew this was going to be something that was on TV and on the radio and I knew that, you know, it'd been hard going to byu, you know, as much as, I mean, I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. Would never have traded it, but it was hard.

Joanna Brooks [00:48:48] It was deeply difficult being there. Being 18, 19, 20 as an institution and a culture had a major identity crisis and kind of being right at the crosshairs of that, you know, Mormon feminist. Right. A 20 year old Mormon feminist, you know, a kid headed for a PhD program.

Joanna Brooks [00:49:12] An intellectual. Not by pretense, just. That's just who I was made to be. I was just a brainy Geek kid, you know, with a lot of words and a lot of curiosity and a giant heart and the culture and institution I cared about most in the world had kind of decided that it wasn't okay. There wasn't really space anymore for Mormon feminists. And where was I supposed to go at that point?

Joanna Brooks [00:49:41] And so I wanted to get the word out that it wasn't a good time, right? That if the BYU recruiter was at your stake, saying what my BYU recruiter had said to the me and he. I mean, he was a great guy. He didn't know. He wasn't in charge of, like, you know, if someone was coming to your stake and saying to you, you know, like, yeah, it's great, go to byu. You'll have a great college experience. It's a great place for geeky, brainy, liberal, curious Mormon kids. This wasn't the time. Don't come now. Just save yourself some heartbreak and go to Stanford. You know, like, really take the other way.

Joanna Brooks [00:50:20] It was just a really difficult time to be there, and no one deserved to kind of. I mean, you know, most of us have enough to figure out between 18 and 22, 23, 24, without, you know, kind of having to live through a major identity spasm in the most defining, all encompassing institution, religion, tradition of our life. Right? I mean, so I remember saying that into the microphone. I'm like, and this is for young women if, you know, if you have other, you know. And I said it pretty eloquently, I think. I just. I was careful to kind of say it in a poetic way that wasn't hurtful.

Joanna Brooks [00:50:55] But I was like, this place isn't big enough right now for your dreams. You know, if you're a young woman and you're kind of thinking about coming here, you know, and it kind of sealed the point. I just kind of like, said, no, I'm giving my diploma. And so I did. I sent it back.

Joanna Brooks [00:51:10] My sister actually sent hers back a few years later in solidarity. It was very sweet of her. And I got a nice letter from Rex Lee before he died saying, if you ever want it, we have it.

John Dehlin [00:51:20] That's nice.

Joanna Brooks [00:51:23] Very, very kind.

Leaving BYU and Evolving Faith

John Dehlin [00:51:29] So then what happened to Joanna Brooks? Like, I mean, I'm sure a lot happened, but as a first question, there's two kind of questions that come to my mind, is the first is, what was your faith curve? What did your faith curve do after leaving byu? And how did you work, you know, how did you work with that? And then we'll talk about your husband in just a second.

Joanna Brooks [00:52:00] But, yeah, you know, so I went to LA and I entered this PhD program. And, you know, I felt like I had, like, ashes dripping from my ears. I mean, I had. You know, like, there was. I had some. There was some kind of physical consequence. I was sick for a couple years. Like, I. There was some things, you know, there were. My body actually registered all the stress of the BYU years. I don't want to sound dramatic, but there were some kind of tricky years. After a couple years, getting into the PhD program and then having this tremendous weight of experience that I didn't know how to talk about to anybody.

Joanna Brooks [00:52:34] There were very few people in the context of the PhD program who could really understand. I mean, so many people of faith hiding in the closet. In academia, hello, everywhere, especially in literature programs, it's full of closet and Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics, you know, but, like, so I didn't have anywhere I could really process everything that I'd just been through out loud. And my family wasn't that spot for me either, because being very devout, very observant, I'd broken their hearts. I'd just broken their hearts with what I'd done.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:12] And so I attended a singles ward in Los Angeles as I was pursuing my PhD. Really, really loved my PhD. Really loved being in Los Angeles. That was a city that my grandfather's side of the family had been in since the 1860s. They were Basque immigrants.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:29] And I felt a great tie there. And it was a wonderful moment for the labor movement in Los Angeles. And so I kind of got involved in all this really interesting immigrant labor organizing stuff that was happening, and ended up kind of channeling and kind of reliving and living out some of the activist impulses and also kind of channeling and living out my own sense of exile, you know, through the venue of labor activism, which is a really funny fit, you know, it was awesome. I'd be like, I know I am the only Mormon here.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:59] I got arrested a couple times at, like, labor civil disobedience, things downtown, like, on the bus with all these, like, Salvadorian political refugees and different folks. And I'm like, yeah, I'm a political refugee, too. You know, I'm just a Mormon feminist, you know, like. And, you know, so that was, like, amazing life experience. And Los Angeles was a great place to kind of hide out from the purge for a little while, because, you know, urban wards are different. You know, university wards can be different. I got some really great opportunities to, you know, put my gifts, you know, such as they are to use for the church.

Joanna Brooks [00:54:35] I mean, that was what hurt so bad. It's like, you know, you're a brainy, geeky, loudmouth girl, you're never going to be homemaking later. But you love this church. Where are you supposed to contribute? Why did God give me this load of words and ideas and what am I supposed to do with it all? And so I got to write. I served a stake mission, which was nice, and I got to write some.

Joanna Brooks [00:55:03] I got to rewrite the words of a hymn for state conference and it was sung by this multicultural choir at the LA State Center. It was like one of my happiest days. I got to write a play telling the life story of an African American convert to Mormonism and using some of the insights from organizing in communities of color in Los Angeles and studying literatures of color at the university.

Joanna Brooks [00:55:25] I felt like I got a few chances when I was in LA to exercise my gifts, but. But there were definitely some hard times too. And hard moments too, very uneven moments in my own faith journey. Trying to contribute where I could, but still feeling extremely hurt and guarded and basically kind of unworthy to be a full participant in Mormon life. And maybe angry and resentful too, but mostly just processing a tremendous amount of experience and trying to come to terms with it all.

Joanna Brooks [00:55:53] And then, you know, here you are in your 20s, so you're trying to figure out how to make a life path too, because you're in a singles ward and everyone's looking around and trying to figure out like, where was I supposed to go next, like who, who would marry me? You know, like just a heap of trouble.

John Dehlin [00:56:08] Right. So just as a pause. So you, your activism at BYU caused some rifts in your family?

Joanna Brooks [00:56:17] Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, my folks, you know, they are wonderful, very devoted people and they're like engineers, you know, they're analytical, they're not liberals, they're not intellectual identified, even though they're both tremendously brainy. Just, you know, I'm very different than them in that way. And you know, they, I know they. I know that the publicity of what happened at BYU ended up causing them some shame. And you know, no one wants to cause their parents some shame. But at the same time, you know, I was a 20 year old kid and my worldview had just exploded. So I really couldn't help them out any, you know, I was, you know, I. So, you know, that was hard for them.

John Dehlin [00:57:10] I know you were just trying to keep the wheels on the wagon.

Guest [00:57:14] Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:57:15] You know, all I wanted to be was a Mormon girl, you know.

John Dehlin [00:57:19] Right.

Joanna Brooks [00:57:20] Oh, boy.

John Dehlin [00:57:21] And you have one sister?

Joanna Brooks [00:57:23] I have two sisters who are twins and a little brother. I'm the oldest of four.

John Dehlin [00:57:27] Okay, okay, okay. So was there a point where your testimony crumbled or crashed or tanked or.

Joanna Brooks [00:57:38] No, because, you know, it was. It was fed all the way through by these tremendously powerful but very personal experiences. In dreams, feeling the presence of ancestors. There was a lot of comfort. And I prayed pretty consistently. I've managed to pray the whole time, even when I have not been a perfect Mormon. I've been able to pray, get huge comfort, like, huge comfort instantly from Heavenly Father. And, you know, I.

Joanna Brooks [00:58:16] So that was always intact. That was always there. It's always been there. You know, it's just like. Just processing. A lot of the hurt I felt was, you know, caused some unevenness and, you know, how often I went to church, maybe even though I held callings, you know, I served. But no, I didn't. I don't know if there was a crash. It was just kind of a tremendous sadness, you know, and anger. Just not feeling I had a place in my own home anymore.

Current Beliefs and Mormon Identity

John Dehlin [00:58:50] So would you. So would you characterize your beliefs now as sort of being traditional, orthodox, sort of Mormon views on theology and doctrine?

Joanna Brooks [00:59:04] No. No. I think one of the things about. One of the ways I reconciled, you know, coming into my adulthood as a thinking person and a reading person and a searching person and with the strong feelings I have, is that I've kind of become agnostic on most specific theological questions. You know, I don't need to know.

Joanna Brooks [00:59:35] It's just not. I mean, when I pray, I feel comfort. That's enough for me, and it's enough. And when I am with Mormon people, I feel a tremendous amount of spiritual power, and it really touches me, you know, And I don't need to know how many angels dance on the head of a pin.

Joanna Brooks [00:59:55] You know, I don't need to. I don't need to say that an institution is true. You know, I believe in God, whatever that means. I don't need to know what that means. I don't need to know. I know that God is loving. I know that God is just. I know that God is merciful. You know, the language through which I've come to know that loving, just and merciful God is the language of Mormonism. That is the language I still pray in. That's my home tradition.

Joanna Brooks [01:00:23] That's enough for me. God's going to work out the rest. I don't. You know, I'm Curious about theological questions. You know, I. I love thinking about the particular ways Mormonism teaches us to understand divinity, to understand our responsibility to one another.

Joanna Brooks [01:00:38] I feel very responsible to Mormon history. I feel very responsible to specific aspects of Mormon theology that I think are, you know, very ennobling and very liberating. I think Mother in Heaven's fabulous. But those, I don't hang on those things. I have just a very personal sense of the goodness of God and of my responsibility to Mormon tradition. And that's the that

Guest [01:01:08] When I was a boy, each week, Sunday we would go to church and pay attention to the priest and he would read the holy word and consecrate the holy bread and everyone would kneel and bow. Today the only difference is everything is holy now.

Guest [01:01:36] Everything, everything, everything is holy now. When I was in Sunday school, we would learn about the time Moses split the sea in two. Jesus made the water wine and I remember feeling sad Miracles don't happen still but now I can't keep track Cuz everything's a miracle Everything, everything, everything's a miracle.

Guest [01:02:29] Wine from water is not so small but an even better magic trick. So the challenging thing becomes have to look for miracles like finding where there isn't one. When holy water wasn't rare at best it barely wet my fingertips but now I have to hold my breath Like I'm swimming in a sea a bit.

Guest [01:03:13] There used to be a world half there Heaven second rain hand me down But I walk with the reverend. That'd be very hard to say See another new morning come say it's not a sacrament I tell you that it can't be done.

Guest [01:04:29] This morning outside I stood I saw a little red wing bird Shining like a burning bush and singing like a scripture verse it made me want to bow my head I remember when church let out how things have changed since then Everything is holy now it used to be a world half there Heaven second rate hand me down but I walk it with a reverend hair Cause everything is holding out. Sam.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 113

John Dehlin [00:00:01] So you never had a crisis of faith?

Joanna Brooks [00:00:04] I don't know. I don't know. Are you saying. Did I ever say, is there God?

John Dehlin [00:00:10] It's just like, oh, I thought it was the one true church with exclusive authority, and now I don't. And, oh, I thought there was a God who loved me, who had 10 fingers and 10 toes, and now it's just some nebulous blob. If there's something there at all, like this whole dissolution of your worldview to the point of major disappointment and disorientation at. You thought you were going to a certain place in heaven. You knew that there was an afterlife. You knew that you'd be in the celestial kingdom. That whole identity was wrapped up and tied for many in the doctrine of theology and how they perceived it. And so when the doctrine of theology dissolved, sometimes everything else dissolves with it. And I'm not hearing you say that that was your experience.

Joanna Brooks [00:01:02] No, I mean, you know, what killed me was Prop 22. That's kind of where my crises of faith came, was like, what is going on in this tradition? I love why? Why? Of all the times I could be born, you know, into all the faith traditions in the world, all the bars in the world, she had to walk into this one, you know, like, you know, like, why? Why? Why did God make me this way? Why did God make me with this huge heart, this huge mouth, this load of words, this curiosity for ideas, for this moment in Mormonism? Thanks a lot. This really sucks, right?

Joanna Brooks [00:01:38] You know, what am I supposed to do with this now? Where am I supposed to go? Why is my church like. I mean, and so much of it's just been so elemental and heart centered for me, you know, like it was right after. You know, I know it's skipping ahead a minute, but the hardest part of my faith journey so far was the years in between Prop 22 and Prop 8, which are Proposition 22, was in 2000, the year I got married. I know we'll go to that subject soon, but that was the first time in California the church had really leveraged itself into a public anti gay marriage tribe.

Joanna Brooks [00:02:14] They've done it in Hawaii and Alaska. And it felt like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest and dropped it on the ground and dropped a cinder block on my heart. That's all I know how to describe it. And I could not go to church for five or six years without crying.

Joanna Brooks [00:02:34] I just. Every time I set foot in a Mormon church building, I'd cry. It was ridiculous. I mean, it just Got comical after a while. These are the years I had, you know, I was a young married, and I had my babies. And so, like, I didn't have an impetus to get my butt back in church. I was taking the sabbatical, but literally, I mean, it was like I'd be standing in the foyer, shaking hands, introducing myself to the bishop for the third time, right? Being the less active, right? Crying. You know, they're trying not to see me crying, and it's all just ridiculous. And finally I was like, okay, God, really?

Joanna Brooks [00:03:07] This is really how you want me to spend my Sundays? Like, crying. I feel like it was, okay, time out. And I retreated. And I was living in Austin, Texas at the time. And, you know, I just. That the hardest part about for me has been, you know, I didn't even know if I deserved to call myself a Mormon. I didn't even know if there was really a place for me in my own home tradition. You know, I didn't know if I deserved any claim on the tradition at all. It was just those feelings of, like, social exclusion, theological exclusion, right, that the church, the culture had face the prospect, these incredibly potent feminist prospects of our own theology and just shut them down.

Joanna Brooks [00:03:45] Just shut them down, you know, and that. That was just who I was. And that was the moment I was living in. And that my Mormonism had been shut down centrally, institutionally, it was still living on the margins, sort of, you know, but where was I to go? Where was I to give? What was that? Who was I supposed to be? Now, that was how I experienced my crisis of faith was just like, not. Not. It wasn't about God. It was about, like, where's the love? What do I. What do I do?

John Dehlin [00:04:15] Right? And is that. Is that the end of your arc, your faith arc? No.

Joanna Brooks [00:04:21] Because then I had daughters.

Marriage, Family, and Interfaith Life

John Dehlin [00:04:25] So tell us about deciding to marry your husband.

Joanna Brooks [00:04:29] Yes. Oh, yes. Well, you know, I'm. Well, it was love at first sight. Which was funny because I was, you know, at this graduate student party in Venice beach, right, you know, and had met all sorts of interesting people. And none of them felt like home to me, you know, because I didn't know it was labor organizing. I was meeting all sorts of eclectic intellectual, pinhead, pointy, you know, crazy radical types, and in he walks. And I took one look at him and I said, oh, I know who he is. He's a nice Jewish boy from Orange County. You know, he has the same watch and the same, like, coat that all the, like, nice little Jewish boys I'd grown up with had worn and I was like, who's he?

Joanna Brooks [00:05:14] He looks like home to me. So anyway, you know, and so we, David and I dated for a couple years and again, you know, really, really hard on my family because marrying the church is such an important deal.

Joanna Brooks [00:05:33] Such an important deal. And you know, and you know, we were in love. And I had tried to date Mormon men and I'd, you know, and a lot of Mormon men didn't want to date me. I mean, I was trouble. It's a mess, you know, not like, not a mess in a personal sense, but like, you know, and I'd seen, I'd witnessed, you know, so many of the couples I saw at BYU who got married and then had, you know, liberal Mormon folks who proceeded into their faith crises in the early years of their marriage. And I saw some of my friends like move away and like just wash themselves of all relationship to the church at all.

Joanna Brooks [00:06:13] And like not even tell their natural born kids that they were from like Mormon stock, you know, and I was witnessing the ways my friends were living out this like really difficult episode in the church's history and how it reverberated all through their personal choices. And I had this gut feeling that with this incredibly kind, compassionate, spiritual, totally non threatened man that I would have an opportunity to seek some answers, you know, continue to seek answers in a way that wouldn't hurt anybody. You know, he wasn't afraid of my search. He was willing to come along with me on it. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:06:53] He's a strong man.

Joanna Brooks [00:06:56] He's a good dude. So we got married and in a temple or no, in museum. And the first part was the stake president. And the second part, the first part of the ceremony was performed by a stake president. The second part was performed by a rabbi, she a female rabbi. The stake president did the vows and she did the ring ceremony, which is like the kind of the traditional heart of the Jewish ceremony. Do you ever have, do people, by the way, do people ever read things on Mormon stories?

John Dehlin [00:07:25] Sure.

Joanna Brooks [00:07:27] Because I knew you wanted to talk to me about David and I pulled out this little thing. I wrote this part of an essay I'd written. I've written a series of essays about interfaith family life. So it kind of helps contextualize what was going through my head about choosing to marry him.

John Dehlin [00:07:41] Go for it.

Joanna Brooks [00:07:43] All right. To my family, my choosing to marry David meant I was choosing not to be with them in heaven. For me, choosing David meant placing my trust in a God bigger than doctrine. It meant choosing my joy, my Best friend, my chance to create a family, Choosing all of these as indivisible elements of my own spiritual well being. For years, I believed that if I were a better Mormon, if I waited more patiently, had milder thoughts, a tamer spirit, if I were just better, God would reward me with a good Mormon husband. Then one Sunday when I was 25, I found myself in a chapel full of unmarried Mormon women who also believed that if they were better Mormons, waiting more patiently with milder thoughts and tamer spirits, God would reward them with good Mormon husbands, too.

Joanna Brooks [00:08:36] Most of the women, they were nearing 40. One night, my Mormon bishop said something very wise to me. He said, we often ask God over and over and over again what it is we should do, but sometimes we just have to do and seek God in the process.

Joanna Brooks [00:08:52] So I did. I chose not to bet on waiting. I chose my complicated self. I chose my true love. I chose to say yes. I know the importance of sacrifice. All the great religions teach that going without giving something up or saying no can make us more holy, but so can saying yes. Yes. Yes to love, yes to marriage, yes to babies, yes to outrageous sweetness, and yes even to heartbreak. Yes, I love you, mom and dad. Yes, I love you, ancestors. Yes, I love you, baby girls. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Like a glass breaking under my bridegroom's heel, I gave way and said to God. Yes, do with me what you will.

John Dehlin [00:09:43] Beautiful.

Joanna Brooks [00:09:44] So I gave up, married a nice Jewish boy.

John Dehlin [00:09:48] Did you step on the glass?

Joanna Brooks [00:09:50] He did.

John Dehlin [00:09:51] He did, yeah. Well, that's beautiful. That's wonderful. Thank you for reading that.

Joanna Brooks [00:09:58] That helps you. That's the map of the spiritual thought that went with that decision.

John Dehlin [00:10:03] Right. Was he raised a believing Jew or a Reformed Jew or a secular Jew?

Joanna Brooks [00:10:10] Yeah, he was raised at Reform. And then his parents, actually, when he was in his teens, started a Reconstructionist synagogue in Orange County. And Reconstructionist is really interesting. It's like Reform on steroids or super vitamins. Reform with more intellectual and cultural content.

John Dehlin [00:10:30] Is it fair to say that Reformed Jews just don't believe any of it, but they just like the culture?

Joanna Brooks [00:10:36] Oh, for lots. I mean, I think, you know, I'm hesitant to generalize, but I think if one studies the history of Reformed Judaism, I think the Holocaust was a watershed for Jewish folks, Jewish civilization, especially the Reformed branches, in terms of belief. You know, I mean, ever since then, I think there's been a much more cautious approach to making great claims and positing great claims. A lot of Jews just relate to, you know, they believe in God Is God is being kind of.

Joanna Brooks [00:11:13] If there is a God, God is expressed through the most divine aspects of human nature. They don't believe in a God that parts waves anymore because that God wouldn't have let 6 million people die. So, yeah, I mean, a lot of Jews are either agnostic or atheist. Don't know what happens after this life, don't need to know. But a lot of emphasis on memory, on family, on tradition and on goodness and on deep ethical obligations to other people.

John Dehlin [00:11:44] And yet they still want to maintain sort of self identification as Jews. They want to maintain the identity. They even want to maintain some of the rituals. Is that right?

Joanna Brooks [00:11:55] Yep. It's great to be Jewish. It's a beautiful, you know, it's a beautiful tradition. It's a learned tradition. It's a very rich, very old tradition that's capable of sustaining a lot of diversity, you know. And yeah, a lot of Jews feel a deep tie. Although, you know, Jewish community is under pressure like any other community, especially within the last generation. A lot of assimilation is taking place, a lot of intermarriage. There's a lot of concern in the Jewish community about, you know, losing some of those cultural ties, but I'm not too worried about it.

John Dehlin [00:12:31] Right, and so how, how did having daughters change the curve of your Mormon arc? And how have you and your husband talked about how Mormonism might or might not play into your children's lives and your family's future? Or do you just not know yet?

Joanna Brooks [00:13:01] Oh, yeah, no, it's an open topic all the time. You know, I think so much in my life changed when I crossed over from thinking of myself as a daughter to kind of taking ownership of my responsibilities as a mother, especially in regards to faith. Because, you know, then it became not about like, how have I failed my parents, how have I failed the tradition that made me and became more about what do I want to give my children, you know, And I remember being very pregnant with my oldest, Ella, and sitting in a room in my house in Texas when we were living there in the early years of our marriage.

Joanna Brooks [00:13:49] And we were. The room had been like our office, right? It was this little two bedroom house. And the room, the room had been our office. And we were cleaning it out to make way for our nursery, right? And I had this big box of all of this documentation I had kept from the purge years, right? Like the 92, 93, all the hard stuff. And I remembered, you know, and this was now, you know, I had Ella in 2003. So this was like 10 years worth of stuff, right?

Joanna Brooks [00:14:19] And I remember compiling all this stuff, all this paper, stuff related to Cecilia's case, stuff related to September 6th, stuff after that, Lavina's case, all of it. And I remember compiling it in this kind of shell shock sort of way, saying, well, if I ever go to a church, if there's ever a church court held for man may need some evidence, you know what I mean? Just this, like, really burnt, sad, depressed, kind of like defensive, worried, anxious place. And I remember having this box and, like, trying to make space in this office for the arrival of my daughter and deciding, I'm going to throw most of this away.

Joanna Brooks [00:14:54] I'm only going to keep what I want her to know. I'm going to stop keeping records as if I have to protect myself and start keeping records as if I'm building a legacy for my daughter, right? And I weeded out everything I thought I needed to defend myself in case someone came after me, this one feminist. And I kept only the things I wanted her to remember, right? And not in this way of, like, purging the past, but in terms of, like, I don't want to have to defend myself anymore. This is now about her. This is about passing on a legacy that means everything to me.

Joanna Brooks [00:15:25] What do we really. What do I really need in this journey? What does she really need? She doesn't need my bitterness. She doesn't need my sadness. She needs knowledge and that, you know, and that kind of. That's just kind of emblematic of the shift, having my daughters meant to me. It's like it was less about now. My questions could be less.

Joanna Brooks [00:15:45] There was less energy to indulge this question of, like, did I, you know, I'm a bad daughter and what is my place and does anyone understand me to. I'm a mother. This means everything to me. I'm passing it down in whatever form. I am taking responsibility for passing the best parts of Mormonism down my kids.

Joanna Brooks [00:16:03] So that shifted everything, you know, that made me want to go back to church full time, you know, if I could. I'm still not there perfectly, but, you know, my daughters brought me back because I want to pass it down to them as much as possible in my way.

John Dehlin [00:16:19] So your daughters have been in primary?

Joanna Brooks [00:16:22] Oh, yeah. They're in the primary program this fall. I was very proud. I keep waving from the pipe up and say something awful, but, you know, talk about Heavenly Mother and just freak everyone out because, I mean, in our house, Heavenly Mother is just, hello, duh, in the heavens. Are parents single? No. The thought makes Reasons stare. Hello.

Joanna Brooks [00:16:48] Yeah, they call themselves, they say we're Mormon and Jewish and they know how to pray both ways. That's really important. Teaching them pray is really important because prayer has been the biggest, you know, most consistent part of my spiritual life. And they know how important it is to pray. Know how to pray for answers.

Joanna Brooks [00:17:09] And they know how to pray a Mormon way. They know how to pray a Jewish way. I taught them how to say the Shema, which is, you know, like reformed Jews don't usually say it, but if there is a Jewish bedtime prayer, it's like the Shema, Shema Israel.

Joanna Brooks [00:17:23] Oh, gosh, now I'm going to forget it now that I've been recorded. Shema Israel, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad. Right? And they know how to say the Shema. They know how to pray. Mormon or Jewish? They prefer Jewish because it's shorter.

Joanna Brooks [00:17:37] And I browbeat them like, yeah, but Mormon's more useful. You're gonna like dig for answers with the Mormon prayer. And you know, and my oldest is six and we, you know, I've taught them just, I've home schooled them really, you know, most of what they know, even though they've gone to primary. I take full responsibility.

Joanna Brooks [00:18:00] I sing them, you know, hymns in the rocking chair at night from the time they're infants, you know, my favorites. And the old school ones that no one sings anymore, like in Our lovely Deseret, which we should all sing.

Joanna Brooks [00:18:13] Yeah, no. So they have a robust sense of their Mormon identity. They really do. It doesn't map perfectly onto the instit institution, but, you know, and I'm preparing them. They know that they're going to have to make their own choices about how to live their faith because the world doesn't know what to do with little girls who think they're Mormon and Jewish. But I'm teaching them how to pray for answers and I'm hoping they're going to figure it out in some way that will no doubt horrify everyone, but so be it, right?

Mormon Feminism, Equality, and Community

John Dehlin [00:18:45] I don't know how you'll take this question, but I have to ask it because I was eating a hummus pita and the question came to me as you look, as you now have, however many years you have of wisdom and insight and perspective into how organizations work and how adults are and maybe even how leadership is, how tough leadership can be. I'm sure it's not a picnic being a department head at a Division 1 university. Do you look back on the whole Sunstone September 6th, student review, academic freedom thing. And ever say, I wish we had approached it differently, not because you did anything wrong, not because you have anything to be ashamed of, but because you feel like you could have been more effective.

Joanna Brooks [00:19:42] Yeah, but first of all, I, you know, I'm a Mormon woman. I have no idea what being effective within this institution could ever mean. You know what I mean? Like in an institution, what does that mean? You know, I mean, like, you know, if you're a Mormon man, and if you just do it right, you know, someday you'll work your way up the system. Well, yeah, right.

Joanna Brooks [00:20:06] That's never gonna happen. Effective, ishmective, you know, like, I got homemaking night, peace out, you know, I mean, so, you know, yes and no. I mean, one thing I always look back on and kind of scratch my head about and wonder. I mean, you know, part of this was my own really independent disposition, right? Was, you know, I'm like, why didn't I find my way under the COVID of some mentoring that would have been good, you know, like mentoring from somebody who knew, like, how to weather giant institutional identity crises.

Joanna Brooks [00:20:55] And first of all, and I kind of sit back, I'm like, why didn't someone. And I remember a couple of really good instances of mentoring I got, but they weren't covered. They were kind of like, hell yeah, sister, this thing's blowing up, we don't

John Dehlin [00:21:11] know what to do. So Eugene England wasn't sitting you down saying, now, Joanna, we have to work within the process. We have to.

Joanna Brooks [00:21:18] No, see, he never had that mentoring relationship with me. I mean, I went to his house a couple times and worship like everyone else did, but I never had that personal one on one. And part of it with anybody, I think, even Cecilia. And I think part of it was that I'm sure I just seemed really competent to everybody. Right? Because I was straight, a super overachiever, yada, yada, yada, always with a ready word about things. And I'm sure I just seemed competent. And no one knew, no one had the wisdom to kind of say, yeah, she may think she.

Joanna Brooks [00:21:51] She's pretty sharp, she's 19, and there's some pretty serious historical business happening here and she might need some cover and some like, no one ever kind of looked out for me like that. And that's all right, you know, I mean, so, yeah, I think it could have been done differently, but never in terms of effectiveness. I would have just liked a little more wisdom in terms of how to survive it. And I think that's been the tough thing for Mormon liberals has been, you know, the generations before us, they go, you know, like, you know, they have their credit and they gone, you know, like the older, you know, the generation of feminists who survived the era, there were some of those women who were around still, you know, she's super exceptional though. But like, who, who was that? Carolyn Pearson. I mean, but who was there to tell us,

John Dehlin [00:22:42] right?

Joanna Brooks [00:22:44] I'd have a gender spasm again, right? Who is there to tell us,

John Dehlin [00:22:51] right.

Joanna Brooks [00:22:53] How to survive that? So I don't look back and say, gee, I wish I would have been more effective. Would have channeled it better, said it politer. Those pathways have never opened to me. But how to protect yourself and have a little bit better historical perspective on the way that Mormonism does have a really hard time with gender, you know, and it comes around historically, you know, time and time again and how one weathers those things, you know, I finally got around to reading Mormon Enigma last summer while I was at Hedgebrook on retreat. I finally read it, and if I would have read that when I was younger, that would have helped a lot.

John Dehlin [00:23:37] Would have helped, yeah. How did it helped?

Joanna Brooks [00:23:43] Well, you know, it is no new thing to be a Mormon woman and to feel a bit, you know, put out by what's going on inside the institution.

John Dehlin [00:23:57] Ah, so you would have felt some solidarity with your sister Emma?

Joanna Brooks [00:24:01] Well, I just would have felt. I would have known that it was no new thing and that many Mormon women who were deeply in our tradition had experienced what I was experiencing. And that was just part of this legacy. It's just part of it. And I think that's what a lot of us who make it out the other side just realize. It's like being part of this tradition is not a cakewalk. Right. Especially if you find yourself in one of those historical moments where our people are going through something, especially if you're a woman or gay or really kind of inclined to think, identified with those marginal positions, you know, but you can, you can't. That is part of being Mormon. That is part of our tradition. It comes around and around. It's not the end. It's part of the experience.

John Dehlin [00:25:05] Right. So as you think about, well, you know, you expressed this sort of, this sort of revitalization of your Mormon, your feelings towards the church, sort of a reactivation, taking back and owning the direction, you know, a positive, empowered approach. Does that leave you any room to still hope for. For some change or for some things to get better, either within the church or just the culture or Are you just totally separated from and disassociated from any type of aspiration for the church or for its members now?

Joanna Brooks [00:26:03] Oh, yeah, pretty. I mean, you know, what is the scripture? You know, all God asks you is to do justly and love mercy and to walk in fear and trembling before God. I mean, yeah, I don't have aspirations for the church on purpose. You know, God's in charge here of all of us. God knows what he's doing. I remember. I mean, again, my timing historically is so lousy. I decided to go back to church in January to attend, right? Not to return to Mormonism. Never left Mormonism. Never, never, never, never. Even when people said to me, oh, someday you'll leave the church and you'll feel really good about it in a nice, kind, counseling way, I was like, no, you're crazy. I'm Mormon. But decided to go back in January 2008. What happened six months later?

John Dehlin [00:27:01] Yeah, Prop 8.

Joanna Brooks [00:27:04] My timing is so good, you know, and again, it's the same feeling. My heart was ripped out, thrown on the ground with a cinder block. And I. I cried for six months. I cried for six months. I was angry with everybody in my heart, of course, you know, never out loud, haha. But I mean, you know, couldn't go to church, I mean, because it really did infiltrate. I live in San Diego. Hello. This is not an I do not live in an urban university ward. Right. It was everything. It was in every aspect of the conduct. And it's still. There's still reflexive. It's there.

Joanna Brooks [00:27:41] It really was a big part of the fabric of Mormon life for a significant period of time. It was very difficult to have any contact with the institutional church and not do Prop 8. And I remember, like, walking around the block and crying and walking my dog and just praying and just having this sense come over me that, like, God is on both sides of this story. There is no way around it. God is at work among Mormon people. We are working something out amongst ourselves. This is really painful to me. I can't be near this right now.

John Dehlin [00:28:18] I can't.

Joanna Brooks [00:28:18] I can't take my kids to this. You know, it really upsets my husband. This is not good for people like us. It's not good for Mormon liberals. It does not help us feel at home in this tradition. But God is at work here, and God is at work amongst the gays, and God is in charge here. And this is really painful.

Joanna Brooks [00:28:39] So, you know, I prayed for comfort one night. I was really tired and really upset about it all. And I had this really wonderful dream that helped me feel a tremendous sense of promise and hope and relief. But I don't have any specific notions of things to do to implement in Mormonism to make it work now. I think what has made all the difference to me are spaces like this.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:07] And the amazing thing we didn't have 15 years ago, you know, an online community of Mormons who are willing to provide cover and home to one another as we go, you know, survive and witness these different historical episodes. It can be really painful. Like, that's really crucial. This is a crucial thing.

John Dehlin [00:29:31] You know, maybe we kind of have the mentors that you never got to have at byu.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:37] Well, there's just so much more access and continuity of experience and community, you know? Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, either we have the mentors or we're going to be able to be the mentors. I mean, we have great examples. You know, you look at people like, you know, Bushmans and, you know, just bright, faithful people who have weathered a lot and done it with incredible grace, you know.

Joanna Brooks [00:30:06] But, you know, a lot of the folks in the generation just above us have again followed that path where you're either really careful to stay very orthodox in your expression, or you leave or you bolt. Right. And what if one life goes through many cycles? Can we still be at home with one another as Mormons would? That kind of, you know, diversity of experience? I think we can. I think the tradition is rich enough and beautiful enough to sustain a diversity of experience. Maybe not in the institutional church all the time, in every moment, evenly. I'm not saying it's not there. It is there, but maybe not all the time evenly. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:30:51] Sure, sure. So I didn't joke with you. You. But I said something that you thought was a joke. When we talked about doing this interview, I said, we've all been waiting for you to come back. And what made me say that was, you know, when I went through my disaffection, I Googled your name. I mean, this is before Google, but

Joanna Brooks [00:31:14] I'm like, you Googled me?

John Dehlin [00:31:16] Well, I mean, it would have been altavista or something back then or Lycos, but I mean, I was like, if there is Mormon activism, Joanna's at the head, and I didn't find. Find you. And, you know, every year I'm like, where is she? Where's Brian?

Joanna Brooks [00:31:28] I was crying, man. I was crying in Austin, Texas, and sorting through boxes full of crap about the purge.

John Dehlin [00:31:34] Yeah. So when I saw your article on Glenn Beck, and then I listened to you on Radio west with Doug Fabrizio. I'm like, whoa, she's back. And so I contacted you, but tell us what you're doing now.

Joanna Brooks [00:31:51] And I have to say, when you said that to me, that was one of the nicest things I've heard in years. I can't tell you how it warmed my heart, that feeling. It was like homecoming. It's like that scene in like Man's Search for Happiness where they steps through the veil and there's all those people in white. I hear you say that. That was like that for me. That was that good.

John Dehlin [00:32:09] You know, it's like, it's like a medley, like a track and field race. It's almost like you kind of pass the baton on to some of us. And now we've come back around the track and we're ready to pass that baton back. How's that? Oh, dude.

Joanna Brooks [00:32:25] Okay, yeah, I'll grow a third arm. You know what was crazy, one of the major things was seeing the Mormons on PBS and you know, my friends who were close to me and again, you know, so many of my close friends since coming to graduate school and then kind of like setting out on a life path since I've been kind of in and out of Mormon communities, even though my faith has remained consistent.

Joanna Brooks [00:32:52] You know, I move in a world of non Mormons all the time. I do not live in a Mormon world, like in a homogenously Mormon world. You know, I have very close, you know, and so, you know, so many of my close friends knew this was this big, big, big part of my life, but I wasn't able to articulate it very well. And, you know, watching the Mormons I like and seeing how much time in the second section of the Mormons, they gave to those difficulties years, the BYU years and the purge years. And, you know, just sitting there with David watching it and saying, that's my friend, that's my friend.

Joanna Brooks [00:33:24] That's my friend, that's my friend. I mean, Helen Whitney interviewed me, you know, like, I wasn't on it, but like I realized I belonged to this history.

John Dehlin [00:33:33] Right?

Joanna Brooks [00:33:34] You know, it was a. It's a hard stretch of history, but that's. I belong here. This is my part of this story story. And it caused me just kind of think. And, you know, I switched jobs. I moved from University of Texas, which was a really research intensive school, to this other school, to San Diego State, which is less so still very respectable. We got a spousal hire, we came home, you know, Went surfing, hooray, you know, but started writing again and realized how much I missed that writing creatively. Nonfiction. I wrote a whole book about interface, family life.

Joanna Brooks [00:34:09] Got a literary agent shocked it. Got a great sniff from a very good press. And then they said, oh my gosh, you're a terrific writer, but you're a Mormon. And that's so weird. I'm like, okay, hold up. Is it not 2008? Like, please, you can still say that to people.

Joanna Brooks [00:34:33] Come on. And so I was grumbly in my head for like six weeks and I was thinking about it and I was like, if someone can still say that in America in 2000, you're morbid. That's so weird. It's time to tell the story.

Joanna Brooks [00:34:48] It's really time to start telling the world what it feels. Our stories are not out there enough. People don't know. People don't know. We don't know how to talk about ourselves. Mormons are terrible at talking, talking about ourselves in public. Look at Mitt Romney could not talk about Mormonism in public to save his life, you know. And so I started writing down, you know, over the course of a year, all these like, memoir essays, the stories I delight and horrify my non Mormon friends with that convey a sense of like how awesome and, you know, distinctive and wonderful and rich are and sometimes horrifying our culture is, you know, and our tradition is.

Joanna Brooks [00:35:31] So that was the genesis of the Mormon Girl Project and that, you know, that hunger and writing those. It felt like I was finally doing some of the work I was meant to do, you know, so I'm making a comeback.

John Dehlin [00:35:44] So you're writing the great Mormon novel,

Joanna Brooks [00:35:46] The great Mormon memoir.

John Dehlin [00:35:48] Yes, the great Mormon memoir. Sorry.

Joanna Brooks [00:35:50] And no hubris, please.

John Dehlin [00:35:52] Oh, right. I'll have the hubris for you. And then you've got this new column, blog, right?

Joanna Brooks [00:36:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:01] Tell us about that.

Joanna Brooks [00:36:02] Ask Mormon Girl.

John Dehlin [00:36:03] So what's the website the book is

Joanna Brooks [00:36:05] going to be called? Askmormongirl.com Ask me your questions.

John Dehlin [00:36:10] Now, is that for non Mormon audience or for a Mormon audience?

Joanna Brooks [00:36:13] Yes, both, of course.

John Dehlin [00:36:16] Okay. It's not just for non members.

Joanna Brooks [00:36:18] No, not at all. No. You know, I have found myself so many times in this strange journey. Like I am always the only Mormon. The people I'm with have met and felt like they could have a conversation with.

Joanna Brooks [00:36:34] Like, you know, there's. I'm hanging out with like African American folks. I'm hanging out with gay folks. I'm hanging out. I am the native informant. Right. What do you People, actually, can you explain this to me? And I can, and I am not ashamed and I am not defensive. Right. And that's just something the life experience of the last 15 years has given me. And so, you know, the book will have Mormon Girl in the title. And so kind of like, you know, working my way back into this practice of talking about Mormonism in public in ways that celebrate its beauty, celebrate its strangeness, celebrate its hominess, and are honest, too, about its tough parts.

Joanna Brooks [00:37:23] That's who I want to be. So that's Ask Mormon Girl. So my first question was literally out of the blue, I had started this Ask Mormon Girl Gmail account and published the Glenn Beck piece and a few other things in Religion Dispatches. And seriously, from nowhere comes this query from this kid. And I've graded college essays for 15 years now, so I have a pretty good sense of when someone is writing appropriate to age and tone. And literally, this kid, 15 year old kid. I'm a 15 year old. I'm Christian. I have a crush on a Mormon girl.

Ask Mormon Girl and Looking Forward

Joanna Brooks [00:37:59] What should I do? Oh, okay. The universe has sent me the cue that it's time to begin the Ask Mormon Girl column. So I have a whole series of queries lined up right now. Everything from like, really Mormon liberals, they exist. To like, I'm a non Mormon, single woman, 50, living in Salt Lake City. What do I do? So we're just gonna have fun with that.

John Dehlin [00:38:24] And you're cross posting on Mormon matters, right?

Joanna Brooks [00:38:27] Yes, the wonderful Mormon matters.

John Dehlin [00:38:29] All right, yeah, you've gotten some good. You've gotten some good attention there. I mean, the thread depth is like 40 or 50 after only a day. That's pretty good, by the way.

Joanna Brooks [00:38:38] Well, you know, there's this. I try not to read the comments because they're crazy. Especially, oh my gosh, if you go to like the Glenn Beck piece on religious dispatches. I mean, just a symbol of how, you know, I'm sorry, bass ackwards. American culture is in regards to Mormonism. Like anytime I write about Mormonism anywhere, people, posters, if you go deep into the comments, just have these spasm outbursts, funny underwear, angels, golden plates, blah, blah, blah, blah. And your point is? People cannot talk rationally about this giant segment of American religious history, this huge population. I mean, there's as many Mormons as Jews in the United States.

John Dehlin [00:39:20] Right?

Joanna Brooks [00:39:21] People don't know how. People do not know how. It just confounds me, you know, and so, yeah, no, there is much space for all of us to get out and tell our Story in all of its beauty and unapologetically and honestly and to really, you know, scrutinize it, so. Yeah. No, but the comments today at the column, there was one woman who thought I was being really condescending, and I sure didn't mean to. I'm not worried about her. The kid who wrote me the query liked my answer, so that's awesome. I told him the group date.

John Dehlin [00:39:54] Right.

Joanna Brooks [00:39:55] He's 15. He's not allowed to single date anyway

John Dehlin [00:39:58] and to burn couches, so. All right, I'm gonna get you out of here on this. You ready?

Joanna Brooks [00:40:05] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:40:05] I'm gonna put you on the spot.

Joanna Brooks [00:40:07] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:40:08] I'm gonna give you a chance to be aspirational a bit. If you had to paint a little picture, and it doesn't have to be dramatic or rapid, radical or, you know, if you wanted to just paint a little bit of a picture of what type of Mormon experience your daughters might encounter, let's say, 10 or 15 years from now, in ways that you think would be pleasant or exciting or heartwarming. Can you sort of take us to the mountaintop? You know, you're at the Lincoln Memorial and you have a dream. Can you sort of paint a picture of the type of Mormonism that maybe your daughters will be able to experience?

Joanna Brooks [00:40:56] Ooh, that's so hard. I feel like I'm predicting a future that belongs to them alone, you know?

John Dehlin [00:41:03] That's good.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:05] I don't want to predict it.

John Dehlin [00:41:08] That's an okay answer. Keep going.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:10] Well, you know, I mean, I want them to know how to pray, Right. And I think I'm biased, but there's something about the way I've learned to pray as a Mormon that has brought me so much joy and so much comfort that I want them to know how to pray like that. I want them to know how to seek answers.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:33] I want them to know how to draw on the strength of a tradition that says, yeah, you go into the woods and you find answers. That's where the answers are. You go into the woods, you go across the plains, you go seek.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:47] That's. You do it alone. If you have to go alone. If you have to pull a handcart because you don't have an ox, you pull a handcart, you go. You go in search of your answers, and you seek them, you know, and you don't be afraid. And you know that God is out there and it's going to carry you.

Joanna Brooks [00:42:05] I want them to go to Temple Square and sit in the tabernacle and look at those hand painted pine columns and feel the commitment and ingenuity and vision of their very common ancestors who helped build this beautiful, curious, unique American tradition and just to take a lot of joy in it. And I wanted to celebrate Pioneer Day with a big crazy group of whoever they've encountered on their journey. That's what we do that here. Now, you know, I've reclaimed Pioneer Day. We make funeral potatoes and everything with a calico dress. We wear bonnets. I make frog eye salad. We wear bonnets. I like. Two weeks before Pioneer Day, I whip out, like, the ward cookbooks I've collected over the years and horrify my Jewish husband with how much cream of chicken soup and Cool Whip we use as people and jello.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:06] So I want them to celebrate Pioneer Day. I want that to become a big diasporic Mormon holiday. I want them to know they can always come home to this tradition. That's what I want.

John Dehlin [00:43:20] Beautiful. I want pictures. The next time you celebrate Pioneer Day,

Joanna Brooks [00:43:24] I want you to come celebrate Pioneer Day with me.

John Dehlin [00:43:27] All right.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:27] Bring me family.

John Dehlin [00:43:29] I'll save up my. I'll save up my. My teaching assistantship money.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:33] Yeah. Okay. We'll come. We'll come to Logan. I'll bring the frog eye salad.

John Dehlin [00:43:38] I'll spy the Cool Whip.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:40] Joanna Brooks, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us on Mormon Stories. It's been a pleasure.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:48] Thank you, John. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:43:51] Take care.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:52] Bye.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:43:59] When I was a boy each week on Sunday we would go to church and pay attention to the priest. He would read the holy word and consecrate the holy bread and everyone will kneel and bow today the only difference is everything is holy now Everything, everything, everything is holy now.

Video Clip 1 [00:44:41] When I was in Sunday school, we would learn about the time Moses split the sea in two. Jesus made the water wine and I remember feeling sad Miracles don't happen still now I can't keep trying try cuz everything's a miracle Everything, everything everything's a miracle.

Video Clip 1 [00:45:20] Wine from water is not so small but an even better magic trend Anything is here at home so the challenging thing becomes not to look for miracles to finding where there isn't one. When holy water wasn't rare at rest really when my fingertips but now I have to hold my breath Like I'm swimming in a sea it used to be a world half there Heaven second rate hand me down but I walk it with the reverend air Cuz everything is holy now Sam. Read a questioning child's face say it's not a testament that'd be very hard to say

Video Clip 1 [00:47:00] See

Video Clip 1 [00:47:03] another new morning come say it's not a sacrament to hear that it can't be done. This morning outside I stood I saw a little red winged bird Shining like a burning bush and singing like a scripture verse it made me want to bow my head I remember when church let out how things have changed since then Everything is holy now it used to be a world half there Heaven second rate hand me down But I walk it with a reverend hair Cause everything is whole oh Sa.

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