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© At Last She Said It 2020
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At Last She Said It is a podcast that seeks to amplify and explore a variety of voices, stories, ideas and experiences of Mormon women.
246 Episodes
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"What could a Relief Society lesson on racism look like?" "What do you wish other members of the Church knew about what it's like to be a Black Latter-day Saint in 2023?" Cynthia asked Tamu Smith these questions and more as they visited in Cynthia's kitchen with the recorder running. In Episode 154, Tamu shares her personal insights and answers in a wide-ranging, thoughtful conversation between two good friends.
In a podcast season devoted to talking about change, it makes sense to revisit some previously covered topics to see whether there's been any. In Episode 246, Cynthia and Susan take another look at a foundational ALSSI discussion: What Women Don't Get In Our Church. What's the official messaging for Latter-day Saint women now, and does it reflect movement? Are we going forward? Backward? Nowhere? And do current narratives around women and our relationship to priesthood reflect actual progress...or not?
Every four years, D&C 132 comes around for study again. If you ask a Latter-day Saint woman what she keeps on her metaphorical faith "shelf," there's a good chance polygamy will be there. It's mostly ignored in contemporary church conversations and teachings, a murky doctrine wrapped in a historical wound that continues to fester, easier to ignore than to heal. Many friends and family members won't even share their true feelings about it with each other. But what are the consequences of our silence around polygamy? How long can we collectively carry this enormous weight we never allow ourselves to set down? Bonus Episode 245 is a rerun of Susan and Cynthia's original conversation about polygamy with Channing and Elise from The Faithful Feminists podcast, an honest exploration of where we've been, where we are, and where we might go next.
Though Section 89 of the Doctrine & Covenants describes itself as a "principle with promise," "to be sent by greeting, not by commandment or constraint," contemporary Church leadership has elevated some of its prohibitions to the level of requirement for temple worship. Other suggestions this section contains seem to be completely ignored. To complicate things, current medical research hasn't always supported the specific tenets that have been designated "commandments." No wonder lots of Latter-day Saints have lots of feelings about the Word of Wisdom and its application in our daily lives and choices! In Episode 244, Cynthia and Susan are joined by historian Linda Hamilton for a conversation unpacking it all. What do you think about the Word of Wisdom? What aspects of it feel relevant to your faith life? What are the narratives of women we find in its history and practice? And what parts of Word of Wisdom lore actually hold up to historical scrutiny?
Each Latter-day Saint's path looks different, a combination of unique experiences, choices, and challenges. No matter how insistent our culture may sometimes feel, no woman fits in a mold. "I think my life began with holding dissonance," explains comedian Whitney Call. "I grew up in a very faithful LDS family...but a little squidgy around the edges. We would go to church and activities every week, and we'd watch the Simpsons together on Sunday nights. We'd bear our testimonies to each other, and we used crude humor about sex." In Episode 243, Cynthia and Susan are joined by Whitney for a wide-ranging conversation about all of it—how it started, how it's going, and one thing she knows right now (or did at the time of recording). CW: pornography, sexuality
No matter what language we use to describe the Divine, for spiritual seekers the hope is that our understanding and connection will continue to expand and deepen. As Richard Rohr reminds us, "God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not spend too much time protecting the boxes." In Episode 242, Cynthia and Susan take another look at the spaces where their own 'god-boxes' used to be: It's two women getting personal about what's new, what's not, and where and how they're seeking communion and/or communication now.
Was Joseph Smith a mystic? Searching for the term 'mysticism' on the Church website yields, "See: False Doctrine, Sorcery, Superstitions; Traditions of Men." So it's no wonder many church members haven't thought much about mysticism—the role it may have played in Joseph's experience, or how it might inform their own everyday lives or transform their spiritual practices. But poet Kathryn Knight Sonntag describes it differently: "Trusting the groundless ground, trusting that the darkness or the chaos or the unknown place actually is deeply full of knowing and love and purpose. And that it's ultimately the path into apotheosis. It's ultimately where we begin that journey of becoming divine." In Episode 241, Kathryn joins Susan and Cynthia to explore the concept of mysticism. What might it look like for Latter-day Saints to step off the prescribed map and onto the sacred ground of our own lives in pursuit of personal encounters with God?
We can't get enough of these stories! Bonus Episode 240 features more ALSSI listeners answering the question, "What triggered your faith journey?"
"Differentiation of self is being a unique individual while maintaining connection with people you love," explains Dr. Julie Hanks. "We've been trained, particularly as women, to be enmeshed—to feel other people's pain for them. And that does no one any good. It doesn't help them, and it doesn't help us." On Episode 239, Dr. Hanks joins Cynthia and Susan for a conversation about enmeshment. It has been a core theme in her 30 years of practice as a therapist in Utah, working with families in which "the boundaries are not clear at all and everything's everyone's business." So why are some Latter-day Saints prone to focusing too much on the lives and choices of their children or other family members? Does our church have teachings that actually promote family enmeshment?
"With always wanting to do the right things, take care of people, and people please, this set me up perfectly to be an all-in member. Doing the formula. Hustling! I was married in the temple to a returned missionary, had 4 children, and did everything I could to be a good, righteous LDS woman," explains Lindsie Cornia. Those lines might be the beginning of a million stories in our church, but if there's one thing to be learned from ALSSI, it's that every woman's path is unique and evolving. So what happened next? In Episode 238, Susan and Cynthia have a conversation with Lindsie about all of it: where she started, where she's been, how it's going, what she knows—or doesn't—and how she looks at things now.
"There's no roadmap for how to do partnership in patriarchy, at least within our little Mormon frame of reference," explains Christine Pagano. "Patriarchy believes that men's time is finite—there's only 24 hrs—while women's time is infinite. It's unlimited. [...] Moms are carrying the load of domestic labor, invisible labor, emotional labor, and relational labor at much higher rates than their male partners." But it's not just at home: Within our church organization, women "are tasked with immense emotional, spiritual, and relational labor without equal voice, recognition, or authority. Improving the experience of LDS women means addressing both the invisible burdens they carry and the structural imbalance that keeps those burdens unacknowledged." In Episode 237, Christine joins Cynthia and Susan for a conversation about bringing the invisible work of women to light so that it can be shared more equitably.
It seems Latter-day Saints most often speak about resurrection in the literal sense: the reuniting of spirit and body. Jesus rising from the tomb holds promise for us after our own inevitable physical death. But as Richard Rohr says, "Literalism is invariably the lowest and least level of meaning." So what else can we take from this concept? Actually, the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about renewal! In Episode 236, Cynthia and Susan explore resurrection. It's a conversation not about what happens after we die, but about the possibility of experiencing transformation in our lives here and now.
"In all my angst about if I would marry and if I would have children and if I would have a career, I did not fully consider how the ideals in this proclamation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reflected a certain moment in white, middle-class America's economic history," writes Natalie Brown. Most Latter-day Saints have absorbed a lifetime of talks and lessons centered around an "ideal" family model in which a father goes to work and a mother stays at home with the children. This arrangement is no longer economically possible for many American families, and the disconnect between Church teachings and members' lived experience can have many consequences. In Episode 235, Susan and Cynthia are joined by Natalie to explore the collision of realities that have changed with teachings that haven't. How might our church adapt to better serve members caught in the middle?
We asked, you answered! In Bonus Episode 234, more women from the ALSSI community share their stories in response to the question: What triggered your faith journey?
"Deconstruction doesn't just happen to lazy learners," says Jen Dille. "It's often the most true-blue Mormons and the people who are all in who have this experience." In episode 233, Jen joins Susan and Cynthia for a conversation about her personal journey. It's a story of old wheels coming off, and the new ones taking their place. "I dream of a time where we can each just have our own experience, and be okay with that, not be scared or threatened by it," she explains. "If we could find other ways to be LDS and still come together, that's the dream."
Diana Butler Bass wrote, "To belong is to be, for belonging is ultimately a question of identity: Who am I?" For many Latter-day Saint women, a place where they can just "be"—whoever and wherever they are right now—feels elusive. That's what the ALSSI project aims to create: a community where women can speak honestly about the complexity of their church life and/or faith journey, feel seen and validated in their experience, and find support. Episode 232 explores ideas about spiritual sanctuary. What does it mean to create it for ourselves? And how can we provide it for others?
What triggered your faith journey? In this short bonus episode, more women from the ALSSI community share their answers!
"I can take as long as I need on the edge of the chasm of the unknown," writes Jody England Hansen. "I can experience the terror of moving into the future for however long I feel it. I can turn again to the past if I choose to deal with that pain. I can create my future, choosing to step forward on a path that I might not see until I am in the next moment, the next place I step." In Episode 230, Jody joins Cynthia and Susan to discuss approaching whatever's next in our lives with active hope and love. She reminds us to "create reasons to create." This is a conversation about mercy, grace, forgiveness, and our power to face the tragic gap and walk forward anyway.
How can we know if we're getting it right when it comes to meeting others with empathy? "Empathy is a tool of compassion," writes Brene Brown. "We can respond empathically only if we are willing to be present to someone's pain. If we're not willing to do that, it's not real empathy." We're living now in a time and society where people actually talk about the sin of empathy. But for followers of Jesus—charged to mourn with and comfort others—how can being present to someone else's pain ever wear the title of "sin?" In Episode 229, Cynthia and Susan take on empathy, exploring this hot-button word and a few of the familiar ideas related to it. Why does such a simple sounding principle sometimes feel clumsy or complicated when we try to put it into practice?
For many Latter-day Saint women, a faith journey begins as their personal experiences pile up and dots begin to connect. Abby Maxwell Hansen began to see a thread of internalized misogyny in her own story emerge like this: "Every time I went to church, I had some type of message—whether it was really overt or whether it was just sitting down at conference, and they didn't come out and say women's voices aren't as important, but all the speakers were men except for two. So whether it was implied or overtly stated, I got the message over and over that women are not as important as men." In Episode 228, Abby joins Cynthia and Susan to share some of the experiences that shaped her church life beginning in childhood, and continue to inform her journey now.
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Relatable.
So you think you can't change the world, without the priesthood authority???? Obviously you can, and that's not the church's stance. So that's a ridiculous comment ...
I think this was an effort to address all those that have irritation over the priesthood, not looking down on others. Yes, I think you are wrong about feeling this way about that explanation. so many in the church think that women don't have Any authority because they haven't been ordained to give blessings. I didn't see it the way you do, I saw it only as an effort to explain ...
Ever have an episode that you wish you could put extra hearts on? This is one of those for me.
A-men!!
Thanks so much for this episode! It reminded me -- particularly the part about the bricks -- of Cheiko Okazaki's talks and books: so ahead of her time! "Lighten Up" talks about two perspectives of light, brightness and weight. When she focuses on weight, she talks about how we all have such loads on our shoulders and can come home with even bigger loads, just like you said. She talked about how Christ is our yokemate, and how there is nothing we are meant to carry that we cannot handle with Him on our side. Then she talked about how there are things that we are carrying that we just need to get rid of. Just say, "I can't carry this anymore," and then shrug it off our shoulders. "Doesn't that feel lighter and brighter?" And before long we may recognize other things we need to shrug off. Thanks so much for all that you do! I don't listen nearly as much as I should, but I definitely learn when I do.
LOOOOVE the articles of faith discussion!!!! need these written down somewhere :)
thank you! this episode was so good!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
excellent!!
Thank you for this podcast! It is so needed!
This episode spoke directly to my heart! Thank you so much for doing this beautiful and important work!
beautiful, powerful episode!!!
Thank you, this was a beautiful episode!