Meg, the grace and power with which you tell this story is staggering. I wasn't raised in your tradition, but in a other one in which physical and emotional violence toward all (especially children) and deep subjugation of women are explicit and expected. I have said all my adult life that when it comes to fight or flight, I'm all fight. That did not save me from harm then, but helped me to name and eventually get away from on-going harm from that environment. I have long been seen as someone who escalates when she "should" hold the peace. I have been asked why I get so angry (i.e., told to calm down, be quiet) about the tacit enabling of people (mostly men) who perpetuate harm and injustice even in so-called liberal and progressive environs. I recognize great kinship in your description of Fury for the purpose of justice. (Right now, I'm reading through Good and Mad on the heels of The No Club. Both books resonate deeply with what you're writing here about women who take on the great risk of refusing to be silent, refusing to sacrifice and facilitate further harm. And, both books offer us models of action and further kinship.)
Meg, this is heartbreaking and breathtaking, all at once. I am a daughter of Utah pioneers, with polygamists on every branch of my family tree. I was taught to revere my heritage while ignoring the ugliness of the polygamy which blared red against the snowy white backdrop of our pioneer ancestry. I have believed and defended and served in the church my whole life, despite my adult children leaving and sharing much of what they learned along their faith journey.
Last year, in the summer of 2022, when the AP story dropped of the two little girls in Arizona and the abuse they endured for 7+ years at the hands of their father, despite the LDS bishops knowing of the abuse, my faith fell apart. I fell apart. It dawned on me; if this church, who claims to love little children, who kept me busy my whole life in service to children, can let kids endure such ugliness, then it can’t be of Jesus Christ. It can’t be good. It can’t be true, because what they claim and what they do are two different things. A sixty-three year lifetime of devotion shattered.
It would be one thing if this story would have been a one off, but as I’ve learned about case after case where the church has chosen the side of the perpetrator over that of the victim, it’s become clear there’s a pattern, and it’s not a pretty one, like the quilts my grandmothers used to make; it’s an ugly pattern that makes it pretty obvious that kids don’t matter here, even though, during all my years teaching in primary and young women I thought differently. Now I know. Children simply don’t matter.
Oh Meg! I have THOUGHTS about the use of a female god, not borne of woman but rather the brainchild of Zeus, being used in ancient mythology and drama to secure the legal, spiritual, and social transition to patriarchy. Every time I teach Ancient Greek drama I think about how I was taught to be grateful to Ancient Greece for the development of democracy. No one told me to be grateful for patriarchy, but I guess it was implied. Did you know that this particular story, dramatized as The Orestia, is the only full trilogy of Ancient Greek tragedies that remains extant? Did you know that, as the sun set and the men began to drink and revel, the tragedies were followed up by a lewd and comic satyr play that typically spoofed the themes of the day’s trilogy? How they might have spoofed The Orestia I can’t quite fathom. How dare they. How dare any of us play fast and loose with the lives of our children?! Thank you for sharing this. I share your rage and grief.
Whoa... Meg... Thank you for this. Having escaped the same cult you did... thank you. You put words to the anger and rage that has been brewing inside me as the waves of trauma have been surfacing over and over these last six months. I left because I refused to put my children on the altar. My beautiful, LGBTQ children some of whom had initially been placed on that altar and have their own deep wounds that need healing. I pulled them from the altar but not before the knife had cut them. And then we ran. We are all still reeling from the shock. Their blood has been stopped and their wounds are less angry and red now. But mine... I'm only just discovering the depths of my scars. This series is so so necessary. It is painful and cathartic and activating all at the same time. Thank you.
For all of the reading I have done about my polygamous ancestors I don't know how I never put it together that polygamy was the reason for crossing the plains until you wrote it. And in the case of some of my ancestors they then fled to Mexico. I wonder so often how the women in that situation felt. I do know with 100% certainty that at least one of my ancestors was not happy about her polygamous marriage (and later divorced her husband). I feel so angry sometimes at the suffering the women in my family and ancestral line have suffered at the hands of priesthood holders.
Also, the alternate telling where Artemis saves Iphigenia reminds me of the poem, "Alternate Ending: The Escape of Jephthah's Daughter" by J. Estanislao Lopez. If you've never read it I think you'd love it.
Meg, wow. I am gobsmacked by this piece. It almost reads like a play. One that leaves the audience in stunned silence at the end. Followed by a standing ovation.
These cycles are so exhausting. Every 15-20 years another group of brilliant younger women realize how screwed up the system is, and I don't know? As an older woman who has been trying for at least 40 years to get these messages across, they just won't stick. The BSA/LDS sexual abuse has been open knowledge since I was in grad school in SLC in the early 90s, and the BSA was sexually harassing me and every other woman trip leader in the BWCA in the 80s. The Catholics (my tribe) have centuries of shitty behavior under their belts, but that they've responded to wave after wave of proven clerical sexual abuse by taking refuge in bankruptcy laws, well. There's your spiritual value: real estate.
I am so so empathetic to anyone going through these realizations that their faith leaders are hollow, but I'm also so very tired. We get an outrage cycle, everyone forgets, and then the next generation of kids finds out, and we get another outrage cycle. Nothing systematic seems to ever change.
Personally, I took the Virgin of Guadalupe (an ancient American goddess with a thin veneer of Catholicism) with me and left the Church. I had to bury my mother in the Episcopalian church because the Catholics have gotten so weird and punitive about funerals, and fuck that! I'm done fighting with priests. The very nice woman priest and I came up with a beautiful service for a difficult woman, one that felt spiritually correct. I'm not saying a female clergy would solve the problem (although it would help). Remember, Margaret Thatcher and Phyllis Schlafley were women doing the dirty work of patriarchy. But we need to do this work, and we need to figure out how to make it stick. How do we tear down these systems of entrenched male power?
I want to comment but the rage needs to subside for the words to form. All I can think rn is I was raised Catholic in a parish that had priests who did not recognize Vatican II, by a father who thought he was a prophet who could speak to god and who god spoke to… and the raaaaaaaage I felt reading this is a bit overwhelming even after near fifty years, a thousand miles and his death of separation… I’m anguished at the thought it may never go away and I’m angry at the people who destroy lives like this….
I’m glad I subscribed, though. It was an impulse click...
Oh, Meg, this is a god damned masterpiece, quite literally, because God (such as she is) absolutely will damn every single one of these disgusting men in their disgusting web of abuse and lies and secrecy. Thank you for weaving it all together in a way that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but that rings so true. Wanted to throw my laptop against the wall several times while reading, which is the ultimate compliment.
This is not as extreme, but when I left the church and realized I wouldn’t have to send my sons on missions (sacrifice them on the altar of missionary service) I cried with relief. We left when they were still young and a huge part of that was realizing we did not want this for our kids. I often feel like the church raised me instead of my parents, and I didn’t want to be replaced by that institution. I didn’t even know how unsafe it was at the time. Thank you for this series.
I can't imagine how difficult this is for you to write about. Thank you. I am a practicing Catholic. Although polygamy has never been a part of our Faith, there has been plenty of abuse and cover up. There is plenty of patriarchy and hypocrisy. I too was brought up with the best examples of my Faith, mainly from my parents and 11 years of Catholic education. I struggle with how some leaders define and act within the Catholic Faith. I agree, a lament seems entirely appropriate.
I can't find the source, but I quote it all the time:
"When an organization must choose between its mission and its survival, it will choose survival every time." Organized religion is a prime example. Thank you once again Meg for calling it out.
Meg, the grace and power with which you tell this story is staggering. I wasn't raised in your tradition, but in a other one in which physical and emotional violence toward all (especially children) and deep subjugation of women are explicit and expected. I have said all my adult life that when it comes to fight or flight, I'm all fight. That did not save me from harm then, but helped me to name and eventually get away from on-going harm from that environment. I have long been seen as someone who escalates when she "should" hold the peace. I have been asked why I get so angry (i.e., told to calm down, be quiet) about the tacit enabling of people (mostly men) who perpetuate harm and injustice even in so-called liberal and progressive environs. I recognize great kinship in your description of Fury for the purpose of justice. (Right now, I'm reading through Good and Mad on the heels of The No Club. Both books resonate deeply with what you're writing here about women who take on the great risk of refusing to be silent, refusing to sacrifice and facilitate further harm. And, both books offer us models of action and further kinship.)
Meg, this is heartbreaking and breathtaking, all at once. I am a daughter of Utah pioneers, with polygamists on every branch of my family tree. I was taught to revere my heritage while ignoring the ugliness of the polygamy which blared red against the snowy white backdrop of our pioneer ancestry. I have believed and defended and served in the church my whole life, despite my adult children leaving and sharing much of what they learned along their faith journey.
Last year, in the summer of 2022, when the AP story dropped of the two little girls in Arizona and the abuse they endured for 7+ years at the hands of their father, despite the LDS bishops knowing of the abuse, my faith fell apart. I fell apart. It dawned on me; if this church, who claims to love little children, who kept me busy my whole life in service to children, can let kids endure such ugliness, then it can’t be of Jesus Christ. It can’t be good. It can’t be true, because what they claim and what they do are two different things. A sixty-three year lifetime of devotion shattered.
It would be one thing if this story would have been a one off, but as I’ve learned about case after case where the church has chosen the side of the perpetrator over that of the victim, it’s become clear there’s a pattern, and it’s not a pretty one, like the quilts my grandmothers used to make; it’s an ugly pattern that makes it pretty obvious that kids don’t matter here, even though, during all my years teaching in primary and young women I thought differently. Now I know. Children simply don’t matter.
Oh Meg! I have THOUGHTS about the use of a female god, not borne of woman but rather the brainchild of Zeus, being used in ancient mythology and drama to secure the legal, spiritual, and social transition to patriarchy. Every time I teach Ancient Greek drama I think about how I was taught to be grateful to Ancient Greece for the development of democracy. No one told me to be grateful for patriarchy, but I guess it was implied. Did you know that this particular story, dramatized as The Orestia, is the only full trilogy of Ancient Greek tragedies that remains extant? Did you know that, as the sun set and the men began to drink and revel, the tragedies were followed up by a lewd and comic satyr play that typically spoofed the themes of the day’s trilogy? How they might have spoofed The Orestia I can’t quite fathom. How dare they. How dare any of us play fast and loose with the lives of our children?! Thank you for sharing this. I share your rage and grief.
I saw your ig, and listened to your voice mail, and I realized, Meg, this is grief that you're feeling. ❤️
I’m always in grief so I think you are very right! (Ha! What is wrong with me?!)
You have a lot to let go of all at once.
Incredible. Breathtaking. Heartbreaking.
I come from an evangelical tradition that celebrates Ballard and his god forsaken movie.
I’m going to join you in that sister invocation. Sending down prayers with you.
Whoa... Meg... Thank you for this. Having escaped the same cult you did... thank you. You put words to the anger and rage that has been brewing inside me as the waves of trauma have been surfacing over and over these last six months. I left because I refused to put my children on the altar. My beautiful, LGBTQ children some of whom had initially been placed on that altar and have their own deep wounds that need healing. I pulled them from the altar but not before the knife had cut them. And then we ran. We are all still reeling from the shock. Their blood has been stopped and their wounds are less angry and red now. But mine... I'm only just discovering the depths of my scars. This series is so so necessary. It is painful and cathartic and activating all at the same time. Thank you.
Incredible work. Thank you for taking this leap.
For all of the reading I have done about my polygamous ancestors I don't know how I never put it together that polygamy was the reason for crossing the plains until you wrote it. And in the case of some of my ancestors they then fled to Mexico. I wonder so often how the women in that situation felt. I do know with 100% certainty that at least one of my ancestors was not happy about her polygamous marriage (and later divorced her husband). I feel so angry sometimes at the suffering the women in my family and ancestral line have suffered at the hands of priesthood holders.
Also, the alternate telling where Artemis saves Iphigenia reminds me of the poem, "Alternate Ending: The Escape of Jephthah's Daughter" by J. Estanislao Lopez. If you've never read it I think you'd love it.
*and now I also feel angry for the suffering and quieting of so many men at the hands of priesthood holders.
Meg, wow. I am gobsmacked by this piece. It almost reads like a play. One that leaves the audience in stunned silence at the end. Followed by a standing ovation.
Oh Meg, gosh this is so good. Thank you.
These cycles are so exhausting. Every 15-20 years another group of brilliant younger women realize how screwed up the system is, and I don't know? As an older woman who has been trying for at least 40 years to get these messages across, they just won't stick. The BSA/LDS sexual abuse has been open knowledge since I was in grad school in SLC in the early 90s, and the BSA was sexually harassing me and every other woman trip leader in the BWCA in the 80s. The Catholics (my tribe) have centuries of shitty behavior under their belts, but that they've responded to wave after wave of proven clerical sexual abuse by taking refuge in bankruptcy laws, well. There's your spiritual value: real estate.
I am so so empathetic to anyone going through these realizations that their faith leaders are hollow, but I'm also so very tired. We get an outrage cycle, everyone forgets, and then the next generation of kids finds out, and we get another outrage cycle. Nothing systematic seems to ever change.
Personally, I took the Virgin of Guadalupe (an ancient American goddess with a thin veneer of Catholicism) with me and left the Church. I had to bury my mother in the Episcopalian church because the Catholics have gotten so weird and punitive about funerals, and fuck that! I'm done fighting with priests. The very nice woman priest and I came up with a beautiful service for a difficult woman, one that felt spiritually correct. I'm not saying a female clergy would solve the problem (although it would help). Remember, Margaret Thatcher and Phyllis Schlafley were women doing the dirty work of patriarchy. But we need to do this work, and we need to figure out how to make it stick. How do we tear down these systems of entrenched male power?
(Sorry Meg, I seem to have written a mini-essay).
I want to comment but the rage needs to subside for the words to form. All I can think rn is I was raised Catholic in a parish that had priests who did not recognize Vatican II, by a father who thought he was a prophet who could speak to god and who god spoke to… and the raaaaaaaage I felt reading this is a bit overwhelming even after near fifty years, a thousand miles and his death of separation… I’m anguished at the thought it may never go away and I’m angry at the people who destroy lives like this….
I’m glad I subscribed, though. It was an impulse click...
Oh, Meg, this is a god damned masterpiece, quite literally, because God (such as she is) absolutely will damn every single one of these disgusting men in their disgusting web of abuse and lies and secrecy. Thank you for weaving it all together in a way that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but that rings so true. Wanted to throw my laptop against the wall several times while reading, which is the ultimate compliment.
This is not as extreme, but when I left the church and realized I wouldn’t have to send my sons on missions (sacrifice them on the altar of missionary service) I cried with relief. We left when they were still young and a huge part of that was realizing we did not want this for our kids. I often feel like the church raised me instead of my parents, and I didn’t want to be replaced by that institution. I didn’t even know how unsafe it was at the time. Thank you for this series.
I can't imagine how difficult this is for you to write about. Thank you. I am a practicing Catholic. Although polygamy has never been a part of our Faith, there has been plenty of abuse and cover up. There is plenty of patriarchy and hypocrisy. I too was brought up with the best examples of my Faith, mainly from my parents and 11 years of Catholic education. I struggle with how some leaders define and act within the Catholic Faith. I agree, a lament seems entirely appropriate.
I can't find the source, but I quote it all the time:
"When an organization must choose between its mission and its survival, it will choose survival every time." Organized religion is a prime example. Thank you once again Meg for calling it out.