Spinning Parallel Lines

So in two weeks I'm heading back to DC for the weekend to visit Christian and I can't tell you how excited I am. It's the first time I've been back since I served my mission out there so naturally my mission has been on my mind more than not lately.

Chris goes to church in the same building that the Spanish ward meets in that I served in for 6 of my 16 months in the field. He knows all the leadership and goes to their firesides. He attends meetings in the same chapel that people I taught were baptized and confirmed in. It's a strange comfort to know part of me, even by blood extension, is still tending to that flock.*

So naturally I've been more than a little reminiscent and pensive about my 16 months in DC and what I learned there and who I was and who I became.

DC is a demographic wonderland and being a missionary there was a trip on Planet Unicorn almost everyday. One of the dimensions of the social landscape that was really really different from home was the amazing number of Muslims there were. In every apartment complex we lived in, the majority of the other people were these beautiful meek Muslim families. We'd come out of whatever Quick-E mart with a snack and turn the corner and find a few individuals at noon time prayer with their little carpets in the parking space next to ours. It was pretty common thing. Some women wore scarves, some didn't, some wore the burkha, some didn't. I'm not going to lie, the burkhas took me a while to get used to. We called them ninjas because looking over in traffic and only seeing a black hood driving in the car next to me startled me more than once. Or when we went down to do laundry they were there too, with their munchkins in tow, doing their thing.

I figured we were equally as weird with our name tags on so I struck up conversations and they were responsive, educated, and very well mannered**, we borrowed each other's soap and fabric softener, I played with their kids while they folded and they almost always let me in in traffic***. Out of everyone, and they types of everyone, I met in DC the Muslim women were the kindest and the most comforting. On the hot hot hot days they were the ones that let us in, even if they didn't speak a lick of the language. They just nodded, smiled, gestured for us to sit down, gave us something cool to drink and politely just sat with us****. They also were the only ones that let us in on the snowy days with something warm to drink. Most times they couldn't communicate with us, they just knew we were in need and they helped us. Plain as that.

This was all before 9/11 and I cannot tell you how grateful I was for that social education during that disaster. There were a few times that I was walking to my car from class and saw a group of guys teasing a Muslim girl about her scarf and poking and prodding her asking to see her hair. Both times I shooed them away, put my arm around the girl and walked her to her car or waited with her to get picked up, and both times the poor girl was trembling. I could tell that the guys weren't being malicious, just troublesome. They didn't understand how terrifying and invasive that would've been to her, but thankfully I did. And after all the kindness I've received how I could I do anything else? Especially for them? That kind of ignorance angers me. A LOT. I talked to the security guard a couple of times too. Totally inexcusable. But I digress...

So - with all this stirring in my mind this article was in my LA Times feed on my iGoogle this morning and it gave me pause.

I know that critics are chomping at the bit to exploit these kind of friendships and scream patriotic blasphemy, but if you look at the world's population 2.1 billion are Christian and 1.5 billion are Muslim and the majority of the Muslim population live in countries that stand in need, so naturally if we're sending aid to people who need it there is a good chance that they'll be Muslim. And honestly, I can't think of a people I'd rather associate myself with than them. They are some of the most kind, genuine, principled and disciplined people around. I was so happy when I read this article.

Understanding is such an empowering thing, I just really wish more people were open to it. I desperately don't want people to judge my faith by the toothless and badly dressed Polygamist redneck wonders that claim to be LDS so I won't judge every girl around me wearing a scarf as an anarchist extremist with bomb recipes in their glove compartments.

I don't know why honest belief in something scares so many people. Belief is a beautiful thing, if not the most beautiful thing, and the only thing that leads to honest human connection. I hope you'll give a smile and a nod to our scarfed sisters and hard-working brothers because they are amazing people. Truly amazing.

* When the ward heard I was coming back not only did they remember me but they're throwing me a "Welcome Home Party". I was so touched when I heard I cried.
**something I VASTLY appreciate. Manners are a lost art and something that strangely really matters to me.
*** signs of serious virtue in DC traffic (read: Insanity)
**** and can I just sing the praises for keeping alive the lost art of being someones company. It goes back to the manners thing I think.

Marching Orders

It is a marvelous thing to be a woman.

I sometimes feel sorry for my noble male counter parts because they don't get to see the 5th dimension of things like women-folk get to.

I've been thinking a lot about what that means recently. And as I have I've gotten continuously more and more irked at the "fruits" of the Feminist Revolution. Here - a generation after the fireworks I see a lot of things that concern me.

It's a delicate insanity.

I see women who are marvelous and amazing and precious abandoning themselves and their gorgeous feminine natures and their rights as women to be mothers for what they've learned is being "a woman".

We dress like men, cut our hair like men, make our bodies hard and curveless like men, take on their manner of speech, embrace their (general) stoic dispositions, devalue relationships, elbow them out of their God-given drive and right to provide in the work place, all of these things are everywhere all with the intent to be a "better woman".

This is bad for MANY reasons.

Principally, it neuters our future generations of men. Women - Ladies... we need our men. And we need our men to be men. There are holes to dig and wars to fight and spiders to kill and we could do all of them if we needed to but our men were built to. That's what they do. That's how they feel important and useful. That's how they show us that they love us. How cruel is it to not let them? And frankly, I think it takes a stronger woman to let a man take care of those things than to just do it yourself. If we're doing all of the manly stuff we're upsetting the balance of things. Consequently men don't have much wiggle room and sadly there has been a trend of them becoming a lazy, high maintenance, ungentlemanly and flat out weak and cowardly bunch. It's sad, and I don't like to dwell on it because there are marvelous men out there too. I'm related to a number of them, but its a trend I can't ignore either.

And whats worse is that they are frustrated. They're being told to do one thing but then being criticized and when they do and criticized when they don't. Its a horrible cycle. If they get up and be men we consider them arrogant and if they don't then we consider them weak. Its a lose/lose and it breaks my heart to see. Men are programmed to make their women happy. Its their finest hour when we're speechless with gratitude. If we're constantly displeased no one is happy - ever. And you know the only way to fix it?

Letting women be Women. Then men can be Men.

After this weekend I feel the amazing task and blessing of being a woman. And not just being a woman but being a woman of God. Saturday was the General Relief Society meeting and I have not felt more filled and inspired by one in ages.

I love our leadership.

I love our calling as women.

And mostly I loved the fact that we have been righteous enough to get some marching orders. These meetings are usually really wonderful but I, sometimes, walk away feeling kind of patted on the head. They tell us that we're wonderful and that they love us and that we're doing a wonderful job and what we do doesn't go unnoticed and I bet a lot of us really need to hear that. If not they probably wouldn't have said it. But I sometimes feel like I failed a little too because I never felt very instructed, just praised. I don't know if its my manic tasky nature but it always felt like more of a spiritual bubble bath than a work out. And I expect a training session at General meetings - ya know?

But not this last time. Its probably just a case of me cleaning out the wax from my own ears but I really felt praised and inspired and instructed. Sister Beck and her councillors are so marvelous. I tear up just thinking about them and their tender, intensely feminine strength and their charge and belief in us to become not just members of The Church but Defenders of it. Schooled, learned, tried and passionate defenders of marriage and family and the home by means of being scholars of the doctrines of Jesus Christ and being unmoved in our testimonies. Not because we can do hospital bed corners in 10 seconds flat. Not because we're canning machines. Not because we've quilted enough blankets to build a bridge between Salt Lake and Nigeria. No - that is all secondary to our studied out personal findings of the scriptures and our relationship with the Lord. I love it.

And what more important things can we be called to take proverbial arms up for? What is it that we're programmed to do above all else? And to do it as Women of God and with His blessing and power. I can't say it enough -

Its a marvelous thing to be a woman.

And its a beautiful thing to be a Woman of God.