Back to Church

Don’t let the title deceive you. This isn’t happening.

But it did for one day.

A couple weeks ago I kept having this nagging “prompting.” That’s the Mormon word for it, and I’m happy to use that word. After all, I still believe in a higher intelligence that is happy to communicate. 

So, I kept feeling prompted to go to church. 

As an ex-Mormon, this was troubling. 

FIRST, I felt prompted to leave the Mormon church, too.

SECOND, I know far too much to ever be happy in a Mormon church ever again.

THIRD, I have very good reasons for keeping my family AWAY from Mormonism. 

Why on earth was I feeling prompted, then, to go to church? 

Saturday night I confessed my desires to attend church to my husband. As he is ALSO an ex-Mormon, the conversation went something like this: 

Me: “I really want to go to church on Sunday.”

Nathan: “Okay, that’s fine.”

Me: “I mean the MORMON church. I want to go to church on Sunday.”

Nathan: *begins sweating intensely, while trying to seem supportive.* “Um… okay. Is that like…”

Me: “I would go by myself. I don’t want my kids anywhere near it.”

Nathan: *visibly relaxes* “Okay. But, why do you want to go?”

Me: “I don’t know. I just really want to.”

I went to bed Saturday feeling pretty certain I would change my mind in the morning. But I woke up bright and early, and still eager. So I put on a dress, and headed out the door.

The last time I was in a church building was in 2020. My husband had told me he didn’t believe anymore, but attended with me and kids anyway. He suffered through priesthood lessons about “unhappy non-believers” - a lesson that seemed catered exclusively to him, as I’d made the mistake of telling the bishop about him mentally stepping away. We made the decision to move just weeks after that. As someone clutching to the church, at that time, having the church disrespect my husband like that made any hope of religious belonging impossible, there. Then Covid hit.

We moved into a new ward during the pandemic, so we never attended church in the building. I zoomed several services, but thanks to distance during the apocalypse, I’d had the break I needed to evaluate my feelings and own personal beliefs. I saw hypocrisy, and after watching zoom church one day where person after person bore their testimony about the BISHOP, I realized I couldn’t do it - not here.

Then, as I said earlier, I had the promptings to leave. The final break was finding I was pregnant with a girl. That was it, then. It was over. For her, I could do it. We resigned. I didn’t want ANY ties between my daughter and the Mormons - not even being a “child of record.”

We moved to Missouri, then, and never attended.

In college, an FHE brother paid me the sincere compliment that, “You don’t ACT like a Utah Mormon.” I’d appreciated it immensely at the time. But I pondered as I was driving to the church, here in Missouri, that I had no idea what to expect. Would these people be completely different than what I typically expected at church? 

Pulling into the parking lot, I saw that they weren’t very different at all. Women with perfect long hair. Girls in puffy, sweet dresses. Heels on the moms. Ties on the boys. 

All I saw was women trying VERY VERY hard. I put suspenders on my boys, for church, too. I remember that work. And I told myself I was happy, looking prim on Sundays. They were all trying SO hard.

I don’t know how I made it into the church unnoticed. The same familiar scratchy carpet walls. The identical white Jesus paintings in the foyer. 

I sat in the overflow, which wasn’t exactly empty, and managed to avoid the missionaries, as they were part of the group passing the sacrament. No one else greeted me. I had a line prepared, and everything. “I’m just here for academic purposes.” 

Was it purely academia? 

I’d never given Missouri church a chance. But, turned out, Missouri church was still Mormon church. 

I wondered why I’d felt prompted to go to church. The first speaker was all the answer I needed.

I needed to attend my Missouri ward to remind myself, and assure potential future me, just how much this place was NOT, nor would it EVER be a refuge for me, or a resource - even just for community.

The entire first talk was devoted to convincing themselves that non-Mormons and ex-Mormons, like myself, will never truly be happy. I took notes:

“Where do our brothers and sisters who do not attend any church find their peace?”

“Peace comes from obedience to the commandments of God, which commandments are not a few.”

“The gift of peace is given after we have the faith to keep His commandments.”

“I think those that don’t attend church abide in a lesser level of peace and community.” 

         (- Okay, but for the record, that point got me. “A lesser level of community,” is my number one             complaint, after leaving Mormonism. But it’s not like the Mormon church is doing anything to fix that - by giving talks and addresses like this, assuring Mormons that exes and nonmembers are unhappy and broken. Then you never have a chance of mutually respectful relationships with the people from your past.)

“A lot of people who are not a part of a Christian community are wracked by guilt.”

“This (peace) is something the secular world can never offer.”

The real kicker was when the speaker took the movie Nacho Libre, and drew a TERRIBLY incorrect conclusion. I know this, because I LOVE Nacho Libre. 

The speaker described a conversation Nacho has with Steven, his faithful sidekick. Steven tells Nacho he doesn’t believe in God. He believes in Science. And he doesn’t even like the orphans.

Later in the movie, Steven smiles and says that he feels differently now. He likes the orphans!

At no point does Steven say that he believes in God now. Steven learned to love the orphans without listening to a single sermon about God. But the speaker at church stated that Steven’s turn around was because he came to believe in Jesus. 

NOT TRUE.

Fact. Secularists and even atheists can, and DO, love the orphans.

Turns out, the Mormons are alive and well in convincing themselves that everyone who believes differently than them is suffering, and not “really” happy.

Turns out, the Mormons are still fixated on trying to find happiness by earning it, through keeping commandments, rather than doing as the Bible states: “Be still and know that I am God.” 

The greatest peace I ever found was when I acknowledged that I am who I am. I am a good person. I was not born in sin. I am not so horrible that I need to be saved from hellfire. I am known for who and what I was made to be and am. 

“When we do what we are supposed to do, He [God] is bound as well.”

Mormons have a transactional Jesus - a God that must be bought and manipulated to provide peace, through our good behavior. 

After the closing prayer I left before anyone would have the chance to catch me. I left, and went to my favorite coffee shop down the road. I drove home, changed my clothes, and played with my family for the rest of the day. 

I didn’t have to ask God for clarification. I got it, and God knew that I got it. We shared in that experience, and the knowing understanding of it, together. It was in the quiet drive, in the open window, in the cake pop I solidly devoured, taking off that dress, and the playful smiles of my children. Even in their grumpy, snotty yelling, too! 

All children are like that, after all. ALL of them have good days and bad. 

Peace is not a commodity that can be given or earned. Peace is something you can have whenever you choose to have it. Peace is found in stasis, in authenticity, in kindness. Peace is found in any number of ways, and all of those ways are different for different people.

I went to church because God told me to go. Then God reminded me that I never have to go back there again. God is not so small.

Mormons (And Ex-Mormons) in Missouri

Since moving to Missouri, I made traveling to Mormon historical sites a goal of mine. I am a lover of history, and Mormon history, in particular, has great meaning to me. So much of the history of Mormonism has affected my life, my upbringing, my culture of origin, and ultimately, my feelings about psychedelics. 

(Just kidding, but not kidding. That’s a great Mormon history rabbit hole that I will not be addressing today. I’ll just let that wet your palate, shall I?)

Mormon history, ultimately, led me to leaving Mormonism. Much of the trauma of leaving the religion of my origin had to do with “truth.” I have always been much of a “black and white” thinker. If it is true, then nothing else matters. If it is false, then it is not true, and it doesn’t matter. TRUTH has been a lifelong motivator. 

As I came to recognize that my church did not always behave morally, I wrestled with truth. If the church was TRUE - truth and authority for salvation restored by God - momentary human-wrought mistakes didn’t matter. The truth mattered, and the correct, or TRUE, method of “making it right” by God was of ultimate importance. 

Learning about the church’s history, however, convinced me this was no “restoration” act, but rather, a series of predictable, manipulative actions by an intelligent conman, carried away on his quest for power and dreams of grandeur. 

His grandeur is still spoken of, by the LDS Church. It’s in the retelling of “inspired” stories - his refusing alcohol for a leg surgery as a small child, or welcoming people off the boats of the Mississippi River into Nauvoo, personally. The LDS Church has a great vision for who their prophet is and was. Studying history gave me a different perspective on Joseph Smith Jr. Here was a man who was a tad bit lazy. He was prone to violence and lust. He didn’t seem to feel it was wrong to deceive people to achieve his own ends. 

My trip to Nauvoo was a trip to study Joseph’s lust. I wrote about that dishonesty. Heck, I’ve FELT that dishonesty, and the sexism it bred in the society and culture that followed. This last weekend, however, I took advantage of a couple school holidays and brought my children (and mother!) to visit Kansas City and church sites there. The Mormons’ experience in Missouri is a different kind of study and lesson that can be learned from. Try as I might, I can’t think of a better descriptor of the lesson than this - FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, Joseph, just SHUT UP!

To provide some history - 

New York, Kirtland Ohio, Jackson County (Independence) Missouri, Caldwell County (Far West/Adam-ondi-Ahman) Missouri, Nauvoo Illinois, Utah. (This is extremely simplified, but that’s your Mormon Locations Timeline.)

The Saints moved from Kirtland to Independence at the recommendations of Oliver Cowdery and others, who found a place on the western frontier that they felt the saints could settle, in relative safety and independence. Jackson County was already inhabited, however, and the saints arrived and immediately did not make a great impression with the locals.

Slavery was a part of it. Jackson County had slave owners. The Mormons were not huge into slavery at the time. In the “Mob Manifesto” of July 1833, which detailed the reasons behind the mob uprisings against the Mormons, they waste no time waxing long in their racist concerns regarding Mormons “inviting free negroes and mulattoes from other states to become ‘Mormons,’ and remove and settle among us.” The Jackson County citizens were rightly concerned that this would inspire their slaves to revolution. (While, simultaneously, racist-ly mentioning that “we are not prepared …to receive into the bosom of our families, as fit companions for our wives and daughters, the degraded and corrupted free negroes and mulattoes that are now invited to settle among us.”)

Hands down? This is a great reason to dislike the Jackson County locals, and side with the Mormons. No doubt, this is pretty racist and ugly, and, like I said, they didn’t mention this concern casually in the Mob Manifesto. Oh, they elaborate. This was a big deal to them.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t their only concern about the Mormons, though. They were not a fan of the Mormons’ religion. They viewed the Mormons as fanatics. They note, however, “If they had been respectable citizens in society and thus deluded, they would have been entitled to our pity rather than to our contempt and hatred.” They felt that the Mormons were lazy and idle. They felt that they had brought nothing with them to Missouri, and continued on, contributing nothing but social strife. 

“They declare openly that their God hath given them this county of land, and that sooner or later they must and will have possession of our lands for an inheritance.” 

A contemporaneous revelation from the Doctrine and Covenants stated: “Wherefore, the land of Zion shall not be obtained but by purchase or by blood, otherwise there is none inheritance for you.” (D&C 63:29). 

David Whitmer warned against the publication of this revelation, foretelling that the citizens of the county would kick them out, in defense of their families and property if it was published. Whitmer recorded that in response to his warning, Joseph and Sidney (Rigdon) laughed at him.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, Joseph, just SHUT UP. 

But no. So, sure enough, the mob kicked the saints out of the county. The Mob Manifesto addressed the desired protocol for removal - “…After timely warning, and receiving an adequate compensation for what little property they cannot take with them, they refuse to leave us in peace, as they found us - we agree to use such means as may be sufficient to remove them.”

You can debate for a long time if this was fair - and honestly, I can see both sides. The Mormons, however, were not innocent. They claimed “dibs” to land that was already inhabited, and stated that it was rightfully theirs, and they would take it “by blood” if necessary. 

I would kick that kid off of my bus, too. 

What followed was the Mormon Missouri War, and the beginning of my historical sites trip. 

The site I wanted to see more than any other? The Battle of Crooked River.

The Battle of Crooked River (October 1838) was far from the first act of aggression in this war, but it was solidly not a good one, on the part of the Mormons. It was also one that I read about, early on in my deep dive into “not LDS approved literature” history, which shattered some of the illusions for me. 

At this point, there were ex-Mormons, who were fleeing Caldwell County for their safety, from a group innocently called “The Daughters of Zion,” who would eventually be more popularly known as Danites. The Danites were formed for the purpose of driving these ex-Mormons out of their community - ex-Mormons like Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer. The Danites swore an oath, under the direction of Joseph Smith Jr: “I do solemnly obligate myself ever to conceal, and never to reveal, the secret purposes of this society called the Daughters of Zion. Should I ever do the same, I hold my life as the forfeiture.” Thus, members of the society swore, under penalty of death, to keep their secrets. “Instruction was given by Joseph Smith Jr that if any of them should get into a difficulty, the rest should help him out; and that they should stand by each other, right or wrong.”

Joseph Smith Jr had given public addresses, noting that the Mormons “had been an injured people,” and then provided an anecdote about a captain who wanted to buy potatoes from a Dutchman, who wouldn’t sell him any. The captain charged his company, several times, “not” to touch the Dutchman’s potatoes, and by morning, the Dutchman didn’t have any potatoes left. *wink wink, nudge nudge* Joseph Smith followed it up by telling the people that “the children of God did not go to war at their own expense.”Lyman Wight, additionally, in testimony, was reported to have commented that, per the Mormon’s goals, he thought they would be in St. Louis before the end of winter, and “take it.” The Mormons were preparing for war, and not just in defense of their county. Joseph Smith had compared the church to the stone mentioned in Daniel - “the dissenters first, and the State next, was part of the image that should be destroyed by this little stone.” 

Shops were looted then set fire to in Gallatin and Millport. The Daughters of Zion set up articles which, upon reading, look very much like the beginning of constitution-like documents for a theocracy. Sidney Rigdon gave the “Salt Sermon,” which inferred the ex-Mormon dissenters were salt that had lost its savor, and should be trampled out - which Danites knew was their duty to do. Farr West was practically under marshall law, with members being told that they ought to take up arms, or lose their property. 

Lives were being threatened. According to reports, the people of Daviess County fled, as the Mormons moved on it. People were terrified, and the state militia was put on alert. Captain Samuel Bogart was given orders to protect the line between Ray and Caldwell Counties, and prevent invasion into Ray County by putting down violence or persons in arms, any means necessary.

Bogart responded by taking weapons and “hostages.” We have the names of the “hostages,” but no information about why they were being held. I am inclined to believe that they were likely threatening in some manner. To take hostages for personal, stupid reasons, seems unnecessary and unwieldy, given the circumstances. Captain Bogart would have been within his rights to suppress violence, and take violent prisoners. But the Mormons interpreted this action as cause for battle, and marched on Bogart, who, for reminder, had a “state appointed” militia. They were official. So while the Mormons had their own militia, technically, they were attacking one that was government sanctioned.

At daybreak on the 25th, 150-200 Mormons marched on Bogart’s company at the Battle of Crooked River. Ultimately, four lives were lost - three of which were Mormons, but Bogart’s company scattered when the Mormons charged on them, crossing the river. It sounds like a fairly mild battle - only four casualties - but a small action that followed, at the end of the battle, changed my mind about the goodness of the parties involved in the battle.

When my family drove to the location of the site of the Battle of Crooked River, we found the site inaccessible. An old road had completely grown over with weeds and small trees, and the field was fenced off. But, in this picture we took from the road, the battle would have taken place just behind the tree line in the background. 

The Battle of Crooked River shocked me, because of the story of Samuel Tarwater. Samuel Tarwater was a member of Bogart’s militia. Tarwater was injured, and fell unconscious. The Mormons, then, did something that I, as an active Mormon, wouldn’t have expected. They mutilated him. 

Parley P Pratt and other Danites proceeded to slit the unconscious Tarwater’s throat, break his lower jaw, and cut off his cheeks. Then they left him for dead. Tarwater did NOT die, and actually became the first person to collect a pension in the state of Missouri - $100 a year, for the injuries he sustained in the Battle of Crooked River. He died at 93, and his obituary brags that despite the Mormons mutilating him and leaving him for dead, he managed to outlive even Brigham Young! 

I was horrified to read that Parley P Pratt slit the throat of an unarmed, unconscious man, and THEN mutilated him further. That cute little Mormon missionary?!? 

Further digging into Pratt led me to discovering that he was murdered in Arkansas by the angry ex-husband of Pratt’s 12th wife, which ultimately was a contributing factor in why the Mormons treated the Arkansas migrants of the Mountain Meadows Massacre as they did. (True history is always much more exciting, when it comes to Mormonism.)

But Pratt’s actions during this battle helped me reframe all those church movies for myself. I loved the church movies. Joseph Smith, always so handsome and gentle. The Missourians, always growling and cursing, and usually shown drinking with a gun in hand, yelling and mocking in gnarly voices, “Prophesy, Smith!” 

Reading about this battle was a huge turning point for me, in my understanding of Missouri and Mormon relations. Because, it turns out, the church movies were wrong. Joseph Smith was calling himself a General, was encouraging people to loot and steal, and had plans to take over territory in Missouri - by bloodshed, if necessary. He encouraged violent thinking. It was Mormons burning homes. It was their own violent speech and aggression that led to retaliation by Missourians, defending THEIR homes and families. It was after this battle that Governor Boggs issues the extermination order. Ironically, Sidney Rigdon had used the term “extermination” in regards to what the Mormons would do to the Missourians several months prior, in a Fourth of July speech. Mormons, just SHUT UP…

The Haun’s Mill Massacre took place AFTER the Battle of Crooked River, and has been termed a “Mad-Dog” killing in response to that battle. The Missourians, who had been driven from their homes and watched as the Mormons took over more and more land with looting and burning of buildings, and now bloodshed, including mutilation, viewed the Mormons as the dangerous aggressors. Do I think shooting people at Haun’s Mill was justified? No, I don’t. I’m actually opposed to violence in most situations. But I do see the Missourians’ actions as UNDERSTANDABLE. 

The Battle of Crooked River helped me understand that the narrative of victimhood was not accurate.

What happened, after all of this violence? Liberty Jail - the next stop on my personal family tour.

When we got to Liberty Jail, there were actual people present, and not just dirt roads and countryside that I had been dragging my children and mother through, looking for one specific spot on “some crooked river” that was important to me. 

The boys were thrilled to get out of the car and run around, and as always, there were lovely senior missionaries at the site, who always deserve an A+ on working with small children. I was a bit more impatient, this church history trip. When the sister missionary put us in a room to watch a “short video,” it turned out that it had nothing to do with Liberty Jail, but was, in fact, a video on the Plan of Salvation. 

I’m an ex-missionary, too. I knew the video, and didn’t feel it was helpful or appropriate for my children, who are now an age where I’m feeling VERY protective of them and the messaging they are receiving. So we left the video room and I politely informed the missionary that, “We really just wanted to see the jail, if that’s okay.” So she brought us in. 

Liberty Jail was the first maximum security prison in the country. The walls were designed specifically so that if a prisoner was tunneling out, once they hit the loose rocks in the center, the jailers would hear them and be alerted to the problem. Joseph Smith was one of those situations, apparently. He had attempted to tunnel out, but when it was discovered, he and his party were moved to the basement dungeon, and subsequently had fewer visitors and worse conditions. Again? Joseph, SHUT UP. He brought the conditions on himself. 

The missionary began explaining why Joseph was jailed. “Charges of treason.” Smart-mouthed me remarked we had just come from the Battle of Crooked River site. The missionary was ready to tango in historical facts, apparently! “Only four lives were lost in a battle that took less than five minutes - three of whom were Mormons!”

I’ll sum up a few conversation key points, in my own words.

“So you don’t believe Joseph Smith actually WAS guilty of treason?” (I’ve read the Senate document (189) from his trial for treason and crimes against the state.)

“They didn’t even let Mormons testify.” (They did.)

“What do you think of quotes where Joseph Smith states that the laws of man no longer apply to him?” 

“Those are misquoted and inaccurate.” 

(“When God sets up a system of salvation, he sets up a system of government. When I speak of a government, I mean what I say. I mean a government that shall rule over temporal and spiritual affairs.” OR, from the senate documents in his treason trial - “Smith said he had been before courts some twenty odd times… and that made him of age; and he would submit to it no longer.”)

“How did Joseph eventually escape from the jail?”

“They let him go.” (He bribed the guards during a prison transfer.) 

It was triggering that this woman had more than your average knowledge, when it came to the Mormon Missouri War, but that she continued to ignore and discredit credible sources, to put the Mormons in the best light possible. We left relatively quickly, as a jail is a jail, and I didn’t want to hear her boo and woe about how cramped tall Joseph Smith must have felt down in that cold dungeon he put himself inside of. I also didn’t want to be mean to her. (I can tolerate some oversimplification of Mormon history, but not from people who have more knowledge, and STILL make Joseph a victim.)

After Liberty Jail, we went to Independence - the location where the Mormons started out, in Missouri, and the location where the Mormons believe they will eventually return, some day. The Visitor’s Center there reminded me of the Visitor’s Center on Temple Square - complete with cute little houses and videos about families and temples for children. I met Sister and Elder DeMille - related to me through Freeborn DeMill, but through the other son, Oliver. We went through the historical tour downstairs, where I informed my children that these were stories about their ancestors, and about their ancestor’s beliefs. They didn’t talk war, but general Book of Mormon, which I was fine with my children hearing about. The guide was wonderful, and catered her presentation to the children, telling them about the homes of the time period, and showing them how books were made from printing presses. My children had a great time playing in the pioneer house, and on the horse and wagon which their ancestors would have traveled by.

Independence and other portions of Missouri were simply lessons, for me, in what the Mormons COULD have had if they had just learned to SHUT UP about how great they thought they were, and about how God wanted them to have what other people had, and how they’d take it by force, and recruit the indigenous Americans to help them go to war to take what wasn’t theirs in the first place, because GOD said that…

SHUT. UP.

SHUT UP and focus on love. SHUT UP and stop focusing on your differences, and what you think makes you better. Joseph Smith, just SHUT. UP. and stop making your people suffer because of your stupid big fat head and all the things you want. Just SHUT UP. 

When my children are older, I will answer their questions about all of this myself. 

And I hope that they DO ask questions. I hope they ask every question they can think of, and that they don’t take my word for it, on any of my answers. My children will be raised by ex-Mormons, who have had their pasts inescapably painted by this religion. I want them to know for themselves the questions we wrestled with, the decisions we made, and why. I want them to know that everything I did, I did for them. I want them to be able to make informed, free decisions for themselves, without fear of manipulative social, familial, or eternal repercussions. 

I know these children, and they are good. They are better than the supposedly good men that they would have been taught to follow if I had remained a Mormon. Their futures don’t need to be tied to faulty visions of the past. They can be their own men. (And woman!) And I am so proud to see what they choose to make of their own lives, by their own authority, with their own goodness. 

Clever and Independent

Some days I feel clever and independent. Some days I feel more clever and independent than other days. Some days I feel neither clever NOR independent.

Today I’m average. 

I think I told a witty joke at work training, this morning, but that was the extent of my cleverness. So far as independence goes, I don’t feel much like that at all, really. It’s hard to feel independent when you’re not the bread winner in your family, and you have several small children dependent upon you for life necessities. Arguably, I’ve never been so “forced” into dependence as I am now, with children. To insist on perfect independence at this point would feel immoral. I chose these children, so now I will see them through, in raising them. (Happily. Happily, in my case, I should add.) 

An old Elder Holland quote from 2003 has resurfaced, in recent days, attached to a picture of “modern” Holland, where Holland accused people who leave the church and lead others away from “faithfulness” as wanting to be “clever and independent.” It is an odd accusation, but milder than the more recent President Nelson accusation that those who leave the church are “Lazy Learners and Lax Disciples.”

I’m still trying to figure this quote out. As often happens, you can say a lot of words that sound nice, but have layers of interpretation, often with nefarious insinuations. So forgive me if I’m interpreting this differently than you. Jesus taught in parables, so that we could learn what we were ready to learn. Maybe Holland is attempting the same.

But per my interpretations, and past experience, it looks like, in addition to name calling, they’ve also additionally said that when we leave the church, we are selfish in our “faithfulness” decisions, in some kind of petty popularity ploy, and that we are damaging our children (and others) through our selfishness.

But I have to ask. Are “educated,” “logical,” and “discerning” the same as “clever?” Does the church still consider “intellectuals” their enemies? Is it really so wrong to look at the church - the history, the present, all of it - and form intelligent and fully-informed conclusions? Does that make us “clever”? Who knew. I guess I DO want to be clever.

I can assure, my cleverness was also discussed between me and God, at length, when I was having my faith crisis. It was God who guided me in my conclusions, and ultimately, my decision to leave the church - “away from faithfulness.” So God must be fairly clever as well.

Then the attack on independence. 

I’m trying to piece this together. Is Holland stating that parents who move “away from faithfulness,” (which, in Mormonism, any move away from THEIR specific church is), are parents who are resentful of their dependent children, and are parents who wish to be independent from their children’s needs? Or, in the case of “others,” are we considered resentful of natural community group psychological needs for togetherness and belonging, so we dump “faithfulness” in our efforts to achieve independence? And inadvertently take others with us? 

I love that I can be accused of “just desiring independence.” It sounds like Holland accused people who leave the church of “just doing it for attention,” or “to be special.” 

It’s true. When I left the church, I wanted to be independent. It was a major part of why I removed my name formally. I didn’t want to be controlled, or threatened with hellfire by any man who might take it upon himself to do so. So yes, I wanted to be independent. I wanted my salvation to be worked out with fear and trembling in my own hands, not in check marks on paperwork in some corporate office building. 

Strange, that a desire for independent faithfulness would be considered a “bad” thing. 

Trust. If Elder Holland genuinely believed what he was saying here, it shows a complete lack of trust in people to have personal revelation, or personal relationships with deity, that they can work out on their own. 

The ability to choose is something that church doctrine preaches as being a principle so valuable it was the reason behind the war in heaven. Christ, and so all of us, fought for the ability to retain our agency - our ability to choose right and wrong. We fought for the ability to fail. Do we genuinely doubt God so much so that we do not believe God can save those who choose what they genuinely feel to be right? Do we doubt God’s power so much that we doubt His ability to save the children of those who have “been led astray”? Did God’s original plan not account for actual agency, that now we need to remind everyone that they don’t actually have “the license” to act on their own consciences? Their own revelation? Their own spirits? 

I think what we see here is telling. Someone brought up this old 2003 quote, attached it to a present day picture of Elder Holland, to make it seem more presently important, and resurfaced the quote. 

But why?

The church is losing membership at an alarming rate. At this point, it’s an undeniable fact. (Wheat and tares, sure, comfort yourself how you will, but I will see only the failed interpretation of prophecy of a stone cut from the mountain without hands.) Someone, somewhere, saw this quote, and thought it applied to today’s situation, and resurrected it. But what does this quote do? 

Guilt. Shame. Threatening. Otherizing. 

These are terrible ways to encourage a congregation to “stay in the church.” It is blatant manipulation in the very least, but likely also spiritually abusive. 

If people disagree with US, there’s something wrong with them, and they are bad, and not as good as US. Right? 

Every time some church leader quote pops up, like this, it is infuriating. “You can leave the church, but you can’t leave the church alone,” you may say. Damn right. Because of my family. Because I have siblings and parents who Holland was addressing, here. Frankly, Holland was addressing ME, and it made me a terrible bigot, who couldn’t see past her own religion to view the non-Mormon people in her life as GOOD.

Today, this quote made me mad, because it brought up all of my ever-present concerns about my family. Because although this quote is from 2003, it is literally still being taught today. 

The church is telling my family that I am self-absorbed, and just doing this for attention.

The church is telling my family that I am stupid, and looking for excuses to sin, because I LIKE to sin.

The church is telling my family that I never even really cared about people, by being a good disciple of Jesus, anyway. I don’t even care about anyone other than myself.

The church is telling my family that I am hurting my children.

How do you think this affects my relationships with my family? 

Family - Isn’t It About Time? Or is that just for families who toe the line, follow the leader, hand over their money and submit to their husbands? Family is only important, to the church, if none of them “get any ideas,” or seek for even the smallest authenticity and honesty in their worship and belief. No, there is no room for “independence” in the Mormon church, or the Mormon family.

So today I’m mad, again. I have a right to be mad when my family is being hurt. Because, thanks to social media quote resurrections, once more, my family is being reminded that I’m a terrible person. Even if they aren’t listening, or didn’t see this quote posted, the words of the apostles have and will always shape the culture of the church, which is what my family is entrenched in, and which is, arguably, what most Mormons are getting exclusively. 

So damn the church. Damn them for what they have done to my relationships with my friends and family. Damn them for what they have done to mine and others. 

A prophet would have seen this, and stopped it. 

The Parable of the Damn Talents

I recently wrote up a little “year in review” for the family Christmas card, explaining what the family was up to, and what everyone’s highlights were. As I’m sure many are familiar with, after writing it up, I began to feel the familiar self-doubt that often plagues me when I look at my life.

Surprise. I’m not living the life of my dreams. 

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a veterinarian. After that, I decided that I wanted to be an FBI agent. Eventually I settled on wanting to be an Elementary School teacher. Why?

Elementary School teachers have the perfect schedule for raising children, of course - and as a Mormon mom, it was expected that I would do exactly that. I majored in Elementary Education for my first semester of college, and when they eventually stuck me in a first grade classroom, I had to have a major “come to Jesus” with myself. Teaching children math was torture. Dealing with 20+ children at the same time was chaos to my rigid, anxious personality. I had no interest in that kind of chaos. Sure, I liked kids in theory, but no. No, no, no.

After that, I majored in Social Work. Why? 

Because I love people. I genuinely love people, am intrigued by the psychology of them, and feel like I have a bit of a gift for understanding the “why”s of human behavior. 

I was a social worker for many years. I was accepted into a masters program, but didn’t do it, as my husband needed to go to school. So work I did. I was only ever in love with one of the jobs that I had, though - the one that let me talk to old folks on the regular, and be a friendly face to talk about their hard times with. Even that, though, was stressful. 

Eventually I had a second child, and daycare for two kids didn’t win the cost/benefit analysis of having me work outside the home. So I became a stay at home mom. I tried my hand at Olive Garden in the evenings - go breadsticks! But Depression has always been worse for me, in the evenings, so I didn’t do well with evening work. DoorDash worked great, as I could work on the nights Depression wasn’t kicking my butt. I tried cashiering at a grocery store as well, but ran into that same “depression in the evenings” problem again. 

Which brought me to uninspired present. In my “year in review” I had written that I am currently in training to be a substitute school bus driver. It’s true! Today, I passed all the written exams to get my drivers permit. I studied, people. I haven’t studied something against my will for a hot second, and it was weird. But I did it. Now I can start training to substitute as a school bus driver in the mornings, so I’m still home when Nathan starts working, to watch the baby. Ultimately, when the baby starts school, I can pick up more and be a full-time driver with my own route. It’s perfect, just like Elementary School Teacher was perfect - same schedule as the kids, summers off, but also great perks of government work - retirements and health insurance. 

Today, I told my mom that I was embarrassed. 

Younger me would feel very confused to see the me of today. "Just" a bus driver. Sure, I loved Pat, our driver, on bus 239, growing up. (My bus memories are strong.) But I had a 3.9 GPA. I had a full-ride scholarship all through university. I could have been anything. (Except an FBI Agent. Low muscle tone.) I literally could have been anything. 

I love history. I could have been an archeologist. I love scriptures. I could have studied theology and been a professor, or a preacher. I love ghost stories. I could have led haunted tours. I could have helped conduct social experiments. I could have been a writer, or an actor, or a chef. I could have done anything.

"I'm so embarrassed." I told my mom. "I'm not dumb. I'm so worried that people are going to read that and just assume that I'm dumb."

I've never lived my dream.

My mom and I talked about the jobs that we could have done - doctor, or lawyer - and the reasons we didn't pursue them. We didn't want people's lives in our hands. We didn't want the schedule, or the stress. We talked about the jobs that we HAVE done, which we loved, and why - department store, cashier, or student librarian. 

Why did we love those jobs? They were low-stress jobs. They were done when they were done, for the day, and you didn't take anything home. But best yet? It was so easy to make people happy. These are "easy" jobs, that you could give almost 100% of your attention to making your customer or patron's day better. 

"It's a pity that these jobs don't pay." I remarked. "Our society would value these jobs more, if you earned a livable wage doing them." (The physically hardest jobs I've ever worked paid the least. Guaranteed.)

I realized that my embarrassment and concerns were about value. I worried, being a "lowly" bus driver, that I would not be seen as a "valuable" person. I still desire respect. I still hope that I am of value somewhere, and that I am appreciated, and seen as capable. I want my life to make a positive difference.

My recently retired mother admitted to struggling with similar feelings - wanting to be useful and valuable, to the extent that she struggles with taking any number of days to herself, just to sit and enjoy her free time.

"It's that parable of the damn talents!"

The master gave one servant a talent, another five, and another two.

The servant with five earned five more, and the servant with two earned two more. The servant with one had buried it, and had not earned any interest on it. 

All my life I've been told not to put my light under a bushel. All my life I've been told not to bury my talents.

But damn the talents! Because this parable is a critique of exploitation.

I let my social work license lapse when we moved to Missouri. I have no intention of becoming licensed again. I don't see myself practicing social work again. Social work was great for a time, because I got to help people.But I'm an easily stressed out person, and my life matters. My life is for ME to enjoy, and that's not easy for me in the high stress atmosphere of social work. (Where you don't even earn decent money to make up for it.) I love helping people feel happier, but I don't like the burden of feeling solely responsible for others' happiness. I enjoy the small moments of comfort. 

So what is my dream job? Potentially psychedelic drug treatment administration! Who knows! Maybe the job hasn't been invented yet! But until then, a bus driver can bring some small happiness to the lives of others. If not students, me. Because I should be allowed happiness too. And if a school job makes me available to be with my children when they need supervision, then it is a good job. And "good enough" doesn't get enough credit. 

New World Views with Mark Twain

"New World Views with Mark Twain," says the title. She must have read something by him, thinks the reader. 

You would be correct, but which came first - the chicken or the egg?

A couple weekends ago, our family went to Hannibal Missouri. Apart from having a fantastic name, Hannibal is also famous for being the hometown of Mark Twain. 

Mark Twain? Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer's author, yes. That year of assigned reading in High School. And, as with all things that are assigned reading, his books became assigned drudgery. My memory of the books, in essence, was racism floating down a river. 

I was no fan of Mark Twain. As I got older, and listened to my mother talking about how much she enjoyed him, I was willing to move from dislike to apathy, regarding the author - not taking much of an opinion on the man, but not seeking him out. 

Because, aside from Huckleberry Finn, the only thing I knew about Mark Twain? He was anti-Mormon.

That's it, folks. Game over. I didn't like him. He once said, "All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so 'slow,' so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print."

No, my friends, I did not like Mark Twain.

I think it took me moving to Missouri to think about Mark Twain again. I didn't know that was where he was from. I didn't know he grew up an hour drive south of Nauvoo, just across the river, and was raised, there in Hannibal, starting in 1839. He would have been nine years old when Joseph Smith Jr was killed in Illinois. I have plenty of memories from the age of nine. Mark Twain would have had opinions, surely. 

But OH, how I hated assigned reading.

I went to the Museum there because my husband suggested it. We went with his mother and, obviously, our children. Surprisingly, the museum was VERY child-friendly, so I went into it with a positive mindset - seeing the costumes kids could try on, and the stagecoach they could climb inside. There was the fake raft, which, artistically, was very well done! There was a cave to walk through, and white picket fences half-painted. (Somewhere inside my memory I think that's Tom Sawyer...) 

My love for Mark Twain, and not just his museum, really grew on the third floor of the building. Inside cases were displayed many of the books, with summaries, that he had written. I had no idea that Mark Twain had ever written anything aside from books about bratty, ignorant boys. Because that's how much I knew about him, before forming the opinion that I didn't like him. 

Turns out, Mark Twain wrote a lot of stuff. Also, turns out, the man had some great one-liners. Who knew that he was so quoteable! And so dry, and witty! 

Turns out, Mark Twain was a father of daughters. (I have a soft spot for men with no sons. I think they stand a chance at beginning to see how the world works, that way.) 

He had terrible hair. He frequently wrote while lying in bed. He bought his wife lovely things. He wore out his clothes until they had rips, because they were his favorite things. 

Mark Twain, turns out, was liberal. He was probably an old timey Bernie Sanders. 

And not only was I impressed, I think I realized that I love him.

Mark Twain made me see him as a man of authenticity - who didn't care what others thought. He was humble. He enjoyed being comfortable. He was "without guile," per the words of Jesus. And he was impressively observant, and eloquent about those observations.

I picked up a couple books, in the gift shop, and had finished both the Diary of Adam and the Diary of Eve before the weekend was through. And I laughed. I so enjoyed how he thought.

I concluded, at the end of this trip, that assigned reading, in school, in a surefire way to make people hate authors. Don't tell ME what I'm supposed to enjoy thinking about, in my free time, cause it sure as hell isn't some redneck boy floating down a river. No thank you. Stop making teenagers read books written for adults.

But SECOND, I still have a lot of background biases I'm still unpacking, from Mormonism. 

My mother has been enjoying Missouri with me, since we both moved here. We've been exploring, and she has been exploring with her photography. One of her friends commented, "Thank you for showing me that Missouri is a beautiful place. I'd always thought it was terrible, and unfriendly."

If you ask my ancestors, Missourians are the worst sorts of people. Devils, frankly. (That's written in teenage girl pioneer journals.) I think it's easy to look back on Mormonism's past, and make some pretty easy assumptions about the sorts of people who must live in Missouri. (Yellow dog prophecy, anyone?) 

Missouri is so beautiful and wonderful that Joseph Smith named it as the Garden of Eden. Surprise, it's fantastic. Even my neighbors that I share almost NOTHING in common with, apart from also having children who go to school, are wonderfully social and kind. I would never pick them as a friend, and yet I think friends we are, simply because of their kindness and openness to be a good neighbor. 

More biases - the other day I was watching a movie when, surprise, the lead character of the plot was a lesbian! "Oh no," some quiet voice in the back of my head whispered. "I probably shouldn't watch this." I was only ten minutes in. I'd already stopped watching a Viggo Mortensen movie that wasn't to my liking, so... 

She was a LESBIAN. That was IT. It was a historical drama! It was my kind of movie!!!! I LIVE for historical dramas! And I was going to let the fact that she wanted to kiss a woman stop me from watching a retelling of an actual person's life?! I watched the movie, I'll have you know. There was no reason not to! If she'd been a heterosexual I wouldn't have blinked twice. But there I was, blinking before I even knew what I was doing. 

I blinked about a lesbian, and I spent over a decade blinking about Mark Twain, because all I knew about him was that he was anti-Mormon. I love him, and I may never have known that, if I hadn't been willing to reconsider everything. 

I'm grateful that I'm growing up. It's uncomfortable, sometimes, to look at my biases with honesty, but I'm grateful that I'm seeing myself for who I am, now. And I'm grateful that I get to write my story with my own values and words, now. 

Deconstructing in Stages

This blog is mostly religious. I can't help it. My "official" religion was a defining aspect of my life, up until I left it, and has been at the root of much of my life trauma since then. 

Trauma. That's a strong word. 

Well, wrestling with damnation, for a once believer, IS traumatic. Unlearning a lifetime's worth of biases and bigotry is also rather difficult. (Yes, that's very nice if Mormonism never made you a bigot, but it absolutely made me one.) It's been traumatic to wrestle with what was once a well-defined afterlife, and having to form my own beliefs about it. Trust me, the day I realized I didn't believe I would be "twinkled" at a Second Coming was a tearful dance with the reality of my own eventual death - the kind of harsh awakening that most 8-year-olds go through, but which I never did, well into my thirties. 

I don't experience "trauma" much anymore. I'm grateful for that. Things have settled down into a happy place of having my own answers - my own beliefs, values, and relationship with whatever power, or "God," exists outside of myself. I am at peace.

It's been quite the road, though. 

It's been a journey of 1,000 "coming out"s - of speaking the truths of who I am and what I feel and believe. I've been grateful to have a supportive, loving husband along for the journey, with me, who has done his own deconstruction as well. I hear solitary deconstruction is a real bugger. Dodged that one.

I finished painting the first coat on all of the downstairs hallway walls, this afternoon, and found myself washing out my brushes in hot water at the sink, the sound of the baby monitor humming quietly away next to me. Olive sat in the windowsill in front of me, watching. 

"What a good cat." I thought to myself, as all cat owners do. I wondered at her quiet strength, her hunting skills, her panicked, desperate cuddles for love, each morning, her introverted nature, and the way she loves my baby. "She'd make a great little Familiar."

I'll draw a card on that one, later. She's still a baby. 

Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have named her Hazel, or Hecate. Baba Yaga was in the running too. So sometimes I DO accidentally slip up and call her the wrong name. Her sister has always been Alice. But my little Olive sometimes shows the lonely wisdom of a Hazel. (See - Watership Down.)

I've never been opposed to name changing, though for the cat's sake, we'll save "Hazel" for the moments I feel it suits her best. Or just whenever I screw up. 

Because it happens. People screw up on my name all the time. I started going by "Murphy" months ago. But "Grace" still happens - often, even in my own head.

Why would someone go from the perfectly good name "Grace" to the name "Murphy"? I have a perfectly good middle name - Katherine. My mom still calls me "Kate," from it. I could have been Kat. I could have been Kathy.

I could have been HAZEL! (It was in the running. I do love that name. Thank the rabbits.) I could have been Cleo. I could have been Ana, or Carol, or Edna, or Meghan, or Deborah. Of all of the names, the wide world over, why Murphy? 

I remember being in elementary or middle school, suggesting changing my name to my mother. What did I pick at the time? Tarren. It didn't stick, and I was so embarrassed by anyone's lack of trying that I never suggested anything of the sort again. But I never did like the name Grace. 

Grace was a girl in pigtails. Grace wore pink, with curls in her hair. I never was a Grace. 

I jokingly suggested Justice to my mother. But no. 

I was more interested in pixie cuts, leather, and debating people with confidence. But that was something about myself that didn't quite fit what a girl "was." My friends were interested in their hair, in their skin, and were great at being "demure" for the boys. But I would rather be dead than demure. 

A kid called me a "lesbian" on the bus. Bullying, and some such. But as a good Mormon, that hit me. Was I? I'd never felt like I fit in with the other girls. Was I a lesbian then? Hormones convinced me otherwise. And Sean Bean. Wowza. I was not a lesbian. But I didn't fit.

I knew this because I was a girl. I knew that because of my gender. As a good Mormon, I knew that my gender "was established before [I] was born into mortality, and [was] an essential characteristic of [my] eternal identity." And also, thanks to the Family Proclamation, I knew that, due to this eternal identity, I was supposed to play second fiddle for eternity, as my husband would "preside." 

I was not, and have never been content playing second fiddle. I knew that THAT was in my nature. It had always been. Maybe I was just a tomboy, which seemed acceptable to be, in Mormon culture... But I didn't like sports, and I wasn't particularly good with my hands. 

"Grace" was a name that was far too feminine. It played much too much for the "girl" team, and, thanks to my religious upbringing, "girls" were something I associated as being weak. "Girly-ness" is not inherently bad, but as it was forced upon me, as an impossible standard for myself to live, it was easier to despise it. Unfortunately, "feminists" were frowned upon, by those of religious authority, as they dared believe women were equal, so I could not "really" be one of those, though, either.

I was also the best damned Mormon you'd ever met, so this feeling of not having a place within my own prescribed gender was a personal failing, on my part. Mormon culture taught me that "girls" were one specific thing, which, intrinsically, I knew I did not fit. We had leadership quoting things like, "We have enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender." It felt like a rejection of who I was - that I was flawed, and unacceptable. 

Being free of the church is a blessing. I get to look back on anchor-less me, and call it what it is. 

Gender is a social construct. Conservative gender constructs are NOT one size fits all. (As a fat woman, I KNOW that one size does NOT fit all.) I was raised in a culture that taught me that "girls" were helpmeets, were support staff to the men in the family, and that was the identity they should be happy with. 

If I had remained in Utah as a member of the church, I believe I eventually would have come out as Gender Queer - a Demigirl. I managed to escape that culture with all its pervasive gender constructs, however, and getting away from the church has allowed me to redefine what it means to be a "woman" for myself - and all the kick-assery that womanhood entails. 

I'm still "figuring this out," for myself. But I'm figuring it out for myself, as Murphy. Because gender is STILL a social construct, and there are ways that I still feel like I will never quite "fit in." Choosing to move our family to Missouri, I knew this was my chance to finally change my name to something that fit my soul a little better, androgynous as it may sound. 

The added bonus is that on resumes, it's not immediately clear if I'm a boy or a girl. And with sexism being the problem that it STILL is, I prefer it that way. 

Zelph's Mound from an Ex-Mormon Adventurer

I remember visiting the home of my youth, after several years away due to my mother moving, and myself going off to college. I drove the streets in an odd sort of awe. Everything was so SMALL.

There was the church next door to our house. The brick enclosure around the flagpole, where I had "run away from home" for ten minutes to, in my youth, was tiny - not the elegant, expansive future home where I was certain I could live. The walk to my school was short - not in distance, but in the houses lining the streets themselves. The houses didn't tower over my head like they once did. They were actually pretty modest and small. 

Seeing the past with my new, adult eyes, I realized how my adventurous, poignant, pivotally important youth was, well... really really unexciting. As a child, I saw the bubble of my life as something remarkable and special. As an adult, I saw it for what it was - a neighborhood like any other neighborhood. For children everything is enormous. As an adult I had enough distance from the location to see it for what it really was. 

After visiting Nauvoo, in my last entry, I realized I couldn't get enough of Mormon history sites. There was something fantastic about seeing these sites for myself - tying history together in my mind, and seeing how SMALL it was, in actuality. Hearing stories of miracles and angels and visions and prophets, everything gets so BIG - everything shown at its most flattering angles. Seeing it all for myself as an ex-Mormon adult, I saw it for what it really was. And I wanted more of that.

Enter Zelph's Mound.

The prophet once said that people who have crises of faith are "lazy learners and lax disciples." As one of those "lazy learners," I scoffed at the accusation. Zelph is a prime example of just how "lazy" my learning was - considering that most Mormons don't even know about Zelph.

In June 1834 Zion's Camp was making their way through Illinois, when some of the men came across a Indigenous American burial mound. Heber C Kimball and John Taylor recorded that the mound had three altars, one on top of the other, and that the ground was scattered with human bones. "General" Joseph Smith ordered the men to dig into the mound, and one foot below the surface, they found the bones of a man. (Some reports indicate that the man was 8 or 9 feet tall, given the size of his leg bones, which they took with them... I'm happy to not judge them too harshly on this. It was a different time, but yes. That would be desecration of a grave.) 

They laid the bones out on a board, carefully, and Joseph Smith gave a speech, prophesying that the bones of the man belonged to a Lamanite general named Zelph, who was killed in battle 1500 years prior. More information about Zelph was given. Zelph fought alongside the prophet Onendagus. He was known from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, and was a righteous Lamanite, so his skin was white... O_o 

As someone who studied Book of Mormon archaeology for literal years, trying to make it fit, Zelph was important. Finding Zelph, to me, was additional proof that the Book of Mormon, a literal history, would have taken place in North America, not meso-America. Because of evidences like Zelph, I was happy to call myself a "one hill" girl. (One hill Cumorah - not in the camp that believed there was a Cumorah in upstate New York AND a Cumorah in South America.) The prophet himself had found a Lamanite in the heartland of North America. I read and listened to Wayne May extensively, and subscribed to his theories on the matter.

Obviously, I no longer do. 

But also obviously, I had to see this place. So naturally we drove the hour and a half to walk the short hike with our family, my mother joining us for the trip. 

It was difficult to find. Unlike most Mormon historic sites, which have large signs and plaques, and usually two dozen missionaries, this place had no signs at all. AT ALL. If you didn't know the history before you showed up, you wouldn't have known what you were looking at. The entrance to the trail was marked with overgrown weeds, and a literal tree fallen across the path. 

But we were not to be deterred. I had done my research. There were mounds up there. 

I took the lead, enthusiastically, and stepped face first into a spiderweb. A massive red orb-weaver. After that, we took the trail much more carefully, recognizing that this place was not frequented, and that no previous hikers had cleared the way ahead of us. We each swung large sticks in front of our faces to break any webs that may have been in our path, my brave Australian mother taking the lead. She ain't afraid of no spiders.

The trail was steep, as we needed to climb to the top of the bluff which ran a stone's throw away and alongside the Illinois River. But it was very do-able - entering low muscle-toned five-year-old as exhibit one. Another fact that I appreciated was that the back trail, which we were walking on, circled the mound. With my limited Indigenous American knowledge, I knew that circling sacred sites was a respectful way to approach. And that was something that was important to me - was approaching with respect. 

To our pleasant surprise, the trail led us directly to the top of the mound itself, as it continued it's half circle around. It was shocking to feel the earth under our feet - firm, surprisingly flat, and deliberate. But it wasn't entirely flat. The entire center of the mound had been removed, probably eight feet deep, like some wide volcanic pit in the center. 

(See in the picture, my husband at one end of the mound, blue-shirted son down in the center, and the rest of us up on the other side.) 

Whoever that man was, I doubt he expected the place of his burial to be so thoroughly investigated to the point that it was seriously damaged. 

"Zelph" was a part of the Havana Hopewell culture. The Hopewells traveled extensively, and in future excavations of other mounds in the area, artifacts were discovered from throughout the east. In Zelph's Mound - officially known as the Naples-Russell Mound #8 - an eagle pipe was found. 

The Hopewells were active from 100 BC - 500 AD. (Wayne May would enthusiastically say, "See! The timeline fits!") The Havana Hopewells would eventually go on to form the Mississippian culture, which would build Cahokia, which is a popular tourist destination to this day, with massive, well-preserved and documented mounds just across the river from St. Louis. 

I'm from Utah, and spent my youth exploring petroglyphs with my family throughout the state. But I can honestly say that I am not very familiar with eastern tribes and cultures. I am doing my best, though. Because my heart mourns for these people, and the land that we stole from them. 

Researching their roots, THEIR stories, it is hard to see how few of their traditions and histories remain. I had a HUGE "come to Jesus" when it came to Indigenous American culture, and my own Mormon upbringing, when it came to appropriation. 

Mormons are really bad at appropriating. Just look at how they view Judaism. Mormons assign themselves tribes of Israel in patriarchal blessings. They, like most Christians, take Jewish celebrations and rituals, and assign Christian imagery and theology to them, without consideration for the historical relevance or accuracy involved. 

"Zelph," I believe, was appropriated. White men took another person's life, and made of it something that fit their narrative, and suited their own faith-promoting needs, with no respect to the actual story. 

Indigenous Americans were not white. The Havana Hopewell were NOT white. Whiteness has nothing to do with "righteousness." 

"Onendagus," the prophet warrior that Zelph allegedly fought alongside, is a name more likely ripped off of the actual Onondaga Tribe of New York - which Joseph Smith would have been familiar with. 

Standing at the top of the mound, I tried to pay my respects. Theirs was a story that was lost and exchanged with some white man's telling. I don't know who this man was that was buried, with an arrowhead lodged in his ribcage, but he was respected, and it wasn't because he was a white Lamanite. 

Indigenous Americans have their own cultures, and their own stories. They have their own gods, and their own customs. To me, Joseph Smith's appropriation of Indigenous Americans began with the Book of Mormon. Much of that book is plagiarized from the King James Bible, and, I was surprised to learn, some of the most touching stories of the book were plagiarized from the Indigenous Americans themselves. 

The Onondaga tribe I mentioned earlier are a part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which was one of the earliest recorded participatory democracies. (The arrows gripped in the claw of the bald eagle, on our own country's emblem, represent this confederacy of five tribes, and the strength of those tribes when bound together.) Sometime between 1142 and 1450 AD, this Confederacy was formed. The leaders of the five tribes, together, buried their weapons of war, an act memorialized in the sacred Haudenosaunee Wampum belt to this day. 

The story of the people of Ammon, or Anti-Nephi-Lehis burying their weapons of war was one of the most touching stories from the Book of Mormon for me. You can debate which came first - the chicken or the egg, the wampum belt or the Anti-Nephi-Lehis - but for me, it was beautiful to rediscover this favorite story had a basis in reality. And that reality was just as important, if not more important, than the story told to me from the Book of Mormon. 

The Indigenous Americans were not Jewish, as was claimed in the Book or Mormon or the contemporary View of the Hebrews. They were their own people, with their own gods and power. They didn't need prophets like Nephi, or Mormon. They had Handsome Lake, The Peacemaker and Hiawatha, Tenskwatawa, and more. They didn't and don't need someone else's culture or story forced onto them. We should be listening to them telling us their own stories. 

The drive back for home we questioned if the people who lived down the road from this mound knew what they were living next to. Did Mormons journey, like we had, and embarrassingly wax long in telling the locals about the great white Lamanite buried nearby? Do archaeologists widen their eyes in patient, comical disbelief when told about how the Hopewell had swords and horses, and battles in upstate New York with thousands of dead unaccounted for in the historical record? Oh, and they were Jewish. So look for those clues too. But they were pretty Christian Jews, even from the beginning, so look for those clues as well.

It's easier to respect the Indigenous Americans for what and who they are. They are The People. And they have their own stories to tell. 

Zelph!