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Choosing Community over Ideological Purity: Lessons from Exponent II with Katie Ludlow Rich & Heather Sundahl
01:02:09
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, this is Sarah Perkins Sabie, one of the authors of the Bible Storybook. We're so excited to have partnered with Faith Matters to bring you beautifully told Scripture Stories as a podcast that you can listen to with your kids and share with your friends and family. We're making half of the stories available completely free is a podcast called Scripture Stories for Little Saints, and the other half are available to donors and friends of Faith Matters as a thank you for your financial support that makes this collaboration possible. If you have trouble accessing them, you can email faith matters@infoaithmatters.org and they'll be happy to help. Thank you so much for your generous and ongoing support. We're so excited to share these stories with you and can't wait for you to hear them. Now onto the podcast.
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B
Hey everybody, this is Aubrey Chavez from Faith Matters. Today I'm so excited to share my conversation with Katie Ludlow Rich and Heather Sundahl about 50 years of Exponent 2.
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C
This is their new book that traces.
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B
The history of a space where Latter Day Saint women have engaged the most urgent questions of their time while also honoring the dailiness of life. The roots of this effort go back to 1872, when women began publishing the Women's Exponent to speak for themselves and stay connected across distance. A century later, Exponent 2 carried that work forward, not to create consensus, but to make room for complexity, difference, and the kind of deep listening that makes real community possible. And that's what this conversation is about, what it takes to stay in relationship, even when the ground that we used to share, whether in beliefs or perspectives or experience, starts to shift. We're all navigating this now, probably in our families and wards and friendships. And so today Katie and Heather explore the differences between discomfort and danger and how we can sit with the tension of disagreement without walking away, and what it means to listen, not to persuade, but to witness, to be present with someone else's experience, even when it's different from our own. Katie is a writer and independent scholar of women's history, and Heather is a marriage and family therapist in Orem, Utah. This was a deeply personal conversation, actually, and so we're so grateful to Katie and Heather for showing up with so much honesty and care. Their own lived experience experiences have led them down different paths, and so it was such a gift to sit with them in dialogue, watching the ways they do this together and the way they make space for others to do the same. It's the kind of wisdom that is hard won and we are so honored to share it with you. Now, here's our conversation with Katie Ludlow Rich and Heather Sundahl.
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C
All right, well, Katie and Heather, thank you so much for joining us. We've been really excited about this conversation and we're so glad to have you here. So welcome.
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D
Thank you for having us.
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E
Yes, thank you.
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C
So I, I think that a lot of people are going to be really familiar with Exponent and with Exponent too, but I think it, that might be an important place to kind of start with a, a refresher. So would you tell us about the original Exponent and where this comes from?
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D
Yeah. So the original Woman's Exponent was a Utah based periodical that started in 1872 and went until 1914. And the longtime editor of that was Emmeline Wells, who at the end of her tenure there became General Release Society president. But it was this paper that had a Utah audience, but also a national audience as they engaged in the national suffrage movement. These women from Utah, it was kind of this informal publication arm of the Relief Society, and it was engaging in these national conversations while also being a mix of things about women's daily lives. And they would cover things like talks from church leaders when they came to different meetings. But there is this complexity there where you have these women engaging in the suffrage movement while also being, many of them polygamists. And so that was often viewed as kind of a contradictory thing in this national suffrage movement. Like, can we invite these women in, these Mormon women from Utah to this movement when many of them are part of these plural marriages? And they persisted that, yes, like we, we can hold this complexity. And so they, they publish for all of these decades engaged in these movements. And so you jump many years later to Boston in the 1970s. And Heather, like, what makes Boston this place that, that drew these people in?
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E
Well, Boston, you can't walk more than three feet without running into a university. I mean, it's sort of like LDS churches in Utah is what universities are like in the Boston area. And so people are coming out there all the time and there's just so much going on. It's really sort of a center for a lot of the civil rights movement. You have women's rights. Those kind of things are happening. It's a center, this intellectual hub, and a lot of ideas are being generated. It's always been that way that it's always been sort of this intellectual hub.
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D
And so you have this group of smart Mormons gathering. And the Cambridge Relief Society created a guidebook to the city of Boston, the First guidebook to Boston is called A Beginner's Boston as a Fundraiser for.
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C
You have one?
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D
Yes, I do.
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C
Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
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D
The lead editor was Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, who went on to become a Pulitzer Prize winning historian. And it has these awesome hand drawn illustrations by Carolyn Peters and they talk about the history Boston, all of these cool places to go, and kind of create this guide so that all of the church members who would come out to Boston and would spend the first couple years being lost would have a guide. But then they sold it as a fundraiser and it ended up being wildly successful and they sold over 20,000 copies. And so back in those days, so this is like mid-1960s and back in those days, the Relief Society would contribute to the ward welfare funds and people contribute to building funds and were much more self sustaining. And the Relief Studies all did like fundraisers to raise their own money. And so this was a wildly successful fundraiser and they did things like pay for curtains in the Relief Society room, pay for babysitters during Release Society meetings, put a new fridge in the building of the Longfellow park building in Cambridge, and just had this success of this big publishing venture and felt like they could do these great projects. And then as we get to 1970, the women's movement is happening in Boston and there's all of these ideas and all of these groups and all of these small publications. And Laurel Petra Ulrich starts gathering her friends from the Relief Society to her house to talk about the intersection of their lives with this women's movement. And these kind of meetings, these consciousness raising meetings are happening all around the country. But this group is doing it with the intersection of their lives as members of the church. How do these ideas apply to them? Some of them were single, some of them were married and young professionals or graduate students. Others were married with, you know, half dozen kids and had spouses in bishoprics or state presidencies and these time intensive callings. And so they had all these differences and they would fight with each other. They disagreed on a lot of these core issues. And they talked about how they go home with headaches, sometimes with tears, you know, like. And they, but they kept meeting, they kept coming back because it was deeply meaningful for them to be able to talk about issues with their full identity and the full complexity of their lives. And that led to additional group projects. They had the success of A Beginner's Boston. It led Claudia Bushman to propose that they produce an issue of Dialogue, a journal of Mormon thought. And that came out in 1971. And they call it the pink issue because this bright magenta cover. And the success of that led them to be invited to teach an institute class.
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E
These women, they were just loving this. They were loving the. The intellectual exercise, and they were loving being together and. And the friendships that were forming. One of the things that I love about Relief Society is that we are all trying to connect with each other. We're trying to show our supportiveness. But sometimes what happens is somebody says something, and if someone disagrees with them, the whole room there's like this electricity of tension, and then a third person has to say, well, what I think we're all trying to say, and then, like, smooth it all over and. And that happens a lot. It still happens. But these women, they weren't afraid to disagree with each other. They weren't afraid to have sometimes conflicting ideas because that curiosity was so important. And they valued that the friendships and the connections were strong enough that they could, you know, survive the bumps. It didn't really matter. So Susan Kohler goes to the Harvard Widener Library, and she's looking at. In, you know, in the religion section, and she finds this stack of the original woman's exponent. And they're just, you know, these giant bound things, and they let her check them out. Like, she can just walk out. And they see this stuff and they're like. They see themselves in these women. They see themselves in Emmeline Wells, and they're looking at it, saying, they're grappling with these things that seem like contradictions. You've got, hello, polygamy and suffrage, like, really interesting bedfellows, not something that we would normally put together. And they're saying to themselves, and here we are grappling with feminism and faith, and they are embracing both wholly. It's not a privileging of one over the other as they're exploring these ideas and figuring out what it means to be a woman and what it means to have power. And you have to realize that at this time, I mean, this is when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was trying to get it so that women could have credit cards in their own name. I mean, things were different back then. If you got a divorce, you didn't get your kids, your husband did. I mean, the coverture laws are still. There's tendrils of them still hanging on. And so when we talk about feminism, we're talking really basic things, like, am I a full human if I'm not married? You know, do I have right to own property? Can I Get a loan. Really basic things. So they see themselves in these women who are looking at these really lofty ideas, really intense aspects of their faith, but also the dailiness, the what am I going to serve my family for dinner? And I, and, and because they saw it done before, they're like, we could do something like this. We could create a paper that combines all of these different things that we're grappling with that are helping us feel so fulfilled.
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C
Yeah, there's this, there's this part in one of the chapters and I think this, this is kind of during era and, and, and there it's an example of this like where they're, they're just like really grappling with legitimate disagreements, like within a very tight knit group, like people who, who really disagree with each other, not in superficial ways, in like really important ways.
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E
Yes.
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C
And, and you write that that holding disagreement while remaining in community with one another was both the challenge and the gift of the group. And, and I think that's what was so fascinating to me about the book. Exactly what you're saying, that like there was something else that was creating this cohesion that has been continuous for so many decades and it couldn't, it was an ideology, I guess, because they disagreed. So they disagreed like so explicitly and they're talking about it. So what, what is the thing, like, what is the glue that's kept them.
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D
Together so very early on we see in the paper how they privilege community over ideological purity. And one of my favorite examples of this comes from the third issue. So they started publish in first issue is July of 1974. And so December 1974 is when their third issue comes out. And the top article is called Truly Brave Women. And it's one woman's perspective how the, the place for women to be when they have young children at home is at their home and is prioritizing their family and that they education is valuable and they may do all kinds of interesting things later, but when their family needs them, the, the appropriate place is for the woman to be at home. Right below that same page is an article called A Working Mother. And Judy Dushku had interviewed a woman who was a mother and a doctor. And she and her husband had very thoughtfully and faithfully decided they were both going to have these careers and that they were going to partner together at home in raising the children as well as hiring a nanny to help care for their young children. And that's on the same page where they are showing different perspectives. It's not disagreeing with each other, but it is allowing for a range of perspectives for what Mormon women can do and how they can live their lives. And so it allows the reader to sit with the complexity of different lives and circumstances and needs, and without being forced to choose any type of side that. That women have full and complex lives.
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E
Yeah. If I can add something, something that that exponent has always done so well is focused on the individual life and people speaking about their individual experience. So if someone comes along and says, this is what works for me, and they're not saying, everybody has to do this now. There's not this external pushing onto other people, privileging of their experience. It's like, this is your experience, this is mine, and they can be different, and that's okay. And each person, as they share their experience and have this platform for it, it's. It's really validating for them because a lot of times we look at other people and we're like, oh, well, they're doing it this way. I'm not. I'm bad. And when people can go and read something and see, you know, 15 different articles with 15 different perspectives on something, it's like, all right, maybe it's okay if I don't totally fit what I think is the script, because as LDS women, we are so good. There's this sort of subconscious script of how you're supposed to live your life and when things are supposed to happen. And when people get off, off script, they start to feel really uncomfortable and like, they don't belong. You know, if you don't get. If you're, you know, 30 and you're not married, it's like, what's wrong with you? You know, are you dating? Like, there's this so of, you know, maybe you. Maybe you focus too much on your career or they have a baby and people will come up to you and be like, it's time for you to have another one. And. And everyone sort of has this, like, unwritten script that. That they're measuring themselves again, and this kind of flips the script.
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D
Yeah.
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C
So you would say this is interesting because I. I think the way I was thinking about that question was, like, they're presenting both sides of a.
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D
Of a.
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C
Of an argument or a question, and they're balancing and it.
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B
There.
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C
It's like, very dualistic, actually. Like, the way I'm imagining this, and it feels like what you're saying is that they're. That's actually what they're resisting is. Is like letting it be so distilled that it comes down to balancing two things, and as opposed to just sharing such a variety of experiences that you actually couldn't sort them into one side and another. Another side. Do you. Do you feel like that's. I mean, I keep thinking about how this looks in my own regularly lived experience with women in the church, which is Relief Society. And so do you feel like it's possible that we can create that kind of feeling of offering abundance? Because I think that experience, that you can feel the room sort of sucking in when something gets a little bit uncomfortable or another view is shared that is not necessarily aligned with the. With the first opinion. And so do you think that's a space where this kind of dynamic can even be created, or does it need to. Is was Exponent thriving because it was curated? Like, because it. Because you actually could select multiple perspectives and offer them together and, like, maybe that's just not what Relief Society is built to be? I don't know.
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D
That's a great question. And this group that founded Exponent 2 found each other through the Relief Society. Right. And so. And. And they were using so many of their skills. Like, yes, they published a quarterly paper starting in 1974, but they were also doing large events where they would invite speakers to come out from, like. Like historians from the Church History Department in Salt Lake and other interesting people. Judge Christine Durham. And they would have a weekend where they would host a big dinner and use their skills from a Relief Society to put on this dinner, but then also have some less formal events and have big discussions and ask interesting questions and kind of learn and engage in ideas together. Right. And so they're utilizing their skills and the relationships from the Relief Society. Can that translate into a Relief Society room right now? If people come with the intention of being able to listen and witness, not persuade and not judge, I think that happens.
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E
It is possible. It is possible. So I'm a Relief Society teacher right now, and every time I teach, my job is. And it sounds a little crazy, is to purposefully reveal something either off script or vulnerable or less than ideal about myself or something in the lesson so that the people in there can feel safe sharing their truths. And it can be a little scary. You know, it can be a little scary to stand up in front of a group of Relief Society sisters and say, I'm divorced.
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D
Yeah.
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E
Like, that's not something. That's not part of the script. And I. People tell me that they love my lessons, and I smile and thank them, but what I really want to say is, no, you love what happens in the room when people are vulnerable and honest and feel safe sharing? That's what you like. Because you could just go listen to find, you know, some awesome Brene Brown. Like, listen to something awesome. Like, it's, it's not, it's nothing that I'm really saying. It's not my lesson. It's, it's the approach and, and people are hungry for it. I have women in their 80s come up to me and say, my daughter's divorced. And I'm so glad you talk about your experience because, you know, it just reminds me that like, we're all doing our best and you know, or whatever it is, but people can do it. You can, it's. It's tricky. It's a gamble. And sometimes I say things and there are crickets and I'm like, okay, Heather, maybe you went a little too far, but, you know, that's okay.
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C
Yeah. I've been reading the Brene Brown's brand new book actually, since you mentioned her. And, and she talks about this, that, that for a long time they expected that the quality in a leader that made them successful was courage. And she says what we're seeing is actually that what makes a leader successful is their ability to be so self aware of the way they armor up when they feel afraid. Because everybody, everybody has that, that fear response to vulnerability. And if you're unconscious about the way you armor up to protect yourself from that fear, you, you become really scary. And so she's, so, she talks about the way we step into these sort of like victim or villain or, or, or hero mentalities. And I'm like, oh, I know that feeling when, and it's not even when you're on the spot, like when you can hear something in a room and feel, feel yourself slip into one of those roles out of fear. And I know also what it feels like when it almost. It's like the air crystallizes when the room softens and you can feel someone being so honest, like telling the truth so deeply that it is so connecting. And that's the magic where you don't have to actually agree with them at all, but you can feel some real connection around the fact that they're being vulnerable with you.
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E
It's occur to you to disagree with them. It would never occur to you.
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A
Yeah.
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E
You know, I mean, I remember I lived in Boston for almost 25 years and so this was all in the soil of where I attended Relief Society. And so I, you know how people say everything I needed to learn, I learned in Kindergarten. I'm like, everything I needed to learn, I learned in Belmont Relief Society. Like, I feel like it sort of trained me how to be a saint and how to. How to really serve people. And it was like that where people would be, and that's where I learned this skill, is the people would be vulnerable. And I remember one time the. The chapel is situated right next to the temple, and then the temple president home. They're all, you know, right there together. And so the. The temple matron is sitting there, and we're talking about blessings. And she says. She says, I just need to bear my testimony of what a blessing divorce can be, because I had a daughter who was in a really bad marriage, and I hung on to that, and my marriage was awesome at that. Never occurred to me that I would need that, but I just was like, she is so brave. She is so. What a gift. I'm like. I'm looking around, like, who needed to hear that? It was me. You know, it was probably two decades before I needed it, but it was me. I needed to hear that. And so it is. I think you can't separate that kind of vulnerability from bravery, because it takes a lot of courage to sort of say, all right, and now this shield is going to come down a little bit, and there are some chinks in my armor that. That I could be hurt.
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C
Yeah. Thank you for that, Katie. Anything you want to add before I.
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D
Yeah, well, I was thinking how Exponent started in Boston, but it very quickly became this national platform that the end of the first year, they had about 2,000 subscribers, and it grew by several more thousand in the coming years. And it connected pockets of Mormon women across the United States and some places in other countries as well, where people had these shared interests, but they didn't necessarily have that space in their own relief society where they could have that vulnerability. And so this became a place where people were writing in from all over and from these different perspectives. It wasn't just, you know, the voices from Boston. Right. That's just where the paper was being produced. It was voices from all over and privileging different perspectives and ages and backgrounds and, you know, financial situations and. And all of these. These differences to write sometimes on a theme. And so, like, when KSL in Utah did this special on depression, that then inspired Exponent to do a special issue on depression, because that was something that was really hard for them to talk about, that they felt like if you were righteous or if you were living right, that. That you wouldn't experience depression or mental health issues, but they knew that that was not true. And this KSL special gave them an opening to talk about it. And so then they have an issue where people are able to talk about their own experiences or family members or children, and how they grapple with these real issues and how they can find appropriate avenues for help depending on their circumstance. And so it's not just one perspective, but, like, lots of different people's voices and experiences and around a really complicated issue to talk about, especially at that time.
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C
Yeah, I'd love to ask you about boundaries, like the concept of boundaries. And this is a. I think this feels like a good time to bring it up, because in a topic like this where, you know, people have extremely sensitive lived experience, maybe of their own or of a close family member. And I think that we live in a time where. Where we're talking about boundaries as a. As a concept. And, and so it can be easy to quickly shut down a conversation that feels sensitive. And it might. It might legitimately be sensitive in a way that could be harmful, but it. But I think that a lot of us are developing this reflex to just, like, shut it down and walk away, like, stop engaging. And so, of course, this is one of those things that there must be a spectrum somewhere. And may. Or maybe this is a pendulum that has swung and it's swinging back and we need. And we've got to find this. This still point that is going to work for our society. But I would love to just hear you reflect on, as you look at these decades with Exponent 2, what do you think about boundaries? And is there a way that they were kind of working out what's allowed to be part of the conversation? And are there limits?
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E
I think there's always been limits. Katie and I were talking the other day about how Carol Sheldon, one of the founders, she wanted to include something in the paper about garments. And that Claudia Bushman was like, nope, you know, like, we're not going to do that. And now people. Everyone's talking about garments.
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C
Yeah.
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E
Like, it's just. It's not. It's just not the same. It's not this taboo topic anymore. So, you know, sometimes things like that shift. But I think, Aubrey, as I was listening to you, I was thinking that when you're saying maybe it's a spectrum. And one of the spectrums that I see with boundaries and is you have discomfort and lack of safety, and they're not the same thing. And if you look at the savior, when the savior was teaching people, it often involved a Lot of discomfort. Jesus, I love you. What can I do? Okay, go sell all your stuff. And it's like, oh, I don't want to do that. You know, so many of the things that Jesus asked people to do made them really uncomfortable. And so I really. I'm a therapist, and I need to say, discomfort is part of growth. It is really hard to grow and mature without some kind of growing pains, without some kind of discomfort. But that's different from lack of safety. And sometimes for people, it is really hard for us to tell the difference. So someone will bring something up, and you're like. They're like, oh, you know, that's my boundary. Like, you know, I don't want to do that. And you're like, are you really not safe, or are you really just super uncomfortable? And you need to kind of grapple with that feeling because boundaries are good. And I think it's wonderful that little kids now feel like they can say, you know, no, I don't want to kiss. Like, we all celebrate that because we can recognize what happens to women when they feel like they don't have a say about their body. Like, we can see how. How that goes. But I do think that we have swung, and it has become this thing where, I mean, as a therapist all the time, I see people being like, well, I think I have to cut my parents off. I have to never talk to my parents again because my mom said this thing that made me really upset, and I'm. I'm just like, okay, that's not. That's not you. This is not a case for cutoff. Like, this is. You need to have an uncomfortable conversation with your mother about what you will and won't discuss with her.
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C
Is there Heather? Is there. This is so incredibly useful, I think. Do you. Is there some sort of litmus test or, like, what should someone be asking themselves to decide if this is a situation where they're just really uncomfortable and. And communication or leaning in might be the solution versus, like, safety.
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E
Yeah. I think that for most people, we need a hot minute. That it's not something that most of us can. Because, you know, when you get. When you feel like there's a threat, you get flooded. Your window of tolerance shrinks, and all of a sudden, it's fight, flight, free spawn. And so a lot of women get really mad at themselves because someone says something, and then they just freeze. And then they're like, I was so stupid. Why did. I'm like, you couldn't say anything. Your brain was trying to protect you. From what felt like a real threat. So I think we have to give ourselves some grace and compassion and allow ourselves to maybe say to someone, I need to get back to you. Or you just say, you know what, Mom, I'm gonna end this call right now, but I'm going to. We're going to discuss this again later and then think about it. Sometimes I know I have to sort of sit with things and do that. You know, is this. Am I feeling uncomfortable because this is going against the grain of my values and this is wrong? Or is it just that I'm uncomfortable because it's new and. And it's going to be a difficult conversation and it's much easier to just ignore it?
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C
Okay, that's so helpful. I think where this feels especially applicable is just that. And maybe this is just where my brain goes. But I think when it comes to values disagreements, it can be easy to really justify that. I need to have some sort of boundary or need to walk away from this relationship. And I know that this is a reason that. That people leave the church too, that it feels like this would be a moral compromise to, say, associated with an institution that doesn't reflect my values or just.
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D
Or.
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C
And I think that that can be the same reasoning with family members. It would. It feels like a moral compromise to stay in relationship with this person who doesn't.
- [30:51]
D
Who.
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C
Whose values don't align with mine. So I. I think there's. Maybe there is another way to think about this, but I'd love for you to talk about that because it feels like that's something that they were always negotiating and working out in Inside Exponent 2.
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D
I think they modeled well how you can have lots of different values. You can have different values that feel like core values and that they can sometimes feel in conflict with each other. And sometimes there requires to be a privileging of values. And I think about going to church at times for some of these. These women bumped against certain values related to certain. Making choices for themselves or protection of family members and things like that. While then there's these other values that they may have about connection or about community or about witnessing and listening. And sometimes one value becomes privileged over the other so that you can stay in community. That's. It's a tricky thing to navigate at times. And I think that goes. Kind of connects to this. This idea of echo chambers. Right. How in. In our online world, it can be easy to place yourself only with people who talk about your values in the same way that you do, and with the Same level of priority. And it can feel. That can feel like safety. And I love me a good echo chamber about certain topics. Like, honestly, I. If you don't like the newest Taylor Swift album, I am not interested in your opinion. Like, I just stay off my algorithm, please. Let me just vibe. I am having fun with this album and I. I'm just not really interested in the haters right now. And of course, there's much more serious issues as well, and that come down to more core values. But there are spaces where I think it is fine to just share with people who really align with those values. But when you're looking at a broader culture, families, where you have different political or religious beliefs and perspectives, when you have neighbors who may have very different politics or preferences or values or do different activities, and it is very easy to be in conflict with each other. And that does happen. That that's just part of the reality of relationships with people who are different from you. And really, which is everyone. Everyone, Everyone. Right. And. And. And sometimes you have to prioritize the value of neighborliness over a particular political belief.
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E
Yeah. Over the signs in the yard.
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D
Yeah, over the. Yeah. And, you know, living in Utah, for me, that can feel challenging because it can sometimes be very easy to see people who feel very different from me in. In certain ideological beliefs. And that can make me feel inclined towards really closing up. But if I want to be in community, I have to be in community with people who are different from me. And so you can kind of see these swings of. Of sometimes if you have to be. If a group is so strong on. You have to believe and act these exact ways for belonging, that can be very stifling and you can feel the need to leave. And then if you go so far on the other side, where you have no ties to community and you have no connections to broader groups, that is also. It's a very different kind of isolating and a deep loneliness as well. And so for me, Exponent has become a place where, you know, Heather talked about. She. She's active in his teaching and relief Society. I am no longer active in the church, but in doing the research over the. The years for this book, it brought me into community who are strong, active, believing members who have shown me how to wrestle with difference and allow me to reengage and connect with people who may have different. Made different choices than I've made. And how can I still love them and listen to them and value what they say and hold the differences of perspectives while staying in relationship like that? Has been a huge lesson for me in seeing this group of women navigate it over decades because that is something that I struggle with right now in my own neighborhood. And they've shown me like you can have differences and be in relationship and make different choices for yourself without completely rejecting everyone around you.
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E
Yes.
- [36:02]
C
Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I think you put that so well, that what I'm calling and what I've recognized is feeling, it feels, it can feel like a compromise, can feel like a moral compromise. And what I hear you're saying, which I think is so profound, is that we all have multiple values. And so this is about, this is about a reordering. And it's reminding me of this conversation that we did with Medley Memma about AI. And he was talking about a workshop that they do, I think at byu, Idaho where they'll give the students a single purpose which is their, like his example was that they'll, they have to produce as many paperclips as possible. It's their only goal. Nothing else matters. And so the, the point of it is to, is to demonstrate how a single mindedness can, can be so destructive that like if, if that's the only thing that matters, you use all of the earths and the universe's resources to create paperclips and everything else is sacrificed on that, on the altar of that intention. And I think that when I'm feeling fearful that I simplify it in that same way. Like I think I only have this one value and it's being compromised. So everything is an attack. And I think it feels so important to be able to breathe and step back and recognize that the reason this feels hard is because multiple values are in conflict. And that's what we're here to do. Work out these moral dilemmas and wrestle with things that we genuinely believe matter. And, and so I, I'm glad you brought that up because I, I think it's, it's actually a dismissive way that I think I go when I'm, when I'm in conflict. Like it's, I want to just make it so black and white like you're asking me to compromise, period.
- [37:46]
E
But look at our origin story. Our origin story. You go to the temple, what is our origin story? Adam and Eve, they're given what feel like these two contradictory things. I mean that is life. And if you, you know, even take it a step higher to, you know, our premortal origin story, it's this thing of we're all supposed to go back to heaven, but we all have agency, and those two things are in tension. I mean, everything. This is what life is.
- [38:18]
D
Yeah.
- [38:18]
E
It's navigating these tensions again. That's how you grow. That's how you develop. And if I could quote or reference Jennifer Finlayson, Fife, shout out to jff, who we just adore, who is referencing David Snarch, who is referencing Marie Bowen. Got to give credit to the, you know, therapists. You know, she really talks a lot about this concept of differentiation that, you know, when we're enmeshed with other people, I think we. We know what that means. It's when the boundaries are very messy and we don't really know where one person starts and another stop. And as a mom, I totally relate to that because my kids, I have to stop myself from thinking that they are extensions and reflections of me. That as you mature, as you differentiate, which is maturing, you get more comfortable with you as a self and other people as selves, and you recognize that you can belong to yourself, but also belong to other people. And I think as we get more mature with our beliefs, we're less threatened. Like, if people say stuff that. That we don't believe or that feels really challenging, we're not. We're not panicked because we are like, no, I've, you know, I've kind of worked through these things, and I'm sure that there may be a wrestle involved that I can do this. And she talks about these three things that people do in a religious context. I think they do it in other contexts. But let's bring it into religion. When they're not differentiated, they either, number one, they pressure others to conform. So that can look like your mom sending you a new Liahon article every day. Just where it's like, you have to believe what I believe, because if you don't, that really rocks my world and somehow makes me feel insecure in my own beliefs. So the second one is you can conform to the person who disagrees with you. You just kind of go along with it. To keep the pe. I could say to Katie, oh, yeah, that do Taylor Swift album. I totally love it. Just because I'm too afraid that if Katie knows how I really feel, that maybe Katie won't like me anymore, want to be my friend. So my insecurity causes me to either force her to like what I like, or I just go ahead and like what she likes, but I don't really like it. I'm just sort of pretending. And the third would be where you just kind of distance yourself, disengage you just keep everything really surface. And you see that happen often in families when someone leaves the church. You see these various things where it's like, oh, no, you let me read the scripture. You know, do this. Let me telling them, I put your name on the prayer roll today, which they hear as, you're broken and we need a miracle to fix you. Like, does not really. Like, that's not how they intend it. What they mean to say is, I love you so much that I am taking your name and putting it in a sacred place so that people can pray for you. But the person on the receiving end, they hear it as criticism, you know, so we have these different ways we do it, and a lot of people just end up going really surface. And relationships just kind of drift and aren't close anymore because people are thinking, if, if we don't have these exact same values, then, then what do we even have?
- [41:53]
C
Yeah, what is the way? What do you think is the way forward then? I, I, I totally agree with all of this research. And I remember hearing Jennifer talk about that for the, like, that's where I learned it and realized that I see this in myself all the time. Like, I totally go to one of those three places and, and she kind of talks about this, that, like, that's where you go when you need validation, when what you're actually hoping for is validation. Like, you want to send the article so that someone tells you, like, you're right, and I know it. And, like, that feels so, that feels like such a relief. But, but in community, where you're never gonna get that enough. Like, it will never, you will never get enough validation to become differentiated and whole and, like, feel safe, like, to keep those feelings away. How, what do you think, what do you think actually is important about being in those relationships? Like, if you're not there yet and it's causing all of this discomfort in your family and in church, like, what's the use of just of being in those experiences all the time? Because the, what I'm imagining someone thinking is, is that I'd rather just be a peacemaker and not have the conflict. Like, I'd rather, I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna send the article. I'm not gonna ask why. I'm just gonna be nice. And, like, we don't have to have a big confrontation about it. And it could be about anything. But I doubt that people ever, like, I can't handle how much validation I need, so I'm opting out. I Think it feels more like I'm gonna do the right thing and just be the peacemaker here and choose not to create contention around whatever our disagreement is. So I guess I'm asking for like, the pitch, like, why is it worth it to get back in there? Because it's so hard.
- [43:35]
D
I have relationships with people who as. As I left the church, essentially as I had beliefs that seemed to at one point be in line with them and then seemed to not be in line with them, feel them deeply disengage and experience that relationship become very surface. And that has been very painful to have a close relationship that then clearly becomes just very surface. And what that can feel like is not being able to be authentic with someone, to not feel safe in your own identity to. It becomes very hard to engage. I think it takes work. And it takes work from like any each party of a relationship to be secure enough in yourself to witness other people's lives and stories and experiences and allow them to be who they are without feeling that their choices or beliefs or experiences have to be mine. It, you know, kind of bring it into our research with the book. Being able to sit with someone else's story with deep listening is a skill and it's a practice. And like Heather was talking about, like that discomfort and that window of tolerance that you can practice building that window of tolerance and practice feeling that discomfort. The Exponent to blog started in 2006 that the Internet was blowing up and booming and subscriptions were declining across the board and including at Exponent. And there were these three years where the Exponents Quarterly magazine became a online only PDF. So 2007, 8 and 9, and the block is booming. And so in one sense, there's this avenue, there's this place to have these discussions. So why did they then decide to bring back the Quarterly magazine? Like, why put in that effort and that time and those resources? The print issue allows you to read through a range of different perspectives and experiences. And they've had a lot of really potentially complicated topics for LDS people to read through. When you sit with a print issue and read a dozen or so personal essays and then poetry and art and maybe fiction and, you know, depending on the issue, book reviews, and you can have lots of different perspectives, but not the expectation that you comment right away like on a blog or on social media, where you're not jumping into a comment section to argue and you sit with somebody else's story and experience, yes, that can let you actually, like they can let you sit with discomfort or with Difference. Or let you practice listening to someone who may come at one of these deep topics from a very different perspective and think, oh, well, that's not what I would choose or what I believe, but I'm. I got to listen to somebody else's experience. And then maybe on the next page, maybe there's an article that you vibe with more. Maybe that is something where you're like, oh, yeah, that, that very much aligns with my thinking. But finding places where you connect with it enough to want to be in that space but where there's going to be different perspectives can let you practice differentiation in a way that you can then bring those skills to your relationships better.
- [47:07]
C
Yeah, I love that advice. Maybe there are places that feel less electric where you. Or where you feel less vulnerable, where you can just practice stretching, like walking out a little bit and trying to understand. Because I think that, I think it's very easy for it to be a reflex as soon as you sense a disagreement to contract. And I can totally see that would be, that would be such interesting work to just find a place where you feel like you've got enough bandwidth where you can practice wondering if you're wrong or wondering how someone else is having. How, how someone else experience is experiencing the same. This same thing. Maybe not in a place that feels like you're instantly in fight, flight or fun when you, when you go there, even in your mind. Can I ask you, Katie, and if you want to totally skip this, I'm happy to take this out, but I would love to hear, like when you mentioned leaving the church and recognizing that a lot of these relationships became very surfacey, could you, would you be open to just talking about what actually would have felt connecting? Like what. Was there something you were hoping that friendships that friends would have said or done or I don't know, like what, what? And I know this is different for everyone, but I just, I would love to hear what you wish happened.
- [48:19]
D
Curiosity and care and willing to just listen goes a long way in kind of bridging those divides. Where if somebody asks about your experience and doesn't then try to tell you why you're wrong, because I've experienced that too, where there's like this, oh, somebody asking me this question because they really care about my experience or, or what I think about this and then I decide to be more vulner and I share and they're like, oh, well, I'm going to tell you these reasons why you are completely wrong. And then that further divides the relationship. Right. And so curiosity without a forced conclusion or, you know, that that helps a lot. And so I can think about relationships where there's been a total lack of curiosity and a unwillingness to engage in topics that can be uncomfortable. And it becomes very hard to get re engaged with closeness if you can't have curiosity. But on the other hand, I can think of this neighborhood book club that I have that I'm part of where very intentionally, it's a group of people who were like, there's going to be active members of the church and not active members and there's going to be people who, or potentially who've never been members of the church. Currently all either have been or, or are. There are people who have, you know, one, one friend's an ordained minister in another religion tradition now and is part of this. And we have my neighborhood's current Relief Society president in it. And you know, it's, it's a mix of active and not active and you know, setting boundaries. Like there's going to be Diet Coke and wine at these events and let people know what to expect and people can choose to opt in or opt out and know like they are choosing to come be in community with people who are going to have different experiences and perspectives and things to share. And we're like, we're going to set certain boundaries. Like there's certain types of books that we're going to read and certain types that we're not. But like with within this container coming together and just engaging in friendships and then, and we've been meeting together for years now where we get to stay engaged in each other's lives and learn about each other and hear as things change with, with jobs and with kids and with all these different stages of life and, and choose to be friends and be close regardless of all these differences. And I think people being willing to come with curiosity and not expectation that anyone else in that group believes the way they do is huge. It's huge. And I've. I've been talking for a while, but if I can also share this that like my, my dad died last month. My dad passed away. He died of cancer last month. And he's someone who, over the previous decade I had a lot of differences with religion and politics and that became very difficult in that relationship. But he had served in the New England mission from 69 to 71 at the same time that these exponent women were starting these projects and were doing the pink issue of Dialogue. And he didn't know these people, but he, you know, he would do Events at the mission home next to the Longfellow park building where these things were taking place. And he served in, like, Vermont and New Hampshire. And I go every year now to the excellent retreat in New Hampshire and. And New England and Boston and this place and these. And some of these. These people who show up in this history became a point of connection for me and him when there are other things that we can no longer connect on. And I think sometimes it takes work to find new things to connect on that are real and legitimate things and meaningful things, even when there's other things that you no longer share the same points of connection on. And I think it takes a willingness to keep having the phone calls and keep showing up in those rocky times when the conversations may be more surface to then be able to find a way to re. Engage with things that are more meaningful and more personal. And it. And it can be worth it.
- [53:01]
C
Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for sharing that, and I'm so sorry about your dad. That just feels like. That feels like such meaningful work. I love the idea of just, like, really spending our energy finding genuine connection that feels. That feels simpler. And I think that. I think that really can be the pathway into even just, like, accepting this paradox. Like, I. I think for me, the people that I'm closest to that I disagree with the most, it is. It's kind of like. It feels like a paradox. It feels like I can't understand it all the way, but, like, I really genuinely love them so much. And a lot of times it just feels like maybe you don't have to figure it out, like maybe it's just gonna be there. And that feels like such important growth. And I guess to me, that's why it feels like these back to these echo chambers, why it feels so important to find our way out of those. Because otherwise, like, it's so easy to become rigid and closed and cut off anything that starts to feel like. Like growth. Like you were talking about Heather. So thank you so much.
- [54:02]
E
One of the phrases that I find I use in family therapy a lot.
- [54:07]
D
Is.
- [54:10]
E
You can accept something without agreeing with it. So people can share something that is totally true to them that you completely disagree with, but you can accept it and accept that they feel that way, and that's not like endorsing it. And I think sometimes we're so afraid that acceptance is endorsement, and it's not. We've got to be able to witness other people's experiences, and witnessing usually just involves just watching. You don't really have to say or do anything. And, and I think one of my favorite scriptures is when the Savior is in the Garden of Gethsemane and he is heading into this, you know, gut wrenching trial and he just wants his friends to sit with him. The Savior needed a witness. The Savior wanted friends to just be with them. They couldn't fix it. They couldn't help. They, you know, they really, they couldn't do anything. But if the Savior needs people to just validate his experience and, and be there for him, well, then we certainly need it too.
- [55:26]
D
Yeah.
- [55:26]
C
Thank you so much. We're about out of time, but I, I would love to know, like, if there are things that you keep in mind when you're in these spaces where, where your lower self wants to create one single good and, and everything else feels wrong. Like, are there things that you try to keep in mind to keep yourself in this growing place? And is it, I mean, is it this, Heather? Is it that, like, your truth, your. Your intention is to be a witness? Or, or is it that your intention is to connect? Or are you thinking of a value that you're, you're opting to put first over something more specific that will be, that will. That might feel more contentious in a room or like, what, what is it that makes you able to be in conversation when you're recognizing that there are serious differences in the room?
- [56:11]
E
So, you know, Katie shared a little bit about, like, her, her faith journey. And, and I'm active and it is, it is a choice that I make, you know, basically every week. And I think about when I, if I weren't going to church, I would just be surrounding myself with people who think and believe mostly the same things that I do. But when I go to church, I get the opportunity to be with people who I would not seek out and somebody who may have politics that, you know, when I get going, I can just be so black and white and so rigid, and that person comes and shovels my driveway and I have to all of a sudden stop and I cannot write them off. They are no longer just this thing, this object. They are a human being with experiences and they are serving me. And I am grateful. And the flip of that is true. I love to be able to serve the people in my ward. And sometimes I serve people who I know their inclination would be like, ugh, I don't know about that. About that. Heather Sundahl, like, she's, you know, she's a feminist. She's this or she's that. But when you've Picked the lice out of somebody's kid's hair, they can no longer write you off. They look at you and they see your goodness. And so for me, one of the biggest reasons why I stay is because it keeps me in dialogue with and comfortable with the tension. And living with, on the one hand, seems like our values are totally against each other's, and yet we do share this common value of service and community. So it forces me to live with that tension.
- [58:13]
C
Thank you, Heather. Katie, anything you want to add?
- [58:17]
D
Well, I was thinking how it has made a huge difference for me to have places where I feel I can show up with my full self without judgment. Right. Not everywhere is that place, but for me, that that place did become exponent. Like the I. I had already left the church and I was already actually working on this book with Heather when I went to the exponent retreat in New Hampshire for the first time. And I remember being so afraid because I knew that there were going to be people who were lifelong active members of the church or who. Or who maybe were more experienced feminists or like, I was like, am I going to be feminist enough? Am I going to be Mormon enough? In this space? I'm also showing up as kind of a participant observer. I'm already, like, writing about these people. And that felt very vulnerable. And I felt like, I don't know if I'm going to be accepted in this, in this space. And I very quickly found just this open acceptance where there was a full spectrum of activity or relationship to the church, where there were people who were active temple recommend holding members and people who left decades ago, and yet they keep showing up year after year together to talk about issues in the full complexity of their lives. And I'm like, oh, this is a space where, like, I actually can do that. I can show up in my full self, which then gave me a space to have more ease and more acceptance of myself so that it's more easy for me to go into places where I don't have that wow and be in connection with. In relationship. Not necessarily like the full, like, oh, yes, I feel so fully accepted here, but I can be in community to some extent with people with much bigger differences or conflicts more easily because of spaces where I feel that acceptance, which is really the intention of why they started and why people put in the time, effort, energy to keep the organization going all those decades, because enough people kept finding it as that space where they could show up as themselves, which then allowed them to go into whatever other circumstances they had in their lives. Like, there's. It's worth it to create spaces like that.
- [60:44]
B
Yeah.
- [60:44]
D
And enter other spaces. Yes. Yeah.
- [60:47]
C
And your window, that window of tolerance expands. It feels like this is just such an important pattern that we can follow right now. Like, it feels so. It feels so important while we become more and more divisive and more and more isolated to just, like, have a new way to think about community, that it doesn't have to be the place where you have the most uniformity, where you're never going to be challenged, but, like, maybe it's supposed to be this very complicated fabric of experience. And it's really is such a gift that we. This is like, part of our deep history. Like, we have roots here with women. Like, figuring this out and experiencing this in a way that we can actually observe and. And participate in because it. Because it's all written down, because we can see it happening throughout. Through the centuries, really. So thank you so much, both of you, for your work, for the book and. And for this conversation. This feels really important right now. So we're so grateful you'd be here with us.
- [61:39]
D
Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.
- [61:41]
C
Thank you.
- [61:41]
E
This was really fun.
- [61:43]
D
Thanks, both of you.
- [61:46]
C
All right. Thanks so much for listening.
- [61:47]
B
We're so grateful to Katie and Heather for sharing their time in their hearts with us. You can Learn more about Exponent 2 and explore decades of essays@exonent2.org the book that we've been discussing, 50 Years of Exponent 2, is also available from Signature Books, the Exponent 2 Shop, and Amazon. And if Faith Matters, content is resonating.
- [62:04]
C
With you and you get the chance. We would love for you to rate.
- [62:06]
B
And review the podcast wherever you listen. Thanks again for listening.