npr is usually on my radio when i am alone. no one else can stand it i guess. so it happened that while on my way to pick up the boys from art in henefer tonight i was listening to the utah version of natl. public radio and caught a snippet of a few women discussing the idea of women receiving the priesthood. a few of them pushing for women to receive it...and one soft but firm voice of reason in honoring the way things are. the way the Saviour himself has set up His church.
i have heard of Kate Kelly. a mormon mother and human rights lawyer who lives in DC. she has started a quiet movement to petition the leadership of the church to, as she says it, "" ‘Let us have the priesthood’ ‘We are capable of doing more. What else can we do to help?’ " i respect everyone's right to respectfully voice their opinions...so let me respectfully state mine.
since when do we not help? since when do women NOT do just about everything? since when do we need more to do? if we are lining up to ask the culture, the country, the world for major changes,then i would submit a few things that i actually need.
i need help with the dishes at night. i need more sleep. i need an extra driver. i need a miracle cream that shrinks my double chin. i need women to love themselves. i need them to show less skin and more brains. i need to be respected, praised, and honored for cleaning up pee pee toilets and scraping puke out of the carpet and doing the dishes and making the beds, and ironing the white shirts, and not strangling my pre-teen, and wiping tears while little voices scream bloody murder in my ears. i need our culture and country and our world to look at a womans seemingly unimportant and astoundingly, as some people call it: "demeaning" role as something not to be ashamed of but as something to be cherished, something to strive for, something to aspire too, & something to be grateful for. a PHD in motherhood would be nice. what d'ya say byu? i think i will petition the Lord's university to offer that.
i don't need to be the bishop, i don't need to pass the sacrament, collect fast offerings, heal the sick or raise the dead. i need the men in my life to be that strength i rely on in the middle of the sleepless night when i can ask for a blessing and finally get some rest. and when that preisthood is not available.... well in the words of dear Pres. Packer, "there are few things more powerful than the prayers of a righteous mother."
our responsibilities are like our bodies. they are different. one is not better than the other. when our differences and strengths and weaknesses combine... beautiful things are created. there is no doctrine that says mike can't clean, nurture, or cook. there is no doctrine that says women having the priesthood is impossible...but motherhood is not mike's job and holding the priesthood is not mine. and i for one am so okay with that.
