Grief

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One Body, Multiple Personalities: A Pauline Approach to Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative Identity Disorder.[1] The words stung more than I thought they would. Dissociative Identity Disorder. The diagnosis did not come as a surprise. I had specifically sought out psychological assessment to evaluate my theory as…

Mt. Rainier Sanctification

Listen to the podcast version here. For nearly three hours, I’d been trying unsuccessfully to sleep. It was definitely not the most comfortable bed I’d ever had—only a thin yellow and silver accordion-style pad separated…

Thoughts on the Sacrament During a Pandemic

Podcast version of this Personal Essay. The sacrament feels like a medical procedure these days. It’s passed by men, not boys. I wondered about that requirement until I looked around the chapel at our scanty,…

Finding Rebecca: A Eulogy

Podcast version of this Personal Essay. The DAILY ENQUIRER—April 24, 1897A Poor Widow Distracted by Life’s Burdens “One of those events occurred this morning which causes the heart to grow sad and go out in…

Excommunication and Finding Wholeness

Dialogue 54.1 (Spring 2021): 69–79
Five years after my excommunication, I met and entered into a relationship with the man who is my husband to this day. We became a couple in 1991; we held a public commitment ceremony in 1995, a time when same-sex marriage was legal nowhere in the United States; we purchased a home together in 1996; and we legally married in California in 2008. Regardless of how or why I was excommunicated in 1986, current Church policy is such that if I were a member, my bishop would have grounds for excommunicating me now, and I cannot currently be reinstated into membership.

To the Bishop Who Conducted My Father’s Funeral Service Yesterday

Art Essay: Reflections on Life, Art, Loss, and Love

Living with Alzheimer’s Disease: A Wife’s Perspective

“Frank, please sit up here,” I pleaded, patting the doctor’s examination table and urging my husband forward. I was trying to be patient. By nature I move fast, and holding myself back to accommodate his slowness…

The Mourning After

At least the kids were gone, settled among family for the next ten or twelve hours. That gave him some time to pull himself together, to sort things out before tomorrow, before the rest of…

Frau Ruster and the Cure for Cognitive Dissonance

Depression and the Brethren of the Priesthood

Body and Blood

It’s six o’clock, time for dinner and Little House on the Prairie reruns. I walk up the stairs as my mom is pulling some string beans out of the microwave. She asks me if I’ll…

Uncertainty and Healing

Deaths and (RE)births

Dialogue 45.4 (Winter 2012): 65–87
She had severe versions of typical pregnancy nausea and migraines. But she also experi-enced dreadful cramping on one side of her abdomen, crampingthat could only be assuaged by long walks. Dark three o’clock strolls around our sleeping neighborhood became commonplacefor us. Many days she could barely move because of the pain, anddoctors were at a loss to explain the origins or offer options for al-leviation. It was almost a relief when Amanda’s water broke atthirty-one weeks.

Bones Heal Faster: Spousal Abuse in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Parable of Bones

The Iron Rod On the Eightfold Path

One Body, Multiple Personalities: A Pauline Approach to Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative Identity Disorder.[1] The words stung more than I thought they would. Dissociative Identity Disorder. The diagnosis did not come as a surprise. I had specifically sought out psychological assessment to evaluate my theory as…

Mt. Rainier Sanctification

Listen to the podcast version here. For nearly three hours, I’d been trying unsuccessfully to sleep. It was definitely not the most comfortable bed I’d ever had—only a thin yellow and silver accordion-style pad separated…

Thoughts on the Sacrament During a Pandemic

Podcast version of this Personal Essay. The sacrament feels like a medical procedure these days. It’s passed by men, not boys. I wondered about that requirement until I looked around the chapel at our scanty,…

Finding Rebecca: A Eulogy

Podcast version of this Personal Essay. The DAILY ENQUIRER—April 24, 1897A Poor Widow Distracted by Life’s Burdens “One of those events occurred this morning which causes the heart to grow sad and go out in…

Excommunication and Finding Wholeness

Dialogue 54.1 (Spring 2021): 69–79
Five years after my excommunication, I met and entered into a relationship with the man who is my husband to this day. We became a couple in 1991; we held a public commitment ceremony in 1995, a time when same-sex marriage was legal nowhere in the United States; we purchased a home together in 1996; and we legally married in California in 2008. Regardless of how or why I was excommunicated in 1986, current Church policy is such that if I were a member, my bishop would have grounds for excommunicating me now, and I cannot currently be reinstated into membership.

To the Bishop Who Conducted My Father’s Funeral Service Yesterday

Art Essay: Reflections on Life, Art, Loss, and Love

Living with Alzheimer’s Disease: A Wife’s Perspective

“Frank, please sit up here,” I pleaded, patting the doctor’s examination table and urging my husband forward. I was trying to be patient. By nature I move fast, and holding myself back to accommodate his slowness…

The Mourning After

At least the kids were gone, settled among family for the next ten or twelve hours. That gave him some time to pull himself together, to sort things out before tomorrow, before the rest of…

Frau Ruster and the Cure for Cognitive Dissonance

Depression and the Brethren of the Priesthood

Body and Blood

It’s six o’clock, time for dinner and Little House on the Prairie reruns. I walk up the stairs as my mom is pulling some string beans out of the microwave. She asks me if I’ll…

Uncertainty and Healing

Deaths and (RE)births

Dialogue 45.4 (Winter 2012): 65–87
She had severe versions of typical pregnancy nausea and migraines. But she also experi-enced dreadful cramping on one side of her abdomen, crampingthat could only be assuaged by long walks. Dark three o’clock strolls around our sleeping neighborhood became commonplacefor us. Many days she could barely move because of the pain, anddoctors were at a loss to explain the origins or offer options for al-leviation. It was almost a relief when Amanda’s water broke atthirty-one weeks.

Bones Heal Faster: Spousal Abuse in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Parable of Bones

The Iron Rod On the Eightfold Path