If you grow up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is God a man, a woman, or both? It’s a complication we bump up against a lot, if only indirectly, in our religion where God is Heavenly Father, but is also one of a pair of Heavenly Parents. Some members don’t seem to notice the absence of the divine feminine in our collective dialogue and worship, while some feel it acutely and yearn for more. But as a church we don’t talk about it, so the wrestle with questions is often a private one. In this episode, Susan shares an essay exploring her thoughts and experiences at the intersection of God and gender, then Cynthia joins to add her own insights and ideas. It’s a conversation inviting each of us to examine the origins and development of our personal understanding of God.

Episode 096: The God of All of Us

At Last She Said It is a podcast that seeks to amplify and explore a variety of voices, stories, ideas and experiences of Mormon women.

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Many of us make temple covenants as young adults. Are we expected to have the same perspectives and priorities at 80 that we had at 18? In a church that emphasizes concepts like “staying on the covenant path” and “enduring to the end,” it can be hard to know how to navigate when our life experiences invite us to grow in new directions. In Episode 184, Jana Spangler joins Cynthia and Susan to discuss the challenges Latter-day Saints may face as they change and mature within an inflexible paradigm.

Episode 184: Am I Allowed to Change? | A Conversation with Jana Spangler

We asked, you answered! Of all emotions, anger might be the least acceptable for Latter-day Saint women. Many of us are not comfortable being around it, expressing it, talking about it, or even feeling it. But when we choose silence over healthy dialogue, what’s the toll on our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being? In Episode 183, Cynthia and Susan share listener voicemails about anger. Can we create space in our church culture for women to both experience and express this natural response?

Episode 183: What About Anger?

Does devotion always require walking uphill? What’s the difference between good-hard and bad-hard? Do some Church members see the difficulty of a thing as a measure of the righteousness it requires? Has “more suffering and sacrifice” somehow come to mean “higher and holier” in the LDS narrative? In Episode 182, Valerie Hamaker of Latter-day Struggles podcast joins Susan and Cynthia to discuss these questions and more as they unpack the notion that harder is better when it comes to living our faith.

Episode 182: The Harder the Better | A Conversation with Valerie Hamaker

As the centerpiece of Sunday worship and an ordinance pointing directly to Jesus Christ, the sacrament holds deep meaning for many Latter-day Saints. In Episode 181, Cynthia and Susan turn their grace-peddling to a conversation about the sacrament. What matters more: worthiness, or willingness? When did this simple remembrance of Jesus become about “renewing our baptismal covenant,”  and what does that mean? How might the evolution of personal faith impact the way one thinks about and engages with this ordinance? Can a ritual that is so familiar take on new significance as we change and grow?

Episode 181: What About the Sacrament?

Mary once put a vinyl motto above her kitchen door that read, “That’s What We Do!” It was a 4-word description of her life as a Latter-day Saint woman. For many years, she and her husband were “the couple who could get it done” at church. She describes looking back with grace for that younger self: “She was doing the best she could with what she knew. But she was exhausted and her children and family structure suffered. More importantly—she suffered.” Then Mary changed. In Episode 180, she joins Susan and Cynthia to talk about that change and rebuilding her spiritual life from the bottom up, with just 3 components in the foundation: “Love and Jesus and Me ... what else really matters?”

Episode 096: The God of All of Us

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