Contributed by Kristen
I want to start this week where I ended last week: “all that I say could be told another way.” It’s from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The narrator sings those words as she’s introducing the story of Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers. “All that I say could be told another way, in this story of a boy whose dreams came true. And it could be you.”
The Milk & Honey Mamas project started as my own story of motherhood began. As I started telling scripture stories to my daughter, I realized in a new way that it matters how the tale is told. I reached out to trusted anchors of wisdom, my dear friends Caroline and Emma, for help and guidance. All of us thought and worried and dreamed of beautiful stories for children which aren’t watered down but which simultaneously honor the playful creativity so integral to childhood. So together, we tell stories. We offer them in the hopes of connection, the goal of all storytellers. The theological background is intended to enrich the stories, to explain why we have chosen to tell the stories in certain ways, and to contextualize the shared richness of the tales we’ve inherited.
So all that we say could be told another way. And this, ultimately, is the heart of our project. To recognize that living a life of faith is as much about storytelling as it is about anything else. And the stories we give to our children matter. They live within us, coming to life in the ways we connect life experiences and belief, the ways we embody our heritage. If Sariah had written the story of Laman and Lemuel, would the story be told in a different way? If Emma Smith had narrated the sequences of polygamy? If a child present in 3 Nephi narrated the events they remembered, would we have the same account? All that we say could be told another way.
This chunk of D&C is doctrinally large. It is particularly interesting in its parallels to Protestant doctrine promulgating at the time, which does not end up in the final shake-up of Latter-day Saint doctrine as written. For example, the text explores the language of justification and sanctification, common terms in both the Catholic and Protestant lineages of Christianity but which do not have great traction in Latter-day Saint discourse (or at least, not in the same way). These were, however, terms under rigorous debate in the Great Awakening. Additionally, the discussion of the Fall in D&C 20: “But by the transgression of these holy laws man became sensual and devilish, and became fallen man.” This is somewhat confusing in the context of the well-known LDS belief in a gracious fall. These two chapters outline the most common “prongs” of Christian belief: creation, fall, atonement (and baptism, which is generally associated with the latter). So what we have is an approach toward the problem of the human condition (creation has fallen) and the proposed solution (Christ will atone and rectify).
Now back to storytelling. Looking at this section, we could engage in an overview of creation, fall, and atonement as defining principles of Christian faith and explore their meaning and importance. But beneath these important prongs is the deeper impetus of faith, the deeper and more mysterious question: what is the problem that needs to be solved? This is the wheel upon which everything turns, and while the answer seems clear in D&C 20, it is less clear in the progression of LDS revelation. What does it mean that humankind has become fallen? What is the problem of creation that needs to be restored?
Many have told a story around these questions assuming one direction or another. There exist multiple atonement theories in Christian theology, all relying on various assumptions about creation, divinity, and creatures. Are humans in captivity to sin, requiring a ransom or blood sacrifice? Do they need a moral example of such ethical excellence that they will want to be good? Must their evil deeds be expunged by a pure and sinless substitute? These stories are all different, but with common threads. But the way it is told introduces all that will follow. The prongs of belief, as outlined here in Joseph’s D&C, anchor all that falls upon them. They must bear weight.
I want the stories I tell my children about creation, about the human condition, and about Jesus to bear weight. I want them to bear my children’s weight, so that when they are lost and afraid, they have something that can hold them. A story changes as the weight placed on it morphs. A good story grows with us, new dimensions realized each time we return to chapter 1. We are not reinventing the wheel. But we are asking the words to live with us.
All that I say could be told another way.
For children:
Once there was a child who loved to ride her bike. She loved the feel of the wind on her face and the feel of her legs pumping the pedals and the blur of the road as she zipped by. But one day, while the girl was riding her bike, she fell and broke her arm. Everything had been so wonderful, and in one moment, the whole world felt only like pain. Well she went to the doctor and she got a cast and pretty soon her arm stopped hurting, but the girl was afraid to ride her bike again. What if she fell? Now that she knew how terrible things could be, the girl wanted to protect herself from getting hurt again.
Have you ever been hurt? Have you ever felt like this girl? There’s actually a fancy word for this experience. It’s called vulnerability. It’s the feeling of being soft and fragile, like a peach. It’s the feeling of realizing that your softness could be hurt, that your fragility could be broken. It’s the feeling of knowing how easily you can bruise. Sound familiar? It does to me, too! When we feel this vulnerability, it can be scary. And even though everyone in the whole entire world is vulnerable, we don’t really like to show our softness to each other. And so a lot of the time, we pretend we aren’t vulnerable. We actually spend a lot of time and energy doing this as humans. We laugh at each other when we fall down because we think “oooh that could have been me!” We grab the last cookie from the jar because we think “what if I’m hungry tomorrow?” We turn our backs to the person sitting alone because we think “I need to look out for myself.” Sometimes, we get together as groups and we protect only our group. We say “only people who are MY religion will be protected. Everyone else is wrong.” Or we say, “only people who have MY color of skin deserve the best things in the world.” Most of the time, people don’t mean to be wicked and mean, they just mean to protect themselves and their tribe. But when we get so worried about protecting ourselves, we forget what it means to be alive. We forget that being truly human is being connected to all living things, feeling the Spirit of life flowing through from us to them and back again.
This is where God comes in. God wants us to be connected, because that is our trust and deepest belonging. That is who we are at our core. But we forget. We struggle because we are vulnerable. And this brings suffering for us and for others. But God loves us, and God loves this world. So God said, “I will come to the world. I will come to be vulnerable with you.” And that is why Jesus was born. And you remember about Jesus, right? Jesus felt every bit of vulnerability a human can feel. In fact, Jesus died. But then, he came back. And at first his friends thought this meant that the earth is not God’s home, but then Jesus came back. Because life is worth coming back to. And God said “this is my whole work. To help you be your full selves. To help you be truly alive.”
When we fall down, like the girl fell from her bike, we get hurt because we are vulnerable. And we are afraid to try again. We want to protect ourselves from pain. We almost wish we’d never learned to bike in the first place. But Jesus helps us to remember that vulnerability is part of being alive. It is precious and beautiful. It is what allows us to love, and to treasure life’s goodness as well as life’s pain and injustice. And Jesus’ whole work is helping us to try again. To get back on the bike to feel the wind on our faces. To be free.
Artwork
Compiled by Caroline
Poetry
Compiled by Caroline
Two Poems by David Whyte:
Sometimes simplicity rises
like a blossom of fire
from the white silk of your own skin.
You were there in the beginning
you heard the story, you heard the merciless
and tender words telling you where you had to go.
Exile is never easy and the journey
itself leaves a bitter taste. But then,
when you heard that voice, you had to go.
You couldn’t sit by the fire, you couldn’t live
so close to the live flame of that compassion
you had to go out in the world and make it your own
so you could come back with
that flame in your voice, saying listen…
this warmth, this unbearable light, this fearful love…
It is all here, it is all here.
The sound of a bell
Still reverberating,
or a blackbird calling
from a corner of the field,
asking you to wake
into this life,
or inviting you deeper
into the one that waits.
Either way
takes courage,
either way wants you
to be nothing
but that self that
is no self at all,
wants you to walk
to the place
where you find
you already know
how to give
every last thing
away.
The approach
that is also
the meeting
itself,
without any
meeting
at all.
That radiance
you have always
carried with you
as you walk
both alone
and completely
accompanied
in friendship
by every corner
of the world
crying
Allelujah.
Music
Compiled by Caroline
milk & honey mamas 
Leave a comment