Missing

I don't have any right to miss you, but I do.

Late

I don't really have a reason to be awake.

I'm just thinking about him.

Pontificating

General Conference was this last weekend. It was full of good shenanigans with friends and a lot of doctrine. And maybe I will talk about the shenanigans later. Because right now, I just need to get some things down.

Friday afternoon we went with the friend crew up to Salt Lake to do a session in the temple. It was a really lovely experience, but man, it had me feeling some kind of way.

I don't know how to explain it exactly. As I've gotten older and my faith has gotten deeper, I've started to see a lot more nuance in the world, and I have a lot more questions. I'll have to write more about this, but not now. But the things that I keep holding on to are that the Gods, my Heavenly Parents, are in their heavens and They know me and love me, the temple feels like home in a way that I don't have the vocabulary to describe, and that the Book of Mormon brings light into my life.

But we went through this session, and I was so glad to be there with some of the people in this world who mean the most to me, and then sitting in the celestial room, after everything, I was just... overwhelmed.

There was an ache in my soul that I can't explain.

It is a strange sort of dissonance that I feel so at home in a place that I do not understand, and when I feel like there are significant problems with the institution of the church, but o! I love the temple.

And I was remembering when I went through the temple for the very first time, with my family, and it was this temple, and I had this startlingly clear memory of watching them all come into the celestial room one by one and being so glad they were there.

I was filled with love for my family and the friends I was there with and the fact that I was there, and it drowned out my confusion somehow, and all I could think was how I wanted to be there someday with everyone I love. But the questions I have, they still existed too.

And then when we went to leave, every step I took away from the celestial room felt like knives under my feet and some gaping hole in my soul opened wider and wider with every pace.

I had the feeling I was leaving something very important behind me, and I missed it so desperately.

I have never felt that before.

And then there was general conference, that wonderful semi-annual broadcast in which we hear from the leaders of the church. And so many of the messages were wonderful, but so many hit me in ways that I didn't expect. There was almost a feeling of... exclusivity, that I have never felt before.

Maybe it's simply because I've learned a lot in the last few years, and even in the last six months, my perspective has changed.

But there were more talks than I expected to that hurt, that left me wondering about the people who didn't fit those molds exactly, comments that somehow don't seem to align with the everlasting love of the Heavenly Parents that I know.

Of five sessions, only two women spoke. I was hoping for one every session, which feels like a low bar, but somehow we can't even manage it. And something about it feels so wrong to me, that the Apostles say over and over to listen to and respect the women, and we don't get to speak.

It doesn't feel right.

And it doesn't feel right that we never talk about Heavenly Mother. She is real, too, and surely she cares.

Don't give me that, "It's out of respect."

We respect our Father.

Don't give me that, "He's protecting Her."

She doesn't need to be protected from us, her children, the mortal progeny that she helped create.

Don't give me that, "It's just the way it is, it's the revelation we've received."

Because the way it is is run by men, and don't get me started on the patriarchal order of things (which is great in some ways, but also), but the thing is is that you ask questions that you need answers to, and somehow I wonder if the men standing in to lead the church have never felt the need to see the feminine in the Divine, never felt the aching to know that they were equal.

They certainly didn't go to the temple for the first time and gasp when a man administered an ordinance, they way I did when a woman administered to me.

I feel that there is so much more we could talk about, so much we are missing, because some of the needs aren't felt as keenly by those we have at the top. (and should it even be a top, it certainly feels that way, but aren't we all to serve each other, and I know authority matters, but still, should it feel like the top)

Women matter, we are equal partners, and yet.

And yet.

Two speakers out of thirty-one. Two prayers out of ten.

And you know, last October, when we wondered where all the women were, they said it was because of the women's session. And sure, it was wonderful and uplifting, but only one woman spoke in a general session. But this session, when it was the priesthood session, there was no great influx of women in the other sessions to round it out.

Womanhood, Heavenly Mother, representation.

These are just a few of the questions I had, a few of the things that didn't sit right with me during the wonderful weekend that was the 189th Annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But it's all juxtaposed against the feeling that I left something crucial behind me when I walked out of the celestial room in the Salt Lake Temple Friday night, that that place is home.

I can't let go of that feeling.

But that doesn't stop the hurt, or the questions.