Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions

by Cami Ostman

  As my knees grew achy and my spine stiffened and my feet got numb, I remembered all the other times people had prayed over me, all the times I had answered the altar call and gone forward at the end of the church services to receive my own baptism in the Holy Spirit, my own secret language. So many believers I couldn’t count had laid their hands on me or waved their arms in the air over me as they prayed for God to touch me with His grace, prayed that I would be slain in the Spirit and receive His secret code. But each time I went forward, desperate for this spiritual currency, I came away speaking only English and some rudimentary high school Spanish. Now, tired of fighting a confusing internal fight and sad for my parents, who loved both God and me, I continued to tremble on my knees in Pastor Gary’s office, knowing that both men would attribute my involuntary shaking to God working within me. Only I knew that I shook with the fear of making an impossible choice. Emotionally exhausted, I just wanted to go home.

  I took a deep breath and tried to get myself under control.

  A simple solution to my immediate dilemma was within my own power, I just had to use it. I cleared my throat and tried to act confident.

  “Barreemabeanabarreemah,” I raised my arms slightly, palms up. “Barreemabeanahbean.” No demons left my body, and my head didn’t spin around while I projectile vomited, but my soul floated above us, hovering over this strange trio trying to make sense of the scene.

  “Hakabarreemabeanabarreemah,” I gave the R’s a trill for authenticity. “Barremabean. Holy Spirit, thank you.”

  I felt Pastor Gary and my father relax next to me. They continued to murmur in their prayer languages, thanking Jesus over and over:

  “Praise you, Jesus.”

  “Thank you, Lord.”

  “Thank you, Jesus.”

  “Praise you, Lord.”

  “Amen,” I interjected, hoping to wrap things up.

  “Amen!” Pastor Gary agreed emphatically.

  “Praise the Lord,” my father said, weeping for the second time that day. “Praise the Lord.”

  As we walked back to the car, Dad put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a little squeeze. “I love you, kiddo,” he said.

  “I love you too,” I said. I knew I had won an important, if temporary, reprieve from the impossible choice I would someday have to make. I had no idea of the struggles that lay ahead as I learned to speak the new language of my love for Chris while uttering the secret words that kept me bound to my family and friends.

  If life begins with the splitting of a cell, my lesbian life began that night in Pastor Gary’s study. I was not made free from my burdens, but I split into two selves. My inner and outer being were forced to separate, setting me on a long and arduous path to rediscover what would make me whole again.

  A Mother in Israel

  Stephanie Durden Edwards

  My head presses firmly against the back wall of the Relief Society room. The room is in the back of the local Mormon meetinghouse I attend. I am a Mormon mommy; as a woman and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I am trying to make my life fall into step with the things I know I should be doing. So far I have made the right choices. I married like I was taught, “in the right place, and the right time, to the right person.” For me, that meant marriage in the Salt Lake Temple to a returned missionary. That was less than three years ago. Now I am twenty-one years old and the mother of a small boy, with another on the way.

  My son sits in my lap and plays his favorite game, shaking his head back and forth as quickly as he can. Apple cinnamon cereal flings out of the small blue container in his hand, landing in my lap and on the floor. He is two and loves shaking his head silly. I slide him over to my side so I can bend over my pregnant belly to pick up the cereal from the floor. After I sit upright he begins the game again; more cereal hides in the folds of my skirt until it falls to the floor.

  I’m too tired to keep up with this game. The weekly lesson is about to begin, and I don’t want to miss any of it. A handful of brightly colored plastic blocks distracts him as I slip the cereal container back inside the diaper bag. I check the floor one more time for any missed cereal, knowing that giving children food in church is technically frowned upon, but three hours of church every Sunday is tough for small children to sit through. Normally my son would go into the nursery—I had waited impatiently for him to be eligible at eighteen months—but he is in a phase where he will not go in without a tantrum. The nursery leader will not keep him if he cries when I try to leave. I wish she would at least try. I want just one hour to sit alone. I wish I didn’t feel this way. I hate myself for feeling this way.

  Once in a Relief Society lesson the teacher read a poem to the class about having one more baby. I never remember all the words, but the last line sticks in my head: “I’m rocking my baby, because babies don’t keep.” I look forward to the day that my children are a little older. I look forward to the days that bring more freedom, more time for me. The sanctity of my Sundays in the all-female Relief Society has been interrupted. I don’t have long before there will be yet another babe in my arms. I want to want to rock my babies. I want that to be enough.

  I try to listen hard, to glean from the lessons the instructions I need to become a better wife and mother. I need help. I need to find contentment in the world of small children and nursery rhymes, aprons and dinner at the same time every night. I have to find peace in my place. David O. McKay said it and we live by it. “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” To succeed, to make sure that my children walk the right path, I have to be a good mother. I struggle daily to humble myself, to be receptive to the teachings of the priesthood leaders and the Holy Spirit. They tell me it is my job to submit. I am a woman. My inner being fights against this role; this struggle comes from a place deep inside me. And though I walk around with this conflict always on my mind, I desperately want to be a good wife and mother.

  After the announcements the speaker rises and walks to the front of the room. Today’s lesson is about the value of motherhood. I have known since my teenage years that good Mormon women are supposed to become wives and mothers and stay at home. I knew this when I chose to live a devout Mormon lifestyle. The little boy on my lap was born just weeks after I turned nineteen. I’m doing my best to become a Mother in Israel.

  The instructor begins by passing out small pieces of white paper, each one containing a quote. I want her to come to me, but I am seated in the circle of chairs as close to the door as I can be in case my son disturbs the class. The papers never make it back my way. The sister seated in front of me holds hers up to the woman next to her—the type is small and she asks for help with the words. Both women are large and wear floral print dresses. I look at them and other women like them and I cringe. I am already more than fifty pounds heavier than I was just three short years ago when I got married. I hate the weight. I am scared to death of looking more like a man than a woman. I am scared, but I have no idea how to even begin to lose it.

  The speaker is the mother of six children and as slender as a teenage girl. I look at her curiously; she is easily old enough to be my mother and looks like a shampoo model. Her hair is full and brown and perfectly cut. She tells us how grateful she is to be the mother of her six children—her oldest is a mother herself now and her youngest is only a few months older than my son. She begins by reading a quote from one of our Latter-day prophets, Spencer W. Kimball. “The husband is expected to support his family and only in an emergency should a wife secure outside employment. Her place is in the home, to build the home into a heaven of delight.” My heart races; this is exactly the type of lesson I need to hear. I have always appreciated being taught the rules about the role of women and mothers and what is expected of me. Sometimes when the lessons are nebulous I feel disappointed. Today’s lesson and these quotes make the picture clearer. I long for simple instructions to help me figure out how to be happy in the role I fill.

  The speaker calls on another
woman in the class to read the next quote. Again, it is by Kimball, and I feel my chest tingle. Kimball became the president of the church on the day I was born. I have always taken that to mean I have a special connection with him.

  “Numerous divorces can be traced directly to the day when the wife left the home and went out into the world into employment. Two incomes raise the standard of living beyond its norm. Two spouses working prevent the complete and proper home life, break into the family prayers, create an independence that is not cooperative, causes distortion, limits the family, and frustrates the children already born.” She reads the quote with the stern, quiet voice reserved for Sacrament Meeting talks; her tone rises and falls at the right moments, giving weight to the words. She lowers her voice when she speaks of the day when the wife leaves home to work, and her words have the effect on me she wanted. I listen more attentively. I am grateful to hear these words. Like a wayward child craving the firm hand of guidance and discipline, I need to hear the truth. “Feminism is a great evil,” a sister in a pale blue dress whispers to her friend in a slightly Hispanic accent. “Feminism is the great destroyer of families.”

  I begin to pulse with excitement and revel in the extremity of the discussion. The struggle that exists inside my mind revs up with the intensity of certainty that fills the room. Every day when I wake up I feel a sense of sadness, as if I am trapped in this life with no escape. I know how badly I want to do more than stay home and have babies. I want to go back to college. I want to learn and grow and expand my mind. I think of this daily. Then I spend the rest of the day in anguish over my guilt. I am not good enough. I am disobedient, prideful, and unworthy because I want more. I need this lesson.

  While the discussion turns lively, a small group of women sits silent. Some of them work outside the home. One is staring at the instructor and I can see the corners of her lipstick-colored mouth twitch. These lessons are always controversial. I would not be surprised if one of the quieter women doesn’t get up suddenly and leave the room. I see the eyes of the woman in lipstick dart across the room, over the sea of hands eagerly raised to get their chance to weigh in.

  I stare at this silent group. I look at their faces and search for their secrets. I envy the freedom they enjoy each day breathing the air outside the home. I imagine lunch dates and paychecks and their challenges at work—not mornings spent mopping the kitchen floor or afternoons hauling groceries. As I look at them I begin to pick them apart. Surely if it wasn’t for their salon nails, designer pumps, and fashionable clothes they could afford to stay home too. I live in sweats and T-shirts, part of the burden of living on my husband’s single income.

  Meanwhile, the discussion has continued, and the instructor veers from her tightly scripted notes to drink in the comments from the class. Women who work give up their children for a few more shoes in the closet, they say. Working women support feminism, and feminism is Satan’s tool to destroy the home and family. One woman recalls the command in the 1970s to travel to the state capital to protest the Equal Rights Movement. The instructor seems energized by the flow of condemnation for working mothers, as if she is finally free to publicly vocalize her own deeply held beliefs that working women are the worst evil in the world. Her slender hands grip the book she’s used as a source for the lesson as she clasps it against her chest. She steps forward and lowers her eyes. Several of the arms raised high fall slowly back down. “Sisters,” the instructor begins. “I read another quote here that I was not going to share, but the spirit is prompting me to go ahead.” I sit closer to the edge of my seat, wishing that my son was tucked away in his nursery class and that I had chosen a seat in the front row.

  “Staying home with our children is so very important.” The cadence of her words slows and her voice softens. “A study was done and it showed that a child would rather be home with his own mother than in day care,” here she swallows and sighs, “even if the mother is in the next room committing suicide.”

  The two large, floral women sitting in front of me gasp audibly. Their heads turn toward each other and appear frozen in shock. Within seconds their shock melts, and each individual head slowly bobs in agreement. “Amen” they repeat in unison. I just stare straight ahead. I don’t nod my head.

  My throat burns, indignation wells up from deep in my chest. A faded picture flashes across my mind. I see a familiar dingy couch; a slight blonde woman lies on it scowling at a young girl. The woman on the couch clutches a bottle of pills in her hand. Her mouth moves. She spits threats over the small girl, who cowers on the floor. She is going to take the bottle of pills and kill herself, because no man will ever want a woman with three kids. The girl tells her mother she is sorry, she will try harder to be good. The girl feels her stomach cramp up; she is afraid of what will happen if her mother swallows the pills this time. Her world will break into pieces. Her mother seems to know this. The girl holds down her bitter hatred and begs her mother to stop. She strains to say the right words and holds her breath until her mother is appeased. The girl wonders if her words will work one more time, or if this will be the day she has feared so many times would come. The girl watches in horror as she wrestles the pills from her mother’s hand.

  Hot tears sting my eyes and my hand shoots up in the air. I don’t think about what I am going to say. It comes spilling out.

  “I’m sorry. I have to disagree with that. I can’t believe that a child would be better off with a mother committing suicide than she would be in day care.”

  The shock and horror on a dozen faces slowly begins to reflect my outburst. The instructor breathes in sharply. “Are you saying you would put your child in day care?” the instructor asks me. I feel hot in my seat. My son fusses and I shift him in my lap trying to quiet him.

  “I am saying,” my voice quivers, “that no child would prefer to be with a mother who is going to commit suicide over simply going to a day care center. And I think it is ridiculous to compare the two. Of course he would be better, and safer, in day care than with a mother in the home with severe mental illness!” I say it louder than I mean to. Every eye in the room is on me.

  The teacher squares her shoulders. Her eyes narrow and harden. “You are wrong. Listen to the words of the prophets. A mother’s place is in the home,” she draws in a deep breath. “Period.” The last word is firm and final. The room is silent. My son slides down my lap onto the floor. I stand. I reach for the diaper bag, my purse, and my son’s small hand. I open the door and walk out of the Relief Society room.

  I walk the few short steps to the set of doors at the back of the church. I open the first set of double glass doors to the vestibule in the back of the meetinghouse; my son lets go of my hand and immediately finds a place on the rug to sit. He is gleeful to find such a fantastic place to play. The small vestibule is the perfect playpen; two sets of glass doors gives an excellent vantage point between the familiarity inside and the freedom of the world beyond the glass. He feels safe and he feels free.

  I wish I could feel the same safety and freedom. Instead I stand with my hand resting on the handle of the outside door. I stare out at the parking lot. I could leave. I am angry and confused, the words still cutting through me. My heart and mind tell me she is wrong, they are wrong. But I have always been told that when the prophet speaks, the thinking is done.

  I close my eyes. I remember my mother on the couch clutching the pill bottle, her thin fingers wrapped tightly around it as I try to pry them free. I think, could that be better for my son than a room full of toys and children his age? But then shame floods over me and I think: How could I have left the meeting?

  I could leave more than just the meeting. Right now I could walk out of this church, for good. I picture myself carrying a stack of books, strolling across the lawn of a small college campus. Exhilaration pulses though my arms and legs. For a moment, I think, I can have it. I could do it. I could walk out the door and take a stand. I have seen other Mormon women do it. Why not me?

  I cou
ld leave my family sitting in their classes inside the church. What would happen to me then? What would that mean for my children? I look out the doors into the brightness and think of the day I got married. If I left now, that day could become a bitter memory. I don’t know if I would have a marriage if I left my faith behind. Everything is tied up in my faith.

  Nausea passes over me. I hold my breath to stop myself from throwing up. Morning sickness lasted for the entire pregnancy the first time around and shows no signs of stopping this time. I don’t know if I want another baby after this one. If I stay, will that be okay? Can I decide that for myself, or will the pressure from family and church leaders be too great? I have no idea how much power I am going to have over my own life.

  But outside these doors, I have no idea how much safety I will have. I have no idea what is out there for me or my children. I have no education. What could I do to support my children if my marriage did not survive?

  I see my husband’s face and think of the others, our family and friends and all the people who taught me in church classes when I was a child. I think of the way they look at me when they see me holding my adorable son. If I walk through those doors, or even if I go to school after the baby is born, will they still look at me with affection? Or will their looks harden, will their arms withdraw?

  My eyes open. I look down at my smiling little boy. I know what I have to do.

  I turn back, back to the warm blanket of rigidity and rules and order. I humble myself and head back into the fold. I can’t walk through that outside door. Not yet anyway.

  Poisonous Promises

  Grace Peterson

  I’m a nervous wreck. While Steve handles the twists and turns on this stretch of highway, I take in the April landscape, swallowing the rising urge to jump out of the car. It’s rare to have alone time with my husband, and if I could mute the steady oration of death-and-doom scenarios clogging my gray matter, this drive might actually be enjoyable. Anxiety has been a faithful companion since childhood, but now, at thirty-three, with the birth of baby number four, the volume has been seriously upped. After several futile rounds of bargaining with God, we’re taking a leap of faith, and traversing the unfamiliar countryside to seek help from a stranger.