Episode 192: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Anne Pimentel
Release Date: 07/23/2024
Episode 207: What About Religiosity, Violence and Abuse? | A Conversation with Dr. Susan Madsen
At Last She Said It
When it comes to talking about abuse and violence against women, “You have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable,” explains Susan Madsen. In Episode 207, Dr. Madsen joins Susan and Cynthia for a conversation about the link between religiosity and abuse, and the power disparity that fosters it. Even where the Church is strongest, the statistics are troubling, to say the least. How might our church and its members move from lip service to leading "the army to protect home, family, and children?”
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Episode 206: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Darice Auston
At Last She Said It
“How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you," says Darice Auston, quoting Robert Frost. In Episode 206, Darice joins Cynthia and Susan to share some of the things that have occurred to her, and where those insights are leading her now. It's a conversation that illustrates the ways our unique experiences can shape and inform our spiritual life and church engagement, leading to a truer expression of our deepest personal beliefs.
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Episode 205: The Spiritual Nature of All Things | A Conversation with Kaylee McElroy
At Last She Said It
“The natural world, with all its varieties of God’s creations, shows us so many [other] ways of being,” writes Kaylee McElroy. Zooming out as far as human imagination can take us may bring our ideas about God and our relationship to the physical world into clearer focus. In Episode 205, Susan and Cynthia are joined by Kaylee for a conversation about everything: structures, darkness, creation, connection, and the convergence of physics and spirituality.
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Episode 204: Do I Have to Care? | The Second Coming
At Last She Said It
In a church where everything is “true,” how do we allocate importance? With only so much bandwidth, we all have to make choices about what matters to us. Which ideas do we find to be consistently resonant, or generative? Which produce meaningful fruit in our lives and relationships? In Episode 204, Cynthia and Susan take on the current interest in the Second Coming in a discussion about deciding what really matters.
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Episode 203: An Evolving Faith | A Conversation with Valerie Hamaker
At Last She Said It
There are some topics that seem to surface again and again in our ALSSI conversations: love, fear, self, change, and patriarchy, to name a few. In Episode 203, Cynthia and Susan are joined by Valerie Hamaker for a conversation that touches on these themes and others as we discuss evolving faith.
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Episode 202: Who Deserves to Hear My Story?
At Last She Said It
When things start to shift around our faith, the need to tell people about the change can feel overwhelming. There are all kinds of reasons people want to share—it can feel isolating to carry such big thoughts, feelings, and experiences alone. But depending on the circumstances, spilling the details of your evolving faith can have all kinds of consequences. In Episode 202, Susan and Cynthia discuss the question, “Who deserves to hear my story?”
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Episode 201: What About Certainty? | What About Conscience?
At Last She Said It
David French wrote, “We live in an age of misplaced certainty, when even the smallest expressions of doubt or the slightest of disagreements break institutions and fracture families." In Episode 201, Cynthia and Susan take on certainty as it contributes to the development of a Church monoculture. Is there room for existential or intellectual humility in a "True" church? And as members of an organization built around checklists and worthiness assessments, can Latter-day Saints allow individual conscience to function as a holy disruptor?
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Episode 200: Let's Zoom Waaay Out
At Last She Said It
Our spiritual lives are our own, but they don’t exist in a vacuum. We can do all the inner work we want, but as Latter-day Saint women our personal journey is always going to intersect with our Church membership, theology and history, our marriages, friendships and families, our communities, education and politics, and all the messaging we absorb in these interactions. In Episode 200, Cynthia and Susan discuss how looking at our journey in context can help us better understand our individual story.
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Episode 199 (Bonus): Revisiting "Did It Ever Matter?" | Garments
At Last She Said It
“All dogma begins in mysticism,” says Rob Bell. But by the time programs, practices, and policies filter down to Church members, it’s little wonder the criteria for determining what really matters in the long term—and why—can feel a bit fuzzy. In light of recent changes, in bonus Episode 199 Cynthia and Susan revisit their conversation from Episode 102, Did It Ever Matter? What’s the point of all the trappings of our religious practice as Latter-day Saints? Why do some changes bring so much emotion? And who gets to determine what’s important to us?
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Episode 198 (Bonus): What About Women Leaving the Church? | Revisiting Messages to Our Daughters
At Last She Said It
An August 2024 Church Handbook update includes instruction inviting “Young Women class presidencies to organize youth to minister by welcoming visitors and members as they enter the chapel.” Does this baby step represent leadership’s awareness of the need for Latter-day Saint young women to have some kind of systematic responsibility at the ward level? In Episode 198, Cynthia and Susan discuss this change in the context of research detailing historic shifts in religious engagement for Gen Z men and women. This episode also revisits a previous exploration of the question many of the...
info_outline“We can do things a little differently and still be okay,” says Anne Pimentel. She’s a natural—but also intentional—space-maker, devoted to the idea that one can be a “good member” of the Church without fitting the mold. In Episode 192 Anne joins Susan and Cynthia for a conversation about how she learned and has internalized this lesson for herself. She’s a Latter-day Saint woman whose desire to be an ally in all areas continues to shape the way she shows up in her ward and in the world.