On the Porch Steps

I was so sure that the church wasn't going to excommunicate Sam Young. He's so devout. He's such a good guy. He doesn't doubt anything. He just wants to see a specific practice stop. The church can simply disagree with him and continue to try to ignore him. They've already listened and made some small steps. His fast is over. Why not just leave him alone? Because this is about obedience. "Obedience is the first law of heaven." We owe at least lip service to the leaders of the church. You can doubt all you want as long as you don't talk to the media about it. Or mention it in church meetings. I remember so clearly a time when I believed in this. I remember defending Kate Kelly's excommunication in 2014 as "the only thing the church could do" to maintain its boundaries and authority. I shortly afterward (when The Bishop's Wife was published) began to wonder who was going to be next, and suspecting that it was going to be me. I thoug...

Elinor Dashwood and her younger sister Marianne, are devastated at the death of their father and their brother’s subsequent rejection of Mormonism. He sells the estate that they have lived on all their lives and insists that the only way they can continue to live there is if they renounce Mormonism. Of course, they refuse and move with their aging mother to a tiny estate offered by a Mormon cousin, Colonel Brandon. Colonel Brandon is a much older man, but he immediately falls in love with young, impetuous Marianne, who wants nothing to do with him. Marianne instead falls in love with John Willoughby, the amusing neighbor who pays her far too much attention and takes her out on dates far past her curfew. Elinor, meanwhile, has had her own heart broken. Her beloved, Edward Ferrars, came home from his mission and dated her for months, but never made an offer, and then went back to his mission area. Elinor heard that he was engaged to one of his converts there and she tries to be...

I was thinking recently about my experience in grad school and the years shortly after. I blame myself for a lot of my awkwardness and inability to "negotiate" well with other people. Also for my tendency to blurt out exactly the wrong thing in the wrong moment. I was immature in so many ways, though I was also super intelligent in other ways, able to read so quickly and process information, make connections to other ideas, even leap to big conclusions that ultimately made sense. I wrote well and quickly and I was fearlessly confident in myself, something that I alternately despise about that old version of me and wish I could go back to. In grad school, I wanted to write my dissertation about Sophie von La Roche's fascinating novel Die Geschichte des Fraulein von Sternheim, which was published to much acclaim and with Goethe's approval and help with editing. La Roche wrote a lot of other novels and managed to make a living for a large family doing so, though most o...

Jane Eyre is a young Mormon girl orphaned and being raised by a distant, non-Mormon relative who never tells her of her true heritage. She suffers greatly because of this, secretly longing for an eternal family. She is good to all of the children in the school she works in, but knows they can never be hers. When she becomes a governess to a spoiled young girl Adele, who is ward to the mysterious Mr. Rochester, she tries to come to peace with her place in the world, though her heart tells her there is more out there somewhere. Eventually she falls in love with Mr. Rochester and agrees to marry him, hoping that this love will bring her true happiness. Unfortunately, at her wedding, she discovers that Mr. Rochester is still married to his first wife, who resides in his attic and is a madwoman. Jane is still in love with Rochester, but of course, she can’t marry a bigamist. She flees and is rescued from near certain death by St. John and his sisters, who are Christians and try to co...

Benedick has just returned from a mission with some companions of his. They like to tell stories about their conquests—I mean converts. Beatrice, Benedick’s old critic, is there to remind him that she thinks as little of him as she did before he went on a mission. She’s too old to be real marriage material, but Benedick enjoys goading her on, and she clearly enjoys doing the same to him. Their friends Claudio and Hero are soon engaged to be married and they make a plan to try to get Beatrice and Benedick to realize they are perfect for each other. Satan steps in and speaks to the audience, explaining that his purpose in life is to destroy true love wherever it exists because that creates families and families are the closest to heaven that anyone gets here on earth. Thus, he puts jealousy into the heart of Claudio when Hero is having an innocent lunch with a male friend of hers a few days before the wedding. Claudio is incensed when he sees Hero give the friend an innocent ki...

A friend recently told me that as long as I believed in Christ, I was welcome in Mormonism. When I said I wasn’t sure I believed in Christ the way that she meant (a literal Christ who was the son of God whose atonement and death mean that we will be freed from sin and resurrected), she said that as long as I believed in God, then, I was fine. I also wasn’t sure I believed in the God she believes in, who can and will alter the plan of the universe because of our prayers, who performs miracles for the righteous, who demands our worship and requires us to perform certain tasks in order to get rewards. So what kind of a God do I believe in? Quite simply, a god of love. I don’t know that I believe that God is a man—or a woman. Though I do find it useful sometimes to picture God as a woman, who puts her hands on mine as we both turn clay into pottery and she whispers in my ear that the reason we’re making this vessel is because it needs to be filled with something very valuable, s...

Ebenezer Scrooge is a wealthy Mormon man who has spent most of his life focusing his time and energy on earning more money for his family, including his youngest son, Bob, who Scrooge feels is a spendthrift. Bob has several children, but he spends most of his time with his disabled son Tim. After Bob nearly lost his house, Ebenezer had to buy it for him and now allows him to live there for free. Ebenezer also gave Bob a job at his business, but is constantly docking his pay because he isn’t working full-time. He takes nearly every afternoon off and most Fridays, as well. Ebenezer doesn’t know how he has managed to have such a lazy son and is embarrassed most Sundays when Bob and his family come to his ward for church and they are badly dressed and don’t seem to have spent much time on hygiene. On Christmas Eve, Ebenezer prepares to give Bob and his family the “gift” of an “accounting” of all the things he’s paid for during the year, and a warning that if Bob doesn’t start contri...

Romeo comes from a Fundamentalist Mormon family and Juliet comes from a mainstream LDS family. Benvolio, Romeo’s cousin, talks to the forlorn Romeo about the fair Rosaline, who has just been married to an older uncle of Romeo’s. Benvolio want to cheer Romeo up and encourages Romeo to go to Rosaline’s wedding reception in hopes of showing him how miserable she is. Juliet, a distant cousin of Rosaline who has no idea she is marrying polygamously, catches Romeo’s eye and he falls instantly in love with her. Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, is furious that Romeo has dared to put himself forward with any woman, and threatens to kill him, but Juliet’s father is appalled at the thought of such bloodshed. Romeo sneaks over to Juliet’s hotel room and tries to “woo” her, and she agrees to go to a movie with him. While they are gone, people assume that they have run off together and the two families are furious. Bishop Laurence, Juliet’s bishop, tries to convince them all they should assume the be...

This is an excerpt from one of my Huffington essays that a friend read back to me at lunch last week. It was one of those weird experiences you sometimes have as an author, when you absolutely resonate with something, but have no recollection of having written it. The Christ that I honor in my heart at Christmastime is the Christ that combines many contradictions, who is both Father and Son, who loves His mother and yet commands her, who is full of love and yet also angry when it is necessary, who is both feminine and masculine, who is dead and yet alive. I am called by my way of practicing humanity to see the divine in the face of every stranger and refugee that I meet, and to see the divine in myself, as well. I am called to reach out a hand to those who are downtrodden and to forget myself in service. I am called to remember that there is no happiness in wealth and there is no real honor in rule following. https://www.amazon.com/Porch-Steps-Mette-Ivie-Harrison-ebook/dp/B07G1XH6H...

Prince Hamlet has returned home from BYU to find that his father has died and his mother has married his father’s brother. He cannot accept this, since this means his mother will have to choose between her husbands in the next life—she of course cannot be sealed to both of them. Polonius, his father’s old friend, tries to convince Hamlet that everything will be taken care of by God and he shouldn’t worry about it, but this doesn’t help Hamlet. He sees his father’s ghost in a vision, and his father tells him that he must find a way to get his mother to promise she will never be sealed to another man. Hamlet spends much of the next several months reading scriptures, trying to figure out the answer to the question of marriage in the next life and about the state of his mother’s soul and his father’s eternity. Is he sealed to one of them? To both of them? He is not sure that he wants to live anymore and gives the famous soliloquy, “To be sealed or not to be sealed.” Polonius is conc...

Q: How does your family feel about you writing about Mormonism? A: My own parents are generally supportive, which is a little surprising to me. They read my books, buy them, and send out emails to family and friends to tell them the good news. My in-laws are less supportive. That is, they try to be polite but don’t like the books and don’t understand or want to understand my problems with Mormonism. Q: How does your ward treat you after the publication of The Bishop’s Wife? A: Honestly, other than a handful of women who were in a book club with me at the time, I think they have no idea that the book exists. Deseret Book, the biggest independent bookstore in Utah, declined to carry the book. Many Mormons will only buy books there, so they don’t know about it. I suspect that my Huffington post essays would draw more attention, but I don’t interact with ward members on Facebook and those who see the essays don’t automatically assume that I’m the Mette Ivie Harrison writing...

You are my daughter and that means that you have a goddess within you. You may try to hide her. You may try to push her away because you’re afraid of her power. Or you worry that it is too arrogant for you to say that you are a goddess. Who can say that without looking away or expecting mockery? You can. You are mine and you are divine. You will live forever because no matter when death takes you, you will leave behind your record of who you were. You will leave behind people who will speak your name with love and who will carry your memory forward. Death may take your body, but it will never take your essence. You are meant to be a light, shining in the darkness. You cannot be hidden. You are my child and I will never let your forget that.

Pride and Prejudice Jane and Elizabeth Bennet are the oldest daughters in a nearly perfect family. Their parents have a wonderful marriage and although they are dealing with the difficult problem of losing their house and property because of a terrible injustice, they know that God will bless them and keep their children safe because they are good people who pay their tithes and go to church each week. When the wealthy and handsome gentleman, Mr. Bingley, comes to town, they are sure this is an answer to prayer because Mr. Bingley is clearly suited to Jane. But because there’s nothing wrong with, you know, helping God answer prayers, they make sure to attend all of the events they know Mr. Bingley will be at. Unfortunately, Mr. Bingley’s best friend is Mr. Darcy, who is clearly not a religious person. Someone needs to give him a copy of the Bible or something! He won’t even politely dance with Lizzie as he makes nasty comments about Mrs. Bennet and about the younger Bennet daugh...

“Families are forever”= I love my kids and grandkids and want to control them beyond the grave Men and women have different but equal roles=Men are in charge and women follow We don’t know much about Heavenly Mother=We don’t have time for the lady stuff Jesus loves you, but=He doesn’t love you and neither does anyone else The Word of Wisdom comes from God=God cares deeply about if your caffeine is hot or cold Prophets are fallible=prophets fart, but everything they say is God’s truth There’s no hell but the one in your heart=and we’re going to do everything possible to make sure that your imagination creates a space there that is worse than any torture        There are some sins you can’t repent of=These sins are not things that white, cis het males can ever do We don’t excommunicate except in extreme cases=like when it makes us look bad or it makes us re-examine our institutional policies Women aren’t agitating for ordination...

Crazy Goddess Lady When I was barely twenty and living in Princeton as a grad student, there was a woman in our ward I considered “crazy.” She dressed funny (in long, flowing skirts and with her hair tied up in scarves, sandals on her feet at all seasons) and she wasn’t very active. She’d come to church when the lesson was something she was interested in and then she’d be “aggressive” in her response to it. She’d insist she be given a chance to speak even if people tried to ignore her and she didn’t seem to care that what she had to say fit with church doctrine or not. Some people seemed to like her, though they didn’t try to defend her really, just said she had her own spirituality. Other people (me included) thought she was annoying and kind of wished she’d stop attending entirely—or reform herself. I remember distinctly this woman came to a weekday Relief Society meeting and was given the chance to do the “lesson” portion. She had us all hold hands and close our eyes. She ...