Obedience is the First Law of Heaven

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 wanted us to imagine our Heavenly Mother, whom she called “the Goddess.” Then she asked us to feel for the Goddess within ourselves and to honor Her in all that we did. We were powerful beyond measure, she told us. We had the potential to become Goddesses, and not just in the future, but right here and right now, if we just opened ourselves up to our potential

I opened my eyes several times to look around the room and try to gauge what the other women’s responses were. This was NOT church doctrine, this stuff about Goddesses. We were NOT supposed to be worshiping or talking about or praying to Heavenly Mother. That much was clear, though not much else about any supposed Mother in Heaven was. I was so uncomfortable and felt like I was participating in false doctrine. I couldn’t tell how many other women felt the same, but apparently the Relief Society Presidency thought this was all well and good. I left the ward soon after and I honestly believed I’d put the whole experience out of my mind. Maybe I had.

Except that I think I’ve become this woman. I spend a good deal of my spiritual time trying to commune with “the Goddess.” I think it’s important for us to find the divine in ourselves here and now. I might not wear my hair in a scarf, but I’m decidedly unconventional in my church dress and I have zero interest in repeating what I know is accepted church doctrine in church. I’m bored by most of the meetings and I step out to listen to podcasts I find more uplifting in the halls or to walk around (when I’m not injured) the church neighborhood and enjoy the beauty of the flowers and trees currently in full splendor. I don’t care what other people in the ward think of me (much). But I suspect that most of them wish a little bit that I’d stop coming and a lot that I’d just be more conventional to avoid tension.

What does all of this mean? I don’t know, except that maybe when you get old you stop following the rules so much? And it scares younger people? There’s that poem about when I’m old I’ll wear purple, and I guess that’s my sentiment here about the Goddess.