Because I get off on withholding

A few weeks ago I switched to a partial RSS feed in an attempt to gauge how many readers I have. And then there was an uproar. (And yes, two people can sometimes count as an uproar sometimes.) But I wanted to keep making people sad until I was full up and sated and drunk on with their pain. Or maybe until I could figure out how to get my feeds all set up so that I could track them--harder than it sounds, seriously.

I think an unfortunate effect of living in The Technical or Whatever Age is that even though I try to keep up on things I feel like I actually know less about technology every year. And I don't mean that my store of knowledge becomes smaller in comparison to the vast influx of new information every year--I mean my brain actually shrinks down and I forget how to do things I used to know how to do. It is unfortunate. I blame Twitter, which I have not started using but which I'm sure is responsible in some way because everyone's so excited about it and one day I bet we're going to find out that it's really evil. (I find that's a good stance to take on things, really. Popular = Evil, The End. Or, the even better one, Things I Don't Get = Evil, The End.)

But enough of that. Your feeds are back, I hope you're happy. (I hope you're happy now . . . I hope you're happy how you've . . . ahem. Sorry.) And I want to have a bit of a follow-up on yesterday's discussion, if I may. Because you might have noticed that a LOT of people have experience with and feelings on this issue. Also I thought we got a really good range of perspectives. We heard from women who:

Feel incredibly overwhelmed

Are willing to put their shoulder to the wheel, but hate sacrificing to perform tasks that aren't actually effective or testimony-building

Have learned to say no without guilt (or to clearly state what they can do, again without guilt)

Want us to maybe buck up a bit

Kindly point out that things actually have simplified, churchwise, quite a bit in the last generation or two (sadly, I think it's our female urge to make things complicated which has not changed)

Really enjoy going the extra mile with things like decorating, invitations, food, etc. They don't ask others to share the extra work, but they feel like they're now being judged harshly for how they choose to use their time and abilities. (This brings up an excellent point--callings are a chance to use our talents, which is why we should be flexible when a new person with possibly different talents comes in rather than saying, "Oh, but so-and-so did it this way and so WE have to do it this way.")

What I'd like to find out is how to apply what we're talking about in real life. I mean, clearly when it's just you doing something, or when you're in charge of a committee, you get to be right-thinking about what to do and how much to ask of people and how to use the available talents and resources at your disposal.

But what about when you're NOT the one in charge? How do you know when it's important enough to say no? One woman told me that sometimes she says "yes" to freakish, unreasonable things because it can be just as exhausting to say no and then deal with the emotional fallout and stress of her leaders. So, if necessary, how do you keep saying no without seeming unsupportive, uncaring, or unwilling to sustain and help your leaders? How do you know if & when you just need to suck it up and take one for the (dysfunctional) team? (This is when GH chimes in about how happy he is to be a guy. "Guys don't care what anyone thinks.")

Also, the woman who pointed out how much the church programs have been streamlined in recent years made me think of something else. Church programs may have been streamlined in the last 40 years, but our lives certainly have not been. Maybe people didn't have a problem with spending 3 days a week at church because they didn't have as many other things going on (I could absolutely be wrong about that). But could part of the problem be us and the way our time is divvied up? But if so, is there anything that we can really do about that? Should we be able to spend more time working on church things? Although I must say that what I seem to be hearing from most people is not an unwillingness to spend time, it's more a resentment of spending that time on things that don't matter, that don't contribute to success, and that don't draw people closer to Christ.

Would love, love, love to hear your thoughts.

Posted in: being a Mormon