Oh, I loved this

Oh, I loved that. Just watch it.

Watching this made me think several things, but mostly that I love what she said about if we have all the blessings of the priesthood, it doesn't matter who is holding the umbrella. I watched the whole 15 minutes and thought, "Gosh, those Mormon Feminists sure seem like silly women."

I read something one of my childhood friends who is now a leader among the Mormon Feminists wrote, and one phrase stood out to me: "Mormon Feminist Agenda". She was talking about them fighting for their agenda. And it struck me--pretty hard--that the agenda we should be working on is God's Agenda, not any of our own. Not Mormon Musicians, not Mormon Mommies, not Mormon Feminists. What if all those Mormon Feminists bent their considerable talents toward serving others, teaching, for example, people to read so they can read their scriptures, or helping people learn to write better so they can write their family histories, or organizing grass roots campaigns to further God's agenda instead of their own. Imagine the immense amount of good they could do! We should be doing like the Tatooed Mormon Woman is doing: teaching the gospel. (You can read her story here: http://alfoxshead.blogspot.com/2013/04/tattooed-mormon.html?m=1. It's well worth the time it takes to read. Profound.)

The other realization I had was that clamoring for change in the priesthood is a waste of time, as is going to the press and organizing social movements, because there is no single person on earth who has the authority to give the priesthood to the women. So whining to the press, to Brother Trotter, to the apostles is silly. If they want to whine to someone, the sisters should whine to God. Ultimately, it's HIS choice who he authorizes to use His priesthood. The prophet and apostles can't just get together and vote on it. It's not their priesthood. It's God's power, and God's priesthood, and God's church. And just like it's not within our rights to propose a covenant to God and then hold Him to it, it's not within our rights to determine how He is to use His power and to whom he will give it (male or female---just being ordained to the Priesthood does not automatically give you access to His power; and not being ordained to the Priesthood does not cut you out from access to His power. See D&C 121 for a lengthy discussion on this).

Truly, God requires us to have faith.

 Alma and Ammon talk extensively about being qualified (and honored) to be an instrument in God's hands in Alma 27-29, and Paul talks about the same thing in 2 Timothy 2-3. None of them insists that you have to have the priesthood to be useful to God. In fact, they don't mention the priesthood at all.

 It seems to me that it's a question of focus. Am I looking to Christ and asking "How can I be an instrument in thy hands?", or am I doing something--anything--else?