Humbled & Proud
For this issue, we invited contributors to share their understanding of “pride.”
As I sit down to write this letter — my final letter from the editor, a fact I’m still struggling to fathom — I sit beside a window in Berkeley, California. Here, I have a clear view of the myriad of personalities who walk the street and watch the sunlight shift and change.
I never imagined I’d be here, on the opposite coast from where I thought I’d end up. After spending a decade in Boston — the same setting as Exponent’s early days — I, like the organization, grew and spread my branches. Would I have found Exponent at all if my best friend Carol Ann hadn’t invited me to go to my first retreat in 2015? Would I have volunteered to be a member of the readers committee? Or continued to submit my own writing to the magazine until, somehow, in summer 2021, I became its editor in chief?
I don’t know. But what I do know is this: as a person who can play the violin for the Easter program in my ward, then jet over to watch the annual “Hunky Jesus” drag show contest in San Francisco, I’m living a curious life with multiple, intersecting identities. I’m breathing meaning into the phrase “a peculiar people.” And this issue proves that I’m not alone.
Fewer words have more meanings — or are more charged — than the word “pride” in the LDS community. From our cultural fascination with Pride & Prejudice to the warnings to avoid the pride cycle repeatedly enacted in the Book of Mormon to our views about David Archuleta’s sexuality, pride is clearly on our minds. And the meanings? It’s complicated.
“Complicated” seems to be the refrain, the thematic thread uniting all of the issues of Exponent II that my team and I have shepherded from email submissions into the printed magazine you hold in your hands. Each person’s journey is nuanced, complex, and deeply individual. The stories in these pages are no exception.
For this issue, we invited contributors to share their understanding of “pride.” The spectrum of responses can be seen through exquisite poems, a book review, Miriam Bay Sweeney’s theological treatise on fear, Julia Rea Marostica’s sacrament meeting talk about celebrating differences, and what printmaking rainbows has meant for artist M. Alice Abrams. In interviews with field experts Dianne Orcutt, cofounder of Aspiring Mormon Women, and Callan Olive, a therapist, we gain perspective on how to cultivate confidence and self-worth.
Several personal essays tackle “pride” in the context of motherhood. L.R. Encinas calls attention to miscarriage, Erin N. Price wrestles with infertility, and Alyssa Witbeck juggles grad school with a toddler. Judith E. McConkie writes about finding, in her eighties, a tentative pride in aging while calling out the ways others minimize her.
LGBTQIA+ voices permeate this issue. To name just a few, Julie Theriault shares what embracing pride looks like for a bi Mormon American. Andee Bowden shows the hard-won pride and self-understanding they have found in labels such as ADHD and autism. Aisling “Ash” Rowan and Dani Westwind Blatter Macarthur both examine their gender transitions through the lens of music, and Hannah Bryan describes the violence of the recent updates to the Church’s handbook that further excludes trans members from our communities.
Like many of our contributors, “complicated” also describes my sense of pride: as a writer and citizen of the world during a terrifying time in history; as a woman rebuilding a life after unspeakable pain and loss; as a queer Mormon feminist navigating my own peculiar journey; and as an editor who’d hoped to stay in this role for five to six years like my incredible predecessors.
I’m saddened to step down due to the financial limitations of this mostly volunteer organization. I look forward to a day when editors do not have to choose between this job — a labor of love — and their day-to-day survival. By contributing to Exponent II, whether it be through subscribing, donating, or engaging with these important voices, you are helping put that hope into action. When we invest in ourselves and take our work and value seriously, we sustain a vision for all of us to dream and live bigger.
I feel enormous pride in the work my team and I have done over the last four years, particularly with my managing editor, Carol Ann. This is our seventeenth issue of Exponent II. During our tenure, we established honorarium payments for our contributors, spearheaded community funds, began a writing workshop series and quarterly launch parties, restarted the monthly newsletter, celebrated the organization’s 50th anniversary in a double-length issue, and more. I’m so humbled to have been a part of this magazine and to have been entrusted with (and shaped by) so many of your stories; it is a role I’ve held as sacred.
I have the highest faith in Millie Tullis and Natasha Rogers, the incoming editorial team, who worked with us on each step of this beautiful issue. I’m leaving this treasure of a tradition in kind and capable hands.
With Pride,
Rachel
(Photo by Alex Jackman on Unsplash)
Categories: Letter from the Editor
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