Jana Remy
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Jana Remy

  • Writing
    • Disability
    • Making History
    • Digital Humanities
      • dayofDH
    • Canoeing
    • Creative Nonfiction & Essays
    • Feminism
    • Bibliographies
      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
    • Social Media
      • Mentions/Links
  • Scholarship
    • Awards/Fellowships
    • Conferences & Invited Talks
    • Collaboration
    • Workshops
    • Conference Planning
    • Technical Skills
  • Teaching
    • Blogposts About Teaching
Daily Archives

January 24, 2006

LDS

grace

Reading this post by Brookewill gave me the kernel of an idea that I needed to complete a short piece that I’ve been trying to write about grace.

Grace is an almost foreign concept in the Mo world. Though we espouse a belief in both grace and works, the balance of doctrine and ritual weigh in on the side of works. So when a friend suggested that I write about a moment grace I was hard-pressed to do so. Though my favorite hymn is “Amazing Grace” (not in the Mormon hymnal, btw), I have rarely thought through the concept or tried to apply it to my own religious practice or belief.

So here’s my moment of “grace”:

When I was 12 I was boy-crazy.Sometimes I even kissed boys in the halls at school.Enjoying the power the promise of such kisses held.Imagining myself a winsome beauty.Relishing the whispers of girls who gossiped about such things.Knowing that I was the center of scandal.

When I was 13 and I was diagnosed with bone cancer, I started to feel guilty about my boy-craziness.When someone suggested that my cancer was God’s way of punishing me for kissing boys during my lunch hour, I believed them.I knew I was supposed to wait for such things until I was 16, or I was engaged to a good Mormon boy.Maybe God knew that only way to for me to ever end up worthy for the temple was to make me so sick that I no longer thought about boys.

Now, with the temple marriage behind me and more than twenty years since my diagnosis, I still wonder why I got cancer. But I recently gave up the belief that my cancer was God’s doing.He and I have talked about that.And I now know that it was as hard on him as it was on me.

January 24, 2006
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About Me

About Me

Hi there friend, and welcome to my blog. I started writing on the internet two decades ago. Since then I've started and finished a PhD program, left the Mormon church and became a Quaker, got divorced, remarried, found full-time work in academia, took up rock climbing and outrigger canoeing, and traveled across the globe (China! Belgium! Italy! Chicago! Montana! Portland! Gettysburg! and oh-so-many points in-between). This blog is eclectic and random--it has poetry and cooking and books. And cats. And flowers. And the ocean (my ocean). But in that sense it's a good reflection of me and my wide-ranging, far-reaching, magpie curiosity.

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