Last year, just after I turned fifty, I went back home to Chicago to visit my sister Erin, who is a health and wellness coach. During the visit, she told me I needed to add yoga to my workout rotation because "women at your age should prioritize flexibility training to increase strength, agility, stability, and balance."
"Ew, no, I hate yoga."
"Too late," she said. "I already signed us up for a class tomorrow. You’re going."
The next morning, I found myself in a yoga studio with Erin and 20 strangers, staring at a very bendy-looking instructor who couldn’t have been a day over 30.
Hell, I thought, this is hell.
But I looked around and convinced myself that if these people could get through it, so could I. I did get through it, but just barely. My body resisted the poses, positions, twists, and stretches. The instructor, seeing my struggle, came over and whispered in my ear, "May I make hands-on adjustments?" I grunted some sort of consent, and she gently placed her hand on one of my shoulders, applying pressure to adjust and angle my body differently. Throughout the class, she paid careful attention to me, often coming over to place a firm but gentle hand, sometimes guiding limbs into safer positions, other times applying pressure to direct me into deeper stretches. Her soft, quiet guidance and assistance were enough to not only get me through that first class but also to convince me to continue a yoga practice when I returned to California.
Many years ago, before I learned phrases like faith crisis, faith expansion, or evolving faith, I had the rug pulled out from under me, and everything I believed about my faith and my church was put into question. The faith that I thought was agile and strong turned out to be weak and rigid, and I found myself in need of what I called a faith stretching. Stretching makes room and gives space. Stretching is difficult, uncomfortable, and even painful, but it’s intentional, and no one can do it for me. I knew from my many years participating in sports that a consistent habit of stretching before and after games, matches, practices, and workouts prevents injury, relieves soreness, and makes you more flexible. Flexibility makes you stronger, more agile, more stable, and more balanced.
Chieko Okazaki said, "We know that flexibility is one of the characteristics of living things. If you watch a young tree in the wind, you can see how it bends and sways with the wind. If the wind is very strong, it bends almost to the ground, but it doesn't break. We need to be flexible in our lives . . . we can learn from the tree that bending and swaying are part of life, and that they help us to survive and thrive even in difficult conditions." Inflexible things break against the force of a strong wind. If we are to weather the spiritual storms of life, our faith must be like Chieko’s tree: bendy, balanced, and flexible enough to move with the wind while keeping our roots firmly planted in rich soil. Just like flexible bodies, a flexible and sturdy faith is achieved by stretching.
In my faith stretching, just like in my yoga class, I have felt gentle hands guiding me, making small adjustments to keep me safe from harm and to deepen my stretching.
Ten years ago, my husband Andy and I came to hear the Givens speak. At the time, the Heavenly Hush of Mother in Heaven was weighing heavily on me. This was before the gospel topics essay, before Carol Lynn Pearson’s beautiful book of poetry, before any BYU survey of historical teachings. I asked Fiona, “Where can I find Her?” Her advice was to look for the feminine divine in other faith traditions. Fiona’s words were a gentle hand on my shoulder, inviting me into a deeper stretch, which led me not only to books, study, and conversations with friends of other faiths about Sofia, Mary, Fatima, and even Wonder Woman, but also gave me permission to follow the admonition found in the Doctrine and Covenants to “seek out the best books and words of wisdom; to seek learning, even by study and also by faith.”
That evening, Fiona sent me on a treasure hunt that would not just be instrumental in building a relationship with my Heavenly Mother but also integral in sustaining me through the many years of faith stretching that followed after the Church broke my heart. I already knew what to do. I leaned into the study of the words of other Christian thinkers and theologians, joined an interfaith women's circle, and continued my seeking. It allowed me to maintain full activity in Mormonism while seeking faith-building outside of it.
For years I stayed clear of any podcast, book, or article that had anything to do with the mother tongue of my faith. Any exploration of Latter-day Saint theology beyond Sacrament or Sunday School felt like a bridge too far. Then I felt another gentle hand guiding me to a safe position for better and deeper stretching. I learned about the Faith Matters podcast. At first, I dismissed it, probably saying something like, “That sounds really Mormony.” Then my bishop gave me Brian McLaren’s book, Faith After Doubt, for my birthday. I read it, loved it, and asked him how he had come to read the book. “Oh, he was on Faith Matters.”
I went home that day and listened to Aubrey and Tim talk about faith after doubt through the lens of Mormonism with Brian McLaren, and all of a sudden, the expansive beauty of Latter-day Saint doctrine, theology, and thought once again felt safe and available to me. And maybe even more importantly, I looked up and saw how many of my fellow Saints were taking yoga class with me, stretching faith in their own ways. I am not alone; I never was.
This fact has come into relief for me over the past several months when so many of us experienced the collective disappointment and, for some of us, the heartbreak of women in our area being asked to step down from the stand. Our stretchiness and flexible faith allowed for the practice to not only be prayerfully put in place to meet the needs of members for the last eight years, but also allowed us to ask questions, come together, support each other, and build each other up. We have not only practiced individual faith stretching, but have also encouraged stretching in the greater Church.
Our spiritual yoga practice has allowed us to be like Chieko’s trees. Harsh wind blows and although the bending and twisting required of us is painful and difficult, our roots remain firmly planted in the rich soil of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Our stretching has been healthy for us; it has made us more flexible, stronger, and more able to weather the inevitable storms of the human experience that bring strong winds of heartbreak and doubt. I am looking around my spiritual yoga class saying, “Hey, if you can get through this, so can I.” What’s more, I now understand that you and I, in our different degrees of stretchiness, must be the hands of our Heavenly Parents for each other. We can take turns being the gentle hand that guides, protects, and pushes us into a stronger, more agile, and more flexible faith.
Amy Watkins Jensen teaches humanities in Oakland, CA and can be found on instagram @womenonthestand, encouraging respectful and open dialogue about women in the Church.
This speech was originally delivered in the home of Jeff and Katherine Wise on June 8, 2024.
I relate to this journey very much and am grateful to have read this. Faith After Doubt is phenomenal!