This archive Sunday post originally appeared on December 15 2012. To see the original post and comments go here
(Raised eyebrows? Whispers? Nervous about tomorrow? Here’s some practical advice for surviving Wear Pants to Church Day!)
By Anne Peffer
Authority is a strange thing. We pretty much always know who has it and who doesn’t. When we interact with authority figures we tend to feel the presence of their authority in our bones. It evokes within us a deep, physical sensation that, for some, motivates honor and obedience and, for others, incites anger, rebellion or even silence.
Authority has many sources. In Mormonism we learn that it is god–given. Priesthood authority comes through ordination, priesthood leaders are called through divine inspiration, and we’re taught that god wants priesthood holders to act as heads of our families. Priesthood leaders have the power to listen to our intimate confessions and decide our personal worthiness. They control our position in the social structure of our communities by deciding our callings through inspiration from deity. The deep, physical feelings we experience when we’re interacting with them are often, then, in our minds, associated with god himself.
Outside of Mormonism, we equate our physical responses to authority with less divine sources. We associate our bodily sensation we feel around teachers and bosses, perhaps, with the control they have over our grades and our money. We may connect the physical sensation we feel around government officials with our respect for their work and the power they wield. We associate the sensation we feel around doctors with their knowledge and our hope that they’ll be able to help us.
In each case, either religious or otherwise, the authority we recognize in those who have control over our lives is validated by the physical sensations we experience inside our own bodies. And it is generally these bodily sensations that govern our responses in our interactions with them. Those who respond with respect and honor may feel a bodily sense of peace or security. Those who respond with anger, rebellion or silence may feel a deep, physical sense of fear or threat.
There is great power in becoming cognizant of your own bodily responses to the presence of authority. Looking deep inside yourself and putting a name on the quick sensations you experience, whether they are anger or respect, gives you the opportunity to switch things up a bit: to take control, to have more power in your own life, to, in a nutshell, to have a bit more authority yourself.
Mormon women generally understand a lot more about speaking the language of submission than they do about speaking the language of authority. And the deep physical sensations we feel in the presence of authority likely evoke the language we’re most familiar with using. When a Mormon woman interacts with a priesthood authority, her bodily sensation determines her initial response and the language she is most familiar with determines the way she communicates that response.
If she feels respect and honor and speaks the language of submission, she will do as she is told. If she feels anger and rebellion and speaks the language of submission, she may cry, scream or make nasty accusations. If she feels extremely threatened, she might remain silent. Strangely, obedience, expressions of despair, passionate rebellions and silence have much in common: they all demonstrate that one is more familiar speaking the language of submission than the language of authority.
Maybe what Mormon women need is both a greater self-awareness of their own physical response to authority and a greater intellectual understanding of how to speak the language of authority. Then, upon interacting with authority figures, there will be less a sense of intimidation and more a sense of solidity and purpose.
The language of authority includes speaking in calm, purposeful tones. It includes eye contact. It includes a resolute determination that one’s own beliefs and actions are valuable, defensible, and even right. It includes carefully and genuinely listening to others’ ideas and then repeating one’s own argument — several times if necessary — even when others don’t agree. It includes being cognizant of one’s own sensations of honor, fear and intimidation and allowing those sensations to move through one’s self and then to dissipate so that one’s own position can again be clearly stated. It includes smiling and speaking to bishops and stake presidents and others who wield control over our lives with the same tones in which we’re accustomed to being spoken to. These men are our equals.
Wear pants this Sunday – and every Sunday if you wish. And if and when you begin to experience a bodily sensation you associate with authority, give the sensation a name. Decide if it’s fear or rebellion or honor. Let that sensation pass through you….. through you and out of you so that you can move on to other things.
All you need to do is remember the language of authority. Listen. Speak calmly and purposefully. Be respectful. Use eye contact. Smile. Repeat your position and don’t back down. Listen more. Repeat yourself more. Speak with purpose, having knowledge that what you are doing and saying is important. Know, feel and understand your own very real authority. Let your awareness of your own authority be the new sensation you feel in your bones. You have power, too.