At Last She Said It Cynthia Winward, Susan Hinckley

Rob Bell describes interacting with scripture like this: there’s the black ink (what’s written on the page), then there’s the white space around it (where we dance with what’s written). In Episode 185, Susan and Cynthia take on what Latter-day Saints commonly call the Parable of the Talents, from Matthew 25. It’s a conversation about grace out of hand, covenant relationship, and how we may have come to think about things the way we do. If you’re a fan of the #gracepeddlers, you won’t want to miss it!

Many of us make temple covenants as young adults. Are we expected to have the same perspectives and priorities at 80 that we had at 18? In a church that emphasizes concepts like “staying on the covenant path” and “enduring to the end,” it can be hard to know how to navigate when our life experiences invite us to grow in new directions. In Episode 184, Jana Spangler joins Cynthia and Susan to discuss the challenges Latter-day Saints may face as they change and mature within an inflexible paradigm.

We asked, you answered! Of all emotions, anger might be the least acceptable for Latter-day Saint women. Many of us are not comfortable being around it, expressing it, talking about it, or even feeling it. But when we choose silence over healthy dialogue, what’s the toll on our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being? In Episode 183, Cynthia and Susan share listener voicemails about anger. Can we create space in our church culture for women to both experience and express this natural response?

Does devotion always require walking uphill? What’s the difference between good-hard and bad-hard? Do some Church members see the difficulty of a thing as a measure of the righteousness it requires? Has “more suffering and sacrifice” somehow come to mean “higher and holier” in the LDS narrative? In Episode 182, Valerie Hamaker of Latter-day Struggles podcast joins Susan and Cynthia to discuss these questions and more as they unpack the notion that harder is better when it comes to living our faith.

As the centerpiece of Sunday worship and an ordinance pointing directly to Jesus Christ, the sacrament holds deep meaning for many Latter-day Saints. In Episode 181, Cynthia and Susan turn their grace-peddling to a conversation about the sacrament. What matters more: worthiness, or willingness? When did this simple remembrance of Jesus become about “renewing our baptismal covenant,”  and what does that mean? How might the evolution of personal faith impact the way one thinks about and engages with this ordinance? Can a ritual that is so familiar take on new significance as we change and grow?

Mary once put a vinyl motto above her kitchen door that read, “That’s What We Do!” It was a 4-word description of her life as a Latter-day Saint woman. For many years, she and her husband were “the couple who could get it done” at church. She describes looking back with grace for that younger self: “She was doing the best she could with what she knew. But she was exhausted and her children and family structure suffered. More importantly—she suffered.” Then Mary changed. In Episode 180, she joins Susan and Cynthia to talk about that change and rebuilding her spiritual life from the bottom up, with just 3 components in the foundation: “Love and Jesus and Me ... what else really matters?”