Fire Is a Chemical Reaction
By Bridget Verhaaren
Photo credit: Kamilla Earlywine
Artwork by Sara Lynne Lindsay, used with permission
At the age of 48, I applied to two M.F.A. programs: Columbia University and Vermont College of Fine Arts. I was elated to be accepted at both. I chose VCFA’s low-residency model of semi-annual, ten-day residencies in Vermont, in conjunction with monthly one-on-one mentoring with a faculty advisor. This program best suited my demands of work and home life. At the time, we still had two of our eight children in our blended family at home.
At my final student reading last June, I was slated to follow a student named Amy. She read a fictional excerpt mocking a Mormon character, their patriarchal blessing, and exaggerated food storage. My skin prickled as I listened to the crowd's loud laughter.
My mind flashed back to an October 2018 talk by President Russell M. Nelson who issued a prophetic plea to the women of the Church, to shape the future by helping gather scattered Israel. He said, "This gathering is ‘the greatest challenge, the greatest cause, and the greatest work on earth today!’…So tonight, I’m extending a prophetic plea to you, the women of the Church, to shape the future by helping to gather scattered Israel…. My dear sisters, you have special spiritual gifts and propensities. Tonight, I urge you, with all the hope of my heart, to pray to understand your spiritual gifts—to cultivate, use, and expand them, even more than you ever have…. My dear sisters, we need you! We need your strength, your conversion, your conviction, your ability to lead, your wisdom, and your voices." We simply cannot gather Israel without you.” Crisp were the words, "We need your voices." And I knew the time had arrived to expand my spiritual gifts.
In January of 2019, I began my first descent into the inky pit of difficult experiences I had survived after my husband Rob died. I searched for the most concise and descriptive words to write from inside those moments. I wanted my reader to know, with exactness, what I’d experienced, and I wanted her to know the only way I have found peace is through Him, Jesus Christ. After I finished my "first draft/vomit draft," detailing my grief, I realized I needed better tools. I wanted to learn the craft of writing, and I wanted to engage with other artists and build literary friendships.
After Amy’s reading at VCFA, I said a silent prayer asking to know how to handle the situation. Help. Unsure, I walked to the front of the room and stood at the lectern and waited to speak. I noted the furrowed brow on a student who already knew that I was LDS. In that awkward quiet, it came to me, and I knew what to say.
"I'm Bridget Verhaaren." There was a long pause. "And I'm a Mormon." The AA Introduction.
Thick silence.
I scanned the crowd, left to right, and then said, “And I wish I had food storage like that.” The crowd's hard laughter was one of relief. I smiled wide and then exhaled. My beating heart slowed, and the prickles on my skin evaporated. I was excited for the opportunity to share the experiences of an actual Mormon.
I have always been a writer of journals, letters, notes. I am a nonfiction writer of essays and a memoir, now in revision. My goal is to write in the most honest, accurate fashion the truths of what I’ve experienced. I am an ordinary person who has found herself on extraordinary adventures––some sought, most not.
I read to the group an essay called “Detonation,” since published in Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices, about my experiences driving refugee women and children from the Ukrainian Border crossings to Krakow, Poland and beyond. I read of delivering bulletproof vests to brave young men, Russian-speaking returned missionaries, who drove through Ukraine under cover of night to distribute them. Later I had discovered the recipients were members in the Zaporizhzhia and Kremenchuk congregations where my son, Ansel, had served his mission—a reminder to me that the Lord is always in the details.
When I finished my reading, I was rushed at the lectern by students who wanted to know how I came to be in Poland and Ukraine. Was this something the Mormons were doing? I said yes. Truth is, we flew to Poland, rented a van, and drove to the LDS church building hoping to meet up with other volunteers who would give us the latest information on the situation. They did. Then we prayed to be led to the people who most needed our help.
I am sorry to report that at every one of the six residencies I attended, there was at least one student or faculty reading slighting Mormons. If you count workshop readings, there were many more than that. Slamming Mormons seems to be the "edgy" thing to do. Perhaps my graduate school peers couldn’t imagine that a Mormon—1.7% of the U.S. population—could be in their tiny class of sixteen, or in a fluctuating school population totaling 60-70 students.
The first time this happened, I looked around to see my peer’s reaction: a quick laugh, and a head nod. I was surprised that this group of wordsmiths who loved to discuss inequities, acknowledged nothing was amiss. After my second residency, I wondered if the blatant prejudice I’d heard during readings was the norm at VCFA or at graduate schools in general.
Twenty-five years ago, my late husband had encountered a few snide remarks from his cohort at NYU School of Law. After that, Rob often introduced me as his first wife, then waited to see the person’s reaction. Then he’d follow-up with, "First and only." I thought things had changed since then. I mentioned this to my faculty advisor, Connie May Fowler, and she said, "The last acceptable prejudices are against Mormons and fat people.” As LDS people, what are we supposed to do when faced with this? I wondered if they had met Mormon people who hurt them or if it was simply that they didn’t know who we are. I decided that I would try to find out the next time it happened.
At a faculty reading at VCFA, an author and poet read a piece about her twenty plus years’ experience of living in Salt Lake City amid so many Mormons. Her tone of mocking and contempt was palpable. I was bewildered by her unconcealed anger toward the LDS community.
The following day, I emailed VCFA’s Writing Program Director:
We at VCFA have adopted a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement, which includes religion (Vermont College of Fine Arts Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Statement). I choose to take a stand when my culture, the LDS culture, commonly known as the Mormon Religion is ridiculed, in someone’s piece. I find this offensive. How is this different than any other group being ridiculed for wearing their sacred religious clothing and for their values?
The program director’s response:
I hear you. And I honor and grieve for your upset and pain.
Upset and pain? No, this felt like straight up disappointment. I’d hoped for a more open-minded community at a liberal arts college.
During my first residency, I’d called my husband and told him I felt like I was at the most fascinating cocktail party ever. I met a woman who had sailed the Pacific, an Olympic gold medalist, an Oxford undergrad/Harvard Law grad, and my roommate, a convicted felon—a bank robber. I found curious members of my cohort who sought my friendship one on one, including Frank DiPalermo, an actor, a writer, and a gay man, who acted as my unofficial mentor throughout my time as VCFA. However, in a group setting, I was often shunned. In the eyes of many of my peers, I'm too white, too straight, too conservative, and have too many kids; furthermore, that I am too open-minded to be a real Mormon.
I wondered if I was the only one experiencing prejudice like this. I reached out to author and essayist Patrick Madden, a professor at Brigham Young University and a faculty advisor at Vermont College of Fine Arts and asked him what he thought of my experiences. He replied, “I decided long ago not to be offended by what I heard in the public readings at VCFA, not even by the dangling modifiers or subject-verb disagreements that sometimes slip in. This has been very helpful to me. I’m sometimes deeply moved by what I hear, and sometimes the words are lost almost as soon as I hear them. Either way (and all the many possibilities in between) is fine to me.”
I liked Madden’s approach, and I wanted more. Madden suggested I offer to speak with her directly over lunch, “If she’s felt alienated living in Utah, maybe a friendship with someone local could be a step in the right direction?” I emailed and asked if I could take her to lunch and learn more about her experiences living in SLC, and she said yes.
It was in the time of Covid. I tested negative, picked up salads, and drove to her home. I prayed for an open mind and heart. And I learned that she recognized long ago that her LDS neighbors had too many demands on their time—work, church, children—and little time to socialize. She was left out, alienated in their midst. Hurt appeared to have turned to anger. As I was leaving her home, she hugged me goodbye and said, “This is the first time I’ve had a Mormon in my house.” Tragic. Her neighbors lost an opportunity for friendship with a brilliant woman. She and her partner have since moved to D.C.
During my June 2020 residency, following George Floyd’s murder, epigenetics, the idea that trauma can be inherited, was at the forefront of every discussion. A peer in my workshop singled me out, her voice brimmed with contempt as she said, “What do you know about epigenetics?” She wasn’t looking for an answer, she was looking for an opening.
I remained quiet, thinking:
You don’t know me.
You don’t know my history.
You don’t know the stories of my ancestors.
I determined to share the legacy I’d inherited in a less explosive manner.
During each residency there is a talent show, one of my favorite nights to spectate. I signed up to play the piano. As a child, I learned the hymns as fast as I could to stop taking lessons. I began by sharing about the Mormon Extermination Order of 1838, the persecution of the early Saints, and my ancestor’s arduous journey to the West. I read the verses aloud and then played the hymn, “Come, Come, Ye Saints.” As I read and performed, I was terrified of being ostracized. But afterwards, many individuals reached out to tell me they had no knowledge of our history. My entire cohort had never heard of Mormons being persecuted.
I wondered how common my regrettable experiences in these sessions had been. I reached out to LDS friends who, unfortunately, had stories just as uncomfortable as mine.
My friend, the award winning author, Allison Hong Merrill, also holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She writes in both Chinese and English, both fiction and nonfiction. Her work appears in The New York Times and has won both national and international literary prizes. Her debut memoir, Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops, launched in September 2021 continues to win book awards. She said simply of her graduate school experience, “It was a very lonely time for me.”
How do we as LDS people participate in art communities if we’re receiving prejudice in graduate school programs? And what of the next step in passing the gatekeepers of the art world? It’s daunting.
A daring artist, Sara Lynne Lindsay, whose work is full of dyed dresses and pressed flowers and uses the universal themes of growth, decay and sacrifice to create a unique specificity that connects her viewer to her art, replied to my query on the subject with this:
The “art world” is tricky to navigate. Many of the competitions that I have applied for are not interested in my demographic. I don’t think I’ll ever see the day when people put out calls for middle-aged women who stayed home to care for their kids first, love their religion and God, because there aren’t a lot of us. But then again, that’s what makes us so unique. People will be drawn to our work because it is different. It might not be for everyone, but that’s ok.
In the meantime, I can be a little frustrated when I know that I will not be picked for something even before I apply. Please forgive me for my sometimes rather grumpy moments when I can’t see how I possibly can break down walls in the direction that I think is best for me to go. I know that there are doors that I can still open, and things will work to mine and your advantage.
During Covid, I shared on both my personal and the VCFA Facebook page, President Nelson’s invitation to join in a global fast for relief from Covid-19. Robert Atwood, a student in my cohort messaged me, “How do we pray, I don’t know where to start? Is it like talking to God and asking for guidance? Is fasting necessary for successful prayer? Can I pray to God directly or do I need a kind of mediator or pastor to pray with me? Sorry for all the questions. I’ve never really studied religion or God so this really is new to me.”
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in the thick of the action with our peers, we need to safeguard our light; otherwise, we risk having our flame smothered due to a lack of oxygen or fuel. But those looking for light will recognize it. “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house” (Matthew 5:15).
Fire is a chemical reaction between oxygen and fuel. Fire needs three things to burn. Fuel. Heat or a spark. Oxygen. To keep our candle lit, we need fuel, our testimony which consists of our gospel experiences. We need heat or a spark, the Holy Ghost, and His constant companionship. And we need a constant flow of oxygen, Godly Love, or our fire will go out. If we become angry, resentful or hate, we can’t maintain our fire. Removing the oxygen, or Godly Love stops the chemical reaction. And we are no longer a light.
What makes fire different from many other chemical reactions is that the fire itself generates the heat necessary to cause the reaction to continue occurring. For fire to happen, all of the ingredients need to be present and constantly replenished. Our testimony, the Holy Ghost and Godly Love for all those we encounter. Even those who are blatantly prejudiced against us.
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, “Let us be known as a people who love God with all our heart, soul, and mind and who love our neighbor as ourselves.” There is no qualifying. Your neighbor is everyone you encounter. Christ did. He even loved those that spitefully used him. This is hard, and I’m not there yet, but I continue to try. My husband, Gary and I like to joke, “You can love anyone…at the right distance.”
We don’t have to accept or embrace the beliefs of others. But we do need to love them exactly where they are. Without Godly Love, our light will be extinguished.
In February 2023, Robert Atwood, the student who had asked me how to pray, messaged me again, and I answered a few of his questions about the Church. Little did I know that Robert’s wife saw the light held by their LDS neighbors in New Hampshire. Robert and his wife joined the Church in March. He received the Melchizedek Priesthood in May and baptized his ten-year-old son in June. They are now scheduled to begin taking temple prep classes. As members of the Gospel of Jesus Christ we can all be a light illuminating into the darkness of persecution and prejudice.
I don’t know where my interaction with the poet I met for lunch will go. I don’t know where sharing our legacy of persecution, and playing "Come, Come, Ye Saints" to my entire program will go. Or the tense "AA" moment introducing myself. What I do know is that I worked to fuel my light and used my voice to create positive interactions with my peers.
How many lights does it take to help lighten someone’s load? I imagine a community of artists, illuminating the entire hill creating a path toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ.