{"id":138,"date":"2011-01-24T11:42:51","date_gmt":"2011-01-24T11:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/01\/mormon-women-who-wear-pants-to-church.html"},"modified":"2011-01-24T11:42:51","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T11:42:51","slug":"mormon-women-who-wear-pants-to-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/01\/mormon-women-who-wear-pants-to-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Mormon Women Who Wear Pants to Church: A Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bloomers-picture-mrs-bloomer-3.jpg\"<\/span>A few weeks ago at church, a visitor from another ward stayed after Relief Society to chat with me. After talking for several minutes about important things like suffering, prayer, and healing, she threw me for a loop with a completely different topic of conversation. <\/p>\n

“Can I ask you a random question?” she said.<\/p>\n

“Sure!”<\/p>\n

“Why do you wear pants to church?”<\/p>\n

I stared and stammered a little — an unusually inchoate response from me. I was completely thrown by the question, which I considered a fairly shallow inquiry coming hard on the heels of a meaningful theological discussion. But it was obviously important to the woman standing in front of me, who seemed like a very kind person who somehow couldn’t reconcile the fact that a member of the Relief Society presidency could unapologetically wear slacks to church almost every week. <\/p>\n

I did not give her a satisfying answer. In the weeks since then, I’ve thought of several responses I could or should have provided, including my favorite: “Well, in all those dreams I’ve had where I showed up to church having forgotten my pants, nothing ever ends well.”<\/p>\n