For Some Must Push and Some Must Pull (and none of them possessed a Y chromosome)

Have you heard of the Women's Pull?

Have you asked yourself why? Why, oh why would you do that? Once upon a time somebody made it up. Some masochist I'm sure.

Now it is tradition. And unfortunately the LDS faith, as a culture, is like unto the Jewish faith when it comes to TRADITION, TRADITION....TRADITION! (I personally do not follow LDS TRADITION blindly. I believe that nearly every TRADITION should be analyzed and pretty much unilaterally thrown out. Because they are stupid. And if they aren't deemed less than stupid, they then should be improved upon not just accepted as a good idea and practice because we did it a MILLION times before. Except funeral potatoes. Those are a pretty good tradition. As long as you have no heart problems.)

So to my story --

I did my very best, quietly of course, to discourage the Women's Pull for our ward trek. Losing that silent battle of wills, I determined to understand and resign myself to the TRADITION.

I googled, because that is what one does these days when one has a question. I also prayed and pondered. And I learned some things.

1. Some women think the women's pull is to show how strong and completely capable they are without the men. (I disagree. More later.)
2. Some women think the women's pull is to prove to themselves how amazingly strong and capable they can be when necessary. (I agree, with reserve.)

I personally learned that the message that members of our Women's Pull, and specifically me, needed to learn was this --

Everyone you see (including yourself) is pulling a heavy cart behind them daily. Some you can see. Some you can't. Your job is to help ease the load of the cart. Maybe you help push and pull. Maybe you can't stand to be near them for any number of reasons, so all of your help involves prayer. Prayer for them to have strength. Prayer for you to obtain a heart full of love for them. Maybe your job is to tell them that somebody much stronger than any of us already pushed and pulled that cart overflowing with all of those problems up that steep hill, and we can set some of them down on the wayside and walk away forever. Other burdens, we can testify, will be essentially lifted by angels until we have the strength to bear them or the time comes when they are magically removed.

Regardless we should recognize that we are not alone in this endeavor. We can always look for help and always help in some way. Push our cart up and go back down to help another. Sing. Pray. CHEER. Whatever...

The answer to why do we do the Women's Pull eventually boils down to "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30

And also in answer to point number one, women need men, and men need women. Yes we can get along without each other for awhile, but seriously people, it really does work better if you have each other. (Especially if you have to pull a heavy cart up a hill through sand in the desert's sun scorching temperatures. My thanks to brilliant eighteen year old Sarah for pointing this important truth out.)

So that's what we learned on our Women's Pull.

The men were marched away up the trail. We were given the goal of getting halfway up the steep hill. Some groups fell behind. We set down our carts and helped those in front who were struggling. Those at the very front, who had lighter carts or stronger abilities, came back down to help. No cart was left behind. At the halfway point we talked about a couple of dead people who had to pull heavy loads (See coming post about dead people stories.) Words were spoken about the experience Sister Carole M. Stephens from the LDS General Relief Society Presidency shared in the September 2012 Relief Society Broadcast. Time was taken to discuss how this all applied to us today.

Meanwhile at the top of the hill the men talked for a few moments, threw rocks, and generally wondered what was taking us so long. (Which proves the point. We could have used their muscles and strategic planning skills. They could have used some of our spirituality and planning of a lesson before hand, so that they had a bit more of a message than whatever it was that took two minutes and left them bored and rolling in the dust for the rest of the time.)

Much good was shared halfway up the hill. Much time was wasted at the top.

Finally we picked up those heavy carts and the men lined up cheering and together we got those carts up the rest of the hill. And boy was I glad that was over.