All 16 of my great‑grandparents were Mormon, and I have served the Church as a missionary, teacher, and accompanist in congregations across America. I am trained in ecology and genetics; and on one recent trans‑continental move, I was struck by just how much of America’s heartland is covered by cultivated fields. When wind blows through these “amber waves of grain,” they are indeed beautiful. But as an ecologist, I also know these monocultures are unnatural.
Biologists know that diversity supports abundance. There are fundamental mathematical and ecological reasons why diverse systems are stable and productive, and within my lifetime many ecosystems have lost their diversity and collapsed.
The principle is more than just a metaphor for the “household (ecos) of faith.” While there is something simple and strong about a priesthood leadership of men with similar backgrounds, histories, and even dress, there is also something rigid, vulnerable, and unnatural about it–not just mathematically, and ecologically, but also spiritually.
In my darkest spiritual times, I have often needed voices of wisdom and compassion to guide me back to the light. Those voices have often belonged to women. I have hungered for those voices to come in the form of priesthood blessings, and I know some of these women have hungered to have the ability to serve this way as well. Until they can, this ecos that I love and serve, is weaker than it should be.
I pray that our prophets will seek revelation so the spiritual gifts of God’s daughters can bless us all. Mormon women should be ordained.