194: Down Syndrome and Mormonism with Kathryn Soper Part 3
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 26 September 2010
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kathy Soper is a mother of seven, memoirist, essayist, editor, nonprofit CEO, practicing Mormon, depression survivor, Down syndrome advocate, Greek-blooded American, Maryland-bred Utah transplant, WordTwist addict and BSG groupie. She has edited numerous books, including Dance With Them: 30 Stumbling Mothers Catch Glimpses of Grace and The Mother in Me: anthologies of personal essays and poetry written by mothers about the challenges and joys of mothering. She is the editor of Gifts: Mothers Reflect on How Children With Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives and Gifts 2: How People with Down Syndrome Enrich the World. Kathy is also the editor-in-chief of Segullah: Writings by Latter-day Saint Women, which is a print journal dedicated to encouraging literary talent and promoting greater faith and understanding among Latter-day Saint women as well as a blog. Kathy’s most recent book, The Year My Son and I Were Born, is a memoir of the transformations Kathy underwent the year after her son Thomas was born with Down Syndrome. Kathy’s website (http://kathrynlynardsoper.com/) says that it’s a story about coming to terms with being human and learning how to deal with hard surprises.
Transcript
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| 0:19.0 | Well, so there were some... I made a little list of some themes that I read about as I was reading the book. |
| 0:28.0 | I wrote about Mother Guilt. You talked about that a lot. |
| 0:33.0 | You talked about feeling guilty, I guess, for feeling bad about his diagnosis, is that fair? |
| 0:41.0 | Absolutely. |
| 0:43.0 | You talked about feeling inadequate. You talked about exhaustion. |
| 0:46.0 | You talked a lot about kind of God's hand in our lives in general, but in that, |
| 0:53.0 | in the fact that you had a child that has Down syndrome, |
| 0:58.0 | did God want that for you? I mean, I think that sort of part of Borman Theology, the idea that God is very involved |
| 1:07.0 | and that if we have a challenge, it's for us to learn a specific thing, right? |
| 1:13.0 | Yes. |
| 1:14.0 | I mean, I was telling... I'm the primary coercer in my ward, and I was telling the kids on Sunday that we were having a lesson about the Holy Ghost, |
| 1:20.0 | and we do the music in our ward very much, like, together. |
| 1:25.0 | So we don't have singing time and cheering time. So I just stood up to do a part of this one song, |
| 1:29.0 | and I said, I wanted to tell you guys this story about a time that I felt the Holy Ghost. |
| 1:33.0 | And that wasn't planned. I looked at the... remember the primary prison, see I was like, is this good? |
| 1:37.0 | And she was like, oh, yeah, that's great. So I said, I'm just going to be totally honest with you guys |
| 1:42.0 | and tell you that I've never had an experience where I felt like there was a voice that told me, like, |
| 1:46.0 | don't go there or turn around, none of these safety stories. |
| 1:51.0 | I said, I'm almost 37 years old, that I've never had that experience. |
| 1:55.0 | I've heard other people tell, and 10 years or so ago, I felt kind of bad, kind of like, well, why have I... |
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