Dear reader,
This fall we asked our community to tell us about borders, to investigate boundaries, to tell us the stories of building and breaking and crossing lines. Many contributors in this issue are thinking deeply about specifically American borders — a crucial and inescapable topic. As I write this letter in September of 2026, those in power again have sought to rename and redraw the map — an attempt to demarcate who belongs and to create the version of the landscape they want us to see.
But there is always more to see. Julia Ann Lake-Díaz’s cover art for this issue was inspired by Carol Lynn Pearson’s poem, “A Widening View.” A poem that shows us how much beauty exists in the world, how much there is to see when we widen our view. Pearson writes: “Another flower? / And another? . . . Borders are forever gone. / Life is at the lens. / The view goes on / And on.”
The relationship between our lands, and our history, and ourselves is woven tightly together. As Claire McMahan’s review of Elise Boxer’s Mormon Settler Colonialism: Inventing the Lamanite, McMahan deftly argues: “It is our responsibility as Mormon feminists to unflinchingly examine our past and stand in solidarity with those oppressed by our tradition,” particularly Native American communities. Jennifer Crowe’s “The Road to Town is the Trail of Tears” asks: Once you learn to see the histories underneath the landscape, how do you see your own history differently? Teri Harman’s essay, “Utah Lake’s Rhetorical Borderlands,” asks how Church history has used and abused Utah Lake, and how we might begin to reckon with the Settler-Colonial roots of Mormonism’s deep impact on the land, and on us.
Many of the voices in this issue consider how maps, boundaries, and borders are drawn around marginalized and sexualized bodies. Modesty and the policing of Mormon women’s bodies are examined in Deborah Packer Erickson’s “The Migration of Modesty: Shifting Borders of Virtue on the Female Mormon Body.” Erickson argues that as the borders of modesty shift, Mormon women should “assess and reconsider the influence the boundaries of modesty have exercised in their lives . . . to reclaim sovereignty over the borders of their own bodies.” Mormon women can often feel confined to a certain path — a narrow definition of what a good woman looks like, what shape her life should take. But, as Leticia Storrs reminds us, “we cannot see inside each other, / we cannot measure the roots” of strength, faith, or love.
As Sylvia Cabus (a professional border crosser) teaches us, our neighborhoods, our wards, our little circle on the map have the potential to be deeply meaningful and spiritual spaces. Other voices describe spiritual experiences when crossing borders or removing them. Caitlin Thompson and Sarah Evans explore spirituality off the expected path. As Evans describes her “faith crisis” taking her into new territories of her faith and herself, she explains, “I am not lost. I am not in need of rescue. I am in the middle of something genuinely interesting . . .” She is not afraid of the dark; she is exploring.
I knew compiling this issue would shift the way I viewed borders in my own life, but I was unprepared for the deep care and thoughtfulness our community brought to this topic. I think you, too, will be changed as you read about the many, many kinds of borders we build lives in and across. Borders impact us deeply. Borders create the categories, identities, and the lines on a map that inform the shape of our lives. Borders often run deep, but they are not fixed. Like maps, they are redrawn, updated, marked with marginalia and memories.
I hope this issue will teach you something new about borders — new ways to engage with our land, our relationships, new definitions, new paths forward, new ways to see. Whether your map is well-worn, still warm in your pocket, or was thrown out long ago, we are glad to have you journeying with us.
Warmly,
Millie
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