I don’t think I ever made a decision to be a writer. It is something I’ve always done. During much of my life, this happened during stolen moments or sleepless nights. Often, it happened with a yellow scratch pad on my lap while being jostled around on some Chicago ‘L’ train, or sitting on a bench waiting for a bus. Most of my life, it has been something like an obsession. If I were to stack my yellow scratch pads in a pile, I’d call the entire collection “The Lamentations of Just Judy”. I had a lot of grievances about my youth. Sometimes I titled these scratch pads, “Working it out with Words.”
I was thirty-ish when I was first introduced to the Mormon elders. My husband had been raised a Catholic and I, a Lutheran. I loved the structure and the purpose I found and the change in lifestyle, and there were many activities for myself and my family. Yet, I often felt conflicted with the two theologies. My husband had no conflict. He went to Sunday meetings, genuflected and made the sign of the cross. He had converted, but he was still Catholic.
This was my turmoil: Life is eternal progression, a spirit world exists simultaneously with us, Jesus is our elder brother, and once God was also a man. Top that off with the Godhead being three separate personages–I loved practicing the Mormon faith, but the theology was somewhat like fairy tales.