Her Name was Nadia

 

There are so many things to talk about: sometimes I wish I could post every day, but there are so many other things to be done. We could talk about the midterm elections, we could talk about new court cases decided at the federal level; we could speak of Josh Hawley's assertion that the GOP is dead and needs to reinvent itself. But it's the sabbath, and I'd rather speak of something closer to my heart.

I study the situation of women worldwide, and I can tell you the world is hemorrhaging women. There is so much slaughter of women by men that the world femicide doesn't even do it justice. It's on the scale of genocide, with the better part of 200 million women missing from the world's population. That we view this as entirely unremarkable is the worst part of it. It's a non-story. It's background noise. What did Stalin say? The death of one person is a tragedy, but the death of 20 million is a statistic? That what it feels like. All those priceless lives, all those priceless women, mean nothing because there are so many deaths of women at the handd of violent men.

So let's unpack those hundreds of millions. Tonight let's reflect on at least one of those lives--the life of Nadia Verónica Rodríguez Saro Martínez.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She was a university student in Mexico, killed by her boyfriend on March 8, 2019. Just one drop in the flood of female deaths in Mexico, where 10 women are killed by men every single bloody day. Two days before her death, Nadia posted this to Facebook:

"If one day it is me [if I am killed], remember me at my best, just as I would remember you ... If one day it is me, know that I never gave up, that I fought until my last breath, that I enjoyed my life, that I laughed and danced until I was tired, that I loved everything I did, that I raised my voice and did not stay silent, that I really believed the world could change."

My heart just breaks when I read this. This was a great spirit, a spirit whose life's work could have changed so much. But it was cut short by some jealous pipsqueak, a nothing. Does this "man" expect himpathy from Heaven? He will not find it. Heaven is just, and Nadia's blood will not be silenced.

Do men not understand that the first question God will ask them is how they treated women? Or do they think, "God is a man, He will understand, He will offer me mercy because He is a man like me"?

This erroneous conception is one of the fruits of the misconception of the nature of God. As Joseph Smith taught, God is an exalted married couple. There is a Heavenly Mother, a goddess, there. It is She they will meet when they die, and then their bowels will quake with the knowledge that Heavenly Mother was Nadia's mother, and Heavenly Father was Nadia's father.

Where she is now, I hope Nadia is not only at peace, but has been given the means to still affect what is happening here on earth for good. Her life's work was cut short, but perhaps the earth can still feel her touch.

Tonight say a prayer for the women slaughtered by men every single bloody day on this earth . . . And a prayer that their killers will reap eternal justice.