[asha]

@Steve-hpias – Move to a small town in Canada, and you will be called as a Branch President within the month!

Seriously though, I have found that in areas where the church membership is smaller, you automatically get bigger callings, simply because there aren’t as many people to fill the positions. Here in central Canada I almost always had at least 2 callings at the same time while I was active at church (I knew a few people who had 3 or 4!), and have held a number of auxillary Presidency positions as well (those that women are permitted to hold). I have often heard members here sigh and say how nice it would be to live in a large Utah or Calif ward where they have to make up callings for people because there are just more people than callings. I guess what I am saying is that often the calling type you receive might have more to do with the population of your ward rather than simply your level of personal worthiness. I was in one ward where our Elder’s Quorum pres was only semi-active!

As for the whole status of women in the church issue – it is so nice to see it being acknowledged here. It was one of my biggest frustrations as an active female member.

[asha]

Thanks Valoel and Ray.

Valoel wrote:

All stories break when they are stretched far enough in a specific direction. If it doesn’t make sense … it might just be that it doesn’t make sense

This is actually quite helpful. I hate to admit that I think a lot of my frustration comes from my having viewed the church in such an absolutist sort of way for so many years. Like either it is all true or all false. I know many TBM members view it that way, and I seem to remember Pres Hinckley saying something to that effect once (to my horror). I was never able to find that confirmation of truth, so I feel so compelled to pick pick pick it apart. Sigh.

Is it possible for a person to spend the rest of their life in stage 4? That is how I am feeling now. I equate entering stage 5 with finding some peace, and all I feel towards the church is frustration and resentment. Of course some weeks are better than others, but I am so torn between trying to keep my DH happy by attending and yet being terrified by what the future hold for my kids (i.e. I don’t want any of them married in the temple, I really don’t want my son to go on a mission one day).

I feel like I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[asha]

Valoel wrote:

A way to approach this, that I like at least, is to look at the usefulness of stories more than the “truth” of them.

But the church is always emphasizing truth! Truth, truth, truth. Aargh!

Probably my biggest issue over the past 16 years that I have been a member of the LDS church is how much it pushes the importance of testimony. Can anyone here argue that the status of your testimony (including growing it, bearing it, nurturing it, etc.) is central to the TBM’s life in the church? As a youth leader I stuck out like a sore thumb as the only one not constantly bearing my testimony (I never had one, and refused to pretend that I did) at pretty much every meeting/activity.

It seems to me that an awful lot of emphasis is being placed on whether or not we accept the gospel as “truth”. Why is this SO important? If it was so important for us to “know” all of this, then why would we have been made to forget it when we came here??? Is it because people will only follow good teachings if they believe they are “true”? What about following them because they are “good”? Would Jesus’ teachings hold no value if it turned out that he really wasn’t the son of God? The teachings would still be the same wouldn’t they?

Sorry, I am getting off on a bit of a tangent here, but I think it is all related in some way.

You have all done a good job explaining why we have no memory of the pre-existence, but I still do not understand the reason why we are being taught and told to accept as “truth” something that we were supposedly made to forget.

Why do we really have the church? Wouldn’t the truer test of our characters have been to send us down here without any guidance and see who chooses good over evil of their own accord? The church says we have agency, but as a member of the church you are pretty much coerced to “choose” to obey. I mean what kind of choice is it when you are told that if you follow these rules you will have eternal salvation and live happily ever after with your loved ones in utopia, whereas if you make the wrong choice you will die a spiritual death and be shut out of the celestial kingdom? Not much of a choice. The church has set up a whole bunch of rules and regulations and meetings and red tape etc, to micromanage our lives in order to make sure that we are always told what is the right choice to make, and then make sure we are held accountable for our choices by undergoing constant scrutiny (interviews, visits, etc). It kind of sounds more like Lucifer’s plan to me when you get right down to it.

Sorry for the rant. I sincerely do not mean to offend anyone here. Testimony meetings really get to me (“I know this church is true, I know Jesus is the Christ, I know JS was a prophet of God, blah, blah, blah”). I’ll be honest with you guys and admit that in asking these questions I am really playing devil’s advocate here as opposed to actually being spiritually tormented by this. I have faced the fact that I am basically an atheist (one who yearns to be an agnostic), and that my problem in the church is probably that I always have been, but as long as my DH is a TBM member of the church I need to make an effort to attend church out of respect for him. That doesn’t mean that I can’t still see the good that exists there. I really don’t have a belief that Jesus was the son of God, but that in no way affects my admiration of his teachings or my desire to follow them in my life. That doesn’t seem to be good enough in the LDS church where testimony, testimony, testimony is constantly being pushed.

I wonder what people would think if I got up one testimony meeting and said, “I know this church is… a church. I know this church teaches many good things. I know that Jesus as he is portrayed in the scriptures taught many wise and wonderful things. I know that I want to apply those teachings in my life. But… I don’t know if any of it is actually true.”

Does it really matter if it is true?

Again, I apologize if I have offended anyone. Now you can see why I post here less and less. I suppose my views are not terribly helpful on this forum. Sometimes the inconsistencies just seem so glaring that it drives me nuts, and I feel like it is better for me to let it out here instead of with my poor DH.

[asha]

Sorry for getting to this intro thread so late, but I wanted to say thank you, 1topen, for sharing your story. Welcome to this forum, I think you’ll fit right in here.

And yes, baby steps are the way to go. I find some Sundays are great, and others are mind-numbingly awful… but everything is bearable if taken day by day. There are days when I shake my head and think about how I am going to have to deprogram my kids from the things they are learning in Sunday school; then just a few days later I silently thank my lucky stars that they are being raised in the church and making my job as a mother so much easier by teaching them such solid morals and values (my daughter was horrified by what she saw at the first school dance she went to… and I was relieved she was horrified). I guess my point is, continue to try to look for the good. That is what is getting me by, for now anyway.

Welcome.

[asha]

swimordie wrote:

As for an underlying issue, I see the exclusionary concept of the temple being a part of the larger issue of judgmental bias in the culture. There is a very strong “achievement” sensibility in the church culture. It’s not an accident that members of the church have over-achieved in all walks of life on a per capita basis. Mormon’s are over-represented in many fields of finance, medicine, politics, academics, etc.

This “achievement” culture comes at a price. It’s dominant motivator seems to be image, with a large dose of “proving that I’m a chosen people”, so the flip side is also true; judgmental bias around image-conscious activity. Iow, not only do we need to over-achieve, we need to demonstrate that we’ve over-achieved. And, I think this is an unconscious outcome, but the over-achievers weed out the under-achievers in exclusionary ways. Sorry to make this so clinical and negative but, from my perspective, this is what happens. And, like I said, I don’t think it’s a conscious choice, at least for most. It’s just the culture.

Yes, Swim, I agree completely with you.

Bill Atkinson wrote:

I think the solution is a better Bishop’s handbook where they are instructed to pay particular attention when someone has a large number of non-member family and in fact be directed to encourage the couple to have a civil marriage first.

Unless things have changed A LOT in the 15 years since I got married, a bishop would NEVER counsel a temple-worthy couple to get married in a civil marriage first. Distance wasn’t even made an issue though we didn’t live close to a temple: the closest temple was over 6 hours away, and my husband’s member family friends drove over 17 hours from the maritimes to be there. The bishop/inlaws/other members made it very clear to me that there was NOTHING more important than marrying in the temple, nothing; our goal should be to be married in the temple regardless of who could or could not be there, and everything else was secondary in importance. I remember the force of this attitude like it was yesterday, because it was what made a shy, wide-eyed, 22-year-old bride keep her mouth shut and assume there was no other way. In their eyes there was no other way.

I would love to see the day when a bishop would think of the needs of non-member families in a compassionate and inclusive way when counseling couples about marriage, but I don’t think we are anywhere near that today. It is still temple, temple, temple first and foremost, and you do whatever it takes to make sure that you marry there, even if it means leaving your own parents outside. I suppose it can be justified with the comforting thought that we’re doing the right thing because we belong to the one true church. 🙄

I would like to see the same thing as Ray, namely a change to the rules to bring them more in line with the U.K. However, I am not optimistic that it will happen. The only reason why the rules are different in the U.K. is because they don’t recognize the temple sealing as a legal marriage ceremony, therefore requiring a civil marriage first. If the temple ceremony was viewed as valid there, I am sure the rules would be the same as in Canada and the U.S. Clearly the needs/feelings of part-member families are never brought into the equation. I just really don’t think it is viewed as a priority, mainly as I mentioned before because it is not an issue to most members who comes from member families on both sides. However, as the church expands throughout the world, this is an issue that is going to continue to affect more and more part-member families, and cause more and more heartache and pain.

swimordie wrote:

Ironically (or not), gay marriage will eventually make the church adopt a world-wide policy of civil marriage first, then temple sealing. May not be for 10+ years but it’ll happen.

I hadn’t really considered this, and IMO it would be way more than 10 years away. Could you elaborate/speculate further on what you think the future holds on this issue?

[asha]

Thanks Bill… I really appreciate you attaching the link. Still not sure if I could do it myself. 😳

Actually it was not 1topen that had the negative temple wedding experience it was me… I have edited the post so that it is clearer who is being quoted as it did appear as though it was 1topen who was saying everything, when they were just quoting me and responding to my original post.

Bill Atkinson wrote:

think we might have to face the fact that the Church walks a fine balance line of maintaining a certain amount of “tension” between the Church and the main culture. There is a need to be “different” and I suspect that access to the temple will stay high on the list of ways that Mormons are different and “apart” from the world.

This is what bothers me so much about the church and often makes me question raising my kids in the church. Why is it always “us against the world”? Most of the people I love the most are “in the world”. I just find it so divisive.

As far as how civil marriages are perceived, I guess I am very curious if this is something that varies from stake to stake or geographical area. As I mentioned in my original post, my TBM inlaws to be just shook their heads and laughed at the mere mention of a civil marriage before a temple marriage to their darling golden boy, and yet they knew I was the only daughter of an entirely non-member family. My dear parents thought the church was kid of loopy when I joined… but it really wasn’t until I got married in the temple that they showed outright bitterness and resentment towards the church, and really, can you blame them?

I live in a completely different ward, stake, and even province now, and yet I can say that the perception of civil marriage before temple marriage is still the same. It is only viewed as honourable if the person is recently baptized, or perhaps if the marriage is taking place in order for a baptism to take place. If there is not a clear explanation like that, then it is always perceived as a worthiness issue.

I wonder too… even though my daughter is a bit unorthodox when it comes to the church, she has said that when the day comes, she would still rather marry a member and raise her children in the church… I somehow doubt there are very many RMs out there that would go along with forgoing the temple marriage for a civil one just so gramma can attend. This is in part why I secretly hope that my kids marry non-members. 😈

Am I looking at things with a regional bias? Are the perceptions I am mentioning different in other places? I mean in Canada and the U.S. of course; obviously in countries where you must marry civilly first the perceptions would be completely different. Hmmm, maybe I just need to move to the U.K.

[asha]

1topen wrote:

It doesn’t sound like your daughters wish to get married somewhere her grandparents can attend has anything to do with your own issues. Most likely it is just down to her love for her grandparents and a desire for fairness.

Actually, I think it has everything to do with me. My daughter has long been curious why I do not attend the temple, and why I stopped renewing my temple rec a few years ago. I answered her honestly that I felt unhappy every time I went to the temple because it brought back painful memories of my wedding. I also completely disagree with the rules surrounding who can and can’t attend temple sealings. I will no longer attend the temple until they change those rules. We live in Canada, but the rules here are basically the same as in the U.S. I am the only member in my family, so my parents were unable to attend the wedding of their only daughter. They were so hurt they didn’t even come to Toronto, and I can’t say that I blame them. We DID have a big reception a couple of weeks after the temple ceremony in a chapel in Montreal (where I was living as a student at the time), and about 300 hundred people from my parents’ family came to that. We tried to make it like a wedding for them, but our bishop was a real stickler for rules and read us a whole list of what we could and couldn’t do with regards to a “ring ceremony” following a temple sealing. Basically the rules are designed to make the ceremony seem nothing like a wedding so as to not detract from the temple wedding, i.e. no walking the bride down the aisle by her father, no vows in the traditional sense, bride and groom must enter together as husband and wife, etc.

The result was a total mess, and relatives sat in the chapel totally confused as to what they were witnessing. I still get a pit in my stomach when I think about how much I hurt my dear parents with that whole fiasco.

1topen wrote:

One more thing,I know this is a bit of a thread jack… In the Uk we all get married at church, big ceremony followed by reception full of nonmembers.

We then ( has to be the same day or else wait one year) drive down to the temple with a small group of temple worthy friends and family to get sealed. It is very down played a nice spiritual end to a great day.

I understand that legally the Uk and EU does not recognize temple marriages as binding so the church has no choice, but they certainly don’t seem to have a big problem with this allowing full on chapel weddings prior to the sealing on the same day. I hear so many people get upset about the situation in the U.S, surely this is one area that the church could change its strict ruling on since it does so in Europe?.

Would that this were so! Oh what a difference that would have me to me and my family.

My temple experience would have likely been so different and my parents would have been far more accepting of the church if this had been an option in Canada. Instead, the only option is to wait a year if you are married outside of the temple. The worst part of that is that when my parents found out about that option, they were even MORE hurt because they couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t wait a year for the temple sealing in order to have a traditional church wedding that all my family could attend. In their eyes we were being very selfish. This is where church culture comes into the equation: when couples get married in the church and wait a year to get sealed in the temple it is immediately implied that there are issues of worthiness involved. To my inlaws this wasn’t even an option to consider because it “wouldn’t look good”. They actually laughed off the whole idea when I brought it up. I have found that many hard-core members of the church are very concerned with appearances when it comes to temple worthiness. For example, if my daughter was totally worthy but chose to marry outside of the temple, people would conclude it was because of one of two reasons: she is marrying someone unworthy/nonmember, or she herself is unworthy. Nowadays of course I could care less what my inlaws think (I think the temple wedding also permanently damaged my relationship with them) but back then I was a naive 22-year-old who had only been a member of the church for 1 year. In my mind this was the only way I could marry the man that I loved.

Anyway, I am clearly carrying A LOT of baggage where the temple is concerned, so it is inevitable that some of it would have rubbed off on my kids. Many members of the church who do not have nonmember family have no clue what a big deal this can be. My best friend is from pioneer stock on both sides, and she said she never gave the issue a second thought. I am guessing that is why church headquarters does not think it is something that needs to be addressed. I for one am one of those people who just doesn’t see the need for exclusiveness when it comes to the temple. There is no need for secrecy (you can google the entire ceremony if you are a curious nonmember), and I don’t see how ostracizing nonmember parents from attending the wedding of member children is preserving the “sacredness” of the temple. If someone is unworthy to attend the temple and decides they are going anyway, it is not very hard for them to get in – I have seen it happen many times. If letting an unworthy person enter the temple was going to desecrate it in some way, then that would have happened years ago. I think the rules surrounding temple marriage in Canada and the U.S. create divisiveness and pain in nonmember families, which is exactly the opposite of what a wedding is supposed to do.

There is nothing remotely spiritual about that for me.

(end of rant)

[asha]

Swim and Rix are right. I think my DH would rather just ignore the whole issue with the hopes that it will just go away. It is foolish of me to push it, since it will clearly be a source of contention. I am trying to look on the positive side of things and appreciate the fact that my DH is not trying to force his will on mine, is not being controlling or domineering in any way. He is a patient and kind man and a wonderful father. For now anyway I think I just need to leave well enough alone.

What is going to bring this to the surface again and again though is our kids. It always comes back to them. They are the reason I was forced to re-evaluate where I stood with the church in the first place. I NEVER had a testimony in the conventional sense, but when you have little children who believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, you never feel pressured by them to justify your family religion. When your kids get into their teens it is a different story altogether. After walking around with my head in a fog, and going through the motions at church for almost 15 years, it was my 14-year-old daughter who snapped me out of my daze by asking me what I really believe. My need for honesty with her questions is what has brought me to where I am today.

So, where to proceed from here? I have told my DH that I am committed to attend church with him as a family and raise the kids in the church as long as that is what he wants. However, I know that I am having an influence on my children that could be contrary to what he would like to see for them. For example, a few days ago my 14-year-old daughter startled me and my best friend as we were chatting together in the kitchen by announcing that she has no desire to get married in the temple. My friend, until a recent move out of the ward, had been my daughter’s YW president for the past two years. My daughter is by no means what you would call rebellious (she has too much of her father in her for that). She has been top of her class for he past four years, is a total bookworm, is the only beehive who has almost completed her Personal Progress program, blah, blah, you get the idea (in other words she is nothing like me). When we asked her why she wouldn’t want to get married in the temple, she simply stated that she wanted her grandparents (my non-member parents) to be at her wedding, and if the church wouldn’t let them see her get sealed in the temple then she had no desire to be married there.

My reaction was nothing but pride for her strong sense of loyalty to her grandparents. I was really impressed with her. At the same time I was relieved that this conversation took place out of my DH’s earshot.

So, I guess the you-know-what is going to hit the fan at some point. Maybe I should just enjoy this calm before the storm.

[asha]

Thanks guys. I have really missed this forum, and need to make more time for it. Thanks for the good advice. I did talk to my husband once I had cooled off, and it is clear that he is in denial. I told him emphatically that the way I feel about the church is not going to change. He started making all sorts of excuses for me (sort of to justify for himself that his wife isn’t really an apostate) such as: well you are still following the commandments, you don’t attend the temple but you are worthy to, you still come to church, blah, blah, blah. I know that he loves me, and that is why he is doing this, so maybe I should just leave well enough alone. I just can’t help thinking that if he is looking for a celestial wife he needs to look elsewhere. Or, the other possibility is that maybe deep down he has his doubts about the church too, and his main concern is keeping up appearances.

[asha]

Does he really think he’d be in strip clubs if it weren’t for the church? I can’t stand this sort of scare-tactic. I have gotten a similar version from my DH who has told me he would probably be into porn if he weren’t a member. My response was “Give yourself some credit!” I don’t like how this reinforces the idea that everyone who isn’t a member is some sort of degenerate, and that any good member we know would be a pervert if it weren’t for the church.

I don’t buy it.

Don’t allow yourself to be bullied. He is probably feeling insecure. I agree with justme’s advice.

[asha]

Don’t get me wrong jmb, I really appreciate your take on this, and I am not entirely sure that I don’t agree with you. I was not always as hardline about this issue as I seem to be now… I think I am to a certain point lashing out in response to all the narrow-minded ignorance and sometimes even bigotry that I have heard lately in my ward here from people who have never even met a gay person before. I am just fed up with a lot of what I have been hearing recently, so part of me feels like I need to defend the issue to what could be perceived as an extreme. I do also have some personal baggage here as one of my very closest friends when I was a teenager was homosexual, and also the sweetest kindest person you can imagine. He was a good friend. He died when I was 19, just 2 years before I joined the church. I always wondered how disappointed in me he would have been with my decision to join the church… I have always sort of felt like I was betraying him. 😥 I guess that probably has a lot to do with why I get a bit worked up on this issue.

jmb275 wrote:

That is, homosexuality is not an immutable trait, like skin color (except for Michael Jackson ). We cannot be in the business of giving protected class status to preferences. At the end of the day, the decision to engage in sex is a choice, race is not. From a legal standpoint it is irresponsible, I believe, to give protected class status to homosexuals.

You very well might be right on this… I certainly had a few bi-sexual friends in university for whom sexual preference was definitely a choice. However, there seems to be a lot of compelling evidence now showing that for many people homosexuality is biological. For those people, their sexual orientation is not a choice, but I can still appreciate your point that they would still have a choice whether or not to be sexually active. I can also see your point that the legal implications could be crazy.

jmb275 wrote:

@hawkgrrrl

Brilliant post. Expressed my sentiments exactly!!

I want to second that.

I can’t stand it when organizations and govts hold people hostage with fear. As a non-American, I have to say that this really seems to be a big thing in the U.S. Please don’t send me a whole bunch of replies accusing me of being anti-American, I am not! I have many American friends whom I love dearly, and I think you have a great country… it is just that George W really scared me… We are issuing an orange alert: BE VIGILANT! But, continue to go about your everyday activities like everything is normal! Or, how ’bout : Weapons of mass-destruction!!! 😯 Your media seems to behave quite differently from ours as well, sensationalizing everything. Day after day it would drive me nuts. I am not saying my govt doesn’t have its flaws… don’t even get me started. Fear-mongering just really gets my back up.

I agree with Ray that the LDS church is pretty good about not using fear as a control tactic when compared to other religions/churches. However, I have heard many TBMs talk with great fear about the possibility of their kids not staying in the church, like it would be the end of the world or something. Once I said something to the effect of , “Well as long as they are living healthy, happy, responsible, and moral lives, why would it really matter if they decided to leave the church?” the two women I was speaking to looked at me as though I was completely out of my mind, and one of them answered, “Oh, I would just be heart-broken!” 🙄

hawkgrrrl wrote:

Have you ever heard these types of fearful statements:

– Mormons will never be accepted in society. X, Y, or Z group would never let that happen. (Shared enemies, persecution complex)

– If the gays can marry, churches will be forced to allow gay marriage in the temple. The church will be forced to let gays adopt through LDS social services. (Worst case scenarios, persecution complex, shared enemies)

– The world is going to hell in a handbasket. It’s getting even less and less safe to raise kids in such a wicked world. (Worst case scenarios, persecution complex, us against the world)

– Kids today must have been super-duper valiant to be able to withstand Satan’s power in the world today. (Self-aggrandizement, us against the world, fear)

– Illegal aliens have no interest in learning English. They want to take over, fly their flags, take our jobs, and not pay taxes. They don’t want to become Americans. I want to order my Big Mac in English. (shared enemies, worst case scenario, fear of personal loss)

I for one have heard all of these before… like you I am just getting better at tuning it out. There also seems to be a great fear in the church that if you leave your life will be miserable and unhappy. I have heard this over and over again, and I am sure many of you have too. So-and-so left the church and is now a druggie or alcoholic, blah blah blah. Whatever.

[asha]

hi Lala,

Sorry I am coming to this so late, I have been very sporadic lately about coming onto the forum. I really feel for your situation, and can certainly relate to it. I desperately wanted to share all my thoughts and feelings with my TBM DH, and was so troubled/frustrated when he would get upset by what I was saying. I ended up backing off, and turned to this forum to vent and express my thoughts (thank you to all of you who have put up with my rants). I love my DH dearly, and he is my best friend, but a couple of people on this forum helped me to see that my wanting to get him to see/understand my perspective on the church was not really of any benefit to him. Was I trying to get him to think like me? Did I want him to have a crisis of faith so we would end up on the same page? I realized that I wouldn’t want to bring that about for anyone, and if he decided to walk down that path it wouldn’t be as a result of my coercion. (I am not saying that this is what you are trying to do with your DH, this is just how I was able to take a step back from discussing difficult topics with mine – I am not trying to finger-point here!)

Anyway, the result from backing off was remarkable and not at all what I predicted. Within a couple of weeks my DH was asking me questions, and was much more comfortable with my opinions as I shared them. We are closer than ever now (emotionally and physically), even though it is clear that we do not think alike where the church is concerned. I am not trying to pressure him to come around to my way of thinking, and he seems ok for now with my being a secular or liberal mormon. He seemed visibly relieved when I told him that I valued our marriage above all else – that my feelings for the church in no way mirrored my feelings for him. Maybe your DH needs this same reassurance?

Well, now I am rambling on, and my original goal was to try to write something that would be helpful to you. I think it is a shame that your inlaws are involved… that would be a first-class nightmare in my situation, but I am a very private person. I would try to keep things between you and your husband in the future. Try to agree to disagree about difficult topics. You need to respect each other first and foremost, go slowly, and avoid heated debates for now.

I agree with the advice of others that this forum can be a great outlet. Plus, we certainly don’t all think alike here, so you can get various different views on a single topic.

Also, do you have any non-member friends? Two of my very closest friends are non-members, and they are wonderful non-biased listeners.

A final thought is that it seems as though you are surrounded by people who love you and care about you…

that is a good thing any way you look at it.

[asha]

Heber13 wrote:

Do I feel luke warm in my testimony now? I did for a while, because I doubted so much I used to “know” – and so everything was bland and I was apethetic. But because I have found new light, I feel stronger in my faith towards God, towards Jesus Christ, towards the principles of love and service. I am less concerned with home teaching others, and more concerned with Family Home Evening with my family. Less concerned with my daughter attending seminary, and more concerned with taking her on dates to reaffirm to her my love for her and how proud I am of her. Less concerned with volunteering to help clean the chapel, and more concerned with visiting a Young Man in the ward who hasn’t been to church in 4 months. I feel I’m luke warm to the organizational programs of the church and less concerned about following the flock around and not losing step with other righteous families, and instead more alive in Christ’s teachings of love and hope and what is good for me and my family today, especially the beauties of nature (I eat cereal on my deck and watch the sun rise above the mountains and see evidence of God in His creations).

Is that God’s plan, you ask? Yes, for me I believe this is His plan for Heber. I believe He wants me to grow beyond the life I was living and let go of my pride. I believe He allowed events to take place that were terribly depressing to me because I needed to let go of trying to control my environment, and instead get in tune with the flow of life, not control it to my will. I believe the Spirit is making itself manifest in my life in new ways that enrich my life. I don’t think I’ll ever hold another leadership calling in the church, although I’ve held almost everyone one at the ward level, and multiple at the stake level. I will see what the future holds, but if I never become heavily involved in ward social circles again, so be it. I believe there is more in this life that I am supposed to learn to value. So I will keep learning, and keep seeking the Spirit. I believe it is real and I don’t give up hope it can still be in my life to make me feel whole.

I will let go of prior feelings of guilt, resentment, and anger towards God for not answering my prayers, and look forward to a new path and learn new ways the Spirit can guide me then the narrow minded expectations I used to have.

I think I was able to accept this when one morning when I read this Maori proverb: “Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.” I broke down in tears. It impacted me far greater than the Book of Mormon scriptures I was desparately searching through to find peace. That was when I realized the Spirit was talking to me differently, and I need to listen differently.

I LOVE this Heber. Thank you so much for this. You have done much to suppress my cynical side. Thank you.

[asha]

jmb275 wrote:

See http://justin.justyntime.com/blog/?p=33 and http://justin.justyntime.com/blog/?p=36. These were written at the beginning of my crisis of faith (I think the difference in my writing, views, and opinions will probably knock your socks off).

Wow 😯 …wow.

I actually found your posts very interesting, and especially enjoyed the second one where you started to become more open to considering the other side of the issue. I could sense your growing discomfort with the position you were struggling to keep. I have suffered the same sort of cognitive dissonance regarding homosexuality/SSM when I was striving to be a TBM.

I agree (and disagree) with a lot of what you wrote. The only point I take issue with is the notion that SSM is not a civil rights issue. I think it is. People who disagree with homosexuality view it as not the norm, perhaps even sexually deviant. The bible has been used to back this up. I can’t help but make the parallel to slavery/treatment of blacks. The bible was used to back that up too. Most members reading this would say, “but that is not the same thing”. Isn’t it? God created gay people the way they are. If it is really so unnatural why are some people born that way, and why does it exist in the animal kingdom? We view racism as so abhorrent now, but it wasn’t that long ago in the church that we were using all kinds of persuasive arguments to show that segregation was just the natural way of things.

I don’t know if you still feel this way, but you argue in your blog that gays can choose whether or not to act upon their feelings. What kind of a choice is this? To live as god created you or to suppress your true nature? Bear with me for a moment, because this is going to get a little weird, but I think sometimes it really helps to try to see yourself in the position of others: What about if we flip the whole thing on its head and try to look at it from the perspective of a gay person. What if homosexuality was the “norm” in society. You are born as part of a minority of heterosexual men. You are attracted to women, but are told that is unnatural and should be suppressed. Your “choice” is to either live a life of celibacy or enter into a relationship with another man. Probably a third alternative would be more appealing: you would embrace your true nature as someone who is attracted to the opposite sex and work to try to get that lifestyle recognized as socially acceptable with all the rights and privileges that are enjoyed by the community as a whole.

At the heart of this whole issue is the strong desire of gay people to be viewed as “normal”. I for one can’t blame them. Who are we after all to say that their lifestyle is not normal? Oh yeah… we are the only ones with the whole truth in the world, we are guided by a man who is the mouthpiece of god and will never lead us astray, we might be a minority, but we are right and the world is wrong.

I tried to believe this for so long, but now it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Besides, clearly we have been led astray by the lord’s mouthpiece before.

That being said, I absolutely understand why any TBM would vote yes on prop 8. I actually would be confused why they wouldn’t. After all, if the prophet says something then the thinking has been done for you, right?

jmb275 wrote:

Growing up in a culture where there is heavy emphasis on the CK, and eternal families, which is dependent on following the prophet, is some very powerful coercion. Sure I still have my agency. But if I believe in the CK, and believe I need to humbly follow my leaders because they receive revelation from God in order to qualify for those rewards, I am left with little choice.

Yes, you make a REALLY good point here jmb. I guess this is why I never actually felt free as a member of the church. How much freedom is there in a choice where you are being told what to choose?

Anyway, sorry this post is so disjointed. I really have enjoyed everyone’s comments on this issue, and it is interesting to see how the thread seemed to take on a life of its own. In this area anyway I think it is safe to say that the apathy is gone!

[asha]

Old-Timer wrote:

if there is ONE group of people who simply CAN’T be expected to trust that government will NOT try to force its view of marriage on them, it is Mormon leaders whose parents and grandparents were jailed because the government tried to force its view of marriage on them. Whatever else one thinks of SSM and polygamy, I think that genetic memory CANNOT be overlooked when discussing this issue.

Yes, yes, yes! I totally agree… and the hypocrisy related to this is overwhelming. After all, polygamy was never legal in the U.S., and the church practiced it despite having an article of faith that spoke of obeying the law of the land. SSM has been legal here in Canada for a while, and members of the church still continue to speak out against it. Surely I can’t be the only one who sees a weird double standard in all this???

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