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I’m old and gray. I remember the black armbands worn by athletes who were required to play in sporting events against BYU. I remember the embarrassment of church members. I was less than a decade into my career after graduating from a secular college in California. We had held Institute in a private home, and we didn’t really voice it around, Mormons were considered odd. Science, evolution, critical thinking, we just kept taking hits. Now another “cause” has come to the forefront of our faith community. The trouble is, the social media, the communication explosion, is ever so much more apparent today. Strangely enough, I wouldn’t turn back the clock on our Brave New World anyhow. It wouldn’t work to begin with, and it might push us toward becoming the “Shakers” of this century. Not good, only five old ladies yet remain in a faith community which once gathered thousands in. What will Latter-day Saintism be like in 2100? A liberal Mormon wants to know… I’m an old man, so I don’t have young children to deal with. The problem is, my middle age children note my absence from the ward. I have several married children/grandchildren in the same ward. I have cut the three hour block in half. It helps a lot. I have decided to attend just two Sundays a month, its wonderful. One Sunday I attend one of two other faith communities I like. Their services are an hour and fifteen minutes long, with coffee and donuts afterward (still can’t break of WofW though). On the other Sunday I visit a shut-in brother, walk through a Buddhist Peace Garden, do catch up on genealogy friendships via the Internet. Oh, when I do attend the ward, I usually wear dark blue or black shirts, turquoise and silver jewelry (I do get comments). Recently I was locked out of third hour in the family history center (something about my going to priesthood). So I then hit the couch in the lobby for independent reading or simply go home and water my tomatoes and bell peppers. I think said program will add years to my life, it is peaceful on my little part of our beautiful rock, which circles the sun. If not, I look forward to kneeling before the Great High Priest of my spiritual path in life, even Christ Jesus and let him judge my heart. I have always felt I was baptized to confirm my acceptance of the teachings of Jesus Christ. The church was just a place to meet with fellow believers, a building to visit, a parking lot to turn into. Should it burn, no problem, we believers are the church and it continues on. I also feel of the spirit as I occasionally worship with other faith communities. Thus I would go with the definition, it is my church, though I am happy to share it with fellow believers. When I said, “If only the (LDS) block could be the same way…,” I was lamenting that the stories which make up our lives, are but little accepted or taught in our faith community. We are duty bound to acceptance of one narrow spiritual quest (the restoration), when there is so much more richness in the commonality of our human experience. We need to explore and elevate and learn about it all. It is through the refractions/reflections of the rainbow, we build our universality, and become one in love. I find Jesus in my story of Ishi, and a thousand other points of light… I doubt my message is clear in what I suggest here, in my complaint. Please forgive my sputter.
Last Saturday we had a stake appreciation dinner for “seasoned” (old) members. I got talked into going. It was first rate, great food, served by the YW/YM, who then sat with you and asked questions about your life. The entertainment was wonderful, and not to long. The hall was packed, everyone in Sunday dress, all the men and boys in white shirts/ties. My partner and I arrived a tiny bit late. I wore a black shirt, with my chest, arms and hands covered with silver/turquoise necklaces, bracelets, rings (plus my new sports coat). My partner wore dark slacks with a brilliant Seminole top and silver bracelets. She has her doctorate and the given name Muscogee. The stake president jumped up to greet us (diversity welcomed). Five of the young servers rushed to seat us and sit with us. Rather than tell about our lives, we shared Native American stories. I told of “Ishi,” American’s last wild Indian, who appeared from the California forest 100 years ago this year. His aunt and sister had disappeared two weeks earlier while he was hunting. He was in mourning, starving and heartsick. He figured the strangers in the valley would kill him and he would join his beloved ancestors. Instead, the ranchers fed him and he became famous until TB took him eleven years later. He would never tell his real name. He said he had none, that the shaman (holy man) was killed before his birth and no one had the right to name him. His anthropologist called him Ishi. Eventually as he lay dying he told his professor friend, “Ishi go, you stay.”
The young people listened to every word. The BofM was never mentioned. No missionaries were to be seen. My partner is Methodist and I often worship with her. It was a wonderful evening. We laughed and shared and were talked about (old friends from forty years of local attendance were there and carefully taking notes). If only the (LDS) block could be the same way…
I am the ONE MIGHTY AND STRONG (at least to my five grandchildren who live in a separate house on our pine tree covered hillside here in lovely Orange County). They are forever losing balls and kiddie bikes down the slope. I emerge from my Man Cave and save the day. In their eyes grandpa can do ANYTHING and is an absolute keeper to run to. I guess I am on the fringe of a fringe organization, I am not your everyday Mormon. Still I take the opportunity to share my love of Christ with my little ones. Often they hear me sing, “And He walks with me and He talks with me and he tells me I am his own and the joy we know as we tarry there, none other has ever known.” I care little about the size of the Kingdom, be it a remnant or not, and I think little about church structure, but I do care about my walk with my Savior and try to nurture His beautiful garden (my grandchildren) to love Him also. If loved ones will but acknowledge that at my wake, I will be at peace… Great discussion Hawk. And when you add Native American people of mixed heritage (or full-bloods) simply relocated to urban areas seeking a better situation, the hypothesis really works. In my family, relocation into California urban-ness meant alcoholism and pink slips for the males, multiple low paying jobs for the females. Yet somehow we survived, and slowly moved up the ladder of mobility. Education helped, but the reserved nature of Indian people (don’t blow your own horn) was so difficult to rise above. So many of our folks returned to Oklahoma unable to make it out west. Additional negative results; loss of language and sometimes loss of our culture, caught up in the flood-tide of other cultures. In my own family, now in its third generation here in Los Angeles, most of the children are marrying into the Latino culture, and suffer subsequent Indian identify loss. Our Christian Indian faith communities, strong in Oklahoma, seem to fail here in California as well, hurt by distance and gasoline prices. I know of only one church (Assembly of God), which is holding its own, mainly by bringing social self-help and advocate programs in to assist folks and bring hope. They are structured around food/housing/diabetes concerns. What we did was offer lots of religious diversity, often talking and learning about other faith communities and world religions. We all believed in lots of laughter, sometimes directed toward ward leaders who practiced a “only one single way back to heaven” theology. My son told me recently, “Dad until I was thirty-five, I thought every Mormon household had a copy of No Man Knows My History on their coffee table, or monthly issues of the Saints Herald (RLDS) in their bathroom. You raised us on LDS magazines and books, enhanced with a good display of alternate view magazines and books across the room. I read them all from the age of twelve on.” Strangely enough, most of my offspring are TBM today. Knowledge doesn’t hurt, knowledge informs, so decisions can be individually arrived at. Problems need to be addressed, in religion, as in all things. Just call me Fringie (on second thought, just call me for dinner). I know, we are but one tiny pebble throw out on the glassy lake… my oldest son often reminds me that our sun will one day burn up and everything we have ever accomplished, written, raised monuments to, will turn to ash in a moment and flash away (he is so uplifting that kid). I guess I hope, that even on the fringe, we might help a fellow traveler along a difficult rocky road. That reminds me, we named our middle son, Craig Aaron. Only later did we realize Craig means rocky in Celtic, Aaron mean high mountain in Hebrew, so “Rocky Mountain High” endures in our family. We were not pot smokers either, just serious TBMs at the time. Quote:Arwen:
“The church is currently headquartered in Utah, however, that can and probably will change in time. I think Dallin H. Oaks pretty much summed up the way I see members who think the Church is purely an American institution.”
With billions of dollars being spent to enhance and beautify downtown SLC (especially around Temple Square), it would appear the church leadership believes the voice of the church will be spoken out of Utah for a long time. There has been no announcement of “the Temple” being built in the Center Place (Independence, Missouri). I consider the church mainly a Utah church. I have never lived there, but in half a century of membership, the pilgrimages we took from California were always to the City of the Saints (and surrounds), for conferences, BYU educational weeks, and YM/YW tourist type activities. I would go so far as to call the practice, one of absolute “Supreme Directional Control.” When local leadership need an answer to an issue, SLC is contacted. On my mission I wanted to baptize the children of a black man (raised as a Navajo) and his Navajo wives. He was a polygamist (common among wealthier tribal men). My mission president called SLC. The answer back, “OK to baptize, if dad wants to join, also OK, but tell him he cannot marry additional wives and he can’t hold the priesthood.” No mention was made of leaving the wives he currently supported. It was a long time ago, before FLDS rose up in Colorado City.
You would have to ask them I guess. I have seen Jesus though, fairly often I might add. I seen him in service to others, I see him in unconditional love toward the sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. I see him smile as we speak of his Grace, and pray in his name. I see him in LOVE for that is what he represents to us and suggests we offer up in his Holy Name. It is enough.
“I Come to the Garden Alone, while the dew is still on the heather… and he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am His Own and the joy I know…”
Quote:doubtingthomas:
George, you probably will never get a temple recommend again. It doesn’t seem to me that the Church apologizes for anything, so much as receives divine revelation changing it.
I have already missed my three oldest grandkids temple sealings. I fully expect to miss the next ten sealings as well (should I live so long). It was painful of course, but I need to display to my beautiful grandkids, that standing for something, even though it might involve your faith community, is your right and perhaps your duty, if integrity is important to you. I was there for my four children’s temple sealings, very worthy to attend. My fifth child has never married, and would not be welcome in the House of the Lord as an openly gay man. I celebrate his diversity and love him unconditionally. Like you I have never heard the church apologize for anything. Indeed, who in the church would do it? The first prophet of the restoration seems to have set the example in that regard. One possibly exception was at Carthage Jail. When Hyrum is fatally shot and cries, “I’m a dead man,” Joseph rushes to his side and cries out, “Oh, my dear brother Hyrum.” One wonders if he more clearly at that moment, saw what polygamy had brought upon him and his loved ones.
Gosh SD, we sure are on the same wave length. Three years ago I handed my car keys (symbolic) over to my bishop and told him I was finished with home teaching. He said, “You can’t do that.” I explained that I had given it my best, not for five years, but for fifty years (half a century). I told him that it has never worked for me, I never had a junior companion and got turned away from the active families as often as the inactive ones (I think being divorced may have fueled that). Anyhow, he thought it over and thanked me for my service. It was OK to say no. Recently, a letter came from a new HPGL (new Bishop also), calling me to home teach three families and giving me a date to report my first month’s progress. Once again I explained my “keys” analogy. The HPGL looked unhappy, but didn’t say much. It is all right to say no. I have also requested that my current calling remain in place until I die (family history, I’m really really good at it). I got a few smiles on that request. As for a current temple recommend, no problem, I will seek one when the church apologizes for Prophet 8 (make that Proposition 
. In closing, I once taught the HP lessons for two years without being called, I got tired of having the lesson read from the manual each week. When the new HPGL suggested I probably should be released, I told him it was not necessary, I hadn’t been called. He actually got tears in his eyes…“I Stand All Amazed…”
Quote:SD:
“I keep my mouth shut at Church and to other members.”
For a decade I followed that difficult pathway. Sometimes I left the church feeling physically ill, for not speaking my piece or offering a strong alternate opinion.
Of late, because of my advancing years, I have taken a different approach. I now openly question LDS doctrines/history I personally have difficulties with. I always do it on a one to one basis, in a respective tone with quiet delivery. I have found a dozen ward members who smile and either privately agree with me, or say something such as “interesting opinion.” No one has jumped my bones, or cried “apostate.” I sense a willingness to expand parameters and not all be “YES” men in the church. It is refreshing, it brings hope, suggesting more acceptance and exploration in spiritual things in the future. Then again, perhaps senility has final struck… or my twenty TBM descendants in two wards of the stake (holding forty callings at least) wins me a few brownie points of forgiveness. My five oldest grandkids are in the three BYUs, with three temple sealed spouses as well.
I once had a larger home here and rented rooms (nearby college), to returned missionaries. I ran into the stake president at about the tenth temple wedding reception (grooms from my house) and he said, “You Brother George, are talked about for getting our young men to commit to marriage.” I thought about my empty refrigerator and smiled at him, it’s funny how nothing to eat sends young men toward the kitchens of girlfriends (or their mothers). Take note you Bishops of the new single’s wards…
I had my own moment of “enlightenment” recently. I focussed again on the LDS church teaching, “Man is that he might have joy.” I realized that even as a “Universalist,” I still love the idea. More importantly, I can share the idea with my devote TBM family members. We both can walk that pathway. It brings the church back toward me, if only via parameters. It is good in my familial relationships. I loved your conversation with your son also. I have three sons, one completely out of the church, one a faithful TBM, one a questioning New Order guy. I asked once if the Mormon church had never existed, where would their faith community be. Answers: Jesuit Priest, Born Again Christian, Buddhist. I myself have returned to my Native American belief system, mixed with respect for the teachings of Christ and hope in the Grace his message offers. PS: Tom Haws and Silentdawning are running neck and neck in messages posted. Interesting!
