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On a better note, I just read this article from No More Strangers, which shows how a negative church experience actually turned out to be a very positive one. Ann said: Quote:Last night she came home from a stake youth fireside. The last 45 min.- hour were spent on a “dismal” presentation from our good and loving stake president about how acting on SSA was wrong, SSM is wrong, and the kids should be vocal in defending one man/one woman marriage. She had loved the preceding speakers and was happy that I’d made her go, but she said, “The Spirit left the room” when this topic opened, and all she could think was that she was glad she hadn’t invited any non-members.
One of my children is gay, and currently inactive. Only one of my children is semi-active at this point, but has a very good friend who is also gay.
I just wonder if they realize how many young people are leaving those firesides feeling deflated, depressed, alone, unhappy or worse. Those who are gay and who feel they really have no future in the church where they can be truly happy, those with family members who are gay and who feel like they don’t want to support an organization that would limit those both inside and out of the church just because of their orientation, and those with good friends who are gay and who are told that they should not only not support SSM, but should speak out against it.
I keep trying to find a way to stay and be happy at church, and lately I’ve been doing much better, but talks like this just set me back again. IMHO the church is going to lose some of their best and brightest most loving and kind people by talking this subject into the ground. Those loving people who are gay, and others who show compassion and love towards others and who don’t feel good about the stand the church is taking. I understand what Ann’s daughter was saying when she said “the spirit left the room.” I have felt that also when this topic is broached. The love just leaves.
😥 Dear Turintumbar, Quote:I started seeing a therapist once a week to talk out my tortured ideations. I also began to go to physical therapy and to see a nutritionist to regain my physical health that had been destroyed by years of religion induced hopelessness. I am feeling better than I have in years. I am happy to be a gay man and I know Jesus loves me and accepts my orientation.
:thumbup: So glad you are taking care of yourself and that you realize you are here for a reason, and that you have purpose. I wish you health and happiness and the best of everything. I hope you let us know how you are doing and how things are going.
Love,
Harmony
Thanks everyone for posting what is going on at conference. I have decided this time to read up before I watch and only watch the talks that I think will be helpful to me, and not make me head for the hills. So far, from what I’m reading, it doesn’t sound like the first session is going to be a positive for me. I appreciate the synopses. Thanks. I hope Uchtdorf is a bright spot. Welcome. I’m glad you decided to post an introduction. I certainly know how you feel, as do many others here. I hope we can be helpful to you. For me it has been helpful having an outlet and being able to talk about what I’m feeling churchwise. Quote:How could I have devoted so much of my life to something that only slightly resembled the true story?
Quote:I never in a million Years thought I would be saying these things. I was so valiant, righteous and convinced.
That mirrors many of my feelings.I have found that taking things slowly and finding out how this can be a time for growth has been the best approach for me. Also, knowing that others have had similar experiences has made me feel a bit saner.
Glad you are here.
Okay, here is what I have so far. But without a transcriber it is going to take me too long to do the whole talk. This should give you a taste of it. He really is wonderful to listen to, and I would recommend going ahead and listening to it. Done quickly so don’t take me to task for any errors. There is much more after this. President Uchtdorf:
Thank you Elder Snow. It is such a privilege and joy to be with you today. Especially with Harriet. She is such a wonderful lady. I call her the sunshine of my life. And it is wonderful to be here with the love of my life and to speak of the light of my life which is the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it is of course wonderful to be with you and thank you to this beautiful children’s choir.
They represent the topic you have here on your church history symposium, the worldwide church, the global reach of Mormonism. And they represented it in such a great and wonderful way I even recognized there was a little Chech hymn in there, among the others, although my Chech isn’t present anymore. But it is wonderful to see the international church to see how it reaches out all around the globe.
Now it is a privilege indeed to be with you today and when I received the invitation to participate in this symposium it felt like something very close to my heart. I am not entirely sure of all the reasons why, but I do know this: History is important. And keeping ourselves anchored to the lessons learned from history will enable us to emulate the best of what it means to be human.
It can also help us avoid the worst. George Wilhelm (not sure what he says here), the idealist and philosopher said “We learn from history that we do not learn from history.” Which is supported by George Sentilianist (sp?), who said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The late novelist Michael Crighton is reported to have said “If you don’t know history then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that does not know it is part of a tree.”
History teaches us not only about the leaves of existence it also teaches us about the twigs, the branches, the trunks, and the roots of life. And these lessons are certainly important. One of the weaknesses we have as mortals is to assume that our leaf is all there is. And you find this often in other people, but I think if we look into the mirror we find it in even our own perceptions.
It is that our experience encompasses everyone else’s, that our truth is complete and universal. As I considered what I wanted to speak about today it seemed that the metaphor of the leaf needed to be at the heart. But I also ran across an old Yiddish expression that goes: “To the worm in horseradish the world is horseradish.”
So I want to emphasize that the truth embraced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints extends beyond leaves of any size, and certainly beyond horseradish. It extends beyond time and space and encompasses all truth: The mysteries of the tiniest atoms to the vast and incomprehensible secrets that the universe holds so tantalizingly before us. The gospel of Jesus Christ encompasses not only the truth of what was and what is, but the truth of what can and will be. It is the most practical of all truths. It teaches the way of the disciple. A path that can take ordinary flawed mortals, and can transform them into glorious immortal and limitless beings whose divine potential is beyond our meager capacity to imagine.
Now that is practical truth. It is priceless beyond imagination. It is truth of the highest order. The pursuit, discovery and application of truth are what we are on this earth to discover. And you are part of this process because you are scholars, you are interested in this field. And I very much appreciated of course the questions you presented to me as I asked for them. And I decided not to do the question and answer period after my remarks but I tried to imbed the answers to most of the questions right in my remarks, and I hope you will recognize them when you see them.
Now let me come back to the core of my remarks, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ is not only encompassing all truth, but it specializes in the knowledge that will be of greatest worth to us in this life and throughout the eternities to come. So it reaches way out into the future. And I like this one saying by Winston Churchill where he says: “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”
As mentioned before, one of the traits we share as human beings is that we assume that our own experience is a true and proper base from which to view the rest of the world. For example, when we are healthy we presume that those we meet are healthy and judge them by that standard. When we are sick we are more likely to wonder of others are sick as well.
It goes even to very trivial areas when you drive a Ford you see Fords on the road. We assume that the leaf of our existence defines the rest of the world.
Tolkien began his famous novel the Hobbit with these words: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Now you all remember Bilbo Baggins lived in a comfortable home in the shire. A small peaceful village that celebrated gardening, community gatherings, and a meal schedule that included breakfast, second breakfast, elevensees, lunch, afternoon tea, supper and dinner. I envy the schedule.
Bilbo was quite content with the leaf of his life. And it was beautiful for that. But little did he know of the twigs, the branches, the trunks and the roots that were all around him. Little did he know of distant towers, trolls and talking trees. The farther he went from the comforts of the shire the more remarkable and strange the world became.
While Tolkien’s world was one of fiction it can serve as a metaphor for our own experience. I grew up in a small branch of the church in Swikow (sp?), East Germany. Our little meetinghouse was a beautiful building with an old air driven organ. It was one of my privileges to sometimes have the assignment to work the bellows that supplied air to the pipe organ. While the congregation sang our beloved hymns of the restoration I pumped with all my strength so the organ would not run out of wind. The eyes of the organist unmistakenly indicated whether I was doing fine or needed to increase my efforts quickly.
I loved our little meetinghouse with its stained glass window. It was kind of an old villa. And in these stained glass windows there was Joseph Smith kneeling in the sacred grove. When I was young I supposed that this was what the church looked like. That what I was seeing in Swikow (sp?) was what every other member of the church saw during their Sunday experience throughout the world. That the little leaf of my experience was the same as everyone else’s.
….. Much more after this. Just takes too long to transcribe.
Our whole family went to see it with the cousins, the parents, and adult children up to 23 years old. Everyone loved it. Really really good movie. My favorite Disney movie since the Lion King. Seeing it in the theater would probably be worthwhile. Everyone gets a different message from it. Hawkgrrl said: Quote:It’s not just those with a faith crisis who fake it at church. It’s anyone who is prone to not be authentic. In my husband’s extended family there is a couple who did a skit at a reunion all about how they were all “As Happy As Can Be,” a great goal I suppose, but at the time, there was some Jerry Springer level crap going on in that clan. Putting on a happy face isn’t healthy if it’s not being true to yourself. Our miseries aren’t supposed to be hidden because they are an inconvenience to others or make us look bad. I say let your freak flag fly! It’s the only way to be really happy. Plus we are supposed to mourn with those that mourn.
I wouldn’t say I am someone who is prone to be inauthentic, and with those who I am close to they know some of what I am going through. Some know all that I am going through (these are mostly people not in the church or not in my ward). I don’t explain everything because I don’t want to hurt their faith in the things they believe in, I don’t think they can do anything to comfort me in my situation, and many of them I’m just not close enough to to share my innermost feelings with. That said, I guess I feel a bit like I am inauthentic when I have to tune out the speaker because I don’t believe in what they are saying, and I guess I’m being authentic when I head for home after sacrament meeting because I’m done for the day. I put on a happy face sometimes for others because why burden them. I just burden my close friends : ) I’m fairly new to many of the things I’m dealing with, and hopefully with time I will have a clearer path to how I intend to handle it. I do like the imagery of “letting my freak flag fly.”
🙂 I think we all do this at times in our everyday lives. When someone asks “How are you?” we don’t typically launch into everything we are going through. However, in a faith crisis, or any big crisis, it isn’t something we feel comfortable sharing with just about anyone, so a phony response is often the first response. Going through the motions at church, for me, can be very emotionally draining. Enough so that I often have to steel myself to be there. I do have positive interactions and good moments, but I do feel I am faking my way through sometimes. And it is a lot of work. Hopefully as I learn to deal with my faith crisis, and I figure out my path, I will be able to be more authentic with those around me. Thank you for sharing this. I think he was a wonderful speaker and I thought it was very worthwhile to listen to. I sent it on to one of my children. Thanks for sharing that. I also listened to the link below the rebuttal of LDS therapist Dr. Jennifer, and found that to be a good podcast if anyone is interested. Silent Dawning said:
Quote:but the potential motive of the church for doing away with this awful policy could be primarily self-serving, and not out of concern for its members (like myself) who were severely disadvantaged throughout their entire life as I was.
I’m sorry the policy caused you so much pain. Let’s hope if they change it they do it to keep future couples from experiencing what you experienced.
