Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
We’ve all heard the saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” My dad used to riff on this by saying, “Absence makes the heart go wander.” I think that both of those things are true. Another way to put it is “If you love someone, set them free. If they don’t return, they never were yours. If they do, they will love you for life.” Or something like that. Maybe it’s like a marriage that goes through a forced (rather than a wanted) separation for a period of time. In some marriages, this will result in a permanent split because they realize it wasn’t that great a relationship after all. In other cases, they will be relieved to be back together because they really felt the loss.
At least in the WT survey, that appeared to be mostly a “relief” to be out of the relationship rather than a “longing” to return. I think it’s also exacerbated by how many people moved during the pandemic. We did, and I know many others did, too. Joining a new ward is difficult at the best of times, but nearly impossible in a pandemic. You don’t know anyone, and you can’t really get to know them. You are also in “first date” mindset and not really interested in indulging people’s worst impulses because you have no stake in the relationship. In our case, the new ward parking lot is full of “blue lives matter” license plates, every talk and lesson was about obedience and hating on doubters, and there was plenty of dog-whistle conservative political viewpoints. I heard a few things like that in my last ward, and frankly I wasn’t a big fan of that one either, although I did have friends there, and I was more indulgent of their conservative (and even conspiratorial) views–willing to engage in discussions with them anyway. The one before that, a ward I loved, was fragmented in five ways during a radical ward realignment, and I basically haven’t had a ward that didn’t suck on some level since then.
I really did try in this new one, up to a point. I engaged with people in the FB group, donated items to people who asked for them (not even a response or thanks or anything from most of these efforts, and in fact it was more like “leave it on the porch–we’re too busy to come to the door”). Just really not great community. When the RS presidency changed, the most virulent right-wingnut got called in, changed the group name to something I thought was an Evangelical group, and posted her GOP stuff there. I left that group. I just don’t have any interest in participating with these people, but honestly, I can’t say my old ward would currently be any better. There are far more church members like her than there are like me. I just think the Church left me, not the other way around.
I actually think Worthen’s been pretty great overall, but I have no illusions that the hate speech kid will have any consequences applied to him. A great president < the board of trustees. Also, minor inconvenience to conservatives > actual death threats and hate speech to liberals. DarkJedi: I don’t know if you saw this, but within 72 hours, a petition was started up to eliminate the Office of Belonging. Yep, that’s right, the Karens are in charge now, and even though they got to speak to the manager, it wasn’t enough. Quote:I don’t know what the end game will be, but it shouldn’t be a whole class of people that can’t hold hands on campus. People that are “othered,” fretted and prayed over as though there is something wrong with them.
Here’s another way of stating the problem in the Church. Which of these two people (if either) should be subject to censure:
1) a gay kid at BYU who tells others that he’s gay, but also faithful
2) a straight kid at BYU who tells all his roommates that if he ever met someone gay, he’d beat the hell out of him because gay people are perverts and have no right to live
We all know what the reality is on the ground. Even if the Church says everyone should be treated with love, we all know for a fact that kid #2 will never have any consequences for his threatening behavior. Kid #1 will be told that he’s wrong for self-identifying as gay which is “divisive.” Which one is really being divisive?
I guess I feel like it’s time to call a spade a spade. They are bigots. The church is FULL of bigots. They cater to the bigots because they agree with them. Nothing much to add other than a funny coffee thing. My daughter told me in high school that basically ALL the early morning seminary kids developed a post-seminary coffee habit to cope with the lack of sleep, which I found both funny and sad, but mostly funny. Their parents don’t know because I’m not a narc. Old Timer: Quote:I am not sure that is a fair statement, given all of its implications and what I know of what he actually has said in his lifetime (as well as our actual theology about who is saved and who can be exalted, even from the most orthodox perspective). It might or might not be true, but it is far too “loaded” for me personally.
OK, see if you agree with this revision. Black lives matter, but only so long as white property rights are preserved (that’s related to Nelson’s remarks that used much stronger language to condemn property damage from looting than to protest the slaughter of black people by the police). And the narratives we listen to are always from a white perspective. The black people who live like white Christians are going to be heard more than the rest.
This was a salient OP on this subject from Andrew S at W&T:
https://wheatandtares.org/2020/06/02/plausible-deniability-the-lds-churchs-statement-on-racism-and-looting/ Roy:
Quote:I think that organizations really hate what I will call “collective bargaining”. The church has the advantage of massive power. If it deals with an individual and does not recognize that individual as a member of any group other than “church member” or child of HF then it retains that power. There is perfect unity because the church has all the power and everyone is obedient to the church hierarchy. When people start to identify themselves as members of other subgroups or communities with potentially different needs (LDS black community, LDS LGBTQ+ Community, etc.) then the church may have to start dealing with those subgroups as groups. The church does not want “collective bargaining.”
Yes, excellent points, all.
Quote:individual license over institutional dignity
How about individual DIGNITY over institutional LICENSE, because that’s what we are really talking about here.
As to the idea that the brethren have wept over this issue, hmmm. I have no doubt whatsoever that they are all really upset at being called bigots and homophobes and that the loss of their power is triggering an emotional response for them. Poor poor them. Crocodile tears, I say. I am not buying it at all, and I suspect none of the parents of LGBT kids are buying it either. When your child is suicidal because of the teachings they hear at Church, afraid to come out because they are convinced they will be kicked out and ostracized, and feeling unsafe because their BYU-I roommates are openly joking about doing violence to gay kids, then you have cause to weep about these issues. When you double down on hate speech, invoke violence among your followers with metaphors of muskets, and state openly your willingness to lose university accreditation rather than back down, rendering your students’ and professors’ investments worthless, you aren’t the victim here.
I’m late to the party on this one, but what he said reminded me exactly of what a sister said in RS about races. I blogged about it here: https://bycommonconsent.com/2017/10/17/erasing-race/ From the post:
Quote:I was disconcerted in this Relief Society discussion by a well-meaning older woman’s remark that in her belief there will be no other races in the hereafter, and that will make things so much better because we won’t have these divisions between us–they simply won’t exist. Then she went on to list these (apparently divisive) races: Asian, blacks, and so on (I think she ran out of color groups). I leaned and whispered to the Relief Society President sitting next to me “And white people. Right? No more white people?” But no, Caucasians / Europeans / beige people like her (and me) didn’t make the list of races that would no longer exist. It could have been an omission, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t. She seemed to be implying that color itself was an impurity to be removed, and without it we would all be the same, unified–that same is good while different is bad.
This reminded me of a very strange conversation I had with a college friend who was from Utah when I was a freshman at BYU. He asked if I thought we would all look the same in the Celestial Kingdom. I wrinkled my nose up in confusion, “How would we all look the same?” I wondered. Since we don’t look the same now, who would we look like? I had never even considered such a thing. It seemed more like a dystopian Hell than a Heaven.
He said because we were all supposed to be unified, that he had heard plenty of people say things that made it sound like we would also look the same: white hair, presumably same age, wearing white clothes, etc. Of course, the unstated assumption was that we’d all be white, having the non-whiteness purified out. He pointed out that in the temple, we were made to all look as much alike as possible.
To put it another way, I think Oaks (like Bedar) is saying that black lives don’t matter, just Christian lives do. And oh, BTW, he’s really just thinking of white Christian churches. Bednar basically said there are no “gay” Church members, just Church members. Well, FYI, there *are* gay Church members, and I’ll believe they are really talking about inclusion and love when we quit preferencing white, cishetero, middle-class, Christian, Utahns, men first.
I kept a daily journal without fail until I was 28, then I wrote every few days. Now I write a few times a year. Honestly, I can’t imagine anybody would ever want to read these. Only one of my kids has even read the mission memoir I wrote and published. I think writing a much shorter personal history to pass on is valuable, but passing on journals, not so much. It’s about on par with saving your toenail clippings in a shoebox under your bed. Quote:Do your friends think you get a commission for every referral? (That’s a bad joke.)
I literally thought the same thing. After all, to an outsider (and sometimes to me as an insider) the Church looks like a big MLM scheme. They might actually think this either literally ($100 off your tithing for every referral!) or figuratively (you get some kind of “good Mormon” cred in the community, which essentially you do).
Quote:Don’t know if you can waste the missionaries’ time. What else have they got going on, tracting?
Fantastic point!
There seems to be some concern at top levels about creating the illusion of parity (without making any actual meaningful changes to elevate how much control and input women have in the organization). I for one will not miss the Women’s Session because I have literally never watched it. A meeting in a patriarchal church just for the women? Talking about what, exactly? Gender roles, how women can support men, and motherhood? No thanks. When they extended it to “women” age 8 and up, that sealed it for me. Women & children are literally one category to the men who run this Church.
And yes, it’s galling that almost no women speak in General Conference. Even more galling that Church leaders don’t seem to notice or care. I’d love to see us cut down to one Sunday session, one two hour meeting, and only have the FP and Aux leaders speak (3 and 3). That’s doable.
Well done. I’m jealous. We moved across town during the pandemic, and I would have been 100% thrilled never to go back, but that’s not really on the cards. We’ve been called into the primary, 5 year olds, which is probably the ideal scenario for us. Having been to two Gospel Doctrine classes and one Relief Society lesson, I can state that there is no way I could sit through those again. 80% of every lesson was a mix of leader worship / obey human leaders / why doubters are lazy and terrible / encouragement to accost those who are inactive and challenge them about their lack of commitment by telling them they are ruining their families for eternity with their faithlessness. 🙄 One lesson went into a discussion about the difference between blind obedience and obedience, and the “conclusion” was that obedience included a pause first. That’s the only distinction because it’s unthinkable that anyone could ever not do what they are told, eventually, no matter how silly the command. Normally, in my last two wards, I would have countered this BS with my own spin (which almost always goes over well), but I really don’t care anymore. I don’t owe these people anything. I don’t know them. I don’t wish to cast my pearls before swine, which I know sounds terrible, but why am I the only person in the room who thinks this is terrible? I really really really really really don’t want to be there.
Plus, the wifi is terrible.
I did a post on the Twenty Temples announcement, curious as to the motivation (particularly when temple attendance seems to be down). Anyway, the discussion was pretty good, but I also think I did a reasonably good job laying out the possible motives: https://wheatandtares.org/2021/04/07/twenty-temples/ SamBee: There was one guy (and his wife) in a ward I was in decades ago who totally used F&T meeting to lobby for being called as the next bishop. Our current bishop was close to the end of his tenure. He did this the way Mrs. Elton talks about forming a musical club in Emma. He would say, “I know there’s a lot of talk that I should be the next bishop, and I wish people would quit saying that. Of course, I would serve in any way I was asked, but it’s not a calling I seek after, but clearly I would love any opportunity to help and to serve, even if it had to be something like that. But the nursery would be fine for me, just as noble.” It was just gross.
