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I love this comment upthread, and it applies so much to our relationship with the Church in various situations:
Quote:the church needs me to have a TR more than I feel the need to have one
Sometimes we need the Church more than it needs us, and sometimes the reverse is true. It’s just an interesting phenomenon to consider in our ongoing relationship with the Church. When the Church isn’t there in our time of need or fails us, that can be devastating. When the Church needs us more than we need it (e.g. a struggling branch or ward without enough people to run things), this is IMO the sweet spot. You have a little more breathing room. This thought process puts the Church in a “friend” relationship. Is the friend just using us or is the friend helping to meet our needs?
The stake visits you mentioned are routine across the Church before conferences. We just moved in October, and I was in the RSP in our old ward, so I used to have to do these visits. Due to the pandemic and the impossibility to actually belong to the ward with everyone’s faces behind a mask (plus this new ward is not as cautious as our old stake’s guidelines, which I don’t like), we have only been to church once since we moved. Lo and behold, I got a text from the RSP asking if she & another sister could come by, which I said was fine with masks and/or visiting outdoors. When they came by, the other sister was from the Stake, and I realized “Oh, this is one of those visits!” I said, “It must be Wednesday before a conference if you are out doing these visits.” She looked taken aback that I knew what they were up to. I think I surprised her. She said, “Oh, have you done these visits before?” I said, “Yeah, I was in the Relief Society Presidency in our last ward.” I don’t know why that would be so surprising unless they are (unreasonably) expecting Church attendance during a pandemic (despite not requiring masks while also allowing singing), and if so, hats off to them, but that’s not going to change my behavior. I haven’t yet got a read on this ward and whether or not this is important to me. I haven’t missed Church AT ALL. I still love my prior ward friends, though, and I suspect I would grow to love these weirdos, too. Just not in love with the framework of boredom and repetition and social pressure to do things I don’t care about that it’s all wrapped up in.
Oh, and for how the people you visit are chosen, what people say in the meeting is that they feel prompted to visit these specific people with either known needs or suspected needs. It’s not *strictly* about re-activation either. It’s sometimes just a fact-finding visit. However, the dirty little secret behind those promptings is that NOBODY feels prompted to visit the people they think are going to be hostile or unpleasant, so you’ve got that going for you. People are smart enough to pick the softball visits.
When I was a missionary, we were visiting a family that was partly active. Their adult daughter was there, and she normally didn’t go to Church, and I mentioned that the next day was F&T meeting. She threw her head back and laughed right in my face: “Why on earth would I want to go to that? They’re all the same. People blubbering on about the same things over and over.” Honestly, I pretty much agreed with her, so I didn’t push it. I just thought it was kind of refreshing to have someone say the truth for once. I teed up this discussion on Wheat & Tares also. https://wheatandtares.org/2021/03/24/no-tithing-refunds/ Here’s my overall view of it (my latest comment in the thread):
Quote:I simultaneously hold conflicting views:
1) I’m pleased for the Church that through its wise management, it is now not only solvent, but sheesh, rolling in it to the point of not knowing what to do with it.
2) I agree that there’s a bit of Sam Walton syndrome going on. On the whole, Church leaders aren’t living in opulence. They seem to be living at about the standard they did when they were in real jobs.
3) Tithing is, without question, a regressive tax. It’s much harder on the poor than the rich. As such, it’s hard for me to see it as any kind of great equalizer, and for the poor to donate to the Uber Rich Organization doesn’t feel right.
4) It is utterly shocking and gross to me that the Church spent funds to oppose LGBT rights (e.g. the Prop 8 fight). I grew up believing in the separation of Church & state, and believing the Church’s claims to be apolitical (that it has since changed). I would never have donated a dime toward such a cause knowingly.
5) Transparency is always good. Sunshine and light are the best disinfectants (although not a great remedy for Covid despite what Trump said). Maybe if the Church were forced to be more transparent, they would also be better with their funds. (Hawkins’ statement sounds like weasel words to me–I agree with Dave B.)
6) It feels wrong to me for the Church to excommunicate someone while retaining their tithes.
7) The pay-to-play role that the temple fills is also deeply troubling, the older I get.
I find the idea of detachment that tithing creates (that it’s not MY money, that I should give it away freely) to be a valuable spiritual practice.9) I’m not convinced that the Church is trustworthy with these funds on the basis of #3, 4, 6 and 7. There are probably better places to donate.
10) I seriously doubt that with a 6-3 conservative bench, we’ll ever see anyone hold Churches accountable for anything in my lifetime. Given that, I wonder if that will actually reduce the influence of Churches in society as the public loses trust in them as benevolent institutions. A more liberal bench would keep them from acting on their worst impulses, IMO.
This experience got me thinking back to my own missionary Christmas which was actually one of the best Christmases I ever had (sounds sad, but it was really an awesome Christmas with 8 of us who were great friends all celebrating together). https://wheatandtares.org/2020/12/23/a-missionary-christmas/ By contrast, the first Christmas after my mission, I flew home from college, and my parents had actually forgotten to get me anything. It was fine because as a return missionary I didn’t care that much. I was still on the “mission martyrdom” train in which I don’t have any needs or wants. My mom kept opening presents she bought herself and wrapped, and then my sister asked why I didn’t have anything. My mom went back into the home office, got some computer paper that was still in the Kmart bag with the receipt and said she forgot to wrap it. Right.
Arrakeen: GOOD suggestions. Too bad the Church doesn’t take suggestions. I was surprised because during the summer, before we moved, the missionaries weren’t allowed to come inside. Our cases are WORSE now, not better (AZ was 4th worst state in the nation last I saw), and suddenly they are allowed to come into our homes? I was taken aback by the request because I thought caution reined supreme. I do really really feel for these kids, particularly around Christmas. I can’t imagine a worse time to be on a mission.
Last week my own Mission President died (of old age, not Covid–I’m pretty sure). His funeral is tomorrow, and there was a message from one of my fellow former missionaries to those of us who might attend the funeral saying that we & our families should all sit together up front and sign a song as a group, then stay afterward for a luncheon. I kind of think all three of these things are sort of reckless activities, or at least don’t seem to be focused on what precautions are being taken. Funerals in general are super-spreader events with all the crying, singing, and hugging. I would love to honor his memory, but that message didn’t leave me feeling comfortable with how seriously people are taking precautions. I’m not living my life in white-knuckled terror. I go to restaurants, for instance, but if they aren’t wearing masks or don’t have social distancing with the tables, I take my food to go. We’re all fatigued over this pandemic, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to throw caution to the wind with a vaccine a few months away.
I’ve found that I forget to check in here more than about once a week anymore. I am a little more active in the online groups, although even there, I am less involved than I used to be. Mostly, I just feel like I like the people in these groups, but without Church going on, there’s not much to discuss about Church. (It’s not entirely true that Church isn’t going on, but we haven’t been to the new ward, and we just moved, and I really don’t feel like going). I can’t say I haven’t missed Church, because on some level I miss it, but I don’t miss the content of it, just the break and seeing people, and I 100% don’t miss getting up to an alarm on Sunday, dressing up and going to hear the same exact pablum over and over. I told my daughter that if a bishop ever goes on some kind of prurient fishing expedition with her in an interview, she should know that he is a perv and not someone in whom she should confide. I advised her the best thing in that situation is to give him the simplest answers that will get him to back off, even if it’s a lie. Knowing her, it probably wouldn’t be a lie, but all women need to be on our guard in these interviews. The more of a prude, the more of a perv. The more they ask, the less you should tell. Our current SP is a doctor, and we are not resuming meetings yet. Everything is still on line. When we do resume, he has 7 pages of very clear, mandatory guidelines, and yes, masks are absolutely required, along with very stringent requirements on social distancing, no singing, and how sacrament is prepared and administered. Our gutless governor who is a lame duck anyway and clearly angling for a cabinet position should Trump be re-elected personally wears a mask but refuses to mandate it, instead deferring to the mayors to do so. At least where I live, all of them immediately did so; however, it varies from business to business which ones are enforcing it. I avoid the ones that don’t enforce it.
One of the YW leaders just made a terrifying analogy (and she’s a school nurse, FYI!) that masks were like Satan, trying to block us from the good things God has for us, like blessings. The girls and YW President just sat there in awkward silence and talked about it later. Masks are literally blocking us from spreading viruses to one another. That which goeth out of the mouth (in the form of droplets) defileth.
It is completely insane to me that masks have become a political issue. Are they a pain? Yes. But I really don’t want to get Covid, and I don’t want others to get it. It’s a terrible virus and often causes clotting problems (I have a clotting disorder). I have heard that there’s an area in East Phoenix (Mesa? Gilbert? Chandler?) where the ward is so divided on mask-wearing that they have one ward with masks and one without at a different time. They should send the data to the CDC. IMO, the people who are against masks are: 1) anti-science, 2) xenophobic / American exceptionalists (the data from Asia on mask-wearing is long-standing and clearcut), 3) Trumpists (which is their true religion / cult), 4) conspiracy-theorists, 5) think they are invincible and that only old people are at risk, and 6) don’t care enough about others’ lives to be inconvenienced by a mask. Actually, all of those fold neatly into #3. It’s an embarrassment to be associated with such people, and even if it weren’t a pandemic, I really don’t know that I can form friendships with these people.
I’ve been thinking and reading a lot on this topic. In short, the Church would like credit for being against racism, but they are equally against eroding white privilege, facing their racist teachings, and doing anything that might go against GOP principles. https://wheatandtares.org/2020/06/17/i-think-i-was-a-little-bit-racist/ Heber13: Yes, I did that post before the Plandemic video came out. It was kind of weird, but right before that, there were a bunch of podcasts talking about conspiracy theories, and I was seeing some things in FB and Twitter that seemed driven by conspiracy theory mindset, that knowing wink about what’s REALLY going on here…followed by whack-a-doodle ideas. The weirdest thing I learned on one of these podcasts was that there are 12 million people out there who believe that we are secretly ruled by reptilian overlord aliens. That’s the plot of the popular 1980 mini-series V, for crying out loud. Science fiction
= reality.And just yesterday I was disappointed to see several of my childhood friends post & re-post this screed about how if you are going to download a contact tracing app on your phone, you can just unfriend them now because they don’t grant permission for the government to trace them. I feel like my respect for people I have always liked is suddenly taking a hit.
Before “Plandemic” I blogged about conspiracy theories that really seemed to be bubbling up recently: https://wheatandtares.org/2020/05/06/mormons-conspiracy-theories/ Mom3: I’m so sorry. That’s the roughest thing, worse than being sick oneself. My update. Nobody sick, thank goodness, but our business has taken a 40-50% hit on revenues. If we can obtain an SBA Loan (the forgivable ones), I won’t have to lay off staff (which I really don’t want to do). We already put everyone out working from home 3 weeks ago to limit interactions, and we have also done some things for our customers to keep them safe. It’s just a huge hit to absorb in what was on track to be our biggest month ever, and given the seasonality in AZ, we rely on spring to get us financially through the rest of the year, so this is a hit that will keep hurting us until next spring.
Mostly I found this particular GC to be a snoozer, particularly given the current circumstances. It seems incredibly out of step with what’s actually happening in our lives, and that made it a bit jarring, but not in a good way. Life, even on lockdown, is much more poignant than anything I heard during conference which was basically the exact same pablum. The talks by women upholding patriarchy were just awful. Truly the worst. I am honestly appalled at how some people choose to live their lives and call it an ideal when an equal marriage partnership with mutual respect is so much better. I realize if you’re married to someone who insists he’s the “presider,” then an equal marriage is really just not on the table, but don’t think for a minute that your crappy marriage is somehow the ideal. It’s not. It’s definitely not. Mormonism has got some seriously screwed up ideas about men and women, and when women are the ones trying to keep other women in line, it’s just terrible to watch.
