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I’d take the opportunity to lie low. Make the new leaders reveal their hand, so to speak, so you can read them and what they are like and then you can decide how to react to them, rather than show your hand and hope they react well to you.
You may find it is a non-issue or they have multiple people in their boundaries with different views and so they are focused on other things, and you can let them be them.
Benefits:
1) taking a break is nice. Take it when you can. A new person won’t have much pressure usually.
2) you get to see what they are like, and only raise issues they raise.
If I can respect my own beliefs, after sincerely searching for answers and coming up with a non-traditional view, then I have to adjust my expectations at church and with those at church at a different place than I am at. I have had to let go of expecting others to understand my experience and my view and validate it.
I have to have the personal viewpoint, and have stage 5 conjunctive faith (see Fowlers stages) to allow others to say and do what they want, and allow myself to worship how and what I may.
Symbolism and mystical references can be broad meaning enough to allow variation in staying in the church and having different views of truth, and not minimize ours we have sincerely worked to find from our point of view.
Maybe what I’m trying to say is….even if others see it differently (like they see it literal and you don’t) you don’t need to think their view is greater than yours. And you don’t need their validation. You just be you, and be part of the community your way.
It’s a transition to being ok with that. I think you still find value in hearing and learning from others, and check your views and continue to grow.
DarkJedi wrote:
Heber13 wrote:
Maybe that was a big part of my transition was letting go of life needing to be a certain way, and just rolling with what it was, not making it fit into how I thought it should be.
My daughter has a little framed quote thing on her wall that I love.
Quote:Now that you don’t have to be perfect you can be good.
I like that quote.
Perfection is good to strive for, to push for the best results you want to get, bit it is unattainable. I guess we have to decide what is “good enough” for me and my situation.
Only I can decide that.
nibbler wrote:
Heber13 wrote:
Yes. The transition to where I have gotten to in life is where I need to be, so I don’t see any need for a further transition event.
Stirring the pot… could you say the same a year or so before that transition? Who’s to say what another transition could bring.
Agreed. Who knows what is to come for me? But if you ask me today, that is all I know to answer it. I don’t wish I was living it differently.
Do I want to continue living this way? Yes.
Do I think it can change when something new happens? Yes. But right now, I want to continue living this way where church has its place in my life, but doesn’t overcome my life. Perhaps that will change.
Maybe that was a big part of my transition was letting go of life needing to be a certain way, and just rolling with what it was, not making it fit into how I thought it should be.
Quote:When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.
-Leo Tolstoy
Quote:When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.
-Leo Tolstoy
I’ll play….thanks for asking thoughtful questions. Do you know who you are?On a basic level I have come to know who I am and like Amy said, have let go of the “shoulds” of who I thought I needed to be, but just am who I am, and although I’m frequently disappointed in who I am, I wanna say in a popeye voice…I yam what I yam.
On a deeper level, I don’t really know anything, and am wrong about a lot, so I will continue to get to know who I am throughout the rest of my life.
Do you understand what happened to you?I’ve thought about it quite a bit, so I feel I understand what happened. Life events were bigger than the story I had of in my head of what life should be. Like everyone else, life happened. I have to deal with it.
Do you want to continue living this way?Yes. The transition to where I have gotten to in life is where I need to be, so I don’t see any need for a further transition event. I just continue to live this way and embrace life with my view of it. I don’t feel there is any other way. Life is what it is. There is much to enjoy about it, and much that will continue to challenge me to be open to learn.
MM, hope you are recovering well.
DarkJedi wrote:
While at the same time these same leaders and members of the Old Guard wring their hands and wonder why 40-50% of returned missionaries are inactive after 3 years and why so many teens don’t make it to 18 to even get that far.
wow. Is it that high now? 40-50%?Hm.
nibbler wrote:
As it turns out, there may be a standing policy or precedent on washing chalk art off sidewalks that predates all this. Still, not a good look. They should probably pump the brakes and evaluate whether policy overrides people in this instance.
I wonder if someone used chalk to write “Jesus saves” and “we love BYU leaders” and see how long that chalk stays on the sidewalk.
Church leaders and BYU leaders are just not ready to admit they need to adopt a change. So these will continue. I am glad people are speaking out about it and not ignoring it. If they aren’t going to change and open up to accept individuals over policy, but feel the need to double down on policy to protect their beliefs, then to protests should continue regardless of whether leaders are weeping over it or not…change needs to happen and it will eventually. It is sad it is taking too long. But I think change will come because right is right. Bigotry and hatred come out of wrong or outdated policy, and eventually become untenable.
Sometimes clinging to faith in the conservative rules and teachings of the past blind leaders from the courage to love as needed in the present or future.
I hope for change. I hope leaders can help young people know how to be better and let go of hate they don’t understand.
hawkgrrrl wrote:
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.
Yes. This.But I don’t think they can have it both ways, in how they use “generation”. Quote:D&C 5:9 …I have reserved those things which I have entrusted unto you, my servant Joseph, for a wise purpose in me, and it shall be made known unto future generations;
10 But this generation shall have my word through you;
If this is the last dispensation, then there would be no “future generations”, right?
To me, it sounds like “this generation” was the Saints establishing the church in the 1830s and onward as they settle Utah. That would be a generation.
Then our generation has a different prophet for our generation.
Unless there are generations during the millennium that would have things made known at that time, in a different dispensation. I don’t know. It’s all kind of confusing.
What is meant by “this generation”? Has that generation passed? What about today’s generation? So, I would think it does not necessarily mean we hear God’s words exclusively through JS. God’s words come to us in many ways, right? Which also includes JS.
On Own Now wrote:
Ilovechrist77 wrote:
if there’s so much good in the world, why does the news tend to be more bad then good?
This is one of the most important questions we can ask in our current seemingly crazy world.IMO, it is this way because “the news” is big business… and ‘good’ doesn’t sell the way ‘bad’ does. Once we accept that and stop letting “the news” control the way we view the world, then the world doesn’t seem bad at all. The reality is that most people are good. Most things that take place in this world are good.
I believe not just the news has this strategy of sensationalism catches eyeballs.I believe religion has learned this also. Therefore, fire, hell, and brimstone with fear of God’s wrath can stir emotions to get people to worship easier than love and peace can. Talk of “us vs them” and the wicked world stirs emotion more than realizing the benefits of science and medicine from the world and all the good from other religions. I’ve been in too many lessons where Mormons want to talk about how lost other churches are to make themselves feel better.
It is sad but seems to be part of human nature.
It was sad this week to see white terrorists storming the capitol building and breaking glass and causing destruction, while waiving flags that read “Jesus 2020” and “Jesus Saves”
The news ate it up and reported it all, with lots of opinions.
And people calling themselves “Christians” were carrying confederate flags through the capitol.
When things become so emotional, mobs do illogical things. These mobs are a small percentage of the people, and there are more people denouncing it because it is just not right. There are good people out there.
there are more good people in the world speaking out against it. We can’t let flashy headlines or fire and brimstone sermons cloud our vision of the truth that is out there and the good most people have.
Here is a good reminder that not all of 2020 is something bad to complain about, and not all news is bad:
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-year-in-cheer/https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-year-in-cheer/” class=”bbcode_url”> We just need to know where to look to find the good.
Thanks for prompting me to review the lesson. It’s good for me to skim. At the end it says:
Quote:Improving Our Teaching
Help learners liken the scriptures to themselves. The same truths that inspired the early Saints can help us face our challenges today. As you teach the Doctrine and Covenants, help class members make connections between the Lord’s messages to Joseph Smith and what the Lord might say to them personally.
What applies today? I like the discussion of weak and simple things. All of us can move forward with faith, even if imperfect. Even if faith is weak or small or simple.
Joseph had doubts. And he worked through them.
Things in Joseph’s world were not great. There were problems, and mobs, and people hating people….church people. There was strife. He wanted to find something better.
Youth can be scared in these times when the news has so much going on. They need hope. D&C has some stories of being humble, while hoping for a zion and better things in the world. And being called by God to stand up for truth.
Those thoughts come to me.
Quote:I think we way overcomplicate things…
I agree with Nibbler.
I think we want revelation to be the list of things to do a d the prophet to be the person to tell us what to do, instead of realizing the gospel is to teach us to figure out what to do without being told to do so.
Ministering visits and the like are programs to help people live the gospel. But ideally, they shouldn’t have to be told to minister. They should be moved to do so from inside.
It’s just hard to run a global organization that way.
