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SilentDawning wrote:Cadence wrote:
If it is as it claims then the church is likely true, if it is fiction then the church is not what it claims to be.
And for me, it’s not so bad if it isn’t what it claims to be anymore. In fact, it’s a bit of a relief.
exactly. well said to all. and to comment on both cadence and silentdawning, trying to fit those 2 things together, or reconcile them in some way is what i am thinking about.
because in my absolutist training and tendency, its that all or nothing, in or out mentality from my whole life that instinctively needs it to be true or false. so if not true, then all is lost or something. it occurs to me that i may spend the rest of my life fighting every instinct i have to need absolutes.
but it is also a relief, as SD said. a huge one. anachronisms abound in it. and i suppose that is part of what allows it to be of value to so many, with so many perspectives. because it can be interpreted for so many things. so many needs i have.
and it has helped me. and i do feel something when i read it. i do find meaning and value.
yet the idea of a god who may possibly be allowing or even encouraging me to be misled is fascinating to me. but maybe that too is the genius of it? to use even that as a tool to teach me new truths.
thanks, y’all.
agreed, featherina. i have not been on this road long enough to have much personal experience yet with being ostracized. a little, not much. mostly, so far i have found people i have known and loved and been close with for years and years may look at me like an alien from another planet…. granted, i am funny looking, but still. and so it goes.
but i am seeing that sometimes a heavy measure of caution is needed. to try and make sure the time and place and mood is right for those i care for to hear… or force myself to patience. which is hard. i am very patient in some ways, but when i am “on something?” when i find a loose thread and have to pull it? i am worse than ADD or OCD … i am like, well… ever read the old Wind and the Willows? i am mr. j. thadeus toad–MANIA!!
and i tend to not sleep or eat or be able to focus on other things until i am satiated. its a blessing at times, and a curse at others.
oh, silentdawning, i LOVE that!! yes, yes. and we should respect that others may have no need, and even, no use (at least right now) to think as we do. or i do. and hopefully they would respect that i do. which sadly, is not always the case. and i can value how others may be better executors and doers than i. etc, etc.
so there is a chance i am a thinker? wow. i’ve never been accused of that before… of course, it does not mean i do it well, does it? sigh.
and so it goes…
hello, my name is toadie, and i am a recovering “absolutist.” [hello, toadie]. and so it goes…
i was resistant to the whole idea of a middle way for a very long time. but i think i get it now. i am finding myself in constant struggle to fight off my old, ingrained habits of being very absolute. but i had to do it. if i stayed absolute as so many of my brothers and sisters do, i would have broken by now. in a way, i still broke when decided to refind all this. but it was a break of my choosing. not in whether i would, but in the environment and manner in which i would. the hope being that it would not destroy me, and my daughters and allow me to retain what matters, retain values and hold to important truths… even when i do not always know what those are.
but i am on a path i am now committed to. a difficult path but an important path. and worth it. i see a light at the end of the tunnel. i accept it may be a train, but choose to believe it is not. and daily, i still fight ever-present urges and tendencies of my life that i see i need to shed.
i say that as a pretext to my next question to you. because i feel most of you are well past that point i am coming to, and are simpatico. not that you may see any better than anyone else… but that you recognize the glass, and how dark it is… and in that awareness is a sense of how to look in different ways through it.
question: as recovering absolutist. yet living in a world full of, surrounded by absolutists… how do YOU interact with them? how do you explain things to them in a way that does not get you ex-comm’d? because suddenly, some answers to TR questions may not be as clear to me: “only true”, “only authority” … i see nuances, or i should say, potential for nuances in those things now. and as a bishop or SP may not see it… i am curious.
i am not scared to answer them. do not misunderstand. and perhaps tomorrow i will awake to new understanding on this, MY path and it will make further sense to me that i can.
yet today, it does not. it is not so clear. no so automatic and not so absolute as i once saw.
and i am beginning to love that even. the possibilities are endless.
but while i may yet be ready to re-connect with my faith in ways… those around me may not see me as having a testimony. and i think that is flat wrong. if anything, the notion that JS may have been imperfect, certainly less perfect than many know or accept… and on and on and on… down the line… in some ways gives me even more respect for them, their missions and how they gave their all in their struggle.
but others do not see it that way.
i was reading recently on how john D. has had his struggles being fully in the church as others see it. even being investigated by his leaders. how awful. not to be judged, for that is their job. but to have your intent and heart and motivations and faith and testimony questioned… and in a somewhat public manner relatively speaking.
so, i put it to you. how have you dealt with it? not the middle way a lone.. but with your fellow-members perspectives and leaders reactions to you as you struggle, maybe even with the angel?
are you looking to me as a source of authoritative answers? Matt 15:14. alas, all i have are questions. but if all who wander are indeed lost, then we’re in good company i suspect.
no fear of outside the church. not anymore. but until a few months ago, i would tune out. if you asked me then if it was fear, i would have said no, too. interesting. but now i would look back and say, yes, there was a level of fear. but mainly, i was conditioned and trained from birth to tune out certain sources. the last months though, with disillusionment and some feelings of being lied to or betrayed by the brethren, then i actively sought the other. and it didn’t matter where, so long as it was not of my previous life. anger in me. still some. but not so much.
hindu, check? buddha, check. joseph campbell’s power of myth, check? i was in my full, absolutist mode i had been in all my life, only it was all out instead of all in the church. and quite literally, in the last week, i am feeling a lot of that anger bleed away. i am still left with large, copious amounts of frustration, on behalf of myself, and many others i know and love.
and the cost of finding some peace? it seems it cost me some pride. some impossibly high expectations for leaders. and perhaps not high enough for myself.
i realized today that i had 2 personal revelations today:
1. i may not be able to reconcile all my concerns and become TBM again.
2. for the first time in months, i feel real hope i can reconcile it.
i find this tension immensely liberating to me. to accept i do not “know” as i always have, that i will be a member forever. and somehow, by some miracle, in so doing–in letting go of that, i started to feel some re-connection forming. its small. its tenuous. but its real. and its all mine.
and i have missed that. only when we lose ourselves, can we find god, and in finding god, find ourselves? maybe. maybe steps to the elevator… baby steps to coming to to know my god? we’ll see. stay tuned.
i love this quote:
“The man with the clear head is the man who frees himself from those fantastic “ideas” [the characterological lie about reality] and looks life in the face, realizes that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. And this is the simple truth–that to live is to feel oneself lost–he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost, is without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes up against his own reality.
–Ernest Becker, from “The Denial of Death”
excellent point. i’ll have to concede that. so, would my 13 year old daughter coming home from girls camp singing a song about “getting her mormon boy” count as scaffolding? hmmm. is it possible to agree with both of you? when your opinions differ so? well, i will try. i agree. apologetics do not seek truth. they seek a security blanket. a false sense of security to help them sleep at night. and if not required, dishonesty or delusion is almost in its DNA…
having said that, i still find use in it. not for myself AS an apologetic… but for someone who seeks knowledge. Apologetics give opinion A., Anti’s give me opinion B… and i can find option C. between them.. or throw them all out as foolish.. or most commonly, simply catalog the little bits of facts and perspective i find of value and move on with my life… until such time i can fit those bits with other bits from other conversations… and find even more meaning.
so, while i think the idea of an Apologetic is inherently flawed, i can still find value in them.
and now, to disagree with all i just said, and be even more contrary, i would submit that to the average person/lds mormon…. they are potentially beyond dangerous…
they present a “factual” not spiritual reason to believe that is like a loose threads on a rug. at some point, they’ll come loose and carry consequences for those not anchored in the right places of the gospel. dangerous. yes indeed. but i still see value in it for myself. more bits and pieces and perspectives and that help me–even it only helping me see how others see things. still has value.
absolutely no worries heber13. none. i was not offended. i was startled at seeing my own bias. i am not completely unaware of myself. but you shed light on one i did not see. you shed some light, and i passed judgment upon myself for it (i am very good at being hard on myself)…
so no worries at all. none. as i took ray’s advice, and have spent several hours today reading older posts? … damn, i feel so behind many of you on this path. it is humbling… and i need to stop spending so much time reinventing the wheel that’s been invented, and balance my own postings with some appreciative reading of some of this group.
sincerely.
in the last few weeks as i have begun this journey with open, honest, earnestness, i have found several fb chat sites and web sites that offer very hateful and bitter sentiment on the church. i am sooo not interested in that. bitterness, in any form is unhealthy. this site? is largely full of open, honest, intelligent discourse, from opinions in and out of the church.. and near universally respectful so far as i have seen.
it is water to a man in the desert. its a beautiful thing.
and i am grateful to john, brian and all the participants here. it has been a a most wonderful and needed blessing to me.
thanks to all.
thank you silent dawn! well said and awesome. and i’m working on it… and heber13, ouch. my motivations for asking? excellent question. good, good point. i want that conversation precisely because i do, in fact, want answers and for them to change. and in that, i need to be honest. i had not thought of that.
its true. i just cannot fathom that if any leader were to listen to some of the people i know who are gay, really listen, that their opinion would at least soften, if not change. i just cannot fathom it. yet, if they do not want to hear or change, or have no need or reason to do so, then why would they?
and in a way, how is my urge or need to have them listen and change any different than their stance to not listen, not change and have me fall in line and place nice?
sigh.
so in a sense, even if my intentions are pure, they are no less pure than anyone else’s.
heavier sigh.
and so what do i do, then? fight the good fight and it’ll happen if it happens, when it happens?
so hard for me to accept. i am impatient in many ways. as i see some dear friends who would be such a strength to this church, enriching and blessing all of us… be marginalized and disregarded. and perhaps this is what life is. to have “sorrow for the sins of the world” … to accept that in some ways, i may know what some do not, as i struggle to deal with the same fact that in other respects, others may know more than i, and be equally frustrated with me…
as ray has strongly urged, i have been reading a lot of y’all’s threads today. indeed, i am reinventing the same bloody wheel over and over again.
thanks for your patience–all of you.
dear silentdawn, your sentiment is exactly what a dear friend of mine has expressed to me. exactly. and i see all those points and it has a clear logic. makes perfect sense to me. and yet…
when i talk with her about it, i express difficulty. and she and i reach an impasse. so let me bring it up here and perhaps you or someone here can help me past it.
my friend hears my response and tells me i am an absolutist … perhaps you’ll agree.
i have had this gospel and doctrines pounded into me since birth. i have studied it and followed it my whole life. i am indoctrinated. and the church.. it seems to me, is SOOO absolute. “if BoM is true, then JS prophet. if JS prophet, BoM is true. if, if, if, then ALL of it is true…”
ALL OF IT. 14 points? cannot be led astray by prophet?
even though i am coming to feel that it is possible that not only do these good men make mistakes, but they make errors that can be devastating… DEVASTATING to a minority of people in this church.
and to me, this is a faith issue. it flies in the gut instinct level of my faith. we may say in church our leaders high up are fallible men… but ALL of the subtext says, heroic men, perfect men, infallible men… our own leaders propagate this. and i get it. and the idea is not evil. but its still a distortion. and at what point does the distortion become something that touches this infallible, perfect doctrine? at what point does it come back to the “if BoM is true, then JS a prophet…” blah blah??
i refer to this as the upside down pyramid. that little catch 22, the perfect circle of JS and BoM stand at the point. upon which all else of our church sits on top of. that whole mess of all doctrines, both the ones that make perfect sense, and all those that make less for me (polygamy, JS the treasure hunter, blacks and PH, women and sexism, same-sex…) … all of that, ALL of it, that i am to accept cart blanche because of JS and BoM.
if, if, if…
and my dear friend then says to me… “eddie, nuance. nuance in the gospel.” to which i say, but our own faith, our own doctrines, preach this absolutist stuff. so how is it up to me? how can i just decide to keep certain things to myself and not tell a bishop or leader? have i not been told since my youth to tell my bishop and go to him with struggles of this very nature? and if he would impose sanctions on me, am i not sidestepping this by NOT going to him?
i agree with all you say. all of it. i am not trying to argue. i am trying to understand. because i do agree with you. and yet that very notion flies in the face of ALL i have known my whole life. and i may be absolutist…. all or nothing, in or out. right? but i argue that if i am, it is not just me–the church is absolutist … they teach and preach it the world over: prophet will not make mistakes in leadership, he is not wrong (14 points), all or nothing, in or out, accept or don’t…
sigh.
this is my struggle. what i am hearing from my friend, and what i’ve read above… seems to contradict all i have been told. and suddenly i say to myself, “then how are we any different than any other church?”
yes, perhaps i am absolutist in my thinking. but so is our church. and that whole upside down pyramid? its about to come crashing down for me. or rather, that is what is at risk for me in my faith.
because i cannot reconcile these 2 ideas yet… the idea of taking this journey alone, just me and god, and taking this journey as my own faith teaches me, which contradicts the other.
well, … i suspect i am not the only one to have these thoughts. and my dear friend sighs, and we take a break for a day or 2 and come back to the same wall again. or i do anyway. i cannot reconcile these 2 ideas. not yet. and if i can, i feel like i can do what so many on this site have done. namely, find a way to make peace with all this inconsistency and fallacy and contradictions… and move on and stay and be happy in staying.
and if i cannot… well, ostracism and black sheep status and stress for my daughters and apostasy (from my friends and families POV anyway)
help!!!
help? please. again, NOT trying to argue. my issue is i DO agree with you. and yet that poses a huge faith/testimony issue for me, because then everything unravels and i am left saying to myself, “i know i felt something, it was a spiritual something, it was a potent and powerful something, .. but did it mean what i have always been told it means?? JS and BoM … BoM and JS… this tight, perfect, infallible circle.. or tip of my upside down pyramid” it all crumbles.
all or nothing, in or out… no cafeteria mormons. impossible right? i know john D. says ALL mormons are cafeteria mormons. i heard it. again, i agree. but it DISAGREES with everything my leaders tell me! Hell, i have spent my whole life teaching the very same thing!!
Kkaaaaahhhhnnnn!!!!
Serenity now!!
ugh.
