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Thankful wrote:
I support Ordain Women. I didn’t participate in the action, for various reasons. But I know some of the participants. And I have to tell you that the newspaper articles about what took place on temple square last night are not accurate. I agree that general authorities are threatened and going into retrenchment mode. But I don’t think it’s fair to blame Mormon feminists.
It’s not true that they are “detracting from the conversation” by the way they are going about this. The conversation is happening BECAUSE of Mormon Feminists! How could they “talk” to the church leadership OTHER than through the media? There is no effective way to get member needs to the general leadership because 1. Letters get sent back to your bishop, 2. Repeated requests for OW to meet with the church were ignored, 3. Women don’t even have the opportunity to serve in ward and stake leadership positions of authority, which are “priesthood responsibilities.” So their perspectives can’t even “trickle up.”
I’m glad that so many women “feel equal” and don’t see the need for any change. But some women are hurting A LOT over these issues. They are clinging to their faith desperately, trying to find ways to heal and to stay. Petitioning for leaders to pray and respond to them is what they are doing to try to find a place for themselves (ourselves) in Mormonism. What other recourse is there besides leaving, voting “with their feet?”
I honestly don’t personally feel the need to be ordained. But I DO care that our church routinely sends girls the message that they are not valued by the church, or by God. I think that we need to get people our of their comfort zones enough to consider other perspectives. They NEED to hear that our church policies related to gender hurt people !
I have so, so much too say on this topic. But my feelings are too raw right now. I’d better stop for a bit.
I agree with you and Joni.
On Own Now wrote:I just want to wrap this up by saying thank you… Thank you Ray… Thank you DarkJedi… Thank you StayLDS Community. I’m low right now. I feel shaken in a way I haven’t felt for a long time. It’s incredibly warming, reassuring, and helpful to have the support of the people here. I’m grateful for you all.
Hugs! Some days are hard. I am glad you can feel comfortable enough to share the pain of your heart here. Glad you feel better, but those hard days that are hard and the feelings that are so real are painful. I am glad you found more peace at Priesthood session.
Orson wrote:Forgotten_Charity wrote:Studies have shown that people have a built in “not my tribe” DNA detector.
Speaking of tribes in recent years I have made a conscious effort to think of the entire human race as “my tribe.” We are all children of God after all, sure our backgrounds give us superficial divisions but it has given me a new perspective in many ways. It has been an enlightening exercise, I find it more difficult to be persuaded by the local rhetoric and “us vs. them” mentality when I try to hold this perspective. It can drive my local tribe nutty.
Orson, I love this thought. I have a new goal. This really speaks to my Spirit. Thank you.
Benvenuto Ralph! Glad you are finding some peace here. Thanks for introducing yourself. Hope we can learn from each other and be a support. That must have taken some serious courage to ask to be Released from the Bishopric. I was in the RS presidency when my FC hit and I asked to be released. It was months before people quit asking me why I was released. I don’t envy your situation, but it sounds like you have a clear head and wonderful heart.
Quote:Ralph wrote:In these weeks I gave a talk and a lesson, I have attended bishopric meetings. I have felt many good emotions. Was it the spirit? In the bishopric so many times we received the same answers. Was it “group revelation”? Do you think that the Lord can inspire and give revelation to a group of people (in this case the Bishopric) acting in good faith, following the right principles, even if they belong to different faiths?
I can’t even pretend to KNOW the answer to your questions regarding the Lord inspiring and giving answers. My favorite quote recently is that “All I know is I know nothing.” I am not even sure what experiences you had and what led you to feel the Spirit.
What I do I do feel or believe is that everyone, even in the same religion have different “faiths”. I talk so much more with my husband regarding spiritual beliefs than we ever have in 15 years of marriage. What I am amazed to find out is how differently we saw and believed things. I just assumed he believed that way I did and vice versa, yet God was able to communicate to us in our the way that met our needs.
Mom3, I am glad you found a safe way to vent. I have decided that I need to stay off of FB for the next 2 weeks while GC blows over. I am also trying not to be harsh on myself because of this. I feel guilty that I can’t just let things go sometimes because, like you, sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t. I have been pretty annoyed/grumpy with most things church related for the past few weeks. So my heart goes out to you, it isn’t a fun place to be. Sending you peaceful/happy vibes. Quote:Dark Jedi wrote: I fear the one that gets through the defense shields and my jedi senses don’t see coming.
made me smile. Love the Jedi Senses.Quote:Nibbler wrote: I debated for the longest time whether or not to delete them as a friend, their posts had become offensive to me, I was afraid I was going to leave a nasty reply to one of their posts one day. In the end I decided not to delete them.
I want to get to a place where I can look past the posts and still love the person unconditionally, that’s the goal anyway.Who knows, maybe one day I’ll find a way to respond to some of the posts in a way that might help steer them towards finding good things in life and being more tolerant of differing opinions. In small, helpful steps. Line upon line if you will.[/quote This is my desire too. I have “hid” several of my friends, I get annoyed with myself that I can’t be where I want sometimes. But I love your reminder of small, helpful steps. I want to accept myself where I am and that helps me to let go of judgement of others. Thanks for the reminder.
Quote:Hawkgrrl:
My wish list: D E F B C G H A
Probable list: A H E (Hell freezing over) B G (Hell thawing out then freezing over again) C F D
I have to second Hawkgrrls! This is exactly my thoughts, well, I am not sure they will take the one year waiting list YET… hopefully soon, but I think it is too soon for them.
My wish of all of these things, as it effects me more often at this time in my life is D! I really wish for this one ASAP! All of these things would be awesome!
For your reference:
A. New temple in Utah
B. Women can serve 24-month missions
C. Women to be ordained to the priesthood
D. Shortening the 3-hour block
E. Elimination of the 1-year waiting period for temple sealings
F. Renaming of the Priesthood Session to the General Men’s Meeting
G. A reiteration of the 1970 FP Letter on tithing, of which most members are still unaware, 44 years later
H. Opening a new BYU campus
Beautiful thoughts Roy! I love reading your thoughts about God’s love. I totally agree. I have thought about the sames things and come to very similar conclusions. My faith crisis was brought on by Gods love and “unconditional” love that seemed very conditional. I have talked to three Bishops, RS presidents, missionaries… whoever could help me find truth. No one could help me. I never found answers until I had an incredible experience that freed me of any and all fears regarding God.. which freed me from limited beliefs of the church. Ironically “God” led me “astray” from the church but towards freedom and love more than I have ever imagined. I love more than I ever have, yet I have anger and shame for being “tricked” into believing the way I did for so long. Still trying to figure out what I think about that and working on trusting Spirituality again. PS. Have you ever read “Conversations with God”. I don’t take it at 100% face value, and realize that this was Neale Donald Walsh’s experience with God and we each get to have our own, but I really enjoyed so much of this book. It was pretty congruent to my beliefs at the time.
I was not taught this on my mission.. but I am a woman and I can’t imagine my mission presidents telling Sisters not to teach Single women. I don’t even know if I would have disagreed if it even was suggested, as I thought everything was inspired by God and I questioned nothing. That being said, I am not surprised at all that this is being by some of the 70’s; I see the church as a corporation. From a business standpoint it is a smart move, from a Christlike perspective it is extremely disappointing. I am sad to hear this.
First of all HUGS! I am so glad you were able to finally tell someone. I know how liberating that feels. I have been pleasantly surprised by my TBM friends and surprised that not everyone believes the way I speculated they did. I swear I could have written your posts! I hope you will continue to receive the support you need. I wish I had some amazing answers but I don’t. But I bet you do. Pretend that someone asked you what to do and then write out the answers that come. I really like what FC said about taking it slow. That can’t be more true.
I also like that he said “it is not the church I am dedicated to”. I go because that is what my family needs from me right now. I try not to think about the future, but just focus on Today. Today this works for me, it may or may not work in the future, but that doesn’t matter. The thought of quitting church entirely brings a panic attack, so I am not ready for that yet. I take it one week at a time and try release the anger and fear in healthy ways. I also feel that you have more influence in your home than what your children will learn at church. I ask what they learn and offer my beliefs (as long as it is something I feel my TBM husband would be OK with). I love that you can tell your children that God would never do that. Sounds like you have some pretty intelligent children.
Roy wrote:Mr. Richard wrote:And if the church really wants to bring people to church, first focus on primary. I know churches that have insane amounts of families just because they have an amazing program for children on Sunday. Or we could just make church organically better, and maintain our charm as being run by lay people and being somewhat dysfunctional. Fine by me, I prefer small churches anyway.
Yeah, you hit upon my pet topic. DW and I went to a program put on by the Seventh Day Adventists with free childcare. Eight yr old DD exited childcare telling us about how Saturday is the true Sabbath.
DW and I were mildly offended that they might take it upon themselves to indoctrinate our children. But it makes me think about how much of our primary time is focused on indoctrinating kids to be good Mormons.
1) I think the kids by and large don’t like primary.
2) The way we do it now requires a small army of volunteers that miss out on opportunities to be spiritually fed and fellowship with other adults.
3) I believe that our approach of teaching LDS specific concepts to even the smallest of children can alienate visitors that might be “investigating” with their family.
I once heard a pastor say that they strive to cultivate a welcoming environment where people would want to spend time EVEN if they aren’t initially convinced of the doctrinal stuff. I would speculate that our business model is the opposite.
AMEN!!
I get so frustrated that it seems that very little people WANT to be there. When I look around at Primary, everyone has this glazed look on their face that reads “HOW MUCH LONGER?!” I talked to the bishop about this and how frustrating it is to WANT to fed spiritually but to feel starving after leaving. WHY do we have 3 hour church if hardly anyone wants to be there for that long? Why does it seem that the members are for the church instead of the church for the members? Sure, lets bring families into this church so they can learn very little about Jesus and a too much about how to be a missionary. Doesn’t make sense to me.
Last night I was able to go to my first Interfaith Gospel Celebration. It was held in an LDS building and I was so grateful to see the church host such a magnificent event. There was an interfaith choir and then another Methodist church choir. It was different from LDS typical music and message, and I LOVED it!! People seemed so excited to praise Jesus and excited and joyous about their faith. My 3 year old niece LOVED it!! It made me realize what I feel is lacking for me personally; which is excitement about the gospel. I don’t believe in Jesus as the Savior, but I DO believe in “His” power, “Christ Consciousness”, becoming a new creature, bringing our Ego to the cross..etc. That is something for me to get excited about and hearing these choirs rejoice in Jesus excited me and I left in the best mood. I felt the spirit for the first time, in a long time, in a church setting. I wish I would experience that at our church.
It isn’t as if I never leave happy from church, I do, but it is from the people and how much I love them, rather than any message that I receive.
Thanks for this post. I agree with writer, it expresses things that I didn’t know how to put into words. This is what caused my FC in the first place. Too many rules, not enough Christ. Confusing to my soul. I want more than anything to have grow Spiritually and I felt stunted and bound. I am glad my Divine part opened me up to more “freedom” and I can see the church for an institution and God for God. I had them intertwined so much and thought that God WAS church. .It was so liberating to separate the two. God is GOD.. church is church. Rules are made up by man. Man cares about all the rules, not God. God cares about US, not rules. (Just to clarify my beliefs about “God”. When I say God, just know that I believe God is within me, not some outside entity that just sits back and doesn’t care, or waits for me to sin. I feel that God is IN me. I am connected to Him/Her. I feel that my goal on earth is to release the Ego and be more fully connected to and live more freely with this connection and by doing so I am connected with everyone.) I am still working on “Commandments and rules and what I think about them. Because so many of the rules that the church has are really good guidelines to follow, and I still adhere to most of them, however, my motives on WHY I do them have changed dramatically.
Thank you so much again for this posts.
I wish I had more time to respond, but I just wanted to say welcome to our ward. I think you will find that so many of us share similar stories and feelings. I hope you will find peace.
In my experience I find do that it is helpful to view it as a grieving process. It eb and flows.. Ups and downs. There is denial, anger, bitterness, numbness, resolution.. Sometimes all I the same day.
I feel for your wife as well as for you. It isn’t easy on either end. I have to often remind myself of what it would be like if the shoe were on the other foot and it was him having the faith transition instead….
Hope to hear more from you.
