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Thanks for this. The article really talked to me. I especially liked the part about the need to convert belief to faith, and that as you do this, your faith is changed and you can never go back. I have found personally, however, that I can still recapture the old and comforting feeling of being within the love of God – and that means a great deal to me. Once again, thanks. One of the tragedies of my high school life was the future of my lab partner in a high school science class. She graduated as saluditorian (sp?) and then went into teaching elementary school children. Not that that’s a bad choice, but it was her father’s desire. She was a great mind and a light to me as we worked our way through the labs. A perfect analytical balance to my “Let’s push this through and get her done” approach. My understanding (and grades!) benifited much from her company, as did my need to visit with someone with different approaches to things. And thinking ahead of a future without such lights in the future workplace was sobering and discouraging. I wished that the mix of methods and personalities I had grown used to in my school career could continue in college and at work. Happily, this was in the early 70’s and things were starting to change. By the time I retired, thanks to the times and a company that participated in open policies, the public school mix I had hoped for was present at work. This is not to say I don’t appreciate the mom’s that want to stay at home, nor am not thankful to those that do, especially my wife who put things on hold to help stabilize and set the course for our children. I am very grateful for their sacrifices, and think that once the crises are over, they should have every opportunity continue their dreams. Came across this thread today and heard Kipper, Ray and Turiturambar talking around a point that I did not hear laid out plainly, at least as it applies to my history. That is, why be uneasy about a straight scout sharing a tent with a gay scout? Reminded me of something my father said to me about gay people. (I think my dad was worried about me going gay when he wasn’t worried about me having a schizophrenic crisis – and from his point of view in the times he had some worrisome indications of both dangers). My dad said – Think about it, gays won’t produce gay children from a gay relationship. So the only way gays can increase is by recruitment. My dad was worried about gays recruiting others who were not otherwise gay or on the fence to become gay. He would worry not so much about the gay scout in the tent sexually assaulting the straight scout as in seducing him. I think Kipper did actually say that in so many words, but I didn’t see that addressed as a concern. It would be a concern to me as a father, although some of the things that Turiturambar said about gay missionaries not being so inclined if applied to scouts would help allay that concern. Just thought I would make the observation. I would be interested in confirming or dissenting comments.
Regards.
It is not Memorial Day today, but I came across this post and I was touched by the comments. Today I walked past the cemetery where my oldest daughter is buried. Her grave is about 3/4 of a mile from my home, sometimes in the shadow of a lonely tree. DD1 took her life on a Memorial Day as she was finishing up her degree at BYU. She suffered terribly from schizophrenia. She often had terrible voices in her head telling her awful things. She fought the voices for a long time. She first became ill in her high school years. She did not tell us what was going on. What seemed to start as the emotional swings of puberty in junior high escalated beyond all expectation. She began to cut herself and became suicidal. Several times, she had to be hospitalized for her own protection. But she fought it. Therapists thought that maybe she was severely bi-polar. But we found from her journal later on that she was hearing voices. We have suffered much from schizophrenia on my mom’s side of the family. I think my daughter did not want to be one of the all too familiar family stories. She finished high school, was accepted to BYU, went on a mission to Europe, and went back to BYU. As she approached graduation, she seemed unsure as to what to do next, try for a job or do post graduate work. And then we received word. She left a note.
I have rarely seen the stake center as full as I did on the day of her funeral. I could not visit her grave for many months. I have a box full of her papers that I have not been able to go through. I am grateful for the kinder things that some of the GA have said about those who take their own lives. The SP was also very kind and positive. Your comments on this post have also been helpful.
SD What a horrible experience your daughter had! I am impressed by the changes you made in your lives to address the situation. I’m glad things worked out so well and hope for the best as your lives continue to unfold.
When DS2 and DS3 were in scouts, a couple of high power families moved into our ward up here in the frozen wastelands of the north. I think they were from California or Utah or maybe one of each. Anyway, they had a bunch of privilidged boys who seemed to think life was too dull. They formed an alliance with a doctor’s son in the ward, and a son of a local federal agency head. They ran roughshod over some of the other scouts, including my two sons. One night it came to a head down at the church. I was working late at the plant, but DW got involved. The alliance had disabled our sons bikes and when the sons objected, they stuffed our boys into trash cans. DW found out about it and went ballistic. She called the police. I came home in time to meet the officer at the house. He wanted to know if we wanted to prosecute. We said no, but we would appreciate if the officer would make the rounds to the alliance homes and let them know that we could file charges if we chose to. Things toned down quite a bit after that, but as you can imagine there was a lot of awkwardness in the ward for awhile. I have to give credit to all the adults involved, including the church leaders for not letting things escalate further. Still, I think our sons paid a disproportionate cost by the time all was said and done. I don’t think in our case moving out of the ward would have worked. The community is too small. Who really knows?
Seems like I have been writing an awful lot lately, maybe too much. But this thread caught my eye and I didn’t see my take on the subject represented. Maybe by one other comment. Good thing these posts are anonymous. If anybody ever calls me on my identity, I reserve the right to deny, deny, deny. But here goes. I like yoga pants! It is so much more enjoyable watching them walking around in the grocery store than watching sweatpants. And I don’t believe that business about walking pornography either. There is just something joyful about seeing the feminine shape tastefully displayed (clothes worn matter of factly and not pretentiously). Granted there are sometimes when you need to do a turn and look off into the distance, but that is so even with short skirts and dresses when somebody new to them bends over suddenly without thinking about it first.
I’m afraid I also have to confess to enjoying staff meetings with some of the pretty young engineers at work before I retired. Some of them wore some pretty low cut tops, showing some cleavage. I had to keep my eyes pretty well riveted on their faces, which I think bothered them. What would they have preferred? I couldn’t figure out what. Eventually, I learned to sit on the same side of the table, but there was still plenty of places not to look.
Speaking of that, did you ever see the jokes where the pretty girl in the low cut top challenges the fellow in front of her with,”My eyes are up here, buddy!” The joke never shows his reply. Mine would be, “Yeah your eyes are pretty ma’am, but down there – hubba, hubba, Hubba!”
But seriously, when I took my first assignment in Houston, I was amazed and exhilarated to see so many well dressed attractive women walking about downtown. It was as uplifting as a garden in springtime. Not all the women would have been able to wear garments with their outfits, but they were a beautiful sight. Then, when I returned to my exile in the wastelands of the frozen north, it took awhile to cheer up. And not necessarily due to the need for ladies to wear more layers in the cold weather. The ladies in Minneapolis manage to look quite nice, despite very chilly weather. In fact, you can probably figure out where I live by going to the Salt Lake or Denver airports and looking for the out going terminal with the drabbist looking folks, men or women. If it wasn’t for DW up here, and the occasional pair of yoga pants in the grocery store, and before I retired the staff meetings at work, it’d be pretty grim around here.
Hmmm. I think I may have gotten off topic a little? There is one other thing somebody said that I wanted to comment on. That was that at girl’s camp, nobody would be seeing the girls in yoga pants but girls. I know in one case at least, that kind of thinking would only hold due to poor planning and bad luck on the part of certain individuals. I remember in my tender youth, convincing a buddy of mine to go on a camping trip with me. We were going to go make camp in the mountains, one ridge over from girl’s camp. We had the idea that maybe in the evening, we would go over the ridge and down to the lake across from the camp and see if the girls indulged in evening skinny dipping the way we sometimes did on camping trips. The problem with the planning was relying on a ’58 Rambler Classic for our transportation. Despite the size of the car, you could fit two people under the hood, one on each side of the minuscule engine. We couldn’t make it up the pass without people getting out and pushing. Then a bald tire blew out and there was no spare. We never made it anywhere near to the girl’s camp, and the modesty of our young women was preserved.
Again, I rely on this forum’s anonymity! Deny, deny, deny!
I read this thread, or as much as I could stand, and tears came to my eyes. Then I wept, sorry for the victims in the thread, and sorry for my siblings and children for the things they endured as victims of bullying. They say that often when you have tears, it is not necessarily always the spirit, or only sorrow for others, but also often the tears for your own unresolved issues. That must be at least partly the case for me here. When my parents divorced and my mother moved us to Mormontown to be close to her father, we were in some ways pariahs. It was the early 60’s and my parents had been married in the temple. My mother was a very attractive woman. Although I understand my parents did not split up over moral improprieties, there were at that time not too many temple divorces without sexual wrongdoing. There must be something wrong with us somehow. I saw the effects most strongly in my 10 year old sister. She was a sweet unsophisticated soul. She was our war leader, quick to defend her weaker siblings (mainly me) against neighborhood threats, but tender hearted and uncomplicated. She was no match for the ward’s 10 year old girl Sunday school / Primary social scene. She was on the outs. She got pushed around by the popular girls. I don’t remember what help she got from my mom – my mom was busy with her own issues, not the least of which was finding work and setting up a new household. When DS1 would complain to me about her treatment at the hands of the other girls, I would try to suggest changes she could make in the way she approached things. I wasn’t much help, but my arguments, bad as they must have been, were hard for her to refute and she would become angry and frustrated at me and the “help” sessions would usually end up with her socking me. Then she would be sorry and cry some more about that.
She was a good girl, helpful in the family and staying active at church despite the pain. However, she stopped trying to compete in the feminine areas. She became the ultimate tomboy, eschewing the ladylike graces in almost every way possible. I have to say that I didn’t mind too much at first; her combat prowess in the neighborhood wars kept us in the fight and helped us hold our own. But as we grew older, and space and respect was won on the neighborhood battlefield, the gap between her and the other girls widened. Her belches and loud exclamations and artless comments stood out more and more. She became embarrassing to be around in public. She didn’t attract many boys, but when any showed the least bit of interest in her she would freeze up and panic. She was too afraid to go on any dates. I think she went on one. By now, the mean girls had moderated. Some of them tried to help but it was too late. My advice hadn’t got any better either, but her slugs ending the help sessions got harder. Finally, I gave it up and just tried to make her as happy as she could be. Life became so much simpler and happier.
DS1 got a job with the telephone company after high school, eventually becoming a telephone line repair person. She was good at it. She held that job for many years until rheumatoid arthritis forced a move to the office. She finally got a medical retirement. She never married, but is a beloved aunt and neighborhood friend to all fortunate enough to come across her path.
One thing I really don’t like about bullies, is that the ones that repent, often go on to live righteous lives, and often in leadership roles, apparently unscarred by their complicity in someone else’s downfall. And then I have the uneasy feeling I am tarred with the same brush for like things that I have done. The beam and the mote. Some of my tears must be of guilt.
As a newbie to the forum, I am impressed by the amount of anguish and pain accompanying threads and discussions of polygamy. I am staggered by the depth and breadth of feeling. I think there are two reasons for my ignorance of this. First, as a man, I believe I have a “privileged class” bias. I am just getting used to the term itself, but I believe it fits this situation. Polygamy just doesn’t hit me like it must a woman, although the idea of polyandry and the husband upgrade program grates on me. Secondly, I grew up in an environment where polygamy was taken for granted, even though it was accepted that due to the Manifesto, the family’s participation in the fullness of the “New and Everlasting Covenant” was temporarily suspended. All four of my grandparents grew up in polygamous homes. As I grew up, we were constantly with grandparents, great aunts and great uncles, uncles and aunts and cousins of all sorts and ranks (1st cousins, 2nd cousins, and many of them removed multiple times). It was a while before I began to realize that there are aunts and Aunts and why I had so many of both. They were always talking about things that happened in polygamist homes and situations that arose in such an upbringing. Not that I paid a lot of attention and took notes, it was simply in the background.
I’d like to make a few comments and share a couple things, but I don’t want to tread heavily on tender hearts. Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything at all. Still, I may have something to contribute. Please forgive me if I offend, I have no intention of proselytizing any particular position in spite of my innate bias and family background.
For me personally, even though I grew up in the midst of TBMness (remember that story about slipping out in the middle of family prayer for another inning of baseball and then coming back to find they had only got down to blessing the Lost 10 Tribes? – that was us), I have always considered polygamy to be less about me and more about my wife. And maybe because of something my mother said about it as I grew up. Her mother, I think had some negative things to say about her experiences in a polygamist home. I think Ray was right when he said that a lot of members just decided not to live the law and ignored it. I guess that would be me too, let the chips fall where they may. There would be/ will be no polygamy for me except at the insistence of DW. And I don’t mean faint protestations. DW would have to threaten to leave me and be serious about it before I would consider it and then only her choices for other wives. Then there would have to be negotiations and contracts and understandings on everyone’s part, and enthusiasm too and no tears or back to square one. Knowing DW, this is not going to ever happen, much to my personal relief. Besides, now that I’m ill, it’s a moot point.
There is actually such a precedent in my father’s family. My great great grandfather declined to live the law, but his son, my great grandfather did. He was actually encouraged by his first wife to marry her cousin. They were headed for a lonely frontier community and her cousin was her best friend. (!) Later in his life, he married a third wife while she was still in high school! I gather the third wife was all for it, as long as she could go to school dances and other youth activities! She had her own house, and my great grandfather was locked out of his older house when it was his turn to be with the younger wife. Apparently, there were pretty good feelings between the families. The younger wife had a standing open breakfast for all my great grandfather’s children at her house.
I heard corroborating testimony about it from a witness in a most unexpected place. Upon moving to my present location in the frozen wastelands of the north, our memberships were read into our new ward. When we sat down, the lady in front of me turned around and said she knew my great grandfather. After the meeting she told me about him. It turns out she was married to the stake patriarch. She was from the community my great grandfather had moved to. She and her school girl friends knew his third wife and giggled about how young she was and marrying such an older man. I swear the patriarch’s wife giggled as she told me! That must have been 35 – 40 years ago.
What does God think about all this? Was polygamy ever instituted by Him? Personally, I think it may have been. I don’t know for sure. Was it implemented according to His wishes? I believe not. Were people ever comfortable about it in this dispensation? I don’t think so, despite my family background. Do I think He would ever expect us to live it again? Not in this life and not in any way we would be uncomfortable with it in the Hereafter. Do I think we will feel we have been penalized in the Hereafter for not living it? I very much doubt it.
Anyhow, I am so sorry for all the heartache I hear on the forum about this. I like what Ray said about ignoring the supposed rule, and figuring that God will work it out with us to our satisfaction. I have felt overwhelming love from Him in the midst of my sins, and inadequacies and despite what I said about a privileged bias on this subject, can’t believe he loves me anymore than anyone else.
Nibbler, thanks for the thread. Joni nailed the essence of my comment, though regarding a different part of the endowment, and she made some very good points I hadn’t considered about who should be held accountable for what wording, and whether some temple work needed to be redone! I do have to say, however, that I have trouble with covenants and contracts with unclear or non-critical language. How can you have a serious agreement if the terms are all over the map? Part of my problem is my inherent nature. I like word choice, logic and even symbolic logic. Also, I have been conditioned by some training and experience in my career. For awhile, I was in procurement and was in charge of writing contracts for my company site. So I watch word choice pretty carefully. Along those lines, I have viewed with interest the several threads and comments I have seen on parsing words. I think it is an instructive activity.
So, what are we saying about these new teacher councils? Ever since the Gospel Doctrine Manual forbade bringing in outside material, I have found Sunday School to be my least liked hour of the block. I used to substitute teach the class not infrequently, and I tried to bring the subject matter down to things going on in our lives. I would try to bring current equivalents into lessons about things that happened in the scriptures. We had some lively discussions. Then it seemed like a combination of the correlation program, teacher instruction classes and instructions in front of the lesson manual all worked in the direction of going over the same old stuff in the same old way. Fortunately, I have a busybody-type calling in the ward right now and can spend second hour running around looking official instead of attending GD. Still, I find myself watching the clock in class distressingly often. There is one teacher on the rotation that mixes it up pretty well, but I feel almost subversive in my enjoyment of his lessons. And will he last?
So the comments here sound promising. I especially like what SilentDawning proposes. I hope we go in that direction.
This discussion gives a good example of what cuts pretty much to the heart of some of my quandary mentioned in my introduction. Sounds like there is a lot of paradigm shifting going on by a lot of you, which I experience as well. It is good to see how you all handle it, and I hope to learn from you. I worry about giving up so much that I suddenly find myself without foundation, but I don’t see that in this thread. In the past I have been pretty quick to retreat to the mantra, “Well, I’m sure when we know the whole story, it’ll all make sense”, but a lot of times that isn’t enough. I thank you for your examples. One thing that puzzles me a little is that some of the discussion seems to appear out of chronological order, though not out of logical order. Maybe that was a false impression, and I’ll pay more attention in the future.
Regards
Thank you for your welcome and many kind words. I hope to be able to contribute something more than just a lot of questions. I have navigated some challenges successfully, but still have some issues with things that are disturbing and hard to accept. I want to see what you think, but don’t want to unload in one big blast – if I even could. Better I think to comment about some of the topics already posted, and then maybe do a post or two of my own. @Minyan Man,
Until I received a testimony on my own, I had a very, rudimentary faith based on believing in those I trusted. So first it was based on what my parents told me, and what I learned from those they put their trust in. Even though they divorced, they both followed strongly in the church, so I was able to mostly find agreement in their words on the church, if not on their opinions about each other. I went with my mother physically, and also on who was to blame in the divorce, and I gave her primary credence when there seemed to be a difference in church opinions. This was unfortunate in some ways, because as I later found, my father was better grounded in the church, and was not guilty of many of the charges put on him by my mom, even if he was awfully strict!
But I got off topic. I grew up with what Nibley might call a very Primary version of the Gospel. So I believed things like all the native inhabitants of the Americas when Columbus arrived here were descendants of the nephites and lamanites, and other simplistic and just plain wrong explanations like that of scripture, history & biography. Many of these “Primary” versions have not held up to new inputs from both friends and foes of the church.
One of the biggest shocks was around “Mormon Doctrine” by Bruce R. McConkie. My households believed it to be solid church doctrine. We had a first edition, so we were pretty sure the Catholic Church was the Great and Abominable. So when I brought it up later in seminary, only to have it refuted, it shook me a bit when I could only find a later edition. Sure enough, whoops!, it didn’t equate the Catholic Church with the Great and Abominable! Well, until I accepted my current belief, I still had it wrong – I believed it was still really so and that they just softened the language so the Catholics wouldn’t feel so bad.
So, my life has been a series of these paradigm shifts. So far, I have been able to assimilate them, but I haven’t even begun to tackle things like Joseph Smith and Polyandry? And when my son tells me how much of the Book of Mormon and Bible history he doesn’t have to believe and still keep his testimony and is very persuasive, I see a deep hole coming up in front of me and wonder how much you can throw out without ditching the whole boat and then might as well become a Unitarian.
Seriously, I don’t think I should ditch the boat, but you may get a sense of my unease from these few examples. I do look forward to discussing some of these and like subjects in the forum.
