Who...Me?

Occasionally I come across a quote or a line that really stops me and makes me think. Sometimes it's something goofy and new agey, or self-helpy in the worst kind of cliched way, but I don't care. I'm a person with a fortune-cookie fortune collection spanning decades, after all, so I'm neither too picky nor proud to collect words of wisdom wherever I find them. 

If I see or hear it and it sticks in my head, it demands further examination. So when that happens, I turn the idea over in my mind a few million times and give it a chance to earn its keep.

Sometimes I wish I could un-hear profound things, of course, because they speak uncomfortable truths which is how they got my attention to begin with -- I hated what they had to say but knew they were spoken specifically for me. I experienced one of those truth-encounters the other day, and I'm hoping that if I write something about it, I can stop thinking about it.

It came from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love (which I have not read). She said it to Oprah (which makes me resent it even more) on a Super Soul Sunday segment and it was something like this:

Who am I going to blame my life on today?

Now, overlooking the fact that there would be a more grammatically satisfying way to say this, it seems to have gone straight to my soul and taken up residence as some kind of great, unblinking truth there.

And I am flinching under its stare. Because it applies to me in more than one area of my life at present.

Oh dear.

It pains me to admit it, but I've got to own it. If you ask me questions about some of the key things I'm struggling with in my life today, I can immediately give you 63 reasons/justifications/pointing fingers to explain why things are the way they are. But you're not likely to hear me say, "Because of ME."

I'm bringing this up here because I think it also applies to my life in the Church, but more importantly, because I think it probably always has. I'm usually pretty quick to blame my church life on The Church or my ward life on My Ward, the struggles in my faith life on My Struggles With Mormonism...etc.

When really, I need to own those things. It's MY faith life. It's MY church life. It's MY ward experience. And I'm the one choosing how to engage, assigning power or importance to things.

Examples that have been known to occur in my personal history of "blame" thinking include:

But -- I don't fit in.

Well...says who? Whom have I allowed to tell me that I don't fit? I think I've probably always told it to myself. I know that was true in high school. I never felt like I fit there. Why would church be any different? If I'm baptized, I fit. I've already been inducted into the club. I'm not forever auditioning. I've got the part. I'm a Mormon. It's up to me to make myself at home here. Do I open my mouth so that other people whom I could help also feel they belong might realize there's a kindred misfit in the room? So perhaps we could band together and commiserate in our square-peg-ness? Enlarge our place? No. I don't open my mouth because I'm afraid of not fitting. Which I'm already convinced I don't. 

But aren't there are as many kinds of Mormons as there are Mormons? And that's millions? Sigh...I'm afraid this one is on me.

But -- I'm mad because the Church did ______.

Well, so what? Big organizations do things all the time that I don't agree with. Why would I expect anything different from the Church? It's a Big Organization. Run by people. So there are all the same things at play that are always inherent in big groups of people: politics, group-think, dominant personalities, cliques, personal agendas, questionable decisions, contradictions, dumbing-down, etc. Put me in a position where I'm subject to the rules established by any large organization, and my natural rebelliousness is bound to flare. But I'm used to that. And I'm well within my rights to disagree. 

There's no "you're either 100% for us or you're against us" in matters of faith. As with every part of life, I must play by the required rules, but I can agree to disagree, and then do whatever I can to promote change. It's what grownup, thinking people do. So this one is also on me.

But -- People at church are mean/or sexist/or narrow-minded/or judgmental, and they shouldn't be. Especially not at church!

Oooh. I've truly been a victim of these things in my history at church. I mean, I really actually have had a couple of unfortunate experiences. And somehow the fact that it's at church (right?!) gets me doubly riled up and all full of righteous indignation. Well, people on the bus or in the lunchroom or at work or online or at the grocery store shouldn't exhibit these behaviors either. But they sometimes do. I am sometimes guilty myself, come to think of it. I don't mean to be. But my Mormon-ness hasn't managed to make it so I never behave badly. I do. So when people behave badly at church, I shouldn't assign it any particular significance. My extra sensitivity in this area? That's probably on me. Rats.

I don't believe or agree with ______.

Now this can be a biggie. It's hard when there are points of doctrine or official positions that we don't understand or that we don't agree with. The beauty of the whole thing is, however, that we are entitled to receive confirmation of any and all teachings. We can seek it from the Holy Ghost. And it's specific to us. So in essence, we are given the right to believe or not believe, agree with or not agree with, any point of doctrine or official Church position. Coming to our own conclusions doesn't make us "Bad Mormons". It makes us individuals on our own journeys of faith, engaged in trying to forge our own relationship with Jesus Christ and love the people around us. Which is actually what makes us Good Mormons. No one else gets to believe for us, or have our witness for us, or do any of our daily living and loving by proxy. Those things are our job. And we all come to it from a different perspective, with a unique lens and each hearing the voice of the Spirit in our own way. 

And that's by design. Nothing about earth life is one-size-fits all. That was the whole point of the chosen plan. So when I don't agree, I need to not blame the Church for that. I need to be comfortable in my own Mormon skin and confident enough in my own spiritual development to accept my doubt or struggle or disbelief and press forward on my journey anyway. I might change, or the Church might, or we might never see eye-to-eye. And it doesn't matter a bit. My faithfulness is determined by what I do, not by what the Church says or what I think or even believe. I've got a pretty decent moral compass, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. It's wholly on me to use them for direction as I make my own way.

In other words, I can't blame anything about the ebb and flow of my faith, my relationship to or challenges with the Church on anyone else at all. I'm captain of this ship, and it's entirely up to me to choose how I react and perceive myself and contribute to my community and engage with my Mormon culture and my faith. And stopping to really consider that feels good. Whether or not the realization had to come via Oprah.

I'm a Mormon...Me.
And just the way I am.

- S.

Speak up! We can't hear you.

I received a note from an old friend last night asking me why it had been so long since I've written here. She said that she needed a new post. She needed my voice. And I appreciated that on several levels, so I'm here.

I took a walk the other evening with an acquaintance from my ward. She's quickly becoming a friend, but when we set out on the walk I knew very little about her. She moved into the ward about the same time I did. She was put into a very visible leadership position not long after that, so most of what I know about her I've seen through her church-calling filter. I've heard her teach and speak. But we've never had any extended conversation. If you'd asked me to describe her before our walk, I would have said different things than I would say now. Completely different. 

Now I would describe her as being very much like me. We see eye-to-eye on many Church-related topics. And I'm quite shocked.

She's quiet in meetings, just like I am. And I asked her about that. I wanted to know why, because I was troubled by the fact that I would never have guessed that we might be having the same thoughts during some lessons, or struggling with the same issues in our families, or trying to reconcile our politics with what we hear at church in the same ways. She told me that, out of respect for the Church, she decided long ago that she wouldn't voice things that might challenge any belief generally held by the majority in the room. I had to respect that. It beats my reason for silence, anyway, which is usually just being scared to open my mouth.

But then I told her that she is part of my problem.

I told her that I need her voice. Because on the days that I am sitting in lessons that chafe and wondering whether I am the ONLY person who is struggling with the discussion, it would mean a lot to me to know that there are others who are experiencing the same discomfort. Or who aren't sure they agree. Or who flat-out don't agree. 

I need her voice.

Of course, this encounter has caused me to wonder whether there aren't many more members like me than I realize there are, and whether there haven't been quite a few in every ward I've ever been in.

Which brings me to why I've not been here for awhile. It turns out that not long after I started this blog, I stumbled into an online discussion group for Mormons, and have since become involved in helping manage it. So I've found a place to say the things I need to say, and to feel that I'm not the only one in the room. And that's made it so that I've had less need to be here. 

But of course, that's not a good reason to have stopped writing. Because the reason I started to begin with is that I thought there might be others who could benefit from my voice. And by stopping, I too become part of the problem. Online discussion groups like mine where we can talk about things openly with 500 other Mormons who are facing similar questions or experiences are wonderful and can be helpful, but they don't do much to correct the issue that for every member who is speaking up, there are many, many who are not.

General Conference was interesting to me this time. I got the sense that the leaders are aware that there are many members who are struggling with things in new ways as a result of the connected, information-saturated world we find ourselves in. The Gospel Topics essays have been a nod, and a great start addressing a few common sticking points, but they're not keeping pace with the problem. I've had a chance to observe, as I read the discussions people are having, that many members of great faith and lifelong, dedicated church service are struggling. Even some current missionaries are experiencing faith crises. I don't see that it's any one demographic group. And I don't see that it's people who have spent their church lives looking for the door. 

What I do see is people who are looking desperately to stay. They just need a little help, a little change, a little progress, a little continuing revelation that reflects the reality they're trying to reconcile with their Mormon faith narrative and culture. They need the history they're discovering to match the official story, or at least be acknowledged. They need the "I'm a Mormon" campaign to feel like it reflects anyone that they recognize in their ward. They need to be able to express their beliefs -- their own beliefs, the ones they have come to personally over the course of their life -- and know that their version of truth doesn't have to sound exactly like everyone else in the room.

I'm so pleased to see any progress; we just need more. This recent article is a hopeful example -- the Church History Museum is being updated, and will now acknowledge and discuss polygamy in Nauvoo. I never realized that many members (even in my own family) have been taught that polygamy really only came into practice with Brigham Young. It's time to set all stories straight. Polygamy is a difficult enough pill for many to swallow, but we've navigated that troubled water for years. However, finding out that the true story is not the one you've been taught at church takes what was already sticky and makes it much worse.

People are willing to work through and accept difficult truths, and in my observation, members usually desire to believe. As Mormons, we are forgiving of the human component in everything related to Church history. That's something we seem to have tolerance for. But an institutional effort to tweak or sanitize, correlate or improve, whitewash or turn bits of history from unfortunate-to-faith-promoting, well, people have much less tolerance for that. Individual human foibles are a given, because we all have them. But finding out that something has been purposely obscured introduces a lack of trust for the whole organization, and that is much more damaging and difficult to turn around.

One thing that complicates the issue is that it's not the hardness-of-heart that we're always warned about at play here, even though I think many people who've never had these kinds of feelings or struggles may fear, suspect or even assume it to be. People's hearts are wounded and tender in my group, actually. Extremely so. That's what happens when you are suddenly hurt by the beliefs and the practices that you have held most dear, and constructed your life and your family around. 

It's the opposite of a hard heart. It's a broken one. 

And it wants love, and truth, and the peace of the Spirit. It wants to understand, and to be understood. It wants to heal. I would describe it as a seeking heart, not a hard one. 

But what happens next is critical.

I'm reminded of the scene in so many movies, usually near the end, where the whole town is gathered, and the bad guy is up in front railing away about something and then one...by one...by one...brave folks begin to stand up in support of the person who's in trouble. I feel like people are beginning to stand up, and they are starting to get noticed. And I think that's a good thing. 

So we need your voice, if there's anything that you've been wishing you could say, but haven't dared. Anything at all. Stand up and be counted. You'll find you have friends in the room that you never knew were there. That's a truth I've only begun to understand quite recently, and it could be the one that makes all the difference for me.

- S.