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.
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