Speaking Up.

Here's a post that I didn't want to write, and still don't, but I feel I need to say something. And that's my stated purpose in this whole project -- to open my mouth in a church context when I feel I need to, even if it is just to help myself.

Mormondom is in an uproar over the possible excommunications of John Dehlin and Kate Kelly (plus some other bloggers, from what I hear). I wish to make no comment about any of them. I don't know them. I know a bit about the whats and the whys of the situation though, and that's what causes me to speak up here. Because suddenly I am back in 1993.

1993 was difficult for me, a result of the infamous "September 6" excommunications. The events felt exactly as if the Church had appointed a hit man and the agitators were going to be silenced. I'm only describing the way it felt to me, watching it unfold, and I'm entitled to that description, whether it contains any shred of accuracy or is a figment of my own agitated mind. That's not important. As a member of the church, that's how I felt.

Suddenly I was in a struggle to remain faithful. I felt the boundaries shrinking and it made me incredibly uncomfortable and fearful for the future.

And then, President Hunter arrived, olive branch fully extended. It saved me, really. I was able to make the determination that choosing the gospel was more important to me than anything that the organization of the Church might say or do. I began to untangle the two, for the first time. I designated one as essential in my life and the other as something that I might always be at odds with in some way or other, but that I would not let detract from the first. I found a place for myself, and I worked very hard to do so. And over time, I healed and became much stronger than I had been before.

Which was a good thing, because a few years down the road I was confronted with the biggest challenge to my faith that I had yet endured and the only reason I survived is that I had hit bottom and had to make the choice once before. That fire prepared me for the more devastating, more personal one to come. Which thankfully I survived as well. Although it was a very close call. For the first time in my life, I came to the place where I saw clearly how and why people leave the church.

I remember the moment exactly. For some reason, in my mind, I was suddenly sitting in a tree, under a leafy canopy of green. And I was looking down on a little village, off in the distance, and I felt very removed from it, and it made me sad but there was relief too, that at last I was far enough away to get a true bird's eye view. And I realized that when I came down from this tree, I would have a choice as to whether to return to my village, or walk away from it. It's a strange visual, I know, and I'll never know exactly where it came from. Just a glimpse I had in a pivotal moment, but it made a lasting impact. I sat in the chapel one night at my absolute lowest, feeling there was not a place for me and that everyone would be happier if I were to go, and suddenly there it was, and I could see that I had to make a choice.

And when I came down from the tree, I walked back. Because it was where I lived.

So when I saw the announcements yesterday, I had a tremendous sinking feeling. My immediate reaction was, "Here we go again." One of my daughters was very upset also, so we chatted, and shared links to things that we each thought might help and commiserated. And cried. She at her keyboard, me at mine. This is her first time witnessing this particular kind of war, and I could truly empathize with her pain and feelings of bewilderment and betrayal.

I once had a Dr. explain to me why church things felt so personal and so difficult for me. He said, "We're talking about your spiritual home. We're talking about the things that are very nearest and dearest to your heart. And when those things turn on you, and act in ways that are contrary to everything you have believed and perceived, and when they are no longer safe places for your spirit, it quite literally breaks your heart. It goes right to the core of who you are. You should be crying, so go ahead. The church you love is breaking your heart."

But the answer was in that last line there, because he was right. At those points, the church was breaking my heart, not the gospel. The gospel was the way to survive the breaks.

And the thing that is breaking my heart this time is that I see this action as yet another strike against diversity in our church. I have tried and tried to reconcile anything about these excommunications with President Uchtdorf's conference address in which he entreated all to "Come, join with us." Despite sins, or shortcomings, or doubts, or questions, or beliefs, or anything we might bring to the gospel table his invitation was clear. But it rings a little hollow in the face of these actions.

And as a person who feels the personal call to ride border patrol, to be continually watching the exits and rounding up the strays -- the church is suddenly making that job seem very hard. We can't ask people to leave and expect them to stay at the same time.

I know faithful members of the church who run the belief/doubt spectrum from one end to the other. All contribute to the richness of my experience in my chosen spiritual home. All are essential. None are expendable. It doesn't matter one whit to me where someone sits in their personal testimony, if they desire to be on the benches on Sunday, I want them to be there with me. If they feel worthy to partake of the sacrament and want its influence in their lives, I want to pass them the tray. That's the entire point of the thing, after all. It doesn't matter how much we each understand or where we agree or disagree on gospel (and more especially policy) topics. I long ago came to be comfortable with the fact that I probably don't agree with the majority of any class I'm in, and I'm even beginning to value that a bit. Sometimes others enlarge my perspective. Sometimes I do the same for them.

Please, always allow me to grow. I want to allow you to do so as well.

I was lamenting the news of these excommunications to a friend who is not a member and his immediate response was, "They burn a lot of vitality out of their own fabric when they do this." It was a perfect description. He's right. And is that what we want? To become a church completely lacking in the vitality and intelligent discourse and spiritually awake, inquisitive nature that led to the Restoration to begin with? I can't believe that anyone thinks that would be the better path. No matter how safe it feels.

My mother in law quoted someone to me once, and I have no idea who it was, but I loved the line: "Oh, to be safely dead."

Well of course. But is that where we want to be? I thought we were looking to fill the whole earth.

And if the argument is that those deemed offenders are going to endanger the spiritual health of others, I say hogwash. I just won't put any stock at all in that argument, now or ever. We're all entitled to, even tasked with, our own journeys of faith. There is not a single person in the world who can make that journey piggy-back on another person and get anywhere meaningful or lasting as a result. These people have their sticking points, I have mine. You have yours. And I'm pretty darn sure every single one of the general authorities has his own too. There's not a member in any church that doesn't. Unless they've ceased thinking altogether.

Bottom line is, I feel strongly that we need to stop asking people to leave. And especially the ones who care enough to ask out loud the questions that matter to them, who are willing to risk so much for what they believe, and who keep showing up no matter how insurmountable their personal sticking points may feel. It seems to me that theirs is just another way of being valiant in their testimonies, and I thank them for speaking up. Whatever they feel the need to say.

- S.

Promissory Notes.

My mom took all of my behavior personally. 

Everything I did, she thought it was an act 

of rebellion against her. But it was just me being me.  
 -- Pink

I got a wedding invitation in the mail yesterday. It was a lovely thing for an outdoor, summery affair, sprinkled with fireflies. It was from my daughter.

It was strange, getting a wedding invitation from my own daughter, seeing it in the mail for the first time just like everybody else. The other weddings I've been involved with as a mother have been hands-on from start to finish. But then the other brides weren't in their 30's and living on a different side of the country, being grown-up school teachers, planning their second weddings. It changes the dynamics of things a bit. 

I guess it never occurred to me that I'd have a 30-something. I mean, we're talking about my original little valentine...a baby girl who pulled me off the fast-track and caused me to reevaluate all my sure directions and my loud opinions. I don't say that as a martyr (I sense my daughters rolling their eyes) -- I say it because it's true. I had other things in mind and I was moving toward them at a good clip, but then almost on a whim, I made the decision to have a child, thinking it wouldn't change much, and instead it changed everything. Mostly, it changed me. For one thing, I could see clearly and immediately that here I had an opportunity to really do something. 

Suddenly I was tasked with building the world for someone, and I wanted to do it right. And that seemed much more important than all my fast-track goals. So I made some new goals.

I had silly ideas, at first. Of course she was brilliant, so I decided to teach her to read. She was clearly ready. She was three. I know, ridiculous when I see it written there, but you had to know her. She had the verbal skills of an 8th grader. No matter, because she had no interest in reading. She was interested in being three. 

So we wrestled over guaranteed mail-order flash cards and such nonsense every day for more than a year, and then I gave up. I sent her off to kindergarten still not reading. By the end of the year, I started to worry. Because I knew she had been ready when she was three. 

And then magically and with no assistance from me or anyone else, in the first few weeks of 1st grade, she started reading. Within a week she was reading at a second grade level. Before the end of the year, 6th grade.  I knew it! I did! But of course, she'd had other ideas. As it turned out, she was in charge of quite a few things about her own life from a very young age. 

That's hard for a parent to understand. We all learn it, of course. But we don't like it. We dutifully order the flashcards and believe the money-back guarantee. We use them faithfully every day. But it still doesn't make us in charge of anything for someone else. Not really.

I'm not exactly sure where my daughter got her rebellious streak, but I have a feeling we shopped at the same store.

I believe that Chieko Okazaki said (yes, this is hearsay, but it doesn't matter -- I love it regardless of who said it) that we "get a lot of promissory notes at church." 

I think that's a great description of what we get. It feels a lot like IF....THEN, pretty much all the time in my opinion. "If we are obedient, or if we do this thing, we will have, or be ____________." Fill in the blank with whatever you like. 

Some of it seems to actually work, but none of it is guaranteed. Because nothing about earth comes with a guarantee. And that's a bit of wisdom that I think really only comes with age. And even achieving age is not guaranteed. You see the problem.

The bottom line is that eventually (and it didn't take that long, really) I reduced pretty much all my parenting goals into one. I made the goal that my girls would feel loved, every single day of their lives. I went after that goal from a lot of angles. Love comes in as many forms as there are minutes, and that's a good thing.  Because as a mother, some minutes you are able to love more readily than others.
 
And sometimes the love means cookies and sometimes, as a parent, it just has to mean broccoli.

The other thing I've figured out is that my love can not save them from the pain of the world. It can't. This daughter who is getting married had a pretty charmed life, until she didn't. And I couldn't stop her from making the decisions that started her on the path that led there, and I couldn't save her from someone bent on damaging her, and I couldn't fix it once the trouble began, and it is only by some miracle that we were able to help her at all while the world blew up around her and then as the dust settled.

But there's where I'm really glad that I stopped trying to make her read when she was three and decided I would try to just love her every day instead. That was a goal that ended up serving me well when the bad stuff came raining down. I remained a safe place, and she sought that safety.

That's really the only thing I know for certain about raising kids, or about human interaction in general. That we get much further by making ourselves a safe place for others.

I think that's the entire point of the gospel, actually. Christ made himself our safe place, and we're supposed to go there when we get lost or need help or screw up or don't have any idea what we're supposed to be doing. I know there are a lot of other rules and directions and to-do lists at church too, and I try to pay attention to them and follow along as best I can. I remind myself to have faith that it will be enough. But I also try really hard not to look at them as promissory notes.

My daughter told me, after she emerged from the fiery furnace, that she was actually glad for her terrible experience. She's a graduate of a prestigious art school, and she said that she always felt she had showed up at school armed with nothing but a pencil, while the other students brought baggage of all kinds packed with material from which to draw. She felt her pain enhanced her art in ways that her loving home couldn't. And knowing what I do about art, I think there's probably a lot of truth to that. But I believe the loving home offered a great foundation on which to set up her easel.  

I can't wait to attend the wedding at which I only have to show up. What a pleasure! I won't have to be stressed or sleep-deprived or anything else. I can just be present and enjoy the firefly light of mid-July, and the glow of my little girl getting a do-over that's going to heal her wounds in ways that I never can.

And I'm not giving up on my goal. I know they don't live with me anymore, but my three charges are still with me every minute and I have a long way to go before I've finished showing them why they are the best thing I could have done with my life. I'm happy every day that they've become themselves, even though not one of them is exactly the way I thought they'd be. They're the only thing I've done that will really make much difference in the world, in the end. 

I can't control a thing about them, but I can promise to always give them the best love I've got and also have the faith that somehow, it will be enough.

- S.

A Thank You Note.

"If you experience the pain of exclusion at church from someone who is frightened at your difference, please don't leave or become inactive. You may think you are voting with your feet, that you are making a statement by leaving. Some may see your diversity as a problem to be fixed, as a flaw to be corrected or erased. If you are gone, they don't have to deal with you anymore. I want you to know that your diversity is a more valuable statement."

--Chieko N. Okazaki, 

General Relief Society Presidency

This quote popped up on my Facebook feed today, and it reminded me of just how much I loved Sister Okazaki. I attended a Midwest Pilgrims retreat in IL many years ago at which she was the keynote speaker. A friend and I somehow lucked into having an intimate dinner with her at a restaurant, and going for a run with her too. 

We actually laced up our tennies and took a green, hilly jaunt on a late spring afternoon with Chieko Okazaki! I don't know how old she was at the time, but much older than I will be when I stop running. We chatted about the kinds of things women chat about when they run. She seemed so regular. 

And then I heard her speak and wanted to record every word so I could replay it forever. Because her particular brand of faith was mesmerizing to me. I found her to be so completely gracious, so accepting, so intelligent, so strong. Utterly original, confident and comfortable in her individual skin. Intimidating in the depth of her scriptural knowledge, yet so good at weaving them into the everyday workings of a modern woman's life. She seemed to easily gift others with glimpses, tiny tidbits of her wisdom and understanding. Just knowing that she was in the Church somehow enlarged it enough that I suddenly could breathe a bit more freely in it too. 

She saved seats for people like me.

I can't help but contrast the way I feel reflecting on her with the feelings I had a few days ago when something from Mormon Women Stand popped up in my news feed. Because when I clicked over to get a peek at the discussion going on there, I found that all the seats were taken. And they didn't seem to remember to set any up in the overflow. 

I just mean that it didn't feel good. The comments seemed harsh and divisive, strident and judgmental and it gave me a sick feeling. It was more than plain that I wouldn't be welcome there. I sensed a line in the sand. I had to click away.

If you're a fan of Mormon Women Stand, I apologize. I don't mean anything personal by it. A thing that uplifts and binds together is inherently good, right? So I may have dropped in at just the wrong moment. I could see they're trying to do something worthwhile there. But I could also see they really don't like my type. 

They wouldn't want me asking my endless questions, or expressing the things that are hurting me, or dissecting the conference talks that chafe, or agitating for increased diversity, or any of the things that have been an integral part of my lifelong journey as a woman in the Mormon church. I make them nervous.

And that just doesn't make sense at all. Because really, we're working for the same things in our lives, I think. We're committed to the same organization. Our children sing the same Primary songs, and it brings the same joy to us when we hear their voices. We're serving in callings together. We're passing the sacrament trays back and forth between us every Sunday.

Those unwieldy parts of my spiritual side came with me when I popped up on this planet. I was born smack in the middle of a Mormon family tree. I didn't wander into a meetinghouse one Sunday by mistake and then start complaining about the program. I've been here all along.

I guess it's okay, because I don't have to hang around there. Facebook groups are similar to Jr. High. They're all about "liking." 

But the gospel isn't about liking at all. The gospel is about loving. And since the Church is our vehicle for the gospel, I'd really like everyone to feel loved. No matter which clique they bump into in the halls.

I know, I'm an idealist in that. It's not realistic. But then I think Sister Okazaki must have been a bit of an idealist too. Thank goodness someone once heeded the inspiration to put her in a high place. And thank goodness she's still shining her light there. She's illuminating a vast room of open seats. And I hope she never stops.

- S.
 

Looking Ahead.

 I tramp a perpetual journey.

 -- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

If you've been hanging around The Overflow lately, you may wonder what I have against Elder Holland. The answer is, not a thing in the world. In fact, I have a warm fuzzy memory of him speaking at a fireside at my home when I was a child. I remember sneaking down in my nightgown, crouching outside the hushed living room...and thinking there was something about him there, something in the sound of his voice that was quite remarkable. 

On top of that, he's given a couple of the talks in recent conferences that have been my favorites. So I think it would be fitting that we should look at those too, starting with the one from April 2013.

I felt a personal connection with his talk, Lord, I Believe, because of the second half of the famous scriptural line from which the title is taken..."Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." 

For me, that second part is key.

The idea reminds me of the opening paragraph of a book by (who else?) Anne Lamott -- re-reading her work this summer has it on my brain. She begins her book Traveling Mercies like this: 

"My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear. When I look back at some of these early resting places, I can see how flimsy and indirect a path they made. Yet each step brought me closer to the verdant pad of faith on which I somehow stay afloat today."

A series of staggers...sounds about right to me. Or two steps forward, one step back. Or a roller-coaster ride of faith. It goes up, but it can also rush downhill with breathtaking speed. This is because it's subject to the crazy, unpredictable path of our life experiences. And the resulting challenges to our faith can be dizzying and discouraging. Rather than enduring to the end, some days it sounds easier to just step off the ride.

But as Elder Holland says, "Remember, in this world, everyone is to walk by faith." Darn.

His talk begins with the well-known scriptural account of Jesus being approached by a man seeking a blessing for his teeth-gnashing, foaming-mouthed son. 

"'If thou canst do anything,' he said, 'have compassion on us, and help us.'
Jesus said unto him, 'If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.'
And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, 'Lord I believe; help thou mine unbelief.'"

Elder Holland explains, "Observation number one regarding this account is that when facing the challenge of faith, the father asserts his strength first and only then acknowledges his limitation. His initial declaration is affirmative and without hesitation: 'Lord, I believe.' I would say to all who wish for more faith, remember this man! In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited...The size of your faith or the degree of your knowledge is not the issue -- it is the integrity you demonstrate toward the faith you do have and the truth you already know.'"

A brilliant discussion of faith and its relationship to knowledge is found in the writings of gospel scholar and educator Lowell Bennion. He compares the two, readily admitting that knowledge is superior and when it's available, should always be used. For instance, when driving a car, it's better to know by the gauge how much gas is in the tank than to merely have faith that fuel is there. But he describes faith as the means of reaching out to gain additional knowledge, like a searchlight casting its beam into the darkness ahead. While knowledge looks back, faith looks forward. 

In Alma's famous discourse on faith, found in Alma 32:14-43, he encourages us to experiment upon his words, exercise a particle of faith, even if we can do no more than desire to believe. He compares the word to a seed, asking us to plant the seed, tend it carefully (there's the important part -- we cannot neglect the seed after it's planted!) and pay attention to what grows and to how it makes us feel. Alma's object in recommending this experiment with faith is that it will lead us to knowledge.

When scientists gain knowledge, they begin by asking a question. They research. They experiment. They control the variables carefully and then pay attention to what happens. Then they take that knowledge and use it to project a light further into the future, to formulate another hypothesis, to take another leap. 

Sometimes they learn what they wanted to know. Sometimes it's back to the drawing board, re-examining the facts, looking for things they might have missed or searching for other possible ways forward. Sometimes they have to wait for knowledge in other areas to catch up with them so they can supply missing components in order to take the next step. Basically, science is lily pad to lily pad. Just like faith.

The use of the word experiment suggests that we may need to keep trying. When one looks at the innovators who succeeded in creating the world's modern miracles, the most striking thing is how often they failed. Turn on a light, take a photo, fly in a jet, watch TV, talk on a cell phone...the inventors who gave us these life-altering advancements found their way to success through a maze of wrong turns.

Thomas Edison, for instance, failed repeatedly before succeeding with the light bulb. Prior to that magical moment in October 1879, Edison had worked out no fewer than 3,000 theories about electric light, each of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true -- but in only two cases did his experiments work. "Many of life's failures," he said, "are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

Hence the value of that difficult little phrase, Endure to the End. Unfortunately, faith is not a destination. Even if it sometimes seems that the other folks on the pew have already arrived, it's simply not true. Because faith is an ongoing experiment in which we are required to engage daily. 

Lowell Bennion asserts that, "No matter how much knowledge a person gains, he is increasingly aware of how much of his life is lived by faith. Faith is an hypothesis, suggested by the existence of some facts, but projecting beyond these to the realm of what might be or could be. Faith then is not cut and dried, is not fixed and static, but is something as dynamic as life itself."

If faith is a product of one's total life experiences, as such it can never be one-size-fits-all. My faith doesn't look like yours. It looks like me. We can borrow a bit and lend a little, but in the end we all have to grow our own. We have to engage in our own experiment upon the word. We have to hope and work and ask and want and wait. And then do it all again.

All of this made me think about running. In my life, running is probably the number one thing I love to hate. Running is inherently about progress, but also about never arriving. Basically, it's a hamster wheel, but one that throws off enough positive results to trick people into doing it. I started running about 15 years ago when I got tired of walking. I wanted to get there faster. Over the course of the years, my running has changed. Due to injury, joint problems and age, I'm no longer able to run as far or as often as I once could. But the challenge and the process remain the same, and the rewards I find from engaging in that process compel me to keep at it. That and my love of baked goods. 

Of course, some days I am just too tired to imagine running, or trying to stay in shape, for the rest of my life. I simply know I can't do it -- it seems ludicrous to try. Why bother when there are donuts in the world and I know darn well I plan to keep eating them? On those days, I have to shorten my vision. Because sometimes the big picture is just too big, and makes me want to kick my sneakers into a corner and nap.

One of my favorite literary characters says that if a woman could see all the dishes she would do in her lifetime piled up in one heap, she would lay down and will herself to die on the spot. Sometimes that's how I feel about running -- like I'm looking at a mighty big pile of dishes. But running happens a day at a time. That's the only way it's sustainable. Luckily, life comes to us in one-second increments. Our progress can be measured in single steps. 

On whole-sinkful-of-dirty-dishes days, we can make the goal be running up the street to the next mailbox. Sometimes when I really think I'm going to die and I must stop NOW, I tell myself I'll just run to the next mailbox. Almost always when I reach that mailbox, I'm able to press on to the next mailbox. I've been known to run 5 miles from mailbox to mailbox. Because if I don't break it down that far, I won't move at all.

Knowledge is the mailboxes in the rear-view. Faith is that next mailbox. The experiment is putting one foot in front of the other. The goal is to keep running to the finish.

Elder Holland draws a second observation from the scriptural account in his talk. He says, "When problems come and questions arise, do not start your quest for faith by saying how much you do not have, leading as it were with your 'unbelief.' Let me be clear on this point: I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have. I am asking you to be true to the faith you do have...Be as candid about your questions as you need to be; life is full of them on one subject or another."

Did you hear that? We need not fear our questions or doubts! As with science, they can serve a useful purpose in propelling our faith forward.

Lowell Bennion describes it like this: "Faith is adventurous and creative. It not only is the sphere of the possible, but is also the power which often makes the possible come into being. Faith is that remarkable quality of the human spirit which first envisages the possibilities of life, then lives as though these possibilities were realities, and by this action often makes them real. In the realm of knowledge, one conforms to what is; in the realm of faith, one creates life after the image carried in his heart. Faith adds another dimension to life. Recognizing the borders of knowledge, it transcends them."

In other words: Fake It 'til You Make It. Act as if you have it, live faithfully, and...Bingo! I love that idea, because it makes it seem like I may have just a bit more control over the state of my own faith. 

If I want a testimony of prayer, pray.

If I want a testimony of tithing, pay it.

If I want to love others better or more, show more love to others.

Get work done by working.

Move forward by taking steps. 

Sound easy? It isn't. But it isn't rocket science either. I know how to get there. I just need to begin. And tomorrow, begin again.

No matter how tough the road gets, I can always desire to believe. I can use that desire to fuel my experiment, thereby progressing through faith toward knowledge. 

And yes, even I probably always possess more than I think I do.  Mailbox to mailbox. One lily pad to the next. Throwing my own puny light ahead into the darkness, but then following it with a step forward.

As Elder Holland concludes, "Hope on. Journey on. Honestly acknowledge your questions and your concerns, but first and forever fan the flame of your faith, because all things are possible to them that believe."

Bingo.

- S.

It's Such a Good Feeling.

In re-reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird lately, I came across this passage I particularly liked:

"A sober friend once said to me, 'When I was still drinking, I was a sedated monster. After I got sober, I was just a monster.' He told me about his monster. His sounded just like mine without quite so much mascara. When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are. The secrecy, the obfuscation, the fact that these monsters can only be hinted at, gives us the sense that they must be very bad indeed. But when people let their monsters out for a little onstage interview, it turns out that we've all done or thought the same things, that this is our lot, our condition. We don't end up with a brand on our forehead. Instead, we compare notes."

The human condition. We're all in it. And while I think the point, at least in part, is to try to transcend it if we can, we will of course accomplish that with limited success here on earth. Because here on earth, we're human from start to finish. All created from the same basic mold, with a few modifications and some special equipment to differentiate us one from another, but all made in God's image. And the only conclusion I can draw from this is that He must like us this way.

I believe Mr. Rogers was really on to Something Big when he said, "I like you. Just the way you are."

I bring it up because I've had love on my mind lately. All kinds of it. The Capital L kind, and also the little bits that we bump into all day long but hardly recognize if we're not paying attention. I've probably been thinking about it as a result of marrying off my baby this past week, and also attending my parents' 60th anniversary celebration. But I know I also started thinking about it shortly after Elder Holland's most recent and now somewhat infamous talk (the one we've already covered here).

A lot of people are still discussing that talk. I've heard it rehearsed in three separate church meetings already, I'm scheduled to teach it in Relief Society as soon as July, and it seems nearly everyone has an opinion about it. This has made me continue to wonder what it was about his words that caused such a stir on all sides, and as I've read interpretations and re-read the text and thought more about it, it's pretty clear that my own negative reaction to it was centered squarely in the notion of God's love, and what our relationship with that love is meant to be. 

I simply didn't feel the kind of love I recognize in some of the ideas he presented, and I think that's why it left me in such an uneasy, unhappy, uncomfortable place. By coming to better understand where that message and I failed to connect, I've found peace on the matter. (But I'll admit I've recruited a sub to teach my upcoming lesson. We'll all be happier.)

On top of that, I've had several conversations lately about the concept of Unconditional Love, and its place in our collective Mormon thought, and more importantly in our curriculum, and there seems to be quite a disagreement as to whether the idea of God Having Unconditional Love For Us is a doctrinally friendly idea or not.

Now -- I don't know any better way to say this than to just say it: The idea of God without unconditional love pretty much just blows my mind.

Or in other words, the idea of A God of Conditional Love is not an idea that I can relate to. At all.

But then I don't think I'm supposed to teach you about God's love so much as help you feel it, am I? It seems to me that's the way we learn about it. We feel it. It teaches us about Itself. That's what the Holy Ghost is for, after all. To help explain what we're feeling. To point out, this is what God's love feels like, at the appropriate times. And to direct our attention to the source.

Because if we don't know what God's love feels like, we don't stand much chance of loving others in the same way. And that's the commandment.

So I've decided it hurt to have a church leader tell me about God's love in a way that didn't feel like the same love I have come to recognize, appreciate and understand in my own life. Because it felt personal.

And as that idea has finally crystallized, I have also realized this: when I don't like things I hear at church, it's most often for this very same reason.

I know what it's supposed to feel like, for me anyway. I have that gift just like everybody else. He's my Father, too.

Unconditional love is the only kind that makes sense, once you're a parent. I just spent the past week with my three daughters, whom I see infrequently now that they're off living their own lives. And it reminded me just how much I love them. Doesn't matter one whit to me what they're doing, when it comes to that. I am just plum crazy about those girls. Sure, there have been days in our relationship when I've wanted to put them in time out or even flat-out spank their behinds, but it never impacted the bottom line. Not even a little. And that's not going to change.

Do my parents feel the same way about me? I can only think that they probably do. I understand that now. Heaven knows I haven't done a thing to earn it, having been bratty as they come as a youngster. But I'm theirs. And as a parent, I know precisely what that means and how it feels.

It seems to me that the destination of any successful spiritual journey is probably the same, regardless of whether or not there is a specific denomination acting as the vehicle to get us there. The goal is to draw close to God, to feel His love, and then to understand and act upon our obligation to turn that love outward and shine it on those we come in contact with. Which is everyone.

I don't really feel God's love in lists of requirements. I don't feel it in things that divide, differentiate or discriminate. If it's a thing that causes anyone to feel that they are in some way less, I don't feel love there. A demand for unquestioning conformity also does not feel like an accurate reflection of His love to me.
 
Instead, I feel it in the billions of ways people are different. And also in the billions of ways we are the same. For me, it's there in my relationships and the ways I care and am cared for.

I feel it wherever I encounter excellence, or striving, or mastery. I feel it in the magnitude of creation, its infinite variety, and in the new chance we are given every day we're lucky enough to wake up. I see it in divine, serendipitous connections between people and ideas, things and events. In the way the Universe seems to tip its hat to me now and then, just to let me know someone's paying attention.

Also in falling off the wagon just like everyone else, but being allowed to get back on. Its in all the hands that reach down to pull me up, over and over.

But the net is much wider than that. When I am on a run with my iPod and suddenly Freddy Mercury sings the opening lines of "Barcelona", I feel God's love. Huh? She feels God's love when Freddy Mercury sings? Absolutely yes. Right down to the tips of my toes. (If you don't know what that feels like, get an iPod and put something really good on it. A sound that feels like love to you, if only because it's better than any sound you could possibly make yourself. You'll know it when you hear it.)

God created giraffes for no reason at all that I can think of. Who does that? Except that giraffes are simply oozing with awkward, graceful love.

I feel God's love whenever I log on to Facebook. Well now that's a bit ridiculous, right? The thing is, I'm miraculously allowed to interact with people from all the different parts of my life there, and to show them that they matter to me. Even though I maybe didn't sit by them in the school lunchroom, it wasn't always a reflection of how I felt. I was busy figuring out how to navigate the world. But every day I noticed they were there, and now I get to show them how glad I am that they still are. Surely that's a divine gift.

Maybe I'm getting a bit silly as I age, but as the years tick by, I feel God's love in just about everything. It's the joyful stuff of life. So I'm not interested in narrowing or restricting any channels, but rather in continually increasing my notice of it, absorbing as much as I can and figuring out how to act as a better, more luminous human reflector.

Unconditional love doesn't mean God isn't interested in seeing us improve, like every good parent is. He expects it. But the fact that He's provided a way for each one of us to do that puts us on equal footing, no matter where we stand. That's unconditional love. And if His expectations are really only relevant to our desire to get closer to Him personally, they don't have anything to do with being a yardstick by which we measure or interact with others.

A light that grows brighter and brighter, until the perfect day. Something like that. That's the kind of love I want to feel, and the kind I want to give.

And always, I'm interested in comparing notes. Because I think you probably know as much about God's love as I do. We're all monsters, after all...but that's quite all right because it seems He designed us this way. And because we are His little monsters, I'm quite sure He loves us. Every one of us. And just exactly the way we are.

Anyway, that's the way it feels to me.

- S. 

A Fine Mess.

The opposite of faith is not doubt, 

it's certainty.

-- Anne Lamott

My mother is really clean. No, I mean really. The toilet paper in her guest bath is actually folded into a little point just as it is in a fine hotel. Her trash cans are perennially empty. The vacuum trails on the carpet remain somehow forever unspoiled. It's been that way as long as I can remember. I say this not to mock her in any way, but because having raised children myself, and seeming to lack completely the ability to stay ahead of the pile of mail on my kitchen counter, I marvel. 

I did then...I do now. So some things are obviously not genetic. Not that I live like a slob, but I do live. And I haven't yet figured out how to keep some of that living from forever showing up, all over my house.

My mother is the only person I know for whom it might be possible to call the realtor to list her home for sale in the morning, and have the agents' open house at noon. All without ever having to get up out of her chair because there wouldn't be a single thing that needed to be done in preparation. 

She could also get invited to lunch at the White House at 11:00 am and show up at 11:15, not even having needed to comb her hair. This is how she lives. This is where she is comfortable. This is the world she carries or creates, wherever she goes.

I was fortunate to attend a church meeting recently in which she bore her testimony. She said that she has never had a moment's doubt. That she was somehow born with perfect faith, and that it has never wavered. In fact, she has never even considered the fact that it could waver. She believes what she believes. She likes things how she likes them. The universe somehow complies. End of story. 

Well then.

Or maybe alas. Because I don't know how she manages that faith trick either.

The currently popular bit about "doubting your doubts" always makes me smile. Because no one needed to tell me to do that. I doubt everything. Which gives my mind the same real, "lived-in" feel that my house has. My mind and my kitchen counter look quite a bit alike most days, actually. Perhaps someone should do a scientific study to see if that's a universal truth of some kind.

I don't think the quote I used at the beginning casts aspersions on my mother's faith. I think it just means that my own less tidy brand is of equal value.

Anyway, I believe all of this is why I am drawn to Anne Lamott's writings. If you haven't read Anne, perhaps you should. She's not LDS, but is a Presbyterian who took a long time finding her way to God, and who seems to value the long slog as much as she does the destination. Her brand of faith feels very close to my own, and I've decided that's because first and foremost, I feel her acknowledgement that faith is messy. Like all the important things in life. Families, relationships, birth, death...all one big happy mess. 

With faith sitting precariously atop the pyramid like a leaking umbrella. It's not perfect and it can't stop the rain, but at least it keeps a lot of it off while you're running to the car. Even though your feet still get wet. 

I'd like to be the Mormon Anne Lamott. I think we need one, or anyway I do. I'm afraid most Mormons might not share my embrace of the idea of messy faith, however. We like things neat. We like them spelled-out. We are answerers, explainers. Solvers of mysteries. 

We like to watch the rain coming down on the world from inside the sturdy shelter we've built to keep us dry. And when we're forced to venture out, we are continually patching the umbrella.

In my patriarchal blessing, it says that I have been blessed with "a believing heart". Darn it, it's true. As hard and as messy as it gets for me sometimes, my heart wants to believe. So I guess I probably did inherit that from my mother, along with the hefty dose of gray areas from my dad. 

One of me continually pokes holes in things, one of me patches. 

Or on good days just sits still, waiting for the storm to pass. They always do. 

I came across a beautiful passage recently, written by a member whose writings on faith have also resonated for me over the years. In her essay Seeing Without Seeing, Emma Lou Thayne expresses it like this: 

"I believed it all -- the seeing without seeing, the hearing without hearing, the going by feel toward something holy, something that could make her cry and could lift my scalp right off, something as unexplainable as a vision or a mystic connection, something entering the pulse of a little girl, something that no matter what, would never go away. What it had to do with Joseph Smith or his vision or his gospel I never would really understand -- all I know to this day is that I believe. Whatever it is, I believe in it. I get impatient with people's interpretations of it, with dogma and dictum, but somewhere way inside me and way beyond impatience or indifference there is that insistent, infernal, so help me, sacred singing -- All is well, All is well. My own church, inhabited by my own people -- and probably my own doctrines, but my lamp, my song -- my church. I would be cosmically orphaned without it."

And so would I. Darned messy, leaky, imperfect, impatient Faith. Darned Believing Heart. 

But thank you for that gift, Mother. Because it's becoming increasingly clear that, in the end, it will probably be the one that made the difference.

- S.

Aches and Pains.

A thought to help us through 

these difficult times: 

Be kind, for everyone you meet 

is fighting a hard battle. 

-- Ian MacLaren

Hard things in the church are tricky. Your hard things are not my hard things, and vice versa. I wish none of us had hard things, but alas. We're living in a world of them. And unfortunately, it's impossible to keep the realities of our lives from colliding with our doctrine.

Here's one of those tricky examples -- something you may think of as being a warm fuzzy thing. I used to. But I've decided its warm fuzziness hides sharp edges.

That thing is this: Families Can Be Together Forever.

For me, that's a slogan I wish we would let slip away. I know it's meant to bring peace and joy and provide an ideal, a goal from which to draw strength and purpose. And for many people, I'm sure it does. But there are also many people for whom it brings pain. Families are complicated things.

There are people for whom that idea holds no appeal, at all. For whatever reason, their families just don't work. I know several.

There are people who haven't started families of their own, and that's difficult in a church that can feel like it's made of, and for, families. I know some of those too.

There are people whose family members do not all share their spiritual lives or goals. I'll bet we all know many in that position.

It's a nice idea to teach children. It sounds sweet and comfortable and good in Primary. But even that is problematic, because young children are literal thinkers so when they hear that families can be together forever, the chances are good that they're not thinking about it the way the teacher is.

That phrase is a good example of something that seems so harmless, it's hard to imagine it could hurt or offend. But perhaps we'd do better to say that Our Relationships Can Continue Forever. Maybe that would provide a little more space for peace and happiness outside the "family" box. We need a new song.

Anyway, I bring it up because hard things have been on my mind lately. And as church members, we're often not upfront about it when we struggle with things that we think shouldn't cause us to struggle. We assume it's something wrong with us. 

Really what we need is to be able to say, "Ouch. This hard thing hurts me. Just so you all know, I am getting no joy from this, and it's not because I'm not worthy of joy."

We have back-to-back weddings coming up in our family. Two daughters are getting married in the space of two months! It's an exciting time, and we are eager for our family to grow. We feel lucky to have found two of our missing pieces.

But weddings bring up another thing that some might think should not be a hard thing but that for me has been known to cause exquisite pain: the temple.

The temple has always been challenging for me actually, and for a variety of reasons. Some are as simple as claustrophobia. But I've had profound experiences there too, and one of the things I love about the temple is that I never fail to feel the spirit there, even on challenging days. It's a remarkable place.

That being said, the temple also breaks my heart in a way that nothing else in our church does.

In our family, the temple is sometimes an insurmountable, rock-hard divider.

We have one daughter who is no longer an active member of the church. I know a few of her reasons, but I'm sure I don't know them all. I'll be the first to admit that I understand many of her choices, and I can't say I wouldn't be in the same position given her experiences. Bad things happen sometimes, and she has endured a few.

I don't spend time worrying about her in the context of "being together forever" -- I have heard all of the comforting doctrine over the years. More importantly, I have faith in the atonement and in our Savior's ability to know her heart, much more fully than I can.

But I do worry about us being together as a family right here on earth sometimes. When it comes to the church, breaking up is hard to do. For all parties.

We have a strong culture. Eschew the Mormon mold and it's easy to feel that you're no longer "in the club". When she first left, of course it was difficult for us. No one raises children in the church hoping they'll choose a different path. But we moved past it many years ago, and I'm not sure she really understands that. She feels different. She feels a division. I think she believes that we must always be disappointed in her, because she knows our doctrine well.

Having grown up in the church myself, I understand why she would suspect us of having those feelings, why she can't quite believe that we think she's amazing exactly the way she is.

And that's why the temple causes me pain. Because the temple reinforces that division. She won't be at her sister's wedding. How does that make her feel? Probably like she's not in the club. Probably like she's different. Probably like we think she is somehow "less". 

But wait! This is our FAMILY I am talking about. Not a club or an organization, a quorum or a congregation. This is my daughter.

And I can't help being genuinely resentful of anything that would ask me to feel that my darling, beloved girl is in any way "less". She is remarkable. She is full of love and goodness and the most amazing gifts. She's really one of the more extraordinary people I know. And it makes me so sad to think that she has a hard time believing I can see her in exactly that way.

So during the wedding, when I should be overcome with the joy of family and the eternal nature of those loving ties, I will also find myself heartsick for the one who isn't there, and for the way in which that day will probably affirm for her the feeling of being the "other one". 

I know because I've experienced it twice before.

We attended the Nauvoo Temple dedication when the girls were younger and I cried all the way through it. Not because I was touched. I couldn't see that far past my pain. I cried because it was the first time she was officially excluded. The church...that I loved...was putting up an explicit wall within my family. That was the moment it came into clear focus for me. And there was nothing I could do as her mother to fill the gap. No reach could bring her to the other side that day. I felt a deep wound. If she wasn't deemed worthy to be there, why should I want to be?

Then she missed her first sister's wedding. At least I was able to brace for the pain. I wasn't blindsided by it, as I had been the first time, but I could still cry about it right now. Just give me 30 seconds to conjure those feelings up.

In trying to explain something sensitive to me, a friend once said, "Wait until you see one of your daughters sealed in the temple. Then you will understand." I could sense his joy at the eternal glimpse in that pivotal parenting moment. But all I could think of was, "I'm happy for you. Actually, I've already seen that. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't understand." 

You had to be there. For all of it. 

Of course, I'm grateful that two of my daughters have chosen to begin their marriages in the temple. I know the blessing that can be throughout their lives, I know the sacrifices it required, the choices they had to make to be ready for that ordinance. As a mother, my heart truly does rejoice.

But the sadness is nearly unbearable for me too. And I can't deny that. If we could do it any other way, I would.

I tell you all of this only because I suspect some of you will understand. Because I'm sure you have your own hard things. 

Days your heart is breaking while everyone else in the meeting seems to agree that, if you're doing it right, you'll surely be happy. 

Days you hear the message, but it doesn't seem to apply to the reality you see and feel in your personal circumstances.

Days you don't want to teach the lesson because you know it's going to be another hard thing for one of the members of your class.

Days you try to access the joy the gospel can bring but you come up short.

Just about the time I begin to feel like I'm passing the test, I often figure out that the test isn't actually what I thought it was at all. 

And I feel we need to be more aware that even our best teachings, the ones that we are assured will bring peace and happiness if followed, can be hard, painful things for some among us. It all depends on how and where they land. 

We don't need to see the wounds, but I'd like to shift our group perspective a bit so that it's acceptable to acknowledge they're there. Because even though we can't eliminate every hard thing, we can provide softness, kindness, safety, and caring to cushion the blows. Isn't that why we come together every week?

Whether or not we even understand why the cherished words, practices, and principles that bring us joy don't have that same effect on everyone, we need to accept it. Sometimes they just don't. So when it comes to our lives as Latter-day Saints, maybe we should be a bit quieter about how we are all expected to feel. 

Even the best people are not spared hard things.

-S.