Man, I love this guy. Yes, he'll wax a little philosophic (and a little poetic), but this spoke to my soul, and I wanted to share. Happy Halloween with something COMPLETELY unrelated! ;)
There
is an evolution to pecking out of the egg and coming into the light.
Imagine the effect on the chick of having something happen that it can
hardly comprehend, as cracks in the shell become avenues for the first
experience of new light to begin to
impose itself upon the old darkness the chick never knew was darkness
until experiencing more....it did not know what it did not know; how
could it?
Then
the pieces slowly fell away, and something strange--a new light--now
blinded the chick, yet still it pecked until it could escape that which
now is impossible to contain itself, and yet was also so indispensable
to developing itself.
Why
would the chick, then, curse the shell or shadow that may have held it
captive, and necessarily so until that bright day when it was strong
enough to escape the shell, dry in the sun, spread its wings, and in the
new light consider itself and say.....so, this is me; this is who I am!
Be
kind to the darkness then that was your embryonic phase to the person
you are now, and would not give up being today; it's OK that we all
cursed the darkness at times that held us in until we were ready, like
that marvelous scene at the end of the movie--Gravity--to kick off the
very suit that felt weightless and saved us in one moment of our lives,
and became heavy and would have drown us in another.
In
the moment of frustration, while holding her breath, Sandra Bullock's
character surely cursed that heavy space suit under water that moments
earlier had saved her life in space. And so it is with the journey of
life, when one comes to know the earth for the first time...and old
skins must be kicked off to survive the rapid change in the landscape of
our lives.
And
like her character uttered, as she grabbed a hand full of earth as if
feeling it for the first time--as if feeling really, fully alive for the
first time, the only sentiment left to say; a simple but
says-it-all....thank you! I got through all that alive, somehow. All
that came apart in my orbit and threatened me could not, in the end,
destroy me.
I
am OK. Maybe I am not sure where I am in the sometimes disoriented here
or now of adjustment and change, but I am not alone! Neither am I
unchanged. Neither would I go back into that space again---nor can I,
given that the same shrapnel that brought me out remain in that orbit.
And
all of this is reason for joy! And no one, no one....will ever
understand the journey that got you there or out of there, or the
courage it took you to survive that coming apart--borrowing again from
the movie Gravity, and the falling to earth that freed you to be OK in a
whole new way, landing in an unfamiliar place, and in tact as a much
preferred you!
So
you broke the Mormon gravity; get your legs under you now and walk with
head high, heart full, for both the embryonic confinement of the Mormon
experience, and for the personal confidence it took to break free of
its gravitational pull....
There
is no need to curse the old, any more than the chick needs to curse the
shell or the darkness it knew in that place, or the astronaut the
factors that forced an unexpected path change from orbiting earth to
knowing earth in ways you could not have known, otherwise.
And
yes, like in the movie, there are loses along the way, but even those
were part of what got you to here when you needed them to be just who
they were to keep you moving forward.
Even
the darkest echoes from those still in the shell, and who have yet to
know that light--let alone that they walk in darkness at noon
day--deserve not our cursing, but rather call forth our deepest kindness
for what they have yet to experience, until some strange force may
begin to act on them--perhaps the shrapnel coming at them from things in
their own lives coming apart (as in the movie, given that the actors
did not create the problem in the script but were none the less affected
by it), and they instinctively begin pecking.....
And
cannot stop.....they just cannot stop.....(you know that feeling)...and
the new light blinds them, and they initially curse those who brought
them to the light (or the light to them)--like someone waking a sleeping
man on a dark morning with a bright room light...
In that moment they may exclaim--turn off the light, you are blinding me.....
...from their anger, while covering their eyes, being more comfortable with the darkness they know as light....
...before one is ready to begin their awakening!
[Editorial note: If you've not seen Gravity yet...leave off RIGHT NOW and go see it!]
Where we threaten the Church is that our wisdom points
to people in exile being OK in their humanity and divinity, rather than
making all that conditioned upon allegiance to external authority and
upon a God that is not as accessible as he is perceptual or theoretical
in the faith narrative.
God
is not a narrative; God is an inner experience that, if transposed to
narrative, becomes lost in human limitations of thought and word....God
is lost to a world that seeks to name God, rather than just experience
it--the God, that is, that lives within, however you explain the God
narrative to yourself.
I
am always pleased when my friends who have journeyed beyond the walls
of Mormonism discover that they are still OK, that there is meaningful
life beyond the wall, and that they do not encounter an offended God who
whips them with trials until they retreat again behind the wall for
institutional forgiveness and personal refuge from his eternal rage.
After
all, do not the Gods--as explained by their own inventions--invent
humans to meet their needs to be eternally adored and absolutely obeyed?
How
little humans change, only how they tell the stories and mythologies of
their lives to themselves....of which their perceptual gods are a
part....and, truly, a necessary and beneficial part, when well
played....
The
gods of men are so like that, because men are like that; the only god
that can be known by any man is the god he is; thus, god is but a
self-perception and projection, except to the one who is convinced of
the thoughts of his own mind, and whose mind rules over him because he
refuses to examine those thoughts, or empty himself of thoughts about
God, so that a better God might meet him in an open inner landscape of
possibility!
Man
believes the god he has because he believes in the god he is. To the
loving, god/reality is experienced and explained in loving ways; their
imaginations of God have been captured by grace and love, and they speak
of life and God in such adoring and supporting terms.
To
the legalistic, god/reality is experienced and explained in those
terms; assigned rituals, sacraments, ordinances, and obediences become
evidences of God's love for us, and our devotion is reciprocated by
attending to such things with something named perfection.
To
the authoritarian, god/reality is absolute power; absolute love is
surrendered to (and often confused with) absolute human authority; human
authority is the institutional God, incarnate--whether by mine own
voice or the voice of my servants, it is the same; and servants sitting
in seats of power and judgment come to believe their own voice as the
same; think church courts, and how these disciplinary courts are named
"love" by those who conduct them.
From
that power place of taking oneself so seriously/sincerely, men who lead
from authority still practice the blood atonement in theory, when they
encounter the wicked and wish for their punishment--be they of the wrong
sexual orientation, religion, expression, or persuasion, or
inclination.....there is always a way for the right(eous)to make the
sinner wrong, and exile them when they fall short, as all sinners do!
Don't
ask these types to love you unconditionally; they are too busy
numbering the hairs that fall from your head, and finding some way to
assess all that through some right(eous) precept within their
hyper-vigilant minds, as god's self-appointed watchmen and defenders,
and such....they are, as I have experienced, the least teachable,
because they are too busy measuring where everyone else is (or isn't)
right, based on the high standards they know; based on the high standard
they think they are; based on their own unquestioned sense of
rightness.
The
only god we know, then, is the god we are.....if there be an ultimate
and infinite presence called God, it would be incomprehensible to the
human mind, and a terrible antagonist to the very human-will it created
to become, as the Mormon scripture says, its very enemy (the natural man
being an enemy to the very God who created that nature). God, I
suppose, needed a lover and an enemy in us; how erratic and erotic is
such a narrative of God!
And so it seems, as the saying goes, God created man in his image, and then man returned the favor!
Our
natures, being God's named enemy, is a frightful construct; you have no
power against the all powerful. Even worse, God created an invisible
enemy who he cast below to torment us, in order to prove us....because
he does not have all the facts.
He
can only send the rats to the lab and see how they perform when faced
with a human nature he both created and despises, and an enemy he
apparently advises (think Job), and all within a saving plan that
minimizes the god experience to such mantras as: pay, pray, and obey,
rather than trust, love, and seek--as a means of individual expansion,
rather than institutional domination. In short, the God experience can
never be more than an evolving personal narrative. Some tell that
narrative within the framework of a relationship with an institutional
church it confuses as God, while others must tell that narrative from a
greater distance. Either way, it's all narrative; it's all personal;
it's all OK.
The
wisdom of healing, and of giving other people permission to be OK being
them from this place of exile, is that as they make the exodus, they
need not look back and turn to salt. In other words, they need to stop
looking at TBMs to make them OK, to give them permission to be OK being
them as they exile.
As
I stated in this post, there is no TBM who has any way to be OK with
the exile of a loved one they had hoped and struggled to prepare for an
eternal glory with. Stop asking TBMs to make it OK for you to be you in
exile. You ask too much of their mindsets, and you ask for what simply
cannot be--unless you are fortunate enough to be loved without
conditions by the TBMs in your life--either way, then, you do not need
permission to be OK being you in exile from TBMs, for either you already
have that permission because they are TBMs who actually can love
radically, or you won't ever get it, because they have no way to love
that big--because their god and salvation are just too limited.
It
is more important to you, now and always, that you love you that BIG.
That is your job. That is your job alone, to make certain you are
well-loved within. Please know that your journey is not about gaining
approval from others, but knowing in ways other cannot access, the
greater wisdom that whispers outside the temple walls as well as within,
that it is still well with my soul....
No
one, no one has your inner spiritual GPS system, because they are not
called--if you will--to walk your perfect path in life! They can only
project their own "true" onto your path and search.
Oh
what we can teach our TBMs if we can be the love to them we so often
desire--and even demand--from them. Stop asking people to love you for
who you are now; you don't have that right to demand that they love you
at all, let alone love you any certain way. Love is always a gift.
So
just presence to them a God, spirit, grace, love, whatever language you
use, so profound that in time they willingly confront their limited
ways of knowing and experiencing. They may have no way to comprehend how
any of us could be OK outside the wall. They have no framework from
this place of possibility and accessibility to the God we are and know
now!
Just
a PS. I actually believe it is the emptying out of the theistic mind,
or as faiths call it--to be as a child or the beginner's mind--that is
the beginning of experiencing the "surprise" of God, or this idea of God
as radical inner experience, not outer theological explanation.
From
deep within metaphor, symbolism, and parable, we find within our
perceptual language through which the notion of the Divine and Eternal
speak to us.
It
is like the beautiful symbolism and metaphor of Peter walking on the
waves with Christ. Imagine what it took to let go, metaphorically
speaking, and trust the inner faith necessary to walk on water, knowing
full well the impossibility of such a thing.
Juxtapose
that with the boat, in which his fellows both rode and trusted. Such
different paths of faith, those are; religion is the boat, while
something that allows us to walk on water is a different experience of
the inner God that we are. And you cannot access the faith to walk on
water if your faith is in boats!
Once
accessed, once one realizes the faith to walk away from the boat,
because they can, and because doing so brings them to the God of the
impossible or the radical inner spiritual life, then what is to become
of boat/religion? One becomes an (and in) exile, their relationship with
the boat that brought them now forever changed....
The
radical experience of God, cannot be known in the possible; it is the
impossible God who comes to introduce those emptied out and ready to
meet God on God's terms.
The
rest are theists, awaiting their salvation on man's terms. They are the
boat riders who trust in boats; the rest are water walkers who let go
of boats and walk away....
And in the acts of climbing out and letting go, water walkers must unavoidably become boat rockers!
My
imperfections are part of the perfection all things are; I am perfectly
experiencing the illusion of imperfection--and it is only an illusion;
things are as they are--that is reality. To argue against reality is
always a painful experience.
Reality,
then, is but imperfection in perfect order of perfection. It is what it
is; without judging an experience or thing, it becomes, therefore,
nothing to judge or be bothered by, or in other words,
nothing--nothingness....and nothingness is perfection in fullness!
Nothingness is openness.
Nothingness
as openness creates space for gratefulness....or the joy of living
without all the illusions or stories that run like TV reruns over and
over in our minds, until we see that, they, too, are nothing....
Sonia, what is spirituality, then, if not another name for reality?
What
if you looked at the notion of experiencing spirituality as a way of
thinking about reality, including, therefore, any notion of what we
might experience (and name) as God?
What
if God is merely a name given to describe the indescribable, or an
attempt by finite human minds to grapple with the idea that something
has to be larger than itself? Otherwise, it might have to confess itself
as God; and in the very act of determining there must be something
larger than itself, it is being that larger-than-self God. God cannot,
therefore, be known apart from the mind and body. We are the God we
know; the rest is imagination, and that, too is of the mind. There is
not reality outside our minds; there is no God outside our thoughts of
God. God, then, is also nothingness, and from that place of nothingness
comes possibility; God, then, is nothing and everything!
What
if God means something beyond the evolving historical arguments of
theists, originally formed from once indescribable inner experiences
(Saul becoming Paul after unexpectedly experiencing Jesus on the road to
Damascus), now distilled into empty (of transforming power) theologies
by rote theologians--stuck in the arrogance (and identity) of certainty,
whose theologies over time should empty mature believers out of
belief--as these theological propositions/dogmas collapse in on
themselves, as all dogmas eventually do (how many Mormon doctrines have
changed over time that were God's only and unchanging truth at the time
they were defined as such--blood atonement, Blacks and priesthood,
polygamy etc.).
What
a gift eventual doubt and (hopefully) inevitable unbelief become, then,
if they empty us out of the human forms of explaining God. The emptying
is only opening us wide to the gentle and transformational, mystical
and magical forms of experiencing God--radical and unimaginable
experiences we are now open to, and which captivate us and steal away
our breath, while filling us with endless wonder in terms that cannot be
explained, only experienced.
I
experienced this today while sitting at Starbucks. I was caught up in
the magic of escaping my mind and just being with the most eclectic
group of people who all came in together. One sat with me and shared who
they were: a support group for recovering addicts. With no mind to
judge them, but just an openness to experience them, I sat captivated by
their diversity, astonishing diversity that screamed unbelievable
beauty to me.
My
God, they were so beautiful. I nearly cried, as I looked at these
people in their different forms and faces, genders and graciousness. I
was overcome by the splendid energy, different personalities, and
beautiful ways in which each one was perfect at being just what they
are--themselves!
That
was a holy moment for me, because I recognized myself in all of them; I
was in oneness with the entire scene--and that oneness....became
wholeness....which was experienced as holiness....
It
was God I was experiencing, or the perfection of all that was happening
around me (God being all things in oneness), as I just observed from
that inner still and gentle place of love and joy, and it consumed me
with gratitude, as I spoke my encouragement and praise for all that
these people had experienced and overcome in their tribe of support.
I
may have surrendered my former religious mindsets, but I never
sacrificed my spiritual sensitivities or deep desires.....oh no, they
burn even hotter in me now for others....for closeness...for
oneness....with all that is.....
And
so it is, we need tribes of support. Religion provides that in many
ways; exile too often isolates us from one another--so I am glad the
exiles gather here. For even the Zebra are wise enough to graze in
tribal patterns that make it impossible for the lion to distinguish one
from another. And when the bush fire rages they ban together and run
into the fire, together.
Yes,
some are scarred, but all survive, because they run through the
fire--as one, not away from it; they gather and not scatter when the
fire rages. So it is in life; the fire that devoured our past faith was
necessary for us to experience the new undergrowth; new wine cannot be
poured into old bottles. So I say to exiles, come...graze with
me....come...run with me....come....know the me you are! Come, dance
with my soul....
Such is the spiritual community of oneness, and it has nothing to do with theism, but pragmatism--and instinct.
What
if nature is our true scripture, our true order of knowing and
teaching? What if man posits his theories, but nature teaches us how to
be. If we could empty out of explanations, oh what we would be open to
experience....
And
that to me explains reality; and from that place, reality is a
spiritual experience! And that definition works to keep me out of pain
and into joy. Why leave Mormonism from pain, and then stay in that pain?
Heal, fellow exiles....
A
life once defined by Mormonism is still defined that way, when our
minds cannot escape our war with it....no matter how long we have been
apart from it!
And
that disrupted mind, too--as I see it--is also in the service of the
spirituality of reality! For in time the troubled thinker will see that
it is the story they have told themselves about Mormonism they are
fighting, not Mormonism. Mormonism is just what it is. Either it works
for you or it doesn't; either you'll stay or you'll go, or some
variation of both.
Either
(or any) way Mormonism, too, is nothing when no longer judged! Then
gratitude can replace the suffering....and life can move beyond that
former school to new possibilities and introduce us to new teachers!
What is more spiritual than that reality?
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
The Egg, by Andy Weir
You may or may not have read or heard this, but I've been trying for MONTHS to figure out how to explain how I now view the god, existence, human life, the universe, and everything in it, and this sums it up beautifully. Thank you to my dear friend B for sending it. Much love, lady. 'Gina
You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.” I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had. You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time. “Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.
...
The only difference between this and what I'm coming to for myself is that perhaps I take it a step farther: We are not just god in embryo, we ARE god...as it were. God is a collection of experience, a database, if you will, of everything and everyone in the universe, of every experience, of every conceivable avenue of experience and every possible choice that could be made. All-encompassing, in other words, and able to retain each individual experience while allowing the identity born of that experience to also unite with the whole.
.................Or maybe I'm talking out my rear. That's a possibility, too. Either way...it's something to think about. :)
You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.” I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had. You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time. “Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.
...
The only difference between this and what I'm coming to for myself is that perhaps I take it a step farther: We are not just god in embryo, we ARE god...as it were. God is a collection of experience, a database, if you will, of everything and everyone in the universe, of every experience, of every conceivable avenue of experience and every possible choice that could be made. All-encompassing, in other words, and able to retain each individual experience while allowing the identity born of that experience to also unite with the whole.
.................Or maybe I'm talking out my rear. That's a possibility, too. Either way...it's something to think about. :)
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
A Friend's Exit Story
I don't know about you, but I LOVE ex-Mormon exit stories. We all have one that's dramatically different from everyone else's...and yet they're all so amazingly the same.
This one comes from an anonymous former Mormon who has been through a number of inconceivable struggles, and I feel incredibly privileged that she allowed me to read it, let alone share it with you. I do so because she has suffered in ways that perhaps some of you can relate to and understand better than I can, and we all need to know someone else has been there.
So without any further ado: An Amazing Exit Experience.
LEAVING THE BOX
I was born & raised LDS, a sixth generation Mormon, a direct descendant of Parley P. Pratt (a yucky man) on one side. I am the fourth of five children. My Dad was a convert to the church early in my parents' marriage and they were sealed in the temple long before I was ever born. My childhood was sheltered but generally good. I mostly grew up in Idaho but we lived in Utah some too. I was a very "good girl" - I tried really hard to do what was right & to be obedient.
I think the first time I remember having a question about the church was when I was eight yrs. old. I remember asking my Mom if I had to get baptized or could I wait. I told her I didn't KNOW the church was true. She was shocked at my question, & I was baptized but not necessarily by my own choice. Note: I don't blame my parents for anything, so keep that in mind as you read. I think they did the best they could do based on what they knew & believed at the time.
Growing up, I never really fit in with the other kids my age. I was VERY SHY, quiet & introverted. When I was 16 I got my Patriarchal Blessing. I didn't tell anyone what it said. The following Sunday I was waiting in the hallway of the church with all of the other YW to go to YW's classes. Apparently we all had our blessings done around the same time, because the other girls were talking about what their blessings said. I was shocked to discover that mine was exactly WORD FOR WORD the same as theirs! I was so angry! I told my Mom that Heavenly Father must not care about me very much or I would have a blessing that was just for me, instead of having one that was generic! She told me that if we are righteous we are all entitled to the same blessings. She couldn't really console me at all on this topic & I never forgot this.
I did four years of Seminary; I was my Seminary teacher's prize student. I read the Book of Mormon many times, prayed hard, & got no answer about its truthfulness. My Seminary teacher told me that the reason I didn't get the burning in the bosom was because (& I quote), "You ALREADY KNOW IT'S TRUE!!" For some odd reason that made me feel special.
When I was 18 I married someone I really did not know. He was a so-called "worthy Priesthood holder" who wanted me to be a stay-at-home wife & bear his children. He told me he had a revelation that I was to marry him (he'd had "a vision".) When I was eight (he was 16) he told me that if my sister wouldn't marry him, he wanted me to marry him. Boy was I flattered, as a little kid, I didn't know that was just nasty & weird!! However, it stayed in my brain. Growing up, I heard my Mom talk about how wonderful this guy was & how she'd love to have him as a son-in-law some day. (Again, I don't blame her.) I was a people-pleaser, so you can guess how this affected me.
My ex’s Stake president referred to him as a "spiritual giant" & had told him he would one day be a stake president himself. (That didn't happen.) I mention this because a lot of people were fooled by my ex. When we married, he was 26, divorced, & had two kids. (His ex-wife was a convert who had realized she was gay, so she left him & the church.) He sexually assaulted me a few days before we married but I was scared & very embarrassed so I didn't tell a soul. I thought it must have been my fault somehow. I felt OBLIGATED to marry him because of this, because I was not clean & pure anymore. We went to the Temple & were sealed. I felt very UNWORTHY, but he didn't even feel bad about what he did. I was surprised that when we went into the Temple no one had a revelation that he was unworthy!! I cried all night long on my pathetic sealing night, knowing I had made a big mistake in marrying him, but I was too scared to tell anyone. This was the beginning of a 16 year long marriage to an abusive, horrible, con-man. He was abusive to me in every possible way, emotionally, physically, economically, & sexually.
We moved right after we were married & I got pregnant 3 months later. He lost his job 4 months after we married, & didn't try to get another job. We were dirt poor, & I mean poorer than most people ever experience here in the USA. We had no phone, one barely working car, no money, no food, & on top of that, I had never been away from my family before so I suffered horrible home sickness. We lived in a literal shack (rent $40 a month) that was condemned & torn down after we moved out of it.
I went to my Bishop and confessed my sexual "sins" (of being sexually assaulted) during a temple recommend interview. I took full responsibility for what my ex had done to me, as if it were my fault, & the Bishop never really knew the TRUTH of what happened. My ex didn’t want me to talk to anyone about anything that he perceived as private.
I had my first baby in 1992 at age 19. I had my second baby two yrs. later at 21. Then at 22, my step-kids moved in with us. I had never even met them before (they were ages nine & seven at the time) because their Mom had moved away & kept the kids away from my ex. He hadn’t seen them in 4.5 years. I was too young to be raising four kids, & I didn't know what I was doing. It was really hard on me. My ex was abusive to the kids as well as to me - I saved them several times from being beaten half to death by him. (There were a few times I thought he was going to kill his kids.)
I was pregnant a total of ten times; I miscarried five times. I had priesthood blessings that stated the babies/pregnancies would be healthy & well... blah blah blah…. only to lose half of them. I really started to question the power of the Priesthood, however, thanks to the double-bind, I believed I must not be righteous enough for those blessings!!! Of course, it was my fault somehow, right??
In 1999 my firstborn child was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. I asked for a blessing of healing for her from the missionaries, who told me they could not do it, & I needed to ask my Home Teachers. I asked the Home Teachers, who would not give her a blessing of healing, but he just asked for “God's will to be done”. My Dad & some other P. holders gave her a blessing, but again, all they said was, “God's will be done” (not blessing her to be healed). Then the Stake President said he had a revelation that it was her time to go. I just remember thinking that if these men REALLY had the ability to heal AS CHRIST DID, WHY would they not use that power to save a six year old whose faith was purer than anyone else's??? (She never doubted she'd be healed & never once complained.) I came to the conclusion that the reason they didn't do it was because they COULDN'T do it. Jesus didn't say "no" to anyone when people asked Him for a healing. He didn't tell people it was their time to go! My daughter died at age six & it changed my life forever. I never believed 100% in the church after that, I felt for the first time that I really didn't KNOW anything, & it scared the living hell out of me. My Patriarchal blessing did not have ONE SINGLE THING in it to help me through my daughter's death. Not one. And I combed through it over and over again, just looking for one little thing to comfort me.
I really wanted a divorce after my daughter died. I went to my many different bishops throughout the years as we moved around, they all told me I needed to work out my marriage & try to be a BETTER WIFE (even after my ex had hit me in the face!). I had a Stake President who told me that it would be a sin for me to leave my husband & that we did NOT NEED LOVE to make our marriage work!! After years of suffering I stopped talking to anyone about what was going on at home. Most people had no idea.
My ex was called to be a counselor to the Bishop in the second to last ward we were in. I told the Bishop I didn't think he was worthy of being a Counselor & he said, "All the wives say that!" (Wow, really? Maybe someone should start listening to the wives! Maybe they know something!!) I really thought it was nuts that no one ever had any inspiration or revelation about my ex, he was respected & liked (he is an amazing manipulator) up until the last ward we were in together. When we first moved to that ward we had a really good Bishop (who was released from that calling during our six years there). I think that Bishop could see my ex wasn't such a Peter Priesthood. He also listened to me when I told him I was tired of Primary callings. (I had taught nursery/primary for most of my married church years.)
All of these things led me in the direction that would eventually get me out of the church. In 2005 I was pregnant with my fifth child & doing three callings. This was the ward we lived in the longest, & for the first time ever I wasn't working in the Primary. I taught the 12 & 13 year old Sunday school class (averaging 15-22 kids a week), visiting teaching, & taught the Enrichment lessons once a month. (I think there was one more calling but I can't remember what it was now.) Our NEW Bishop (not the one I liked) called me to play the piano in RS at this time. I felt that God had nothing to do with callings. If God was involved He would know I couldn't handle four+ callings on top of being pregnant, raising four kids (my oldest step-child had moved out by this time), & being completely miserable in my marriage! I didn't think Mormon men had access to any revelation at this point.
Right around this time, my Mom had told me about a book she thought I should read called An Insider's View of Mormon Origins by Grant Palmer. (My youngest brother had recommended it to her.) I thought if the church is really true it won't matter what I read because if the church is "true", it will still be true! I think I was on chapter three in this book when I realized I was DONE being a Mormon! My ex resigned with me June of 2005. He wasn't doing his callings anymore, he was skipping classes & flirting with other women in the hallway during meetings (always a habit of his), & he was tired of being pressured to do his callings. We resigned five months before my last baby was born.
Also around this same time my step-son was caught molesting my daughter so my ex kicked him out of the house (he sent him to live with his mother). The Bishop & the whole ward sided with the step-son, saying that I was lying about what had happened & that I was just trying to destroy his testimony! I found out that the other LDS kids, including the Bishop’s kids, were harassing my daughter on the school bus telling her she was lying, & she was just trying to cause trouble for my step-son! Interesting but I never heard any slander towards my ex, it was just ALL MY FAULT.
After resigning from the church, I went to non-LDS therapy on my own, against my ex's wishes, & ten months after I started therapy, I realized I wasn't a crazy person & my ex WAS abusive (& it wasn’t MY FAULT!). I left him, everything WE owned, & I moved back home where my parents live. I got on an airplane with my four daughters, only $200 to my name, our clothes, & left everything else behind. I started my life over. I live in the SAME town where I grew up which is very difficult because of how saturated this area is with LDS & also that every time I go into the schools, post office, grocery store, etc. I see people I knew when I was growing up. (We live in a small town with FOUR LDS chapels. VERY SATURATED.)
I don't know how long it will take me to really fully recover from Mormonism. I don't know when I will truly learn how to reason like other people do. I am convinced that brainwashing stays with you for a long time. I feel angry when I see how unfairly I was treated as a female in the church. I hate how women are disregarded in the church! I still struggle with trusting myself & trusting my own intuition, & being logical. I still find that I am too trusting of other people when I shouldn't be. I made so many very important decisions in my life based on WHAT OTHER PEOPLE TOLD ME, & I trusted priesthood holders more than myself, which caused me a lot of grief!!
I went through hell to get my divorce, my ex stalked me & bought me a GRAVE. I had a few years of classes & therapy at the women's shelter, which changed my life. My ex moved away & rarely sees the kids now & I'm re-married to a wonderful man who truly sees men & women as EQUAL. That is amazing to me right there. He has never once made me feel like I am less than he is.
Thank you for being interested in my story. I hope this isn't too choppy or confusing, I never went to college or took any writing classes.
No, my dear, neither choppy nor confusing. Just amazing. Thank you for your example, your strength, and your commitment to your children and your sanity. Thank you to your new, wonderful husband. Thank you for sharing this. May it be a strength for someone in need.
This one comes from an anonymous former Mormon who has been through a number of inconceivable struggles, and I feel incredibly privileged that she allowed me to read it, let alone share it with you. I do so because she has suffered in ways that perhaps some of you can relate to and understand better than I can, and we all need to know someone else has been there.
So without any further ado: An Amazing Exit Experience.
LEAVING THE BOX
I was born & raised LDS, a sixth generation Mormon, a direct descendant of Parley P. Pratt (a yucky man) on one side. I am the fourth of five children. My Dad was a convert to the church early in my parents' marriage and they were sealed in the temple long before I was ever born. My childhood was sheltered but generally good. I mostly grew up in Idaho but we lived in Utah some too. I was a very "good girl" - I tried really hard to do what was right & to be obedient.
I think the first time I remember having a question about the church was when I was eight yrs. old. I remember asking my Mom if I had to get baptized or could I wait. I told her I didn't KNOW the church was true. She was shocked at my question, & I was baptized but not necessarily by my own choice. Note: I don't blame my parents for anything, so keep that in mind as you read. I think they did the best they could do based on what they knew & believed at the time.
Growing up, I never really fit in with the other kids my age. I was VERY SHY, quiet & introverted. When I was 16 I got my Patriarchal Blessing. I didn't tell anyone what it said. The following Sunday I was waiting in the hallway of the church with all of the other YW to go to YW's classes. Apparently we all had our blessings done around the same time, because the other girls were talking about what their blessings said. I was shocked to discover that mine was exactly WORD FOR WORD the same as theirs! I was so angry! I told my Mom that Heavenly Father must not care about me very much or I would have a blessing that was just for me, instead of having one that was generic! She told me that if we are righteous we are all entitled to the same blessings. She couldn't really console me at all on this topic & I never forgot this.
I did four years of Seminary; I was my Seminary teacher's prize student. I read the Book of Mormon many times, prayed hard, & got no answer about its truthfulness. My Seminary teacher told me that the reason I didn't get the burning in the bosom was because (& I quote), "You ALREADY KNOW IT'S TRUE!!" For some odd reason that made me feel special.
When I was 18 I married someone I really did not know. He was a so-called "worthy Priesthood holder" who wanted me to be a stay-at-home wife & bear his children. He told me he had a revelation that I was to marry him (he'd had "a vision".) When I was eight (he was 16) he told me that if my sister wouldn't marry him, he wanted me to marry him. Boy was I flattered, as a little kid, I didn't know that was just nasty & weird!! However, it stayed in my brain. Growing up, I heard my Mom talk about how wonderful this guy was & how she'd love to have him as a son-in-law some day. (Again, I don't blame her.) I was a people-pleaser, so you can guess how this affected me.
My ex’s Stake president referred to him as a "spiritual giant" & had told him he would one day be a stake president himself. (That didn't happen.) I mention this because a lot of people were fooled by my ex. When we married, he was 26, divorced, & had two kids. (His ex-wife was a convert who had realized she was gay, so she left him & the church.) He sexually assaulted me a few days before we married but I was scared & very embarrassed so I didn't tell a soul. I thought it must have been my fault somehow. I felt OBLIGATED to marry him because of this, because I was not clean & pure anymore. We went to the Temple & were sealed. I felt very UNWORTHY, but he didn't even feel bad about what he did. I was surprised that when we went into the Temple no one had a revelation that he was unworthy!! I cried all night long on my pathetic sealing night, knowing I had made a big mistake in marrying him, but I was too scared to tell anyone. This was the beginning of a 16 year long marriage to an abusive, horrible, con-man. He was abusive to me in every possible way, emotionally, physically, economically, & sexually.
We moved right after we were married & I got pregnant 3 months later. He lost his job 4 months after we married, & didn't try to get another job. We were dirt poor, & I mean poorer than most people ever experience here in the USA. We had no phone, one barely working car, no money, no food, & on top of that, I had never been away from my family before so I suffered horrible home sickness. We lived in a literal shack (rent $40 a month) that was condemned & torn down after we moved out of it.
I went to my Bishop and confessed my sexual "sins" (of being sexually assaulted) during a temple recommend interview. I took full responsibility for what my ex had done to me, as if it were my fault, & the Bishop never really knew the TRUTH of what happened. My ex didn’t want me to talk to anyone about anything that he perceived as private.
I had my first baby in 1992 at age 19. I had my second baby two yrs. later at 21. Then at 22, my step-kids moved in with us. I had never even met them before (they were ages nine & seven at the time) because their Mom had moved away & kept the kids away from my ex. He hadn’t seen them in 4.5 years. I was too young to be raising four kids, & I didn't know what I was doing. It was really hard on me. My ex was abusive to the kids as well as to me - I saved them several times from being beaten half to death by him. (There were a few times I thought he was going to kill his kids.)
I was pregnant a total of ten times; I miscarried five times. I had priesthood blessings that stated the babies/pregnancies would be healthy & well... blah blah blah…. only to lose half of them. I really started to question the power of the Priesthood, however, thanks to the double-bind, I believed I must not be righteous enough for those blessings!!! Of course, it was my fault somehow, right??
In 1999 my firstborn child was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. I asked for a blessing of healing for her from the missionaries, who told me they could not do it, & I needed to ask my Home Teachers. I asked the Home Teachers, who would not give her a blessing of healing, but he just asked for “God's will to be done”. My Dad & some other P. holders gave her a blessing, but again, all they said was, “God's will be done” (not blessing her to be healed). Then the Stake President said he had a revelation that it was her time to go. I just remember thinking that if these men REALLY had the ability to heal AS CHRIST DID, WHY would they not use that power to save a six year old whose faith was purer than anyone else's??? (She never doubted she'd be healed & never once complained.) I came to the conclusion that the reason they didn't do it was because they COULDN'T do it. Jesus didn't say "no" to anyone when people asked Him for a healing. He didn't tell people it was their time to go! My daughter died at age six & it changed my life forever. I never believed 100% in the church after that, I felt for the first time that I really didn't KNOW anything, & it scared the living hell out of me. My Patriarchal blessing did not have ONE SINGLE THING in it to help me through my daughter's death. Not one. And I combed through it over and over again, just looking for one little thing to comfort me.
I really wanted a divorce after my daughter died. I went to my many different bishops throughout the years as we moved around, they all told me I needed to work out my marriage & try to be a BETTER WIFE (even after my ex had hit me in the face!). I had a Stake President who told me that it would be a sin for me to leave my husband & that we did NOT NEED LOVE to make our marriage work!! After years of suffering I stopped talking to anyone about what was going on at home. Most people had no idea.
My ex was called to be a counselor to the Bishop in the second to last ward we were in. I told the Bishop I didn't think he was worthy of being a Counselor & he said, "All the wives say that!" (Wow, really? Maybe someone should start listening to the wives! Maybe they know something!!) I really thought it was nuts that no one ever had any inspiration or revelation about my ex, he was respected & liked (he is an amazing manipulator) up until the last ward we were in together. When we first moved to that ward we had a really good Bishop (who was released from that calling during our six years there). I think that Bishop could see my ex wasn't such a Peter Priesthood. He also listened to me when I told him I was tired of Primary callings. (I had taught nursery/primary for most of my married church years.)
All of these things led me in the direction that would eventually get me out of the church. In 2005 I was pregnant with my fifth child & doing three callings. This was the ward we lived in the longest, & for the first time ever I wasn't working in the Primary. I taught the 12 & 13 year old Sunday school class (averaging 15-22 kids a week), visiting teaching, & taught the Enrichment lessons once a month. (I think there was one more calling but I can't remember what it was now.) Our NEW Bishop (not the one I liked) called me to play the piano in RS at this time. I felt that God had nothing to do with callings. If God was involved He would know I couldn't handle four+ callings on top of being pregnant, raising four kids (my oldest step-child had moved out by this time), & being completely miserable in my marriage! I didn't think Mormon men had access to any revelation at this point.
Right around this time, my Mom had told me about a book she thought I should read called An Insider's View of Mormon Origins by Grant Palmer. (My youngest brother had recommended it to her.) I thought if the church is really true it won't matter what I read because if the church is "true", it will still be true! I think I was on chapter three in this book when I realized I was DONE being a Mormon! My ex resigned with me June of 2005. He wasn't doing his callings anymore, he was skipping classes & flirting with other women in the hallway during meetings (always a habit of his), & he was tired of being pressured to do his callings. We resigned five months before my last baby was born.
Also around this same time my step-son was caught molesting my daughter so my ex kicked him out of the house (he sent him to live with his mother). The Bishop & the whole ward sided with the step-son, saying that I was lying about what had happened & that I was just trying to destroy his testimony! I found out that the other LDS kids, including the Bishop’s kids, were harassing my daughter on the school bus telling her she was lying, & she was just trying to cause trouble for my step-son! Interesting but I never heard any slander towards my ex, it was just ALL MY FAULT.
After resigning from the church, I went to non-LDS therapy on my own, against my ex's wishes, & ten months after I started therapy, I realized I wasn't a crazy person & my ex WAS abusive (& it wasn’t MY FAULT!). I left him, everything WE owned, & I moved back home where my parents live. I got on an airplane with my four daughters, only $200 to my name, our clothes, & left everything else behind. I started my life over. I live in the SAME town where I grew up which is very difficult because of how saturated this area is with LDS & also that every time I go into the schools, post office, grocery store, etc. I see people I knew when I was growing up. (We live in a small town with FOUR LDS chapels. VERY SATURATED.)
I don't know how long it will take me to really fully recover from Mormonism. I don't know when I will truly learn how to reason like other people do. I am convinced that brainwashing stays with you for a long time. I feel angry when I see how unfairly I was treated as a female in the church. I hate how women are disregarded in the church! I still struggle with trusting myself & trusting my own intuition, & being logical. I still find that I am too trusting of other people when I shouldn't be. I made so many very important decisions in my life based on WHAT OTHER PEOPLE TOLD ME, & I trusted priesthood holders more than myself, which caused me a lot of grief!!
I went through hell to get my divorce, my ex stalked me & bought me a GRAVE. I had a few years of classes & therapy at the women's shelter, which changed my life. My ex moved away & rarely sees the kids now & I'm re-married to a wonderful man who truly sees men & women as EQUAL. That is amazing to me right there. He has never once made me feel like I am less than he is.
Thank you for being interested in my story. I hope this isn't too choppy or confusing, I never went to college or took any writing classes.
No, my dear, neither choppy nor confusing. Just amazing. Thank you for your example, your strength, and your commitment to your children and your sanity. Thank you to your new, wonderful husband. Thank you for sharing this. May it be a strength for someone in need.
Monday, April 1, 2013
"What If You're Wrong?"
I have a very dear friend with whom I love to lunch and shop. She is LDS. I am No Longer a Mormon. (Sorry, had to.) Her kids are my kids' ages and older, so we have time during the day. (Yes, there are sometimes perks to being a stay-home Mom.) We went to lunch today, and talked, as we sometimes do, about "where I am now," as it were.
First, I adore her. She's one of my dearest friends in the world.
That said, today we were discussing how I DON'T sit down with true-believing members to recite all the Mormon Skeleton Closet History Tidbits I've absorbed in the last couple years because I have NO desire to blow anyone's testimony out of the water. I feel that if someone wants to know the truth, they will seek it out, and if they prefer to enjoy the delusion, it won't matter what I have to say, what evidence I have to offer, or what the real truth is...their cognitive dissonance will kick in, and they will continue to embrace the delusion.
That was fine with her. So fine, in fact, that she replied, "Good." Then came the kicker: "Because WHAT IF YOU'RE WRONG?"
.......................................Yes, what if I'm wrong? Well, then, I'd be acting as one of Satan's minions to drag people away from salvation, and I'd be destined for HELL.
Of course, that's if you're a true-believing Mormon.
So I told her I wasn't wrong, and I would gladly share all the information I've discovered with anyone who wanted to know what I had to offer. I told her I had no fear of the LDS version of God - no fear of God at all, for that matter, because a) if "He" exists, He is vastly different from what Mormons imagine, and b) I have come to understand that God is Love, and I have no fear of God.
Furthermore, I explained that "if" I was wrong, no one knows my head and heart like God ostensibly does, and He would understand my sincerity. Additionally, since He has never, EVER told me that this is "His" gospel, He must therefore take responsibility for my swaying people away from the church, as He has never directed me otherwise.
Then came the clincher, and she didn't like it much. I looked her in the eye and asked, "What if YOU'RE wrong?"
We were at an impasse.
She told me that she isn't wrong, either. She bore her testimony to me and confirmed that she has received personal revelation that the Church is True. And she told me that if she IS wrong, she will at least have lived a good and moral life.
But the Born-Again God won't welcome her Home. Allah will want nothing to do with her. Jehovah God will let her disappear into Gehenna.
My God? "He" just wants me to be true to myself, to seek out truth wherever I find it and however often I have to revise my thinking when new evidence is presented. Jesus was a hoax? Okay. I'm still me. The JW's are nuts? Still just Regina. The Jews could've clipped the side curls and walked right by the Wailing Wall? Regina is happily Regina. Allah is a crazy figment of a warped Mohammedan imagination? Regina's okay!
The Zoroastrians were right?! .......... Well, I'LL never know about it...and I still get to enjoy my coffee in the morning.
I don't need to be scared by threats of condemnation. If God exists - and I'm at about 60% right now in believing that some form of God exists, even if it's just "The All" - that's great; it means I might get to enjoy some sort of afterlife. If God doesn't exist - and frankly, I've seen no concrete evidence either way - that's fine, too; I'd better enjoy my existence while I have it to enjoy!
So what if I'm wrong? What if she's right, and I really DID need the patriarchal grip to get past the Celestial sentinels?
That's a God I refuse to worship...and I'm okay with that.
Besides.................I'm not wrong. ;)
First, I adore her. She's one of my dearest friends in the world.
That said, today we were discussing how I DON'T sit down with true-believing members to recite all the Mormon Skeleton Closet History Tidbits I've absorbed in the last couple years because I have NO desire to blow anyone's testimony out of the water. I feel that if someone wants to know the truth, they will seek it out, and if they prefer to enjoy the delusion, it won't matter what I have to say, what evidence I have to offer, or what the real truth is...their cognitive dissonance will kick in, and they will continue to embrace the delusion.
That was fine with her. So fine, in fact, that she replied, "Good." Then came the kicker: "Because WHAT IF YOU'RE WRONG?"
.......................................Yes, what if I'm wrong? Well, then, I'd be acting as one of Satan's minions to drag people away from salvation, and I'd be destined for HELL.
Of course, that's if you're a true-believing Mormon.
So I told her I wasn't wrong, and I would gladly share all the information I've discovered with anyone who wanted to know what I had to offer. I told her I had no fear of the LDS version of God - no fear of God at all, for that matter, because a) if "He" exists, He is vastly different from what Mormons imagine, and b) I have come to understand that God is Love, and I have no fear of God.
Furthermore, I explained that "if" I was wrong, no one knows my head and heart like God ostensibly does, and He would understand my sincerity. Additionally, since He has never, EVER told me that this is "His" gospel, He must therefore take responsibility for my swaying people away from the church, as He has never directed me otherwise.
Then came the clincher, and she didn't like it much. I looked her in the eye and asked, "What if YOU'RE wrong?"
We were at an impasse.
She told me that she isn't wrong, either. She bore her testimony to me and confirmed that she has received personal revelation that the Church is True. And she told me that if she IS wrong, she will at least have lived a good and moral life.
But the Born-Again God won't welcome her Home. Allah will want nothing to do with her. Jehovah God will let her disappear into Gehenna.
My God? "He" just wants me to be true to myself, to seek out truth wherever I find it and however often I have to revise my thinking when new evidence is presented. Jesus was a hoax? Okay. I'm still me. The JW's are nuts? Still just Regina. The Jews could've clipped the side curls and walked right by the Wailing Wall? Regina is happily Regina. Allah is a crazy figment of a warped Mohammedan imagination? Regina's okay!
The Zoroastrians were right?! .......... Well, I'LL never know about it...and I still get to enjoy my coffee in the morning.
I don't need to be scared by threats of condemnation. If God exists - and I'm at about 60% right now in believing that some form of God exists, even if it's just "The All" - that's great; it means I might get to enjoy some sort of afterlife. If God doesn't exist - and frankly, I've seen no concrete evidence either way - that's fine, too; I'd better enjoy my existence while I have it to enjoy!
So what if I'm wrong? What if she's right, and I really DID need the patriarchal grip to get past the Celestial sentinels?
That's a God I refuse to worship...and I'm okay with that.
Besides.................I'm not wrong. ;)
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
A Little Busy...
Sorry, I'll be posting more and more regularly soon, but you can imagine I've been just a little busy with the publishing bit. I'm currently working on a "Christian" version of the book (you know, sans four-letter words!) and getting established on facebook, but a friend recently shared a youtube video with me, and I HAD to pass it along.
You see, I'm floundering terribly in my beliefs right now (whatever they are!), and this video seemed as close to what I'm able to accept and understand about God for the moment, meaning that, at least for the time being, I think I'm a Pantheist. (Click on the word for the video link.) I was thinking Humanist, maybe Deist...but this video describes where I am, and if that's a Pantheist, then that's me!
Enjoy, and please feel free to comment any time! 'Gina
You see, I'm floundering terribly in my beliefs right now (whatever they are!), and this video seemed as close to what I'm able to accept and understand about God for the moment, meaning that, at least for the time being, I think I'm a Pantheist. (Click on the word for the video link.) I was thinking Humanist, maybe Deist...but this video describes where I am, and if that's a Pantheist, then that's me!
Enjoy, and please feel free to comment any time! 'Gina
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