How Prophetic

It's been a while. (Hey, I've been busy. This whole "reality" thing is involved!) That said, something occurred to me this morning, and I absolutely HAD to post it...just in case it turns out I'm a prophet!

I've heard for MONTHS now that the lds church will shortly be announcing that civil ceremonies prior to temple ceremonies will not pose the standard "Now you have to wait a year to be sealed" problem with which we in the United States currently struggle. First it was supposed to be announced in the April general conference, then in the October general conference.

It hasn't been announced.

But that doesn't mean it won't yet. There are a host of Mormons who would (almost) kill to have the U.S.-only policy changed. (Note: we've been jealous of our U.K. friends for years, who marry first, and can be sealed thereafter whenever they want.) There has been considerable pressure on the church for the last number of years to change the policy (which policy was not always there), and though the church likely considers it "lowering their standards", they will most likely yet bow to popular pressure.

It wouldn't be the first time.

And of course that pisses off a whole bunch of us, not that they would change their policies, but that we got SCREWED. Of all my family and extended family, I had ONLY MY PARENTS in the sealing room when my husband and I were married. Everyone else was outside. My husband had his parents, one brother and his wife, and an aunt and uncle. That was IT for family that got to witness our union. Yes, it sucked, and yes, we sucked for thinking that that was the way it had to be. (In other words, I'm as bitter with myself as I am with the church, but the amount of disgust and ridicule we'd have had to endure had we made any other choice, combined with the inevitable limiting of our "progression" in the church hierarchy [I'd likely never have been a YW president, and he'd likely never have been either an EQ president or bishopric member!] made us feel like we had no choice in the matter.) But this is not about our personal feelings.

This is about how I believe the church will indeed bow to the people...but spin it to make it look like they are the victim, bowing to the pressure only because they absolutely had to thanks to Satan's control of the nasty United States government. The church, in other words, will play the victim.

What exactly does that look like?

There is considerable political pressure on all states, Utah included, to recognize marriage between homosexuals. The church - and many others - have wrongfully claimed that if homosexual marriage is legal, they will be forced to perform such marriages. This is not true, but it makes Christians sounds persecuted, and Christians love nothing more than feeling persecuted. Mormons have taken a particular shine to feeling persecuted, as evidenced by a handful of instances throughout church history. (That was sarcasm, by the way. It just doesn't translate via blog. There are infinitely more than a handful of instances, of course, but my most favorite recent "we're being persecuted!" moment was the church's recent release of a short film addressing garments and why they're not weird. Riiiiiight.)

And so, as homosexual marriage is legal in more and more states (and will, if people in this country are still possessed of any common decency, become legal across the board), the church leaders in Utah will use the political pressure placed upon them to cry foul, persecution, and destruction of religious freedom. I believe that at some point in the not too far distant future, the church will pull the following:

1. They will give one last desperate plea to the rest of the Christian world for support upholding heterosexual marriage as the one and only, demonstrating how slammed they have been by the media and gay activist groups, and begging for the hand of Christian friendship so that they can be yet more mainstreamed by Christians.
2. They will make a huge showing of having to change their policies because the government is blackmailing them by threatening their tax-exempt status, or because the country has become horribly wicked and the lord told the prophet to separate the church from the practices of the world, or because they (and other faiths!!! See, we're just like you!) are having their religious liberties curtailed so that evil and unnatural practices can be upheld, and... 
3. THEREFORE they will NO LONGER be conducting ANY WEDDING in ANY BUILDING, WHATSOEVER and WHEREVER. All marriages will henceforth be civil marriages, conducted civilly by the empowered individual of your choice.
4. Temples will NO LONGER perform ANY MARRIAGES, but SEALINGS ONLY.
5. In order to be sealed in a temple, individuals MUST FIRST have been married by civil powers.
6. They will stare tragically at the cameras, have their press department spin the dickens out of it, and sit back contentedly when young engaged couples first bemoan the added costs of their weddings, but then revel in the fact that everyone can be present for their vows.
7. The Utah economy will enjoy a slight bump, at least for those in the wedding business, as families now plan civil weddings, receptions (which will still be allowed in church buildings so as not to piss off tithe payers), and after-sealing parties/luncheons/etc.

And there you have it. When the church DOES announce their change in policy - which change has long been planned to mollify the masses - it will be at a politically beneficial juncture so they come out looking not like they bowed to member pressure, but like they are victims of persecution by an unrighteous government...and probably a Democrat-led government, at that.

I do prophesy in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Amen.

Now, let's see just how much better a prophet I am than Tom Monson, shall we?

Mormon Jargon

Found this this morning, and I almost died laughing. Enjoy!

More from Mr. Birrell

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?

The Bishop ***Trigger Warning***

Read this post yesterday, but it has stayed with me. No, this is not the norm, of course, but there is a now-ex'd bishop in our stake that is currently in jail for molesting a few of the young women in his ward, and I think this needs to be addressed openly and regularly until the church adopts additional fail-safes.

There are LOTS of things that need to be addressed openly and regularly, of course, but the psychological damage caused by men like these - and like a member of OUR ward who was JUST arrested for molesting his granddaughter - is absolutely chief on my list.

Please note the trigger warning above. For those of you who have experienced anything like this in any way, you may not wish to read about this woman's experience. For those who haven't, I sincerely feel it's important to understand what can and does happen in private interviews.

Best, 'Gina

Doubt Your Doubts, Not Your Faith

Conference is now officially the worst time of the year for me...and it comes twice. (Thanks for that, Mormons.) I received not one but SIX emails from LDS friends who wanted to let me know they thought of me when they heard Uchtdorf's talk about doubting one's doubts, rather than doubting one's faith.

I've been stewing for two days.

Then today I read this post over at The Church of the Fridge entitled "I Doubt It." It made my day. Perhaps it'll make yours, too.

Enjoy,
Regina

A Letter to Female Missionaries from a Lady RM

I know of a woman named Lori Crandall from an ex-LDS group on facebook who happens to be a smart, gifted, straightforward soul. She recently posted a letter to female missionaries who are about to leave on their missions, and it was so awesome, I HAD to ask her for permission to re-post it. It simply must be shared. (For more about/from Lori, please visit her website here.)

Without further ado, then, I give you Lori's letter to pavement-pounding Sisters. Enjoy. I did.

A word of advice to all new female missionaries preparing to enter the MTC.

As you are just heading out on your mission, I entered the MTC almost the same day back in 1990. I'm now about to turn 44.

I don't think it is possible to understand how Patriarchy hurts women until you actually enter the mission field and you see how the church is run and you see just how little power you really have. You work and work and then have to turn your investigators over to a boy 3 years younger than you to baptize and your investigator is looking at you like you are a weak, weak woman who can't literally work for god on her own. Wait, you'll see.

Then, you'll go to numerous zone meetings where the boys will get up and preside and lead and you will sit quietly with your companion and say nothing.

You will work at least 80 hours a week and still jump when the DL calls and wants you teach one of their female investigators even though you are exhausted, your laundry needs done, you've eaten nothing but pasta all week,...you'll go...because the boys come first and you have to be "selfless". And, when your companion or yourself becomes suicidal because of the lack of any control you have over your life out there...you'll be blamed, not the church, not the program, not the regime.

So, here's my advice and I hope you can here me. Remember this...you are doing all of this for FREE. Either you, or your friends and family are paying for you to be a saleswoman for the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For the next 18 months, you will attempt to convert people who will pay 10% to the church for a lifetime. You are literally filling the back accounts of the church, while yours is emptying. And when you come back, there is nothing for you. No tuition assistance, no lump sum payment...nothing. But the church could have already made thousands because of your work and hard hard labor.

So, I will tell you what I wish someone would have told me. When you are tired. Don't go out.

When you are sick, go to a doctor, listen to her/him and go back to your flat and don't go out.

If you are mentally exhausted. Stop working and go see the sights and forget the work for the day and just focus on you and re energizing your batteries.

If you are in a flat that is too cold or too hot, or that has mold, or rats, or any infestations...DEMAND to move, immediately. DO NOT JEOPARDIZE your health for this mission.

Remember, if you spent this time in the military, you'd be making serious money, and they would house and feed you well. A mission is opposite, you are being drained and you will feel that in just a few days when your parents drive away and are thinking all is well. It won't be and only you will know that as it's you out there,...not them. Also, if the moment comes where you don't want to be there anymore. If you have given all you can and your soul is on the verge of breaking...don't worry about family, friends or expectations...get home, save yourself and do what you want where you want and pursue your dreams.

Remember, this is voluntary and you are losing money.

I'll tell you the truth, when I got out there...after 2 months I was done. That is a LONG time to give your days and nights for free to any organization. 18 months is extortion...but you'll find that out yourself. Most people stay out because they are afraid of their parents. I was.

Also, when you come home. Move away from your family. Spend time with YOU. Get your own routine back. Do what you love. If you want to be a plumber, go learn to be a plumber. You want to be a cowboy, an electrician...go do that.

If you want to be a parent, don't even think about it until your late 20's. Get your education, get your career stable, get your own place and get some money in the bank and you guard that with your life.

A mission is hard, but coming home with nothing and starting a marriage with nothing and having babies with nothing is harder. Your mother made her choices and you have yours to make. Don't confuse the two.

I mean no disrespect to your mother, but I've been out there pounding the pavement in a foreign country. I know darn good and well what you are up against and no mother who has never experienced that has a right to expect her daughter not to be completely changed by that experience.

Use your instincts. Put yourself first, put your companion second and don't shun her if she just can't go out that day. Help her, comfort her and talk to her and don't guilt her. She's human like you and doing the best she can.

I won't say "good luck" as I know it takes a heck of a lot more than that to survive this.

If you get sick, get checked for worms and parasites. If someplace doesn't feel right...stay away. If you get a companion that you cannot get a long with no matter how hard you try. Refuse to work until you get reassigned. Do not suffer out there any more than you need to. Remember, at the end of this 18 months, you bank account is zero, but the bank account of the church could very well be in the thousands that you'll never see and never benefit from. Keep that in mind.

You are going to have to be strong. The MTC is not the real world. Be as ready as you can. And, if you get hurt and your parents don't want to hear it because of how it would "look", stop talking to them and find someone who will listen to you...it just might save your life.

On a personal note...I never married or had kids because I hated the gender roles in the church. When I came home from my mission my Bishop father forced me to go a singles ward to get married, he gave me no choice and that was it for me. I had just worked my butt of for nothing for the church and I was not going to come home as a 23 year old woman and be disrespected again. I left the church shortly after this. Why? How could true believing Mormon woman leave the church after a lifetime of living it? Because as a woman I was no longer willing to be subject to a man whe I had just worked as hard or harder than them for nothing...and they got the pleasure of baptizing the people I had worked so hard to convert. No, patriarchy and gender roles are not for me.

But...I would never have known that unless I had entered into the pressure cooker that is called a "mission".

Be smart, and save yourself.

Lori

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.

"It Just Wasn't Right for You"

How many former members have heard a version of the following sentiment expressed by one of their LDS friends? "I'm so glad you've found something that makes you happy, because clearly the Gospel just wasn't right for you."

I've heard it from a couple of my more liberal LDS friends, one a convert, the other a younger-generation lifer...even though they both know that I haven't "found something that makes me happy". (I've instead discovered what WON'T make me happy, and that, it turns out, is living according to the lies someone else has dictated to me.)

I appreciate their kindness and respect...but they exhibit just one more example of the flawed thinking of church members.

Howso?

Good members of the church with their heads on straight KNOW that the LDS church is the ONE and ONLY TRUE CHURCH. You want to get back to live with (a violent, sick, twisted, exclusive) God? You MUST be a faithful member of the church who has married in the temple and is enduring (in the faith) to the end.

But I'm done enduring...in more ways than one.

Which means I'm not going to be hanging out with them in the presence of God. Instead, if I'm lucky and my parents live sinlessly from this point forward, having been baptized in the faith at age 8, I might get to be dragged along by my parents faithfulness into the Celestial Kingdom...but I'll only inhabit the first of the three levels of the kingdom, ostensibly as a genderless ministering angel...to my friends and their spouses, forever breeding to people their created worlds alongside their husbands (and, if they're willing to admit it, their sister-wives who, unlike me, did NOT turn from the true gospel; they just never received an offer of marriage from a worthy temple-attending returned missionary and have been waiting 'til they died to claim a husband as a second/third/tenth wife).

WOOHOO!!!

..................(What rhyme with "woo-hoo", starts with an f, and ends with "you"?)

And yet my friends have concluded that the gospel "wasn't right for me."

It's supposed to be right for EVERYONE, isn't it? In fact, it's SO right for everyone, Adolf Hitler (and a million + Jews executed by his regime) have been baptized to enable them to inherit the Celestial Kingdom! So if it's right for Hitler, why isn't it right for me?

Am I worth less than a mass murderer to them, or for that matter? Are they content to see me drink coffee in this life when deep down they know that my coffee drinking - and, you know, denial of the one and only truth - will cause the abolishing of my heavenly genitals, but ultimately I'll still be saved to wait on them hand and foot? Do they believe that certain people are just plain incapable of living the gospel, and God put the gospel on the earth to weed us out, so as much as they "love" me here, they know I can't hang, and they've already dismissed me from the afterlife?

HAVE THEY EVEN CONSIDERED ANY OF THIS?

In all likelihood, probably not. It feels good to say "I'm so glad you've found something that makes you happy, because clearly the gospel just wasn't right for you." It feels terrible to say "I'll miss you in the Celestial Kingdom, but there's still a chance you'll be a genderless servant to me, my husband, and our wives." But it feels "worst-est" to say "I refuse to consider that you might be right, and I'm only fooling myself based on the emotional and psychological comfort provided me by the Pineal gland in my brain - and pressures of my friends/family/acquaintances - in 'confirming' the truthfulness of the gospel."

Yeah, acknowledging that one would suck.

So they make THEMSELVES feel better by confirming MY decision to be the best one...for ME.

How horribly sad and deluded. And cultist.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand...I'm so glad I'm done. And facing reality. And living life to its fullest, my conscience and strength of character dictating how I live and who I become, instead of relying on human directives couched in fairy tale and supernatural terms and credited to a mystical God on whose form and personality no one can agree.

So maybe they're right after all. That crap? It just wasn't right for me, and I'm finally happy. Hallelujah!

"Rescuing a Wayward Spouse"

So, if you're not familiar with Meridian Magazine...be grateful. It's an LDS online "thing" with the tagline, "Latter-day Saints Shaping Their World." (Shaping it into what, exactly, is the question.)

Yesterday's post was by a man named Larry Barkdull in response to a question he received from some poor anonymous true-believing Mormon with a doubting wife. Find it here.

I won't bother to explain it, because you can read it for yourself, and at first glance it's not as awful as I expected...but if you view it from the perspective of the doubting spouse, LOOK OUT!

My favorite part, I must say, was the following: "The lie that she is living will likely drive her to the point of decision; either she will admit and abandon it or she will act on it.  We pray that she will abandon it."

In other words, that honest existence of yours...the one where you worship God your way, have a cup of coffee in the morning, maybe a glass of wine with dinner a couple times a week, where you wear tank tops and shorts in the summer, and think for yourself? Your ideas are, ooh, wait, lemme go back and double-check so I can quote him exactly...they are erroneous. 

You, my friend, just like me, are living a lie. (And they pray we'll abandon our lies. Big time.)

 Why do I read this crap, really? To keep up on what others are reading that cause their hearts and thoughts (and missionary drives) to turn to me.

But some friends of mine had some more amusing things to say about the article. (Note: you'd be AMAZED how wonderful, tight-knit, warm, welcoming, and earnest the Ex-Mormon communities on Facebook really are, bless their blackened apostate hearts!) 

So rather than focus on the article in this post, I'd like to take the opportunity to make you laugh. A little sacrilege is a LOT of fun sometimes. (And really, if you're reading this, you probably won't consider it sacrilegious anyway.) So, here goes...thanks to T-Dub and KayEm. You gents rock.

Let's start with KayEm: "What would be fun to read is a mirror image of this article. For example: First a section directly from the article: "I doubt that her issue is the Church. People don't casually discard their beliefs and covenants unless they are dealing with some deep-seated issue that they cannot resolve. Your wife seems to be trying excessively hard to go opposite the gospel, and she is using anti-Mormon literature as her rationale. I would guess that she has been struggling with other non-Church issues for some time." Now a mirror image: "I doubt that his issue is the apostasy of his wife. People don't irrationally adhere to cultish beliefs and covenants unless they are dealing with self-delusions that they fearfully cling to. Your husband seems to be trying excessively hard to go super-gospel, and he is using pro-Mormon literature as his rationale. I would guess that he has been drinking the kool-aid regarding many Church issues for some time.""

Pro-Mormon literature. I love this guy.


And now T-Dub: (Yes, I had to clean it up...just a little.) "Dear Clueless Douchebag, Yes, I have the spiritual flu. My human spirit is allergic to lying, cheating, and pedophilia (and to a lesser extent, megalomania…hey, we all have our crosses to bear, am I right?). My natural (quote Mosiah 3:19 and I’ll kick your ignorant @$$) reaction to learning about clandestine marriages to teenagers by a prophet was nausea, followed by puking my spiritual brains out. Yes, I was sick. Sick of following a cult-y community of not-quite dodos (I mean, it was Yale, for crying out loud!). Sick of making excuses for a man that I wouldn’t make for myself. Sick of justifying homophobia and institutional racism. But, Dr. Douchebag, I’m happy (quote Alma 41:10 and I’ll drown you in green jello and piss in the funeral potatoes at your viewing) to report that I’m all better now. I met the man behind the curtain, and he’s a diptwit. May your powers of discernment and diagnosis continue to lead you in the paths of self-righteousness. I will gladly continue down the path that rocks.

Sincerely,
A former flu patient


Paths of self-righteousness. Someone get this guy a medal!

So there's a little bit of sunshine for your day. Now go out and give your spouse a smooch. No matter their waywardness, they probably deserve it.

Sad Socializings

Is "socializings" a word? Eh. Anywho...

We attended a block party recently. We live in a nice SoCal neighborhood with a large number of really fun folks of all cultures, and - GASP! - we get along beautifully! We even have a Mormon neighbor family just a few houses away...and this isn't Utah.

Who knew?

Our family attended most of the day, then took a couple hours off to shower, nap, and recharge so we could head back to hang out from dinnertime on. It was awesome: the perfect piece of Americana. About half an hour before we headed indoors to de-funk, our LDS neighbor and her kids swung by the party, which was in full swing, and made a beeline for us. She looked incredibly uncomfortable amongst the beer-swilling group (none of them drunk or even close to it, by the way), and when she found a (former) ward member, BAM!, she latched on.

That's all well and good. She's a nice lady, our kids are about the same age, and other than the fact that we no longer share a religion, there was nothing odd about her being friendly with us. (Bless her for not shunning us!)

But then we had to go, and she quite literally followed me to the door, chatting all the way. When we left we could see her through the window of the home that was "base" looking lost, wandering aimlessly over to where her kids were now playing. We returned later that evening, of course, and guess who was eager to strike up a conversation and stay glued to (specifically my) side? Yup.

And that made me so incredibly sad. She didn't understand how awkward that was...to everyone around her. Though I'm sure she feels she has tried to befriend people in the neighborhood, and though I'm certain she does her best to ignore the free-flowing booze, occasional swear word, and tank top or bikini, it was clear that SHE felt awkward...which leaves other people feeling awkward.

It was remarkably painful for me to watch, both because I think she's a really great girl who would make for a wonderful friend and neighbor, and because all I saw in watching her try and fail was MYSELF a couple years back. Me saying hi and then trying to disappear into the background. Me chatting for a minute or two and then heading to the kitchen to help out. Me clinging to ANYONE who even REMOTELY shared my religious beliefs because I could not function among "other" people. (I now see those "other" people as NORMAL, by the way.)

Whether we like to accept it as fact or not, if you were born and raised Mormon, you tend to view people in one of two ways:

1.  A proselyting opportunity/responsibility ("Where much is given, much is required!"), which means you're supposed to strike up a conversation about the church and get whatever stranger with whom you've come in contact to accept your faith so you can thrill over saving their eternal soul.
2. An automatic judge: Could this person cut it in the church? Could they devote themselves to the TRUE religion and give up the coffee they're drinking? the beer they're ingesting? the cigarette they're smoking? the tattoo they're planning? the tank top they're wearing? the significant other they're living with but not married to? If the answer is yes, it is now your perfect duty to convert them, and if the answer is no, they are not worthy of the truth, and therefore, not worthy of your friendship because they may lead you away from truth.

What a sad, sad, sad way to view the human race: by whether or not they might be able to live up to YOUR standards.

So it IS difficult for Mormons to befriend non-members...especially once your teen years are through, the church is your entire identity, and you don't associate with as many strangers on a day-to-day basis to remind you how to get along with others. Yes, Mormons may be some of the nicest people on the planet...but that doesn't mean they know how to be inclusive of anyone but their own.

And maybe that's a good thing: it means there are fewer people being duped by the church because the members have already determined that someone won't convert and therefore don't try. WHEW.

But it still makes me sad. For my LDS neighbor, for my LDS friends, and most especially for myself. Heaven only knows how many wonderful friendships I've missed out on over the years because I just didn't know how to be a good friend...or for that matter, a good member of the human race. I'll never get those years - or those potential friendships - back.

I just sincerely hope others wake up early enough that they don't have to feel like I do.

Can I get an "Amen"? ;)