I'll have an order of cold shoulder please?

So, I took the kids to Chick-Fil-A the other day for lunch. The chicken is always delicious and there is a play place to keep Ryan entertained for a few minutes while Aly and I catch our breath. Who sits at the table next to me? Well, no other than my visiting teacher.

Now, I'll have to back this up a little bit, because those of you who are familiar with the Mormon church know all about visiting teachers and are probably wondering why I still have one.

I have no hard feelings towards the church, I just don't believe in it anymore. This being said, I have had several visits from members of the church in the ward that we recently moved in to. The bishop and his wife, home teachers, visiting teachers, primary president and the missionaries have all visited us, some have made several trips. These don't bother Chad and I, as, like I said, we aren't disgruntled. So, I have a set of visiting teachers, and they are very nice. I think I make them uncomfortable.

Back to Chick-Fil-A...

We sit down and are enjoying our wonderful poultry, and I see my visiting teacher with her kids and a few other mothers who are clearly from church. Being new to the area, and fresh out of church, I have not yet developed any outside contacts (translation: no friends). I used to eat at Chick-Fil-A with my friends and enjoy conversation, so it made me feel lonely to see other people doing it. I wish I would have had to chutzpah to wander over and say hello, but I didn't. Neither did she. I left after a while, and continued on with my errands.

I do miss the relationships, just not enough to force myself to accept the religion.

Hello God? I think we have a bad connection...

Leaving the Mormon Church was like unspooling my faith. When I first joined, I wrapped more religious thread around the roll. It was easy once you made the decision. You were given a specific length and knew just about exactly how far it went. You no longer shopped on Sunday's, you stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine and wore clothes that covered specific parts of your body. Sure, it may have seemed a little unconventional and inconvenient, but over time it became second nature and you always knew where it ended.
When I made the decision that the church wasn't for me, I started to unwind all the extra string. But now that I have started to take away, I'm not sure where to stop. At first, I was sure that I believed in God, then... do I really? Can science explain it all, or is there a deity out there? It is possible that there is a specific God, and the rest of mankind is SOL? or is it more nuanced in that there is a God that just got things going? Maybe there are multiple deities. I have never questioned these things on such a basic level before, and it is almost like a rolling downhill. You start out slow and eventually you speed out of control. The question here is, how do I know when I've gone out of control and, have I already reached or possibly surpassed that point?
I know it may not be the smartest thing to do, but I try not to think about it too much. Despite that, It is always running in the back of my mind. I'll find a resting place for my beliefs someday, but until then it's going to be one hell of a ride.

Calling All Angels

While eating dinner at some point last week, my son asked why we prayed over the food. I hadn't given it much though and so didn't know what to say. I was surprised when Chad had an immediate answer, "We pray because we believe someone is listening." That was a good answer to a good question. If I had been forced to answer, I would have said something about tradition and expressing thanks in a more general way.

Do I believe that someone is listening?

Last night while struggling for sleep, I slipped into a habitual prayer. In my mind I said, "Dear Heavenly Father, please help me sleep... Dear God... Dear... Why am I praying?" I laid there and wondered about who was listening to me. In the end, I just returned to and repeated my original prayer and fell asleep. Eventually.

So, why do I pray? I know that many people believe that prayer is a lifeline to their deity, also, it has been proven to give hope and comfort to those who are in difficult situations. I pray out of habit. When I was an active member of the LDS church, I prayed quite often. I prayed in the morning, over each meal, in the evenings with my family and then again at night before I went to bed. The position of choice for prayer was on your knees, arms folded across your chest with head bowed. It felt good to supplicate yourself to someone who could make everything better, someone who cared how I felt and was always there when I needed help or just someone to talk to. Now that my beliefs have changed I am left with some enduring habits that have no outlet, one of which is prayer. I think that I still pray because, basically, I do believe that someone is listening. My thoughts on who that person/deity is have changed significantly. So much so that I'm not even positive that prayer does anything at all. But in the end, I do think that there is something out there greater than me, and it wouldn't hurt to turn my thoughts to that being when in need of some comfort.

What Happens Next?

When I was 17, my parents adopted a cat for me while I was in basic training. Her name was Tigger. She ate dog food, drank from the toilet and begged for food with the other dogs. She came with me when I got married, and moved all over the country with us. She fostered kittens and raised human children with an endearing mix of gentleness, grumpiness and sass. She was pretty overweight and as the years passed, she became less mobile. Happy to move only to follow the spots of sunshine in the house, she had regular perches from which she rarely moved.
I took for granted that she would be with me forever, but today, she left. Tigger had been sick for some time and had finished a few courses of medication to help the problem. Her breathing had become increasingly labored, and she could not climb the stairs any more. When we took her from her carrier today at the vet's office, she could no longer breathe, and struggled through her last minutes of life.
As I held her head, trying to help her get some breath, I felt the life go out of her. After the vet confirmed that she was gone, I sat there looking at her lifeless body and wondered where her life's energy/soul had gone. With all my new questions and shifting thoughts on faith and religion, I am in a strange place with my beliefs on what happens when something dies. Where is Tigger now? Heaven? Reincarnated into another living thing? Nowhere at all? I really don't know, nor do I have much of an idea. The strange thing is that even though I have fewer beliefs, I am more at peace with the concept of death and I suppose that, in fact, I don't have all the answers.
I'll miss Tigger, she was an integral part of our family from the beginning and she has left an un-fillable hole. Even though I'm not sure where her energy/soul/spirit is right now, I feel that she is in a better place.

Consequences Delayed

Hello my faithful following of one. I am updating after an extended hiatus that I cannot guarantee will not happen again. I have decided to follow my internal inclinations and leave the LDS church. It has been an exciting few months as I rediscover a part of life that I kept myself from for over eight years. I love iced tea, I own a coffee maker, I enjoy the occasional cocktail and I prefer fruity wines the best. I have attended parties where there are no children, nor talk of them. Fortunately, I have been joined in this (at least in some respect) with the love, support and participation of my husband.
My kids still ask about church occasionally, and my son has taken to reading the book of mormon on occasion. We don't dissuade discussion, and we know that it is a difficult change, especially for children.
I have told my family about my change in religious feeling, mostly with support (but of course nothing but judgement and questions from my mother). We have not told my husband's family yet, and I'm not sure when we will. Let's just say that conversations have become a bit tricky, and I never realized how much of our conversations revolved around "The Church".
I'm feeling happy and liberated and free to form my own thoughts based on my view of the world and my understanding of how it works.
I think things will continue getting better, especially when I allow them to.

On the Fence

So, here we come on Sunday again. I received an email from my Bishop saying that he wants to meet with me. I wonder what this will lead to. I have been putting off, or taking my time rather, making decisions about my beliefs. I seem to know what I don’t believe in, but not a lot about what I do. In the end, I have to realize that I have a family that believes one way even though I am leaning towards another. I tried to make this work before. I tried to reconcile myself to the fact that I would be willing to believe, or try to believe in a faith system to make it easier at home. It didn’t work. Boy, it is tempting to try again though. The Church was my social life. I have no friends outside of it. Not only that, but my friends would react differently to me if they knew my reluctance and changing feelings. I don’t think they would have a problem with being friends with a “non member” or “less active member”, but I think it has something to do with my change of status that they won’t know how to deal with.
Back to this email. I’m not sure what to say. I could just be honest, but really, I’m not sure what the honest answer is. I’m not ready for this meeting. I am not ready to make any hard and fast decisions yet. I want to sit on the fence for just a little bit longer.

Gays, Blacks and The Great and Abominable Church

So I spent yet another Sunday teaching teenage girls the truths of things that I’m not so sure are true. If I don’t have The Church, what will I believe in? I don’t think I agree with any other church and so this makes for some slow going in the faith building department. The thing I like about The Church is that, at least in my experience, they don’t talk bad about other faiths and religions… at least in a church setting. I appreciate the live and let live stance on faith. Of course, all this changes when talking with just about any member outside of a church environment. I remember an older gentlemen who insisted to me that the Catholics were the great and abominable church, the one that would spawn the anti-Christ or whatever. It is in this respect that I am different than almost anyone I know. I don’t care what you do or don’t believe. As long as you don’t hate on me, do what you want.
It is with some other beliefs of The Church that I cannot agree with, and where their hands off approach to all things political has been challenged. Proposition 8 was a hot button with The Church. Gays getting married was an affront to God and everything he intended in humankind. After all, didn’t he destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their blatant acts of homosexuality? Actually, if you actually read the story, it’s only like half a page and it’s not just homosexuality that’s the problem. I think it’s mostly the killing, robbing, raping and other things that ticked off the Maker. Anyways, this story, the basis for all biblical homophobia ends with the hero sleeping with his own daughters as they wait out the apocalypse in a cave. Real morality tale, I tell you.
Okay, so back to Prop 8. Local leaders of The Church usually go on at every election and voting time to read a letter from Church Headquarters about how they won’t tell you how to vote, so don’t tell people how to vote and act like it’s from the church. On this particular election, however, a letter was read stating how it was against the family to allow gay marriages, and so therefore to support Prop 8. To me, that ended all political neutrality. I was highly offended as I felt that gays have the right, as do all individuals to get married. I understand that it is against the beliefs of The Church to participate in homosexual activities, but to tell me how to vote rubbed me the wrong way. I have a wonderful sister who happens to be gay. I am not going to limit her right to happiness by supporting legislation that demonizes her. To me, God would not deny happiness to so many of his children.
It didn’t help that when I asked around and did some reading, I found out that The Church that won’t tell you how to vote, will, however, donate a crap load of money to defeat the passage of the 14th amendment. So, I belong to a church that until the 1970’s treated blacks as second class citizens withheld the benefits of full membership, now believes that gays are trying to destroy the sanctity of marriage. It would not completely surprise me if they changed their stance on same sex marriage within ten years of a federal law allowing gay marriage just as they did with civil rights. Let’s just say that I’m not willing to wait ten years.
So last Sunday I taught my girls like I do every Sunday. I set up a lesson that is laid out in a manual, but try my best to persuade them to be open minded and realize that not everyone is like them, or holds the same belief systems. I think that in these moments, I am doing the girls a great service in helping them realize that even though they believe that they belong to the only true church on the planet, so does everyone else.