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.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Changing my Grace
How do you tell people that you’ve changed your mind? That maybe this isn’t working for me anymore. That you feel that what made you free before has now become terribly confining. This is where I find myself; trying to come to grips with my evolving feelings on faith and religion. I could say that it was all of a sudden. That one day I woke up and realized that what I had invested my life (and soul) in snake oil. In lies. But, that’s not how it happened. It started with the echoes of doubt, that maybe something wasn’t right. Those feelings were quickly stuffed down by the fear of turning my back on the truth and facing a bleak hereafter.
For a long time I quietly questioned and accepted answers that I didn’t agree with. I split myself in two: the religion and the belief. I consolidated these halves the way that many of us consolidate contradicting beliefs… I just believed them both. It was similar to school when I believed in creation six thousand years ago and dinosaurs roaming the earth six billion years ago. I became of two conflicting minds. My church highly discouraged the use of coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol. I agreed that these restrictions were for a better me. I also had no qualms about consuming any of these substances, and only refrained because I was told to. I stopped wearing tank tops and short skirts, not because I thought them immoral, but because I was preserving my modesty for The Church. God told us, through a prophet, not to participate in loud laughter or coarse speech, so while I tried to speak calmly at church and around church friends, I was rowdy and dirty everywhere else (per my natural inclinations). It has come to a point that I can no longer reconcile these two different people in one body. I cannot believe in two conflicting sets of morality and continue as a healthy person.
I am starting down a path of self awareness and truth. Not a specific truth taught by The Church, or any other church for that matter, but a truth that I can accept with my whole being. I cannot share this journey with many of my friends or most of my family. Because of these facts, I have chosen to share my journey of discovery with you, the faceless; those who don’t know me. I hope to come to a better understanding of myself and the world around me. So I invite you to share this experience with me.
For a long time I quietly questioned and accepted answers that I didn’t agree with. I split myself in two: the religion and the belief. I consolidated these halves the way that many of us consolidate contradicting beliefs… I just believed them both. It was similar to school when I believed in creation six thousand years ago and dinosaurs roaming the earth six billion years ago. I became of two conflicting minds. My church highly discouraged the use of coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol. I agreed that these restrictions were for a better me. I also had no qualms about consuming any of these substances, and only refrained because I was told to. I stopped wearing tank tops and short skirts, not because I thought them immoral, but because I was preserving my modesty for The Church. God told us, through a prophet, not to participate in loud laughter or coarse speech, so while I tried to speak calmly at church and around church friends, I was rowdy and dirty everywhere else (per my natural inclinations). It has come to a point that I can no longer reconcile these two different people in one body. I cannot believe in two conflicting sets of morality and continue as a healthy person.
I am starting down a path of self awareness and truth. Not a specific truth taught by The Church, or any other church for that matter, but a truth that I can accept with my whole being. I cannot share this journey with many of my friends or most of my family. Because of these facts, I have chosen to share my journey of discovery with you, the faceless; those who don’t know me. I hope to come to a better understanding of myself and the world around me. So I invite you to share this experience with me.
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