Out With A . . . . . . . Bang?

It's been a very, very long time since I posted (And FYI, it's extremely unlikely I will ever post another post again.  I mean come on, it's been over a year since my last one.  So don't get your hopes up).  And for various reasons.  One of them being that, as a stay-at-home mom, I find my day-to-day life to be uninteresting and thus difficult to find something to write about.  Another reason is that I don't write as a catharsis, or because I just have to.  I write because I like to pretend that people out there actually care to hear what I have to say.  Though I seriously question that some days, I know, deep down, that YOU know that I'm always right.  You just don't want to admit it.

Another reason for not writing is that I've found as my daughter gets older, I have less and less time to spend on writing.  It's not important for me, so it got dropped. 

The biggest reason, however, is that for the last few years, I have been dealing with a very hard (VERY HARD), very emotional (VERY emotional), and drastically life-altering change, which I did not feel capable of sharing here.  I've been hiding this change from the majority of people I know for the last almost 3 years, though I've certainly dropped lots of what I felt were very obvious hints everywhere, especially on Facebook.  But I've never come right out and said it, because I was afraid of the fall-out and the judgement.  I honestly was hoping to never have to say anything & that people would just figure it out, but I've now come to the decision that I do need to.  Even if it's only because I need to know that I am living my "authentic life" (not my favorite phrase, but it fits here).  My friends are pretty smart, so I'm guessing that this won't come as a surprise to any of them, but I need to do this for me.  So, the big reveal (oh man, deep breath, you can do this.  STOP SHAKING, HANDS!):








I've left the LDS church.





Yep, that's right.  I'm no longer Mormon.  I do not believe it to be the "only true church".  For my husbands sake, who is still a believing member, I haven't removed my name from the records, but I haven't attended in years (not since my daughter was about 2 and a half, and I took my garments off just before her 2nd birthday) and haven't believed in even longer.  I do not consider myself a member even though I know that I officially remain one.  But why did I wait so long to say something?  What am I afraid of?  Well, judgement, to be frank.  Some members don't handle it well when someone they know leaves the church.  I have heard some horrible stories, first hand, of what has happened to people for leaving: divorce, being disowned by parents and siblings, ostracization by friends and neighbors of them and sometimes of their kids, insults, people no longer trusting them to be good people, accusations, dismissal, the list goes on and on.  Sometimes Mormons can be horrible to those who don't agree with their beliefs.  For a long time I was willing to pretend that nothing had actually changed because I didn't want to be thought less of.  But now, I'm ready to move on.  I'm no longer afraid of the judgement of people whose opinion of me doesn't actually matter.  People can think what they want, but one thing I have learned in this journey is that MY opinion of myself is what is most important.  I can honestly say that I look in the mirror everyday and I am proud of who I am.  And that's what matters.

In my explanation for why, I'm going to be borrowing heavily from this article written by Brittney because she writes what I felt and feel much, much better  than I can (and more concisely.  I tend to vomit words.  I'm sure you readers haven't noticed that, though).  Anything in quotes and italicized comes directly from that article.

I had originally written out a very, very long post here detailing my trip down the road that led me out of the church.  But I deleted it.  I feel like writing all that was an attempt to justify my decision to leave, not explain it.  And I don't need to justify it.  But basically, it started because I felt completely and utterly unhappy with my life in the church.  I felt stagnant.  I hated feeling this way, and I completely blamed myself. 
 
"I have always been the kind of person who wanted to do the Right thing. It didn’t matter to me if the Right thing was hard, or unpopular, because Right was Right, and I wanted to do the Right thing. In every aspect of my life I tried to do the Right thing, but especially when it came to my Faith."

 I can't say I was never inactive, because for a couple of years, due to severe depression and an almost debilitating fear of people and crowds, I technically was since my attendance was so sporadic.  But even though I was not attending my meetings all the time, I was still faithful.  Every Sunday, I read Ensign and General Conference articles, or church books.  I made sure to listen to "appropriate" Sunday music and do other Sunday "appropriate" things to keep the day holy as best I could.  I was still miserable, but I did my best until I was able to go back to church.  And once I was able to, I was happy for a long time.  I believe that I was right where I needed to be.  I was faithful and living my life the way I was "supposed" to.  Yet even so, I never had what Brittney calls my "Joseph Smith Moment".  Not even when I was very first investigating the church.  While I do recall feeling like I knew the church to be true, I never felt that way about Joseph Smith, or any of the men who claimed to be prophets and apostles of the church.  And every time I specifically prayed about it, to receive that knowledge, I got a very very horrible feeling in my heart and my brain would just shut down.  I would just turn away from that feeling and tell myself, "Well, if the Book of Mormon is true (which I felt I had received confirmation of), than Joseph Smith must obviously be a prophet, as well as those after him.  Because if he's not, then neither is the Book of Mormon, and neither are they.  And I have a testimony about the Book of Mormon, so I must have one that he's a prophet."  Oh, cognitive dissonance, what a beast you are.  And then, through many twists and turns and discoveries and realizations, I ended up doubting everything.  And I really really didn't want to.  But there it was, this huge question mark in my head and in my heart.  So, in the words of Brittney again:

"I did everything I was told to do…Read my scriptures…Go to all my meetings…And the Temple…And all the extras . . . . , and of course I prayed. I prayed so much and so fervently that by the time I was done, I was usually a quivering pile of jelly on my bed. I asked the Lord, I pleaded, I implored, but always with the acceptance that His will be done, and if I didn’t receive my answer, then I assumed that meant the answer was to try harder…and so I did."


"I never cried so much, lost so much sleep, spent more time on my knees, . . . . and in communication with God than I have during these days. I read, pondered, searched, read more, pondered more, prayed, fasted, read, pondered, prayed, pleaded, supplicated, cried, searched, read, pondered, probed, until I felt as though my head and heart were going to explode."

"Now, looking back, I realize that I was approaching this whole journey with the baseline belief that the church was true, and that I only needed to have that belief confirmed to me. Just like a bad scientist, I began my experiment with the results already in mind, and yet even though I already knew what I wanted to be true, I could never get to a point where I felt like the evidence confirmed the hypothesis…I can’t even describe how disheartening and frustrating this wa[s] for me. I blamed myself of course, I figured that it was because something was broken in me, or that God was testing me, or that I wasn’t worthy of the answers I was seeking."

And one day, when I was utterly exhausted from the attempt to regain my testimony, I mentally stepped back from everything and realized, I didn't want to get it back.  I had been so very very unhappy in the church for a long time, and I had blamed myself for that.  But when I mentally took the church out of my life, the relief was immediate and enormous.   The pressure to be someone that I was not, that I no longer was and hadn't been for years, was gone.  I felt totally free.  And that realization made me start to think.  But I still didn't want to give up, not yet.  I was still afraid of being wrong.  Because if I was, the Mormon God demands a lot of penance for disbelief (depending on who you ask, though there is always some form).

So I attempted the change the way I looked at the church.  I tried to approach it as I had as a 15 year old teenager, like I had never heard of it before.  I asked for the truth.  Was the church true?  Was Joseph Smith a prophet?  I re-read the pamphlets I had received as an investigator, read all the passages in the Book of Mormon and Bible that had previously been faith-affirming for me, cried and prayed, cried and prayed, and then cried and prayed some more.  And the answer I got, over and over and over again, is that I needed to do what was going to make me happiest.  So I asked what that was, and I got no answer.  None at all.  I had to figure that out on my own.   And so I thought about it.  Read things.  Listened to things.  Paid attention (finally) to what I was actually feeling, instead of looking for what I was supposed to be feeling.  And I soon realized that anything I read or listened to or thought about that had to do with the church and remaining a faithful member filled me with fear, sadness, and yes, sometimes anger.  Anything that had to do with moving on made me feel happy, confident, and like I was facing forward instead of looking back.  And so, eventually, I did.  It was a very gradual, yet at the same time very sudden, change for me.  But I have never ever felt so much joy, or felt so much freedom within my life, as I now feel.  I am finally allowed to be my own person, whatever that may mean, without fear of miss-stepping or displeasing some constantly displeased higher authority. 

 Am I angry with the church?  Absolutely not.  The last ward I attended regularly (the one I would currently be in if I was still going) was amazing to me.  One of the least judgmental ones I have ever attended.  I have had numerous amazing and wonderful and uplifting experiences within the church.  I am grateful that I was a member for a time.  The church helped me with a very difficult time in my life, one that I'm fairly certain I would not have survived if I had not been a member.  Being a member of the church brought me to my wonderful and amazing husband (who has been nothing but supportive of me during this time), which also means I got my wonderful and amazing daughter who I can not live without.  And these experiences made it very difficult for me to leave.  Yet it had become like a item of clothing I had grown out of, that I was uncomfortable in, and no amount of altering was going to make it fit again.  There are many good people in the church, and there are many bad people in the church.  You will find this in any organization that you come across.  People are people, and everyone is good in some capacity, and everyone is bad in another.  The world is not black and white, no matter how desperately some want it to be.  As Brittney says, and which I completely agree with:


"I know that there are people out there of other faiths and people of no faith who are just as good, and kind, and Christ like as the good and kind and Christ like members I have met within the church. I believe that the concepts of Goodness and Kindness are not exclusive to any one religion or denomination, they are in all of us, and they are a choice that we make every minute of every day.  I believe what Christ said when He warned us against letting our pride lead us to feelings of superiority over any other man, denomination, or creed. I believe what Joseph Smith said when he said that we should allow each man to worship in the fashion that resonated within his own conscious.  I believe people are good, but that they don’t always act good, and I believe that deep down, we are all just striving to find purpose and meaning in this life, because none of us really knows what is coming next. We are all just trying to make sense of it all, and if the Church is where you find your sense, then I fully support and endorse you in staying and in being the best dang Mormon the world has ever seen."

While I currently can not imagine any situation that would bring me back to full belief in the church after all the things I have learned and discovered, I will not discount that event happening.  Because for 15 years, I believed that I would never, ever leave the church.  I have certainly learned that "never say never" is one of the truest phrases I have ever heard.  And I hope that those believing members will welcome me back with open arms.  Just as I will be there with open arms for anyone who has their own faith crisis.  I will help you pick through the mess and the emotions and the pain, and whether you decide to stay or leave, I will rejoice with you in whatever you realize makes you happy.

Now, if you choose to comment, whether here, on Facebook, or in real life, be courteous and respectful.  Treat me (and everyone else) the way you would want to be treated if YOU were the one writing this post.  Mean comments will be deleted here, and ignored elsewhere.

Post of Controversy #5 Religious Liberty, Racism, and Homophobia

So today I learned that people tried to use religious freedom to discriminate against different races in their places of business before the Civil Rights Movement, a la the thankfully vetoed bill recently brought to the table in Arizona proposing that those who don't agree with homosexual marriage should be allowed to also refuse to do business with them.  They were shot down too, as should any bill trying to "protect" peoples supposed right to discriminate against people they don't happen to like.  Discriminating against homosexuals is no different than discriminating against people of different races and cultures.  It really isn't.  They are people who deserve to be treated with respect and dignity regardless of anything else.  You know, the golden rule and all that.  You don't really need me to repeat that do you?


 In case you needed reminding.

When "Religious Liberty" Was Used To Justify Racism Instead of Homophobia

Post of Controversy #4

Suck it, homophobes!

P.S.  The Man is angrily jealous of their super awesome hair.  "Punch them in their nice hair!"

Post (Link, Really) of Controversy #3

I've been working hard this last year to get over my body image issues, and have been frequenting HAES (Health At Every Size) and positive body image blogs for some moral support.  Because of this, I have read a lot about the so-called "childhood obesity crisis".  The blogger I'm linking to says how I feel about the situation a lot better than I can (I would just get all ranty and incoherent).  The article is really good, so go and read, and learn.

Is The Childhood Obesity Crisis a Big, Fat, Red Herring?

Happy Saturnalia! (Post of Controversy #2)

http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm

Let's go singing naked!

Post of Controversy #1

So I recently, very stupidly, posted a political post on Facebook.  Thankfully, nothing major happened and there was no major shit-storm on my wall like happened on other friend's walls that posted similar things.  But what little DID happen was the final push I needed to step back from Facebook.  I have decided that any and all things that I want to share with the world, controversial or not, will now go on my blog instead of Facebook.  Very few people read my blog (at least according to the desert the comment section is), and as such, I feel it is a less public space than Facebook.  It seems it may be easier for my more conservative friends to ignore the fact that I disagree with them since they just don't have to come here at all, ever.  They won't have to hide me completely on their Facebook walls, and so they can still glut themselves on pictures of my adorable daughter.  Because who DOESN'T want to do that?

Honestly, I don't understand why everyone just doesn't think like me.  Come on, I'm amazing and perfect.  Why fight it?  You know I'm right.

Anyway, here is my first Post of Controversy.  I don't remember who sent me this link originally, but I really like what Dr. Eagleman has to say.  You really CAN'T know.  And that's an amazing prospect which really opens up the world to you.  "Knowing" shuts your mind down and removes the wonder, amazement, and joy that comes from learning something new.

Post of Controversy #0.5

“I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood; I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence.  For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.” ~MLK jr


Sorry folks, but I refuse to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden.  Yes, what he did and believed and promoted and preached was horrendous.  But he is and was still a child of Heavenly Father.  And Heavenly Father loves him.  And because of that, I refuse to celebrate his death.  I do not mourn him, he is certainly no loss to this world.  And I will celebrate that he is no longer capable of spreading hatred.  I commend the men who buried him at sea according to his religion.  He didn't earn that much respect.  But I feel they were trying to prevent his supporters from finding yet more things about America that is "wrong" with us.  The ones that still weren't satisfied, well, they wouldn't have been satisfied no matter what we did with his body.  That doesn't mean we should have just said "screw it" and dumped him unceremoniously overboard.  Being respectful makes us the bigger "man", not cowards.  Being respectful was not us bowing to the demands of the terrorists.  They didn't demand that we do that for him before we did it.  And who knows, the actions taken that day may have changed someone's mind about us.  It may have made them stop and think about why they hate America.  And that is a good thing.  I believe, and will always believe, that it is better to change someone's mind through peaceful actions and respect than through violence.  You can't use the argument that we don't even treat our own criminals as well as we treated him, because that isn't true.  Criminals who die in our prisons are buried according to their religions dictates (I'm not sure about those who are executed).


I am so grateful for the Navy Seals that risked their lives to go in and get bin Laden.  And I am grateful for all the men and women in the military who are willing to risk their lives to keep mine safe.  Thank you.


***This is my OPINION.  I know that about 3 people read this blog, but if anyone attacks anyone else in the comments for their opinions,  they will be deleted.  BE NICE.  And don't start debating about the war.  That's not what this post is about.