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Salo sent me a note that he is leaving the site. I think we saw this coming. I wanted to post my response to his PM, so we can dissect our interaction and see what we did good, and what we could do different. *****************************************************************************
Hi Salo,
I’m sad to hear that you will be leaving. You should do what you feel is right for you. I appreciate you taking the time to let me know why. I am very interested to know a little bit more. It helps us shape things here.
I could tell you were getting frustrated with Old-Timer. Was there anyone else that rekindled old frustrations? I have very thick skin, so you can let me have it too
Salo wrote:The use of apologetics ,intellectual justifications, and TBM meddling simply make this goal impossible. I was doing quite well before I joined this forum but have felt myself ironical sliding further away from my goal to stay LDS on this forum.
Can you point me to some examples in the forums of this? I am not arguing with you. Your perception is what you see, and I accept that. If you are willing to share, I would appreciate it.
Salo wrote:The truth is my disaffection from the church has been extremely painful and debating apologetics just to get heard brings back many unhappy memories.
Disaffection is painful, no doubt about that.
Did you have situations outside StayLDS and OM where you were pressured to debate apologetics? I am wondering if the tone of the conversation was such that we were bringing back memories of other unpleasant things you experienced. People’s viewpoints are very real, and I am pretty subjective about what is “truth” these days. When I look at the conversations on the forums so far, I see a lot of people saying “The Church is/was wrong. I am right. I work around that error like this _______.” To me, apologetics are when someone says “The Church is right, even if it looks wrong. You are wrong, not the Church.”
Any insight you are willing to share on how you saw the conversations differently would be helpful. We can try to shape our conversations different in the future.
Salo wrote:I am so deeply emersed in LDS culture that to be honest I need a safe place to discuss things were I know everyone understand exactly what I am going threw , I need a place free from rhetoric and apologetics , basically a place where I can detox so to speak not get indoctrinated. I think this forum may be helpful for disillusioned TBM’s trying to remain TBM’s but I need a place I can relax and be myself.
There are probably better places to detox. That is a good word to use to describe the process. You know the sites I am sure. OM can be good, sort of. It’s a real mixed bag there. NOM is an excellent place if you want people to sing the blues with you. I mean that seriously, even though I use a music analogy. It is therapeutic. People there will jump on the bandwagon to reinforce how messed up the Church is, but not go totally toxic like FLAK or ExMo sites.
StayLDS is a project to gather the collective wisdom (or lack thereof, hehe) related to how someone makes peace with the Church and integrates back into the fold. That is the narrowly defined focus of the site. It is a safe place to discuss problems, because people in the community will be aware of the problems and not be shocked. But we’re not here so much to constantly re-live those painful feelings of disaffection and disillusionment. The responses from those who are integrating back into the Church will tend to be more of the “here’s how I solved that for myself” kind of replies. That doesn’t make those statements gospel, just someone else’s coping mechanism.
The Church is flawed. We can all decide which parts are more flawed or less flawed. The people in the community we wish to build are trying to get past that somehow. There isn’t one way, just some ways that seem to work for some people. They could be wrong too in the absolute sense, but anything that works can be examined and we can learn from it.
I think one thing we could do better is listen longer and not shoot back quick little fixes. It isn’t a quick and simple process. That is something that I can see as irritating. I can be guilty of that.
”salo” wrote:I am asking that you not make my post a thread and just let me leave quietly , I have seen on other boards were the old we lost our first member kind of threads are started were the letter is posted and I don’t wish for that .
We were already discussing Ray’s interaction with you privately to dissect how it was going wrong. I would not normally post one of those threads in public. I know the type you are talking about. It is a much more casual atmosphere here compared to some place like OM.
If you want to leave quietly, that’s fine. Just stop participating. There is no harm in that. You are more than welcome to come and go as you please.
I still enjoy your responses on OM. Stay in touch. You come across as a really great guy with a lot of good things to say.
Best Regards,
Valoel (Brian Johnston)
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One more thing to add, I think we are succeeding with many more people than failing. The sample size is still small So I wanted to emphasize that. We are helping people, a few people so far. If nothing else, this site help me
I only bring Salo up to see how HE did not seem to interact well with us. We might be able to change that interaction with similar people in the future. Its not always what we say, but how we say it that matters. Faith isn’t a one-size-fits-all proposition, as we all know.
Salo was who on OM? Salo = Scott Harris from OM I looked at his posts over there. He doesn’t seem to get tangled much into arguments. His posts were similar in tone on the same topic over there (priesthood ban). I really don’t get it.
Salo took some time to respond. It was a 500 word, mono-paragraph wall of text. My eyes are still bleeding. He wasn’t upset though. He seems overly concerned about his account being cancelled or removed. I don’t intend to do that unless he really insists. I’m not sure what he really means by it anyway. All he has to do is stop participating. The two significant ideas that I pulled from his response was that he felt there was too much of a “TBM” flavor to the site, like we were defending the Church. There isn’t much that can be done about that, it is part of the purpose of the site. We’re trying to solve our own problems with the Church. One very valid way to do that is to accept what the Church says (on some level or another). We aren’t going to bend on that point and start telling people not to pursue that path if they want.
The other idea I got from his response was an observation about how we respond to new people showing up at our doorstep. I think it might be helpful NOT to jump in as fast with quick solutions. We can be very comfortable with some of our solutions. So much so that we snap off a quick response like — “hi! here’s the answer. bye.”
In dealing with people who might be more like Salo, it might be useful to spend more time listening and letting them tell their story. Try to connect and find common concerns. Share their pain. Let them talk. Acknowledge that you see what they are going through, or maybe you have felt something similar. THEN in a followup response start talking about solutions that might have helped you.
Salo seemed to have felt a little bit like he was pounced on, that he couldn’t express himself. That was his perception.
Very good points Brian, one of the best ways to help someone sort through their own issues is to listen while they explain it to themself — asking questions more than offering answers. “What has worked for me” can also be helpful but I agree it works best if we listened well first. We are on a learning curve but I agree that overall I think it’s going well.
StayLDS has helped me too!
I think we’re generally on the right track. To me the situation has become analogous to a marriage relationship where one spouse has felt betrayed. StayLDS comes in most effectively when the decision has been made to have a meaningful relationship “in spite” of that betrayal (we know the “betrayal” is actually the clash of our prior ideas with contrary “evidence”). Some may not trust again in the same way, but the relationship will not be meaningful unless the offended party is ready to “bury the hatchet” and work toward peace. Maybe that comes in stages. I don’t think we necessarily need to run off the people who aren’t quite to that peace seeking stage, rather we should let them know we do understand the pain, it is valid and real, as we clarify the true mission of SLDS – which is admittedly rather narrow.
My thoughts anyway.
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