Baby steps from here…

Thanks for sharing that with us. I know how difficult it can all be.

Personally, I’ve come full circle….from TBM…to doubt and disbelief….to apostacy….and back to be a sort of TBM on steroids.

The BoA was a stumbling block for me that I now embrace…and, no, I didn’t just find an apologetics view that would work and shut out all secular reasoning. It took a while but I fully believe that the BoA is exactly what Joseph Smith claimed it to be.

That’s just me but I hope you don’t just throw in the towel….there is more to this situation than meets the eye at first IMHO.

Hi 1topen

This board has done me a lot of good in the month or so that I have been here and I hope that we can all provide you with some support and hope and forward thinking. I hate to say it so baldly but your situation is so typical that it just wrenches my heart at what we do to our young people by “indoctrinating” rather that helping them to explore their faith.

I am struggling with the BofA myself right now and have provisionally put it on the shelf, to cool off because it is too hot for me at the moment. I think by the way that the apolegetics that I have read about it make me angrier than the book itself for what that is worth. However I too have had many insights and revelations tied to the Book of Mormon and my kernel of faith rests there, even with all its warts I still know that it is true. I have come to appreciate as well just how messy being a prophet was for Joseph Smith, he had to learn it all from the ground up, he had to deal with immense personal pressure because of his relationship with the Lord, and except for the Nauvoo period he was always persecuted, hounded and attacked. So, for me, even if he was deluded about the Book of Abraham I don’t really blame him, nor let that erode my testimony of both him as a prophet and the Book of Mormon. I have come to understand, and Bushman’s booked has helped immensely, that Joseph truely was a visionary and literally a conduit in this world for information from Heaven. Anything that he ran into could trigger the visionary process and produce a revelation, the temple worship material, a sermon, a letter, whatever. So just like the Book of Moses which he clearly had NO text to work from, the existing paparii ??? may well have been simply a trigger for the visionary “transmission” process and his major mistake was not the book itself but trying to “prove” to his members that the symbols and text he had purchased were an important part of the book’s content. I think there may have been a very honest attempt to have people “understand” him and his burdens but it got a little twisted up in his building educational attainment (he had taken Hebrew classes for example). That knowledge made him feel that he might be able to explain stuff rather than just saying, it was a vision from God.

Ah well, there I go trying to convince myself. Sorry it got away from me.

There is truth and goodness and revelation in the church, I am certain of that and have faith in much else but I have gone far past the point when I will ever say again in any situation “this is the one true church”. I actually do feel that the priesthood is very important and that it is God’s power and that stuff needs to be accomplished through it BUT doing the “one true church” testimony to me is now so painful and miserable towards all other people of faith and striving that I cringe in testimony meeting and am considering seriously not going to Testimony meeting forawhile.

Any way, thank you for sharing your experience I am so happy that you and your husband are together and love each other and can support each other that is the true tragedy for many of these faith explosions. Keep together, love, share, help others.

Welcome 1topen, I’m thrilled you’re here with us and loved the sincerity of your intro post!

Growing spiritually along the way and finding a way that brings me peace that doesn’t necessarily involve throwing the baby out with the bath water. Thats the plan.

That sounds like a good plan. I have 2 teen age kids, and 2 primary age kids as well. I totally agree with you that Fowlers stages helps understand they need to be at stage 2 for a while, and need to be at stage 3…and maybe they never leave that stage 3. So you are wise to allow them that, especially since you sounded so happy growing up in that, and sound so loving that you want the same thing for them.

The hiding and secretive part to me is the only thing that is difficult to find the right balance for. As a parent, I want to protect them from unnecessary things until they are older and more mature to handle it, so I agree with keeping some things from them (just as we keep allowing my 6 yr old to believe Santa because there is that fun factor I don’t want to deny him of). I have left my books on the tables of things I read. I find when my kids ask me what I’m reading (The Power of Myth, Rough Stone Rolling, The Shack, The Four Agreements, David O McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, and some books from the Dalai Lama), they ask me what I’m reading, and I honestly reply that I read them to expand my knowledge and learning. I give them quotes from those books from time to time showing the value of reading worthwhile literature and applying it to our mormon teachings. They usually don’t seem worried about it, and are too wrapped up in their own lives to give it much of a second thought.

I’m not saying you should be handling it any differently than you are…what works for your situation is best decided by you and your husband. Just sharing that for me, my focus is that I want them to know I am studying and learning and seeking answers to questions…I want that example set for them for the time they get to a point in life they have the same questions I have. Of course, I don’t leave sex books out because descretion is still needed.

Also, since you were asking for help, I’ll share another tidbit (take it for what its worth)…I have really tried hard to have open and honest communication lines with my kids. I started with formally scheduled, regular interviews every fast sunday to get it going. Now it seems to happen spontaneously. They come to me with questions on polygamy. They come to me when they hear things in YW they don’t think sounds right. They come to me when they want to talk about FSOY…which has been a frequent discussion in my house of late.

Someone on this site once told me that if their parents talked to them about some of those things early on, it would have helped lessen the shock factor later in life…especially when you consider today’s generation has so much access to information on the Internet. But I struggle knowing how much and what timing is right…but I hope to keep the communication open so there are opportunities at least to discuss them.

Again, I’m not suggesting you do anything different if things are working, or that what works for me works for you…but just some thoughts from another parent going through this and wondering how my actions will impact my kids…it is sometimes helpful to discuss these concerns/questions on this forum.

Hang in there, and go slow. No major changes need to happen overnight. But seeking love and peace is always a good thing. My experience has been a good one, and I don’t feel I have to leave the church to explore these valid questions I’m having…nor do I have to disrupt my family’s faith development in the process.

God bless you and your family!

Great advice and insight, Ray and heber.

I would add that as satire, south park is very stage 4/5. If your son can get the satire and not take it literally, I would say that he may be comfortable with deeper ideas. just a thought.

Through the years I have known a dozen TBM families who suddenly were no longer there. Usually excuses were made, even though they still lived in the same homes. Occasionally rumors were spread, some dark in nature, concerning a loss of spirituality and/or personal moral direction. I was never one to believe rumors. I have encountered members of perhaps half those families. I’ve never been afraid to ask what happened. Their stories were pretty much been cut from the same cloth, ‘We simply don’t believe anymore.” As a convert from a non-member family, I understand agency. My own birth family liked some aspects of the church, but never bought into the Restoration. Methodists/Baptists they were and Methodists/Baptists they would remain (though a few have become Catholic).

I have reached your fork in the road Baby steps. My conclusions are yours. I am old and find cultural warmth in our church, but sit now on the fringe of the room. I would be just as happy across the road at Friendship Baptist, if my children and grandchildren were there with me. I, a single convert, have become an immediate clan of twenty-four believers (two of my loved ones have left or are leaving).

I recently had some heart problems. I considered my mortality. I saw myself laid out in my coffin, in temple robes. They are in my closet as I type. I realized that such an event would say to my beloved posterity (and extended non-LDS family), that I died a true believer in Mormon teachings. I cannot do that. I cannot witness/testify of things I do not know. My final instructions give an alternate approach now. I have written a letter of love, hope and grace to my posterity. I have not condemned our faith community, it was mine for a long long time. But, I must be truthful, even to my bishop. If any of my offspring should suffer COG DIS in the future, I hope my letter will bring comfort and peaceful acceptance. For those who desire to stay LDS, blessings always. I practice unconditional love. I find so many in the church that are doing the same thing. Use the Baby steps approach, don’t ever burn bridges, love is at stake.

Ah, yes. Rough Stone Rolling. I didn’t have the heart to finish it. So, so dismal. I now have it on my dresser fixing to take a final plunge just so I have it under my belt. I think I will someday find No Man Knows My History more enjoyable than it.