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Have you ever experienced what I call a “disruptive” experience in your life that totally changes your relationships with your family or the church in the blink of an eye? If you feel like sharing it — what happened? Why do you think it dramatically changed your perspective or relationships quickly?
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I have, not necessarily in the blink of an eye but pretty quickly nonetheless. I’m not really willing to share it publicly, however. I understand. I had one recently. Something “gave in” in my work and is a huge blow to my profession and time. I stopped caring about my job, my life’s work, like I used to. And all of a sudden, all I cared about was my family. Things I viewed as hassles I now view as things I can do with my family (like going to pick up a piece of furniture at a store and strapping it on the car, with my wife helping me). I enjoyed the experience, the talking as we drove etcetera, when in the past, I would have looked at it as a distraction from my work.
Thought I’d share that. It was like over the space of a few days, I realized my mind hasn’t been in my family like it should be, and our relationship is better now as a result. That has never happened to me before where one dislocation totally changes my perspective like that.
I will say that mine was quite similar to that SD, except that perspective change was not so much toward the family (I have always been very family centered) but toward God, the church, and the gospel in general. My life-changing experience was the stillbirth of our third child. Looking back I think I was in a state of shock for the first month or so. The body has ways of protecting itself from absorbing too much destructive information at once.
Ironically my initial reaction was to heighten my commitment to the church. I felt that if my daughter was in heaven then I had to do whatever I could to make it there too. I would not leave her alone.
It was only later that things fell apart. 2 main examples:
1) I had been a faithful priesthood holder. Had I failed my children by not being good enough to merit God’s favor?
2) As a stillborn, DD is not technically sealed to us. It is unclear in church doctrine if she would even be resurrected.
In the midst of my despair – I received an impression that I took to be an answer. I distinctly felt that I and my child were both accepted and loved by God. That was enough for me then and it is enough for me now.
This was at the height of my internal/assumptive world collapse and has been the foundation of my rebuild.
StayLDS has helped me to keep my rebuilt assumptive world largely compatible with LDS church activity – even when much of what I hear in church is less than the accepting and loving God that I feel I have come to know.
This from a blog post I wrote a few months ago. In some ways the Philippines “moment” sounds really trivial. It was a straw on many straws. Quote:
Asia turned my LDS world upside down. We were in a big expat unit of around 200 members. It felt very different to what church had always been like. I guess the environment of being expats might have accentuated it, but it felt like a real “us and them” attitude. We’re right, the world out there is wrong, shut up.The “world out there” was certainly different. But I quickly discovered it was not wrong. Amazing, diverse people with fascinating beliefs and philosophies. Happy, fulfilled, progressing, “Christlike” people who had barely heard of Christianity, never mind Mormonism.
It puzzled me for a while. We visited several different countries/regions with a range of cultures and religions. How could these billions of brilliant people be living a life of second bests? How could Mormonism, this predominantly Western religion enhance these people’s lives, loves and perspectives?
At the same time I was seeing my wife, still not attending church, find a fulfilling, enriching, happy way of life. Her new view of the world was still a positive one supporting personal progression.
One day, June 2012, something broke inside me. We were on holiday in Philippines. Sitting alone in sacrament meeting while my wife and kids were back at the hotel.
A chapel full of impoverished Filippinos, a couple of tourists and one white retired businessman stood at the pulpit, berating the congregation at not being good enough. His message seemed to boil down to: “You are not like me. So you are wrong and need to change”
It epitomised everything that was bothering me about Christianity and Mormonism’s Western imposition. A complete insensitivity and lack of appreciation for other cultures and perspectives.
I know the speaker didn’t represent the church. But that day he captured, in one talk, what had been bothering me for several months.
As the congregation sang “I have a family here on earth…” I stood up, walked out, and went back to the hotel, wondering if I’d ever feel the same about the church.
When the holiday finished I decided it was time to investigate the origins of Mormon attitudes and behaviours. My wife had wonderfully and generously never imposed anything on me. Had never pushed me to read the things that had bothered her and lead to her changed perspective. I love her all the more for the respect she had given me to walk my own path. My decision to start investigating our origins was entirely my own.
Roy wrote:My life-changing experience was the stillbirth of our third child.
Looking back I think I was in a state of shock for the first month or so. The body has ways of protecting itself from absorbing too much destructive information at once.
Ironically my initial reaction was to heighten my commitment to the church. I felt that if my daughter was in heaven then I had to do whatever I could to make it there too. I would not leave her alone.
It was only later that things fell apart. 2 main examples:
1) I had been a faithful priesthood holder. Had I failed my children by not being good enough to merit God’s favor?
2) As a stillborn, DD is not technically sealed to us. It is unclear in church doctrine if she would even be resurrected.
In the midst of my despair – I received an impression that I took to be an answer. I distinctly felt that I and my child were both accepted and loved by God. That was enough for me then and it is enough for me now.
This was at the height of my internal/assumptive world collapse and has been the foundation of my rebuild.
StayLDS has helped me to keep my rebuilt assumptive world largely compatible with LDS church activity – even when much of what I hear in church is less than the accepting and loving God that I feel I have come to know.
I’m really sorry you and your family went through this. I can’t really imagine how painful it must have been for you.
It must have been hard to have questions that the church offers no valid answers for. Something that they are usually so good at.
It wasn’t “in the blink of an eye”, but over a year or two. I was married with a 3 year old son and a new house and starting a business. Life couldn’t be better right? I was also not active and hadn’t been for many years.
A year later, I was divorced, barely saw my son, unemployed and entering bankruptcy. New house gone, business gone, any source of income gone.
A year after that, I was employed, seeing my son more often, had an apartment and was active in the church again. Life has been much better since.
Roy. Having gone through the same thing as you, I know exactly how you have felt. It has been three years since we had our still born son, and not a day goes by that I do not ask myself the same questions: Why did this happen if I was doing what I should? Am I not good enough to raise a child (has to do with not being around for my son during a lot of his younger years)? These are questions that I don’t think I’ll ever get the answers to in this life.
mackay11 wrote:I’m really sorry you and your family went through this. I can’t really imagine how painful it must have been for you.
It must have been hard to have questions that the church offers no valid answers for. Something that they are usually so good at.
Meh Mormon wrote:Roy. Having gone through the same thing as you, I know exactly how you have felt. It has been three years since we had our still born son, and not a day goes by that I do not ask myself the same questions: Why did this happen if I was doing what I should? Am I not good enough to raise a child (has to do with not being around for my son during a lot of his younger years)? These are questions that I don’t think I’ll ever get the answers to in this life.
Yes, it was very hard. Not only to lose my child but also to lose my understanding of the world/assumptive world. It was like the world that I had grown to know was no longer there and the world that I saw before me operated on different principles. I had to change in order to interface to this new world and so I mourned the loss of my old self as well. Of course the world didn’t change but it is amazing how the world shifts with the perspective or lens.
One silver lining of such an experience is that it can open you up to a wealth of possibilities and perspectives that you otherwise might not have considered. I am now much more aware that the perspectives and life experiences of others are just as valid as my own. I am more comfortable with uncertainty. I believe that this helps me to truly listen and try to understand where another is coming from.
As far as my daughter, I feel that she is loved and that she matters every bit as much as I am loved and matter. It is really strange to consider that a lifetime of achievements/failures might not make a person matter more or less – might not make a person more or less loved or favored. I can’t even know if this was an answer from God or just some type of emergency response from my subconscious – giving me what I needed to survive emotionally. Either way it is a tender mercy that I will forever cling to.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this thread over the last several weeks. What, if anything, to post. I’d rather not get into details, they are horrible, but I’ve now had one year to reflect on what happened and how my life has changed. While living the experience I thought that my relationships with others was the only thing that changed but a year later the real takeaway was that my relationship with myself was deeply affected. The experience left me cynical, jaded, and numb. It broke my spirit – totally and wholly. My world is still clouded by this lens.
I survived it, that’s about all I can say. Part of the flicker that was my faith died back then. If I have one blessing it is that of a bad or short memory because forgetting was the only way forward.
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