Swinging

I have had that yearning to return to the way things were, where I was all in and the church was all it cracked up to be, without questions or doubts. Others here have expressed that yearning as well. In a way I suppose it was ignorant bliss.The trouble is I’m no longer ignorant. I can’t go back to the way I was before because of what I know and what I have experienced. I’m OK with that, though, because I recognize it. It’s hard for me to put a finger on how I cope. It’s partly that I now recognize that the gospel and the church are two different (but related) things, and it’s partly because I can recognize that all of us are in different places in our faith journeys. Deluded as they might be (and I say that tongue in cheek), there are people who need to believe God helps them find their car keys. I sometimes find myself viewing certain members as if they are members of some other church, with different beliefs than I have. At my worst times I focus on what I do believe.

I’ve got a few FB friends that do that. At first I debated on unfriending them or blocking them from my feed but I later decided to keep them on as a type of litmus test to measure my ability to tolerate or look past viewpoints that (inadvertently) press my buttons. Now I read their posts just to see what kind of reaction it elicits in me.

I’ve even got a few friends that only seem to post to pass judgment.

You get all kinds of FB. There’s the people that only post about churchy stuff, usually uplifting but what I’d call an unhealthy fixation. There’s people that like to share what I’ll call militant religious posts (the litmus paper friends ). They are out to tell the world exactly how they are wrong. : Both those types of posts come from people in all walks of life, I see the churchy and militant posts from members and non members alike.

Strange as it sounds the balance only comes when taking all the posts from all friends as one big whole. There are, or have been, elements in my life where one subject became all consuming. There are, or have been, elements in my life where I’ve been militant about a certain subject, perhaps without even realizing it. I think it’s what we get when we apply human nature to religion.

If my FB feed is any indication, I’d say that these militant posts make up about 1% or less of the whole. That’s about as much presence as I can tolerate to maintain that balance so I haven’t taken much action to unfriend or block.

I’ve seen a few of the militant member types get challenged from other members of the church. I’m sure many people think they are out of line as well and I suspect that for every one that challenges them there are several, like me, that never raise their voice. In other words I think the militant attitudes are in the minority.

P.S. The latest thing in my FB feed that relates to the thread is about 50 Shades. The only people posting about the movie are the people that want to let everyone know how bad the movie is and to pass judgment on the world in the process. I may agree with some points but it’s the “in your face about it” attitude that I find off-putting.

Heck, if it weren’t for my church friends I wouldn’t even know the movie was out. The militants are the best (and only) advertizing 50 Shades needs.

I posted one short thing on Facebook about that book and movie. I have read enough about it, including actual quotes, to condemn it NOT for being about BDSM (about which I don’t care at all in a consentual relationship) but for glamorizing coercive manipulation. Those two things are incredibly different things. Everyone I know personally who is into BDSM condemns the book – usually vociferously. They HATE the way it stereotypes them, and they LOATHE the main, male character. As to any irony in posting what I did without having read the book or watched the movie, I don’t need to experience cocaine or heroin to be confident that others shouldn’t use them and to say so. (and, again, that is not comparing those things to BDSM)

Plus, I have heard from people I respect that the writing is horrible – that it makes Twilight seem like classic literature. That alone makes me shudder. :wtf:

[Admin Note]: This ends that threadjack. General rants and comments about Facebook are fine, if they focus on the issue mentioned in the post. Let’s stay on point and address the post itself.

DW wanted to go to 50 shades on opening night but she worried about seeing other people she knew and instead opted for a sunday afternoon matinee. I agree with what has been said about the book/movie being an unrealistic fantasyland but I enjoy dumb action movies so I can’t be overly critical.

Ironic how quickly a post titled “swinging” got around to 50 shades!

The middle way is the harder road. It is easy for some to stay with the crowd at church. It is relatively easy for some to leave the church and despise everything about it. It is harder to walk in between. Partly because of loneliness. Even among other middle wayers the path you take and how you personally interpret the issues is unique to you. Neither of the groups at the extremes will fully accept you. Where I believe that this is most limiting is in developing close friendships or dating. Religious affiliation became an easy shorthand for agreement on a whole host of issues.

The advantage is that you get to carve your own path and analyse and decide how you personally feel about different items. You get to be more comfortable in your own skin because you define what it means to be you.

So basically I feel like I’m swinging between having hope I can stay and really wanting it and then feeling despair and utter hopelessness that I can be happy in this church… Are there ways that you guys have coped with this?

My swinging has lessened over the years but I still experience it. Sometimes my swing is “pushed” occasionally by random events like comments at church, by Sheldon Cooper on the Big Bang Theory, by my family. Then the swinging slows again.

This board helps a lot because I’m reminded that there are people out there like me. I occasionally journal my thoughts, and it serves as an outlet. I attend church events that I know I will enjoy and which will remind me that there are many positive attributes of the church and the people in it. I listen to MOTAB – good music uplifts me. I struggle with clinical anxiety and so I exercise a lot to help with that. When I don’t exercise, my emotions (including this swinging you reference) get out of whack. These are all coping mechanisms of sorts for me.

Hang in there.

Given the subject of this thread, I have to say I’m glad it’s not what I thought it was.

I thought I was the only one. 😯 I thought I was over on ldssexuality.com instead of staylds.com

Oh c’mon guys, I was hoping to avoid 50 Shades talk on at least one social media website I frequent.

I also go through the swinging phase. It’s getting a tiny bit more frequent the closer I get to my mission, but at the same time, the intense relief that I will be going on my mission post-FC and well and comfortably into my faith transition stage is much stronger. That sounds weird, maybe, but there it is.

Like you, university, there are a few times a week when I look at my sister, who married in the temple to please our parents but now is privately not Mormon, staying only in the church outwardly to “set a good example” for our many younger siblings, and I wish that I could just go back to when one of my driving life goals was to marry in the temple, too. But I look at where I am spiritually now, and unless I ever found someone who shared the same beliefs as me and was still LDS and able to go to the temple, I don’t think I could stomach marrying a TBM. Having gone my entire life with the taught thought that I absolutely had to marry in the temple, and even being taught in primary to feel pity for those women (it seems like it was mostly women) we heard about who married out of the temple, it’s a very difficult thing for me to let go.

In the end, I focus on what I believe about the nature of God as I understand and have experienced it. There are marvelous coincidences in my life and the life of my family that have happened over the years and continue to happen even now that have led me to believe that the church is where we are meant to be for one reason or another. I don’t know how my family has managed to be so lucky when so many other have not. But it’s something I can focus on and feel so powerfully about; the feeling I once so strongly associated with the Spirit comes up whenever I think about those experiences and how much they mean to me and my family. So I focus on those.

So like others have said, focus on your beliefs. The beauty of life is that we are all different even if it seems like we are walking on the same path. There are many ways to travel in the right direction.