Old Wounds

I’ve felt the same about many things in the past, I understand.

It’s okay to feel hurt. I’ve found that healing is not a linear process, especially when the conditions that cause hurt are reoccurring.

I’ll do my best to sugar coat this, but I think it can be even harder when surrounded by people with an optimistic bias. Some people may have a strong need to put a positive spin on things in an effort to crowd out all negativity because optimism and positivity are viewed as the more favorable path forward. I think that approach can run the risk of leap-frogging the healing that others in the community may need because the environment makes it more difficult to communicate pain.

This is why I said I’d try to sugar coat things, because I’m going to talk about times where I’m surrounded by people but feel alone. Occasionally I’ll struggle with that feeling here.

Your example is the reversal of the PoX. Another (reoccurring) example could be dealing with the aftermath of general conference. Church doesn’t feel like a safe place to communicate the pain that orthodoxy causes. Orthodox members’ instinctive reaction to defend their faith may override their ability to mourn with those that mourn.

“Everything about the policy of exclusion and the reversal hurts.”

“Why are you questioning the prophets? Have you been praying and reading your scriptures? This is why the reversal is okay…”

You end up feeling alone at church.

Sometimes that feeling of being alone can extend to “middle-way” places. Places that are south of orthodoxy but north of anti. Sometimes there’s communal… pressure is the wrong word, but it will do for now… communal pressure to put a positive spin on things. I understand the reasons. The difference between negativity and positivity can serve as a boundary between the middle-way and a more anti approach, the communities that lean faithful may want to avoid negativity.

It’s a fine line to walk, but it can be just as hard in middle-way communities to raise your hand and say, “this hurts” when the people around you are engaged in putting a positive spin on things. In the context of the PoX reversal, if the community is actively celebrating change how do you raise your hand to say that this still hurts? In the context of general conference, if the community is putting a pollyanna (sorry) spin on all the talks, how does one raise issues they have without the fear of coming across as being overly negative or raining on other people’s parades? The end result is that you may end up being just as silent and feeling just as alone as you would in a more orthodox environment.

I get how holding on to negativity isn’t a long term solution but there’s a time and a place for long term solutions. If the short term solution is anger, negativity, hurt, pain… that’s okay. Those feelings serve as stepping stones. If we remove stepping stones because they aren’t the long term solution it just makes it that much harder to take the next step.

Beachplease7, if this is off topic, I’m sorry for hijacking your thread. I know it’s hard to sort through all this. You aren’t as alone as you think.

Thanks for raising your hand to sat that this still hurts.

Hi Beach,

In a support group we were covering the steps of grief and I wanted to do them correctly and methodically to ensure that I would never have to return and do them again.

I was gently informed that these steps do not work that way. Maybe a few years later a previous step returns. This does not mean that you did it wrong the first time or should be mad at yourself. It is totally normal for progress to be non-linear. Accept it.

That being said, there was a difference between going through the steps in a healthy manner and a less healthy manner. The unhealthy option involved closing yourself off from your support network of family and friends. I hope you can feel less alone, either with a trusted confidant or a support group such as this. I firmly believe that “It Is Not Good That . . . Man Should Be Alone.”

rrosskopf, that sounds like a cool story. I’m just not sure how it is related or helpful to Beachplease at this time.

Beach, I wasn’t emotionally impacted by the POX or its reversal as many others here. But I do relate to the feeling that you don’t belong and there is no one who really understands. In my life, my mom, my dad, and one of my closest friends have all gone through a faith transition. Each one has a different approach to it, a different reaction to it, and a different set of catalysts. Mine is unique as well. And I feel frustration and isolation when I realize that whether I’m talking to someone fully orthodox, someone who has experienced a faith crisis, or someone who isn’t a member, I cannot fully express what I am feeling.

I’m learning that it’s ok. I’m learning to cherish that my feelings are things only God and Christ will ever comprehend accurately. And that is how I manage to come back. After my realization that I wasn’t going to receive the promised witness of the BoM, I felt a bit betrayed. My prayers have become less consistent. But whenever I kneel to pray, I am reminded that God does know how I feel. And He is the only one who does. So I will always return to prayer.

God knows how you feel. I don’t, and I’m sorry I cannot empathize fully. But He can. Your pain, both at the inception and reversal of the policy are things He knows.

The spirit speaks to people in different ways, and, for some people, “the Lord makers no such things known to (them).” Trying to blame people for not feeling the spirit in some way, specifically or generally, only deepens existing wounds that ought to prompt us to mourn with those that mourn – and not go further than that.

After all, if SOME have the gift to know, and SOME have the gift to believe, why in the world would we do anything to slight or reject the gift to believe without knowledge? Frankly, I admire those who hang on with faith but without knowledge far more than those who feel they know, since there is a lot more “enduring” for them. Seriously, those people are my heroes.

When I read your description, I was struck by the fact that you are trying to assign blame for your wife’s “spiritual orientation”. If you will excuse my bluntness, I would suggest you not try to find a justification for your wife’s relative lack of spiritual experiences and accept that she is blessed with the gift to believe – and honor that gift fully by not trying to force or expect the gift to know. The gift to believe without overwhelming confirmation is precious, and assigning it to past sin or lack of effort or rebellion or anything else devalues it. That is a shame.

This weekend has been so hard for me. I feel like the reversal of the policy of exclusion, has opened wounds I was healing. I’m so angry that, just like that, everyone can feel great again because it was reversed. I’m reeling. What of the people who lost their lives? What of the people who lost their church memberships? What of the people who lost their testimonies and had their whole world turned upside down? Why can’t the church take ownership? Why can’t they apologize? My family is believing and active. What used to be such a nice weekend of peace and hope has turned into quite the opposite for me. I’m so emotional and truly don’t know where I belong. I’m surrounded by people but feel more alone than I ever have.

Felt great emotion when Dallin H Oakes, in the PBS special said, regarding the Mountain Meadow Massacre, “there’s no doubt members of our church were involved….’ and then he apologized and said his heart goes out to the families and hoped they would have comfort. That meant a lot to me, even though he stopped short of indicating a leader of any kind was accountable for what happened. There is no way 100 Mormon men would murder the same number of people without an “inspired order” behind it — in the name of “obedience”.

When they won’t apologize or given half apologies meant to save face, or seem to think sorry, as in implied message, is good enough, it always causes me sorrow. Because it shows the kind of arrogance I would think wouldn’t exist in the leadership of God’s church.

The only source of comfort I have in these things is my current state of living my life with as much happiness as possible. This means carefully considering all policies, and then living them only to the extent they make me happy. It’s becoming a norm where the many failings of the church become a kind of justification for the path that I’m on.

The damage done in the past — yep, that is a concern. Their inability to apologize — take that the same way you would take a loved one who never apologizes. I have one like that. You just have to accept it.

Yes, treat them with respect. Do not burn bridges, sever relationships, or cause family feuds. Nor do you need to stay in a position to take abuse. Boundaries are the order of the day.

Right. When it comes to the church, recognize that you are working with an organization that has many merits, but one constraint/weakness/policy/personality trait of the organization as a whole is that it rarely apologizes. Further, its leaders can come across a bit arrogant — a biproduct of their faith the church is inspired. It’s hard not to believe you are right all the time when you’ve been told ideas come from God Himself.

Non-revaltory reasons include fear of lawsuits, membership loss of those who don’t know about the infraction, or who consider the church perfect, etcetera. Whatever the reason, we have a church that doesn’t apologize easily. Whether this is an average amount of lack of apology-making or above average is open for analysis and debate, but the fact is, when the church leaders make a mistake, the most you can rely on is Uchdortfs comment that past leaders have made mistakes.

In my experience, some leaders, at the local level, are willing to apologize for the mistakes of leaders in LDS agencies, but that’s hollow. You know, like Switzerland apologizing for the failings of another nation. It’s hollow because it’s easy to apologize when you don’t have to eat your own crow.

So, I will not allow myself to get into any kind of transaction where the stakes are so high that an apology would be necessary if they make a mistake. Limit those opportunities. And guess what — even if we saw a torrent of apologies from the church on various issues, there is no guarantee anyone, the church or individuals, will apologize for any personal wrongdoing that may happen. It’s the nature of many situations to be vague about what is an infraction, and what is not — some people think they’ve done nothing wrong. Sometimes the wrong person feels there has been a wrong when there hasn’t been, or its unintentional. That’s on a personal level, but on a church wide policy level (blacks and the priesthood, POX, one year penalty) I know how much it can hurt when they make narrow-minded policies that really hurt lots and lots of people for generations.