Is StayLDS at its end of life?

I certainly hope it’s not at its end of life. I know I’m not a super frequent poster, but I check in at least once a week. I’ll tell you what my own situation is. I have no idea how similar it is to anyone else’s. In the past, when I’ve just about had it with certain elements in the Church, I have known where I can go and find a listening ear. I know where I can go and not be told, “Just pray more and read your scriptures more.” That hasn’t cut it for me at any time in my life, and I went through most of my life feeling a lone in the Church much of the time.

With Covid, we’re all so isolated. We don’t interact with other members of the Church as much as we used to. We aren’t forced to deal with many of the things that brought us here in the first place. Hopefully, that will change once things get back to normal. And for me, personally, I have found that the “Mormon Democrats” Facebook page is filling a very important role in my life now. I have always just assumed that politics are off-limits on StayLDS, so I haven’t made any political comments here. During this election, I’ve found that my need to be (virtually, at least) around like-think people has been met on that page. After the election, I suspect my involvement there will be minimal.

I’ve recommended this site to a number of people over the years. It’s important that we who are struggling have a soft place to fall. Please, let’s give it some time.

I hope it’s not over.

This place has been the best place for me to explore the intersection between church culture, parenting, and managing expectations. All the questions I ask here are respectfully answered with a variety of viewpoints, where with my LDS friends, I get weird looks sometimes for bothering to ask the question.

I feel like staylds had the purpose of helping struggling members… stay LDS. Not all of us found this resolution the proper course of action for ourselves and thus, we are leftLDS instead. So it’s harder to feel welcome, included and involved in the community when the goal is to stayLDS.

I wonder how many lurkers have leftLDS and do not know how to contribute to faith promoting material?

To be honest this Covid business has been doing my head in. I would normally look at this site at work, but since my work has been shut down most of this year I can’t do that.

I have also been trying to look at non-Covid things, because this situation has been doing me psychological damage including destroying my sleep. It is kinda unavoidable, but most of the discussion here has been about it. I have only recently been able to bring myself back to discuss this.

So most of this lockdown, I have been out walking, reading (when my brain got back into it), listening to audiobooks and watching TV. My internet use has gone down a lot.

I have discussed Covid a bit since coming back but we need some Covid free threads too.

I think there are a lot more people who could benefit from support here. There’s a lot of online groups for orthodox members and exmormons, but not a lot of places like StayLDS. The forum is kind of obscure though. I don’t remember how I found it in the first place. It seems like the “staylds.com” website it’s attached to hasn’t had anything new since 2012. I wonder if moving to a new platform, either on social media or a standalone website, would be helpful. The forum doesn’t seem to be very well known, but on the other hand it’s nice having a little corner here without all the craziness of the rest of the internet.

I have been reading the thread every day (multiple times) and appreciate the comments. Like many of you this place was a life preserver. I still love it here and I don’t plan to go anywhere.

The point about COVID is well taken and I believe similarly. One of the things I have most enjoyed about home church is the lack of aggravation and annoyance that accompanies the normal block. Even as we have started back on a limited basis (we’re currently at every other week) I have sensed more annoyance. This seeming lull of participation is likely just cyclical enhanced by COVID in my opinion. I purposely sometimes don’t comment for several reasons including not having anything to say on some subjects, not wanting to appear overbearing or dominating, and wanting to learn from others (I have found I learn more with my mouth shut than open).

And to the lurkers – we know you’re there and you’re most welcome. we don’t want to lose you either. I often lurk myself, I check the site several times per day, depending on the day, but I don’t sign in every time.

I agree that Covid has brought less Church involvement and therefore less to push against. I think it is also true that the Church, in general, is behaving much better than it did a decade ago, which was better than the decade before, etc.

To put it in philosophical terms, I point you toward Friedrich Nietzsche. He talked of “spiritualization” of natural human traits…

[For us, one] triumph is our spiritualization of enmity. It consists in a deep grasp of the value of having enemies: in short, it is a way of acting and drawing conclusions that is the reverse of what people used to do.

In every age, the Church wanted its enemies to be destroyed; we, we immoralists and anti-Christians, see our own advantage in the Church’s continued existence . . .

In the political sphere, too, enmity has now become more spiritual—much more clever, much more reflective, much more considerate. Almost every party grasps that its own interest, its own self-preservation, depends on the opposing party’s not losing its strength; the same applies to politics on the grand scale. Above all, a new creation, such as the new Reich [recently-unified German Realm of the 19th century], needs enemies more than it needs friends; only in opposition does it feel that it is necessary; only in opposition does it become necessary. –Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1889.

But there is another driving factor, as well, at least for some who have come and gone here. When I first came here, a frequent author was wayfarer. He was obviously exploring and finding a new ‘way’. I learned a lot from him. Eventually, he moved on from here. His last post was over three years ago, but really, he hasn’t been active here for closer to five years. I feel like in my own case, StayLDS has also reached a completion. Through this site, and my own exploring, I came to shift my spiritualized enmity away from the Church and onto something I’d call more like my own internal struggle… a frustrating search for an elusive peace. As I have found my footing and gained that peace, my former enemy has receded and become less powerful. I no longer have much to push against. I have StayLDS (including wayfarer and many others, some of whom are still active here) to thank for it, but the lack of opposition has simultaneously made this site become less necessary for me. I have found my own ‘way’. Of course, I have stuck around far beyond the need in order to encourage others, etc, but now I stop by infrequently, in large part because I have long-ago moved toward something very different, so I don’t feel as connected to the struggle here. Believe me, I have plenty of current other struggles, but I don’t feel that my spiritualized enmity toward the Church is one of them any more.