Spiritual Challenges

Reflecting back on my life…

Having access to an ear that’s willing to listen. The owner of said ear doesn’t necessarily have to do something to address my challenges directly, lending an ear sufficed.

The reason I ask this is because when I joined the church, I thought if you stayed active, pray, read scriptures, paid your tithing,

did missionary work, etc, etc. God would protect you & your family. If God didn’t provide protection,

God would give you answers & strength to continue. When the challenges came, and they always do. all I seemed to get was silence.

In the silence, I found anger & it stayed with me for a time. (I won’t go into details.) I feel like I’ve moved on.

My challenge (my dark night of the soul) was with LDS doctrine/belief/teachings/dogma. It was just as you describe here, the belief all would be well and the complete silence.

And the moving on was also similar. I had no one to talk to, and just needed someone to listen without judging, offering apologetics, or arguing. That is how I ended up here after some time searching. It was this place that “saved” me. I have since found a few people I can talk to, but generally not as openly as here.

Minyan Man, I’m not sure that what I could say would provide any answers to the questions you pose, but I too sometimes miss the innocence of past life. I recall my days in Primary (which met on weekdays back then) and Junior Sunday School (back when there was such a thing). I was a bit of a loner as a child, inept at sports, often bullied, and for me church was a sort of refuge from all that. I recall a painting in the Junior Sunday School room, probably by a local artist, of Jesus reaching down over a cliff to rescue a lamb that was trapped on a ledge, and I somehow imagined myself to be like that lamb. Though I am still glad that I grew up in the church and had that refuge at a time when I sorely needed it, as I moved from my teens into young adulthood, many aspects of church activity became problematic, and that has continued to the present. I have been unwilling to jettison it in spite of persistent doubts because it has come to be a sort of metaphysical glue that holds so many parts of my life (including most importantly my family life) together. I try to focus on those aspect of it that I really do believe, and do my best to ignore those I don’t. You mentioned prayer as something that no longer works for you. Prayer is if anything more important to me than ever, but my prayers now are nothing like those of my childhood and youth. They are much more a matter of meditation. If you could plug into my mind when I am praying (always silently), you’d find more silence than words. Prayer calms me, forces me to be honest with myself, to admit my shortcomings (which are legion). And aside from God, there is no one to whom I could say absolutely anything. Even in communicating with my wife, there are things that are best left unsaid, and that goes for anyone I know. I have friends with whom I can talk politics but not religion, and those with whom I can talk religion but not politics, those with whom I can joke but not say anything serious, etc. etc. But I don’t have to–indeed could not possibly–hide any of my thoughts from God, and when I lay out before Him what is on my mind, I’m forced to reassess all of it. Again, with lots of silent intervals. Sometimes I feel as if I’m only talking to myself (which at least has the value of introspection), but there are times, too, when I genuinely feel that I am addressing a Presence, in spite of my uncertainty of just what kind of Being God actually is (I’ve long since moved on from the idea of God as an old bearded white guy somewhere up in the sky). Of course, I can’t–and don’t really want to–recover the sense of magic of my childhood, but I have found prayer/meditation to provide refuge when I need it.

I’ve been thinking about how emotion plays into our spiritual growth. Or, the lack of growth.

The particular emotion for me is anger.

My lesson from my spiritual challenge was that anger is more than a negative emotion. It prevented me from

returning to God or the lesson he wanted me to learn. My experience seems so small or insignificant today

compared to the experiences of other people I’ve met. One of my neighbors was in a concentration camp

during WWII. His outward spirit was very happy & outgoing.

All I can think about today is: God please protect me from myself. (anger)

I find it interesting the emphasis placed by the church on the issues (questions) asked about in the temple

recommend interview. None of the questions ask about our personal relationships with God, others or ourselves.

I know time is limited. In the long term, I don’t think that I’ve ever had a personal relationship with any of

my Bishops or SP’s over many years. It has been very superficial.

I read somewhere that the purpose of the interview is to ensure that members are spiritually prepared to enter

the temple. If all they do is ask the standardized questions, it seems like opportunities are lost to get to really

know the members on a more personal level.

I too have only had very superficial relationships with all the bishops and branch presidents I’ve ever had. Most never going beyond an occasional friendly wave in the hallway.

I read somewhere that the purpose of the interview is to ensure that members are spiritually prepared to enter

the temple. If all they do is ask the standardized questions, it seems like opportunities are lost to get to really

know the members on a more personal level.

That could be a double-edged sword. On the one hand it could be an opportunity for a bishop to get to know people better but on the other hand it could be used by some to go out exploring beyond the current boundaries of the interview. Those boundaries are there for a reason.

I’m all for a bishop becoming more acquainted with his flock but I think the setting of a temple recommend interview wouldn’t be the time for it. It’s far too formal a meeting where the power dynamic doesn’t have both parties on equal footing.

I wouldn’t mind seeing the tithing declaration meeting repurposed to do what you describe. Drop the talk about tithing, drop any hint at the meeting being about any kind of evaluation whatsoever, make it a pure meet and greet. I know many bishops already do that as a part of the tithing declaration meeting but I mean make the whole meeting be nothing but that. No talk of tithing or any other motive other than an opportunity for the bishop to get to know people better.

I’ve been thinking about how emotion plays into our spiritual growth. Or, the lack of growth.

The particular emotion for me is anger.

In counseling, I learned that Anger is a messenger – when Anger shows up, that means something needs to change. Sometimes that is the environment you are in, your degree of restraint activated, actually doing the mourning you haven’t done, or figuring out how to hold someone accountable in righteous judgement – something needs to change.

Anger is a tool that breaks communities, breaks families, and breaks individuals. Anger claims space that could be used otherwise. Organizations are wise to fear/heavily respect Anger, which is one reason that anger suppression is a topic that comes up at church.

My lesson from my spiritual challenge was that anger is more than a negative emotion. It prevented me from

returning to God or the lesson he wanted me to learn. My experience seems so small or insignificant today

compared to the experiences of other people I’ve met. One of my neighbors was in a concentration camp

during WWII. His outward spirit was very happy & outgoing.

All I can think about today is: God please protect me from myself. (anger)

Women generally come into their anger as part of their midlife transition. The theory is that Estrogen is tied to “giving a care” and “anger management” – and with the decreasing estrogen, women literally have less biological motivation to suppress their anger emotions to “make nice”.

I find it interesting the emphasis placed by the church on the issues (questions) asked about in the temple

recommend interview. None of the questions ask about our personal relationships with God, others or ourselves.

I know time is limited. In the long term, I don’t think that I’ve ever had a personal relationship with any of

my Bishops or SP’s over many years. It has been very superficial.

I read somewhere that the purpose of the interview is to ensure that members are spiritually prepared to enter

the temple. If all they do is ask the standardized questions, it seems like opportunities are lost to get to really

know the members on a more personal level.

The explicit purpose of the temple interview is as you say. The functional purpose is to sign off on the individual living their life in accordance with a works-based checklist and provide a chance for individual introspection. There are general questions about being honest in your dealings with others and child support (if applicable).

A key catalyst in my faith transition was that the programs didn’t fit my daughter. The more information I gathered, the more aware I became of the “swimming uphill battle” I had engaged in to shift myself into what I understood of the performance expectations that church culture had of me as a woman, wife, and mother. When I was looking at what the church programs and church culture were doing for my family – it didn’t look appreciably better. It would have been nice if we were individuals for whom the standard system worked – but we didn’t. I am the breadwinner and I preside over most decisions made in our home. My husband has a lot of empathy and can connect to individuals more easily than I can whenever he chooses to do so – and he badly misjudges himself whenever he gets too involved with church culture (and then we all deal with that fallout – which shouldn’t be happening).

When I went to Sacrament meeting in November 2023 (reasons), all the adults were lovely and welcoming to my pants-wearing self and daughter – and happy to see my husband. My husband made it a point to highlight in the scriptures passage that there was a more inclusive, loving-kindess approach in his comments in Sunday School. I didn’t feel like I belonged there anymore, and I had hoped that I could.