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Joni – This makes my heart sing. Quote:Our bishop has basically disregarded the handbook in giving assistance to our family while DH is unemployed – the way it’s supposed to work is you use up your savings, then you ask your family for help, THEN the church will help you. He said ‘the heck with all that’ and allowed us to receive storehouse food and other things BEFORE we drained our savings. It changed my opinion of this bishop – in a good way.
There are definitely bishops who get it, Joni. In my time of need I happened to have one who didn’t. Count yourself lucky (or blessed). I have had both types of Bishops. It is wonderful when they get it, but I understand the ones who feel they have to follow the letter of the law. I am saddened they miss out on the blessings of understanding and applying the spirit of the law, but I understand why they personally can’t. I think unfortunately that personal politics as well as the bishop’s own circumstances make him more or less empathetic. In my experience, most bishops and wards have been very open and generous and not judgmental. Issues come in when they have had financial success and believe it’s their own doing (that they deserve all the good things they have). And of course, we don’t put bishops in who themselves are not financially solvent because then there’s a question out there of how they will be able to handle this role while also struggling. I’ve been impressed since our ward change with the generosity of spirit among most of my new ward members (my old ward was great, so I was worried). The new ward has a lot of women who own their own businesses in it, and also a lot of wealthy people (so did my old one), but still a mix of circumstances. In last week’s RS lesson on self-reliance, there was a lot of good common sense advice among the women about needing to have an education, making good choices about jobs (not just based on money or just based on flexibility, but reasonable attention paid to both). One sister talked about not settling for a toxic environment at work and finding something else that she ended up doing and loving for 30 years. The worst ward I’ve been in on this topic was in Utah where only 3 women in the RS had careers, and many who wouldn’t work were struggling to make ends meet. They tended to double down on a bad idea, becoming even more self-righteous and judgmental the harder their situations became.
Anyway, another friend of mine who barely made it through by using welfare and other means available to her got up and left when the teacher in her RS talked about how those who use welfare are a drain on society. What in the hell is wrong with people???
DarkJedi wrote:Exactly where I am. It is much easier that way. God set it all in motion and (maybe) watches from afar, that’s it. Nothing wrong with that.
I have personally landed in a place where God cares deeply but is unable to intervene. I like the idea of moral support. It works for me.
Roy wrote:
DarkJedi wrote:Exactly where I am. It is much easier that way. God set it all in motion and (maybe) watches from afar, that’s it. Nothing wrong with that.
I have personally landed in a place where God cares deeply but is unable to intervene. I like the idea of moral support. It works for me.
I am open to the idea that God can’t intervene due to agency. If God has Prime Directive it is that he won’t ever interfere with agency. That inability/refusal to intervene explains many things – the Holocaust, child abuse, etc. Yet, there are times when agency seems to have little to do with situations or when it’s not someone else’s agency in play but our own, and God still doesn’t intervene. That’s not to say I don’t think God loves us (collectively) – I think he does and that’s why he provided the atonement.
Tomorrow will be the first time I’ve seen him since that Sunday. Wish me luck! He may (not) think I’ve been offended but I’ve been on vacation.
Go in with low expectations. The leaders never disappoint that way… Good luck, Sam. Sitting with you in spirit. Please return and report. And he’s not here… talk about an anticlimax. I’ll have to cross this bridge. One pattern I’ve noticed in my own life is that certain things others have done to me are deeply important to me. The other person — the thing they did is a blip on the radar. Don’t be surprised if the guy didn’t give it a second thought. My hope is that they don’t put you on some kind of limited teaching or speaking schedule or something. That is where it gets really difficult. Good luck and keep us posted… To get some inner peace, try looking at what he did the way HE looks at it — something he’s forgotten about or doesn’t care too much about the implications of. I’ve had some limited success viewing situations that upset me through that lens, at least for a short period. It takes mental discipline to keep doing it, but it can induce some inner peace even though the other person has been a dufus.
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