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hawkgrrrl wrote:
Piper Alpha’s suggestion is genius – subbing in Primary or even the nursery is a terrific suggestion for those who struggle with the 2nd and 3rd hours.
The irony there is that I am actually a called nursery teacher and I hate it so bad I want to die every other week. In fact, it is one of the key factors in me wanting to go inactive. What is the point of going to church to do nothing church related? I know taking care of the kids is service, but I am not equipped to deal with kids that are not my own. Of course my wife is my co-teacher and so if I stay home she has to find a sub and that is not fair to her.
This probably won’t help, but If I were in your ward, I’d pay you $5 for each Sunday you let me take your place. Brown, I feel your pain. My wife and I worked in the nursery for a year or so, and I felt that I didn’t know anyone in the ward. Then I became Gospel Doctrine teacher and everyone knew who I was but I didn’t know them. (I loved teaching.) Then I got replaced by a guy who absolutely hated teaching, and nursery didn’t seem so bad anymore…. This too shall pass. During my nursery years, I started reading church books and found that helped my spirituality more than Sunday School anyway.
Brown wrote:hawkgrrrl wrote:Piper Alpha’s suggestion is genius – subbing in Primary or even the nursery is a terrific suggestion for those who struggle with the 2nd and 3rd hours.
The irony there is that I am actually a called nursery teacher and I hate it so bad I want to die every other week. In fact, it is one of the key factors in me wanting to go inactive. What is the point of going to church to do nothing church related? I know taking care of the kids is service, but I am not equipped to deal with kids that are not my own. Of course my wife is my co-teacher and so if I stay home she has to find a sub and that is not fair to her.
I’m horrible with kids. I feel like that truly makes me “a bad person,” but it is what it is. A few years back, I told a member of the bishopric that if I wasn’t released from being a nursery leader pretty darned soon, I was going to stop paying my tithing (I pay quarterly, so I figured I gave him plenty of advanced notice.😆 ). I think I was released a couple of weeks later.If you had’ve told him you were going to stop paying fast offerings or budget, you might’ve gotten IMMEDIATE service!! I didn’t even go last week, so didn’t feel … um … worthy … to participate in the discussion. Until today. I went. I saw. I got my butt kicked. Almost four hours later I escaped. It is so hard sometimes. The dissonance is almost unbearable and I’m pretty sure my pasted-on smile is painfully transparent. But I have to keep trying. I think I’m maybe beginning to understand a little bit about one aspect of
whyit’s so hard. My wife, to whom I am a constant source of consternation, pointed out that most people at church, in effect, don’t really mean what they say. It’s all an act, sort of, for the benefit of the tribe and to keep things all warm and snuggly. As a rational, I can’t comprehend that. Words mean something to me. It’s like being in an alien universe, and I have to struggle constantly to resist the foreign-ness of it. I *so* can’t wait to get out of there. Does this make any sense to anyone?
I now exactly how you feel. I think we have a very similar personality and that is what happens to me all the time. I did really well in my last ward where the EQ was held more like an open philosophy discussion with more personal experience than “by the book”. I loved that actually. Since I moved, it has not been as easy. Should I feel guilty that I was relieved that I got called into work today?
doug wrote:My wife, to whom I am a constant source of consternation, pointed out that most people at church, in effect, don’t really mean what they say. It’s all an act, sort of, for the benefit of the tribe and to keep things all warm and snuggly….Does this make any sense to anyone?
Parts of it do. I do believe they want to keep everything Warm and Snuggly. It’s true — but I don’t think it’s insincere as you imply…they DO mean it, or at least, want to believe it. It’s their personal security. If people start blasting that away, there is this incredible feeling of tension and uncomfortableness that fills the room. But it can SEEM insincere to someone who isn’t buying into the whole thing.
For example, I was in a Gospel Doctrine class once and someone questioned how the allegory of the olive tree could have made it into the Book of Mormon at the hand of a BoM prophet when there are no olive trees in South America. And then someone piped up how there were no elephants there either, and both are referenced in the BoM (or something similar). Everyone seemed shocked at this. This huge ripple of uncomfortableness, incredulity and such went through the room, and the teacher said something to diffuse the situation and moved on.
Anyway, my coping mechanism for this is to recognize that in sharing that divergent thought, or damaging the faith of others, I’m upsetting them, destroying their comfort, and even offending them. That helps me keep my mouth shut, I clothe my concerns in charity and respect for the place they are in at the time.
And occasionally, I screw up, and have to contribute to the True Confessions of a StayLDSer thread Brian started a few months back.
Brown wrote:I think we have a very similar personality …
I’ve thought the same thing.Quote:Should I feel guilty that I was relieved that I got called into work today?
I find myself all the time looking for ‘valid’ reasons not to be where I’m ‘supposed to be’.SilentDawning wrote:It’s true — but I don’t think it’s insincere as you imply…
I didn’t actually mean to imply that the act, if it is one, is insincere, though I can see how my comment easily might have come across that way. I admit, I *am* a little disdainful of the whole thing, but I am trying to allow for the fact that these people see and process the world completely differently than I do, so what to me would by all accounts be no more than a charade, to them has some inherent value and meaning. That’s what I really meant to say
And so as I think about it now as I’m writing this, I think that’s crazy. How could people operate that way? They must *really* buy in to the whole enchilada. I’m not even sure what difference it makes, because either way, I feel lost. I just don’t know somtimes.
Oh, and SD, no worries about me piping up about my thoughts at church. I’d sooner show up for sacrament meeting naked.
Quote:I’d sooner show up for sacrament meeting naked.
Thanks a lot! Now I have to go wash my brain out with soap.
😯 😆 On a more serious note, I do want to point out something that gets over-looked a lot by those who have been exposed to “negative arguments”:
1) There is NO problem with the allegory of the olive tree being in the Book of Mormon. It is purported to be a record of a people who left the Middle East and who were steeped in the literature of that area. Tree allegories were common then and there, as were olive orchards. Jacob was the first-generation son of someone who lived for decades in that land and who was trained in that culture. An allegory of an olive tree / vineyard poses no serious threat to the validity of the Book of Mormon, in and of itself.
2) There are multiple oral histories that go back ages within some Native American peoples of mammoths / mastadons of some kind on the American continents. Sure, technically, there were no “elephants” on the American continents of which we are aware, but the mention of elephants in the Book of Mormon also poses no serious threat to its validity, as long as we are willing to accept that “elephant” is an acceptable substitute for whatever animal to which it refers.
My point is that there are lots of issues that only are issues if they are limited and constrained to technicalities. There are some “serious” issues that need to be addressed more deeply, but so many of the issues people have really don’t need to be issues – and what I’ve written above aren’t even “apologetic arguments” in nature. It certainly isn’t “mental gymnastics” of any kind. They just are simple explanations. There’s a difference, and it’s an important difference, but it can be very hard to understand, accept and credit in the middle of a crisis.
Back to our regularly scheduled commentary.
I went Sunday. Had a hard time in SM with one of the talks. The sister talked about the welfare program, and how it worked for about 2 minutes. Then went on to talk about how if people aren’t willing to work they shouldn’t be getting welfare at all…even if the person is handicapped and can’t work (they should still work was her point). Then she went on to talk about how evil the US welfare system was…for 10 minutes. The only doctrine used was bits and pieces she selectively used to make her point, missing the rest of the doctrine (i.e being self-sufficient and if a person is not self-sufficient then they are evil, but they skip the parts where it says to help the poor – Mosiah Chapter 3 comes to mind) And during this talk not once did she reference Bishop Burtons talk at all…just ignored what he said all together. She even went on to say that she felt only temple worthy members should be helped…at which point I had to just start reading scriptures to keep from yelling at her. However the Bishop was uneasy and talking to his councilors while she was talking and after the HC spoke the Bishop did get up and clarify some things (in a very polite way and as not to embarrass her) But this all said the lady I was sitting next to was just as upset with the talk as I was, she kept saying that’s not how its done, that’s not right under her breath the whole talk.
And to top it all off during SS the teacher started the class off by saying he was friends with an LDS senator who doesn’t like going to church anymore because he knows Democrats are considered bad. The teacher went on to say that no one should feel bad about their politics and shamed into not coming to church. The teacher is a former Bishop and on the HC…really wish they would move him up the ladder because he actually understands the ‘middle-way’ issues would rather sit and talk about issues than judge the questioner.
Anyway it was nice to see some action by the leadership on the bad talk for once.
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