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afterall wrote:
I ran out after her and spent some time calming her down. When talks like these are given and and it is not stressed that some are truly emotionally bleeding from the wounds inflicted in the house of their friends, it can cause more bleeding. My friend has remained in the church despite tremendous opposition. I am so proud of her.
I so wish there was a little more emphasis on looking around us and asking , “Is it I?”
This example really inspired me. Thanks for sharing afterall. That was really cool that you acted and did something…not just judged her as being offended and leaving because she was offended…you actually reached out to her.:thumbup: I think this happens a lot also and there are good people in the church trying to help people overcome being offended. That is service. You hope there are more experiences like this to outweigh the experiences of feeling judged or made to feel offended…and stay in the church despite things aren’t perfect in the church.
I think most of us get offended. We can deal with it, or it it can be too painful and need to remove ourselves from the situation. But as was said earlier in the thread, there are so many different reasons and different people who handle it differently to really boil it down to one specific scenario. It is just part of being in a community.
Quote:This example really inspired me. Thanks for sharing afterall. That was really cool that you acted and did something…not just judged her as being offended and leaving because she was offended…you actually reached out to her.
Amen – and amen.
It is very difficult to really understand what Depression is until you’ve experienced it yourself or with a member of your family. Like alot of things in this life, there are no easy answers why one person suffers from depression & another person doesn’t.
Like alot of things, we try to categorize why with explanations like…
If they were more active.
If they studied the scriptures more.
If they went to the temple more.
Depression (like other illnesses) has no easy answer for why.
The same thing is true for why someone is inactive.
Mike from Milton.
I’d like to respond, but to avoid detracting from the OP topic, I’ll start another thread. After 30 years of being very active in the church, my husband left because Moroni’s promise in the BofM did not work for him. I recently saw the pre-liminary results from John Dehlin about why people leave the church and my husband was surprised that 37 % surveyed were like him and never got an answer. 8% left because they felt God told them to go to another church. The thing that surprised and hurt my husband after leaving the church was 1) when a previous bishop told him he lhought my husband had left the church because he wanted to sail his new sailboat on Sundays. My husband was taken aback that this bishop would think he was that shallow and explained (again) why he no longer believed the church was true. 2). It hurt him that none of the high counselor men or stake president that he worked so close with for years as a high council man himself, ever contacted him to see why he left or how he was doing. Quote:1) when a previous bishop told him he lhought my husband had left the church because he wanted to sail his new sailboat on Sundays. My husband was taken aback that this bishop would think he was that shallow and explained (again) why he no longer believed the church was true. 2). It hurt him that none of the high counselor men or stake president that he worked so close with for years as a high council man himself, ever contacted him to see why he left or how he was doing.
There seems to be something very wrong when people can serve together and then someone stops coming and no one cares enough to contact him/her. I have reflected on situations like this many times. Especially when it seems that there is friendship while people serve together in callings. I have decided that people and friendships seem to be very disposable to many. I don’t know if we are people weary from being around so many so much of the time or many people are just very inward looking. I know people who feel they were just an assignment after a VT or HT is changed out- many times those VT’ers and HT’ers can’t bother to even say hello in the hall. Yes, that kind of behavior would make any person wonder. Changing of ward boundaries will often unsettle people due to this kind of behavior.
I am so sorry that no one cared enough to engage in discussion with your husband.
I am offended most of the time I go to church. I am offended that I am taught fiction as the literal truth.
I am offended that I must be quite with the truth so as I may not offend.
I am offended that individuals claim church is a spiritual experience when it is mostly just meetings of suspect value
I am offended that I am marginalized because I place logic and reason above “warm fuzzies”.
I am offended because my brain requires evidence and I am told I have no faith.
I am offended that my love of God is measured by my obedience to the rules of men.
Really none of these offend me to any real degree but my point being there are many ways to be offended. It is not always because of trivial matters like members want to believe. I believe it is a true statement that those that leave the church are offended but rarely in the way members think.
Thanks ‘afterall,’ I appreciate what you said. I know one stake high council man at church asked me how my husband was doing and seemed concerned (I was still active for awhile after my husband left). I said to the high councilman: “Why don’t you ask him yourself. Here’s his number.” He felt embarrassed and never did call. My husband thinks that members just don’t know what to say, or do not want to hear anything that might shake their own faith. My husband understands that as it was a painful crisis of faith for him to go through himself. I found my own crisis of faith very upsetting and scary and still find it painful at times..but what we do believe is that if there is a God, he is just, fair, kind, and loving and appreciates our honesty. So, even though we ocassionally hear from relatives and members the threat of “you made covenants in the temple and are loosing your salvation by leaving the church,” we tell them that a loving just God would not do that to honest soul searchers who have doubts or lost faith. bridget, what you said struck a cord, regarding your husband: Quote:It hurt him that none of the high counselor men or stake president that he worked so close with for years as a high council man himself, ever contacted him to see why he left or how he was doing.
I received the same treatment. It seems as though you have a contagious disease & they (TBM’s) don’t want to catch it.
The up side for me is, I got to meet people from a wide range of backgrounds that I woundn’t of meet if I has stayed active.
Mike from Milton.
Bridget_Night: It makes me so sad and also for you Mike! Everything else hangs on the first 2 great commandments and it seems so many have lost sight of that. How can you be loving your fellow man or going after the one if you now pretend that person doesn’t even exist? If someone is in our immediate circles, I believe we have a responsbility to reach out.Not to chastise, straighten out, judge, etc….just to love, which means there should be some communication going on. For me and mine, we feel we have been “called” in our little sphere to reach out and love as we can and to seek direction for who is most in need of love at any given time. We have stepped on territorial toes, been accused of interfering with the organized way (but not by the people who needed and wanted our type of love and service!). Interesting that leadership can at times lose sight and feel they have the right to dictate who can serve someone, versus allowing that person to voice that he/she has asked for or is welcoming help from a particular person or family. I do believe, with all my heart, that God is bigger than all this. This is not to say I am against our church in any way. I love so much about the church and our restored truths. But we don’t have it down perfectly. I do believe there is much to be revealed and that’s the rub. Some act as if it has all been revealed and they will be justified in these hurtful behaviors. I believe otherwise.
Hey Mike from Milton…Thanks for sharing how you understand. I do think you are right that they just can’t handle it. I didn’t think I could handle having a gay son or having my whole world turn upside down when I believed the church and GA’s were so true and right all my life. The upside has been similar to yours too. Would never have met so many other great people from other faiths. Quote:“For me and mine, we feel we have been “called” in our little sphere to reach out and love as we can and to seek direction for who is most in need of love at any given time. We have stepped on territorial toes, been accused of interfering with the organized way (but not by the people who needed and wanted our type of love and service!). Interesting that leadership can at times lose sight and feel they have the right to dictate who can serve someone, versus allowing that person to voice that he/she has asked for or is welcoming help from a particular person or family. I do believe, with all my heart, that God is bigger than all this. This is not to say I am against our church in any way. I love so much about the church and our restored truths. But we don’t have it down perfectly. I do believe there is much to be revealed and that’s the rub. Some act as if it has all been revealed and they will be justified in these hurtful behaviors. I believe otherwise.
I really like your attitude and I also believe much still has to be revealed. Bridget
Cadence wrote:I am offended most of the time I go to church.
I am offended that I am taught fiction as the literal truth.
I am offended that I must be quiet with the truth so as I may not offend.
I am offended that individuals claim church is a spiritual experience when it is mostly just meetings of suspect value
I am offended that I am marginalized because I place logic and reason above “warm fuzzies”.
I am offended because my brain requires evidence and I am told I have no faith.
I am offended that my love of God is measured by my obedience to the rules of men.
Really none of these offend me to any real degree but my point being there are many ways to be offended. It is not always because of trivial matters like members want to believe. I believe it is a true statement that those that leave the church are offended but rarely in the way members think.
I think you make a good point about the nature of disaffecting offense. At first, seeing your stack of ‘I am offended’s above, that being offended is a choice. I can let a lot of this slide if I no longer care what the church thinks ofme— a lot of this, but not all. what others think and feel is largely their problem. What they say is their problem as well — it’s how we react to what they say. But where you and I agree is that it doesn’t just stop at people speaking the whatever fiction they feel is appropriate. It’s that to say anything contrary to the party line is to be apostate and therefore unwelcome in the extreme. Your offense at having to stay quiet, and the fact that you are marginalized because of logic is a significant issue.
There is a two-fold problem here. Members of the church do not have well defined boundaries. It is completely acceptable, in my impression, to say that I believe the church is true (relevant, spiritually valuable, etc.) based upon my warm-fuzzy illogic. It is equally acceptable for you to say that warm fuzzies don’t work for you. Where offense is merited is when I or you think the other person’s approach is invalid — that crosses a boundary. As well, to think that just because I say that the church is true based upon warm fuzzies is a direct confrontation of your logical values — that isn’t what I said, and your offense is your boundary problem. I am not violating your boundaries if I say x as long as I don’t say that not-x is invalid.
The challenge is that there are some teachings of the church and christianity that are deeply offensive. going to the temple this morning, there is a distinct difference between the woman’s relationship to god than the man’s. This difference could be offensive in that the woman is accountable to the husband and the husband god, forcing a direct subordination of wife to husband. The truth for many is that the best marriages are equal partnerships where both have direct access to god/christ to mediate in love. And in saying that the differnece is offensive, I could be offending those, generally men, who feel that the endowment is gospel and always right, and that I’m questioning their cherished beliefs.
None of this is easy. Better to relax and not worry about such details.
Quote:Where offense is merited is when I or you think the other person’s approach is invalid — that crosses a boundary.
and, in this example, it’s why I always say it’s a bit hypocritical to state unequivocally that those who don’t accept the validity of my views are (fill in the blank) IF I am not accepting the validity of their views. Iow, I can’t say, “Quit saying I’m wrong!!! This works for me, and I believe it deeply. You’re wrong!!!”
Quote:None of this is easy. Better to relax and not worry about such details.
If anyone is interested, I wrote the following post just last week on my personal blog:
“
Principles vs. Details: The Difference is Important, Especially When Teaching Children” ( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2012/01/principles-vs-details-difference-is.html To be perfectly fair, when I became inactive, I didn’t reach out to anyone either. I was willing to see the HTs, etc. Now, when we go to church it’s fun to sit in the back (aka “outer darkness”) & introduce myself to people around me that I don’t know.
They always give me a smile.
Mike from Milton.
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