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Ray, Brian — I appreciate your comments and perspective this weekend. I am happy for you – that you don’t let this stuff get to you. I kind of agree with Flower today about how I feel. It’s not anger really – it’s sadness. My “righteous indignation” about conference has pretty well turned into melancholy and sadness. I’m thinking I will go out and spend the evening sitting on the porch watching the sun set, sip on a beer, and
“contemplate what the restored gospel means to me and how it applies to my life”and just the hell with “The “church” — at least for tonight. I assume you mean apathy on your part. I think some perspective is called for. I know that some people like to dismiss dark spots in church history. I recall GBH making such an appeal in one of his interviews. “Hey, that was X years ago. It’s ancient history”. I don’t buy that argument. It will always be part and parcel of the church and its legacy. For a perfect organization, such things are of course inexcusable. This is proof to me (if I needed any) that a big part of the church as we know it and deal with it on a daily basis is man-made — i.e. not perfect. This past GC is further proof of that. It had some good parts and some bad parts. I think the bad pales in comparison to what has occurred in the past, yet somehow we can all deal with that at some level. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but our hope is that there is more to it than just the manmade part, and that amongst all the noise is the influence of God, and that in some measure we can tap into that to improve our lives and the lives of our families.
I think I’d call that insanity before I’d call it apathy.
doug wrote:I think I’d call that insanity before I’d call it apathy.
Ha.
cwald, I know I’ve shared this before, but I read the allegory of the vineyard in Jacob 5 at a very young age as saying that the Church would contain elements of “bitter fruit” right up until the end that would need to be pruned. That conclusion didn’t come from my parents; it was my own insight. Therefore, I’ve never struggled with the principle that there would be things with which I wouldn’t agree – including statements by even Presidents and apostles. That’s my answer. It doesn’t have to be anyone else’s. However, I do want to make it crystal clear that I AM disappointed by the bitter fruit, even if it doesn’t threaten my spiritual life. I also understand that it can be poisonous to some people, especially if they have not built up an immunity to it.
I feel for you, and I think sitting and watching the sunset is a wonderful idea – even if I can’t endorse the beer.
Old-Timer wrote:However, I do want to make it crystal clear that I AM disappointed by the bitter fruit, even if it doesn’t threaten my spiritual life. I also understand that it can be poisonous to some people, especially if they have not built up an immunity to it.
That’s one thing that I’ve tried to figure out. Why it is that the people that I respect like Bushman and some of the GAs can be aware of the things that are difficult for me and it doesn’t matter to them. It’s like the level of spiritual experience or faith in the church has reached a level such that it just cancels it all out. Is it immunity or is it that some decide it just doesn’t matter? I almost wonder if some people acknowledge the problems and then just decide not to think about them or they’re not that big a deal. It’s starting to make my brain hurt. All I can say is that it matters to me and I can’t just put things on a shelf anymore. It hit the ground a long time ago and there’s no fixing it.
cwald wrote:I’m thinking I will go out and spend the evening sitting on the porch watching the sun set, sip on a beer, and “contemplate what the restored gospel means to me and how it applies to my life” and just the hell with “The “church” — at least for tonight.
Sounds like a great plan! Seriously. Soulful contemplation is one of the best spiritual practices there is. So is feeling your feelings, instead of trying to shove them off and pretend they aren’t there. Feel sad. Feel apathy. Feel frustration. Think about why and what and how. I need to be better at that too a lot of the time.
cwald wrote:Ray, Brian — I appreciate your comments and perspective this weekend. I am happy for you – that you don’t let this stuff get to you.
I kind of agree with Flower today about how I feel. It’s not anger really – it’s sadness. My “righteous indignation” about conference has pretty well turned into melancholy and sadness…
Maybe apathy is the best you can hope for if some of the only other alternatives are simply to feel angry, frustrated, sad, etc. about what other people believe and say. I guess I just don’t expect much of anything different out of these top Church leaders anymore; you can already have a pretty good idea of the kinds of things they are going to say most of the time based on what they have already been saying repeatedly for at least the past 25 years. If you don’t believe in their base assumptions about authority and the idea of one true Church then some of it can be really hard to listen to.
All I need to hear is the subject “tithing” and I already know the rest of the story. They will undoubtedly say something along the lines of “it won’t be easy, but it will be worth it” and will quote some scriptures and maybe add in a story about someone who had the faith to pay tithing and then everything magically worked out and they were blessed and able to pay all their bills and everyone involved was just as happy as could be. Well what about any people who paid tithing and weren’t quite so lucky?
Anyway I don’t think most of these Church leaders really know any better, as far as I’m concerned they are just men trying to interpret things based on their own perspective and what they have been taught. If you take some men that already have the point-of-view that they are inspired and favored by God and they are surrounded by others that agree with them I can’t imagine that it would be very easy for them to ever consider the possibility that maybe some of their opinions are highly questionable or flat-out wrong.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:All I need to hear is the subject “tithing” and I already know the rest of the story. They will undoubtedly say something along the lines of “it won’t be easy, but it will be worth it” and will quote some scriptures and maybe add in a story about someone who had the faith to pay tithing and then everything magically worked out and they were blessed and able to pay all their bills and everyone involved was just as happy as could be. Well what about any people who paid tithing and weren’t quite so lucky?
Anyway I don’t think most of these Church leaders really know any better, as far as I’m concerned they are just men trying to interpret things based on their own perspective and what they have been taught. If you take some men that already have the point-of-view that they are inspired and favored by God and they are surrounded by others that agree with them I can’t imagine that it would be very easy for them to ever consider the possibility that maybe some of their opinions are highly questionable or flat-out wrong.
Yep. I’m so tired of hearing anecdotes equated to eternal principles. Maybe there’s a place for FPSs (faith promoting stories … I learned a new acronym!), but they tend to make me even more cynical that I usually am. If the original question was ‘should we be apathetic about GC talks in general?’, then I would have to agree that would be a safe approach. That way you might get a pleasant surprise every now and then.
I was talking about apathy for the church in general. If it has anything to do with your relationship to God, then no. Otherwise, yes. But you already knew that. I think you should go drink that beer.
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