Maybe we are not listening

[Anonymous]

Is it possible that all our doubts and questions about the church are in actuality God trying to tell us it is not correct or true and it is the wrong path to be on. That we should stop trying to fit square pegs in round holes and embrace other options. For some reason this has been on my mind lately. The problem is there seems no place else to go.

[Anonymous]

I don’t want to come across as bashing the church, but I had almost this exact conversation with my wife recently. I might have even used the square pegs in a round hole analogy, to the way I feel right now and the way I am being asked to believe and think by church leaders, and how I feel like I am being corralled into a one-size-fits-all box that doesn’t work for me.

I also have a tough time even approaching this subject because our church conditioning strictly forbids going down this kind of thinking.

Anyway, yes, I was telling my wife that I feel like I may come across as being arrogance and self-righteous, but “maybe god has other plans for me and been telling me things that many other mormons are not getting told. I am being led – that the spirit is trying to teach me something important.” Cadence, I do feel that the church is a divine institution, one of many, that “god” uses to help folks find peace — but that is as far as I can go at this time. I wrote a big long post on the thread about my SP fiasco this sunday (which I deleted), about how there is just no way that my soul, or the my spirit, will allow me to ever go back and fit in the box that I am being asked to fit in on the local level. The spirit is taking me down a different pathway than the one I grew up with. I don’t know why, or where it will take me, but I certainly believe I am on a spiritual journey, just as spiritual and real as any other person on this planet has experienced.

I watched Close Encounters Of The Third Kind AGAIN last night. There is a scene in which Richard Dryfus is sitting at the kitchen table playing with his mashed potatoes with tears in his eyes, while his family looks on helplessly. Richard Dryfus looks up apologetically and says, “I don’t know what is going on, and I can’t describe to you how I am feeling. But this all means something. It means something important.”

I about came out of my chair when I saw this scene last night, and blurted out, “Yes, that’s it. That is exactly what is happening to me.”

Later on in the show, the alientologists are interviewing Richard and ask him why he came to Devil’s Rock. Dryfus shouts in frustration, “I came to find answers. I just want to know what is happening to me.”

Look, I don’t know if the church is true or if it isn’t true, I don’t know anything anymore, but there can be no doubt, IMO, that what is happening to me is a personal spiritual awakening unlike ANYTHING I have ever experienced. I think it is real, at least it is real to me, and, as sad as many of my LDS family and friends may see it, it is not leading me down the pathway of traditional, cultural, orthodox Mormonism.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

Is it possible that all our doubts and questions about the church are in actuality God trying to tell us it is not correct or true and it is the wrong path to be on. That we should stop trying to fit square pegs in round holes and embrace other options. For some reason this has been on my mind lately. The problem is there seems no place else to go.

I would like to think this is a possibility. I went through a major period of doubting about tithing a while ago, and have reached some conclusions that make me feel at peace about it. Some suggested this was God leading me in that direction.

On the other hand, I know that unbelief can also darken the way we see things — and that faith can illuminate the way for us.

Try the age-old exercise. Divide the class into two groups, and give them each a separate list of words:

Beach

Tanning Lotion

Surf

Swimming

Bathing Suit

Hot

Give the other group this list:

Brother

Sister

Daughter

Father

Mother

Then, give everyone the following word, and ask them to fill in the blank:

S _ N

The first group usually sees a “U” immediately, spelling sUn. The other group, given family relationships to reflect on beforehand — sees an “O” to spell sOn.

So, how we condition our thinking, and simply what we let ourselves think drives what we see, reinforcing those beliefs.

I remain open to the fact that I may be wrong about my religion — and that the sacrifices I’ve made may well have been unecessary. But I choose to keep believing in it because it does inspire me to do good. Constantly doubting only brings me more doubt, and on matters of religion, I see no other place where there will be an absence of such doubt — religion is just too subjective.

Therefore, I choose to believe and see good all around me as a result.

[Anonymous]

cwald wrote:

I was telling my wife that I feel like I may come across as being arrogance and self-righteous, but “maybe god has other plans for me and been telling me things that many other mormons are not getting told. I am being led – that the spirit is trying to teach me something important.” …The spirit is taking me down a different pathway than the one I grew up with. I don’t know why, or where it will take me, but I certainly believe I am on a spiritual journey, just as spiritual and real as any other person on this planet has experienced.

Yes, yes, yes… your path is valid, and it is incredibly important to learn everything that you can learn. My only cautions would be to remain humble about what you “know.” Over-confidence is an enemy to truth (both fanatical religionists and fanatical scientists fall victim). Also, I’d really try not to burn bridges with the church. In the future you may decided your path is not so incompatible with church activity.

Have you listened to the podcast with Dr. David Bailey? http://mormonstories.org/?p=1032 I don’t know if it applies to any of your thoughts specifically, but I really enjoyed it.

Also I hope your local church situation doesn’t give you a permanent false reading on where the larger church actually is. Maybe it’s no so different, but even by degrees – small things can become huge over time.

[Anonymous]

I agree that it could be God telling us we are on the wrong path. I think that is the meaning of the feeling. But I don’t think it applies at very high levels — like the LDS Church (or any church/religion) is all true, or all false.

I’ve looked around. I don’t claim to know everything, but I have put a good 25 years into actively searching for The Truth(tm). It has been a “hobby” and near-compulsion of mine since I was old enough to read thick books and ask pesky questions. I’ve looked at everything from Mormonism (of course) to Buddhism with all the Christianity and Islam in between, even alchemy and sacred geometry.

I have yet to find a single “school of thought” that is 100% true, with 0% false, and nothing that is unclear, that has all the answers, and those answers work for everyone perfectly. *shrug* So far, the universe (God) doesn’t seem to work that way.

So for now, I take what works, wherever I might find it, and run with it. You know, Joseph Smith said that too. He said that was one of the grand (primary), fundamental principles of Mormonism. Too bad so many of his followers are uncomfortable with the words of their prophet, the one who was “second only to Jesus”

(BTW, that second-only comment was in the form of an exaggerated eulogy by an admirer. It doesn’t have to be literal).

[Anonymous]

Quote:

We allow ALL men EVERYWHERE the same privilege.

You are part of that statement, so . . .

You need to do what you feel you are being told to do. My heart hopes deeply that the orchestra will continue to be benefitted by the harmony only you can provide, but if God has another place for that harmony to he heard – if it simply can’t be heard right now in the orchestra in which you currently are playing, so be it. That’s not my call; it’s yours. Just don’t leave because of bitterness; leave, if you must, out of a desire to rediscover the joy of worship – and keep a soft spot in your heart for the people and organization who contributed positively to getting you to the point where an individual journey was possible.

If you leave, I hope the piccolos in your current congregation will realize they miss hearing your kazoo and be less quick to shun the next oboe player who walks through the door – or who is sitting among them praying to be heard and appreciated.

[Anonymous]

My soul is crying out to step out of the church for awhile. I wish that I could become inactive for awhile just to feel the difference. Now I realize I could but you all know the pressure many of us feel to stay active and for me in my small mormon town that means weekly attendance and multiple callings. I am trying to find a middle way that will bring peace to my soul but I have so much growingup to do that I am finding it very difficult. (by growing up I mean finding my voice and having the strength to say no and to express my needs) So I believe part of what God wants me to learn is how to stop identifying with pleasing others and how to start following my heart. The church really is one of the best places to learn that. If I didn’t have it, I could just keep to myself and never learn how to play well with others without dumping on myself. So I see the value in continuing to attend. In my TR interview I told the bishopric member that I was going to be very clear about my needs (or at least try to be) and he highly encouraged it. He and the bishop might be surprised as to how that plays out but I am determined to let my banjo heart find harmony in the orchestra (sorry to steal the analogy Ray).

I don’t think we can ever go wrong when we follow our hearts.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

Is it possible that all our doubts and questions about the church are in actuality God trying to tell us it is not correct or true and it is the wrong path to be on.

I think the church is a tool and not a path. Sometime you may need to change to a more effective tool to stay on the correct path.

Even with my very short experience in the Church, I have made great headway in becoming the better person I want to be. I don’t think I can explain how huge the changes have been in such a short time. This whole time I have had doubts, questions, anger, depression BUT this didn’t stop me from growing as a person, it only helped me. I think some of these emotions come from a resistance to change. Even if the change is for the better. Or some of the emotions come up when I realise the world is not the way I wanted it to be.

I realise now that this Church may not always be this helpful. When that time comes I can always start looking for a new tool.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

Is it possible that all our doubts and questions about the church are in actuality God trying to tell us it is not correct or true and it is the wrong path to be on. That we should stop trying to fit square pegs in round holes and embrace other options. For some reason this has been on my mind lately. The problem is there seems no place else to go.

Could it be possible that God is trying to tell you to change your perspective about the church?

I was raised in a very active family in a town where we were a persecuted minority for a long time. My parents were in leaderships positions in our district, then ward, then stake and we were probably more active in building the church than I’ve ever known another family to be – our entire life was multiple demanding callings one after another. The CHURCH was my life.

So when I first started to struggle with my faith and some historical issues, it was earth-shattering, identity undermining, and heart breaking.

What eventually happened was that I started seeing that it wasn’t the Church which was creating this insanely chaotic existence that was tied up in an institution (with all its protocols, procedures, policies, and programs), it was me and my family and our small body of saints who were zealously responding to Mormonism the same way Peter responded to Christ when the Lord offered to wash his feet: Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.

Just like Peter, we so wanted to be immersed fully that we were missing the entire point – looking beyond the mark!

The church is not supposed to be your relationship with God. It’s supposed to be a vehicle to help you navigate a course to Him. To put it in President Lee’s words, the church is scaffolding erected to help YOU build YOUR soul. It’s an auxiliary. When you put the institution of the church in its proper place, as a helpmeet, to your personal spiritual journey, it takes A LOT of pressure off.

Quote:

President Kimball taught: “The mission of the Church to its members is to make available the principles, programs, and priesthood by which they can prepare themselves for exaltation. Our success, individually and as a Church, will largely be determined by how faithfully we focus on living the gospel in the home. Only as we see clearly the responsibilities of each individual and the role of families and homes can we properly understand that priesthood quorums and auxiliary organizations, even wards and stakes, exist primarily to help members live the gospel in the home. Then we can understand that people are more important than programs, and that Church programs should always support and never detract from gospel-centered family activities. …

“Our commitment to home-centered gospel living should become the clear message of every priesthood and auxiliary program, reducing, where necessary, some of the optional activities that may detract from proper focus on the family and the home.”

At a crucial earlier time in Church history, Elder Harold B. Lee was assigned the daunting task of correlating what then were many diverse facets of the overall Church organization into its present unified form.

The insights he gained through that sacred assignment are most helpful to us today. In a conference message, President Lee gave this valuable counsel:

“The home is the basis of a righteous life. … Priesthood programs operate in support of the home; the auxiliary programs render valuable assistance. … [There is an] urgency of impressing the importance of better teaching and greater parental responsibility in the home. Much of what we do organizationally, then, is scaffolding, as we seek to build the individual, and we must not mistake the scaffolding for the soul.”

It changed my life to start thinking of the church as an auxiliary designed to help me rather than seeing my life as useful only insofar as I built up the church. It allowed me to separate the gospel from the church and to hold onto my faith even when I kicked some of the scaffolding down.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, m&g.

In all honesty, at this point in my life, I really don’t need much of the Church’s scaffolding. I participate actively in the Church largely to be part of the scaffolding building team for others, and some of my motivation in doing so is to try to make sure the scaffolding doesn’t end up hiding the building it is meant to support. (the old discussion of hedges about the law) In some cases, that means being a voice in vetoing some proposed scaffolding of the Church; in others, it actually means helping tear down some of the Church scaffolding that has been built in the past – or is being built by well-meaning members in the present. Mostly, it’s just trying to be a voice of reason to help others learn how to build scaffolding for the personal faith that will work for them, regardless, ultimately, on the scaffolding that ends up being built at church – since I really do believe that my life (which includes my faith and that of my family – which extends into my church and community families) is more central to the Gospel than the Church organization itself.

Luckily, that idea is preached regularly from the global pulpit, so I’m in no way apostate for suggesting it. It’s just getting it done in competition with the communal pressure to build the Church that is the struggle.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

Thanks, m&g.

In all honesty, at this point in my life, I really don’t need much of the Church’s scaffolding. I participate actively in the Church largely to be part of the scaffolding building team for others, and some of my motivation in doing so is to try to make sure the scaffolding doesn’t end up hiding the building it is meant to support. (the old discussion of hedges about the law) In some cases, that means being a voice in vetoing some proposed scaffolding of the Church; in others, it actually means helping tear down some of the Church scaffolding that has been built in the past – or is being built by well-meaning members in the present. Mostly, it’s just trying to be a voice of reason to help others learn how to build scaffolding for the personal faith that will work for them, regardless, ultimately, on the scaffolding that ends up being built at church – since I really do believe that my life (which includes my faith and that of my family – which extends into my church and community families) is more central to the Gospel than the Church organization itself.

Luckily, that idea is preached regularly from the global pulpit, so I’m in no way apostate for suggesting it. It’s just getting it done in competition with the communal pressure to build the Church that is the struggle.

Ray,

It sounds like you and I are at exactly the same point along the journey.

Sometimes, it feels like the movie the Matrix only instead of stepping out of the illusion into a dreary grey underworld, I stepped out of what I thought was real into an even more beautiful reality. I’m working on gracefully helping others find their way ‘further up and further in’ (CS Lewis) where the air is more clear and real peace exists but as you say, the communal pressure often poses a challenge.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

MnG

[Anonymous]

It is a long hard row. From my experience there are just so many folks who think the “scaffold” is more important than the gospel.

I don’t really need the church at this point in my life. However, that’s dangerous talk to many church leaders. When I told my BP that I didn’t need the temple last week, well, you know how that went.

Brian made a great analogy once, where the church was set up to go, INDIVIDUAL, GOD, PRIESTHOOD/CHURCH. Now since cooralation and the emphasis on temples and TR worthiness, in the mormon world it really appears to go, INDIVIDUAL, /PRIESTHOOD/CHURCH, GOD.

For any kind of meaningful change to happen, this has to be corrected. I think this is the scaffold analogy in effect. The church is design to help us find god. Right now, you must go through the church/priesthood to find god. That is an incorrect principle.

[Author]

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