Meet with An Area Authority?

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

I give him credit for writing you back and wanting to meet with you. Kudos to the GA!

HOwever, I would personally not meet with him personally, although I might consider some limited correspondence via email.

My reasons are thus:

1. You will likely get unsatisfying TBM answers.

2. You run the strong risk of a referral to your SP or Bishop, even if he assures confidentiality. The chain of command is very strong in the church.

3. YOu want to leave your options open in case something happens and you want full integration with the church again.

That is my advice. I do appreciate the fact that he cares though. And he’s probably a busy, high achieving person.

Good luck.

Thanks SD. I understand, and I do have those fears. My desire to not pass up the opportunity is outweighing my fears right now.

I do know him personally. He was my Bishop for a few years, so I feel comfortable talking to him, which is helping to calm my fears as well.

[Anonymous]

Sorry for not posting an update earlier. I wanted to; it has just been a busy Mother’s Day weekend. I did meet with the Area Authority on Saturday. We met for almost 2 hours.

While I don’t want to diminish the helpful advice he gave me and some of the insight I received, the biggest help to me was just being able to release the pressure I had bottled up with not sharing my doubt with anyone in person. It was wonderful to talk with someone who understood what I was going through, did not judge me, and only wanted to help me. I feel like I needed this release and I needed a sounding board to work through some things in my own mind.

He told me where to park discreetly, and which door to go to that once I reached I could call him and he would come let me in. He has maintained the confidentially we discussed, which I appreciate.

We each shared some very personal things, which I will not share here, and which I told him I would not share.

I did tell him about StayLDS.com and that I most likely would not be meeting with him if it wasn’t for the support I receive on this site. So, thank you to everyone. I can’t express that enough.

I did ask for his permission to share some of the things we discussed. I will try to summarize these and keep in mind some of this was his advice and some of it was insight I gained as we discussed. While much of this advice is something I’m sure many of you have heard, it became personal to me, and he was able to provide insight that struck me with more importance and applicability to my situation. So, here goes.

Ambiguity about why things happened within the church’s past is OK. We talked about my tendency to want to have all the answers.

With that, we talked about how digging into the answers some people give, such as apologists, can be an addictive habit. I realized that I need to stop looking for answers from apologists.

I thought about the mental gymnastics some apologists expect one’s faith to perform, which can only leave the bones of one’s faith seriously broken. Faith was never meant to perform that way.

We discussed the “shelf” metaphor and how mine broke. He had not heard that metaphor before, but he did say he just doesn’t really visit his shelf. The ambiguity is OK with him and is something he would expect there to be.

I told him that the desire to believe has never left me and that I feel happy living the Gospel. We discussed that that is basically my testimony, the feelings I have living the Gospel attest to the truthfulness of it for me, and that the LDS faith is my spiritual identity.

I told him that I wanted to help others struggling, and that having a group that could meet together would be beneficial. He agreed that it would.

We discussed doubt and how doubt can make faith stronger. I told him that is my goal, to use my faith crisis as a positive learning and growing experience.

He was impressed with where I am right now in rebuilding my faith. He appreciated that I had reached out to him and that he thought it was the right thing for me to do.

There were many other things we discussed; those are the main ones I felt like I could share.

We are scheduled to meet again in a few weeks.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the update deepthinker. I am glad it was a good experience for you.

With all the “Ambiguity” how does this Area Authority know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is true? Or does he not “KNOW” the truth of it but believes it is true?

[Anonymous]

I do not expect anyone to say they know beyond a shadow of a doubt. If someone feels that way, fine – but, frankly, I wouldn’t ever go there with someone who has talked about accepting ambiguity. I think he has answered that question already, and I applaud him for it.

It sounds like it was a great discussion. I hope more and more leaders feel that way, and I can see it happening. It gives me hope for the future.

[Anonymous]

Cool. Thanks for reporting back.

[Anonymous]

I find the comment about “not visiting the shelf” interesting, and my feeling is that approach is common in the church. Some of us have different temperaments and can’t leave it alone. I would say the key is for us to be able to let them leave it alone, and for them to understand it is important for us to know every speck of dust that exists on our shelf.

[Anonymous]

Deepthinker wrote:

the biggest help to me was just being able to release the pressure I had bottled up with not sharing my doubt with anyone in person.

I completely agree with you. it’s so hard not to have people to talk frankly face to face. It creates a lot of pressure.

Thanks for your sharing.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for sharing, DT, and I’m really glad you see this as something positive because it sounds like it was positive. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I gave up on apologists a while ago – about when I started to come here. I never put a lot of stock in what they said anyway, and sometimes they did make sense, but sometimes there were quite a few of those mental gymnastics often referred to here. Like all things, it’s probably good to take the good things they have to offer and leave the rest – of course the problem always is figuring out what the good is.

[Anonymous]

kinglamoni wrote:

Thanks for the update deepthinker. I am glad it was a good experience for you.

With all the “Ambiguity” how does this Area Authority know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is true? Or does he not “KNOW” the truth of it but believes it is true?

Thanks kinglamoni, I think Ray answered this.

By the way, I read your introduction and would like to add my welcome to you. I’m an engineer and love everything about science, so I really related to your background.

What I have tried to always keep in mind is that science has its limitations.

[Anonymous]

Orson wrote:

I find the comment about “not visiting the shelf” interesting, and my feeling is that approach is common in the church. Some of us have different temperaments and can’t leave it alone. I would say the key is for us to be able to let them leave it alone, and for them to understand it is important for us to know every speck of dust that exists on our shelf.

Yes, it made me realize I’m one of those that can’t seem to leave it alone. I’m just a detail-oriented person. We actually did talk about that.

What I told him that does help me is that I’m also “big picture” person.

[Anonymous]

Deepthinker wrote:

Thanks kinglamoni, I think Ray answered this.

By the way, I read your introduction and would like to add my welcome to you. I’m an engineer and love everything about science, so I really related to your background.

What I have tried to always keep in mind is that science has its limitations.

I went back and reread it and yes he does address it.

Thank you for reading my introduction.

[Anonymous]

I think the only way to keep believing is to keep putting things on your shelf and when it get full just add another shelf. Most leaders and members that I have talked to about some of the issues just don’t want to think about them or study them out. Most of those who truly study the issues end up like us. I have never had anyone give me a satisfying answer, just their testimony and it has never helped. I am happy that this man took the time to meet with you but I doubt it will help in the long run. I hope I am wrong. I don’t know if you can put the Jennie back in the bottle but maybe that is not your goal.

[Anonymous]

It seems unlikely that the AA will be able to give you an answers that you haven’t heard before. You may be directed to the apologists for historical and doctrinal questions and may be encouraged to “keep the faith” for spiritual questions. Most of us are here on this forum because we concluded that there aren’t good answers to some of the tough questions in the Church.

[Anonymous]

InquiringMind wrote:

It seems unlikely that the AA will be able to give you an answers that you haven’t heard before. You may be directed to the apologists for historical and doctrinal questions and may be encouraged to “keep the faith” for spiritual questions. Most of us are here on this forum because we concluded that there aren’t good answers to some of the tough questions in the Church.

Good point, IM. And the answer that works for me doesn’t necessarily work for anyone else.

[Anonymous]

church0333 wrote:

I think the only way to keep believing is to keep putting things on your shelf and when it get full just add another shelf. Most leaders and members that I have talked to about some of the issues just don’t want to think about them or study them out. Most of those who truly study the issues end up like us. I have never had anyone give me a satisfying answer, just their testimony and it has never helped. I am happy that this man took the time to meet with you but I doubt it will help in the long run. I hope I am wrong. I don’t know if you can put the Jennie back in the bottle but maybe that is not your goal.

Yes, I think that is the only way to keep believing. My goal is to reach a point where I can more easily manage walking the middle way. Meeting with him so far is helping me to do that.

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