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Such a great post. Reminds me of one video by Holland where he said, “Assume the good, and doubt the bad.” How Do I Love Thee I think it was called. Or perhaps in this case as Ray has already said, “Focus on the bricks, ignore the sand”. I’m not especially active in the church right now – but that being said, I should follow Ray’s advice more and treat the church as I would treat another person – forgiving it’s faults and praising it’s virtues. For me though, that idea has to exist within the goal of life – which is to draw you to Christ and help you be more like Him. I honestly don’t believe the mormon church is the best method for everyone. For me, it probably is – as much as it hurts sometimes. And maybe one day I’ll be more active again. Good thing we’ve got a few hundred billion years in the afterlife to figure it all out. 
Ray, Loved this. How I currently feel as well.
-SunbeltRed
Thanks, everyone. I just want to make one small, but important, clarification (at least to me):
I don’t “ignore” the sand. Frankly, it is impossible for to do so, since it is an integral part of our shared life. I simply accept it, overlook it and focus on the bricks.
That might sound like a silly quibble (and it actually might be), but it’s not like I put the sand on a shelf to be re-visited every once in a while – or pretend it doesn’t exist – or any other description that might be called ignoring it. I see it, but I choose, intentionally and consciously, not to emphasize or focus on it. I simply accept that it exists and, in a way, embrace it.
Ray — I have a lot in common with you on this one. I have a similar challenge. In fact, when my marriage was having difficulty at one point (we were both ready to leave), we did an emotional needs questionnaire offered by http://www.marriagebuilders.com . The author of a needs-based approach to a happy marriage, Willard Harley Junior, believes that happy marriages occur when spouses meet each others’ most important emotional needs. He trains spouses to meet each others’ emotional needs, and his theory/practice makes a lot of sense.In the questionnaire, one of my top needs (THE top) was “domestic support”. And that means housekeeping. I would say that lack of support in this area was the number one cause of my unhappiness in our marriage. And,, with my other top two needs unmet, after longer periods of time, caused me huge amounts of angst, withdrawal from the marriage (emotionally) etcetera. I suppose I have dealt with it by not “caring” about it — letting it go, but in the process have become a real messie in my home myself. Just can’t bring myself to clean up.
Anyway, not to digress — are you saying you really don’t have a need for domestic support? How do you do the gymnastics that make you happy in your marriage, in spite of living in a messy circumstance? Hopefully this isn’t too personal, but Harley would say that spouses who meet emotional needs are like paramedics who bring air to suffocating people, and without the needs being met, the lack of air leads to death of the relationship….
A clean house is not at the top of my need list. It is an irritant, but it’s not a deal breaker. We meet each other’s biggest needs, so the irritants are manageable. They are manageable, however, only because we choose consciously to recognize their place on the hierarchy of needs.
This is what I thought given Willard Harley’s approach to marriage — that a clean house is lower on your list than other needs. I assume those other needs are met at least to a near satisfactory degree (you don’t have to share them, as I realize this was a personal post as it was for you). For me — I had a mother who willingly shouldered the bulk of the cleaning. I was raised in an immaculate home. Our family culture, growing up, was that life was about achievement, about doing things, about serving mankind and society (my father built an arena for the community entirely through fundraising. He was president of a corporation established for that purpose over many years, and served in our local church regularly, in addition to running a small business). At one point, my father and mother indicated that as long as we did well in school, in sports, music and service etecetera, our home was a place to relax and rest from our hard work. That my father and mother both grew up in homes where they had to do all the mundane work, and they wanted us to live a fuller life.
My wife, on the other hand, had a mother who “wore the pants” in the family (to use an old sexist term). She kept my father-in-law busy with endless lists of things to do around the house. In my view, my mother in law was a bit lazy, and had all the kids do all the housework as they got older, along with her husband. So my wife came into the marriage expecting me to do the lion’s share of the housework like her father did, and learned in her own home to detest housework. In fact, her parents repeated “in our home you have to clean, when you get your own home, you can do whatever you want”…years later I took them task about that bit of training as it completely ignores the fact that children will eventually live with others, and need to do their part.
Taken with my high need for domestic support, these misfitting, assumed domestic roles my wife and I brought to the marriage have been extremely difficult to manage. Ultimately, I’ve dealt with it by becoming a bit of a slob. I loathe myself for the state of my house sometimes, but the alternative — starting a huge war and potentially ending the marriage, is an even worse alternative. And it bothers me every day what I have become, but I could not, will not, have my greatest achievement in my life be “I kept the house in order, inside and out”. It’s the price I pay for living what I feel is a full life in other ways. But its full of tension.
Anyway, I think your metaphor is a good one for people struggling with the irritants in our religion. I really do. But for people who find the church doesn’t meet their most powerful, most important needs, I think there is a need for a different metaphor. I enjoyed learning about your situation though, Ray, and understanding the metaphor — thanks for sharing. I don’t think my sharing here lessens the beauty of the analogy for people who simply find the church annoying and who find it meets other needs adequately. For those people, it’s a great metaphor.
SilentDawning wrote:I think your metaphor is a good one for people struggling with the irritants in our religion. I really do. But for people who find the church doesn’t meet their most powerful, most important needs, I think there is a need for a different metaphor.
I agree. For me, my marriage had specific challenges, and needs a different metaphor. But there is something to be said to coming to a realization that it is a relationship, a choice, a commitment, a trust … and that when you realize you cannot change the other person, it becomes a matter of choices on how you decide to handle it. And that divorce (or leaving the church) is a rational choice, not a giving up or weak position.
But that is what metaphors are. Comparisons to make a point, but they won’t apply literally to every situation as a rule or anything like that. They are just of value when they fit, when they don’t…there are other metaphors.
You are right, SD – but being right doesn’t change one thing about my post. 
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