On Stages of Faith/Grief and Anger

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

I might add a fourth one…I have managed to stay in the church, without necessarily obeying all its policies. …I attend a Ward that is not my own, and so does my daughter. I feel comfortable talking to active members as if I’m an active member by simply adopting their perspective. I have developed internal PR techniques that show priesthood leaders I am still serving others, but in a different way than they do. And I’m comfy with it.

I love this. :clap: Because “comfy” is beyond comfortable.

(SD – I hope I deleted the duplicate post correctly.)

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

On Fowler. Sometimes I find myself wondering what stage I’m on with respect to my faith in Fowler’s stages of faith. Does that make sense? Am I a stage 3 in my belief in Fowler’s stages? Do I completely buy in? Am I in stage 4 in my belief in Fowler because I’ve begun to question the stages of faith? Don’t spend too much time worrying about which stage you’re in. Live life, not labels.

This is good to remember. Fowler has a faith stage theory. It helps talk about things or frame things at some level. For me, it helped feel like obviously I’m not the only one going through this, and mormons aren’t the only ones going through this. It is a social theory that many (not all) seem to go through, and DB Mormon and others have adjusted the theory and added different groupings to help adapt to more a specific view, and we seem to identify with parts of it…but only goes so far in the value and meaning that provides to us in our daily lives.

Actually…I could say that about the church too. There are many things that help me, explain things to me, and have meaning to me at some level…but on a day to day personal level…I need to live life, not labels…even church labels. I am a son of god, I am a priesthood holder, I am a temple recommend holder, I am a High Priest, I am mormon….all that I identify with, but my day to day life is mine. I am me.

I am my kind of HIgh Priest, my kind of mormon, and my kind of Fowler Stage whatever stage I think I’m in. There are limits (and cautions) about labels.

[Anonymous]

I should probably clarify. When I first read about Fowler’s stages of faith it was like a fog lifting. It helped give perspective to some of the things that I had lived through and it helped with understanding a lot of what had happened.

After the fog cleared I immediately started to asses where I was at and where I wanted to be. I think most of us either consciously or subconsciously view some stages as being more preferable to others. Stage 3? Yuck, icky :sick:, AmIright?

I reached a point where I gave up on stage aspiration. If someone sees me as a stage 3, cool. I gave up on self assessment, I’ve reached the Popeye stage. I yam what I yam.

I also agree that we can be at different stages when it comes to different subjects and it’s not just religion. Collegiate sports? I’m 110% stage 3. You want to talk grief and anger? Don’t even get me started on my collegiate rivals, how much they cheat at sports, and how much referee bias exists to keep them in the game.

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