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Are we driving people away? I’m concerned by overit’s response – s/he found all the mod comments dismissive but the regular Joes were supportive, and I assume s/he doesn’t know who the mods are. Also, Mister Curie’s statement that maybe NOM is a better fit for now while he’s fresh in his Stage 4 revelry. Are we trying to offer black belt advice to green belts? “For the well have no need of a physician.” I was over at NOM earlier today, and GD instructor is over there as well. He used to comment here. Are we missing our mark? Good question, and good analogy with the “belts.” I have gotten the feeing recently that we (myself included) may tend to help people reach for a new level of personal growth, new insight, or new outlook – maybe before they are personally aware that there is another step to take. I don’t think we need to “tone down” quite as much as maybe just love and validate first. Human nature makes the road that we’ve traveled or the movie we’ve seen less interesting the second time around. These people are on it for the first time.
As far as GD teacher, he’s been at NOM so long I’m sure it just feels like home to him.
I think for the most part minds need to be open and looking to expand to get the most out of our objectives here.
JMB, you still around? You’re probably the “freshest” of us – what do you think?
I can only picture myself when I was where MisterC is now. I would have had a hard time chewing/digesting some of the things we talk about. I was far too absolutist, and the pendulum had swung.
I don’t know, but I’m not sure I want to water things down. I want people here to be challenged – not in any negative way, but I really don’t want it to turn into NOM2. I want to serve a “higher” purpose, if you will – so I’m not sure, honestly. I do agree that I in particular need to express love and acceptance initially and not analyze as much at first – but I also don’t want absolutist statements of early Stage 3 thinking to go unchallenged and appear to the non-commenting readers to be agreement with them. I want people to feel validated in their struggles, but I don’t want them to feel like their current view is “Truth” either. I want to love, but I also want to call to repentance (progressive change).
We are walking a balance beam in many ways here – especially since I don’t think there are ANY other sites we can model in what we are trying to do.
Old-Timer wrote:I do agree that I in particular need to express love and acceptance initially and not analyze as much at first – but I also don’t want absolutist statements of early Stage 3 thinking to go unchallenged and appear to the non-commenting readers to be agreement with them. I want people to feel validated in their struggles, but I don’t want them to feel like their current view is “Truth” either. I want to love, but I also want to call to repentance (progressive change).
love how you said this here
Ray, you know I appreciate all your work, your thoughts, ideas, respect, acceptance, and who you are. We are obviously different people with different life experiences – we go at things from slightly different angles – but I firmly believe that working together we will (all of us) collectively find the right balance for StayLDS. Glad you’re here.
I feel a lot of times we should be a little slower to jump in and solve everything (or call to repentance, I like Ray’s definition). It is a tough balancing act. On the other hand, we need to maintain our “brand.” We are not here to be NOM v2.0. If someone is truly not ready for our community, that is ok. It just is what it is. I have seen this in other online communities that I helped run. Make sure it is clear who you are and why we exist here. The right people will self sort into participation or not. Stay focused on the mission. We simply can’t be all things to all people.
People may leave, and come back later. Some people need to be angry or to really purge out their baggage through an emetic process of disbelief. They can’t be here. They might feel the “call” to return later, at least knowing later where we are.
I’m still here, I promise. Things with my MIL have not gotten better. She has continued to try to engage me and I will have no part of it. It’s complicated. But yes, I still visit here, but have limited my posting mainly to the moderator only threads so my MIL can’t see them. Anyway, yes, I do have an opinion on the matter. One of the things I love about this place is that the moderators have such different backgrounds and varied ideas about what is best. What a great environment to come to the “optimal” solution! I do tend to think that we are allowing the fear of becoming NOM 2 to push us into moderating a bit much.
I see that moderating is important to maintain the quality of discussion here. However, I also firmly believe that it is the nature of the people here that generally keep the tone good. If everyone here was a NOM visitor no amount of moderation would keep the discourse clean (to the point of having no discussion). OTOH, if we moderate first and then try to understand, we might as well simply be a place for religious discussion in general – which is not our aim. Personally, I think we are tending toward the latter a bit.
If our goal is to help those who have/are becoming disaffected we’ve got to put up with some stage 3 and 4 nonsense. I know that when I joined I was pretty angry and I think my first few posts reflect that. At the time, most of the responses I got felt like apologetic responses and I could not see the nuance. Quite honestly, to point fingers, it was Hawkgrrrl that made the difference for me. I felt that she readily acknowledged my points, understood the anger and frustration, but offered something new and different – a new way of perceiving things that I hadn’t realized before. After this, it was Ray that I began to look up to. His nuanced views helped bring me back to acknowledge the merit of being a member of the church. As I got to know Valoel, and Orson, I have found much in common with them as well in a similar vein but with different characteristics. I look forward to getting to know MH, and Jordan a bit better too.
Am I losing anyone yet? Okay good, I’ll keep going.
Orson wrote:Good question, and good analogy with the “belts.” I have gotten the feeling recently that we (myself included) may tend to help people reach for a new level of personal growth, new insight, or new outlook – maybe before they are personally aware that there is another step to take.
I don’t think we need to “tone down” quite as much as maybe just love and validate first. Human nature makes the road that we’ve traveled or the movie we’ve seen less interesting the second time around. These people are on it for the first time.
I love this and agree 100%.Sorry to hear about your MIL sitch not getting better, jmb. That is a shame. Hopefully, she’ll get to a better place in time. Your wife is supportive? Well my wife was supportive initially and then she grew angry. She feels betrayed and no amount of my activity or commitment to the church will change it. Quite frankly I am not sure how it will end up as she does not seem to be willing to forgive me. Yikes! In that case, the MIL issue is really a problem. Sorry to hear that. The best advice I have is to just put your marriage first, no matter what, whatever that takes. I guess the other thing I’ll say is that the person with the most awareness has the most responsibility in any situation. So, if your wife is in the grip of emotions, that’s you. So sorry to hear that. That is a tough row to hoe. jmb275 wrote:she does not seem to be willing to forgive me.
The way you put that troubles me. It makes me sad for you. Forgive what? You can’t really help what happened. It isn’t a choice you made to hurt someone. I don’t even get the impression from you that you “walked off the reservation,” so to say, at least not in some dramatic lifestyle changes.
We are soooooooo wrapped up in our modern, protestant-culture world where professions of faith are more important than acts of compassion and acts of faith. It is more important that we *SAY* we believe the same (whatever the tenet or creed) than anything else. It’s more important that we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior (the “born again” Christian version of this) than to it is to anything at all, even continue to be a horrible person. In Mormonism, it is more important that we profess belief or knowledge in the Truth(TM) than it is to explore it and put it into practice.
Quote:In Mormonism, it is more important that we profess belief or knowledge in the Truth(TM) than it is to explore it and put it into practice.
You know I love you, man, but Elder Bednar and Pres. Monson explicitly decried profession of belief/knowledge over living the Gospel in GC. It’s legitimate to say that “for too many members” it is more important . . . , but that certainly isn’t the case “in Mormonism”. I’m sure you typed your comment in the heat of some emotionalism, and I know that message comes across too much, but I gotta call you on it in this case.Valoel wrote:jmb275 wrote:she does not seem to be willing to forgive me.
The way you put that troubles me. It makes me sad for you. Forgive what? You can’t really help what happened. It isn’t a choice you made to hurt someone. I don’t even get the impression from you that you “walked off the reservation,” so to say, at least not in some dramatic lifestyle changes.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I have in no way walked off the reservation. In fact, I even am going to get my TR renewed this month (if I pass that is). It’s strange because we have a mutual friend who has gone through the same thing (independent of me) but is much much more disaffected and angry at the church, and she has what seems like limitless compassion and understanding for him. But for me, she has disdain.I have tried and tried to reason that it is my actions that are the most important. We even had a discussion about faith and I asked her what her definition was. She said “belief in action.” I went on to illustrate exactly why, according to that definition I had faith. But alas, it does not seem to matter, she views me as a fraud. It’s not good. But we went to see an LDS services counsellor and are working with her. Of course that’s hard too because when I related my struggles her eyes got big and I thought I would need an AED to rehabilitate her.
But it’s like hawk said, I need to be the one who can “see more clearly.” I suspect some of it is having had a kid in the last year, making three under age 5 for us, plus a move out to Michigan so I can start a PhD program making us poor – AGAIN!! I dunno.
Valoel wrote:We are soooooooo wrapped up in our modern, protestant-culture world where professions of faith are more important than acts of compassion and acts of faith. It is more important that we *SAY* we believe the same (whatever the tenet or creed) than anything else. It’s more important that we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior (the “born again” Christian version of this) than to it is to anything at all, even continue to be a horrible person. In Mormonism, it is more important that we profess belief or knowledge in the Truth(TM) than it is to explore it and put it into practice.
I hear you here. It feels like it’s better to profess belief, but admit mistakes, than to act in accordance but admit doubt.Ray wrote:You know I love you, man, but Elder Bednar and Pres. Monson explicitly decried profession of belief/knowledge over living the Gospel in GC. It’s legitimate to say that “for too many members” it is more important . . . , but that certainly isn’t the case “in Mormonism”. I’m sure you typed your comment in the heat of some emotionalism, and I know that message comes across too much, but I gotta call you on it in this case.
I’m not sure what Ray’s interpretation was here, but I took Valoel as observing something about what seems like Mormon culture. I think we all agree that the Brethren would not condone such a thing.Old-Timer wrote:Quote:In Mormonism, it is more important that we profess belief or knowledge in the Truth(TM) than it is to explore it and put it into practice.
You know I love you, man, but Elder Bednar and Pres. Monson explicitly decried profession of belief/knowledge over living the Gospel in GC. It’s legitimate to say that “for too many members” it is more important . . . , but that certainly isn’t the case “in Mormonism”. I’m sure you typed your comment in the heat of some emotionalism, and I know that message comes across too much, but I gotta call you on it in this case.You caught me Ray. It bugs me when other people word things this way too, so I am doubly guilty.
I really don’t believe ALL Mormons think that way. I wrote that wrong. I wasn’t actually thinking that either. So thanks for pointing it out. What I wrote was way too broad-sweeping the way I wrote it.
jmb – it sounds like a combo of things working on your wife. A stressful situation all around: 3 kids under age 5 alone could cause marital stress, but that combined with a cross-country move and change in financial situation . . . Perhaps your wife also sees things the way her mother does. If so, that’s really too bad. In marriage, you both have to cleave to each other, leaving parents behind. But even so, we often have the genetic traits of our parents to say nothing of the behaviors we learned from them. I’m concerned that your therapist would have no poker face when you shared your feelings. I wonder if Mormon Therapist would be able to offer any useful insight. Have you ever checked her site out? You’re being 50x more reasonable than the majority of mixed belief marriages she answers questions about. And even when a spouse has left the church, she reminds spouses to remember that divorce is often a fantasy when things get tough, but it’s not a real solution, and that people who profess to follow Christ and who have made marriage covenants need to put those things first and love one another. I can only imagine that your wife is being adversely impacted by these other stresses. I hope her mother is not bolstering her against you.
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