Request for faith crisis analogies

[Anonymous]

Two months in, I’m starting to move from faith crisis to faith transition, but I still feel a need to make sense of what happened. I find that, for me, a good way to do this is to find ways to explain it to others, even if I never will.

It’s not really possible to explain a Mormon faith crisis literally to someone outside the church. They just don’t have enough context to understand it.

It’s usually not possible to explain a Mormon faith crisis literally to someone inside the church who hasn’t already experienced it. We talk about it in terms of our relationships with God and the church, our core identities, and the evidence that affects those relationships and identities. The evidence is either too subjective or too threatening for most members to engage with, so they can’t understand.

So we’re left with analogies, to make the experience relatable and nonthreatening.

(Now that I think about it, making the experience nonthreatening is a nice way for me to understand it without being too caught up in it.)

To start with, we have the shelf: contrary evidence goes on a shelf (as books, jars, urns full of ashes, whatever) until the shelf can’t hold the contrary evidence anymore and it breaks. It’s a nice way to explain how each piece of evidence can be explained away alone, but the weight of them together is enough to cause a crash. It also illustrates a faith crisis as a catastrophic failure.

We’ve also got the building, which represents assumptive reality. This illustrates nicely the catastrophe itself: the building falls, some remains standing, and we’re left to pick up the pieces and try to reassemble something hopefully more beautiful that doesn’t have the same structural problems. There are a lot of nice extensions dealing with foundations, load-bearing walls, reusing pieces that didn’t break, etc.

I’ve done the web, which is similar to the building, but in my mind better represents the interconnectedness of all the propositions that make up an assumptive reality. You kind of have to be a logician to appreciate it, though.

Unfortunately, these analogies don’t convey the emotional impact very well. (Probably the building does best in this regard.) For example, nothing about them corresponds to feeling like someone close to you has died. So I’m looking for analogies that properly convey emotional impact while still indicating the psychological.

Here’s a mini-story that I think could describe most emotional aspects of my faith crisis to someone who hasn’t experienced one:

Quote:

You rush to the hospital upon learning that your father has been in a car accident. The doctors have stabilized him, but there’s nothing more they can do. Just before he dies, he whispers to you, “I never loved you, and I’ve left you 10 million dollars of gambling debt.”

I think this properly captures the simultaneous reeling bewilderment, devastating loss, mounting panic, and frantic reevaluation. But as it is, it leaves the protagonist with a sense of purpose and an intact moral center, and doesn’t require him or her to pretend that everything is just fine.

I’ve also toyed with a mini-story about finding out your parents have secretly kept siblings locked in the cellar, but I don’t have enough experience with the church-history-style faith crisis to flesh it out, and I think it conveys wrong ideas about the intentions of church leaders.

What other analogies are floating around out there? Or, does anybody want to take a crack at another one?

[Anonymous]

First let me congratulate you on moving on so quickly. It took me years in the crisis stage before I moved to the transition stage.

I have heard the Santa Claus analogy, probably appropriate of the time of year. Once one learns the truth about Santa Claus one can’t go back to believing in Santa again. No amount of other explanations or apologetics will work.

Truth is I have concluded that those who have not experienced a faith crisis are pretty incapable of understanding those who have and I have given up trying to explain it. I will say that members of other churches/religions also have faith crises, they just don’t have things like JS or the BoM thrown in the mix.

[Anonymous]

Here’s one that comes to mind. This is one that would go with the feeling of having a huge part of your identity changed in an instant, the betrayal, and finding out about the negative parts about the church. I am not adopted so this may be inaccurate:

The situation of parents keeping the secret that one of their children is adopted. We’re the adult child that finds out way too late in life that our parents have kept huge secrets from us for decades. While they thought they were doing what was best for us, I would imagine it would still hurt tremendously. It would be such a betrayal. Our past would feel like a lie. We had always felt like we knew who we were and this was our biological family. There may have been little things along the way that hinted at the truth, but we probably brushed those things off because we trusted our parents. We may have even brought up our questions before but our parents brushed off our worries, and we believed them because we had no reason not to. Maybe we even find out that our parents had agreed to an open adoption but had later completely cut off our biological parents. So not only have they lied to us, they have made some pretty awful choices in the past to keep us from the truth and keep us all to themselves. Trying to regain your trust for them would be difficult I would imagine.

That was an analogy that just came to mind. For me, it didn’t feel like a death, it felt like a huge betrayal of people I knew and trusted and also a huge blow to my identity as a person since I used to be so TBM. I felt like a huge part of my identity had been based on something that I suddenly realized had several untrue parts and realized my way of trusting wasn’t reliable and everything I had known to be true my entire life suddenly became questionable.

[Anonymous]

There was a Disney movie recently that was psychological analogy called Inside Out. It actually showed the emotions of a person interacting as the main character’s central beliefs crumbled and new pathways and structures formed. I think just about anyone can relate to it. It was critically acclaimed. If you saw the movie, you could articulate it as an analogy for faith crisis and transition, and replacement of old ways of viewing things with new ones. This would be good for someone who faces a complete restructuring of their faith.

For an example of a partial faith transition, consider an analogy from the TV show Fixer Upper– a show about real estate renovations. There was a house with a cement foundation. But it got cracks in it, and they wanted to condemn the whole house. But they figured out a way of propping up the house while they poured a new foundation. They actually drilled holes through the foundation, replaced them with temporary support beams, and then demolished the old foundation. They repoured the new foundation, and gradually removed the support beams until the house rested on the new foundation, ready for another 100 years or life.

This is more for the person like me who has kept a lot of the church in my life, while operating on a totally different and new foundation. One that has fixed the cracks and left me well positioned to continue living in the culture of Mormonism (the house itself) for some time now. But I have a new basement and foundation now. One that I like much better and that I feel much more secure about than the old one, which had developed too many cracks.

But this begs a question — why share these analogies with anyone locally? There is so much risk and fall-out from the open acknowledgement of faith crisis to traditional believers. It’s better not to share it at all…except with people online, anonymously, so you don’t get hurt in the process.

[Anonymous]

Some thoughts on seeking out an analogy:

– I think we need to realize that, though there is a lot of commonality, each of us experiences our FC/FT in different ways. For example, Always Thinking talked about betrayal of trust. That was a major factor in AT’s Faith Crisis and a common element for many. I can tell you that I have never felt that way. It was not a factor in my FC/FT. And in saying that, I don’t mean that there is anything wrong with feeling betrayed. I understand it and see it a lot… all I’m saying is that it didn’t have any impact on me. So, when AT proposed an analogy, it centered around that betrayal. My analogy, if I were to create one, would be very different.

– Along those lines, we all have a strong tendency to project our experience onto a huge screen that we think reflects universal truths. So, if I start talking about what a faith crisis is, or how a faith transition unfolds, I am only really qualified to talk about one person, and that, just barely.

– Any analogy would be imperfect because I believe we tend to change over time. I’ve often thought about how, in my case, many the things that set me off all those years ago, I now see differently. If I could go from the believing me to the current me in the twinkling of an eye, I honestly might be able to simply re-vector my beliefs. As it is, the long road has taken me somewhere else entirely. In other words, my life has been a series of bus transfers, but I probably would have taken a different bus near the beginning of my journey, if I saw things then the way I see them now… oh… oops… sorry… that was an analogy

– Most importantly for me, I don’t like labels, swim-lanes, constructs for my faith transition (which continues). I fear that doing so is like the exercise of using google translate to go to a second language and back to the first one again (no deep analogy intended there). If we say, here is my life… let me create a simple one-paragraph description that captures my life… and now let me adjust my life to meet that description, then we are going to have a one-paragraph life. Instead, I think the possibilities in our faith transition are endless and ever-changing… and that it a very good thing, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Truth is I have concluded that those who have not experienced a faith crisis are pretty incapable of understanding those who have and I have given up trying to explain it. I will say that members of other churches/religions also have faith crises, they just don’t have things like JS or the BoM thrown in the mix.

Yep.

Ones I have used – Tsunami, Stroke, Landslide. Something you never expected or contributed to. It happened to you.

Something I have learned is not every crisis is based on the same thing. That makes every analogy different. The exercise to find descriptors is good.

[Anonymous]

One thing maybe I don’t like so much about the analogy of dad in the hospital saying I never loved you and i’m leaving you 10million dollars debt, while those emotions I can identify with, the idea is that is categorically bad and wrong to do. Where as with the church…it is very complicated. Just because I saw it some way when I was younger, and see it a different way now has a lot to do with me, my lens, and what I thought and how I go through stages in life…not categorically placing the blame on the outside things of the church, as a 10million dollar debt. So…using that analogy might not resonate with faithful church members that could dismiss it as “that isn’t at all what the church has done”, even if it does resonate with some people who have felt uncared for and cheated.

In other threads, we have discussed Fowler’s Stages of Faith, because that is something that can be communicated and it is something that can be understood on different levels.

Here is one analogy with a 3D poster that I think can help describe it to others, in or out of the church, faithful or non-believing: (background is understanding Fowlers Stages of Faith are a transitions ALL people may go through, mormon or christian or any religion):

Quote:

It reminds me of those 3-D posters.

Stage 3: There are lines in the poster. The lines are all red. The page is 8.5″ x 11″. We call it a dolphin poster. It is art and we like it. If you’d like to join our group, we’ll give you one of our copies of the dolphin poster. We all have dolphin posters on our walls in our homes, which provides us with joy. (All of which are true statements there is a picture and it really has dolphins in it…no lies…no deception…no wrong doings). The group agrees on truth as a dolphin picture, others who cannot see the dolphins or make up other stories about the picture are wrong. It is a dolphin, plain and simple and comforting to have such certainty. Each sunday we meet to affirm our vision of the dolphin and use that picture to teach important life lessons, there is true value (not deception or blinded naivete) in using a dolphin picture to teach principles of truth to our families and establish a community.

Stage 4: “Someone else showed me a different poster of a dolphin, and it looks nothing like the poster I was shown in stage 3 by my tribe I grew up with all these years and the pictures I hung in my house. Now that I look at the original poster closer, there is not really a dolphin in the poster I had my whole life, I mean…there kinda is…but is is all in a pattern and stuff that is confusing…I don’t know why I never noticed before…I always just accepted and took it at face value, I mean…everyone else was clear without doubt the picture was a dolphin. I was lied to and deceived. It isn’t art, it isn’t even beautiful. Its just lines on a page. When I step back and look at it objectively, there is no physical evidence of a dolphin anywhere on the page. There are other pictures that are way better pictures of real dolphins. I now have so many doubts and fears. Don’t people in stage 3 know that science can be used to identify true dolphins? …and there is no dolphin on that page…that is a fact. I kind of like the other group’s dolphin picture better, and I’m kinda pissed I never knew there were other dolphin pictures out there. Stage 5 people try to tell me to look at the page differently and open my eyes and my mind to the abstract…they must be crazy. It is either a dolphin or it is not. And this is no dolphin. Some artist was using artistic license to represent a dolphin in a artistic way…but it isn’t really a dolphin and most of the picture is missing key parts of it and it could be any number of things in the picture…like dangerous sharks, or even horses, whales, skateboards…the more I look at the detail…the more I see how truly impossible it is to say what the picture is at all. That frustrates me. In fact, I don’t know if this other picture is a dolphin either (what if I get tricked again?? what if we can’t prove anything? What if dolphins aren’t real?), I don’t know if anyone even knows what a real dolphin is. I’m not looking at art anymore. I quit. I don’t trust anyone.”

Stage 5: By standing in a certain location from the poster and focusing my eyes “through the page” something is different. The picture is exactly the same and unchanged, the lines are still red and 8.5×11, but now my eyes have adjusted. The page jumps alive to me and in a third dimension with depth and shape and form, I can see the dolphin jumping through the hoop in great detail with pool water behind it, and a sun in the sky (nobody told me the picture had a sun in it! New discovery…cool). It is totally wild. I don’t know why I couldn’t see it before. I can try to tell others about it, but I can’t focus their eyes for them, they’ll have to do that if they want to. The art means even more to me now than it did before, in a 3-D way that is way more beautiful than just red lines and a page size. I’m hanging this art on the wall. I don’t know how to explain it to others…but i can return to my dolphin group and realize…whether people see it 2D or 3D…there is a dolphin and it is beautiful and meaningful to me. I may have to reassure my kids it is a true dolphin and hope they believe me until one day…they have a conversion of their own…adn their eyes focus on the true 3D amazing picture that it is. I can’t disagree with Stage 4 critics…I understand how they are frustrated. They may never see what I see…but I cannot deny I find value in the art and I stay committed to the dolphin group for good reason.

You see…the picture never changed. Nor is the person in stage 3 wrong or “tricked”. Nor is the person in stage 4 wrong. Nor is the person in stage 5 wrong, or sneaky or dishonest or fluffy or abstract or nuanced without integrity. They are all right based on how they see the same thing.

Stage 5 can understand why stage 3 sees it that way, and why stage 4 sees it that way. But there is real truth to the stage 5 view. It is really there for those who can adjust their eyes to it. If you want to use physics or laws of the universe, you can’t limit it to measuring stage 3 qualities, like shape or colors. If you want to use science, you have to explain the eyes, the lens, how we process it in our brains…then you can use science to explain it. But the person in stage 3 or 4 might not be able to use science to prove their point if they are using it on the page size details only and not considering personal lenses. They are asking the wrong questions. They are looking in the wrong place. The universe and laws of the universe aren’t changing from stage to stage…just the person’s viewpoint in trying to explain it. There isn’t a “wrong” or “lied to” trick taking place…just viewpoints trying to be shared among groups.

That is to me the difference. Most of the time stage 3 and 4 people are unable to see it any other way, and so, they are sure they are right, and usually call others who say otherwise as crazy or misguided or wrong or disingenuous.

I emphasize that none of these stages are wrong. But to this day, my wife cannot get her eyes to see any 3-D posters, as hard as she’s tried. And I can’t get her to see it either. And I’ve stopped trying to tell her to keep trying to see it my way. I just accept we see it differently. But I’m not lying to her. I really do see the 3-D images in the poster and know why they call it a dolphin poster. Maybe one day she’ll see, maybe she won’t. And that is OK. She doesn’t NEED to if she doesn’t want to. Whatever works for the individual is all God cares about.

So…what of stage 6? I understand it the least…but would say…stage 6 is drawing a new poster. Instead of dolphins…this new one will have Jet planes, and hopefully others will see it the way the artist intended them to. The stage 5 person has no idea how the stage 6 person can draw the 3-D poster…it is an unbelievable thing, but the stage 5 person really appreciates the artwork provided by the stage 6-er. And stage 3 people are glad a new prophet has revealed truth to them, and start organizing missionaries to tell others about it. Those in Stage 4 are likely not interested in anything a stage 6 has to offer. It’s not worth it, it’s too painful.

That is my analogy. I love 3D posters. I look at them for hours. They frustrate my wife and she has stopped trying to look at them…no value there. But we can love each other completely, regardless of the poster. We accept there are differences. We realize there are limitations on how to describe our views on reality. We also try to always be humble to realize we could be wrong. Bu we can’t change who we are. Healthy relationships love and accept each other…even if there are differences. My wife’s differences compliment mine. We are stronger together than apart. Sometimes I rely on her view when I am limited by my view. Sometimes…she turns to me and knows I can be compassionate and open minded…and that is needed in some circumstances more than literal black and white thinking.

Life provides paradox. We are not here on earth to “get it right”. We are here to experience things, as they are. I believe the church is good and trying to help me. But I am me. I have my lens. I like when others agree with me, but must learn to keep some thoughts to myself to not introduce problems when interacting with others. Not because I’m tricky and dishonest…but because I’m me. I have faith God knows my heart…and is OK with me. When I do my Home Teaching or my calling…I can tap into my differences and it speaks to some people on the fringes in my ward who feel unsupported…and it comforts them. Then I see my place, and I realize God designed us to have our differences, because the orchestra is greater with diversity than robots or clones in perfect unity.

No matter how many things I learn and discover, I’m not even close to figuring things out. So…I need analogies to help describe where I’m at.

[Anonymous]

In the depths of my FC, I felt like I was in complete darkness. Everything was black.

No one understood or didn’t want to understand.

As I moved away from the FC, I periodically received some sunlight. By that I mean Hope.

Hope that someone understood or had empathy. Somedays are better than others.

It takes time to move forward.

[Anonymous]

I have tried to put myself in my old somewhat TBM state and I don’t see where any analogy would help change someone else or make them have more sympathy. So that is kind of what I say. I don’t know a way to explain it that will make sense. Only someone that has gone through a loss of faith will comprehend the dark night of the soul. I do try and tell them that I despriatly pleaded with God to give me a more firm confirmation of the church as I had never really felt I had an unshakable testimony even though I had “followed the rule book” for decades with no big black marks. I always figured it was just me. Then in a second I actually asked myself as honestly as I could in my brain, “What if it isn’t true?” I had always approached questions trying to find out how they could be true. In that instant all the cards came crashing down – literally in less than a second. And unless you have had that moment, you won’t understand.

[Anonymous]

I’ll take SilentDawning’s approach, I’ll lean on a few movies.

The Lego Movie : I won’t say much about this one other than to list it. Here’s a start: imagine yourself as Emmet, the master builders as people in Fowler’s stage 5/6… and BKP as Lord Business.

The NeverEnding Story : A faith crisis can be like The Nothing in the story, this mysterious force that devours everything in its path, leaving behind “nothing,” which people can’t adequately describe. No one knows what it is or where it came from, they just know it is a threat to their world. The protagonist reads a story about a kingdom. The story is about a boy that goes on a solitary quest where he loses many of his friends to The Nothing, goes through several trials meant to test his self doubts, and only “arrives” at his destination once he believes he’s failed in his quest. Then the protagonist takes a step back (or is that a step forward?) and discovers that he is a part of the narrative and can defeat The Nothing by taking an active role in creating new narratives.

You can find analogies in anything. We create our own symbols.

[Anonymous]

This post is my current comparison of faith crises/transitions to the Harry Potter series:

http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3864&hilit=Thestrals

[Anonymous]

Patrick Mason talks about the “truth” cart and how we (as a Church or as individuals) tend to put things in the “truth” cart that really don’t belong there. Over time, we can get more and more weighed down with the load until something like this happens:

[img]http://motivationfactor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Overload_p24.jpg[/img]

Many of us who have experienced a faith crisis feel like this poor donkey. We either have to unload some of the weight from the “truth” cart and carry a lighter load, or shed the cart completely once the load has been removed.

[Anonymous]

I do like the building analogy and have used it myself. I have found it interesting that others can have something like a faith crisis and come to rest on a different foundation than I. One person I knew well came to rest on the divine authority of the church. Church leaders can and will make all sorts of mistakes but as long as the authority is correct then nothing else matters. What seemed to him to be the bottom – looked to me to be somewhere around the 30th floor (it makes me wonder what my ground floor/foundation might look like to someone else). To me it felt like I had fallen so much further than he – like my basic understanding of God’s operation of the universe was upended. I also felt strongly that in rebuilding my building that it not be vulnerable to something like this happening again. My old building had been strong but brittle. It did not have the flexibility to bend or sway with the shockwaves. I liken this to earthquake proofing high rise structures.

The catalyst for my FC was the stillbirth of our daughter. This has been somewhat helpful for me as most people have some frame of reference for what it means to have a death in the family.

This may lead to a discussion of the stages of grief:

Quote:

The seven stages of grief are shock, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression and acceptance, according to MedicineNet. The stages do not necessarily happen in the order listed; and they serve only as a guide to the grieving process.

In my own grief process I was overjoyed to come across the theory of the assumptive world collapse – mostly because this meant that I was not just going crazy. What was happening to me was normal and fairly predictable.

Quote:

In social psychology, ‘’’Shattered Assumptions Theory’’’ proposes that the experiencing of traumatic events can change how one views themselves and the world. Specifically, the theory–developed by Ronnie Janoff-Bulman in 1992–concerns the effect that negative events have on three inherent assumptions: overall benevolence of the world, meaningfulness of the world, and self worthiness. These assumptions act as schemas to constitute our “assumptive world”, defined as “a strongly held set of assumptions about the world and the self which is confidently maintained and used as a means of recognizing, planning, and acting” by M. Parkes. Janoff-Bulman emphasized the assumptive world as an abstract yet accessible set of ideas, whilst being unarticulated.

Most people that have happy childhoods tend to have these 3 assumptions to some extent. The parents of these kids are successful in establishing secure homes of purpose, stability, and worth. The world is just, the world has purpose, and I matter. The good news is that the church can be a beautiful place for a childhood where these assumptions are intertwined and given extra weight with church doctrine. God is our father that loves us and protects us. We are His children and as such are inherently worthy or of divine origin. He has designed this world as a sort of learning exercise to bring us to our full potential. God rules this world in justice. Those that are righteous will be rewarded/blessed. Those that are wicked will be punished. If I follow the rules and am obedient, I will be loved, protected, rewarded, blessed, and ultimately exalted.

Some people’s lives play out in such a way that these assumptions hold true throughout. Things go more or less as planned and they are comforted and feel security in these assumptions. Unfortunately, sometimes something traumatic happens that shatters these assumptions and leaves the survivors broken and bewildered.

Finally, Fowler’s stages of faith development has been helpful.

I take my models largely from the social sciences. It helps me to have some backing of academia in understanding and explaining (under the right circumstances) my FC.

[Anonymous]

DarkJedi wrote:

I have heard the Santa Claus analogy, probably appropriate of the time of year. Once one learns the truth about Santa Claus one can’t go back to believing in Santa again. No amount of other explanations or apologetics will work.

I also like the Santa analogy, not necessarily as one to help others understand what the experience is like, but as an analogy to the process of growing through the stages.

1) In the beginning we see Santa as a literal magical figure who delivers physical gifts to every child on earth.

2) We reject or “learn the truth” about this literal view of Santa.

Both 1 and 2 can be seen as a shallow view, what is needed is more depth.

3) We may begin to see useful symbolism in the telling of the Santa story.

4) We fully embrace “believing in Santa” and in no way imply a strictly literal view with that claim.

Last time I was in Deseret Book I noticed a book displayed prominently: “I believe in Santa Claus” My impression is that it draws parallels between Santa and Christ – effectively promoting Santa as a symbol of Christ.

Fowler says stories are important in the shaping of a worldview, children are and need to be Mythic/literal, they cannot grasp another concept until they have lived through the first stage. There is good reason for healthy parents to tell the traditional story of Santa, and evidence to suggest that parents who refuse in the name of “truth” may have difficulty progressing into depth themselves. …not to cast dispersions, but as a way of understanding behavior. No single way of viewing the world is “correct”, but different views will cause varying actions.

I will forthrightly say “I believe in Santa” without hesitation. I believe strongly in symbols and mythic stories, they can have deep meaning that holds much value. The numerous points of crossover or influence to the “real” world can begin to blur – making their significance even more powerful – while remaining apart from a literal view.

Along another line of thought I have come to realize some of the church members that I know blend “spirit” with “emotion” and have no desire to separate them. Others may try to explain how the feeling of the spirit is somehow higher and not simply emotions. I like what can happen when we are willing to blend them, it facilitates religious conversation.

Edit: Or when someone says a deceased loved one is “looking down on us” and the skeptic has to say “I don’t believe that.” They are being far too literal in my mind, they are stuck at #2 above.

[Anonymous]

Orson wrote:

DarkJedi wrote:

I have heard the Santa Claus analogy, probably appropriate of the time of year. Once one learns the truth about Santa Claus one can’t go back to believing in Santa again. No amount of other explanations or apologetics will work.

I also like the Santa analogy, not necessarily as one to help others understand what the experience is like, but as an analogy to the process of growing through the stages.

1) In the beginning we see Santa as a literal magical figure who delivers physical gifts to every child on earth.

2) We reject or “learn the truth” about this literal view of Santa.

Both 1 and 2 can be seen as a shallow view, what is needed is more depth.

3) We may begin to see useful symbolism in the telling of the Santa story.

4) We fully embrace “believing in Santa” and in no way imply a strictly literal view with that claim.

Last time I was in Deseret Book I noticed a book displayed prominently: “I believe in Santa Claus” My impression is that it draws parallels between Santa and Christ – effectively promoting Santa as a symbol of Christ.

Fowler says stories are important in the shaping of a worldview, children are and need to be Mythic/literal, they cannot grasp another concept until they have lived through the first stage. There is good reason for healthy parents to tell the traditional story of Santa, and evidence to suggest that parents who refuse in the name of “truth” may have difficulty progressing into depth themselves. …not to cast dispersions, but as a way of understanding behavior. No single way of viewing the world is “correct”, but different views will cause varying actions.

I will forthrightly say “I believe in Santa” without hesitation. I believe strongly in symbols and mythic stories, they can have deep meaning that holds much value. The numerous points of crossover or influence to the “real” world can begin to blur – making their significance even more powerful – while remaining apart from a literal view.

Along another line of thought I have come to realize some of the church members that I know blend “spirit” with “emotion” and have no desire to separate them. Others may try to explain how the feeling of the spirit is somehow higher and not simply emotions. I like what can happen when we are willing to blend them, it facilitates religious conversation.

An excerpt from a talk I gave last week:

Quote:

I want you to know that I believe in Santa Claus.

In the 1998 First Presidency Christmas Devotional, Pres. James E. Faust said:

“No one can measure the effect of an unselfish act of kindness. By small, simple things great things do indeed come to pass. Of course, gifts given and gifts received make Christmas special. For many children, Christmas Eve is a very long night as they look forward with eager anticipation to the gifts Santa brings, which is why children love Santa Claus. Let me share what someone once said about Santa Claus: First of all, he’s a joyous individual…Next, Santa Claus is interested in making others happy. He increases the happy moments in the life of everyone he meets. He loves his work; he gets fun out of his job. He is childlike, simple, humble, sincere and forgiving. Finally, he is a giver. His philosophy is to give himself away in service. He is a friend to everyone. He smiles. Perhaps you and I could attain greater happiness if we emulated Santa Claus a little more, for his way is the way of the infant Jesus.”

And from the now famous 1897 editorial by Francis Church appearing in the New York Sun in answer to Virginia O’Hanlon’s inquiry:

“Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect….

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus…. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.”

Indeed, Santa is an example of Christlike love and service and in our hearts we have all at one time or another felt the spirit of Santa this time of year.

It is not necessary for me to have seen Santa to know that he exists, but I have seen him as surely as I have seen other angels of this world, and neither have looked like what I would have expected.

[Author]

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