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The following is excerpted from another post about the Church’s flaws. It is incredibly profound, imo – so I am posting it as a stand alone post. It is from one of our newest members, pinkpatent, and it discusses her responsibility as her husband struggles to define his faith for himself. She said: Quote:“We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege……”
Now its my turn to “allow” one particular man the freedom to discover what the “dictates” of his own conscience are going to be.
While I am not in that particular situation, it sums up perfectly my perspective on sharing the Gospel and interacting with others. I am not focused on conversion; I am focused on sharing my own perspective and beliefs and opinions in an attempt to help others find their own perspectives and beliefs and opinions – and to allow my own to come into clearer focus as a result of being exposed to theirs.
I really love this thought. 
Excellent thought!! If only more of us realized this concept and allowed others to choose. My brother is currently engaged. It is very unpopular with his family, friends, and pretty much everyone else. Except me. I think I’m the only one that supports him in it. The reason? Because he feels it’s right! From an objective standpoint, I completely understand all the complaints, illogical decisions, irrationality etc. of the marriage, but none of that is the point. I am convinced that life is about learning how to choose. We, in the church, and world, focus too much on the choice itself IMHO, rather than teaching others how to choose amongst a myriad of choices. I believe that it is the learning how to choose that makes us more “God-like.” After all, contrary to what various leaders tell us, the choice is rarely between good and evil, but rather between two good choices. These are the difficult things in life, not choosing whether or not to commit a heinous crime.
Sorry, I don’t mean to toot my own horn
jmb, Similar to you (can I toot my horn too??) my sister is seriously dating a person of another religion, culture, and heritage than my family’s mormon U.S. upbringing. My mom called me to ask what should we do, she might end up marrying him outside the temple.
The reality is, whether I agree with my sister or not, there is nothing I can do. I can’t choose who she loves and what makes her happy. Only she can. I might tell her my feelings about marrying outside the temple, but then the choice is hers because my views don’t trump everyone else’s, my views are just my views.
I hope she is happy. That is all.
This also is how I have tried to raise my children – to know what I believe but make their own choices. My oldest son is very serious about a young lady, and she is very serious about him. She is not LDS, and they had the opportunity to choose marriage over a mission for him. (They both are 21.) I told him I would support him in whatever he chose to do – that, as an adult, he knew what advice I would give him but that it was his choice to make. Ultimately, he chose to go on a mission (the one who will be entering the MTC in three weeks), and she is supporting that choice (have I said I really love this young lady?). They are hoping to be married when he returns – and I have no idea if it will happen or if it will be in the temple or not. All I know is that the choice is theirs to make together – not mine. My wife and I raised him to make his own decisions, and that won’t change in the slightest if his decisions aren’t what we would choose for him in a vacuum. Truth is, life’s not a vacuum – and it’s up to him to live according to the dictates of his own conscience.
Old-Timer wrote:Truth is, life’s not a vacuum.
Well said. If it was, then we could write the book on it and be done. All my answers would apply to everyone else.
Sometimes it is very hard to let go of that and realize that all my answers don’t apply to everyone else, especially the ones I’m very, very passionate about and I’ve learned through hard lessons.
Seriously thought, if there was just one way to do things right, don’t you think someone would have figured it out by now?
Heber13 wrote:Old-Timer wrote:Truth is, life’s not a vacuum.
Quote:Well said. If it was, then we could write the book on it and be done. All my answers would apply to everyone else.
Sometimes it is very hard to let go of that and realize that all my answers don’t apply to everyone else, especially the ones I’m very, very passionate about and I’ve learned through hard lessons.
Seriously thought, if there was just one way to do things right, don’t you think someone would have figured it out by now?
So true! And I would agree that letting go of this idea is one of the hardest. However, I have found it to be one of the most liberating as well. It has allowed me to feel more love and compassion for all mankind (collectively and individually).
I came across this old thread this evening and thought I’d bump it up for more discussion or just reading. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that I can’t really change anyone. I can provide experiences that can help them make up their own minds, but ultimately, what they decide to do is part of their life experience, and from it, they will find their own way. This doesn’t mean that I don’t try to give them experiences that point them in what I think is a good direction though. For example, my young daughter wanted to carry some building bricks to the park when she was very young. They were heavy and bulky, and I knew this was going to be a waste of space and effort in our backpack. So, I agreed we could take them to the park if SHE carried them. Also, she needed to carry the bricks around the house once herself before we left, just to see if she liked it.
She walked around the house with them, and concluded they were too heavy, and brought Mr. Potato Head instead. The experience changed her mind, not my own ideas.
And then we went to the park and we didn’t use Mr. Potato Head. There was too much other fun there. When we got home I asked her how she felt about taking Potato Head…..she didn’t ask to take toys to the park again.
I’m reminded of what Peter Senge said in The Learning Organization. He said that the person with the most influence on a ship is not the captain. It’s the person who designed the ship. I like to think of my change efforts as designing experiences that allow people to make up their own minds. And when they choose an unwise path, I look at the impending negative consequences as life teaching them what they have done wrong. So, effective change agents can be designers of experiences that help people make their own deep impressions. It’s fun to sit back and let an experience teach people things; there are times as a teacher I think the most effective lessons I’ve ever taught are the ones where I’m not speaking, and where my students are saying “Get the heck out of the way, I’M doing this!!!”.
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