Scary Thoughts Arisin’

[Anonymous]

Hmm, there is one lady at church that reads the Church News during sacrament meeting. Her husband reads his lesson. My sister corrects papers. Each of my children have an iTouch. If you are bored at church you just are not creative enough!

[Anonymous]

SD:

Quote:

“And then I make an off-center comment and get a funny look.”

Authenticity is surprising to people who aren’t that familiar with it.

I think there’s a valid question at the heart of your feelings. As a parent, do you do whatever you do out of love for doing those things or out of fear of not doing those things. I think as Mormons we are really good at scaring the bejeezus out of each other at church, especially as parents.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I think as Mormons we are really good at scaring the bejeezus out of each other at church, especially as parents.

I would say “pretty good at times”. We can’t hold a candle to some denominations I’ve attended with friends.

[Anonymous]

Enoch wrote:

Personally I feel a paradigm shift is needed in religion today. We need to transcend the old ways of doing things. I think the most joy comes from maintaining every good thing from our heritage, laying aside the hurtful or extraneous, and add the new good we discover.

I agree with this, and think part of the paradigm shift is to let go of doing things “because you’re supposed to” and instead, be more comfortable as a world-wide church with some variation in living the principles of the gospel. I may not have great stories to tell in Sunday School about consecutive years of daily family prayer, but I’m glad I don’t have the temptation of trying to impress others with my habits. 😳 I am focused on what my family needs and what really is good and helpful for them (not just what I think should be good for them)…of which, prayer in the home has remained as a good thing, even if it is now less frequent.

For my kids (ages 17, 16, 12, and , they are learning now from me to question things and find meaning and purpose in what we do … something I didn’t have from my parents (but my parents were so way awesome, I learned other things from them). They know I love them more than I care about what others think. They know their needs are important to me, more-so than some list of rules I am supposed to obey. Love allows me to let go of self-induced pressure of what I must do as a parent.

We now have family prayers sporadically, but often enough to make a difference. Similar to FHE, we don’t do it every Monday, but we still do it, and the kids still get the benefit, and there is MUCH, MUCH less stress about it and less dragging the troops kicking and screaming to do it. To me, LESS STRESS = MORE GOOD SPIRIT .

[Author]

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