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Sounds a bit backwards, but I honestly had this thought over and over again which I’m about to let flow. Since I became disaffected and inadvertently destroyed my reputation in our local Ward and Stake, it’s been hard in some ways. Ignored by people at Church, knowing you’re in the out-group, wife a bit disapproving of certain attitudes and habits, such as posting here at StayLDS. REalizing you’ll not be considered suitable for callings with any leadership in them until you move to a different stake, etcetera.
On the other hand, it leaves you free to re-evaluate your whole place within Mormonism since there are few expectations anymore. Less stress — and guess what — a strong decluttering of one’s life!!! Consider this, when you have a room full of personal belongs all over the place, it becomes very hard to find things that are important. But if you do some weeding, get rid of the things that are not important, or at least, put them in their proper place, the important things become MUCH easier to find.
Such has been the case for me in the last month or so. With no status in the Church any longer, no leadership, no real prospect of leadership, far fewer nuisance items (like moving) and no one to please but myself and God, directly, the clutter has been removed, boundaries set, and religious habits put in their proper place.
So, what do you have left after you reduce your involvement in Church and reduce its affirmation from your life?
The answer? Your character — and that’s about it.
All of a sudden, it dawned on me that with all this Church stuff decluttered from my life, all I have left to respect myself is my personal character. I have a couple habits I don’t like. I’ve had them throughout my entire life in the Church, and I always used to think that because I was serving hard and long, that such service “compensated” for these habits. Or, that there wasn’t time to deal with them (nothing confession-worthy, by the way). But now, they stick out like a sore thumb. There is no compensation for them through Church service, they are big huge warts to me now that I want to fix, like remaining objects on the shelf that are the only things in plain view.
Today, for the first time in a very long time, the Sacrament had meaning to me. It was a touchpoint, and fresh starting point for cleansing myself of two of these habits. And getting over these little bad habits is all I’m working on right now. No other Churchly distractions, just those items as spiritually, my character is all I have now. And its one way I can respect myself in the absence of doing everything the Church says we should do and the self-affirmation you get from that.
How about you — what place does character development have in your life if you are disaffected or somehow in a place where you want to lessen your involvement in Church? Or if you are fully active, do you ever find the Church stuff interferes with your capacity for character development? How do you prevent it from doing interfering?
SilentDawning wrote:Sounds a bit backwards, but I honestly had this thought over and over again which I’m about to let flow…On the other hand, it leaves you free to re-evaluate your whole place within Mormonism since
there are few expectations anymore. Less stress — and guess what — a strong decluttering of one’s life!!!…How about you — what place does character development have in your life if you are disaffected or somehow in a place where you want to lessen your involvement in Church? This reminds me of the 14 fundamentals quote, “the living prophet and the first presidency—follow them and be blessed; reject them and suffer.” In reality my experience was usually the exact opposite of this description because when I was trying my best to do everything the Church asked me to that’s when I actually suffered the most and when I was completely inactive and out of touch with the Church that’s when I actually felt better most of the time.
Some things like callings, home teaching, interviews with the bishop, etc. didn’t seem that bad by themselves but when you add it all up it has really become an inconvenient hassle to be a fully active Church member sometimes especially if you really pay attention to what they are asking for and take it all seriously. For me, freedom from some of the exaggerated guilt-trips and extra responsibilities and expectations definitely felt like a blessing. Losing faith in the Church made me sad at first but now I actually feel relieved by the idea that Church leaders are just ordinary men mostly repeating the same traditions they have inherited from previous generations so there is really no need to believe everything they say and it’s alright to believe whatever makes the most sense to me without worrying about what the Church has to say about it.
Yes, but I also bring into the tent the people who see the hassles and inconvenience as something they do out of selflessness, obedience, or even faith that it will eventually lead to blessings. For some, they see it as character development the same way I’m seeing my own weaknesses and subsequent striving now that the fog has cleared. But I do feel some relief, that’s for sure. Now that I’ve been landed sort of involuntarily in the out-group (something I don’t think I ever wanted a couple years ago), these weaker expectations are a definite blessing. By the way, I have a weekly act of service I do for someone that is totally unconnected to the Church. The person is an older primary age child. She gave me a homemade Happy Father’s Day card today. She was away for the summer, and she only caught up to me today to give it to me. She thanked me profusely for my service. Her own father is absent from the home, so I guess she sees me in a bit of a father figure role. I mention this only because this is the first time in years I’ve had really touching, heartfelt thanks for service….thanks that goes beyond the normal, obligatory words shared when someone is released over the pulpit. I like to think the combination of acting out of a sense of passion and goodness, rather than duty, for something totally outside the Church is the root of this. I wasn’t looking for thanks, but it made my eyes moisten to see how deeply appreciated this thing I’m doing is to this little girl. I haven’t felt that for some time and it ignites my soul.
So, you can have selflessness and kindness and service and charity and all the self-esteem that comes with it by reaching beyond the borders of our religion. Yes, as I read this, I’m reminded of the “People who are tired” component of the Wirthlin talk that Ray has pointed us to a few times.
Quote:Or if you are fully active, do you ever find the Church stuff interferes with your capacity for character development?
I don’t let it.I do everything I can – but not more. I separate what I pursue at church from what I pursue on my own, and character development is something I pursue on my own. I try to practice / implement that development at church, and there are plenty of ways to do so there. Charity, patience, long-suffering, meekness, mercy, peacekeeping, etc. all can be put into practice at church (and developed thereby), but church can’t be the primary place of development for me. The following posted on my personal blog last week and the week before:
“Spirituality and Righteousness Are Not Primarily Communal, Church Pursuits”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2011/08/spirituality-and-righteousness-are-not.html “Attending Church Should Be a Supplemental Activity to Spiritual Growth”( http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2011/08/spirituality-and-righteousness-are-not.html “the blessings of disaffection”. an interesting post SD. There has been a lot of blessings for me since my disaffection. When you are “in” at church there is a tendency to be blind to what is wrong with the culture of the church. When you become disaffected you start to see how certain cultural traditions really aren’t helpful and even possibly hurtful.
One of the blessings is being “open-minded” to how life is lived outside of the church. People are happy even if they aren’t living like a staunch Mormon. I know one of the things that I came to realize, too, is that in spite of my lack of obedience I haven’t lost my testimony of spiritual things. I think, though, when LDS members do become disaffected and stop living standards some just choose to bury their testimonies because for them, it’s easier to live that way.
One thing I will never forget as an active Mormon is the beauty of the priesthood ordinances. I felt the power of the priesthood and the power of divinity in them, just like the time I talked with a gentleman who was soon to be baptized. You could feel he was well prepared for that “big” step in his life (baptism). The missionaries prepared him well. I definitely felt a Celestial aura around him !
One thing I remember saying to my brother was “i miss the ordinances but I sure don’t love the social crap that can go on at church”.
Another blessing has been being able to go to other church services outside the Mormon faith. In fact, going to other churches has been a blessing because it forced me to examine what I had been taught as a Mormon. I have had neat experiences where I had been at other faith meetings listening to what’s been taught and I could easily identify with the participants because of my Mormon experiences within the LDS church.
As I go about living life as I please, or on my terms, I wonder if I could ever be happy living as a strict Mormon again. I ask myself that from time to time and really, I do wonder that. I am happy as an inactive Mormon. There are times I feel “under the weather” spiritually but it sure is nice to have that freedom to do as I please in my life without worrying about losing a temple recommend.
There is definite independence felt as Mike said. I envy you Mike, because with a family who is firm in the Church, I’d raise huge eyebrows if I started taking off to the local Methodist Church. I’ve wanted to a buzillion times. I like most of what Ray said in his blog — that character development and spirituality can be independent of the Church. However, I think the emphasis on TR and worthiness interviews tends to blur the line a bit. One needs to separate the two consciously.
Regarding this quote from his blog:
Quote:
Even that distinction alone can remove much of what I believe to be the problem associated for many with church activity – since I think many members expect church activity to be the primary vehicle for personal righteousness and/or spirituality. I just see the purpose for that activity very differently, so I am not disappointed when I am not “spiritually enlightened” in my meetings – even though often I am spiritually enlightened at Church.I still feel lunchbag letdown when Church isn’t simulating, though. Not because it failed to inspire me to higher character goals, but simply because of its use of my time. Church endeavors will consume a lot of time with questionable results I’ve found. And they implicitly teach dislike for Church to some kids.
For example, Sacrament meeting. My son absolutely rebels regarding Sacrament meeting. It really is a waste of time for that kid right now. He said “the whole reason I don’t like to come to Church is because of Sacrament meeting”. So, I’m going to have to duck out after Sacrament and then trade up like Piper Alpha suggested. In the future we’ll be in a room having a kind of family home evening with just his Dad. He’ll gain way more in character development spiritual training from that 1/2 hour of personal training from an adult who cares about him than all the sleeping and whining and fighting he does in Sacrament meeting, which is essentially an adult meeting. He may even start looking forward to coming to Church.
SilentDawning wrote:For example, Sacrament meeting. My son absolutely rebels regarding Sacrament meeting. It really is a waste of time for that kid right now. He said “the whole reason I don’t like to come to Church is because of Sacrament meeting”. So, I’m going to have to duck out after Sacrament and then trade up like Piper Alpha suggested. In the future we’ll be in a room having a kind of family home evening with just his Dad. He’ll gain way more in character development spiritual training from that 1/2 hour of personal training from an adult who cares about him than all the sleeping and whining and fighting he does in Sacrament meeting, which is essentially an adult meeting. He may even start looking forward to coming to Church.
DS is 3. I am coming to appreciate Sacrament meeting as a dedicated time for my son. We color, and do puzzles, and read books, he feeds me snacks, and my wife tries to shush him. I can tell that he enjoys the one on one interaction. They can say what they will from over the pulpit, but I am willing to bet that it is not as valuable as the undivided attention spent on my son.
:thumbup: Roy wrote:SilentDawning wrote:For example, Sacrament meeting. My son absolutely rebels regarding Sacrament meeting. It really is a waste of time for that kid right now. He said “the whole reason I don’t like to come to Church is because of Sacrament meeting”. So, I’m going to have to duck out after Sacrament and then trade up like Piper Alpha suggested. In the future we’ll be in a room having a kind of family home evening with just his Dad. He’ll gain way more in character development spiritual training from that 1/2 hour of personal training from an adult who cares about him than all the sleeping and whining and fighting he does in Sacrament meeting, which is essentially an adult meeting. He may even start looking forward to coming to Church.
DS is 3. I am coming to appreciate Sacrament meeting as a dedicated time for my son. We color, and do puzzles, and read books, he feeds me snacks, and my wife tries to shush him. I can tell that he enjoys the one on one interaction. They can say what they will from over the pulpit, but I am willing to bet that it is not as valuable as the undivided attention spent on my son.
:thumbup: Are you doing all this during the meeting? Or do you leave the meeting for periods of time?
BeLikeChrist wrote:“One thing I will never forget as an active Mormon is the beauty of the priesthood ordinances. I felt the power of the priesthood and the power of divinity in them, just like the time I talked with a gentleman who was soon to be baptized. You could feel he was well prepared for that “big” step in his life (baptism). The missionaries prepared him well. I definitely felt a Celestial aura around him !
Wow, that was a beautiful and insightful quote: I miss my old Bishops that I would look up to as a young man, they were so sacrosanct. I miss the first couple times I went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead, it seemed so special. Now, I have a hard time motivating myself to get to the temple. The newness and religious zeal of the gospel I had between the ages of 12-30 is often gone. I feel like I am now one who contributes on such a minuscule level that I don’t know if what I do is really appreciated or just to help me go through the motions of activity. I do have some great spiritual moments, but then I have some lows that are nauseating. Maybe like Nacho says in Nacho Libre, “I think it’s time we get professional help.” Maybe that is me right now, and I’m going into my wilderness of affliction to be revitalized. Oh well, hopefully I will go through a phase to be reinvigorated one day. Perhaps my son’s upcoming baptism will bring a Celestial aura that you have spoken about. Thanks, your comment here stuck a nerve with me.
i think Jamison, the problem is repetitiveness. it’s like when you watch a great movie the first time and you think “wow !”. after you have seen a movie 2 or 3 times it loses it’s appeal. the cultural expectation in mormon life is you make church life so central and of course all that repetition(this meeting and that meeting) can take away from the novelty of the church experience. how do you make things feel new ? i don’t think there is a magic answer for that.
even before my social disaffection i would struggle to read my scriptures, pray, and attend meetings – but that was the cultural expectation – to do all those things even if you didn’t feel like it.
BeLikeChrist wrote:i think Jamison, the problem is repetitiveness. it’s like when you watch a great movie the first time and you think “wow !”. after you have seen a movie 2 or 3 times it loses it’s appeal. the cultural expectation in mormon life is you make church life so central and of course all that repetition(this meeting and that meeting) can take away from the novelty of the church experience.
Yes!!! I had a strange and wonderful conversation with our ex-Bishop and our current HPGL. Both are tired men in the gospel. I made the comment “It’s not surprising that of the 28 brethren in our quorum, only about 10 attend every week…why? Boring, repetitive service…” They both nodded their heads in agreement!!!! I was amazed that they would agree.
I don’t know what the solution is…how do you keep things you’ve done a million times, and that are rather inconvenient from the get-go fresh, and exciting? To keep Church alive I’ve had to set limits on how much I engage in such things.
SilentDawning wrote:Roy wrote:DS is 3. I am coming to appreciate Sacrament meeting as a dedicated time for my son. We color, and do puzzles, and read books, he feeds me snacks, and my wife tries to shush him. I can tell that he enjoys the one on one interaction. They can say what they will from over the pulpit, but I am willing to bet that it is not as valuable as the undivided attention spent on my son.
:thumbup: Are you doing all this during the meeting? Or do you leave the meeting for periods of time?
I do it during the meeting. We for some time have had a big SM bag that is full of things intended to keep the kids occupied. It’s just that now I play/interact more with the kids (in hushed tones) rather than shoving “quiet activities” at them. While this works for me, I don’t think DW is a fan. For her, it probably seems like I’ve degenerated into one of the kids.
Until 1) the membership in each unit participates by contributing actively to the lessons and making them unique in the only way possible (by refusing to just sit and listen or read) or 2) the local leadership demands that different things be studied (which can happen now within our program of study) or 3) real teacher development occurs, the lessons will continue to be the same old same old. Each and every one of those things is possible without tons of difficulty, but it has to be a conscious effort.
Ray, we are talking about sacrament meeting here, however. There is no room for audience participation in that meeting other than singing as a group, and no impetus for change. I think the only thing that will make Sacrament meeting improve is a startling decline in activity, dramatic decline in membership numbers, or some other metric that unfreezes attitudes that Sacrament meeting is fine as currently structured.
As a full-time educator, speaker and workshop leader, I find that Sacrament meeting defies all the rules of engagement that I’ve studied and practiced in education over the years.
Regarding the lessons — yes, the Church video on gospel teaching encourages members to get involved when you have struggling teachers. Perhaps I personally need to do more than that in Sunday School, as I have fallen into being a reader these last few months. It’s partly because the whole experience has a sort of bad taste for the time being, and at least, reading makes it tolerable to sit through it, particularly when culture is being taught as doctrine.
But frankly, I agree that there is no reliable and regular vehicle to help people improve their teaching. This is a huge fault in our system. Teaching, speaking and training are the key activities of our organization, but there is precious little in the way of structured and effective systems in place to help people improve and excel. The Teacher Improvement Coordinator position, which I held for a while, did some good, but that has been disbanded as far as I know. There is the teaching the gospel course, but that runs sporadically. I think I’ve seen it run three times in my whole 3 decades in the Church, and once I taught it.
Although there have been times when people have stood up and given heartfelt testimonies and talks that have been – inspiring, after several decades it just gets hard for some us — especially through the lens of our experiences, both good and bad, in the Church.
I think I’m going to remove my boy and myself during the last half of sacrament. We will sit at the rear of the chapel in the overflow area so we can leave inconspicuously, and I am going to make that time of value to him so he looks forward to going to Church — with the expectation that when he is a certain age, he will have to sit through the whole meeting. We will return for the closing hymn.
What I’ve been trying for the last 8 years is not working, although my wife and daughter seem to handle it just fine.
I get the distinction between Sac Mtg and other lessons 
Even with Sac Mtg, there is a responsibility of leadership to choose uplifting topics, help members understand their obligations in preparing talks, encourage unique perspectives, etc. One of the reasons my current ward is so good is that all of those things have been done and are being done by the leadership.
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