Understanding State 5 from the Perspective of Being Lost

[Anonymous]

The title above has nothing to do with the TV Show Lost. It has everything to do with what I’m feeling now that I’ve decided to remain active and outwardly faithful while having reservations about certain commandments etcetera.

In the last 8 months, I’ve gone from believing everything in the Church pretty whole-heartedly to accepting the Church as one of many religions that can point a person to a clean life full of respect for others, something to keep my kids out of jail and conbtributing adults someday, etcetera.

And with this change of heart comes a feeling of beig lost again — like before I joined the Church and was searching for answers. No longer do I feel that I have the answers to what happens to us after this life is over; all I have is a set of doctrines that are attached to this religion, which may or may not be true. I don’t necessarily believe I have to be living al the temple-recommend commandments to be right with God, although I’m no longer sure about whether I’m right either. I’m not even sure I believe in the powerful revelations I thought I had when I was younger too.

I just feel Lost! (with a capital “L”).

Sure, I’ve been developing my own reasons for staying active in the Church which I’ve been calling State 5 reasons here, but on reflection, they have little to do with truth — they are simply reasons that resonate with me and motivate me to keep going to Church and serving.

Perhaps someone can more clearly define what a State 5 state of mind is. I listened to the podcasts and came away they were simply personal reasons for living the commandments, not a new plateau of truth. Now I’m not so sure that finding my own reasons for being active is necessarily a State 5 experience any longer….

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

Perhaps someone can more clearly define what a State 5 state of mind is. I listened to the podcasts and came away they were simply personal reasons for living the commandments, not a new plateau of truth. Now I’m not so sure that finding my own reasons for being active is necessarily a State 5 experience any longer….

Since no one’s responded to this in the last couple days, I assume this is a hard question….so I did more research to try to answer it for myself since the podcast isn’t helping much…..first — a definition of Stage 4:

Quote:

“This is the stage when an individual is developing in two major ways. The self, previously defined from the perspective of a member of a group, “no longer depends on one’s roles or meaning to others.” Also as an individual, one’s individual world view changes, becoming distinct from views held by others. One reflects on the symbols learned in the past and translates those symbols into concepts and ideas. This is a ‘demythologizing’ stage. For some adults this stage can be precipitated by changes in primary relationships, such as divorce, the death of a parent or children growing up and leaving home. Or it can result from the challenges of moving, or changing jobs. For most this change comes with the natural occurrence of leaving one’s childhood home and forming one’s first adult life structures.”

I see this as where I’m at — originally not wanting to identify with the Church TOO MUCH, with wearing a blue shirt part of that situation. Feeing frustrated with certain principles or cultural traditions that I feel I MUST abide by, even though I no longer feel they are important, necessary, or palatable.

Certain aspects of my religion I now look at as symbolic rather than literal. And definitely, I’ve chosen to look at parts of our religion as possibly untrue, but more symbolic and acceptable for reasons other than their truthfulness…. Wikipedia describes this phase as also having angst and tension in them, which I thought was funny because I’ve been using the term angst over and over again thinking it was my own application of the word to this situation, not a word others have been using….

Here is a definition of Stage 5:

Quote:

“A stage 5 person is so comfortable with their place in the grand scheme of things that they are more interested in what is true than what they believe, understanding that the two might be dissimilar. They try to see from any wise perspective and are constantly creating a woven tapestry of belief. They let reality speak for itself regardless of its impact on them. This person trusts that the “known” is out there and takes the initiative to discover it.

Religiously it knows that the symbols, stories, doctrines and liturgies offered by its own or other traditions are inevitably partial, limited to a particular people’s experience of God and incomplete. Conjunctive faith, therefore, is ready for significant encounters with other traditions than its own, expecting that truth has disclosed and will disclose itself in those traditions in ways that may complement or correct its own. One in stage 5 is wiling to be converted by other ways of thinking. This does not mean that the person is wishy washy or uncommited to one’s own truth tradition. Conjunctive faith’s “radical openness” to other traditions comes from the belief that “reality” cannot be held entirely in one tradition and spills over into many traditions. The new strength of this stage comes in the rise of the ironic imagination ­ a capacity to see and be in one’s or one’s group’s most powerful meanings, while simultaneously recognizing that they are relative, partial, and inevitably distorting apprehensions of trancendent reality.”

What I get from this phase is that you my not believe in One True Church, although you might still be fully active in the Church because you believe it’s the best partial set of principles to access the truth of life. HOwever, you accept that there may be practices or doctrines in other religions that you can assimilate. So this might men you believe in the Gift of Tongues as it’s displayed in the Pentacostal Church, even though the LDS version means the gift of tongues occurs only when there is some purpose for speaking or understanding another language.

Or, you recognize there are limits on the applicability of certain principles as presented to you at Church etcetera. You are developing your own view of truth, and if that means rejectng aspects of our religion, then so be it, as no one religion has it all in one place.

So, how do you reconcile comments such as the BoM has “the fulness of the gospel”, or that the full gospel includes the new and everlasting covenanant of marriage? You might decide that it contains the fulness of the gospel as understood by Joseph Smith. But that other principles may be present that aren’t necessarily even taught in our Church. They may be found elsewhere….

I think Stage 5 is a much harder place to get to in the LDS religion given its tendency to speak in terms of absolutes. State 5 seem to be more relative and has as its premise that truth is universal, and NOT found all in one place….hence its openness.

Comments from any othe students of this subject?

Reference: http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d46/psy/dev/Spring01/Spirituality/5.html

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I think Stage 5 is a much harder place to get to in the LDS religion given its tendency to speak in terms of absolutes.

Yeah. I just made a comment related to this in the Problem with Authority thread. I think it is very difficult for LDS to navigate through stage 4 into stage five and stay a HAPPY ACTIVE LDS member. It goes against the very grain that our LDS culture has created. Many times those members will willing leave the church, or they will be asked to leave. (fortunately the LDS church has evolved the last 20 years and we no longer have to live in “fear” of getting booted out like they did in the 70’s and 80’s.)

I think it is important to remember that JS NEVER foresaw the organization we have now, and that he was VERY rebellious to the cultural/religious norm of his time. He was going through his own stage 4 experience.

I think you did answer your own question about stage 5. I see stage 5 as folks who do good and search for truth everywhere regardless of their family/friends/cultural beliefs and traditions because they have a personal desire to do so – and they are able to find it and APPRECIATE it amongst all the rubble and trash — and they do so in a manner that respects others beliefs and faiths, even when they know they are “wrong.” They are no longer threatened by opposing and contradictory theological viewpoints.

That’s how I see it.

[Anonymous]

Hi SilentD, I really like this topic, sorry I couldn’t get to it sooner.

SilentDawning wrote:

I see this as where I’m at — originally not wanting to identify with the Church TOO MUCH, with wearing a blue shirt part of that situation. Feeing frustrated with certain principles or cultural traditions that I feel I MUST abide by, even though I no longer feel they are important, necessary, or palatable.

Certain aspects of my religion I now look at as symbolic rather than literal. And definitely, I’ve chosen to look at parts of our religion as possibly untrue, but more symbolic and acceptable for reasons other than their truthfulness…. Wikipedia describes this phase as also having angst and tension in them, which I thought was funny because I’ve been using the term angst over and over again thinking it was my own application of the word to this situation, not a word others have been using….

This is all to be expected, and progress. You can’t skip stages, and an important step is to get solidy on YOUR footing – doing everything you do because of your own personal reasons. After you become solidly personally grounded then you can begin to reconcile.

I like the definition of Stage 5, and I’m a little surprised at how I understand and relate to the description today, while two years ago I was trying to figure out what it was saying. I offer that as incentive to keep journeying, stretching, and searching. You will start to come out of the fog.

SilentDawning wrote:

So, how do you reconcile comments such as the BoM has “the fulness of the gospel”, or that the full gospel includes the new and everlasting covenanant of marriage? You might decide that it contains the fulness of the gospel as understood by Joseph Smith. But that other principles may be present that aren’t necessarily even taught in our Church. They may be found elsewhere….

I see those statements as the best knowledge of the people who gave them at the time. I’m sure there is meaning in there for me if I search it out. Simple black/white just doesn’t seem as edifying as richer, broader, color. There are degrees of “truth” or understanding, our job is to learn; our job is to dig. Humans always speak according to their understanding at the time. No human is divine. We may at times reflect the divine, but our understanding will ALWAYS be limited by the human condition. Our church like all mortal organizations takes on a dynamic and “personality” of its own. The collective will emphasize some topics over others, that’s just the way it works. Over time the focus will shift, it always has and always will.

The real growth and reward comes from your personal relationship with the divine, however you define that. We can find many quotes and scriptures that will back up this idea too.

Thanks for the topic!

[Anonymous]

I have been working and commuting really long hours last week and this one at a temporary job. Sorry about a delay in responding. This is normally one of my favorite topics. I think you did a good job of answering your questions SilentDawning. Those descriptions are someone’s interpretation of Fowler Stage Theory. They sound pretty good to me, and they are free to see them that way.

The thing I noticed was how they talked about being open to the “truths” from other faith traditions. We talk a lot about that here — supplementing our spiritual nourishment. I think that is important and healthy for transitioning. It it also important, like they said, to be open to letting other traditions speak their message, and simply enjoy it. I usually say this in terms of letting symbols speak or sing to us. It’s all saying something similar.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

…In the last 8 months, I’ve gone from believing everything in the Church pretty whole-heartedly to accepting the Church as one of many religions that can point a person to a clean life full of respect for others…with this change of heart comes a feeling of beig lost again…No longer do I feel that I have the answers to what happens to us after this life is over…I don’t necessarily believe I have to be living al the temple-recommend commandments to be right with God…I’m not even sure I believe in the powerful revelations I thought I had when I was younger too…I just feel Lost!

I don’t know much about these “Stages of Faith” yet but I certainly sympathize with the way you said you feel lost and I understand how disheartening it can be to go from feeling like you have all the answers to not really knowing what to think about everything anymore. In my case, I was absolutely convinced that the Church was almost exactly what it claimed to be to the point that I easily shrugged off all kinds of anti-Mormon propaganda about the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith marrying other men’s wives and young teenagers and mostly forgot about these things for over 10 years. I didn’t really know how everything fit together and didn’t really care because I was sure in the back of my mind that it all had to make sense somehow to the point that I didn’t think it was worth worrying about anymore.

One of the main reasons I felt this way was because of a few spiritual experiences of people I know where I just didn’t believe in any skeptical explanations for them because of some of the unlikely coincidences this would take. I don’t want to cast pearls before swine too much here because these aren’t my own experiences to share but I’ll just say that to this day these still lead me to believe that God hears our prayers and really cares about people in a personal way, that spirits can exist without a physical body and there is some kind of afterlife, and that Mormons will not necessarily be condemned for their beliefs the way many Christians like to assume. At first, I read a lot more into these experiences and tried to connect it all to the LDS Church but in hindsight they don’t really suggest anything that specific. For example, they don’t even discredit the possibility of reincarnation.

On top of these experiences that I couldn’t ignore, the LDS Church basically encourages people to tell themselves they know all these things often based on nothing more than warm fuzzy feelings with the whole testimony concept. I don’t know how much this was planned out or if it is just a tradition that has taken on a life of its own but I think it has continued this way mostly because it makes people feel better to assume that they know these things and it also promotes strong loyalty to the Church. Now I think it is really nothing more than self-delusion to claim you can know something for sure this way, if you want to say you strongly believe something based on intuition that’s fine but I don’t see how we can honestly treat this as any kind of real knowledge and expect others to accept this approach as well.

What finally led me to second guess some of my earlier assumptions about the Church was actually reading the Book of Mormon, D&C, and (most of all) the Bible because in my opinion traditional Mormonism puts way too much emphasis on ideas from the Old Testament and not enough emphasis on the New Testament for my taste. If I hadn’t really continued to study these scriptures in detail I might have believed in most of these traditional TBM doctrines forever but the more I read these the more some things about the Church just didn’t make sense or really add up for me anymore.

Now I’ve reached the point where I am a lot more comfortable with not knowing some things for sure and basically expect it to be this way because if God wants people to demonstrate real faith and hope then there is really no other way that it could have been because too much certainty would basically skip this step and defeat the purpose. I don’t know what stage I am at based on this description but I don’t really expect to go much higher or really change my mind in a major way any time soon.

[Anonymous]

DevilsAdvocate wrote:

SilentDawning wrote:

…In the last 8 months, I’ve gone from believing everything in the Church pretty whole-heartedly to accepting the Church as one of many religions that can point a person to a clean life full of respect for others…with this change of heart comes a feeling of beig lost again…No longer do I feel that I have the answers to what happens to us after this life is over…I don’t necessarily believe I have to be living al the temple-recommend commandments to be right with God…I’m not even sure I believe in the powerful revelations I thought I had when I was younger too…I just feel Lost!

Quote:

Now I’ve reached the point where I am a lot more comfortable with not knowing some things for sure and basically expect it to be this way because if God wants people to demonstrate real faith and hope then there is really no other way that it could have been because too much certainty would basically skip this step and defeat the purpose. I don’t know what stage I am at based on this description but I don’t really expect to go much higher or really change my mind in a major way any time soon.

This has been the kicker for me — if it’s so important to live the gospel,– why not let us know up front what the rules are, and let our focus be on learning to live the principles? Why all this mist that encourages people to misfire and join many presumably false religions like The People’s Temple (Jim Jones) and ultimately die of cyanide poisoning? I think we discussed this elsewhere at one time in this forum.

The only thing I can think of is accountability — that God releases us of a certain amount of accountability when the ground rules aren’t clear up front. That way we don’t have sure knowledge and the accountability that would ensue from this. It means he can save more souls since we don’t have the burden of pure knowledge working against us.

[Anonymous]

cwald wrote:

Quote:

I see stage 5 as folks who do good and search for truth everywhere regardless of their family/friends/cultural beliefs and traditions because they have a personal desire to do so – and they are able to find it and APPRECIATE it amongst all the rubble and trash — and they do so in a manner that respects others beliefs and faiths, even when they know they are “wrong.” They are no longer threatened by opposing and contradictory theological viewpoints.That’s how I see it.

I agree that one can find truth eveywhere, but I don’t necessarily see it as the main point of State 5 for me right now. For me, State 5’s goal is to live the LDS religion for deeply personal and motivating reasons other than the SMA’s, if certain SMA’s are irritants to you or hard to believe. And, in the interim period while a person finds those reasons, there may be commandments you don’t live for a while, quietly, so as not to hurt others. Until such time you feel ready to live them for your own personal reasons.

For me, I don’t feel a strong affinity for the temple, garments and tithing, my big ones. NOr do I feel much desire to reach out to the lost sheep who have little interest in returning – that only created angst for me when I threw myself into it as a leader. I also disagree with the “sit where I tell you to sit” mentality of leaders over callings and releases. Granted, the leaders rarely act-out those attitudes out in such harsh terms, being tempered by D&C 121, but they many hold those authoritarian attitudes iternally. Some have even espoused them over the pulpit in our Stake.

However, I feel that I’m making progress, even though I no longer feel I have any solid answers about what’s going to happen to me after I die. And I do beleve the LDS Church is the best thing out there compared to other religions I’ve looked at….so I will keep at it.

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