Very good post about "what I wish Mormons knew about those that leave"

[Anonymous]

First, welcome. You seem like a good fit here. Our central mission is to help people stay LDS, but a secondary mission is to help people who feel they have to leave do so in a way that does not cause them to lose relationships or harm people who are important to them. If you can support that mission, you will be fine here.

I thought of a post I wrote quite a while ago on my personal blog. I copied it here and am providing the link. I hope it helps you understand people who stay and just can’t understand you.

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

[Anonymous]

On Own Now wrote:

The Kinderhook Plates were a big hurdle for me. Now I just yawn at them.

Yes, me too. I may take a different view from you, I see the value in what JS did as well as the rubbish. In the case of the Kinderhook Plates, I just see them as an example of a piece of inspiration or a springboard.

[Anonymous]

IT_Veteran wrote:

…many of the members in my life take criticism of the church as a personal attack on them.

Actually that doesn’t surprise me at all. I would fully expect them to feel that way, similarly to how we feel personally devalued when disaffection with the church is criticized as giving in to Satan, or being offended, or [name a generalized factor].

FWIW, I never criticize the Church, its leaders, or its doctrines in my conversations with believing members. It’s their Church. I am a guest. As you’ve observed, it will only result in putting them on the defensive. I wouldn’t do this to Jews, Catholics, or Muslims, either.

I do have faithful friends/loved-ones who feel the same way I do on a variety of topics, like SSM or gender issues. We sometimes share our views with each other, but always in a respectful manner, and far short of criticism.

I guess the salient question is this: can you live your life without the need to criticize a religion to adherents of that religion? If your answer is ‘no’ then I think you can expect to have a lifetime of conflict with people you know who are still faithful. If your answer is “yes, but I’m not there yet”, then maybe it would be helpful to see that as a goal you are working toward in order to find peace.

[Anonymous]

On Own Now wrote:

I guess the salient question is this: can you live your life without the need to criticize a religion to adherents of that religion? If your answer is ‘no’ then I think you can expect to have a lifetime of conflict with people you know who are still faithful. If your answer is “yes, but I’m not there yet”, then maybe it would be helpful to see that as a goal you are working toward in order to find peace.

This is an important distinction. I won’t quote the other responses I’ve received here, but I still appreciate them. I think your question sort of encapsulates what everyone else was driving at as well.

This weekend I attended a Mormon Stories workshop with my wife. Even before the workshop I knew that I needed to find a way to move past criticism of the church and it’s leadership. The workshop reaffirmed that.

Here’s where I struggle: I see real harm in what was said by Oaks to people I love. I didn’t post what I did to attack the church, but to let the LGBTQ people in my life know that they are loved and they have a safe place to turn. Looking at what I wrote a few weeks later, I can recognize that I stepped over the line in my tone and in what was actually said.

I compared his talk to a quote from BY about Black members and that their second place status would “always be so” as a way to demonstrate that things do change and to love people as they are. But I also said that Oak’s and his peers don’t speak for God, and to stop giving them that power.

It wasn’t meant as an attack on believers. I broke down in tears as I told my wife last night that this was me trying to atone for the things I said when I was a believer. I supported Prop 8, I defended the November policy when it came out. As I lost belief, my stance softened. After I decided to leave the church completely, I no longer had any justification to criticize LGBTQ people and I told my wife as much. That’s when she felt safe enough, after 18 years of marriage, to tell me that she was bisexual. She had known it her entire life but never felt safe enough to tell a single person, including me.

That broke me, but it also helped me to understand how our words hurt people without knowing their situation. It doesn’t matter how close to someone we are, we never really know until they feel safe enough to let us in.

[Anonymous]

IT_Veteran wrote:

I broke down in tears as I told my wife last night that this was me trying to atone for the things I said when I was a believer. I supported Prop 8, I defended the November policy when it came out.

I understand that. I remember having a discussion with a gay high school friend. The friend was expressing that the LDS church could be true for some without it being true for all (somewhat like the marvel comics multiverse – except where each religion gets its own heaven). I told him that my religion had to be objectively true for everybody in order for it to be meaningful. Looking back, I was being thoughtless and inconsiderate to this friend by dismissing his own beliefs even as he was trying to make room for both of us to co-exist. I regret that.

I also understand that this is deeply personal due to your wife’s revelation.

I would be careful however that you do not try to atone for your hurtful critisism of one group by being hurtfully critical of an opposite group. Two wrong actions do not make a right one.

[Anonymous]

IT_Veteran wrote:

That broke me, but it also helped me to understand how our words hurt people without knowing their situation. It doesn’t matter how close to someone we are, we never really know until they feel safe enough to let us in.

That seems pretty true.

That was a really good post. These things are not simple and easy. They really pull at your heart strings.

I have regrets of things I said or did, even in ignorance. I guess it shows I’ve learned something enough to recognize that…but how to atone for it? How to make it right?

You can’t go back and be a different person in the past. I guess you move forward and change how you handle things today and be the person you want to be tomorrow.

I am trying to find balance so I don’t over-react and swing too far the other way that I begin doing the same thing to a different group of people. We often talk about stage 3 faith…and you don’t want to go from one stage 3 group to a different stage 3 group and just do stuff you will similarly regret to another group of people.

It’s a hard balance.

[Anonymous]

Also…in reading the Wheat and Tares post (here), there was a good point made, #6 on the list of being a “middle way mormon”:

Quote:

6. I used to be where many certain, apologists are and I used to have little patience for them until I came to forgive and love my former self. They are still frustrating but I used to be them, so give your past self and others grace.

I like this advice. We can love others who think different from us, and forgive them and accept them as they are. We can love ourselves when we thought differently, and forgive ourselves too.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

I have regrets of things I said or did, even in ignorance. I guess it shows I’ve learned something enough to recognize that…but how to atone for it? How to make it right?

You can’t go back and be a different person in the past. I guess you move forward and change how you handle things today and be the person you want to be tomorrow.

I am trying to find balance so I don’t over-react and swing too far the other way that I begin doing the same thing to a different group of people. We often talk about stage 3 faith…and you don’t want to go from one stage 3 group to a different stage 3 group and just do stuff you will similarly regret to another group of people.

It’s a hard balance.

Thank you for both of your posts. Your point here, about not hurting a different group of people really hits home. In the long text I got from my mom in response to that post, she said much the same. There was a lot that she said – some I still don’t think was justified. But she asked me to take those same words that I used in my post (we don’t always know who our words will hurt) and keep them in mind myself. I still struggle with finding that balance. I want, I need, people to know that they are loved and safe. I also don’t want my mom to feel attacked.

I’m relatively certain there are other LGBTQ people in my wife’s ward that would have seen that. I know there are LGBTQ people that I’m friends with on FB that needed to hear it.

The last thing I want to do is to find myself in the same place I was before with a slightly different set of circumstances or beliefs. Thank you for pointing that out – I have some considering to do.

[Anonymous]

IT_Veteran wrote:

I’m relatively certain there are other LGBTQ people in my wife’s ward that would have seen that. I know there are LGBTQ people that I’m friends with on FB that needed to hear it.

The last thing I want to do is to find myself in the same place I was before with a slightly different set of circumstances or beliefs. Thank you for pointing that out – I have some considering to do.

about a year ago, I visited a booth at the local farmers market that was giving out PFLAG bumper stickers. Not completely sure about the organization acronym but the idea was that LGBTQ kids that might be struggling can identify you as an ally. I asked my wife if she would be open to the idea and she shot it down out of fear of what our conservative church friends might think.

Fast forward a year, a college aged child of a ward family came out as gay and we found out that DW’s cousin living on the other coast is also gay. I heard DW talking on the phone to her sister saying that she regrets not putting the bumper sticker on our car. 😮 I am fairly certain that if I pushed the issue a year ago or tried to shame her for her timidity then we would have fought and she would have dug in her heals. Instead I have tried to respect her feelings and our differences and I have been amazed at how fast her feelings have changed in the last year on her own.

I do not think that it was me that caused her feelings to change. The point of the story is that I was willing to preserve and prioritize the relationship with her – even if her feelings on the subject never changed.

I try to do similarly with many people who are different than me but with whom I have a relationship.

[Author]

Posts