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I was on vacation the last few days, and I had a weird dream that was disturbing. A group of internet / bloggernacle people put together a counter-active approach to the church. They put together a video about all the things they didn’t like at church that they wanted changed. They lobbied to make statements of non-belief equally welcome. They also had a door-to-door missionary campaign to promote the changes they were seeking, including explaining to people why the Word of Wisdom was stupid and not doctrinal. In the dream, I knew they were counting on my support, but I couldn’t give it, and their efforts just made me sad. Weird dream. It must have been really vivid and memorable. It seems like it contains the kind of tension you might feel. You’ve mentioned before not really being interested in the kind of activism efforts other folks in our circle of online friends engage in. Would you feel sad if the church became looser and lax with the Word of Wisdom in particular? I see them needing to change in other areas over time to adapt to the needs of the members. I’m not sure they would change that dramatically though. Even though I don’t personally adhere to “normal” Word of Wisdom practices, the whole thing seems like one of the more innocuous “doctrines” to me. I don’t really think the Church should change the general direction of that. I see it a lot like Jewish Kosher or Muslim Halal. Those practices continue to survive in their religious cultures long past any practical aspects that were perhaps the initial motivation (like not having refrigeration for pork and shell fish, etc).
No, I wouldn’t have a problem with that (a WoW change), but I don’t think it would be a net gain to the community either – I think people are prone to spend too much on coffee and alcohol, and that people tend to use alcohol to self-medicate. IMO, alcohol has never improved anyone’s life, even though it is neutral for most people. In the dream, I objected to the methods and the self-serving nature of it more than the actual content of what was being said – except that I felt it was also overblown and sensationalistic. I did wholeheartedly agree with the people about accpeting homosexuals (which was something in the video), although they portrayed only the worst of the Mormon stereotypes, nothing reasonable. Yeah, I think it was just related to a good friend from a different forum who has now decided it’s time for her to leave. Another one bites the dust.
Interesting dream. I would feel the exact same way if I was approached about something like that: sad and no desire whatsoever to participate. I eventually withdrew from active involvement at Mormon Matters because of the emerging, dominant tone of the comments and the insistence of one perma in particular (you all know whom) that absolutely nothing be moderated in any way. I very quickly left Open Mormon because of the tone and general intent. I have no desire to participate in any campaign to change the LDS Church, even as I work within my own sphere of influence to change and bolster what is within my influence.
Start of rant/
People spend so much time and effort trying to change the (ultimately) inconsequential, and they miss entirely the grandeur of the over-arching theology that, in a real way, allows them see and understand the issues so clearly – and would allow them to change the inconsequential, if they went about it in a constructive way. That’s what frustrates me more than anything else – the underlying arrogance and waste in people with real talent and potential who refuse to see the forest for the trees – and who have no freaking clue that the church about which they complain is the very organization that gave them the framework through which they can recognize the greater ideal – and have no clue that they are the reason (their lack of constructive participation within the organization itself) change occurs more slowly than it might otherwise. It’s that self-conceit and blindness among the otherwise gifted that saddens me the most.
End of rant/
Thanks for sharing your dream.
Do you find your attitude is the same for political issues as with religious? Or different? I see the Tea Party movement, or the Occupy Wall Street, and think some people feel that in order to make change, you sometimes have to make a big To-Do over the little things in order to be heard or taken seriously, otherwise, no changes will take place.
With Church, that sometimes leads to defiance and an uncomfortable irreverence for the divinely appointed things we hold dear. I just wonder if some people don’t care so much about reverence, and approach it the same as social or political issues.
My personality in church is more along the lines of being open minded to things, maybe making my own mind up about how I feel about Word of Wisdom or things like that, but I don’t feel passionate the Church
needsto change it…I just wish they would sometimes, or I just ignore it and show open-mindedness through example. Others don’t agree with my approach. I feel the blogs are a safe place to share my feelings, but I don’t get motivated to join any kind of movement with online groups. Maybe I’m boring.
Quote:the underlying arrogance and waste in people with real talent and potential who refuse to see the forest for the trees – and who have no freaking clue that the church about which they complain is the very organization that gave them the framework through which they can recognize the greater ideal – and have no clue that they are the reason (their lack of constructive participation within the organization itself) change occurs more slowly than it might otherwise.
Ray, yes, this is largely how I feel.
Quote:Do you find your attitude is the same for political issues as with religious?
Yes, I’m a political independent. Actually, the connection to Occupy Wall Street is probably what caused me to have the dream. I empathize with some of what OWS is saying: the wage gap has gotten too big, it’s unfair that people invested in their education but i the wrong fields and now can’t get jobs, and corporations need better regulation (not because they are evil, but because it’s smart to regulate them to prevent bad practices that lead us eventually into economic collapse). But the flaws with OWS are: lack of vision, protesting without understanding what they are even talking about, their moral outrage that is (for some) a big hypocritical and out of proportion, their methods that are self-serving (down with the 1% so we can take the spoils!) and destructive (trashing a Walmart to protest employee treatment – the same employees who had to clean up after their protest) and downright disgusting (one guy was taking a dump on a police car).
I’ve said elsewhere that I think people’s political views run deeper than their religious views, and it’s one reason that I think people do the things they do. They are essentially behaving politically and protesting on political grounds rather than religious. I think there’s a lot of commonality between OWS and some of the activism in the ‘nacle.
I have had a lot of strange dreams of late. For example, I dreamed that I went to church. When I returned to get in the car, I discovered it was stolen. Apparently someone was joy-riding and left it about 2 blocks away with nothing stolen. The other dream I had was that Robin Jensen of the Joseph Smith Papers Project sold me a nice 1500 sq foot house in Hawaii for $5000. Wow. Then, in real life, I got an adjunct position at BYU-Idaho. I’ve actually had a few interview with the church lately–I ran into Robin Jensen on my way in to test for a writing position in the Church History Dept. For some reason, I feel like I’m being drawn to work for the church. I’m not sure what that means, and I don’t know what the dream means, but it was a cool, weird dream. If only I could get a full-time job writing!
(As an aside, I now have 3 part-time jobs to replace my full-time job: SLCC, UVU, and BYU-I. I’d prefer 1 full-time job with benefits, but at least we’re making ends meet.)
I’ve felt for a while that I might end up working for the Church in some capacity, but I have no clue if that will happen and, if it does, what that capacity will be. It’s a really weird feeling, since I’ve never had any desire whatsoever to work for the Church – and still don’t, when it gets right down to it. I honestly don’t dream, or don’t know that I dream … but about 8 months ago I had a vivid dream that I divorced my wife and married another woman. It really freaked me out. Especially since I never have dreams, having that one, even though I know it is all in my head, really made the think for a long time…weird. Clearly my crisis I’m going through was the root of it, but I really don’t know at all what it means, if anything. To me, dreams are kind of like answers to prayers. They can move us greatly, but we have to figure out the meaning of it and what it tells us about ourselves, and sometimes it just makes no sense at all. (shrug).
I generally think of dreams as our subconscious mind communicating with us about what’s going on with us. Sometimes it is saying “Hey, dummy, you’re going nowhere!” or “You’re clearly worried about what people think of you right now” or “The pressure we’re under is getting a bit overwhelming here” or “If you don’t let your emotions out, things are gonna blow soon!” I think this dream for me was just about not wanting to get caught up in other people’s causes and feeling like activism is dangerous and impulsive.
How much do you think your “weird dream” differs (if at all) from Lehi’s, or President Joseph F. Smith? Is that all they experienced? Just a weird dream with a really cool interpretation that can have teaching opportunity?
Heber13 – that is a great question. I have to say that I do think there can be external inspiration to a dream or an external spiritual source vs. just the subconscious mind. Having said that, Lehi’s dream sounds very much like the workings of his subconscious mind – his worries and hopes for his children coming to the surface to warn him about them. Pharaoh’s dream that Joseph interprets, though, sounds more like it has an external source (the one predicting famine), although it’s possible that he was aware subconsciously of factors that would lead to a big famine. Jung would claim that external source is the collective unconscious. In the church, people might say it’s God telling you what you should do. I think anything is possible, but I tend to attribute more to one’s internal sources than to external ones. After all, who is the dreamer? I occasionally experience dreams that I call “ultra-vivid” for lack of any better way to describe them. They are most often religious in nature too. I have regular dreams where they are all disjointed, and I can tell it is just my mind processing creative garbage or subconscious concerns. My rare “ultra-vivid” dreams feel more real than reality, even if they contain some fantasy elements at times. I wake up with a radically different insight into something of a transcendent nature, or feel like my whole soul was transported somewhere else while I communicated with other people in a dream reality (the real reality? an astral realm? *shrug*). I think dreams, and impressions, and “gut-feelings” seem to all come from a similar source. Sometimes I think our brains are limited (what do they say, we use 10% of our brain as we know it now??), and so our brains filter our reality based on our senses to interpret things. But there are other things that we think sometimes that we can’t explain, so we tend to put meaning on it so it does make logical sense to us. Sometimes we can’t explain it without the mystical or religious explanations. For example, Pharaoh was getting some impressions based on experience, or other factors that he was thinking the plentiful times won’t last forever and drought/famine are likely to be in the near future.
That may come from God sending signals like a radio signal to the Pharaoh’s unconsciousness or even his spirit being, or if could just be the other parts of the Pharaoh’s brain we don’t know how it works.
Regardless of the source, these signals come through the subconscious to the conscious and can warn us or help us or just help us learn something about ourselves and our thoughts.
The problem is, when they come true…we are amazed…and some praise the Lord for blessing us with prophecy. When they don’t come true…they are just weird creative garbage or even entertainment or some kind of lesson for us to ponder. So, it always just comes down to what we choose to make of it. Filter it through TBM lenses, filter it through Stage 5 lenses, or dismiss and just enjoy the ride. Who knows?
Perhaps Lehi had a bunch of other cooky dreams, which is why Laman and Lemuel reacted the way they did.
I guess it is of particular interest to me because I rarely have dreams that I remember, and then about 6 months ago, I had several vivid dreams that I would be much happier to leave my wife and start a new family. Brian knows I’ve agonized over this for a long time, and the dream seemed to bring me some reassurance on a decision. And only weeks after that dream, my wife switched medications, and things have really started to change, taking me back into internal struggle in my marriage of whether I keep trying with hope the new medications will help, or whether I just accept even my dreams tell me subconsciously what I really want in my heart but am too afraid to act on.
There seems to be no way to seek answers from the Lord and get answers I’m confident in. Dreams are just another thing we can debate and put personal meaning on…but don’t provide any clear answer one way or another what to put stock in.
There are definitely no guarantees in life. Even my very strong BOM experience that many of you know about. It could have meant literally “the BOM is a historical document and scripture.” Or it could have meant “You need to stay in the church because you’re a pretty crappy atheist.” It could mean many things. Ultimately, one guide Victor Frankl used with people as a psychologist was to have them imagine they are their 80-year old self and then to take their own advice. There’s something to be said for that approach to getting answers to our innermost questions. And we still only have ourselves to blame if it doesn’t work out.
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