What is the value?

[Anonymous]

Cadence,

First, I have to tell you that your avatar is my favorite on this site… it’s so spot-on in meaning.

You and I have much in common. I only stay because of family. If left entirely on my own, I would no longer go to church at all. As it is, I only attend SM. I am a complete non-believer. FWIW, I’ve found a few ways to ease the issue. These work for me, but each of us in an individual, so you have to do what makes sense for you. Things that have helped:

– I’ve found a lot of peace by thinking of the church as my wife’s religion and as my kids’ religion. It’s important for them, so I celebrate their happiness and their involvement and their milestones. In a way, it’s sort of like they have become members of a Jewish Community or Catholic Parish. I would continue to support them in those cases. I would find joy in their accomplishments. I’ve taken myself out of the picture. I’m not responsible for their being LDS, They are. I support them. One thing I would recommend for you is not to let the church be a point of frustration in your family relations. You find no spiritual uplift from the church or its teachings. If you can find a way to put that into one box and your celebration and love toward your family into another, it might ease your burden. What I mean, is don’t equate your family’s involvement with the church with your dislike of the church… don’t think of how you are forced to eat food you hate because your family situation makes it so, but rather, think of it in terms that your family loves that kind of food, so you choose to eat it with them, even though it’s not your favorite. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. It’s helped me.

– I have learned by my ex-patriot life away from church-think that spirituality is very personal. All church can provide is a communal environment, and a framework, but that each individual approaches God and God-centered living on their own, in their own way, and in their own degrees. It turned out that that was true even when I was all-in with the Church, but I didn’t recognize it in that way. I can go to a Catholic mass, or a Christian service, or an LDS sacrament meeting and it is entirely up to me whether, and how much, I feel the spirit. What that tells me is that it’s not a matter of what we talk about. LDS services have built into us a false notion that information is the most important aspect of spirituality. If we can figure out what Isaiah meant by the Ensign to the Nations, then we will be closer to God. IMO, that’s a false concept… and not unique to Mormonism, by the way… just, perhaps, more prevalent. Recognizing the individual nature of spirituality has been one of the prime gifts I’ve received from StayLDS. My experience here has greatly developed this sense in me that suffered a very long, awkward adolescence throughout the long arch of my faith crisis. How this has helped me is that I find myself not fighting mentally against the Church so much. I don’t mean I’m being assimilated or something like that. Rather, I feel that the distinction between what I believe and what others believe is waning in importance. Other people believe something I don’t, and it just matters less to me now. If I want to have a more spiritual day at church, I can do it. It’s entirely mine and up to me to do so. If the speaker gets up and goes off on some tangent that I find not to be spiritually true, it just doesn’t matter, because that person doesn’t control my spirituality, and I don’t control theirs. What matters is that we are both on the same ‘team’… both just trying in our own way to find meaning in life and comfort when life fails us.

– As I’ve said many times before, here, there should be no family secrets. Coming clean with my family was the most important step in all this, for me. I had unknowingly built up barriers between my most loved-ones and myself… over the church! That was a mistake. The turning point for me was when I said to my wife and kids (individually), “I’m no longer a believer, but I’m glad you are, and I will support you.”

[Author]

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