Ministry and Suffering Alone

There is a rising trend of people talking about reaching out to those who are struggling. I'm not sure how I feel about that. While I don't think that reaching out is wrong, there's something about this effort that doesn't sit well with me.

It started with the new ministering program. I absolutely love the idea of ministering. I've struggled with the visiting teaching program for years. At the time of ministering, I had asked to not be visit taught any more. Unfortunately, it was misinterpreted to mean that I didn't want to visit teach any more, and I'd been entirely cut off from the whole program, but that is another issue. When they announced ministering, my heart sang. This is what I'd wanted to do and be, and never really knew how.

But then reality struck. Up until very recently, I've been pretty overwhelmed with my life. I've just barely gotten to the point where I'm strong enough again to try to reach outside of my own little circle. And I have found that by simplifying my life in order to manage it, I've created a habit of only dealing with my life.

Ministering requires not only serving, but also being able to be served. And I can't do that very well. I am fiercely independent, and the few times I've managed to admit to needing help, it has only been by compartmentalizing how I feel about being helped away from my mind. One of my greatest fears is being a burden. To the point where I'd rather suffer than risk being a burden to someone.

Because I feel this way, I also have an unrighteous habit of looking the other way when people are hurting. I don't want someone to take advantage of my weakness, so I don't serve unless expressly asked. Ministering to God's children doesn't work that way, though, as evidenced by my own life, where I've needed help desperately and not been able to ask for it.

So I guess that's why I have a hard time with this concept of reaching out to those who are struggling. I don't want anyone and everyone seeing my pain and weakness and trying to fix me. If I'm struggling, I don't want it to be visible enough for people to notice and help. But at the same time, I know I need it. Desperately.

I don't know what the answer is. But I know I don't want to be a project. I really would rather suffer than that. Even though I know that, technically, not being open enough to be helped is antithetical to Zion and God's Kingdom.

A Hunger and a Thirst

This is a difficult topic to discuss, because it's offensive. I guarantee that someone is going to claim that what I'm saying is Pharisaical, that I'm saying I'm more righteous than they are. But I'm not. I have some very definite sins that I'm struggling with which keep me separated from God.

But despite this, an observation has been weighing on my mind. This is my attempt to explore what I'm feeling by intuition and try to ferret out the logical reasons why I'm so bothered.

I've been participating in various online LDS communities on and off for over 15 years. When I first started, I noticed that many people online resented the various rules we were given. Whether it was a rule as silly and simple as wearing white shirts to pass the sacrament, or as serious and grounded in doctrine as eternal marriage being only between a husband and wife, nothing has escaped the criticism of the self-selected Mormon intelligentsia.

For many years, I thought it was a bias. Those who struggle with feeling that the church is restrictive, and that the leadership are closed to change naturally look for a safe space to air their grievances, which the internet naturally provides in vast and varied venues.

But over the past several years, I've seen these paradigms spread and grow in the average Mormon community. This drive to fight against rules is a natural one. And sometimes those rules should be opposed. That's what makes this so difficult to discuss. It's 90% good mixed with 10% danger, and speaking against the 10% offends people, who then deflect your concerns to the 90% and claim thereby that you are wrong.

And my thoughts on this topic are by no means complete or fully formed. So let's start with what I know.

Becoming a Male Mother

I know that some people get wound up about the comparison of holding the priesthood to motherhood. This post is not going to make those people happy. As I read the talks from the Priesthood session so long ago, an overreaching theme coalesced. It is something I have been pondering for a very long time. It is easy to pick apart how Priesthood and Motherhood are different, but I have spent years pondering why men, and not women, might be given the priesthood at this stage in mortal life.

Ultimately, I believe that there is much more similar between men and women in general than there is between any two given women or any two given men. In other words, I believe there is more diversity within a gender than between genders. I also believe that there isn't much that a determined person is incapable of doing, outside of certain handicaps.

But I also believe that who we are as people is not only based on who we were before we came to this earth, it is also based on who we have become while here. This mortal life is fraught, not only with sin and moral weakness, but also with mortal weakness: the circumstances of our physical bodies, and the culture that has developed from those underlying circumstances. I cannot explain the differences between male and female in a way that is irrefutable or without exception. But I'm not inclined to get lost in exceptions when the pattern has so much to teach me.

My words are mine, and colored liberally with my perspective and experience as a woman. I don't have perspective as a man, nor any of the other myriad options out there.

Sustaining Failure

"But as for me and my house...."

This is a refrain I've read often recently, mostly from people who support the Brethren of the Church to those who are struggling with recent policy changes and the claim that those policy changes are revelation from God.

While I resonate with that sentiment: to "claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of [my] own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege..." I can't help but feel that it is a way to shut down discussion, to draw a line in the sand, and to condemn those who are wrestling with this concept. In that I have no interest.

It is with this in the back of my mind that I read again the words of Brethren from over forty years ago, and prayerfully ponder what I should write. I am very grateful to be invited to participate in the General Conference Odyssey, but I admit to feeling a little out of water. I do not write the great analyses that others write. I don't tend to place things in historical, doctrinal, or philosophical context. My blog is very personal, just as the name suggests. It is about two things which are really one thing: publicly sharing parts of my struggles with God in the hopes that seeing me try to shore up my house against the storms of mortality will encourage others to do the same, to build their house on the rock of my Redeemer. My relationship with God is not all that I am, but it is the part of me that I most want to share. It is the best thing I have to offer the world...or the tiny part of it I can reach. I know that I am nothing, but I will write of the miracles of God in me as best I can.

Messy Faith

"Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed."
Isaiah 6:10

I'm exhausted. The things going on in my life have me flat-on-my-back emotionally and physically. I don't even have the energy to put up a tree this year (but I'm going to do it anyways.) School, two wards, work, friends, and family all have their demands and/or expectations, and I haven't got anything to give.

I'm not a very good Mormon. I don't make casseroles to take to people. I have no time for crafts. I can't even get my visiting teaching done (but there's always next month to do it right!, my VT Supervisor says.) I feel pretty good even when I make cookies or something to take to my neighbors. My testimony is "complicated," as I put it when trying to explain it in RS yesterday. Unlike the woman on the back row, I DO doubt, I have doubted, and I AM doubting, but I know "by my own experience" that faith and doubt most certainly can occupy the same space at the same time. Because my faith isn't about "feeling good" about something. It is, and always has been, a raw choice for me. I can't explain my turbulence of emotion and how I have come to float on top of it. But I have. I'd be a bad liberal, too, if I were one, for the exact same types of reasons.

Same-sex Marriage Policy

There is a flurry of opinions and thoughts flying around about the policy clarifications regarding same-sex marriage and the children of gay parents living in a same-sex relationship.

I will only say that I am sorry for all the hurt that it causes. I am also glad the clarifications were made, and support them. The Lord is a merciful God. He is the only source we can turn to for comfort and understanding.

In time, all the wounds of mortality will be healed.

Even mine.

Even yours.

Taking it Personally

I was writing in my personal journal. When I finished, I realized there is something about my heart and mind right now that other people might need to hear. I try to be vulnerable here. It is easier, behind the protection of an online persona, to share the uglier parts of my personality. The difficult part of trying to serve God. My insecurities and doubts.

I know that distance makes it easier to hear, and not to worry about me. Because I'm ultimately all right. I've been through a refiner's fire, and I am stronger than a little sadness. But I find that allowing myself to be sad is a powerful thing. It helps me grow, keeps me humble, and gives other people a chance to feel safe and acceptable. Hiding the bad parts only makes us all feel like we can never measure up. So here it is:

Mormons are Hypocrites

I mostly grew up outside of the Mormon Corridor. When I was fourteen, my family moved from Germany to a small town in Idaho. The culture shock was the greatest we had ever experienced. I went from a high school with nearly a thousand people in my graduating class to one with nearly a thousand people in the whole school. We went from being surrounded with trees and cultural activities to being stuck in a desert, with only two basic things for a teen to do on the weekend: get drunk/high or go to the Mormon dances.

It was definitely a step down.

But, over time, I made quite good friends with a girl I'll call Kelly. Her family was in the Church, but they didn't go consistently. They lived in a different housing complex across the base from us, but we still frequently hung out together. We were friends for the better part of a year before Kelly started dating.

Now, I wasn't interested in dating. I was tall, gawky, frizzy-haired and awkward. Plus I was a definite tomboy and bookworm. And boys scared me ever since I had heard them talking about girls when they thought none were listening. But that was all Kelly could talk about. Swiftly, she found a particular boy and they would make out every chance they got, often with me around. I remember playing chauffeur to them frequently as we went to and from activities. They would kiss (and other things) in the back while I drove.

Faith Unto Joy

Not long after the events which eventually led to the final end of my marriage, I had the opportunity to receive a blessing from my father. It had been years since I received a blessing, because my husband was not comfortable with giving them, and I felt it would undermine him to ask for one elsewhere.

It was a very dark time in my life, when fear was nearly overwhelming. I had no idea how I could protect my children. I was nauseated from early pregnancy, and my stress level was so high that I would months later experience adrenaline withdrawal. I felt like my life would never be free from feeling in constant danger.

Still Waters

When you don't know me,
my life seems peaceful.
I have a good house,
a good job.
Children who love me.

When you don't know me,
you see the bread I bake,
the quilts I make.

You see my knitting,
cooking, gardening,
hiking, praying,
teaching, hoping,
believing.

And you are jealous.

But you don't see
what lies beneath.
The tossing and turning
when I should sleep.

The nightmares that come
in night or day.
You don't see heartache
that never goes away
under the smile I
paint on for you.

You see all the pain
of your life,
and think that mine
must be much better
because I have learned
to smile when I want to cry.
Comfort when I want to be comforted.

You don't see how
my loneliness cannot find
what compassion creates.

How I have learned to hope,
when hope is darkest,
laugh when there is nothing funny
in life.

If you knew me,
you would see
the real things I have
accomplished.

How, when I despair,
I seek someone who needs
a hug.

When I ache,
I find another's wound
to bind.

And, pray for better
when I despair
of ever finding joy.

Ordain Women, Midsingles, and the Trouble with Agency

Have you ever wondered why a third of the hosts of heaven left God to follow Satan? I have. I've spent hours of time wondering why, when presented with God's eternal Plan, some shouted for joy, and others left the service of God forever. When I was younger, I couldn't comprehend it. How could someone, faced with the prospective glories of exaltation, simply leave them behind? As an adult, I'm starting to understand.

We often talk about the Celestial Kingdom as if it is heaven, and everything else is a version of Hell. We Mormons haven't really left our Protestant ideas of glory or punishment behind. We act as though, by following the commandments and doing all that we have been commanded to the best of our abilities, we will be justified by our sacrifices, forgiven by Christ, and enter into the Father's presence. But it doesn't work like that.

How to Help Me Stay?

There are no comments here on my previous post, but I have observed some Facebook conversations about it which made me think I definitely need to clarify.

I didn't write "How I Stay" so that I could get pity or compassion. I didn't write it to guilt people who happen to have intact and more-or-less working families, nor to tell people in wards that they're doing something wrong. I wrote it mostly to people like me: people who struggle and need some tools to fight harder for what they really, deep-down, want. But this one is to people who aren't struggling, and want to know how to help. I'm going to try my best to give you some tools to try.

The fact is that me and people like me KNOW we are different. There is nothing you can do to make us feel not-different. All your efforts in the world can't erase the pain we've felt as collateral damage in someone else's attempts to "be true to themselves" or whatever other reasons lurk behind our lives.

It's like I told a friend recently: you can't be responsible for other people's feelings. But what you can be is compassionate. And I think that's what the questions and comments are really getting at: how can you show compassion and make space for difference?

I have a few thoughts on that, but first I want to point out that "divorced people," or "people who have lost children," or "people who struggle with the Word of Wisdom," or "people who struggle with pornography," or "feminists" or whatever other category leaves someone feeling on the fringes, are first and foremost PEOPLE. Every single individual has individual needs or hopes. Don't take my word for what will help them. Ask them.

Secondly, don't expect them to tell you right away. Most of us are well aware of our other-ness. We often feel like burdens, and abhor the thought of being more of a burden. Granted, some of us accept as much help as we can get. I'm not one of those, and based on observations, I think that those who gladly consume others' resources are a vocal minority.

So, first search your own soul. Do you REALLY want to know what we need? Because it's probably going to cost you something, even if that "something" is nothing more than your own paradigm. If you really want to know what we need, you're probably going to have to ask more than once. You're going to have to show that you really mean it, and you're not just offering to assuage your own guilt at being more blessed/differently blessed/luckier than we are.

So with those caveats to what I'm about to say, here goes my attempt to give you some concrete tools. I'm not trying to share specifics of what I personally need in my situation as a divorced single parent, but to share more general tools to help approach anyone who doesn't quite fit into the standard Mormon mold. Please take what I say and apply it to whatever circumstances surround you. It may be that it doesn't help, but I hope it does.

Objectivity, Subjectivity. Fear and a New Year.

Most of the time, I try to live as objectively as possible. Of course, actual objectivity is impossible, but I generally try. I want to be fair to others, and most of all I want to invite the Spirit, which testifies of truth.

But this isn't a post about what is objectively true, it's a post about feelings. Pure, unadulterated, vulnerable subjectivity. Sharing what I subjectively experience makes it very easy for me to be attacked, but I'm tired of holding myself back so that I won't be vulnerable.

The Passing of a Great Man

Everyone is mourning the loss of Robin Williams. Through his gift of acting, he has inspired, blessed, and cheered us. In Dead Poet's Society he taught us to be more than what we are. In Mrs. Doubtfire and Hook, he taught us to love our families. His smile is iconic. His soft voice makes us feel love.

And yet, he was bipolar. His family life was chaotic, and he may have finally committed suicide.

We all love Robin Williams for what he gave us, but there was a cost. His life was turbulent, his internal emotions intense and swinging. I relate to that somewhat. Though I'm not bipolar, I am very passionate. But it is from that very place of pain that genius is born.

I think, when we tell people they can "choose to be happy" or "positive outcomes only," we invalidate their pain. We medicate sorrow as if it's a disease, and we tell ourselves to avoid people in pain as if it is communicable. We are increasingly unable to deal with sorrow, to mourn with others who mourn and to comfort them. We are unable to reach out to make the very connections that make our burdens light.

The Sin of Pride Within the Church

"...Ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God."
3 Nephi 11:38

I think Satan rejoices just as much over smug self-satisfaction as he does about those who error in doctrine. Contention is not just about asking questions, it's also about condemning those with different paradigms than ours. Not all who subscribe to OW are in open rebellion, and I think those of us who don't believe in liberal principles or female ordination need to guard our borders against pride just as much.

It is so easy for us to look at those who perceive the world differently and think we are somehow better and more righteous. But I think that when we become comfortable in our service to God to the point that we believe we are right and others have nothing to teach us, we run the real risk of pride.

Pride is not only the enemy of humility, it is the opposite of charity. Charity is more important even than faith, for faith fails. If we are earnest disciples to Christ, we will inevitably reach some moment in our lives when our faith is not enough to pull us through. But when those times come, we can cleave to the Savior by emulating His charity. Charity is more important than knowledge. Though we are to gain as much knowledge as we can in this life, we will not likely gain it all. There will come a time when our own understanding and knowledge will fail us. But we can fill the gaps of our understanding with a love for God and His children.

No one is entirely lost, no one is entirely saved. None of us are safe, even if we accomplish our Church service, support our leaders with silence and compliance, and do all that we are asked in this volunteer church. We can still fall prey to pride, to vain ambition, to the idols of the world. The Church of Christ is not made up only of members, nor is it only those who have been baptized. The Church is all those who repent: those who repent of misunderstanding doctrine, and those who repent of a lack of charity and compassion. Both errors I see just as much in "faithful members" of the Church as in those who are considered less faithful.

"Satan doth stir up the hearts of the people to contention concerning the points of my doctrine; and in these things they do err, for they do wrest the scriptures and do not understand them.

"Therefore, I will unfold unto them this great mystery; For, behold, I will gather them as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, if they will not harden their hearts; Yea, if they will come, they may, and partake of the waters of life freely. Behold, this is my doctrine—whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church. Whosoever declareth more or less than this, the same is not of me, but is against me; therefore he is not of my church."

D&C 10:63-68

All the repentant will have a chance to be baptized. All will be able to make those covenants. But not all who are baptized are repentant. I challenge any of you who disagree with people like the OW movement to humble yourself in prayer and pray for that charity which is the end of all pride, all fear, and all death. That charity is the most powerful gift God can bestow.

"It's Personal"

Like everyone who wants to do better, be better, I sometimes struggle with my relationship with divinity. I have been amply blessed in a myriad little ways. Nothing major, until recently, but repeated small nudges to say something or check on something that ended up saving me just enough to keep me sane. Some days, it has felt like I'm barely holding on with torn and bloody fingernails, but have been touched with just enough extra energy to keep holding on. It is like I'm part of a vast chorus where, hoarse and broken, my voice does far more to create dissonance than beauty.

Recently, the hand of the Lord has been much more obvious. For the last month or so, I have been attending a ward temporarily while I am in transition from one house to another. This ward has several women who are going through divorce. As I've learned of them, and heard some of them speak, I felt prompted to bear my testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting.

This was a difficult proposition because my testimony, as I have said before, is not smooth and pretty, cut to show light and sparkle. It is cracked, crazed, with deep inclusions. It's a bit off-color. The deliverance I've prayed for over the last several years has been slow in coming. Most days are beautiful, but I still sometimes crack under certain types of pressure which I feel ought to be long gone. I'm still triggered, sometimes, over silly things.

I've been in a liminal state for some time, but it is a liminal state where I feel unseen things are happening, that I am being pruned and developed for some specific purpose. I am changing in ways I can't quite see, let alone quantify. I have started several drafts for blog posts but never finished them. I find myself with few comments to make on others' posts. Whatever changes I'm going through don't fit labels easily. I am becoming, but I'm not becoming anything.

To Those Who Know Joseph

“We both belong to the race that knows Joseph, as Cornelia Bryant would say.”

“The race that knows Joseph?” puzzled Anne.

“Yes. Cornelia divides all the folks in the world into two kinds– the race that knows Joseph and the race that don’t. If a person sorter sees eye to eye with you, and has pretty much the same ideas about things, and the same taste in jokes–why, then he belongs to the race that knows Joseph.”

“Oh, I understand,” exclaimed Anne, light breaking in upon her.

“It’s what I used to call–and still call in quotation marks `kindred spirits.’”

“Jest so–jest so,” agreed Captain Jim. “We’re it, whatever it is. When you come in tonight, Mistress Blythe, I says to myself, says I, `Yes, she’s of the race that knows Joseph.’ And mighty glad I was, for if it wasn’t so we couldn’t have had any real satisfaction in each other’s company. The race that knows Joseph is the salt of the airth, I reckon.”

—Anne's House of Dreams, Lucy Maude Montgomery

---

Do you ever meet people who just instantly click with you? It's like you've known them before, even though you have just met. Rarely, I have. It is a wonderful feeling, like you resonate at the same wavelength.

One of my companions was just that sort of friend. From the first hour we met, we were instant friends. We saw missionary work the same way, we were both a bit older, and we were able to pour our hearts into our work and have fun doing it. It really helped a particularly stressful time, and gave me the confidence to be the kind of missionary I felt called to be, even though it was almost the opposite of what I was being taught to be.

Female Ordination and the Church: Another Way

I am one who has struggled mightily with female roles in the Church and in eternity, yet I have a VERY hard time being sympathetic to Ordain Women as a movement. Most individuals who have aligned themselves with that group, I sympathize and even empathize with. I have gone to the mattresses on many of those same issues many times. I am not known for my reticence in speaking up.

There is nothing new about Ordain Women. They have organized together in direct, open, and unapologetic opposition to the Church. I'm not going to pick apart their claims to faithfulness and belief in priesthood authority while publicly opposing that authority. There is really no need, it's obvious enough. I also have no doubt that there are well-meaning people caught up in the smoke and mirrors. But I personally don't have a very long rope when it comes to that brand of deception, conscious or not. I'm all too well acquainted with it.

Raising a Missionary

My daughter is preparing for baptism. One of the things I encouraged her to do was to go up in front of the ward and bear testimony. She is seven years old, and very concerned about what other people think of her. Though she used to bear testimony regularly as a small child, she hasn't for some time after developing excruciating shyness in front of an audience.

I told her that bearing her testimony in Church on Fast Sunday might be a good thing to do before making the covenant to stand as God's witness. She agreed to do it, but her fears soon overtook her.

"But I don't know what to say," she said.

"You say what you believe in. What the gospel of Jesus Christ means to you."

"I'm going to be nervous."

"Most people are nervous, sweetheart. If you want me to, I'll go up with you."

She nodded, but still looked doubtful. "That would be good, mommy."

"I will stand up with you and hold your hand, if you like."

"Will you whisper what to say?"

When Church Leaders Are Wrong

With the recently released study topic on race and the priesthood in the LDS Church, there is predictably a flurry of praise for the Church's efforts and criticism that it wasn't enough. And, naturally, questions are being raised about the significance of the Church disavowing past explanations for the Priesthood ban and discussion of the racism that caused it, and what that means for following current leaders now. The racial ban could not have been any part of God's will, an argument often runs, because God would never cause so many people so much pain. Therefore, policies which currently cause pain cannot be of God's will, either, so there is no obligation to follow the prophets in matters which cause people pain.

While I am not black, I have been a victim of others' bad choices before. I know what it is to feel pain from the perspective and opinions of Church leadership, as well. It is from that experience and the things I have learned about the nature of God that I now address some of my feelings on this topic. It isn't meant to tell other people how to think or feel, but only to share my personal reaction to fallacy in my priesthood leaders which affects me. I, obviously, have no right to demand the Church leaders repent on the issue of blacks and the priesthood. I am not the injured party. But what I can do is liken the situation to myself, and what I have experienced, so that I can learn from it. With that in mind, although blacks and the priesthood is a parallel, it is not the whole point.