Where Culture and Doctrine Collide—The Cult of Positivity

"There is a truth deep down inside of you that has been waiting for you to discover it, and that truth is this: you deserve all good things life has to offer."

—The Secret

"Yea, blessed are they whose feet stand upon the land of Zion, who have obeyed my gospel; for they shall receive for their reward the good things of the earth,...And they shall also be crowned with blessings from above...."

—D&C 59:3-4

I have often heard it said that the best lies are 99% truth. It has been said of Satan that he leads us "carefully" down to hell. One of the things that culture teaches us is that we deserve. Advertisers make millions, maybe billions of dollars per year on teaching us that we deserve good things.

"Thy Will On Earth"

In my personal life, I have had opportunities to ponder what it means to be a member of this Church. As I watch people with experiences like mine churn against the practices and doctrines of the Church, I wonder if it is only a matter of time before I, too, fall away. Insight into why I can't seem to give up has come slowly and piecemeal. I'm not sure there is one large answer. All I know, is that I cannot turn my back on this Church any more than Joseph Smith could deny that he had seen a vision. It is not a perfect Church, and I do not understand it all. But I know it is Christ's church, and I can't deny it.

Not long before I graduated with a 4-year degree in veterinary medicine, I looked into vet schools. In the two years of my study, I had not truly realized how difficult it was to get into vet school, nor how expensive it was once you got there. I had spent two years carrying nearly the maximum credit load while working the full 20 hours/week I was allowed to work. I pulled a high B average, which is not bad but was less than I was capable of. I had gone year-round, and I was exhausted.

A Friend to Hate

There is a meme that gains in popularity daily. It teaches that judgment, pain, and discomfort are bad. Tolerance, permissiveness, and acceptance are good. If we love someone, it says, we should never judge them. We should never hurt them. We should never make them uncomfortable or make them question what makes them happy. Tolerating their differences is required, celebrating them is ideal. Allowing people to do whatever makes them happy is the key to happiness. Accepting who they are will bring the most joy.

And it is all a lie.

"Acts of a friend should result in self-improvement, better attitudes, self-reliance, comfort, consolation, self-respect, and better welfare. Certainly the word friend is misused if it is identified with a person who contributes to our delinquency, misery, and heartaches. "—Marvin J. Ashton

I am in the middle of what could probably be termed the Long Chastening of my life. I have felt pain beyond what I thought I could bear. I feel separated from God, judged for my choices and found wanting. Yet all my pain and sorrow and feeling judged is nothing compared to what the Savior felt in the Garden of Gethsemane, as He suffered inexplicable pain to atone for the world while his closest friends fell asleep.

Despised and Rejected

Like Hugh B. Brown, I'm going to be brief in this post.

The world may not be any worse than it was when this Conference was held. I don't know. But I do know that people don't like religion much these days. It's well enough if you believe in a tame religion, something that means little more than trying to be a good person and never, ever foisting those beliefs onto someone else. But if you truly feel that your religion is something worth admitting, sharing, and even suggesting to another person, you are the vilest of people.

I've seen that opinion of the religious shared in multiple venues by multiple people. I daresay it would be a majority of Americans who feel that way.

Living by Power—A Woman of God

My last post got twice as many readers as a typical post of mine. It is not hard to imagine why. In that post, I say things that everyone else is saying, about how it is hard to be a woman in the Church. That refrain is echoed across the blogs, though often with a different tone. People read it because it said what they wanted to hear. That isn't true of this post. It is easy to identify problems. And problems get to people’s emotions, especially when they’re struggling with the same problem. But solutions are hard. They are uncomfortable. They often seem to cause problems. No one wants that.

But, while I know that far fewer people will read and like this post, I want to follow up my last with what lies beyond the pain of being a woman in the Church. There is another side of that valley of sorrow. On the other side lies a chance to build a great, tall mountain of discipleship that completely swamps all the things that make membership hard in the Church. It doesn't make them go away, of course. I still mourn sometimes. But it takes that pain and frustration and makes something great of it.

This session of Conference, the last of 1971, was a symphony. The talks all addressed slightly different things, but together they wove a great tapestry of discipleship. I couldn't pick just one without robbing some of the harmony. Obviously, going and reading them yourself is the best thing, but I'm going to play you only a small sample.

Lift Where You Stand

It is more than just coincidence that today, after posting yesterday about male motherhood, I was shown this video. This is what the Priesthood does for us. It is less about the authority, less about the ordinances, and more about the responsibility that authority and those ordinances engender in the hearts of those of us who would otherwise find no reason to learn unselfishness. It is not about commanding. It is about bonding.

Love and Lies

"Without [honesty], there can be no salvation."
—Honesty, a Principle of Salvation by Mark E. Petersen

"Everyone lies sometimes. I never understood why liars were treated the same in scriptures as murderers and adulterers until I met [one]. Now I understand."
—Unattributed

What is the difference between someone who tells a lie and a liar? Neither are good, but until I spent many sleepless nights trying to come to terms with the truth of my marriage, I had no idea there even was a difference.

But since my education in the school of hard knocks, I've learned to see the threads of deception which weave themselves through the fabric of our culture, our lives, and our very identities. We lie to ourselves constantly. Sometimes, we try to avoid hurting someone, and sometimes we are simply trying to cover our own weaknesses.

But there are people who have willingly and earnestly immersed themselves in lies to the point where they are nothing else. All their relationships are false, because they are built on lies. They live in a constant state of brazen insecurity, as they layer one lie upon another until they convince themselves that they are good people. And the hardest part to understand is that these people are everywhere. To an extent, they are even us.

Love and Sacrifice

Typically, I write a blog post when I feel moved by the Spirit. Having a deadline and structure to what I post is not my natural practice. But I felt that I should participate in the General Conference Odyssey, and it has been good so far. But this week, I had a hard time connecting to any of the talks from this session. Not that none of them spoke to me, but they spoke to me in ways I'm not entirely comfortable sharing. So I apologize if this post is a bit stilted. I'm sure it won't be the last like that.

While my children have never gotten along perfectly, as they age there seems to be a certain level of viciousness in what they sometimes say to each other. Few things break my heart as much as hearing one of the people I love most in this world being cruel to the other. It doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong as much as the viciousness.

I can't imagine it's much different with the Lord and His children. While it does matter who is right and who is wrong, I believe He must feel about His children's discord the way I feel about the arguments between my children. The talk "By Love, Serve One Another" by S. Dilworth Young was written decades before our current political and ideological battles, but as I read it, I was deeply impacted by how clearly he challenged us members of the Church, particularly those of us who don't have significant or time-hungry callings, to spend greater time serving the poor and those who mourn. "...Those who are not given great responsibility in the organizations have more time to seek out the poor, needy, and helpless. And this help is badly needed. All about us are those in need of encouragement, assistance, and help...."

"...There are many lonely people, people whose loneliness is hidden...." Is this not just as true today as 1971? The demographics of those who don't feel like they belong to the Church may have shifted a bit, but there are hosts of people who do not feel welcome. It is up to us as baptized members to reach out to them, no matter their circumstances. There is nothing that says "mourn with those who mourn for reasons we would mourn," or "comfort only those whom we perceive as victims," or "stand as a witness of God unless it hurts someone's feelings." I'd like to share a parable. Don't read too much into it, I'm just trying to illustrate a point.

The Reason for the Season

Of course, the title and the timing probably make you think this is a Christmas post. But it isn't really your typical post about a newborn babe, mangers, donkeys, and a virgin mother. The Church's video A Savior is Born covers that with far better artistry than I could.

But I feel the urge to write something very different. When I was searching for a title, this is the one that came to me. And maybe, in some ways, it's more Christmas-appropriate than I intended. It is certainly exposing a huge part of myself, which is a frightening thing, especially given everything. I'm going to talk about sin, and its consequences. I'm going to talk about imperfection, and the desperate hunger to be perfect in order to be loved. I'm going to talk about learning to accept the Atonement in the midst of sin and imperfection. And I'm going to talk about forgiveness.

Many years ago—I can't remember if it was before or after my life took a drastic turn—I prayed for charity. It's kind of a joke that if you pray for an increase in faith, patience, charity, or some other Godly virtue, you are setting yourself up for disaster. But when I finally knelt down and prayed for charity, I knew exactly what I was doing. I had been prompted by the Spirit to learn charity for some time. Even my patriarchal blessing commanded me to overcome selfishness. I had studied, read about Abinadi, Nephi, Abraham, Noah. I had pored over the words of Paul. It had struck deeply into my heart: "[if I] have not charity, I am nothing."

I didn't want to be nothing.

Top 5 Reasons I'll Never Marry

I wrote a post that didn't quite fit into this blog, but I'd still appreciate any feedback or thoughts you have on it. Part of me really wants my developing paradigm to be blown out of the water, but I've not found evidence that I'm wrong yet. So:

Top Five Reasons I'll Never Marry

Fire away.

A Marriage Contract

You might wonder why I, as a woman who was single longer than I was married, and whose life as a divorcee is now longer than as a wife, might come and talk about what marriage should be. As a failure, perhaps I have no right to counsel those of you who have kept your relationships intact.

Since my own marriage (and even before,) I have watched all of you who are married. I have watched for signs that marriage can be what I think it is. I have found a few people who I believe live what God intended. But I have also found plentiful evidence that being married does not necessarily teach one understanding of marriage.

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.

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.

For God Loved the World; Pain and Valentine's Day

This is my daughter's newest favorite song. It has long been one of mine as well. I think it has one of the tenderest aspects of doctrine in the Gospel. This year, that same daughter is making the decision to be baptized. It is something filled with mixed emotions for me, most of which I don't want to get into. But on this day, when we celebrate love, I want to celebrate both loves which changed my life: the love of God and the love of my children.

I am far from perfect, especially right now. It has seemed, especially lately, that the church is leaving me behind. I don't feel a part of it. I don't feel a part of the Lord's Kingdom. And that hurts. If I could put my finger on one thing I want more than anything else, it is to feel like I belong, like I'm part of accomplishing something good. And I don't.

But as I wrote some time ago, I feel as if the Lord wants me here. Nearly four years later, I still don't know why. Not much has changed. I have a burning testimony that the Gospel is true, I just don't know how I fit into it. And I'm watching my precious child, with many of the same self-critical personality traits that I have, prepare to make this huge covenant. I'm proud of her, and terrified for her.

No Rules, No Promises, No Happy Ending

"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead."
—Luke 10:30

Have you ever noticed that not many of Jesus' parables have an ending? We don't know what ultimately happened to the good Samaritan. Was he rewarded for his deed? Did the wounded man heal? What about the five virgins who were turned away? And the man with the one talent? Did he learn from his mistake?

Contrasted with the stories we tend to tell each other today, where sacrifice is rewarded and sorrow is always temporary, we are left wanting to know what's next. There is some primal part of us, deep in our psyches, that yearns to know that the good guys "lived happily ever after." Walt Disney built an empire on it.

My life isn't an "okay in the end" kind of life right now. I'm being held in a liminal state, where I know where I want to be, I think I know where God wants me to be, but I have no idea how to get there. It is sheer agony for someone who has always worked for a goal, tried to become something.

That happy ending seems impossible from this end of the very long, dark tunnel. So I've been digging deeply into my heart, learning to let go of tomorrow's ending so that I can dive into today's opportunities to minister. I'm not very good at it yet, but the seeds of true charity are starting to sprout.

Dear Men: You’re Breaking Our Hearts

I don’t know if what I’m going to write represents more than just me. Maybe I’m alone in feeling this way, but it doesn’t matter. I need to write this for me. Maybe it will let me move past one more barrier of anger and pain. And maybe, if I’m not alone, it will make a difference for someone.

If you were to meet me in person, you would never guess that I have a deep hollow wellspring of pain. And when you read these words online, if you know my previous writings, you could probably chalk that pain up to my divorce. But you would be wrong. My ex-husband is just one data point on a vast continuum of experience. It isn’t my ex. It’s you, men of the Priesthood.

When I was a teenager and watched the boys around me turn into men, I noticed how they looked at girls. Because I was a bit of a tomboy, I also heard it. There may be women out there who don’t get it, but I think they are few. You think that looking at female bodies, those little “jokes” about “wanting some of that,” go unheard, but they don’t. We seem to ignore them, but they stick.

If you’re a good guy, you’re probably saying to yourself right now “at least I’m not one of those scummy guys who only value women for their looks.” But it’s not just the so-called scums. It’s our brothers, fathers, sons, priesthood leaders. Look at this bishop in the LDS church, teaching women that they exist to be beautiful. If it were only the scummy men, it wouldn’t hurt so much. But it’s our priesthood leaders, those who have made covenants to represent the Father.

Loving When You Get Nothing

"I know God loves me. He's finally given me everything I wanted!"
—Facebook post of a newly engaged woman

I am a perfectionist. Some people say that with a bit of pride, "I'm a perfectionist!" Glad to show they always try to do their best. But perfectionism . . . the real thing . . . is nothing to take pride in. I've been thinking about my perfectionism quite a bit lately. It is rooted in a deep-seated knowledge that I cannot be loved unless I am perfect. I've struggled with it from birth. Unfortunately, my experience has almost unilaterally provided evidence that it is true: being loved is dependent on being flawless. On conforming to expectation.

It was this perfectionism that drove me to work so hard on my mission I was fifteen pounds underweight by the end, and that led me into an abusive marriage. It causes me to push people away the moment I feel I've disappointed them. It gives me this haunting fear that I will never measure up, will always fail at anything that is truly important to me, and that I will always be unloved. It robs the Atonement of its power. I fight so hard against it, but it is always there.

Beauty in Grief

Most of the time, we think of grief as losing a loved one. But loss of faith, a marriage, a hope or dream, or even a way of life can also shake our world to its very foundations.

Just this Sunday, I substituted for a Sunday School class to teach teenagers how following the commandments can help us be like Heavenly Father. Never before have I struggled with a topic the way I struggled with this one, and I didn't expect it. Not only did it tap into my understanding that I can never be like Heavenly Father, not really (since I'm a woman,) but it tapped into the biggest source of my grief. It is not my marriage that still haunts me, my fears and pain regarding that are long resolved. It isn't even my relationships afterwards to which my intermittent sorrow clings. It is that I have lost faith that "after much tribulation, cometh the blessings." Believing that has lost meaning. It is the things I have worked the hardest at that fail most spectacularly. I have struggled long and hard within myself and with the Lord to discover what I'm doing wrong, what I could do better, without answer. Whatever it might be, I am at a loss to change it.

Growing in Unbelief

I have a family member who seems to be in the process of leaving the Church (maybe already left.) And as most of you who read this blog know, I used to participate quite a bit in online intellectual discussions about the gospel and about the Church. I still comment here and there, but I don't participate the way I did. Mostly because I've heard, studied, and pondered most of the things discussed and come to form understanding or opinions about them already. Not being naturally inclined to nonproductive confrontation, I've lost interest in fighting about the things I believe with people. With that in mind, I use a very light hand with this person.

Increasingly, it just feels unwise to defend the Church much beyond bearing testimony. I have learned so much by the hardships of my life, and the emotional and spiritual struggles I have survived. It's like I have this deep, lasting fire inside my heart. I sometimes just want to shake people and say, "can't you see?!" "Can't you feel how much God loves you?" "Can't you open your heart to truth?!" But I don't, of course. And because the passion burns so bright and hot in me, I often hold my tongue. Not because I'm afraid of what will happen to me, but because I'm afraid that by opening my mouth, I'll do more harm to their search for truth than good. Though I so badly want to help.

Ritual Storytelling

"Mommy, can you tell me the story of when I was born?"

As I smiled and sunk into the familiar story, which I have told each of my children dozens of times, I watched their little faces. As I told of the pain of labor, little worry lines would appear between their eyebrows. They laugh at me as I reenact my groans of pain going over small bumps in the road and my ogre-like hollering as I went through active labor. But then comes the important part, for them, as I describe what it felt like when they finally entered the world, the look in their small dark eyes as they opened for the first time, how it felt to hold the perfect, tiny, new human being. I tell them what their eyes said to me, the way they smelled, how it felt when they took them away from me for the first time. I tell them how special they were to me, how I felt to be a mother. I watch their eyes light up, their faces relax in satisfaction at knowing how loved they have always been.

They know how the story ends. They don't ask me to tell it because they want to hear the story. Rather, they need the message in the story and what it means regarding my connection to them, and theirs to me.

The Church has its stories, too.