I won’t say today was a bad day, but I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked despite spending far too much time in front of my work computer. As I got to school this morning, I opened up Facebook for what was meant to be just a minute or less. Instead, I saw that a Facebook friend had shared a blog with a title that really resonated – How to Stay Mormon When You’re Tired of Mormons. Sometimes, I’m so tired of Mormons I just can’t stand it anymore, and yet I still somehow find myself in church every Sunday. Curiosity piqued, I clicked on the link. You can read it here.
I know I should have just stayed away. Most of the time, I do stay away from all of my friend’s Mormon links. But there’s still a part of me that can’t quite leave it alone. Anyway, it was a good article aimed at helping members stay active that might otherwise choose to leave. The writer seemed to be fairly open-minded and accepting of differences and someone that I wouldn’t mind having as a friend. If it weren’t for the comments at the end though, that would have been it for today’s blog reading.
With 148 comments at the time I read it, and some of them quite lengthy, this blog was clearly quite popular. The comments were written by a variety of people, mostly sympathetic Mormons, but many ex-Mormons and non-Mormons also. For the most part, the comments were positive, but there were some that seemed quite judgmental, even to the point of telling the author that she was doing the work of Satan and that she should repent. At least one commenter referenced Ezra Taft Benson’s Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet. If you haven’t read that yet, it can be helpful in understanding why some commenters feel so strongly about this issue. Anyway, there were so many comments that the author chose to write a followup blog. You can find it here.
There were fewer comments after the follow-up blog, but there was one that seemed particularly interesting. You can read her long comment here. The commenter shows with direct quotations from Brigham Young, Joseph Smith, and other early church leaders how they taught against accepting the words of church leaders at face value. There should be a place for reason and a spiritual witness even above the words of prophets and apostles. If you know my history, you can see how these words might have resonated with me. I have chosen to allow the voice in my heart to trump the words of the prophet, and that has made me an apostate. At the end of that comment, she references another interesting blog worth reading… and I couldn’t help myself.
The blog post, The Lion, The Old Prophet and The Man of God is a retelling of 1 King 13. The author of the blog is most certainly apostate, so members may find some interesting ideas if they click around, but nothing too faith damaging. If that bothers you, you can just read the story directly from the scriptures. Anyway, I really liked this story because it supports the idea that the word of God is more important than the voice of a prophet. I think the moral of the Bible story is that when you have a choice to listen to the voice of God or to listen to a prophet, listen to the voice of God. Many members of the church can’t believe that there will ever be a difference between the two, but the scriptures, and other stories and personal stories that I have shared and will still share in the future attest to the fact that such a situation can and does happen.
In the Bible story, the purpose of the difference between the word of the prophet and the word of God was meant as a test, which unfortunately was failed by that man of God in the story who listened to the prophet’s voice rather than God’s. Besides testing, I think the same thing can occur for other reasons as well. Perhaps we just have different things to learn or different directions to take in order to live the life that is meant for us. I think for this reason more than many others, it is important to not judge others. We just don’t know which path is right for anyone else. It’s hard enough to stay on the path that’s right for us alone, let alone others we meet along the way. Let go of judgment. Let go of pride. Remember the commandments that really matter – Here if you’ve forgotten or don’t know.
Anyway, I don’t really have a point to make today. I wasted a lot of time reading things I already knew, but enjoying the greater understanding that I was not alone in my thoughts. Through all of the blogs and comments, I saw that there were many who have gone the same way and have learned some of the same things. I had been feeling a little lonely these past few days, and this day, even though I didn’t get much work done, was therapeutic. It reminded me of those months after I came home from Hungary.
During those days, I spent a lot of time in the library, trying to get back into the habit of reading again. I came upon a section of the library that had coming out stories. As I read some of those stories, I felt a sense of relief, similar to what I have felt today. I was gay, but I was not alone. I am not alone now either. Even if nobody is coming out and saying that they have had a similar experience as me with the church or that they understand what I am going through, I know that I am not alone and that there are others out there that do understand. It would be great to have someone to talk to one of these days, but for now, I’ll just take comfort in the thought that I have companions out there.
taysonjay 