Easter

Yesterday I left behind a bit of lawn, roughly 60x30, unmowed. Weather got warmer, and we had adventuring to do, as a family! So I pushed it off til tomorrow, which was today.

I pulled out the lawn mower and got to work, careful that I wouldn't start until after 8, because it was the weekend, and people sleep, good heavens! I waited until 8:30. 

I got started, and noticed a couple neighbors out in their backyards, shooting me glances and whispering to each other. At first I chalked it up to my half-assed mowing the night before, or maybe I was leaving lines somewhere? It was clear that I was obviously being watched and judged. (Was it my kids?)

Then it came to me.

Jesus.

It was Easter, this morning, and I'd forgotten. 

Look, friends, Easter morning is when Jesus rose from the tomb and got to work. I'm fairly certain he would have approved of me mowing the lawn, by my belief system AND yours. 

Frankly, Mary Magdalene was ready to be interrupted by a gardener. It's a day for gardening and lawn care, and everybody knows it. How else are we supposed to find all those eggs under the long grass?!

Anyway. Fortunately I'd hid eggs outside prior to beginning my lawn mowing journey, so when I finished after ten minutes, our neighbors got to see us egg-hunting with our children, which is a proper and good thing to do on Easter morning, so they stopped shooting judge-y glances.

Why did I hide eggs? Because it's absurd, and absurdism is where I'm leaning, these days. Also, Julian wouldn't stop talking about egg hunts on Easter, so I felt kind of obligated. It used to bother me, how "secular" these religious holidays were, but now I'm grateful, so that's been a weird 180.

Anyway. Thinking about Easter.

I've recently posted several quotes from a book that I've been reading on the Bookmobile, when there are no patrons. It's slow-going, stopping and starting, but it's giving me the time I appreciate having to deconstruct and think and hypothesize.

The Templar Revelation by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince.

Yes, this makes me want to steal the Declaration of Independence too, but I'm actually finding the book extraordinarily well researched. It uses a simple, clarifying voice that makes the subject at hand accessible as well, which I'm always grateful for. (I can be thick as a brick.)

The book is going over Templar history, obviously, while also incorporating some of the larger Christian questions in France and different gospels, cultural differences of belief and values, and analyzing what is KNOWN while playing with what can be honestly hypothesized, why/why not, etc. etc. Great book. I'm loving it.

(The DaVinci Code? It certainly mentions some of the other gospels, the fact that Mary and Jesus probably had a "thing" going on, but it really delves into that and elaborates on the cultural significance of events/statements/customs, and hypothesizes on origins, due to similarities in the same time period/area.)

Anyway.

Easter.

This book has given me a new appreciation for Mary Magdalene - The Black Madonna.

"They have removed my Lord and I do not know where to find him," were the words that the goddess/priestess uttered, in the mystery plays of the schools of Osiris, Tammuz, Dionysus, and Attis, as she anoints the god prior to his death (symbolic or real). (Traditionally, it was also three days later that the priestess/goddess would intervene in raising him again.)

Obviously, this is suspiciously familiar. Why were women, especially Mary, included in the story of Christ, given the time and place and cultural attitudes held towards women? Because they were essential to what was happening. They were with him at the cross and they were with him in his resurrection. These were the roles of the priestesses in the mystery schools.

"Christ(o)" means "Anointed One," and there is only one incident of Christ being anointed in all the gospels - by Mary. She used spikenard for his feet. Spikenard was a costly oil from India, where it was used in the Tantric tradition, where different perfumes and oils were assigned for specific parts of the body. Spikenard was for the feet. (And hair...)

Mary was a priestess, likely from a town called "Magdolum" in the north-east of Egypt, and it was she who made Jesus the Christ. ("el Mejdel" in Galilee, which has been said to be her hometown traditionally, was actually known as "Tarichea" in the time period, disproving that theory.) 

Mary was the Magdala - the tower, or elevated, great, and magnificent one. 

Mary was a priestess, and... (big words, hide sexy meanings)... she was the hierodule who, through hieros gamos could bestow spiritual enlightenment - through the process of horasis. 

In reading this book, I had a moment where I asked myself if the current Priory of Sion still practiced sex rituals, and then I was like, "Oh my gosh, how do they pick women to be the priestesses? I wish I could be a goddess in a sex cult!" 

And then I was like, "Dammit! Joseph Smith! I already WAS!"

Anyway. Happy Easter. 

Why I Am No Longer Christian

Once upon a time I was a Mormon. Yes, I understand that many Christians want to debate if that's Christian at all, but let's simplify and just say - if you need Jesus to have existed, in order to get to heaven, you're Christian.

I was Christian. 

Thank you, Jesus. 

I remember the day that I realized I wasn't Christian anymore. 

I'd been delving into my Jewish ancestry, learning more about Judaism and Jewish practices, culture, and belief. (This is 4 years of seminary, 4 years of religious university college courses, and many years of Gospel Doctrine Teacher later.) I knew a lot of information about the Jews, but now I was learning specifics, as well as Jewish justifications for their own holidays. I'd learned all about Passover, in Seminary, and the ties that Christians had made between this Jewish holiday and their own beliefs. I knew about Jews from a Christian perspective, but I was making it a point to learn about Jews from a Jewish perspective.

One day, as I sat in a church, drinking grape juice out of the quaintest of cute little plastic cups, with individual pull-back lids, which was SO ADORBS - YES, I was geeking out and probably hormonal - I was caught off guard. Perhaps I was reminding myself I was supposed to be thinking about the blood of Jesus Christ, not my kitsch interests, and OH MY GOSH, DO THEY SELL THEM LIKE THIS ONLINE?!

I thought about Jesus, and I thought about this grape juice - actually red, in symbolism of Christ's blood - and I realized... Oh my gosh. We're supposed to be drinking His BLOOD.

I knew this, logically, but drinking red liquid instead of the clear liquid of my youth, it made me look at things a little differently. 

I realized that drinking blood was SUPER not kosher.

...

In very casual terms, let me explain why this was huge. 

In Acts 10, there's a big scene where Peter is instructed, through a vision, that God is not holding Christians to the Jewish dietary laws any longer. This was a big deal, for these Jewish apostles. And it was new for them, as well.

...

I realized that in the telling of the Last Supper, when Jesus is telling his apostles to drink in remembrance of His blood, that literally no Jewish man would have sat back and been like, "Yes." No, they would have freaked out, or at least MENTIONED something about the perverse thing Jesus is suggesting to them. 

I knew that the the historicity of Christ was something that could be up for question. I knew that the scriptures we had were written hundreds of years after the events, and as is the case with scripture, was probably written from third hand or fourth hand or FIFTH hand accounts. I knew that any parable or miracle might have included more to the story than we knew, and I was okay with that. 

But I wasn't okay with Jewish men suddenly being "okay" with being told to drink in memory of someone's blood.

I realized that likely didn't happen. 

Attis was a cult around 1200 BC which involved the ritual eating of a dead god. This was also a ritual observed in ancient Egypt, as well as Mithraism (300 BC) - all of which predate Christ. Chicken or the egg, is how I would have argued this as a Christian - they knew Christ would do this, due to prophecy, so it looks the same. But maybe it's just because the idea was taken from those other practices as a way of convincing greco-roman converts to join with Christianity, though familiarity. (The Church has done the same thing with Christmas. It would not be unheard of to apply a Christian lense to an already popular pagan tradition.) 

I sat there with the cutest little grape juice cup and realized... I don't think the Last Supper happened.

...

Christianity fell to threads. 

If the Sacrament/Communion was a lie, did Jesus ever even say that He died "for" anybody? Maybe he just died. 

Maybe he was just a dude who died.

(Don't even get me started on the rabbit hole of "WHAT IF he DIDN'T die, and just faked his death, and moved to Asia?" It's a fantastic rabbit hole that I invite you to go down on your own time. I first heard it from one of our Muslim investigators on my mission. Turns out, it's not a small, insignificantly held theory. Lots of people believe this.)

Maybe Jesus wasn't a Savior. Maybe he was an awesome political activist? 

And just like that, I was no longer a Christian.

So, several years later, you have me now reading "The Templar Revelation," which explores the idea that "Maybe Jesus was just an Isis worshipper taking over from his cousin's cult?" Does it matter if this is true? Not at all. But little old me would have been aghast to see how many theories and possibilities have been proposed for the Jesus Christ tale.

I read the most fantastic bit, out of that book, that was so validating to me, and so eloquently explained why I feel that I haven't lost a thing, in losing Christianity. From the book:

"It is not difficult to understand the appeal of Gnosticism, although it was no easy option - the emphasis being on personal responsibility for one's own actions - but at the same time the threat to the Church of Rome is obvious. As Hermes Trismegistus supposedly wrote: "Oh! What a miracle is Man!", an exclamation that encapsulates the idea that mankind contains the divine spark. Neither Gnostics nor hermeticists grovelled before their God. Unlike Catholics, they did not think of themselves as lowly and evil creatures who were destined for purgatory, if not hell itself. Recognizing their divine spark automatically bestowed what we today would call "self-esteem" or confidence - the magic ingredient in the process of fulfilling one's potential. This was the key to the Renaissance as a whole, and the fearlessness it induced can be seen in the sudden opening up of the world through circumnavigation and exploration. Worse still, as far as the Church was concerned, this notion of individual potential for godhood implied that WOMEN were as good as men, at least spiritually. Gnostic women had always had a voice, and even officiated at religious ceremonies: this was one of the major threats that Gnosticism posed to the Catholic church. Moreover, the idea of mankind's essentially divine status did not accord with the Christian idea of "original sin" - the idea that all men and women are born sinful because of the Fall of Adam and Eve (especially the latter). Because all children are the result of the "shameful" sex act, that idea inextricably linked women and children in a kind of everlasting conspiracy against pure men and a vengeful God. Gnostics and hermeticists, on the whole, had no truck with 'original sin.'

"Each individual was encouraged to explore both outer and inner worlds for him/herself - experiencing gnosis, knowledge of the Divine. This emphasis on individual salvation was totally antithetical to the Church's insistence that only priests were the conduits through which God might communicate with mankind. The Gnostic idea of a direct line to God, as it were, threatened the Church's very existence." (It goes on, but that's enough.) 

I read these paragraphs, and "felt the spirit." I felt it was true.  

Christianity creates a system where humans are bad, in need of saving.

If you don't believe that you are inherently bad, Christianity offers you nothing besides (SOMETIMES) great inspiring quotes and examples. Anyone can read a book, though, and learn the same lessons.

This quote from the book was talking about Gnostics and Hermeticists, but for me, it rang true to my "Humanist" leanings. Recognizing that good comes from WITHIN is incredibly empowering. Similarly, bad comes from within as well, but just look at the human capacity for good. "What a miracle is Man!" 

Outside of Christianity I found self-esteem, confidence, TRUE agency - as I REALLY believed that I was responsible for my own choices, and real worth - because I AM - no need for comparisons or eventual "some day"s to measure.

Anyway.

This one's for the people who feel sad when people leave Christianity. 

Don't. Trust me, we are genuinely happier without.

Hopeless

Today at the local Ethical Society meeting, where I attend, we had our regular third Sunday roundtable "Living Ethics Discussion." It's typically a day for discussing our own personal challenges and ethical dilemmas, bouncing our concerns and ideas off of our community, which is awesome. 

Today's discussion ended up focusing, primarily, on "the hopelessness of the upcoming generation." 

I don't believe anybody said that, word for word, but that was the gist.

Upon coming home, my husband, who had been home with a baby, asked what we'd talked about. "About how younger generations feel hopeless and about how we should smile more at our neighbors."

He laughed. 

It's not his fault. Half of what I say is setup for comedic effect. Unfortunately that one wasn't supposed to be.

And in that moment, a sweet, sweet, hopeful part of me died, and I found myself wanting Trump to win the 2024 election.

I AM the upcoming generation, and I do feel hopeless. Not half as hopeless as people younger than me, but fairly hopeless even with all the privilege that comes with my equity. *wipes tears with savings account.*

I am incredibly lucky that I'm not a 90's kid, and that I was able to sneak in and buy a condo at just the right time, which made eventual home ownership possible for my family. I am incredibly lucky that my husband didn't major in elementary education, or work in carpet cleaning, or some OTHER field which pays below accepted standards of living. (Thank god not everyone gets to follow their dreams...)

We are living in a late-stage capitalist hellscape, where the sick have to beg for donations online, the minimum wage is stagnant despite rising inflation, employers punish their employees for personal emergencies, and the average American cannot afford to own a home in 99% of the country. NINETY-NINE PERCENT. Living is no longer a right.

So why did I toss it all to abandon and want TRUMP to win the next election? 

Because things are really really really really REALLY REALLY REALLY awful, and I'm sick and tired of 50% of my voting options (Democrats) refusing to do anything about it.

The president that I voted for is using MY tax dollars to fund a war over in Israel which is, frankly, a genocide. Where Israel literally TORTURED UN officials, and my president wants to pretend that that's not disqualifying for any type of assistance. And, as information is spreading globally about Palestine, via social media and TikTok in particular, about just how bad things actually are there, on the ground, my presidents states that he's willing to ban TikTok. 

SIR. People cannot afford to LIVE. DO SOMETHING USEFUL, not... 

No, I could go on. Instead, I'm going to turn to Trump's 2024 goals, and genuinely ask why I shouldn't want these things: 

"Give the President Unchecked Power Over Federal Agencies."

Will this change literally anything for me today? Hells. Maybe they'll stop putting poison in my food.

"Restore the President's Authority to Bypass Congress."

Congress is already an inefficient joke available to the highest bidder. Bypass 'em. They're not doing anything useful anyway. 

"Appoint a Special Prosecutor to 'go after' Biden."

...Okay? (Oh no...)

"Use the Justice Department to Get Revenge on All of His Enemies."

Who are Trump's enemies? Because so far, nobody's stopped him. Is he saying he might actually get the justice department to take down people in positions of power when they do something wrong? Fair is fair.

I wish I had enemies.

"Expand Presidential Immunity."

I'd love to see them expand it more than they already have. You can literally throw a coup, and nothing happens. Let's start executing people in the streets without criminal convictions. Lets. Why not.

"Purge the Civil Service."

Fire bad apples? 

Freakin' burn the whole orchard to the ground. I don't care anymore. I have a government job. So fire me. One thing we've all learned, from capitalism, is that anyone is disposable. That's what these bootstraps are for! 

"Install Thousands of Loyalists Throughout the Federal Government."

Hell - at least this way we'll know WHO bought them!

"Put Flying Cars in Americans' Driveways."

... Are they literally saying that I could afford a flying car if Trump became president?...

There's more. Obviously there's lots more, but this is what hopelessness looks like. Are you telling me that things might just "change"?

When children are "attention-seeking," any attention is good attention, even if that attention is yelling at them. As a young person struggling against late-stage capitalism, any change is good change, at this point - even if it's just a change for the worse. 

At least then it'll be more obvious that it's not my fault, and I can go a little easier on myself, and REALLY let that hope go as I embrace total, complete nihilism. 

Bad things happen to good people, and sometimes it's their government's fault. 

I don't think the Democrats deserve a win, right now. For all their talk, they're still not honestly doing what the people want. The Republican party is dying, but the Democrats ought to kick the bucket as well. Nobody is doing what's in the best interest of people. And if it takes a housefire for people to realize the seriousness of the situation, and DEMAND more options than two aged white men, then let it happen. If Biden wins, the Democrats will happily coast along for more decades to come - accepting money from private donors quietly, while patting themselves on the backs that at least they're not Republicans. 

I want better options. I don't want either one. Do we seriously have to pull a weapon and hold it to America's head to be offered a livable solution? Because if that's what we have to do - in the form of electing Trump - maybe we just have to do it. 

So we can live.

Today's Church News

Today it was announced that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would be purchasing historical sites and items of historical import from the Community of Christ.

I have never been accused of being dispassionate, or without opinion, so I'm going to tell you how I feel about that.

...

...

...

...

Mixed.

...

I have a great love for Community of Christ for being influential for me in a very vulnerable time of my life. They offered love, help, and community to me without duplicity of intent in their actions. They loved and cared for me because I needed love and care, and asked for nothing in return.

Similarly, I have strong feelings about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and those feelings are exactly the opposite.

I don't believe I've ever used the phrase "I love that for you," because it's kind of passive aggressive, but I use that phrase now, for Community of Christ, and I use it sincerely.

I love that for you. 

This last weekend I hosted a friend of mine in my home. She happens to be the Salt Lake City pastor for Community of Christ, as well as being employed by their communications department, so in hindsight...

That's fine. I don't mind being deceived in order for you to mourn. (Girl, you know it.) I just wish I had realized the 'why' at the time, because it would have made a few awkward conversations with local Community of Christ folks less awkward, and maybe we could have all cried outwardly, instead of me giggling awkwardly about ghosts and whatever other insensitive things I might have said, and recognize that YES, our tour guide WAS holding back tears - it was NOT allergies! Dammit!!

Anyway. That's a whole other thing.

I love this for you, Community of Christ.

For those local members on the ground at these sites, I am devastated for you, and for the loss of places that you loved and served. I imagine this will be difficult for you, as it's something that you've built your life around, and I mourn this loss with you.

For Community of Christ? Hells yes. Community of Christ is forging their own road, and they have been for some time. They dealt with the baggage that was Joseph Smith Jr decades ago, as they ceased to revere him as "second to Christ only," like some other religions do. They recognized him as a human, and moved on from him. And I am happy for them, that they can drop this "Mormon Baggage" and forge their own road forward in whatever their more authentic Christian way is. (Heck, money is nice too.)

For the ex-Mormons?  

Folks, we're not okay.

Today has been a gambit for me. It has involved Linkin Park, Twenty-One Pilots, and finally The Road to Nowhere by Radical Face on repeat. Big feelings. Confused feelings. Complicated analysis, and attempts to understand. 

I'm heartbroken. Firstly, I LIVE down the road from Nauvoo. My family has gone there on the weekend just CAUSE. I have blogged about the positive experiences I had there, with Community of Christ running the show - (Presenting the Message.) Having Community of Christ tell the history was so refreshingly HONEST, and I'm devastated that Kirtland and Nauvoo will be losing that honesty - and I didn't even get to see Kirtland as a Community of Christ site. That's devastating for this little "Mormon History Tour" gal, because any tour I do of Kirtland in the future will involve plastic, perfect lies about Elijah, not laughter and jokes about psychedelic sacraments. (This is infuriating.)

I'm heartbroken because the Mormons are going to be excited. 

(For the Mormons? Shut up.)

The Mormons are going to be excited about this. They're going to see it as a victory for God, despite the fact that Mormons are literally selling the holy land of Independence. They'll just proclaim Nauvoo their NEW "New Zion," and hope nobody notices the actual prophecies Joseph Smith Jr made.

For ex-Mormons, this is a day of family relationship trauma. We do this periodically. It happens every General Conference, it happens during the Sunday extended family gatherings, and it happens every time something unfortunate happens in your life. ("I put your name on the temple roll.") Today is a day to be reminded that your family believes and values very different things than you, and they're pretty sure they're better than you because of it, so just go enjoy your life of sin and remember that "wickedness never was happiness" and "You'll Be Back." (One way or another.)

Folks? Kindred ex-Mormon folks? This SUCKS. Avoid your family today. In fact, avoid them for a week, and celebrate the fact that you don't have a guest bedroom just hours down the road that Mormons everywhere are going to want to take advantage of, despite the emotional burden this will be for you.

For the Mormons.

Congratulations. You guys, I'm just so excited for you. I hope that this reinvigorates your interest in Church History. I've really been into Church History for the last seven years or so, and I've learned so much information about these sites. Walking the streets where history happened has really strengthened my beliefs in what I believe, and I can't wait for you to have that same opportunity that I had, to invest energy into studying Church History, so you can fully understand, FEEL, and appreciate the things that happened on these roads, in these buildings, and in these cities. I am SO excited for you to see it.

For the LDS missionaries, I can't wait to see how you explain the failed prophecies of the Nauvoo House, how you respond to the question of "Which room did the Martha Brotherton thing happen in?" in the Red Brick Store, and "Why are there so many hiding spots in Joseph's homes?" Make sure you keep telling people on the tours that recording is prohibited.

For the Mormon Prophet? 

Good luck with that.

Sweet Spirit, Hear My Prayer

The day my convert mother discovered that she did, in fact, have a Mormon relative who had moved to Utah, was an exciting day for her. It would have been a second cousin four times removed, but that didn't matter. My mother was thrilled to know that more family had followed in her footsteps - joined the Mormon church - and that she could visit their grave herself, just a short drive down the road.

We did visit the grave. I remember hunting for it in the Salt Lake City Cemetery, and being uninspired by it, as teenagers are apt to be, with their parents' dreams.

My mother traveled to another part of the state, where one of her relative's polygamist wives' dress was on display in a museum. (I wonder where I get my desire to "see and feel" the history that is dear and personal to me, from.) 

That dress, though, told a story. That dress told a story that I only dared take in after leaving this church that I had been raised in, and that my mother and other family members for generations had sacrificed everything to join.

Can I tell you about Ann Winter?

Obviously this woman is stunning and no blood relative of mine. (I was related, DISTANTLY, to her second husband.) 

William Miller, her first husband, joined the Mormon church in England, alongside his sister Eliza, in 1847. He was a bookbinder, a weaver, and a cobbler. Eventually he went on to marry Ann Winter on Christmas Day of 1854. 

Decades later, having received financial aid from his sister and her husband, John Daynes, in Utah, the family departed Liverpool with 800 other converts on the "John Bright." 

Family lore tells that Ann's mother, Victoria Bultitude Winter, was "very bitter toward the Saints and vowed she would not even bid the family goodbye, but, when they departed, forgetting their carefully prepared lunch basket in the flurry of last minute excitement, she ran to catch them, holding the basket in front of her. She stood waving her hand until the little family was out of sight. This was the last time that Ann saw her mother." 

Ann had a beautiful singing voice, and was asked by the captain of the ship to sing in a concert he was giving. She sang four songs: "Sweet Spirit, Hear My Prayer," "Willie We Will Miss You," "Beautiful Star," and "Under the Mistletoe Bough." 

When they arrived in the United States, William was asked to stand guard duty through the night, on the ship, while the company slept ashore. 

Ann always believed that he had been met with foul play and was thrown in the harbor, due to other suspicious incidents that had occurred near her husband, during their voyage.

Ten days later Ann's fifteen month old baby died. 

When Ann and the remainder of her family arrived in Utah they were deloused, and moved in with her sister-in-law and brother-in-law. 

Not much more is told of Ann. 

She married again, in 1870, on the day her second husband, William Henry Tremayne took both his third and fourth wives. Ann was married to him the same day that Elvina was, at the age of 33. 

We know her children grew up - one of her daughters becoming a singer as well. We have some of their stories. But Ann's story ends rather abruptly, and without much detail, except for the dress.

The dress is in Pleasant Grove Utah, housed at the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum.

The story goes thusly. 

Ann went into town, had a dress fitting, and upon her return home, she fell in the river and drowned.

Was the river deep? It was thirteen inches deep, according to the most detailed report, which added the strange detail that she died with a bouquet of flowers in her hand. It reported that she had likely slipped into the river while picking flowers. 

Thirteen inches is not very deep, and when drowning, we don't usually cling to our flowers.

I don't know what happened to Ann in her last day. 

There are some facts we can see. I see a woman who lost her mother, lost her husband, lost her baby, moved to the desert of Utah, and was quickly married off to a man on the same day as another woman, making wife number three or four, it's honestly hard to know.

She had more children. 

Then one day she walked into town to try on a dress for a fitting.

One of the largest shelf-breaking items for me, in Mormonism, was polygamy. It was reading the stories of women who were largely forgotten, or idolized with ne'er a bad word said about them, about their experiences, or about how they felt about being replaced in their husbands' beds. Sure, we can pretend everyone was hunky dory with it all, and no one had issues, but as a human married woman, I hypothesize there were issues. I hypothesize there were a LOT of issues. I hypothesize there were a lot of broken hearts, broken children, neglected wives, discarded one after another. 

I don't know her last day, but for me, that day, Ann tried on that dress and wondered - who is this dress even for? 

Then she drowned, just like her husband William, with flowers in her hand in a shallow ditch. 

I read through her prolific daughter's history. There is no mention of her mother, her death, or any details of her life after England. Ann Winter's uncomfortable life truth, to her children, was simply... forgotten. It wasn't nice, or sweet, and so it was gently forgotten to the pages of history, buried quietly away under the tombstone of William Henry Tremayne.

Oh! Thou to whom this heart ne'er yet

Turned in anguish or regret,

The past forgive, the future spare;

Sweet Spirit, hear my pray'r!

Oh! Leave me not alone in grief, 

Send this blighted heart relief!

Send this blighted heart relief!

Make thou my life thy future care,

Sweet Spirit hear my pray'r! 

Ah! Make my life thy future care,

Sweet Spirit hear my pray'r!

Hear, oh! hear my pray'r!

Ah! hear my prayer.

Oh! Thou to whom my thoughts are known

Calm, oh calm these tremb'ling fears;

Ah! Turn away the world's cold frown,

And dry my falling tears!

Oh! Leave me not alone in grief,

Send this blighted heart relief,

Send this blighted heart relief.

Make thou my life thy future care,

Sweet Spirit hear my prayer

Ah! Make my life thy future care,

Sweet Spirit hear my pray'r! 

Hear, oh! hear my pray'r!

Ah! hear my prayer!

If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.

If you are a Mormon experiencing these feelings, please know, you are not like Ann. You have options. There is a world full of good people who can help you. 

Ann was very much a victim of her time and place. She left her support networks in a time period without modern commodities such as internet, telephone, or even reasonable mail service, and moved to a hostile land which literally had people killing dissidents. As a woman in her time period, she would have been pressured to marry as a means of providing for herself and her children. 

While at times that experience can certainly feel relatable as a Mormon woman, know that there are people who understand that, and can help. Reach out to your local ex/post/unorthodox Mormon communities, if you are seeking assistance, or having difficulty with feelings of hopelessness and despair.

Mormon Spectrum.org - has a wide array of support groups for all those struggling with their faith, at any point of belief or disbelief, and any desire to stay or leave the community.

Ex-Mormon Women Facebook Support Group - my own personal fav.

The world is a surprisingly good place. 

A Study on Faith Crises

 A+B=C.

That's one of those formulas that can be used to take data and apply it, under specific circumstances, to discover the outcome, or solution.

Maths is great like that. There are "right" and "wrong" solutions. 

Psychology and people are less so. Sure, there are general guidelines that can be used to understand people, where most people "fit," but with humans, you get outliers - solutions that are not immediately explainable, and answers that, plain and simple, don't make sense.

I do enjoy a good scientific study on humans, though, so when I saw that a study had been done on ex-Mormons, including the "why"s and "how"s, I was thrilled. 

I've now read it. And I've since concluded that sometimes people make perfect, predictable sense - like maths. 

Listed below are the uninspiring conclusions that these scientists came to, after studying ex-Mormonism, to explain what causes faith crises. 

The only thing truly surprising about this list is how they were able to format the answers in such a way as to avoid stating exactly what the problem was. But to me, the problem and answers are as clear as A+B=C.

"Our research team identified four primary factors that drive Faith Crisis: 

1) Unprecedented Access to Uncorrelated Information

2) Continual Access to Uncorrelated Information

3) Unprecedented Content Creation and Consumption

4) The Mormon Movement"

Seems like this "uncorrelated information" may be the root of the problem. What does that mean?

Information that has not been "correlated," or information that "lacks a mutual relationship or connection." 

These people literally just said that information that is not written with our narrative and/or our bias in mind is causing faith crisis.

It's not even an issue of perspective. It's information written by first-hand accounts and witnesses to the formation of the organization. The "narrative" is what changed. And people having access to "uncorrelated information," otherwise known as "HISTORY" is causing them to leave Mormonism.

Thank you, Google, for making documents available to us naysayers, so we can read history, and know that it was never about "milk strippings," and whatever lies the narrative attempted to sell us as truths.

The unprecedented content creation is this blog. Dammit. People keep reading the history and talking about the truth. 

Blaming the Mormon Movement? I think that's just saying that Hulu has made some great shows that also provide access to all that "uncorrelated information." 

You know you have a problem when people are leaving your organization because they are learning the truth about it, and you go to such incredible lengths to blame literally everything but yourselves. It displays very little insight into themselves, and shows their incredible talent at spinning some serious lawyer-ly language. 

It's not Joseph Smith Jr that's the problem - it's the internet and the smartphone, for making information ABOUT Joseph Smith Jr so readily available.

People are having crises of faith because they are finding out the truth - that they have been outright lied to by those who professed to be their spiritual guides. 

On my mission I sang a musical number, once, of a song that I truly believe in: "Oh Say, What is Truth."

1. Oh say, what is truth? 'Tis the fairest gem

That the riches of worlds can produce,

And priceless the value of truth will be when

The proud monarch's costliest diadem

Is counted but dross and refuse.

 

2. Yes, say, what is truth? 'Tis the brightest prize

To which mortals or Gods can aspire.

Go search in the depths where it glittering lies,

Or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies:

'Tis an aim for the noblest desire.

 

3. The sceptre may fall from the despot's grasp

When with winds of stern justice he copes.

But the pillar of truth will endure to the last,

And its firm-rooted bulwarks outstand the rude blast

And the wreck of the fell tyrant's hopes.

 

4. Then say, what is truth? 'Tis the last and the first,

For the limits of time it steps o'er.

Tho the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst,

Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst,

Eternal, unchanged, evermore.

When your own conclusions lead to a crisis of faith resulting in only one of two options - BOTH of which are not "true-believer" - it says that you know your own story is not true, and once someone has seen "behind the curtain," at the Wizard of Oz, there's no going back - the mortality of it is laid bare, and it will never again be divine.

These are the people who are leaving, and no, it's not their fault, their concerns aren't lies, and a covenant made without informed consent is not binding. (So don't come at me with your bowie knives and your muskets, thanks.) The saddest part, for me, is that his income was listed - because that's what was important to church leadership the whole time - earning potential. This is why some were raised up, in nepotistic fashion, and why others were ignored. Because it wasn't about the spiritual capacity of the individual, but their earning potential. 

It's knowing that this loss: 

matters more to the church than THIS loss: 

Not because they are people, but because they are numbers.

As a missionary, I was taught to think of people as numbers. 

How do we get member present lessons? How do we get Oscar to accept a baptismal date? 

A+B=C. 

It's not as complicated as they want to believe it is. The answer is to just stop lying.

Three Little Pigs

The last few days I've been struggling with a storyline. I've got my characters, I've got my setting, hell, I even have the local myth and theology settled, as it's a work of fiction. I'd been feeling fine about my newest writing experiment, until my husband gave me the constructive criticism I live for - "I feel like you always want to redeem your bad guys."

Did my bad guy have a fantastic motivation, character arc, and belief system that led him to his bad actions? Absolutely. And could I fix him? By golly, you betcha I could.

But redeeming your bad guys, and helping people "see the error of their ways" all the times does not necessarily make for a fantastic, cathartic end or story. Is it the way I personally try to view human beings? Yes. But it's not great for a fantasy piece.

I have a very hard time with bad guys.

First, absolutely, yes, embrace that thought you had - I AM attracted to the bad guys. Unimportant, however. ...Okay, maybe a little important, says my inner therapist, but I'm going to deal with that another day.

I love my bad guys. I love them. They make sense to me. For me, your classic "bad guy" has the most interesting story - the most powerful "tale of woe." They are the characters who move mountains single-handedly, and stay truest to themselves. 

Javier will always be more important to me than that 24601 fellow. Javier is the one who does NOT give up on what he believes in, and when finally confronted with the evidence that he was wrong, the man can't even stand to live with himself. Javier is a man of absolutes, and boy, do I like a man who knows his own mind. Bless us both.

But bad guys, are, ultimately wrong. They're not mentally "healthy." They're unwell. Hardcore, awesome, oh so motivated, and yes, wrong. They're making mistakes. As someone who has also had a history of being mentally unhealthy, oh so motivated, AND wrong, I love them. And I like the idea of redeeming them.

Anyway. My writing woes. Don't get me started. I thought I knew where I could take that storyline, and I've now lost interest in it as a current project, because I have no idea how to end it. (Fernand CAN change, if he recognizes that he is the parallel of the myth of Iias in the story, not Umnir.)

It's fine. It's fine. I'm just a mom, now, trying to start writing again after... nine years? Yeah, this doesn't suck at all. (My youngest is currently at my elbow begging me to play the 'baby banana song' on the computer. This isn't difficult at all.) 

Anyway. It got me thinking about books and bad guys.

The best bad guys are the bad guys you don't recognize at first. They're the ones who pretend to be someone they're not. 

While "real life" is not a work of fiction, certainly, I have found, personally, that I can fall for that error in reading in the same way. Sometimes it's HARD to recognize what's "bad" or "wrong" in a written piece - especially news reports or history. Recognizing the essential need to see BOTH sides of the story has helped me significantly in slowing down and assessing entire situations before taking a side with "my team" and, often, inadvertently, condoning something wrong.

*trigger warning* *ex-Mormonism*

I read The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy and stayed in the church for another four years.

I read the CES Letter and continued attending meetings for over another year. (During a pandemic, so I wasn't being rushed, or anything, which was nice.) 

I read Mormon Enigma, and stayed.

I had a very time recognizing the bad guy in these stories. 

Hindsight is 20/20, and now that I'm the newer, more improved version of me (*high sarcasm*) it feels obvious. It feels obvious that you could read about a man who serially cheated on his wife, had a history of conning people, run-ins with the law MULTIPLE times about conning people, affairs of sleeping with teens that he groomed and manipulated into polygamy... How many bad evidences do you have to add before you recognize the bad guy? There's more. I mean, I could continue.

But I somehow didn't recognize him. Or at least, fully appreciate the common denominator of all of this bad.

Anyway, this made me think about pigs.

There were three little pigs, and they were happy. Until a wolf came and ate two of them, and the third barely escaped with his life.

We don't tell the story like that. No, we somehow have to blame the pigs. The poor stupid pigs, one of whom thought they could protect themselves with a STRAW house? Oh, bless his heart. 

They deserved what they got, then... did they?

How can you read a story and not see the bad guy for who he is? It's the one killing people, not the ones who failed to protect themselves from him.

It's the groom of the wedding feast, taking WAY TOO LONG to show up to the party, so that half of his guests run out of oil, and then he gets to blame them for not being prepared for his dalliances, casting them out of his life FOREVER because HE took too long. 

They would have had enough for anybody else's wedding. These guests WANTED to go to the wedding. They'd surely been to weddings in similar fashion before. Stands reason to believe that they thought they had enough oil in their lamps. But no, it's THEIR fault that they weren't prepared for the perfectly avoidable extenuating circumstances they were subjected to. Maybe these women weren't in the wrong at all.

It's like torturing someone then getting mad when they give up and tell you everything. The outcome of your actions was intended to break them and make them fail. You could have treated them better, and you chose not to. Then you blamed them.

Being tired doesn't make you a bad guy. Being stupid doesn't make you a bad guy. Sure, these things can mean that wrongs happen, but it doesn't make you a "bad guy." It makes you human, with all its strengths and weaknesses.

Being the victim does not mean you did anything wrong, and any group or system that would encourage you to see yourself as a bad guy for not being "perfect" IS THE BAD GUY. 

Perfection is not going to happen - not for anybody. Some pigs are rushed and make their houses out of straw, and they die. Some pigs use bricks and live - but why not concrete? Why didn't that last pig make his house out of reinforced steel? It would have been better, wouldn't it? He was less of a fool than the harried stick-house pig, who was slightly smarter than the straw-house pig, but he was still dumber than reinforced steel pig, or cut through the river and immediately climb a tree-house pig, who could have hidden and avoided the whole situation. 

You are enough, whether your mind churns out straw or sticks or mud. You are enough, and I don't care who's writing the story - you're not in the wrong for being attacked by a wolf. 

The wolf was wrong the whole time. Everything else is a distraction.

(Except, wolves are, in fact, carnivorous, and they've got to eat SOMEBODY, so really, I think I could redeem that wolf as well...)