I have one of those "Dust-Off" cans of aerosol spray for cleaning electronics. It's on my desk. Sometimes, when I'm on the phone, I sit there and aerosol everything in sight... my keyboard, my calculator, computer speakers, remote control, stapler, tape-dispenser, anything else lying around.
When I do this, I feel totally OCD. But I can't do something audio without something visual to entertain me. I can't pay attention in church these days for that reason either. I've been in primary for the last year, and before that I always had one of those "busy" callings that meant you never actually sat for 3 hours of church. How do people do it? One hour of Sacrament meeting is about all I can take. By Sunday School, I'm not just doodling, I'm doodling and thinking of something other than what's going on around me.
Speaking of Sunday School... I agreed to attend a "member missionary" class last Sunday. Jared assured me the idea of this class was to teach about the new "Preach My Gospel" missionary guide, not to lean on us to get our non-member friends involved. When the teacher started, he whipped out the Preach My Gospel guide, and started talking about agency, and how our mission is to preach His gospel, not to force or pressure our friends into the church. He talked about how people all have their agency, and our measure of success in sharing the gospel should not be based on whether they accept.
"Harrah!" I was thinking. "Jared was right, they really ARE teaching abouthe Preach my Gospel book." (It's really cool, by the way. They really have changed the way they want us to think about preaching the gospel).
The teacher then proceeded to tell us how to set a date and have a goal that by that date we'll have a friend prepared to take the missionary discussions. (!) "Did you READ the book?!" I'm thinking. "Did you HEAR what YOU just said? Cuz you're totally contradicting yourself."
The poor leaders of the church are trying to get the members to get away from a numbers and goal-oriented way of pressuring people into sharing and accepting the gospel, to start following the spirit instead of some numbers-goal or word-for-word "lesson." And here my ward is NOT getting the point. They are just manipulating the new program into the old one with different words.
It's so typical and so disappointing. I used to be really frustrated with how slow change is in the church. I mean, I still am. But I guess I used to blame it on the "church leaders." Ha! Now I wonder who I was thinking were the "church leaders." I mean, there are lots of different levels of that, from The Big Guy himself, to prophets and apostles, all the way down to Bishops and Relief Society Presidents and even teachers and committee chairmen. We're all leaders at some point. Most of the change in church culture is slow because We The People are dense and set in our ways. We misinterpret the wishes of the higher-ups and can't bring ourselves to accept their humble advice. And then we can't bring ourselves to accept it as ADVICE! We run around acting as if everything any leader ever said is doctrine now (as if prophets haven't been contradicting themselves for YEARS on the finer points).
When we can settle down and realize that Christ's central message is THE message, that everything else is probably subjective or unknown, when we can be tolerant of each other, including our "leaders," when we can humble ourselves enough to take each other with a grain of salt... then I think we're onto something.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
How the church approaches missionary work has been a major point of issue for me. I grew up in the church, and as the youngest of four, I watched both my oldest brother and my sister leave it. My brother didn't go on a mission, and to hear some members' "reasons" why he left is idiotic, ignorant, and ungodly. I know plenty of missionaries who came back and left; serving a mission isn't a show of how "righteous" or "strong" a person is. And just because the church isn't right for some people doesn't make them bad or unrighteous. My sister is one of the most spiritual people I know, and she lives her life more humbly and gracefully than almost anyone else I've ever met. I wouldn't want to take that away from her. I think that the church just isn't right for some people. God doesn't just have one way to communicate; if you call Him, He answers, regardless of which phone you use.
I have always found 3 hours of church sitting unbearable. At the singles ward I would brazenly skip a class or two to walk around the halls to socialize (or go shopping - eek) i know thats bad but now that im grown up i have to teach sunday school or watch keith teach it (often disstracting him by getting caught up in the teenage chatter going on) and keith watches me walk into relief society to make sure i really go. sheesh, am i that bad? Every week i hear something i don't like in relief society.
I ignore them all
then bitch to my husband
Yeah! I'm in the Relief Society Presidency now. I'm over the lessons, and I can't tell you how agonizing it is to hear stuff said I can't stand and know that I'm sort of responsible.
But teachers say what they will, and you can't just go correcting them all the time. They are learning too. If I gave the lesson (which I did last week), certainly some people would hate what I have to say, because our styles are all so different.
All true, but styles aren't the biggest issue for me. ...my issues are bigotry, and ignorance, and made-up Gospel principles (dare you to find the phrase "eternal progression" in the scriptures anywhere! That principle contradicts gospel doctrine). That's not to say that everyone does that; but when I do start squirming in my seat, Lord forgive me for cursing under my breath.
re: Eternal Progression - I think the commentator is right, it ain't in the scriptures. However, Talmage, in Articles of Faith (published by the church mind you) says that although he doesn't fully understand the doctrine, there is nothing in church canon that would preclude it. In fact, he says that there is nothing in the canon to preclude the most literal understanding of it ever: the belief that someone could actually move from one level of salvation to another in the afterlife. Weird. But I swear that is in there. Admittidly not scripture, but way closer than a lot of other sources.
Oh, and Skye, I thought your other post about living with the faults you find in the church was interesting. we'll have to talk sometime. I live with plenty of complaints.
Post a Comment