Response to a family string about the lack of hearty discussions at church

So... I've thought much about the lack of real searching and honest answers to tough questions in Sunday School. It used to frustrate me to death. I've mellowed out some, partly because of what Bryce was talking about. There are so many for whom those discussions aren't uplifting or productive.

To me, I've made a distinction between what is good Sunday School fodder, and what is not (maybe I'll change my mind later, but for now, I think of it this way). Sunday School has a particular purpose: to uplift, inspire, and motivate. Church is more or less a support group for people trying to live The Way. Thus, church meetings are really designed to be forums for encouraging each other and reminding us of the principles that will help us. Sunday School is for the kinds of things you can talk about over and over and over and they will continue to help people come to Christ.

Most of the tough questions don't really fall into this category. Of course, I personally feel a great need to address them, I think most people feel that way at some point in their lives, and I think they should not be candy-coated or pushed under the rug the way they often are in church meetings. But I also recognize that these are things that don't need to be brought up for me over and over and over, the way we do with Sunday School topics. Most of them are things that I can spend some time with, and more or less resolve for myself, and I don't need to keep harping on them. That considered, they really aren't good Sunday School topics. We don't need to spend our rotating, repeating schedule on difficult, controversial issues. Some questions need to be addressed once in a lifetime. Others recur, but on an individual's own time. These are questions that I need to investigate on my own and come to an understanding about, not subject all the other people at church to, who are there expressly for the purpose of being uplifted and
motivated.

Now, that said, I will say that I think Sunday School panders too much to the weak of faith at the expense of the faithful and searching members. If some people at church need gospel "milk," and so that's what we get -- all day, every day -- it leaves those of us who wish to grow starving and emaciated. We grow up mutants with no backbone because we've never been fed "meat," only to stumble later. There is so much more to this gospel than we are routinely taught. Many of the deeper questions are not controversial at all, just a little more esoteric. And as far as topics that ARE controversial, in my personal observation, we lose more people to the LACK of real, honest answers than we do to the inability to cope with reality and honesty. I personally think that "the truth will set you free": if someone cannot handle open dialogue about our faith, I think they are living in a kind of fear.

That's NOT to say though that everyone needs or wants to go there. Some people are just of a different constitution and those questions hold no interest or intrigue for them. Some people's faith is such that they can easily accept whatever is in our church's history and they don't really need to know the details. Kudos to them.

The biggest problem in my view is in lack of tolerance for each others' different styles of faithful searching. "Intellectuals" feel outcast by a heritage of conservatism in church, which treats questioners as if their desire to search means they lack faith. We are defensive and adamant in our insistence that honesty is desperately needed and those who refuse to look with open eyes are fearful. We are afraid for our children because we know that someday they'll grow up to realize they've been fed a line their whole lives, and how will they find the true answers to their questions if they cannot ask them in church? "Non-intellectuals" feel looked down upon by intellectual "snobs" who treat them as if they are lesser, not as intelligent, not as faithful, and inferior. Both of these are stereotypes, but there is truth to them. If we "intellectuals" can be more loving, tolerant, and understanding of those who do not wish to spend their church time investigating problems, I hope they will be more tolerant of those who need to ask those questions, and acknowledge that there are many ways to view the answers.

This is part of the reason I'm so pro-Sunstone these last couple weeks. If you don't know, I just went to a symposium in Seattle, and it was the most inspiring, enlivening, uplifting and motivating thing I've been to that I can remember. Much more so than a typical church-meeting for me. I want to shout from the rooftops "The Church is True!" and tell everyone I know! It's a forum for those who have faith but want to discuss deeper gospel ideas. There is a real need for this kind of thing, and I think everyone should know about it. There are people there to help you, if you have questions. Of course, because there are lots of ideas expressed, I doubt if anyone would agree with all of them. But that's part of the beauty of it: everyone understands that everyone else has different ideas... and that's OK! (an attitude we don't get at church). Thus we can talk honestly and openly about our feelings, our ideas, our concerns, and be uplifted by each other without judgment or "The Right" answer being shoved down our throats "because Joe-of-the-Brethren said so."

Anyway, those are my many thoughts. Be tolerant and careful of those who don't think the way you do. We all have different needs. And hope they will be tolerant of you. There are loving ways of suggesting alternate ways of viewing things in Sunday School, which let others know that there is more than one viewpoint, without suggesting other viewpoints are wrong or inferior. :)

Love, Skye

Guess Who! A bit I wrote for the ward newsletter.

My visiting teachee is in charge of "Spotlight on the Family," a feature where they write about a family without disclosing who they are. People can guess who they think it is and next week the great secret is revealed! Anyway, her people fell through this week, so here I go to save the day:

Guess Who?:

He grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and escaped with just a few hippie-tendencies lasting into adulthood. She attended University of Oregon during her desperately-seeking-hippies phase. They may have been at a common singles dance in Eugene (we’ll see in the eternal replay), but certainly she wouldn’t have been interested in an 17-year old D.J. at the time (she was a ripe old 19) so their paths crossed unnoticed.

He later studied electrical engineering at BYU. She was concurrently at BYU, studying humanities. Engineers and artists don’t mix much, so again, their paths crossed unnoticed. They also both had college bands at BYU; his funk, hers folk. Again, no crossover.

After college, he pursued a law degree at Willamette University while she pursued a music career in Portland, Oregon. After exhausting the female resources in Salem, he began attending activities in Portland where she was living (getting warmer!). Her roommate had known him at BYU, and began inviting him around, and thus they finally met on the record. They became friends, albeit distant ones, both dating other people. They shared common interests like the outdoors and... well the outdoors... with a little music and art on the side.

One spring, when her ex-boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend announced they were dating, they became even better friends (ha! Take that, exes!). He invited her on a backpacking trip to Utah in order to hook her up with his college buddy who needed a girl. Success! She hooked up with the college buddy. So they became friends in order to talk about this college buddy. Soon it became very clear that she’d picked the wrong guy and after a month or so of secret longing and grueling silence, they confessed their undying love and affection for each other and fell kissing and weeping into each others arms (or... something like that). Then they called the friend with the (un)happy news.

He is currently a harried overworked associate at a Portland patent-law firm. She's an underpaid starving musician playing downtown clubs and haunts (she daylights as a paralegal so she can pretend to have a real job). They are happy to be in the Fanno Creek Ward, and they hope to wreak lots of havoc while they're here. The End.

Sunstone Weekend - "What? A whole bunch of free-thinking Mormons all in one place?"

Last weekend I attended a Sunstone Symposium in Seattle. I've meant to go to one of these for years, but never managed it. It just didn't sound that sexy, even though I knew it was likely to be "intellectually stimulating."

Now I'm married, and "sexy" has taken on a whole new meaning :)

It was the sexiest thing ever. I think I've never been so inspired and enlightened and motivated as I was last weekend. Speakers tackled subjects like:

• "Mormon Mantras: In eastern spiritual traditions, mantras are practiced to assist persons to overcome mindless, conditioned behavior and to align themselves with the divine. Do some Mormon cultural "mantras" - repetetive phrases and ideas that organize the internal lives of many latter day saints - serve the same liberating function? Or do they, at times, inhibit individual spiritual growth. Are there gospel mantras that could serve us better?"
  
• "Mary Magdalene: Bride and Beloved: Reclaiming the Sacred Union in Christianity"

Oh, and so much more. The mission statement of the Sunstone Education Foundation is "Sponsor of Open Forums of Mormon Thought and Experience." How many times have I expressed frustration at how hard it is to find people willing to talk in an open and honest way about the church and its role in our lives! Here was a whole group of people coming together to do just that. I can't even begin to express how cool it was or try to say what was said. Everyone should go to their website and download the free podcasts of the symposium. (www.sunstoneonline.com).

I want to be the new generation. I have wanted to sponsor open thought. Now I've found an organization doing it, and I want to join.

I feel like I just found the church.

And I want to tell all my friends.

THE CHURCH IS TRUE! Come join us. ... and if you have questions that aren't answered in Sunday School, well, come to me, baby. I know who will answer them for ya!

Jared is Out of Town

I've been married now for exactly one year, thirty days, six hours, and thirty six minutes. This is almost exactly thirteen months.

My husband is out of town on business for about four days. So far, he has been gone for two days, seven hours, twenty two minutes. I’ve slept alone in our house for two nights. I’ve eaten two breakfasts and three dinners alone. I’ve gone to church alone once, accepted one solo dinner invitation, come home after work to an empty house twice, felt midnight empty-house fear a couple of time, reached for him uselessly half-dreamy in bed three times, anxiously answered his calls six times, explained his absence to others eight times.

All this makes it sound so lonely. Do I miss him? Of course. Am I lonely?... well...hmmm...
Before he left I was positively distraught. I couldn’t stand the idea of spending four days without him. I was scared of the idea of so many hours alone. I just like his company. We don’t even have to be talking to each other or anything – in fact, I"m usually quite busy – but I just like knowing he’s there when I want him. And so the night before he left I was emotional, clingy and weepy. I wanted more and more kisses. I wanted to hold on tighter and tighter. I wanted to buy a last minute plane ticket to go with him. I never wanted to separate again.

And now that he’s gone... I really can’t say that it’s been miserable. I expected to be so forlorn and romantically sullen, longing, yearning for him. And I’m not. I’ve been married over a year now, does that mean something? We joked before he left about the honeymoon being over. We laughed, I said it would never be over. I’m only more in love with him now than I have ever been. Which is true. But here I am, not even lonely, even kindof enjoying the time to myself. I can get more done. I have time to contemplate. I have time to clean and run errands and don’t have someone second guessing anything I do or don’t do. I don’t have to make dinner for anybody. I can do things on my own schedule. I don’t have to go to bed at a particular time. The TV is off! I love it.

What does it mean, exactly, "the honeymoon being over" thing. I always assumed it was a bad thing, that it means that the problems and grief of marriage set in, that you get sick of each other, that you’re no longer "in love" the way you used to be. At least, I always assumed that’s what people generally mean when they use the term. I think generally they do.

But I’ve decided that what it really means for the honeymoon to be over is something different (and maybe people even mean this sometimes, and I just never understood before). It means not that you fall out of love, but that you move into the next phase of your love and your life together. At the beginning of marriage there is an important "honeymoon" phase that you spend really becoming part of each other and part of each other’s lives. You bond and grow closer and accommodate each other and become a team instead of two separate individuals. It’s romantic and cute. It’s the part of a relationship that we all look forward to... as adolescents at least. But this "honeymoon over" part... just might be even better. This, I think, is the part where you reaffirm and remember that you are an individual still. An individual who has covenanted to a partnership with another, and that by that partnership you accomplish things that you never could alone, but that the partnership is also completely dependent on your sovereignty and individuality. This is the part where you let go of fear, let go of uncertainty, let go of co-dependence and embrace inter-dependence. This is the part where you stand up and own your power. "This relationship works because it adds to my life, not because it takes away."

The fact that I’m not despondent without Jared made me a little nervous at first. I wondered if there was something wrong or that it was All Downhill From Here. And don’t get me wrong. Of course there will be moments, especially as his absence drags on, that I’ll really miss him, that I’ll want to tell him something, or ask him something, or feel his arms around me, or have his help.

But heavens, I’m not non-functional without him! My life was pretty damn good before Jared came along. I think that’s why he wanted me. And that hasn’t changed. I’m a happy and productive person. I have a happy life. Jared or no Jared. He makes it better, but he doesn’t make it. What a tragic mistake so many people make when looking for a spouse. They wait on their own lives because they want their spouse to be every part of it. But if you do this, you’ll be dependent on your spouse for happiness. Which, as the relationship matures, you’ll find a spouse cannot always provide. That’s a sure way to doom not only your own happiness, but your spouses (if I’ve learned anything, it’s that spouses feel guilty for needs they don’t fulfill. And guilt is depressing and discouraging. The fewer needs you saddle your spouse with, the happier you’ll both be.)

I’m looking forward to The End of The Honeymoon. I think the next phase will be the most beautiful and joyous: real depth of commitment, real love, real partnership, real romance. As a whole, self-actualized woman, I will embrace this man that I love, who loves me, and together we’ll blaze our future. Not one of fantasy, but one of real, actual, here-and-now life. One that we will not only dream of, but actually live, for the rest of our lives.