Transition

Nobody blogs anymore, and nobody reads blogs anymore, so I suppose here is as good a place as any to empty the contents of my bruised heart.

About six weeks ago, I discovered that my life-long religion was probably a fraud. If you're also a member of that religion, you'll probably stop reading here.

Please don't.

I don't care what you believe. I don't care that we don't believe the same way anymore. I still need you. And maybe you need me, too.

It was easy to let go of some beliefs. Some of them had been tenuous, at best, for quite a long time. But I have clung fervently to the adage "by their fruits ye shall know them," and the church I belonged to, at least at the congregational level, was a good thing! A community of people serving each other. It was--is--beautiful in so many ways. My loss of faith is a death, and I am grieving in a way I've never grieved before.

But I can't... can't... follow it anymore.

My whole world is falling apart. Please don't leave me now. I don't need chastisement or admonition. I don't need calls to repentance.

I don't want to sin. I don't want to go laugh in that great and spacious building.

I can't go back, but I'm too scared to move forward because I'm afraid you will leave me. Whoever you are that may read this. I still want to be your friend. I need you to hold my hand as I walk through the dark.

I wish I could post this somewhere someone would read it, but I'm paralyzed by fear.

Maybe someday when I know where I'm going.

On My Mind...

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

A good family friend who has been battling an aggressive bone cancer for four years now is in the hospital and likely dying. As I have sat at my computer contemplating this horrible reality for the last hour, this poem popped into my mind. I do not know if it is this faithful, gentle, wonderful man's time to gently embrace the dying of the light. Perhaps it is. But this I know, for the last four years he has raged, raged against the dying of the light. I've never seen anybody fight so hard and display so much faith against such terrible odds. He has turned his face completely to God at a time when most of us would turn away and curse Him. He has also embraced every possible scientific avenue, tested and experimental, and has probably added significantly to the body of research that will someday hopefully eradicate this horrible disease.

Rage.

Rage against the dying of the light.

I Wear Mine On the Outside

Eight months ago, I dropped a sleeping Coco off with T at his school and drove myself over to The Skin Factory on Sunset Road in Vegas. There, I met a man who had piercings I had no idea were even possible. I divulged that I was nervous, but his professional demeanor and careful, meticulous cleanliness immediately put me at ease. He took his time, making sure that everything was just right and even took a picture of the solitary gem in my ear at the end. He obviously took pride in his work.

Four days ago, T and Coco came with me, to a different place in a different city. This time I got a tiny hole in my nostril and filled it with a tiny stud. As we walked out, I giggled with adrenaline. "I did it!" I said to my husband. I'd finally done it and it felt a little like getting away with murder.

If you are a stranger on the internet who has randomly stumbled on this post, you probably wonder what the big deal is.

If you've known me for a really long time, maybe you are shocked. Maybe you think I'm stupid or silly. Or worse: "a sinner." Maybe you don't understand why anyone, least of all I, would think this was attractive. Maybe, if you are Mormon like me, you think what I did flies in the face of prophetic advice given by President Hinckley in conference a decade and a half ago. Maybe you remember that I had multiple piercings back then, and that peer pressure coupled with a teenage compulsion to "fit in at all costs" in a predominantly Mormon community finally got me to take out those extra earrings. Maybe you didn't know this, but I still resent that...

It's not about earrings. It was never about earrings.

It's about being asked to "fit in." It's about conforming to certain cultural standards that don't have anything to do with the content of my character. As I've gotten older, I've struggled with my Mormon community. I still desperately want to fit in--but on my OWN terms. I want to be embraced by my community with all my flaws and my doubts and my imperfections and deviations from "the norm" fully disclosed. I'm not brave enough to verbally communicate these concerns with just anyone. Because I come from such a solidly believing background and household--because I have pioneer ancestry on both sides--it is very difficult to tell people, "I don't know if I believe this, but I'm here because I think it might be true. And I need this community, regardless of my faith." For so long, I've lived with the fear that something I say or do will "out" me as a questioner, as a doubter, as my true, edgy self, and that it will drive people away.

I'm done with that now. Here I am. This is who I am. This is, on a fundamental level, who I have always been. Even as a missionary in Brazil, I never could wrap my head around "obedience for obedience sake." I have questions. I have doubts. (And for what it's worth, I've always kind of liked piercings!) I like to peek into the dark corners of this world--not to stay, but just to see what's there so that I know. So that I know for sure that I want to stand in the Light.

For most people, a nose ring is a simple piece of jewelry: an aesthetic choice. For me, it is that, but it is also a signal to people in my Mormon community: That I do not want to be taken for granted. It's a question, and maybe a little bit of a dare: Will you turn away from me because of this? Or will you still embrace me as a sister and a follower of the man who broke bread with sinners and publicans?

Some people wear their questions on the inside...

My Turn

Sunday afternoon, there came a soft knock at our door. I looked out the peephole and saw a stranger waiting patiently on our owl doormat with an orange paper plate of cookies. I opened the door, smiling expectantly. We didn't know each other. But she knew of me. She had my name and address on a piece of paper.

I apologized for taking so long to get to the door. We talked for a minute. She asked me if we had any family in Nevada. I shook my head. Neither did she. We commiserated. My smile was genuine. My cheerfulness real.

She didn't know that five minutes ago--two minutes ago, actually--I had been curled up on the bed, sobbing into my husband's shoulder. That it had taken me a minute or two to compose myself before opening the door.

She didn't know of the depression that I have felt with the onset of fall--the fall that hasn't come yet. The days shorten, yet there remains the monotonous luster and still-hot weather of summer. All I long for is crisp air, the smell of apples and rotting leaves. More than that, familiar voices and faces. How could she know any of this? She didn't.

Yet, there she was on my porch with an offering of cookies and friendship and the promise of another visit. It was a small thing, but after I closed the the door, I was overwhelmed--I was speechless--which is appropriate when one has been attended to so manifestly and palpably by their God.

And, let me be clear that these sorts of things never rarely happen to me. I guess it was my turn.

Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire

I don't know what I thought I would escape by leaving Utah. I think if I tried to explain it, I would just come off sounding like a jerk. And I also see the irony of this statement in reference to a previous post I wrote in defense of many things Utah. I still stand by that post.

But I will say, that in the move to Nevada--and, consequently, on my quest to redefine myself--maybe I thought to escape the culture of politely pretending to be perfect. I know no one, anywhere (with probably a very few exceptions) actually thinks they're perfect. It just seemed like everyone was trying really hard to be really good, and it made me uncomfortable sometimes, because I knew how really flawed I was. How really not into some things I was. How many doubts and questions and struggles I had with things that everyone around me took for granted--or at least seemed to. And I was mortally afraid of being judged for not trying hard enough to pretend that everything was all right. In some ways, it has been a relief to just...leave.

Now, that being said, let me share with you an observation of behavior here in Las Vegas: pervasive rudeness. Not everyone all the time. In fact, almost everywhere we go we meet genuinely cheerful people. But there also does seem to be a lot more out-and-out incivility. And feeling the dampening effect of this incivility on my spirits has caused me to reflect on the one thing I mentioned above that I thought was "wrong" with Utah. It made me realize that, though the hypocrisy of someone pretending that everything is all right bothers me, it doesn't bother me near as much as someone who doesn't even bother with the veneer of civility. It made me realize that it is not my problem if someone judges me for not being perfect.

That being polite, being nice (I know people hate that word) is totally, and wrongfully, underrated.

Why? Part one.

Why can’t members of the church learn to talk about sex in healthy, open ways? I really want to know. Why do we grow up listening to a million youth firesides about how necking and petting and masturbation (yes, I just wrote that) are wrong, and yet nobody ever explains to youth what on earth these things are? It’s not helpful, and quite honestly our NOT talking openly about what these things mean and why they are wrong only imbues them with a sense of fascination—or grossness. Why do I get the sense that so many members of the church go around pretending like they’re asexual beings, like they have no sex drive, and that part of keeping the law of chastity is to never even feel tempted? That’s ridiculous. Why, in all of our discourse about chastity, is there this hint that if you ever ARE tempted you must have done something wrong?

If this blog post has made you uncomfortable in any way, then I have made my point.

It’s just that I’m convinced that by wrapping up the subject of sex in this aura of mystery and taboo-ness we’re raising—and perhaps have already raised—a generation of youth who, unable to get their answers from healthy sources, are turning elsewhere to get their information. Is it any wonder that pornography addiction is so rampant? (And I don’t care what your religion is, porn is degrading to everything that is good and sacred about sex.)

I’m not sure there is a good answer to any of these questions. I believe very strongly in my faith. But I would lying if I said I was okay with a lot of the culture many Mormons build up around the simple, beautiful truths of the gospel.