Dear Mormon Me

My friends, I would love if you would share with me the places on peace and refuge and inspiration and enlightenment that you have found since moving forward from the LDS church (or any belief system). I realize that while the temple wasn’t it for a lot of us, for many of us it was. Its a hard thing to give up for many. It’s a harrowing and beautiful journey to reclaim spirituality and to find enlightenment in any circumstance!

So where have you found it? Is it the vast beauty nature? Is it community? Is it sitting and enjoying a favorite show after a long, overstimulating day? Is it found in creating? In art? In music? In meditation? In a new perspective? In epic quests steeped in nerdery? In seeing your favorite team or musician? In connecting deeply with another human? I’d be honored to know.

I feel compelled to speak up when I know I will be discussed at church. I speak up because I know I will be misrepresented. I know because for 30 years I sat in those meetings. And I know because I once said the things that LDS congregants will now say about me.

I deeply understand the sadness of family and friends as they mourn my exodus from the religion we once shared. I can empathize as it’s grief I once shared for my friends who left before me.

I realize now a lot of that pain is caused by the church and how they choose to address this increasingly common situation. The church is facing an epidemic of people leaving. These lessons don’t help. It makes it worse.

The lesson I discuss in this post suggests a song to be sung- “Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd.”

“2. Dear to the heart of the Shepherd,
Dear are the lambs of his fold;
Some from the pastures are straying,
Hungry and helpless and cold…”

“Out in the desert they wander,
Hungry and helpless and cold;
Off to the rescue he hastens,
Bringing them back to the fold.”

I never internalized the imagery this song provokes like i do now. The tune shifts from the sweet, major tune of the verse to a sad and ominous minor chorus as it talks about the hungry and helpless and cold wandering sheep. It’s so sad.

I’m that sheep.

But I’m not hungry, helpless, or cold. I’m not lost.

By daring to wander, I have found myself. I’m happy and joyful and elated with my self discovery outside of the church. I’m whole. I’m thriving.

This song would suggest otherwise.

Which is why these lessons now fall so flat. This rhetoric perpetuates an experience that doesn’t represent my own. Nor the experience of most people who have left the church who have shared with me. And now we brace ourselves for the wave of unsolicited texts, calls, drop-ins.

In the interests of facilitating understanding rather than perpetuating misinformation, I share these sentiments. Hopefully it helps. My frustration with seeing my and other’s stories so falsely represented at the church we once called home is why I created this account.

I’d prefer talk about it than be talked about.

Please consider this as I am discussed in your lessons.

I’ve spent the weekend collecting my thoughts. Something that has been a little difficult to do when my feeds and DMs were flooded with well-meaning members of the LDS church making sure I join them in celebrating this update. They thought it would make me happy. This is evidence to me that people may still be unknowingly ignorant of my thoughts on this issue. So I thought I’d explain.

I’m not sure members understand how hard this change has been for a lot of us mentally. I think they felt this would be a joyous occasion to see this finally happen, which is thoughtful. And I am happy for this new generation of church youth that will get a much more nuanced guidebook.

But I wanted to explain why despite the progressive updates to these church standards, this has been a time of hurt and mourning for me and many others. It’s brought up some deep feelings that have been hard for me.

Hopefully this can help people understand why progressive, positive changes in the church often come with very mixed feelings and emotions. I wish I could celebrate with you. I am happy for you. But I am not able to celebrate with you.