When I started reaching out here and there to people to talk about my 'faith' issues. I noticed a trend. No one would be mad with me. There was this invisible wall, a pedestal, so to say, where "The Church" got put up and they could only try to help me via spin if it didn't make the church look bad.
I didn't really want answers ALL the time. I got to the point where I knew those weren't really possible. I just wanted someone else to be mad too. I needed to know that it wasn't all an ivory tower.
Be mad with me! This is infuriating. I could stay if maybe we weren't stepford wiving this pretending all is great, when it is not. There is value here but we have tarnished it.
When I would say... babies right now are dying from 100% curable diseases and malnutrition. Babies will be born to malnourished mothers, live only knowing hunger and die in childhood only ever having known pain. That will happen now in 2013! And Gods one true church in the 'fullness of times' built a billion dollar mall. That should piss off logical people. I think it would piss off Jesus, When I try to picture myself believing in a savior again he's tearing up shit at City Creek mall angry as hell.
But no one was mad. They talked about asset protection, portfolios, future endeavors of the church, investing, using the profit for more good... It was like I had gone crazy, or I was the last sane one in the room.
"I've been to City Creek. Its nice"
nuclear facepalm.
Thing is, I don't care what businesses do. I care what churches do. We gave tithing to do GOOD. To build houses of the Lord and what not and for humanitarian aid. Every relief fund I had nothing left for I didn't feel so bad. I was giving to an organization who knew how 'to do what is right and let the consequence follow."
When I found out about Joseph Smith having 33 wives. I was flaber.gasted! This can't be, surely people who have never been in the waters of baptism or sat through four years of early morning seminary can't know more about Joseph Smith than me...
Nope oh wait a second. They totally do.
But no one from a blindly faithful perspective could be mad with me. Even when I asked parents to their face "would you be ok with your fourteen year old marrying the prophet even if she didn't want to?"
Except for one exception I can think of - I got either blank stares, redirection or a reluctant yes.
Two roads diverged in a wood.... And I'm taking whichever one you are not taking.
I began to see 'faith' for what it really was: the ability to abandon reason and even good moral sense to preserve what you want to believe.
No one if they weren't conditioned to think otherwise could read a report (names removed) of what Joseph Smith did and be ok with it.
Would the body of the church have voted to build a mall?
Or how about the scriptures? Rape, incest, genocide, slavery. Most bad things in the bible were done by God.
Then there is my new frustration. Sandy Hook happened because we took "God out of school"
oh my stars above.
God is so vindictive that if he doesn't get praise all the time in all locations he totally stays his hand in the face of unadulterated violence? If I did what god did, I knew a man was walking toward a school with guns and ammo and intent to kill and did NOTHING. What would society think of me? I think those would be criminal charges am I right?
God's way is - "I know that child will be raped. I will wait until that is over then one day, one day I will punish that perpetrator."
That is how it goes. God can never ever ever ever lose with the faithful. Good things were because of god. Bad things were because:
God is not bad, people are.
He is protecting free will.
He can't show himself that would destroy faith.
It was a trial for you.
Unanswered prayers are blessings too.
His ways are not our ways
He works in mysterious ways
So we look for the tender mercies and table all the times we are ignored. We pray for cell destruction and re-growth for the ones we love with cancer. But we know better than to pray for the amputee to re-grow a limb. We know that doesn't happen. I mean, we aren't silly.
Things came to a head one day for me. You can mess with me god but don't mess with my kids. One of mine was feeling particularly vulnerable and rejected. I won't share much of the details beyond that but to aid this situation we needed a little intervention. I prayed.
I prayed hard, hard, hard.
We need to get out of this, their tender feelings are on the line lord. Anything. Let the power go out in the building. Anything we just need to go and save face simultaneously.
Nothing happened.
The disappointment was faced and we left when we were supposed to, both of us silently cried the way home.
I got past it that night when I realized. I was only talking to myself.
And it was totally liberating. Sad yes. But there was immense peace to realizing I wasn't being ignored. I was not unworthy. There were no more mental gymnastics to do trying to understand why it was a "miracle" that an acquaintance found her nordstroms gift card but god's will that babies are starving and being shot.
This life was mine. No one was judging me from the sky or Kolob. I had one life to live and I wasn't wasting it anymore begging for help that may not come.
"for with god all things are possible" except - well, world hunger and jamming the guns of school shooters.
No comments:
Post a Comment