A Message for Atheists this Christmas

One reason I started this blog is because I feel like I have a somewhat unique ability to bridge gaps. Maybe. I hope. In addition to helping me sort out my own beliefs, I really wanted this blog to be a platform for me to help people understand each other. I have a lot of devout Christian friends. I have a lot of non-religious or even atheist friends. I have been all of the above at different points in my life.

I want to use this post to scratch the surface of this topic, and explain how an intelligent, logical thinking person who firmly believes in science (I am! I swear!!) can also believe in God.

When I stopped going to church, it wasn't a conscious decision and it wasn't because of any one thing. It was very gradual. I didn't just decide one day that I didn't believe in God anymore and say screw it. It was a process, like most things in life. I remember my mom telling me once, with genuine fear in her voice, that she was worried that I wasn't a Christian anymore. And I was like, "Mom, chill out. Of course I'm still a Christian. I'll always be a Christian."

But that wasn't true. After long enough away from the gospel, listening to liberal podcasts and getting involved in online communities, as time went by, the more atheism made sense to me. Things like faith and prayer and obedience seemed really silly. I can't honestly say that I ever truly stopped believing in God, but I definitely reached a point where my doubt outweighed my faith. I wanted to believe in God, but it seemed very unlikely to me.

And then I had my "Come to Jesus" moment. A point in my life where things got so dark that I saw no reason to go on. I'll be honest, this is not something I was unfamiliar with. I'd reached that point many, many times in my life. But this time was different. This was last straw bad. My sisters told me to pray. And I had nothing to lose.

What happened next is something I will never be able to explain. I liken it to trying to explain the color green to someone who's been blind since birth. It doesn't matter what words I choose, I'll never truly be able to convey it. That's how it is to try to explain the Spirit of God. All I can ask is that you trust me - I am an intelligent person, a logical thinker, a believer in science, a skeptic who requires the burden of proof be met before I believe. That is who I am, and if you believe that about me, then please trust me when I say that my experience was undeniable. It cannot be explained away. I felt God's love.

If you know much about me, or if you read my last post, you'll know how important freedom is to me. I read an article recently about an atheist group in California who is starting a billboard campaign. Because freedom is my core belief, I certainly can't say I don't think they should be allowed to do the campaign. The first amendment is, in my opinion, the most important part of the constitution and I will always defend it. Everyone has the right to believe what they believe, and to express it. I will always believe that.

But man, reading about that campaign made me so sad.

I don't have the right words to explain how my life has changed since that prayer several months ago. It was the first in a series of many, many prayers and the start of a journey that has completely transformed me. One billboard I saw said something like "There probably isn't a God, so stop worrying and live your life." Oh, man! That broke my heart. The opposite is true. There is a God, and knowing that has made my life a trillion times better.

Religion has been described as "the opiate of the masses". But my senses are not dulled. I do not feel drunk, my pain has not been numbed. I am experiencing true happiness for the first time in my life. I am not high on religion. I am awake. I have not pulled religious wool over my eyes to protect me from the challenges of life. I have pulled the wool away from my eyes so I could climb the stumbling blocks, not trip over them.

Religion has been described as a "crutch." It is not a crutch. I have been healed.

It's frustrating to be limited by the language. I know I will never have the right words to explain it. Unless you've lived my life, you won't understand the difference. I had no hope. I thought my life was over. I thought I had achieved everything I was ever going to achieve in my life, at 30 years old, and now I just had to kill the next 50 years somehow. I was going to be alone, and bored, and stagnant and miserable. For 50 years. Minimum.

And now, I have hope. All of a sudden I can see all the opportunities I have. All the things I have yet to do, and all of the things that I can do, because I believe in myself. Finally. I feel excited about my life. Again, you won't know how major that is if you don't know how completely hopeless I used to feel. All I have are these inadequate words.

But anyway.

It is because of the atonement of Jesus Christ that I have any kind of future at all. And that's what I am celebrating this Christmas. The birth of Christ. His perfect example. His perfect sacrifice. His perfect love.

And my message to atheists this Christmas is this:

You don't believe in things you can't prove. But I've felt the proof.

You don't hear music with your eyes. You don't taste food with your ears. You don't see with your nose.

You see with your eyes, you hear with your ears, you smell with your nose, and you feel the spirit with your Spiritual sense. If you've never used it before, it might be a bit rusty but you have one. I promise.

I would never pressure anyone to believe the way I believe. A person's beliefs are their own and I respect that. But it's like I found this amazing, amazing gift that changed my life... it's hard not to get excited about that and want to share it with everyone. So I guess ultimately my message is...

God loves you.

Merry Christmas.

The Mormon F Word

Ooooooh, what's it gonna be? Nope, not that one. Not that one, either. No, today the topic is one of the most taboo words in LDS culture:

Feminism 

Is there a special font for disaster-movie-trailer-voice? You know, all James Earl Jones with a lot of tympani? Someone needs to come up with one. Is pink the right color for it?

So yep, we're gonna tackle this one. I find that I get frustrated very easily when trying to discuss feminist issues in the real world using my mouth and my vocal cords. I think there are two reasons:

1. I've always been better with written communication than verbal, I'm just one that needs extra time to put my thoughts together. (Case in point: I started writing this blog post over a month ago. Two other blog posts have been written and uploaded since I started this one.) So, especially when talking about issues that I feel strongly about, I struggle to express my thoughts verbally in a coherent way. I know what I'm trying to say, but unless you've spent a few years actually living inside my head to gain context, it comes out sounding... well, not quite right.

2. For whatever reason, any kind of feminist issue, and especially the word itself, is extremely threatening to Mormons. I don't really understand why, but it is. So attempting to have any kind of dialogue about it is difficult because it immediately puts your conversation partner on the defensive. Which in turns makes me feel defensive and it turns into this vicious circle where no one is actually hearing each other.

Screw verbal communication, guys. Seriously. (I suppose "oral communication" is probably more accurate, but it just doesn't sound right. You know why.)

Before we get too much further in this conversation, please take a moment to listen to my favorite feminist anthem: Not A Pretty Girl by Ani Difranco. We will be referring back to some of the lyrics throughout this post.

Anyhoo. Since, as noted above, just the word feminism tends to get people in a tizzy, I'd like to start by sharing my definition of the word. To be fair, there are a lot of different kinds of feminists, and like any other movement, there has been a lot of evolution in approach, intent, etc throughout the years. Perhaps what would have been defining characteristics of the feminist movement 20 years ago are not so much so today. Which means your idea of a feminist and my idea of a feminist might be completely different, with neither of us being wrong exactly, and that might be where some of the miscommunication comes from. So to be clear, this is what I mean when I speak of feminism:

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic and social rights for women. 

I really cannot comprehend anyone disagreeing with the above statement and believing that women should not have any of those things. And if you think we already do, well... yikes.

Uh.... yeah

Feminism is not an army of man-hating lesbians.

While an army of lesbians sounds pretty freaking awesome to me, lumping anyone involved in the feminist movement together under that label in order to easily dismiss them as somehow being outside the norm and therefore not worthy of your consideration is a total douche move. So if you're doing that, knock it off. And as far as man-hating; while I'm sure there do exist some feminists and/or lesbians who do hate men (probably women who have been continually exploited or abused by them), that is not remotely a defining characteristic of either group so again, if that's your impression, knock it off.

Or, in Ani's words, "I am not an angry girl, but it seems I've got everyone fooled. Every time I say something they find hard to hear, they chalk it up to my anger, and never to their own fear."

My approach to feminism is the same as my approach to every other issue placed before me. If you ever want to know what motivates my thinking or have found yourself just driving along minding your business and then thought to yourself "I wonder what Nichole's personal creed is?", well, wonder no more because I'm about to tell you.

I believe in the freedom of every person to choose how they want to live their life. The Wiccan creed is "An it harm none, do what ye will". I'm not Wiccan, but that pretty much sums it up. Or from a Mormon perspective, I believe in the plan presented by Heavenly Father, and not in the one presented by Satan. The one where we all have agency and not the one where we are all forced to do right. I believe that every person should be able to make their own mistakes, and make choices that I wouldn't make, and ensure their own salvation (or not) as they will. I believe that the laws of the land should reflect that, and not constrain anyone to behave by the tenets of  any religion.

I believe that everyone's relationship with God is their own. I believe that God didn't just create Men and Women, but individuals with unique personalities, gifts and talents that may or may not match up with those belonging to other members of their gender.

Since this blog is about how I reconcile my liberal beliefs with my Mormon ones (feminism being a liberal view, apparently), I only seek here to address women's issues in the context of the LDS church. I really can't address the whole kit and caboodle in one blog post. Just scratching the surface here has taken me several weeks. So for now I want to start with the church's teachings on gender roles.

No discussion of gender roles in the LDS church would be complete without referencing the infamous and omnipresent Proclamation on the Family. In fact, it pretty much provides the foundation for everything I will discuss, so I have linked it.

I love to serve my man!

The Proclamation says a lot of things, and it does so in rather vague terms so as not to come out and actually say anything, but we all know what it actually means. In addition to condemning abortion and gay marriage, the rest of the Proclamation deals with gender roles. I won't get into how troubling some of the implications of the Proclamation are regarding our *trans brothers and sisters in this post, we'll save that for another time.

The part that concerns me right now is this:

"By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children."

What this means is that the man should work and support the family, and the woman should stay home and raise the children.

This is something that is reiterated frequently in Mormon culture and in Mormon churches. Sure, they'll qualify it by saying "if she can", like that's supposed to make it better. (The proclamation says "Disability, death or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation.")
But the ideal for a woman is to be a stay at home mom. That is the ultimate goal for every woman, set out for us from birth and reinforced almost weekly, or even daily. "This is your destiny and this is what you should be working toward and keeping in your mind at all times. If circumstances don't allow it, then that's okay, I guess, but intentionally choosing anything else is wrong."

What is troublesome about this to me is that it flies in the face of my personal creed. The one where everyone gets to choose how they live their life. The one where a man and a woman could sit down together and decide what's best for their family. Maybe in most cases, they would come to the conclusion that their ideal is for the man to work while the woman stays home with the children. If so, then fantastic. But if they choose something different, they should be free to do so without stigma. Without being made to feel guilty or abnormal or somehow "less than" every time this other "ideal" is held aloft.

And what about the rest of us? Those of us who wish we could meet that ideal but can't. Unmarried people. Divorced people. Families who can't subsist on a single income. You know. The majority of us. We've all been set up to feel like failures. When you're taught your whole life to expect one thing and then grow up to discover that it doesn't happen for everyone, it is devastating.

Something I've learned after 31 years of life, something that I was not at all prepared for, is that life isn't a formula. It's not a "do this, and then this will happen" kind of thing. Everyone's path is individual. It is unique. This is truth, but it is not something that is taught by the LDS church, and I think that is a weakness. Mormon kids are taught black and white principles, and are caught completely unawares when they find themselves in a gray world.

And it's not just about whether or not women work. It's about who we are. Individual personalities, strengths, and talents are discarded and instead we are told what qualities we ought to possess based on our reproductive anatomy.

Just this past Sunday, a woman gave a talk in Sacrament meeting where she presented the following quote that disturbed me to my core:

"Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity"  ("The Joy of Womanhood," Ensign, Nov. 2000, 15).

What bothers me about this quote is that while all of those qualities are good, they are being reduced as uniquely feminine. The implicit message here is that it is okay for men to be tough. It is okay for men to be coarse, or rude. Women are to be tender, kind, virtuous, pure, nurturing.

Why is it so stressed that women must cultivate these qualities but not men? Shouldn't men be tender? Kind? Virtuous? Why can't men be nurturers?

I don't understand the need to constantly reinforce these ideas that women must be so soft. Is it so that men get to feel strong? As Ani said, "I ain't no a damsel in distress, and I don't need to be rescued. So put me down, punk. Wouldn't you prefer a maiden fair? Isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?" I resent the idea that I have to be anything in order to make men feel more comfortable.

I'm not saying that I think it's wrong to encourage women to cultivate these qualities. And I am not saying that I think women who have them, and exhibit them, are weak. Not at all. What frustrates me is the implication in a statement like that that it is against God's will for a woman to stand up for herself, to challenge the status quo, to voice her opinions, to blaze trails.

I can hear you now. Or maybe it's my mother I hear, saying "Nichole, that is not what that quote means at all! You're just hearing what you want to hear!"

Okay, maybe. But I'm just saying... we hear talks like the above a lot in church. I don't hear a lot of talks about women cultivating leadership qualities. We don't talk about women being independent. We don't talk (as much) about women being educated, being leaders, being outspoken. Having thoughts. We hear a lot about virtue.

I have a lot more to say about this subject but I think I'll save further discourse for future posts. This one is long enough. Please leave comments! Start a discussion. Link my post and help my blog get more traffic. I would love to have a mature and respectful conversation about this.

To anyone who has been bothered by anything I've said here, if it got your hackles up and you're frustrated with me because I just don't "get it", I close with my final Ani Difranco lyric:
"Imagine you're a girl just trying to finally come clean, knowing full well they'd prefer you were dirty and smiling."

Immersion Week

The last time I blogged, I announced that I wasn't going to go to church anymore. I felt that going to church meetings on Sunday was distracting me because I kept getting worked up over tangential issues and I was losing my focus on what was important. So my plan was to eliminate that distraction by taking a break from the “organized religion” part of it, and focus on my personal relationship with God through prayer and scripture study.

I thought it sounded pretty solid, but you guys didn't agree. (I want to thank those of you who didn't agree though, because you did so with love and no judgment and that is always welcome.)
My mother especially didn't like it. (No, my mother doesn't read this blog, she can't even check her email. I made the mistake of telling her on the phone.)  Her response was something like “I’m not telling you what to do. But don’t do that.” Normally I don’t really care what my mother thinks, I’m a grown up and I do what I want. But for some reason her opinion mattered this time and I started to second guess my decision.

So long story short, instead of giving up on church altogether, I decided to keep going but just to sacrament meeting. And now I'm back to the whole block. So... yeah. Just kidding, guys! Previous announcement redacted... ha ha. (Awkward.)

But the whole point of this blog is to document the journey, and that was part of it. You've all seen this diagram, right? Well, it's accurate. So I'm not going to be embarrassed about my squiggles, okay?

The crux of the issue is that if I had already been doing "part B" of my plan, and I was still distracted by my church meetings, then my theory might have held water. But I wasn't. Not consistently, by any means. Instead of giving up on church as a way to eliminate distraction, I should have put the focus on the other part of the plan. The part where I actually live the gospel instead of just listening to people talk about it. Which is what I'm trying to do now.

But why is that so hard? I guess if it was easy there wouldn't be much of a point. Ultimately I decided that the idea of diligently praying and studying the scriptures every day for the rest of my life was just too intimidating and maybe that's what was causing my mental block. So I thought, maybe I'll just make a goal of doing it for one week. I can do anything for one week.

This quickly led to "well, if I'm only doing it for one week, maybe I'll also blah blah blah" and this is how "Immersion Week" was born.

The idea of immersion week is to, for one week (surprise!), eliminate all distractions and focus on the spiritual. I figure this could look like a lot of different things for different people. I also figure there are varying degrees of success, but whatever. I can already claim to have screwed up and changed some of my own rules and it's only Tuesday. But here is what "Immersion Week" looked like for me:

The Don'ts (aka eliminating distraction)
1. No TV
2. No Facebook (I'm 0 for 2 already!)
3. No non-church books

The Do's
1. Pray every morning and night
2. Listen to church music in the car on the way to work
3. Read one Ensign article every day
4. Watch at least one conference talk every day
5. 20 minutes of scriptures
6. One chapter of a church book (I'm currently reading The Infinite Atonement, it's fantastic)
7. Journal 10 things I'm grateful for each day
8. 20 minutes of meditation

I started Immersion Week on Sunday with a fast, and I figured while I was at it, I'd take another pretty big leap and I actually went to my own ward for the first time.
This might not seem like a big deal, but you guys, it was HUGE. Have you ever gone to a brand new ward where you didn't know a single person, completely by yourself with no moral support? I was terrified. But I did it. I walked in that building with my heart pounding in my chest, and I found a seat and I sat through sacrament. And when sacrament was over, I girded up my courage again and I asked someone where Sunday School was. Anyone who knows me and how shy I am will know what a big deal that was for me. I was tempted to say "I've done enough for today" and go home, but I didn't.

It felt pretty amazing. I mean, afterward I felt like I had accomplished something like running a marathon or climbing a mountain or something. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I did feel like I had overcome a fear and conquered something.
But in addition to that, I also really felt the Spirit confirming to me that I was doing the right thing and that I was in the right place. I may not know why... my ward is really old, y'all. The Relief Society must be super busy with all the funeral potatoes. Just saying. But that's okay. All those old ladies were really sweet and welcoming to me, and I know that my Father in Heaven has a plan for me and being in that ward is part of it for whatever reason. There were some less-old women there too, and based on some of the comments made in Relief Society, maybe I do have some idea why the Lord put me there. I'm interested in getting to know some of those ladies better.

So I count Sunday, day 1 of Immersion Week, as a resounding success. If the goal has been to feel the Spirit this week, then I can put a big check mark next to both Sunday and Monday. I have felt that outpouring of love that I first felt six months ago when I began this journey, and I'm remembering why I chose to do this. Why realigning myself with the LDS church is worth it, even when I don't fully understand (or even completely disagree with) some policies or doctrines. Even when being so open and honest about it is scary because I wonder what my non-LDS friends are going to think of me. Following the Savior is always worth it.

As alluded to above, that still doesn't mean that all those issues that caused me to leave the church originally just magically disappeared, and I do still intend to eventually address some of those on this blog. Hopefully I'll have a post ready this week. But what it does mean is that I have faith that Heavenly Father has it all figured out, and even when I don't understand the plan, I'm not worried because He does and one day I will understand. I'll see it all laid out before me and will rejoice in His perfect wisdom.

Um... an announcement?

I do have a good post in the works, if I can ever summon up the energy to finish it. One of the problems with this blog is that the whole point of it is to discuss topics that get me worked up. But then I get all worked up while I'm writing them, and I get frustrated and pissy and I don't like feeling that way, so they get hard to finish...

But anyhoo. I do plan to post some more interesting stuff soonish, but in the meantime, I wanted to make an announcement.

While I will not be changing the name of the blog, it is currently not all that accurate because I have made the decision to stop going to church. Whether or not that will be permanent I don't know yet. I'm not making any plans one way or the other. But I found that going to church was actually distracting from my true goal, which was to work on my spiritual side and develop a strong, personal relationship with God. Church was supposed to help me on that path but it did the opposite.

So I'm taking a break to focus on that, and if that journey leads me back to the church, then great. If not, I guess we'll see where it does take me.

This doesn't mean that I'm abandoning Mormonism altogether. In fact, I might start attending a weekly Book of Mormon class with my sister. There is so much good that Mormonism has to offer that can't be found in other religions; things pertaining to the atonement of Christ, the Fall of Adam and our very purpose on this earth, that I fully believe in and can't just throw away. So I plan to continue reading the scriptures, including the Book of Mormon (but probably not the D&C), and other church related books.

But over the years I have really struggled with the LDS culture and the seeming demand for complete conformity that I just can't fall in line with. I've tried. I just don't bend that way and I don't believe my Father in Heaven wants me to break. He doesn't want me to twist myself in knots trying to fit a cultural ideal. He wants me to let Him shape me into the person I'm intended to be.

So that's where I am.

I had a conversation with my sister on Sunday after I went to church with her that was pretty simple, and yet had a really big impact on me. I told her I'd decided not to go to church anymore, and she said two things in that conversation that were really, really obvious and were probably floating around in my own head somewhere, but for some reason I couldn't see them so when she said them out loud it was like a light going on.

One was that she could see I wasn't happy. My first instinct was to respond, "That's not true, I'm fine." But, oh, light bulb, she was right. Compared to what things were like when I lost my job and was unemployed for two months, things are better so I've sort of been in denial about it, but I really haven't been happy. I've actually been incredibly frustrated because I've been looking at my life and realizing that as an adult, I haven't finished anything I've started, from college to novels to craft projects. I haven't finished a single thing. And add that to the fact that I have this really easy job that demands basically nothing of me, and yet I'm still not doing anything with my time... I've been angry with myself because I thought that now that I wasn't in a job that sucked out every single bit of my physical, emotional and mental energy that I would be able to focus on achieving some of my other goals, but instead I just sit around and watch TV. Surprise. I'm not happy.

And that leads me to the second thing she said, which was that I needed to do something every day that makes me feel good about myself, that feeds my soul.

Again, it seems really obvious, but man. That was exactly what I was missing. No wonder I haven't been able to accomplish anything. Our spirits, souls, whatever, are like our bodies. They require fuel to keep going, and I have not been feeding mine. At all. I have nothing to give to anyone or anything because I'm spiritually starved.

So I haven't fully figured out what that something is that I need to do to feed my soul, but I think it's going to have a lot to do with prayer. And honestly, when I think about what makes me happy, what makes me feel good about myself, I think about singing. I feel good when I sing. It feeds me. So I guess I need to find a way to incorporate that into my life more.

The other thing I'm trying to do is change some of my negative thought patterns. Just like when we drive the same route to work every day and then you find yourself going to work when you meant to go somewhere else entirely, our brains have certain routes it likes to follow and if you're not paying attention, you'll find yourself following that route to the same destination every time. For me that destination looks a lot like "no one will ever love you" and "you don't deserve to have ___ because you're not a real person." Isn't that weird? I don't necessarily think it in exactly those words, but a lot of my thought patterns go back to me not feeling feeling like a full legitimate person. Like I'm just a background person. I'm an extra in the movie of someone else's life, and I don't deserve to have the things that real people have, like romantic partners or fulfilling jobs or social lives or whatever. By being aware of these thought patterns, I actually caught myself today denying myself basic health care because I felt like I didn't deserve it. Or maybe it was more like I don't feel like a real person and so I assume the doctor won't see me that way either, so he/she won't actually be able to help me in any meaningful way. I just assume the doctor doesn't give a crap about me so why spend all that money (i don't have insurance right now) and time (last time I went to the doctor, I sat in the waiting room for almost two hours before the doctor finally deigned to see me) on something so pointless?

Those are the thought patterns I'm trying to change, so that ends up with me repeating affirmations to myself like, "You're awesome! You're easy to love! You deserve to be happy!"
Which makes me feel like a world class dork, but I'm told it works and I really have nothing to lose.

Except my pride. Why am I putting this out on the internet again? I guess I'm hoping that by baring my soul and embarrassing myself to death, that maybe someone else will gain something. Maybe someone else who feels the way I feel will stumble across this and know they're not alone. Maybe it will be encouraging to someone. That's my hope.

So anyway. In a nutshell: Trying to fix my broken-ness and become a happy person who does things. And I'm not going to church anymore.

Hopefully I'll be able to share my post on the dreaded F word soon, so you all can bask in its wonderfulness. I'm going to try to keep my rage to a minimum so I might actually be able to finish it. But it's hard.

Til next time...

Music Friday - 8/23/2013

No stories or anecdotes or meanderings or blahbedyblahs. Just listen to these songs, they're fantasmic.
(Sorry, couldn't find them on Soundcloud.)

Well, Howdy!

Hello again! It seems like only yesterday that we parted ways. How time flies, right?

Okay, so yeah, I started a blog amongst a great deal of pomp and fanfare, and then quickly fizzled after two posts. Which makes this Post the Third, wherein your humble author attempts to explain her prolonged absence whilst begging your most gracious pardon and thanking you for your kind patience. Also it seemed weird to do another music post without writing a real one in between, so there’s that.

Alas, the long break can be explained by two things, which will I shall now endeavor to describe:

The First Thing

I take this opportunity to break my silence and share with you a terrible secret I have been keeping for far too long. Everyone, I suffer from a very serious condition. It is called “Extended Obsessive ADD”, and I just made it up. Here’s how it works:

• I discover something new (or re-discover something old)
• I get really, really into this something and spend almost all of my time feeding the obsession. (Some of you may recall “The Charmed Years”. Shudder.)This may involve compulsive googling, Pinterest-ing, Youtube-ing, or perhaps actually doing that activity. It depends, of course, on what the “something” is
• The obsession takes over my life to the point where I can’t really think about anything else. Depending on the nature of the “something” and how deeply obsessed I get, it can be fun, or it can become a burden and send me into a funk
• The obsession lasts a week or two, sometimes more (obviously the Charmed one went on for quite some time) but I will eventually get distracted by something new and shiny and move on. This is good when the obsession gets destructive, but bad when the “obsession” was a positive goal that I was making progress towards. I pretty much never finish anything I start and it’s frustrating.

For example, my current obsession is make up and nail polish. My roommate thinks I’m a little crazy because I paint my nails almost every day. I spend money I don’t have at least once a week on new makeup products. (I did finally find the perfect mascara, guys, so it hasn’t been a total waste.) This particular obsession is fairly harmless, although I need to stop buying new products because I’m broke.

Before this obsession, it was One Direction. Yes, you read that right. Yes, it means what you think it means. Two months ago I knew that One Direction existed and  that they were British, and I had heard one song that my niece played for me one time and that was the end of it. I now know way, way, WAY more than I ever wanted to so if you have something you want to know, just ask me.

If you want to know how all of this came about, I have a very detailed story with lots of YouTube and  tumblr links if you’re interested. But short version: I discovered a phenomenon called “Larry Stylinson”, which is basically a subgroup of One Direction fans who are absolutely convinced that One Direction members Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles are in a romantic relationship with each other and are forced to hide it by their evil management team. They have a LOT of “proof”, and I really wanted to believe in it. In fact, I did for a while, and there are still a few “Larry” moments that give me pause, but after a while I decided most of it was just wishful thinking and I cast it aside because Harry Styles can’t be gay, he’s my future husband. He’s of legal age (now), so just shut it. Look at him. Seriously, just look at him:

After I go at those eyebrows with a pair of tweezers, he'll be pretty much perfect.

But anyhoo. Prior to that embarrassing little diversion, of course, my obsession was this very blog – I stayed up to the wee hours of the morning in some kind of mania-induced frenzy getting it set up and writing those first two posts. But it fizzled out pretty fast, even for me. And the reason for that leads me to…

The Second Thing

(Also known as The Anti-Mormon Rabbit Hole)

I was working on my next blog post, which was to be all about how people (mostly in the various comments sections abounding on the internet, where whatever the opposite of the "salt of the earth" is gathers to, like, torture rabbits and perform blood sacrifices or whatever) think it's great fun to make fun of Christians, and how it's somehow okay to do that even though if you did that to pretty much any other social group, you would be hunted down with pitchforks. 

So I was writing that post and I decided I needed to watch Bill Maher’s documentary Religulous so I’d have some extra ammunition. And that, of course, led me to look for rebuttals, and that took me to the Holy of Holies of Internet Sinkholes. YouTube.

I can hear you guys yelling at your computer screens right now, like it's some kind of horror movie. “Girl, don’t go up the stairs!”

But I did. And that’s where I discovered this guy: 

http://lifeafter.org/exit-story-of-lee-baker/

Lee Baker is a former Mormon who left the Church after learning some stuff about early Church history and doctrine that didn’t sit well with him. I watched a video of him on YouTube, talking to a group of those people who protest at the Manti pageant. You know those people. It’s a very long video and I was drawn to it like a train crash. After watching that video, I went to Amazon.com and bought his book. I read it over the course of the next couple of days.

First of all, his book is terrible. I almost want to edit it for him, just to help him out, it is so poorly written and organized. I mean, it’s really, really bad you guys.

But as far as the actual content, I guess I wasn’t as blown away by it as I’m sure he intended me to be. He’s right, everything in his book is true. (Side note: he claims that because it’s true, it’s not anti-Mormon. I say that because the intent of his book is to draw members away from the church, that yes, it is.) And most of it is stuff that you won’t run across in any modern church manual. These are things that are being pushed aside and covered up because they’re uncomfortable and hard to explain.

But, contrary to Mr. Baker’s belief, none of it was actually new to me. Maybe to some or a lot of members, it would be shocking and they really wouldn’t have ever heard any of it, but I had come across all of those things before. Granted I had buried them deep in the recesses of my mind because they weren’t convenient to contemplate. But because I had encountered it, it didn’t shake me to quite the same level that it clearly shook him. I didn’t immediately cast away my fledgling faith, but it sure made my head spin. I think you’ll understand why I couldn’t finish my “Yay Mormons!” blog post after that.

So over the last couple of months, in between watching (and re-watching) One Direction videos on YouTube and compulsively painting my nails, I’ve been trying to piece together my thoughts and feelings. I can’t deny the experiences I’ve had and the things I’ve felt. I know God is real and that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. I believe whole heartedly in the power of prayer.

But after that, things get murky. I’ve still been going to church for the most part, and there’s a lot of good to be found, but there’s also a lot that just rubs me wrong. And I guess it all boils down to this: if the LDS church is the one true church, then I shouldn’t be sifting through all of it, cherry picking what works for me and ignoring the rest. I should either accept all of it, or leave.

But on the other hand – I’m realizing on a level that I never have before that the church is a lot like us as individuals – it is not perfect, and it is constantly growing and changing and getting better. This means that maybe it’s okay for me to not accept all of it. Maybe the parts of it that chafe at me are the parts that need to change, and maybe my divine role is to help open up a dialogue and get some wheels turning, at least in a few minds.

But where’s the line?

So yeah. I struggle.

I have a list of five specific issues (some with a list of further sub-issues) that concern me, and I will address these in more detail in further blog posts. They are:

• The treatment and role of women in the church  
• The treatment of and official policies regarding LGBT members and the LGBT community at large
• The homogenization of the membership and general disdain for non-conformity
• Faith vs. Blind Obedience – where is the line?
• Joseph Smith vs The Book of Mormon, or the inauspicious beginnings of the church vs the exclusive truths that can be found in it

I hope you're all on the edge of your seats for those exciting installments!

Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope I gave you a lot to think about. In the meantime, look forward to another music post soon.

Music Friday - 6/28/2013

I meant to post this yesterday, so just... pretend I did, kay?

Happy Friday, everyone!

Since this is my blog and I can do what I want, I've decided to borrow a feature from another blog I visit occasionally. Every Friday(ish), I plan to post a couple songs that are getting heavy rotation. Feel free to listen, comment, make suggestions, whatever.

This week, I present to you the following:

So I download a lot of indie rock sample playlists and that's how I discover some of the music that I like. Last year, on one of those playlists, I discovered a song called "Wichita Lineman" by a band called The Feeling and fell in love with it. I was like, "Wow, this song sounds so 70's!"

Well, I later found out that's because it is from the 70's (er, 60's). Embarrassing! The track I had downloaded was actually a cover of a Glen Campbell song from 1968. Turns out even I don't know everything.

But then this year, I discovered this song! This one also sounds very 70's, but this time I'm pretty sure it's new. If I'm wrong I'll eat my hat.

Someone on Youtube (do as I say, not as I do, and never read comments on Youtube) said this about it, which is dead on: "this song feels like the eagles, fleetwood mac and steely dan all in one!!"



I don't have a fun, funny or interesting story for this one, it's just awesome. Straight up pop and catchy as hell. Enjoy bouncing about to this one! Enjoy your weekend, y'all.