Tuesday, October 24, 2006

exit story 11: the last time

The final moment came when I finally visited another church. I had gone to the Mormon service, listened to one talk, but found myself migrating to the hallway to avoid the banal sacrament meeting. I found my husband out there too.

I thought, this is silly. He’s only coming, playing the NOM (faithful non-believing) role, just because I am coming, also as a NOM. A lot of NOMs remain NOM simply because their spouse is faithful. But both of us were non-believers. Why was I there?

I said, “We still have time to catch a UU meeting, it starts at 11:15.” So we went. It was really the first time I had ever been to another church’s worship services.

I was amazed. I actually agreed with things the pastor said. It was actually interesting. It was actually relevant. It was actually uplifting, enlightening, and real. I liked it.

How long had it been since I attended a church service I liked? Had I ever?

I thought, Why am I putting up with the Mormon church if there’s so much greater stuff out there?

And I’ve never been back.

4 comments:

Sister Mary Lisa said...

Your story is very interesting. I find for myself that I don't really want to subject myself to any other church (yet). I'm not sure if I ever will.

:) Great writing.

from the ashes said...

I went through a short phase where it didn't occur to me that I wouldn't go to another church. I never thought I'd become the non-attender that I am now. I think I'll post about that...

Christy said...

When I first started having doubts and entertained the idea that I'd stop going to the Mormon church, I assumed that I would find another religion to belong to. For some reason I thought that I had to belong to SOME religion. My husbands reaction was "suit yourself, but for now I need to stay away from all organized religion". heh. We have not been to another church service since.

I do think I'd like to go to a UU service sometime, just to see what it's like. Do you ever attend anymore?

from the ashes said...

I'm working on a post about this, so I won't comment much here. My husband had the same reaction. Once I realized it was me dragging him to more services he didn't want to go to, we stopped going. Plus I got really busy with work at that time.