a dream
I had a dream. One of my cousins was getting married in Utah, in a temple. I wasn’t planning on going to the wedding. Everyone was piling into the car to go to the airport to fly to Utah, including Mom, Grandma, Brother, and Sister, as well as Husband and Son. I got in the car just to hang out with everyone.
The driver started going. After a short drive, I said, “Wait, I’m not flying. I don’t even have my ID or a ticket or anything.” My mom said, “They won’t let you on without that stuff.” I said, “I know, I wasn’t planning on going.” They kept driving, with no plan on turning around to let me off. I said, “Just let me off and I’ll walk back.” At this point the dream was in Utah. It was somewhat far to get home, but I didn’t mind the walk. Mom started crying and said, “But everyone one of us will be there. I was expecting the whole family to be there,” meaning her, Dad, and all my siblings. I felt bad, but repeated that I didn’t have a ticket or my ID. “They won’t even let me past the security point without an ID.”
I thought, I couldn’t even go in the temple for the wedding. Then I thought, I guess I do have a recommend, I could use it, even though I’m not “worthy.” But then I thought, no, I can't do that. But I was disappointing Mom so badly by not going.
When I woke, I saw it in terms of the church. Mom is disappointed that I won’t be in the Celestial Kingdom with all the rest of them. I don’t have the right stuff, I’m not worthy, and I’m not bothering to get to the point again. I don’t want it. It’s not a big deal to me to be there—because I don’t believe it’s true, that’s all. Of course it’s a huge deal to me to be with my family, if there is such as thing as an afterlife. But I sure don’t think the Mormon version is the right one—temple recommends and secret handshakes and all that. To me, that process is a bunch of malarkey. To my parents, though, it’s everything. I’m giving them pain because they see me as rejecting life with them in the afterlife. Well, if there is an afterlife, and I don’t imagine there is, God is not so cruel as to deny me a chance to be with my family just because I won’t pay 10% of my income to the Mormons.
2 comments:
That's what led me to start doubting the church. (I was raised mormon, and left it when I left home at 18.) I got to thinking this;
If:
1) there is a god,
2) he loves us,
3) and there is an afterlife that only god can let us into,
then why would he wait thousands of years before telling us how to have a happy afterlife? The mormon explanation of "well we'll just do temple work for the dead" seemed grossly ineffeicient for a god who can do all the things most religions claim he can. So I came to the conclusion that if those 3 assumptions are true, then all religions are good enough in his eyes. And if less than all 3 of those assumptions are true, then religion doesn't matter anyway.
Welcome, CW, thanks for stopping by. I wasn't able to use logic on thinking about God until I was out of the Mormon clutches already. I wish I had, but that mental block was so strong. Bravo.
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