telling, and not telling
I've told some college friends about my disaffection, and they've all been great about it. But I selectively chosen them to tell because I knew they were pretty liberal anyway. Two don't believe anymore either, and the others are quite sunstone-y about it, even NOMish. So they're cool. I have one friend--and a couple relatives--who I bet would completely disassociate themselves from me and my evil apostate she-devilness. Just to protect themselves, you know, nothing personal. But I haven't kept up good contact with them anyway.
I have one high school friend whom I particularly want to tell--and don't want to tell. She is just so sweet, and we've been friends since elementary school. I visited her this time last year, and I wanted so bad to tell her. But I didn't want to ruin the weekend, either. Through our conversations, she asked me if I have a calling. No. "Visiting teacher?" No. "Oh."
Later, she brought up Mormon polygamy. She asked my opinion, and I told her: I think Smith made it up for reasons of sex and power. I told her about Comptom's book. (He's a faithful member! I said). We were in public; I couldn't tell her I didn't believe right there. I almost said something as we were falling asleep that night in her apartment, but thinking about spending the whole next day with her kept me from saying it.
Going away from that weekend I felt so terrible that she talked to me about that stuff in good faith that I was a believer, that believing Smith did it for sex and power is compatible with me having a testimony. She'll feel betrayed when I tell her, and realizes that conversation was not what she thought it was.
But then I kick myself for not giving her credit. She is a great person, and she is a good friend. She would never drop me just because of that. Yes, it would be upsetting to her, but she loves me. Another exmo friend of mine commented that she doesn't worry too much about telling her friends, because she feels that it's good for them to see that people challenge their faith and change. Keeping them in naivety about it isn't a good thing, nor my obligation. My obligation should be to be myself, and to be respectful of them.
6 comments:
I can relate, From the Ashes. I reached out to all my boyhood friends. It turned out that all but one of them had left Mormonism.
One had drifted into inactivity, three left in opposition, one had personal issues, one is active.
I was concerned about approaching my faithful friend because I did not want to cause turmoil in his life. It turned out that I need not have worried. He was cool. His brothers had left Mormonism already, so he was used to it.
I think that you are right. We need to give our loved ones some credit.
Hellmut- I've got to get the guts up to tell my old high school friends. I imagine I'll find at least one kindred spirit.
If any of them have left, I'm sure they are reluctant to tell _me_, given how very TBM I was.
I just spent a few days with old friends who are still very TBM. They know about my disaffection, but we didn't really talk about it.
One of the main issues I have struggled with is that the church rhetoric states that there is no legitimate reason for a person to leave. If people become dissafected it's because they are misguided or decieved or offended. I don't like that my TBM friends and family, if they really believe what the church tells them, have to think bad things about me. I can hope that by leaving and continuing to live a good life those unhealthy assumptions will be challenged.
meg- you have a really good point. the rhetoric for people like us is negative. they just can't imagine why we would leave if it's not a problem with us. it doesn't make sense in their world views.
And even people who are more liberal and say they "understand" why we leave, they actually don't. Because then they would have left too. IMHO
I love how we call it "world views" when really, the mormon viewpoint is sometimes so very blind. Especially blind to the real world around them.
SML- good point. I like to think of it not as blind necessarily, but as "bounded rationality." Viewed from within the system, within their own rationality, what they do makes sense. For example, getting married in the temple, even though Dad or whoever can't be there. It makes sense in the bounded rationality of "I must to everything I can to get to the CK." But in another rationality (and yes, ours are bounded too, just differently) excluding your dad from your own wedding is ridiculous, insensitive, and mean.
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