the letter I never sent
In response to a heartfelt and concerned, though condescending, letter from my parents after they found out I read scholarly books on Mormonism, I drafted this letter. And never sent it. Now I wished I had.
Thanks for your letter of concern and love. I am going through a period of great doubt, but I see that as ultimately a good thing. If I am not questioning, doubting, striving, I am stagnant. I think you can agree there. I want to "use my own brain" and “follow the Spirit,” finding and defining my own spiritual path along the way.
I am willing to have open dialogue about my ideas and maybe that dialogue will help me resolve some of the issues and pain I have with the church. Maybe it won’t. I am interested in knowing how you resolve your problems, doubts, and questions with the church and spirituality in general. An explanation of the process of understanding (and not just the resolution) would be helpful.
I want to give the church a true chance. I want to truly choose my religion and my spirituality. And I don’t feel like I can do that honestly if I take it as a given that the church is true. That would not be a true search if I already “know” what I’ll choose. It’s going to take some searching and some time.
Sometimes it’s heart wrenching and downright terrifying to think that the things I’ve been taught and always took for granted as true may not be. Sometimes the thought crosses my mind that I’m stupid or deceived. I also think of the phrase in my patriarchal blessing about “the cleverest of temptations and deceptions.” Believe me, these thoughts have occurred to me; I don’t need them pointed out to me.
But most of the time, when I truly look inside myself and at what I understand God to be, I feel free and happy. I feel free to really figure myself out and what I want and believe. It’s very liberating to think that I can choose according to the dictates of my own conscience. To find God as I know him, not as someone tells me to know him. To figure out life, and not have a manual where everything in life is already figured out for me.
I realize that I’m young and haven’t had much life experience, and I do look to others for experience and ideas and guidance, including you, and within the church, but outside it as well (thinking of the 13th article of faith). Yes, I have been reading books on Mormonism and Mormon topics. I want you to know that I have specifically looked for books that are scholarly and well documented, ones whose authors are truly searching for answers and resolutions. I have also specifically avoided ones that are less scholarly and seek to demean Joseph Smith and/or Mormonism.
This is all still very fresh and recent for me and my thoughts are always changing and it’s hard to collect them to explain myself well. I hardly need to write everything in this one email, but at least it’ll serve to get a dialogue going.
3 comments:
From reading so many deconversion stories (and experiencing my own), I find it fascinating how most seem to hinge on the realization that, as you said, truly accepting the church requires that we must first be willing to face the idea that it may not be all that it claims to be. I was led to this point of skepticism by Moroni's phrase "real intent" - the idea that I must really intend to act on whatever answer I got as an act of faith in God. My what strange, wonderful places that idea has brought me to!
welcome, jonathan blake. I find it fascinating that your realization came right from Moroni's phrasing.
For me, that moment of realization was the essential turning point. I believe that many people manage to stay in some stage of limbo about the church, because they never let themselves actually allow it to be a possibility that it is not true. No matter the evidence flying in their face. I managed it for a couple years.
I think you're right. I managed it for most of my life. It was very tiring to do all that willful ignoring.
Someone wise once told me that answers are death. Questions are life. I wasn't ready to hear then, but now I understand.
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