one found me
As I busied myself with something in the lounge area at work, I noticed a co-workers whose name I didn't know stop a cell phone conversation and try to get my attention. I turned to him. I think, He looks Mormon.
"Hey, are you from the ashes?"
"Yeah," I asked, wondering how he learned my name and why. There are over 400 people where we work; why single me out?
"I noticed on the company bio pages that you went to Brigham Young."
"Yeah, I did." I glance at his clothes, half-expecting to see a BYU sweatshirt or baseball cap. I think to myself, Why did they have to include our bachelor degrees in the bios?
Trying to keep a nice smile, I ask, "Oh, did you go to BYU?"
"No," he answered, "I'm one of the ones that stayed..."
"That stayed local?"
He nodded.
"Where are you from?" He told me; it was not Utah.
"Oh, okay. And what's your name?" He told me his name and what division he's in.
I think, Should I say something? Should I not? Is it any of his business? No. But now he thinks I'm something I'm not. But I am. But I'm not. Why am I being so stupid? Why is it such a big deal? He's probably in the local singles ward, so he wouldn't know I don't attend. Or he's in the family ward, and thinks I'm in the singles ward. Why do I feel the need to tell him I don't attend?
I said aloud, "Well, nice to meet you. I'll let you get back to your phone call." I smiled and left.
How could such a simple thing be so nerve-wracking?
Honestly, the first thing I did when they put up the employees bios was check if anyone graduated from BYU or one of its associated schools, or listed a Utah town as hometown. He must have checked, too. I don't work directly with this guy, so maybe I'll never see him again. Maybe I will. Why do I care?
13 comments:
Good Morning and happy Monday. It's always awkward when meeting people involved with the chruch, because from you wrote it seems you are like me. Not wanting to be critical of the person and getting to know them, but when you do you break out with the "I am an apostate"?
Right now we are planning a weekend trip to see an old friend who lives about 2.5 hours from us, and I don't think he knows of my apostasy. My wife asked if I was going to tell him before we go visit, and I said no. I haven't really loss any friends due to my departure, so why would I. Of course when I go out for coffee that will raise some eyebrows but why bring it up before we go????
Ah, the permanent blot on your background that is BYU. I try not to cringe when I tell people. I actually enjoyed my time overall, but there's so much that it stands for that I no longer want anything to do with! To the last guy who asked me about being Mormon (he got there through my "two year volunteer experience"), I merely said, "It's a long story." Fortunately I've picked up 2 big-name grad schools in the interim, so it's not like BYU has to be my first response to a college question.
az- I've done the same as you; why tell them before hand? Why does it need an announcement?
ujlapana- Yes, BYU on the resume. Permanently. Luckily, I have another university since then, too, to put on my resume. Still, people are always curious, even if they don't ask directly.
Having left another church to become LDS, I can tell you that you probably have no need to tell anyone except friends you consider important enough that they deserve to know. If someone asks, you can explain, but if not, why bring it up? To me, it's not unlike people who feel a need to announce they are homosexual. Why would I care to know that about them? It's just not relevant information to most conversations where it comes up, and yet it seems to come up.
I do wonder one thing about a lot of the former Mormons I've been reading of late. Why is it, if you respect people's right to believe it, that you go onto LDS sites and attack it? I've read various postings by people who claim to be so respectful of it on their own sites, but the postings on the pro-LDS sites are basically inflamatory, or at the very least diminutive. Why tear it down if you don't have a problem with? If you do have problem with it, then either 1) don't read those sites or 2) don't claim not to. Just a thought I wanted to pass along. I wish you well in your efforts to find the best place for you in life.
anon- Interesting thoughts; I hadn't really though of it from you perspective of converting and wondering whether to tell people or not. I've spoken to people who are gay about "coming out of the closet" and how it works well for both their situation and mine.
About the former Mormons on pro-Mormon sites, I don't visit pro-Mormon sites generally. When I do, I don't comment, so I can't speak to your concern from personal experience. But I do have friends who do spend some time on pro-Mormon sites or ones that want to be neutral. That's a battle they choose to fight, and I think the more Mormonism is talked about openly, honestly, and--yes--respectfully, the better.
I also understand some anger sneaking in--and I see if from all sides. I think some of the disrespect is often a matter of interpretation, though. Talking openly about garments, for example, is not disrespectful in my mind, but I know people who would be horrified by the idea and would get defensive. On the flip side, dismissing "apostates" with a "they were offended or chose to sin" is disrespectful to our intelligence and sense of morality. It's hard to just let things like that slide.
same anon, reply to your reply:
For the record, my secretary was almost scared to ask me about garments, she said, "I know this sounds crazy, but someone told me y'all wear special underwear..." so I simply lifted my sleeve a bit and said, "You mean this?" She thought I was kidding with her, but I made sure she knew I was not and said, "We call them garments. They remind us of covenants we have made." I wasn't offended by her asking, and I do my best not to be offended by ANYONE who asks me a sincere question. When the question takes the tone of "So you actually believe some nut who claims he saw God and found gold plates?" then I tend to move on beyond what they're saying and just let them know that I do not intend to fight about my faith. I have come close to debating once or twice since joining the church, and each time I knew I had overstepped and was not doing as Christ taught. Now when I perceive someone is simply attacking me or my beliefs, then I let them know that I am happy to discuss what I believe, but I will not fight about it. I do not attack other people or their beliefs, and I do my best not to belittle anyone's efforts to find a faith that makes them happier. I have also never, for instance, found a need to tear down the church I left. I have pointed out to people who have asked me that I did have a problem with some things in it, and I have explained what those were, but I still love and respect that church and many of the people in it.
As for dismissing apostates, most of the ones I encounter have left mostly because they have grown tired of fighting the good fight and just want to be accepted. The way people treat the church and its members is quite different in the South, especially the rural South, and as such it can be fairly hard on members to stay active. For that reason, I can respect people who choose not to remain active, and I have even encouraged some who clearly hate the church to ask for their name to be removed. If someone hates the church, they shouldn't remain a part of it even in name, in my opinion.
In any event, I hope you do not think I meant to say that you had gone to some site I read and attacked it. I just have noticed that posters on your site have done so, and that there is a decent community of "post Mormons" or "disaffected Mormon underground" or "New Order Mormons" who feel a need to share their apostacy (in a generally hostile manner) with others on sites that mainly focus on positive elements of the LDS Church, and I just wonder why people do that if they are so happy with their place in life.
"Now when I perceive someone is simply attacking me or my beliefs, then I let them know that I am happy to discuss what I believe, but I will not fight about it. I do not attack other people or their beliefs, and I do my best not to belittle anyone's efforts to find a faith that makes them happier."
Sounds like a well-adjusted, reasonable way of handling things. I can imagine as an ex-Baptist (?) Mormon living in the South, you've encountered a lot of criticism. It is definitely hard to be a religious minority. I've recently been reading some studies on Mormons and mental health, and some of these show that Mormons, when the minority, have worse mental health outcomes. But when they are the majority, it's the "inactives" who have the worse outcomes.
For me, leaving the church wasn't about fitting in and being accepted in my current community--it was more about not believing. But I imagine it played a role in my choosing not to live in "New Order Mormon-hood." I think that if I lived in Utah during my process of disbelieving, things would have played out a bit differently--at the very least, my process would have taken much longer, simply because the social support--and pressure--to stay in.
Again, I really can't speak for people who "fight" on pro-Mormon sites, though many of them I know well and love.
I think, though, there is commonly a period of adjustment. I feel like I've been through a process of massive destruction, and before rebuilding, I have to clean away the debris. Some of that hurts a lot, and I've felt a mess of negative emotions. Sorting through the debris, seeing how Mormonism hurt me, and is still hurting others, is painful and scary. Many of us in the DAMU feel like we've truly come to a better place. Not just a better place for us, either. We see many of our loved ones hurt by the church, but they are, it seems, deceived into thinking they are happy when they church itself might actually be one source of their unhappiness. Why wouldn't we try to help them see?
Personally, I think this process, if engaged in at all, is best come to on one's own terms and in one's own time frame. Thus, I don't seek to actively "deconvert" anyone. Live and let live.
A lot of this boils down to opinion, and no one will ever win an argument based on opinion. (I don't think we're arguing, I'm speaking in general). This is why I have specifically avoided blogging about "proofs" that the church isn't "true" and instead focused on my experiential process. However, there is a lot of blatant misinformation on the internet, on pro-Mormon sites, that many DAMUites feel compelled to point out. I could easily be there with them, but, frankly, I'm just too busy blogging incessantly about my own experience. :)
And I'm so glad you are too busy blogging incessantly, fta!
Reply:
Not Baptist, Methodist, but the two might be considered close. The main difference, though, is that the Methodist church largely encourages members to learn and grow within themselves, which was something that really attracted me to the LDS Church. Yes, I know, to former Mormons that is a baffling concept, but when you look at what the church encourages its members to do, that is among the chief tenets. I cannot recall a conference that did not encourage members to seek out and attain education, to study and know the scriptures on their own, and to seek after the opportunities to grow as a person. So many former Mormons seem focused on how stifling the church is, but I really don't feel that experientially. I, for instance, have felt encouraged to examine evidences for my beliefs and have not felt discouraged by sharing them. Many members look at me with curiosity because they are happily satisfied the church is true without physical evidence (as am I because of experiences I have had) and some even worry that my studies are dangerous to me because I might be basing my faith on evidence rather than the Spirit. I am quick to point out that my faith stems from the Spirit's guidance, but my intellect is happier when I find such evidences. As a person who has spent a lot of time studying the Bible, I really enjoyed seeing how it connected, especially when I could connect it with something real I could see. Going to Israel really helped me connect to a lot of Christ's teachings, for instance, and gave me a greater appreciation for how much the Savior wanted even the simplest of individuals to be able to understand his teachings. He often used what we might call today an object lesson, speaking about something present as be talked, as a way of demonstrating a simple principle and the elaborating on it to help the more sophisticated, deeper thinking crowd gain from it as well. What I find as I study the Book of Mormon in a similar light is also very satisfying, and I do not see the great mistruths so often trumpeted on former Mormon sites. I see a lot of support for the Book of Mormon in archaeology, in the Bible, and in the study of ancient languages. One of the most interesting supports I have found for the Book of Mormon actually comes from a writer with no experience with the Book of Mormon whatsoever who came to basically all of the same conclusions the church teaches, but she did so based on her own study of ancient Jewish and Christian texts both in and out of the Bible. She teaches at a Methodist seminary in England. Now she has encountered members, but when she was first writing her ideas, she had no experience with what the Book of Mormon taught. The parallels are amazing and powerful. Margaret Barker is her name, if you're at all curious.
I digress. My experience has been largely positive with non-members, but I have definitely lost some friends over it and most of my friendships here changed dramatically simply because I was no longer around them at church as much. That said, I haven't worried much about what I left; I could see that I would probably have left anyway with some of what is going on in that church today. The people are generally good and mean well. I still have several ministers I call friends from that church. I tend to "live and let live" as you say, and I only discuss my faith when someone challenges me to define or defend it. Often I find they wish they had not asked, but more because I am not combative and instead have a strong faith in what I believe than because I've ever attacked any of them. My father loves to ask me pointed questions about my beliefs and then say ten minutes into the discussion "I wish you would quit bringing this stuff up." But I forgive him, he's getting a little senile and his patience isn't what it once was.
I wish you well as you go forward in life. I'm glad you don't feel a need to attack members for continuing to believe. I can understand not wanting to hold back disagreement when people pointedly ask you, though.
I know how you feel. I hate telling people I went to BYU. People are usually shocked and ask me if I know that it is a Mormon school (hmm what does that say about me?). I tell them that my parents are Mormon.
Same anon:
My wife likes to point out that a lot of non-members from Utah like to go to BYU because it ranks so high. You could also point out that Duke (did you know its first name was Trinity?) is private school with a religious background, as is Emory University (in Atlanta), but they don't get labelled that way because they are elite schools. BYU also has a good record of graduates getting hired because of the high reputation for its students being upstanding citizens (a desirable trait in corporate America, especially today). Just another way to explain it to folks if you don't want to discuss the Mormon thing.
anon said, "I cannot recall a conference that did not encourage members to seek out and attain education, to study and know the scriptures on their own, and to seek after the opportunities to grow as a person." I think there is a contradiction in the church regarding this. Terryl Givens refers to it as one of the paradoxes of the church. You've got the D&C verse saying seek out knowledge, that the glory of God is intelligence, etc.
And then you've got Packer saying in GC that intellectuals are one of the 3 big enemies of the church (along with feminists and homosexuals). And you've got Hinckley pushing the men in priesthood session to not let those women get more education than them! And you've got BYU pushing out, denying tenure, and firing intellectuals for publishing good scholarship that makes the church uncomfortable or look bad.
I've received many of the same warnings you have, anon, of not bothering about all that evidence. It needs to be about faith, etc. But why? I've had experience, too, where I felt the Spirit witnessing about the BoM and the church. I don't deny that I did. I certainly interpret it differently now, though.
Faith I understand. Grasping at something that cannot be understood entirely, taking a leap based on incomplete evidence--that's one thing. Acting as though God is there even though you're not sure--that's one thing. But to believe in Mormonism isn't like that. To believe in Mormonism is saying, "faith (and a little evidence) is enough" when there is substantial evidence _against_ it.
I know you can't prove a negative, but there are still probabilities. The likelihood of Mormonism being true is so minuscule that it's not worth going through my life being a member. Obviously, you see it differently, and that's fine. Mormonism won't make me happy; if it makes you happy, all the best.
Same anon:
I see substantial criticism of the Church and the Book of Mormon; labelling much if any of it as evidence is somewhat of a stretch for me. I understand what you're saying, though, and it is your right to believe what you do. I also see more than just a little evidence for it, but again, that is my interpretation and obviously disagrees with yours. Debating the finer points of both sides would probably accomplish nothing to bringing you back to the church, nor would it bring me out of it, so why spend the time in the endeavor?
I disagree, that the church is inconsistent. It consistently teaches that getting as much education as possible is good. It has several apostles who hold doctoral degrees in some field or another. Knowledge without wisdom (i.e., faith or an ear for the Spirit) can be a dangerous thing, though, because some fields of study endeavor to "prove" things with self-supporting tests that prove nothing but the ability to construct a test to verify what they already believe to be true. Whether God exists or does not, whether the Book of Mormon is true or not, and whether the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true or not - those are all either/or, objective questions of real truth vs. absolute fiction. Those three questions cannot be answered definitively by a scientific inquiry focused on proving them true or proving them false. The results of the tests would not achieve proof either way.
I can see where you're coming from, though, and I won't belabor the point.
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