Main Street Plaza

If you haven't already, do head over to the Main Street Plaza, a nearly-started hub for all things post-Mormon. It strives to be a place comfortable for post-Mormons, alternative Mormons, and faithful Mormons who want to engage with the likes of us. They also have an amazing blogroll, including bloggernacle (mostly faithful Mormons) and outer blogness (mostly ex/former/post Mormons) blogs alike.

I have contributed one post so far, staking a claim.

I'm reproducing the post below, but to see the comments others posted, follow the link above.

Since moving away from the LDS church, I’ve explored how I feel about my new identity. Am I still Mormon? Do I want to identify as Mormon? Even if I deny that I am Mormon, am just lying to myself? Will I always be Mormon, somehow? It is, after all, not just my upbringing, but my heritage. I grew up in Utah county, daughter and granddaughter to many generations of Mormons.

People who are from other faith backgrounds still think of me as Mormon, just non-practicing. Some faithful Mormons still think of me as Mormon, just not active. Still others would say, “She’s most definitely not Mormon” because I believe and act so differently from the “ideal Mormon.”

There are many ways to describe me and people like me. Ex-Mormon, cultural Mormon, secular Mormon, non-believing Mormon, ethnic Mormon, former Mormon, post-Mormon. Notice I can’t get away from saying “Mormon”?

As much as I’d like to erase that part of me some days, I realize, too, that I am Mormon. Part of the spirit of this blog is, I think, to stake a claim in Mormon-dom for those of us on the fringes. We are Mormon, too.

As my spouse said cheekily, “Hey, there are 8 million of us. Only 4 million of them.” We count for something.

split identity

I have two blogs. One, my family and some old friends read. Some of them know about my exit from the Mormon church, some of them don't. That blog is not the place I want anyone to find out. So I keep it superficial. Little updates on my life here and there, some pictures, but mostly it's a show-the-kid-off fest. My family gets a little glimpse into our lives and feel like they're keeping up somewhat.

But I hide so much. That's not me they're reading. It's a watered-down version. I like to talk about a lot of different subjects, religion, politics, history, books, international affairs that I just don't mention there. It's not the place; it would just make them uncomfortable. And most of that stuff just wouldn't interest them.

I also don't want to mention certain things that they would interpret with the TBM/apostate distortion lens. You know the one, where everything I do and think is recast with "She's a bitter apostate" or "She's lost, confused, and can't remember where to find the truth." And everything that happens to me is interpreted as either from the devil (because I'm an apostate and hence don't enjoy the protection of the Spirit) or from God (with the purpose of humbling me back into the church).

So instead of saying, "Hey, I'm having a hard time getting my son to obey me," I just pretend everything's hunky-dory. Can't have them thinking I'm struggling, can I? Instead of telling them the truth and asking for advise, I just tell the good stuff. Like it's my job to prove that ex-Mormons can be happy, too.

I've fallen right into the keeping-up-appearances Mormons are so good at. It's just good that life is pretty good right now, or else my two-facedness would be killing me.

My other blog is, of course, this one. Here, I'm open as I want to be about religion. All that stuff I can't and never will say to my family, I can say here. I'm free in that realm, and it feels good.

But there's plenty I don't write here, too. For the sake of anonymity, I don't write about some of the most pressing, personal aspects of family relations. What if they read it and recognize themselves? I don't write about work or what interests me in my career, because I feel it's too identifying. My interests and hobbies relate so much to my career that I can't talk about those either.

And it kind of leaves me split. I've got my superficial self, and I've got my ex-Mormon self. But what about me? I feel like there's not place for me to just be me.

I think this is more than just about blogging. It's about this recovering ex-Mormon doppelgaenger, split between two worlds, trying to figure out who I was and who I am. It's about finding a place where I am comfortable enough to just be myself. A time when I'm not always putting on this or that mask to fit the circumstances.

"are you Mormon?"

I live outside Utah. Mormonism doesn’t come up in my regular daily interactions with people at work or I the neighborhood. But I’ve got a past that indicates my Mormonism with a great, blinking neon light. And if anyone politely asks me where I’m from, usually just to make light conversation, they are in for a little surprise.

Where are you from? Utah

Where’d you go to school? BYU

Several things can happen at that point.

-The questioner may get a knowing look in her eyes, perhaps a little nervous, perhaps a little amused or even disgusted, and looks away. End of conversation. Some are tactful enough to change the subject. Others can’t force anything out more than a trying-to-be-polite, “Oh,” and make every nonverbal indication that they’d not like to talk anymore. This makes me want to volunteer, “I’m not Mormon.”

-The questioner may say, “Oh, cool, do you know so-and-so?” Okay, that’s only happened once, and it really surprised me.

-The questioner may say, bravely, “Are you Mormon?” To which I answer, “I used to be,” or “I was raised Mormon.”

At this point, there are any of several reactions.

-Some are interested in pursuing the conversation because they have an overblown idea of what it means to be LDS and therefore what it takes to leave. They ask if my dad is a polygamist. They wonder if I still have contact with my family. In their imaginations my bondage and escape were physical and visible.

-Some aren’t interested in the conversation because they just don’t care. Maybe because they know very little about Mormonism, or maybe they care little about religion, being non-religious themselves.

Whatever their reaction, I’m embarrassed about my past. And I hate that I’m embarrassed.

I also hate that when I do get someone who wants to ask about it, the flood gates open and way too much information pours out. And they’re thinking, “I just wanted to make polite conversation…

But I'm getting better at controlling my reaction. I got asked four times in the past week about my past, and I just stated it matter-of-factly without only a tad of internal embarrassment.

(And, no, my dad is not a polygamist.)

cultural Mormons and identity

On another label, I disagree with CL Hanson’s definition of cultural Mormon. (See her post. ) She says that every type of Mormon, from active to Jack to convert to apostate to ex-Mormon, is cultural Mormon. I disagree, perhaps because of my definition of culture. I think of culture as shared and transmitted language, behaviors, beliefs, morals, and use of physical objects. (There’s a lot of different definitions of culture, but that’s the one that sits in my mind.)

I wouldn’t call myself a cultural Mormon, because I don’t act like a Mormon (I don’t go to church, the temple, have family home evening, or follow the word of wisdom), believe like a Mormon (I don’t believe in the Godhead, that Smith was a prophet, that the Book of Mormon holds the complete Gospel), I don’t hold the same morals (I don’t think the only true family is mom, dad, and lots of kids; obedience is the first law of heaven; or that fidelity to the church is more important than to family), nor do I have the same physical objects (I don’t have pictures of BoM characters, Jesus, or temples; framed copies of the Proclamation on the Family, scripture totes, family home evening lesson manuals; I don’t eat funeral potatoes).

I’d more readily identify as ethnic Mormon, because of my Utah heritage. But what about ex/former/post Mormons, etc who don’t have Utah heritage? “Secular Mormon” is one option, in the vein of secular Jews; they acknowledge the heritage, celebrate the holidays, but don’t believe or practice.

While I’m ex-Mormon, I’m also of Mormon heritage. Leaving the church doesn’t erase all Mormon-ness from me, after all. I’ve still got BYU on my resume, my son’s still got Utah on his birth certificate, and almost all my grandparents for generations were Mormon (though I’m sure there were some Jacks in there). It’s still my history. It shaped a large part of who I am today. And while I’m a bit embarrassed about that, I don’t want to be embarrassed about it. If “Mormon” were more like “Jewish,” where it could encompass everyone from atheists to Hasidim, I might like to just say I’m Mormon. But it doesn’t, so I don’t.

So I’m of Mormon heritage, but non-practicing, non-believing. But that’s too unwieldy. Identity is never simple, though, is it? No one can identify with only one word. Everyone has multiple identities.

I am woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt.

I am ex-Mormon, atheist, agnostic, secularist.

I am American, white, Caucasian.

I am student, employee, activist, writer, researcher.

I am black sheep, apostate, blasphemer.

I am explorer, thinker, blogger, journal-writer.

I am deconstructer, renovator, builder of my world views.

I am destroyed.

I am renewed.

I am emerging from the ashes.

more on ex-mo and post-mo

I’m not done talking about the label ex-Mormon. I’m uncomfortable with ex-Mormon, and I’m trying to figure out why. I already said that it defines me by who I’m not rather than who I am. That’s a problem. CL Hanson took issue with my quote comparing labeling oneself as ex-Mormon to labeling oneself ex-girlfriend, and I think she has a good point. Being an ex-Mormon is so much more than an ex-girlfriend. Does ex-wife work better? I don’t know. Only in the sense of it being a transitional identity: If I were an ex-wife, I wouldn’t want to be telling people for the rest of my life that I’m Mr. X’s ex-wife, would I? (Especially if there were bad feelings there.) But even if I didn’t tell people that, would I still think of myself as an ex-wife? Forever?

Or would I want to identify as something that defines me by me, and not in relation to someone else? But then we are never individuals in vacuums, are we? We are people always in relation to others and to things or ideas. But we usually define ourselves by who we are, not by who we once were. I don’t say, “I’m a BYU alum,” or “I’m an ex-resident of Utah,” or “I’m an ex-girl scout.” No, I say what I am now (which I won’t list for privacy sake).

But as far as my relationship to Mormonism goes, I’m an ex-Mormon. I imagine everyone uses it differently, even among those of us who self-identify as such. I’d just as easily say former Mormon. I don’t use post-Mormon, but I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe part of it is that some people who use it use it in opposition to ex-Mormon, and put post-Mormons in a better place than ex-Mormons. Like they are on a continuum, and a post-Mormon is a better-adjusted person. They’ve moved on with their lives. But have I not? Sure, I talk to death my experience with leaving, but only here and with a few fellow former Mormons. The rest of me and my life continues on well, and most people have no idea about my past.

I also feel like some people who claim a post-Mormon state do so a bit self-righteously or judgmentally. “I didn’t go through an angry phase, I didn’t rant and rave, I don’t think the church is a horrible institution. What’s these ex-mos problem?” I wonder if people who adjust easily do so because of their different circumstances, like no mission, no spouse still in, no hard-core TBM childhood, no significant hours put into the church, no strong commitment, no great emotional investment. I could be way off, I don’t know. Certainly there are people who self-identify as postmo who had invested a great deal in the church—but did any of them not go through an angry, emotional place? Is it fair to say that the more you invested the harder it was to recover? This could be any type of investment—money, time, service, emotions, callings, life changes. People who got baptized, came a few weeks, then quit—probably not much recovery time required. People who were born in, went on missions, converted others, etc.—harder recovery time. I think that’s safe to say. If that second person claims to have an easier recovery than the first, he’s deluding himself.

what does "ex-Mormon" mean, and what does that make me?

Following up from my post about the label "Mormon," I want to discuss the label "ex-Mormon."

Ex-Mormon

Someone who once was, but is not now, Mormon, usually by self-identification.

Someone who has been excommunicated from a Mormon church.

Someone who has resigned from a Mormon church.

I only fit into that first category. I haven't resigned. (Why? I'll save that for another post. But the short answer: Beats me.)

The major problem with the label ex-Mormon is that the person is defined by who she isn't, rather than by who she is. As someone of the old Foyer once said, (and I'm paraphrasing) "I don't think of myself as ex-Mormon any more than I think of myself as so-and-so's ex-girlfriend."

Some consider it a transitional label, somewhere between Mormon and post-Mormon. Post-Mormon being someone who was once Mormon, but is not now, and is okay with having once been Mormon. A well-adjusted, no-longer-angry ex-Mormon. (Or ex-Mormons who aren't angry because they didn't get screwed by the church, or they didn't have a difficult time leaving because they were less invested, or had "less" of a testimony in the first place, and can't really get why anyone would be angry. I'm thinking specifically of the guy who claims the invention of the term post-Mormon.)

I now label myself an ex-Mormon, because a significant portion of my time is spent thinking about leaving the church and the aftermath thereof. I'd like a better label, but for now, it fits. Not that I go around telling people, "I'm an ex-Mormon." No, I say, "I was raised Mormon" or "I used to be Mormon" or "My family is Mormon." The label ex-Mormon doesn't fit my normal day-to-day life. But it does fit this blog.

what does "Mormon" mean?

I posted previously saying "I'm not a Mormon," and generally on this blog, I refer to myself as "ex-Mormon." But I'd like to pick apart those labels a little. While I'd say that labels are never adequate to describe that complicated psyche inside each person, labels are useful, like shorthand, so I still use them.

Let's start with "Mormon."

It really depends on who you ask.

When I was a faithful, believing member of the LDS church, I considered the word Mormon to apply only to members of the LDS church, be they "active," or "inactive." I couldn't imagine that "inactives" were anything but believers who just had a few problems (with themselves) that were keeping them from coming to church. I didn't consider members of RLDS, FLDS, and any other iterations of Joseph Smith's church to be Mormon. I would venture to guess that many other LDS hold this same definition of Mormon.

As I adjusted my view of the church, I expanded the label Mormon to include any member of any church that places its origins with Joseph Smith. RLDS (now Community of Christ), FLDS, TLC, other polygamous churches, independent polygamists. All Mormon, though not LDS.

Some call Mormons, especially those with roots in Utah, an ethnic group. I didn't like that idea at first. You can't just invent an ethnic group, I thought. Ethnic groups just are. But the more I thought about it, and about the European history of (sometimes arbitrary) formation of ethnic groups in Africa, I realized that ethnic groups are by and large human made. So why not a Mormon one? What makes Mormons an ethnic group? The many generations of endogamy (marrying within the group), the distinct culture, the distinct religion, a geographic center, even a stereotype about what Mormons look like (see below).

If you ask an average American, Mormon means something particular. I never realized it until it was pointed out to me, but there is also a stereotype about what physical characteristics Mormons have. Light-haired, fair-skinned, northwestern European-looking. "Like Ken Jennings," someone told me. And while the expanding church includes people of all races and skin colors, the stereotype of Mormons as white, blond, and innocently sanguine persists. Of course, there are the stereotypes of polygamy, conservatism, innocence to the point of naivety, zealousness, wholesomeness, niceness. Like the creators of South Park said, "If we want to portray a really good, wholesome person, we make him a Mormon." (Quote from BYU NewsNet, but don't link the site from me.)

conversation with a preschooler

We have various neighbors who are devoutly Muslim, Jewish, and Catholic. There are also Hindus, atheists, and every variety of Christian. And, of course, most of our extended family is Mormon. So our son is not unaccustomed to hearing "Because they're Muslim" or "Because they think that's what God wants them to do" when he asks, "Why do they do that?" I also try to explain a little about the different religions when he asks, and I hope he will understand diversity.

For example, on Halloween, when he wanted to knock on our Muslim friends' door, I asked him not to. I knew they considered Halloween a pagan holiday, to be avoided at all cost. When he asked why, I said, "They don't celebrate Halloween because they are Muslim. But they have other great holidays that we don't have, like Ramadan, when they eat a big meal with all their friends every night for a month. And Eid ul Fitr, when they get to go to a carnival, and get new clothes." I didn't want him to think his friends are weird or deprived just because they don't dress up like vampires and dinosaurs and fairies and ask strangers for candy. ('Cause that's not weird at all.)

Yesterday was a rainy one, so we couldn’t go outside to play. He was bummed that he couldn’t be outside with friends. Out the window, he saw his friend walking up the street with his dad.

“Do you think Levi will stay outside and play?” he asked hopefully.
“No, it’s still pretty wet.”
“Do you think Ali and Hakim will come out?”
“Probably not,” I answered.
“Can Muslims not have rain boots?” he asked, trying to figure out what might be preventing his friends from coming out.
“Oh, no, Muslims can wear rain boots. And Levi’s not Muslim, he’s Jewish.”
“What do Jewish people do?”
“They go to synagogue—that’s like church—on Saturday, and they sing certain songs, and lots of them speak Hebrew” I stalled, trying to find a way to explain ritual, heritage, and ethnicity to a preschooler. “But not all Jews do that. David is Jewish, and his family doesn’t do any of that.”

Then he looked at me seriously and said, “I want to be something. I want to have something like that.”

He wanted an identity. He wanted to know what he can be.

I panicked. I’m not sure what I believe. I’m not sure what my identity is. While the closest things I can claim are Mormon and atheist, I don’t want to identify as the former, and I don’t feel the latter as an community or an identity per se.

I blurted out, “We have science,” thinking of the character in Nacho Libre that “believes in science.” I felt stupid. I couldn’t even figure out what to say to my child. While I have no trouble saying, “Muslims believe this, Christians believe that, some people do this,” I couldn’t figure out how to explain what I believe. Or better yet, how to encourage him to figure out what he believes.

Later at dinner, I recounted the conversation to my husband. He turned to our son and said, “You want to be something, huh?”
“Yeah,” our son said, “but I know what I want to be. I’m a pirate.”
“Great,” I joked, “that means you have the Flying Spaghetti Monster as your god.”
“The Flying Spaghetti Monster? What’s that?”
“The god of the pirates. I’ll show you a picture.” And we pulled out the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a book I got my husband for fun. Our son really liked the pictures and the connection to pirates, and quickly adopted the symbol of the fossilized fish as “my symbol,” lover, as he is, of fossils. He kept saying, “The Flying Spaghetti Monster is my god. ‘Cause I’m a pirate. David too, because he’s a pirate too.”

“This is the perfect thing for you to blurt out while we’re visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Utah,” I said, more to my husband than to my son. Better that than “My dad likes beer, but my mom likes wine.”

He was really getting into it, and I started to worry. Okay, so now my little joke was going a little too far.

“Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster real or just pretend?” I asked him.
“Oh, he’s real. He’s real. He’s just hiding.”
“Where?”
“Um, where no one, no one can ever find him. Deep, deep down in dirt.”
“What about Jesus? Is Jesus real or pretend?”
“Pretend,” he answered with confidence. (I never told him that, just for the record.)

Great, I thinking. My kid believes in Santa Claus and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but thinks God is just pretend. If he thought all were pretend, I'd be fine, but why choose Santa Claus and a god made of pasta as plausible entities? Wondering what to do, I realize I don’t really have to do anything right now. Because he’s a preschooler: Within 30 seconds, he was more preoccupied with saying “Ahoy thar, ye matey” and his collection of hot wheels than gods or identity.

But I think it will be healthy for him to be able to identify with some identity, though I don’t think it has to be a religious one. And to help him learn that identity, I should figure out what my identity is.