When One's Life Doesn't Fit the Married Mormon Ideal

On Being a Single Mother in the Church - Tracy M (By Common Consent)

The post is deeply thought-provoking (especially coming from a solidly believing member), and the comment thread is enlightening, as well. 

There are no easy answers, but constant awareness and an active vocabulary change are great places to start.

The Greatest Threat to My Family: ME

The greatest threat to my family - Norbert (By Common Consent)

Getting to the Temple is NOT the Goal of Mormonism

I had a conversation with a Catholic friend at one point that I want to share with everyone today.

My friend, after a long discussion about the temple, said the following:

"For Mormons, the goal is to get to the temple."

He then said:

"It seems to me the real goal, for all of us as Christians, is to get back to God."

My response was: 

The goal for Mormons is NOT to get to the temple. Period. Full stop. The goal of the temple is to focus us more intently on getting back to God. Thus, the temple is NOT an end destination; rather, it's a step along the process - a symbolic representation of our ultimate goal. Not one Mormon I know would bat an eye if I stated that from the pulpit in Sacrament Meeting.

Just as there is a real power in performing a physical ordinance like baptism that is experienced by the submersion of BOTH body and spirit (the whole soul) under water (which is symbolic of the life we desire to live after baptism - being fully immersed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, body and spirit - in order to help us return to God), there is real power in what occurs in the temple for the exact same reason. No ordinance is an ultimate goal in and of itself; every ordinance simply is the manifestation of our desire to achieve our ultimate goal - which is exactly what you say it is, getting back to God in the state he intended when he created us. 

We just differ as to what that state is. 

My Sunday School Lesson Recap: "What do the sciptures teach us about the Aronement?"

This month, the lesson topic is "The Atonement of Jesus Christ". The topic I chose for this week (and next, assuming it would take at least two weeks) is:

"What do the scriptures teach us about the Atonement of Jesus Christ?"

I wrote four questions on the board: "What?"  "Why?"  "How?"  "Why God?"

I told the students that we might not get to all four questions, especially the last one, and that we probably would have to take at least two weeks to cover everything I wanted to cover.

I started not by opening the scriptures first, but rather by asking the students how they would define the atonement if someone at school asked them what it means. They mentioned the Garden of Gethsemane and Golgotha, and they mentioned "returning to God". We probed a bit further and went into the Bible Dictionary for what it says. We focused on the meaning of bringing two things together as one and talked about what that means - and how oneness in Mormon theology is different than just being with God - that it's being like God enough to be gods in our own right.

I had them open the Topical Guide and look under "Atonement" to see how many scriptures are listed there. They saw that there are no verses or passages listed; instead, there are other topics listed, including "Jesus Christ - Atonement through". We turned to that topic, and they saw that there are about 1 1/2 columns of verses listed there. I asked each of them (10 students total) to take 5 seconds and choose one of those verses to read and discuss. I told them to close their eyes and put their fingers on one if they wanted, since I didn't care at all which ones we read. I waited about 10 seconds and then asked them, one-by-one, which verses they picked. They stayed in the Topical Guide, while I found and read each scripture. (I did that to save time and to allow them to pick a different scripture if someone before them picked the same one they had chosen.) I read the ten scriptures and we talked very briefly about each one. I told them we would talk more next week about the ones that dealt with pain, suffering, affliction, temptation, sickness, infirmities, etc. being covered by the Atonement.

I then asked why an atonement is necessary. They mentioned that we can't get to heaven on our own and a couple of other good but standard answers. I asked them to think even more fundamentally and simply, using the definition we had read as the basis for their answer. One girl said, "Because of the Fall of Adam and Eve" - so I asked what she meant. She said that we are separated from God and need to get back to Him and be like him, which we aren't right now. I agreed and said that being made "at one" can't occur unless we aren't at-one.

I then asked them how we can become at one with God - not how Jesus suffered, but what our responsibility is in the process of atonement. That stumped them at first, but someone mentioned obeying the commandments. I changed that to "doing what we think will make us like God", since not everyone agrees about what the commandments are, and they all agreed with that. Someone then said we need to repent, and we talked about the meaning of repent being, at the core, nothing more than "change". I pointed out that if we are different than God and want to be like God, the ONLY thing that is necessary is to change that difference - and, again, that means our part of the deal simply is to try our best to change in ways that we believe will make us more like God. I told them that I don't really care much about exactly how someone understands the Atonement intellectually; what I care about is how someone strives to be Christ-like in how they act and how they treat other people.

We ended by reading John 17 - the Intercessory Prayer - the entire chapter. I reminded them that this was Jesus' farewell prayer right before the Garden and the Cross. I asked them to keep that in mind as we read the prayer. I highlighted, especially, verse 3 (life eternal is knowing God, the Father, and Jesus, the Christ), verse 5 (which I read as a request by Jesus that he be given back the glory of his status as a God, so he could handle what he knew was coming), verse 10 (that Jesus' glory was in his disciples - a very different definition of glory than many people have concerning God), verse 13 (that full joy is internal and shared), verse 15 (saying, essentially, "I have protected them up to this point, but I won't be around much longer, so take care of them when I'm gone" - which hits my heart every time I read it), verses 21-23 (which I told them I believe is the simplest, most pure description of "at-one-ment" we have in all of our scriptures) and verse 25 (which says, in essence, that the disciples still didn't know the Father like Jesus knew the Father). We went back to verse 3 and read just that verse and verse 25 back-to-back, pointing out that Jesus was praying in a very real way that the disciples would be able to gain "life eternal" in his absence - that AFTER he left them, they could come to know Heavenly Father in a way they couldn't when Jesus still was with them.

It's Not What We Get; It's Who We Become.

In the debate about the place of (verbally expressed) faith vs. works, I prefer to try to simplify.

There are two options:

1) What I do is important and has an impact on my life and my future, and I have some degree of choice in deciding what I do.

2) What I do really isn't important and has no impact on my life and my future, since I really don't have much choice in deciding what I do.

I accept the first option, and I really don't care all that much about exactly how different people make sense out of it - how they choose to explain it in a way that makes sense to them. I try not to get caught in semantic arguments about the "best" or "correct" way to frame the discussion.  Instead I try to stay focused on what I perceive to be the central issue. 

As an extension of that conclusion, there are two options:

If what I do is important, I can focus my "doing" on:

1) "becoming" or

2) "getting" ("earning")

The Mormon approach is to focus on "becoming". I like that MUCH more than focusing on "getting". Sure, it can be a fine line, since receiving eternal life can be worded as a "reward" we "get" - but if eternal life is defined as a "condition" (a state of being we reach), then it really isn't something we "get" or "earn". Instead, it really is something we "become".

That is perhaps the central theme of the entire Bible, but it gets lost in the endless debate over confessing or working. I see that whole debate as a bit of a smokescreen - obscuring the "true" objective laid out in the Bible itself.

An Astounding Essay on Mormonism by a Non-Mormon Scholar

Mormonism Obsessed with Christ (Stephen W. Webb) - First Things

The Danger of Seeing Patterns as Formulas

A friend of mine once shared the following with me, and I want to pass it on to everyone who reads my blog.  I thought it was profound when I received it, and I still think so now.  I have added some of my own thoughts into his words - modifying his pattern a bit, if you will:

A formula, by definition is a series of inputs that result inevitably in a predictable output: A + B = C. 
A pattern is a plan, based on experience and/or observation, for producing a predictable output. A pattern however, can be modified by lots of varying circumstances outside the control of the "creator" and end up producing radically different "outputs".

It is efficient to use patterns for one's life, and we use them all the time in the Church. There is no reason, for example, to burn your finger on the stove, if someone else has already had that experience and you can learn from it vicariously.  Thus, following the principles articulated in the Word of Wisdom can be much safer than insisting on understanding addictions fully by becoming addicted then overcoming the addiction.  Even though not all who partake become addicts (there is no firm formula for addiction to some substances), there is enough of a discernible pattern to warrant many people treating the pattern as if it was a formula. 
There are issues, however, to doing that - to seeing patterns as if they were formulas:

First, to some degree, as we rely on patterns or formulas, we give up our ability to experience life personally and up close. Obviously, we want to avoid unnecessary dangers, but is it really life if we engulf ourselves completely in patterns and formulas? Maybe we risk not seeing the sunrise differently that someone else - and that would be a shame. Maybe we risk closing ourselves to the whispering of the Spirit - and that would be an even greater shame. 

The second thought is that as an LDS culture, we tend to take a pattern and think of it as a formula.  (In fact, this tendency is deeply rooted in the "natural (wo)man".)  For example:

- Marrying a returned missionary will make you happy.

- Marrying in the temple will lead to the Celestial Kingdom.

- If you marry a returned missionary in the temple, you will be happy and end up in the celestial kingdom.  (A + B = C)

Any time that we think of a pattern as an absolute formula, we are eventually BOUND to be gravely disappointed by: the returned missionary who goes 'astray' - the temple marriage that goes bad - the general unhappiness we might feel.  Perhaps, some of that general unhappiness (or shattering disappointment and disillusionment) might be because we feel we haven't really experienced "our own" lives and, instead, simply lived a pattern believing it to be a formula. 

I think it is important to understand the heart of what my friend said - that we can follow a general pattern (and that it's important to do so in many cases), but that it's just as important to find and follow our own paths and the promptings of the Holy Ghost that can tailor and alter a general pattern to one that is right and inspired and directed for each of us as an individual.  We need to understand how few formulas there are in mortality and, instead, see and adapt patterns that have meaning to us - and that will not shatter our perspectives if they do not act as formulas that create "C" and lead us instead to "D" - or "L" or even "Z".

Women of Faith: A Book Recommendation

Review: Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Volume One, 1775-1820 - Elizabeth Pinborough (By Common Consent)

Women and Non-Mormons Also Can Exercise The Power of the Prayer of Faith

"The prayer of faith" is just that - a prayer expressed with faith.

This is my own take, but I have no problem whatsoever with women or children touching a person for whom they are praying. Holding babies or children (or spouses or friends) while "praying over them" adds an element of physicality and real connection that is powerful in and of itself. There is a real power in being "wrapped in the arms of love" - and when that is combined with deep and faithful prayer . . . I'm not advocating that someone "mimic" a Priesthood blessing in this day and age (not at all), but I simply can't see the harm in laying hands on someone in some way and praying for them in faith.

Along those lines, I believe that all fathers (whether LDS or not) should use our pattern of Father's Blessings to pray over their children - and I can't see any harm in mothers doing the same by offering a "Mother's Blessing", performed with no mention of the Priesthood and simply, "As your mother (and, when appropriate, 'in the name of Jesus Christ')," - since women who are baptized have entered the exact same covenant as men to take upon themselves the name of Christ and "do all things in his name". Members of other Christian denominations often make that same basic promise in one way or another, and the prayer of faith certainly is not limited to the LDS Church.

I believe there is ao much power inherent in the covenants all of us make and the blessings and powers and rights we are given upon baptism and confirmation and endowment and sealing that are not dependent on a formal conferral of Priesthood that is required currently to perform formal ordinances. There is SO much that women and non-members can do without coming anywhere near apostasy or confrontation or difficulty. This is just one example, in my opinion.

We Can't Ask of Others What We Aren't Willing to Give Them

I am involved with some members who are struggling with some sort of faith crisis, and I point out to them regularly that they can't ask of others what they aren't willing to give those others first - without being hypocrites. Particularly, they can't ask more orthodox members to accept their heterodoxy as legitimate unless they are able and willing to accept those members' orthodoxy as legitimate.

That's not an easy balance, especially since I'm NOT advocating a totally relativistic view of truth. What I'm saying is that "loving someone" often involves accepting their differences in thought and perspective and realizing that ALL of us see through our glass, darkly - and extending charity by not judging and being narrow-minded.

It helps if everyone has some sort of orthopraxy around which they can rally (which is one of the geniuses of Mormonism, in my opinion), but it can't apply in some areas of heteropraxy - since there are some actions which simply cannot be tolerated.  I just believe the list of intolerable actions is a lot smaller than many people are willing to accept.