| Travis Henry |
10-23-2007 05:45 PM |
Your post made me think about a conversation I had with my Dad
Quote:
Originally Posted by creekster
(Post 140396)
I once asked to be released from a leaderwship type calling when I entered what I now call my SU phase or, in lennon-esque terms, my lost decade. At the time, I didn't feel like I could honestly do what I needed to do as a leader. THe bishop reluctantly agreed and I sort of went off on a voyage of self-discovery and meditative consideration (this part is not a joke). Eventually I came back to the gopsel, but I decided not to tell anyone hoping to avoid the whole calling problem. I never wore suits. I sat in the back. I tried to aovid contact. The whole drill. So they made me cub master, and that just sort of snowballed. Not to be too cute about it, but the Lord will find you if he wants to.
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My sister's husband is in the stake presidency and got called into the position at around the age of 33. My sister lives in Vancouver, Washington which in my limited experience is Mullah Centrale (more than any other locale- and in all honesty, this is the only place I've spent time in that I would call Mullah Centrale). Her husband's a great guy and I would not call him a mullah.
But the stake president thought it would be a great idea to obligate my sister to holding a monthly dinner for the entire stake presidency and their wives and the high council. For a gal with perfectionist tendencies like my sister, this is a huge deal- heck holding a monthly dinner for about 30 people would be a chore for anyone. Anyway, my sister once merely asked for the help of the stake president's wife one month and the wife basically started chewing out my sister saying it was HER calling and that how she (the wife) also worked full-time (apparently the kids must be older).
On another occasion, while my sister was pregnant with twins (and it was a difficult pregnancy) the bishop called her to be the ward chorister which entailed her standing up in the same position in front of the entire ward while leading all 10 verses of "If you could Hie to Kolob." Ask any woman who's six months pregnant (let alone twins) how they would feel about this, and they wouldn't be huge fans. Anyway, my wife tells the bishop no. She doesn't know if she could stand there for the alotted time and especially doesn't want to do it front of the entire ward when she's huge. The bishop proceeds to write her a letter telling her she basically MUST accept the calling.
To make a long story short, because of my sister's experiences (and there are more beyond these two) she basically tells my dad on the phone that she's wondering if she even "likes" the church after dealing with a number of a-holes in a fairly short period of time. I think perhaps the most disconcerting thing is when someone overreacts or jumps to the conclusion of "you may as well be inactive" when you don't fall in lockstep constantly with a bishop. |
