Mormon Women Project

[RedHeadGal]

http://www.mormonwomen.com/

I'd not heard of this website until yesterday. A friend of mine--the one currently featured as "Blue"--sent the link to me. It's got a variety of interviews with Mormon women who have more non-traditional stories. I"ve only read a few so far, but it's worth looking at.

[MikeWaters]

Blue was interviewed by Shelah Miner.

Hmmm, very familiar name, lol.

Anyway, part of this goes to what I was talking about before. The capacity to believe or have faith.

I think that he concluded that he’d spent two full years reading, praying, studying and teaching the gospel every day as a missionary, and there wouldn’t be any point in trying that route again. He also studies the human brain in his profession, which he says is an amazing organ that we know almost nothing about even now. He told me “I wouldn’t trust any answers I got because our brains are capable of producing amazing experiences, and we interpret them through our life experiences. They don’t necessarily mean what we think they mean”.

You note the lack of self trust. He can't trust any of his experiences, much less his feelings. There is no room for mysticism, for being in touch with the divine. It's like he completely lacks "spiritual eyes."

Blue had an experience, which she cannot rationally explain. However, if she really wanted to, she could in fact explain it away. I'm certain her husband could. What made her hold onto that. There was something deep inside her that rebelled against rejecting that experience as something divine. That denial of it would be the lie.

This goes to the core of faith and spiritual experiences. Perhaps you have the gift, perhaps you don't. If you feel like you don't, then the scriptures say to ask for it.

I'm certainly not in Mormonism because it is a rational, logical belief system where I merely connect the dots.

Another quote from the story:

Yes. But for my husband, it didn’t feel like there was anything to work out. He just thought, “I don’t believe. I don’t know there’s a God. I don’t think anyone can know.”

The next sentence that follows this, for some apostates, is one that attacks your personal spiritual experiences.

Live and let live. So you don't see or feel anything. Ok, that's your experience. My experience is different. Why are you attacking my experience?

Doubt is always paired with faith. Because perfect faith is knowledge. At least how I define it. There is nothing wrong with doubt. Faith is when our actions are inspired by our hopes, that are not without evidence.

[MikeWaters]

On a different angle: in this church men and women really have little opportunity to get to know each other.

They often don't serve in callings togethers. The meetings are geared such that you do not get to know the other sex in one-on-one conversation.

You know who people are, but you don't really interact much.

To some degree that is the case in the secular world as well, but to a lesser degree.

[RedHeadGal]

In Blue's piece she mentions her time in Chicago--that's where I met her. In fact, something this interview called to mind was that the first Sunday I attended services in the Hyde Park ward, Blue's husband was the speaker. I don't remember his topic, but I do remember the message he delivered really spoke to me. I was touched and impressed. I felt a spiritual kinship with him. I was excited to be part of that ward. I wish I could recall it more specifically so that I could decide whether he was trying to find his own honest take on spiritual topics or whether he was just trying to deliver the message people wanted to hear. That's a balance I feel I am always trying to make when I have to speak to an audience of church members.

[RedHeadGal]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

On a different angle: in this church men and women really have little opportunity to get to know each other.

They often don't serve in callings togethers. The meetings are geared such that you do not get to know the other sex in one-on-one conversation.

You know who people are, but you don't really interact much.

To some degree that is the case in the secular world as well, but to a lesser degree.

I suppose this is true, but for me, I also feel like I don't get to know many women either. You're the one who's always saying that the fear is that if you get interaction between the sexes, they're all going to have affairs. Which is possible but generally unlikely.