As
I prepared to head home from my LDS mission 14 years ago, the members of the
Neath Branch sang a traditional Welsh song called “We’ll Keep a Welcome”. The words of the chorus went as follows:
We'll keep a welcome in the hillside
We'll keep a welcome in the Vales
This land you knew will still be singing
When you come home again to Wales
I
remember the looks on their faces as they sang it to me. Emotions were high and I truly felt their
love and assurance of acceptance and hospitality should I ever return to
Wales. The sweetness and sentiment of
that song has stayed with me through the years.
The words speak of an unconditional “love that never fails”.
As
a continuation to my last entry, I’d like to suggest that there are many
members of the LDS Church who choose not to attend weekly meetings. But that doesn’t mean we don’t still have
testimonies. It also doesn’t mean that
we don’t want anything to do with the Church anymore. I dare say that my brothers and sisters still
cry out to the Lord and strive to do things that please Him. For a whole variety of reasons, some of us
are just not in a place where we can attend with you. I can only speak for myself when I suggest
that I haven’t made a final decision on this front. My heart is open, even broken and contrite.
I
get that there are some who have left the Church and will never return. As I listen to their explanations as to why,
my heart is moved with compassion and I totally understand. I am not at that place. I still want involvement and identity as a
member of the church. There are many
others like me who may not be prepared to worship with you each week, but whose
memberships mean a great deal to them.
While
we work out our salvation before God, may I humbly make the following 5
suggestions to active members of the Church:
1. Be a citizen
of the world.
Some of us In the Church have taken on a “be
in the world, but not OF the world” approach. I get the sentiment,
but I think we take this way too far sometimes. We exclude others and
shut ourselves off with the intention of not getting caught up in the
world. We pit our 1% against the 99% as if to say “we’re too good for you”. In
doing so, we rob ourselves of some amazing, potentially life-changing
opportunities and associations.
God has billions of sons and
daughters with an incredibly diverse array of backgrounds, beliefs, cultures,
ethnicities, traditions, priorities, challenges, interests and passions.
I’ve chosen to surround myself with a variety of people, to see the beauty that
exists in ideas and beliefs that differ from the ones I was raised with and
still hold dear, and to remember that their existence and purpose in life
matters just as much to God as mine does.
2. Don’t be so
afraid of disagreement. I should mention, in all
fairness, that most of the active LDS people I have in my life are full of love
and compassion. They are prepared to be
understanding, kind and non-judgmental. They are willing to have a
conversation where differences of opinion are freely and lovingly
expressed. They truly understand the 9th Article of Faith where we
purport to believe that God will "yet
reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom",
that we don't have ALL of the answers. However, I should also express that
after a recent Facebook post (the one about Caitlyn Jenner), I had approximately
28 people unfriend me, including a family member or two. I shared those thoughts
last time as lovingly and thoughtfully as I knew how to and still, some decided
that they just couldn't continue to be my friend. What I presented was
just too challenging or offensive or different to even consider having contact
with me. I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with me, who am I to
expect such? But is it too much to ask to continue familial and friendly
relationships even after disagreements occur?
I’m happy to report that since
those 28 people unfriended me, I’ve had 35 new people request friendship since
the launch of my blog. This is
encouraging. Some of them I’ve known but
we lost touch, and others are new friends.
I think we can be scared to allow
others to speak up and share their beliefs.
We’re quite ready (well, some of the time) to knock on doors or to
invite our non-member or less-active friends to church or an activity or to
meet with the missionaries, but when others want to share their beliefs, it’s a
scary thing for us.
As I look back at what I’ve shared
on this blog and my previous blog, I’m not sure I consider anything to be
scary. It’s just honest. Some have approached me and just expressed
nothing but love. No other agenda or
motive. Others have felt the need to
teach me or call me to repentance. I’m
certain their motives are nothing but good, but it really comes down to
fear. Fear of something they’ve regarded
as a dear friend who thinks about things a little differently. I imagine a world where all can take a turn
and share. I imagine a gospel doctrine
class where we can share openly, without fear of rejection.
I should challenge my LGBT friends
in this area as well. We become so
convinced that if a member of the church speaks up and says they support
traditional marriage, that they must be a hateful bigot. I’m convinced that most active LDS who
support traditional marriage are not hateful or vindictive people at all. They’re just trying to adhere to what they
believe with their entire hearts and souls.
Does it cause pain to us in the LGBT community? Sure, it does. But I’m learning to be less afraid when a TBM
supports traditional marriage. Instead,
I take a deep breath, consider their life and come to an understanding as to
why they support traditional marriage.
And then I move on.
3. Accept that not
everyone is having the same experience in the Church that you're having. My
experience has been that active members of the Church can sometimes look down
upon the less-active with attitudes of "that's
just an excuse to shirk their responsibilities", "haven't they read Bednar's talk on being offended?", "I don't base MY activity with the
Church on whether people offend me or not", "they just lost faith and stopped praying", "the devil led them away carefully,
over a period of time", etc. The truth is, people fall away from
the Church for many different reasons and we need to be more prepared to mourn
with those that mourn. I currently do not attend church regularly.
I miss many things about it and I reserve the right to come back into full
fellowship. But for reasons that are very painful and difficult to
describe, I have decided not to attend at this time. I know that some of
my brothers and sisters in the Church will never understand why and that, to
them, there is just no excuse. But I'd ask those brothers and sisters to
consider that the Church means different things to different people.
In a future post, I plan to share
my story in more detail in an effort to help my active brothers and sisters
understand why someone like me chooses not to attend for a season. In the
meantime, I'll just plead with you: Don't be the guy that makes the ridiculously
offensive comment in Sunday School or Elder’s quorum. Try to show love before you feel the need to
preach exact obedience. Be the girl who is willing to entertain a
conversation where not everything is black and white. There's a lot of
grey area (God will yet reveal many great and important things) and, as members
of the Church, we don't always deal well with uncertainty. If someone in
the Church isn't at the same level of activity or testimony, it doesn't mean
they're less than. It also doesn’t mean that they’re done with the
Church. It means that they've had a very
different set of experiences and trials that have led them to that place.
They need your love, not your judgment.
4. Can we be more
careful when we use words like "lifestyle" and "agenda"? Just
because someone isn't active in the Church doesn't mean that they have some
secret, scary agenda or that they want a lifestyle that's different from your
lifestyle. Most commonly, I hear members of the Church use these words
with regard to the LGBT community. Can we actually consider that God has
MILLIONS of sons and daughters who are gay? Can we further consider that
most of them want the same things you want as an active member of the
Church? They want to find someone and build a life together. If
your "lifestyle" is to work a 40 hour week and watch television in
the evening with your spouse and kids, I'm willing to wager that the
"lifestyle" of your gay friends and neighbors is remarkably
similar. We let one detail justify dismissing someone else's life as an
alternative or “counterfeit”
lifestyle. Anyone willing to actually
make close relationships with their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters will
learn that we all want the same things.
Is there a negative generalization
that exists with the gay man who parties and has unprotected sex with multiple
partners and has no regard for his health or the well-being of others?
Absolutely, and in some cases, these generalizations ring true. But guess
what? Our heterosexual brothers and
sisters are just as capable and responsible for perpetuating these stereotypes. But somehow, the gay community at large is
accused of living a "lifestyle" that differs from your own.
As for an agenda, the Church has a
clear agenda. It's the three-fold mission of the Church: Proclaim
the gospel, Perfect the Saints, Redeem the dead. It's a clear,
unapologetic agenda. We sent missionaries in masses, door to door to
spread the gospel. I did that for two years and even now, I'm in touch
with a number of my Welsh and English brothers and sisters. I was happy
to be a part of that agenda. But then, we throw the word
"agenda" at the gay community. When I've asked a few people in
the Church what the "gay agenda" is, few can respond with a specific
answer. I'm asking for more understanding and acceptance for our LGBT
brothers and sisters.
Just because someone identifies as
gay doesn't mean they don't want anything to do with the Church. I have
gay friends who are active every week, I have gay friends who have left the
Church after devastating experiences, and I have gay friends who are somewhere
in between. I'm prepared to listen to them all. I love hearing
their stories, their sets of experiences and decisions and how they're striving
to be the best person they can be. I'm often told of how close to God
these gay brothers and sisters continue to feel. Meanwhile, we have
parents disowning their own children, kicking them out of the house. We
have leaders of the Church suggesting that their gay sons and daughters would
not be expected to be introduced to friends for fear of sending a message that
they condone that lifestyle. The suicide rates and hate crimes (even
within the Church) are alarming.
Do your homework and please, make
the Church a safe place for LGBT members to be. I've had friends and
family members ask why the gays don't just start their own church.
"Why do we have to have the gay agenda shoved in our faces?" they
ask. Can you even imagine growing up as a gay member of the Church and
having various doctrines shoved in your face that make you hate yourself and
feel at constant odds with who you are supposed to be? My experience is
that, in many cases, gay men and women can be much more Christlike, loving,
compassionate and understanding than LDS men and women. I'm not trying to
be provocative, it's just my experience. Let's allow our LGBT brothers
and sisters who want to participate do so in peace and confidence.
5. Be as eager to
let others share their experiences as you are to share the gospel. We get so
caught up in our missionary zeal that we often don't close our mouths and
listen to the experiences of others. When we do listen, we don't allow
others to have their experiences be as special to them as our spiritual
experiences are to us.
As a missionary, I taught an
African man who shared with me his experience of coming to Christ. With
tears in his eyes, he told me and my companion about the day he was baptized
(in another Christian church). I felt the Spirit as he shared, but then I
took away from his experience. It was my duty, after all, as a missionary
to explain that while he may have had a very meaningful experience and that it
was a step in the right direction, that his baptism was not performed by one
who holds the proper priesthood authority. Here, he had this wonderful
experience where he dedicated himself to following Jesus as his example.
He shared his experience with me in a vulnerable and beautiful way.
I remember seeing his expression
change when I basically said "sorry, doesn't count". To this
day, I feel bad about taking away from a very personal and special experience
he had. In the end, he was baptized into the LDS Church, but I still
wonder what kind of damage I did to a very authentic experience he
cherished. What if I had asked him to describe his experience and asked
him why it meant so much to him and how it helped him be a better person?
Do we really care about the
experiences of our non-member friends and family members? Are we truly
prepared to listen, uninterrupted, without motive and just let them bear their
testimony in their own beautiful way? I think the missionary efforts of
the Church would be much more successful if we took this kind of approach
instead of the "forget what you've been told or raised with, here's the
truth" approach.
In closing, I'd like to express
gratitude to my mother and some of my siblings for the great care they've taken
to assure me of their love and support. I have friends from all
backgrounds who are prepared to love me just as I am. Some of them
challenge me to be a better person and consider fuller activity within the
Church. That's ok. Others challenge me in other ways. At the
end of the day, I've made decisions with a clear conscience before the
Lord. I believe that He truly understands my heart.
At present, I may not be meeting
the expectations of my active LDS brothers and sisters, and yet, I feel that
I'm meeting the Lord's expectations. Food for thought, eh? I'm not
sure if I'll ever want a permanent plate set within the Church, but I'd like
the option of having a place at the table, should my path lead me there.
May we, as members of the LDS
Church, come together and see the beauty and purpose and importance of ALL of
God's children. May we not live in fear that 99% of the world's
population is going to hell in a hand-basket. May we have confidence in a
Father who gave us a Savior to atone for our shortcomings. Perhaps there
are ordinances and steps and formalities each of us must take to return to the
presence of the Almighty. I'm not asking anyone to change those
beliefs. I'm simply asking that we relax a bit and treat each other in
the most Christ-like way we can, active LDS or not. People like me need
people like you to understand, accept and share our journey. Our paths
may differ, but the destination is the same.
