More Mayhem

Not only did I decide to not serve an LDS mission. Later, I decided the LDS Church was not what I thought it to be as I was growing up.

About eight years ago, in church, a man was speaking. What he said is not what resonated with me. It was the question of why he was at the pulpit at all. Into my my mind came the idea that it was possible that he was speaking and telling others that the LDS Church was the true church because it was what he was taught and he was passing it on to others. The tradition was that the adults swore to their children that it was true.

This notion was somewhat appealing, more appealing than I thought such a notion should be. It was also scary to be thinking this thought. And in the end I chalked it up to be another doubt.

However, this rare and startling thought surprised me because it was so clear and so different from my other thoughts about the convictions of the men running the LDS Church. I had assumed everyone absolutely believed it was true. I now realize, from talking with certain members that not everyone who is LDS is so sure about their religious tradition.

Not only did I have thoughts of doubt that had a legitimacy, but again, I refused to mimic the pattern I was supposed to follow when bearing my testimony. On the first Sunday of every month, during the hour designated as Sacrament Meeting, any member can get up and speak about their religious feelings. At one point, The First Presidency wanted to teach everyone to declare they believe in Jesus Christ and the Atonement, the Book of Mormon, that the LDS Church is the one true church on earth, and that Joseph Smith's First Vision was true.

More rules. More guidelines. I never really took this testimony pattern as my pattern. And the last time I got up and spoke in testimony meeting, I spoke about the importance of gratitude and how it brings the blessings of God. Notice how all the elements I was supposed to mention never did get mentioned. I am laughing as I write this paragraph.

A few years ago, the doubts started to swarm around my person like flies around the head of a man unbathed for years.

I was supposed to get a temple recommend so that I could attend the temple regularly. Yet, I let it lapse. At first I felt unworthy to go to the temple becuase I found it harder and harder to attend meetings and attend to church duties. I felt like I never did enough and that what I did always threatened to be less than desired by my leaders. I also regarded the temple worthiness questions asked by the bishop to be embarrassingly intrusive to answer.

After a while, refusing to go to a temple recommend interview turned into refusing to do other things.

I began to hate the atmosphere in church. I used to often feel many good spirits in the church building. But in the past three years, whenever I have tried to go to to church, I felt either a dead, spiritless atmosphere, or some kind of evil or bothersome presence.

And my fellow members became more rude. And they often ignored me. Whether or not the members of a ward knew me they became less and less friendly until the friendliness was gone.

And the words spoken in church became more and more uninspired and sometimes downright strange. It seemed like some members wanted to embrace New Age ideas. And other members spoke and acted in ways less full or grace or compassion or mercy. They spoke more and more harsh words to one another and taught each other without compassion or reason.

And then, I actually experienced harassment. The last visiting teachers who came to see me tried to force me to go to church. They didn't bodily force me, but I felt it was the next step up. They tried to force me to say I would be in a meeting the next Sunday. They visited and argued with me two times. Neither time did I ever cave in and say I would be there. I only ever said "Maybe."

Let's just say that when they arrived I took out my verbal judo. The cut throat nature of the arguing was startling. And I threw off their flattery like last year's baloney sandwich.

In the end, I got them. They didn't get me. That things had to be that way was very, very wrong. Organizations that harass others into participation are headed down the wrong road. And basically, this type of behavior of active members toward less active members is something that tells me that the members were never instructed properly on what to do when someone won't attend any meetings.

Let's just say that my attempts to quell my fears about my fading faith never helped. Each attempt to get back to my faith only caused it to fade more and more. It only caused me to hate LDS representations of truth and doctrine further. In the end, the truth as I knew it was so warped that I couldn't even get a grip on what I believed anymore. I only got more corrupted and unable to deal with the brainwashing I needed to undo.

It fast became hopeless for me to identify the actual Truth.