The Pond

I came to a realization today. It is this: the LDS Church looks big to those who join it and believe in it. It looks like the salvation of your soul, the words of Jesus, Jehovah Himself. It seems to be the voice of heaven, the representation of the eternities, the answer to your question about your purpose.

When you question this, you are led to believe that your own personal doubts are small compared to the vast reach into the eternities that the Church has. The incredible prominence around the globe is another thing that makes it so big.

In order to keep believing this, you must believe that all beliefs you have are small compared to all the beliefs the Church tells you to have. You must believe that you are insignificant in order to submit yourself to the Church's will.

I believed that I was a small drop in a large pond. I was overwhelmed by whatever was big enough to make a ripple in that pond. I saw incredible visions that the owners of the pond had given to all water molecules there. They told us they were from beautiful, crystal skies.

After a while, I stopped being a water droplet. I started being a different kind of molecule. I didn't like the other water molecules. I began to find other molecules to expand my cause and feel buoyed up rather than drowned.

It started to stink in the pond. I started to smell the algae. I didn't like it in that pond. I didn't have fish lungs. I had the lungs of a man who stands on land and breathes in the air that reaches to the sky, the real sky, not some mysterious spiritual sky.

The pond and the surrounding land and the keepers of the pond and the land started to bore me. I began to take walks farther and farther away from the pond into land owned by other kinds of men. I began to realize that the stink of the pond was getting farther and farther away, but I was still afraid of the visions of holiness that they gave us. What if they were true? Why was I wishing I could still believe in them?

I did not realize that I had sprouted a real self, a real body that walked on the ground above the pond, away from the pond. I had been fooled into thinking I was a tiny molecule. I missed the other "molecules." But really, I was more of an amphibian. The others were fish and amphibians too. I had never really noticed. I just thought I was a water molecule.

I began to notice that I saw better and could run farther faster and experience more kinds of fun outside the algae-ridden pond. I was developing human characteristics. The others had this evolutionary potential, but they didn't know it.

I still fell prey to spells when I thought that really, I must be a water molecule, ready any time to become a big waterfall to scare the land owners of the other lands. I fell prey to spells when I thought that the visions were true.

I hadn't really yet determined if there was anything bigger than me that could replace the quaint little pond. I began to realize that there were things. I just wasn't giving them enough credence. And if I didn't realize my human characteristics often enough, I might really try to go sit in the pond, the stinky pond with algae, not realizing that people thought I thought I was too big to go back to thinking I was a drop of water.

But I haven't been back to have fun at this little pond. Even if I am frightened. I am growing land legs. I am looking at reality. And I have my own visions in my dreams at night. I think of my own stories when the sun shines, and when it rains. And I am discovering things that were too big to fit in the pond.