General Conference Weekend April 2008

It's General Conference weekend. I just tried to listen to a little of Conference, and I couldn't listen long. The talks were driving me crazy. I really thought I could find out what was going on in the LDS Church by listening, but I digress. It is a ridiculous thing to do, to listen to all of the conference sessions when I am so disaffected with the Church.

I think the idea that people are supposed to sacrifice so much for one belief system does really just depress me. I can tell that the speakers in conference are depressed about it as well. I heard in their voices things that just cannot be abided by me any longer. The LDS Church as a depressing institution was last on my mind when Neal A. Maxwell died and they had THE MOST AWFUL funeral for him. It was drab, even for a funeral. Gordon B. Hinckley took over the funeral and reduced Maxwell to something that not even the most faithful Church member would like. I didn't like it much at all. Conference was that depressing today. And my father told me that if I watch it I might feel better!

Whatever! Whatever! Whatever!

I now think that the LDS Church is full of people who do not believe in much. For, if you believe in too much, you cannot believe in the LDS Church. Should you believe in Buddhism and Christianity and Judaism, it would be far too much. Only a small subset of any of these main religions could ever agree with Mormonism. Most don't agree at all. I feel like Mormonism is so simple and reductive and "same as always," that people don't learn much from practicing it beyond a certain young age. People are just trapped into it with fears of losing their own salvation.

When you fear losing your salvation too much you cannot give anything to anyone else. When you are programmed to believe that everyone else is losing their salvation, you can do nothing but fill others with fear.

Worse yet, if someone asks you for help with their own very real problem, you can only reduce it to nothing. After all, it could be that the person with the problem is a sinner.

Because of this, too many LDS people end up turning their backs on other people's problems. I suppose that I understand even more about the evils and demons of my own life. I understand better what I have to fear. I understand with a very frightening completeness what has stopped me from having a productive and happy life.

These real evils that I have encountered have only been pooh-poohed by the LDS people. This is because they do not believe in enough to believe in real evil. If you do not believe in real evil, you can never rescue anyone from it.

I understand that the Catholic Church at least believes that possession and demons are real. It would seem that LDS folk turn a blind eye to these things in the idea that God would never let these things happen to you unless you did something wrong.

Feminists believe in the self-esteem and well-being of women. LDS people believe that women are mere servants to priesthood holders and the vast families that they bear for the men and the Church. According to many men in the Church, women really, really want babies. It is no matter if she is having trouble with her career or her education or her friendships with other women. The family must be fulfilling her. No matter that I have spent time with my nephews, and I have noticed that it does not fulfill me. I only understand it as some biological or moral imperative to raise children, not complete intellectual fulfillment. You can love being a mother, but it does not give you degrees or jobs. Some women never want these things, but they are usually overly lucky in that their husband or family of origin is filthily wealthy. I cannot pretend to understand motherhood, but I understand that I would always want other things for myself, whether or not I bore children. Why can't a women want more, especially an unmarried woman like me? They say not enough to unmarried women. They never give them credit for their careers or accomplishments enough to make them happy in the LDS Church. No, instead unmarried women are seen as dangerous, or lesbian, or just not interested in men.

Perhaps they fail to see that some of us cannot bear to just marry any man? We need to give ourselves time to end up in a relationship with one that would give us what we really need? How can a twenty-one-year-old returned missionary ever make me feel good about myself? He can't even say he likes women much, especially after being on a mission for two years. And I've been out with a few of these young men. They tended to not give me not much of an ego stroke. They could barely make conversation.

Give me a break. Give all the stupid young men a break. Let them develop their own lives before they make another person miserable through marriage.

It feels like all of these complaints are rehashed. I do not know what I am going to do next. This is not because I am stupid. I think I am tired. I had to pretend too long that nothing, inside or outside of the Church was getting me down. Things came at me from every direction. Now it's time to start to feel normal again.

I am so fatigued.

I think that I may just be boring for a while. I can't pretend to be on fire for life.

Though as far as I can tell, I'm safer than I've been in a long time.