Leaving the LDS Church - 6 months later

"Hiraeth (n). - homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past."

Current reading queue: Mindfulness in Plain English (Gunaratana), Radical Honesty (Blanton), The World Wisdom Bible: A New Testament for a Global Spirituality (Shapiro)

It's now been six months since I stopped attending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints  and I've been reflecting recently on how these last six months have gone and where I think the next six months will go. Some have pointed out that my blog posts posted on Facebook and much of my personal focus does not seem to be on LDS faith.  This has been deliberate as 1) I have no desire to harm anyone's faith and 2) I still have some very raw feelings toward the Church that surface from time to time that would probably offend people and damage relationships if I were completely forthright about how I feel about certain things.  Maybe sharing some of my thoughts already has damaged some relationships. At some point, I would like to be able to do a blog post on the wisdom in the Book of Mormon as I have recently on the Bhagavad Gita.  But I'm not there yet.

Immediate aftermath

I debated for several months whether to do a public post about my faith transition. Some would argue that it's no one else's business. Others may be concerned that I am trying to draw others away from the faith - a "wolf in sheep's clothing" of sorts.  But I ultimately decided to "go public" for two basic reasons 1) I value transparency and honesty and felt like hiding this portion of my life was not worth the emotional toll that it was having on me 2) so that others who were also silently struggling in their own faith deconstruction would know they have someone to reach out to.

Admittedly, the first reason is somewhat selfish, but ultimately it felt good to get the weight off my chest and share my burden with others.  Many lovingly reached out and commented or liked my post. Some reached out privately to express their love, well-wishes and words of wisdom.  I reached out privately to one individual to ask for resources regarding mindfulness and meditation and am still enjoying some of the reading suggestions provided.  A few expressed their disappointment or sadness, which, while no one particularly enjoys being the subject of another's disappointment, is also an expression of their love and concern. One individual from my mission reached out initially expressing concern and quickly changing tune to asking for money. So, with minor exceptions, it was an overwhelmingly positive experience letting people in on this significant change in my personal beliefs.

As to the second reason for "going public" - to help those who were struggling - I did have a handful of people reach out to me to let me know they were going through similar struggles. One friend told me he is gay and still not out to his family about his sexual orientation or his resulting faith struggles. Another was a bishopric member (not from my current ward) when his faith crisis began and had similar struggles in not knowing how to let believing family, friends and loved ones in on his shifts in beliefs. Three were friends who served with me from my mission to Honduras going through similar struggles (as well as one mission companion on the believing side kindly offering his love and respect).  Another was attending a church school and felt like they had no one they could talk to without risking losing an ecclesiastical endorsement needed to continue their education.  One friend of my wife reached out to her about her husband's faith transition. The following weeks and months have resulted in many wonderful private conversations with these individuals including in-person meet-ups for ice cream or lunch and at least one more planned meet-up after COVID-19 dies down.

Ward reaction

My local ward reaction was positive as well. I met with my elder's quorum president after asking to be released and expressed a couple of my detailed concerns but quickly realized the conversation probably was not leading anywhere productive. Many of these conversations between believers and non-believers are very difficult to navigate as it's very difficult (for both sides) to see outside of our own paradigms and truly understand and have empathy for the other's position. I have a hard time seeing how I didn't previously see or care about many of the problematic issues and believing members have a hard time seeing why I now find some things to be problematic.

As a side note, my personal theory is that we are generally unwilling to process information that challenges our current worldviews until there is an emotional trigger that opens us up to the possibility of different and opposing viewpoints.  We rarely stop to consider our own epistemological frameworks for evaluating information. The phrase "I was wrong" is incredibly difficult for many to say and "I AM wrong" simply does not compute in our minds, even in the face of significant contrary evidence. We all intellectually "know" that not everything we currently believe can be accurate, but we also very good at protecting our own viewpoints and dismissing opposing viewpoints as naive, ignorant, deceived or even evil.

I later met with the bishop and shared a little of my faith journey while deliberately avoiding getting into the weeds of actual concerns around Church doctrines, theology, or history.  Both the elders quorum president and bishop were very kind and I have much respect and love for both of them.  Others in the ward eventually seemed to catch on that I wasn't coming to church anymore and asked my wife where I had been, but other than my interactions with my bishop and elder's quorum president, no one from my local ward has directly asked me about why I left or tried to convince me to come back. Part of this is that my first post was fairly lengthy and had a lot of details already. But it's also not an easy subject for people to bring up. There also seemed to be rumors at some point that my wife and I were getting divorced (which could not be further from the truth for anyone wondering - we are still very happily married).  I still love and miss the frequent interactions with many of the ward members. I look forward to continued service opportunities and other interactions with the local ward community.

General thoughts

While it's only been six months since I stopped attending, in some respects it feels much longer since I really "left."  My faith crisis began in earnest almost three years ago around May of 2017. The last time I attended the LDS temple, which was a significant turning point in my faith crisis, was a little over two years ago, and I stopped wearing LDS undergarments in January 2019. So while the decision may have seemed abrupt for some, it really was a long very difficult process. And while I still think it was the right decision for me, doing what you feel is right doesn't make it easy. It's not easy knowing that doing what you consider to be right will likely permanently alter how others see you and think of you. It shouldn't matter what others think of me - but it still does more than it probably should.

For me, being Mormon was my entire identity for many years - I loved being the Mormon kid in school, EFY, BYU camps, early-morning seminary, my mission, and in many ways thrived in the LDS faith.  I even loved some of the "deep doctrine" and esoteric teachings such as Joseph's interpretation of the Egyptian Hypocephalus about the order of the universe with the governing planetary systems of Enish-go-on-dosh, Kli-flos-is-es , Kae-e-vanrash, and Kolob and have fond memories of having a favorite BYU professor expound on these concepts and others from the LDS Book of Abraham (full disclosure: I did have to look up the spelling of these entities and where to put the dashes, but remembered the names from Brother Bott's BYU mission prep course from almost 15 years ago!).

So, the ultimate decision to leave was the most difficult decision I've ever made and was a long process of trying and ultimately not succeeding at finding faithful or "nuanced" reconciliations that worked for me. I definitely experienced, and continue to experience at times, stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. My wife, who has always been wonderful and supportive, can attest to the many nights of tears and anguish that preceded my decision to leave my Mormon identify behind.

Except that I'm not sure I can ever completely leave that identify behind - for better or for worse (and I think it's largely for better), my Mormon upbringing will forever be much more significant than a mere parenthetical or small footnote in my life story.

What do I miss?

While I don't see any reasonable way to personally reconcile many issues within Mormon narratives, there are also many aspects of Mormonism that I would not want to leave behind. I loved the community, the warm greetings, the emphasis on family, the opportunities for service, and being able to play the piano or organ. Even as a non-believing member, I was truly disappointed when I moved into my new ward and realized that priesthood opening exercises was sung a cappella, so I wouldn't have an opportunity to play the piano as much. I also felt conflicted initially being asked to be the elder's quorum secretary when I knew full-well going into the calling that I no longer believed, and that if I had been truly open about my concerns, the calling would likely not have been extended.

But I tried to use my time in the ward as an opportunity to get to know some people and help others where I could even if I knew I would probably eventually leave. I put some time and thought into my e-mails to the elders quorum with lesson reminders - trying to remain true to my own beliefs while presenting questions to ponder and resources that would be meaningful, faithful and non-threatening to my believing friends. I held on as long as I did in large part because I wanted to be the one to baptize my oldest daughter - not because I believed the ordinance to be required for salvation but because I didn't want to be seen as the disappointment, dead-beat inactive dad not "worthy" to participate in his child's life.

All of this is to say that, not surprisingly, I have a lot of mixed feelings.  Beyond the community and music, in some ways, I miss the certainty with which I saw the world.  I knew "without a shadow of a doubt" that the LDS Church was true and in many ways discovering otherwise was devastating. Prior to my faith crisis, the "details" that were problematic in the Church's narratives didn't matter because the overall picture made sense. But ultimately as the small details that collectively made up the bigger picture came into focus, it became difficult to see the bigger picture in the same light and with the same meaning.

The Welsh word "hiraeth" perhaps captures a frequent feeling I have experienced in this journey - a "homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past."

Worries and Concerns

Some have expressed concerns about people who leave the Church and the impact that has on teaching moral values to their children. Undoubtedly, I will teach some things differently than I would have as an active, believing Latter-day Saint. In fact, part of my reason for deciding to leave was that some of my values do differ significantly from orthodox teachings of the LDS Church, particularly around my friends that find themselves somewhere along the LGBTQ spectrum. However, by and large, my moral values and my sense of right and wrong still very much align with the Church, and I have no concerns that I will be able to appropriately teach my children to have love, respect, and compassion for others and to always strive to make meaningful contributions to their communities, with or without a religious framework. Where there are conflicts in moral values as taught by the Church and as I see them, I will let them know why I feel the way I do and let them make their own decisions as to what they believe is right. Perhaps one of the greatest lessons I can try to teach my children is to be able to acknowledge and learn from opinions that they disagree with.

I do occasionally have concerns around teachings of the Church that will be taught to my children around the coming separation of the "wheat and the tares" - that they will be taught that their father is choosing to "[settle] for a most meager roof over [his] head throughout all eternity" which is "not the place where families will be reunited and be given the privilege to live and progress forever" because he made the "conscious decision to reject that course." (emphasis original) And it was, in fact, a very conscious decision. I have sat through so many Sunday school and elder's quorum lessons that as a closeted non-believer, were so incredibly painful as the rhetoric centered around those who leave and completely misrepresented me and so many others I have talked to who have gone through the difficult process of faith deconstruction. Not that they were intended to be harmful and largely they are preaching about a group who is not present in their meeting, but when you are the non-believer being misrepresented and mis-characterized, it cuts deeply into already tender open wounds. Sure, maybe I should have spoken up more, and I did at times, but it's not always that simple.

So I do have very real concerns about what may be taught to my children, but I also have the opportunity to show them that those that choose leave the Church because they honestly and sincerely find certain issues to be deeply problematic are not the enemy. And on the flip side, I hope to be able to teach them that those who don't find concern in such issues are not the enemy either. I think if we could truly walk a mile in someone else's shoes, we would see far less people as enemies and realize that while we may disagree on many details, we are all on a very similar journey trying to make sense of life's greatest questions and improve our condition and the condition of those around us.

I have no concern with my children being taught that they are "noble and great" or the next "chosen generation" as long as they do not internalize that as being "nobler and greater" than their friends and loved ones that have different beliefs and spiritual practices.

I also have concerns that were my wife and children ever to decide to stop attending (which is not something I have ever advocated for), that that would impact relationships and community, especially living in Utah where the LDS Church is, for better or worse, intertwined in much of everyday life.  Community is certainly important and I would hate to see my kids lose friends over my decision to leave or their decisions to leave, should they ever feel compelled to make that difficult decision.  So far, though, I have seen much love and support from the community. So long as my wife and children find value in staying, I see no reason to oppose that decision, and I could see getting to a point where I even attended from time to time to show my love and support for them.

Positives

Of course, there are also many positives to no longer attending the LDS Church. Meditation has become my preferred method of spiritual practice and has lead to meaningful changes in my personal life. I have significantly less headaches on Sundays. I have more time to focus on my family as I spend less time engaged with researching Mormonism.

I've had wonderful opportunities to explore the richness of other religious and human traditions. I have very little personal interest right now in a "true" religion, one which claims to exclusively have the right answers, the right authority, or worships the correct image of deity, but I have gained a much greater appreciation for life's greatest questions and mysteries. I see all religions as being both false and true. False in that the narratives they employ are likely not a literally accurate description of reality, but true in that all point toward some truth about the human condition and our yearning for answers.

From a day to day perspective, nothing in my life has really changed much after leaving, except, of course, for the recent impacts of the Coronavirus.  I see my relationship with my wife and children as stronger than ever. My work responsibilities have increased due to turnover and led to a promotion and pay increase. I make sufficient income to provide for my family and to try to be generous with sharing that income with charitable causes that I believe will use the money to truly help others. I've stayed healthy and mostly sane through all the fear and panic around the Coronavirus. I still have toilet paper, which we were fortunate to have plenty left in our last Costco stash to weather the panic buying in Utah.  While I obviously am looking forward to the end of the pandemic and the suffering and grief it has caused, it has also given me more opportunities to spend time with family, and I feel like my relationships with my kids, especially my youngest, have improved as a result.

I still try to teach my family good moral values - love, compassion, respect, honesty, etc.  I still love my wife and try to support her in any way I can.  I still try to be a good person and take responsibility for my short-comings.  So ultimately, while it sometimes feel like everything has changed in my life over the last few years, when it comes down to it, I'm still very much the same person I've always been, and continue to work on being a little bit better.

What next?

I used to think I needed to have a 5-year plan and a 10-year plan - that achieving a certain salary, job title, calling or other milestone of success would bring ultimate happiness, peace and joy.  But life happens in such a way that the best laid plans become obsolete almost as fast as each new generation of iPhone.  So, perhaps instead of milestones I am trying to achieve someday, as cliche as this may sound, my goal is to truly live more in the present moment.  I would like to further develop the tools and skillsets to be more mindful, more considerate, more compassionate, better at communicating and more skillful in disagreement and conversation (the Buddhist concept of "right speech" comes to mind).  I think meditation practices are and will continue to be an important part of this development. I make no claims to be enlightened or by any means anything more than a novice meditator.  But I consider myself a student of enlightenment - a student of life - and there is a seemingly endless supply of wisdom to learn from.

To quote Frozen II (since no post from a parent of young children would be complete without a recent Disney reference), I'm focused on doing the "next right thing" - "take a step, step again... break it down to this next breath, this next step, this next choice is the one that I can make."