One of the things I am personally working with and looking at is how to separate Mormon culture from the religion. I crave the roots of Mormonism in some ways.

I have an affection for the covered wagons and the hand carts, the Christus statue and even the Angel Moroni in a pop art way. I don't crave orthodox Mormonism or even Mormon thought all that much. I do like the Beehive, Gilgal park in Salt Lake City (with the quirk Joseph Smith Sphinx).

I like the Christmas lights at temple square. I like the various stories of the history. They are part of my psyche.

I have an affection for the concept of the Liahona. I think The Golden Plates are interesting in a sort of arty way. I don't believe they existed really. I wonder what they likely were. ie. Some strange Brass things Joseph Smith said were Golden Plates from an angel?

I don't get excited and feel like 'Oh the missionaries are spreading the work of the Lord' when I see them. But, I do enjoy seeing them in photos sometimes or running into them on the rare occasions I may be around temple square. Part of me cringes and part of me is fascinated still just by the LDS Church and all the quirky things that go along with it.

A part of me likes the squeaky clean sort of Polyanna image of Mormonism, from a distance more than up close.

I am fascinated by the upside down pagan pentagram that the Mormons have claimed with their reintegration of the Nauvoo temple. I think the Sunstone is an image I connect to partly because of the magazine Sunstone having long been a mark of free thought and liberal thought in the religion.

I like some of the "Mormon Identity" stuff that Joanna Brooks talks about where she claims the atheists and agnostics and those who don't go to church.

I have no interest in going to church. I do miss hanging out with people at ward gatherings and have been known to attend one here or there for a musical performance. But it can depress me too, because I don't like some of the general messages.

I have been to theater and musical performances where the audience was mostly Mormon. There was a prayer at one of the performances. Part of me likes the ritual of community prayer, part of me cringes that it is 'their' prayer.

I get happy for the adventures that relatives have when they go on their missions to other countries. I find it fun to hear about a friend who went to Nauvoo and how the Angel Moroni used to be flying through the air and a weather vane and not the big steadfast guy he is now.

There was a heart to the history that I have an element of Nostalgia for. It was a Wild Wild West sort of thing. Joseph Smith was a bit of a bad boy, or a lot of one. I am perhaps someone who loves the anti-hero.

I find the anthropology of so much of it fascinating. I can't help but giggle at prophesies like that there were people on the moon and they looked like Quakers, or Brigham Young's expansion on Joseph's prophesy, that there were people on the sun as well.

I have no interest in fitting my theology into Mormon theology. I have no interest in fitting my Doctrine into Mormon Doctrine.

I don't love a lot of the traditional Mormon crafts, but there are Moments I see them and they feel like home somehow. I like some of the quilts I have seen.

Conference makes me cringe, the voices, the lessons. Not all of them, occasionally something sounds really nice and human, like there is something caring in it and sincere. Often it sounds like the Morg as some call it.

I find the Churches generally repulsive. The temples sometimes fascinate me from a distance. A friend's child once asked while standing on a patio with a view of the temple if the Mormon temple was 'Sleeping Beauty's Castle'. He cringed and then said "Yes, let's go with that."

I find a certain enchantment in the midst of a lot of the frustration and pain. I find a sweetness in the hope some feel as they join the church. Some compassion with stories like a friend who left the church and was so battered she went back to it. It was the only place she knew to turn to. With all my anger and pain with the church, it was nice at least for her she found peace with it regardless of whether it is true or not. But I still cringed, and it still hurt to feel separate from her.

I like the idea of 'ward activities' whatever the ward/religion. I like the idea of regular community. I like the young guys coming to the door for fast offerings in their suits. I like the relief society helping with this sick person or that sick person taking casseroles.

I like helping sometimes (certainly not always and so glad not to feel endlessly obligated) with some service project or other.

I am not in an area where it is easy to be totally separate from Mormons whether personally or professionally. I have aging family. I have young family members growing up that I have bonds with.

At someone's suggestion I looked at New Order Mormon again and I cringed horribly. I think I have elements of cultural Mormonism still left, but religious and philosophical Mormonism definitely not.

But when it is pioneer day, I want to say 'this was my hopeful family looking for something that they thought was good for them, and it didn't turn out to be all they hoped it would be.'. I can appreciate that someone went looking for 'Zion' and that they found perhaps something that felt like it delivered at least at the time. I can appreciate the struggle for something good in life, and the disappointment when it is not all you hoped it would be.

I giggle when I see Mormon businesses. I cringe, but I giggle. I think I have something of a love/hate relationship with it all.

Do any others feel the same?

a phrase or sentence with "I".

that's a strange comment...

I do feel that. Some of my ancestors came over in wagons. My wife's mother and her son (My stepson) are both on missions right now. Four of my sons served missions. I even work at the cannery sometimes. I have never lived anywhere else but in Idaho or Utah. It's difficult to toss an entire cultural experience just because it's basis is Joseph's Myth. I even admire SOME qualities and experiences of JS himself, even though he was in many ways a scoundrel and manipulator.

And like you, I want to have my own freedom of thought. I haven't the slightest interest in trying to believe what I am certain is nothing but a fantasy.

One of my fears is that I'll descend into rancor or bitterness, when I know that most TBMs are well-intentioned and many are very good people in their peculiar way.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2012 06:08PM by rationalguy.

Surrounded by it all day everyday just grates on my nerves. As soon as you do anything that involves the church, and that's just about everything in American Fork, then you're on sombody's radar.

I thought about going to sacrament meeting on Mother's day just so I could sit with my wife and show her a little love. Then I thought about what happened the last time I went and decided not to go.

Setting up for the recent wedding receptions of my children was the same. Just being in the church building invites the garment feel up and awkward comments.

Last Saturday I was subjected to a lecture on how wonderful the apostles are. This was at a piano recital for my younger kids and nowhere near a church building. The nice old lady, who I had never met, went on an on about her life in the church and how wonderful it was to have grand kids and how all them are active except for the her oldest son's children. He isn't active(said with same and concern).

I used to think it was great that you could move anywere in the country and as soon as you attend sacrament meeting you have an instant community and will find friendships. The problem is those friendships are only an inch deep and are completely dependant on church attendance.

If it weren't for my wife's continued attendance I think it would be a baby AND the bathwater thing for me.

+100 It's nauseating to live in a place where you're considered an abberation if you don't think and live like everyone else does. I have never lived in any other place that has this kind of dynamic. It is not a "normal" or healthy way to live.

Stunted...

I can complete relate to what you are going through as far as the anger with being on the radar. I would probably go to Sunday School sometimes for nostalgic reasons since on occasion I did actually enjoy the lesson.

Where you are is not unlike much of what I grapple with as far as location. Given the recent hate mail I will refrain from mentioning further my location in the event I run into some of these folks.

I have mixed feelings about being on the radar of some folks. Recently I have let some of that happen, but then it leaves me feeling torn.

For me it is family also that keeps me around the LDS church in proximity. I have played some headgames with myself at times just to reinvent what symbols and phrases mean to me to attempt to survive.

Bad Girl...

I appreciate your pointing that out (partially and partially perhaps I am a bit sarcastic. I am not sure I need endless parenting on the boards, but I can probably learn something from all the scrutiny).

That said, I did notice when I wrote I and I did not let myself change it on the message I just replied to the other poster with. Some of my contemplations are about my personal feelings and then asking if others relate.

Obviously some others did relate. I hope your personal recovery is going well and that my inadequacies are not distracting you for your own needs.

Cheers.

rational guy...

Like you I get concerned about sinking into bitterness. Although I have been there and that is part of what drew me to the board.

It has been really hard to 'hate my fellow man' as much as I have felt at times. Dreadful.

To me almost every development in the LDS church has been disturbing and I have wanted to get away from it. I have felt utterly torn between worlds and fragmented.

It hasn't been a multiple personality sort of thing, but I have felt like if I am around ExMormons and talking about what I am frustrated with, and then spend time with family, then I am around my family and trying to have any sort of love and respect for them, then I feel disingenuous. So what makes me feel better in one way makes me feel worse in another way.

I think that has been part of my interest in eastern religions and the concept of non-duality, not feeling like one is separate from others even if there is conflict, and seeing myself as part of a larger exploration of human inquiry which happens to include Mormonism in varying shades, but also includes other ideas.

So then I attempt to have some sort of positive psychology around it all, just so I don't live a miserable life around it all and sometimes I succeed more than others.

....is that there is no room for someone who may just want to put his butt in a pew on Sunday mornings. I no longer remember which poster posted that thought originally but it has stuck with me for years now.

The culture of Mormonism simply doesn't allow for casual attendance. At least not in areas where TSCC is running full speed. The official declaration from the top is that every member needs to have a calling. If you attend then the bishop is expected to give you a calling. If you refuse then he is honor bound to discuss you in PEC and Ward Council meetings. Then someone is going to be assigned to hassle you and pester you. It might be done through your spouse or your children or your employer or even directly with love bombings of all type.

You either give in and accept the yoke of the gospel or they push so hard you leave for good. If it weren't for this institutionalized drive to smash everybody into the mold of their choosing I'd probably go to church far more often. I still wouldn't pay a dime in tithing but I'd certainly be more willing to go and watch my kids sing or give talks. Heck, I might even sing in the choir for the Christmas program if I could do it on my terms, but that just ins't how the program works.

...a large minority of Utah Mormons are only cultural Mormons. There are some in my family. Sure, they go to church, speak the jargon and even pay tithing, but they don't believe much -- if any -- of the doctrine.

I don't believe any uniquely Mormon doctrine, but the history is as interesting as any culture's history if you study it with a certain detachment, and there is definitely a culture in Utah.

Some people have said, "don't label yourself like that. Be whatever you want to be." It's good advice.

So I went to a few years of non-LDS therapy and put on my big boy underwear, and the only non-Mormon thing I enjoy doing is drinking an occasional coffee or tea. Oh, yes, and actually spending time with my family on Sunday.

When I tell my TBM brother I'm an ethnic Mormon, it makes him angrier than, uh, heck. But that's what I am.

I consider myself such reluctantly. I have never fit in as a standard mormon, and it shows. Independent thinking, long hair, casual about the WoW, Rather solitary. All symptoms in my case of nonconformity.

I am old enough to remember when individuality was accepted more easily. Conformity has actually increased it's grip even though some rather forced liberalization has occurred.

Either I am remembering my youth in the less restrictive hinterlands of Zion (Bear Lake County, Idaho,) or things really have become less tolerant. I may just be comparing that time and place with where I am now: Utah County.

When I was little, I just remember every profane sheepman or farmer, smoker or drinker knew all the local brethern and they loved each other and seemed to get along fine. Of course it was a tiny isolated community.

I love the posts...

the details about the 'profane sheepman or farmer' is wonderful to have as a memory. I don't have that. I have memories of a sort of control over the community. I must be younger, well and from a different area. Wards can be so different depending on the money and the industries people are in, etc.. :).

I grew up with a father who was more solitary and he would go to church, but would read his book in sacrament meeting. He put pressure on me in other ways, but partly out of circumstances that were unique because he would go to church in another ward, and I would as well, there was a connect with the neighbors since we went to school together, but a disconnect as well since we rarely went to church together.

I think I would like to go to the Catholic church sometimes because one can go in and have the more solitary services, like visit when sessions are not happening and light a candle. In that way I think Catholicism and other religions often encourage something more solitary for personal worship (inner connection).

It would be cool if Mormon temples were more solitary in some ways. I went to a Catholic place years ago. A former convent for nuns and then a place that was something else. I guess for me temple square visitor's center can be like that - a place I can visit and be relatively free of the pressures to join since they don't necessarily know who is who. Although still plenty of pressure to join.

Between that and the post about how they don't let you just put a butt in a pew, I guess I can see/feel how further why I am conflicted sometimes and how I have internalized some elements that are external.

I think you might enjoy a Taize service if you can locate one in your area. My Episcopal church conducts one once a week and it's a contemplative experience, very calm and soothing.

I always thought those resin grapes they made in Relief Society were kind of cool.

Interesting topic. I live in FL and converted and it was going TO Utah to attend BYU and experiencing the CULTURE of the Church that got me thinking I had made a mistake. Utahns really are generally kind and decent people, but it was when a roommate from Orem told me she thought the world knew there were only two main religions - Catholic or Mormon,(she was shocked when I told her I was the only Mormon in my HS at the time...) or when I saw college kids wear blackface for Halloween who had never even met an African American, I wondered -- this is the True Church? So in my case I had embraced the Church for what I thought was its message but it was its culture that drove me crazy.

But when you brought up all the pioneer stuff and the temple symbols etc -- you almost got me "homesick" for Zion.

or a religionist at all.

I've always wondered about people who don't believe in great gaping aspects of a religion but they want to search for scrips and scraps to hang onto.

Take my father. He's Catholic. He's also been divorced twice and married three times -- which makes him an adulterer by Catholic doctrine since according to the Catholic teachings he's still "married" to my mother (the first marriage). I wonder why it is that he wants to be a Catholic when he clearly doesn't accept one of the really big teachings.

It just seems to me that if you don't like a religion you shouldn't try to trim it and mold it to be what you like. Either take it as it is or find a new one or even make your own up.

But I've never claimed to think like most people. :)

I am fascinated with how the mormon experience appears from an observer. Like, it just seems SO TOO perfect. It sort of makes me want the perceived closeness of the families. I am lucky if I see my kids twice a year - because they are successful professionals with busy lives. So when I see our neighbor's kids coming by once or twice a week I think, "wow, what lovely, close families."

Sometimes I joke that I live more of a 'mormon' life now than I did when i was a member..

I try to be as self sufficient as possible,
grown my own vegetables and fruits in my garden,
bake our own bread,
keep chickens for the eggs,
chop wood for our stove to heat the house.
I keep a pretty decent food storage..in case of shortage of the monetary kind or otherwise.. and bulk buying is often cheaper.

work part time but would love to be able to stay home comepletely,
We have five children,
I have just set up a community vegetable garden in my town,
I love to make quilts,
I love to knit and crochet,
i love to hand make stuff..
I Like the western stuff.. covered wagons and pioneer stuff. I find it very interesting to learn what day to day life was really like in those days.. how did you wash yourself, your clothes.. what did you eat? Where did you get it and how did you prepare it etc..
I love campfires and singing songs with guitars and such... ow gowd, I'll go and hide now......


And at times I get tired of being looked at funny. I get tired of being the weirdo of the neighbourhood... and I think it would be nice to be a part of a community of like minded people.

So yes I can understand when you say you miss the culture. The gatherings, the feeling part of the family etc..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2012 04:41AM by becca.

They're just two pieces of one big cult, you can't separate them one from another nor undo the damage that they inflict on otherwise decent people.

When I was part of the Church, I had to compartmentalize to remain sane.

There were some activities that I was unwilling to do any more. For instance, I ceased attending the temple ~20 years before I finally left (resigned). I couldn't counsel others to attend the temple with any integrity so I wouldn't.

I let them know that I was incompatible with any calling where I would be expected to "bear testimony" of whatever the lesson du jour might be (especially those with an "agenda").

I was the ward clerk for ~10 years, however. I also knew that I could resign my callings at any time and live with serenity. My (non-Mormon) grandmother volunteered in several community organizations. Her philosophy was always, "Let them know that you could be gone in a heartbeat."

Anyone in the Church has to limit their "testimony." Otherwise, the Church swallows you whole. I had to be even more careful to limit my involvement with the Church because my fanatical LDS wife (ex now) took the Law of Consecration to the extreme.

There was nothing my wife wouldn't do for the Church. And bishops couldn't understand why I wasn't thrilled.

nailed it

After being out over 10 years and moving 2,000 miles from Utah, I started realizing there were cultural mormon things that were actually things I liked.

I always loved pioneer day, especially with the kids. So last year for our summer religious education series at the UU church I attend, I taught the kids about pioneer day (not just mormon pioneers). I made the girls prarie bonnets and bought suspenders for the boys, made oxcarts out of wagons, taught them "The Oxcart Song," "Pioneer Children Sang as they Walked," "Crossing the Prarie," and we had a taffy pull. The kids loved it and the parents all wanted to know stuff about it.

I like family history but hated the guilt about getting it done and getting temple work done. A few years back I realized I liked knowing the histories and my genealogy. I got really interested in it again but use forms with no mormon data on them, look more for the history and stories, than just names and dates, and have come across some good finds that I looked for a long time ago and couldn't find. The way I see it now is that my ancestors who wouldn't appear to me in dreams so I could do their temple work, are helping me find them now that they know I won't share my findings with any mormons nor will I baptize them. But my findings dispell some of the cool family hearsay. Dang.

Also, I have started wanting to bake bread, dehydrate food, make jam, sew, cross-stitch, and some of those things I couldn't bring myself to do for a long time because of my former encouragement to be a SAHM and do those things to prove how Molly I was. Kinda fun to come home from the office now and do them just cause I want to.

Yeah that's weird huh?.
I could never get myself to do those things when in the Morg.. I hated the homemaking meetings...

But now... well.. as I said before, except for the whacky believe system and the strange dress code, I could probably be mistaken for a mormon.. hahaha.

The posts here are amazing. So rich in heart. I love them. Helpful in further forming my own views around it all and hopefully offering others the same.

When one is Mormon and has church and activities and callings, it is hard to have the time to do the crafty food stuff I think, plus all the internal pressures of self condemnation over whatever form of minor sin one may have done and worrying about talking to the bishop and repenting of it.

As far as one comment on the idea of culture and religion holding on, I think I may comment on another thread about that in more depth. I think I would like to see more examination of that subject collectively than may happen in just a comment here on the thread.

I just posted it and edited this to post the link... Go here for those who want to continue the conversation and may have missed it.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,504525



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2012 02:14AM by wonderer.