I was raised a sixth-generation Mormon, one of the Saturday's warriors.

'Who are these children coming down, coming down...'

My great, great, great grandfather, his brothers and their parents and families came to Nauvoo to live with the Saints, having been converted in New England after reading the Book of Mormon and praying for a testimony. They followed Brigham Young to the Salt Lake valley. They practised polygamy. As far as I know, all my ancestors when they died, at least on my Dad's side, were buried in their second endowment robes, their calling and election made sure. If some of you don't know what that means, it's not your fault. It's never talked about much. Pres. Kimball reinstituted the practice and it was done quietly. Your family members who received the ordinances would have to tell you about it. They're told to keep it very secret. It basically means that you have endured long enough to prove to god that you will always be faithful and never leave the church and so you are given your second endowment, guaranteeing you your place next to Joseph Smith in the celestial kingdom. I don't know if Pres. Hinckley is continuing the practice or whether it has stopped again. You will get a letter from the prophet inviting you to the temple to meet the prophet or someone in the twelve, I imagine. I'm not sure who can actually perform the ordinances.

For nearly half of my life (I'm about halfway through now), I lived on the east bench of the Salt Lake Valley. My neighborhood was probably 80 to 90% Mormon; members were at all various levels of activity, mostly doctors, lawyers and business owners. We had a pretty cushy church life and during my time as a kid growing up, especially while part of the scouting program, I was able to go to many wonderful places, not just throughout Utah, but all around the country. A lot of people had boats, so there were the MIA (remember the MIA?) trips to Lake Powell and Flaming Gorge, the Scout excursions: hiking through the Grand Canyon, the canoe trip in the Boundary Waters, the Wind River and Teton hikes, the Pacific Coast bike ride, the Baja adventure. And of course the kayak summer ending up with the trip down the Snake. I think the scout leaders we had in our ward were simply incredible.

While my father has told me personally he has had doubts about the church at times, I never knew him to ever be in a crisis where his testimony was wavering. My mother has never mentioned any crisis of that sort as well. Our family, to borrow an old image, was the classic 'Iron Rod' family. And that 's how they at least tried to raise us. Their testimonies have burned bright. They've tried to rely on the Lord in all that they have done. We woke together in the mornings, on weekdays, before eating to read the Book of Mormon (One morning, I remember asking my dad what the word 'lasciviousness' meant. He said he would get back to me. Never a reply). We had family home evening each Monday night. And it wasn't a tv night, until after the lesson. Monday Night Football is a common lesson in most families, I bet. It was in our family as well. My dad always taught us a "spiritual" lesson first, though. We prayed together on our knees around the dinner table twice a day. We never missed church meetings, unless we were in the mountains somewhere backpacking. But we didn't do that kind of thing often.It was our duty and responsibility to be in church and fulfill our church duties. We were never one of the families with the boat (Regional reps were always coming through the ward to speak in the summer. Invariably, the talks were about being 'where you were supposed to be' on Sundays. It was pretty tough to convince people they shouldn't be out boating when the bishop was oftentimes one of the culprits).

We have a cabin on the Smith and Morehouse river that my great grandfather built. And for part of every summer I lived up there together with my mother, brothers and sisters and all the cousins (there were lots) and of course with grandma and grandpa. The men came up after work on Friday evenings and went home again Sunday night. It is a wonderful old cabin and I have a lot of precious memories of my time spent there. Before" the brethren" put a stop to it, we would hold church services in the pine tree grove across the river or inside someone's cabin. All the people living at the various cabins were invited. While the ranch of which our cabin lot is just one, was started by a group of families who lived close together in one of the Stakes on the east bench, I think back on it now and there must be as many families who have gone inactive as there are families who haven't. It seems, too, that the families who kept a lot of horses at the ranch were usually the ones not so active. That may be the reason why we always rode the neighbors' horses instead of having any of our own. Too good an excuse to miss church.

I'm not in the church now. I've never asked to be taken off the records. It doesn't really matter. I mean especially if you don't believe they have any hold over you anyway. Why bother with all the hassle and time and the bishop trying to meet with you. If you are fortunate enough to be able to move all the way around the world, it's tough for them to really find you. Can I tell you my story of why I left the church?

I too was an Iron Rod mormon for some time. But that's getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to the start. While I was sleeping in my mother's womb, my dad was getting antsy. You see, he was just starting a new job at a law firm in D.C. and I wasn't helping the situation any by missing my due date. So my father told my mom to drive to the store and buy something she could take to cause labor. She did it. I came out at 8:00 in the morning, ever the procrastinator, the fourth child in five-six years. He made it to work that morning to start his new job.

My few memories of the east coast as a young boy include sitting with my family near the D.C. monuments eating lunch in between Stake Conference sessions, ward outings to the beach and playing around the new Stake Center as it was being built. Almost everything is a church memory. I do remember going to the movie theater with my brothers and sister to see "HELP," the new Beatles movie. I fell in love with music after that.

With my brothers and sisters, we all moved to Salt Lake City, my parents' hometown, when I was seven. My father took a job at Zion's bank where my grandfather worked until he found a job with a law firm. We moved into a new house on the east bench. At night, we could hear the lions from the zoo roaring during their evening feeding. There was a public golf course closeby where we played away our summer evenings, with or without clubs. That's where I also learned how to drink beer, smoke cigarettes, kiss girls and all the other crazy stuff a kid does when he is young. We were told by our parents that my dad didn't accept a job in New York City because it didn't feel right. They truely felt that it would be better to raise us in the valley, where it was safe for kids, where their kids could be insulated from the evils of the world. Little did they know.

Almost all my friends were from 'good' Mormon families. They were all priesthood holders, like myself, the guys anyway, who went inactive to some degree, during their high school years. Some for only a year, some for the whole jr. high and sr. high period. For some it continued for a year or two into college. Then came the big switcheroo. Almost every one of them converted or should I say reverted back to Mormonism. We called it "straightening up." I was one of these people as well, though I straightened up a little later. We all tried to hide our vices from our parents. But sometimes it wasn't possible. My parents caught my friends and me in the house with beer. They found pot in the clothes washer when I forgot to take it out of my sock late one night. My mom found my bong on my bookshelf. I got busted by the cops for theft (impossible to hide that one). My first serious girlfriend at the ripe young age of 15-16 and I were caught by my mother nearly naked in my bedroom. All my friends, or a vast majority of them lost their virginity in high school. Some had to get married. You have to wonder how many abortions there may have been. And most of these 16 year old ladies were mormons. My first serious girlfriend wasn't. I want to mention this because you would think for how important it is in the mormon view of things not to have any kind of sex before marriage that you would get a little education about it all. My formal sex education was pretty worthless. I remember a sex education class in fifth or sixth grade to which our parents were invited to attend. My parents didn't. I remember the film of the little sperm swimming along trying to find the egg. There was the church pamphlet which my father left on my pillow one night. It was titled something like 'For Young Men Only.' It was handed out at a Stake Conference saturday evening priesthood session, which I did not attend. I did attend one priesthood meeting where a doctor spoke on the 'perils of masturbation and sexual promiscuity.' I just remember that he was a scary dude. Noone looked at each other. I bent my head down on the pew in front of me until he finished. Yuck! The only other time I heard a lecture about masturbation was from my jr. high p.e. teacher. He told us one day before playing football outside that it was o.k. to masturbate, but that it should be in a private place, alone, not with friends. (He was too late about that part. I learned how in a room with three friends.) He said to always remember that it was the 'pubic' area, not the 'public' area. He also warned us not to masturbate in the bathtub. He had heard a story of a boy who got his sister pregnant by masturbating in the tub, he said. That's the extent of it really. He wasn't Mormon. Of course, we all heard the exhortations from the pulpit or in sunday school class or in mutual, especially in mutual.

...like gentle rain from falling sky. With glory trailing from their feet as they go, and endless promise in their eyes...


I stopped going regularly to church when I was in high school. It was sometime during that first or second year of high school that I told my dad I wasn't going to go if I didn't want to. When I finally stood up for myself, he stopped forcing me to church. Prior to this time, when I would say that I didn't feel like going, my father would ask me what my feelings had to do with it. (What my feelings had to do with it?) It was my duty as a Priesthood holder, he would say, to attend church. I would, against all my instincts, put on a suit and go.

...who are these children, growing strong, growing strong...

I was the fourth child, the third boy, and I wasn't the first to go wild in my family. Everyone did in my family for a time. Everyone experimented with alcohol and other drugs. All stopped going to church for a time. My older sister, all through the last year of jr. high and senior high and beyond, lived away from home, sometimes for long spells. Much of what was happening with my sister, I wasn't really privy to. But I would hear the screaming and fighting and doors slamming. Guys would come and honk in front of the house and she'd tear out before my dad had a chance to know what was going on. They would find where the parties were and go and take her away. Finally, we just didn't see her much. I remember hearing the arguments starting in jr. high about the 'dangers of mascara and short hemlines'. It just progressed from there. She is out of the church, as well.

When my parents were out of town, there would always be a wild party at the house. That's where I first learned about the smell of the weed and the aroma of beer. I'd leave the house during these parties and just go for a walk. I was confused. By jr. high, I made a group of new friends and started on my own wild escapades. I was a pretty disgusting kid really. I started masturbating in seventh grade. I was drinking beer and $2.00 wine in eighth grade. That's when I started making out with girls too. I lost my virginity when I was sixteen, and started experimenting with drugs, the psychedelic kind. Now I was getting more confused. (Not because the drugs were bad. Rather, just the opposite. I learned too that all they were saying about "drugs" wasn't true either.) At the same time, there were fights at home with me and my parents and my brothers and sisters. My oldest brother was the first to 'straighten out' so he became 'big brother' in all the horror of that term. The enforcer. He would fight with my sister and beat her up and threaten her. He's now an FBI agent. Loves to carry a gun. My other brother was going wild too and it was just too much for my parents. They just thought if they had some kids and went to church every Sunday, everything would be fine. We were tough on them. I especially so. Again, it's important to remember that almost all the guys I was hanging around with also were Mormons. But as age nineteen came close everyone began to have their conversions and prepare for their missions. Both my brothers went to South America. They prayed for a testimony and got it and committed their lives to the Lord. They are still active today.

So what happened to me? I went on a mission, too. I had my mighty change of heart when I was 20. But first, I had to go through interviews with my bishop, several times, and with my Stake President, two or three times. When I couldn't answer how many times I'd fornicated in my life they thought they had better send me to a G.A. M. Russell Ballard interviewed me, before he was an apostle. I'm sure he has heard worse. In fact, I know he had to have heard worse if the guys from our stake were as honest as I was. I was approved to go that evening after the interview and then awaited my call. I went to England for two years. I served in the London South mission. My mission president was Richard Eyre, a good friend of Paul Dunn. Then, for the last six months, Howard Rhodes. You may have read one of Eyre's and Dunn's books. If you haven't, welI, you aren't really missing much. I enjoyed my mission but I didn't enjoy the guilt that necessarily comes to a young nineteen year old boy in the mission field as an 'Ambassador' for the Lord. That's quite a lot to carry on such a young boy's shoulders. I finished as a Zone Leader. I trained three new missionaries. I won a bible as the 'mission scriptorian', along with one of my greenies. For the first year, I was pretty in to the mission and really had a strong testimony and burning desire to convert people. Some time in the second year, I started to really get put off with all the rules and was meeting with a lot of missionaries who were really stressed out because of their guilt feelings. It seemed most of my time as a district leader or zone leader was spent hanging out with 'problem missionaries.' The problems were invariably due to guilt from not baptising as many people as they were told they were supposed to be baptising. Because of this guilt, they would search through every nook and cranny of their lives thus lived for some missing sin that had not been repented of. Most of the guilt feelings were caused by the missions' obsessive emphasis on baptisms. (I laugh when Pres. Hinckley boasts of how many members there are in the church. I know for sure that one of those is a pet monkey, two missionaries' landlady's pet. I didn't do it!) But I did baptise a lot of kids from inactive families, knowing they would go inactive soon after, as well. We played soccer with them a lot. That always worked. It was really good for the numbers, too. I remember, when we first arrived in the mission field, I was told by the mission president to 'pray and consult with the lord' about a baptism goal and then to talk to him in the first zone conference about the goal. When I told him that I had prayerfully consulted with the Lord about the goal and that my goal was 25 baptisms in two years, I was told by the president that my goal wasn't big enough and that I should rethink it. Wow. What a way to begin to trust those impressions of the spirit. Already I'd fucked up. I doubled the goal and he was satisfied. I finished baptising about 26 people, but remember, a lot of those baptisms were kids from inactive families. Layups, sports terminology Pres. Eyre knows well.

I married my girlfriend seven months after returning home. I was kind of Dear Johned, but she was still there when I got back. We married in the Salt Lake Temple. I look back on it and realize how much of a jerk I was at times. I was really self righteous and I think my wife must have started hating me about the time we got married. I started taking my role as the priesthood holder too seriously. We argued a lot about not going to the temple religiously each month and I couldn't understand for the life of me why my wife didn't like the experience. I felt terribly guilty when the temple attendance role would be passed around in priesthood meeting. I knew I wasn't living up to the promises I had made in the temple. At this time I was the classical Iron Rod believer. I'd never done much thinking about any real theological issues or historical issues, but I was quite good, in the mormon way, with the scriptures. I thought I had an answer for any question thrown to me from a doubting Thomas. Then I matriculated at the University of Utah.


My life completely changed after I was introduced to the world of ideas and free thought. Thank god! I don't know how I graduated from junior or senior high school. I don't remember ever taking home a book, but when I got to college I hit the books hard. I also took classes at the LDS institute and found U. Carlisle Hunsaker there teaching church philosophy and theology, what he liked to call ' Mormon metaphysics.' He lost his job at the institute because he was participating in Sunstone symposiums. (I heard it was a Packer political move to save the university 'kids'.) Those classes and the ideas expressed in them began to crack open my innocent, sweet, fragile Mormon life. Mormon concepts and its history, as expressed in the mainstream writings and through the hearts of most of the members, are very fragile. They crumble at the slightest breath of honest fresh air. I was amazed at how unsupportable they are for the most part. I realized I was guilty of having let other people who I respected and trusted do my thinking for me. "They love me. They are generally smart people. They're not going to deceive me", I thought. I sometimes get the feeling that deep down inside they have very strong doubts too and their feelings are the only things holding them in because they can't explain them away. I want to talk about testimony and feelings in more detail a little later. I started reading George Boyd's essays, then went on to Sterling McMurrin, Lowell Bennion and O. C. Tanner, and then to E.E. Erickson, Waldemer P. Read. If you haven't read the biography of W.H. Chamberlain by his brother Ralph Chamberlain, you should. Ralph Chamberlain was the science professor at the BYU in the early 1900's during the evolution controversy at the BYU. Then on to B. H. Roberts, John Widtsoe, James Talmage. This led me to Sunstone and Dialogue and to my own private research in libraries around the city. When I brought a Sunstone home to my father's house for him to see it, I was surprised by his reaction. He asked if they were connected to the Dialogue guys and I said not connected to, but supportive of. I left a copy for him to read. A month later I asked him if he had read it and he said that he had never even picked it up. He said to me that he felt the power of the devil in that magazine and wasn't going to pick it up. I took it home. That started what was for us a long period of constant arguing about theology. I took the tack that we couldn't have it both ways. We couldn't go around calling god all powerful, all knowing and then at the same time say he is forever progressing. The concepts don't match using classical philosophical theological definitions. He said he wasn't bound to use the classical definitions. The Bible and Book of Mormon were enough. And the spirit always gave one the proper interpretation and of course he would never lead the prophet astray so we were safe relying on the prophets' teachings on god. When my father heard I was taking a class from Professor McMurrin on the foundations of occidental thought (I wrote a paper on Mormon theology and the problem of evil. For another, I wrote on process philosophy, especially Hartshorne's ideas ), my dad really freaked. He said that he wouldn't pay for those kind of classes when it was just easier to get down on your knees for all the answers about religion. I was warned that Professor McMurrin would lead me astray and that he had lost the spirit and had become very antagonistic towards 'the brethren' and the church. I told my dad that was fine, but of course I would continue to take the classes and would pay for them myself. He backed down after that. I enjoyed Professor's McMurrin's classes very much. I especially enjoyed talking to him in his office about history and philosophy. He was very generous with his time and knowledge, his vast amount of knowledge. I also took classes on philosophies of human nature with Prof. Whisner (one of the best professors around), ethics classes with Prof. Rogers. Shakespeare classes with Prof. Nelson, a great Shakespeare teacher. He taught me how to write. This study changed my life and opened up a whole new world for me. I started reading about mythology and culture and became fascinated with Joseph Campbell's analysis of various mythologies around the world, including the many 'savior mythologies.' My dad taped every segment of that series with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers on PBS. We were watching one of the segments and my dad turned to me and said: He's almost got it." I was thinking: "Oh, now that makes sense. Now I get some of this Christian mythology." I would just smile at my father. He was always so sure, even though he had read nothing, literally nothing, on the subject. But, he prefers to get all his religious knowledge from the scriptures or from God himself, on his knees, through prayer. He sent a letter and a Book of Mormon to M. Scott Peck after reading "The Road Less Travelled". I suggested to both my mom and dad that they should read his other book, "The Children of the Lie", but I don't think they did.

After graduation from the University of Utah, I moved to a midwest city to attend law school. I was also leaving the church more and more each day. Finally, we stopped going all together while I was in law school. Law school was a great place to be. I met people from every walk of life and again the fragile mormon world view that had been constructed around me began to crumble like a dry cookie, but at a far more rapid pace. I started reading Jung and Ken Wilbur ( still can't understand him). My friends were all non-mormon. All good people. Can you believe it? I couldn't for a while. Wow, I would think, non-mormon families can be happy together? Then why would they need the church? Some people choose to abstain from drinking without being commanded to. And they aren't raping or pillaging or thieving or whoring for that matter. How can this be? I was always taught that you are for God or against him, there was no in between. So all these fine people were against him? Come again?

Law school can be rough on a marriage and I divorced my wife three years after I graduated from law school. My ex-wife also left the church and joined the Catholic church and remarried. I think I'm staying independant and won't join any other church. I feel like I would in no way benefit from going to church, Christian or any other. More on my pursuit of spirituality later.

I'm now in Japan. I see missionaries around some of the train stations. I hear about the free English lessons and all that. I've never actually been to one of those lessons. Maybe sometime I'll go. It must be hard for them here. Having no understanding of a culture far deeper and richer than their mormon one. Blind to everything but the pursuit of baptisms. There is a lot to be learned anywhere in Asia. The people are friendly (the Japanese are probably the least so) for the most part. And there is so much to learn. Bali is an island blessed with an abundance of spirit. I've found a great love for Buddhism, particularly the Tibetan Buddhism. The more I study about these very old ideas and cultures I have to laugh a little at Christians who think everything that happened before Christ was born was in preparation for his birth and everything after would have no meaning but for his birth. The Chinese, Tibetans, Indians and Pakistanis, the Thai and the Indonesians. They have to chuckle at that one. It's been great for me to live, not just outside the mormon culture, but also outside the salt lake culture and outside the american culture, for that matter. When george bush stands up there and says that the whole world looks up to America and respects them, don't believe it, not for a second. People who need money always hang around people who've got it . The same goes for countries. I mean, I guess I would tell America everything they wanted to hear too if it saved me from being on their 'bad boy' list. You can read history and see where that gets you. Start with the the Native Americans.

From whatever perspective we care to view this world, as soon as you change your point from which you view it, everything changes. It's a wonderful life now, participating in the flow and process of life. You cannot do it inside Mormonism without having to compartmentalize too much. The comparmentalization then leads to serious depression (because it is so unnatural) which is covered up with activity after activity to keep you from thinking about it or dealing with it. There are a lot of Salt Lake mormons suffering from serious depression, by what I can tell.I think my parents and a lot of the extended family around them certainly suffer from it. But they call it "cleanliness" or "spirituality." (I never believed that idea that cleanliness was next to godliness. Every time I saw family cleaning, they were angry or frowning or worse, fighting. Can you imagine fighting in your family over whether the rug was vacuumed on Saturday. Usually all the cleaning was done in our house, not on Saturday, but rather on Sunday morning, just before the radio broadcast of the tabernacle choir. Don't get me wrong. Of course, you have to be somewhat clean. But I think most Mormons are really sick about it, even anal about it.)

I knew something was up when I was just a kid. I remember at a very young age thinking my family was crazy. I can still see myself standing in my bedroom, the ripe old age of 9 or 10 holding a knife to my gut and thinking about pushing it in. I chickened out and instead carved inside my dresser drawer, where my mom would put away my underwear and socks after they were washed, the words: 'I HATE YOU.' My mom had to have seen it, but nothing was ever said. I was a happy kid before then. My mom starting asking me all the time what happened to me and why wasn't I the sweet little kid that I was at baptism age. Well, I wonder why. No one smiled inside the home. My mom was a professional at giving you the evil eye and then saying she did no such thing.I learned it well from her and gave it back to her in spades. I look back on it now and my dad was nonexistent really when I was young. He was there, but he wasn't there. I never remember studying together. I don't think he asked me anything about school. As all the kids would be sitting around the tv at night after dinner, my mom would sometimes ask whether I had any homework to do. I either said I had no homework that day or I said I had already done it. And that was the end of it. Don't you think it is a kind of clue that something's up if your kid never brings home a book? My mom did basically write a few reports for me the nights before they were due. She is also completely responsible for my getting an Eagle scout award. There is no way I would have gotten it on my own. (Remember, ever the procrastinator). But all three of us obtained the rank of eagle scout in my family. Maybe she just did mine pretty much for me but not for my brothers. I can't speak for them.

I felt spirits in the house often. One time, when home alone, not a teenager yet, laying in bed (I was sick that day and home from school) I felt really strange like there was a spirit trying to get at me. I ran out of the house in some kind of delirium and knocked on my neighbors' door. The mom answered and I just kind of stood there. She asked me what was the matter and I couldn't figure out what to say to her so I just kind of walked away. Another time in my room, the lights were off and I was laying on my bed and from the corner of the room, something black, blacker than black, started filling up my room beginning at the ceiling corner and moving toward my bed. I ran into the tv room and sat down with some of my family. I didn't say anything at the time. I had a possession experience when I was only sixteen or seventeen. My father cast the spirits out with a priesthood blessing and then the spirits came back again. I was rolling around on my father's couch in his study. It was a little like the exorcist movie, actually. Then my dad called our hometeacher and he came with the oil and two more hands and they annointed me and then cast out the spirits. I felt them leave my body and I even thought I could kind of see them leave through the ceiling. I was at peace then. You would think that all this would bring me closer to the church. However, I continued in my ways just as before. It was never talked about again. When my sister still lived at home, in between her escapes from the craziness, I would sneak in to her room and sometimes sleep in her bed with her. I have no idea if she even knows that. I felt safe there. I could smell the cigarette smoke on her hair and sometimes the smell of alcohol from her warm breath. I felt a lot safer there then alone in my own bed in the dark.

I wonder now if I could have made it out of the church without the example of my sister. She really has gone through hell, a hell no child of loving parents should had to have gone through. She really paid a heavy price getting out, what with all the fighting and mean, disgusting things said back and forth between my parents and my sister. I remember when I was still in the church and I was talking with my mom about my sister. I could hear the bitterness and anger my mom felt about my sister still, 20 years later. I said my mom should just forgive her. My mom said she would never forgive her for what she had done. I asked what she had done that my mom couldn't forgive her for but she wouldn't say. My dad quickly jumped in and said I didn't know what I was talking about and it was certainly bad enough to just trust what my mother was saying. And these people were Christians?

Well, I'm married again now and we are really happy. My wife is Japanese. We now have a beautiful baby boy, Tao. I'm experiencing true love for the first time in my life. It's like I see life in full color now. It's no longer black and white tv, it's the full nbc peacock. A little scary. I'm still not great at reciprocating (the trust thing), but I'm getting better. We've been married for over 5 years. For our honeymoon, we traveled around the world for a year. We visited Thailand three times, Nepal, Africa (east coast), Madagascar, a little of Europe (France and the Netherlands), and the States. My dad counseled me not to go and to wait until after I retired. We didn't.

I wish I had the time and space to tell you about the family reception for my wife and her parents in Salt Lake. Needless to say, my in-laws didn't get the whole church thing. When my grandma met my in-laws she whispered into my ear, "They are one of us. Make sure you take them to temple square." I mean, I took them to the temple square, they got to see that great new movie( with real actors and everything) over in the new Joseph Smith Memorial building. They had a great tour of the facilities with a Japanese speaking lady missionary. But it didn't work. I wonder if it was because my parents failed to be at the airport to meet my in-laws when they came in to town or I wonder if it was because my parents changed their plans and decided to go on a mission right at the time we were all coming in to town, despite knowing that my in-laws had arranged their work schedules to be there for the reception. Or I wonder if it was because we had no place to stay when we arrived in Salt Lake and thus no place to have the reception until my aunt stepped in to volunteer her house. (My parents, because they decided to leave on a mission, moved out of their house where we were going to stay and rented it to a lady who was in Salt Lake because her husband was in the U of U hospital.) So, my grandma said we could stay at the cabin in her bedroom an hour away from the city, cold and snowy. Perfect. Or maybe it was because my family kicked my wife and I out of the cabin for leaving some levis soaking in the sink when it was supposed to be all clean (there's that cleanliness is next to godliness thing rearing its ugly head) prior to a church ladies outing. Oh yeah, the bed wasn't made properly in my grandma's room either. And I left crumbs on the table, too. Oh my god. What could be next? They told us to move on to my friend's place in Seattle. When we saw the in-laws off at the airport ,this time only my dad made it and my wonderful sister-in-law. My mom had a dentist appointment and you know how hard those are to get in the first place, don't you? When we asked them about Salt Lake after our return from our travels, my in-laws mentioned the choir and the beautiful countryside. The water was so clean, they said, they couldn't believe it. They were conspicuously silent about my family.

They have treated me, however, like a real son and I feel a part of their family, more than I do than with my own. They don't judge me. They're so excited about being with Tao and are helping us so much. My wife and I just blabber to each other about how much we are in love. Every aspect is clicking on all eight cylinders. It's fantastic.

My parents are on a mission right now in Florida. My father is a mission president over the Tallahassee mission. We were always told that they didn't have any money, but I guess they do. It's just all been consecrated to the church, perhaps. We get a news letter from the missionfield almost every month telling us about all the great things happening out in the Lord's vineyard. My mom warned us of the anti- stuff on the Internet (she writes to everyone the same letter), so I wrote back to her and asked her if she is even hooked up to the Internet and, if she is, whether she had read any of the stuff on the Internet? No response. (UPDATE: They finished that mission and now are in Malaysia on another one.)

I said I would say something about feelings and testimony. I have had a spiritual witness about the Book of Mormon. I remember reading it and praying about it one night in my bedroom. I fell asleep without an answer. I woke up early the next morning to go to work at the brickyard and I started thinking how could my dad, the great, smart guy that he is, have been duped. It can't be that we all have been duped. I was in the car at the time. Right then, I got what I can only call an electric shock-like jolt throughout my body, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Three times. Each consecutive time was a little weaker than the prior one, however. I drove to work singing church hymns. It happened. I'm not delusional. I've never had other experiences like that (I wouldn't call it a burning in the bosom though), but I've had the whisperings of the spirit. My writing professor, not a Mormon by any stretch of the imagination, told me he called it the writing voice. It was true. I started to use that still small voice for all kinds of learning. The problem is, it lead me away from the church, just like it led me in. Personally, I think what with all of Joseph's magic games in the early period of the church, there are still a bunch of spirits connected to the church, especially with the Book of Mormon. That's just my speculation, though. I don't call them bad or good spirits, just spirits. But no question they're around. It just takes discipline and complete desire to meet them.

My search for a harmonizing spirituality in this life began some time ago. It's private and I can't share a lot with you for various reasons, but I want to give you a few of the books I started with. Pick up Alan Watts' The Book. It's short, but don't be deceived. When you find that you can open to those kind of things, then I would suggest you start reading Stanislov Grof (the Holotropic Mind) and learn how to experience true religion. It's not inside a church. It's inside you. You are god. Trust it. You can tap in to the world of consciousness at any level you wish to if you know how to do it. There are so many dimensions to this existence and all kinds of beings and all kinds of things you can learn about yourself and culture and this race we call human. If Grof is too scary, try entering from the mystical side and read Sogyal Rinpoche's masterpiece titled The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. You can get to the same results. There will be a time, if you are not scared to experience it, that you can become one with the universe and feel the energy and consciousness of life permeating and pulsing through you and you will begin to be taught the mysteries of life. Anyone can do this. You can do this. Start learning and start reading and open your heart. Nothing is evil anymore. Atonement: what's that for? Get on with life and you will see that you can save yourself. Sorry to all of you who are still Christian and believing in this original sin idea. I don't mean to offend you, but really. Come on. Have you ever tried to explain the atonement to someone who isn't western? Watch their face. Not even god would be able to explain it to the general chap from the east.

You are also going to make what you will think are some mistakes along the way. You might sleep with the wrong guy or gal. You might start taking a drink (Alcohol didn't work for me. Notice that all the drugs that are legal kill a lot of people every year, far more than most of the illegal ones. Humh?) The illegal ones are illegal because if you take them you will probably want to get out of the competitive ratrace we call free enterprise (and where would America be if everyone did that). But really, I didn't see Jesus hanging around businessmen, except when he was whipping them out of the temple. The new god is materialism, supported in large part by the christian right wing majority. Why are they bombing innocent people at abortion clinics when if they really stood up for what they believed in they would be bombing department stores around christmas time. Just a bunch of hypocrites. Sorry for this last little bit of ranting and raving. These are my own very personal thoughts.

Whatever you do,if you leave the Church, you will survive. And you will learn. And I promise you will be happier than you have ever been in your life.

Peace, Namaste, Shalom, Yoroshiku.


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