On Friday we went out to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Lehi with Karin and Jay. We asked them to share with us their stories of leaving the church. I was so impressed with Jay’s courage and integrity. I feel like I have every kind of support imaginable and it is still so hard. I feel like I am crazy or damned pretty regularly. But I at least am exiting with 50% of my age group, and there are a LOT of people in my exact same situation. Jay went through this at a time in Utah when there was basically no support, so he just had to trust his own intuition, believe in himself and have the courage to follow his inner convictions. We have never discussed this before and I was just blown away.
It was also really interesting to hear Karin’s perspective and story. She mentioned a commercial the Church put out showing a family that was getting warm inside while a storm crashed outside their home, and the analogy was supposed to be how the church keeps families safe from a wicked outside world. She noted that she didn’t feel scared of the outside world and in fact thinks it’s a great place. She wanted to think for herself and do her own thing and didn’t feel like she needed protection from herself or from the world.
I am grateful that both she and Jay were so willing to share and offer so much support, sympathy and love. I think it was also important for Abe to hear his mother’s story and Jay’s story at this time in life. I think our own situation has given him a whole new perspective on it all.
I also shared my journey and how I’ve come to this impossible place where I want to be with my family and support my family–and also engage my community, which I adore–but seriously can no longer take the truth claims of the Church any longer. It seems like everyone who starts seriously researching church history either becomes nuanced in their testimony or just leaves the church.
I wish we had pictures but we were so busy talking that we literally talked until half an hour after the restaurant closed! We didn’t realize it was past 10pm until someone noted that everything was mopped and that there was no one there but employees. Oops! I guess we had a lot on our minds.
But Abe took this picture on his noon walk:
