Lily asked me to blog today so we could have recorded my perspective on what it is like going through her faith journey with her.
At first it was awful. I, like many members of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, felt extremely invested in my belief system, and when Lily started breaking away from different beliefs of the LDS church, I felt betrayed, hurt and also scared. Scared because she was thinking harder on the topic than I was and certainly studying a lot more than I was. So I was scared that she was on to something, on to something true, something that would unravel my own belief system as well if I opened myself up to it. In my hurt and fear, I started out not being a very safe space for her. I would find myself loyally defending the church for stupid things it has done wrong or is doing wrong. I would find myself judging her for being too cynical, too negative, or throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
But something bigger than my deep love for the church has been at play, and that is my even deeper love for Lily. Lily has changed my life. She has given immeasurable added meaning and beauty to my life. She has filled me days with happiness, and served tireless to build a wonderful home for our children. I knew that I needed to treat her different because of the love I had for her and because I knew certainly that I did not want our relationship to suffer because we now saw things differently. So I started to repent. I started to listen more, to truly consider what she was reading, thinking and feeling. I started to validate her journey, even in areas where it differed from mine. Most importantly, I started to incorporate things she was learning into my own beliefs to help bring me closer both to her and to truth. That all was going pretty well and despite the great stress over discussions around tithing, raising children in the faith, and other church topics, things still thrived. I feel I have a uniquely good marriage and all of that stayed intact as Lily explored and tried to determine for herself what she believed and what she didn’t.
Things came to a massive jolt when Lily went to a Sunday school class a month ago and was so hurt by some of the comments condemning same-sex relationships, that she felt that church had become too toxic, and she decided she was going to take a break. Ironically, and also miraculously, while she was in the worst class of her life, I was in the men’s group (Elder’s Quorum) having one of the best classes of my entire life which gave me a greater articulated faith in Christ, specifically that faith in Christ is the belief that Christ will take anything and everything difficult or sad in our lives, and ultimately turn it into something beautiful and glorious to those that believe. After my amazing class, I felt ready for anything, and in a moment of inspiration, love and brilliance, I caressed Lily after her traumatic class and told her with complete compassion, support, love and understanding that it was ok that she needed to take a break. That I supported it, understood, believed in her.
…….And then the wheels came off my cart. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I told her of my support in complete integrity of intention, but I found myself falling apart after that at the awareness of what was happening to both me and my family. The first thing that shocked me to the core was the realization that Lily would not longer be at church with me, no longer sit in class with me, no longer drive to and from church with me, no longer help pick-up the kids with class from me, exchange small talk with me, comment in class with me etc. One of my favorite parts of our shared experience was now no longer shared. Then, and this is the thought that completely unraveled me, I started to think that our ideologies would grow so different that there would be entire parts of our internal worlds that would never be fully relatable again. An area of connection and common assumptions that always tied us together was now unraveling and I envisioned us having our views about God and the LDS church living in silos that would never connect. I feared we would never be united in the same way. Never understand each other in the same way. I’ve always felt largely in unison with Lily. I’ve never felt an area of significant disagreement with her on ideology or beliefs. This was the first time it had ever happened on this magnitude, and I feared it would rip us apart, or at least make it so we could never be as close.
Eventually, my inner-unravelings became outer unravelings. I’ve had multiple sessions falling apart right in front of Lily. Sometimes deeply sad, sobbing that we’ll never be as close again. Sometimes I was angry, accusing her of selfishness (and most unfortunately, that happened on Mother’s day), but in every case, I was a complete emotional disaster, feeling like my world was falling apart. Also, in every case, Lily was so quick to forgive, and so understanding of the grieving process I was going through.
It has been about a month now since Lily decided to stop going to go church. Church is still hard, but it is getting better. I actually had joy at church today and really enjoyed the people and messages. I found myself helping to transition a crying baby into being ok in the nursery so her parents could go to class and I felt joy at the ability to help. I enjoyed my clerking work after church. And I came home to Lily to gush about the people and the messages that were so great. I will always miss having Lily there. I never want to stop missing having Lily there. She is a part of me, and I want her close in every possible way, but right now, this is how it is, and it’s getting better.
I’m also getting better, day by day, at showing the love and support that I originally promised to her when she first said she wasn’t coming to church. It is a process for me, but I see myself getting better at it. Her journey is very authentic. She is truly searching for what is true, and she has legitimate concerns about the church, many of which I share. She wants to take a step back and craft her own approach to life, God and faith, and have enough distance from the church to know what she is building is hers, and not something she is being inculcated to think. Church conditioning is very strong, so I completely understand what she is doing, and I support it.
I titled this entry rain on tulips. After the activities of today, I went out to the porch to play guitar to relax, and while I did, I noticed the incredible rain on the tulips outside. Just looking at the combination of raindrops on the amazing tulips Georgia planted really hit me. I was in awe of how beautiful of a site it was. It was not a sunny day. The air was cool, crisp and clean. The sky was overcast, and yet, the site of the rain on the tullips was breathtaking. That’s how I feel about Lily’s faith journey and the journey our whole family is on as a result. It isn’t exactly sunny right now, but it is profoundly beautiful. So what is the beauty in it? I’m glad you asked.
Lily’s journey is opening the minds of everyone in this family, especially my own. She is determined that our children are not provincial, or judgemental or bigoted. She is also determined that they do not hand their brains over to the institution of the church to decide on all of the world’s issues for them. She wants them to question leadership, question authority, seek inspiration, use their minds, and come to their own conclusions. She wants our children to have exposure to diversity. To find love for all the good the world has to offer and to not be blocked by feelings of superiority, otherness or peculiarity that would inhibit health interaction with other groups, ideas or people. She wants them to be free from the chains of black and white thinking, thinking that only they have the truth, and the chains of pride that make us think we have so much to share and so little to learn. These are all things that I value deeply, and it truly is hard to model these values as a conventional and orthodox member of my church. I now feel my children are getting the best of both worlds…a faith structure to build, shape and secure them, and an open mind to know that there is more beyond the structure, more to be examine, explored and even adopted.
Also, Lily’s journey has led to some of my most profound Spiritual advances that I have ever experienced. Having OCD, and also just being unusually conscientious, my journey in the church has been incredibly joyful, meaningful and rewarding, but it has also been fraught with fear and panic. I stress about the rules. I stress about the guidelines. I stress about if I got my tithing calculations right, about if I looked away quick enough when a sensual scene came on in a movie, if it matters that there is alcohol in my dijon mustard etc. etc. When I’m really stressed out, such worries can turn into full blown panic attacks. Bear in mind, I have a deep love for the church, and I could write a thousand pages on how much I love it, the good it has done for me and why, why I want to continue it and why I want our children to grow up in it, but this is one dark corner that has been a part of my experience….the fear. As Lily has been breaking rules like drinking coffee, not going to church etc, I’ve observed that she is still amazingly wonderful, still having spiritual experiences, still seeking God, still loving others etc. In short, her world is still turning and she is still experiencing God. Observing her has given me courage to break some rules in my own right, not to be reckless, or jeopardize anything that truly matters to me, but to prove to myself that the world will keep spinning and I can keep operating even if I occasionally color outside of the lines. Her journey has helped me to loosen up and have less anxiety, to realize more and more that I’m saved by God and not by the institution of the church and that being good with God is not the exact same as being good with the church. Most importantly, it has reduced my fear and helped me to live more freely. It has helped me to be a church member out of joy, and do things because I want to, and not because I’m scared not to. It’s hard to express how significant this pivot has been in my life. I plan to do a lot more writing on it, but it has been a massive breakthrough for me.
Lastly, I need to end by saying that somehow, in some miraculous way, I have now found myself closer to Lily than I have ever felt to her. I certainly did not think this was possible. But somehow there is more intimacy in truly listening, respecting and hearing each others differences, than there is in feeling the same on everything. I don’t know how or why it works this way, but for us it does. Maybe its because it’s a greater more vulnerable and deep expression of love to embrace someone different than to embrace someone whose the same. If you embrace someone who is the same, does that mean you love the person? Or does it mean you just love their sameness? When you embrace all of someone, including differences, there is no mistaking…what you truly love, is the person. That is how it has felt with Lily. I have felt more deeply in love with her, and more deeply loved by her than I have ever felt. We used to find unity through unison. Now we are harmonizing. Now we are finding unity through love, respect, listening.
Rain can be cold, wet, sloppy, even sad. But what I see now is that the rain on the tulip of our home has only made it more beautiful.