I had the opportunity (and the very narrow window of time) a few weeks ago to drop in on exactly one session of the Salt Lake City Mormon Stories Conference. I was pleasantly surprised there when I got the chance to meet and listen to one of my blogging crushes–the “Mormon Child Bride.”
Her reflections about faith transitions, navigating family and
cultural expectations, authentic living, and experiences with doubt and
belief were so perfectly done, so wonderfully vivid, and so refreshingly
well-composed (as only a teacher of English could do) that I asked if I
could share her latest here.
Graciously she agreed, and so, without further ado, I give you the words and the faith journey of the very much admired MCB.
Mormon Stories Conference 2012
By Stephanie Lauritzen
I’ve heard that when you are nervous about speaking in front of a
crowd, you should picture the crowd in their underwear. I don’t know
what kind of weirdo feels more at ease looking at a bunch of people in
their underwear, especially if you are wearing the Mormon kind. However,
I am very nervous, so instead I will picture you all as the type of
people I’m most comfortable around: now you are all my high school
Language Arts students. That means you all have bad hair and acne. If
you are sitting next to someone you might be physically attracted to,
please scoot away and pretend like you hate them. Much better.
~
A few weeks ago, my students and I read a short story by Percival
Everett called “The Fix.” In the story, a man named Sherman Olney can
fix anything. He starts out with broken refrigerators and faucets, but
eventually, he is faced with bigger problems. Marriage problems, tax
problems, and one night, he solves the ultimate problem: he raises a
woman from the dead.
The end of the story finds Sherman standing on the Golden Gate
Bridge, preparing to jump. He feels overwhelmed from the demands from
everyone to fix their problems. A crowd stands below, begging him not to
jump, screaming “Fix us! Fix us!”
~
Like the people in the story, I’ve spent a long time wanting to be
fixed. When I was an angsty teenager who loved poetry, I loved the John
Donne poem where the speaker begs God to “batter my heart” in to
submission and faith. Even as a teen, I felt like a bad Mormon. I balked
at seemingly nonsensical rules about earrings and dress length. Since
when did God care about earrings? And knees? In Young Women’s, talk of
finding a man to “preside” over my family made me shudder. I found the
rhetoric on homosexuality disturbing. It didn’t help that my parents
raised me as an ardent Democrat, alienating me from my peers. If I had a
dollar for every time a classmate told me that Democrats liked killing
babies…well I’d be really rich, and since I used to be a full-tithe
payer, the church would be too.
~
Despite feeling different from my peers, I found myself mimicking
them in most religious settings. Like my peers, I’d offer tearful
testimonies around the Youth Conference campfire, promising that I knew
the church was true; I loved my parents, and I believed President
Hinckley was a prophet.
~
I could never admit it, even to myself, but I think I hoped that if
I said it enough, I’d believe it. Fake it ‘til you make it was my
subconscious spiritual mantra.
~
Sometimes I would fantasize about a cataclysmic event that would
give me an instant testimony. Nothing painful or maiming, just a pissed
off angel calling me to repentance, or a near-death experience that
would solidify my faith. I was envious of Alma the Younger. All he had
to do was sleep for three days, and suddenly, his faith crisis is over.
So I would pray to Heavenly Father to help me believe. Help me believe
better. Send an angel. Make this easier. Fix me. Fix me.
~
It wasn’t the first or the last time God didn’t answer my prayer.
~
As an adult, I sought a new path. My journey out of traditional
Mormonhood started when I took out my endowments in the LDS temple, a
few weeks before marrying my husband. When I promised to hearken unto my
husband as he hearkened unto God, my heart broke inside. After all the
weeks I spent repeating the Young Women values as a teenager,
confidently believing in my own divine nature and individual worth, it
all came down to listening to someone else. For eternity. Suddenly, it
would take a lot more than an angel, or a three day nap, to make me
believe enough to accept my Temple covenants as doctrine.
~
But it wasn’t until Conference 2010, with the fateful Elder Packer
talk, that I was finally ready to leave my perfect Mormon path. Up until
then, I had followed the Mormon blueprint perfectly. A baptism, Young
Women’s medallions, Seminary graduation, followed by a temple marriage
to a returned missionary. Despite feeling broken, I was willing to try,
willing to shelf my unease about the temple and patriarchy if it meant
God would fix me, and make me a perfect Mormon. But Packer’s talk
signified all that was wrong with my faith. I was doing mental
gymnastics to make myself believe. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one,
when Packer asked “Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone?” He
was asking why God would make someone Gay. We disagreed on the message,
but ironically, Packer and I were asking the same question. “Why would
our Heavenly Father do that to anyone?” Why would Heavenly Father make
it so hard for me to be Mormon? Why would he tell me he loved me, that I
was his child, if I need a husband in order to hear him? Why would he
deny me access to a Heavenly Mother? Why would our Heavenly Father do
that to anyone? Like the people in Percival Everett’s story, I was once
again broken and confused, begging anyone to fix me.
~
So, I decided that if I couldn’t be a good Mormon, I’d be an
awesome apostate. I broke my spouse’s heart when I told him he wouldn’t
have the happy Mormon family he signed up for. I wrote angry blog posts
criticizing the church. I stopped praying, and would mentally berate
myself when I’d slip up and ask for help from God. “Stop it, “I’d think.
“You don’t believe that anymore.” But it wasn’t enough that I didn’t
believe. Week after week, I tried to convince my true believing husband
to see the error of his ways and enter the world of shopping on Sunday
and R-rated movies.
~
Despite my anger and bravado, I was scared. I needed someone to
help me be this new person. If I could convince my husband to leave, it
would validate my choices, it would fix me. I wanted my spouse to help
me stop believing, help me apostatize better. Make this easier. Once
again, I was asking someone to fix me. Fix me.
~
However, Dan had other plans, plans that did not include leaving
the church. He did, however, want to fix me, but not in the way I
wanted. He didn’t understand why I couldn’t look past the things that
bothered me about the church. There is a tendency in the church to
attribute disaffection with a simple offense. That’s why Band-Aid
statements like “The church is perfect but the people are not” exist.
Dan thought it was silly that I would leave the church based on
something said by an old man in General Conference. Like many who are
perplexed when an active member decides to leave, he thought I was
simply offended. At the time, he didn’t realize that the root of my
disaffection stemmed from core doctrines of the church. I felt the
negative impact of patriarchy and inequity in my life. For me, the
feelings of powerlessness and worthlessness I felt in the temple and
during Elder Packer’s conference talk wasn’t an issue of an imperfect
people, but a deeply flawed church.
~
The more I distanced myself from the church, the more involved Dan
became. He was not just an active member, but a super member. He served
in the Elder’s Quorum; he went on campouts in the middle of winter with
the scouts. If there was an old lady who needed help cleaning up her
yard, he was there. There was no talking him out of the church, even
when I replaced my believer underwear with a much more aesthetically
pleasing option. That is a strong testimony. Much stronger than the
faked testimonies of my teenage years. But the different directions of
our lives made me wonder if our marriage had a chance.
~
When discussing potential subjects for this talk with a friend, it
was suggested that I talk about the humorous aspects of living in an
apostate/believer marriage. Maybe I will find this hilarious in a few
years, but right now, I don’t see the humor just yet.
~
But I do see hope. At some point on our never-ending battles on
religion, I realized something very important. I didn’t marry Dan
because he was Mormon. He didn’t marry me because I was a Mormon. We
married each other after a long road trip where we didn’t kill each
other. We liked talking to each other. We had always been opposites in
many ways. He liked Star Trek, playing Ultimate Frisbee, and voting for
Republicans. I liked crappy reality TV, poetry, and voting for awesome
people. If I could love a Trekkie, couldn’t I love a true-believing
Mormon? If he could love listening to my Bachelorette recaps, could he
love a questioning non-believer? Partially out of exhaustion from
fighting, and mostly out of devotion, Dan and I decided to really listen
to each other. We stopped trying to convince the other to change.
~
I learned some important things when I stopped trying to apostatize
my husband. I learned that his faith went deeper than callings,
outings, and service project. He believes. He believes with his whole
heart, and it is an integral part of who he is. His belief has made him
a kind person. He is a great example of someone who tries his very
hardest to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. He loves his neighbor, and
forgives trespasses against him. Dan wouldn’t be the same person if he
wasn’t Mormon. Dan didn’t need to leave the church to live an authentic
life. He was already living authentically.
~
But I was not. I wasn’t being authentic when I was half-heartedly
repeating the testimonies of my peers. But I was also not authentic when
I forced myself to stop praying, and refused to let myself realize that
there are some parts of my Mormon heritage I want to keep. I remember
the first time I prayed to my Heavenly Mother. I was driving to work,
and my prayer was uncertain. I didn’t have any rehearsed lines to fall
back on, but I knew I wanted to try. When I prayed and felt immediately
comforted, I wasn’t sure if it was because a divine presence was
answering my prayer, or if I felt peace because I was finally allowing
myself to live the spiritual life I wanted. Maybe it was both.
~
There are many things I no longer agree or believe in regards to
Mormonism. Likewise there are many things I no longer believe about
myself. I no longer believe I need to be fixed. It is a difficult path,
the one between believer and non-believer. I am constantly
re-evaluating the world I live in to make room for the faith traditions
of my past, and the faith journey of my present. True believers and
non-believers may question my devotion to either cause. But living an
authentic life allows me to be a better person, a better spouse, and a
better parent.
~
Dan and I have found some common ground. I still don’t like Star
Trek, and he still hates reality TV, but we both want a better world for
our new daughter. We both want the church to be a better place. Dan now
understands the pain and negative consequences of some church doctrine.
He has watched me live with consequences of decisions I did not make,
and wants more for our kid. I have seen the good the church does in
helping my husband live the gospel he believes. I want my daughter to
love others like he does. Last Sunday we both blessed our daughter. I
prayed that my daughter would learn empathy and compassion for others,
traits I see in her Dad every day. Dan prayed that our daughter would
have wisdom and a discerning mind, traits he is learning to see in me as
I question and re-evaluate my faith. Neither of us prayed for our
daughter to be fixed. Like me, and like Dan, she was never broken to
begin with.
~
If there is a Heavenly family, who loves us, I say this in their
name. I also say this in the name of my new authentic family. In the
name of Stephanie, Dan, and Clara Alice Lauritzen, Amen.
