The progress of relationships
Apr. 30th, 2019 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkI think I've finished dumping The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (I can't call them the Mormons anymore, they've said that's not their word, and faithful, non-Satan-supporting members shouldn't call themselves Mormon. I'll keep the word if they don't want it. I am Mormon. I spent almost 40 years being Mormon, I'm never quite going to escape from that.) But Mormon or not, I dumped the church a couple of years back, and I'm not ever letting us get back together again.
It really does feel a lot like a breakup. It was super traumatic at first. I was very angry about things. (I am still angry about things, the edge has just come off a little. If it really is like an intense breakup, it will take about ten years before I've completely moved on. I suspect it will never quite reach a point where I don't care at all, though. I never dated anybody for 37 years, you know?)
But I'm at the point where I'm ready to "date again." I miss church. I miss the sense of community and the opportunities to do good in the world. I've had the thought repeatedly that if there was a real Goth scene where I live, I'd do that instead. There's a spot in Portland whose Sunday Goth-Industrial nights get called "church" and that's not a joke, it means something. In certain ways, goths are My People, and I feel very at home among them. Feeling at home is a big part of what I'm missing right now.
But where I am does not have that scene.
Alas.
What it does have is a Unitarian Universalist community center. My husband was doing some IT work for them recently, which brought them back to my attention, and I happened to dive by the place today while getting frozen rats for the snakes, so I dropped in to check it out
I liked it.
In fact I ended up crying like an idiot in the church hallway reading a pamphlet. But it was just so... I don't know. Real. Human. Humble. Everything Mormonism is missing. Mormonism is authoritarian, top down, and absolutely certain of its own rightness and righteousness. This was... Well, look, the bit that made me cry was a FAQ-style answer to the question "Will you feel accepted here" that said "We hope that you find the answer to be yes", among some other things.
Not "Of course, everybody can come!" which is what a Mormon would tell you. (Forgive me, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Good gods the church is *insane* for abandoning their hold on "Mormon" as a label in favor of that clunker.) Mormonism is...thoughtless. That's the word for it. That's the way my family is, that's the way the church seems to be run. Everyone, from top to bottom, lives some or all of their lives in this tiny little bubble where everybody presents a similar face, and so they don't really understand that people are fundamentally different, and they don't really stop to think about a lot of things.
To a member of TCOJCOLDS, the answer that everyone is welcome is given thoughtlessly, without considering that just because you're allowed to be there doesn't mean you're really welcome, and just because you're really welcome doesn't mean you'll feel accepted.
And then the UU not only gets that, but also gets that people can decide for themselves where they fit in. Instead of Mormonism's attempted all-consuming missionary maw, that wants to suck in everyone however they can and spit them out all more or less conforming, Unitarianism just goes "Well, we hope you'll like it here."
It made me tear up. I'm so used to a church that's dictated from the top down, with a smug moral superiority. Seeing one that's run from the bottom up with an actual welcoming hand is just... Gods. I mean hell, they have a sub-organization specifically for transgender/gender variant ministers and pastors! Holy shit! They're not just going "Trans people can come" they're going "We're going to help trans people run some of this thing."
I really hope I like the local congregation.
I might not. Just because I like their philosophy doesn't mean I'll fit into their practice, you know? Knowing my local area, and where I've seen lawn signs I know know are UU ones (I noticed and liked them when I first saw them, it was nifty seeing them for sale on the church's site) I'm pretty sure the local group leans very hippie, new-age, pagan, etc. I can sometimes jive with that, but sometimes I can't, it depends a bit. The naive, "Moon Child Of The Benevolent All" types make me want to slap them upside the head, you know? I can't deal with somebody who can't recognize that the world we live in ain't a benevolent one.
But anyhow.
I'm going to give it a go, probably this Sunday. Hopefully it'll work out for me.
I miss church. I don't "need" a church any more than I "need" a romantic partner, but both can be really, really, really important to have, you know?
It really does feel a lot like a breakup. It was super traumatic at first. I was very angry about things. (I am still angry about things, the edge has just come off a little. If it really is like an intense breakup, it will take about ten years before I've completely moved on. I suspect it will never quite reach a point where I don't care at all, though. I never dated anybody for 37 years, you know?)
But I'm at the point where I'm ready to "date again." I miss church. I miss the sense of community and the opportunities to do good in the world. I've had the thought repeatedly that if there was a real Goth scene where I live, I'd do that instead. There's a spot in Portland whose Sunday Goth-Industrial nights get called "church" and that's not a joke, it means something. In certain ways, goths are My People, and I feel very at home among them. Feeling at home is a big part of what I'm missing right now.
But where I am does not have that scene.
Alas.
What it does have is a Unitarian Universalist community center. My husband was doing some IT work for them recently, which brought them back to my attention, and I happened to dive by the place today while getting frozen rats for the snakes, so I dropped in to check it out
I liked it.
In fact I ended up crying like an idiot in the church hallway reading a pamphlet. But it was just so... I don't know. Real. Human. Humble. Everything Mormonism is missing. Mormonism is authoritarian, top down, and absolutely certain of its own rightness and righteousness. This was... Well, look, the bit that made me cry was a FAQ-style answer to the question "Will you feel accepted here" that said "We hope that you find the answer to be yes", among some other things.
Not "Of course, everybody can come!" which is what a Mormon would tell you. (Forgive me, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Good gods the church is *insane* for abandoning their hold on "Mormon" as a label in favor of that clunker.) Mormonism is...thoughtless. That's the word for it. That's the way my family is, that's the way the church seems to be run. Everyone, from top to bottom, lives some or all of their lives in this tiny little bubble where everybody presents a similar face, and so they don't really understand that people are fundamentally different, and they don't really stop to think about a lot of things.
To a member of TCOJCOLDS, the answer that everyone is welcome is given thoughtlessly, without considering that just because you're allowed to be there doesn't mean you're really welcome, and just because you're really welcome doesn't mean you'll feel accepted.
And then the UU not only gets that, but also gets that people can decide for themselves where they fit in. Instead of Mormonism's attempted all-consuming missionary maw, that wants to suck in everyone however they can and spit them out all more or less conforming, Unitarianism just goes "Well, we hope you'll like it here."
It made me tear up. I'm so used to a church that's dictated from the top down, with a smug moral superiority. Seeing one that's run from the bottom up with an actual welcoming hand is just... Gods. I mean hell, they have a sub-organization specifically for transgender/gender variant ministers and pastors! Holy shit! They're not just going "Trans people can come" they're going "We're going to help trans people run some of this thing."
I really hope I like the local congregation.
I might not. Just because I like their philosophy doesn't mean I'll fit into their practice, you know? Knowing my local area, and where I've seen lawn signs I know know are UU ones (I noticed and liked them when I first saw them, it was nifty seeing them for sale on the church's site) I'm pretty sure the local group leans very hippie, new-age, pagan, etc. I can sometimes jive with that, but sometimes I can't, it depends a bit. The naive, "Moon Child Of The Benevolent All" types make me want to slap them upside the head, you know? I can't deal with somebody who can't recognize that the world we live in ain't a benevolent one.
But anyhow.
I'm going to give it a go, probably this Sunday. Hopefully it'll work out for me.
I miss church. I don't "need" a church any more than I "need" a romantic partner, but both can be really, really, really important to have, you know?
no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 02:15 am (UTC)I haven't been a Christian for over a decade, but I've still found myself altogether too invested in the recent drama in the United Methodist Church (and my parents' home church in particular), and that's fucking weird. Because I'm... not? a part of the community anymore, but I still have opinions about it and some level of emotional investment in its politics.
I've wondered, occasionally, if I should... find some sort of congregation (though it probably wouldn't be Christian; I have some ties to/experience with Nordic Heathenism that I'd gravitate toward) to formally associate with, in order to shed some of those psychological/emotional cobwebs.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 04:58 am (UTC)I don't have a community, and probably won't ever. But I respect you for how hard you must have reached beyond what you were taught. And I hope that you find a place that emotionally fulfills you.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 02:16 am (UTC)I hear where you're coming from on the whole, "Everyone is welcome!" thing. I've always thought it's incredibly disingenuous for a church to say that and then split hairs over the difference between accepting a person and accepting "behaviors" to defend the fact that they don't, in fact, welcome everyone. There's a difference between, "No one will throw you out of your pew!" and "Everyone is welcome!" and I think they know that.
We lived in the middle of a rural community of hardcore Christian fundamentalists for several years, and the whole authoritarian, hierarchical, conformist, and socially isolationist description sounds very familiar. To this day I avoid anything or anyone that seems overly invested in presenting a specifically Christian image, and I myself am Catholic. I consider that entire scene toxic.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 04:10 am (UTC)It's even more ridiculous to say to me than to some people, too. I'm trans! My "sin" is being the person I am. How can you love me and hate the person I am? It doesn't work.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 06:09 am (UTC)Personally, I've found my own solace in my personal spiritual beliefs, but I always appreciated the vibe UU was putting down. Community and comradery is something I miss about the organized religion, I just wish there was a more secular way of finding that.
I hope it all goes well and you find the community you've been missing.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 07:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 07:21 pm (UTC)But yeah lol
no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-01 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-03 02:28 am (UTC)(I hear you about the occasional vitriol against the church you left). I hope you do well with this new group.