Encounters

I've bumped into just a small handful of Mormons since leaving the church. The Mormon population in Perth, Western Australia is pretty negligible so I can get around without too many unpleasant reminders.

I had one today but I think I will describe another encounter first. It was probably about a year ago. I was late night shopping with a friend when someone grabbed by arm and I was spun around a little by the force of it. I found myself face to face with the Relief Society President (I was one of her counsellors when I left). We each asked and answered those boring greetings and questions "Hello" and "how are you"... quickly followed by "have a nice night" and "good-bye". At the time I had found the encounter to be odd and a little unnecessary. I mean, if she had not grabbed my arm I would have walked right past her and never noticed. The paranoid me thought that maybe she was trying to confront me and make me face her. The more grounded me considered that she had been brave and caring in reaching out. She had seemed a little nervous and I think that I can safely say now that I think this was a positive encounter.

Especially when compared to the next two encounters.

The next one was at the shopping centre again. My daughter was browsing through purses when a member from our old Ward entered the store with a mobile phone to her ear and her face angled away from me. She went straight up to the service counter, took the phone away from her ear and started talking to the sales assistant. Okay, so paranoid me thought this was quite hilarious. It really did look like an elaborate (and woefully unsuccessful) attempt to go unnoticed. We had been browsing there for a while and I figured that this woman had decided she couldn't wait any longer and had to get into the store. Whatever.

Today I arrived at the High School I was going to teach at and the Relief Co-ordinator was showing me around the school. He went up to the ladies at the Library counter to have a little natter and then I realised that one of them was a member from my old Ward. This time I said with a smile "Hey, I know you! Hello _____ ". And she looked at me with expressionless eyes, said nothing and then looked away. LAME!

I'm starting to think that my old Ward really isn't that fond of me. I need a smart remark for next time, anyone got one?

Sunday Funday

Midnight

grrrrrrreen

We sleep in

We venture out to the windy town of Fremantle

Submarines

The Maritime Museum

Barnacles

Trinkets

The Shipwreck Galleries

Wet and wild

Dinner with a view (and cocktails)

This was my day. Puzzle and tea. A lovely addiction.

Yesterday I was called in to relief teach some dance classes at a local high school. Yeah I know, when did I become  that person? but there I was supervising the girls with their own dance routines and I offered my yoga/tai chi experience which they actually wanted so we did some yoga etc together. They really dug the meditation. These girls were wired and then they lay still in the dark and I did my trancy voice thing telling them how to breathe and how to 'let go' and they did it. And they loved it. They asked if they could do it during the lunch break!!! these girls needed space to be quiet and to feel the void, the calm.

They wore me out though. By the time I got home I was pretty crook. We ordered pizza for dinner and crashed in front of a movie. Hence, today I needed to recover.

Tonight I went out with one of my besties and got smashed. Yes. So if there are some typos then you'll understand. I've even won an award for posting drunk. I will accept my award later this week in style, with brownies ;)

There's a few things I want to tell you about yesterday. There was a chaplain at the school. He would have been 25, maybe. He was tall, dark and handsome with you know, cool hair and all. The students would have loved him. But he was Christian right. Next time I get called to that school I will ask him some questions but for now all I know is that at lunch time he had organised a motivational rapper to come in and pump up the students. It was pretty cool. Not really my thing but a great effort nonetheless. At the end the rapper gave out free tickets to some gig that he had on that night and he had to specify that it was a Christian thing, some legal requirement that he inform the students of this. I don't have much to say about it atm. I am still gathering my thoughts. The dude was a pretty good advertisement for Christianity though.

There was also a girl in one of the dance classes with a bright pink cross around her neck. I didn't ask her about it. Maybe next time I might, just for research purposes, I won't like try and deconvert her or anything.

Lastly, tonight. Something that came up mid-long island ice teas - was a positive for the LDS church. I realise now that I learned how to speak in public and how to open my heart and give it all. I noticed this when I gave a brief acceptance speech at the end of my final 6-week teaching prac. at a Catholic all-girls school. I simply spoke about how I had loved my time there and how I thought the girls were amazing and that the school was great... and afterwards several teachers came up to me and said that they had really felt something when I spoke. I realised then that I had unknowingly developed a talent for creating emotional responses in others and for opening my heart to people. I like that. I think it is a very good skill and I am grateful to have picked it up. Thanks ol' Joe! you skanky male douche you... you're an animal just like the rest of us and you live somewhere in my bones. You treated some people like crap but you are in my ancestry in some sick way. I'll take what is good from that experience and live my non-Mormon life now, thank you very much.

Look, what can I say... I'm still drunk. If you think you have something to say that can help me I'd love to hear it.
And here come the rain! Ahhhhh, bliss.
Holy crap I am going to press 'publish' now!

can this count as day 16? I'm sick. will write more in the morning. it already is the morning but ... youknow what I mean.

Dirty Tree

 

Thank you for all of the love-bombing on facebook. I turned 33 without a hitch ;) I have photos to prove it. 

Love and kisses, M. 

Creating Fact? and Choosing Belief?

Someone tweeted this today:

"Belief creates the actual fact." -William James

But just how much do we 'create' reality? and what is truth? fact? I think that if we are talking about god as a 'being' then as much as we believe/wish for it we could never make him materialise. But if we are talking about a belief in happiness or goodness (or the opposite of those) then yes I think we can create 'the fact'.


Maybe a little more clarification from James would help. 

"This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it." 

"Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact." 

Now that sounds like something an atheist like me could tweet. 

I also Wiki-educated myself a little about William James and pulled out a couple of things to talk about here: 

• James defined true beliefs as those that prove useful to the believer. 

What is your truth? This is something I hear a lot in 'hippie' circles. Finding one's own truth. It's quite a tantalising idea.  

• James held a world view in line with pragmatism, declaring that the value of any truth was utterly dependent upon its use to the person who held it.

Pragmatism is right down my alley. Feet on the ground, down-to-earth, "let's get this wagon train a-movin'" type of girl. (Not all of the time though, just one part of me).  

• Through his philosophy of pragmatism William James justifies religious beliefs by using the results of his hypothetical venturing as evidence to support the hypothesis' truth. Therefore, this doctrine allows one to assume belief in God and prove His existence by what the belief brings to one's life.

Now is pragmatism about to bite me on the bum? I still like this eh. If my belief in god, whatever that might entail, improves my experience of life and other people's experience of me then how do I argue with that? I'm thinking I need to have a chat with Nietzsche right about now. 

• He was, by nature, a pragmatist, and therefore believed that one should use whatever parts of theories make the most sense and can be proven.

A pick-and-mix or potpourri of theory; sounds good and pragmatic to me ;) 


And this quote:

 "I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first part of Renouvier's second Essais and see no reason why his definition of free will — 'the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts' — need be the definition of an illusion. At any rate, I will assume for the present — until next year — that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will."

I am intrigued but also quite lost by this one. I believe in my free will because I like my free will but... Rockstar thinks it is an illusion. "We are all slaves" he says, as well as "there is no such thing as individuality" and "happiness is highly overrated". Now imagine our date nights after a few glasses of happy juice. 


I will leave you tonight with a quote and a link to an article a friend posted on facebook today titled Disbelief Is Not a Choice. 

...when we consider theistic beliefs we see different causal environmental factors at work. Early childhood indoctrination by family, for example, is a key environmental factor that promotes such beliefs in many, as is the pro-religion conditioning that one receives from the community and broader society. Even if the overt promotion of religiosity by society is mild (which usually isn't the case in much of America), prevailing social views that disapprove of open disbelief will often discourage serious exploration of secularity.

Creating my reality.
Discovering my disbelief. 
Coming out. 

Your Turn

It's late and I am going to be cheeky and whip up a quick post. The other day I wrote about some Mormon facebook pages that I had been commenting on. I got into a discussion with a member who at first seemed pissed off but then started to try and 'fix' me; or (re)convert me, something like that. So, rather than get into it all on the Mormon facebook page I just sent 'my evangelist' a link to the post I wrote and here is the response I got this morning. I'll respond to it later but first I thought I'd see if anyone else wants to take a crack at it?


Evangelist: "Sorry, the blog doesn't exist, at least to me. You're happy? You've left the church, but you couldn't leave the church alone. A happy person has better things to do than returning to a site that makes her mad. However, no matter what you do, or how hard you try, Nothing you do will make you Not a Daughter of God." 


Over to you...


Ok I'm looking for an excuse to enjoy a cup of tea so I think I'll respond now. 


"the blog doesn't exist" aka burying one's head in the sand. Religious beliefs don't hold up very well to investigation or criticism so they're best protected by secrecy and ignorance. 


"You're happy?" - I never said I was happy. I'm happy sometimes, sometimes I'm sad. This week I am just damn tired! I vow to never stay up till 5am ever again when I have to pick the kids up at 10am. Strangely though I am a lot happier this week despite the tiredness. What I'm trying to say (in a very roundabout way) is, that I don't expect religion to make me happy or not. I had mood swings in the church and I have mood swings out of the church. What has changed is that I am in control of my own life and so I am responsible for my own feelings. The liberation is amazing; there is a lot to work through but I AM so happy to be able to make my own mind p about everything in life rather than be told 'how it is'. Huge difference. Big learning curve too. (I'm like a teenager still learning how to be an adult, as someone put it on fb this week). 


Also, the question mark reminds me that Mormons don't believe you can be truly happy outside of the church. Evangelist thinks that my visiting the Mormon fb page is evidence that I am not truly happy. See the next statement...


"You've left the church, but you couldn't leave the church alone" - Ugh! If I could have a dollar for every time I or one of my ex-Mo' friends has had this piece of 'Mormon doctrine' spouted at them then I could probably recoup all the tithing I paid as a Mo' slave. 


First, Mormons never seem to notice their own hypocrisy here. Who sends their youth two by two into the world; knocking on doors, proclaiming 'the truth', condemning the wicked? Not to mention the fb page that evangelist is arguing with me on IS a proselytising tool! LEAVE THE WORLD ALONE EVANGELIST(S)!!!


Secondly, indoctrination and manipulation are not easily undone. AND I was born into the church so they had me in my formative years. I am still (and will be for my whole life) challenging old patterns in my behaviour and thoughts that have been instilled since birth and which I need to challenge and change. The church will be a part of me for my whole life. It raised me and it has a lot to answer for ;)


"A happy person has better things to do than returning to a site that makes her mad." - Evangelist is extrapolating from other commenters on the page. I never said that the facebook page made me mad. In fact I chose to comment there largely because I was pleased to discover how 'over it' I really was. As in, the whole exercise felt like just that, an exercise, in debating with the faithful and formulating my own arguments in a rational and less emotional way than in the past.  


"However, no matter what you do, or how hard you try, Nothing you do will make you Not a Daughter of God."
This reminds me of the commandment to love god. It is not a choice, you are commanded to love him. The whole idea just conjures up images of prison and torture for me. Where is the peace, the love, the freedom? Certainly not with a god who speaks in these terms. Let me go!