The Letter I Should Have Written

*Warning: this post is going to be very, very long.  Think War & Peace, but with fewer Russians.*

I woke to the unmistakable sounds of someone trying to navigate an unfamiliar kitchen.  I opened my eyes, allowed the blanket over my head to filter the early morning sunlight until my eyes adjusted.  I stretched out across the mattress, which had been dragged onto the living room floor in the wee hours earlier, pulled the covers from my face and greeted Russell.

"Good morning, sunshine.  What're you doing?"

"Hey.  I'm making pancakes.  I stole some mix from my brother's cupboard."

Most of my friends and roommates were unconvinced when I told them there was nothing more than friendship between Russell and me.  They didn't believe that this boy who made the two-hour drive on the pretense of visiting his brother only to spend all weekend with me, this boy whose hand I held while we walked, this boy whose arms I fell asleep in during late-night movies, was just a friend.

When I moved out to college, he still had a year of high school left to finish.  By sheer coincidence, his older brother not only attended my same school but lived in my same apartment building.  This lucky little twist of fate saved our friendship from the disease of distance, temporarily.  Russell's mother was more than happy to allow her 17-year-old son to spend weekends with his college-bound brother; she would have been less thrilled if she knew that Russell was really coming down to see me.

And so he came - not often, but a few times that we made count.  Toward the end of my freshman year, as his high school graduation was approaching, the visits stopped.  His phone calls became less frequent.  I attributed this to the fact that we were both busy, and didn't put forth much effort into maintaining contact with him.

I returned home for the summer to work, but it wasn't until just before I went back to school that I saw Russell.  We were stopped at the same intersection, about halfway between his house and mine.  We smiled and waved and blew kisses, and when the light turned green we drove off in opposite directions.

A month or so later, in September, I went to his brother's missionary farewell.  Russell and I chatted in the church foyer for a long while. He mentioned he was dating someone he had recently met through a mutual friend, and that it was going well.  I, of course, begged for details, but he wouldn't give me any.  The sidelong glances he kept making at the group of girls standing on the other side of the foyer stopped me from pressing it any further - I figured he wasn't eager for his brother's gossipy friends to share details of his private life with any members of his family.

We exchanged new phone numbers and emails and promised each other we would be better about staying in touch.  For the next few weeks, we kept that promise.

Then, in early October, I got an email from him which read:

Say you have something you want to tell someone..but you are afraid it will ruin your friendship with this person, because it goes against their belief system..do you tell this person anyway or do you just play it safe and not tell this person?

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of my exact response, but I told him that if that someone was a real friend, the friendship wouldn't be ruined just because they don't have the same beliefs as you.

My assumption was that Russell was afraid to tell me he didn't believe in the church anymore.  I knew that he wasn't planning to serve a mission, and he had been struggling with the church for a while.  I also knew that he knew I had been spending the last several months playing SuperMormon, first trying to build up my testimony in preparation for The Boy to return from his mission, and then in an attempt to find comfort for my broken heart (a little more about that here).  I figured he was afraid I would reject him - or worse, preach to him.  I would never do that.  Even at my most Mormon, I held rigidly to the idea that there were lots of different ways to be happy, and that everyone must find their own.

The next night, he called.

"I need to tell you something," Russell said.

"So tell me."

"It's... okay.  Remember when I told you I was dating somebody?"

"Yes. What's her name, anyway?  You never told me her name."

He paused.  "I can't tell you.  You have to guess."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"I just can't."

I had been playing a rather loud and obnoxious board game with my roommates when he called, and it had put me in something of a silly mood - I was too worked up to hear the tone in his voice.

"Okay, at least tell me what it starts with."

"S."

I began running through all the S names I could think of.  Stacy, Sarah, Sharon, Samantha, Sandra.  I guessed ten names, twenty, thirty, and he said no every time.  I began to get frustrated with him.

"Is it some really obscure name that I'll never get in a million years?"

"No, it's actually quite common."

And then I knew.  In an instant, I went from not knowing to knowing; an instant more and I went from knowing to knowing that I had always known.  I grabbed a blanket from the couch, wrapped it around my shoulders, and took the phone outside with me.  Now that I was away from my roommates' giggles and squeals and chatter, I could hear the pain in Russell's silence.  I took a deep breath.

"Russ, tell me."

"I can't."

"Tell me."

"I'm afraid to."

"Why?"

"I don't want you to hang up on me."

"I'm not going to hang up on you.  Just tell me."

"You already know."

The next name I guessed was the correct one.

"Steve."

We talked for a few minutes more.  I asked questions - how he and Steve had met, how his parents had reacted, if he had told anyone else.  At the end of the conversation, he thanked me for not hanging up on him.  I told him I loved him.

Then I went inside, collapsed in my bed and wept.

My roommate came in and brushed my hair out of my face while I cried.  "He's gay!" was all I could get out before my words were broken by sobs.  I spent the next day in on autopilot.  I got up, got ready, walked to my biology class, but my mind was on Russell.  I was devastated for my friend.  I knew he had been miserable and depressed and unable to make his life make sense for years, and all I could think about was how being gay would make that even worse.

I had known a few gay people before, in high school, but I wasn't particularly close to any of them.  Russell was the first person I truly loved who was gay.  I had been taught that being gay was a choice, and that it was the wrong choice for anyone who wanted to be happy in the long run.  I couldn't bear the thought of my friend being miserable forever.

I couldn't focus on anything, so I skipped my last class and went to the library to send Russell an email.  I wish so much that I had saved it, so I could look back now and see exactly what I said to him.  I know the gist of it.  I know I told him that gay or straight, he was still my friend and I still loved him.  I know I told him I would never hang up on him.

And I know I told him that even though I didn't understand or agree with his choices, I would support him in whatever he did if he thought it would make him happy.

I am so ashamed of that last part now.

Russell and I kept in touch for another year or so.  He even came down to visit me again.  But the next autumn I moved to Virginia, and he to Arizona, and except for an occasional facebook chat we haven't really spoken since.

Five years after Russell came out to me, a coworker who is a bishop for his LDS ward mentioned that he had received instructions from church headquarters to urge his ward to give of their time and money to fight for California's Proposition 8.  He asked if the letter had been read at my own ward meetings.  It hadn't, and I expressed disbelief that such instructions would come from the first presidency.  I said it was probably some overzealous stake president or area authority who had taken it upon themselves to lead such a charge; surely the church wasn't willing to abandon its politically neutral ground over some state proposal.

Over the next few days, as I began to learn just how willing the church actually was, I was sickened.  I was furious.  I went to church the next Sunday, overheard people talking about Prop 8, and felt nauseous.  I spent Sunday School scribbling in a notebook, trying to sort out the thoughts running around my head.  I had spent the last couple of years doing everything in my power to gain a testimony of the church.  I felt so guilty that I didn't believe, so I had committed myself to reading my scriptures daily, praying daily, taking Institute classes, going to all of my church meetings (even dreaded Relief Society).  I had been working so hard, and not gotten any results.  And now this.  Now the church was doing something that I knew - I knew, like I had never been able to know anything about the church before - I knew deep down that it was morally wrong.  Despicable. Abhorrent.

How was I supposed to gain a testimony of the gospel when the men running the church were so clearly leading it away from the teachings of a loving God?  An institute teacher once told me that the difference between the practices and procedures of the church and its doctrine was that procedures change based on circumstance.  But this blatant suppression of gay rights wasn't being done in the name of procedure - it was being done in the name of doctrine.

I thought a lot about Russell at that time.  It had been a few years since we had last spoken, but I couldn't imagine looking him in the eye and telling him I thought he was less than anybody else.  I couldn't imagine telling him he didn't have the right to be who he was, and to love who he loved, and to marry who he chose.  The church's position, and the way it was enforcing that position, was just plain immoral.

My personal moral code was telling me one thing - my church was telling me another.

I wanted so badly to believe in the church.  I wanted to be able to bear my testimony, to say that I knew it was true.  I wanted to be able to pray in front of other people without feeling like a fraud.  I hadn't been able to do that for as long as I could remember; I felt I shouldn't be praying on behalf of other people when I wasn't even sure there was anyone to pray to.

And then I knew.  In an instant, I went from not knowing to knowing; an instant more and I went from knowing to knowing that I had always known.  I knew that if God was who the Mormon church said he was, I wanted nothing to do with him.  I knew that I didn't believe the church was true.  And I knew that because I didn't believe in it, I shouldn't judge myself by its standards anymore.  The church needed me to have a testimony of its supposed truthfulness - I didn't.

How had I not seen this before?  Why had I told myself for all those years that even thought I didn't believe the church was true, I should assume it was anyway and live accordingly?

The weight was lifted from my shoulders immediately.  In a single moment, I had transformed into someone who was okay with the fact that she didn't believe in the church she was raised in, and who realized that she was a good person after all, and who knew that she wouldn't have to spend another day fighting what she knew in her soul to be right.

Since leaving the church and resetting my life two years ago, I have made lots of new friends, several of whom happen to be gay.  But, when telling stories about them to others, I rarely use the word gay to describe any of them.  I say funny, or unreasonably intelligent, or witty, or sweet.  My friends are smart, beautiful, hilarious, warm, drunkards who are usually happy and always wonderful, and some of them just happen to be gay.  I don't know how all of them view themselves, but in my eyes none of my friends are gay first.  Being gay is just one small part of all the of qualities they possess, and whether they are gay, straight, or bisexual they're still them.  They're still my friends. I look at them and I see just how closed-minded I was with Russell.

I know I could have been a lot worse.  I could have rejected him, scorned him, ended our friendship.  I could have hung up on him, permanently.  I could have treated him the way his parents did in the weeks and months after he came out - cold, cruel, and punishing.

I didn't do these things.  I stayed friends with him.  We still emailed, we still called, we still visited.  He dropped by unexpectedly on Christmas to bring me a present - a bouquet of chocolate kiss roses he had made for me.  Our eventual drift apart was natural, caused entirely by the fact that we were both growing up and beginning our adult lives.  I've never stopped loving my friend.  I never will.

But knowing that I told him I loved him despite "disagreeing with the choices he was making" haunts me.  How could I have allowed a single attribute to void out all of the other marvelous traits he had?  Why did I instantly assume that he was dooming himself to a life of misery?  Why couldn't I see that by coming out, he was allowing himself to finally be exactly who he was, and to finally be happy?

In the LDS church's semi-annual general conference this past weekend, Boyd K Packer gave a sermon with a hateful, vile message.  He, speaking as a prophet of God, told the Mormon population and the world that homosexuality can be "corrected."  Because of my experience with Russell, and because Prop 8 was the driving force that finally caused me to objectively examine my membership in the church, I have a severely tender spot when it comes to the LDS church discussing homosexuality.

Mr Packer, you are an arrogant, spiteful, and irresponsible man.  How dare you yet again stand at the pulpit and spew poisonous comments directed at the LGBT community.  How dare you tell an entire population of people that you know them better than they know themselves.  How dare you treat people you don't even know with such blatant disrespect.  How dare you.

I can't help but worry about how Packer's words will damage thousands of people.  Not only will gay people be afraid to embrace who they really are for fear of being punished by God, but how many parents and siblings and teachers and friends will use these words as justification to reject their loved ones?  How many people will say things they regret to gay friends, because the prophets tell them that these friends are simply making poor decisions?  How many people will, years later, still regret responding to a friend's coming-out by telling them they love them despite "disagreeing with the choices" they are making?

I wish I could go back in time and rewrite that email to Russell.  I wish I could be there for him the way I should have been.  Unfortunately, I can't.  What's done is done, and I can't change it.  If I could, it would say simply this:

Dear Russ,

I love you, now and always.

~Kristen

All A Twitter

I'm one of those Twitter people.

Not just someone who has an account and occasionally posts about the delicious new lunch place I found or the cute guy I almost ran over with my car.  No.  I tweet.

I'm a tweeter.

When you're a tweeter, Twitter almost becomes a way to verbalize your inner monologue.  When happy or sad or humorous or surprising things happen, a tweeter's instinct is to let their followers know about it.  Ace a test?  We tweet it.  Bump our heads?  We tweet it.  Overhear something inappropriate at in the office?  You bet your ass we tweet it.  True addicts feel helpless when they can't get a signal out to share a funny thought that just popped into their head.

Case in point: 8 minutes ago, one of my twitter friends from South Africa posted that he had just learned his uncle had passed away.  I've never met this man in person, but because he is a tweeter I can say with some confidence that his tweet went out within minutes of hearing the news.  In a way that non-tweeters can never understand, this announcement sent into the Great Internet Void was an important part of this friend's coping process.  He needed to tell somebody, he needed someone to know he was hurting and he needed someone to respond with comforting words, and Twitter is a highly effective way of doing all of those things.

This weekend is the LDS church's General Conference.  I live in downtown Salt Lake, and I am eagerly anticipating escaping to friends' homes in the suburbs for the weekend, because the influx of out-of-town Mormons swarming around downtown makes traffic a nightmare.  Tens of thousands of Mormons flock to Salt Lake for the semi-annual conference, and anyone who ventures downtown is sure to spot crowds of clean-cut people in their Sunday best.

Earlier today, an employee for the ABC Salt Lake area affiliate who had access to the station's twitter account, @ktvx, posted a tweet which read:

I'm downtown eating. Surrounded by Mormons and repressed sexual energy.

By any logical assumption, the KTVX employee responsible for the tweet likely intended it to go out on his/her personal account but used the tv station's account by mistake.  It happens, particularly when using a mobile app that allows for multiple logins.  I have several different accounts myself, and have posted to the wrong one by mistake several times.  The tweet was almost immediately deleted, but not before a few people saw it.  Just a few hours later, according to Sean Means of the Salt Lake Tribune's Culture Vulture blog, the employee tendered their resignation.

Whether this was a forced resignation or entirely the idea of the employee, I don't know.  But either way, the reason behind it is the same.  Someone is now unemployed because Mormons are a) easily offended, and b) a huge part of the local population and economy.

One of these two things happened: either the (now former) KTVX employee realized they were guilty of Second-Degree Mormon Bashing (which I believe is considered light treason in Utah courts, but I'll have to check with my lawyer friend to be sure) and quit to help the station save face, or KTVX pressured the employee to resign to help the station save face.

For the sake of argument, let's assume it's the second scenario.

Because I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

As a culture, Mormons are taught that they are better than everyone else.  They backtrack and double-talk, quoting scriptures such as "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" to prove that they value all men equally, but the facts remain.  Mormon theology teaches that they are special, a "peculiar people," the only ones on the planet blessed with God's true gospel.  They praise themselves on living "in the world, but not of the world."  They even believe that the reason why they get to be Mormons in this mortal life is because they were better than everyone else in the pre-existence.

A big part of Mormon culture that both feeds and feeds from this superiority complex is the idea that because they are at the top of the totem pole, literally everyone and everything else on the planet is being utilized by Satan to take them down.  I once had a seminary lesson in my teenage years where the teacher explained that one of Satan's most cunning tricks was using good people, like the then-recently deceased Mother Teresa, to make us think that it was possible to get to heaven without following the true Gospel.

Mother.

Teresa.

He then assured us that Satan's plan was sure to backfire, though, because she was such a good person she was sure to embrace the church in the afterlife.  But he warned us not to let that deceive us - because we knew the Gospel in this life, if we rejected it and just lived like good people but didn't keep all of the LDS covenants, we would perish.

This absolute paranoia, the fear that everything good or bad in the world is after your immortal soul, has created a hyper-sensitivity to criticism in Mormon culture.  Any time Mormons or their church are criticized in the media, flags go up.  Mormons accuse the critic of being disrespectful of their beliefs, a bitter anti-Mormon who doesn't care for truth, an obvious sinner who cannot understand the happiness the gospel brings them.  It is a Mormon's godly duty to pass judgement on others, but don't you dare pass any judgement on them.

Don't believe me?  Go find any news article, from any local or national source, online that gives less than a glowing endorsement of Mormons in any way, and read the comment boards.  You may need a stiff drink first.

Associating Mormons with sex is just about the worst offense you can make.  Inferring that Mormons have repressed sexual energy is pretty much like calling them wild animals who think about having filthy pig sex all day long.  You're sick.  You're perverted.  Mormons are a clean and healthy people who truly show love for each other by not having or talking about sex unless they're married.  And even then...

So, rather than face sure criticism from the local Mormon community for tweeting such offensive content - practically HATE SPEECH, isn't it? - KTVX fired the employee responsible for simply being logged on to the wrong account at the wrong time.

Shame on you, KTVX.  Shame on you for finding a punishment that fits the crime - like, say, a verbal warning.  Shame on you for not simply standing up and saying, "Sorry, we made a mistake. Our bad. Didn't mean to offend anyone. Won't happen again."

That's short enough that you could even tweet it.

Dear Friend,

We both know that there was a time, early on, when we didn't exactly get along.  I resented you for disrupting my easy life with your myriad of personal problems, and you resented me for not showing you more patience and understanding.  Slowly, over time and distance, we began to build a mutual understanding of each other.  We were able to look beyond our differences.  We found more and more reasons to tolerate each other, then respect each other, and eventually like each other.

Eventually you became a fixture in my life - albeit something of a background fixture.  Metaphorically, you were like a painting hanging on my wall.  I'm always vaguely aware of you, and often think of you, but rarely take the time to stop and really look closely.

Although we travel in different social circles, live miles apart, and rarely see each other anymore, I still consider you an important person in my life, and a great friend.

Which is why I have to tell you this:

Please stop with this nonsense.  It's killing you.

You have been through more in the past few years than anyone should have to.  I cannot imagine being in your place - I doubt I would have handled it with the grace that you did.  You have proven yourself to be a strong, brave, intelligent, loving woman.  You have taken a hell of a beating from life, only to stand up and wait for more.  Life didn't keep you waiting long.

You have asked aloud many times, "Why me?  Why is all this happening to me?"  You always come around to the same answer.  You say that your struggles are from God.  You say God is testing you.  You say God is putting you through this for reasons you don't understand now, but that will be made clear to you in the eternities.

You say that it brings you comfort, knowing that God has a hand in all this shit you've gone through.  But it doesn't.  Every time you claim that you're finding peace through relying on God, you are lying.  After seven years of knowing you, of reading your creative stories and your poems and your blog, I've learned how to read between the lines.  I can interpret your tone.

Your God is a fucking asshole.  And you know it.

You don't find any peace in God.  You only find familiarity.  You don't know what else to think.  You insist on serving a God you resent because you think that eventually, if you're patient and long-suffering, that God will relieve of you of your pain.  You will spend your whole goddamn life waiting.

God did not make you sick.  God did not take your children.  Thinking he did, thinking there is someone up in the sky who has made things wrong and is just taking his sweet time before making things right is completely destroying your sense of self-worth.

You are worth so much more than the God you believe in will ever let you be.

You say that you need to rely on God until you can believe in yourself again.  That makes absolutely no sense.  YOU are here.  YOU have proven yourself to be an incredible woman, with incredible attributes.  You have so many friends and loved ones who admire and look up to you.  YOU.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with God.

Please, PLEASE, believe in yourself!  Believe that you have what it takes to power through everything life throws at you!  You absolutely can.  You have before.  You will again.  Every time you rely on God to make you stronger, you are actually weakening yourself.  You cannot curl up in a ball and ride out the storm because you want to believe that at the end of it all God will make it up to you.

This is it.  This is the only life you get. Don't waste it.  Don't waste away.

I hate that you have had to go through these things.  But it hurts more to see you falling apart and just waiting for some mystical God to put you back together.  It's not going to happen.  Eventually you will put yourself together again, because that great source of strength and power that you so desperately seek is within you.

It's hard for me to understand how you could possibly believe in God.  It was difficult enough for me, who has never been through anything remotely comparable to you, to tell myself I believed in God.  How can you claim to believe that someone who would torture you for years without relief or explanation is any kind of perfect being?

Your God is a complete hypocrite who dishes out punishments and rewards on a whim.  The idea that there is some afterlife where everything will sort itself out is absurd, particularly in Mormonism.  You believe that if you handle this shitstorm of life to God's liking, he will give you the EXACT SAME REWARD as people who simply coasted through life with very few struggles and trials.  Your God is unfair and highly immoral.  And yet you allow yourself to wallow in self-doubt.  Deep down, even though you say you know God is just giving you trials because he knows you're strong enough to handle it, part of you wonders if it's some sort of punishment for sins you didn't know you committed.

I generally don't have a problem with the fact that many of my loved ones believe in God.  That's their prerogative, just as it is mine to be an atheist.  I truly believe that if having faith in something helps you to become the best version of yourself, then it's good for you.  I don't think that a belief in God is always a crutch - sometimes that's just the best way people can find to explain all the wonderful and terrible unknowables of life.  But in your case, I honestly wish you would let go of that belief.  I fear that you will focus so much on the unknown reward you believe God has in store for you that you will neglect to seek out happiness and beauty in this life.  You are going to miss out on so much because you have decided to wait for God to make everything right rather than focus on the things that are already right.

I firmly believe that you will find great joy in your life.  Unfortunately, when you do, you will tell yourself that the God who has for so long been so cruel to you has suddenly decided that you deserve a break.  You won't credit yourself with becoming stronger, you will credit God.  You won't credit yourself with finding ways to be happier, you will credit God.  You are denying yourself the opportunity to know how amazing you truly are.

I would never wish the things you have been through upon my worst enemy.  There are not enough words to tell you how impressed I am with the way you have conquered your life.  It breaks my heart to watch you deny your own accomplishments, your own strengths, and instead give the credit to a supposed God who you believe is the reason you've suffered in the first place.

Please, friend.  Please know that you are so much better than your God makes you feel.  Please know that you are a truly beautiful person.  Please know that there is so much to this short life that you should embrace and enjoy.

You can't wait forever for a God who doesn't exist to make you happy.  You are more than capable of doing that yourself.

All my love,

Kristen

To Those Who Left Comments on My Exit Letter

Dear Friends,

When I first started writing this blog, I felt the need to refrain from posting too often about my experience leaving the church.  When I finally realized how cathartic (and healthy) it could be to write my feelings down, I was so emotionally weighed down by the realization of the lies I was discovering that I doubted I would ever be able to say enough.

My exit letter changed that.

As I mentioned in the post containing my letter, I first went through several boring drafts.  I was less than satisfied with them.  I literally spent hours writing and re-writing a single sentence, trying to make it as powerful and succinct as I could possibly make it while maintaining a kind of cold distance that I thought was necessary for this type of letter.

When I finally wrote the version that I mailed to church headquarters last March, I did it in a single pass. I gave it little more than a brief proofreading (which you can tell if you read it closely enough) before printing out two copies.  I spent so little time on it, in fact, that I mixed up parts of my old and new address on the return and didn't notice until I was at the post office.  I scratched it out and hand-wrote the correct numbers.  It was the easiest letter I have ever written, because I had reached a point where I stopped caring completely about how it would be received.  I said exactly what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, and I refused to be apologetic about it.

Writing that letter did more than just close the book on my membership with the LDS church.  It closed the book on my relationship with the church.  Although it didn't mention many of the facts I had discovered or explain the emotions I had felt, it somehow felt complete.  Since writing that letter, I've struggled to think of things to say about mormonism that could be turned into posts on this blog.  But the fact of the matter is, once I wrote that letter I simply stopped caring.  I stopped letting it bother me.  I stopped letting it effect me.  I stopped letting the struggles of my past dictate my attitude in the present and the future.

Earlier tonight, a friend mentioned to me that he still receives emails informing him that there have been follow-up comments on that post (something I had never set up to receive myself).  I hadn't visited this blog in a while and decided to take a look for myself.  I expected two or three comments.  I found over forty.

Dear readers, I am overwhelmed.  I have such deep gratitude and appreciation for all of you who have taken the time to share with me your support, your congratulations, and your proposals of marriage.

I'm particularly thankful for those.

It is such a humbling thing, to discover that a deeply personal manifesto of sorts would ring true with so many people, most of them strangers.  I realize that to many of you, forty comments means very little.  Some of you probably receive that many and more on a weekly or even daily basis.  But I have authored several blogs over the years, and have never had that kind of response.

I was so touched, in fact, that although it's just after 1:00 a.m., and I'm finding it difficult to remember how many beers I had tonight, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep until I had drafted a thank-you to all those who have read my exit letter, whether they left a comment or not.

To those who said it inspired them to write (or re-write) their own letter of resignation, thank you and best of luck!  To those who said it made them laugh, thank you and you brought a huge smile to my face!  To those who asked me to marry them, thank you and I can easily be wooed with red velvet cupcakes.

Love,

Kristen

Patience

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with a friend about some local politics.  She's Mormon, but considers herself a feminist and definitely leans liberal.  We were discussing a proposed bill that would criminalize women for having miscarriages if they engaged in 'reckless' behavior, and the conversation soon turned to sex education (or the complete lack thereof) in Utah.

She often complains about how, as a high school health teacher, she has to navigate the murky waters of the Utah education system, specifically regarding sex ed.  She wants to be able to give her students appropriate and accurate information, but is forbidden from doing so.  "The crazies say that teaching about how to have safe sex just encourages kids to have sex," she says.  "The people that argue against it aren't educated on what is actually taught in schools.  They say they want to talk to their kids themselves, but they don't!  They're embarrassed or don't know anything themselves."

From here our conversation progressed to the Mormon church's often twisted views on sex, not only regarding teenagers but also between married couples.  She told me how bothered she was by a friend's husband who "doesn't believe in birth control."

Then she got kind of quiet, contemplative.  She took a breath and asked, "Did you know that Joseph Smith had twenty-nine wives?"

"Yes," I replied.

"And did you know that eight of them were married to other men?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Four were married to men who were in church leadership."

"I know."

"This really upsets me," she confessed.  "The whole principle of polygamy is based on getting to the highest level of heaven.  Those four women could have gotten there without Joseph."

I took a deep breath.  My mind was going about a million miles a minute.  Yes! She's finally waking up! I thought.  She's finally realizing the church has been lying about its own history!  It's only a matter of time before she realizes it's complete bullshit!  I racked my brain for information I could use to help her see the truth.  I mentally organized quotes from church leaders, articles citing DNA evidence, the publication dates of the various accounts of the First Vision.  I had always thought that she was far too logical and analytical to continue swallowing everything the church was feeding her without questioning it.  By the same reasoning, she would not simply accept anything I told her if I didn't have the sources to back it up.

At the same time I was trying to keep myself in check.  I knew that if I were to start barraging her with information that disproved the church's claims she would do what she had been trained to do since Primary - retreat as quickly as she could, and turn to her "testimony" to help quiet any nagging doubts.  I had to let her come to me, to ask me questions, to decide for herself that she was ready for the answers.  So I picked my next words carefully.

"Well," I began, "I guess it all comes down to whether or not you believe that it actually is a principle to get to heaven or if Joseph Smith was just acting on his own desires."

"The more I learn about the early Mormons the more ashamed I am," she blurted out.

I nodded.  I understood exactly what she meant.  "Personally, I find Joseph's sexcapades one of the least troubling things about Mormon history."

"The teaching of blood atonment, and confessing your sins in front of everyone?  That's not okay," she said.  "I was always taught that polygamy was because there were a lot of single women that needed a man.  But that's not true.  There were three times more single men that women in Utah.  I also have a huge problem with the lower status of women.  HUGE."

At this point I couldn't resist anymore.  "What it really came down to for me was that I realized the church was asking its members to approach it completely backwards.  In the real world, it would be 'is the church true?' and then you read the scriptures and study the doctrine and figure it out.  But in Mormondom, the church tells you, 'The Church Is True! And anything that contradicts that or disproves that is the devil.'  Their logic is that because the church is true, only the church's version of history is true. Because the church's version of history supports its truthiness, then that must mean that it's true."

I was so excited to finally be having this conversation with my friend.  She knew that I was no longer attending church, but we both had politely ignored the topic with each other to avoid getting in any kind of argument.  She is not the type of in-your-face Mormon that is difficult to be around, and she never felt threatened by my apostate status.  We both strongly believe in "live and let live."  So I was thrilled that she was examining the church on her own, and that she had felt comfortable enough to discuss it with me.

In my fantasy world, I imagined that my friend and I would continue this conversation over the next few days or weeks, and that I would be able to help her step out of her world of Mormonism and into the light.  Reality, however, did not match up.  I suggested that she take some time to do a little thinking and research, and that I would do the same, and that we get together for dinner the next day, both better prepared for the conversation.  She initially agreed, but ended up cancelling our plans last minute.  We rescheduled, and she cancelled again.  A few times I have tried to subtly bring up Mormonism in conversation so we could segue into it, but she knew what I was doing and refused to take the bait.

Part of me wants to grab her by the neck and shake her, remind her that she was harboring serious doubts only a few weeks ago and that it's not healthy for her to just suppress those without really examining them.  But part of me knows that leaving Mormonism is a personal journey, and one my friend will have to take almost entirely on her own.  I hope that eventually she won't be willing to ignore those first pangs of doubt anymore.  I hope she will be anxious to talk again, and that she knows that I'll be here to listen to her.

But until then I just have to wait.

Patiently.

And not push her.

Even though I really want to.

Patience.

My Exit Letter

Member Records
50 E North Temple, Room 1372
SLC UT 84150-5310

Dear New Friend / LDS Church Employee,

Congratulations! You are the first one at church headquarters to find out that I'm officially resigning from the Mormon church.

Innit that special? Now, I understand if you feel the need to stop reading right now and gloat to your coworkers. I know the urge to jump up on the desk and do a happy dance is overwhelming. Don't hold back on my account. That guy over there, to your left? The one in the ugly tie? I wouldn't blame you one bit if you were to go rub his face in the fact that YOU were the one that got my resignation letter, and not HIM. Go ahead, do it. Literally rub this letter in his face. He deserves it.

I know what you're thinking. "It's like she's inside my head!" And the fact of the matter is, I bet you are pretty happy to be reading this letter. My assumption is that you are one of the church employees who processes a fair chunk of the resignation letters that come in. I also assume (having read several other people's letters myself) that most of them are either very dry and boring, or very angry. But aren't you the lucky one, because my letter is neither dry, nor boring, nor angry!

Slightly sarcastic, maybe.

But only just.

You see, when I first drafted my resignation letter from the Mormon church, I did it much the same way as many of my friends and acquaintances had done. I received advice from several sources that the church was able to process resignations more quickly and efficiently if the letter was formal, straightforward, and professional. So in my first draft I was very formal, straightforward, and professional. "To Whom It May Concern," it began. "I am writing to notify you of my resignation of membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," it said. "I request that I not be contacted in any way, except as confirmation that my request has been fulfilled," it ended. After all, the LDS church is essentially a business, and so a business letter would be appropriate.

But then I got to thinking.

For 25 years, the Mormon church tried to get me to be a sheep. They weren't even subtle about it. They actually used the word “sheep.” I was told in countless lessons from Primary through Relief Society that I was a sheep, and that I had to follow the shepherd just like everyone else. "Conform!" they said. "Bah!" I replied. "Do everything we say, even when it's morally reprehensible!" they commanded. "Ba-wait, what?" I replied. "DO IT! OBEY! OBEY OR GO TO HELL!" they shouted. "Beh," I half-heartedly muttered.

Now that I'm rid of LDSism, why should I continue to do things the way the church expects me to? Writing this letter is my final act as a 'member' of your church - why not go out with a "bang!" instead of a "bah"? Why not write a letter that is uniquely and unquestionably me?

I know some people who, even though they have left the church themselves and despise its commandments to conform, would frown upon this. This is because some of them, after sending a letter announcing their own resignation, received notice from the church that they were subject to one of your "love courts" (which sounds like a great name for an 80s prime-time sitcom, if you ask me) or even excommunication. A church to which they didn't even belong was threatening them with disciplinary action. To which I say, what the fuck?

What? The? Fuck?

Now, look. I thought we were friends. You wouldn't try to pull something like that on me, now would you? Because after all, you and I both know that simply by your receipt of this letter I am no longer a member of your church. I know the church hates to relinquish power more than anything. But don't be absurd. I don't have to answer to any of your priesthood leaders for my actions. The church has absolutely no jurisdiction over me. So don't try to Bogart my decision. It makes you sound like a kid in junior high who just got dumped. "No, dude, she didn't break up with me. I broke up with her, right after she told me she wanted to break up!"

Puh-lease.

I totally broke up with you, and we both know it.

And I know the church well enough to know that even if it is willing to admit that, it will still try to place blame for our falling-out on me. "Yeah, she resigned her membership, but it's because she (select answer from list below)...

• is too proud.
• is too stubborn.
• just really loves sinning.
• was influenced by Satan.
• was too easily offended by something somebody in Relief Society said about her.
• thinks she's some kind of intellectual.
• all of the above."

 The church would never, EVER find fault with itself. After all, the church is perfect. The church is true. The church is unchanging and unrelenting. Isn't that what you keep telling yourself, every time something happens that the church's doctrine/PR team can't explain? "Well, I don't understand the meaning behind this, but the church is true so it must be for my own good."

Do you not see the fallacy behind that line of reasoning? Now, seriously. Don't get your garments in a twist. I'm asking you as a friend.

We are friends, aren't we?

Good.

Now, friend, let me ask you something. Let's pretend that you're that kid in junior high again, only this time you're really really good at science class. You're a science nerd. Which is probably why I dumped you. Anywho, you're sitting in science class and the teacher asks if anyone can tell her the steps of the scientific method. Your nerdy little hand shoots up in the air and you recite, "Ask a question. Research the question. Form a hypothesis. Test your hypothesis. Analyse the results. If the hypothesis doesn't answer the question, start over." Well done! The teacher then gives you a silver star (it would have been gold if you had waited for her to call on you before blurting out your answer).

Now let's compare that with what the LDS church tells people to do.

In the logical world, the first step is the ask a question. In the Mormon world, the first step is to give you the answer. That is what we like to call "backward." Here, I've made a little chart for you to help you understand. I thought that as a science nerd, you'd like a good chart.

Admit it, you liked my chart.

You're thinking about cutting it out and taping it to your wall.

"See this?" you'll say to passersby, pointing to the chart. "This is why all those ex-mormons are wrong. They all think they're scientists!" The passersby will laugh as you take a sip of your caffeine-free Diet Coke, reveling in the attention. "Don't they know the difference between science and faith? God is the greatest scientist of all! Guffaw!"

See, bud, you're missing the point. Yes, it's called the "scientific method." But that doesn't mean that this is a science vs faith debate. I have no problem with faith. What I have a problem with is the LDS church's utter refusal to let its members figure out for themselves whether or not that faith is worth having. What I have a problem with is the church's emotional abuse of members who have the audacity to question anything they're told, and not just blindly accept the teachings of church leaders. What I have a problem with is the church saying that anyone who doesn't have a firm testimony in all of its bullshit must be doing something wrong.

So look, it's been fun and all. We had a good run. I'll never forget all the times the church bought me hot chocolate and donuts at Mutual activities. That was awesome. But the fact of the matter is, I've moved on. I've outgrown the church. I'm a lot happier without it, and I suspect that it's breathing a sigh of relief that I'm finally gone.

Best of luck to you, new friend / LDS church employee. I wish you nothing but happiness.

Now wasn’t this the best resignation letter you’ve ever read? Please feel free to share it with anyone who you think would enjoy it as much as you did. Just keep an out eye for that guy with the ugly tie. He's coveting your chart.

Also your wife.

Regards,

Kristen

p.s. Just to be sure we're clear, I am officially resigning my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints effective immediately. I request no contact from this point forward, except to acknowledge that my request has been processed and my name removed from church records. I expect this acknowledgement within 30 days of receipt of this letter. Cheers!

Pops

My dad is a notorious teaser.  In my younger days, he would spin yarns to wrap around my siblings and I, and would never back down when we insisted that he was lying.  It seemed like he simply derived great pleasure out of tormenting his children, seeing us squirm uncomfortably as we tried to reconcile our my-dad-is-a-superhero instincts with our my-dad-is-a-liar reality.

"See this scar?" he'd say, pointing to a thick strip of shiny pink on his chest.  "That's from when I was out in the woods with my dad and I got attacked by a werewolf.  I used to have an 'outie' belly button, too, but the werewolf bit it off."

"Nu-uh, Dad!  Quit teasing!"

"I'm McGyver," he'd insist every week as my family gathered around the TV.  "It's based on my life.  Back before I met your mom I was a secret agent."

"Nu-uh!  You were not!  Mom, make Dad stop teasing!"

No matter how much we protested, no matter how loudly we groaned, he never changed his stories.  He got such a kick out of us becoming frustrated or angry with him.  When we would admonish him for lying, his response was always the same.  "I'm bigger than you, I'm stronger than you, and goshdarn it, I'm better-looking than you, too."

When I was a teenager, I loathed my father for being a self-described Jack-Mormon.  I was trying so hard to believe in the church myself, and I was certain he was feeding me doubts just to torment me.

One morning before church, he pulled out a little laminated card from his scripture case and showed it to me.  It was a chart documenting all the discrepencies between his pre-1981 edition of the Book of Mormon and my own set.  He had made it himself.

Another time he tried to explain the Adam-God doctrine to me.  "Brigham Young taught it," he told me.

"Nu-uh!"

"He did," he insisted.  "Brigham Young taught that Adam was God, but the church doesn't teach it anymore.  Now they say that he never taught that at all."

"Yeah, sure Dad, and you're McGyver."

For many years beyond teenagerhood, when I was still trying so hard to become someone I wasn't, I carried resentment for my dad.  All those times I read the Book of Mormon and felt nothing, all those times I prayed and felt nothing, all those times I listened to other people gush about how they could "feel the spirit" in the room with us and I felt nothing, a part of me blamed Dad for planting those seeds of doubt.  If he wasn't so stubborn, if he would just be a good card-carrying priesthood holder like he was supposed to be, then I would surely have a testimony!  I would surely stop feeling so worthless and guilty and evil for not having enough faith.

I would see the relationships my friends had with their fathers, and compared to my own it seemed like something straight out of Full House.  Their dads were so protective of them, their dads doted on them, their dads were like knights in shining armor who wanting nothing more than to pamper their little princesses.

My dad, on the other hand, was not what I would call doting.  He would never dream of letting me win if we played a game together.  He didn't believe in letting me have my own way just because I'd pout at him.  He'd rarely ask me questions about my feelings, and opted instead to spend dinnertimes handing out 'quizzes', drilling me with math and physics and logic questions until I refused to play anymore.

For years I harbored the thought that my dad didn't really care about me.  It seemed so unfair to me that he would purposely feed me 'anti-Mormon' thoughts when I was trying so hard to develop a testimony.  I wanted to believe that he was just falling back on his habits of feeding me little lies until I snapped and got angry.  I wanted to believe that he was just argumentative by nature, and wanted to get me riled up so he could have someone to fight with.

When I was young, it simply seemed like he just enjoyed seeing his children suffer.  Looking back now, I know that what he was really doing was teaching us to think for ourselves, to look at things objectively, to not just accept anything one-sided without examining the other possibilities.  He was teaching me to be skeptical and critical and to make informed decisions.  He was teaching me to use my brain.

Maybe not during the "I was attacked by a werewolf" game.  That one was just mean.

My dad and I have never really sat down and talked about my leaving the church.  He's made a couple of comments, asked a couple of questions ("So what do you do on Sundays now?"), but hasn't ever questioned my motives for leaving.  So I can't really say for sure that I think he's proud of me for apostasizing.

But I do think that he would be proud of me for not accepting the church at face value.  I'd like to think he's proud of me for taking the time to look at both sides of the church, and deciding for myself whether or not I think it's true.  If I had stayed in the church, I think he'd feel better knowing that I was doing so because I'd investigated it thoroughly and decided that I did in fact believe in it.

My dad taught me that what I think and how I feel matters more than how everyone else is telling me to think and feel.  He taught me that my doubts, my fears, and my insecurities matter, and that they shouldn't just be brushed under the rug.  In a church that commands uniformity of thoughts, morals, and beliefs, he taught me that my own opinions were just as valuable as anything an "inspired leader" told me.

And I'll take that over him letting me win a game of Crazy 8s any day.

OMDG.

Several weeks ago I was chatting with a coworker who is also an exmo.  Somehow or other the church came up in our conversation.  Another coworker approached and asked what we were talking about.

"Mormons."

"Oh, you mean that cult?" he responded bitterly.

For some reason, it always bothered me when people described Mormonism as a cult.  Thanks to television, the word "cult" always brings to mind people chanting in unison and putting on weird robes and drinking poisoned KoolAid so they can ride a comet to Heaven.

I have a lot of loved ones who are members of the church, and will likely always be, and the idea of them choosing to be nothing more than brainwashed drones is hard for me to take.  Part of me clings to the idea that, as misguided as the church is, most people in it are just trying to find a way to make sense of all the messed up things in the world.  That's the way I feel about all religion - even if there isn't a speck of truth to it.  If believing in something helps you to become the best version of yourself and feel happy, more power to you.

So even though there are a lot of things wrong with the LDS church, a lot of practices and policies that need to be changed or dropped, I still don't want to consider it a cult.

I mean, it's not like Scientology.

I don't understand how someone who isn't completely unhinged could consider joining Scientology.  Anyone with an internet connection can quickly and easily find out what they don't tell you at their introductory meetings.  Like how Scientologists actually teach that our souls are space aliens.

Seriously.

They say that an immortal race of space aliens were sent to Earth by their leader and now inhabit our bodies.  Only they've forgotten that they're actually space aliens, and think they're just humans.  So the whole point of Scientology is to help people realize that their space alien souls are divine and can maybe one day return to their home planet to live with their leader, Xenu, and

OHMYGODITSJUSTLIKEMORMONISM.

Seriously.

Mormons believe that their spirits are immortal, and that before Earth was created, we all lived on a distant planet called Kolob with Daddy God.  He sends our immortal spirits down to Earth to inhabit 'tabernacles of clay', mortal bodies.  Of course, along the way, we forget that we're actually spirit children of Daddy God, and we need the Mormon church and its teachings to help show us that we are divine and can maybe one day return to Kolob to live with Daddy God.

Oh.

My.

Daddy God.

Well, at least the Mormon church doesn't hide some of its most controversial teachings from its members until they've proven themselves 'worthy' by paying a certain amount of dues to the church, and....

Oh.

Okay, so, maybe Mormonism is a lot like Scientology.  But still, the word "cult" is a little harsh.  I mean, it's not like they hold super secret ceremonies where they chant in unison and wear... weird.... robes....

Shit.

They definitely don't drink KoolAid, though.  You can't have a cult without KoolAid!

Although as a Mormon, I always wondered how we were supposed to get from Kolob to Earth and back again.  Do you think we'd ride a comet?

I guess that leaves just one question.

L Ron Hubbard: Great Mormon, or GREATEST Mormon?

Worth

Yesterday I followed a twitter link to a post on this lovely blog.  A couple of hours later I realized that this seemingly innocuous little click of the mouse had led me into dozens and dozens of links to dozens and dozens of exmo articles.  Without even realizing it I was winding up and down and around the world of exmo blogs, forums, and essays.

This is what always happens when I read an exmo article.  Once I start I just can't stop.  I can't help myself.

It's a weakness of mine.

I knew this weakness, recognized my tendencies to become obsessive and angry and bitter when I allow myself to read too much of anything I feel passionately about, when I left the church over a year ago.  And so, shortly after I made the decision to leave, I told myself I wouldn't read any of it for several months.  I wanted to leave the church for the right reasons - not because I was angry, but because it was the right thing to do.

Even now, I try not to let myself become too immersed in it.  I don't want to be one of those people who are chronically bitter about the church.  After all, a lot of the people I love are involved in it, and even though I disagree with them I don't want them to feel like I'm constantly attacking what they choose to believe.

When I started this blog, I originally intended for it to chronicle my experiences as a Mormon.  But I quickly backed off from that.  Part of me just thinks my particular story leaving the Mormon church is not all that interesting.  Part of me was afraid that if I spent too much time focused on that part of my life that I'd chosen to abandon, I'd be unable to keep my mouth shut when family, friends, and coworkers started blurting out things about their church.

But maybe I shouldn't be keeping my mouth shut.

The trail of articles I started following yesterday led me to a discussion forum about the role of women in the LDS church.  I had always thought Mormon doctrine was sexist, but I also thought I was above most of its prejudicial influence.  After all, I had always valued education.  My mother has always worked, not necessarily because she had to to support the family, but because she enjoys it.  I had never thought anything was wrong with a woman in the church aspiring to have a career.

But still, reading these articles gave me a lot to think about.  And then suddenly I had an epiphany.

During my freshman year of college, I was spending the majority of my time among a tight-knit group of fresh-faced young Mo's who all just seemed to get the church so much more easily than I did.  They all raved about their Institute classes - I dropped out of mine.  They all seemed so happy - I was a miserable shell of a human being, all smiles on the outside but tearing myself apart inside.

As the end of the school year approached, I decided that it was about time I try to become more like my peers.  I was going to focus, to study, to pray.  I was going to become more spiritually in-tune.  I was going to change who I was and be who I thought I wanted to be.

And I was going to do it all before the end of May.

Because that's when The Boy was getting home from his mission.

I knew that he would come home on a spiritual high, that he would have learned and grown so much during his two years of service, that I wouldn't stand a chance of being loved by him unless I prepared myself to be worthy of his love.

I wouldn't stand a chance of being loved by him unless I prepared myself to be worthy of his love.

Looking back now, knowing that I truly believed that about myself, makes me physically ill.

I've often postulated that if I had a time machine I would change this decision or that one, I would go back and bet money on this instead of that, or I would have gone here instead of there.  But now, if I had that time machine, all I would want to do is go back 7 years, find my old self in the spot where she used to sit behind the Manti LDS temple to read her scriptures and write in her journal, and shake some goddamn sense into her.

"You never need to 'make yourself worthy' to be loved by someone else!" I'd scream.  "You could never be unworthy of someone!"

Oh, my God.  Who was I kidding?  I wasn't above the sexism of the church - I was perpetuating it!

I had sat through countless lessons in Young Women's and Relief Society where I was told that I needed to "make myself worthy to be taken to the temple" by my future husband.  "Taken to."  Never were we taught that we would "walk alongside" our husbands into the temple, or that we would take them.

Even my patriarchal blessing (a "personalized" life guide given to members that is supposed to help them make decisions later in life) the phrase was there.  "It is important that you spend time with your peers, among whom you will find your eternal companion, and he will desire to take you to the temple of the Lord..." It had been engrained into my mind for twenty years that someday a man would choose me based on my worthiness, that if it turned out I wasn't spiritually worthy for a temple marriage he would be well within his rights to discard me and seek someone else.

Oh, my God.

When things didn't work out with The Boy, I was completely devastated.  I had worked so hard to become more spiritual.  I had prayed, I had read my scriptures, I had studied.  I had even gotten up to bear my testimony in sacrament meeting once because they say that sharing your testimony is the fastest way to help it grow.

Why hadn't he wanted me?  Why wasn't I good enough?  Why wasn't I worthy?

For many, many unhappy years, that's how I saw myself.  I felt so small, so worthless, so unlovable, so insignificant.  I knew that I would never be good enough to find someone who would want me, because no matter how hard I tried I simply could not make the doubts go away.

So now, even though it's been over a year since I left the church, I think I'm only just beginning to realize just how much of an impact it has had on me.  I'm also beginning to realize that it isn't enough simply to stop going to church meetings and stop calling myself a Mormon.  I have to write my experiences down, to detail my accomplishments in breaking the hold the church had on me for so long, even if it's only for myself.

From now on this blog might take on a slightly more exmo slant.  I'm not in the habit of keeping up with current church news, so it won't necessarily be my take on the latest press release or conference talk.  But if you don't want to read about my life as a Mormon and beyond, I understand.

Maybe instead you'd like to read this blog about the progress I'm making on building my time machine.

You Can Pick Your Friends....

I think one of the reasons that I had so many problems being a Mormon from such a young age is that the LDS church is so centered on socializing. From infancy you're taught that you're supposed to have friends that share your beliefs, so the church does everything it can to make sure its members are friends. From the toddlers in Sunbeams class to the cantankerous old bats in Relief Society, there is a constant assault of socials, parties, activities, meetings, and assigned duties designed to force church members into seeing the same faces often enough that familiarity becomes confused with friendship.

It seems harmless on the surface, creating a community that fosters friendships based on deeply-held personal beliefs. But truthfully, it's just the church's way of ensuring that it keeps its numbers up. A large percentage of people go to church meetings simply for the socializing rather than the doctrine. And I suspect a large number attend just so their "friends" won't turn them into the next "reactivation project".

As a teenager, I loathed "Mutual" nights. It often felt like my only options were: A) spend a couple of hours every week with people you hate doing some kind of incredibly stupid activity, or B) rot in Hell for all eternity for skipping a church meeting.

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration.

Some of the activities weren't that stupid.

Like when we went bowling.

But truth be told, I don't really like people. I'm pretty selective about my friends. I'd rather hand-pick a few people that I really get on with then have a large pool of people I can't stand who I just happen to see all the time.

All through my growing-up years, I never kept friends very long. With very few exceptions, one or two years seemed to be the maximum amount of time we'd have before even my closest friends and I drifted apart. The more I've thought about it, the more I realize that the majority of my "friends" were not actually people whose company I sought, but people in whose company I often found myself.

In school, I always had plenty of friends in each of my classes. I'd get along with a lot of people from a lot of different social cliques. I always had someone to eat lunch with and to walk the halls with and to ditch classes with. But I rarely had people that I would hang out with outside of school.

So the weekly Mutual activities which I hated became my primary source of extracurricular socializing. And I resented it. People I avoided the rest of the week, people who avoided me, were suddenly my buddies every Wednesday and Sunday.

Granted, some of those kids I probably could have been friends with in another world.  What I truly resented was knowing that I was expected to be friends with them simply because we were in the same ward.  I was allowed to choose my friends at school, but my friends at church were pre-selected for me based on only age range and local geography.

It's like when mothers arrange playdates for their very small children, except that we were teenagers with minds of our own who didn't base relationships on who had the coolest toys.

And so I didn't get along with a lot of them.  I hated spending time with most of them. But I had to, because I knew that if I didn't I would be labeled one of those "inactive" kids, and that everyone else would bake me cookies and stop by to invite me to come back to Mutual.

Not because they wanted to be friends with me, but because the Prophet told them to be friends with me.

In the last year or so, since denouncing my Mormonity, I've met a lot of people who are outside of the circle I would otherwise be enclosed in. And I'm pleased to say that I've felt like a large percentage of them are people I could potentially be friends with.

That's a big step for me.

The next step will be actually spending time with these newfound friends.

Eh.

Maybe in another year.

Really?

I watched a bemused smirk settle on Dan's face as Jim studied him carefully.

"You're never going to guess," Dan said.

"Yes, I will."  Jim cocked his head slightly to the side, as if looking at Dan from that angle might help him solve the puzzle.  "You're... not an atheist."

Dan refused to reveal any sign of confirmation or contradiction.  Not a single muscle in his face gave way to even the slightest twitch.  He was enjoying this.

As was I.

I don't know if it was actual curiosity or just boredom that led Jim to start his little game, but as the members of our screenwriting class gathered around the table a few minutes before class was to start, he had blurted out, "I want to try something."  Then he proceeded to go around the room and try to guess everyone's religion.

A couple of them were easy - Chris, for example, was writing his screenplay for the class about his experience with Judaism in the valley of the Great SL,UT.  Everyone knew that Amir was Muslim.  A lot of the other students in the class weren't religious at all.  But Jim was stuck on Dan, and understandably so.

Mostly because Dan was being purposefully difficult, and Jim knew it.  It wasn't a matter of figuring out Dan's belief system so much as figuring out what Dan would claim as his belief system.  And, as Dan was a highly creative individual with a deeply twisted sense of humor, the possibilities were endless.

Time was running out, and a big part of me hoped that Jim wouldn't be able to crack Dan before our teacher decided to start class.  I was up next, and I didn't want my religion brought to the attention of everyone else in the room.

It's not that I was afraid of being judged by the other students, not at all.  I knew that not one of them would care one way or the other.  But part of me had always felt kind of ashamed to admit that I was a Mormon.

And then I was ashamed to feel ashamed, and ashamed that I felt ashamed that I was ashamed, and it was a vicious cycle.

Growing up in the SLC suburbs, most people I encountered just assumed I was Mormon.  After all, I was a "good" kid.  I didn't drink or sleep around, or have weird piercings.  In the Morridor, it's often assumed that anyone who appears to have high morals must be a Mormon, and that those poor non-members stuck out like sore thumbs.  I was guilty of that attitude myself - I remember being surprised to learn that my high school friend was not a member after knowing her for several months.

"I give up," Jim conceded.  "What are you?"

Dan smiled.  "I worship the Great Sun God Balthu'ul.  Every morning I drink copious amounts of wine and sacrifice small animals in his name.  Praise Balthu'ul!"

Everyone laughed.  Jim rolled his eyes and then turned his attention on me.

"Well, at least Kristen's easy," he said.

"Spread that around, won't you?" I replied.

Jim looked me in the eye, pointed to me, and declared, "ATHIEST!"

I was shocked.  I had thought that my Mormon roots were as clear as day.  I mean, the most sinful thing I had ever done in front of any of my classmates was swear a bit.  I didn't think it could be any more obvious if I was wearing a sweater with flashing lights that read CTR!

"No."

Jim looked surprised.  "Really?"

"Really."

"Agnostic, then."

"Well... no, not really."

At this point, Jennifer caught my eye and smiled.  She was the only openly Mormon student in the class, and often brought up her religious beliefs in our discussions.  When she gave me that smile, I knew that she knew.  I felt marked.

Dan opted to help Jim with his query.  "Are you a Buddhist?"

"What?  No."

"Presbyterian?" Chris joined in.

"Baptist?"

"Lutheran?"

People!, I thought. We live in SALT LAKE CITY. Come ON.

Finally I admitted, "I'm... Mormon."

"Really?" Jim asked.

"Really."

"Yeah, but... are you really?"

I thought about that on the way home that night.  Was I really a Mormon?  I felt so proud of the fact that my peers had been surprised, even shocked by my admission.  They hadn't known, hadn't pigeonholed me, and I felt a great sense of relief about that.  If I was so pleased by the fact that people thought I wasn't LDS, rather than proud of the fact that I was, than was I?  Really?

That was the start of a journey that would take me a couple of years to finish, where I made it a goal to find out what, if anything, I believed about the church.  It was the start of my quest to figure out: was I really a Mormon?

Rant

I just overheard a conversation between two coworkers. Let's call them Nancy and Chuck.

Not to protect their identities, I just enjoy fake names.

It's one of my quirks.

Chuck and I have never been particularly close, but he often stops to chat with Nancy, who sits near me. Chuck and his girlfriend have been engaged for several months, and so every few days he and Nancy discuss the various drama that comes with an impending wedding. And I eavesdrop when I have nothing better to do.

Which is most of the time.

My job is boring.

Anyway, last week the big issue with Chuck's wedding was that his parents don't much care for his fiancee. This resulted in the wedding being pushed back yet again while the involved parties attempt to reconcile their differences. So, last week Chuck was telling Nancy that they didn't know yet when exactly when their wedding would be, and it was stressing him out.

Today, Chuck mentioned that his weekend plans included moving some of his things to the house that he and his fiancee would occupy once they got married. Perplexed, Nancy asked why he was moving so soon if the wedding wouldn't be for months.

"Well, we're getting married a week from Saturday," Chuck explained.

Perk! went my ears.

"Why?" went Nancy.

"Because the girl's pregnant," went my instinct.

"She's pregnant," whispered Chuck.

Now I've never been that big on gossip, particularly office gossip. This can be attributed to the fact that most of the time I just don't give a damn about other people.

Except you.

I love you.

But Chuck is one of those sweet, innocent, round-faced, super good LDS kids like so many others I grew up around, and I have a wicked soft spot for hearing stories about how these kids react to their own transgressions.

Call it a research project, if you will.

I'm convinced that there is a large number of LDS people who, much like the Me of Years Past, feel completely out of place within their religion and culture but are just too completely absorbed in it to do anything. And hearing stories about good people who do things the church considers "bad", like having sex with their fiancee, sometimes makes me feel validated in this belief.

There will be more about that in later posts.

Moving on.

Nancy moved forward without so much as a blink. "How far along is she? When did it happen?" (As a side note, I love Nancy's straightforwardness. The woman could get anyone to tell her their deepest, darkest secrets just because of the completely bold and badass way in which she asks questions.)

"A couple weeks ago. And maybe about a month before that," Chuck responded.

"Where?"

"At my house." Chuck lives with his parents.

"What did your parents say?" Nancy asked.

"They still don't want me to marry her. They said it's not too late to get out of it," Chuck admitted, his voice staying remarkably even considering the weight of his words. "But it's really their fault."

SCREEEEEECH! Mental brakes. Pop it in reverse. What was that, Chuck?

"But it's really their fault."

Please, Chuck, please. Explain to Nancy how exactly you having sex with your fiancee and getting her pregnant is your parents' fault, before I lose all self-control and look straight at you so you know I've been intently listening this whole time.

Chuck delivered.

"They would leave us alone all the time," he explained to Nancy. "Like, they'd leave us in the family room and they'd be in another room down the hall."

It's moments like these that make me wish I were a sassy black Southern woman so that I could effectively and convincingly pull off a, "Honeychild, please!" So please take a moment to imagine me as a sassy black Southern woman, waving my finger at Chuck and saying, "Honeychild, please!"

Did you picture it?

Was I wearing a headscarf?

You racist.

Chuck, it is not, in any conceivable way, your parents' fault that you two had sex. Unless Moms and Poppsy dimmed the lights, popped on some Marvin Gaye and REMOVED ALL OF YOUR CLOTHING before leaving the two of you alone, their absence from the family room did not cause you to knock up your girlfriend.

Sadly, this idea that two kids having sex is somehow the fault of their parents is an idea I have heard many times before. In all those "chastity lectures" of my adolescence, we were told that it was dangerous to be left all alone with a member of the opposite sex. Especially at night.

"The Holy Ghost goes home at midnight."

The basic lesson that came out of this is that we, as a human race, are completely unable to control our sexual urges. Once the lights go out and the chaperones head to the kitchen for a snack, our libidos will strangle our common sense by the throat. We have absolutely no say in the matter.

Now, I know that sexual desires can be overwhelming. But I also am a strong believer in self-fulfilling prophecies. Telling eager young virgins that the moment they find themselves alone with someone they're attracted to the devil will take over is the surest way to make it happen. It's like a placebo effect in reverse.

Then you end up with people like Chuck, who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. "It's really their fault. My parents. They would leave us alone all the time."

Now, I am not taking a stance on either side of the abstinence before marriage issue. I am a firm believer that what's right for some is not right for all.

But I am taking a stance on the holding-yourself-accountable issue.

Seriously.

I have to wonder if Chuck and his fiancee had decided that because it was his parents' fault they had sex, they were still "worthy" of an LDS temple marriage. If last week the marriage plans he discussed with Nancy still involved the temple, but he and his fiancee got it on weeks before, were they more than willing to go through the temple ceremony "unworthily"?

I am no longer LDS. I don't believe having sex with someone makes you unworthy of God's love. I frankly couldn't care less who has sex and when and whether they do it with rings on their fingers.

But I do believe that if you voluntarily belong to an organization, you should respect that organization enough to obey their rules. In the LDS world, that means not going to the temple unless your local religious leaders deem you free from sin and worthy of entering.

If you don't care enough about your church to abide by its most basic rules, then why the hell do you continue to voluntarily belong to it?

I am insanely curious as to how many couples like Chuck and his fiancee fool their families and friends by going through the LDS temple wedding even though they've slept together prior to the ceremony.

How many of them convince themselves that it's okay with God because it's their parents' fault for leaving them alone?

That's a statistic I doubt the church would publish in any of their family-themed pamphlets.

Chuck, it's not my business if you have sex. It's not my business whether or not if you believe in the church you belong to. The decisions you make affect you and you alone.

But for God's sake, man. Admit that it's you who is making them.