Chapter 10: Tempestuous Part 2

| Part 1: My Analogy | Part 2: My Reality |

The Old Ship Zion

“Please take a moment to rate our service”

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Some of this symbolism associated with the “Old Ship Zion” may be apparent to Mormons; the Ship is, of course, the Church, capitalized as if it’s the only church, which is, of course, on record as being “the only true and living church, with which I the Lord am well pleased,” which is, of course, a big claim – even bigger if you ignore the comma!

I’ll leave the analogies for the individual items on board up to individual interpretation, but as for the ship itself, in a 2014 general conference address, M. Russell Ballard quoted a dialogue that Brigham Young had imagined taking place on the deck of a ship that was in the midst of a storm:

“’I am not going to stay here,” says one, “’I don’t believe this is the Ship Zion.’”

“’But we are in the midst of the ocean.’”

“’I don’t care, I am not going to stay here.’”

“Off goes the coat, and he jumps overboard.”

So presumably, this is me. Yep, I’m jumping overboard. So what does Brother Brigham have to say about me and others who jump or take a pleasure cruise in the whaling boats, as he described those who temporarily stray?

“Will he not be drowned? Yes. So with those who leave this Church. It is the ‘Old Ship Zion,’ let us stay in it…Let us stick to the old ship…you need not be concerned.”

Elder Ballard then offers the following advice in connection with this analogy:

“Brothers and sisters, stay in the boat, use your life jackets, and hold on with both hands. Avoid distractions! And if any one of you have fallen out of the boat, we will seek you, find you, minister to you, and pull you safely back onto the Old Ship Zion, where God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are at the helm and will guide us right, to which I humbly testify in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Many of my family member and my friends adhere to these words, not just in terms of the allegory of the ship, but to the last six words in particular. They believe that these words that were stated by a mortal man were actually spoken “in the name of Jesus Christ.” In other words, the Ship leads to safety; it cannot go off course, because Jesus himself is guiding the Captain. The words are divine; they are canonized scripture, spoken as if by deity. My trite little exclamation about how the water is fine cannot possibly hold true. And if the ship felt oppressive, that’s my own fault because it simply is not so. And now it’s just a matter of time until the sharks bite off my leg, then circle around me to devour me whole if it’s too late to pull me back into safety. I am the problem, not the ship or the routine or the redacted Captain’s log. If I had concerns, I didn’t need to speak up; I should have just listened to Brother Brigham and his successors for the answer: “You need not be concerned.”

As much as I am convinced that the Ship itself is heading for the shoals, I am also convinced that the Lookout will spot the danger at the last minute, and the Captain will change course out of pure self-preservation. I suspect that the trajectory of the undeviating, hard-line, stick-to-your-guns course they have charted straight into a cliff using fake maps will eventually be redrawn to make it look like it’s been pointing to safety all along. And nobody on the Ship will know the difference, because the truth of the old line will be deemed “not very useful.”

My message in a bottle will probably never arrive, but even if it were received, my advice to avoid the shoals would likely not be taken into account. And even if it the advice were to be followed, it wouldn’t get acknowledged. Likewise, those who were thrown off the Ship for offering similar advice – and not keeping their mouths shut about it as instructed – will not be mentioned in the Captain’s log. Even so, it was therapeutic for me to submit my feedback and throw it into the ethereal ocean, so at least I have that!

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Survey in a bottle

When I attend an industry event, I expect to have a chance to provide feedback. When I host an event myself, distributing a questionnaire is one of the most crucial items on my agenda. Without the feedback, it’s hard to improve my service offerings. Why should church be any different, given the huge investment of time by both the participants and the organizers?

Year after year, Mormons have publicly told each other in Sunday school class and in testimony meetings about their wonderful temple experiences. Many church members privately confess to their leaders, however, that parts of the temple ceremonies make them horribly uncomfortable. In response to growing complaints, in the late 1980s LDS Church leaders composed an opinion survey to find out more about what temple-goers enjoyed – and what made them cringe.

In response to the survey, substantial changes were made to the temple ceremonies. Many of the changes were aimed at reducing the focus on vengeance and penalties – and increasing concentration on the genuinely positive parts of the respondents’ experiences. I was lucky enough to have come on board right after the most substantial changes were made, but I do wonder how the violent nature of the previous oaths would have made me feel; would I still have spoken positively about the experience like the crowds admiring the Emperor’s beautiful clothes? Given my current hindsight, I hope I would have objected to at least the most disturbing of the recitations and symbolic actions, but in reality, I have to admit that I probably would have gone right along with it, trusting that those who brought me to the “House of the Lord” were telling the truth about their own convictions – and laying the blame for any knots in my stomach on God’s mysterious ways.

I was about ten years old when my sweet old grandmother came to visit us in Germany. My parents took her to the Swiss Temple, and I remember waiting outside, wondering what was going on inside. When I now picture my sweet old grandmother vowing to slit the throats of apostates like me, I’m surprised they needed a PR firm to tell them she’s not the throat-slitting type. I could have saved them a few stamps and a decade or two of heebie jeebies instilled in the newcomers who would later express their concern on their survey cards.

Growing up in the LDS Church, I never got the impression that the church existed to meet my needs; I understood that its programs and policies were going to be implemented regardless of my changing needs. If my own needs weren’t being met, it was not a problem with the provider but rather with my unwarranted expectations. The church is structured with a top-down, military-style hierarchy, with the commander-in-chief – and the system he leads – presumed to represent an unchanging, unwavering, eternal truth. If a change is needed, church members are taught that God will tell the prophet to make the change; it’s not your job to change it from the bottom ranks, after all! And your needs need to comply with whatever protocol is disseminated from headquarters. Dissent is allowed, but only within a single level of command; and truthfully, that dissent rarely rises any higher through official channels.

There seems to be an impression among the LDS membership that the programs that are ultimately implemented by the church constitute God’s will being disseminated down the chain; requests sent up the chain by rank-and-file members are sometimes construed as acts of sedition, even if they are later incorporated into the ever-changing handbooks. Cases in which an opinion is officially solicited, followed by subsequent changes made in response to the commoner’s experience – as in the 1990 temple ceremony updates – seem to be very rare occurrences that are never even officially acknowledged. The lack of publicity around these matters is perhaps understandable; otherwise members might start asking why apostles who have direct access to God Himself would need to rely on an opinion survey at all!

Do LDS Church members have any right to demand an ultimatum? Only those who come to realize that Church leaders have absolutely no control over their souls would take that step without any fear of putting their church membership or tithing funds on the line as collateral or as a bail bond. But while you believe that the bishop who has to interview you every other year will be an eternal judge in Israel, dissidence is going to be very subdued at best.

Maybe that attitude has been changing over time and I just never got the memo, but in over forty years of active church membership, nobody ever asked me what I thought should be done to improve my own experience in the church. As far as what could be done to get better church attendance, temple attendance, home teaching results, or the like? Yes, I certainly got those memos. But in terms of my own experience? Nobody ever asked, and funny enough, I never even thought that was weird.

In my business, I rely heavily on customer feedback to ensure I am meeting my clients’ needs. Well, I think it’s high time for a new survey of LDS church members – this one covering the entire LDS experience rather than just one aspect of it. Why not give it another try? Maybe there’s already something like this in the works, but in the meantime, I’m just going to make up my own survey, pretending that I just opened my mailbox to find a self-addressed, postage-paid, fill-in-the-blank form from the church asking for feedback about my Mormon experience.

I don’t like the idea of throwing out a bunch of criticism without recommended solutions. So from the home box office in Grand Rapids Michigan, here is my top-ten-Letterman-list of recommended changes that might have helped convince me to keep raising my family in the LDS Church:

10. Give prospective missionaries the option of serving service missions.
9. Add a preparation room to the temple.
8. Remove waiting periods between temple marriages and civil marriages, and allow children to watch sealing ceremonies.
7. Reword or remove the temple recommend interview question about affiliation with those with differing beliefs.
6. Allow meta-mormons to hold temple recommends and acknowledge non-literal interpretations as valid.
5. Rename Brigham Young University.
4. Remove the facsimiles.
3. Rewrite the gospel topics essays to take some responsibility for previous mistakes, removing God’s hand from the origin story of racist, sexist, or homophobic policies.
2. Ordain women.
1. Rescind the November policy and disavow the notions behind it.

That’s it! I’m narrowing the outcome of a 40-year journey to just ten simple steps, most of which could be accomplished with a few simple keystrokes and the click of a mouse. I could list a hundred more, but I think these would make a great start! [2020 footnote: #1, #7, and #8 have been implemented since this was first written in 2017, at least in part. Now how about taking it a bit further, for example with #8, adopting the reverse where the sealing comes at least a year later?]

So what do you think would happen if I were to mail in my reply card with these suggestions? Would any of them be taken seriously? My guess is that those sorting out the results would toss my card straight into the tiny pile of irrelevant, dissident voices. My card would be seen as an outlier, unrepresentative of a majority opinion, because most church members would simply reply with a check mark in the “keep up the good work” box. The conservative, affirmative consensus would then convince those at the helm to continue conducting business as usual – perhaps allowing for a trickle of peripheral updates that can be attributed to continuing revelation.

While three-hour church was in place, for example, many people testified that there was no place they’d rather be on a Sunday morning than in the three-hour block. Everyone now seems to love the change to two-hour church, but can you imagine if there had been a petition on change.org calling for a reduction of meeting time rather than just gradually allowing the leaders to interpret the silent murmurs reaching their desk? Mormons just don’t tend to be in the habit of suggesting changes through any sort of official channels.

That is, unless the tide has changed in the meantime?

In the past, we have seen that changes on this scale don’t come about as a result of opinions alone. The only tangible results have been brought about by the threat of reduced membership numbers, dwindling tithing funds, discrimination lawsuits, or even full-scale military invasion as the case may be.

What if a substantial number of Mormons adopted the “18 is the new 8” position, for instance? Would a statistically relevant decrease in baptisms of members of record draw some attention? What if famous Mormons and BYU alums refused to use Brigham Young’s name on their profiles? Or if a growing number of tithing settlements landed a tick in the “Non” or “Partial” box, subject to any number of grass-roots conditions? What would it take to actually see some of these changes through?

Mormons are raised to believe that change in the church cannot be brought about from the key-less masses. But history has shown that many of the positive changes over the years have come about that way, albeit well after those who first suggested the changes have been excommunicated from the fold.

So back to the suggestions, here are some additional notes for each item on the top ten list:

10. Service Missions. This option would be for those who have doubts about LDS truth claims but wish to serve honorably and avoid the stigma of declining to serve (or being sent home early for not being able to cope with their doubts). Missionary applications could include a tick box: service mission or proselyting mission. To be effective, there would need to be no other repercussions in terms of later callings or reputation in the Church. It could be a no-questions-asked preference without pressure to choose one or the other. The service option might apply to a prospective missionary who is would be comfortable preaching the gospel as a means of acquiring a testimony as has been suggested previously in missionary manuals. Although this suggestion would apply to both boys and girls equally, for generations, LDS girls in particular have been raised not to “settle” for anything less than a returned missionary when looking for a partner. Just as it is a badge of honor for a parent to call their son an “RM” in Mormon culture, it is likewise a badge of honor to say your daughter married an RM. So what does that say about the opposite? This option might be for a boy who does not want to be a hypocrite but doesn’t want to instantly annihilate their BYU dating pool either. I was sent to “rescue” some of these “lost souls” as a missionary myself, and the threat of the stigma they would carry for life was a very effective tool in convincing them to stick it out. I feel horrible about that now; the stigma shouldn’t exist at all, but I’ve included this option because it is an unfortunate reality.

9. Temple Preparation Room. Before people sign billion-year contracts, making eternal oaths while Satan himself stares them down with threats of breaking covenants that they haven’t even had time to think through, give them the transcript so they can weigh out their options. If this needs to stay in the temple, perhaps a library or study room could be added to each temple as a special preparation room. Without this, we put teenagers on the spot, surrounding them with those who are most special to them, reminding them that it’s not just the mortal onlookers, but all of their ancestors who preceded them watching this moment. You have exactly three seconds to agree to the terms; well, what’s it going to be, yes, or no? Well, honestly, I don’t even understand the question. And honestly, we all should have said, “No, let me think about it” in that moment. But 99% of us who found ourselves in that situation said, “Yes! Come what may, I trust you, and I trust those who went before me, and I trust all of my faithful ancestors in a straight line back to Adam himself.” I believe we should be asking those considering these steps to think about it and pray about it ahead of time. If the wording can’t be included in a temple preparation class under the current curriculum, then let’s make a special room inside the temple, giving endowment candidates as long as they need without any pressure before deciding for themselves to take the next step.

8. Waiting period. A 1-year waiting period for temple marriages after civil marriage seems to be the norm in some countries, so why not do it everywhere? The civil celebration can be a valid occasion for everyone who attends rather than tainting the day for so many like the current practices do. The temple sealing can remain just as special and meaningful to those endowed individuals who return with the couple a year on. Under current cultural scrutiny, couples who are not sealed may be seen to be living in sin, putting a stigma on that first year; again, it shouldn’t be that way, but it is. So putting everyone in an equalizing situation of holding a civil union first would be a sacrifice for those rare couples where everyone who wishes to celebrate their wedding is temple endowed. LDS children grow up singing about sealings that they will never witness until they’re adults. For many Mormon kids, the first marriage they’ll ever attend will be their own. It’s absurd to expect kids to look forward to something they’ve never witnessed. Let them in so they can see it and grow up knowing what to expect – and allow them to decide whether that’s what they want for themselves.

7. Questionable affiliation. One highly misunderstood temple recommend question asks whether the candidate affiliates with anyone whose practices are contrary to those accepted by the Church. Because all of the other questions are simple yes or no questions with obvious answer, many feel the need to answer this one with a resolute No. The problem is that the only way to actually implement that answer into your own life would be to entirely cast every non-orthodox Mormon out of your life regardless of their status as an active-, inactive-, non-, ex-, anti-, or any other sort of Mormon, because everyone engages in contrary practices of one sort or another. For twenty years I answered this questions with a yes, then added a disclaimer about the line I would draw between affiliation and support. And every time we just moved on to the next question. The belief that you have to answer this question with a no causes some to engage in unwarranted shunning or disassociation with loved ones. This question should be reworded to discourage that practice.

6. Non-literal acceptance. Repeated messages from the top effectively screen out those who cannot accept the literal truth of the Book of Mormon. It would take an alternative directive from the top to allow those meta-mormons to maintain any validity while still being able to truthfully answer temple recommend questions. How many Sunday School class attendees believe in a literal global flood, a literal Adam’s Apple, or a literal hungry whale? The percentage has been gradually declining over the years, and a church member’s opinion on the matter doesn’t seem to affect their standing in the church. Take the same interpretation of the Rameumptom, Jaredite barges, or a thousand other tidbits in the Book of Mormon, however, and you’ll get yourself labelled as an apostate who would be shown the door if this belief was uttered in Sunday School. A meta-Christian father can attend his daughter’s temple sealing while publicly holding an opinion that Jonah is a fictional character but has to wait outside if he believes the same about Moroni. Can’t we create a legitimate place for meta-Mormons?

5. Rename Brigham Young University. Given Brigham Young’s racist rhetoric, if you wouldn’t be comfortable wearing a Brigham Young sweatshirt in the company of a black friend, why wear it at all? Renaming BYU would be expensive, but if President Nelson can have a dream and rebrand the entire Church, why not a school? And if it ends up being too expensive, it’s absolutely free for alumni to change the name themselves on their own profile. Let’s go, Timp U!

4. Remove the facsimiles. The captions on the facsimiles are admittedly false, so binding them together with the “most correct” book on earth seems counterintuitive and counterproductive.

3. Alternative essays. None of the gospel topics essays follow the Church’s own advice on the necessary steps for repentance. To comply with those steps, the essays would need to be rewritten to actually take some responsibility for previous mistakes, removing God’s hand from the origin story of racist, sexist, or homophobic policies. I’ve included alternative essays above as a regurgitation of what I was taught in primary about how to repent.

2. Ordain women. Someday Church members will go back through the history of excluding women from priesthood offices and will see that there is even less doctrinal or scriptural justification for that practice than there ever was for racial discrimination (which actually required some previously accepted scriptures to be rescinded and reworded). And someday the argument will be made that this was simply a policy and not doctrine. Even if we go so far as to assume that God has reserved priesthood authority and its accompanying discernment for men – for which I see absolutely no justification whatsoever other than arrogantly chauvinistic habits and old patriarchal traditions – why on earth would a congregation want to limit its selection pool for badly needed leadership roles to half of the potential candidates? The notion that men have some pre-disposed, fore-ordained organizational aptitude that grants them a greater ability to head up an organization is stunningly ignorant, if that has been a factor in implementing and upholding any of these policies. Whatever the reason, gender roles are baseless for many of the assignments that are currently limited to those with a Y chromosome. To truly comply with being equally yoked, maybe a ward should be run by a couple rather than a bishop where each partner takes on responsibilities according to their individual talents; in my experience, many of those responsibilities would be better served by someone lacking the Y chromosome!

1. Rescind the November Policy. It just seems absurd that anyone would take upon themselves the right to instruct someone about their own attraction. “Let me tell you who you should be attracted to…regardless of whom you’re actually attracted to.” One way in which I feel a bit of affinity for that situation is that the message I received was, “Let me tell you what you should believe…regardless of what you can actually bring yourself to believe.” There are certain, inherent traits that institutional guilt trips are not going to be able to overcome. For those who can’t get over the biblical verses on the subject, fine, go to your grave with your unchangeable viewpoint, but in the meantime, can’t you just treat everyone like they’re celibate? Cause it’s none of your freaking business anyway!

[2020 footnote: We’ve been waiting over 40 years since the priesthood ban was lifted, and we still haven’t heard the words, “it was wrong,” so maybe I shouldn’t hold my breath, but now that the November Policy has been rescinded, the next step is to honestly disavow the notions behind it!]

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So that’s my top ten list, but who am I to make any suggestions now? I know full well that an expatriate has no voting rights. Even though I first wrote these up as an insider, the instant I hit “publish” I will become an outsider, bearing no relevance for influencing internal policy. Any credibility I may have had in Mormon circles will disappear, and my dissent will be labelled as apostate or anti-Mormon with whatever accompanying implications that bears. I never saw it that way myself; in fact, I wanted to offer some of these suggestions as an insider, but I never managed to find an avenue to do so while adhering to the program.

Not one of these suggestions calls for people to leave, unless appeals put forward under that condition are left unaddressed. These suggestions are intended to change the environment rather than to destroy it. A community of millions is a powerful force; even if it were possible to disband the whole thing in one fell swoop, I wouldn’t push that button. I would hope that internal changes allow others who find themselves in my position to stay. As for myself, by the time I pulled the plug, there was nothing left in it for me, but it doesn’t have to be that way for others. When something isn’t working, I prefer to fix it rather than throw it away. When you look at the parts of the EU agreements that weren’t working for the UK, for example, there were plenty of other parts that were still fixable. So fix those elements that aren’t working! Make adjustments where needed. But to throw out decades of efforts, including all of the things that were working effectively, is an utter waste in my book. Maybe those who were getting the raw end of the deal tried to make changes and were silenced by a system that wouldn’t respond. That’s where I find myself with my own grievances related to the LDS Church. In that case, fine, walk away as a last resort. But I’m left with the question: Couldn’t the problematic issues just be fixed to avoid LDXit?

So given my expat status, I’m not sure why I even bothered to include these suggestions here, and I’m not sure any active Mormons would be comfortable reading this far into a critical monologue anyway. But just in case there are any believing Mormons who might still be with me, what would your own list look like? And who would you ever tell?

If you followed the protocol and told your bishop your suggestions, you’d have an audience of one. And you’d get a handshake after the interview, followed by few additional rescue visits to make sure you’re keeping sweet. And you’d still have an audience of one, because your recommendations aren’t likely to be passed up the chain to his presiding officer. If you wanted the idea to gain traction and decided to push for change on social media, that might be effective, but you’d be bypassing the proper procedures. Would you be willing to have people question your resolve to follow the prophet by circumventing his approved procedure for expressing your ideas? Careful, that’s bordering on evil speaking! Why would I assume that’s what people would say behind your back? Because I’ve sat in dozens of rescue meetings during my Mormon career, and I’ve said it myself a hundred times when I’d see people expressing any form of dissent: “So and so is going off the deep end!” Rest assured, that is being said about me now. Well, I guess I can’t complain about that accusation because it’s true: I actually am off in the deep end, and as it turns out, I prefer the open sea to being anchored in the supposed safety of the shallows where you’ll never really learn to swim.

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Reconstruction time again

Now that I’m swimming in the deep, feeling free to believe whatever I choose to believe, what should I pick? Could I believe in reincarnation? Zen? Yin and Yang? Or nothing at all? How do I rebuild a faith in anything when every thread seems to be tied to the toppling dominoes that have already fallen? And would I even want to rebuild a faith at all?

As I reflect on my own journey, the deconstruction of my former beliefs, and the reconstruction of whatever will replace them, I have to acknowledge the influence of some academic twists and political peeves that fed into my decision to jump ship – and that form some of my requirements for whatever philosophy I choose to adopt going forward. I realize that not everyone is wired this way, but I would expect any metaphysical philosophy to be in harmony with the logical, real world in terms of the physical planet, its people, its politics, its history, and the underlying, observable scientific laws that govern the universe.

So if you’ll allow me to geek out for a bit, let’s start with the idea of a creator. I was implanted with a Mormon view of an infinite patriarchal succession and eternal matter. I don’t know what that means from where I stand now, but I still imagine there must be some force behind everything we can observe – some entity that supercedes time, space, and matter – but I’m also convinced that no human mind that resides within the present sphere would have any capacity whatsoever to even begin imagining what might be outside the structure. There are plenty of fascinating, real answers available within the structure of the universe; what lies beyond might make for interesting discussion material, but in my eyes, questions that cannot be answered during our lifetimes shouldn’t preoccupy our preciously finite mortal years. So why bother?

I can accept the idea of a creative force, but whether or not we bear any relevance to that entity, I have no idea. I have wished for it with all my heart while my son lay on an operating table without a heartbeat of his own, so if hope is faith, I guess I could call it that. I have observed enough absolutely improbable miracles in my life to accept the possibility of some sort of rigging, but as far as whether there is direct interaction – whether that creator contacts mortals and vice versa – who knows? Maybe that’s a thing, maybe it isn’t. I’m now agnostic in that regard, and to me that question will remain unknowable until my own death.

If it is in fact a thing, though, I’m convinced that a supreme being would prioritize things a bit differently than I’ve been taught thus far in my life. If you’re going to dream a dream in which the creator of our world makes a personal appearance, for example, even if we don’t get the keys to the Grand Unified Theory that would unlock the mysteries of the universe, I would at least hope we would get something useful and positive out of that interaction. Tell us where the Nigerian schoolgirls are, for instance, or give us some intel on Kony’s whereabouts; when I’m told that the divine interaction through a sole mortal mouthpiece among billions has culminated in a discriminatory policy or a logo change, I come to doubt the direct order.

So if there is such a thing as divinity, and if I could tune into a divine source of inspiration for myself, what do I believe God would really say to me? If I could get back a survey form with some feedback on my own performance thus far, what advice would I get? Would I get an attaboy pat-on-the-back with the encouragement to continue along the way I’m charting for myself? Or would I get chastised to tears for allowing this path of discovery to pull my family off track from the trajectory toward the grand reunion that I’ll be missing in Celestialville?

If the advice were to be customized to my own life, right here, right now, what sort of crucial information would I get? My guess is he or she would start by saying, “Go lose about 20 pounds, your kids need you around!” I expect that advice would be more helpful than feeling inspired to read about another Book of Mormon battle or whatever other message I used believe my spiritual divining rod was sending to my soul. In any case, I don’t think I would be advised to spend the second half of my life whining about how something that turned out to be made up robbed me of the first half of my life; but rather, I would expect to be challenged to simply make the most of what’s left in Act 2 and to help make life a positive experience for anyone I run across along the way.

So in order to guide my remaining years, I’d like to identify those values I would want to promote. I may draw philosophies from other world religions, or perhaps from science itself. I remember looking at the Ensign magazine on my kitchen table next to a National Geographic magazine a few years ago. The epiphany probably didn’t strike me as hard as it should have, but looking at the titles of the articles inside, I realized I have much more in common with members of the National Geographic Society than I do with members of the LDS Church. A community of like-minded people can provide some much-needed support to each other; but based on the recent polarization of politics along religious lines, I also find the lack of alternative views to be dangerous in a setting that relies on common beliefs. I realized when I was flipping through the pages of the Ensign that I don’t belong in a Mormon chapel at all, because the National Geographic articles actually spoke more to my soul than the First Presidency message. Which one has better advice for how I should spend the precious few remaining days I have left on this planet?

Contrasting views of the world

Looking back on it, my decision should really have been very simple at that point, and I could have saved myself 300 pages of rambling and a couple of years’ worth of PEC meetings!

Don’t get me wrong: I understand those who believe there is an all-out war for the salvation of eternal souls that requires an understanding of the Battle of Zeniff if humanity is to emerge victorious; if that is the case, then sure, let’s focus on the reading list in the Ensign and call the planet itself collateral damage. But I’m in a position now where I believe that Zeezrom and Zarahemla are as made up as Zelph himself and that the real war is humanitarian in nature and ought to be fought against despots and tyrants and abusers rather than unseen forces of darkness that can be dispelled by opening a book that highlights the superiority and divinity of white skin.

So on that note, one of the main motivating forces that drives my professional work is the protection of the planet and its communities. I realize it’s not always possible to meet that goal in the face of development, but I try my best to preserve as much of the natural habitat as possible, and I see extinction of individual species as an utter tragedy that is often preventable. The environment obviously can’t always be the priority when human lives are at stake, but its destruction will ultimately destroy its communities as well, and it’s something that in my eyes should be seen as at least one of the priorities worth striving for. So again, if divine direction is a thing, wouldn’t you expect the protection of the planet to at least be on the agenda?

The Lord’s University first started offering degrees in civil and environmental engineering during my college days. In my eyes at the time, that change was authorized by the only board of trustees in the universe that bore apostolic authority. Yet in my decades as a practicing environmental engineer, armed with that degree, I sat through dozens of general conferences knowing that one of the topics I was most passionate about, that I thought mattered to God, and on which I thought we could use some divine direction, would be ignored again and again. Yes, I could extract about 30 seconds’ worth of sound-bite quotes around environmental stewardship, but out of thousands of hours of air-time, that essentially reflects silence on the topic.

Through the years as there have been environmental catastrophes and mass extinctions that were absolutely preventable with a bit of communal resolve, a community that was centered around Christ the Creator was offered no guidance or leadership whatsoever on the topic. Maybe we’re expected to just act individually, but if someone is going to tell me that divine intervention is a thing, I have to believe the ongoing destruction of the planet would at last be raised as a topic. Unfortunately, though, the clusterstorm of U.S. politics has managed to group environmentalism with abortion, and the America-focused quorum of church leaders can’t seem to bring themselves to promote the planet for fear of strengthening the opposing party.

If God gave us back a scorecard on how well we’ve done taking care of his planet and its inhabitants, how would we rate? Environmental pillaging and some of the other most crucial threats we face as a human race demand an international, global solution. The paranoid fight against global entities that could help make a positive impact has historically been supported by LDS church leaders who somehow imagined up a sinister plot to unravel God’s own constitution by Gadianton’s international men of mystery. Once again, I’m calling the direct orders into question here, because even if those systems have flaws, isn’t fixing the system better than withdrawing entirely to let bickering national interests have the final say, with the one carrying the biggest stick emerging the victor and leaving nothing but ashes in its wake? Deference to a higher authority is needed when you’re dealing with international waters or imaginary borders that undermine the environment; instead, the words from the pulpit have an air of nationalism that favors what is seen as a divinely ordained political system that simply isn’t equipped to do the job on its own. I guess all I can do from where I stand is to try to adopt preservation and protection of the vulnerable elements of the planet and its people into my own philosophy. But if a survey form came floating along, one of my suggested changes would be to incorporate stewardship of the Earth into Church teachings. I think that matters.

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Prioritization

Mormon doctrine says we went a millennium and a half without an official word from Jesus. So when he did finally speak up, I would think it would have to be something significant, perhaps some advice on structuring systems that could help avoid the ensuing, global calamities instead of the recommended subordination to nationalistic interests that comes across in latter-day revelations, which has historically provided more cannon fodder for each powder keg along the way.

The number of alleged, first-person quotes uttered by the Jesus is very limited, and very few religions even claim to possess any at all. Mormons have a few hundred pages that haven’t increased in length in over a century, so even though it’s longer than the claims of most other religions, it is still a finite record. If the creator and savior of the earth and every last one of its billions of inhabitants were to utter a few pages worth of phrases in English to be printed and distributed to the world, what sort of mysteries would he unfold for us in that preciously limited volume? I have a hard time believing that conflicting instructions that “my servant Frederick G. Williams should not sell his farm” and that “my servant Isaac Morley should sell his farm” would make it into this special-edition book, accompanied by prophetic recommendations that devout followers should spend their time reading those instructions over and over again for their own edification. Again, I’m thinking the priorities are a little off when I see on the other hand how far a little effort on the humanitarian front can go.

I also can’t imagine myself up a God that would prioritize his or her agenda to be preoccupied with hiding evidence of the existence of millions of fellow humans as a test for billions of others. Whether that’s Sinai or Zarahemla, I just don’t buy it. In my geomorphological work, I can see how even very shallow water moves dirt and leaves a record; anything even remotely close to a global flood would have left a substantial imprint to say the least. The lack of that imprint leaves either the lack of the event’s occurrence or a divine coverup (of biblical proportions if I may!) as the only two alternatives. Pressuring people to adopt literal, historical interpretations of mythological legends that require this sort of divinely arbitrary intervention to digest is simply not my cup of decaf.

As I read the script that’s been handed to me, one of the final straws that prevents my finite mind from accepting it as literal truth is the absurdity of fore-knowledge. The miracle that Joseph of Old saw Joseph of New along with Columbus and other souls centuries in advance would require an absolute knowledge of absolutely everything. A being would need to have run every quark within every atom from the beginning of time through to its conclusion in order to predict a single, future birth. Any deviation of a single nanosecond or nanometer would result in a different history book altogether without Columbus, Joseph Smith, or any other predicted soul who followed. Well of course, the argument is that God is omniscient, after all, so he has already played it out in his head. In order to possess that sort of omniscience, that being would need to possess a program capable of modeling that entire system; the model would have to be full-scale and run in real-time, in which case maybe we are the model inside some other universe’s computer program!

I recognize the absurdity of trying to grasp these concepts that typically arise when nerds like me start staring at the sky on a campout. And I do appreciate my own limited understanding in interpreting reality, realizing that there must be some bigger picture that I just can’t comprehend. If there are scientists who can comprehend how time is relative and space is curved while I lack the ability to envision those concepts, perhaps there are spiritual experts as well who are refined in the art of communing with a divine dimension, which is an ability I certainly lack. So if I take a leap of faith and take the word of those people in my life who claim to possess that ability, I can accept the notion of a creator, and I can even take a second leap and assume that religions are on to something when they claim that this being would like us to behave in a certain way. But I’m still left rejecting what most religions assume is expected of us; looking at the supposed requirements stops me in my tracks. The notion that God’s expectations involve exclusive rites that are inaccessible to most of humanity and will result in punishment if not followed is a stretch I can’t quite make, try as I might. Sure, the Bible sums all of the rites and protocols up with love as the greatest commandment. But the other 1199 pages sure don’t look like love to me.

If a divine being has expectations of any of us, I imagine it would be to not just to love but to respect and treat others as if their views are equally valid to our own, accepting their sincerity in the process. I admit I may be wrong here, but I get no such concession from those who adhere to the program. The message in Mormon testimonies is presented as a knowledge of an exclusive doctrine. Knowing that an exclusive system is right comes with an accompanying, equivalent knowledge that everyone else is wrong. I reject that reality.

The more I interact with others outside the LDS Church, the more I recognize that the level of conviction within the LDS Church is not unique, only our manner of expressing that conviction. And from where I stand – or rather swim – a conviction of Mormon supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy or an America First approach to global politics. The world’s most pressing problems require globally coordinated responses; the solutions are never perfect, but the optimal approach requires negotiation and diplomacy. Nationalism, on the other hand, just compiles those problems, especially considering the fervent patriotism that accompanies it when religious fervor unites behind a particular political party. Innocent victims are harmed in the process, where we could have helped instead. Even as an outside expat, I have found recent political trends disheartening to say the least. After watching pre-election polls that gave me a glimmer of hope that Utah would at least turn up independent, for example, I actually felt physically ill when I woke up the morning after the 2016 US Presidential election to see Utah in red. Watching Motab singing at the inauguration of someone whose policies, rhetoric, and demeanor make me sick, made me – well – even sicker!

I can’t lie – this has been a rough ride, but my mental health has seen a drastic improvement since my trial separation began. Maybe that’s the only sign I need. Some people express themselves verbally to a therapist to heal their minds, while for me writing seems to do the trick. So for anyone who made it this far, thanks for humoring me and sharing in my therapy sessions. In any case, I don’t think anyone should undertake a journey like this without some form of serious therapy! Without question, keeping quiet about my concerns was about the worst advice ever for my own mental health; perhaps it is relevant in a way to lives that have been ruined when young returning missionaries who didn’t fit the mold were told to keep their homosexuality to themselves and just go through the heteromotions. I have yet to hear of a successful instance in which that guidance was followed. To me “turning off” my better judgment to mask my disagreement armed me with a two-faced approach to other relationships that did not serve me well in the end.

Just like the voices coming from the Ship, warning that you’ll drown out there, your friends on the inside will tell you that it’s impossible to be happy outside the safety of the Church – that any happiness you think you feel is actually just worldly pleasure masked in counterfeit joy. True joy can only be sensed on the Ship, after all. Wickedness never was happiness, and you’re swimming in the wickedness for having jumped in the water at all. Well, my whole point in sharing the story of the Ship and the nine tales that preceded it is to offer the perspective that there’s no monopoly on your happiness, your peace, or your soul. If I had to offer one admonition here, it is that teaching kids that there are no other valid paths is dangerous. I would start with that. Sure, teach them that your current belief system is where you might be placing your bets for now, but acknowledge that you may be wrong. I may be wrong. We all may be wrong. And should they choose differently, every child deserves to be granted just as much validity in the philosophy they choose to adopt. We’re all equally clueless, after all. And all I know for now is that the water is just fine for those who want to take a plunge!

Here are some closing lyrics from an analogy in which life is “likened unto” a sea voyage:

I look to the sea,
Reflections in the waves spark my memory,
Some happy some sad,
I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had.
We live happily forever so the story goes,
But somehow we missed out on that pot of gold,
But we’ll try best that we can to carry on.

I’m sailing away,
Set an open course for the Virgin Sea,
‘Cause I’ve got to be free to face the life that’s ahead of me.
On board I’m the captain so climb aboard,
We’ll search for tomorrow on every shore ,
And I’ll try, oh Lord I’ll try to carry on.

Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me!

~~~~~~~~~~

Now even though I wanted to close this never-ending ending with those Styx lyrics, I’m feeling obliged to add one last glimpse inside my brain to show just how gripping the indoctrination I acquired on the Ship can be, even decades after the fact.

Taking it back to the family photo in the Grand Rapids Press 300 pages ago, right around that time, a traveling youth speaker was making his rounds across the country with a Church fireside entitled Rock and Roll and the Occult.

“There’s a feeling I get, when I look to the West,” he began, quoting Stairway to Heaven, “Why West? Because Jesus will appear in the East. Don’t you turn your back on Christ like they did!”

He laid out a long list of sordid underworld connections, including these doozy little ditties:

KISS stood for “Knights in Satan’s Service”, and the piper in Stairway was the devil himself;
RUSH was “Ruled Under Satan’s Hand” (oh no, not my favorite drummer, Neil “the Professor” Peart!)
Queen…that one was obvious, he said…and they weren’t just perniciously, promiscuously flamboyant, their back-masked lyrics were meant to convince us to smoke a joint!
Ozzy sacrificed animals on stage;
AC/DC (not the Aussies, too!) was code for bisexuals – turned on by either current!
And Styx? Well, that just summed up every evil of rock music: it’s the river to hell!

“Look up the Greek origin in the encyclopedia,” he said, “it’s true!” And by listening to any of the blacklisted groups, he claimed, we’d be inviting darkness into our room, chasing away any good spirit that might otherwise have attended and protected us, and charting ourselves a one-way journey straight down the river Styx. I laugh about it now – as we did then while applying our newfound knowledge to the art of trying to play back-masked lyrics – but almost forty years later, any song by Styx still reminds me of that formative fireside!

Perhaps fittingly, the single “Come Sail Away” is a track from the Styx album entitled “The Grand Illusion.” Keeping to the space theme of the 70s, there is a third verse of the song in which the angels that are beckoning the listener to sail away with them end up being space aliens.

In the song’s lyrics, the sea-bound ship’s passengers willingly climb on board the starship, leaving the world behind. And it’s a good thing they did, because the album art shows a sinking ship!

Maybe the space voyagers will get to their destination after all; and maybe I’m the one living a Grand Illusion. Maybe there’s another world out there that I simply can’t imagine, like when Orville the Albatross carries his passengers off into the sunset in the closing scene of the Rescuers. If so, good luck to the passengers! Whatever lies beyond, it’s simply not my circus anymore; and as I watch the flashing lights disappear into space as they chart their course for Kolob, I wish them all bon voyage…from my rightful place right here in the sea!

[Next: Conclusions]