Patterns, that is. I learned to read patterns. Let me explain:
Early in my career, out of sheer necessity, I developed a process to interpret reoccurring themes in systems, organizations, personalities, etc. I applied this pattern-reading process to my work, designing products, museums, resorts, businesses, classes and training seminars, among other things. I found that my skills were especially suited to information design, which is what I eventually specialized in, designing over 60 museums and writing almost 30 books on various subjects.
Along the way, I discovered that a certain type of pattern-reading heightens discernment. When it is applied across disciplines and between contexts, pattern-reading creates an ability to see “behind the scenes” and to read “between the lines.” I found I could discern such things as concealed motives and hidden agendas very clearly. I could read situations and people quite early in an interaction. I even realized that, based on the patterns, I could often tell what would happen in the future. My accuracy actually stunned me. When I taught this process to others, they did the same. It’s not unique to me.
There are problems with discernment, however. Once it’s turned on, you can’t control where it goes. It shines its unforgiving light into every corner of your existence. So after a while, this quirky ability began to invade my personal life.
For example:
I woke up at 3:00 a.m. one morning, beside my wife of almost 20 years, with the unshakable feeling that something was deeply wrong in our marriage. This feeling was so strong, I couldn’t lie next to her anymore. I got up, went into another room and rocked back in forth in pain as I reviewed the patterns of our life together. I saw where she was going and why—and that she would never change. What had started out as a sweet marriage had become an exercise in maintaining a rigid, righteous image, with the church at the center. My wife used our religion as a vehicle for her self-esteem. The real person I married had slowly faded away … and I mourned the loss of what had been. I tried desperately for years to reverse what I saw that night, but to no avail.The basic theory behind the system I developed is that everything is connected. I named the process “Relational Learning” because everything is related to everything else in some way. The key to the system is to extract the core principle or idea from a situation and then link it, or “relate” it, to multiple contexts. As I experimented, I found it to be useful in many disciplines. Since the process is very visual, I used it when I taught art classes at BYU, with dramatic results. I then teamed up with a history professor to use it to teach American History to multi-cultural students.
Some interesting things happened in those classes.
As we connected the principles in the Constitution and the events in history to other disciplines and subjects, we also required the students to apply each idea to their own lives. They struggled with learning the relational system and assimilating knowledge in this strange way, but after about 30 times through the process, something interesting would always happen. It was like a light would go on in their minds, and they started seeing connections everywhere.
For example:
As we were discussing the reconstruction of the South after the Civil War, a Japanese girl in the front row broke down in tears. She had made the connection between the carpetbaggers who came to the defeated South—saying they were there to help the people, but in reality taking advantage of them—and her mother-in-law, the wife of a General Authority, who packaged her deep self-interest and manipulation in high-falutin’ religious talk.The students developed a unity that was deep and sincere. I saw Palestinians and Israelis embrace. Kids from all over the world actually started to have interconnected dreams. (Even the other professor and I did.) And what I found equally fascinating was that we heard the same comment over and over from the students: “Why is it that we never talk of God in this course, but I see God everywhere now?”
The problem was, the God they were seeing was not the Mormon version they had heard about since childhood. It was a universal intelligence of some kind.
We taught the course for eight years, to over 1400 students. Another interesting phenomenon also occurred: students from the course bailed out of BYU in record numbers. They started seeing the true agendas of control and duplicity permeating that institution. This mini mass-defection wasn’t noticed however, because our little course was off to the side, and the administration didn’t pay any attention to what we were doing.
There can be disadvantages to learning this process, though. If you are not willing to accept what you are shown and to pay the price of what that knowledge means, a strong cognitive dissonance occurs, which can have devastating effects:
For example:
The history professor finally quit teaching the course. It was disassembling his belief structure, and he was reluctant to follow that route to its obvious conclusion. Not surprisingly, his health became compromised because of his dis-ease. The last I heard, he had retired early and was suffering from a serious degenerative condition.What I’m saying is that when you become submerged in this process, it hunts you. You see things you don’t want to see. It won’t let you get away with sticking your head in the sand, and everywhere you look, you see people with their rear ends in the air. But those tushies are exposed. And they can get kicked.
For example:
While I was at BYU, I knew George Pace, the professor who was publicly reprimanded and humiliated by Bruce R. McConkie in his infamous 1982 devotional speech. What I saw clearly was that McConkie was a man who couldn’t stand for anyone to have stronger spiritual experiences or knowledge than he had, and he also would harbor no contradiction. His talk devastated George Pace and practically destroyed his life. Interestingly enough, McConkie seemed to try to backtrack later, without actually admitting he was wrong or apologizing. It was almost as if some deep part of him saw the truth and read the pattern of his behavior, but he didn’t want to really own it. It makes one wonder if the cancer that eventually killed him didn’t have some connection to the warring parts of his psyche.When everything you know is tied in some way to the church—your friends, family, business associates—things have to conform to an imposed image. I became so tired of the façade, the judgment, the control. When I finally set my stack of church books next to my “real world” books—books on every subject from archeology to physics, the church’s idealized structure collapsed for me: The doctrines didn’t make sense; the history was mostly a fairy tale; the power issues were exposed. I couldn’t pretend it was true anymore.
Thus began an excruciatingly painful exit from the church that had been the foundation of my whole life. In the process, I lost my family, my job, my friends, and eventually millions of dollars. The collapse was so monumental, I thought I was going crazy. But I finally realized I was leaving an insane culture, and at last becoming sane.
Several years after our divorce, my wife married a man who had my children sealed to him. Apparently he can do this since I am no longer a member. This man continually flaunts his “eternal family” in my face in a relentless parade of self-righteousness.
I have a hard time not hating an institution that, under the proclamation of saving families, warps thinking, distorts perception and destroys relationships. In its unremitting promulgation of saccharin images of ideal families, it denies the opportunity to have deep, real connections. We lose the power of dealing with things straight and head-on; we lose the spiritual power to really be good and truly know and accept one another as we are.
What if that is what God really wants—for us to be who we are, whether we’re black or white, male or female, gay or straight, religious or atheist? The God I’ve come to know can’t do anything with you until you become who you really are. That’s a difficult task in Mormon country, when we’re all pretending to be something we’re not (uber-righteous 24/7). You can’t build anything on something that’s not solid, whether it’s a house or a relationship with the divine.
I always found it interesting that Jesus reserved his greatest disdain for those who claimed to be the closest to God. Under the banner of following God, we lose connection to him, wearing the mask of our own clichés.
Some of my children look at me as if I am a failure because I left the church, when all I have done is to follow the light I was given. In Mormon jargon, I simply followed the Spirit, and it took me out.
My elderly mother died recently, thinking to the last that her son was lost and going to hell. She couldn’t do anything but play the Mormon game—the one that caused her untold grief, if she would admit it—but it was the only game she ever knew.
I spent a long period of my life searching for a way to make sense of my existence, given that I was the “steward” of this dangerous learning process that blows everything to smithereens. Everything, that is, that’s disingenuous.
After a decades-long roller-coaster ride of relationships and dramatic experiences, I have come to a place of deep peace. I have used Relational Learning throughout my career as a design and business-consulting tool, but I have always believed it has a higher purpose. I have several huge loose-leafs full of notes to someday be incorporated into a book or series of seminars to teach this system. I gain deeper insight each day into what this simple but odd process is all about and how it can bless lives.
As I have gotten to know the Post-Mormon community, I have been impressed with the strength and quality of the people here, though there is almost always an element of sadness in their stories—tales of broken families and lost dreams. I am especially impressed with Jeff Ricks and those who helped found and maintain this site.
I am now married to a wonderful woman who really understands me and my peculiar path. We are traveling together down this awesome but rather strange road. People think I left the church because I lost God, but the reverse is actually true.
One last thing:
In the early stages of my journey, I discovered something: When discernment gets really sharp, the barriers between this dimension and others can actually begin to dissolve.
But that’s another story for another time ….