By Way of Introduction...

[peter_mary]

Just signed up after having heard about this site from the friend of a friend. I'm looking forward to the dialogue that was always missing from my Church activity. I know from first hand experience how precious support is when people are making the hard decision to leave Mormonism, and I look forward to being both the recipient and the provider of such support.

I've been a very active member since age 19, when I joined the Church because deep down inside, I knew the girl I loved would never look at me twice if I wasn't a member. I joined, we married, and happily the result has been 21 years of friendship and partnership. But the whole Church thing hasn't worked for me, though I gave it a good whirl. Like many of you, no doubt, I've served in Bishoprics (twice as the First Counselor), as EQ president, teaching Sunday School and Priesthood at various times, and several years as the Ward Cub Master. I've been in deep...

But here's why I think this forum appeals to me more than exmormon.org or others...I value my exodus from the Church more than practically anything else I've experienced in my entire life. The opportunity to dive into a culture, to live among the people, to eat, sleep, talk, breath, live and die all that Mormonism was...and then to experience the radical paradigm shifts necessary to come back out...it has changed my life. I love that. I love that I was a Mormon, and that I'm not now. I love what it taught me about life, about paradigms, about people, about culture, and about me.

So I don't need to hurt the Church. I don't think it's either benign, or frankly very useful, but I don't harbor a grudge.

But I do relish the opportunity to gain new insight from others on a similar journey, to learn more, to talk more, to share more...

If anyone cares, I've been a staff contributor to a Mormon Satire paper called The Sugar Beet (we were on line for two years, and experimented this year with a paper version...flopped BTW), and I have reveiwed a LARGE number of books on Amazon.com, much of which parallels my journey out, and most of which I highly recommend for those who are looking for support information in their own journey.

Mostly I just look forward to "meeting" you all!

Paul A.

[B. Hedshiz]

If anyone cares, I've been a staff contributor to a Mormon Satire paper called The Sugar Beet (we were on line for two years, and experimented this year with a paper version...flopped BTW)


Ok, you are already cool in my book. The Sugar Beet had some great satire. I would have ordered the paper version, but then my devout wife would see it and then chaos would ensue.

I have been a member my whole life. I was quite the model Mormon for a while. Then I hit a wall when I realized that things didn't add up. I have tried hard to get what I had back before, but I can't go backwards. Instead I am trying to find a new path forward.

I was quite angry for a while, but I am past that. Mostly I just want to move on. However, I don't know how. My wife is still quite the believer (and a wonderful woman). So my life gets complicated. I feel like I am living in limbo.

Once the Sugar Beet had an article that said that intertia was often mistaken for testimony. That is certainly the case for me.

So are there plans to resurect The Sugar Beet? I even tried writing an article for it. They loved it, except for the fact that it wasn't funny at all. Maybe I will try again...

[Jeff_Ricks]

Welcome to the Community Paul! I'll email you privately about your role with the Sugar Beet. I'm looking to fill some slots on our staff and would like to find out if there might be a good fit there for both of us.

Jeff

[peter_mary]

I was quite angry for a while, but I am past that. Mostly I just want to move on. However, I don't know how. My wife is still quite the believer (and a wonderful woman). So my life gets complicated. I feel like I am living in limbo.


I think most of us are/were angry at first, and often for a long time...even when we think we're past it. In reality, we're grieving the loss of something that was terribly important, something that defined who we were as human beings, and as members of community. When that's gone, not only do you feel deceived, you also feel empty. Robbed. And lost.

It takes years to rebuild a comprehensive sense of new self identity. And if, like you, you're on this journey without the benefit of a supportive spouse, it's all the harder.

I sometimes think of this metaphore (I'm a student of chaos and complexity)...Our lives are like a jar of pond water that we sit in our window sill. While we were members, that jar sat quietly, with all the mud, rocks and sticks settled to the bottom in a nice, neat configuration that was always the same. Every day when we checked our jar, everything was just as we remembered.

And then we read a book or twenty, or figured something out, or heard some incredible story that caused us to see things differently, and the effect was one of shaking the hell out of our jar of pond water. Everything inside is stirred up and muddy and brown and the light from the window can't even penetrate enough to see through.

The rocks settle out quickly, but the mud stays suspended for a long, long time. Things stay murky long after the jar was shaken. But slowly, the water turns clearer and clearer until one day you can begin to make out how things have settled out. By defenition, things settle out differently than they were before. What's critical, though, is to have confidence that the water DOES clear...the mud DOES settle out...you find a new place of equilibrium, even with your spouse. For a while things are hard to see through, and it's not always without pain...in fact, it's quite often with pain, but in the end there is new equilibrium.

Enjoy the process...we learn more in times of disequilibrium than we do when the mud finally settles and the water clears...

Paul

Oh, and by the way, I THINK the Sugar Beet is contemplating going back on line next year. We lost our webmaster, and the one we found to replace him bailed on us, and most of the people involved were more comfortable with a paper format, so that's why we experimented with that. Some of the staff have tried to come up to speed enough to at least run a good BLOG or something, so hopefully we'll once again have an on-line presence.

[Random Heart]

Do you mean to tell me that Jeremiah was a BULLFROG!!!

[Unregistered]

Do you mean to tell me that Jeremiah was a BULLFROG!!!

No, he was not a BULLFROG, he just was NOT a PRINCE! Any girl could have told you that!!

Paul the example you gave of the jar was great. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks. My jar has not cleared yet, but maybe one day.

Nikki