A niggle for "Stages of Post Mormon Experience" thread

[flotsam]

I love the word niggle. Which, according to dictionary.com, is possibly of Scandinavian origin.

I want to lodge a niggle with the way the “Stages of Post Mormon Experience” study is being set up. But first, I should say that I think some really significant work is being done here. And I think the people undertaking it will do a good job however they go about it. I’m writing this because I’ve been trying to put in my two bits on the questions, but find it very difficult to answer them, as their premises are often at odds with my interpretations of my particular experience. I’m still going to try to answer the study, but my responses will be full of redefinitions, ambiguities, and sometimes direct challenges to the current of the questions.

If the study continues as it has been I think we’ll end up funneling the diverse experiences of people who feel that somehow they have progressed beyond what Mormonism has to offer into one story, the story of the path. It goes like this: “Faithful TBM goes out of the Mormon Church and now believes it to have no truth.” The study is specifically set up so that the questions lead the respondent to have to cast his/her experience into that story. It has to end up rejecting Mormonism and getting out.

However, I think this particular approach undermines the mission of Post Mormon, at least as it is stated on the front page. It seems to me that we are trying to describe the beauties of the universe from a perspective that has roots in Mormonism, rather than trying to convince others, or ourselves, that Mormonism is a cult, or a washing machine for the mind.

For example, from the mission statement: “We are not anti-Mormon; it is not our intent to belittle others. In fact, we want to keep all the good that came into our lives through Mormonism.”

It seems like, instead of shifting to the other side of the scale (departing Mormonism), we’re trying to climb to the fulcrum to see how all this religion stuff is working and what it might possibly have to say about our lives.

What I think has actually happened with the creation of this study is that this group has enough skill at self-reflection to collectively create a theory about how they got to where they are. And many of you share that story. So these steps out of Mormonism are more an autobiography for this group than they are an attempt to draw out themes from diverse stories. Though a structure (and I think the one we’ve made is a powerful one) is often a good thing to help people interpret their experience. Why do you think testimony meetings are so effective in strengthening the faithful? There’s certainly a structure there.

But I think the study could be set up to get a lot more valuable information that will appeal to a lot more people, because I think we're talking about a much larger story than just departing Mormonism. We’re talking about the story of spiritual evolution.

Right now the study is set up like a path. You start at one place (in Moism) and end up at another (out of Moism). What if we saw the PostMo path as a tree? What if we saw the TBM as a sapling and the Post Mo as much larger tree, but with the TBM sapling still inside, now only a ring in the growth of the larger tree?

Maybe we'd set the questions up differently, not so directionally, like:

When did orthodox Mormonism first start seeming inadequate or restraining for you?

Did questions of Mormon doctrine first spur your exploration?

Did questions of the Church institution itself first spur your explorations?

How would you describe your feelings during this stage? Were you afraid for you testimony? Were you excited at the prospect of exploration? Were you just generally confused?

What role did authorities, local and general play in your explorations? Were they helpful? Difficult? Benign?

How about close Mormon friends and family?

Did you have the feeling that you were apostatizing? How intense were these feelings?

Or did you feel as though you were on the verge of finding new truth?

Or somewhere in between?

What sort of company did you prefer during this exploratory stage?

Did it become important for you to officially depart Mormonism?

Or could you explore while still on the Mormon records?

Given some imagination, could Mormonism's doctrine be interpreted to support your current worldview?

If you were to use a metaphor to describe your explorations, what would it be?

What parts of Mormonism still influence your thought?


Or what if we saw the Post Mormon’s experience as Plato's cave, where we saw only shadows as TBM's but now believe we see something more substantial and are trying to explain the beauty of the world outside the cave? Our questions would probably be geared toward explaining what we found, rather than explaining why our previous experience was inadequate.

What if we saw the PostMo experience as a variation on a theme? Or as a comparison between two different genres of music? The church being baroque music and PostMos being (put other genre here: jazz, hip hop, sitar music).

I’m not mounting a challenge to the current study. Just introducing a niggle.

I’m guessing that we, as a group, are still very much in the beginning stages of becoming a community whose motivation comes from within rather than as a reaction to Mormonism. And is therefore still in need of an enemy, still subject to anger. I think that’s OK. Growth takes time. I know there is plenty of anger inside me. And, for better or worse, I’m not in a huge hurry to get rid of it.

So maybe we need to keep pursuing this study as it is in order to have one interpretation of who we are as a group. What our idiosyncrasies, strengths and weaknesses are, so that we can cohere better and become a nurturing community. I’ve been fed well by many of the experiences I’ve read. But then, of course, we will change, and a new story will come forward. That’s the last step, right? Constant evolution?

I don’t know. Maybe our next job will be to make a chart of PostMo paths. All the different directions they take. Gather strength from diversity instead of unity.

[Born Free]

I love the word niggle. Which, according to dictionary.com, is possibly of Scandinavian origin.

I want to lodge a niggle with the way the “Stages of Post Mormon Experience” study is being set up. But first, I should say that I think some really significant work is being done here. And I think the people undertaking it will do a good job however they go about it. I’m writing this because I’ve been trying to put in my two bits on the questions, but find it very difficult to answer them, as their premises are often at odds with my interpretations of my particular experience. I’m still going to try to answer the study, but my responses will be full of redefinitions, ambiguities, and sometimes direct challenges to the current of the questions.

I’m not mounting a challenge to the current study. Just introducing a niggle.

I don’t know. Maybe our next job will be to make a chart of PostMo paths. All the different directions they take. Gather strength from diversity instead of unity.
flotsam,

I appreciate your effort in expressing what I am hearing as limitations with the "stages" model proposed.

As the prime mover in this process, let me be very clear that I have no desire to "tell' anyone "how it is". I have been through a process that was a source of significant distress, and set out to enlist/engage/enthuse others in making some sense of that. I personally have a preference for the "big picture" view of the objects in play, so naturally like to have that view, in addition to the process and subjective elements.

If you read over my remarks through the various threads, I hope I have made it clear that:

I do not necessarily see this necessarily as a liner process; far from it.

I do not claim to have identified all the stages that people go through.

I do not exclude the possibility that in creating it, I may have had filters in place that limited the questions I added or even the stages I proposed.

I thought all of your alternative/additional questions were first class, and would happily see them thrown in the mix. So throw. Can I suggest that they go where they best fit, or have to be appended as something like "I think something is missing in the proposed model at this stages", and then spell it out.

If you felt the existing structure was limiting, I would encourage you to state very clearly that your experience was other than what has been proposed. That is exactly the clarification/refinement process that I was hoping to elicit.

Let me be super clear about where I am coming from. I am trying to develop, with others interested, a series of questions that will:

Assist people to find their own answers.

Clarify their own thinking.

Find more confidence in their own experience/wisdom.

See that there is a way forward, so feel more confident in making a start.

I am not (hope not anyway) setting myself up as some patriachal authority figure on "how it is". I have tried to be inclusive, but have had a sense that I have been less successful at that than I might have liked.

So guys. I figure we stand to learn as much from defining what is not, as from what is. And it is quite possible that at the end there are still bits left over that we are unsure where they fit.

But, first and foremost, buy in! Get down and dirty, and belt this around until it sounds and looks right for us.

And once again, thanks you for going to the trouble and effort to state that you feel this process could be bigger and better.

Daryl

PS: You might see that I asked some time back of Jeff if it was possible to post some flowcharts of this process, so I have been keen for some time to see the multitudes of pathways through this process. It may be necessary for a few of us to share those offline as we develop our ideas.

[Born Free]

Flotsam,

You posed a question in your initiation to this thread, that engages me philosophically.

You said "Right now the study is set up like a path. You start at one place (in Moism) and end up at another (out of Moism). What if we saw the PostMo path as a tree? What if we saw the TBM as a sapling and the Post Mo as much larger tree, but with the TBM sapling still inside, now only a ring in the growth of the larger tree?"

I have no problem with the idea that I, and I gather many others, feel we got value from our involvement in Moism, that one has to go through being a sapling to become all the tree we might be..

However part of the juice that fuelled this whole Stages deal for me, and I believe Ed, was that we observe that Moism is insistent, using your metaphor, that saplings are fully developed trees. We believe that we can mount a strong argument that they are in denial that trees grow past 6 foot tall. Which is a real bummer, if your DNA says you are a cedar!

So that presents a dilema for me.

Moism is insistent that trees are fully grown and are achieving their glorious potential at 6ft, and root bound in a constraining pot.

We argue that whatever sort of trees we are, we certainly grow naturally to bigger than 6 foot, and pot-bound in a nursery, is hardly a natural environment.

So that leads to the question, is it possible to have a discussion about Moism that overlooks and avoids engaging the MO paradigm that 6 foot is a fully realized tree?

I take on board your observation that it is a trap to get caught in Mo-bashing. That keeps us arrested at the 6 ft 6 inch stage, but for me the challenge is how to relate to Mormonism without sighting its "stunted tree syndrome"?

Further, Moism does not simply pretend that trees over 6ft don't exist, and that there is no world outside the nursery. No! It states that the ideal of Moism is cedars (Godhood), but promotes the idea that cedars grow in pots, in nurseries (stunted artificial environment).

Further it actively, and consistently uses a range of tactics to instill fears that:

Eucalypts are a perversion of God's plan.

The natural world is full of evils, disease and devoid of virtue, so don't leave the nursery.

That to speak of feeling root-bound is to question to entire model of the nursery and must be suppressed.

To speak of the diversity of the forest (bush in Oz) is next to blasphemy, and a threat to the "natural order of things".

So, let's use the sapling metaphor to work through the particular challenges of Mormonism, and its black/white view which states firmly your are eitehr with them or against them.

Daryl

[peter_mary]

Flotsam,

You posed a question in your initiation to this thread, that engages me philosophically.

You said "Right now the study is set up like a path. You start at one place (in Moism) and end up at another (out of Moism). What if we saw the PostMo path as a tree? What if we saw the TBM as a sapling and the Post Mo as much larger tree, but with the TBM sapling still inside, now only a ring in the growth of the larger tree?"

I have no problem with the idea that I, and I gather many others, feel we got value from our involvement in Moism, that one has to go through being a sapling to become all the tree we might be..

However part of the juice that fuelled this whole Stages deal for me, and I believe Ed, was that we observe that Moism is insistent, using your metaphor, that saplings are fully developed trees. We believe that we can mount a strong argument that they are in denial that trees grow past 6 foot tall. Which is a real bummer, if your DNA says you are a cedar!

So that presents a dilema for me.

Moism is insistent that trees are fully grown and are achieving their glorious potential at 6ft, and root bound in a constraining pot.

We argue that whatever sort of trees we are, we certainly grow naturally to bigger than 6 foot, and pot-bound in a nursery, is hardly a natural environment.

Daryl


I'm gonna chime in here, because I was the one actually who was using this sapling metaphor with Flotsam the other day an' then he went and swiped it from me :D .

Here's what I was talking about. I actually don't care what Mormonism thinks about itself...the sapling metaphor was about me. What I was, and what I've since outgrown. The sapling is still inside me. It marks that part of the journey of my life in which my growth was very, very limited. And then enough fertilizer was spread around my roots :D and I began growing. As a Post Mormon, my horizons have expanded, but my history is buried inside me, and is an important part of the journey that brought me to where I am today. It didn't have to be Mormonism, BUT IT WAS. That's all that matter's in terms of my history. Can't do anything about what's already happened. But I can do a LOT with what I do with it in the next moment.

Instead of being "ex-mormon", I'm "post mormon." Ex means I have attempted to excise my Mormon experience like a tumor. Post means my boundaries have outgrown those of Mormonism. Of course Mormonism believes it is the pinacle of creation and that nothing can be added unto. All religion believes that of itself. But the sappling isn't the church...it's my own first growth, to which I've added considerable girth (both physically and spiritually, I'm sad to report :rolleyes: )

See, I think what's an important component to my own healing has been the simple acceptance of who I was when I didn't know any better, and appreciation for the fact that from Mormonism, I spread out and beyond. While I wouldn't mind having the tithing refunded to me :cool: , I also wouldn't trade the experience for the world. My boundaries grew BECAUSE I was once a Mormon and now I am not. The journey from sapling to tree is priceless to me.

So...that's the story I was telling flotsam when we chatted the other day, and it is interesting how differently Daryl heard the story.

That's part of what makes this so much fun!

Peter_mary

[free thinker]

Very interesting above! I enjoyed reading the posts!! Yall fellers is perty dang fistcated!!! :D


Could mormonism possible be like a bonsai tree? Fully matured, yet very small! Plenty of character, but not much shade!!

Maybe we should just stick with the sapling. :confused:

Peter Mary. You gotta patent an analogy before you share it. That way they can't steal your intellectual property!! :D

Free Thinker

[flotsam]

However part of the juice that fuelled this whole Stages deal for me, and I believe Ed, was that we observe that Moism is insistent, using your metaphor, that saplings are fully developed trees. We believe that we can mount a strong argument that they are in denial that trees grow past 6 foot tall. Which is a real bummer, if your DNA says you are a cedar!

Great point. And I definitely resonate with it. I think you've pointed out a place where my thinking has been vague. Perhaps I'm not so much talking about emerging out of Moism itself, as I am talking about emerging from fundamentalism. Maybe that's what we're all talking about here. Because, you're right, the premise of fundamentalism of any kind is that the group understands the truth on a literal level and must carry it out literally. Mormonism certainly has that trait, though we can see that the mainstream church has a milder form of fundamentalism than the Polygamists that just moved to Texas. Come to think of it, the world didn't end up here in Alaska, but we've always been known to do things our own way.

So maybe we'd do better to talk about departing fundamentalism, though we should probably call it "departing TBMism" or something, so everyone doesn't think we came out of Short Creek.

It just seems to me that Moism isn't as individual as it thinks it is. It's just another example of a relatively fundamental worldview that happens to work for a lot of people.



So that leads to the question, is it possible to have a discussion about Moism that overlooks and avoids engaging the MO paradigm that 6 foot is a fully realized tree?

Yeah. I think we should engage that problem. But again, I think it's more a problem of fundamentalism, not Mormonism itself. Mormonism is the unique theology and culture we share. It gives us something we can push from. So we'd probably find we had a lot in common with Post-Catholics, or Post-Baptists. But they'd be talking about that crazy Pope, or perverted bishops, or that nutty pastor. I mean, there's a genre called 'coming of age novels,' but what makes us read one or not isn't necessarily the fact that they are coming of age novels, it's that it's a coming of age novel told from a Mormon point of view, or a Scandinavian point of view,or whatever. So our Mormon roots give our story a particular flavor, not a corner on truth.


Further, Moism does not simply pretend that trees over 6ft don't exist, and that there is no world outside the nursery. No! It states that the ideal of Moism is cedars (Godhood), but promotes the idea that cedars grow in pots, in nurseries (stunted artificial environment).

Further it actively, and consistently uses a range of tactics to instill fears that:

Eucalypts are a perversion of God's plan.

The natural world is full of evils, disease and devoid of virtue, so don't leave the nursery.

That to speak of feeling root-bound is to question to entire model of the nursery and must be suppressed.

To speak of the diversity of the forest (bush in Oz) is next to blasphemy, and a threat to the "natural order of things".

So, let's use the sapling metaphor to work through the particular challenges of Mormonism, and its black/white view which states firmly your are eitehr with them or against them.


I think that's a good description of how institutional Mormonism perceives itself. What I'm trying to do it help us not make that same mistake (one can only grow beyond the sapling if one leaves Moism) It seems like our unique idea (to TBMs anyway) is that spiritual paths are many and divergent, and we're interested in the paths that have crossed through Mormonism. It gives us a common set of memories and references to understand each other with.

The other thing I'm interested in is how our presentation of ourselves will look to those in Moism. I know there are people in there who would benefit from the thoughts and experiences that are talked about here. I'm one of them. I'm looking for a way to make us look like what I think we are, a group of people trying to engage life, the sacred, and spirituality in an all inclusive way. I see us as attempting to "circumscribe truth into one great whole." So if other folks, and we ourselves, can see us not as reactionary, but as inclusive and embracing, I think that's a powerful paradigm that can get us quite a bit of mileage.

I'm late for bed. So I'll think some more on the sapling metaphor and come back tomorrow.

'Night.

[bigeddy]

I only have time for a quick reply but I felt it important to reply. I have been unable to be more involved of late and so I just read the entire thread.

I had been struggling with this exact thing! I had had these thoughts just this morning when reading some Mathew Fox stuff. My exact thought was "the whole model is a model of spiritual growth. Moism just happened to be the common thread for us. Maybe we need to address the questions and research beyond and write something not just about transcending moism but about transcendance, period." As I thought about this (while walking down the stairs to my computer) I thought that that may be to large a task and that anything we produce will only be a model of how it worked for one community with that common thread. The common thread is that what we needed as a sapling was perhaps a sheltered nursery and a pot. We just all came out of the same nursery. That does not mean that there are not hundreds of other nurseries all providing the same things; shelter, structure, etc.

Anyway, I have always viewed the "stages" effort as just one view of how a community of former LDS folk grew beyond and found what many others who have never experienced moism have found--spiritual wholeness. (a new place to root, larger trunks, a more mature tree)

Ed

[flotsam]

I like all the different interpretations I've been seeing about the tree metaphor. Here's an initial attempt at constructing an allegory out of them.

Some of us started as tender twigs sprouting up out of the ground, vying for resources with the other plants and contending with the weather. It's a difficult thing to grow up in the natural world. Some trees make it, but the great majority of them don't.

It seems that most of us here may not have quite have had the wherewithal to make it in the natural world to begin with. Or perhaps we just never got to test our roots there. So we found ourselves in the nursery. The keepers of the nursery gave us the water, temperature and vitamins little twigs like us needed.

The keepers of the nursery also told us stories about the outside world. They didn't like it. They'd seen trees die out there and so they told us little saplings about the dangers of the outside world, and warned us away from it. They warned us away from the diseases, the chaotic elements, the insects, and told us that we should always stay here in the nursery, where they would feed us and take care of us. And we believed them, either because we had never been in the outside world, or because it had overwhelmed us when we were unable to contend with it.

However, as we grew we started to feel a kind of tightness around the pot, we started to feel stunted. We asked our caretakers, "Is there a larger pot I could have?" "No," they told us. "Stay where you are, we'll take care of you. If you get bigger you'll have leave here, and in that day you shall surely die. There is no way you could make it out there. You remember the stories we told you. You remember what it was like as a tender plant subject to the elements."

They reminded us of the growing saplings that had left the nursery. Few of them had ever come back, and those who did testified to the destruction they had barely escaped by returning to the nursery. But we also remembered the saplings that had tried to grow in their pots and after great pain and struggle, died in the nursery. We didn’t want to die. But for some reason, we could not stop ourselves from growing, and insisted on a larger pot. “If only they would give us a larger pot,” we thought to ourselves. “Then we would be happy.” But the pot never came. (There's a double meanin' in that!) :D

(Note: In our world, trees can walk if they really put their minds to it.) So we uprooted ourselves and scrabbled around the nursery after hours, looking for a bigger pot. We had to do it at night, so no one would see us. We were afraid we'd be kicked out. But sooner or later, we saw that no larger pots were to be had. We had to leave, or stay in our constricting pot.

So we left.

Some of us experienced significant shock when we emerged into the real world. The support system we once had was gone. We had to make it on our own. And at times it was very painful. But the pain of being stunted was worse than the pain of dealing with the outside world. The caretakers told us we could only return if we submitted to being pruned to the point that we could fit in a pot. And we couldn't bear that.

Others of us, as soon as the sun warmed our leaves and we sank our roots into the wild soil, felt life surge through us. As we looked back on our nursery days we felt bitterness toward our caretakers who never told us how amazing the world is. We despised them for keeping us stunted. We felt lied to. We vowed to never enter the nursery again and considered it an evil place.

Some of us tried to shout through the glass, to convince our former fellows to leave the nursery. We tried to point out its debilitating effects, and sometimes despised them for staying. We thought them weak.

But then, one day, during our sojourn in the outside world, some of us met trees that reach maturity while still looking very small to us. We found out that we were called cedar, or redwood, or elm. But there were other trees with unique beauty and function, some of them were called bonsai, or rose, or mustard. We began to marvel at the diversity of life in the world and realized that our story was not the only one.

We looked back in through the windows of the nursery and saw that some of our fellows, whom we had once loved and then despised, were very different from us in essential ways. They flourished under different conditions. They seemed to thrive under the very system that had stunted our growth. And we marveled again.

The universe became larger to us and we watched to see what wonders would present themselves to us next.

We returned to the nursery and shouted through the glass again, this time to ask what our brothers and sisters, whom we had only recently come to appreciate, had to say. We wanted to hear the mysteries they pondered, and we wanted to share ours with them. We remembered that the nursery had been there for us when we needed it. And we were grateful.

We now try to listen to all we encounter. And we share our experience when we find listening ears. To those feeling constricted inside the nursery, don’t feel alone, don’t die in your pot. Perhaps you are a cedar. We offer you a community of similar minds and hearts. Let us join you on your journey out of the nursery, if you feel it is right for you to take it. There are diseases out here, there is chaos and heartache, but there is much good too.

Those who stay in the nursery are also our brothers and sisters. We have a common background and welcome the opportunity to remember and reinterpret our younger years with you. We want to partake in your unique growth through discussion, and hope you’ll find some benefit in hearing about our growth as well.


Hmmm. Reading this over, I see a definite weakness. It doesn’t make room at all for the fundamentalist view of life, where truth is so well defined and all that strays from those boundaries is evil. I don’t think this little allegory would appeal to that mindset at all. So it makes me wonder if the run-of-the-mill TBM would respond to it.

Well, it’s a start anyway.

[peter_mary]

What I take away from this allegory is that it is equally harmful to be insensitive to the stories, experiences, and even wisdom inside the nursury as it is to be insensitive to the experiences, stories and wisdom outside the nursury. From a systems perspective, our world contains both nursuries AND wild forests, as well as carefully tended gardens, tilled farms, and deserts devoid of trees all together.

If we are REALLY and truly interested in understanding as much as possible, we are well served to remain in dialogue with the broadest possible spectrum of "trees" because it teaches us about the broadest possible spectrum of the human experience.

As human beings, Churches, cults, clubs, communities etc. are all part of what we "create," and we are well served by understanding those organizations, as well as understanding what happens between those organizations. Because even though a given Church may not be "true" in the objective sense (if you could ever actually figure that out), it IS true in the sense that it is part of the human experience. There is value in understanding that "truth" as it pertains to human beings, even if it has no "truth" as it pertains to the rest of the universe.

Anyway, that's what I take away from that story.

Plus, I wonder if the trees in the nursury graduate to Primary? :p

Peter_Mary