Recently I visited the place where I ultimately stopped believing in Mormonism. It’s a special place for a number of reasons. First of all, I consider it to be where a boy truly became a man. When I arrived there, I was full of youthful enthusiasm coupled with naive hopes and dreams that I thought would be easily (relatively) realized as they had been before. When I left there one year later, I had lost my faith but gained my freedom to think. Second, it is a beautiful place on the beach that both I and my wife chose to go simply because we wanted to. During our recent vacation, once again, we just went simply because we wanted to. I am convinced that if I had not moved there and experienced the challenges that I did, I would very likely still be a believing Mormon today.
On Sunday, I attended the congregation that welcomed me and nurtured me during my time of crisis. As I walked the halls with my son, I remembered the feelings of hopelessness and despair that I experienced as I struggled to find work. I remembered the comfort I took from the messages I heard. I remembered the folks who helped me out by offering me as much work as they reasonably could, and I remembered visiting with the bishop and receiving much needed financial aid when I didn’t know how I was going to provide for my family. In short, I remembered why I lost my faith.
I didn’t lose my faith because my brothers and sisters in Christ were unkind or unhelpful. On the contrary, that was one of my favorite congregations I had ever attended. I didn’t lose my faith because I stopped doing what the church said I should do. I lost my faith because I realized that at the end of the day, my success was up to me and up to lady luck and no amount of praying, paying or obeying could conjure up sufficient employment. Did the church give me money? A little bit. Did the members give me some work? Yes. The other 95% was by the sweat of my own brow. I thought about getting up to share a testimony about what had happened to my faith. But as the faithful members stood and shared their own experiences, I realized that I had nothing to gain by sharing my sad tale with them. I also realized that I wasn’t truly ready to open up about it yet. But I almost was.
Once again I was impressed with how much people matter. If the missionaries tried to baptize you into a congregation that was terrible, would you do it? What if you were lukewarm about Mormonism but you loved the people at church? Maybe now you can see what I mean. I loved my old congregation. I detest my current one.
On the other hand, spending those days of vacation visiting with my old friends made me realize that in some cases, my relationships were superficial and mostly based on common theology and not enough on true friendship. And as I listened to them share faithful ideas and experiences, I realized that I have to come out sometime soon. I can’t keep pretending to be someone I not. I know I’ve said it before.
As I drove back to my current home from my old one, I was grateful- grateful to go there and back again to prove to myself that losing my faith was inevitable and that it was a necessary experience for a boy to become a man. The only thing left is to come out and tell the world the truth about me.
unfairmormon 