On the Porch Steps

I'm going to admit something weird. For a few weeks some years ago, I went to an addicts anonymous meeting held at a local Mormon ward building. A friend had recommended it to me, and I tried it. I'll also admit that I kept struggling with the first "step," which was to accept that I had no control over my life. Maybe that was because I wasn't an addict, though I'd gone in the first place because I wondered if I had an addiction to my own control of my life, to exercise, or to my image of myself as a nearly perfect person. In any case, I couldn't give up control and I certainly wasn't going to give it up to something called "God," since as far as I was concerned, God had done a pretty lousy job of being in charge of my life as far as I could tell, and He might well be a sadist, given the death of my daughter months before. I asked if other people were having the same problem of being stuck on step one, but no, no one else was. Maybe thei...

About ten years ago, I met a friend I hadn’t seen for about five years. I was struck with how different he seemed. I’d heard that he’d left the church, and though we didn’t talk about that, our casual conversation felt “wrong” to me in some way I couldn’t define. My friend was also physically very changed, looking much older. I felt this, too, signified something important. At home that night, I told myself that the reason for these changes in my friend was because he had left the church and therefore had “lost the Spirit” and that I could see the darkness in his “countenance.” (I’m conflating several different experiences in the above story. I’ve had this same experience with many different people who have left the church, family members, friends, teachers, colleagues, male and female, young and old.) I didn’t think much beyond that brief determination of what was “wrong,” not for several years until I had my own faith crisis and began to suspect that other people were looki...

I hear a lot of people who've been through a faith transition declare emphatically that they would never want to go back to who they were before. They're so much more open to ideas now, so much more logical and scientific, so much more compassionate. And, well, I understand that point of view. There are many gifts of a faith transition that I wouldn't give up. I think I am more compassionate, less judgmental, and more likely to listen to people speaking truth who I'd have rejected before because they didn't fit in my authority box. But--I also wish almost every day that I could go back to who I was then. Maybe this is because so many members of my immediate and extended family are still more orthodox and orthopraxy Mormons. Maybe it's because I still have some lingering scars and that I haven't completely moved on to a new worldview. But honestly, I think it's just because there's a reason that people hold tight to religious views. Safety and happi...

I've spent the last week talking to a lot of non-Mormons about Mormonism and about why I stay in the church, despite the problems I see in it. One of the things I think about a lot is that from a very young age, I was taught at church that God would speak to my heart and tell me what was right, that this was the light of Christ, and everyone on the planet had this gift, even those who weren't Mormons. But I was taught that I should always listen to that voice and do what I knew was right, no matter what the consequences were. This was consistent from Primary to Young Women's, though I admit I've heard it less often in Relief Society. In Primary classes, teachers walked us through situations where we pretended other kids were trying to "tempt" us to use alcohol or tobacco or to not to go church or to say bad things to other people, and we practiced doing what was right, even if the other kids laughed at us or said they wouldn't play with us. Now I'm...

When I thought I was nearly finished with bk 3 of the Linda Wallheim Mormon mystery series (Time and All Eternities) in November of 2015, I read about the policy of exclusion, which states that same-sex married couples are to be excommunicated and their children denied saving ordinances like baptism until they are age eighteen and disavow their parents’ marriage. For the next few days, I listened to devout Mormons insist this was a hoax (famous ex-Mormon John Dehlin had leaked it from the secret Mormon handbook). Then it was confirmed and a few months later, proclaimed revelation from God by the now president of the church Russell M. Nelson. At this point, I had a decision to make. I could figure out some way to set the book back in time so I didn’t have to deal with the change in doctrine/policy (and deal with it in the next book instead) or I could revamp the book, which was supposed to be about polygamy. I chose the latter course of action and it cost me in the next months as...

Today at a writing conference, after I'd talked about my Linda Wallheim Mormon mystery series, a woman came up to me afterwards and asked why it was that people were so prejudiced against Mormons. She said she'd been looking in the area and had been warned by many people to stay away from the most Mormon neighborhoods. I thought about all the reasons that I heard people laughing/mocking/castigating Mormons when I was a kid, growing up in New Jersey. 1. Mormons have horns. 2. Mormons are polygamists. 3. Mormons are a cult. 4. Mormons want to steal your money. 5. Mormons want to convert you. 6. Mormons aren't Christian. 7. Mormons don't believe in evolution or science. 8. Mormons don't dance. 9. Mormons eat babies. 10. Mormons wear old style clothes and can't buy anything modern. While all of these (except #1 and #9) have some grounding in reality, they're not good reasons for adults to act terrified of Mormons. I tried to explain to this woman ...