Transitions

I apologize in advance for the treacly sentimentality of this post.

In the last year and a half I've spent in the Disaffected Mormon Underground, I've come to "know" many people, in the way that we can only "know" people on the web. That is, they have personae, and I have a persona, and I have come to like and appreciate and in many cases care very much about them as they have presented themselves. They are my friends. I think it says something about modern society that we can be true friends with people we've never seen, and whose real names (in some cases) we don't even know. I don't know exactly what it says, but it says something.

I had a scare last week. Scary things make us want to order our lives. This scary thing has done that to me. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (I even know how to capitalize it properly). That membership is nominal. My heart is not in it. But my heart is in my marriage, and his heart is in it. If I am going to be able to grow personally and spiritually, I'm going to have to detach from the burdens the church places on its members. I know the burdens are there, and as a member, I should feel them. But I've decided that I no longer want to carry those burdens. I am going to more fully live the Alanon view of church I've been trying to live with for the last two or three years: "Take what I like and leave the rest."

With a stiff green upper lip in "The Muppet Christmas Carol," Kermit the Frog says, "Life is made of meetings and partings…that is the way of it." Here are the lyrics to a sweet little song from the film "The Muppets Take Manhattan." Its a song that works well for separations that you know in your heart are temporary, but you don't know how temporary.

I think I will not miss Mormon angst. But I will dearly miss my friends.