Harriet Gets It.

"Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself."

~ Harriet Nelson

This is my third draft of this blog entry. The first I felt was far too emotional, the second I posted for about 7 hours and then rethought it. This time, I hope I write to my hearts concerns and not chicken out in the process.

I was told the other day that there are only two reasons people leave the church. The first being offended and the second is unresolved sin. This person wasn't looking for my opinion nor even for my feedback, he just felt very strongly that he needed me to know that for whatever reason I gave him, it simply just measured up to my own personal weaknesses which made M right all along. I thanked him for his words and he left happy at being able to let me have it.

I have thought hard about what he had to say and it makes me cringe sometimes at the limited way of thinking some hard core Mormons have. I don't disagree that most often those two factors come into play but there are some who have chosen to leave for other reasons and by limiting the scope you are lessening their thoughts and that just isn't cool. They deserve more respect than that.

I will state clearly here that my choice to stop attending had a lot to do with being offended. I will admit Parkland ward has it's fair share of mean people. I may have been one of them at one time but I believe, that with all my heart, being at church was ruining my very soul. I couldn't get past all of those "friendly" know it alls who felt they knew every detail of my life and so eagerly judged it. I have said and will repeat it again; church should never be a place that you come away more hurt than when you came. Sundays were a horror for me and telling me to "buck up" only excuses the spiritual bullies that seem to always get away with it. I wasn't welcome so I stopped going. It's that easy.

There are other factors at play as well but what I know of the members at church is that they don't want to know and don't care. Enough said.

So yes, Brother ?, I was offended, but maybe if you got of your pious high horse and took at look at how many people are leaving the church you wouldn't be so friggin self righteous, oh, and maybe study the Savior's example and follow it. Doing so might prevent one more from leaving. Thanks for your opinion, I was already well aware of it but it meant so much more for you to explain it so thoroughly.

In time, all the words and actions that made me feel so unwelcome will be like water under a bridge and I will forgive because just as the quote says, it would be the best thing for me. Time already is healing the wounds but the scars will always be there to remind me of why it just wasn't a place for me.

Easter Bunnies and God - Really?

"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. "

~ John 13:34

Something I have learned pretty intensely in the last few years is the multitude of ways in which words can be misconstrued to mean anything. Reaching outside of the standard scriptures and books of the LDS faith I would often run into scriptures that were very familiar to me and yet they were being interpreted so different, almost the polar opposite of what I was raised to believe. So I wondered; what is it about religion and more importantly, the organized part of it, that demands one be more right than another? Why is it that there is always some need to be better, to be first, to be right and why does everyone else have to be wrong for your religion to be right?

In my journey these past few years I have asked so many questions of so many other religions and what I have come to understand in my own heart is that God, Allah, or whatever it is that someone else may worship is as equally as important to that person as the God I grew up learning about and loving. I have met devout Catholics, Muslims, Hebrews, Buddhists, etc, and what they all hold in common is a pure dedication to their religions, their own beliefs and they too have received a personal witness to their truths. Yes, there are some other religions as equally dedicated to theirs being the only right one but what I wonder is, Is this what God intended all along?

Think about every war that has ever been fought and whether or not it came about because of religious intolerance. Why is it that millions of people must suffer and die for what MEN do to be more right than other men.

This Easter I woke up more free from intolerance than I ever have before and while I was contemplating the message that would matter to me I realized it was love, the kind of love that reaches beyond a specific faith and sees the good in all. The unbiased realization that the moment you are in matters most and being kind to EVERYONE is the gospel the Savior intended all along.

I understand now what this kind of love is. I didn't learn it from the temple, or in all the lessons I sat through or taught for all those years I did go to church. I learned it while looking into the eyes of a young child so engrossed in the joy of the moment that you saw love in it's purest form within her eyes. She gave a gift today to our family as she wondered through Grandma Joy's house searching for Easter eggs. She brought back the JOY of a Young child as she opened her little eggs and shared without being asked with all in the room. Her heart holds no malice, her love is unconditional. It's time and society that will eventually take away these gifts she holds so dear. She will never be Mormon. She will always be a child of God and what is such a great gift is that my daughter will teach her to be  even more of a  caring and loving person as will M, her Dad and her mother. The Mormon church holds no monopoly on this kind of love. In fact, it has been my experience to have felt quite the opposite.

So hears to B and to the love she brought this morning to our Easter Brunch. Too M - my wonderful sista, who brought back the ZOOBERT and the JOY that makes Easter and the Saviors request to love one another about the greatest commandment ever given. Yes, that one, the one that speaks about loving one another and all that its means.

I have a wonderful family that was brought together by parents who did their best to give us the world. It may not have been the world that we got but we did getwas each other and now, for the first time in a long time, being together isn't about honoring a faith but more about a family. I know she's (JOY) smiling and glad the pitter patter of excited feet are once again racing around finding hidden Easter eggs and teaching us about what the Savior's love is all about.

Now ask me how excited I am about next Easter when there are 2 more sets of those little feet to teach us even more! Lovin' the journey!!!!

On Being Poor!

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat. ~ Mother Teresa

Conversations can sometimes enlighten another much more than at first anyone would have thought. Sometimes, tidbits of information come out, completely bereft of any judgment and the speaker, not knowing the information can make something that was once obscure completely clear, inadvertently allows for an eye opening moment. I had one of those moments this morning. I know that there was never any intention of an AHA moment happening by the person who was speaking but it just did, and Thank God for it. I feel very enlightened.


Life has a way of balancing the fairness of it self. You never know when it will and sometimes the outcome can bring the person wishing for justice uncomfortable but karma is karma and God’s will trumps anything we may ever want or ever wish for.


As I was multi-thinking (tasking) while the conversation was moving forward I realized just how blessed I am. What I value most in the world is the inclusion my children grant me in their lives. Of hearing their wishes and dreams, heartaches and mishaps. Of learning of K1’s wish for her baby bump to materialize and the shear joy of the first flutter that both K1 and K3 have shared. Of all the turmoil of K2 as she juggles the attentions of all the many suitors and her struggles with knowing what it is she really wants from her journey. The moment the morning phone call comes as K3 talks about all the different ways to advert morning sickness. Of hearing the blessed Sax or computer games blaring from the basement or experiencing D as he researches and timidly comes forward to ask my opinion on a family crest for a tattoo and how he laughs at my reactions. These moments make me rich. These moments make me love this journey. These are the reasons we come here and move through the journey and I need to keep reminding myself of the wealth I do have as I can and do experience all life is offering me.


I may not end this journey with a ton of money but what I will exit it with is a life of shared moments and JOY, incredible JOY of having really known my amazing kids and of loving them and having the honor of their love being returned. I need to keep reminding myself of that, always. As much as I think there is injustice, maybe the justice comes by simply being involved. Of loving and caring for these wonderful souls I call my children; and what more amazing JOY could there be than to look forward to then being called a Grandma. Oh my goodness my heart swells at the thought.


For way too long I have defined justice in the wrong way, or heck, even wanted it in the first place. The best thing one can ever do for one’s self is to recognize the harm you do whether meant or not to others. You must and should correct it. The cost you pay for not doing so is far greater that ever believing you assertion of being right in the first place ever will be. I love forgiveness. Thanks to all who have given it and here is to working extra hard at learning to forgive others. That for sure is my Achilles heals of life.


I am grateful for never having to feel true hunger both in the literal sense and in Mother Teresa’s sense. Love is truly a many splendid thing.

Sleepless Nights

One of the things that happens to me every once in a while is a cycle of sleepless nights. I wish with all my heart I could shut my mind down with the worries of it all. One of the conversations I had with my Mom was that I can over analyze situations and let them loop around in my emotions that results in a marathon of connections which in the end makes it difficult to get to sleep. it totally sucks, I know.

So, that's where I am right now. There is so much going on. Work is going through a transition and even though my new boss keeps coming in and explaining the whole process, I tend to worry more than I should. D is struggling a bit, he's trying to figure out his future and trying to have it not be a huge burden on me. He's been challenged on so many levels and always trys to not make my life more difficult. I wish he knew, heck, I wish all my kids knew just how much they enrich my life and how any burden they do bring is one I gladly take on.

I live with so many regrets. There is so much I wish I could undo and yet I realize that the best of families have regrets. I was reminded today that mother's day is coming up. I used to hate that day. Not for the reasons you would think. I felt on every level I was failing as a Mom. It.s been just in the last few years that I have come to understand that I did the best I could. My Mom was the same. We spoke so much about regrets and what the possibilities were during those last few weeks she was alive. How grateful am I for all those moments we had, all those shared regrets and the realization that all mothers have them.

Why is it that we have so many hopes and dreams and then as life passes by those same hopes and dreams can become regrets? Do I have the time to make up to my kids all my failures? Will they find it in their hearts to forgive me? I hope so. I truly hope so.

I miss Mom so much. I doubt a day passes that I don't think about the opportunities that were granted for all her wisdom to be passed. I am full of gratitude for that. So as Mother's day approaches I hope that I can continue to make this day one of hope and gratitude and not like all the ones of my past that were filled with feelings of failure and forbode.

I love my new journey - it keeps getting better and better.

T Plus 1 Week. Watching the Sun.

It's been a week and a day since I found out the news.You would think that with a week past I would feel less anger and frustration towards the leaders who have refused to let me move forward with the cancellation. I mostly sweep it under my heart during the days and at night I simply try to forget. I have heard stories of people so offended at church leaders they spend a lifetime in hate mode. I get that now, I could easily become that.

The church headquarters called this week.... looking for the girls. Really, President C couldn't have had his exec secretary call? It's funny when someone from the church who used to call my girls all those lovely names calls to try and wish a Happy Bday or ask where they are all under a pasted and forced voice of concern. Is that how the members of Parkland ward will become. Will all those members who were so warm and welcoming (cough, cough) eventually show up at my door and pretend concern? Kind of like the YW who treated K2 with such disdain and showed up two weeks after she quit trying to be nice. Is it so hard to find somewhere in your heart to be kind before we ever leave in the first place?

I read a book this week, one I am sure LDS leaders would call blashemphy. In it the author talks about the treatment, the forced silence, the dark side of the LDS culture. The way Mormons say that those that leave the faith can never let it go. Being Mormon isn't just about a faith. It's a lifestyle. Leaving it leaves you without friends and even family and it takes a while to re-establish yourself and build a new life. Why is it that leaving is such a crime? I would have thought that at least some of those I called friends would have remained but very few did....very few. I am in the rebuilding stage.Talking about it is healthy - you simply need to make sure you don't find yourself bitter. I fight that a lot.

So, with less emotion let me address what happened last week openly and honestly.

My request for a cancellation was not a test or a "let's see how far I can push it' reality. It was about emotional closure. For nearly 30 years M has proven over and over again the double standard of his life. The appearance of spirituality and dedication to the motions of Mormonism but when it comes to the God given requests of human decency - the basics of living the gospel that involve Christ's admonitions, there just isn't any.

I need closure to move on. Since the church will NEVER hold him accountable in spite of all the GA's who admonish leaders to do so through every conference during the last 10 years. I love it when the expectations are different for leaders verses lay members.  I need the emotional release so that I never have to know I am in any way attached to a man who abused his family severely, without remorse even to this day. For all the years I was told that single sisters fall under the blessings of their parents eternal sealing I felt compelled to fall under my parents, not M. I am not asking to go to be sealed to W. I don't go to church and that would be hypocritical. My mother raised me to know integrity. So why? Why can't I receive the a cancellation? The answer is absolute, no discussion, why would he? Why bother dealing with the emotions? Well, that's where they're wrong. My emotions are fine, quite worked through by the way. Closure is a very different emotional state than is instability and if you had of bothered meeting with me you might have seen that. The good ol boys club though works well and making women even smaller that an already repressed culture allows.

So Calgary South Stake, did you fail the Smith family? Oh yeah, in my opinion you did. I guess the loss of five members doesn't seem to phase you but in the end, we are just 5. But the next time a woman and her children come forward and the outcome doesn't change that will be how many more? The statistics are that currently only 20% of the church members are active. Maybe it's time to start asking why instead of defaulting to an oblivious concern for "offense" and not coming back. Everybody gets offended at some point in their life's. Why not, instead of putting all the onus on the one offended you as church deal with those that seem so skilled at doing the offending.

I used to mourn the lost generations of my children who weren't going to have the church. Now I think about the moments my grandchildren won't have to be taunted or treated poorly, especially my grand-daughters. I think about the Savior's gospel and how I as a Grandmother I can teach my precious babies about integrity and honor and unconditional love. It;'s funny, I feel closer to the Savior and His gospel  now more than I ever have. Wow, I never expected that.

So it is hear that I publicly state my dedication to being everything to my grandchildren that my mother was to my kids. Maybe not in the way some members of my family would expect me to be but in the way that whenever you looked at Grandma Lloyd you didn't think of her as a heathen but as the kind of woman a whole family honored because in the end she really understood God's purpose for us here on the earth. Thanks Mom, I feel you every day.

  

Thought's Prevoking

"We should continue to become acquainted with human experience through history and philosophy, science and poetry, art and religion… One of the most important things in the world is freedom of the mind; from this all other freedoms spring. Such freedom is necessarily dangerous, for one cannot think right without running the risk of thinking wrong, but generally more thinking is the antidote for the evils that spring from wrong thinking. More thinking is required, and we should all exercise our God-given right to think and be unafraid to express our opinions, with proper respect for those to whom we talk and proper acknowledgment of our own shortcomings.” ~ Elder Hugh B. Brown, An Abundant Life.

To Wai Fun Stella - May she REST IN PEACE

"A man's sympathy extends just so far as his wisdom reaches, and no further; and a man only grows wiser as he grows tenderer and more compassionate. To narrow one's sympathy is to narrow one's heart, and so to darken and embitter one's life. To extend and broaden one's sympathy is to enlighten and gladden one's life and to make plainer to others the way of light and gladness." —James Allen

I feel more hurt than I have felt in a very long time. I thought I had my feelings together, I really knew the outcome was going to be exactly what it was, I knew the answer before the question was even asked but nothing prepared me for the soul wrenching heartache of not being surprised.

What am I on about.

Bishop H phoned and they will not proceed with my cancellation without my holding a current temple recommend. What I don't understand is; if I have no intention of requesting a sealing why is it necessary to have a recommend to get a cancellation?

Before I even began this journey, I asked a ton of relevant and important questions and concerns with regards to the GENDER BIAS policies of the temple sealing/cancellation process. Bishop assured me over and over that it was fair and that the things I had read and heard about were over exaggerations. Falsehoods of misguided members. I trusted him and in the end every nightmare was true.

In speaking with the Bishop today I told him how disappointed I was that the church was demanding I pay tithing - the only thing that eliminates me from holding a recommend, to have my cancellation. Really? Really?

So, he can destroy lives, emotionally, spiritually, physically and verbally abuse an entire family for 25 years, not pay child support, and it's okay to have a clearance but if I simply walk away because the culture is so friggin mean I can't have a cancellation. I am not asking to be married again in the temple!!!! I am making no demands of the church except to acknowledge what the LAW OF THE LAND has already allowed and let me have EMOTIONAL CLOSURE! The answer back from the "Wonderful Day in the Kingdom" stake president who has NEVER asked or inquired how we as a family are doing is "no, not without a current recommend."

I am heartbroken - let me have CLOSURE! PLEASE! I sacrificed my entire life to the church. I served for over 30 years and all I am asking is to be allowed a closure to a life so severe and so damaging that I doubt any of us will be entirely healed. This is cruelty and it's harshest. This is kicking someone when they are down.

If you have answers to this help me because at this point my disaffection for the church has now turned to utter disillusionment!

Finding My Songs

http://blog.calgarypubliclibrary.com/blogs/volunteers/pages/reading-advantage.aspx

Finding time to Blog is getting harder and harder. Work fills much of my time but in reality I am trying to find purpose again.

Let me explain.

Almost 7 years ago I took my first step to finally having emotional health and well being. I didn't realize at the time just exactly where the journey would lead me or to what extent my whole outlook on life would change but my reality is that it has, all of it, been extremely worth it.

The cost however was at a cultural standing that over the years has proven impossible to change. For the 20 +  years prior to my divorce I was, over and over again, assigned church callings that required my teaching and leading amongst the Young Women and Women of the church. I served in the primary too but as a general rule, the callings were challenging and fulfilling, even the nursery that I was in charge of, with it's 65 children, yes, that's right, 65 kids.

The moment I left M I became invisible. I no longer was able to even come close to the YOUNG WOMEN and RS shunned me. Junior Primary was my calling and I was checked on constantly. It was frustrating to say the least. At first, I thought it was a penance and found myself deciding to do "my best" in whatever calling I found myself in but then I looked around me in that Junior Primary room and every single divorced woman in our ward was with me, I began to realize that what a better place to put the riminders of failures that no one wanted to admit were happening. I then started to speak to other's in the Single Adult program in other wards and found that the axillary I was in was a common place for all of us. I wasn't alone at all in my concern. A woman I adored had been called as the YW president and when her husband left her for another woman she was immediately released and had never served in YW again. She was a pillar of strength and dedication and could have easily remained an incredible role model but alas, there is no place for divorce amongst YW in the LDS faith.

I found myself needing a calling that at least challenged me. I wasn't looking for leadership but more something that felt like I at least belonged. After waiting nearly 5 years it just wasn't happening. Even in my calling as a RS teacher I was rotated in only every three months and when I did teach, the reception I received was the walking out of both the 1st and 2nd councillor who no doubt opposed the calling in the first place. Only once in the three times I taught did they attend. They made it clear it wasn't their idea for me to be there, the Bishop had called me without the knowledge of any of the RS presidency. I am not even going to address the reception I received from the 10 or so women who in the 20 some odd years I had been in the ward have not even changed their seating arrangements in the RS room.

About 1 1/2 years ago, I started to earnest pray for some way to fill the need I had to make a difference. Overwhelmingly, I was impressed that if this is what I needed it would have to come outside the walls of the chapel. I had the scarlet letter D,  and always would have it and because of it, my cultural life as a member of the LDS church was changed forever.

I started looking for opportunities and prayed over and over again. One day, I looked in "Calgary Volunteers" and my heart song sung. There it was, the answer. The Reading Advantage program at the Calgary Public Library was the answer. I could see that I could couple my love of words with the love I have of service and thus began my odyssey.

It takes over a year to go through the process. Criminal checks, interviews, matching to the learner, workshops. I can't even describe how I felt in the library yesterday as I finally realized my goal of being paired with a learner and starting what I hope will be years of service to literacy and learning in Clagary. I finally feel fulfilled.

My first learner, a young Japanese woman who's goal is to be able to read English children's books to her young daughter as she is raised in our beautiful country. Now that is inspiring.

I spent nearly 50 years of my life serving a religion that in the end simply spit me out because I divorced a cruel and evil man. The CPL welcomed me in feeling the great love for words and learning I have and accepted me in spite of what others in the church would say make me different.

My whole life I was taught service is a good thing and for the first time I am actually feeling like the service I render is deeper and more meaningful in the world community as a whole rather than a small judgmental portion of it. Not many members serve outside the church. I wonder why?

Meet Baby Johnson - Grandbaby # 2