Autonomous

  There came a moment when I knew I had to walk away.   For months, even years, I tried to make it all work.  I continued going to church, I continued fulfilling my calling.  I continued teaching lessons to the Young Women, but I would always heavily edit them so that I wasn't teaching anything I now understood to be untrue or inaccurate.  I continued wearing my garments.  I even went to the temple for a family wedding.  I did the things.  Said the things.  Wore the things.   Until I couldn't anymore.  I recall sitting in a Sunday school meeting and the topic of gay marriage came up.  There was no ugliness spoken, but the message was crystal clear: it's wrong, and families must be protected from the sin of same-sex marriage.  I was sitting there, thinking of my son, and thinking, "They are talking about MY KID.  I am sitting here, in this pew, and they are talking about how my kid does not have the same righ...

  People who leave often talk about the 'dark night of the soul', a moment of spiritual void and darkness, a feeling of loss and loneliness and emptiness.  I had this moment.  It occurred when my Dad died.  And it is something I cannot talk about, but I can probably write about it. My Dad passed in August of 2018, right in the middle of my faith crisis.  I had ceased believing, but I was still pretending.  And here I was, standing at the head of my Dad's bed in the ICU with all of my siblings and my mom.  We had removed him from life support and we were gathered to hold his hands and talk to him as he passed.  I was running my fingers through his thinning salt & pepper hair as I watched the monitor and saw his respiration slow and the jagged line of his heart beat slowly flatten out.  He was gone.  And I remember, in that moment, wondering "Where has he gone? Where is he?"  For the first time in my life, I did not know the answe...

There is so much to regret when you have spent your life in a high-demand religion.  And regret is uncomfortable.  But I think it is how we become changed and become better people.  We need to know when we have done something wrong, recognize it, grow from it, and become better.  I don't have a long list of regrets, but I do have them.  I regret ignoring my inner voice for so long.  I feel like there were several times when my soul, my very being, was trying to tell me something, shout at me, and I ignored it...choosing instead to listen to people around me that told me they knew what was best for me.   I regret raising my four children in the church.  I never served a mission and never converted anyone to the gospel, but I did convert each of my children, and without their consent.  Each of them, as adults, has had to unpack and process something from their time as active members.  Some of them more than others.   I regre...

  Autonomy. That's what.  The ability to self-govern according to the values endorsed by ME.  Not my parents, not my peers, not my husband, not my priesthood leaders, not my 'prophet'.  Me.  Adina.  I govern myself.  Getting here has not been easy.   Just because I have signed a piece of paper that removes my name from the records of the church does NOT mean that I have left the church in the dust.  It is still there.  It is this mountain in the rearview mirror, looming at times, lingering.  It is getting smaller and smaller in that mirror, but it is still there.  Forty years of active membership doesn't just go away.  While I don't practice the religion anymore or subscribe to any of its' teachings, I do find myself continually wanting to learn more about the history and doctrine of the church. I want to hear other people's stories and experiences.  I can't really explain why.  Maybe it's because it was suc...

 I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Now, at the age of 49, I am not.  This is the story of my life in the church and my eventual departure from it.  I write this for myself, because on my journey out of this high-demand religion that comprised so much of who I was, I am now discovering who I am and what that means for the remainder of my time on this Earth.