Born This Way?

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who has been following this blog. I'm moved by all of the support you've sent my way, and comforted to know that I am far from the only Mormon wrestling with paradoxical ideologies. To be honest, I was kind of expecting to receive an inbox full of hate mail, and maybe even a few cryptic letters written in cut-out magazine letters or blood. So far, I've only felt love and compassion. That gives me hope. High five everyone! And for those of you who disagree with every word I've written but continue to read (oh you gluttons for punishment), thanks for being open minded and accepting, and don't be afraid to insert your opinion in the comments..

I thought that it might be helpful to give a little background info on how I became (or was I born this way?) the rare breed of Mormon that I am, although after reading your comments, I'm coming to realize that we're not as uncommon as I once thought. If you really don't care about my life story, then just hold your horses. I'm planning on writing a "juicier" post sometime this week.

I was born in Montreal to a devout LDS mother and an agnostic but very supportive father who would drop us off and pick us up from church every Sunday. I never thought anything strange about him not attending with us, and laughed when he called us his "little Mormonites". My parents are to this day the most 'in love' married couple I've ever known. They were a prime example to me that there are ways to pursue happiness within our faith other than the traditional Mormon family.

I attended church with passion and zeal until I was 14 when the subject matter in Young Women's became devoted to-in my eyes-making me an obeisant wife and baby maker. I think my breaking point was walking into class one Sunday and seeing brown paper bags lined up with "How To Serve My Husband" written across them in perfect bubbly cursive. (By the way, have any of you ever noticed that there's a culturally Mormon script? You'd know it if you saw it...) I took one horrified glance at the beautifully crafted display (dang Mormons and their craftiness!) and walked right out the door. Now that I'm married I understand the merit in thinking of ways to serve your husband-heck, put those ideas in a brown bag if it helps-but as an adolescent I viewed the activity as a sexist tactic to mold me into a subservient wife. Despite my mother's coaxing, I began spending the hour of Young Women's waiting alone in the foyer.

Montreal has a very low LDS population, and I was the only Mormon in my high school of 2,000 people. As a result, I had no LDS friends and there were very few social activities for church members my age. These facts, mixed with the mind of an innately cynical teenager dabbling in punk rock culture, were a recipe for imminent religious skepticism. When I was encouraged to attend a church youth dance at the age of 15, I was denied entry for wearing ripped jeans. It was then I decided that an institution which, in my mind at the time, forced conformity and promoted subservience, was not for me. You might think that two small instances shouldn't be enough to shake religious devotion, but to me both experiences were indicators of something much more disturbing - sexism and exclusivity. And as I continued to view the LDS church (and religion in general) with a more scrupulous eye, there was-in my mind-too much hypocrisy and too many contradictions (the fact that I was concurrently watching my father die a slow death from cancer while I made hourly pleas to a seemingly deaf God didn't help my lack of faith or skepticism.)

I spent the next few years attending church only sporadically, if my mother asked (or bribed... thanks for letting me take the van, mom!) or if I had to fill in for the choir pianist. Looking back, I realize how cool our ward choir leader must have been to allow a girl with tattoos and a patched leather vest accompany the choir in an Easter Cantata.

The rest of my teenage years were lived outside of the church, where the more I distanced myself from it, the more agnostic I became. Still, if any of my friends would criticize the LDS church, I was quick to defend it and would feel a fire burning inside me when I did. I think deep down I always knew that I would return to the church but tried to repress the thought, because religion is so not punk rock.

The strange thing about a testimony is that once you have one, it's very difficult to completely extract from your being, no matter how much you defy and how hard you try. You may temporarily silence it, even deliberately suffocate it as I did, but I think there will always be a whisper of it no matter how far you run. This is perhaps the most difficult part of being a skeptical Mormon liberal; be completely immersed in faith with the incessant questions that come with a quizzical mind, or commit to agnosticism or atheism and never completely mute the quiet, gnawing presence of a testimony, as small as it might be.

And that's why I came back. Even though I was content in my agnostic life, I always felt a faint sense that something was missing. I'm not saying by any means that people who aren't religious are 'missing something'. My father, for example, was the happiest person I have ever known and had no particular God to cling-to. But for myself, I felt as though I was always reaching for something that was no longer there, like a phantom limb. Without the rules of Mormonism (dogmatic as they are at times), my life was headed down an ominous path. Some people have a strong enough will to live a productive and good life without a set of guidelines to follow. I learned that I am not one of those people. That is why I finally decided to take on the task of navigating my skepticism and faith, something that I never allowed myself to do before.

Later on, I met a boy who offered me a pickle in Anthropology class. Game over, Rivs. You had me at "hey, I have this pickle in a Ziploc in my backpack. Do you want it?" We were married in an LDS temple 4 years ago, and now I really wish I hadn't walked out of that class with the brown paper bags. Although I still don't agree with the heavy 'marriage and mommy' prep young women get fed in the church, I now realize that there is a difference between service and subservience.

This is Rivs. He's my man. He can navigate the waters of liberalism and Mormonism like he owns them. I can bounce all of my deepest, darkest cynical questions off of him without judgement. I don't tell him enough, but in so many ways, he's my hero (yup, I guess those bags really would have come in handy after all...) This is a photo of Rivs in Mexico after he got a henna tattoo. That's probably the 'worst' thing he's ever done, and I love him for it.





Then we made a baby. We cried with sorrow when we learned that I was pregnant. We didn't want kids for a loooong time. When Harper was born in November 2009, my life was forever changed and all of those lame mushy things mothers say about their babies became my vocabulary. Although I will still pursue a career, I would hands down choose being a mother over anything else. It's just a wonderful thing. I get it now.



That's my story so far. I definitely don't have it all figured out. I still lose and gain my testimony on a weekly basis as I try to sort through faith and logic, but it's always there, even when I don't want it to be.

From now on I'll be posting once a week, hopefully on Thursdays. See you then!