Fear Not -- You are Mine!

Since my very first blog posting, my goal in writing and displaying my photography has been to process what I am thinking and feeling--what I am experiencing in this transitional part of my life. (RED IN TRANSITION) I have been doing that for three years, in anonymity. A good posting for me historically would get 25-30 views, many times fewer, but I kept on writing, because as I've written on my homepage, I blog because I need to blog.  

You see, I was raised as a shy, only child.  I am comfortable being alone, to this day.  I have lived most of my life in my head.  Put me in a setting of more than one or two other persons, I will likely be the one who listens and doesn't speak.  I must often force myself to interact, and I do so because I know I need to. 

If you knew me like I know me, you would know that since I have been keeping these blogs/journals, and since embarking on my career as a psychotherapist, I have gained more self-confidence to share myself.  I am talking more because I feel like I have something to say, and because I think that some few who are interested in me and what I have to say might want to get to know me better.  I have gained a voice.  Blogging allows this very shy 60 year-old to share his life, his heart, and his thoughts with people.  Facebook has allowed me to share those thoughts with a larger audience.

When I heard how my recent posting caused such great concern about my spiritual journey, I was amazed.  I wondered why what I had written had threatened people, particularly my extended family and my Stake President.  

As I processed my thoughts and listened to my feelings, I realized that although my loved ones love me and care for me, they had put me in a "box" of their own making.  Their "box" is what they think about the Church, what they think they know of me, and their own fears. But they don't know me and my inner-most thoughts, because they can't. Ultimately, they will think about me what they need to think about me.  I cannot control that.  But they don't really know me or my journey.  

My questioning of a few of my beliefs that I have had most of my life made everyone uncomfortable--especially many of those whom I love dearly.  I feel sad that because I chose to reveal my struggles to the world, I have been judged--lovingly, but judged nonetheless, because I'm outside their box.  I feel sad that they don't know me very well--and that was one of the main reasons for blogging.

One of my questioning issues is accepting 100% of what apostles and prophets say. Brigham Young said the following about inquiring for ourselves whether a Church leader is being led by God:

"I am fearful that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him.  I am fearful they settle down into a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken the influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man know, themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not."     Journal of Discourses 9:150

In the October 2013 General Conference of the Church, President Uchtdorf said there have been times when members or leaders in the Church had simply made mistakes. "There may have been things that were not in harmony with our values, principles or doctrine."  He said, "I suppose the Church would only be perfect if it were run by perfect beings.  God is perfect, and His doctrine is pure. (I could not agree more wholeheartedly!) But He works through us--His imperfect children--and imperfect people make mistakes."

My blogging is my way of expressing concerns and opinions, of questioning.  Yesterday, June 28, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve of the LDS Church issued a statement pertinent to what I believe I occasionally have been doing on my blog.  Part of it reads:  

"We understand that from time to time Church members will have questions about Church doctrine, history, or practice.  Members are always free to ask such questions and earnestly seek greater understanding."

They then express concern "for members who distance themselves from Church doctrine or practice and, by advocacy, encourage others to follow them."  I realize that some might believe that I do not know me, that I am distancing myself from Church doctrine, or that I am encouraging others to follow me, that they suppose they know where I am headed on my spiritual journey.  But they don't know me or my inner-most thoughts, because they can't.

"Simply asking questions has never constituted apostasy.  Apostasy is repeatedly acting in clear, open, and deliberate public opposition to the Church or its faithful leaders, or persisting, after receiving counsel, in teaching false doctrine."  I honestly believe that my questions and my opinions do not amount to "deliberate public opposition to the Church or its faithful leaders."  It is my way of questioning and processing.

If my sincere questioning or opinions threaten someone, that is not about me. It is about them and where they are.  I cannot cause anyone to lose faith.  If my words affect "tender sprouts" in the Gospel,  then they shouldn't read my blog. They should unfriend me on Facebook. They shouldn't follow me or put me on a pedestal.  The path I'm following is for nobody but me. 

There are some faithful LDS members who read my blog who appreciate the fact that even though I question, I remain faithful.  They like me have questions but they too remain faithful.  My blog gives them strength that they can remain faithful as well.  You likely don't hear people like them, perhaps sitting in the pew next to you, because they are afraid of being critically judged.  

At the risk of some few reading what I have published previously at another of my blogs, and losing people because this posting is real long, I'm going to share what I wrote on another blog on June 8, so that my loved ones can know me a little bit more than they do now.  I realize that it may not change what they think. All that I can do is write my truth, found below. It's up to them to look outside of their box they've put me in. 

Before I write about my profound and tender feelings, I wish to share information about the nature of two meetings that I had today, Sunday [the 8th], and a "meeting" I chose not to attend.  

Due to my great desire to become more acquainted with the LGBT world, and most importantly, with the LDS LGBT world, when I found out that this weekend there was going to be a so-called Gay Parade as part of Pride Week here in Los Angeles, I was very excited and enthusiastic to march in it.  I wanted to march with my fellow members of the Church who are LGBT, or who are Allies like me. 

When I originally found out about it, I thought there were no conflicts in my schedule.  I saw myself attending Sacrament Meeting, partaking of the emblems of the Sacrament, and then leaving for the Parade gathering place for my fellow LDS believers.  I anxiously looked forward to it, and even had a gay friend who would show me the ropes and make me feel at home.

A few days ago, though, I realized that I had volunteered to substitute teach the Gospel Principles class during the second hour.  This class is for investigators, newly baptized or reactivated members. The LDS Pride group would be meeting and then begin marching in the parade about that time.  I realized that I could not do both.  So guess which "meeting" I chose to attend?  Not the parade!

My Stake President texted me during the block of meetings and asked to meet with me after the block of meetings.  I suspected that he had read my posting and wanted to speak to me about it.  I knew once I had committed to this path that it might cause concern, especially from Church leadership, and wrote about it in one of my postings. I was right.  Is there doubt that I would go to meet with him and be challenged for my current spiritual journey?  There shouldn't be, because I went willingly.  He informed me that certain people who had been members of the Ward over which I had served as bishop were concerned about me.  I had heard the same thing from a beloved family member about  certain other family members when I was in Utah for my birthday this past week. 

In my mind and heart, my actions today displayed where I am and what is important to me.  I am still very much an LGBT Ally, especially of members or ex-members of the Church, and my feelings are not changing.  I believe that I can embrace both worlds and intend on doing so.  The balance of what I will write will be, for all intents and purposes, my testimony of the Church and the Restored Gospel.  My testimony is very important to me.

I have not known a time in my entire life when I did not have a testimony. From being the loudest singer in Primary and being "Relief Society Bobby" to bearing a testimony as a child at the pulpit, from serving a full-time mission to being married in the Temple, from attempting to raise my children within the Church to maintaining a current temple recommend my entire adult life, from being a YSA bishop to my current calling as a Ward Mission Leader and Vail Worker in the Los Angeles Temple, I have always had a testimony.

When my spiritual journey took me down this path of questioning what I had believed my whole life, my questioning was largely of myself, not of the Church or the Gospel.  I tried to explain in my "inflammatory" posting that I am still the devoted member I have always been and see myself continuing to be.  

In an attempt to help me understand my feelings today, my wife asked me what I would do if the Brethren suddenly came down hard on all non-absolute devotion to everything said by the apostles and prophets, and came down hard on all dissidents and questioning people within the Church. (I can't imagine them ever doing that!)  I responded that I would still hold fast to the Church.  Why?

The Spirit has borne witness to me, and I have seen power in the Holy Priesthood TOO MANY TIMES for me to deny what I have thought and felt.  I understand the doctrine of the Church TOO WELL to go elsewhere.  My belief in the nature of the Priesthood, of modern revelation, of the Book of Mormon, of the Plan of Salvation, of the saving ordinances of the temple, is TOO DEEP.  I've had a testimony of Joseph Smith for TOO LONG.  I have been and continue to be TOO HAPPY because of my relationship with God that I have found in His Church.

My Stake President told me that people with whom he has talked that left the Church have told him that "I didn't leave the Church; the Church left me," and that he is afraid that may occur with me.  The Church can't leave me!  It's like my stomach, my liver, my arm, my heart! How could I willingly rid myself of those body parts?  It's in my DNA!

The institutional Church gives me the opportunity to become more Christ-like.  Could I get that in another organization?  Perhaps, but why would I want to?  I believe that the Church is the vehicle that Christ has designated to best serve Him, not to say that He can't be served from outside the Church.  I am grateful for the many good things that the Church does, although I am always concerned that we need to focus on becoming like the Savior as we do good works.

Where else can I go to receive and renew ordinances that will allow me and mine to return to God's presence?  Where else can I go to weekly remind myself of His atoning sacrifice through the emblems of the Sacrament? Where else can I go to better understand the scriptures, particularly the Book of Mormon? (If you want, please read any and all of my 38 page, Arial Narrow, Book of Mormon Journal I kept for the entire year of 2013)  Where else can I find inspired leadership from apostles and prophets? Where else can I go to find the peace that the Restored Gospel brings to me? Where else can I go to better understand my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ?  

I sustain the apostles and prophets of the Church, even though some may believe I don't.  I sustain local leaders of the Church.  Even though I want to believe, I cannot, I will not, automatically accept everything they say because they are just men; they are fallible like I am.  If others want to believe everything that is said, that is their right.  But if I choose not to, be careful as you judge me. As I told my Stake President, I am open to be inspired by them and to be obedient to their counsel, and I will do so as the Spirit bears witness of its truthfulness.  Am I not entitled to personal revelation for myself?  Didn't the Prophet Joseph seek personal revelation for himself? If they are speaking His will, shouldn't the Spirit confirm it?

My prime relationship is not with them, but with my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.  I am attempting to exercise faith like Peter did when he willingly left the boat and walked on the water toward the Savior.  To the degree that the counsel of leaders helps improve that relationship, and almost all of it does, I will follow it.  Sadly, not all of it does, even though I wish it did.  My imperative is to listen to the Holy Ghost and to be worthy of its inspiration.  

As I stated in my "inflammatory" blog, I have never felt more contented.  I have never felt happier.  I have never felt more able to love, and love freely. I have never been less judgmental, which I perceive to be a good thing.  I have never felt more loved by Heavenly Father and the Savior, which has more to do with me than it does with Them, because Their love never wavers or changes.  I honestly feel that They accept me and my journey, and would go so far as to say that they placed me on my current path.

One of my very favorite scriptures is found in D&C 50:41-46.  This is how I feel.  I believe it is true about me.  

"Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me."

"And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost."

"And the Father and I are one.  I am in the Father and the Father in me, and inasmuch as ye have received me, ye are in me and I in you."

"Wherefore, I am in your midst, and I am the good shepherd, and the stone of Israel, He that buildeth upon this rock shall never fail."

"And the day cometh that you shall hear my voice and see me and know that I am."

"Watch, therefore, that ye may be ready.  Even so, Amen."

I am in Him, and He is in me. While others do not know me, He does know me!

My 60th Birthday Surprise!

To my great delight, I was given a wonderful present for my birthday onJune 4th.  My wife had arranged for us to spend about 24 hours in Salt Lake City, and while there, we would have a party at ou, just east of downtown, with friends and family.

We woke up early on the 4th and flew out of Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.  Upon arrival, we were picked up by my wonderful sister-in-law, Janeen.  On our way to her home, we stopped by a Davis family favorite, Crown Burger, to buy and take with us some of their delicious specialty: the Crown Burger--a burger with pastrami.  Yum! 

We sat around their table and savored this delight along with some onion rings, and had a lively discussion about my recent blog posting.  We were then given the keys to Janeen's car, and left to embark on an excursion to the Westside, the area where I grew up, in honor of this my 60th birthday.

Because we had to pick something up downtown, I decided that we would start by visiting nearby West High School, my alma mater, that looked to be closed for summer recess.

It really looks in good shape.  There are buildings on its campus that are new, and from what I have heard, it is one of the leading high schools in the Salt Lake Valley.  I attended West between 1968 and 1971.  It was a memorable time of my life; a time of learning but also a time of socially evolving.  It was where I began dating, where my singing prowess began, where I began learning about myself.

Looking down on West and the area where I grew up on westside of Salt Lake City is Ensign Peak, shown here from the West Campus.  I hiked it a number of times, exploring it and ultimately summiting it.  It looks over the State Capitol building, which I would visit after summiting the Peak.  The Peak seemed so imposing in my memory, but in reality, it is rather modest, and now not far from homes.

A little over a mile west of West, on the other side of the railroad tracks, we drove by the location of my maternal grandfather's grocery store and meat market.  It was also where his family lived and where my mother was raised.  When I attended Jackson Junion High, a mere 200 yards from this structure, I would sometimes park my bike behind it, because at the time my sister and her new family lived in the little apartment adjacent to the store/residence.

Throughout my life, my mother would tell stories of her upbringing there with her 10 siblings.   It is located at the corner of 800 West and 300 North.  It lookes to be in decent shape for being as old as it is.  To me, it's

interesting that as buildings age, and others occupy them, the lives, the history, the stories of those who have occupied them are inevitably lost, hidden in the walls. But if walls could speak, particularly these walls, what stories they could tell!

We drove around that area, looking at the empty lot of where a home stood, the home to where I was brought from Holy Cross Hospital where I was born.  We looked at where Jackson Junior High, my junior high, once stood.  It likewise is gone, existing only in my memory.  We looked at the old 28th Ward building, which I was told was now a sober living residence and where a great-nephew of mine currently resides.  We looked at the home of my childhood friend, Richard Jacobsen, where I spent hours playing after school on my way home.

About a quarter mile, some three blocks from where my mother was raised, we parked the car and walked around the immediate area near my childhood home.  How small everything seemed!  The streets, the homes, the alley way, everything, had been so signficant, so large, in my memory. But I was small at the time, and now being of adult stature, everything is so small, so modest.  

We walked around, ultimately heading toward my childhood home built in 1953.  Its current occupants have lived there longer than I did, and they have kept it up and have made changes to suit them (like the fence in front).  Within the walls of this very modest brick home, my early life took place, and those memories are abundant and remarkable.  So many stories.  So many feelings.  So many hearts.

Returning to our car, we drove around other structures in the neighborhood.  My mind and heart were flooded with all of the stories and the images of bygone years.

One building in my neighborhood in which I spent countless hours and which is likewise filled with so many stories, is my church buidling. For within its walls, I first came to know my Savior, Jesus Christ. and was loved by good, salt-of the-earth people.  Now vacant it looks forlorn and overgrown by weeds and trees which are in need of trimming, with wood-covered windows.  What occured inside the walls will forever exist vibrantly in my memory.  The building will not be shabby,  but new and fresh and well-kept.  

After driving around the neighborhood and looking for scenes and evidences of my early years, we headed east toward Salt Lake Cemetary. I wanted and needed to pay respect and to honor the burial site of my parents.  Near them, a number of aunts and uncles are buried.  It is always a solemn time for me to visit a cemetary, but as I stood looking down at my parents' headstone, I once again realized that it was only where their bones lie.  Who they were, their essence or spirit, is not entombed there but exists in heavenly realms.  I believe that they continue existing there, that they are free from the shackles of mortality. I believe that they have perfect knowledge of their past and present existence.  I believe that whereever they are, they are concerned about me and love me dearly yet.

The cemetary is not far from Emigration Canyon.  So we jumped in the car and headed east toward the mountains.  Driving up the canyon I've drive so many times, we arrived at the cabin where I was greeted by a wonderful sign that my caring, loving brother had put up in my honor.  

Soon, family and friends arrived for the cookout and gathering.  It was just wonderful to see these important people in my life.  I am grateful for their love and care.  It was truly a blessing to be able to spend my 60th birthday with these beloved people.  Thank you, my sweet wife, for being so thoughtful, so caring, so loving.

An Invitation to Visit Another of My Blogs

It appears that some people who know me and care for me were genuinely alarmed by my recent posting about my "Naturally Curly Red Hair."   Concern has been voiced about 1) my potential slippage into apostasy from the Church, and 2) the potential for people that my have looked/or currently look to me for leadership, having been a bishop, to struggle with their own testimonies.  This concern has prompted me to write about where I am spiritually and to give insight into my some of my most profound religious thoughts and feelings.  I have chosen to write about it in another blog because of it being a purely spiritual matter and concerns my role as His disciple.  I invite you to please go to my blog entitled: 

redashisdisciple.blogspot.com (RED As His Disciple).

Naturally Curly Red Hair

Summer of 2013

Some time toward the end of 2013, I was trying to figure out what I felt about so-called same-sex attraction.  I had blogged a bit about it, decrying hypocrisy that I saw within society generally, and my Church, and deploring the suicides among LGBT LDS youth.  I had begun to admire Mitch Mayne, an openly gay member of the Church in a ward leadership calling. But I was entirely passive about it and decided that it wasn’t good for me to just emotionally stance myself.

I had done psychotherapy with a transgender man, and had been professionally seeing a gay client who is HIV positive (I have blogged about him).  I had also begun having telephone therapy sessions with the son of a dear friend in Utah, and that son is gay.  

It was as if God was bringing these people into my professional life to enable me to see how wonderful and real they were, and to realize that in spite of their sexual orientation, I cared deeply for them.  It was as if God wanted me to experience a change in attitude and in my behavior.

Bishop Robert E. Davis - 2006 to 2009

In spite of these people coming into my life, I had believed the Church’s indoctrination and policies.  I had participated from a managerial level in the Prop 8 “get out the vote” campaign as a bishop assigned to get my congregants to participate.  I had adopted an attitude that it was fine if gays and lesbians had same-sex attraction; they just couldn’t act upon them as any other unmarried person.  It seemed perfectly logical and in keeping with my beliefs about accepting everything that Church leadership (i.e., apostles and prophets) said.

But there was cognitive dissonance in my heart and I felt I needed to explore it and make a decision as to what I really believed, and would embrace going forward.  It was due to that desire that I decided to watch three one-hour-an-a-half interviews by a fellow Mormon named John Dehlin.  He had done hundreds of interviews of various LDS people who had felt challenged by LDS beliefs.  John had posted them at a website called “Mormon Stories Podcast.” (mormonstories.org)

My wife and I have watched a number of seasons of a TV reality show called “So You Think You Can Dance.”  One of the podcasts was an interview with Benji Schwimmer, who had won the competition in the Show’s second season.  We knew that he had reported being gay, and my wife and I were very drawn in to his story because of the Show and because he was LDS.  We were spellbound by it.

He was a returned missionary and had emotionally battled his same-sex attraction for most of his life, even during his mission, and especially during the Show.  He related over and over again that constant conflict that raged within him, between his desires that he couldn’t pray or fast away and the teachings of the Church that forbade acting on homosexual desires.  He discussed the constant shame and guilt he felt, and how it affected his work, his relationships, his life.  He talked about getting into an opposite gender relationship, hoping that it would take his homosexual feelings away, but it didn’t.

Benji Schwimmer

At length, he related how he was participating in a general Sunday worship service (Sacrament Meeting) some time after he had won the competition, when he had a profoundly spiritual experience in which he felt that God truly loved him and accepted him as he was.  He knew in that moment that he could no longer stay a member of the Church—for the turmoil and dissonance that it caused within him—and he testified that as he experienced that thought, he felt a deep, sweeping peace come over him, the most profound spiritual moment of his life.  As he talked about it, I too felt at peace with his decision; that it was fine with God that his path was not in the LDS path, at least for now.  I could accept his decision.

I think something occurred deep within me as I experienced this profoundly moving story of Benji’s.  It was as if it allowed me to question what I had held as spiritually unquestionable my whole life.  It was as if I was not bound anymore by religious ritual or custom or practice.  For Benji, and now for me, what was paramount was not what the Church taught, but what my relationship was/is with Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.  To the degree that the Church facilitated my relationship with these Heavenly Beings, I could/would follow its teachings.  But to the degree that Church practice was at variance with what my heart and mind were being told by the Holy Spirit, I would question such practice and do what I felt the Spirit was directing me to do.

It was near the end of the year that I watched John Dehlin give a TED Talk at Utah State University about why he as a straight man is an LGBT Ally; in other words, why he actively supported the LGBT cause.  As I listened to him, I realized that I shared his thoughts and feelings and that I too must become an LGBT Ally.  

I heard this Talk after having read and then posted on this Blog the three articles dealing with varying aspects and challenges of the LGBT community.  Again, it seemed that God was taking me down this unknown path that was important for me to walk.

Near the end of 2013, with my beard 

Once I made that decision, my feelings about the Church seemed to moderate.  I was not automatically accepting what I had heard over Church pulpits.  I was not accepting the Church’s practices and current doctrine concerning homosexuality.  I was seeing how Church policies and procedures had moderated and evolved over time, such as with polygamy, Blacks and the Priesthood, and even masturbation, and I became hopeful that its policies and procedures concerning homosexuality will likewise moderate over time.

On one level, I suppose that I have become more critical of Church leadership, at least on a Stake and General level.  I do not automatically accept what I hear but think about it, and occasionally pray about it, and if it feels right, then I make it mine.  If not, if it feels like opinion and the Spirit does not confirm it to my heart, then I dismiss it.   At times I am disappointed at the institutional Church and the decisions it makes.  Maybe I have become more cynical.

But I still have a strong testimony that the Church, led by fallible men and women, is the Church that God wants me to belong to. I yet have a strong testimony of Joseph Smith, of the Book of Mormon, of the organization of the Church, of power in the priesthood and the importance of temples, of many doctrines of the Church like tithing.  I still believe in the Plan of Salvation.  I am appreciative of all of the service that is done by members around me and around the world, and the good that the instirutional Church does all over the world.

But I feel that I am a different man than I was just six months ago.  Besides being an LGBT Ally, I am not the same member of the Church that I have been all my life.  I’m more open to other people, other ways of thinking, other ideas, other ways to live life, other ways to find happiness. I feel more grace. I feel more contentment than I have ever felt.  I feel more in love with my wife and feel more love for my children and loved ones.  I feel more capable of loving than I have ever felt. 

Which leads me to what I ultimately wanted to say in this blog posting.  For the first 59½ years of my life, I have parted my red hair on the side, and for many years used a comb and then a brush (for the last 25 years, my father’s Fuller Brush) to straighten out my curly hair.  To me, my parted red hair has represented who I have been for most of my life: conservative, predictable, common, conforming.  

In the beginning of 2014, as a manifestation of my newly found life and beliefs, I decided to see what my hair looked like without brushing it. I liked it! I decided to let it be what it is—naturally curly.  It was my way of "coming out." All that I do now is wash it, towel dry it, run my fingers through it, and leave the bathroom to live my life.  Does my red hair always look neat?  No, because I am no longer neat.  To quote Popeye, I am what I am, and now my red hair is what it is: natural and curly!  Kind of like me now!  Truly, RED IN TRANSITION!