 |
| Randall Thacker, John Gustav-Wrathall, Todd Richardson |
"Take one day at a time to deal with the ambiguity"
While the LDS LGBT community would ideally like for Church policy to change through modern revelation to general Church leadership, Randall Thacker, current president of Affirmation, warned the Community that they will be greatly disappointed if they expect such a momentous change to occur. Affirmation is not about lobbying for such a landmark shift; rather, it seeks to facilitate and support the community in their efforts to live and even thrive in the uncertainty.
When speaking to uninformed LDS members about Affirmation, some grasp the ambiguity. How does someone who has not chosen to have same-gender attraction but has felt it as long as they can remember, reconcile these feelings that can't be prayed, read or fasted away with Church doctrine which seems to speak only to a heterosexual heaven, and whose leadership and members are often unloving and even hostile to them?
Those who attended the conference were challenged to accept the need to tolerate unanswerable questions.
"We don't have revelation as a Church as to what God thinks about His homosexual children"
This is a paraphrase of what someone in Affirmation leadership was told by a General Authority. It is true and it rings true. If there were such revelation, then it would be preached over the pulpit, included in the General Handbook of Instructions, and stake presidents and bishops would hopefully be more consistent in their treatment of their LGBT members who still want to be connected to the Church. Presently, lacking specific revelation, local leaders are left to their own opinions and their own biases--how they interpret the revelatory ambiguity.
What the Church does know has been placed by it on their website: mormonsandgays.org. This is a website that the LGBT community was pleased to see because it gave them hope that their ambiguity was being recognized by general Church leadership, and it gave voice to one of the community's greatest aspirations: that Christians and particularly LDS people should show love to all God's children, as Christ would show it.
"The Kubler-Ross stages of grief can help assist in giving clarity to members of the LDS LGBT community"
I have previously blogged about this helpful teaching and would refer the reader to it for increased insight. I had not considered its relevance and application to the LDS LGBT community until I attended a discussion group about the Stages of Grief during the Conference. The stages are:
-- Denial Most in the Community have wrestled with themselves and with God that they or their loved ones were indeed LGBT.
-- Anger There is often much anger pointed outward toward family, friends and insensitive Church members. But often there is also anger pointed inward. "Why was I born this way? Why doesn't God take away these feelings?
-- Bargaining Many LDS LGBT people have tried to make a deal with God. "If I serve a mission, will you please take away these feelings?" "If I pray more, read scriptures longer, fast more frequently, attend the temple more regularly, will you then please give me peace of mind?"
-- Depression Nearly all in this Community have dealt with depression. It manifests in so many ways. Much of the depression comes from wrestling with their paradox of wanting to be accepted by God and by His Church, but realizing that their homosexuality or feelings about their gender are undeniable.
-- Acceptance The path that this Community walks hopefully leads to a peace and self-acceptance of their own or their loved one's homosexuality and their gender. This path also demands acceptance of the inherent aforementioned ambiguity of their lives.
"Our challenge is to bring the body and spirit together"
I interpreted this to mean that for the LDS LGBT person, it is necessary to neither ignore their sexuality nor their need for connection with God. As in the LDS doctrine of resurrection in which the glorified body is brought together with the glorified spirit to form a single unit of great joy and contentment, so should the Community seek to bring their physical natures together with their spiritual natures into one. Neither nature can or should be neglected. Successfully integrated in mortality, the LDS LGBT person can experience joy and contentment now.
"Labels can be good and bad"
If I think of myself as sensitive and caring, I am labeling myself. Likely, if I do it consistently, I will come to fulfill that expectation. In other words, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. But if I think of myself as a slacker or an addict, I will likely become or continue to be that person.
This experience of labeling happens routinely in our interactions with others, especially those who are seen as different from us. People label others in a conscious or subconscious attempt to distance themselves so they do not have to interact with them or find out more about them. And for the non-LGBT member of the Church, it is important that we do not fall into this trap with regard to those among us who are LGBT. Those who take the time to get to know the LGBT individual and experience, will come away with increased empathy and hopefully will be enlarged in their capacity to love.
 |
| Darius Gray, Friday's Exceptional Featured Speaker |
All LDS members need to embrace this doctrine, for their own self-love and for their interactions with those who are different from them. While many realize that they are indeed a child of God (what a wonderfully spiritual experience to hear us sing I Am a Child of God as one of our worship songs this past weekend!). I learned again that many in the LDS LGBT community wrestle to really believe that they are loved of God. Many also wrestle with the concept that their homosexuality and gender are part of God's plan.
I found the words of the 2nd Verse of I Am a Child of God to be particularly poignant as I sang them with my LGBT brothers and sisters:
I am a Child of God, and so my needs are great. Help me to understand His words before it grows too late.
Another talk dealt with the idea that we are all seeds, that God has planted us, that within a seed is the promise of becoming what eventually the seed will become, but that God is fine with us being a seed. God lovingly sees the seed as perfect, and that we, as seeds, are perfect at every stage of becoming what we will eventually become in God's garden. Our grwoth is part of God's Plan.
"Life is to be enjoyed, not just to be endured"
Because of living in the ambiguity, and because living inside and outside of the closet is challenging for the LDS LGBT person, it is a challenge to not simply get through the day or to get through life, but to really find and feel joy. The last phrase in the scripture found in 2 Nephi 2:25 in The Book of Mormon comes to mind: "...men are that they might have joy."
It takes mindful effort to live life in the moment and to enjoy the journey. It takes effort to rid ourselves of damaging, illogical thoughts and begin the process of challenging them and replacing them with uplifting, affirming, logical thoughts which can then positively influence our feelings and behaviors.
"It is called the Plan of Salvation, not the Plan of Damnation"
LDS believers embrace what is called the Plan of Salvation. What sometimes occurs is that they choose to put more emphasis on the Plan part and less on the Salvation part. Adherents of the LDS faith get caught up in what they see as the beauty and logic of the Plan, but give short shrift to the concept that the Plan is to save all of God's children. God's work is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man," and may I say parenthetically, ALL MEN, ALL HUMANITY.
His purpose is not to damn us, or stop our progression, but to faciliate that progression. His business is not to damn us but to save us. That should be cause for us who believe to really believe what He has said. The LDS LGBT Community that surrounded me this past weekend was filled with light and with belief in God's assurances. They are worthy, as am I, of His saving grace and his unconditional, salvational love.
"Life lessons to be learned are best realized in a marriage setting"
This understanding has changed my mind regarding my view on same-sex marriage. It has not come easily. It is a process and it is still evolving. But I have chosen to embrace it even though my Church, through its backing of Proposition 8 and the continuing rhetoric of some General Authorities, preaches otherwise. My evolution on this subject has been the source of great consternation and distress to my extended family who have not been shy in voicing their opinions to me.
But if, in fact, life lessons are best realized in a marriage setting, and if life is really to help us to become the best we can be, to learn about ourselves, to learn to love unconditionally, how can that be done by someone who has no option but to remain celibate? That is not to say the single people cannot learn those important lessons, but an LGBT does not have the choice to be married with the Church's blessing. And becoming involved in a mixed orientation marriage is not the answer, as it once was preached by the Church. For the record, I learned that current statistics show that 85% of marriages to someone of the opposite gender of LGBT people who have served LDS missions ends in divorce. The statistic is 95% if neither has served an mission.
So does God love LGBT individuals less? Are they supposed to sojourn in life as flawed, damaged individuals? It is easy for someone who is a privileged heterosexual and has the opportunity for marriage to think that an LGBT just needs to go through life without the profound love found in a marriage covenant. Isn't it called The Plan of Salvation and not The Plan of Damnation, and doesn't the doctrine apply to everyone?
One person spoke of sacred personal revelation he had received from God regarding his query about persuing a same-gender relationship. He remarked that God revealed to him "I want you to have happiness in this life and in the next. (My emphasis) Isn't that really what God wants for all of us, or is it just hyperbole?
"Stay at the table"
This phrase was uttered a few times in a discussion about LGBT people and their interactions with family and friends who cannot embrace their sexuality. It is a challenge for an LGBT person to not step away from "the table" in their interactions with loved ones out of frustration that their decisions are not supported by loved ones, out of feeling rejected by them. It is also a challenge for certain of their loved ones to step away who simply cannot open their hearts and minds to the reality that their son, daughter, father or mother is same-gender attracted and do not give heed to their calls to repentance.
The LGBT attendees were encouraged during the Conference to stay at "the table", to continue the process of reconciliation, however painful that process is. Testimony was offered as to the benefits of perservering and loving, especially when it hurts. They realize that their loved one may never be reconciled to their sexuality, but then it is incumbent upon them to love them as the Savior loved those around him even when they did not agree with him or injured or crucified Him.
"Embracing the 'And'"
Julie de Acevedo spoke and performed on the last day of the Conference. In her psychotherapy office, she has placed a large representation that shows a large ampersand, a "&." She put it there to encourage people to think about themselves being more than just one aspect of their lives. In other words, a person may identify themselves as LGBT, but then, what else are they, or what else can they be? People are so much more than just one aspect of their lives, and that we need to embrace that truth. I found the idea incredibly liberating, and I hope that my LGBT brothers and sisters did as well!
"Love unfeigned"
The keynote speaker on the last day of the Conference is a BYU professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology and is a former member of a stake presidency and a former mission president. He delivered a lecture at BYU in 2010 that cause quite a stir there and at Church Headquarters called "The Evidence for a Biological Origin for Homosexuality," It likely was that presentation that led to the Church hierarchy to soften its stance on the idea that homosexuality was a choice. Since then, he has been involved with researchers at Utah State University collecting data on the attitudes of present and former LDS LGBT persons.
Among many important concepts, he spoke of the idea of "love unfeigned" taken from an LDS scripture. He talked of the importance of truly loving ourselves and others, a love born of true caring and concern. He spoke of the hypocrisy and falseness of those who say that they "hate the sin but love the sinner," and how such people rarely truly love the sinner as Christ would; that this was "feigned love."
For me, perhaps the most poignant moment of the entire weekend, and which to me was a powerful example of "love unfeigned," was something I didn't hear, but I observed. It was at the conclusion of the "testimony" meeting held on Saturday, a meeting in which a few LGBT persons spoke of the ambiguity of their paths but also of their fondest desires to be associated with the Church and of their desire to follow God. It was during the final congregational song of the meeting, "The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning."
I noticed that a few rows ahead of me, the Senior Vice President of Affirmation, John Gustav-Wrathall, had both arms encircling the shoulders of the men on either side of him (one being the head of Affirmation from Mexico), and he was enthusiastically singing the song that has special meaning for members of the Church. That in and of itself was not so exceptional, but what was is the fact of his spirited singing of the special song of the Church that had excommunicated him, that had abandoned him, that had dismissed him, but to which he desperately longs to stay attached. It is the Church he loves and which is part of who he is as a son of God. He has love unfeigned for the Church, for those around him, and for himself, embracing his LGBT life and experiencing love as an LGBT son of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment