Rational faith 4: Creative calculus

In trying to understand how to value both spiritual and scientific information, I've found the following analogy helpful.

I think everyone in the world is constantly engaged in assessing what is likely to be true, and the assessment is the sum of calculations our mind is constantly performing in the background. It's as if reality is a mathematical function of endless complexity that includes erratic twists and turns when graphed on a Cartesian plane. From the moment we're born, as humans, we gather bits and pieces of information and incorporate them as variables into our own equation that approximates that graph of real reality. The more successfully we are able to match our conception of reality with actual reality, the more empowered we become.

Early on we realize that our variables must be weighted with a relevant coefficient to achieve the best results. Certain pieces of information are deemed reliable and others are judged to be anomalous and are consequently given a low coefficient. We learn to be alternately skeptical and trusting in certain circumstances. We solve parts of the overall equation all the time, compartmentalizing and simplifying the data we have to keep in mind on an ongoing basis. Occasionally we find a clever way to resolve a set of variables that others may miss. It's natural and inevitable that variables drop out over time, either by being incorporated into some larger statement, or from being relegated to the distant past of forgotten experience.

We also have the opportunity to get huge swaths of the equation second-hand from parents and teachers. We can plug this data into our equation to see if it works, or add the information piece by piece based on our own experiences.

There is an inevitable challenge in managing this equation. Some previously resolved portion of the formula eventually ends up contradicting another. There's a division by zero, of sorts. Sometimes when this happens, you can go back and check the math, but that can be entirely impractical for sections of the formula that have incorporated hundreds of thousands of variables over years.

So, we add coefficients. We fudge. And I think we all do this out of necessity. We choose to devalue certain pieces of information to a fraction of their original value because they come into direct conflict with other more powerfully verified portions of the formula. The effort is always to judge rationally which terms carry more collective weight, which have more collective evidence. In really troubling instances, spot checks help sort out the facts. But often there are is no apparent way out of the mess despite that plenty in the peanut gallery claim a certain way to be the only legitimate one--and they frequently don't agree with each other.

The art of life, in my opinion, is learning how to best manage the whole enterprise. We all do it whether we realize it or not--it's just part of life as a biological creature. We assign coefficients to the evidence that presents itself in the cleverest way possible. Ideally we learn how to efficiently secure solved portions of the equation with the highest relevance and value. Life is about finding balance.

Some get carried away inflating the value of some information while zeroing out others. A piece of information zeroed out for its incompatibility with some other weighty established phrase may seem inconsequential alone, but if enough data is neglected serially over a long period of time, the person has managed to deceive himself thoroughly. It is this self-deception that many attribute to people of faith.

Another self-deception happens when new information is given higher credibility than old merely because of it's immediacy on the mind. Years of experience corroborated with a steady stream of consistent information is thrown away in an instant because of some plausible new bit at odds. Certain significant memories of a more ethereal character are more likely to be forgotten. They have to be vigilantly kept in the fore-front to be kept at all.

On the other hand, some people try admirably to keep all the data unmodified, accepting only raw information of the most demonstrable nature as legitimate. This approach is wonderfully successful for filling in certain parts of the graph, but is too inefficient to cover much and largely neglects certain key portions of the graph.

Being fully aware of the aforementioned limitations and pitfalls, I sit perched with my number two pencil and my sheet of graph paper wondering how best to tackle the variables I've assembled. I decide to compartmentalize where possible, and address the data by prioritizing by urgency, importance, and purpose. The process perpetuates itself as solved portions of the equation cast new light on previously obscure variables. In this way I'm persuaded by preliminary results that hope, when used judiciously, can sometimes be a legitimate coefficient. I'm persuaded that observance of certain rituals and covenants has surprising power, while others are silly or harmful. I'm persuaded that Occam's razor isn't always the final word.

The fact that I believe in free will leads me to believe that how I manage the effort will be an expression of who I am most fundamentally. Plunging the depth and breadth, traversing the whole while scooping up critical minutia here and there--it's all an art, a rewarding enterprise, and an expression of my soul.

Index to series:
Rational faith 1: Science
Rational faith 2: Spirituality
Rational faith 3: Grand unifying theory
Rational faith 4: Creative calculus
Rational faith 5: Wrap up

Feeling super

A surprising fact about the magician Bernard Kornblum, Joe remembered, was that he believed in magic. Not in the so-called magic of candles, pentagrams, and bat wings. Not in the kitchen enchantments of Slavic grandmothers with their herbiaries and parings from the little toe of a blind virgin tied up in a goatskin bag. Not in astrology, theosophy, chiromancy, dowsing rods, seances, weeping statues, werewolves, wonders, or miracles. All these Kornblum had regarded as fakery far different--far more destructive--than the brand of illusion he practiced, whose success, after all, increased in direct proportion to his audiences' constant, keen awareness that, in spite of all the vigilance they could bring to bear, they were being deceived. What bewitched Bernard Kornblum on the contrary, was the impersonal magic of life, when he read in a magazine about a fish that could disguise itself as any one of seven different varieties of sea bottom, or when he learned from a newsreel that scientists had discovered a dying star that emitted radiation on a wavelength whose value in megacycles approximated pi. In the realm of human affairs, this type of enchantment was often, though not always, a sadder business--sometimes beautiful, sometimes cruel. Here its stock-in-trade was ironies, coincidences, and the only true portents: those that revealed themselves, unmistakable and impossible to ignore, in retrospect.

You can't be a physician and not believe in Kornblum's type of magic. The human body is amazing stuff--no short of real magic. Further, human relationships are remarkable. And human stupidity is unfathomable (to put a little more cynical spin on it!).

In a parallel way, I believe in super heroes. Not in the web crawling mutations of a teen photographer, not in the x-ray vision of an alien orphan, but in the very personal super heroes of life--the poem writers for the upset, the activists for the oppressed, the courageous folks who walk away from mistakes, the ready friend to the struggling, the unwavering voice of faith, the (I could go on, but I'm too lazy--insert something here that describes you)... these folks are heroes of mine and accomplish in a slow and quiet way the super-human task of human life. They do what everyone does, but do it exceptionally.

I aspire to be super. But being super in life, much like Kornblum's magic, has many imitators and often remains unrecognized. Perhaps someday I can be as super as I want to be.

Twilight

I sifted through my questions for the most vital. "Why do you do it?" I said. "I still don't understand how you can work so hard to resist what you... are. Please don't misunderstand, of course I'm glad that you do. I just don't see why you would bother in the first place."

He hesitated before answering. "That's a good question, and you are not the first one to ask it. The others--the majority of our kind who are quite content with our lot--they, too, wonder at how we live. But you see, just because we've been... dealt a certain hand... it doesn't mean that we can't choose to rise above--to conquer the boundaries of a destiny that none of us wanted...."

Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, pg. 307

As I stumbled through this book, retching again and again at the writing, I couldn't help but draw comparisons between Edward's situation and my own. I hope that doesn't reflect an inappropriate fixation on sexuality these days--that I can't look anywhere and consider anything to be wholly irrelevant to this blog... ;-) I thought a few book club posts would be a nice diversion from the central topic of this blog, but U Dude expertly picked a book that is relevant in some respects.

The foremost, of course, is the matter of personal choice and identity. Is identity associated at all with inclinations or behavior? Is it something innate or something chosen? What part of us is us? What does our character have to do with our identity?

...We begin, then, with our thoughts and end with our eternal destiny. Our destiny is determined by our character, and our character is the sum and expression of our habits. Character is won by hard work.

Ernest L. Wilkinson, speaking to the students of Brigham Young University, said: “Character … is not something to be obtained by ease and indolence or being socially agreeable. It cannot be acquired by absorption or by proxy or on the auction block. It is a reward derived from honest toil in overcoming difficulties. We grow by mastering tasks which others consider impossible.

Delbert L. Stapley

This isn't quite the quote I was looking for, but it does speak to the power of overcoming... of our character being a product of our behaviors. And, really, that's what I liked best about Edward, Dr. Cullen, et. al. Despite remarkably strong desires to do something they felt was urgently necessary, they mastered themselves to do what they thought was right.

Goldilocks and the three queers

Some who misunderstand the nature of same-gender attraction would argue that one cannot experience an attraction that is so"unnatural" and still be in God's full favor. Others may claim that one should focus on "changing" and doing all within his or her power to "overcome" same-gender attraction. Although our faith in God may require us to reconcile things in our life that may influence the attraction, putting an unbalanced and unhealthy emphasis and focus on "change" as a prerequisite to happiness or divine love and favor can be counterproductive, discouraging, and emotionally exhausting.
...
People who experience same-gender attraction may often feel overwhelming pressure to "change" the nature of their attractions, or their sexuality-and they'll do anything to make it happen. There is a strong tendency to feel that no matter what our challenges may be, if we pray more, fast more, read scripture more, or attend church and the temple more, then we can and will "change." Yet, despite how often or how deeply and sincerely many have prayed, fasted, read scripture, or attended the temple, they have continued to experience feelings of same-gender attraction with little or no change in intensity.
...
We who have the challenge of same-gender attraction have a responsibility to do all we can to understand our feelings or attractions and work to alter anything that may have influenced the attraction, but it is also important to remember that those things in and of themselves cannot alter our natures in any saving way: only Christ can do that.

Ty Mansfield in In Quiet Desperation

My last post may have given the impression that I favor obsessing about changing to heterosexual orientation. I don't. I'm more like Goldilocks in that famous fable, Goldilocks and the Three Queers.

Once upon a time, Goldilocks found himself discussing same-gender attraction with three LDS friends who were same-gender attracted. The first friend, who called himself PapaQueer, took a pretty militant stance about same-gender attraction. He felt his feelings were ungodly and he vowed to do anything to change them, because that's the only way he could imagine being happy and pure. He had already been through reparative therapy, fasted til he was thin as a rail, and prayed til his knees were bloody. His eyes had a fire of determination that was both a little inspiring and scary.

MamaQueer, on the other hand, believed her feelings of same-gender attraction were completely acceptable, and indeed, a vital part of who she was. She felt that even given the chance to change her sexual orientation, she would not do it because to do so would be sacrificing an integral part of herself. Her apathy was both a little comforting and scary.

Goldilocks found himself bothered by both of these queers. PapaQueer really seemed to need some therapy. He had an unhealthy self-image and seemed to be in denial. MamaQueer was much happier, but seemed to be oblivious to the conflict between her image of herself and the eternal role Goldilocks understood she could someday fulfill.

Then the wee BabyQueer spoke up. BabyQueer's view seemed just right. He accepted his same-gender attraction as an incidental part of his identity, nothing to worry about necessarily, but also as something that needed some careful attention as sexuality is an important issue. He wanted his views to deepen and mature with healthy mental attitudes and spiritual insights, and so gave the matter quite a bit of thought. "Change" was never out of the question. In fact, change seemed like the best solution and worth some investigation. However, if change were not possible, that would be okay. He planned to spend time thinking and reading on the subject, but to avoid obsessing about it or making it the primary concern of his life. Deliberate and proactive, but not obsessive.

Goldilocks wanted to kiss BabyQueer, but realized that would be counter-productive. So, he left and went to sleep because it's going to be a long night in the hospital.

The end.

Exceptions

When I was young, I was taught that suicide is self-murder. There it was, black and white and horrifying. It's no wonder that when I was taught murder is the only unforgivable sin (I'm leaving out all the disclaimers and discussion of sinning against the Holy Ghost), I could see why suicide was such a tragedy. If this life is the time to prepare to meet God, and we shouldn't procrastinate the day of our repentance as this probationary time could end at any moment, it seemed to me that suicide ends and seals your mortal test with an unforgivable sin. It doesn't get much more hopeless than that. Although I don't see it this way anymore, one can easily see why it's a sensitive topic.

I can see how suicide causes all sorts of tormented feelings on the part of loved ones left behind. The simultaneous horrors of losing a loved one, having that loved one do something terrible, having him be the victim of something terrible, him having no chance to repent or work through the issue, thinking you may have lost him for the next life as well, along with the guilt our human nature foists upon us that we might have stopped it "if only I had...," all combine for a grim eulogy.

During her discussion of her son's suicide in In Quiet Desperation, Marilyn Matis makes this odd observation: "Although losing our son was difficult, it has been comforting to know that he was faithful to his temple covenants." I've heard this statement criticized as implying that it was better for Stuart to have killed himself than to have given in to his gay desires, but I don't read it that way. The subsequent sentence reads: "Fred and I each had an indescribable feeling of peace that lasted for several weeks after Stuart's death." How is such a peace possible given the horror of suicide? Given the sin of suicide?

It's as if Sister Matis sees the suicide itself as, well, not counting. I wonder if it was a spiritual confirmation that all the good Stuart had accomplished in his life was not negated by that one act. Or, perhaps, that he wasn't accountable for the act at all. Elder Ballard has given some guidance on suicide that indicates there are occasions when a person's state of mind excludes culpability.

In more general terms, Elder Oaks has talked about exceptions where one is not accountable for an action that would in some other context be grievous sin. Prior to the quote below he gave the example of a man who wanted reassurance from Elder Oaks that his involvement in military combat would not constitute a violation of the commandment thou shalt not kill:

...The explanation I gave that man is the same explanation I give to you if you feel you are an exception to what I have said [about the commandment of marriage]. As a General Authority, I have the responsibility to preach general principles. When I do, I don’t try to define all the exceptions. There are exceptions to some rules. For example, we believe the commandment is not violated by killing pursuant to a lawful order in an armed conflict. But don’t ask me to give an opinion on your exception. I only teach the general rules. Whether an exception applies to you is your responsibility. You must work that out individually between you and the Lord.

Perhaps Stuart's suicide was an exception, given the circumstances of his life and his mental health. Perhaps it is not inaccurate or inappropriate to find solace in the goodness of his life, e.g. in his faithfulness to his temple covenants. At the same time, suicides by those whose lives appear less worthy shouldn't be judged by anyone other than Him whose knowledge is perfect. And we can all have more hope knowing that "The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God."

Terribly difficult

This challenge has been terribly difficult for me, and I have done a lot of murmuring myself, but as the Lord has helped me to see more fully His dealings with me and the rest of His children, I have felt much less inclined to murmur and more inclined to faithfully submit...

It has been difficult for me--as one who experiences same-gender attraction, a challenge that often seems impossible to bear and remain faithful--to recognize the possibility that my cross is not more unbearable than those that others may be called to carry; to be sure, it is different, but it is not unequal or more unbearable...

Ty Mansfield in In Quiet Desperation

It turns out, being gay is hard for a Mormon. Who knew? I've felt pretty darn sorry for myself a lot of the time. I've battled depression and hopelessness, searched for what I thought was an acceptable solution where I thought none existed. I felt guilty and worthless. You know, the usual.

When I read the Oaks and Wickman interview on lds.org, there were a few parts that raised my eyebrows. One such part was when Wickman said:

We live in a very self-absorbed age. I guess it’s naturally human to think about my own problems as somehow greater than someone else’s. I think when any one of us begins to think that way, it might be well be to look beyond ourselves. Who am I to say that I am more handicapped, or suffering more, than someone else?

I read this as minimizing the challenges someone with same-gender attraction faces. He proceeds to describe the challenge his handicapped daughter faces, and my reaction was to wonder if he really had any understanding of what all is involved with same-gender attraction. I wondered how he could compare a physical disability that would rule out marriage in this life with a situation like mine--one of psychological torment in which I wrestle mostly secretly with feelings of despair, worthlessness, and futility knowing that I am perfectly capable of finding physical gratification but that my incessant yearning must be squelched. In some ways I would prefer to not have the desire at all, to accept a physically handicapped life of being sterile or something of that nature. It's a combo package of loneliness, hopelessness, and unending temptation, or so it has seemed to me at times.

I suppose his point was an apt one after all--I do find myself thinking that I have suffered more than others when I know in my sane moments that that is absolutely laughable. I've never experienced poverty, genocide like in Darfur, domestic violence and sexual abuse, progressive terminal disease, intractable pain, a child locked in a basement for years... the list goes on.

I'll take my challenges I suppose. The Lord knows me, and he knows what will make me the man he wants me to be.

Step 2: Hope

I've been tempted to look at porn recently. I've thought about it off and on all day. And I suppose that means it's time to recognize that the 12 step program actually extends beyond step 1.

Step 2 focuses on having hope through Jesus Christ. It seems like an appropriate follow-up after all the General Conference talks I heard that reminded me that the Savior is key in dealing with my life's challenges.

But here's the problem: relying on Christ to take away my sins means taking away my sins, not just making my sins okay. I need to actually stay away from the porn, not just feel like I'm doing the best that I can and therefore it's all okay. A friend of mine told me recently when we were discussing porn, "you have to allow yourself the experience of being human." I found that very comforting at the time, but on further reflection, it's the experience of being divine that I want to allow myself.

I'm looking to deny myself of all ungodliness, but I've been looking to do it in the wrong way. Apparently, and this is so hard for me to believe, I'm not strong enough to do it. I can't do it... I can't do it.

I can't do it.

Huh. That's not really a common refrain for a post about overcoming a problem.

And yet, that's the whole point. I have such a hard time letting it go and letting Christ in to deal with this. I don't know why. I've been sitting here staring at the page trying to do the workbook assignment for a long time this evening and I'm just not feeling the peace. I'm fighting it for some reason. I don't want to go pray. I want to go porn. (My immediate reaction is to delete that, or qualify it, or something... but it's true. It's a deep rooted want.)

My trigger response to this situation has been to steel myself for the fight ahead. The fight that will hurt and be miserable and that I'll almost certainly fail as I have every time in the past. I grit my teeth and think, "Nobody's going to control you, make you do the right thing, or get you through this but yourself. It's your battle to fight. Just make it happen."

But that's all wrong. I'm failing because I'm fighting alone. I'm trying to be strong enough, and I'm not strong enough. The Lord's yoke is easy and His burden is light. I don't have to do it alone. Why am I such a spiritual delinquint? Why can't I actually get myself to understand and believe this? To really feel it?

I've got to let go, and I don't know how. I need to avoid touching evil gifts. I need hope.

We should not underestimate or overlook the power of the Lord’s tender mercies. The simpleness, the sweetness, and the constancy of the tender mercies of the Lord will do much to fortify and protect us in the troubled times in which we do now and will yet live. When words cannot provide the solace we need or express the joy we feel, when it is simply futile to attempt to explain that which is unexplainable, when logic and reason cannot yield adequate understanding about the injustices and inequities of life, when mortal experience and evaluation are insufficient to produce a desired outcome, and when it seems that perhaps we are so totally alone, truly we are blessed by the tender mercies of the Lord and made mighty even unto the power of deliverance (see 1 Nephi 1:20).

Elder David A. Bednar

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Pearson, 1

"I was not being dishonest with you when we married. I loved you. You were wonderful and I really did love you. I thought that the problem would be taken care of. They told me it would be. I did everything they said to do. And I thought for a few months that everything was changed."

"But, Gerald," I interrupted, "we were--I was--happy."

"And I was too, in many, many ways. Blossom, this is not your fault. Maybe you think it is, but it has nothing to do with you, only with me. Yes, we were happy. I liked being with you. I even liked being with you physically. But to me it was like...like we were such good friends that we shared everything with each other, even sex. It was never quite like... like lovers. There is this other thing in me, Blossom, and it has never gone away and I know now that it never will. There is this thing in me that needs, that insists that my strongest feelings be for a man. It is a need that seems to be as deep in me as my need for food and breath. I tried to beat it to death, to strangle it, to smother it. And it has not died. Blossom, I know the anguish you've been through this last week. Can you understand that I have been in anguish too? And for more than a week."

"Gerald," I said, "it's wrong!"

"Wrong!" Gerald put his face into his hands and then looked up. "I have taken that word and used it like a whip on myself. I have flagellated myself with that word until I'm bloody. But it does not change things. I have fasted, I have prayed. How many thousands of prayers I have prayed! And it does not change things. If my homosexuality is wrong, then I am wrong, the fact of my being is wrong. Because that's what I am!"

Carol Lynn Pearson,
in Good-bye, I love you

I read Pearson's book about her gay husband dying of AIDS a few weeks ago. It was before I read the article about her daughter, Emily, having also married a gay man and thinking she could make it work. The book was strange to me. I kept reading it trying to assess Pearson's view of homosexuality. I tried to read it for the underlying message. It wasn't until I abandoned that approach and just appreciated that she was telling a story--a story with all the ups, downs, questions, and ambivalence left intact--that I really started enjoying it.

There were places she made me angry. There were many places she made me cry. I was in a public place and kept feeling self conscious. I recommend it to anyone interested in homosexuality and Mormonism.

As for the quote above, I have a few comments. I can agree that my wife and I are not lovers in a burning infatuation and lust sort of sense--something I miss greatly. But we are lovers in the most literal sense of the word. We "make" love of the true kind. We produce it from thin air by being what we are and what we want and what we can be for each other. Love is something I've been meaning to blog on but haven't gotten around to it (yes, I say this all the time!).

This passage brings out so many other issues--the hope for change, the futility of forcing the issue, the very real and unjustified self-hatred we experience, the confusion, the logical quandaries inherent in identity. Happiness without happiness. It makes me feel strangely close to Pearson.

Index of Pearson posts
Pearson, 1
Detestable
Buried Life
Alone
Sacrifice
Pearson, 2

Individual paths

I try to keep my posts on the short side. I think it's because I anticipate that everyone has an attention span about the same length as mine. But it's impossible to really put all the background information necessary into some of the discussions I want to have. Short of teaching the entire missionary discussions on my blog, I don't see how to change that.

But, I want people to understand something about my confidence in God and the Mormon church. I mean no disrespect to others when I say I believe that God speaks through individuals He has chosen, and that anyone else who tries to figure out what God is thinking by some other method is at a serious disadvantage. I end up following the church and the men who lead it because through various means I've come to understand the truth of what they say bit by bit. I'm not constrained to believe, I'm not forced to follow, and I'm not uncritical as I know I have yet to learn many things. Experience and an indescribable intuition sometimes called the still small voice lead me to become more and more certain that these guys (leaders of the LDS church) know what they're talking about.

That's not to say they know everything, or that they can't be wrong, or that they don't make mistakes. But it is to say they're the ones I need to be paying attention to for the, umm, "straight dope".

There are those who believe not only that the prophets and apostles are not, in fact, prophets and apostles, but that they know they aren't, and that their whole lives are an exercise in deception and fraud. These men spend every ounce of energy testifying of Jesus and the truths He taught. They plead for people to be more honest, for people to love one another. They waste and wear out their lives in service to follow the example of their ostensible leader the Savior... and this is all a crafty cover up of their secretly venomous and dishonest natures and for their diabolical scheme to... what, exactly?

You may have noticed in my sarcasm that I have a pretty firm opinion of those who maintain this line of thinking. They are stupid.

A more compelling argument is that these men honestly believe they are following God and receiving His revelation, but that they are in fact working from their own prejudices combined with various indistinct warm fuzzies. The people who believe this are smarter (and kinder) but I think they are still wrong.

Perhaps the most perplexing group are those that believe they are indeed prophets (or that the church is true) but that they're wrong not only on little things where one could imagine God left it to their own judgment, but on things big enough to warrant statements from the First Presidency, proclamations, and explicit positions on civic matters. I've had my difficulties reconciling my views on some of the issues, but one that seems particularly unequivocal is that gay sex is wrong. I can acutely appreciate misgivings about the best form of governance on this matter, but I can't see how the morality of gay sex is up in the air for anyone who has any confidence in the church whatsoever. And since romantic affection with the same gender leads to gay sex, it is also not such a good thing (as opposed to affirming platonic friendships). As I've said before, it's not that they're bad, it's that they're not good enough for the ultimate end God wants for us.

And that leaves someone like me in an unpleasant and lonely predicament. One that I've, after many years, miraculously been relieved of. But my solution (marriage) is not the same miracle God has for everyone similarly situated. In fact, I firmly agree with church leaders that marriage should never be a form of therapy to try to change a guy straight, and I attribute the high divorce rate of mixed orientation marriages to wedding out of desperation rather than full love and carefully measured honest heart and soul searching. The absence of easy answers leaves a lot of people in an uncomfortable limbo. I was there for a long time, and I realize the waiting is the hardest part. But waiting, changing, and searching can be worth it.

Hopeful and hopeless

I saw a young man recently come into the ER with full blown AIDS. He had declined the best medical therapy once he got HIV believing somehow he could whip it all on his own by living a healthy lifestyle... eating his vegetables or something like that. Now he has several opportunistic infections and he looked unbelievably miserable. He asked me after we talked (although I could barely hear or understand him), "Are you going to be doing this after residency?" and I said no. He said, "You should. You're good at it. These other people make me feel terrible." I was most certainly NOT good at it. This is one of only a handful of AIDS patients I had ever seen. But I realized what he meant was that unlike the other ER staff (and regrettably, my senior resident as well), I wasn't treating him like a freak. Later he said reflectively as I was filling out paperwork, "I'm a bad person aren't I?"

This experience had sort of a strange effect on me. It made me feel so hopeless. Hopeless about the healthcare system. Hopeless about the ignorance people have regarding gays. Hopeless about people that I usually work so hard to believe the best about. It's also a feeling that hits me every time I read an editorial lambasting religions as categorically intolerant, which seems to be happening with increasing frequency. It's a hopelessness that just hits me when people insist on being stupid even when I feel they've been given ample opportunity to widen their understanding.

The second step in 12 steps is based on hope. I haven't really worked my way up to that point yet (yes, at this rate I will reach step 12 when I'm about 147 years old). But it occurs to me that I am quite hopeful regarding myself and my own progress--and shouldn't that matter most? Why should I let ignorance and bigotry from conservatives and liberals alike interrupt my personal progress and peace? Well. I guess I'll just keep trying to have hope on both levels--personal and societal.

Every blessing

...Those who earnestly seek to conform to the Plan are provided small miracle after small miracle until they are able to experience every blessing of the gospel. I have yet to find an exception to this rule. This puts me at odds with both those who treat men and women with homosexual feelings as though they were voluntary perverts and also with those who insist that there can be no genuine reconciliation between such persons and the highest standards of the Kingdom.

Carlfred B. Broderick

It's been very interesting to see the 600 or so comments on a couple posts about the First Presidency's request for members to notify political leaders of their position on the Marriage Protection Amendment. I even threw in my 2 cents, although I was way over my head. Well established commenters carry the day on those blogs, and for good reason--they had very interesting things to say.

However, like a mosquito buzzing in my ear, I kept being bothered by some of the comments. Understandably, people want to be empathetic about gay Mormons' situations. In that spirit, they would discuss the hopelessness of having no acceptable alternatives in life: no acceptable method for full sexual expression, unachievable expectations of celibacy, no tenable opportunity to change... and on and on.

The circumstances of gay Mormons are as varied as the men and women themselves. Why do we feel the need to find blanket solutions or make blanket statements against solutions? I love the above quote because it reminds me what faith really means. Small miracle upon small miracle aptly describes my experiences with this issue. And although I still have most of a lifetime left in which to deal with all my issues, I expect there to be a never-ending supply of small miracles.