Time Out, Brad Wilcox

I know. I know you will find this extremely hard to believe, but I attended my local Time Out for Women this weekend. My MIL purchased tickets months ago for my SILs and me to go. Well, each of my SILs bailed (well, one of them DID have a baby last Tuesday), so a good friend of my MIL and me went with us. Yeah, I wasn't looking forward to the whole context of the conference, but the perks of spending the night in a hotel, going to dinner, and having a break from the kids outweighed any potential annoyances the conference might have in store. What's more, I love my MIL and wanted to spend some time with her. She is a good woman.

 Going to dinner + fresh hotel sheets + not waking up with the kids > TO4W

I decided ahead of time to go as an objective observer with a positive attitude. I was not going to be looking for opportunities to be offended or annoyed by the speakers or the attendees. I was going to be very real and practical about the whole thing. 

The Friday night session was okay. The first speaker, Brother NotFunny, had a  pretty dismal talk. A person who is truly funny does not need to try to be funny, but somehow Brother NotFunny never got that memo. People around me were cracking up and I just could not fathom why. I wondered if subconsciously I had a bad attitude affecting my funny bone, but then I looked over at my MIL and my GF. There they were. Arms folded. Faces serious and somewhat puzzled. Good. It wasn't just me and my uncorrelated self. 

Next, Virginia Hinckley Pearce spoke and she was, meh... Again, I thought perhaps a bad attitude was influencing me, but no, my MIL and GF later confirmed my same thoughts. Fortunately, the night wasn't a total bust because Jenny Oaks Baker, a Julliard-educated violinist saved the night. Listening to her play the violin was a treat. She was absolutely brilliant.

So the Friday night session went well for me. No major or even minor annoyances. We topped the night off with a trip to the Cheesecake Factory and a pillow fight before bed. The next morning my MIL and GF headed over while I caught a few more zzzzs. Then I got up. Got ready and got over to the conference. I summoned up my positive energy and open mindedness. I was ready for round two.

I made it in time to listen to Linda Eyre and her daughter Shawni Pothier. My MIL knows Shawni personally, so that was much of the reason she wanted to go to TO4W. They both did a fine job and I was feeling fine...

Until...

Enter Brad Wilcox from stage right...

Cox started out his talk relating a story from when he was a mission president. His story was of a disheartened elder who wanted things to be easier. "Wouldn't it all be easier if we just had to do baptisms for the dead?" He then goes off into this diatribe mocking people who say things like, "But Brother Wilcox, don't you know how hard it is? I was born this way. Do you know how hard it is to change?"


From there I began to feel a little uneasy in my seat. I was afraid this would turn into Packergate from that one General Conference. Remember that one? It went something along the lines of gays not being able to overcome what they feel to be inborn tendencies and then he asked why would Heavenly Father do that to anyone, meaning create someone who was gay. Somehow I felt Cox was hinting around on the whole "I was born this way" excuse that he must think is illegitimate for the gay population. 


But I digress. The best was yet to come. Cox then went into this rant of mockery saying the following: It is easy to not going to church. It is easy not going to the temple. It is easy finding the anti-Mormon website to question church history. It is easy to ruin your testimony...


As though I had springs in my butt, I popped up as quickly as I could and angrily walked out in the middle of his self-righteous rant. It was all I could do not to flip him off on the way out, and now I wish I would have. I was pissed and hurt. I immediately called Husband NotSo to relate what had happened and I started to cry. I cried because he was so wrong, so wrong about how "easy" he thinks it is. It is not easy at all.


There have been many, MANY times in my faith crisis where I have thought how much easier it would be to just go back to church, continue to ignore the things that bother me, and continue to be spoon-fed the baby food of what I should believe. It would be easier to have someone else do the thinking for me. It would be easier maintaining relationships with my family and friends if I continued to go to church, instead of taking the initiative to ensure those bonds don't crumble.

Perhaps the most damaging part of all this, was the permission Brother Cox gave the hundreds of women and young women there to judge people who question the church or who have left the church because that is the easy way. No doubt each of those women know someone in their family or ward who has left the church or who is struggling with the church. Now instead of hearing a message about compassion and Christ-like love, they heard a message that they could judge those they know for taking the easy route. Now, because they stay in the church and continue to do what they are told to do, it is deemed harder and must, therefore, be better because it is sanctified by Brother Cox.


I promise, I tired to go into TO4W as open minded as I possibly could be. I knew some things might bother me, but I accepted that fact ahead of time. What I did not expect was the blatant rudeness and judgment coming from one of the more renowned persons of the church.

Ugh. I could not help but note the different feeling I felt at TO4W and the Mormon Stories Conference we had last weekend. At TO4W I felt like an outsider. I didn't feel the collective power a group can cast when it gets together for the common good and I so wanted to. At the MorStor Conference, I felt so much love and power. I truly and honestly loved each an every person who was there. I felt bonded to these people from their many walks of life. I loved those people and I know they loved me. It rejuvenated me and I have craved that feeling, like crack, throughout the whole of last week. It felt like a little piece of heaven on earth.


And to Brother Cox, I recommend taking your nasty foot out of your mouth and walk around in my shoes for a day before you deem what is "easy" and what is not. 


For that, I award you the SisterNotSo WTF moment. WTF, Brother Cox. WTF.

Washington DC Mormon Stories Conference

What a weekend. What a crazy, fantastic weekend. It was like Christmas Eve, Christmas, the Super Bowl, and election night all crammed into one afternoon. If you don't know what I am talking about, I am talking about this. There is a small group of Mormons out there who have either left the church or who are unorthodox on some level and desire to interact with people like themselves and who still feel a communal pull. Through Mormon Stories, we have formed regional groups to help fill the void where ward and stake communities once resided in our lives. It has been refreshing meeting up, conversing on facebook, and emailing these regional members from all walks of life.


This weekend, we had our regional conference for the Washington DC area. I was fortunate enough to be part of the planning committee for the event. Our team was so incredible. The bonus was having varying degrees of faith represented in the planning. Through that we were able to create an event inclusive to all. I would love to give the run-down of the whole thing, but, rather, I am going to highlight some of my more poignant experiences. 


I have not been around very many openly gay people. Of course I had my own thoughts influenced by the church regarding same-sex attraction. Then Prop 8 happened and that compelled me to think deeper about the issue. Around the same time I listened to the podcast John Dehlin did with Carol Lynn Pearson and from there, my views have evolved. 


At the conference, I met and conversed with many openly gay people and for the first time I saw them for who they have always been: Just normal men and women, trying to lead normal, happy lives. They were no different than I. It is not that I expected warts or horns. I was not expecting anything really, but for the first time my heart opened up as I listened to their own Mormon stories. I saw pain and sorrow and then I saw relief. Relief of finally being accepted by a group who all have a common denominator in Mormonism. 


I loved our conference and I love the people who were there. More to come in the following days, but for now I am exhausted. Exhausted and utterly fulfilled.

If Given An Ear

I recently was asked if I were able to have the ear of some General Authority, what would I say or ask them: Simply put, my response was:


Personally, I do not care about women receiving the priesthood because I no longer believe in its power, but it would be refreshing to see women involved in higher decision making processes, instead of those decisions being based solely on the 1960's male tradition of running things. Seeing some female representation would be huge for me.


I would also love to see The Church go back to basics with Christ's message. I do not like seeing such a rich and powerful church use its resources for things other than to relieve human suffering. So much good could be done for God's children around the world if those resources were spent on them rather than on the infrastructure of the church. 

Crunching Numbers

The data I used for this calculation comes straight from the Church's website.

Here's a couple of interesting things to note:


Membership                                                14,131,467
Value of Humanitarian Aide Since 1985       $1.3 Billion

So lets do some math:

1,300,000,000 / 25 years of humanitarian aid = $52,000,00/year.


$52,000,000 / 14,131,467 members = $3.67/member/year of what is contributed from their tithing to humanitarian aid


Things to consider: What the Church has contributed to humanitarian aid each year regarding to the actual membership of that year.


Other things to consider: 25,000 people die EACH DAY (both adults and children) due to hunger.


And on a different note: 2 new temples are to be built in the Republic of Congo and South Africa. 


...and THIS is why I can't leave it alone.