Independence, Isolation, and Spiritual Growth

Perhaps the most significant change in my belief life over the past several months is this:

I now take full, personal responsibility for my own beliefs.

That means I believe what I believe because I believe it — because it resonates with my soul, because I perceive that God has led me to a particular insight or truth, because it fills me up and changes me for the better in terms of my ability to love and be loved.

Of course, the flipside of this radical new change is that I no longer believe simply because a person, institution, or book tells me to.

What Creation Tells Us About Ourselves and God

Been reading and thinking lately about the Creation.

The other week, my sister called and asked me, “Why did you have a daughter?”  And this launched a long discussion about the impulse to create.  I asked, “Why does a painter paint, or a writer write, or a builder build?”

We decided there’s something about the creating, the painting, the writing, the building, that is inherently valuable.  It’s about expressing life and expressing self.  And as God’s creations, we are expressions of Him — which is really a beautiful concept when you think about it.

Anyway, I jotted down some thoughts on the subject yesterday and thought I’d share them here.  They’re fairly disorganized, just a few scattered paragraphs, but I figured they might be worth exploring…

Mormon Narratives & God’s Grace

Today in Sunday School, we talked about the Pre-Existence and fore-ordination.

At one point, a guy in the class raised his hand and asked, “Okay, so let’s say you’re fore-ordained to do something.  But you fall away from the church, stop believing in God, and totally miss your chance to do it.  Then you come back 10 years later.   What happens to you?”

There were a variety of answers, from “God would find another way to get the job done” to  “you miss out on blessings during that time, but you can still come back to full fellowship,” and so on.

I raised my hand and said, “You know, I think the amazing thing about God is that He’s so big and His grace is so wonderful that He uses our good choices to bless us AND our bad choices to bless us, if we let Him.”

A pretty basic comment, I thought — until I got this response: “Well, we have to qualify that by remembering that, in this instance, we’ve set ourselves back 10 years.”

And I’ll be honest, that frustrated me.  The teacher is a good friend, one I’ve opened up to about my beliefs, and I know he meant to be helpful and kind with his reply.  But if we’d been out of church and in a private setting, I would have responded with this question:

“Why?”

Why do we have to qualify it?

Why is it so terrible to think that God might be able to take something ugly and messy and turn it into something truly wonderful and beautiful — even more wonderful and beautiful than if we’d never fallen?

Why do we have to place limits on God’s grace?

Ideas About Discovering Spiritual Truth

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to unlock spiritual truth.  This is a challenging matter, because spiritual truth is neither objective nor provable.  So how do you define and discover the truths upon which you’ll shape your life…without driving yourself crazy?

Here’s my approach — a work in progress, of course.  I guess you could call it Katie’s personal epistemology.  :)

On Living Through a Crisis of Faith

For H and S.

When you live through a major crisis of faith, everything changes.

You feel fearful when you once had peace.

You experience anger, bitterness, and ostracism when you once felt the security that comes from “knowing.”

You feel like running.  You feel like staying.  You wish you had never asked the question.  You thank God you had the courage to dig deeper.   You long to share everything you’ve learned.  You know you better keep your mouth shut.

Let’s not lie: it’s a difficult and painful process.

Eventually, though, something strange happens.  You begin to put the pieces back together.

The picture looks different, but the frame is the same.

You find beauty in symbolism, where before you knew only literalism.   You experience empathy, where before you felt only judgment.   You learn openness and grace, where before you were closed and hard-hearted.

You forgive easier.  You laugh more.  You see truth everywhere.

It’s a difficult and painful process, but it’s worth it.  It’s worth it.

Confessions of a Licked Cupcake: The Fortune Cookie

I listened to Elna Baker’s interview on Mormon Expression podcast today and enjoyed it immensely.   Then I Googled her, and came across this:

A New Creature in Christ

I taught Relief Society again this past Sunday.  I felt as though the lesson went extremely well and was well-received.  I thought I’d share my lesson outline here.  I’m trying to capture what happened as much for myself as for you, dear readers, so forgive the length of this post. 

On Elder Oaks’s Recent Gay Marriage Talk

I just finished reading Elder Oaks’s talk on religious freedom and the gay marriage issue.

A few thoughts…

What I Don’t Believe About God

In my last post, I shared 10 tenets of my belief in God.  Today, I’d like to share with you what I DON’T believe about God.

What I Believe About God

So after a long conversation via IM today with my charming brother-in-law Brian (warning: his site contains extensive cursing), I decided to write a post about what I believe about God.

I’ll follow it up in a few days about what I DON’T believe about God.

But let’s get the positives first. 

1. I believe in God. First things first, I believe there is a God.  While I think there are strong reasonable arguments for the existence of God, ultimately my belief in God has very little to do with reason.  (In other words, I think my belief in God is REASONABLE, but reason is not the SOURCE of my belief.)  Instead, the source of my belief is subjective personal experience with the Divine and intense spiritual longings that tell me it is so.  I understand this might not be satisfying to skeptics.  I don’t care. I believe for me, not them.

2. I believe in One God. In other words, I’m a monotheist.

3. I believe God is the Creator and Ruler of the Universe. Still, I think there is NO conflict between science and religion.  I believe what we discover about science reveals more about God’s methods of creation and governance of the natural world as opposed to providing “proof” He doesn’t exist.  The two need not be incompatible.

4. I believe in a personal God. I believe in a God who knows us INDIVIDUALLY and is concerned with us PERSONALLY.

5. I believe in a loving God. More than just a personal God, I believe in a God who loves us.  This is because I have felt God’s love transform me.

6. I believe God is Good. Beyond the fact that God is personal and loving, I believe in a God who is All Good.

7. I believe God is Eternal, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Perfect, and Glorious. I don’t know exactly what all that means, but I believe it nonetheless.

8. I believe God is incomprehensible. As an extension of #7, I believe that the fact that I don’t know exactly what it all means is kind of the point.  I think if a person could comprehend God, He wouldn’t be much of a God.

9. I believe Jesus Christ is God. I’m a Christian, and believe that Jesus was in fact God, who condescended to take upon Himself our sins and sorrows.  I think the idea that a perfect, all-knowing, all powerful God would descend from glory to suffer with us is the most beautiful idea I’ve ever heard.

10. I believe that God wants to make us into something much more than we are. I don’t know exactly what the end result will look like, or even have the slightest clue what it entails, but I believe it’s gonna be good.

So those are the basics for me.  What about you?  What do you believe about God?