June 26th was the fifth year we've marched in San Francisco LGBT Pride. It's one of the world's largest celebrations, with usually well over 500,000 people attending. Over the years, I've learned to spot the Mormons in the crowd. It's easy once you know what to look for. Yesterday right in the middle of Market Street a young woman caught my eye--she was looking at me, jumping up and down and yelling, "Thank you!"
I looked back and mouthed the words, "Are you Mormon?" already knowing the answer. And then over the screaming crowd and music I actually *heard* her. "YES!" she yelled back to me.
I left my place at the start of the contingent and ran over, reached across the barricade and into the crowd. Her arms reached out for mine. We hugged, and I told her "You are loved, sister. By many Mormons and most certainly by your Savior." She started sobbing--her breath was actually heaving and she pushed out the words, "Thank you, thank you, I never thought I would see this, thank you and I love you, too!"
I broke away and she held my hand and I looked into her eyes for just a split second. I don't know the details of her history with our faith and I may never know, but her eyes told me it was a painful one. And she clearly misses the love she once felt in this faith that used to be her home.
All of that happened in under ten seconds. Yet it's a memory that for both of us, I am betting, will last forever.
So, why do Mormons march in LGBT Pride?
For the girl I hugged and who hugged me back.
For the millions like her.
For the healing it represents not only to those in the crowd--but to those who march.
For the fact that we belong together.
And because expressing unconditional love is never the wrong thing to do.
To view more of our contingent check out this quick and well done video.
I am Mitch Mayne. I am an openly gay, active Latter-day Saint.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Coming Out From Our Safe Places
Diane and her son, Ross |
I've had the distinct pleasure of knowing Diane since 2008, when we worked together as part a stake-wide effort to repair relationships with the LGBT community after the damage we caused with our involvement in Prop 8.
I loved this woman the moment I met her. Time hasn't changed that--if anything, it's made it stronger. Her kindness, her compassion, her humility and humor--all combine to make her a remarkable human being, and I'm quite confident in my belief she is a blessing to everyone who has the good fortune to encounter her.
Enjoy.
_________________________________________________________
Author Fiona Givens wrote:
“The body of Christ needs its full complement of members:
-the devout,
-the wayward,
-the uncomfortable,
-the struggling.”
I have been all of these at different points in my lifetime. But I am still here
because hands and hearts of my fellow Latter-day Saints have lifted me; because I feel the need to return the
favor; because here, within this church, I have come to know my Savior.
I know many who have not had the experience I have. They
have been shunned for doubting, for questioning, or for standing up for the
right of their LGBT loved ones to belong in a religious environment that
appears to have no place and no plan for them. I weep with them and have vowed
to be a voice for keeping Christ’s example at the forefront of how we practice
our theology.
I have always imagined myself a “live and let live” sort of
person—tolerant and accepting. But I did not realize how far I had to go until
my immediate family became the square peg that didn’t fit.
I grew up with an alcoholic, chain smoking mother. I would
sit in primary and inwardly cry at the thought that I did not have a celestial
family. The idea that we might not all be together after we died terrified me.
I grew up determined to create my own celestial family by marrying in the
temple and keeping God’s commandments, so that my children would never feel
that fear that I felt.
To be sure, I felt inadequate as a mother and keeper of the
religious flame that flickered off and on in our home over the years. But
nothing had prepared me for the despair I felt when our son Ross came out as
gay to our family nine years ago. The cavalcade of questions borne of fear
about what this meant for him and our family in the eternities took me to a
dark and lonely place emotionally. Yet, as the Persian poet Rumi said, “…the
wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
Fast forward nine years, and that light is still coming and
I am still learning what it means to love as Christ loves. I am being taught by
those who have been marginalized for not fitting into the plan. My life is
richer, more textured, more meaningful from these associations. Knowledge and
faith have replaced fear.
I am now converted to the idea that in order to be one in
Christ, we must do as Apostle Elder Renlund counseled. We must:
“…see people through a
parent’s eyes, through Heavenly Father’s eyes. Only then can we comprehend the
true worth of a soul. Only then can we sense the Savior’s caring concern for
them. We cannot completely fulfill our covenant to mourn with those who mourn
and comfort those in need of comfort unless we see them through God’s eyes.”
I received my Patriarchal blessing at age eighteen. There is
a beautiful passage in it about learning to embody Christ’s Beatitudes in word
and deed. I have loved the Sermon on the Mount my whole life. I never tire of
its simple yet profound message. I keep the Sermon uppermost in my mind as I
run a support group in our home through an organization for LGBT Mormons called
Affirmation.
Diane with Carol Lynn Pearson |
My husband Tom and I spend time affirming these mostly
twenty something gay young men, many of whom have felt degrees of rejection
from family members or church leaders.I mourn with them, I comfort them. I see them through a
parent’s eyes—not hard for me as the mother of a gay son. I say to them, when
they worry about their connection to their faith, what Carol Lynn Pearson said
to me when I sobbed out my anguish over my son nine years ago. She said, “Tell
Ross that I have a testimony of HIM!”
My patriarchal blessing also has a passage about my home
being a refuge for God’s children who do not feel welcome elsewhere. A passage
I did not understand until I was asked to do this work that is now so sacred
and holy to me. My dear friend from Arizona, Bryce Cook,
faithful Latter-day Saint and father of two gay sons, echoes my feelings about
this perfectly:
“I have experienced a
joyful awakening and enriching of the soul and have seen it happen to many
others who have become involved in getting to know and serving our LGBT
brothers and sisters. It is truly an awakening because you see with new eyes
and are given a new heart. What many thought they once knew- the firm
convictions, the doctrinal justifications, the prejudices- all seem to fade in
to irrelevance once they see someone as Christ sees them. This kind of
conversion experience will both enlarge your spirit and refine your faith like
nothing else I know.”
I have mentioned how much fear ruled my head and heart when
my son came out and I saw my dreams for him evaporate and felt his utter
despair at the thought that he would never marry in the temple and have a
family unless he lived a lie. Fear is what causes us to judge what we don’t
understand. We fear difference, we fear doubt. We value certainty.
Brian
Whitney, LDS scholar said:
“For me, when I see
the example of the Savior, I see Him spending His time with those who want to
be healed and desperately want to feel his mercy, not those who were so certain
of their own righteousness.”
Fear impedes faith, and it impedes love. It keeps us from
opening our hearts to change and learning from others. It is borne of
insecurity. It is behind the divisive rhetoric we are hearing in this election
season. It is what creates emotional distance.
Does fear make us like the priest and the Levite who pass on
the far side of the road from the wounded so as to insure our own purity? My
friend Tom Montgomery posed this question after his gay teen son was shunned by
ward members who refused to take the sacrament from him on Sundays.
I have learned to be vulnerable on this journey, to admit
that my notions are not always correct; that different kinds of people with
different views enrich my life; that there is more than one way to be a Mormon,
a follower of Christ; that Christ-like action can come from unlikely places.
Christians can be un-Christ-like. Conversely Muslims, like
my favorite family at work, can literally embody the beatitudes in word and
deed, even though they do not believe in Christ the way we do.
A friend wrote in real time, recently, of an experience in
his ward back east that touched me deeply.
“In Sunday school, a
substitute teacher is talking about how his son, now on parole after six years
in jail for selling cocaine, is making a life outside of the church. He is
speaking about how people make beautiful lives amidst great diversity. He is
speaking from a place of vulnerability, going way off the script, and bringing
out the real gospel of Christ. Now others are sharing more personal
experiences. The people who are sharing don’t typically talk during the
meetings. It’s beautiful. The teacher just now related how the prisoners miss
his son. Apparently this now non-member son was instrumental in reaching out
and helping his fellow prisoners. The teacher brings it back to how Mosiah
spoke of how these groups that support one another were called “the churches of
God”.
Are we brave enough to go off script? The script of our tidy
little lives in order to break through that emotional distance borne of fear
and ignorance, in order to reach the one? To create the “churches of God” in
diverse places?
I love what sister Neill Marriott has to say on this:
“With the help of the
Holy Ghost, we can create an emotionally healing place for the discriminated
against, the rejected, the stranger. In these tender yet powerful ways, we
build the kingdom of God. All of us need a spiritual and physical place of
belonging. We can create this. It is even a holy place.”
Elder Kearon, in a talk about ministering to refugees, spoke
this beautiful passage:
“We [Latter-day
Saints] have found refuge. Let us come out from our safe places and share with
them, from our abundance, hope for a brighter future, faith in god and in our
fellowman, and love that sees beyond cultural and ideological differences to
the glorious truth that we are all children of our Heavenly Father. “For God
has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love.”
I would posit that there are refugees of a different kind in
our midst here within Mormonism. Those of us who fit nicely in to the plan must
come from the safety and certainty of our abundance to literally “touch the
cross” as Fiona Givens says, of those who are hurting, because they don’t see a
place of welcome here. These spiritual refugees need a healing place, a place
of belonging.
In his marvelous book “Planted,” Mormon studies professor
Patrick Mason gets right to the point:
“In order to fulfill
its mission to invite all to come to Christ, our meetings must be a place where
all people feel welcome: smokers and nonsmokers, women and men, the elderly and
babes in arms. Native Americans and Arabs and everyone else. Welfare recipients
and billionaires, single and married, divorced and widowed, childless and child
blessed, soldiers and peace activists, believers and doubters, straight and gay.
Every weekers and once a yearers, feminists and non- feminists, intellectuals
and the illiterate, groomed and unkempt. Those in suits or jeans and those in
dresses or pants. Conservatives and liberals, publicans and Pharisees. This
inclusiveness is not by way of contemporary political correctness. It is by way
of commandment.”
My four year olds in Primary get this. Every week we talk
about how Jesus loves everyone, and how great it is that we are all different,
and they enthusiastically embrace this concept. This is why Primary feels like
a sanctuary to me. Kindness can never be over emphasized; it is the light that
enters our wounds.
This poignant poem by Naomi Shihab Nye speaks to my soul:
Before you know what
kindness really is, you must lose things. Feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and
carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will
stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the
road.
You must see how this
could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the
deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with
sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense
anymore. Only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to
mail letters and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the
crowd of the world to say, “It is I you have been looking for”, and then goes
with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
My husband Tom and I are still here sitting in these pews in part,
because of two humble leaders who let love and kindness rule their response to
our child’s anguish and subsequent departure from a church that did not want
him as his authentic self.
My friends with gay children in other parts of the country
have not always been so lucky. There have been judgement and condemnation. Most
of their children have left the church. Some have left their life here on earth
as well when the pain became too much.
What we do and say to others matters tremendously—more than doctrine,
more than policy. Lives are at stake. As stated in first Corinthians chapter
12, we cannot cut off parts of the body of Christ if we are to be one in
Christ. My former Bishop knew this. My Stake President did, too. They reached
out and gathered us up as a shepherd gathers his flock. They answered this
question Patrick Mason poses in “Planted”:
“In our ward families,
can we, in our pale imitation of Christ, develop deep empathy for those
struggling with doubt, disbelief, feelings of betrayal, or suffering from God’s
silence? Can the church be a place for people who cannot now, always or ever
say I know?”
Our family’s experience says yes, it can.
I will close with the simple declaration by Rumi:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and
right-doing is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
It is my fervent prayer that that field can be right here,
right now.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Monday, April 11, 2016
On His Blindness (LGBT Edition)
In March of 2016, Bishop Don Fletcher (the former bishop of the
Bay Ward here in San Francisco, and the bishop who called me to serve as his executive
secretary) delivered a talk at a Fireside here in the Bay Area.
The Fireside is part of an ongoing initiative by a group called
The Hearth, which sponsors and hosts events that build and strengthen an
LGBT-inclusive LDS community. I’m blessed to be part of a community of fellow Latter-day Saints involved in The Hearth, and blessed to know someone
like Bishop Fletcher.
Over the course of the past several years as I’ve worked deeply in
the Mormon community on the LGBT topic, I’ve had the chance to meet what I
think might be the absolute best humans to walk the planet. In fact, I secretly
suspect they might actually be angels in disguise—the depth of kindness, the
compassion, and the willingness to do what is right despite the consequences
are among just a few of the qualities these folks possess.
Bishop Don Fletcher is among the best of them. I hope you enjoy his words from the Fireside as
much as I did.
___________________________________________________________________
On His Blindness
by John Milton
When I consider how my light is
spent
Ere half my days in this dark
world and wide,
And that one talent which is
death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though
my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and
present
My true account, lest he
returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labour,
light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience to
prevent
That murmur, soon replies:
"God doth not need
Either man's work or his own
gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve
him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his
bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean
without rest:
They also serve who only stand
and wait.
Bishop Don Fletcher and his wonderful wife Terri. |
In seventh grade, my English teacher gave our class the assignment
to memorize John’s Milton’s sonnet “On His Blindness”. Amazingly I still remember it verbatim, now
some 48 years later. Though I still have
it memorized, I am certain that I don’t fully understand it.
If I recall the situation correctly, in about the year 1650, Milton
had lost his sight and wrote this poem about aspects of patience with his
visual impairment which profoundly impacted his talent of writing. Interestingly, in seventh grade, I did not
have any idea that I would not only become an ophthalmologist, but that I would
also specialize in rehabilitation of the blind and visually impaired.
At this point in my professional career, I have personally cared
for over 25,000 visually impaired patients.
My comments today are going to merge my professional path with my
spiritual path, and touch on blindness issues as they relate to the LGBT
community.
I’ll start by admitting that I was actually “blind” myself, until
I was over the age of 50, when my brother came out to me as gay. While my
physical vision was perfectly fine, I was spiritually blind to and ignorant of the
issues and challenges LGBT individuals face.
Like the healed blind man in John 9:25, I can now say that through
gifts of the Savior – “one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”
I owe a great debt of gratitude to my
brother Bob and my good friend Mitch Mayne and the Lord for opening my eyes.
A few years ago, my brother contacted me and asked to meet. Bob
and I had always been close, so it didn’t really come as a surprise when he made
the request. But something unusual happened to me before that meeting. While I
don’t want to pretend to be in the same class as Joseph of Egypt, I had a dream
in which I had a vision that Bob was gay.
By the time the meeting took place, I was pretty certain what the
topic was going to be—and I was correct. While the dream was helpful in terms
of giving me revelation, it did something else that might even be more
important. By sharing the vision with Bob, he said, it made the whole coming
out process easier for him. Coming out is never easy—and it’s certainly not
easy when you’re a married man with a history of 50 years of living in the
closet. But that dream gave Bob an extra boost of courage that enabled him to
finally be his authentic self with me, and eventually with the rest of our
family. The revelation made it clear to Bob—and to me—that there was indeed a
grander hand behind all of this. That hand opened the doorway, and Bob—an authentic
Bob—stepped through to the other side.
While I am glad that I could be there for my brother, I am also profoundly
grateful for what that dream did for me.
The Lord provided that dream for me as a tender mercy, to smooth the
process for receiving the loving gifts of insight that my brother would open to
my understanding.
My brother Bob and Mitch Mayne have shared many great insights with
me over the years – Bob as a family member and Mitch as my executive secretary
when I was bishop of the San Francisco Bay ward. I estimate that the wonderful Bay ward may
have a larger gay membership than any other ward on the planet. While laboring in San Francisco, I would
occasionally become impatient with straight “gay unfriendly” people. I had to be gently reminded to give them a
break, that there was often little malice behind their opinions, but instead
blindness—not unlike my own.
We find ourselves now at another extremely difficult period of
time for LGBT members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Much of the great work we did with
reactivation of LGBT members in the Bay ward would now be much more
difficult.
But, the lens through which I would examine today’s circumstances
is perfectly expressed by Sonny in the wonderful movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: “Everything will be all right in
the end. And if it’s not all right, then it’s not the end.” With all my heart, I believe that applies to
our situation in the church today—it is not the end.
When we began our outreach in the San Francisco Bay Ward, one of
the mantras we adopted was a quote by Elder Jeffrey Holland, and one that is
still true today:
“… some members exclude from their circle of fellowship those who are different. When our actions or words discourage someone from taking full advantage of Church membership, we fail them—and the Lord.” (October 2007)
Since I’m not as eloquent
as Elder Holland, I paraphrased his words to come up with a common mantra of my
own—and one that guided the work we did with the ward. That mantra was, “I
don’t care whether you are straight or gay, or whether you have stripes or
spots—you are welcome in our ward.”
With Mitch’s
help, I composed a quarterly hard-copy letter to every member on the ward records(including
those who were less active) and personally signed each and every one. In that
first letter, one of the things I wrote was this:
“In my tenure as a bishop and in the stake presidency, I’ve noted
many reasons members hold back from their faith. Some of them include:
- Those who were offended by a crusty member or insensitive remarks
- Those who are uncomfortable paying tithing, for whatever reason
- Those who are gay or lesbian and struggle to understand how they fit within the faith
- Those who grapple with the Word of Wisdom or other compulsions
None of those reasons - or any other - should keep you away from
the faith you once called ‘home.’ Please
come back. We have a wonderful ward full
of diversity – you are welcome too. You
will be valued here and welcomed as part of our ward family. We meet in the chapel at Pacific and Gough at
9:00 a.m. on Sundays.”
I had the
opportunity to personally meet with dozens of LGBT members (and straight
members) who had become inactive for a variety of reasons. Many of them told me
that upon opening the letter, they were skeptical—yet they kept it, and it laid
on their desk or counter for several months. They would pick it up, reread it,
ponder it—and often summoned the courage to give me or Mitch a call.
Several times I
was asked, “Is this for real? Do you
really mean what you wrote? Am I really welcome at church?” I was always enthusiastic when I responded in
the affirmative—but inside, I quietly found it most distressing that so many
LGBT members expressed surprise to learn that they were welcome to participate
in the ward.
One memorable
story involved a returned missionary who had not attended church in many, many
years. His was a frequently heard
scenario. He assumed that serving a
mission as a 19-year-old would “cure” him of his gayness. It
didn’t.
So, San Francisco
became home and he found and committed to a wonderful partner with whom he
had shared
a close relationship for over 20 years.
As he started to attend our church meetings he felt something very warm,
wonderful and familiar return to his life.
His non-member partner noticed that he was significantly happier and
more satisfied with life, as well.
Liking what he
saw in his partner, the non-member of the couple inquired if it would be okay
if he attended also. I enthusiastically agreed,
and he was a great addition to our weekly meetings. He ended up taking the
discussions, reading the Book of Mormon and gaining a testimony that it was
true. We really should not be surprised
– the Book of Mormon is true. This couple moved across the bay, and they now
attend another ward that welcomes and supports them.
One of the things
I like best about holding the priesthood is the opportunity to use it a service
to others through giving them blessings. As a bishop, I was very generous in my
use of priesthood blessings. I always offered to give a blessing to all gay
members (and non-members).
I laid my hands
on the heads of many wonderful men and women, and the situations were all
remarkably consistent. My first impression, without exception, was
that I needed to tell this individual of the Lord’s love for them, right now,
exactly as they were. Every one of us
needs to know that, but especially those who are LGBT often feel
unlovable.
As a doctor, I have
seen blindness, ill health, and death. I
have done volunteer work in Asia and in Africa and in many impoverished areas
where I have seen much suffering. But perhaps
the greatest human tragedy, with as great suffering as any I have seen, is in
those who don’t feel they are capable of being loved by the Savior just as they
are.
Many LGBT ward
members and many disconnected straight ally members returned to active
participation while we ministered in San Francisco. I now live in Wichita but Mitch and I
continue to have much passion for ministering to those who don’t feel the love
of the Lord in their lives. And while the formal ministry of our work in the
Bay Ward might, for now, be on hold, each of us continues to feel the call of
our Savior to do the work necessary to help our fellows see His hand in their
lives, and feel His love.
Carol Lynn Peason |
One of the people
who I most respect on this planet is Carol Lynn Pearson. She was asked to write a song for the
children’s hymnbook dealing with disabilities.
She has told me that, although a child in a wheelchair is pictured in
the primary song book, she has always seen this as applicable to our members
who are LGBT, as well.
If you
don’t walk as most people do,
Some
people walk away from you,
But I
won’t! I won’t!
If you
don’t talk as most people do,
Some
people talk and laugh at you,
But I
won’t! I won’t!
I’ll walk
with you. I’ll talk with you.
That’s how
I’ll show my love for you.
Jesus
walked away from none.
He gave
his love to ev’ryone.
So I will!
I will!
Jesus
blessed all he could see,
Then
turned and said, “Come, follow me.”
And I
will! I will!
I will! I
will!
I’ll walk
with you. I’ll talk with you.
That’s how
I’ll show my love for you.
(Children’s
Songbook #140)
That song proposes an easy doctrine for this group of people I am
addressing tonight, but there is perhaps a more difficult twist for us now. But even with the offenses of “visually
impaired” Latter-day Saint mortals, please do not feel tempted to walk away
from the Savior’s Church. In spite of what is said to us and around us, we need
to remember that this church is His.
Now, more than ever, we need His love and support—and He needs
ours. One way that we can show our love
for the Savior is by being long-suffering and patient with other members of His
Church.
I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I know that He loves me. The doctrine of His Church that is rock solid
in my heart, and the cornerstone of that doctrine is His unconditional love for
each of us. And while I am mortal too,
and I can allow myself to get frustrated with how mortals fail to express and
demonstrate His love, in my heart I still know that His love for each of us is
universal, and we are infinitely valuable in His eyes.
When I get impatient and feel inclined to question, I think back
to my days serving as a missionary in England.
In addition to Milton, another passage I had memorized verbatim was
Joseph Smith’s rendition of the first vision.
In presenting the first discussion, I would retell it in the first
person, with much feeling. Every time I
told that story, I would feel the Holy Ghost bear witness that it really
happened as Joseph Smith described. I
have no question that it did. He was a
prophet, and the God of Heaven used him to restore His church to the
earth.
One of the things I like best about the Joseph Smith story is
learning that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father knew Joseph Smith personally,
and called him by name. Likewise, they know
each of our names and love and care for us personally. That is true, and as frustrated as I get at
times, I cannot deny it.
Like me, most members have a testimony of the first vision. At the
same time, it feels like many good people lack a vision of the place of LGBT
individuals in the Lord’s church.
So, what are we to do?
Here, I will make another movie reference. I am a Rocky Balboa fan. In one of the sequels, the aging boxer Rocky
gives advice to the son he dearly loves.
His son is having difficulty getting his life together and he blames his
father’s shadow for his problems.
To that, Rocky says:
“Let me
tell you something you already know. The
world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.
It is a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it
will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is gonna hit as hard as
life.
But it
ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep
moving forward. It’s how much you can
take, and keep moving forward. That’s
how winning is done.
Now, if
you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what your worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits,
and not point fingers and blame other people.
Cowards do that and that ain’t you.
You’re better than that!
I am
always going to love you, no matter what happens.”
This has tremendous relevance to our discussion today. In fact, I think there are a lot of
similarities between the LGBT community and prize fighters. Both are groups of people that get knocked
down a lot.
In all of the things Rocky said, of especial significance is this
line:
“If you
know what you’re worth, then go out and get what your worth.”
That is where we have the most critical need in our LGBT
ministering. We need to help all
internalize the label of “child of God” and “loved of the Savior” - that each
of us has great worth.
A critical factor in self-worth is the labels we allow to be
attached to us. As a physician, labelling
is also a critical factor in my professional life. And, I have learned that labels
have a lot to do with whether or not my patients are successful in low vision rehabilitation.
Let me tell you what I mean.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) coined a term almost a century
ago that has been a great disservice to my field as an eye doctor. It is the label “legal blindness.” If you cannot see a certain size letter on
the letter chart (20/200) you are labeled “legally blind.”
But people who cannot see below the 20/200 size letter generally
still have a good deal of remaining vision—they just need some
magnification. With the right devices
and training they can read the newspaper, cross the street, cook dinner and
answer emails on their computers. In
many cases, they live life just as normally as their perfectly-visioned
counterparts.
I would contend that more people are blinded by that inaccurate definition
than any eye disease known to man.
Labelling these people as legally blind is as preposterous as labeling someone
who is sick and in the hospital, “legally dead.”
In spite of timely and competent eye care, many people in America
lose vision with conditions like macular degeneration and diabetic
retinopathy. Here is the common scenario:
First, the patient loses vision, are told that there is no treatment
to restore it and that, by definition, they are now labeled legally blind. Goodbye
and good luck.
Then that patient finds their way to my office. By this time, they have internalized many negative
labels applied by trusted doctors and don’t believe there is any hope that I
can help them. Before I start the medical
rehabilitation process, I often have to rehabilitate their self-perception to a
degree, and in turn instill in them a little hope. In most cases, they are in
fact capable of living independent, productive and happy lives—but the way they
label themselves must change before that can happen.
So it was when I was bishop in the Bay ward. Helping rehabilitate people’s self-perception
was often the first order of business as I met with LGBT members. I had to change negative labels into positive
ones. Those included reminding them:
You are a loved child of God.
You are loved of God the way you are right now.
You are welcome in the Lord’s church the way you are right
now.
You are a good person.
You have great potential to do good and be good in this life.
You are here on earth now by design and it is no accident that you
are the way you are.
You are not alone.
You can become better and the Lord wants to help you to be your
best.
Disciplinary councils are also the source of many negative labels. I have been a bishop in three different
states, and I have served as a counselor in a stake presidency. Consequently, I have had lots of experience disciplinary
counsels and those interested in repentance and utilizing the atonement in
their lives.
If it were up to me, I’d rename the whole process. Instead of, “Disciplinary
Council” I would call it, “Proceedings for Atonement Application.” People that are “Disfellowshipped” need
anything but less fellowship. So I propose we change that label to, “Hyperfellowship
Candidates,” where they would be included first in every activity and invited
into the homes of their fellow members.
“Excommunication” is also a potently negative word. Microsoft Word gives me these synonyms for
excommunication: excluded, barred, ejected,
removed, expelled, thrown out. That’s not
a great list of positive labels. Here, I
would solicit your input—I would love to hear your ideas. So far on my short
list, I have “Reinvestigators” or “Lamb in Need of Lots of Love.”
I feel strongly that the Lord would have us as individuals and as
a church do much better than we have at blessing the lives of the at least
500,000 members of His church that are gay (using an exceedingly conservative
3% epidemiological estimation). We can
do so much more to relieve suffering with the truth of the Lord’s love for us.
So as I close tonight, let me summarize with a list of things I
hope you walk away with.
Let me summarize what I think is important:
- Beware of Labels – avoid negative, embrace positive.
- The most certain and positive label that can be applied to any of us is “a loved child of God.”
- Get up when you’re knocked down. You are not beaten unless you give up. It is a long fight but with the Lord in your corner, you will win.
- Everything will be alright in the end.
- Don’t walk away from the Savior.
- Challenge yourself by asking the question, “What can I personally do to relieve some of the suffering in this community?”
Let me close with a quote from our last general conference. This is from Sister Neill Marriott. Her talk was rich and powerful. Listen to her closing sentence:
“When we
offer our broken heart to Jesus Christ, He accepts our offering. He takes us
back. No matter what losses, wounds, and rejection we have suffered, His grace
and healing are mightier than all. Truly yoked to the Savior, we can say with
confidence, “It will all work out.”
There is much that the Lord would have us do. Don’t jump ship. Let the Spirit guide you as to how best to
use your time, talents and resources in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. To
my mind, there is no greater cause that I want to be involved in than ministering
to LGBT Mormons – and to give sight to those who aren’t able to see the truth
of their own important place in the Lord’s eternal plan.
I bear testimony that He loves each and every one of us, in the
name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
On the Vilification of Disagreement
A guest post by my friend and Stake High Councilman here in the San Francisco Stake, Matt Mosman.
I can't underscore enough how much respect I have for this man. A multi-generational Mormon who almost unceasingly exhibits Mormonism at its best--even when he disagrees with others, including me. He's also among the most well-read Latter-day Saints I know when it comes to scriptures and our history, and has consistently been a voice of reason in rooms where there doesn't seem to be enough of it around. He is not only someone I admire, but he is someone I'm quite honored to call my friend.
Here is his take on the growing trend to vilify individuals who disagree with the new LDS policy on LGBT indiivudals and their chidlren. Whether or not you agree with the policy, there is something for you to learn here.
_____________________________________________________________
I can't underscore enough how much respect I have for this man. A multi-generational Mormon who almost unceasingly exhibits Mormonism at its best--even when he disagrees with others, including me. He's also among the most well-read Latter-day Saints I know when it comes to scriptures and our history, and has consistently been a voice of reason in rooms where there doesn't seem to be enough of it around. He is not only someone I admire, but he is someone I'm quite honored to call my friend.
Here is his take on the growing trend to vilify individuals who disagree with the new LDS policy on LGBT indiivudals and their chidlren. Whether or not you agree with the policy, there is something for you to learn here.
_____________________________________________________________
In the past month, because I’m struggling with the church’s recent
pronouncement on people who enter into a same-sex marriage and the children of
those couples, I’ve been accused of a few things:
- Lacking a testimony
- Not being an active member
- Not knowing my own mind
- Being a person who values “fitting in with the world” over “God’s truth”
- Being part of a “quitter culture”
- “Taking the easy way out”
- Literally being “Anti-Mormon”
- Et cetera
All of this -- all of it -- from folks who live hundreds of miles
from me, none of whom has ever had the opportunity to meet me or talk with me.
A few were positively stunned to learn that I hold a stake calling, as I have
at one level or another for the past decade. I can’t know for sure, but none
seem to have considered the notion that perhaps I am a man who loves the Mormon
church, wants desperately for the church to be as amazing as I think it can be,
wants to help in every way, prays for the leadership of the church to be guided
by the hand of God, and yet honestly wonders if the church has gotten this one
right just yet.
I’m not alone. This vilification of those who disagree has been
playing out across wards and stakes all over the world. That’s a problem, I
think. And I want to think out loud about issues that seem to give rise to it.
On Accusations of “Anti-Mormonism”
More years ago than I care to admit, I was walking down a Chicago
street with my missionary companion, Elder Hansen (not his real name). It was
one of those sweltering Midwestern summer afternoons, where the air just sort
of lays on you like steaming barber’s towels. We were in the middle of a
particularly fruitless day of tracting, knocking on door after door without
success.
As we approached a street corner, a cluster of teenagers, not much
younger than we were actually, appeared with what must have been thirty water
balloons in their hands. Each of the kids was soaked; apparently this had been
going on for a while.
Seeing us, they laughingly called out “church boys!”, and
proceeded to unload their stash of balloons on us. All of them. We were
drenched.
Which, to be honest, felt wonderful. I ran my hands through my wet
hair and stooped to pick up my scriptures, which I’d dropped when I threw my
hands up to ward off the “attack.” Cool water ran down my back. The boys ran
away laughing.
I stood back up, and Elder Hansen was looking at me very
seriously. I think maybe tears were welling up in his eyes, though it was hard
to tell with his face all wet. “Elder Mosman,” he said quietly, “we will be
blessed for enduring this kind of persecution.”
Mormons, it turns out, are hyper-sensitive to persecution. A bunch
of kids having a good time on a hot day becomes a mob bent on harassment, and
just about any attempt to disagree becomes “anti-Mormon.”
At some level it’s understandable, since we are simply recalling a
time when persecution was real. It’s worth noting that Missouri’s Executive
Order 44, calling for Mormons to be “exterminated or driven from the state,”
was formally rescinded less than forty years ago (though to be fair, it was
unused and dormant for many years before that). Mormons didn’t happily resettle
to Utah -- they were driven there by threat of mob violence in Illinois, quite by
force, and settled there at least in part because it was far enough away from
everyone else that they felt safe from being murdered.
So I get it.
But part of being a religion that people can take seriously is an
ability to allow that people, both from within and from without, will disagree
on all kinds of things -- doctrines, policies, whether Diet Coke is allowed by
the Word of Wisdom, how and when to bring up to that one deacon that he needs
to comb his %$#@ hair before passing the sacrament. Most disagreements are
between well-meaning people who just see things from different perspectives. I’ve
had people “do me wrong,” to borrow the old cowboy phrase, but almost never on
purpose.
Disagreement is not persecution, and a Mormon who just doesn’t see
a certain topic the same way as you do is not necessarily even trying to get
you to see things his/her way. Persecution implies a certain degree of ill
intent -- while I may actually do some kind of harm to you on accident, it is
surpassingly difficult to accidentally persecute someone.
Likewise, I think it would be very hard to accidentally be
anti-Mormon.
Moreover, “anti-Mormon” is a bit of a dog whistle for believers,
and should be applied with a significant degree of caution. The accusation puts
the person with whom you disagree outside of the circle. They become, not a
brother or sister who may have a perfectly good reason to feel hurt or who has
a genuine and prayerfully-considered position on a matter, but simply an enemy
of Christ’s church. It’s a heck of a thing to accuse a person of that.
The accusation effectively ends any possibility of a decent
discussion, where I might learn from you and you from me. There can be no
give-and-take after that. I am the enemy. You hold the Standard of Liberty. I’m
wrong. You’re right. The End.
But Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf suggests that debate is okay. In
fact, he says that it’s central to our church’s history: “In this Church that
honors personal agency so strongly, that was restored by a young man who asked
questions and sought answers, we respect those who honestly search for truth,”
he offered in the October 2013 General Conference. I suggest that we all take
him at his word, and allow for people to wonder (and, maybe, wander) a bit.
And in any case, I presume that no one is claiming infallibility
for the church’s leadership.
Do Mormons Believe in a Doctrine of Infallibility?
Mormons do not believe in infallibility. As George Q. Cannon
wrote, in “Gospel Truth”: “The First Presidency cannot claim, individually or collectively,
infallibility. Infallibility is not given to men. They are fallible.”
There is a sort of pat Mormon response to this that allows that
the leadership of the church can make mistakes, like I suppose miscalculating a
tip or something, but not in the guidance of the church. But this simply does
not hold up to even the most casual scrutiny. Elder Uchtdorf refreshingly told
us in the talk referenced above: “To be perfectly frank, there have been times
when members or leaders in the Church have simply made mistakes. There may have
been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles,
or doctrine.”
I don’t want to overstate that. I don’t believe that he meant that
it happens all the time, or that everybody in church leadership in Salt Lake is
just blindly guessing, or that doctrine is some kind of drunkard’s walk that
eventually settles on truth. But this great leader of our church, in a bold
attempt to cast the net wide and draw all of us together, nevertheless cast the
notion of infallibility aside rather dramatically.
That this is true is not only self-evident from the fact that we
are dealing with mortals, it is also evident in our history: Brigham Young’s
ideas about Adam and Wilford Woodruff’s notation in the Journal of Discourses
that “God himself is increasing and progressing in knowledge, power, and
dominion, and will do so, worlds without end” would be considered heretical
today (at least the knowledge part), and one cannot read the church’s essay
about “Race and the Priesthood” without stopping a bit on this sentence:
“Over time, Church leaders and
members advanced many theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions.
None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the
Church.” (My italics)
Now, I want here to say that I am very reluctant to point those
issues out. Many members feel strongly that the church’s leadership has never
erred, and it gives them comfort to believe that. And for myself, I view those
instances and others like them as anomalies in the stellar guidance that the
church’s leadership has given to its membership over the years. I’m not saying
that the church’s leadership is as likely to be wrong as it is to be right. I’m
only saying that it can and does happen that mistakes are made, and I’m
suggesting that it shouldn’t bother us much to say that.
Ultimately, you cannot at the same time hold that the leadership
of the church is not infallible, and yet believe that they never, ever make
mistakes. That is like suggesting that a person is not left-handed while
observing that they never, ever do anything with their right hand.
In the end, the determination of what is right is our own
responsibility. As J. Reuben Clark said, “The question is how shall we know
when the things they have spoken were said as they were 'moved upon by the Holy
Ghost?' I have given some thought to the question, and the answer thereto so
far as I can determine, is: We can tell when the speakers are 'moved upon by
the Holy Ghost,' only when we, ourselves, are 'moved upon by the Holy Ghost.'
In a way, this completely shifts the responsibility from them to
us to determine when they so speak.” (To seminary and institute faculties,
Brigham Young University, July 7, 1954.) I am aware that one could produce a
mountain of quotes that say, in essence, “just follow the prophet without fail.”
That certainly solves for a lot of issues. But it removes from us the responsibility
to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. I do not doubt that I
will never be led astray by the prophets and apostles. I am satisfied
that they are amazing men, and that they are guided quite remarkably by the
hand of God. They will never lead me southwest when the proper path is due
north. But to say that they will never be mistaken at any point on a
matter of policy, or even on a matter of doctrine, is to ignore settled facts
and to shirk our own responsibility.
Policies can certainly be incorrect and require change, and we
have to allow that even some doctrines will change over some period of time. To
say that nothing can ever be revised or modified is to say that you do not
believe in the ninth Article of Faith. Joseph did not write that a few
niggly things would be revealed, so long as they were revealed within a few
years surrounding the church’s founding. He wrote that “many great and
important things” were yet to be revealed. This thrilling possibility is one of
the most attractive things about the church, in fact.
So where does that leave us, or maybe more accurately, where does
that leave me? A little askew, is the short answer. I don’t easily or
flippantly stand apart from the leadership of my church. It’s not something I
do without feeling “off.” But when I search my own mind and heart, and yes even
when I pray about this latest policy, I don’t feel good about it. I don’t feel
peace or warmth or goodness or any of the things I’ve learned to associate with
truth. I feel confused and discouraged.
I’ve read that a fairly large number of church members who feel
similarly discouraged have chosen to leave the church, but that is not for me.
I respect their choice (another thing Elder Uchtdorf asked us to do in that
conference talk), but it’s not mine. I’ve raised my hand to say that I will
sustain my church leaders, and I intend to do that. “Sustain” to me means something
like “support them in every way to magnify their callings,” and I don’t think
that is accomplished if I were to leave, or if I were to pretend I’m okay when
I’m not.
This is how I’m sustaining them: by being honest. Being honest is
supporting. Being honest is helping. Doing nothing never is. A fake
assent never is. Church leaders can do with that what they will, but at least
they’ll know.
So here I am, along with thousands and thousands of others,
feeling a little unmoored. And here’s the thing: you don’t have to feel that
way. I’m just asking you to be respectful and thoughtful when friends tell you
that they do.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
The LDS Church’s Policy on Gay Parents and their Children as Seen through the Lens of Love
A guest post by my
friend Bob Rees, who shares his views on recent Latter-day Saint policy changes
that affect LGBT members and their children. Bob served as a bishop, stake high
councilor, Institute teacher and a member of the Baltic States Mission
Presidency, currently teaches Mormon Studies at Graduate Theological Union in
Berkeley. Previously he taught at UCLA and UC Santa Cruz and was a Fulbright
Professor in American Studies at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas,
Lithuania.
___________________________________________________________
One of my Lithuanian
students sent a note the night of the terrorist attack on Paris expressing
appreciation for an essay I had written after 9-11 titled, “America’s War on Terrorism: One Latter-day
Saint’s Perspective,”[1] and
informing me that there would be a special Pietà or ceremony of mourning in
Vilnius during what she called a “week of God’s mercy.” I wrote back, “These
periodic episodes of madness, as troubling as they are, do not cancel or
contradict the essential rightness or goodness in the world, especially when we
understand that they break God’s heart as well as our own. Broken hearts mend
and become more tender.” That’s pretty close to how I have felt the past
several weeks as so many of my fellow Latter-day Saints have been in pain over
the Church’s new policy on gay and lesbian parents and their children.
That policy ,which labels such parents
as “apostates” and places strict limits on their children in relation to baby blessings,
baptism, confirmation, ordination to the priesthood and mission calls—in other
words most of the cardinal rights and rituals of membership in the Church--has
caused what scientists refer to as “a
disturbance in the field.” Although this term has specific meaning within both
physics and psychotherapy,[2] I am using it here to describe a
significant disruption in the social and emotional fabric of the LDS church, a
disturbance of the normal healthy functioning of the organization. While such
disturbances are predictable, they are none-the-less challenging and can be
wrenching both to the organization/system and to its constituent
parts—individual members-- as is clearly the case with regard to LGBT members
and their families and friends affected by the new policy change.
I have experienced (and endured) a number of
such disturbances in the field of my faith from the time I joined the Mormon Church
as a ten-year-old boy at the end of the Second World War. Some of those
disturbances have been part of the necessary process of developing a mature
faith; others have been a result of my own inadequate and sometimes failed
attempts to live as fully a Christian life as I have hoped; but most of those
disturbances have resulted from policies, practices and positions instituted by
the Church that have resulted in psychic and spiritual discord. This has been
particularly true of policy or positions that have been injurious or harmful to
others, including the Church’s ban on priesthood and temple ordinances for
blacks of African descent, the unequal treatment and marginalization of women,
and, more recently, policies relating to LGBT members.
*I am indebted to my friend and
colleague, Dr. Raymond Bradley, and his revolutionary work on love as articulated
in his forthcoming The Lens of Love:
Holographic Eye of Universal Consciousnes.
All systems (including all
organizations and cultural groups) constitute fields that have their own order
and coherence—a manifestation of the essential wholeness and integrity that is
the basis of any system’s long-term ability to endure. In human systems, such
system integrity is based in love and our success in expressing that love as a
coherent wave field of energy that radiates literally from our hearts out into the
world in all directions. Such coherent heart-generated energy travels like the
coherent light from a laser, virtually without limit. By contrast, negative
emotions, such as fear and anger (which likely lie at the heart of the new policies, in spite
of assurances to the contrary), generate an erratic, disorganized wave field of
energy, again from the heart, which is the most powerful generator of
electro-magnetic energy in the human system. [3] By
its very nature, such an incoherent field of energy has short duration and
limited reach, although its disruption and damage may be felt within the system
for some time, as I feel will be the case with the new policy changes. In
relation to the power of love, such fear-based energy is small and weak.
Eventually, it is overwhelmed by the more powerful force of love-generated coherence.
Viewed from this perspective, this most
recent disturbance to the field of Mormonism is but an aberration—a temporary,
but necessary expression of pent-up negative energy that some feel in relation
to the truth of the wholeness of love. True love is comprehensive and
inclusive, embracing all, without class, creed, color, life circumstance or
life-choice. That is God’s truth, the truth that Christ willingly gave his life
for on the Cross. Holding the truth of the wholeness of love is not only the
Christian and “right” thing to do, but is to be aligned with the reality that
will prevail as the system ultimately purges itself of all untruths and the
sources of anything less than whole, unconditional love.
As Latter-day Saints (members and
leaders) we can choose to remain in the wholeness of love, and, in doing so, empower
the coherence of love to prevail—as indeed, it always does, even if in the
short term it may seem not to. Even if we succumb with fear to unloving,
divisive and destructive action, the wholeness of love will still ultimately
prevail, for this is the power of God’s love, whether manifested directly from
him or through us. This is the essential message God reveals to us through to
the prophets and our own hearts; this is the truth that Christ gave his life
for. Thus, as leaders and members, as followers of Christ, there is only one
question for us to ask at this critical time: What is the most loving thing we
can do?—the most loving toward our fellow saints (including those who don’t
agree with us), the most loving toward our leaders (even when we may have been
hurt by their decisions) and, especially at this time, the most loving toward
our gay brothers and lesbian sisters and their families. Such love will help
restore order to the field of faith which constitutes Mormonism as well as the
larger and wider field of Christ’s kingdom.
Jews have an ethical imperative called ”Tikkun
olam,” which means “healing, repairing and transforming the world.” In a
lecture I gave last year, I coined the term “Tikkun k’nessiah,” which means
“healing, repairing and transforming the Church.” This ethic can be traced back to the sixteenth-century
Kabbalist, Isaac Luria, who taught that when God created the world, he sought
to light it by shaping special lamps or vessels to hold his light. Luria
explains, “But as God poured the Light into
the vessels, they catastrophically shattered, tumbling down toward the realm of
matter [the earth]. Thus, our world consists of countless shards of the
original vessels entrapping sparks of the Divine Light. Humanity’s great task
involves helping God by freeing and reuniting the scattered Light, raising the
sparks back to Divinity and restoring the broken world.”[4]
Many Jews believe it is their duty
to participate in the repair, healing and redemption of the world by “freeing and
uniting the scattered Light,” which is tantamount to freeing and uniting the
scattered love imbedded in our hearts. This is the shared, sacred work of God
and humans.
Today there is
immense pain in the Church. Addressing that pain depends on our individual acts
of courage, of sacrifice, and especially of love. It is in that realm where
much of the most important work of repairing, healing and transforming is to be
done. But there is also the larger realm, the Church beyond the individual
broken heart; beyond the sin and insensitivity with which each of us must
contend in trying to make the gospel and the Church work in our lives, our families
and our congregations; and beyond the madness and mystery that characterize
disturbances in the field of faith. That field, especially when we experience
disturbance in it, is where Christ calls us to labor with love. It is as if he
saying to us, to use words penned by Rumi, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and
rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”[5]
[1] “America’s War on Terrorism: One
Latter-day Saint’s Perspective,” Dialogue:
A Journal of Mormon Thought, 36:1 (Spring 2003), 11-32.
[2] The term is used in physics with reference to electromagnetic waves (see “Fundamentals of Physics/Electromagnetic Waves” at https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Fundamentals_of_Physics/Electromagnetic_Waves). It is more controversial in medicine and psychotherapy (see “Defining the Terminology of Nursing” at http://www.nanda.org/DEFINING-THE-KNOWLEDGE-OF-NURSING-Priorities-for-Terminology-Development-_b_7.html). See also Steven H. Cooper, A Disturbance in the Field: Essays in Transference-Countertransference Engagement (London: Routledge, 2010). I use the term herein both as metaphor and to suggest its relevance in any energetic field. See also Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s novel, Disturbances in the Field: A Novel (New York: Open Road, 2005)
[3]
See Rollin McCraty, et al, The Coherent
Heart Heart–Brain Interactions, Psychophysiological Coherence, and the
Emergence of System-Wide Order, .http://www.heartmathbenelux.com/doc/McCratyeal_article_in_integral_review_2009.pdf
[4]
“Tikkun Olam: The Spiritual Purpose of Life,” http://www.innerfrontier.org/Practices/TikkunOlam.htm.
[5]
Rumi, “There is a field,” http://www.elise.com/quotes/rumi_-_there_is_a_field.
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