First off, let me just clarify that there are genuinely good people who are mormons.
With that out of the way-
When members reach out to less actives or to those who have begun drifting away, they send out reminders, cards and letters all addressed to Bro. X or Sis. Y. Rarely do they use your first name.
Even more apparent is the use of 'we' instead of 'I' missed you at church, or We have been worried about you. Oh Sister Y it is so good to see you! We have really missed you. Or, well hello Brother X we have been very worried about you.
Oh really? Quick what is my first name? And who is this 'we'? Do they know you are speaking on their behalf? If it truly the 'we' that care, why are you the only one to talk to me thus far, and only because we passed on the street?
And what of our HomeTeachers and Visiting Teachers- if they are supposed to be our friends, why do they shake our hands once a month AND never call us just to say heymanwhatsahappenin?
I think it is a hive mentality. 'We' indicates speaking on behalf of a group and not as a friend. 'We' shows that you are seen as a part of the collective and primarily just an associate, even if that person is well liked by the speaker. Until that person even bothers to call you by your first name (should they even know it), they cannot feel true concern or love toward you.
So when someone I haven't seen in months or years comes up to me and says Brother JoD, WE have missed seeing you at church, I can't imagine their sincerity being any deeper than a politician shaking hands at a parade.
I think it is a lot like emotions in the book the giver. They do care about everyone,just not very deeply. The problem is they try to act like they are very close friends but in reality they are acquantices. I don't want the person in front of me in line to burn themselves on their coffee and I might say be careful, but when I say that To my daughter it means much more.
The problem Is that you have to be friends with everyone un the ward. Even when you don't know who they are.
I think it's mind boggling and bizarre that they actually think that the person would believe them. That they think it would suddenly motivate someone to go to church. Especially when it is someone you don't even know (I read a lot of stories about how people receive cards in the mail from someone they don't even know). I don't think it even occurs to them that if it were reversed, say someone from their bank said that same thing to them, it would be odd to them. I think it all goes back to the group think.
When my non-Mormon mother passed away recently, there were a dozen or so members of the Relief Society at our house helping with the party after the funeral and leaving food for my non-Mormon father. Not a single one of them mentioned the church.
A couple of them had, in years past, mentioned to me that I would be welcome to come back to church. That stuff was annoying, but they stopped doing that years ago.
I do think that Mormons can band together and care for people without pushing their religion, even if their religion is false.
I had a similar experience. I was inactive but maintained friendships with many. Members of the ward were there when I needed them. A few I hadn't seen in ages. It wasn't a plan to activate me.
I don't think Mormons are any different than anyone else. They run the gamut.
I'm glad you received help and just a few years ago I would have agreed that people just want to help, but let me tell you this true story.
There was an inactive family in the church and the mom passed away, the RS helped with refreshments and a lot of people from the ward visited the husband and the one son who still lived at home. Everyone made the rest of the family feel good, no invitations to church.
However, I was in the preparation and in the meetings when it was discussed how this was the opportunity to fellowship and bring them back to Church, everything done except for the one brother who knew the family was by assignment, everything, and the brother who was a 'friend' was giving us all the information. it's not that people didn't want to help, they were happy to help and support this family, but if we had not asked I assure you they would not have received the kind of attention they did. I felt uncomfortable to go visit them when I hardly knew them, but as a good sheep I did. They didn't know, they will never know, even the ones who were asked to comfort the family didn't know. We, who were in the two or three meetings/conversations knew. And the plan was for reactivating them later, it worked with the son.
As true believing members this is how we helped the people and extended the gospel (noticed I used we). Now I see it differently, this family thought we loved them, but the truth is we loved the gospel and church so much, we extended our arms to reach out and bring all those we could.
As a the EQP I was shocked at what was discussed in the PEC and Ward Council meetings. It was all in the open.
"This family is having this problem, who can we get into that home to check things out?"
"Brother so and so was seen mowing his lawn without garments on, who can we get to go speak with him?"
"This child is turning 9 and still isn't baptized, who has children that are friends with him in school?" "Can we get them to invite him to primary?"
This kind of stuff happened every week! And it wasn't by accident. I remember one week the gung ho little punk SP counselor sat in on one of our little gossip sessions. At the end of the meeting he congratulated us and expressed a desire for all ward councils in the stake to be as nosy and gossipy as we were.
You're lucky you're a man, you got to attend PEC, I think those meetings were more juicy than Ward Council. I was invited once to PEC as RS Pres and it was that day in less than one hour that it hit me, this is were the decisions are made and women are not part of it. The 21 year-old YM President and the 18 year-old mission leader wer!
But you're absolutely right, ward council is all about who is attending, who is not, why, which sins, how can we check on them and most importantly get them back to church. And the ideas flow, I'll invite to a FHE at my home, I'll bring them cookies, so and so are friends with them they can visit, etc. I also had people approach me and tell about so and so doing this or that.
At the end, with doubts already in my mind, I would sit there and think how all the leaders in the ward I got baptized in must have known my life inside out because of the missionaries, I used to feel sick in those meetings.
Why do my visiting teachers want to know every aspect of what's going on in my life? They don't care. They just want to report back. I hate that. I hate myself when I tell them things sucked in by their presents or baked goods they bring. They seem so nice..but I don't think they really care about me.
I think some are bummed that you no longer attend. Some act friendly cause it's their "assignment". Some want to reactivate you because they want god credit. Some may miss your contribution you made to the ward. Some don't give a poop. Since we haven't been active for six years, I've seen the Bishop once or twice. One member comes by more frequently than I would like. The SP has never come by even called though his mother was my dad's secretary for many years and his dad inherited numerous hand tools from my dad's shop when it closed. Most of the member's kids I've taught since they were little sunbeams. So, most members don't give a rats ass nor were your friends anyway. Some I would say are sincerely sad that you left, but are themselves too caught up in their own life's problems (not to mention church) to give it much time.
I had a home teacher that would come at 9:30 at night,,last day of the month,,leave the car running. Never came in the house. He had to read my name from a list. I never knew his name. Sure did miss him a lot. I have to admit that some of my TBM neighbors are good neignhbors,,aquantances and they don't push the mormons on me. Can't say over my life I had true mormon friend. I guess partly my falt, I don't trust people and I am not easy to get to know.
Yeah I like how the primary president leaves a little card on our doorstep for my DS saying "We have missed you in Primary." Um he has never been dicks. Sorry, it is a little irritating. Then all of the little kids wrote their names on there. As if he knows any of them.
Note leaving is a sign of someone fulfilling an obligation, an assignment. People who really care don't suddenly come out of the woodwork after you've "gone astray." They were there all along.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2011 10:57AM by Stray Mutt.
I believe that my friends from church do care. If I called they would be there. If they called I would be there. But! The if never happens very much. A few weeks ago I needed a paper typed because my printer went out, so, I called one of my friends from church and he had it typed up in a few minutes. The church was never brought up. Sometimes I get to missing my friends so much that I am tempted to go to church to see them but the temptation doesn't last long enough for me to get there. Sometimes I let the temptation get to me just long enough to go to their house to see them. I still love and care for them but never have they come to my house to see me. But on the other hand, they never came before I left the church either. I do have one friend that comes to tune my piano any time I call. He will not accept any money to tune my piano. I would and sometimes do the same for him. He is really a great guy and I respect him a lot.
Even when I was a TBM, one of my fellow TBM's hit the nail on the head when she said, "Well, ya know, they're the nicest people you'd ever want to meet..... on Sunday."
That's what I was going to answer - I think most of my Mormon friends are like my work friends. Perfectly nice, for the most part, during work hours but forgotten after I left the office. There are a few you "do lunch" with or go out for drinks with after hours. Or you invite to your house in the summer for barbecues. Those are your real friends. Those are the ones you might stay friends with if you change jobs or move. But the rest are just pleasant (or unpleasant) people you are stuck with during work hours - not people you chose as friends.
If you change wards or go inactive, you are of no more interest to your Mormon "co-workers" than you are to most of your office. The big difference being that when you change jobs, strangers that were hired after you don't hunt you down and tell you they missed you at work.
I ran into someone from church at the grocery store. She said the usual, hasn't seen me for a while, hopes I'm doing ok, they miss me, etc. Their family lives two doors down from us. If her family really missed me they could come across the street and see me any time.
I have always been struck by the fluidity of Mormon friendships. They seem to be formed and reformed around ward boundaries. I will talk to people in the neighborhood who don't know someone who lives only a few houses away because the ward boundary intersects the neighborhood.
A few summers ago we received an invitation to a "neighborhood" party. Turned out it was really a rebranding of the ward summer party. I asked if my next door neighbor was invited and was told that no, they didn't live in the ward (the ward boundary ran between our houses).
Another time, the missionaries knocked at our door. They said they'd been asked to stop by to see us by someone who was "concerned" about us. Hmmmmm, who is "concerned" and what are the "concerned" about? No answer. Doesn't it seem odd that someone who knows us well enough to be "concerned" sends over complete strangers to see us rather than just come over themselves? Again, no answer.
We non-mormons in Utah have a saying: Mormons make great neighbors, but they don't make very good friends.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2011 11:37AM by caedmon.
about my realization that mormonism is about LACK OF INTIMACY (especially polygamy--even between mothers and children!)--and it occurred to me that this is yet another example. "We"--keeps it less intimate.
I do have mormon friends who I actually did meet at work. One of my friends I met when I was 25 (I'm 54) at my job. I haven't worked there for 26 years, but we are still friends--GOOD friends and I know she cares about me. Another friend, I met at another job when I was 29. We are still friends. She is also mormon. I actually have met most of my close friends at my jobs--INCLUDING my boyfriend, who I met 33 years ago at my job.
I do have good friends in this ward. One woman who I thought bordered on fanatical mormon ended up being one of my best friends in the neighborhood. She will just drop by because she misses talking to me. I was never active in the church while she has lived in this ward.
But then there are THOSE and I seem to run into ONE OF THEM A LOT (though she doesn't live here anymore). I can't stand the lady! She always acts all concerned and it is ALL FAKE. Again, I've said before, she stopped by my house on my birthday a few years afterr my ex left and said, "I was going to take you to lunch today, but I had something else I had to do." AND??? You thought I'd want to go? She sent me a Valentine's card this year with a family picture . . .