For us lurkers...

Who is this guy and what's his story? Can someone fill us lurkers in? I've only been here a few months.

But I am not sure where it is at the moment. I might have to ask Eric and that will not be till the weekend.

LOL Susan, are you talking to yourself again? :)

But I thought you had your story around here but maybe in the archives? Eric has been working on the archives the last year and I still don't know where he put everything. It is like letting your husband pack for you : P

:) I've never written my story, I try to be enigmatic. Actually, I've been looking at some of the essays I wrote that are in the archives and thinking I could thread them together into a good story. Now for the motivation!

Thanks for all you do.

and someone asked about me and the response was, "Oh, she's a former [church calling]," that would bug the holy living shit out of me--especially if I had just swooped in to tell the board not to be consumed by ex-Mormonism. :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2013 01:27AM by munchybotaz.

Nice pick up Munchy. It does bother me when people focus on former "callings" as if that defines me. That I was a former what ever is so far removed from what I am now. But it's something that gets focused on and I've gotten used to it.

I didn't remember you were a mission president, if I ever knew. I just remember that you were a regular and couldn't resist teasing you. :)

Drone! You gotta get that story done. It's been years. I sooooo enjoyed reading your parcels of stories. I think about you a lot. (Not in a gay way). Your story is so inspiring and at times sad. Like many of us. It's just that most of us haven't been mission presidents.

Write it. In the mean time, someone ought to throw down the links to what we do have from Drone. You are a brave man! Your story helps heal many of us.

Nice to see ya around again! Ya.. you wrote a lot of essays!
Folks are very encouraging here... !

My mission presidents were actually kind of cool. You may have influenced a lot of young guys in ways you will never know.

Every thread I've read tonight (lurking) has had at least one nasty, accusatory response in it. Every thread. The Mormons will flood us out, if we let them. I'm happy to see so many of the more steadfast posters on here, such as SL Drone. He and some others have led me to better understand and sympathize a man's problems with Mormonism. Before RFM, I thought of TSCC as "a good ol' boys group." Sometimes I think they have it worse than women, as not much is expected of us in the way of leadership or being in the public eye. Men and women and children--all suffer.

about his MP experiences. They save everything, so maybe you can find more over there.

Buddha taught as one of the four eternal truths that “life is suffering”. But it is through that suffering that we grow and develop. We escape the traditions and dogma of our parents and their parents by virtue of that growth. It is through this process that we create our own unique spirituality.

The real answers to life do not come from a pulpit or from between two blue book covers. We are all born originals; unfortunately, too many of us die copies. We tend towards the path of least resistance.

If we are truly wise (and none of us are) we will welcome problems and work for the solution and in the process we will become more than we were. Most of us spend our time just avoiding the problems.

It is the nature of most people to decide the truth of all things at a very young age. From then on, life becomes a struggle to support and strengthen those “truths”. The paradigm must be preserved at all cost. Supporting evidence is exaggerated, detracting evidence is belittled, discounted or ignored. It is painful to shift a paradigm. It causes personal discomfort, even sometimes suffering, to redraw the map that guides our lives. It is even harder to disappoint those we love should they choose to not go with us on that journey of personal and painful growth.

It is a shattering and devastating event to alter core beliefs. For many of us our religion was not just a way of life, but a set of core defining values taught to us from our earliest memories. We have fought for our beliefs, and sacrificed greatly of our time, talents and money. We’ve put our families in second place as we devoted our all to the building up of a fantasy. We’ve followed leaders with the strength of conviction, only to find out they don’t really speak for deity, in fact they lie in the name of Jesus Christ.

Now a choice of integrity vs. personal comfort must be made. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, together with its doctrine, dogma and origins are exposed as fraudulent, modified and untrue. It’s hard to believe at first, and even harder to accept. As the clandestine search for truth begins the searcher is skeptical. Heretical thoughts are dismissed at first, then apologized for later. We do what we can to protect our paradigm, our life map, our personal definition of how we see the world. Then the evidence becomes overwhelming, factual and without need of interpretation. Things are what they are. A choice is made. Some bury their new knowledge in a panic and return to their life as usual. They reject the invitation to personal growth and pain. They follow the path of least resistance and the search for truth is over, buried, never to be reexamined. Others, dedicated to personal integrity and truth also must make a choice. Do they make their new knowledge known, do they keep it to themselves, how will they alter their lives? How will they alter the lives of those they love? These are personal and deeply difficult choices. There is no right pattern, we must not look to others for answers. We must search deep inside ourselves, weigh all consequences, then decide on a course of action that balances wisdom, pain, and integrity.

Common is the person who faced with that evidence will dismiss it. It is just too hard to face. Common is the person who will scorn, blame, ridicule and deride the truth. The truth to that person is an inconvenience. He or she would rather go on in his or her fantasy than face the hardship of truth. Anyone who would discount that hardship only need read the stories of those that have traveled that road.

Rare is the person who will look that monster in the face and say “I will change my life, my paradigm, my life map”. “I’ll admit I was wrong all those years and I’ll face the consequences of those that will scorn and ridicule me”.

Rare is that person.

Thanks for posting.

I am just glad he is back posting.....his insights helped me a lot back when I was coming out of the fog. It seems some posters have mis-interpreted his intent in an earlier post. That is unfortunate, from my experience his postings have been very helpful and always thought provoking. I am glad he found time to check back with RfM....

Danboyle +1.

I think and understand why there is a strong anti-authoritarian sentiment here. It appears that some took his observations as "counse;."

SLDrone, I must have read your essay "You Can Never Go Home Again," a hundred times. I have it archived. It is beautiful and poignant. Especially when I was having those same feelings after first leaving. It is kind of moot now because I am so much happier than I ever dreamed I could be in the church, but there are still times that some of that resonates with me. Please post your thoughts anytime. It has helped so many of us.

I found that essay at:
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon518.htm


Thanks for mentioning it!

Here's SLDrone's last 2 paragraphs from his short essay, "You Can Never Go Home Again," - - -

"And so it is this very longing, this very loss of contentment, this very affront to the truth which rips at my very heart that brings me to despise the lie. The lie that promised me so much, that exacted from me my very soul, and then is revealed a deception with evidence so clear that the honest mind must yield, at least it is so with me. Where once was brotherhood is now only loneliness, where once was surety is now only doubt, were once was contentment is now only disgust, were once was love is now only spite. And yet one is truth, the other a lie.

"Oh what might have been? For me the Church has made the lie sweet, and the truth bitter. There is no turning back. There is no way to gain ignorance where it is replaced with knowledge. And yet ignorance was blissful wasn't it? What might have been had a lie not turned my world on it's end. I can never know. I only know I was happier before. Perhaps it's not bad to be a little naive. Alas, I can never go home for it would require a suspension of reason beyond my ability."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2013 04:38PM by jiminycricket.

Thanks for sharing this.

I read SLDrone's post the other day and I think the unfortunate analogy that he started with soured my reading of the rest of the essay. On re-reading, I can see what he was getting at.

I hope he continues to post, and that his latest experience didn't turn him away. I saw a lot of myself in the "You can Never Go Home Again" post, which gave me a lot to think about.