You know that American Ride program on the BYU channel, where the motorcycle guy goes somewhere and does a little "rest of the story" history lesson?

I like the program; it's interesting. But every time I watch it, I see that guy and how he's dressed, and I think about the normal dress at church meetings I've been to, and the pairs of youngsters walking or biking around in their white shirts with ties, and I think, is the church trying to trick people into thinking guys dressed like this are part of the LDS picture?

I'm not saying this very well. It just seems like bait-and-switch.

It's the same thing as the "I'm a Mormon" series. A bunch of commercials featuring normal people doing normal things---and then the tag line "And I'm a Mormon"!!! It's supposed to help the viewer understand that Mormon's are normal people. It is clearly designed for a non-mo audience. Every Mormon seeing the commercials know that those normal people they feature are rarely seen in a Mormon church, and when they are there, they are the ward pariahs.

Wow. Talk about the emperor's new clothes, cognitive dissonance and all that.

To me, as a nevermo who grew up in a home where organized religion of any kind was openly distrusted, this looks like blatant dishonesy, and I am inclined to judgmentally think, "Why would anyone, seeing this, still keep going to that church, keep trying to "gain a testimony" when it is so obviously dishonest?

But then I think about me staying in an emotionally abusive marriage for years, keeping the (Disney-based) Cinderella dream that somehow happily ever after was going to emerge---and why did I do that?

Partly because I was afraid I couldn't make it on my own, and no matter how bad this pain was, it wasn't as bad as that would be---ending up homeless, or whatever.

The other part, I think, is that we are so hungry for belonging and love that if it isn't happening in our present, it's easier to hang on to the magical thinking that somehow it will happen if we just hang in there long enough--beauty and the beast?---

Change happens when we change. And that starts with recognizing the truth, and it helps if somehow, somewhere, we get a glimpse of the truth that we do have it within us to be a whole person who is capable.

So maybe that's just where I've arrived at in my journey now--and that's why the dishonesty looks so blatant.

I guess if that motorcycle guy came to church on Sunday, he'd be wearing a suit and tie, just like everybody else anyway; he wouldn't come dressed in his motorcycle duds.

I still have to wonder about the kind of mind that would put together a show like that to create an image of something that is so deceptive.

Sigh. =(



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/22/2017 11:36AM by relievedtolearn.