Posted by:
Breeze
(
)
Date: August 18, 2017 04:15AM
Since high school, I was manipulated into playing the piano and organ. Mormons love to perform, and they would call me at the last minute, to accompany them, and would hand me a complicated piece of music, and expect me to play it perfectly, at first sight. The performers were usually show-offs with no musical ability. When correlation mandated the demise of all the great music, and the wonderful Lutheran and Catholic organ music I had learned, it was a mixed blessing. I no longer needed to rehearse these simple pieces, but they were boring and uninspiring. This, plus the years of having to sit alone in Sacrament meeting, and not with my children, having to go early and stay late to rehearse, having to rehearse on Saturdays--I burned out. For years after resigning, I would cringe whenever the phone rang.
I quit my callings for legitimate health reasons, and I was too sick to work, too. The people at work were understanding, and they kept my position open, for me to return. The Mormons were not so understanding.
They refused to release me! They told me to bring a barf bag, if I was that sick. The chorister said, "If you can drive yourself to the hospital for your treatments, then you can drive yourself to church." The bishop said that God would give me the health and strength to be the organist, and that if I quit, God would not bless me with health and strength, and I would get sicker. They made me feel horrible and guilty and worthless. After I quit, not one of the music people ever called me to ask how I was. The bishop did call, to ask if I would give free organ lessons. I said, "No," and he started arguing with me. I said I needed all my strength to get well, and to raise my children. No one ever offered help, of any kind.
What fools we were to give and give and give, to a cult that would only take, and never give anything in return.