"I feel the spirit" EVERYWHERE!

There is no way you can ever describe to someone how soft the skin of the stingray is.  You have to touch it and experience it for yourself.  I touched the stingray and felt the spirit.  I watched the stingray swim and felt the spirit.  

Today and every day to come, I'm content and celebrate that I do not know what I believe. I find it acceptable and demand the right to be able to question things and take my time deciding what is right and wrong for me. My religion has become incredibly simple.  For now my religion includes kindness, love, charity, and service and I feel by living these principles and following the dictates of my own conscience the best I can, has made me a better person this month than trying to live by the standards of any organized religion. I have more peace than ever and I still accept many of the teachings that have been instilled in meby the LDS church, but I accept them because they are right for me.  I'm confident that if I was raised to follow my heart and live by principles of cooperation and kindness in another setting I may have become a similar person today.  It's so interesting to me that the actual teachings of Darwin did not focus on competition and the survival of the fittest but of love and cooperation.  I've found what brings me joy and peace and I seize the privilege of finding joy for myself today.

I do not know if I believe in a human God. I do not know if Christ was actually a savior of all man-kind, and I am okay with not knowing.  I hope there is a God so that I can have a chat with him or her or it one day.

I still “feel the spirit” often; I just feel it for different things, yet it’s that same profound sense of peace and knowing.  Yesterday I went on a bike ride to the north end of N. Topsail Island, NC.  I felt the spirit burning in my soul.  I felt an incredible sense of connection to the water, sand, air, and every living thing surrounding me.  I felt like I was completely a part of that spot in that exact moment.  I "feel the spirit" when I watched the animals at the zoo on Sunday, at the Aquarium watching the incredible water creatures two days ago.  I feel in awe of an exceptionally beautiful sunset, when I study history and become in awe of the things people have done for us, and for our country, when I am spending time with my sisters, when I see how I fit into this world. I "feel the spirit" on a regular basis and recognize it much more liberally now that it's not tied with a church I belonged to.

I'm still grieving that for me I will never believe in the church again.  I still wake up every morning and it's still gone.  During all those church leadership meetings as relief society president, when we discussed ways to re-activate those who were inactive, I suspect many of them feel as I feel today.  It's like I've woken up and am that person we've been scratching our heads about for the last year.  Now that I suspect how they feel, I realize that the leaders in my ward were asking the wrong questions?  They needed to ask, "do you believe in the Church anymore?" first, and then if they say yes, perhaps you have a fellow-shipping opportunity.  If they say no, leadership should ask why, and listen to why, and accept that they cannot and will not understand what it feels like to not believe until you actually don't believe.  I can describe this experience on this blog as much as possible, just as I can tell you how soft a stingrays skin is, but until you experience it for yourself, the descriptions are limited.   In my experience, until the mind just let go of the irrational ideas about beliefs I'd been given, until I asked how I knew these beliefs in my mind, and until the doubt shelf and mental gymnastics ceased, there was no way I could understand. 

Up until late February 2014, I was a total believer of the church my entire life.  My doubt shelf was secure and my mind was exceptionally good at boxing up and putting off things that put my mind into rationale thought about religion.  Once my mind said "enough", that it's not true, my mind now says “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”  I don't intend on ever being "shame on me" hopefully.

I loved the church and it was there when I needed it, but the pain I'm experiencing now would not have been necessary had I been raised without it. In my darkest hour of need when no one else was there, God was there, at least I wanted Him to be there and was trained that He was there.  For me now, I trust that my body and mind is fully equipped to succor, heal, encourage, motivate, etc. I've felt an undeniable peace that I've accepted as truly incredible just to be human and to already have "the magic" within me.  I have learned to be more self reliant, more able to stand on my own two feet, and to use what I believe to encourage others to believe also how incredible and capable they are to serve others and to heal themselves and serve themselves.  I did not loose my testimony, I know right where it went...back into my incredible human heart and soul.   Each day is a gift!!!  Today is a gift.

Empathy

The hardest thing to reconcile is that there wasn't just one principle or concept, or teaching, or doctrine that caused my faith to fall apart and crumble to bits in early March (last month).  It was almost in an instant, yet was preparing to emerge for forty years, it was the whole package, the entire "plan of salvation", the whole of the church that caused my my religion to crumble.  It isn't a crisis of faith, and it isn't my need to be a "resting saint", or to have a period where I need to "spread my wings".  It is, just very simply, that the belief system, much of which I was taught was fact and history, is just depressing, is not my idea of a loving God, and that conditional love is just not my understanding of love.

The only love I know is unconditional love through empathy.  It hurts that some of my extended family and friends have pulled away from me, but my love for them is unconditional and my empathy for others give me understanding.  My love for every human, my extended family, my husband, and giving birth to my beautiful children is my understanding of love.  Nothing they do will ever change my love for them, and if I'd never set up kingdoms based on obedience, why on earth would the God I've been taught about do this?  If he (bugged that it's even always referred to as a he, duh) conditionally loves me based on my works, or my children, or any of my family members, that's just unacceptable.  If he created those with flaws, and doesn't view them as perfection in the flaws, and then uses those flaws to assign consequences that are eternally based on a blind test, that's just illogical at best, and is certainly not love but terrorism.

To reconcile that there was still a great deal of good taught in the church, while the whole of the religion for me teaches more conditional love, has been difficult to cope with.  The grief is very real that I couldn't figure this out twenty years ago.  That when I attempted to take a stand as a teen and told my father I no longer wanted to attend church one Sunday, and when he said as long as I lived under his roof, that I'd attend.  If I had the courage then to stand up, and to listen to the human mind that is completely a part of me, what would my adult life had been like?  Having empathy and unconditional love for the me in my teens, twenties, and thirties helps tremendously.

One area I was never willing to compromise on was in who I allowed myself to love completely and marry.  On so many levels, my husband was everything I admired in his gifted ability to rationally think and to love unconditionally.  His ability to respect my faith, and beliefs, and best attempts to live the religion I trusted that five generations had to be "right" with, and to attribute every strong emotion, and burning in my heart to the God I was taught about and the religion...well lets just say that my love for him has grown also this past month.  I'm not sure that I could have done it, but perhaps I could have.  I'm not sure that I could have waited for him, but perhaps I could have.  It had to be so isolating and difficult to be unable to share his spiritual beliefs.

For me, with true empathy comes a deep understanding of others.  Every member of the church now, because I love them, I feel myself holding back to varying degrees.  Holding back because I remember how threatening it is to have someone who doesn't agree with you.  Holding back because it is better for each persons journey of beliefs to be their own.  I get it why now it looks as though the ex mormons look dark or that they've "lost the spirit".  I mirrored their grief for me, and the grief that comes from rational thought about the religion.  It's one of the most basic understandings we have of primates; that of empathy.  There is just so much grief in understanding they can't and don't understand how you feel until the curtain falls, and it gets mirrored.  You can see their pain, both conscious and unconscious, both overt and subtle, and you mirror that.  As hard as believers try to have empathy, until they go on the journey of investigating the church out in their rationale minds, that until they ask themselves if there are other explanations for spiritual experiences, and until they are willing to ask if it's possible that just being human can easily explain what we think is knowledge, believers will continue to see that ex mormons have "lost the spirit".  Naturally, I could be wrong, but so could believers.

Unleashing the Passionate, Thoughtful, Rational, Logical, and Honest mind....

A few days ago I stumbled on this web site about rationale thinking.
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/developing-as-rational-persons-viewing-our-development-in-stages/518

I admit, about halfway through, it was hard to focus and keep reading it as I found the visual of my hand flat and open in front of my face making a brushing motion over my head...this is way over my head stuff.

But, something about what I was reading spoke music to my heart just as if I'd heard a beautiful piece of music.  I think the natural Emily was always a passionate, thoughtful, rationale, logical and honest thinker, and the natural Emily always had the ability to question how and why I was doing things and believing things?

One of my earliest memories was being taken to a preschool.  I'm not sure if it was the first day, and I'm not sure if it was actually a preschool, but I still remember how I felt when they showed us the bathroom.  There they were, several toilets in a row.  I remember how embarrassed I felt that I would be using the bathroom in front of my classmates.  I remember absolutely refusing to go because I thought it was an injustice to have me go to the bathroom in front of other preschool children, especially boys.  How strange is that?  If memory serves me right, I didn't continue at that preschool, and I vaguely remember being out in the parking lot with my mother and hearing her not happy with me.  I'm not sure if I sabotaged going there, or just downright refused.  Just not sure.

Another memory was an attempt to have me take ballet or some other form of dance.  The requirement to conform was completely against my nature.  I wanted to dance like a fairy, and likely would have done much better in a free dance class.  I still wish I knew how to dance today, and I'm not sure how long I lasted in that class as I remember vaguely sabotaging that experience also.

Being a free thinker at such a young age with a religion that requires so much conformity I think caused a great deal of intellectual distress on me.  I'm not sure how to reconcile this, other than the fact that it was so hard to be taught rationale and logical thinking, and then be taught in church that these truths were correct, except for in the case of religion.  Ghosts don't exist except for the Holy Ghost.  Magic isn't real except for when men use the Priesthood to call upon God to do something.  Evolution, well, my best rationale way to get around this was that the earth was as old as science believed it to be, perhaps older, and that 6000 years was not in the terms of 6000 of our years, but of another time periods' years.  The mental gymnastics goes on and on.  For all the time I spent with the mental gymnastics, I could have been taught to be a purely rationale and logical and honest, and scientific thinker.  I may have been a doctor today.  I may have been a scientist.  Alas, I can't turn the clock back, and I can't blame this on anyone, but what I can do is change the future for my own children.

This is why I've resigned from taking my children to church.  At least this is a primary reason why I don't take them.  Just having them attend for the social connection wasn't going to compensate for the wasted time their little brains would have to spend learning sound principles and the latest story of science and technology, only to have the exceptions taught in religion.  I do, however, need to help my children find a social outlet that will help them grow and develop.  My two youngest have a shot at this.  My two oldest, well, thankfully they are resilient as I've tried to become. They will have to cope with much of what I have to cope with, but also have much more time to make changes in their 20's and 30's.

What about my parents, and my parents' parents?  Well, the good thing is that each generation can celebrate bringing a little bit more good to their children, and their children's children.  Each generation will celebrate women as equal to men in every right, but as just as unique as the spectrum of manhood has been made known in being feminine and masculine.  I celebrate that I truly believe my mother and father likely parented me better than their parents' parented them.  There is hope today, and there is hope tomorrow for the next generation of passionate, thoughtful, rationale, logical, and honest minds and hearts.

G.A.M. and G.A.W.

“Growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what's to come. I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come. The thing is, we didn't have to hate each other for getting older. We just had to forgive ourselves... for growing up.”

Yesterday my hubby had several deliveries from Amazon.  He took the initiative to buy some of his own clothes.  As much as he and I like to admit it, he's always had an aversion to shopping for his own clothes, and I've always naturally assumed the role of getting clothes for him.  With our relationship shifting, with me declaring independence from the faith of my fathers', I've started to identify that my husband is a grown ass man or what I like to call a GAM.  Now, I still rarely, if ever, say curse words just in standard writing and found my tongue to be excellent at preserving curse words for only the most heated of disagreements with my spouse. I still don't prefer cursing in every day language, but this acronym just works for what we're both experiencing.  

My husband is losing the wife he's grown accustomed to.  In many ways, we are starting a new relationship, and are now trying to navigate a new season of life together.  This leaves both of us feeling frustrated at times, but also has had unexpected side effects; that we're finally just friends to each other instead of being in the position of raising each other.  It's taking work and practice, but we're both getting better and better every day!

With us getting married at 19 and 20, and with a devout belief system of mine in the LDS faith, and with my husband's desire to follow his heart and conform despite his gifted rationale mind - we both became parents for each other, and we both conformed to the expectations of an inherited belief system.  To each other, we're both now approaching the age of personal identity and independence from our adopted values and belief systems. With me "coming out" in March about my lack of knowledge, belief, or concerns with anything after this life, he has found himself in a new phase also of getting to be completely himself around me.  

Now, when he says, can I go for a hike, I respond with, "you're a grown ass man, what do you want to do?".  Since I still struggle with curse words, I prefer, "you're a GAM, what do you want to do?"  He's doing the same with me finding the GAW in my life being a grown ass woman.  Much easier said than done.

"Mom, is the Mormon church a cult?"

Yesterday, on the drive to my daughter's figure skating lessons, she asked me the question, "Mom, is the Mormon church a cult?"  I replied that I think so, maybe, but I wasn't sure.  I told her I've never looked up the criteria of what a cult is, or what it means to be in a cult?

So, with my curious mind, one source had some interesting criteria found online.  Now, when I was a total believing Mormon (TBM), I would have never been able to see the church this way, but on the other side of leaving the church and becoming a post Mormon, the effects become significant as breaking free is tumultuous at best.

 The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.

‪ Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

‪ Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

‪ The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).

‪ The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

‪ The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

‪ The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).

‪ The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).

‪ The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.

‪ Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.

‪ The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

‪ The group is preoccupied with making money.

‪ Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.

‪ Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

‪ The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

So, after reading this, in my experience, the church has met every criteria to varying degrees.  That had me questioning again?  How does one recover from a cult and lead a happy life?  Well, since both healthy and unhealthy teachings come from just about every cult, the key is to take the healthy, and recognize the unhealthy and try to use the wonderful brain you have to override the lies.  And, there is also info on recovery from cult involvement.  Here's what I found below.  

Once again, reading the recovery required me to focus on my experience which differs from every other persons experience, but also has many similarities.  Thankfully, my experience did not involve some of the more obvious abuse, and the only abuse I experienced, I feel, was that no abuse happened to me with intent.  Meaning, any indoctrination taught to me was with the understanding of love, and was simply mothers and fathers teaching with love from they'd learned from previous generations.  This understanding leads to compassion and love and tolerance of nearly all of my childhood teachings.

Stages in Recovery from Cult Involvement

There are three main stages in the recovery process:

1. Realization and Exit
2. Comprehension and Emotions
3. Reconstruction and Dreaming

Stage One
This first stage varies in length.  The length is dependent on the method of exiting.  This stage is marked by the time and experience that alerted the cultist to the danger of the group and resulted in the cultist exiting the group permanently.  The key to an effective exit is whatever helps to "jump start" the critical thinking process of the mind.  This process has been on hold for much too long because the cult has told the followers that to question and doubt the group is to betray god (or whatever).  The price for questioning and doubting, they are told, is eternal death.  This is a very powerful fear to overcome.
Awareness of the insidious nature of the cult and the decision to leave comes slowly for some and quickly for others.  For example, someone receiving exit-counselling becomes aware and leaves the cult very quickly as compared to someone who walks out after reflecting over several months or years on "devil-inspired" doubts.
Even after leaving, some ex-cultists are not sure if they made the right decision and "float" between their old cult identity and their new freed identity or pre-cult self.  The more information and support a cultist receives during this stage, the better equipped they are to handle the pain and loss of stage two.
Stage Two
The second phase is full of ups and downs, of feeling like you just returned from Mars, of exciting new freedoms and discoveries, and it is also full of rage and pain.  It involves coming to terms with being raped, emotionally and spiritually.  And for many, it involves coming to terms with being physically raped as well.
I don't know how to convey the extremes of pain possible in this phase.  Perhaps, it is how you would feel standing by helplessly as some crazy person slowly murdered someone you loved.  It seems so incredible to many that because they wanted to serve god and their country, wanted to help people, and wanted to make the world a better place - for this extension of their selves they were cruelly used.  This is a very difficult aspect of the experience to reconcile.  "What ever did I do to be treated like this?" is a question that rings deep in the heart of any ex-cultist.  The answer to this question resides in understanding how mind control techniques work.
It is no wonder, then, that the rage and anger the ex-cultist feels is often overwhelming and frightening.  So much so, that many tend to repress or deny the full expression of their emotions.  But, understanding and feeling ones' emotions in a non-destructive way, I believe, is critical to recovery.  This second phase can be extraordinary journey through pain and loss to learning and mastery.  It varies in length and is dependent on how able the ex-cultist is to experience loss and how disciplined the ex-cultist is to study, think, and work toward a thorough understanding of the experience.
A Big Job
One of the truly tough parts about working through the experience is the very fact that it's a very big job.  The ex-cultist must learn how to trust life again and learning to trust requires learning how to reality test.  Because the cult phobias and teachings often touched on many aspects of life, such as family, government, education, religion, relationships, and economics, the ex-cultist often finds it necessary to examine and reality test most, if not all, of the teachings received in the cult for subtle, residual ideas that continue to manipulate the ex-cultist.
In addition, it is in this phase that the individual must learn how to trust themselves again and their ability to make decisions.  Learning to trust after you have been used and hurt can be very scary, but trust in oneself and in others can be rebuilt with disciplined thinking and with courage.  For those who come from dysfunctional backgrounds, recovering from the cult experience often means acknowledging and recovering from the effects of earlier dysfunctional relationships, such as:

• Abusive parents, relatives, siblings, spouse or abusing others
• Alcoholism, rape, incest, eating disorders, drug abuse
• Difficulties with intimacy, careers, law enforcement

Stage Three
To someone in the middle of the pain of stage two, the idea of having a dream again and building toward it is merely a sad, frustrating, and painful laugh.  Having spent many years in stage two I understand that despondent feeling well.  It is possible to rebuild your life.  You will not be able to make up for all the years the cult has stolen from you, but you can make up for some of those lost years.  I've worked very, very hard to recover from a severely dysfunctional family, a life of abuse emotional, physical and sexual, the death of a daughter, many years in a cult, time on drugs and alcohol to 'forget' and so on.
I'm here to share with you that if you are willing to stick with it, to work at it, to work through and let go of myths that look like truths both from the cult's teaching and from within society's teachings, and if you are willing to acquire new skills and improve others, you can and will be able to build a healthy and well-functioning life with a dream you can work toward.

http://www.culthelp.info/index.phpoption=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=7

Intelligence

My hubby texted me this yesterday.  A few months ago I might have been offended by this, but today it gave me joy to look at each new day with wondering.

"The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering.  Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life." - Vasudev

Kind of a strong quote to me, but gets me in "wondering" mode.  Last night I was wondering about what the human brain is capable of.  I've learned so much over the years about fascinating phenomenon taking place in the brain.  I was fascinated to learn about the many notable people throughout history who had epilepsy.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_epilepsy (See Religious Figures)  Simply Fascinating

Just being open to other plausible stories or explanations for the first time in my life as to what my five generations of ancestors believed gives me hope for my children.  It also sheds understanding to why someone would die for something they truly believed happened to them, but science didn't understand back when it happened.  Science is an evolving story.  Science offers new levels of compassion and understanding as to why the story was changed and modified so many times to make it work for a compelling religion or cause.

Putting all our previously held assumptions on trial with no bias in the court of our minds with our understanding of neuroscience today and the experiences we can create in our mind makes each new day a new discovery.  To look at everything once held as sure, with doubt and without bias gives gifts of an expanding mind. We all have a bright and beautiful futures ahead if we teach ourselves and our children to never stop questioning and wondering and dreaming and being creative! With less and less fear, and increasing understanding, our world is still evolving.  Could it have been a temporal lobe epilepsy with symptoms just as varied as the human mind is varied?  Could it have been a silent migraine?  Could he have been in a manic phase?  Could it have been something ingested in the forest? Could he have just been a great liar and story teller, with a wonderful imagination as we've seen the evidence of thousands of other humans who've produced works of art to be appreciated, but not worshiped?

Being allowed to ask questions again has opened up my mind and heart, and has caused me to love life again.  Being able to and willing to question my own experiences with rationale explanations and understanding based on science leads to hope, and renewal.  There is so much to learn.  There is so much appreciation for every person in a lab today working all day long to discover something new using the scientific method.  Five hundred years from now will religion be the master, or science and discovery?  Five hundred years from now will we accept how beautiful and amazing and wonderful the human mind truly is, and just for what it is?  Five hundred years from now will we understand more about how we are all connected to each other and the world we live in?

Mission farewell letter to my amazing mother!

Mom,

Thank you for your loving e-mail.  Your love removes my fears of sharing my deepest parts of my heart.  I hope some day my own children will share their nuggets of truth!  This is how I see you mom.  You, mom, are amazing in your own right.  You are a beautiful female. You have led an exemplary life of love, forgiveness, care, concern, sacrifice, and obedience.  You, are of worth simply by how many people you've taught to love.  You, aside from your beliefs, husband, and children are a powerful force for teaching all that is good and right.  You, are inquisitive.  You, are brave, intelligent, a brilliant violinist, a master teacher and I've listened to and heard on many levels the lessons you teach in your many letters of wisdom over the past 40 years.  You, are one of the most significant humans in my life in addition to dad.  You have a nice balance of seriousness (from your dad I suspect), and the quest for new adventure (from your mom I suspect). You have an open mind and heart and are a wonderful listener, but you are obedient and respectful and courageous, and these are qualities I share and look on as virtuous.

  

Watching you cry in my life communicates to me how strong your heart and ability to love truly is.  My heart is stronger than my mind, but my mind is getting stronger every day as I allow others to teach me, and as I allow my inner teacher to ask any question?  Growing up, just as I've done, some of your words have stung my heart and were hard to hear but I listened because I love you and I know you mean no harm but tell me out of love and passion. I love to hear your words any day or hour.  Your words become eternal after you die.  Now, as a grown women, I'd love to tell you some of my heart that might sting a bit, but I also tell you out of love.

While in the gym running today, my thoughts were on your mission.  You may already know all of this because I can't read minds, and don't know what you know, but I'd love to share my thoughts.  I'm SO excited that you get the privilege of serving and loving the wise, stubborn, and wonderful culture in the people of Germany, yes, that's a stereotype.  I challenge you while you're there to listen to their stories and lessons learned through living through the regimes of Hitler and other oppressive leaders and religions.  

Many Germans who are Christian believe that we are saved by grace alone.  I challenge you to really ponder this mom and study the new testament about this concept as a little child once again, and why they believe that this was not a conditional gift.  The concept of grace with works was always a doctrine my inner teacher had to repeatedly put on the "shelf".  That wise little girl I was taught not to trust completely at 8 knew more about life and love than I do now.  I'm not in a Christian religion, but I can appreciate the concept now that Christ freely, and with no conditions/ordinances/priesthoods/temples/tithing/commandments/church, gave the gift of the atonement to us without any conditions whatsoever or things we need to do to be saved.  I reject the concept others have taught on how you "accept" him and think people have really manipulated this pure teaching of Christ over the centuries.  The way I view it, you accept that he loved you unconditionally, and that's all, no strings attached.  How living this beautiful teaching now to Lexi without any pressures to help her get to the celestial kingdom as I was taught will help me love her truly unconditionally.  What a difference this also makes in EVERY conversation I have with other humans now without the conscious and unconscious mandate I have to convert everyone I meet to the one and only true way back to God.  Realizing how different I was, as much as I hate to admit it, as a parent with this always over my head, has led to some feelings of anger that others, whether knowingly or not, used my love for my children and husband to manipulate me, but thankfully unconditional love sees that others only teach what they've been taught, and may be just as much a victim of their view as you.  

How living this principle helps me love you and my husband and others the way Christ did.  It's impossible to love unconditionally with grace tied with works, even if you try super, super, super hard.  I hate to admit when I'm wrong about anything.... but understand better that the reason is due to the subtle teachings common in Mormon culture of being taught through five generations that we're the only ones who have the truth and light.  Taking that leap of faith that your light may not be lost if you reject the church/truth and trust that little girl who had no bias or doctrine was right all along was one of the toughest leaps I've ever made.  It has really been a roller coaster on my heart to read the New Testament again as a little child, and to accept that my concept of Christ was fundamentally flawed.  But, I think I can start with the fact that I was wrong about the concept of grace and works.  Being a mother has taught me what unconditional love is.  I've learned this concept better this year with how tough Tristan has been. No matter how awful Tristan has been, seriously even if he did the most horrendous stuff possible like killing my husband or children or a whole nation - even though I hope and mostly trust he won't, I'd never kick him out of our family for all eternity or put him in an eternal time out...just silly.  The wisdom of the teaching of grace alone teaches unconditional love and I love that wise teaching from Jesus Christ.  My Christian brothers and sisters are closer to the truth than I was....so hard to admit when I entertain that I could be wrong.  My perception and ability to appreciate the life and teachings of Christ have completely changed.

I used to always scratch my head at how they could be so foolish as inherently great people to follow Hitler.   I also used to think that indoctrination and brain washing was only by mostly foolish people.  How can a child Lexi's age give consent on heavy doctrine put into that tiny, pure, inherently good brain?  Look at the new nursery manual.  Until last month, I couldn't have fully understood.  Listen to the German people's passionate hearts and the logic and lessons they learned in having to learn how their passionate hearts and people taking advantage of that may have misled them, and how they learned from this and have come to retain their love of life, have a healthy skepticism, and to become masters in science (if there is any doubt, test drive a BMW before you leave).  The people of Germany have been known to be difficult to convert.  Open your heart as to why this is, and if it's progress to their children, or if they are foolish and have "hard hearts".  I encourage you to look at this through their lens and culture, and not to manipulate your ideals and doctrine onto them, but to grow from them, and learn from them.  

Mom, go there with a heart that they need absolutely nothing to save them, that their lives are already full of love and joy and light as well as pain and suffering as part of being human, and that they are ultimately the masters of their own life here on earth without anyone needing to guide or direct them.  Try out that they may have much more of a fullness of joy than you've ever known? That each day is the gift, that being alive and with people we love today is a gift in and of itself, and after this life, we hope that we'll learn every day just as we have today, but none of us, not even those who designed the doctrine of the church have experience with dying.  The minds of the Germans are capable of coping with every emotion that comes with being human, and even to accept that their minds are amazingly adaptable and can change at any time.....hearts are much more stubborn.   Go there knowing that they already love their families just as much as you do, but that they could never imagine that a God would divide them based on their choices in a blind test of obedience, and then separate them for all eternity if they aren't obedient, and how even with concept of work for the dead, how much this would change your ability to love unconditionally because it still requires them to accept the church which is inherently conditional love at its best.

  

Go there with empathy on how controlling the concept of obedience can be when it doesn't come from our truly free will, and how this distracts from love.  Do you feel free mom?  You have everything you need within you already.  You are a miracle by your own right mom.  You are everything you've done for others.  There is NO fear mom.  There is only complete freedom ahead and the gift of Christ is love that frees us to just live every day, smell the grass, run our toes through the dirt, and love people around us today.  They, as a people, just as the millions of people who left the oppression of Catholicism at its worst have so, so, so, so much to teach us mom, and I'd truly love the opportunity you have today to immerse in learning from and serving a wonderful culture like Germany....maybe some day.  The good news of the world is unconditional love, that each generation IS getting closer and closer to this.  We are joyful and happy and are in the greatest time ever because of the sacrifice of our ancestors.  They had the vision, and they gave us the gift!!!! That great teachers like Christ, Mohammed, Gandhi, and Buddha all teach about unconditional love.

Unfortunately, history repeats itself much more than we want to believe it does unless we learn from our children and open our eyes to see how much progress we've made, and that each generation is getting better, not more sinful!  Our children and our children's children are each learning and progressing.  Catriona's best friend is African American; a dream of tolerance I always had for my children, and it's here today mom!  A dream come true for me.  I can truly say today, and I couldn't just six months ago before I let it go, that I will love and accept anyone she chooses to love; male or female, black or white, and of any faith or doctrine.  I will love them unconditionally.  This is a truly free idea I could never tolerate before because of my adherence and commitment to the church, and I'm connected to my Catholic ancestors now in how hard it must have been for them to leave the only true church then in ways I never imagined.   

Lexi will be able to teach me many things about love as an adult that I never had the privilege of learning.  I look at my children completely differently now.  I trust in her desire to have joy and her ability to find it by following the teacher inside her.  Catriona has taught me so much and has been such a gift of showing me tolerance and respect and love for everyone.   I trust that I can take the best of the teachings of you, my family, and my ancestors and discard the worst just as my ancestors have done for me today.  What an incredible gift.  I can't be more excited to give her a life teaching her to use science, to trust her beautiful mind, and be wary of her heart as love is amazing but also can blind us from truth.  To learn from the great minds of our being human, and to be open to everyone around us.  The marriage celebration will truly be an event to remember some day for each of my children as I embrace another families ideas, cultures, and experiences.  I will lovingly support her if she loves and marries a Mormon, a Buddhist, or an Athiest.  No other agendas bogging me down ever again of obligation to bring them to the church, but just to love them and listen to them and to truly be immersed in their life pain, joy, and light.

The Germans, as you know, are the masters of invention, innovation, science and technology.  They're passion has also had them to following their hearts only to lead to many oppressive leadership and religious regimes and belief in magic which the little girl always taught me didn't exist and that ghosts don't exist and never have, even in religion.  I was afraid to embrace this concept on the shelf the most, but its also been the most liberating to finally accept the concept I constantly had to shelf; something many generations of ancestors have been trying to teach me. I'm connected to them in ways I never imagined.  I share some of their experience now.  

With this challenge, to be as a little child again while in Germany, I promise you this journey will be the toughest, most mind stretching, and most beautiful and liberating experiences of your life!!! Open your heart to new ideas, and the ability to truly understand how to love and serve the people absolutely and completely unconditionally.  Each of our journeys' are special and so unique and our ours to tell.  

Thanks for reading my thoughts, and sorry it took so much time.  I'm absolutely as thrilled as I can be that you're embarking on this journey, and will sing hip, hip hooray for you just like your mother always did when you leave on the plane!  I'm so happy mom.  I've never had more fullness of joy in my life.  I'm truly free now to love everyone without bias or condition.  That little girl in me was never bad, never sinned, and was good and true and knew all along that understanding unconditional love is the key.

Never be afraid to ask questions, to challenge your beautiful mind, and always give your mind permission to explore - just as we've always taught our children.  Never be afraid to feel joy, remorse, love, passion, hope, forgiveness, anger, elation, etc.  Your mind is much, much, much stronger than we think it is.  A strong and balanced mind and heart and body was central to the teachings of Christ.

Your daughter.

Emily