I found this question waiting for me in my Formspring this morning:
Can your techniques and know-how on “lapse-hood” apply to other religions as well? That is, would they apply to lapsed Catholics, lapsed Hindus, lapsed Shiites etc.? Please advise. From: Your fans in the Himalayas (really).
Of course! I am a guru to all nations, tongues, and people! In just four easy payments of $39.99, I can make any faith transition practically painless!
I kid, I kid. I don’t know if my techniques and know-how apply to faith crises in other religions (and I am so flattered that you think I have techniques and know-how). Losing Mormonism is tough, but I shudder to think of the pain that happens when somebody loses their faith in Islam (hello social ramifications!), or leaves the Jehovah’s Witnesses or their Amish community.
I wrote a post about a year ago with advice for the newly minted apostate. Re-reading it today, I feel it’s pretty darn good advice for anybody whose worldview has just been shattered.
There are some things that I would add, however.
Black and white thinking is not healthy. This sort of thinking is encouraged by a lot of religions. And let me tell you, the only people who rival religious fundamentalists in black and white thinking are people who have lost their faith, but remain black and white thinkers. They are fundamentalists as well. There’s no nuance there. No room for personal interpretation, no room for metaphor, no shades of grey. It’s hard to change ingrained ways of thinking, but this isn’t a black and white world– it’s fucking Technicolor.
Havi Brooks, whose blog deals with how to overcome the ways of thinking that bind us, wrote about Sukkot and other Jewish holidays, saying, “Here’s what I’m practicing. Consciously interacting with the tradition that I inherited. In my own way, with my own presence and my own understandings of how to take care of myself.”
Consciously interacting with the tradition that I inherited. That phrase has been kicking around in my head for weeks. I inherited Mormonism and Christianity, just as I inherited my father’s eyes and my mother’s tear ducts. Consciously interacting with the traditions I’ve inherited is something that has taken a long time to even consider. I’ve had to work on my black and white thinking, a process that is never-ending. I’ve had to completely reevaluate what the word “true” means to me. I have let go of literalism. I let go of everything and then took back what I wanted, what I needed.
This is Apostasy 492 or something. It’s advanced. Not that I’m advanced, just that getting here, to where I am now, has taken years. I started with Christianity, and am just now starting to interact with my Mormonism. It’s taken a lot of reading, thinking, writing, and personal work, most of which has been uncomfortable, and some of which has been painful.
Consciously interacting with the traditions we’ve inherited, with the cultures we’ve been born into or chosen, with the people around us– this is hard work. It requires an enormous amount of compassion, both for others, and– even more difficult– for ourselves.
I don’t know how much I have to offer in the way of techniques and know-how, but here are the things I’ve discovered to be the most important on my journey: love, compassion, and mindfulness. Those three things will help you navigate any path.
