I'm Still Percolating

Still percolating. Updates though, while percolating.

 Baptism for the dead. I am coming to appreciate that this is indeed one of the rituals that LDS members do hold sacred, for reasons having to do with ensuring all have opportunity, living and dead. Also their belief that it among the commandments to make upon earth conditions as described in the scriptures. Although I'm not yet inclined to embrace all the scriptures they are using, preferring still bible as scriptural basis by which to begin to build foundations, and baptisms for the dead is but one verse in the New Testament referencing a practice done at that time in history, I am inclined to think about adopting the ritual in support of the fact that it is considered a sacred rite to LDS membership. Having now learned that the performance characteristics of this ritual are safe and do not include touching of the body beyond a laying on of hands on the head, that element is out of the way. Still a barrier and in the way - the issue of tithing equates to whether one can or cannot enter temple. Right now it is my thought that this church is putting up barriers that will impede my progression, something the leadership and membership desire for me, yet it seems I will need to pay my way to that progression.

 ....................... Sidebar, and in observing one bit of information, leads me to relating more of my (our) faith journey. Skip this part if you aren't interested in reading through 4-5 paragraphs, and I may well have related some part of our journey in previous blog postings.

 Interestingly, side note, there is an Occupy London (OWS) gathering at the St Paul Cathedral in London, Anglican (Episcopal) Church of England, which has been sourced as reason for two high ranking clergy stepping down from their positions in support of not banning the Occupiers from camping out at St Pauls. What has this to do with my blog subject? Just my observant following of the Occupy movement and my affiliation with the Episcopal church. I'm a bit of a dual citizenship Christian in that regard, actually more than dual citizenship but for now I'll reference just the two faith citizenships, Episcopal and LDS.

 I was baptized in Methodist church when I was a baby. In my young teen years I attended a neighborhood church when we lived in the South - probably a Baptist church and the minister called people to come down, and in the feeling of the moment, I went down which led the minister to herd me immediately into baptism - something I wasn't fully ready for, more was in touch with the feeling than knowledgeable about the practices or beliefs. Once again, as a young adult, via home lessons from the Jehovah's Witnesses, I began attending that church, was once again herded into baptism. By then I had our firstborn child and was looking for a spiritual home in which to raise her. That lasted two years, and I credit myself for a bit of perseverance in wanting good for my child, yet finding something not quite in line with what I was looking for, I left that church within two years. late into our adult years, after my divorce and marriage to my current husband, we were confirmed in the Episcopal church (church of my mother's formative years) where we found a church home where we felt welcome, wanted and needed. In time we came to see that the members were older and looking for younger energy to continue the offices of the church, which put us in the path of studies towards being licensed lay preachers, and further down the road unpaid Priests.

 The invasion into Iraq put us on a different footing, with a stronger discernment of ministry in activism to end the Iraq war, a call to Peace. With a military background and both of us having experienced some aspect of the earlier Vietnam war, we spoke as a military family and veteran calling for the troops to be brought home, the Iraq war brought to a close. This necessitated conflicting schedules with our functions at the church on Sundays and our public activism engagements. We advised the membership, spent years between 2004 and 2008 in intense activism efforts. Returning to our home church no longer quite felt like home to us. Years had passed with our country in turmoil, and we found it difficult to settle back into a quiet Sunday worship service routine as the expression of our spirituality, beliefs and recent activism energies.

 We had opportunity to visit a Lutheran worship service, as the Episcopals and Lutherans are in communion. It was not a lot different than Episcopal service and I loved the church building, a quaint building of Norwegian styled architecture. Lutherans have a quite extensive and somewhat impressive social services outreach. Thought it might be a bit too much though, husband still doing social work in his profession, and adding more social work outreach in his leisure hours after the years of intense activism might be a bit of overload. I chose instead to spend some time on the Boards of local non-profits, one that was being smeared badly and unfortunately given their history of good work in the community, and the other a church start-up food bank for local town. As it turns out on the Board of the food bank start up was the same individual who participated in badly smearing the other organization. I remained on both Boards until the inevitable demise of one organization had reached completion, in the hopes I might bring something to the table that would aid in turning it around. Not to be. In the diminished need of the existence of one board, I no longer felt comfortable being on the other board, taking my leave and still wanting for their endeavor to be a successful one.

 A few more years passed, we visited a church in our immediate community, good people, and perhaps a bit of the Evangelical coloring making it somewhat uncomfortable for us. By the time of the year 2010, we felt calmed enough to visit other of the local churches, still seeking a church home for our later years. We agreed we would visit the local denomination churches one by one, and some of the further distance churches based on what was attractive to us in their belief sets and practices, ie Quakers, Unity Church which we had enjoyed in our visit to congregation in Vancouver, WA. We started with a visit to my husband's church, local Mormon church in the area. I was impressed enough with the talks to believe I could make my personal spirituality work within context of this church, his church and I yearned for him to find some place of inner peace with his cultural heritage and identity vs the doctrines the church impressed upon him. I rather knew giving a thumbs up and announcing desire to proceed to baptism would generate the baptism preparedness activity which I by then knew every church denomination seems intent on insisting, thinking we could get it done and out of the way rather than the cat and mouse dance of being convinced to agree to baptism. I had years of life with my husband, exposure to his perception of Mormon beliefs and practices, and felt ready to make this dive for where it might take us. end sidebar............................

  Sunday talks at Sacrament Meeting. Conversion or Convert as a process and not an event. Speaker, a long time member of the church, and also holding an academic and skilled profession as an administrator of school system, spoke of being converted in some areas while still waiting for conversion in other areas. A relief to me to hear. The 'process' of conversion as a process as in over years, maybe decades, maybe a lifetime. Shares the out take from the parable of the wage earners with the late arrivals being paid the same amount as the all day workers. He used just a few sentences, it was a part of his talk, not the subject of his talk. Loved how he gave the parable a green light and ended that part of his talk as the end of his talk with those familiar phrase to 'get over it'. Gives me another sense of relief, that I have a place at this table even if I have arrived late to the party. Bishop talk, and he wrapped his talk up with the phrase to 'suck it up'. Another familiar phrase to me.

  Sunday School - Gospel Doctrine I just can't get into the teacher's teaching style. Asks the open ended questions and seems to me with an expectation of 'correct' responses, not shared thoughts of many. It feels to me like he is wanting people to read his mind as to what the correct response is, or at least based on my feeling/reaction when I do share a response which it feels like he pretty much writes off. I was resolved to provide no response at all, not to let my spontaneity overcome my resolve. I was successful. Bishop fulfilled his promise to sit with me, and again encourages me to share and respond. I'm thinking about this often. Knowing I bring different perspective since I've been exposed to different disciplines, I am coming to understand though, this is not about discussion, dialogue or sharing. It's pretty much rote, routine responses, even if the teacher has worked hard in preparing the lesson. Maybe it's his personal perspective that he brings to the lesson and since he and I would likely not see eye to eye on many of the New Testament readings, because he is in the role of 'teacher' it changes the dynamic as perhaps would not be in a private conversational exchange. Leaving this one as perplexing to me for now, likely will return to it from time to time in this blog. I am not doing well with the Sunday School class, nor the teachers called to teach it. Or at least that is my feeling about it, although I have not had any members call me out on it.

  Joint Priesthood and Relief Society Meeting (men and women meeting together) Four Talks - every one of them about Tithing (capital T intentional). Lay it off to it's that time of year, with tithing settlements sessions with Bishop coming up or can't help but feel like because I did bring the issue up with the Bishop in Bishop interview last week, it brings the topic back to the forefront. One of our newest members (moved here from another Ward) pointed out the distinction of 10% of income or 10% of increase and don't other contributions as strength, time, talents, gifts count as increase. That was not dismissed as not having merit, but given that all the other talks were firm on the 10% of income, I didn't get the impression that the point of increase was considered to be the correct application. Discussions with husband and he assures me that talk is not aimed at me (us) specifically and there are others in the Ward membership who are not paying tithing regularly or fully or at all.

  Community of Christ church meeting We had bumped into website for Community of Christ Church earlier in the week, and read through the website for several hours. It appears that while they are the product of Joseph Smith teachings that did not make the trek to Utah under Brigham Young leadership, remaining instead in East Coast states, the formation of the religions have quite different beliefs. Listening to Mormon Stories podcast; John Hamer, The LDS Succession Crisis of 1844 and the Beginning of RLDS (Community of Christ) we got a feel for the formation and beliefs of the Community of Christ church. Interestingly, when we lived on Samish Island in Skagit County, there was one road in and an RLDS sign was posted showing direction to what we presume was an RLDS campsite. As it turns out, that is correct, it is one of the Community of Christ campsites. I recall at the time, not knowing the difference between Fundamentalist LDS with polygamy, I had mistakenly thought RLDS to be that, and was always put off by seeing that sign, thinking it pointed direction to a polygamous compound. I was wrong about my perceptions, confused about the acronymns. RLDS means Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a name they changed to Community of Christ in 2001 more in keeping with original name of the Joseph Smith church - Church of Christ. Community of Christ church follows the Revised Common Lectionary with the liturgical years A,B, C. Familiar theme via our confirmation and activity with the Episcopal Church. Core message of the Community of Christ church is Peace. From the website, it certainly appeared that the hybrid blend of Mormon/Protestant beliefs might be a better fit for us, we contacted a congregation closest to us and were invited to come.

 We drove the hour drive and met with the people of that particular congregation, very small, newly forming and sharing church building with Methodist church in that particular neighborhood, diaconal Minister (meaning unpaid minister). The people were pleasant, warm, welcoming and inviting enough, sharing their meal with us, followed by their service. We tried to bring to the sharing some of our positive LDS experiences, yet I didn't get the sense there was familiarity to them of LDS community. It was, not as I might have thought, LDS Light, but seemed more of a start up congregation of what could easily have been any Protestant faith, or for that matter, a community non-profit reach out group. Were this what we were looking for, we can find it much closer to home, and we have found it in many of our church and community affiliations. Since they are a quite small group, their focus is on their immediate community needs, ie, holiday baskets, adopt a family, clothing and food drives, helping with holiday community dinner. Bless them and wishing them well in their endeavors, it is not quite what we were thinking it would be and if anything rather validated that I am more pleased than I realize with the LDS church and Ward we attend.

As promised, details on our baptism

I have had ten days to think about it since our baptism weekend, and now feel ready to write my post about the experience.   In between was Mother's Day weekend, in which my two granddaughters chose to spend the day with me and we had  wonderful 'girl time'.   Given that the baptism weekend has taken on sacred qualities for me and my husband, I will give only the outline, and probably won't begin to try to capture the depth of emotion.

My husband and his two brothers have been somewhat estranged over the years of our marriage.  In my assessment, partially for their own familial  'brother' kinds of family relationships, inherent in all families.  The baptism served well to bring them together to forge new relationships going forward.  Both brothers, by choice, wanted to travel from Utah to our home in Washington (state) to witness our baptisms.  Taking it a step further they offered to perform the baptisms.  One brother (former ward bishop) baptized husband, and the other brother (in a bishopric) baptized me.  I have had my own falling out with the younger brother over a strong difference of opinion which has lasted over the years, making his performing of my baptism all the more significant.  This is the same brother who is musically talented, has played the piano all his life, and he performed the music for us that day.  His especially soulful rendition of the song we chose for my husband 'Consider the Lilies' was so personal between them, for all of us, and the impact was felt by all in attendance.

Having family as guests in our home over that weekend was a treasure.    Although our house is not well configured to be much accommodating to overnight guests, it was still a quite successful weekend.  They were accommodating to the restricted geographical circumstances of our home and I applaud them for their willingness to make the best of the situation.  We had traveled north to pick up my mother from Tacoma a day earlier, and she occupied the one guest room in the house, and family made do with air mattress and couch in the living room.  Friday night we were getting tucked in when the electricity went out (happens sometimes here, fortunately not so often).  That added to the 'camping out' feeling that already existed with the camping out sleeping arrangements, except made a tad more challenging getting it set up in candlelight.

Saturday, April 30, 2011, day of our baptism, and we knew to expect some of his cousins who wanted also to be there to witness the baptism.  My son and his lady were coming, and my husband's daughter was also coming.  In a suprise announcement, our niece, a mother of four little ones, was able with help of her family 'move mountains' to make the trip from Utah. I was planning to prepare a meal for all our guests after the baptism, and the head count started at one number and kept growing.   It was exciting and challenging all at the same time.   We had eighteen of our family at the baptism and to our home afterwards for dinner.  Travelers from Utah, Portland, Oregon, Woodland, WA, and most all were heading out that night, either back the same night to their homes or to a stopover location.   Earlier in the day, my sister-in-law suggested a walk and she took photos of interest points in our quaint little community.  Appreciating the walk with her as it was rather calming for me.

Sunday, May 1, 2011, day of our confirmation.  We went to the Sacrament meeting at our Ward, knowing the confirmations had been planned.   With family having performed the baptisms the day before, the Bishop wanted the confirmations to join us to the Ward family, and while respecting it was our choosing as to who would be 'the voice' in stating the confirmations, we had agreed to having a long time elderly member of the Ward speak the words.   I really did want the young missionary who has been with us from the start to have a more active role in my confirmation, and I also understood the symbolism of having a Ward member say the words.  The confirmations were done, including the young missionary, husband's two brothers, the Bishop, and the elderly member of the Ward.  It felt inclusive, covering all the bases, personal, family, missionary and Ward.

It happened to be what is called Fast and Testimony Meeting Sunday, whereby members who feel compelled can have time at the podium to share their faith experience.   Knowing how emotional it already was for us, and not likely either of us would be able to get more than a few words out should we choose to share our feelings, it still seemed an opportune time to me for my husband to speak given that his brothers were in attendance and we would not likely see them again in that capacity.   Dear husband did decide to try, and words were lost to him, he delivered a sense of his feelings by performing one of his beloved piano hymns, one that he had played upon the return of his mission all those decades earlier in the brother's lives together.
It was a quite moving way to give expression when words won't come.  

His brother followed up giving a powerful sharing of his feelings, in which he included what he knows of me in what he shared, catching me by surprise, the singular stand out thing for me he said was acknowledging my personal spirituality.   I will hold onto the content of what he said that Sunday for many years to come.   A few other people came up to share their experiences, and by then his other brother was seated, waiting his turn to share his thoughts, but the clock was ticking and had ticked away the time by the time his turn came, and I don't know this to be factual, but I believe he abbreviated his talk, probably changed the topic as well. But it is good; enough sustaining emotion had passed that weekend and may blessings abound.

What he said...

Posting for the purpose of pointing reader to a recent post on my husband's blog, titled Moving toward baptism and re-baptism.  I enjoy reading the manner in which he puts words together, as he explores anew things of old, dusts off his books of yesteryear to share with me while all the while he is incorporating different approaches as imprints to lay upon the old.

Meeting with the Bishop

Sunday, Feb 6, 2011.  We attend the church meetings.  First meeting is what is called Sacrament Meeting, and I enjoy the ritual of the young men preparing and sharing the communion bread and water.  It falls short of the Eucharist services that I am used to at St John's Episcopal Church, and there are some of the elements of the communion in that it is a somber and sacred ceremony.  I don't know about water instead of wine, but the idea of bread (body of Christ) and wine (blood of Salvation) has enough similarity to be comforting, comfortable.   Although Arthur tells me we cannot partake as we are not yet baptized members of this church.  Hmm, well, that seems a bit harsh, as we are assuredly in communion in the body of Christ already, but it's their church rules, so we will go with the flow.

Off we go now to another meeting they have set up seemingly just for us, as we are the only two in attendance, with two older men who are instructing.  We are reading out of a book, Gospel Principles.  The content structure of the book offers an idea, which includes some verses, followed by some discussion questions.  I liken it to the confirmation lessons we had to take at St John's before becoming confirmed, or a catechism, although I'm fairly sure the LDS people would not appreciate that comparison.

And now off we go in separate directions, he to what is called a priesthood meeting and me to what is called a relief society meeting.  I suppose I should capitalize the first letters in those named meetings.  I'm still struggling a bit though with the gender distinctions, and men being almost automatically in a priesthood while women are what....oh, women, doing what women do best, enduring to the end.  Okay, that was snarky.  I'm a newcomer, I'm permitted to have impressions.  I came from a small local church in our region that had a male and female priest, and across the larger church has a mix of genders who are priests, including women who are Bishops.   Arthur and I had begun the long three year process of training towards becoming priests for the church.  Actually, we hadn't come to that decision, it was a path that we were encouraged to begin to walk, and we were aiming towards becoming licensed preachers, meaning being recognized by the Church to preach, having taken and completed some hermeneutics trainings.   I digress, well not really, as the all male priesthood does seem to me to be a bit of a step backwards, and I'm willing to be patient in learning how this church structures itself, appreciating that while I know some things about this church, I am also in a learning curve with much more yet to learn.

Meetings are concluded and we are off to meet with the Bishop.  He is an engaging and  kindly fellow, with a ready smile, one of our own (by that I mean he has a long history here in the region with it's lumber, fishing industries and his secular career was working in the forests).   We all share some stories about our affections for the area, share some stories about our secular careers, and somewhere in all that friendliness, we shift to the business at hand.  He is in no hurry and pulls out an instruction manual (I assume it is a manual for Bishops and other ranking stewards of the church).  We are amused as it much resembles the RCWs, WACs, and Instruction Manuals we have used in the course of our work with Washington State.

So the bottom line is that when a person such as Arthur, raised in the church, returned missionary, married in the Temple, raised his children in the church, held callings and church offices, and came to point of disenchantment with the church, requesting his name be removed from the church records, is required to go through the same process of return to the church as someone who has been ex-communicated by the church. Go figure.   The night before, with not some degree of anxiety, upon hearing there was to be this interview with the Bishop, while they were reassuring me that I could be baptized, but they were not sure Arthur could be baptized, I had said to the men in the room, that I would not be baptized into this church if my husband was not also going to be baptized.  Once again they tried to reassure me, not fully understanding or appreciating what I was trying to say, which was not that my path to baptism was in jeopardy, but that I had no wish to be part of this church unless it was with my husband, this being a male dominated church structure. They were eager to reassure me that the women had a very active role in this church, and it was at this point that Arthur suggested we all needed some time out from what he described as the train wreck we had just been hit with.

I liked the Bishop, and his approach was inviting, welcoming, but I still took issue with what was seeming to me to be a punitive course laid out for Arthur.  As the Bishop continued to explain, Arthur could indeed be baptized with me, he could not baptize me, and Arthur had already told me he was okay with that, but we had been laboring under the impression that he was not going to be permitted to be baptized until a year had passed.  And I was absolutely sure I had no wish to be baptized into this church if he was not.  As it was explained then, seems it is not nor was it an an issue of baptism.  We both could be baptized.  The issue was the procedure that treated returning people who had their name removal in the same manner as people wanting to return from  an excommunication.  Arthur would have to wait a year for restoration to the priesthood, callings, temple recommend and well, frankly, I don't know what all else.  I was not grasping how this was not punitive, but Arthur was assuring me by that time, that he was okay with it, understood it and wanted us to proceed.

The Bishop explained that he had already sent up his recommendation for our baptism, that it would to to the Stake President, and then up to headquarters (okay that's the word I use, not the word the Bishop used) in SLC.  Or at least that was my impression of the administrative procedure the Bishop was explaining.  He told us the Stake President was going to be at the Ward next Sunday and we could meet with him after the church meetings.

I'm completely happy with the Bishop's handling of the situation inasmuch as it is agreeable to Arthur and he assures me it is.  Next...meeting with the Stake President.