When I joined the Church back in 1999, I was a single mom in her mid or late 20s. Exactly one year later, I received my endowment in the Los Angeles temple and learned a little more about exhaltation. I wont say I was disappointed, but I felt like I had a long way to go if I hoped to reach the highest level. Finding a compatible mate is a lot of work.

I wasn’t really in the market for a partner back then. I was still healing from my divorce in ’96 and really enjoying life as a single person in South Orange County (geography matters). Getting married or even seriously committed was NOT on my mind in the late ’90s. But being a new convert and wanting to be a good Mormon girl/woman, I felt the pressure to find a mate. My only problem was the adorable 60 pounds of tanned skinned, brown hair, doe-eyed cuteness that kept me company. Plus I was old and had a career and way overqualified for the young men in my singles ward. (more…)

Cross-posted at ourmotherskeeper.com

It’s officially summer! And the City of Salt is beaming its beauty into my front room; a slight breeze causes the curtains to dance, tree leaves reflect sunlight onto my face, and birds loudly proclaim their agenda for the day–obscuring the voices coming from kitchen radio. From my living-room window, the visible twin peaks of Mt. Olympus still wear a thick mantle of white, suggesting mid-winter, but the dense green canopy shading my neighborhood’s streets tell another story. (more…)

Another friend of mine has lost her faith in The Church.

She’s like many people we all know: A lifelong member, married in The Church, kids baptized at the proper age, served in many callings, and now she’s done playing along.

I let responsible and thoughtful adults make up their minds about such personal things. As I see it, my job is to support her through this transition time and help her avoid feelings of failure. Much like I would if she were going through a divorce.

Only she knows what’s going on in her relationships. And only she knows what her heart and mind feel and think about her faith.

But her family and friends aren’t so understanding. This good woman, who was loved and respected last week by her friends and family, is now treated as though she’s a bad person by the same people. Her friends and family act as though she betrayed them and that she is in wrong. They’re offended by decisions she made about her personal beliefs, and the best way they know how to respond is to cast her out.

Why do “good” LDS people do this? Is this how our Savior taught us to treat people? Do our scriptures and doctrine support this type of behavior?

So, bloggers, have your say: What is it about our religion that makes doubters and those who chose to leave be cast out from their families and friends?

(Yes, I know that not every Mormon acts this way to the [newly] unfaithful but it’s a common enough occurrence that it’s worthy of discussion)

As we passed Memorial Day this week, I found myself thinking of the people I have lost the last few years. I lost my secretary several years ago, who died young of lung cancer (she was a smoker), I lost my uncle, who died in his sixties of complications related to birth defects, I lost a dear friend who committed suicide after a lengthy battle with bipolar disorder, I lost a grandfather and a grandmother (one from each side) who were both in their nineties, a friend’s family (his wife and two children) died in a car accident, and I lost my mother. (more…)