GOING BACK!

Taking on the calling of female YSA advisor has been a bit of a love hate relationship. I want to show my support to the YSA and to let them know I am available, so I usually only go to YSA Sunday School because I don't want to go to three hours of church.

My past Sunday practice when I was living in Dunedin was yoga in the morning and I would go to the movies in the afternoon. I always felt so refreshed for my week and really looked forward to my Sundays. I consider my yoga practice my most spiritual practice and vital to my spiritual, emotional and physical life. Having to give up this practice has been a challenge for me, not only because of church attendance but also just a general lack of time. The absence of church attendance in my life was a very refreshing and enjoyable experience.

I have previously mentioned how changing my church attendance made me happier and life was easier.  A few weeks ago a friend of mine wrote a blog that articulated my feelings perfectly. She was talking about her own experience of no longer attending church. She said she felt like she was more Christ like and more selfless. I totally have noticed a difference in myself from when I’m attending church and not. Once I had decided to take some time away from the church my life felt lighter in some way. I felt like I was more willing to give as I didn’t constantly have to feel guilty about what I was and was not doing.  I felt like a much more open person and less self-involved (I think). Truth be told, I seemed to enjoy my life a lot more. I felt like my life was much more enhanced spiritually, because I could live and worship in my own way and I no longer felt the quilt I’d been living with for so long.

In going back to church (in some ways) a lot of this experience has been reversed.  I have found myself a lot more irritated and frustrated at times, especially around church things. I feel like this is due to the fact that the things that frustrated me previously are immediately in my life again. I find myself somewhat less willing to give of myself as I am so frustrated and even hurt at times. There have been times where I'm in a class being asked to list the evils of the world. I'm told to encourage people to look clean and tidy, and I hear people being told to shave. I just want to scream but at times it also just makes me want to cry. 

Additionally as the rep I find it challenging and offensive that I have to report to others on what I want to plan and do, priesthood holders and married couples. That the activities I do want to hold or that I even attend have to be supervised by married priesthood holders. Combining all of these things and some of the cultural and institution structures I find the church can be a negative environment and I  have found it takes a toll on me.

However, one of the perks of this calling is that I am basically a social coordinator. I just have to think of awesome things to do. Due to all my negative experiences and frustrations I have decided and am trying to put them aside. I have approached this from a no quilt perspective. In the process of this calling I have decided to work it on my terms. I do not want to be tied down by rules or conformity. I am an adult and I am able to act as such. Due to this approach I feel a greater sense of freedom in my relationship to the church. I choose if I want to go, based purely on how I feel at the time. I  have managed to rekindle old relationships and created new ones. Yes my relationship with the Mormon church it is still conflicted and yes it still drives me crazy but I’m living and doing this church thing on my own terms.