A moment to myself

I just attended my grandmother's funeral services, and I feel cheated in a way. I felt like I wasn't able to say goodbye or good luck to her. It was strange to hear so much about her and find that the two of us were very alike. I just pray that I don't raise copies of her sons.

I was not able to cut all ties with Mormonism just yet due to a wish to protect my boyfriend, although part of me is dying to destroy the echoes of that past for good.

I apologize for the rushed nature of the posts, but wifi-time is short and my obligations are long. I remember the promises I made here and will attend to them soon.

-Amber

Potential End Game - Tithing Settlement

Today, I have the chance of going to an LDS tithing settlement and telling the new bishop exactly what I think of the LDS church. I want to split myself from the church forever. I'm tired of faking faith and faking belief in things that are in direct opposition to my true thoughts and beliefs.


I'm tired of running and hiding, like a thief in the shadows of alleyways. I want to present myself and express myself even more proudly than I did at SLC Pride in 2010. Later today, you will see my personal treatise as for why I will not count myself as an LDS member. As long as it does not hurt the ones I love, the end game could start today.


-Amber

First Day Mapping Spiritual Roads

The most recent spiritual guidance that I have had pointed me in the direction of reading. I was given the direction to read the New Testament and the book Understanding Our Minds, which I picked up in India during the early days October in 2009. In the last few days, I have had brief connection with what feels like a great being that watches over the universe. Christians would know the being as God, and yet I shy away from that name due to my own past experiences with God.


I don't know if it represents any religion, but I do know that it represents something truthful. I asked it how it felt about knowledge and truth, and if I could apply logic to said god. "Go right ahead," the reply came. "Truth comes in many forms, and to refuse logic would be to refuse truth."


I took notes on the first chapter of the New Testament today, and I think I'll put up some notes tomorrow, when I'm less exhausted.


-Amber


PS - I don't know if this is the God of Christianity, but it's more loving and clear-minded than anything I've met so far.

Muttered Introductions

I'm lost, and no maps aid me. I have been weighed down with so many questions, and no answers are solid enough. I present them to the great examiners inside my own mind, spiritual, emotional, factual, logical, empirical, naturalistic, all of them. All evidence, time and time again, turns to dust in my hands as their eyes examine and watch whatever idea it may have been. There has been so much dust that it all feels like a desert. I walk through sands of spiritual questions, and my life experiences and my religious past trail behind me as a long desert caravan follows a silent scout. No water stays fresh long enough for me to settle down, and all oases seem to vanish before my eyes.


I am a spiritual sojourner and a religious scholar. I have studied many things, and have tried many things. I have emptied my cup time and time again, and I wait to see if that cup will crack from all of the sudden heat that has rushed in and out with it--religious beliefs coursing in and out of my heart. I don't know what I believe, and this blog is meant to help me figure it out.


One belief that I do hold was spoken by the Dalai Lama and many others. "Take the road that leads to heaven. Take the road that will make you fit for heaven."


Also, even more important that being fit for heaven is being worthy of the life we were given. We were given such bodies, minds, and souls with such abilities and capacities--how dare we not use them to the best and most proactive of our abilities. How could we die knowing that we had tossed that aside during our lifetimes? Would they really matter so much to us afterward in the afterlife if they meant nothing to us here?


I feel like a monster that cannot be sated, a devotee desperately grabbing for the remnant of the divine cloak, or the child looking up at the stars and waiting for something to answer her back. I wish for something beyond the fire of my soul to be the guiding star for my own heart, but for now, that is the light that I will sketch my spiritual map by.


-Amber