And Now, A Letter to Singles Ward Members

First of all, hello world, and --woah. I was not expecting that kind of response to "A Letter to Singles Ward Bishops".

Second of all, see! I knew I wasn't the only one who felt this way!

Third of all, we need to talk.

Now, all that I said about bishops in singles wards is true. I stand by it 100%. That being said, I now have a few words to say to the (apparently massive) group of young single adults-- or perhaps not-so-young single adults-- that responded to my implied, "Can I get an amen?"

Judging by the comments on the original post, many of us are feeling so completely overwhelmed/bullied/misunderstood/undervalued that we are finding ourselves gravitating toward what admittedly appear at times to be greener pastures. Let me start by saying, yeah. I see where you're coming from. You're right. Living the gospel has its inherent challenges, but rising to to the occasion of avoiding vices, bridling passions, magnifying callings and giving up forever sexy underwear only to be met with mangled messages about the worth of your soul and how it relates to your marital status is bunk at best. When you leave what should be the feet of our Savior each week with a head full of undesired marital advice and a solid set of spiritual empty calories, it's enough to make anyone indignant. 



You have every right to be frustrated, disheartened, upset and to want things to change. I am right there with you! However, this business about sitting back silently bitter, skulking off or angrily exiting in search of a better life, we've got to knock that off.

I come from a very large family where I am the only kid who still attends church. My siblings who have deliberately left the church have chosen lives that suit them. They are moral, conscientious folks who have found peace in the way they live. I love them and am happy for them. As for me, I have certainly run the gamete  in terms of questioning my faith. (When you have 11 siblings and two parents that have left the church it's kind of inevitable.) All that is to say, I understand and respect that some of you feel a legitimate need to leave the church. I wish you luck in your lives and sincerely hope you find peace-- but this post is about the people who, in their heart of hearts, at the end of every day and after a long week of discouragement find solace and replenishing in the doctrines of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This post is for the people like me.

If you get discouraged over the marriage pressure issue, getting kicked out of your ward because you're "too old", have gotten divorced and have no idea where you fit in or are otherwise feeling disgruntled with cultural elements of this church that is incomprehensibly expansive in scope but sometimes incredibly narrow minded and always will be imperfect, this is what I have to say to you:

1. God knows you on a deeper level than is presently fathomable to the mortal mind. He is aware of this moment in your life and He will not leave you. This I know for sure.

2. You are not alone. Not only is God there, but sitting in your congregation each week there are people --and often not the ones you'd expect-- who are having similar experiences to yours.

3. When it seems no one notices, no one understands, and no one cares, God does. Your efforts are neither wasted nor unwitnessed.

4.  This church so desperately needs you to be present, invested, involved and vocal.

Think this through for a moment. If in every ward the people who feel the way you and I do keep their mouths shut and walk away in search of the magical land of Truth Minus Cultural Mishaps, how will the culture of the church ever shift to live up to the doctrinal mandates? How will any of us feel less alone? How can any of us survive? 

5. We cannot always rely on outside sources to contribute to our spiritual well being.

It shouldn't be this way. It's not fair. It's not what we or the natural man in us want. I'm convinced it's not really what God has in mind either. He favors a Zion like society. However, it is Godly to take seriously the responsibility for nourishing ourselves spiritually, and we can do it with God's help, even when it's a spiritual party of two. Trust me. If God and I can pull me up by my bootstraps after the year 2012 in my life, you can make it through your rivers of sorrow too.

So this week, get in touch with God and when you do, ask Him how He feels about you. Ask Him if He loves you less for being single or childless or for having your addictions. Ask Him if He knows what's in your heart, then ask Him who around you uniquely needs your help. Open your mind and heart and listen. Then, no matter what anyone says this Sunday about marriage or babies or age or their spiritual experience on their jet ski, remember how you feel with God. Remember that all God's kids are mortal (including you and me), and remember that you have a right to be where you are, to feel how you feel and to have your own personal relationship with Heavenly Father. Walk tall in your little patch of the vineyard, and stop looking for the door. We need you. I need you. The church and the world need you to let your light so shine.

A Letter to Singles Ward Bishops

I remember one Sunday I was at BYU in Provo. I was standing in some line with a few kids I had just met in my ward, pretending to be excited about the ever enticing "free food!" gimmick we Mormons are awfully fond of.  I was making chit chat with a reasonably attractive, nice young man when one of the counselors of the bishopric walked by and said, "Now remember, enjoy the food, but don't forget to look for your eternal companion!" The kid and I smiled at each other awkwardly, made some joke about how we should get married, made it through the lunch line, then never spoke again.




Elder Boyd K. Packer once taught a lesson to a group of missionaries at a zone conference. (Full account  here.) The true story goes like this: Sister Packer bakes a beautiful cake. Elder Packer asks if anyone would like a piece. An Elder volunteers. He serves the slice of cake to the Elder on a crystal plate in a dignified manner and asks for another volunteer. While the next Elder is anxiously awaiting his slice Elder Packer rips the top off the cake with his bare hand and hurls it at the unsuspecting Elder, memorably proving the point that it's not what we do but how we do it.




There seems to be a great sense of concern over my demographic in the church of 18-30 and unmarried, and rightly so. We are tragically turning away from God at an alarming rate. Somewhere along the line, however, someone decided the way to fix this issue is to get us all married off. My feeling is that this direction comes from high up in the chain. I say this because most of the "get married" talks I've sat through come across to me as inauthentic and contrived, as if they were mandated by someone in authority. Even as a divorcee of 8 months I can say without hesitation, I believe in marriage. I believe it's Godly, I believe it's necessary and I believe it would help our inactivity rates in many instances. The doctrine of marriage and I are cool, but if I get one more piece of cake thrown at me when I didn't even volunteer for the object lesson, I'm going to become a lesbian and marry a woman, just to spite you.




Speaking generally for the body of LDS young single adults today (I've attended 11 singles wards over the course of 10 years, so I feel I can do so with some degree of authority) there are a couple things you should know.


1. Most of us want to get married. It's not because of, but in spite of the pressure put on us.

From what I can gather from the myriad of "get married" comments, talks, looks, jokes and jabs, the idea that my generation would rather play video games or travel or buy something unnecessarily shiny than get married seems to inhabit the consciousness of those in leadership. This is not true. We may enjoy video games or traveling or be pursuing school or career, but this is not why we aren't married. The majority of us want to be married because for most it's a natural part of the human experience to seek companionship. Also, we know it's one of God's greatest tools for cultivating divinity in His people. If we're attending church in this day and age as full grown adults we have our hearts set on Godly things. Give us a little credit. The pressure you're adding is doing nothing for us. Between the age appropriate, God given, biological drive for sex and the nearly palpable social pressure to take the plunge, not one of us will ever benefit from your, "Cowboy up and get 'er done" rhetoric. I don't need a Sunday school lesson to remind me that I'm behind in the race to familyhood. As for those of us who aren't interested in marriage, no public pep talk is going to change that, and the reasons we have are pretty much never as shallow as you seem to think. 

2. There was a caveat in that infamous Kimball quote.

It was 1976 when President Kimball said, "...it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price." (Ensign, March 1977, First Presidency Message.) This got a lot of play wherein it was paraphrased as, "You can be happily married to anyone, so stop being so picky." If you read the article in its entirety, that's actually exactly the opposite of what he was saying. My generation has the internet, so we can read the full quote that talks about being willing to, "pay the price", and we are all too familiar with the price of a poorly chosen mate, which brings me to my next point. 

3. We are traumatized by divorce.

Our parents are divorced, our siblings are divorced, our friends are divorced, and some of us are divorced, so you can't tell us, "Marriage is the most beautiful, celestial, Godly blessing that can be known to man," without reviving in at least 50% of us sharp edged memories that fly in the face of that statement, even if it is true in some cases. Even if we desperately want it to be true for us.

4. You're giving us all a complex.

"Are you dating anyone? Why not? That's really something you should be thinking about," is a direct quote from my singles ward bishop's counselor in a private interview in Provo. I was 19 at the time. There are two possible reactions to this kind of intrusion in our lives. We either walk away thinking, "I hate that guy" or "He's right. What's wrong with me?" Either way the thought is most certainly not, "Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of that!"  In one of my more recent singles wards there was a girl who we called the, "27 and not married girl" because it was like her catchphrase, always worked into conversation somehow, always spoken like it was one, long, burdensome word. I don't know how things are on the male end of this, but I have extensive, first hand experience as to what this kind of overt pressure is doing to the beautiful, faithful, humble, dying of frustration single women of the church. It's making us doubt ourselves, dis ourselves and decrease our lists of marital "must haves" 'till we settle for sub par.  


5. We are isolated, lonely and insecure. 

We need the refuge of church. In America we believe in being fine. Don't believe me? Next time a cashier asks how you are, tell them the truth. Let me know how that works out for you. Church is designed to be a home away form home. Singles wards especially are designed to be families. When the three hours set apart that week for God are riddled with comments like, "Are you dating? Why not? You really should be." or, "Cowboy up and get 'er done!" or, "Make sure you've got your priorities straight, " we start thinking about our hair and stop thinking about our neighbor. It's about as helpful as a glass of water for a man who is drowning. Please, please, please, stop it. 




In keeping with Abraham Lincoln's counsel, "He has a right to criticize who has a heart to help," I have some suggestions to help this problem. Actually, President Kimball has some suggestions for you, straight from that massively misinterpreted talk from the 70s. I was pleasantly surprised to find some of the best straight shooter advice I've received regarding marriage in the text as I reviewed it tonight. It's worth the full read, but the one point I'd like to highlight is from his "never failing formula" for a happy marriage, and it's exactly what we need. Are you ready for this?

Teach us to be unselfish, to forget ourselves, and to focus on the good of the family, our ward family. 

What we, the endangered demographic have been taught is to take care of ourselves. We need to be taught to receive kindness graciously and look out for our brother. We've been conditioned to approach church as a soiree. We need to be taught to commune with God intimately for three sacred hours on Sunday and then spend our week days and nights with those who uplift us. We've been taught that we need to be sexy and/or rich if we want to be worth anything. We need to be taught how to find the beauty and value in every person we interact with at church. This does not happen when we are perpetually being counseled, "Don't forget to look for your eternal companion." 


I can personally and emphatically attest that the effect that a righteous bishop who listens can have on his congregation is profound. What if every Sunday instead of, "Get married" we heard our ward father say, "In this ward, we're a family, and in this family we don't leave anyone out." What if, instead of wondering how we look in our jeans and if he will notice, we were taught to pick up the ward list and call every name on it to make sure they'd gotten the invitation. What if we were encouraged to look at each other as sources of support and security instead of someone who will ultimately accept or reject us for the remainder of mortal existence and beyond? 




Help us. Teach us. Show us the way to break free from the vicious voices of the world who relentlessly, infectiously declare, "You are not good enough. You are not strong enough. You are alone." Show us how to love ourselves for who we are. Then, teach us to love something and someone more than we love ourselves, because I want to be someone who loves selflessly, and I want to marry someone who lives in selfless love. 

There's doctrine, and then there's culture.

My name is (not really) Imogen Frowfrow, and I love the gospel of Jesus Christ.

No, but seriously.

All I ever want to be be doing is talking about the doctrines of the gospel with my buddies or teaching a lesson in Relief Society, giving a talk in church or listening to conference talks on my iphone. I love discovering one after another after another the connections, moments of illumination, inspiration, and clarity that come when I immerse myself in the Truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Also, sometimes being Mormon drives me crazy.

I am 100% in favor of service projects, cultivating kindness, visiting teaching, scripture study and the profoundly powerful medium of prayer and the way it connects me to God. I served a mission, I love church history, modern prophets and revelation. However, there are certain elements of daily life as a Mormon that drive me completely nuts. These are the things that we have let permeate our religion that are in no way doctrinally supported. We are a people of many traditions, for better or worse, and when it's for worse we have a saying.

"Well, there's doctrine, and then there's culture."

I like this phrase because it reminds me that, in those moments where I'm in church and something feels terribly, horribly wrong, it probably is wrong. This phrase reminds me that that's not God, that's just His kids doing their best, so I don't have to reconcile my life to fit that ideal.

I am also deeply disturbed by this phrase because I've found that most often it's used to justify the places our culture doesn't line up with our doctrines. In other words, it's telling us we don't have to practice what we preach. Some of these cultural elements are peripheral, silly, even entertaining. Others are quietly eroding the souls of faithful Latter Day Saints everywhere and these spiritual siblings of mine are leaving... en masse. 

So what's a poor gal to do in a top down, patriarchal organization run by God Himself when a well meaning leader starts talking about the righteousness of a particular political party, the way God loves some of His kids more than others, or how even a barn looks better with a coat of paint on it? How can we break free from the endless routine of putting on a happy face for the free food activity doused in crepe paper when all we really want is something spiritually solid? When will we start answering from our souls in Sunday school instead of thoughtlessly resurrecting and reciting the responses of days gone by? 

I used to feel somewhat helpless about this situation; victimized by what seemed to be an overwhelming majority of people set on marching to the beat of that drum. Then, I started saying what I actually think and feel, and you know what? Turns out I'm not the only one in the drum line aching for a cello. One of the most empowering days of my life was the day I realized that I'm a part of Mormon culture too, and guess what? So are you.