being mormon.

Being Mormon is an interesting thing. 

One can't ever just "be" Mormon.

A friend of mine in Minneapolis came up to me the other day. "Did you know that the dude on The Bachelorette used to be Mormon?"

I did, incidentally. Word travels fast in the Mormon world about things like that, believe it or not. "Yeah, I don't think he's an active member though."

"I just never thought that a Mormon would be on the show. The girl's not Mormon, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"His family wouldn't disown him or anything, right?"

"No, they won't. Or at least they shouldn't. Mine wouldn't."

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If you're Mormon, and you live outside of Utah or Arizona, you're used to close-mindedness. You're used to constantly having to defend yourself, having to justify why your religion doesn't automatically make you a total nutcase, having to prove to people that you're still a cool, relatively normal person.

Sometimes, it's not even that. Sometimes it's "Oh, I used to know some Mormons. Sweet, sweet, naive people."

Ooh, I hate that. That's way worse.

So maybe I'm being slightly theatrical. But in all honesty, being completely forward about being Mormon to the typical evangelical Christian is hard. Some people are really good at it- I'm not.

Part of it is because I know what's going on in their heads. I wasn't always Mormon, after all. 1) I know that an "understanding nod" doesn't always signify an open mind. 2) I've given enough "Oh, that's cute" smiles to be able to recognize one when I see one. 3) I know that the chance of them thinking exactly what I used to think are probably somewhere around 90%, all of the above which, but especially that one, make me cringe.

Moving out to Utah was weird because there Mormonism seemed to make perfect sense to everybody. What, people think modern day revelation is weird? So weird. Book of Mormon was translated from golden plates, duh. Moroni? You don't know who Moroni is? Polygamy is so 1800s-hello, we don't do that anymore. It's all good, peeps. Obvs need to stay worthy to get a temple recommend. Just go talk to the bishop.

All of that stuff--doctrine, vernacular, all of it--that I was so used to having to explain to everybody suddenly didn't need to be justified anymore.

It just was.

And it was really nice at first. It was a break.

But after a while, it was unsettling.

I feel like I've always had growing pains as far as religion goes. I've been changing religions and churches all my life. I think that the past six years I've spent as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is the longest period of time I've ever spent in a single church.

Religion is never comfortable. I don't think it's meant to be.

Religion filters down into every facet of your life.

In talking to the Samaritan woman, Christ said, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink ; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water."

But living water wouldn't have let the Samaritan woman just settle.

Living water isn't stagnant water.

I've asked God, "Give me to drink" before.

And that living water. It changes and challenges you in every way possible. Living water takes faith to drink. It takes faith, because it's so much easier to just walk away, gift of God or no.

I said before that religion wasn't comfortable.

Mormonism is no exception. There's a lot to it. It's been picked apart by both those who despise it and those who love it. I don't pretend to understand everything about Mormonism. I don't pretend to know how to answer all your questions about the doctrines and past of the church. I don't even know how to answer all my own questions. I do know that it is extremely complex. To pretend that it is not would be naive.

It's easy to sweep it- all the questions- under the rug. It's easy to do in Michigan, in Minnesota, in Europe.

For me, it is easiest of all to do in Utah.

There's not a lot of people who really talk about it all in Utah. It's just the way things are. It's nice for a while, until you begin to forget why you are the way you are, why you believe the things that you do, in spite of the things that you hear.

When you're a Mormon, you're used to close-mindedness. Except for most of the time, you're used to it coming from people who aren't Mormon. It's possible to be close-minded about your own religion. To decide that this is it- and nothing else matters. To be purposely naive. Especially if everybody else is doing it.

To not ask- why?

I get it. I really do.

But I think that's the problem.

Because when you get out of Utah and back into the real world, everything comes back, and that's when you have to go to Christ and ask- What the heck is going on here because shoot. Who am I and what is this?

You have to ask- why? Even though it's difficult.

And I think that's the pivotal moment. That's where my testimony in what I believe really began.

Living water takes faith to drink. It also gives you the faith to keep drinking. Even when you don't understand.

Joanna Brooks wrote a thought-provoking blogpost: http://askmormongirl.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/ask-mormon-girl-how-do-you-deal-with-the-real-history-on-joseph-smith/

I recommend it. It's not a comfortable read, especially if you're Mormon. Again, I don't pretend to get all that. I don't understand it. I don't know if I ever will, fully.

But I'd like to quote something she said.

But it’s up to me to decide how these facts of written history shape my faith practice. A Mormon friend recently gave me a book by Annie Dillard, who quotes the Catholic priest and philosopher Thomas Merton, writing in 1968, a few days after leaving a Buddhist monastery and a few days before his death: “Suddenly there is a point where religion becomes laughable. Then you decide that you are nevertheless religious.”

Nevertheless. For the religious, everything turns on the nevertheless. The word that offers merciful refuge to the human complexity in ourselves and the human complexity in our faith traditions. 

Nevertheless. I am a religious person. I love a merciful God. And the religious movement Smith founded has given me some of the most intense and meaningful experiences of my life. That wide-open answer is the only way I know how to respond to the emails both hurtful and heartfelt that the legacy of Joseph Smith channels into my inbox.

That word- nevertheless.

I don't think you can rationalize Mormonism. I don't think you can fully rationalize any kind of religion really. If you could, I don't think there would be room for a God within it.

But I continue to ask- why? And God hasn't left my side yet.

I don't think you can ever stop asking questions. I don't think you ever should. To me, it is the only way in which humanity learns and the only environment in which humanity thrives. It's the only way in which I have been able to move forward in life.

I am a fairly logical person; technically, religion is not a logical pathway. Still, I don't walk away.

While I refuse to have blind faith, I also refuse to live a life without faith. 

I am a Christian.

It doesn't make sense. But somehow, at the same time, to me, it makes perfect sense. 

So I go into life with my eyes wide open, and I think that somehow, it will all work out.

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I have a good friend here who is an atheist. It's refreshing to talk to her about being Mormon because we both can be brutally honest. Her take on it is kind of "Oh, how quaint." But she thinks all religion is equally quaint, so at least I'm on an even playing ground with the rest of the religious world. At any rate, she challenges me to think about why I think and live my life the way I do. Why any Christian would choose to live life the way they do. 

As I talk to her, I realize more and more how much my religion has shaped me into the person that I am today. I'm not the most conventional Mormon--I'm the first to admit that. But I'm a Mormon, nonetheless.

Remember that story about the Mormon dude who won The Bachelorette at the very beginning?

Everybody knows he used to be shhh- Mormon.

Sometimes that's frustrating.  

On the other hand, sometimes it's okay- that larger-than-life "be" of being Mormon.