Weighing up the Options

One of my younger brothers is graduating this week, so congratulations to him. He's also completely unaware of this blog, as far as I know, as evidenced by the fact that he still speaks to me civilly!

We've been invited down for the ceremony, which he doesn't sound all that jazzed about and then to a dinner of sorts afterward.

The problem is that my mom is coming into town for the graduation as well and that's where it gets complicated...

About 18 months ago, they discovered this blog, and were slapped in the face with the fact that their eldest son is none to fond of various leaders within the Church they raised me in. What ensued was not a pleasant experience. I think I've recounted it before, but for any new readers...

I discovered their visits to the blog shortly before Christmas. That in and of itself was interesting, since I'd actually sent them a link to it a year or 2 prior, but they'd never bothered to even pay it so much as a single visit. And then within the space of 8 hours they hit pretty much every single post.

In January, my father announced that he was coming in to town for some personal business and wanted to stop by. I played it cool, and as luck would have it, I also happened to have a race at the time he wanted to stop by... I apologized for the fact that we wouldn't be able to get together, and it kind of went away...

Away for about a week, and then he came back hard... What about this time, this time or this time? He was being overly eager about the visit, and since that seemed way out of character for him, and since all the BS alarms in my head were going nuts, I decided to come clean. I wrote a very respectful email, informing them that I knew that they knew about my blog, and apologizing for any offense they may have taken. I expressed a desire not to discuss the matter of my religious disaffection with them, but informed him that we would still appreciate a visit from him, and were especially sure that the kids would like to see him as well. Finally I informed him that his brother had no involvement in any part of my falling away.

That last part was interesting. My uncle stayed with my family for some time when I was younger. I don't recall much about it, but I do remember that he and my dad would go running every morning, that he was baptized into the LDS Church and that he had a guitar, which I would sneak into his room and pluck a little when he was gone.

I suspect he may have had some pressure to convert to Mormonism, and it was probably inevitable that when he moved out, and subsequently married a very active Christian that he became less active in the Mormon faith. I can't say for sure if that is the reason, or if there was a falling out between him and my parents, but the relationship has been very rocky ever since. I personally think it may be a combination of both.

I've heard very little good about my uncle. He's well educated, but hasn't become a corporate stooge. Actually right now I think he's a high school math teacher, and based on what I hear online, his students absolutely love him. I can see why.

He married a very educated lady (SHOCK AND HORROR HERE!!) who has pursued a career and is very successful at it. And he only had two kids. And worst of all.... HE'S NOT AN ACTIVE MORMON ANYMORE?!?! Cue the theme from the Twilight Zone...

Anyway, shortly after they discovered my blog, my mother began emailing me about my relationship with him. Already being on edge about the situation, my BS detectors went off further, when she started lying about their interactions with him and his family, in a pretty sad attempt to determine my relationship. The whole thing left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

Anyway... the response from my father was anything but cordial. He wanted to come and explain the gospel to me, since obviously I hadn't understood it, unlike my very intelligent siblings. He talked about how I have always been rebellious and a bunch of unfounded assumptions he'd made. I'm a free spirit, but I've always busted my butt to try and make the proud of me. They were a big reason I served a two year mission for the LDS Church. I TRIED REALLY HARD TO MAKE THEM PROUD, but nothing ever seemed to be good enough.

He wasn't around much when I was growing up, and when he was, he tended to be very physically and emotionally abusive. It's made a relationship with him hard, and especially in situations like this, I can't handle myself very well. And so I politely declined his invitation to have life explained to me.

I was still trying to be polite and respectful at this point.

Next he shot back with accusations that I wasn't a good Mormon - No Shit?!? And that had I attended my brother's wedding the month prior (That's a whole other can of worms). He would have been horrified since obviously I wasn't worthy to attend the temple, since I didn't support my Church leaders, and my attendance would have been dishonest. And then he proceeded to tell me that I needed to repent, or else request that my name be removed from the records of the Church.

First of all, I hadn't held a temple recommend for over 2 years at this point.
Second, who the hell did he think he was, deciding that he gets to judge my worthiness before God.
Third, if you're going to call someone out on not supporting their leaders, you probably shouldn't be the type who openly criticizes your own local leaders, coz it makes you look like a big stinking hypocrite.
And finally... My uncle got one of his nasty little, "Repent or get your name off the records" letters a year or two prior, and my mother was very proud of the fact that they had sent it and seemed to almost get off on telling me about it. Sick, Sick, Sick. I still wonder if she wasn't perhaps just as proud of him for telling their wayward son the same thing...

Anyway, my next response wasn't so nice. I nailed him on most of those things, and then brought up my concerns with the Church, that denying privileges to people of color was dead wrong, as was a founder who liked to marry 14 year old girls and other guys wives. And the fact that much of that and other history was systematically lied about by the leadership ever since...

A few more emails were exchanged, and finally things ended on what I thought was a good note. He said that his door was always open to chat, I enabled security on this blog, and things seemed to be on the mend.

And then a few weeks later I got one of the nastiest letters from them I have ever read...

Basically I hate them and they can't bear to be around someone who hates them as much as I apparently did. They're not racist and then proceeded to list off a bunch of reason why they aren't, completely ignoring the fact that they believe and actively teach that the extension of blessings to Mormons of Color was a huge mistake by the Church leadership (see hypocrite comment above). And then complete denial of any kind of physical abuse. I should add that the abuse was never really serious, but there was one instance which is burned into my memory, and was very traumatic for me.

I kind of got the feeling that the letter wasn't actually written to me. It ended with a statement that they would be continuing communication with my children - Like HELL they will - and another indicating that it would be OK for me to share the letter with my wife. My wife (With whom I share everything anyway) and I both had the impression that the intent was to convince her as to my evil nature and show her that they are indeed good people. It's not the first time they've tried these games, but that's a whole other story!!

But back to the dilemma at hand... It's been almost 18 months since that letter. I never responded, because it seems all these people want is a fight, and I'm just not interested in going there. That's why I want out of Mormonism, its all about contention, you're wrong, we're right, and we're better than everyone else.

There have been birthday cards over the past year, and a letter to my wife, asking for her email address, and expressing confusion about why I don't seem to respond to emails from them, but other than that, we've avoided all contact with them like the plague.

Our kids haven't been told anything negative about them. They know that they are very upset that Dad doesn't like the Church any more, but that sometimes different people just believe different things, and they seem fine with it.

Attending a dinner with my mom could go several ways.

It might be completely fine, a few pleasantries and largely ignoring us for the evening.

I think it fairly likely though, that she will try and corner my sweet wife and try and win her over, or possibly even one of my kids. I don't want to put any of them in that position. And then of course there's the chance that she might try and get into it with me, which will end up badly, simply because I refuse to play her mind games anymore.

It's a difficult decision and I don't know the answer yet. On the plus side... I have a race the next day, as does my wife and all of my kids. It's just a 2k race which we're all planning on walking together, but that is a detail they don't need to know!

Anyway, so that's where I'm at.... And I was thinking this would just be a quick 2 paragraph thing explaining my dilemma!