E-Indeed: The Blog

In this, my debut post on anything other than myspace, I want to address why I even am starting this journey in Cyberspace. First off, I want to address various experiences I have had in my first five years as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. To be sure, I’ve had my ups and downs (I spent about a year being inactive after my first six months, for various reasons), but I can say beyond any shadow of a doubt that I am in the true church.

I don’t think for a second that I have had a particularly unique experience, but from the searches I have done there seems to be a real lack of information from active members of the Church that gives accounts of the trials and tribulations we go through–much less from converts. As I have searched for other perspectives on my experiences, the only things I ever seem to come across are negative ex-members talking about their ‘horrific’ experiences, and why they are now on a crusade to ’save’ current active members. So I think there’s a need for a positive (yet honest) look at the experiences, good and bad, that we (at least I) go through on a daily basis as Young Single Adult (YSA) aged converts to the Church.

As a writer, I am constantly running into self-or-society imposed restrictions on what will or won’t be well received. I have long said that in almost any organization, but especially the Church, that where there is fault to be found, it can usually be attributed to the people, and not necessarily the organization. People are and will be flawed and imperfect beings. We make mistakes. I have always heard the General Authorities of The Church speaking to this effect as well.

Unfortunately, for some reason, many who I know think that these imperfections should be glossed over. I don’t do that, and neither will this blog. I have decided in the past several months that rather than constantly worrying about whether people will like the turns I take in my commentary (since in my book, all art is commentary), I’m going to take the open approach: I’m going to write it as I see it, and leave it up to my readers whether they like it or not.

This means several things:

1. While I am going to try to be sensitive to other views as I write, my articles will probably offend some people.
2. I strive to be realistic. If you as a reader want to know what I think on a topic I write on, this is the place to find out. If you want a sanitized, “All is Well” spiritual outlook, there are plenty of other venues for you. That said, I won’t be seeking to be negative either–just honest.
3. I am going to be semi-open minded. Where there are conflicting views, I will try to point them out (or add them in the comments later). I also encourage open discussion about any of my viewpoints.
4. Where there is negative, there is also positive. I try to see the positive, or how things can be changed to improve. There is nothing wrong with criticism, as long as the intent is to improve and build rather than just tearing down.

With that in mind, while I know that I will lose some readers right away, I hope that enough of you will stick around to contribute to some useful discussions so that we can get more LDS-friendly content in the engines. There is way too much out there that detracts, and not enough to build up. I hope that my viewpoints will inspire thought that can eventually improve some of the situations that we run into.

Second, I want to promote open discussion of issues that we as Latter Day Saints face. I have seen a disturbing trend in some of my reading towards omitting negative experiences. I don’t believe that repression of the negative solves anything–in fact, in a lot of cases, it can make things worse. If we address issues openly, it is much easier to move forward and improve our own experiences. Think about it: while I see no need to dwell in our imperfections (I for one am trying to move forward), to gloss over them just gives ammunition to the anti-mormons. Things we don’t mention become things which we “are trying to hide,” which we know is not the case. While I am not particularly concerned about the anti-mormons in general, I am concerned that almost every web search I do for LDS discussion about issues (especially relating to singles) brings me to primarily Anti-mormon websites.

So, to start the discussion, how do you feel about honest discussion about the issues that affect us, for and by active members of the church?