Church: Ideal or Real – Which Would You Rather?

Several years ago, Brooke Romney wrote an article that appeared in the Deseret News titled, Why we are taking the fun out of life. In that article, Brooke spoke of the daily prayers her children gave that innocently requested the Lord bless them that they might have fun. As she analyzed the source of this common request, she realized that as parents, as neighbors, as a culture, we heavily emphasize the fun of life. She began to take particular note that when one of her children did not have fun at an event, she felt a significant sense of something wrong and felt it in her nature to remedy the un-funness. She then goes on to describe how her family decided to remedy the fun-rut and to develop more substantial relationships. 

I actually attended high school with Brooke. She had the brightest smile of all our friends and was always a source of happiness. By contrast, I was the moody, tired, sarcastic individual who did not have the energy or maturity to think much beyond himself. Despite my demeanor, very few of my friends knew I struggled severely with social anxiety and depression. Heavy involvement in school sports and music programs provided a good cover. However, those I interacted with who did not know of my struggles would often perceive in me that something was always…off. 

I am fascinated by Brooke’s perceptions. It is clear that the girl who would smile at everyone in the halls of BHS was also gleaning valuable social wisdom…a wisdom I could fully appreciate despite my contrasting demeanor. It is interesting that just after high school, I began to perceive a congruent characteristic in my community and church culture that Brooke identified…a fun/happy-centric life expectation. 

My wife, Lindsay, attended the same high school, though one year later than Brooke and me. Lindsay could have been considered the social equivalent to Brooke for her own BHS class. Lindsay shares Brooke’s outlook on our community’s culture (she actually brought Brooke’s article to my attention.) For Lindsay, the perception was slowly gained by living with me for 20 years, two of which she spent concerned I might take my own life.

Lindsay completed her own awakening to our cultural love affair with fun on a particular Saturday night. Because of her position in our church, she had voluntarily spent 6+ hours in leadership and training meetings that day, the last two of which I accompanied her. On our drive home, she was uncommonly quiet. She’d requested we leave 5 minutes before the close of the meeting so that we didn’t get caught up in the post-event socializing. She was understandably tired. And I had learned long ago that, at moments like this, it was best for me to keep my remarks about a meeting’s topics to myself. But when Lindsay finally spoke, it was she that was making this infraction – a first. She used a specific phrase – NO SUBSTANCE. She voiced frustration that she had just spent hours away from her children, only to listen to presentations that offered “no substance.”       

She continued with a description of the redundant topic matter, the motivational rhetoric, and the predictably out-of-context scriptures that diluted the discourse. It was as if I was listening to my own thoughts coming out of my wife’s mouth.  Of the 18+ years we’d been married, Lindsay had never been the spouse instigating the idea that good-intentioned yet empty teachings were harmful. Nevertheless, here she was, a God-committed, trial-refined, true-to-the-faith daughter of God having the revelation that preoccupation with an emotional paradise is our grand communal pacifier. 

The comparative timing of her enlightenment was curious…as was my concurrent period of suicidal ideation. Because it was not long after this Saturday evening and not long after I crawled out of treatment-resistant depression that the world was consumed by the COVID-19 Lockdown Pandemic. The world was now experiencing the social distancing to which our family had become quite adept. Social distancing was our family’s jam. 

March 2020 – Lockdowns Enforced in Nevada

Lindsay and I began fielding texts, emails, phone calls and home visits multiple times a week  from people newly experiencing anxiety and depression. Because of our openness about my mental health condition this was a role we had practiced long before lockdown – just not to this extent. 

Even at work, in my pediatric dental office, I found myself spending significant time with patients and parents discussing mental health problems they and their loved ones were experiencing. In several cases I was able to perceive a mental health struggle by a sudden and drastic change in the patient’s oral health, the stress of the year having induced bulimic episodes that destroyed the enamel of a patient’s previously beautiful teeth. 

It felt insane that, all of a sudden, Lindsay and I were emotionally ahead of the game. As the world descended into chaos, many turned to us for help, knowing we were comfortable in chaos. Far stranger, we suddenly experienced gratitude for the two-and-half years of hell we’d endured. Strange in that what had personally been an unbearable horror suddenly became something holy.

Prepared Through Darkness

This hell and horror had erupted in December 2017. The antidepressant I had been taking for nearly 20 years suddenly became ineffective. I began to experience crippling panic attacks. Several other treatment approaches were attempted over a few months, but my anxiety and depression raged on. My diagnosis was upgraded from Major Depression to Treatment-Resistant Depression. I quickly began to find many aspects of my life overwhelming. I, therefore, reduced my workload, cutting my time in half spent at my pediatric dental office. I all but eliminated any social interaction outside my immediate family. And I asked to be released from my church position in our congregation’s bishopric.  

It was at this point that Lindsay and I found ourselves in what we believe to be a generally unique situation. Many people in similar scenarios quietly fall into a less-active/inactive state of church attendance. However, our family had been very open and honest about my mental health experience. My pediatric dental background had given me the ability to research the medical literature and become confidently well informed on the issues I dealt with. Lindsay, as my main caregiver,  had also developed inspired techniques to help our family cope with my weakness.  We were aware of many people in our congregation and adjoining congregations (especially youth) who were struggling emotionally and had provided consultation and encouragement for those who were looking to find treatment for themselves or their children. It was obvious that many eyes were on us as spiritual ambassadors of the emotionally compromised. In addition to this, through 18 years of marriage, we had gained a severely strong testimony of the gospel. We had been the recipients of several unique and profound interactions with the Spirit which had cemented our resolve to the Savior. All of these things considered,  we knew no matter how hard it became, we needed to remain church active for all that were watching, including our four children. And so it was that I sunk into the depths of despair while on full display to our church family on a weekly basis…the worst 3 hours of my week. 

Hearing Ideals but Living in Reality

There are some common complaints that are regularly reported by people of my faith who experience depression.  The LDS church has found several symptoms to be abundant and impactful enough to address on their mental health webpage. I have found these to be consistent with my own experience, and many that I have conferred with have reported the same. 

1. A feeling of being abandoned by God
2. A diminished ability to serve and therefore a feeling of diminished individual worth.
3. An inability to feel the spirit. 

For me, these spiritual and emotional ulcers would incessantly inflame for the 2-3 hours of church each Sunday. Listening to talks professing a plan of happiness were repulsive. Conversations on the Holy Ghost were especially challenging. It would seem that most believe (or at least most VOCAL church members believe) that the only reason a person could not feel the spirit when desired would be as a result of sin. Any opposing view to this outlook (even scriptural precedence) was consistently met with some well-intended rhetoric such as …All we need to do is remember, “Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you”…or…We are promised that we can have the spirit with us as a “constant companion” through covenants made with God.

Trying to process these sincere phrases in the indefinite hell in which I existed was dreadful. I had fasted, prayed, and worked for reprieve through medications, infusions, electro-convulsive therapy, only to digress. I was keenly aware that the gift of the spirit was far more complicated than simply ASK AND RECEIVE.

The dread I experienced was purely based on the established culture in which church members were customarily practicing their faith. The well-intended optimistic rhetoric inherent to LDS Christian vernacular didn’t cease because my dopamine and serotonin levels had deviated. The happy bus kept rolling on. 

What did cease to exist was the filter by which I’d previously viewed the culture…God had withdrawn my pacifier. Likewise, as my main caregiver, Lindsay’s pacifying filter also began to disintegrate. 

It was in this state that Lindsay endured the previously mentioned 6 hours of customary emotional optimism. Her assessment of the event now absent her own pacifier was that it offered “no substance.”  

QUESTION

Is aversion to customary church optimism a common experience of Christians who have experienced significant suffering?

If NO – then no further discussion needed.

If YES – to what can we attribute the aversion?

The second experience, my mother’s, is a genuine occurrence where innocent rhetoric drove it’s hidden-edge into an individual fresh to suffering. While listening to her story, consider what happens to a similar person who is questioning the existence of God?

Here are two incidents in which seasoned Christian believers encountered a characteristic of God they’d previously underestimated. Mind you, both incidents were guarded by their owners. Lewis’s Grief Observed was released under a pseudonym until after his death. My mother’s experience is not widely known to those who know her. Anger often accompanies the realization that God’s character allows for sinless suffering greater than previously understood. And anger towards God is shameful in a culture of optimism.

Admittedly, their stories are not comfortable. A Grief Observed is rarely if ever quoted. But despite the discomfort these events elicit, they are real life experiences nonetheless. How many of us have had such bouts with God and have been too ashamed to share them at Church? Instead we sit there, soaking in the idealism, realizing the God being discussed doesn’t fully account for our knowledge of His character. Remaining silent in these scenarios is painful, but merely personal. Until you realize you are not the only one that has such experiences, or that will encounter such suffering. Your silence then becomes an omission of information that could very well have strengthened your fellow church members in their times of need. Who will speak out? C.S. Lewis will!!!

Given his professional position, he was duty bound to search out these depths after their discovery. If he does not, he knows that all his previous works lose their validity. So, in a way that only Lewis can, he has the unwanted experience, he tells how it is, unshaded, and he delivers its truths – a genuine hero’s journey. In the end, he gives us this:

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him… My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not…

Not my idea of God, but God… In real life…his words and acts are, if we observe closely, hardly ever quite ‘in character,’ that is, in what we call his character. There’s always a card in his hand we didn’t know about…

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’

Choose Substance

The experience of my Mother’s has been something I’ve pondered since first hearing as a child. I’ve appreciated its example that blatant goodheartedness can still be susceptible to error. Grace in these situations should be granted generously. Yet, we should all check our tendencies towards conveniently comfortable words. Many conditioned to comfort have stumbled upon dreadful trials. History has shown that jumping to Godlessness is easier than seeking His true character.  When dreadful trials hit, and they always do, what is needed is a God of substance, not of convenient comfort. 

In reference to her influence on her children, Brooke Romney states,

“I don’t want a cotton candy relationship with my kids. I want something substantial and real.” 

That is precisely the phrase I imagine God saying when he considers us!

Imagining that God desires my relationship with Him to be one of substance, I have accepted that His intent for my life is not centered around comfort and happiness. That is not to say they should not be part of life, but I should not seek them as a confirmation of His love for me. Likewise, when I seek to understand His character, I should search much deeper than His desire for me to be comfortable and happy. In fact, like C.S. Lewis and my mother, I should recognize the hardest of times as the very moments God is preparing to teach me most about my relationship with Him, His expectations of me, and His true character.

Lastly, Christ rarely spoke without challenging the thoughts of his audience. In doing so, He prepared His disciples for His absence, knowing that the medium of revelation is a dynamic mind founded in the love of God. Therefore, Lindsay and I have committed to speak with intent and substance in church settings. No longer do we offer up the proverbial “cotton candy” that has become the staple of our services. As a real son and daughter of a real Father, we’ve chosen to evaluate the gospel under the substance of reality. If God wants our relationship with him to be “substantial and real” we should be willing to engage in “substantial and real” conversations when we enter His house. Those there looking for a relationship of substance seek preparation and strength for the reality in which God has placed us.

For those there looking for a joyride, you can find your cotton candy at your local amusement park.