kindness

[Raylan Givens]

We have been away from church for a while due to trips and outings. Each week that we miss, my six year old's teacher writes a handwritten note and mails it to us. It is addressed to my daughter and outlines the lesson she missed. I like the fact that this teacher focuses on what can my daughter apply from the lesson (even if it is lesson on Joseph Smith). This lady always closes with telling my daughter what she loves about her. It is different each time. As I grow further and further away from the Church, I find things like this that touch my heart and remind me about my own positive experiences. I want my daughters interacting with people like this kind sister. I just don't have a "kind sister" in my life right now and I would like to find one. I would also be happy to reciprocate as well.

But after today's Sunday School lesson on personal apostasy and EQ lesson on Priesthood, the prospect for finding one for me is dimming each week. Time to move on.

[Thoughtful]

Maybe you can be one for someone else.

Whether in or out.

[document]

When we left the church, it was difficult because of so many kind people that surrounded us in Mormonism. Our home teacher in particular was never a traditional home teacher. He genuinely loved and served his families even though he never showed up a single month to teach a lesson. He was there to serve and help, to lend an ear and to lend a hand. At Christmas, he would embrace his girth and dress as Santa to visit the children of the ward. His wife wrote personal notes to the children in beautiful calligraphy, he would singe the edges to make it look like parchment, and hand them to each child with a gift.

When I left the church, he showed up on my doorstep not to ask why but to offer to continue to be my home teacher even though I wasn't a member. I heartily agreed and for the next year he never once brought up the church but created a warm and loving relationship. My friend succumbed to a bad disease a year after we left and is now home bound 90% of the time and when he is in public he is in a walker. He has a love of literature and I ordered the book "Till We Have Faces" by C.S. Lewis and dropped it off for him with a note. The few service projects the ward has put together I had heard through the grape vine and shown up for.

A genuinely kind person does not stop loving when religion steps out of the relationship. The wonderful people we knew and loved while Mormon remained wonderful, loving people and have never stopped to judge us. They only love. These people (and it sounds like this primary teacher) is one of those wonderful people. They are all over the place and not just in the church. When we find them, we embrace them and hopefully we can be one of those people ourselves.

[achilles]

A genuinely kind person does not stop loving when religion steps out of the relationship. The wonderful people we knew and loved while Mormon remained wonderful, loving people and have never stopped to judge us. They only love. These people (and it sounds like this primary teacher) is one of those wonderful people. They are all over the place and not just in the church. When we find them, we embrace them and hopefully we can be one of those people ourselves.

I think the corollary of this is that you don't need the church to be a kind, loving person. If you were a good person before, you won't suddenly run out to get some hookers and blow.

[Linked]

She sounds like a very kind woman.

The cynical part of me can't help but see the ulterior motive of keeping your daughter and your family involved with the church. Or as my TBM brother pointed out, making people TBM is the main motive, and showing love is the method used.

But I think it's relatively easy to cut out that motivation and just love. Like taking off the training wheels.