NOM

My mom is having knee problems and she asked for a blessing* at a family get together last night. Everybody in my family knows that I don't believe anymore. She took me aside and told me that she would like me to be part of the blessing, and made it clear that she understood and not disappointed if I chose not to. Then right before the blessing she choked up a little and said, "I asked Linked to participate in the blessing, because he is part of our family." I joked that I might break it, and then participated.

I thought it was a sweet gesture by my mom. If mormons could do that with everyone I think I would be proud to call myself mormon. Only later did I think of the irony of her emotionally including me while her daughters sat and watched. I have been struggling to determine if I did something against my authenticity. But I am concluding that I don't think I did. I participated in a family ritual and my family chose to include me over excluding me. They aren't going to stop asking and giving blessings, but they could choose to stop including me, and they haven't yet. Hopefully they don't take hope for my faith to return over this.

My mom said that I may not have faith that god will do anything for her, but I have faith in her so that will help. I responded that I have hope for her. And my brother said, "You have charity for her too!" 2/3 ain't bad I guess.

*In one of my brother's patriarchal blessing he was told he has the gift of healing. Initially he didn't seem to think much about it, but my dad kept pressuring him about it. My dad wants so badly to have miracles, it makes me sad to see him reach for the imaginary so hard. Well, now anytime anyone gets a health related blessing it comes from that brother. Yesterday he even gave a little speech about it from a talk by Dallin Oaks, so he seems to be the healing expert now. I guess he has internalized it, though he isn't as magical a thinker as my dad, so I think it kind of bothers him.

Good job, Linked. I think you did the right thing. You took care of your mother in your time of need.

It's easy to re-evaluate in hind sight. Of course there were a few ironies, inconsistencies, unfairness, etc. Your sisters sat out while the non-believer male performed the ritual. In a perfect world, everyone would join in. It doesn't matter, you did the best you could given the situation in the moment.

The priesthood and olive oil ain't gonna cure her, but your love certainly with help.

Good for you.

Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do!

I once got a call to help visit a family member in the hospital late at night for a blessing. They were recovering from surgery and all of the medications were causing constipation. The doctors had given stool softeners but they didn't seem to work as fast as expected.

By the time we got there, the stool softeners had just about kicked in. On the way there I was joking about never having blessed anyone to poop their pants before. We gave the blessing and within 10 minutes the constipation had "passed".

Blessings work!

Authenticity is a real keyword these days, especially in the transitioning mormon group. I think you did good. I wouldnt worry about measuring everything to a benchmark of authenticity. Do what you want to, and dont do what you dont want to. Dont go from measuring your life against some mormon benchmarks to measuring your life against some post-mo benchmarks.

I've been involved in a few blessings in recent months. My situation is a different in that I don't think most people know that my beliefs have shifted at all. For me, it's not so much a question of authenticity as honesty. I don't want to actually say or do something that's deliberately misleading. But since the main purpose of a blessing is comfort, and since it does have that effect regardless of its actual healing efficacy, I don't really have a problem taking part. And I guess at this point I'd probably do it even if I felt dishonest about it if it were a request from a family member, for some of the same reasons I don't bring up my heterodoxy.

Along the lines of what Emower said, I find myself resistant to thinking of things in terms of authenticity. If that becomes a standard against which I think I need to measure up and worry about violating, then that might be a sign that I'm adopting someone else's standard. If I want to work toward particular goals, of course, that's different, and I can certainly incorporate changes into what I would like to be my "authentic" self.

You have the sweetest mom ever.

TBM DW wants me to give start of school blessings to my younger kids. I'd prefer not to perpetuate magical thinking but she is true blue, so I'll probably do it.

Sigh.

I think it was sweet of you to do that for your mom. Even as a believer I felt prayers were more for those of us giving and listening than for God. When we prayed as spouses I felt like we heard each other's gratitude and worries and made us more aware. Same for father's blessings-just a great way for kids to hear the hope and faith dads have in their kids. No special powers needed.

Thanks for the comments. My mom has been handling this really well. She seems to be the only one that can talk about it openly. I don't want to throw it in people's faces, so I don't bring it up much.

Emower wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2017 1:32 pm Authenticity is a real keyword these days, especially in the transitioning mormon group. I think you did good. I wouldnt worry about measuring everything to a benchmark of authenticity. Do what you want to, and dont do what you dont want to. Dont go from measuring your life against some mormon benchmarks to measuring your life against some post-mo benchmarks.

I think living authentically is doing exactly what you say: Do what you want to, and don't do what you don't want to. The difficulty post transition is figuring out exactly what that is.

Regarding authenticity, the term was coined as part of existentialism and I think it makes sense to reach for authenticity after going through an existential crisis. It is certainly not the only metric I use to measure myself, but it became a lot more important for me when my faith died. I only mentioned it because of the apparent contradiction of me being a non-believer and participating in a ritual calling upon the power of god; but I feel that the act was more than that, in that I was connecting with my family and showing support for my mom. So, what could be considered inconsistent or inauthentic at first glance can be seen differently. I needed to work through that.

w2mz wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2017 5:15 pm TBM DW wants me to give start of school blessings to my younger kids. I'd prefer not to perpetuate magical thinking but she is true blue, so I'll probably do it.

Sigh.

My wife and I crossed this bridge last year. Instead of a priesthood blessing we do a "special prayer". Each of us take turns holding our son in our laps and say a prayer similar to the priesthood blessing. My son loved it. This year he wanted to do one himself too and it was all about lunch and recess. My 3 year old who always refuses to pray took a turn too. If your DW will go for it I highly recommend this option.