Last week, the day before my twenty-ninth birthday, I formally became a Texan. Previously I had voted, purchased a house, and registered my car here, but I defiantly held on to my Washington state driver's license. Sadly, it was due to expire on my birthday, so with an entire day to spare I trudged my way over to the DMV in order to fully subscribe myself to the Lone Star State. It was an altogether unpleasant excursion. In addition to confronting the acidulousness incident to aligning oneself with the union's most insecure state, I couldn't find one of the necessary documents in the glove compartment, which necessitated a rather stupid adventure around Houston.
I drive a 1988 Toyota Camry. It was a gift, of sorts, from my grandparents. They had both gotten too old to drive safely, and as a poor undergraduate I was more than grateful to have even an old grandma car to drive. Since I got the car my grandfather has died and my grandmother has been stricken with Alzheimer's, but their car is alive and healthy—or, at least, as healthy as a 23-year-old car has any business being.
A few emotions keep me driving that car: pragmatism (read: cheapness), complacency, even stubbornness. But I also feel a sense of nostalgia for the old Camry. My grandparents were generous, loving people—my grandfather in particular was a seriously classy dude—and visiting them over summers is a fond childhood memory.
So when I got the car, I didn't take much out of it. The glove box was full of old receipts, insurance cards, and maps, but I left them in place. Occasionally, as I rummage around the car looking for something, I'll happen upon something—directions to the store?—written in my grandfather's nearly illegible scrawl. I appreciate the occasional opportunity to remember him through something done by his hand. It's almost stupid, really—if I want to keep them, I should take these mementos and put them somewhere safer and more permanent than my car. But there really is nowhere else for them to go.
Unfortunately, after the debacle with the DMV I decided that, memories or no, the time had come to clean out the glove compartment. Last night Amanda and I went through the pile of stuff, deciding what to keep. Initially I was determined to keep whatever I could, or at least anything with their handwriting on it, but it didn't take long to concede to the practical: if I can't keep this stuff in the car, what am I going to do with it? Am I going to set up a scrapbook of old tire warranties and road atlases? Fortunately very little in the glove box had anyone's handwriting on it, so virtually everything was scrapped.
Before we threw everything away, however, Amanda spotted this certificate, which she expertly photographed:
Amanda loved it in an 80s-vintage sort of way—an old document showcasing the aesthetics of its age—but I decided to keep it as a token of all the things we threw away. A representative of the Les Schwab Tire reciepts and Nationwide Insurance cards that we couldn't keep. A tribute to Jack B. Stout, the salesman who sold my grandparents this car more than two decades ago. And a link to the past. After Amanda photographed it, I took the certificate, put it into the envelope provided by Peterson Toyota, and stuck it back in the glove compartment.
It... belongs there. Is that weird?
21 comments:
A beautiful ode to your grandparents/car.
Sorry to bring this back to the "Mormonism" topic, but I have a question about your self proclaimed apostate status.
How does Amanda feel about it? I don't know either of you super well, but I imagine that she married you with the assumption that she was marrying a worthy LDS priesthood holder who would help raise a Gospel-centered family. If I were in her shoes I would feel pretty betrayed. I'm sure you had many a discussion with her about your attitude towards the Church, but I really feel for her in this situation. I can't imagine how hard it must be.
Anon:
I can actually answer you straight from the source, being the "betrayed" in this circumstance.
When we married, Matt was a worthy LDS priesthood holder. I did, however, knew that he had been and was continuing to struggle with doubts about the Church. However, it wasn't until he fully made the decision to leave the church a little over a year ago that he fully left, meaning that he was then, and only then, not a "worthy LDS priesthood holder".
Betrayal was an emotion I felt when all of this came crashing down. I certainly felt angry, sad, and quite lost. This was not the life I had wanted to sign up for. Ultimately, however, I loved Matt (and still do!). And leaving the church didn't change him. He's still the man I married. Of course it's been a struggle and will continue to be as a we live our lives with me being a member and him not. But marriage is hard no matter who you are or what your circumstances are.
Bottom line, while I appreciate others' concern for me in particular, I don't want those feelings to turn into judgements against Matt or pity parties on my behalf. One huge thing I've learned during this experience is that you don't have to be a Mormon to be happy. Plenty of people in the world, including Matt, are perfectly happy people with good morals striving to live good lives and be good people.
And while this has been incredibly difficult for me (and will continue to be for the rest of our lives), just like any other trial thrown at you in mortality, you learn to deal with it, live with it, and eventually become happy and content in spite of it.
Thank you for your open and honest answer, Amanda. I definitely don't judge Matt (seeing as I don't know any of the details of his situation) and I don't pity you. I do, have a lot of respect for you, though. I admire your personal strength, the strength of your testimony, and your unfaltering love for your husband.
Anon:
I fully endorse Amanda's response, but I wanted to respond from my own perspective. Almost certainly this will be altogether too long.
Marriage, among other things, is a commitment to accept that your spouse will change in ways that neither of you can predict. Marriage never turns out to be what its participants signed up for; everybody gets married harboring assumptions that will eventually be violated. Most of these are minor and are best overlooked--people get old and fat, for example--but occasionally these violations are substantial enough that they justifiably threaten the marriage.
Does a good-faith change in religious opinion constitute the latter? I think it's telling that Mormonism is one of the few religious groups in which the answer is almost universally "yes". I appreciate Amanda's orthodox Mormon perspective, and I would have understood if she had decided that my apostasy was more than she could bear. I would have been devastated, of course, but I would have understood. I know as well as anyone else the pain she has suffered, and I knew that divorce was a possibility when I chose to apostatize.
If, however, she had characterized my apostasy as a betrayal, as you have done, I would not have been so understanding. On top of the fact that I was careful to make her aware of my doubts before our marriage--she knew what I was when she picked me up, you might say--I didn't betray any trust in order to lose my faith. I didn't even really *decide* not to believe; disbelief happened almost without my consent. And while I accept a tenuous link between agency and epistemology, I cannot simply choose to go back to believing in Mormonism. The only choice was whether or not to continue hiding my beliefs and keeping up appearances. I have done the moral arithmetic several times, and without minimizing the emotional trauma it has inflicted on Amanda--or myself, for that matter--refusing to sublimate my skepticism into a hollow and dishonest conformity always comes out ahead.
You claim not to want to judge, and I'd love to take you at your word, but at the risk of sounding defensive I take objection to your contrasting me with a "worthy" LDS priesthood holder. One of the few things I find genuinely evil about the LDS church is the way it demonizes its apostates, a dishonest practice that I denounce as forcefully as I can. (With every fiber of my being, if you like!) So when I hear someone tell me that I'm no longer a worthy priesthood holder, I bristle at the (perhaps subconscious or even entirely unintended) implication that I am somehow morally inferior.
So I'll make it plain. It is true that I can no longer honestly check the required boxes to stay in full fellowship with the LDS church. But that fact casts no aspersions on my moral character. I am not "unworthy" of anything.
And finally: if you're going to threadjack an innocuous post with a borderline accusatory comment, please, at least have the guts not to hide behind anonymity.
I definitely wasn't trying to be accusatory. I was simply asking about your wife's opinion on the matter. I have a brother-in-law who is questioning the church right now and it has been pretty devastating to the family. You may think that people of the LDS faith are silly when they react this way to someone leaving the Church, but I think it's a perfectly justified reaction. Mormons center their lives around their beliefs so when someone leaves, it's like they're rejecting an entire way of life, and to a family--parents and spouses especially--that can be extremely difficult to accept. Like I said, I do not know your entire story and history of your departure from the Church so I really, truly cannot judge you. And I respect that Amanda knew of your questioning before you were married so the word "betrayal" may not apply in this instance. As for the word "unworthy," if you don't consider yourself unworthy to hold a power that God has placed on this earth to bless man (even if you don't believe anymore) you are sadly mistaken. And the fact that you feel like you need to be defensive (and make passive aggressive jabs at the Church) tells me that you have some feelings of guilt or regret about leaving.
The reason I choose to remain anonymous is because, like I said, I don't know either you or or wife very well so I don't want either of you to think I'm meddling or judging or anything. I came across your blog and was simply curious.
Wow. Maybe you just don't see it. Don't worry; I can help!
Look at this pair of quotes:
"I definitely wasn't trying to be accusatory."
"...I really, truly cannot judge you."
Now compare it to this pair:
"If you don't consider yourself unworthy... you are sadly mistaken." (I didn't skip over the important bits, did I?)
"...you have some feelings of guilt or regret about leaving." (And really, "passive-aggressive"? I think my jabs at the church have been quite direct!)
You do realize that the latter pair contradicts the former, don't you?
I don't know what your intentions are, and it's quite possible that you don't intend to sound judgmental and sanctimonious. But you do. I'm happy to have people disagree with me on this blog--in fact, I encourage it--but I'm not so tolerant when someone comes here merely to preach to me. If you don't know how to disagree without making value judgements, don't be surprised when you are called on it.
I wonder if you'll consider a thought-experiment for me: I show up to your blog, and uninvited and without prior provocation I post a comment making fun of, say, your favorite 90s sitcom. I post anonymously, but you have a pretty good idea who I am. How would you respond? The subject of my post is pretty harmless, I could argue, but you'd still be pretty annoyed anyways, wouldn't you?
I'm also baffled at why you think posting anonymously is a good idea, because it has had the opposite of the intended effect. You still come off as judgmental and meddling, but I further conclude that you haven't the guts to say to my face the things you are willing to say behind the shroud of anonymity.
My turn:
"You may think that people of the LDS faith are silly when they react this way to someone leaving the Church, but I think it's a perfectly justified reaction."
You are quite wrong in your accusation (yes, accusation). If you are under the assumption that leaving the Church was an easy, painless, guilt-free process for Matt, you are terribly mistaken. Matt struggled for a long time with this, and spent a long time feeling trapped, unhappy, and like he was living a lie. I know it might be difficult for you to understand from your perspective, but just think about it from, say, your brother-in-law's perspective instead. This isn't easy on anyone, including those who struggle with doubts and end up leaving the Church.
Matt cared deeply about me and my feelings. There was no betrayal in any sense of the word. (Yes, I said I felt betrayed during all of this, but ultimately, that was an irrational feeling - those are bound to crop up during emotionally trying times.) I knew of Matt's struggles before we married, he told me many times before he left that he was struggling more and more, and then he told me one morning that he had made his decision and was going to go leave the Church. He never lied to me, never sugar coated the situation. There was no actual betrayal. However, he knew he was responsible for my pain and initial unhappiness. My reactions were never silly to him. However, he had to be honest with himself, and he wanted to be happy. This was an incredibly hard decision for him to make, so please don't trivialize it.
And going back to your statement about Matt being "unworthy", of course he's unworthy of hold the priesthood in the Church. Yeah, he never claimed he was. However, I get the sense like you are implying that simply because he's not worthy in that area, he's not worthy at all. To be my husband, to one day be a father and raise a good family, etc....I really hope that I'm wrong here. Please, by all means, correct me if I am. However, if you are implying that, it is incredibly presumptuous to say or imply such things to a person you do not know and who's life you know little about. This is our marriage and our life. Please don't presume to accuse Matt (or I) of living an unworthy life when you have no evidence and when particularly it is not your place.
Lastly, I will say that I do have a lot of empathy for you and your family. Many of my family members (not just Matt) have left the Church, and it's been something I've had to deal with most of my life. I know how hard it is, but I know that ultimately, the only way through it is love. Please do not pass judgement, throw out accusations, or love your brother-in-law any less for his choices. Those are his and his alone, and doing these things will only push him farther away, not just from the Church, but from his family, who he probably desperately needs at this time for both support and love.
Most of all, please know that becoming an "apostate" does not make somebody a bad person. Just because they choose not to be Mormon anymore doesn't mean they can't be happy, good people who have good moral standards and live good lives. Again, I've seen this many times over with family members. I don't love any of them (including Matt) any less for their decisions. We all love and respect each other, and that ultimately breaks down the walls and barriers of anger, betrayal, sadness, etc. that you and your family member are feeling during this difficult process.
Damage control: cute, but ultimately ineffective. (In addition to the obvious timing, you and anon have the same IP address.)
Previously you've been judgmental and cowardly. Now you're being dishonest. Please sod off.
wow, I really don't know what you're talking about. but ok I will leave
I am really sorry to offend you. I didn't want to come off that way. And Amanda, I do not think Matt is not worthy to be a husband or father. I know so many people who aren't members of the Church (some of them are my family members) who are great parents and wonderful people. I wish you both the best, and again I'm sorry to offend. I didn't realize my comment would cause so much debate.
I will choose to remain anonymous so as not to cause any undo awkwardness as a result of these comments.
Cool story bro! According to some website online thats about 34k today so you could consider your Camry to be a brand new 2011 Mustang GT or a Volvo S80...but then it would not have those wonderfull memories stored into a priceless glove compartment.
Sign your posts, David...
i really enjoyed this post matt. and happy belated, fellow texan!
reading the comments caused serious handwringing.
worthy can be such a dirty word.
as for feelings of betrayal, learning that what one was taught may not be true and is at least a lot more complex than s/he was (mis)led to believe has got to rank pretty high. followed by having your (former) co-religionists castigate you.
g: I see you wisely rediscovered nonymity. :)
'Betrayal' via the church must wait until I repolish my exit story. Marie has convinced me: it is coming soon.
Pardon me, but I don't think you can ever be a true Texan without being born there. I was born in Texas, and even though I've lived most of my life here and consider myself California, just last night I was called out for not being 100% Californian. I would imagine that it's stricter in Texas.
In any case, you pay lower taxes than me in California, so I suppose you have the last laugh.
yes. anything is possible, even for technophobes, when the stakes are high enough.
Chad: your claim, despite making perfect sense, turns out to be incorrect. Texas is so insecure that it will claim anyone willing as its own. The only constitutional requirement is to purchase an "American by birth, Texan by choice" bumper sticker.
Matt: I guess we Californians are more secure in our Californiahood. Maybe that's why we drive priuses and leafs and not those big trucks in Texas.
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