Art, Love, and Faith

LDS, Artist, Momma, Bi, ADHD Needed some place to put my Mormon Musings

[loves-em]

"I asked ChatGPT—" well I asked my Heavenly Father. He... hasn't replied yet and I really think He's gonna make me learn my lesson by myself instead of just telling me. sigh...

[amethystmoons]

Thinking about this pinterest comment

[valtsv]

[valtsv]

[caliburnabsolute]

y'know what? the stained glass window designers had the right idea, we need more angels with kaleidoscope wings.

[chaosmagetwin]

@venn-shyagram

[amethystmoons]

Happy pride month yall! In honor of pride I'd like to share my story of being queer in the church. I've had this typed up for a while but decided this was a good time to post it. It gets a little long so I'm putting it under a cut.

I realized I was queer when I was 14. I had pretty much always been friends with the gay kids and that's when I realized I wasn't just the token straight friend. I questioned my sexuality, realized I was asexual, and decided I didn't care enough to figure out my romantic orientation. In the last few years, I just identify as queer because I feel like I'm somewhere between being aroace, bi, and lesbian. I feel like my gender is a lil queer too, despite being cis. Being an alt queer woman can feel like an entirely different gender sometimes.

Of course, being mormon this created doubts. I shoved them to the back of my mind. I was scared that seeking answers would mean that I had to choose between the queer community and the church and I loved them both. I stayed like this for years. At youth conference, I think my junior year, one of the lessons was about not letting the world pull you from God. The teacher got two ladders and set them up right next to each other, with the steps facing each other and the bottoms touching but the tops leading away from each other. One represented the world and one represented God. He stood on the first steps with no problem. After the second or third step he could't go anymore because they were too far apart and he'd fall. I remember thinking that that's what my life felt like. I felt like I was precariously balancing on the third step of the ladders, needing to pick one in order to continue without falling.

The next summer, during my last year of FSY, we had a lesson about the Family Proclamation in the morning. My friends and I (all queer) were talking about it at lunch. There were a lot of feelings. One of the FSY counselors sat down at our table and started to add to the conversation. We were about done eating and I just didn't like talking about this with non queer people so I tried to leave. I was almost out the door when I realized that they weren't with me so I went back to the table and stood there, not really adding anything, just waiting for them to be done. I remember he said something like "I see the proclamation as an ideal. It's not always what's going to happen, but it's what we should strive to." One of the kids asked "Where does that leave queer people in this ideal world? Are we just not supposed to exist?" I could tell they were mad. The counselor responded with "I don't know. But I do know that God loves you and you belong in this church. We need people like you in this church."

After that we left. I have repeated those words over and over in my head since then. I'm crying even typing this out. Somehow just hearing him say that made me realize that being queer was part of my journey to Christ and not a separate one. My straight and narrow path is painted rainbow.

I found tumblrstake in the fall of last year. I had created a Tumblr account in January and had avoided anything related to the Church because I assumed it was mostly going to be negative. I found a post tagged queerstake and looked at the posts there. I cried. It was genuinely an answer to my prayers. I've thanked God for yall many times since then.

My testimony is so much stronger now but I still struggle. It's still hard to feel like I belong at times. I have trouble with the family proclamation as many of us do. I don't know what I think the church should do or say about it. But I know that queer joy is real. Queer love is real. The queer community is a beautiful one. I've expeirenced it myself. I've seen how coming out can bring the light back to someone's eyes. I've seen how much happier my best friend is after she transitioned. I've seen how much pure love a queer relationship can have despite everything they face. It's hard to believe that a community with so much love and joy can be from anything but God.

[homunculus-argument]

If you put a dish in a dishwasher, it gets washed. If you put a shirt in a dishwasher, it gets shredded and breaks the machine.

If you put a shirt in a washing machine, it gets washed. If you put a dish in a washing machine, it gets shattered and breaks the machine.

Maybe you are not weak. They just put you into the wrong washer.

[nerdygaymormon]

Are you... ok? I can't even fathom how difficult it must be to be mormon and queer. I hope you're able to get out one day <3 much love

Thank you for your concern

[brothermouse]

Remember, if you're concerned about someone who is queer and Mormon at the same time and really want to help them, send them $200

Send them $200 right now

[samuel-the-blonde22]

Reading mosiah 14, and got to verse 5.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

It was pointed out transgressions means sin, what we do.

Iniquities are unfair acts that happen to us.

[dumbledavisjr]

“I asked chat gpt—” yeah well I asked pmg chapter 3 and it told me that there is more grace, love, and mercy in Jesus Christ than there is failure, flaw, or sin in us. so yeah

[electricheart]

a little reminder! by annalaura_art

[loves-em]

I was walking through my city, running errands and such, when suddenly the spirit urged me to turn around and go into a pharmacy I just passed. I soon figured out why when I remembered I'm out of pain meds. So I bought a pack and went on my way.

Later when I checked my phone, my calender reminded me my period starts tomorrow. Thank you kindly Holy Ghost, I hope I survive.

[exploring-the-spiritual]

One of the things that initially attracted me to the LDS Church was the idea that every person, even after death, will get the chance to hear the gospel and that most people will end up in some degree of glory. That always seemed like the work of a loving God to me.

[bookish-bi-mormon]

STOP USING AI FOR FAMILY HISTORY

it's one thing when people use it to "restore" old photos. It's not my favorite but I'll give it a pass.

But someone has just wholesale created an image with ChatGPT of a generic indigenous girl in stereotypical pioneer clothing to represent a young Paiute girl some of my ancestors adopted and it feels SO offensive to me. Not only was she robbed of her culture and her name. But now you're going to create a fake image of her? Based on nothing but the fact she was a "civilized lamanite" or some shit?

[ldsjackalope]

Oh my gosh, that's so incredibly awful. I can't even imagine.

[amethystmoons]

When my boss who's suspiciously teenager shaped and covered in blood tells me in a voice that's totally not a teenage boy talking in the deepest voice he can to go to the treasury to bring him the thing some kids were asking for that he refused to bring them the other day and then says he's going to bring it to his bretheren outside the walls and tells me to follow him, I just do it because I don't get paid enough to deal with this

[amethystmoons]

My new fitness goal is to be like the daughters of Ishmael who ate raw meat and became absolutely ripped.

[amethystmoons]

Actually I want to talk about this more. The og post was light hearted but this genuinely spoke to me upon reading it. Here are the verses I'm specifically talking about.

1 Nephi 17:2 And so great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, our women did give plenty of suck for their children, and were strong, yea, even like unto the men; and they began to bear their journeyings without murmurings.

3 And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them; wherefore, he did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness.

There are so many forces in this world (in lds, christian, and just overall culture) trying to convince women to be weak and small. Diet culture is coming back with a bang. I get ads for weight loss drugs just about everyday. Any female fitness influencer's comment sections is full of both men and women talking about how women shouldn't be "bulky" and they need to be petite delicate little flowers. It's started to drive me insane.

Despite all that, here's a verse in the book of mormon literally talking about strong women; and it's portrayed as a good thing. Nephi could've left it at "our women did give plenty of suck for their children," and that would've gotten the point across, but he didn't. He included that they "were strong, yea, even like unto the men." They're not just getting enough food to feed their kids, they're getting enough food to be as strong as their husbands and brothers and fathers. (As a woman who works out this is harder than you'd think. The part testosterone plays in building muscle is so annoying. After years of going to the gym and getting my protein in I'm about as strong as the average teenage boy lol.) They're not criticized for being too bulky or too heavy or too masculine. The men aren't criticized or emasculated because their women are as strong as them. They're all praised because this is the result of following the Lord's commandments.

It's all about the Lord. He told them to travel throught the wilderness and provided a means for them to do so. They didn't just barely get by, they had enough food that the women were able to breastfeed babies for what was probably years, and become strong themselves.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this one line but I genuinely needed it at this point in my life.

[mattoidal]

“Get a rat and put it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water, and one is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself very quickly, right, within a couple of weeks. So there you go. It’s our theory of addiction. Bruce comes along in the ‘70s and said, “Well, hang on a minute. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do. Let’s try this a little bit differently.” So Bruce built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything your rat about town could want, it’s got in Rat Park. It’s got lovely food. It’s got sex. It’s got loads of other rats to be friends with. It’s got loads of colored balls. Everything your rat could want. And they’ve got both the water bottles. They’ve got the drugged water and the normal water. But here’s the fascinating thing. In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use any of it. None of them ever overdose. None of them ever use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. There’s a really interesting human example I’ll tell you about in a minute, but what Bruce says is that shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. So the right-wing theory is it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment. […] We’ve created a society where significant numbers of our fellow citizens cannot bear to be present in their lives without being drugged, right? We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for a lot of people, much more like that first cage than it is like the bonded, connected cages that we need. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of our society, is geared towards making us connect with things. If you are not a good consumer capitalist citizen, if you’re spending your time bonding with the people around you and not buying stuff—in fact, we are trained from a very young age to focus our hopes and our dreams and our ambitions on things we can buy and consume. And drug addiction is really a subset of that.”

— Johann Hari, Does Capitalism Drive Drug Addiction?

[sparrowthemormon]

Honestly I am starting to believe conservative Protestants when they start talking about how "you Mormons don't worship the same Jesus as us REAL Christians!!!". Because honestly, yeah Tyler, I think that I do worship a different Jesus than you. My Jesus tells me to love everyone no matter what. My Jesus says that we shouldn't torture people in concentration camps because they have brown skin and speak a different language. My Jesus says empathy is a Virtue, not a Sin. My Jesus says that I should help feed the hungry and provide healthcare for the sick and give money to the poor and disabled. My Jesus says that people should always be able to choose whether or not they follow Him. I don't know who your Jesus is, Tyler, but from the way you act and the things you say, I don't think I like him very much.

[hiseyeisonthesparrow]

I think a lot of people, especially nevermos, could learn quite a bit from the idea that Mormon 'commandments' and 'rules' are more like the Hippocratic Oath than government-regulated laws. The Oath is old and steeped in tradition; some parts remain less relevant than others (the pessary line in the Oath, for example), yet it is still something that almost all doctors promise to follow. It's as much cultural as it is technical and moral.

If a doctor doesn't follow the Hippocratic Oath, that is a reflection on themselves, rather than the morals of the entire organization. One bad doctor does not make every other doctor bad. They were all given the same rules to follow, and some decided not to. Breaking bigger rules can result in a loss of licensure and privileges, but breaking smaller rules can sometimes go unnoticed.

The same can be said of all of this for commandments and guidelines that Mormons promise to follow. Truly, purposefully following these rules can make you a better person, but if you choose not to follow them, that is a personal decision and a personal failing.