You know, I’m at much the same point with certain things.

Last night I was discussing with my wife my views on what (not who) I think God is, and my thoughts on how literal the stories in the bible are. She doesn’t take everything in the bible completely literal, but overall for me, you really summed it up nicely. The bible is a collection of great stories, I just don’t believe them. That may sound bad to some (my Wife), but that’s truly how I feel. A story can teach a lesson, illustrate a point, but that doesn’t make it true, even if it’s served a great purpose.

The LDS doctrine as well has not helped me, to use your words, navigate through the wilds of my mind either. We just told my family last weekend of our departure from the LDS church and that has caused a lot of reflection on my part. To most of them this seems to be a very sudden and rash decision, but as I look back on my life thus far, it’s been in the works for MANY years.

The story always sounded wonderful, but it never really rang true for me. I can see now that I don’t have to believe the story, no matter how much anyone else wants me to. I feel by doing so I’m sticking myself inside a cage and not allowing my mind to explore, learn and understand. I like the feeling of mental freedom. It has forever changed me.

Did I get off topic there? Was a late night…we had our 5th anniversary yesterday and I’m not running on much sleep right now.

PS: Don’t forget to pick the appropriate categories when posting, or add new ones if one doesn’t exist.

Eventually though, it just didn’t match up to the reality of life in front of me and the observations I made in the world around me. The LDS doctrine and story offered little help navigating the wilds of my mind. Truth has shown me that there just isn’t a straight and narrow, nor should I try to stay on one path. It takes many paths, many meanderings, and an embrace of jungle life to really find bliss and the perfection of what is. It’s taken a while, but admitting that I love the story anyway has helped me to make peace with the church. Great story. I just don’t believe it.

For me, not believing the story has given me liberation.

You summed up my feelings so, so well. One thing that surprised me when I finally admitted that I didn’t, I couldn’t, believe the story anymore was how much more content I became with myself and my life. That’s not what we’re taught will happen if we lose our LDS testimony. Life makes so much more sense to me now despite the fact that I no longer have the concrete LDS truth to believe in and I now see the world in all sorts of gray. I simultaneously feel like I don’t have the Truth but yet…I do (my truth anyway). Another excellent essay, Sattva. Thank you.

And congratulations ScottyDoo on 5 years of marriage, I hope you have many more.

I often get confused when I think a lot about stories. When someone else tells me a story, the story can seem structured and clear and unquestionable. But when I try to see stories in my own life, they seem as insistent and fluid and unsettled as ego itself.

Is a story composed of events combined with intentions? When intentions are fulfilled, is the story created? If so, who created it? If the intentions are not fulfilled, is that a different story, or no story at all?

In response to sattva’s query, I’ve thought a bit about what “my story” might be. But the more I wondered about that, the more I felt a sense of artifice creeping in.

Do I tell a story about disillusionment? There are plenty of pieces of my life that could be assembled into a mosaic that tells such a story.

Do I tell a story about faith in and transformation through various stages of religious belief and practice? Again, there are plenty of pieces that could be assembled into a collage telling that story.

Do I tell a story about (as a favorite blog is titled) The Wild Things of God? There are pieces that can be assembled in such a fashion.

But each of those constructions, each of those fabrications, feels like an artifice, a building, a contrived assemblage. While I honor sattva’s building efforts (her studio, her Story, this group blog, and more), and I hope to see the fruits of her constructions shortly, I’m more in a mode of holding the bits and pieces of the unassembled mosaics in my hands and seeing, as closely as I can, what they are. I suppose from one perspective, such bits can be seen as bits from other stories, disassembled. That might be a deconstructionist tendency? Or if where I am is a temporary place, perhaps a better word would be pre-constructionist?

The bits and pieces can be events, but who picks up the one pebble, who breaks the piece of colored glass to define this “bit” as something different than the fabric of the bottle; who pulls the leaf from the tree and then tears it in half for the collage; who crops everything but a half-glancing eye from the magazine photo to make the intended “piece” that becomes a self-contained and pre-defined element of the collage. What scissors trim from existence an event to use to tell a story? And whence comes the intention that turns the assemblage into a human story, that turns the sequence into an account of desires thwarted or indulged or fulfilled?

When I think about “My Story,” I start to select and exclude. At particular times and in particular contexts, that is not only a good idea, but imperative. But for me and here and now, I’m not going to do so. The texture of the fabric from which the stories would have to be cut is more valuable to me than the pieces I might excise from it. The space afforded by the undefined is more valuable than the structure of the definition. That space is narrative space. It is creative space. It is associational space. It is space that allows me to put on stories like incarnations, avatars like Consciousness, ideas like water.

Okay…this was apparently too much for my brain at this time of the morning. I thought I’d take a quick mental break from the work day to see if there were any more comments/posts and now my head hurts. Thanks Sean.

I’m going to have to read this again tonight…

Myths can be meaningful and magical if one doesn’t take a narrow-minded, literalist approach to them. My mother, for instance, takes every story in the Bible as literal, factual truth, totally missing the point of most of them. Of course, some of us get to a point where the myths don’t work for us anymore, so we either find new ones or delude ourselves into thinking we no longer need myths/stories; that we have a worldview based entirely on hard facts and science, a viewpoint that can be as dogmatic as any religion.

Bhakti–as to your contractor, you could take the Steve Buscemi approach in “The Sopranos,” when he simply beat up the partner in his would-be massage studio. Good luck with the studio, btw.

Greenfrog -

I was just reading from the Tao - “Empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.” Is this what you’re talking about? Holding the pieces of your mosaic story without trying to mold them? Allowing consciousness to move through you by breaking up your stories and not attaching to them? Just trying on a bit or piece here and there?

It must be the female in me that wants to give birth to the healing process. I don’t feel as if I am building anything - it just seems to flow through me right now. Yoga studios falling in my lap and meeting all of you and finding just the right book on the right day. Synchronicity seems to be my story these days.

In practical terms, the story I am most interested in is the one I’m buying into when my emotions get the best of me. If I pull on the thread of frustration or impatience or sadness or anger, then I’m sure to find quite a story of fiction going on in my brain!

ScottyDoo - congrats on five years! Yay! I totally get what you’re saying about freeing the mind - it’s like a big exhale with a smile underneath it.

I Can See Now - Yes!

Randy - I decided to give my contractor a break and I must say, he keeps adding beautiful touches to the space. The truth is, I’m very lucky to have him on the team. I’ll have to save teh Steve Buscemi treatment for another story.

Sattva,

I can’t help but wonder if some one this was inspired by Byron Katie. I was listening to her “Loving What Is” while at the gym tonight (because I know you love her) and she talked alot about “My Story” or “Your Story” saying that we all have our own story that we carry with us. It just reminded me of this post.

Scotty - you sooo caught me! I’ve been running her inquiry for a while now and all sorts of things are clicking for me. Right and left, I am seeing my own drama as a little game and I am off the hook happy about it. When I am stuck - I call my mom who is really, really good at running the questions. I’m in the middle of a book you’d like, “A thousand Names for Joy” - it is her interpretation of Stephen Mitchell’s Tao.

I was just reading from the Tao - “Empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.” Is this what you’re talking about?

Yes, that’s some of it. Last night I was thinking about this thread a bit more and I realized the story that did fit: the Mahayana/Tibetan notion of bardo — the period between one life and the next.

The gap between Shiva’s destruction and Brahman’s creation.

A time to let go of past stories and notice just the fabric composed of interwoven threads.

In limine, in other words. A time when no story is needed or wanted, though a new one will surely begin shortly.

Holding the pieces of your mosaic story without trying to mold them? Allowing consciousness to move through you by breaking up your stories and not attaching to them?

This.