Saturday, August 4, 2012

I Know An Ex-Mormon Who Was Offended

And she had a damn good reason to be.

In Utah, there are ex-Mormons everywhere. I run into them all the time and have good conversations with them.

Today I spoke with a woman who had left the church. We will call her Jamie. According to her, this is what happened.

Jamie moved into a new ward in one of the more wealthy areas of the Salt Lake Valley and was meeting the members. Her past ward was full of wonderful people and she had a bishop that she adored. She was expecting the same of the new ward.

Jamie's new Relief Society president anxiously welcomed her and immediately began to inform her of upcoming events, which were regularly held on several days of the week.

Jamie thanked her for the information and told RSP that she worked on many of those days and would not be able to make it to all of them but would attend as often as she could.

The RSP suddenly changed from a nice, smiling woman to a condescending snob and said, "Oh, you are a working mother."

She then turned her back on Jamie and walked away.

Yes, sometimes ex-Mormons leave the church because someone offended them. There is no excuse for the way this RSP handled the situation. I would have been offended too. I would have let that condescening bitch bask in all of her righteous glory... with me not there.

5 comments:

erin said...

Was the RSP named Ann Romney?

Brad said...

I was offended too. It was at a point when I was questioning the church. One of the leaders in the Elders Quorum didn't like the way I answered his questions concerning home teaching. So, it didn't surprise me that he pretty much ignored me at church. What I didn't understand is that he treated my TBM wife the same way. She loves the church and gives a lot of her time towards it, yet, he treated her badly.

That person needs a total attitude adjustment.

Tyson Devereux said...

There is no excuse for one person to treat another with such disrespect - however, we CHOOSE to be offended. I've been in several similar situations myself. I've had a person ignore me or so i thought, which happened to be a misunderstanding. Whether its having a bad day, a misunderstanding, complete ignorance, or blatant dislike - one person isn't going to change what I know. I've encountered rude atheists - so does that mean all atheists are terrible? No, I've met wonderful moral and respectful atheists and I don't let one bad thing ruin my view of something. It sure puts a damper on things of course.

Whenever I encounter someone who I feel treated me with disrespect, I now think of all the times I may have unknowingly and unintentionally said something or done something that me have offended someone. There could be many. At an earlier workplace, I had a coworker that often times treated people rudely, customers and coworkers. Several coworkers were talking about this person one time and I knew I shouldn't but I said something about that person. Then another coworker made us aware of all the things that person was going thru and stated, "I try to be nice to her because she needs it" - she put me in my place. We don't understand what other people are going through.

My wife is black - you can imagine what things we experience in the church, and even outside the church. But that doesn't effect us - because we choose to not let it effect us. We choose to not be offended. We were in a ward with mostly older people. My wife was afraid to go. One old lady in particular would just stare at my wife week after week, and after several months the old lady finally told my wife that she's been wanting to say hi to her for a long time and didn't know how to approach her. All the older ladies of the ward treated my wife so well. You just never know.

I agree, it's a shame that one person can act so rudely. But there is no excuse, for them . . . Or ourselves. We choose to be offended, or we can choose to shrug it and keep moving forward.

Brad said...

I totally agree Tyson! He wasn't the reason for my disaffection of the church. But, I do wish I had approached him and told him that I didn't care how he treated me, but he had no reason to treat my wife like he did.

Anyway, that was a long time ago, lesson learned.

Mormon411 said...

Erin, lol. Doubt it.

Brad and Tyson, well put both of you. You never really know when someone is having a bad day. I know I've said things in the moment of passion that I regret. It is a good lesson to learn. We all need to be slower to judge and quicker to love. Thanks guys!