“Brothers and Sisters…”

*In my mind I see them adjusting the podium to my height*

When Brother Steadman asked me to speak on Why I left the Cultural Hall, I was nervous. You all know me, I am not the kind of person who shrinks from the spotlight. I have what some doctors call, “Vomit of the Words”, and I have never been shy about sharing every juicy little detail of my life…Even with complete strangers…Even when they didn’t want me to….Even when they asked me to stop….

But even though talking about myself is usually something that I look forward to, I find that when it comes to this specific topic, I have very little interest in sharing. Maybe it is because I am afraid of how I might be judged as a result of my honesty. Maybe I have grown so fond of you all that I would rather just disappear into the ether, rather than risk having you all think less of me. I know some of you out there in the congregation will understand, maybe even identify with what I about to share, but I know some of you will not. My only hope in sharing this message is that in doing so, I can move forward with whatever is next for my life with a knowledge that I have been as genuine as possible. I have put my whole life out there for the world to see, so I suppose it is only fair that I include this part as well.

Over a year ago I was feeling stagnant spiritually, and in life. I was 30 years old, unmarried, no job, freshly graduated from college, and about to be kicked out of my YSA ward and sent to the mid-singles version. My most recent relationship of 3 years had ended abruptly the prior New Years Eve when the man I loved informed me that he simply could not risk marrying a women who may never want children. I understood, but it devastated me nevertheless.

Around this same time, I met a man through a mutual friend, and he and I began a casual courtship. It was also around this time that I made the decision to go through the Temple on my own, and not wait until I was married. I talked to my Bishop and he agreed that it was a good idea and then informed me that I would need to take all of the temple prep classes first and then be interviewed by the Stake President. I began taking the classes and preparing myself spiritually, but something felt…off.

I have always been the kind of person who wanted to do the Right thing. It didn’t matter to me if the Right thing was hard, or unpopular, because Right was Right, and I wanted to do the Right thing. In every aspect of my life I tried to do the Right thing, but especially when it came to my Faith. I was about as devote a Mormon as there was. In my 30 years I had never been inactive, or “Jack”, I had never “sown my wild oats”, or even flirted with “the great and spacious building”, and yet…In all my years of faithful church, temple, seminary, institute, and so on, I had never had my Joseph Smith Moment. Certainly I had had what I would consider “Spiritual Experiences”, and I, like most of you, had stood up in whatever meeting and proclaimed that I KNEW the church was True, but in reality, I didn’t know.

I Believed the Church was True….I Hoped the Church was True…I Wanted the Church to be True…But I didn’t really Know it the way I knew the Sun came up in the morning or even in the way I knew I was going to die someday. I know it is going to seem like semantics to some, and I completely understand that the basis of most spiritual knowledge has more to do with Faith than actual Knowledge, but then again, I would talk to people who claimed that they KNEW, not Hoped, not Thought, not Believed, not had Faith…KNEW the church was True, and I wanted to be one of those people, and those people told me that I could be one of those people, and so I set about on many an occasion to become one of those people.

I did everything I was told to do…Read my scriptures…Go to all my meetings…And the Temple…And all the extras like Institute, and of course I prayed. I prayed so much and so fervently that by the time I was done, I was usually a quivering pile of jelly on my bed. I asked the Lord, I pleaded, I implored, but always with the acceptance that His will be done, and if I didn’t receive my answer, then I assumed that meant the answer was to try harder…and so I did.

And so it was when I decided to go through the Temple. I did not take this decision lightly. I have always had a deep understanding of the weight and value of such sacred acts, and I didn’t want to approach this with an attitude of frivolity. I understood that if I was going to make this decision, I needed to it for the right reason, and for me the right reason was because I Knew that the church was True and because I knew it, I was willing to dedicate everything I had, and everything I was to it.

But whenever I thought about it, there again I felt this…catch in my stomach and in my heart.

Even though I had had many wonderful and beautiful experiences in the church, I couldn’t stand up and in full honesty and integrity say that I Knew the Church was True, and I knew that before I entered into the Holy House of the Lord and made those sacred covenants, I needed to Know and not just Hope that the church was true….And so I set out to finally obtain my personal and unshakeable testimony.

When I asked Levi (the man I was dating) if he would want to join me on this journey, he readily agreed and admitted that he found himself in the same boat, even though he had already been through the temple and served an honorable full-time mission. What I love and appreciate most about Levi is that he values truth and honesty over popularity and conformity. He, like me, is more concerned with doing what he believes to be Right, rather than what appears to be the norm, regardless of where that norm is coming from.

If I attempted to properly communicate the fullness of my journey over the last year and a half we would we literally be here all day. I know that this is going to upset many of you because you are going to wonder if it is possible that I missed a step along the way, or maybe I didn’t do everything that I could have done, or maybe you will think that I gave up too soon, or left some sort of stone unturned, or maybe that I am missing the point entirely, that when we talk about Knowing something superficially vs. Knowing something spiritually I am misunderstanding the former, or the latter, and so on and so forth, and perhaps you are right, though that seems an impossible thing to qualify really.

I will tell you this however…This last year and a half has been the most painful and darkest days of my life. I never cried so much, lost so much sleep, spent more time on my knees, in books, in counsel with authorities, in the temple, and in communication with God than I have during these days. I read, pondered, searched, read more, pondered more, prayed, fasted, read, pondered, prayed, pleaded, supplicated, cried, searched, read, pondered, probed, until I felt as though my head and heart were going to explode.

I could tell you about the experience I had with the evangelical preacher and the spirit I felt when it seemed like certain formerly unknown “truths” were revealed to me as I listened to him speak.

I could tell you about the time that a close family member cornered me about whether or not Levi and I were going to get married in the temple because they assumed that he and I were already having sex since we had stopped going to church (which we weren’t) and then proceeded to tell me that I was literally going to hell.

Or I could convey the story of the night that I spent in the temple and felt absolutely nothing only to leave with the thought that maybe if I was so unworthy as to feel nothing in the house of the Lord that I was probably better off ending my life rather than continuing to heap condemnation on my head.

So many stories that I would be happy to share, but for the sake of time and flow I will say again…Most Painful and difficult times of my life.

Now, looking back, I realize that I was approaching this whole journey with the baseline belief that the church was true, and that I only needed to have that belief confirmed to me. Just like a bad scientist, I began my experiment with the results already in mind, and yet even though I already knew what I wanted to be true, I could never get to a point where I felt like the evidence confirmed the hypothesis…I can’t even describe how disheartening and frustrating this way for me. I blamed myself of course, I figured that it was because something was broken in me, or that God was testing me, or that I wasn’t worthy of the answers I was seeking, and then one day a good friend of mine gave me some advice that ultimately changed the course of my life.

This friend, an active member of the church, challenged me to approach the church with new eyes. He told me that I should try as much as was possible to look at the church with no preexisting beliefs. He said that I should approach my faith journey with a neutral stance when it came to the Truth or Untruth of the church. He told me to think of what Christ said about becoming like a little child, humble, submissive, willing to submit to whatever the Lord saw fit for me and my life. As he spoke these words, it was as if this fog that had settled in my brain suddenly began to lift, and for the first time in my life I stopped asking God to show me that the church was True, but instead, to Show me Truth in whatever form that took. I realized that in order to truly find Truth, I had to be open to all possibilities, including the one that might ultimately lead me away from the faith of my childhood, and in many ways, my entire identity.

Like I said before, I have always wanted to do the right thing, even if it was hard, and so I hope you will believe me when I say that choosing to step away from the Church has truly been the hardest and most heart breaking thing I have ever done, but even so, I truly believe that I am doing what is right…at least for now.

I don’t know exactly how to frame this next part. I am so worried that I am going to offend people, and that is not my intention. I want to be able to share my testimony with you as it currently stands, and I hope it will be taken in the spirit to which it is intended…

I Know that ultimately I know nothing, or very little outside of the things that are very obvious…such as I exist, you exist, and someday, we will be gone. I don’t know where we go after we die, but I truly hope that this life is not everything we get. I truly hope that there is something beyond what we see with our eyes, or touch with our hands, and I truly hope that someday, everyone we have lost will be returned to us, in whatever form that takes.

I know that Loves is real, and I know that Hate is real too. I know that when I choose Love over Hate I feel the way that I want to feel.

I know that there are so many beautiful things about the church that I am so grateful for being able to have been a part of. I know that there are people out there of other faiths and people of no faith who are just as good, and kind, and Christ like as the good and kind and Christ like members I have met within the church. I believe that the concepts of Goodness and Kindness are not exclusive to any one religion or denomination, they are in all of us, and they are a choice that we make every minute of every day.

I believe what Christ said when He warned us against letting our pride lead us to feelings of superiority over any other man, denomination, or creed. I believe what Joseph Smith said when he said that we should allow each man to worship in the fashion that resonated within his own conscious.

I believe people are good, but that they don’t always act good, and I believe that deep down, we are all just striving to find purpose and meaning in this life, because none of us really knows what is coming next. We are all just trying to make sense of it all, and if the Church is where you find your sense, then I fully support and endorse you in staying and in being the best dang Mormon the world has ever seen.

And I believe that life is short…no…I Know that is short, and far too fragile. In fact, life is so short and so fragile that we can’t waste even a moment of it. I believe we need to love the people in our lives as though this was the last moment we were going to have with them, because even if it’s not, it is still the way we all want and deserve to be loved.

Here is where it gets more difficult for me to share…

At this point in my life I can honestly say that in order for me to feel as though I am living a truly genuine and honest life, I cannot do so while remaining an active member of the church. I don’t know if that will change someday, it might, and my heart is certainly open to it and always will be until the day I die. I will continue to search for truth in whatever form it takes, and if someday that truth leads me back to the church, I will rejoice, and I will hope that those who remain will not hold my temporary absence against me.

That being said, I need you all to know that if someday, somehow, someway, it is “proven” to you personally, or to the world in general that the church isn’t true, I will be here for each of you with open arms, and to pick up the pieces of your broken hearts. Having walked through my own Gethsemane, I know the weight of a kind word, or of someone who doesn’t judge you, or of simply putting your arms around someone while they mourn the loss of something that meant more to them that life itself.

I no longer Believe that the Church is True, though there are times when I desperately wish I did.

I love my Cultural Hall Family, and I love all of you. I don’t want to do or say anything that is going to drive a wedge between you and I, or myself and the Church. I am leaving the show because I know the spirit in which it is intended to be taken. I know the message that Richie is trying to convey and the last thing I want to do is be the proverbial fly in the ointment. I would love to continue to be a part of the show, but I also don’t want to have to censor myself when it comes to the things that I no longer believe, and I see this causing more pain and frustration for all parties involved than good.

Who knows? Life has a funny way of changing. If you had told me that this is where I would be at age 31 I would have cried, and then I would have told you that you were a liar. I had a picture of my future that included a temple marriage and years of faithful membership, and now…Well…To be honest… I have no road map, which I find both paralyzingly terrifying and unspeakably beautiful.

Thank you for your support, Thank you for those who have shown me love and charity. For those who have been cruel or hurtful, I want to say that I get it, I understand why you are doing it, and I forgive you. That might sound flippant, but I really do mean it. I hope we can all continue to try and find common ground, not only as Brothers and Sisters in Zion, but also as a larger community of Man and Woman, people, Humans, Children of God, Incarnations of Stardust, Family.

All my love…

Britty aka The Anxious White Virgin