The L.A. Times on Richard Dutcher
Film, philosophy, religion 3 Comments »This article at the L.A. times came to my attention.
My thoughts:
First, I didn’t find FALLING to be “spiritually disquieting” (or causing unease or anxiety). It opened some very probing questions, which, personally, only led to very assuring answers for me. And the film as a whole moved me.
Second, I don’t buy the line that Mormons are embargoed from seeing R-rated films. Bleh. Can this myth please die?
And thirdly and waxing philosophical, as for this quote of Dutcher wondering “what if it’s not true?” -
That surprises me. I don’t expect religion to leave me doubt-free. It’s clear the Savior had his profound doubts just before enacting the atonement. In my book, doubt and questioning, looking for answers - that’s the soil for faith and belief. It was certainly where Joseph Smith began his journey. Proof isn’t the point. You can no more disprove any point of religion (for example the existence of God) than anyone can prove it.
The results of living your religion are the proof. Meetings, taking the sacrament, service, study, testing the word of God. You try the experiments; and do the results make you unhappy or happy?
If you’re not trying the word of God - if you aren’t going to church, if you isolate yourself from your religious community, for starters - you won’t get results. It’s easy to conjecture there’s no merit to a theory you aren’t testing.
And much of the test is what my service or involvement can contribute. As a Bishop put it to me, he never found any ward (Mormon congregation) he liked until he stopped focusing on what others were (or weren’t) doing for him, and started focusing on what he can give.
I see friends who begin expressing doubt, mere luke-warm feelings, or even disenfranchisement, with the church, the people in their ward and the things they believe and say, and this all happens at the same time they’ve stopped attending church. Guess what? What these misguided people around you need is for you to go to church and present your take on things in a positive, non-threatening way. (And I know these friends have good and enlightening things to say.)
If others may not be seeing the light, how about shedding some of your own? The Mormon church is designed to informally acquaint us with each other’s insights. If there sometimes isn’t much insight, there’s even less if people nonplussed with that fact keep on waiting for the situation to change - without realizing they can change it. Without realizing they can never know how they positively impact others. There are many people in the LDS religious community who have no idea how they’ve positively impacted me.
Did Jesus walk the streets during his ministry visiting the sick, the poor, the social outcasts, the odd ones, the unwanted, all the while asking himself “What am I getting from these weirdos, what’s in this for me?”
Religion may not be thrilling very often, ergo the command to “endure to the end”. I’ve found that any time I give up the endurance test, again, I feel empty.
Never mind I’d tell you like many a Mormon I know it’s all true. Which I do. My doubts are about what this religion can actually do for me (the acknowledged paradox being that I shouldn’t just be in it for me). I’ll always be figuring that out - and those doubts are exactly what lead me to keep trying things out.
Click either “play now” or “play in popup” to see it. If either of those don’t work, click the download link and have a look at it in Windows Media Player.
