END of Falling Into Life: A Gay Exmormon’s Journey
LAST CHAPTER
Chapter Thirty – My Afterlives: Old and New
I was raised to believe that everything we did, every single action had an impact on our afterlife…
All of our actions are being recorded in our own Books of Life by the angels, whom pay constant attention to us. Not only that, but each and every thought was a manifestation of our righteousness. Our afterlives were going to be graded just like here on earth, like a school A – Fs rating system, like annual performance ratings at work, just like *everything* in the good ol’ USA.
I used to believe that my afterlife was much more important than my present life. This life was just a “blink of an eye”, almost a throw-away in the whole timing of our spiritual journey. Getting through this life as fast as we can, never veering off course or falling away, would mean the highest reward. Every choice was important to ensure we’d live with our Heavenly Father again, and even become a Heavenly Father to another world. That would be the highest level of happiness and joy imaginable.
Every one of us would be joined together using this marvelous Priesthood power, so that it was a finely-tuned, well-oiled machine of happiness and joy. The *best* happiness, and the *best* joy. The kind of happiness and joy that made you *truly* happy and joyous. Not a happiness or joy that comes from this *world*, not some man-made happiness or joy. A happiness and joy that could only come from living the eternal precepts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as restored by Joseph Smith Jr. in the 1830’s. Vanquishing the loss of God’s Priesthood power (Dark Ages be damned!) through restoration by a young, fourteen year old chosen one.
I was tasked with keeping my kids in line so they would follow, in lock step order, a life of Mormonism. I would raise my children unto God, none would be lost. The connection through all time and eternity would be saved. The health of my sinews, my loins, my prodigy would continue on in righteousness.
That was the plan anyway.
My previous afterlife came crashing down because I didn’t fit God’s mold anymore. Falling away, falling into my real life meant losing that entire beautiful reality. My desperation to be free and genuine trumped all that. It’s my fault that I’ve fallen away, that I’m going to outer darkness for denouncing the Holy Spirit. It’s my fault that I’ve damned my own kids. It’s my own fault that my eternal marriage crumbled and blew away, stranding my Ex into oblivion.
Or perhaps I’m to be hailed for saving myself. Perhaps the best thing I will have ever done in my entire life was to fall. Because falling meant finding myself. Falling meant saving myself. At times it did feel like that image of those terrified people as they fell from those flaming buildings to their doom. But it turned out that it was all smoke and mirrors, a mental entrapment, never to truly lose my life as those poor people did. Just misled, manipulated, led astray, duped, fooled, and tricked by men. An eternal Ponzi Scheme. Spiritual planes crashing into my own life edifice. A never-ending hoax. Joseph’s Myth.
My new reality is much more favorable. I have returned my family bloodlines to a pre-Mormon state. After all, somewhere back in time, my lineage lived free of the tyranny of Mormonism. I am undoing what that church did to my lineage. I am fighting for freedom like Ina did, opening my family to creativity, freedom, and true unconditional love. Watching the church structure fall in shards around my new, vibrant, wonderful life. I just *had* to let it go.
Now, my afterlife exists in the minds of my children. My plan is to treat them with dignity, love and respect as long as I live, and they in turn remember me fondly after I’m gone. That’s all I want. That would be the *best* afterlife I could ever imagine. It’s something my own family cannot handle, basic respect. But it’s something I am driven to do, it is my highest goal. No more magic, no more overexertion, no more insane concepts, crazy ideas, or life-threatening beliefs. Just simple love.
Maybe I will live to see my own kids have their own kids. Maybe I won’t. But I know that at whatever moment I check out of this mortal coil, I do not want them sitting on my graveside weeping. I can think of nothing more wasteful. I want them to live in down-to-earth reality. Feet-in-the-sand love. Smiles as wide and glittering as a disco ball. Eyes always seeking new ideas, new visions, new dreams, and new horizons. Laughter so loud you can’t keep quiet. Minds like sponges that read, and appreciate that *one scene* that made their hearts break or their minds explode. Hands that are willing to love and help, and feet that will dance up a storm and walk that extra mile.
Maybe they will do these things, and maybe they won’t. Either way, I’m going to love them. Until then, I’m taking it day by day. And sleeping each night quietly and peaceful in his arms.
End.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
test Filed under Etienne, Falling Into Life | Tags: Etienne, Falling Into Life | Comments (3)3 Responses to “END of Falling Into Life: A Gay Exmormon’s Journey”
Leave a Reply
Hi, I just wanted to thank you for such a fascinating and moving account, having stumbled across it quite by accident. I can relate to a very slight extent having been brought up in a Christian family and community where being gay was taboo, and gay relations or friends distanced, spending years trying to hide my inclinations for fear of what people would say or do, especially in school. I guess I’m quite typical of an intermediate (sub?) generation where you could come out so long as you were secure enough (emotionally, financially, physically) to forget or ignore the dreaded first reaction (or cowardly send the news by post with an Easter egg) and let a loving family readjust and work things through in private what took me a decade to shake off. I knew next to nothing of mormonism, however, when I started reading this blog (in the UK you mostly get rather vague stereotypes linked to Jehovah’s Witnesses With An Accent) and feel I’ve been given a very raw and painful intro. Is there a website that plainly and dispassionately describes the beliefs, customs, history and criticisms? Religion is a tricky topic to Google (or even Wiki-search) with any degree of objectivity. Everyone has a story to tell or belief to foster, and everything else seems trying so hard not to offend I feel I’m missing simple facts. Perhaps I missed a link at the beginning, and maybe repeating it at this point might be helpful for anyone else interested? Thanks again.
Congratulations on your completion of a wonderful, and encouraging journey!
You say you saved yourself. No–you didn’t just save yourself.
For a long time, I said that I saved my ex, just not in the way the church expected me to. BUT, nowadays, I say that we saved each other. Without him and the gay issue, I never would have found my way out of mormonism.
I think one of the most powerful days of my life was the day I sat at the wedding reception (I think I told you about it) at a mormon church in Rexburg, Idaho. I went through the line with my ex, his partner, my daughter–and we sat at a table across from one of my ex’s gay friends from childhood/high school. I knew this guy because he lived with us for 3 months. He was sitting there with his wife–and neither of them would look at me. They would look at my ex and his partner, and the gay friend flirted with my ex’s partner, but they avoided my eyes. I was making a statement–I sat there and thought, “There he sits. He is still so nice looking and I love him and I still love him. All I ever wanted for him was that he accept himself and be happy. I have given him that. I can have no regrets.”
I have told my daughter–to truly love someone, you have to be willing to let them go. You can’t hold them hostage. It was the hardest lesson I ever learned–but the most rewarding.
I revel in the life I live–as he lives here and everyone knows. He was afraid that the men he works with still didn’t know–until the secretary of his department told him recently that they’ve known for years. He then put the rainbow Mickey ball from Disneyland that I bought him last October on his trooper. There has been nothing so healing in my life as to have learned to love someone completely unconditionally. He gave me that opportunity.
Thank you so much for your book! I loved your ex-wife’s, too.