Such estrangement is extreme, yet transitory, to be transcended.
The distance since September 1993 can only be described as paradoxical.
The journey from member to ex-member to member embodies opposites,
mutually exclusive positions.
Yet opposites are intimately linked.
Leaving and returning are related as parts of one journey.
Joseph Smith described an inherent "opposition in all things" needed to comprehend truth.
He said, "by proving contraries, truth is made manifest" -- truth is two-sided,
it emerges from the tension between its opposite sides.
He also said "all truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it to act for itself."
Truth is self-existent, and embedded in context. Truth is scattered across landscapes and locations of human experience. We have to look in many places to find the truths buried therein.
Can we comprehend truth without seeing its opposite sides and its multiple locations? I don't think so. Truth is relative, personal, messy, contradictory. Truth is hard work. Joseph Campbell said you don't truly know your own culture until you've left it, moved beyond, seen it from the outside.
My search for truth took me through my religion and all its subcultures,
and far beyond to other paradigms, atheism, existentialism, agnosticism, mysticism.
I migrated from myself into new selves, new dimensions of soul I hadn't known,leaving my former self behind like a dream. We need freedom to follow our inner path
wherever it calls. Leaving is a quest for a larger truth, a larger self.
Yet leaving and arriving are two sides of one relationship. We belong, we leave,
wherever it calls. Leaving is a quest for a larger truth, a larger self.
Yet leaving and arriving are two sides of one relationship. We belong, we leave,
we find another place to belong, we depart and return.
Today I'm in the opposite place of where I was twenty years ago.
Yet I'm doing the same thing -- seeking truth by following my conscience.
Those who approve or disapprove of me have traded places as well, either siding with my exit,
My journey led back to its origins, going full circle.
I thought my journey was independent, my relationship nonexistent.
I thought my journey was independent, my relationship nonexistent.
I was wrong. Even leaving is a relationship, a divorce.
Yet, returning is rarely recapitulation. One can't revert to a past self or life, neither stays the same.
Yet, returning is rarely recapitulation. One can't revert to a past self or life, neither stays the same.
A return is a reunion -- revisiting a past place and time in the present as a different person,
and that past place and time have also changed. It is a new relationship.
Today I'm in the opposite place of where I was twenty years ago.
Yet I'm doing the same thing -- seeking truth by following my conscience.
Those who approve or disapprove of me have traded places as well, either siding with my exit,
or with my return. They're seeking their own truth.
One truth abides amid the approval and disapproval of others, one certainty endures --
One truth abides amid the approval and disapproval of others, one certainty endures --
the positive power of love -- with its faith, compassion, appreciation, grace, belonging,
and the freedom to choose these over fear, disbelief, rejection, alienation, hatred.
This is the solid ground I found along the way, between places, in the crux of paradoxes
This is the solid ground I found along the way, between places, in the crux of paradoxes
and opposites, from rejection to return, from yesterday to today.
