Tag Archives: doubt

I’m Still Not Here

At 14, I read the entire Bible, front to back. When I attended sleepovers, other kids brought plastic clamshells of eye shadow or bottles of nail polish, clattering in their backpacks like marbles. I brought my leather-bound Bible. I was always the last to fall asleep. As my friends dropped off into unconsciousness and heavyContinue reading “I’m Still Not Here”

The Angst of the Artist

It really only happens when we’re not working–because we’re stuck or self-doubting or, well, just not working. I am one hell of a crotchety old woman when I’m not writing. And lately that’s been true for a few more days than I’d like. During novel revisions last night, I finally went back to a revisedContinue reading “The Angst of the Artist”

Navigating Religious Differences: An Agnostic Visits Christian Family

I grew up in a religious community that fanatically converted neighbors, friends, and relatives. A Sunday wouldn’t go by without a reminder to pick up extra copies of The Book of Mormon and hand them out when God so moved us. But the world grows thick with difference, and to cull the diversity through conversionContinue reading “Navigating Religious Differences: An Agnostic Visits Christian Family”

Losing Faith

For me, the loss of my faith was much like gaining it. Something outside my control, like a storm blowing in. And this frightened me when it happened. Growing up Mormon, I had been taught that faith is a virtue. And virtues, by definition, can be chosen. Cultivated. Integrity, loyalty, honesty, charity. But faith, it turnsContinue reading “Losing Faith”

Into the Gray

I have a problem. I love certainty. Labels. Categories. Classifications: fiction or nonfiction, ethical or unethical, subject or verb. As a child, I crammed a pine bookcase with glossy paperbacks of E.B White and Louisa May Alcott and Lloyd Alexander. I lined up the little volumes alphabetically and counted them when I needed reassurance that the world spun onContinue reading “Into the Gray”

Leaving the Fold

                                It wasn’t the scientific objections. The glaring fallacies and inconsistencies in the doctrine. For me it was the morality of the thing. The Mormon worldview refuses to face the human condition squarely. Buddha, at least, could admit that “lifeContinue reading “Leaving the Fold”