The Healing Process

It has been months and months since I last successfully posted.  I have written a few drafts that will probably never see the light of day.  I think what I really needed was some time to step back and let some of the hurt I felt at losing my faith really start to heal over.

For the most part, I'm not angry anymore.  The only times I'm even irked are in Sunday School (I just can stand listening to logical fallacies stated as if they were sound reason for an hour at a time) and occasionally when I see friends inadvertently hurt by elements of church culture (which I admit is a problem with specific people, not the actual theology or organization of the church proper).

I have begun to admit to more people my lack of belief more than ever before, and I feel like I don't have to be very defensive about it.  I mean, I don't tell everyone I see, but I find that most folks are quite accepting when I explain myself.

I still try to keep my mind open to the possibility that I've missed something.  Maybe the LDS church is true after all?  I still doubt it as much as ever, but I don't want to miss truth regardless of its potential effect on my ego.

My most recent experiment with prayer involved a 6-sided die: I would pray, carefully explaining that in my pride I was having difficulty getting answers and maybe instead of waiting I should come up with a suggestion like the brother of Jared, so I asked if God couldn't help me predict the outcome of a die roll with statistical significance.  I'd pray before each roll and conducted a large number of trials, but ultimately the results were very bland indeed: I successfully predicted the roll just barely under 1/6 of the time.
Blasphemous?  I don't know, but I thought if I had an idea I might as well give it a shot.  Can't be any more blasphemous than myself of a year ago shaking my fist at the sky and daring God in filthy language to strike me down to hell immediately.

Was with my family for Christmas, it was really great.  Had only one major religious discussion with my parents, and it went very smoothly, considering.  I think their hopes for my swift reconversion are a little higher than is justified, but they are very accepting of me.