"Building on", Not "Contradicting"

There have been a lot of times in my life when someone has said something at church that is different in some way than I see it.  (To be fair, I'm positive that many other people could say the same thing about lots of things I've said at church.)  In some of those situations, I've felt it was necessary to explain to my children why I didn't agree with what was said, but I don't try to contradict them.  I like "building on" rather than "contradicting", since I rarely tell my children that I am right and the other person is wrong.  There are times, however, when I have contradicted something that someone else has said in a meeting or class of some kind. I've tried to do it with humor and a specific reinforcement that I love the person who said it, but I've done it, nonetheless.

I mentioned in a post a while ago an example of a former church leader who said from the pulpit how proud he was that his son chose to date only other members. This was in "the mission field", and my teenage daughters at the time were the only active members in the entire town in which we lived. There were no Mormon young men in their high school - or within a 20 miles radius of their house. My daughters were incredulous, so we talked about the impractical nature of that personal opinion on our way home from the meeting.  I stressed how much I loved and respected the person who made the statement - and I was completely sincere in those statements. He is a wonderful man, and I learned a lot from my time associating with him.

I'm my kids' parent, and, more than anything else, I want them to learn to think for themselves, to wean themselves from needing to borrow my light (or that of anyone else) and to construct their own faith. I hope deeply it is within Mormonism and the LDS Church, but if it isn't, so be it. I'm trying to train them to be adults, and part of that is crafting their own beliefs and perspectives while not ridiculing and rejecting those who craft differently than they do.

I'd rather they start that process early, in their natural "developmental" stage when things still are being molded, than have to help them pick up the pieces when a less mature, more rigid paradigm shatters later in life. 

Teaching Our Children When We Disagree with Something that is Said at Church

I try to be honest with my kids about my own views whenever there's a conflict with what's taught or said by someone at school or church. They know I don't agree with everything that's said, but they also know I genuinely love the people who say the things with which I disagree.

We just disagree; no big deal.

I'm going to disagree with lots of things lots of people say in my life, in every organization of which I'm a part. I know it's really hard to take the emotional reaction out of the picture, especially when it deals with a dad or mom or sibling or other loved one, but it is a skill my children are going to have to learn at some point, no matter what, if they are to be happy.

That's the central message I try to convey to my kids - that's it's fine to disagree, but it's not fine to reject or disparage.  It's fine to disagree, but it's not fine to let disagreement void love.

Sometimes, the Presentation and Attitude Are More Important than the Words

I had an interesting experience in Sacrament Meeting a few years ago, and I have thought about it off and on ever since: 

The first speaker talked about repentance - and, as strongly as feel about how we tend to present only a small, simplistic view of repentance in the Church, I ended up enjoying the talk, mostly. The speaker had a good sense of humor, was self-deprecating and used personal experiences of when he'd screwed up to illustrate his points. "Doctrinally" I had a few issues that could have been bigger - but his approach and attitude overcame those issues.

The second speaker (the High Councilor) talked about the Law of Chastity - and my experience with the first talk was magnified throughout the second talk. There were more aspects for me over which I could have taken issue (and those issues were deeper for me), but, in the end, I was impressed by something that hit me hard - and I mean really, truly HARD:

He obviously was sincere - and trying his best to be compassionate, understanding and empathetic. His delivery method and attitude were humble, even as probably 2/3 of his talk was content I never would have chosen for a talk about that topic - and 1/2 of that content I couldn't have said over the pulpit if I'd tried (like some of his description of pornographic imagery - even not in explicit terms - since I believe that only brings such images into the minds of those who need help the most without actually helping them in any way).

I didn't know either speaker - had never talked at length with either of them. All I had was their words and their presentation of those words - and, in the end, what I FELT about them as I listened outweighed what they actually said. I felt like they were good, sincere people doing the best they could to help others - so the fact that I believed that some of what they said wasn't helpful in the slightest and, in a few cases, actually incorrect, didn't mean as much as that impression. I cut them slack because of what I felt, when I would have been more critical if I had felt differently about them.

It's true that often we overlook things people say if we love them - so I try to learn to love people who see and say things differently than I do. 

We Can Learn from People Whom We Naturally Think Can't Teach Us Anything

Throughout my life, I have found the most profound insights often come from people from whom I naturally would not expect to be able to learn anything – and they have come almost always when I am in the right frame of mind to listen carefully to what someone is trying to say and not get so caught up in crafting a response that I forget to listen to everything they say prior to reaching a conclusion about what I assume they are going to say. In other words, these insights come when I am more focused on understanding than arguing or being understood. 

For example, I have had experiences of not liking what someone has said in General Conference and then, when I read the talks afterward, realizing they really didn’t say what I thought while listening to the talks live. In nearly all cases, the disconnect was my focusing so intently on one statement that I failed to hear the surrounding statements or consider context enough to realize that I had misconstrued the original statement and turned it into something other than what had been intended. That same experience has occurred in conversations with fellow members, with talks they give in Sacrament Meeting, with co-workers, with my wife and children, while reading blog posts and comments, etc – and it generally is because I was thinking of a response before they were done talking or before I was done reading.

If it happens with people from whom I want to learn, I know it happens even more frequently with people from whom I am not as inclined naturally to want to learn.

I have learned over the years to try to listen to everyone (their voice, in person, and their words, in a forum like this) with the primary purpose of learning from them rather than arguing with them - and, while I am not yet perfect at it, the result has been amazing to me. I truly have been able to learn from people from whom I didn't expect to learn anything.