Martha Beck writes in Leaving the Saints,
"My defection from Mormonism changed me in the same way Adam's disability did: it became an open-ended tragedy that I wouldn't give up for anything in the universe. (not even my own planet) because it helps me let go of beliefs that had damaged my soul. An erswhile friend of mine in the Oak Hills Forth Ward once said he thought the only prayer we offer spontaneously is "Why am I in pain?" Knowing that I am considered wicked and perhaps insane by people that I love is so painful that it continually drives me to this prayer, drives me to seek sustenance even more stable and powerful than human acceptance and company. Please, Please, Please, Please…"
"When I persist in this prayer, sooner or later (the more I practice the more it becomes "sooner") something wonderful happens. My status as an untouchable feels so terrible that something deep inside me finally lets go of it, of all identity, of all attempts to prove or please or control anyone. At that moment, I rediscover the stillness in my own heart of hearts. Then I feel its connection to the Stillness all around me, the gorgeous, blissful Stillness that holds every heart, every mind, every tree and rock in its infinitely loving embrace."
"I am here. Always. I am always right here."
"And it is, it is, right here, nearer than near: connection, comfort, safety, belonging. Home. Lao-Tzu said, "The master can travel all day without ever leaving home," and while I'm no master, I have returned home frequently enough to know he was right. I'm starting to believe that my homing instincts will guide me back anytime I consult it, from anywhere in creation. I think that may be the reason for this whole terrifying excruciating mortal existence, to wander away from home, then find your way back, so many times we learn from our toes up that no matter how far afield we may stray, we can always, always, always get there from here."
Martha and I both found that outside of the family and church community there lies a new home. One that resides inside of us…without that I know I would have certainly died.
She writes about her new path…"I was teaching career development, helping students create successful lives. But to me, that didn't neccessarily mean huge salaries and a Donald Trump social profile. It meant learning to go home and stay there, in that place where joy is not dependent on wealth or image, and even the deepest sorrow is a guide toward healing and happiness. During my years in Utah, through all those days of spiritual trial and effort, all those nights of psychological struggle, I'd developed a repertoire of techniques that helped me do this. In Phoenix, I began teaching these techniques to my students."
"You'll know when you're in the wrong job interview," I'd say during a lecture, "because the pit of your stomach will tell you to get out. Your first priority should be stillness, attention to what you really know and what your really feel. Don't 'network' into meaningless relationshiops with colleagues who bore you; find the people who can make you laugh all night, turn on the lights of your heart and mind. Do whatever work feeds your true self, even if it's not a safe bet, even if it looks like a crazy risk, even if everyone in your life tells you you're wrong or bad or crazy."
"What I was really tellng them was how to be a Leaf in the Stream, though of course I never called it that. Nor did I quote Jesus' question, "What profiteth it a man if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" I rarely used Buddhist terms like awakening or right action. But all these concepts, all the things I'd learned in my search for God, drove every piece of advice I gave my students."
"I also started writing books and articles, on many topics but with only one theme, Dante's theme: the journey through the inferno as the road to heaven. Paradise lost and found."
"In my case, the inferno-road led through Provo, Utah, the well-meaning bureaucracy of Mormonism, the community of Saints. Yours probably passes through some other territory, but we all make the same trip. We believe without question almost everything we learn as children, stumble into the many potholes and pitfalls that mar any human endeavor, stagger around blindly in pain and outrage, then slowly remember to pay attention, to listen for the Silence, look for the Light, feel for the tenderness that brings both vulnerability to wounds and communion with the force that heals them. Don't worry about losing your way, I tell my clients. If you do, pain will remind you to find your path again. Joy will let you know when you are back on it."
"I still make the journey every day, which is why I wrote this book. Many people, especially I myself, have asked me repeatedly why I'd do such a thing. I hate conflict, have an enormous fear of being disbelieved, and remember just enough of the old-fashioned Morman temple ceremony to be paranoid about lethal reprisal from the lunatic fringe of my father's fan base ("and whether they will slay me, I know not…"). But much as I dread the consequences of openness, I know the consequences of secrecy are worse. I've read research that indicates that people who hide a history of traumatic experience live shorter lives, less healthy, less happy lives than those who tell their stories. I know, at a much deeper level, what keeping secrets did to me, and even more to my father. He did more than die for is religion; he gave it his life. He almost gave it mine. The memory of that is awful it leads me down Dante's road many times every day and each time, the awfulness makes me keep going, all the way through hell and back to paradise."
"Once I am home again, I know that my father's true self is not the same man who lied and covered up and sacrificed his children's happiness for his religion…"
"Even if I never know the explanation behind what happened to me as a child, I do know this for sure; Whether my father had the freedom to choose his thoughts and actions, I do. I am free, and always have been; free to accept my own reality, free to trust my perceptions,free to believe what makes me feel sane even if others call me crazy, free to disagree even if it means great loss,free to seek the way home until I find it."
"All the great religions I have studied, including Mormonism, hold that this irrevocable soul-deep liberty is the key to the end of suffering and the beginning of joy. The Buddha said that just as you can recognize seawater because it will always taste of salt, you can recognize enlightenment because it always tastes of freedom. About a year after I discovered I'd become a life coach, I stumbled across a Buddhist prayer that felt so true to me it almost stopped my heart. The last section goes like this:
"As long as space endures,
And as long as sentient
beings exist,
May I also abide,
That I may heal my heart
The miseries of the world."
"Of course I am not saying I can fulfill the promise of the prayer, only that I want to die trying. Maybe I already have died trying, once or twice." Martha
What I recognize most in the similarities between Martha and I, was the cost of speaking out and finding our own inner peace…and how we will repeatedly go back to the fire if we feel we can stop the misery in another, by speaking the truth. We are willing to die again and again…in order to have freedom.
I M Perfect lady 