While reading in “Shattered Dreams” by Irene Spencer, I came upon a paragraph that struck a cord within me.
She is describing the polygamy Principle, which is commonly known by Principle.
“A teaching that was to have a grave impact on how I lived my life can be summed up quite simply as follows; People may fail the Principle, but the principle itself never fails.”
This is how many folks look upon religion, as seeing how the people fail IT, and not that IT fails the people.
She goes on to write, “My mother lived in a religious no-win situation. She was devoted to a tradition that defeated her.”
Imagine being devoted to something that defeats you?
What struck me as I pictured this girl watching her mother struggle with plural marriage, was in how she didn’t see her mother’s defeat, but wondered more about her own strength to endure…she never considered breaking the chain of polygamy.
My estrangement with my mother happened because I was determined to break the chain of mothering as she mothered. I believe each of us have either the strength to endure and continue on the chain or legacy….or the strength to break the chain.
And there are many women who feel empowered by holding up doctrines and belief systems, while they are defeated by them. What they see isn’t the lack of self, but rather the success of not allowing the belief to die.
I had said that my mother’s greatest strength, was her blindness. And now I understand that her blindness was of her self or what the cost had on her family to uphold the doctrine of the Forgiveness of Sins. That is the Principle of the FALC.
As Irene writes, “…when the children of the covenant lacked the courage to live polygamy for themselves, it was always the fault of the human weakness and sin, never a problem with the Principle.”
My mother never could see any fault with the church and would not hear a word that would go against her Principle Belief. We became invisible to her. Her main focus was always to be loyal to what I feel was helping to defeat her.
Putting her Faith in the Principle (forgiveness of sins) was always a higher need than her own childrens or her own. We came in second, always…and in doing so, it defeated our family from the git go.
We were born into a system where we came second from day one…and there was no way to move ahead, if anything we fell lower on the totem pole as the years went by.
It is very disheartening to see that in your mother’s eyes you stand behind the system that defeated her. And in order to get along with her, you too have to be defeated.
Defeated I left my relationship with her, for she couldn’t see how damaging she was to herself, to our family and to me.
Her beliefs destroyed everything…while holding high her faith in the Principle. The Principle won, always.
Tag: Shattered
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The Principle Won, always.
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Wants to see.
My mother leaves a message on my daughter’s cell phone, wanting a recent picture of me, asking her for 4 or 5 of them. What??? Saying on the message, “she is still my daughter and I love her,” like that gives her all rights.
What about mine, my daughters? And further more, why is she involving her granddaughter in this estrangement, making her feel like she has to pick which one to please, meaning she has to disappoint the other?
She is okay dragging my daughter into the middle of our broken relationship, asking for a piece of me…asking an innocent bystander.
I do not have access to her directly nor do I want to open up a line. Instead I want to close the line of communication that she feels she now has, my children.
I will have to contact a sister whose house she is living in…and pass on that this is simply not acceptable, not now or ever.
My home line has not changed in 15 years, she is aware of the number and can call. If she truly wants a slice of me, she will have to ask me to my face.
The overall audacity and ignorance should not surprise me anymore, yet it does.
Thank god she loves me… Not.
If she truly loved and seen me, she would honor our silence, leave me alone to heal and be, letting my distance be as it is, and not try to come in through the back door stealing a ‘recent picture’.
There is no recent me in her life.
There is no recent her in mine.
There is no us.
She just refuses to let me die, to let me go, it feels like abuse all over again, this time with my daughter passing on the message and getting dirty in the middle.
Oh the picture I would send…It is not a pretty picture.
Will my picture capture the agony and pain, does it show the torn up insides where the wound is healing nicely, now.
What is it she wants a picture of?
The absence of any recent pictures slams this home.
It shatters the idyllic fantasy she carries of us.
A picture is worth 1000 words and so is the absence of one in this case…
I do not feel she has earned the right to own a recent picture of me.
She doesn’t see the whole picture of me, just what she wants to see.
I M Perfect lady 