Early Papers and Projects

Early Spiritual Experiences

After reading Piechoski’s article, I thought long and hard about my childhood experiences, and I could not remember any transcendent experiences at all. As a very young child, I liked Sunday school and primary because I regarded it as fun social event. My friends were there, and I was able to wear a dress! That was all I can recall feeling. When I was eight years old, I was babtised in the Mormon church. It was explained to me that my sins were being washed away, and I was clean and new. It was at this point that I began to question adults about what sins I had since I was just a little girl; it seemed very illogical to me, even then. I also began to feel guilty about nearly everything at this point; the pleasure in the bible stories was lost as I began to feel a sense of doom around every story thereafter. If feeling guilty and bad is a spiritual experience, then I had a very long one.

The most significant spiritual experience that I had, that changed and shaped my life, was also negative. When I was seventeen, my friends and I were spending time with some older boys, ages eighteen to about twenty-one. Of course, this was not wise and could get any of us in all sorts of trouble. I certainly acknowledge that. Succinctly, these behaviors prompted my bishop (the head guy in a Mormon ward or congregation) to start calling me into confessional meetings twice weekly or more—or whenever he could corner me. Having nothing much to confess and being a teenager, I rebelled and refused to go to church.

I certainly acknowledge that there was some childish immaturity in that decision; however, it really was the last episode in an unfulfilling religious experience. As an adult, I revisited my thoughts, feelings, and intuitions about the Mormon Church and knew without any doubt I could not go back.

The initial rejection of my childhood faith left me rather bitter and not believing in much at all. I spent many years as an atheist. A belief so stark leaves one feeling alone and purposeless. I think I was at my most unhealthy-emotionally and spiritually during that time.

Overtime, I became interested in spirituality but only as an academic exercise. As my dearest friend, Kelly, pointed out: I just wanted to talk about it, not feel it; she was correct. Truly though, that academic interest opened my eyes to all sorts of possibilities.

I am not sure how it happened: I just started to feel intuitively that there was something….I did not know what it was, but it was real. The academic exploration and a growing belief have brought me to this place in my journey. While I certainly still struggle with organized religions, Christianity specifically, I am learning to respect other’s paths as sacred. It is taking time as the “bad taste” of the event described above has stayed with me. It is lessening all the time; especially, as I am, as result of this course of study, seeing it for the blessing it is.

By blessing, I mean that my present path feels beautifully, gloriously right. If the negative events had not happened; I had not left the Mormon Church, I suspect that I would be one of the many vaguely (sometimes desperately) unhappy Mormon women I know. To spend the rest of my life yearning for something and not knowing what it might be seems a life not worth living, at least to me.

So, could any of this be thought of as transcendent? Not in the manner described in the article, certainly. However, I feel that I have transcended my early spiritual constrictions and am on the journey to my most authentic self. I am satisfied with that.