New beginnings [and] Ocean Depths

I realize I've sort of taken a detour from Judaism. I should have wrapped up my Jewish experience with this wonderful interview I had with a beautiful and intelligent Jewish woman and her husband already. I have that interview and conversation halfway typed and saved as a draft. The thing about my visit with Mary Blye Posani is that she made me think differently about God. She was the culmination of everything I had been learning for the past months. She made me think about sacred spaces and mystery and seeking out those things for myself... and I couldn't really just type up what we talked about and move on. I had to process it all for myself, and figure out what God was saying to me... so I apologize for the detour into my own life and heart and experience... and I will eventually get to that talk I had with Mary on Shabbat, and wrap up Judaism properly, and move on to my next experience. I promise! 
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On November 6th, at 6pm, I am going to be baptized.

I was baptized as a kid. Maybe 9 or 10. I accepted Jesus when I was 5 or 6. I didn’t understand what either of those things meant, and besides all that, what was God washing away? The sins of a child – lying to my parents, disobeying, hitting my brothers... I didn’t really get it.

So I grew up and made different choices, and when my husband and I split in 2006, I left God and the church, too. Only, I missed God. I blocked him out and I tried to fill up the spot where he was, and instead, I just made a big mess out of my life.

a [crisis] of faith

**This blog post has been written in my journal, emailed to my best friend, and scribbled on napkins for the past six months... it has been an ongoing process, thinking and praying and trying to figure out where my head is. This is sort of the compilation and resolution to how this projected has affected me personally over the past eighteen months.**

It was never supposed to get personal. You see, I started out this project with a set of beliefs and values. I wasn’t willing to compromise them or [disbelieve] them, and I wasn’t thinking that even the consideration of those prospects would be a problem. I thought that I could happily maintain my own belief system while objectively reporting on the beliefs of others.

I mean, granted, I was willing to see God in a new way. I was willing to explore the spiritual practices of other groups, and incorporate some of their views on God into my own theology, if the occasion arose where those beliefs did not clash with the beliefs that I already had. I was even willing to go so far as to say that what was right for me is not necessarily right for everyone, and their beliefs could be right for them and wrong for me. But I knew what I believed and my foundation wasn’t going to shift. ((I thought.))

Islam was my first religion to study. It came to me easily. They incorporated my own prophets from the Old and New Testament. They had some funny rules,

the LDS perspective on prayer [and revelation]

prayer
Prayer is an important aspect of living life as a Latter Day Saint. If you read my post "How to be a Muslim, Mormon or Christian for 30 Days" you have seen that prayer is important in any religion that I've studied, and no less emphasized in Mormonism.

Personal prayer: morning and night
Couple prayer (if married): morning and night
Family prayer (if applicable): morning and night
Meal prayers: at each meal

The Mormons believe that God wants to communicate with us: he loves us, he knows our needs, and he wants us to communicate with him through prayer. Although there are not prescribed prayers in Mormonism, instructions are given to them about how to pray: