Redefined

It isn’t rage.

Rage would at least be simple.
Rage burns itself out.

This is slower than that.

Officially, I left the church.
That’s the phrase people use.

But the version that travels
through the house is different.

My children have been told
something happened to me.

Not that I changed my mind.
Not that I stopped believing.

Something happened.

As if a hand reached in
and removed me from myself.

All I said was
I don’t believe this anymore.

But the story has its rules.

Once you say that,
you become the other side.

There isn’t much room in it
for a father who doubts.

You have to understand
it’s more than hymns and meetings.

It’s a system that decides
what your words are allowed to mean.

When I speak
the sentence is adjusted.

I say
Joseph Smith was mistaken.

What they hear is
He’s chosen darkness.

“Satanic” isn’t meant as an insult.
It’s just the category.

We still sit at the same table.
The same plates.
The same late-afternoon light.

Nothing visible has changed.

Still, something stands there.

Not anger.

Instruction.

They’ve been told my mind
can’t be trusted now.
That some other influence
must be guiding it.

So when I laugh
it’s treated carefully.

When things go well for me
it’s unfortunate.

I’m no longer only their father.

I’m what happens
when someone leaves.

First comes grief.

The strange fact that love
has to pass through doctrine
before it reaches the child.

The stranger fact
that doctrine sometimes wins.

Anger comes later.

Not loudly.

Just the realization
that a story can claim authority
over an ordinary human face.

People say the church helps.

What they mean is
it explains things.

But explaining a condition
isn’t the same as helping it.

The explanation stays.

It sits at the marriage table.
It stands at the funeral.
It watches Christmas dinner.

People ask why ex-Mormons
sound angry.

Because leaving
doesn’t end the story.

The story goes on
without you in it.

It explains you.

It tells the people you love
that you’re no longer
entirely yourself.

Eventually you see
what’s happened.

No one argued with you.

You were simply moved
into another category.

And all you can say is

quietly,

I’m not the adversary.

I’m your father.