On a recent Sunday morning, a friend and I went for a walk. It’s a not-infrequent Sunday morning activity for us, although it’s been a while since we went out because our schedules have not been aligned. Before I left the church and she stopped attending, we would work around church time, but now we usually go during church, as her family is out of the house.

After this walk, which was typical in every way, I got a text from her. Someone had reported back from sacrament meeting: A woman who used to be in our ward saw us walking during church (she must have been running late?) and felt the need to include us in her testimony. Per my friend, this woman commended everyone who had gone to church that day for their valiance after seeing “two sisters in the ward” out walking. 

In her defense, when I resigned I asked the bishop to keep discussion to a minimum. It appears he has done an excellent job of it. Not in her defense, it is literally not her business who is in church or not except for her.

But this bugged me. I was struck by the public shaming aspect, the assumptions of lack of valiance or faith, the sense of superiority. When I was Mormon, it was comments like that, usually made off-handedly and without a thought as to how they would land with outsiders–because I was an outsider for years before leaving, even though I wore the clothes and said the words of an insider–that reminded me that I didn’t belong, that I was different, that this wasn’t a safe space for me. 

What’s more, it was so unnecessary. Can’t people simply be valiant? Must they be compared to someone else to feel good about being in church on Sunday morning? Surely the reason they were all there that morning was to connect with divinity, to learn or even just to fulfill a covenant, not to feel superior to the neighborhood apostate who walked away? They got their blessings for attending regardless of who wasn’t there. 

And what if I hadn’t left? What if I was really struggling with church–as I did for years, as I know many others do every week–and just needed a break that week? A mental health day. A walk in the forest with the sun on my face and a talk with a good friend. Is that so wrong? (Cue Sister Toth as a missionary almost 20 years ago: “Yes. Communing with God in nature doesn’t count.” I hope all the people to whom I taught that figured out the teaching was wrong long before I did. Commune with God wherever and however you feel God.) What if this public judgment was relayed to me when I was sensitive, struggling, wondering if I can be myself in church or if the ramifications would be too much? The message would be loud and clear: No. This isn’t a hospital for the sick. Show up with your best, every time. There are no other options.

In her excellent book “Caste,”* author Isabel Wilkerson compares society to a cast in a play, where people are assigned roles at birth–lead, supporting, backstage, usher. “As an actor, you are to move the way you are directed to move, speak the way your character is expected to speak. You are not yourself. You are not to be yourself. Stick to the script and to the part you are cast to play, and you will be rewarded. Veer from the script, and you will face the consequences. Veer from the script, and other cast members will step in to remind you where you went off-script. Do it often enough or at a critical moment and you may be fired, demoted, cast out, your character conveniently killed off in the plot” (p. 63).

In church, other members will make you face the consequences of veering off script. I have yet to experience a time when divinity forced such a consequence on me. Everyone’s time might be better spent focusing on their own lines, their own roles and their own relationships with divinity. Be yourself. If there is no place for your true self, better to know that now. And please, don’t be the member who shames, publicly or privately, those who fall short of what you think they should be doing. Church is supposed to be a hospital for the sick. Don’t stand at the door and turn the sick away.

*I highly recommend this book, which looks at the United States as a caste system like India’s, with black people at the bottom of the system. It is eye-opening, particularly as this time discontent and division in the country.

Photo by Audri Van Gores on Unsplash (This is what our forest looks like when it is not summer.)