Of Snow and Religion

The torrential snowfall of the past 24+ hours came to an end earlier this day (finally). With its passing, the sun came out and proceeded to promptly melt the snow on the ground and on the streets (which are now iced over). I went out earlier this evening to walk among the snow. I'll confess, it did sparkle and glitter under the light of stars, moon, and city lights. As quaint as snow is, though, I am not much of a fan of it just for the simple fact that I find it an inconvenience. It is wet, cold, and feel oppressive in its blanketing of the landscape beneath a single solitary color of pure white. It muffles sound and turns a good deal of people back into their houses. The neighborhoods and parks become quiet and I am left to wander in a ghost-like world. My apologies to all those lovers of snow whatever those reasons may be. I just don't have it in me to find that beauty that others see in frozen, crystallized water.

The reason behind my walk in this winter "wonderland" was to go visit the bishop (I'm Mormon) of my ward or congregation. I went to visit the bishop at his request and had the usual "who are you?" kind of conversations. Having grown up all my life as a Mormon (I'm not from Utah, thank you very much), I have become used to the questions that bishops ask (not that much different from a psychologist or a friendly get together with newly arrived neighbors or roommates). There were the crucial questions such as name, town of origin, what I am studying at school, and what do I plan to do with myself after schooling comes to an end. All important facts for certain.

But I have long grown weary of this surface level type of interaction that it seems that I have engaged in and find sufficient in my daily comings and goings. I realize that I let my relationships with many people that I meet now a days exist on a shallow level. So continuing on, the bishop had his agenda for meeting with me and I had mine for meeting with him. After some discussion I quickly broached the subject of discussing some of the religious questions I had. While I consider myself a faithful Mormon, I also have questions that I find necessary to answer and, in which, level me deeply curious and desirous to have answered. But to avoid handing out boring details (maybe later...) I'll keep this story short and to the point. The bishop and I agreed to meet on a weekly basis for now to discuss my questions and to help me out in accomplishing some of the goals that I have out.

I used to be cynical of meeting with counselors, psychologists, and bishops to discuss my "problems." It always felt like I was wasting my time and that I could deal with my "problems" by myself. But I have come to accept that the problems or concerns that I have require assistance from someone that is plainly not me. That mainly comes from the circumstance that I use to fear some of the very thoughts that would go round in my own head. I reached a conclusion some months back that a person should not be afraid of their own thoughts and that partially led to where I am at at this point in my life.

I wish I had some funny anecdote to share but I have none at this time. Yet I do write poetry a lot, (not real sure if it's good or not) and may post some now and then on this blog. I put a lot of my poetry on my Facebook page but I will put some on here. Poetry has allowed me to express the emotions and thoughts that have been going on in my head as of lately and I find that therapeutic.