Witt's End

Soft hearted. Kind hearted. Those were things that were used as slightly insulting euphemisms about kindness. Those were criticisms bandied about by people whose opinions and praise I valued. The charges that brought those terms up, caring about people.  I used to be ashamed and embarrassed of my kindness. Truly I used to be ashamed about caring. Which in my faith now, the place I am now, feels insane. There’s nothing more Christlike about seeing suffering and doing what we can to relieve it. “If you do it to the least of these,” has echoed in brain since I heard it. Yet I used to be ashamed about trying to do that.  It’s funny because my entire adult life has turned into service, of some kind. I began with a mission. I went into the military, where I was a medic. I came out into healthcare. I still work in mental health and substance treatment, in a role requiring me to leverage my vulnerabilities and personal experiences. I have volunteered at a crisis line. My entire adult life is d

The majority of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just voted for Donald Trump for President of the United States, again.  I’m not surprised but I am pretty confused. Again. Especially because their faith and the stances of the church are not always in line with Donald Trump’s. I’m giving the benefit of the doubt because we all have to compromise on policy. I just hope that regardless of who we voted for we can agree to support some of the specific policies the church endorsed that he does not. So I  have a few questions and examples here: First thing I would ask. How does Trump's policies align at all with the church's stances on immigration? Will you support the DACA recipients that are now under attack? What about his proposed mass deportations? His reductions of refugees? When Trump was serving his first term as president he opposed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). He reduced refugee admissions and legal immigration. One of

I want to be clear. I wrote this for me. I  haven’t done as well by women as I thought I have. And I can do better. But I also thought if I was struggling with this that I couldn't be alone. And this is a moment to change that. I ’ve fallen for the nice guy rhetoric more than once. I’ve thought I cared, but I was being transactional. I had some growth and thought because I was better than others I was good, I was just being superior and narcissistic. No! I have so much work to do. Most (read that not all) of us men  (including myself)  need to do better by the women in our lives. If that statement compels you as a man, don’t worry I’m talking about myself too. If you don’t think this is something you need to work on, cool, you don’t need to read this one. But I needed to write it.  A lot of this will be preaching to the choir for women. I know this will be preaching to the choir for some men. If that is you, carry on. If this pisses you off. Carry on. But if you can. Just try to r

I didn't write about conference this October. Because I didn't watch it. I couldn't watch it.  I'm struggling that bad with where I'm at with things.  I'm not seeing or hearing changes on social media. On purpose right now. I heard about the temple announced in CDA because I was texted about it. And I feel okay this time. I’ll read more when I’m up for it. I know there’s others that feel the same way. 

Humility leads to being vulnerable . But where does that vulnerability come from? Openness. And that’s a result of acceptance and true honestly with yourself and others. And it may result in interactions and behaviors you may not expect. We talk a lot about obedience to commandments in faith. But we also talk about meekness. I think often we think that meekness leading to an exacting unquestioning obedience. But I’m not sure anymore. Meekness is humility. It’s that simple to me. It's an openness and and an acceptance. Now that may lead to some forms of obedience. But it's so much simpler than that to me.  Humility leads to true kindness. The unfeigned kind. Meekness is compassion in that way. It requires not only the honesty to look truly inward but the fortitude to do something about it. This state of being is one I've seen most often in adversity and recovery. That in the lowest of the low we have to be demonstrably kind and honest with ourselves. And when we're there

  If a 17 year old is old enough to enlist and train to kill people. To manage thousands of dollars of equipment. To handle weapons. Why can’t they own them in his personal life? Why are they not allowed to use tobacco and drink? Why can’t they rent a car without added penalties? Why aren’t they allowed to vote?   We have people enlisting with parental permission at 17. Yet they aren’t allowed to vote, buy a firearm, use tobacco or alcohol. But they can sign their life away.  I’m never going to understand the disconnect here. We either need to raise the age of enlistment or lower the age of other rights. It’s only fair. It’s only right. We hold service members to higher rules of engagement in hostile territory that we do our own law enforcement officers. And we offer those service members no immunity for their actions. That means we have had fire teams and often squads led by 20 year olds, with 18 year olds under their command on patrol and guard duty for decades.  We ask them to maint

I don’t get to choose how someone else describes their faith or spirituality. I can't define how they identify. I can't define their relationship to it. It’s the only way to be fair about how I get to determine and identify mine. I’ve been told more than once that I’m not a Christian, that my faith isn’t Christian.  “What, but you speak of Christ?” Is potentially what one of you may be thinking. But I’m a baptized and active (no matter nuanced) member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m a Mormon. I'm LDS. And to me in my personal opinion, I have faith in Jesus Christ and his atonement so I must be a Christian.  Now to many people that's enough to be a Christian. To others not abiding by specific creeds means I'm not part of the umbrella as they would describe it. To others having added to the canon of scripture and following a prophet makes me heretical to Christianity. And we all get to feel the way that we do about that. It's part of the fr

I used to think that one mind required absolute unanimity. That the one mind of Zion meant that every thought, acted, and believed all to be the same.  I’ve been wrong. One purpose. One goal. One mission. That was the military. And I’ve yet to see a more diverse group of individuals getting work done than I saw in the Army. It shouldn’t have surprised me. But that range of experience, skills, and thought were what made things so successful. It feels almost contradictory that a force with such a singular focus and amount of regulation would work best with a variety of ideas and approaches. I think it’s more common than not. I served in two missions with a variety of missionaries and two different leaders with different approaches. And we did amazing work. In both places. That’s the continuity I’ve noticed. The variety of approaches.  I worry that we’ve reached a point of wanting absolutism in religion, politics, and our circles.  That’s a dangerous place. One that we seem to celebrate.

I love being a veteran and that my career allows me to keep working with them. It lets me stay connected and it checks my biases. And anyone that thinks we’re a monolith is sadly mistaken. But with what I want to write I know I run the risk of gross over-generalization.  But I’m not sure how else to express the ideas rolling around this noggin. There’s two groups of service members; those who serve because they love society and their institutions and those who are running away from them. And neither is wrong for serving. And we need both. I’ll be up front and say I’m the institutionalist at heart. I used to think I was the rebel at heart. But I’m not. I’m the institutionalist. That doesn’t mean I don’t support change. It just means I think that we need to improve and revamp the systems in place. Not start fresh from the whole hog. Then there are those that want to leave society and the majority of its institutions whole hog. Start new. Start fresh. In a place full of absolute isolation

The shame of incapacity. It’s real. And I’m struggling with it.  I feel like I’m in a pretty good place. But so often it comes in.  For a long long time I just assumed shame was a synonym for guilt. Part of it. That shame was your fault.  I'm not 100% sure where that take came from. I have some ideas that we can explore later. But I think we have to examine shame in and of itself. Over time I've come to relate shame to inadequacy. The inability to accomplish something. That maybe the inability to do the right thing, having done the wrong thing. That's why it's so often accompanied by guilt.  It's all about the idea that you're not enough. And one way of not being enough is not fitting in.  Shame can be wielded that way. It can be weaponized. The idea of not belonging swung like a cudgel. Whether it’s intentional or not. Whats weird is what we think is the greatest shame for a person is often wrong. What shames them may surprise you. For me the greatest shame has

  Saying everything and nothing all at once. Especially when it’s harmful.   There’s something so toxic about how over-encompassing a term like Same Sex Attraction is. It’s a blanket term that tells the average person nothing, but to a portion of a singular religious community says everything.  Now in any other context outside of my religious tradition, just the term of same sex attraction seems to be met with an emotion somewhere in the range of confusion to derision. It’s either not understood or it is mocked. Why? Because for the rest of the people outside of an insulated bubble there are other terms used. I think same sex attraction was chose to thread the needle between derogatory terms and affirmation while not quite aligning with either wholeheartedly. And because of that it’s confusing. And an attempt to soften a blow just causes pain. If you’re in affirming and accepting spaces then people are considered queer, gay, lesbian, bi, pan. There’s a specificity. It’s less of an adje