If I Could Speak in General Conference
October 2024: my message to members worldwide
(If you’d like to listen to me read my “conference talk” to you, you can listen above! :))
It was General Conference last weekend! For those who might not know, General Conference is a weekend when Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gather around the world twice a year for a televised broadcast. What would I say if I had a chance at the pulpit? Here it is! (Read April’s talk here)
My dear Sisters and Brothers,
When I first watched Moana, I was triggered.
Yes, the Disney movie.
If you are unfamiliar with Moana, it is about the daughter of the village Chief who lives on the island of Motunui. On the island, everyone was happy, everyone had their role, and everything happened by design. No one ever had to leave because they had everything they needed. Moana’s future was clearly laid out for her.
As I watched Moana look longingly out to the ocean with a desire to make her own path, something whined inside of me.
Can’t she just stay on the island? I thought. Of course she is going to leave. Why does she have to leave?
I wanted to see a movie that showed the main character staying where they were and everything still working out for them. I wanted to read a story where the character could grow by staying, staying, staying.
The reality is, Moana is not the first character in a story to leave the familiar and go into the Unknown World. This pattern is echoed so frequently in myths, legends, and religions that scholar Joseph Campbell developed a framework to explain this pattern, known as the Hero's Journey. This journey reflects a universal path of human development.
In the Hero’s Journey, the protagonist leaves their Ordinary World and goes into the Unknown World, where they encounter a series of challenges, including going into their inner-most cave to conquer their greatest fear. After they have conquered that fear, they return back home changed and often bearing gifts.
No matter the culture or time period, heroes and heroines everywhere find that they MUST leave and go towards the unknown to discover their purpose and true potential.
Jesus taught this, too.
Jesus called his disciples, in no uncertain terms, to leave behind their families, their professions, their comforts, their lives.
When Jesus said this he meant it: “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25)
You cannot ‘lose’ a life that you do not have. You cannot leave a home that you do not have. The formation of ourselves and our lives is an essential part of life. The mundane, the intensely sacred, the in-between — it’s all holy. It is important to have a solid sense of self and a solid formation of your Ordinary World, with loving relationships and safe boundaries.
When you get the call to go to the Unknown World, you may refuse it at first. In fact, “Refusal of the Call” is an official step in Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. The idea of leaving behind what we know, losing our life and identity, directly goes against human instinct. That voice of warm familiarity, that pressing hum of stay stay stay is the voice of the loyal soldier inside of us that wants to protect us.
Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar and spiritual teacher writes, “Paradoxically, your loyal soldier gives you so much security and validation that you may confuse his/her voice with the very voice of God.”
We want to be good and loyal to what, in so many ways, has been so good to us. However, Jesus consistently called his followers upwards and onwards, away from what they knew, and directly challenged their views of tradition and religion and self. The God I have come to know and love will always give us our power, not take it away.
Sometimes this leaving is not physical. You do not need to go to a far-off land to embark on this great departure from your Ordinary World (although I highly recommend travel as a way to expand your worldview!). No, this leaving is a leaving of your false self.
Richard Rohr explains, “When you discharge your loyal soldier, it will feel like a loss of faith or a loss of self. But it is only the death of the false self, and is often the very birth of the soul.”
That thumping in our hearts, that call of our soul, can indeed feel life threatening.
As I see so many people deconstructing their faith (in Mormonism and beyond), I wonder if we are in a collective journey into the Unknown World. What looks like loss and failure from the outside, is really an impetus into something bigger and better, perhaps even an ability to receive the Kingdom of God.
Jesus tried to help his disciples 2000 years ago see that the Kingdom of God was something available to them now, but it comes with the cost of leaving what we once knew. I think we need that reminder today as well.
Could we, collectively, be discharging that loyal soldier and letting our old selves — comforts, loyalties and all — die?
It sounds brutal, doesn’t it?
We don’t need to rebel and reject all that we knew in order to grow, we just need to be willing to say, “Yes, and…” and be willing to go beyond.
My dearest friends, let’s not look at deteriorating faith as something broken that needs to be fixed. Instead, let’s see what our anger and our wounds can teach us. Let’s see what sacred treasures God will make of those wounds and anger. Let’s see what God is calling us to do, calling us to leave behind. Let’s see what God is allowing us to become by journeying into the depths of the caves that we have been ignoring for so long.
I pray we will follow our collective and personal Hero’s Journey the whole way through. And just as the story goes, we surely will return bearing gifts.
All the best,
Kimber was here… and you’re here, too.
Thank you so much for being here. The biggest way you can support my work is by sharing my newsletter with someone you think might enjoy it! I also love reading your comments :)
Kimber, never stop writing! I love reading your thoughts and insights. You have a gift. Thank you for sharing it.
So good, Kimber! Chills. ✨